Elodie Blanche: Who Is She? (Part 2)
Elodie Blanche’s cooking was so good that comparing it to delivery food would have been an insult.
The pasta was seasoned to perfection, bringing out the fragrance of the ingredients so beautifully that I didn’t leave a single drop of sauce behind.
The steak was just as delicious, and I cleaned my plate without hesitation.
Of course, Elodie knew Kwon Seah’s idea of a “single serving” better than anyone, so I was able to enjoy a thoroughly satisfying meal.
“Ugh... I haven’t had this in so long, I feel all itchy inside! It’s okay, right? This is okay, r-right?”
“If you move, you might get hurt, so please stay still, miss.”
And the long, drawn-out beauty session that naturally followed dinner wasn’t as awful as I’d expected, either.
I’d thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but to my surprise, I was getting all sorts of information about what kind of person Kwon Seah had been.
Best of all, the endless stream of small talk finally gave me Elodie’s name.
Elodie Blanche.
As the name suggested, she was French.
Her fluency in Korean, she explained, came from being mixed-race.
“By the way, Elodie unni? Where exactly did we first meet? I honestly can’t remember a thing.”
“We met at the main campus of ESMOD in Paris, miss.”
“So we’ve been close ever since then?”
“A great many things happened after that, but you completed your diploma course diligently and graduated in splendid fashion, miss...”
What was a diploma? What was ESMOD? And what was this main campus supposed to be?
“I still remember so clearly how you stayed up all night draping fabric, miss. Your graduation collection was so outstanding that even Madam, who was famous for being such a sharp-tongued critic, had to acknowledge it.”
“I... I’m really sorry, Elodie unni, but what exactly is ESMOD?”
“Oh my, oh my. It’s a world-famous fashion school, miss. The very place you graduated from with such distinction.”
So I’d graduated from some fancy Paris fashion thing?
O-oh... so that was why she could stand there so confidently, wearing the title of executive or whatever in Hanseong Life & Style’s character IP business?
...But what was I supposed to do now? I don’t know the first damn thing about fashion.
“Mm... I can’t remember it clearly, but it’s starting to come back to me.”
Luckily, Elodie only smiled and continued her work, carefully tending to my nails... or was this called a manicure? I think so.
...With that sticky, weird mask pack on my face, getting pampered like this really did make me feel like some proper young lady.
“But what was your first impression of me, Elodie unni?”
I needed to learn more about Kwon Seah as a person.
“You were a student, and I was an assistant. But I assume that isn’t the sort of meeting you mean, is it?”
As expected of a woman who practically reeked of top-tier maid energy, she was sharp.
“Right. Since you’ve kept meeting up with me like this, I was curious about our private first meeting.”
“If you mean our first private meeting... then it was in the restroom at a party, where you were clutching a toilet bowl and vomiting your heart out.”
...What?
Why was that our first meeting?
“I have eyes and ears, too, so I knew you were the youngest daughter of the Hanseong Group.”
“Ahaha...”
“And as if to prove those rumors true, you seemed to have a very active social life. You made quite a few friends in Paris, and your school life appeared to be trouble-free.”
She had a lot of friends?
...That felt more like the opposite, somehow.
“But that was just a polished image you had created for yourself. I realized that fact at our very first meeting.”
“How?”
“Fufu. Because you spent thirty minutes crying and vomiting in the party restroom, and not a single soul came looking for you.”
Well, if someone became friends with the youngest daughter of a chaebol family, there would be plenty of people who approached her thinking they could get their hands on all sorts of things.
And there was no way Kwon Seah wouldn’t have known that.
So even if she looked like she had plenty of friends, when she showed a vulnerable side, she had no one to ask to stay with her, and no one ever came looking.
“Even after you showed me that side of yourself, you still smiled brightly and asked me to pretend I hadn’t seen anything. And astonishingly, you remembered my name perfectly when you asked.”
Elodie looked at my neatly finished nails with a satisfied expression.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to take care of you.”
“...So you followed me all the way to Korea because of that? Sorry, I feel kind of bad.”
“Oh, no, no. I, Elodie, am not such a soft and mushy woman.”
Still smiling, Elodie removed the mask pack from my face and continued the care.
“You and I stayed close after that, too, talking about one thing and another in private. But the reason I decided I had to stay by your side was something entirely different.”
“...I don’t remember that, so you’re going to tell me, right?”
Elodie smiled.
“There was a time when my dream disappeared entirely.”
“...Why?”
“Society is a place swarming with savage wolves. A place where even an exquisitely crafted garment can become another person’s masterpiece because of the smallest mistake or the most foolish misstep.”
Elodie stroked my long hair this way and that.
“I despaired over how a woman who had even worked as an assistant could behave so stupidly. It wasn’t a situation I could solve by telling anyone about it, either.”
“And then...?”
“The one who helped me was Seah, miss. A miserable stretch of days that felt like they would never end were suddenly brought to a close by a call of apology.”
Elodie went on with her story, scissors in hand.
“I never told anyone about it. But you remembered my work, and the moment you found out it was being exhibited under someone else’s name, you fixed it for me.”
“...Me?”
“Yes, and you didn’t say a word to me. You didn’t even mention that you were the one who had resolved the matter. You simply helped me, the way the sun rises when morning comes, and expected nothing in return.”
With a soft rasping sound, Elodie trimmed my hair into shape.
“That day, I made up my mind. Just as you restored what I had lost, this time I would be the one to help you recover what you had lost—your own self.”
“...In my current state, I’m a little lacking, huh?”
“Oh my, let’s see. I’m not sure whether you’re lacking or overflowing.”
That was a surprisingly ordinary story.
I’d been a little nervous that, if there were some harsh financial strings attached, the way I kept calling her unni so casually would feel like picking at a wound. But after hearing the story, it wasn’t the kind of relationship I couldn’t handle.
“Is my hair all done, then?”
“Yes. Once you’ve had a massage, today’s care will be finished.”
Ugh, so I really do have to get a massage in the end.
“Then... um, should I just go lie down in the bedroom?”
“Fufu, yes. Please undress comfortably and lie down.”
Elodie spoke while tidying the room with a smile.
“...Undress?”
Did I hear that wrong?
She wasn’t telling me to strip naked and lie there, was she?!
* * *
“A-ah, ah, ugh... ughhh...!”
“It’s supposed to hurt a little, so please bear with it calmly.”
“E-elodie! I, I’m dying...! D-dying, I’m dying! Guh!!!”
This was not what I’d signed up for when I was wondering whether to undress or show my body or whatever!
Where had the massage gone that had started with such mortifying, embarrassing nerves?
Now I felt like I was actually going to die. I’m dying, I’m dead...!!!
“The more pain you feel, the more your muscles have locked up, so please receive the massage quietly?”
“N-nooo...! This just feels plain painful...!!!”
At first, the massage really had atmosphere!
It was kind of sexy? And she’d even lit a calming fragrance, so my heart had been fluttering for no reason at all.
Come to think of it, since the soul inside me was male, having a beauty like Elodie massage me should have been a huge win, right?
Even when her hands first touched my shoulders, the oil—or whatever it was—had felt so slippery and smooth that I thought, Ah, I really am getting proper young-lady care... but then—!
“Grrrrrkkk!!!”
It hurt!
It just hurt!!!
Why the hell could a human feel this much pain in their shoulders and calves?!
Was she serious when she said my body was stiff, or was she melting my muscles right now?!
Forget being embarrassed about being naked—this felt like torture because it hurt too damn much...!!!
“Even so, for all the screaming you’re doing, you’re holding up quite well.”
“T-this... isn’t this just some kind of stress test...!!!”
“Oh my, I have no idea what you mean.”
“You keep going until I’m screaming that I can’t take the pain, haaaah...!!!”
Ah, damn it, it really does hurt!
My shoulders were this badly knotted? No way, that can’t be true, right?
...No, wait, could it be because my chest is kind of big? Come to think of it, it really did feel a little tight there, didn’t it?
“Ugh, krrgh... ah... huh, ugh... thought I was going to die.”
Thankfully, the torture didn’t last forever.
The burning pain still tingled all through my body, but at some point Elodie’s massage turned gentle.
...Right, come to think of it, an oil massage couldn’t stay this painful forever.
—Bzzt!
“Shall I hand you your smartphone, miss?”
“Mm, let me check.”
Had Secretary Lee Eunbyul sent me a message or something?
[Galaxy Train]
The defense deck assembled by the pioneer has been defeated! Please review your strategy!
What was this? Was the guy who’d been getting crushed all this time finally figuring out how to clear it?
Looks like the time had come to farm Arcana properly after all.
Since the game was nearing the end of its first version after launch, it seemed like people who had actually settled things down were starting to appear.
So even brute-force stats had to run out of steam eventually, huh?
As soon as I checked the alert, I clicked it and launched Galaxy Train.
“Ah...”
So, yes. I launched Galaxy Train with both hands while naked, my back turned to Elodie.
The youngest daughter of a chaebol family.
Kwon Seah had opened a mobile game while receiving a massage naked.
“Hup...!”
Habits were terrifying things...!
Who the hell checks an alert and launches a game immediately just because it popped up?
Damn it, seriously! Seriously! What would Elodie think if she saw this?!
She’d laugh and say I’d gone full gamer-girl because I hadn’t contacted her for two months!
“Oh my, it seems you play Galaxy Train too, miss.”
“Uh... yes?”
“Fufu, I do as well. It’s more fun than I expected.”
Elodie spoke as if it were nothing, pressing into my side and hips as she massaged me.
“Ugh, y-you play mobile games too, Elodie unni?”
“Yes, just a little. They advertise it a lot, and there are so many characters dressed in lovely outfits, so I play it casually.”
What? Really? She actually plays it?
I’d never imagined this conversation.
My heart suddenly started racing. Was it really this exciting to be able to talk about a hobby in real life, too?
“Then, Elodie unni, which character do you like the most, ugh, ughhh...?”
“I think the clothes worn by a character named Meiling are quite lovely. Turning a qipao into such a refined and elegant Chinese dress was very impressive.”
“I... I think Meiling is really pretty too.”
I’d somehow found someone in real life I could actually talk to about Galaxy Train.
“Elodie unni, do you want to be game friends with me?”