This Isn't Strange, Is It?
Even after that, I kept using Rachel for the little things.
I figured it was only right to start small, so I made a point of giving her orders like fetching the books I wanted, or setting my seat before I arrived. I wasn't sure it was the correct approach, but judging by how much she enjoyed it, it didn't seem like a bad one.
Ah. Of course.
"Thank you. This is so much easier thanks to you. Rachel really is a remarkable girl."
Praise, naturally, came separately. No matter how much someone loves the work, there still has to be a reward. Whenever Rachel finished a task well, I made certain to pay her for it—stroking her hair, or cupping her cheek.
I did my best to pet her the way one pets a dog, and that wasn't some quirk of my own character. It was Rachel's request. Apparently she likes a bit of snap in the wrist.
Watching me, Hana let out a sigh—"The young miss is catching the pervert's habits..."—but that was a truly absurd misunderstanding. I was satisfied with Rachel's service, and I knew what Rachel wanted. To repay a service at a fitting price, in the form the other person desired. Could anyone really dismiss that as mere perversion?!
'Nein!'
Exactly. This was reciprocal conduct, grounded in the principle of mutual respect. If anything, I had acted justly. I had paid a fair price.
"Hehehe..."
Look at that happy face. I had only handled that poor little thing like a puppy because I had no other choice, and yet people slandered my goodwill as something strange...! The world is a harsh place. Today, too, the wind grazes the stars...
"The young miss is getting stranger and stranger. If we don't do something..."
Hana had her misunderstanding, but that didn't mean I had become strange. If anything, you could say I had swallowed my shame and made a rational judgment.
When I first tried to use Hana as a kind of interference piece, it had looked reasonably sound. The effect might have seemed slight, but it was still worth the attempt. As time passed, though, I realized a fatal fact I had overlooked. The goodwill they showed when they dealt with me was the same goodwill one shows a baby.
What I want isn't a nanny relationship.
That was a rather fatal problem. Even if my actions produced some effect between me and Pino, as I hoped, if the feeling behind it was maternal love, then our future would obviously be less than pleasant. Pino was already showing a certain obsession. Pile maternal instinct on top of that, and she might evolve into a helicopter mom.
I would rather we were master and servant than mother and child. That would be... yeah. No.
Part of it was my position, too. I seemed to occupy a master's place, but to them I was nothing more and nothing less than someone who needed looking after. The respect they showed me was respect offered to the true master standing behind me. Their opinion of me amounted to about that much, and no more.
I wondered whether we could at least be trading partners, but all I possessed was this body. And even if I could turn a profit by using it, that move would only end up being a self-check.
Into the middle of all that walked Rachel.
She talks like it's a joke, but this one was pretty starved, too, wasn't she?
In the story she behaves as if it's all play, but the truth was that Rachel had been starving for love as well. She certainly possessed outstanding ability and a lofty station, which, put the other way around, meant that people clearly above Rachel were exceedingly rare. Given her twisted inclinations, that couldn't have been very pleasant.
The only ones who could become her master were figures so great they had no need to indulge Rachel's desires—and even before that, they hadn't liked her. Her first master had been the apex of Trinity, the Three Sisters of Law, and the next was the Witch of the Crowd, so it wasn't hard to understand. What could beings called the rulers of the world, and a witch capable of ending it, possibly lack that would require them to humor one subordinate's wish? A perverted desire, no less.
Thanks to that, Rachel had been left in a state not unlike a puppy neglected with nothing but a collar around her neck. No matter how much you enjoy being dominated, affection is a separate matter, isn't it? If she had been satisfied with her situation, she wouldn't have bothered flirting with the heroine.
Right or wrong aside, I believe the wish to be loved is a pure one. Unless you're superhuman, everyone hungers for love.
Then couldn't I make her regard me as a new master?
A redefinition of the relationship. Impossible with the others, perhaps, but with Rachel it might work. Unlike them, I could be a pleasant master for her.
It was a fairly profitable arrangement for me as well. Rachel is sharp enough, and she has an eye for reading people. She does have that grotesque hobby of flaying human skin, but that's only because our Rachel hasn't been loved. Take proper care of her, and won't she regulate herself on her own?
And above all, we could share the same goal. What I wanted was for my relationship with Pino to become something more than friendship, and from that Rachel stood only to gain, not to lose. She could also share the life outside, and the information I didn't know... No matter how I thought about it, it was a relationship with nothing but upsides.
'And while I'm at it, I can satisfy my own appetites.'
More is better, isn't it? Who in the world could dislike the sight of a catlike beauty rumbling in her throat?
I thoroughly despise those sexless protagonists. If you can do it, you do it. That's what being a man is.
Ahem. Anyway, for something like this to be possible, I needed to make Rachel understand, beyond any doubt, that there was something for her to gain from me. Which meant that all of my actions could, in the end, be called extremely rational steps taken for the sake of the future.
Great wisdom, after all, appears as foolishness.
There are plays that foolish people of common sense simply do not know!
"Would you clean it off for me? Ah. Not with your hands."
"Pardon?"
"It'd be a waste to throw food away, wouldn't it?"
"It... would?"
"So will you help me, Rachel? You know what I mean... don't you?"
Of course, this particular behavior of mine might look a little strange. I understand completely. If everything until now had been ordinary coffee, this felt more like a straight shot of the hard stuff.
Hana seemed to feel the same.
"Young miss, did something happen?! That pervert didn't put you up to this, did she?"
"Pervert...? That's a harsh thing to say about Rachel."
"A pervert is a pervert. If she weren't my superior, I'd have smashed her head in... Anyway! You're not being blackmailed, are you? No. That can't possibly be it. Then why on earth..."
A monologue shrinking smaller the further it went.
I could have glossed over it here, but then Rachel's fate would end in tragedy. For Rachel, who had merely been born a lady, that would be rather pitiful. My image would be ruined as well, and that wouldn't do.
Of course, I had an answer prepared for exactly this. I deliberately put on an innocent face and asked.
"Hana. Do you think what I'm doing is strange?"
"Of course it's strange! A normal person wouldn't do something like—"
"Why?"
"Why?! Because—"
It was strange. Obviously. But I had something to say as well.
"I just think that, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone, people should be able to do what they love. A life where you can't do the things you want to do... that's too sad, isn't it?"
"That's completely different from this!"
"No. To me, it's the same. Rachel likes it, doesn't she? And if no one ever plays with her this way, how upset do you think she's been?"
Even I thought it was bullshit, but my background was what lent my bullshit its persuasive force. Setting aside the free hugs, I had been a fairly ideal superior, and by the standards of this era I was virtuous enough to be called a reincarnation of the Holy Mother. I was even a baby.
Yes. My actions were simply the outpouring of a warm heart that wanted to treat the person involved in the way they liked. A mother's capacity for embrace. Not a shred of selfish motive.
"You like being held by me too, don't you, Hana?"
"Th-that's not in a bad way..."
"You like smelling me, don't you? Isn't that right?"
You're a pervert too. Aren't you?
"I'm not! I mean—I'm not, I'm not, but... I'm not that kind of pervert..."
"Shh. It's all right. That's not strange either, is it?"
It is strange. If a pervert who gets aroused by scent isn't strange, then what is?
But I understand. These things happen. A nature made that way... This is all the author's fault. I'm a victim too!
So admit it.
"No one else gets to belittle what someone loves. Even if what Rachel does looks a little strange, try not to think too poorly of it. That's her own kind of specialness. At least, that's how I see it."
"Young miss..."
It was nonsense that didn't even hold together, but this nonsense was clearly well packaged, and it would spread to the others—told as a misunderstanding born where consideration for the other person met my own ignorance.
'Probably. Wouldn't it...?'
Well? I don't really know.
Right. What else is there to life? I'll just commit. Let's go!
But it seemed my thinking had been a little short.
I never imagined things would flow this way.
"I... like people with a lot of fur. This isn't strange, is it?"
A single sentence, offered cautiously with a fidgeting look, lands with unusual force.
Yuri. Are you a furry?
They're starting to come out and test the limits of my tolerance. What is actually wrong with this place.