4
And now that she finally had a day off, Rem spent it in a state of unease greater than anything she had felt before.
“Oh, Sister… Subaru… Will they really be all right without my help?”
Back in her room, Rem changed into her day-off uniform as per Subaru’s orders and proceeded to wander aimlessly in circles. She simply couldn’t sit still.
To Rem, work was basically her whole purpose in life. And while she felt fatigue just like anybody else, the fact remained that this unexpected day off did anything but soothe her soul.
“I think I’ll go check up on them after all.”
Though Rem appeared calm and steady on the surface, it was actually quite a feat of endurance for her to stay in her room this long. This whole time, a sense of foreboding had been building in her ample chest. She soon emerged from her room, made sure the coast was clear, then started wandering around the mansion.
“If I recall correctly, Sister and Master Roswaal are on kitchen duty, so I know where they’ll be…”
First, she decided to check on her other half, the one she trusted most to get things done—Ram. Though she had a tendency to be lazy, Ram was actually more detail-oriented and responsible than Rem when it came to work. At least, that’s what Rem thought. And she hadn’t questioned Ram’s judgment when she chose to take on the cooking.
She insisted to herself that she still wasn’t questioning Ram’s judgment… She was merely a hundred times more worried about her sister than usual.
Taking care not to make any sound, she walked across the carpet that lined the corridor on the ground floor of the manor’s main wing. Some appetizing aromas wafted over from the kitchen at the end of the corridor. Rem glided silently toward the entrance.
“Master Roswaal, I’m sorry all this happened today. I will give Barusu a stern talking-to later… Yes, very stern.”
Just before she leaned over to peek inside, Ram’s threatening voice stopped her in her tracks. Ram strictly avoided showing emotion in front of others, but as they had known each other since birth, Rem could deduce her sister’s emotional state from even the slightest fluctuations in her voice.
And from the long years of honing her sister sensor, Rem could tell that Ram was furious. Rem hadn’t seen anything like it in years.
Chancing a quick glance inside, Rem caught Ram peeling vegetables with fiery wrath in her eyes. As Ram’s skilled hands operated the knife, the vegetables shed their skins like magic.
“Oh, you neeeedn’t overreact, my dear. I believe it is quite important for me to experience what the typical workday is like for my staff. And Subaru moooost certainly did not force me into this.”
Roswaal was leisurely leaning against the kitchen wall while he watched Ram work from behind. With a wave of his fingers, the pot sitting on the surface that was powered by a fire magic stone shook, filling the kitchen with a steamy aroma that spilled out into the hallway.
Ram cut up the ingredients while Roswaal watched the pot. Ram was clearly doing more work, but considering their positions, Roswaal had already made quite a large compromise. Rem knew that Ram was probably dying to take care of everything herself and let Roswaal sit down.
“You’re far too soft on Barusu, Master. If you indulge in his misguided ideas, he’ll give you a hard time. Look at what he did today—”
“Weeeell then, Ram, do you think it was misguided to let Rem have the day off?”
“I…I just think we should let Rem do what she wants.”
“I have noticed she has been quite enthusiastic with her woooork as of late. But there’s a fine line between enthusiasm and strain. Moreover, I think we’re going in the correct direction here.”
As Roswaal spoke, Ram shut her mouth, and Rem strained her ears. Hearing them talking about her made Rem feel oddly self-conscious. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on them. This made her no better than a common thief.
“I should go…”
Ram and Roswaal were a dependable team, especially given their many years together. There was no worry they might butt heads. Rem pulled herself away from the kitchen door to leave. But then—
“Rem will always be my sweet baby sister. Just because her way of thinking has changed, that won’t change how I act around her—or how I’ll always love her.”
“Well, leeeet’s just leave it at that then, shall we?”
Rem softly pressed a hand to her chest when she heard what Ram said. She took one final glance in the kitchen and found Roswaal gazing back at her.
He said nothing, only winking silently at her before turning away.
Her master was being discreet for her sake, so Rem quietly turned back to the hallway and left the kitchen behind her. Perhaps Roswaal had known she’d been outside all along. If so, maybe he had steered the conversation so Rem would hear how Ram truly felt about her.
“Thank you…Master Roswaal.”
After saying a word of gratitude to Roswaal, Rem headed to her next destination.
Next, she would check in on Puck and Beatrice in the laundry room. In a way, they were the most unexpected pairing of the lot.
“Ordinarily, I’d expect to find them by the fountain…”
Laundry was collected in the morning and packed away by the great bath. Since getting wet was not a problem and the water was ample there, the fountain at the bath was the typical place to do laundry in the mansion.
Going by that logic, that was where Rem expected to find the pair…
“I just realized, I’m not sure they know how to handle delicate fabrics…”
Panic filled Rem as she found something new to worry about.
Handkerchiefs were one thing, but maid uniforms, Roswaal’s elaborate costumes, most of Emilia’s clothes, and delicate ladies’ undergarments were not things that could be washed with regular laundry. The risk of color bleeding or simply damaging the fabric was especially high.
“How could I be so careless? Sister or I always take care of the laundry…!”
Rem admonished herself for the oversight and rushed to the great bath in the west wing. As she ran, the sound of water and talking voices reached her ears, letting her know the pair was already there. She would just have to get there and take the clothes away from them before they mishandled them and—
“Listen, Betty, this is important. Ladies’ underthings can’t be washed roughly. Their colors will fade, and they can lose their shape, too. You can ruin them in a single wash, so you always have to handle them very carefully. It’s tempting to just chuck all the clothing people won’t see into the wash with everything else, but you’ve got to treat them special because they are special.”
“I see, okay. That’s my Puckie—so knowledgeable. I’m learning so much.”
As Rem quietly caught her breath in the changing room, she watched Beatrice dip her hands into a bucket of water to carefully wash a pair of underwear. Puck floated nearby, swishing his long tail as he gazed down at a small bathtub.
There was something strange about the way he was moving. Rem stood on tiptoe to see what Puck was doing. When she saw the cause, she quietly gasped. In the tub, there was a pile of clothes spinning around in the water with bubbles. It was probably wind and water magic. By reversing the spin of the whirlpool now and again, Puck was able to do a huge load of laundry at once.
And upon closer glance, Beatrice wasn’t touching the water directly with her hands, either. She was using her fingertips to mold the water into a shape—that was how she was washing the undergarments.
It was an overwhelmingly mundane and almost excessive display of magic that could only be performed by powerful beings like them. Even though what they were doing was incredibly high-level, it was perfectly suited for the pedestrian task of laundry. What surprised Rem even more was how oddly knowledgeable Puck was about daily life in human society.
“Once you finish washing the clothes with soapy water, you rinse it in warm water. You have to rinse it properly. Otherwise, white fabrics can turn yellow. When it’s time to dry the clothes, hang them in a place with a breeze, but not in direct sunlight. This will protect the all-important underwear.”
If anything, it was almost creepy how much Puck knew. Had he learned it for Emilia’s sake? Where had he learned it? It was an utter mystery.
“At least I don’t need to worry about them anymore.”
The biggest source of Rem’s fear—a lack of knowledge—had turned out to be completely unfounded. Rem sighed in relief and decided this pair would be all right, though she was coming away with several new questions.
“Still, laundry is such a bother. I wonder if humans find it frustrating that they have to do so much to take care of their things that get dirty simply by existing?”
“Yes, all we need to do is go away and come back again to refresh our appearances. Ah, right, your circumstances are a bit different, Betty.”
“Just a bit different… I don’t get dirty the same way you don’t, I suppose.” Beatrice’s tone dropped a little as she looked into her bucket of underwear and said, “It’s a pain doing laundry with magic as it is… Washing each and every item by hand is pure insanity. Just doing this for a short while has left me feeling dreadfully bored.”
“But those kids do tasks like this every day. We don’t need our clothes laundered, but we do need to eat and have a clean space to live in. And they take care of those tasks every day as well, so they’re bound to get tired. Now I can see why Subaru wanted to give Rem a day off.”
“W-well…I suppose I do see your point. Just a little.”
Compared with the constantly sarcastic and emotionally enigmatic Puck, Beatrice was easy to read. Even though Rem was already leaving the changing room, she knew how red Beatrice’s cheeks probably were at that very moment.
As Rem walked out of the changing room, she turned to face the bath, bowed, and said, “Thank you both for your kindness.”
Then she went to see the final pair working on her behalf that day. These two worried Rem the most, and in a way, she was the most worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep quiet or stay hidden around them.
Subaru and Emilia were in the west wing that day, dusting.
“Nothing puts me more in a cleaning mood than tying a handkerchief around my head,” Emilia remarked.
“Now that’s something you don’t see people do nowadays…”
As she climbed the stairs to the third floor of the west wing, Rem quieted herself when she heard the two talking. She pressed her back against the wall and peered down the hallway. There, she saw Subaru and Emilia wiping windows.
Emilia’s hair was tied back, and she had a white kerchief wrapped around her head. The way Subaru stole coy glances at her made Rem giggle.
“But you know, it’s not that dirty up here. Looks like somebody does a good job keeping it tidy.”
“Well, we do clean the three wings on a rotation. Plus, the west wing is used way less than the other wings. Like the dance hall. That poor room is long overdue for some company.”
Emilia breathed on the windows, then wiped them squeaky-clean with her cloth. Subaru was on a stepladder beside her, checking the tops of the windows and doors. He gave an apathetic shrug and said, “Argh, no luck. This spot is clean, too! Wow, look at me, lamenting how clean it is. Never thought I’d see the day!”
“It really is surprising. But that’s just proof of Rem’s hard work. I’m not sure I would have noticed this if I hadn’t gone around and looked at everything in detail.” Emilia giggled a little as she watched Subaru clutch his head in surrender. She glanced down the hallway and heaved a small sigh. “We really shouldn’t make light of all this. Here I was, trying to help Rem, and I wound up learning a valuable lesson. Thanks, Subaru.”
“Huh? Oh, um, yeah, that’s kind of exactly what I was going for. I wanted you to understand how hard Rem works and give Rem the day off. Two birds, one stone, y’know?”
“Sorry, I don’t think I understood that.”
Sometimes, when Subaru got self-conscious and started talking really fast, Rem couldn’t understand what he was saying, and Emilia seemed to have similar issues. Subaru’s shoulders slumped in dejection.
“But cleaning the house like this… It brings back some memories.”
“When do you mean, exactly?”
“There was a time when I worked like Ram and Rem. Just for a little while, mind you. A string of misunderstandings brought me there… But now it’s a fun memory, hee-hee.”
“Huh, I didn’t know that. Wait, don’t tell me you wore a maid’s uniform? Ha-ha, yeah, right.”
“I did wear one. It wasn’t short like Rem’s, though.”
“Wait, really?! Why wasn’t I there to see that?!”
“Huh? Maybe because I hadn’t met you yet?”
As Subaru bit his lip in absolute despair, Emilia gave him a quizzical look. Subaru’s feelings were painfully obvious, and it was criminal that Emilia didn’t notice. A part of Rem felt sorry for Subaru, but another part of her was relieved that the two were making little progress.
“Huh? Wait a minute, isn’t today…? One, two, three…”
While Rem was coming to terms with her feelings, Subaru suddenly started counting something on his fingers. Once he reached a certain number, he quietly muttered, “Oh crap,” as he looked out the window.
“Subaru? Is something wrong?”
“I forgot a really important job we have to do. If we ditch that job, there’ll be a big problem.”
“A really important job… Is it a job that has to be done at a certain time or needs a certain number of people?”
“No, one person can do it just fine. Thing is…it’s the type of job you absolutely can’t forget to do.”
Subaru scratched his cheek as he rued his carelessness. Emilia put a finger to her lips in thought…then once she figured out what Subaru meant, she nodded. “Okay. In that case, you should go do that job, Subaru. I’m sure I can handle cleaning this wing by myself. It’s mostly done already.”
“Emilia-tan…are you sure you’ll be okay without me? Won’t you get lonely?”
“Not even a little bit. Don’t worry.”
“Why do you have to sound so sure of that?”
After a round of the usual banter, Subaru reluctantly left Emilia’s side. She waved quietly at him until he was gone, then with a little “Okay!” to energize herself, she said, “Well, with all that boasting I did in front of Subaru, I’d better deliver. I need to show him I can take care of this easy-peasy on my own… Otherwise, he’ll laugh at me later.”
Even though Subaru would never laugh at Emilia, she seemed to be serious about what she said and brought her bucket and rag into another room. It looked like she would have no problems cleaning the rest of the wing by herself. If there was one thing Rem was worried about…
“Where did Subaru go off to…?”
What was this important job besides meals, laundry, and dusting?
“Oh.”
When she recalled how Subaru was staring out the window earlier, Rem finally stumbled upon the answer.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login