Maid For Hire! | Kamisato Ayato. [✓]

05 | a bell

❛ ╯˚✧ . ˚ ⚘₊

When we finally returned to the estate, I'd already fallen half-asleep against Thoma's shoulder and was barely walking as I humbly let him tuck me into my small bed and brush my hair off my forehead.

As he jumped into his own bed, I wondered how he'd managed to find me but shook it off quickly. It would be hard to sneak a visit again to the boy in the woods without Thoma knowing, but I felt like he already knew something about me that I didn't and I wanted to see him again.

Thoma muttered to himself as he fell asleep, "Y/n...I wonder how crazy you really are."

I flinched. Crazy?! This shabby guy in knock-off red is calling me crazy?  

Then I remembered I'd just tried to run away from the job I applied for.

Oh...maybe I am a little crazy. I shook my head and fell asleep.

❛ ╯˚✧ . ˚ ⚘₊

I spun the ladle in the thick curry and poured it over two bowls of steaming hot rice, setting chopsticks beside the bowls at the table and letting Master Ayato and Ayaka dine peacefully while Thoma and I made preparations in the kitchen.

I didn't know why I was acting so nervous, Thoma and Ayaka were practically the first friends I'd ever made in Inazuma, but it felt like something had been haunting me since I'd arrived here.

Not in just this estate--but in all of Inazuma.

Most people declined my work because they said they didn't need extra employees, but something in their gazes made me believe there was something else to do with me here.

Then again with the boy underneath the tree--he definitely knew something, but his pettiness was barricading it. Still, he was my only option seeing that no one else wanted to tell me anything.

"Y/n, you've been washing the same dish for more than forty minutes."

"Oh," I looked down at my fingers which were starting to shrivel and the sponge that had been working effortlessly on the pot inside my palms.

"Master Ayato and I will be out tonight," he informed me without any further regard for my actions.

"For what? An occasion?"

"An event, hosted by the Kujou Clan yielding from the Tenryou Commission."

"Then what will Lady Ayaka and I be doing?"

He looked out the window and stared for a few moments before dropping his head, "Master Ayato has asked Lady Ayaka to enjoy her time with you. Events such as these are regular, but also boring even for such an elegant and esteemed man such as the Yashiro Commissioner. Usually, Ayaka is sent in his stead."

"Will the Inazuma Archon be there?"

"The Raiden Shogun you mean? Of course not, she's taken a period of reflection for the moment."

The Raiden Shogun.

The Raiden Shogun.

My head panged for a second then went silent. I shook myself out of it then nodded and said nothing else for the rest of the duration we cleaned together in the kitchen.

Later that day, Thoma taught me to dust frames and how to remove stains from satin and other material (with a secret of course!) but I couldn't help wandering in my own thoughts.