The Castle's Cleaning Lady - Twisted Wonderland Reader insert

[☆-1] Father's day special

NOTE BEFORE READING: This chapter is set after Riddle's Overblot and before Chapter 2. This chapter is CANON within this fic despite being a fathers' day special. This WILL be addressed in the following chapters, as it will become a significant relationship dynamic change.

I have altered and retconned many things in this chapter to address Riddle's Overblot and the new revelations MC has had as well as some additional details such as a timeline after Chapter 1. Between Chapters 1 and 2 of TW story, I have laid out 5 filler days where 'nothing' occurs that is noteworthy in the overarching story. Basically filler. This will happen on Sunday - as Father's day usually is - and my headcanon just for this chapter's existence is Twisted Wonderland's Father's day is in October instead of around June.

Sorry, not sorry ;)

[Name] crosses off the day of her calendar, hung on the wall of Ramshackle's still cracked and rotting walls.

Apparently, it was Father's Day.

A bitter reminder that her dad, wherever he may be, was not present in her life. Or in her mind at all. Frankly, she had forgotten him. She couldn't remember her family either. Riddle's Overblot had got her overthinking, she hadn't got a wink of sleep when she was finally left alone after the Unbirthday party on Friday.

For the following weekend, she asked to be alone. To dedicate her day to trying to clean her dormitory before the necessary repairs, give her some time to think about the offer to move there and where to go from here. And with what she had been put through in the last couple of days? An Overblot? Nearly being expelled? Attacked again and again? Riddle and the others couldn't blame her, giving her some space to sort shit out. One weekend was all she was asking for.

But she hadn't realised the utter task that was cleaning a whole dorm now she was given the spare time. There were so many rooms: all full of crap, insect infestations, and old furniture to rifle through. It was too much. This was nothing like cleaning the castle, where she had her broomstick friends to help and the place was mostly spotless. It was like cleaning a hoarder's house, times a hundred.

By the end of that day, she was nearly sick of cleaning, knees and elbows raw from being leant on, but she had only sorted 10 out of the 64 living rooms in her building. Progress had been made in the living area, with floorboards cleaned, stairs polished and cobwebs dusted from the corners and shelves but it was simply a droplet in an ocean of work. Intense yet satisfying work. Seeing the before and after made it worth it.

But it was a distraction. A welcome one. She hadn't nor did she want to think about the true severity of her memory loss, the offer, and the future to come. She didn't want to think about anything.

And now, apparently, it was Father's Day. Another thing on her list.

It was sorrowful, no, pitiful, that even though how much she tried she couldn't remember her dad, sometimes straining her cranium so intensely that her head thundered with a blistering pain that she had to stop. She couldn't remember his face. She couldn't even remember his name. Who was he? Was he kind? Supportive? Hopefully so. Was he even in her life at all? She couldn't recall that either.

The more important question was why she couldn't remember him - but nothing came to mind. Why couldn't she remember anyone? She hadn't shared this knowledge with anyone of her amnesia or her past entirely - except the basic things like her name and hometown...She hadn't even told Grim. They didn't know the extent of the gaps in her memories, to forget your own family.

Today, unbeknownst to her, that would change.

A gentle knock resonated on her door, knocking her out of her daze. She slapped her cheek, she had been staring mindlessly at the curly text of "father" for way too long with an empty expression. Pulling her composure together she mustered a level tone and replied to the knock, quietly. It was 5 am after all. "Yes? Is that you Mr Vargas?"