Edgar glanced at the bookshelf over her shoulder. His eyes caught on a small box carefully placed on the top shelf, out of her reach. Was now the time to suggest sharing the identical thing hanging around his neck?

He was in the middle of such deliberation. The small hand slipped away without giving him a chance to grasp it. The closed door opened wide.

When he turned his head, he briefly saw her beyond the room, holding the door handle. Despite Shasha’s rather rough handling, the door closed without even making a thud. Before it closed, he saw purple irises rippling with anger he had never seen before, causing his stiffened lips to belatedly part.

“Uh……”

His voice, bewildered by the rejection he suffered before he could even make his sticky confession while timing it, echoed emptily in the room. When he regained his senses and rushed out into the corridor, not even a shadow of the other person remained.

“You……”

The voice recalling the shape her small mouth had made with her teeth finally became terribly rigid.

“……trash?”

” Miss Charlotte, it’s quite unusual for you to take such a long vacation.”

Shasha responded to the head butler’s words with an ambiguously smiling face.

“……I haven’t seen my parents for too long.”

The money pouch he handed her after completing the brief procedure was quite heavy. As he said, it was because she had used all her accumulated vacation days at once.

There wasn’t any particular reason why she hadn’t used her vacation days until now. After all, her workplace provided decent break times and room and board…… and going home only made things awkward rather than pleasant with her parents, so it couldn’t be helped.

They seemed to care for their daughter in their own way despite being poor without any particularly bad aspects, but even so, they were closer to strangers for Shasha. Since she had no parents to compare them to from her original world, she didn’t feel any longing because of them, but that was all. Not wanting to feel uncomfortable, she had gone almost two years without seeing them, using the excuse of being busy.

It meant that submitting a vacation request under the pretext of visiting family wouldn’t seem particularly strange.

Of course, it still felt somewhat sudden, so everyone added their comments like that, but since it wasn’t a particularly busy season, they seemed to accept it. Though unintended, it seemed she also benefited from her usual diligence.

“That’s right. People need to rest too. Still, with about two weeks, the Young Master will be quite disappointed. ……I hope you have a safe trip.”

“……Yes.”

She bowed her head to the kindly greeting delivered with a wrinkled face. Of course, she couldn’t help but flinch once at the mention of that Young Master.

“Hah……”

As soon as she turned around after closing the door, a sigh escaped before she could stop it. Shasha’s mind was already tangled and blackened with the cause of what she had impulsively done.

The moment she had fearlessly closed the door crept back from the edge of her memory, replaying on an endless loop, like a buried shadow of her past suddenly unearthed, Shasha clutched her head for a moment in pain, then swiftly composed herself and hurried down the corridor.

It time had just passed noon. It was time to prepare lunch for the Young Master, who had recently begun living on the same schedule as ordinary people. Even though all she had to do was bring the prepared tray and set it before him, managing her expression, which had become quite difficult after a certain incident, had already begun even when Edgar wasn’t visible.

‘As if nothing happened.’

The mantra-like repetition had a solemn taste.

It’s a basic rule of professional life that no matter how terrible your superior is, you shouldn’t show it in the workplace. It shouldn’t have been difficult for her original self. Clearly, but…

‘……It’s hard.’

Whenever she saw Edgar’s face, which naturally had an innocent light and now added a touch of desolation since that day, her insides would boil to the point where her chest would throb. The strange pain of her chest tightening sharply increased the longer she spent time with him.

Shasha had never been more grateful that her face didn’t show much expression. If it had been as transparent as Edgar’s, trouble would have erupted long ago.

The frequency with which he glanced at her cautiously increased, and when she saw his lips move several times but ultimately press together, that intangible pain quickly transformed into anger. The concentration of that anger was such that she felt like punching him if not for her position. Even now, thinking about it, she had to consciously relax her unknowingly clenched fist.

For this reason, she had ignored what seemed like his difficultly delivered everyday remarks several times with cold, businesslike tones. Consequently, his face increasingly showed signs of resignation.

‘Where’s the person who thought being treated as a courtesan was more realistic……’

In truth, Shasha didn’t really understand why she was so angry now. Because she was treated cheaply? But she had already experienced the dark side of this world early after her possession. She had been the one who urgently applied to become a maid to avoid being sold like a bride to a nouveau riche fifteen years her senior when she was still a minor.

While feeling sorry about the situation, she had repeatedly persuaded her parents, who were trying to make a somewhat realistic compromise with a positive attitude that even without a dowry, marrying a rich man would allow her to live better than when she was with them. With a story she didn’t mean about going to the capital to find a better match…… So talking about reality wasn’t something she did without understanding.

But when she clearly understood what he wanted to do with her, what quickly rose was obvious betrayal. She admitted it was an ungraceful anger for someone who had deliberately pushed away a persistent man. The mistake was assuming he was a greenhouse flower and vaguely thinking Edgar would continue making emotional appeals after spending a few nights together.

Though he looked naive, he was born and raised in a prestigious noble family. His view of the world should have been colder than hers, not less, and it was also an error to think his insight was narrow due to lack of experience in this world.

Or perhaps she had subconsciously focused on him being a character in a book…

Anyway, thinking about it a little, it was ridiculous for someone in Edgar’s position to seriously consider an employee he employed. Following this train of thought, she naturally realized that she had been quite dismissive of him until now.

Treating a man with power who could receive applause even if he acted like a thug in broad daylight like an underdeveloped baby…

“Who’s really treating whom……”

Her self-reproach mixed with self-mockery had a bitter taste.

In conclusion, these emotions Shasha felt now were like remnants of arrogance created because she had arbitrarily judged him. Of course, she had no intention of becoming his mistress, so she wouldn’t play along for long as Edgar wished. Nevertheless, there was no need to overreact…

Her usually steady personality faded in an instant due to the words uttered with that clear face to which she had yielded countless times, because she had no choice. And it strangely failed to regain its color for a long time. Her mind, which had become difficult to calm, eventually jumped around on its own even when he wasn’t visible.

Sometimes anger would rise for no reason, but then she felt uncomfortable, finding it strange that she was focusing on such causeless, insubstantial emotions.

The result of emotions she couldn’t express to the other person was thus temporary avoidance. Still, it would sound plausible if described as a kind of rest to focus on her main job after firmly rejecting an awful proposal.

Whether it was a vague belief or her own wish, she didn’t know. But it seemed like she could return to how things were before if she stabilized her mind somewhere he couldn’t be seen during the two-week period.

She might get angry very occasionally, and this throbbing chest pain might rise very occasionally…… But it certainly wouldn’t be impossible.

Who knows. After spending such time several times, she might forget as if she had never received such a proposal, and calmly applaud at his wedding ceremony, which would certainly be held as scheduled.

The village, which required taking a train down from the capital and then traveling by carriage for at least half a day more, was charming if described kindly and bluntly a rural backwater.

With a large mountain range behind it, the place was colder than the capital. Thanks to the early autumn rain that had started before her arrival, the mountain clouds had lowered, making it look somewhat gloomy.

Normally she would have taken the night train, but for some reason she had departed at dawn, so her arrival was also delayed. Fortunately, she arrived before bedtime.

The man who recently woke up as early as his employees hadn’t changed his bedtime much from before. It meant that after they became awkward with each other, instead of avoiding each other, the time they spent together actually increased.

Yesterday, or more precisely, at dawn when the date changed to today, it happened again. His forced tea errands continued until just before his late bedtime. The meaningless act of repeatedly heating water that he rarely actually drank, he silently ordered and she silently did.

Since Shasha hadn’t mentioned anything about her vacation to him, this fatigue was something she had to endure as the price for keeping her mouth shut.