Strictly speaking, Moed’s hair was ash-brown—closer to brown, especially when sunlight hit it—but a servant could never contradict her young master. Moed accepted it meekly.

“That’s true. Yes, young master.”

“A maid, wandering around here like she owns the place—why are you loitering?”

“Ah, that’s….”

“Forget it. I’m not interested.”

Come to think of it, entering the garden while fussing over her stitching had been the root of the problem. No—the problem of all problems. Unsure how to explain it without making things worse, Moed simply shut her mouth as ordered.

Ersian looked over the obedient maid with satisfaction, then shifted his gaze to the ends of her hair—charred black. A small handful of strands near her waist had been singed and curled. His brows drew together in sudden irritation.

“Your hair was already a mess, but now it looks even worse.”

“A-ah.”

Only then did Moed sweep the burned strands of hair behind her back, trying to hide them. Ersian glared at her awkward, embarrassed smile, then issued another command.

“Open your eyes properly.”

“…Pardon?”

“Do you need me to repeat myself every time? I said open your eyes.”

‘Oh no, he’s angry.’
‘But why?’

She didn’t know the reason, but terrified of provoking him further, Moed widened her eyes as much as she could. Her round eyes trembled, and Ersian let out a dry, humorless laugh.

“You look like spoiled pesto—greenish and sickly.”

Even without a clear subject, anyone could tell what he meant. Johnny, who had already shaken his head when Ersian called her a “duster,” started at this new insult, eyes widening.

What kind of disgrace was this supposed to be—out of nowhere?

Johnny quickly checked on the maid. As expected, she seemed terribly startled. Her calf-like eyes blinked, then her head dropped with a soft thud—so pitiful, so helpless that he felt genuinely sorry for her.

‘Ow, my eyes…’

But Moed wasn’t actually hurt. Her eyes simply ached from being kept open wide and she had lowered her head only to escape the sun’s glare.

Of course, she did feel the faint urge to object to being compared to ‘spoiled pesto’. Moed’s eyes were a pale green, much like freshly picked olives. They might look dull at times, but they were hardly ugly enough to warrant such contempt. Even so, Moed let it pass without taking offence.

For a Morma, appearance meant very little. What mattered were seduction skills and magical ability, which rendered appearance irrelevant. Truthfully, Moed had long since grown accustomed to letting whatever the young master said enter one ear and slip quietly out the other.

Despite his appearance, Ersian was notorious for speaking like a barrel of rotting fish, and his sandpaper tongue spared no one. Most servants avoided going near him. Even the most seasoned worker would struggle not to take offence when insulted by another human being.

However, Moed who thought of the young master as nothing more than a walking cake was immune to his sharp tongue.

“Hey. Who told you to lower your head.”

“I’m sorry, young master. The sunlight was too bright…”

“Ha.”

Ersian stared at her, utterly incredulous.

‘Too bright?’

His lips, already pulled tight with irritation, pressed together even harder before twitching.

He might not speak to anyone or leave the annex much, but he knew he wasn’t unattractive. He didn’t take pride in it, but whenever the Duke’s guests visited during his childhood, the only compliment he ever received was that he was a pretty boy. When he first appeared in high society, he was called a ‘flower prince’ and said to resemble a black rose.

After puberty, being called pretty stopped being a compliment. After he collapsed in a ballroom with a seizure, people began to mock him, calling him a rose raised in a greenhouse. But these trivial memories were beside the point.

‘Even her flattery is as clueless as she is. Unbelievable.’

His neatly shaped black eyebrows lifted sharply. Even when he used to go out more often, nobody had ever dared to openly admire him to his face. Charitably speaking, it was bold. But, to be less charitable, it was so obviously sycophantic that he wanted to smack her for it.

Lost in a firm and utterly misguided assumption, Ersian glared at the maid’s drooping, downturned eyes—so different from his own—then flicked his fingers. Even in his shocked state, Johnny obediently handed over the bundle he had been holding.

“Take it.”

Ersian passed it to the maid, tipping his chin. It meant she could open it, but the foolish girl failed to understand even this simple cue.

“What is this, young master?”

“Are your eyes stuffed full of moss?”

A moment ago she had been spoiled pesto; now she was moss. Still, Moed chose to see the progression as positive—from rotten food to a plant—and dutifully unwrapped the package.

“It’s a uniform?”

“Yes.”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, I needed one exactly like this. Thank you, young master.”

“Of course you did.”

“……”

“…Is that all you have to say?”

Her pale green eyes rolled slowly in a circle before settling back again. After observing the twitch in his lips, the rigid line of his cheeks and the faint distortion of his brow and eyes, she nodded politely.

“Yes, young master. I’ve said everything.”

Behind Ersian, Johnny was frantically waving his hands. Moed realized—far too late—that her answer had been the wrong one. She hesitated, then added gently.

“Oh… is there something else you wanted me to say?”

There was indeed something he wanted. Ersian had expected her to say, “How did you know? This is exactly what I needed. Thank you so much, young master. How could I possibly repay you?”

But the maddening maid was perfectly content to end the exchange with just a “thank you”. Her young master had given her something she needed at just the right moment, yet she could only say “Thank you”.

She had no intention of letting this moment develop further.

His tightly clenched lips trembled. Seized by a surge of anger even he couldn’t understand, Ersian shuddered, then tipped his head back to glare at the sky. When he’d been treated like an invalid from every direction, someone had once prescribed this: look at the sky and count seconds when emotion overwhelms you.

“Give it back.”

“Ah—”

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Ersian snatched the uniform from her hands, threw it aside, and kicked it. He kicked it so hard that the surrounding grass fluttered upwards in a burst.

Moments ago, the uniform had smelled clean and new, but now it was covered in leaves and dirt, rolling beneath the tree where Moed was sitting.

“I’ve lost my d*mn mind. H*ll, what a pointless thing to do.”

Breathing heavily, Ersian glared. With her thick hair spilling messily around her face and her wide, round eyes, the maid looked like a startled, foolish and fragile lamb caught rolling happily in a pile of autumn leaves.

Something tightened and prickled in his chest, as though his frozen skin had encountered sudden warmth and begun to melt. This strange, unfamiliar sensation only made him angrier.

“A servant who doesn’t even know how to properly show gratitude for her master’s generosity, what kind of training have you received? This household has absolutely no discipline.”

“Young master, I truly meant to say thank—”

“Get out!”

But before Moed could leave, Ersian stormed off in a rage. Johnny hurried to apologize for the young master’s sudden derangement, then ran after him.

Moed watched the two retreating figures until they disappeared. Then she came back to her senses, picked up the uniform lying on the ground and dusted it off. After dusting it off and checking it carefully, she sighed with relief. It looked as though it would be fine once washed.