Chapter 1: Ama-no-Iwato?
The clattering of the cart reverberated through the hallway. I tried to walk quickly but carefully, making sure the food on the dish riding on the cart didn’t spill anywhere. When I brought food to his room, I covered it with a cloche to keep dust off, but it wouldn’t stop the food from gradually going cold, starting the moment I put it on the plate. It couldn’t reach him fast enough.
Shinichi-sama had said once that food was delicious when it was served so hot you had to blow on it while you ate, and so whenever I served anything grilled or fried, I made sure to heat the plate ahead of time by soaking it in hot water, and furthermore, I was careful to serve it in a timely manner.
“Shinichi-sama...”
In just a matter of moments, I was outside his door. A door I had become intimately used to seeing—or at least passing by. The door to the room of my master, Shinichi-sama.
And yet, I felt a hesitation as I went to knock. Obviously I couldn’t just stand out here; the food would go cold, and nothing good would come of that. So I took a deep breath, knocked, and called out. “Shinichi-sama, it’s Myusel. I’ve brought your dinner.”
Shinichi-sama was on the other side of the door; he had to be. He must have heard me speak to him. I strained my ears so as not to miss the slightest sound emanating from the room, and I detected motion within. My ears, the bequest of my elven blood, could hear Shinichi-sama getting up and coming over to the door.
Today—today, at last, he would let me see his face.
Such, at least, was the hope that flared faintly in my chest. But...
“Oh...”
The door didn’t open; instead, a single sheet of paper was slid out underneath it. I knelt and retrieved it. It contained a short sentence in Ja-panese. I haven’t any education, so I can’t read or write the Eldant language, but Shinichi-sama was kind enough to teach me his own, so that I can read hiragana easily.
Just leave it there, the note said. Please.
It was in Shinichi-sama’s handwriting; I would know it anywhere. He had been kind enough to write the whole thing in hiragana so it would be easy for me to read.
“U-Um... Sir...!” I spoke almost before I knew what I was doing, clutching the piece of paper. But I didn’t know how to continue, so I didn’t say anything at all. Trying to make excuses at this point would just be pitiful. All I could do was wait for Shinichi-sama’s anger to pass.
I only let out a sigh and parked the cart next to the wall. “It’s right beside the door,” I said, but as I expected, there was no answer. “Shinichi-sama...”
I turned and went toward the kitchen, back down the hallway the way I had come.
As I walked, I un-crinkled the note in my hand and looked at it again. How many was this now? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner—three notes a day. I had lost track of how long it had been since Shinichi-sama had shut himself up in his room. I got one of these pieces of paper each time I brought him a meal, but I never saw his face, or even heard his voice.
I was flooded with loneliness. And what was more, I was worried about Shinichi-sama’s health—though you might think it silly of me after I had subjected him to such violence.
“Shinichi-sama...” The whisper dropped from my lips and fell to the ground. The depression was almost like a physical presence behind me, pressing in, darkening the hallway as I walked along.
I pressed my ear to the door, listening carefully. I waited until I heard Myusel—Myusel Fourant, my maid who had so kindly brought me food—retreat safely down the hallway, and then I slowly counted to ten before I opened the door.
I glanced right, then left—no one around. Just as Myusel had said, the cart of food was positioned neatly next to the wall. It was the sort of thing commonly used to deliver fancy Western dishes, everything placed under a half-spherical metal covering—I guess it was called a cloche. I delicately picked it up and found my dinner, all neatly arranged on a single plate.
I pulled my dinner, the cart, and everything into my room and locked the door, then moved the plate to my desk along with a silver knife, fork, and spoon. I sat in my chair and clapped my hands together. “Itadakimasu,” I murmured, like any good Japanese does before a meal, and then I started in on the food Myusel had made for me.
Ahh... Delicious.
Myusel had always been an excellent cook. The food had cooled off a little, sure, but it was of such high quality that it was still good. Sure, it could add to the flavor to eat at the table with everybody jabbering around you, but savoring a meal all alone wasn’t bad, either.
That’s right. For the past week, I had been taking my meals alone in my room. Other than taking baths and using the bathroom—both of which I did in the dead of night, when everyone else was asleep—I didn’t emerge from my room. For a while, I’d had the excuse that bandages and muscular pain had kept me bedridden, but all that was better by now.
I spontaneously found myself a hikikomori, a shut-in, someone who wouldn’t come out of his room. This room.
The reason... well, it went back to a commotion from a good ten days ago.
Myusel Fourant.
Petralka an Eldant III.
And Elvia Harneiman.
The three girls had been in a war for the heart of Kanou Shinichi (that’s me). To be even more direct, I had discovered that love triangles (or would that be a love square?) are hell. Of course, I hadn’t touched any of them,
