Chapter 5: Welcome Home, Master
“I’ll ask you about that when I visit your place.”
Those were the words Yuki Ohira had spoken to me in the hallway after the opening ceremony.
After saying that, she never actually asked for my address. Instead, she dragged me into helping clean up after the ceremony.
Not that it was much work. All I had to do was carry some equipment around, so the whole thing was over in what felt like seconds.
Once everything was cleaned up, we returned to our classroom. Our homeroom teacher, Nekoshiba-sensei, announced that school was officially over for the day, and everyone was dismissed.
A special kind of day—one of the few days each year when school ended before noon.
Normally, Shogo and I would hang out somewhere before heading home. But just as I was about to leave the classroom, Yuki Ohira leaned in and whispered into my ear.
“Stay at home. If you aren’t there… you know what happens, right?”
The threat sounded completely out of place coming from her expressionless face, and a chill ran down my spine.
The secret she held wasn’t even something she could really blackmail me with. If anything, I was supposed to have the advantage here.
So why did it feel like I was the one being cornered?
◇
“I’m home…”
My voice echoed emptily through the silent apartment as I switched on the lights in the entryway and hallway.
The front entrance was an ordinary rectangular space, almost square in shape, with a hallway stretching straight ahead.
Along that hallway sat bags of non-burnable garbage I still hadn’t figured out how to dispose of, along with clothes tossed carelessly onto the floor. At first glance, it looked like a burglar had ransacked the place.
Unfortunately, this was simply how I lived.
After setting my key on top of the shoe cabinet, I kicked off my shoes and stepped inside, skillfully weaving around garbage bags and discarded clothes on my way to the main room.
The eight-tatami room wasn’t any better.
Just like the hallway, it was littered with trash I didn’t know how to throw away, scattered clothing, and empty energy drink cans. The only difference was that my favorite clothes—the ones I actually wore when going out—were piled beside the bed.
I dropped my school bag onto a desk buried beneath mountains of tissues and receipts, loosened the tie around my neck, and threw myself onto the bed.
The mattress springs bounced lightly beneath me before yielding completely, supporting my entire body as if embracing it.
I lived alone in a standard one-room apartment.
Living alone wasn’t particularly unusual these days.
But a high school student living alone?
That was a different story.
Before I started, I thought housework would be easy.
Reality proved otherwise.
One glance around the room was enough to make that painfully clear.
Housework required talent.
Nowadays, thanks to all the conveniences aimed at people living alone, eating wasn’t a problem. But laundry, cleaning, and everything else?
I was hopeless.
People might say, Then just do it.
Easy enough to say.
Actually getting myself to do it was another matter.
Maybe I could take satisfaction in technically living on my own.
But if someone asked whether I was truly managing independent life properly…
I wouldn’t be able to answer immediately.
Maybe that’s why.
Why I asked Ohira to become my personal maid.
I looked like I was living independently, but the truth was that I really wasn’t. Somewhere deep down, I must have unconsciously wanted someone to rely on.
“Though because of that, it kind of feels like I’m the one being threatened now…”
Letting out a sigh, I pulled out my phone and checked the screen.
11:32 AM.
There were two messages waiting for me on LOIN.
One was from Shogo.
Lunch?
A short message.
On opening ceremony days and closing ceremony days, grabbing lunch together was practically tradition.
“Even if you ask me what I’m doing…”
I’d love to head out and get something to eat.
Unfortunately, Her Majesty the Student Council President had ordered me to stay home.
I couldn’t exactly leave while waiting for a visitor whose arrival time was completely unknown.
“Come to think of it… does she even know where I live?”
In the end, Yuki Ohira had never asked for my address.
She didn’t even have my contact information.
How exactly was she planning to find my apartment?
The only people who knew I lived alone were my parents, Shogo, a friend I’d known since middle school, and a handful of others.
I’d never been particularly good at making friends.
So I didn’t have many.
That was why I appreciated Shogo so much.
Even if he was an idiot.
As for others who knew…
There was the school.
I’d submitted my address before enrollment and informed them that I lived alone.
“Wait…”
Surely not.
Was she planning to abuse her authority as student council president and obtain my personal information from the school?
If she did that, she wouldn’t need to ask me for my address at all.
“…No way.”
I’d been reading too many manga.
The school had a duty to protect student information.
If they handed it out just because someone was student council president, it would be a massive scandal.
Besides, would Yuki Ohira really go that far just to visit my apartment?
If anything, the fact that she secretly worked at a maid café despite attending a school that prohibited part-time jobs was a far darker secret. If that got exposed, she’d be the one in trouble.
Feeling foolish for entertaining such ridiculous fantasies, I opened the other message.
It was from Yoshiki Kishihara, a friend I’d known all the way through middle school.
Ding-dong.
Just as I was about to read it, the doorbell rang.
The sound echoed throughout the apartment.
I sat upright immediately and stared toward the front door at the end of the hallway.
“Ohira…?”
I called out toward the distant entrance.
No response.
No, no way.
Absolutely not.
If it actually turned out to be Ohira, that would be genuinely terrifying.
Maybe it was a newspaper salesman stubbornly fighting against the times.
Or a religious solicitor.
Or perhaps someone collecting TV licensing fees.
I didn’t even own a television, so turning them away would be easy.
Whatever kind of salesperson it was, I’d just use the same canned response I always did and send them packing.
Climbing off the bed, I walked to the entrance and pulled open the door.
The moment it swung open, I felt as though I’d somehow wandered into another world.
“W-Welcome home, Master…”
Standing there was Yuki Ohira.
The student council president.
The Fairy Queen Titania.
Dressed in a maid outfit, cheeks faintly flushed with embarrassment.
“I’m… home?”
