Chapter 21: A Personal Maid?!

Perhaps it was because Haruka Himuro’s life and fate truly were too tragic—her mother died young, her father was a gambler, and she’d had to take care of herself from a young age. For a girl barely in her teens, such a life was undoubtedly dark.

But today, she met Quillan. Not only did he help her teach those debt-collecting thugs a lesson, but he was also willing to take in someone homeless like her...

Haruka Himuro, who had been grieving over her fate, was so moved by this sudden happiness that tears streamed down her face.

She bowed to Quillan repeatedly, nodding as she said: "Thank you, Quillan, for being willing to help me. I... I’ve known how to cook since I was little, and I’m very good at housework too! As long as you’re willing to take me in, I can handle all those troublesome things for you. And... once I earn money from a part-time job in the future, I can also share half the rent!"

"Doing housework and cooking is fine, but sharing the rent isn’t necessary!" Quillan smiled. Although twenty thousand yen a month was still a sum of money, to him it wasn’t something he cared much about one way or the other. Besides, his rental budget had already been forty thousand yen a month anyway. He could also see that the reason they could rent Matsumoto Hitomi’s apartment so cheaply was mainly thanks to Matsumoto Hitomi’s fondness for Haruka Himuro.

So Quillan declined Haruka Himuro’s idea of sharing the rent in the future once she found work. In Quillan’s view, if Haruka Himuro could help with housework and prepare three meals a day, that would be more than enough!

Perhaps infected by Quillan’s smile, Haruka Himuro wiped away her tears. Hearing that Quillan had turned down her offer to share the rent in the future, a wave of inexplicable emotion welled up in her heart. Then she put on a smile and looked at Quillan as she said: "So... may I ask, Quillan, are you trying to hire me as your maid?"

Haruka Himuro’s sudden shift in mood, and her bold question, caught Quillan off guard for a moment. He murmured: "Maid?"

"That’s right!" Haruka Himuro noticed the floor was a bit dirty, so she casually grabbed a white cloth and spread it on the ground. Then, with her knee-high sock-clad legs parting, she lowered herself down and sat on the cloth across from Quillan. Tilting her head, she said: "I don’t have to pay rent, and I just help you with housework and take care of your three meals a day. So in that case, I’ll be your personal maid from now on, right?"

This Haruka Himuro’s way of thinking was really...

Quillan couldn’t get a word out for a long while. A personal maid?

Seeing Quillan’s stunned expression, Haruka Himuro giggled, then stood up happily: "Well then, as your personal maid, can I get started right away? Even though Grandma Matsumoto’s apartment is kept quite clean, since no one’s lived here for so long, it’s bound to have accumulated some dust."

With that, Haruka Himuro really did start tidying up the place. Before she left the room, she turned back and bowed to Quillan, and as if meeting him for the first time, said: "Your maid, Haruka Himuro, humbly requests your guidance, Master!"

"M-Master?"

Quillan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Out of nowhere, Haruka Himuro had become his maid, and he had become her master!

Watching Haruka Himuro’s busy figure as she began cleaning, Quillan had originally wanted to explain their relationship to her. He hoped that even though they lived together, they would remain classmates sharing an apartment, and that they would just address each other by name normally—not use weird titles like maid and master.

But just then, Matsumoto Hitomi returned with the rental contract. Compared to her somewhat disappointed expression from before, she now looked completely relieved!

Matsumoto Hitomi had been worried because Quillan seemed unwilling to share the apartment with Haruka Himuro, which had dashed the hopes of Matsumoto Hitomi—who had taken to Haruka Himuro like a granddaughter from the very first meeting—of keeping her around.

But on the way back to get the contract, after returning to her convenience store, Matsumoto Hitomi suddenly had a realization.

If she wanted to keep Haruka Himuro by her side, she didn’t necessarily have to have her live in the apartment she was renting out. Wouldn’t it be even better to ask Haruka Himuro to work part-time at the convenience store, keeping her close by?

With that idea in mind, Matsumoto Hitomi naturally wasn’t disappointed anymore. In fact, she was quite pleased with herself for coming up with it!

She showed Quillan the contract she had printed out on the spot. Quillan looked it over, found no problems, and signed it.

Just then, Quillan’s phone rang. He saw it was Norika Harada calling, so he answered.

Norika Harada said on the phone: "Hello, Quillan, did you manage to find a place to rent?"

"I just finished signing the contract!" Quillan answered truthfully.

"That fast?" Norika Harada’s tone on the phone sounded somewhat disappointed: "Looks like I was a step too late. It’s nothing—I just heard from some teachers that there’s an apartment for rent not far from campus, so I was going to have you go take a look!"

"That won’t be necessary, Miss Harada!" Quillan replied politely. He was surprised that Norika Harada would actually care enough about his housing situation to look into it. Wasn’t she supposed to hate men?

"If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave it here then!" Quillan assumed Norika Harada had called about his housing. Since the matter was already resolved, there was naturally no reason to keep talking.

After all, they were teacher and student—there was no reason to chat on the phone for hours.

"Wait!" Norika Harada called out urgently on the phone, as if afraid Quillan would actually hang up. Then she switched to a dissatisfied tone and huffed: "Since you’ve found a place, hurry up and come to school!"

"Now?" Quillan checked the time. It was still early—just past ten. He had taken the whole morning off.

"Yes!" Norika Harada said: "This morning, the board chairman came to the classroom looking for you. After learning you’d taken the morning off, she specifically told me to let you know that once you arrive at school, you should go to her office! Hey, Quillan, what does the board chairman want with you?"

"How would I know?"

Quillan grumbled in dissatisfaction: "I don’t even know what the board chairman looks like. Why would she suddenly want to see me?"

"Could it be... because of your status as an international student, and the fact that you’re a guy?" Norika Harada idly speculated on the phone. Hearing her guess, Quillan thought she might very well be right!

Quillan didn’t hesitate. He said goodbye to Matsumoto Hitomi and Haruka Himuro and headed to school first, because he too was very eager to find out why he—an international student from America, and a man at that—had been able to enter St. Sakura Academy, an all-girls high school!