Chapter 27: 27: No Way a Maid Would Just Show Up at My Door… Wait, Really?
Akira made a grand wish: to have a cute maid who could cook delicious meals.
But the moment he left Ichihara Yuuko's shop, he went straight home, collapsed on the sofa, happily cuddled his Switch and his cat, and didn't want to move at all.
He knew this wasn't right. Opportunities always favored the prepared.
Even if he didn't prepare, at the very least, he should go out and encounter something. If he kept staying holed up at home, clearly, he wouldn't run into anything.
It's not like a maid would just ring his doorbell and show up, right?
"Ding dong—"
The doorbell rang.
Judging by the usual dismissal time for high schools in Japan, school should've ended by now. It was probably Utaha.
Akira didn't even consider other possibilities. He hadn't ordered any food, nor was he expecting any packages.
As for those who wanted him to do feng shui readings, they would normally contact him through the phone number and schedule listed on his business card, not just show up unannounced at his home.
But didn't Utaha say she'd come over on the weekend? Why was she here on a Friday afternoon?
Could it be that she was having cat withdrawal?
With that thought, Akira picked up the intercom… and was surprised.
Because the girl on the video screen wasn't Utaha. It was a blonde girl in a summer school uniform, with a bit of a gyaru vibe, but an expressionless face.
A girl he didn't know. No, wait—why did she look kind of familiar?
"Who is it?" Akira asked aloud.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Ogiwara." The blonde girl gave a polite bow.
"I'm a maid from the Shinomiya household. My name is Hayasak Ai. I've come on the orders of the head of the family."
"…Huh?"
Akira instantly realized where the familiarity came from.
Hayasak Ai?
The personal maid of Shinomiya Kaguya in that famously ridiculous anime Kaguya-sama: Love is War?
So… you really can just sit at home and have a maid show up at your door?
Akira had once been invited to do a feng shui reading for the Shinomiya family, one of the four major conglomerates.
He vaguely remembered that the family head was a middle-aged man with greying hair and an overall sluggish demeanor.
Back then, Akira hadn't even recalled which Shinomiya family it was—just that he didn't have a great impression of the man.
How to put it… he was like a mechanical human. One who never made mistakes, never compromised, and lacked any kind of warmth.
That man had subtly hinted at trying to recruit him, but Akira naturally ignored it. As always, he kept their interaction purely professional—did the job, took the money, and left.
So what was this all about now?
"What does the Shinomiya family head want you to do?" Akira asked.
Hayasak Ai straightened up. Her exquisite face remained expressionless. After a long seven or eight seconds of silence, she finally spoke:
"May I come in first?"
As she said this, Akira caught a brief flash of disgust on her face.
Or rather, it was beyond disgust—closer to hatred.
He roughly understood now.
He pressed the unlock button and said, "Stay right there." Then he hung up the intercom and went to get dressed.
It's the middle of summer—who just lounges around at home fully dressed?
…
After the call ended, Hayasak Ai could no longer hide her emotions. That doll-like face now clearly displayed resentment.
"Damn old man. Drop dead…" she muttered under her breath.
She didn't know why Akira had made her wait at the door, but she knew how to make herself unpleasant—especially with high-status people, the higher they were, the less they tolerated disobedient servants.
So she pushed open the now-unlocked courtyard gate and walked in.
The courtyard was full of plants.
The path from the gate turned right, curved around trees and shrubs, and led to the right side of the residence's outer wall—this was the first time Hayasak Ai had seen someone plant so many lush bushes in a yard, so thick that you couldn't see the main house at all from the gate.
Before ringing the doorbell, she had walked around the wall once. Even from outside, the dense foliage mostly blocked the house.
Only from a few angles could you catch a glimpse of the structure. It was practically screaming "something is being hidden."
If you took a charitable view, maybe the owner just valued privacy and loved nature.
But given the rumors that brought her here, and her understanding of the glamorous world of high society, Hayasak Ai couldn't convince herself to believe that.
She was almost certain she was about to see something incredibly dirty.
But she couldn't turn back.
She followed the path through the bushes, turned another corner, and suddenly it became darker.
She instinctively looked up and saw that the tree canopy blocked most of the light. The sky didn't look very bright either.
Had clouds covered the sun? Strange. Just a moment ago, it had been perfectly sunny outside…
Also, wasn't it a bit too quiet? Could plants really dampen sound this much?
A strange sense of unease crept up from the depths of her heart, making her want to retreat.
But the order that brought her here surfaced again in her mind, and the disgust in her eyes returned. Gritting her teeth, she pressed forward.
The new path was simple—still a straight road flanked by bushes, ending in a turn.
Based on the size of the yard seen from outside, maybe one more path like this, and she'd reach the main house.
Since she couldn't—or didn't want to—retreat, Hayasak Ai picked up the pace and quickly reached the next corner.
But it didn't lead to the house. Nor was it another hairpin-style turn. It was just a normal 90-degree corner.
Beyond it… was another identical straight path flanked by bushes.
This direction seemed to run along the edge of the wall, toward the back of the house. Was this going to loop around?
She glanced toward where the wall should be—but saw only more dense shrubbery.
It was like a carefully trimmed garden maze.
And she… was its prey.
Hayasak Ai lost her patience—or rather, the growing eeriness sparked a sense of fear.
She started running, hoping to find the exit quickly. The property wasn't big. No matter how narrow or convoluted the paths were, they couldn't go on for long.
Just as she thought, the next two turns were both to the left. She was likely circling around the back of the main house.
But after the third left turn, she was greeted by the same unchanging bush-lined path again.
Another inner ring? Was the yard really this big? Or was the house just that small?
Whatever. This had to be the last loop.
Clenching her now trembling fists, Hayasak Ai charged forward again.
She was Shinomiya Kaguya's personal maid. Aside from serving duties, she was also her bodyguard.
Maybe she wasn't a martial arts expert, but she was capable of scaling walls at night and sneaking into schools to swap out the student council president's coffee—all under the lady's orders.
Her stamina and agility were top-notch.
After one full loop with no change, she didn't stop. She ran a second loop. But when the same path and turn appeared once more, she finally stopped, gasping for breath.
It wasn't a spiral where each path angled inward. She had counted her steps carefully—each segment was roughly the same length.
Nor was it a trick using visual illusions to hide entrances and exits. She had watched carefully while running. There were no such openings.
So she had run three laps inside a square path that had neither an entrance nor an exit.
And it was too quiet.
Far too quiet. It was the peak of summer—typically the noisiest season for insects. Yet in this dense foliage, not a single chirp could be heard…
Was this really… haunted?
Despite it being mid-summer, despite having just sprinted hard, Hayasak Ai felt an icy chill creeping through her body.
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