Chapter 1: Prologue
Just by being there, she changes everything.
The Kiyomiya Family Old Manor──
It’s a short name, yet it carries a certain grandeur, and the splendid Western-style mansion lives up to every syllable. Wearing a maid outfit within those halls, she blends into the scenery with an almost uncanny naturalness. Now that I know the truth, that perfect fit feels both entirely appropriate and strangely surreal at the same time, leaving me with the most complicated feelings.
After all, the maid of the old manor, Hisaka Sayaka──
“Keiji-kun, breakfast is ready.”
“Ah, yeah.”
The one who appeared when my bedroom door opened was that very Sayaka. The maid in my house doesn’t use particularly respectful language toward her master. After all, to me—Kiyomiya Keiji—Sayaka is also a classmate who sits right next to me in the same classroom. It would be unsettling to have a classmate using honorifics with me.
That was the main reason, but now I’m glad I didn’t make her use them.
Ugh, I’ve been overthinking things since morning.
“Keiji-kun, is something wrong? Do you have a fever? Should I bring some medicine?”
“N-no, I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
I shake my head and walk toward Sayaka, who’s standing at the door. Overthinking might make me feel feverish, but physically, I’m perfectly okay. After all, I do train, and my physical condition isn’t so weak that a little shock would throw me off balance. Though what I took yesterday was far from a little shock──
“What’s this? Now you’re staring at me intently. Well, I’m your maid, so you can look as much as you want, I suppose.”
“Then I’ll take you up on that.”
I stop in front of Sayaka and gaze at her. Her light brown semi-long hair, her clear and well-proportioned features, the size of her chest and the slimness of her waist visible even through the maid outfit. She could be an idol or a model; she could do any job that makes use of her appearance. Come to think of it, Sayaka was in financial trouble, yet she never tried to leverage her blessed looks.
In so many ways—why is this girl working as my maid, of all things?
“…Hey. If you stare that much, even I might want extra allowance on top of my salary.”
“I’ll give you the allowance, so let me look more.”
Sayaka’s cheeks seem slightly red. To blush just from being stared at by the opposite sex—she has an unexpectedly cute side.
No, wait, don’t get misled by her cuteness.
Hisaka Sayaka is the true child of the head of the Kiyomiya Family, owners of this splendid mansion──
On the other hand, I’m merely the son of a servant who worked at the Kiyomiya Family Old Manor.
My real mother’s name is apparently Hisaka Tsukasa. And that Hisaka Tsukasa is Sayaka’s foster mother. Kiyomiya Keiji and Hisaka Sayaka are children who were “switched” by each other’s parents.
The people I thought were my parents, Kiyomiya Takatsugu and Wakura Honoka, along with Hisaka Tsukasa—these three adults conspired to switch their own children.
Accidental “switched at birth” cases due to hospital errors have apparently happened rarely in reality, but in my and Sayaka’s case, it seems entirely intentional. The fact that the head of the prestigious family, Kiyomiya Takatsugu, wasn’t permitted to marry the commoner Wakura Honoka, and that the child born between them was a “girl” with no inheritance rights—the reason they switched her with the “son” of the servant Hisaka Tsukasa seems to lie somewhere in there. It sounds like a ridiculous story nowadays, but the fact that I can’t think of any other reason for switching children is also true.
This Sayaka suddenly showed up at the Kiyomiya Family Old Manor one day and became my maid. It started when I caught her sneaking around my room, and that led to this outrageous truth coming to light. I deduced Sayaka’s true identity, and when she admitted it, the fact was confirmed──
Even a day after the secret was revealed, my agitation hasn’t subsided.
Hey, am I the weird one? In this situation, isn’t Sayaka the weird one for casually continuing as a maid?
“How long are you going to stare? Come on, let’s go. Keiji-kun, follow me.”
“……”
That’s not something a maid would say, but she’s shown this kind of attitude even before her true identity as a Ojou-sama was revealed. In other words, this is Sayaka’s true nature. Perhaps the DNA of a prestigious family’s Ojou-sama is unexpectedly engraved in her?
It’s no use. No matter how much I think about it now, all I get are pointless speculations.
For now, I follow Sayaka out of the room, down the stairs, and head to the first-floor dining room. This unnecessarily large mansion even has a room dedicated just to eating meals.
“Hm?”
I twitch my nose. A familiar smell—but one that doesn’t usually waft through the air in the morning.
“Everything’s already prepared. Go ahead, enjoy.”
“Why curry for breakfast?!”
Yes, what was placed on the dining table was the so-called curry rice, politely accompanied by a salad.
“We didn’t have curry last night, right? If it were leftovers, that’d be one thing.”
“I simmered it slowly from early morning.”
“To go through such trouble…”
Morning curry apparently exists, but isn’t it usually the kind that’s been left overnight?
“Before I knew it, I was chopping vegetables from four in the morning…”
“You already chopped them, huh. Listen, Sayaka…”
I see, so Sayaka isn’t completely calm either. I was the one who had things hidden from me, but she seems shaken by her secret being exposed too. To make curry out of agitation—it’s kind of incomprehensible, yet somehow maid-like.
“So Sayaka is human after all.”
“You’re saying something I can’t just let slide, you know.”
I’m glared at by the maid. I’m not sure if I can still think of her as a maid, but for now, let’s say she is. I had just barely accepted her as my maid, and now her attributes are changing again—I can’t keep up. My mental strength is supposed to be strong, yet this is pathetic.
“For now, I’ll have the curry.”
“Ah, you’re going to eat it?”
“Since you went to the trouble of making it. I’ve been overthinking since yesterday, burning a lot of calories. The brain uses a ton of energy, apparently.”
“Aren’t you subtly being sarcastic toward me?”
I’m glared at by Sayaka again, but I pretend not to notice. I feel like being a bit sarcastic—after learning such a fact. After learning that Sayaka had been hiding such a fact.
“Oh, this curry’s delicious. Chicken this time, huh. Beef or pork is good too, but chicken’s nice. The meat’s well-simmered and melts in your mouth, and the roux’s spiciness hits hard at first with a nice lingering heat that’s just right.”
“To do a food review of the curry in this situation, you’re really not a normal human being, y’know.”
Sayaka’s throwing some pretty sharp sarcasm too. It seems excellent people can be born even without the blood of a prestigious family like the Kiyomiyas. Whether I’m excellent is debatable. Maybe I’m just thick-skinned mentally.
But setting aside my own origins—I’m grateful at least for being born to someone who gave me a strong mentality.
