Chapter 19: The Maid’s Real Father Is Also Up to Something

A ferocious engine roared to life, its deafening sound—a blatant disregard for any environmental concerns—growing closer and closer.

Right nearby, the screech of sudden braking pierced the night──

And then the doorbell began chiming, ringing almost obnoxiously loud.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

I burst out of my room.

“Wait, Sayaka. It’s the middle of the night—I’ll get it.”

“O-oh, alright… Just be careful, okay?”

I ran into Sayaka in the entrance lobby as she came scurrying out, stopping her before opening the door myself.

It was already pitch-black outside, but the entrance of the Kiyomiya Family Old Manor was kept lit even in the dead of night.

For some reason, the iron gate a few meters from the entrance stood open, and a large motorcycle was parked there.

The tall man who’d been riding it removed his helmet and straightened his hair──

“Well, well, long time no see, Keiji. Lookin’ good, aren’t ya?”

“Father…”

The one who had suddenly appeared on a motorcycle was my father──or rather, the current head of the Kiyomiya family, Kiyomiya Takatsugu.

He wore a helmet on top, but beneath it he was dressed in a well-tailored gray suit, his tie neatly fastened.

“Phew, I’m parched. Hey there, miss maid. Think you could get me a cold tea?”

“I’m Keiji-kun’s maid. So…”

Sayaka, who had appeared behind me at some point, stated coldly.

The implication being crystal clear—she wouldn’t follow orders from anyone but me.

“…Sayaka, get my father a glass of cold tea.”

“Make it a mega-sized mug, would ya?”

“Like hell we have mugs like that.”

I rarely saw this man even at the main residence, though he did have a habit of showing up out of the blue from time to time.

In any case, I led my father to the living room──and we sat facing each other across the table on the sofas.

“Ah, here we go.”

My father gulped down the barley tea Sayaka had silently brought, draining the glass in one go.

“Phew, that hit the spot. Thanks, miss maid.”

Sayaka gave a silent bow and retreated to her position by the door.

“…Father, haven’t the servants told you to stop with the motorcycle?”

“It’s one of the few hobbies I’ve got! I had to save up for it, but I finally bought myself a new bike. Just had to take her for a spin, y’know?”

“Hahaha,” he laughed heartily.

The Kiyomiya Group is a family-run business, but in this day and age, you can’t become the company’s top executive just by being the head of the Kiyomiya family.

Still, my father is an executive at one of the group’s core companies.

His income from the company alone is substantial, and as the head of the Kiyomiya family, he should possess considerable personal assets.

So to hear he had to scrimp and save just to buy a single motorcycle… what on earth were his finances like?

“Ah, right, the reason I’m here. Simple, really. I just came from the Maritsuji residence.”

“What!?”

“Sorry I couldn’t make it to the family meeting the other day. I just… can’t really deal with Rina-san, y’know? Those Kyoto women are terrifying, amirite?”

“…Rina-san was raised here in Kantō, though, wasn’t she?”

“Was she? Well, she’s terrifying either way. Oh, thanks—perfect timing.”

Sayaka placed a refill of barley tea in front of my father.

He downed this one just as happily, draining the glass in an instant.

“Phew… And you should’ve seen the look on Rina-san’s face when she saw my bike! Ahahaha! She must think they’re such vulgar machines. What’re those people riding around in, ox-drawn carriages?”

“How should I know? You actually rode your motorcycle to the Maritsuji residence?”

The only reason this man could get away with acknowledging a child as his son and raising him without ever getting married is… in a sense, because everyone’s already given up on him.

It seems that even among the nobility, you’re bound to get an eccentric once in a while. That’s probably all there is to it.

“Oh, right. I went ahead and finalized the engagement with Maritsuji Anri-chan.”

“Excuse me…?”

I shot up from the sofa.

“W-Wait a minute! My situation with the Maritsuji family is—”

“It doesn’t matter what you say—the engagement isn’t stopping. You knew that, right?”

“W-Well, yeah, but—”

“It’s not a bad arrangement, so I went ahead and settled things. Of course, nobody gets married straight out of high school these days, so it’ll still be several years off.”

“Father, just hold on—”

“Whether you have a lover, Keiji, or even if you have a child with another woman, the fact that you’re marrying Maritsuji Anri-chan will not change. Nothing you say now can make so much as a ripple in a decision made by both families.”

“…You’ve really done it now, Father.”

I sighed and sank back onto the sofa.

Just as I’d told Sayaka earlier, I hadn’t expected the engagement talks to stop.

But I never thought he’d go and get it confirmed so easily—

There’s a world of difference between engagement talks being in progress and the engagement being set in stone.

“I did cause my own share of trouble in the past, after all. If the head of the Kiyomiya family were to go without a formal marriage for two generations in a row, the branch families wouldn’t just stay silent.”

“They won’t stay silent even if I succeed you.”

“You’ll use the Maritsuji family’s backing to shut them up. Simple, right? I chatted a bit with Anri-chan, and funnily enough, the girl seems to have taken a real shine to you, Keiji. She’s ‘head over heels,’ as they say in the old classics.”

“Never mind the insults—instead of me using the Maritsuji for backing, aren’t you the one boxing me in?”

“Hey, I’m doing my bare minimum as the current head of the Kiyomiya family. I want you to hurry up and take over the house so I can take off on a round-the-world motorcycle tour.”

“Living the high life, aren’t you.”

“It’s a promise I made with Honoka. A long time ago, we talked about traveling the world together.”

“…”

“I can’t fulfill that promise anymore, but hey, if I travel with her picture, I can say I’ve at least kept, what, ten percent of it, right? Wouldn’t you agree, miss maid?”

“I’m afraid… I wouldn’t know about such things.”

Even being suddenly pulled into the conversation, Sayaka answered without a hint of distress.

And this was a story about her own mother, too—she was handling it remarkably well.

Despite how shaken she had been earlier.

“Oh, right. You’re Hisaka Tsukasa-san’s daughter, aren’t you, miss maid?”

“…! You’re very well-informed.”

“Well, the Kiyomiya Family Old Manor is my property. I hear things about the staff here.”

“I see…”

It looked like Sayaka was barely managing to keep her composure.

Honestly, I was surprised too, but on second thought, it made sense.

It wasn’t that someone who frequented the old estate had leaked the information—my father had likely sent someone to identify Sayaka and investigate her background.

For the Kiyomiya family, that would be a simple task.

“Thank you for maintaining such a needlessly large mansion, miss maid. I was indebted to Hisaka-san back in the day, too. Well, mostly Honoka was.”

“Not at all. I, too… am indebted to Kiyomiya Keiji-san.”

“He’s not working you to the bone for peanuts, is he? Ah, and actually—I’m the one who gave you your name.”

“……!”

This time, Sayaka’s composure clearly cracked.

I had wondered about it myself before—whether Sayaka’s name had been formed by taking a character from ‘Kiyomiya.’

“Hisaka-san came to me and asked me to name you. It felt presumptuous, but I took a character from our family name for you. How do you like it?”

“Yes… Thank you for such a fine name.”

Sayaka was already regaining her composure.

And this was, without a doubt, her first time meeting her biological father.

And on the father’s side—he had to know that this maid was his own daughter.

“And one more thing, if I’m being honest.”

“What would that be?”

“You were about to have your scholarship status revoked, weren’t you? I know it was presumptuous of me, but since you’re the daughter of the same Hisaka-san who served our family so well, I was planning to cover your tuition for the time being.”

“What…?”

Sayaka let out a bewildered cry, while I was too shocked to speak.

That whole mess with the scholarship spot… an adult had been trying to resolve it behind the scenes?

“But then Chairman Toyohara contacted me to say ‘the matter has been resolved,’ so I put a stop to it. You paid it, didn’t you, Keiji?”

“Ah, yeah… I did.”

That old geezer Toyohara never said a word about this.

These middle-aged men are all good for nothing…

“I paid it as a contract fee to hire Sayaka as a maid. There’s no problem with that, is there?”

“Of course not. I’m already giving you more than enough to run the estate, and yet I hear you’ve only got one servant, one freeloader, and one adult who occasionally drops by unannounced?”

“…Just how much do you know, Father?”

“You can hire more if you’d like. But still, well done, Keiji.”

“Huh?”

Why was my father smiling so cheerfully?

“You saved a cute maid from a tight spot. And even if it was your parents’ money, it was good of you to just whip out a sum like that. I wasn’t sure if you were a son I could count on, but it looks like you’ve got potential.”

“…So that’s it. Shelling out a million yen doesn’t hurt my own wallet, after all.”

“Even so, it’s not an amount you can just give away to someone. Especially for a high schooler. You might not realize it, but that’s not something a normal person can do.”

“…”

He might be right.

I’d handed Sayaka that bundle of a million yen on impulse, but looking back, it was an incredibly bold move.

It was entirely possible that Sayaka could have taken that million and simply disappeared.

“You must love her that much, huh? This maid of yours.”

“N-No, I’m not loved! I’m nothing more than an object for his carnal desires!”

“What in the world are you spouting, Sayaka?!”

“Ah…”

This was all a complete mess.

Wasn’t this supposed to be a touching family reunion?

“Ahaha, I see. So that’s what’s been going on.”

My father laughed, genuinely amused, then suddenly stood and began to walk away.

“Look. As the head of the Kiyomiya family, it would be a great help to me if you and Anri-chan were to marry. But, as a father… I’d be delighted if our maid—if Sayaka—were to become my ‘daughter.'”

With only those words, he opened the door and left the living room.

“…He left rather abruptly, without so much as a proper goodbye.”

“My father’s always like this. Our relatives were always scolding him for his lack of manners.”

Not that he cared—he’d just coolly ignore their nagging and go about his business.

And today was no different—he just said what he wanted to say and took off.

“I wonder if my existence was acknowledged…”

“As a maid, maybe… He’s such a clueless old man.”

“You’re one to talk. You’ve been playing dumb this whole time, hiding your true talents.”

“My talons are still being sharpened. Haah… I’m completely exhausted.”

“You must be tired, Keiji-kun.”

“Nah, you look more tired than me, Sayaka. I mean, that old geezer is—”

“Don’t say it.”

Sayaka’s expression went blank as she shook her head.

It seems that no matter how you slice it, even if her father sees her as his ‘daughter,’ Sayaka herself has absolutely no intention of acknowledging herself as a child of the Kiyomiya family.

And to my father, the child of the Kiyomiya family is me, and me alone.

Sayaka is the daughter of a servant, and now the maid of the old estate—

The problem of my and Sayaka’s switched places is still a long way from being resolved.