Vol 12 Prologue (1/2)

Prologue

“—The truth is, I cut all my ties with the Gogyou Household.”

An early afternoon during the winter vacation. The one, who entered my room with a travel bag while I was at the library, was a pretty woman— The maid of the Gogyou Household, Kaoru aka Kaorun.

She seemed to have gotten permission from my mother and said something weird like “From today on, I will live in this room. Your roommate.”, then she spoke out the earlier sentence, which made me a bit perplexed.

However, I faced Kaorun again, as I should hear out her circ.u.mstances first.

“You cut your ties with them… Just what happened? Is this one of your usual—”

jokes? I wanted to continue like that, but the sudden ringing of a cell phone overruled my voice. By the way, it wasn’t my cell phone. While I stopped my words, Kaorun pulled a cell phone from the skirt of her maid uniform and nonchalantly talked big with a straight face.

“To ill.u.s.trate it with the words of literature, my cell phone is writhing it’s body in agony and raising a lovely voice.”

“…Quite erotic. But don’t look down on literature.”

Indifferent to my weary retort, Kaorun pressed her cell phone against her ear to answer the call.

“You dare to call me here! What do you even want! Just to tell you, I never want to see your face that looks like a c.o.c.kroach smashed by a slipper anymore! And your androgyny voice only sounds like the unpleasant noise of crus.h.i.+ng a c.o.c.kroach to me right now!”

As soon as she answered the call, she put on a affected tone and enumerated insults.

“You got that? Then never call me again… Eh? You are troubled? I do not care! Do not concern yourself with me any further!”

Knitting her eyebrows displeased, Kaorun hung up animated. It was quite the snappy reply. A bit curious, I s.h.i.+fted my gaze to her cell phone.

“…Who was it?”

“A light m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts with the nickname of Shuu-kun. To my sorrow, you can also call him the eldest son of the Gogyou Household.”

“Or, your little brother.”

The eldest son of the Gogyou Household aka Shuu-kun. His full name was Gogyou Shuugo. The brother of my precious friend Gogyou Hijiri. Incidentally, it was my first time hearing about him being a light m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, but I met him numerous times in the Dojo of the Gogyou Mansion, since I was receiving my exorcist training there.

“Anyway, that were some rather harsh words there. Did you two have a fight?”

“It is not something that petty. Shuu-kun and I are currently at war.”

“That sounds terrible. Don’t tell me… that’s the reason you’re here?”

Going with the mood, I spoke out what was on my mind, whereupon Kaorun unexpected nodded firmly and replied.

“For now, I left behind a letter saying ‘I cannot endure the s.e.xual hara.s.sment from Shuu-kun every single night anymore. I shall take the liberty of cutting all ties with the Gogyou Household. Thank you for taking care of me so far. P.S.: These books are the treasure that was hidden beneath Shuu-kun’s bed. Kaoru’ as a declaration of war along with perverted books themed around maids and older sisters. Then I left the house.”

“…Stop ruining the image of your brother.”

It was nice that she called him “Shuu-kun” now, instead of “Young Master”. Their relations.h.i.+p surely had changed for the better. But she was too merciless in their quarrel.

“Could it be, the call just now was a SOS from Shuu-kun…”

“No, you are wrong. We are at war and I carelessly took the call, but Shuu-kun was happily saying: ‘I’m troubled here. Due to your letter and these perverted books, they started a family meeting!’.”

“Why happily? It’s a family meeting, right? What’s good about that?”

“Well, it was Shuu-kun that came up with the contents of the letter and surely could not suppress his excitement for the punishment time in form of a family meeting. The light m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t of our house is not just for show.”

“Hey, forget about light, that’s a serious case of masochism! Actually, what do you mean he came up with the contents? What kind of fight are you two having?”

When I doubtfully tilted my head, Kaorun smirked out of place and slowly put up her index finger.

“Okay, here is a question, s.h.i.+n.o.bu-sama. What part of my story was a lie?”

“…What’s with that mischievous face? Keep your jokes to a limit. I bet the stuff about Shuu-kun being a light m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t and coming up with the letter were a lie, right?”

“Unfortunately that was true.”

“Unfortunate alright.”

“Incidentally, the lied part was about Shuu-kun and me being at war. We are merely pretending to have a fight. I believe, his call was meant to report me that everything was going according to the plan.”

“According to the plan? What the? You two are happily playing a prank together?”

“It is not a prank this time. Technically, I am still the maid of the Gogyou Household, so I might take off a day or two, but I needed some kind of reason for a longer leave from my duties.”

It seemed she didn’t leave the house for her usual pleasantries. Kaorun quietly fixed her posture and changed her tone into a serious one.

“Truth be told, I had the desire to stay at your house again for a while now, s.h.i.+n.o.bu-sama, so I consulted with Hijiri-chan and Shuu-kun. In exchange for their cooperation, I gave Hijiri-chan my personal photo collection of you, and Shuu-kun an erotic game that I purchased online.”

“…Sorry to interrupt your earnest story, but stop bribing your younger sister and brother. Besides, even if you don’t give them a game or weird photos, they’ll help you, won’t they?”

“I wonder about that.”

Tilting her head a bit, Kaorun smiled very faintly.

“You see, Shuu-kun was messing around by saying: ‘Then let’s tell them you have a fight with me. I’ll trick Mom and Dad properly, so go and have fun. Also, I’m not doing this for you, Kaoru. I just want the erotic game. Don’t get the wrong idea’.”