Vol 1 Chapter 1 (1/2)
The Formless Maid Cometh! Ia! Ia! Ia!
For better or for worse, in exactly three minutes my life had just taken a dramatic turn.
”You... you are our Master, are you not?”
The voice echoed like a flute from my bath, which I had thought was unoccupied. Before I could react, my neck was being gently, yet forcefully gripped by two long arms coming out of the bathtub.
”How we've waited to meet you, Master! You are our first Master in 155,000,000 years!”
Suddenly, the face of a cute girl emerged, coming so close to my own that our noses were nearly touching. Her glimmering eyes peered intently at my face. Her eyes were an emerald green that would have gotten me quite interested in any other situation.
”You have come! From countless eternities beneath the frozen soil, we have awaited your arrival! Let us stay together indefinitely!”
The girl, on the verge of tears, with all the earnesty of a dog encountering its long-lost owner, snuggled her cheeks against mine over and over. I struggled beneath the weight of this unusually powerful girl's arms, and was unable to move. The phrase ”there was nothing I could have done” floated involuntarily through my head.
My name is Tooru Araizawa. Every day, I leave my home in Tokyo's Ninagawa Ward and go to Misukawa Private School, where I am a 10th grader. Living alone at this age has given me a bad habit of excess reading. Other than those non-standard features, I'm a pretty ordinary student. I plan to become a civil servant after graduating and preserve my ordinary lifestyle.
How many things can you do in three minutes?
1/20th of an hour, 180 seconds. The second hand goes around three times. For example, most of the instant ramen sold at supermarkets and convenience stores takes three minutes to go from raw to cooked.
Light travels 300,000 kilometers per second. In 3 minutes, therefore, light can travel 54 million kilometers. It's hard to plop an image of that into your head, but the distance from Earth to Mars, for comparison, is about 54 million kilometers.
Only three minutes. But at the same time, three minutes.
From today to tomorrow, tomorrow to the next day, things don't change from day to day, but in three minutes everything can change dramatically. For example, what occurred in my body on this day.
”Oi oi oi, calm down, fraülein!”
Why fraülein?, I asked myself, surprised. I must have panicked.
”Okay, okay, I understand your feelings. You've been waiting a hundred million years or whatever, but I understand so please let go of me!”
With a reluctant air, the girl released her hands from my throat.
Emerald green. That was my first impression of her. It wasn't just the color of her eyes-- her hair, the touch of which confirmed through physical contact the mess I had come into, was also a vibrant, glossy green. And above all, the one-piece she was dressed in was the color of her eyes, like a forest floor.
And one more thing. Her lace-rimmed hat, the pure white French cuffs on her sleeves, and the frilled ap.r.o.n covering her chest, made her occupation as clear as any story. That's right -- it was unmistakable. This uniform was the working uniform of a servant in a 19th century upper cla.s.s Victorian British home, that is, a maid uniform!
I'd seen it on TV and in manga, but this was my first time seeing it in person.
”Are you a... maid?”
That was my first time meeting Tekeli-chan.
Let's wind the clock back about thirty minutes.
It was the first day of j.a.pan's only vacation week, in early May. My sole objective for Golden Week was to get through the unread books I had verheffend [Dutch: ”piled up”]. Embracing the rush of exhaustion after an all-night spree spent reading the Norwegian private eye Sigerson's travelogue of the Himalayas, I coveted a respite in my warm futon. I would have been pleased to drift into dreamland without further interruption, but the untimely sound of the doorbell forbade such luxury.
Arising bleary-eyed, I could not say I was in the best of humor. But when I opened the door to the sight of a deliveryman panting while s.h.i.+fting the weight of a large crate against his chest, I was unable to maintain my sullen expression.
”Sign here... great, thanks.” The deliveryman lowered the heavy-looking crate to the ground and walked away, revealing on his back a logo not often seen in my neighborhood. During Golden Week, only a truly reckless person would request that the s.h.i.+pping company deliver a package in the early morning. But when I saw that it was an international package, there was no need to confirm the sender.
”...dammit, Dad, you woke me up on purpose, didn't you.”
Just in case, I examined the origin address, and saw the name ”Fremantle”. An Australian town, where packages from j.a.pan's Antarctic base pa.s.sed through.
”Let's see...” I examined the box. It was the size of a large airplane carry-on and covered in ”Keep Cold” stickers. I undid the tie and cut open the packaging with an Exacto knife.
As the package fell open, I felt a blast of cool air. On top of an enormous ice pack, the words ”To My Son” were scribbled in disagreeable handwriting on an envelope, which I swiftly enshrined in a plastic bag. If I'm going to be encountering something that dredges up ill feelings from the c.o.c.kles of my heart, preparation like this was essential. I let out a deep sigh. I'd been burdened with packages like this before, and generally, when I didn't deal with them quickly, something bad was bound to happen.
For example... no, let's not go there.
Removing the letter from the plastic bag -- which was written not on any sort of stationery, but on something that looked like a page out of a field notebook -- I opened up, and read a short, simple message. Or, rather, a command.
Dear son, here is a present from your father.
Place the contents in hot water for three minutes.
Your father is always watching you.
I wanted to dispose of the letter after the ”Dear Son” but that was impossible. The ”your father is always watching” line meant that if I didn't do as ordered, I wouldn't be able to count on my weekly allowance. This I knew from long experience.
No more allowance meant a lot to a minor, who was unable to seek part-time employment to cover his daily living expenses. In fact, it's the worst kind of threat I could receive.
My future plan was simple. I couldn't care less about Dad's reputation as a world-famous archaeologist, but I aim to escape economic servitude to his inept personality, and achieve a peaceful life employed as a civil servant.
To achieve that goal, there was only one option available to me at the moment. I must follow my father's incomprehensible orders. Ages ago, I figured out what the consequences were for asking, ”what?” or ”why?”
The sink is too small. I'll have to carry it to the tub. Heaving a big sigh, I violently stuffed my father's letter into my pocket, and put my strength into lifting the crate.
”...This thing is heavy!!”
It was about as heavy as a person, and I couldn't lift the whole thing myself. Four sacks of rice -- roughly 40 kilos.[metric 1]
Somehow I carried the crate into the tub. Time to see what exactly these precious contents were.
I removed the ice pack from the crate, and encountered... what appeared at first glance to be... a large rice cake.
Before my eyes was an enormous agglomeration of ”something”, an ovaloid about 80 centimeters [metric 2] in diameter.
I lightly touched the face covered in frost, and it responded to my fingers with stiff but gummy wobbling. Below the frost was a mixture of green and black, with spots of red and yellow mixed in. Where the light hit it, I could see various bright colors -- to be poetic, iridescence. To be somewhat less poetic, it gave me the impression of a film of gasoline on stagnant water.
Deciding I was as ready as I'd ever be, I turned on the hot water over this Mysterious Substance X. I turned the taps to the heat of the human body.
The covering of frost which had given the object its white appearance melted away under the hot water, and the iridescent sparkling increased. A nasty chill went down my spine.
Feeling somewhat grossed out, I turned off the tap and put the cover over the bathtub as soon as the hot water reached the rim. Now, I had to wait three minutes. Whatever was going to come out of this, I thought, it would certainly not be anything decent. This was the extent of my thoughts.
Thud!!
A loud crack interrupted my contemplation. It was like a hammer hitting wood or something, and it was right near me.
Thud! Kkrrrk -- krrk -- krrrdrdd --!!
The sound went from cracking to scratching. Now it had transformed into a dull sound like wood getting dented. The source, obviously, was inside my bathtub.
Dddddddddd!!
Place the contents in hot water for three minutes.
And so exactly three minutes went by. At that instant, the din vanished, and the room became so silent it made me doubt my memory. The bathroom area was blanketed in silence.
Gulp. The sound of me swallowing echoed in my ears.
Nothing was flying out of the tub, and I didn't hear anything inside it.
Well, I couldn't just sit there like an idiot. Whether standing before an unknown door, or faced with a fruit of unknown taste at the supermarket, the human thing to do was to do what I did next.
Knock on it.
”Knock-knock, who's there?”
Taking care not to make a big sound, I lightly rapped on the bathtub cover.
”h.e.l.lo, welcome to j.a.pan. Anyone in there?”
I carried on the joke pointlessly, but there was no reply. One thing left to do.
”Guess I've got to see for myself!”
Carefully, carefully... With the pointer finger of my left hand, I lifted up the lid of the bathtub ever so slightly. But there were no toxic smells a.s.saulting my nostrils. Having expected something horrid, I breathed a sigh of relief. But this was no time for carelessness. This was, after all, a ”present” from Father.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I flung open the lid.
And:
”You... you are our Master, are you not?”
In other words, that brings us up to speed.
In other words, that brings us up to speed.
”Are you a... maid?”
I deserved a big question mark on top of my head to accompany such a manga-esque expression. But now the girl, who had been radiating joy, suddenly looked ill at ease.
Thump-thump. My heart fluttered at the sight of such a quickly changing face. The girl, who looked a bit older than me, had big, round, amiable eyes that looked ready to droop down, and her slightly developed lips betrayed an older sister kind of quality. In short, I fancied her.
”Um, uh... does our outfit not suit your tastes?”
Who was this ”we”? This girl used the plural form to refer to herself. I liked it, but it was a little off. Although, of the two of us, I'm surely the more confused one.
”No, there's nothing weird about it! It's, uh, a very nice maid outfit.”
”Yes... in our preparations to serve a human master, we spared no effort in our embodiment, and we were informed of the ancient grace of this traditional costume!”
My heart fluttered, and I shook a little. I wonder why?
”Co... co-su-chuu-mu...”
Someone was pa.s.sing this girl bad information. I had a feeling I knew who it was, and felt ashamed to be of the same blood with the perpetrator.
”Uhm, well, let's leave that as it is for now. How about you get out of the bath before your costume gets wet?”
I was totally bewildered and wasn't really sure what I was saying. At any rate, I was really thinking a body that was able to reach out and grab me from its position in the bathtub across the room must actually be quite soft. The image of a body stretched out like rubber flew before my eyes for a second, causing me to panic and deny it.
”Dear, dear, how improper of us. We are very sorry. In our eagerness to be of service after 1,550,000 years, we leapt out before having 'formed'... please wait a little while longer.”
Although I had just heard a turn of phrase which was difficult to ignore, the unnatural phenomenon which unfolded before my eyes completely subsumed my powers of comprehension. As I watched, the maid summoned up her energy with a deep breath, and put her hands to her chest in a pose like prayer.
Dgg!! Ggaa!! Bk--!!
The noise from before was again hitting my ears. At that time, ripples like waves appeared around her chest, and spread outward to cover her entire body. I wasn't sure if I believed what I was seeing.
Soon enough, the sounds settled down, and the emerald green eyes opened and turned to face me with a pure, childlike smile.
”Thank you for waiting. Our name, to render it in the human vocal range, is 'Tekeli-li-teke-teke-li-lu-tekeli-teke-li-la-lu-la-tekeli-teke-tekeli-li-lu-la-li-tekeli-li'. Your father, who s.h.i.+pped us from the Antarctic so that we might serve you, called us 'Miss Tekeli'. You are welcome to do so as well, Master.”
Miss Tekeli.
The girl by that name bowed silently and reverently towards me.
At last, the lower half of her body had entered my sphere of vision. The one-piece dress ran down to her ankles, where it met a pair of black stockings.
As far as unusual experiences went, today was definitely one that tested the limits of what was possible in any place or time.
In my head, the limited amount of experience and knowledge I had collected as a tenth grader presented itself as a short list of commands, which I, the player, needed to choose from.
BOLDLY CONFRONT
RUN AWAY
MAKE A NOTE
TALK
When taking the reckless first option, I would usually have saved first, but that was not an option here. The second option was the same.
The third option would probably cause some sort of new developments, but I had a feeling it was a dead-end course. ”Oh, this horrifying, blasphemous vision creeps steadily towards me. Its macabre, formless tentacles entangle themselves around my feet, and already do I feel myself being pulled into the unseen darkness. The end is near for me, but I pray someone might see this letter...” and a letter like that would be found in an empty house.
If there were multiple scenarios, the number of options might increase upon replay, but in an actual human life, there was no save point or reset b.u.t.ton.
To recap, an ovaloid substance sent to me by my father, after I added hot water, became a girl in a maid uniform. Her att.i.tude was friendly, and she presented no danger to me.
Even in such an unusual situation, there was only one conviction I have. That is, this was all the work of my father. The mental security of that conviction caused me to calm down a little.
In my peaceful everyday life, there was only one unusual circ.u.mstance- a stain, if you will. That was my father, and all the various dangerous happenings that surrounded him. But up until now, none of those occurrences had put me in physical danger. This much was certain.
I chose the fourth option. This self-proclaimed Miss Tekeli seemed capable of basic conversation in j.a.panese, and they do say, ”talk it out and you'll understand.” Although I guess the people who said stuff like that are dead now.
”Well, now that you're here, let's go talk in, errrm, the living room!”
”Okay!”
Having a straight talk with this happy-looking girl seemed like it would have some destructive power. My heart pounded.
I'd forgotten something essential. In the Araizawa clan, our greatest weakness is our complete lack of cleanliness.
Leaving the bathroom for the kitchen, one pa.s.ses through the living room. But to get there, you must walk a fine line as precipitous as a cliff.
Let's explain a little more about this dreadful sight.
First, a mountain of dirty dishes waited to be fed into the dishwasher in the neighboring room. Surrounding this were used-up packages of instant curry and other pre-processed food products. Alongside the bundles of old newspapers and junk mail, a collection of magazine back numbers was being built up between the living room and the doorway. And all of the unread hardcover and softcover new editions that carefully surrounded all of this junk allowed me easy access to whatever I pleased.
It's not so much a house as a storeroom -- or what one might refer to as a ”jungle”.
Miss Tekeli observed the situation, clucking her tongue.
”Your father's room in the Antarctic was something, but Master's house is even more. When it comes to cleaning, you're just like your father, Master.”
”It's not so much uncleanliness. I've got everything I need on hand, I just haven't arranged it well enough. Do things when they need to get done, right? So--”
So don't compare me to my father! I wanted to say, but those words wouldn't come out.
”--so I was thinking this week would be the perfect time to clean up,” I heard myself saying. ”And I was planning to do it today, but then your package arrived...”
Now I'm just making excuses. I have no obstacles in my life, so my room's a mess. There's a big difference between ”dirty” and ”messy”.
When I call over friends, they don't seem to come back afterwards, but I prefer it that way.
Even so, it's not something that I could just calmly show to a girl. Her true colors were not yet clear, but this girl was quite cute -- and it was mentally bearable for me, for her to know my shameful side.
”Master. With your permission, could we be allowed to clean this room as our first duty? That is what we came here for, after all. Please, by all means leave it to us! Service is our highest priority!”
Miss Tekeli clapped her hands together with the force of a pro batter.
”Master.” ”Service.” ”First duty.” In other words, as her appearance implied, Father had sent me a ”maid” -- I had been bestowed with an a.s.sistant.
Father's intentions aside, to have this suddenly arrived guest -- whatever the details were, this girl was still a ”guest” in my house -- to have this guest demand to clean my room was ridiculous. I opened my mouth to object, but she was faster.
”We'll take care of the first floor, so please retire to the second floor and relax, Master.”
The fast-talking Miss Tekeli spun me around with surprising force and compelled me physically to the bottom of the staircase.
Her undeniable power withstood objections, and I was forced to allow my guest to clean my room. I couldn't say I was totally disappointed.
Glad to be leaving the first floor behind, I took a last look at the packages and trash strewn around the floor before heading up the stairs to my room. I managed to keep the area around my bunk bed clean, but otherwise, this room was not hugely different from the first floor. I carefully maneuvered through the room, and reached for my cell phone on the desk -- then stopped. I had half a mind to call my father who had arranged this surprise and interrogate him about this girl, but in the end, my feelings for Miss Tekeli won out by far.
My heart leaping with intellectual excitement, I turned around to face the stairs. A maid of unclear ident.i.ty, venturing into an unmapped jungle! Would she be able to penetrate those most secluded regions?
Slowly and quietly, as if to peek in on the swan-maiden at her weaving,[2] I tiptoed back to the stairs... and, seeing an unimaginable scene, was at a loss for words. By some inconceivable means, in the mere s.p.a.ce of me going up the staircase, the packages and trash had disappeared entirely. What's more, both the stairway and the floor were sparking clean.
Peering into the living room, I saw an even more surprising scene. I almost wanted to blurt out ”Sorry, I'm in the wrong house” and walk out the door. My mess of miscellaneous packages and trash, which I had resigned to leave as ”thus shall it always be”, had vanished here, too, and the flooring had become visible beneath my feet. My apartment hadn't looked like this since a family of four lived here ten years ago.
It felt oddly like the room had become bigger.
As for where all the trash could have possibly gone, it seemed that the mess of weeds on the concrete veranda had been clipped, and trash bags piled up in a corner, with other sundries crammed into cardboard boxes.
”Ah, she moved it all out to the porch, huh?” But for a single person to do this in such a short time...!
For her to have moved all those materials was no easy task. It was beyond mastery -- this was clearly of an occult order. What sort of magic did she possess?
”Te~teteketeke, tekeririn♪ Tekete, tekete, te~keririn♪”
I heard a gentle voice from within the living room, with a melody I felt like I'd heard somewhere before. Mysterious words, like the sound of a flute.
This was my father's library, with neatly lined up bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling. To my father, this library was richer than a university study, more captivating than a used science fiction bookstore, and had every kind of book he needed. By raiding this library ever since I started reading literature, I became a regular bibliomaniac.
”Miss Tekeli?”
”Yes?”
Tekeli's green hair dazzled as if tinged with phosph.o.r.escence.
In the light of the sun streaming in through the library's window, opened for the first time in several years, Tekeli's green hair dazzled as if tinged with phosph.o.r.escence. In her breathtakingly white hands, a notebook and ballpoint pen. It seemed she was conscientiously making an index of the books as she arranged them.
In the brighter than usual library, the ordinary smell of mildew was being blown away by the outside air. Father's favorite stately desk was spick and span, and the leather chair seemed altogether usable.
”We're very sorry, Master. We've been much too slow.”
Miss Tekeli seemed a little downhearted, as if I was about to bust out and yell ”what took you so long, you worthless maid?”
”We still have to make an index for all the lovely books in this library!” she lamented. ”And if we don't dry them out once in a while, the paper will get moldy! And we still have to double-check everything that was out on the floor...”
”Don't be so hard on yourself. That's too much work for one person, let me help too--”
”Out of the question, Master! You don't need to do anything. Your father sent us all the way from Antarctica to you so that we might help you with all our heart. If we made you do the work, we wouldn't be able to look him in the eye!”
She was dead serious. My heart skipped a beat again to hear such sincere devotion.
”You are too kind, Master. Your father was very kind to us in the Antarctic, too. It's another fine point of resemblance between father and son.”
”Oh, gimme a break! Stop comparing me to that guy!”
This time I couldn't stop myself from blurting out the words. Miss Tekeli seemed a little surprised to hear me raise my voice, and stared me in the eye.
”Master, it seems you are not too fond of your father.”
But she went back to a smile.
”But even though you are father and son, it's been a long time since you've met. We are certain if you could meet again and talk things over, you would reach an understanding.”
She had the att.i.tude of an older sister gently looking after her brother, and I felt a little embarra.s.sed. It seemed that Miss Tekeli could not be persuaded to think of my father as anything other than a wonderful person.
”Oh yes! It's nearly time for tea. Just a moment, please. We just need to sweep the dust from the study and we'll get things ready shortly.”
I quickly found myself in the hallway; her magic at work again. How on Earth was Miss Tekeli able to render the stairs and floor spotless in such a short time?
Telling me to wait outside, Miss Tekeli returned to the study. I turned around to look, and saw that she had once again summoned up her energy with an ”Nnnnn...” and her body was again starting to s.h.i.+mmer with iridescence.
Her green hair, her dark maid uniform and white ap.r.o.n, and those pure white hands, took on the iridescent s.h.i.+mmer of that sphere, and--
”Hyaa!!”
With a cute squeal, Miss Tekeli's body transformed into a large, iridescent ball. The ball wobbled here and there like Jell-O, and now began to expand.
The iridescent ”something” that had been Miss Tekeli just a second ago now expanded outwards with immense speed until the entire study had become a cube of Jell-O. Having taken over all corners of the study, the Jell-O now swallowed up its contents whole.
Once again, I was at a loss for words. I don't remember clearly, but I think I staggered a little.
But there is one thing I do remember faintly. I thought this iridescent agglomeration was extremely pretty.
I reached out my hand to touch it.
< master,=”” please=”” don't!=””>>
I was surprised to hear her voice.
”M--Miss Tekeli, is that you?”
I involuntarily pulled back my hand. I couldn't give you a reason for it, but the voice seemed to be coming from the entire wobbling cube.
”Just a minute please, Master! We have a little more cleaning to do, and then we can have some tea. Please don't touch us in the meantime!”
This time, the voice came from a source. Before my eyes, a miniature version of the top half of Miss Tekeli emerged from the cube and shook her finger at me, resembling her in the finest details except for being half size.
Before my eyes, a miniature version of the top half of Miss Tekeli emerged from the cube
I stood there a while. The iridescent jelly, which had expanded to fill the study, discharged something with a blubbery plop. This was a gray sphere the size of a tennis ball, which had the appearance of the ”pellets” excreted by wild birds such as owls and made of bones, wings, scales, and insect parts which they couldn't digest.
That I could watch such an abnormal event as this and strike upon a dropping of knowledge[3] from an ill.u.s.trated encyclopedia of natural history is a testament to the severity of my bibliomania.
After this pa.s.sed, I realized a profound fact which had hitherto escaped conscious notice.
This was the unavoidable fact that Miss Tekeli was not human.
Yes, no matter how cute she was or how good she looked in a maid costume, her original form was that iridescent sphere of ”something” which was s.h.i.+pped to my doorstep in an ice pack.
Since it's important, I will say it again. Miss Tekeli is not a human.