Interlude 3: Patrick
Now that Patrick had completed a short visit to his home—a trip the likes of which he hadn’t been able to do for quite a while—he was back in Dolkness County, spending his day no differently than he’d done in the several months that had come before. His main job was to assist Yumiella in her duties as countess, but as she could handle paperwork and such with no issue, he focused his efforts primarily on going around and clearing up the misconceptions hovering about the county’s new, easily misunderstood owner. In fact, he was doing just that at the current moment. Today’s audience was made up of three maids and two clerks, the latter of whom worked directly under Daemon.
“Despite how she comes off, Yumiella’s pretty mild-mannered,” Patrick casually told the group of servants. “Think about it—you’ve never seen her angry, have you?”
One maid appeared to recall something. “The other day, I accidentally dropped some dinnerware,” she began. “While I was preparing to clean up the mess, Lady Yumiella stepped on a broken piece of a plate...barefoot.”
All the servants went pale, imagining Yumiella’s bleeding foot. Patrick, meanwhile, had to hold back a sigh at the new addition to Yumiella’s strange behaviors.
“But she didn’t reprimand me at all,” the maid continued. “In fact, she worried for my safety before her own.”
At least one of the servants was able to see how kind Yumiella was through this incident, Patrick thought, pressing a hand to his forehead.
“Sorry about that,” he told the maid. “I’ll tell her to quit walking around the estate barefoot.”
“No, no!” the maid cried, her eyes going wide. “You don’t have to do that. And there’s no need for you to apologize, Sir Patrick.”
I suppose being barefoot inside her own mansion isn’t so horrible a habit, Patrick mused, accepting the maid’s advice with a nod. Even Yumiella probably has enough common sense not to forgo footwear when outdoors.
“Anyway, as I was saying, Yumiella doesn’t get upset very often. And even if she does, she would never do anything to hurt anyone. She even let the previous Count Dolkness remain in residence at the Dolkness mansion in the Royal Capital.”
“What?!” one of the servants gasped. “When I heard Lady Yumiella was taking over, I was sure he’d been killed...”
Patrick’s sigh broke loose, coming out long, deep, and aggrieved. So, on top of everything else, her succession of her father’s title is misunderstood as well. Maybe if I tell them a story from our time at the Academy, I can help them understand her a bit better.
“Look,” Patrick said, “I admit she’s a little...okay, quite strange, but if you look past that, there’s really nothing else to see. Just because she tends to remain expressionless, that doesn’t mean she’s angry. If you look closely, you’ll find that her expression actually changes a lot.”
“Does that mean you can tell what sort of emotion Lady Yumiella is feeling from her face?” one of the other servants asked.
Patrick nodded. “Yeah. I admit that sometimes I’m at a loss as to what’s going on inside her head, but it’s pretty easy for me to tell if she’s happy or upset.”
A glimmer filled the three maids’ eyes. “Do you think...that’s because you two are a couple?”
Patrick hid a sudden rush of exasperation. As it turned out, the maids adored sweet stories of romance—such tales were their favorite treat, especially if they concerned Patrick. From what he’d heard around the estate, it seemed he’d gained himself a reputation for having a certain “charming calmness” about him, even though he was still young. In addition, the servants of the mansion seemed to have grown fond of him, due to the consideration and lack of prejudice he showed toward them.
“I don’t know if I’d say that,” Patrick responded. “I’d say the real reason I can tell her expressions apart is...well, because I like her.”
The three maids let out shrieks of excitement. Patrick remained calm, but internally he’d begun to grow irritated at the conversation’s romantic turn.
Part of the issue was that, while he could go on forever about Yumiella’s escapades, Patrick found himself running out of conversation topics when asked for romantic stories about the two of them. Alas, the servants were all looking at him expectantly now, so Patrick began desperately combing through his recent memories for an occasion that would work. He finally decided to rest on something that had happened just before he and Yumiella had left for the Mark of Ashbatten.
“Do you all remember how Yumiella broke a window before we took our trip?” Patrick asked. “The truth is, she did that because she got too embarrassed and overwhelmed at the romantic ambience between us. She’s cute like that.”
Patrick knew the situation could appear different to others, depending on how they looked at it. They could take Yumiella’s abrupt departure as her running away from him. Thankfully, the five servants he was speaking to had all taken the story as Patrick had presented it—Patrick could tell by the shy grins that had taken over all their faces.
Yumiella truly is adorable, but shattering a pane of glass just to get away from me was a bit much, Patrick mused, his thoughts driving him to glance through a nearby window, whereupon...he made eye contact with an upside-down girl whose black hair was hanging upended around her face.
He froze for a moment, taking this sight in, then calmly turned back to face the three maids and two clerks who stood before him. They seemed to have somehow failed to notice the horrifying sight on the other side of the glass, so he casually encouraged them to be on their way.
“L-Let’s call it a day here,” he said, voice coming out a bit rough. “That story was a little embarrassing for me too.”
“Oh! I apologize for taking up your time,” one of the maids said in a rush. “Still, if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear stories about Lady Yumiella again.”
“And I would be delighted to tell them,” Patrick said, nodding.
To his relief, the servants then left the room, one after another. After confirming that the door was fully shut behind them, Patrick opened the window.
“Hey, Yumiella,” he said. “You mind telling me what you’re up to now?”
Still dangling upside down, she replied, “I was just observing. Since, you know, I happened to see someone who fit in better than me in my own home.”
Eyeing his fiancée, Patrick couldn’t help but shiver slightly. He had to admit it was quite unsettling to look out a window and see a curtain of black hair, accompanied only by an upside-down human shown from the neck up.
Bumping into her like this is nearly as scary as bumping into Ryuu in the middle of the night, Patrick thought, a tad horrified.
By this point, it seemed Yumiella had grown tired of her perch. She swung her upper body, which Patrick was relatively sure was dangling off the side of the mansion’s roof, and threw herself through the second-story window into the room.
Patrick choked at the move, then sighed. “You know, if you stop acting so strangely, you’ll be able to fit in better.”
Yumiella’s head tilted slightly to the side. “What qualifies as acting strange? Climbing onto the roof, peeking into this room, or entering from the window?”
“All of the above.”
This triggered a Yumiella rant, of which Patrick heard little beyond several ridiculous declarations, one of them being that roof climbing should not be considered weird. It wasn’t that he was disinterested—it was just that certain thoughts had risen to the forefront of his mind in a way that he couldn’t ignore.
I know I told the servants Yumiella ran away from me out of embarrassment, but...is that really true? Is it possible that she’s just not interested in romance? Or that she might consider me only as a friend?
While Patrick usually acted calm and composed, these thoughts sent him into a whirlwind of anxiety. It didn’t help that he hadn’t done anything romantic with Yumiella even after they’d gotten engaged. He needed some kind of confirmation of her feelings—just one word would be enough.
Driven by a rush of feeling, Patrick asked urgently, “Hey, we’re a couple, right?”
“What?!” Yumiella gasped, stiffening. “I-I mean, wh-why are you asking m-me that...?”
Patrick’s shoulders drooped. All I wanted was confirmation, but I couldn’t even get that! he thought in despair. And that answer...it sounds like she’s putting it all on me, like she doesn’t even realize that relationships are mutual agreements made between individuals.
Seeing the disappointment exuding from every pore of Patrick’s body, Yumiella burst out, “U-Umm! Well, uh, that’s... We’re engaged, you know?! Th-That means you’re my fiancé, right? And that means we’re getting married in the near future, so...”
“You do want to marry me, right?”
There was a short pause. Then, the sound of shattering glass.
“Farewell!”
Yumiella had escaped out of the window once again.
“Hey, Yumiella!” Patrick yelled, aggrieved. “Not the window...again...”
But she was already gone. Still...Patrick recalled Yumiella’s flustered face before she’d thrown herself through the glass. Her cheeks had been tinted a light pink, which was scarlet by her standards.
Patrick let out a loud cackle of a laugh, which eased into a sigh. “She really is something...”
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