Volume 1 - CH 2

The world is so monotonous — is what the girl, Mizunami Ritsuko, honestly believed at the time.

Born into a wealthy family and kind parents, Ritsuko lived a comfortable life wanting for nothing. She was also a naturalborn genius; by the age of six, her intellect rivalled the adults around her.

Furthermore, she excelled in the arts: she once painted then anonymously submitted a piece that took first place; she mastered her first musical instrument within an hour of learning it; and she attracted birds just by singing.

Ritsuko was also an expert in programming, and others would rely on her for first aid — such a child showed off all the ways she was better than an adult. In short, Ritsuko was an unprecedented genius that would go down in history.

But it was by that very same genius trait that Ritsuko began losing interest in the world.

This was a girl who could do anything better than the average person, a girl unfamiliar with struggle and failure; but without hardship, she could not feel accomplishment, and without a feeling of triumph, praise and admiration rang hollow.

Competition within her age group was nonexistent, so what did it matter if she were better than her peers? Of course that was not to say no betters existed; on the contrary, there were many others better. However, these betters were all much older than Ritsuko, and she felt nothing having understood her inferiority to be a natural consequence of a difference in age.

Ritsuko, having memorized superfluous knowledge, had become an overly rational girl by the tender age of six. This Ritsuko gathered her doubts and her displeasures, her joys and her sorrows, and she buried it all deep in her heart. And so gradually, Ritsuko’s world grew dull and grey.

The colors of the world began fading before the lens of her heart.

A colorless world, like that of a black-and-white movie, held little interest for a child.

— I have to live in such a dreary world.

Ritsuko seriously believed this the time… suffice to say, this was simple-minded “arrogance”.

When they discover they have a modicum of skill over another, people tend to inflate their perceived excellence. These same people eventually grow arrogant and shamelessly flaunt their superiority over those they see as inferior.

The overwhelmingly gifted Ritsuko subconsciously expressed this attitude towards her peers; despite having only her limited scope for comparison, Ritsuko has deemed everyone as inferior to herself, and her arrogance has cast the entire world in dull monochrome.

…But the frog in the well knows nothing of the sea. Regardless of her intelligence, Ritsuko was still a mere six years old. She has yet to learn, no, to be taught how truly wide and how truly deep the world is.

And that girl will soon discover the vastness of the world.

Ritsuko was at a party with her parents on that fateful day; the host of the party, her father’s business acquaintance, was an English gentleman. He seemed to be blue-blood, a first-generation noble.

The gentleman was hosting this social gathering, more of a large-scale tea party, in the gardens of a western-style mansion, his residence atop a small hill. It was here Ritsuko had a life-changing encounter.

A mysterious, enthralling existence shone its dazzling light on Ritsuko’s drab and colorless world.

“Welcome to the estate. We are pleased to receive you.”

A blonde woman wearing a white cap and apron over her black dress had come over to the table with her serving cart. She gently bent her knees while keeping a straight back as she greeted Ritsuko and her familly in fluent Japanese. Ritsuko would later learn this greeting was a “curtsy.”

The woman proceeded to describe the different teas and milk on her cart in an easily-understood way, carefully preparing the drinks after receiving each order. Even after the woman had moved on to serve other tables, Ritsuko continued watching her in curiosity.

“…Mom, who was that beautiful person?”

“Beautiful person? Oh, that’s a maid.”

“…a maid.”

Although Ritsuko was quite the knowledgeable six-year-old, this was the first time she had ever heard of maids. This was unsurprising since Ritsuko focused mostly on pure academics; while she understood the chronology of British history, she knew nothing of the culture.

According to Ritsuko’s father, the woman was a parlor maid, a type that focuses on serving guests. This woman in particular seems to have come from her home country just to serve at this party.

Ritsuko continued staring at the maid as she listened to her father’s explanation; the maid seemed to sense the intense stare, and she turned to show the anxious, embarrased Ritsuko a warm and kind smile.

— Ritsuko felt as though something inside of her snapped into place.

The maid seemed to shine against the backdrop of Ritsuko’s monotone world, standing out not because of the contrast with the dull background but because of the rich black and white of the uniform.

But that did not matter. Rather, what did matter was the overwhelming impression the maid’s existence had left on Ritsuko’s dull world.

“…she’s so pretty.”

“– ? Well, she certainly is beautiful. Oh my, would you care to explain what has got you staring so intensely, dear husband?”

“Oh no, no, it’s not what you’re thinking!”

“Fufufu, when we get home… you understand, right?

“No, wait! That wasn’t a lie! Please believe me, my darling wife!

And that was the whole story: a woman wearing a white apron over a black dress merely smiled at Ritsuko with kindness, but for Ritsuko, it was a turning point from which her world began regaining color.

“Maids… are female household servants that flourished in the late 19th century, during the Victorian era. Different types of maids handled different duties, such as kitchen maids, housemaids, and parlor maids…”

Since then, the enamored Ritsuko began learning all she could about maids, and she concentrated her overflowing talent on maid-related knowledge. Ritsuko started with basic facts and information, and then she moved on to history and origins. Along the way, she taught herself several maid-related skills and even made a child-sized maid uniform for roleplaying at home.

And her parents, aware of Ritsuko’s prior apathy, were overjoyed their daughter had found something to be passionate about, allowing her explore her hobby unrestrained.

One day, Ritsuko went to see a movie. Its title was “The Tragic Love of the Secluded Princess”.

The movie was about the highborn daughter of old English nobility. Through the course of the story, the girl, having led a sheltered life, by chance meets and falls in love with a commoner boy. The story concluded in tragedy: unable to reconcile the differences between their statuses, the two took their lives in a lovers’ suicide – a Bad End.

Suffice to say, the entire audience shed tears over the movie’s heartbreaking ending, and Ritsuko was no exception.

Seeing as the movie touched upon rather complex topics and ideas, the surrounding audience, as well as her parents, lauded Ritsuko’s apparent understanding of the story. But this was a misunderstanding.

(That was amazing.. even though the princess was trying so hard, if she didn’t have those maids…)

The heroine was a daughter of nobility, but she also had a personality that earned her the love and loyalty of her maids.

However, because they played a supporting role to the protagonist, the maids rarely appeared throughout the movie. Even so, Ritsuko, who diligently studied the expectations for a maid, could imagine the struggles they endured behind the scenes.

Mizunami Ritsuko, a six-year-old that favored function over form, was quickly becoming a bonafide maid fanatic, preferring to learn more about service than about love.

It was around this time that Ritsuko began demonstrating the full extent of her extraordinary ability to learn. Starting from her new interest, Ritsuko studied different fields far beyond the scope of her schoolwork, learning about architecture and engineering, even about astronomy down to biology by relating everything to maids. What do any of these topics have to do with maids? It was impossible to know.

Even as she entered university, Ritsuko’s love of maids had yet to begin cooling; rather, it would seem her obssessions had continued to grow over the years.

— I want to become a real maid.

But her wish would be difficult to realize. In Japan at least, it would be impossible to fulfill: modernization had long since abandoned the class system alongside radical changes to employment. Furthermore, while “maids” existed in Japan, they were more akin to simple housekeepers than to the profession of Melody wished to be.

Then what about England? Ritsuko’s mind thought of the blonde maid she encountered that fateful day.

If it’s England, then perhaps Ritsuko’s wish to become a maid may still be possible.

To that end, not much time passed before Ritsuko decided she needed to study abroad in England; in other words, she had very quickly come to this conclusion.

“Mom, dad, for the sake of becoming a maid one day, I’m going to study abroad in England!”

“Oh, is that so? I’ve heard the Big Ben is quite the tourist hotspot.”

“You sure love maids, don’t you Ritsuko? Well, have fun!”

Her carefree parents gave their immediate approval, but… they would later come to regret being so easygoing.

Having chosen not to lean on her parents for financial assistance, Ritsuko thus began saving money in preparation for her future study abroad in England. Then, at the age of twenty, Ritsuko finally arrived at the starting point.

After bidding her parents farewell, Ritsuko boarded her flight to England. As she sat waiting for take-off, Ritsuko noticed a couple taking the seats beside her.

“Excuse me. It seems we’ll be neighbors on this flight.”

“Woah, hey, let me sit next to the pretty lady! Hello there!”

“How about I let you shut up instead? I’m so sorry about him…”

They seemed to be a Japanese couple; going by their looks, the two appeared to be, at most, only slightly younger than Ritsuko.

“Fufufu, it’s no problem at all! Please don’t mind me.”

The airplane began take-off after a short while. As the flight time from japan to England would total around twelve hours, Ritsuko and her new acquaintances began talking, having found interest in one another as fellow Japanese natives.

“Is that right, you two are high school students? I’m surprised your parents allowed the two of you to travel abroad as a couple despite being so young! Are you perhaps engaged?”

” “We’re not dating!” “

The two simultaneously denied Ritsuko’s question. Ritsuko could not help but giggle at their performance.

“Fufufu, and yet the two of you are so friendly with one another!”

The girl, Asakura Anna, wrinkled her eyebrows as she shook her head repeatedly from Ritsuko’s words.

“I definitely wouldn’t want to be a couple with someone like this! Absolutely not!”

“That’s what I should be saying! In fact, I’d much rather be with someone cute, like Ritsuko-san!”

The boy, Kurita Hideki, made an unpleasant face as he denied Ritsuko’s words. But despite hearing their assertions, Ritsuko felt they were too in sync to convince her otherwise.

“Well anyway, what inspired the two of you decide to travel to England of all places?”

“It isn’t just us, to be exact. We’re actually part of a tour group specifically because of this.”

Anna then took out a video game package. The jacket illustration depicted a silver-haired girl standing among five men.

“This game is really popular among middle and high school girls right now, and anyone who bought the first edition release had a chance to win a trip to England. I was actually one of the ten to win, but another friend of mine, a massive fan of the game, came along too. Our seats are just separated.”

“As for me, I’m just the chaperone, and it was my little sister that wanted to go. But our parents didn’t want two underage girls to be traveling alone, and neither of their schedules worked out, so I was told to go. We’ve always been together like this anyway, so they probably thought it was fine.”

Hideki says, wearing a wry smile.

“I see. So that means Hideki-kun is Anna-san’s knight, right?”

” “Definitely not!” “

The two once again answered completely in sync and even matched the way they waved their hands in denial.

Ritsuko could not help but laugh after seeing their unintentional coordinated rebuttal for a second time.

For Ritsuko, who cared more for maids than for love, the true nature of the pair’s relationship remained a mystery, but she could still tell they were, at least, very close friends.

Some hours later, the lights on the plane dimmed, and the three settled under their blankets to sleep.

When they next awakened, the plane would be flying in the skies over England, and the three went to sleep with excitement lingering in their hearts.

However, the day they set foot in England would never come to pass.

The plane carrying Ritsuko and the others would disappear, remaining unfound even after six years of searching…