房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

Zoemi woke up alone in the double bed that he obtained thanks to Moxeoni\'s generosity the day before. The black-haired boy instinctively reached to the side to grab and put on his porcelain mask, but just as he was about to put it on he stopped.

The one in his hand was already broken – it would merely cover his nose and eyes, so not the parts he actually wanted to hide.

"Haaaa..."

Zoemi scoffed and reached to the side, leaving the mask on the bedside table. As he was turning around he glanced through one of the windows to check whether the sun was already up, only to be reminded that his current room doesn\'t have windows on the east side.

"..."

The boy rubbed his eyes with annoyance and made the copy that was staying by Kierul\'s side to get up and check it for him.

...unfortunately, the sun was about to raise so it was indeed high time for an attendant to start his duties...

Zoemi would prefer to leave the preparations for his copy or even copies, but he was already feeling quite nauseous. Keeping the law of Pisces active for a long time was always making him nauseous even when the copy that he was sharing his senses with wasn\'t doing anything straining.

To lessen the side effects, Zoemi simply put his coy in Kierul\'s room on standby – merely sitting in the corner with a clear view of Kierul sleeping on her bed, the window, and the door leading to the hallway.

With that dealt with, the black-haired boy dressed up and furrowed his brows over a small bag that contained all of his material possessions.

"I should put something on my face, right? I don\'t want people to start screaming that I am some monster or something..."

Zoemi thought out loud to himself ad grabbed a large cloth handkerchief with a floral pattern that he bought one day and completely forgotten about.

With the thought that should be good enough, the boy folded it in half and tied it up around his head making sure that his exposed bones and teeth are properly hidden.

"Wow. I look like a wanna-be bandit that raided his mother\'s dresser as their first crime."

Zoemi groaned staring at his faint reflection in the window, but instead of trying to improve his looks he simply left the room going to the kitchen.

As he walked in, the kitchen was already full of hustle and bustle. The facility was separated into three parts – the storage with the ingredients that were freely accessible, the part where the attendants were individually preparing meals for their masters, and the part where the Academy employees were preparing the meals for the students without attendants. The third part was the largest and the people working there were the loudest too.

"I will need a while to get used to having so many people around me.."

"Don\'t worry, mister! It will be okay!"

Zoemi let out a deep sigh while trying to contain his reflexive need to silence the nuisance by force – but then unexpectedly someone cheered at him from behind.

And surprisingly, judging by the tone of their voice, they weren\'t sarcastic but actually honest...!

"Pardon...?"

The black-haired boy turned around curiously – he already knew that there was someone there before that person spoke up, but if he just asked without making eye contact people could start thinking about him as a weirdo.

"I also don\'t like crowds, but I got over my anxiety back in the kitchen castle so that I could be of use to his majesty the prince!"

The person who was so chirpy from the early morning turned out to be a brown-haired girl wearing a frilly maid outfit modified to be more cute than functional.

That girl seemed to be around Zoemi\'s age but something was telling him that she was a bit younger.

"I didn\'t see you around yesterday during the opening ceremony, are you employed by the Academy?"

The girl looked up at Zoemi\'s face and asked, pulling back a wild strain of hair from the side of her face and tucking it back behind her ear.

"Not really. I am an attendant. It\'s just that my master and I arrived late and didn\'t bother with the ceremony... did we miss a lot?"

The black-haired boy tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders before leaning forward and placing his elbow against the doorframe above the brown-haired girl\'s head... and looking down at her with a playful light flickering in his eyes.

"Eehh~? It was quite normal, a bit less pompous than the ceremonies in the royal castle but also just as stiff. Oh! But you missed out on his highness Horeo\'s opening speech! He was as dazzling as usual!"

The girl fidgetted happily and her hand went straight to her hair where she started twirling a strand of hair around her finger without breaking eye contact.

"Aww, I wanted to see his highness, I\'ve heard he is a great person."

"He is! My prince is amazing! Although, of course, I am just his attendant so it\'s not like I know him the best, but still I think that he really is a good person."

Zoemi chuckled and immediately raised his brows as the brown-haired girl cheered out, so excited as if his\'s enthusiasm was directed directly at her.

"If a close servant such as a personal attendant is speaking so highly of him, then it must be true."

\'Tehe~!"

Zoemi nodded and the brown-haired girl giggled, lowering her gaze just for a moment only to look back up at his face, this time with a much more pronounced blush on her cheeks.

They were looking at each other for a few seconds in silence until...

"He didn\'t notice a new accessory, did he?"

"Worse...! He said it makes me look childish...!"

The black-haired boy dropped the act and asked in a matter-of-fact tone of voice to which the brown-haired girl slumped down and started sulking.

"Which one did he say that about? Everything looks adorable, and you don\'t intend to go on a stealth mission in this outfit anyway."

Zoemi asked while leaning back and judging the modified maid dress.

"This one...!"

The girl complained and showed turned to the side, showcasing a small fuzzy bag in the shape of a cartoonish bunny\'s head.

"Nonsense. He might be a good guy but he doesn\'t have an eye for cute things, that\'s for sure."

The black-haired boy shook his head in disbelief and scoffed.

"You came here to make him breakfast anyway. Right? Let me lend you a hand. I can help you prepare something extremely nutritious that will be just edible that he won\'t be able to throw it out in clear conscience ~!"

He added and even his eyes grinned – luckily, the floral handkerchief was doing well protecting his injury from being seen.

"I don\'t know, mister... My prince has really high standards about his meals... although I am the one at fault. You see, I am a variant magician. I call my variant – chef magic – because it sounds user, but apparently, it has something to do with the sense of taste as a whole. I can influence the taste of raw ingredients before they will get turned into a dish. Oh, and I can also detect poison in food by listening to... never mind."

The brown-haired girl made a worried expression and shifted her body from side to side while explaining in a troubled voice only to cut herself off when she thought she said too much.

"All the more reason to make it barely edible. Thanks to your ability you could assure your master that the food is not poisoned and is extremely healthy. In the first place, if he will complain, you can always push the blame on me."

"...!"

Zoemi snickered devilishly and raised his hand as if posing as the villain character in a theater play, causing the brown-haired girl to let out a muffled gasp as she covered her mouth with both hands.

"Cooperation."

The black-haired boy added and winked reassuringly.

"But what if he will get angry and orders to punish you? He is amazing, but even an amazing person will get angry or their food will get messed with..."

Even after all that the brown-haired girl didn\'t agree immediately and pointed out the potential danger to her fellow attendant.

"I survived my master getting angry so I think that I will manage to appease the first prince... although things probably will not get that far. Come, let\'s cook."

Zoemi shrugged off the girl\'s worries and stepped to the side, offering her his arm that the girl didn\'t hesitate to grab onto.

"Tell me all of the foods that your prince will eat when given but are his least favorite~"

"O-okay~!"

The black-haired boy chuckled evilly and the brown-haired girl nodded her head with a face flushed from the excitement over doing something questionable on purpose.

For the next half an hour the diabolical giggling coming from the spot where the pair of attendants took over, made the entire kitchen grow more quiet, worried, and disturbed.

Finally, they were done.

A nutritious dish that looked amazing smelled great and tasted like mildly bitter medicine.

"It\'s incredible, mister...! How did you do that, the ingredients are actually happy because they became a healthy meal! I have never seen that with anything that was less than delicious!"

The brown-haired girl gasped in disbelief staring at the full tray that was ready to be carried over to the first prince\'s room and consumed by the unexpecting victim of silly revenge.

"It was a pleasure. Not to mention you helped me with the food for my master, and it is not everyday that she and I could taste something altered by a chef magician~! Miss... umm..."

Zoemi waved his hands dismissively and smiled at the happy girl, but that smile of his dimmed and he ended up tilting his head questioningly while looking at her.