Miss, stop committing suicide

Chapter 30

I clutched my head, which felt like it was about to shatter, and tried to spit out a curse — only to despair once more when I realized that no words would come out.

Still, after brewing a cup of coffee and nibbling on a few pieces of chocolate, the pain subsided a little.

At this point, isn’t coffee practically a cure-all?

Come to think of it, I was supposed to attend class today.

And then, Lydia would start harassing me.

Ugh.

I don’t want to go.

Then again, if I don’t want to go, I just won’t go.

I could just waste time for a while, and if it looks like I’m on the brink of expulsion, I’ll start showing up then.

With that thought in mind, I threw myself onto the bed.

The ceiling came into view.

It was a familiar sight, one that evoked a mild sense of disgust every time I looked at it.

I reached a hand toward the ceiling, but of course, it didn’t show the sky, and the white ceiling remained unchanged.

This room is as stifling as ever.

Knock, knock.

There was a light knock, followed by someone entering the room without waiting for a reply.

The person saw me reaching up toward the ceiling, paused for a moment, then quietly tried to slip out the door.

I spoke first.

“Hey, you’re here to clean, right?”

“Oh, yes! I didn’t think anyone would be here! I’m sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it. Come in.”

I said that while still lying on the bed, only turning my head slightly to glance at her.

Well, considering I clung to Evan yesterday and made that slightly embarrassing request, I guess I could understand why I felt so drained.

Still, a visitor.

Is she really a visitor, though?

She’s a servant who comes to clean my room.

I suppose she counts. After all, she comes into my room and even chats with me sometimes.

Let’s treat her as a guest.

Since she’s a commoner, even someone as powerless as me should be able to at least keep her quiet.

……

With such thoughts in mind, I started to welcome the little maid who had been visiting my room for the past few days. After a few conversations, though, I found myself in a bit of a bind.

It felt like I’d accidentally made a friend. But on second thought, calling her a friend seemed off. It felt more like I’d gained a new source of annoyance.

“Miss, no matter how clean I make your room, if you keep messing it up like this, it’s too much for me to handle. It drains my mana, you know…”

The maid, whose name I didn’t know, had the misfortune of being assigned to clean what was surely the dirtiest student room in the dormitory. 

Despite her grumbling, she diligently scrubbed the floor, changed the bed linens, and brought in fresh blankets.

As a bonus, she also cleaned up the shards of glass scattered all over the floor and placed a new cup in the holder.

“That’s your job, isn’t it?”

With no one to meet and nowhere I particularly wanted to go, I sat in a chair and watched as the dust swirled through the air in my messy room.

“Dust must generate naturally. Other people go outside and leave all their dust out there, but I stay here alone, letting all the dust pile up around me.”

“If you’re going to spout nonsense like that, why don’t you go do it in a friend’s room instead?”

“If I had a friend, I wouldn’t be sitting here wallowing in misery while you clean.”

“Ah, my apologies. True, if you’re here this much, you probably don’t have a single friend to talk to.”

“Don’t test my patience, alright?”

“Does it really matter? I’m probably the only one who actually has a normal conversation with you, Miss.”

“Not true. If I beg, I might get at least two people to talk to me.”

Evan and Vivian.

And… the crown prince, whom I was told to visit.

Come to think of it, that makes three.

But since I’m not planning to go crawling to the crown prince and pleading for my life, I should probably exclude him.

After all, the one who stands to gain the most from the collapse of my family is the man sitting at the top of the empire.

So, I have every reason to stay as far away as possible from the one who’s supposed to succeed him.

“…Is that so.”

“Don’t look at me like that. You know it, too.

The reason I have no one around me, and the reason I don’t leave this room, is because my family has fallen so far that it’s not just broken — it’s buried deep underground.”

“Even so, do all noble ladies make friends like that?”

I was about to reply, Of course, but then Vivian’s face suddenly flashed through my mind, so I stopped.

Around the time the maid finished changing the sheets, I handed her a freshly brewed cup of coffee as thanks for cleaning so diligently.

She glanced at me with a puzzled look.

“Drink it. It’s my way of offering hospitality to someone who’s entered my room.”

“Receiving a drink from a noble lady… That’s a new experience.”

“Well, I’m only half a noble lady these days.”

“Still, once you graduate from here, you’ll live a life of luxury. At least, by my standards.”

If she hadn’t added by my standards to the end of that statement, I might’ve been a little offended.

“…Sure, I suppose I will — if I graduate.”

This conversation was starting to feel uncomfortable.

“Are you done cleaning?”

“No, I just need to clean under the bed. Hm, there’s something sticky and smelly stuck under here…”

It was probably the blood I spilled when I cut my arm and passed out.

But I casually brushed it off.

“Must’ve spilled some coffee down there.”

“…I guess so.”

If I say it’s coffee, then it’s coffee.

Even if she is a maid working at the academy, she’s still practically my peer — a commoner.

It seems she’s gotten used to my shameless excuses since she didn’t dig any deeper this time.

I might have nothing left to my name, but I still carry the weight of my family’s once-great authority.

Even if it’s nothing more than a joke now.

At the very least, I’m not a joke to this maid.

She muttered an incantation, and the sound of something like an electric shaver echoed through the room as she summoned a gust of wind. 

It swept under the bed, pulling out every sticky, clumped mess and sending it all swirling into the trash bag.

These days, they don’t even check for stains on the sheets anymore — they just fold them up and take them away. It’s honestly pretty convenient.

“All done! Today, everything’s nice and clean again!”

“By the way, Miss, aren’t you even a little curious about my name? It’s already the fourth day we’ve been face-to-face, talking like this.”

“What would I do with your name?

If you’re hoping I’ll take you back to my estate and hire you, you should give up on that idea.”

The girl’s face fell into a gloomy expression.

“Since the estate is probably gone by now, anyway.”

“…Ah.”

“Well then, be on your way.”

“…Um, Miss.”

The maid hesitated, her face darkening a little.

Last time, the person who came looked about two years older than this girl.

That one was exhausting.

She must have already been in service to some other noble, as she only cleaned my room haphazardly, as if she didn’t care, before disappearing somewhere soon after.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing! Nothing at all!”

Nothing at all, huh.

She’s probably worried about how I’ll react if she asks her question.

If she knocks next time, I simply won’t open the door.

Sure, she might have a master key, but if I wedge a chair under the doorknob, it’s not going to open unless someone breaks it down.

“Where did I put that knife…?”

Lying on the fresh sheets, I reached for the small dagger I once used to stab my wrist. I was craving just a little thrill.

At least, unlike pulling the trigger of a gun against my head, this method came with a guarantee that I wouldn’t die. That made it a far healthier option.

I didn’t care if the dirty blade gave me an infection or not.

“If I get a high fever and start dying, then Evan — that oh-so-great Evan, who hasn’t come to see me for three whole days — yeah, he’ll come running to use that fancy healing magic of his.

All I’d have to do is break this ring.

But… It was a gift. The first gift I ever got.

I don’t want to break it.

I also don’t want to be in pain.

Just a little sting is enough.”

Lately, I’ve been mumbling to myself more often.

“Hm. Hm. Hm.”

I hummed a little tune, trying to liven up the mood.

It was a melody I used to hear all the time. Who was it again? Eddie… something. Higgins, right. Yeah, I liked him a lot. No way I’d forget.

“Anyway, now that I think about it, if I just break it, I’d get to see him again and maybe even get a new ring. So not breaking it is probably a loss in the end.

But do I even like him?

Come to think of it, sometimes I act all clingy, but then I do a lot of things that don’t help me at all.”

It felt like I was talking to someone, but I was really just mumbling to myself.

I suppose I do it unconsciously.

Surely, I’m not doing this in front of other people, right?

***

“That impulsiveness of yours — it’s all your fault, you know.

At the very least, I didn’t choose something flashy like that. I opted for the kind of death where you slowly fade away in a room after taking some medicine.”

Not that I “chose” it, though. It’s more like I was too stupid to pick the right kind of poison, so I didn’t die properly the first time.

“Oh, you mean like how you didn’t know which poison to take, so you just swallowed a bunch of random stuff and then died all alone in a quiet, lonely death because nobody came to find you?”

I sneered at myself.

I chuckled awkwardly, answering myself.

“Well, when you put it that way, I’ve got nothing to say.”

Of course I don’t.

“But, you know…

Why do you keep coming back?”

That’s something neither of us knows.

“If you’re asking me, you’re the one who should know, aren’t you?”

“Beats me. Maybe it’s some kind of ancient bloodline curse, or maybe some unknown great sorcerer put a spell on me. But does it really matter?”

“A curse, huh. Ugh, that’s terrible.”

I lightly dragged the blade along my wrist.

A shallow cut, vertical, just enough to irritate the skin. Hardly any blood came out.

I suppose I’ve been through too many intense experiences lately. Maybe I needed a fresh kind of stimulus.

At the very least, when the blade brushed against my skin, giving me that faint, stinging sensation, my mind momentarily dulled, and my body felt oddly warm.

What was it called again?

Ah, right. Bloodletting.

I wonder if they still do that around here.

Like I care.

They say self-harm that isn’t explicitly suicidal can eventually lead to suicide, so if you see someone doing it, you’re supposed to stop them.

But I’ve already died once and come back, so it’s fine, isn’t it?

In fact, I’m just trying new things all the time because I don’t want to die.

I’m chasing that thrill — that freshness.

Humans have always been like that.

“Life feels so fake sometimes.

That’s why I carve these marks here.

Whether it’s Erica or whoever,

Just so someone knows — I was here.”