WHEN Charlotte came to work as the personal maid for the Second Expeditionary Squadron, she resided in a dormitory at first.
There were two-person and four-person dorm rooms available. Each one was spacious, with beds placed up on the second floor. The maids could pull a curtain around their bed to give themselves personal space too.
Charlotte, however, was granted a private room due to her unease in crowded spaces. Private rooms were usually only given to girls from good families. Some people weren’t pleased that Charlotte got special treatment, so they harassed her and made snide comments. It wasn’t a very pleasant environment to live in.
However, it hardly mattered when she thought back to the time she spent as a slave.
The nasty things young women came up with were practically cute in comparison. The slave traders had treated her so cruelly, like she wasn’t a person at all.
Charlotte did go to the dormitory leader once to ask if she could live with roommates. She didn’t want to get special favors, since everyone was supposed to work under the same conditions.
However, the dormitory leader didn’t agree. She explained that Charlotte was a “priority citizen” now that the kingdom was in charge of her care. That was probably because she was forcibly brought there as a slave.
She also considered living on her own. But one look at rent prices took the wind right out of her sails. She would have to pay two-thirds of her salary to rent a house in the royal capital. There were even additional monthly administrative fees on top of that.
Every day would consist of nothing but cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and paying rent. Just imagining it left her feeling exhausted. It wasn’t a livable environment for Charlotte, who’d grown accustomed to having food, clothing, and shelter provided for her.
So, she gave up on living alone and decided to stick it out in the dorms. But that was when Charlotte received an unexpected offer out of the blue. Mell and Zara approached her, asking the girl if she wanted to live in a house outside of the city with them. It was the best possible outcome after all the hardships she encountered in the dorms.
She wanted to cry, “Of course!” right away. But instead, she stopped to think.
Mell and Zara had feelings for each other. They hadn’t told her that directly, but Charlotte simply sensed that the way they looked at each other was something special.
She’d merely been pretending not to notice all this time.
Charlotte had learned the subtleties of relationships between men and women from the books she read and her conversations with other maids. That’s why Charlotte feared she might be a nuisance to Mell and Zara if she moved in with them.
However, try as she might, Charlotte struggled to guess how other people felt. She decided to be brave and ask Mell directly. That was when she learned they wanted Charlotte to live with them, because they would draw attention as an unmarried man and woman living alone.
That came as a relief. She would be happy to move in with them if it was a way she could help.
Mell and Zara chose a house outside of the city, surrounded by a quiet forest. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees, the air was fresh, and the adorable chirping of birds could be heard all around.
Charlotte very nearly cried. It reminded her of the forest she was raised in.
This was Charlotte’s brand-new home. That warm feeling grew in her chest again.
The honey-colored brick house was in a state of disrepair after being abandoned for so long. To fix it up, they stripped the floorboards to put new ones in, wallpapered the rooms, touched up the paint, and changed the home into something that suited their tastes.
The three also embroidered tablecloths, bought new sets of tableware, and planted seeds in the flowerbeds. They were all chores, but every last one of them was so much fun.
That was how Mell, Zara, and Charlotte’s home came to its completion.
Charlotte was deeply moved to have a place to call home.
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