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“SIGH. I’m done. Good job,” said Monica, throwing her fork down on the table. It held enough extravagant food to feed ten. No one person could eat all that, but it had been laid for only one.
There were three different types of bread, two soups, river fish meunière in bean sauce, roast pheasant, cakes loaded with fresh whipped cream, and, for some reason, a basket of biscuits bought from the store.
She stood, having not touched most of the food.
The chef stood to the side, looking down, his fists clenched.
“My lady,” he said. “I am confident that the food I prepared for you is of the highest quality. What could you possibly find fault with? Please, tell me. If it doesn’t suit your taste, I will prepare something that does!”
“I just can’t be bothered with eating. And I’d be rather put on the spot if you demand a review of the taste,” she said.
She took a single premade biscuit from the basket and left the dining room with it held in her mouth. Those biscuits were put on the table because Monica liked them. Not that she thought they were particularly delicious, just that she could bring herself to grab one of these when she didn’t really feel like eating actual food.
Behind her, she heard the sound of a fist slamming against the table.
“Dammit! I’ll quit this damned job!”
The chef put in charge of this mansion’s kitchen was told he needed to make sure Monica ate properly, but getting Monica to eat properly was as difficult as getting a dragon to pass through the eye of a needle.
Monica wasn’t invested in living. Even if she was hungry and one of her favorite foods was in front of her, that didn’t mean she felt like eating. The chef might think that if he made all sorts of food, she might eat at least one dish, or that if he did it well enough, she’d eat it, but those strategies were crumbling around him.
“This again?” said Monica. “You say that a lot even though you don’t have the courage to actually go through with it.”
She went back to her room while nibbling on her biscuit, sweetness filling her mouth. It tasted just mediocre.
I’m the same. I don’t have the courage to die, but I keep thinking I want to. I hate being kept alive for no reason like this. When can I actually just die…?
No one but Monica and the servants who took care of her lived in this Prison Mansion. The halls were horribly quiet, the mansion pointlessly large for just her. It just made her feel the emptiness more. An emptiness with no one else there.
The servants were nominally employed by the court and switched out at intervals. They didn’t have time to get close with Monica. That was actually why they were switched out so often, so they couldn’t conspire with her.
Monica’s mother once tried to send her a secret letter by winning over a sympathetic caretaker named Joanna, but it was discovered, and the caretaker was fired. Things got worse after that.
She was entirely alone.
The only pastime she had was the occasional trip outside the mansion, though even then she wasn’t allowed out of the carriage, and she had a guard with her, a guard that was really there to keep an eye on her. It was a little funny that they didn’t even function as a guard in the end.
That’s right. That one time…
A tiny breeze had rippled through the stagnant air in Monica’s enclosed bottle of a life, though the hole it blew through was quickly sealed back up.
“I’m certain there’s something you haven’t given up on yet.”
Those words from the odd girl who saved Monica still rippled through her soul.
It’s nothing as grand as that… she thought.
Having reached her room, Monica made a beeline for her bed and flung herself onto it.
She was always looking out of the picture frame-like windows. The bustling streets. The people, filled with their hopes and dreams. The happy families. They were always right in front of her, and that made her think that maybe someday she could find a brilliant, glittering life. It gave her hope.
She clung pathetically to those minuscule hopes and expectations, meaning she didn’t even have the courage to let go of her life.
That’s all it was.
“Hm…?”
There was a quiet, secretive sound of something hitting the window. Monica pushed herself up from lying face down on the bed. This was the second story. The only thing outside the window was one large tree.
“What is that? Have the tree’s branches grown all the way here? I’ll have to call a gardener right away to trim—” As she moved closer to the window to check, she saw something impossible. “Ah?!”
“Um… G-Good evening.” It was the crimson girl, holding on to the protruding window frame as she hung down.