Her parents never admonished her—they supported her, even. They were overjoyed to see their daughter so passionate about something. Anything was an improvement over the lifeless apathy she usually displayed.
One day, Ritsuko saw a movie called The Glass Princess. The film was about a young noble girl in feudal England, raised with a silver spoon in her mouth and secluded from the world. It was a sad story about an impossible love between her and a commoner boy that ended in their tragic double suicide. The audience cried when the credits rolled, Ritsuko among them. Her parents concluded that their daughter’s intelligence extended to the emotional spectrum as well.
They could not have been further from the truth.
The princess went through so much, but it was her maids who stood by her every step of the way.
Though the princess was the main heroine and the film showed little of her ladies in waiting, Ritsuko knew. She had studied, and she knew the lengths those maids had surely gone to for the mistress they so respected.
Mizunami Ritsuko grew. She matured into a woman, one of function over form, duty over pleasure, apron over dress.
Still, her wit never dulled. Ritsuko applied her superior intellect to anything and everything related to maids and their work. Architecture. Engineering. Astronomy. Biology. Was anything and everything she dabbled in actually relevant to maids and their work? Maybe. Debatably. Ritsuko didn’t stop long enough to answer that question.
Her fixation would only deepen in college. There, she glimpsed an opportunity to make her dream a reality and become that which she idolized.
But how would she do it? Issues arose almost immediately. There was no market for servants in modern day Japan. Few places in the world still used noble titles, for that matter, effectively making the age-old profession (at least in its historic form) extinct. At best, she could maybe find work with a housekeeping business.
She remembered the English gentleman and the blonde woman. Maybe the United Kingdom? Perhaps there Ritsuko would find what she craved.
It was settled. She was going to study abroad.
“Mother! Father! I’m going to England to become a maid!”
“Take pictures of Big Ben for me,” said her father.
“You and your maids,” teased her mother. “You have fun while you’re there.”
As quickly as Ritsuko had made her decision, perhaps even quicker, her parents made theirs.
It was a choice they would come to regret.
At last, when she was twenty, Ritsuko journeyed overseas. She’d done it. And with her own two hands, without help from her family’s wealth.
With a final farewell to her mom and dad, Ritsuko boarded the plane that would take her to England. She took her seat by the window and waited for takeoff, when a couple paused at her aisle.
“I’m next to you, I think,” the girl said.
“Oh, yeah, steal the seat next to the hottie,” said the boy. “Hey there!”
“Shut it. Ignore him, please.”
They were Japanese. About Ritsuko’s age, maybe younger.
Ritsuko giggled. “I don’t mind. Please sit.”
Moments later, the plane took off and they climbed into the sky. In roughly twelve hours, they would reach England. It was a long time in such a tight space, and Ritsuko found herself chatting with her seatmates.
“You’re high schoolers?” Ritsuko said. “And traveling abroad all by yourselves. I’m surprised your parents trust you that much. Do they know you’re dating?”
“We are not dating!” both blurted out in perfect unison.
Ritsuko chuckled. “You certainly could have fooled me.”
The girl—Asakura Anna was her name—scowled. “I would literally rather die than be paired up with this doofus.”
“Well, the feeling’s mutual!” the boy, Kurita Hideki, shot back. “I won’t settle for anything less than Ritsuko-san here. Now she’s a woman.”
Their protests weren’t fooling Ritsuko. As far as she could tell, they were made for each other.
“So tell me, then. Why are you on this trip together?” she asked.
“It’s not just us. We’re on a tour. Look.” Anna produced some kind of computer game. The cover depicted a silver-haired girl surrounded by five men, sparkles, and other fantastical flourishes. “All my girlfriends at school are obsessed with this, and they’re doing this special promotion where they take ten lucky people on a tour of England if you buy the special edition, if you can believe it. I managed to get a spot somehow, so we’re headed to England with a few other fans we sorta know. They’re scattered around the plane.”
“I’m here to keep an eye on her,” Hideki said. “My little sister wanted to go, but I’m just one guy and my hands are full enough with this one. Only reason it’s me and not her parents is ’cause they had work stuff those days.” He scoffed at himself. “They figure I can’t do any harm since we’re always at each other’s throats.”
“You’re Anna-san’s personal knight in shining armor then, are you?” Ritsuko teased.
“No way!” the pair blurted, again in unison. They even had the same expressions and made the same gestures.
Ritsuko couldn’t help but laugh. Whatever nuance there was to their relationship, it went over her head. She had abandoned romance for the apron long ago. At the very least, she could appreciate that whatever they had, it warmed her heart.
Some hours later, the lights in the cabin dimmed, they threw on their blankets, and all three passengers drifted off to sleep. When they awoke, they would officially be over British soil. Excitement swelled in their chests, and thoughts of the adventures to come filled their dreams.
But dreams they would remain, forever out of reach.
For that plane went missing; and six years later, it had yet to be found.