Chapter 13 A Smile Made of Porcelain, and the Girls with Matching Faces
Standing in the room, the scent hit him first.
Lavender. Clean linens. The faintest trace of old books.
The room was spacious, far larger than any bedroom he'd had before—definitely more than what he'd been given at Paul's place. A four-post bed stood to the left, its dark wood frame draped with sheer silver curtains that hung like mist in moonlight. There was a writing desk set beneath the window, with a polished inkstand and an unlit oil lamp. A plush rug in earthy tones muffled his steps as he ventured further in, and a tall armoire stood like a silent sentinel near the corner.
"This will be your room, Master Tatsuya. If there's anything you require, please pull the bell cord near the window." The maid had said to him before gliding away like a shadow returning to the dark.
He shut the door behind him gently and leaned against it for a second.
"…Phew."
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it was full. Full of everything that had just happened.
He walked slowly to the bed, sat his backpack on the drawer next to the bed and sat on its edge. The mattress sank slightly under his weight, but it held firm. Tatsuya ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching in strands that had begun to fray after all the walking and stress.
He sat up, slowly. The chill in the air kissed the back of his neck, a silent invitation to move.
The curtains were still drawn over the windows. Long, velvety drapes the color of midnight. With a deliberate motion, he reached for them and pulled them aside.
Slide…
What unfolded before him was not the garden they'd walked past earlier—but something else entirely.
Three tall, arched windows revealed a sight he hadn't expected: a vast lake stretched out into the distance, its surface smooth and reflective like a mirror of obsidian touched by starlight.
Tatsuya pressed a hand lightly to the glass.
"Beautiful as ever…" he murmured under his breath. "I bet that water will be frozen solid when winter comes."
There was something peaceful about it.
Turning away, his eyes drifted to another part of the room—a door, closed, nestled discreetly against the far wall.
"…What's that?"
His curiosity stirred, rising slowly like a tide creeping toward the shore. He walked toward the door, barefoot steps padded by the rug beneath him, the wooden floor beneath that cool and grounding.
The handle was cool to the touch.
With a breath, he turned it.
The door opened without a creak, as if it welcomed him.
It revealed a modest bathroom, far from opulent, but clean and complete. On the right, a curtained shower with old-fashioned brass fixtures, the kind that glimmered with a dull gold hue beneath the flickering wall lantern. A porcelain toilet rested beside it, simple and functional. Directly across from him, a stone washbasin sat atop a marble-topped counter, crowned by an elegantly framed mirror.
Tatsuya stepped inside.
"I'm… thirsty," he murmured.
The words left his mouth without thought, like the voice of instinct given shape.
He turned the brass faucet.
A moment passed.
Then—gurgle—cool water rushed out in a smooth stream. He cupped his hands and drank deeply.
The taste was fresh. Not metallic. Not overly sweet. Just… clean. Refreshing in a way that reminded him of mountain springs and running creeks in documentaries back home.
Home.
He let the water drip down his fingers, flicking off the excess before glancing up toward the mirror above the basin.
And there he saw himself.
He paused.
It was strange.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen his reflection since arriving in this world. But this time felt different. The light in the room was soft, golden. The kind that clung to the edges of your features, highlighting all the things you never noticed before.
He knew it was himself but it also look like someone else.
Like your dubbelganger, someone who looked like you but not one hundred percent.
His eyes… looked tired. A little sunken. And in them, something weighed more heavily than fatigue.
His brown hair hung slightly over his forehead, ruffled from lying down and travel. A drop of water clung to his chin, catching the light like a tear refusing to fall.
The air in the bathroom had grown heavy. He didn't know why. It was just water, just a mirror, just a reflection—but his chest tightened like a vice. Something cold and invisible wrapped itself around his ribs and refused to let go.
Tatsuya gripped the sides of the porcelain basin with trembling fingers, knuckles paling under the pressure.
His reflection stared back at him with lifeless eyes.
"…Tch."
He tried to look away.
But he couldn't.
It was like the mirror wanted him to see. To look. To face the boy he kept trying to run from.
His own face… it disgusted him.
Those eyes—they were too empty. Too dull. Like the light in them had been beaten out a long time ago.
The skin beneath them, faintly darkened, painted a picture of restless nights and quiet sobs into a pillow. The mouth, set in a line too thin, the lips chewed raw from anxiety. His hair fell over his face in uneven strands, as though he'd stopped caring how he looked.
"…You're pathetic."
The words left his lips without hesitation.
"You think people like them will accept someone like you?"
His voice cracked slightly.
"Ruza… Yatsu… Itsuki. You think any of them want you here? You think they'd even hesitate before throwing you away?"
He slammed a fist into the counter, the jolt of pain traveling up his arm. But it wasn't enough.
That same gnawing voice, buried deep in the back of his mind, clawed its way out.
"They'll hurt you."
"Yatsu's smile? It's fake. He's waiting. Just like the teachers back home waited. Letting you think you were safe before they left you to the wolves."
"Ruza? You think she's your friend just because she didn't punch you in the face yet?"
"And Itsuki… please. Maids get paid to pretend to care."
The thoughts poured out, each one slashing deeper than the last. It wasn't logic—it was familiarity. Pain had a rhythm, and Tatsuya knew every beat of it. He had memorized the contours of his misery like it was a second skin.
"They'll laugh at you, just like they did at school…"
Suddenly, he was back there.
The desk. The gum stuck under the chair. The stifled giggles as someone whispered behind cupped hands. The sound of a foot slamming into the back of his chair. The click of a pen that wasn't his, the ink now leaking across his notebook with a single word scribbled again and again.
FREAK.
The laughter echoed louder. It grew like a storm inside his skull.
He pressed his palms to his ears.
"STOP—!"
But there was no one here. No bullies. No classmates. Just a quiet bathroom and a mirror that refused to lie.
"They hated you," he whispered. "And they were right to."
A bitter smile twisted across his lips.
"Why would it be any different now?"
He staggered back from the sink, leaning against the cold bathroom wall. The chill seeped into his skin but didn't ground him—it only made the emptiness deeper.
The anxiety curled in his stomach, turning like a blade. His throat was dry, but his mouth tasted like metal. His body felt heavy, like he was carrying weights on each limb.
Dinner.
He remembered Yatsu's voice: "Let's all have dinner together tonight. A chance to celebrate."
It made him feel sick.
He didn't want to go. He didn't want to sit at a table surrounded by smiles he couldn't trust.
What if they laughed? What if Ruza whispered something behind his back? What if Itsuki's polite words were just a mask?
And Yatsu… what if that calm smile of his turned sharp?
What if they all saw what he really was?
A fraud. A foreigner. A boy with no mana, no strength, no place in this world.
"I don't belong here."
The whisper was hoarse now.
"I didn't belong there either. So why the hell am I even trying?"
His hands were shaking.
His heart pounded violently in his chest, each beat echoing like a drum of war—but there was no battlefield. Only himself.
He was always fighting himself.
He slid down the wall and sat on the cold tile floor, hugging his knees like a child abandoned in the middle of winter.
Maybe if he stayed like this… they'd forget about him. Maybe they'd eat without him. Maybe they wouldn't notice if he just… disappeared.
Time passed without sound.
There was no knock at the door. No voice calling his name.
Just silence.
An eerie, suffocating silence that wrapped around Tatsuya like a blanket woven from shadows—heavy, warm in the worst way, and impossible to shake off.
The tile beneath him had grown cold. Or maybe his skin had simply gone numb. It was hard to tell. His fingers had stopped trembling, not because the fear had faded—but because it had burned so deep into his bones that even panic had dulled.
He just… existed. Like dust on a forgotten shelf.
His forehead rested against his knees, his breathing shallow. Every inhale made his chest ache. Every exhale felt like giving up a little more of himself.
What time was it? Had minutes passed? Hours?
He didn't care.
He didn't want to move. Didn't want to get up. What was the point? So he could sit at a table with strangers pretending they liked him? So he could smile while his insides screamed?
That mask… it was getting harder to wear.
Tatsuya tilted his head slightly and glanced at the mirror again—just enough to see the boy sitting on the floor from a distance, small and pitiful, like a broken marionette with cut strings.
This world—this magic, these people, this house—they were just scenery. Backdrops to the same tragedy playing out again.
Hope? It was a cruel joke.
A cruel, cruel joke.
"…I don't want to do this again."
The whisper was barely audible, like a ghost of a voice from a person who didn't want to be heard.
Because if no one heard him, no one could hurt him.
Part 2
Knock…
Knock…
Knock…
The soft rapping on the bathroom door sliced through the silence like a whisper in a cathedral.
Tatsuya's head jerked up, his thoughts still buried in that swamp of doubt and loathing—but his instincts moved quicker than his heart.
"Master Tatsuya, dinner's ready."
That voice—soft, polite, tinged with distant grace—belonged unmistakably to her.
Itsuki.
Shit.
His body reacted before his mind could form a full thought. With a panicked haste, he wiped his cheeks with both sleeves of his coat, dragging away the tear stains like someone frantically erasing a crime scene. His breath came out in short, sharp exhales, like he was trying to blow away the evidence of his weakness.
It had been so long since he put on the mask.
Back on Earth, by the time he'd stopped faking smiles and forced laughter, he'd also stopped caring what people thought. Because no one had done anything. No one helped. No one saved him.
So what was the point of pretending?
But this wasn't Earth. And this wasn't his home. And he didn't want her to see him like that.
Not Itsuki.
"I'll come!" he called out too quickly, his voice a pitch higher than normal. "I'm in the bathroom."
He glanced at the toilet and, out of habit, reached toward the handle that… wasn't there.
Right. They didn't invent that yet.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Every second he spent inside that room felt like it deepened the cracks in his already fragile persona.
He gritted his teeth, pushed the door open—and there she was.
Standing right outside, as if she had never moved an inch, was the pink-haired maid, her uniform pristine, her posture stiff and straight. Her head was bowed slightly, her bangs casting a shadow over her eyes. A faint flush colored her cheeks, barely visible in the dim hall light.
Her eyes flicked upward for just a moment—but didn't meet his.
And then lowered again.
She's… embarrassed?
No. That wasn't quite right. Her hands fidgeted at her apron, fingers twisting over themselves like they were looking for something to hold onto. She looked like she wanted to say something. Maybe even needed to.
But nothing came.
And her silence—that silence—felt far louder than her voice ever could have been.
Tch. She's still mad at me, isn't she?
The thought pierced through him like a thorn under the nail. He couldn't bear it. Not after everything.
He lowered himself to his knees, pressing his forehead to the cold marble floor in an act of full, humiliating apology.
"Please, Itsuki. Forgive me." His voice trembled slightly, but he kept going. "If you're too busy, I'll fix it myself. Just don't be angry."
He couldn't even remember what exactly he was apologizing for anymore. The garden? The goat? The embarrassment?
No—it wasn't really about that.
It was about not being hated.
He couldn't be hated. Not again.
There was a pause.
"…Uh… no. No problem."
Her voice was quieter than before. So quiet, it might've been carried away by the hallway draft.
She turned on her heel, not waiting for him to rise or even acknowledge his words.
"Just follow me… to the dining room."
And with that, she started walking. Straight down the hall, without another glance back.
Tatsuya stood up slowly, watching her figure retreat with almost mechanical rhythm.
No thanks. No acknowledgment. Not even a flicker of emotion.
Like he was just another job to her.
A part of him understood—maids were supposed to be formal, restrained, efficient. But another part—the childish, bruised part—couldn't stop whispering inside his head.
Isn't that kind of… rude? Even for a maid?
He trailed behind her, head bowed slightly, like a scolded child.
He didn't know what was worse.
That she ignored his apology—
Or that he cared so much.
"Oh crap—can't lose her!"
Tatsuya's feet slammed against the floorboards as he bolted from his room, the echo of hurried footsteps bouncing off the corridor walls. He spun his head left—his gut told him she'd gone that way.
And sure enough, there she was.
A long pink waterfall of hair shimmered under the hall's candlelight. The maid with the signature purple star-shaped hairpin strolled forward calmly, her back straight, her steps light, and her presence gentle like a cherry blossom drifting in the wind.
"Itsuki! Wait up!" Tatsuya called.
She turned, expression vacant with a mild tilt of her head.
"Wait up? Why? I wasn't in a hurry. Don't worry."
Oh. Tatsuya slowed his breath, placing a hand on his chest. Then I must've just panicked for no reason again.
"You said you'd take me to the dining room, right?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
There was a pause.
"The din…?" she repeated, as if the word was foreign. Then her expression lit up with sudden remembrance. "Oh! Right. Yes, well, I won't be dining with you tonight. I'll be in the garden."
She clasped her hands in front of her as she bowed her head slightly.
Tatsuya's shoulders tensed with guilt.
"Yes, I'm sorry. It's because of—"
"It's alright." She said before he could finish. Her voice was calm, but distant.
"If you go one stair up, you'll see the dining room eventually."
"Okay… thank you," he said softly, bowing his head as she walked away.
He ascended the stairs slowly, one hand brushing the polished wood of the banister, the other still scratching the back of his head in shame.
Did I make things worse?
But as he reached the upper landing—he saw someone ahead of him.
A maid.
A long pink-haired maid.
Wearing the same purple-and-white uniform. Moving with the same refined, quiet elegance.
"Wait… Itsuki?" he called out again, brows pinching in confusion. "Didn't I just see you on the second floor?"
The maid turned to him and smiled serenely.
"Yes, that's right."
—WHOA, WHAT?!
Tatsuya nearly tripped over his own feet. He rubbed his eyes.
"How… how did you get up here so fast?! You were downstairs like, ten seconds ago!"
The maid placed both hands confidently on her hips.
"Teleportation." She said it like it was the most obvious answer in the world. "Didn't I mention I have teleportation magic?"
"You're kidding. That's a thing?!"
His mind reeled with imaginary charts of cooldown timers and mana consumption charts.
"Wait, but then—what about the garden? You said you were going to clean the bush mess from the goat!"
The maid's confident demeanor cracked. A small spark of panic flickered in her eyes.
"Uhhh—I'm already done!" she declared hastily. "You see, I also have the super special ability to accelerate time around only myself, so to everyone else time seems normal, but to me, I can do everything at lightning speed! I clean entire estates in, like, five seconds! I am definitely Yatsu's favorite maid and I work the hardest and I'm the most important and—"
"I think we should stop here."
Another voice—gentle, poised, and dripping with subtle judgment—slipped into the hallway from behind Tatsuya.
He spun around.
And froze.
Another one
She looked the exact same as Itsuki, the same hair color, the same length of hair, the same color eyes, the same height, the same outfit…..
She had no star pin, but instead, two long rectangular hair clips glinted in the candlelight.
Her expression was less animated—colder, more restrained, like she was a librarian on her lunch break.
Tatsuya turned back to the first maid.
No hairpin at all.
His heart dropped into his stomach.
His mouth moved faster than his brain.
"C-C-C-C-CLONES!!!" he cried, dramatically pointing both index fingers at the maids. "THEY'RE CLONES OF ITSUKI!!"
—WHAP!
A light chop landed on top of his head.
Tatsuya recoiled in shock, more from the sudden touch than the pain.
Standing beside him now, arm folded and looking thoroughly unimpressed, was Ruza.
Her expression was calm—but her eyes danced with amusement.
"These two are not clones, you idiot." She said with a tone that was 50% condescension and 50% affection. "They're triplets."
She gestured casually toward the three.
"Itsuki is the eldest. She's the one you met earlier—purple star pin. Nisuki is the one with the twin rectangles, and the one who just gave you a stroke is Misuki, the youngest."
Misuki puffed out her cheeks. "Yeah, but I act the most grown-up out of the three of us, so that counts for something!"
"Sure, sure… you do," Ruza responded, patting her on the head like a parent to an overeager child.
Tatsuya blinked at all of them, processing the chaos like a loading bar stuck at 99%.
So we've got Itsuki the calm one, Nisuki the quiet one, and Misuki the chaos incarnate…
Got it.
But still—triplets? In matching uniforms, identical faces, roaming the mansion like they were playing a prank on his sanity?
Would've been cooler if they were clones.
"Ahh! I see you've made a lot of friends already?"
The familiar voice—deep, warm, and ever-so-slightly amused—rolled up the staircase like a calm tide. Tatsuya turned quickly to see Yatsu approaching with his usual graceful steps, each one measured and confident. The flowing black coat of his finely tailored outfit drifted behind him like a shadow that had learned to dance.
Next to him, however, walked someone far less expected.
Sora.
The blonde-haired girl with the intense, unwavering stare—the gatekeeper he'd met at the manor's entrance—trailed beside him in silence. Her form was statuesque, her expression unchanged. No trace of a smile, not even the polite kind.
Why is she here…? Isn't she supposed to be guarding the front gate?
Maybe it's her break… or maybe she really is some kind of combat assassin…
A dozen paranoid theories sparked to life in Tatsuya's mind, but he quickly smothered them. His eyes darted back to Yatsu's face. There was something in the man's gaze—too kind, too observant. Like he could tell. Like he knew Tatsuya's heart was rattling inside his chest again.
I need to say something… something that makes me sound normal. Not broken. Not suspicious.
Tatsuya's mouth opened, and for a moment, words failed him. Then, he forced a laugh, rubbed the back of his head, and offered the most polished, scripted response he could muster.
"I feel like my head is about to explode with all the—" he paused, catching himself.
His eyes swept over the everyone—Misuki grinning, Nisuki still fidgeting and Ruza calmly watching him.
"—amazing people I got to know today."
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. But it looked convincing enough.
Yatsu's expression softened.
"I'm delighted to hear that," he said, his voice warm like aged tea. Whether he believed the act or not, he gave no indication.
Sora gave Tatsuya a single glance, as if scanning him for cracks, then looked away without a word.
She doesn't trust me… I don't trust her. Either way, I feel like a rabbit surrounded by wolves.
Yatsu clapped his hands together once. "Well, shall we head to dinner?"
"Yeeeeey!" Ruza cheered, practically bouncing on her heels. "I hope they have cake for dessert!"
Misuki's eyes sparkled at the word cake while Nisuki let out the faintest sigh, as though she already knew Ruza would sneak two servings again.
And in that strange cacophony of laughter and half-awkward smiles, Tatsuya felt the cold thread of uncertainty twist in his chest.
He followed after them.
A storm of smiles and masks.
A dinner table full of strangers.
And a night just waiting to begin.