Chapter Two: The Golden Contract

Gosh, what a shock. I still couldn’t quite believe that Himeko was the deputy chairman of the board.

Once the entrance ceremony came to an end, the new students all filed out to the classrooms where they’d be spending the rest of the year. Just like in the ceremony, I found myself sitting next to Kirara.

The other students in my class were all on the Domestic Arts program, of course, so I was surrounded by a sea of black uniforms.

Setting the revelation about Himeko aside, I thought about my own predicament. The teacher was watching for now, so all the girls were being quiet and obedient, but I could acutely feel the jabbing of their invisible stares.

I knew that the very second homeroom ended, they were going to swarm me and bombard me with questions. My stomach started to ache horribly.

As much as I wished I could run away, that definitely wasn’t an option. I felt like a juicy morsel placed in front of a dog who had been told to sit still. I was just waiting to be eaten.

“I suppose we’ll call it a day there,” said the teacher. “Let’s make tomorrow the start of a great year filled with hard work!”

There it was.

The instant she finished speaking, all of the students turned to look at me. Their eyes glinted as if they were scoping out their prey. Eek!

Then, the teacher left the room—and in a flash, they all clustered around my desk and started freely assaulting me with questions and complaints.

“Misaki, whose Seraph are you?!”

“Is it really Lady Himeko?!”

“You were already wearing the badge at the entrance ceremony—does that mean it’s been arranged for ages?”

“No fair!”

“Gaaah!”

And so on.

“No, well, you see,” I began, but I couldn’t hope to answer all their questions at once.

“Did you already have your debut?”

“What’s the Sky Salon like?”

“What shampoo does Lady Himeko use?”

“Have you met Lady Kagura yet?”

“Gaaah!”

My head was spinning. I never thought this one little badge would cause such an uproar. I’d only agreed to this to avoid getting expelled. Maybe I’d been a little too hasty?

Honestly, I didn’t even know if I’d really have been expelled for arriving late. There was a chance that Himeko had just used that as a pretext to give me the golden badge. Why did she even want me to take it in the first place?

As I sat there at the end of my rope, Kirara offered a helping hand. “Come on, settle down. Misaki can’t answer all those questions at once.”

“Thanks, Kirara!” I said gratefully. Even though we had only just met at the entrance ceremony, there she was, coming to my aid. And I was so sure she’d have been at the front of the pack, hounding me for answers! It seemed that at some point, a bond of friendship had formed between me and Kirara. I was slightly moved.

“I understand why you want answers,” she continued, “but how about you leave it to me? I’ll take my sweet time and make her tell me absolutely everything. Just you wait.”

I take it all back.

Kirara was fully fired up. She was glaring at me intently, determined to shine a light on all my secrets.

“Oh, that’s right!” piped one of the girls. “You’re Kirara’s roommate, aren’t you?”

“Then maybe it is better to leave it to you,” said another.

Everyone exchanged glances and nodded as if to say, Yep, sounds good. Let’s do that.

I didn’t know which was worse: facing a torrent of questions here, or being subjected to Kirara’s inquisition. In any case, it seemed I no longer had a choice.

✤

“Why don’t you have some tea and relax?” With an experienced manner, Kirara poured hot water into a cup and placed it before me.

It did look delicious, but there was no way a cup of tea was going to help me relax.

Aside from Kirara, my two other roommates were there as well, all of us sitting on cushions around the table.

This was Chambord House, the dormitory that would be home to us and all of the Domestic Arts students. It had the appearance of a Western-style guesthouse on a mountain plateau somewhere.

Honestly, for a dorm, it was pretty fancy. It had a good reputation among the students as well, and most of them had gone through all the procedures for moving in as soon as they were allowed to.

Inside that building, I was on house arrest, confined to a single room.

Admittedly, it was the room I was sharing with Kirara, so “house arrest” might not have been entirely accurate. The point was, I couldn’t leave of my own accord.

Our room actually consisted of two spaces: a living room area with a kitchen, and a bedroom that we would also use for studying. It was unexpectedly spacious even for four people to share, and the living room would still have been just as comfortable with twice as many.

“Well, that’s fine,” said Kirara, seeing that I didn’t touch my cup of tea. She took a sip of her own. “If you’d rather just talk, I won’t complain. Well? You’re going to tell us the exact circumstances that led to you becoming a Seraph, right?”

“W-Well, yes, I’ll tell you. But first, I’d like you to tell me what a Seraph is.”

All I knew was that it was something that meant a lot to the Domestic Arts students. Apart from that, the details were still a mystery to me. Even my guess about it being a role on the student council couldn’t have been correct, since Himeko wasn’t the student council president after all.

“Fine!” said Kirara, standing up and vigorously sweeping her hand to the side. “You’re so ignorant that it’s actually revolting, but I’ll tell you. Honestly, I can’t believe you came here in the first place when you don’t know the first thing about Seraphs, or about the academy itself! Tell me, Misaki—why did you even apply to this school?”

“Why? Well, because it doesn’t cost anything, of course.”

Surprisingly enough, tuition at Amanotsuka Academy was free of charge. On top of that, the uniform and textbooks were free, as were the costs of room and board. For everyday life, you didn’t need to spend a thing. It was a dream come true for a financially challenged student like myself.

“That was the only reason you applied here?” said Kirara.

“Um, yes.”

I nodded earnestly, and Kirara let out an ostentatiously large sigh. “You can’t have expected it to be that simple, can you? That it was a totally free ride and you didn’t have to do anything in return?”

“Huh? Are they going to demand I pay them back afterward or something? Or make me do forced labor?”

“The second one’s... kind of accurate. Try thinking about why we’re Domestic Arts students and Lady Himeko and the others are Societal Arts students.”

“However long I think about it, I don’t think I’ll figure it out.”

After a pause, she said, “True. You wouldn’t, knowing you. Now, listen up. Really listen carefully. The Domestic Arts students are all here to become maids.”

“Maids?” I blurted.

“You must at least know what those are.”

“I mean, yes.”

Maids took care of a household’s cleaning, laundry, and cooking, or otherwise took care of their masters’ needs.

Some time ago, it had become common practice for normal households to employ maids, just like in the Victorian era. By now it was widely accepted. It was possible that this stemmed from women who were already doing a lot of housework deciding that if they were doing so anyway, they might as well be maids and earn a little money for it.

“I see,” I said thoughtfully. “So that’s why the program is called ‘Domestic Arts.’”

“Exactly. And we’re not aiming to be just any old maids. Our goal is to be the best of the best—maids who can serve in upper-class households. The young ladies in the Societal Arts program are exactly the kinds of people we want to serve. We’ll be studying hard every day to learn how to take care of those ladies.”

“Aah, I get it!” No wonder the Societal Arts students had all come across as so polished and refined.

“So, you know why we’re here, and you know that it’s free of charge. Maybe you can figure out why it’s all free.”

I put two and two together. “Is it because of the Societal Arts students?”

“That’s right. Our tuition and living costs are all covered by donations from the Societal Arts students’ families. That’s why we have to treat those ladies with the utmost respect and gratitude.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Now that you’re at this school, you need to accept that with every fiber of your being, right down to your last drop of blood. We belong to the young ladies!” She spoke those last words as a proud declaration, as if her excitement had reached its zenith.

“We belong to them?”

“Of course! All the students here feel that way aside from you.”

Is that so? I looked at our other two roommates. They put on forced smiles and looked slightly awkward. Hmm. I think Kirara might feel a bit more strongly about this than everyone else.

Admittedly, though, it seemed I needed to be grateful to those girls—err, those young ladies—from the Societal Arts course.

“Anyway,” Kirara continued, “now that you know why we’re here, I’ll tell you about one of the most crucial points of all: the Seraphs.”

“Yes, please do!”

“A Seraph is someone who has an exclusive contract, known as the Golden Contract, with one of the Social Arts students.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kirara eyed me dubiously. “Clearly you don’t understand how significant that is.”

Indeed, I had no idea. I shook my head firmly.

“Here’s how it is. All of us have the ambition of one day serving people like them, but obviously not everyone will be able to. Not only do your skills have to be good enough, but the ladies have to take a liking to you or they won’t employ you. Does that make sense so far?”

“Yeah.”

“The good news is that we get to live and study in the same place as the Societal Arts students, which naturally gives us plenty of opportunities to serve them. If you’re lucky, one of them might come to like you, and then say, ‘I want you to work for me after graduation.’ That’s why we have to spend three years working our fingers to the bone. Think about it—just because they’re from the upper crust doesn’t mean everything is easy for them. Employing good servants can be quite an ordeal. If they hire someone who does a bad job, it puts their own reputations in jeopardy, so they have to be careful.”

“Yes, that makes sense.”

“That’s what makes it such an honor to be promised a job while you’re still at the academy. Some people are that lucky, but it’s not in the cards for everyone. And yet... you, Misaki! You got handed the prize on the day of the entrance ceremony, when everyone else was barely getting started!”

“So being a Seraph’s a pretty big deal, huh?”

“Yes! If a young lady makes you her Seraph, that’s the proof of your guaranteed employment. It’s an exclusive contract, meaning that you serve them as their personal maid while you’re at the academy, and they will definitely hire you after you graduate. To show everyone that you’re in that enviable position, they give you a golden school badge to wear.”

“Oh, so that’s what the badge is for.” I’d never have guessed that I’d been given something so significant. No wonder everyone’s eyes had practically bulged out of their sockets.

But it still left some questions. Why had Himeko made me her Seraph without knowing a single thing about me? I had known nothing about the academy, and I had even expressed that I had no intention of becoming a maid. Why would she want someone like that to be her Seraph? Wasn’t that kind of weird? I couldn’t imagine what Himeko had been thinking.

“So,” said Kirara, “by this point, you more or less understand what the academy is for and what a Seraph is, right?”

“Right,” I replied hesitantly.

“Great. Now you have to answer my questions. How, why, when, where, and with whom did you enter into a contract to become a Seraph?! Was it really with Lady Himeko? Spit it out! All of it! Right now!”

She drew her face close to mine and wore a bloodcurdling expression. If at this point I’d said something like, “It’s a secret! Teehee!” she would have certainly murdered me.

Thus, I decided to tell the full story of how I met Lady Himeko and how she made me her Seraph. “Um, well, the truth is...”

✤

“But that’s INSANE!”

When I finished my explanation, Kirara reacted a little exaggeratedly, putting a hand on her forehead and tilting her head back to look at the ceiling.

“Let me get this straight. You were going to be late, so you climbed over the fence, and Lady Himeko was there. You said you didn’t want to be a maid, and she made you her Seraph anyway?! I don’t understand!”

“Now you know how I feel,” I muttered.

Kirara leaned forward and gripped the front of my uniform roughly. “Are you cruising for a bruising?”

“No, I’m not! I’m not!” I frantically shook my head.

She released me and let out a weary sigh. “It really is insane, though. How can that happen when you haven’t even met her before? She hasn’t made anyone else into her Seraph so far either. In fact, she hasn’t even made anyone into an Exousia!”

Another word I’d never heard before. This time I decided to just stay quiet and let Kirara carry on ranting. It felt like a common sense approach that I’d thank myself for later.

“How the two of you met for the first time... Well, that just about makes sense. But why would she enter into the Golden Contract with someone who doesn’t even know what a Seraph is? I could understand if your family had served Lady Himeko’s for generations, so it was decided before you even came here that you’d be her Seraph. That would also have explained why she didn’t have a Seraph until now. But why would she decide based on pure happenstance like that?”

By now, Kirara had now gone from looking at the ceiling to hanging her head with her hands and knees planted on the floor. She appeared to have undergone quite a shock.

“You know,” she continued, “before coming to this school, I did all kinds of things to prepare to be a first-rate maid. I researched everything I could about the academy and the young ladies. I was determined to show everyone up and to become a Seraph before anyone else. Then this crazy nonsense happens and tears all my dreams to shreds.”

“Oh, um...”

I thought I’d try saying something to soothe her, but nothing came to mind. Besides, I was worried that whatever I said right now, Kirara would take it as some kind of jab at her.

Wow, she’s taking this so seriously. No wonder she was so annoyed about me not knowing anything.

“So, when are you going to have your debut?” she asked.

“My debut?”

“Yes. To announce to everyone that they have a new Seraph, a young lady always gathers up friends, acquaintances, and public relations staff for a special event. That’s the Seraph’s debut. Becoming a Seraph is just that special.”

“Hmm. I haven’t heard anything about that yet. Wait, now that I think about it, Himeko did say to go to the elevator hall tomorrow. She said something about a place for drinking tea on the top floor, and that she’d introduce me to everyone there.”

“Wh-What?!” Out of nowhere, Kirara took three steps back and started trembling all over. “To think you’ve been invited to go to the Sky Salon on your second day here! But I guess that’s no surprise if you’re Lady Himeko’s Seraph. It might not actually be your debut, though. It hasn’t been widely announced, so she’s probably just introducing you to her friends.”

By now I’d built up more of a tolerance to the endless swathes of new information. I wasn’t shocked by every little thing anymore. It was even starting to feel kind of nice to have Kirara there as a walking encyclopedia of the school who knew everything I didn’t.

Thankfully, she explained this one without me even having to ask. “The Sky Salon is the students’ nickname for the cafe on the top floor of the former school building. It’s the very highest point on the school grounds. It’s essentially sacred territory, where no one can enter except for a chosen few. The people who are allowed to visit the Sky Salon are known as ‘celestials.’ Naturally, Lady Himeko is one of the elite celestials who are permitted to go inside. And, since you’re her Seraph, I guess you’ll be a celestial as well.” Kirara’s eyes turned so bloodshot, I feared she might burst a blood vessel. She hatefully spat out these words through gritted teeth.

“Me? No way! No one’ll call me a grandiose name like that.”

“Of course they will! Ugh, how frustrating. Just because you were running late and you climbed over a fence, suddenly you’re a celestial. That is definitely weird, isn’t it?”

It really is. I agree with you 100%.

I couldn’t believe it, though. Did becoming a Seraph really make me so important? Just thinking about being called a lofty name like “celestial” made me feel a little dizzy.

I guess I’ll have to spend a lot of time at this Sky Salon. But then... what about my dream?!

“Anyway, now I’ve told you everything about how I became Himeko’s Seraph.”

“Yes. The story gave me a headache, but I heard you loud and clear.” Kirara was massaging her temples very hard indeed.

I knew that Kirara would have to share the results of her questioning with the rest of the class. She had made herself their representative, after all. However, if the unvarnished truth was spread around, things would definitely not go well for me. I was pretty sure it would only antagonize everyone.

It seemed that Kirara had come to the same conclusion. “I guess it’s probably better not to tell everyone the whole truth.” That came as a relief. For now, Kirara seemed to be acting as my ally. After a moment’s thought, she continued, “The best solution would probably be to pretend you and Lady Himeko had an agreement in place before you arrived here. You would need Lady Himeko to play along with that.”

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll try asking her tomorrow.”

“I don’t mind doing it. I can explain it all clearly enough.”

“Really? Thanks, Kirara!”

“In return, you have to tell me all about the young ladies at the Sky Salon. My dream of becoming a Seraph before anyone else may have been a bust, but I still have my dream of serving a wonderful lady. If anyone at the Sky Salon is looking for a Seraph, you have to tell me right away, got it?”

“Sure thing. If that’s all you need, I’m more than happy to help.”

Thanks to Kirara’s efforts, no one in my class pressed me for answers the next day. The most they said were things like, “I’m so jealous of you! I wish I had an arrangement with Lady Himeko.”

Though I did put a hand on my chest and breathe a sigh of relief, I was left with a sense of unease that even greater trouble awaited me. After all, my goal wasn’t to be a maid, but to go through school normally and get a job at a good company.

I didn’t know what Himeko was thinking or what her intentions were, but one way or another, I had to find out.