So, somehow... Shay got a job.

After that, two weeks passed by, loaded with work and study.

It was slowly getting better, though. Her cleaning skills leveled up. Her body started to adapt to her new wakeup time. Oh-- and the extra pay let her drop all her temp jobs.

Take that, spoiled rich kids.

Miss Ansari called her after class-- not for anything bad, of course.

“You look so much better than when we last spoke,” she said. “Oh, is that a new bag?”

Shay nodded, grinning widely. Miss Ansari had initially (and mistakenly) thought she was looking for a job.

She wasn’t, at the time-- but she got one, anyway!

And it was... really nice.

“I love it so much,” Shay said. “It’s the first thing I’ve ever really bought for myself.”

Miss Ansari raised her eyebrows, “Your new job is going well, then?”

“It is!” Shay said, “Everyone’s been so nice to me.”

Of course, everyone didn’t include Raia. But, even then, the most Raia did was make faces at her-- and never when Tyvan could see.

Shay had gotten used to making faces back. That was how they communicated-- with their handsome boss being none the wiser.

Miss Ansari gave her a wide ‘I’m so proud of you’ smile.

“That’s great, Shay,” she said. “You can leave your schoolwork with me so you can leave early. Enjoy your Friday!”

Shay felt so touched that she wiped a tear out of the corner of her eyes. She thanked her teacher.

--she bowed, which she realized afterward was awkward and unnecessary.

But she got to slip out of classes early.

Overall, life at school had returned to normal... but it still felt a tiny bit awkward.

Andy came back from the hospital, but she avoided him as best she could. He didn’t try too hard to talk to her, but there was a weird tension between them that wasn’t there before.

Everyone seemed to forget about James... which bothered her a little to a lot. The flowers got moved... and eventually went away as they wilted. The little gifts and cards got sent to his family.

The seating arrangement got switched around. Everyone moved on.

Oh, but Aquila was her new deskmate!

Shay got invited to eat lunch with her and her friends once-- that was the highlight of her week. (She didn’t participate in their conversations, but it was still really fun to listen to all the gossip.)

While school stayed more or less the same, Shay’s overall schedule had the biggest changes.

In the morning, she’d wake up remembering her nightmares from the previous night... and while she did her morning routine, she re-analyzed all the embarrassing things she’d said to Tyvan or did in front of him.

‘It was a promise,’ was her brain’s latest favorite way to torture her.

Also, her calling him ‘noble knight’ swam around in her thoughts. She hadn’t said anything like that to him in real life... but it sounded like something that would come out of her mouth.

After Shay got over herself, she’d get to the apartments an hour before school. There, she’d help Heidi take care of the gardens, getting healed by her presence and passively gaining plant-wisdom.

Their conversation that morning was pretty spicy, too.

She asked, “So what’s your relationship with Tyvan, anyway?”

Heidi somehow managed to toss her gardening shears up in the air as she panicked.

“It-it-it-it’s not like that!” she insisted, her face redder than the garden roses. “Mister Valorum-- he’s very kind to me!”

It was so cute to see the older woman having fallen for Tyvan’s charms just as much as she had.

And it was really too easy to get her to blush.

“So just friends?” Shay asked.

“Not so!” Heidi pouted. “Mister Valorum prefers to keep his associates at a professional distance. And, between you and me, I think he doesn’t quite care for getting planter’s soil on his gentlemanly attire.”

She was right, of course.

Tyvan-- or... Mister Valorum, as she called him, always had an air of professional-ity wherever he went... talking to the apartment tenants, talking to Raia...

Shay did feel like there was something different when he talked to her. It was probably just her imagination, of course... but she allowed her delusions to run wild because it was better that way.

Oh, he did get her a random gift! It was lip balm from a designer brand.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Take that, Raia!

Besides that, Heidi had helped Shay re-plant her pink Camellias to the plot in front of her room.

She had her own room at Elysian Heights! She was super-surprised about it. It was even bigger than her room at her aunt’s house. She even had her own bathroom!

At the time, she almost cried, but Tyvan, in his super-manly voice, just said, ‘It was in the contract. By Jove, did you not read the contract?’

--or something like that.

Elysian Heights had hundreds of tenants. But even though a lot of them were permanent residents, most of the complex was a hostel, with travelers renting a private room or a bed in a series of connected rooms.

So, in her contract, she was assigned one of those smaller rooms-- probably with the intention that she was a live-in maid.

It was very exciting. She was only a day or two away from moving the few things she cared about out of her house.

After that, she was planning to tell her aunt that she was going on a field trip to France or something.

And then... she’d just never go back.

She highly doubted that would cause any problems. And Shay was a legal adult, anyway-- so she was pretty sure she could get away with it.

Yeonha was the one who encouraged her the most to go through with her plans. She was also the one who went over her contract with her. At the time, she made a big deal about the Non-Disclosure Agreement-- like it was the number one most important thing to pay attention to if she didn’t want to get in trouble.

It seemed so simple, but Yeonha was so serious that Shay kept it to heart. She’d have been heartbroken if she got fired over something dumb like that.

She loved Yeonha, though-- she was almost as much of a friend as Heidi.

And she was consistently the first person Shay greeted as soon as she got back to the Elysian Heights.

“Hi, Yeonha!” she said.

“Mm,” came Yeonha’s lazy reply.

The Korean girl was technically her superior... and Shay had never seen her wearing anything beside her classic, black and white French maid outfit.

But she... had also never seen her working unless Tyvan was nearby.

Yeonha was in the central common room lying face-down on the couch. Shay was convinced she lived there instead of whatever room she had assigned to her.

When she wasn’t napping on a couch or armchair, she was watching Korean dramas while eating vinegar chips or caramel popcorn or some random Asian-supermarket-snack.

Oh, and she had a huge VHS collection!

Thanks to Yeonha, Shay was finally able to watch the animes of her favorite mangas... though almost none of the voices matched the ones she had in her head.

--but having so much inside-material was worrying, too.

“Just wondering,” Shay said... “but do you ever... get out? Y’know? Touch grass?”

Yeonha slowly rolled herself over, plopping onto the floor with a thump. Then, she slowly sat up at the waist, stretching her arms and yawning.

She was a cute girl-- and they were only one or two years apart. Yeonha was much braver than she was, though, with her medium bob-cut dyed reddish-brown and her eyes a dazzling green from whatever contacts she was wearing.

“Sometimes,” Yeonha said in a flat, almost monotone voice. “I watch Tyvan exercise in the yard... Bishop too.”

She gave her a thumbs up, smirking like a degenerate.

Shay’s own mind drifted off, afflicted by her degeneracy... imagining Tyvan doing body-weight exercises out in public... shirtless.

Oh, and she hadn’t met Bishop yet. It wasn’t the first time his name came up in casual conversation. Apparently, he was one of her coworkers... but it was a little weird that she hadn’t seen him in basically two full work weeks.

Shay opened the cleaning supplies locker, putting on her work apron before grabbing her favorite broom-- the one with the stiff, green-and-white bristles.

“I was thinking of starting on the walkways and outside areas,” she said.

“You’re here early,” Yeonha said, “Can you do... eastern dorms? Windows, too.”

Shay wasn’t looking forward to that. The eastern dorms were female-only. That meant it was disgusting in a different way the guy’s dorms were. While the guys tended to be messy in general, the stuff girls left out were... ugh.

She leaned on her broom, trying to procrastinate.

“Hey, Yeonha. Has there ever been anyone interesting that came through here?”

“Nah,” Yeonha said with her usual, unexcited voice. “Mostly boring.”

“Most~ly?” Shay sang, “Any rock stars or... famous people?”

“Nope.”

“How about... I dunno, serial killers? Vampires? Vampire serial-killers?”

Shay asked because a little part of her was still concerned about whatever got poor James. She’d already mostly accepted that she wasn’t going to get an answer... but Yeonha wasn’t the type to embarrass her for her dumb fantasy questions.

“No vampires,” Yeonha said. She frowned, “I don’t think they’re allowed.”

“Well, maybe they should be?” Shay said. “Discrimination is illegal.”

“...Huh,” Yeonha grunted. “I don’t think... vampires count.”

Shay pursed her lips. That was fair.

She was about to leave when Yeonha piqued up in her seat.

“Ah-- there was one. Hnn... alleged serial killer.”

Shay turned right back around, “Go onnnNn~”

“His name was... Mosquito Man,” Yeonha explained.

“Was he... a very large and very determined mosquito?” Shay asked.

“...Probably.”

Shay took a deep breath, “Did... Mosquito Man... suck out all the blood of his victims?”

“Nn.” Yeonha nodded. “Allegedly.”

“But how?? Did he carry around-- uh... medical equipment?”

“I dunno,” Yeonha shrugged, “Magic, probably.”

Shay held out her palm. “Wait-wait-wait~ Yeonha... is magic real?”

“Uh. Yeah?” she said.

Shay narrowed her eyes.

She wanted to belieeeve.

But her conversation with Yeonha wasn’t proof of anything. Nearly every conversation they had was absurd, with the kind-hearted master-maid playing along with her fantastical nonsense.

So as much as she wanted to ask about the fate of the ‘Mosquito Man’, she still had work to do.

After waving goodbye, Shay grabbed the mop and roller-bucket (along with her favorite broom) and headed to the girls’ dorms.