The new kitchen maid first hears about the girl eight months after she began working. Mostly, she likes her job — much better than what she left behind, that was for sure — and her coworkers are nice. The family is strict, she thinks, but not cruel, and she can bear it. That is why it surprises her so much when she finally catches onto what the others whisper about, sometimes.
There's a low unsure buzz in her bones. She thinks about calling the police for about two micro-seconds before throwing away the idea without blinking. There's nobody else who might mind, certainly. The Hibari family is old and powerful, so very powerful a gnat like her can't even imagine… But she still can't help but worry about the girl-child who, by all means, is very well taken care of.
She's just asleep. In a strange mansion. And nobody knows where she came from.
(she dares to imagine dark terrible things an adult might do to a child who can't fight back and has to swallow back her tears)
Only her fears are softened, the first time she sees twelve-year-old Kyōya Hibari beat a retainer for entering the girl's room without permission — he's a startlingly lovely child, hair dark as ink and long glossy eyes… And so awfully strange and dangerous, she holds her breath in the rare occasions they're in the same room. He wouldn't stand for it, she thinks, relieved. He just wouldn't stand for it. And imagining Kyōya Hibari abandoning himself to that sort of strange perversity when he's so dedicated to discipline... she can't even ponder it.
She makes bread and kneads it, flour on her fingers and dusting her forehead. Thinks: I was mistaken. Puts it in the oven and opens the window and the smell floods the whole house like a gentle wave. Thinks: thank God, I was mistaken.
And in the other corner of the house, the girl inhales deep, once, and Hibari stills, and the summer goes on.
Thank you to beribboned for writing this. I love you, Boo.