"A school festival?" I asked Mistress as she changed from her morning attire into her school uniform

Mistress nodded as she fixed the bow for her uniform, "Yes. I never mentioned it to you last year, did I?"

I gave a curt nod. "Indeed you haven't. Why bring it up now?" I started to comb and fix her nasty bedhead.

"I thought you might like to join as a participant" Mistress answered.

"Me?"

"I have some appointments I need to take care of. So, I'd like it if you could substitute for me. I promised some classmates I'd help on the actual day and it's bad manners to break a promise."

"So you weren't painstakingly recruiting Miss Neptune last night?"

Mistress let out a loud yawn unbefitting a noble lady, "Huh…? Oh, Neptune's part of it. That was some family affairs with uncles and aunts." she replied.

A small unease was being hinted at in her words. I couldn't tell if the Mistress was boldly lying to me or not. However, if it was family affairs, then I'd have to push it out of my other ear. "I do hope you do so, Vert. This is unbecoming of you to wake up so late."

Mistress sighed. "I know."

"Going back to the talk about the school festival though…" It seemed like the Mistress was in thought as she spoke.

"Yes?"

"Neptune and I's class was thinking of doing a maid cafe. And I was thinking of nomi-"

"No."

Mistress visibly pouted, "Fine. Mistress' orders then."

"..." A moment of silence, "Please stay still, Mistress. If you don't then I can't work on your hair."

Mistress sighed, "I suppose that's an appropriate reaction."

Breakfast was a quiet and quick affair after I did her hair.

After school, I was called to the Mistress' school to present myself in front of her class. I thought of arriving in casual clothes to really stick it to her, but that would upset her even more than in the morning. So I decided against it.

As I walked through the halls of Mistress' school, I couldn't help but get stares from all the students.

"Is she cosplaying?" One girl asked another boy just slightly out of earshot of me.

Or at least she thought I couldn't hear her conversation.

"Don't you know?"

"Know what?"

"That's Vert's maid. Or did you forget she's part of the Leanbox Royal Family?"

The girl gasped, "Really?! She doesn't act… regal, yknow?"

I had eventually walked out of earshot of their conversation as I made my way to Mistress' classroom.

Which was a shorter distance than it took for me to walk to the school.

"Hello." I greeted simply as I stood at the entrance to the classroom, "Vert asked me to come."

"Indeed I did." Vert called out to me from a corner of her classroom, "Thank you for coming. Even if I did force you to."

I nodded, "As you wish."

Vert's classmates went wide-eyed as Mistress and I conversed with one another, most likely taken aback at a real Master, Servant relationship.

Even if our relationship was anything but.

"Ah, Blanc! I didn't realize Vert asked you to participate in our maid cafe!" A certain purplette would exclaim from beside Mistress.

"Good afternoon to you too, Miss Neptune."

"Mmm… sure." I could hear another voice from the other end of the classroom. A woman with black hair tied into twin pigtails and red eyes said as she seemed to be assessing me.

"Could do with being more friendly if we're going to use your personal maid for your idea."

"She can be a good actor when she wants, Noire." Mistress replied to the now named Noire.

Noire hummed and looked at me. "Prove it then, Miss Maid."

Ignoring the obvious antagonizing from the woman, I nodded and worked up a smile and shifted my demeanor and personality.

I turned my back to the woman and acted as if there were a person entering the cafe on the day of the festival. "Good afternoon, Mistress!" I bowed to the fake person and kept up the friendly smile, "Is there anyone else with you? No? Then would you like a table for one while I get you your menu?"

I waited for a while before turning back to face the classroom. Noire had a satisfied smile on her face, while Mistress and Neptune couldn't help but smirk at my performance to shut the woman up to begin with.

"You could also say like "Would you like food, drinks or m-"

"Absolutely not." I replied immediately.

"Huh? But if you were to act like it it'd help with the sales."

"I would agree." Mistress spoke "However, she told me beforehand that she wouldn't do those things out of principle."

"While I can't do the modern cultural greetings." I spoke up, extending the Mistress' response. "I can offer to give tips and tricks to make your cafe a success. As Vert said, out of principle, I cannot do them, however, the flexibility of adding your own flavors of entertainment are still yours to do and I can adjust my advice. Would that be acceptable?"

"I mean, none of us know how to even run a cafe to begin with. So having Blanc help us out is gonna be huge for us!" Neptune added.

"F-Fine!" Noire begrudgingly crossed her arms and looked away, "Have it your way! I just want this thing to succeed!"

Vert glanced around the classroom. "Are those conditions okay for everyone?"

The whole class nodded almost unanimously. Except Noire.

Mistress clasped her hands together and smiled, "Good! Now let's get this started, everyone!"

The entire rest of my day was spent getting to know Vert's class, and tutoring them on the basics of how to be a maid. It went well… mostly.

Noire proved to be a handful.

"So how was it, Blanc?" Mistress asked, watching me idly as I dusted off my garb after that long day at her school.

"Horrid." I replied bluntly, "I started them off with the absolute basics and they could not do it. Not to mention that Noire girl being problematic..."

Mistress let out a stiffled giggle. "Don't worry about her. She's always like that with people other than Neptune."

"Is that so?"

Mistress nodded, "So don't worry about her. She's yet to do anything harmful to any of our classmates."

"You make it sound like she's a caged lion or something."

"More like a big kitty than a lion."

I sighed, "And your classmates are like hyenas. I would appreciate it if they did not swarm me as if I was some novelty."

"Is that why you're dusting off your costume?" Mistress grinned.

"What?"

"Oh nothing, just happy to see you having fun is all."

"Does this face look like the face of having fun, Vert?"

"Oh please, don't give me that. You were enjoying yourself out there. Maybe you could be the next head maid of the family."

"Please don't plant the thought in my head."

After I finished dusting off my costume, I took a bottle of water that I'd laid beside me beforehand, and started drinking. As I did so, my eyes landed onto a girl with black twintails helping the rest of the class prop up the designs.

"A question, Vert."

Mistress gave a curious look, "Shoot."

"Noire. What is she like?"

"You've already seen how she's-"

I shook my head, "Towards Miss Neptune."

"Ara."

Mistress gave a thoughtful look as she formulated an answer for me. "A suck up." she said in a simple way after a bit of thought.

"What does that mean?"

"I mean what I said."

"Hmm…"

Mistress sighed in agreement. "Yup"

"Well, that does and doesn't explain a lot…" I sighed and shook my head, resting on looking at Mistress, "What about you? How's her relationship with you?"

"She treats me the same as the others…"

"Makes se-"

"Is what I'd like to say. But that's simply not the case." Mistress explained with her own sigh and shake of her head. "It's more or less she tolerates my existance."

"Is that a bad thing or a good thing?"

"Stressful thing" Mistress answered immediately, "I bless the day the she doesn't emit such hostile aura at me like a cat. I'd prefer it if we were friends already.."

"Reminds me of mother."

"Your mother is more like a lionness than a cat."

"Well, my break is over. Let's go home."

"Don't you need to help with decorations?"

"Just look, they'll be fine."

I glanced back to Noire and other classmates helping each other with the decorations. There was a bit of a scare where one of the classmates tripped while standing on a desk, but Neptune quickly caught her and the rest of the class continued to decorate.

I shook my head. "I'll going to call in the limo-..."

Mistress glared at me, and I sighed. "Fine, we're going to walk."

Mistress then loudly shot up and shouted, "Alright everyone! Great job! I'll be heading home with Blanc. Please raise any further questions to Blanc before she departs with me! Otherwise, have a good day!"

I nodded and gave a maid's bow. "Have a good day. I look forward to working with you all these next few days."

With that, Mistress and I exited the room. Noire giving a huff as she kept working, while Neptune gave both Mistress and I a big wave and smile.

I must admit, that smile was nice to look at.