Cleaning Up Yuti-san’s Room

“Ojou-sama! It’s Emma! Ojou-sama!”

Apparently, her name was Emma-san.

As a servant of House Ark Gate, she knocked on the door to Yuti-san’s room, but there was no response.

Eventually, she let out a resigned sigh and looked at me as though pleading for help.

“This is what it’s been like. No matter how much we call out to her, she doesn’t respond. We’ve been so worried…”

“I can see why…”

Emma-san stepped aside for me, and I knocked on the door as well.

After making a soft knock-knock sound, I called out to Yuti-san inside the room.

“Yuti-san? It’s me, Nova. Are you there?”

‘…Nova-san?’

After a short while, Yuti-san’s voice came from inside, and I looked toward Emma-san.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she also seemed relieved that Yuti-san had responded at all.

That relief lasted only a moment before a loud crash came from inside the room. It sounded like something had toppled over.

“Yuti-san? Are you all right?”

I called through the door, but there was no answer.

After waiting a little, however, I heard the click of a lock being opened, and the door cracked open.

Yuti-san peeked through the gap with a puzzled expression.

“…Nova-san… why are you here?”

“More importantly, are you okay? I heard a loud noise…”

“Ah… I bumped into a stack of books and knocked them over.”

“What!? Are you hurt!?”

“Ah, no. I’m not injured anywhere.”

For the moment, I was relieved to hear that Yuti-san wasn’t hurt. I let out a breath.

“That’s good… But you really should come out of your room once in a while, you know?
Emma-san here has been worried about you too.”

“…………”

Yuti-san opened the door a little wider and glanced at Emma-san standing beside me.

But she quickly narrowed the gap again.

“I’m sorry…”

“Please be more careful from now on… Ah, right. Would you like me to help clean up your books again?”

When Yuti-san had opened the door slightly, I had caught a glimpse inside, and the books were scattered around just as badly as last time—if not worse.

Thinking she must have been busy, I made the offer, and her expression softened slightly.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I would very much appreciate your help… Would that be all right?”

“Yes, of course. I actually quite like seeing a room become clean.”

Ever since I was young, time had been the one thing I had in abundance.

Other than sword training, cleaning my room had been one of the few things I could do, and living that way had eventually made me enjoy cleaning.

Yuti-san opened the door enough to make space for me to enter.

Just as I was about to step inside, Emma-san called out to me.

“Danna-sama, I’ll go call for some assistance, so once you’ve gathered a reasonable number of books like last time, please let us know. We’ll be waiting outside the room.”

“Understood.”

Come to think of it, the servants hadn’t entered the room last time either.

I watched Emma-san hurry off down the corridor before entering the room.

The inside was quite a mess.

“…You’ve accumulated a lot more books.”

Open books were scattered everywhere.

The subjects varied, but there seemed to be a particularly large number about history.

“There have been quite a few things I needed to research.”

“…Is it really that demanding? If you want, I could talk to Shia myself.”

I thought she might be pushing herself too hard, but Yuti-san shook her head.

“No. I’m doing this because I want to, not because the family head ordered me to. So… um… I’ll try to be a little more careful from now on.”

“All right.”

When Yuti-san looked that genuinely apologetic, there wasn’t much else I could say.

I had thought this before too, but once Yuti-san focused on something, she seemed to lose sight of everything around her.

“Then I’ll read out the titles as I go, so you can continue working.”

“I’m sorry. That would help a lot.”

As Yuti-san returned to her desk, I began organizing the books.

This time there were both closed and open books, so for the open ones, I turned them facedown without losing the page and read out their titles.

If she still needed them, I left them open to that page. If not, I closed them and tucked them under my arm.

Like that, I sorted a large number of books into those she still needed and those she no longer did, just as I had last time.

Once I had gathered a decent pile and was about to move it to the side of the room, I noticed a heap of books scattered spectacularly across the floor.

Ah, this must have been the stack she knocked over, I thought, and moved on to sorting that next.

While exchanging nothing more than whether she needed each book or not, I ended up with about three piles of unnecessary books.

“…Emma-san, are you there?”

When I called through the door, a soft voice answered from outside, “I’m here.”

I opened the door to check and found quite a few servants gathered there, though not as many as last time.

I was slightly surprised by the number of them, but I began passing the piles of unnecessary books out from the room.

I returned inside, sorted more books, then handed more stacks to Emma-san and the others waiting outside.

After repeating that several times, the once-cluttered room became almost unrecognizably clean.

I had thought there were more books than last time, but it only looked that way because so many had been left open. Since we had cleaned up previously, the actual number had decreased somewhat.

Once I finished sorting every book, I handed the final stack to Emma-san.

When I told her that was the last of them, she bowed apologetically.

“I’m truly sorry… After last time, we’ve made Danna-sama do this sort of thing again…”

“It’s fine. I like cleaning up, so I don’t mind.”

That was true, and I was also happy to be helping Yuti-san when she was working so hard.

When I told her that, Emma-san smiled warmly and bowed.

“If you wouldn’t mind, whenever you have time, it would be a great help to us if you could assist with organizing the books like this again. I’m sure Ojou-sama would be happy too.”

“Of course. If something like this is enough, I’d be glad to help anytime.”

“Thank you very much.”

After wrapping up my conversation with Emma-san, I called out to Yuti-san inside the room.

“Yuti-san, I’m finished organizing the books. I should probably get going soon.”

Yuti-san reacted with a small twitch, turned toward me, then looked around the room with widened eyes.

“You made it this clean… Nova-san, thank you so much. From now on, I’ll try to become capable of cleaning up after myself… I’ll try. Yes.”

“You must be busy, so don’t push yourself too hard. If something like this is enough, I’d be happy to help as much as you need.”

“…………”

I waited for Yuti-san to reply, but she only stared at me without saying anything.

“…Um, next time we both have some free time, would you like to sit down and talk for a while? I may not be very interesting to talk to, though…”

“That’s not true at all. I’d love to… I’ll look forward to it.”

“…Yes.”

Yuti-san’s reply was quiet, but the corners of her mouth had lifted ever so slightly, and she seemed pleased.

“But don’t overdo it, okay? And try to leave your room at least once a day.”

“…I’ll make an effort… No, I’ll do my best.”

“Then I’ll be going.”

I smiled at Yuti-san as she gave me a troubled little smile, then left her room.