Chapter 3.1

Having fallen asleep as dawn was breaking the night before, strange employer Paul, who had the F1 regulations booklet memorised, had made Dan read the tongue-twisting F1 regulations. The man had listened to the F1 regulations as if they were a fairy tale.

The reason strange employer Paul had made his exhausted employee read a regulations booklet full of complex terminology after showing him what pettiness was until the early hours was simply that he liked it.

‘If you like it so much, read it yourself! Why are you doing this to me? Read it yourself!’

Dan hated being forced into things. He had put his fury into every single character and composed a message directed at strange employer Paul. He had sent messages full of indignation to Mul and Shane, who generously listened to his hardships, and to Brian Paul, who wasn’t generous but knew better than anyone how strange his employer was.

…Or so he believed.

Someone had once said anyone could make a mistake.

Dan couldn’t believe it.

―Just looking at Chris Paul’s face makes me want to throw up.

That was a message he had sent. He had been certain he had sent it to Mul and Shane and Brian. But strange employer Paul’s name was showing in the message window. He didn’t want to believe it.

Dan wished it wasn’t reality.

―Then throw up.

A new text had come to the incoming-calls-only phone. It was a text from strange employer Paul. Chris Paul had already checked the message Dan had sent and replied.

“No.”

He looked back and forth between the incoming-calls-only phone and the tablet PC screen that could send messages to specific people, but the terrible reality didn’t disappear. The words despair and devastation seemed to be carved into his chest.

Beside Dan, who was denying reality, Chris Paul lay asleep, having checked the message Dan had sent in his half-asleep state and sent a reply.

“This can’t be happening.”

His lips trembled.

‘Should I run?’

A thought he had had several times since coming here surfaced again. Dan gathered every single cell in his body and got out of bed without waking the person sleeping beside him. If only Chris Paul hadn’t been sleeping right there, he would have wanted to scream ‘AAAAARGH!’

Damn.

He wished and wished that anyone would tell him this was false. He wanted to scream in accordance with his feelings, but the instinct to survive was stronger than that.

Chris Paul was asleep.

Dan slipped out of the bedroom without disturbing a single thin fiber of the carpet. He closed the door more quietly than ever before. The door closed with almost no sound at all.

Holding the tablet PC in one hand and the phone in the other, he fled to the living room and checked again.

―Just looking at Chris Paul’s face makes me want to throw up.

Strange employer Paul’s name was in front of that message.

“No.”

Reality hadn’t changed, it wasn’t false. Dan’s hand holding the tablet PC shook at the unbelievable reality. Chris Paul’s name swayed like a buoy on a stormy sea.

‘If only I could, I want to scream.’

Holding his work communication devices in both hands, he was reenacting a certain famous painting. He just wanted to cry. If only Chris Paul weren’t asleep upstairs, he would have wanted to shriek like the protagonist of a horror film.

―Then throw up.

Dan checked the phone again with trembling eyes. It was a text from strange employer Paul. No matter how many times he checked nothing changed.

“No.”

His vacant lips just kept repeating no. Dan, adrift, took care of the tasks that had become familiar over the past few days first. With trembling hands he prepared breakfast at the speed of light according to the top-tier nutritionist’s meal plan.

And then.

“No.”

…And then that was it.

“No.”

Everything after that involved facing Chris. Dan finished the morning cleaning and headed to his room.

He locked the bedroom door, passed through the attached dressing room, and hid himself in the bathroom on the other side. The dressing room had no lock so he just closed the door. He checked the bathroom door several times and locked it carefully.

Then he sent a message.

―Please wake up.

Dan, holding his phone and tablet PC in both hands, prayed without purpose.

Please.

Not even a second after sending the message a reply came.

―Then throw up.

A curse flew out of his lips of its own accord.

Damn.

One minute after the text, the incoming-calls-only phone rang.

“Ugh.”

Dan was genuinely startled. Darth Vader’s theme, Chris Paul’s dedicated ringtone that brought to mind the cry of ‘He has arrived!’, filled the bathroom. The chilling melody was majestic.

“Hmm.”

Gnawing hard at his lips, Dan let out a strangled sound. Every time the ringtone rang it felt like a one-tonne boulder was striking his head. The ringtone wouldn’t stop.

At the same time, beyond the bathroom, across the dressing room, from the direction of the bedroom door, he had the illusion that a terrifying sound was ringing out.

“…What.”

The wall reverberated faintly.

“No.”

Dan couldn’t believe it again. The sound of the bedroom door handle turning came. It wasn’t an illusion, it was real. The sound of the door handle hitting the lock and stopping, traveling through the wall connected to the bedroom door, the dressing room door, the dressing room wall, the bathroom wall and door, came through vividly.

Strange employer Chris Paul, who had called his employee to pick up a key holder fallen right beside his own feet which he could have grabbed by simply bending at the waist, had personally come to the room door.

Dan didn’t want to believe it.

He wished all of this were a dream. With his hands shaking in terror, he thought back on Chris’s daily routine. His employer had to leave for training in about forty minutes.

“Just eat your breakfast.”

Shane was scheduled to arrive within fifteen minutes and Mul within twenty-five. There was no room to think about the fact that they needed to be waiting at the front gate.

Dan’s phone vibrated.

―Then throw up.

It was a text. Chris Paul was persistently fixated solely on making him throw up. He thought about whether he should go out and actually throw up once and for all. His mouth was so dry he could barely speak and breathing was difficult, let alone imagining throwing up.

“Oh, honestly…”

He wished a natural disaster would occur. Instead of a natural disaster the wall and door reverberated again. The phone notified him of another message.

―Then throw up.

Dan gripped the phone and held his breath. Is that really all you have to say! He started to grumble in irritation and then quickly groaned.

“…”

Chris Paul didn’t shout or get angry or rage. He simply knocked quietly on the door and tried to open the door that wouldn’t open. He paused for a moment as if briefly thinking of the master key but soon took his hand off the uncooperating door handle.

Messages kept stacking up on Dan’s phone.

―Then throw up.

He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

―Then throw up.

He stood at a crossroads between turning off the phone and throwing it across the room and smashing it. He couldn’t just watch the terrible problem keep piling up.

Chris Paul hadn’t even entered the bathroom, yet Dan had unnecessarily retreated to the corner of the bathroom and was pressing his head against the cold wall. His lips moved of their own accord and rambled out words of unclear meaning.

Just as he was about to throw his phone, instead of a text notification a call came in from Brian Paul.

Waltz of the Flowers.

“Yes.”

Dan wondered whether he should say let’s terminate the contract here.

“Dan?”

Brian spoke in an unusually worried voice.

“Go ahead.”

At Dan’s words Brian asked carefully:

“Why has the mansion’s emergency security system been activated?”

“I beg your pardon…”

“Did Chris cause a scene and you’ve locked him in the mansion?”

At Brian’s words Dan just blinked.

“The mansion’s emergency security system?”

“It’s the opposite.”

“…Could it be, could it be that if that’s activated the mansion gets locked?”

Brian was silent.

“…”

His mouth went completely dry in the long silence.

“Hello!”

“That would probably be the case. The security company will be sending someone soon. Then after confirmation comes to me they’ll open it. The security company contacted me and sent someone to the mansion, but if Dan is trapped… then it was Chris who locked it in. They’ll probably open it from outside with the master key soon.”

“Wait a moment.”

Dan tried to hold Brian back.

“I’ll hang up now.”

“Wait! You never mentioned anything like an emergency security system?”

“Would a large mansion not have something like that.”

“Then what am I supposed to do! [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] If Chris Paul doesn’t open the door I’m trapped here?! Hello! Brian! Hello!”

Brian murmured in a voice so quiet it was barely audible. A very small voice.

“…Chris will open it soon so don’t worry too much and wait. He’ll probably open it…”

The call ended on those irresponsible words. Most of what Brian said had been buried under Dan’s shouting. The phone that Brian had hung up on rang again.

It wasn’t the kind of childishly flashy threat of ‘you are trapped, stay put, I will have my revenge.’ It was a short and concise message with a persistent quality to it.

―Then throw up.

He thought a threatening message would have been better.

―Then throw up.

Texts from Chris kept coming. Strange employer Paul kept making only the demand to throw up, instead of a threat, or a threat disguised as explaining the trapped situation, or a threat dressed up as telling him to wait.

They were texts full of strong obsession.

The same content kept flying to Dan’s phone.

―Then throw up.

The vibrations stopped the moment Chris Paul’s training time began. Dan sighed at the pile of throw up texts and left the bathroom. He couldn’t run away. He was trapped in Chris Paul’s mansion.

He wondered whether he should contact Brian right now and bring up terminating the contract, but with the direct threat gone from in front of him he relaxed a little. It felt like things might somehow work out if he apologised.

He wanted to hold out for at least two weeks. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Two weeks was three days away, and a stupid unforeseen mistake was threatening to blow it.

It was a message he absolutely must never have sent to Chris Paul of all people.

“Why did I do that?”

The bathroom door opened carefully. Going by Brian’s nuance, the mansion’s emergency security system seemed to be something that could only be activated from outside, but it felt like Chris could suddenly appear from anywhere. The fear meant he couldn’t move freely.

Dan moved very slowly.

Out of his room, he looked around Chris Paul’s mansion with fresh eyes. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Belatedly recognizing Chris Paul’s remarkableness, he turned over Chris Paul’s pettiness and Chris Paul’s persistence and Chris Paul’s strangeness in his mind.

“Why did I, really…”

He regretted it again and again but the message he had already sent couldn’t be taken back. He had received more than enough replies from Chris Paul.

Dan changed his thinking about the contract.

Terminating a contract wasn’t simple. The relationship formed through a contract was over when you tore up the contract, but the delicate thin paper with the contract terms written on it wasn’t easy to tear up and make disappear.

A contract is a difficult thing.

When he actually tried to do the contract termination he had thought would be easy, the frustrating reality came to mind. The contract was difficult, and reality was even more difficult than that. Because the frustrating reality was difficult, the contract became even more difficult.

‘Should I beg? Should I apologise?’

‘Show him what it means to really kick up a fuss?’

‘Should I cause a scene?’

‘Should I plead?’

‘Should I threaten him by saying I used to play as hard as anyone?’

With every step, his emotions and thoughts stirred. In his head Dan alternated between appeasing Chris Paul and threatening him. As his emotions went up and down he did the cleaning he needed to do.

Trapped in the enormous mansion, there was not much else to do.

Dusting, sweeping, running the vacuum, mopping, Dan arrived at the conclusion of ‘well, won’t it somehow work out?’ Then he would quickly crouch down and clutch his head.

“For god’s sake.”

The erratic muttering repeated.

“It wasn’t on purpose.”

As if Chris Paul were right in front of him, Dan got angry, then apologised, then tried to appease, then threatened.

“I didn’t mean it.”

The apology was wholly sincere.

“Still, why push an employee to their limit? I’m not a nanny, yet I have to dress him, answer his summons at any hour and pick up his trivial things, write cards on his behalf, and read him the damned regulations booklet like a fairy tale!”

It was difficult to stamp down all the anger from deep within his chest.

“God, I must have been out of my mind.”

He could feel himself slowly going mad. Thinking this wouldn’t do, he tried to calm himself.

Telling himself that keeping a level head would be enough, he cheered himself on and explored the enormous mansion.

“Oh.”

And then he found it. Something that absolutely could not exist in Chris Paul’s house was there.

“Absolut Vodka.”

Dan decided he would more or less apologise to Chris. Thinking that there was no way he could bow his head to his strange employer with a clear head, he considered taking the help of the vodka he had been lucky enough to find during his mansion exploration.

Even as he thought he should drink, he assumed the display cabinet wouldn’t open.

“Oh?”

But the glass display cabinet door opened very easily. The room was used as a reception room. As guests were rare in this house, he hadn’t separately cleaned this side.

In the ornate display cabinet, Absolut Vodka bottles, whose simple bottle shape had become the brand itself, were neatly lined up by variety. The Absolut Vodka enshrined in the display cabinet was beautiful as always. As it was a room with few visitors, there was no sign of anyone having touched them.

“The additional allowances being a problem? They can deduct it from my weekly pay.”

Dan reached out toward the Absolut Vodka miniature set. The miniatures were only 50 millilitres per bottle, a size that fit easily in one hand.

He put the bottle directly to his lips, the very thing that some people supposedly cut with loads of cola because it was too strong. He thought it might be better to drink the vodka straight from the bottle and collapse from acute alcohol poisoning.

Even so, Dan marvelled at the vanilla scent that spread softly at the tip of his nose.

“This is good…”

It was better because it had been so long since he’d had a drink. The subtle vanilla scent spreading instead of the smell of alcohol was good too. It was strangely moving. He felt a stinging at the tip of his nose and tears forming in his eyes.

Dan downed the vanilla in one go and opened the citron. The clean spreading lemon scent was good. The alcohol scent underneath the lemon scent was good too.