Rosalind opened her eyes and, for a while, counted the beams on the ceiling.
Outside the window, birds were singing.
The morning light fell faintly across the foot of the bed.
—Her body felt light.
It took her a good three breaths to notice.
(When was the last time I slept this well?)
Back when she was Ritsuko Tanaka.
She would nap slumped over her desk in the accounting department, and every time she woke, her neck, shoulders, and back had stiffened at the same angle.
Even when she finally made it to her own bed on a Saturday morning after three straight all-nighters, numbers kept racing behind her eyelids.
—Mornings when she woke and only the exhaustion remained.
That had been twenty-eight years' worth of mornings.
Now, there was nothing around Rosalind's bed.
No documents, no unprocessed balance sheets, not even the lingering scent of a lamp left burning until dawn.
Only a body that had slept well. Nothing more.
Rosalind sat up, clenched her fingers once, and opened them.
(Oh my.)
(...They're warm, all the way to the fingertips.)
It was a sensation she had never once known in her past life.
Once she had dressed, she pushed open the door to her office.
The usual things were waiting on the desk.
A small parcel wrapped in white paper. A steaming cup of tea. Last night's work report, returned with the seal of approval. In the margin, in familiar handwriting, a single short line.
"Don't overwork yourself."
Rosalind closed the door behind her and stood in front of the desk for a while.
She pulled out the chair and sat.
She rested both hands around the teacup.
(The temperature is just right.)
(—Just right, which means...)
Rosalind traced the side of the cup with her fingertip.
Someone was brewing it fresh, timed to the moment she entered this room each morning.
Simply carrying in a pot first thing in the morning and leaving it to cool would never produce this temperature.
Someone had reboiled the water, timed the steeping, adjusted everything just so, and only then set it here.
Every single morning.
(...I'd assumed it was part of a clerk's duties.)
(But...)
As a matter of job allocation, it simply didn't add up.
Rosalind unwrapped the parcel of baked sweets.
The paper had been replaced. Not yesterday's, but new.
Occupational hazard: her fingers stopped of their own accord. The quality of the wrapping paper, the way it was folded, the way it was fastened—same workshop, same craftsman. But the paper alone was new, every morning.
(...They're being bought fresh every morning.)
(Even on days when I couldn't finish them and left some behind.)
(By the next morning, new ones are waiting here again.)
Rosalind picked up one of the sweets and put it in her mouth.
Sweet.
A habit carried over from her past life: when she was nervous, she would unconsciously grip a baked sweet. This morning she shouldn't have been nervous at all, and yet her other hand had already closed around a second one on its own.
She took a sip of tea.
Her eyes dropped to the short line in the margin of the work report.
Don't overwork yourself.
For a while, Rosalind did not move.
—Had there ever been anyone in her past life who looked out for her like this?
The thought came to her, unbidden.
She did not even make a sound setting down the cup.
There hadn't been.
Not a single one.
In that accounting department, where she was always the last one with the overtime lights still on, no one had ever set down a warm drink for her.
Not once had Ritsuko Tanaka received a document with "Don't overwork yourself" written on it before she collapsed.
She had never even had the experience of being thought of as special by someone.
Ritsuko Tanaka had probably wanted that, all along.
She had only ever thought it, faintly, vaguely: "Maybe someday, someone will find me."
In the end, no one ever found her, and it ended with her still slumped over her desk.
(—Ritsuko.)
Rosalind called to her briefly, inside her heart.
It was a name she did not usually bring out.
(Right now, someone...)
(...is looking out for you.)
The tea was still warm.
The paper around the baked sweets had been replaced with new.
The single line in the margin of the work report was proof that someone had read, all the way to the end, just how hard Rosalind had worked last night.
Rosalind felt the warmth of the cup between her palms.
Nothing ran down her cheeks.
She only let out one slow breath.
From beyond the door came the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
A regular, unhesitating stride. Half an hour earlier than usual—those footsteps.
Rosalind's hand paused.
(—Your Grace.)
(Already up and about this morning, too.)
She started to file it away as "work," and couldn't.
The bell for the start of the workday had not yet rung.
The footsteps stopped in front of her office for just a single beat.
Then, as though nothing had happened, they passed on toward his own office.
Rosalind wrapped both hands around the cup again and looked at the door for a long time.
(...Your Grace.)
She called to him, but not aloud.
(It's you, isn't it.)
It did not even take the shape of a question. It was merely a confirmation.
The bell for the start of the workday came falling down from atop the castle.
Rosalind drained her tea, carefully closed the parcel of sweets, and tucked it into the very front of her drawer.
She spread out her documents.
The trial run of the currency reform was underway.
Today, too, approval requests awaiting her sign-off would pile up to the edge of the desk, and the clerks would form a line.
The time until His Grace curtly told her, "That's enough for today," would surely pass in the blink of an eye.
Rosalind took up her pen and wrote the date on the first line.
The pen tip felt just a little lighter than usual.
(Ritsuko.)
She called to her once more, inside her heart.
(I think I can do my best today, too.)
In the corridor, Oswald the secretary was quietly checking with a young attendant.
"...His Grace was half an hour early again this morning."
"Y-yes, sir. He checked the parcel of sweets and the teapot himself before going in."
"Did he change the paper today?"
"...New wrapping paper. With his own hands."
Oswald let out a deep, long sigh.
He looked at the attendant's face for a while.
"That, you see..."
"Y-yes?"
"That's three years' worth, all pent up."
"...Sir?"
"Never mind. Just talking to myself."
Oswald shifted the bundle of documents in his arms and turned the corner of the corridor.
The attendant watched his back for a while.
Where "three years' worth" began and where it ended, the young man did not yet quite understand.
But from beyond the door of Rosalind's office, the steady scratch of a pen sounded, just a little more lightly than usual.