"M-Ma-Master!" Her voice is low and shaky which is barely understandable, as tears started pricking at the corner of her eyes!
"I didn't gave you your salary last month, its included in this one!" He replied without her asking anything like he is predicting what she was about to say and he was actually right!
She was about to ask this same thing which he answered without even asking!
He- He actually noticed m-me!?
Did he- he actually acknowledge me?
Her eyes were filled with tears already and she was so happy after getting her salary including the last's month salary and at this point she can't contain her happiness anymore. The tears spills out of her eyes freely as she clenches the envelope against her chest tightly and bowed her head at him immediately, her dress curls around her stomach when she bows and tucks beneath her weight causing it appear wrinkle!
"Th-Thank you so much, master!" She says out loud. For a spilt second the fear of talking to him casually and showing her emotions infront of him vanishes completely as she thanks him with her full heart. Her breaking words and trembling voice tells this exactly how much she is happy right now!
***
Because of her husband, she was in a heavy debt already and because of the daily use of money for food, clothes and rent for the house she lives in she was facing a massive dose of problems which is impossible to avoid! Since she didn't got her last month salary she was looking for a chance to ask him about it but everytime even being completely alone with him she can't get enough confidence to ask him about it but ...
Today, right at this very moment just by a small act from him, solved almost her every problem like nothing! She can finnally pay the rent of her house to stop the landlord to come over to her house and ask for unnecessary and irrelevant conditions! She can finnally eat something other than plain rice ... She can finnally live freely once again!
***
She raises her head and looks at him with her teary eyes, her vision is blurred cause of the tears, meanwhile he didn't even take a slight glance at her. His gaze stays on his work, his hand continued working ... The noise of pen scratching on the papers continues once again. She stands there for a moment still processing what just happened!
Then, she wipes the tears from her cheeks that slips out of her eyes with the back of her hand and then looks at the envelope of money once again as she holds the envelope tightly against her waist and looks at him and notices he is not saying anything else he didn't even bother look at her when she thanked him but ...
She didn't feel bad about it not even in a slightest, she always saw him like this ever since she became his maid, she never saw him talking too much, showing much of his emotions or even other people talking to him!
"Do you need something?" He suddenly stops and asked after seeing her just standing there without saying anything and kept looking at him!
She snaps out of her thoughts of what she can do with the money and finnally got into the reality! Her eyes opens like she just woke up from a dream and when her senses came back she saw him looking at her, she then realized that she got so lost into her thoughts that she almost forgot that she had to leave now!
And now he is asking that if she wants anything else ...
A electric like shock runs in her entire body after hearing his voice as she quickly shakes her in pure panic and quickly clasps both of her hand infront in manner!
"N-No master"
"I- I am sorry" she scrambles with words to find an answer as she immediately bowed towards him once again to apologise in pure rush and panic! He just stares at her for a moment as she apologise but then ...
"You can go now!" He glances back at the papers and dismiss her with his usual serious tone!
Her eyes opens wide as she heard him and without wasting even a single second she raises her head and started stepping back slowly...
"O-okay master, Thank you so- so much" She bows once more to thank him once again as she turns around and rushed towards the door but then she trips over her own dress because she forgot to hold it high up in panic. While stumbling around in the doorway she rushed out of his room and once outside she closes the door gently...
"So-sorry master" While saying with trembling and unsure tone she shuts the door and once outside of his room, out of her gaze she finnally took a deep breath and presses her left hand over her chest gently just to feel how much her heart is pounding right now and then she looks down at the envelope and a soft smile appears on her face!
She quickly holds it against her chest and rushed towards the right side of the hallway, at the end of the hallway there's a door where she stops and quickly opens the door.
This was her personal room which he gave her by himself when he hired her a year ago! The lamp on the wall just beside of door flickers, the cold and freezing air vanishes the moment she enteres in her room and shuts the door immediately, so quickly it actually made a *thum* noise!
*Huff**Huff*
Yomi took a deep breath to control her rough breathing and looks at her room, her room was dark
because of the dark weather outside. So, she quickly reaches towards a nearby button which she turns on the light and then quickly rushed towards her bed while holding the envelope close to her chest.
The one and only light source in her room was that bulb in the middle of the room hanging on the ceiling that flickers, her room is small but comfy. A bed in the left side in the corner and a wooden wardrobe which allows her to store her belongings, a bed side table with a photoframe on it of her mother with her and a table lamp which she turned on too.
She finnally pulls that envelope off from her chest and glances at it once again then she put that envelope down on the bed and reaches towards the bed side table and opens the 2nd drawer in it, the middle one and takes out a diary. she closes the drawer and sits back onto the bed.
She slides the envelope aside and opens the diary, there was a bookmark already tucked it and when she opens the book, she saw different amounts written infront of different categories of things like ...
House rent - ¥10,000 | Electricity bill - ¥32,000 and so on ...
She stares at the book for a moment then started searching around for something then her gaze went onto the bed sidetable and and she leans towards it to pick up that pen she was searching.
She marks a tick on the last two remaining category in that book and then wrote the amount of ¥52,000 infront of the grand total and then all of a sudden she frowns as she glances at the envelope and looks back at the dairy.
"If master gave me my last month's salary with this month salary then it would be ¥60,000 but-"
"My expenses is already reached over ¥50,000 because since last month i didn't able to save any money because he took all of it from me" She is referring her husband here!
Suddenly she heard a little noise of something hitting her window and she took a glance at it but it was nothing but raindrops because outside the dark and cloudy weather actually turned into a heavy rain. Which she ignored completely and continued with her work.
"And if my calculations are correct then the total amount I got to pay including the last month is ¥52,000 means i can only save ¥8,000 this month!" She sighs and her head went down a bit.
"I thought I can save more!" She says as she puts that diary back down along with the pen she was holding. She places both of her hand onto her lap and sat there for a moment staring at the ground with a little disappointment and sadness in her eyes.
Her body curls into a little one like she was trying to hide into nothing but then she sighs and glances back at the envelope and a weak smile appears on her face.
The soothing noise of rain and that familiar smell of wet ground coming from outside made her heart calm and brain cold slightly.
"Atleast i can be free with all of those debt i was in-" She says, accepting the fact that the money she got wasn't much but it was enough and she is still very grateful for that.
She picks up that envelope and opens it to actually see the money, but accidentally the envelope slips out of her hand and fell onto the ground, her eyes widened in shock and she immediately jumps from the bed and kneels down onto the ground to quickly collect all of the money from the ground.
Her finger's nail were rustling against the hard floor violently but she was so desperate that she can't even find a difference, her face got covered with sweat already but soon she was able to pick up all the money!
She quickly holds all of that money in her arms like they are gonna disappear if she let go for even one second and sits back on the bed ...
She leans down to slowly put all the money on bed without letting anymore fall off, her eyes never saw this much money ever before and after seeing so much money scattered onto her bed infront of her makes her feel dizzy ... She slowly shakes her head and started taking every note back one by one to tie it in a bundle again but then she noticed something!
The amount of note are way too much for saying that is ¥60,000. Her hands stops for a moment and she stares at it for a moment with her mouth slightly open but then shakes off her head once again ...
Maybe its just because i never saw this much before. She started picking all of the money one by one and lining up properly while counting too.
The money was unusual from the very start because everytime she gets notes of ¥1,000 which means total 30 notes of ¥1,000 but this time its ¥2,000 notes and it looks suspiciously way too much in quantity too but ...
Despite this fact which she completly ignores it, she continues picking notes one by one and stacking 10 notes at once and putting it aside to count more easily but then suddenly she noticed something which left her in complete shock!
Her face turned pale because of sudden shock, her mouth was open widely when she noticed that she already stacked 30 notes of ¥2,000 which means ¥60,000 but there are still notes scattered around on her bed ...
Her heart can't believe this ... She can't believe this!
H- Ho- How is this possible!?
She rubs her eyes in disbelief to see if she is hallucinating but when she takes her hands off her eyes there was still more money that ¥60,000.
And just not a bit more money than ¥60,000 but way too much money than ¥60,000.
She shakes her head and quickly started counting all of the money she already counted just now ... she picks up the stacked notes of ¥2,000 and one by one she started counting again ...
The fan on the ceiling was on but the sweat is still managed to slip from her forehead to her hand then her senses stop when she realised that there is more money than ¥60,000.
She can't believe her eyes, the ¥60,000, which is her monthly salary sits on the complete other end of bed which she counted over and over again about 7 times but there are so much money left on the bed!
She covers her mouth when a gasp escape her mouth and stands up from the bed! A thunder sound comes and the bright light of lightning lit up the whole room for a split second.
What!
That cannot be true!
Did master gave me more money?
B- B- But he never did something like this before-
Was that a mistake ?
D-Did he gave me a wrong envelope!
She walks around in her small room, right to left and left to right again and again while nervously clenching her fist onto her other hand and thinking about what just happened and what should she do now!
Then she suddenly rushed back towards the bed and sits on the edge, right beside the money she already counted and after staring at the money for a moment she picks up the empty envelope which she threw away in pure panic when she saw that much money!
She puts all of the money she already counted in the envelope which was ¥60,000 and closed the envelope! And then after it, first she just sat there and stared at the envelope for a moment because the thickness of the envelope with ¥60,000 inside it was nowhere near enough with all of the money inside which definitely means that there is (Something Different)!
She places the envelope aside completely apart from others and then glances back at the leftover money on the bed nervously, her fingers keeps curling around the corner of her dress and her leg keep bouncing with anxiety!
She then started picking up the leftover money and stacking it seperately while counting ... she wanted to know how much extra money is there other than ¥60,000.
Her hands were trembling a lot more than the time he gave her this envelope! Her heartbeat was so high she can feel it against her chest.
A stranded hair fell onto her left eye but she was so nervous and focused on the money that she didn't even moved it.
She stacks the ¥2,000 notes one by one in 10 by 10 stack to count more easily, just by doing this about 20 minutes passed already and during this time she didn't even notice that she wasn't blinking all this time!
Once done she takes a deep breath and wipes sweat from her forehead with a sigh and then started counting the stack ...
"Since there are multiple ¥2,000 notes I can't count it in plain order but if i stack 10 notes of ¥2,000 then it'll reduce the amount in small number to remember and I can add and multiple easily!"
A glint of determination shines in her eyes as she quickly looks around for her diary and which sits just behind her on the bed, she grabs it and opens a brand new page to start counting.
"So a stack contains ¥20,000 and there are 7 stacks in total and if i multiple it with eachother then the total amount is-"
Her hands suddenly stopped in mid writing, her breath was so fast she hear it clearly and the way her body started shaking in tension was so terrible she can't even believe after seeing the amount of money she got after counting thenextra money which is ¥140,000!
To be continued ...
