Chapter Text
A morning of spring, it happened for the first time: One of the maids of the castle approached Dorshe with a gift.
It wasn’t a special occasion of any kind, not a birthday or holiday that could have prompted it. Dorshe was really confused about it. He guessed that it must have been in return for some kind of favor. Yet for more he tried, he couldn’t remember when he had done something for the maid in question.
Embarrassed of his bad memory, he apologized, saying he just couldn’t accept a token her kindness when he couldn't even remember her name or face.
“Oh- Oh no! Dorshe-sama, don’t say that! You have nothing to apologize for. It is my own fault for confusing you in the first place… Th-This is the first time I’ve ever talked to you, that’s why you don’t remember me. Please don't feel bad.”
“O-Oh, I see… Then, uh… What is the reason...?”
“I- I have always been too shy to try to talk to you... Ah, it's not because I thought you were be mean or something like that! It's just... Well… A-Anyway, I finally gathered the courage today to talk to you. Dorshe-sama, I have always looked at you from afar and admired you... I think you're really charming.”
Dorshe felt a little shy. “Oh… I- I never thought I of all people could have fans… I am really moved, thank you. I'm not sure I deserve so much admiration, though…”
She giggled. "Oh, I… I don’t know if fan is the right word... Maybe it is! But more than that, I... I... wanted to know if you would be interested in... Ah... If you would be interested going out with me...?”
Dorshe could feel his stomach twirling a little.
He didn’t understand the girl’s intentions until she fully spelled it out for him. He was drawing a blank. He had never been in this kind of situations before and had no idea how to handle this kind of things.
“Th… Thank you, I’m… Uh…” He tried to think fast and find the best course of action to get out of this before anxiety could overheat his system. “It really flatters me that you are interested in asking me out… I will have to decline, though… I am really sorry, please don’t take it personally. You have been really kind to me, I- I am sure you’re a great person…”
“Dorshe-sama, please, don’t worry about me, I understand. I knew that asking you out probably wouldn’t result in anything, but I wanted to try anyway.”
He felt relieved that she seemed to take it well, and most importantly, wasn’t further insisting on go out with him - but he still felt guilty for some reason.
He wanted to keep making sure her feelings weren’t hurt, but if anything, she seemed more concerned about his feelings than herself.
“Even then, I’m sorry... It’s just… I… I sincerely don’t think I can bring myself to date a stranger just like that… It is because you are so kind that I think it would be wrong of me to accept going out with you if my heart isn’t into it. I am sorry.” Dorshe awkwardly bowed to thank her.
The girl giggled "It's alright, it's alright. Please don't feel bad so bad about it, I'll be fine".
He continued nervously apologizing and thanking her, really wanting to get out of this but not knowing when to stop or what to do. He said sorry, he said thank you, he said she really made his day, he said she was more than welcome to talk to him any time if she wanted to, he said maybe if they knew each other better in the future he could reconsider, but he wasn’t sure. He kept going hoping to try to somehow find a way to end this conversation.
Dorshe politely waved goodbye and quietly continued walking his way to work. He increased his pace once he was sure the girl no longer could see him. He only wanted to get to the Queen’s office as soon as possible.
He didn’t know why his blood was still rushing now that the whole thing was over - If anything, he was feeling more anxious now.
He couldn’t believe what just happened. He was stumped. He could barely remember what he did. He didn’t know how he managed it to not freeze on the spot.
“Dorshe! There you are.”
Her voice instantly made him feel at ease. “Hiling-sama. Good morning.”
“You look a bit out of breath! Try to not come here running.”
“I will do.”
His brain slowly began to cool down. Queen Hiling occupying his mind often helped him focus and feel calmer; Now was no different.
Work made him almost forget about what had happened, but some uneasiness rested in his mind.
He didn’t want to tell Hiling about it, it felt so trivial and stupid. They weren’t adverse to a few moments of chit-chat here and there; she had listened to him before when he needed to talk about personal life things, but he didn’t want to annoy her with such dumb trouble.
The very fact that this was troubling him to begin made him feel embarrassed.
They had known each other for 10 odd years, so he was sure that even if they had only touched the topic two or three times, she had surely noticed that he had no love experience. But even if she was aware of it, he felt embarrassed to go and outright confirm it to her just like that. It was best left understood but unspoken, that was how they often handled a lot of things between them.
He tried to get over it as the hours went by, but he began to feel a little guilty about not telling Hiling. As dumb as this whole thing was, he feel bad about about keeping it a secret from her.
It technically wasn’t a secret, it was just something that happened to him that he hadn’t mentioned today - but the conscious decision to not tell her made him feel like he was keeping a secret from her.
As the night approached and work was almost over, he decided to come straight with her. He would rather run the risk making her laugh at the cost of his own dignity than to feel like he was keeping things from her.
“Hiling-sama…”
“Hmm? What is it, Dorshe?”
“Forgive me… I was wondering if you could give me some advice on something that has been troubling me since morning…”
It was unusual of Dorshe to be troubled by something all day, Hiling thought. She wondered what kind of thing could bother him to the point where he couldn’t get over it yet did not say a peep about it.
"Sure, let me hear it.”
“It's... It's not a big deal, it’s just... This morning, a maid approached me while I was walking to work... Well, it surprised me, because I didn’t know her name, nor I recognized her from anywhere, and yet she approaches me to give me a gift...”
She was getting really intrigued, if a bit amused.
“I thought it was awful of me, not remembering her name… But to my surprise, she told me she actually never had talked to me before. I didn’t understand why she would want to give me something if that was the case…”
Hiling kinda wanted to laugh, but held back to let him finish the whole thing. She thought Dorshe looked cute, nervous and confused over something like this.
“Then she said, to my surprise, that she wanted to know if I would go out with her. I was taken aback, I didn’t expect that… A-Anyway, I rejected her but I thanked her thoroughly. I told her I wasn’t interested and explained that I can’t bring myself to go out with someone I don’t love, especially a complete stranger...”
“Oh.”
Hiling thought for a moment that Dorshe was going to say that he accepted going out with the girl and he didn’t want to keep it a secret from Hiling, maybe even feeling like he needed her permission to date someone.
She even worried for a second that, given how oblivious Dorshe seemed with the whole thing, he had accidentally agreed to go out with the girl and only realized later that it was a date, and needed Hiling’s advice on how to back down on it. It just seemed to her like something that could happen to him.
“After rejecting her, I tried my best to make her feel better... I was really afraid of hurting her feelings, I know love can hurt. She didn’t cry, fortunately, and she seemed to take it well. It's just... I wanted to ask for your opinion, to know if you think I did the right thing.”
Hiling was amused by how clumsy was Dorshe with all this, how troubled he was by something so silly, but she felt really endeared for the very same reasons.
It was just so like him, she thought.
“Hmm, I see… Well, based on what you’ve told me, I would that you handled things pretty well, Dorshe.”
“I... I did?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, from what you just told me, it sounds like you handled things well.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I do! You have nothing to feel bad about. You were sincere and you took great care not to hurt her. It was the right thing to do. It would have been dishonest to go out with her just to make her happy. That would just make you uncomfortable and it wouldn’t be fair for her to be with someone who isn’t actually interested in her.”
“That's right... Thank you, Hiling-sama. I feel relieved after hearing that from you.”
She smiled. She was happy about Dorshe wanting to tell her about his personal life and about him wanting to hear her opinion so badly. That last part gave her a bit of an ego boost even; Dorshe’s relying on her made her feel like a true expert on the matters of love, thinking of herself as a true erudite on the matter - even when in reality she was just as awkward as Dorshe when it came to it.
She laughed to herself a few times later that night remembering Dorshe’s story, picturing the sheer awkwardness of the encounter. She was sure that Dorshe probably felt more awkward about it than the poor girl did.
His conversation with Hiling made Dorshe get over this whole thing.
So much, that he was caught off guard when the same girl arrived days later with another gift.
Still a little nervous but not nearly as much as the last time, he gently accepted her gift and thanked her once again for her kindness.
Her first gift had been homemade cookies, now it was pound cake. Dorshe knew plenty about baking since he baked with Hiling every once in a while. He used that common topic to chat a little with the girl, feeling a little less nervous now that he knew what to talk about.
He thanked her one last time. She did not ask him out again, yet he still apologized for rejecting her. They friendly waved goodbye.
Dorshe speculated that this would probably keep happening every once in a while. He did tell her that it was alright for her to come talk to him whenever she wanted, after all.
He was comforted to see that the girl was doing well and seemed to have moved on just fine. He thought that perhaps they could become friends. The maids of the castle were always really kind to him, it was a good idea to keep good relations with them, he thought.
Word spread among the maids about the first encounter between the girl and Dorshe just a few hours after it happened, gossip increasing by the minute.
None of them had ever dared to do something like that before. Many of them felt contempt towards the girl’s shamelessness, breaking one of their unspoken rules.
Some of them laughed, mocking how he didn’t even know her name. Some were jealous, having liked Dorshe for way longer yet never getting a chance to speak with him. Some really didn't get why go for Dorshe and not Bebin. Some felt embarrassed, feeling like what she did was tarnishing the image of the castle maids as a whole. A few were annoyed, being firm believers that Dorshe was in love with Queen Hiling and not wanting anyone to get close to him.
As different opinions and disagreements abounded, this soon became a hot topic among the maids – if only because it helped to keep themselves entertained and have something to distract themselves with.
For days it remained a widely discussed topic, but they promised to keep it among themselves and not let the others in the castle know about it. They especially made sure it didn’t fall into Queen Hiling’s ears – they really enjoyed speculating what would happen if she were to learn, unaware that she already learned about it from Dorshe himself.
They were all expectant to see if the infamous girl who started it all would talk to Dorshe a second time or not.
Bets were made, and once the faithful day arrived when she finally approached them a second time, many followed her in the shadows to spy their little meeting.
Many thought Dorshe would be annoyed by seeing her again. Surprised by how he seemed to take it well, by how polite and sweet he was to her, something awoke on the other girls that made them want to try to give it a shoot too.
So they gave it a shoot, approaching Dorshe with their own little presents.
Of course, no one actually expected to go out with him. Asking him out was part of the game, but all they wanted was a chance to chat with him and to show their appreciation with a present. The Big Four were about the closest they had to mini celebrities within the castle staff, so even for those who didn't have a crush on Dorshe, getting to give him a little present felt exciting.
Being rejected was part of the appeal, in a way. Everyone was moved by how Dorshe refused to date anyone he didn’t truly love and how he explained that he could never do something like that if his heart wasn’t truly on it. His words had such a gentlemanly charm to it - There was something romantic about being rejected like that.
Those who were firm believers of him and the Queen Hiling being secretly in love with each other were also really captivated by his rejection, approaching him just so they could hear his rejection and fantasy about how he won’t let anyone get the way of his love for the Queen, no matter how many come to try to seduce him.
But for all different things they wondered and debated about, one of the things they were concerned about the least was how all this was making him feel.
What at first was just one or two girls approaching him per week soon became three or four, then five or six - increasing more and more as other girls gained confidence to try it.
He wasn’t sure what to think or do about it. He was extremely confused.
He guessed of course that the first girl must have sparked this reaction on the others, but he couldn’t understand for the life of him why it had snowballed into this.
It felt like he was being pranked, but the girls were all so sweet and earnest when they approached him that he felt bad for doubting them, but he just couldn’t think of any other explication.
As their numbers increased, the subtlety quickly vanished, with the girls beginning approaching him at hours and places were others were present, no longer making it possible for this whole deal stay a secret within the castle.
It embarrassed to be caught in these situations by the soldiers or the Big Four, but his sole consolation was that the girls were sharp enough to never do it in presence of Queen Hiling. He just didn’t know what he would do if she were to see this whole mess, he wanted to do everything possible to avoid having that. Telling her what happened the first time had been already pretty embarrassing - the idea of her getting to see what it escalated into made him want to never show his face again.
It didn’t take long for her to find out, though.
Her usual sources of gossip intel were Dorshe himself and the maids. As they were both deliberately not telling her about it, Hiling indeed remained in the dark for far longer than most of the castle did, blissfully unaware of the chitchat going around her.
But the day came where someone confessed to Dorshe in the courtyard, unaware that the Queen could see them from her balcony.
Intrigued, Hiling carefully paid attention to what she was seeing, hoping they wouldn’t notice her up there peeking.
She felt amused at first; She remembered very well her conversation with Dorshe from days ago, and seeing the exact same thing happen to him once again felt like a funny coincidence.
Seeing with her own eyes just how anxious Dorshe was through the whole thing, Hiling felt her amusement turn into pity. It made her feel a certain tenderness for him, the nervous way he carried himself and his awkward apologies.
The encounter ended and Hiling sat in her office, eagerly waiting for Dorshe to arrive.
She looked forward to hear Dorshe’s narration to how it went. She found his retelling of what happened the first time really cute and wanted to hear it about this with his own words. She wanted to be there to comfort him a little.
She passed the minutes trying to imagine him entering the room and shyly telling her “Hiling-sama… You just won’t guess what just happened to me again today.”
But Dorshe arrived completely aloof, silently taking part in his duties after a quick greeting.
Surprised, Hiling waited to see if he would bring it up eventually. Yet Dorshe remained unusually quiet as hours went by.
She guessed he probably felt too embarrassed to talk about what happened. She wanted to wait until he was ready to talk about it when he felt like it - but curiosity and boredom soon got the best of her. Not wanting to wait any longer, she spoke:
“Oh, that’s right, Dorshe! Now I remember… This morning, since there was such a lovely weather, I sat on my balcony to enjoy my tea. While I was looking at the courtyard, I happened to see you and one of the maids chatting. I saw that she handed you something, I think. It was amusing to see, it reminded me of how the same happened to you the other week! I just wanted to ask you about it, was it the same girl?”
Dorshe shivered. Hiling noticed.
“Ah, no… It was not the same girl, th- this girl talked to me for the first time today... To ask out as well… I don’t know what it is, I don’t get it myself... But for some reason after the first girl asked me, others have approached me as well… I don't know…” Dorshe was feeling really embarrassed about sharing this with her.
“Aren’t you happy?” Hiling asked rather serious.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know… Happy about all the attention.”
“I rather feel like I am being pranked…”
Hiling couldn’t help but to laugh at that. “Sorry”, she said, trying to compose herself.
“I-It’s true! I feel rather bad for even thinking it might be a prank, for every time these girls come speak to me they are so earnest and nice. I feel bad for doubting them, but I just don't know…”
“So you aren’t happy?”
Dorshe looked at the floor, pensive.
“Not really. It’s making me rather uncomfortable, to tell the truth.”
She smiled - just for a split of a second before she realized what an innappropiate reaction that was. She wasn't sure if Dorshe had noticed. Finding herself enjoying Dorshe's discomfort was making her feel disgusting.
She tried to get back in track, pretending to be pondering about was it that they should do about all this.
“Hmm. Do you want me to speak to the maids?”
“Oh no! Please don’t, Hiling-sama. I want to be able to handle this on my own.” He said. He really wanted to find a way to handle things on his own, but he also feared Hiling would probably be too hard on the poor girls.
“Alright, it’s your call. But let me know if you change your mind.”
Days passed, and Hiling began to notice quick whispers and a certain atmosphere of 'Okay, maids are definitely whispering things behind my back' wherever she went. Nothing serious, but definitely annoying. She had a feeling it had something to do with this whole deal with Dorshe.
She wondered how he felt about it. She had asked Dorshe to keep her tuned on how things developed - Yet his reports about it became shorter as days went by, until his daily briefing became a short sigh followed by asking “Again?” whenever he arrived looking gloomy to work.
She had grown tired of it. She wanted to put a stop to it, but she begrudgingly kept reminding herself that Dorshe asked her to try to handle this himself. She didn’t want to go against his wishes, she knew he had to learn to handle these things by himself, but it was driving her crazy how long it was taking him.
Determined to find out what was it that the maids were whispering behind her back, she launched the most delicate investigation work she had ever done all on her own. She didn’t let the lack of her usual maid intel discourage her - instead, she saw it a great chance to unleash her hidden potential to be a great detective.
She was driven. She was going to find out the truth without having to interrogate anyone, using only her pure deduction skills. She sneaked through the hallways, hid and peeked around the castle all day. Everyone in the castle was getting a little unnerved.
Her investigation lasted little less than one day, after it became obvious to her that she really sucked at this.
“You’re all keeping something secret for me, aren’t you?”
The young girls helping Hiling try out a new dress looked shocked and nervous, barely hiding their fear.
“H-Hiling-sama, what are you talking about?”
“I'm not mad. I won’t punish you for hiding things from me. If it worries you that the other girls might get angry at you for telling, I will keep them in check myself to make sure they behave. Just tell me what is it that you’re keeping away from me.”
The girls stared each other, unsure on what to do. Hiling silently waited for their answer, arms crossed, firm as steel. Her stern gaze piercing at them made them give up and spill.
As she guessed, it was the whole Dorshe thing what everyone around her had been whispering about!
What the girls told her matched perfectly what she knew already from Dorshe and confirmed some things she deduced from knowing the maids: Watching the first girl asking Dorshe out made others try it out themselves; It was not a not prank, they genuinely liked him; He had been thanking them but politely rejecting them; The girls felt like the rejection was part of the appeal.
None of this was new to her. What was it then that they were trying to hide from her?
She was left unsatisfied with their answers. There had to be something else that they really didn’t want to tell her - some juicier, deeper secret, like that Dorshe had finally accepted to go out with one of the girls or something. She kept pushing the two girls into telling her what else was it that they knew about it, but they insisted that this was all they knew.
Hiling was just more disgruntled now. She was all more convinced that there was something hidden here.
She let the two girls go. They just wouldn’t spill it. She figured it would be better to try asking the other maids until someone gave it away.
So she went interrogating them one by one, asking them what they knew; trying different approaches, intimidating or friendly, casual or formal. Yet the maids seemed scared of her regardless of what approach she took.
Interrogating each and every maid she could find was making her really tired, but she didn’t want to give up.
None of them yielded. All they told her were things she already knew, yet they all treated it like a big spicy secret to hide from her. Hiling was realizing that they were all firmly believed that she didn’t know about the Dorshe-maid situation, expecting her to be shocked, even mad if she learned about it.
She gave up on her investigation. All she felt she learned was that everyone thought of her as a mean lady who no one, not even Dorshe, liked to confide things.
It annoyed her to be unable to find anything new, but it was the image everyone had of her what upset her more. She left feeling hurt from all this, feeling like they all saw her as a clueless fool, not even once crossing their minds that Dorshe himself might have told her about it.
While it hurt, she was somewhat used to the way people would often think of her as an unpleasant nagging witch. She liked to convince herself that the way others thought of her didn't affect her even when it did.But it was rather their perception of her relationship with Dorshe what bothered her more.
Everyone seem to think of her as nothing but a controlling old nag towards him. Everyone seemed to think that Dorshe didn’t trust her and would never confide anything to her. Was she the only one who thought of her and Dorshe as close?
Everyone thinking of her as a mean old bitch made her wonder if Dorshe did too.
Everyone taking her for a clueless fool made her begin to wonder if she WAS indeed a clueless fool.
The mix of loneliness, anxiety, insecurity and jealousy made Hiling feel too depressed to want to do anything. She sat alone in her room looking at the window getting lost in her thoughts, waiting for the day to end.
She wondered what Dorshe was doing right at that moment; if he was maybe getting approached by yet another girl while she was there hoping the minutes would pass faster. She began to think that the girls were probably spending more time with him than she does, speaking with him in such a casual way, more casual than her status could ever allow her to.
She kept picturing how it would be, if Dorshe truly fell for one of those girls and go out with them, how he would be going on a date with them.
She felt a deep loneliness getting to her. She felt the distance between her and Dorshe growing.
She didn’t want to resent them. The girls are fine. It's normal for them to crush on Dorshe, I mean, any soldier, but if Dorshe wasn’t truly interested in them, why was it that he still was accepting their gifts, chatting with them and letting them try again later? Why hadn’t he cut them right there so they would stop bothering him?
Hiling knew, rationally, that Dorshe, anxious and clumsy, would be too awkward to know how to put a stop with all this, but she couldn’t think rationally, not right then. The cogs on her brain would not stop turning around.
Nighttime fell. Hiling went straight to bed, hoping that getting some sleep could finally distract her from all this.
Making her biggest effort to fall asleep was only managing to make her more tense, keeping her up and getting even more anxious… How was she so sure that if they were hiding something from her, it was that Dorshe was going out with only one girl, anyway?
Was... Was Dorshe not accepting any confession, because if he did go out with one girl, the other girls would stop coming? Oh God. By not accepting their confessions, yet not downright telling them to stop coming, Dorshe, under the pretense of politeness, kept receiving gifts and attention.
He was playing safe! He was playing with all of them at once!! It was almost genius two-timing with no compromises. Hiling was flabbergasted. It was so obvious, how hadn’t she seen it before? How naive was she to fall for the idea of Dorshe being too awkward to tell them to stop coming. It was all part of his plan.
Dorshe was surely slowly charming them all so he could have them all wrapped around his finger. He surely had told each and every girl that he wanted to go out with her and only her, but he couldn’t publicly accept because it would hurt the other girls if they were to know. So he used that excuse to arrange meetings in secret with each and every one of them. H-He might even have already found a way to sleep with every single one (!!) without the others knowing...
She was getting too entranced in her own wild theories to be able to land her feet back on Earth and think rationally. It was as juicy as it was upsetting.
The image of womanizer Dorshe playing with the maids feelings wouldn't leave her head. That image of Dorshe was so cartoony and absurd. She knew him, she knew he could never be like that, but...
But?
Hiling wasn’t dumb. She often tried to deny her own feelings and pretend they weren’t there, but dumb she was not. She understood well why she was hurting like this, but she wasn’t going to let this ruin it. She had afforded to deny it for so long. She wasn’t going to let all her efforts go to waste.
She wanted to keep denying it no matter what, no matter how absurd it became. If she didn’t think about it and pretended it wasn’t there then it would disappear. And everything would stay the same.