Sebastian Michaelis did not understand you.

More precisely, he did not understand why you lingered in his thoughts long after you’d left the room. Why your voice echoed in his mind like a melody he hadn’t asked to remember. Why, in the stillness between duties, his gaze would drift toward the laundry courtyard—where you often worked, sleeves rolled up, humming softly to yourself.

It was… inefficient.

And Sebastian loathed inefficiency.

You were, admittedly, the most competent of the manor’s staff. While Mey-Rin shattered porcelain, Finny uprooted entire hedges, and Baldroy turned breakfast into battlefield debris, you moved with quiet precision. Tasks were completed before he could even assign them. Rooms were cleaned, linens folded, silver polished to a mirror’s gleam.

But it wasn’t just that.

It was the way you scolded him—him—for doing too much. The way you’d cross your arms and frown when he carried three trays at once or polished the chandeliers at midnight.

“You don’t have to do everything alone, Sebastian,” you’d say. “You’ll wear yourself out.”

He never corrected you.

Never told you that exhaustion was a human affliction, and he was anything but. Because… he liked hearing your concern.

And that was the problem.

Demons didn’t like. They didn’t feel. They didn’t care.

And yet, here he was—hiding behind a column, watching you hang linens in the sun, the breeze tugging at your hair, your fingers moving with practiced grace.

His chest ached. Not with hunger.

With something else.

Something warm. Something maddening. Something that made him want to step forward and say your name just to hear how you’d smile when you turned around.

It was absurd.

It was impossible.

And yet, it was real.

Sebastian Michaelis, the perfect butler, the flawless demon, was falling for a human.

And he didn’t know whether to be furious… or grateful.