I've come to the realisation that making these fics at 5am after no sleep might not be smart….
After the events that had occurred, Subaru didn't have the heart to contact Satella, and Satella didn't want to be contacted anyway, she was too busy drowning in a sea of unpleasant thoughts.
Its not like Subaru didn't want to contact the poor girl, it just didn't feel right. He didn't know how to approach her at all.
Should he ignore what happened and act as if things are normal? Or should he openly talk about it with her? If he chose to speak about it, then how does he speak about it? What did he even think about what he saw?
It was an unpleasant situation for all involved, including a different siler haired girl.
Emilia had gotten hope and immediately noticed the silence that had taken over the house. It wasn't at all uncommon for the house to be vacant when she got home, Subaru and Satella often went out to just hang out and be friends, even if Emilia loved teasing Satella by calling those activities dates, underneath a hint of envy of course.
But then she walked into the kitchen. She noticed Subaru's bag on the counter, as well as some very faint noises from Satella's room, immediately thinking the worst, her cheeks flushed, and she let out a small squeal. Following such upsetting things, she sat on the couch with a huff.
Her parents had gone to the shops to buy something for dinner, they had dropped her off to tell Satella to prepare for dinner.
Her small internal tantrum about her sisters alleged sexual relations with the man that they shared feelings for stopped when her phone vibrated in her hands.
She looked down at the device with fire in her eyes, ready to launch it across the room in annoyance. She wished to mope alone.
But then she looked at the name attached to the message.
Natsuki Subaru.
A hint of anger overtook her. He was just in the other room with her sister, likely lying down next to her naked form, and he had the audacity to message her?
Images of that scene flew through her mind, and she couldn't help but kick the coffee table in rage.
Then she read the message.
Subaru: Hey sorry, but is Satella alright?
Her eyes narrowed at the message, he was with her, right?
A feeling of guilt overtook her as she slowly pieced things together. But that didn't explain everything.
Using what little rational thought she had left, she went outside and called him.
She was surprised by the speed in which he picked up the phone, it had barely had time to ring twice before his voice came through the speakers.
"Hey…" his voice was low and scared, an incredibly unusual mix for anyone over the phone, especially Subaru.
"Hello." Her voice was simple, slow, and confused, a strange mirror of his.
She leaned her back on the front door, ready to hear what he had to say. She heard a resigned sigh and the noise of a chair squeaking.
She herself let out a small sigh at the noise of a chair, she knew for a fact Satella didn't have a chair that could make that noise in her room.
She felt her slight frown shift to a small smile.
"You dummy! You left your bag here!" she chirped, blissfully unaware of Subaru's internal dilemma.
Subaru spun around on his chair, facing away from his desk where many framed pictures lie. He spun away to get away from one particular picture.
Him and Satella, with the brightest smile he had ever seen in any picture of her, posing childishly with him carrying her in a bridal carry and her having her arm raised far above her head in front of a nice sunset, Emilia's two fingers in a slight peace sign at the other side of the photo as she was the one who took it.
He loved that picture; he had never seen her so happy in a single frame. Sure, he had seen her much happier than that before, and he cherished those memories, but they were memories, he would never be able to see it perfectly again.
But he couldn't look at the picture at the moment, not until this mess is sorted out.
"Yeah… that's not why I called though." Emilia nodded along to herself as he talked. "Can you check on Satella for me? Something happened that I can't really talk to her about." Subaru's tone let his discomfort be known as he spoke each word carefully. It was clear that he had planned what to say beforehand, each word seemed deliberate, and his slow speech made it clear that he was trying his best to not mess a single syllable up.
Emilia gave a quick nod and a quick 'of course!' before hanging up and dashing inside.
Her previous jealousy completely forgotten as she rushed to her sister's room, a look of worry on her face.
By using some simple context clues, it was simple to find out that the problem with her sister included Subaru.
This was bad, Subaru was the most important thing in the world to Satella, so if their relationship fell apart, it would leave a deep emotional scar on the poor girl.
Emilia opened the door to Satella's room carefully, not wishing to startle her dear sister.
The doors careful opening made a slight noise, the small silver haired girl turned her head to the door with sad, red, eyes puffy from the crying she had done.
Emilia looked sympathetically at the mirror image of herself, the only difference being the clothing they wore and the ornament in their hair, obviously both bought by Subaru.
Both sisters remembered that day well, and they both cherished the hairpin they were given.
Her dear twin looked like a mess, a heartbroken mess of snot and tears. Her clothes, cheeks, and neck were stained with tears, as well as her pillow. Emilia grimaced looking at the mess of a human sat on the bed, only wearing a shirt and underwear.
"But Subaru came over…" She whispered, confused by Satella's lack of clothes.
Satella hastily wiped her eyes with her arm and smiled weakly at Emilia, making no move to get up from her bed, Emilia frowned.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly, slowly approaching her. Satella merely gave a week nod, turning her gaze to her lap. "Satella, I know you aren't fine…" her twin soothed softly, gently touching her hand to her shoulder to try and comfort the young woman.
Satella remained silent.
"Does it involve Subaru?" Emilia wrapped her arms around Satella and pressed her head to her chest, rubbing her head softly.
Emilia felt her small frame stiffen at the mention of the black-haired man and smiled sadly; her assumption was correct.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" she continued, clearly not wishing to drop the subject.
At the question proposed to her, Satella paused, peering up at her sister like a scared animal.
Her eyes seemed lost, but also hopeful, happy that someone was willing to listen to her problems. She would much rather not be in this situation, but the fact that Emilia was so willing to help warmed her heart greatly.
Emilia looked down at her twin. She wondered how Subaru could so easily tell who was who, she herself could tell, and so could Satella, but even their parents had gotten them mixed up sometimes.
Not him though, not Natsuki Subaru. He could tell them apart with practiced ease. Even when he wasn't friends with Satella, and before that birthday party, he had always known who she was, and that she was different to Emilia.
He took the time to learn all he could about each sister, their likes and dislikes, their dreams and aspirations, their favourite colour, even things as stupid and simple as what time of day they enjoyed most.
Satella's answer was night, and Emilia's was the afternoon, a small piece of information to some, was not at all small to the black-haired young man. He took specific care in what he did with each sister, and when he did it. When he was with both sisters, he made sure to take care of them both.
But with that all said, it was clear to Emilia that he held a special fondness for Satella, holding her hand through crowds and cheering her on at every step. It was honestly one of the many reasons she had fallen for him. Nobody, herself included, seemed to take such care of her sister.
No matter the situation he put her, and her sister, before anyone else.
Emilia's fond smile turned conflicted for a moment, but not long enough for it to be noticeable.
He liked Satella more.
As she weaved through her long hall of memories that fact became more and more obvious.
She wasn't as jealous as she thought she would be… in fact, she felt happy, happy for Satella, glad that somebody cared so deeply for her sister.
Snapping her thoughts back to what mattered, she looked down at her sister and smiled brightly.
"Let's get you cleaned up, then you can tell me, okay?" the cheer in her voice was unmissable, but so was the concern. She was genuinely happy to help her beloved sister.
She was well aware of their shared feelings, as well as Subaru's suspected feelings, she also knew that Satella's feelings were stronger than her own, so the thought that something like a rejection happened was immediately dashed from her mind.
At most, if Subaru were to reject her, it would be carefully crafted in such a way to stop her from ending up like this. It was that trust that Emilia had in her best friend that led her to assume that it was just two stupid teenagers being hopeless.
Emilia slowly stood, taking Satella up with her by the hands.
"Go to the shower, I'll get you some clothes." She instructed lightly, watching carefully as Satella dragged her feet out of the room, head down and hands fiddling with each other in front of her.
Satella walked to the bathroom, it was located at the end of the hall, so it was a decently long walk for a sad girl who believed they had ruined the only chance they had with the one they loved.
She kept her head down and slowly opened the door to the bathroom mindlessly, walking to the shower and lazily turning the knobs.
Removing her hand from the inside of the shower, she undressed herself, there wasn't much to undress, she hadn't changed out of the clothes she slept in.
She wore only an oversized T-shirt and her panties, she wished to burn the underwear.
The shirt however was a shirt she adored.
She doubted anybody had noticed. Subaru was too busy running away in embarrassment and Emilia was too busy comforting her, but this wasn't her shirt.
It was Subaru's shirt; one he had given to her one day as a joke telling her she would look cute in it. His reason for giving it to her was the fact that her own shirt had gotten wet and left her looking indecent, they still had an entire train ride and a half hour walk until they had gotten to her house, and Emilia couldn't offer her own shirt, so Subaru took his undershirt off and gave it to her.
She would never forget his blinding smile as he told her she looked adorable once she had it on. She had a bright red blush the rest of the way home, only assisted by his hand holding hers on the train ride.
Satella was never good with people, and she was even worse when they approached her, so Subaru took it upon himself to hold her hand whenever they were in a massive crowd, not only to calm her, but also to stop them from being approached, more specifically, stopping guys from asking her out.
Emilia could hold her hand, sure, but some creeps would walk up to them asking for favours, or dates.
Emilia was relatively fine in these situations, kindly declining, however Satella was a mess, unable to speak a word, too often did guys find this as a sign that she had agreed.
So, Subaru held her hand. It brought her comfort and gave the illusion that she was already taken. Win-win.
Subaru had never said that it made him uncomfortable, in fact he never said anything about it, he would just hold out his hand to her and let her take it, which she did gladly of course.
It was easy to play off some of her actions as her trying to sell the act, such as when she would stand particularly close to him. From time to time her hand would brush his when walking, Subaru being Subaru would take her hand thinking this was her way of saying she needed comfort.
Other times, she would just grab his hand and walk with him, he would look at her, but nothing more.
It was to a point where she could almost actually call him her unofficial boyfriend.
She looked at her form in the mirror lazily, a deep frown present as she simply stared.
The only noise filling the room being the loud crashing of the water hitting the shower floor. She continued to stare mindlessly.
Her staring contest with herself was only stopped when she heard a knock on the door.
"Satella?" she heard a voice, almost identical to her own, call out from behind the door of the shower.
Suddenly her reflection became much harder to look at. She would forever be in her sister's shadow, causing nothing but trouble for her.
"Y-Yes." She mumbled, barely audible enough for her sister to hear.
"I'm gonna put your clothes at the door, alright?" Satella didn't respond to the call of her sister, merely looking into the mirror, trying to imagine something nice.
Her thoughts couldn't drift of to a nice place, she had ruined her one source of happiness.
She couldn't look him in the eye ever again, not after something like that. not that he would want to look at her of course.
She heard the pitter patter of her sister's light footsteps. A sister she would always be behind.
With a heavy sigh, she opened the bathroom door, took the clothes into the room with her, and closed the door, obviously locking it.
She didn't bother looking at what clothes Emilia had given her, unceremoniously dumping them on the floor and rushing into the shower.
She loved having warm showers, they often calmed her nerves, but she couldn't enjoy this one. Her blood ran cold, as it had been for quite some time now, the image of Subaru's horrified face replaying over and over until she felt the need to tear her hair out.
Her mind failed to notice any positives in the situation, the fact that Subaru told Emilia to check on her was the major one Emilia would have to bring up later.
While her sister was busy trying to collect her thoughts in the shower, Emilia was playing detective. Once again she called Subaru, only for him to pick up the call with speeds unknown to even himself.
Subaru's thoughts were made completely up of Satella, the events that transpired earlier worrying him.
He was not so dense as to be completely and totally unaware of the feelings she had, he had just gotten the wrong idea.
He knew she was incredibly fond of him, but he didn't know it was so fond as to do something like that. He truly didn't know what to do in this situation.
So, he sat in his chair at his desk with his head in his hands staring at his phone and making no move to touch it.
His phones screen displayed the most active of his text messages, he had tried for fifteen minutes to gain the courage to write something, anything to help the situation, but his hands just wouldn't move.
The image of his texts with Satella being all his eyes could take in, he scolded himself for not texting her that he was coming over, as well as for not noticing her true feelings sooner. Now that he looked for it, it was painfully obvious.
He went through his most recent memories with Satella to try and see if this situation could have been avoidable had he just paid more attention to her feelings.
His thoughts were of course broken by his phone ringing, he answered without looking at the name and practically threw the phone to his ear.
"S-Satella im so sorry about earlier!" He blurted out desperately, only to her a dumbfounded hum on the other end of the phone.
"Subaru," he recognised the voice as Emilia's, not Satella's. his face burned a deep red as he mentally chastised himself for his stupidity. "Could you tell me what exactly happened?" The concerned girl asked. Subaru let out a loud sigh as he prepared himself.
The line was silent for a minute as they both prepared for something that would no doubt change their groups dynamic.
"I… messed up." Subaru admitted, sitting up straight in his chair, leaning back slightly to look at the ceiling as he awaited Emilia's reply.
"Mhm, how?" She inquired, jumping up to sit on her kitchen bench, playing with the straps of Subaru's backpack as she spoke.
"It's… ah, its kinda embarrassing." He deflected, foot aggressively tapping the ground as he hoped to be removed from the situation one way or another.
"But if you and Satella don't work it out, it'll just get worse." She reasoned, fighting the urge to open his backpack.
"You have a point… it's my fault."
"Subaruuuuu." Emilia whined. "Tell me what happened."
Subaru looked at his bedroom door for an extended amount of time, as if hoping his parents, neither of which were home, would burst through the door and tell him to get off the phone.
That never happened.
Looking away from the door and out his window he once again sighed.
"I saw too much." He whispered ruefully, his eyes seeming distant as he looked through the window with an unseeing gaze.
Emilia listened attentively to her friend's troubles, taking care to also listen out for the pitter patter of the water hitting the shower floor.
As she heard the story, she had come up with a cunning plan.
The way Subaru spoke, the way he looked at her, the way he talked about her, as Emilia thought about it more, and as she looked out for it in this conversation, it became so obvious to her.
Subaru loved Satella back.
She listened to his story with a smile, not at all caring for the explicit details, if all went right that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg for what her friend would see today.
Satella looked down at her body, ashamed to be inside such a wretched thing, unworthy of the same looks as her sister, not when she got caught doing such things by the one she loved.
The water fell rapidly from the shower head, landing on her body leaving it soaked completely, small patches of red being left on her white skin at the heat of the water, steam coming from her body, rising until the fan in the roof whisked it away.
She watched the steam leaving her body, a sad smile on her face as she imagined it as her soul leaving after such a heartbreaking moment.
Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned against the wall, the water only falling on her hips and legs now.
She wondered what Subaru was thinking in that moment. She hoped he at least enjoyed the show she had given him. She pondered on what he thought of her body, he had made some passing comments about how other men shouldn't be staring so lewdly at such an innocent and beautiful body before, but other than that she wasn't too sure about his opinion on it.
Sometimes she was convinced he knew exactly what he was doing to her.
But that praise wasn't hers, she merely shared the same beauty as her sister, tainting it with her undeserving mind.
She hugged her upper body tightly, clinging to it desperately, turning the heat of the water up in the process.
She shouldn't be shivering so aggressively, the water was hot, so why was she shivering? She felt the strong urge to throw up as her eyes searched around the shower frantically, her breathing becoming laboured and shaky as her legs shook, the only thing keeping her up being the wall she lent on so desperately.
Tears fell freely from her shaking eyes as the water hit her silky-smooth skin, skin she didn't feel comfortable in.
Her thoughts raged on, taking her to dark places, places she wished to never enter, and yet it was a place she couldn't seem to leave.
She hurriedly cleaned herself and left the shower, glad to see that the steam had rendered the mirror utterly useless. She quickly clothed herself and left the room, the urge to puke only becoming stronger as she heard her sister's voice.
"You need to talk to her." Her voice bounced off the walls and floorboards seemingly without issue, reaching Satella's ears easily. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat as she heard her sister exchange goodbyes with who she could only assume was Subaru.
She reached the end of the hall, placing a dainty hand on the doorframe, leaning on it slightly as she looked pleadingly at her sister.
"Who were you talking to?" she inquired softly, hoping not to annoy her lovely sister.
"Who do you think you dunderhead?" the girl chirped in response, jumping off the counter and taking Subaru's bag with her.
Emilia took long steps up to her twin sister, the image looking odd to an outsider. She outstretched the bag in her hand.
"You're gonna go give him his bag back." She told her, wasting no time before forcing the bewildered girl out of the room.
"Wha-what?!" the silver haired, black clad woman yelled, only to receive a closed door in response.
She stared at the large wooden door in shock, her mouth agape as her heart beats out of her chest. She looked down at her form, she wore little clothing and no shoes, only garbed in yet another of Subaru's shirts and some incredibly short shorts, ironically she had bought them recently in hope that they made Subaru notice her more, she never found the courage to put them on around others. She noticed this and quickly scanned the area before bashing on the wooden door begging her sister to let her in.
"Wear the clothes in the back." Emilia chirped out, hiding her sadness expertly. She was giving up her chance to be with Subaru for her sister.
Satella blushed a bright red but hastily followed instructions, she quickly threw on a large hoodie and some shorts. The sleeves of the hoodie far exceeded her hands, and the shorts passed her slim knees, she was sure she looked ridiculous.
Satella let out a heavy sigh and put the shoes in the bag one, quickly pulling the hood over her head and rushing to Subaru's house.
Normally she would just sit and wait for her parents, but she knew Emilia had done this to help her. Even if Emilia was a rival for Subaru's heart, she would always put Satella before herself, and she had no doubt that she was willing to give up her chance at Subaru's heart for her.
So, with a heavy heart and full faith in her sister, Satella banged aggressively and impatiently on Subaru's door.
Emilia sat blankly on the couch, confused by the pride she felt in her chest. She was sure she should feel sad at losing Subaru's heart, but she felt proud of her sister for mustering the courage to see the young man.
Emilia let out a sigh and gave Subaru a quick message before throwing her phone to the floor carefully and lying down.
A nap sounded good right about now.
Emilia: she's coming to your house, she has something she wants to tell you, be prepared.
Her phone dinged with a notification; her heart felt as if it was being pricked lightly at the noise.
Subaru: that's good… I have some things to tell her too. Thanks a bunch Emilia!
AN:
And thus concludes chapter two. I can't lie originally I was going to have this fic be spread across the week, but personally I like the way its going now much better, this is a fluff fic after all so a quicker more laid back storyline for Subaru and Satella discovering their feelings feels better.
Thank you for being patient, this week has been really hectic.