Chapter V: The New Normal

"Rem?" was her reaction, as it turned out. The two weren't on the bed this time, staring at each other like idiots when she walked into the bedroom, so the anger she had felt the first reset she had walked in on them didn't manifest. This time, Rem had her eyes closed and tears running down her face, they were standing in the middle of the room, and this strange man was crying too.

The reaction to Ram speaking was instant. The two of them repulsed like magnets, only both of them had forgotten where they were in the room and as a result, Subaru felt himself falling backwards into the bed and hitting his head on the wall, while Rem slammed her hip into the chair at the desk across the room, making a squeaking noise that landed somewhere between pained, scared, and embarrassed. Hearing the sound caused Subaru to sit straight up too quickly and the lightning bold of pain that caused made him fall back and hit his head again. He groaned out far too loudly and stared up at the ceiling, seeing stars.

"I..." Ram was surprised into silence again. Her sister's lack of composure was shocking enough, but the idiot on the bed hurting himself twice in a row after holding the blue-haired oni far too closely for her tastes made her snap her mouth closed, but not for long, "Rem, what is this?"

The words were directed at Rem, but the word "this," Subaru felt, referred directly to him. He almost felt like an object- a desk being scorned by its owner for having the gall to stub his toe, or something. Rem coughed into her right hand awkwardly and then put both of her hands down onto her blouse shamefacedly. Subaru looked between her and Ram once, then twice, then thrice, but the silence was deafening. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and decided to speak up.

"Rem-rin has been... We've been visiting when she comes to the city! I'm new in the area and she's been helpful! We've been meeting for a while so we're close!" he chose. Almost immediately after he finished talking, he screamed inside of his head. Sure, it had sounded good when thought about it, and it explained why they were so touchy-feely just a moment ago, and it matched the story he had told Emilia, but he didn't mean to imply...

Ram looked down her nose at Subaru through parted hair. It looked as if she might raise her hand to kill him again, but instead she turned a pitying gaze towards Rem and ignored him altogether. Rem, from what Subaru could see, was blushing prettily, although her face looked a bit less like a cherub and a bit more like a tomato from his point of view. When Rem felt her sister's eyes on her, she looked down at the ground and nodded shyly. Subaru felt the hair on the back of his head stand up in warning as Ram turned to look at him again. He barely dodged out of the way in time for a poorly aimed bolt to fly past his head and burst through the wall behind him.

He clutched his chest in near-death terror and stared with wide eyes at Ram, who had her hand raised and a murderous look on her face. She must have intentionally missed. Though... In between her and him was Rem, standing in the least assured defensive stance he'd ever seen her in, looking like she'd rather be any place in the world but there. Ram looked between the two of them and he guessed she had calculated something in her head because her hand suddenly dropped to her side and she let out a burst of breath from her nose that sounded more like a charging bull than a maid girl.

"I see," she said, seeing something in Rem defending him that either he was blind to or that Rem hadn't wanted him to see, "I support your choices, sister, no matter how ill-advised. I am... happy for you?"

She had never sounded more unsure of anything in her life and Subaru felt at least slightly offended by the implication that he wasn't good enough for Rem, but with some introspective self-criticism he realized that before this morning she was probably right. He wasn't good enough for anyone in this house, especially not Rem or Emilia. He cut himself off from that line of thought when he heard Ram speak again.

"Don't let this distraction affect your duties to Roswaal-sama," she said, turning to Subaru with a look of abject disgust upon her face, "What is the inconvenience called?"

He felt offended again. He decided to lean into being a charming idiot like always, though.

"My name is Natsuki Subaru, amateur at fighting and sub-par butler!" he said boisterously, his normal self-assured half-grin appearing on his face.

"Barasu," was the monotone reply. The wind puffed out of his sails a bit and he kicked the floor in rejection.

"Why do you call me Barasu?" The unspoken 'every time I restart' played out in his head, but she decided to answer him anyway. Her face turned up and she looked at him down her nose again, though without the terrifying eye contact that he was used to.

"Barasu. Because you are thinking with them, and if you hurt sister then they are what I will remove," she sharply cut out. He could see Rem's ears turn cherry red from behind her, and he himself didn't escape from blushing like a loon.

"Ah," he thought flatly, "the other meaning of that word this time."

"Ne, sister, I also need to inform you that it is almost time to start our morning duties. Please do not let this thing take up too much time. Good day," she said in a dull tone. She bowed fractionally and then huffed out of the room. Subaru, who had grown to like the poor girl, felt bad to see her so put out but happy that she had left without killing him.

"So..." was the elegant word that came out of his lips when his mouth finally stopped being so dry. Rem, to her credit, turned to face him with only the smallest hint of pink on her cheeks. When she met his eyes, she suddenly shifted her own gaze away from him and that dusting of pink grew into a pretty blush and a small smile. She would be pestered by her sister for the rest of her life for this, but, she supposed, it was worth it for how good the thought secretly felt to her.

"Subaru-kun is terrible at excuses," she half-heartedly joked. The look that rolled across his face when she said that put her back in good humor and made her bring her hand up to her mouth to let out a small laugh, though, which in turn made him smile softly and therefore caused her heart to flutter.

"Maa, at least I came up with one. Rem-rin was too busy looking at the floor," he shot back. She couldn't help looking down at the floor in embarrassment again, causing him to burst into laughter. He walked up to her and tightened one of her hair-bows that had apparently loosened over the night, "But as far as excuses go, I think this is a pretty good one. It's a free reason to talk whenever we see each other! Not every time, just... you know, stuff."

"Stuff..." she said softly, "Yes. Rem was wrong; Subaru-kun makes the best excuses."

She kept the real reason she was so happy with his choice of lie closely guarded inside her chest, hidden behind the out that he had given her, that it would let them find the time to talk one another through the thoughts that were plaguing their minds. They would have time to grieve and to plan. It also let them make the excuse that the reason he hadn't mentioned it to Emilia was because of Rem, which took suspicion away from Subaru and put it onto her. That, she could live with. Nothing could happen to him, but her... She could let anything happen to her, if it helped him.

Subaru had no way of knowing that her thoughts were mirroring his own from after his first few resets, so he felt his face crack into his half-grin again and he pushed on.

"The perfect justification. If we're supposed to be close then I guess we should act like it, huh?" he asked, his words sparking something in the back of her mind that made her look up at him suddenly in surprise, unsure what exactly he was saying. A million thoughts flew through her head until he continued, "So we'll have to spend a lot of time together. Maybe visit the village with the dog and prevent that from happening. Stop you from..."

His words cut off in his throat as he gave her an unreadable expression that made her feel uneasy inside. She watched him go through a number of emotions internally before she decided to interrupt.

"Subaru-kun?" was her quiet expression of worry. It drew him out of whatever spiral he was in.

"Sorry. I just don't want you to go through that again," he said. She felt herself melt inside for the thousandth time since joining him on his restarts, and quickly nodded.

"Subaru-kun and Rem will still have to make sure to cleanse the forest," she replied. He brought his hand up to cup his chin in thought and then opened his mouth.

"The village is important to Roswaal and he's the one who finished cleaning it out the first time. If we go down and visit the village, see the dog, and report it to him, he'll do it again, won't he?" he asked. She frowned for a moment at the thought of manipulating Roswaal-sama, but eventually her sensibilities and trust in Subaru won out and she nodded.

"Then that is what Rem and Subaru-kun will do. We will... What did Subaru-kun call it?" she asked. Her heart beat a little in her chest at the thought.

"Date. Going down to the village is a date," he said, his own heart picking up a beat and hammering away. The thought of someone other than Emilia going on a date with him was unknown to him after so long chasing after her, but, he noticed, it was so much more graspable. He was still in love with Emilia- at least he thought he was, right?

"No," he thought, "I have to be more mature about this now. I'm not just responsible for myself anymore. Rem is here too."

Maybe... maybe what he felt for Emilia was just teenaged infatuation? Hormones and childish love going haywire in his head after being alone for most of his useless life? If he was to grow up and take this seriously, he would have to reassess his thoughts on his whole reason for keeping his sanity throughout this whole mess of a new life. No, he wasn't in love with Emilia. He loved her, sure, but it was nothing more than as close friends. The thought crushed a little fire inside of him that had been sparking since he resolutely declared himself for her many lives ago, but that dying flame was dwarfed by the new resolution:

Looking down at Rem, who was staring at him in amazement at him actually going through with calling it a date, he came to a conclusion that forced his head into the game. Something stony set down in his heart and refused to be moved. He would help everyone, but this new connection they shared, this opportunity she gave him just by being here, this care that she put into him and this unimpeachable trust she held for him...

Rem came first.

A/N:

So! It's been a long time and I haven't been online in a couple of years, but I suddenly felt a fire underneath me a lot like Subaru is feeling above to continue writing this story and this story alone. For some reason the idea I hammered out really calls to me right now. I haven't had much time to write, but I'll write what I can when I can.

The first ten or so chapters and two(?) or so interludes are mostly character development and inner turmoil for our two main characters, with a lot of rethinking, angst, and fluff. After they make it past Roswaal Manor and into the politics subplot, everything will start moving along.

Thanks for reading!