Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. Re:Zero is owned by Tappei Nagatsuki; familiar characters, places, and events are credited to him. Please support the official release.

Disclaimer EX: To everybody who knows German and Latin, I apologize in advance if I misused certain words and phrases.

Re:Zero ~ Uchikatsu IF

Act Zero: Life Before Arrival

Scene EX: The Cover Is Not the Book

When I met Natsuki Subaru for the first time, there was only one word in my head.

Scheiße.

He looked like your typical edgy delinquent, donning a tracksuit and an extremely long scarf that must have been wrapped 20 times around his neck. I'm not exaggerating–it was made out of thin cloth but it was long enough to create a thickness thrice that of a normal scarf.

Surely enough, I wasn't the only person shocked in his late entrance in the classroom. I could notice some of my classmates talking to each other, their expressions laced with recognition and fear. Being a student who just recently transferred in, it was obvious that this class knew who he was. The fact that they didn't expect this to happen, even more so.

I couldn't blame them. He had been missing classes for the first half of the school year. It's a miracle that his name remained in the teacher's attendance list.

He got scolded by the teacher before he got even a single word in his introduction. And boy, did his introduction give off the same feeling I had when meine Mutter read me fairytales that featured the Waldhexe as punishment for wandering off on my own when I was a kid. Grim, eerie, nightmare-inducing, yet had a grain of knowledge behind it–though this didn't have any of the good points.

"My name's Natsuki Subaru, but you all probably know that already. Any delinquents or bullies that need to be taught a lesson around here?"

He spoke politely and nonchalantly, as if this was something a person said in an everyday conversation. The classroom that day was immediately devoured in an atmosphere of conditional trepidation.

It was made clear that any sort of violence towards others wouldn't be tolerated and would be punished in return. Everybody in the room got a taste of what martial law felt like. I even felt that Hitler got tired of soaking himself in hellfire and decided to possess one certain classmate because 'the very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence'.

Even the teacher supervising the class stood still for a good minute or two, shocked and awed at the sudden declaration of war, before reprimanding the boy to watch the words coming out from his mouth.

"Sorry for saying these things out of the blue. There's no need to worry. I may look like somebody who would fit right in with the yakuza, but I'm a harmless guy. Please take care of me."

I could only imagine how my classmates felt during that long, deafening silence after he sat down and started munching on some biscuits.

It would be impossible for them to imagine how I felt, that's for sure.

After all, I was the only person sitting beside an empty seat in the back row.

After a week of being the sole seatmate of Natsuki Subaru, I got less fearful of him and his strange aura.

I still couldn't find the courage in myself to stare right into his eyes, though. They had a really unique shape, and I realized after a few days that he didn't mean to wear such a grumpy expression all the time. He was just a victim of genetics, similar to how I'm just a victim of instinct.

A lot of ridiculous rumours made their way to me as well, most of them coming from 'concerned' people that felt sorry for my misfortunate seating arrangement.

Hey, A-chan. I heard that Natsuki-san is the leader of a gang. I think it was called the Midnight Rando or something—

Did you hear about how he fought armed yakuza bare-handed? There were actual witnesses—

I saw him holding hands with a young girl while I was working part-time. I don't know if that's his kid, or his lover—

He's nothing like his father... wait a second, maybe he is actually not related to Kenichi-san! That would make a lot of sense—

It made me laugh. I didn't realize that people could become so absorbed in their own opinions that they close their minds off of other possibilities.

It made me hate myself too. I was just like them, until I saw parts of him–Natsuki-san–slowly reveal themselves to me. It's ironic how the way I stared at him because of my wariness led me to see that he was a man who deserved to be looked upon with Stolz.

If you disregarded his facial features and focused on what he did, you'd see a normal student who started a bit too late in the school year. His desk was just books and paper stacked on top of each other, and it was as tall as his head once he sat. During lessons he would listen to the lecture while reading material everybody else had learned in the past months. Strangely, it seemed as if he had no problem multi-tasking. He even went so far to continue reading in the middle of lunch break.

True to his word, he was a harmless guy though he had a scary expression. What I can't understand is how his classmates, who have known him for longer than I did, treated him like they would treat a ghost.

"Takahashi-san, if you're feeling sick, feel free to go home early. I've got you covered."

Natsuki-san had halved the mountain of schoolwork on his desk by the time we both got assigned to cleaning duty.

How he interpreted my squinting at him into me having a sickness, I would never know. There were more important matters to attend to, however.

"Wait, I never told you my name."

"Of course not. I didn't think my first impression through, after..." He scratched his head. "Never mind. Era-sensei gave me a copy of the attendance list. Probably to let me have an idea on who's who, but more likely because she wanted me to realize how much I missed out on."

"Era–are you close with Taneshima-sensei?"

At this, Subaru grinned. Unlike the first time I saw him smile, this one was casually playful instead of eerily abnormal. "She had a crush on my dad. Still does, to be perfectly honest."

"EH?!"

It had been a long time since I screamed that loudly. This wasn't even a horror movie–it was just something that came out of nowhere. It was a small world, but I didn't know that it was that small.

"Pretty shocking, right? Imagine me, but older and with normal eyes. He looks so good that even high-school girls have the hots for him. He could build his own harem if he wanted, that lucky bastard."

"Huh..."

"Takahashi-san?"

"You're weird."

"EEEEH?!"

Talking with Natsuki Subaru for the first time, there was only one word that I could use to describe him.

Rätsel.

Back then, he casually threatened the class to behave as if it was something an ordinary student would do. Now he was casually conversing with somebody who he had technically just met as if he was reuniting with an old friend after decades have passed.

It was becoming an impossible task to comprehend whatever was going on inside his head.

"I don't get it." By the time I got to my senses, I saw myself a single step away from Natsuki-san. "I've been observing you."

He gasped and took a few steps back. "You've been stalking me?"

"Not like that, verdammt! You scared me with your introduction days ago. Then you act as if nothing happened and work hard in your studies. There's more to you than meets the eye.

"And yet, why does nobody else notice? The others have been with you for the whole first year of high school! Are you purposefully hiding yourself? Are they willingly avoiding you?

"I don't understand why I'm being worried for you. Maybe it's because you're the only other person in the class who's having a hard time making friends—"

"This is the first time I've seen you talk like this, Takahashi-san."

Subaru put down the broom he held in his right hand and stared right into me. His gaze was so intense I couldn't muster the will to look away from them. The brown pools he possessed slowly turned into that of blood as their colors mixed with my own.

There were no words exchanged between us, yet his expression alone told a thousand words. Compassion, understanding, disdain, helplessness...

And wrath so dense it felt like something material.

Some of the anger seemed to be coming from me, as well.

Maybe it was because I was ashamed of myself, for being a person too afraid to mingle with others who have found their own circle of friends. Maybe I saw myself in him. Maybe I was looking at him not because I was wary of him, but because I empathized with him.

Maybe I wanted to become his friend. Or maybe, just maybe... I wanted someone to call my friend.

Maybes be damned—I was sure of it.

He finally broke the silence after what felt like forever. "Say, do you know anything about the phrase, 'quid pro quo'?"

"Is it something about seafood?"

Subaru raised an eyebrow. "That's a horrible joke, you know that? It's Latin for 'something in exchange for something'. It's like bartering. You give something in order to receive another thing of equal value."

"I see..."

"Let's try that out now. You and I, we don't have what people call a 'close relationship'. We're just seatmates, yet you ask me all these personal questions out of the blue. So how about this: we trade questions. You ask me, and I ask you. We can choose to lie or tell the truth, but at least we get to talk. Deal?"

...Is it just me, or is this a roundabout way to get to know each other better?

Either way, it's just a conversation. "Deal."

"Alea iacta est." Subaru grins. "Ladies first."

"Natsuki-san, why are you always alone?"

"Starting with the big ones right at the beginning, huh? No matter." He sighed. "It was something I did to myself. I got too ambitious that I didn't realize I was pushing everybody away until it was too late. Guess they're too afraid or angry with me to bring the old times back, but that's just how it works."

"And you're fine with it?!"

"Of course I am. I wouldn't have it any other way. Also, that was two questions."

"Urk!"

No use complaining now. My emotions got the better of me. Or there's something about the person I'm talking to that just pushes my buttons.

Subaru grinned. "My turn now. Adelheid Takahashi... I've done research, and turns out your first name is a German one. I take it that you're half-German?"

It took me a while to answer. Probably because his questions weren't what I expected. It was a yes-no one, and one I could easily lie to. But why would I? "Yeah."

His eyes lit up. "Do you know how to bake?"

Even his tone changed. I answered with a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Yeah, my mother owns a bakery..."

He jumped and grabbed both of my hands in one fell swoop, his face inching at me slowly as he whispered, "Can you teach me how to make German pastries?!"

The Natsuki Subaru I knew was destroyed right before my eyes, replaced with a giddy child waiting for my reply. He even forgot that this was his third question.

I sighed.

His eyes, normally donning the glare of a gangster, now looked like it belonged to those of your typical girl you'd see in a shoujo manga. It was ridiculously adorable.

How could I refuse?

"Sorry, Mum." I told myself, "We're going to have visitors today."

A/N:

Because even I have begun to wonder how Subaru diverged from the original story's route, here's an EX chapter. More of these chapters will appear occasionally in the future, all of them featuring a different POV in Subaru's original world.

I didn't make this because I like pastries. Definitely not.