Chapter XII: The Events Between, Part Two
Rem's Heart is Passionate Like a Demon:
"EHHHH!?" Subaru shouted. Where and how had Rem come to that sort of conclusion!? Just the previous night they had been cuddled up on his bed with nothing but a nightgown separating their chests and suddenly she was worried about whether or not she was attractive?
"Rem is sorry, but... Subaru has always stopped before he touched her like that and he writes such poems about drink and women in his room alone and he used to act so perverse and he looks at Rem with love and she feels so wanted when he does that but he's stopped looking at her with his perverted gaze and Rem isn't sure why this happened so..." she rambled without taking a breath, eyes looking befuddled and shimmering still with tears more anxious than sad. Subaru's brow furrowed more and more as he listened to her speak, until she finally ran out of breath and realized she had been ranting about some very private insecurities to the man she loved, at which point she went silent and squeaked.
"Rem-rin, what put this idea in your head?" he asked, trying to avoid a crisis by grabbing the hand closest to him, which caused the poem Ram had forced him to write to fall to the floor.
"Subaru-kun and Rem agreed that Rem should talk to Big Sister today, so she joined her in waxing the floors and she was so convinced Subaru-kun was taking advantage of Rem," Rem explained with a watery voice, causing Subaru's eyebrows to shoot back up in alarm, "so Rem had to tell her Subaru-kun had been a gentleman, but onee-sama didn't believe Rem and kept asking questions, and Rem thought..."
He palmed his face in exasperation with his free hand, dragging it down his face as he contemplated throwing Ram out a window. He would be killed if he tried it, but he was sure he could at least get her out the window before she fired off something that would take his head off, and he supposed it was worth it to die just a little if he got payback on her for this. Ram must have suspected something inappropriate was happening between her sister and the new lowlife butler who was courting her, and decided to investigate. That would be why she had barged into his day and forced him to prove that they had actually been practicing his reading and writing instead of debauching the mansion with his lustful intent, or something. And Rem had found his poem about women and beer. While she was feeling insecure. Lovely.
Ram would rue the day she had crossed Natsuki Subaru! Rue it! But first...
Subaru squeezed Rem's hand and cracked a weary grin. He really wasn't feeling up to the task of another emotional undertaking so soon after the two he had experienced over the day, but he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if Rem went to bed feeling inadequate. Plus this was a topic that they had yet to talk about in their relationship and he figured that since they were this close it would have to be a focus of discussion at some point.
"Rem, there is not a chance in this odd world that I would ever find you unattractive," Subaru comforted. She perked up a bit as he squeezed her hand, "And before I started going through these resets, back when I was a total shut-in, I would have jumped at the chance to touch a cute demon girl like you."
He punished himself internally for having admitted that part out loud in front of a pretty girl who was head over heels in love with him. His fantasies from the previous world were somewhat... unique... given he was trapped in a room by himself for twenty four hours a day before his unexpected journey to Lugnica with nothing but a phone and a computer to keep him company. His face was on fire as he realized that he had just shared one of his eroge preferences.
With a girl. A cute girl. A cute girl who had since stopped panicking and was looking down at their intertwined fingers with cheeks that couldn't be any redder if she had been slapped. He felt like he was about to die of embarrassment, so he cleared his throat and gathered himself to push on.
"But! But there are some things that I think are worth waiting for, and this is one of them," he finished, holding his chin high and nodding to himself at how stout he figured he sounded. That should settle the matter for now!
He felt his arm get tugged towards the blue-haired oni girl and she leaned into him.
"Subaru-kun, waiting? Subaru-kun doesn't need to wait for Rem if he wants to touch her," Rem said, looking up at him with eyes that reminded him of a kicked puppy. Her red cheeks had spread all over her face and even down her neck, and when their eyes met she looked down and squeaked.
So straightforward! What was he supposed to say to a demon girl who was so eager to please!? He got the distinct feeling that she was dying of shame on the inside but wanted to make him happy and didn't quite understand what he was getting at. He recalled that the girl didn't exactly have an upbringing like his and definitely wasn't used to the idea of a relationship outside of some of the things she might have read. She might have also talked with Ram, and Ram was... special when it came to relationships.
"I, well, uh, that isn't exactly what I meant," Subaru managed to eek out, tugging at his collar as his throat went dry again, "What I mean is that the first time between us should be something special, you know? It should happen when, sometime in our relationship, we both look at each other and realize without even thinking about it that we want to be with one another for the rest of our lives, and we want to show that to each other. Do you know what I mean? Please tell me you know what I mean."
"Rem already knows she wants to be with Subaru for the rest of her life!" was her response.
Subaru looked down at the ground with wide eyes and a vacant, disturbed smile and internally went into panic mode. She said that so resolutely! It was like she was already thinking about marriage and kids and the like! He was only seventeen! He wasn't meant to be thinking about things like that yet, no matter how much he had matured since arriving in Lugnica! When it was Emilia, it was all childlike fantasy, like they were both kids who had met on a playground or something, so hearing someone else who sounded so sure about it was deafeningly shocking.
"Even still, uh, well..." he wetted his lips and latched onto the hand he was squeezing like a lifeline. He wasn't emotionally ready for this conversation!
"Subaru-kun?" Rem asked meekly. He forced his eyes closed and took a deep breath. Right, there was another person in the room relying on him to reply and she was in a particularly emotionally vulnerable position right now. He couldn't afford to clam up and give in to his nerves. She didn't exactly understand what she was asking of him, so it was unfair for him to leave her without a response.
"I know you love me, Rem-rin, and I'm in love with the dedication you've got to making me happy," he started, measuring his breaths to avoid breaking back out into a silent, nervous sweat, "and I want to eventually reach that point. Really, I do, but I'm not ready for our first time and I don't think it would be very respectful towards you if I gave it to you without fully respecting the importance of it myself. So... please, for now, we should respectfully wait so I can give you what you deserve."
Subaru looked over at his girlfriend(?), who closed her eyes as her lips spread into a beatific smile. It looked dazzling on her soft features and made him want to reach out and touch her face with his hands.
"Rem understands now. Subaru-kun doesn't touch her not because he doesn't want to, but because he wants to too much and feels it wouldn't be right," she said serenely. Her voice was full of something light and airy, her cheeks a delightful pink. The energy in the room hung at a sedate warmth. The girl looked as pleased as he had ever seen her when she opened her eyes and looked back up at his, "As expected, Rem's Subaru-kun is truly an honorable man."
"Eheh... I'm not sure about honor, but for the first time in my life I want to do something right," Subaru said, scratching the back of his head.
"Rem will wait until it's the right time for Subaru-kun. For now, Rem supposes that this 'I love you' will have to do."
Subaru felt his heart leap up from his chest to his throat at that, and they shared a look as the two of them drifted closer together in bliss, some spark between them leading them to hug against one another until there was no space remaining. It was this silent, content embrace in an atmosphere of unbridled affectionate understanding that Beatrice walked into when she decided she was ready for bed. She stopped at the doorframe and blinked as she came across two lovebirds just making eyes at one another on the bed. There was only one bed, and there were already two people on it.
"Eh, where is Betty supposed to sleep in this room if the fool's maid is sleeping here too, I wonder!?"
Subaru's spine straightened and his attention was called to the door, where Beako was standing in a surprisingly cute red night dress, glaring at the two of them with a teddy-cat wrapped up in her left arm. Rem looked back and forth between him and Beatrice several times in confusion before she looked to him for an explanation as to why the little girl spirit was walking into his room expecting someplace for her to sleep.
"Hahahah, hah, hah," Subaru laughed, sweating up a storm. In his rush to comfort Rem he had entirely forgotten that he had made a contract with Beatrice that afternoon. He hadn't thought she'd come to his room looking for someplace to sleep, but he realized he probably should have expected it considering how close spirits and their contractors were based on her explanation, "Err, I know this goes completely against all of the things that we just talked about and all, and maybe seems to be moving a bit too quickly and all, but... Maybe we can take care of Beatrice together?"
His voice was shaky as he watched Rem look back and forth between them one more time, eyebrows furrowing closer together all the while.
"Idiot, stop treating Betty like a child, I suppose! Don't you know I'm at least ten times both of your ages combined, I wonder!?" the girl stomped her foot on the ground in anger. The teddy-cat let out a squeak as her arm squeezed it, stopping her upcoming rant and causing her eyes to drop to the ground in embarrassment as the two silent adults stared at her flatly. Subaru let out a cough and turned back to Rem.
"I kinda, sorta made a contract with Beatrice today, so, uh... I guess we're adopting a kid into the family. Surprise?" he said weakly. Rem's flat stare turned from Beako to him and she took in a huge breath, then released it as a vein popped on her forehead, mouth opening in a rare annoyed grin, her hand squeezing his uncomfortably, but not painfully.
"Rem supposes she can overlook Subaru's impulsive decision just once," she said.
Her face slackened back into the serene look she had been giving him before, and she placed one hand on her cheek in pleased dreamfulness.
"Eh?" Subaru croaked. She changed moods so quickly!
"It's only because he called Rem family," she finished, on cloud nine. Betty felt a drop of sweat trail down her face as she looked at the girl in disbelief. Was she really a deadly warrior maid? How badly had Subaru corrupted her sharp mind with his mushy noble talk about belonging?
Emilia's Rem Problem:
The next day, Emilia sat in the garden once more, looking over the plants in peace, though internally troubled. An attractive man had arrived at the manor recently, trailing the blue haired maid that she had known for a while, though she'd never paid the oni's personal affairs too much attention. She had always seemed a lonely, desolate sort who was only happy around her pink-haired twin. Emilia knew that the sisters had a tragic backstory involving quite a bit more death and destruction than the average person, and that the two of them had struggled through life quite brokenly.
So why did Rem seem so different now compared to even a day before Emilia had met the strange man in the capital that day? It was like she was an entirely different person. Some days, like the days before Roswaal had cleared the forest, she did her chores while on the brink of a nervous breakdown. On other days, she was on top of the world with bursting happiness as she cleared her chores with renewed vigor, even humming a lively tune to herself and occasionally staring off into space with a far-away look on her face. It was completely bipolar and conflicted terribly with the stoicism she had displayed until then.
Emilia knew she had been caught examining the maid from time to time. She couldn't help herself, though- there was something off about the whole situation. She understood that Subaru could be trusted now; he was so friendly! But at the same time she couldn't see Rem's changes in demeanor being entirely connected to her love of a single man. Love wasn't that groundbreaking, was it? She wouldn't know, she reminded herself. No one had ever loved her like Rem and Subaru seemed to love one another. This was a mystery that she just had to solve. Her suspicions from the capital and from her observations of Rem doing her work just had to be sated.
So it was that she had invited the oni girl to meet her in the garden today. She wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery without disrespecting the couple's privacy any more than she already had. Speaking of Rem, Emilia spotted her stepping out into the gardens and gave her a friendly smile as she approached.
"Good evening, Emilia-sama. Emilia-sama wanted to speak with Rem?" the girl said, bowing at the waist before taking a seat opposite from Emilia in the pavilion. Emilia's gentle smile turned speculative.
"I'm sure you've noticed me looking at you and Subaru oddly the past few days, Rem-san. I just wanted to clear the air about some things and make sure I wasn't being impolite," Emilia said, leaning back to relax on her bench. She supposed it was best to get the hard part out of the way early on, "I noticed that your personality changed around the time that he arrived at the manor. Subaru-kun is a nice person and I can see how he could make a girl happy, but I was just wondering if it was normal how happy he was making you."
Rem flickered through confusion, very minor annoyance, and then a nasty spot of jealousy at hearing Emilia call her Subaru "Subaru-kun" with that pretty little blush on her face like she wouldn't get caught. She measured her potential responses and came to the conclusion that she would have to set the record straight right off the bat, but how could she do that and answer the implied question at the same time?
"Subaru-kun is the kindest, most caring man to Rem- more caring than Rem deserves. When Rem is with him, he makes her know she's the only girl he'll ever have his eyes on," Rem started, looking off into the distance and taking in the sights in the garden while she considered her next words, "With Subaru-kun, Rem knows no other girl will ever have anything as special. His attention is devoted entirely to her."
She looked at Emilia calculatingly before a hopeful smile ran across her face and her eyes glazed over like a daydream.
"It's enough to make Rem's heartbeat speed up with love. One day she hopes he'll marry her."
Game, set, and match. She focused back on Emilia and saw the girl looking down at her legs with a troubled expression on her face. Silly girl, thinking that just because she'd had one good conversation with Subaru she'd really be in the running for his attention. She caught herself after that thought, realizing that she was being insecure and intentionally hurting someone who Subaru deeply cared about, despite getting over his crush. Rem kicked herself and looked away.
"I see..." Emilia said, not really understand the feelings Rem was describing but getting why they would make her so happy, "I think I get why him being here has made you so happy all of a sudden, then. So what about when I met you in the capital? Why did it seem like the two of you were acting so differently back then? Like you weren't together yet but you wanted to be?"
Rem's eyebrow twitched. She had been pining over Subaru for a while before he had taken the initiative and kissed her that night in his bedroom, and she didn't like being reminded that there was a time when they weren't together. But... she caught herself again, and berated herself. Oni, especially lonely oni like her and her sister, got attached and clingy quite easily, but she knew that humans tended to see this as a negative trait, especially when it became obsessive. Subaru would be uncomfortable with her thinking that way, so she pushed those thoughts down. Instead, she set about explaining the agreed upon backstory to Emilia.
"Rem and Subaru-kun had been meeting up when Rem traveled out of the manor. We... couldn't meet up often because Rem wasn't traveling very often because of her duties as Roswaal-sama's maid. It was hard for Subaru-kun and Rem not seeing each other very often, and Subaru-kun thought we should keep everything a secret in case Roswaal-sama or Emilia-sama decided we couldn't continue courting," she explained, lying through her teeth. It really did hurt her to lie like this, but Subaru had explained that attempting reveal the truth could lead to some nasty consequences for either of them if whatever restriction had been loosened on Subaru's curse wasn't feeling very charitable.
"You know I would never stop you from chasing after true love, Rem-san. It's one of the ideals that I hold in my heart with things like justice and equality and truth. But I can see why you would worry about Roswaal-dono taking issue with you romancing someone outside of the manor. I guess I can't blame you for hiding your trysts. I wish someone like you describe would sneak out with me," Emilia responded, smiling wistfully as she gazed longingly at the flowers behind Rem.
This poor girl was too naive, Rem thought, thinking life was too much like a fairy tale. But if she wanted to take her and Subaru's relationship to be similar to some sort of romance novel about a knight in shining armor sweeping a princess off of her feet, Rem figured Emilia could feel free- it would make it seem more unattainable so she wouldn't chase after Subaru in the future. It wasn't like she was wrong, Rem realized. Subaru had basically swept her off of her feet like a knight in shining armor that day when he saved her in the forest, and again when he had kissed her for the first time. Maybe Emilia was more accurate than she at first thought. That thought was worrying since it meant the half-elf might see something in Subaru worth fighting over.
Well, Rem had won when it came to Subaru, so she stuffed those jealous thoughts down again. He hadn't so much as looked at Emilia that way since he started treating Rem like a girl instead of a friendly maid.
"Rem is sure that Emilia-sama will find someone who will steal her heart sooner than she thinks," Rem reassured courteously. The girl was certainly cute enough, although the fact that she resembled the Witch of Envy wasn't doing her any favors, "Emilia-sama is nice, and pretty too."
"Thank you, Rem-san," Emilia said, blushing prettily, "I think you're pretty, too."
Rem smiled. The girl was too well-meaning and didn't know much about how the world worked, but she was at least trying her best to understand the people around her. That was more than could be said for some people.
"Did Rem answer all of Emilia-sama's questions satisfactorily?" she asked, wanting to end the conversation and go back inside. She had liked Emilia reasonably well before, but having fallen into the resets with Subaru had opened her eyes to how little the girl understood what went on around her sometimes. In their first time through, she had encouraged Subaru to lead himself on and keep thinking about her just because she liked how nice he was to her, and that had only served to get him hurt in the end. This time around she really hadn't done much, letting the people around her solve problems without her input. It was like she was detached from the real world.
"I just have one more and then I'll be done, if that's okay with you? Okay, so I noticed that sometimes you're very nervous when you're doing your chores, but I haven't been able to put together exactly why that is since it doesn't seem to happen around any one event. Are you alright? Is something the matter with your work or the manor?" Emilia asked. Rem stifled her hands to prevent them from uncomfortably wringing her apron.
"Rem is sorry to have worried Emilia-sama. She knows that sometimes Subaru-kun takes on more than he can handle," she said, making sure to tiptoe around what exactly she meant, "so sometimes she worries too much about him. Rem isn't used to having someone like Subaru-kun around, so she wants to be extra careful not to lose him."
It was the truth. Her worries were all about Subaru and how she didn't want to lose him, but they certainly didn't center around his work at the manor like she had just implied. No, she was afraid of him getting hurt without her around to help him, and the idea that he could die without her knowing until she woke up suddenly back in time unnerved her to no end.
"I understand your feelings, but Subaru-kun seems like a diligent and professional worker even if sometimes he messes around when he should be working, so you shouldn't worry about him too much. He's surprisingly good as a butler despite how your sister treats him, you know," Emilia responded empathetically. Rem's jealous thoughts rankled her spine again. Emilia was really watching out for Subaru closely even before they had made friends, wasn't she? Rem pushed those thoughts down again.
"Thank you for your consideration, Emilia-sama. May Rem be excused? She has more work to do today," Rem said, standing and bowing to the silver-haired half-elf, who blinked.
"Oh, uhhh, sure. I mean, absolutely. Thank you for putting my worries to rest, Rem-san. I'm happy for you that you've found someone who makes you feel special," Emilia said with the same reassuring smile she'd opened with, giving Rem leave to go. Rem stepped out of the pavilion and back towards the manor.
"What an uncomfortable conversation," both girls thought, unknowingly mirroring one another's thoughts.
The Book
In the darkness of a secluded room within the manor, lined with bookshelves surrounding a single desk, Margrave Roswaal Mathers sat in his chair and stared down at his Book of Wisdom with a shell-shocked look on his face. He religiously checked his Book, seeing the course of action that he would follow to bring about the plan. His faith in the esoteric tome was unshakable and it had seen him through his life until now without fail, propping up events within the manor and without to play best into his own hands with ruthless efficiency. And yet...
Natsuki Subaru's appearance and interactions with the residents therein had been predicted by the large tome in advance, so Roswaal had been more than happy to take him into the manor, to give him shelter, and to provide him with a job. After all, the boy was supposed to chase after Emilia and remain unbound until it was time for him to play his role in the plot to revive his beloved and, eventually, kill the Divine Dragon Volcanica. But... something had gone wrong. Many things had gone wrong, none of which his precious Gospel had predicted. In fact the Gospel had been absolutely wrong about everything since the boy's appearance, as if he was intentionally defying everything the Book said.
Forming a relationship with the oni maid, Rem, hadn't been too large of a hurdle to overcome with critical thinking. Her being attached to him was what led him to joining the manor in the first place, so the fact that they were together didn't mean much on the face of it. The boy could probably be pried away from her to attach to Emilia if the latter became infatuated with him, so it wasn't a big deal that their relationship wasn't mentioned by the Book. The Gospel could sometimes be tricky like that, giving a literal interpretation that one had to consider carefully to understand.
But he had only grown closer to the maid as time went on in the manor and appeared to show no interest in Emilia at all, her friendly behavior towards him drawing nothing more than a cordial friendship that had her wanting to know more about him, but seemed to do nothing more than fulfill a need for companionship for the butler. He didn't look at her when he passed her by, didn't flirt with her, didn't glance at her over his shoulder when he thought no one was looking, didn't seek her out for advice or emotional support, or anything more than being simple friends. It went entirely against what was supposed to happen in the Book. He was supposed to fall wildly in love with her. The Gospel said so!
But then, oh, then...
Roswaal's fist slammed into his desk and he stood up, sweeping around to stare out the window in consternation. The boy had gone and found Beatrice's library, which he was supposed to do according to the Book. He was supposed to find her and make friends with her so she would be drawn into the Plan as a secondary player, unbound and desperate for a companion after all of these years. She was supposed to play a secondary role, but instead the damned fool had gone and formed a contract with her the moment he'd met her and contradicted the Book outright! He hadn't heard if Beatrice's Book had told her anything prior to the bonding, but if it remained blank then it meant Subaru was at least partially immune to the scrying of the Books of Wisdom. The very thought of that made his faith tremble.
He had no inkling as to how the boy was managing to defy one of the divine gifts bestowed upon him by his beloved Echidna, but it made him a dangerous player in a field that was no longer predictable. Roswaal closed his eyes and stood there, letting the moonlight wash over him through the window. He had never had his faith in the Book shaken to such a degree as it was now. If one simple boy who didn't seem to have the strength to stand up to a straight fight, much less overcome an item attuned to the world itself, could overthrow the Book of Wisdom on a mere whimsy...
What did that say about the Book?
Somewhere below, Subaru felt himself be pulled closer towards his favorite oni girl from behind, the back of his head squeezing up against her as they settled into the bed. In front of him, he held Beako around the waist, who in turn had her arms wrapped around the stuffed cat. Beatrice had been adamant that she wouldn't bear sleeping alone one more night after 400 years, and fortunately Rem didn't see her as a threat due to her childlike stature (understandably), so the three had settled on the current shockingly comfortable arrangement.
Hot breath tickled his ear as Rem leaned over him, and he shivered. She had no idea what she did to him sometimes, especially with their previous conversation still playing through his mind since the day prior. She placed a kiss on his cheek.
"Goodnight, Subaru-kun," Rem whispered, causing him to hold back shivers again. Her voice was like honey in his ear.
"Goodnight, Rem-rin. Goodnight, Beako," he said, his mouth dry. The drill-loli yawned loudly and rubbed at her eye with one hand.
"He should have a good night, I suppose..." the girl mumbled, not comfortable with being as intimate as the other two. She wished her contractor had been someone who didn't have a girlfriend falling over herself for him every night.
Subaru stared at the wall in front of him with wide open eyes for the next two hours, continually tortured by the soft breathing he could feel fluttering over his ear from behind, the peaceful breaths that eventually slowed to a sensual rest playing on every nerve in his body.
He really needed to stop thinking about that conversation.
