A/N: This takes place after arc 6. Except instead of Subaru getting transported to the Vollachian Empire everyone just returns to the mansion and resume life as usual.
Also, Rem's awake and has her former memories mainly because I want her in on the hijinks.
-Roswaal's Mansion-
It has been a little over a year since the first mansion Subaru lived in burned down. Since then, he and the other members of the Emilia camp have moved to the main mansion Roswaal owns.
As this is the main mansion, it is considerably larger than the original mansion. If it was just Ram, Rem, and Subaru who worked on keeping the place presentable, then they would have likely fallen over on the brink of death at this point.
Thankfully, more maids have since joined the Mather's estate. After taking care of some personal matters, Frederica came back to work full time. Petra decided to become a maid so as to get closer to Subaru, and has become a full-time employee. And finally, after showing just how reliable she could be at the Pleiades Watchtower, Meili was permanently released from her imprisonment and became a maid, with Roswaal approving it.
Now, with five maids and one butler, they are all able to keep the mansion in top working condition. Whenever guests come by to visit, they are always impressed by the splendor appearance of it, both inside and out.
While they are capable of keeping the mansion in a presentable condition, that doesn't mean the job is easy. Rather, it is incredibly difficult to keep every room and the garden in top condition.
This is only made harder by the fact that some of the maids don't do nearly as much work as the others. In particular, Ram and Meili are the bottom two lowest performers in the mansion.
For Meili, it makes sense as she is the newest maid and as such hasn't been working as one for nearly as long. She has much less experience and considering she has been an assassin almost her entire life, she's not exactly adept at housework. Additionally, she has a troublesome personality where she likes to goof off and play rather than work. Still, Rem and Frederica have been making a lot of progress towards turning her into a competent maid.
As for Ram, she's one of the first two maids to ever serve Roswaal. Having been one for several years now, she has years of experience under her belt. In fact, she was the one who initially showed Subaru how to do his job as a butler. Despite all of that, her work tends to be sloppy, depending on what she's doing. Additionally, she's a poor cook, with her best dishes only being ones that involve potatoes in them. Finally, she doesn't do that much work to begin with, generally shouldering Subaru and Petra with her work.
One day, Subaru comes across Petra who's on a stepstool cleaning a giant window. Her movements are slow and she is panting quite a bit.
"Hey Petra-chan. You're looking a little pale. Are you feeling alright?"
Her eyes shine a little with excitement at seeing him. "S-Subaru-sama! Yes, I-I'm feeling alright. I'm just…haaah…washing the windows is all." Stuttering and panting while answering his question, Petra returns her focus to the window.
"You've gotta be done after this window, right? You've been working hard all day! Especially since Frederica-san wasn't around to keep Meili in check today as she had to go to the capital to pick up groceries and you've had to help her in Frederica-san's stead. I would've helped but…"
She shakes her head and smiles, "Don't worry about it. I know you've got a lot on your plate these days. I still have more work after this."
"Seriously? What do you have left to do?"
She replies, "Water the right section of the garden. Then grab the financial statements from that clown and hand them over to Otto-sama."
By "that clown", she's referring to Roswaal. Ever since everything at the Sanctuary went down and Roswaal's motives have been revealed to the Emilia camp, Petra was one of the maids who's opinion of the master of the house had gone down drastically. Her disdain of him is severe enough to where she purposely annoys him whenever she can get away with it, which is primarily when Ram isn't around. Strangely enough, Roswaal himself doesn't appear to be all too bothered by Petra's blatant disrespect towards him and instead remains courteous with her.
"Huh? But aren't those Ram's jobs?"
She nods, "Yes, but she told me she felt tired this evening and asked me to do it in her stead."
Subaru is a little ticked off at hearing this, "She already doesn't do that much work as it is! Now she's pawning off what little remains to her juniors? You need to stand up for yourself Petra-chan! Don't get me wrong, it's great that you want to help others with their work, but you also need to realize when you've worked yourself too hard! Here, I'll help you."
"I don't want to bother you though…" She frowns and looks away.
"It's no bother if I'm the one offering to help in the first place."
Later that Evening
-Subaru's Room-
After helping Petra with her remaining chores, Subaru can finally retire for the day. After saying goodnight to everyone, he heads for his room. There, Beatrice is waiting for him.
"You're late, in fact." She frowns disappointingly at him. "Where have you been, I suppose?"
"Sorry Beako." Subaru sheepishly smiles and rubs the back of his head. "I had to help Petra-chan with her chores."
"Huh? Can she not do them on her own? What sort of maid is she if she can't do her own work, I suppose?"
"Oh, you misunderstand Beako. It's just that Ram has piled off her work onto her and she was feeling overwhelmed with everything she needed to do. I felt bad and wanted to help her."
"Is that so? Hm. Ram really needs to stop inconveniencing others with her own work, in fact. Doesn't she also give you her chores sometimes too?" She says with a hint of annoyance.
"Yeah, not like she really lets me refuse."
"Tell her what she's doing, I suppose. If you and Petra don't stand up for yourselves, this will drag on, in fact." Beatrice sternly tells him.
"She doesn't tend to listen to me though." He counters.
"Make her then, in fact. Betty's contractor can do at least that much, can't he? Or is he going to let her walk all over you, I suppose?" She crosses her arms.
Subaru walks over to the bed where Beatrice is and sits beside her. "You're right. I could at least do that." Making a fist and pumping it into the air, he declares, "Alright! Operation Making Ram Not Lazy has officially begun!"
"You need better names for your operations in fact." Beatrice states, unimpressed.
Subaru playfully drills a fist into her hair as a response.
The Next Day
-Guest Room-
"So that's why Ram, please, stop giving Petra-chan your chores. They're yours to begin with. I doubt Rem would like to see you slacking off so much." Subaru says to the maid in question. After breakfast concluded and everyone went off to do whatever they needed to do, Subaru followed Ram and managed to get her alone. He told her what happened yesterday with Petra.
"Haaah, I see. So this is why you decided to bother me so early in the morning today." She huffs a little while looking indifferently at him.
"Ram…" Hearing her unconcerned tone, he mumbles her name in disappointment.
"I may have sprung a little too much on her yesterday. So for today I'll have her rest and you will pick up the slack Barusu."
"Huh?! What do you mean I'm going to pick up the slack? I'm already working my butt off as it is! I have to dust off the table in the kitchen, then mop the floor in the bathroom, weed the garden, and so much more today! Do your own chores!"
While Subaru appreciated Ram's consideration for Petra, he did not appreciate that these chores are suddenly getting sprung onto him.
"I work plenty enough as it is. Don't make me repeat myself. If I work much more then I'll really be tired." Ram says.
"What do you mean you'll be tired? I never see you tired! And besides, how does working only half of the day wear you out so quickly? Especially when you spend the other half the day lounging about drinking your expensive tea?" Subaru begins to raise his voice, finding Ram's stubbornness quite irritating.
"Shut your mouth Barusu." She warns sternly. "Don't presume you know everything about me."
"I never said I did!"
"Subaru-kun, Nee-sama, are you two arguing?" Rem enters the guest room after hearing some shouting in the hallway outside the room.
"It's just pointless squabble between co-workers. Don't mind us Rem. You should go back to work." Ram says to her.
"Yeah, we're fine. Don't worry about us." Subaru says, sharing the same opinion.
"If you two say so…" Rem seems unconvinced but leaves the room.
Barusu wouldn't even begin to comprehend what my life is like on a daily basis. Ram muses, figuring there is no point to even begin trying to explain why she doesn't work as much as the rest of the staff.
Man, Ram sure is a piece of work. She's so shameless in passing on her work onto the others. She's even let Rem take on a lot of her work in the past. Why is she so lazy? Subaru complains about her internally, failing to understand her any better with this argument. While the argument bore basically no fruit, at the very least Petra is spared from extra chores today.
After that, Subaru and Ram barely talked to one another for the rest of the day. An awkward atmosphere lingered between the two. Some of the residents noticed while others did not.
By the end of the day, Subaru mulled over whether to apologize to Ram or not. While he definitely felt he was in the right to bring up Petra being overworked, he wondered if he let his emotions get the better of him and blew up unnecessarily about her work behavior. Maybe she has a genuine reason as to why she's lazier than the rest and perhaps it's embarrassing for her to talk about. Though then again, Ram is pretty private about nearly every aspect of her life. Maybe asking Rem about it would yield the answer he's looking for. But that felt really sleazy to him and it would invade her privacy. Thus, he decided not to go that route.
Going to sleep with Beatrice snuggling next to him, Subaru hopes that there will be less chores tomorrow. Both for him and everyone else.
Next Morning
-Ram's Room-
"Urgh…" Subaru moans as sunlight begins to hit his closed eyelids. He tosses and turns a little but is unable to get the sunlight out of his eyes. Annoyed, he huffs and sits himself up in the bed, rubbing his eyes and opening them. Moving his pupils, he observes the room he's in.
"Strange…why is half my vision obscured?" Finding that something is blocking the view of his left eye, he puts a hand there to remove the obstruction. Feeling something silky and smooth, he deduces that the thing blocking his left eye is hair.
"Weird, I don't remember ever growing my hair out to the point I can't even see…" He mumbles to himself. It is at that moment he notices another weird thing.
"Why do I feel so freaking tired? I didn't wake up at all last night nor did I have any nightmares for once. I don't think I overexerted myself either. Yet there's like a giant pile of baggage on my back and I can't seem to get it off."
As he complains to himself about his sudden lethargicness, he notices another major oddity.
"And why do I sound so feminine? It's not like I'm trying to put on a Natsumi impression or anything. Wait…"
Subaru stops himself, finding the tone and pitch sounding very similar to a certain someone.
"Why do I sound like Ram?"
Looking down, he finds that he is dressed in a simple pink nightgown. He sees a couple of things protruding from his chest.
"Oh no…"
Gulping heavily, he nervously extends a hand down to his crotch in order to confirm or deny if what he is experiencing is either a dream or reality. Feeling nothing down there, his eyes widen immensely.
"Oh crap…don't tell me I…"
Hastily getting out of the bed, he dashes across the room left to right looking for any sort of mirror. Eventually, he manages to find a small one on a dresser across the room from the bed. Trembling, he slowly brings the mirror to his face. Once he does, he sees the perfect image of Ram's face.
"How? Why? Why am I in her body?" He shouts, unable to believe his eyes. "If I'm in her body, then where is she?! If she somehow figures out my soul is in her body, she's gonna kill me! What do I do?!"
At that moment, the door bursts open. A black-haired boy with nasty eyes enters along with a little girl with blonde curly hair that is all over the place.
Walking up to him and only a few inches away from him, he looks into his eyes with such seriousness Subaru feels like his soul is being stared at directly.
"You're Barusu, right?" The black-haired boy asks, a slight desperation for confirmation able to be grasped from within that tone.
-Subaru's Room-
"Ah, what a good night of sleep, I suppose." Beatrice mumbles happily to herself as soon as she wakes up. Shifting her severe bed hair to the back of her head, knowing Subaru will assist her in styling it later, she gives a single yawn as she slowly gets out of bed.
"Betty should let him sleep a bit more. If Ram or another maid comes in to get him to work, Betty will tell them off, in fact."
Heading for the closet, she goes to pick out her trademark pink frilly ornate dress. Since contracting with Subaru over a year ago, he's gone out of his way to buy her a bunch of new clothes to wear even though she insisted that she preferred her outfit she's worn for hundreds of years.
Still, he persisted and eventually reached a compromise where she will once in a while wear something he bought for her. Additionally, she has found the various pairs of pajamas that he bought her rather comfortable and has made it a habit to change into a pair every night.
Heading into an adjacent room, she changes. As she does, rumblings can be heard coming from the bed.
Opening her eyes, Ram sits up and looks around. As she does, a confused look forms on her face.
This doesn't look like my room. Additionally, why do I feel so energetic? Did Roswaal-sama give me more mana than usual last night? But the procedure didn't feel any different from normal. Hm, perhaps I just slept more soundly than usual.
"You're awake, in fact." Beatrice says upon her return to the room, now dressed in her day clothes. "How did you sleep?"
"Huh? Beatrice-sama? What are you doing here?" Ram asks. As soon as she does, she puts her hands to her mouth in shock. Why did I sound just like Barusu?!
"Did you hit your head on a wall and become dumber? Betty should be asking why you're speaking so formally with me, in fact. It's weird."
"Um, my apologies." She utters, confused. Just what is going on?"
"Come on Subaru, style my hair. It probably won't be long until Ram comes by and whisks you away to do more unreasonable chores. We need to do our other duties too, in fact. …Wait."
Approaching Ram, Beatrice gazes intensely at her, "You're not Subaru, are you?"
"Um…" Ram has no idea what to say, or what to even think right now. It's clear that Beatrice for some reason just now thought she was that troublesome Subaru. Bringing her hands to her face, she realizes that said hands are a tad bigger than normal. "Can you bring me a mirror please?"
Beatrice sighs, "Fine, but then you're telling Betty who you are, in fact. From how you addressed Betty, I know you aren't Emilia or Roswaal at the very least, I suppose." A moment later, she returns with a small hand mirror.
Ram scowls upon seeing herself, "I really turned into that idiot Barusu. Tch."
"So you're Ram." Beatrice frowns. She's glad she managed to figure this out as soon as she did. Had she failed to notice sooner she would've tried to do her mana gathering procedure with the pink-haired maid that she frankly, even after all these years of living with her, still did not know that well.
"How'd you figure that out so quickly?"
"If you're talking about how Betty knew you were Ram, no one calls him that ridiculous nickname but you, I suppose. If you're talking about how Betty knew you weren't Subaru, Betty could sense something amiss in my contract with him. You also didn't talk like him at all, in fact." She explains.
"Do you know what happened to me? Or where Barusu is?"
"Betty's best guess is that some form of soul exchange has been performed between the two of you, I suppose."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, you're inhabiting Subaru's body and he's inhabiting your body, I suppose."
"Who's even capable of such a thing? And why me and him? Barusu is the last person I want to be in…my…body…BARUSU!"
Throwing the blanket still under her legs off, she promptly stands and heads for the door.
"Wait! Where do you think you're going, I suppose?"
"Obviously I'm going to Barusu before he does something disgusting with my body!"
"Wait up, in fact!"
With that, Ram, in Subaru's body, and Beatrice exit the bedroom and head towards the former's bedroom. Along the way, they bump into someone by accident.
"I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going. Oh, good morning Subaru." The voice belongs to Emilia, the one Ram ran straight into. She smiles sweetly at her. Then her gaze shifts to Beatrice. Squealing a little, she exclaims, "Oh my goodness! You're so cute with your hair down Beatrice! You should do it more often!"
"No, in fact." She rejects the suggestion. Although she does blush a tiny bit at being called cute.
"No, I should be the one apologizing to Emilia-sama. I'm currently in a rush."
"Huh?" Emilia tilts her head, "Why are you referring to me so formally? That feels kinda…strange." She sounds a little upset.
"But this is how I always-ack!" Ram stifles a yelp as her right foot is slammed by Beatrice. Looking at her attacker, she sees that she's glaring frustratingly at her. It's as if she's saying, "Fix your stupid error and act like Subaru, in fact!"
"Beatrice! Why did you step on Subaru? That's not like you. Subaru! Are you alright?" Emilia scolds the Great Spirit as she takes a look at Ram's foot.
"Betty saw a bug there, I suppose. Betty did him a favor by thoroughly squishing it." Coming up with an excuse on the fly, she can't think of anything more convincing.
"Oh! I understand. That's very kind of you Beatrice. Next time, be a bit gentler please. I think you hurt Subaru a little by accident."
Thank goodness this girl is naive. I wonder if she'll ever be fit to rule the kingdom at this rate. Beatrice muses, thankful her obvious lie was not detected.
"I-I'm fine Emilia…tan. Now, I have something I must do. I'll see you later." Giving a small bow, she runs down the hallway, with Beatrice quickly following behind.
"Hmm…Subaru's reeeeaaally polite today! I wonder if he's studying butler etiquette?" Putting a finger to her chin in thought, Emilia walks down the hall in the opposite direction of the people she just spoke with. "Why is he still in his pajamas?" She wonders aloud.
-Ram's Room-
Reaching her room, Ram bursts open the door and instantly spots Subaru with a mirror in his hand. Walking up to him and getting within mere inches of him, staring intensely at his eyes, she asks "You're Barusu, right?"
"Y-Yeah. I guess you must be Ram."
"You better not have done anything with my body Barusu…" A dark aura encompasses her. Subaru sweats a little and takes a step back.
"No! I haven't done anything! I swear! All I've done is look at myself in the mirror!"
"Oh ho? Like a pervert?" Ram's about to grab him by the collar of his nightgown when Beatrice shuts the door behind her.
She says, "Stop fighting, in fact! We've got bigger issues to deal with. Namely, why your bodies switched."
"Oh, Beako! So you know huh? Well, do you have any idea how this happened?" Subaru, elated to see her, asks this.
Unfortunately for him, she shakes her head and frowns, "No clue, in fact. Betty has never heard of such a phenomenon like this before. There is a lost spell that involves moving a soul from one body to another, but the soul of the body that is being taken over is lost in the process, I suppose."
"That sounds super frightening! I really hope that never gets cast on me!" Subaru says. Having been the victim of his body being taken over by another being once, he gives his sincerest condolences to anyone who was ever afflicted by the spell.
"In that case, what do we do now? There's no way I'm letting Barusu prance around the mansion in my body like that. Ugh, just thinking about it disgusts me." Ram pinches her nose and gives Subaru an irritated look. "And stop trying to part away my bangs like that, it's annoying to watch."
"It's not like I asked for this to happen! I want to return to my own body just as badly as you do!" Upon shouting that, Subaru hunches over a little, parting the hair that covers his left eye for what seems to be the thousandth time now.
What's going on? Shouting like that really knocked the wind out of me! I've never felt this fatigued just by talking before. Subaru wonders. The day has barely started and he already wants to go back to sleep. However, he manages to compose himself and act like nothing's wrong.
Beatrice sighs, "Stop this nonsensical chatter, in fact. Usually at times like these Betty would go to the Forbidden Library and research. However, as it doesn't exist anymore, Betty will have to make do with the library built into the mansion itself, I suppose."
"Oh, the library downstairs? It's much smaller than the Forbidden Library. Are you sure you'll find what you're looking for there?" Subaru asks.
"No, but it's better than nothing."
"How long will it take?"
"Anywhere from one to seven days, I suppose. That's presuming Betty finds anything."
"Beatrice-sama, that's a very broad range. Why do you believe it will take that long?" Ram asks.
"Simply because that's how long Betty thinks it'll take to go through every book."
"No, I can't do this. The thought of being in Barusu's body any longer and him in mine just makes me wish this was a nightmare." Ram puts a hand to her forehead in exasperation.
"Betty doesn't like this anymore than you do. But this is reality. Deal with it, in fact. Even Betty is having trouble keeping up that your bodies and souls are swapped."
"Roswaal is a pretty powerful mage and knowledgeable about magic. I'm sure if we brought this up to him he'd-"
"Absolutely not." Ram firmly rejects that idea.
"What? Why?"
"Roswaal-sama being aware that I'm in Barusu's body would bring me the ultimate shame. There's absolutely no way he's being informed of this disaster."
"Geeze…" While Subaru isn't exactly enjoying being in Ram's body, he feels pretty awful about himself knowing that Ram loathes being in his. Is his body truly that awful to move around or look at?
"Ram, I would advise you to shut your mouth, in fact." Beatrice stares crossly at her, "Don't make Subaru feel awful for something that he couldn't even control."
"Beako…" He wanted to hug that adorable girl and brush her hair and style it into the famous drills.
"My apologies for going overboard." Ram gives a small bow to them both. "However, I still stand by my decision to not inform Roswaal-sama of the situation. Additionally, I would also rather not inform anyone else about our predicament."
"Really? Not even Rem?" He asks, surprised that she wishes to keep it a secret from everyone.
"Not even Rem." She confirms. "I don't want to bother her or anyone else with this."
"Ah." That's rather thoughtful of her. Subaru muses.
"Betty agrees with her, I suppose. We'll only make them needlessly worry over us. Let Betty figure out what's going on, and you two will behave as normal."
"What do you mean 'as normal'? There's nothing normal about this!" Ram raises her voice a little.
Even though I've been talking for this long and have been feeling stressed out, I still don't feel tired at all. I haven't felt this great in forever. Ram takes a moment to marvel at the fact that she hasn't felt this well physically in years. She had almost forgotten what a non-mana deprived body feels like.
"Yeah, how are we supposed to act normal like this?" Subaru asks.
"Does Betty really have to spell it out for you two?" She puts her hands on her hips and sighs, "What Betty means is that until Betty is able to understand what caused this and how to reverse it, you two will have to act perfectly normal as one another, I suppose."
Once Beatrice lays out what they will have to do, the room goes eerily silent for a moment. The tension in the air nearly becomes palpable.
Finally, Ram sighs, "Very well. There's no other way to go about this. Barusu."
"What is it?"
"We're going to lay out some ground rules, effective immediately."
Oh no… He moans internally. He has a bad feeling Ram is going to be rather strict with whatever rules she's going to lay out.
-Author's Corner-
Trying out my first ever semi-crack mainly comedy fanfic. I initially saw a prompt for a Subaru and Ram body swap on the Re:Zero subreddit and since I have thought off and on about trying a body swap fanfic, I thought why not try to make one!
This will probably have 3 or 4 chapters total. Next chapter will cover the rest of their first day in their swapped bodies.
I don't really have anything more to say, I hope you enjoyed it so far!