Subaru felt his heart flutter involuntarily at Emilia's sudden visit. The unexpectedly perfect outfit was a fresh and pleasant surprise, but what was even more pleasant was her presence here.
Simply due to being treated poorly after first being summoned to another world—especially the ones who put him through hell in the beginning—Subaru had special feelings for her, the one who was the first to treat him with unconditional kindness.
"I feel like I've imprinted onto you! I don't want to leave you for a second, Mom!"
"Uhh… I was a biiiit worried because I heard that Beatrice played a prank on you while you were low on blood…but I guess it was useless to do so."
"Hey, I've never had trouble waking up! And I'm kind of afraid to ask you this, but…"
At the puzzled Emilia, Subaru nervously tapped his index fingers together and looked up at her. "So uhh, do you remember me?"
"Your mannerisms are soooo weird, and that's a weird question to ask. I don't think anyone could forget someone who leaves such a strong impression like you, Subaru."
Subaru's shoulders descended in relief when he heard Emilia softly whisper his name.The fact that the girl called him by his first name without an honorific was completely unexpected and embarrassing for him, someone who never really interacted with the opposite sex in his original world. His ears ended up turning bright red in embarrassment.
Putting aside this somewhat immature behavior of Subaru, the twins, who had noticed Emilia's presence, rushed to her side. They moved behind her, and with only their faces on either side of her, they stared at Subaru.
"Kindly listen, Lady Emilia. The guest has humiliated my sister."
"Kindly listen, Lady Emilia. The guest has held me captive and violated Rem."
"It's reaaaally not good to tease him too much… I think it's something Subaru would do, but there's no way he could get away with it. Ram and Rem, don't you think you're playing too much with a sick patient?"
"Yes, Lady Emilia. My sister is sorry for what she's done."
"Yes, Lady Emilia. I'm sure Rem will reflect on this."
Ram and Rem, the two who were called by name, declared their remorse without a shred of remorse in sight. Perhaps accustomed to their attitudes, Emilia looked at Subaru without seeming to be bothered by it. "So how are you feeling, Subaru? Does anything feel strange?"
"I thought I was going to die because I felt like my whole body was on fire before losing consciousness," he said, "but I don't feel like that at all now. Now I feel like I slept too much, actually."
"Yeah. It's been almost a day since I met you, and you've slept through half of it."
"That's not true…" Recalling the events that had occurred up until now, Subaru was at a complete loss for words as he tried to refute her statement.
The time it took for Subaru to get through the events of yesterday felt like more than 24 hours to him, but that wouldn't be the case for Emilia.
From Emilia's point of view, their chance encounter would only have taken less than an hour. The number of words she exchanged with him could not be said to be much, either.
For Subaru, having this conversation event with her took top priority, especially since he hadn't had a chance to do so this time around.
"Sleeping too much and being lazy are habits of mine…and it's super unusual for me to be up in the morning."
"What kind of life have you been living…?"
"You see, it's easier to play games at night because you don't have to deal with all the unnecessary noise. To be frank, for a shut-in, the high hours of the day are a perfect time to sleep."
"You know, I'm really getting more and more disappointed in you, Subaru." Emilia expressed her disappointment with a sigh in a way that was easy to understand, even though she probably didn't understand most of the meaning, but she understood the essence of what he was saying.
Detecting that the mood was turning sour, Subaru quickly attempted to change the subject by talking about her clothes. "By the way, you look soo different today. What were you doing?"
"Oh, don't mention the clothes too much. I don't like it either. If you're wondering what I've been doing, I was just about to go about my morning routine." Emilia held her forehead and slurred her words as if she were having difficulty saying them. Her lack of clarity also bothered Subaru, but he didn't the pursue the subject any further.
"What's your morning routine?"
"I'm going to borrow the garden of the mansion and talk to the spirits for a bit in the morning. Because that's part of the contract I made with various spirits."
"Wow, talking to spirits is super cool! I don't know what a contract is, but…
The first thing that came to mind when he heard the word 'spirit' was still a tiny gray-haired cat.
In this version of the world, he hadn't had much contact with him, but Subaru still found himself looking forward to seeing him again. Mainly to get his daily dose of cuteness and fluffiness.
Seemingly out of habit, Subaru wiggled his hands. Emilia was quickly learning to ignore the oddities of Subaru's mannerisms, however.
"Well, it's good that you're fine, but don't make too much noise because most people are still asleep at this time. Although, it's awful of me to tell someone who's been asleep for so long to be quiet."
"You're right. Oh, when you say garden, does that mean it's a bit bigger?"
"It's more of a park than a garden. Why do you ask?"
"Nah, provided you don't mind me doing something in the corner of the garden while you talk to the spirits, Emilia-tan…"
"As long as you're not making too much noise or anything… What? What did you just say?"
"Okay, I'm in. I'll go with you."
"Hey, what did you say? What's tan? Where did that come from?"
Though she was asking him questions in a frenzy, he dodged them. With a nasty attitude in return for their earlier mean-spiritedness, Subaru turned his body towards Ram and Rem. "Hey, maid sisters. Do you know where my clothes are? I don't know where they went, but these feel like hospital clothes, and I think they're probably keeping it here."
It hadn't been mentioned so far, but Subaru's current outfit was similar to a thin samue costume made of red-brown fabric. The material was too stiff to be called a hospital gown, but it was much cooler than it looked and quite easy to move in.
"But when it comes to moving around, it's not as comfortable as my tracksuit. So I'm wondering if I can find it somewhere. I don't know if the blood ruined it or not…"
"Do you know, Sister? Is it that dirty little gray rag by any chance?"
"I think so, Rem. Maybe it's that blood-stained rat-colored piece of filth."
"Quite fearless you two—yes, the dirty little rags. If it's still wearable, can you bring it here?" Subaru asked.
The twins looked at Emilia as if seeking approval. When Emilia indicated with her eyes that she had no choice, the twins nodded and tottered out of the room.
"Are you sure you're feeling okay? It wasn't a shallow injury, from what I can tell."
"For sure, I feel perfectly fine. And I don't want my body to be idle, either. If you miss one day of training, you'll have to train for three days in a row to catch up, or so they say."
Subaru straightened his posture as he remembered something, tidied his appearance up, and then turned to Emilia. She looked puzzled by his actions, but he bowed to her and said, "You were the one who healed my wounds, right? Thanks for the help. I'm still scared of dying, actually. I only wanna do it once."
"Normally I'd think you'd only do it once… But nope, it wasn't me." After saying that, Emilia gave a small shake of her head.
Then she looked straight at Subaru with seriousness in her amethyst eyes. Due to the brilliance of her gaze, the fascinated Subaru was stuck as if in a trance and just stood their silently, lost in her eyes. "I'm the one who should be thanking you, Subaru. Back then, you risked your life to save me, a person you barely knew, right? Treating your injuries was only the natural thing to do."
With such a sincere look on her face after conveying her gratitude to Subaru for saving her life, Subaru couldn't help but let out an involuntary "Ahh."
He resented himself for not being able to give even a single sincere response. It was unlikely that he would be able to confront her unless he was fooling around and deceiving her.
He thought about how much easier it would be if he could tell her that she had saved him by saying, That's not true. You were the one who saved me first, Emilia-tan. Though only Subaru remembered what happened in that world.
"—Well, since we helped each other out, how about we say we're even?"
"Even…?"
"It means we don't owe each other anything! So let's be friends, sista!"
If only they were still in the slums—they could have teamed up together, shoulder to shoulder, but all Subaru could do now was use his zeal to cover up his shame.
Emilia smiled slightly at Subaru's bravado. "I don't think I need a strange little brother like that."
"That's a rather harsh comment, right?!"
Subaru felt a little depressed when Emilia gave such a poor assessment of him, but he knows he hadn't shown an ounce of dependability yet, so he'd just have to resign himself to this harsh assessment without a single rebuttal.
"We found what you requested, sir."
"Here you go, sir."
While Subaru was in a depressed state of mind due to what had just occurred, the twin maids brought in his recently washed tracksuit. The pink-haired maid had his jacket, and the light blue-haired maid had his pants. Fortunately, they were able to get the tracksuit washed without leaving any traces of blood on it.
At first glance, Subaru was relieved to see the return of his good-as-new tracksuit. However, the two girls rushed over to him and tried to remove his clothes as quickly as possible.
"Hey, hey! No, I can do it on my own! Although I'm kind of flattered."
"Oh my, he feels more pleasure than shame, Sister."
"Oh dear, he feels more happy than humiliated. —He must be a pervert at heart, Rem."
"Wow, the pink-haired one is the one with the foul mouth! I'll get dressed, just hand—it—over!" Subaru quickly shook off the squirming twins' hands and got his tracksuit back.
He was about to get changed as quickly as he could, but then suddenly realized something. "Speaking of which…were you the one who changed me into these clothes?"
"It was me. Ram and Rem were out, and since I was patching you up anyways, it only seemed natural to do it. Oh, and I gave you a quick but thorough wipe down too." Emilia said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
Subaru gently peeked inside the underwear he was wearing and confirmed the fact that even his underwear had been replaced. He collapsed on the spot and covered his face with his palms. "I can't be a bride anymore…"
"If the genders were reversed, that would make sense… Anyways, we don't have much time, so if you're going to go, let's get going." As if she were the man in the relationship, Emilia patted Subaru on the shoulder in a comforting manner. Since she probably didn't understand what he was saying, Subaru decided to bury everything he just said and take it to the grave with him.
Subaru had been undressed, cleaned up, and then redressed by a beautiful girl who would have seen his naked body. He thought that was pretty nice in its own way and could even be seen as a reward. He decided to think positively—positive thinking.
Gently wiping the tears from his heart with these positive thoughts, Subaru got to his feet.
As he grabbed his clothes and looked around, the females in the room, sensing that he wanted to change his clothes, left the room in a hurry.
The twins left the room first, and the last thing he saw exit through the door was Emilia's beautiful silver hair. But just before her figure disappeared behind the door, her white profile suddenly turned around. "Don't worry about it. —It'll be fine."
As she left, the door closed with a thud.
For the time being, Subaru had to get his clothes changed. He wasn't quite sure how the samue-style clothes were put together, but he figured it out eventually.
He then neatly folded the samue and placed it on the bed. After that he checked how the tracksuit felt after having not worn it for a few hours and stretched with an "mmmmm"and was ready go.
"Well…"
After swinging his hips around and popping a few joints, Subaru looked out the window of his room.
He gently pulled the curtains apart, and he could see the morning sun still blessing the early morning world as it began to rise. After basking in the warmth of the sunlight, he walked over to the bed and dived into it.
"I can't be a bride anymore…"
Pressing his face against the pillow, this time Subaru cried like a little boy.
The last thing that happened was the most heartbreaking for him. Subaru thought he was going to die back there. He even wished he could just die and start over.
—But this heartache wasn't bad enough for him to take such measures, and for a while, Subaru continued to cry his little-boy feelings out like a panzy.