Chapter 6 - Blushes

Roswal is hiding Ley and Roy in a secret prison inside his mansion. Unaware of that Subaru is slowly begging to have an answer to the question in his heart "To whom does my heart truly belong?"

Chapter 6

Still in pain and yet,

These lips smile

As we remember those blissful moments

A simple worst-case-scenario wasn't exactly what had happened to Ley and Roy.

'We are f*****g Archbishops of Gluttony. How the f**k did we end like this…'Ley and Roy thought in unison as they realized that both of their hands were chained to the wall behind them.

They were forcefully seated on rough, wooden chairs with an equally cheap, wooden desk in front of them. This room felt like a dungeon yet it looked far better than the one they held in their secret hideout as it lacked the usual, various torturing devices decorated on the walls, those similar to paintings of a very morbid artist that cherished the pain of torture.

'What is going on?! Why do I feel so much weak!' Ley's mind soon went through a massive session of rage-induced cursing at the possible culprit of their predicament and soon his companion realised whom might have betrayed them.

Roswaal had decided against the fact of revealing their presence in his dungeons, having Rem to keep Subaru's unaware of how close they were to them in that very moment.

He had plans how to deal with his new prisoners, craving more information that they might be holding, hiding.

It was simple, he had thought as he planned for the torture schedule, opting to not provide them with even the smallest amount of bread crumbles nor a single glass of water.

Even in their weakened states, the Archbishops were far from harmless even if their body looked no better than those kids from the capital's slums.

If he failed to kept them in his possession, the Margrave was quite sure that the tense silence in the mansion would turn sour, something he grimaced by even thinking about it.

The room was special, having built it with the purpose of suppressing the capacity to formulate spells inside of it, thus putting both Roy and Ley in a worse disadvantage if they even managed to evade their confinement.

If that wasn't enough, the room had a particular whitelist regarding its role, making its owner the only one being capable of using magic inside of it.

Deciding that safe was better than sorry, the chains were made of the strongest metal, to hold the prisoners as tightly secured as possible.

When reality finally sink in their minds, a long forgotten feeling started to rabidly devour their mind, throwing them in chaotic shivers and tremblings.

'What is this feeling? It's making us restless, it's itchy. NO! it can't be, noooooo!'

They would have raged if they had owned at least a particle of magic at their disposal, yet the cold feeling of dread and fear had once more consumed them, both curling in a panicked way, leaving the two uncertain of their future.

It was a merry morning in the mansion as the silent blanket of the cold weather enveloped most of the residents, except three.

A blue haired maid was busy preparing breakfast for the rest as her red haired twin was silently humming outside.

Ram wasn't one to slack over chores, yet her amnesia had annoyingly removed most of her experience as a maid, making her close to useless in many departments.

Her pout grew on her face and with a "hmph!" she was storming towards the small hovel surrounded by flowers of various kind.

Subaru blinked and as he followed her, reached out to grab her hand, apologizing continuously.

He tripped, taking the girl with him to the ground, but the young man wasn't going to let her get hurt.

As they fell, his hands turned her around and took most of the pain of the impact, avoiding further injury to befall on the former maid.

Around them were lovely flowers with yellow petals and attractive red stigma in the centre and Subaru realised that he had toppled on top of her, his lips moments away from hers.

They both stared at each other for few moments, their cheeks flushing as they finally grasped what had just happened. The NEET was the first one to jerk back up and Ram too sat straight in the kneeling position.

"I am sorry, I didn't-" His feeble apology was interrupted by the maid's quick words.

"No. I-It's ok." She sighed, a blush still present in her face. "I saw that you went to protect me from the fall."

Subaru stared at her, with a similar blush on his face, his eyes pensively studying Ram.

'She's so much cuter when she's flustered...'

Ram noticed his intense gaze her blush turned into much deeper shades of red.

"Seriously Ram," Subaru said with a quiet tone, as if doubtful  of  himself  about what he was going to say. "I am so happy you turned out to be this way, as selfish of me to say this."

"Subaru-sama…" she would have said more, explained more yet a cry from Rem caught her off-guard, her sister rushing towards them "Roswaal-sama wishes to speak with you in his study."

Subaru gave a quick glance at Ram's direction. "Why would he want to talk with me so early in the morning?" His expression turned into serious as he remembered. "Is it one of the tricks, like the morning one?"

Rem grimaced and sighed. "I am sure it is not, Subaru-kun. I told you that was necessary and I said I was sorry but-but it seems you hadn't forgiven me" she bowed, her shoulders twitching as bangs covered her face “Please Subaru-kun, forgive me."

Subaru froze as he could clearly see that she was one the verge of tears.

'Why do I do this every time to her? She's always so nice to me and I…'

Once again the young man had caused a girl to cry and once more he felt even more of an idiot.

He slowly moved his hand above the maid's head and soon started to pat Rem's hair, the girl stunned by the action yet blushed at the nice sensation.

"Rem, how many times I have told you? I couldn't stay mad at you for any reason possible. I just do or say this kind of stuff  just to see those cute, childish reactions of yours."

"Rem doesn't act childish!" She replied, a childish pout in her face.

"Are you sure?" At this Subaru began to pull her cheeks, surprising the maid as she yelped in pain at the 'attack'.

"Shubaru, yuu meaniee!"

Ram giggled, enjoying the light-hearted scene and she didn’t sense a prayer being carried out inside her heart; a  hope for those days to never end.

Rosawall's focus on the tome in his hands was diverted to the door of his study as Subaru entered the room with his usual "Good Morning Ros-Chi!"

"Good morniiing Subaruuu-kuuun" Roswaal said with the natural sheepish smile of his, closing the book in his hands.

Subaru sat on the empty chair near the Margrave's desk. "So Ros-Chi why was I summoned in early morning? You know, a person enjoying himself with two cute maids after the insane amount of thing he had to go through should never be bothered for several years." The young man sighed. "Although, knowing you Ros-Chi this isn't your usual request for some shenanigans to kill your free time."

"You know me Subaru-kun, I keep those pleasantries to the dining table... this time the topic is somewhat serious."

"Serious?"

Subaru wasn't exactly shocked to hear that word in general but couldn't just ignore the intensity behind the tone that Rosawaal had said it with.

"This is about Ram." The NEET's attention was now fully caught by the topic as he waited for the man to continue.

"Do you remember anything before waking up here?"

"Well.." Subaru's left hand was placed on his chin, a pensive expression in his face. "I do remember going to Karagi market where I had to carry out most of the items due to Ram slacking off…"

Both Subaru and Rosawall chuckled at his statement and then he continued. "But the moment after we set for the mansion feels.. missing. When I think about it…F**k! I saw them…"

He would have fallen down if Roswaal wouldn't have caught him by his sleeves. "Ros-Chi, there were those…Archbishops of Gluttony."

Subaru stared at Roswaal, the Margrave looking suspiciously quiet. "How the hell did we survive them? I saw Ram on ground and I couldn't do anything to save her. Now that I remember it, I was quite sure I-"

A cold squeeze in his chest paused him, his mind picking a possibility he had forgotten to take into account.

'What if I had died and this is me looping again?'

Yet the warming moments of that morning couldn't have happened if this was him looping then... that meant...

'I had SURVIVED!...But how?'

The painful game of death and revival had changed him so much.

Now the Subaru from before, who was optimistic about life and events, had been replaced with the constant paranoia of figuring out how to deal with unfortunate circumstances that had caused his previous deaths.

He had begun to question almost everything, even him being alive more times than once and now that he thought about it..

'Rem did tell me about Ram's amnesia but why did she hid the fact that I was involved in the incident too?'

He remembered the person in front of him and sudden realisation hit his mind, remembering that Roswaal was the only one capable of coercing Rem into hiding things from him.

"Ros-Chi" Subaru felt anger boiling in his voice, furious of being played around like a pawn in a big chessboard from the smiling, clow-like individual. "Why did you tell Rem to hide this from me? She just told me that we were attacked but she never mentioned that Archbishops of Gluttony were involved."

"It was foooor  youuur  beest Suuubaru-kuun to haave not knooown that!" The Margrave replied, no hint of deception the young man could perceive yet, somewhere in the core of Subaru's mind, he was afraid of the mysterious personality that Rosawaal possessed, always hiding essential things from people.

"Looking at your selfless nature." Roswaal continued uncaring of the teen's doubtful expression. "I wouldn't want you taking blame for whatever happened to Ram, like you always do when others are hurt."

The man's smile widened at this curious part that the young man had "You engage yourself in a situation which, although I feel stimulating for someone like me, is suicidal at one point or another."

A genuine worried expression was now plastered on the noble's face.

"You may accuse me for being selfish with my secrets but I can assure you I would not want to wake up one day to see that you have either disappeared or with your corpse lying in some desolate area."

'Well, Roswaal you certainly don't understand how wrong you are when assuring protection especially when I was killed thrice in your own mansion.'

Subaru smirked, confusing the Margrave with this reaction.

'Like usual, always giving the weirdest and more distrustful impressions of him to someone way powerful than him.'

"Anyway don't you remember anything else? Like something that may have happened to you?"

"All I could think of is that I was going to die." Subaru replied sarcastically, surprising the man even more.

"I doon't uunderstand hoow sooomeboody caan say that with suuch a straight face?"

Subaru was still forbidden to reveal his Return-By-Death powers.

If it wasn't Emilia, Roswaal would be the first one whom he says about it but with the whole hand-thing that killed the one who knew of his secret, his bravery was running low nowadays.

"But seriously Ros-Chi, how did we survive? I remember those two having a hard-core murderous face. I still find it hard to believe they kept us alive till you arrived to save us. Thank you very much, by the way, for saving our lives."

Roswaal waved his hands. "Oh! It was nooothing!"

'He clearly doesn't remember anything. It seems that those powers are still concealed from him. So he's not a threat…YET'

"Subaru-kun youuu caaan go now. We'll talk later at breakfast."

Usually Subaru would have questioned him if he really should go, if Roswaal needed anymore help or just keep cracking up Rosawall's tiredness with his jokes or antics, but Subaru... wasn't feeling it.

He rushed away as soon as he got the green-light from Roswaal, which made the Margrave give him a questionable glance before he dismissed any inquisitive thoughts, turning back on the tome which had a list of various mythical monsters, still searching for the one that looked like the devilish form of Subaru.

Subaru's happy expression turned into a sour one the moment when he dashed towards the lawn and found it empty, even after scurrying here and there in the search for Ram.

He couldn't find her and groaned bored.

He turned back to hurry up and get a bath as he still had to do the usual works of the mansion.

He couldn't let poor Rem do all the chores; it wouldn't be kind of him.

Eyes closed as he sighed tiredly, his head hit something as he turned the corner, falling on the ground together with... someone else?

"Subaru…always so scatter-brained...” Someone yelled in a low pitch and the tone and familiarity of the words made him reflexively reply "Who says scatter-brained anymore?"

As he comforted his aching forehead to soothe the pain from collision his eyes saw whom he had bumped into and his heart quivered in joy.

"E-Emilia?" His shock overcomes the melting sensation he felt as he noticed the cute smile in her face.

A multitude of memories rampaged in his head, from the lap-pillow she gave him when he had bottled up the fear, tiredness and pain within himself to the point of tiring himself out, to the embrace of pure love she had given him which made him work hard to set things all right and her innocent reply to his 'I love you Emilia'.

He thought he could wait for her to feel the same love but it wrenches his heart as she carries on with her ever-increasing duties, not even trying to give him a chance, so that he could show how much he loved her and how blessed he would feel is she loved him back.

So, as their conversations and meetings grew minimal with time, he had thought to move on but he couldn't when she bumped into him every now and then, always behaving so innocently.

"Subaru" Her angry expression brought his out of his brief daze and Subaru paled at the furious glance she gave him "We need to talk"