Chapter 147: I Haven't Had Enough of Those Two Sisters' Gentle Side Yet!

[Evening. The wind had picked up, and fiery sunset clouds drifted across the horizon.

The evening breeze caught Betty's two pairs of twintails and set them swaying.

To Natsuki Subaru, in that moment, Betty seemed to glow.

But the next instant her brow furrowed, and her merciless words shattered the beauty of the scene.

"If you're still clinging to hope over this, you're dreaming, I suppose.

"What's lost never comes back. You'll never get the chance to explain yourself to that twin sister. You're the one who threw that chance away."

Those words, as coldly objective as words could be, dragged Natsuki Subaru straight back into reality.

Betty had seen the refusal to accept it in his eyes — which counted for something, at least — and so she wanted him to understand:

"Whichever one of them is missing, that pair of sisters will never be whole again."

"But I care about them too! I want to protect them!" Natsuki Subaru's throat worked as he forced the words out.

The next second, Betty's calm stare pinned him and the rest of it died in his mouth.

"And how much do you actually understand about those two? Whichever one is gone, nothing goes back to how it was. It can never go back to how it was, I suppose!"

Betty said it almost like a sigh.

She was only lamenting it. But that lament settled into Natsuki Subaru's chest like a seed planted without either of them noticing.]

"What does Lady Betty even know about Subaru! Subaru definitely understood — he figured out in earlier loops that Sister and I can't be apart from each other!"

Rem had sunk so deep into the images on the screen that the rebuttal burst out of her before she could stop it.

"Besides, Barusu said it himself. He values us, and he wants to protect us. It's just… there was nothing he could do about the curse, and he had no leads at all on whoever cast it," Ram added right on Rem's heels, and there was something suspiciously heart-shaped glimmering in her eyes as she spoke. It looked deeply wrong.

"You two really are sisters, I suppose. If Subaru were here, he'd call you both hopeless lovesick fools."

Betty understood that they'd simply projected themselves too far into the scene, so she didn't lose her temper — she only let out a helpless sigh.

Then it caught up with her that Rem had claimed she didn't understand Subaru, and she puffed up and shot back at once:

"Says who! Neither of you could possibly understand Subaru better than I do. I can go to the bathroom with Subaru — can you?!"

Betty's face was red as she said it, partly from anger. How dare they question the bond between her and Subaru!

Did they even know what a bond was? The relationship between two parties to a contract!

And the other part of the flush was a faint trace of embarrassment, because she had in fact wanted to follow Natsuki Subaru into the bathroom. Unfortunately he guarded that door like a fortress and wouldn't let her in even when she pounded on it. Such a shame.

["Damn it!"

Natsuki Subaru ground his teeth. Listening to Betty, he had no idea how to argue back, and even less idea what he was supposed to do.

Or rather, he did know. He just had to start over. Then everything could still be salvaged, and those twin sisters could be saved too.

But — what about him?

Did he have to face a Rem who hated him for reasons he couldn't fathom all over again? Face those two sisters tearing each other apart all over again?

While the struggle showed plainly in Natsuki Subaru's eyes, Betty stood off to one side, quietly watching him.

"So you aren't either, it seems."

Something occurred to Betty as she watched, and she murmured it half to herself. She looked, somehow, a little let down.

"What?" Natsuki Subaru raised his head, puzzled.

"Nothing. I'm only saying that you should at least die somewhere I can't see it, otherwise I'll have nightmares. I'll see you out of here."

Betty shook her head and held out a hand to Natsuki Subaru.

It was such a simple gesture, and yet it came off as unbearably cute.

On the other side of it, Natsuki Subaru, sitting on the floor, took the offered hand and pulled himself to his feet.

But once he was steady, he froze in place for no reason he could name, still holding on exactly as he had a moment before.

"Right — now that I think about it, wasn't there someone holding both my hands back then?" Natsuki Subaru murmured, shutting his eyes and dragging desperately at that familiar sensation buried in his memory.

It had been the second night of this loop. He'd kept his guard up against everyone in the manor for so long that exhaustion finally dropped him into sleep.

But in that sleep he'd dreamed of Rem hunting him down through the forest, and of the rattle of chains like something out of a nightmare, and he'd tossed and turned all night.

Even asleep, the torment was unbearable — and because it was a dream, there was no release from it.

Yet at that very moment, someone had taken both his hands. That warmth had finally set him at ease, and little by little he'd settled.

"Who was it? Who took hold of both my hands…"

Natsuki Subaru kept his eyes shut tight, turning it over and over. He remembered that he must have known at the time — after the tension drained out of him, he'd cracked his eyes open in a daze.

In that instant, Natsuki Subaru was briefly back on that night.

He forced his eyes open a sliver, and he saw it. He saw two figures of similar build sitting at his bedside, their faces swallowed by shadow, impossible to make out.

But that single scrap of evidence tore through the fog in Natsuki Subaru's mind like a bolt of lightning.

Of course! Who had ever said that the person holding both his hands had to be just one person?

"If it was Rem and Ram — if they couldn't stand to watch me suffer, and that's why they took my hands…"

Natsuki Subaru lifted both his hands and stared blankly at them, remembering the two utterly different kinds of warmth he'd felt that night.

His heart, which had already gone cold, stirred back to life — and then began to pound.

"I'm going to kill you!"

Ram's hate-filled scream came surging up out of memory.

But surfacing alongside it was another scene —

"No!!! Rem!"

Ram collapsed at the side of Rem's bed, weeping like her heart had been torn out, the sound refusing to fade.

"If it's them — can I really just stand by and do nothing?"

Natsuki Subaru clenched his fists and didn't answer.

There was only the memory of earlier loops: going into the village to shop with Rem, and the gentle smile she'd given him on the walk home.

And the days in the kitchen, horsing around and trading jokes with Ram and Rem.

Even if everyone else had forgotten, he wouldn't.

He had seen the gentle side of those two sisters with his own eyes!

So. So —

Natsuki Subaru's eyes blazed as he squeezed his fist tight, facing the sun that hadn't yet gone down.

He wanted to see it again. That gentle side of those two sisters!

If he gave up here, he'd never lay eyes on something that rare again!

"So — that means it's time to use that last method, huh?"

Natsuki Subaru put the question to himself.

There was no answer. Or rather, no answer was needed.

The wild grin breaking across his face had already answered for him.

Which was: obviously!

"You took your sweet time, I suppose."

Betty had been staring blankly at Natsuki Subaru, who spaced out for a while and then abruptly changed — his whole presence shifting until he seemed like a different person entirely. And just then she sensed someone approaching fast from a distance.

So she let out a sigh and said it, flat and mild.

There was no reproach in it, of course. If anything it carried a trace of confusion — and something almost like delight.

____

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