Chapter 154: When Asked a Difficult Question, You Stay Silent

[Natsuki Subaru washed his hands with a gloomy look on his face, straightened his clothes, and only then stepped out of the washroom.

He hadn't taken more than a few steps before a gentle voice called out behind him.

"Subaru!"

"…?"

Who would be here at a time like this?

His head full of questions, Natsuki Subaru spun around.

And there was Emilia, leaning primly against the wall on the far side of the washroom entrance.

She had clearly come here for him — and there was no telling how long she'd been waiting.

"Emili—?"

Natsuki Subaru said her name carefully, doubtfully, half afraid the sight in front of him was nothing but a dream conjured up by too much pressure.

"Subaru, come with me for a bit."

Emilia studied his face with worried eyes for a few seconds, then strode forward without waiting for an answer, seized him by the wrist, and started off toward the room.

"Wait, wait, what kind of development is this? If you need something, just give me the order — why go to all the trouble of dragging me around yourself, Emilia?" Natsuki Subaru shouted, the mask still firmly in place, his voice pitched high and theatrical.

Emilia stopped short. She didn't turn around. She only lowered her voice.

"It's just that… I'm really worried about you, Subaru."

Something invisible slammed into Natsuki Subaru's chest. His pulse went wild, and heat flooded his face.

What was Emilia saying? Worried about him…?

Had she passed by and heard him retching, falling apart behind that door?

Was that why she'd waited out here so long — for him?

His mouth hung open. He stared at her back, at the hand holding his, and for a long while he couldn't gather himself.

After a full day strung tight as a wire, being suddenly cared for, suddenly treated as someone who mattered, left him lost and at a total loss for what to do.

And beneath all of that, strongest of all, was what that one second had just done to him — his heart had skipped.]

"Subaru needs care that belongs to him and only him. Especially when… when he's fragile."

Outside the screen, Emilia carefully filed away every one of these details she had once failed to notice — every small thing that worked on Natsuki Subaru — committing them to memory one by one.

The Emilia of before had dismissed all of it without a glance. The Emilia of now studied it frame by frame.

After all, in the Greed line memories she carried, she and Subaru had come to grief in the Royal Capital, and one of the biggest reasons was this —

She hadn't understood why Subaru's affection for her ran so high, why he kept helping her —

Thinking back on it now, the girl she'd been then was an idiot. No — a complete fool.

Drip. Drip…

Remembering the Royal Capital, Emilia bowed her head, and the tears fell, spreading dark blooms across the fabric of her skirt —

"See? You've gone quiet on me again."

Beside the great floor-to-ceiling window, the setting sun had washed across her face, so that Emilia could barely make out her own expression in the footage. She could only hear herself speaking to Natsuki Subaru, temper sharp in every word.

"Why won't you understand? I always thought Emilia, of all people, would understand!" Subaru had clutched at his chest, his whole face twisted with pain as he said it to the girl she used to be.

"The Emilia in your head must be amazing. Even if you say nothing at all, she understands everything — your pain, your sorrow, your anger, she feels all of it as if it were her own."

"Subaru, if you don't tell me, I can't understand!"

Recalling her own words, sitting there in the viewing seats, Emilia felt her whole chest wring itself tight.

How had she said something like that with such a clear conscience? If she couldn't manage it, then she should have paid closer attention to Subaru.

Instead of forcing him toward the one thing he could never, ever say aloud — "Return by Death"!

She was always like this!

Wrath line, main line — in every one of them she had thought only of herself and never truly tried to understand Subaru… truly the picture of Sloth!

But not this time. This time she would start from zero — no, from the very beginning, and come to know Subaru properly, seriously.

What he liked. What he liked to eat, and what he couldn't stand.

What clothes he usually wore. How long he took to get up in the mornings. From the rate of his blinking to the length of his stride, from his habits down to the smallest details of daily life — she would learn every last one of them!

If there were things Subaru wouldn't say out loud, and she used that to excuse herself, telling herself she simply didn't know and pushing the responsibility onto him —

Then that didn't deserve to be called "love" at all!

["Sit down here."

Emilia pulled Natsuki Subaru into the room, then planted her hands on her hips and pointed at a patch of empty floor in front of the big bed.

"If we're sitting, isn't the bed fine? Or a chair? Why does it have to be the floor?" Natsuki Subaru asked, blunt as ever. He might be under pressure, but that didn't make him stupid — on the contrary, right now he felt sharp as a tack.

"Enough talking. Sit down, quickly." Emilia's hands stayed on her hips, and her tone went firm in a way it rarely did.

"Yes, Lady Emilia!"

Natsuki Subaru caved on the spot, practically teleporting into a cross-legged position in front of her. Then he looked up at her, puzzled, with no idea what any of this was for.

Emilia was in no hurry to speak. She simply lowered herself carefully to sit beside him.

Then she started to fidget, glancing left and right, a flush climbing up from her neck and giving away exactly how embarrassed she was.

"This is… a special situation, okay?" Emilia said softly, her face red.

The next second, before Natsuki Subaru could process any of it, she reached out and guided his dazed head down onto her pale, soft thigh.

"The angle isn't very good. And your hair's kind of prickly."

Emilia shifted her leg this way and that, but no arrangement seemed comfortable, and in the end she gave up and settled for stroking gently through that prickly hair of his, smoothing it into some kind of order.

"A lap pillow?"

Natsuki Subaru, still blank ever since she'd pulled him down, needed a good long moment for his brain to catch up with what had just happened.

"It's embarrassing, so don't say it out loud!" Emilia waved her hands in a flustered rush, trying to hide the red in her cheeks.

He gazed up at her, dumbstruck. No jokes came. Instead something unfamiliar welled up in him.

Because he could see it: however embarrassed she was, she was still offering him her lap — all so she could comfort the boy who had just fallen apart alone in a washroom.

For reasons he couldn't name, the urge to cry rose up in him — and right at that moment —

"Also, no looking at me. Close your eyes and turn your head the other way."

Emilia extended one finger and nudged his head to face away.

Otherwise his warm breath would fall against her stomach, and that gave her the strangest feeling, so it was absolutely not allowed.

"Wait, wait, Emilia, I don't recall performing any great deed worthy of a reward like this, so…"

Natsuki Subaru's voice trailed smaller and smaller, all conviction draining out of it.

Because at some point Emilia's soft, slender fingers had begun combing through his hair, gentle as a mother's touch, and there was no resisting the way it made him relax.

____

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