Chapter 33 33: Betty Absolutely Absolutely Has No Verbal Tic 'Kashira~'

All of these impossibilities finally forced Rem to confront the truth —

This was no dream. This was reality. More real than anything could ever be.

But that meant everything she had just done — from Natsuki Subaru's perspective — was exactly what it looked like.

A maid, out of nowhere, throwing herself at a guest she had never once met in her life.

"Ugh…!"

Rem dropped her gaze, mortified, her brilliant blue eyes trembling as though she'd been struck by lightning.

Just imagining that Subaru might be staring at her right now with some deeply strange expression on his face was enough to make her want to sink into the floor and disappear.

On instinct, she pressed her slender fingers gently over her chest, feeling the frantic pounding of her own heart beneath them.

And yet —

To Subaru, watching from across from her, that gesture read as something else entirely. That half-concealing, half-revealing gesture — far from dampening the embarrassment — only added a layer of indescribable charm that hadn't been there before.

It was a quality that existed somewhere between a young girl's innocence and the gentle grace of a woman who had already known love. A quality without a name.

That wordless, subtle shift made every tiny movement she made seem to carry some quiet magic, drawing Subaru's gaze — and his entire mind — back to her without permission.

"This is bad. This feeling is…"

Natsuki Subaru pressed a hand hard against his own chest, his heart hammering wildly beneath his palm.

Every shift of Rem's eyes. Every faint flutter of her lashes.

Even the subtle curl of her fingertips where they rested against her chest — every detail radiated a magnetism completely unlike the Rem he remembered, a magnetism he had absolutely no defense against.

This had to be against the rules.

This was not the Rem he knew — the one who should have been watching him with wariness and distance. Not even close.

The girl in front of him, the one who had just stolen his first kiss, seemed to know every hidden corner of his heart. She understood every preference he had never spoken aloud.

Her touch. Her coy half-reluctance. That blend of shyness and quiet maturity — all of it felt tailor-made for him, plucking every sensitive string inside him with uncanny precision.

It was as if… she had spent an enormously long time at his side, patiently cataloguing every little thing he liked, every habit he had, turning them over and over in her mind — until she could express them this naturally, without a moment's effort.

Just as the charged silence between Subaru and Rem stretched thicker, the atmosphere between them growing heavier and more dangerously close —

A loli voice, unmistakably displeased and pitched distinctly high, suddenly shattered the quiet of the corridor.

It was the voice of someone who had clearly seen quite enough of what was happening in front of her.

"— You two! Just what do you think you're doing?!"

The words hit like an ice spike dropping from a great height, freezing the warmth and ambiance in the air stone solid.

Natsuki Subaru jolted and spun toward the sound.

Rem, cheeks burning, quietly withdrew the hand she had been about to reach out and wrap around Subaru, then turned to look in the same direction, affecting her best impression of someone who had absolutely not been doing anything.

There, only a few steps away from the pair, stood a small figure in an elaborate dress, soft pink-gold ringlets swaying gently around her — none other than the Great Spirit, Beatrice.

She stood with both hands planted firmly on her hips, her delicate little face drawn tight and severe.

The eyes that were always tinged with a faint air of aloof distance — those eyes with the pink butterfly patterns in their pupils — were now blazing openly, making no effort to hide it whatsoever.

She glared down at the two of them, still seated on the floor, and spoke.

"In broad daylight," Betty announced, her voice pitched to a deliberate, cutting sharpness, as though she wanted to make absolutely clear why she had seen fit to intervene,

"in the corridors of the mansion — carrying on with such… such indecent behavior! Betty's eyes are practically being defiled, I suppose! As the Great Spirit who guards the Forbidden Archive, Betty absolutely cannot allow conduct that degrades the atmosphere of this manor!"

Her gaze — sharp as a blade — came to rest squarely on Rem.

It was the look of someone offended. The look of someone who felt something had been taken from her.

Betty's small, dainty nose flared the tiniest bit. Her chin lifted higher.

In that sour, teeth-gritted tone of hers, she addressed Rem directly:

"Hmph! Rem, you sneaky little cat… you shameless creature!"

"You — you got there first! The absolute nerve of it, I suppose!"

That last line, Betty delivered in a voice just barely loud enough for her own ears alone.

At the same moment, the tips of her pale ears flushed the faintest, barely perceptible pink — an inadvertent betrayal of the far deeper emotion lurking beneath all that righteous scolding.

She seemed to be struck by her own words the moment they left her mouth — startled by how much more she'd revealed than she'd intended.

"Betty is going to the dining hall for sweets, I suppose! If you two want to keep at it, then by all means, go right ahead!"

And with that final declaration — perhaps swallowed up by that strange, unfamiliar pang of bitterness rising in her chest — Betty stamped her foot once, sharply, turned on her heel, and marched away in a full-blown sulk.

She left behind two people in the corridor who were, if possible, even more flustered and bewildered than before — and a sourness hanging in the air that showed absolutely no signs of dissipating.

"I — I'm sorry! Su — Guest!"

Rem jolted back to her senses as if she'd been shocked, and scrambled to push herself up off the floor.

The effort was a little graceless — the lingering dizziness and the waves of shame made it hard to move with any composure.

She managed to get herself upright, both hands clasped tightly together over her lower abdomen.

Her posture was impeccably correct, a maid's proper standing form — but her head was bowed so deeply it nearly touched her chest.

"Rem… Rem behaved terribly just now! What she did was unforgivably rude!"

"Please — please, you must forgive Rem for the offense!"

Her voice trembled noticeably — with shame, with panic, and underneath all of it, a deeper layer of sheer, disbelieving absurdity —

In a moment of complete impulse, she had done something to the young, teenage Subaru that only a husband and wife would ever do.

It was absolutely…

Natsuki Subaru scrambled to his feet as well.

He looked at the blue-haired maid bowing so deeply before him, her body trembling faintly, and felt the shock and confusion inside him peak at something he couldn't put into words.

This was nothing like the Rem he knew.

The twin maid he had first met — the one whose eyes had been cold and watchful from the very start.

The person in front of him wore Rem's exact face. Perfectly identical.

But the mature grace she let slip without realizing, the unusual, disarming familiarity — all of it was strange enough to make his chest tighten.

"N — no, please don't apologize like that…"

Subaru waved a hand, awkward and flustered, and felt the heat climbing to his own cheeks as the memory of a moment ago replayed itself uninvited.

"Um — Rem, just now… you seemed like you were in a lot of pain. Does your head still hurt?"

Subaru fumbled his way toward a change of subject.

But as he raised his head, his gaze drifted of its own accord to Rem's lips — slightly swollen and tinged red — and he felt a pull he couldn't name, his heart lurching back into a gallop that was entirely beyond his control.

At Subaru's question, Rem's body went very slightly — almost imperceptibly — rigid.

"…I'm all right now, Subaru."

Rem's voice was quiet, but carried a peculiar calm beneath it.

She had dropped the honorific "Guest" without thinking. That small change made Subaru's heart jump all over again.

"I just… had a very, very long dream."

Her gaze drifted softly over Subaru's face, and there was something in her eyes — deep enough to hold all his confusion and unease without any of it spilling over.

____

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