After we heard the knock at the door, Rem scrambled away from me— her face doing its best tomato impersonation as she looked at her lap.
“Subaru, it’s Betty, I suppose,” I could hear through the shut door.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Rem straightening out her nightgown.
I marched up to the door, taking one last longing glance back at Rem.
I opened it, to see Beako standing out in the hallway.
“You drill loli!” I shouted. “What are you doing, do you want me to take my frustrations out on you?!”
“... Betty might not mind that, I suppose.” Her cheeks flushed. Then, she saw Rem sitting on the bed. She sputtered, “What are you making Betty say in front of others, I suppose!” Her skirt flared as she stomped petulantly.
Then, she reevaluated the situation. “If Subaru is busy, then I can come back a different time.” She said, surprising me.
“I didn’t know you could be so mature, Beako!” I faked a sniffle and tilted my head.
She stomped again, “Beako can be mature, too, I suppose!” Her little fists shook by her sides.
I smiled. It took a moment, but eventually Beako smiled back at me, too— the teasing mood from earlier disappearing. “Normally I’d happily invite you in, but as you can see,” I gestured toward Rem, still sitting on my bed.
Rem waved her arms around, “Oh, don’t worry about me! I can head out.” Her voice slowly grew quieter throughout the sentence as she fidgeted in place.
Beako looked at Rem with a hope filled gaze.
“Sorry, Beako, but can you come back a little later? Rem and I were having a very adult conversation.”
Beako’s lips curled into a frown. “Beako is over 400 years old, I suppose.” She bit her lip, “But if Subaru is asking me to come back later, then I can do so, in fact.”
Despite saying that, she didn’t actually move from the doorway. She just looked up at me with really wide eyes. If anything, she looked like she wanted to come inside even more now.
I stared at her for a moment, then scratched the back of my head. “Ah! Fine. Come here!”
I picked her up under the armpits and then brought her to a carry against my hip, her legs dangling.
“Sorry Rem—”
Rem cut me off, “That’s okay, Rem will see you another time then.” She stood from the bed and started to make her way to the door.
I quickly held up a hand, stopping her. Then, I forced the bedroom door shut before she could leave.
“I guess it’s in bad taste to get upset that I have the attention of two women!” I dramatically said into the room.
First, I threw Beako through the air, causing her to squeak before she landed on the bed. Then I dragged Rem back over to the other side of the bed and pushed her into the mattress.
I climbed over Rem, and positioned myself in the middle of the giant mattress. With a flick of will, the lights in the room turned off, and everyone shuffled under the covers.
Beako’s questing hand soon found mine, and I made sure to grab onto Rem’s with the other.
I sighed. I was really happy, really truly extra happy. But I couldn’t help and be just a little bit frustrated.
Just before I fell asleep, I heard Rem murmur, “It kind of feels like we’re a married couple with our kid in the bed with us.” She giggled.
"Betty is over 400 years old, and I'm a spirit, in fact."
I just rolled my eyes.
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I walked down the stairs with Beako riding my shoulders like a kid. I stabilized her with one hand on her knee and used the other hand to hold Rem’s.
When we reached the kitchen, Ram was already waiting for us. I noticed she had dark circles under her eyes.
“Barusu, surely you know it’s rude to keep people up at night? So why is it that I heard so much loud shouting?” She accused me with a glare.
Looks like she had already made breakfast. I sat down and sipped some tea. “Yep, it tastes bad.” I nodded my head. “As expected of onee-sama.”
“Nee-sama’s tea isn’t bad, it’s just unique.” Rem valiantly tried to defend her sister but to no avail.
“Betty agrees with Subaru, in fact.” Beako nodded.
“If no one is going to appreciate it, then next time I won’t make breakfast,” Ram said, deadpan.
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“Onee-sama, onee-sama.”
“Yes, Rem?”
“I never said your food was bad.” Rem smiled.
“If no one is going to appreciate it, then next time I won’t make breakfast.”
“Ram-chi, I’m pretty sure you just said that,” I said.
“I am curious, though, Barusu. Have you been stealing ingredients from the manor? Where did all of this high quality tea come from?” She pointed to the box, an exact replica of the brand of high end tea the mansion used for guests.
“My Sweet Home automatically makes ingredients. Don’t ask me how. You don’t want to know.”
“That only makes me want to know more.” Ram narrowed her eyes at me.
I ignored her unspoken question and took a bite of bacon. It was... not burnt. The eggs weren’t so lucky.
“If this is truly such a source of infinite food, then I suppose I’ll never need to go shopping again?” Ram questioned, trying to get a response out of me.
“Go for it,” I told her.
She continued to narrow her eyes at me and hmmed. “I see.”
Perhaps out of habit, instead of sitting down, Rem moved to stand behind me at my chair. Once I noticed her standing there, I waved at her. “Sit down.” I said.
She bowed slightly and then pulled out the chair next to me. The rest of breakfast was spent mostly in silence, though once all the joking and teasing was over, I did make sure to properly thank Ram.
After everyone ate, Ram spoke up again, “Roswaal sent a letter to the manor this morning when I was checking in. He’s trapped in Sanctuary with Emilia and everyone we evacuated from the village.”
And so it begins, I thought to myself.
“I planned on heading there soon anyway. Honestly, with everyone else already in Sanctuary, I think we should all just go down there, too,” I said.
“And leave the manor unmanned?” Ram asked skeptical.
“Look, I have it on good authority that two assassins are going to attack the manor, anyway. We might as well all just abandon it. If no one is here, the assassins will have no one to kill, and they’ll probably just leave.”
“If Subaru-kun says so, then it must be true.” Rem nodded.
“Betty doesn’t intend to abandon the Forbidden Library, in fact. Actually, Betty wanted to know if she could relocate it to Subaru’s Sweet Home, in fact.”
“Beako, doesn’t the library have a lot of bad memories for you? I thought you’d want to get rid of it.” I glanced up at her from where she sat on my shoulders.
“Betty does, in fact, hate the Forbidden Library. Betty would be glad to never see its walls again, in fact. But the knowledge contained within is worth saving, I suppose. There’s a reason Betty asked to move everything to your Sweet Home, in fact.”
“How long do you intend to sit up on Subaru’s shoulders like that?” Ram asked.
“Betty never thought about getting off, I suppose.”
She was so light as a spirit, that I hardly noticed her weight at all. I did have to somewhat awkwardly maneuver around her legs while eating, though.
“Beako, there should be a library already in the house somewhere. Why don’t you take it over and move the Forbidden Library’s books there as well?”
“Betty would like that, in fact!”
She hopped off my shoulders and gently glided down onto the ground before scurrying off.
“Well, that answers what Beako will be doing for the foreseeable future.”
“I’m still not so sure about leaving the manor without anyone to take care of it...” Ram shared her concerns. “I could ask Frederica to return.”
I scratched the side of my head while I thought about it a bit more.
“Would it make you feel better if we checked in every day or so? If we invite Frederica she’ll just get killed by Elsa.”
“Once we enter Sanctuary, we won’t be able to leave the barrier,” Ram pointed out, though she wasn’t disagreeing with me either.
“Yeah, we will be able to leave. I’ll just shove you in here again and then walk out of there. Honestly, we could get every single person in Sanctuary out using that method if we wanted to.”
“And there’s a reason we don’t?” Ram asked.
“I don’t want to go around sharing secrets pointlessly. If it means saving someone’s life, then yeah that’s fine. But, using Sweet Home to bypass the barrier when there’s better ways of solving that particular problem? Might as well do it the intended way first.”
Now that I was thinking about it, in Canon, Otto helped Subaru make it into Sanctuary the first time. Huh, I wondered what happened to that guy. I wasn’t too concerned, to be honest. It might be a bit heartless, but as far as I was concerned, I’d never met Otto. He wasn’t any more special than any other random character on a screen. I wished him all the best though, wherever he was.
“Do you want to go now?” I asked the table.
“I need to change out of my nightgown first,” Rem said as she pushed her chair out to stand up.
After everyone took some time to get dressed and ready, we met up at the front door to my Sweet Home. From there, I opened the portal and we stepped back into Roswaal’s manor. The Company Smartphone immediately vanished from my hand, summoned by Beatrice if I had to guess. She was probably using the portal to move her books around.
The manor was hauntingly empty like this. Idly, I wondered if Puck had already broken his contract with Emilia. That absolute floofer really needed to learn to not disappear on people who relied on him.
“Alright, who knows the way to Sanctuary?”
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“By the way, Ram. Garfiel wants to pursue you romantically. You’ll have to let him know you’re already spoken for.” I randomly spoke up on the travel to Sanctuary.
Patrasche carried us on her back, though she kept giving Ram next to us the side eye.
“You mean because of Roswaal-sama, right?” Ram asked, deadpan.
“Nope.” I popped the ‘p’.
“Then Garfiel must be just as deluded as Barusu.”
I chuckled.
“Don’t worry Subaru-kun, I know nee-sama will fall for you shortly.” Rem smiled at me.
“Rem-rin, don’t encourage me to pursue your sister with that smile on your face. It’s making me sad for some reason.”
“Oh? Maybe I’ll keep doing it, then,” Rem responded.
She just wanted to rub in my guilt, I was sure.
“We’re coming up on the barrier, now.” Ram’s tone turned serious.
Now that she’d pointed it out, I could see a slightly glimmering surface a few meters in front of us. When we got to it, Patrasche sniffed it suspiciously, but ultimately we got through the barrier without a fuss.
“So, this is it, huh? I wonder what sort of face Emilia will have; It’s been a long time since we talked.”
“It’s Barusu’s own fault for not speaking to her sooner,” Ram pointed out.
“Yeah. Honestly, I’ve not been looking forward to this too much. Did Rem tell you that I proposed to her and asked if we could run away together instead?”
"She did mention something along those lines.” Ram side-eyed me. “You aren’t thinking of anything stupid now, are you, Barusu?”
“Nothing more stupid than fighting an infinitely multiplying rabbit, I guess.”
“Good.”
“Worry about me a little bit more, would you! The Insatiable Hare is a serious threat you know! It’s devoured entire villages, easily!”
“You and Beatrice-sama will deal with that issue with a wave of your hands.” Ram rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, that’s true.”
For some reason, Ram’s words made me want to squeeze Rem a little tighter.
“Subaru-kun, Subaru-kun? Not that I mind too much, but why did you put your hand there? Can’t you save that kind of thing for the bedroom?” Rem’s ears began turning red.
“Ah, my bad. My hand just naturally gravitated toward your chest.”
“Just don’t do it again.” Then she whispered, “In private is okay, though.”
Ram ignored us. Honestly, I thought I saw her face turn a bit red, too.