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Artwork by suffaruwu (Twitter) (Tumblr)
Subaru lives her life in firsts: chasing first place medals, April First, being the first and worst daughter ever, and now, being isekaied to another world.
There’s a rulebook to these sorts of things. Main heroine charm dictates guys beg to be wrapped around your finger and villainesses walk right into being crushed under your star-studded heels. Main hero charm means girls throw themselves at your feet and everyone you ever meet admires you without you having to even lift a single finger.
An underdog that’s made to win love or power.
See, when Subaru got isekaied, boy or girl rules went, right? She cut her hair recently (in a school bathroom, with craft scissors, and a guy’s uniform stuffed in her backpack), so she figured it was a coin toss of what she’d get.
Satella and her fairytale princess magical girl looks weren't what Subaru wanted.
“I was supposed to be saved by some hot ikemen!” Subaru whines, pulling at her hair. “But nooo, I got mugged by three guys in an alley after some blonde chick abandoned me to die! And I definitely wasn’t supposed to be isekaied into my fantasy adventure just wearing my tracksuit—I should’ve at least had time to get my fanciest clothes in order! How’s any boy gonna look at me now?!” She glances at Satella’s annoyingly pretty everything with her big, round, and totally not scary eyes. “You’re a girl too, so you get it, right?”
Satella blinks. God, even her just blinking is pretty, with her startlingly silver hair, the way it cascades down her back like a waterfall, and the way her long lashes catch the light. Silver hair. Like the one and only anime girl figurine in the sea of ikemens in Subaru’s room! It’s so—
“I’m not entirely certain what you mean by that,” Satella states. And fuck , even her voice sounds like the little melodic chime of bells. She places a hand over her chest and— god, Subaru tries not to think about that. “But I reaaally am sorry about all your misfortune. Are you hurt anywhere else? I can ask Puck again to—“
“Lia, I think this girl’s lost her marbles,” Puck whispers loudly. “She’s got no malice, but she’s still gonna put obscene ideas in your head the more she talks! C’mon, she even looks like a guy!”
There’s a weird little thrill in Subaru over apparently looking like a guy—and then she reminds herself that she’s supposed to be a proper heroine. There’s only so much androgyny you’re allowed to have. “Oi, I-I’m right here, y’know!” Subaru complains. “It’s my first day here, so cut me some slack!”
She’s no good at passing as a hero either.
Satella hesitates and looks Subaru up and down with this terribly pitying expression. Subaru sputters and squirms under Satella’s gaze while Satella says, “You… did say you were broke beyond repair too…” She tilts her head all puppy-like. It’s so adorably main heroine-esque that Subaru’s heart ties itself into knots. “But your clothing is so high quality, and your hands feel soft like a—”
“W-Woah, don’t say something as perverted as that, Satella-chan!” Subaru stammers, trying not to think of the cold of Satella’s fingers when their hands brushed in the marketplace. With Plum there, it’s like they were married. “We’re— I’m not like that!”
Puck eyes Subaru, and the confused pity on Satella’s face doesn’t fade. “I-I reaaally don’t know what you mean…” Satella sighs, eyes turning to the kingdom. There’s a whole view of it from the balcony they’re both on, but Satella’s the only isekai dream Subaru wants to look at. “I must go find my insignia. Thank you, but…”
“Let me help you,” Subaru blurts out, Satella’s eyes following the anxious movement of Subaru’s fingers drumming on the railing. “I’m still new here, and you still need your fancy McGuffin, so—“ Subaru grins crookedly. “This can be my one good deed for the day!”
Satella turns to Subaru, still confused, still wary, until it softens into flustered pink on her skin and a small smile on her face. “You are still lost…”
Subaru snaps her fingers. “Exactly! It’ll be you and me against the world—we can even find ikemens together if you’re single!”
“You and me,” Satella echoes instead, and Subaru—
They weren’t final girl material, but Subaru’s first death is holding hands with another girl under the moonlight with a promise on Subaru’s lips, Satella’s touch now painfully mutual instead of worlds apart.
Subaru claws out of the box that says dead girl plot device and smashes it like a fist to mirror .
Subaru wakes up and cries out to “Satella”, and the fury on Emilia’s face sends Subaru hurtling back to being sixteen and trying to join a girl’s friend group so badly that she just got spat right out for being loud and annoying and too-desperate. Subaru runs right into those thugs’ knives like an idiot right afterwards—girls shouldn’t do stupid shit like that. Girls die and cry and it’s all their fault. She’s not power fantasy or girlfriend material, she’s riding on the true heroine’s coattails like when she would hide a vaguely sexualized girl figurine underneath her bed and save scum dating games like a lonely fucking idiot.
Emilia’s nervousness melts into a smile when Subaru asks for her name instead of her place, and the sight is so breathtaking that Subaru wants to break herself into a better shape so that she’d be someone worthy of an angel like Emilia. Subaru wasn’t a damn villainess.
The real first time Subaru felt another girl's touch was when Satella caressed her heart.
Caress sounds too soft for what it was. Fingers groping her chest in promise—a love that isn’t a love that somehow is—invisible hands grazing her throat—want layered underneath a terror she can’t voice—
Dying and living are a series of firsts and almosts, but Satella’s touch and love are as taboo as saying the words I can return by death . Subaru chokes up her heart when she thinks, If you really love me, save me.
Subaru chokes on her heart every time Emilia smiles at her, damn near vomiting up her heart when Emilia holds her hand back, like how it was when they both died together, and squeaks Victoory! into the sky this time. When Emilia checks on Subaru, meal tray in hand, insisting, I’ll feed you, since you’re feeling unwell. When Emilia’s out in the garden, giggling when Subaru teases her outdated vocabulary and silly heroine charms—she’s the same girl who saves Plum in the marketplace without fail, the same girl who’s always so timid around Subaru like she’s never had friends in her life, and there’s even the sweetness of her exasperation when she retorts, Stop making fun of me, dunderhead, while side-eyeing Subaru to see if Subaru’s watching.
Of course Subaru is. Emilia flinches at Subaru when Emilia’s too close for too long, as if Emilia could ever be the same as the girl squeezing Subaru’s heart, as if the burden of knowing Emilia could swallow Subaru whole when Subaru’s crawled out of her grave just to drag Emilia out of hers. Emilia’s just all half-awkward grace, hard-won from learning etiquette through books and Puck, until she slips and she’s staring at Subaru with a desperate hunger in her amethyst eyes.
Are we reaaally friends? she asks, like Subaru would kill her no matter what the answer is. Do you truly think that? she whispers, like the two of them are monsters instead of teenage girls. Subaru answers, Yeah, duh. Subaru answers, If you were a guy, I’d want you to give me a lap pillow. If I was a guy, I’d ask you out on a date. I-I do need help with my magic! How are your studies going? I’m sorry for bothering you. Th-Thanks, then, if sayin’ that is really better than a thousand sorries. It’s no fair that you’re so pretty. The moon is beautiful, isn’t it? W-Why don’t we go on a date anyway? It’s practice for when boys actually like us. You’re a best friend to me! Pinkie promise!
Subaru swallows down her heart and clutches at the coattails of Emilia’s soft comfort in every loop, thinking, I can return by death.
The world’s ended over and over again in secret. If this is Subaru’s isekai dream, then it makes sense that everything has to be a skeleton in a closet. It makes sense, then, to immortalize every moment before and after it’s drenched in blood again.
“No, no, no, ” Subaru rambles to herself, ripping her tracksuit out of her closet and rummaging through the pockets. “Please have something in here, please —”
Her pockets turn up empty. Of course they do. She got isekaied when she thought she was just gonna be out of the house for five minutes max. Subaru tries not to get ahead of herself with that train of thought—like unwashed cups, or the words take care, or her stupid tracksuit being the one and only clothing item left from home, but her eyes sting anyway. She drops the tracksuit on her bed, covers her face in her hands, and—
“Subaru-kun?”
Subaru turns—Rem’s standing in the doorway, of course. Recently, she’s always been hovering around Subaru like a shadow. Subaru started waking up to find Rem at her bedside anyway, started finding Rem nipping at her heels into the baths (that mayo bath is gonna show up in Subaru’s nightmares), the marketplace, the garden, the kitchen, wherever Subaru goes. It’s comforting, really, to find Rem so consistent, to have someone who’s always idly touching Subaru every chance she gets. Like it’s easy to slip your hand into another girl’s hand or brush through her hair or cling onto her arm desperately like they’re floating around in the middle of the ocean.
Now, Subaru’s shaking hands grip at the sides of her maid dress. Her stomach aches. Rem’s next to Subaru in an instant, taking Subaru’s hands into her own as she asks, “How can Rem help, Subaru-kun?”
Subaru ducks her head, her face burning. “I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “This—this is really embarrassing, but…” She swallows thickly. “I-I got… it… later than usual. With everything goin’ on, I forgot, and this is the first time it’s happened to me in this world , and I probably reek really bad right now—”
But at least it’s not the witch’s scent this time, Subaru thinks hysterically. Or that version of Rem.
It was different back then. The sound of rattling chains, Subaru’s screams and agonized wheezing echoing around in her ears, her frantic footsteps pounding through a mansion and a forest and a cliffside—but the worst part was always seeing Rem, with her blue eye and that red hot resentment in her gaze, still be so soul crushingly beautiful in the moonlight. Subaru drowned in a pretty girl’s trauma-tinged projection onto her, so Subaru paid for it in blood.
Violence is a package deal with everything. If it’s from someone Subaru likes, if Subaru tries hard enough , it starts to feel like a warm hug instead.
“Oh, Subaru-kun,” Rem murmurs. There’s a sudden understanding in her gaze. The same hands holding Subaru’s now treat her like she’s precious . It’s the special kind of softness you get from knowing the worst of someone, the confirmation that this is purposeful. This is true gentleness, because Rem chooses it now when she says, “Let Rem draw up a bath for you. Rem will bring you some underclothes and herbal tea after.”
Subaru suddenly would rather die. She jumps to her feet in a rush, pulls her hands away from Rem and watches Rem’s face fall. “M-My flow isn’t heavy,” Subaru says hastily. “I didn’t ruin the dress too much, I don’t think, but I’m really, really sorry I got it all dirty again, I’ll clean it up when I can, I just—“
Subaru tries not to think about Rem’s fingertips brushing her hips, her chest, her arms when Rem fitted her for the maid dress across loops. When Rem cut Subaru’s hair and the scissors were cold against Subaru’s neck, Subaru just thought about chains again. When Rem—
“Let Rem handle it,” Rem answers simply. “Rem will take care of you.”
Subaru swallows down the bile in her throat. “I just feel like a massive idiot,” she gripes, putting her head in her hands. “I’ve gotten my damn period a bajillion times since I was twelve and the stupid hormones are gettin’ to me now for no reason. You shouldn’t have to clean up after me.”
Rem shakes her head. “Nonsense,” she breathes, suddenly reaching out a hand again to rub at Subaru’s cheek, and that’s when Subaru realizes she’s crying again. “Rem is happy to serve you.”
It’s fine if Subaru’s Emilia’s dog begging for any scrap of her. Subaru just wants to rip herself into ribbons seeing anyone else do it, but she eyes her tracksuit and lets Rem comfort her anyway—two girls in the same bloody maid dress.
“This is a natural part of your being, Subaru-kun,” Rem murmurs, “and a blood that isn’t entirely shed in violence. How can Rem shame you for it? Rem adores all of you.”
“I know,” Subaru says, trying to break herself into a smile. It works only because Rem presses a kiss underneath her eye, only because Subaru wonders how Rem could be so bold. “Thanks for everything.”
Rem smiles and steps back. Bows, low, like Subaru is her princess, and says, “Rem will make your bath now. Please come along, Subaru-kun.”
Subaru softens even further. “I will,” she says, like a marriage vow. She absentmindedly reaches out to her tracksuit one last time, thumb tracing the embroidered N on her tracksuit the same way Rem brushed Subaru’s tears away. Rem promised Subaru recently that she’d make more copies of Subaru’s tracksuit.
A taste of home, if Subaru-kun needs.
Subaru’s made another home in another kind of blood. So Subaru lets go of the fabric, feeling Rem’s eyes on her, and follows after Rem like a shadow.
You’re really their daughter.
When Subaru was little, she quickly got past the expiration date that tells the difference between kid and lady, but the rest of her didn’t get the memo. Maybe she was cute when she was the best athlete, the best student, the best of all time all the time. But she grew up. It wasn’t enough to get first place, second place, third place, tenth. No one gives two shits about who gets into tenth place. No one talks all that much about obedient little girls who follow all the rules but never achieve anything big. So she switched tools—grabbed sticks and pretended they were knight swords and made little kid gangs and picked fights with the local stray dogs. Scraped her knees and got dragged home by neighbors and police one too many times, and if she kept quiet enough, people might say, Oh, Kenichi’s boy is such a promising young man, you’ll have to excuse him, instead of, That girl is such an ungrateful little brat.
Boys sometimes had trouble listening to her anyway. She’d say, I’m gonna climb that fence. If I can do it, you can, so don’t be a pussy! She’d say, I can be just as good as you! She’d say, Stop looking at me like I’m a slab of meat! She’d say, Why don’t any of you like me as much as all those other girls?! She’d say, Why can’t any girl like me ?!
So Subaru put all her hopes in Natsuo Schwartz.
You’re really his daughter.
Natsuo Schwartz was loud. Confidently so, with slicked back hair and a boyish frame and a charming grin. He could woo anyone with the snap of his fingers and a joke on his lips that’d make just about anyone laugh. He never drove people away; he was a magnet that pulled others into orbit, someone who was envied instead of envying. How could he ever be shamed for what he wanted? How could he want anything else when he was already first place? He never snapped at anyone else, like those annoying quiet girls who’d rather get hit by a car and destroy their bodies for the sake of isekai fantasy than speak up, or those annoying loud girls who talked on and on about the boys they liked and the boys they wanted to look like and boys, boys, boys, or the annoying girls who fucked around too much or didn’t fuck enough at all, or the annoying girls who kept clinging onto other girls in all sorts of disgusting ways, like obsessing over the way other girls can save you, the way other girls can touch you, the way other girls can throw you away and then hold you close across different lifetimes. Then there were those other annoying girls who couldn’t be good at anything, couldn’t pick a side, but the truth is, no girl was normal enough.
Schwartz was a side—a normal boy without the drawbacks of one. Soft, but not weakly girly soft. One of the boys, wanted by the girls. Loud, louder than anyone who could overshadow him, but never annoying. Never cruel. How could he be? He was a knight in shining armor.
Julius kisses Emilia’s hand, and Subaru, broke beyond repair, knows how this sort of fairytale romance goes: the princess will always choose the knight over a maid.
You’re really her daughter.
Natsuo Schwartz was charming until he opened his mouth. Natsuki Subaru has too many hero(in)es to compete with.
Naoko was a quieter woman; Kenichi was an attention-grabbing man. Attractively airheaded. Perfect boldstrokes. Subaru hated that she always lost every wrestling match she ever had with her father. Subaru hated that the perfect parts of her parents never seemed to reach her, hated that even in their flaws, the Royal Selection candidates were made for the spotlight.
“Schwartz” was discovered three days into the first semester because his voice was too girly. Subaru is a kid again, watching little boys torture butterflies in the playground, when the sound of the male knights calling for that dumb bitch to die a deserved death almost drowns out the harsh pity in perfect Julius’ eyes. The desperation in perfect Emilia’s, the duel bringing out the ugliness in all of them, knighthood and princesshood be damned—
Why do you do so much for me?
If Subaru wore Emilia’s skin, if Emilia wasn’t someone who stood strong even with the entire world’s hatred, Subaru would never have to love Emilia.
You made a promise to me! Emilia says, with a fury so rare from her that Subaru finds herself wanting to taste it. But you threw it away just like that!
The version of me that lives within you must be amazing. She can know all of your thoughts, all of your pain—
Subaru is a kid beating up dogs again to assert her power when she screams: Everything that we worked through, everything that we faced, it all worked out thanks to me, didn’t it?! You should have a greater debt to me than you can ever repay!
If Emilia never saved Subaru, if Subaru never saved Emilia, Subaru would never have to think of Julius and Emilia perfectly taking each other away from Subaru.
I can’t look at you the same way I look at other people, Subaru chokes through Satella’s hands grasping her heart, It’s impossible. She really fucking tried to and she still has the audacity to not be pretty when she’s miserable. Because Subaru cried too much for a boy, but enough for a hysterical little girl. Because she wasn’t a heroine destined for a throne—
But when Rem’s lip forms the words Rem’s hero, it feels like a blood-stained kiss.
You’re really their daughter.
It may be a dream, but Subaru gets to say take care, hug and wave her parents goodbye. She doesn’t get to wash that cup. She doesn’t unbury the figurine of a girl underneath her bed. But she gets to walk to school in a girl’s uniform, something she’ll never do again, golden hair ribbon flowing in the breeze. There’s a guy’s uniform in her bag, just in case she wants it, but when she opens the classroom door, Echidna’s sitting on a desk waiting for her.
If it wasn’t for the white hair, Subaru would’ve mistaken Echidna for a classmate—the sort of girl Subaru would’ve envied until she wanted to break all her bones to be someone that girl wanted.
Echidna’s void-black eyes boring into Subaru, like Subaru’s just a slab of meat, are what stop Subaru in her tracks.
“Y’know,” Subaru mutters, tucking a pillow and blanket under her arm, “I thought you were a girl at first.”
Otto flinches like Subaru just punched him in the gut. “H-How can you say that?!” he yelps, trailing after her like a shadow. He’s already gotten a pillow and blanket; he managed to be at the front of the line for the Sanctuary resources being handed out to the Arlam refugees, but Subaru swears she caught him awkwardly kicking his feet around until she got situated for the night too.
“How can I not?” Subaru snorts, throwing him a glance over her shoulder. “You’ve got a nice little bob, feminine hips that you’re hiding underneath your long ass cloak, and—“ She reaches out and pinches his cheek just to hear him squeal in response. “ —squishy baby cheeks.”
Otto’s face turns a violent red. “How you notice such things is beyond me!” He stomps his foot like a kid having a tantrum, then he and Subaru pretend they don’t see the old lady from Arlam laugh and mumble something about young lovebirds .
Because boys, Subaru thought, were supposed to be the ultimate goal. The right ones were supposed to make girls feel butterflies. Girls had to find the right boy. Reinhard and Julius made her feel butterflies in the sense that they were so charming in their perfection that Subaru wanted to steal it—whether this stealing was through a kiss on her ring finger or Natsuo Schwartz was the biggest murder mystery of Subaru’s life.
Otto didn’t make her feel butterflies, but he’s been the first to like her back. This should be a win. This should already call for a goddamn fairytale wedding.
Emilia’s sleeping in her own room right now. Before Subaru left, she took advantage of Puck’s absence and hugged Emilia like they’d never see each other again.
Subaru chooses a random ass spot in the middle of the floor and drops her blankets and pillow there. “You’re so obvious, that’s why.” Otto hesitates, fidgeting with his own bundle until she slaps him on the shoulder and exclaims, “Are you gonna sleep too or what?”
Otto stiffens under her touch like she’s burning him. “This is only because you’re the person here I know the best, Natsuki-san!” Then he drops to his knees and starts arranging his blankets and pillows next to hers, rambling, “It’s nothing personal!”
Subaru hides another snort behind her hand. It’s the ladylike thing to do in front of a boy, she thinks, but the smile fades from her face. Said boy was pathetic tsundere Otto, who proved Subaru could be just as boyish as a boy, who proved you could pick one and still be like another.
Otto’s still blushing when he settles into his blankets, the top of his head poking out, and like this, he still looks like a girl. Subaru wonders if she looks like a boy when she mirrors Otto, pulling up the blankets until it reaches her chin. Then she turns away from him, mumbling, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite, Otto.”
Otto’s different from Felix. Otto is still boy enough to be clear about being one, but he’s still a boy who likes Subaru while being nothing like all the charming ikemens she’s dreamt about. It’s just not proper.
“I won’t,” Otto says softly, after a pause, then he goes silent as the rest of Arlam settle in for the night too.
Thing is, Subaru likes soft people, the kind where their softness wasn’t from an inability to be violent; every relationship Subaru’s ever had comes with an unspoken forgive me.
The first time she met a boy in this world she could’ve liked, she got tongue-tied with Reinhard. He was picture-perfect ikemen like Julius, tall and fair, and then Subaru’s voice died in her throat when she remembered her guts spilling out of her in the loot house. Then her voice died in her throat until the last time she saw Reinhard, snapping at him for daring to tell her that the duel with Julius was useless.
The duel was the first time a boy ever touched her. Begging Julius to kill her after I hate you became a lie was her first stake at male friendship. Otto pushing her off that wagon, then coming back a bloodstain after she screamed about ruining everything she touches was the second.
Someone who comes back for Subaru after trying to kill her for understandable reasons? Now they’ve captured Subaru’s heart.
Otto’s gaze burns into the back of her neck now. “Why’re you staring,” Subaru mutters. “Like what you see?”
“No!” Otto blurts out. Subaru turns to face him, the two of them lying together side-by-side. He doesn’t look her in the eye. “I only thought—” His voice lowers with a shame that makes Subaru’s insides wither. “I thought you were a man as well. You reminded me of that.”
Subaru stares. The blues of Otto’s pupils are darker than Rem’s or Reinhard’s—ocean gray instead of clear skies. Otto is the one boy Subaru’s felt better than, the one boy she could tread water in and never gasp for air. “I’d make a real stand-up guy,” Subaru challenges.
“Of course, Natsuki-san,” Otto says faintly, almost demure, and Subaru thinks about when she first agreed to a deal with Otto and he smiled that flighty merchant smile of his and said, I like a woman who’s decisive. Subaru imagines the first two letters of woman being violently beheaded, wonders if Otto looks like his parents the same way she does. “I only thought…” He bites his lip, cheeks still girly pink. “Nevermind.”
Subaru pauses. “Nevermind, then,” she says, casual. She knows better than to drag up someone else’s skeletons, but she still wonders if Otto wanted to see a boy in her more than the relief that she wasn’t 100% one.
Otto’s eyes shine in the dark. “But if you do need any help,” he whispers, “I could be of assistance.”
Rem is happy to serve you.
Subaru squeezes her own eyes shut and thinks about how she sliced an apple at Rem’s bedside to keep herself from slicing her throat again. “Go to sleep, dumbass.”
Later, Subaru cries in Echidna’s arms and Subaru can almost imagine it’s her mother holding her. Subaru cries in Carmilla’s arms and Carmilla nearly kisses Subaru, but it’s not Rem. Subaru cries in Satella’s devouring hands, but she still wipes away Emilia’s tears when Satella steals Emilia’s body like the rest of the world tried to do.
Sanctuary’s tomb is Echidna’s, but Subaru’s claiming it now.
Subaru’s been in Emilia’s lap twice before this, always missing Emilia from the moment Subaru died laying with her the first time. Holding hands with Emilia always felt like a crime—a bite from an apple Subaru never should’ve bitten, the juice trailing down her chin like blood.
Maybe it was defying fate to always want to claw through both of their coffins because it was breaking the rules to ever want Emilia’s touch. Maybe Subaru should’ve pushed Emilia away instead of hiding her face in Emilia’s lap, craving the impossible softness of it all, but Subaru’s kept it secret across every life anyway: Rem and Emilia’s touches behind closed doors, shared glances behind Subaru’s back.
“Come here,” Emilia giggles. Subaru, missing the eye Rem’s pressed a kiss underneath, her Rem-made tracksuit drenched in blood, turns her face towards Emilia’s voice like she’s been starving her whole life. “You like resting your head in my lap, don’t you?”
An agonized whimper leaves Subaru’s throat, a failed protest. Crying in Emilia’s lap was Subaru’s first comfort in this world. Going on a “date” with Emilia meant no amount of worship could make up for Subaru’s greed, but laying in Emilia’s lap in that golden flowerfield was redemption incarnate. Subaru wants to be someone who could make Emilia smile everyday.
Emilia’s smile widens when Subaru collapses into her lap. “Good girl,” Emilia chirps, eyes as wide as the girl under Subaru’s bed, her cold fingers idly playing with Subaru’s hair. “But you don’t have to pretend you don’t like me, you know.”
“It gives me mixed feelings,” Emilia continues, smile frozen in place, “but I can keep our secret. I only want you just the way you are. I want you for myself, although I wouldn’t like a Subaru who didn’t look at anybody else.”
Subaru closes her eyes, strangled and blinded by her own blood and her old, shameful memory of wanting the heroine to bow to her.
“You can sleep now,” Emilia coos. “You’ve always been such a good best friend for me, so let me be your bestest friend in the whole world too.”
A pained noise squeezes out of Subaru’s lungs uncontrollably. I’m sorry I wanted you in all the wrong ways, Subaru thinks. Emilia laughs, sickly sweet, as if in reply, then whispers, “Sorry I’m so selfish, Subaru,” before burying Subaru by swallowing the blood on Subaru’s lips.
Subaru starts from zero to make her final first kiss count:
Satella and Emilia are worlds apart. Subaru loves both, but she knows where her love for everyone but Satella comes from. Subaru wants to be someone who’s so kind that it undoes everything that’s ever hurt Emilia—including Subaru. Including Emilia.
So close the distance. Make time stop. Hold yourself up by the skin of your teeth in the tomb of the woman who nearly helped you forget your humanity so you can scream to the world how much you love the girl who made you remember it. The world is the one you love, the world is a girl crying about how much you don’t love her, how you can’t see her, how much she can’t do what she needs to do.
You broke her promise.
It’s a lingering flaw of yours, Satella’s hand still on your heart, but you wrote more promises on the tomb walls. It’s not like before, when all you saw was a girl to consume—Emilia’s just Emilia, and you’ll never let her break into a lifeless doll ever again. When Emilia heads into darkness, you’ll hold her hand. When she walks out, you’ll be there waiting. Keep her close, let her go. When Emilia’s flaws are on display like yours were, you’ll tell her that you’ll always believe in her even when she’s being a massive fucking pain in the ass.
That’s love. It never left your lips before, only admitting it to yourself just to beat yourself with it, but Emilia’s flushed with anger and embarrassment and she’s reflected in your eyes when you shout, Because I love you!
It’s the love that you’re so scared of, but you can’t stop it. She needs to understand. Death made you face it; her fate can be so much kinder, the two of you can make something good from what you both lost. Your palms are sweaty now. You’re shaking so badly that you could fall apart. Your name is Natsuki Subaru, Natsuo Schwartz, and you love Emilia, just Emilia. Gather up all your courage and tell her—
“If you don’t want this,” Subaru murmurs, “then dodge.”
Subaru gently kisses Emilia, thinking, Thank you—I’ll never be sorry enough. For a moment, you’re terrified Emilia won’t kiss back—until there’s the soft press back into your own lips. It’s not eye candy. Their hair’s a mess. There’s tears drying on Emilia’s cheeks. Your lips are still too dry. There’s still trials to face head on, people to save. It’s still a first kiss out of your fairytale dreams.
A baby step.
Thank you.
“There probaaaably won’t be a baby in my belly, right? Y-You say you’re a girl too, so surely you would understand! Girls only become pregnant when boys kiss them, s-so—”
“Firstly, I-I wasn’t born with those parts, secondly—that isn’t how it works! Storks don’t bring babies either!”
“I would like Subaru no matter what anyway! If it’s with her, I wouldn’t mind at all having a—”
“ E-Emilia-tan?! ”
Subaru startles so badly that she nearly falls off the stone steps leading into the tomb. She slaps her cheeks so she can ignore the flush there, the fact that she also wouldn’t mind raising a whole family with Emilia—Subaru just didn’t think she was mother material before this. Echidna’s definitely not the best example for it. Subaru walked into a burning library with the words Choose me! for a reason.
Subaru doesn’t have the heart to truly abandon anyone. So she meets Emilia’s embarrassed expression, briefly curses out Puck in her head, and says, “I’ll explain it to you later, okay?”
Subaru stands, glances toward the melting snow and rising sunset, then back at Emilia. Subaru offers her hand, smiles like a true fairytale prince— “Let’s find the others and get out of here, EMT.”
Let’s go home, Subaru means, because it’s wherever her friends are. We’re finally free, Subaru means, freer than they all know.
Emilia pauses, still flustered, then she smiles brightly and—
—takes Subaru’s hand as they race through moonlight and chandelier glow all the way to the ballroom floor—
Subaru passes by Otto just to ruffle his hair. She and Emilia give pretty unladylike laughs when he throws his arms over his head, squeaking, “Natsuki-san, stop, you’re ruining my hair!”
Earlier, before the ceremony, Otto took the time to visit Subaru. Ram was there, adjusting the cape on Subaru’s shoulders with a fond, snide little Perhaps you don’t look half-bad, Barusu, the same way she said so when Rem used to fit Subaru, and Garfiel snickered and said, Lay off, Ram, Capt’n’s got this in the bag —
Otto stared at Subaru with this emotion neither of them could name. He waited until Ram and Garfiel left. Then, with reverent fingers, Subaru let him tie her golden ribbon into her hair as he murmured, You look lovely, Natsuki-san, in a way that Subaru knows they’ll never talk about.
It’s what happened in Sanctuary’s forest. The sun turned them golden; Otto’s palm struck her cheek in one moment, landed on her heart in another. Was this how liking a boy was supposed to go?
You want to be someone that girl you like can be proud of, Otto declared.
Sun or moon, Subaru knows no love is worth less than another when there’s so much to give. Otto still softens into a small smile when Emilia giggles and waves at him as Subaru pulls her along—past Ram watching over Rem at the far wall, past Subaru’s vow to save Rem like a hero would, a good knight like Julius or Reinhard—
On the ceremony balcony minutes earlier, Subaru declared, Dance with me, with last-second hesitation keeping her from kissing Emilia’s hand. First romance, first butterflies. Now, when their hands and fates are intertwined in front of everyone, capes overlapping as they twirl together, Subaru leans in close enough to kiss Emilia again and grins, “You look extra cute in that outfit.”
There’s stars in Emilia’s eyes. Subaru can see her own reflection when Emilia’s smile turns impossibly fond: “My one and only knight is the silliest girl I know.”
Because for once, Subaru doesn’t care who hears or sees them have all their offbeat dance steps and baby steps and giddy kid laughter. It’s a redemption together from zero—
The princess chose the knight after all.
Artwork by Eies (Twitter) (Tumblr)