V2 - CHAPTER 3 : THE SOUND OF THE CHAIN

"Dear Guest, Dear Guest. You look rather unwell. Are you all right?"

"Dear Guest, Dear Guest. You look like your stomach hurts; did you soil yourself?"

As Subaru hung his head in shame, the sisters called out with voices of concern.

They were familiar voices, even after such a short time. The voices were sometimes annoying, sometimes relieving, voices that he could trust.

—But now those voices sounded entirely different, ringing harshly against Subaru's eardrums.

Responding to the feel of their gazes, Subaru put his breathing in order and lifted his face.

"Sorry to…make you worry. I'm just a bit…dense when I'm waking up."

Somehow, the rage surging within him had dissipated while he pressed his face into the bedding. Though the initial shock had subsided, he felt as if he were bound with silk string, a sense of loss that made him feel a sob rising from his chest.

—Thinking how wonderful and infuriating it would be if only this was all just some mischievous trick Roswaal was playing on him. The pretense in his own mind making him feel somewhat better, Subaru opened his eyes and looked straight ahead.

"—Ah, that's right."

After an instant, the blurry world became clear and reality forced itself upon the young boy.

Subaru saw the twins standing on both sides of the bed, their hands on the bedding. The familiar faces of Ram and Rem were gazing expressionlessly at Subaru, as per usual.

Neither pair of eyes contained any emotion toward Subaru whatsoever. The four days that he had lived with them, growing closer to each other bit by bit, had evaporated like morning mist.

"Dear Guest—?"

With bewildered voices, both of their lips wove the words in unison.

Their gazes chased after Subaru, now sitting up in bed. But Subaru, seemingly feeling a chill in the air, obeyed his feeling of unease and rose in great haste, putting distance between them.

"Dear Guest, you mustn't move suddenly. You are not yet well rested…"

"Dear Guest, it's dangerous to move suddenly. You have not yet soundly rested…"

Subaru's body reflexively pulled back from the two girls and their concerned voices. The cold response made their eyes tighten with hurt looks, but Subaru was too frantic to notice such a thing.

He was having a very hard time dealing with the feeling that he knew them but they did not, in turn, know him.

It was only a few days prior that Subaru had the same feeling in the busy street, the back alley, and the dilapidated shop.

But it was completely different now. The situation was different. The time was different. The experience was different.

It wasn't like when he'd redone things with Emilia and Felt when he'd barely known them.

Certainly he'd done some arm-twisting to redo things with the people he trusted. But now, faced with having people he knew turn back into strangers, Subaru was gripped by an unshakable, faceless terror.

The maid twins before Subaru's frightened eyes had begun to sense that something was terribly wrong.

Silence descended upon the room. Neither side could say or do anything. That was why…

"Sorry—I can't do this right now!"

…Subaru's action, gripping the doorknob and practically falling into the hallway as he rushed out, was just a moment faster than the twins' move to stop him.

Subaru ran, the bare soles of his feet soaking up the cold of the hallway, drawing heavy, ragged breaths as he went. He ran fiercely, in a daze, with no particular destination in mind.

He ran. He fled. Yet he didn't comprehend what he was running from.

All he knew was that he couldn't bear to remain in that place a moment longer.

Subaru ran down a corridor lined with similar-looking doors, his strides still tenuous, like he was about to fall over at any moment.

Then, out of breath, Subaru put his hands on a door as if it led right to it—

—and, as he tumbled in, he was greeted by the great mass of bookshelves in the archive of forbidden books.