1.4

"Good morning! The weather's great today, perfect for laundry! Let's make this a happy day!"

Subaru raised a shrill hip, hip, hurrah! to welcome the arrival of the rising sun.

It was his fifth go at his second morning in Roswaal Manor.

He stood in the middle of the garden, his body bathed in morning sunlight as he twisted his upper body all about. He used the popular morning warm-up exercise to get blood circulating through his whole body, making full use of the energy he had gained from sleep.

"Yes, victory!"

Finally, he thrust both hands into the sky and shouted in triumph as he finished the start to the start of another day.

Subaru vigorously wiped away the light sweat on his brow and turned around with a smile. Emilia smiled back, albeit tersely, standing in the corner of the garden as she engaged in her daily conversation with lesser spirits under the shade of a tree.

"You really are energetic in the morning…"

"Hey, don't talk like it's all me here. Put your back into it, Emilia-tan!"

Puck, Emilia's little cat spirit, was hovering alongside her, cleaning his face with his paw.

"When I see him clean his face like that, I'm like, he's seriously a cat. I guess spirits get sleepy, too, huh? He looks half asleep there."

"You sleep when you're tired, too, don't you? When mana, the source of our vital power, fades away, well, it's close enough. If we're not getting enough mana…"

Puck yawned generously. Emilia put her hand to her mouth and yawned a little, too.

"Both up late, huh? You were staying up talking to a boy you like, weren't you? Let me in on it! Huh? Which girl do I like…? That's, ah, embarrassing to say, you see…"

Subaru folded his arms, looking down as he glanced a little at Emilia.

"All right, all right," Emilia said, waving casually at Subaru's act. "I like Puck. Puck likes me. The end."

"Mutual love?! Is there any room for me in there?!"

"Not even a little, meow. My charm sets Lia's heart a-flutter. You might not be a bad catch, Subaru, but all that is wasted before me. You should just give up on Lia right…meow, meow!"

Subaru closed on Puck, glaring down at him with reproach, but Emilia's fingers caught one ear on each of them before they could start anything.

"Don't get carried away. I'm going to be upset if that's all you two do."

"Ow, ow, she's upset, ow!"

Subaru and Puck meekly endured Emilia's punishment together.

When Emilia let go of their ears, they both rubbed their aching heads as she stood before them, hands on her hips.

"I'm glad you two are getting along, but no taking advantage of people just so you can play. Say yes if you understand."

"Yeees."

Both of them raised a hand and nodded firmly.

Strangely, though being treated like a child should have bothered Subaru, seeing Emilia's pleasant, satisfied smile made such minor concerns irrelevant.

Emilia, not noticing that Subaru had completely fallen for her smile, abruptly clapped her hands.

"Oh, right, now is good. Subaru, sit over here for a moment?"

Emilia sat on the grass with her legs out to the side, patting the ground beside her to invite Subaru over.

"You call, I come running! What, what? The timing's good for what exactly? No matter what your request, Subaru Natsuki leaves no itch unscratched. If there's a place you can't reach, just command me to scratch it and I shall obey!"

"All I said was to sit beside me. That's a bigger reaction than I expected. What should I do?"

Unsurprisingly, Emilia made a pained smile at Subaru's fierce enthusiasm.

"Err…yesterday was your first day at work. How did it go? Did you do well?"

"Ah, yeah, failed at eighty percent of it!"

"I see; you're certainly full of confi… Eh? Failed? Eighty percent of it?"

"Er, maybe eighty's overstating it… Maybe more like six, no…seventy-five."

"That still means you flunked a lot of things…"

Emilia acted like she felt responsible somehow for Subaru's unexpectedly low rating of his own work. But she immediately lifted her face in a show of concern.

"Ah, but, hey, that meant you got twenty percent of work right on your first day, huh? That's fine; I'm sure it's all right. Be confident, now."

"Hey, you're right! It's a long road, but if I start at twenty percent, I can raise that little by little from here!"

"Don't be conceited. Reflect on it properly."

"If you're going to start sweet, why can't you end sweet?! Ah, no, it's nothing, very sorry."

Subaru, cowed by the pressure of Emilia's glare, shrank and nodded meekly.

In any case…

"I do feel like I'm eating Ram's and Rem's dust somehow. Getting twenty percent right while trying my best means that's just where I'm at, so no helping it. I'll just expect better from myself going forward."

"If you're going to be that optimistic about it, there's nothing more I can say, but…"

Upon hearing Subaru's positive declaration, Emilia tapered her lips into something that resembled a pout. The cute childlike behavior she indulged in from time to time never failed to light a fiery yearning in Subaru.

But he restrained himself, smothering the embers.

Subaru pointed at Emilia with a finger from each hand in a comical gesture.

"So, so, you see, I'm spending every day with maid sisters tutoring me while I devote myself to life as a servant. If I get tired of that life I'll just come running to Emilia-tan's lap, so leave it open, okay?"

"…I was only half listening to that, but it sounded kind of all right."

"Harsh assessment with a cute face! Well, if that half was the lap part, that's A-OK! Like I said, leave that lap open for me for tonight, Emilia-tan… Don't steal my spot, Puck!"

Subaru thrust a finger at Puck, calling out his name. Puck reacted to the declaration of war with a casual flick of his own whiskers.

"It doesn't matter what you say, Lia's pact with me means her heart and body are already mine. There's no changing our relationship meow, meow!"

Emilia grabbed Puck's ears for his incorrigible behavior and tossed him into the air to make him ponder the error of his ways.

"Goodness, don't change the terms of our pact behind my back."

Maybe Puck was just used to it, for despite that, he simply landed in Emilia's hands and happily wriggled in them with a look of complete calm. Subaru couldn't help but feel envious of their relationship.

"Well, now that I've energized myself I'd better start the morning work."

"What do you mean, 'energized yourself'?"

"By teasing Emilia-tan."

"There you go again. If all you do is tease people, they won't trust anything you say when you're actually telling the truth, you know?"

"That sounds like something out of a fairy tale. If that happens, guess I'll be reaping what I sowed…"

"Wait, you're telling me that…?"

With Emilia giving him an exasperated look, Subaru sent a bright smile back her way as he rose, brushing off his backside.

"They'll be seriously ticked if I don't get going, though. I'm supposed to help them with this morning's breakfast. Emilia-tan, you don't like eating green beppers, do you? I'll make sure they're not on your plate."

"You have to eat even the veggies you don't li—When did I tell you I don't like green beppers?"

Emilia tilted her head with a questioning look as Subaru departed with a little smile and a wave.

She actually had talked to him about it; he'd even seen her distaste for them with his own eyes.

He focused on staying on the path, always joking whenever Emilia set eyes on him.

—He had to focus, focus, always focus, to keep the smile on his face.