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One more chance, whispers Satella, the Jealous Witch of Sin, in a voice like death.
The heavy miasma surrounding the Archbishop of Pride, Natsuki Subaru, lifts and lightens. Satella meant it, this time. This is the last chance.
“Fucking seriously?” demands the Archbishop of Pride. “I fulfilled my goal already. I ground Reinhard’s ass into the dirt and laughed at his face. And I put Emilia on the throne, too. Let me die.”
There is no answer.
“Are you okay, kid?” asks the Appa Seller.
“Fuck it,” says Subaru. “You know where any nice dress shops are?”
She really just shows up at Reinhard’s house.
There’s a knock on the door and he goes over to open it, as one does.
She’s standing there, right outside on his doorstep, not smiling. “Hey there. I’m your maid,” she says. She looks like a maid. She’s wearing a classic black and white maid outfit that goes very well with her unusually dark hair and eyes. She’s pretty—no, beautiful—in a foreign, exotic way. Also, she’s carrying a very large knife.
She walks up to Reinhard and he steps aside to let her pass, more out of social obligation than anything else. “Um,” he says. “I believe you have the wrong house.”
“No,” she objects easily. She’s smiling, but her eyes look bored.
Reinhard blinks. He’s never had anyone say to no to him so easily.
She’s been assigned to him by the Kingdom, then? Recently he’d been given his own small apartment to live at, instead of the Knight’s Barracks, where he’s been living—where he'd lived since he was fourteen years old. It makes sense, then, that there’d be a watcher assigned to him.
Reinhard isn’t sure that he needs a maid, though. He’s perfectly self-sufficient. Yesterday, he managed to make scrambled eggs. They were very good scrambled eggs.
“Wow, your place is a mess,” the maid says, poking around, still brandishing her knife. “Do you not know how to clean? Does little itty-bitty Reinhard need a babysitter?”
“Excuse me,” Reinhard says, choosing to ignore what she’s saying. “What is your name? And, if you don’t mind me asking, why do you have a knife?”
She glances over at him. Like her blade, her eyes are dull, but the light that glints off them is strangely, eerily sharp. She strikes a pose. The knife features heavily. By features heavily, Reinhard means that she throws it at him. It turns sharply at an 87° degree angle and hits the wall to the right of Reinhard, as knives often do. “My name is Natsumi Schwarz. It’s knife to meet you.”
“Knife...Nice to meet you too,” Reinhard says slowly. He is confused by this newcomer’s introduction. The knife seemed unnecessary. Surely she knew it would miss him? Perhaps it is simply a greeting from wherever she is from. Reinhard will inquire about it subtly, so that he can better understand cultural differences in the future. “Why do you have a knife?”
“Why don’t you have a knife?” Schwarz counters rudely. “Ever think of that, hypocrite?”
“I do have a knife,” Reinhard says. “It’s my sword.”
“Fat lot of good that does you,” Schwarz snorts. “Can’t even draw it most of the time, can you?”
“Any other blade would break after a single blow,” Reinhard protests. He stops, brows furrowed. He doesn’t know why he’s getting into an argument with his new self-proclaimed maid about his sword. Reinhard hasn’t gotten into an argument, a real one, with someone since he and Julius and Felis—well, it’s been a while.
Schwarz goes back to poking around. Reinhard would stop her, probably, but there’s not anything dangerous that she can find. Besides, if she’s his minder, someone will be punished if she can’t complete her job.
So instead Reinhard just lets her do her thing. He has to report to the Kingdom Knights soon, anyways.
When Reinhard comes back for dinner that day, he’s not really sure what he’s expecting. He is sure, however, that he is not expecting a pile of white sauce on his table.
“What’s this,” Reinhard asks faintly. There is probably supposed to be a question mark in that statement, but Reinhard is too surprised for intonation. This is a new experience.
“Mayonnaise,” says Schwarz, who is carrying Reinhard’s only set of non-uniform clothes. She chucks them into the roaring fire. Reinhard does not have a fireplace. “Spelled M-A-Y-O-N-N-A-I-S-E.”
Reinhard dips his fingers into the mayonnaise and tries it. It’s...surprisingly good. He likes it. He likes it a lot, actually. Its flavor is almost completely unique—there’s an odd tang to it that tickles at Reinhard’s memory. He scoops up a handful and licks it. He’d be embarrassed about the display, but Schwarz is the only one here and for some reason, Reinhard isn’t too concerned about giving her a worse impression of himself. This is also a new experience.
“I knew that wouldn’t work, but jeez, it didn’t slow you down at all,” Schwarz grumbles. She claps her hands. “I destroyed your plates,” she continues monotonously. “They were your family plates, weren’t they? Perhaps even the last remnants of your dead family? I crushed them under my feet and stomped on them. I spit on their dust.”
Reinhard nods in acknowledgement. They were indeed plates that he’d stolen from his family house—more specifically, from his father and grandfather. He had only three left, because he’d accidentally dropped the rest of them by accident. Definitely by accident.
The fire starts to spread.
“Are you going to do anything about that?” Reinhard steps towards the door.
“I’m your maid, not your firefighter,” says Schwarz bluntly, dumping a bottle of Reinhard’s expensive absinthe onto the fire.
Reinhard’s apartment is no longer usable after that day.
Reinhard is given a new apartment. It’s farther from the royal guard, which he likes. He feels bad for liking it, but that’s how it is.
The knight who shepherds them in keeps giving odd glances to Schwarz, who smiles nicely, in a very dead way. It’s a smile Reinhard sees in the mirror often.
The knight looks afraid. It’s an expression Reinhard has seen often as well.
Schwarz must be very important, Reinhard decides. Schwarz, perhaps, is like himself.
It’s dark—by the time the knights had heard of the fire and put it out the sun had gone down–but even then Reinhard sees that his new house is an upgrade. It’s much bigger than the one he’d been living in. It’s got a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen and a living room, which is a huge upgrade.
“I call dibs on the bedroom,” Schwarz says as soon as the knight leaves.
“I was under the impression you’d have somewhere else to live,” Reinhard says. It’s as close to passive-aggressive as he gets.
“I’m, uh, a live-in nurse,” says Schwarz.
“Nurse?”
“Maid. Whatever it’s called. I’m not going to be nursing your pathetic feelings, that’s for sure. Anyways, I call the bedroom.” Schwarz pauses, then charitably offers, “You can sleep at my feet like a dog if the floor doesn’t agree with you.”
“Alright,” says Reinhard agreeably, because that totally makes sense. And even if it doesn’t, Schwarz did just get Reinhard a new house with four different rooms in it, all to himself, so Reinhard won’t complain.
Well, it’s not all to himself, because Schwarz is here.
In the bedroom.
Reinhard will just sleep in the bathtub or something. That’s a thing, right?
Apparently it is not a thing. It’s midnight, and Reinhard’s in the bathtub, and Schwarz is staring down at him, silhouetted in the darkness.
“What the hell are you doing there?” Schwarz yelps.
“I’m...sleeping,” Reinhard answers, a little helplessly. What else would he be doing?
“In the bathtub? God! Sleep on the couch or something, idiot! Someone could walk in on you when they’re trying to—to do stuff!” Schwarz huffs angrily, fiddling with her hair and aggressively setting the nearest candle alight. Her voice is low and gravelly. “I can’t believe I—”
Reinhard squints at Schwarz’s face in the candlelight as she rants. She’s shadowed and scowling, and the bags under her eyes make her look ghoulish. Reinhard hadn’t noticed the bags before. Is she getting enough sleep?
“Get up,” Schwarz commands, grabbing Reinhard’s arm and tugging at him ineffectively. Reinhard picks himself up muzzily. “This way.”
Schwarz drags Reinhard out into the living room, muttering the whole time. She’s saying something about incompetent celebrities. Reinhard doesn’t know what a celebrity is, but he’s a bit offended anyways.
Schwarz shoves him onto the couch and points at him like he’s a particularly stupid ground dragon. “Stay,” she says sternly. And then she turns around and walks away.
Well. Okay.
Reinhard stays.
Eventually he falls asleep.
Reinhard wakes up to someone clattering around in the kitchen.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Schwarz. She’s holding a large vat of mayonnaise.
“Breakfast,” she says, slapping the mayonnaise directly with her bare hands. Reinhard is intimidated.
“I don’t mean to insult your maid skills,” Reinhard begins, “but I can’t help but wonder whether eating only mayonnaise is a balanced diet.”
Schwarz slaps the mayonnaise again. That cannot be sanitary. “Mayonnaise is one of the four main food groups.”
“That implies that there are three other food groups,” Reinhard points out.
“They’re just back-up food groups,” Schwarz reassures him. “Mayonnaise is the first food group—the primary food group. The rest are unnecessary as long as mayonnaise is there.”
“Okay,” Reinhard says doubtfully. He’ll eat more food at the knight’s garrison—there’s an excellent cafeteria there.
Schwarz huffs. “Shut up and eat your mayonnaise.”
Reinhard does.
When Reinhard comes back to his new house, he is greeted by a puppy.
And by a puppy, he means a very small feral mabeast.
“Schwarz!” Reinhard yelps. “Are you in danger?”
The mabeast yelps back.
“What? No, I’m fine,” she says irritably. She looks down at the small feral mabeast. She says to it, “Attack him.”
“There’s a mabeast chewing on your arm,” Reinhard says.
Blood drips down Schwarz’s fingers. She sticks her knife into the puppy’s side and it squeaks and lets her go. It proceeds to savage her dress. Schwarz looks incredibly unbothered. Bored, even. “It’s the new guard dog. You’re so incompetent that a dog does a better job than you. You knights are all the same like that—easily replaceable bitches.”
“That’s a mabeast,” says Reinhard, wondering whether he’s hallucinating. He has decided to ignore the rest of the sentence, because it’s not very nice, and because it’s true. Reinhard himself has thought such things to himself deep at night, when he’s lying awake and feeling bitter and angry at himself.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Schwarz says, smiling benignly.
“Ma’am, I think it may hurt you,” Reinhard says, as if Schwarz isn’t already gushing blood.
“Nah, it’s fine. Hey, what’s with the ma’am? Finally decided to show some manners? You better keep an eye on that, Reinhard. Don’t want anyone to realise that you’re not perfect.”
Reinhard is a little hurt, but he’s more distracted by Schwarz reaching down to pet the mabeast, possibly to prove her point about it ““being fine.”” She does not prove her point because the mabeast immediately bites off her fingers. “Ouch.”
“Schwarz!” Reinhard rushes forwards, deciding to drop the ma’am. “Are you alright?”
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Schwarz sighs.
“You have lost five fingers.”
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Schwarz snarls. She visibly composes herself. “And the thumb isn’t a finger.”
“You need medical attention,” Reinhard says, kicking the mabeast through the wall and picking up Schwarz bridal-style.
Schwarz slaps him in the face, but since she does it with her de-fingered hand it is not very effective.
“Who’s this?” Felis looks up, unconcerned by the fact that Reinhard just busted a hole through his ceiling and crashed through his kitchen table.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about you,” Schwarz says nonchalantly.
“Mye?” Felis mews.
“You’re just so useless that I stopped paying attention to you.” Schwarz shrugs. “I’m fine. I don’t know why this idiot is making such a fuss.”
“You’re both covered in blood,” Felis observes. “I don’t think I’m the useless one here. Also, we’ve never met.”
“Reinhard killed my dog,” Schwarz complains.
“Your dog was a mabeast that bit off your fingers.”
“I had it under control,” Schwarz dismisses.
“Amputated fingers?” Felis gestures for Reinhard to drop Schwarz onto the ground. “Do you still have the removed fingers?”
“The dog ate them,” Reinhard says, “but I can retrieve the dog if that’ll help.”
“And what?” Schwarz scoffs. “Make the dog vomit up my fingers? I don’t think so.”
Felis hums in agreement. “I’ll just close up the wounds, then. I’m afraid nothing much more can be done, though, if you don’t have the fingers.”
Schwarz shrugs again. Felis takes that as agreement and grabs her hand, starting his healing magic.
Reinhard watches, concerned.
“So where’d you two meet?” Felis asks casually, like the nosy busybody he is.
“Reinhard defeated the enemy that had been plaguing me for lifetimes,” Schwarz says. “When I saw him effortlessly fend her off, I knew I had to make him crumble at my feet.”
“She showed up at my house and said she was my maid,” Reinhard says, because Schwarz’s answer was rather nonspecific. “Didn’t you send her to me?”
“Uh, no,” Felis says, taking a few steps back from Schwarz and Reinhard for some reason. “We didn’t send you any maids. And, uh, meow’s all that working out for you guys?”
Schwarz doesn’t say anything.
Reinhard examines this new information. He synthesizes it. He considers the evidence and decides on the appropriate reaction. “Schwarz makes this wonderful dish called mayonnaise.”
“Uh-huh.” Felis smiles uneasily. “Well, I’ll let you two go on your way. Have fun. Stay safe, Reinhard.”
Reinhard smiles blankly, unsure why he would need the reminder to stay safe but pleased by it anyways.
Schwarz trips and stumbles into Reinhard’s chest and Reinhard is immediately concerned. She’s been very good about not touching him; the mutilation incident must have been more off-putting than she’d shown.
She hadn’t shown many signs of being disturbed, really, beyond acting a bit more lethargic than usual. He’d caught her spacing out a few times as well. This little bit of clumsiness is new, though, and it’s something that Reinhard can bring up without feeling too bad—it gives him an excuse to express his concern. Reinhard is almost relieved.
Ever since the mabeast incident, Reinhard has found himself more attached to Schwarz. He’s not quite sure why. Perhaps it’s because he is now fairly certain that she isn’t reporting his every move to the government.
Regardless, Reinhard has decided to take this opportunity to ask after her.
“Schwarz,” Reinhard tries, “are you sure you’re feeling alright?”
“First name basis already?” Schwarz asks dully, as if she hadn’t gotten snippy when Reinhard called her ma’am, and as if Reinhard hasn’t been calling her Schwarz for the duration of their acquaintanceship.
Reinhard frowns, now concerned about possible memory loss. He hadn’t expected that. Could this be an incident of poisoning? Reinhard knows that people may try to attack the people close to him once they’ve realised that he’s virtually invincible.
He lifts up Schwarz’s chin. Her eyes look fine—not dazed or unfocused or red.
“I didn’t know you could frown like that,” Schwarz breathes. Her smile is suddenly wide and excited; her eyes are glossy and dilated. “It’s like I’m meeting a new you all over again.”
Schwarz’s voice is strangely low. Reinhard flushes red. “My apologies,” he says, stepping away. “I was worried that you’d been poisoned.”
Schwarz’s smile fades into a frown. “You were worried about me,” she repeats.
“Yes,” Reinhard confirms.
Schwarz’s stares at him. “Fuck it,” she says. “Fine. I can work with this.”
She whirls away.
There’s a strange shift in Schwarz’s behavior, then. Her posture changes and she keeps lowering her head and blinking rapidly when she sees Reinhard.
She runs into Reinhard more often, too, which is saying quite a bit, because beforehand she’d barely touched Reinhard at all, beyond that one incidence of clumsiness. Now she’s lounging all over him and patting his face and tripping and falling onto him and, on one memorable occasion, stuck out her foot in an awkward position when Reinhard was walking by. Of course Reinhard didn’t trip over her, but were he anyone else he might have.
As a result of all this, Reinhard finds himself feeling even more concerned for Schwarz. He can’t find the heart to stop her, though; she’s so enthusiastic and smug about it that he’d feel bad asking her to stop, especially considering her earlier laziness.
One night, when Reinhard comes back from the Garrison, she’s lounging on the couch with candles alight in the room.
“Oh,” says Reinhard, surprised.
“Oh,” repeats Schwarz in a mocking sort of tone. She frowns and clears her throat. “I mean, ohhhh.”
She draws out the second oh strangely. It makes Reinhard feel uncomfortable. He's finally reached the end of his tolerance. “Please stop,” he requests.
Schwarz scowls. “This isn’t doing anything for you? Really? Fucking robot. Alright, I give up. Time to move onto the next thing on the list, I guess.”
Schwarz’s behavior reverts back towards normal again, after that. Reinhard is both relieved and confused.
There’s a meeting for the royal selection candidates and Reinhard attends even though he’d rather not. He can’t help but feel guilty about not being able to find the rule candidate, but he’d feel even more guilty if he didn’t attend at all.
Also, Schwarz comes.
Reinhard isn’t sure why, exactly, she decided to come. He told that she didn’t have to, repeatedly. He even smiled at her threateningly a few times. She just laughed in his face.
It was a strange moment.
For the most part, the meeting had gone fairly well. Reinhard felt bad for the half-elf candidate; no matter how powerful her backer, her campaign is doomed to failure.
Reinhard also feels bad for her because Schwarz is staring at her fixedly.
It’s a little creepy. Schwarz is practically drooling over her.
Reinhard knows he should be supporting Schwarz in her endeavors, but he—well, it wouldn't end well, right?
And Schwarz would probably end up leaving Reinhard if she did pursue Emilia. Reinhard would have to get a new maid, one that was actually government-sanctioned.
Ah, Reinhard feels like an idiot. Schwarz wouldn’t leave him that easily. She chose to stay with him, after all, even through that awful house-fire. Reinhard is lucky that such a person chose him.
Now that Reinhard has remembered that, he can go back to worrying about the other people who won’t leave him alone.
They’re everywhere, chatting him up and smiling at him and putting their hands on him. He doesn’t like it.
They’re trying to get him to join one candidate’s group or another, Reinhard knows. He understands it, he really does. He just doesn’t like it at all. Julius and Felis don’t have to deal with any of this. They already know who they’re supporting.
“I can make it worth your while,” one of the people purrs, handing Reinhard a glass of something bubbly. Reinhard holds the glass stiffly and smiles blankly.
“Do you really want to be with her?” another demands, all cultured disdain and pink ruffles. “We’ll be paying much better, I promise.”
“Who said anything about paying?” asks a third, shoving away the first and reaching up to pat Reinhard’s cheek.
And then Schwarz drops a table on them.
There is a moment of silence as all of the party-goers stop and stare.
The nobles in question scream and thrash, trapped under a random table. One of them gets tangled in the tablecloth and starts rolling around, forming an incredibly strange cocoon.
Reinhard takes a step back, blinking. He is unsure where Schwarz got the table from.
“Oops,” says Schwarz brightly. “I slipped!”
The pink-ruffled one starts spewing profanities.
Reinhard giggles.
He slaps a hand over his mouth, immediately horrified. From the wide-eyed looks Julius and Felis are giving him, his laughter hasn’t escaped notice. “I—” he starts to say. He takes a deep breath, but his voice is still strained. “I think we’d better go.”
Schwarz turns and prances from the ballroom, stepping on one of the nobles on the floor as she passes. She turns and sticks out her tongue, making a gruesome face as she leaves.
Reinhard follows.
Reinhard comes home one day to find that his apartment is a mess. The furniture is skewed and there’s blood on the floor.
Immediately his breathing picks up.
Schwarz was home, wasn’t she?
He doesn’t want her to be hurt.
He rushes towards the kitchen, the bathroom—empty, empty.
Reinhard opens the bedroom door.
“—cut off your—” Schwarz looks up from where she’d been hissing into the ears of one thug. “Oh, hey, Reinhard. Don’t mind me. I’m just showing everyone who’s boss.”
She’s straddling on thug, bent down so that she can whisper right at his face. There’s a knife at his throat. He’s terrified, clearly—he’s drenched in sweat and his eyes are dilated and wide, and his every breath is a whimper. There’s another, skinnier thug tied up beside him, and she’s unconscious and bleeding from the head.
The thug rasps, “Please, get me—” and Schwarz lifts her knife and pops out his eye in one clean motion. The thug screams and thrashes and Schwarz steps away from him, blank-faced.
“Schwarz!” Reinhard gasps. “Are you alright?”
Schwarz gives him a weird look. “Of course I’m fine,” she says. “What, were you worried?”
Reinhard—doesn’t know what to say. Isn’t it obvious?
He’s not used to being viscerally worried about people, because normally his own confidence overrides any true fear, yet he was genuinely concerned about Schwarz. How odd. He exhales harshly. “What were they doing here?”
Schwarz’s face twists into a frown. “They wanted to attack you, duh,” she says. “Idiots. You’re mine.”
Reinhard looks at her.
There’s an emotion on her face, one that looks almost familiar. It’s so incredibly strong. It sets her whole face alight. She’s got blood dripping from her hands and her knife and there’s a man screaming on the floor but she’s unharmed and smiling viciously and she looks beautiful.
Reinhard has never seen her so passionate. His own face hurts. With a start, he realises that he’s smiling. “Oh,” he says.
There’s another change after that, but it occurs more in Reinhard himself.
He’s out walking with Schwarz when he realises it, when he really understands it instead of just dismissing or cautiously prodding at it.
They’re shopping. Reinhard is busy explaining the current cabbage economy and Schwarz is busy being aggressively confused about the fact that cabbages can fly. Reinhard doesn’t know why she’s so confused. Cabbage migration patterns are common knowledge.
Reinhard is so confused by Schwarz’s confusion that he walks into a wall.
It hurts and Reinhard is very startled and he practically falls down, and when he turns to glance over at Schwarz she’s smiling.
It’s such a genuine smile. It’s not a new one—it’s not even a particularly rare one, because Reinhard has seen it before, first at the noble’s meeting and then when he burnt his hand on the stove and then when Schwarz terrified the thugs—but Reinhard is suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that he wants to see it every day.
He wants to see that smile every day, and he wants to be the one causing it.
Reinhard picks himself up and Schwarz’s smile fades into something more dead, but Reinhard can’t help but keep thinking about it.
Reinhard meets Subaru just a few days later. It’s not a true meeting—it’s more of an accident than anything else.
Reinhard is at home while Schwarz is out, for once. He’s cooking dinner. Schwarz always does this task and she tends to get huffy and rant-y when Reinhard suggests that he do it for her, but Reinhard really wants to do something nice for her, and so he does.
He’s got a pile of mayonnaise to use, and in conjunction with his [Divine Protection of Taste King], Reinhard is sure that his dish will turn out perfectly. That’s good. Reinhard wants his cooking to be perfect for Schwarz.
Someone kicks down the door and Reinhard knows without looking that it’s Schwarz. “Welcome back,” he calls from the kitchen.
“Oh,” says a voice, different than he’d expected. Reinhard blinks and pokes his head out from the kitchen.
It’s a young man with mean eyes and short black hair and a long black cloak. He has a black book floating over one shoulder. He looks exceedingly familiar. He scowls. “Wait, you’re cooking, aren’t you? How dare you! I thought we’d discussed this.”
Reinhard tilts his head. “Schwarz?”
Schwarz—because that’s who this must be—colors abruptly. He scowls, looks away, furrows his brow, then smiles. The expressions are so Schwarz. Reinhard smiles fondly. “It’s Subaru, actually,” Schwarz—no, Subaru—proclaims. “How do you feel, knowing that this whole time, the person you thought was your maid was actually me? Betrayed, right? Horrified? Angry, even?”
“Of course,” Reinhard lies agreeably. Subaru looks so happy that he can’t help it. He wants to keep Subaru happy, even though Subaru is perhaps a little bit delusional. Reinhard will accept such things, for Subaru’s sake.
Subaru also seems to be defying the laws of physics. Reinhard can accept that as well. He too ignores the laws of physics often.
Subaru cackles maniacally. “That’s right! I, Natsuki Subaru, have brought such feelings to light within you! It’s a new day, Reinhard! Don’t you hate me?”
Reinhard hums ambiguously. “I made dragon and mayonnaise sandwiches.”
Subaru’s ranting stutters. He squints and frowns and points at Reinhard. “You’re not supposed to be the one cooking!”
Reinhard shoves a sandwich in Subaru’s face. Subaru eats it, scowling. “Of course your cooking is perfect,” he grumbles. “Leave some for the rest of us, will you? Stupid OP robot superpowers.” His expression takes on a delighted edge. “I’m going to go burn a book,” he announces. “It contains incredibly important information. Life-or-death information, and I’m just going to burn it all. Lost forever, because of me.”
“Don’t burn it in the sink,” Reinhard says. “I’m still cooking.”
“Alright,” Subaru agrees gleefully. “I’ll burn down some random person’s house instead.”
“Don't be late for dinner,” Reinhard calls as Subaru whirls towards the door.
“Fuck you!” Subaru calls back, tossing Reinhard a gesture that involves one raised finger. Reinhard takes that as an agreement.
Humming happily, Reinhard turns back to cooking.
Subaru returns for dinner exactly five minutes early, and Reinhard glows.
Not much changes after that. Subaru stops putting on makeup in the morning—he’s still Schwarz when he goes out with Reinhard, but for the most part, when they’re at home it’s Reinhard and Subaru.
Occasionally, just occasionally, it is Natsumi Schwarz and Rein van Astrea.
“Hey, can you do any makeup?” Subaru asks one morning, as he applies eyeliner. He stops and bats his—her eyelashes in the mirror. Reinhard is very impressed by the eyeliner-application. Subaru is doing it with no hands. The eyeliner is just floating.
Reinhard tilts his head. “No,” he admits freely. He has never had any need to put on makeup.
“Never had any need to, I bet,” Schwarz grumbles, accurately guessing Reinhard’s thoughts. In the mirror, Reinhard can see his own lips twitch up into a smile. “I bet I’d win,” Subaru says.
“What?”
“In a make-up contest, of course,” Schwarz huffs. She nods to herself and makes a shooing gesture at Reinhard. “Go, get. I’m going to crush you underfoot.”
Reinhard goes and gets.
It is surprisingly difficult.
There is a dress and a wig and some high-heeled shoes involved as well, because Schwarz has extra.
Schwarz grins when she sees. “Rein van Astrea,” she pronounces. “I look better.”
Reinhard—Rein, now, looks at himself—herself in the mirror. She looks at Schwarz. “Beautiful,” she says.
Schwarz puffs out her cheeks. “Excuse you? Have you seen these eyes?” She thrusts a finger towards one eye and sticks out her tongue. “You can’t compare, buddy. I’m the protagonist.” She frowns. Her hand migrates towards her chin. “Hot villains are a thing, though.” She visibly perks up. “Wait! I’m the villain, too! Take that, Reinhard!”
Rein watches in fascination. Schwarz stalls out for a moment. Rein nods. “I have seen those eyes.”
“And those eyes have seen you, too, and declared you wanting!” Schwarz says. She combs her fingers through her hair. “Hold this,” she says, chucking a hair-ribbon at Rein aggressively. It is a ribbon, so Schwarz’s aggressiveness does not translate well to a throw.
The ribbon flutters towards the ground. Rein catches it. She strokes it in her fingers and makes herself comfortable on the side of the bathtub. She watches as Schwarz styles her hair extravagantly. It’s calming.
Later, Subaru is rifling through Reinhard’s pockets, possibly for money, and he comes across the hair ribbon. He holds it up. “What’re you doing with this?”
Reinhard looks down at Subaru, who is very very close. “You gave it to me,” he says.
Subaru frowns. “Did I?” He circles the hair ribbon around his fingers, then shrugs. “I probably had a reason,” he decides. He picks up Reinhard’s hand and the ribbon ties itself around Reinhard’s wrist. It looks dark against the white of Reinhard’s gloves. “I’ve got more.”
The ribbon had been tied into a surprisingly complex knot that Reinhard doesn’t recognise. Reinhard rotates his wrist and the ribbon stays put. Reinhard tugs at the knot and it unravels easily. It flutters to the floor.
“Hey,” Subaru says, watching him.
“Oops,” says Reinhard. He looks back at Subaru.
Subaru scowls and the ribbon levitates up to one hand. “I’m going to tie this around your neck,” he says threateningly.
Reinhard has some interesting thoughts. He quietly shuffles them away for further inspection at a later time. He chooses the words that he knows will get him the desired reaction. “You can’t re-tie it?”
Subaru’s hackles immediately rise, as Reinhard knew they would. “I never said anything like that! Give me!” He grabs Reinhard’s hand again and ties the ribbon back on, quickly and efficiently and also partially telekinetically. “Hah! Take that!”
Reinhard hums and nods, pleased.
Subaru cackles. Reinhard’s face feels hot. Subaru’s laugh sounds so unconstrained. It’s vaguely evil, but unapologetically so. It’s thrilling.
Reinhard likes both Schwarz and Subaru equally.
Subaru’s manner of speech is odd, but Reinhard is slowly becoming more fluent at it.
Subaru has a favorite phrase, Reinhard has noticed. He’ll say it whenever Reinhard does something that he finds particularly entertaining or enrapturing. His face always lights up in a smile whenever he says it.
Reinhard is delighted when finally gets to use the phrase himself. He’s been waiting incredibly patiently, but he only gets his chance when he accidentally discovers that the bathroom ceiling has—er, had—water damage.
“Subaru,” Reinhard says pitifully, covered in plaster.
Subaru’s cackling eases off as he heaves in deep breaths and composes himself. He catches sight of Reinhard again. “Your—face—” He doubles over, sent into spasms of laughter.
“Suubaruuuu,” Reinhard repeats, definitely not whining.
“You’re like a plaster ghost!” Subaru wheezes. “Finally you’re sent to and beyond your grave! Finally, Reinhard has been vanquished! By! Fucking! Plaster!”
Reinhard shakes his head. Moldy drywall goes flying everywhere. Subaru is clearly laughing too hard to care. “This is your bathroom too,” Reinhard protests, trying to hide his own smile. Subaru’s laugh is high-pitched and maniacal and it makes Reinhard feel warm. “We must do something about the water damage.”
“O-oh yeah, R-Reinhard?” Subaru straightens up, giggling. “W-w-water you gonna do, Ghost of Reinhard?”
Reinhard looks speculatively up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. “We can…” Reinhard trails off, mostly because he has no prior knowledge on this subject.
“We don’t have a Ouija board,” Subaru says, apparently trying very hard to sound serious. “You’re going to have to speak up for this seance.”
Reinhard smiles to himself, but hides it behind his hand. “Ouija board? Seance? You’re on a roll today, Subaru,” he says. On a roll is a phrase he stole from Subaru, and it makes Subaru huff and then spasm off into more giggles. “It's a new you. Happy birthday, Subaru.”
Subaru’s laughter dies off. He straightens up. “Today’s not—” He frowns. “What day is it?”
“April First,” Reinhard answers easily, used to such random questions from Subaru.
“Huh.” Subaru frowns, then tilts his head, then squints, then nods. He smiles, genuine, and maybe even happy. Reinhard doesn’t know what Subaru’s thought process is, but he can see it all and so he drinks it up. Subaru repeats quietly, “Happy birthday, Subaru.”
He looks at Reinhard, and his gaze is so intent that Reinhard suddenly feels the most powerful he’s ever felt, even though he’s standing in a too-small bathroom and he’s covered in drywall and plaster and moldy, rotten water. “Thank you, Reinhard,” says Subaru, and his voice is so genuine, so sincere, that Reinhard can only smile in response.
Subaru vanishes for a few days. Reinhard is a little concerned. He misses him. Reinhard is a little lonely; Julius and Felis are nowhere to be found, either.
Everyone is so fake with him. Reinhard had forgotten it, being around Subaru as much as he was.
“Would you like some mayonnaise?” Reinhard asks, offering a bowl of mayo.
“Sure,” says the random kingdom knight that Reinhard has just walked up to. He does not know her name. He probably should, but for some reason he doesn’t care.
She takes the bowl of mayonnaise and holds it awkwardly. “You know, Reinhard, you’ve really changed,” she says.
Reinhard smiles. “Have you tried the mayonnaise?”
The knight smiles back stiltedly. “I’ll try it soon,” she says. “Are you going to attend the festival this weekend?”
Reinhard thinks about it. “Yes,” he decides.
The knight beams. “Great! I’ll come pick you—”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Reinhard says. “I won’t be attending with you.”
The knight blinks. “What?”
Reinhard nods again. “You should really try the mayonnaise,” he says. “Good-bye.”
Her smile falls into a confused, annoyed expression. Reinhard turns and walks away.
“Wait! Reinh—” The knight cuts herself off.
Subaru never pretends that he’s not bulldozing Reinhard into doing a random activity. Subaru never tried to use Reinhard for social status or power. Subaru was never fake. Subaru’s feelings were always so crystal-clear.
Reinhard misses him.
Subaru comes back, oddly enough, around the same time that Felis and Julius do. Exactly the same time, almost; Julius and Felis have stopped by Reinhard’s home and are regaling him with their battle with the white whale.
It was a hard battle, from Reinhard’s understanding, and many lives were lost. Julius and Felis survived, though, so Reinhard is more relieved than not.
“—thought there might be some aggression from the Witch Cult, but strangely there was no—” Felis is saying when the door flies open.
Julius immediately stands and draws his sword, clearly startled by the sudden intrusion. Felis’ ears swivel back.
Reinhard smiles. “Subaru!” he greets happily.
“Yo,” says Subaru, raising his blood-soaked hand. “Are you having guests over without me, Reinhard? How rude. You should ask your host before inviting people over.”
“You are...Schwarz?” Felis asks slowly.
“This is Reinhard’s house,” Julius points out coolly.
“Subaru, actually,” Subaru corrects, wandering towards the kitchen sink. The two books floating at his shoulders follow behind him politely. “And it’s shared property. I do all the work around here. Your friend is dead weight. Not as dead as I’d like, though. Just the wrong amount of dead. Enough to be a nuisance, but not enough to be satisfying.”
“You’re getting blood all over the floor,” Reinhard comments, annoyed. “Someone might slip.”
“It’ll dry in an hour,” Subaru dismisses.
“That’ll make it more difficult to get out,” Reinhard argues. They’ve talked about this before.
“The floor’s already basically red,” Subaru says. “Why don’t you get on your knees and scrub it out yourself if you care that much? Too dirty for you?”
Reinhard huffs. He’ll leave it there. Subaru will undoubtedly end up cleaning it up later, after mocking Reinhard for not cleaning it up himself.
“Does your maid often walk in covered in blood?” Felis asks, sounding concerned.
Reinhard considers the question. “No,” he says decisively. One or two times doesn’t count as often.
“Alnya-ght,” Felis mews. “As nya was saying, the Witch Cult was strangely passive. We’d predicted that they’d attempt to stop us from going after the White Whale, but they nyever showed.”
There’s a loud sound from the kitchen. It’s a familiar one, so Reinhard isn’t concerned.
Julius, apparently, is concerned. He stands and darts into the kitchen. He wanders out a moment later, looking completely bewildered and a little shell-shocked.
“She’s burning two black books in there,” he reports quietly to Felis.
Reinhard clears his throat. “He’s burning two black books in there,” he corrects nicely.
“He’s burning two black books in there,” Julius repeats dutifully.
Felis makes a strange chirrup sound, deep in his throat. “He’s—” He stands up. “Julius, I suddenly remembered a thing that I have to do that you have to do with me.”
“Yes,” Julius says. “I have also remembered the thing.”
“We will return shortly, Reinhard,” Felis says, smiling and bowing.
Reinhard waves.
“Let the door hit you on your way out!” Subaru shouts as they leave.
Subaru’s real smile is only for Reinhard.
He notices this when he’s chatting with Felix and Julius. Both of them had dropped by uninvited early the next morning. They’ve led him into the bedroom and are sitting on the bed.
Reinhard suspects that they are holding an intervention.
“Reinhard,” Julius says, staring deep into Reinhard’s eyes. “You realize your maid is a witch cultist, right?”
“No, I’m not,” says Subaru, sliding out from under the bed. “Not anymore, at least. Satella is an asshole.”
“What are you doing under there?” Felis yowls.
“Why is he under your bed,” Julius demands, half-hysterical.
“It’s not my bed,” Reinhard explains patiently.
Subaru nods importantly from where he is lying on the ground. “I called dibs.”
“He called dibs,” Reinhard elaborates. By now he knows what dibs is, and he is proud of himself for knowing.
“What’s a dibs?” Julius whispers hoarsely.
Subaru grins that dead, fake smile. “I’m not a witch cultist,” he says again. “But if I were, I’d brainwash you and then use you to murder each other for that comment.”
Felis scoots away from Subaru. “He’s definitely a witch cultist,” he says to Julius and Reinhard.
Subaru stands up. “I’m making breakfast,” he announces. Then he leaves.
“You drove him away,” Reinhard says, disappointed.
“He’s too far gone,” Julius says to Felis.
“Nya agree,” Felis says sadly. “Well, it’s not like the cultist can do anything to hurt him.”
Subaru pokes his head in through the door. “What sort of attitude is that?” he snarls, his eyes flashing. “I could definitely hurt Reinhard! It takes a few thousand tries, but I can do it! Here, I can do it right now, too!” Subaru whips around and stares right at Reinhard. “Reinhard,” he says importantly. “I’m taking away the mayonnaise.”
“No,” gasps Reinhard, genuinely upset. “Not the mayonnaise.”
Subaru beams. His smile is delighted and beautiful and oh-so-proud. Reinhard melts a little.
“See!” Subaru turns back to Felis and Julius. “Look at that! Fear my power! I have Reinhard at my beck and call! I am truly the most powerful devil of all!” Subaru cackles maniacally. He cackles so maniacally that he drops his mayonnaise. “Shit,” he says.
“Subaru!” Reinhard yelps, horrified.
“Sorry,” Subaru blurts. “I’ll, uh, go make another batch.” He turns and bolts toward the kitchen. He stops and then there’s the sound of quick footsteps as he runs back. “Actually I’m not sorry! I’ll make another batch and eat it right in front of you, Reinhard! Just to make you suffer!”
“Okay,” says Reinhard agreeably, because Subaru has made this threat at least twenty-seven times and he only followed through the first time. It wasn’t even very effective that time because Subaru was laughing evilly too hard to actually eat anything.
“They’re insane,” Julius realises.
Felis sticks his finger in the floor-mayonnaise and licks it clean. “This is pretty good,” he says, sounding surprised. “Full of poison, but pretty good.” And then he keels over.
“Felis!” Julius moves from his spot on the bed and scoops Felis up in his arms. “We’ll be back,” he says, almost threateningly.
Reinhard tastes the floor-mayonnaise too. It tastes normal. “Have fun,” he says nicely.
“Reinhard,” Subaru starts importantly, “I’ve realized that you seem to care about me, and so I’ve decided to say something to you. I’ve deliberated back and forth, but I think you need to hear this.”
Reinhard breath catches in his throat. They’re surrounded by candlelight. The fire casts flickering shadows on Subaru’s face. There’s an excited, anticipatory gleam in his eyes. His mouth keeps twitching into a smile. Is this a confession? “Tell me,” he breathes, giddy with joy.
“Reinhard,” Subaru says lowly, staring deeply into Reinhard’s eyes. “I’m a time-traveling mass-murderer from another dimension who’s come here specifically to take your life.”
“Marry me,” demands Reinhard.
Subaru processes Reinhard's sentence. "What?"
Reinhard processes Subaru's sentence. He considers the facts. He synthesizes his knowledge. He decides on the appropriate response. He says, "So we should go for a winter wedding, then?"