The first night of the fifth loop arrived at the Roswaal mansion with a calm that was too polite to be honest.
Subaru Natsuki noticed it while walking down the hallway with a candle in his hand, still wearing the apprentice servant uniform that Ram had put on him as if it were a labor sentence. It fit him acceptably well, which seemed almost offensive to him, because it meant the world had time for small aesthetic details while he carried the memory of an open throat, a cliff, a room with a dead sister, and the feeling of a black hand squeezing his heart every time he tried to say what he shouldn't. The mansion was silent at that hour, but not asleep. Subaru had learned to distrust places that seemed to sleep. The walls of that house listened too much; the hallways remembered footsteps that shouldn't exist; the doors, especially since he knew Beatrice, had stopped being reliable objects and had become wooden opinions about where each person should be.
During the day he had done exactly what he had promised himself: move, smile, work, joke, and not let fear dictate every gesture. He hadn't completely succeeded, of course. Being Subaru Natsuki meant failing even when trying to fail elegantly. He had been too quick to locate some objects, too attentive when Rem approached, too cheerful in moments where anyone with a bit of instinct would have suspected that that cheerfulness was nailed to his face. Ram had observed him with that look of hers that could turn a poorly folded cloth into a political crime. Rem, for her part, had been more difficult. Not because she had shown open hostility, but because her calm was a surface too smooth, and Subaru already knew what could hide beneath it if the night, the smell, and suspicion found the right angle.
Link had been another kind of problem.
The boy with hidden horns and controlled kagune had spent the day outside, in the gardens, following Rem's instructions not to destroy plants, tools, or Roswaal's reputation in case some noble shrub could file a formal complaint. Subaru had seen him a few times from the windows: carrying sacks with insulting ease, using a kagune to lift branches without breaking them, listening to Rem with the serious attention of someone who wanted to learn and with that measured flirtatious smile that Subaru would have found funny if he didn't know how much blood was behind it. He wasn't shameless. That made it worse. Link didn't look at Rem like someone drooling over a pretty girl. He looked at her like someone who had decided to stand in front of a bonfire even knowing he had already been burned.
And now, finally, they had to talk.
Subaru stopped in front of the door to the room assigned to Link. It wasn't the same main guest room where both had woken up. Roswaal, in one of his apparently generous and suspiciously convenient gestures, had considered it appropriate to give the "Oni gardener" a simple room in an area near the service wing, comfortable enough for a guest, discreet enough for someone who would work outdoors, and far enough away so that his oddities wouldn't interrupt the elegant circulation of the mansion. Subaru had tried to joke that Link had gotten his own room faster than him, but Ram replied that Link's room was a preventive measure and that, if Subaru desired an equivalent measure, the pantry had enough space to store objects that made noise without visible utility.
It had been almost familiar.
That hurt.
Subaru raised his hand to knock on the door. Before his knuckles reached the wood, Link's voice came from inside.
—Come in, Subaru. If you're Ram, don't come in. If you're Rem, give me three seconds to fix my hair. If you're Beatrice, I already know you're going to come in anyway, so do whatever you want.
Subaru stared at the door.
—How did you know it was me?
—You knock on the door with anxiety.
—That's not a sensory skill. That's emotional discrimination.
—It works the same.
Subaru opened the door and entered, closing it carefully behind him. The room was simple: a bed, a table, a chair, a window overlooking a side strip of the garden, a pitcher of water, some small tools that Rem had allowed him to keep for the next day's work, and a change of clothes folded with such precision that Subaru immediately knew Link hadn't folded it. On the table there was a lit candle, a bowl with food remnants, and a rag stained with dirt. Link was sitting by the window, without a jacket, with his sleeves rolled up and his back slightly separated from the backrest so as not to press the areas where his kagunes came out. He had his gaze fixed on the dark garden, but when Subaru entered, he turned with a calm smile.
It wasn't a happy smile.
It was a sustained smile.
Subaru knew the difference too well.
—Nice room —said Subaru, because starting with a useless phrase seemed less dangerous than starting with the truth.
—It has a bed, a window, and enough space so a tentacle doesn't knock over a lamp by accident. By the standards of my recent life, this is luxury.
—My standards dropped when I started considering "not dying before breakfast" as a reasonable goal.
Link looked at him for a second, and the joke died between them without need for ceremony.
Subaru sat on the chair. The candle between them made the shadows move on the wall, lengthening Link's silhouette in a way that seemed to add horns even though his forehead was clean. For a moment, neither spoke. They had been waiting for that conversation since morning, perhaps from before, from the instant the fifth loop threw them back into life without giving them complete explanations. But having the opportunity to talk didn't mean knowing how to do it. There were too many deaths sitting in the room, too many previous bodies that hadn't been able to reach this night.
Subaru was the first to break the silence.
—I'm going to tell you what happened after you left.
Link didn't make a joke. He didn't change his posture. He simply nodded.
—Do it.
Subaru spoke.
He didn't say the forbidden word. He didn't explain the mechanics. He didn't name what the world had ripped from his throat with black fingers. He had learned. The scar wasn't on the skin, but his body remembered it as if the hand were still inside his chest waiting for an excuse to close the fist. That's why he narrated around the center, like someone describing the edge of a hole without looking directly at the bottom. He spoke of staying in the mansion while Link left. Of not being able to bear seeing Rem. Of Beatrice and the pact until dawn. Of Emilia feeding him when he couldn't eat. Of the morning of the fifth day. Of the room. Of Ram crying. Of Rem motionless on the bed. He didn't repeat every detail; the readers of his pain, if they had existed, already knew it. Besides, Subaru didn't have the strength to fully enter that scene again. It was enough to open the door enough for Link to see the corpse he had seen.
When he finished, the room became so still that the candle seemed too noisy.
Link didn't speak for a long time.
Subaru looked at his hands. He expected rage. Not against him, perhaps, but against the world. He expected Link to stand up, hit the wall, refuse to believe it, or demand details as if precision could make Rem's death bearable. But Link remained sitting by the window, with his eyes lowered and his jaw clenched. The shadow of the trees moved behind him, drawing dark lines across his face. When he finally breathed, he did so like someone who had just accepted that a wound wouldn't close even if he denied it.
—She died from the curse —he said.
It wasn't a question.
—That's what Roswaal said —replied Subaru—. The same kind of weakening that killed me in the first attempts. I didn't go to the village. You weren't in the mansion either. Rem went out for work and… something reached her.
Link closed his eyes.
Subaru prepared for what was coming.
But what came was sadness.
Not big, not theatrical, not overflowing in screams. A low, deep sadness, almost adult in the way it occupied the space. Link tilted his head, brought a hand to his forehead, and remained like that for a few seconds. Subaru saw how his fingers trembled slightly before closing over his own hair.
—Thank you —said Link.
Subaru looked up sharply.
—What?
Link opened his eyes, but didn't look at him yet.
—Thank you for coming back for her.
Subaru felt his throat close.
—Don't say that as if it had been something clean.
—I didn't say it was clean.
—I killed myself, Link.
—I know.
—It wasn't heroic. I was terrified. My whole body screamed not to jump. I… I didn't want to die. I didn't want to. Not even after everything. And while I was falling I thought of you too. I thought that if what we suspected was true, I was dragging you with me without asking permission.
Link raised his gaze.
—And yet you jumped.
Subaru couldn't hold his gaze.
—Rem was dead.
—Yes.
—Ram was destroyed.
—Yes.
—And I… I couldn't live in a world where that stayed that way.
Link looked at him during a long silence. Then he nodded, once, with a gravity Subaru didn't expect to receive from him.
—Then thank you.
Subaru covered his face with both hands.
—You're an idiot.
—Probably.
—You don't thank someone for committing suicide.
—I'm not thanking you for dying. I'm thanking you for not accepting that world.
The difference hit Subaru in an unexpected way. It didn't fix anything. It didn't erase the fear of the fall or the horror of having chosen the void. But it removed part of the dirt from the decision. Not all of it. Maybe never all of it. But enough so that Subaru could breathe without feeling that the cliff was still beneath his feet.
—And you? —he asked after a while, lowering his hands—. What happened to you?
Link looked out the window.
The night of the garden wasn't the night of the forest, but perhaps it was similar enough to open the memory.
—I left —he said—. You know that part. I asked for money, food, clothes, a damn map that I understood halfway, and I left before looking too much at Rem. At first I thought I was going to look for an inn in the village, but when I got close, I changed my mind. I didn't want to get into another place full of people who remembered nothing. I also didn't want to be so far from the mansion that I couldn't return if something happened. So I stayed in the forest, in an area near the village. It wasn't a dangerous part. There were normal animals, birds, insects, a small stream, and enough trees to hide an improvised tent. No demonic beasts, at least not where I was. I suppose life decided to leave me a quiet corner just to laugh better later.
Subaru remained silent.
—I built something like a shelter —Link continued—. Not pretty, but useful. I used branches, cloth, rope, a tarp I bought with more money than it was worth, and two kagunes to lift what my hands couldn't. I made fire with humiliating clumsiness. I cooked badly the first night. Very badly. So badly that if my childhood Latino self had seen me, he would have stripped me of my nationality in a public ceremony. But I survived. That was the plan. Eat, think, keep distance, organize what I felt. Not see Rem. Not hear her voice. Not remember the chain every time someone moved metal.
Subaru sensed the turn before it arrived.
—But she came.
Link let out a low, joyless laugh.
—Of course she did.
He didn't say it with complaint. He said it as if it had been inevitable.
—The first time I thought it was a coincidence. I saw her at the edge of the trees with a small basket and a lamp, so perfect in her uniform that it seemed the forest was the one out of place. She told me that Emilia-sama was worried about my condition, that Roswaal-sama couldn't allow someone who had helped in the capital to die of incompetence outdoors, and that Rem, as a maid, had considered it prudent to check that the secondary guest wasn't causing a diplomatic incident with local squirrels.
Subaru couldn't help a small smile.
—That sounds like Rem.
—Too much.
Link lowered his gaze to his hands.
—It bothered me. Not her. Well, yes her. I don't know. It bothered me that she came. It bothered me that she brought food. It bothered me that she inspected my shelter with that serious face of "this could be better in seventeen ways." It bothered me that she didn't remember anything. It bothered me that I did. It bothered me that she worried about whether I had enough water when I could still remember her hands holding a chain. And it bothered me more that, even with all that, I was glad to see her.
Subaru swallowed.
He didn't interrupt.
—She came back the next day. And the day after. Not always for long. Sometimes she left supplies, checked if the fire was properly extinguished, told me that my way of storing food would invite animals and that if I insisted on living like a hermit I should at least do it with minimum standards. I told her that solitude had few etiquette rules. She replied that even solitude could be orderly. It was irritating. It was absurd. It was… her.
Link leaned back, letting the back of his neck touch the wall next to the window.
—I knew what she did. I knew what she could do. I knew I shouldn't look at her as if she were just the girl who brought me food to the forest. I knew that falling in love with her was stupid. Not a normal Subaru kind of stupid, but one of those big, monumental ones, with a monument and commemorative plaque. Every time the chain sounded in my head, I tried to remind myself that those same hands could kill us. Every time she bent down to fix a stone around the fire or to check a bandage I didn't need, I told myself not to confuse care with salvation. That Rem wasn't innocent just because she was kind at that moment. That I couldn't erase what she had done in other loops just because this version didn't remember.
Subaru clenched his hands on his knees.
—It's not easy to separate that.
—No —said Link—. It isn't.
The candle burned a little more. Outside, some nocturnal insect hit the window glass and then disappeared.
—On the fourth day she came back later than usual —Link continued—. I thought she wasn't coming. I told myself it was better that way. I had spent the whole day organizing my things, trying to decide whether to return to the mansion or look for someone who knew about curses, although I didn't even know where to start. The afternoon became night. It started to get cold. Then I saw her appear with a lamp, crossing between the trees as if that darkness had no right to touch her.
Subaru imagined the scene without wanting to: Rem under the light of a lamp, blue and white against the dark forest, walking with that serene precision that seemed to turn any place into an extension of her duty.
Link wasn't smiling, but his voice changed. It became lower, more intimate, as if the memory wasn't just pain.
—She brought a blanket. And a small pot with soup. She told me the temperature was going to drop and that, if I insisted on staying outside the mansion, I should accept minimum measures so as not to get sick. I told her I was quite resistant. She replied that stupidity could also be resistant and that didn't make it recommendable. I laughed. She didn't. At least not at first. Then she saw that I had tried to make tea with some leaves I picked near the stream and she took the cup from my hand with the same calm with which someone disarms a bomb.
Subaru did smile this time.
—Were they poisonous?
—According to her, not lethal. Just unpleasant enough for my stomach to start a political rebellion.
—That also sounds like you.
—Shut up.
The order had no force. It was almost tired affection.
—Rem made real tea. I don't know where she got the leaves from. Probably from the mansion, probably from some dimensional pocket of perfect maids. We sat near the fire. She wasn't supposed to stay, it was noticeable. She looked toward the path from time to time, calculated the time, thought about her duties. I could see it. Even so, she stayed a few minutes more.
Link lowered his gaze.
—The firelight touched her face in a way… I don't know how to say it without sounding like an idiot.
—We crossed that border many chapters ago.
—Thanks for your support.
—That's what I'm here for.
Link let out a soft breath.
—She looked calm. Not completely happy. Rem doesn't allow herself those things easily. But calm. She asked me why I didn't return to the mansion if I had enough money to go farther or request lodging in the village. I told her there were people I couldn't see yet. She asked if one of those people was her.
Subaru felt a knot in his stomach.
—What did you tell her?
—The least dangerous truth. That yes.
Link closed his eyes. The memory seemed to hurt more when he pronounced it.
—She didn't get offended. That was the worst. She just lowered her gaze and said that, if Rem had done something to make me uncomfortable, she could inform Roswaal-sama or Emilia-sama. As if my distance were a service complaint. As if she could correct herself with a formal apology and a bow. And I… I got angry. Not with her. With everything. With death. With the loop. With the fact that the person asking me that didn't know that I had seen her kill and die in versions of the world that no longer existed for anyone else. I wanted to tell her that yes, she had done something. That she had broken me. That she had chased us. That she had tortured you. That she had forced me to learn that loving someone didn't stop you from being afraid of them.
Subaru didn't breathe for a few seconds.
—But you didn't.
—No.
—What did you do?
Link opened his eyes.
—I told her it wasn't her fault.
The silence returned.
—She looked at me as if that phrase had a meaning she couldn't quite see. Then she said that guilt doesn't always need to be understood to exist. I don't know why she said that. Maybe for herself. Maybe for Ram. Maybe because Rem has that thing… that way of carrying invisible weights even if no one has put them in her hands. And then I understood something that fucked me up more than any blow.
Subaru watched him.
—I wasn't falling in love with a clean Rem. I wasn't ignoring what she did. It wasn't "she took care of me in the forest and that's why I forget the chain." It was worse. I loved her knowing she was capable of that. I loved her seeing both things at the same time. The maid who brought soup and the warrior who could crush bones. The girl who could hold a lamp so I wouldn't walk in the dark and the same one who could decide that someone had to die to protect the mansion. The Rem who remembered nothing and the Rem I couldn't forget. And I knew that, if I waited for love to be clean, I wasn't going to love anyone in this world.
Subaru lowered his head.
That phrase hit him too close.
—I didn't tell her everything —Link continued—. I couldn't. I shouldn't. But I told her there were things about her that scared me. And that, even so, when I saw her walking alone back through the forest, the only thing I thought was that I wanted to accompany her so nothing would touch her.
Subaru looked at the candle.
—That is romantic.
—It was pathetic.
—The best romantic things are pathetic from the outside.
—You say that because your romantic style consists of shouting weird nicknames and asking for emotional rewards in front of witnesses.
—And yet it works sometimes.
—Sometimes.
Link stared at the night.
—Rem didn't respond right away. She stood up, picked up the empty pot, and told me I was a strange person. Not as an insult. As an observation. Then she said it wasn't prudent to walk beyond the perimeter she knew, and that if I wanted to accompany her to the beginning of the path, I could do it without interfering with her work.
Subaru raised his eyebrows.
—That in Rem language is practically a date.
—That's what I thought.
—And?
—I accompanied her.
The room seemed to change temperature with the memory. Link spoke more slowly, not because he was seeking drama, but because he seemed to want to preserve every detail without breaking it.
—We walked under the trees. Nothing big happened. There was no confession with music, no perfect moon, no magical wind moving her hair as if the world decided to sponsor my love tragedy. We just walked. She carried the lamp. I carried the folded blanket because she insisted I shouldn't leave it on the damp ground. Sometimes our hands were close, but they didn't touch. I didn't dare. She didn't seem to think about it. Or maybe she did. I don't know. Rem is difficult. But there was a moment where the path narrowed because of some roots, and she slipped a little. Nothing serious. She could have corrected herself. Still, I held her arm.
Subaru imagined Link freezing like an idiot.
—And you died?
—Inside.
—Understandable.
—She looked at me. I let her go immediately, because I didn't want her to think… I don't know, anything. Then she thanked me. Just that. "Thank you, Link." With that tone of hers. Polite. Controlled. But not cold. And I, who had spent days telling myself that I shouldn't fall in love more, thought: I already lost.
Subaru leaned his back against the chair.
He didn't mock.
He couldn't.
—When we reached the edge of the path, before she returned to the mansion, I told her that I would carry whatever was necessary.
—What does that mean?
Link didn't respond immediately.
The candle illuminated his brown eyes in a strange way, leaving half of his face warm and the other half in shadow.
—It means that, if there are sins of hers that others cannot forgive, I will look at them head-on. Not deny them. Not justify them. Not say they don't matter. But yes, carry them with her if I can. Rem is not innocent in all worlds, Subaru. I know it. You know it better than anyone. But she is not just the chain either. She is not just the torture either. She is not just a killer either. She is more than that. And if someone has to hate her for what she did, if you have resentment, if part of you can't see her without remembering the pain, then give it to me.
Subaru slowly raised his head.
—What?
Link held his gaze.
—If you have resentment against Rem, I accept it for her.
The phrase was so absurd, so serious, and so painful that Subaru felt rage before emotion.
—Don't say stupid things.
—It's not—
—Yes it is stupid. A huge one. One of your stupid things, with horns, tentacles, and Latin martyr complex.
Link clenched his jaw.
—Subaru.
—No, listen to me now. You can't accept my resentment for her as if it were a bag passed from hand to hand. You can't pay for another person's sins just because you love her. That's not how it works. If I'm afraid of Rem, I have that fear. If it hurts me to remember her with the chain, it hurts me. If a part of me still trembles when she gets too close, that part doesn't disappear because you say "I'll carry that." You can't be an emotional shield for a person who doesn't even know you're trying to protect her from my memories.
Link lowered his gaze, but didn't retreat.
—I know.
—Then don't say it as if it were possible.
—I didn't say it was possible. I said I accepted it.
Subaru was left without a response for a second.
Link took a deep breath.
—I'm not asking you to forgive her all at once. I'm not that idiot. Well, yes, but not in that direction. I'm saying that if there's a part of you that hates her, I won't blame you. If you can't look at her the same, I won't call you unfair. If tomorrow she smiles at you or corrects you and you remember something else, I won't ask you to act as if nothing happened. But I love her. And because I love her, I'm not going to allow her dark side to be used as an excuse to forget her good side, nor her good side to be used to erase what she did. Both things exist. If you have to leave a part of your pain somewhere to keep walking, leave it with me. I can hate myself a little more. I have practice.
Subaru looked at him with a mixture of sadness and tired fury.
—That last part wasn't funny.
—I didn't try to make it funny.
The silence returned, but this time it had another shape. It wasn't the awkward pause of two people who didn't know where to start. It was the silence after saying something too honest.
Subaru brought a hand to his neck, where there was no longer a wound.
—I don't know if I hate her —he said finally—. That's the worst. It should be easy, right? She killed me. She tortured me. She looked at me as an enemy. And yet… when I saw her dead, I didn't think "she deserves it." I thought "no." I thought that world was wrong. I thought I couldn't leave it like that. When I jumped, I didn't jump because I had perfectly forgiven her. I jumped because I wanted her to live. Maybe that's also love, I don't know. Not yours. Not romantic. But something. Something strong enough to make me fall.
Link listened to him without interrupting.
—So no —Subaru continued—. I'm not going to give you my resentment. If it exists, I'll carry it myself. Because it's also part of what I have to understand. But… thank you for wanting to protect her even from that.
Link closed his eyes.
—You're welcome.
—It's still stupid.
—I know.
—A noble stupidity, but stupidity.
—I accept the category.
Subaru exhaled with exhaustion. For an instant, the conversation seemed to have reached a resting point. Rem, the forest, the death of the previous loop, Link's confession, everything remained suspended between them like smoke that hadn't finished dissipating yet.
But Link wasn't finished.
Subaru noticed it in his face.
—There's something more —said Link.
The way he said it froze Subaru's stomach.
—What?
Link leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The candle illuminated his brown eyes, but Subaru thought he saw, for an instant, a very deep red flash, not active, not turned into kakugan, but remembered by the body.
—I already know what kills me.
Subaru froze.
—Link…
—It's not an assassin.
The phrase fell slowly.
Subaru felt all the small noises of the room disappear: the candle, the insect against the window, the rustle of fabric. His body recognized before his mind that they were entering a dangerous place.
—I don't understand —he said, although part of him understood too much.
Link looked at him with a strange sadness.
—It's you.
Subaru stopped breathing.
Link raised a hand before he could speak.
—Not as guilt. Not as intention. Don't look at me like that. I'm not saying you murder me with your hands, nor that you want to, nor that you are responsible like a person who decides to stab a knife. I'm saying that every time you die, I am murdered.
Subaru felt the room tilt.
—No.
—Yes.
—You can't know that.
—I do.
—You can't know that.
—I noticed it.
Subaru stood up abruptly. The chair scraped the floor with a dry sound. Link didn't move. That made the scene worse.
—You can't know that! —Subaru whispered with violence, because shouting in the mansion was a bad idea and because the forbidden word seemed to be waiting behind his teeth—. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe there was another curse. Maybe something attacked you. Maybe—
—In the loop where Rem tortured you and Ram killed you, I was alive until you died.
Subaru froze.
Link continued, with a calm that seemed to cost him blood.
—Beatrice had pulled me out of a sewer. My arm was regenerating. My horns too. I came back for you. I arrived in time to stop Rem, or so I thought. Then the wind cut you. I saw you die. And when your life went out, something grabbed me from the inside. There was no wound. There was no blow. There was no curse on the skin. My body tried to regenerate a damage that didn't exist. My cells moved like crazy, but there was nothing to close. It was as if a hand had pulled a chain connected to my chest from a place I couldn't see.
Subaru took a step back.
The bed hit the back of his legs.
—No…
—After that, in the loop of the cliff, I wasn't with you when you jumped. But I woke up with you. I don't know what happened to my body out there. I don't know if I fell dead in the forest, if I simply disappeared, if the world turned me off at the same moment you touched the bottom. But the feeling when returning was the same. Cold in the chest. Cut without wound. An order my body couldn't disobey.
Subaru brought a hand to his chest.
His heart was beating too fast.
—Don't say it like that.
—You need to know.
—I don't want to know!
The phrase came out before he could stop it.
Subaru covered his mouth with one hand, as if that could push it back inside. Link looked at him without reproach.
—I know —he said.
That made it worse.
Subaru closed his eyes tightly. In his mind the cliff appeared. His body falling. The burning decision. And somewhere far away, Link alone, perhaps next to a dead fire, perhaps in the forest near the village, perhaps thinking about Rem, being ripped from life without warning because Subaru had chosen to jump. Subaru had thought about that possibility during the fall. Guilt had pierced him then, but it was an abstract guilt, a suspicion, one more fear in an infinite list of fears. Hearing it confirmed by Link's voice turned it into something solid.
—I killed you —he murmured.
Link stood up.
—No.
—You said that—
—I said that when you die, I die. I didn't say you kill me.
—It's the same.
—No. It isn't.
—Of course it is! If I jump, you die. If I fail, you die. If someone cuts my throat, you die. How do you want me to call it?
Link took a step toward him. Subaru instinctively stepped back, not because he was afraid of him, but because he couldn't bear for someone to try to console him for something like that.
—Call it a rule —said Link—. Call it a chain. Call it a curse. Call it whatever you want. But don't call it your murder.
—And that calms you?
—No.
—Then it doesn't help!
—It helps so you don't break in a way that kills us before the fourth day.
Subaru clenched his teeth.
The phrase was cruel because it was true.
Link lowered his voice.
—Listen to me. I didn't know why I remembered. I didn't know why I returned with you. I thought maybe it was luck, punishment, accident, that maybe we were both trapped separately. Now I think not. I think you are the center. I am… I don't know. A chain tied to the center. If the center falls, the chain falls. That means that, from now on, taking care of your life is not just taking care of you.
Subaru let out a broken laugh.
—Great. Just what I needed. More pressure.
—Yes.
—That was a perfect opportunity to lie.
—I'm not going to lie to you about something like that.
Subaru let himself fall sitting on the bed. His body weighed as if he had run to the cliff again.
—I can't carry that.
Link sat down next to him, leaving enough distance not to invade him.
—You don't have a choice.
—How comforting.
—I'm not Emilia.
—I noticed that by the lack of silver hair and infinite kindness.
—And by the Latin charm.
—Not now.
—Sorry.
The minimal joke didn't fix anything, but it allowed Subaru to breathe once without feeling his chest breaking.
—So, what do we do? —asked Subaru.
Link looked toward the door.
—The same thing we were going to do. Gain trust. Find the shaman. Protect Rem. Protect Ram. Protect Emilia. Reach the fifth day with everyone alive. Only now we know one more thing.
—That if I die, I drag you.
—Yes.
—That's not one more thing. That's a mountain on my head.
—Then don't carry it alone.
Subaru looked at him.
Link held his gaze without smiling.
—That's the difference, Subaru. Before you believed that if you died, only you carried the return. That you could decide alone because the pain was yours. Now no longer. If you're going to do something suicidal, tell me. If you think you need to jump into the monster's mouth, tell me. If your instinct screams at you to sacrifice yourself because that seems easier than trusting someone, tell me before you run. Not because I'm going to stop you always. Maybe there will be moments where we can't avoid it. But don't decide my death again without at least giving me the right to insult you first.
Subaru wanted to respond.
He couldn't.
The request was terrible.
And fair.
—I'm sorry —he said at last.
Link shook his head.
—Not yet.
—What?
—Don't ask me for forgiveness for what you didn't know. Ask me for it if you do it again knowing.
Subaru felt those words sink deeper than any reproach.
—You're very serious when you want to be.
—Don't spread it. It would ruin my image.
—Your image includes jealous tentacles.
—Exactly. It's a strong brand.
Both remained in silence.
It wasn't peace. Not yet. But it was something similar to being on the same side of a trench.
Outside, the mansion was still half asleep. Somewhere, Rem was probably finishing nocturnal tasks with that efficiency of hers that made the world seem orderable. Ram might be reporting to Roswaal, as in the natural course of that loop, measuring Subaru and Link with carefully chosen words. Emilia would rest with Puck nearby, without knowing that two idiots in another room were comparing wounds they couldn't show her. Beatrice would be in her library, perhaps reading, perhaps pretending that nothing happening outside the archive mattered to her.
The fifth loop continued.
The winning loop, if Subaru managed not to destroy it.
Subaru stood up slowly.
—Tomorrow we have to act normal.
Link looked at him.
—Your normal is suspicious.
—Yours has horns.
—Good point.
Subaru walked to the door, but stopped before opening it.
—Link.
—Yes?
—About Rem.
Link waited.
Subaru didn't look back immediately. His hand remained on the knob, squeezing it tightly.
—I don't know how long it will take me to look at her without remembering everything. But I'm going to try. Not for you. Not only for her. For me too. Because if I can't see people as something more than their worst moments with me, then this world has already won.
Link didn't respond immediately.
When he did, his voice was low.
—That's enough.
Subaru nodded.
—And about the other thing… the chain thing.
—Yes.
—I'm not going to promise I won't do stupid things. That would be too obvious a lie.
—I know.
—But I promise to try not to do them alone.
Link smiled a little.
This time it did reach his eyes, although barely.
—That, coming from you, is almost maturity.
—Don't abuse it. I'm allergic.
Subaru opened the door.
Before leaving, he heard Link say one last thing.
—Subaru.
—What?
—Tomorrow, if Rem gives you food, eat it.
Subaru closed his eyes.
The phrase weighed more than it should.
—Yes.
—And if your hands shake, call me.
—Yes.
—And if I flirt with her and it gives you secondhand embarrassment, suck it up.
Subaru turned with a dead look.
—That last part wasn't in the contract.
—I just added it.
—You are a threat to the emotional stability of the team.
—I also carry branches.
—That saves you for now.
Subaru left into the hallway with the candle in his hand and his chest full of impossible things. The conversation didn't leave him calm. On the contrary. Now he knew that every death of his had another body tied to the end of the fall. He knew that Link loved Rem with a painful lucidity. He knew that he himself couldn't reduce Rem to executioner or victim without lying to himself. He knew that the fifth loop wasn't going to forgive him even one wrong step.
But he also knew something more.
He wasn't alone.
And, for the first time since the cliff had received him, that truth didn't sound like a burden.
It sounded like a reason to keep walking.