Re: Life In The Original World From Zero [A Re:Zero Fiction]

Chapter 31: Modern Day Life Lesson Thirty

A/N: Alright, before anything starts, I owe you all an apology. Sorry that I disappeared for half a year!!! I really am!!! Things got super crazy during my summer session!!! Struggled through organic chemistry, though miraculously I scraped an A- XDD, had a pretty rough start for Fall 2020, and had to struggle through more classes again XDD. But anyways, today I just had my second bio midterm and my schedule finally got a bit less intense as it always is, so here I am, writing the new chapter!!! I think it should be pretty interesting as well. Even though I didn't have time to write, I did write down some ideas for the next parts of the story. Now I'll stop keeping you from the new chapter!!! Please enjoy, and sorry again for my disappearance and thank you again for reading!!! Here we go!!!

Slowly and peacefully, hot steam rose up to the ceiling, forming little beads of water up there, glittering slightly and falling back down to the bathtub occasionally. Splash! Some water flooded out the bathtub as the person sitting inside it shifted his position, sinking more of his body into the hot and soothing water. The person in the bathtub, spreadeagled, let out a long sigh of satisfaction as he closed his eyes and allowed his body to rid its stress and tiredness. "Man, I'm tired..." Subaru muttered as he slid a little more down into the water again.

Let us rewind that tape and see what happened. It was two weeks after the Yuki Matsuri, a lot of things had happened between now and then, and the first was, sadly, a painful explanation. Emilia explained to Subaru and the others about Hihara Yuuto's magic casted on her as soon as Subaru left the nurse's office and arrived home with the girls that day. She was unable to bear the fact that she hurt Subaru so badly by befriending Hihara Yuuto, even though it wasn't out of her own will, and broke down after finishing explaining that to Subaru, Puck, and the other girls. Subaru had never seen her breaking down like that and did not know exactly what to do. His mind wasn't really functioning that well that night either. All he remembered doing was holding Emilia in his arms and patting her on the head softly, repeating "It's not your fault" again and again and listening to her repeating "I am so sorry."

Subaru let her cry herself to sleep that night, and even though the euphoria of the Yuki Matsuri was still in the air, it wasn't able to penetrate the sadness and pain they were feeling. Subaru of course never blamed Emilia for anything, and the girls weren't angry at Emilia either. If there was anyone to blame for what happened, it would be themselves. For many times, they said to themselves that there might be native magic users around them, but they were still too careless. They noticed something odd about Emilia was happening, but since she didn't really display anything different from her usual behaviors, they didn't worry too much.

The angriest with themselves among all was, no doubt, Puck. Subaru, once again, fully appreciated why Puck was known as the Best of The End. The shadow of the heartless and cruel monster was momentarily shown on Puck's face as Emilia told them that it was Hihara who'd been manipulating her all the time, and Subaru shuddered uncontrollably as he remembered the last time he witnessed Puck's full wrath. However, Puck was able to control his anger and remained with the rest of them. No one could really sleep that night, as they all, on several occasions, came across Hihara before, and all of them felt guilty about not being able to help sooner.

The next morning had a rather gloomy start. No one talked much, and breakfast was finished in silence. However, a few minutes after breakfast, Subaru couldn't take it anymore. As the master of not reading the atmosphere at all, Subaru, with his usual energetic and loud voice, called for everyone's attentions and brought them out to the school. They didn't talk on their way, not knowing what Subaru was up about. As they arrived at the exercise yard of the school, Subaru turned around and squatted down. The girls plus Puck waited in the foot-deep snow, looking at Subaru, who had his back on them and fondling something on the ground. The next thing they knew, Subaru was throwing snowballs at them.