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---
Link woke up with a firefly trying to assassinate him.
That was, at least, the immediate conclusion his exhausted brain reached when he opened his eyes and saw a small bright sphere floating less than a handspan from his face. The light spun slowly over his nose, warm, innocent and offensively cheerful for something that was so close to someone who had just been shot over the mansion like a Latin projectile of magical stupidity. Link didn't know where he was during the first three seconds. During the fourth, he remembered the garden. During the fifth, he remembered the chant. During the sixth, he remembered the explosion. During the seventh, he decided that the firefly was to blame for everything.
"You," he murmured, with a dry voice.
The sphere shone.
"Don't flash me. I know what you did."
The sphere shone again, this time with a kind of proud flicker.
Link tried to get up.
His body responded with the dignity of a bag of flour abandoned on a staircase. His left arm moved a little, his right leg protested, his back reminded him that his kagunes could also feel exhausted and his head spun with so much violence that the room seemed to turn into a frying pan. He let himself fall back onto the pillow with a miserable sound.
"Well," he said, breathing through his nose. "First round to you, firefly."
"It's not a firefly, I suppose."
Beatrice's voice came from somewhere nearby.
Link turned his head carefully and found her sitting in a chair next to the bed, with her book in her lap and the expression of someone who had come to watch over him only because everyone else was too incompetent to do it right. On the other side, Puck floated over the back of the chair as if he had been summoned by the smell of recklessness. Subaru was sitting on the floor, with his back to the wall, looking at him with a mixture of relief, tiredness and a desire to mock that fought for control of his face. Emilia was by the window, worried. Rem, standing near the door, held a tray with water, a damp cloth and a fruit of a strange color that Link did not recognize.
The firefly spun over his chest.
"Then it's a lamp with self-esteem," said Link.
"It's a minor spirit," Puck corrected. "And now it is bound to you."
Link blinked.
"Bound how?"
Subaru raised a hand.
"Before you answer, I want to put on record that I tried to prevent you from doing exactly the kind of stupidity that led to this situation. It didn't work, but my moral opposition existed."
"Subaru."
"Yes."
"What happened?"
Subaru took a deep breath.
"You tried to recreate a mass destruction magic from another anime, you absorbed mana as if you were a vacuum cleaner with trauma, you made an accidental contract with a shiny little ball, you invoked a huge magic circle, you shouted 'Explosion', nothing happened, you tried to say that you failed, everything exploded at once, you flew out over the mansion screaming that Team Rocket was defeated, you ended up hanging from a tree and now you have a spiritual pet."
The room fell silent.
Link looked at the bright sphere.
Then he looked at Subaru.
"That sounds incredible."
"That wasn't the message!"
Puck covered his face with a paw.
"Lia, please, tell him it wasn't incredible."
Emilia approached with her hands clasped in front of her chest.
"Link, it was very dangerous. Puck had to raise a barrier to protect us. If the circle had appeared closer to the mansion, someone would have been hurt."
Link let the phrase sink slowly through his body.
The smile he was trying to form faded.
"Did anyone get hurt?"
"No," said Rem. "Only Link was left unconscious from severe mana exhaustion."
"And his dignity died in the tree," added Subaru.
Ram, who apparently was in the hallway and not inside the room due to a pure strategy of appearance, spoke from the open door.
"The gardener's dignity was already in critical condition before."
Link closed his eyes.
"Good morning, Ram."
"It's not good. There's a crater in the grounds."
"Technically that proves the magic worked."
"Technically Ram could bury him in that crater."
"I accept the criticism."
The small bright sphere descended to Link's hand and settled on his fingers. The light was warm. It didn't burn, it didn't weigh, it didn't ask for anything in an understandable way. It was just there, spinning gently, as if it had decided that that exhausted idiot was its entire world. Link looked at it with less hostility.
"So we made a contract."
"A very clumsy one," said Puck. "Small, unstable and without clear terms. But yes. It accepted you and you accepted it. Probably because you were draining mana as if the environment owed you money."
"Can it kill me?"
"No, not by itself."
"Can it make me explode again?"
Puck looked at him.
"You can make yourself explode again without help."
Subaru pointed at Puck.
"That's exactly what we've been saying since you woke up."
Link tried to sit up again. This time Rem moved before he finished. She left the tray on the table, placed a firm but careful hand on his shoulder and forced him to stay lying down.
"Link still shouldn't get up."
The contact was brief.
The order, calm.
Still, Link obeyed as if his body remembered that that voice had priority over many forms of stupidity.
"Yes, Rem."
Subaru, from the floor, opened his eyes wide.
"Incredible. The most powerful magic in the world is not Explosion. It's 'Yes, Rem'."
"Barusu should learn it too," said Ram.
"Rem does not desire that responsibility," responded Rem calmly.
Link looked at the fruit on the tray.
"Is that for me or to threaten me if I try to get up?"
Rem took the fruit and brought it closer to him.
"It's a bokko fruit. It helps recover strength when the body is lacking mana. Puck explained that, if Link wants to move today, he should eat it."
"It tastes horrible, right?"
"No."
"That sounded too fast."
Subaru leaned forward.
"I would say that in this world every rare fruit has a probability of being medicine, poison or narrative excuse. Eat it with respect."
Link took the bokko fruit between his fingers. The bright sphere, which Subaru had already started to look at like a firefly with a contract complex, spun excitedly around the fruit. Link smelled it. The aroma was fresh, slightly sweet, with a vegetal background that was unfamiliar to him. He took a bite.
It wasn't horrible.
That almost disappointed him.
The texture was firm, juicy, closer to a mix between pear and something citrus than to any exact fruit from his world. The effect was not immediate like a video game potion, but it was noticeable. A soft warmth began to move from his stomach toward his extremities, not like new mana filling him suddenly, but as if the body remembered that it could produce strength again. His kagunes, sleeping under his skin, stopped feeling like wet ropes.
"It's good," he admitted.
"The fruit did not need his approval," said Ram.
"But it received it."
Rem offered him water.
"Slowly."
Link drank slowly.
That made Subaru laugh under his breath.
"You really look like an obedient patient."
"I have a maid with a 'if you don't obey, I'll fold you like clean clothes' look in front of me. I'm reckless, not suicidal."
Rem blinked.
"Rem would not fold Link like clean clothes."
"We'll note it as 'not completely convincing denial'," said Subaru.
Puck floated toward the window.
"Well. Since he didn't die, and since the visit to the village is still necessary, we have to decide if this portable disaster is going with you."
Emilia looked at Link with immediate concern.
"Wouldn't it be better if he rested?"
Subaru also became serious.
The day's plan could not be postponed without consequences. They needed to go to Earlham Village. They needed to check faces, contacts, children, puppy, any anomaly. The shaman was there or used something from there. Every hour mattered. But Link, exhausted from his own attempt to become living artillery, was a risk if he could barely stand.
Link sat up slowly.
This time Rem did not stop him. She just watched.
"I'm going."
Emilia frowned.
"Link."
"I'm weak, not dead."
Subaru looked at him.
"An alarm with legs, horns, four kagunes and a contractual firefly."
The sphere shone over Link's shoulder.
"Don't call her firefly. She's getting bigger."
Puck floated next to the minor spirit, observed it closely and sighed.
"It doesn't understand half of what they say, but it seems happy to be included."
"Then she stays as Luci," said Link.
"Luci?" asked Emilia, smiling a little.
"From firefly, light and because if I give her a name that's too serious, Subaru is going to make a song."
"I'm going to make it anyway," said Subaru.
"That's why you're a cultural threat."
Rem looked at the sphere.
"Luci seems to accept the name."
The small light spun around Rem once and returned to Link's shoulder.
Subaru put a hand to his chest.
"Not even the spirit resists Rem. Understandable."
Link gave him a look.
"Don't start."
"Jealous of a firefly? That's new."
"I'm weak. Don't tempt me to use my last mana on fraternal violence."
In the end, the decision was practical. Puck forbade Link from using magic for the rest of the day. Ram forbade him from using ideas. Rem forbade him from walking without eating something more solid. Emilia asked him, with a sweetness that left little room for disobedience, to promise to let them know if he felt dizzy. Link accepted everything, not because he had truly learned prudence, but because the visit to the village mattered too much to waste it fighting with people who were right.
A few hours after waking up, Link left the mansion with Subaru and Rem.
The afternoon was clear.
Earlham Village awaited on the other side of the path as in the other times, small, simple, apparently calm. The kind of place that shouldn't hide a curse, children in danger or a forest full of demonbeasts. That was the worst part. If the village had smelled of death from afar, if its houses were crooked and its inhabitants looked with red eyes from the windows, it would be easy to hate it. But no. The village smelled of wood, earth, domestic animals, bread, cooking smoke and people working. It smelled of normal life. Of a normality so fragile that Subaru looked at it as if he were trying to remember every crack before something came out from underneath.
Rem walked ahead, carrying part of the mansion's supplies. Subaru walked beside her with a controlled smile, more attentive than he pretended. Link walked one step behind, with Luci floating near his shoulder like a speck of light that the villagers looked at with curiosity. From time to time, the minor spirit spun around his head. Link tried to ignore it. He failed quite a bit.
"Should we hide Luci?" Subaru asked in a low voice.
"How do you hide a shiny little ball that doesn't understand shame?"
"I don't know. Put a hat on it."
"A hat?"
"Everything improves with a hat."
Rem, without turning, said:
"Luci doesn't need a hat."
Subaru tilted his head toward Link.
"Rem has spoken. The hat is canceled."
"How quickly you abandon your principles."
"My principles tremble before blue authority."
Rem didn't comment on anything, but Link had the impression that she had heard perfectly.
The arrival at the village followed the rhythm that Subaru remembered, although this time he was more prepared and more terrified of being prepared. The villagers greeted Rem with respectful familiarity. She delivered supplies, received orders, answered questions about the mansion and Emilia with that impeccable balance of courtesy and efficiency. Subaru greeted everyone as if it were the first time he saw them, but with enough natural awkwardness not to seem like a spy. He asked names, made absurd comments, managed to make an old man look at him as if wondering if cities produced young people like that by accident or as punishment. Link, for his part, remained attentive to the smells.
He was looking for something out of place.
A strange trail. An alien presence. The dark smell surrounding Subaru was not useful as a reference because he still didn't fully understand what it was. He also couldn't start sniffing people like a police dog without seeming exactly the kind of monster the village didn't need to fear that day. So he moved with patience. He observed hands. Clothes. Reactions to Rem. Reactions to Subaru. Reactions to Luci. He listened to conversations. He detected common fear, curiosity, work fatigue, the smell of animals, food, milk, wool, mud.
Nothing screamed "shaman."
That irritated him.
Subaru knew it from his face.
"It's not that easy," he murmured when Rem moved forward to talk to a woman near a basket of vegetables.
"I didn't expect him to carry a sign that said 'I curse visitors on request'."
"It would have been considerate of him."
"This world is not considerate."
"That is indeed universal canon."
The sound of children interrupted the conversation.
As always, they arrived before Subaru could prepare himself emotionally. Petra, the other little ones from the village and a mass of childish energy appeared as if the universe had decided to send an army of questions, screams and sticky hands. They recognized Subaru from his previous visits that they didn't remember, or rather, they met him for the first time in this loop with a brutal ease for his heart. Children didn't have to remember to be children again. That was unfair and beautiful at the same time.
"It's the weird brother from the mansion!"
"He has a funny face!"
"That man has a light!"
"Is he a magician?"
"The one with black hair or the other?"
"Both are weird!"
Subaru put both hands to his chest.
"I have been accepted by the local community under the title of 'weird brother'. My political career starts strong."
Link looked at the children with a tired smile.
"They called me sir. I don't know how to feel."
"Old," said one of the children, pointing at him.
"Now I know how I feel. Betrayed."
Rem observed the scene calmly, but Link noticed something soft in her gaze. Not an open smile. Just that small change that appeared when the children approached, when Rem's duty mixed with something warmer and less named. Subaru noticed it too. And, as in previous visits, the village did what the village always did: it tried to absorb everything into its rhythm. The children began to pull Subaru, to ask him for games, stories, tricks. Subaru, who needed to investigate but also needed to repeat patterns, let himself be dragged with the theatricality of a martyr.
Then the puppy appeared.
Small. Dark. Hostile.
The same one.
Subaru froze for a fraction of a second.
Link too.
The puppy growled with that absurd mixture of tenderness and threat that, in another context, would have provoked laughter. For Link, it provoked an immediate desire to lift Subaru with a kagune and place him three meters away. He remembered the previous night. Physical contact. Curse. Bite. Puppy. Village. Everything connected.
Subaru raised a hand, very slowly, as if trying to calm the world.
"Easy."
Link spoke in a low voice.
"Subaru."
"I know."
"Don't touch it."
"Link."
That tone made Link clench his teeth.
Subaru needed to confirm the pattern. He needed to touch the dangerous point to know where the curse came from, even if it meant putting the rope around his own neck with a smile. Link hated every part of that logic. But if he stopped the scene too soon, if he scared the children, if Rem saw an exaggerated reaction in front of a puppy, all the delicate advance of trust could crack.
The puppy growled again.
Luci, who until then had been floating calmly near Link, descended toward the animal with curiosity.
The puppy barked.
Luci shone.
Link, with his body still exhausted and his patience reduced to ashes, interpreted that as aggression.
"Do you want to fight, fake firefly?"
Subaru turned his head sharply.
"Are you talking to Luci or the dog?"
"I'm still deciding."
Luci gave a happy spin around the puppy. The puppy tried to bite the light. Luci moved away with a flicker. Link took a step forward as if he were going to defend his new spiritual responsibility from a cursed dog. Rem stopped him with a single phrase.
"Link."
He remained still.
"Yes, Rem."
"Luci is not in danger."
"The dog has attitude."
"Luci is a minor spirit. The puppy cannot harm it in that way."
Puck was not there to explain it, but Rem had received enough information before leaving. Link took a deep breath, then pointed at the puppy with two fingers.
"You were saved by a technicality."
The children burst into laughter.
"The sir fights with lights!"
"And with dogs!"
"He's crazy!"
Subaru covered his face.
"Our investigative prestige just died."
"It wasn't very high," said Rem.
Link accepted the blow in silence.
And then, as if the world wanted to prove that stupidity was not enough to change the pattern, Subaru found the moment. The puppy, now calm in the arms of a girl with braids, allowed him to approach. Subaru smiled with that idiot face he used to convince people, animals and perhaps himself that everything was fine. Link saw how his hand approached the fur. He saw how he caressed head, neck, back. He saw how Subaru touched the white point, the scar, or whatever it was.
The puppy bit.
Subaru didn't scream as loud as in other loops.
But the pain crossed his face.
Link took a step.
A kagune came out half a handspan from his back.
Rem looked at him.
He stopped.
Subaru withdrew his hand with a forced smile, the blood appearing on the back as a small and terrible seal.
"What a one hundred percent probability event!" he said, too cheerful. "We have a relationship destined for failure, little puppy!"
The children protested, laughed, defended the puppy, blamed Subaru for touching it too much and a girl clarified that the puppy was female, a detail that Subaru received with broken dignity. Link approached when Rem asked for water to clean the wound, but he didn't look at the puppy. If he looked at it too much, he could end up forgetting his promise not to kick it all the way to Gusteko.
Rem washed the bite carefully.
"Subaru, you should be more prudent when touching unknown animals."
"Yes, Rem. My career as a beast charmer has suffered a setback."
Link looked at the blood on Subaru's hand.
"Does it hurt?"
Subaru looked up.
Both understood the real question.
"Yes," said Subaru. "But that means I'm alive."
Link closed his hand.
Rem bandaged the wound with a clean strip and made sure Subaru could move his fingers. The children, perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of spontaneous affection, began to put things in his pockets: small stones, "pretty" leaves, a string, a bokko fruit that one of the girls said served to recover strength if one was left "empty like grandpa after cutting wood," and other objects of incalculable childish value. Subaru blinked when he received the fruit, remembering Rem's explanation for Link and the information he still didn't know how much he would need.
"Thank you, small investors in my future survival."
"He talks weird," said Petra.
"But he's fun," added another child.
"And weak," finished a third.
Subaru leaned toward Link.
"Childish honesty should have legal regulation."
"They're reading you well."
"You were fighting with a firefly ten minutes ago."
"It was a spiritual duel."
"It was public shame."
Rem finished storing the supplies received and checked the sun. There was still time before they had to return. Subaru knew it. Link too. It was the perfect moment for someone to observe the village with more freedom, ask questions, recognize faces and, in passing, allow the romantic disaster with horns to have a few minutes before the loop became cruel.
Link leaned toward Subaru.
"I need you to get lost."
Subaru looked at him.
"What a beautiful phrase to hear from a friend."
"With the children."
"Ah, that changes the tone. It's still insulting."
"Do your thing. Play, ask, see if someone doesn't fit. Petra trusts you quickly. The puppy already did its part. Don't let it bite you again."
Subaru looked toward Rem, who was talking to an older woman about fabrics and provisions.
"And you?"
Link did not take his eyes off Rem.
"I'm going to do something reckless but not explosive."
Subaru smiled sideways.
"Date?"
"Emotional investigation."
"That's a date with a fake hat."
"You yourself said everything improves with a hat."
Subaru gave him a pat on the shoulder. His smile, for an instant, was less mocking and more tiredly kind.
"Make her smile a little."
Link looked at him.
"Are you sure?"
Subaru continued looking at Rem.
The question carried more weight than it would for anyone who didn't know the loops. Subaru had been tortured by her. He had seen her dead. He had jumped through a world where she would breathe again. Now he was giving Link permission to seek something soft with that same person. That was not simple. It was not clean. But it was real.
"Yes," said Subaru. "Hard things are coming, right?"
Link lowered his gaze.
"Yes."
"Then steal a nice scene first."
Subaru walked away toward the children before Link could respond.
And, as in other times, he let himself be devoured by the village.
The children dragged him toward an open area where they began to demand games, stories, strange tricks from the "mansion brother" and explanations about why his friend had a floating light if he wasn't a ghost. Subaru responded with so much energy that anyone would have believed he wasn't carrying a cursed bite on his hand. Link observed him for a moment, long enough to make sure he was still whole, then walked toward Rem.
She saw him coming.
"Is Subaru with the children?"
"Yes. They legally kidnapped him."
"The children of the village are insistent."
"Subaru too. They deserve each other."
Rem looked toward where the children were already surrounding him.
"Subaru seems to get along well with them."
"Subaru gets along well with anyone willing to accept noise as a form of affection."
Rem remained silent for an instant.
"That explains some things."
Link smiled.
"Rem, can I accompany you while you finish the shopping?"
"Link should be resting."
"I'm resting actively."
"That doesn't exist."
"I just invented it. It's a medical technique from my land."
"Rem suspects it's a lie."
"It's a lie, but with good intention."
Rem looked at him. Then she looked at Luci, who floated over Link's shoulder like a luminous witness to his lack of prudence.
"If Link gets dizzy, he will let us know."
"Yes, Rem."
"If he feels his mana running out again, he will let us know."
"Yes, Rem."
"If he tries to create magic, Rem will stop him."
"That sounded more exciting than it should."
"Link."
"Yes, Rem. No magic."
Rem nodded and started walking.
Link accompanied her.
The date, if it could be called that, began between baskets of vegetables and folded fabrics.
There was no music. There was no perfect sunset yet. There were no roses, no big words, no declarations in the middle of the street. There was a simple village, a dirt path, people who greeted Rem with trust and a boy who tried to walk by her side without seeming too happy about something so small. Rem bought with efficiency. She negotiated prices without raising her voice. She checked the quality of fabrics, grain, dried fruits and utensils with an attention that Link found dangerously attractive. He carried what she allowed him to carry, using only his hands at first, then a kagune when things were too many and Rem accepted that, under supervision, he could be useful.
"Link is carrying too much weight," she said when she saw the accumulated bags.
"I'm strong."
"That's not an answer to the possibility of exhaustion."
"Rem, after surviving my own magical stupidity, a bag of potatoes is not going to be my end."
"Sometimes undignified endings are more probable than heroic ones."
"That was deep and humiliating."
"Rem only affirms a possibility."
"Then I will affirm another: if Rem continues to worry like that, I'm going to get spoiled."
She did not respond immediately.
They walked a few steps.
"Rem only fulfills her duty."
Link looked ahead.
The phrase no longer pierced him as before. It still hurt, yes. Rem's duty was a sharp word. But after all the conversations, after the forest that no longer existed and the kitchen that did, Link could hear layers. Rem said duty because it was the language she knew to justify care before allowing herself to feel it.
"Then your duty is very kind," he said.
Rem lowered her gaze barely toward the basket she was carrying.
"Duty does not need to be kind."
"No. But when it is, it shows."
An old woman sold them fruits. Seeing Luci, she asked if Link was some kind of spiritual user. Link looked at the sphere, then at Rem, then responded that technically he was an idiot with consequences. The old woman laughed as if that were the most honest explanation she had heard in weeks and gave him a small fruit "so the light wouldn't get bored." Luci floated around the fruit without knowing what to do with it. Rem ended up storing it in the basket.
"Luci doesn't eat fruit," she said.
"But she appreciates the gesture."
"Does Link know that?"
"No. But Luci has a face of gratitude."
"Luci doesn't have a face."
"That makes it easier to imagine her grateful."
Rem looked at him sideways.
This time there was something in her mouth. Not a complete smile. Barely a tiny curve, so quick it could have been a trick of the light. But Link saw it.
And he fell silent.
Rem noticed.
"Is something happening?"
"No."
"Link stopped talking."
"I was respecting a historical moment."
"What moment?"
"I think you almost smiled."
Rem blinked.
"Rem did no such thing."
"Then it was a natural phenomenon with the shape of a miracle."
"Link should check if the loss of mana affected his perception."
"It affected it to improve it."
Rem continued walking, but the minimum curve appeared again, this time hidden in her profile.
Link decided not to point it out.
There were victories that died if one pursued them too much.
They moved a little away from the center of the village to deliver a basket to a more distant house. The path bordered a small stream, and there the afternoon began to become softer. The sun fell sideways, touching the low roofs, the wooden fences and Rem's blue hair with a golden light that did not belong to any battle. The sounds of the children continued in the distance, Subaru included, but they arrived muffled, as if the world had decided to lower its voice for a few minutes.
Rem stopped by the stream to check the list.
Link left the bags on a flat rock and stretched his shoulders. Luci floated to the water, reflected on the surface and began to spin over her own reflection.
"She seems silly," said Link.
"Luci seems curious."
"That's what they say about adorable fools."
"Subaru is also curious."
"Case closed."
Rem remained silent, looking at the minor spirit.
"Puck said that minor spirits don't usually make contracts like that."
"Does that mean Luci has bad taste?"
"Maybe it means that Link was alone."
The phrase was soft.
Too soft.
Link stopped joking.
Rem continued looking at the stream. The light touched her eyelashes, and for an instant Link saw the Rem of the forest that no longer existed, the one who had arrived with a lamp and soup, the one who had asked if she was one of the people he couldn't look at. But this Rem didn't remember that. This Rem was just there, standing by the water, with a shopping list in her hand and a dangerously fine intuition.
"Why do you say that?"
"Minor spirits approach compatible mana, but also certain dispositions. Rem doesn't understand much about spiritual contracts, but Puck said that Luci approached when Link was releasing too much mana. Maybe she was just attracted by the strength. Or maybe she found something in Link that she wanted to accompany."
Link looked at the small sphere floating over the stream.
"Poor Luci."
"Why?"
"Because she chose a disaster."
Rem lowered the list.
"Disasters can also need company."
Link didn't know what to say.
That was the kind of phrase Rem dropped without realizing the damage it could do. Not out of cruelty. Out of precision. As if she saw a crack and put her hand on it with so much care that one didn't know if it hurt more or less because of it.
"Rem," he said.
"Yes."
"Can I say something reckless but not offensive?"
"That category seems unstable."
"It is."
"Then Rem will listen with caution."
Link breathed slowly.
The date was beautiful precisely because it shouldn't last. That made it more cruel. The village, the stream, the light, the small sphere spinning, Rem by his side. Everything was too clean for a loop where the puppy's bite had already happened and the forest was waiting for the fourth day with its teeth open.
"Today I'm glad I woke up," he said.
Rem looked at him.
She didn't seem to fully understand why that phrase was important.
Link didn't explain it.
"After the explosion, I mean. When I opened my eyes and saw you in the room, I thought maybe this world was trying to compensate for the blow against the tree."
"Link woke up with a threat against Luci."
"It was my way of processing affection."
"Rem does not recommend that method."
"I'm polishing it."
Rem held his gaze.
"Rem is also glad that Link woke up."
The phrase was simple.
Almost formal.
But it wasn't.
Link felt his chest fill with something warm and dangerous. He wanted to respond with a joke. He wanted to say something absurd about then he would continue waking up by her order. He wanted to turn the moment into something light before it became too real. But Rem was looking at him, and there were occasions when a smile was worth less than staying still.
"Thank you," he said.
Rem nodded.
The stream continued running.
Luci, as if she had decided that the silence needed help, began to spin around both of them. First around Link. Then around Rem. Then she made a wide circle that included both, leaving a line of faint light in the air. Rem raised her hand by reflex and Luci passed between her fingers without touching them. Link observed the scene with a softer expression than he intended.
"She likes you," he said.
"Luci seems friendly."
"She's a traitor. I met her this morning and she already prefers Rem."
"Luci has good judgment."
"I can't argue with that."
Rem lowered her hand.
"Link talks as if everything should compete for affection."
The phrase caught him off guard.
"Not everything."
"But many things."
He looked toward the stream.
"I suppose in my country one learns to joke about what one is afraid of losing."
Rem did not respond immediately.
"And what is Link afraid of losing?"
The correct answer was too big.
Subaru. Her. Emilia. Beatrice, although it cost him to admit it. The entire mansion. An opportunity to reach the fifth day. His own humanity, if he continued learning that loving meant being willing to kill or die before time. The small light that had just appeared and already behaved as if he were someone worthy of following.
But this was a date.
And on a date, sometimes one chose a small truth so as not to ruin the afternoon.
Link looked at her.
"This afternoon."
Rem remained still.
"This afternoon?"
"Yes. The children screaming far away. Subaru pretending he's not afraid. Luci acting as if she knew what she was doing. You buying fruits as if the organization of the world depended on choosing the right ones. Me being able to walk by your side without anything exploding for five minutes. That. I would be afraid of losing that."
Rem lowered her gaze.
The wind moved her blue bangs slightly.
"It's a small thing."
"That's precisely why."
"Rem doesn't understand."
"Big things are usually impossible to protect. Small ones, sometimes not. A meal. A dessert. A walk. A shopping list. A smile you don't admit. If you don't take care of them, when the hard stuff comes you have nothing to remember except fear."
Rem pressed the list a little against her chest.
"Link talks as if he expects something hard to come soon."
The question was there.
He couldn't answer it completely.
"This world always charges for its nice moments," he said. "I just want to make sure I enjoy this one before receiving the bill."
Rem observed him with silent seriousness.
"Then Link considers this a nice moment."
He smiled.
"Yes."
"Even though Rem made him carry bags."
"Especially because of that. I'm Latin. We measure romance by carrying things without being asked."
"That sounds inefficient."
"But useful."
"That yes."
The small smile returned.
Clearer.
Link saw it, and this time Rem couldn't hide it completely.
For a second, the loop
was just that: a smile by a stream.
There was no chain.
There was no cliff.
There was no cold body on a bed.
There was no cursed puppy or waiting forest.
Just Rem, the golden light, Luci spinning around her and Link feeling that, if the world was going to break his soul later, at least he would have something to keep before the blow.
They returned to the center of the village when Subaru had already completely lost control of the childish situation.
He was sitting on the ground, surrounded by children, with a crown of leaves on his head, a stick in his hand like a scepter and the expression of a king defeated by his own people. Petra was explaining something to him with absolute seriousness. Another child was trying to put one more stone in his pocket. The puppy was nearby, watching him with renewed hostility. Subaru looked at Link and Rem like a shipwrecked man seeing a boat pass.
"You're late. I've been elected mayor of the weird and deposed in less than ten minutes."
"Efficient democratic process," said Link.
Rem observed the crown of leaves.
"Subaru seems to have integrated."
"Don't confuse integration with a childish coup d'état."
Petra ran toward Rem to show her something and then toward Link to ask if Luci could shine more. Luci, as if she understood the popular demand, shone a little more. The children screamed with excitement. Subaru put a hand to his face.
"Don't give them ideas. The last time Link wanted to do something brighter, he ended up in a tree."
"Technically precise slander," said Link.
Rem checked the sky.
"We must return soon."
The phrase returned the weight to the world.
Subaru stood up carefully. The bandaged hand hurt. The bokko fruit was still in his pocket, along with the other "provisions" the children had given him. Link saw the gesture with which Subaru touched the bandage, almost invisible, and remembered the curse. Rem also looked at the wound, but for her it was just a puppy bite, one more clumsiness of the noisy guest.
The return to the mansion began with childish goodbyes.
The children shouted, waved their hands, asked them to come back, to bring Luci again, for Subaru to tell more stories and for Link not to fight with the dog because "the little dog was good even if grumpy." Link promised not to fight with her if she didn't start the spiritual war. Rem corrected that he shouldn't promise absurd things in front of children. Subaru said that was his specialty and received a look from Rem that made him straighten up.
They walked back along the path.
Rem went ahead, Subaru to one side, Link behind for the first meters. But little by little, almost without realizing it, Link ended up walking next to Rem again. Luci floated between them. Subaru looked at them sideways, noticed the comfortable silence, the slightly smaller distance, the way Rem didn't ask Link to move away when his shoulder was close to hers when passing through a narrow part of the path.
Subaru smiled.
Not much.
Just enough.
"Hey, Link."
"What?"
"Did the emotional investigation have results?"
Rem looked at Subaru.
Link smiled without shame.
"Promising preliminary results."
"Rem doesn't understand what you're talking about," she said.
"Better," both responded at the same time.
Rem narrowed her visible eye.
"That increases the suspicion."
Subaru raised his hands.
"There's no suspicion! Just a friendly operation to maintain morale before the tragedy... I mean, before the workday."
Link looked at him with a silent threat.
Subaru coughed.
"Before anything. Before anything normal. What nice weather."
Rem didn't insist, but Link felt she filed away the stumble.
The forest on both sides of the path looked calm.
Too calm.
Link walked with his senses open. The wind brought smells of leaves, damp earth and small animals. No red eyes. No blood. No demonbeasts nearby. But the memory of the puppy and the deduction of the curse went with them like a fourth shadow. Subaru felt it too. The bandaged hand was a countdown. The village was left behind, alive and smiling, without knowing that under its feet a trap had already been placed.
Halfway, Rem spoke.
"Link seems quieter."
He looked toward her.
"I'm saving the afternoon."
"Saving it?"
"Yes. For when it's needed."
Rem didn't seem to fully understand, but she didn't call it absurd.
"Then Rem hopes it will be useful to him."
Link looked at her walking, the basket in her hands, the serene profile, the blue hair moving barely with the wind.
"It already is."
Subaru, a few steps away, pretended to look at the landscape.
For once, he didn't bother.
The mansion appeared among the trees with its impossible elegance, beautiful and dangerous. The sun was lower. The third day advanced. The night remained. Then the fourth day. Then the forest, the children, Rem, Ram, the curse, the shaman and all that Subaru still hadn't been able to resolve without dying.
But before crossing the gate, Link looked one last time toward Rem.
She also looked at him.
There was no promise.
It wouldn't have been fair.
There was no declaration.
It wasn't the moment.
There was only a small nod from her, a soft look from him and Luci spinning between them as if she had seen something no human had said out loud.
Then they entered.
And the nice moment ended.
Not destroyed.
Not forgotten.
Saved.
Because the hard stuff was coming walking behind, with steps of forest and teeth of puppy, but for that afternoon, at least, Link had managed to steal a date with Rem from the loop.
One of those small things that, when the world wanted to charge everything, maybe would be enough to remember why it was worth fighting for.