Chapter 153: Even When Wearing a Mask of Forced Smiles

"Looks like Subaru's probably going to fail this loop too..."

Reinhard shook his head and let out a soft sigh.

The way he saw it, Subaru was strung so tight that there was no chance of it slipping past those two maid sisters.

Sooner or later he'd be suspected again. Stabbed in the back again.

The thought made him tighten his fist. Something churned in him, and at last he understood just how difficult it truly was to protect Subaru.

Keeping him physically safe wasn't enough. You had to look after his mind as well.

Reinhard quietly filed that detail away in the little notebook he kept inside his head. Ah — and he ought to keep the very same thing in mind when looking after Lady Felt, too.

"Ngh... I can't think of a single way out of this. Enemies outside, trouble inside — it's a dead end. A complete dead end!"

Otto clawed at his hair in misery, agonizing over it hard enough to go bald.

This was exactly why he admired Mr. Natsuki so much, why he wanted to be his friend. He'd walked out of a situation like this one and come out the other side?

Mr. Natsuki, you absolute...

["Crack!"

Natsuki Subaru's grip slipped, and the vase he'd been polishing shattered against the corridor floor.

"...?"

Rem, who had been cleaning ahead of him, knitted her brows and turned back to look at him, her face gone stern, her eyes carrying a faint, barely perceptible edge of scrutiny and wariness.

"Whoa, it's fine, it's fine, don't worry about it — that was me."

Natsuki Subaru scratched his head and grinned, reassuring himself out loud, muttering something about getting it right next time.

"Relax, I'll have this cleaned up in a flash. Nobody's getting hurt~"

That line was aimed at Rem, who was still staring straight at him. He hurried off to fetch a broom and swept the shards clean off the floor.

"I will go and get a replacement vase," Rem said flatly after watching him for a moment, and turned to leave.

"No, really, it's nothing — don't trouble yourself, Senior!" Natsuki Subaru scrambled around in front of her to block her path.

Determined not to lose points in Rem's eyes, he took the whole job onto his own shoulders without a second thought.

"You go on and take care of your own work, Senior!" he said with a wide grin.

And yet —

Say what he liked, Rem stayed right there behind him, watching while he cleared away the broken vase and arranged the flowers again.

And through all of it, the suspicion in her eyes didn't fade in the slightest. If anything, it thickened.

To her, this Natsuki Subaru — forcing himself to stay cheerful, throwing himself into hard work of his own accord — was more suspicious than he had ever been.

What normal person behaved like that? He had to be plotting something.

And Rem... Rem would keep her eyes on him until she found the crack in his act!

So Rem told herself.]

"Ah, he's blown it. Blown it. He's really blown it now."

Felt shook her head and sighed. Bumbling around like that — of course she'd gotten suspicious. Exactly as expected.

What was her husband supposed to do from here?

Not that she had much right to call him clumsy, but she still hoped he'd pull himself together soon.

A pity she'd been in the Royal Capital back then and couldn't be at his side. Otherwise she could have offered him a lap pillow and comforted him properly...

[Natsuki Subaru carefully settled the flowers into the spare vase. With that, the job was done and done well.

"Ahh, nothing beats finishing a job, huh, Rem-rin!"

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, thoroughly at ease now, convinced he'd made up for smashing the vase at least a little.

Surely his score in Rem's book had gone up a fair amount?

"Hah. Though it was work you created for yourself and then solved yourself," Rem answered from where she stood attending beside him, sounding faintly exasperated.

But in the next breath her gaze sharpened on him, and she spoke like someone probing at a question she already had the answer to.

"Come to think of it — how did you know where the spare vases were kept? Did you ask Sister?"

A cold light surfaced in her eyes. After all, Natsuki Subaru was supposed to be brand new here, and yet he'd just walked off and fetched a vase without any help from her.

When exactly had this man learned the layout of the manor, its every room and passage?

What did he want with that knowledge? Was his next move to storm the manor — to threaten the lives of Lady Sister and Lady Emilia?

In the space of a heartbeat Rem's mind raced through a dozen possibilities.

And every last one of them struck at the one thing she would never forgive.

She would not allow anyone to shatter the peace of this manor — or endanger her sister's life!

"Oh, right! I did ask Ram. She said something like, 'A clod like you is bound to fumble a vase and break it, so I'll tell you where they are ahead of time,'" Natsuki Subaru explained, scratching his head with an awkward laugh.

"Subaru..."

At those words Rem's eyes went colder still — the look of someone gazing at a dead man!

Panic surged through Natsuki Subaru, but he kept his face calm, threw out some excuse about Ram needing him for a job, and fled.

"So disgusting..."

After leaving Rem, he went to the kitchen to peel potatoes for Ram, then greeted Rem with a bright smile when he ran into her again, then made a show for Emilia of how wonderfully his day was going...

It had been such a full, productive day. So why did he feel —

Disgusting. So disgusting. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting!

Like wearing a mask to charm everyone in the manor, forcing a smile through the pain.

And even so —

"I should be able to smile more naturally than this. Win them over better than this!"

"I can't fail this time. I don't know if I'll even get another chance, so I have to do the work perfectly and produce results...!"

In the fitting room, Natsuki Subaru stood before the mirror, staring at the stranger looking back at him, eyes wide, the pressure crushing down on him until it was ready to detonate.

And right then —

"Barusu!"

Ram's voice came from behind him, and Natsuki Subaru had a smile back on his face before he'd finished turning around, an excuse already forming.

"Ram, I wasn't slacking off, I swear. I was just about to get back to work."

"I've pretty much got the hang of the work here, so I can handle the rest myself. Why don't you go take a nap, Ram? By the time you wake up you'll find I've finished everything!"

Piling on the smiles, he pushed at Ram's back, steering her toward the door.

"Ah..."

Ram let herself be herded out, a puzzled look on her face, and yawned — apparently she really was going off to catch up on sleep.

Natsuki Subaru watched her retreating figure with his hands on his hips, laying out his reasoning like it all made perfect sense.

Then, the moment he'd confirmed there was no one left anywhere nearby, he half-ran, half-stumbled to the washroom, and —

"Ugh — hrkkk —"

Natsuki Subaru hunched over the basin as though trying to vomit up his own soul, the tap wrenched wide open, water roaring down in a rush that grated on the nerves.

"There's no time left for you to be weak, you bastard," Natsuki Subaru muttered to himself, his face haggard in the mirror above the basin.]

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