Rem's Heart

Another day passed. That afternoon, Subaru finally dragged himself out of the mire of reservation lists and lighter assembly and found a little free time.

He hadn't eaten a dinner prepared by Rem for two days straight, and it left him feeling a little empty. So he immediately made a circuit of the village, finally spotting that familiar figure on its outskirts.

Rem was walking along the dirt road toward the infirmary, a basket of herbs on her back.

Subaru rushed over excitedly.

"Rem-chan! Long time no see! I've been so busy these past few days. You know, Uncle Baren's orders are booked all the way through next week."

"Rem knows. Everyone in the village is talking about it. They say Subaru made something amazing. Everyone wants to buy one."

Subaru's smile froze on his face. Something was wrong. Rem was being so cold to him.

"Are you in a bad mood, Rem-chan? Did something happen? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Nothing happened. Rem is busy. If you don't need anything, please move aside. Rem still has to take these herbs to the infirmary."

Rem quickened her pace, trying to go around Subaru. He reached out, intending to help support the herb basket, which looked heavy.

Then Rem abruptly stepped back, dodging his hand. The movement was so sudden that Subaru's hand hung in midair, and the atmosphere between them grew tense.

"Rem-chan... what's going on?" Subaru pulled his hand back, all the excitement and enthusiasm gone from his voice.

"Subaru doesn't need Rem anymore."

"Huh?"

"You made the lighter, and everyone in the village needs you. You can earn money on your own now, and you have a Lesser Spirit. You're much stronger than you used to be."

Rem spoke faster and faster, but her tone remained disturbingly flat.

"Rem is useless now. Rem used to be able to bring you meals, but you don't need that anymore. Rem used to be able to teach you magic, but now the Lesser Spirit does it better than Rem. Rem can't do anything-"

"Wait, wait, Rem-"

Rem suddenly stopped. As if startled by the words she had blurted out, she abruptly fell silent and lowered her head slightly. After a moment, she spoke again.

"Sorry. Rem said some strange things. But that's how things are. You don't need Rem anymore. Rem would only be a burden if she stayed by your side."

Subaru froze. With the Lesser Spirit's ability to sense emotions, he felt Rem's emotions, clear as day.

A sense of loss. And jealousy.

"But don't mind it. That's just the kind of person Rem is. Your magic and strength are both better than Rem's now. You're popular in the village, too. Rem is completely unnecessary now."

Rem finished speaking and raised her blue eyes, gazing at Subaru with a calm that sent a chill through him.

"From now on, we shouldn't have anything more to do with each other."

"Because when you get right down to it, Rem and you aren't even friends."

The words made Subaru feel as though his breath had stopped for a beat. He wasn't sure whether what she said was true or false, whether she really thought that way or was pushing him away in the clumsiest way possible.

Subaru wanted to step forward and keep asking, but the moment Rem turned her head, he saw the look in her eyes. Cold, without the slightest ripple of emotion, it kept him from taking a step.

"...Anta, I'm fine."

Subaru stood where he was, watching the figure with the basket of herbs on her back walk farther and farther away. Antares floated out of his chest, sending him a constant stream of heartache and comfort as he nestled warmly against Subaru's cheek.

"Okay, it hurts a little. No, maybe it hurts quite a bit."

Children couldn't hide what was in their hearts. Subaru didn't know which of the things Rem had just said were true and which were false, but there was one thing he was absolutely sure of-Rem was jealous of him.

If she had merely felt neglected by Subaru, she should have been angry.

But it was jealousy.

If he rushed after her now, Rem probably wouldn't listen to anything he said.

If Rem had truly never considered him a friend, then what had those steaming "leftovers" over the past month and more meant?

Had it been only because of her surveillance assignment? Was that worth going so far for?

...Was it what I think?

Subaru felt he had to get to the bottom of a few things. He recalled what he had heard people call Rem in the village over the past few days. When the villagers mentioned her, they never used her name.

They said, "Lady Ram's younger sister."

If Subaru's deduction was right, then he thought the phrase "birds of a feather flock together" suited him and Rem all too well.

Rem knew she had said some terrible things.

And Subaru had done nothing wrong. He had only grown stronger, only stopped needing her, only proven that Rem had never been worthy of being needed by him in the first place.

And yet he had been hurt by her most venomous words.

Rem hated herself. Not only was she completely useless, she had also hurt someone who had been genuinely kind to her.

She quickened her pace, hurrying down the village's dirt road as if fleeing.

Rem knew how hypocritical she was.

Did Rem really care whether Subaru had enough to eat? She didn't. She didn't care what became of his life, either. Whether he went hungry, got lost in the forest, or was shunned by the villagers, she didn't care about any of it.

The reason she brought him meals, stayed by his side, and never missed a single day was not kindness, but a selfishness so great it was sickening.

Rem had always been an unnecessary existence.

Twins were considered taboo among the Oni. According to village custom, twins had to be disposed of immediately after birth.

Only thanks to the power Ram had unleashed at the time, the power later called "Oni God Reborn," had an exception been made and their lives spared.

But though their lives had been spared, the fact that they were twins could not be erased. Labeled "children of ill omen" from birth, the two sisters were treated coldly by all their people, including their own parents.

Though bound to them by blood, their parents' attitude remained cold, as if the girls were not their children but a burden they had been forced to take in.

Their fellow Oni made no attempt to hide their disgust and contempt for the two children of ill omen. For Rem, who could neither walk nor understand words or malice, it was an utterly dreadful environment to grow up in.

That continued until Ram began to show her true power. Ram's standing in the village rose steadily, and their people came to see her as the future and pride of the Oni. Along with that hope, the villagers also changed the way they treated Rem.

But that change was merely incidental, like the wrapping paper that came with a gemstone. No one would go out of their way to look at the wrapping paper, and no one cared whether it was crumpled or thrown away.

She mustn't be jealous of her sister. She mustn't hate her parents.

That was what Rem demanded of herself. Her sister was so gentle and loved her so much. For someone as useless and lowly as Rem to be jealous of her would be an affront to her sister.

So Rem locked away all her emotions.

She would be nothing, draw no one's attention, and live out her life as a shadow. Rem thought that was her future.

But Rem had never imagined that someone even more fragile and useless than her actually existed in this world.

That was only natural. The Oni were a naturally powerful demi-human race; even their weakest member was beyond comparison with an ordinary human.

Weak Witchbeasts, inconspicuous traps in the forest-things that didn't even count as threats to the Oni-could take that boy's fragile life at any moment.

He smelled strange and stood dazed in the forest, looking clumsy in a way Rem had never seen before.

Because she had saved him by chance, the task of watching him had been given to Rem, whose presence or absence made no difference to the village.

At the time, Rem thought this person's situation was truly terrible. The villagers looked down on the human boy and ignored him. He had no friends, no power, and even his living quarters were a converted storage room.

Rem watched the famished boy devour the food she had made, his face filled with happiness and relief. In that moment, Rem felt something she had never felt before.

Relief.

It was a genuine need. Not unnecessary work her sister had assigned her to put her at ease, but a living person who genuinely and wholeheartedly needed her.

To hold on to that hard-won sense of relief, Rem began taking care of Subaru. She took charge of his meals, supervised his work, and helped him practice magic he could never seem to learn. She never missed a day.

Because she was afraid that if she stopped going for even one day, that sense of relief would disappear.

And the boy gradually changed, too. The exaggerated manner he had used to hide his unease when he first arrived slowly faded away amid hot meals and her day-to-day company.

The boy's arrival filled the void in Rem's heart.

This effect was called "downward social comparison."

A living being's evaluation of itself was never an objective assessment, but a comparison with those around it.

People feared being at the bottom of a group; it brought the panic of being isolated and abandoned.

But when someone was worse off than you, you were no longer the only failure, and the loneliness powerful enough to drive a person mad would temporarily disappear.

No one had taught Rem this. She had simply latched on to Subaru by instinct.

But Rem was only a shadow.

She realized it now. She had thought Subaru was a stone by the roadside, inconspicuous but able to stay where he was forever, forever needing her. But the boy was no stone. He was gold buried in the dirt.

In just a few days, he had made the lighter, formed a contract with a Lesser Spirit, and become the object of the entire village's admiration.

And Rem? She was still the same Rem. The weakest deadweight among the Oni.

As it turned out, she had only been fooling herself.

Sure enough, she was someone who could easily be replaced.

(I used a bit of my old writing style for this chapter. Re:Zero really does need this kind of psychological description to feel right.)