The Night of Demonic Possession [3]

When the vast sea of purple light that had blanketed everything finally faded, Subaru found, unexpectedly, that he had never lost consciousness.

But he still felt terrible. While the purple light had swallowed everything, he had completely lost his sight and hearing, and even his sense of touch had grown faint and distant.

Now, everything around them was forest again.

It looked like the ordinary forest around the village, the kind found everywhere, full of murderous Witchbeasts.

"Gah..."

Subaru sucked in a breath, his face pale. The wound on his leg had split wider than before, its bloody flesh turned outward, and his pant leg was soaked a deep black.

The force that had made his body unbearably heavy hadn't been an illusion. It had truly pressed down on him, tearing his wound even worse.

"Subaru!"

Rem's voice came from nearby. She stumbled over, spotted the even more gruesome wound on his leg, and all the color instantly drained from her face. Her eyes filled with overwhelming guilt.

"Stop!"

Before she could speak, Subaru held up a finger and forced a mischievous smile onto his pale face.

"If you dare say something like, 'This is all Rem's fault, Rem is too useless, Rem held Subaru back,' I'll flick your forehead again."

"But... it really is..."

Rem stopped halfway through, because Subaru had already raised the hand he'd just used to flick her forehead in warning.

She swallowed the rest of her words, bit her lower lip, and crouched down, gripping the hem of her little kimono in both hands.

"Rip-"

She tore off a piece of cloth. Luckily, Rem's clothes were already somewhat loose, so the missing section of hem was hardly noticeable.

She crouched beside Subaru's leg and carefully wound the strip of cloth around the wound, loop by loop.

"...You wrapped it so gently. That really helped, Rem." Subaru looked down at the neat knot on his leg, and his tense expression finally relaxed a little. "But do you know where we are now?"

"...We're still in the forest around the village. Just deeper in than before."

"Back in the depths of the forest? What happened? Did the mine explode and blast us over here? No way. If it had, we'd have been blown to pieces."

Subaru couldn't figure it out. It seemed that crocodile was behind it. What kind of magic was that strange light?

"Subaru, do you need to rest? Is there anything else Rem can do to help?"

Subaru did need a moment to recover. He lay half-reclined beneath a thick old tree, his back against its rough bark, and thought for a moment before speaking.

"Could you make me something to eat, Rem? You've got a sweet potato in that basket, right?"

"Something to eat... but this sweet potato..."

Rem glanced down at the lone, low-quality sweet potato in the basket and lowered her head bitterly.

"It's fine. I'm not hung up on appearances. As long as it tastes good, I'm very accepting, especially when it's made by Rem-chan."

Subaru clutched his stomach and managed a pitiful smile. "Just make it quick. I'm starving... I haven't eaten anything tonight..."

"...Yes! Please wait a moment, Subaru! Rem will have it ready right away!"

Rem hurried a short distance away so the smoke from the fire wouldn't blow in Subaru's face.

She took out the sweet potato and began preparing it, but they were out in the wilderness with no tools at all. She couldn't even find a stream to wash it in.

So no matter how much Rem wanted to make Subaru the perfect sweet potato dish, all she could do was roast it.

Subaru had Antares help start a fire. Rem carefully placed the sweet potato beside it and kept turning it, heating every side evenly so the skin would crisp and char without splitting open.

Roasting it just right was the only thing she could do well at that moment.

Subaru leaned against a tree nearby, and as he smelled the distinctive charred, cloyingly sweet aroma of roasted taro, his stomach betrayed him with a rumble and saliva kept gathering under his tongue.

After a while, the sweet potato was ready.

Rem stood up, carefully stamped out the fire, and hurried toward Subaru, holding the steaming sweet potato in both hands, its skin roasted crisp.

"That smells so good... I can't wait anymore. Bring it over already."

Hearing that, Rem wanted even more strongly to see Subaru smile with satisfaction. Her steps quickened without her realizing it-and then she grew too eager.

Rem's toe caught on a tree root protruding from the dirt.

"Ah-!"

"Are you okay?!" Subaru's worried voice rang out immediately, but the moment Rem realized she was falling, she jerked her head up, her eyes fixed on the sweet potato as it flew from her hands.

The steaming sweet potato hit the ground and rolled several times across the dirt. Its fragile skin struck stones and dead twigs and split open.

The flesh inside was exposed to the air, picking up dirt and bits of leaves. The farther it rolled, the dirtier and more misshapen it became, until it was a complete mess.

"...Ah."

What Rem had held back so desperately finally broke.

All this time, ever since standing outside Subaru's cabin and being ignored by the crowd, ever since dumping the food into the trash, ever since her father had thrown away her sweet potatoes one by one, ever since thinking I don't care if I die when the Witchbeasts surrounded her in the forest-she had been holding it in.

She told herself she couldn't cry. Useless as she was, she had no right to cry. To burst into tears after failing to do things properly-there had to be a limit to how much of a good-for-nothing she could be. But why? Why, even at a time like this-even when Subaru was hurt and hungry and only wanted a sweet potato-couldn't she manage something so small?

She couldn't control her tears at all.

Why... why can't Rem... do anything right...

Tears struck the ground one by one. She didn't dare look up at Subaru. She didn't dare let him see her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Subaru had trusted her so much. He had said he wanted to eat something she made. It was the only thing she could do for him tonight, and yet she couldn't even manage to bring him a roasted sweet potato.

Subaru had been about to go over and help Rem up, but when he saw her silently weeping eyes, he sprang into action.

"It fell on the ground! Rem-quick! Three-second rule! Three, two, one! Okay, safe!"

Rem looked up through tear-filled eyes. The next moment, her eyes flew wide.

The images overlapped in an instant: in the dim living room, her father overturned the bowl, and the steamed sweet potatoes fell one by one into the trash. She had spent hours making them, working from dusk until late at night, keeping watch over the stove. No one ate them, no one needed them, and they were thrown away just like that.

And now Subaru was crouching on the ground, picking up without hesitation the roasted sweet potato that had rolled into the dirt and become covered in soil and bits of leaves.

He broke it open, lowered his head, and took a big bite. The two images collided violently in Rem's mind.

One sweet potato had been thrown away, the other treasured. Both held her feelings, but one had fallen into darkness, while the other was held in someone's palms.

"Don't eat it! It's too dirty!"

Rem reached toward Subaru, trying to snatch the dirt-covered sweet potato away.

"Mmm! Delicious! So sweet and soft-" With his mouth full of sweet potato, Subaru's eyes curved into crescents. There wasn't a trace of pretense, only heartfelt satisfaction.

"Wait, the inside isn't dirty at all! Look, the dirt only stuck to the skin. It's still perfectly clean inside."

He showed Rem the bitten cross-section. The flesh steamed in the night air, giving off a charred, cloyingly sweet aroma, and there truly wasn't a speck of dirt on it.

"So, from the three perspectives of science, magic, and universal truth, this sweet potato is completely acceptable. The problem isn't that it fell."

"The problem is that it ran into a poor little sweet potato who doesn't even know the three-second rule. And her owner just happens to be so cute that I almost forgot to pick it up."

"...Three-second... rule?"

"That's right! Where I come from, if food falls on the ground, you can pick it up and eat it as long as it hasn't been more than three seconds-that's widely accepted folk wisdom! Though I'm not really sure what the scientific basis is."

"...That... doesn't make any sense, does it?"

"Don't take folk rules so seriously. Delicious, delicious..."

Rem said nothing more, watching Subaru eat the sweet potato bite by bite with a satisfied smile. In the end, only a small piece of charred, crispy skin remained, but as long as there was no dirt on it, he popped it into his mouth without the slightest hesitation. Then he brushed the crumbs from his hands and pressed his palms together.

"I'm finished. Thank you for the meal."