Felt If (Re:Zero)

Chapter 12: Next Step As a Candidate

Subaru was currently holed up in the Royal capital inside one of the waiting rooms. After getting kicked out of the room where the Royal Selection was taking place, the boy was left to wait with Grassis and Flam.

Not having anything to do, Subaru decided to chat with the young maids in order to kill time. "Have you ever worked for other people as maids before?"

Flam answered by silently shaking her head. However, her sister was more inclined to give a verbal response. "No, this is our first time working as maids."

"Really? You're both naturals if that's the case. I would've never guessed you never did maid work before."

Grassis blushed at the compliment, and shuffled her feet around nervously. "Th-Thank you, Subaru-sama."

Flam on the other hand crossed her arms and looked away hotly. She still refused to utter a single word to the boy.

Subaru noticed Flam's spicy attitude and couldn't help but feel guilty. She must be mad at him for making the decision to speak up like that and put himself in danger. Well, that's what he assumed anyways considering that's what Grassis was upset about. He never had a good read on the other sister.

"So..." Subaru started, trying to think of something to say to brighten the young girl's mood. "What do you guys think of the capital? I think this personifies exactly how a castle should be in any fantasy RPG."

To that, Flam briefly put a hold on her pouty front before staring at Subaru with a puzzled look. "RPG...?"

Grassis on the other hand widened her eyes in realization, and excitedly raised her hand, trying to steal Subaru's attention away from Flam. "Was that one of the 'game genres' from your home country that you told me about?"

Subaru nodded. "That's right! You really have a good memory, Grassis. If this was a contest, you'd definitely get full points for that."

Grassis smiled as she happily ate up the boy's praise.

Flam didn't share her sister's happy demeanor. She narrowed her eyes before wrapping her arms around her sister, pulling her back in a very territorial way. Afterwards, she gave Subaru a rather mean glare.

Grassis widened her eyes, and immediately tried to silently console her clearly upset sister. The two didn't say anything to one another but it looked like they were having some kind of full blown argument through eye contact alone.

Subaru could understand that behavior. Poor Flam is probably upset that her sister keeps answering all of his questions, and stealing the spotlight. It's possible that she is just feeling left out. He'll have to come up with something so they both could feel included.

Regardless, he had to do something to ease this tension. "You know what? Let's move on from me asking all the questions. Is there anything you two wanna ask?"

Flam was still in her pouty mood to say anything. It was Grassis that got the ball rolling. "I remember that you wanted to go with Reinhard to see if you had any affinities with magic. Did you ever end up doing that?"

The question immediately caused the boy to grimace. "Y-Yeah... We did that some time ago..."

Grassis's eyes gleamed with anticipation. "How did it go, Subaru-sama?"

Subaru looked away from the little bundle of positivity, being too ashamed to look her in the eyes. "I'm still a bit lost on most of the terms they used, but I have an affinity to Yin magic..."

"Yin magic?" Grassis asked excitedly. "Yin magic is a rare one! That's amazing!"

"Eheheh... A-About that..." Subaru took a deep breath before continuing. "After they appraised me, the people there also said my gate was underdeveloped, and that I shouldn't even try using magic. Apparently if I did, I'd end up breaking my gate and suffer from something called mana poisoning."