#sorry i made a cute concept to counter w the sadness of the canon storyline only to make it sad again it's my curse

[liquidstar]

Oh the timeloop factor is absolutely imperative to this not just becoming a feel-good au where Kenichi and Naoko know their son is okay. Even though it's still partly that. Because even if it seems good at first, this follows canon so he's absolutely not fucking okay.

I set the reunion during the timeskip, where there are no loops, but that doesn't mean Subaru isn't absolutely traumatized. All the great fluff concepts Tumblr user Sufferu gave are awesome, but there's another side of the coin here.

Subaru having panic attacks should be nothing new to the Natsukis (he'd have them every day before school) but they were never quite like... This. It's beyond social anxiety, it's trauma. Seeing their son break down so violently out of no where would terrify them- what the fuck happened??? Why does NO ONE in the Emilia camp have an explanation? They were with him the whole time, and he CERTAINLY wasn't like this when he left home, so when did this happen? Why won't he tell them?

And then there's the self harm aspect of it too. We know from Beako in arc 6 that he'd started cutting over the timeskip but self harming behavior has been present in him since arc 2. I honestly think he'd do his best to hide that from his parents, he never wanted to show how much he was struggling to them to begin with. He'd probably think he was breaking their hearts, he'd probably regress to the same guilt he felt back on earth.

But at the same time, he did learn a lesson from the trial. That his parents love him. So maybe he'd still be more willing to talk to them. Maybe not about everything. But his feelings at least. If anything it's possible he comes out of the timeskip feeling even better than in the canon timeline!

(And on a tangential note, if all his friends start really liking his dad, some of his insecurities around living up to him might return too- maybe he'd withdraw a little before eventually everyone kinda reassures him that they knew Subaru first, that Subaru is their friend that they care about, and SUBARU is the one with amazing accomplishments under his belt. Kind of a reversal of his childhood. Subaru is not Natsuki Kenichi's son, Kenichi is Natsuki Subaru's father.)

Anyway. The timeskip eventually ends. Arc 5 happens. And 6 and so forth (but I don't imagine Naoko and Kenichi would come to the watchtower, they might come to Vollachia out of worry)

If they accompany everyone to Priestella, they may even go on that walk with Subaru when he savepoints. They'd have to see his reactions to RBD. Imagine you're having a normal pleasant conversation with your son one moment and then, out of absolutely NOWHERE, he starts screaming and completely breaking down, inconsolably so. And then he's in a hurry to leave. What just happened?

And God forbid he has to watch his parents die at any point. He's seen his friends die so many times, even Roswaal points out that he no longer feels grief at their deaths, just shock and anger. But no grief. Because it can be undone.

But watching his parents die would be... Different. He loves everyone in the Emilia camp so much, I don't want to understate that, but these are his PARENTS! The people who raised him, the people who seem stronger than anyone to him. The safest people to be around, the ones who protect him. His parents.

How would he feel seeing the unreachable goal that is his father actually die? The man he saw as his role model, something to always try and live up to, the strongest man in the world to him. And he just dies, as easily as anyone else, and Subaru has to watch. It doesn't feel like it's possible for THE Natsuki Kenichi to die, come on, it's a joke. Please wake up. Please save the day like usual. Please.

Or Naoko? The person that he calls "the woman he respects most," the one who told him that it's not how you start but how it ends. And it ends for her painfully, bloody, all the love and bubbliness she possessed entirely gone. All the pride and reverence he holds for her has become a corpse. He's scared, he wants to cry to her, but there's no answer. He's just a kid and he wants his mom.

And the worst thing would be if either or BOTH of them died protecting him. This can be undone, he can reset. But he would have preferred dying before them anyway. There's no reality in which they should die for him. He can reset. They shouldn't waste their lives when he'll reset.

But in timelines where he does die before them... He's watching them watch their son die. He knows the impossible grief he's forcing on them, just like in the second trial. Is there any way you can unsee that? On either side? How can he do anything but cling to them and sorrowfully apologize after. And they'll never understand where this came from.

He'd feel guilty. The guilt he had back on earth would come back tenfold. Why did they have to come here too? Why did any version of them have to suffer these deaths? Why did they have to look for him? They should leave. They should hate him. He shouldn't be their son. He shouldn't have been born. Then maybe they'd be living their happy lives on earth, and none of this would have happened. If he wasn't so useless as a son he could have taken better care of them. He'll always be that same failure. He's so sorry.

I'm imagining a rz au where Satella accidentally isekais Kenichi (While he's holding Naoko's hand or something) and then she's like "ah fuck got the wrong guy again hold on." And a few minutes later she grabs Subaru, and the rest of arcs 1-4 play out exactly the same from his perspective. Meanwhile his parents are off in some other part of the country, living more mundane fantasy lives after the initial "what's going on where are we is that guy a lizard" shock. And naturally they're worried about their son being by himself on earth, wondering where they went, barely getting by all alone etc. until one day they hear about the amazing new knight who defeated the Great Rabbit and White Whale, Natsuki Subaru! And they're like what the fuck