Okay, so, here’s a list of what the characters in BTZ II are regularly doing. Like, just for reference:
Taking time out of their schedules to play with him literally every single morning. Like, Subaru sees it as training, but while Wilhelm, Ferris, and Julius aren’t skimping out on actually teaching him things they really do mainly see it as a way to get him to have a bit of fun.
They’re not the only ones, either. Other people don’t really make a habit on joining in on those lessons every day, but Ricardo keeps having to remind the entire Iron Fang to PLEASE not tell Subaru about any upcoming missions, because he keeps trying to sneak out with them and he’s kind of losing his mind a little. Or any other sensitive information that they keep fucking telling him because they want to impress this starry-eyes kid with tales of their awesome field missions.
The other mercenaries kind of want Subaru to sneak out with them. Just for fun. Ricardo will strangle them with his own two hands if he ever figures out who, exactly, keeps telling Subaru about their early-morning departures.
“AND STOP GIVING HIM IDEAS.”
Going out of their way to make his favorite meals whenever he seems sad. Kararagian food isn’t exactly cheap in Lugunica, either, and they’re not even waiting for him to ask for it. They just see that he might be getting homesick and silently decide to go ahead and make him something nice for dinner that night. Their budget can take the slight hit, it’s fine.
Painstakingly translating an entire series of trashy romance novels into I-script so that he’s got something actually fun that he can practice reading with. They’re not even good. Otto hates every minute of it but he does it anyway, and then sneaks them all into his room so that he doesn’t have to admit to it.
Putting up with that fucking rabbit.
On paper he can only keep the rabbit if Regulus remains on his best behavior, but in reality everyone keeps scrambling to cover up for all of his absolutely god-awful misdeeds because they don’t want to make Subaru sad. This ranges from rushing to find a replacement for the very expensive carpet he pissed on while staring Julius directly in the eye to coming up with some bogus reason as to why All Their Emergency Rations need to be replaced after that fucking rabbit chewed all of them up.
Allowing Subaru to keep a former Witch Cultist as a pet at all, frankly. That’s kind of insane behavior on their part.
Willingly sleeping with him when he’s sick, and then not letting anyone tease him about dragging them into his bed. Julius still gets shit for that one.
He’s not the only person who’s ended up acting as Subaru’s pillow for a period of time. Wilhelm thinks back on it fondly now, but at the time he had no idea wtf he was supposed to do and nearly had a heart attack.
Blatantly attempting to get Subaru to call them some variant of Big Brother/Sister. This applies to Garfiel, Mimi, Reinhard, and several others. It’s as pathetic as it sounds.
Getting Subaru souvenirs whenever they go on missions. Dolls, fancy clothes, fabric, fun-looking fairytales, new toys, sweets, all sorts of things.
Dragging Subaru out to operas, parties, theater performances, etc. He’s getting popular!
Like I can’t stress this enough: all these people ARE making an active effort to show Subaru genuine affection. The fact that it keeps going so catastrophically wrong is really only like…70% their fault.
