Chapter 10: The Aftermath
The cold from the floor had seeped into her marrow. Megumin lay on the rug, every muscle locked tight, staring at the dark canopy above the bed. The ache between her legs was a dull, persistent throb, a physical ledger of the transaction. Her mind was a white noise of failed incantations and shattered self-images. She barely registered the sticky chill drying on her thighs.
A rustle of linen. A sigh that was more of a grunt.
“You reek of sweat and regret.”
Aqua’s voice was thick with sleep, but laced with its usual crystalline disdain. It cut through the silence like a shard of glass. Megumin didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
“I’m serious. It’s wafting over here. It’s interrupting my dream about being pampered by loyal followers.” Another rustle. A shift of weight. “Get in the bed before I purify you out of pity. The floor is undignified.”
Pity. The word was a spark on tinder. Megumin’s fingers curled into the rough wool of the rug. She would not be pitied by this water-brained deity. She would rather lie here and freeze.
The mattress creaked, a different weight moving. Kazuma. He hadn’t spoken a word since he’d gotten off her and into bed. Now, she heard the slow, deliberate shuffle of bodies. A space was being made. Not with gentleness, but with the economical adjustment of someone making room for another piece of luggage.
“Come on,” Kazuma said, his voice flat, stripped of any emotion. “She won’t shut up otherwise. And we need you functional tomorrow. Can’t have you stiff and useless.”
Functional. She was a tool to be maintained. The logic was irrefutable, and it crushed what little defiance she had left. Moving felt like cracking ice over a deep lake. She pushed herself up, her body protesting. The room spun briefly. She gripped the edge of the mattress to steady herself, her hands encountering the lush, cool velvet of the coverlet. A world away from the scratchy rug.
She climbed in. The space between them was a narrow canyon of warm linen. She slid into it, her back to Kazuma, facing the edge of the bed. She was hyper-aware of every point of contact: her shoulder blades near, but not touching, his back; her calves inches from Aqua’s legs. The bed was enormous, but they were all crammed into the middle, a nucleus of shared heat and unspoken rules.
Aqua wriggled, her back pressing momentarily against Megumin’s. “Ugh, you’re cold. Don’t hog the covers, explosion-gremlin.” She yanked a portion of the duvet, wrapping it more tightly around herself.
Kazuma was already settling back into sleep, his breathing slowing. He had issued the order, the space was made, his responsibility ended. The indifference was a vacuum, sucking the air from her lungs.
Megumin lay rigid, staring at the intricate pattern of the velvet bed curtain she was nearly nose-to-nose with. The scent here was different. Expensive perfume, yes, and old whiskey from the decanter on the nightstand. But underneath it was the scent of them. Of Kazuma’s skin, of Aqua’s faintly floral, clean smell. And now, she realized with a fresh wave of shame, of her own sweat and sex. She was contaminating their space. An interloper.
She didn’t sleep. Minutes bled into hours, marked by the slow dance of shadows from the dying chandelier and the rhythmic sounds of the other two breathing. Aqua’s breaths were soft, untroubled. Kazuma’s were deeper, occasionally catching in a quiet snore.
Her mind replayed the moments on the rug in stark, degrading fragments. The pressure. The pain. The distant look in his eyes as he moved above her, already somewhere else. She had wanted to be seen, to be needed. She had been assessed, utilized, and put aside. A strategic asset. The transaction was complete, and the currency felt counterfeit.
A heavy warmth settled on her hip.
She froze. It was Kazuma’s arm. In his sleep, he had rolled slightly, his hand coming to rest on her. It wasn’t a caress. It was a possessive, unconscious weight. His fingers splayed over the thin fabric of her underwear, his palm hot through the material.
A torrent of conflicting sensations erupted in her chest. Revulsion. A sharp, traitorous spike of warmth. A craving for that touch to mean something it didn’t. Tears, hot and silent, welled up and spilled over, soaking into the pillow. She didn’t dare move. She feared if she stirred, he would wake and remove it, and the awful, empty cold would be worse than this confusing heat.
Aqua stirred on the other side. “Mmf. Kazuma. You’re squeezing my hair.” A sleepy mumble. She shifted, and in doing so, her leg brushed against Megumin’s.
It was too much. The proximity, the warmth, the weight of the arm, the accidental touch. Megumin felt a sob building in her throat, a raw, ugly thing. She clamped her jaw shut, swallowing it down until it felt like she was choking.
The weight on her hip was an anchor, tethering her to the shameful reality of the sheets. His breathing remained a steady, untroubled rhythm against the back of her neck. Each exhale warmed a patch of her skin she could not escape.
She could feel the calluses on his palm through the thin cotton. Her mind fractured, one part screaming to shove him away, another part pleading for his fingers to move, to acknowledge her. The tears kept coming, silent and efficient, a leak in a dam she hadn't known was so fragile. Her body was a statue, carved from regret and want.
Then he shifted.
It wasn't a conscious move. It was a sleep-deep adjustment, a seeking of warmth. His arm tightened, his hand dragging across her hipbone. The momentum pulled her, rolling her stiff form backward until her spine slotted against his chest.
He pulled her closer.
The full length of him pressed against her back, solid and warm. The vague shape of him against her thighs was no longer vague. Her breath hitched, trapped in her throat. This was different from the rug. This was an unconscious claiming, a intimacy granted by sleep he would likely never give while awake.
“Oh, come on,” Aqua grumbled into her pillow, her voice muffled. She’d felt the shift. “Now you’re hogging him. And the covers. You’re worse than a bedbug.”
Megumin couldn’t speak. His heat was seeping into the cold places inside her, a brutal comfort. One of his legs slid between hers, a heavy, undeniable presence. She was enveloped. Caged. A small, broken sound finally escaped her lips, a whimper she instantly despised.
“Ugh, are you crying?” Aqua sighed, a long-suffering exhalation. She flopped onto her back, staring at the canopy. “Look, it’s not that big a deal. It’s just Kazuma. He’s like a furnace with limbs. You get used to it.”
“I’m not…” Megumin started, her voice a cracked whisper. She couldn’t finish the lie. The words dissolved.
Kazuma’s face nuzzled into the crook of her neck, his nose pressing against her pulse point. A low, contented sigh ghosted over her skin. He smelled of soap and the faint, acrid hint of mana from her earlier, failed spell. In his sleep, he drew her in even tighter, his arm a band across her ribs, his hand splayed open over her sternum.
She could feel his heartbeat against her shoulder blade. A slow, steady drum. Her own was a frantic bird trapped behind her ribs, right under his palm. Her earlier resolve, her rigid anger, began to soften at the edges, melting into a confusing pool of need. This was a transaction, too. A theft of comfort. She decided she would let him steal it.
Aqua was quiet for a moment. Then, with a voice less sharp, almost thoughtful, she said, “He talks in his sleep sometimes. Stupid stuff. About konbini snacks and video games.” A pause. “Never about people.”
Megulin closed her eyes. The tears slowed. The heat of him was a drug, smoothing out the sharp pain of the rug’s memory, blurring it into something bearable. She allowed her head to relax back against his shoulder. Her hand, trapped under the covers, came up and rested, fingertips only, on the back of his hand where it lay on her chest. A connection. A secret.
Her fingertips rested on the back of his hand, a tentative claim in the dark. His skin was warm, the bones and tendons shifting faintly under her touch as he breathed. She held perfectly still, afraid any movement would break the spell of his sleeping embrace.
Aqua’s breathing had evened out again into soft, shallow puffs. She was asleep, or pretending to be. The silence felt heavier for it, a thick blanket smothering the room. Kazuma’s exhale warmed the nape of Megumin’s neck, a constant, rhythmic tide.
The hollow ache inside her began to shift, transforming from a void of shame into something more urgent, more dangerous. It was a slow heat, coiling in her belly. His body was a solid wall of comfort she had been denied, and now it was welded to her back. Her earlier tears had dried tight on her cheeks.
She remembered his hands on her hips on the rug. The clinical detachment. This was different. This was stolen, and that made it hers alone. A fierce, protective jealousy curled through her ribs. She pressed her spine harder against his chest, a silent challenge to the sleeping goddess inches away.
Her fingers on his hand grew bolder. She traced the line of his knuckles, then the rough edge of a thumbnail. Calluses marked his palm, scars from adventuring she hadn’t earned a place in. Her heart hammered against his resting hand. She wanted to lace her fingers through his, but dared not.
“Stop fidgeting,” Aqua mumbled into her pillow, voice slurred. “I can feel you thinking. It’s loud.”
Megumin’s hand froze. “I am not.”
“You are. It’s all ‘woe is me’ and ‘his skin is warm.’ Pathetic.” Aqua shifted, turning to face Megumin’s back. “You reek of yearning. It’s gross.”
The criticism, coming from the dark, stripped her bare. Rage, clean and sharp, cut through the confused warmth. “And you reek of cheap wine and arrogance. Go back to sleep.”
A beat of silence. Then a low, haughty laugh. “At least I’m in the bed because I want to be, not because someone took pity on a used-up little mage.”
The words were a physical blow. Megumin flinched, her body jerking against Kazuma’s. He grunted in his sleep, his arm tightening reflexively around her waist, pulling her closer. The action was a contradiction, a shield and a cage all at once.
“He doesn’t want you,” Aqua whispered, her voice cutting through the intimate space between them. “Not like you want him. You’re a convenience. A warm body when I’m too tired. You saw. On the rug. That’s all it is.”
Megumin’s breath came in short, sharp gasps. The truth of it was a knife twisted in a fresh wound. Her fingers, still resting on Kazuma’s hand, curled into a tight fist. The urge to turn and claw Aqua’s perfect face was a living thing in her throat.
But the greater part of her was still fused to the man behind her. His heat was real. His hold was real. Aqua’s words were just air. She focused on the sensation of his thigh between hers, the solid reality of his chest against her back. A bitter, defiant resolve hardened within her.
If she was a convenience, she would be a demanding one.
Slowly, deliberately, she unclenched her fist. She flattened her palm against the back of his hand. Then she slid her hand out from under it, breaking the contact. Aqua made a soft, satisfied sound.
Megumin ignored her. She moved her hand down, under the duvet, past the waistband of her own thin underwear. The fabric was still damp from earlier. She touched herself, a quick, furtive brush. A spark, dulled by exhaustion and hurt, flickered.
Then she moved her hand again. Backwards, over the dip of her own hip. Her knuckles brushed the linen of his sleeping pants. She inched her fingers upwards, over the coarse fabric. Her heart threatened to crack her ribs.
She found his wrist first. The pulse there was slow and steady. She followed the line of his forearm, the muscle firm even in sleep. Her touch was feather-light, a ghost moving in the shared heat of the bed. Past his elbow. Further.
Aqua had gone utterly still. Megumin could feel the weight of her attention, a silent, shocked pressure from the other side of the bed.
Megumin’s fingertips reached the hem of his thin shirt, riding up his side. She slipped her hand beneath it. The skin of his flank was shockingly hot, smooth over taut muscle. She heard his breathing hitch, just once. A sleep-disturbed sound.
She pressed her palm flat against his side, feeling the expansion of his ribs. This was him. Not the hero, not the cynical NEET, not Aqua’s plaything. Just a warm, sleeping man. Her claim.
Her other hand, trapped under his arm, moved. She pushed backwards, shifting her hips until she felt him more fully. A low sound, almost a groan, vibrated in his chest. It wasn’t for her. It was a sleep sound. But she took it.
She took it, and she kept her hand on his skin under his shirt, and she did not look at Aqua. The silence now was total, a battleground she had just won with a single, daring incursion. Her face was wet again, but this time with a fierce, quiet triumph.
His hand, the one that had been on her chest, slid downward in his sleep. It came to rest low on her abdomen, his fingers splaying possessively over the base of her stomach. His thumb brushed the top of her pubic bone.
Megumin’s breath caught. Every nerve ending focused on that point of contact. Aqua let out a small, choked sound that might have been a sob or a laugh. Megumin didn’t care. She closed her eyes.
Slowly, she began to move her thumb in a small, slow circle against the skin of his side, under his shirt. A secret touch. A secret victory.
A secret victory. It was hollow and warm in equal measure.
Her thumb traced that same small circle on his skin, a pointless, persistent rhythm. The heat of him was a brand. Her own arousal, a slick, shameful presence between her thighs, felt like a betrayal of her anger. She was holding a grenade with the pin pulled, pretending it was a trophy. Aqua’s breathing had changed. It was no longer the slow rhythm of sleep but something deliberate and held.
“You’re pathetic,” Aqua whispered, the words sharp as needles in the dark.
Megumin didn’t reply. She pressed her hips back, a fractional movement, feeling him stir against her. The physical reaction was impersonal, a biological echo. It still sent a jolt through her. His hand on her abdomen shifted, his fingers flexing, digging in slightly as if testing her solidity.
“He’s asleep,” Aqua hissed. “He’d be disgusted if he knew.”
“Be quiet,” Megumin breathed back, her own voice barely audible.
“Make me.”
Kazuma mumbled something then, a slurry of nonsense words. “...the loot drop rate is trash…” His hand slid from her abdomen, a slow, dragging descent. Megumin froze. Her own hand, under his shirt, stopped its circling.
He was still asleep. This was just sleep’s mindless topography. His palm smoothed over the curve of her hip, his fingers curling loosely around the bone. It was a heavier, more definitive weight. Aqua let out a soft, strained gasp from the other side of her. Megumin’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage of bone.
His hand moved lower.
It journeyed over the plane of her hip, the heel of his palm dragging across the thin cotton of her underwear. The fabric was damp. He didn’t pause. His fingers slipped beneath the elastic band, rough skin meeting the softness of her lower belly. She stopped breathing. The world condensed to that point of contact, to the slight scratch of his calluses, to the terrifying, electric warmth of his sleep-warm hand on her skin.
Aqua was silent. The judgment from before had evaporated, replaced by a watchful, furious stillness.
His fingertips dipped lower, tracing the line where her thigh met her body. A casual, exploratory touch. Megumin’s entire body went rigid, then slack. A wave of heat, utterly divorced from her will, flushed through her. She bit her lip, hard, the copper taste of blood filling her mouth to stifle a sound.
“Kazuma,” she whispered, a plea and a warning.
He sighed in his sleep, his face nuzzling deeper into her hair. His fingers didn’t retreat. They rested there, a claim staked in the dark. Possession without intent. It was the most intimate thing she had ever experienced, and it meant absolutely nothing.
“See?” Aqua’s voice was thin, strained. It lacked its usual victorious tone. “He doesn’t even know it’s you.”
The truth of it was a splinter of ice in her gut. She saw the rug again, the distant ceiling, his mechanical rhythm. This was the same. Her body was just geography to him, sleeping or awake. The tears came back, hot and silent, streaming into the pillow. Yet she didn’t move his hand. She arched her back, just slightly, pressing herself into his touch.
His fingers flexed in response, a sleep-clumsy kneading of her flesh. It hurt, a little. She welcomed the pain. It was a real sensation, a focal point. His thumb brushed a lower, more specific point, and a sharp gasp ripped from her throat before she could stop it.
The sound did it.
Kazuma’s breathing hitched. The even rhythm broke. She felt a subtle tightening in the muscles of his arm around her ribs, a coiling awareness. He was surfacing. His hand went still, then slowly withdrew from her underwear. It came to rest on the bed between them, a closed fist.
“...Megumin?” His voice was thick, blurred with sleep and confusion.
She couldn’t speak. She stared at the velvet curtain, her body screaming with the sudden absence of his touch. Aqua held her breath.
“Why are you…?” He started, then stopped. He was piecing it together—the feel of her back against his chest, the scent of her hair, the dampness on his fingertips. His body went very still behind her. Not a lover’s stillness. A thief caught in a light. “What are you doing in the bed?”
The question was so perfectly, devastatingly Kazuma. Clinical. Pragmatic. Devoid of the emotional tempest swirling between the three of them. It shattered the fragile fantasy she’d built in the dark.
“You told her to get in,” Aqua said, her voice falsely bright. “You said she smelled and the floor was undignified. Don’t you remember?”
A long pause. She felt him processing. His arm was still around her, but it was tense now, a cage of bone and muscle. “Right,” he said, the word final. “Functional.”
He didn’t move away. He didn’t pull his arm back. He just lay there, rigid, clearly awake now. The warmth between them curdled into a thick, uncomfortable awareness. His fist, on the bed between them, slowly unclenched.
Megumin found her voice. It was a cracked, broken thing. “I was cold.”
“Yeah,” he said. Nothing more.
The silence that followed was absolute. It was worse than the arguing. It was a living thing, swollen with everything unsaid. Aqua shifted, turning onto her back again, putting physical space between herself and the tension. She stared at the canopy, her jaw tight.
Kazuma’s breathing was no longer the rhythm of sleep. It was controlled, deliberate. He was waiting. For her to move, to speak, to give him an excuse to roll away. She wouldn’t give it to him. She kept her body pressed against his, a prisoner refusing release.
His hand, the one that had been on her, lifted from the mattress. He rubbed his face, a rough, tired sound. “My hand is sticky,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone.
Aqua snorted, a brittle, ugly sound. “Not mine this time.”
The vulgarity hung in the air. Megumin flinched. Kazuma let out a long, weary breath. His arm finally loosened from around her ribs. He was going to pull away. The final rejection.
Before he could, Megumin moved. She rolled over within his slackening grip, facing him. The movement was sudden, desperate. In the gloom, she could just make out the outline of his face, his eyes reflecting the faintest light. They were open, watching her, flat and unreadable.
She looked at him, her crimson eye gleaming with a wet, defiant fire. “You touched me,” she said, the accusation a trembling wire.
He blinked, his expression not changing. “I was asleep.”
“Your hand was inside my clothes.”
He stared at her. A flicker of something—irritation, maybe a shadow of shame—crossed his features. “You were in the bed. I was asleep. These things happen.” He shrugged, the movement jostling her. “Don’t like it, go back to the rug.”
The cruelty was so casual it stole the air from her lungs. It was the truth, stripped bare and weaponized. She had no ground to stand on. She had invited herself into this space, into this transaction of warmth.
From behind her, Aqua propped herself up on an elbow. Her hair was a messy cascade over her shoulder. “See? He doesn’t care. He’s just a horny NEET with sticky fingers.” Her gaze flicked to Megumin. “Literally.”
Kazuma’s eyes shifted to Aqua, a flash of genuine anger in them. “Shut up. This is your fault.”
“My fault?” Aqua’s voice rose. “I didn’t tell her to climb in here and start groping you!”
“You told her to get in the bed!”
“Because you told me to tell her!”
Their bickering was a familiar shield. It boxed her out, reduced her to a spectator in her own humiliation. The heat of their argument filled the space where her anguish had been. She watched Kazuma’s face, the way his annoyance at Aqua animated it, made him present. He was never that present with her.
His hand moved lower.
He didn’t touch her. He brought his own hand up between their faces, looking at his fingers in the dim light. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “It is sticky,” he said, his voice dropping, losing its argumentative edge, becoming observational. His eyes met Megumin’s again, a colder curiosity in them now. “Why?”
The question was a trap. It offered no compassion, only a demand for data. Aqua fell silent, watching.
Megumin’s mouth was dry. She could lie. She could say it was sweat, or the residue from a potion. She held his gaze, the defiance in her crystallizing into something harder. “You know why.”
He held her look for a long moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, he brought his fingertips to his own lips. He touched his tongue to them, a quick, testing dab. His expression didn’t change. He tasted her. He was analyzing the sample.
A violent, full-body shudder wracked Megumin. Shame, anger, and a terrifying, undeniable thrill crashed together in her chest. Aqua made a sound of pure disgust.
“Ugh! You’re so gross!”
Kazuma ignored her. He was looking at Megumin, his head tilted slightly. As if she were a puzzle. “Functional,” he repeated, the word taking on a darker, new meaning.
He didn’t move to touch her again. He didn’t pull her closer. He just looked at her, his face an unreadable mask in the shadows. The grenade in her chest was ticking now, loud and undeniable. She had wanted a reaction. She had gotten one. It was nothing like she had imagined. It was colder. More real.
His hand came down, not on her, but on the bed between them. He placed it palm up. An invitation. Or a challenge.
“Go on, then,” he said, his voice quiet. “Since you’re here. Since we’re all awake.”