Chapter 9: Steam and Shame
Steam clung to the tiles like a second skin, thickening the air with the scent of lavender oil and salt. Water dripped from the brass spigot in a slow, rhythmic tap that was nearly drowned out by other, wetter sounds. Aqua’s palms were slick against the marble edge of the bathing pool, her knuckles white. Each thrust from Kazuma slammed her forward, a choked gasp escaping her lips that was half laugh, half sob.
“F-faster, you idiot! Or are you already—hnngh—out of stamina?” she managed, her voice trembling as much from the strain as from the act itself.
Kazuma’s grip on her hips tightened, his fingers leaving pale imprints on her damp skin. “Shut up and take it, useless goddess. This is what you bargained for.” His own breath came in short, sharp pulls. The heat of the water, the steam, the sheer obscene reality of it—it was better than any game he’d wasted his life on back home. Aqua’s back arched, a high-pitched whine building in her throat as she neared her peak. He knew the signs now. The tremble in her thighs. The way her divine energy seemed to prickle the air like ozone before a storm.
He never noticed the shifting shadow in the doorway, the slight creak of a floorboard masked by the slap of skin and the splash of water.
Megumin, wrapped in a towel, stood trembling, peeking through the doorway, watching Kazuma’s fingers dig into Aqua’s hips as he took her from behind—steam swirling around their entangled bodies. Her face burned hotter than any fireball as she whispered, “K-Kazuma…I could make you feel better than that useless goddess.” One of her hands trailed down her body, fingering herself, as she secretly continued to watch them have sex, wishing she was in Aqua’s place. The rough cotton of the towel scratched against her sensitized skin, a pathetic contrast to the slick, heated friction she imagined. Her own touch was frantic, clumsy, a poor imitation of what she witnessed. A sour jealousy coiled in her gut, tight and nauseating. It wasn’t fair. She’d blasted a hole in the Demon King’s fortress for him. All Aqua did was cry and purify bathwater.
Aqua’s climax hit with a silent shudder that suddenly broke into a sharp, ragged cry. Her body went rigid, then convulsed. A gush of fluid, clear and warm, mixed with the pool water, the divine scent of it momentarily overpowering the lavender. Kazuma groaned, his own release pulled from him by the violent clenching around him. He slumped over her back, breathing heavily into the damp tangle of her cerulean hair.
The silence that followed was broken only by their panting and the eternal drip of the tap.
It was Kazuma who sensed it first. A thief’s instinct for being watched. His head snapped up, eyes scanning the gloom beyond the archway. He saw a flicker of movement, a sliver of wide, crimson eye in the crack of the door.
“We have an audience,” he muttered, not moving from Aqua.
Aqua blinked, dazed and euphoric. “Huh? Where? Is it the mansion again? I told it to stop manifesting in the privy!”
“Not the mansion.” Kazuma’s voice took on a flat, dangerous calm. “Megumin. Get in here. Now.”
A frozen moment passed. The door edged open slowly. Megumin stood there, her towel clutched desperately to her chest, her face a mask of mortified defiance. Water droplets from her hair traced paths down her collarbone. “I… I was merely investigating a disturbance,” she said, her attempt at haughtiness ruined by the quiver in her voice. “The sounds were… concerning.”
“Bullshit,” Kazuma said, finally pulling away from Aqua with a soft, wet sound. He stood waist-deep in the water, not bothering to cover himself. “You were jerking off while you watched.”
Aqua’s eyes went wide. She turned, looking from Kazuma’s exhausted smirk to Megumin’s horrified expression. A slow, smug grin spread across her face. “Eww! You little pervert! Watching people? That’s so low-class! Even for a chuunibyou explosion-obsessed weirdo!”
“Silence, you water-headed harlot!” Megumin fired back, her embarrassment morphing into familiar, fiery anger. “You are the one who engages in… in… crude public displays! It is you who is low-class!”
“Public? This is our bathroom! In our mansion! You were the one creeping!”
Kazuma hoisted himself out of the pool, water sluicing off him. He grabbed a rough linen sheet, wrapping it around his waist. His mind was already working, calculating. Megumin was proud, volatile, and deeply insecure. He saw the raw want in her eyes before the shame had slammed down over it. This was a new variable. A dangerous, potentially useful one.
“Both of you, shut up,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He walked towards Megumin, who took a half-step back, her back hitting the doorframe. He stopped close enough that she could feel the heat still radiating from his skin. “You wanted to make me feel better, huh?”
Megumin’s breath hitched. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I… I merely stated a fact. My devotion would be… superior.”
“Your devotion,” Kazuma echoed softly. He reached out, not touching her, but tilting her chin up with a single finger. She flinched, but didn’t pull away. “You spent your one spell today on a training dummy because you thought the explosion shape looked like a phoenix. You can’t walk afterward. You’re a liability ninety percent of the time. What exactly are you offering?”
The words were brutal, precise. They carved through her pretenses. Her lower lip trembled. The towel felt like it was slipping. “I… I offer everything. My heart. My loyalty. It is not a transaction!”
“Everything in this world is a transaction,” Kazuma sighed, dropping his hand. “Aqua offers healing and a mouth. Darkness offers a damage sponge and a weird humiliation kink. You offer one earth-shattering kaboom and then a backpack. It’s not a great sales pitch.”
Tears welled in Megumin’s crimson eyes, not of sadness, but of furious, helpless frustration. She hated that he was right. Hated that Aqua, for all her stupidity, had a tangible, constant use. Hated that she was standing here, exposed in every way.
Aqua, watching from the pool, felt a pang of something unfamiliar. It wasn’t pity. It was more like territorial annoyance. “Kazuma, just tell her to go away. She’s killing the afterglow. And I’m hungry. The mansion better have produced some good steak after that.”
“See?” Kazuma said to Megumin, jerking a thumb at Aqua. “Useful. She knows the deal. What’s your deal, Megumin? What do you actually want?”
The question hung in the steam-choked air. Megumin’s pride warred with a yearning so deep it ached. She wanted to be seen. Not as a weapon, but as a woman. She wanted the rough weight of his hands on her, the grunted praises in her ear, the feeling of being needed beyond a single, destructive spell.
“I want,” she whispered, the fight draining out of her, leaving her small and shivering, “to not be an afterthought.”
Kazuma studied her for a long moment. The gritty realism of their situation settled over him. A haunted mansion that fed on gold and lust. A party of dysfunctional, broken people clinging together for survival. Megumin was another piece on the board, another need to manage. But her need was different. It wasn’t just physical. It was a vulnerability he could exploit, but one that could also backfire spectacularly.
“Fine,” he said, his voice low. “You want in? You follow the rules. My rules. You don’t get to judge. You don’t get to have hysterics. And you pull your weight when you can. Understood?”
A spark ignited in Megumin’s eyes, a fragile hope. She nodded, a quick, sharp motion.
“Good. Now get out. We’re done here.”
She fled, the towel barely staying closed, her bare feet slapping against the cool hallway stones.
Aqua pouted, sloshing water. “Why’d you go and encourage her? Now she’s going to be even more weird and clingy!”
Kazuma walked back to the pool’s edge, looking down at the goddess. The enchanted flames in the sconces guttered, casting jumping shadows. “She’s a strategic asset. A desperate one. Desperate people are predictable.” He knelt, his expression unreadable. “And she’s right about one thing.”
“What?”
“You are a useless goddess.” He said it without malice, a simple statement of fact. “But you’re my useless goddess. Remember the deal. Now, let’s go see if the pervert mansion made us that steak.”
He offered her a hand to help her out. She took it, grumbling, but her fingers interlaced with his with a practiced ease. As they walked, dripping, toward the kitchen, the mansion seemed to sigh around them, the very walls absorbing the charged, unresolved energy of the night, storing it up like kindling for a later, hotter fire.
The kitchen floor was cold under their bare feet, a stark contrast to the bathhouse steam. Kazuma’s damp sheet clung to his thighs as he scanned the dark pantry. Aqua shivered beside him, her hair dripping a puddle onto the scarred wooden boards. “It better be sirloin,” she mumbled, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Or at least something with a good marbling. I earned it.”
“You earned a headache,” Kazuma muttered, but his stomach growled in agreement.
A faint, savory scent reached them then. It cut through the usual smells of dust and old herbs—rich, metallic, seared. It came from the great oak table in the center of the kitchen. They approached. There, on a simple clay platter, sat a single steak. It was thick-cut, perfectly medium-rare, juices pooling around it in a sanguine halo. No herbs, no garnish. Just meat. The mansion’s payment.
“Took its time,” Kazuma said, picking up the platter. The heat from the meat was real, comforting.
Aqua’s eyes lit up with pure, avaricious delight. “Gimme! I need the protein for my divine complexion!” She reached for it, but Kazuma held it aloft.
“Hold on. We share. And we get forks. We’re not animals.”
“Speak for yourself,” a voice said from the doorway.
Megumin stood there. She had changed into her usual black and red garb, but her hair was still damp at the ends. Her face was carefully composed into a mask of detached indifference, but her eyes were fixed on the steak with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. She held two forks, their tines glinting in the low light. “I anticipated your need for utensils. As a valuable party member should.”
Kazuma lowered the platter. He looked from the forks in her hand to her tense posture. This was her play. A bid for usefulness, for inclusion. Aqua scowled.
“Oh, so now you’re a maid? Get lost, creep.”
“The only creep here is the one who monetizes her bodily functions for room and board,” Megumin shot back, her voice brittle. She stepped forward and placed the forks on the table with a sharp click. “I merely ensure the logistics are handled. A wizard’s mind is suited for strategy, after all.”
Kazuma said nothing. He pulled out a chair and sat, pulling the platter to him. He took one fork, handed the other to Aqua without looking. He cut a piece of the steak. It yielded with a soft sound. He speared it, brought it to his mouth. The flavor was profound, almost shocking in its intensity—mineral-rich, tender, satisfying a deep cellular need. The mansion always knew.
Aqua hastily cut her own huge piece, stuffing it in her cheeks. “Mmf! Good! Better than that dried jerky we had yesterday.”
Megumin remained standing, a paces away. She watched them eat. The only sound was the soft clink of forks on clay and the quiet, humiliating rumble of her own stomach. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Kazuma chewed slowly. He swallowed. He cut another piece, slightly smaller. He didn’t look up. “Sit down.”
Megumin’s breath caught. Aqua stopped chewing. “Hey! Why does she get—”
“Sit,” Kazuma repeated, his tone flat. “You brought the forks. That’s worth something.”
Megumin slid into the chair opposite him, back rigid. Kazuma pushed the piece of steak across the table toward her, using the side of his fork. It sat there, steaming slightly on the bare wood, not on the platter. A separate thing. An offering. A test.
She stared at it. Her pride screamed to refuse, to storm out. Her empty stomach clenched. The memory of his hands on Aqua’s hips flashed behind her eyes, followed by the blunt, transactional truth of his words in the bath. Everything in this world is a transaction.
She picked up her fork. She ate the piece of meat. It was the best thing she had ever tasted.
Aqua rolled her eyes, attacking her own portion with renewed vigor. “Whatever. Just don’t get any ideas. The bed’s crowded enough.”
Kazuma ate another piece, his eyes on Megumin. She was trying not to cry, her chewing mechanical. The victory was hollow and tasted of blood and salt. This was the management of desperate people. This was the party. The mansion’s walls seemed to lean in, drinking in the quiet, the resentment, the fragile, new thread of compliance.
The mansion’s walls seemed to lean in, drinking in the quiet, the resentment, the fragile, new thread of compliance. Silence stretched, broken only by the sound of chewing. Kazuma finished his last bite, the rich meat settling in his gut like a stone. He watched Megumin. She held herself very still, staring at the empty space on the table where her piece of steak had been.
Aqua let out a dramatic sigh, pushing the clean platter away. “Fine. That’s done. I’m going to bed. Don’t let the chuuni bother you, Kazuma. Her brain’s all gunpowder and static.” She stood, her chair scraping loud in the quiet room.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kazuma said, not taking his eyes off Megumin. Aqua shuffled out, her footsteps fading down the hall.
The kitchen felt larger and colder without her. The enchanted hearth-fire had dimmed to embers, casting long, trembling shadows. Megumin finally looked up, meeting his gaze. The defiance was gone, burned away by a hollowed-out exhaustion. “What now?” she asked, her voice small.
Kazuma leaned back in his chair. The wood creaked under his weight. “Now you prove it. That you’re not an afterthought.”
“How?” The word was barely audible.
He didn’t answer with words. He just stood, the sheet around his waist loose. He walked to the kitchen entrance and looked down the dark corridor leading to the bedrooms. Then he glanced back at her over his shoulder, a single, wordless command.
Understanding flooded her face, chased by a wave of pure panic. This was the transaction. The fork, the steak, the permission to stay—they were just the down payment. She pushed herself up from the table, her legs unsteady. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat of fear and a dark, shameful thrill. This was what she’d wanted, watching from the doorway. Wasn’t it?
She followed him.
The master bedroom was dark, the heavy velvet drapes shut against the night. Aqua was already a shapeless lump under the thick covers, her breathing slow and even. Kazuma didn’t go to the bed. He stopped in the center of the room, near a worn rug. He turned to face her, his features masked in shadow.
“Well?” he said.
Her fingers felt numb. The clasps of her cloak were suddenly impossible. She fumbled, the metal clicking softly. The heavy black fabric pooled at her feet. Her tunic and shorts followed, each garment a surrender. The night air was cold on her skin, raising goosebumps. She stood before him, exposed, trying not to cover herself with her arms.
He closed the distance. His hands weren’t gentle. They were assessing. One gripped her hip, the other came up to roughly cup her breast. She flinched at the contact, a sharp inhale catching in her throat. His skin was warm, calloused from weapon handling. There was no tenderness in his touch, only a blunt, practical curiosity.
“You’re shaking,” he observed, his breath against her ear.
“I am not,” she lied, her voice trembling.
He didn’t call her on it. He guided her down onto the rug. The wool was scratchy against her back. She stared up at the dark ceiling, at the faint outline of the canopy above the bed. This was nothing like her fantasies. Those had drama, lightning, declarations. This was quiet, awkward, and painfully real. The weight of him settled over her, a solid, unfamiliar pressure.
He didn’t kiss her. He just looked down at her, his face unreadable in the gloom. “Last chance to be an afterthought,” he murmured.
It was the cruelest thing he could have said. It stripped the last pretense of romance away. This was about utility. About belonging. She gave a tiny, sharp nod, closing her eyes tightly.
He entered her with a single, slow push. It wasn’t violent, but it was inexorable. It hurt. A sharp, burning stretch that made her gasp and dig her nails into his shoulders. He waited, not moving, letting her body adjust to the invasion. The pain crested, then ebbed into a deep, full ache.
He began to move. The rhythm was methodical, a steady, driving piston. There was no art to it, just function. His breathing grew heavier near her ear. Her own breath hitched in time with his thrusts. The initial shock melted into a strange, numb awareness. The physical reality of him inside her, the heat, the friction, the smell of sweat and linen and sex. It was overwhelming. It was nothing.
She opened her eyes. She could see the bed, the outline of Aqua sleeping just feet away. The absurdity of it crashed over her. She was being fucked on the floor while the goddess she envied slept. A choked sound escaped her, something between a laugh and a sob.
Kazuma misinterpreted it. He thrust harder, his pace increasing. “Quiet,” he grunted.
She bit down on her lip, the metallic taste of blood blooming in her mouth. She focused on that small pain. It was hers. The pleasure was distant, a vague building pressure unrelated to the mechanics of the act. Her mind splintered. Part of her catalogued the sensations—the scrape of the rug, the ache in her hips. Another part recited the incantation for Explosion, a comforting, familiar rhythm of syllables in her head.
His movements became jerky, his control slipping. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, stifling a low groan. The warmth that flooded into her was sudden, impersonal. He shuddered, then went still, his full weight pressing her into the scratchy wool.
He rolled off immediately, lying beside her on the rug, staring at the ceiling. His breathing slowly evened out. Megumin lay frozen, feeling the slow, sticky leak between her thighs. The cold of the floor began to seep into her bones. She felt emptied. Not in a cathartic way, but in a way that left her hollow and used.
After a minute, Kazuma sat up. He ran a hand through his hair. “Alright,” he said, as if concluding a business meeting. He stood, adjusted the sheet around his waist, and walked toward the bed.
He didn’t look back at her.
Megumin lay there in the dark. The silence was absolute, broken only by Aqua’s soft snores and the pounding of her own heart. She pulled her knees to her chest. The physical evidence of the transaction cooled on her skin. A single, hot tear tracked its way down her temple and into the rough fibers of the rug. From the bed, she heard the rustle of covers, the creak of the frame as Kazuma settled in beside Aqua.
She was inside the room now. But she had never felt more alone. The mansion’s hunger, momentarily sated, settled into a deep, watchful quiet around her.