Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wandering out into the hallway, Megumin shot a glance over to the wall-mounted clock at the other end of the hall. Based on what she knew of his usual routine, Kazuma would probably be back in around forty-five minutes, give or take a minute or so. That seemed like more than enough time for Megumin to do everything she'd need to do in advance, which, now that she thought about it, wasn't really all that much at all.

Hearing a soft meow to her left, the dark haired girl snapped out of her thoughts and gazed in the direction of the sound's origin, spotting her small black cat trudging down the hallway, having seemingly just woken up from the evening nap Megumin had seen her taking an hour or so prior. She crouched down to her level and carefully scooped the cat into her arms, with Chomusuke immediately clambering up onto the top of her head, only causing the short haired girl some mild discomfort on the way up.

After taking a few seconds to affectionately rub her finger against the feline's chin, Megumin began to make her way over to the phone, focusing her attention back onto her original task. Ignoring the phone itself for the time being, she set her sights onto the hefty phonebook, only giving each page a cursory glance as she hastily flipped through the book. Once she reached the first blank page, Megumin propped the book open before immediately realising that she'd gone one too far and quickly flipped back to amend her mistake.

Scanning over the final page of the book, containing the most recent contacts that Megumin and her parents had noted down, she quickly found the name she had been looking for, being the second most recent addition to the page. She squinted her eyes as she focused on pressing the girl's number into the phone's keypad.

Realistically, she probably could have just tried to log onto the ancient family computer - if it somehow still worked - or even asked Kazuma for his phone and searched up what she was looking for online. Yet, on the other hand, surely getting input from someone who definitely seemed like she was well versed in such things would be much more helpful than some random online reviews. Or, at least, Megumin hoped so.

"...Hello?" Once the call was finally picked up, Nerimaki's voice rang out through the speaker.

"Hey, Nerimaki, it's Megumin," She responded, a little worried that the other girl might not have been able to recognise her from her voice alone. They'd only really properly hung out once before, after all.

"Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten that you had my number for a second there," The girl on the other end let out a small laugh before continuing, "So, anyway, what's up? Something you wanna talk about?".

"Hmm… Well, yeah, sorta," Megumin put a finger to her chin as she considered how to properly word her question, "Back when we were all at your parents' diner, you were saying something about how you knew a lot of the other cafes and diners in the area, right?".

"Eh? Oh," Nerimaki seemed almost surprised for a split second, before she spoke again after a short pause, "It's not like I go around reviewing every single place that opens up nearby, but I guess that I do like to check out new places from time to time if they catch my attention. My dad says that it's good that I'm learning to 'study the competition', but it's really nothing like that, I swear."

"Study the competition… I see," The short haired girl awkwardly replied, not really sure what to say to her.

"Never mind that, actually," The conversation then veered back to Megumin's original question, "But, yeah, I guess I could help you out with recommending some good places to try out. If that's what you were gonna ask me, of course."

"Mhm, that's… pretty much exactly what I was gonna ask you," Megumin admitted, leaning forward to uncomfortably rest against the far too small table, "I just kinda got the impression that you'd have insight on this sort of thing, honestly."

"Not the first time I've been told something like that," She snickered in amusement, "So, what's this for, anyway? Are you gonna invite everyone to go out as a group again?".

"Well, uhm, you see-".

"'Cause if you are, I won't be able to go with you guys," Nerimaki cut in, sounding a little disappointed, "I'm going to visit my grandparents up North from tomorrow 'til Friday, so I obviously won't be around."

"I, uh, I wasn't planning anything like that, actually," She clarified, bending her knee to make her current position feel slightly less awkward.

"Oh? What is it for then?" The girl on the other end questioned her, the intrigue in her voice was as clear as day, "You doing something with your little sister again?".

For a moment, she considered just going with that story. It had been practically laid out for her, and she wouldn't have to go through the embarrassing process of potentially explaining her relationship to the other girl. But, on the other hand…

Megumin wanted to brag about Kazuma. She really, really wanted to brag about him. Especially to the other girls in her class, she couldn't help it.

When Megumin next spoke, her voice took on the soft and girly tone that she saved exclusively for Kazuma - or for whenever she would talk about Kazuma - her cheeks tinting red at the thought alone. "Uhm, well…I was actually wondering if you knew of anywhere that would be good for a… a d-d-date...".

There was a short period of uncomfortable silence before she heard a gasp come from the other end of the call as she shyly placed her hand over her rapidly beating heart, soon hearing Nerimaki's voice once more. "Huh? So you two are dating? I knew it!".

"Y-y-you knew!?" Megumin squeaked out in bewilderment. The other girl had never even met Kazuma before. Actually, she probably didn't even know who he was. "How would you even be able to know? We never-".

"Oh, come on," Nerimaki interrupted her, speaking as if she was explaining the obvious, "With the way you and her always act around each other, I knew that there had to be something going on behind the scenes between you two."

The girl's head was spinning in confusion for a few seconds before she latched onto something strange that she'd heard. "H-hold on, 'her'?" She almost physically recoiled back in surprise, "What do you mean, 'her'?".

"Huh…?" Came Nerimaki's confused rebuttal, "I mean Yunyun… that is who you're talking about, right? Who else would it be?".

"It's not Yunyun! I have a b-boyfriend!" Megumin yelped, momentarily forgetting that Komekko was trying to sleep in the next room, "He…! He's a high schooler, so you p-probably wouldn't know him, but…".

"Really?" Her voice sounded as unconvinced as possible, "I'll admit, I'm finding that a little hard to believe, Megumin."

"I'm not lying! Why would I make something like this up?" The crimson eyed girl insisted, her face flaring up in indignation.

"Fine, fine, I'll believe you," Nerimaki diffused the poor girl on the other end, "And I'll even tell you all about a great place that you can go to on that totally real date with your totally real boyfriend."

"I'll ignore that last part," Megumin mumbled into the phone, "And… thank you."

Luckily for Kazuma, there would still be one or two more buses passing through before they stopped for the night. Unfortunately though, due to the fact that things were already starting to slow down in preparation for the end of the schedule, he'd have to wait at least fifteen more minutes until the next one would finally show up.

By the time the bus finally did arrive, around two minutes late at nine forty-seven, any shred of excitement over his brand new revelation had all but completely dried up, overtaken by general annoyance and an overall feeling of grogginess. He shoved the last bite of his onigiri into his mouth and slung his bag back onto his shoulder before he ambled his way towards the recently opened bus door.

After fumbling around with his wallet for a short moment, Kazuma paid the driver and slumped down onto one of the window seats near the middle of the bus. Peering around at the other seats, he could only make out four other figures, five if he included the driver, on the bus with him. It was barren, even compared to his usual bus.

Getting himself into the closest possible thing to a comfortable position that he could achieve, Kazuma eventually managed to drift off to sleep in his seat. Sure, taking a nap on the but was a pretty big risk, for multiple reasons, but he was confident in his ability to wake up just before they reached his stop. It was a skill that he'd been honing for the past half a year.

He cut it close, of course, his stop being no more than twelve seconds away by the time he woke up, but he nonetheless made it off, stepping out into the frigid late evening breeze. The walk back to Megumin's house was as uneventful as usual, but it at least gave him some time to think things over with a slightly less drowsy headspace. Passing by the road to his old apartment, he sent a text over to Darkness, already steeling himself for Aqua's inevitable blowback once she finally learned about his idea.

Before long, Kazuma finally reached Megumin's house, almost twenty minutes behind when he would usually arrive back. Upon opening the door and stepping inside, the sound of his entrance was immediately noticed, if the brisk footsteps he could hear coming down the hall were any indication.

"Kazuma, Kazuma? Is that you?" He heard Megumin whisper-shout, her head popping out from the far end of the hallway a moment later, "Good. You're back, finally."

The emerald eyed teen took his bag off from his shoulder as he kicked off his shoes, "Yeah, I ended up missing my bus, so I had to take a later one instead."

"You missed your bus?" The look of relief that had previously appeared when she'd first seen him slowly morphed into an unimpressed frown, mumbling under her breath, "And to think I was actually starting to think that something had happened…".

"Oh, what's that?" Kazuma raised an eyebrow and smirked at her, "Were you starting to get all worried about me just because I got back a little later than usual?".

In response to his teasing, Megumin puffed out her cheeks and pouted at him, sharply turning her head away after a few seconds. "O-of course not," She retorted, the fidgeting of her hands being a pretty obvious sign that she was lying, "I sh-should've expected you to be disorganised enough to miss your bus."

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say," The taller of the two exhaled from the corner of his mouth, "Just so you know, it wasn't even my fault that I missed it, anyway."

"Huh? What do you mean?" her head snapped back towards Kazuma, the pout having disappeared entirely from her features, "What happened?".

He let out a loud sigh, quickly transitioning it into a yawn, as he trudged past Megumin, in the direction of the kitchen. "It's… I'll explain it later. There are some more important matter for me to attend to right now."

"Sorry that there aren't any leftovers," Megumin apologetically twiddled her thumbs as she peered out from behind Kazuma, "I assumed that you'd be eating at work again today, so I didn't really bother with making more than what me and Komekko needed."

"It's fine. Admittedly, it has been a pretty regular occurrence over the past week or so," The exhausted boy replied as he adjusted the heat on the stovetop, "Plus, I mean, I'm just making packet ramen. Sadly, I really can't be bothered to make anything that requires actual effort at the moment."

"I didn't even know that we'd bought that," She commented, stepping around him to take a closer look at the contents of the stovetop, "Uhm, I know what you just said and all, but Is that really it? Aren't you gonna add anything else to it?".

"Eh," Kazuma seemed to consider it for a second before stretching his arms into the air and slowly shaking his head, "Too much effort. It tastes good enough with just the flavour packet, so I don't mind."

"You really are lazy, aren't you?" The dark haired girl complained, her tone completely lacking any sort of bite, "Well, you're the one eating it, not me, so I guess there's no point in me complaining about it."

Before Kazuma was able to give a proper comeback, he felt his phone vibrate in this pocket. Pulling it out and checking the lock screen, he saw the notification of a new text from Darkness.

"Tch," He rolled his eyes in annoyance as he unlocked his phone and read through the message, his shoulders deflating in a wave of sheer disappointment, "I'm not even surprised anymore."

"Hmm?" Megumin got in close and clung onto him in an attempt to get a look at his phone, "What is it, Kazuma?".

"Gah!" The teen leaned away on impulse, caught off guard by her sudden closeness, "I actually wanted to talk to Aqua for once, about something important. So, of course she'd decide to go all nocturnal again."

"Nocturnal?" She repeated, still loosely holding on to her boyfriend, "So, what? She's started sleeping in during the day now?".

"Close enough. She's been asleep since four pm, apparently," Kazuma frowned as he typed out a reply, "I doubt I'll be able to talk with her until tomorrow morning, in that case."

Megumin sent him a sceptical look, "Usually you'd be happy about not having to talk to Aqua, is whatever this is really that important?".

"Yeah, pretty important, I'd say. It's about the new place. More specifically, how we're gonna pay for it," The brunette explained, putting his hands on the girl's shoulders to gently push her out of his personal space.

That certainly caught Megumin's interest. "Oh? So you finally have an idea of how to make up for the extra rent costs? Tell me what it is!".

Kazuma paused for a moment before flashing her a smug smile and announcing his grand plan.

"I'm gonna get Aqua a job!".

"So you're certain that she's gonna be okay with it?" Megumin questioned, for what must have been the fourth time within the last ten minutes.

Kazuma swallowed his mouthful of ramen before talking, "She will if she wants somewhere to live. I've let her get off easy for far too long now."

"And you're sure that she will actually go?" She leaned forward in her seat, "Like, won't she just… pretend to go to work and flunk off instead, or something?".

"I told you," The older teen replied, "I've got a solution for that, too."

"Oh, you do?" Her eyes lit up in anticipation, "Go on then."

"Easy. I'll just have her work at the café with me, so that I can make sure she's actually doing her job."

Megumin looked over at him, impressed, for a second before her brows furrowed in concern, "And has Chris agreed to hiring Aqua? Or, does she even know about this at all?".

"...Not yet, no," He averted his eyes, a sheepish frown on his face, "But she did mention earlier that she's been thinking about getting a new hire, so she should at least be a little open to the idea, in some shape or form."

"I'd like to completely disagree with you on that, but with how considerate she always is with you, I can't help but agree with you," Megumin grumbled, resting her chin in her palms, "Seriously, she's way too lenient with you. I don't like it."

Kazuma snorted as he curled his rather pathetic looking dinner around his chopsticks, "You don't like it…? Hmm? Are you getting jealous of her just because she's nice to me sometimes?".

"..." To his surprise, a warm blush quickly spread across her face, with her shamefully nodding as she tried to make herself look as small as possible, "I can't help but get jealous. So… don't even th-think about getting any ideas about other girls, y-you hear me?".

"Yeah, y-yeah, I get it," He felt the atmosphere suddenly shift around them, he hadn't actually been expecting her to answer honestly, "L-luckily, I'm the type of guy who sticks to his word on stuff like this, so you don't have to worry about anything that."

Megumin gave him a sceptical look, yet smiled anyway, satisfied for now with his answer. "I'm not sure how much I should trust a pervert when it comes to something like this, but I believe you."

"Oi, pervert and cheater are two completely different things," Pointing an index finger at Megumin, he explained, "I may admire the female form from afar, but I'll stick to touching you exclusively."

"How romantic," His girlfriend rolled her eyes, unimpressed. Almost all hints of her previous bashfulness had completely left her face. "And I'll ignore the part about admiring the female form for your own sake."

Kazuma suppressed a grimace. It wasn't his fault that he had absolutely no idea how to act now that he had a girlfriend. Whenever he'd reached this stage of the relationship in one of the dating sims that he'd played in the past, Kazuma had already started skipping through most of the dialogue in an attempt to reach the girl's M-rated CGs - or even just the alternate costume dress-up ones - as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, such a strategy could not be applied to Megumin, or any real life relationship, for that matter. Was it too late for him to swap her in for the body pillow he'd left back at his parents' house?

Pulling him from his internal dialogue, she poked his cheek with one of her fingers, "I get the impression that you're thinking something bad about me."

He took one last bite of his dinner, in deep thought, until he suddenly swivelled round to the girl next to him and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Megumin, we need to skip straight to your M-rated CGs, now."

Her face instantly became an overpowering shade of crimson, though he couldn't quite tell if it was from embarrassment or anger.

"Kazumaaa!".

"Stupid pervert. Trashy Trashzuma. 'M-rated CGs', seriously? I can't believe that guy sometimes."

"Are you done now? That was like twenty minutes ago," Kazuma asked as he stared down the human-sized lump under his covers, mumbling to itself.

Hearing his voice, a small head of dark brown hair, accompanied by a blushing countenance, popped out from the blanket. "It's not my fault that you then started talking about having me wear 'alternate costumes' afterwards."

"Oh?" An excited look spread across his face, "Are you considering the idea? Personally, I'd start off with a maid outfit, but if you don't wanna spend any money, I'm sure that your gym clothes could proba-".

"N-no way!" Megumin squeaked, covering her ears with her hands, "Sexual harassment is a real crime, you know!?".

Kazuma sighed as he watched her squirm around uncomfortably, "Jeez, calm down, I was just joking… partially."

"Uuurrggh," An over the top whining sound came from under the blankets, "Why did I ever let you get away with things like this?".

"Stop exaggerating, I didn't even say anything that bad. There are much more perverted things that I could've said," He waved off her concerns as he slowly slid into the other side of the bed, "If it really bothered you that much, you wouldn't be sleeping here, anyway."

The drawn out silence that followed his accusation made it pretty clear to him that he'd hit the nail directly on the head. "...It's comfy," He eventually heard a voice whisper out from a few inches away.

"So, what?" Kazuma rolled over onto his side, almost flinching as he came face to face with a pair of bright red eyes, "I-is this a regular thing now?".

"It doesn't have to be every day, b-but I don't see why not," Megumin softly responded, restlessly playing with her hands as she maintained eye contact, "U-unless you don't want to, o-of course…".

"I never said that…" He mumbled, trying to maintain his composure in front of her. This was the third time they'd done this now, no need for him to get so uneasy, right?

Truthfully, sleeping in the same bed as her without doing anything beyond, at most, making out had definitely left his 'little Kazuma' very pent up, but, considering his options, he'd much rather her be there than not, no matter how high and dry it would leave him. At the end of the day, at least he'd finally get the chance to 'take care of things' tomorrow morning while Megumin and Komekko were out.

Even so, he still felt himself temporarily tense up as Megumin shuffled herself closer to him. Doing his best to fight back his body's natural desire to hesitate and let her make the first move, he stretched out his hands and shakily brought them out towards her. Megumin let out a stilted breath as she suddenly felt his hands on her waist, pulling her in.

She felt her body relax once she was fully encircled within Kazuma's arms, letting out another - much more relaxed this time - breath. Using the combined strength of both of her legs and one of her hands, she gently rolled herself and Kazuma over on the bed, so that the boy was now laying on his back with her on top of him.

"O-oi!" He stuttered out, more so out of surprise than nervousness, "What are you…? …Never mind."

Megumin gazed into his eyes and slowly brought her arms up to wrap them around the boy's upper torso, giving him an affectionate squeeze. From there, she let go of him and instead used her hands to prop herself up, moving her own face up so that it was hovering just above his own. Her body shivered fleetingly as she felt Kazuma's breath against her face.

Neither of them said anything. There was nothing for them really to say. Or, at least, nothing that felt right for either of them to say at that moment. After a short moment of hesitation, Megumin pressed on with her original intentions, tilting her head so that her lips were parallel to Kazuma's right cheek.

Once she was confident that she was in position, she progressed forward, her lips pressing against her boyfriend's cheek for a few drawn out seconds. Around the four second mark, Megumin pulled her face away, smiling to herself. After a short pause, she moved forwards once more, instead kissing his other cheek. She wasn't really sure if she kept her lips pressed against his cheek for longer that time, but it certainly felt like it to her. Once again, she pulled back, looking down at the uncomposed boy staring back up at her.

"It was a lot less embarrassing to do it like that," She quietly remarked, moving her arms back to their previous position as she snuggled back into his chest.

"Is… is there really that much of a difference?" Kazuma scrunched up his face, one of the hands that was on her waist gliding up to comb through Megumin's hair, a sensation that she had been missing up until that point.

"Mhm~" Megumin sighed out, letting her body go limp on top of her new human mattress. Kazuma wasn't quite sure if the noise was supposed to have been an affirmative response to his question or just a relaxed exhale, but eventually just settled onto the conclusion that it was probably a mix of both.

From there, they remained silent for a while, a long while, simply just laying in the other's arms. It ended up being so long, in fact, that when Megumin finally whispered out Kazuma's name, he was already lightly snoring, his hand remaining stationary and entangled within her hair.

"You really were tired, weren't you?" Megumin mumbled, bringing up a hand to lovingly brush the boy's hair out of his face, allowing her hand to linger on his cheek for a short while, stroking his surprisingly soft skin. Shifting her body around, she shuffled herself upwards and craned her neck to leave one final kiss on his cheek, allowing her lips to linger there for much longer than either of the previous times.

"Good night, Kazuma…" She whispered close to his ear before she buried herself back into his chest, running her fingers through the back of his chilly hair as she waited for sleep to take her, too.

"Uwwww… It's not even ten am yet…" Megumin whined to herself as she covered her ears with her hands.

The frustrated shouting coming from the other room was no surprise to her. Truthfully, she'd kinda expected it to have been much louder than it actually was. Either Kazuma wasn't as mad as she had anticipated, or the walls of her house were more soundproof than she had originally thought.

Megumin had made the wise decision of camping out in the kitchen for the time being. Not just so she'd be able to avoid the disaster of a phone call between Kazuma and Aqua, but also as an opportunity to brew up a cup of coffee. Hopefully, it would be a good enough bargaining chip to save herself just in case she happened to get caught up in the wrath of Kazuma's inevitable foul mood.

It wasn't that she thought Kazuma wouldn't be able to eventually convince Aqua; she knew that he had his ways of dealing with her by this point. It was more the case of Aqua not giving in without an ample amount of kicking and screaming, something the brown haired teen had extensively warned her about throughout the previous evening.

"And… there we go," Megumin said to herself as she poured a splash of milk into the dark brown liquid, smiling proudly at what she hoped was a job well done. She didn't really have any experience when it came to making coffee - not being much of a coffee drinker herself, despite what she'd like others to believe - but it wasn't exactly a difficult drink to make, either.

With nothing else to do, and an instinctual feeling that the call would hopefully be ending any time now, she exited the kitchen, slowly wandering the short distance between the kitchen and the front room. As she pushed the door ever so slightly ajar, she very quickly took note of the almost comically exaggerated scowl on Kazuma's face and the sound of childish wailing, which was somehow still audible even when the phone wasn't on speakerphone.

Yep, exactly how Kazuma had told her it would go.

"It's not like you have anything better to be doing anyway," He growled into the phone, having either not noticed Megumin or being too pissed off to acknowledge her presence in any real way, letting out a loud sigh as he tried to reason with the girl on the other end, "Look, like I told you earlier, it's not like you'd be trusted in the kitchen anyway, so all you'd probably have to do is take and deliver people's orders."

He paused as he waited for Aqua to finish speaking, though this time it luckily wasn't loud enough for Megumin to be able to make out what she was saying. She was hoping that she could take that as a positive sign.

Kazuma continued, still visibly enraged, but seemingly trying his hardest to be civil with his roommate, "Oh, come on. You are at least capable of doing that much, aren't you?".

It wasn't by much, but there was definitely an increase in volume between Aqua's last reply and her current one, Kazuma's comment might have challenged her pride just a smidge too much.

"You're wha-? Just like that? Okay, and what exactly am I supposed to tell Chris, later?" A vein appeared as clear as day on his forehead, "'Tell her whatever, I don't care'? Yeah, I can fuckin' tell!". Kazuma took a deep, irritated breath as Aqua gave her own snarky comeback, before she followed up with a clearly exaggerated yawn. "I get it. Fine, whatever," He tried one final time to end the call on a fairly peaceful note, "But we will be continuing this later, whether you like it or not, understand? Good.".

Megumin winced, fidgeting with the sleeves of her beige turtleneck, as the green eyed boy hung up the call and angrily tossed his phone onto the couch with an aggravated groan, raking his hands through his hair. Carefully, she silently made her way over to him, holding the mug of coffee out in front of her as if it was some kind of offering, with what she hoped was a comforting smile on her face.

"...Thaaanks," He huffed as he took the drink from her, forcing a strained smile onto his face for a single second.

"No problem," Megumin sat herself down beside him, sheepishly glancing away from him, "So, uhm… how did it go?".

Kazuma scowled at nothing in particular as he took his first sip, "As expected."

"Well," The short haired girl spoke up, hopefully trying to lift his spirits, "You said that you'd talk more about it with her later, right? So do you think she'll come around eventually?".

"Oh, no, she definitely will," His response sounded almost casual for a second, though his brows didn't take long to re-crease, "I'm just annoyed that she's trying to drag it out for as long as she can."

Leaning forward, Megumin tilted her head to get a better look at his face, "Isn't that a good thing that she's just dragging it out though? It's better than a flat out no."

"Obviously not," He slumped back into the couch cushions, sipping on his coffee, "A good thing would be if she stopped being so difficult all the time and just said yes straight away. Instead, she cried about it for ten minutes and then decided that she was gonna go back to bed and give me an answer 'some other time'."

"I used to think that you were exaggerating about how she could act sometimes," She let out a small snicker, being pleasantly surprised when she heard a small sound of amusement in response, "But, seriously, what are you gonna do now? Are you just gonna have to wait until she wakes up again?".

"Nope," Kazuma huffed, "I'll be going to work in… let's see, uhm… eleven minutes. I was hoping that I'd have more to tell chief about, but of course Aqua couldn't help but ruin that for me."

"Eleven minutes?" The shorter teen shot up from her seat, "You didn't tell me that you were taking the midday shift. Shouldn't you be a bit more urgent? You've already had a shower today, right?".

"Oi, quit it," An exasperated look marred his face as he leaned even further back into the couch, "It's fine, I told you, I still have eleven, well, ten minutes until I have to leave."

"Fine…" She mumbled out as she collapsed back into the couch, much closer to him than before, "I guess I have no reason to think that you'd be late… Maybe."

A snarky 'oh thanks' lingered on Kazuma's tongue for a moment before he glanced over at her, seeing that her gaze was already focused on him, her hands less than an inch away from his free hand. She tilted her head to the slightest degree once noticed him staring, smiling as his eyes moved back up to look at hers.

With minimal effort required, Megumin's hands closed the final distance, coming to rest on top of his own. Her head followed, leaning against his shoulder as she rested her body against his. Kazuma clicked his tongue and looked away, still very much angry, but otherwise said nothing about it, allowing her to stay as she was.

Eventually after around five minutes of brooding in complete silence, Kazuma finally spoke up.

"The moment Aqua gets back, I'm definitely gonna kill her."

"Haah…how… haah… ruthless of him to make a woman cry like that," Darkness whined to herself as she leaned against the doorframe, looking far too excited about the tearful shouting coming from the other room.

Darkness had made the - in her opinion - wise decision of camping out in the hallway just outside Aqua's room for the time being, her ear pressed up against the wooden door. Between the loud crying and complaining, and the faint shouting that she could occasionally hear from her phone's speaker, her head was quickly being filled up with fantasy after fantasy, most of which involved her taking the verbal abuse in Aqua's stead.

Though, surprisingly, there were multiple moments throughout the call where Aqua's whining almost completely faded away, and Kazuma's voice became much too quiet for her to make out. When Kazuma had first told her about his plan to get the unemployed girl a job the previous night, she admittedly hadn't had much faith that Aqua would ever agree. Yet, she had still been somewhat swayed by his insistence that she'd 'come around eventually'. Darkness was starting to believe that he had been completely right from the beginning.

After a short while of losing herself in her thoughts, she suddenly realised that she could no longer hear Aqua's exaggerated cries or Kazuma's enraged yelling, instead being replaced by the low sound of the blue haired girl muttering to herself on the other side of the door. The call had ended without her even realising it.

Trying her best to clear her previously dirty mind, Darkness politely knocked on the girl's door, receiving a peppy-sounding 'come in!' from its resident.

"Hey, Aqua," She greeted the older girl as she opened the door, spotting her lazily sprawled out underneath her messy covers. Aqua's personally assigned maid - or babysitter, as some of the house's other maids had begun to refer to her as outside of working hours - probably hadn't even had the time to make her bed yet that day, the poor woman.

"Ah, oh, Darkness," The blue eyed girl tried and failed to hide her slight disappointment, "I thought that it was my maid, oopsie!"

The rich girl twiddled with her ponytail as she took in the sight in front of her with an indeterminable expression, "Well, actually, I don't think that she's even here at the moment. Apparently, you sent her out to go get something for you around an hour ago."

"Huh," Was all she said, with not a single thing about her suggesting that she'd just spent the past ten minutes crying her eyes out, "Oh well, if she's not back yet, then I'll be going to bed now. Good night Darkness."

"G-good night?" The blonde stuttered out, almost in disbelief at how casually the girl had completely dismissed her after what had just happened. She really was starting to wonder how Kazuma managed to understand her thought process at all.

"So what was it that you were saying to me about this place becoming more popular, yesterday, chief?" Kazuma blankly stared over at the only other person in the café, his cheek sinking deeper into the back of his hand as he propped his elbows up by the cash register.

"Yeah, yeah. Very clever, helper," Chris rolled her eyes as her vision darted over to the front window of the café, "And how many people were you expecting to see in a café at ten fifty-seven am on a Monday?".

"At least one," He shrugged, "Are Monday mornings here always like this?".

"Do you somehow not remember the multiple people who've already come in today? You don't have to be so dramatic about this, helper," The silver haired teen returned her gaze back towards him, "And, anyway, I thought you'd be happy. It's less work for you, isn't it?".

"Never said that I wasn't happy about this," Kazuma replied, not really feeling any strong desire to prolong their current conversation.

His boss most likely felt the same, if the sudden yet comfortable silence between them was an indicator of anything, as they spent the next minute or so with not much to do, the brunette resigning himself to discreetly checking through his phone behind the cash register. Nothing new from Darkness regarding Aqua, still.

Although, that did remind him of something relevant.

"Hey, chief," Kazuma slipped his phone back into his pocket and called out to the older girl, reeling in her attention, "I was thinking about what you were saying last night, y'know, about getting a new hire, and I actually think it could be a pretty beneficial idea."

"Is that so?" She asked him, her eyebrows raised, "I thought that you were sorta against it yesterday, what changed?".

The bored teen scratched at the back of his neck. "I wouldn't really say that I was against it, just… sceptical, yeah," He lied, for the most part, "But I was properly considering it and I just thought that, well, it might be pretty helpful to have an extra person out front here at all times, don't you think?".

"Alright, you're being far too specific and positive about this," Chris interjected, equal parts disappointed and intrigued, "What's the ulterior motive, here, helper? You may as well just get straight to the point."

"Fine," Kazuma groaned, already starting to doubt that she would actually say yes, "Chief, I… I need you to hire Aqua, please!".

The eyes of the girl in front of him widened to an almost impressive degree, "A-Aqu-?".

The sound of the café door slowly opening suddenly cut Chris off before she could say anything further, signalling their first customer in what had probably been around fifteen minutes by that point. Kazuma, though, was much more focused on who had just entered the café.

Standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking as she was already heavily contemplating running away, was a middle school girl of around average height. Kazuma almost instantly recognised her dark brown hair, falling onto her shoulders in its signature pigtails, not to mention the… other parts of her that caught his interest.

He made eye contact with the pair of crimson red eyes, contact that was broken almost instantly as the other person nervously looked away for a few moments before her eyes shot back to meet his. From there, her gaze wandered down to Kazuma's clothes, noticing the uniform, before rapidly moving back to his face and then taking a quick glance over at Chris, taking note of her similar uniform, before finally ending up with her vision glued to the floor in front of her.

Her eyes completed a few more laps of that circuit before she finally noticed the confused - maybe even concerned - look that had slowly been forming on Kazuma's face, causing the poor girl to recoil back in shock.

"K-k-kazuma?" Yunyun spluttered out, gaze now firmly locked onto her shoes.

"Yo," He gave her a welcoming wave of his hand from the front counter.

Before either of them could say anything further, Chris butted in with questions of her own, "Oh? Hey, do you two know each other? And your name is Yunyun, is it? That's good to know, you never did tell me."

"Wait, what?" Kazuma's shot darted back and forth between the two girls, causing Yunyun to further shrink in on herself, "You've met her before, too, chief?".

"Yep, sorta. I've noticed her coming here pretty much daily for the past few days, usually in the mornings. She barely says anything though, it's pretty mysterious," She explained in hushed whispers to her curious employee, who nodded in understanding, "I told you that this place was becoming more popular with younger people, didn't I?".

"...Sure," He gave his boss an awkward look and a raised eyebrow before turning over to the girl in the doorway, giving her what he hoped came across as a reassuring smile, "Hey, Yunyun, are you gonna come inside, or…?"

"Oh, y-yes! O-of course!" Yunyun finally spoke up, unintentionally slamming the door behind her as she scurried into the café, "Uhm, Kazuma, do you… w-work here?".

Kazuma tugged at his uniform with one hand while he blankly pointed at himself with the other. "Well, yeah," He responded, stating the obvious, "That's why I'm wearing this,". He quickly found himself regretting the snarky response as Yunyun's glassy eyes shot down to the floor in shame. Being the only customer in the entire café was probably nerve-wracking enough for her as is.

"So!" Chris clapped her hands together and sent Yunyun a wide smile, clearly trying to ease the girl's nerves, "How about we take your order now, Yunyun? You can go up to helper over there whenever you've decided on what you want. He's very friendly, I promise."

Personally, Kazuma wouldn't particularly describe himself as 'very friendly', but he wisely decided not to argue with her about it at that moment.

The middle schooler looked around for a few seconds, fiddling with her ribbons in discomfort, before trudging up to the front desk. She took a deep breath before she began to incoherently babble under her breath, her face lighting up in humiliation.

It was at that moment that someone new stepped in, his entrance being far less awkward than Yunyun's had been. Kazuma vaguely recognised the middle-aged man; he'd definitely seen him in the café at least once or twice before. At the arrival of a new patron, the mentally overwhelmed girl almost expertly blended herself into the background, a stark contrast from her previous role as the unfortunate centre of attention for both workers.

As Chris enthusiastically struck up a conversation with the man, apparently knowing him a lot better than Kazuma did, the brunette spared a glance over at Yunyun. If he wasn't so familiar with how the girl always acted, he probably would've gotten a little bit annoyed with her by now. But, she was Megumin's sort of friend - and harmless stalker - and did seem to be a kind and well-meaning girl, so he wasn't gonna get mad at her, no matter how terrible at social interaction she was.

By the time he focused back onto the man, he had just finished exchanging pleasantries with Chris and had begun to make his way over to the front counter.

"Good morning," Kazuma greeted him, begrudgingly putting on his customer service voice, "What would you like to order today, sir?".

"I'll take a vanilla cappuccino," The middle aged man briefly squinted at the menu, "And I'll have a grilled chicken sandwich as well please, son."

"One vanilla cappuccino… and one grilled chicken sandwich," The emerald eyed teen repeated under his breath as he jotted down the order, "Right, then. Just take a seat and your order will be brought out to you when it's done."

Kazuma waved for Chris to come over as the man walked away, motioning towards the pad of paper in his hand. Since he was already out front, he may as well stay there and let her take the kitchen for the next hour or so. Though, just as Chris started to walk over to him, Kazuma finally noticed the head of dark brown hair and red ribbons, who had seemingly been behind the man in line the entire time, staring directly at him.

Yunyun took a deep breath before she finally mustered up the courage to order. "Umm… I'll t-take a v-vanilla cappuccino… and I'll have a grilled ch-chicken sandwich as well… s-son…?".

Sometimes - a lot of the time actually - Kazuma found himself worrying about the kind of people that he was surrounded by in his day to day life.

What he had once thought was the slowest thirty minutes he'd ever experienced in his time working at the café suddenly and rapidly turned into by far the busiest of the few lunch shifts he'd taken that entire Spring break. He wasn't particularly sure why - and when he asked Chris, neither was she - but between the hours of eleven to one, the café had been just as packed as some of their most hectic evening shifts.

Either way, Kazuma could tell that his boss wasn't complaining in the slightest. He, on the other hand, was wishing he'd just kept his mouth shut earlier about how empty the café had been. This was surely some cruel form of karma aimed directly at him.

In all of the lunchtime rush, he hadn't even noticed Yunyun leave; last seeing her when he'd taken her order over to her single person table, right in the back of the main room. Though, to be fair, she did seem to have an exceptional talent for blending into the background, so missing her exit in the middle of taking orders wasn't really all that surprising to Kazuma. At least he'd have an interesting story to tell Megumin when his shift finally ended.

It was only when he had around half an hour of work left that the customer base had finally dwindled enough for Chris to once again hang out in the front of the café, not having anything to do in the back for the time being. Now would probably be his last chance to continue the Aqua conversation before his shift was over.

"Were you actually serious about that whole 'hiring Aqua' thing earlier, helper?" Chris spoke up out of nowhere, as if she'd somehow been reading his mind.

He awkwardly fiddled with the cash register, randomly opening and closing the tray to some imaginary beat, "Completely serious, unfortunately."

She gave him an odd, maybe even suspicious, look, one that almost made him wince, before putting a hand to her chin. "Do you believe that she would actually be able to properly work here?" She eventually asked, her tone being one of scepticism.

"To put it bluntly, you'd have to put her through extensive amounts of training before she's even allowed to step foot inside the kitchen," Kazuma sadly admitted, recalling the event that caused his entire living situation in the first place, "But, despite how she may seem, I'm pretty sure she'd have no problems when it comes to working here out front. In terms of taking and delivering orders, she should be mostly fine."

Throughout his explanation, Chris had been nodding along at certain points, though he wasn't quite sure if she was nodding in approval or just simple understanding. He hadn't exactly tried to sell Aqua, that wouldn't be possible with how much his boss already knew about her, he'd instead just hoped that he'd be able to convince her through brutal honesty.

"Hmm," The hand on the older teen's chin began rubbing back and forth as she continued occasionally nodding her head, "I see. Another question, if I may, helper. Do you actually think you'd be able to get her to come into work consistently for the same days and the same hours each week?".

That question had actually caught him a little bit off guard. Kazuma had been expecting the last question, in some shape or form, to come up eventually, but he'd never really considered the idea of somehow managing to motivate Aqua to consistently come into work. Hell, he even struggled to convince himself to go in on some days. How would he have any hope of doing the same to Aqua?

Guilt-tripping and the threat of living on the streets would only last so long; maybe a month at most, so what else could he do?

After almost a minute of thinking, with Chris taking an order from their newest customer as she patiently waited for his answer, Kazuma finally settled on a solution. It wasn't a perfect solution, nor was it one that he was particularly happy with, but it was a solution nonetheless. One that would actually work. As much as he loathed to admit it, forcing Aqua back into the deep end wouldn't be helpful for anyone. If he wanted to get her working, he'd have to think small-scale to start off.

"...You would probably have to start her out with only around three days per week, but with the same shift lengths as me," Once Chris got back from delivering the patron their drink, Kazuma finally replied, "And then slowly ease her into either a few more days per week or a few more hours per shift as she gets used to it."

"Realistically…" His boss considered her answer for a while before speaking, "Realistically, helper, if someone came in applying for a job and said everything that you just said to me, I'm pretty certain that I'd have to turn them down."

"Fair."

"But," She continued, giving him an empathetic gaze, "You are my most loyal and trusted employee, and since this is a personal recommendation from you, I'm willing to give her a chance."

Kazuma let out a loud sigh of relief, a wave of tension that he hadn't even realised was there gushing out through that single exhale, "Thanks, chief, you seriously have no i-".

"I wasn't quite finished there, helper," Chris interrupted him, raising a single index finger, "I didn't say that I was gonna hire her, I said that I'd give her a chance. If you can really convince her to start working, then I'd like her to come here for an interview slash training session when she gets back, okay? From there, if she can live up to my basic expectations, then I'll have no issues letting her onto the team as a dedicated waitress or sorts."

It wasn't ideal, far from it, but it was an opportunity nonetheless. An opportunity that Kazuma was fully intent on taking. He'd focus on convincing Aqua herself later.

"You've got yourself a deal," He struck out his hand for the older teen to shake, solidifying the agreement, "She'll be more than ready for that interview, I'll make sure of it."

Chris reached out her hand to grasp onto Kazuma's own, giving it a single, firm shake and flashing him a determined grin.

"Wait, seriously?" Megumin's eyes widened in disbelief, "What was she doing there? Completely by herself?".

"Yeah, seriously," Kazuma let out an amused breath as he dropped his bag onto the hallway floor, receiving a 'don't just leave it on the floor' look from the girl in front of him, "According to Chris, she's been coming in regularly for the last couple of days. Although, well, she's still pretty awkward about the whole thing, I can't help but feel bad for her."

"I'll never understand that girl," She commented, rolling her eyes, "Well, I mean, I can understand going to the café regularly, but I'll never get why she always acts so strangely."

"I dunno, just how she is I guess. But, also I'm sure that Chris would be overjoyed to hear what you just said about the café, she's been going on and on about the café becoming more and more 'popular with the younger generation', or whatever," The bag was reluctantly picked up from the floor and slung back over his shoulder, getting an affirmative thumbs up from his girlfriend, "So where am I supposed to put this, then?".

Megumin placed a finger on her cheek, "Well, where do you usually put it?".

"On the floor."

She let out a loud and exaggerated sigh, slumping her shoulders forward, "Anywhere else? Somewhere… better than that?".

"In my room," Kazuma answered, pausing for a few seconds, "On the floor."

The annoyed girl's cheeks puffed up as she stared him down, her demeanour occasionally cracking for a split second. "Here, just- I'll do it," Megumin grumbled as she closed the small gap between them and reached up to pull the bag from his shoulder. She briefly glanced around before she sauntered over to the end of the coat rack and hung his bag from the furthest peg.

"There," The crimson eyed girl proudly placed her hands on her hips as she turned back to face Kazuma with a wide smile, "How's this? Not too difficult, huh?".

"Fine. If it'll get you to stop complaining, then I'll start putting it there from now on," He gave her an impassive shrug, "But I'm not really sure why you seem to suddenly care about this so much."

"I have no idea what your old apartment was like," She began, limply gesturing at him with her hand, "But if you're moving into an actual house now, don't you think that you should learn to take even better care of your living space?".

"I'd rather not, but I can't really disagree with your point, unfortunately," Kazuma replied as he wandered off in the direction of the front room, "So, what? Are you gonna make me 'practice'?".

Megumin quickly followed behind him, briefly speeding up her pace to walk beside him. "Hmm, yeah, in a way," She nodded, as if she was agreeing with herself, "I mean, if I don't try to teach you some better habits, then who else will? I'm guessing that Aqua certainly won't."

"If it wasn't for Aqua, I'd never have had to learn how to unclog a sink," The older teen commented as the two of them stepped into the front room, "So, in a way, you could say that she already has."

"I'll give you this, at least," Megumin noted as she watched Kazuma lazily collapse into the couch, pulling out his phone, "You're a lot better at cleaning up after yourself and keeping things tidy than I thought you'd be. Even if you do require some… reminding, sometimes."

"I heard that last part," Kazuma momentarily moved his attention away from his phone to send her an exaggerated glare, earning a soft giggle from the girl, "And of course I'm gonna take care of this place. Your mom let me stay here for free, so the least I can do in return is keep everything clean while I'm here."

"She's not the only one who let you stay here, you know?" She craned herself towards him, "I'm pretty sure that there's someone else that you should be grateful towards."

"Huh?" The boy looked up to lock eyes with her, seeing the large smirk on her face and retaliating with one of his own, "Oh yeah, Komekko. How could I ever forget?".

"Purposely ignoring my existence isn't funny, Kazuma!".

"Honestly," Kazuma absentmindedly remarked as they stepped off of the bus, "I'm really not sure why you've bothered making this entire trip twice a day, almost every day, for the past week. Surely it would just be easier to have Komekko stay at home on the days where you're not going out anywhere."

"It… definitely is a hassle, I'll admit," Megumin conceded, awkwardly rolling back the oversized sleeves of her sweater to free her hands, "And the journey is always really boring when it's just me, but kindergarten is an important aspect of early development, don'tcha know? There's no way I could let her skip out on that."

"Is that really true, though?" The brown haired teen questioned, creasing his brows, "Eh, I mean, I kinda doubt it. I'm pretty sure you just do it because you're obsessed with your little sister."

"I'm not obsessed with her!" She gave him a dubious look, swatting at his arm, "I'm just being a good big sister, that's all."

"Mhm, yeah, whatever you say," He dismissed her, flicking her cheek to get her to stop, "I was being serious, though. About the first thing, I mean."

Despite her insistence that she was not obsessed with her little sister, the way she instantly walked directly up to, and tightly hugged, Komekko the moment they reached her kindergarten was certainly making Kazuma start to think otherwise.

"Big brother!" Komekko yelled out, charging at him the moment Megumin let her go and latching onto his leg, "Big brother come to kindergarten today!".

"Hi there Komekko," He crouched down to greet the young girl, ruffling her hair, "You happy to see your big brother?".

"Of course," She released him from her hold, throwing her arms into the air, "After all, big brother promised me yesterday that he would make spaggy-tee for me today, right?".

"Ah," Kazuma sweat dropped, having completely forgotten that particular detail, "Did I now…?".

Well, if it was for Komekko's sake, he was sure that he'd be able to rope Megumin into cooking with him, at least.

"Tomorrow?" Megumin repeated into the phone's speaker, "As in, Tuesday?".

"Well, yeah, tomorrow is Tuesday, I'm not sure what other tomorrow I could be talking about," Funifura sarcastically answered from the other end of the call, "So, you coming? It'll be pretty similar to last time."

"It sounds good," She began drumming her fingers against the top of the small wooden table as she worked through the second part of her sentence in her head, "But, actually uhm, I can't go tomorrow, I already have… other plans."

Megumin had just finished washing and changing her little sister when the house's home phone had gone off. A fairly rare occurrence, all things considered. With her having immediately rushed over to the phone before Kazuma could even take a single step, assuming that it was from her mother, Kazuma had been left with the task of putting Komekko to bed; completely new territory for him.

Surprisingly for him, it had actually been much simpler than he had expected it to be. Between her seemingly boundless energy during the day and desire to eat anything that even vaguely resembled food, Komekko did an extremely good job of tiring herself out just enough so that she practically fell asleep the moment Kazuma had finished draping the blanket over her.

Back out in the hallway, Megumin had been pleasantly surprised - not to mention relieved - to discover that the call was actually from Funifura, marking it as an even rarer occurrence than before. According to the other girl, she was planning another group outing for the next day. One that Megumin, along with all of the other girls who had gone out to Nerimaki's family's diner almost a week prior, had been invited to.

"You- Oh, that sucks," The twin tailed girl still remained in high spirits, even after being rejected, "You sure that you can't come? At this rate, there's a chance that it might end up being just me and Yunyun tomorrow, haha…. Hahahaha…".

She wasn't even trying to hide how worried the idea of such an outcome was making her.

"...Yeah, I'm sure, sorry. The thing I'm doing tomorrow, it's… v-very important to me," Megumin felt her cheeks gradually ignite, shaking her head in an attempt to keep her composure, "Um, if I can ask, why is it just gonna be you and Yunyun? Is everyone else busy, too?".

"Well, actually, I was mostly joking about that. Sorta," Funifura stumbled over her words before properly explaining, "Basically, she's just the only one who's said she could come so far. Nerimaki left to visit some family members that live pretty far away this morning, according to her message, and neither Arue or Dodonko have responded yet, but I'm preetty sure that Dodonko will say yes, so it should all be fine."

For a moment, Megumin wanted to question why she was seemingly being asked about this so much later on then the others had been, before it suddenly dawned on her that she was quite possibly the only girl of the six who didn't have a personal phone, and especially not one with texting capabilities.

Soon enough, the call was over. Admittedly, Megumin did feel a little bad about turning the other girl down, but it's not like there was anything she could do about it. She already had important plans for tomorrow, plans that… the other person involved with didn't exactly… know about yet.

She had been trying to figure out how and when to do that part all day.

"Hey," She greeted Kazuma as she entered the front room. The older teen was once again seated on the couch, almost laying against one of the armrests, mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

"Hey," He replied, not looking up from his phone, "I didn't have any issues putting Komekko to bed, she was out pretty much instantly."

Megumin hummed in acknowledgement and breathed out a quiet 'thanks'. Claiming a spot of her own, she sat down next to him and replicated his exact position, the only difference being that she was leaning against him instead.

"Surely that's uncomfortable," Kazuma tore his eyes away from his phone to focus his sights on her current position.

"A little bit, yeah," She sheepishly admitted, allowing her eyes to flutter shut for a few moments.

"Alright, fine," The brunette sighed, shifting the arm that she was leaning against, "Gimme a second, I'll move."

Megumin was almost about to tell him that there was no need, until she noticed him sitting up and felt an arm slowly wrap around her shoulder, pulling her in slightly and bringing her in to rest against the upper part of his chest. She spotted his other arm on the couch's armrest and reached out to grab into his wrist.

When she began to pull it towards her, Kazuma scowled for a second, on impulse, before his face eased up and he allowed her to guide his hand wherever it was that she wanted it to go. The short teen brought Kazuma's hand up to rest against her cheek, rubbing slow circles into her jaw. Though, from the angle they were both facing, the position ended up feeling a lot less natural than she'd expected. Either way, she didn't really mind.

She was starting to feel like she was spoiling herself with how often she got Kazuma to pamper her. Not that it would make her stop any time soon, though.

"Happy now?" Kazuma let out a heavy breath as he glanced down at her, his phone now resting on the couch cushions in the small gap between them.

"Very," She smiled up at him, "Are you?".

He let out a drawn out 'eh' sound, shrugging, an answer Megumin had not really been expecting. "Eh…" He kept his gaze on her, as if he was contemplating something, though, whatever it was, it was taking a while for him to think about it, "Just… hold on a second…".

Just as she was starting to think that he'd given up on whatever it was he had been thinking about, she felt Kazuma's hand leave her cheek and instead snake its way under her knees. Before she could even react, she was shakily, yet carefully, lifted up and placed onto his legs, so that she was sitting sideways on his lap.

"T-There," Kazuma stated before Megumin could even think of something to say, "You don't have to awkwardly lean over me now."

"...G-good," She only furthered her bashfulness by burying her head into his chest and clutching at his shirt, feeling him tighten his grip around her in response.

"Oi, w-why are you this embarrassed?" The teen queried, smoothing down a stray hair on the top of her head, "I mean, th-this, um, definitely is pretty embarrassing, don't get me wrong, but it isn't really that bad."

"It's n-not that. I was j-just… surprised," Megumin assured him, her hands slipping away from his t-shirt and instead embracing his torso, "You d-did something completely unprompted. I'm happy."

"Oh, r-right… A-anyway," Kazuma stammered, plucking his phone from the couch with the hand that wasn't supporting Megumin, "I-I'm gonna go back to what I was doing earlier, so…".

In an attempt to get both of them to ignore their embarrassment and just enjoy the situation, Kazuma started watching random videos on his phone. While it had started out as a distraction tool, one that ended up working out very well, they both quickly began to forget that fact and instead wasted away the next hour or so just watching videos together.

Yet, despite that, Kazuma could help but notice a certain… something about Megumin. He wasn't really sure what it was, or even if it was necessarily good or bad, he could just tell that there was something on her mind the entire time. Although, just as he was about to ask her about whatever it was, he felt her shift on his lap, gently letting her arms fall away from around him.

"Kazuma…" Megumin had only uttered a single word, his name, yet her nerves were already just as fried as they had been earlier. She climbed off of his lap, standing up and walking a few steps away from him before coming to a stop.

"Yeah?" He spoke back, more confused than anything, "What's up? Everything okay?".

She continued facing away from him, intertwining her hands behind her back as she shrunk herself into her turtleneck. Her shoulders briefly tensed up before she took a single, deep breath, readying herself.

"T-tomorrow…" Megumin shook her head in dissatisfaction, she wanted to keep her voice even for this. No stuttering. "Tomorrow," She tried again, steadily spinning around to show him a beautiful, wide smile and a faint glimmer in her eyes, "Let's go on a date, Kazuma!".