Aqua and Kazuma were known to fight... a lot. Much like you would expect from siblings who had spent more time with each other than they ever wanted to. Sometimes it would sizzle out before things got too crazy or personal, but other times it would be nasty and brutal. Unfortunately for Megumin and Darkness, today was a nasty day and it occurred in the guild hall no less.
It had all started relatively normal, Aqua would beg Kazuma to pay off some ludicrous debt that she had accrued by her less than stellar actions followed by Kazuma vehemently refusing and telling her to handle her own business. Under natural circumstances, Aqua would either get what she wanted by making Kazuma uncomfortable enough or she would be stonewalled and forced to work off her tabs. Today Aqua was getting walled off but did not back down. Some would say she was more annoying than usual, others would say she was more determined than usual, and a few would say that she was more stupid than usual. Regardless, today Aqua had accidentally hit a sore spot with Kazuma, something from his past that still haunted him to this day and that he never got over.
"Come on, you shut-in! You have a beautiful Goddess in front of you asking for money and you won't even hand it over?!" The self-proclaimed Goddess yelled. Kazuma looked at her with poorly hidden disgust. They were at their normal table in the guild, and Kazuma was especially tired after the long quest they had to exterminate a ridiculous amount of low-level monsters. While weak, their numbers were so great that it really took the wind out of Kazuma's sails. Megumin was only good to kill one bunch, Darkness served no purpose really, and Aqua's damage skills were weak and slow. As such, Kazuma was pretty much the D.P.S class and needless to say his endurance was not the best.
"As if I would ever hand your useless self any money! You barely even did anything in today's quest!"
"But Darkness didn't do anything either!"
"I know, and she's just as bad as you, maybe even worse!"
Kazuma elected to ignore the moan of pleasure across the table.
"Just because you got dumped by some hussy years ago doesn't mean you get to treat me so badly!"
At this, Kazuma stilled. That was a secret he kept close to his heart and he hadn't even told Megumin and Darkness about it, and they were the closest people to him. It made sense that Aqua would know about it, but he figured even she had the sense not to tread on such emotional territory.
"Oh? Were you in a relationship before, Kazuma?" Megumin asked innocently but with a tint of anger in her tone. Kazuma turned to her with a murderous expression, one so mean she almost hid behind Darkness.
"It's none of your business." And that was the end of Megumin adding anything to the conversation from that point of on.
"And you, who the hell do you think you are bringing that up? You've got a lot of nerve to ask me for cash and then insult me like that!" Kazuma yelled in her face with full vigor.
"I don't care! You always pick on me for no reason! Oh boo hoo, my name is Kazuma Satou and I got all heart-broken because some girl ran off with some chad on a motorbike. Get over yourself!" Kazuma was turning red in the face at her words. Aqua gulped at the sight, but she knew she was too far in to back off now. "As if that excuses you lazing around your house, mooching off your parent's money while you sit in a chair and play anime games all day!"
"You... you stuck-up bitch. I'm the baby?! Do you even know what it's like to ever fall in love with a person, or hell, know love at all!? You don't even have a family! You didn't even have a single friend before you met me. And let me tell you, we aren't friends. No, far from it. If I could trade you for a fucking bag of ten Eris, I would! Hell, maybe I'd give you away for free if it was possible!" Kazuma practically screamed in her face as tears started to fall from her eyes.
It had fallen deathly silent within the Guild hall, as everyone enjoyed some good drama like this. They listened in without a semblance of shame. Megumin and Darkness were deeply upset at these turn of events.
"Kazuma.. that's a bit too fa-" Darkness began but was cut off by Kazuma himself.
"Shut up, you cow." To which Darkness shamelessly became aroused, instantly losing any bit of seriousness she had in her. Megumin was too shocked at the war of words to comment at all. She was like a child transfixed on a fight between her two parents.
"So what? I never needed friends or family! I was fine before you, and I'll be fine after you're gone! You're just a mortal, nothing more! I'll still be around standing tall in one hundred years and you'll be some bones in the dirt!" Even though she was crying, Aqua still trudged on through the argument flailing her arms up and down like a spoiled child.
"Oh yes, I'm sure you don't need any family. After all, who would want some stuck-up whore of a daughter that flaunts her butt around the whole town like she was the entirety of a Red Light district. You think any of these guys in here cheer you on because you have any sort of charisma? Pfft, they just like it because when you flail your arms around while your chest bounces all over the place!"
Aqua gasped in horror and turned to the male adventurers around them, to which all of them averted their eyes. In fact, even some of the female staff and adventurers did so as well.
"It doesn't matter! I'm popular, that means I'm loved around here. I have plenty of friends in here!"
"Oh really!? Name one person in here that you talk to on regular basis!" Aqua looked around in desperation at any faces she remembered but to no avail. Even is she saw a face more than once, she couldn't recall a single name no matter how hard she tried. "Exactly, you have no friends. And whatever people created you were probably some incestuous siblings because there is no way someone as stupid as you is normal! All you did was sit in your stupid throne all day, wasting away like a fat pig eating food the entire time. Get the hell out of my face. Better yet, I'll go. See you never." With that, Kazuma angrily stomped out of the hall not taking a single glance back. It was dead silent as Aqua stared at his retreating back with sniffles still present. She turned when a hand nervously tapped her left shoulder, that hand belonging to the receptionist Luna.
"Excuse me, Miss Aqua, I'll have to ask your party to leave for the night. You've caused quite the scene." Luna ordered softly with a look of pity in her eyes. Aqua merely nodded with red eyes as her and the girls gathered their things and made their exit.
As they were making their way home Darkness abruptly stood in front of Aqua, blocking her path into the mansion at the gate with a serious, an actually serious, look on her face.
"What are you doing, Darkness?" The Goddess questioned. Had Darkness elected to hate her too?
"Aqua, it is clear from that argument that you trudged upon a very sore spot for Kazuma. You hurt him very deeply by bringing up such a personal topic to the point that he struck fear in our youngest member and took it out on me as well, though I'm not complaining." Megumin opened her mouth to salvage her pride but thought better of it and let it go.
"If he had just given me the money like I asked then this would have never happened! It's his fault!" Aqua cried so loud that it made Megumin cringe in pain. "Where does he get off acting like he's so perfect with his money?"
This time Megumin decided to speak up. "Aqua, I don't know how long you and Kazuma have known each other, but it's clear that you and him are the closest in the party. You fight like a brother and sister would. And right now, you have a duty to work out things with your 'bro' as Kazuma would say." The little girl smiled at her little joke which made Aqua smirk before melancholy quickly replaced it.
"Even your parents were laughing at how you died! Hahaha, it was so funny!" She had told the boy as he just stared at her with his eyes wide in shock that his family cared so little for his demise. He looked absolutely defeated.
Aqua cringed at the memory. She had been cruel, hadn't she? It wasn't her fault! She didn't know how to handle those kinds of situations! Aqua didn't have a family of her own to reference from, so she didn't think it was a big deal. Maybe it was? She tried to imagine how it would feel if she died and found out that nobody in the party cared about it, and the thought made her sick. The feeling Kazuma got from the fact that it was reality was likely tenfold.
"Urrgh, fine! I'll go talk to him!" Aqua relented with a relieved sigh from Darkness. "But you can't be there. It's only gonna be between us!" The two girls merely let her know that they would remain in the living room unless something went wrong.
Aqua was nothing if not outgoing. She cared not how she appeared in front of others so long as they treated her with the due respect she felt one with her title should be given. However, as she went to knock on Kazuma's door she found herself hesitating. There wasn't a moment in her life that she felt at all nervous about anything and this new emotion sent her for a loop. There was a moment where she almost elected to walk away and hide in her room but thought better of it. Steeling herself, she knocked on the door a few times before she heard footsteps approaching.
Opening the door to see who could be bothering him, the last person he expected to be there was the member he considered the most immature out of them all. Upon seeing her face, Kazuma decided the best course of action would be to shut the door in her face but Aqua blocked the door from closing entirely.
"Kazuma, let me talk to you!" The boy decided to let her in with audible huff.
"What do you want? Come to make fun of me some more?" Kazuma was seething beneath the surface, he could barely hold himself from exploding at her again. Aqua seemed to be fidgeting with herself but pushed out a quickly blurted sentence that he couldn't make out. "Either start speaking clearly or see yourself out." His patience was already at its end.
"I'm really sorry for what I said." Aqua got out with a small bow. "I'm sorry for making jokes out of your childhood. That was wrong of me."
To say Kazuma was shocked at this confession was an understatement. Aqua, apologizing? It seemed too good to be true. With that that, he narrowed his eyes. "Did Megumin or Darkness put you up to this? Who paid you off?"
Aqua pouted at the accusation but sucked it up. "They talked to me, but I realized myself how rude I was being to you. And also..." She almost let out a sob as she said this, but instead she ducked her head and started down at the ground. "I'm sorry for making fun of how you died. I'm sorry for laughing at what your parents and the doctors did when you died. It's just... I've never had a mom or a dad, or any siblings to know how I should act. I don't want to use that as an excuse but it's true. I never thought about how that would feel, and I thought about you guys laughing at me if I died and it hurt so much, so I figured what you felt was probably much worse." By the end Aqua had tears rolling down her face in droves, the guilt eating her up inside.
Kazuma stood there, not really knowing how to process the situation. But something about hearing her apologize from the heart, even for things that happened before the argument and her sobbing broke something in his heart. Aqua truly only had this party for family, didn't she? And he had thrown it all in her face and told her she was nothing to him. He felt like an asshole for it, truth be told. Even if she did deserve some kind of reprimand. Still, he embraced her. She stiffened for a moment but then slowly cried on his shoulder.
"I guess I should apologize too. I shouldn't have said those things about family to you. It was... a dick move, to say the least. You're important to me, Aqua. And to me, you are family here. You, Megumin, and Darkness all are. And I just hope that you'll forgive me for saying all those terrible things." He pushed her away gently from his shoulder and looked her in the eye. "Are we okay now?" He smiled at her.
Aqua made another face of holding in a whole other burst of tears before yelling his name and tackling him onto the floor in a hug as the dam opened once again. How she could cry so much in a single day is anyone's guess. Kazuma attempted to disentangle himself from her grip before just allowing her to get her tears out.
That is, until two pairs of footsteps made themselves known at the door.
"Oh my..." Darkness moaned. "We heard a thump and came up to investigate, but to discover this...ha..."
"Ah, I see. Perhaps we were wrong about how close you two are, it seems much deeper than that." Megumin looked well beyond peeved. Indeed, were Kazuma looking in on this situation from another angle, he too might come to the same conclusion.
"It's not what it looks like! Aqua, get off me! They're getting the wrong idea!" He yelled before Aqua let go and looked at him with an expression full of mirth. She let out a laugh at the absurdity of the situation as Kazuma couldn't hold himself back either and joined her in her laughter. It wasn't too long after that the others joined in as well. Just like a happy family.