It's nothing about love.
As bad as Bishamon is at understanding emotions, even she knows that much. And as she shuts her eyes and bites her lower lip to keep quiet, she repeats it to herself once more.
It's nothing about love.
It's not love. Yet it can't be called hate either. What she has for him and he for her...is something going back and forth between the two.
Sometimes, she regrets all she has done to him, especially because she now knows that he was the one who saved her life all those centuries ago. So she does her best to befriend him, forcing herself to be better, calmer, a little kinder...
On other days, she gets irritated enough to forget all about that, to shout at him, to throw the first punch to one of their brutal fights. And she wants nothing more than to strangle him.
Sometimes she feels completely at ease when in his presence. As if he is part of her household. As if he is always supposed to be in front of her, doing his own thing. He looks up and gives her a brief smile and she can't help but to return it, after he faces away that is.
But then, on other occasions, even the thought of him makes her squeeze her fists tight enough to dig her nails into her own flesh as she waits for the blissful sleep to arrive.
And rarely, just once in a while, she feels warm as she watches him from afar. Ticklish, funny things happen to her stomach, her face and ears burn. Whenever she catches herself like that, she shakes her head, turns and walks away on the opposite direction. She sits and tries to think calmly once she is back to normal.
And she always finds that he is more than an ex-enemy to her.
He is an ally.
A friend.
One who would stand against heaven and risk dying, being forgotten and disappearing forever.
One who she can always trust. With her secrets, her shinki, her problems...
She wants him to stay that way yet can't make herself obey the order of her mind to stop.
She shouldn't be doing this.
She knows that it's a terrible idea.
She is certainly going to regret it afterwards.
It might ruin whatever little understanding that they have for each other.
She may lose her 'drinking buddy'.
As a goddess, she should be above it.
What would Kazuma say?
She doesn't care. Not at the moment.
She has better things to focus on. Like the sensation of his lips on hers, the vibes radiating to all of her body from where his fingertips graze her skin...
She tried to stop. She did, really. This night was supposed to be only another one of their drinking parties.
The two of them.
After everyone else retires for the night,
continuing to celebrate still being alive after the war and the covenant with the leftover sake,
passing the bottle over to one another silently,
thinking of everyone and everything lost,
remembering Ebisu,
and the sorcerer,
fearing,
hating,
internally screaming,
looking at the walls, the ceiling, the few photos scattered around...
Anything.
Everything other than each other.
So how did they end up in the guestroom,hands and lips all over one another?
It's wrong.
It's stupid.
It's the worst decision that she has ever made.
She would never do it were she fully sober yet...
A little alcohol in one's system is enough to convince their mind and conscience into anything, she finds as she locks her eyes with his. Besides, it's not like she does anything of this sort normally. She doesn't keep lovers like Kofuku. She doesn't break hearts. Two gods being with each other...never ends well, she is well aware.
That's why she promises herself. This is a one time thing. It is fine as long as it stays that way.
It's nothing about love, she reminds herself.
They are both alone, have been for centuries.
They are both gods. One of calamity and one of fo- No. They are both gods of calamity now.
They are both traitors, outcasts of heaven.
They are both victims.
They both need the warmth, the closeness. They both need to pretend that they are loved; that they are something other than what they are, maybe even humans; that they both hadn't lost so much. Even if they know otherwise.
So she wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him closer. He smiles against her skin as she gasps softly.
There is no turning back now.
Not that she wants to.
It's only once after all. To prove it to herself, she takes hold of his chin and boldly kisses him. He slides one of his hands down her waist to her thighs as they both open their eyes.
As she stares at those two piercing blue orbs, she swears that she will never let herself be in this situation ever again…
…yet not even two weeks later, she finds herself in the exact same position, this time in her bedroom, under him with her arms and legs wrapped around his body to pull him close as he gets what he wants and again following two hours of drinking.
It's nothing about love. Because she hates it.
She tells herself to not forget that as he watches her from up with those eyes of his that seem to shine in the moonlight.
She hates him.
He is surprisingly gentle and slow about it much like last time where she wants him to be rough and forceful and finish it fast so that she can kick him out before the alcohol wears off and she starts regretting.
She hates herself.
She broke her own vow. She was swayed so easily. They were drinking, talking about the heaven and their common crime. He was looking at the photos of her and her shinki and she was watching Kazuma and Yukine practice in the garden from a window.
It wasn't awkward at all. Neither of them mentioned the other night that she and Kazuma had to stay at Kofuku's because of the hard rain.
It was permitted to happen only once with an exception of their shared sorrow and pitifulness.
They both knew it without needing to be told.
They both agreed on it without needing to talk it out. Yet…
…one accidental look at him…
…one second of their eyes meeting…
…and she found herself on her bed, trapped with his body over hers.
She hates that she is letting him do it.
She will never, never allow this to reoccur.
Accidents happen.
Mistakes are made.
This isn't something she planned and wanted. It just happened.
She should tell him to stop.
She doesn't.
They have already started.
She hates that it feels so good.
He finds the spot. The one that makes her mind stop and her whole body shake.
She screams.
She hates that she becomes weak…that she lets him take the lead.
So she digs her nails in his pale shoulders and drags her hands down his back, over his chest and sides. Again and again. Just to spite him.
He smirks down at her, leans down and bites. Hard enough to break the skin.
After that, it's a battle.
She claws and kicks him when he holds her wrists down and bites his lips as they kiss.
He puts another set of teeth marks on the otherwise flawless skin of her neck among kisses and not at all apologetic caresses, pulling her head back by her hair and pressing her down on the mattress with all his weight.
She notices, for the first time, that he is physically bigger and stronger.
And she hates it.
She hates that he is winning.
But…maybe…just maybe, it's a tiny little bit…
She confesses to herself in the safety of her mind and bites the behind of her one hand to keep the noises inside as soon as she rips it out of his grasp.
He picks the pace up using all his strength and pulls her hand away from her mouth when her body arches with a tremble just to cover it with his own and to swallow her moans.
And she despises that smirk she feels.
The next morning, she wakes to find him silently dressing before her body length mirror, hair wet and face red from the hot shower he took. She sees him trailing the claw marks on his chest with the tip of a finger before he turns to check out his toned back too.
She closes her eyes to not be caught staring and doesn't dare to open them again, not even when soft padding of bare feet gets closer, the ghostly light brush of a hand sweeps the strands of hair from her face lingering a little on her cheek or when she feels the soft touch of warm lips on her forehead that lasts too short to be an actual kiss minutes later.
He closes the door after himself and she goes into her bathroom slowly, still pleasantly sore everywhere.
After that morning, she doesn't see him again for a full month. Yukine comes and goes, they visit Kofuku for her opinion on storms but he isn't anywhere to be seen.
On one of her visits she says that the house is too quiet as a subtle way of asking his whereabouts and Daikoku isn't late to tell her with open amusement that it's because 'that free-loading shit' is finally off his ass on some job. Yukine has been working the slacker hard, he says with mirth. She doesn't say anything else but doesn't miss the knowing look on the face of the Goddess of Poverty as she answers Kazuma's questions.
After exactly four weeks and three days of the night in her home, she texts him.
The bar tonight?
It's something they sometimes do since they discovered that they could talk about god matters with each other after making up. Whenever one of them has something they want to get off their chest, want to get away from duties or just feel like drinking, they text the other.
It's not that they are going on dates.
Those…meetings aren't something like that.
It's not about love.
It's the anniversary of the Ma Clan's death.
She feels like crying and she needs company.
When she arrives at the small bar that they frequent, he is already seated on a stool, absentmindedly looking at his phone. She walks over and sits beside him.
They start slow only with beers and some side food. When she finally orders wine and sake and he tells the waiter to leave the bottles, she starts talking quietly.
He doesn't ask her anything.
He already knows.
She repeats the names of her late children, tells him about all their habits, personalities and her memories with them.
And she finally lets the tears that she held back all day come.
He doesn't say a word instead giving her a refill and offering tissues.
She wipes her eyes before drinking the whole glass in one go.
Three hours later, she takes out her purse and tries to stand up. He gently pushes her back on her seat and goes to pay.
Five minutes after that, they are outside, walking without a destination and with her leaning against him to not fall.
It's a chilly night. There was a storm the previous evening. Streets must be swarming with ayakashi. Sometime around one more hour later, he tells her that he is taking her home.
She refuses and tightens her grip on his arm. She doesn't want to go home. Not like this. Not with red, swollen eyes, smudged make up and the stench of alcohol all over her.
He sighs but turns around to lead her somewhere else.
After that she briefly makes out dark streets, high buildings and an unfamiliar room before she falls asleep.
When she wakes up, she finds herself on an uncomfortable bed with white sheets and with him sleeping on the couch across the bed. They are both in their clothes, only their jackets are on the floor.
She forces herself to sit up to look around. They are in a hotel suite. There is a bathroom, a sitting area with a TV and a kitchenette with a dining table for two, all separate from the bedroom.
She makes her way to the sink to get a glass of water for herself and finds a package of painkillers in a plastic pharmacy bag placed on the counter with her hand purse, his wallet and phone.
She gratefully takes two white pills, showers and covers herself with a bathrobe and drapes her wet hair over one shoulder not wanting to wake him up with the dryer.
He gets up just as she starts patting her hair with a towel. He greets her and looks her over. It might be the calmest they ever have been with each other as they both prepare to leave.
Before she can ask about the previous night, he tells her that it was she who didn't want to go home after the bar so he brought her here…and that nothing happened.
She nods and they both get dressed before they leave the room together. She returns the card key and pays, not letting him even offer.
The receptionist wishes her and her husband a good day and before they exit the lobby an elderly man and woman whisper to each other how beautiful the young marrieds are.
A lovely couple.
Outside, they both turn to walk opposite directions. Just before they separate, she takes his hand and gives it a light squeeze only because she doesn't know how to say what's in her mind. She hopes that he understands the 'thank you' in that one action.
She was at her worst the day before.
And he was there, with her, to hear her out, to help her clear her head, to take care of her when she was vulnerable.
Just like a true friend.
And this thing that appears in her chest while she thinks about it all is only the like a friend would have for another.
It could be…only slightly alike to love.
She isn't foolish enough to confuse the two though, she assures herself as she goes on with her day.
Exactly nine days later, not that she counts of course, she gets a text from him.
You free?
She isn't. She needs to go over the reports of the whole month, inspect the spendings on the rebuilding of one of her older shrines, read through Kazuma's plans and schedules for the next mon-
Yes.
She tells Kazuma that she has business in the Near Shore, chooses a mini lavender dress, does her makeup and goes to the bar and once again, he is already there waiting. She silently walks near him and takes a seat.
In merely half an hour, alcohol starts to influence both their minds. He is talking about the Heaven questioning him, about the sorcerer, about his past…
She lets him talk and as she listens, she realizes that he isn't as carefree and juvenile as he acts.
He talks about some woman named Sakura with tears in his eyes. He goes into so much detail about her beautiful smile and chocolate brown eyes that she can't help but wonder who she was to him.
And why does she feel like choking? The room isn't as crowded and humid as it is normally. Or why does her stomach keep churning, making her want to vomit? She hasn't drunk that much yet.
She imagines the young woman with the flawless, graceful body and chirping laughter and it dawns on her that this Sakura was way too beautiful.
She shakes her head and takes a long sip of her wine but it does little to banish the image of the other woman out of her head. Instead, she pictures the small hands with the short fingers that he is describing...
...And suddenly those hands are on him. Those deep, sparkling brown eyes are locked with his and that thin body is under his as he strokes the shiny, soft brown locks.
She tightens her grip around the wine glass and briefly thinks about breaking it. She imagines the wounds with pieces of glass and flowing blood in her palm and finds that she would do it. Just so she could distract herself from this lump in her throat and this…tension in her chest.
She takes a deep breath and forces herself to look at his face, to refocus on what he says.
They both have three more glasses of wine in the next forty minutes. Sometime around when she forgets the count in her head, a girl in a leather skirt and a strapless blouse comes near him.
She doesn't hear what the human says exactly but what she wants is pretty obvious.
The girl with brown eyes, dark brown hair and a quite attractive body all over, actually dares to sit herself on his lap and before he can react, she is up on her feet pushing the young human away telling her to disappear.
Go away Sakura.
Before he can even blink, she kisses him, only for good measure. This isn't the first time one of them caught the attention of a human. They usually tell the other and hold hands or something until the human gets the message.
As soon as she remembers it, she tries to pull back but a hand behind her skull stops her. Only a few minutes later, they are upstairs, in one of the rooms that the bar rents to the goers.
She is kissing him aggressively and he is letting her. He doesn't fight it when she pushes him towards the bed and climbs up on him.
Were you jealous?
He asks with a mere look of his eyes and she bites his shoulder until she leaves a bright red mark which will turn purple tomorrow and stay for days.
Jealous?
As if.
There is no reason for her to be jealous. There is nothing between the two of them. Besides there are gods who consort with humans. It isn't her business if he wants to do that.
There is nothing to be jealous about.
It isn't even her place.
There is no reason to think about ripping her throat.
And she most certainly doesn't.
What does this self loving bastard think? That she likes doing this? That she likes him? That he would be her first choice in a good day? That she thinks herself as his… as someone who would rightfully be jealous if another woman approaches him?
This isn't romance.
There's no love between them.
It only resembles the symptoms of that a little.
And that's only because they went from 'murder each other' to 'friends who always bicker' really fast and because they have no one other than each other to trust now that they are both traitorous gods.
It's still alright.
She stays on top throughout and finishes it fast just like she wanted before. But instead of kicking him out of the room like she once thought she would, she only lets him roll her over and start again.
It's not before sunrise when they stop and he has to help her into the bathroom at noon when they wake up with claw and teeth marks all over them and strong hangovers from the previous night. She goes inside to throw up two times while he takes his own shower and decides to stay in the room a little until her stomach calms down after he tells her that it's because of the alcohol and she thinks about how Kazuma would force her to stay in bed and baby her for days if he were to see her like that.
He sighs and goes out to buy food from the market across the street, mumbling that he didn't have anything better to do today anyway when she tells him that she is laying down some more and that he can go on and leave.
She closes her eyes and before she knows, he is back with bottles of water, ice coffee, toast, bananas and canned soup along with a new package of painkillers.
They feed themselves in the room without so much of a chat. She runs to the bathroom once more and he makes her drink more water. She doesn't normally take a hangover this bad, she thinks a little concerned. But then again she doesn't normally lose the count of her drinks.
After an hour or so, the nausea stops completely and her headache subsides thanks to the painkiller pills.
He asks her if she is sure that she is fine, then walks with her despite her protests to her nearest shrine which happens to be twenty minutes of walking distance from Kofuku's house.
She arrives the mansion on her own and is immediately met with Kazuma who scolds her for being gone for a whole day without telling him where she went and not answering her phone. She briefly apologizes and tells him to go rest while she finishes the remaining work from yesterday.
Another week goes by before she sees him again. He comes by with Yukine, Kunimi and little Ebisu.
Yukine and Kazuma go to study at the library. She remembers how they fought after Kazuma used resound on him but their making up was sooner than everyone expected. Yukine understood the desire to protect one's god at all costs and all he wanted was a sincere apology. Of course it took time for him to stop flinching when Kazuma raised his hand and for Kazuma to win his pupil's trust back. But their bond proved to be strong enough to take all that.
And for that bond, she is thankful. It is the first time Kazuma has a friend this close, since Touma anyway. And she was more like a crush than a friend. She smiles as she hears their laughter occasionally while she does her paperwork.
An hour into their visit, she gets up on her feet to stretch her muscles and looks out of the window. And to say that she is surprised is an understatement. Because Yato is standing among a group of her younger shinki and Ebisu.
They are playing some kind of game, it seems. He has a blindfold on and the children are all running around him, avoiding him when he tries to catch them. She stands there and watches for a total of five minutes as he keeps purposely failing and all the children laugh and scream in delight all around him before he finally catches Fumiha and passes the blindfold over to her before starting to escape with the other children.
Five more minutes later, she finds herself outside as well. They stop the game and he comes to her side. She asks him what he is doing. He answers that Ebisu needs playmates around his age and that he couldn't think of a better place to take him.
Just as she opens her mouth to answer, Yunaha and Minaha rush over to beg her to also play with them. She doesn't know any games. But before she can say anything he answers in her place and pulls her by her hand towards the children.
Two of them bring a long rope, he shows her how to jump. After that he draws a hopscotch. He teaches her how to play dodgeball. The children make her the princess at the tower -the porch- and he becomes the evil dragon. They have no prince, the kids realize huffing and awhing with sadness before he tells them that they have no need for a prince because their princess is strong and badass and she can beat the dragon all on her own.
And all of them are delighted because apparently, the idea of a warrior princess is more exciting than a fairytale love. Then one of the boys, one slightly older and with an imaginative mind asks what happens if the princess loves the dragon instead because the dragon must love her, it only protects her from strangers from its point of view after all.
One of the girls say that they could marry and have babies and then live happily ever after. But that only arises another question in their young minds.
"But where do babies come from?"
They all -including Ebisu- turn their curious gazes up at them and she blinks in surprise at the question. After a few seconds of thinking, she says that mommies make the babies and daddies help. This time Ebisu asks how exactly daddies help with a childish innocence. As she coughs and stammers, he cuts in.
"Well that is simple, they read the instructions aloud off the book and hand mommies tools."
She bites her lower lip and face palms. That's simply the most absurd thing she has ever heard but the children who have already chosen him as their god (!) nod at each other with enlightenment and demand for them to start the game.
After that it is all play-fighting the evil dragon, chasing someone, running from someone and jumping around. The children's energy is endless and she is forced to take a few breaks as she is left panting more than what is to her liking.
At some point, the battle team and Yukine come outside and join the games too. The children's laughter doesn't stop until late evening that day. It turns into a garden party very quickly too. Some of her shinki play music, some set up barbecues and some serve lemonades, juices and beers for the older ones.
The smell of the meat gets too strong suddenly and she rushes to the nearest bathroom once. After that she is completely fine though. She participates in the dancing and the smaller ones, now gathered around Ebisu who happens to be their chosen gang leader, make her dance with Yato pushing and pulling both of them by their legs. After the dance, there is plenty of food and ice cream for everyone.
Around nine thirty, all young ones fall asleep. He calls over a few adults and starts to place them in their beds. In half an hour, they only have Ebisu left who is half awake, half asleep in his arms with his head placed on Yato's shoulder. He is smiling down at the child and quietly talking and she catches a few lines of an old tale from Nihon Shōki about Susanoo, Yamata no Orochi the serpent and Kushinada-hime. As he strokes his hair and keeps murmuring the tale, the small god yawns a few times and slowly falls asleep.
She actually smiles watching as he bundles the boy in his own jacket. He would be a great father, she thinks as she keeps watching him reposition the little body of the sleeping god in his arms to not disturb his sleep. Then she sees him walking towards her. He asks her to take him to Ebisu's room here. She has already told Kunimi to stay when the party started and the man is currently drinking with Akiha and Kuraha. So the two of them walk side by side until they reach the guest room that the boy claimed as his on one of his frequent visits.
He unwraps his jacket and she finds capypa-print pajamas in one of the dresser drawers. They quickly change him before Yato lifts the boy and gently places him on his bed as she holds the sheets then covers the small body of the child. He opens his eyes for a second, looks them over, mumbles something incoherent about moms, dads and babies then falls asleep again.
They both watch him for a minute to make sure that he won't wake up again and they silently leave. After turning on the night light that is.
After they put the tiny god to bed, they both are unwilling to go outside. Instead, they make their way to her room. She takes out rice sake, his favorite, and serves them both.
A few sips later, she asks about the tale that he told Ebisu. He answers that it is a different version of Susanoo and Kushinada-hime's tale from the Nihon Shoki.
…and thus Susanoo found the weeping couple in the land of Izumo.
He asked them what was wrong and they told him about Yamata no Orochi, the gigantic serpent with eight heads and eight tails. Every year, it would come and devour one of their daughters.
They originally had eight. Seven were eaten.
The eighth, Kushinada-hime was lost.
They did everything, looked everywhere and prayed to every god up in Takamagahara but none answered. Because they were unimportant earthly deities and the ones high up wouldn't hear them.
Susanoo understood the pain of being ignored by the ones up in the heaven as his own sister, Amaterasu banished him from there. So he told them that he was also an earthly deity and that he would help.
He told them to brew strong sake to draw the monster close and he hid, preparing to fight.
When the serpent finally arrived, he made it chase him and get stuck between the rocks of a nearby mountain and started crushing its heads one by one. Just as he was about to deliver the fatal blow he noticed the pain in its eyes and hesitated. As he looked into its eyes, he saw something stabbed on its throat.
He went closer and pulled the sword out. It was Kusanagi no Tsurugi, a sword from Takamagahara which would later become one of the Three Sacred Regalias after he took it to Amaterasu as a reconciliation gift.
As soon as he took the sword out and ended the pain of the serpent, it became smaller, its heads and tails disappeared and there stood young Kushinada-hime.
Once, a god high up asked for her hand, she refused and told him that she didn't love him and that she had seven sisters to marry before her. The entity was so enraged that it cursed his sword to turn her into a monster that would devour her sisters, be the downfall of her family and cause her pain forever.
When he returned her to her family, she asked him for his name and he told it truthfully. Her family was surprised and loved him even more because he was the only one from the Takamagahara who wasn't proud enough to not help them.
He stayed with them for some time and when he went back with the sword as his gift for his sister, he also had Kushinada-hime as his wife.
She listens to him as he finishes the tale and thinks about how different it is from the one she knows. The classic damsel in distress is also the evil monster and the one who has to hate it, falls in love with it in the end.
She smiles to herself and thinks of the game that they played as she drinks from her fourth glass.
What if the princess falls for the dragon?
What if, indeed.
Yet it won't happen.
It can't.
It might be akin to love.
But it will never be love. No matter what the princess does, the hate won't, shouldn't, disappear.
Despise might she to admit but he is undeniably pleasant to look at.
And that's the only reason for that…feeling.
She doesn't have any other one of her status that close to her. And they do have some memories with each other.
That's why it is only physical.
A look alike would do the the job just the same.
It's nothing serious, nothing of importance.
The princess won't fall in love with the dragon.
The princess is actually a serpent, cursed to hurt the ones she is close to and destroy her own family.
The dragon is actually a prince with a cruel family and a dark past who is also cursed. He might end the pain, be her salvation. But that's only temporary.
Won't their pasts follow them?
Will the heaven accept them that easily?
Will her family even give her off?
Will his leave him be?
Isn't she internally still a monster who murdered her own kin?
They wouldn't do each other any good.
They would only destroy one another.
Just like Tsukiyomi and Amaterasu.
Just like Izanami and Izanagi.
Just like Suseri-hime and Okuninushi.
Just like every other god and goddess who were foolish enough to fall in love.
She won't let that be their fate, she thinks to herself as he gives them both a refill. Some time later Kazuma comes in and finds them sitting across each other, quietly sipping sake. With an exasperated look on his face, he takes the bottle and the glasses away, telling them that they've had enough. Ten more minutes later, she is in her silk nightgown and under her sheets.
When she wakes up before dawn in the dark of her room, she feels light as if she is floating. She opens her eyes, relaxed and slowly sits up. The moment lasts short when she notices a man standing before her window with his back turned. She tries to talk, ask who he is and why he is in her bedroom but it's as if she is under some kind of spell. She can't manage to make a sound let alone form words.
The man turns around and walks towards her. She should try to do something, back away or try for the door but somehow, she can't do any of that.
As he gets closer she sees his face. He looks around thirty five or forty with a strong chin and high cheekbones. He has a strong build and waist lenght black hair. What captures her attention though, is his eyes that seem to shine in the dark.
He fixes his gaze on her face and she can't look away from that incredible blue as he slowly sits himself next to her on the bed. In a strange way, the closer he gets, the blurrier his features become. As he leans and wraps his arms around her, he looks like a shadow with only his eyes remaining. She raises her head to look at his face and again, she can't make out anything other than those two blue orbs. They have a shine she can't get used to. Moonlight. The sole word echoes in her mind, meaningless as she tries to remember where she saw that exact same color before.
Slowly and gently, the man caresses her hair and the light outlines of the room disappear as everything goes black where it should be the opposite with the newly rising sun. Only when the feathery touch of his hand disappears does she finally fall back asleep.
When Bishamon opens her eyes with a jerk, it's just before noon and she is left to stare wide eyed at the clock wondering if it is broken. Because she never wakes up this late. Not even after one of their drinking nights. She thinks back to previous night as she gulps down a glass of water that she finds on her bedside table. It should have been a dream. No one can come to her room. Even if they aren't stopped by the spells around the mansion or the shinki on watch duty, they can't escape from Kazuma's ability. Assuring herself, she gets out of the bed with only two words left in her mind from the strange dream. Moonlight. Blue.
Kazuma says that she might have slept in because of tiring herself with the kids too much.
In a few hours' time she breaks her record of two trips to the bathroom every hour and only after then does her stomach get a tad better. It is always like this lately. She gets the nausea around noon nearly everyday and she is always a little dizzy. She knows that gods don't get ill like humans so she doesn't think much of it. It must be the stress of the past few months finally catching up to her. Besides she doesn't feel awfully bad.
Out of boredom, she tries to do some work but Kazuma appears out of thin air and forbids her from entering her study for the day. Since she is already tired and she is a little pale these days, he says. She also sleeps more heavily than before at nights now and he noticed a change of pattern at her preferred foods. She is eating a lot but not as healthier as her usual diet that he specially wrote down for her also she is snacking a few times per day and it didn't escape him that she has a problem with her stomach because of the sudden change of flavors on her plate and the extra amount that her body isn't used to, he keeps listing until she raises a hand to stop his rambling and ask him where he is going with all that.
He sighs and pushes his glasses up as he explains the signs and causes of depression, a malfunction of brain and nervous system caused by the change of the amount of hormones in one's blood because of stress, physical or mental trauma, lack of sunlight, etc. and some other things she can't understand. Hell she doesn't even know half the words he used in the past three minutes or so. What the hell is amygdala?
She interrupts to say that she isn't depressed or anything of the sort and tries to go past him but catching her by the arm, he gently turns her around and takes her out to the garden where he leaves her on a picnic mat and with a basket of 'healthy snacks' to share with the children playing on the grass. And of course he doesn't forget to leave strict instructions that she is to stay put and 'enjoy' the good weather. Literally.
She has no choice but to do as he says because she knows how stubborn he can get at times. It's easier to comply when he insists on something than bearing his nagging, his disapproving stare and him shaking his head whenever they make eye contact for days.
So she does her picnic, plays hide and seek with the small children around her for a few rounds and takes a long dip in her hot spring, making the best out of her forced day off. And she must admit, it does her some good. She is more relaxed than she has been for a long time as she sits before her window and gazes up at the full moon. She goes to bed just as relaxed yet the next morning at breakfast, her favorite foods seem, smell and taste disgusting. She eats as much as she can but decides to not force herself halfway through her plate instead to just sip her tea on the chair at her balcony.
In one hour, the nausea that she became so accustomed to and that got in her daily routine in the last weeks reappears. She feels like vomiting and runs to her bathroom a few times but nothing comes out after the first time.
When Kazuma catches her coming out of the bathroom clutching her stomach with one hand and leaning on the wall, he immediately forces her to lie down on her bed, questions her if she feels anything from the shinki, checks her nape then gets Akiha.
After listening to Kazuma's previous diagnosis, Akiha examines her for over one hour. In the end, Kazuma impatiently asks what he found. The man hesitates to answer at first but when Kazuma repeats his question with a firmer voice he mumbles.
"Well, it seems…that my lady is…e-expecting."
Both Kazuma and her look at the other man, dumbstruck. Kazuma asks what he meant with 'expecting', just because it is so unbelievable.
"With child."
Akiha confirms it, posture and voice straight this time having remembered that he is in front of his goddess.
And it is as if everything stops right then. She takes a breath and slowly lowers her hand to rest on her abdomen.
She is pregnant.
There is a baby in her body.
She will have a child.
She is going to be a mother.
She is pregnant.
Pregnant.
And it dawns on her that it's his.
She is having his baby.