Maid Day (Part 3)

After bidding farewell to Melissa (she said she may return to have more no-strings-attached fun one day), Kazuma and Chris returned to the alleyway where he'd originally been kidnapped. Thankfully no ruffians had been there in the time they'd been gone as his bags of stuff that had been left behind hadn't been stolen.

"Man, can't believe she crushed my box of chocolates..." Kazuma pouted, looking at the deeply squished brown mush inside and sighing before tossing it into one of the alley's many bins.

Chris was still adjusting herself, the cum bath had stained her maid uniform pretty badly. "Chocolate? Why'd you get that? Let me guess, Aqua's demanding you take better care of her."

"Nah, going on a date with Darkness tonight." He smiled, mostly to himself and the excitement he was feeling for the event. It had been months since his last 'real' date with Megumin, and that had just been a demanding explosion session before they'd gotten into another fight. He threw himself out of the memory and into the fantasy of the future. Lalatina...

The thief whistled, "Wow. I think that's the first real date she's ever gone on. Minus that one time a couple of guys tried to pick us up at the bar one evening before she scared both of them away." She giggled to herself. "Though trusting you, maybe you'll be the one to scare her off tonight."

Under his breathe, Kazuma chuckled in a similar way, "I was going to ask if there was anything else I needed to know about her. But maybe I should ask someone who didn't become her friend out of pity, huh?"

The goddess instantly stopped joking, her face growing serious, "What's that supposed to mean?"

With a large motion Kazuma threw his arms to the sky, putting on a faux deep voice, "The god’s themselves came down from the heavens just to give Lalatina a single friend!”

“Hey! That’s not true Kazuma!”

“Yeah it is, you've said so yourself.”

“...” Chris frowned, looking right at Kazuma like she was chewing on nothing but her thoughts. Only mumbling out, “It isn’t like that…”

After a quizzical eyebrow, he reached over and touched her shoulder, “Look. It’s okay Chris, I’m sure Darkness isn’t upset or anything.”

She wasn’t satisfied. Crossing her arms over her chest, “Just… just cause it started as answering the prayer of a little girl who needed a friend, doesn’t mean I always felt like that…” He tilted his head at her, wondering where she was going with this, “Kazuma… you know I was jealous of Darkness, right?”

“Course, you were. Have you seen those breast-”

“Not JUST cause of her body!” Chris snapped back, taking a moment before continuing, “I was also jealous of her outlook.”

“Her outlook? Am I sensing some sort of history lesson here?”

As if to confirm the question Chris sat down in the alley and gestured for Kazuma to do the same. Running a hand through her hair before she started talking, “Look, me and her went on plenty of adventures together before she met up with you guys. And as you’d think, they didn’t always go our way.” She said, then raising a finger to point at him, “But there’s something you probably didn’t know about those days, and that’s how happy she was at the end of every. Single. Quest.”

“Darkness enjoying failure? Wonder why that was…” Kazuma sarcastically mewled.

Chris just frowned, but not in anger more contemplatively. “No, that isn’t the best place to start… Okay, Kazuma, I’ve been in the Goddess game a long time. We’re talking centuries. And for a while… I was completely burnt out of it. My passion was gone. You’d probably have been annoyed there were two Aquas up in heaven if I’m being honest. So many days where I was just sort of existing rather than living.” She sighed, a forlorn look on her face as she recounted her past, Kazuma going only slightly pale at the thought of two abrasive Aquas, “Then one day, there was this little girl looking up at me and begging for a friend…” She trailed off, seemingly finding trouble in her thoughts.

“Yeah? Then you took pity on lil Lalatina and became her friend, right?”

She bit her lip, “As I said, it wasn’t pity… I did it as... as a holiday. Our friendship began because I saw a chance to get some relaxing done in the human world. I feel really bad about it now, but in a way I was… well, I used little kid Darkness as an excuse to shirk my job.”

“Oh… wow.”

“Yeah.” Chris nodded, guilt plastered all over her face, “I haven’t admitted it to her yet. Even though she knows I'm Eris now... I-I just don’t know how to tell her. How do you reveal to someone that your whole friendship started as a lie?”

Kazuma let the question hang in the air, poking his chin and thinking about how best to answer such a delicate question. “Well… like, there’s gotta be more to it than that, right? You came down here as a holiday then stayed forever? Why did you stick around?”

“I guess… for Darkness.” The Goddess admitted with a smile, “I came down for a simple holiday, but had too much fun with the sheltered noble, you know? Getting to play the cunning thief, showing the wide eyed girl how the world worked outside of the books she read…”

“Sounds nice.” Kazuma hummed, briefly remembering Iris and how he'd been something similar to her, “Always wondered why you went thief and not a priest or something.”

“My stats would have been too obvious. Everyone would know a Goddess when they saw one down here.” She explained. Kazuma ignoring his impulse to laugh at Aqua’s past. “Anyway, I stuck around to play with a kid, but as Darkness grew into a woman she started dragging me out on adventures. Quests that failed spectacularly. Monster fights that left us battered and bruised… and she looked so happy about it every time. I was jealous because I wondered how she could have such an upbeat look in the face of defeat. How she was so… passionate about everything. Even when the villagers we failed to save growled at us and complained, she’d still smile and reassure them that everything would be okay.”

Kazuma had had enough, finally cutting in with the obvious point: “Chris. You know Darkness is a massive pervert, right? She was probably getting off on the failure and the shouting.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Chris chuckled, confusing him more. “I’m sure it’s part of it, I’m not blind, but even when her sexual high ran out there was still so much enjoyment in the adventures we went on. I’m sure you’ve felt it too. Even if you complain, there’s a nice feeling when Darkness is being happy that washes over everyone, doesn’t it?”

Memories and feelings slotted into place. While Kazuma may not have consciously thought that, his brain was finding itself agreeing with what Chris was saying.

The Goddess’ face started to grow darker, “And then I REALLY fucked up. In a way I’m still trying to make up for, yet Darkness doesn’t even know about."

She once more chewed on her thoughts. Kazuma subconsciously gulping.

“Kazuma… I peeked behind the curtain. One drunk night after another failure I was too curious to not look at how she was so happy. To find out how she kept the passion alive in her life, even after the dull mundanity of living. So I went to heaven and looked through my Goddess lens… and found that…” She trailed off, seemingly having trouble speaking as she began to whisper… “Well, Darkness isn’t that happy.”

Kazuma swallowed. Moving around to the other side of the alley to put an arm around Chris’ shoulders.

Her finger scratched the scar on her cheek, absently staring to the sky. “It’s a strange thing. Finding out that the mortal I was jealous of felt so bad about every failure. Seeing that when she was alone, behind closed doors, Darkness wore silent tears.” She sighed, water welling in her own eyes as she spoke, “The real kicker? I found out she was praying for forgiveness. Darkness believed she’d betrayed me as both Eris the Goddess and Chris her friend, so she was praying to both of us. It just broke my heart. In that moment she revealed so much, how she always put on a braver face than me whenever she went outside, that her passion was a way to ignore the guilt she felt about being a failure, and that for all my Goddess powers… she’s so much stronger than me.”

“Fucking hell…”

Chris just nodded, quickly wiping a tear from her eye away from Kazuma. “I’ve never felt worse. Here I was, ignoring my job and treating human life like a vacation… and there she was. Using her whole existence to hold the world’s problems on her shoulders.” Her body tensed when Kazuma squeezed her shoulder, like she both wanted to shrug him off while also wanting to lean into it. “I-I shaped up after that. Took the prayers and the lives of this world much more seriously. The Eris you know wouldn’t have happened without my friendship with Darkness.”

He let out a long raspberry from his lips while thinking about what she’d said. “Damn. You always seemed like the responsible one. Guess Darkness just has that effect on people.”

Nodding in agreement, Chris changed her smile to a glare as she pointed at Kazuma. “So let it be known that I NEVER pitied her. If anything, I’m the idiot to be pitied.”

Kazuma just frowned, thinking about everything Chris had said. "...so it's been going on that long?"

"I feared you might have experienced it too." She solemnly sighed with a deep frown, patting Kazuma's knee as he looked deep in thought, "Look, sorry for dumping all that on you right there."

He shook his head, "No, no. It's probably important I know how long... this has been going on for." The boy admitted, sighing a little at the history lesson and trying to shake himself free from the thoughts "Anyway, you had something to warn me about or something?"

She sighed, "It can... probably wait till after your date. You already have enough on your mind. Just... treat Darkness right, alright?"

"I'll try my hardest to." Kazuma nodded, standing up with her and picking up his bags. "I've got something planned... if I can actually get it to happen and if it'll help or not, who knows. But at the very least it's something in my mind that's been stressing me out."

The two walked together out the alley, "That bad huh? But I'm sure Maid Day's been helping, yeah?"

"Less than you'd think. I had three waitresses sucking me off earlier yet I still feel like I need a holiday. My back's going into knots, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm getting grey hairs!"

He got a few giggles in return, "Only you'd manage to find a way to whine about a foursome like that."

They approached the small footbridge just before the last dash to Kazuma's house as he scratched his cheek, "...it was a fivesome, Luna let me- you know what? Doesn't matter. I gotta get going. But..." He trailed off as his hand rummaged through the bag he was carrying. Quickly pulling out a large piece of light blue cloth. "Thought I should show you this first.”

“Uhh, a big tarp?”

“No!” He huffed, spinning it around so the front faced her, and by faced I mean literally showing a mirror image of Chris…ish. “It’s the t-shirt design that Darkness wanted. You. As Eris. Because she still loves you no matter how many times you lied to her.”

Chris was silent. Just staring at the oversized piece of clothing with her turmoiled heart stirring feelings of guilt and love up. There she was, Eris the Goddess, looking just as holy as the rest of the statues that depicted her. Smiling sweetly while looking like she was praying.

"Th-thanks for showing me..." She murmured, smiling at Kazuma while holding back her emotions.

"It's cool. You good? You wanna come down to the Mansion with me?"

Chris sighed, handing back the T-Shirt while thinking about his offer. "No... No, I should go. There's some... things I need to check on."

He ran his hand over his face with a groan, "Urgh... dammit. I know you're setting up major flags for some big future thing, but for the life of me I think I'm too stressed to follow through with you." He grumbled, "I guess I'll see you later, little miss foreshadowing."

With a small two fingered salute, he walked off the bridge towards the mansion. The sounds of the stream beneath her and the sun on her face, Chris did want to follow him but knew she couldn't. Inestead, she waved to him goodbye, unable to stop herself from calling out and adding, "Don't worry Kazuma, what's the worst that could happen?!"

"HEY! YOU'RE DOING THAT ON PURPOSE!" He yelled as he quickly ran off to make sure she didn't say anything else.

She sighed with a smile, mumbling one last thing to only herself as her expression grew worry.

"...what's the worst that could happen?"