Sanctuary of the Same Bed
Even after every movement had stilled, the two of them lay in silence for a long while.
The Hero steadied his breathing, then carefully withdrew without releasing Ria’s hand.
Her body flinched faintly.
He settled beside her at once and drew the blanket up over them.
The room fell suddenly quiet.
In the space that only moments before had been filled with the rustle of sheets and their mingled breaths, those close sounds receded all at once. Ria tried to open her eyes, then closed them again. Her breath would not return right away.
The responses of her body that she had missed while following his movements now returned one by one, only after everything had stopped. The fingers that had been laced with his hung limp; tension she had not even noticed still clung to her shoulders.
His hand was the first to come near her face.
“Ria.”
His voice was a little rough.
“Are you all right?”
She could not answer at once.
Her body felt heavy, and a dull ache still pressed deep in her lower belly. Strength would not return properly to her legs either.
The weight and dull pressure that had filled her only moments ago grew clearer still once the movement ceased.
Ria drew in a breath, then could not finish releasing it and paused. Something trembled faintly in her throat—whether a sob or simply breath, she could not tell.
His hand, resting on the blanket, approached carefully.
Her fingers closed weakly around the hand that came to her.
Only then did her head tip in a small nod.
“I still…”
Her voice cracked softly.
“I don’t really know.”
His fingertips stiffened inside her grasp.
She held his hand more tightly.
“It hurt, and I was very startled.”
His breath settled low.
Ria left the tears at the corners of her eyes untouched and smiled, very faintly.
She had to steady her breathing several times before she could continue.
The pain remained.
There had been moments of fear as well.
Just a little while ago she had truly been afraid she might not be able to bear it.
Yet their hands had stayed joined to the end.
She looked down at their laced fingers. Heat still lingered between them. She must have gripped too hard; her knuckles tingled faintly.
In every tingling joint remained the time they had refused to let go.
“But I don’t regret it.”
His hand stiffened once more.
“I’m sorry.”
Ria shook her head.
“Please don’t only say you’re sorry.”
At those words his fingertips went rigid again.
She drew his hand close against her chest.
Her body was still unfamiliar and sore, yet she wanted his hand near.
“I wasn’t hurting alone.”
She laced their fingers a little deeper.
“You kept holding my hand the whole time, Hero.”
She let out a long breath.
The pain was still there.
And inside it, the warmth of their joined hands had settled as well.
The Hero rested his forehead against the back of her hand.
Feeling that warmth, Ria finally loosened the breath that had been held so tightly only moments before.
Her body was still strange to her.
Even so, she did not want to unlace their fingers.
A long while later, he carefully sat up.
Her shoulder twitched.
He spoke at once, low.
“I’ll get a towel. Just a moment.”
Clutching the edge of the blanket, she gave a small nod.
When he rose from the bed, the warmth beside her emptied for a moment.
Ria pulled the blanket higher. Only after the movement stopped did the heavy after-sensation between her legs and along her inner thighs grow clearer.
Her face heated again.
When she tried to shift her legs even a little beneath the covers, a dull pull answered deep in her belly. The damp remnant still clung to her inner thighs.
The fact that she had truly become one with him only a short while ago rose belatedly through her body.
She drew the blanket up to her chest.
Her face burned.
It was a trace no one else could ever be allowed to see.
Yet the moment she heard his returning footsteps, her hand tightened on the edge of the blanket.
A soft sound of the door opening.
The Hero brought a clean towel and sat beside the bed.
“It might feel a little cool.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
Before the towel touched her, his hand paused near her thigh.
Though her eyes were shut, she knew the hand holding the towel hesitated. So she gave a small nod. If she answered aloud, her voice would tremble again.
The towel was softer than she expected.
Even so, the moment it touched her, her body flinched first. The place that had received him only moments ago revived a strange heat at even the slightest motion.
His hand slowed.
Ria quickly caught his wrist. The fingertips that found his wrist held him close instead.
“It’s all right.”
She spoke with her eyes still closed.
“Just… slowly, please.”
Instead of answering, he folded the towel to a softer side.
Very carefully he wiped the traces left on her inner thighs and on the sheet.
The urge to turn her face away rose several times, yet her hand stayed lightly closed around his wrist.
The embarrassment still burned hot.
Yet the hand holding the towel was near, and she kept her light hold on that wrist.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
The hand with the towel stopped where it was.
Eyes closed, she pressed his wrist ever so slightly.
“It’s all right. I’m just startled.”
He wiped even more carefully.
After gently pressing away the traces on her inner thighs and the sheet, he started to set the towel aside, then paused to look at her face.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
He drew the blanket up and covered her.
He hesitated a moment, then reached toward the nightstand beside the bed.
The water glass was a little far. When he leaned, Ria’s empty hand closed into a fist beneath the covers.
Seeing that small movement, he returned at once.
“Want some water?”
She started to answer, then realized only then how dry her throat had become.
“Just a little.”
He supported her back with one arm while holding the cup. Simply sitting up pulled heavily deep in her belly. When her brow tightened the slightest bit, strength entered his arm.
“Slowly.”
She set her lips to the rim and drank only a little.
The water was lukewarm.
It slid down her throat. The body that had been disordered by tears and breath only moments before returned, just a little, to reality along with that temperature.
“More?”
She shook her head.
“I’m all right now.”
A soft sound as the cup returned to the nightstand.
He laid her down again. Even the motion of withdrawing his arm from her back was slow. When a brief emptiness opened where his arm had been, her hand moved beneath the blanket.
Soon his hand filled that space.
She took it again.
Quietly she steadied her breathing under the covers. Her body was exhausted; her eyelids felt heavy.
Yet before sleep, she had to say this much.
“Hero.”
“Mm.”
“I… I don’t know if I did well.”
The hand that had been smoothing her hair stilled.
She smiled faintly in embarrassment.
“Because it was the first time. I only kept being startled, and I kept making you stop…”
“Ria.”
He called her name low.
“It was the first time for both of us.”
She blinked at those words.
He chose his next words carefully, then drew her a little more carefully into his arms.
“I was clumsy too.”
His voice was low, a little hoarse.
“I was scared a lot as well.”
Slowly she lifted her eyes.
Near the back of her hand he chose his words. The hand he had not been able to release. The hand that had tightened and loosened again and again.
“Every time you said it hurt, I was afraid I was doing something wrong.”
He let out a very small breath.
“But because you were holding my hand… I could stay there too.”
She could not answer him at once.
She had thought only that he was the one supporting her; only now did she understand that he, too, had been leaning on the hand she held.
“So don’t think that way alone.”
Inside his arms she held those words for a long time.
“Together…”
she murmured softly.
“Mm.”
He pressed his lips to her hair.
“Together.”
This time she did not hesitate; she rested her forehead against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. A little fast, a little tired, yet beating clearly.
Listening to that sound, she slowly moved her hand beneath the blanket.
Soon his hand covered hers.
Carefully she slipped her fingers between his.
Only a short while ago it had been the hand she gripped to endure the pain.
Now the same hand led all the way to the place where they would sleep.
“Hero.”
“Mm.”
Eyes closed, she spoke.
“I still don’t really know… what everything just now felt like.”
She laced their fingers more tightly.
“But I’m happy.”
His breath caught for an instant.
“Happy?”
“Yes.”
She leaned a little deeper into his arms.
“Not the Management Bureau, not through glass…”
Her voice grew smaller and smaller.
“Now we’re really in the same bed.”
He looked at her for a long time, then bent and kissed her forehead.
“Sleep well, Ria.”
Instead of answering she closed her eyes.
Sleep did not come at once.
Her body was still unfamiliar, the embarrassment had not vanished, and she could not know how she would face him in the morning.
When she closed her eyes, the sensations of a moment ago rose again.
The moment she gripped his hand.
The moment her breath broke.
The moment tears came from the pain yet she still could not let go of his name.
Beneath the covers she moved her toes the slightest bit.
The heavy remnant between her legs heated her face once more. Her body was still her own, yet it had not returned to the same place as before.
She quietly swallowed a breath.
Then his hand found hers atop the blanket.
His palm settled over the back of her hand.
Warmth arrived before words.
Under that hand she slowly opened her fingers.
And again, she laced them with his.
His warmth slowly meshed between her fingers.
The knuckles that had been rigid only moments before slowly loosened beneath the covers.
On the white sheet, even after the towel had passed, a faint first trace remained.
At the corners of Ria’s eyes were tear tracks that had not yet dried.
The Hero’s arm carefully encircled her.
Everything was still unfamiliar.
Deep pressure and damp remnant still pooled inside her body, and tomorrow morning she might grow shy all over again.
Yet every one of those worries drifted a little farther away inside his arms.
Instead of the cold ceiling she had once stared up at from the temporary lodging of the Management Bureau, now she heard the slow beat of his heart from within his embrace.
Whenever sleep grew shallow, she heard his breathing close by.
In that warmth, the tension that had remained in her shoulders loosened little by little.
That night, for the first time, the Saintess fell into deep sleep in a bed on Earth.
The waiting that had not ended for three years settled quietly inside that warmth.
