Suzume locked her apartment door behind her and stood there for a second, just breathing for a bit.

  The studio was dark except for the glow of her alarm clock on the nightstand and the faint city light filtering in through the window. Her gear bag hit the floor with a heavy thud, and she kicked her boots off, not even caring where they landed. Everything from the waist down was still caked in swamp muck, her jacket smelled like shit, and even though her HP said she was fine, she felt a couple more tingling ghost sensations on her shoulder.

  She didn't bother turning the lights on. Instead, Suzume just walked to her bed, grabbed her pillow, pressed it against her face, and let out a long, muffled groan that lasted about ten full seconds.

  Because, see, the problem wasn't the dungeon. The dungeon was over. She'd made it out alive, the rescued Player was safe, Honoka and Takeo were fine, and all of that was great. Hooray.

  The problem was what had happened in the dungeon, or more specifically, what had happened in the swamp when Rina shoved her into those roots and pinned her body flat against Suzume's to hide them from the bloatflies overhead.

  Her weight... her warmth. Rina's face right there, close enough that Suzume could feel her breath against her lips.

  Suzume groaned into the pillow again.

  [Ugh, it was like a scene from one of those bad shows Yumi watches.]

  She rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back, unhelpful as always.

  The thing was, Suzume had spent roughly eighteen years on this planet without thinking about women. Or men. Or anyone, really, in any capacity beyond "that person exists and I have no strong feelings about it." She'd been too busy studying, too busy being Akane's quiet, but supportive little sister, too busy trying to get into university and then too busy throwing all of that away to teach herself how to survive inside portals that wanted to kill her. Romance had never been on the table. It hadn't even been in the room. It had been in a different building entirely, maybe a different prefecture, and Suzume had been fine with that arrangement.

  And then Yumi just had to go and say it out loud.

  "You're touch-starved. You've been staring at women's bodies for weeks and you don't even realize you're doing it."

  Suzume pressed the pillow harder against her face.

  [I was not staring. I was... noticing. There's a difference.]

  Even she didn't buy that one.

  Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.

  Suzume reached over and grabbed it, squinting at the screen. Four messages, all within the last hour.

  Kasumi: "Honoka told me what happened. Are you okay? Call me if you need anything."

  Suzume's stomach did something weird at the word "anything." She could still feel it, if she let herself think about it, the memory of Kasumi pulling her in by her collar inside that dungeon a few days ago and just kissing her. No warning, no buildup, no preamble. Just Kasumi's mouth on hers, confident and sure, like she'd been waiting to do it for weeks and had simply run out of patience.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Which, apparently, she had.

  Suzume: "Nah, I'm good. Thanks, though."

  Next message.

  Yumi: "Heard you almost died AGAIN. Our talk wasn't that bad, was it?"

  Suzume: "Haha."

  Then:

  Hikari: "Please be more careful, Suzume."

  Suzume: "I'll try."

  Short, clean, and somehow it still made Suzume's ears warm. Hikari's messages always read like she'd drafted them three times before sending.

  And then Suzume's brain, completely unbidden, conjured up the image of Hikari from that beach photo she'd seen on social media the other week, her black hair down for once instead of in that ponytail, her body in a swimsuit, those long legs and that figure that her usual professional outfits only hinted at.

  [STOP. Stop it. We are not doing this right now.]

  One more message.

  Rina: "Stay focused."

  Two words. That was it. No "are you okay," no "glad you made it out," just "stay focused."

  Suzume set her phone down on her chest and stared at the ceiling again.

  Four women. Four messages. Four different flavors of "I care about you" and Suzume's stupid, touch-starved, recently-awakened-to-her-own-sexuality brain was sitting here cataloguing every single one of them like she was taking notes for an exam.

  "What the hell is wrong with me?" Suzume muttered at the ceiling.

  The ceiling, predictably, did not answer.

  She pulled the pillow back over her face and screamed into it one more time, just to be thorough, and then she forced herself to get up and take a shower. The hot water helped, at least a little, washing the swamp off her skin and loosening the tension in her shoulder. She stood under the spray for way too long, letting her brain go blank, and by the time she stepped out and dried off, the exhaustion had caught up with her completely.

  She collapsed into bed wearing an old t-shirt and shorts, her wet hair soaking into the pillow, and was asleep within minutes.

  The dream that followed was stupid.

  Suzume knew it was a dream because she was wearing a ballgown, which was something she would never do in any version of reality she could imagine, and also because she was standing in the middle of a grand ballroom that looked like it had been ripped straight out of one of those fantasy dating sims she'd seen ads for on MeTube.

  And then Kasumi walked in.

  Not regular Kasumi, either. Dream Kasumi was wearing a full suit, tailored and sharp, with her orange hair slicked back and her green eyes looking down at Suzume with the kind of smug confidence that made Suzume want to... something. She wasn't sure what.

  Damned woman had her hand extended and everything, like they were in some kind of period drama.

  "May I have this dance?" Dream Kasumi asked, and her voice was lower than usual, smoother, like she'd been practicing it.

  "I... I don't know how to dance," Dream Suzume replied, but her hand was already reaching out.

  "That's fine, darling." Kasumi took her hand and pulled her close, one arm wrapping around her waist. "I'll lead."

  And then, Kasumi literally swept her off her feet, dipping her so low that Suzume's hair brushed the floor, and Dream Suzume swooned.

  She fucking swooned.

  "Do not worry, love. The night is still young." Dream Kasumi whispered and then she leaned in, and—

  Suzume woke up to sunlight in her face and her alarm clock telling her it was 2:47 PM.

  She laid there for a solid thirty seconds, processing, her face still warm from the dream, and then she covered her eyes with her arm and let out a very long, very tired sigh.

  [I'm in so much trouble.]

  She fumbled for her phone on the nightstand and squinted at it. More messages had come in while she was asleep, most of them from the group chat, Honoka gushing about how glad she was that everyone was safe, Takeo asking if they had another mission lined up, Emiko reminding people to submit their expense reports. Normal guild stuff. Suzume scrolled through them, half-reading, still groggy, until she got to her email.

  There was one new notification at the top of her inbox, from an address she didn't recognize, and the subject line made her sit up in bed.

  Subject: Rescue Inquiry — Request from Colorado, USA

  Suzume squinted at it, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and read the subject line again to make sure she wasn't still dreaming.

  [What? America?]