My Scumbag System-Chapter 353: Morning-After Yoga, As Performed By A Drunk Penguin

Chapter 353: Morning-After Yoga, As Performed By A Drunk Penguin

Emi Aoyama woke up to sunlight stabbing her directly in the eyeballs.

Her first thought was that someone had replaced her pillow with a warm rock. Her second thought was that rocks didn’t breathe. Her third thought arrived approximately half a second later, and it hit her like a freight train made entirely of embarrassment and joy.

That’s not a pillow. That’s Satori’s chest. I’m sleeping on Satori’s chest. In Satori’s bed. After we...

Her eyes snapped open so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash.

The memories came flooding back in a rush of sensation and sound. His hands on her skin. His voice in her ear. The way he’d looked at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered. The feeling of being so completely full, so utterly claimed, that she’d forgotten where she ended and he began.

THIS IS REAL. THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Emi’s heart launched itself into her throat. She lay frozen for a solid ten seconds, terrified that any movement would shatter the dream she’d somehow stumbled into. But the warm weight of Satori’s arm across her waist refused to disappear. The steady rhythm of his breathing remained constant. And the pleasant ache between her thighs served as undeniable proof that last night had been very, very real.

She risked a glance down at herself.

Naked. Completely, utterly naked.

A faint green shimmer danced across her skin, her healing aura still active from their marathon session. As consciousness fully returned, the glow faded like morning mist under the sun, leaving behind perfectly ordinary skin covered in perfectly extraordinary marks.

Hickeys. So many hickeys. Her neck looked like she’d lost a fight with a very passionate vacuum cleaner.

Oh god. How am I supposed to hide these? My healing aura works on injuries, not... not love bites!

She tried to sit up slowly, carefully, desperate not to wake Satori. The plan was simple. Extract herself from his arms. Find her clothes. Process the fact that she’d just lost her virginity to the most dangerous, most attractive, most complicated boy in the entire academy.

Simple.

Easy.

The sheets tangled around her ankle. Her elbow caught on the pillow. And when she tried to correct her balance, she overcompensated so badly that she rolled right off the edge of the bed with all the grace of a drunk penguin.

"OOF!"

She hit the floor with a thud loud enough to wake the dead. Or at least, loud enough to wake Satori.

"Emi." His voice was rough with sleep, amused rather than concerned. "Did you just fall out of my bed?"

She lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, her face burning hot enough to cook breakfast. "No."

"You’re on the floor."

"I’m... stretching."

"Naked."

"Morning yoga."

A pause. Then Satori’s face appeared over the edge of the bed, his dark hair disheveled and his eyes still half-lidded. The sight of him looking down at her with that lazy, knowing smile made her stomach flip in ways that should be illegal.

"Interesting technique," he said.

"Please don’t look at me right now."

"Why? The view is excellent from up here."

She grabbed the nearest piece of fabric, which turned out to be his shirt from yesterday, and clutched it to her chest like a shield. "Because I’m having a crisis!"

"A good crisis or a bad crisis?"

"I don’t know yet! Give me a minute!"

Satori’s smile widened. He reached down and hauled her back onto the bed with embarrassing ease, depositing her beside him like she weighed nothing at all.

"Take your time," he said, tucking a strand of blue hair behind her ear. "I’ll be here when you figure it out."

The tender gesture broke something loose in her chest. All the panic, all the anxiety, all the worried voices in her head telling her this was too good to be true... they melted away under the warmth of his touch.

She surged forward and kissed him.

It was messy and uncoordinated and her morning breath was probably terrible, but she didn’t care. She kissed him like her life depended on it, pouring every ounce of joy and relief and yes, love, into the press of her lips against his.

When she finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard.

"Good crisis," she whispered. "Definitely a good crisis."

"Glad we cleared that up."

Her stomach chose that moment to growl loud enough to echo off the walls.

Satori raised an eyebrow. "Hungry?"

"I... may have burned a lot of calories last night."

"We both did." He stretched, muscles rippling in ways that made her mouth go dry. "I could eat."

Emi’s eyes lit up. This was it. This was her chance to be the perfect girlfriend. To show him that she wasn’t just good in bed, she was also good in the kitchen. She would make him the most amazing breakfast he’d ever tasted, and he would fall even more in love with her, and everything would be wonderful forever.

"Let me make you breakfast!" she announced, already scrambling out of bed and pulling his shirt over her head. It hung to her mid-thighs, swimming on her smaller frame, and she caught Satori’s eyes darkening as he watched her. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"You don’t have to..."

"I want to! Stay here, relax, let me take care of you for once!"

Before he could protest further, she was out the door and heading for the kitchen.

The Onyx House kitchen was blessedly empty at this hour. Most of the residents were either still asleep or at morning training, which meant Emi had the space entirely to herself. She surveyed the available ingredients with the confidence of a general preparing for battle.

Eggs. Bread. Butter. Some vegetables in the crisper. This would be easy. She’d made breakfast a thousand times.

Okay, maybe not a thousand times. Maybe more like... twelve? And eight of those were disasters. But this time is different! This time I’m motivated by love!

She cracked the first egg into the pan.

Too hard. Shell fragments scattered everywhere.

No problem. She’d just fish them out. With her fingers. Which she immediately burned on the hot pan.

"Ow ow ow ow ow!"

Her healing aura flared automatically, soothing the burn. Right. She was a healer. Burns were nothing. She could do this.

Second egg. Gentler this time. The egg made it into the pan in one piece.

Victory!

Except she’d forgotten to add oil first, and now the egg was welding itself to the metal surface with the tenacity of industrial adhesive.

She tried to flip it. The spatula bounced off. She tried again, putting her whole arm into it. The egg remained immobile.

"Come on, you stupid egg, just... FLIP!"

The egg finally released from the pan. It shot straight up, hit the ceiling, and came back down as a scrambled mess of yolk and white that splattered across her borrowed shirt.

Emi stared down at herself. Egg dripped from her chest onto her bare feet.

Okay. Okay. That was just a warm-up egg. The next one will be better.