Chapter 197: [Vol. 3 pt. 60] Patch 10.0: A Growing Crew

Ryouta still can’t really believe what just happened.

After just wanting to comfort Cassandra by making sure that Aiko understands her place, he got out of the game to talk to her, and now she’s gone. She packed up her things, walked out of his apartment, and is now gone.

Should he have tried to make her stay? Could they have talked about it some more?

Is she overreacting, or is he underreacting?

Sitting on his bed, unsure of what to do or even think, he looks over the faces of his immersed girlfriends. None of them have any idea what just happened. All they know is that he awkwardly confronted Aiko in-game, then they both woke from virtual reality, and they have been in-game probably wondering about what’s going on.

Going by the fact that none of them have tried waking to check on what has been happening, they must understand that it was a personal and sensitive issue at least.

Ryouta feels sick. He can’t shake the thought that he should have done something more – something better to prevent this from happening.

But, when he remembers why he did it and what caused it, he can’t truly fault himself. He was just sticking up for Cassandra. A man telling a girl that she’s not his girlfriend, while in front of his real girlfriends, is nothing to feel guilty about. If anything, it is something that he should respect himself for doing. He was just standing up for his real girlfriend instead of playing along with somebody whom was borderline disrespectful of his relationship.

Ryouta is left feeling confused.

He feels responsible but at the same time… part of him just thinks that she needs some serious help. At least he has her number and can text or call her to check up on her and, hopefully, she’ll still hang out with Serra so that she at least has a friend she can be around.

And what was that about the place she said she had to go back to? He assumes that she was talking about some sort of institution for mental health – or rather, he hopes that’s what she was talking about because she seems like she genuinely needs that.

Then there were her thighs.

Some of those cuts were recent. When did she do that? The only time she’s ever been away from anybody was whenever she was going to the bathroom or taking a shower, so it had to be then unless she did it while everybody was asleep.

Were there signs that he wasn’t noticing? Could he have stopped her from doing that?

He can’t help but think that there has to be something he could have done differently. Part of him feels like he should have just let her continue acting like he was definitely going to marry her or at least date her, but that wouldn’t have been right by his girlfriends.

“I guess there’s really nothing I could have done,” Ryouta says to himself, staring up at the spinning ceiling fan.

Aiko came back into his life, acted like she was never even gone and has been clinging to him for days, and is now gone just like that.

He looks over at his phone. The urge to text or call her right now is very much real.

Picking up his phone, he opens it up to check on the message he got from his landlord instead.

Yeah, they aren’t happy.

Ryouta looks over his girlfriends. They’ve apparently caused several noise complaints and his landlord is saying that only one person is permitted to live there according to the contract.

It would probably be fine without Aiko now as most of the noise has been caused by disputes between her and Cassandra, but he doubts that the landlord is going to buy that.

He has two options according to his landlord.

Move out and pay an extra month’s of rent for breaking the contract early or tell his girlfriends to go home.

Serra still has her parents’ house, Cassandra has her own small apartment, and Alice – well, Alice is a guest, so he’s sure that she’ll be fine to stay as long as he explains the situation to his landlord.

First Aiko, now his landlord. What’s next? All he wants is to have fun with his girlfriends without all of this drama.

Sighing, he lies back down on the bed where he originally was and immerses himself into virtual reality once more.

The first person he notices is Azalabulia just sort of awkwardly standing near the front of The Shoebill by herself.

Something feels soft.

Fenrir looks up.

“Welcome back, my hero,” Nell says while stroking her fingers through his hair.

Fenrir turns his head just enough to see that he’s resting on her lap.

He has finally gotten a lap pillow.

This may not be the best time to enjoy it, but it does help cheer him up.

“Sorry about that. Where’d Nyaiko go?” Fenrir asks.

“Serra and Cassiel took her below deck to rest in one of the hammocks. Is everything alright?” Nell asks.

“Not really.” Cassiel and Serra come back above deck since they hear him talking. He’s worried about what they’re going to think. Will they blame him for Aiko leaving? She was more of Serra’s friend at this point anyway, so what’s Serra going to think? “She uhh, left,” Fenrir says.

Fenrir goes over the conversation that he had with Aiko in real life.

Cassiel looks torn between feeling bad and relieved, Nell continues massaging his scalp with her fingers since she wants to make him feel better, and Serra looks like she feels the worst out of all of them.

“Sorry,” Serra says.

“Why are you apologizing?” Fenrir asks her.

“She told me about those problems before and the place she was staying before we met. I thought she was better now. Am… am I a bad friend?”

“It’s not your fault,” he says, meaning it despite not applying the same logic to himself. “I’m realizing lately that I’m not paying enough attention to people beyond the surface. I want to get better at paying attention and picking up on these things,” he says, looking up at Cassiel.

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She’s not the only one who wants to change for the better.

“I am sure that she will be alright, my hero. I must admit that she did not seem to be a very healthy individual, but she is aware of her issues and is going to seek help. It is better to admit to oneself and seek help then to be in denial and have help forced upon oneself,” Nell says. “Furthermore, neither of you are trained in psychology, so please do not be hard on yourselves for not picking up on her distress. I knew she had her issues, but I did not know they were so negative toward herself.”

“Yeah, I thought she was just obsessive and a stalker,” Cassiel says. “I wouldn’t have guessed she was so depressed.”

“Just feels like I should’ve done something differently,” Fenrir says.

Cassiel shakes her head. “I… I know you feel bad about her leaving, but… thanks,” she says. “I ap-appreciate you for… for standing up and saying that since I – I know you saw me and—”

“Don’t worry about it. I want to be a great boyfriend for you, and I wouldn’t be a good boyfriend if I didn’t take my relationship with you all seriously.”

Nell leans over to kiss him while her fingers stroke his ears, causing them to twitch around.

“I’m a bad friend,” Serra says.

“What’re you talking about? No you’re not,” Fenrir says.

Serra looks away. “I’ll try to be better,” she says. “I really want to be.”

Now Cassiel looks like she’s the one who feels guilty.

“Yo, bro, you back?” Rao asks.

Cassiel glares at him.

“I’ll come back later,” Rao says, heading back to The Shoebill’s stern.

Fenrir sighs. “I don’t want to say this now, but I’ve got bad news about the apartment. I’m in trouble for everybody staying over,” he explains.

Serra hangs her head even lower despite her being the least at fault regarding noise complaints.

“People have been complaining and saying I had a bunch of people move in when I’m technically supposed to be the only one living there, so… either I get kicked out, or you two are going to have to leave,” he says, looking at Cassiel and Serra. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. We all sort of basically moved in without saying anything, so we should be the ones apologizing to you for getting you in trouble… sorry,” Cassiel says.

“Sorry,” Serra says.

“I can return home if it would,” Nell says and gets interrupted.

“You’re a guest, so the landlord should understand you staying for a few months,” Fenrir says.

Nell still looks like she feels guilty, but then her eyes light up and she gets a wide smile on her face. “I have a splendid idea! Why do we not just find a larger home for ourselves? My family will have no issue affording whichever location we choose, and then we will not have to worry about breaking the rules!”

“Wait… you’re proposing all of us seriously getting our own place together?” Sure, he’s been dating Serra and Cassiel for a few months already, but Nell has only been a member of the relationship for under a month of real time.

“I am!”

“Seriously?”

Nell excitedly nods her head.

“Don’t you… kind of think that’s moving too fast?”

“It most certainly is, my hero, but you love me and never plan on doing anything that would make me fall out of love with you, yes?”

“I mean, yeah.”

“And I never plan on doing anything that would make you hate me, so that means we shall be happily spending our lives together!”

“You sound pretty confident about that.”

“Should I not be, my hero?”

“I can’t give you a reason to say you shouldn’t be.”

“Then it is settled! We shall find ourselves a new home to happily live in together.”

Cassiel and Serra both blink a few times at Nell’s words.

Neither of them rejects the plan, though.

“We’ll think about that later, Nell. Let’s just go through one thing at a time right now. I don’t think my head is in the right place right now to seriously think about that sort of life change,” Fenrir says.

“Very well, my hero. I would need to talk to my father about it beforehand regardless,” Nell says.

This day has been full of unexpected surprises. First the boss, then the serpent and Rao, then the dungeon and Azalabulia, then Aiko leaving, and now Nell proposing that they seriously buy a home together.

To think just half a year ago and he was thinking that he’d never even get a girlfriend and forever be stuck with 2D waifus.

“Just know, my hero, that it is one less thing for you to be worried about,” Nell says in a soft, almost motherly tone as she brushes his bangs off of his forehead.

“Thanks, Nell. By the way, your thighs make a great pillow,” Fenrir says, turning his head to place a kiss on her thigh.

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