190 Vol. 3 pt. 60 Patch 10.0: A Growing Crew (1/2)

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.