205 Vol. 4 pt. 8 Patch 2.0: Prime Real Estate (1/2)
Serra joins in on the tickle-torture by squeezing herself behind the couch. Since it has yet to be fully pushed against the wall, there is enough space for her smaller body to fit back there.
Once positioned, she slips her hands down toward Alice and is quick in sliding her hands underneath Alice's arms.
Alice jumps from the sudden and unexpected hands now trying to tickle her armpits.
”Ser-Serra! St—don't take his side!” Alice cries while being unable to hold back her giggling. Her entire body – well, the parts of it that can move are shaking and wiggling around at this point as she just doesn't have the strength to stop either of them. ”St-stop! I'm – I'm going to hit you!”
”Pfftt. You'd never hit us,” Ryouta says, right before getting an especially loud squeak from her. He pulls his face up for a moment to see what Serra is doing, and that puts him in the line of attack for her swinging arms.
Alice's arm comes smashing right into Ryouta's face as a result of Serra still tickling her.
She actually hits him hard enough that he tumbles backward a bit and is left with a bloody nose.
”H-hey, are you alright?” Cassandra asks, getting off of the couch to check on him.
”Ah! I'm sorry! I – I didn't mean to do that!” Alice explains. ”Serra! Please stop!”
Since Serra can't see Alice's mouth, she has no idea that Alice is even saying something. It is only when Alice seriously grabs onto Serra's hands and roughly removes them from underneath her arms that Serra gets the hint and stops.
”I'm alright. It was just an accident, and I was totally asking for it,” Ryouta says, wiping his nose onto his arm. ”It's not broken or anything. I think.”
”I – I'm still sorry, Ryouta. This… has happened before. My father tried tickling me when I was a child and I broke his nose. Five times. He eventually stopped trying to tickle me,” Alice explains.
”You're pretty violent when you're getting tickled, aren't you?”
”I do not mean to be! I just lose control of my movements! It is not my fault,” Alice says with a whine and a pout.
”It's alright. Don't worry about it. By the way,” Ryouta pauses when he hears his phone vibrate. Pulling it out from his pocket to check on it, he has a text from their internet provider apologizing for the delay and saying that their internet service has finally been activated. ”By the way… I'm going to go play FTO. Just got a text saying the internet is on. Gonna set up the computer real quick, connect everything, and check on how things are.” Ryouta sends Oleander a text as well telling him that his internet is finally on.
”Took them long enough. Never heard of internet not being ready before people even move in,” Cassandra says. ”Not in modern times, anyways.”
”Your nose, are you – are you sure that you should be playing instead of going to the hospital?” Alice asks.
”It's just a bloody nose from being hit. You didn't break it,” Ryouta says.
”But – but I always broke my father's nose! You should get it checked out!”
”It doesn't even hurt that much already. Look,” Ryouta says, touching his nose. He immediately cringes from pain. ”It's – it's fine.”
”Ryouta!”
”If it seriously hurts that bad then we can go,” Cassandra says.
”I mean, does it look broken? You can usually tell from how it looks, right?” Ryouta asks.
Cassandra grabs his face and holds him still to look straight at him. ”I mean, it looks fine. Just bloody. It's not…crooked or anything, but I don't know if broken noses are always visible. I broke my arm once as a kid and it's not like you could tell from looking at it.”
”How'd that happen?”
”We were playing soccer at school, I tripped, and let's just say it bent.”
”That wasn't visible?”
”Well… it was when it first got bent, but then looked normal when I unbent it. Then it just looked really bruised.”
”That… like, it bent?”
”Yeah.”
Ryouta shudders at the thought. He's seen videos of similar injuries on the internet before, and he could never handle those videos. Videos of limbs bending in ways that they shouldn't and anything sad or cruel involving animals are the only kinds of videos that he truly cannot handle.
”Anyways… gonna go game. My nose is fine. If it's not fine, it'll be fine,” he says.
”You are too stubborn!” Alice pouts.
”Hey, if I wasn't stubborn, Nell would still belong to Ull.”
”You – you may have a point, but now is not the time to be stubborn! This is your nose, not Ull!”