321 Vol. 6 pt. 7 (2/2)
More importantly to Ryouta, Serra looks up at him with sparkling eyes and says, ”Fun.”
They head to the next ride.
Thanks to having the fast passes, the group is able to visit every big ride there is. Whether it's bumper cars, indoor ”experiences” on rails, simulated tornados and hurricanes in a large building with wind machines and water sprayers, or getting strapped into a row of seats that swing back and forth through the air almost to the point where they hang upside down a few times, they make sure to attack every ride that there is.
They also make sure to get on all of the roller coasters.
With every increasingly intense roller coaster that they ride, Serra has looked more and more excited by them. She might not make nearly as much noise as Ryouta does while riding them, but she does smile just as much while always looking excited.
And now, it is time for something that Ryouta has been hoping for.
Something that he and Serra mischeviously planned the moment that they saw the ride on the park's website.
Something that is responsible for him wearing a hoodie over his shirt when it's not cold enough to really need one… and responsible for Serra convincing Cassandra to wear a white shirt.
A water ride.
The park's water ride.
They saw just how much water gets dumped on them in the video, but Cassandra has no such knowledge and does not expect to get more than a little wet.
Alice, on the other hand, knows that something is suspicious when she notices Ryouta and Serra looking at each other and smiling so frequently.
The thought of something being plotted behind her and Cassandra's back would be cause for concern to any normal person.
But to Alice, it is cause to be excited. Excited in more than one way.
As soon as Alice sees one of the water rafts arrive at the docking area with freshly-soaked riders, she looks at Cassandra and puts the pieces together.
Ryouta and Serra notice the knowing look on Alice's face and are worried that they might get ratted out… until Alice gives thems a silent thumbs-up.
She's in on the plan with them now.
As for Cassandra, the nearby food stalls are keeping her busy trying to look at what people are getting from them instead of at the ride's latest riders.
Now that it's their turn to board the raft, the four get strapped in and Serra makes sure to bring Cassandra to sit with her.
They read that sitting on the side opposing the dock has the highest chance of rotating at the right time to be under the waterfall, so that is where Serra is sacrificing herself for the sake of getting Cassandra soaked.
And while getting soaked in a public amusement park while wearing a white shirt might be embarrassing and put Ryouta and Serra into the bad boyfriend and girlfriend department, Serra made sure that Cassandra's thickest and most plain bra was on the top of her bra pile. Serra knows that Cassandra always picks the first bra from her pile to put on, so everything has been perfectly orchestrated up to now.
The raft departs the dock and begins its journey of oh-so-slowly spinning while traveling down the artificial river. Squirts of water occasionally shoot at them, water falls in bursts from bridges as they pass under them, and animatronic dinosaurs occasionally pop out from the bushes to roar at them and spit water at them, but it it is not until the river's water gets choppy that the fun begins.
The raft bounces around, spins faster, water starts splashing over the sides and into the raft, and it feels like they're going to get knocked off the underwater guidance rail at any time!
And soon they will be approaching the waterfall.
Only half of the raft is going to go under it. Even if Cassandra isn't lined up to perfectly path under it, Ryouta read that he can start spinning the wheel in the center of the raft and may be able to do it quickly enough to spin them so that she gets lined up.
It is now that Cassandra realizes what's happen – she realizes it upon hearing the roaring falling of water coming up behind her.
Ryouta and Serra nod at each other.
And now… Serra and Cassandra nod at each other before showing Ryouta and Alice their devilish smiles.
His eyes widen in shock and betrayal as he realizes what is about to happen.
Serra and Cassandra both spin the wheel with all of their strength.
Ryouta grabs onto it to try and stop them, but he needs Alice's help if he wants to overpower them.
And Alice is more than contrent to be either the perpetrator or the victim, so she simply sits back and enjoys the suspense with closed eyes.
She doesn't want to know who gets soaked until it happens.
The thought of potentially passing under a waterfall and getting drenched is just so exciting! And keeping her eyes closed makes it even more suspenseful!
Wearing such dark clothes helps, too. She won't have to worry about being exposed, even temporarily, to any other park visitors.
Though, she wouldn't mind if she was. The thought of that is exciting, too.
The moment of truth arrives.
Ryouta tries to spin the wheel, but both Cassandra and Serra are keeping it held in place by pulling it in the opposite direction that he's trying to spin it.
The waterfall comes crashing down onto him and Alice.
Serra and Cassandra laugh with each other and finally let go of the wheel, content in seeing Ryouta and Alice utterly drenched in water.
The final section of the ride is grand in spectacle but trivial in soaking. The raft goes sliding down a tall hill and crashes into the river below, splashing water up onto the nearby crowds walking by while only a little bit of water actually splashes onto the raft's riders. Furthermore, Cassandra knew to hunch over to protect her chest from getting soaked.
Only her back has gotten wet at all, and she doesn't care if some random people can see the outline of a white bra strap underneath a white shirt.
At the dock, the attendants are ready to quickly help Alice out of the never-still raft, and the rest depart without any issue.
But there is one question that Ryouta wants answered.
”When… when did you plan that?” he asks.
”She told me this morning while I was getting dressed,” Cassandra explains.
”I see!” Alice says. ”Is this why you suggested that I wear this blouse today? I was worried that it may be too dark for such a sunny day, but if this was your intention the entire time, well played!”
Cassandra and Serra high-five each other while Ryouta sighs in defeat.
Even though he's the one who got soaked, he still takes off his hoodie, wrings the water out of it, and grumpily tosses it at Cassandra. The betrayal and realization that he's more jealous than he realizes is too much for him.
”Why are you giving it to me?” Cassandra asks.
”Because. You got wet. Just put it on,” he explains.
For once, she is the one getting tsundere fanservice.
And for once, she understands why he likes it so much whenever she acts like this.
It's cute.
She wants more of this.
”I'm barely wet. It's not a big deal,” she says, handing it back over to him.
”Your back is wet. People can see your bra strap.”
”So? It's just a strap. I don't care if moms or little kids see it.”
”Just – just put it on.”
Cassandra raises an eyebrow while Alice giggles to herself with a hand over her mouth.
”What? Are you jealous or something that others might see a part of my bra?”
”It's – it's not like I'm jealous or anything. I wouldn't be jealous over something that little after I planned on you getting even more soaked in the first place.”
Serra sneaks up from behind and pokes Ryouta in the side, causing him to jump and squeak almost on the same level as Cassandra.
The roles have been totally and utterly reversed.
Ryouta is the tsundere now.
But that makes Cassandra happy, so she slips on the hoodie to ensure that not a single prying eye can see even an inch of her bra straps.
”You should be thankful we tricked you. You would have been even more jealous if I got soaked,” she says.
”I… I didn't consider that. I didn't know that… I could feel so jealous over something so small,” he explains, dropping the tsundere act to be honest. ”I knew you'd get soaked and would need a change of clothes or my hoodie to help you, but I didn't think I'd actually get jealous or anything.”
”I almost feel bad for you, but I'm still kind of mad you even thought about getting me to wear white with the plan of soaking me in public in the first place. You think I want a bunch of brats able to see me like that?”
”I – I was going to cover you up as soon as we were off the ride.”
”The attendants and people in line still would have seen me. This is why Serra betrayed you to work with me.”
Serra doesn't know exactly what is being said, but she understands enough to nod along with whatever Cassandra is saying.
Being a girl herself, there was no way that Serra was going to let something so potentially embarrassing happen to her beloved girlfriend!
Not around other people, anyways. If they were the only ones in the park then Serra absolutely, without a single ounce of hesitation, allowed Cassandra to get drenched.
Even now, Serra is upset with her own ethical decision since it means not getting to see Cassandra in a soaked, white shirt.
But she knows that she did the right thing.
And now she knows that doing the right thing is really boring.
”Goodness, my hero,” Alice says. ”You are awfully cruel today, are you not? First you conspire to drench your girlfriend with the intention of exposing her, and then you give her your hoodie instead of me despite how wet I am!”
Ryouta looks down at her. Alice being wet shouldn't be a problem since she's wearing a dark blouse, but… it would appear that somebody has pulled down the neck of her blouse just enough to show off some of her dripping cleavage.
And that somebody would be none other than Alice herself.
Fortunately for Ryouta, Cassandra steps up to grab Alice's blouse and pull it back up to where it belongs.
”It's not like he's the only one who gets jealous,” Cassandra explains.
”My, my! Am I not even allowed to show some of my breasts in public? To think that I am in love with such prudes! Prudes who wish to control my body and how I dress – oh, you two have become even better!”
”Why do I feel tempted to just take all her clothes off right now?” Ryouta asks Cassandra.
”Don't. She'd like that way more and we'd both get way too jealous,” Cassandra says, earning a pout from Alice. ”We'd also get kicked out. Also, I'll forgive you for your plan if you buy me some French fries.”
”But my plan didn't even work.”
”Yeah, but I still want French fries.”
And so, the group gets French fries.
Cassandra, being unable to decide, gets two orders of the speciality French fries: one drenched in gravy and cheese, the other drenched in salty vinegar.
It feels oh so wrong for her to devour such fatty food.
But it tastes oh so good.
She even ends up picking at Ryouta's fries once she's done with hers since she somehow manages to finish both of her orders before the rest of them can finish one order.
Ryouta places a hand over his stomach once he's done and says, ”Those are seriously filling.”
”I feel so barbaric for eating such messy crisps with my fingers! They were rather delightful, though,” Alice says.
”Hey. Are those… are those deep-fried cookies?” Cassandra asks, sniffing the air with closed eyes.
”How can you… how can you even… how?” Ryouta asks. ”How can you still feel hungry and how can you tell what that smell is?”
”I smelled it when I was a kid at the amusement park.”
”And you've never forgotten the smell?”
”Yeah. How could I?”
Cassandra turns her head to look over her shoulder, pinpointing the exact direction that the deep-fried cookies are coming from without even being able to see them.
Her stomach grumbles.
”I'll… I'll go on a super diet starting tomorrow. I'll only eat five calories a day for the next day,” she offers.
”I'm pretty sure you'd die if you did that,” Ryouta says.
”I wouldn't die. You can survive for weeks without eating as long as you have water.”
”I'm not letting you starve yourself. At least eat like, eight hundred calories. I think it's safe to eat that little for a whole week and that should make up for today.”
”Deal,” she says, already standing up to walk over to the cookies.
Serra pushes Alice in her wheelchair as Ryouta throws all of their trash away.
Off to get deep-fried cookies they go. Though, only one of them actually has any room in her stomach for them.
But at this point, they're not even sure she's storing her food in her stomach.
Ryouta is half tempted to believe that she's somehow storing her food in her chest. That's the only other place on her body that has any space for all the food that she has been eating today.
Women's bodies are truly mysterious and magical things.