322 Vol. 6 pt. 8 (1/2)

”Are you full now?” Ryouta asks Cassandra.

”You don't have to ask like that,” Cassandra answers.

”Is your stomach at maximum capacity?”

”Not like that, either.”

”Is your tumulus rumulus at maximus… I have no idea what I'm saying.”

”I swear if you would have finished whatever that was.”

”You two are so adorable together!” Alice interjects. ”As they like to say on the internet, I fully ship you two!”

”You… you know you don't have to ship us when we're already together, right?” Ryouta asks her. ”And you know that you're also shipped with us by default, right?”

”This may be true. I must think of something even better than shipping in light of this revelation. Ah, I know! Because I come from royalty, this means that I am allowed to knight you! I knight you two!”

”I – I don't think that knighting us… together? Has the same effect as shipping us.”

”You are making this very difficult, my hero. Do you not know to let your girlfriend have her way every now and then even if what she says is complete nonsense?”

”At least you admit that it's nonsense.”

”Of course I do! I will be the first one to admit how nonsensical I may be at times. After all, being nonsensical is fun!”

”You're not wrong.”

”For example, because I believe in the path of the nonsensical, I am allowed to say that I believe all of the calories our dear Cassandra consumes somehow end up in her breasts instead of her stomach.”

”He-hey!” Cassandra whines. ”Don't just say something like that all of a sudden around other people.”

Ryouta chalks that up as one of the things that is probably okay if his girlfriends say it, but not okay if he says it.

Even so.

”I – I mean… I have been wondering if that might not be so nonsensical after all,” he says.

”I will hurt you,” Cassandra turns around to glare at him.

”Please do.”

”Since when are you a masochist?”

Ryouta points one finger at Cassandra and one finger at Serra.

”I believe that my hero is saying that, between your personality and Serra's actions, he has discovered the wonderful life of being a bottom!” Alice says.

”Hey, I just said I'm a masochist, and only like seven percent of the time at most. I never said I'm a bottom,” Ryouta explains.

Serra, detecting that the conversation has turned lewd, is now paying much more attention to reading their lips.

”All I'm saying is that it's alright if you want to threaten to hurt me. I need the tsundere fanservice to sustain myself,” Ryouta says.

Cassandra pouts with reddened cheeks and looks away. ”Sh-shush. I already feel bad just for threatening something like that even though I never would. It's been months since I've said anything stupid like that.”

”We know. I'm still proud of you for trying so hard, even if I do like it as fanservice every now and then.”

”Well, you can think of that as fanservice then. I-if… if you want to, you… you jerk.”

Ryouta clutches his chest with one hand and places his other over his mouth, feigning a cough.

”How – how was that?” Cassandra asks, checking his face for his reaction as if it isn't already blatantly obvious how much he enjoyed it.

Ryouta keeps his hand over his mouth and clutching his shirt while nodding.

”I believe that translates to a perfect ten out of ten!” Alice interprets.

Cassandra crosses her arms over her chest. ”Don't get used to it. I feel bad even just pretending like that.”

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Ryouta hunches over, feigning more coughing.

”Wh-what kind of reaction is that even supposed to be? You're acting like you're dying.”

”He is implying that you are dangerously precious right now! You are so cute that you are causing him to have a heart attack and cough up blood at the same time. You are that powerful!”

”That's… I guess it makes sense, but you don't have to make such a scene about it. It's making people look over here.”

Ryouta looks up at his embarrassed girlfriend and sees her nervously twisting her short hair around a finger.

”I – I think I might seriously have a heart attack at this rate. This is too much for me,” Ryouta says, finally taking his hand away from his mouth.

”He-hey! Isn't that real blood? I thought you were just pretending?!” Cassandra shouts and gets closer to examine him.

”Oh. Yeah, I accidentally bit my tongue. That's why I was still holding my hand over my mouth.”

”Is that all? Are you sure?”

”I'm sure, Cass Cass.”

”Hmph. You got me all worried over a bit tongue…”

”You seriously are going to give me a heart attack at this rate, though. My face already hurts from smiling.”

”It's not like I'm trying to make your heart race or anything.”

”Please.”

”I – I… I ran out of things to say. You better have enjoyed that.”

”Why?! Why would you use all of your tsundere ideas up at once instead of spreading them out? How long am I going to have to wait to experience that again?!”

”You – you look seriously depressed. Do you really like that sort of thing that much?”

Ryouta nods, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

”Worry not, my hero!” Alice says, holding out her phone to him. ”I recorded her the entire time! We may both relive this wonderful moment whenever we wish.”

”I don't deserve you, Alice.”

”Ah, if only. If you did not deserve me then I could fantasize about attempting to work with this broken body of mine to support you while you take advantage of me! While you sit around all day doing naught more than playing games, eating and drinking, and fooling around with other girls behind my back while not even attempting to hide proof of your acts, I would be out trying my best to support you and our unborn child! Even after coming home one day and catching you in the act with another woman in our bed, I would—”

”Excuse me? This is an amusement park. For families. Do I need to report you to the park staff?” a random woman who appears to be in her forties with short hair asks.

If there has ever been a stereotypical Karen, this woman is her.

Behind her are three children splitting up to run off in different directions where they can finally be free for all of a few minutes before being caught.

”A-ah… my apologies,” Alice says.

Ryouta and Cassandra can't help but to look away and try not to laugh. Alice might be their girlfriend, but… the woman has a point and isn't exactly being rude about it. Also, it is just plain hilarious to them that she is finally getting in trouble for discussing her fantasies in public.

But there's a problem.

”Bithch.”

Ryouta's, Cassandra's, Alice's, and the woman's eyes all go wide from what they just heard.

Standing there between Alice and the woman is a short girl with long, white hair who just called – well, attempted to call, the woman a bitch.

”Excuse me?!” the woman shouted, immediately turning to look for staff.

By the time she turns back around, they're gone – lost in the sea of people now walking throughout the park.

”That was… awesome but also… what?” Ryouta says, unsure of how he is supposed to react to this.

”Why'd you call her a bitch?” Cassandra asks Serra.

Serra signs to them to say that she did it because she insulted Alice.

”But she didn't insult her. All she did was tell Alice to watch what she was saying in public, basically.”

Serra asks if she's sure.

”Yeah.”

”Oh,” Serra says.

”What… what did you think that she said?”

All Serra can answer with is that she's not even sure now.

But regardless of that, Serra still gets grabbed onto and pulled.

”I apologize, my hero, but you will have to go by a different name for now. Serra is my hero for today!” Alice explains, nuzzling the side of her face up against Serra's. ”Even if that was uncalled for, you had the proper intention and stood up for me!”

Serra can't even read Alice's lips because of how close together their faces are, but she doesn't need to in order to enjoy the current situation.

”I really wasn't expecting that,” Cassandra says.

”Same,” Ryouta agrees. ”I'm honestly impressed. That was awesome.”

”Yeah. She's been less shy lately, but I guess she's capable of that if she thinks we're being insulted.”

Once more, Serra has proven that she is the true harem leader of their relationship. One single action was all that it took for her to impress all of her present lovers, and it was a mistake at that!

”She's… seriously like a harem protagonist,” Ryouta says.

”I don't know what harem protagonists are like but I know that you're probably right,” Cassandra says. ”Also… aren't we going to get in trouble if she reports us? She got a good look at Alice, and she kind of sticks out. It won't be hard to report a girl in a wheelchair with—”

Ryouta and Cassandra look at Alice's hair.

”—purple hair.”

”Ah, that will not be an issue!” Alice says, temporarily letting go of her new hero so that she can reach into her purse and pull out… a wig.

She takes off her current wig, revealing her naturally blonde hair for only a few moments, and puts on a green wig with longer hair.

”There! Now I look just like I do in-game, yes?”

They can never be sure what her hair color is for the day without really focusing on it because of how frequently Alice goes through her wigs.

And this is more evidence of that. She started the day as a natural blonde, then was purple for the first half of it, and now she has green hair.

They can't even be sure that this is the last change of the day.

”I doubt that any of the staffers are going to expect a girl in a wheelchair to be carrying around a bunch of different-colored wigs, so… we're probably fine?” Ryouta says.

He and Cassandra shrug while Alice goes back to showering Serra in family-friendly, amusement-park-approved, PG-rated affection.

Serra, however, does not care about such follies and sneakily gropes Alice as they hug.

And then she not-so-sneakily gropes Alice.

This results in Ryouta and Cassandra strategically positioning themselves to hide what Serra is doing with her hands away from the passing crowds.

Serra deserves it.

Five minutes after that… the realization of what Serra really did finally hits her.

This results in going back to hiding behind Ryouta and keeping herself close to his back, her face hidden from the crowds.

She was finally courageous and, in the moment, called a woman a bitch – she might have finally, for the first time in real life, stuck up to somebody for an important and just reason… and then it turned out that it was a mistake because she was barely paying any attention to reading the woman's lips.

Not only did Serra call a woman a bitch for no reason, but her near-perfect track record of flawlessly reading lips now has another negative mark on it.

All in all, Serra is reminded of why she should let Ryouta and Cassandra handle those things while she sticks in the back and minimizes her presence.

And that isn't all.

What about her voice?

With all of the confidence she has been building up lately, she was finally feeling confident enough to start using her voice when in public sometimes.

She stopped reading the lips of everybody around her because she stopped caring about what they thought.

She got confident and lazy.

And now she is reminded of why that is a bad thing.

The more that they walk – the more time passes, the more she regrets ever saying anything. Even she was proud of herself at first, but now?

What did her voice sound like when she insulted that woman? What about the previous times in the day when she used her voice around others? What does she really sound like, and what do people think?

She became aware of how many people look at Alice while pushing her wheelchair around, but how many look at her whenever she talks?

The memories of strangers looking at her whenever she tried talking when younger—

She gets poked on the forehead.

When she looks up, she sees Ryouta leaning over in front of her and staring into her eyes.

When she looks to her sides, Alice and Cassandra are gone. They are also right next to a woman's bathroom, so she quickly puts together what's going on.

”What's wrong?” Ryouta asks. ”You've been spacing out for the past few minutes. It's also extremely obvious when you're upset, so don't even try to deny it, Miss Harem Protagonist.”

Serra pulls out her phone instead of relying on sign language to type:

I messed up.

”How?”

I was really proud of myself for standing up for Alice, but I didn't even do that right. I wanted to be useful for once. But I messed up.

”What changed? You didn't seem that bothered after it happened. Your hands definitely didn't seem to mind it much, and Alice's body can attest to that.”

I know. I guess I didn't think about it and really realize what I did. And then I started thinking about everything else and other people and how they might look at me and think about me and I started worrying more and maybe I should start using those implants again so I can hear. Life would probably be a lot easier if I could hear, and I could be more useful, and I know I probably sound stupid when I talk. Sorry. I'm being stupid on a day that's supposed to be fun. Nothing that bad happened but I still feel really bad and I guess everything hit me at once. I was just really happy to finally do something that I thought was useful and good but I messed it up. And I know you're going to say I'm useful in the game and stuff, but I mean useful in real life. You all do way more than me. Maybe I should start doing more chores. I don't know. I'm being stupid and I know that. Sorry. This text is getting really long. I guess I'll show this to you now and then feel even more stupid for typing all of this. I'm probably overreacting. Maybe I should delete this before I show you. No. Okay. I'm going to give you the phone so that you can read all of this and then turn around and feel stupid. Sorry again. I already feel better just from venting about it in this text, so I guess I don't even really need to show you. No. Okay. I'm going to show you. Here. If you're reading this first, make sure to scroll up so that you start from the top.

Serra hands the phone over so that Ryouta can read her message. Now, just as she mentioned she would, she turns around with a light blush on her cheeks so that she can feel stupid by herself and regret rambling so much.

Then a phone appears in front of her. Ryouta hands it back to her by holding it out over her shoulder.

Her text has been replaced by his own.

One, I love you. Two, Cassandra, Alice, and Aza love you. Three, we all love you. Four, have I mentioned that we love you yet? Five, let me get to the point. Thank you for letting me read that. I know that you used to be way more shy and have been really happy with how much more confident you've been getting lately, and all of us have noticed. We didn't want to bring attention to it because I remembered reading about how it's best to try and subtly encourage people and act like nothing is that different when they're making changes instead of calling them out on it and potentially making them self-conscious about it… or something like that. You calling that bitch a bitch was awesome and we all loved it, and not just because it was funny. Even if you didn't need to say that, we're all really proud that you did. You were seriously awesome and the look on her face was hilarious. Plus, even if she didn't actually insult Alice, she definitely seemed like a bitch. So, you weren't even wrong. You were just being perceptive. And yes, I am partly saying this just because I want you to feel better. But seriously, we're all proud of the progress you've been making and we don't want to see that get reversed because of one mistake if it can even be called that. As for the hearing implant thing… if you want, that's your choice. You're going to be stuck with us either way, but we in no way think that you need it and we don't want or not want you to get it either. We just want you to be happy. Also, I have no idea how to enter a line break on your phone. Your keyboard looks different than mine and everything is in different places. One more thing. You can talk about this sort of stuff whenever you want no matter what time it is, no matter where we are, no matter what we're doing, whatever. If you ever need or want to talk about this sort of thing, just let us know and you know we'll happily talk to you about it.

Serra turns around to face him, unsure of what sort of expression she should be making, and starts typing on her phone.

”Ah… Ah-ee wuv yew,” she says after having put her phone away.

She was making so much progress before.

One mistake is no reason to halt that progress and it is definitely no reason to revert that progress.

”Love you too, Serra Berra,” Ryouta says, planting a kiss on her lips.

She kisses him back as soon as his lips leave hers, and then she signs to him to apologize again for being so dramatic.

”Everybody has their moments. I still wake up sometimes and think that I'm pathetic and not worth any of you, and I get worried that you all might leave me at any time. I don't even think that it's possible for humans not to have worries like that no matter how unrealistic they might be. At least, I think that it's unrealistic. Right?”

Serra smirks and waits a few moments before answering his question with another kiss.

”Thanks. But like I said, it happens to all of us. Don't feel ashamed about it or anything. Also… they're taking a long time in there. I guess that it doesn't help that there was a line.”