“He’s still recovering from the anesthesia, but you can see him now,” the nurse said to Cassandra, causing her to rush over to the rest of the girls to grab them so that they could all go see Ryouta.
And upon bursting into the room where Ryouta was resting in…
Ryouta looked at Cassandra’s chest and said, “Hehehe… you have nice boobs. You should… wear a sweater… wait, do I know you?” He then looked at Serra and said, “Woah… you’re like… mini sized…” And then he looked at Alice. “Is that… a mecha you’re riding? That’s… badass.”
While Cassandra and Alice dealt with the internal conflict of feeling terrible for Ryouta, but also wanting to laugh at how ridiculous he was being, Serra rushed forward and grabbed his hand before pressing her face against the back of it.
“Hey… why’s this mini girl hugging my hand? I… have girlfriends. Cass Cass… will get jealous if another girl touches me.”
“I’m right here, you dumbie,” Cassandra said before approaching the bed with Alice.
“Ooohh… Cass Cass! How long have you been here?”
“My eyes are up here.”
“But… I like looking at your boobs. They’re too great to not look at… wait, why is this mini girl touching my hand? What if… I get cooties?”
“That’s Serra.”
“Wait… oooohhhhhh… that makes sense. I’m surprised… she’s rubbing her face on my hand instead of my dick… hehehe…”
“Oh, my dearest hero,” Alice said. “You must truly feel out of it.”
“Ooh! Alice!”
“Oi,” Cassandra said. “How come you recognized her on your own?”
“Because… only she calls me her hero… duuuhhhhh. Hehehe. I’m her… shining knight… in white armor. All I need… is a fedora… fingerless gloves… and a trench coat. Then I can kneel in front of her… and call her… m’lady.”
“Please do not, my hero,” Alice said. “Though, I would not say no to the armor part.”
“So… it’s okay to call you m’lady… as long as I wear armor?”
“Let us drop the ‘m’lady’ part entirely, yes?”
“Fiiiinnnneeeeeee… m’lady. Hehe.”
Serra then let go of Ryouta’s hand to carefully climb up onto the bed, being careful not to hurt him as she wasn’t sure what hurt and what didn’t, and settled in next to him with her hand resting on the side of his face. That allowed her to turn his head so that she could look into his eyes.
“Woah,” Ryouta said. “Serra… you’re so cute. Have you always been so cute? Wait… yeah… you’ve always been this cute. Man… I’m so lucky… I’m dating the best girls in the world… Serra is so cute… Alice’s thighs are so squishy… and Cass Cass… boobs.”
“I’m letting my old self out once you’ve recovered,” Cassandra said.
Ryouta’s eyes went wide as he leaned up a little to look at her. “Seriously?! You’re… gonna abuse me… like in the old days?! Oh… heck yeah… that’s so hot. Man… I can’t wait. I want you to… call me an idiot and push me around…”
“Goodness, my hero,” Alice said. “You are going to make her cry.”
“Wait.” Ryouta suddenly sounded like he sobered up, but the wobbling of his head and unfocused look in his eyes made it clear he was still affected. “But… I’m acting like this… to make you all feel better! I’m not… supposed to make you cry.”
“Acting?”
“Well… yeah. Us guys… fantasize about weird things. You know, like… if we’re going to hold off a zombie horde to protect our girlfriends… or about what to do if our girlfriend is hanging off a cliff… the Roman Empire… and also like… you know… uhhh, how to put it… like… I fantasized before about what I would do… if something happened and I was in a hospital… and woke up and was all loopy… and how to make my girlfriends feel better. That’s what’s happening… right? I finally get to… use my stupid plan… that I never thought I’d get to use.”
“Then you recognized us at first sight?”
“Of course. How could… I not recognize any of you? I would recognize you… even if I was blind. Damn… that was smooth. I’m such a good boyfriend. You should praise me and call me a good boy and pet my head. Woof.”
“You dumbass,” Cassandra said. “You shouldn’t… be worrying about us.”
“Bzzzztttt. Wrong. You’re… my girlfriends. It’s a boyfriend’s duty… to worry about his girlfriends. Hey, wait… I love all of you. Why aren’t we married yet?”
Serra was too busy stroking the side of his face to read his lips. She just wanted to do her best at physically comforting him while the others dealt with the embarrassment of everything he was saying, and he certainly did embarrass them by causing both Alice and Cassandra to redden their cheeks.
“Is—is this you playing stupid to make us feel better still?” Cassandra asked.
“Huh? No,” Ryouta answered. “I’m serious. That’s a serious question. I would bet money that I love you all way more than most husbands love their wives, so shouldn’t we be married already? Like, what the fuck. We’d be… such cute married people… and then I could call you my wives in front of everybody. Oh man… that’d be so awesome, getting to call you my wives in public and stuff… I’d want to shout it out to everybody. I’d be like, ‘Hey!’” Ryouta actually shouted. “Look at my wives! They’re the best wives in the world!”
“Ryouta!” Cassandra shouted at him, reaching over Serra to cover up his mouth. “Don’t—don’t shout! We’re in the hospital!”
“Mmmnggh! Mmmgh mggh mgggh mmmggghhh!”
“Whatever you’re trying to shout, stop it!”
Ryouta looked up at Cassandra with puppy eyes.
Cassandra hesitantly pulled her hands away.
“Wife!” Ryouta shouted.
Cassandra immediately returned her hand to his mouth.
“Cassandra,” Alice said. “Perhaps we should acquire some of this drug for use at home. He is quite endearing in this state.”
“No way,” Cassandra replied. “I’d cringe into the grave.”
“Shame. Though, I must say. As nice as it is to hear such fervent desire to make us your wives, I do wish you would have said all this under… better conditions.”
Cassandra took her hand away from Ryouta’s mouth once he calmed down.
“Sorry,” Ryouta mumbled. “I’m a coward who can’t admit he wants to marry his girlfriends unless he’s drugged. That’s why I also have to ask for praise and pampering and being called a good boy and wanting you to pet my head. It’s embarrassing to admit all that while I’m normal, but I don’t have any shame right now. It’s pretty great. Heh. I’m totally gonna cringe when I remember this later.”
Cassandra sighed and said, “You could say all of this whenever you want. It’s not like we’d ever judge you for it… and it’d be cute.”
“Wait, I just remembered something.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh… why am I in the hospital?”
Cassandra and Alice might have felt a bit better due to how silly Ryouta was behaving, but as soon as he asked that question with the genuine confusion he had on his face, the two felt their hearts sink.
The doctor came in to check on Ryouta while Cassandra and Alice explained what they knew, and they all learned together that the situation was even worse than they were aware.
Once the doctor left, Cassandra could only sit in silence as she tried to hold back her tears, and Alice rested her hand on the bed next to Ryouta’s leg. “My hero… I am so sorry. I… wish there was something more that could be done.”
Ryouta, now properly awake and sober, stroked his hand against Serra’s back since she was still cuddling up next to his side. “Well, that sucks,” he said. “I guess amputation is probably going to be for the best. Our relationship already has one person in a wheelchair, but it doesn’t have anybody with prosthetics yet.”
“My hero…”
“I mean, honestly, it’s probably for the best. My legs have done nothing but cause me pain and insecurities for more than half my life. I’m not afraid of losing them, plus modern prosthetics are pretty great. I’m… scared of the surgery, but that’s it. You’ll all still love me even with fake legs, right?”
“Of course. Asking such a question is simply absurd when the answer is so obvious.”
“Sounds like I might be stuck here for a while, though. I’m not looking forward to that. But, I guess it’s better than being in the hospital when I was a kid. I didn’t have VR to immerse myself in back then. Speaking of which… where’s Saya?”
“Saya is… not taking the situation very well.”
“Hey, Saya. You can hear me, right?”
Alice looked down at her phone. There was no response from Saya.
Rock’s face, however, popped up on the screen and barked at Alice.
“I recognize that bark,” Ryouta said.
Alice lifted the phone up and turned it to face Ryouta, allowing Rock to bark directly at him.
“Hey, girl. Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine.”
Rock whimpered through the phone and barked again.
“Look, this is actually good. Me being stuck in a hospital bed means I get to spend even more time immersed in the game than usual, which means even more playing together.”
Rock still whimpered, clearly not accepting his coping attempt.
“I’ll be fine, Rock. I promise. Also, I don’t suppose you can drag Saya out?”
Rock shook her head.
Ryouta sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Guess there’s only one thing for me to do then. I’m going to need my headset to immerse.”
Though, getting his headset would be difficult. None of his girlfriends were in any condition to leave him, he couldn’t go grab it himself, and they didn’t have anybody in the area who could go pick it up for them, either.
“You said the others are flying over, right?” Ryouta asked Alice.
Alice, who was looking toward his covered legs with a saddened expression, nodded.
“Then can you have them stop by the house first to pick up my headset?” He didn’t want to make Saya wait, but he didn’t want to force his girlfriends to leave him to run an errand, and maybe it was for the best to give Saya some time on her own. He wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do, but he had to balance the feelings of his girlfriends to the best of his ability.
“I will, my hero. I should also have them bring a change of clothes for us, and have them feed the ferrets.” Alice started typing away on her phone to send the text.
“You don’t need a change of clothes.”
“Haah?” Cassandra looked at Ryouta. “What kind of stupid question is that? Don’t tell me you expect us to leave you like this.”
“Well, I mean… you don’t need to stay here. Nobody wants to spend time being bored in a hospi—”
“We’re not leaving you, dumbass.” Cassandra looked at Alice. “Tell them to pack every single one of my sweaters. This idiot will probably heal faster if I wear sweaters around him.”
“You—you sound angry.” Ryouta wasn’t expecting that.
“Because I am. If you think I’d go home without you while you’re like this… you don’t know me at all, you dumbass. And you want to marry me while having no idea what I’m like? Give me a break. Jerk. Asshole. Dumbass. Idiot.”
“I can’t tell if you’re actually upset or giving me fanservice now.”
Cassandra said with a cracking voice and tears in her eyes, “I don’t even know! But I’m serious about not leaving until you’re better, and I don’t care how long I have to wait here. Even if it’s weeks or months or whatever, I’m not going home until you come with me.”
Ryouta knew trying to convince her that it was okay to leave without him was pointless, so instead of arguing, he said, “Thank you, Cass Cass. I love you.”
“Hmph. Stupid jerk idiot. I… love you too.”
“Thank you for the tsundere fanservice. Between you wearing sweaters and verbally abusing me, I’ll be sure to recover in no time.”
“Yeah, well, enjoy it while it lasts. Once I can take you home, you’re never being abused again. I’m pampering the shit out of you and spoiling you like a puppy until you get so sick of me that you try running away.”
“I’m not sure I can live without tsundere Cass Cass. Deredere Cass Cass sounds nice, but she just doesn’t hit the same spot as tsundere Cass Cass.”
“Too bad.”
As for Serra, after learning that it was only really Ryouta’s legs that hurt in addition to needing some stitches in his lower abdomen and left arm, she cuddled with him as much as she could by looping one arm over his chest as she used his shoulder as a pillow. Her eyes never left his face after initially pressing her face against his hand, staring at him as if she were afraid that he may get hurt again if he left her sight.
Being started at so intensely made Ryouta feel awkward, so he kissed her every now and then just to temporarily break the stare.
“By the way,” Ryouta said to Alice. “As the veteran here, you’re going to have to teach me the ropes.”
Alice sighed and smiled. “You are silly, my hero. Furthermore, you plan on getting prosthetics, not a wheelchair.”
“I’ll probably have to use a wheelchair while waiting for the prosthetics, right? And then it’d be smart to have one just in case something ever happens to my future legs. So, I’m looking forward to you teaching me the ropes, senpai.”
“Oh? Perhaps I will need to dress the part and smack you with a ruler if that is how you wish to proceed.”
“In that case, I think calling you sensei would be more appropriate.”
“Senpai sounds cuter.”
“Good point. Alright, you can be my,” Ryouta paused and winced, “teacher-senpai.”
“Ryouta? Is something wrong?”
“I’m fi—”
“Hey, bastard, tell the truth,” Cassandra demanded.
“… yes, ma’am. Uh… to be honest, my legs are really killing me, and where they stitched also hurts.”
“Why didn’t you tell the doctor while he was in here?”
Ryouta looked away. “I… I don’t want to ask them for stronger meds or anything. I’ve read too many horror stories about people getting addicted to painkillers and destroying their lives.”
Cassandra let out a long, deep sigh. “As if we’d ever let you succumb to addiction. Don’t be stupid. Ask for help if you need it. And don’t worry about addiction. Even if you get addicted, then you have all of us to kick some sense into you and restrain you until you get over it.”
“But what if I get addicted, and then when it’s time to stop taking them, I get mean or violent?”
“Then I’ll tie you down until you stop being a dumbass and be understanding over the fact that your brain is chemically fucked up. It’s not that hard.”
“You’re the best, Cass Cass.”
“Yeah, yeah, now buzz for a nurse.”
Ryouta surrendered to Cassandra and clicked the buzzer next to his bed.