Book 3: Chapter 13: Patch 3.0: Apartment Life with Four Girls

It is dark outside by the time that the group gets back to Ryouta’s apartment.

This much social interaction is something that he is not used to – at least, not in real life. Being social in games was never an issue for him, but being social with his real body is different. He feels more awkward, less confident, and is much quicker to tire than in games. If it were up to him, he’d just become Fenrir all the time and never have to be Ryouta.

But, it isn’t unpleasant.

The only unpleasant thing is that he still has to figure out what to do about the sleeping situation. He is already tired and he’s sure that the rest of them are tired or getting tired as well, so it will not be much longer before they have to deal with the inevitable situation of sleeping stations.

“I already know what I’m going to be!” Aiko announces while they ride the elevator up to his apartment.

“What do you mean?” Ryouta asks.

“In that game you all play! We get to make our own characters and stuff, right?”

“Ah, yeah, and you can be pretty much anything. Though, now that I think about it… starting off in that game really isn’t balanced at all. Seems like characters like mine get that uh, feral stat and feeling and some other bonuses that would make sense for a wolf to have, but somebody who wants to be just a regular human probably wouldn’t get any of that. I don’t think they get anything to make up for that either.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra says, “but the bonuses you start off with really aren’t that impressive. Anybody can end up feral with a little bit of effort. If somebody rolls human and regrets it, they could just go live in the woods like a wolf for a day or two and then they’ll change. I don’t know if humans get any bonuses to make up for all that other stuff, but it’s not hard to get on an equal level.”

“But if people want to try and min-max then they’re screwing themselves by playing human. I know the game purposely makes it hard to min-max characters because everything related to stats is hidden unless you get some stats calculated by those crazy scholars, but it’s common sense still to go with whatever gives you the most bonuses. Which makes me think… why aren’t there way more non-humans? I get that people feel more natural playing humans since that’s what they are in reality, but wouldn’t way more people be playing as anything else if there are bonuses to being feral?”

“Some of us like to overcome any challenges we get no matter how unfair it might be against us, others experience dysphoria if they play something too different from how they are in reality, and humans going against monsters and other powerful creatures has been a popular cliché for pretty much ever.”

“That makes sense, but it’s still kind of boring. I mean, I understand why people want to play humans, but there are just so many possibilities that it’s crazy to me how the majority of people stay human.”

“You’re basically just a human with dog ears and a tail, so it’s not like you’re that far from being human.”

“True, but still. And what about how—”

“Agh! You!” Aiko shouts and points at Cassandra. “Stop making my Ryouta talk about boring stuff! I don’t understand half of what you’re saying!”

Ryouta and Cassandra look around. They didn’t even realize that they’ve made it into his apartment, took off their shoes, and are sitting on the couch next to each other having their discussion. Or rather, they were having a discussion until Aiko snapped them out of their intense focus on each other.

“I haven’t had a nerd talk with Cass Cass in a while. It’s rare to really get her into it without threatening to kill me every few seconds,” Ryouta explains to Aiko.

“Hey! Who are you calling a nerd, and I don’t threaten to kill you every few seconds, you bastard! Don’t make me—” Cassandra cuts herself off when she realizes that she’s about to threaten him. “Don’t make me… don’t – don’t make me… don’t make me kil—kiss you!”

“That sounds like a fun thing to make you do. Feel free to threaten me with kisses more often.”

“I’ll threaten you with all the kisses you want!” Aiko declares and immediately gets glared at by Cassandra in response.

“I will kill you,” Cassandra threatens Aiko.

“Not if I kill you first!” Aiko shouts back and sticks out her tongue.

Ryouta is worried about what his neighbors are going to think about all of this shouting, and he is also worried about how he is going to explain the crime scene to the police when they find two girls whom have killed each other over threats of kisses.

“Much better!” Alice says, coming out from his bedroom in her wheelchair with a towel wrapped around her hair and a loose robe around her body. “I must admit that I was worried you would have only a shower.”

Ryouta looks over at her and blinks a few times. “You bathed? How long were Cass and I talking for?” he asks.

“Quite a while, my hero!”

Serra comes out from the bedroom behind Alice with her clothes covered in water.

“Serra was a wonderful assistant in helping me with the bathtub! My heart longed for you to assist me in my bathing, my hero, but I do not believe that I could handle such an embarrassing and intimate situation yet.”

Ryouta looks up at Serra and sees her wearing a smug smile on her face.

If Serra helped Alice bathe, then that means Serra is the first one to have seen Alice naked.

Serra notices Ryouta’s realization and her smile manages to grow even smugger.

Ryouta may be the only man in this relationship, and people may joke about it being his harem, but he’s really starting to feel like he’s just a part of Serra’s harem with how much faster she progresses than him.

He’s really jealous of her, but he also admires her for that. Because of that, he gives her a thumbs-up and gets one in return from her.

“Though, I must say that Serra spent far too much time playing with my body and squeezing me. I wished to get clean, not excited!” Alice explains.

Ryouta takes back his thumbs-up as his feelings of admiration are replaced by pure jealousy.

“You can give me a bath, Ryou—” Aiko gets interrupted by Cassandra covering her mouth and pulling her away. The two resume their fighting.

“Speaking of baths, I should probably go get a shower. I’ll be back in a bit,” Ryouta tells everybody before leaving to gather a fresh change of clothes and going into the bathroom.

A shocking, horrifying realization strikes him when he looks at the drain in his bathtub.

Hair.

So. Much. Hair.

How is this possible? How is it possible for a single bath to result in so much hair starting to clog the drain? If this much hair came from Alice alone, what is going to happen when the other three clean up as well?

He looks into his sink.

More hair. There are even a few hair ties, a scrunchie, and two hairpins laying around on his sink.

Oh no.

All the memes that he saw on the internet about girls being the destroyers of bathrooms are true.

The one place in his apartment that has always served as an escape for peace and solitude is going to turn into a hive of hair, beauty products, and clogged drains.

It is only a matter of time before his drains get so clogged with hair that they increase their feral level and evolve into hair-tentacle-drain monsters.

Then the thought of the girls being assaulted in his shower by tentacles pops into his head which turns his frustration into excitement. Alice would be the prime candidate since she would be the most helpless as—

No! Ryouta can’t think of such a horrible assault happening to Alice as much as she would probably love to join in on the fantasy.

Something pokes his back which makes him jump and almost perform a Cassandra squeak.

Turning around, he sees Serra standing behind him with her hand on the door, locking it.

“What’s – what’s wrong?” he asks her.

Serra signs to him that they haven’t had any real time alone in a while, and after being around the group all day, she wants to relax alone with him.

Ryouta signs back that that sounds nice and how he would love to do that but then tells her that the bathroom might not be the best place for doing so.

Then Serra signs that she wants to take a bath with him.

Ryouta asks her to repeat that since he isn’t sure that he understood the signs properly.

That is when she points at him, then herself, then the bath. “I wan hoo hake baff wiff you,” Serra says.

As fast as his nervous heart may be beating, he just can’t say no to her.