Book 1: Chapter 56: A Break Before the Tournament

Ryouta already knows what’s going to happen as soon as Cassandra gets up from the couch to look in his kitchen. He tries stopping her, but Serra lying on his lap makes sure that he can’t stop Cassandra.

“Seriously?” Cassandra asks, looking through his fridge and cabinets.

“H-hey now, isn’t it an invasion of personal privacy to be going through somebody else’s stuff?” Ryouta asks, ashamed of the fact that she’s only seeing bags of chips, frozen dinners, and various bottles of alcohol.

Cassandra groans. “We have a lot of work to do, Serra.”

Of course, Serra can’t hear her and is just staring up at Ryouta’s ashamed face.

“We can just… order something for delivery, can’t we?” Ryouta asks.

“Our first dinner together isn’t going to be delivery,” Cassandra says, holding up one of Ryouta’s kitchen knives.

Ryouta gulps. “I thought you were a tsundere, not a yandere?”

Cassandra tilts her head. “Haah? You use too many weird words. Anyways, just stay here with Serra. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Shopping, you bastard. Somebody has to do it around here.”

Cassandra makes eye contact with Serra as if telling her not to try anything funny while she’s gone before leaving his apartment.

“…why does she make it sound like she’s already moved in with me?” Ryouta asks.

Serra struggles to tell what he’s saying since she’s looking up at his face from below, but she understands enough to shrug and cuddle against him.

Now they’re alone.

Despite how Serra seems to be content watching the one-sided match of baseball, Ryouta can’t help but feel incredibly awkward now that they are alone.

Not only does he feel awkward, but he’s suddenly aware of just what sort of position he’s in.

He, a virgin, is sitting down on the couch while an incredibly cute girl who he’s now officially dating is lying her head on his lap. She took her parka off when she came in, so now she’s just wearing a black, graphic t-shirt referencing what looks like some old horror movie from the twentieth century and a pair of dark jeans.

Her clothes offer a strong contrast to her long, silvery hair. Her adorable face and pure hair make her look like she should be wearing a frilly blouse or sundress, yet that is the opposite of what she’s wearing. All she needs is some black eyeliner and a plaid skirt to go full-on emo.

She notices him staring at her and smiles.

She’s too damn precious.

Ryouta pokes her cheek and keeps on pushing until he’s tilted her head back toward looking at the television.

He can’t allow her to look at him like that. Now that he knows what position he’s in here, he fears that the slightest bit of provocation is going to result in something poking up against the back of her head.

Shit, just thinking about how much he doesn’t want that to happen is beginning to excite him.

Maggots. Grandmas. Intestinal worms. Zombies.

Wait… hasn’t he seen hentai before involving zombie girls that actually looked pretty nice?

Shit.

His plan of thinking of repulsive things to kill his inner virgin’s desires is backfiring on him.

“Hey, Serra, aren’t you uncomfortable?” he asks her after poking her again to get her attention.

She shakes her head on his lap.

There are two issues here: one, she’s refusing to get off of his lap; and two, the movement of her head is rubbing directly down against his crotch.

This isn’t good. This isn’t good. This is really, really, not good.

Ryouta tries to casually adjust himself so that her head isn’t directly on his crotch, but she follows him wherever he goes.

It’s almost like… wait.

Ryouta pays close attention to her face.

There is a slight blush on her cheeks, and she looks like she’s trying to act casually as if nothing is happening, but he notices her occasionally looking up at him to check on how he’s reacting.

This little…

She’s already been triggering Cassandra’s competitive side for most of the day, but now she’s triggering Ryouta’s competitive side.

Fine. He’s a man and she’s his girlfriend, so if that’s what she wants, that’s what she’s going to get.

Thinking that is way easier than actually doing it, but he has no choice.

Ryouta has to embrace his inner Divine Brigade leader to take over for the virgin that he is.

He adjusts himself on the couch so that she has more space to lie on, and he positions his crotch so that it’s directly underneath the side of her head.

She catches onto what he’s doing and retaliates in kind by pressing her head harder down against him.

This little dork of a girlfriend is too damn forward for him. How is he supposed to beat her? The only things he can think of to do so would be taking it to the next level, and he’s not sure that he’s ready for that.

Serra gets the reaction that she’s been looking for when something pokes up against her.

They both go still.

He can’t believe that any of this is actually happening. He feels like the biggest loser of a virgin ever for actually getting like this just from a girl lying her head on his lap.

Serra can’t believe she’s actually forcing herself to be confident and forward enough to purposely nuzzle her head down into his crotch to get him excited.

She slides her head away.

Ryouta figures that she realizes this is potentially going too far, so he’s relieved despite his inner virgin screaming at him to take this to the next level.

In the end, it is his inner virgin that gets what he wants.

Serra did slide her head off of the tent in his jeans, but she slid her head backward towards his waist rather than forward onto his thighs.

This means that the tent is now directly in front of her face.

In front of her mouth.

This is really, really, really bad. Or really, really, really good depending on one's perspective.

Ryouta doesn’t know which one of those it is more.

Every warm breath of hers causes the tent to behave as if whatever is in it is trying to break out.

There is a ferocious, desperate beast just begging for freedom to take out its desires on the not-so-innocent girl teasing it.

They stay like this for a while. Neither of them has the confidence yet to take this any further, but neither of them wants to stop, either.

In a way, this is… really exciting. It’s nice. Nothing is happening, yet his excitement is growing. Is this what it feels like to awaken to a new fetish? Is being teased without anything actually happening going to be something he has to look up a bunch of hentai for after the girls leave?

But then it goes past teasing.

Serra leans her head forward. He feels the tip of her nose press against the crown of his jeans’ tent, and then she tilts her head a bit more so that her mouth is directly over the denim-covered—

The door to his apartment opens.

Standing in the doorway is Cassandra with several bags of groceries around her feet.

The first sight she sees is that of Serra with parted lips directly over a bulge in Ryouta’s jeans.

It takes Cassandra a few moments to fully process what’s happening. However, when she does finally realize it, she goes red from her neck to the tips of her ears and storms over to Serra so that she can pull the smaller girl off of Ryouta.

“I told you the first time has to be together!” Cassandra scolds Serra, shaking the girl by her shoulders and looking her directly in the eyes. Serra looks ashamed of herself, but the scolding doesn’t stop her from still peeking over at Ryouta’s crotch.

“You… said something like that?” Ryouta asks.

Cassandra stops shaking Serra as she realizes what she’s admitted to.

She drops Serra back down onto the couch and slowly turns to face Ryouta.

“I. Will. Kill. You. You. Dog. Bastard,” Cassandra threatens.

Ryouta looks away from her. He sees the dozen or so bags of groceries that Cassandra bought and brought all the way up here by herself. He feels bad knowing that she did it with her own money and by herself, but it gives him an idea for how to defuse the current situation.

He looks into her eyes. “Thanks for buying those groceries, Cassandra. I really appreciate you doing that for me. You’re a great girlfriend,” he says.

Still red from blushing, an even darker shade of red overcomes her head as she looks away from him.

“I-it’s nothing, you bastard. You walked around with us even though you were uncomfortable, so it was the least I could do,” Cassandra explains, her voice quiet and timid.

He struggles taking the lead with Serra since she’s so forward and he knows that she’ll probably one-up him, but when it comes to Cassandra, it’s easy to just gently grab her by her wrist to pull her close and press his lips against her own warm, delicate lips. It's especially easy to do so when he already has her so flustered.

Cassandra almost looks ready to cry from the sheer embarrassment and surprise she’s feeling, but she doesn’t look upset.

“I’ll cook us dinner, alright? You did all the shopping, so relax with Serra while I handle the cooking,” Ryouta says.

He expects her to question his cooking skills, but she’s still too deep in the dere half of tsundere to doubt him.

He sits her down on the couch where he was before getting up to bring in the groceries and start on dinner.

Fortunately for the girls, he actually is a fairly decent cook. He’s just too lazy to do it most of the time since he generally has nobody to cook for but himself.