Book 1: Chapter 29: Ramen and Bourbon
Book 1: Chapter 29: Ramen and Bourbon
Ryouta drunkenly makes his way back to the booth after emptying his bladder. The girl that he was staring at before going into the bathroom almost looks as if she is expecting something when he comes out, but he just walks past her without paying her any attention.
Of course, he is paying very little attention to anything at all right now.
“I… think I dranked too muchmuch,” Ryouta says before giggling and practically falling back into his seat.
Spencer catches Ryouta and helps him sit down. “Yeah, I think you did, too,” Spencer says
“Shorry, this izz what always happensh, doesn’t it?”
“It is, but it’s alright. I expect it to happen. Plus it’s cute to see you like this.” Spencer pats the top of Ryouta’s head.
Ryouta’s canid ears twitch.
Wait.
He feels the top of his head, probably looking very strange to anybody looking his way.
Fenrir’s ears are not there, yet it feels like they are. It’s like he can feel them twitching and reacting to Spencer’s hand even though they don’t exist.
“Dozh your mind play fuuunnee tricks on you after that gamey wamey?” Ryouta asks, giggling some more from his own stupid speech.
“You could say it does. I think it might be related to what they’ve been talking about on the news lately – like how the game’s mental manipulation can have aftereffects in reality. So if your mind keeps on telling you to believe and feel like you have something that you don’t, then that might carry over to reality. For example, I sometimes don’t roll over when I’m lying down to sleep because I keep on thinking that my antlers will stop me, but then I remember – you know, no antlers in reality,” Spencer explains.
“Yeah, ‘at!”
“Yes, that.”
A loud smack comes from a few booths ahead, drawing the attention of nearly everybody in the bar.
Cassandra’s right hand is raised while her left hand is pulling the top of her costume up as far as she can get it. Her face is bright red and she looks as if she’s trying not to cry.
One of the men sitting down in front of her has a bright, red mark and a stupid grin on his face. “What’s the matter? You’re already showing off those tits – who cares if we get to see the rest of them? It’s not like you’re leaving much to the imagination,” the man says, his hands making groping gestures in the air as they approach her chest. Going by blush on his cheeks, in addition to where he was slapped, and the hazy look in his eyes, Ryouta isn’t the only one who drank too much. “You don’t show off great tits like this if you don’t want them to be looked at and touched, ain’t that right?”
Ryouta hates cliché, sexist men in reality just as much as he does in-game. A ship with cannons manned by Serra would be pretty helpful right now.
While he may not have a ship nor a cannon-addicted assistant, that doesn’t mean he’s going to just sit back and watch some girl get harassed.
He’s too drunk to notice the bouncer already on the way over to break things up and kick the offending party out.
“Hey! What’re you guysh… think you’re doin’?” Ryouta asks, placing himself between Cassandra and her molester.
Now, when a man asks a question, he usually waits for an answer before doing anything else.
Ryouta? Well, Ryouta goes and punches the man in the face almost immediately after asking the question as if he can’t decide on whether he wants to solve this peacefully or forcibly.
There are two problems with this.
One, Ryouta is not Fenrir. Fenrir is strong. Ryouta is not.
Two, the man that Ryouta just bloodied the nose of is much larger and looks like the kind of guy who makes obnoxious noises while lifting not-actually-that-heavy weights at the gym.
Spencer pulls Ryouta away just in time to keep him from getting his face smashed in. “Sorry about that, my friend here drank a bit too much,” Spencer tries apologizing to the man, but all the denied retaliation does is inspire him and his friends to get up from their booth.
The bouncer arrives. While the molester may be a large man, the bouncer is larger and more intimidating in every way possible. He looks like the kind of man who makes obnoxious noises at the gym but only because he’s lifting weights that actually require them. His biceps look like they are going to tear through his shirt if he flexes. “Get out of here before we call the cops. Now!” he shouts at both the molester and Ryouta.
Naturally, a drunken man willing to try and tear off an innocent girl’s costume and then try to punch a guy less than half his size is also going to be willing to try and attack the bouncer.
The bouncer does not take kindly to this, blocks the man’s attempt at a punch, twists his arm behind his back, and drags him over to the entrance. “You’re going to fuckin’ break my arm, let it go!” the dragged man shouts. The bouncer doesn’t care. The rest of the guy’s friends follow him out of the bar, not wanting to suffer the wrath of the bouncer.
Ryouta turns to look at Cassandra. “Are you alrigh—” he starts asking but is interrupted when the bouncer comes over for him.
“Out!” the bouncer demands.
It is clear that Ryouta does not intend to listen, but Spencer intervenes and drags Ryouta out himself. “Sorry, we’re going,” Spencer apologizes for him.
Fortunately, the problem men are already walking away in the opposite direction of where Ryouta and Spencer need to go by the time they get outside. They don’t want their egos bruised any more than they already are.
“Hey! I was…n’t done drinking, and stuff, and we needs to give them the moneys!” Ryouta whines to Spencer.
“The last thing you should be worried about right now is paying for your drinks,” Spencer says.
“Wazzat supposed to men? Men! Wait, ‘at isn’t righ… mean!”
“It means that you just got us free drinks. Only problem is that I’m not sure we’re ever goming to be welcomed back here.”
“But I wanna go back!”
“Then don’t punch random guys in the face. Let the bouncer do that.”
“They weren’ts random! They was like those fucky garlicy boys we killed. Shoulda done more ‘an just punchedify him in the… face!”
“I don’t know how the adrenaline isn’t sobering you up right now.”
“Hehe, adrenaline ish a funny word… adrenaline, adrenalyne, adraynapoop, adrenalena, andrenalina,” Ryouta continues saying various butchered forms of adrenaline.
…
Meanwhile, in the bar, Cassandra comes back out from the staff room with her costume better secured and her watery eyes wiped. She hates this job and knows that she only has it because of how she looks. She knows that her personality is rough and that most people can’t stand her, she knows that she has no useful skills to get herself any service job not based off of being pretty and busty, and she knows that almost every single patron in here sees her as nothing but a sex object. It’s all the same in-game. She tries escaping this by playing games, but it just happens all over again.
The other men she worked with in the Augus Empire, the Stinky Garlic guild, literally almost every single male character and NPC she has come across – they all want nothing more than to turn her into their personal hole, but she refuses no matter how much it makes them call her a bitch or prude.
She just wishes she could find one guy who sees her as more than just some thing with tits. Sure, she could always just play male characters or make herself less attractive in games, but she wants to be accepted for who she is – not as somebody she isn’t.
Fenrir’s stupid face pops into her mind. He may make perverted jokes involving her, but from what she’s seen so far, he has treated her with respect and like an equal rather than a set of holes. In fact, she can’t recall a single time where he has tried hitting on her or checking her out. Even if he has checked her out without her noticing, at least he doesn’t do it to her face like most men do.
Cassandra finds herself smiling at the thought of him when she reaches another customer’s table.
That boy that stood up for her looked nice as well. Even if she did catch his perverse eyes looking at her figure from across the bar without him noticing, he was respectful to her face and was able to only look her in the eyes despite being as drunk as he was. He even stood up for her and checked on her afterward – well, tried to check on her. Plus, he was actually cute unlike most of the crude men she encounters.
Cassandra realizes she’s losing herself in thoughts. “Sorry, is there anything I can help you with?” she asks the customer.
Serra and Cassandra’s eyes meet. Each girl looks almost exactly like they do in-game, so they instantly recognize one another.
…
“My legs huuuurrrrrttt! Spence, carry me!” Ryouta whines, clinging onto Spencer’s side.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Spencer says, lifting up Ryouta like a bride. He has tried giving Ryouta a piggyback before, and it would certainly get them less odd looks on the street by passersby, but he can’t trust Ryouta to not let go and fall backward.
It has happened before.
Normally, one would call for an auto taxi in this case, but Spencer couldn’t do that to Ryouta no matter how drunk he is. He’s going to have to carry him all the way home on his own two legs.
At least Spencer has done this before. When Ryouta tries to give wrong directions to get back to his apartment, Spencer knows better than to follow them.
“Go right here!” Ryouta says.
Spencer continues walking straight.
“Left! I’m over thur!”
Spencer goes right.
“Where are we?” Ryouta asks with a giggle, not realizing the apartment building he is being held in front of is his own.
Spencer carries him all the way to the elevator before finally letting him down. His own legs are on fire at this point. “I think you can walk from here,” he says.
Ryouta almost collapses.
With a sigh, Spencer helps Ryouta stay standing as he works the elevator.
The two finally make it back to Ryouta’s room.
Ryouta stumbles through his apartment and falls face-first onto his bed as soon as he makes his way over to it.
“Yeah, this is what usually happens,” Spencer says to himself. “Penguin, turn on the radio with low volume.”
Ryouta’s TV turns on, switches to the radio stations, and automatically sets the volume low.
Spencer looks around. “This place is a mess. You’re going to be single forever if you don’t learn how to take care of yourself and your things,” he says, picking up the nearest empty bottles of alcohol and scattered bags of chips to toss them away. “Now, let’s see if the cleaning supplies I bought last time is still here.”
“Why can’t hentai be real?!” Ryouta shouts from his bedroom.
Spencer’s blank stare rivals Cassiel’s world record.