The True Endgame

Book 7: Chapter 10:

Only Alice knew what to expect when it was time to see the boat. William told Ryouta that it was a small boat before, capable of being pulled by the golf cart, yet… the boat in question looked anything but small. If anything, none of them understood just where the boat was hiding! It looked like an old-but-well-maintained trawler about thirty-six feet in length… on a trailer… hooked up to the back of the golf cart.

Well, if one thing was for certain, it was that Ryouta wouldn’t have to worry about the golf cart going too fast with such a massive load pulled behind it. He didn’t even know if the golf cart would be able to managed or not.

“If you would like to climb aboard to ride up there, feel free to!” William said. “Unless you would walk along the side of it. Unfortunately, there is not enough room on the cart to fit all of you.”

“I think I’d feel bad adding any more weight for that cart to tug… so I’ll walk,” Ryouta said.

“Ah, are you sure?”

“Yeah. My legs are already warmed up and anything anyways.”

The rest of the group agreed that they would walk. Well, the rest of the group except for Tabitha. “Have fun with that,” she said, now standing atop William’s boat.

While the rest walked, she would be enjoying a nice sunbathing session on the boat’s deck.

“Very well! Ah, Alice. Are you sure you would not rather sit with your old man so that they do not have to push you the whole time?” William asked.

“The path is rather bumpy… so that may be a good idea,” Alice answered.

As much as Eva and Azalabulia might have still wanted to take turns pushing the wheelchair around, they conceded to the logical option and helped Alice into the golf cart before folding the wheelchair up and setting it in the back.

With that little preparation done, the group headed over to the lake.

The lake was new to everybody but William, Alice, and Ryouta, and they all looked amazed upon seeing it. Though, they didn’t get too much time to enjoy the uninterrupted beauty of it since William didn’t want to waste any time in getting the boat into the water. “Do hold onto something up there!” he shouted up to Tabitha.

“Ya got it!” Tabitha shouted back.

With a surprising amount of grace, William managed to turn around, line the back of the boat up with the water, and then slowly reversed.

It honestly looked like something that simply shouldn’t have worked. A golf cart. Launching a trawler several times its size. Into a lake. On its own.

But it managed.

Of course, there were a few moments where Tabitha panicked and let out a scream when the golf cart made it onto the slope and got dragged backwards, but it did manage!

“Great, it worked!” William cheered. “I had no idea if it would or not.”

“Wait,” Ryouta said. “You’ve never done this before?”

“Of course not! Who would launch a boat with a golf cart? All the other times, I called somebody with an autotruck to come over and do it for me. Unfortunately, he is busy until later, so I figured that I will do this part myself and let him handle getting it out of the water later!”

A bead of cold sweat rolled down Ryouta’s forehead as he looked over to the trawler. “He-hey! Tabitha! You alright?”

“I’m fine! No need to ask!” Tabitha shouted back.

“You sure? I thought I heard you—”

“Ya heard nothin’!”

“Ah, Tabitha!” William shouted. “If you would, please throw the ropes over to the dock!”

Everybody could tell that Tabitha was pretty shaky when she got up to do as requested, but she did as requested of her and then immediately set herself back down on the boat’s deck.

Now, the rest of them could bring the boat right next to the dock so that they could get on.

That was when William’s phone rang in his pocket. “Pardon me,” he said to the group before leaving to take the call. “Yes? Yes. Is – is that so? Ah… that was today… I do not suppose it is possible to arrange it for another day? No? Very well. I will – no, no! It is most alright. This is my mistake. I will be over as soon as possible!” He hung up, sighed, and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“What was it?” Alice asked.

“Ah, you see… I have been volunteering at the local theater for children lately. They need my acting expertise, and I promised them that I would be available this day! So, as much as it pains me to leave you all here during our limited time together, I am a man of my word and I must see to my promise. I have heard that you have plenty of experience with fishing and boats, Ryouta. Everything you need is there! All I ask is that you be careful to not cause her any damage when bringing her back to the dock. Now then, I must be off. I hope that you all have a wonderful time, and I will return later! Most likely with the man who will help me get the boat out.”

Before anybody could say anything after William’s long-winded explanation, he was back in his golf cart and driving down the bumpy path as quickly as he could. Watching the golf cart jump all over the path made her fully understand why Ryouta was scared from that. Even she would have been terrified if that was how William drove with a passenger.

“I… don’t have any experience with real boats. Or electric boats,” Ryouta said.

“It’s fine!” Tabitha shouted from the boat. “Ya think I wouldn’t be able to work an engine like this? I’ll have this baby purrin’ for us in no time.”

“You sound a lot better now for somebody who just screa—”

“Oi, I don’t know what ya heard, but ya didn’t hear what ya think ya heard. Movin’ on, I’ve got an engine to play with. How could I not be excited? Now, get on here, all of ya!”

After everybody else got onto the boat, Ryouta carried Alice on in his arms which left her in nothing short of an utterly swooning state as he tried his best to not show the pain his arms were in from struggling to hold her up. Fortunately, Cassandra brought the wheelchair on and unfolded it just in time for Ryouta to set Alice back down without losing his arms.

“You won’t slide around or anything, right?” Ryouta asked her.

“Worry not, my lovely, strong hero!” Alice answered. “These wheels have enough grip to not be bothered, plus boats such as these do not rock much. There is also the fact that it is a very still day for the water.”

“Fair enough. Though, I’m kind of nervous about trying to steer—”

“Oi, dog boy,” Tabitha said. “Look at me.” Ryouta turned around and looked straight at Tabitha. “I am the captain now.”

“You—”

“Get those ropes back on deck! We’re goin’ fishin’! Well, you’re goin’ fishing. I just want to play around with this electrical beaut back here.”

If Tabitha wanted to give him a vacation from captaining, he wasn’t going to complain. Especially since it meant anything that happened to the boat was now her responsibility.

Fortunately for the boat, Tabitha proved to be a fine captain and helmswoman who managed to take the boat right out to the center of the lake without any difficulty.

“This should be a good spot,” Tabitha announced. “Now, if ya don’t mind, I’ll be playin’ around with my new friend back here. Just wanna see how she works a little.”

“Are – are you sure that’s alright?” Azalabulia asked. “Taking apart something that isn’t yours isn’t—”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I’ve taken apart way more complex machines than this before and put them back together perfectly!” To demonstrate her point, Tabitha tried to show off and be cool by spinning the screw she was in the process of unscrewing with enough speed to let it finish unscrewing itself all on its own and pop out into her hand.

Only, rather than pop out into her hand, it fell straight down onto the boat’s deck, bounced, and managed to perfectly jump through a small slot in the ship’s railing right before they heard it plop into the water.

“Tabitha,” Azalabulia said, now bringing out the full force of her serious voice trained by years of teaching children.

“Uh… ya see, they uh… usually put more screws in these things than they really need. Besides, I bet I could find one that isn’t needed somewhere else on this old lady that matches the size,” Tabitha said.

“You need to be careful when handling somebody’s real property! This isn’t a game! What are you going to do if you can’t find a replacement? And what are you going to do regarding whatever you take a screw from?”

“Uhh… I’ll uh… fi-figure somethin’ out. I always do! So – so ya don’t have to worry—”

“If I don’t worry about it then who is? Clearly, I will have to watch you this entire time to make sure that you do not cause any more problems!”

“I uh…”

“There is no ‘uh.’ There is, ‘Yes, ma’am, I will do as told and be on my best behavior.’”

“Ye-yes, ma’am, I’ll uh – sorry, I mean, I’ll… I will do as told and be on my best behavior.”

Meanwhile, just a few feet away, everybody watched with conflicted expressions.

“Woah, sis is… kinda scary,” Kris said.

“Ah… I would love to do teacher and student play with her where she scolds me after class with a ruler and various other toys,” Alice said.

Ryouta, Eva, and Cassandra were all in agreement that they never wanted to get on Azalabulia’s bad side.

As for Serra, she lost interest and pulled out all of the prepared fishing gear for everybody, giving a rod to everybody who was interested in taking one. Though, only Ryouta, Kris, and herself were interested in actually taking some rods to try fishing with. The rest were happy to relax on the boat under beautiful, clear sky above.

While half the group might not have cared too much, Ryouta could not have been any more excited to finally get to fish in real life! He went through the tackle box like an excited kid tearing open presents at Christmas, albeit without making a mess, and picked up a small but flashy looking minnow lure to use.

Part of him felt like he had no idea what he was doing despite having experience with several fishing games and plenty of experience in Fantasy Tales Online, but he managed to get everything set up properly so that he could jump into what he had been waiting for so many years to experience!

Yet, after a couple of hours underneath the sun that seemed to only be growing hotter by the minute, none of the fishers onboard had even a single bite. Even Cassandra and Eva joined in on trying to fish as Alice told them all sorts of stories about her time growing up with the maids. Kris was especially interested in listening in for those.

Only about thirty minutes after Eva picked up a rod to join in on the fishing, she reeled in her line, set her rod down, and decided to go and spend some time with Ryouta since he was hanging out on his own near the side of the boat away from everybody else.

“Yo,” Eva said. “Any luck?”

Ryouta sighed and slouched his shoulders. “Not a single bite. Even after switching lures five times. Are there even any fish in here?”

“Alice said the place is stocked full of fish, so there are definitely some in here. And look – see that? An air bubble.”

“These must be some extremely specific fish then.”

“It’s alright.” Eva stepped up next to his side, standing a bit closer to him than she normally would have. “I’ll keep you company so that you don’t get bored.”

“Thanks, Eva.”

Perhaps with Eva’s company, time would pass by faster and Ryouta would eventually get a bite.

But that was a dream that did not come true. Even three hours into fishing, there was not a single bite.

Fishing in real life – well, it wasn’t exactly as exciting as Ryouta hoped it would be. If anything, it was nothing like he hoped it would be. It was hot, humid, too bright outside, nothing was biting, there was nothing fun to drink as William had only prepared water for them, the only snacks they had were plain crackers – it was anything but a fun experience so far.

“Hey, Eva” Ryouta whispered. Eva was the closest one to him, and he had to get it off of his chest, so Eva it was.

“What’s up?” Eva whispered back.

“I’ve got to be honest about something.”

“Is this a secret?”

“Well… maybe don’t talk about it in out loud yet or let Will know.”

“Got it. I’m listening.”

“Fishing… is kind of boring. In real life, anyways. It’s just… I don’t know. I get it that it’s nice to be under the sun and relaxing, except for when it’s not, especially with a bunch of people you care about, but it kind of feels lacking compared to doing it in-game. Maybe FTO is just so realistic, and way more active, that it’s spoiled me. You can catch all sorts of crazy fish and monsters, it can be pretty dangerous at time in case you fish something scary up, I’ve got Rod – I almost feel like I’m cheating on him by fishing with another fishing rod. I feel like I’m actually fishing for wild fish instead of fishing in an isolated lake that had to be artificially stocked years ago. Then I’ve got The Shoebill, and Rock isn’t with me, and—”

“She was right. You really are sentimental.”

“Who said that?”

“Serra.”

“Actually… I think I remember her saying something about that before. And I agreed with her. But yeah, I’ll admit that I’ve always kind of been really sentimental. I like to do the same things in the same way with the same people. It means more to me than trying new stuff in new ways with new people.”

“What about trying new things in different ways with the same people?”

“That’s fine. As long as at least one of the three is the same, I’ll probably be happy. It’s not like I think this entire thing is boring or anything. I’m still having fun. Just… not as much fun as I thought I’d have.”

“Good, so we can still try new things while together.”

“Got any ideas?”

“Ever play putt-putt?”

“Don’t think so.”

“It’s golf but miniaturized.”

“I think I know what you’re talking about. Never played it.”

“Huh. Putt-putt was my favorite growing up. I begged my parents to take me like, every single weekend for years. I still usually send them a text on the weekend asking if they’re up for it. Anyways, I was thinking… imagine putt-putt but deadly.”

“I hope you mean in-game.”

“Obviously. So, putt-putt but deadly. What if we find an underground cave full of lava to set up a course in? One where you have to make sure your ball doesn’t fall into lava or hit a sleeping monster or anything. Though… that doesn’t really make it sound deadly. That just makes you be careful. We need something that might actually kill us.”

“Is potentially dying really that important to your plan?”

“Well, yeah. Having the potential to die always makes things more exciting. Hmm… deadly putt-putt is harder than I thought it would be. I might have to scratch it for normal putt-putt.”

“But I thought potentially dying was important?”

“Potentially dying would make it more fun, but putt-putt is already the real human’s sport in the first place. No sport can be better than putt-putt. Especially when you play with custom rules that allow you to interfere with others, take your shots at the same time, and other stuff like that. It can turn into a chaotic death match after just a few holes. At that point, the real challenge is not getting kicked out for causing a scene and disrupting the other families there.”

At that point in the conversation, Ryouta had completely forgotten about how bored he was. Instead, he focused all of his attention on talking with Eva while letting the lure just sit out in the water. “I – I suddenly have a feeling that you and your parents were some pretty big troublemakers.”

Eva grinned and nodded. “Well, they are the ones who are more or less responsible for me turning out to be the way that I am, so yeah. That’d be an accurate feeling to have.”

“What are they like? I’m curious now.”

“They’re researchers who met each other on an expedition in Antarctica. They always told me about all the fun games they came up with to pass the time whenever they got bored. If you met them, you’d probably think they’re the same person but different genders. You know how they say that the more time you spend around somebody, the more you’ll look like each other? Well, they really, really suffer from that. Same clothes, same hair color, same glasses… I can pretty much only tell them apart because my mom has a ponytail and my dad is starting to bald. Also, they’ve got like the exact same personalities.”

“Wait, what was that about balding?”

“That’s what you focused on?”

“Hey, that’s important to know for our future kids.”

Eva’s lips took the shape of a sly smirk. “Nice. So, you’re already thinking about our kids, huh? And plural?”

“I – I meant, you know. If we have some kids, I don’t want them going bald. So… how old was your dad when he started balding?”

“In his forties. Don’t worry.”

Ryouta let out a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s not too bad.” Then Eva took him off his guard again by rubbing up against his side shoulder to shoulder, her head turned so that she could watch his expression. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m gathering data.”

“What kind of data would that be?”

“Data like, ‘What makes Ryouta blush the most?’ and ‘How does Ryouta react if I tease him about wanting kids?’ Oh, I thought of another experiment.”

“I – I’m afraid of finding out what it is.”

“I call this one, ‘Operation: Let The Others Know About Ryouta Telling Me He Wants Kids.’ I would get to gather information both on how you react and how they react. Sounds like a pretty interesting experiment to me.”

“I didn’t know you were such a sadist. Is it too late to veto you and kick you out of the relationship?”

Eva leaned a bit more against him so that she could rest the side of her head atop his shoulder. “And I didn’t know you were so cruel.”

“Will going on a putt-putt date make it up to you?”

“Hmm… yeah.”

“What if we make our own putt-putt course in FTO?”

“Guess I’ll have to give you as many kids as you want then.”

“You – you really need to take it easy on me.”

“Heh. I’m kidding. My max limit is three, probably.”

“Three is still – with everybody else… well, is there a reason for three in specific?”

“Because one can hang from each of my arms and then a third one can ride on my back.”

“So like, if you’re out walking somewhere, that’s how many you can fit on you?”

“Yeah. Something like that. Like… I imagine taking them out to a park or something and them getting really tired, so I have to walk back with them hanging off of me.”

“Couldn’t you hang one off of your front and another two on your legs?”

“In theory, yes, but I think there would be some serious detriments at that point. Having a kid on my front would throw off my balance, since I’m assuming I would probably be leaning forward a bit because of the one on my back. Then the two on my legs would slow me down and tire my legs out to the point where I may collapse and not successfully take any of them home. Then there’s the issue of, if I trip or anything, the ones on my legs would get hurt. At least I could throw the ones on my arms off and twist around to land on my front to spare the one on my back. Oh, and if a wild animal attacks, the one on my back will be safe and I could lift my arms up to take the kids on my arms out of harm’s reach.”

“You’ve… really thought about that sort of thing, haven’t you?”

“It’s good to always be prepared and think of every possibility.”

“What if somebody tries attacking with a knife or gun?”

“I can use one of the kids on my arms as a weapon by throwing them while using the other one as a shield.”

“…”

“I’m joking, by the way.”

“Are you sure? You don’t secretly want to test how effective of a bullet shield a small child makes or anything, do you?”

“You could probably use kid-sized ballistic gel for that.”

“Eva, you scare me sometimes.”

“Come on, there’s nothing scary about that. If I really wanted to scare you then I’d say something like… aren’t you curious what it’d feel like to be eaten alive? We could do it in FTO.”

“I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I have a cannibal next to me.”

Eva wrapped her arm around his back to hold onto his far side so that there was no escape. “Hey… I’m hungry now. Maybe we don’t have to wait until we’re back in the game.”

“I’m getting a restraining order.”

Unfortunately for Eva, she wasn’t able to keep the act up and ending up laughing. Ryouta joined her immediately after.

“Hey,” Eva said once she managed to calm down.

Ryouta turned his head just enough to look at her. “Yeah?”

“This is nice. I kinda feel like we haven’t really spent that much time together on our own.”

“I guess that’s what happens when Cass hogs you all to herself.”

“Nah. It’s more like I’m hogging her if anything. And that’s… only really because I don’t know how to be like this with the others. I’m only just now figuring out how to be like this with you.”

“So this teasing, kinda clingy side of yours is something that Cass has been getting all this time while the rest of us haven’t known about it?”

“Kinda, I guess.”

“Well, how’d you figure out how to suddenly be like this with me?”

“Don’t know. It just sort of clicked. I saw you chilling by yourself and thought I’d come bug you and that was that.”

“Well, I appreciate it. I’m happy that you feel like you can be more comfortable around me now.”

“Same. Well, same that – I’m the one happy that I can be more, you know what I meant.”

“Wow, you actually messed up your words for once. Don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that before.”

“Even scientists make mistakes.”

“At least your only mistakes are cute, apparently.”

“Not as cute as you. Boom.”

“Was the ‘boom’ really necessary there?”

“Yes, because I have no idea how to compliment people without adding on something stupid right after to kill the mood and make me feel less awkward.”

“Explaining all of that doesn’t make you feel awkward?”

“Well… it does when you ask me about it. But it’s alright. If this is how it’s going to be, I have a special move prepared that’s going to take us both down together.”

“I’m scared.”

“You should be. I’m not going to hold back here.”

“You’re suddenly going to say something really romantic, aren’t you?”

“Nope. Even worse.”

“I – alright, now I actually am scared.”

“You ready?”

Ryouta closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the fishing pole. “Alright. I’m ready.”

Since his eyes were closed, Eva smiled and asked with a hushed voice, “So… now that we’re all together and won’t be crazy tired tonight… I went and got a bunch of different condoms to bring in my luggage so that we could experiment with which ones are the best. I – I… didn’t want to let you and the others do all the work, so I thought I could at least do that…” Her voice got quieter and quieter as she talked until even a mouse on the night before Christmas was louder than her.

As for Ryouta, he had to lower his head so that nobody else could see his burning face. “That… yeah. I’d say you got us both there.”

“Have you uh… thought about how it’s going to work? Like… is there going to be an order, or…”

“I… didn’t even think of that. I suddenly feel like I have a few different mountains stacked on top of my shoulders.”

“I guess I shouldn’t bring up that not only do you have to choose an order, but you’re going to have to have enough endurance for five girls.”

“Are you trying to give me ED?”

“Then you’ll have to do it with Saya…”

“But she’s not even a part of our relationship… yet.”

“Technically, but we’re all fine if you do something with her. So you’re going to have to do stuff with her after you do stuff with us if you really want to be fair to everybody.”

“I think you’re just being sadistic at this point to make me feel even more anxious about all of this.” Ryouta could not have sounded more defeated if he tried.

“I know. I am. Sorry. I really shouldn’t be teasing you about this. If it makes you feel any better, I already know what sort of order we should go in.”

“And what order would that be?”

“Well, I figure we have two choices. You can go in the order you met us in, which would be the most basic option, or we can draw straws and whoever gets the shortest one goes first.”

“Isn’t – isn’t drawing straws only supposed to be used when it comes to being forced to do something you don’t want?”

“To be fair, we’re virgins. It’s going to hurt. So even if we want to do it with you, whoever draws the short straw will still be ‘punished’ in the sense that everybody gets to watch as she probably cries.”

“I feel like going in order might be the best route then. I don’t like the idea of somebody having to draw the short straw.”

“I see. So, you want to start off with the smallest girl who’s probably going to get hurt the most. Pretty messed up.”

“Then – then Aza?”

“Now you want to go after the one with the biggest boobs first… should I feel offended?”

“Didn’t you just admit that you shouldn’t be teasing me so much about this?”

“Yeah. My bad. I bully Cass a lot when it’s just the two of us, too.”

“I want to watch that sometime.”

“I only do one-on-one bullying. It’s not as fun if somebody else is watching.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra said, “because nobody else has been here this entire time. Also, I wouldn’t call what you do bullying. It’s more… endless groping for ‘science.’”

Eva and Ryouta turned their heads at the same time to see that Cassandra was sitting behind them. “How long have you been there for?” Ryouta asked.

“Not actually the whole time. Only the last couple of minutes.”

“Alright. That’s not too—”

“I’ll go first.”

Eva’s and Ryouta’s eyes both widened. “You – you will?” Ryouta asked.

“That’s… really bold,” Eva said.

“I figure that since I’m the only one on birth control to deal with my periods,” Cassandra said, “then maybe… I don’t know. I might also be a little… impatient. I always turned down my exes and other guys when they wanted to do it, so… I’ve been waiting for a long time.”

“Makes sense. I don’t know how we’ll figure out the rest of the order, but at least the first round is called. That makes things eas—”

Something tugged on Ryouta’s rod. It caught the attention of all three of them and even Cassandra got up to stand next to Ryouta now.

Whatever embarrassment, nervousness, or anything else that Ryouta felt regarding the whole sex situation, as well as his previous feelings about real fishing being boring compared to fishing within FTO, all vanished in an instant.

While something like fighting skills wouldn’t transfer from in-game to reality, fishing was much simpler than that and Ryouta knew exactly what to do.

Eva and Cassandra gently held onto his sides as he reeled the fish in, fighting it every step of the way as his rod got bent to the point where it looked like it would snap at any second. If it wasn’t for being elevated above the water on the boat, the tip of the rod would have been dipping under water.

“Bro! You hooked one!” Kris shouted. “Need help?!”

“I – I’ve got this!” Ryouta shouted back. Everybody else hurried over to watch seeing as how none of them had any luck with their own fishing attempts. “But maybe… get the net ready.”

“Got it, bro.” Kris wasted no time in grabbing the fishing net and extending it so that he could scoop the fish out of the water as soon as it was close enough.

The rod pulled left.

The rod pulled right.

Ryouta, who was used to fishing with Rod where he didn’t have to worry about the line ever snapping, remembered that real life wasn’t that forgiving. He remembered in time, fortunately, and stopped trying to reel the fish in as it dragged the line.

But as soon as that drag stopped buzzing… Ryouta lifted the tip of the rod as much as he could before reeling in while lowering it back down. The process repeated for several minutes, often getting interrupted by the fish trying to swim away again, but they eventually saw the massive fish that he managed to hook underneath the surface of the water.

“Tha-that’s huge!” Azalabulia shouted.

“Ah! That is what she said!” Alice shouted in response.

“I guess somebody had to do it for Serra,” Tabitha sighed.

Serra might not have heard Alice make her proud, but that was alright. Serra was too hyped up for Ryouta as she practically hopped up and down while holding onto the boat’s railing.

“Kr-Kris! Gonna need that net!” Ryouta shouted as the fish came straight toward the boat.

Cassandra made space for Kris so that he could stand next to Ryouta and dip the net down into the water.

With the net dipped into the water, Ryouta angled the fish so that it would swim straight into the net, and…

Success!

“Now!” Ryouta shouted!

Together, Ryouta and Kris pulled up on the rod and net with nothing short of great difficulty.

“C’mon boys!” Tabitha shouted. “Where’re those muscles at?! You goin’ to let an oversized fish show ya who’s boss?!”

“We’re trying!” Kris shouted. “It’s not like I work out much!”

“I – I think we’re gonna need to start after this!” Ryouta added on.

Slowly and not so surely given just how violently the fish thrashed around within the net, the two men managed to pull the fish up over the railing to show everybody the true size of the massive beast.

That was when it flopped right out of the net.

“No you don’t!” Ryouta shouted, practically throwing himself overboard as he leaned over the railing to grab onto the fish.

The fish then slipped out from his arms as it jumped up and managed to slap him straight in the center of his face with its mighty tail, but Ryouta refused to give up. He managed to catch the fish again as it fell back downwards and clutched it against his chest, now with one hand wrapped firmly around the tail to prevent it from escaping.

It was then that he realized he probably should have been falling into the water given just how over the edge he was. When he looked behind him, he saw that all of his girlfriends, Tabitha, and Kris were working together to hold onto him.

“We’re not lettin’ ya stink up the place by getting’ wet, ya dog!” Tabitha shouted.

“It’s alright, bro! I’m making sure we don’t pull your pants down!” Kris shouted as well.

“Alright! On three, we’re pullin’ him back! One… two… three!”

In perfect unison, everybody worked to pull Ryouta back over the railing. Perhaps they put a bit too much effort into it, though, seeing as how they sent themselves stumbling backwards and pulled Ryouta with enough force to crash him into the woman directly behind him. Fortunately, there was not a single better woman for Ryouta to have crashed into.

The back of his head got partially absorbed into Azalabulia’s valley as the fish continued squirming against his chest in a desperate attempt to obtain freedom.

“You alright?” Ryouta asked, tilting his head back to look up at Azalabulia with his head still somewhat sunken between her breasts.

Azalabulia nodded her head with flushed cheeks. “I – I’m alright…”

Now that he had the fish on the deck with him, Kris was able to secure the fish in the net and keep it pinned down with ease. “Bro… that has to be at least sixty pounds.”

Ryouta got out from Azalabulia’s breasts and stood up to check his catch out. “Looks like a carp.” It was impossible for his eyes not to wander down to the fish’s bloated underside. “And she looks like an expecting mom, too.”

Not wanting to waste any time, Ryouta opened up the mother’s mouth and had to reach pretty deep in there to dislodge the hook, but he did managed to get it out.

“What’re you doing?” Kris asked.

“The obvious,” Ryouta answered. “This isn’t FTO where all the oceans and lakes are perfectly fine. Even if this place is stocked and fine in its isolation, I’d rather not kill a fish who’s this old and this pregnant. The world is kind of short on fish, after all.”

Since Serra was finally putting effort into reading lips, she figured out what was going on and waved her hands to get him to stop.

“What’s wrong?” Ryouta asked her.

Serra pulled out her phone and aimed it directly at him.

“You want to take a picture?”

Serra nodded.

“That’s… a good idea. I might want to release her, but I’d still like to have at least something to show for all that.”

Serra held up three fingers, then two fingers, and then—

She was interrupted by Ryouta telling her to stop this time. “Can you set it to take a picture automatically? I didn’t catch this fish by myself. We all worked together, so I want a picture with all of us in it.”

Serra smiled and nodded.

A few moments later and everybody was lined up near the front of the boat, side by side except for Kris and Azalabulia who had to stand in the back due to their height.

With Ryouta standing front and center with the fish’s pregnant belly in his hands, Serra holding onto her tail to his right, and Tabitha holding up the fish’s head to his left, the phone took its picture and flashed a quick light to let them know it was taken.

Serra rushed over to the phone and looked at the screen before giving the air a fist pump. It was a perfect picture as far as she was concerned.

“Alright! The Soaring Wolves caught their first fish and have their first picture together,” Ryouta announced. “Now, just to take this old lady home. Going to have to be careful to slowly lower her into the water so that she doesn’t get hurt and has a chance to recover her energy. Actually… this would probably be easier by putting her back in the net and lowering her down that way. Kris, help me out?”

“You got it, bro,” Kris answered. He then held the net open near the edge of the boat so that Ryouta could try and slip the fish down into it tailfirst in hopes that it would make it easier for her to swim out once lowered into the water.

Only, there was a problem with this plan.

The massive carp somehow managed to thrust herself upward, slammed her tail into his face, and essentially used him as a springboard to propel herself back over the lake where she then proceeded to flop straight onto her side with a loud smack against the water.

Ryouta was left twitching with a pained face and unamused expression as the carp swam back into the murky depths of the lake without any issue. “You know… maybe I’m in the mood for some carp with a side of caviar after all,” he said.

At least Kris was there to pat him on the shoulder.