Ryouta feels as if he should try being a bit more confident and assertive as he’s being stared down by this large, hairy, macho man. But, it is hard to not feel emasculated in this older and larger man’s presence. Even other men nearby feel emasculated being around this huge man.

“So, you’re Serra’s boy, huh?” the man asks.

Ryouta nods his head and tries his best to maintain eye contact.

“You got a name there or do you only speak through nodding?”

If Ryouta didn’t feel like a failure of a man in comparison to this other man before, he definitely does now. “Ryouta – my name is Ryouta. It’s nice to uh, meet you,” Ryouta says. When he looks around at the girls, Alice and Aiko both look like they find him adorable in this situation whereas Serra and Cassandra look like they’re trying their hardest not to giggle from how awkward he’s being.

“Ryouta, huh? Never heard that name before, but it’s a good name. You treating Serra there right?”

“I’m trying my best to.”

“You better! I’ll make sure she tells me if you screw up, and if that happens, you’ll be feeling a lot more pain than what that sauce did to you,” the man says with a large smile and friendly tone despite his message. “I suppose I should introduce myself. The name’s Marco!”

“Marco as in the owner of this place?” Ryouta asks.

“You’ve got it!” Marco answers, somewhat rudely holding a hand out over the table and everybody’s food to shake Ryouta’s hand. “You’re one lucky boy if you’ve got Serra here, and I’m not surprised that Aiko is part of the package. Must be really somebody to get these other two ladies as well. I tried the whole ‘more than one girlfriend thing’ before and felt like I was going to go insane! I can only handle one woman at once trying to take my money from me.”

Alice makes sure to wipe her mouth before saying anything and then says, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Marco! This burger is delicious and easily some of the most delicious food that I have ever tasted.”

“That accent – you from across the pond? You sound like one of those fancy noble ladies,” Marco says.

“I am! This is my first time visiting here, and if all of the food tastes this divine, I do not believe that I will ever want to leave!”

“Hah! Just come back here for all your meals and you won’t be disappointed. Serra there is already one of my favorite regulars and we love recognizing faces around here.”

“Did you learn sign language for her or did you already know it?” Ryouta asks.

“Just for her!” Marco answers. “Felt bad always seeing her have to point to things or use her phone to say what she wants, so I learned some signing. Then some of the other staff did the same after seeing her always in here. You could say that Serra is like a daughter to a bunch of us here.”

Ryouta looks over at Serra and sees her not even trying to understand this conversation, instead just holding her burger up to her mouth and taking as-large-as-she-can bites out of it.

“As for you, blondie,” Marco says, looking at Cassandra.

Cassandra hurries to swallow her food and looks up at him. She looks like she has no idea what he could be grabbing her attention for. “Y-yeah?” she answers.

Marco looks at her face, then her chest, then at Serra who’s looking at him. He signs “good job” to her, and she signs back with a “thanks.”

“Now! I’ll leave you all to it. Enjoy the food and just shout if you need anything else!” Marco says and leaves.

Cassandra blinks a few times and looks at the others. Being checked out and then praised to somebody else isn’t exactly something that she’s unfamiliar with, but it was usually her ex’s horrible friends making crude remarks to her ex’s while in front of her. Instead, it was a large, hairy, older man praising her to her younger and smaller girlfriend. She still feels a bit objectified, but at the same time, she has no idea how to really feel about it.

“He didn’t say I’m nice,” Ryouta says with a playfully-jealous pout. “Guess I should get fat so that I have bigger boobs. Then I’ll be nice.”

Ryouta realizes that he may have said something bad the moment he looks back at his burger.

He looks at Cassandra.

“Are you calling me fat?” Cassandra asks, her eyes staring daggers sharper than her in-game sword at him.

“Technically, those big things are just fat,” Aiko chimes in from across the table.

Cassandra somehow pins what Aiko just said onto Ryouta and picks up the knife next to her plate.

“I’m, uhh,” Ryouta thinks of how to defuse the situation.

He could poke her in the side, but then she’ll squeak while in a busy restaurant which would likely really result in his death. He could praise her and compliment her to try and activate her flustered and submissive mode, but she seems too angry for that to work. Aiko’s words definitely haven’t helped.

Ryouta scoots a bit away in the booth, but Cassandra scoots closer.

And then it happens.

Cassandra jumps, banging her knees against the underside of the table, and squeaks! Her face immediately turns pure red as she looks at where the poke came from.

Alice is leaning over with a fork in her hand that she used to poke Cassandra. “I have been wanting to try that!” Alice explains. “I figured that now would be a good time, yes?”

“You’re – you’re lucky that you’re in a wheelchair or I’d put you in one!” Cassandra shouts.

Ryouta spots Marco at the other side of the room looking over at them and laughing. Some others nearby are laughing as well, but for the most part, the restaurant is so loud that nobody really seems bothered by the noise. After all, it is called Roaring Marco’s New Charleston’s Favorite Burgers. As far as Ryouta is concerned, it’s earning its name both with how delicious the burgers are and from Cassandra shouting at Alice.

More importantly, he’s safe for the moment. Cassandra’s rage and knife have been redirected at Alice. Alice is now Ryouta’s hero.

His safety ends up only being from Cassandra.

Something is touching his legs. Something soft and warm is trailing up his leg in an almost teasing manner. He looks under the table a bit and sees a bare foot with the sock and shoe slipped off on the floor underneath it, and when he looks directly across from him, he sees Aiko pretending as if nothing is happening.

Then her foot reaches up to his thighs and sets itself between them.

Ryouta pushes her foot away with one of his knees and closes his legs to prevent her foot from reentering between them, but that doesn’t stop said foot from trying its hardest to sneak in. Aiko maintains a perfectly innocent look no matter how hard she may be trying to get her foot to his crotch.

Serra gets her turn to be Ryouta’s hero now.

Upon taking a quick peek underneath the table to see why Ryouta is shifting around so much, Serra sees what Aiko’s foot is doing and… does the opposite of being Ryouta’s hero.

Rather than save Ryouta from Aiko’s teasing foot, Serra joins in with reaching her foot underneath the table to try and pry open Ryouta’s legs.

Both Serra and Aiko are casually eating their burgers during this while Ryouta struggles to do anything other than trying to escape their feet.

Cassandra ends up being Ryouta’s hero when she catches onto what’s happening, breaks one of her fries in half, and then flicks the halves at the two teasing girls’ foreheads.

“Bastard,” Cassandra huffs at Ryouta.

“Thanks,” Ryouta says. “And I didn’t mean to call you fat. You’re like, anything but fat. You’re perfect is what you are.” He tries being smooth to finish relaxing her now that Alice has defused her a bit, and fortunately, it works. Cassandra blushes and looks down at her burger with a smile that she’s trying to prevent.

Ryouta looks around the table. Everybody looks happy and they are all enjoying their burgers. Serra somehow manages to eat that ridiculously hot burger of hers without even needing a single sip of her water, Alice wipes her mouth like a proper lady after almost every single bite, Aiko glares at whoever she sees looking their way from other tables, and Cassandra actually takes the littlest bites out of all of them despite being the largest girl at the table.

He never thought he’d be casually enjoying burgers together with three girlfriends and Aiko, but it’s nice and something that he’s looking forward to much more of in the future.

Though, he isn’t sure if he’ll be able to survive being teased by both Serra and Aiko, threatened by Cassandra, and playing the bad guy in Alice’s delusional fantasies.