“This is weird, Saya,” Fenrir thinks to his assistant. All that he has control of right now are his thoughts inside of a black void within his mind.

“Oh, yeah, this is your first time being unconscious, isn’t it, onii-wan?” Saya asks.

“Yep.”

“Maybe you’ll wake up to Aza doing lewd things to you in your sleep!”

“That’d be nice, but I doubt it.”

“By the way, onii-wan, you’re a nerd.”

“What’s that for?”

“That battle you had!”

“It was pretty fun, and we were kind of cool, weren’t we?”

“Ehhhh. Mostly just nerdy, onii-wan.”

“You’re just jealous you haven’t embraced your inner chuuni yet.”

“I – I don’t have any inner chuuni, you baka onii-wan!”

“I bet you totally strike cool poses and shout out cool magic names whenever you’re bored and when I can’t hear.”

“Hmph! Do not!”

“Sure, sure.”

“Hmph. You – oh, it’s time for you to go back. Have fun, onii-wan!”

“Later, chuuni-tsun-pup-imouto.”

With that, Fenrir blinks open his eyes and is greeted by something soft, warm, and thick underneath the back of his head.

Two large things hang over his head, almost reaching down to rest on his face, and block most of his vision.

Yep. These are definitely Azalabulia’s thighs that he’s resting on, and those are definitely her breasts directly above his face.

This is one of those times when he wants to say something, but he thinks that he’ll pretend to be unconscious for a little while longer to get to enjoy this.

It helps that her breasts are blocking the top half of his face from her, so she can’t see that his eyes are open.

“Aren’t his eyes open?” Cassiel asks her hidden girlfriends.

“That is correct,” Nell says. “It is a good thing that he is lying on his tail! It would be obvious what is happening if his tail started to wag all of a sudden.”

“It’d be cute to see his tail wag in his sleep,” Serra says, nodding her head.

“What’s she going to do now?” Cassiel asks, noticing one of Azalabulia’s hands going for Fenrir’s head.

Fenrir feels something strange yet beyond wonderful.

What he feels is Azalabulia’s hand on the top of his head between his ears, gently petting him.

This is the first time that he’s been petted, which is mainly his fault since he’s too tall for his girlfriends to conveniently do this for him, but he loves how it feels. His ears happily twitch as Azalabulia strokes her fingers through his hair as if trying to massage his scalp.

As for Azalabulia herself – well, she’s sitting there with a massive, closed-lip smile and hearts threatening to appear in her eyes just because of how fluffy his hair is.

“I’m kind of jealous,” Cassiel says.

“Hmm. Now that I think about it, none of us have done much petting of his head,” Nell agrees.

“Touch fluffy head,” Serra says, nodding.

“We will simply have to surround him later and force him to let us all pet him!”

“That sounds way worse than it actually is,” Cassiel says.

“We’ll tie him down and force our petting on him,” Serra says.

“You won’t be able to resist doing more than petting him if you do that.”

“I didn’t say where I’d pet him.”

“Serra is right!” Nell says. “Between the three of us, there are six hands, so we have to make sure that his whole body is being catered to with our pettings!”

Back at Fenrir and Azalabulia, Fenrir is finally figuring that maybe he should let Azalabulia know that he’s fine and conscious now. She might be worried about him since he passed out on her, and he doesn’t want her to be worried.

But at the same time, in this position… all he can think about are those doujins where a guy would be sucking on a girl’s breasts while getting a handjob from her.

That would be nice.

For now, though, Fenrir raises one of his hands to let Azalabulia know that he’s awake.

The hand on top of his head pulls away in a hurried panic.

He regrets letting her know that he’s awake.

“A-are you feeling better?” Azalabulia asks.

Fenrir’s eyes widen a bit from surprise. He didn’t think she’d be the first one to say anything, but she was. “Yeah,” he answers. “Thanks for taking care of me. Feel free to pet me some more, by the way.”

“Re-really? You… like that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Even without being part dog, getting headpats is awesome.” At least talking to her and being honest feels easier for him now. He was really getting worried that he would never get over his nervousness around her, but being this close and intimate with her reminds him of doing this with his girlfriends. When he thinks of it that way… this just feels normal – natural. Azalabulia is another girl just like his girlfriends. The only differences between her and them are that she has an actual career and is a few years older than him, but those are all.

“Sorry for being so stupid around you before,” Fenrir says with a sigh. “I guess… I just realized how dumb I was being. From now on, since you’re an official member of Serra’s harem with me, I’ll treat you how a boyfriend should.” He also wants to “bully” her some more like he did when he first met her. Now that he’s gotten over the whole teacher and being older things, he can go back to teasing her.

Then it hits him.

“About time, onii-wan,” Saya tells him.

It makes sense to him now.

From the very first time Fenrir met Azalabulia, he was teasing her, welcoming her into the crew, and treating her with total confidence in himself – he was treating her like a normal person and he was just being himself. Then, discovering her career, age, and the fact that she’s interested in him is what made him so flustered and awkward around her. He let those change how he was acting.

She got interested in him because of how he originally treated her, not how he treated her after becoming awkward around her. Not only that, but she’s seemed more awkward ever since he’s started acting awkward.

During the fight, though, they were fine. When they were just fighting each other and having fun, they were treating each other like they normally would without all the awkward romance involved.

Fenrir realizes that he really is stupid.

He’s reminded of when he was told that his attempts at being smooth aren’t really all that smooth, either. It’s not his would-be smoothness that made his girlfriends fall for him. It’s just… being his usual self and treating them like normal that won their hearts.

So, as stupid as Fenrir might feel right now, it’s also a healthy confidence booster to be reminded that his girlfriends—now including Azalabulua—all just want him for who he is rather than who he thinks he should be.

“I’m really stupid,” Fenrir says, this time smiling as he sighs. “All of this awkwardness has been my fault. Sorry about that.”

“What – what do you mean?” Azalabulia asks.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a problem anymore, girlfriend number four.”

“Hey! I – I have a name…”

“You’re right. Sorry, Azawaza.”

“A-Azawaza?”

“Azawazaza.”

“Azawazaza?!”

“Azawazazazawaza.”

“Azawawazawalawawa?! D-don’t you think that it’s getting even more ridiculous?!”

“I think you’re the one who just made it ridiculous, Azawaza.”

Serra, Nell, and Cassiel are all celebrating in the bushes.

“It would appear that my hero has finally figured it out!” Nell says.

“About time,” Serra agrees.

“Yeah. Seriously, he was being so weird around her,” Cassiel chimes in. “We tried telling him but he just didn’t get it.”

Fenrir reaches up and pokes Azalabulia’s breasts that are hanging above his face. “By the way, you can expect me to want to touch these way more now. Cass Cass doesn’t let me grope her whenever I want to, so I have an opening for boobs-on-demand.”

While Azalabulia turns bright red, Cassiel clenches her fists as a vein pops on her forehead. “That bas—hmph! It’s – it’s not like he tries that much in the first place,” Cassiel whimpers to herself.

Serra reaches up to Cassiel’s chest and… just sort of rubs it seeing as how a metal breastplate is over it. “This is why. We can’t grope you when you’re always covered, and he touches your boobs all the time in real life,” Serra says.

“Serra has a point!” Nell says. “You must be gropable in order to be groped! How can you wish for his hands to fondle your chest when you keep it covered with metal?”

Fenrir isn’t the only one to have a realization.

Now, Cassiel realizes that being so covered in armor might actually be a bad thing now that she has a boyfriend.