Chapter 25: A fishy dinner
Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):
The restaurant was in a busy area right beside the new yodeling competition building they built a few years back. It wasn’t very big, and there was no space to sit outside, so I was worried they wouldn’t let me in. It wasn’t so much a problem that I wouldn’t fit inside—I would; I wasn’t that large—but I would still take up a considerable amount of space. Space that could be used to serve other customers instead. I figured a small bribe might be necessary.
The restaurant was one of the few in the area and was quite busy; the queue was long, extending almost a dozen meters. They made an exception for lizardkin, though, and let them skip the line. Hugo was right; this place really was lizardkin-friendly. Lizardkin-loving, even.
There were a few other lizardkin ahead of us in the line. Mostly couples, from what I could tell. The two guys in front of us held hands, and one of the two women in front of them leaned her head on her partner’s shoulder while they all quietly chatted. In fact, now that I looked around, most people here were couples. I glanced at Alex. Was he trying to send me a message or something? I shook my head. No, it was just a coincidence.
He looked a bit uncomfortable, though. He probably wasn’t used to seeing queer couples being so out and open in public. I sent him a reassuring smile and a squeeze of his shoulder. He smiled back at me, though the tip of his tail kept twitching in discomfort.
After a short while of waiting—about fifteen minutes—it was our turn to be let in. The waiter looked at us warily, then ran back inside, clearly not wanting to have to deal with me. A few moments later, a tall lizardkin wearing an immaculate white suit walked back out. He was of the jeweled gecko type and looked like the person who owned the place.
“Welcome sir Sythias. I’d very much like to welcome you inside, but I’m afraid we can’t accommodate someone of your… stature.”
“I can pay double,” I said, and Alex gaped at me in shock. I ignored him for now, though, keeping my focus on the gecko.
He hesitated, then spoke: “I appreciate the offer, sir, but I simply can’t—”
“Triple, then,” I said, interrupting him.
Would it be worth the money? It would be a lot for one night out, but Alex wanted to try the place out, so yeah, I thought it would be worth the money. It wasn’t like I had a shortage of it, anyway. My food budget had been left mostly untouched since I’d moved into the dorms and started preparing my own food again, so I had plenty to spare. Next time I would be making a reservation well in advance, though. I didn’t want a night out to cost me a tail and a wing again.
The gecko smiled at me, though it was strained. “On second thought, I might be able to find a spot for you,” he said. “Please wait here for a moment.”
He walked back inside, no doubt intending to shift tables around to make some room. It really shouldn’t be that much effort—I needed maybe only three times the space to sit down as a biped needed—but the guests would be displeased.
“Did… did you just bribe him?”
I turned to Alex, whose maw was hanging open in incredulous shock.
“I paid extra for better service,” I said with faux haughtiness and Alex gave me a flat stare. “Yeah, I bribed him. Restaurants aren’t built with me in mind and always place the tables too close together, so sometimes I need to pay a little extra for the inconvenience of having me as a guest.”
“That’s not fair. No one should need to pay extra just to be allowed into a place.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Alex frowned. “Maybe we should find somewhere else to eat.”
“But didn’t you want to eat here?”
“I do… but I don’t like the idea that you’re paying triple just for me, just because I asked you to go somewhere.”
I smiled at him. “That’s sweet, but it’s alright, Alex. I can afford it and if it makes you happy, that’s money well spent, in my opinion.”
He crossed his arms. “I still don’t like it.”
“How about this, then? Next time you can take me out for food and pay me back that way.”
He smiled, nodding. “Deal. Though I’ll have to get a job then. That’s probably for the best, anyway. I can’t keep mooching off of you.”
I was about to respond, but the gecko waiter interrupted us. “Sir, I was able to find a suitable table for you, after all. Please follow me.”
We followed him inside. The door was on the smaller side and I had to press my wing close to my body and hold my breath to pass through. Glancing back outside, I saw a few people in the queue glaring at us. I rolled my eyes; as if they wouldn’t have done the same if they’d had the money. I got their annoyance, though. We’d likely take up the space of two, if not three, tables. Their wait times had just gotten longer.
The waiter gecko led us to a small table in the back. Around the table was plenty of space, so I could sit comfortably. I narrowed my eyes. Too much space. I wasn’t that big, was I? I shook my head. No, I was perfectly normal sized. Probably. It wasn’t like I had a huge sample-size to go off. He probably just wanted to gain favor, or something. Too bad for him; I stayed out of politics if I could help it.
Alex and I sat down. The floor was a little cold on my butt and tail, but it would warm up in no time; with my heating magic still in overdrive from trying to stop Alex from shivering last night, I practically radiated heat. Actually, I should probably turn that down. With a bit of concentration, I decreased the amount of mana regeneration that went to heating and finally felt my mana pool start refilling. I stretched a little, feeling better with the mana flowing through my veins again. Should’ve done that way earlier.
The waiter gave us our menu, took our drink order, then left.
“A job, huh?” I said, continuing our earlier conversation. We could pick food in a moment. “Do you need any help with that? I’m sure I can give you a good recommendation.”
He put a hand on his chin—underside of his snout, really—thinking it over. “No, I… I’ll figure something out.”
“You sure? It wouldn’t be much effort at all.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. Remember what you said earlier about me talking to Tiki?” he asked, and it was my turn to nod. “It’s the same for me. If I get a job somewhere, I want to know they hired me for being, well, me. Not because they thought they could gain some favor with the headmaster’s son. So I’ll be looking by myself, difficult as it might be.”
“Alright,” I said. “Makes sense. But if you change your mind, I’m here to help. Now, let’s see what kind of goodies they have on this menu.”
I opened the menu and looked through it. To my great dismay, it was mostly vegetarian food. Heretics. It did explain the suspicious lack of delicious smells coming from the kitchen, though. It mostly just smelled of vegetables and fish.
They had a few items with meat, though, thankfully. It was mostly fish, and one dish with chicken on the side. I wasn’t feeling chicken, so it seemed I would be eating fish tonight. It had been a while since I last ate fish. It was a lot of effort to prepare and eat for very little reward. I wouldn’t be the one cooking it, though, so it was fine. After looking through their selection, I decided to just order one of each.
Having made my choice, I looked up at Alex. He was still reading through the menu, flipping through it. He was flipping the pages too fast to actually read what was on them, though. When he got to the end, he flipped back to the beginning and started looking through it again, and again, and again. While he read through it repeatedly, he grew increasingly agitated; he kept tapping the table with his other hand, and I could hear the scales of his tail scrape against the ground.
“Are you okay, Alex?” I asked, unable to bear watching him read through the menu for the seventh time.
He looked up, his eyes wide. “I… I can’t choose.”
His reaction reminded me of when we went out to lunch last week. Stars, had it really only been a week? It felt like an eternity ago, already. He had reacted poorly to choosing what to eat then, too.
“Do you want me to choose for you?” I asked, my tone soft and gentle. He nodded meekly. “How does chicken sound? Can’t go wrong with chicken.” He nodded again.
It didn’t feel right to see Alex so subdued. He wasn’t usually particularly energetic, but right now, he felt so… small. It wasn’t right. There wasn’t much I could do, though. Not without being nosy; he’d talk to me when he wanted to. Right now, all I could do was be there for him. It sucked that I couldn’t do more, but it was what it was.
After a moment of thinking, I put my menu down. I knew he liked talking about math, and that it helped him relax, so I would talk to him about the homework. I hoped that might help.
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We were chatting about a particularly difficult problem, using a napkin to doodle the solution, when the waiter put our drinks on the table. Alex had ordered some kind of juice, while I just asked for a carafe of water. He put down a glass for me, but I handed it back. I had no need for it. To demonstrate, I picked up the carafe and took a big sip. The waiter looked bemused for a moment before snapping out of it and asking if we had chosen our food yet.
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“What do you mean ‘one of each’?” the waiter asked when I told him my order. He shook his head, cleared his throat, and said: “Apologies for my rudeness, sir. I shall go ask the chef.”
He left for the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with permission from the chef. It was amazing what a little extra money could do. Once the waiter finished writing down the sizable list of fishes, I ordered the salad with chicken for Alex—well, from the sound of the description, it was more like chicken with salad than salad with chicken. Not that it mattered, really.
The waiter turned to leave when I remembered something. “Oh! Can all the fish be deboned before it’s served?”
“Deboned?”
“Yes, the little bones always get stuck in my teeth,” I said and flashed my fangs at him.
The waiter took a small step back. “I—uh—of course, sir. I’ll make sure the chefs debone the fish.”
With the waiter gone, I turned back to Alex. With the large order, I figured it would take a while, so this would be a good moment to try to talk about his problems picking food. I didn’t want to be nosy, but there had to be something I could do. I needed him to know I was there for him if he wanted to talk.
“My offer from last week still stands. If you want to talk about it—the food, I mean—I’m all ears,” I said, wiggling my ears at him.
He chuckled at my antics, then sighed. “There isn’t much to talk about, really. I just overreacted.”
I didn’t entirely believe that, but I wasn’t going to say anything.
“Overreacted to what?” I asked.
He sighed. “I don’t know. The choices, I guess. There’s just so many, and I don’t even know what a tenth of the things on the lists are. Like, what in the stars’ names is broccoli?”
“The choices overwhelm you?”
“I suppose. But it’s not just that. It reminds me of just how little I know. Since I left home, I’ve been going around from place to place, never staying more than a week. I didn’t really get the chance to try things out. This is literally the second time in my life I’ve eaten in a restaurant. With so many choices… I don’t know them and just don’t know what to do with them and I freeze up.”
“How are you liking them so far?” I asked.
He blinked, surprised by my question. “Restaurants? They’re… fine, I guess. I don’t like the wait, though. Hanging out with you is fun, but I’d much rather do it back in our room, snuggled up to you with a book, than in a crowded room.”
I tried to suppress the flutter in my heart at his statement, but I couldn’t help but smile. I liked that better, too.
“Do you feel overwhelmed just being here?” I asked.
“Um, no. It’s just the menu, really.”
I sighed with relief. It hadn’t made much sense, but for a moment I feared I’d dragged him out to do something he didn’t like, despite the fact that he was the one who dragged me out here, if anything.
“That’s good. Hmm, would it help if I explained what everything on the menu is when we go out to eat?” I asked, hoping there was something I could do to help. “Then you would know what the dishes are, and won’t have to feel as overwhelmed by them.”
“Maybe? I don’t know. It’s not just food; it’s everything. The shops, the people, the restaurants, the theaters, and probably a dozen other things I don’t even know the name of. It’s so much, and I just don’t know any of it, nor do I have any idea where to start figuring it out.”
He was breathing heavily by the end. Already sitting on the ground, it was easy to move around the table and put a talon on Alex’s shoulder.
“Deep breaths. We’ll figure it out together, okay? One step at a time—and we’re already two steps in. We’ll get to our destination before you know it.”
“Thank you, but it’s fine,” he said. “I’m just overreacting. I’ll figure it out myself in time.”
“So what?” I said and Alex looked at me in puzzlement, so I elaborated. “Your feelings are valid. Even if you are overreacting, it’s still making you feel that way. If you don’t want help, that’s okay and I’ll leave it be, but don’t deny it just because you think you’re overreacting. Which, if I might add, I don’t think you are. I think you’re having a perfectly reasonable reaction given the circumstances.”
I paused for a moment, before adding. “That being said, I think you know a lot more than you think you do. For one, you knew this restaurant, and you know a lot of the places you just talked about. I think you’re just getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. Which is entirely understandable, considering where you came from. You just need time and maybe someone to guide you.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I let him think while I took a sip of my water. I was pretty sure he was going to say yes to my offer. He just needed somebody to tell him it was okay to ask for help.
“I… thank you, Felix,” he said after a few minutes. “It means a lot coming from you. And maybe you’re right—on both accounts. I’ll have to think about it, but if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like your help.”
I smiled, glad that I’d been right. “Of course it isn’t, or I wouldn’t have offered. I’d say we’d start now, but I honestly have no idea what most of these vegetables even are. But if you want we can stroll around campus for a bit after dinner, and I can point things out?”
He chuckled. “That’s fine, I could probably ask Tiki about those. And I think I’ll take you up on that offer, but for now, let’s just enjoy dinner,” he said with a smile and gave me a long hug. I hugged him back, ignoring the stares of those around us. “And thank you, Felix. You always seem to know exactly what to say.”
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We talked until the food arrived. It was a small mountain of fish and a few pieces of chicken with salad on the side. I took each fish and ate it. They were alright, but not anything special. I also put a bit of each fish on Alex’s plate, while explaining what it was. In return, he gave me a bit of chicken and some of his salad. I gave it a try, then quickly washed it away with a few big gulps of water. I shuddered. That tasted vile.
We didn’t talk much while we ate, but afterwards we talked about the combat classes we had tomorrow.
“What can I expect?” he asked. “Will there be monster hunting or just sparring?”
“Mostly sparring. We’ll probably just get introduced to our gear and maybe do some light sparring tomorrow. Well, you will, anyway. I’m not sure if I’m going yet.”
He breathed out a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I’m… not in the mood for hunting monsters again any time soon.”
“It will happen eventually. It is part of the basic combat class, after all. I understand, though. I’m not exactly looking forward to it either.” I said, waving my stump at him.
The wing had started regrowing and now looked weird. The way it regrew was like baking a cake. Layer by layer, building it up, and then frosting the sides with skin. It would have been incredibly itchy if it wasn’t for the salve I’d gotten. It was running out, though. But luckily I had an appointment for another healing mango tomorrow, anyway. So I’d get some new salve then.
“Oh,'' he said. “Do you know when?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. Whenever Scott—the professor—deems you fit, I suppose. Not that it matters, since the training grounds are closed off.”
He frowned. “You said ‘you’. not ‘us’. Are you not joining the class?”
“I’ve already been exempted. I don’t have to go if I don’t want to.”
“Exempted?” he asked with a raised eye-ridge. “Why?”
“I regularly spar with the second-years. They have their power reduced to my level, of course, but I spar with them nonetheless. I often win, too. There isn’t really anything the basic class can teach me that I don’t already know, so Scott told me whether I attended or not was entirely up to me.”
“Second-years?” he asked, incredulous. “How can you possibly win any fights?”
“Like I said, their power is brought down to my level, and they can only use their passive Skills and Path bonuses. My base speed and strength is a lot greater than theirs, and I have wings. It straightens the odds.”
“Huh. Cool. Now I kinda want to see you fight one of them.”
I thought for a moment. “I’ll come to the class then. It’s not really the same as watching me fight second-years, but it should still be interesting. Besides, you were already going to ask me to come, anyway, weren’t you?”
“I… I wasn’t going to actually ask, but yeah, I’d like you to be there if it isn’t too much trouble,” he said, then shook his head. “I don’t like fighting; the danger stresses me out. But you’ve made me feel safe, despite the mess that happened. I know I need to learn how to deal with it by myself, eventually, but until then, having you there would be great.”
“I figured. You really didn’t react well when we got stuck down there last week. Don’t worry, I’ll be there at the class. Though I recommend you talk to Scott about this, as well. He’s a great listener and really understands the effects combat can have on you. I think he might be able to help.”
He nodded, though he didn’t look convinced.
Not soon after, the waiter interrupted to ask if we wanted a dessert. I asked for a list and he got one for us. I moved over to sit down next to Alex and he leaned into me, our shoulders touching—with him sitting on the chair, our heights matched near perfectly—while I explained the various dishes to him. Maybe I didn’t know vegetables, but I certainly knew desserts.
While going through the list with Alex, I noticed they had vanilla ice cream. I pointed it out to him and told him we had to get that one. Ten minutes later, we were both enjoying the frozen vanilla goodness. It tasted even better than when I had it that first time with dad. Maybe I should see if I couldn’t get some for ourselves when I went shopping tomorrow. Not sure where I'd keep it, though. The fridge didn’t get that cold.
“This is g-great. Very cold, though,” Alex said while shivering quite badly.
In hindsight, feeding frozen food to a cold-blooded lizardkin wasn’t the best idea. I moved back beside him, wrapped my wing around him and blasted myself with heating magic. It radiated outwards through my body and wing and into Alex. He sighed with relief and leaned into my touch. A warmth that had nothing to do with magi spread through me from where he leaned into me. He quickly put another spoonful into his mouth. It seemed he wasn’t going to let some cold spoil his enjoyment of the treat. I wouldn’t have let it, either.
Too soon, our bowls were empty. And even though we had finished the dessert, Alex kept leaning against my side, mumbling some excuse about still being cold. I knew it was an excuse, but I let him anyway. I didn’t have the strength to tell him no. Nor did I want to. When the waiter came, he looked at us with amusement and handed me the bill.
I paid the rather substantial amount, and we left the restaurant. As promised, we wandered around campus for a while, taking the long way back through the shopping district. As we walked through the streets, I pointed out all the different buildings to him. The shops were closed already since it was so late, but I’d visited most of these shops at least once in my time here, so I was able to relay my experiences to him. Alex occasionally asked a question, or had us stop to stare through the window of one shop or another. Once we were through, Alex looked a lot more at ease, and thanked me for taking the time. I was rewarded with a hug, and despite the cold night air, I felt warm all the way back to our room.
By the time we finally got back to the dorms, it was well past midnight and we were both exhausted. I was glad we didn’t have to wake up at something like seven in the morning. It was only when I laid in my bed, feeling rather lonely without Alex there, that I realized I’d forgotten I was supposed to keep my distance during the dinner, and had in fact gotten closer as the dinner went on, both literally and figuratively. Dealing with this crush would be more difficult than I’d expected.
I sighed, rolled onto my back, and stared out through a window at the distant stars. It didn’t help either, that all I really wanted to do was to give in and see where the crush would take me; consequences be damned.