Chapter 63: Saturday

Alex Sandclaw’s POV (continued):

I talked with Sekara for a while more as we grabbed some food together. Viggi joined us too after a few minutes and they both wanted to know about my excursion next week, so I told them what I knew—which wasn’t that much, honestly. I knew where we were going and how we were getting there, but there was very little I knew about the actual destination, aside from what kind of monsters to expect. Which were lizard-like monsters, bat-like monsters, wolves for some reason, and slimes.

For dessert, we each grabbed a cupcake, which is when we discovered how dry they were. It seemed Viggi and I had screwed up somewhere in the recipe.

Oh, well, we’d try again next time.

Which would be in two weeks, I realized. That was quite a while. I hadn’t realized how used I had gotten used to coming here each week. Half my friends were here. I would miss it and them. Luckily I’d be back within a week.

We all talked for a long while, having fun. But all good things had to come to an end. Way too soon, and still very late in the evening, we all went home. I said goodbye to Sekara, but not before confirming once more where and when we were meeting up. Then Viggi walked me home like usual. I was glad that didn’t change about our relationship, either.

“I probably won’t see you again until you return from the excursion, right?” he asked.

I nodded. “I already have plans for tomorrow and Sunday, so yeah. You can come wave us off, though. If you want, I mean. We’ll be leaving earlier than class starts, so you’d have the time. Not that I’d blame you if you didn’t want to come. I already hate having to get up so early myself, I could hardly expect you to do the same.”

He put his hand on my shoulder to stop my rambling. “I’ll be there,” he said. “You can tell me all about how your date went, then, too.”

I sighed. “Hopefully, I’ll have good news to share.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’d have to screw things up really badly for it not to go well. Like, accidentally killing his pet lizard sort of thing. You’ll be fine.”

“Well, I’m glad he doesn’t have any pets, then,” I said, then frowned. “Though, leave it up to me to fuck it up anyway.”

“Like I said, you’ll be fine.”

We parted ways at the dorm building, and he flew off, back to his own. When I got to the room, Felix wasn’t there. From the sound coming from the shower, though, it was clear where he went. I knocked on the door and let him know I was home before sitting down at the table. I glanced at my bookshelf, at Scales in the Night, but decided tonight wouldn’t be the night I continued reading. Instead, I picked up Rivers and continued reading that one.

I was almost finished with it, though. We really needed to go to the library tomorrow so we could pick up some new books.

A few minutes later, Felix walked out of the shower, distracting me from my book. Steam wafted out from the open door and quickly dispersed through-out the room. Felix’s scales shone from the slight humidity and he—obviously—wasn’t wearing his saddle. Somehow, it made him a lot hotter without it on. It was strange, since he was pretty much naked either way. But there was something about him just being purely him, without anything else added, that I really liked, and I couldn’t help but trace my eyes over his body. Luckily, he didn’t notice me staring as he was closing the door.

My eyes especially lingered on his horns, my mind whirling as I pictured using them as handholds. I tried imagining how it must feel, but having nothing to go on, my mind drew up a blank. It was a shame he was standing in such a way that I couldn’t see his slit, though. If there was anything that made it into my fantasies, it was that. I shook my head to clear said fantasies and focused back on the real Felix.

Conventional he sure wasn’t, but as I found early on, I didn’t really care. He was beautiful and handsome to me anyway. No, not anyway. His uniqueness was one of the factors that made him attractive, that made him, well, him. Would I have been as attracted to him if he had been another lizardkin? Maybe. I think I would’ve fallen for him either way—he was just too sweet. But on the other hand, the experiences he’d had because of his body were part of what made him who he was today. Lizardkin-Felix wouldn’t have had that. So he wouldn’t be my Felix. Because my Felix walked on four limbs, had wings, the cutest horns, and the strongest, most huggable arms.

“Alex? Could you help?” Felix asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, um, sure. What do you need help with?”

He smirked. “Really? With all that staring, I figured you’d have noticed. One of the saddle straps is twisted and I can’t reach it without taking the whole thing off again.”

I scratched the scales behind my ears, folding my tail in close, embarrassed. “Sorry, and yeah, of course I’ll help.”

He smiled. “I don’t mind, really. I mean, I can hardly blame you—I know I’m handsome.”

“Yeah,” I said without thinking about it.

Now it was Felix’s turn to look away, embarrassed. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

We sat in silence for a moment, before I remembered what he had asked. “Right, the saddle, I’ll get right on that.”

I fixed the strap so Felix could tighten the saddle into place. Afterwards, we talked about our evenings. While we talked, it was clear there was something new between us. Something good, I thought. We shot occasional glances at each other, gave each other knowing smiles, and even me leaning against his side felt different—more intimate. But it also felt limited. I was holding back, and I was pretty sure he was too.

As for what Felix did this afternoon, he didn’t do all that much, but his evening sounded cozy. Lots of reading and nice food. He also told me about his newest—and in my opinion, concerning—discovery. A growth on the mana pool organ. With everything we learned about the organ during my biology classes and magic classes, I knew it couldn’t be anything good.

At least, that was the case with a normal person. And as much as I disliked it, Felix wasn’t normal. He was literally unique, if you believed the system—which I did. There was only one dragon, and it was him. He also didn’t have a System. So, no, Felix wasn’t entirely normal by most standards.

So, for all we knew, it was perfectly normal for dragons to grow new parts to their mana pool. That’s what we both hoped, anyway. Felix said he was going to bring it up when he visited Elena on Sunday.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Speaking of the weekend,” I said. “How about we go on that picnic on Sunday? I will be gone most of tomorrow, and I want to visit the library then, too.”

He nodded. “That works. Though it will be more dinner than lunch, then. Between packing and Elena, most of the day is already filled up.”

I nodded. I could work with that. “Sounds good,” I said

We then spent the rest of the evening talking about books, reading them, and in my case, drawing. I went to bed earlier than Felix, however, because I’d be meeting up with Sekara in the morning, and I didn’t want to be tired for climbing.

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“Come on, Alex!” Sekara yelled from below. “You’re almost there! Just one more meter!”

With effort, I swung my body upwards and managed to grab onto the next hold with the tips of my fingers and plant a foot where my hand had just been. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep hold like this for too long, I stretched further than ever before and managed to slide my fingers into a better grip. Thank the stars for my increased Attributes.

I pulled myself up, but to my horror, the handhold I was holding turned sideways. Not much, only about fifteen degrees, but it was just too unexpected. My hand slipped loose, and I fell backwards. It took all my strength to not panic and begin grabbing at all the handholds near me to catch my fall. Instead, I let myself be caught by the rope and the harness, just as we’d practiced.

I glared at Sekara as she slowly lowered me to the ground. “You could have warned me that handhold spun,” I said once I touched down.

She grinned. “Where would the fun be in that?” she asked. “Besides, it’s basically tradition here to not tell the newbies about it.”

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll get you back for this, though. When you least expect it, I’ll be there with a bucket of water.”

She chuckled. “Well, I’ll make sure to keep my umbrella with me at all times, then,” she said, and I couldn’t help but chuckle along. “Well, that’s enough laughing for now. It’s my turn. Let me show how a real climber does it.”

We spent another twenty minutes climbing, and after two more tries, I managed to complete the course with the loose handhold. Once you expected it, it was surprisingly easy to deal with. What I hadn’t expected was that the second to last handhold—one Sekara had skipped, no doubt on purpose—turned, too. After that failure, it was easy.

Having finally succeeded, we decided to take a break and went to eat and drink something. It turned out the place had a small snack bar. It pained me to spend my money, but I had a job now, anyway. Soon, I’d be rolling in money, I was sure. The moment I had the food in my mouth, though, my worries evaporated. We’d been climbing since nine in the morning, and it was one in the afternoon, now. I’d eaten some jerky in the meantime, but nothing substantial. In short, I was starving.

We ate at one of the picnic tables they’d set up, but halfway through my meal, I noticed Sekara wasn’t eating despite her plate being mostly full. I looked up and noticed she was frowning, and her tail was lashing behind her in irritation. She wasn’t looking at her plate or at me, though, but at the plaza with the climbing walls. I followed her gaze and saw Zhalia there, climbing one of the walls.

I turned back to Sekara. “So, uh, do you want to talk about it?”

She glanced at me. “There isn’t much to talk about, really. She’d told me she was going to do homework with one of our classmates, but here she is instead. If she wanted to go alone, she could’ve just told me.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” I offered. “Also, didn’t she know you’d be here?”

She shook her head. “She never asked what I was going to do today, and I forgot to tell,” she said. “And maybe you’re right. Still, I wish she would’ve just told me. Or at the very least, she shouldn’t have lied. She could’ve said nothing at all and it would’ve been fine, too. Now it feels like she doesn’t trust me to understand or be reasonable.”

“Do you want to go say hello? Maybe talk to her?”

She finally looked away from Zhalia and back to me. She sighed. “No. I’ll talk with her later, when I’m calmer.”

I nodded. “I think that’s a good idea. How about we go on a walk then, after we finish lunch? That way you won’t have to see her and constantly worry.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

“And in the meantime, how about we switch seats so you aren’t looking straight at her. You still have like half your meal left.”

She agreed, and we switched seats. We ate the rest of our meal, then grabbed our stuff and I walked her home. It was funny how close she lived. She was right in the next dormitory over, and yet we’d never seen each other before that first support group meeting. Then again, there was a considerable distance between all the different dormitories. In any case, it would make meeting up in the future easier, knowing we lived so close together.

After we reached her room, she invited me in. Her room was almost exactly the same as my old room, except that it was ever so slightly bigger. It wasn’t all that noticeable, but the room was just about one extra footstep longer. Thinking back on it, Viggi’s room was the same. I guess this is what Felix meant when he said the rooms in our dorm were ever so slightly smaller to make space for the larger hallways and such.

The interior of the room was pretty much the same as mine, though. Heating and anti-humidity enchantments were engraved on the walls, there was a bed, a desk, storage for clothes, and of course a bookcase.

As Sekara put away her stuff, I wandered over to look at her books. Most of them were textbooks and the like about healing, but there were some books about climbing and climbing spots as well. The top row of the bookcase was filled with fiction, though. I read a few titles and a few blurbs and noticed it was mostly adventure and mysteries. She especially liked stories about masked people with hidden identities solving crimes.

I put the book I was holding back and turned to Sekara. “I’m going to the library later today,” I said to her, “do you have any recommendations?”

She smiled and nodded, walking over to me to show me a few of her favorite books. We spent another half hour talking about the various books she suggested, but then it was time for me to go. She needed to get to the hospital for extra training, and I still wanted to go to the library with Felix.

I picked up Felix at our dorm room—he was practicing his water mana control in the shower—and we began the relatively long journey to the Third Grandest Library. We also took our old books with us so we could hand them in. A long time later, we arrived, and we quickly got to work picking out books. We couldn’t take too many, though, since we also needed to drag them all the way with us to the caves. The only reason we could take books with us at all was that Felix was going to carry them.

We already had one book back in our room that we wanted to take with us, so we still needed to pick two others. In the end we decided that I would pick one book, and Felix would pick the other. That way we could read them together, too. I chose one of the books Sekara had recommended to me, and Felix chose an adult-oriented gay romance book. I wasn’t entirely sure about that one, since talking about it would certainly be awkward. But then again, by that time we’d be dating if everything went as planned.

Actually, with that in mind, the idea of discussing it felt a little more exciting. I wondered if Felix picked it on purpose for that exact reason.

After we picked our books, we spent another hour or two just walking around and writing titles down for later. By the time we started heading home, it was already quite late, so Felix invited me to eat at a restaurant. Like usual, he described all the items they had to me, and helped me make a choice. The food was good, though we didn’t stay for dessert. Instead we went home, both of us tired. When we finally arrived home two hours later, neither of us felt like staying up, so we went to sleep.

Laying in my bed, though, I found it hard to actually fall asleep despite my exhaustion. My mind just kept going over what would happen tomorrow. I was going to ask Felix out. I was actually going to do it. Within twenty-four hours, I’d know his answer. It was exciting as much as it was nerve-wracking. I doubted he’d say no, but I felt like I would still screw it up somehow. With a few calming breaths, I pushed those thoughts out of my mind. It would be fine, I just knew it.

I tried imagining how I was going to ask him out, the exact words, smells, sights, and sounds, but I couldn’t. Despite thinking about it all week, I still didn’t know exactly how to ask him out. Somehow, ‘Felix, would you like to go on a date sometime?’ felt inadequate. It was a decent back-up plan, for sure, but I thought I could do better.

So I kept thinking, running through all the ways to ask him. And as I did, I slowly drifted off and, finally, fell asleep.