Help! I'm asexual and trapped in a dating sim!

Chapter Seventeen

Magic theory was hard. And boring. Really boring. Like, tear your own ears off kind of boring.

Of course, Lord Edric wasn't helping.

And that's why you'll never amount to anything. And now I'm bound to you for life. Honestly, why did you have to choose me? This is literally like a nightmare. No, seriously— I've actually had nightmares like this before.

I'd mainly been tuning him out before, trying my best to listen to the gibberish that the old professor was droning on about, but that was too much to bear.

"Excuse me? Choose you? I did not choose you! I would choose literally anyone else over you! You do nothing but complain and insult me!"

What's the matter, foot fungus? Afraid of the truth?

That was it. I could take no more of this rabbit.

"I do not have foot fungus!" I roared, springing to my feet and slamming my hands onto my desk. "And would you please stop saying I do? I am a perfectly healthy man!"

Are you really a man, though? You seem more like an oblivious idiot.

"I am not an oblivious idiot! I have, in fact, often been commended on my observational skills."

Not what I'm talking about.

"Then what are you talking about? What's with all this cryptic-"

I suddenly realised that the professor had stopped talking to glower in my direction, and the whole class was staring at me. Fair enough— I had just been shouting at a rabbit in high-pitched, intelligible squeaks. I smiled weakly, sinking back down into my seat.

"Heh. Sorry about that. It's a funny story, actually-"

Ryan, sitting to my left, reached out a hand and clapped it over my mouth. I licked it in protest and he scowled at me, before turning to the furious teacher.

"You have my utmost apologies, Professor Rampkin— he's new around here, you see. Please, let me take him outside and explain the situation to him. If you give him a second chance, I'm sure you will see that he is a kind and respectful young man."

My heart sank, and I began to feel slightly sick. Maybe this was a bigger deal than I had thought. Please, if there was a goddess up there watching me, let this go well.

"Very well, then. This is his only and final warning, you understand? One more incident, and I will not hesitate to punish him."

He turned to address me.

"I will forgive this disrespectful behaviour this once, but you will come and see me in my office later today, once school hours are over. You are also dismissed from the rest of this lesson, for disrupting the class. Ryan, please take him away and explain the situation to him. I will hold you liable for his future behaviour, you understand? He misbehaves one more time, and you will be punished with him."

Oh goddess, if this was going well, then thank you for not letting it go badly.

"Thank you, sir." Ryan said. I just nodded my thanks, because despite the licking his hand was still firmly clamped over my mouth.

He dragged me from the room, rather uncomfortably because he was carrying his bag with his other hand so he was kind of pulling me along by my face. I felt my ears burn at the attention of the other students, and I could only count my lucky stars that Ryan was the only one of my friends to be in that class with me. Once outside in the corridor he spun me around and muscled me up against the wall.

"What were you thinking?" he hissed. "Are you insane? Disrupting Sir Rampkin's lesson? Goddess, Lee, if it were anyone but you I'd think you were trying to get punished. What could possibly be so important that you had to say it in his lesson?"

I met his eyes mutely, then slowly and deliberately licked his hand again. He froze for a moment then swore, pushing himself away from me as if he had been scalded.

"Goddess, Lee," he said, sounding pained. "You're such a liability."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, staring at the ground to try and hide the way I was blinking back tears. "I- I didn't know that he would be so angry with me."

I risked a glance up at Ryan, who was staring down at me.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, forcing the words out past the lump in my throat. "I hope you don't get into trouble because of me."

My voice cracked on the last word and, to my horror, I felt a hot tear slip out of my eye and trickle down my cheek, then another.

"Oh, Lee, no, don't cry." Ryan said, his voice panicked. "I didn't mean to make you- It's not your fault. Look, he's a horrible person, alright? You did nothing wrong. You have every right to talk to your familiar, okay? You weren't to know. Oh Lee, don't cry."

But a dam had broken and now I couldn't stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks. Everything had finally caught up to me— my death, my rebirth and the situation I was in now— and I began to sob.

A tentative hand on my cheek made me look up and I met Ryan's eyes. His thumb gently swept my tears away, first one side of my face, then the other.

"I'm sorry, Lee." Ryan's voice was quiet. "I shouldn't have been so harsh on you. You'll be okay. Just do what he-"

His voice cracked as if from sadness, but it was anger I could see in his eyes.

"Just do what he tells you later on, and you'll be fine. I'll keep you safe, I promise."

"Hey!" a familiar voice called. It was accompanied by running footsteps, and I glanced down the corridor to see Caleb practically sprinting towards us. He skidded to a stop at my side, and had nudged Ryan away to fold me into a deep, comforting hug. He was warm, almost uncomfortably so, but it felt a little like being wrapped in a thick blanket and it was the safest I'd felt in all my time in this world so far. I buried my face in his chest, before smiling weakly at Ryan over his shoulder. The wolverine beastman seemed positively furious until I wormed one hand out from the suffocatingly tight embrace and reached out towards him. He ignored my hand, of course, turning away and walking off down the corridor, but I could see a slight smile on his lips before he went.

Caleb pulled back, bracing his hands on my shoulders and looking into my eyes.

"What's the matter, Lee?"

"It's fine," I said, giving him a watery smile. "I just got into a bit of trouble with Professor Rampkin and then got overwhelmed by everything. This is all very different from the life I'm used to."

"I'll bet it is," Caleb said. "And don't worry about Rampkin. He's a little hard on us non-humans, and he's known for his punishments being harsh, but the worst he'll do to you is get you to clean out all the inkwells in his classroom, or scrape gumtree sap off the underside of the desks."

Ryan's reaction had seemed as if Rampkin would do a lot worse than that, but Caleb seemed to think otherwise. And I imagined that the fiesty wolverine had probably heard tales from people who did a lot worse than shout at their rabbit.

"Okay," I said with a nod, pulling away. "Thank you. I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Of course you will be," Caleb said, with a warm smile. "Now come on. Let's go and sit on the grass in the sun for the rest of the period."

I nodded, joining him as he turned to walk away down the corridor, but shot one last nervous glance at the classroom door.

It'd probably be fine. Right?

A/N: I'll keep this short, but thanks to the magic of ✨antidepressants✨ I am doing a lot better. I can't promise regular updates, but there should be more than one a month coming now. Thank you for continuing to read even though I'm flakey on the updates, and I really appreciate your supportive comments even if I'm too awkward to reply to them!
If you have the time, I'd love it if you could check out 'Once More' which I'm also writing at the moment. We're already a third of the way through the first book in the series, and I'm updating almost every other day! It's super tanked, and I'm not really sure why.
That's all, folks! Love ya, bye!