My Yandere Harem Doesn't Accept No-Chapter 14: New Friend

The five of them started talking among themselves about something Lyan didn’t fully understand and didn’t make any effort to understand either.

So he simply got up from the couch calmly and walked over to the easel.

Directly to the portrait of himself.

Lyan looked at it with a bit of amusement.

’It’s... a bit exaggerated.’ he thought with a hint of amusement, slightly tilting his head to one side as he studied it.

The figure in the painting was clearly him, the face was unmistakable, but the muscles were noticeably more defined than they were in reality.

The lines of the torso, the arms, the overall posture, everything had that finish of someone who had spent years being consistent at the gym and not someone who went whenever he felt like it and lately didn’t feel like it at all.

Then his gaze returned to the face.

That was him. Not the one from now, but the one from before, when he still got his hair cut regularly and came out of the shower without avoiding looking at himself in the mirror.

Defined features, a calm expression with a kind of confidence that didn’t feel forced.

He kept looking at it for a moment longer.

How long had it been since he looked like that.

’I should go back to the gym.’ he thought, and this time not with amusement, but with something closer to renewed determination. Three times a week was more than enough to start again.

He would go to one far from the academy, in some area where there was no chance of running into anyone who knew him, so it would just be that and nothing more.

"Is something wrong?"

Lyan looked up.

Sera was watching him from where she was sitting, her head slightly tilted and a genuine curiosity on her face.

Lyan looked back at the painting for a second before answering.

"Nothing." he said calmly. "I just got lost in thought about something..."

Sera kept looking at him.

Lyan turned his head toward her and then noticed she wasn’t the only one looking at him. All five had their eyes on him, with different expressions, but all pointed in the same direction.

"Is something wrong... girls?" he asked, his tone slightly nervous from so much attention.

The responses came in different forms. Aveline looked away toward the wall with a vague hand gesture. Evelyne shook her head slightly without saying anything.

Serelis did absolutely nothing, which in her case worked as an answer just the same. Saoirse smiled off to the side, and Sera simply looked at him for another second before shrugging.

None of them said anything specific.

But two or three of them glanced at each other at that same moment, clenching their fists in anger, digging their nails in.

- - - -

The academy rooftop was one of those places that technically weren’t meant to be used, but also didn’t have any sign explicitly forbidding it, which in practice meant that whoever found a way up could stay without a problem.

Reid had found the way since his first year.

Lyan was sitting on the edge of one of the lower ledges with his lunchbox on his knees, chewing slowly while looking at the sky above the city.

Next to him, Reid was doing the same with considerably more energy than usual for midday.

They weren’t alone.

The third person in the group was sitting a bit closer to the center, legs crossed with a bento open in front of her, talking with the ease of someone who had spent years being this direct without ever trying to be.

"Reid has told me a lot about you," she said, looking at Lyan with a smile. "He says you’re the only one who can listen to his complaints without falling asleep."

Reid pointed at her with his fork without bothering to deny anything.

"Solène." he said, introducing her without ceremony. "I met her this year, and I’m surprised she puts up with me..."

"Because no one else can stand you, I felt bad leaving you alone." she joked, drawing a laugh from Lyan and a complaint from Reid.

Then she looked at Lyan. "Solène Delacroix. Nice to meet you."

The system appeared briefly at her side.

[Solène Delacroix – Secondary Character.]

Lyan read the message, processing it as he watched it disappear again. Secondary character or not, he liked her within the first thirty seconds, which was more than he could say about most of the people he had met in his life outside the game.

She had brown hair tied to one side and light-colored eyes, with an expression that conveyed complete confidence in herself.

The three of them ate for a while without any rush, the conversation flowing back and forth between them with a naturalness that Lyan noticed but didn’t pay much attention to, simply because it felt good and he had no reason to complicate it.

Below, the academy courtyard continued with its usual rhythm, with various students coming and going depending on the class they had.

Outside the walls, on streets far from the academy, someone stood with their back turned, holding binoculars pointed upward.

Only their long white hair moved slightly with the wind.

Their eyes, barely visible in profile, were light blue. But they lacked the shine that that kind of color usually had when the light hit them just right.

They were dim, still, and fixed on a specific point on the rooftop without blinking.

Their lips were slightly pressed together, and at some point, without it seeming like a conscious gesture, their front teeth dug into their lower lip with enough pressure for a thin line of blood to appear and remain there without the person doing anything to clean it.

They stayed there for several seconds, watching Lyan share that meal with those two, though this girl’s gaze held a specific hatred only for Solène, who laughed comfortably at what Reid and Lyan were saying.

At that moment, she glanced to the side, her clear eyes locking on; they met hers, sharp and cold.

Before returning her attention to the two boys.

’Damn bitch...’ she thought before abruptly turning around and starting to walk away.