My Yandere Harem Doesn't Accept No-Chapter 29: Reminder

The ceiling of his room had the same damp stains as always.

Lyan stared at it with his helmet off to the side and his arms spread out over the bed, with that look of someone who had been lying there for hours but hadn’t rested at all.

Everything spun slightly.

His body felt heavy, as if he hadn’t eaten all day, which was the case.

"Shit..." he muttered.

He moved as best he could to one side until he ended up falling to the floor with a dull thud, not bothering to get up.

From there, he simply began to drag himself toward the bathroom.

When he got there, he leaned against the edge of the tub and lifted himself just enough to turn on the hot water tap; then he let himself drop back onto the floor to wait for it to fill.

The sound of the water was the only thing that could be heard.

While he waited, he slowly undressed, with sluggish, heavy movements like someone operating on autopilot, tossing his clothes aside without looking where they landed.

When the tub was ready, he got in and didn’t move anymore.

- - - -

The water was hot, and Lyan remained completely still, with his head resting against the ceramic edge and his eyes closed.

He didn’t think about anything for a while.

’I shouldn’t have played for so many hours...’ he thought, frowning.

Then, slowly, he let his mind loosen, gradually drifting off into sleep.

- - - -

When he suddenly woke up, the first thing he felt was cold.

The water around him was freezing, and the light from outside came through the small bathroom window at an angle that was clearly morning.

Lyan stayed still, processing that for a few seconds.

Then he sighed, letting his head fall back against the edge of the tub, and remained staring at the ceiling with no rush to move.

The bathroom ceiling was worse than the one in his room; several cracks ran from one corner toward the center, and the paint was peeling in various spots.

He stared at it for a while longer before getting up.

He grabbed the towel from the hook, dried himself without much care, and when he finished, he stood in front of the mirror.

His own face greeted him as a reminder of what his real life was like.

The dark circles. His long hair stuck to the sides of his face and a lifeless expression.

"Tsk..."

He clicked his tongue and looked away to the side.

He left the bathroom as he was, without getting dressed, and went straight to the kitchen, opening the fridge and grabbing the first thing he found without checking it too much.

He took it back to the bed, leaning back with his back against the headboard, and ate while staring at nothing.

When he finished, he took the phone from the nightstand and unlocked it.

It was Tuesday.

He looked at the date for a moment; tomorrow he had classes as usual, which meant there was no excuse to stay in bed all day again.

He left the phone on the bed and started scrolling through videos without any goal, letting the screen decide for him.

One video after another, without paying real attention to any of them, until, between one and the next, a piece of news about the game appeared.

The headline was quite direct in its disappointment. Despite all the promotion before launch, the game had turned out to be just another one of the bunch: lifeless NPCs, poor experience, and promises that weren’t fulfilled. The reviews were consistently bad.

Lyan skimmed through it without stopping too much.

"That’s weird..." he muttered under his breath. "Anyway. Whatever. I’m having a fucking great time."

He turned off the screen.

The reflection of his face on the dark glass of the phone looked back at him.

His stomach twisted slightly at that image. His long, shapeless hair framing a face that hadn’t received the slightest care in months.

’Should I cut my hair?’

The thought appeared on its own and stayed there, insistent, for something so simple...

- - - -

The next day, Lyan walked toward the academy.

His appearance was the same as always in almost everything: the oversized hoodie, the loose pants, and the backpack slung over one shoulder.

But his hair was different. Short now, clean, and with a shape that didn’t try to draw attention, but still changed quite a bit how everything else looked.

Something he wasn’t processing at all, because his gaze was fixed on the ground and his mind elsewhere.

Two girls in uniforms from another academy passed in the opposite direction and looked at him as they went by. One whispered something to the other with a smile.

Lyan didn’t look up even once.

He was trying to remember if there was anything pending for the day’s classes.

He would have to ask Reid when he got there, was what he thought.

And the moment he thought of Reid, his mind went blank on its own.

He pressed his lips together.

He should stop playing so much. Or at least not for so many hours in a row like he had been doing.

Because he was already starting to spend too much time thinking about the game when he wasn’t logged in, waiting for responses from people who didn’t exist here, calculating things that made no sense on this side.

He was already mixing things up.

"Shit..." he spat in a whisper, running a hand over his eyes in a tired gesture.

"Is something wrong?"

The voice came from his left without any warning, and Lyan turned his head sharply.

Lyra was walking beside him, her waist slightly leaned forward and her hands holding the backpack behind her back, her gaze set on him with that expression of hers that was hard to fully read.

Lyan looked at her, confused, still processing where she had come from and why she was talking to him.