The end of her tail had a shape almost like an arrow. Luca felt the very tip trace patterns on his thigh near the knee as he stared directly at the small note, and his hand shook holding the feather. It had been around the third time the flustered man had to dip his feather in the ink because the one he already had on it had dried. His shaky hand hovered over the parchment. “Wanna bang after css??”

  What kind of person just offers that? They hadn’t even talked to each other yet; the only time Luca heard her voice was when she was yelling at the Elf woman during the tour on the first day and earlier in the css, when she argued with Preston. Was this a joke? Was Luca being pranked? Surely it had to be that; she couldn't mean to really… Although clearly she had a reputation based on the accusations he had heard made against her.

  Her tail moved slightly up on his thigh, setting a dangerous pattern that Luca caught on right away. If this was a prank, she was taking it very seriously. He would have to write something, and soon; he needed to give an answer… didn’t he? Should he just slide the parchment back?

  I’m obviously not gonna do this. He thought to himself. Not even talking about losing my virginity in a closet with a Dracon in the middle of the day, if I actually were to go through with this and get caught, it will all have been for nothing!! Yeah, I’m obviously going to write no. Be firm, Luca!

  …

  Then again, if it was so simple, I would’ve written it already.

  The rest of the world was simply secondary; the expining of the professor and the questions of the students were distant to Luca, muffled by the sound of his own breathing, of the cloth on his pants being moved as she slid her tail even closer to the danger zone ever so slightly, of her foot resting on the floor as she changed the leg to rest on the other. Everything in the cssroom had lost importance, and Luca’s senses had become hyperfocused on Mexander’s actions and presence as a whole.

  He took a deep breath and felt his jaw tense once more. As he could feel his arousal become more and more prominent, he decided to inch the feather closer to the parchment, his actions mirroring her tail’s as it approached more and more. Time was running out with her patience. Luca pressed the tip of the feather against the note and slid it down. He’d say no, he’d say no, he’d sa-

  A thunder roared across the cssroom once more, and Luca dropped the feather, looking up petrified he had been caught.

  “Verrry well everyone, it seems I’ve reached the end of your interest for the day; therefore, I will let you go for now. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and remember, you are in Zenith! Act like it!” The professor stood straight with his chin up and his arms outstretched, proud and inspiring.

  The css began dispersing, and Luca simply wrote the answer and slid the note back to the Dracon before anyone noticed. Then he felt the professor’s hands on the desk, and he looked up to meet his eyes. The man was leaning closer to be face-to-face with the rookie from Dryleave.

  “So, dear boy, any questions that you might have?” The man smiled; he seemed honest. Perhaps Luca hadn’t been caught after all… What did he write on the note again?

  “Uuumm…” Luca cleared his throat. “Yes! Yeah, I-I mean, no, no thank you, sir.” Pull it together! He thought. The man extending his hand surprised Luca, who took it and shook it as firmly as he could muster.

  “Hadi Nezar, Professor licensed in the study of ruins and dungeons. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Sorry to do it in such a humble manner; as you might’ve deduced, it’s…not my style.” He winked at Luca, who let out a quiet ugh, his inner turmoil calming down slowly.

  “A-All okay… Oh, um, I did have one question, actually. W-What did I miss yesterday?”

  “Oh, nothing important, my boy. I’ve been tasked with teaching you about our dear Dungeon of Infinity, which of course means I have to make sure everyone is up to speed. I simply retold the story of it that everyone’s heard a thousand times, as it’s required of me…” He sighed. “As if there isn’t a painting around the corner that expins it beautifully… Anyhow, that and presentations, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Oh, good… So, uh, era ended, adventurers found entrance, only one came out… right?”

  “Precisely, see? You can’t even tell you weren’t here.” He winked at Luca, who ughed once more, his breath now regained. “Well, duty calls. I hope you’ll be as diligent as you should be as a member of our dear guild.” The professor nodded, to which the rookie replied by doing the same. As Hadi began to walk off, he tapped Luca’s parchment a couple of times. “By the way, careful with the ink; you seem to forget that it’s a liquid, my boy. Bye now!”

  Looking down at his notes, Luca saw how, as he hesitated before to answer his deskmate, he had stained his notes with the droplets of ink that fell from his feather.

  “Ah! Tha-thank you!” He said, nodding apologetically as the professor waved behind his back and giggled. Hearing the door close as he left Luca alone in the room, the man from Dryleave sighed. Putting his ink and feather back inside the desk and bumping the bottom of his parchment to make sure they were all lined up before standing and letting his chair drag behind him. He’d take the parchment to the director’s private css, an event he wasn’t exactly looking forwa-

  “AAH!” Luca yelped, falling back on the chair as it was pushed forward. Making his legs give in and forcing him back into the sitting position. As Luca looked down at the chair, he felt a cold sweat hit him as he saw the very tail that was causing his hands to tremble before wrapped around the leg of the chair and a scaled arm on the back of it as well. Luca thought she would’ve left; clearly she was more persistent than he had given her credit.

  “You write weird~” Alone in the cssroom, the two stared at each other. The Dracon didn’t seem to mind Luca’s nervous and flustered expression at all, while the human himself gripped the chair to steady himself; he felt weird seeing Mexander look at him directly in the eyes, her gaze was penetrating, and her slitted pupils seemed to be rounder than he had seen before.

  “...Wha-What?”

  “You write some letters starting from the top; most people do the M, for example, starting down and then tracing up, but you do the M, the I, and others from the top of the line to the bottom. The M, the I, the T… the Y~” Her tail wrapped around his leg once more, except this time she actually began to slide it up, wrapping it around his thigh before he could even realize she had to get closer to do it and how she had blocked his escape by doing so.

  “I-I, uh, listen, I don’t know what you are doing, bu-”

  “Sure you do. I’m trying to seduce you.” She said, getting even closer, until Luca could feel her breath on his face. It felt cold. “You are cute enough, and I reckon you being that close during our csses shows you are a good enough choice for my first time as a guild member~.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and Luca could feel the tip of her tail tracing patterns on his inner thigh. The situation was getting out of hand, and his issue was growing into a problem. So Luca gently put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her off; his face got so red and warm it felt itchy, and he was panting softly.

  “P-Please… Listen, I… I-I’m not interested.” He lied.

  “Oh? Did I get the wrong impression?” Her tone wasn’t less flirty in any way. “But why? You said yes to me being attractive~.”

  “... Loo-look, alright? ... I can’t.” He took a deep breath and started speaking, already knowing he’d regret it. “I came here by pure luck, and I have a lot against me; I need to try my best in order to do what I came here to d-” The draconic woman yawned lightly, then immediately raised a hand.

  “Sorry, sorry. Not bored, I just had a hard time sleeping st night.” She moved her hand to signal him to go on.

  “R-Right… So I-!” Luca felt the tip of her tail poke just next to his growing arousal. Which made him shoot his hands down to grab her tail and pull it off, but as it was wrapped around his thigh, he struggled for a second; the sight of it must’ve been comical because Mexander let out a chuckle.

  “Oops~”

  “K-Knock it off, would ya?” Luca was so red one could easily miss the point at which his forehead turned into hair. He could feel himself sweating, so he shook his head to calm down. “People depend on me doing good. Good people depend on it, so as much as I’d like to…” The dracon raised the part where an eyebrow would be, and Luca cleared his throat. “I can’t… thanks for offering though.”

  “I see… And do these people need you to focus so badly that you can’t even have a little bit of fun in a closet? I can be quick. Or rather…” Her voice dropped to a whisper, her voice hoarse and seductive as her cws traced a line on Luca’s arm, leaving a small dissipating white line in the process. “I can make it so you don’t need too much time~” Luca felt goosebumps rise on his arm where she traced her cw; her words, however, didn’t affect him that much… Was she testing what worked?

  “I-I mean… kinda, yeah. I have to be responsible.” Mexander scoffed and put a hand under her chin, frowning in an exaggerated frown.

  “Oh, boo hoo, you can be responsible and have fun! ‘Sides, I’m sure the people who depend on you would understand~.” She yawned again, a shorter, quieter yawn this time.

  “I-I’m sure they would, but it’s not about what they think! It’s about what they need.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; when he opened his eyes again, they were filled with the determination he drew from remembering that his family and his town needed him. “...I’ve never been rich, nor has anyone I care about, so this opportunity might be the only way for them to have a good life.” She began to yawn again. “So yes, I have to be responsible; I have to not get dis… distracted! I have to… to…”

  Luca’s words trailed off, as the determination dissipated into the air after Mexander yawned; it wasn’t a yawn. Instead, the Dracon woman left her mouth open, and her tongue began to slide off of the side of the jagged edges of her mouth. The end of it was double-pointed, and a sharp line ran through the middle of it; a pink, fleshy color, the tongue seemed unnaturally wet, but what got Luca the most was how it began to slide off of her mouth… and then not stop.

  The thick, muscur organ was long, longer than Luca expected, and he felt his mouth dry when she let it all hang out. It wrapped around her lower jaw, then she raised it and made a small circle with it, just before starting a motion of shaking something. The fact that it was prehensile, its wetness, the length—Luca didn’t know what it was, but he knew fast that she succeeded, that she found what worked. Her mouth now an open grin, she began to slide the tongue over the space between them, as Luca’s mind began to ask itself questions that didn’t help the situation. What would it feel like? Was the most troubling one of them all, as well as the one that echoed through his skull. Stopping just short of Luca’s open-hanging mouth, Mexander retracted the tongue back into her resting pce. Before she closed her mouth, she waved a hand before it.

  “Sorry~ Like I said, I barely slept st night?.”

  Luca exhaled nervously, and he started to notice how fast his heart was going, how much his body yearned for a full breath of air, and how he hadn't pulled back when she slid her… thing closer to him.

  “I-I… a-agh… uh…” The words died as soon as they reached his lips, his body torn between making up an excuse and retracting his earlier dismissal.

  “Oh well, since you really don’t want to. I guess I’ll have to find someone else. Right?”

  “A-Ah!” Luca went to protest, which she seemed to expect, but as Luca looked wide-eyed and panting softly at her, he started to slowly sit down, to her surprise. “... Yeah… sorry.”

  “... Wait, really? You sure?”

  “T-Thanks for the offer… I’ll, uh… I’ll see you around, Mexy.”

  Luca stood from his pce and began to leave, smoothing down the parchment after he had gripped it a bit too hard. And so, he began to go towards the room he trained with Captain Florene the day before, trying desperately to think of anything that’d help get his problem down again.

  Mexander sat, eyes wide open, looking at the door the guy had just gotten out from. She had dealt with his type before; they usually crumble after she rubs against their bulge for a second. This had thrown her for a loop.

  And she was looking forward to fucking too. Mexander cursed under her breath; she began to pack her things. She wanted the first time as a guild member to be memorable, as every first time was supposed to be. But this had resulted in three days of abiding by the council’s rule of no sex. Mexander’s leg was bouncing more often now; she was getting impatient.

  “Fuck… now I only have, like, three options. Let’s hope the dies don’t let me down.” She muttered to herself. “They never have before. Trust, Mexy.”

  As she put the notes away, the rookie could only think about how fast she could get to their pce. But in the process of doing so, she caught a glimpse of something she hadn’t noticed before.

  On the notes, she could see how Luca’s writing was shaky, signifying he was nervous, and of course that’s the best way to determine how eager or experienced someone is. And yet, on the st note, the writing was clear, clean… focused.

  But the interesting part that made her smirk was that the “not” was shaky, but the “yet” was clean.

  And so Mexander gathered all her things, a confident smile on her face, a pep to her step, and a new name on the list.

  “Weird guy ?” She giggled.