Eno saw Drake again at the start of the new school year. He didn’t want to go to an Omega-only aristocratic school to learn how to cook and arrange flowers to serve the Alpha, and went to his mother to act like a spoiled child for several days before he was allowed to continue at a mixed-gender regular public school. The dark nanny van stopped at the side of the road and he walked down the road to the school gates with his school bag on his back and Lea’s small hand in his hand, following the crowd of threes or twos.
Lea had been joking and laughing with him, glancing around with eyes full of excitement, not sure what he spotted, but suddenly he stopped in his tracks and looked up and shouted, “Drake!”
The tall Alpha walking ahead of him immediately turned around and smiled happily the moment he saw Lea. It was only immediately afterwards that he saw Eno, and the curve of his lips immediately dipped, becoming polite and detached, “Hello.”
Eno returned the smile with grace and dignity, but it was Lea who jumped over and hugged him happily: “I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“I went to summer practical training with my father.” Drake scratched his head and said with an apologetic look, “I’ll come and play with you after school.”
Lea nodded his head with an ‘en en’, and Eno, hands of the clock on the clock tower were about to turn to the hour, hurriedly drove Lea to his classroom. Lea was two years younger than them and was still in the lower education department, which was closer to the main entrance than the higher education department School, but it took some time to run from the entrance. With a dejected expression on his face, Lea tugged Eno’s hand to make him bow his head, stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then waved at the two of them and ran away with his little schoolbag.
Eno gave an involuntary, light smile, and as he got up he saw Drake’s thoughtful gaze flicking back and forth over him. With a clear cough, he collected his expression and naturally stepped away, walking alongside Drake towards the school building. Although an Omega’s development was three years slower than an Alpha’s, it could already be clearly seen that Eno was a stunning beauty, and with Drake’s already handsome features, the two received numerous stares all the way to the classroom door without parting.
Eno suppressed his quietly racing heart and took the first step into the classroom, finding an empty seat by the window to bask in the sun. Drake looked around the classroom; they had arrived too late and there was only one empty seat left behind Eno, so he had to take a seat there.
Sitting next to Eno was a petite female Omega who, before the class teacher arrived, approached Eno affectionately: “You look good.”
“Thanks.” Eno smiled brightly at her, “You’re cute too.”
Eno was raised by an etiquette teacher since he was a child, and every expression on his face can be elegant and natural yet sincere. The girl’s fair face quietly turned pink, and she couldn’t hold back the gossip in her heart, pointing behind her and said in a low voice: “You guys came in together, do you know that Alpha? He’s so handsome!”
Eno craned his head slightly to meet Drake’s impatient gaze. He withdrew his gaze and smiled, “Just happened to be neighbours.”
The girl’s eyes instantly lit up with a blaze of CP: “You guys look good together, are you going after him?”
Under the new post-war Omega allocation laws, many Omegas would choose to chase an Alpha they liked home as teenagers in order not to be assigned by the system, so it was nothing new at all for an Omega to chase an Alpha in a mixed gender school. Eno’s heart gave a not-so-light jump at the words ‘good match’, then he smiled slightly and hid his regret, “I’m engaged.”
The girl was a little sorry and very envious: “That’s nice. I’d like to have an Alpha to take me away too.”
“There will be.” Eno casually reassured as the class teacher came in and redistributed the seats. Eno declined all the Alpha’s invitations to sit with him, except for Drake – who simply sat a complete diagonal from Eno directly. It was the Omega girl who finally came over and sat with him.
What was taught at the public school was very simple, and Eno had learned it long ago under the guidance of his tutors. Still, he straightened his back out of habit to look like he was listening carefully, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Drake’s upright back in the distance, his mind long gone.
Outside the window was the chirping of birds, the smell of pheromones in the large, crowded classroom, and the dull voice of the teacher’s lecture, which made him drowsy. He thought in a trance about why he had come to this place to suffer. It seemed that Lea mentioned that Drake would also come to this place to go to school, so he went to his mother to act like a baby on the grounds that he wanted to go to school with his younger brother. Now that his purpose had been achieved, he didn’t seem so happy again.
He was still so far away from Drake, so far away, yet impossibly close. His heart was happy and lost, and he muddled through the day until the teacher announced the end of school. He gathered his things slowly and saw Drake’s long legs striding over so many desks in three or two steps to reach him.
“Are you going to pick up Lea?”
“En.”
Drake said lightly, “Let’s go. I’ll go with you.”
Eno actually wanted to say that their walking together was going to start another rumour around the campus, but hidden delight made him just nod haughtily and walk ahead with his school bag. They traversed the two school buildings along the side of the playground, the pheromone smell of the pre-pubescent Alpha was very faint, only with his own clean and refreshing smell. Eno ears turned reddened quietly, not daring to look at him. He could only stare at the sunset hanging over the bell tower, a bright red-orange blob of light that tinted the clouds and made them burn.
Suddenly the treetops above them shook unnaturally and Drake pulled Eno backwards, his fingers long and strong, pulling five light red handprints on Eno’s white arm. Before Eno could say anything, Lea dropped from the tree like a small cannonball and stood firmly in front of the two men.
“Ge Ge!”
Drake immediately let go of Eno’s arm, and Eno couldn’t hold down his violent heartbeat, so he had to cover his chest and pretend to be shocked, complaining to Lea: “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry.” Lea said with a smirk, “Wanted to surprise you both.”
Eno shook his head helplessly as Lea climbed back up the tree and threw his bag to Drake, climbing down the thick trunk like a monkey. As soon as Lea arrived the atmosphere immediately came alive and he and Drake were talking and laughing, Eno just had to look at him with an affectionate smile and there was no awkwardness at all.
As they headed home against the setting sun, Lea stopped in front of the Drake’s villa and threw his bag to Eno: “I’ll be home later, tell the housekeeper for me ma.”
Eno simply told him to come home early to do his homework and returned home with two backpacks, immediately being carried off by the housekeeper to his private lessons.
He absent-mindedly calculated difficult and difficult mathematical formulas, his eyes always glanced at the back garden outside the window, and was reprimanded several times by the teacher. It was not until late that Lea came back over the wall, slipped through the window into Eno’s bedroom and climbed into his arms for a tummy rub.
Eno stretched out two fingers to rub his bulging, soft belly, and Lea hiccuped comfortably: “Drake’s parents are especially nice, and his Omega father’s pork knuckles are delicious! I’ll ask for some to bring back for you to try next time, okay?”
The image of gnawing on a pig’s trotters with his bare hands was a disaster, the complete opposite of graceful. Eno rubbed him and laughed: “No, you don’t have to. But you can invite the family over for dinner and ask the housekeeper to arrange for the chef to make something scrumptious.”
Lea nodded meekly and rolled around in his arms in pleasure. Eno sometimes thought that Lea was the one who looked like the average well-to-do Omega; he had grown up uninhibited, sunny and sweet, full of youthful exuberance, a far cry from his own, always over-cautious and indecisive, different from his lifeless self.
Who wouldn’t like a boy like that, even he himself likes him. But he was never destined to be an Omega like Lea; the marriage between the two families had been set in motion a long time ago, and if he chose to be free, Lea would have to marry little Kersi.
Lea started to feel sleepy as soon as he had eaten, and was now asleep on his side, his nostrils twitching and snoring softly. Eno stroked his round, fleshy face and smiled silently, pulling a thin blanket over him and turning out the light to lie beside him.
His eyes were dark for a moment, but he was suddenly conscious. Eno opened his eyes and his vision blurred for a moment before it came into focus, landing on the envelope that had almost been crumpled into a ball in his hand, the purple iris in full bloom covered in folds, still in glorious bloom, as if to mock his delusions.
Eno’s lips opened and closed, unable to call out the name. Finally he cradled the envelope in his arms, closed his eyes and murmured: “Lea, I miss you so much.”
Without the crisp response and warm body of his dream, a hollow silence surrounded him, wrapping around him and almost suffocating him.
Eno sighed and smoothed out the wrinkles carefully and put it back in the corner for storage. He was about to turn on his light-brain to watch the latest episode of the intergalactic series <Intimate Relations> when he suddenly heard the sound of a glass breaking from downstairs. He opened the door to his room and looked downstairs, where Martin was sitting in front of the water dispenser, his fingers trembling uncontrollably and already red. The red boiling water button in the centre of the dispenser had not been lifted and was still gurgling hot water out.
Without thinking, he dashed downstairs and unplugged the water dispenser, then fished the bandages and burn medicine out of the medicine cabinet before running to Martin and holding his injured finger. Martin shuddered, pushed him away like an electric shock and shouted: “Scram!”
“You need to be medicated.” Ignoring his awful attitude, Eno said seriously, “Don’t move.”
Martin blushed rather hard, his entire palm was half red and it seemed that the burned area was not small. He stretched out the hand that was not burned, and said in a bad tone: “Give it to me, I will do it myself.”
“You can’t wrap it properly with one hand, it’ll get blistered and inflamed in a minute.” Eno squeezed his hand again and gave it a malicious squeeze, “I advise you not to move, there’s glass shards under your wheelchair, you won’t be able to go anywhere if you cut the tyres.”
The corners of Martin’s mouth pulled back, but he did not move. He watched Martin’s defeated expression with a sense of pain, and not very gently wrapped half his palm into a dumpling. The process definitely hurt, and to his greater surprise Martin was more tolerant than he had expected, he just had a bad complexion and didn’t open his mouth to cry out.
Eno told Martin not to move after the bandage and went to the bathroom to get a dustpan and broom to sweep up the glass shards. Afterwards, he ignored Martin, took out the screwdriver from the storage room, sat on the ground, and removed the back cover of the water dispenser with a few bangs.
“The pick is loose.” He looked into the light to see the inner workings of the dispenser and raised his voice, “Tighten it up and it’ll work.”
“You can even repair water dispensers?”
“Hai.” Eno said casually, “Without cultivation and tutoring, you can only rely on some craftsmanship to become the young madam of the Duke’s house.”
Martin choked on his words and sat in his wheelchair, listening to him turn the screws with such skill that he didn’t look like a young master. Bored with fixing the machine, Eno spoke to him, “I have a younger brother.”
Martin’s back tensed up and his voice softened involuntarily: “En?”
“We both have a father who spends a lot of time in the lab and a mother who is bedridden and recuperating.” Eno didn’t even notice how nostalgic he sounded, “When we were kids it was just the two of us playing together, I taught myself to make him four-wheel drive cars out of bits of iron and electrode wires and such, cutting the top half of a log off to make a track and competing to see whose car went faster. Then after that when I modified his car I found I was pretty good at it and was particularly good at being a mechanic.”
“And then?”
“Then a particularly annoying Alpha snatched him away from me, and then he died.” Eno stood up and patted the dust off his hands, laughing, “End of story. I’m going back, so be careful next time you pick up water, and call me with your bracelet if you need help.”
Martin suddenly said, “Thanks.”
“Not for you.” Eno said with a wry smile, “Stop being sentimental.”
Martin was stunned and the corners of his mouth turned up a little: “I said something to you the other day and you had to come back?”
Eno went to the bathroom to wash his hands and when he heard him, he turned his head in the direction of the living room and shouted: “Yeah, that’s how petty we uneducated people are! I’m very good at holding grudges!”
No echo came from the living room, and when Eno dried his hands and went out to see that the living room was empty. He shook his head in amusement, feeling that he hadn’t felt this free in a long time.
Screw etiquette, he could say whatever he wanted, it would be joyful this way.
Eno went back to his bedroom after cleaning up the scene of the accident. It was exactly 8:50pm in the evening, and he was preparing for the online class at 9pm. After getting married, his personal account was also unlocked, but there was no money in it, and Eno could hardly afford the daily grocery shopping expenses, let alone buying something for himself. Fortunately, he found a job on the internet as a tutor, giving lessons to an Omega girl. The girl’s parents are both very busy and worried about the lack of company for their child, not wanting her to have an emotionally deprived childhood, so they asked Eno to come and talk to her every night.
The pay is good, the work is not tiring, and the girl herself is so sweet and cute that Eno is particularly pleased. He crossed his long legs under the table, leaned back in a relaxed position, put on his visual helmet and the girl’s round face automatically appeared on the opposite side of the screen: “Eno Ge Ge!”
Unashamed to be called brother when he was nearly thirty, Eno smiled and responded: “Julia, what story would you like to hear today?”
The girl said in a sweet, soft, authentic Capital Star accent: “The story that Ge Ge didn’t finish last time. The dragon snatched the princess, and the warrior went to slay the dragon, but was defeated by the dragon. And then what happened?”
“And then,” Eno said thoughtfully, the warrior was wandering in the forest in despair, and broke into the witch’s room by mistake. The witch fell in love with the warrior and couldn’t bear to see him lose his soul, so she gave him a bottle of dragon’s blood with her own magical powers. The warrior drank it and became a dragon, defeated the evil dragon to save the princess and lived happily ever after.”
He had expected the girl to clap her hands and shout, but she asked, “Ge Ge, did the witch get nothing?”
“Yeah.”
The girl pouted: “Then she’s so pitiful.”
Eno was stunned and then smiled: “Because the main characters in this story are the princess and the warrior. The witch is just a supporting character who makes their happy ending happen, it doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t know what had occurred to him and said: “There’s only room for two people in a love story, and the third person has to leave in the end, no matter what…None of that matters, so what other stories do you want to hear?”
Julia didn’t give in: “What does Ge Ge think will happen to the witch in the end?”
Eno smiled and said: “I don’t know, she’ll always love the warrior and then be alone for the rest of her life, I guess.”
Julia shook her head frantically: “No. I think the witch should meet a prince. She’s a supporting character in someone else’s story, won’t she be happy as the main character in her own story?”
Eno was silent for a moment, put away his mild and careless expression and said, with rare seriousness: “The witch already has a warrior in her heart, she doesn’t have to like the prince. Julia, not everyone is entitled to happiness in this matter of love, and you will understand when you are a little older.”
Julia’s white porcelain face was written with enviable naivety: “Warriors are good, and so are princes. Why can’t the witch like a prince?”
“Because fondness cannot be measured by anything.” Eno laughed, “You like apples, not bananas, and even if you were given a cart full of bananas, you wouldn’t think they were better than one apple.”
“But it’s not like I only like apples ah.” Julia wasn’t able to show understanding, “I can like other fruits, even if the witch doesn’t like the prince, she can still like the fisherman, the policeman, the hunter… there are so many people in the world, isn’t there anything else that could make her happy?”
“You’re right.” Eno took a long breath and said slowly, she just hasn’t met the one she belongs to yet, she will meet them.”
But all the youth paid for the wrong feelings could not come back, the majestic and passionate emotions of teenage years, those unspeakable feelings, the obscure sweetness and elation that belonged to only one person, could not be felt all over again in another person. When the feverish flames burned out, how could the one left dragging his weary soul have the strength to find where he belongs again in the vast sea of people?
He shook his head lightly, and did not give Julia these words of his heart. The girl hadn’t been through this, and she didn’t need to hear his words. He was here to work for money, not to buy a listening service.
Eno put away his gloomy expression and started a new conversation, asking the girl if there was any interesting things at school today. Julia was really not bothered about the witch issue anymore, and gleefully talked about school gossip, such as the Omega next door openly chasing an Alpha from a lower class, and how she finally pinned her schoolmate to the wall and kissed him today, with her cheeks flushed.
Eno listened and nodded his head, sighing in his heart that they were really kids, really innocent and beautiful in their youth. The hour and a half of chatting was soon over and Eno put the girl to bed, turned off the video and stretched out, ready to shower and go to bed too.
He undressed and went into the bathroom, looking at his scarred body under the clothes in front of the huge mirror. An Omega’s own recovery was excellent, and his recovery was unbelievable. The scars would all fade away after a while and his skin would be smooth and soft again, as if nothing had ever happened. Perhaps it was because he was healing so quickly that little Kersi enjoyed tormenting him so much.
The years had not worn away much of his beauty, and after these few days of rare rest, his face was even more radiant, and he looked no different from when he first married into the Duke’s family. He looked at himself for a moment, expressionless, and turned on the tap to bathe. The hot water hit his soft skin, the rising vapour obscuring his vision, and Eno hummed the classical ditties he used to sing in choir as a schoolboy through the white mist and walked out of the bathroom only when his bones were crisp.
He stood in the doorway of the bathroom wiping his body, suddenly thinking how Martin could bathe properly with his hand so badly injured. Would he be able to get himself into bed?
He was debating whether to check in Martin’s room when he suddenly heard a muffled sound, as if something hard had hit the floor. Judging by the soundproofing of the two doors and one wall, there must have been quite a lot of movement in Martin’s room.
Eno didn’t really want to bother with him, but on second thought he decided to do the right thing. Although Martin had been mean to him, he had taken him in as a homeless man, so he was a good person.
He opened the door, took a deep breath and said to himself that Martin was a disabled man and that it was normal for him to have some psychological problems, and that he wanted to make him feel well cared for by society and get back to loving society and life.
It’s not that he wants to see a joke ne!
