Eno walked gingerly to Martin’s door and pressed his ear to it to listen carefully for movement inside. Still a little worried, he knocked hard on the door: “Are you all right?”
Martin’s hoarse voice came instantly through the door, and sounded a little exasperated: “Scram!”
Seems like it’s not good. Eno pretended he couldn’t hear it, shouted I’m coming in and pushed the door open.
As the door to the room opened, both men fell silent.
Martin was sprawled on the floor in a rather comical and ridiculous position, his long legs curled in an unnatural position, the white bandages on the palm of his right hand already rubbing a dirty layer of dust on the floor. His wheelchair was tipped on its side, presumably bringing down the bedside table in the process, which is why it had just made such a loud noise.
He had obviously tried to prop himself up on the bed with his hands from the wheelchair, but his burned palms couldn’t take it. He fell to the floor and it was much harder to get up again.
After close to half a minute, Martin said viciously: “Have you seen enough, when you have seen enough, get out.”
Eno could not speak. It was only at this moment that he realised how much damage to his dignity sitting in a wheelchair was, not to mention the fact that the Alpha, who already had a high level of self-esteem, did not want to put his embarrassment on display.
If it had been him, he would have broken down and gone into hiding to cry long ago.
Eno pursed his lips and walked slowly over to Martin, reached out to hold his hand, and wanted to help him up. The next second he was pushed away, Martin’s other hand was frighteningly strong and pushed him straight down to the floor.
Eno thought with some amusement that the scene was much the same as when they had first met, only this time, Martin was far less superior than last time, pitiful and ridiculous.
“Don’t touch me.” Martin hissed as he propped himself up on his elbows and turned his back on him, “Is it fun to look at me like this, will you just get lost, I beg you to hurry up and scram ok?!”
“No.” Eno sat up straight on the cold floor and looked at him with a good look, his tone sounding so relaxed and beaten, “I’ll just sit here and watch you climb up, you can’t do anything to me anyway except yell. Here’s a suggestion, you can threaten me with divorce, but you still have to wait until tomorrow when the Civil Affairs Bureau opens.”
He let out a soft laugh of disdain: “It wouldn’t be a loss for me to just sit here and watch you until dawn.”
Martin made a loud noise in his throat like a beast panting and he turned red and shouted, almost broken: “I’m the one who let you out of prison! Without me you’d have been sent to a bunch of Alpha’s on a waste planet to be fucked to death you know? Can’t you do something fucking human? I don’t want you to meddle in my business, it has nothing to do with you whether I live or die!”
Eno said leisurely: “I’m here only because I want to be a human being. Why are you talking so much nonsense, climb, be quick.”
There was a horrible silence, two years in bed and a wheelchair had cut Martin’s muscular strength dramatically, and the emotional outburst had taken all his strength, and now both elbows were unable to support the rather weighty body, and he was shaking badly.
He gritted his teeth to stop himself from collapsing when he suddenly heard Eno let out a long sigh.
“Hey.” He said, “When I was still in school, an Alpha told me that you can only love others if you love yourself first.”
Martin’s breath hitched.
Eno’s mouth curved slightly, “Although I didn’t listen at the time and thought he was a self-righteous idiot, it still makes sense now that I think about it. The world doesn’t owe you anything, it’s not easy to have someone willing to be nice to you, why do you have to hang on to it, in the end it’s you who suffers, don’t you think?”
This was something Drake had said to him, and Eno always remembered it. Because he didn’t have many memories with Drake, every encounter was like a treasure, stored away in his memory.
It was Eno’s third year at the higher education department and Drake and Lea were already in love. Eno couldn’t be bothered, and as he was the secretary of the student council, he deliberately left late every day on the pretext of going to the student council office to give the young couple some rare time alone.
He was very annoyed at that time because three or two uneducated Alpha’s saw him leaving late and deliberately blocked the hallway to tease him and make advances on him. He was too scared to go to his teacher or speak out, or his housekeeper and mother would have found out and he would have been transferred to the Omega-only aristocratic school immediately. Eno had had a crush on Drake for so long and was 10,000 times reluctant to go to an aristocratic school.
A crush is a really subtle feeling, to look at him and be overjoyed, yet not dare to say a word to him. Every time he caught sight of him without realising it, his heart would immediately blossom and he would be quietly happy for a long time. Liking Drake was like having a slice of lime in his mouth, so sour that his teeth hurt, but he couldn’t bear to spit it out for the little bit of sweetness at the bottom. Every day in class, when he didn’t want to do anything, he would sneak a peek at him in the bright sunlight, tracing his silhouette with his head down and writing seriously.
Drake was really handsome, especially when he looked at the side of his face. His nose was already high, and a sharp chin with a knife-like line, with a slightly soft curve at the junction, which neutralised the coldness in his temperament. Even when he writes, his spine is straight, with a slight curve, like a luxuriant tree. The sunlight was so gentle on him that even the slightest hairs on his face were covered with a golden glow. Eno’s eyesight had been exceptionally good since he was a child, and he squinted slightly, and could even see his eyelashes twitching slightly, fluttering like feathers as they tickled his heart.
He was watching in fascination when he suddenly felt a tug on his sleeve. Eno drifted back to his senses and heard his little Omega tablemate call out to him anxiously, “Eno, the teacher is calling you up to write a question.”
He turned his head in a panic, right into the slightly reproachful eyes of his maths teacher. He ducked his head in some shame and went to the podium to work on the final problem, spending half the class writing three solutions to an entire blackboard. Then he threw away the chalk, clapped the dust from his hands and walked off the podium with an elegant stride, collecting a bunch of starry eyes from his little fans and not taking a cloud with him.
It’s just that Drake didn’t even bother to look at him. A little frustrated, Eno returned to his seat and continued to drift away. His fingers unconsciously reached into his school bag, caressing a few big characters in gold on the hard cover.
It was an epic poem of Constantine II, written a thousand years ago by one of the most famous bards of all time, the original edition of which had long since been lost and of which only a few engraved copies remained, also of great value.
Today was Drake’s birthday. Eno had thought about the gift, even though he knew Drake would never open it because its contents were too boring and his two fathers were in the army and had no literary family roots. Drake would never have known that this epic of the battle of the gods contained a love poem. He had scoured the poet’s words, imitating the ancient style of writing to perfection, and had bound it on the same paper as the original, so that Drake would not have found anything if he had not looked for other engravings to compare.
Eno didn’t really think anything of it, except that given Drake’s feelings for Lea, he probably would have thrown it away behind his back or tossed it aside, even if he had accepted his birthday present. He didn’t want to ruin his brother’s feelings either; he just wanted his unspoken, dusty feelings to be hidden away in this book, so that in the future, when they were married, the book could occupy a small corner in their living room or study as a very imposing decoration.
Eno had planned to go with Drake to see Lea after school today and give him the book on the way. Who knew that the student council was really up to something today, the school was desperate for a club budget and he had to go back and work with the president and vice-president to get the budget sheet rushed out. He had been looking preoccupied and had actually gotten a few figures backwards in his mind, and the sun was almost down by the time the budget sheet finally came out.
“Eno?” The president tapped him on the shoulder, concerned, “You don’t look right today.”
“Ah?” Ino looked up as he fastened his school bag lacing and put on a polite, false smile, “I’m fine.”
The president gave him a suspicious look and simply said it was fine, taking the vice president’s hand and heading out the door of the student council office for a date. These two were both Beta, uninhibited because of their middle class social status, enjoying the sweetness of free love. Eno watched their backs with envy as they left, bowed his head, put on his school bag and locked the office door.
It was late, the school was empty and quiet, and the building looked deserted, like something out of a horror game. Eno laughed at his thoughts and walked quickly down the stairs, not bothering to think about Drake. He would not be able to make his private lessons this late and would have to spend many weekends making up for it.
He weaved in and out of the stairwell in annoyance when he suddenly bumped into someone and hit his forehead directly on that person’s chin, causing his brain to turn white from the pain. Before he could react, someone pinched his shoulders and pushed him against the wall, and his schoolbag was also pulled off. It was valuable but was thrown aside casually, covered in dust.
The cold wall made Eno wake up a little bit, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the three Alphas who were usually entangled with him. The red-haired Alpha in the lead pinched his chin and leaned over to lick his ears, releasing a powerful Alpha coercion. Although he is not yet sexually mature and cannot receive the sexual stimulation from the Alpha pheromone, the smell disgusts him so much that he can’t help but turn his head.
“Us brothers have been waiting for you for a long time, and thought you slipped away.” red-hair smiled, reached out to touch his face, squeezing it hard, “Look at us waiting so hard for you, it’s not too much to pay more for our hard work and play a little big, is it?”
Eno’s face was pale, and he suddenly pushed away the red-hair who was caught off guard, picked up his schoolbag and ran down the stairs, only to be dragged back by the arms of the other two Alphas within three seconds.
Red-hair grabbed his hair and threw him against the wall, a horrifying laugh came out of his throat: “You still want to run? We’ve followed you for months, can we let you run?”
All Eno thought about was what I should do, but he could only pinch red-hair’s arm and issued a weak threat: “My family will not let you go.”
“Heh, do you really think you’re a young master?” The three Alphas all laughed, tossing their hair like red envelopes, and said disdainfully, “Do you know who Ge Ge is? My father is a minister of the parliament! I advise you to be obedient, we’ll let you go back after us brothers have had fun, no one will know.”
He leaned into Eno’s ear and said, “How do you think you’ll be able to stay in school if people find out?”
Eno shuddered, the redhead was right, he couldn’t let anyone else know, especially Drake and Lea. It was out of his pride that he didn’t want Drake to know, and if Lea knew…Lea would come charging over and fight these Alpha’s to the death.
A hand had lifted his school uniform and he leaned against the wall, struggling in vain, but not knowing what to do.
What to do…
In the confusion a thought flashed through his mind, if he couldn’t let anyone know, just let them never say anything.
If only they could not tell, if only they could not tell, he would be safe, he could still go back to the blue sky and live nobly as if nothing had ever happened.
He felt his vision blurring a little in front of him, and even the redhead’s leering laughter was a little hard to hear. It was like a train coming in his ears, the sound of it whistling past was so harsh that he unconsciously tightened his grip on the redhead and increased his strength—
Suddenly a cold, stern voice came from overhead, “Let him go.” He looked up suddenly and saw Drake standing on the steps, his brow furrowed.
It was over, Drake knew. Eno’s heart was so terrified that for a moment it seemed he couldn’t hear anything. The noise in his ears was so loud that the redhead seemed to say something like, “None of your business, get out of the way if you don’t want to die,” and then Drake said something and the redhead burst into a rage, letting go of him and rushing towards Drake.
He was so panicked and his head hurt so badly that he sat limply in the corner holding his head, not even daring to look outside. What to do, he thought helplessly, what if Drake saw him in such a mess, would he tell Lea, and what would Lea do?
His mind was in turmoil and he didn’t know when the commotion around him had stopped. He heard someone walk up to him and shyly hold out a hand to him: “Get up.”
Muddled, Eno took the lean, strong hand and saw three men lying in the stairwell, all without exception, rolling and wailing on the floor. Drake let go once he had pulled him up, picked up his bag, patted it clean and handed it to him, then suddenly saw his face and said: “Why are your eyes so red?”
Eno returned a blank look; there was no mirror around, and he had no idea what he looked like now. Fortunately Drake didn’t press on, he said briefly: “Let’s go, I’ll take you back.”
He was filled with anxiety, wanting to ask Drake how he got here, and unable to open his mouth. He wandered like the undead to the ground floor when he suddenly remembered something and said hastily, “Wait a minute.”
Drake turned around and raised his eyebrows slightly: “What’s wrong?”
Eno stopped and pulled the book of poetry out of his bag, letting out a long breath as he found the binding undamaged. He handed the book to Drake under Drake’s odd gaze and said in a tone so polite that there was no hint of ambiguity: “Happy birthday. And…thank you.”
The size of his voice and the way it was handled was perfect, as if he was really just coping socially to give an ordinary gift to an ordinary friend.
Drake took the book and opened it for a couple of pages, finding that he couldn’t read a single word, and closed it without interest. “Thanks.” He put the book away and then said, “We’re having a birthday party tonight, Lea told you about it, you really have time to come?”
Eno struggled a little, but put on a regretful and sincere smile: “I have class tonight. Sorry.”
Drake didn’t take it personally and raised his hand: “Okay, let’s go.”
Eno looked hesitant and asked carefully: “You’re here, Lea, does Lea know?”
Drake gave him a smirking look and said: “I told him I left my father’s documents in the office and I was going to pick them up for him. As long as you don’t say anything, he won’t know.”
Eno sighed in relief, only then realising that he was so weak in the feet that he had to lean against the wall to rest. Drake stood waiting for him, a hint of impatience passing over his handsome brow. Thinking he was looking forward to getting back early to spend his birthday with Lea, Eno got up and said: “Let’s go.”
Drake nodded slightly and they walked back with the last bit of sunset light. The journey was wordless and as they were about to turn into the alleyway of the house, Drake said, “Why didn’t you tell me or Lea about this kind of thing?”
Eno quickly threw out the words he had prepared on the way: “He’d be worried about me again if I did.” To lighten the mood, he even joked, “I’ve written enough self-criticisms for him.”
Drake stopped in his tracks and Eno almost bumped into him. He tilted his head slightly and saw Drake’s serious face.
“Eno, I know you and Lea are close.” He shook his head like he’d heard some ridiculous joke, but if you don’t even love yourself, how can anyone else care about you? Lea would be even more upset if he knew that’s what you were thinking of him.”
“Just say if there’s something in the future.” Drake snorted, striding forward, leaving Eno in his tall shadow stretched by the streetlight, “Lea and I will both help you.”
Eno stared blankly at the ground, but inside he was bitter. How could he say what he was really thinking, how could he dare say it? Drake knew nothing to say such justified and righteous words.
The dark shadow faded away from him, and there was silence in his ears, only the rustling of the autumn wind through the treetops. Eno moved home, fortunately there was no mark on his face, but he looked a little embarrassed, and he told the housekeeper that he accidentally fell on his way. As he grew older and more mature, the housekeeper no longer took care of him as much as he used to, but just said a few words about him and let him go back to his lessons.
That night Eno stayed up late cramming, thinking about how busy Drake’s house next door must be. There must have been dazzling lights and a dance floor, everyone laughing, smearing pale yellow, soft cream in everyone’s hair, then shaking and kissing and dancing, laughing under the glowing lights.
Fireworks were lit outside the window at some point, and a wave of sound swept towards him. But the buzz had nothing to do with him, he was confined to his cold, empty room, learning languages, maths, science, flower arranging, piano, baking and manners.
The tutor returned from the bathroom, clothes rustling against the table and chairs. The stagnant pen tip hastily slid across the blank paper, with a stabbing sound, bringing out ink-coloured cracks.
He is so sad.
