Three weeks passed without any problems. It was rare that Lay didn't get into trouble for such a long time. He shocked his aunt, Mrs Lee , who was the dean of the academic department. She suspected that his new roommate was the one who had made him change his ways.
Lay dismissed that by replying "how could that be possible" but he thought about it carefully. Suho's presence did have a little impact. Sometimes, when he was upset over something and grumbled at him, Suho smiled and pacified him with a few words, not taking it to heart. When he'd lived alone before, he would just get more and more angry as he thought about it until his anger would build up so much he'd roll up his sleeves and get in a fight.
It seemed that it wasn't too bad having a roommate.
However, he and Jackson were still slowly progressing. Although Jackson was sometimes a bit domineering, he generally was good to him. He would ask him to eat during the day, send chat messages to him at night, and invite him to go on dates on the weekends.
However, Lay felt the whole time that some feeling was just missing.
The kind of feeling of being comfortable with him.
If it wasn't for Suho 's presence, he might have easily agreed to be together with Jackson a few times, but Suho made him aware that actually liking someone could involve real attentiveness.
Once he saw chanyeol in his friend chat saying that he wanted to eat roast duck, commenting with the sentence "I wanted to eat it as soon as you mentioned it", but he didn't mean it seriously. After all, there was no roast duck shop near their school, and he was too lazy to run so far to eat it.
Suho bought it for him that night.
The roasted duck was sliced thin, with the thin skin, spring onion, and the dipping sauce all packed in a single small box and also placed in a thermal insulation box. It was still steaming as if it just came out of the oven.
The nearest branch of this roast duck restaurant also was an hour by car, with no delivery service.
Suho didn't even let him touch anything. He helped him dip pieces of duck meat in sauce and wrapped them with the spring onions and he almost didn't even let him feed himself.
Lay, an omega who hasn't been cared for since he was a child, who was called the excessively violent Xing Ge by most alphas, was being served here like a three-year-old child who couldn't take care of himself.
It was obviously impossible to say that his heart wasn't touched. He'd had a strong personality since he was a child, always feeling it was beneath his dignity to depend on others, occasionally being spoiled by his family. For the first time, he'd met an outsider who also spoiled him, so he naturally felt that the other party was very different.
But to measure to what extent he was touched, Lay himself wasn't sure.
Suho was meek, considerate, and devoted, as if Lay was the center of his world.
Being treated with such gentle care, he felt that Jackson 's level of concern wasn't high enough.
On Friday night, Jackson called to ask him to go out to a party again. The last time he didn't go, so this time it wasn't good to shirk off. Lay could only agree. Anyway, he wasn't going home this weekend, so getting drunk was fine.
Suho also wanted to follow along, but Lay was afraid that the two of them would quarrel again when they met, so he didn't let him go. Before going out,suho repeatedly told him that he must call him if anything happened. Lay waved his hand to show that he understood.
The meeting place was set at a KTV near the school. As soon as Lay pushed through the door, he was shocked by a violent wave of sound. The smell of smoke and alcohol followed after and he couldn't help but frown at the smoke.
Jackson beckoned to him, "Yixing , come here."
Lay went to sit next to him and looked around. There were a few people in the karaoke box from the same school. When they looked at him, he felt a little nervous, but then they gave Jackson an admiring look.
Lay couldn't understand it, he didn't know what they were doing. At just that moment, Jackson passed an arm over his shoulders. His face was a little red, so he had already been drinking quite a bit.
"Why are you sitting so far away? Come on over, everyone, my Yixingxing won't bite, right?"
Jackson turned to look at him with a smile on his face, pressing in close so his mouth was almost touching his ear. The heated breath mixed with the scent of alcohol made Lay uncomfortable. Without batting an eyelid, he pushed Jackson back, saying, "I'll bite you if you come close again."
Although he had a wooden expression, this was obviously a joke. Everyone there didn't expect that Xing Ge, who was at the top of the "T University's Most Prominent People Not To Mess With" list, could even make a joke and they couldn't help but feel admiration for Jackson , who could subdue him a bit.
Jackson 's reputation was getting a boost, so he was in a very good mood. He magnanimously loosened his hold, taking a drink and handing it to lay, and then hooked together their arms. The posture ending up looking a bit like the exchange of wine cups at a wedding (jiaobeijiu) and he teased, saying, "Shall we?"
Lay wasn't afraid, "Let's."
The two looked at each other, raised the cups at the same time, and, as the surrounding people heckled and cheered, they each took a bold, long drink until the cups were empty.
Jackson , who finished drinking first by a mere second, laughed, "I won!"
Lay also laughed, "You didn't say it was a race."
Jackson was stunned speechless for a moment at the sight.
Lay was revered purely due to his fearsome reputation, but he actually didn't look fierce at all. His exquisite facial features were usually covered up by his icy countenance and it was this cold face that inspired others to fear him.
But he was smiling now, his slightly upturned lips glistening and simmering with the drink, and there was a soft blush on his face, which melted away his iciness, but the arrogance in his eyes was undiminished, like the glint of the sharp edge of a sword. It was a beauty that could inspire a man to make a move, but it was also offered danger to those who would do so.
Jackson gulped hard, pulling at Lay 's arm, and, under the wide watching gazes of the surrounding people, kissed him.
It was an unexpected move, so Lay didn't have time to avoid it. He could only tilt his head, so Jackson 's kiss landed on the side of his face.
The others thought he was being shy and still cheered loudly. Lay turned his head and swept his gaze around coldly, making them go instantly and completely silent.
"I'm not feeling very well, I'll head out first." He was giving Jackson some face, but everyone could see that this was just an excuse.
He immediately got up to get out of the booth. Before he could take more than a few steps, Jackson chased after and caught him.
"Are you crazy?" Jackson had never been rejected over and over or made to lose face in a public place like this and his long-suppressed dissatisfaction finally broke free.
Lay's eyes were cold, "I should ask you the same thing, did you skip over my consent?"
Jackson was outraged. "What's wrong with me? You like me, I like you too, we will be together eventually. And if I'm not wrong, your first heat is a few months away, right? At that point, we'll have to sleep together, so isn't it normal to give it a practice run now? "
The words were so explicitly frank, but lay didn't have any apprehension, raising an eyebrow and sneering, "You're so confident that I'll sleep with you?"
"Who else?" Jackson asked, "Do you have any other candidates? For example, your pheromone-deficient roommate? Stop joking around, you know that alpha's pheromones are too weak and you'd be tortured by your heat."
Lay couldn't argue back. Indeed, unless he quickly came to like a powerful alpha in the next two months and unless that other party liked him back, his only options for his heat would be Jackson or some random, free alpha he found.
He didn't dislike Suho , it was just that suho's pheromones might not be able to ease the fever of his heat. If so, he could be endangering his health, so choosing him was too risky.
But he really didn't like how Jackson had worded it, as if they weren't together because they liked each other, but because they needed to be together due to biology.
"I have nothing more to say to you, reflect on what you did wrong, otherwise don't come near me again."
He said it politely and put Jackson out of his mind, shaking off the other's hand. He turned and left without looking back.
Even if he could only be forced to get together with him in the end, at this moment he would never let a disrespectful alpha do just whatever he pleased.
This was his bottom line and also his last battleground before his heat came.
Update : 20 Nov 2021
Total words : 1632