The orange scent had subsided a little and was no longer as fierce as before.
The only problem was that there was no one else left in this area of the Orange Storm besides the two of them.
“Fine.”
Luo Zhiyu withdrew his hand and instead patted Xiao Yan on the head.
“I often forget to treat you like an alpha. I forgot you don’t have a gland. Good Orange.”
Luo Zhiyu decided to be a little more accommodating toward Xiao Yan today and not hold anything against him.
Based on what Luo Zhiyu already knew, during an alpha’s rut, aside from getting an injection, the only other option seemed to be soothing them with pheromones.
Except—
The only omega pheromones available right now seemed to be his own.
This peach.
“Do you still have any suppressant?”
Luo Zhiyu patted Xiao Yan’s jacket pocket.
“I’ll give you the injection?”
“Maybe not.”
Having Luo Zhiyu give someone an injection might not be helping. It might be attempted murder.
Xiao Yan immediately declined.
“Thank you very much.”
Besides, if one injection couldn’t suppress it, several more wouldn’t make a difference either. This was a stage that an alpha had to endure before having their own omega.
“Let’s go somewhere else. Don’t stay here.”
Xiao Yan noticed the miserable expressions on the nearby staff members’ faces.
“Let’s go for a walk and get some fresh air.”
“Mm, sure.”
But neither of them had any idea where to go.
Colorful lanterns decorated the streets, made into all sorts of shapes and attracting plenty of pedestrians who stopped to take pictures.
Luo Zhiyu followed behind Xiao Yan, keeping less than a meter between them as they walked aimlessly forward.
Suddenly, Luo Zhiyu felt that being an alpha was perhaps a little lonely.
Unlike omegas, when an alpha was in rut, the people in the hotel were afraid of him, and even pedestrians on the street kept their distance.
At the end of the street was the lake district.
Early spring had not yet arrived, so the wind coming off the lake was still cold. There was still snow left along the shore from several days ago, and few people passed by.
Xiao Yan stopped here.
The moment Luo Zhiyu arrived, the wind made him shiver.
Xiao Yan wanted to tell him to go home.
The words reached his lips, but he turned them over in his mind and swallowed them back.
He was afraid of hurting him, yet unwilling to let him leave.
“Aren’t you cold?”
Xiao Yan’s down jacket landed over Luo Zhiyu’s head, blocking some of the cold wind.
“I’m not cold.”
Xiao Yan sat down beside him.
“Keep it on. School starts Monday.”
“Then come closer.”
For once, Luo Zhiyu was unusually good-tempered today.
“I’m not hitting anyone today, and I don’t hate you.”
Xiao Yan moved closer and sat beside Luo Zhiyu.
Luo Zhiyu lifted a corner of the down jacket covering his head and pulled his Brother Yan underneath it too.
The two of them sat very close together.
Outside the down jacket was the cold wind of late winter, while inside was like a tiny world cut off from everything else.
The temporary mark from before had already faded.
Inside this half-enclosed little world, the faint scent of peaches gradually tugged at Xiao Yan’s heart.
An omega’s pheromones made him feel comfortable right now, but this method was like drinking poison to quench thirst. It would only make him want to possess and destroy something even more.
But he would not do that.
Xiao Yan tried to shift his attention by starting a conversation.
“By this time next year, I’ll almost be taking the college entrance exam…”
“Then take it.”
Luo Zhiyu was absentminded and completely indifferent.
Xiao Yan: “…”
Depressed.
“You’ll take the college entrance exam, and I’ll take the arts entrance exam.”
Seeing that he was in a bad mood, Luo Zhiyu quietly added,
“Don’t tell anyone. I’m afraid Old Wu will go crazy, haha.”
“Oh.”
As expected, it was exactly the kind of thing Luo Zhiyu would do.
“Are you going to apply to the same university as me?” Xiao Yan asked. “Or somewhere nearby?”
“Sure.”
Luo Zhiyu agreed casually.
“No problem.”
Xiao Yan: “!!!”
Not as depressed anymore.
“Forget it.”
Luo Zhiyu seemed to have reached some sort of compromise with himself and let out a breath.
“Seeing how pitiful you are, I’ll lend you some pheromones.”
“You’ve been thinking about this for so long?”
Xiao Yan’s mood suddenly improved tremendously.
“Lend me pheromones? Do you even know how to lend them?”
“I know how. I was hesitating because you bit me way too hard last time.”
Luo Zhiyu touched his neck with lingering apprehension.
“The books never said you couldn’t lend pheromones. Suppressants can solve most of the problems anyway. Go ahead and bite me. I won’t hold it against you today.”
“It’s just biting your neck. It’s not like we’re doing anything else. Besides, with our pheromone compatibility, nothing will happen.”
When mentioning the temporary mark while completely conscious, Luo Zhiyu was still a little nervous.
The tips of his fingers, gripping Xiao Yan’s sleeve tightly, had gone slightly white, revealing just how tense he was.
“Low-grade peach is letting you take one bite. Just one.”
“But let’s make this clear first. If I get unhappy, I’m absolutely carrying a broom to your class on Monday and beating you up.”
Xiao Yan said nothing.
He didn’t refuse either.
After a long while, Luo Zhiyu felt Xiao Yan turn toward him.
One hand came around the front of his neck and rested on his shoulder, while the other lightly pressed against the gland at his neck, forcing him to lower his head.
“Luo Zhiyu.”
Xiao Yan sounded almost like he was sighing.
“Let me teach you one more thing.”
“Hmm?”
The slight pressure around his neck made Luo Zhiyu’s voice very soft.
“Never, ever think an alpha is pitiful, even if he does a very convincing job of pretending to be.”
The textbook said to stay away from an alpha in rut.
They would be irritable, restless, and unreasonable. An A-type suppressant should be injected immediately; otherwise, they should be sent to an A-type isolation room.
Xiao Yan had hidden his instincts too well, making Luo Zhiyu think there was nothing particularly difficult to understand about an alpha in this stage.
He ended up crying from Xiao Yan’s bite.
This time, Xiao Yan didn’t let him struggle wildly. He held him firmly, even lingering briefly at the gland at the back of his neck.
It was the first time Luo Zhiyu had received a temporary mark from an alpha while completely conscious.
Orange and pink seemed to sway before his eyes, and once again, he inevitably became tinged with Xiao Yan’s orange scent.
“Seriously, we’re even now.”
Luo Zhiyu wiped his eyes and pointed at the scar on Xiao Yan’s wrist.
“When I bit you back in kindergarten, I didn’t use this much force, did I? Did you take this opportunity to get revenge on me?”
“I’m sorry.”
Xiao Yan pulled him against his shoulder.
“I don’t have the strength right now. Otherwise, I’d beat you up.”
Luo Zhiyu was furious.
“Was the peach tasty? Is your rut over yet? If it is, hurry up and get lost.”
He had definitely been possessed by some ghost just now to think Xiao Yan was lonely and pitiful.
A newly marked alpha and omega couldn’t separate that easily. This was something the two of them had learned from experience.
An angry Luo Zhiyu walked ahead while Xiao Yan followed at a not-too-near, not-too-distant pace.
“I don’t really want to go home yet…”
Luo Zhiyu glanced at the gauze and suppressive patch that had somehow appeared on Xiao Yan’s hand.
“I’ll take you to my art studio.”
“It’s a little studio I have for storing things. My family bought it for me before. It’s nearby.”
This was Luo Zhiyu’s own territory.
He had often come here during middle school, but after living at school in high school, he had only come a few times during winter vacation.
The studio was cleaned regularly and everything was neatly arranged.
The person who had cleaned it earlier had forgotten to close the window, though, so the gauze curtain had been blown open at one corner and was floating inward over the windowsill.
“Sit wherever you want.”
Luo Zhiyu closed the glass window and lowered the curtain.
“It’s my place anyway. Hardly anyone has ever come here.”
The arrangement of the studio inexplicably reminded Xiao Yan of something he had once heard on the school forum.
Once he thought of it, he brought it up with Luo Zhiyu.
“When you were at No. 19 High School, didn’t you once chase someone around with a drawing board and beat them?”
Luo Zhiyu: “…”
“How did even you hear about that? I don’t think I even did much to him.”
Luo Zhiyu sat on the windowsill.
“Actually, I didn’t intend to fight. But he said my drawings were ugly. He also said that my predicted secondary gender was omega, so in the future, I could just follow the Luo family’s arranged marriages and pheromone-matched marriages. He said I didn’t deserve to have dreams.”
“My temper was pretty bad back then, huh?”
Luo Zhiyu recalled the scene.
“Thinking about it now, he was just jealous. He couldn’t beat me on the exams, so he attacked me in other ways. There was no point in arguing with him about it. Do dreams really need other people’s approval?”
“I know what I like.”
Luo Zhiyu jumped down from the windowsill.
“I also know what I want. I’m not living for other people.”
“In that respect, you’re a lot like me.”
Xiao Yan said,
“I also know what I like.”
“Come here.”
Xiao Yan opened the things he had just bought and prepared to treat the wound left by Luo Zhiyu’s temporary mark.
“Don’t sit over there.”
After the restlessness subsided, reason took control again.
Only then did he realize that he seemed to have hurt Luo Zhiyu again.
When the alcohol swab touched the wound, Luo Zhiyu flinched.
It was clearly painful, but he didn’t say anything this time.
“See? You really don’t know when to quit.”
Xiao Yan scolded him.
“Don’t come looking for me next time. Just let me fend for myself.”
“That’s not right. Are all alphas in rut this dramatic?”
Luo Zhiyu interrupted him and turned back.
“You biting me and you biting me really hard are two different things.”
“I’m angry about the second one, understand? It has nothing to do with me not knowing my limits.”
“You acting pitiful in front of me? I can only stay angry about that for three days. You just have to indulge me for three days. After three days, I’ll forget about it.”
Luo Zhiyu only needed to hear an apology once.
“I brought this on myself. I was willing to do it. Is that good enough?”