Joonmyun was excited. What an underestimation. He was going to meet his mate after thirty-eight hours. Thirty-eight. He was bounding up and down the street in excitement. His friends were coming. His sunbaes. His dongsaengs. He wa.C.I.T.E.D. He was going to get married the next day. It was time for celebration. Right. He took his new phone out of the pocket (damn you, Jongin) and quickly texted Yixing.

 “Am waitingggg ;)”

He could see a car rushing towards him. That’s their car. It must be Jongin and Sehun then. Ugh. Nevermind. He is waiting for his reply. Anyway, Yixing wasn’t supposed to turn up till all his party members had turned up. Then, they’ll oh so kindly ditch the pub he had agreed upon with his father (to show everyone that no, he wasn’t secretly meeting his mate; which he was but, it wasn’t like he was going to let them know that) and, then, hitting the road for a place they’ll be least expected to go.

The car slowed down. “hey, hyung. In here.”, Jongin called after rolling down the glass.

“why are you in our car?”, his older brother hissed and he looked nervously from Jongin to the driver.

“Relax, hyung. It’s Sehun.”, he grinned. Sehun rolled down his glass, tipping his cap and gave a wink. “anything for you, Alpha”. He even smelled like a Beta!

“But, but, what happened to Jang -”

“Hyung, that’s our problem. Just get in.”, his brother groaned. He was getting impatient. “or else, we’ll have to kidnap you.”

“i hope you two haven’t done anything too extreme.”, the soon-to-be-married alpha said nervously.

“hyung, just relax”.

The black car left whizzing across the road making sure there were none trailing it. It didn’t stop till it was near the highway. Then, it stopped at a really eerie looking place. What was wrong with the two young men. They always had to make everything look sinister. The kids these days..

“Why are we stopping?”, Joonmyun was curious. What had his dongsaengs planned if they had at all? The whole ride they had been silent. Yixing hadn’t sent him any reply either. Only a voice mail and he could hear nothing in it. He was a little bit worried. “Where’s Jongdae? What happened to Baekhyun? Chanyeol? Are they not coming?”

“a little bit of patience will do you no harm, hyung,” the maknae replied coolly. He was leaning against the car. He was dressed in black. His cap had been the only thing from the Kim staff uniform. He didn’t want to rob the poor driver of his clothes. He had just pinched his cap after Kai had knocked him out. He chuckled. The things the tanned alpha would do for his hyung. Said alpha was twitching with impatience while his brother was walking back and forth in nervousness. Why break rules if you’ll be constantly worried? These alphas. He snorted. Sehun wasn’t bored today. In fact, one could say he was quite looking forward to the night. He didn’t really get permission to hang out usually and he didn’t like it either. Somehow, he had managed to get his parents approval for staying out late in the night that too for an alpha’s stag night! The charms of Kim Jongin.

All Joonmyun could see around was.. Nothing. There was the highway, of course but, nothing that was important. So what .. ? And, those two idiots wouldn’t tell him anything. After waiting for around twenty minutes he finally saw approaching lights in the distance. Itwas a limousine. He could hear the music blasting from inside. It was slowing down. What the.. ? This was beginning to feel more like kidnapping than anything else. Did Jongin want to murder him? It wasn’t really beyond him. He shaked his head. His brother was too much of a lazy arse to even contemplate murder. Let alone act on it. He could only bully.

Turned out, it was his cousin Jongdae, Baekhyun and Chanyeol, three of them already looking tipsy, grinning and laughing.

“hyung!” the three young alphas shouted together. “come, come come”

“hey, doofus, get off my leg”, the short alpha hissed.

“you get off me”, Chanyeol shot back.

“you two, get back in. Hopeless alphas.” Chen called from inside the car.

“YOU hopeless”, his former classmates shouted and got back into the limousine, fighting their way in like children

.

Joonmyun watched as the limousine driver got off the car and went smoothly to the shorter car, took the keys from Sehun and left in the black car. He watched with his mouth hanging open. His brother patted him on the back. “Relax, i said. He works for Sehun’s family. He knows what he has to do.”

But, Joonmyun’s attention had already been diverted for he could recognise that scent anywhere. He had his eyes only for his mate. It was like time had stopped. Yixing was the most beautiful thing to him. The most beautiful person. He had seen in his life a lot of wealth and countless beauty and all that. But, he had never for his life seen a more beautiful soul. A soul that had for some reason accepted him as his mate. He couldn’t have asked for anything else.

“Joonmyunnnieee ~~~”

“Are you too drunk?”, he asked incredulously looking at the tipsy alphas who were peeping out of the cars. “so early? Why are you here Yixing? You weren’t supposed to come this early!”

“Are you not.. happy to see me?”, the beta asked slowly blinking his eyes.

“No, no” He hugged his mate, inhaling his scent little worriedly. “But, you know how important it is for us to maintain -”

“oh quit it, hyung”, Jongin interrupted. “Change in plans.”

“This is better”, the omega piped up from the back.

Jongin and Sehun packed Joonmyun into the limousine. There wasn’t a stop after that. They all drank and chatted. Joonmyun was finally relaxing. He could do this. His mate’s scent helped him calm faster. Not for long though. Jongdae had also been taking shots every now and then. After a lot of shouting matches, they decided to drop off the car and walk into whichever was the nearest pub. It wasn’t Seoul. Jongdae had driven them somewhere far. So, it was safe for sometime. They all tumbled into the most bright looking pub.

Yixing and Sehun were the least drunk. The omega would have to return earlier and the beta was waiting for his remaining friends. The latter texted quickly while supporting his mate as they looked for a booth to settle into.

 *****

He was so tired but, this moment he was looking forward to was driving his lack of sleep and tiredness away. He was here to enjoy and he would. Yup. Lu Han hadn’t seen them in years. When he had left for China, his ties with everyone had broken. Not consciously, but, he had wanted to start over and looking back never helped. He loved the scents in the air may be not the best scents as it were of mostly pissed drunk alphas but, still. It felt good to be back. He could see his friends already pretty drunk sitting at a corner. How was the pub not that crowded? This would be such a good footage for the media if they got a wind of it.

His friends finally noticed him and called him. Chanyeol’s voice the loudest. Every one looked so surprised to see him.

 “what? You didn’t think i’d come?”

“No one on Lay hyung’s list turned up. Except, for you”, Sehun said standing up and hugging him. After hugging the rest of them, he looked for a place to seat.

“May be, if you had left some place for us, we all would have come.”, he joked. “Where’s Yixing?”

“He has gone with Suho hyung to get the next round.” The tallest alpha in the group scooted over to Baekhyun’s side pushing him up and pulling him back down to make him sit on his lap. Everyone adjusted accordingly. The short alpha only giggled. Luhan wondered how much Chanyeol had already drunk to make his best friend sit on him. Kai patted the now empty spot beside him. “sit, hyung, sit.”

“Omo, look who this is. Luhannie ~~~”, Joonmyun singsong-ed. Yixing hurried over to hug his best friend spilling some drink on the floor in the process. “Uh, sorry.” The two Chinese men exchanged words rapidly while the rest of the group eagerly took their share and sipped from their glasses. Joonmyun and Yixing then took their spots - nearest to the walls. Suho was on Yixing’s left. On Suho’s left was Sehun, then, Kai, then, him. Opposite to him was Chanyeol with Baekhyun on him. Chen was on Yixing’s left. Chen was wearing glasses and looking somehow more matured. He was pretty quite. Everyone was behaving a little different. How drunk were they? Or, was it time that had changed them. He couldn’t tell exactly what but, all of them certainly had something different about themselves. May be he was thinking too much. He had come to enjoy. He accepted the glass Sehun offered him.

“But, i don’t understand, hyung, why Minseok hyung or, Kyungsoo didn’t come. They all stay near by.”, Chanyeol said suddenly. Luhan on beat coughed spilling his drink.

“Why is this so strong?”, he coughed his face going hot ignoring the solemn look Chen was giving.

“S-s-strong?”, Suho slurred. “No way.”

“It is, it is.” He finished his drink hurriedly trying to cover up.

“ya, ya, hyung, can we go back to the photo!” Baekhyun said laughing and the groom groaned, “not again.”

All of them clapped their hands together, guffawing.

“what, what, what”, Luhan asked curiously.
”No, no, no, no, no.”

“Hyung, you r-remember that time in Hap - Happy Camp, when Lay hyung had slept in Suho hyung’s tent?”

“We didn’t sleep together!” Suho looked horrified. Lay patted his shoulder. “Let them tell the story, love.” “But -”

His groaning fell into deaf ears as the sandy blond alpha narrated the story to the red haired Chinese alpha.

“So, basically, we took that pic and put it in his slides which he was using for a gathering. Which was it?”

“It was the orientation programme.” Sehun replied happily.

“You little devils. I can’t believe you guys did that to me!”

All of them guffawed and Chanyeol banged the table his movement making Baekhyun slip off his lap. The voices grew louder but, this time it was Baekhyun who was grumbling.

“Hey, hyung” Kai suddenly asked turning towards Luhan. “How did you know we’d be here?” Everyone’s eyes suddenly widened with realisation. “How? How?”They asked in a chorus.

“Yixing texted me.” he replied like it was so obvious.

“Really?”Suho looked at his mate. “When did you get the time?”

“After getting here. Oh, wait. I had got a text from Tao. Let me read it out”

Sehun sat up straighter. “He sent you a text?”

“Yea. “Congratulations, ge. I wish i could attend. Am really sorry. Will meet you someday. Love, Tao” ”

“That’s it?” Sehun sounded a little disappointed.

“Why?” Kai smirked. He just got a shrug in reply.

“I still don’t get it though why he left. He could have stayed for the rest two years like Sehun did.” Chen finally broke out of his silent mode.

“I don’t really know.. He’d just cry and cry. I think- no, am sure. He loved Kris hyung. After he left, he didn’t wish to stay.” Sehun pressed his lips into a thin straight line. Tao had never said that to him. He had always assumed it was so. “Am not so sure though.”

“I agree. I think, he liked Kris hyung.”, Baekhyun said.

“Who didn’t like him”, Kai snorted. “A lot of the alpha sunbaes too had a crush on him.”

“Myself included”, Baekhyun confessed and then, blushed.

“Really?!” Everyone looked at him in disbelief. Chanyeol and Sehun looked like their eyes would pop out.

“Yeaa..” He answered lamely.

“Why did you deny it then when i had asked you?” Chanyeol narrowed his eyes.

“It was just a crush and hyung knew it.”

“Did Tao know?” Sehun looked accusingly at him.

“No. Don’t know. It was just a crush. Really. No deal.”

“What about Taeyeon? Weren’t you engaged to her?” Lay asked blinking his eyes owlishly. “I though you liked her.”

“May be he didn’t like his fiancee enough” Kai supplied smirking.

“Ya, am sayin’ it was a bit o’ crush. And, Kai’s correct. I didn’t like her enough.”

“What do you mean?”, Luhan asked. He remembered the younger alpha always going out on the weekends to meet his fiancee. He always talked about her. And, he didn’t like her enough? Then again..

He looked at Chanyeol who was only frowning.

“What bull, Baek. It’s all bollocks. You made our ears cry with your ‘ Taeyeoooon’ ‘Taeyeonnie’” Chen imitated Baekhyun’s voice.

“We all don’t believe you.” Suho shouted. Then, quickly apologised and whispered ‘we don’t believe you’. Sehun rolled his eyes.

“I used to think i liked her too.”

“Then, why get engaged?” Lay looked confused.

“She was my parents choice.” He replied like it was all so obvious and smiled. “PLUS, i SAID IT WAS JUST A CRUSH. KRIS HYUNG!”

The other pub goers turned their heads around to look at him once and then, went back to their drinking.

“Okay, okay. Arasaw.” Chen looked like the bulb on his head had clicked bright and exchanged a look with Luhan who quickly glanced towards Chanyeol.

“SO... We were talking about Happy Camp.” Luhan tried to change the topic.” Chen rolled his eyes at him.

“No, did you guys get or, not what-”

“Yes, yes, Baekkie. We did.” Chen patted his shoulder. “Now, shut up.”

Chanyeol was still frowning like there was some really important thing slipping off his mind like he couldn’t quite catch it. It was something his best friend had said but, he couldn’t recall what. It was frustrating. But, the gang had moved onto teasing Suho and he was getting distracted by their laughs, Baekhyun’s heat and the general stuffiness in the pub.

Joonmyun raised his arms signalling the guys to stop. “It was where i began to realise that my mate was right in front of me so, i regret nothing.” He turned to look at his mate and they were giving each other gooey eyes which made Jongin want to vomit. He never wanted to look at somebody like that. He’d rather be dead than be caught with that expression. “Oh stop that, hyung. It is disgusting.” He groaned.

“You’ll understand when you’ll find your mate”, Lay said. “When you’ll be in love.”

“I never want to be in love. I’ll have no mate” He groaned some more. What was with these two people. Always talking about it. Sick sappy hyungs.

“That is so sad.” Chen snickered.

“You are so pitiable.” Chanyeol looked smug.

Jongin simply raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll get the next round.” Luhan said suddenly and got up. Sehun followed him.

As Luhan waited for the bartender to take his orders he watched his friend who was going to get married the next day. Chen and Kai were arguing about something. Yixing and Suho had joined them in the argument. They were probably trying to make him believe in mates and destiny. He chuckled.

“something funny, hyung?”

He looked up registering the omega beside him for the first time.

“Poor Kai. They are ganging up on him.”

“He deserves it.”

“Coz he doesn’t believe in all that?” Everyone in the university had known Kai’s distaste for all things love and destiny.

“Do you?” Sehun asked a question in reply. “You are so quite.”

“Am just tired. About that i don’t know. May be.” He gave the blond omega a smile and then, turned to give the orders. On noticing how the other alphas around were looking at Sehun, he asked the omega to go back to their seat. “I’ll get them. Go.” He stood there for some more time. after some time, he saw Kai escape and approach him. “They are horrible.”, he complained.

”They love you.”

“Whatever.”

They carried the glasses to the booth.

Chanyeol looked at him and said loudly “Here comes the non-believer.” As he took his glass from Luhan, Baekhyun started slipping off his lap, so he used his other arm to pull the shorter alpha closer to him. Jongin gave Chanyeol a blank look and went back to his spot beside Sehun and said, “I may not believe in love but, I do appreciate beauty. Baekhyun hyung” Baekhyun immediately looked up from his glass. “You are hot.” Baekhyun’s face flushed hard and Chanyeol, Chen, Suho, and Sehun spit their drinks.

“WHAT?!”

Suho looked horrified. Lay and Luhan were laughing at the others' reaction.

“Yes. He is so.. Small, petit and white. Almost like an omega.” Kai was smirking. "Isn't he, hyung?" He winked at Chanyeol whose grip on the said omega-like alpha was growing tighter. This was fun. “When I had joined the university, I had seen him first with that eyeliner and in that shirt. What was it? Red?”

“Yes”, Baekhyun mumbled in embarrassment.

“Red? You even remember that?” Suho was looking at Kai like he was looking at a ghost. “Who are you and what have you done to my brother.”

“Hyung, please. No drama. I complimented him.I came to know later he was an alpha so, I lost interest.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. Though, mentally, he was dancing in glee.

“You lost interest?” Suho looked like he was about to faint (this wasn’t the brother he knew!), Chen and Lay looked curious while the omega and not-so omega looked surprised. Chanyeol, Luhan noticed, was growling. He was growling and looking far too possessive for an alpha who called himself straight. He snorted. He knew how far from truth that had been.

“Why would I be any interested after that?” Jongin smirked. “Am straight.” There goes another one.

The tension in their booth was high the only oblivious one being Baekhyun. How typical. But, before things could go any further, Sehun got a call from his mother asking him to come back home and Suho and Kai got into a debate who’d drop him back home. Luhan volunteered but, to his surprise, Chen opposed that idea vehemently and Sehun, getting irritated, got up saying he’d go back by himself; he wasn’t an omega in distress. To which Baekhyun, Chanyeol laughed, Lay looked concerned but, the Kim brothers immediately said a big no.

Kai got up and walked out of the pub with Sehun albeit a little slowly. He called his driver and the duo waited for the car. It was going to take some time. They waited in silence.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Sehun finally spoke up when he saw their car approaching.

“Done what.”

“Baited Chanyeol hyung like that.”

“I baited no one.”

Sehun sighed. “Kai, it’ll only make things more difficult for the two of them. Especially, Baekhyun hyung.”

“I only spoke the truth.” Sehun looked at him in surprise.

The car stopped in front of them and Kai opened the door for Sehun. “Get in.”

Sehun got into the car silently.

“Make sure he reaches his home safely.”

“Yes, Master Jongin.”

Kai bristled on hearing that name. He hated it.

“Aren’t you coming?” He heard his friend’s muffled voice from inside the car.

“No.” He replied curtly. “I came to see you off.” He slammed the door of the car and stood there for sometime watching it disappear enjoying the fresh air. There were too many drunk alphas in that pub for his liking.

He walked back into the building not being able to see clearly. Some alphas were dancing too close. Was this a gay alpha pub? Had he not noticed it before? He hurried over to the booth where he thought his brother was. He tripped on somebody’s leg and fell on somebody else.

“s-sorry.”

The alpha he had fallen on was holding him up by the arms and gave him a teeth-full smile. “It’s ok.” He had really sharp canines.“Are you okay?” He looked amused.

Kai was getting goosebumps. The alpha was in a red tee and green shorts.

 “Helloooo, anyone there?” He and his friends were laughing.

 Kai snapped out of his daze, mumbling ‘yea, yea’ , shrugging the other alpha’s hand off him and continuing his search for his gang, his face really hot. “this is an gay alpha pub, an gay alpha pub”, he hissed at himself. Of course, he had noticed the way they had been looking at him. He hated being subjected to that sort of a scrutiny. Way to make a fool out of oneself in front of another alpha. He finally found them at another corner, sighing in relief. He could hear them singing something funny.

“Hey, he has come back!”Chen said loudly.

“We thought you were gone, man. Lost.” Luhan said turning around to look at him.

Chanyeol snorted, Baekhyun was slurping his drink as usual. Suho looked concerned.

“Why are you drinking it like that?” He asked the alpha who was still sitting on his friend’s lap. Didn’t they have enough space now?

Suho and Chanyeol spoke up at the same time.

“Why did you come back so early?”

“ None of your business.”

Baekhyun slurped his drink more noisily.

“He’s safe, Gramps. Chill.”

Suho further furrowed his brows.

“Hyung, Sehun is grown up enough.” Chen said. “Cut Kai some slack. He isn’t his chauffeur.”

“Exactly. Love you, hyung.” Kai went back to his spot. “What were you guys just singing now?”

“Ooh” Baekhyun said stopping his slurping suddenly.

“What?”

Chen continued. “OOOh.”

“What nonsense.”

“I am just tryna get you in the mood~~” Suho joined.

“Ooh OOoh” Luhan, Lay and Chanyeol concluded.

“Just what the ? Was that the song?”

“Yup. My song.” Luhan replied.

“Really?”

“Yup.”

Baekhyun looked up from his glass and said , “Ooh ooh” 

“You should hear the whole thing.” Chanyeol snorted. “It’s called ‘Lu’.”

“So ingenious.” Lay rolled his eyes and the rest just laughed. “So you.”

As all of them joined Chen in singing and making Kai cringe and laugh at his hyungs and friends silliness, Luhan wondered why he hadn’t come sooner. Why it took him so many years to come meet them. Had it not been for Lay’s marriage, he’d possibly have not seen them for a few more years. As the night continued to morning, they got more and more drunk. Luhan missed being -faced drunk. He had to always make sure he wasn’t drunk enough to not make it to the tabloids for the wrong reasons. They finally got down to the dance floor, dancing like crazy and singing till their voices were hoarse. Till they couldn’t tell their left from right. Till Luhan couldn’t tell if he was just seeing Xiumin or, it was just his drunk imagination.

``````````````

A/n: Kai isn’t very comfortable with the alpha-alpha thing coz the a-a thing is yet to be accepted by law in their country and of course, isn’t encouraged, to put it mildly, by the Kim household.