The whole house was quiet. It had been that way for a while now.

No one was pleased with Namjoon’s new instructions.

Personally, Sori found it quite hard herself, although she preferred to keep it for herself. because with these new rules she was basically forced to either stay home or go out with several people for several hours at once, and she had to always have someone accompanying her. It felt like she couldn’t breathe if she thought about it too much. The positive side of this whole situation was that Yoongi, Jin, Jungkook, Hoseok and (unfortunately) often Narae too, were out of the house together, because they had to go to work and they had to move as a unit as for their alphas wish.

As for the rest, at the moment her nausea had mostly subsided, so she was feeling better and she didn't understand the need to constantly have a supervisor around. The worst thing for her at the moment were her headaches, but Sori guessed it was mostly because her body didn’t like to be punched. The situation was mostly under control now, to the point she felt she could honestly say she was feeling so much better.

Actually, with the whole “be careful and move as a unit” situation Sori had finally found it in herself to write her book much faster. Probably it was also due to the fact that she had finally received a positive feedback from one of the publishing houses she had sent her manuscript to, and she was asked to send more chapters to establish if it was good enough to grant her a meeting with someone in a higher position.

In spite of that, the new situation was also weighting Sori down, for there was a huge negative side of this situation that had to be taken in consideration: Sori had to find topics to bring up during lunch, because the silence annoyed her and made her feel nervous, however she didn’t have much in common with Minyoung, and it was still kind of awkward between them, so… well, Sori was looking for a way to avoid meals whenever the majority of the pack was outside. She would either eat earlier or later than Minyoung and Namjoon whenever she managed to go unnoticed, otherwise she tried to eat very little and very fast, to give herself the chance to leave the room as soon as she could say she was full.

Although Sori couldn’t blame Minyoung for the awkwardness between them, since she had already explained to whole pack before officially that she wasn’t used to being around turned-werewolves on a daily basis, nor to treat them like “normal” werewolves, so she needed a little time to get used to being around Sori. Despite knowing this, Sori strongly wished for Minyoung to start acting normally around her. The way Minyoung acted, as if she had to weight every single word that she said, or how she seemed to be wary of making physical contact with her, made Sori feel even more awkward around her. It all spiralled to a long list of reoccurring thoughts, such as: do I smell bad? Should I wear better clothes to give her a better impression? What is she thinking of me?

Plus, Namjoon was often at home with them. He frequently met his partners and clients at home, in his studio, and that guy was plainly awkward in the first place. Whenever the three of them were eating together, the conversation seemed to be forced, which turned a pleasurable moment, like having company while eating, into a long torture. At times the conversation managed to keep going for a couple of minutes, but mostly it happened when Namjoon asked Minyoung some details of her daily life in her old pack. Minyoung seemed always out of it when Namjoon and Sori talked about things and people she didn't know, so Sori tried to make herself scarce to spare Minyoung the feeling of being an outcast.

At times, out of nowhere, Namjoon started asking weird questions, like “where’s this sound coming from?” or “Sori, was that your phone?”, and when the both of them told him no one made noise, and they actually hadn’t heard any noise, he kept insisting that he had heard a weird sound for sure. However it had already been two days since the alpha first asked that, and he still hadn’t found the source of the sound that caught his attention at the most unexpected moments.

Another quite “meh” aspect of this situation was that at this point, Sori couldn’t even skip meals anymore, because with the guys around all the time, she knew there was always someone keeping an eye on her and checking if she’d eaten and what she'd had. There goes my weight loss…

Sori sighed in frustration. She’d been sitting at her desk for a while now, and her back and her legs were starting to hurt from being still for too long, but she couldn’t go downstairs…or better, she didn’t wanted to. Namjoon had appeared for around ten minutes around lunch time, and then he’d returned to his studio right after having gulped down his food, which had left Sori and Minyoung alone again. Sori wouldn’t have been this bothered by having to eat in silence if it was someone else, but with Minyoung it felt really uncomfortable since she couldn’t help but wonder what was Minyoung thinking about her or if she was judging her and her eating habits. Sori had mostly grown up alone, so at times she was a little clueless about the table etiquette, although her mother had tried her best to teach her what she needed to know.

Sori was pretty sure there were no interesting subjects she could bring up to start a conversation and Minyoung seemed to be struggling in the same way. The only thing left to talk about was their own and their packmates’ private life, however Sori was worried about not respecting their privacy, thus they ended up in silence. Moreover, she was pretty sure that by now Minyoung knew more about them than Sori did, for they always told her details about their old life and shared funny stories with her, while Sori only knew a couple of them and mostly she knew them because she listened to her mates private conversations from time to time. Plus, she didn’t trust her enough to share her personal thoughts. Furthermore, Sori feared the other girl would’ve brought up Jungkook as a topic of conversation, which would have only force her to talk about him or listen to Minyoung blabbering about him. She sighed again, wishing she was laying in the sun near “her” lake.

In spite of all of this, Sori loved her pack, but too much was too much, and she did her best to follow the alpha's orders and set a good example for the others.

Even Junmyeon had stopped calling her after she’d ask him to just text her to avoid upsetting her pack since they were getting really close in spite of being from different packs. Actually, the most of the mean comments came from Jungkook. It’d happened a couple of times that he’d slammed the door of her room after hearing her laughing and talking for a while with Junmyeon and Baekhyun. Unsurprisingly, Sori felt mortified. What if talking this much with the members of another pack was seen as betrayal? What if she was the wrong one?

The others didn’t seem too pleased with her new friendships either, but they didn’t act out like Jungkook did, although their jokes weren’t all pleasant either. Not that she had cut Junmyeon off only because of their jealousy, but Jungkook’s reactions bugged her at times. It wasn’t like the others didn’t have any other friend outside of the pack. Moreover, she wasn't planning on cutting them off. They were her pack and the only family she had. She could have justified their reactions if she brought home several friends everyday, but it really wasn't her case, not had she any family members she could turn to in case.

The only one who supported her, though with scarce enthusiasm, was Narae, and despite her initial hesitance, after having had a good chat with Junmyeon and Baekhyun through a facecall, she seemed to be more at ease with the idea of Sori having another friend. She had even offered to go with her to the lake and take the whole responsibility if Namjoon were to find out, in spite of her busy life at the moment.

Sori wasn’t really confident in letting them meet in person just yet, tho, for it seemed to weird to her that someone with Narae’s strong personality would go over her impressions of people that easily, so she’d asked her the reasons why she’d decided to be openly friendly with the members of EXO. Narae took her time to answer, but in the end her explanation made sense: EXO and BTS had to keep their alliance strong, all the more now that the rogues were planning on attacking them, which worked perfectly fine with the role she had in BTS pack. Not to mention that she could use some new friends as well, so why not trust her best friend’s choices and give Junmyeon and Baekhyun a chance?

This was a surprising discovery to Sori, as Junmyeon had looked quite suspicious to Narae in the beginning, but ever since Sori told her that the reason behind his non-stop texting and calling was to apologize for what happened after he left the cafe, she seemed to have no more doubts about EXO having further motives in approaching Sori. Or maybe it was the fact that they were making her meet other members of their pack while face-timing with Sori, which made it hard to believe they only wanted to take advantage of her best friend. Let alone that if that was their purpose, they had had a lot chances in the past year and even now that they spent a lot of time together by the lake. She’d been told by Sori that they never even mentioned her status of turned-were before. Actually, Baekhyun had reacted to her status in a “do you think I care?” way, before going back inside the lake to play.

Whatever her reasons were, Narae was now more convinced that they only wanted to be Sori’s friends and not steal her from BTS or use her as a e, and it was enough for her to start acting friendly towards them. Or at least, friendlier than before.

Junmyeon had texted Sori a couple of times to ask her whether she would have liked for him to ask Namjoon if they could hang out together. He had even offered to bring his pack with him if Namjoon wanted more protection for her, or even if she wanted to eat in his house, so that they could finally meet again after having only texted for two days in a row and she wouldn’t have to stay coped up in her room all day, but Sori had shot down his offer again, not wanting more drama around her at the moment. In spite of that, she had informed him that her pack was likely to go to the club Yoongi worked in that night, so if EXO wanted to, they could meet there. One way or another, they were going to meet up if they wanted to.

Her phone’s display lit up again, signalling her she had a new text. Sori welcomed this distraction from her boredom and checked it right away, thinking that it was Junmyeon’s replay to her invitation. Surprisingly, it was Jungkook once again, asking her what she was doing. Weird.

Jungkook’s unusual behaviour hadn’t stopped yet, and Sori didn't really know how to interpret it. One moment he was watching her, offering to do things for her, texting her, smiling at her and asking how she felt, and a moment later he was acting cold again. The thing Sori had noticed the most was that now he almost never made comments about her body, and when he did… well, it wasn’t something new for her.

She felt quite proud of how much weight she had lost nonetheless. While her tummy didn’t change that much yet, her thighs and her were clearly showing her efforts. Now the only thing left to fix was her fat stomach, but having spent the last few days coped up inside the house, alone on top of that, since the guys went out together in the morning and came back home at lunch time or in the evening, Sori had had a lot of time to eat whatever she wanted without being nagged at or regretting it. Still, she was going to need to work out more.

Another text made Sori’s phone ring. This time it actually was Junmyeon, informing her that he’d be at the club too with some of s. Sori grinned and stood up right away to look for an outfit for the night.

“You look stunning!”, Narae exclaimed, fawning over her best friend again. Sori was pretty sure she had already repeated the same exact words at least ten times in the last five minutes. Not that she wanted to deny it though. In fact, she was proud of her look for the night! She had put a lot of effort in picking her clothes, not to mention that she had spent the last four hours getting ready and watching make-up tutorials, and she had made it on time only because both Narae and Minyoung had decided to help her by curling her hair. For the first time, the three of them were talking without having the guys around and running out of topics. Probably it’s because of Narae’s never ending blabbers, but still…

The only thing left for her to do was wearing her black high heels and join the others downstairs. They were her only pair of high heels, as she preferred to wear flat shoes, however these shoes never failed to make Sori feel y. Whenever she felt like spicing up her outfits Sori wore them, and tonight was one of those nights. So far she wasn’t sure whom exactly she wanted to impress, however she’d decided to go for a “y but natural” style for the night, which also finally gave her the chance to wear her new dress, bought with Namjoon’s money and under his insistence. Even though Sori wasn’t that convinced by the cut of the dress, that showed more of her cleavage than she was comfortable with, she had given in… it was his money, after all, so if that was what he wanted to buy, Sori was going to let him do as he pleased.

Seeing it on her body now, though, Sori acknowledged Namjoon’s taste is clothes and mentally thanked him for being stubborn and buying it against her will. For the first time in a very long time Sori didn’t feel embarrassed by showing a couple of inches of skin more than usual. She felt y yet not vulgar. Nice! She couldn't help but wonder how the guys were going to react when they realized what she was wearing. She could already picture Hoseok shrieking and jumping in her head. It was going to be funny!

“This dress suits you, Sori! You should wear dresses like this more often, because it really compliments your curves!”, Minyoung sent her a wink. Sori smiled at her, albeit it felt a tad weird. It was a little too friendly for they scarce conversations, still Sori appreciated the effort. Moreover, the fact that Minyoung was mentioning her “curves” gave her the impression she had been studying her body, which made her quite uncomfortable.

Minyoung and Narae had spent a good five minutes checking her out and making her turn back and forth to observe how gorgeous she was in that dress. It seemed like they’d finally established that and light pink could do magic on Sori’s slightly tanned skin, and after a very long and extremely embarrassing session of compliments, the two were finally ready to go downstairs. After glancing at her reflection in the mirror one last time, Sori left the room with the girls to join the rest of the pack in the living room.

“You’re finally ready! Thank God, I thought you girls weren’t coming with us anymore”, Namjoon complained. In all honesty, Sori recognized that maybe, just maybe, she’d taken too much time to get ready, in fact when the guys stood up their junctures made some weird and very disturbing sounds… but hey, she hadn’t dolled up in ages, so she needed all the time she’d taken.

“Woooo, tonight we’re gonna have a hard time keeping guys from you”, Jin told her smiling. He walked around Sori whistling, as he was finally paying attention to her look. Sori smiled at him, her cheeks heating up because of the attention she was receiving.

“Yaaa”, Hoseok shrieked, shortening the distance between them. “Yaaaaaa”, he repeated once more. “Yaaaaaaaaa”. Sori could only laugh at his expression: his mouth was slightly opened and his eyes were widened in surprise.

“Snap out of it, you sound like you’re still stuck in the homo sapiens era”, Yoongi mumbled. Hoseok looked quite offended, but before anyone could add anything, Yoongi joined him in checking Sori out and circled his shoulders with his arms. “Stop looking at me like that, you know you’re too loud all the time”. Yoongi nudged Hoseok with his arm and Hoseok sent him a dirty look, but apparently he wasn’t offended enough to ignore Yoongi, as he just mumbled “whatever” under his breath.

Sori could see Hoseok had tried hard to look good too, and she mentally grinned, because now she had something to with. Ah, the efforts he puts in catching Yoongi’s attention. Cute. Yoongi, on the other hand, didn’t look too excited to go out… which was kinda understandable: who would want to hang out in their workplace in their day off? Which was why he’d only worn his black jeans, a burgundy button down shirt and his favourite leather jacket. There was a particular element that showed that he DID put a tiny bit of effort in looking good: his wrist was adorned with a watch, and if Sori wasn’t wrong, it was the present he’d received from Hobi for Christmas. Oh, Lord, save us from these lovebirds. They’re too cute, I don’t even feel like making fun of them! Sori was fighting against the instinct of pinching their cheeks in a grandma-of-the-neighbourhood style. She was trying really hard.

“My baby girl is all grown up”, Jin commented again while leaning against the alpha’s shoulder. His shoulders were slouched down, as if was worried about something, a pout clearly visible. “I feel old”, the elder guy mumbled quietly as he hugged his alpha’s arm tightly.

“Oh, well, if we have to feel old to have her all smiling and looking stunning, than so be it”, Namjoon commented. He hadn’t even tried to hush his voice, like he wanted Sori to hear their conversation, and seeing the wink he sent her as soon as he met her eyes, probably that was exactly his intention.

“Ya, you should compliment me too, you know, I’m your fiancé”, Narae said in a mockingly annoyed voice. Sori had always thought that Narae looked amazing no matter what she wore, but the sleeveless night blue dress she was wearing was really perfect on her, especially with her recently dyed light brown hair. Sori thought that Narae’s new hair colour was only a shade or two darker that her wolf’s fur, so she was completely fascinate by it and the way the light affected its shade.

“I really should, shouldn't I?”, Namjoon eyed her from head to toe and back, enjoying very much what was in front of his eyes. “I don’t know if I can tell you how much I appreciate the way you look, but if you want I can show you”. He took a few steps in his mate’s direction. Okay, this needs to stop. Now.

Sori and Hoseok shared a shared expression of disgust while Yoongi was opening and closing his fists to make sure his fingers wouldn’t curl too tightly and get stuck that way. It was risky to stay in company of Namjoon and Narae when they were in a flirty mood. More disgusting then risky actually, but whatever.

“Do you really want to? Because I want to know how much you like me right now”, Narae sent her mate a smirk, and as if he enchanted by her words, Namjoon nodded at her. The two were only separated by a couple of inches… a couple of inches less than the rest of the pack could stand.

“Okay, cut the crap. I don’t want to see this”, Yoongi spoke out loud in everyone’s stead. Sori mentally high-fived Yoongi for having spoken up.

Namjoon’s cheeks and ears were now extremely red, but his mate was having none of this. She leaned in and smooched right on the lips in front of all of them.

“Be thankful our room in not on the same floor with yours, because then you’d be hearing way more than this”, Narae winked at him. She grabbed her mate’s hand and leaned against him, and a couple of seconds later Namjoon circled his arms around her waist, kissing her cheek. Disgusting. Why can’t they ever keep their PDA at minimum in front of us? Ugh, whatever.

“Whatever”, Hoseok mumbled, as if he was reading Sori’s mind. “Yaaaaa”, he said again eyeing Sori one more time. She just chuckled and pointed at Minyoung.

“Look at her, doesn’t she look gorgeous too?”, Sori asked smiling. Hoseok furrowed his eyebrows and briefly glanced at the other girl before shrugging and turning to Sori again.

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