The sun had barely begun to raise when Sori made her way back home. She didn’t catch a wink of sleep since she was too busy bawling her eyes out, and just like she had imagined, she had spent a good portion of time just worrying about what Namjoon was going to say. The only thing that had changed from the day before was that Sori had started coughing and she was feeling weak. As for the rest, Sori was still alone, and she was still hurting because Jungkook didn’t give her his full attention, albeit she recognized she had no reason to expect him to.

The path she took to go home was the shortest, but it still felt like she had been walking for hours as she kept worrying about the same things: Namjoon and having to face Jungkook after their last night together and what he had said about her. Her whole body hurt, hence she was pretty sure she caught more than just a cold, but she wasn’t too worried since she’d probably be okay again in a couple of days. She felt her eyes prick and her face getting hot, too, a typical sign her temperature was starting to raise.

Sori almost stopped when she reached the meadow in front of the house, both exhausted and scared. The only thing that convinced her to move on was the thought of her warm and comfy bed after taking a hot shower, although to enter her room she’d have to pass right in front of Jungkook’s, and since his room was right in front of hers, she risked hearing...disturbing noises. Not that it would be the first time, but for Sori this time it felt like it would have been different to hear him with another girl. This time she was pretty sure it would cut her deeper.

In the end Sori resolved to face her pack. No matter how much Sori wanted to stay in her safe zone, she really needed a very warm shower, take some pills and sleep. There was a good chance that before having the chance to do that she’d have to hear her alpha’s growls and yells, but Sori was really hoping her best friend would step in and convince him to postpone that unfortunate talk for a while. Perhaps, in the afternoon, after she woke up from her slumber. It was a fat chance, but you never know.

Sori started walking again, her paws were working even more slowly than before, she really felt like . Her head was pounding, both from crying too much and from the cold temperatures she had exposed herself to, and every step she took seemed to be slowed down, as if he paws weighted a ton.

. Jin’s going to stab me with the thermometer.

Sori had a plan, though: she would stay in her wolf form until she got in the shower, and only then she would change to her human form. After the shower she planned to shift right away, and after that she would go to sleep in her bed. Possibly she’ll blast some music right in her hears with her earphones, just to spare herself from the eventual noises coming from Jungkook’s room, as the noises coming from his room never failed to disgust and pain her.

The main part of the plan was to avoid Jungkook like a plague. It’s not like he did anything new or that bad, Sori was perfectly aware of the fact that they were not together. As much as Sori would’ve loved to, he wasn’t hers. She had simply put her hopes up because marking someone was a lot more meaningful than in human society, and being Jungkook an old wolf, she had supposed his actions had a meaning... and she had just illuded herself. It was like telling everyone that that person was yours and nobody else could touch them. In the past, Sori had learnt, mates used to bit each other again and again, deep enough the leave a permanent mark on each other. Obviously Jungkook hadn't bitten her, so he probably didn't even want to mark her at all. He must have lost himself in the moment. Despite knowing that, Sori's pride and heart had been hurt she needed some time to her wounds, no matter how silly and childish she sounded.

Sori didn’t want anyone to comfort her. She only wanted to be alone and forget all the things she’d imagined the previous day, because those castles of glass hurt her even more than the fact that she knew she was completely replaceable for Jungkook. Her dignity was too important to give it away like that and pretend nothing happened. Sori didn’t want to be obvious, but she wanted to give importance to her feelings. In the end nobody knew what happened, it wasn't anything public like the last time he made fun of her, but it hurt more than the usual because of how much she had fantasised about the meaning of that stupid hickey.

Sitting in front the door, Sori was trying to decide whether to ring the bell and wait for hell to break loose, or sit there until someone opened the door and only then get in, hoping to pass unnoticed. If she had to be honest with herself, she knew the second one was highly unrealistic, because the first person to leave the house would be Seokjin, and no way would he’d let her be if he were to find her first. Jungkook would most likely follow him in a matter of minutes, or worse, they could go out to work together. Let alone the girls the guys had brought home the night before... Sori didn’t really feel up to a confrontation in which she’d look shabby, fat, plain, dirty and boring against someone who looked like a fairy. Maybe she could act like a dog, but she felt too much like Jungkook's already, why ruin herself more with her own hands? Her self-esteem was at his lowest point already, no need to show her how far she was from being pretty.

She weighted a bit more the two options in front of the door, and then out of nowhere, before she could decide, Jimin opened the door, making all her speculations useless. Not that she minded the interruption. Actually, she really appreciated it, because that way Sori would completely avoid both Namjoon and Jin until they noticed she was in her room. And she really hoped it didn’t happen until late in the late afternoon.

“Ya! Be quiet with those paws, Namjoon has been acting more like Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jeckyll since yesterday.”, he whispered while moving to the side to give her way. “Where the hell were you, by the way? We didn’t see you at all yesterday, we were afraid something happened to you! You know, I started thinking that maybe Namjoon isn’t completely wrong when insist you don’t leave the house alone...”, he kept on whispering. Sori just scoffed and left without listening to another word. Absurd. She wished she was brave enough to voice her sarcastical thoughts out loud. Sure, Jimin was a better encounter than Namjoon or Jungkook, but that was about it.

Hadn't you completely ignored me yesterday morning you would have known where I was going. As if you didn’t go out and brought a girl home. Wow, sure, you were so worried for me, I might really feel touched.You must have been totally out of your minds looking for me everywhere.

Sori walked on her tippy toes to the bathroom and locked the door right after she had changed back to her human form. It was partially because she didn’t want to be discovered by the others, but also because of her modesty . Albeit was nothing special in a pack of wolves, Sori tried to avoid it as much as possible. She wanted to keep her body to herself. All the more when it was a perfect excuse to hide herself a bit more and keep away possibly enraged pack members.

She stepped in the shower right away. The hot water was scorching hot on her frozen skin. Sori hissed in pain, but didn’t move. It felt like the single drops running down her skin were drawing pretty images as the slid down. It took her body a couple of minutes to find the warmth pleasurable. As her body temperature raised under the hot water, Sori slowly stopped shivering. Her muscles hurt from the constant spasm, but Sori didn't worry about it nor did she massage them to ease the pain. She was going to sleep in five minutes anyway. She just let the water dampen her hair, the hot drops of water slowly sliding down from her hair to her body. She closed her eyes to let the water run freely along the features of her face. It was easier to be at ease when the only thing you could feel was hot water that covered any other sound.

Sometimes she used Jungkook’s bath foam or shampoo, but today the sight of it made her feel a bit disgusted. Or maybe she should say it irked her a little. Either way, she used Narae’s shampoo and body wash instead of her owns. Narae loved fruity scents, so her shampoo always smelled like melon, peaches, strawberries, and whatever other weird fruit could be turned into a soap, and today was no exception, in fact the shampoo smelled like apples and honey. It wasn’t the kind of scent Sori loved, however she didn’t dislike it either. Quite the opposite actually, as the fruity scent reminded her of her best friend and it relaxed her a little. It was just that Sori loved flowery scents and vanilla-everything better. This usually gave it away whenever she was feeling down or stressed, since she used shampoos, lotions, and body washes of her pack member to calm down her anxiety and relieve her mood.

It had also happened that the other members used her products for the same exact reason, but it was mostly Sori’s habit. She’s smelled her vanilla scent on Jungkook a couple of times before Minyoung arrived, but Sori knew well he would never do something like that on purpose and he’d most likely picked the wrong item as he was showering. Using other people’s stuff with the purpose of smelling like them meant you had a close relationship with them or even that you belonged together which clearly wasn’t their case. Why would he ever want to smell like her? That was a step from saying he belonged to the person who owned the shampoo or the bath foam, and Jungkook would never say that about her, not even if he didn't have to explicitly say anything.

Sori took her time and made sure she’d washed away the scent of soil, grass and sweat from her body. Let the water heal her spirit, ease the pain on her shoulders, and make her feel warm again. When she was done, Sori enveloped her body in her bathrobe and quickly dried her hair with a towel. She combed and blow dried her hair trying to be as quick as she could, for she could already hear people walking on the upper floor, which meant either Namjoon or Narae was awake. She had to get out of the bathroom real quick if she wanted to avoid Seokjin as well and be able to pretend she was asleep.

A minute later Sori opened her robe and shifted back to her wolf form, still shivering because of the cold, but not feeling like she freezing anymore. Silently she walked to her room hoping no noise would be made from the room in front of hers until she had her headphones on. Or better, Sori believed they should’ve been done by then, but you can never be too sure. Once she entered her room, she only closed it instead of locking it, because she knew the rest of the pack will want to check on her as soon as they notice her presence in the house...and also because changing in the bathroom hadn't been a great idea since that meant she had no hands to turn the key or grab her earphones.

Being left with no other choice, Sori huffed and changed again. Changing this often was tiring her even more, so Sori just decided to give up on the only possibility she had to avoid Namjoon’s questions for a while. She grabbed her earphones from her nightstand before burying herself under the covers. Then Sori made a very small ball out of her body and finally took a deep breath, knowing this might be the last second of peace she had before Namjoon found her. She chose some of the slow instrumentals she had on her playlist, the ones Sori usually played during the nights she had a hard time falling asleep. Her body was still shivering, so Sori curled herself even more before closing her eyes and letting her thoughts run free. She could feel the exhaustion weighting her down, however there was still too much anxiety filling her mind for her to fall sleep just yet. Sori waited until the shivering had calmed a bit to focus only on the music coming from her earphones. Her headache still pounding her skull, and the music wasn't helping with the pain, but it was enough to cover any other sound and it made her feel a little bit better. Both in her soul and in her body. Her body was heavy on the mattress, her eyelids stopped trembling, and relaxed to a soft line, leaving her lips only slightly opened. She fell asleep with music still playing.

“...let her sleep a bit more, then you’ll give her a piece of your mind”. Those were the first words Sori heard when she woke up. Her eyelids still felt heavy, probably her eyes were swollen since she had cried for so many hours, and she had a strong headache, yet she could bring herself to sleep even a wink more now that she discovered they were in her room. Since she was also a coward, Sori came up with a plan: stay as still as rock and hope they won’t notice she’s awake.

“Sori, get out of there. We have to talk.”, she heard Namjoon say from somewhere very close to her bed. Mmm, no thanks? No matter how many times she said she was ready to swallow whatever the alpha had to tell her, right now Sori was just about to change planed to avoid taking any responsibility over her actions. Very slowly, Sori appeared from under the covers and Namjoon, Narae and Seokjin appeared in front of her eyes. Narae was sitting on her bed, Namjoon on the chair by her desk and Jin was on the ground. She was pretty sure it was a casual thing, but it also happened to represent the order of the highest ranks in the pack: alpha, female alpha and beta. In fact, Namjoon was in the highest position in the room as he was the alpha and overpowered the other three; Narae was sitting only a little lower and in fact, as the female alpha, she had more power than Sori and Jin; while Jin was sitting on the ground, but in spite of the fact that his head only reached Sori’s height, Jin was still dominating over her, since Sori was laying down, which showed her submission.

The following rank order got mixed up and confused over the centuries, but Jungkook once told her that the initial ranking was: Namjoon, Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, Taehyung and Jimin. During these centuries it’d been modified, and no one had cared enough to establish a new and serious order in their pack rank. Jungkook had also explained her that he was in a higher position than Jimin and Taehyung, and those two were now at the same level, in fact they compensate each other perfectly fine now. Hoseok and Yoongi had stopped trying to decide which one of them was the highest in rank long ago, and everyone thought it was a blessing really, since no one wanted to hear stupid fights in which animals were used as insults. As Jungkook put it, it didn’t really matter how people established their rank in the pack, for it only came natural to submit or to lead the pack if it ever happened to be in a risk