I don't think this too bad

Word count: 4.5k

Every time Chanyeol sees Baekhyun around the village, he remembers how they kissed under the stars. His lips start to tingle and his face numbs, as if his muscles remember exactly what it was like and refuse to let him forget. He yearns to feel him again, but realises that they were not as discreet as they should have been when they both disappeared for two hours that night. It seems as though Baekshi and Sehun have upped the ante and he’s not confident that it’s a coincidence.

Chanyeol has just returned from a hunting trip, trying to find Yoona’s infuriating otters (again), when he sees the two of them together – his future mate and his current competition. Summer is creeping in around the corner, bringing with it bright sunlight and undiluted warmth that builds without mercy. Their huts, made from a mixture of wood and mud, dry out and crack under the heat, crumbling back to the thatch-work that reinforces them on the inside. In that state, it would take no more than a strong gust of wind to send the whole structure toppling over, so a part of Chanyeol does understand why Sehun is having his hut resurfaced. He just doesn’t understand why Baekhyun is the one he’s making do it.

Sehun stands over him like a slave master, folded arms matched with a dark scowl, all while breathing down the back of Baekhyun’s neck. The only thing that is missing is the whip. He’s not talking to Baekhyun, as is custom, but occasionally he will step forward and point at something he thinks needs making a priority of or going over again. Not once does he nod or smile. He never even looks Baekhyun in the face.

“Why don’t you give him some room to breathe?” Chanyeol rashly calls over, aware that some of the omegas sat around the moonpost turn to look at his outburst. By some miracle, Baekshi isn’t present; lucky for Chanyeol, as he didn’t even bother to check. He’s too focused on the pair outside the Head Alpha’s hut, said focus shifting to challenge Sehun’s subsequent glare.

Behind him, Baekhyun appears lifeless, hands caked in drying mud and shoulders slouched forwards. Wet, brown streaks run down his forearms over sore, reddened skin, while a great clump of mud gathered in his fist from the bucket at his feet dribbles down over his thighs. His clothes are all but ruined. They shouldn’t be, though. Baekhyun is perpetually meticulous in everything he does. Either Sehun has rushed him because he’s an impatient sod, or he’s been at it for so long that he’s given up entirely and lost the will to live along the way. Neither explanations are particularly moral.

Baekhyun does his best to wipe the sweat off his forehead with the cleanest patch of his arm, but still ends up with a smear of dirt smudged across his skin and into the roots of his hair. How can Sehun stand by and watch Baekhyun battle the sun on his own? As an alpha, especially as one who believes his status is everything, he should feel compelled to help, lessen the omega’s burden.

“Leave us be, Chanyeol,” Sehun warns, a sting in his words that would poison Chanyeol if he were not immune. Trouble is, after Baekhyun kissed him the other day, he has confidence in abundance. A double-edged sword has never been so sharp. He has the guts to finally speak his mind and not allow his views to be influenced by those of others, but it makes him reckless. Reckless to the point that he puts himself in danger and thinks later rather than now.

All that Chanyeol can process is that Baekhyun has chosen him, a hundred times over, and nothing Sehun can do will make him change his mind. Victory pumps through his veins like an adrenalin that fogs his better judgement. It would take a miracle for the ancestors to choose Sehun now, even if Baekhyun appears somewhat willing to carry out his dirty work.

“This isn’t your place,” Sehun then adds, rather uselessly, in Chanyeol’s opinion. As far as he is aware, being outside the Head Alpha’s hut does not equate to being inside it or seeking to take it from its rightful owner, and he most certainly has every right to be in the village centre as a member of the pack. Over the past few days, it has gotten easier to ignore Sehun’s empty threats – if they can even be considered as such when all he does is glare behind polite, bitten words.

“Have you thanked him yet?” Chanyeol asks, crossing his arms over his chest and taking on a defensive stance. “For fixing your hut.” Sehun doesn’t thank Baekhyun for doing his washing, though perhaps he sees that task as menial. Resurfacing an entire hut, however, is not. Gratitude is in order.

Chanyeol’s eyes betray him more than he would like, but when he sees Baekhyun looking at the sky and trying to restrain a smile, he cannot help but stare. His heart fizzles with glee and his own mouth twitches, happy to have brought Baekhyun some relief from the blistering heat and repetition of his task. To make one person do a five-man job is ludicrous. If it weren’t Sehun’s hut, Chanyeol would instantly get stuck in and offer a hand, yet after everything that the other alpha has done, Chanyeol cannot bring himself to feed his ego any further. Not even for Baekhyun’s sake. That being said, it is not like Baekhyun is incapable. He is much, much stronger than he looks upon first glance. 

Of course, Sehun isn’t finished.

“It will be his hut soon, there’s no need to thank him,” he snaps, flaring up a dangerous anger in Chanyeol’s chest that whips through his lungs and up into his throat. He never knew it was possible to harbour this much hate in his own body, for he wants to grab at Sehun’s shoulders and thrash him against the nearest surface until every orifice is bleeding. How greatly he desires to see Sehun bloodied and bruised in a heap on the floor, pride torn to shreds and dignity crumpled to dust in the palm of Chanyeol’s hand.

As quick as the fire had burst, it ceases to exist, doused when Baekhyun sends him a look from behind Sehun’s shoulder that reads a serious and solemn just go. Seeing him brings a potent wash of calm, but underneath Chanyeol still simmers. At some point, he’ll boil over.  

He wants to bite back, ask Sehun if he is completely sure that Baekhyun will be moving into his hut to live with him, but he refrains from doing so. Despite his wrath, he knows he would abandon their rivalry if Baekhyun asked him to. It is not like he wants to see Sehun suffer or be alone forever; he just wants Baekhyun to be his and for himself to be Baekhyun’s. Sehun is merely a hurdle he must overcome, though he is exceptionally high and it is so wickedly frustrating.  

Chanyeol stays away from the pack for the rest of the day, even avoiding the pack supper with the intent to eat on his patrol instead. With everyone else tucked away at one end of the village, Chanyeol enjoys the quiet of the evening and finds himself sat by the river on a patch of grass, one hand brushing back and forth over the daisies while the other props him up. Merely to busy himself, he begins to craft the daisies into chains, humming The Welcome to himself to fill in what would be silence if not for the river tinkling at the banks in front of him.

Twelve daisy chains later finds him standing outside Baekhyun’s hut, trying to hang them all in front of his doorway by hooking them in the splits of his thatched roof. It’s risky; Baekshi could appear any moment and an escape would be futile – there’s only one person who isn’t at the supper, after all – but for Baekhyun, apparently, he’ll do anything. He watches and waits from a distance for the time when Baekhyun returns home, just to see the smile on his face. A glorious sight of squinted eyes and perky cheeks. It gives him enough energy to make it through his patrol in record time, and when he comes to rest his head down on his pillow later that night, even though he is still alone, he somehow sleeps easy.

For the next few days, Chanyeol runs slower on his patrols in the hopes that he might run into Baekhyun again. He treasures their secret meetings, attracted to the giddy high brought on by the sense of danger and recklessness, even more attracted to Baekhyun himself. Seeing him from across the village used to be a painful experience. It was a reminder that they could never be, in all meanings of the word and any that follow. Now, Chanyeol only feels content. Even their bond has grown stronger over the past week or so. Where once it felt like a thread of yarn, fine fibres fighting to hold together while being pulled in two opposing directions, it now feels stronger and more muscular. The seedling has grown into a tree, and now it stretches longingly towards the sun.

Chanyeol watches the dawn every day in full, from when the sky is red and grey to when it’s blue and yellow. He lingers on his cliff for as long as he can spare, ears perked and listening out eagerly for the sound of footsteps or the breathing of another soul – the panting of a wolf. None appear. Not once and not at any time of day. Even though Chanyeol spends hours in the forest, waiting and waiting and waiting for Baekhyun to emerge from between the trees, he never does.

He doesn’t doubt that Baekhyun has a good, justifiable reason for his absence. He is just disappointed that he won’t get to see him up close for another day, talk to him in their mutual familiar tone, be the one to kiss him first. Patience had better reward him.

When they’re with the pack, they have to act so indifferent, and seeing Baekhyun and Sehun continuing to court each other is a stab to his heart every time. It is something that he will never recover from seeing no matter how many instances there are. Seeing them together is horrendously wrong.

He returns home in the late morning, changing in his hut before picking a few berries off the bushes by the river for an early lunch. His mind is void of all thought as he chews on them, staring at the current without really seeing what lies before him. The silence closes in, as it so often does, and he finds himself mulling over what his hut would be like if it had Baekhyun’s laughter inside it. It would probably be a lot cleaner, in all honesty. Chanyeol only does the bare minimum when and where he can.

He imagines the music, the songs, another voice. As the only person living in his hut, there is never any reason to speak. The structure hollow, like an e