Something Fishy

            Sooman paced the room, periodically glancing over at me.  No one could prove that Ryeowook and I had been at the river together.  Ryeowook was covered in water when he was found by his older brother and claimed that he’d fallen into the river when trying to cross it.  There was no scent of any alphas in the area aside from the ones that had gone looking for him, so he wasn’t accused of meeting up with anyone.  But everyone knew that I had skipped the meeting and although I reappeared late in the afternoon from a walk, looking dry and carrying flowers for my cousin, Heechul, something smelled fishy.

            “I mean, you actually smell like fish!” Heechul complained, holding his nose with one hand.

            Uncle Sooman and Yesung waved their hands in front of their faces.  “You have to bathe before dinner tonight or everyone will figure out that you and Ryeowook were together earlier,” my uncle lectured, giving me a stern look.

            Yesung held his hand up to high-five me.  “Good job, Kyuhyunnie.”  I slapped his hand.

            “Quit encouraging your cousin!  This is terrible.  If they suspect Kyuhyun’s trying to woo Ryeowook, they might call off the engagement between Siwon and Heechul.  Do you want that, Kyu?”

            Heechul smacked me hard in the arm with the flowers, twice, and petals rained onto the floor. 

            “No,” I swore.  I had no intention of ruining my cousin’s happiness.  I truly loved him like a brother.

            “Then if you don’t want to end up locked in your room the remainder of the stay, behave yourself.  No one says you can’t see or speak to Ryeowook.  Just do it the proper way.”

            I nodded.  Then I headed upstairs to clean up, scrubbing extra hard to eliminate the river smell from my skin and using lots of cologne, since wolves had such excellent senses of smell.  Heechul sniffed me from head to toe when I was finished and declared me a success.  “But you could dress better,” he complained, eyeing my boring white dress shirt and black slacks.

            “Leave him alone,” Sooman said, ushering us out the door.  “No one cares how Kyuhyun looks.”

            Unfortunately, my uncle was right.  Again, since I wasn’t his biological son, no one really cared about me.  But I cared how I looked, especially since I knew Ryeowook would be there, and Yesung had to assure me all the way to the den that I didn’t look like a hobo and Heechul was just being a fashion diva, like usual.  When we reached the banquet hall, I scanned the crowded room for Ryeowook.  I located where most of his beta and omega siblings were seated, but he wasn’t among them, and I began to worry that he’d gotten in trouble for running off earlier and wasn’t allowed to come.

            “You look too obvious,” Yesung whispered, teasingly nudging my side.

            I took a deep breath and tried to appear calm.  “Do you see Ryeowook anywhere, hyung?”

            Yesung nodded and pointed towards the stage.  “He’s playing the piano,” he informed me.

            I wrapped my arm around my cousin, halfheartedly hugging him.  “You’re my favorite, you know.”

            Yesung laughed.  “You’re such a liar.”

            I rushed off and I could hear my uncle calling out after me, “Behave yourself, Kyu!”

            I zigzagged through the crowd until I reached the side of the stage and then ran up the stairs.  Ryeowook’s back was too me and I walked over to the piano quietly, not wishing to startle him and make him mess up.  I’d forgotten that he played.  I remember hearing him play years ago as well and he was decent enough then.  But after years of perfecting his talent, he played even the most complicated pieces with ease and even I could forego speaking with him to listen to his music instead.  I knew of few musicians of his rank.  In our own pack, we had Henry, and he played the violin extremely well, but no one else in our pack played music like he did. 

            That didn’t mean my pack did not appreciate music though.  Some of us were exceptionally good singers.  Yesung and I had the best voices and often fought over who got to sing at assemblies.  We both liked to show off and, as alphas, were a little competitive about it.  I stood beside the piano and listened, content enough just to be near him. 

            “Sit down and you can turn the pages, since you know how to read music.”

            “Aren’t you afraid of touching me and getting my alpha smell on you,” I asked.

            “I’m frightened of accidentally touching you and getting that horrible cologne on me,” Ryeowook said, scrunching his nose.  “You know how I told you that you smelled yesterday, but I didn’t mean it?”

            I sat down on the edge of the bench and eyed him warily, although he was too focused on the sheet music to notice.  “Yes.”

            “You really do smell today and I do mean it.”

            I narrowed my eyes at him.  “Would you rather I smelled like the river?”

            Ryeowook sighed.  “No.”

            I reached over and turned the music as he ended the last measure of the page.  I was careful not to touch him, despite how blasé he sounded about it.  My scent would not linger on him if my shirt hit him but contact with my skin would leave a trace scent of my pheromones on him and that was not allowed by his pack.  Alpha smell on an omega indicated possession.  So, on occasion, his arm reached over to hit notes at the low end of the piano and his arm would brush up against my chest a little and that was fine because the thin material of the shirt still technically separated us and I was not intentionally touching him.  But I felt that he was bumping me on purpose, just to connect with me a little.  And I swore, during those brief moments, I felt a jolt of electricity run through me.  The lightest touch from him and my body sizzled.  The effect he had on me was already so strong.

            I glanced down at Ryeowook’s hands as he played.  His fingers and wrists were so small compared to mine and flew over the keys with ease.  He’d rolled up his sleeves to nearly his elbows to make playing easier—something that the pack must not criticize him for during certain activities, because I’ve also seen him wear them down to his wrists, under the blazing hot sun, in the middle of summer—and as I watched him play, I noticed that he had a couple bruises on his arms that hadn’t been there earlier in the day.  I would have noticed.  I’d stared at him long enough.

            When in between songs, as he was browsing through his music for the next one to play, I finally asked him about it.  “Did you fall on your way back to the den earlier or something,” I asked, pointing at his arm.

            Ryeowook looked down at his skin but then resumed looking through the sheet music, saying nothing.

            “What?” I asked, suddenly on alert.  Clearly there was something he didn’t want to tell me.  “What happened?”

            Ryeowook glanced over at me.  “Promise you won’t overreact,” he whispered.

            I’m really not good at promising stuff like that, but I’m great at lying.  “Sure.”

            “I got in trouble for leaving the den today and wandering off on my own.”

            I figured that he’d gotten in trouble, but I didn’t see how that was connected to his injuries.  At first.  But then I saw him glance over at his father and alpha brothers and my heart suddenly dropped as the truth hit me.  “You were beaten?” I asked too loudly.

            “Shh!” Ryeowook panicked.  “If you tell people about it, I’ll probably just get in even more trouble.”

            I leaned in closer.  “Who beat you?”

            “My father,” he softly answered.

            My fists clenched.  Across the room, Ryeowook’s father laughed heartily as he spoke with my uncle and several heads of his pack.  He was drinking heavily, as he usually did during the banquets, looking the part of the inviting, generous host.  I’d always considered him a sociable and thoughtful neighbor.  Now I knew that it was just a persona that he allowed us to view when we were around.  I took deep breaths, trying to will the anger to subside, since I knew my uncle needed to keep peace with Ryeowook’s pack and Heechul still wished to mate with Siwon, but it was hard to calm myself. 

            “I want to fight him,” I lowly growled.

            Ryeowook lightly grasped my arm, careful to only touch my shirt.  “You can’t.  You promised!”

            I took another deep breath, but I shook with rage.  How dare he beat an omega?  They’re completely defenseless against an alpha.  It was bad enough that he would hurt someone that he could hurt so badly, due to the difference in strength, but my anger went much deeper.  He’d touched Ryeowook, the omega that I loved, and that was unforgivable.

            I ran my hands through my hair.  “I hate him.  How can he even be related to you?  You two are nothing alike.”

            “There are many people in this pack that feel the same way that you do and even more outside of it, which might explain why our pack seems to have more enemies than yours does,” Ryeowook explained, settling on the next piece and beginning to play.

            “How often does he beat you?”

            “When he catches me doing something I shouldn’t or when I talk back.”