As the youngest in the family, V didn't have a lot of memories with his maternal grandmother. She passed away when he was 8, leaving him with the realization that he will no longer eat at her countryside house during the holidays. Stern as she was, she always laid the table with V's favorite dishes, his meals a feast that would make a king jealous.
There is nothing more detrimental to a growing boy than an empty stomach, his Grandma declared with no room for arguments, scooping one more bowl of rice that he didn't ask for.
She was not the most affectionate in their family, more akin to a drill instructor if V dared to say so, but every time he left after being in her care, he was always a little heavier, a tad chubbier.
Him being pudgy over the summer was also due to her kind friends at the mahjong parlor. Whenever his grandma would bring him along, there was always a mountain of snacks on his seat like an offering to a shrine. So he sat there like a good boy, munching on wafer and choco sticks, responding to the occasional coo and pinching fingers that came from the table of tossed tiles.
He figured he was the most well-behaved out of the siblings, thus he was the only one whom his Grandma brought during her game nights.
But as an adult reminiscing his youth now, he wondered if it was because his Grandma discovered he was lucky, possibly the human embodiment of a four-leaf clover.
He didn't feel lucky, thank you for asking. There was no grand prize, or a lucky draw, or a 20-note bill lying on the sidewalk. Everything was too mundane, it was suspicious. Nothing bad ever happened to him but there was nothing to brag about either.
Hence, he felt no less than stupefied when he was told that he was stealing other people's fortune. The math doesn't add up. He knew there was some sort of miscalculation somewhere. He just knew. Unfortunately, he didn't pay enough attention in class to know how to do the computation himself.
Him, a magnet that attracted other people’s fortunes? It was an accusation that stuck to his skin like sweat on a humid day - uncomfortable and irritating. He wanted to scrub his skin until a layer peeled off, emerging as the man he knew he was instead of someone an Alpha with dark eyes labeled him as.
V fell into a contemplative state but it only made his head hurt so he stopped.
With nothing else to do, he figured he might as well see if it was true or not.
--
For two weeks, Caoli watched as her best friend's behavior shifted from distracted to erratic.
First, it was the multiple purchases of lottery scratch-off tickets, which V never touched before.
It escalated into him stepping into a casino for the first time. Thankfully, he left after losing $500, or else she would’ve called one of his brothers to pick him up. V tends to attract attention, most of it unwanted, though from all the years Caoli has known him, she couldn’t tell if he was aware of it or not. And he retaliated, not stopping until there was a visible injury on him or the other party.
She didn’t even catch a moment to be grateful that V’s unexpected gambling streak had stopped before the Omega started loitering around crowded places. He went to business districts during rush hour, a computer shop full of rowdy students, the shopping mall during a sale, and the church (of all places, goodness) along with the Sunday congregation.
She tried to wrestle the truth of him - of what he was doing, she really did, because it didn’t seem like the Omega was aimless in his pursuits. Her best friend only told her that he had to find the right place at the right time.
Caoli couldn’t understand. It wasn’t the first time he did something out of the norm, she had enough second-hand embarrassment from all the shtick he pulled over the years, but it was the first time she was getting genuinely worried. Especially so when V actually bought tickets to a soccer game and begged her to come with him.
She knew the Omega developed an aversion to sports games after he legally turned into an adult, claiming that if he so much sees a referee one more time, he will vomit his insides for all the world to see.
What was going on?
Was he sick?
Was someone threatening him?
With no choice, she left the shop alone to her employees, dragging Mick along in case something happened and she needed back-up. She couldn’t clean up his mess if she was busy making sure he killed no one, after all.
The stadium was full, a sea of red and white versus blue and green. Caoli did not bother to know which team was which, she came here for one purpose and one purpose only.
Trying to get past the crowd of jerseys and enthusiastic cheers, she quickly realized that the dense mix of agitated and excited pheromones was not the best place for a hot-headed Omega to be in. With brisk steps and a pounding heart, she found the culprit for today’s inconvenience.
She paused.
And stared.
V was wearing a baggy, white t-shirt with a bold F*CK OFF in front, and ripped blue, denim jeans with the hem rolled to his ankles. A black cap covered most of his silver hair and the black sneakers only accentuated his casual look. He’s still standing out even with this simple outfit, she thought, noticing a few eyes that landed on him way too long to be called cursory glances.
Once again, she was reminded how beautiful the Omega truly was.
“You’re here!” The Omega exclaimed upon seeing them, arms wildly waving in the air. He pulled Caoli in a tight hug before nodding at her fiance and then looking away. None of them were bothered by his rude action since it was an improvement compared to before when he acted like Mick didn’t exist at all.
They took their seats with V deliberately in the middle of them. If he noticed, he didn’t comment on it. A bottle of water was passed to him by Mick, the only one with some semblance of interest in the game.
Flashing a toothy grin, the puppy-like Beta asked, “So who are we cheering for?”
“Me,” V said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Mick looked visibly confused but was smart enough not to ask further, focusing instead on the ongoing match. Caoli scrutinized her best friend’s face, thinking: I hope this is not some bad news I have to break to Aunty.
She still remembered the last time she had to tell V’s mom that he was sent to the hospital after falling unconscious. There was nothing major, the Omega just had low blood pressure, but the phone call lasted longer than it took for her to call 911, accompany him on the ambulance, and then watch as he woke up on the way. The broken record of ‘he’s okay, nothing’s wrong’ was enough to make her feel like she should be the one lying down. If V’s family home wasn’t far enough that getting discharged was faster than having them rush over, Caoli was sure the small space would’ve been cramped with four overprotective older brothers, a fussing mother, and a pretending (but clearly failing) to be nonchalant father.
Yeah, she hardened her resolve, don’t want that so I better nip whatever this is in the bud.
She had no way to check, but one of her strongest hypotheses was that V wouldn’t tell him the truth because he can’t. It’s not like they kept secrets from each other, they were way past that.
The crowd erupted as a player from the red and white team scored a goal yet Caoli was too immersed in her thoughts to mind the noise. An image briefly passed through her head: an Alpha with a bruised eye and NDA papers.
She traced it backward, trying to see if the timeline matched up. After talking with the man whom he beat up, V became absentminded, not once lashing at any customer that stared too long or ranting when his fourth brother showed up unannounced in his apartment again. She pegged it as him mellowing down his temper with age, maybe even due to a little homesickness.
But afterward, he became hyperactive. A kid going through various new toys yet never satisfied with any. Fortunately, he didn’t snap at anyone (none that she knew of, at least) and mostly kept to himself. Still, it was too different from his usual flavor of weird; he burned his money like a Colombian drug lord trying to keep his daughter warm while hiding from authorities at a mountain hideout1Pablo Escobar.
None of the clues pointed to anything else so Caoli decided to make a phone call to a certain Alpha once she retrieved his business card from the cafe. She was going to gently ask, she promised to no one, and not accuse him of breaking her favorite person.
She was in the middle of deliberating whether she was going to mildly, just a teeny bit, threaten him to fix whatever he broke when she looked down at the lower benches.
The universe must be helping her because there he was.
He was wearing a black trenchcoat in the middle of a sunny day but his face was uncovered.
Caoli was sure it was him; it was the only face she saw in this life that could match up to her best friend’s.
And he was staring right back at them.
