22. Adam

22

Adam

W hile business news continued to broadcast on the television, Adam turned his attention to Shiro. The boy was in his arms and had his head resting against his chest, which Adam found so adorable. He leaned in and kissed the boy on the forehead, loving how innocent and beautiful Shiro looked in his sleep. He was just returning his attention to the television when Shiro’s soft voice came.

“Daemon… Omega… Alpha… Hikari…”

Adam frowned. Omega? Alpha? How did Shiro knew of these words? Sure, he might have heard of alpha from the streets, as it was quite the urban legend, but omega? Even he himself had only come to associate with the word last night when Nolan had mentioned it. So how did Shiro know of it? And what of daemon and hikari? Of which he had never heard of.

The sound of footsteps caught Adam’s attention and he turned to see Lan coming in through the door. The wolf boy was scratching his toned belly under his disheveled shirt as he greeted, “Morning, Master Adam,” along with a yawn.

Adam chuckled. “Morning, Lan. Did you sleep well?”

Lan came to slump on the other sofa diagonally across from the one Adam sat on. He said, “Not one bit. Master Nolan wouldn’t let me leave. He clung to me all night and I couldn’t even breathe properly. He’s terrible when he’s drunk.”

Adam wanted to burst out laughing but held himself in check because Shiro was asleep in his arms. He said, “That’s unfortunate.”

Lan made himself comfortable on the sofa and said, “So, I’m going to sleep a bit here.”

“Go ahead,” Adam said.

It was seven when Adam finally had enough watching the business news and changed the channel to the general news instead. Then he moved Shiro and gently laid the boy across the sofa. After covering both Shiro and Lan with a cozy blanket each, he went into the kitchen and started preparing breakfast. It’d be pancakes with bacon and berries today.

He was in the middle of making the pancakes when Aka turned up, and the moment the boy saw him, he was ready to retreat. Adam wasn’t about to lose the chance to get to know Aka and said, “Mind helping me out?”

Aka, nervous as hell, said, “Okay.” He slowly made his way into the kitchen and then asked, “What do you need help with?”

“Can you take care of the bacon?”

“Okay, sure,” the boy said.

Standing side by side in front of the stove a few moments later, Adam asked, “You’ve been with Shiro long?”

Aka, poking the bacon in the frying pan with a pair of tongs, nodded. “Yeah, since I was six. He found me. I don’t remember much now about back then, but strangely enough, I always remember that day so vividly. I remember it was dark and raining and I was sitting in a corner in an alley. People just walked past me like I wasn’t even there. A few noticed me, but then they’d just snicker, and I came to understand later that that was normal. Anyway, Shiro asked me if I was okay, but I never talked to him because before then, I had never spoken to strangers. I remembered being alone and afraid. I think I spent like three days just sitting there, waiting… Just… waiting. Shiro kept bringing me food, just rice balls, but it was nice. Any type of food tasted nice when you were starving. I think it was on the third day when he brought Mom Hana around.” He chuckled, more relaxed now around Adam, which the man noticed.

Adam realized Aka was a chatterbox once you got to know him. He only asked the boy one question, and everything came pouring out.

The boy continued. “Mom Hana was so beautiful, with pale hair and blue eyes. She’s a Japanese white fox, and apparently, her kind is very rare, so that means Shiro is super rare. Mom Hana took me home with her, and then she adopted me. Not officially, you know, there’s no paperwork or anything like that. She just told me she was going to take good care of me and would love me like her own.” He sniffed, tears brewing in his eyes. “So I started calling her Mama like Shiro did. We were a family, the kind I always wanted, the kind I never had.”

Adam reached across the countertop, retrieved a couple of tissues, and handed them to the boy. Aka took them gratefully and wiped his eyes, chuckling.

“I can’t believe I’m still tearing up talking about Mom Hana. Anyway, since I was part of the family, she gave me a name. Mind you, I didn’t even know back then you were supposed to have a name because I… never had one. Rather, I was never given one. Can you believe it, I lived for six years without a name? I just remembered being call the boy or referred to as the boy before that. Aka, it means red in Japanese.” He pointed to his hair. “Mom Hana said my hair is a beautiful color, fiery red, and the name Aka would suit me well. Shiro means white because Shiro has always had white hair since he was a baby, so Mom Hana said.”

“It suits you both,” Adam said, smiling. “Shiro and Aka.”

“And Kuro,” Aka said. “He has raven black hair, so Mom Hana gave him that name so we’ll become like real siblings with names of colors in Japanese.”

“When did Kuro join the family?” Adam asked, expertly flipping the pancake.

Aka widened his eyes and chuckled in excitement. “Oh, wow! That was cool.”

Adam chuckled. “Thanks.”

“I want to learn how to do that,” he said. “Flipping pancakes. I want to see Chase looking at me in awe and with his mouth hung open.” He snickered. “That’d be a good look. ”

Adam agreed. That’d be a good look indeed.

“Anyway,” the boy continued, “Shiro and I found Kuro in the woods. We were always on the move, you know, to keep safe and stuff. So Shiro and I found Kuro beaten up in the woods during one of our migrations and we took him in. He was so small and scrawny, but then he grew faster than me and Shiro when he was well again, and it annoyed us. He told us since he’s the oldest, by a mere few months, mind you, he has to be the tallest.”

He turned to Adam and gazed up at the man who towered over him. “But he’s not that tall like you or Chase or Nolan. You guys are like giants or something, as expected of alphas. Kuro is just an inch or two above us, but he always boasts he’s the tallest and will take care of everyone.” He slumped his shoulders.

“It really got to him when Mom Hana died and he blamed himself, you know, that he couldn’t protect her and stuff. We were all ten years old, for fuck’s sake, so how could we even protect anyone, let alone ourselves?” He sighed again. “He’s always like that, stupid Kuro, thinking everything is always his fault. Everything he does is always for other people. He never thinks about himself and that’s his flaw.”

Adam could feel the overwhelming emotions from the boy and ruffled Aka’s unruly red hair. “You boys have gone through a lot.”

Aka nodded. “Yeah, life’s one tough bitch.” He smiled. “But I’m so glad Shiro and I are back together again. Now, we’ll just have to find Kuro and our small family is complete.” He chuckled. “You know, Shiro always goes on about how he wants us to live together peacefully out in the mountains in a nice cottage. He’s a dreamer, and whenever it got tough, he’d start talking about what our dream home would look like, and I couldn’t help but imagine it in my mind’s eye, too—the nice cottage, the vegetable garden, our pet dogs and cats, and the woods surrounding our place with a river running across the backyard. Nearby, there’d be a lake where we’d go fishing and swimming and just… live our life.”

“That sounds like a nice place to live,” Adam said. It sounded like Harwood Lodge, he thought, his childhood home.

“You said Kuro is the oldest?” he asked. “Then who’s the youngest?”

Aka pointed to himself. “I am. I was very young when I was abandoned, but I remember I’d get a present every December the eighth. Shiro’s birthdate is September eleventh and Kuro’s is June fifteenth. Oh, and Lan’s is October sixth and we’re all eighteen years old.”

“September eleventh, huh?” Adam said softly to himself.

Half an hour later, Adam and Aka set up the table, and by then Lan had popped his head up, his nose wiggling in the air as he sniffed about. “Pancakes! Bacon!” He chuckled as he got off the sofa and rushed over to the table.

Shiro, too, finally woke up, looking around the place as if he was lost while sleepily rubbing one eye.

“Breakfast, Shiro,” Aka said.

“Oh, okay,” Shiro said and then got up and headed over to the table. He pulled back a chair and then sat down, yawning.

After pouring them orange juice, Adam patted Shiro’s head and asked, “Did you have a good nap?”

“Yeah,” the boy replied.

Sitting down beside Shiro, Adam asked, “What have you boys got planned for today?”

Lan was about to answer when a growl came. “Fuck!”

Everyone turned to see Nolan at the door, leaning heavily against the frame. He looked disheveled and pale and very sickly.

Chuckling, Adam said, “Want some coffee? It might help with the hangover.”

“My head is pounding like fuck and I feel like puking,” Nolan groaned, looking like he was about to collapse to the floor.

“Don’t you dare puke in the living room,” Adam said.

Lan rolled his eyes. He said, “You’re a nuisance when you’re drunk, Master Nolan.” He got up from his seat and walked over to the man. He took Nolan by the hand. “Let’s go to the bathroom. Then I’ll make you some tea or something.”

Nolan wrapped his arms around the boy and leaned heavily on him for support. He said, “Lan, you’re a godsend.”

“Yes, I am,” Lan said. “So be thankful.”