Chapter 34

Asher looked at him like this and thought Sebastian actually seemed quite sober, not at all like he was drunk.

But if he wasn't drunk, why did this jerk just hug him?

Before he could give it much thought, the ground suddenly trembled, and with a wild clatter, five massive idiots rushed over.

"Boss Seb! Don't think hiding out here means you can skip drinking. Get back in there, get back!"

"Exactly! What are you two doing sneaking around by the restroom door!"

"Huh? Boss Seb, what's that thing on your wrist?"

Sebastian didn't say anything. He simply raised his left hand, and with his right, slowly and deliberately rolled up his shirt sleeve. He openly revealed a stretch of his long, lean forearm and that black bracelet adorned with the glistening green prehnite.

Contrasted against his sharply contoured, porcelain-white wrist, it looked exceptionally good.

The rest of the pack couldn't help but click their tongues twice. "That little thing looks quite exquisite."

Sebastian put on a perfectly calm face. "Your Ash gave it to me."

Although his expression was completely flat and his tone was entirely casual, the others somehow managed to pick up a strange hint of pride, showing off, and bragging.

...

What was with this sudden, strange, lemon-flavored sense of discomfort?

"Can I interject?" Only Eugene hid at the very back of the crowd, his eyes shining brightly as his fingers gestured between the two of them. "Are those... a couple's matching set...?"

Only then did the others notice that on Asher's right wrist, an identical string of beads was resting securely.

Hiss—

Accompanied by everyone drawing in a sharp breath of cold air, Asher finally realized that two grown men wearing identical bracelets did seem a bit strange.

Inappropriate.

Just as he was about to take it off, Sebastian spoke up again with absolute nonchalance, "A fortune teller said my luck was terrible. Your Ash is helping me turn it around."

It counted as a perfectly legitimate explanation, but in reality, it didn't deny a single thing. However, the phrase "turning luck around" made it completely impossible for Asher to take the bracelet off now.

What if he took it off and the magic stopped working?

He could only pretend to be casual, giving it a couple of twists around his wrist. Mimicking Sebastian's deadpan face, he spoke up with total confidence, "What are you thinking? This is a brothers' matching set my mom wove. Even Sebastian already has someone he likes, so Eugene, can you give it a rest? If you used the brain you use for matchmaking to balance chemical equations instead, would you still score a thirty-eight on the weekly exam?"

Eugene looked thoroughly aggrieved.

Elliot couldn't stand watching this pair of Alphas bully the guy, so he directly dropped an arm over each of their shoulders, pushing them forward. "Alright, alright, who cares if you're couples or brothers. Just get back to the private room first. We're fighting to the bitter end—a whole table of alcohol is waiting for you over there."

However, when the door to the private room was pushed open, there wasn't a whole table of alcohol, but a whole table of gifts instead.

Caleb pulled out a shoebox. "Boss Seb, this is from Mason and me together. The two of us are vulgar people and didn't know what to give, so we could only manage a pair of white AJ1 OWs. They're exceptionally, exceptionally hard to get; Mason's older brother had to get them from the US. Anyway, we just hope your life moves up step by step from now on! Go secure the top score across the whole province in the college entrance exam!"

Mason's survival instinct kicked in instantly. "Tied for first with Ash!"

Milo's gift was the most simple and direct—a massive, six-foot lavender teddy bear. "The absolute best choice for keeping you company and sleeping! Cute, quiet, and reliable! Ensuring your every night is never lonely again!"

Sebastian's temple throbbed for a second. Asher laughed, "Just accept it. He gives one to everyone on their birthday; he just likes gifting bears."

Milo hugged the bear, mumbling, "When you're alone at night and too afraid to sleep, you'll know how great a teddy bear is."

Compared to the previous gifts—one costing five figures and the other standing six feet tall—Eugene felt the little thing in his hands was a bit embarrassing to bring out. After hesitating for a long time, he finally pulled out a small silk pouch.

Opening the pouch, inside was a small, wood-carved peach blossom.

Eugene held the wooden blossom vertically, gripping the edges with both hands, and applied a bit of force. When he pried it open, the inside turned out to be hollowed out, just enough to hold a small slip of paper.

"There's a Peach Blossom Mountain back in my hometown. My grandfather told me that if you use peach wood from that mountain to carve a peach blossom amulet, and put your name and your lover's name inside, you'll be blessed by the Peach Blossom Goddess to stay together for a lifetime. Although I don't know who you like, Boss Seb, I think an excellent person like you must like an excellent person too. I don't have much money, so I carved this amulet myself and had my grandfather bless it. They wish you academic success, so I'll wish you a beautiful romance. That way, you won't lack anything in your life."

Finishing his speech, he rubbed his hands together awkwardly. Faintly, a few tiny cuts could be seen on his fingertips, likely hooked by wood splinters.

Sebastian knew that to catch up with the curriculum, Eugene studied exceptionally hard. Finding the time to make this thing must have cost him several sleepless nights. Receiving it with both hands, a genuine smile touched his lips. "I really like this gift."

This smile drove Eugene into an absolute frenzy of excitement. "Ahhhhh! Boss Seb smiled at me! I'm so excited! I'm going to the school forum to brag! Also, Boss Seb, since you like it, can I request to continue shipping your couple pairing without getting scolded?"

Sebastian thought that if an opportunity arose, he could introduce Eugene to Lin Yuanyuan; the two of them would probably have a wild debate.

Letting out a soft chuckle, "You'll have to ask the other person involved about that."

Asher turned cold. "No."

Eugene wilted instantly, thoroughly disappointed.

Sebastian lowered his eyes, fiddling with the gift as he asked with total nonchalance, "Eugene's tiny little hobby was completely crushed by you just like that. Are you really that bothered?"

"Duh, of course I'm bothered. Being forcefully bent into a couple with your own brother—how awkward is that? Don't tell me you don't mind?"

Sebastian wanted to say, I genuinely don't mind at all. And I didn't think you would be this bothered.

The prehnite stone on his wrist had already been warmed by his fingertips.

So it really was a brothers' matching set. He had originally thought...

Forget it.

Elliot looked at their expressions, reflecting on how their relationship had suddenly turned excellent after they shared a room during the military camp, how Asher had inexplicably insisted on a hug earlier, and then thinking about Sebastian's nearly spoiling care and indulgence toward Asher on regular days, along with those two rounds of dice he had inexplicably lost. His previous guesses were completely set in stone now.

Leaning close to Sebastian's ear, he delivered a few whispered words, then patted Sebastian's shoulder with a smile. "Is the gift I prepared passable?"

The corners of Sebastian's lips curved upward. "Passable."

The others were completely in the dark.

Asher felt a fraction displeased.

He felt Sebastian and Elliot were keeping secrets from him.

But feeling unhappy because your good friend was getting along well with another good friend felt far too much like a little girl's mentality.

So Asher suppressed that sliver of displeasure.

Marching lazily to the side of the sofa, he dropped his weight onto it. "I'm poor and lazy; I didn't prepare a gift for you."

Sebastian gave his bracelet a slight turn.

Fine, if Asher said he hadn't given anything, then he hadn't.

Caleb, however, seized the opportunity to forcefully push for alcohol. "If you didn't prepare a gift, you strictly must penalize yourself with three cups! Boss Seb, you're barred from substituting this time, because every single one of us still has to toast you a cup. This is the rule!"

"Exactly! Refusing to drink means you don't treat us as friends!"

"A man! Getting thoroughly drunk is what makes a man! Brothers! Getting thoroughly drunk together is what makes brothers!"

Although there was no telling if this pack had watched too many gangster movies and were having a teenage crisis at their age, they ultimately couldn't withstand the commotion. Laughing, shouting, and stumbling together, half the alcohol was consumed and half was spilled. Several massive crates of beer actually turned completely vacant.

By the time they stood by the curb waiting for a taxi, the aftermath of the indulgence exposed itself completely. One after another, they looked stripped of energy, their senses dazed as they swayed, looking exactly like mentally deficient children stepped out for a midnight airing.

Only Asher and Sebastian were still standing perfectly straight.

One was because he had been shielded and hadn't consumed much, while the other had genuinely consumed a massive amount. His simulated drunkenness had transformed into an authentic, half-drunk state, yet more than a decade of family upbringing refused to let him lose his composure.

Merely his eyes were ultimately a fraction hazy, and paired with the six-foot lavender teddy bear clutched in his arms, he looked thoroughly dazed and innocent, his face stripped of its usual freezing coldness.

Asher couldn't resist teasing him, "You're actually quite cute when you're drunk."

Sebastian tilted his head. "I'm not drunk."

"Everyone who is drunk claims they aren't."

"I am genuinely not drunk."

"Alright, alright, you aren't drunk. The car is here, get in quickly." Asher snared Sebastian’s arm, guiding him across the roadway axis.

The exact second they hit the vehicle's perimeter, a roaring shout drifted over from behind his back: "Sebastian!"

The two froze their paces by the car, turning their heads around to evaluate the scene.

Across the roadway axis, the five individuals who had been completely stumbling just a moment ago had unexpectedly lined themselves up neatly, perfectly straight from tallest to shortest, looking exactly like cell phone signal bars.

Capping their hands around their mouths, they bellowed at the absolute top of their lungs: "Sebastian! Happy eighteenth birthday!"

Every single one expended their absolute maximum effort, their voices ringing loud and clear, perfectly unified, to the extent that several autumn leaves were shaken straight down from the curbside trees.

An elderly resident from the adjacent building pushed open his window with total displeasure. "Is that kid named Se-whatever-bastian turning eighteen that big of a deal?! Does turning eighteen grant absolute permission to bar an eighty-year-old from a proper sleep? Oh, you young people, honestly, so thoughtless."

The five culprits twisted together, laughing into an absolute ball.

Sebastian, who had inexplicably assumed the absolute blame for the commotion, also let out a smile. "A pack of absolute idiots."

Asher cast an astonished glance toward his frame. "Sebastian, I evaluate this counts as the absolute first instance I’ve heard you unleash a profanity of that tier."

Sebastian slanted a narrow look over at him. "I'm drunk. I have absolute permission to unleash a profanity."

Asher lost his composure and laughed. Fine, this man was genuinely drunk—drunk to the extent that he had completely descended from his heavens.

Pretty upstanding.

Real life wasn't a television drama, and a cold deity who refrained from sampling common hardships wouldn't secure the affection of thousands of spectators across the board anyway. So it was far superior to drop into this mortal dust together, vibrant, boisterous, and thoroughly unbridled, charting a true journey for oneself.

Stuffing Sebastian along with the bear straight inside the vehicle, Asher lifted his head to bellow a roaring shout toward that window: "Old gentleman! Apologies! But I strictly still want to disclose—turning eighteen is exactly a colossal big deal! My Sebastian’s eighteenth milestone is especially a big deal!"

Finishing his shout, he scrambled inside the vehicle at lightning speed.

As a consequence of stepping inside, he was instantly snared by his wrist and pinned flat against the corner of the rear seat by Sebastian. The massive bear blocked his alternative exit path, leaving his frame stripped of a single retreat line, forced to endure a car-pinning layout.

The driver glanced through the rearview mirror, silently accelerating the car while smoothly raising the partition screen.

Young people nowadays.

After alcohol, huh.

Tsk tsk, fantastic.

Serving as a professional chauffeur, this amounted to absolute professional ethics.

Meanwhile, Asher simply calculated that his playful front just now had crossed the line, and he was about to sustain a physical beating. Raising his eyebrow, he tensed his small chest, putting on his school boss aura. "What the hell are you calculating to execute? Let me disclose the reality first—your level of combat cannot outmatch my baseline, alright."

Yet his eyelashes trembled twice with total guilt.

Those two tremors behaved exactly like a pair of tiny brushes, scratching right against Sebastian’s heart.

An individual who was drunk could be understood with extreme ease.

Sebastian maintained his grip without releasing a single fraction of force, his narrow eyes squinting along an uncompliant tone: "Why don't you detail exactly how my eighteenth milestone is especially a big deal?"

"You have absolute, open permission to step inside an internet cafe, stripped of any necessity to activate a stealth machine."

"...Pathetic ambitions."

"Then detail what alternative matter makes turning eighteen a colossal big deal?"

"For instance, possessing absolute permission to fall in love or something."

The visual imagery he had previously mapped out—Sebastian gently holding a sweet little Omega—abruptly surfaced right right before Asher's eyes, making his system a fraction uncomfortable.

Knitting his brows: "What love? What's there to fall in love for during the final senior year? Do you possess the awareness that this maps strictly to a premature romance? Refraining from an upstanding focus on studies, spending entire days fumbling with groundless thoughts."

The tone could hardly be described as upstanding—packed with intense impatience, paired along a trace of resistance that was entirely impossible to define cleanly.

Sebastian’s eyes darkened a fraction.

Yet he remained unresigned after all: "Turning eighteen translates to absolute adulthood, how on earth does it count as a premature romance? On Elliot's eighteenth birthday milestone, even Milo's first kiss was completely bundled and cleared away. What exactly is wrong with my frame wanting to fall in love?"

"Holy sh—?!" Asher's pupils expanded sharply, thoroughly shocked by Elliot's entire family lineage. "The whispered words Elliot delivered to your frame today couldn't possibly be exactly this, right? Damn his grandfather! Even a rabbit refrains from consuming the grass right beside its own burrow; he unexpectedly backed my system to devour his own best brother of so many years?! What exact breed of an archaic beast is he?!"

"To speak with absolute precision, one Alpha, one Omega—they far from amounted to a pure brotherly pair anyway."

"That still fails to pass the baseline. He remains an archaic beast whose exact breed is entirely undefined."

"...Enough, close your mouth."

Whatever breed of an archaic beast Elliot aligned as, I align exactly as the most pure, top-tier strain of that exact breed.

Sebastian launched a silent self-deprecation within his core.

He was far from terrified of Asher launching an absolute text blow framing his frame as a beast; his solitary terror was that if a milestone surfaced where Asher turned out entirely unable to accept the reality, he would be too lazy to even deliver an absolute insult against his frame.

At the absolute least looking upon the current baseline, inside Asher’s heart, friends transforming into lovers, while casually launching a premature romance along the path, seemed far from being a romantic occurrence.

But if this person genuinely was completely stripped of a single internal thought, why the hell did he execute a cycle of hooks to goad his system? Across this wide universe, how many individuals possessed the capacity to withstand this level of goading from his frame?

As fate would have it, once the hook completed, he harbored zero desire to assume absolute responsibility—spending entire days flaunting his posture right beside his burrow, yet barring his system from consuming his frame.

Genuinely infuriating.

Yet even a rabbit would deliver a violent bite when driven into an absolute corner.

Weaponizing his drunk state, the sallow friction that had been suppressed deep within his heart for an exceptionally long span of time couldn't resist surging violently alongside the alcohol, seeping straight into his blood lines and neural pathways. Sebastian indulged his system to press another fraction forward, one hand bracing beside Asher's frame to grip the edge of the seat cushion, while his alternative hand pinned Asher's shoulder.

Asher essentially displayed a posture that lay entirely at the mercy of another individual, yet he preserved zero trace of defensive awareness, continuing to lie there with total laziness. Driven by the physical tugging, the collar of his T-shirt slanted sideways, exposing a massive expanse of pale neck skin and his recessed collarbone.

Still blinking his eyes with absolute innocence: "What are you executing? Genuinely calculating to strike my frame? More than a decade of brotherly bond, purely because my system shouted your name outside the perimeter, you unleash a blow? Do you strictly still count as a brother... ho—..."

That profanity was launched with an elevated volume, yet dropped down flatly with total softness.

Because the individual hosting the voice had completely vanished.

Asher was merely running a playful front across his mouth, because he possessed absolute clarity that Sebastian completely wouldn't strike his frame. Yet he hadn't anticipated that Sebastian refrained from striking his frame, but delivered an absolute bite instead.

As fate would have it, the bite refrained from inflicting a sharp pain.

Right right at the neck location, a feather-light touch of that nature, his tongue tip brushing past with or without a shred of intent, sending an absolute touch resembling an electrical current tracing across his entire frame.

The fragrance of a pine forest blanketed under fresh snow drifted over along a shallow trace, yet left a human being stripped of a single location to secure an absolute hiding spot. A highly calculating Alpha easily weaponized his own aura to completely bewitch a pure Omega. The little wild rose, completely blanketed under absolute ignorance, popped its head out across the snowy earth with total daze. A cold, intense sweet fragrance intertwined within the narrow space, generating a marvelous chemical equation.

Subsequently, his physical strength evaporated—it was a pure evaporation of physical strength, to the point where even launching an absolute profanity was stripped of any force.

At that exact fraction of a second, a ridiculous thought unexpectedly surfaced inside Asher's mind: why on earth didn't that exact bite land another fraction off-center? Another fraction off-center would hit the exact location of his scent gland.

The exact fraction of a second his mind registered how thoroughly ridiculous this internal thought was, and he calculated to unleash a violent physical beating to settle this suddenly crazed Sebastian, Sebastian actively halted his mouth, releasing his physical force.

His head dropped with total softness to rest against his shoulder axis, rubbing twice as he mumbled: "My head aches intensely."

The tone perfectly mimicked the exact track for throwing a spoiled tantrum.

Asher: "..."

Forget the matter. The individual had already consumed alcohol to this absolute threshold, how on earth could he still discern north, south, east, and west cleanly? In any case, the bite refrained from inflicting pain, so his own system would cease launching an interrogation block.

Just as he wanted to push Sebastian's frame away, he caught him delivering a line that was completely stripped of a head or tail: "My grandfather returned last night."

"?"

"He is staying home today."

"?"

"His sleep track sits at an exceptionally sallow baseline; the exact fraction of a second a disturbance surfaces, he awakens."

"?"

"Furthermore, he bars my system from consuming alcohol."

"..."

"Therefore, Asher, I completely lack the capacity to return home; my system is stripped of a location to sleep."

"..."

If a human being has never once encountered a deity from a freezing peak throwing a spoiled tantrum, then that individual possesses zero qualifications to criticize my own baseline and principles for hitting an absolute collapse.

Asher calculated for a brief fraction of a second: his own bed turned out to be rather massive after all.