"Halt!"
Arthur stopped in his tracks, one foot suspended in the air, right in front of the porch of his childhood home. There, thrusting her hand forward like a bouncer stopping someone from entering their establishment, was a tall woman with her red hair tied in a high ponytail. He couldn't smell any scent, but the demeanor was unmistakable.
Ashley Wynne. His one and only cousin.
The source of his messed-up day.
Before he could protest, Ashley already spoken to interrogate him. "Scent blocker?"
"I put a new one."
"Shower?"
"Scrubbed myself clean."
The producer's dark eyes narrowed, sniffing the air. "Did you smoke afterward?"
Arthur closed his eyes, groaning inwardly. "No!" he answered inpatiently. But since he knew why he had to go through all this inspection, he held in it. "I even changed my clothes and all, okay? Came in the new car you sent me."
"Perfu--"
"Are you treating me like an idiot, right now?" Arthur massaged his throbbing head. "Between you and me, I'm the expert on erasing scent."
"Fine, gosh~" Ashley scoffed and finally let the starving man climb to the porch. "I'm just making sure, okay? Shirley would throw up even by a leftover scent of the delivery food man."
Arthur paused before stepping through the door. "You're not trying to make me cook after telling me to come on an empty stomach, are you?"
"Why would I do that?" Ashley said cheerfully. "I'll make you cook after filling your stomach."
This fucker...
Arthur swallowed his curse while following the older woman, scrunching his face behind her head. He understood how much his cousin loved her wife, or how she would rather miss a meeting than leave her pregnant, miserable wife behind.
But he couldn't understand why he had to act as a substitute in the meeting.
If she wanted to know what transpired there, she could just send her secretary or ask the other staff. Arthur was sure someone had already written a report and sent it to her email, anyway.
So, really, there was no need for Arthur to be there, wasn't there?
There was no need for him to meet an overbearing omega who immediately questioned his presence and glared at him as if he had wronged that person. Not that it was a new thing, but still...
On his first day of return? Give him a break!
"Mm, mm~" Ashley swayed her fingers in the air as they walked deeper into the house. "I can see your frown again. Must be because you're starving."
That's not--
Arthur wanted to argue and start pouring all of his displeasure through a string of hell poetry, but his sensitive nose already smelled the plethora of dishes that were both delicious and filled with nostalgia. The pooling saliva in his mouth prevented him from uttering a single word.
"Grandpa prepared all of this, so dig in!"
Ashley opened her arms wide, presenting the dining table. It was filled with Arthur's favorite dishes, almost bursting with food. The starving alpha invited himself to sit and grabbed a casserole dish, eating the herring pie straight from it.
"...welcome back, I guess?" Ashley said with a chuckle, taking a seat across from her cousin. "People would think you haven't eaten for six years."
Arthur shrugged. It had been six years since he ate this particular pie, after all. He arched his brow when Ashley started to take some food for herself.
"What? I'm here to eat too," the older alpha said. "Do you think Grandpa cooked this much just for you? Greedy little thing."
Arthur arched his other brow, still stuffing his mouth while pouring gravy over the pie with another hand.
"I can't eat in Shirley's room. She doesn't gag from the smell of food, but looking at it triggered a reaction." Ashley shook her head before sighing heavily. "Haa...what if my child becomes a picky eater?"
"Then you find a way to make various dishes from the food they can eat," Arthur shrugged.
Ashley gasped dramatically and clapped her hands. "Oh, my! Thank you for volunteering, Uncle!"
"No, wait--"
"Here, here--eat more," the sly woman shoved a plate of steak she had just sliced. "I'll give you a list of what Shirley can eat. All the ingredients are ready in the kitchen."
Arthur stared at his cousin with twisted lips. Her eyes, curled like a fox just a few seconds ago, widened innocently like a harmless lamb.
Once again, he fell for her trick.
Arthur, who believed one should not sigh in the face of a glorious meal, gritted his teeth against the tender meat. Oh, delicious. His annoyance dissipated slightly.
Deciding that it was easier to give up, Arthur tilted his head toward the second floor. "Where's the other?"
"Grandma's with Shirley right now--shift duty, you know? Sammy is sleeping already," Ashley looked up before shifting her gaze to the window and pointing with her thumb. They could see the light from the garden lamp and the annex. "Grandpa is organizing stuff in the annex."
"At night?"
"He's busy replacing me for Sammy's ice skating class during the day."
"Hmm..."
Arthur hummed shortly and continued his meal, glancing around the house from time to time. It had been six years, and he missed the house a lot. Watching her younger cousin, Ashley clicked her tongue.
"If you missed this place so much, then just come back," she said curtly, with a slight annoyance she didn't bother to hide. "Why bother with that studio apartment?"
Seemed like she was still salty about Arthur suddenly leaving to study abroad and rented a new place instead of returning home.
"I can't just set up my equipment here, can I? That place is soundproof at least," Arthur defended himself.
"You can use the annex."
"And where will Grandpa put all of his collection?"
Ashley shrugged. "Your old room."
"Want to break his knees or something?" Arthur rolled his eyes. What an inconsiderate granddaughter she was, trying to make an elderly people going back and forth to the second floor.
Ashley just laughed, shedding the annoyance she still harbored about Arthur's escape. "Come more often, then. Sammy needs to know you beyond the uncle she only saw through a video call," she paused for a bit, voice softened up. "Well, you need to memorize her appearance too, and...until Shirley gives birth, there will be no disturbing scent here."
Well, his apartment was already 'sterile' too--Arthur swallowed his words and just smiled. "I'll try."
"This brat," Ashley kicked the insincere punk's shin under the table. "Got a taste of living alone, and now you're addicted to it?"
"Just..." Arthur shrugged. "It's my first time."
He had been living in this house since he was a baby. And while he called it his home, where his biological relatives lived and raised him, there was always a gap somewhere. An emptiness in the corner of his heart he couldn't fill that told him it wasn't quite his home.
After all, this was his grandparents' house, which was supposed to be inherited by his late uncle, and would now be inherited by Ashley. As an adult, Arthur couldn't just live in his cousin's house forever--especially when that cousin was already married with kids.
Now that he knew he could live alone in a foreign land, he wanted to try living on his own in his homeland. If he had to leave one day anyway, better start getting used to it...right?
"Fine, take your time," Ashley waved her hand dismissively. "Enjoy your freedom."
For some reason, Arthur felt like she treated him like a teenager with a 'phase', like a runaway kid that would get back home after realizing they couldn't survive alone out there.
He heard that older sisters tended to treat their younger siblings like a baby forever. Seemed like it was true--which made it extra annoying. Arthur was already in his late twenties, for fuck's sake!
Perhaps because he got annoyed, Arthur grumbled with a hiss. "I'd enjoy it more if you didn't plunge me into unpleasant business."
"What the hell? It's just a meeting, Arty," Ashley raised her brows. "It's not your first time in the middle of the crowd."
"No, but--" he took a deep breath to appreciate the scentless, pheromone-less house, before continuing in a less agitated voice. "I wish wearing a scent blocker in public were mandatory."
After countless incidents involving uncontrollable pheromone release in critical infrastructures, a law governing the mandatory use of a scent blocker patch and/or suppressant was put into use at several places--including during flights, where pheromone-induce incident could literally kill people, or inside the military, where people had access to lethal weaponry.
Sensitive people like Arthur had always wished such a law be applied to every public place, not just around critical infrastructure. He even signed on-going petition endorsing such requests. But...
"Maybe once they can make one without any side effects," Ashley shrugged.
Right. Scent blockers and suppressants were basically oppressive medicine, be it for alphas or omegas. They worked by forcibly managing people's natural biological state, so side effects like nausea and hormonal imbalance always occurred. Some people either became allergic to it or found that their body grew immunity to the system, so it became an ongoing discourse.
Arthur also knew that, but he couldn't help feeling annoyed and made the mistake of clicking his tongue loudly.
"What now? You want to quit?" Ashley quipped sharply, no longer looking as easygoing as before. "Want to go back here, where you don't have to smell anyone?"
Arthur, who still bear slight annoyance, frowned and spoke in a sulky tone. "You don't have to say it like that..."
"No, but you have to remember that I had offered you just that: living peacefully here, where you can be at ease," Ashley pushed her plate aside, staring sharply at her cousin. "I was ready to prepare everything for you, making sure you can make music from the comfort of our home."
Arthur bit the inside of his cheek, suddenly finding himself getting scolded in a low, quiet tone.
Which made it scarier.
"You can live peacefully, adequately, from the child support money and Grandma's trust fund," she continued. "I'd even provide you with a steady stream of work requests."
That...was true. She told him all of that before, when he was still confused about the direction of his life.
"You were the one who said you couldn't just live like that," Ashley narrowed her eyes. That was why she took him to her friends and set up several blind dates once he became an adult. "You were the one who, one day, all of a sudden, told me you were going abroad to study and enter society."
Arthur lowered his head, staring blankly at the dining table. No matter how old he got, an older sister would always be scary. Especially when she said all the right things.
But an older sister also couldn't see her younger sibling looking all pitiful for long. Seeing the boy--no, the man--who grew taller than her already, looking down like a child getting scolded after running around in the rain without a raincoat, she couldn't help but soften her voice.
"You were already making your decision, so..." Ashley took a deep breath and smiled subtly. "You can't keep avoiding it."
It would be different if Arthur were still an unstable teenager, but he was already an adult, so...she couldn't always be gentle with him like in the past. Feeling guilty about his situation didn't mean she should coddle him at all times. If the little bird had decided to fly on his own, Ashley had to make sure his wings were healthy.
"Haa..." Arthur let out a sigh--something he had always tried to avoid around the dining table. "I can try harder about the...scents."
Ashley tilted her head at the unfinished silence that followed. "But?"
Taking a deep breath, Arthur pulled a box of his favorite cream cake and ate a huge mouthful to stabilize his emotions. "Don't ask me to work with someone who hates me for no reason."