Fifth: His Scent

Everything happens so fast. Kaze gets the ball and he passes it to Alex. Annoyance is evident on Arche's fine face as Alex runs for the basket, and my heart literally stops as I pray he won't use his wolf strength and speed. My prayers are heard because he doesn't use it, but I think he is having a hard time controlling his own natural strength.

He passes the ball right away to his teammate in the three-point zone, and his teammate fire for a three-point shot. It goes in and the crowd starts cheering Kaze's team again.

The game goes on and the basketball show-off just gets fiercer and stronger. There are student referees on the side, but they can't seem to handle the game. I don't know much about basketball, but I can see many fouls from Arche's team that are not called by the referees.

The bench members on Kaze's team seem to observe the bias officiating, and try to signal Kaze about it. I know Kaze knows it too, but he is so game on, he doesn't care anymore. Some students are talking about it too, but they reason that Arche's team are not actually basketball players but football members, so they let it go. Amidst the unfair game, Kaze's team still lead the score with 16-14 in the tenth minute of the game.

My worries are starting to settle down as I observe Alex getting used to the game environment. He doesn't see me yet, and I don't intend to show up, because it might make him nervous and he may panic. I just sit there watching him control himself in every fall, push, and run that he makes.

Things are getting nicer for him and I am decided to go out of the gym and call Mom to watch Alex right now. But, just when I turn my back, people shout and gasp looking at the court. I unconsciously turn back again and search Alex.

Did his wolf come out? Did he push too hard? Or run too fast?

But, I am more than shocked to see him lying on the floor. He is unconscious, and there are blood on his nose, mouth, and some drip on his ear and shirt too.

I am so confused and shocked that I just stood there as people swarm on him. Kaze is trying to wake him up. The gym is filled now with low but 'oooh's and murmurs. I can't hear their sentences clearly for I am too shocked to absorb the details.

Alex? A werewolf? My brother? He's on the floor? Why? How? Is he okay?

My mind is full of questions and I want to answer them by asking Alex himself, but I can't make myself move.

Alex is now surrounded by a lot of people that I can't see him, until a group of students, with a stretcher bed, pave the increasing swarm of curious people. Kaze picks Alex up from the floor to the stretcher bed, and students carry him to the clinic. People follow Alex trying to get news about what happened from those in the rear seats.

I am still standing there trying to calm myself. I want to run to Alex and ask him if he is alright, but I can't move my feet. The nervousness and the lump of stress that I felt a while ago come back in triple.

I feel like if I move, my wolf will get ahead of me.

"Are you f*cking insane?!"

My concentration on calming myself is disturbed by that shout. It is Kaze. Very surprising.

"Are you shouting at me?" Arche calmly says, but his tone is waving a warning.

"I am. I am cursing you too. Asshole!" Kaze replies. I don't know Kaze that much, but hearing him curse and shout is so new to me. He is kind of cool.

Whilst, Arche didn't reply. He looks so dumb annoying, and so boastful as ever.

He stares at Kaze for some good seconds, chuckles sarcastically, then attacks Kaze with such a strong force. They both fell down as Arche jumps on Kaze pinning him down. Arche throws a strong-looking punch, but Kaze dodges it by turning his head sideways. When Arche's knuckle landed on the floor, I think I hear a very loud thud, and I see now that the wooden floor of the basketball court is cracked and a fist-sized hole is shown.

How strong is he?

They both stop when Arche's boys hold him to stop and whisper on them. They all looked at me, the only remaining audience of their fierce fight.

Kaze looks at me shocked, but apologetic. While Arche gives a hint of annoyance and more anger on seeing me watching them fight. His stare at me had been too long that Kaze steals that chance to push him off him. Kaze stands from the ground and throws a warning look at Arche. He then looks at me and calls my name, but I run.

I am running? Why?

I don't know why I do that, or how I do that, while I can't move when Alex is bleeding on the floor.

I just run out of there, and I can hear Kaze calling my name telling me that Alex will be fine.

---

"Seriously, how much did you cry? Bwahaha." Alex looks so much like a monkey as he jumps from the sofa when I tried to hit him.

That night, Mom talks to us about what happened. Alex is fine now, and he even bickers at me asking me how scared was I when I saw him on the floor.

"I didn't even flinch. Monkeys don't die that way," I bicker him too.

"Really. Kaze told me you were crying," he says finding ways to get me irritated, but instead, I laugh at how Kaze saw it.

He thinks I cried.

We were stopped with our bickering when Mom enters the living room with crossed arms and a mad face. She asks me first.

"Care to explain, Hansel?"

"I don't know too. I arrived there and Alex was already playing," I defended.

"Mom, that was our PE class. We were told we have to play," Alex immediately rescues himself.

"PE? At after class?" I retort.

"That's how novices with oozing potential get recruited, lame pants," Alex says again.

"You are not allowed to play sports with humans, Alex," Mom intervenes again.

"Mom! I can't do that. Sports is literally my life," Alex is nearing to throw a tantrum. Mom just massages her temple and walks over to the drawer and pulls something from it. She throws me the item she got and explains to me how I take it.

It's the medicine.

"Wow. Dad was here?" I ask, trying my best to hide the embarrassment I am feeling to be prescripted with this medicine. Also, I remember she told me yesterday Dad will deliver this himself.

"No. I remember he can't easily step on any town."

"Why?" asks the curious Alex, making ways to continue divert the discussion from his 'scandal'.

"He is a Beta. Other packs who might own this town will easily sense his presence and might interpret it as trespassing their territory."

"There are wolves in this town." I blurt. This sounds interesting to me.

"Nah. Our detectives already cleared the town, but the protocol is protocol. One can never be too careful, you know."

"True." I can only agree.

"Alex... Hansel," Mom suddenly gets serious. Her serious voice is enough to make my daughter wolf surrender. We both listen to her intently.

"Be careful. Consult me first in everything you are going to do. This is a critical time for our family - for your father. The fact that he can't even go to us when something happens, worries him so much. And it worries me too... so be careful."

"Yes, Mom," we replied.

---

The classroom is as noisy as ever. We don't have a teacher in our last period before lunch, and everybody is doing whatever they like. Half of the class has exited already, and so I decided too to take an early lunch. This is my chance to avoid a crowd for getting lunch.

Planning my lunch makes me think of Kaze, and every time I do that, I remember what happened yesterday. The fight between him and Arche. How Kaze looks so damn cool, and how Arche captures my eyes like some kind of gravitational bewitching. My cheeks feel so hot thinking about these two, and when I catch the shadow of Kaze, entering the cafeteria, I jerk and change my route.

Not now...

I am not sure if he sees me too, but I almost run when I feel like he is following me. I have an urge to hide, and the science laboratory invited me with its open doors. I enter into it and silently close the door.

Did he see me?! I almost blurt out my thoughts.

My heart is thumping so hard at that rush I didn't expect. I walk further into the laboratory, trying to find the switch for the lights. The laboratory is so dark that I even bump on one of its long tables. My eyes are bad in the dark, very ironic considering I am a werewolf. But, that is just one of the weaknesses I have whenever I am in my human form.

I just continue walking when my nose picks something familiar, yet strange.

What is that smell?

My nose is not that perceptive too when I am in my human form, but the smell intoxicated my senses as I feel like drawing nearer to it. The smell reminds me of a sunflower, and rose, and honey, and fresh sea breeze, even a forest - but this smell is still different from those. I feel like, it is a new smell, but all the scents that I love contain that smell.

I smelled it before, but I can't remember where.

I am walking like a hypnotized dog as I follow the stimulus. I am taken back into reality when I hear a very loud sound of an iron table being moved. It is near me, at the back, so I quickly turn my back and squint my eyes to visualize what is in the shadow.

When I try to step forward into the unknown darkness, large and strong hands pulled me to the nearest corner. The person who holds me right now seems to reach the wall as he halts and stops dragging me with his strong arms.

His hand is on my mouth and I easily recognize - he is the smell... I think.

"Mmmfffmmfff," I try to speak but my mouth is sealed perfectly.

"Did you see it?" the voice asks.

What is he talking about?! Can't he realize I can't answer with my mouth sealed?

"Mmmfffmmfff."

"I think you've seen it," the voice speaks again, but this time he sounds so sure but sad. Then I feel a sharp object on my neck. 

Knife?!

I get so nervous and scared, I stomp on his feet and try to escape. The sharp thing scraped my neck a little due to my attempt to escape, but the escape failed as he holds me back again.

He is literally hugging me on my back right now. One arm on my chest, touching my breast, and the other wrapped around my neck.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" I think I want to cry. I am using my wolf strength right now, but still, I can't get away from him. 

Is he a wolf too?

"You're pretty strong for a nerd," the voice vibrates a chuckle.

His chuckle sounds so beautiful and rare. It is so deep I can feel his chest vibrates inside. He is so warm and so... fragrant. I think if he didn't scare me with a knife, I will not mind cuddling with him.

"Ooh... you are submitting," the man mocks me as he observes me stop resisting. 

"You are a maniac. Let go of me," I strongly defend. He chuckles again seeming happy at my reaction. 

My cheeks burn when I feel one of his hands go lower, and rest on my stomach. He pulls me closer, meaning to slide his hand on the other parts of my body. I am unexpectedly not hating the feeling though. His touches are so tingly. My heart is literally banging inside of me, and I must admit I know he feels it too.

"Why so nervous, sunflower..." his voice is getting sexier each time. We seem to communicate in our minds when he mentions 'sunflower' too. Exactly what he reminds me of. I want to distract myself, and just then I remember I heard this voice before.

"Did you see it..." his playful sexy voice turns serious again, and that's when I realize who this man is.

Arche.

He is Arche. Realizing his identity makes things worse. My cheeks burn more. My heart beats even faster. And my head is about to spin as I started to really admit to myself that I love his smell.

I forgot that I am in a dangerous situation, and I just stand there right beside his warm body. I don't know how I will answer his question. I don't think he will believe me if I say 'no'. But, saying 'yes' sounds even more dangerous to me.

Curious as hell, I don't know but he never speaks again. We just stood before each other. We listen to the students walking in the hallway. We listen to the buzzing sound of the air conditioner. We listen to each other's breathing, and my heart beats.

 Three minutes pass, the lunch bell rings, and he seems to realize the situation. He loosens his grip and speaks again. 

"Avoid the dark if you have that very bad eyesight," he only said, he push me to face the wall, and I hear him walk away.

What just happened?

I feel an annoying hint of sadness as his smell weakens and fades.

"Damn you, Arche."