So I was there, studying, minding my own fucking business when my brother walks up to me and starts talking about how he likes Alpha (which is a Deo brand here, chill) and since I am Kai/Ray fan trash, this was bound to happen.

I use British English, my auto-correct uses American spellings. it's a mess.

"Why aren't you eating?", Kai demanded. He tried to keep his voice stable, his face stern and his eyes narrowed. He tried not to pay attention to how his entire body felt like pins were being pressed into his skin at a relentless pace that took his breath away and refused to give it back.

Ray's pavilion was objectively very welcoming. The moment one parted the curtain, they were hit with a sifting scent that you couldn't pin down as specifically anything, but it reminded Kai of blades of grass against his skin, brushing, pinching him and smelling like dew and soil and sunshine, if sunshine had a scent, as he fell back against them with Ray at his side when they were children. It reminded Kai of gurgling laughter neither of them was ever happy enough to let out anymore. It reminded Kai of when he would poke Ray's cheeks because he just loved how plump they were and marvel at his sharp canines and gaze into his amber eyes, and never look away.

Sunshine didn't have a scent but it had a color and whenever younger Ray would smile back at him it felt like he had reached out and gathered the brightest hues of the sun and trapped them within his eyes. No matter how much they dazzled Kai, he couldn't help loving them.

Presently, he felt his lips pull into a frown at Ray's lack of acknowledgement. A growl built up in his throat, almost overshadowing the pinch in his chest, unpleasant unlike those dew damp grass blades of their shared summers.

He must have released some sound because the Omega turned and pinned him with a victorious glare.

"You take those feral noises away from me where I don't have to hear them."

Sunshine.

Sunshine wasn't supposed to be this cold.

Part of Kai was mad at himself for growling at Ray like that. They had grown up making fun of Alphas who growled at people when they got angry, it sounded so brutish. Part of Kai was mad at Ray for pushing him to this point. They were supposed to be Mates but Ray had decided even their friendship wasn't worth his time anymore and never bothered to inform Kai of what he'd done wrong.

He would never admit it to anyone, but sometimes he felt like screaming and crying till Ray gave up and forgave him for his unnamed crimes, but he slapped his mask back on and went about his day like any responsible Alpha with a pack to lead. That mask was something he had never had to use around Ray before, but every day that Ray spent away from him made him coil further into himself, and he didn't know how else to approach the situation than try to put up a strong Alpha front like the Omega in Ray was supposed to want, was probably looking for.

Deep inside him, a dark tendril of fear slithered and wrapped around his guts, choking tighter with every passing second. Ray knew him, knew his vulnerabilities, knew his insecurities, knew he wasn't all a good Alpha was cracked up to be. He wondered if that was why Ray rejected him, because as much time as the two spent laughing at the stereotypes as kids, they had to have an ounce of truth in them. Maybe Ray rejected him, was mad at him because he wasn't a good enough Alpha for him. Maybe he was upset Kai was his Mate when there were other stronger alternatives available. Lee was a whole lot taller and broader than Kai. Tala with his sharp wit and silver tongue got along with Ray way better than Kai did, these days. Julia, the newbie who arrived with her Beta brother last week was smarter than everyone in the pack put together, and Kai was convinced Ray would rather have any one of them.

After all, as the sole, rare Omega male, he could have had his pick of the lot if Kai wasn't predestined to be his Mate.

"Why aren't you eating, Ray?", he repeated his question, forcing a degree of calmness to layer his words.

"I don't like potatoes."

"You asked for potatoes."

Slowly, tauntingly, Ray rose from where he had been laying on his side, reading a book and turned to face Kai, who knew the expression on his face well enough to bite back a sigh and prepare for a pointless argument.

"Two hours ago. I don't like them anymore."

"Well, what do you want now?", he questioned. It was better than trying to convince Ray to drop his attitude.

For a second it seemed like Ray would snap at him again, or refuse to co-operate in general, but the Omega schooled his expression and leveled Kai with a contemplative look. Reaching a decision, he looked away and muttered that he would eat the potatoes but he never wanted those things around him again.

"Alright. Do you need anything else?"

Ray turned away, shaking his head silently. Kai frowned. If things hadn't soured so much between them that would be his cue to go wrap his arms around the Omega and ask him what was wrong. Over the years he had learned Ray responded to touch way better than he responded to words. Ever since the day Ray presented as an Omega on his eighteenth birthday and their Mate bond became obvious though, distance had only grown between the two friends. The ease of years spent learning and relearning every vestige of each other's minds had seemingly disappeared in thin air, leaving the two poised on separate ends of a rickety bridge that Ray wasn't even attempting to try to cross.

As Kai made to leave, a snicker of mockery rose behind him. Startled, he turned to a now smirking Ray. He looked angry.

"Trophy shiny as ever, my lord?", he cocked his head.

Releasing a sigh, the Alpha crossed his arms across his chest, feeling like he should understand the barb but unable to.

"What trophy?"

"You know what fucking sucks Kai? Me, having to resort to these childish tantrums to get to see your fucking face!"

Kai opened his mouth to complain because this just wasn't fair. This wasn't fair because nothing hurt him as much as Ray's indifference when he went to see him the first few times, so why was he being expected to put himself through this torture only to get bitten and snapped at?!

Ray wasn't done, though.

"What do I have to do to get your attention, Alpha?" Kai winced at the way Ray spat the word like it was poison on his tongue, like Kai was poison on his tongue. "Go into heat and have you fuck me every second of every day? Bear your kids and raise them by myself while you go around living the life I wanted? What is it that would get me a second more of your attention?!"

Kai felt his chest tighten and his hands ball into fists. He didn't understand where this was coming from but he did know he had never done anything to make Ray feel inadequate like this. He had built him the nicest pavilion ever, he had bought him all the books he would ever want to read, he had arranged for his best friend Mariah to stay with the pack for a while despite the fact that she wasn't part of it, and was actually the leading Alpha of another. He had done everything he could! He didn't understand why Ray was angry all the time, he didn't understand why he won't just come out and say it, he didn't understand where their friendship had disappeared.

… but this, this accusation set his blood boiling.

This time when he growled, he did so intentionally as he took a heavy step closer to Ray, shoulders taut with tension and anger, eyes glowing red. Ray's eyes flashed golden in return, but unwillingly, he bared his throat, submission written into the very nature of a bonded Omega when it came to his Alpha.

The action made Ray wince and the expression made Kai stop short. His anger didn't dissipate, but he also didn't find any enjoyment in making Ray bend to his will against his own choice. It was why he kept away from Ray every time the two fought.

Instead, he bared his teeth from a distance.

"You shut up with that, right now! I have never mistreated you, never forced you, ever!"

Mockingly, one of his eyebrows rose. "Oh thank you, Kai! Thank you for doing the bare fucking minimum! Thank you for not violating me! What more could I ever ask of you?! Truly you are the epitome of everything a good Alpha should be!"

"Yes, I actually am!"

"You gotta show him the power, Kai. You gotta show his who's boss. You know how these new Omegas are like, they wanna play hard to get. Pin him down once and he will learn his place."

… were the words of advice his mother had given him when he asked what he should do to make Ray warm up to him. It suddenly made it all too clear why Kai's father seemed to lose all sparks of life around his mother.

As things were, Kai was trying his best to be better for Ray, be stronger and hence more attractive, but Ray's words punched him in the gut, right in his bubbling mass of insecurities. He felt tears rise up hot against the back of his throat and he gulped them down. Sometimes, no matter how much he loved Ray, he wanted to be done with this whole Mates business and have his best friend back.

Right now was not that moment though. His pride had been hurt, and the more animalistic side of him had gone on defense, because he truly did everything he could for Ray, and to see it be thrown back in his face was infuriating.

"I actually am a great example of a good Alpha! And you better learn to appreciate that, Kon! I have had enough of your antics!"

None of their arguments had ever gone down this path.

"And if I don't? What are you gonna do, throw me out? You know there are more than enough packs out there who'd want me."

Every word fell like a punch to Kai's chest. They were Mates! How could Ray think he'd kick him out of the pack?! Just how little did he think of Kai?! All those years he had spent revealing to Ray every delicate complexity of his nature, things he didn't understand himself and for some reason, he was being reduced to a domineering asshole who couldn't look past himself.

Ray thought he was bad? He'd show the fucker bad!

Kai scoffed, enjoying the narrowing of Ray's eyes at the mocking curl of Kai's mouth.

"Oh, they want you, alright. They want to take you, fuck you and make a spectacle out of you is what they want you for." He bit out.

Even before he had said the words out loud he knew they were going to pain Ray, but drowning in the thick of selfish rage he found he didn't care. Ray had been hurting him enough as it was.

Except the face in front of him was melting now, for a moment disarmed, and Kai returned to sunlit fields and choking laughter and when none of this mattered, Alpha, Beta, Omega, Mates or not. He didn't care, Ray didn't care. They cared about each other and that was enough.

"It's not like it's any different here.", Ray mumbled and though the anger had melted, he had pulled up his guards again, before Kai could get a good enough peek to understand where the problem was.

There was distress in Ray's tone though, a touch of humiliation in his words. Just as the Omega was hard-wired to submit, the Alpha was hard-wired to protect. As much as the conscious roles blurred between the two of them, the instincts never did, whether ugly or not.

For in a second, Kai was next to Ray and even in the middle of an argument, their hands were finding each other. This was one effect of their bond Kai never pulled back from, selfishly seeking whatever contact he could get from Ray, knowing if he moved close enough they would come together like magnets.

"What does that mean? Did someone do something to you? Did they …"

He let his words trail off as the horrible possibility assaulted his mind. Could this be why Ray had been so off all this time? Had he completely failed to fulfill the one duty he owed to him as an Alpha? Not only his Alpha mate but the leader of their pack?

Something inside Kai's chest twisted painfully, making him gasp out loud. Ray's eyes widened and he took another step closer to Kai, palms splayed open against his chest in a pacifying gesture.

"No! No! Nothing happened! Though it wasn't for lack of trying."

His heart complained that Ray had suddenly become so guarded that Kai had to chase and pin down the various emotions fleeting through his words to be able to identify them and figure out what his Mate was feeling, but his brain remained focussed on the growing distress and bitterness in his voice. Kai's chest ached more.

"Why didn't you say something?"

In a fraction of a second, Ray had pulled away.

"I can look after myself."

Kai was surprised at the lack of venom in this conversation and that was just pathetic. Things weren't supposed to have gotten this out of hand.

"You're my second-in-command, I know you can but had you said something we could have punished those people, Ray."

There was a pause, and Kai was relieved to find the hurt in his chest was steadily lessening, like his words had worked to soothe frazzled nerves. In some corner of his subconscious, he knew Mates could feel each other's pain when close enough, but it never appeared to the forefront of his mind. It was for the better though, for he didn't know how he could handle having realized Ray had been the one suffering like that, and it was merely being mirrored at him.

"I have been horrible to you, haven't I?"

The question caught him off-guard. Ray won't look at him, and Kai quickly realized this was one of the situations where he was better off keeping his mouth shut, mainly because he didn't know what to say, but also because they hadn't been this calm around each other since forever. Kai, king of never talking when actually important, wasn't going to morph into a blabbermouth when the moment felt so charged he was convinced they were both going to tip into a whole different reality any second now.

"This is your cue to admit you haven't been very nice either." Ray prompted.

Kai experienced the ever-familiar need to scream coupled with confusion assaulting him because hadn't he? He sure had tried. He tamped the urge down, however, telling himself this was too important to be fucked up. If Ray said some behavior on his part had been hurtful, then he was no one to insist it wasn't. He was no one to try to teach him how to feel. The best he could do was talk to Ray, ask him what he had done wrong and resolve to do better. He would be honest with Ray and tell him he had been hurting too and they would go back to being friends. Overtime Ray might even warm up to the role of his lover and Mate.

However, Kai, wholly unused to being the rational, non-moody one in any transaction, seemed to have taken too long to talk himself into talking and Ray, for the first time in his life unwilling to try to meet Kai halfway, had pulled back with a scoff, going to perch on his expensive velvet sofa that was so pretty it always gave Kai lots of ideas.

Who even was dramatic enough to keep a sofa in a pavilion? Ray Kon, that's who.

Ray turned his face away, expression pinched. Kai knew if this was any other day, he would be storming out by now. However, it wasn't. It wasn't any other day because it was the first time Ray had given a sign that he was willing to speak about whatever was wrong with them. It wasn't any other day because it was the first time Ray needed Kai to step up and take charge of the situation instead of it being the other way around. It wasn't any other day because, for the first time, Kai was going to bite the bullet and reach out, like he should have done already.

He went to sit next to Ray, causing the Omega to stir in surprise. He risked putting a hand on his knee.

"What happened to us?"

Ray looked up at him. Kai barely kept from poking his cheeks.

"This Alpha-Omega thing. We were doing fine without it."

"What is so bad about it, though?"

What is so bad about it that you haven't spoken to me since forever? That you abandoned me like this?

Ray gave him a glance of disbelief, as if unable to place Kai's confusion before his expression melted into a fond melancholy that stung Kai. Ray seemed resigned to something that he clearly didn't like, and right then and there Kai swore that he was going to turn the dial in his favor. Ray won't ever have to settle for anything less than what he wanted.

"Because we're no longer Kai and Ray. We're an Alpha and his Omega. We're Mates. We're bound together so you have no choice when all I ever wanted was for you to look at me and willingly choose me out of everyone. Just me, Ray. Not a prized Omega everybody in the pack wants to breed. Just Ray, your best friend, your lover. Not your Mate."

Just like that realization made Kai's insides freeze. He was back in those grass fields, barefoot, running, giggling with the sun on his face and Ray by his side but it was suddenly cold because Ray wasn't smiling.

They had been too stupid to look at each other and admit how much they missed each other. It wasn't good, but it was salvageable.

"I…-"

"What I am trying to say," Ray looked away, but Kai noticed his shoulders remained easy. He had fully and truly surrendered to fate on this one. Maybe he was just as sick of the fighting, the belittling, the distance. Ray had started it, but maybe he had been counting on Kai to grab him by the shoulders and tell him it'd be okay instead of goading him on and making the situation worse.

Kai felt guilt claw his way into his skin. Ray had been there for him so many times along the way, patiently waiting out Kai's storms and then helping him sort out whatever problem daunted him just then. The one time Ray had needed Kai to do the same for him, he had backed down.

… because this could be solved with three measly words. Three words that had scared him so much but now seemed so easy to whisper, knowing what an impact they would have on Ray, knowing Ray wanted to hear them. How could he not choose Ray, when he had spent so many endless nights wishing and praying Ray would choose him? That Ray would be his Mate?

Kai bit back a scoff. He was so selfish.

"What I am trying to say," Ray soldered on. "Is that I love you and I wish I could be the man you love, I'd rather be the man you love than your precious Omega mate."

Kai's breath got caught in his throat, but he was convinced the reaction was tardy, really. Ray wanted him, Ray loved him. This could've been so easy, so very easy right from the beginning if he had had the balls to tell him he loved him that very day their bond was confirmed.

"I do. I love you too."

Ray shook his head, but his expression didn't change. It baffled Kai.

"You don't. You're just saying that now because of the bond. I am not pegging you down as somebody who just wants to mate with me to have children, mind you but I know the strength of this bond and…-"

"What are you talking about?"

"The b-bond and…-"

"Do you seriously think someone like me would care who was their mate if they didn't actually care about them?"

"Of course you cared about me! We were best friends but…-"

"This! This! This is the problem!" It took Kai a second after that enthusiastic exclamation to figure out what the problem was and put it into words. "This 'were', this 'cared'. I still do!"

Ray's eyes sharpened, a hint of the previous fight leaking into his face again. As much as that meant trouble and more fighting, Kai was relieved. Truth be told, nothing could bring him down now that he knew Ray loved him, anyway.

... or so he thought.

"Do you?"

Kai felt his brows furrow, told himself to calm down and then demanded what Ray meant. Maybe he didn't calm down as much as he hoped though, for Ray shot to his feet, eyes glinting with rage.

"You brought me here! You took me out of my house and you brought me here and then you fucking abandoned me!"

Kai could do nothing but gape, and stutter, and gape some more.

"The moment the bond was confirmed you didn't come and say a word to me, you didn't say anything to me! You just told my parents that you would arrange for my shift and bowed to them and left! All you spared me was a fucking glance!"

"I was… I was feeling shy, Ray. The boy I was in love with was my Mate. I was feeling shy!"

"You brought me here without asking me a goddamn thing like a possession! You didn't ask me how I felt! You just ordered for me to be here!"

"I thought that was protocol Ray!"

"We were best friends, Kai! What fucking protocol?!"

Kai couldn't find a response to that and was starting to understand how it might have come off as a bit disrespectful. He wasn't lying though, he had thought if he looked Ray in the eye just then, he would blush like a little child and combust in front of everyone. He had actually spent the entire ride back home half-worried and half-relieved Ray didn't call out to him either.

Ray wasn't done yet, though.

"I was sent packing from my place because apparently, it's disgraceful for an Omega to be away from his Alpha which basically implies I have no existence beyond you and I hate that! And you! You brought me here and then installed me in this new bloody pavilion instead of your own…-"

"I thought you would appreciate the space! I just wanted to take my time with you and woo you properly…-"

"… like a trophy! Am I a fucking trophy?! Because that's what I feel like! I am your second-in-command! I am the sharpest shooter in your entire pack, in Mariah's pack, in Tyson's pack, in every pack we ever came across! I am the fastest man you have and I have defeated you in hand to hand combat before! I know six languages which are two more than you! Not to mention I can actually cook and feed myself unlike you! I am all of that and I am not merely an Omega for you to put on display and then never look at twice!"

Kai's mind was whirring. He recognized shame and self-hatred in Ray's tone and he knew he had to get to it and address that, but first, he had the last part of his little spiel to worry about.

"Ray, I was unsure of how to approach you because you seemed like you hated me. I thought you needed space. I didn't understand what was happening."

"I was angry at you and I was hurting and your guards kept leering at me and I can't go anywhere without blocking my scent because these people I have commanded all my life look at me like a piece of meat now! I was so scared and lonely Kai and you should've been by my side! You should've been by my side!"

All explanations fizzled away as Kai was finally hit with how much he had messed up here. He had never stopped to think about the entire situation in any way that wasn't colored in his own self-pity. He hadn't stopped to think about Ray's feelings. He had been insensitive and he had horribly failed at protecting him.

He had never even acknowledged said protection extended to emotional and mental perils as well. He had been so careless.

The same thick, sharp pain clenched around his sternum and Kai found himself choking on tears. Whispering a soft 'I am so sorry, Ray', he walked away, legs unsteady, heart-shattering and mind already skipping ahead to how he was going to make this up to Ray.

Because Kai Hiwatari wasn't a quitter. Kai Hiwatari was a man in love who was dead set on making his love the happiest man on the planet.

… he just needed to have a good cry first.

I hope I managed to keep the tones of the traditional Alpha/Omega roles alive while also not making them cringy, which is my main issue with this AU. I tried my best but I am extra open to criticism on this one (I really need help with this please) so let me know what you thought.

I am HOPING to keep this one short.

Thanks for reading, love you so much :*