Page 72 of Primal Bonds 1
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 callthe boyor referred to asthe boybefore 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 togetherpeacefully 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 headedover 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.