Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 188: Banquet Plan

"I’m missing something, am I?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

The morning light was pale, filtering through gauze curtains with the gentle indifference of dawn. Oathran had pressed a lingering kiss to Cecilia’s bare shoulder before slipping from the bed. His body still hummed with the memory of the night, but the domestic quiet of early morning called him elsewhere.

He needed to find his brothers.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to go far.

The sitting room adjacent to their quarters was in elegant ruin. On the plush, decorated sofa, sprawled like fallen warriors, were the two other pillars of his strange family.

Arkai lay on his back, one arm flung dramatically over his brow, the other dangling limply to the floor. His fingers loosely gripped the neck of a bottle. Whiskey, by the amber hue, and already half-depleted. His chest rose and fell with the slow breaths of a man waging war against his own hangover.

And draped across him, clinging with the affection of a particularly large, golden-furred limpet, was Eastiel. His face was buried against Arkai’s chest, his arms wrapped around the Wolf King’s torso in a stubborn embrace. A broad, blissful, foolish smile was plastered across his handsome features.

Upon Oathran’s silent entry, Arkai cracked one eye open. His gaze was bloodshot, heavy with the particular regret that only comes from watching someone else make catastrophic decisions while you stand helplessly by.

"You didn’t miss much, Brother." His voice was gravelly. "Please don’t worry."

Oathran tilted his head, taking in the scene with a kind of ancient curiosity. "What happened?"

Arkai exhaled, long-suffering in its weariness. "This guy," he jerked his chin minutely toward the golden weight on his chest, "drank rum straight from its barrel. He then threw gold coins on the ground to pay for it, overpaid significantly, I might add, and then refused to get off me."

"Hm." Oathran raised his eyebrows. "Where do we find these barrels of rum?"

"Brother..." Arkai’s deadpan was full of disbelief.

"What?" Oathran shrugged. "Our little brother has good taste in alcohol. Why do you think I drained all the date wine from his room every time we visited?"

"Elyer Bwofer...?" A slurred, ecstatic voice drifted up from the vicinity of Arkai’s sternum. "Is tha’ yeww?"

Eastiel’s face emerged from its nesting place, tilted upward at an angle to beam at Oathran. His golden hair was a riot of bed-tousled chaos, his amber eyes were unfocused and sparkling with pure, unguarded joy. He looked, in that moment, like an overgrown cub who had discovered the entire world was made of treats.

"How much did you drink, you rascal?" Oathran narrowed his eyes, but the sharpness was undermined by the faint, helpless quirk at the corner of his mouth.

"Eheheheheheh..." The giggle was high, unashamed, and disarming. Then, with surprising speed for a creature so thoroughly intoxicated, Eastiel detached himself from Arkai and lunged. His arms locked around Oathran’s waist in a vice-like grip, his cheek pressing into the Dragon Lord’s hip. "I dwank a lot~"

Oathran flinched. His entire body went rigid. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and his eyebrows performed a rapid, uncontrolled flutter of shock and... something else.

His hands hovered uselessly in the air, uncertain whether to push the drunk lion away or pat his head.

Arkai, from his prone position, observed this internal crisis with the slow-blooming satisfaction of a man who had just found the perfect revenge.

A smirk curled his lips, cutting through the hangover fog. "Elder Brother," he drawled, purring in accusation, "you were just thinking that he’s adorable, eh?"

Oathran’s head snapped toward him, a flush of something, perhaps outrage, and... mortification, and... denial, climbing his neck.

"I. Did. Not." The words were clipped, yet again undermined by his continued failure to dislodge the drunken lion attached to his midsection. He pushed ineffectually at Eastiel’s shoulders. "Get off, you’re not a child—"

"Eh." Arkai shrugged in his horizontal position. "Imagine if it was me who clung to you like that."

Oathran froze. His eyes, already wide, went through a rapid, complex series of micro-expressions. Consideration, visualization, awareness, and then horror. Realizing how devastatingly sexy Arkai Dawnoro drunkenly clutching to him would be, a deep, visceral, bone-deep revulsion bloomed across his elegant features.

"Pfffffffffffff———"

Arkai slapped his own hand over his mouth, but it was too late. The laugh detonated from him, a choked, wheezing, undignified explosion of pure, vindicated mirth. His shoulders shook. His eyes streamed. He made a sound like a dying seal, his body convulsing on the sofa as he absolutely perished at the sight of his eldest brother’s face.

Eastiel, still blissfully unaware of the personal assassination occurring around him, simply hugged Oathran tighter and sighed contentedly. "Warm..." he murmured, nuzzling into the Dragon Lord’s robe.

"Huuuuu... alright... I have contacted my capital residence," Arkai said, his voice still carrying the faint, gravelly residue of his hangover but his mind now sharp, focused.

"As planned, I will appear there publicly. But we agree that it’s best that I do this within my own territory, correct?"

Eastiel had been pried off Oathran’s person with considerable, undignified effort. And the dragon, now seated in a plush armchair with his robes rearranged and his dignity only slightly tattered, nodded.

His fingers steepled beneath his chin, entirely belying the fact that he’d been aggressively cuddled by a drunk lion not two seconds prior. "You planned on hosting a banquet?"

Arkai inclined his head. "Yes. But I’m still unsure of what occasion to use."

"When’s your birthday?"

The question came from Oathran, casual.

Arkai blinked. "Winter solstice." He shrugged.

"Happy birthday~" Eastiel, who had been slowly regaining coherence on the sofa, abruptly lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Arkai in a delayed, alcohol-fueled burst of affection. His voice was muffled against the Wolf King’s shoulder.

Again.

Arkai groaned, his expression flickering between annoyance and long-suffering patience. He gently, firmly, pried Eastiel’s arms loose and guided him back down onto the cushions, where the lion sprawled like a golden discarded cloak.

"It’s still quite a long way," Arkai said, resettling his posture. Outside, the light held the amber, thinning quality of late autumn. The solstice was weeks, if not months, distant. "And I don’t think there’s a good excuse to simply throw a random party."

"What do you mean? Of course we have one."

Arkai looked up. Oathran had shifted in his chair, more languid. He leaned against one of the ornate armrests, his long legs crossed, amused.

"Our wedding," Oathran said. "Make a banquet to announce it."

Arkai froze.

On the sofa, Eastiel’s head, which had been lolling against the cushions, slowly tilted. His amber eyes, still slightly unfocused, blinked once. Twice.

"Wedding..." he repeated, the word slurred and wondering. "...announcement...?"