Mated to A Rival Alpha-Chapter 141: Deluded Delusions

* Happy New Month of July!

[JIHOON]

"Well, Dalrae’s sudden happiness can’t be worse than the ghost I just saw," Jihoon said, and that piqued Daehyun’s interest.

"Who?" he asked, even though he had a feeling he knew who Jihoon was talking about.

"Yanna. My very dead mate," Jihoon said and for a moment there, Daehyun considered his options.

He knew that there was only so much he could stall about seeing Yanna, but then he had also seen how Jihoon had gotten in the past month just because of the same woman.

There were options for him and yet at the same time, Lee Daehyun didn’t see himself with any viable options. He couldn’t trust Jihoon to be himself, when he realized that Yanna Park wasn’t exactly his own hallucination.

And the fact that they were at the Incayon border, made it even worse, because there was no way Jihoon would stay calm about it.

Oh, how Daehyun wished he had something else to make the whole situation better because no matter what the answer would be, he would be having a deranged best friend acting out. But what if he chose something that wasn’t exactly good, but not wrong either?

"You’re silent. You’re never silent," Jihoon said, interrupting Daehyun’s long internal monologue. He could see his best friend turning pale and stiff almost like he was worried so much about the woman.

Then again, wasn’t that the truth at the moment though? It was impossible to tell what Yanna actually wanted with Jihoon of all the people and that stressed Daehyun out more than an unstable Park Jihoon.

Sighing, Daehyun figured that he could deal with the consequences of what he was about to do, when the time came, but until then, he wouldn’t face that possible truth.

"Impossible. The girl has been dead for literal years. It’s been what... Five years? How the hell is she even alive?" Daehyun asked carefully, the disbelief on his face well-trained.

That was because he knew that if he slipped up, his best friend would know and this would change into something different altogether. It was like he was walking on thin ice when he hadn’t done any wrong.

"I don’t know man. But with the mating ceremony tomorrow, I just hope that all of this is just me hallucinating," Jihoon said, while Daehyun listened, phasing between this reality and what Yanna had told him about Rania.

It was unsettling on the worst of ends, really, how the woman they had all trusted had ended up being the worst that they had ever met and managed to make them come to her side so flawlessly like it was magic on Christmas.

"Don’t tell me it’s because of Rania," Daehyun said, despite his best friend talking about Rania like a whipped mate.

"I finally have the chance to tell everyone that I cared for Rania, that I still care for her, even now, no matter how evil and psychotic she was," Jihoon said like he was reeling into a soft past and Daehyun just rolled his eyes at him.

"Evil you say, like you’re the saint of happiness. No wonder you two fit each other," Daehyun said, his tone making it seem like he knew something that Jihoon didn’t.

However, he patted his best friend on the back a little too hard as if to tell Jihoon that that was a sarcastic statement.

But was it?

"Oh, you’ve gone crazy. Don’t let Dalrae hear you because I honestly don’t have the strength to deal with a broken version of you," Daehyun said with a sad smile. He wasn’t sure where he stood with his best friend, but he hoped that whoever was hurt, would get justice.

"You really are enjoying this, hmm?"

"Why wouldn’t I anyway? I just think you’ve been delusional for a while, dude. Not in a wrong way though, right now, I don’t even know if you’re okay or you’re faking it because of the festival tomorrow.

"You know by now the king has heard of what you did and he probably expects an explanation tomorrow. Do you have any?" Daehyun asked and Jihoon sighed. He hadn’t thought about the consequences of what he did.

He had almost forgotten that beyond everything, they all had people to answer to. People who existed to create the balance between power and humanity in its wholeness. And right now, he was just too cooped up in his obsessions with Yanna to think straight. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Well, I’ll tell him I miss my mate," Jihoon said, though his words didn’t even sound believable to him. It was a really long and disturbing stretch and he was painfully aware of it.

"Yeah right, you miss your mate to the point that you turned against your people. You realize the king isn’t stupid, brother, right?" Daehyun reminded, and expectedly, Jihoon got a little defensive about what he had been doing over the past month.

This man had been the psycho, but to his people, he had never hurt any of them, unless he had to, and yet in one month, he had broken their trust and made it seem like he wasn’t just the psycho who defended them, but also one they needed to be wary of.

"What is it you want me to say, Daehyun huh? That I miss Rania so much it messed me up in ways I never thought possible. That I suspected that Rania was my mate from the very beginning but have no proof of it?

"That I loved her because I felt a pull on the very day that I said shit to her parents to make them start doubting her?

"You said it yourself, a true mate is different from every other mate, and whenever I saw her, I always felt like I was cheating on Yanna even when we were doing nothing.

"What else do you want me to say, huh?" Jihoon asked frustratedly. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like his word was cramping and he couldn’t do shit about it.

"I don’t know man! I don’t know, okay? What the fuck am I supposed to say when you tell me you saw the dead luna you refused to mourn, and that too barely a day before the damn fucking mating festival?

"What do you want me to do?" Daehyun responded, equally frustrated. Thinking about Yanna gave him chills and it wasn’t the good kind. The woman had talked so nonchalantly earlier, and managed to get into Daehyun’s head.

And right now, the only thing Daehyun wanted to do was to protect his best friend, but he was helpless here and he knew it.

"Well, I saw her. She was alive and healthy. Fuck it, she looked better than the last time I had seen her and you know what’s even more confusing, was the fact that her scent changed," Jihoon said and Daehyun let out another sigh.

Of course, her scent had changed but then he still had to play the ignorant best friend, to keep them safe.

"What do you mean?" Daehyun asked, when he realized the vulnerability in Jihoon’s voice.

"She sme... She smelled like Drarun, Daehyun. Drarun of all the places. Who knows what she had been doing there?"

"Maybe you just miss her so much. Besides, she was your mate she is your mate, no matter how hard you want to deny it—"

"I’ve been around vampires enough times during missions and I know what Drarun smells like. I know you don’t believe me, hell, even I didn’t believe me at first. But I will prove it to you the next time I see her," Jihoon said and Daehyun let out a lonely laugh.

This was sad.

"I don’t know what you’re hoping for, but we need to go back home. We need to get back to our people. We’ve been out here for two weeks and that isn’t a good show," Daehyun tried even though he knew that he wouldn’t win this one.

"I can’t. I don’t trust myself at home anymore. I could be a liability to Calindra and we both know that that never ends well for anyone. For now, I need to find Yanna after the festival.

"That should give me enough time to know whether I was hallucinating or not," Jihoon said, the determination in his voice making Daehyun sigh. Tomorrow would be really long and hectic, but he hoped that they would all be fine.

"Fine. If that makes you come back home then sure I’ll come along with you."

"Great, let’s get some sleep. The festival is tomorrow, and we need to look our best," Jihoon said and Daehyun snorted before sighing, "Sure. It’s not like the world would burn, aye."