Deceitful Lottery (MxM)| Y.E.P.1 series, BOOK 1 - 4

29. Chapter - Little Horns

I apologize for the delay. I blame my birth certificate. The lying bastard insists I'm an adult, and as such, I have to do adult things from time to time. Like working. And other 'responsible' stuff. It sometimes interes with my hobbies and just ruins everything >.<

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Corey woke up from a beautiful dream in which he was sunbathing while lying on the deck by the local lake in his hometown. It was one of those hot, humid summer days, the sun high in the sky and cicadas buzzing all around him. He wasn't the biggest fan of hot weather, but relaxing by the lake with his t-shirt off while kicking his feet in the cold water was an exception. He could have spent every summer day doing that and never get bored of it. In fact, he had been doing it more and more the older he got. It was a tradition he picked up as a child. His grandmother took him to the lake for the first time when he was seven, and he immediately fell in love.

Which was why it was all the more soul-crushing when he woke up and realized it wasn't real.

He was lying on his side, staring at the light blue crystal wall in front of him, overcome with such a strong sense of homesickness he had to blink a few times to force the tears back. It was the first time since their departure from Earth that he genuinely wanted to cry his eyes out because he missed home. He missed his family. He missed other humans. He missed their ecosystem, their trees, their flowers, their animals. He missed their technology. He even missed all the mess around. He missed everything about Earth. No matter how annoyed he had ever been about things going on back at home, being so far away, without a chance to go back whenever he wanted to, was suddenly too much for him to handle.

Grunting, he wanted to sit up to clear his hazy thoughts in hopes of calming down the raging sadness drowning him from within when he felt a movement behind his back and something warm and heavy around his waist. He froze for a moment.

He tried to think back to the previous day, trying to figure out what exactly happened after the discussion they all had.

He remembered going to one of the bedrooms with Azka'rah, where the alien apologized three more times for lying to him before finally letting it go. They then ended up talking about different kinds of creatures that lived on the planet, and Azka promised to take Rey to a shelter of some sort. It didn't work the same way animal shelters worked back on Earth, but they kept a lot of different creatures there for one reason or another. Some of them were injured, and in the process of healing, some were outcasted from their packs and brought to the shelters to keep them alive. Apparently, many creatures living on Nezda'rah couldn't survive without the company of other living beings. There were also some animals who chose to live near the Nezda'rahians simply because they liked them. That was so fascinating to Corey he couldn't wait to get there and see it for himself.

And that was the last thing he remembered from last night. He suspected he had fallen asleep, and Azka didn't bother to wake him up. His little theory was proven true when he slowly turned, finding himself face-to-face with the sleeping crown prince.

The alien's arm was lazily placed around Rey's side, and he was quietly snoring away. He looked peaceful. His mouth slightly opened, his right cheek squished against the pillow. If it wasn't for all the markings on his face, he would look like any other human. A very handsome, almost perfect human, but human nonetheless.

Corey didn't know what possessed him to do it, but he slowly touched one of the blue lines underneath his temple, following it up to his forehead. There, he circled a little bump he completely forgot about, noticing it was a little horn making its way out from underneath his skin. He realized it was at the same place where he saw the horns on the Refha, and when he looked at the other side of Azka's forehead, he noticed another one. It was so small and inconspicuous that it was hardly noticeable even from so up close as he was. Rey wondered if all of the aliens had them and made sure to remember to check the rest of them out after he got up. It was such a tiny detail, but he still couldn't believe he hadn't properly noticed it before, apart from the day he met him for the first time.