Kingston Academy

FORTY-TWO

"Tired, puppy?"

Niven lazily sat beside his alpha, playing with the large tail which curled itself around his waist.

The two of them were inside Arien's dorm room at night. The beastman once again invited Niven over and the boy didn't hesitate to come.

Niven was originally supposed to help Arien out with the astonishing amount of paperwork stacked neatly on top of the table, but after an hour of receiving headaches from reading paper after paper, Niven took a long break.

It's been more than half an hour, yet the boy was still curled up against Arien's side, nonchalantly taking what seemed to be a small nap as his fingers kept rummaging themselves through the thick fur of the beastman's tail.

Arien's eyes were still trained on the paper in his hand, looking through each of them with a blank expression. His other arm was wrapped around the boy's waist securely, making sure Niven didn't slide all the way down to the couch and kept him propped up.

His alpha asked again with a heavy tone, "Are you tired?"

"I'm always tired," Niven muttered out, popping an eye open as a frown came across his face.

Arien took a small peek over to his side, noticing the dark circles under the blond's eyes and how slightly fatigued Niven was. He observed just how tired the omega was these days, rushing back and forth from the main building of the academy to get to his classes while coming back over to Arien's office. There was a time Arien simply offered him the week off, but Niven quietly refused and just kept on working, even though he was also exhausted from having to deal with his brothers.

"I'll get a bedroom prepared for you," Arien offered, watching how Niven struggled to keep himself awake.

The omega huffed, "It's too far to walk from here."

"Then sit on my lap. I'll let you sleep on me," his alpha suggested, amused with the idea.

Arien meant it as a small joke, but he honestly didn't expect Niven to sluggishly moved and actually climb up on his lap. Niven didn't really seem to care about the stunned expression on his alpha and leaned against the male's chest, swiping the document out of Arien's hand to overlook it himself.

Yawning, Niven managed to murmur out, "This student goes to class in a separate building from us since his courses are different... and mainly because he's a few years younger than us. His ability he uses for the majority of the time is-"

Although Niven was focused on reporting to Arien, the alpha could barely pay attention and sat in silence, mulling over the fact whether or not he should simply put the boy off his lap or not. He could tell Niven was too exhausted to even bother with what's going on and simply kept the blond closer to him in the end, finally paying attention to the report.

They managed to get half of the work done in another hour, their positions still staying the same.

Once it was close to midnight, Arien was ready to escort Niven over to the door before looking down to see his omega quiet and in a daze.

It wasn't the exhaustion speaking, but Arien could definitely tell Niven was thinking of something. He stood beside the sofa, arms crossed as he sipped on a new cup of coffee, waiting for the boy to snap out of his thoughts.

It took Niven several minutes, mostly because he kept nodding off, but he finally realized Arien had been waiting for home for a while. Niven was about to go and apologize when he realized his alpha drinking coffee again, causing a deep frown to emerge.

"I thought... we discussed about you not drinking coffee again," Niven recalled in a light tone. "It's bad for your health."

Arien stopped drinking the cup immediately, eyes still narrowed down on the student. "I understand."