I was having a great sleep when my papa decides to wake me up “Remini, wake up, I need you to come with me”

“Seriously papa” I grumble “it’s my holiday!” I hide my eyes with my blanket, as my dad rummages through the room to open the curtains of both of my windows.

“It won’t last really long and you still have a few days of vacation, honey,” he tells me

“Still, you could have told me yesterday” I answer him “or never, I wanted to sleep in”

“You already did, it's 11 am. We can ask Leandre to come too,” my dad stops a little before adding “We will ask Leandre to come, you will chit-chat with each other”

I groan but didn’t really have a choice, my dad is really stubborn.

I didn’t put much effort to dress and take care of myself, I already had a hoodie and a pair of pyjama shirts on, so I just put on pants and some shoes.

Yes, I brushed my teeth too.

We went to Marcus's and Leandre's to get the last one, who wasn’t even aware of it yet.

My papa knocked on the door excitedly and Leandre opened the door.

“Hey?” Leandre seems hesitant

“Hi sweetie,” my papa says kissing Leandre’s cheek. My papa was on his tiptoes while  Leandre had to lean a bit. “Is your dad here? I am gonna salute him! Then you’re coming with us” he exclaimed before dashing away. 

Leandre was rightfully surprised and was still on the porch of his house looking behind himself where my papa had just gone off.

I hugged him to salute him “Hello” and it made him focus his attention on me. He patted my head and hugged me back

 “You seem tired,” he says

I untighten my embrace to look up at him

“Yeah my papa seems to think that 11 am is a holiday acceptable wake-up time”

“Like most parents” responds Leandre “So I am coming with you? where to? “

“To where my papa is going, I don’t know, I think he needs to go to the kitchen”

Less than five minutes later, Leandre and I were following my papa to, as I thought, one of the main kitchens.  The room was full of omegas, about a dozen. My papa was saying hello to everyone, hugging and all.

Brent, one of my papa's best friends told him, looking at us “You did bring us a young workforce”

“Yes and the little one here was hard to bring,” my papa says pointing at me

“I could have easily guessed,” Brent says chuckling,  he came over and kissed my cheek, yeah, omegas tend to have these tendencies to kiss cheeks left and right, at least in popular opinion.

I didn’t take badly what he says to me, unless some others here, I didn’t think he didn’t like me, or at least it didn’t show. 

My papa's more or less friends (depending on the person you’re addressing in the kitchen) aren’t that bad, but I know that some disapprove of me, the more some have done to me is ignoring me (and probably speaking behind my family’s back about me), but Brent always was friendly when we interacted.

“And how did you bring this fine young alpha here?” Brent asks us

“I just ask him” my papa answers, he was drying his hands, that he had just washed “but Leandre is such a sweetheart,” my papa says smiling.

I personally would call that ‘telling’ rather than ‘asking” but yeah.

Leandre seems a bit embarrassed “Oh I had nothing to do anyways and uncle came so…”

Brent smiles at us “Well youngsters go wash your hands and be helpful now that you’re here” he says before going back to whatever he was preparing.

Once we washed our hands, Lina, another omega here,  told us what we needed to do. She starts with my dad "Matas, do you think you could work on the main meal with me?". Obviously, my dad agreed and went a table away from where the main meal was.

Then she addresses me "You need to prepare those mushrooms," she says pointing to a little box on the table "the tofus and the chicken are in the fridge. Here are the printed recipes.”

As an omega, I was supposed to know those basic traditional preparations, but I didn’t know them by heart. That’s why I wasn't offended when she gave me the prints like others people could have been.

She was about to go when Leandre asks “What about me Lina? What am I supposed to do?”

Lina turned around, looking a little dumbfounded “Uuuh…you ?”

“Yes I came to help so…” Leandre responds, ill-at-ease

She obviously didn't know what to say because, I supposed, to her it wasn't his place to help “Do whatever you want?” she told him, not having found a better answer before going back to her table where my papa and Brent were.

I was looking at Leandre a bit pissed about what just occurred when he laughs “Don’t look at me like that, I will help you, with the chicken” he adds, knowing that I wasn't comfortable with meat.

It was so unfair, I was asked to know all kinds of preparation for all kinds of traditional meals and parties when I didn't even eat most of them. But he wasn’t even considered as a potential cooker in a kitchen once in a while.

“You better!"