Bikey might have had another drink. Possibly one after that? He wasn’t sure. 

Happy fuzziness had become dizzy blurriness by the time Aki found Hairy's food diary squashed at the bottom of Hairy’s sports bag.

With a big grin and the bounce returned to his step, Hairy snatched it from Aki, and for the first time in ages noticed Bikey.

‘You okay, mate? Aki didn’t upset you, did he? Don’t worry about him, he just gets itchy if five minutes have passed and he hasn’t told me how dumb I am. It hasn’t ruined your special first day at university excitement, has it? When we first arrived he was all on a downer, but you’ve just got to ignore him and keep telling yourself how you’re starting a brand new amazing life.’

Bikey heard himself talking although his mind didn’t seem to have any part in forming the words.

He was going into huge detail about how excited he’d been arriving this morning, that he’d gone straight to register at the university. And then how the staff in the office had said that he was in the wrong place, and accused him of forging his paperwork, that no beta would be permitted near their world leading athletic training facilities. He was reliving every disdainful look, every disbelieving word, how he just had to stand there awkwardly waiting when they had a long tea break and refused to even acknowledge him.

‘I’ve never been treated so badly ever!’ he heard himself saying. ‘It was the worst day of my life ever!’

He was sure, almost sure, his tongue was then going to form words flattering Hairy: how it turned from the worst to the best, as soon as he laid eyes on the unbelievably sexy man. And then schbang things would start happening as they were supposed to be happening.

But Aki cut across him.

‘The worst day of your life? My, how you have suffered.’ Aki’s tone was completely flat, but somehow that needled more than if he had sounded sarcastic and sneering.

Hairy gave Bikey’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘Awww, Bikey, have you suffered too? It’s tough, yaknow, to compare it all, but I think the worst day of my life was when a few of the kids taught me the difference between barbed wire and razor wire. What do you think, Aki?’

‘I think the worst day of my life was having a nightmare, going to seek comfort from my parents, and slipping over in the blood from their dead bodies.’

‘Duh. Obviously for you, your parents being murdered is the worst. Why would I ask about that? Nothing’s ever going to top that.'

‘Yet still you seem to work very hard at trying to top it,’ Aki said.

'I don't. If I wanted to give you the worst day ever, I totally would be able to do that.' Hairy stuck his tongue out. 'Anyway, it's not about you. I was asking, what do you think my worst day is? There’s like a few to choose from.’

Aki rubbed his forefinger across the base of his chin. ‘Hnnnn. If I were deciding for you it’d be between two events. The time you nearly got adopted, but then at the last moment they changed their mind and got a pet instead. Or continually finding your clothes urinated and defecated on.’

‘But those were like long term things, this is a worst day ever thing.’

‘I know that. It is about specific days. Remember how you felt when you woke up late and put your shoes on without checking. Remember the youth leaders shouting at you as if you’d done it yourself, and then forcing you to do the healthy hike barefoot.’

‘Yeah. You’re right, that was a bad day. Healthy hike day should’ve been called horrible hike day. But now you’ve brought it up, it was just normal life really, and it stopped after that. I think because you did something, right, Aki?’ Hairy skipped over to Aki and started poking him in the ribs. ‘I know you hate admitting it, but you did put your own neck on the line for me, and look after me, didn't you, when anyone did anything really nasty, didn’t you?’

Aki brushed Hairy away like an annoying insect. ‘Then your worst day is when you believed you were going to become part of a loving family, but instead got rejected in favour of a mutt.’

‘I did cry a bit, didn’t I?’ Hairy chuckled.

‘I wouldn’t call it crying. More like bawling. Maybe wailing is most accurate.’

‘If you want me to be using the right words, use the right words yourself.’ Hairy blew a raspberry in Aki’s ear. ‘It wasn’t a mutt. It was like a puppy from prize winning dog parents. They said in that letter they sent me, that’s why they couldn’t have me, as it cost them so much money. They wouldn’t be able to afford to bring up a child anymore, and anyway a dog would probably prove more useful around the farm than an uneducated boy.’

‘What prizes can a dog win that make its offspring more valuable than a child?’ Aki raised an eyebrow. ‘And if you’re in the mood to be precise, it wasn’t a letter they sent you, but a scrawled note on the back of a leaflet advertising dog training classes.’

Hairy laughed. ‘Yeah, right! That’s so funny. You remember it better than I do. I wish I could tell my younger self not to waste his tears. I mean, what people do that to a kid? Even though I didn’t know it at the time, that was actually a good day then. After a few nice days out away from the orphanage, I was saved from having bad parents. And best of all, I got to stay with you, my best alpha friend, for my whole childhood.’

They were forgetting all about him again.

‘My real worst day ever wasn’t this morning,’ Bikey shouted out.

Both alphas turned to him.

He had to think up something good. How could he ever compete with orphanage bullying, not to mention dead bleeding parents?!