Chapter Text
Every time he closes his eyes at night, he hears it. Sees it.
It started with what everyone had said, thought, and shown back then: Gojo Satoru should’ve been an alpha.
But he didn’t have time to prove his biology, it just was. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe public opinion on omegas would ever shift meaningfully. Sure, when he first presented at eleven and dove into The Internet, people were saying all the right things:
omegas and alphas bleed the same damn color.
(Apparently betas didn’t.)
Anyone still clinging to the idea that omegas are lesser in the year 2000 deserves a slow, teeth-grinding death.
I hope we’re all thinking of that viral story… the one about that omega attacked by a pack of alphas because the government wouldn’t prosecute scent-based assault the way it prosecuted drug crimes. Let that sink in.
(Satoru had wondered if it should’ve said That Omega, capitalized, named. Because That Omega was never even given a name. They had turned That Omega into a ghost story; their pain exploited for better and for worse. But, instead, he locked himself in his room and gripped a pocketknife. He hadn’t needed this, of course. He was Gojo Satoru, goddammit.)
Went to the pharmacy today. Price of omega collars went up again. Just omega.
(Satoru didn’t deal in money yet, but he was outraged.)
A reply in the chain read:
Why are alpha collars cheaper? You think we don’t see that? We see it. Every margin. No matter how small.
omegas should be allowed to date omegas. Alphas should be allowed to date Alphas. Where is everyone’s head at? IT’S 2000!
(It was the tagline on every blog, every forum post, a mantra for equality that somehow never reached legislation. Satoru agreed with the sentiment. But in the end, it was just a well-worded cry into a void. They said it in 300 AD. They said it in 1700. In 1973. In 2000. The years would always keep increasing, along with things like taxes, or wars, or fight for equal pay, or omega/alpha ideology.)
But, in the end, it was all a prettier thing for people to sit up and type about, shut off their phone, and then go out and deal with the “real world.”
Most people still looked at an unprecedented child and assumed who they would be based on the characteristics they could stereotype. It was more common for him to argue with random people on the internet at thirteen years old than see his own mother.
[GROUP DM: “digimon_discourse_and_discussion”]
user489_: matt is so alpha-coded. lone wolf, angsty, natural leader.
g-spot: nah. that’s classic omega repression. dude isolates, self-destructs, begs for belonging. not dominance.
user489_: but he leads????
g-spot: by accident. not ambition. Also, fucker: gabumon = emotional support bond. omega energy 100%
SLINGER: wait this is actually real
Packleader_prime: ur wrong “fucker”
g-spot: open your eyes. the harmonica he plays doesn’t scream alpha. it screams i cry alone in the form of sound. and dont say that’s an omega thing even if it is. he’s just trying not to FALL APART.
It was serious for him in every way that counted.
When he presented at eleven, it wasn’t that things went wrong—it just didn’t go ideally right.
Things had gone differently when he started wearing boy clothes, cutting his hair, and while never demanding to be called Satoru, he only ever responded to the name because it was his name. What else would he answer to? The clan had wanted a boy anyway, and he had been young enough that they could convince outsiders he always had been. The whole thing left a bitter taste in his mouth, yes, but back then he clung to whatever scraps he could get. He just needed to survive, preferably as a boy, even if the circumstances weren’t morally right.
The Gojo Clan was already pulled tight, like wire. They didn’t want to cooperate with anyone, and they certainly didn’t want to cooperate now that they had their ultimate trump card: him.
There was no one left to oppose them now that they had Six Eyes, Limitless Technique, Gojo fucking Satoru.
Luckily, for the clan, he had presented at home. He was tutored there too, which meant no friends to call and no one to witness it. Most of the household staff—servants, butlers, maids—were betas. Not because betas didn’t matter; they were the glue that held every pack together. They were exceptional at regulating emotions, and their scents were neutral enough to handle heatshares. So they would listen, shut up about Satoru, and keep the pack together.
He had been in one of the living rooms, or maybe the dining room connected to the first kitchen. He was somewhere, terrorizing the staff about food so that his favorite butler would pat his head—something he would later recognize as desperation for attention—when the soft heat hit him.
The soft heat, as he learned later, was subtle. A drop in body temperature. His scent unfurled slightly. And a bone-deep urge to lie down washed over him. The butler, horrified when he collapsed to his knees and started shivering, carried him to his room and stayed until he fell asleep.
The fallout was a big conversation. Bigger, louder, and more heartbreaking than necessary.
His mother handled most of it: the lawyers (insurance), the doctors (patches, collars, something to quiet it), the staff (a temporary salary increase that looked a lot like hush money), and, of course, his father.
She told him it didn’t mean anything. Satoru had sat at the table, back rigid, trying not to tremble. This was partly from the soft heat, partly from whatever medicine they gave him to suppress it. His father sat at the head, as if waiting for an uncle, an aunt, or for Satoru to die so they could try again and produce an alpha heir.
At the time, Satoru felt something like triumph. Or narcissism. Or maybe both. Most kids would beg their fathers to accept them.
But here’s this: his father and the rest of them had no choice. Alpha or not, Satoru was going to break every wall they built around tradition. That’s how the stories went, the ones with good endings with joyful fucking music at the end. And for once, he felt like one of those stories.
Gojo Satoru, a male omega, would be heir to the Gojo Clan. Because he had the Limitless Technique. Because he had the Six Eyes. Because he was the strongest fighter they would ever produce. Because he wouldn’t let them give him something he hadn’t even asked for then take it away from him when he had just started to learn how to live with it.
Satoru’s father had listened to his wife. He wasn’t abusive or cruel, not in the way books or movies liked to paint the bad ones. He was mainly stoic, practical, and just mean enough in the way that pressed on every insecurity Satoru had. His mother was an omega so he listened to her when it came to the whole omega thing.
What he didn’t say, though, was that he only listened because she was always going to be second. It was useless to pity his own mother for a path she seemed unwilling to fight anymore. She wasn’t stupid enough not to know that she could speak, advise, even decide, but only in the shadow of something greater.
He pitied that when she looked at him, she saw the same ending for him too.
She looked a lot like Satoru, which his father now hated. The white hair, the fuller lips, the defined jaw. Satoru could see it in his face every time they spoke. His father probably thought that if Satoru had looked more like him, like an alpha, he wouldn’t have ended up a submissive, fertile in all the wrong ways, good-for-nothing omega.
But that wasn’t his father’s thought. Not really. It was just what the world believed, and he was preparing Satoru to live in it.
His mother said, “They will find out.”
She always spoke like that—clear, complete. Never “they’ll.” It had to be formal. A bit of posturing. That was the Gojo way. No pet names and definitely soft edges exposed to the world to see.
“They will adjust. I will not call it ideal, but there is no other option.”
After that carefully delivered end of her speech, his father only said one thing: “Your bloodline ends here.”
It sounded factual, cold. But it wasn’t. His father could be emotional, just not in the way that involved yelling or tears. His emotion sounded like certainty, but underneath, it begged.
And Satoru understood what it meant. “Your bloodline ends here” meant Please, Satoru. Don’t find an alpha. Please. Please don’t bond with one. Please don’t let it happen.
Because if he did, that alpha could gain influence. They knew Satoru would inherit everything and the wrong bond could fracture the clan’s grip. It was already hard enough to keep Satoru loyal—imagine an alpha infiltrating their clan, whispering in his ear, commanding his weak, little omega’s mind.
And beyond power, there was pride. Satoru’s father didn’t want him to suffer the humiliation of pregnancy. Not him. Not strong, once-in-a-millennium Gojo Satoru.
Not a male omega. Not when Satoru was double guaranteed possible pregnancy.
So Satoru smiled. Not wide. Just enough to pull at his lips. He narrowed his eyes in a way that unsettled them more than anything else. They looked away and began whispering about other measures.
After that, they passed him off to higher-ranking heads of the clan. Bigger alphas. Alphas Satoru couldn’t bend to his omegan will so easily if he ever decided to bat his fucking eyelashes. He was fitted with scent-blocking collars, hormone patches, and pushed through rigorous training until they could pretend he was an Alpha.
They isolated him. Kept other alphas away. There could be no mistakes, not now. Not after they had forced and molded his omegan body into something the other clans could finally respect.
It was all so preposterous that Satoru went along with it. He knew what he was. Knew, deep down, his clan didn’t matter. Not really. He just let them pretend that, if he wanted, he couldn’t roll off his mat one morning and level their entire compound without breaking a sweat.
Then came Jujutsu High.
He had his eyes on it. And for all his arrogance, he had no real desire to turn the entire jujutsu world against him by wiping out his clan—even if they probably deserved it. He’d seen Naruto, and while Itachi had made for excellent shower thoughts during certain hormonal emergencies, Satoru had no interest in living his fate even if no one was forcing him to wipe out his clan to stop a possible civil war.
So, at fifteen, he demanded—well, requested, sort of—to enroll in Jujutsu High. And if they said no, he’d planned to walk out of the three great clans anyway and go on his own terms.
There were, of course, weeks of debate: His heat’s due at sixteen. There will be Alphas there. His scent might shift. Omegas get rebellious when not… supervised.
Eventually, they settled on some pathetic display of unity: he’d go through with the genpaku ceremony, show face, and pretend he gave a damn about the clan’s reputation. It was a political move, not that he cared. It made him look like more of a self-important jackass than he liked—but whatever. It got him in.
He was going to Jujutsu High.
For the first time in fifteen damn years, the metaphorical omegan leash that his family had fastened around his neck and stitched together with fictitious fear was taken off. He didn’t ask for help packing. He didn’t say goodbye, leave a note, or stop by his house to kiss his mother on the cheek.
Buzzing with a kind of anxious energy and teenage angst he wasn’t entirely used to, Satoru decided he needed to look good. He needed to look better than he already did, maybe even add an air of impressiveness that matched the rumors. So he chopped his own hair the night before (questionable decision), stuck on his sunglasses, practiced his slouch, grabbed his bags, and ended up leaving later than he meant to.
Which is how Geto Suguru—introduced with a capital G for don’t call me Suguru—beat him there.
On principle, Satoru refused to call him Geto. That’s clearly what he wanted. So he went with Suguru. Predictably, Suguru started calling him Satoru. It was mutual pettiness. Then it became a habit. Then it lost its edge entirely.
But that first meeting?
He hated Suguru and his “smug” bangs. Suguru hated Satoru and his “handmade” haircut.
Oh, and Suguru smelled really, really good.
…
The thing about Jujutsu High—something Satoru had to pretend didn’t startle him, in a good way—was that no one really cared where you were at any given time.
No one cared that his dorm was next to Shoko’s and Suguru’s. No one regulated heats, ruts, scents, or any of the other biology-based restrictions his clan had obsessed over. As long as you got the job done, which usually meant nearly getting killed, it was free rein.
There wasn’t anyone around to care much anyway. Most teachers didn’t live on campus. Students were constantly on missions. Their first-year instructor barely registered in his brain.
Later, when Satoru tries to reminisce, he struggles to remember any names at all. His mind only supplies a useless, good old generic “sensei.”
So, the elephant in the room: Satoru, an unbonded omega, was living beside two unbonded alphas—Shoko and Suguru.
Okay, not living with. But it felt that way during the first few days, when they were all trying too hard to break the ice. They sat outside, squinting into the sun in their thick uniforms because, of course, the sky refused to give them clouds.
It was one of those rare April days in Tokyo where seventy degrees felt like eighty.
Satoru sat on the grass, plucking blades and compulsively smoothing his too-short hair. He hadn’t thought it was that short, but after Suguru’s comment—canceling out his own previous comment, because Satoru was rarely wrong—he couldn’t stop checking his reflection in the mirror of his new dorm.
The rooms smelled faintly of lemons, sweat, and dust.
He hoped the student who had lived there before him didn’t die, though they probably did and that’s why there were no traces of any scent.
After that cold first meeting with Suguru, where both of them were clearly threatened and trying not to act like it, Satoru had made a decision while they sat in the grass. These are people. These are potential friends.
I will be cordial. I will explore this whole connection thing people always talk about.
So, naturally, the first thing out of his mouth was, “They couldn’t have paid for uniforms made for this kind of weather?”
Shoko was smoking. In this heat. He had no problem with smoke—he actually loved the smell—but the fact that she was doing something hot in hot weather made her even more appealing (appaling?) to look at.
She was an alpha who smelled like wood. Sometimes old, dry wood. Sometimes something smoother, like sandalwood cologne, especially when she was pleased with him. That hadn’t happened often in the first few days. But when it did, Satoru accepted it like a dumb dog being scratched under the chin.
He liked it. Maybe too much.
But he loved the way she smelled like he loved the smell of old books. He couldn’t get enough of it. Not in a sexual way, though. It wasn’t like he wanted to fuck a book.
He was thoughtlessly smelling Shoko after the equally thoughtless comment on the uniforms when Shoko took a long drag of her cigarette and blew it directly in his face.
Wanting desperately to be liked, he didn’t wave the smoke away. He just grinned and tilted his head, peeking at her over his sunglasses. Her blank expression didn’t change. What was he supposed to do with that?
Suguru didn’t seem even mildly uncomfortable in the grass. He leaned back on both hands, head tossed, bangs catching the breeze. His eyes were closed, but now there was a quiet sigh, and his brow twitched.
“They don’t have unlimited money to spend on making Gojo Satoru comfortable,” Suguru muttered.
That pissed Satoru off. It wasn’t even the fact that Suguru was trying to be rude —well, maybe that too—but it was the muttering.
“Huh?” he asked, clearly pretending he hadn’t heard.
Suguru took the bait. “I said, not everyone has unlimited money to spend—”
Shoko laughed. Not for the first time since they met her. And not really a laugh, more like a soft, unimpressed “hmph” as she lowered her gaze to flick some ash that landed on the grass.
“What?” Suguru asked, still not opening his eyes.
“He’s fucking with you,” Shoko said, flicking a glance his way.
They exchanged a look, and even though Satoru was the one doing the messing around, he somehow ended up feeling like the punchline.
Still, he was a little relieved. Someone had finally broken the Can I cuss around these two or are they too young or too polite or raised with a bar of soap in their mouth or what? tension. They were all fifteen. His proper mother still threatened him anytime a curse even hovered near his mouth.
Suguru shut his eyes again, the corner of his mouth tipping up. “Of course he is.”
“You don’t like me because I’m rich?” Satoru asked. Not shy, not insecure—just curious. He hadn’t figured out how to talk to kids his age. Had no idea if he was learning with the wrong people or exactly the right ones. Either way, it was confusing.
Suguru scoffed. That was his only answer.
So Satoru went back to plucking at the grass, pretending like it was more interesting than the unfamiliar confusion clouding his brain. It was easier than showing how terrible he was at reading people after they got a read on him. He wasn’t going to let this turn into a disaster. He refused. Absolutely fucking refused.
“I’ll always have more money than you, so you might as well get over it,” Satoru said carefully. Then, after a beat—because even to his own ears, that sounded bratty—he added, “If that’s what this is about. Or... if that’s bothering you.”
“You—” Suguru lifted his head, squinting his eyes. “What?”
Yeah, definitely offended. Satoru could tell now, even if he didn’t know what part hit the nerve.
Of course the Gojo clan was wealthy. That was no secret. They were one of the oldest, most powerful families in Jujutsu society, and with that came influence, politics, and obscene wealth. And after enough deaths, all that money funneled straight to him. What else was he supposed to do with it? He lived off allowances, whatever hit his account by law, and the occasional debit card he didn’t ask too many questions about.
“I have a lot of money and, like, power,” Satoru said again, slower this time. “I probably act like it. I’m not gonna pretend I don’t. Honestly... I don’t know how to be anything else.”
He almost added yet, but bit it back. That would have sounded too close to wanting. Too close to hope. Too damn close to change.
Suguru’s scent shifted, sudden and sharp. Satoru didn’t flinch, didn’t react, though he noticed it immediately. Suguru smelled like things Satoru liked and things he was drawn to without fully understanding why.
Hyacinths, like the ones he grew in his own personal, secret garden back home. Herbal tea, maybe green or milk tea. Ripe peaches, that sticky-sweet juice dripping down your chin. Caramel. Sweat. Cigarette smoke—acrid when he was pissed off, menthol-cool when he wasn’t.
Right now, he smelled a little acrid.
“Are you being funny?” Suguru asked. Not angry. Just... weary. Or maybe he was being condescending. It was hard to tell since Suguru always spoke softly, not like the loud, abrasive alphas Satoru had been around his whole life. (And God, look at him, already falling into lazy stereotyping.) That quiet tone made him harder to read, and Satoru hated that. He was supposed to be good at everything. At predicting outcomes, reacting fast, adapting faster. But apparently not this. Not people.
He really thought he’d be better at this part. The part where he was supposed to figure others out, blend in a little, stop standing out like a goddamn flare every time he opened his mouth. He’d been trained for strategy since he was a child, practically had it in his bones, but now here he was, fumbling with something as basic as reading two teenagers his age.
And how was he even supposed to turn it all off? The way he walked, the way he talked, the way jokes slipped out before he could check if they were welcome. The way the weight of the expensive watch on his wrist somehow felt heavier when someone looked at it too long.
Satoru blinked, at a loss.
Maybe it’s because I’m an omega? he thought, then dismissed it just as quickly. That wasn’t a belief he could undo with words alone, and he wasn’t about to tumble down that rabbit hole yet.
Suguru sighed. “You’re wrong. I don’t care that you’re rich. I care that you act like everything here is beneath you.”
It was the kind of sentence someone said when they were just explaining a fact. Like, The microwave isn’t working because you blew a fuse. Not, I don’t like you because…
And Satoru liked it. Perhaps those Digimon blogs truly did fuck him up.
Still, he was taken aback. “Beneath me?”
“Yes,” Suguru said. He nodded once, the bun at the back of his head bouncing slightly. “You were handed a rare opportunity, and you act like there’s nothing here worth learning. Like you’ve already got it all figured out.”
This was news to Satoru. His stomach hadn’t been in knots, but he had fought tooth and nail with the clan to be here so he could learn. Right? So… what had he done wrong? What hadn’t he done? What was he supposed to be doing?
He furrowed his brows and leaned forward, genuinely curious now. He might not agree with Suguru, but he liked being picked apart. “You’ve lost me.”
“Gojo Satoru,” Suguru said flatly, like he was the answer to his nagging.
Satoru blinked at him again.
Suguru sighed, and the mean part of Satoru’s brain whispered something irrational: That’s how an Alpha sighs at a hopeless omega. Dismissive. Pitying.
Satoru dismissed this thought once again.
“Everyone already knows how strong you are,” Suguru explained at last. He didn’t sound bitter, just mildly frustrated that Satoru wasn’t catching on.
“Ah,” Satoru murmured, laughing under his breath. “Let me ease your troubled mind, then—everyone knows how strong I’m gonna be.”
Suguru narrowed his eyes. “You’re cocky.”
So nothing he said was right to this guy.
Satoru shrugged. “I guess.”
Suguru almost looked pleased at the admission. Barely.
“I don’t like that.”
That seemed fair enough. He nodded. “Okay.”
“He doesn’t like cocky,” Shoko chimed from across the room, watching their not-quite-argument-but-kind-of-argument like it was a midday drama.
Neither of them reacted. Only later would the comment strike them as funny—maybe because it sounded like she was calling Suguru cocky, too, and couldn’t stand the hypocrisy. Whatever she meant, it went ignored. Shoko didn’t seem to mind.
“This is a great opportunity,” Satoru said, but not to placate Suguru. He knew it was true, that was why he wanted to go here.
Maybe this was just what boys did. Perhaps they tested each other until they passed some unspoken test. Suguru was dissecting him, piece by piece. His wealth. His arrogance. His entire personality. Maybe he didn’t like him. Maybe he did. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Suguru looked at him and said, “Act like it.”
“I am,” Satoru shot back, more defensively than he meant to.
“Don’t curl your lip at the training grounds or sulk through long walks. Stop expecting people to serve you or bring you food. Wash your own clothes. Pay attention in class. Listen and learn from everyone around you.”
The list stung like a tiny wasp sting. Satoru hated that.
He knew he wasn’t raised like everyone else. He couldn’t be. And Suguru didn’t know—by no fault of his own—what it was like to grow up so separate from the world that even pretending to be normal felt impossible. He was trained and forced to expect the best or he would never be the best. He would never save the world. He wouldn’t ever be able to hide that omega status properly.
Under different circumstances, he would’ve hated Suguru for saying that. Would’ve sworn off talking to him, stolen the sheets from his bed and burned them to a crisp just to roast a herring over the flame.
But Suguru smelled like hyacinths. And he wasn’t throwing his alpha status around. He wasn’t humiliating Satoru. He was... giving advice, in some really, really twisted way. Or criticism. Or maybe just honesty that Satoru didn’t know what to do with, because most people wanted Satoru to like them.
“Fine,” Satoru said, a little begrudgingly.
“Fine,” Suguru echoed, waited a beat, and then tilted his head back again, the corner of his mouth lifting once again.
Oh, Suguru was going to like him. Whether he wanted to or not.
Mark his words.
…
Suguru had him on the ground by the throat.
A few things:
Suguru’s criticism from last week was, unfortunately, not entirely baseless.
Being an Omega really, truly didn’t mean anything here.
And Shoko got out of doing too many things.
Sensei had given them a week to settle in with just classroom teaching, but once training started, it was straight to hell with them. Satoru had been eager because he wanted to see what these two could actually do. Because in all their “breaking the ice” moments—in the yard, in the lounge—not once had they talked about techniques. Not once had the topic of secondary gender come up.
Looking back, that seemed strange. They’d only talked about trivial things: music tastes, a story involving a pigeon and a baseball bat (no injuries, no Shoko, and the bird and bat were not related to each other in the story,), Shoko’s obsession with cotton over silk—it breathes better, seriously—money, and shallow, awkward family talks. Suguru’s childhood came up occasionally, mostly when his mom called. They even argued about politics they agreed on, just for the sake of arguing.
So, yes, Satoru had been cocky going in. People had talked about his technique and his strength so he figured that was fair. These two were going to be his classmates for the next five years. He wanted to like them. He wanted them to like him. He wanted to impress them and he only knew how to do that by performing like a peacock for people’s entertainment.
And, anyway, if they were good abilities, wouldn’t they want to talk about their techniques too?
Shoko had bowed out with a dramatic hand on her stomach. It’s the noodles from last night, she said. I’m fine just watching and taking notes, Sensei. Then she dropped to the mat with a lollipop stick between her teeth and no intention of moving.
Another thing about Jujutsu High that was different from home: you could say no. Just like that. No smack to the face, no broken finger, no ice. He had learned to stop holding his breath when someone said No.
So Satoru had sized Suguru up—developing muscle, softish face—and thought: Yeah. I’ve got this. After fifteen years of training, face bruised, body wrecked. He could take Suguru down without even needing to use Limitless. The guy looked like all bark, no bite, especially after last week.
Which was exactly why it was a mistake not to use it.
Sensei, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, had said, “Begin.”
Now Satoru was flat on his back, a hand clamped around his throat, tears in his eyes—actual tears from the lack of air—while his brain spun too fast to hold a single thought. It had been years since anyone had manhandled him like this. Fully, deliberately, without hesitation. He usually hit back harder or left people limping.
But Suguru wasn’t even angry or bitter like Satoru thought he would look. He just looked down at Satoru with a calm, unreadable face. His stance was steady. One knee pinned Satoru’s arm at the forearm, the other pressed into his side. His free hand gripped Satoru’s wrist like a shackle.
Suguru wasn’t improvising. He was trained. And worse, he was prepared for Satoru. Every point of pressure felt intentional. Satoru had learned to fight like he had already won. Suguru fought like he had no other choice.
Satoru couldn’t hear anymore. Blood pounded in his ears and his vision swam, either from being oxygen-starved or tear-clouded, he couldn’t tell. Limitless didn’t even come to mind. That scared him more than he wanted to admit.
It also thrilled him in a way that made no sense.
Maybe that was why he didn’t like or remember Sensei, because he was ready to black out when, without warning, the hand lifted. The weight disappeared. He didn’t gasp like a fool, but he did take a few gulps of air as he pushed himself up on his palms.
He blinked and saw Sensei gripping Suguru by the shoulder and offending arm, voice muffled like it was underwater.
Enough. Blah blah. You could have killed him. Blah blah.
Suguru shook his head, brows lifted in honest surprise. “I would’ve known if I went too far. I was watching his eyes.”
“What’s your deal?” Satoru rasped, clearing his throat. He looked at Suguru, but the words were for Sensei. “We weren’t done.”
Sensei chewed on his cheek, nostril flaring in anger. You have to be careful. Blah blah.
Suguru shrugged off Sensei’s hand. “I am being careful. We were sparring. He’s not going to be happy when I fight him.”
Sensei looked at him then, and Satoru recognized the expression. He braced for it. It wasn’t pity—worse, it was discomfort. That awkward, sidelong glance paired with the kind of squirming posture that usually came with phrases like uhh before every sentence. An attempt to soften the blow. Or the assumption. Or the belief about Satoru.
Sensei lowered his voice, but everyone in the room could hear. There were only four of them, and with their second genders, hearing wasn’t an issue.
He’s an omega. I’m not saying he’s fragile. But biologically your strengths differ. It’s just biology and can’t be helped. Science proves this. You three understand?
Blah. Blah. Fucking blah.
He didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. What he had was the determination to stand up and fight Suguru again.
Who would’ve thought losing would light something back up in him? It sounded like the summary on the back of a book: the prodigal boy that was used to winning, and now he has met someone bigger, better, stronger rival. Can Gojo Satoru live up to his inheritance? Can he grow? No more useless battles. This is where it starts.
It wasn’t that dramatic. But it was close.
He could admit it now: he’d thought no one could teach him anything. No one had what he had. Six Eyes or Limitless. They were his and his alone to master. Jujutsu High was just a stage. A place to stand, a place to escape to and gain experiences outside of fighting.
He’d been wrong. So, so wrong.
It took a hand at his throat to shake that belief loose. And the boy on the other end was the reason.
No, Suguru couldn’t show him how to stop seeing everything at once. No one could fix the fact that he could see everything, all at once with no way to stop because of his eyes. No one could stop the safety blanket of Limitless that left him starved for touch.
But Suguru, and by extension Shoko, weren’t trainers or placeholders. They weren’t shiny new toys handed over by a wealthy family. They were real, tangible people who might actually show him something he hadn’t seen before.
Acrid smoke stung his nose. He turned to Shoko, still chewing on the stick of a finished sucker. Then looked back at Suguru, who rolled his shoulders, an angry furrow contorting the middle of his face.
Surprisingly, the smell of acrid smoke wasn’t directed at him this time.
“Omega or not, he can handle me.” It was the furthest Suguru seemed willing to push back against a teacher. But then he looked straight at Sensei, and that was how Satoru knew he meant it.
“Don’t overlook his strength because of biology. It’s exhausting and it’ll get us both killed.”
…
Three weeks passed, all of it filled with fighting. Satoru had learned from his earlier mistake, so instead, he fought half the time with Infinity on, half the time with it off. He expected complaints, but Suguru only pulled out curses that disrupted Infinity when Satoru’s focus slipped, or he took the hits and losses without complaint.
Shoko avoided most sparring sessions and sprawled on the mat instead. But when she agreed—always on her terms—she took wins and losses like a champ. They never went easy on her.
Sensei looked increasingly uncomfortable. The three of them were annoyed. All four, just slightly at odds with each other.
So when Sensei left them in charge after getting called in for a mission that needed desperate backup, Satoru expected more fighting. They had just exorcised their first curse as a team. It was just a leftover curse in an abandoned shelter for single, pregnant omegas. It should have been his first win to celebrate, but he walked away feeling like he still had something to prove.
That was what really got under his skin. He knew home was still crawling around in his head. He had fought hard against all those outdated ideas, but somehow, they’d gotten in anyway. Whispering that he had to prove he wasn’t a stereotype. That he wasn’t weak. That he wasn’t a single, pregnant omega.
He hated it and hated himself a little. But he hated the world more. So he stayed in bed until noon.
Looking back, it was probably a mess of hormones and insecurity and Do they even like me yet? It sucked. All of it. He wasn’t Cool Gojo Satoru yet. Not the one who let things slide with a smirk, who acted like nothing touched him.
He knew that version of himself was in there. He just needed to be sixteen already. That was when omegas matured, right?
So yeah. He needed to grow up.
But then Shoko opened his door—after picking the lock—with Suguru behind her. Both of them were in uniform. Which meant nothing, really, since they wore those everywhere. But Shoko had on her walking shoes, the flat ones without a heel.
That meant something.
“Let’s go to the arcade. I don’t feel like training,” Shoko sing-songed as she stepped farther into his room.
Satoru was lying on his stomach, arms wrapped around a pillow, and shoved his face deeper into it, committed to wallowing in angst or whatever this emotion was. Getting up wasn’t on the agenda.
“You two go ahead,” he said, voice muffled as he turned just enough for his cheek to press against the pillow instead.
Shoko, never one for patience, ripped the blanket off him with a strength she clearly saved for moments like this. “Get up.” Then she paused. “What the hell’s on your underwear?”
Satoru didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed—until he saw Suguru glance over Shoko’s shoulder. His legs twitched involuntarily, like he could still curl into a ball in time to hide.
“Digimon,” he mumbled.
Fifteen or seventy-five, Digimon was still his thing. Sue him.
Shoko kept laughing, delighted in that deeply annoying but somehow fond way only she could pull off, while Suguru casually scanned the room. He hummed, picked up a wrinkled uniform shirt draped over a chair, and then grabbed a matching pair of pants near the half-unpacked suitcase. Both had clearly seen better days. Without ceremony, Suguru tossed them at Satoru.
“Get dressed. We’ll be outside and leaving in five minutes, Satoru. Five.”
Satoru let out a long, muffled scream into his pillow.
He made it outside in seven.
He brushed his teeth, combed through his uneven growing hair, squinted at the mouthwash, and remembered—at the last possible second—to slap on lotion and a bit of powder. He didn’t bother with a body spray, but he paused for a moment, wondering if his pheromones were enough. That thought made him smile.
It made him smile even more when he stepped outside and saw them waiting. Without thinking, he threw his arms around both of them, grinning when they tolerated it. For once, his omega purred. That was new. He was used to ignoring it, pushing it aside, surviving without it. But now? It felt nice.
After some light conversation and aimless wandering, they arrived. Tucked next to an abandoned shop on a quiet Tokyo street was their arcade—not glitzy or flashy, but full of old-school machines from the '80s and '90s. Modern enough to keep running, retro enough to feel like a memory.
Satoru only knew those eras from videos, hearsay, or the rare time he’d slipped in here as a lonely kid. Back then, he’d play one game and leave before anyone could catch him. He always left disappointed, as if the machine owed him something it couldn’t give.
But this time, he busted open his bank account and bought coins for everyone, grinning as the machine clinked and whirred. He silently thanked whatever higher power existed that neither Shoko nor Suguru were too proud to let him spoil them.
Then something else happened. As Satoru knelt to catch the coins in a plastic cup for Shoko, she reached down and gently stroked the skin beneath his eye. Her smile was closed-lipped, soft, and genuine.
“Thanks. That’s sweet of you,” she said with all friendly alpha, all quiet strength and genuine friendship warming her eyes.
Satoru leaned into her thumb for just a second. It wasn’t weird or sexual in any way. Even at fifteen, he didn’t feel the flare of those hormones at this gesture. It was just them. Maybe this was what growing up looked like.
Or maybe this was what youth was supposed to feel like.
He didn’t know since he’d never had friends to figure that out with before.
“Funny how an omega is the one providing for us,” Shoko mused to Suguru, leaning casually against the machine with her cup in hand as she waited for the two of them.
And for once, Satoru didn’t mind being singled out. Because it didn’t feel like being othered. Yes, he was an omega. Yes, they were alphas. Yes, they could joke about it. It didn’t have to be weird or taboo because they were allowed to be different in these small, harmless ways.
Suguru took the cup of coins from Satoru with a soft smile and a quiet scoff when Satoru leaned in, clearly expecting him to do what Shoko had done under his eye. Instead, Suguru shoved his face away, grabbed his arm, and started dragging him off, motioning for Shoko to follow as he searched for his favorite arcade games.
They played for hours. It was the longest Satoru had ever stayed at an arcade.
He remembered watching other kids from a distance when he went for his walks or ran away for a day, just to make everyone worry. He watched how they came with friends, yelled at the screens, laughed too loudly, and pointed those fake plastic guns at each other like it was war. He hadn’t even felt jealous back then, because it never seemed like something meant for him.
But now, he was jealous for that version of himself.
Because here he was—older, still uncertain, but standing next to another boy his age who was laughing with him, not at him, watching as Satoru fumbled through a game. While Shoko went to trade in her tickets, demanding to do it alone, they played a one-player fighting game with flashy combos and ridiculous special effects, King of Storms. He kept picking a character with silver hair and wings, who was supposedly impossible to master, but Satoru liked a challenge.
Or maybe he just liked watching her fly.
“You’re terrible at this,” Suguru said, grinning as Satoru’s character got blasted off the screen by a flaming sword.
“Shut up, I’m learning,” Satoru huffed, furiously mashing the buttons and squinting like that would improve his reaction time.
They probably didn’t like each other completely yet, but Satoru couldn’t help but hope Suguru did. Just a little. Just a few weeks ago, Satoru was gunning to make Suguru like him, but not the other way around. Now, he felt that plan receding into the tide of his mind.
Suguru only laughed again, but he didn’t move away.
Later, when they left and boarded the subway, they’d end up riding hundreds of times together. Shoko revealed the prize she’d kept hidden. With her tickets, she had traded for three matching friendship bracelets. Her cheeks were faintly flushed, but she simply shoved the bracelets at them and slipped hers on without a word.
What struck Satoru most was that they didn’t leave. They stayed, and more than that, they wanted to be friends with him.
He slipped his bracelet on, fiddling with the beads as he hung off the subway pole, laughing obnoxiously and giddily, thoroughly embarrassing them in the crowded car.
And that, more than anything, felt new.
…
It started because he nearly burned down the dorm kitchen trying to heat up some oil to fry something.
Three months into Jujutsu High, he still insisted that he “had it” with the whole cooking thing, but the charred plastic of the kettle handle said otherwise. Shoko had found the smell first. Suguru had followed the smoke. They had found Satoru fanning a dish towel at the ceiling like that would make the alarm shut up.
Afterward, when the crisis was contained and the kitchen smelled like scorched rubber and shame, Shoko had declared, “You’re not allowed to eat unless you learn how to feed yourself.”
Satoru, sprawled on the floor and pretending he hadn’t been seconds away from a meltdown, had grinned up at her. “I can just live off my looks.”
“You’ll starve,” Suguru had replied, tossing him a bag of rice and a challenge. “Make this edible.”
From there, it became a Thing.
Every week, they rotated cooking duty, and Satoru—under duress—was taught the sacred basics: how to rinse rice without flooding the kitchen, how not to confuse sugar and salt, and that “you couldn’t just throw cumin on everything and call it gourmet.”
Shoko’s methods had been more chaotic (“This is a knife. Try not to bleed.”), while Suguru had taught like he was instructing one of his curses (“Stir gently. No, gently, Satoru. You just want me to hold your hand, don’t you?”).
The first meal Satoru cooked solo technically had flavor, though it tasted too much like rosemary, and Shoko still claimed she had felt her soul leave her body halfway through. But Suguru had eaten it quietly and with no complaints.
Eventually, he got decent—not good, but decent. He learned how to make late-night tamago kake gohan, how to boil udon without disaster following, and how to pan-fry gyoza so they were crispy and cooked through. More importantly, he learned what it felt like to serve someone else. To care enough to try.
And to feel no shame in serving someone as an omega. Years ago, the thought would have infuriated him, but now, he liked it. Whether it stemmed from “omega instincts” or something else didn’t really matter anymore.
He liked the way Shoko licked sauce off her fingers when she thought no one was looking. He liked the way Suguru nodded thoughtfully when the miso or tea on the side was just right.
He never told them, but those nights when they taught him, no matter how many times he failed, the food still tasted better than anything he had ever had back home.
…
“You seriously don’t know how to ride a bike?” Suguru asked. He looked especially good in the low light, the setting sun casting a soft glow behind him. Shoko had kicked them out so she could clip her nails in peace and sent the two of them off to “go pick up some dinner.”
He had assumed they’d be walking, but apparently, on their way back, Suguru decided that nabbing an abandoned bike from a sidewalk near the park was a faster and far superior plan.
Satoru pointed at the black bike in front of them, hoping to deflect attention from himself. It wasn’t anything remarkable. “It’s not that I can’t ride it. I just won’t—on principle. We’re stealing this from some poor kid.”
“You’ve shoplifted hundreds of times.” Suguru rolled his eyes and let out a quiet laugh. He leaned on the handlebars, the plastic bag of food stretching a little in his hand. “You can’t ride a bike.”
“First of all, those are big, greedy corporations. It’s not the same thing. They wouldn’t even notice I stole fucking candy or shoes.” Satoru shoved his hands into his pockets and willed his ears not to go red. It was just one more thing he’d missed out on, something most kids picked up without thinking.
He heard the telltale creak of the bike and glanced over sharply to see Suguru already straddling it. He didn’t look like he was teasing anymore. He was focused on tying off the handles of the plastic bag, his mouth pursed in concentration.
“When did you learn?” he asked quietly, fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist—the one that matched Suguru’s and Shoko’s.
Suguru hummed in thought. “My neighbor had this red and black bike. I learned on that. Maybe when I was six?”
“They just let you?”
Suguru looked up at him then, pausing for a moment to study his face. Satoru stared back.
“That’s just what people do,” Suguru said.
He pushed his sunglasses further up his nose and nodded slowly. “Huh.”
And that, apparently, was that.
“I’ll walk back,” he offered, already turning on his heel.
He didn’t get more than four steps before Suguru snapped his fingers behind him like he was calling a disobedient dog. Satoru turned, brow raised, just in time for Suguru to shove the bag of food in his direction. With a dramatic sigh, Satoru stomped back over, snatched the bag with two fingers, and let it dangle like it offended him.
“And I’ll carry the food. Happy to.”
Before he could turn away again, Suguru hooked a finger into the belt loop of his pants and gave a quick tug, shooting him a look like Really?
Satoru couldn’t explain what that did to him. You had to be fifteen, strung out on the sexual kind of hormones this time, a little lonely, and probably a little in love with the smell of Geto Suguru. Most people couldn’t check all those boxes. So he let it bloom quietly under his skin, warm and fluttery and entirely ridiculous.
“What are you doing?”
“Walking back to the dorms,” Satoru replied, slow and sarcastic. “Carrying dinner. Like you asked.”
Suguru didn’t respond. He just shook his head, grabbed the handlebars, and maneuvered the bike toward him. “Get on the back, dumbass.”
He blinked. “What?”
Suguru was already shifting his foot onto the pedal, glancing over his shoulder at the back of the bike. “Just get on. And hold onto me.”
“You’re insane. We’ll tip over. I’m not sitting on a bike or holding onto you.”
“You are, actually,” Suguru said, pointing to the narrow rack on the back wheel. “Just sit there and try not to get a scrape on the knee. You’ll whine about it for days.”
He was only mildly offended by that. “You’re asking a lot.”
“Scaredy cat,” Suguru taunted, eyes flicking up with a grin that made Satoru want to throttle him and maybe press his own cheek against Suguru’s at the same time.
“I’m not scared. I’m just… calculating risks.”
“Uh-huh.” Suguru reached out again, casually tugging on his belt loop.
“Stop doing that,” Satoru grumbled, batting his hand away. “Fine. I’ll get on. But if I drop this food, I’m telling Shoko it was you. I mean it. Like, seriously.”
With a resigned groan, he climbed onto the back, awkwardly balancing while Suguru held the bike steady. It wasn’t built for two, especially not two lanky teenage boys. He wedged the bag of food between them and hesitated for a beat, eyes flicking to Suguru’s back.
Suguru flapped a hand back lazily. “At least one hand around me, Satoru. Don’t be weird about it.”
He was, in fact, going to be weird about it. But he just sighed again, then wrapped one arm around Suguru’s middle, keeping it as loose as possible. His fingers hovered at the hem of Suguru’s button up, the warmth of stomach back bleeding into his own palm.
Suguru said nothing, just pushed off the ground with one foot, the bike wobbling for a second before catching momentum. They bumped off the sidewalk and onto the dirt path that curved toward Jujutsu High.
The first turn nearly made Satoru choke on his own breath, his arm tightening instinctively around Suguru’s waist.
“Relax,” Suguru laughed, low and breathy. “I got you.”
“I am relaxed,” Satoru muttered through clenched teeth, digging his fingers in a little more just to prove a point.
Suguru swerved again—on purpose this time—and Satoru yelped, then cracked up, the wind catching his voice and whipping it away. He laughed because, horribly, he trusted Suguru. He trusted that he meant the I got you. The bike wobbled with every laugh, but neither of them cared. Suguru kept swerving, and Satoru let himself lean into it, let himself feel the air in his lungs, Suguru’s scent everywhere, the world spinning in the best way.
By the time they reached the end of the path, Suguru was panting lightly and grinning like an idiot. “See? Told you. I can teach you, and you can learn.”
Satoru rested his cheek against his back, flushed and tired from doing absolutely nothing but feeling everything. “Nah,” he murmured, almost too quiet to hear. “You can just keep doing it for me.”
Satoru never did learn how to ride a bike.
…
Satoru had been too caught up in everything. Having friends, he realized, was actually fun. He finally understood why people went on and on about humans being social creatures, or why omegas supposedly needed affection in all its forms. No, he wasn’t healed from the damage done back home, but something inside him felt like it was starting to stitch itself back together. Maybe it was too bold to say it was his identity, but whatever it was, it mattered.
So he let his guard down. He got comfortable—so comfortable, in fact, that he willingly forgot about his suppressants. He had brought patches just in case, so if he ever slipped up, he would only have to deal with the physical strain.
Four months in, a soft heat hit him.
He knew it was coming, really.
Soft heats came every four months, and he had marked the last one in April before arriving at Jujutsu High. He’d even tracked it in the chaotic mess that was his heat journal. Now it was August, and if he’d been attending a regular Japanese high school, he’d be on summer break until September.
But their version of a break was a single week—just enough time to visit family before the second semester started.
Satoru, for reasons that needed no explanation, said no. Shoko, for reasons she didn’t bother to explain, said yes. Suguru, for obvious reasons, said yes as well.
That left Satoru alone at the vast, empty Jujutsu High campus for a full week. He had told them—because that was a thing now, talking about concerns and making sure everyone was alright—that he needed time away from them anyway. That was a lie. He said he’d be fine. Another lie. He reassured them that he didn’t want to intrude or invite himself to stay with either of them for the break. That was the biggest lie of all.
When Shoko left, he helped her carry her suitcase and singular bag to the train station even though she hadn’t needed it. As they said goodbye, she tousled his hair. He leaned in for a hug and, without meaning to, took in a deep breath of her scent. He could have sworn he felt his bones sink more comfortably into his skin, as if her presence alone grounded him.
She laughed softly and gave his head a few gentle pats. “I’ll miss you, too. It’s only a week.”
Flustered by how much he suddenly needed her—more than his usual needy self ever admitted—he stepped back and nodded. “A week. Try not to be late.”
She paused on the step, then glanced over her shoulder, the light catching her mole and those watercolor eyes. “You’re the one that’s late.”
And then the doors slid shut. Shoko always did get the last word.
Another sign should have been the unbearable, bone-deep fatigue that hit him on the way back to Jujutsu High. His limbs felt heavy, his skin too clammy, and a sickly sweat clung to him in a way that wasn’t normal. Not for him. Too much sweat matted his hair, which had grown longer than it was when he first arrived.
Time had been ticking forward on more things than just his hair, and Satoru—naïve, distracted, and unprepared—was about to pay for it.
When he stepped into Suguru’s room to bother him one last time before he left, he saw the backpack already on the floor and Suguru bent over, zipping up his travel bag. He was ready to go, and the sight hit Satoru so hard he nearly collapsed.
Correction: he did collapse.
His knees slammed into the wooden floor before he even realized he was falling and Infinity failed him, Limitless equally distracted. Pain bloomed seconds later, radiating up his legs as his hands caught him awkwardly, and sweat rolled off the tip of his nose. Then came the sharp, sick twist low in his abdomen. His sunglasses slid off, clattering to the floor, and somehow everything felt ten times worse without them.
Soft heats weren’t particularly soft contrary to popular belief. They were warning shots as his body strained toward the real thing, only to fold in on itself with every attempt to hold it back. A slow implosion of systems—muscle, nerves, pheromones, hormones—each one turning against itself as he edged closer to the real thing.
Images flickered across his mind like static: versions of himself curled up alone in his room back at home, wracked with pain and too stubborn to tell them that the suppressants weren’t dosed right again. Alone. Always alone.
The thought nearly sucked the sound from the room. Only his vision remained sharp, vibrating at the edges with the surge of cursed energy buzzing through him.
He knew Suguru was approaching despite the cursed energy overwhelming his brain. Satoru could pick him out of a crowd just by that now.
Suguru didn’t speak. He crouched in front of him and gently pried Satoru’s fingers free, which had curled into fists or into the splintering wood itself. Then he helped ease him upright, looping Satoru’s own arms around his shoulders like it was nothing.
And then the smell. God, the smell.
It overwhelmed him. Cold brew and late nights. Rain. Hyacinths. Rooms and rooms of them. Smoke curling from half-lit windows, conversations whispered under stars. Suguru.
Satoru fought the urge to press his face closer, to breathe it in like air and to scent him. It was humiliating, how badly he wanted that comfort. He’d been raised to accept being an Omega, sure, but also to carry it without theatrics, without moments like this.
“I’m… I’m good. Peachy, actually,” he mumbled, letting one arm slip uselessly off Suguru’s shoulder. His head was spinning, and it took everything he had just to try and lift the other arm.
“Satoru,” Suguru said, and even now, when he looks back, Satoru swears that was the first time his name didn’t sound like a weapon in Suguru’s mouth. And maybe, for the first time, it didn’t sound like one in his either.
“I deal with this,” he said, swallowing hard and shaking his head, which only stirred more of Suguru’s scent around him. “I deal with this all the time. It just looks worse than it is.”
It was a total lie. He’d had soft heats before—brief ones, mostly manageable—and he had heard all the usual explanations from his teachers, from his parents, from his ridiculously hot butler. But as he got older, they only worsened. This one pulsed deep in his lower abdomen, made his back damp with sweat, and left him with a raw, near-animal urge to make his damn bed.
It didn’t feel like anything he knew. It felt new, wrong, heavy.
He tried to plan how he would peel himself off the couch and crawl back to his room, lock the door, and sweat this thing out in private. But his brain felt wrapped in fog and heat, and his limbs refused to cooperate.
“Just shut up,” Suguru muttered in response, shifting beside him, and Satoru could just barely hear the soft clicking of buttons on a phone.
“Fuck off, Suguru,” he murmured, which was more of an apology than anything else. He was trying to reclaim even the smallest shred of dignity, but that effort collapsed as his forehead came to rest on Suguru’s shoulder.
There was a click on the other end of the call. Someone had picked up.
“Ma,” Suguru said quietly, and something in Satoru nearly gave out. “My friend—yes, yeah. Him. No, not yet. A soft heat. I might be delayed.”
He had felt this feeling before, but this was worse. Satoru wanted to die.
He tried to jab a finger weakly into Suguru’s stomach, to roll away, to do anything, but his arms felt boneless and his muscles wouldn’t respond. The shame was overwhelming.
“Stop. Don’t, idiot,” he slurred, but Suguru kept talking.
“No, I know, ma, I’m not going to hurt him. I haven’t had my first rut, anyway. I’ll call who I can, but can I stay the night just in case?”
There was muffled talking on the other end. A soft voice that was definitely Suguru’s mother. Satoru couldn’t make out the words, but he could tell by the tone that she spoke gently, like Suguru. It was too much to register then, but looking back, he still can’t believe how young they were.
Suguru was calling his mother to ask for permission.
And then it hit him.
Friend. That’s what Suguru had said. An alpha, staying with him through a soft heat, and he called him a friend. He was staying. Suguru was staying.
He couldn’t say when Suguru stopped talking, or what the verdict on the phone call had been, or when exactly the phone was set down. All he knew was that his head was spinning, his arms had wrapped themselves around Suguru’s frame, and his eyes were watering before he could stop them. Everything felt too raw, too messy, too hormonal, and he hated every bit of it.
“You can’t. My clan’ll kill me. Oh god,” he whispered into Suguru’s shoulder, ashamed of how pathetic he sounded. Suguru hadn’t even hugged him back, hadn’t so much as placed a hand on him, and that silence stung in a way he didn’t want to name. He had to seem repulsive right now.
He was fifteen. That meant something. He was supposed to act older, stronger, more composed. Less like an omega, at the very least.
“Would you please shut up?” Suguru muttered, but it came out slower this time, like he was turning something over in his head. “Can you walk?”
Satoru scoffed, offended, and snapped back, “Yes, I can walk.”
He wanted to prove it. Maybe if he got on his feet, Suguru would leave. Maybe he would see that Satoru didn’t need him, that he wasn’t a weak problem. He stood up slowly, his body aching and clumsy, but he managed to straighten. For a second, it seemed like he’d made it.
Then his knees gave out. The pain shot through him with dizzying speed, and a wave of heat rushed up his spine. His body was burning from the inside out, everything distorted and wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It had never been this bad.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered just before he staggered backward once, then again, and then a third time. His vision blurred, colors bleeding into each other until there was nothing left but a white-hot haze, swallowing him whole.
…
He didn’t wake with a start, but his eyes peeled open slowly, dragging awareness with them like something heavy and wet. The light in the room had changed. The sun wasn’t shining through the curtain anymore, and he felt confused—lost in the way only heat can disorient you. He was unbearably warm, his mouth dry, and for a brief moment, he wanted to groan or bury his head in the pillow and cry quietly to himself without making any sound.
A cold rag slapped against his forehead. He blinked, not startled, not even really registering it as a threat. Infinity hadn’t activated, which meant his body knew better than his mind that there was nothing to fear.
Then he registered Suguru.
His hair was down and loose around his shoulders, loose, dark clothes still on. His cheeks were flushed but his face was unreadable, all the emotion tucked neatly away. Only his eyes gave anything away, soft in a way that Satoru didn’t quite know what to do with. The room was steeped in scent—Suguru’s scent mingled with his own—but it didn’t feel overwhelming. It felt like it had been sitting there for hours, maybe longer, thick and undisturbed in the corners.
Suguru moved away from the bed, crouching to sift through something on the floor. “Go back to sleep,” he said without looking up.
Satoru remembered, but not all at once. The pieces returned slowly, disjointed. He stayed quiet, smacked his dry lips, and lifted a shaky hand to drag the cool cloth down over his aching eyes. The soft heat. The phone call. His forehead pressed against Suguru’s shoulder. The way his body had finally given out.
But that couldn’t be all. He’d been out for too long. Something wasn’t adding up.
“You knocked me out,” he rasped, voice cracked and hoarse. He dragged the cloth off his face and glared at him. “You used one of your damn curses on me.”
Suguru looked up at him, then grinned like a cat with cream and tucked a cigarette between his teeth. “Bet you didn’t even know I had that one loaded in the chamber.”
He crossed the room, pushed the curtain aside, and struggled with the window until it gave. A breeze pushed into the hot, stale air and swept over Satoru’s skin. He sighed in relief, feeling it pass through the rag, his hair, the soaked fabric clinging to his back.
“Why?” he asked, voice steadier now but still wary.
Suguru lit the cigarette with a flick of his fingers. The ember glowed bright at the end, illuminating the sharp lines of his face, making his hair look even darker—almost blue in the contrast. Satoru watched him carefully. He watched the way Suguru’s eyes closed as he drew in a deep breath, teeth clenched, holding the smoke in like it grounded him. Both hands braced the window frame, his head tilted slightly as he exhaled slowly. Smoke curled out of his nose and was stolen instantly by the breeze. His hair lifted, the strands catching the wind and sweeping softly along his jaw and collar.
Satoru blinked. Then blinked again.
“Because you were going to fight me,” Suguru said at last, and this time, he sounded tired.
Satoru hummed in agreement because he absolutely would have fought him. During the years back home—especially on training days—soft heats were something to be dealt with in silence and as quickly as possible. It meant slapping on scent patches, maybe wearing a collar if it was winter and he could hide it under a scarf, choking down suppressants, or just gritting his teeth and pushing through the pain like it meant nothing. That was how he had always been taught to handle it. That was how he was expected to handle it.
Oh, fuck.
He tried not to panic, tried not to let the rush of anxiety get ahead of him, but he could already feel his scent flaring. It spiked too fast, too sharp, and Suguru clearly picked up on it, his nose wrinkling before he distracted himself with another long drag of his cigarette.
“Who knows?” Suguru said vaguely, like it didn’t matter.
“Relax,” he added a second later, voice even. “Sensei already left for break, so I told the principal instead. Didn’t care much. Whoever can is going to send someone to check on the dorms tomorrow morning and for the rest of our break.”
He was careful not to say, Someone to check on you, and Satoru appreciated that.
It meant the clan didn’t know he was in the same room as an alpha.
“Okay,” Satoru replied, letting himself relax for real this time. The pressure in his chest eased just a bit.
It meant the clan didn’t know he was in the same room as an alpha.
The room filled with silence again, thick and warm and resting heavy on his skin. He flipped the rag on his forehead to the cooler side, pouting just slightly because he could already tell what was coming next. Still, he made an effort to sound detached and nonchalant, like none of this mattered.
“Thanks, by the way. And… uh, sorry you missed a day with your family.”
Suguru didn’t answer right away. He flicked some ash out of the window, exhaled, and shrugged like it didn’t mean anything. He still looked tired. Worn around the edges. And even though Satoru wanted more from him—something more pointed, more honest—he let the conversation stall and watched him instead.
Suguru kept his eyes on the window. “Why aren’t you going home?”
The question hung in the air longer than it should have. Even the bugs outside seemed to buzz louder, their rhythm breaking as if they too were waiting for an answer.
“Oh, y’know,” Satoru started, stretching a little, trying to buy time with movement.
“I don’t.”
Satoru shot him a look but tried not to make it too sharp. “You shouldn’t smoke. We’re fifteen. There’s statistics on that and shit.”
Finally, Suguru turned to him, and the smoke curled from his lips and drifted toward Satoru’s face. “Satoru.”
“Suguru,” he snapped back automatically.
They stared at each other for five full seconds, the air between them dense with everything unsaid. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even a real fight. It was more like a standoff, the kind where both people know exactly what the other is hiding. It was a silent, mutual understanding wrapped in a look that said, I see through you, completely.
Suguru looked like everything and nothing all at once. Just a boy, an ordinary one, doing something as basic as smoking out a window. But he wasn’t ordinary. Not really. He had stayed. He had gone out of his way to help an omega while the rest of his world would have looked away. He had given up a day with his parents just to keep Satoru company, to make sure he didn’t get hurt.
And now he stood there, calm and tired and real, cigarette burning slowly between his fingers.
That was when the next wave hit.
Heat surged through Satoru’s body again, fast and merciless, and he winced before he could stop himself, his breath catching hard in his chest. The moment broke. He let out a low groan, dropped his hands to his face, and didn’t even care anymore that Suguru was right there watching. He couldn’t hide the way his body trembled under the weight of it.
It hurt. It was humiliating. It was all too much.
His body was crawling closer and closer toward full heat, and it felt like it was punishing him for holding it off this long. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought bitterly about how his clan would love to see him like this—helpless, aching, vulnerable.
Warm, acrid fingers, tinged faintly with hyacinth, landed gently on his wrists. They didn’t tug or pry his hands away from his face, just rested there, grounding him.
“Where are you hurting?” Suguru asked, and though his voice was quiet, there was a genuine strain of worry in it.
“Guess primal instincts don’t just only affect me,” Satoru muttered, biting the words out with more bitterness than he intended.
“Satoru.”
“Everywhere,” he snapped, frustrated at himself more than anything. “My whole body is sore, and hot, and—shit.” He kicked the sheets off with one swift motion and curled slightly, pressing one hand to his stomach. The pain had centralized now, low and deep in his abdomen, a twisting, dragging ache like fine wire being pulled through his organs strand by strand.
He could tell Suguru was watching his every move. Satoru could tell behind his hands from his cursed energy, which flared with each twitch or shift. His scent calmed noticeably when he asked, “There?”
Satoru couldn’t get a word out. He could only nod, though it was barely perceptible. He knew the wave would pass—at least, he hoped it would—but this soft heat was different from the others. It wasn’t mild. It wasn’t manageable.
The mattress dipped slightly as Suguru climbed into bed beside him, leaving a few inches of space between them. He didn’t speak as he shifted around and brushed Satoru’s hand away. He gently lifted the hem of Satoru’s shirt and placed a warm palm low on his abdomen.
The pain didn’t vanish, but the contact made it bearable. It dulled just enough for him to exhale, though it came out more like a whimper tangled in relief and residual tension.
The wall of space had to disappear with that. Suguru shifted closer, sliding an arm behind his head and tugging him in, Satoru didn’t resist. He let himself be pulled into that warmth, buried in the scent that had been hovering in the corner of the room for hours now.
It was familiar and solid and impossibly gentle, and Satoru found that he didn’t care about the optics of it anymore. He didn’t care that this was another boy, another alpha, sharing the bed with him. He didn’t care that the world outside would chew him up for needing this. Right now, there was only the pain, the pressure, and the low hum of Suguru’s breath brushing his temple.
“I can’t—” Suguru cut himself off, whispering against the side of his head now.
Satoru couldn’t speak until this wave passed but he bit his tongue and let Suguru speak anyway. And touch him. And just be there.
“I can’t stand seeing you in pain,” Suguru finished, like it was some big confession. And, really, it was. “Damn you.”
They stayed like that for nearly twenty minutes. Satoru didn’t speak, mostly because he couldn’t. He tried not to make noise, which only resulted in him panting shallowly through his nose. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to cry, though it felt close. He wanted to curl deeper into the space beside Suguru and disappear completely. But they were both boys, and he didn’t know what that would mean.
Eventually, the worst of the heat passed. His muscles softened. The pulsing beneath his skin settled to a tolerable hum. Suguru removed his hand when Satoru gave a slight nod, but didn’t shift away.
They stayed like that, lying beside each other in the quiet room. It wasn’t a hug, and it wasn’t exactly cuddling, but they stayed close. Their heads rested on the same pillow that was Suguru’s arm, their foreheads brushing, both staring downward at the dark tangle of sheets at their feet.
“You can’t stand seeing me in pain? You do that every day in training,” Satoru finally said, voice cracking and catching on the edges of each word.
“I don’t like it." He sighed quietly, ruffling Satoru’s hair. “But at least it’s me. At least it’s beneficial.”
Satoru had spent his whole life carrying complicated feelings about being an omega. As of recent years, he hated it.
Hated the way it defined him. Hated the way it felt like something to overcome, or cover up, or push down until it didn’t show. But in this moment, lying here with Suguru, he didn’t feel any of that. He didn’t feel like he needed to be tougher, or louder, or more dominant. He didn’t feel like he had to pretend to be something else just to matter. He liked the quiet simplicity of not needing to prove anything, not when Suguru was right here and had never asked him to.
“This is beneficial,” Satoru murmured, more to himself than to Suguru. He understood what it meant, even if it didn’t make perfect sense outside his own head.
Suguru seemed to miss the context. “It’s complicated, okay?” he said, like it was an answer to something else entirely.
Satoru let out a soft laugh, tired and warm. “You’re a very complicated person.”
They both let out quiet, breathy laughs, more exhalations than anything else. Suguru turned his head and nudged his nose further into the curve of Satoru’s neck to muffle the sound, like he didn’t want to disturb the air between them. When the laughter faded, a thick silence settled, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
The heat no longer clawed at his insides or rattled beneath his skin; it had settled, gentled by the weight of Suguru’s presence beside him, until the world around him felt like a blanket drawn up to his chin.
It was insane—he knew that. They hadn’t known each other long, and yet here he was, feeling that quiet pull toward Suguru. If he had even a hint of romanticism, he might have called it fate.
“Why didn’t you take your suppressants, Satoru?” Suguru asked after a long while, voice distant and half-asleep. He was falling under too, slipping into whatever strange calm the room had created between them.
Satoru didn’t want to lie. Not here. Not like this.
“Felt safe ‘nuff not to,” he whispered, each word melting off his tongue. He meant it. That was the truth, wasn’t it? Both Shoko and Suguru both had him thinking he could play around with his Omega like this.
Suguru shifted, probably blinking through the haze of sleep himself. “Then this is your body’s first real soft heat, you know that right? I know your clan’s been pumping you full of drugs. You’ve never experienced it to its full intensity without something numbing it.”
Satoru gave a weak laugh and buried his face in the smell of Suguru—smoke, flowers, and something grounding, like earth after rain. “Don’t tell them, Suguru. Please. Don’t. They’d kill you in front of me or… or something worse.”
There was a pause, heavier than it should have been. “What?”
“I don’t like seeing you in pain either,” Satoru murmured, no longer thinking. His mind was fogged and drifting, and maybe none of this would make sense in the morning—but to him, it mattered now. And so he said it like it was some big confession. And, really, it was.
“I won’t tell them,” Suguru said, so softly it felt like a vow.
Satoru let his eyes close. “’Kay. Night.”
And then, that scent again—more intense now, closer—and lips pressed to the side of his head. Satoru knew he’d wake with the scent of Suguru’s lips on him.
“Night.”
…
A year later, the day Satoru’s first full heat arrived, a glacier somewhere broke.
That same day, Suguru’s rut was triggered.
That was the day they were forcibly separated, sent home without warning and without a goodbye.
Satoru’s heat was managed like a crisis. His clan sedated him, collared him, patched him up and tucked him away as if he were a thing to store, not an Omega to care for. They made sure there was no way to scream until his voice broke, because they muzzled him. They made sure he couldn’t smell Suguru from miles away, even though his entire body reached for it like instinct.
It didn’t take long after that to start timing their cycles to match. It became a pattern, something secret and sacred. And from that closeness, they learned control—not just over their bodies, but over their want.
Sometimes they didn’t need sex. Sometimes it was just sitting close. Sometimes it was reading aloud. Sometimes it was one of them curled in bed while the other watched the shadows dance on the ceiling. Sometimes it was hands threading through hair or brushing across the back of a neck. Sometimes, when things got more confusing, more more, it was kissing, not urgent or wild, just soft, repeated, necessary.
No one else ever touched Satoru’s scent collar. No one else touched the back of his throat like Suguru when he helped Satoru vomit the suppressants up. No one else could calm him like Suguru, could sit beside him and make the ache disappear without saying a word. Suguru became his suppressant, his anchor, his shelter.
So when Suguru left him—just walked away, standing on that busy street with the same clothes he had worn the night Satoru first soft heat hit—Satoru didn’t close his eyes.
He drew his hand back.
And thought helplessly: You liar. I’m in pain right now.