Work Text:
Instinct is said to be blind--that is, either the end is not consciously recognized by the animal, or the connection of the means with the end is not understood.
Instinct is also, in general, somewhat deficient in instant adaptability to extraordinary circumstances.
[Century Dictionary]
There is a little homemade sign, suspended by a blue thumbtack stuck in the drywall. It rests just inside of the HR office and it proudly states: 1,932 Days Since Our Last Incident (❁´◡`❁)
Coincidentally, it has been 1,933 days since Gojo Satoru took the job.
The office manager has promised a pizza party if the number hits two thousand, because underneath the all the scowls and the shouting, Mr. Nanami cares about the people in the Kaisen Corp Tokyo branch.
Numbers are arbitrary and meaningless to most of them, but not to Gojo Satoru.
"The way he talks about it," Shoko, who works in hiring, says around a shudder, "he sounds more proud about that than the Ministry of Gender Equality commendation that he got last quarter."
A mistimed cough barely masks Suguru's bark of laughter. Nice save. Can't have people thinking he's friendly and approachable.
Admittedly, it had been pretty funny, in a slightly fucked up way. There had been a miscommunication to the delegation—twenty of the highest ranking omega and beta public officials—who were halfway through the ceremony before everyone became alarmingly aware of the same fact at the same time.
That the person who had held the best secondary-sex office standards in a fortune 500 company was the most alpha-coded person that had probably ever graced the threshold.
Satoru had been called to the stage and towered over everyone by at least two heads. His scent blockers winked under his cuffs. It was like watching a giraffe startle a group of penguins.
"Thank you," the minster, a thin-shouldered omega man, had finally grit through his teeth. You could tell he was pissed. "We hope to continue seeing great things from you."
Satoru had waved away the praise. Suguru had rolled his eyes affectionately. Shoko had rolled her eyes derogatorily.
"He likes pissing Nanami off by doing a fantastic job," Suguru states. A calendar notification pops up on his desktop that he clicks away absentmindedly. "What's up your ass about HR? Do you have another alpha that doesn't want to start as a junior associate?"
Shoko sucks on her teeth. She quit smoking a while back, but talking about HR always makes her twitchy. "Worse. We've got an omega transfer from the Kyoto office."
She likes dramatics, so Suguru waits patiently for the implied ellipses to end.
"And he's already bonded to an alpha in finance."
Oh, that is juicy. Suguru's fingers pause on his keyboard. "Damn."
"I know," Shoko groans. She leans more heavily against Suguru's desk, as if threatening to collapse. "He's going to fight for them so hard, but if they mess it up for us—"
"Nah." Suguru fidgets with his pen, knowing that he won't be able to focus on emails now. "Satoru would kill himself if he let everyone down. But…oh my god, the seminars."
"Buck up," Shoko huffs, pushing herself up. From her pocket, she procures a mirror and freshens her face. "It doesn't apply to us. I'm just really looking forward to the look on Nanami's face. Fighting."
Shoko leaves soon after. Suguru tries and fails to do any work for several minutes.
A bonded pair. Ugh.
Suguru straightens at the thought and shakes his head. He read once that your first thought is what you were taught and your second is your choice about how to respond. Satoru might have that cross-stitched on a pillow in his office.
A memory, unbidden, comes up to bite him and make him feel like he's twenty-two and the largest asshole on earth. "I didn't think you were like that, Suguru."
A bonded pair maybe twenty years ago would have been a nightmare for a beta like Suguru. He just wants to clock in, do enough to not get fired, water his house plants, and hang out with his friends when he's not too busy being tired before nine pm. He's a simple guy.
It's a bit more complicated for the other sexes. He thinks of suppressants and cycles and wants to shudder in sympathy.
People like to think that there are reforms, but meds and scent patches were still expensive until the Strikes in the 90s.
"Really?" Suguru's mother was a beta that worked at a bank. She looked at the coverage of the omegas that continued hunger striking until they had representation in the Ministry of Gender Equality. "They should stay home. All they'll do is cause trouble if they get involved at the workplace."
Suguru looked at the TV with his wide little-boy eyes and said yes mommy. But he hadn't understood why she was upset. There were some omega children camping with their mommies and Suguru thought that they were too small to cause too much of a fuss.
Oh, a fuss they do cause.
Suguru wanted to die in middle school when one of his best friends presented a year ahead of schedule and started talking to him about slick, it just comes out of me and I want to screw everything that moves, I hate it. Except when I'm with you, Suguru. It's so nice to be around you dude, you don't smell like anything.
(He wasn't hurt by it, the dismissal. No, it was fine. Preferred even. A relief.)
He won't even mention the disaster that he caused in university—he will not.
And he is ashamed to say that when Satoru and he were hired by the same company and Satoru had told him about his placement in HR he had…
"Why are you laughing?" Satoru's eyes were wide and blue and nearly brimming with tears. He wasn't terribly upset. Suguru had seen him upset. Mostly he was just drunk on their fifth round of Asahi. "You wound me."
"Sorry." Suguru wasn't as drunk as Satoru but he couldn't contain the way that his eyes had roved over every inch of Satoru's two meter frame: the sculpt of his shoulders visible from his Dolce and Gabana button up, the cut of his jaw, and the dazzling elite-recessive silver of his hair and blue of his eyes. 'Well-bred alpha' dripped off of him in buckets. Suguru bet if Satoru didn't religiously wear his scent blockers, even his beta nose could have sniffed something.
"It's just—"
"I wanna help people," Satoru said. He had leaned in a little and lost his balance. He giggled, and even that sounded throaty and masculine god, there was no justice in the world, and patted Suguru on the thigh as he straightened himself. "Like, all people. People are more than their sex, you know?"
Suguru leaned back. "Yep." His throat felt tight from some foreign feeling tickling. His tolerance must have been malfunctioning, making him dizzy and his skin tingle from the contact, even through his stupid, fancy interview slacks.
"I'm gonna prove them right," Satoru said, sounding close to tears.
Several people had turned their heads. Suguru reached over and patted Satoru between the shoulders and made desperate eye contact with their waitress.
"Who?" The waitress had obviously been eavesdropping, which Suguru almost couldn't blame her for but then he caught her picking at her right wrist and all of his second-hand embarrassment raced out of him. It was replaced by something that tasted bitter on his tongue.
Bitch.
"The omegas!" Satoru wailed. He threw his arms out to Suguru and the waitress and her uncovered wrist got conveniently lost in the jostling. "No one should be told what to do just because of their birth certificates."
Suguru halfheartedly apologized to the wait staff, but it was hardly necessary. They were oohing and awing over Satoru openly. So nice, one of them said. You never see alphas like that.
(Satoru stayed over at Suguru's house. He woke up in Suguru's bed with messy hair and Suguru's old band t-shirt. He reapplied his scent blockers in Suguru's bathroom and it made Suguru remember that omega, peeling hers off like she expected something, like she was entitled to it—)
But. Yes, right.
If anyone will look after a bonded pair, it will be Satoru. Suguru feels something itch in the back of his throat. He coughs, refills his water bottle, and waits for the inevitable meeting announcement to arrive in his inbox.
🪡
"So, just to refresh," Satoru says as he clicks to the last slide, "please remember that my office is stocked with extra scent blockers and over the counter suppressants. You can always come to me if you get triggered and you need to adjust your CODs. And," he holds up his finger, "please use the anonymous HR email client if anyone makes you feel uncomfortable."
Pizza party be damned, Satoru really does care. He gives the entire room a reproachful look, even the betas that have been historically shoved to the side for discussions like these.
Everyone politely applauds and shuffles off to their desks. Only the interns dash off with the excuse of buying coffee to gossip. The rumor of a bonded pair working in the same office has already floated around and Suguru is honestly impressed with how little it stir it seems to kick up. One younger un-mated alpha seems to complain more than usual. But no one listens to Naoya anyway.
Suguru doesn't want to hustle off to work immediately and follows Satoru into his office instead.
"Good job," he monotones from the armchair. There is a cross-stitched pillow. It says Hold me and Suguru does. "No one suspected a thing."
Satoru laughs. He leans back in his chair, doing the annoyingly handsome maneuver of crossing his legs at the ankle as he sets his feet on the desk. "Damn that Shoko. Someone is gonna report her to me eventually for not keeping her mouth shut."
"Is it that big of a deal?" Suguru finds himself saying. Huh, he hadn't meant to say that. "Being bonded at work, I mean?"
Satoru's smile dims a few watts. "Well, it's not easy. Not like…" He closes his mouth and shoots Suguru an embarrassed look. "Tell you what, why don't you tell me how it would feel to work with your partner."
His throat tickles again and it makes Suguru cough.
"Uh, well. I'd want to see them all the time. Or not, I guess. It'd be weird, like," he finds himself thinking of silly things, like the fact that he's folded neatly into Satoru's armchair, holding Satoru's pillow. He puts it down and scowls before saying, "aware and maybe trying to not make it a big deal."
Satoru's smile returns, but his eyes are wolfish in their intensity. He gets like that, sometimes, when he talks about alpha stuff. About his own biology and sociology. Suguru thinks very neutrally about it.
"Now think like you know how this person works. You know them to your bones. The scent of them literally grounds you. Their purr could calm a hormone spike better than any medicine. And suddenly you have to wear patches that numbs you to them. And pretend that it doesn't bother you."
Suguru's gut stirs uncomfortably. "That doesn't sound pleasant."
"Suguru."
He snaps his head up to look at Satoru in the eye. That alpha light has simmered down now. Satoru's icy eyes can see through him like he's made of cellophane. "You're thinking sulky beta thoughts, aren't you?"
A bark of laughter leaves Suguru, but it feels a bit hollow. "It just…it feels weird, to hear you say it like that. Like…like you're on a plane of existence that doesn't involve me."
Satoru sticks his tongue out at him. "It's a hindrance, dear Suguru. What I wouldn't give to be a boring—"
"Shut up."
"Lifeless—"
"Be quiet."
"Dredge like you."
It doesn't hurt. Suguru knows this is his penance. He makes himself laugh again.
Satoru makes a strange sound in his throat. He straightens, as if remembering something.
"Make them feel welcome," Satoru says, back in business mode. "I'm counting on you."
With his back straightened and his nimble fingers straightening his desk calendar and bringing out his expensive ergonomic keyboard from his desk, he looks like he should be real management. He should be draped over those magazine covers that list all those successful young people that end up in jail for boring financial crimes.
"Will do." Suguru gets up, cracks his back, and resolves himself to sending about a thousand more emails. Wee. He stops at the door. "Um, see you next week."
The sound of typing pauses. Satoru makes a questioning face at him. "Dude? It's Wednesday."
Times like these make him wish he wore a tie, just to give himself something to do. His modern kimono sleeves are too wide to fiddle with without him looking like a fucking child. Hands in pockets it is then.
He says it casually, as if he didn't have notifications pinging on his own desktop for it. "Isn't your rut starting tomorrow?"
There's a moment of silence. If Suguru hadn't been an absolute ass in his youth, he would be making an HR-related joke now. Turning myself in for a violation, haha.
Instead, there's a moment where Satoru's face goes worryingly blank, like he's looking for the indication of a joke—a bad one—in Suguru's expression. It lasts all of a second and then Satoru smiles as if the hiccup in reality hadn't happened.
"Oh, dude!" The atmosphere relaxes, like the room had been holding its breath. "Thanks! Oh, shit, that means we can't catch that movie on Saturday."
They can reschedule, Suguru says. He knew not to put it in the calendar anyway. He wonders why he didn't say anything when they were planning it. But looking over the table at the izakaya with Satoru smiling so easily and and his face flushed and the thought of Satoru in a rut had made it hard for him to form words. He doesn't know. Whatever.
"Alright, no biggie. Not like I'm gonna see it with anyone else."
There's an odd buzzing in Suguru's ears as he opens up his email client.
The new couple don't necessarily introduce themselves, but everyone knows when two new faces show up on Friday. The woman is loud and confident and Suguru instantly likes her; the omega man is…a giant. Suguru is glad that Satoru has been his best friend for six years and he doesn't open his mouth and say something as stupid as you look too scary to be an omega.
>did you say hi to them? were you nice?
<??? Suguru has a heart attack at his desk, staring at his phone. The clatter of his phone is lost in the tittering conversations. Everyone is excited and sociable. Suguru's fingers shake as he picks up his phone again.
<aren't you like, tired? get some rest. idiot.
His whole neck feels hot. Satoru is in rut. He's tired and his body might be hurting. He should be recuperating from—he's probably already—
>i'm not like an invalid, dude. just uncomfy. i've texted you during ruts before ￣へ￣
There's the sound of something cracking and Suguru is fairly certain it his brain because no, he was not aware of this little bit of information. He forces himself to breath evenly until he can craft a message that is NOT so are you done or are you alone.
<I said hi. I was nice.
>goooooood good. it's just like i worry abt them yk??
> i hope they're also not weirdos who ruin my precious streak
>i wanna see the bill for nanami's card for that pizza party. that intern, itadori, is a monster. i saw him eat forty skewers at that intro dinner
>i can't wait!!
The messages from Satoru usually come one after the other, so he waits until more than three seconds go by without floating dots to begin thinking of responding.
Suguru stares at his phone like it's a bomb. Act normal, his brain is alerting his nervous system. You're a normal beta, so fucking act like it. <so like, you feel okay?
>i've jerked off so many times i think my dick will chafe off lol
Suguru puts his phone on silent and ignores the paired messenger app on his desktop chiming in, previewing line after line of laughing emojis. He tries not to think to hard about what it means when the messages get more sporadic and then stop altogether.
Probably Satoru fell asleep. He checks the red line on his calendar app that extends into Sunday afternoon. Yeah.
Professional, he tells himself. I am a professional.
After lunch, he buys the bonded pair coffee and it's as much a sign of solidarity as it is a welcome gift.
Suddenly you have to wear patches that numbs you to them. And pretend that it doesn't bother you.
He kind of gets it.
🪡
A week goes by. One of the interns puts his foot in his mouth and insults the bonded pair by saying he's never seen such a strong fellow omega. Tsukumo laughed it off, but Satoru is serious about that stuff and has the kid in sensitivity training for three days straight.
First strikes don't count, Satoru hurriedly defends. Nanami growls deep in his chest but he is merciful. The number is safe for now.
Right, Satoru is back from his rut and it doesn't change anything. Suguru doesn't think of what he was doing in his apartment and if it smelled and if it hurt. Maybe it would have been easier if there was someone helping him.
"Rough morning?" Shoko is like twenty minutes late back from lunch but Suguru hasn't made his way to his desk yet, so who is he to talk.
"Rough life," Suguru says to the sink.
"Drama queen."
"Bitch."
"Are you two having fun without me?"
"Hi, Satoru," Shoko says. "Suguru is harming himself."
A gasp. There's squeaking near the table. Right, it's Friday so he's wearing his Digimon crocs. Satoru speaks in his work-voice. "Do you need to talk to another member of staff? I'm too biased to help if you're suicidal."
"Fuck off." He slams down his coffee mug without washing it and without looking Satoru in the face.
"Fine," he hears Satoru say to Shoko as he stalks out of the break room. "See if I'm the head mourner with that attitude."
Suguru feels a headache coming on. It might be all the work that he's putting off by playing a horrid game of solitaire. How can he be losing against himself?
It has nothing to do with the single unopened message in his inbox that's been screaming for attention for the last three hours.
Kaisen Corp. Sponsorship Contract ATTN: Marketing Team
Sent from Akutami Social Events.
He shouldn't have drank all that coffee this morning. It makes his stomach lurch and cramp every time he sees the header out of the corner of his eye.
He loses another game to himself and lays his head delicately on his desk. By some act of god, the monitor will topple over and strike him right on the temple.
Near four, he supposes he can't wait any longer for divine intervention. He goes through the motions like an android, printing out a copy of the documents, reading them with a highlighter-heavy hand, and dragging himself to HR's door. Satoru can't paint it according to the company lease, but he has a nice cross-stitch of that Ghilbli movie door, the one with the paint swatches. Like stepping into Satoru's office is entering a safe space, a little cozy realm. Barf.
"Come in!"
The offensive intern, the one with black hair, shuffles around Suguru without saying anything, which would bother Suguru if he genuinely gave a fuck about workplace dynamics. That's Satoru's bag.
Speaking of Satoru, he's rearranging the chairs, spritzing air freshener, padding around in his vreeek-vrek-vrek crocs that Suguru has threatened to tear off and throw into the burnables too many times to count. A purple hand-knitted monstrosity of a cardigan flops around his wrists as he turns them, stretching from a long stretch of typing or writing.
"Yo." The air shifts a little when Satoru recognizes that it's Suguru, which doesn't happen immediately because of his scent blockers. His shoulders drop a little. His smile goes from HR-trained-professional to happy boy. Unflatteringly, he itches the inside of his nostril with his pinky before saying, "What's up?"
"Are we…" Suguru clicks his tongue and shifts his weight. Whatever. He bites the bullet. "Is the company sponsoring a mating run?"
"Ah." Satoru's entire demeanor changes. It would be hard for Suguru to see unless he knew to look for it, beta and all, but Satoru flares his nostrils and his lips part. Alpha instinct. Trying to smell just how angry Suguru might be.
"Kind of?"
"Dude." A hot flash ruptures Suguru's belly, worse than his knots from earlier, worse than his headache. It's the kind of heat that lurches up and lodges in his throat and behind his eyes. "This is archaic."
Satoru winces. "Heh, I know, right? But—"
"Why would you let us sponsor them?" Suguru's voice is rising a bit, but he can't seem to get a hold of it. Once it starts, he can't stop. He can't even blame something convenient like hormones on it. A storm boils in the pit of his stomach and makes everything hurt.
"Aren't you always going on about how backwards it all is? What happened to my best friend who said he'd rather die than do something like this?! When did you become a hypocrite?"
Something shrivels in the air then. Suguru never knew that this room could feel anything but warm and inviting. It feels corporate and fake under the lights. A sham. Just like Gojo Satoru, pontificator of equal rights, showing his belly for a Mating Run.
"I'm—" Satoru's voice hitches, which never happens, alpha confidence and poise and all that. "It's being co-sponsored by the Gojo clan. I don't really…there's not a choice. It's just one run."
The slip in composure is over, and Suguru has one of those distant, bigoted thoughts that maybe Satoru really is just built differently, when he can straighten his spine and flick an imaginary speck of dust away from his purple cardigan sleeve like nothing bothers him.
Nothing bothers an alpha.
(He's hurting, Suguru thinks in the second wave, but it's too late.)
"Whatever. Cyclical trends, right? It's in right now, isn't it? Just a matter of time before they arrange your whole household for you too."
Satoru's nostrils flare again and there's a hint of a rare, rumbly, dangerous thing starting in his chest that Suguru can count the experience of hearing on one hand. He's only ever heard it turned toward him once.
"Shut up," Satoru snarls. It's not so much mind control as it is a tremor that dances along his spinal cord, seizing him with cold fingers and telling him to be still, be quiet, alpha is talking. "It's all—"
He throws off the compulsion, digging his nails into his skin before the fear can seize him completely.
"I get it," Suguru bites. An abject and primal rage transforms Satoru's face for a moment. Shock and something else, something that would be toying on 'amusement' or maybe 'respect' if the situation wasn't so fucked. Suguru is too confused, to angry to care about alpha sensibilities, especially when they're threatening to take his friend away.
"You're nearly thirty, so the clan decides that it's time for you to stop playing around. Time to arrange an appointment at the breeders. And look at you—you just roll over for them."
Satoru stares at him like he's been slapped. The rumble cuts off in his chest. That strange falsity still clings to the room, like someone has come in during the last few minutes and rearranged all the furniture.
The sound of the ticking clock is thunderous.
"I'll send you the promo materials by the end of next week," Suguru finishes lamely.
"Right." Satoru's voice sounds brittle and one exhale away from shattering.
Suguru can't look at him or acknowledge the state of him or do anything except chant in his head, Oh my god you're a monster, oh my god how could you say that to him, oh my god you absolute asshole.
As soon as the clock strikes six, he throws himself down the seventeen flights of stairs to avoid looking at anyone. He could wait in the bathroom for the elevators to empty but both of those places have mirrors and he can't even look himself in the eye.
But what was he supposed to do, when Satoru is going to…if Satoru might…?
He walks the entire forty minutes to his apartment, forced to suck in the crisp polluted air. Good. Maybe it'll make him die faster.
The universe laughs at him. Because he cannot hope for a case of the black lung to take him out. No, that would be Satoru, leaning against the little retaining wall where everyone smokes outside of Suguru's apartment. Several older people that live in the building are tutting as they walk past him. He looks up when Suguru stops and stares at him.
I'm going to the roof, he wants to say. It's the only justice that Satoru deserves right now.
He takes back all of the justifications in his head. Who cares about something stupid like morals when Satoru's eyes are red-rimmed and slightly puffy. His outrageous cardigan is bundled up around him because he took the bus like a normal person and he looks freezing. God, how long has Suguru made him wait?
I made you sad again, and I'll never forgive myself.
"Are you an idiot," he says instead.
Satoru's laugh is gummy; he's got snot running down his throat. "Wow. That's why I decided to come and talk with you again, Sugu. You're so nice."
"You don't like me because I'm nice," Suguru says. Holy fuck. Let's try that again. "I mean." He scuffs the bottom of his boot against the pavement, dragging the words up on a twenty kilo chain. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," Satoru says in his gross teary voice. "It really bothered me, when they asked for the co-sponsor. But I figured I'd just appease them this one time."
"Yeah." Suguru has studied history. He knows appeasement doesn't usually work. "Unless you do find a nice little omega and fall right into that square peg they made for you."
Satoru snorts. He pushes up his special medical sunglasses that he wears even at night because he's annoying as fuck and sticks out his tongue. His voice is still wobbly. "My mate, my choice."
Suguru says something bitchy about alphas and their drama, and they head around the corner to that Korean beef place. His conscious has finally caught up with him, so he reigns it in snarky comments whenever Satoru orders more marbled skirt steak and all the extra soups and dumplings and pancakes.
They don't say anything much except to complain about how full they are and to order more. It's not fixed, whatever broke in the office air as they stared at each other, but it feels attended to. Like a toddler has waddled by and slapped a Hello Kitty band aid on the situation. The edges of his chest feel prickly and shattered, but maybe they can be ground down to fit again, just like they did in university.
Suguru pays and calculates that he has to survive on convenience store chicken breast for the next four weeks. They walk back the way they came. Leaves are scattered around their feet, the headlights of the cars reflected on the damp autumn road. The bus will be here in four minutes.
A pharmacy nearby is playing a kitschy J-Pop number that Satoru hums along to. Suguru feels like he can finally breathe again, even though he knows he's going to walk up to his third floor apartment and dissociate in the shower in exactly four and a half minutes.
Satoru pulls his cardigan up close to his neck to fight off the chill of the evening. He's taller than Suguru, just by a few centimeters. Suguru wonders if his hands are cold.
"Sorry," Satoru says again, as his bus pulls up. He always likes the last word. "I know you don't like the drama. But I won't let it mean anything. It'll be over by next month and we never have to think of it again."
Yeah, Suguru nods. No biggie. He waves as Satoru taps his card and finds a seat five rows back, where the heaters are. He can see the neon purple earbuds case through the window and knows that Satoru is going to look up that stupid song because it hasn't finished playing yet, and probably loop it until he gets to his ridiculous high-rise.
He keeps the shower cold during moments like this. It keeps him keyed up, forces him to zoom through his thoughts until his teeth chatter too loudly for him to focus on anything else.
It's not a big deal.
He watches the water circle the drain.
Really, it's not.
Why did I make it such a big deal? Satoru would never let something that stupid matter and he would die before letting his relatives get one over him.
I'm being stupid.
Swirl, swirl, goes the water.
But he's been single since forever and he's all alone. He just spent that rut by himself.
And what if he wanted someone to be there for him? He's got morals and is upstanding but people can be all of that and still fall for nice omegas because it's easy.
Easy isn't bad. Not everyone is like you, you freak.
Gurgle, says the drain.
But..What if the perfect girl or guy just happens to sign up and they click and Satoru is too jaded to fall for anyone but what if it's the right person and he mates and forgets all about me because some stupid fucking omega dug their way into his skin.
He's going to get bonded and never look at me again. Never, because he's not going to need his buddy his pal when he has something better something that whispers to his biology. Not that you didn't know that. Freak. Freak. What did you expect after all this time.
The sound of teeth chattering forces his hand and he fumbles to shut the water off and towel himself dry. A drowned rat looks back at him from the mirror.
He started to work out in university. He can give Satoru a run for his money when they spar as long as he's not hyped up on post-rut adrenaline. Wide shoulders, even wider than an alpha doesn't matter. Several of those early group dates had ended in disaster when the leftover omegas had darted their eyes down and seen his bare wrists and smelled his lack of pheromones.
His fingers run along the base of his neck, where a nice little mating glad would round out on either side of his vertebrae if he had one. On a whim, he brings around his wandering hand and digs his nose into the skin of his wrist.
He never asked, and Satoru has been so careful around the office that there isn't even a rumor about what he smells like. All Suguru smells is skin and salt and his cheap soap.
It was never in the cards. Suguru's family is a long line of betas. He had a great-uncle that barely eked out an alpha diagnosis, but he never mated to pass it on. Suguru has been fine with it for a long time. It's always been a possibility, that Satoru might find someone. And he can't compete with biology.
People are more than what's on their birth certificates!
Suguru stares at himself and starts thinking.
Oh, boy.
🪡
The month can't be over fast enough, but it especially sucks when Suguru starts to overhear staff that are looking forward to it.
A week before the event, he freezes outside of the employee lounge.
"No way," comes the voice of Satoru's underling, the tall one. They sound like they're fighting off a giggle. "You think Mr. Nanami would run?"
"No! Yes! I don't know!" Another voice, this being Mr. Nanami's pretty head secretary, hushes them.
Satoru's minion whispers conspiratorially, "I heard Mr. Nanami say it would be a poor showing if he didn't and then Mr. Gojo agreed with him."
"They'd look so good heading the alpha pack!"
"Shut up, I didn't hear that. I'd have to write us both up for this conversation. But you're so right."
Ugh. This whole thing is going to bring Satoru's precious legacy crashing down.
Suguru's entire body slumps and he turns on a heel, marching right back to his desk. He has influencer contracts to double check. A countdown post or three on Canva to make. Water bottle cozies to finalize the pick up for.
The joys of modern living.
He purses his lips and glowers at his computer, clicking several tab groups labeled research closed. He's already bookmarked the most relevant information. He might also be out to blow up his own legacy, but at least he can say that he tried. What can Satoru say? That he was bullied by his family into letting it happen?
God, he's pissed off.
Later, Shoko pops up by his cubicle like one of those haunted dolls that reappear when you least want them to.
"Cherry Blossom. After work." She cuts off Suguru's attempts at speaking with a pointed, "Interstellar."
Suguru looks at her with an expression that can be described as nothing less than abject terror. "Interstellar?"
"You heard me."
The severity of it all shakes him out of the funk. Actually, it's more the fear that if Shoko is invoking Interstellar… But he's grateful, shockingly, when Satoru comes bounding up to him after another round of mating run conduct meetings.
Suguru ignores the stares as he scrapes Satoru off of him. His Friday crocs make a pathetic wreeeek-wrek-wrek as he stumbles away. "Um, I'll text you later. Shoko and I have plans."
"No alphas allowed," Shoko sing-songs. She slings her bag over her shoulder and smacks Suguru's ass without breaking eye contact with Satoru. "It's past six," is all she says as Satoru's jaw falls off of its hinge.
"You're still in the building!" Satoru's voice threatens to waiver in bemusement as Suguru and Shoko sprint to the elevators. "I'm gonna write you up on Monday!"
"He really might," Suguru says once they're safe behind the doors. Satoru is not the type to let things like 'jokes' and 'friendship' stop him from doing his job.
"We're technically safe. He needs that validation party from Nanmi. And what is it the kids say? You only live once."
Suguru glares at her. Interstellar, he reminds himself. He is honor-bound to not leave her hanging, nor she him, for at least the duration of the average Christopher Nolan film.
"Are you trying to be funny? You're embarrassing yourself."
"Don't ever accuse me of trying to be funny again, you little shit. Now, tell Sister Shoko what haunts you."
Suguru feels his throat itch. "After the first round. Or second."
Shoko throws her arm around his shoulder. She's just a wimpy beta, so Suguru amuses her by letting her manhandle him until she can press her cheek against his, her eye dangerously close to Suguru's own. "That bad?"
🪡
"You're joking."
"See? It is that bad."
It has taken them more than two rounds. An impressive number of long-defrosted mugs crowd around their table. Shoko has her elbows on the wood. Her thumbs are digging into her temples, as if to massage the information out of her brain.
"You can't tell him," Suguru insists. He's also on his elbows, but his fingertips are pressed into his lips and chin, as if to keep the information from spilling out of him. It isn't working.
"I won't," Shoko says shrilly. "The fuck? You have to get over it. Get that stupid plan out of your head."
"I tried!" Suguru sounds miserable. The staff replaces one of the empty mugs with a new one, brimming with cold foam. Fuck yes. He takes several deep pulls.
"Not hard enough," Shoko says. "Man, if it was just, you know, a thing you had then fine. Whatever. Not like I can judge." One of her hands comes down so she can smack at Suguru. "But this is Gojo Satoru!"
"I know."
"He's got like, a fucking pedigree. Like a dog."
"I know."
She looks at him like he's told her he likes to lick yen coins he finds on the street. "He's your best friend, dude."
His final I know is so quiet that Shoko does something that makes it so much worse. She leans over, looks him in the eye and says I'm sorry.
He hasn't cried in front of another person since his grandparents died, but he cries in this cheap izakaya until Shoko hugs him for a microsecond, shushes him, and awkwardly shoves him into a taxi.
"It'll be okay. Just, you'll figure it out." She does not look hopeful. "I don't want you to hurt yourself. And for the love of god, if you're going to go through with it, at least make sure you're being recorded. It'll be infamous."
She waves him off and slams the door. He can see a phone in her hand. She's probably already got plans.
The taxi driver is an older man. He looks at Suguru through the rear-view mirror wearily. He probably thinks that Suguru will puke. Maybe he will.
"Feeling okay, bud?"
It feels nice to be drunk, because he can shut off his feelings much more easily this way. No more crying, he decides. His laugh gets caught in his nose and sounds gross, but he's in the nice floating on his blood stage of being blitzed, so he doesn't care.
"I'm a beta and I'm in love with my best friend. He's an alpha."
The taxi driver, god bless him, makes a sympathetic noise.
"Well, ah, maybe he's open minded. You never know these days."
Satoru laughs again. This dude is funny. "That's the best part. The worst part. He's the most open minded person I've ever met. I'm the one that screwed it up."
The taxi driver is old and tired and he does not have a second shit to give.
"Okay."
Suguru looks out the window. "I screwed myself over." His voice goes deep and solemn as he fights off a hiccup that tastes a little off. "Now I have no choice. Gotta go big or go home."
Tokyo on a Friday night is bright. It's the tail-end of autumn. It looks like it might—
Six Years Ago
Second Year of University
—snow. It's everywhere. It melts in his hair and gets stuck in his scarf so that he shivers halfway through his communications lectures. An almost perfectly timed vibration goes off in his pocket as the next clump melts into his sweater.
>snowing!! suguru it. is. snowing!
Suguru frowns at his phone. God, it's that alpha again. This is why he doesn't go to those awful mixers, because he meets exactly zero people that are interested in him—their eyes glaze over the second he says he's a beta.
Now he's even picked up a fucking alpha like a burr on his sock.
<so? can I help you?
>hiiiii hi hi omg you've never responded b4. (*/ω＼*) wanna have a snowball fight? (o′┏▽┓｀o)
Suguru says that he does not, but he finds himself rolling up to the pinned map location that the alpha sent him anyway. Just to tell him to fuck off in person, he swears.
There are people. Lots of people splitting into teams and smacking each other on the back. Suguru feels very out of place. His friends are foodies and like meeting at obscure coffee shops that never play the same kind of music two days in a row.
He's about to turn around when he feels someone materialize behind his back.
"Hi!" It's the alpha, duh. He throws a casual arm over Suguru's shoulders and Suguru braces himself, holding his breath.
"You made it! You're on my team, so we're going to set up on the northside…"
Huh. Suguru starts listening to the rules by accident. (It's hard to ignore two hundred centimeters of enthusiasm bearing down on you.) It starts to sound fun, which his parents have reminded him several times is not the reason they pay his tuition, and he forgets himself and laughs and breathes in.
Double huh.
The last time he willingly hung around alphas, it was the judo team in high school. They wore their patches haphazardly and they were always slathering themselves with altered colognes so heavy that they stank even to Suguru's blunted senses. But this alpha smells…like menthol. It's just the slight medicinal burn of his scent being cut off by patches that must circle his wrist glands perfectly. A spritz of expensive-smelling perfume is the only thing that tickles his nose, like an afterthought.
"Ready to go?"
"I uh, forgot your name."
The alpha looks baffled instead of hurt, or worse angry, and even that gets wiped clean by a good-natured smile. "Wound my pride why don't you. I thought we really connected at that mixer."
"We spent the entire night beating omegas off of you with sticks."
"My partner in crime, Suguru." He says Suguru's name like it's a toy he isn't afraid of breaking, a reliable comfort already. It's weird, hearing someone else say his name like that. "It's Satoru. Gojo Satoru."
Gojo must be an important family, because Satoru looks a bit uneasy. Like he expects Suguru to flinch or start fawning over him. What is it with rich people, Suguru grouses to himself. As if he has the time to know modern Japanese lineage, much less worry about it. They have finals coming up.
"Okay?" He shimmies out of his messenger bag and tosses it into a pile. "When does the game start?"
Satoru's smile returns at full wattage.
They win the fight. A lot of alphas were playing, so it was kind of brutal. Judo team, remember? Suguru has never had a problem bodying alphas who think they can ride out life on easy mode based on biology alone.
The enemy fort falls because Suguru pulls off a daring feint that draws out the last stragglers. They converge fast, but Suguru pops up at the last second, pelting them hard. Several more snowballs sail over his head in perfect arcs, solidifying their victory.
Call it instinct, that Suguru knows exactly when to turn and hoot in the face of Satoru, who's racing forward, his hands burned red by the cold.
Satoru hugs Suguru and lifts him up; Suguru isn't a willowy omega though, and they topple into a snow drift, horribly off balance and cackling at each other. Someone gave Satoru a bloody nose with a hit to the face.
Suguru doesn't have actual instincts, he thinks. He's never wanted to cage someone in or press them down. Except for those dudes in judo. Maybe his senpais that looked real strong and sweet.
His laughter wheezes out of him and dies because he's suddenly curious. Is it instinctual to want to reach forward and lick up the trail of red? He shakes his head. Gross. No. He's just hyped on adrenaline.
The snow is in his hair and his scarf and probably down his shirt, but Suguru finds that he doesn't mind.
🪡
>[image attachment] so many assignments wahhhh
>study time~
He doesn't know why, but seeing Satoru framing his stack of binders and books with his actual thumb down makes Suguru start to panic. Even an annoyingly intelligent alpha is complaining.
<All the desks are full at the library. I'm going to fail and my parents will kill me and then I will be dead.
>(っ °Д °;)っ
>u wanna come study in the club room??
That surprises Suguru, although he doesn't know why. Alphas are addicted to leadership, aren't they? It would be more surprising if Satoru wasn't part of one.
<Is that allowed? Suguru bites his fingernail, not sure why he feels even more anxious. It's probably because it's a fitness club or something super high brow, like model UN. He's a fucking communications major what would he have to say to a bunch of smart jocks?
>totally!! come on come on
>only like two other people are here anyway
>and they aren't the studying type tbh lol
Suguru pinches the bridge of his nose and decides that keeping his parents off of his back is worth whatever social struggle he has to endure.
He finds room 301 in the student union building and waits for Satoru to answer the door by text like the coward that he is.
"Hey!" Satoru always greets him in exclamations. It's nice to be shouted at, sometimes. "Glad you got here okay. You want some instant ramen? Ijichi lost a bet and has to be our gopher for tonight."
"Yeah," Suguru answers. His stomach turning in knots has to be hunger.
Satoru is wearing a stained plaid shirt over a baggy black t-shirt. He's wearing equally baggy jeans and crocs of all things. Also glasses.
An outfit like that would both swallow Suguru and demote him to the deepest under-hells of the food chain. It's unfair that Satoru fills out in all the right places, just enough that he projects planner and tactically-fashioned rather than fucking nerd.
"Do I have something on my face?" Satoru wipes down both cheeks as he ushers Suguru into the room.
Suguru forgets to be mad at him because his thoughts are a storm of of course nothing is on your stupid pretty oh my god this is the otaku club.
Eight bookcases fit to bursting are shoved against two of the walls. They're practically overflowing with manga of all different time periods and genres. Another wall is stacked, floor to ceiling, with different board games. We're not talking Monopoly. The set it out across the entire room to play for six hours at a time kind. The last wall has a tiny kitchenette, where a mousy beta boy is sulking and pouring boiling water into three styrofoam cups.
"Ijichi," Satoru says, quick and without much thought."One more, please."
Suguru feels himself shift, a little uncomfortable. Something about the undertone of Satoru's polite words don't match with the threat of a rumble under them.
"No alpha voice in the club room," says the only other person. It's a massive undergrad that is also sporting scent patches on his wrists. He's already eating one portion of ramen with a pair of broken chopsticks. "I'll fucking kill you."
Ah.
Suguru feels his neck go hot and prickly. Some of the judo boys had tried to do it to each other on the mats as a joke for a while. They drove themselves to hysterics, holding tournaments to see who could do it the fastest—make the others go still and limp and vibrating with rage but unable to do anything in retaliation.
One or two turned to Suguru when that got boring. What made the other alphas growl and snap and submit made Suguru threaten to swallow his own tongue. An ancient part of his brain that he'd never felt before clamped down on his lungs and his nerves, freezing him in place.
Still, be still, don't move or you're dead that voice said.
His palms went numb and his stomach turned, sending bile up his throat. He swallowed it down again because he was too scared to throw up.
"That's what it means to be a bitch," the alphas snickered to each other. They took turns then. Sometimes one after the other. At first it was every day, but then that got boring. They'd wait a few days in between and then spring it on him just when he thought they had moved on.
Down, beta bitch.
His parents complained that he was going to loose his top spot if he didn't stop screwing around. Coach commented a few times that he was going to have to move down a class if he kept loosing weight. The homeroom teacher explained that university was harder than high school, and she was worried that he wouldn't cut it if this was how he acted when school was still so easy.
The world wasn't built for betas to compete with alphas anyway. Politicians and CEOs and soldiers were alphas that were handed leadership because they were strong. Betas were there to take orders. To not get in the way.
Biology failed him, so he learned how to cheat. He practiced meditating, keeping his heart rate calm even if an alpha voice threatened to set it racing. Breathing too, so that he could keep his thoughts clear.
He started keeping his nails just a tad longer than he should have for sports. The second he felt that creeping-crawling along his spine, that lurch in his gut, he dug the sharp points into his palms and focused on the pain instead of the instinct to be fearful and to obey.
So, maybe he has baggage. His shoulders are already hitched and he looks at Satoru suspiciously from the corner of his eye.
"Whoops." Satoru laughs. "It slips when I'm tired sometimes. Sorry, Ijichi!"
The other beta grunts.
"It's okay," Suguru pipes up. He looks over at the other beta. "I can make my own, Ijichi."
Ijichi ignores him and Satoru mutters something that sounds like so you can remember people's names.
"Prez's friend is speaking to you, gopher," Satoru trills.
Ijichi rolls his eyes at Satoru. To Suguru he says, "Do you like maruchan soy sauce or shin ramen?"
Suguru looks uncertainly between Satoru and Ijichi. His mouth feels unpleasantly dry. Did he miscalculate? Is Satoru a bully or not?
"I lost the game, I make the ramen," Ijichi says with the gravity of a black hole.
Maybe not. Huh. "Shin."
Ijichi nods like he's made the right decision and pulls out another container.
Suguru puts his bag down on one of the tables scattered around. He takes a guess that the one with open textbooks is where Satoru had been studying. He almost doesn't ask, but feels compelled by politeness. "What game were you playing?"
"Magic," the boy with ramen says around a particularly loud slurp. "And he didn't lose, he cheated."
Suguru has never felt more baffled. The shouting match goes on uninterrupted for several minutes, until the new round of ramen is delivered. During the whole argument, Satoru blithely prepares sports drinks for Suguru and himself.
"Electrolytes are good for your brain," Satoru says seriously. He watches intently until Suguru takes a lengthy sip. It's just a stupid drink, but it makes his buzzing anxiety from earlier sooth itself. Not all alphas are jerks. Satoru just wants to take care of people.
Ijichi and the other boy, whose name is Zen'in something or another, stop bickering as soon as there are noodles to be eaten and new decks to be built.
"You're so weird."
Satoru looks around, his glasses threatening to teeter off of his nose, before he looks at Suguru. Sauce flecks his lip. "Are you talking to me?"
"Yeah," Suguru says, smirking as he arranges his stationary. "I've never been kidnapped into friendship by a considerate alpha whose idea of leadership is making his kohai in the manga club make him ramen while he studies," at this, he squints at the title of Satoru's unopened book, "sociology."
Satoru looks a little pink. "Heh. You know, I'm almost flattered."
The reserved edge to his voice—so different from that alpha tone earlier—makes Suguru wince. "Almost?"
"Oh, yeah. Like," he winds himself up only to let the wind drop out of his sails just as fast. He fixes a smile on his face. "Don't worry about it. Sorry for being so considerate."
Suguru hasn't known Satoru for very long, but something feels wrong. Like maybe he's hurt his feelings. Well, Suguru thinks, turning back to his books. Alphas aren't really known for getting all emotional. Especially with betas.
It's probably nothing.
🪡
The spring comes and suddenly Suguru is a third year. His classes get marginally harder. He takes one week of classical Japanese poetry, drops it, and re-enrolls.
>yay! i knew you'd like it! isn't the prof like so cool??
> ( •̀ ω •́ )✧
Suguru fights off a smile. He resets his weight at the gym near campus. What, they give a nice discount.
<yeah, she's nice.
>omg omg like spoilers, bc she does a whole unit on sex-specific poetry like two months in, but
>she's an omega
>married to an OMEGA
>how cool is that?? (❤️´艸｀❤️)
Suguru stares at his phone, thinking of what to say. He gets this weird, itchy feeling whenever Satoru starts in on sex, gender, love. Obviously it's better than all the bullshit he had to endure in middle and high school. He's just never sure if he's qualified to talk about that kind of stuff when it doesn't involve him.
<huh, he ends up typing. like, would you marry an alpha?
The three dots appear and disappear again and again over the course of a few minutes. It's almost disappointing when an uncharacteristically short response chimes. But the message makes Suguru feel just as uncomfortable as Satoru's brutally honest tirades.
>if i loved them, y not ya know?
Suguru responds with something arbitrary, maybe a link for a new ramen place he wants to try, and leans against the smith machine and pumps iron until he can't think anymore.
🪡
Suguru likes betas. Betas like him. So it's easy to find someone in a club near Shinjuku on a random Saturday night. He's already had four vodka tonics and his blood feels like it's trying to meld with the bassline as someone puts their ass against his groin.
Wanna go home, the person attached to the ass says after a while. Suguru nods.
The person, some guy with bleached hair and a belly ring that peeks out of his shirt in the cold spring night, leads him up a flight of stairs or two. Suguru squints and the in the darkness of the guy's entryway his hair looks white-blonde instead of the bad bottle job that it did under the street lamps.
"Hello," the guy giggles as Suguru's fingers weave their way into the strands. It feels dry like straw.
"You can pull if you want." The guy's voice doesn't have an underlying purr—not that Suguru would want that. Where did that come from? But it sounds smokey and sexy. "I like it."
Suguru's drunk but he knows he shouldn't say something like his looks like it'd be softer than this. Or, can you make yourself go lower. Growl.
They fuck in the guy's bed. He makes lots of nice sounds and he does indeed like it when Suguru pulls, so he makes sure to yank him back by his roots, helping his ass slam against Suguru's dick so hard that the guy gasps into the sheets.
"Right there," the guy groans, "right there yes. O—oh my god. Fuck, you're so fucking good."
Suguru reaches around to fist the guy's dick, likes it when he yelps and then shivers against him.
"Come in me," the guy babbles. "Come on, please, give it to me."
Suguru feels his lip twitch. He leans down and mashes the guy against the sheets, pressing down on him. The guy goes without a fight, which also makes Suguru feel hot but not in a satisfied, sexy way.
It feels like there's a bubble in his chest. "You done already?"
He's been wound up for weeks and he wants to go for hours. That itchy feeling creeps up his throat. He wants to make this dude come on his cock all night. He wants to wake up and wrestle to see who gets to mount in the morning and win.
The guy makes a pathetic little turned-on sound. "Wanna come," he whimpers.
Suguru gives him what he wants, hard and fast and with his eyes closed, and the guy passes out before the condom is thrown in the trash.
He uses the guy's shower and doesn't leave his number.
🪡
One week before the summer break, Satoru asks him where he goes for dates.
"Why?" Suguru sounds suspicious. The books and coffee around them seem too innocent for this kind of conversation. They don't talk about dates.
"I just realized that you never mentioned going on another group date since the one where we met," Satoru says. He plays with the straw in his iced latte. "Are you, like, ace?"
The question makes Suguru's entire body feel icy and then hot. It's just because these are weird questions that alphas don't ask betas.
"No," he says slowly. "I like sex."
Satoru takes a long pull from his drink. "Huh. You never talk about it."
There's a reason for that, Suguru thinks acidly.
"I just thought, you know. Beta hook-ups wouldn't be very interesting for you to hear about."
Satoru gets a kind of fiendish look in his eye. "Why, because I'm only interested in lofty alpha-omega dynamics?"
"Shaddup." Suguru throws a balled up napkin at him, which he dodges.
Satoru is on a roll. "Right. Because I wouldn't dare debase myself with your silly, uncomplicated mating rituals."
Suguru hates it when he talks like a fucking anthropologist. But then it makes him think of Satoru in one of the clubs, watching like a scientist with a notebook. Jotting down the sizes and dimensions of the guys that Suguru might drag home. For observational purposes, Satoru would follow them, just to see the barbaric way that lube has to be dispensed for Suguru to work his dick into someone. Satoru would have to watch—
"Why are you really asking?" Suguru grips his plastic cup so hard he can hear it creak. God, what is wrong with him.
"Just curious," Satoru says. His smile is so genuine that Suguru almost believes it. "My upbringing was a little, ah, conservative."
Yeah, yeah. Suguru waves the sentiment away and he really has to stop himself from being such a gigantic pushover when it comes to Satoru's Disney princess eyes and the woe is me, I grew up too rich for my own good sob story.
"You wanna go out with me on Saturday?" Suguru almost regrets the words as soon as they're out. But Satoru is is friend and he can table his issues to help his friend have a good time. "Club Jujutsu doesn't do all the stupid, creepy omega half-off nights that other places do."
It's also a shithole, but maybe that will add to Satoru's sense of whimsy.
"Yay!" Satoru takes out his diary and pencils it in. He flips back a few weeks and counts out the days for something.
"What are you checking?" Suguru asks without thinking.
"My rut cycle. You know, you hear all types of stories about alphas going out while in pre-rut and then they get triggered and lose it on the first omega that they see and then the next thing you know, you're mated to someone you don't actually love and have five kids that you also can't stand."
Suguru manages to shake off the guh that overtook his brain. He will not think of Satoru in a rut.
"That sounds like those trashy soap operas my aunt likes to watch."
Satoru eyes him evenly. "All fiction has a drop of truth in it."
Suguru grunts. Right, right. Maybe.
🪡
In retrospect, Suguru knows this is a bad idea the second that Satoru shows up at his shitty walk-up looking like that.
It's his own damn fault. Like that rule of physics. An object in motion will stay in motion; and once Suguru sees an eyeful of Satoru with his hair gelled and his LV shirt opened just enough to show the swell of his chest and his tailored pants that are cut right above his ankles, Suguru knows that he's fucked.
He's on edge for the entire night, horrified at how aroused he is at every turn.
They roll right through the doors because Jujustsu never has a line and Suguru is already staking himself between Satoru and the largest other group, shielding him from view. Satoru is taller than him, but whatever.
Satoru wore long sleeves, even though the summer is starting to turn humid. His scent patches don't show. He's wearing his dark sunglasses inside to hide his elite-recessive eyes. He just wants to have fun, Suguru's brain says to him.
Yes, and he can have fun with me.
Six tequila shots later, it's packed. Jujutsu doesn't have any entrance requirements, which means a lot of the more stuck-up alphas and omegas don't bother. There's a sea of betas with a spattering of alphas or omegas in their own little groups.
Maybe Satoru wants to bag a beta. The realization has been circling his head for a week, but he hasn't dared to think about it. It's much easier to think about while drunk. Maybe he wanted to a low-key omega but maybe he'd be okay if the beta was handsome enough. Turned him on enough. That reminds Suguru of how turned on he's been since the onset.
Something about it makes Suguru feel sick. Omegas he can deal with. But if Satoru leaves with a beta tonight—
"Let's dance!" Satoru yells in Suguru's ear.
He's drunk enough to agree, so he lets Satoru drag him out. There are eyes on them, he can feel it. No second guesses as to why. Satoru shines even under shitty club lights. The music is too loud for Suguru to hear it, but he's laughing.
Without meaning to, he presses closer. Just to feel the rumble of his chest, he reasons. A rumble without the threat of a voice, Nothing else. It's all very innocent, despite the tightness of his pants.
He feels the vibration against his skin as he crowds in close. Satoru's glasses have slipped down, so he can see the way they widen, just a smidgen, under the strobes.
"We're so drunk." Suguru has to basically read his lips. But he feels the cartoonish little giggle against his own body. Suguru's hands steady themselves on Satoru's hips.
"That's okay," he murmurs.
Satoru shouldn't be able to hear it, but god damn alpha senses, he does according to the hitch in his breath.
"Is…" Satoru has to lean forward for Suguru to hear him. One of his thighs presses close to his groin and Suguru tries hard not to go fucking cross-eyed. Satoru's fingers have come up to Suguru's waist, threading themselves through the belt loops on his ratty jeans. "Is this okay?"
God, he gives up. He turns his head and catches that stupid mouth with his own. Is this okay he asks like he's never touched a man before. Fuck off, Suguru can't stand him; he wants to pick him apart and clean all the meat from his bones until there's nothing left.
Satoru gasps like a virgin and then moans. Fuck, god. Suguru digs his fingers into the meat of Satoru's ass and hauls him forward, making them crash into each other.
Some other patrons push them, tell them to get a goddamn room. Suguru thinks that is an excellent idea, but they can only manage to get past the entry doors before Suguru yanks Satoru into the dirty ally. Beer cans and cheap sake bottles scatter under their feet, threatening to trip them.
"God, Suguru." Satoru rips his mouth away and slams his head back into the brick. "Dude, what the hell, you're so hot."
They're drunk, Suguru tells himself. It's okay. It's just dudes being bros. Sometimes you get sloshed and want to screw your friend to pieces.
"I wanna fuck you," Suguru growls into the hollow of Satoru's throat.
"Y-yeah?" Satoru's voice goes high and nearly breaks. Suguru wants to make him do it again.
Suguru grinds his hard-on into Satoru instead of answering, caging him in. That ten thousand yen shirt is probably shredded to hell against the dingy brick.
"Ah, ah, Suguru." Satoru stills and Suguru turns his head to kiss down the other side of Satoru's throat. Satoru's arm is twisted at a weird angle, like he's trying to get at his pocket. "You gotta wait. D-don't go too fast, I just gotta get my—"
Suguru feels light-headed from the lust or the alcohol.
"Whatever, just enjoy it." He latches onto the skin below Satoru's ear and his dick nearly melts at the growl that rumbles in Satoru's chest. He needs to hear it again, louder, needier, and fucking useless against him.
"Dude, wait, I just gotta make sure I don't—"
Suguru leans back, feeling dizzy and annoyed. "What is it with you alphas, huh? Worried that you're gonna get me pregnant or something? Don't worry, you won't end up with five kids, idiot."
Satoru stills. "Get off."
I'm trying to, Suguru almost says, but his tequila-soaked brain registers the Arctic frost in Satoru's tone a second too late.
"What—?"
"Get off of me."
Suguru feels the dull impact of Satoru's push, but the pain doesn't hit him until he's sprawled on his ass, the meat of his palms biting into the gravel. The wind goes out of him all at once and at first he's confused but then he's terrified. A force like a freezing hand holds him hostage. Tears prick at the back of his eyes before he can get a hold of himself, his nails slicing into the flesh of his hands.
He should be pissed. Memories flash across his mind, jeers and laughter. But even Suguru, deep in the throws of it, some part of him knows that this isn't cruel or anything like bitching. This is Satoru protecting himself.
"Leave me alone," Satoru says. He looks close to tears but his stance is all alpha. Not in the dominant way. The way a wild animal will chew its own leg off to escape a trap. I'm strong enough to survive without this shit. "I didn't think you were like that, Suguru."
He shakes off another concerned drunk at the mouth of the alley, hey honey, you alright? And Suguru is left behind, blinking at the brick.
"Shit, what did I do"
The empty beer cans don't answer him.
🪡
They don't talk for the entirety of summer break. Suguru tells his parents he's not coming to Miyagi because he has a job in the city. They tell him his cousin is already interning at a law firm so this job better lead to a good opportunity.
"Yes," he lies. Instead, he loads trucks for convenience stores and takes a community night class.
"Um." The outreach supervisor is a kind-looking omega woman. "I love to see betas more involved in the program. But the average age is going to be a lot more…juvenile."
Perfect. There's a very high chance that he's been acting juvenile.
He sits in for three nights a week with pimply little alphas who eye him like a mole.
"What's the grandpa doing here?"
"Dude, better question, what's the beta doing here?"
The advisor turns into a strict no-nonsense woman in front of these alphas. "You're here to learn, it would be kind to think that Mr. Geto is here to do the same."
"My dad says there's nothing worth learning at this place," says one especially pimply little shit. "He says my mom is trying to brainwash me into hating my own sex."
"Your mom left your dad because he was toxic as fuck."
The omega woman smiles blandly. "Now, now, there's no excuse for spreading that private information. Shall we begin? Today we're going to talk about some of the finer details of consent when you're out dating in the 21st century."
Suguru reads the pamphlets. He checks out the list of books that the supervisor recommends to him.
Dating Dynamics for Modern Alphas and Omegas
The Instinct: 'Traditional Mating' Explained for Beta Allies
Let's Talk About (Secondary) Sex(ual Characteristics) Baby
On the first day of the fall term, Suguru waits at the otaku club door. He skips all his classes. It's syllabus week. His professors will be fine. He will vibrate out of his skin and probably die if he doesn't apologize, though.
The Toji kid is also skipping classes, but for any determinably good reason. He pokes his head out of the door every hour or so just to make fun of him.
"Maybe he's not coming," Toji stage-whispers.
Suguru barely looks up. "You could text him. Call a club emergency or something."
"You're making the tragic miscalculation that I give a shit. Which I don't."
"Why do you keep checking on me, then?"
Toji grins. "That loser has been fucking with the mood at the club get-togethers all summer. Glad to know you look worse than him."
A pang of guilthurtregret bounces through Suguru's stomach. "I thought you didn't care."
Toji sticks his pinky in his ear canal. "Oh, I don't. My girlfriend was very invested though. She's in one of those omega-alliance groups with that dickhead. I'm texting her updates about how sad and pathetic you look. One sec," he pulls out his smartphone and snaps a picture, "awesome. Maybe you could cry next time? She'd like that."
Suguru flips him off and tries to ignore him for the rest of the day.
Other members shuffle in and out. Ijichi looks down at Suguru near dinner time and resolutely puts the protein bar he was holding into his backpack and shifts it away, like he can starve Suguru out personally.
I thought you didn't even like him! Suguru thinks of accusing. Useless. Everyone likes Satoru, even if they hate him. He's annoying and too loud for most people to want to be around, but he cares and even people who can't stand him can see it.
Suguru does too; he just hopes he's not too late to convince Satoru that he does.
Someone must have eventually texted him. At eight in the evening, Suguru hears familiar Gucci boots come to a stop a few feet away.
Suguru has curled up on himself, and he looks up from his knees. Satoru is staring down at him. Good, Suguru thinks. This is how it was two months ago, this is how it needs to be done.
"What do you want?"
It's the first time that he hasn't been yelled at in greeting. Suguru didn't know how much he would miss it.
"I'm sorry," Suguru says. It sounds flat, but that might be the effect of the entire otaku club holding their breath to listen in from the other side of the door.
Satoru looks at him, expecting. "For what?"
"I—" Suguru's dry throat clicks. He remembers the way that Satoru had given him sports drinks, had paid for his coffee, found him places to study. Made him laugh.
"I was an ass. I know it's going to sound like a cop-out but I was born and raised beta, I had one omega friend that moved away and all the alphas on the judo team sucked."
Satoru is frowning already and Suguru rushes to say, "I know, I spent the whole summer with a group of them. They're good kids, they're just trying to figure it out. But my—my teammates, they would take turns using the alpha tone to bitch me against the mats. For months."
He knows it's not a promise, but he thinks Satoru is listening, really listening, when his mouth twists down in a frown. His eyebrows suggest there's an expression of sympathy or maybe anguish on Satoru's face behind the sunglasses.
"I know it's not an excuse for not listening to you. Just, you know, so you know. Most of the alphas I met before you never saw me. And that night, I—I'm so sorry. I just thought it was stupid alpha stuff and I've been jerked around by it before.
So, I know it's not an excuse. I know you were trying to look out for yourself that night. I was being selfish. I thought," Suguru's voice catches and he realizes that he's been crying. When did that happen? "I thought that it was a lot simpler with betas, that you wanted it simple."
Satoru's own voice is wobbly when he says, "If I hadn't taken suppressants, I could have still bitten you."
"I know."
"And it doesn't matter if you're a fucking beta, the bite could take for me and I'd still be mooning over you. And we were having fun, but it's permanent, Suguru. It's a big fucking deal to me."
Suguru scrambles to his knees. He can't stand the teary-leakiness in his best friend's voice. He's my best friend, I'm not gonna hurt him. He wraps his arms around Satoru's knees and buries his face on the other side of Satoru's thigh. His shoulders are shaking.
"Please, forgive me."
They get jostled when Satoru also falls to the ground. Suguru gets smacked in the jaw with Satoru's knee but he'll take it because Satoru is hugging him back.
"Don't make me regret it," Satoru sobs. They're both crying. "Fucking beta, dramatic as fuck."
Suguru laughs and cries and hugs him harder. "I won't, I promise."
He takes that secret knowledge that he loves him and places it between his ribs, where no one can touch it.
His precious Satoru, who loves without discrimination and who will probably snag the best person for him, regardless of their sex. He deserves the absolute best.
🪡
Present Day
The Morning of The Run
>I hope you know what you're doing. It's incredible how much judgment Shoko can fit into text.
<no clue. wish me luck.
Shoko doesn't respond. Suguru doesn't blame her. He's not sure if he would wish himself luck.
Kaisen Corp. rented out most of Yoyogi Park. There are a few YouTubers and news stations already at the starting lines, interviewing participants and assessing the mood.
He can see Satoru, plain as day, heading up the alpha group and smiling at a Tokyo News corespondent.
"What have you done to ensure that this Run is done with modern sensibilities? It must have been a PR nightmare in this day an age."
Satoru's smile disarms the reporter a bit. "Well, mating rates are going down just like beta marriages are. When this event was proposed, I thought, why not make it more of a game? It's like tag, see?" He holds up the black Velcro ribbon that attaches to his bicep. "It's got a little QR code with my Line information. And participants have extra tags if they wanna get to know multiple people. There's no tackling omegas with an X on their ribbons. We've got security patrolling the entire field. And everyone can add these cute little patches!"
He shows a large green patch that covers the top portion of his own alpha ribbon. "That means that you don't have a preference. Green light!"
The reporter stutters out thanks and turns to sign off on their broadcast.
Suguru taps Satoru on the shoulder. "The clan is gonna be pissed about those patches."
Satoru startles a bit but smiles when he realizes who it is. "Well, you know what they say."
"What do they say?"
"Fuck the Gojo clan." Satoru laughs and preens. "Not like they're gonna get an heir outta this Run."
"You so sure?" Suguru folds his arms across his chest, liking this.
"No offense," Satoru says, leaning close like he's about to say something offensive, "I'm the strongest alpha out here. No one is catching me. Just gotta last the hour." He looks smug as he stretches.
The other alphas around them have good enough hearing that they definitely picked up on that. But none of them call him out for it. He's got runner's leggings that cling to every muscle and a sweater that does nothing to hide the bulk of his chest. It wouldn't be a good look to get bitched by another alpha right in front of the omega group, who keep looking over and giggling and fiddling with their white ribbons.
"You showed them." Suguru hooks his thumb over his shoulder. "Okay, I gotta go line up with my group."
Satoru is half-way through waving goodbye before he freezes. "Your what?"
"The beta group." Suguru brings out his dark gray tearaway ribbon. Satoru is wearing those kind of designer sunglasses that wrap around his entire head, but Suguru knows those eyes are the size of dinner plates.
He knows him best.
"Thanks for making it extra inclusive," Suguru says, waving. "See you out there!"
Some of the other betas whistle when he comes over to join them. "I'll fall over as soon as the whistle goes," one of them says. "If you want."
Bleh. He looks over at the other beta, a built blonde woman. "No thanks. I'm hunting alpha today."
She snorts. "O-kay, buddy, good luck with that."
Suguru smirks. He'd just asked for that from Shoko, but he finds he doesn't want it from her or this other rude woman. He's a beta. All the luck in the world won't do him any good. He's going to have to claw and bite his way towards what he wants, just like nature didn't intend.
The whistle goes off and the white-clad omegas go first. They get a minute head start before the other two groups. Suguru can almost feel Satoru looking at him, imploring, curious why are you here? But he'll know soon enough.
Another whistle sounds, and Suguru explodes into motion.
🪡
Suguru kept up with that training regimen in university. Maybe at first it was because he was jealous of Satoru's bulk, and then maybe a secret guilty and sex-related reason he didn't want to admit, but for the last half-decade he's just wanted to be strong. He knows that he'll never have the density of an alpha without major steroids, but he's trained his body to be the best that it can be, and that's enough.
He does wish he had that alpha nose though. The scent blockers are optional for a Mating Run, as long as your heat and rut cycles are more than two weeks away. He knows that Satoru kept them on. Still, it would be nice to be able to sniff out a trace of menthol among the trees.
Several alphas are playfully ganging up on a group of omegas that don't have the X on their ribbons. The way that they flirt is foreign to Suguru still, even after six summers with the community center, but he's happy for them.
He hears a shuffling in the trees, someone alone, and he takes a chance and sets off at a race pace, keeping his breath even.
"Suguru!" His bet paid off. He can see Satoru bolting, faster than Suguru could ever hope to be, and flipping him off. "Cut it out, dude!"
"Nope!"
He knows it must be confusing, or maybe even embarrassing. Satoru was just joking about darting off for an hour and not worrying about this stupid Run. But he's going to be clear this time. If he's going to mess it up, he's going to mess it up with all his cards on the table.
It takes about fifteen minutes for him to catch up to Satoru again. He's drinking water against one of the Shinto gates and startles, flinging it in Suguru's direction.
"Stay away!" He darts off again like a rabbit before Suguru can yell anything after him.
One of the event volunteers gives him a bottle that he downs.
"Are you sure you wanna spend the whole day chasing an alpha?"
Suguru's lungs still feel good, but he might get a cramp in his side. He takes an extra ten seconds of rest. "That's not an alpha. That's the love of my life."
The volunteer is struck dumb and Suguru thanks her and gets back to it.
He pumps his arms at his side, careful of the little dips of the hillside. He catches sight of a silver head cresting over the farthest mound. Let's pitch it to 85 percent.
This time it only takes ten minutes to catch up to Satoru, Better, but Satoru is still in pretty good shape. He might manage to dance away from him until the hour is up and then he'll maybe stop being friends with Suguru forever. Can't have that. He picks up the pace again.
"Suguru, what are you doing?"
This time he catches Satoru in five, as he's sprinting towards the line of ginkgo trees. Suguru tries not to grin.
"I'm chasing you."
"Duh!" Satoru screams. He darts from tree to tree as Suguru advances steadily. "What the ever loving fuck for?!"
Suguru doesn't answer him; he's too focused. And Satoru must see it, must sense it somehow, because he turns, panicked, and runs into the trees just like Suguru hoped he would.
You're mine now.
Distance is easy to pace for in the trees. Suguru has no trouble vaulting over the roots and plotting his steps to get to the end of the copse. Satoru is a sprinter and he's panicking. He trips over the last root possible and goes crashing down and Suguru speeds up and pounces.
There's a scuffle as Satoru tries to break free. It's nothing at all like judo or the times that they've sparred. It's desperate and Suguru can see the millennia of instinct and pride making him lash out and flash his teeth and Suguru wants a taste.
"Caught you," Suguru breathes into Satoru's ear, just as he gets a mean elbow buried in his stomach.
"Stop playing around," Satoru seethes. Suguru can hear the rumblings of his alpha voice starting in his chest, disturbing the air. But he keeps it in check, just barely. "You never learn, Sugu—"
Suguru recovers and knees Satoru in the back, something that's baser than instinct yowling in approval at the way Satoru gasps and the fight goes out of him.
"I'm dead serious." Suguru plants his arms and legs over Satoru's squirming limbs. He can feel the reserves of strength in the muscle. He knows that Satoru could recover, flip him over, and fucking kill him if he really wanted.
But his Satoru doesn't want to do that. That's what makes him such a good alpha for Suguru.
"Please," Satoru begs. His mouth is smeared in dirt and leaves. He looks ruined, like a dryad caught in the weeds. His entire body goes slowly and purposefully still. Fighting the instinct for him.
"Don't do it if you don't mean it."
Without hesitation, Suguru puts his hands on the back of Satoru's neck. The vertebrae are perfect, knocking against his fingers. The muscles and sinew flex under him. He can feel it under his thighs too, the expanse of hot lean muscles holding still. Yielding.
It doesn't make any sense, for someone as powerful and beautiful as Gojo Satoru to let himself be bitched on an open field by a beta. But Suguru doesn't need it to make sense, not anymore. He just needs it to never end.
A bite is not in his catalogue, and it might piss Satoru off a little, so he pushes him down again and then rolls him over. It's so easy. Satoru is almost playing at being limp, helpless—Suguru's mouth goes dry—but he isn't. The muscles of his body ripple as they follow Suguru's hands.
Effortless, Suguru hauls him up, sprawling them in the opposite direction, folding Satoru into his lap like an oversized doll.
"Don't look at other omegas," Suguru hisses. It's raspy and weak. He gets why betas don't usually do this. The rush of endorphins and mating hormones don't haze over his brain completely. It's easy to feel embarrassed and raw.
"Don't look at an alpha. You only look at me."
How much will he give me? The implication makes his blood sizzle. How much does he trust me?
A lot, apparently.
"Yes," Satoru groans. "Love you, Suguru, it was only ever you."
Suguru pushes at his collar to look at his mouth. Those stupid glasses got knocked off in the scuffle and those beautiful blue eyes are nearly swallowed by pupil. Suguru feels almost scared to look, even after an hour of chasing him. Idiot.
"I love you too."
"Do you, uh," Satoru keeps looking at Suguru's mouth and how he's still splayed across Suguru's lap. There are a few volunteers that gape at them from the other side of the open field. "You wanna get out of here?"
They cannot run out of the park fast enough.
🪡
"Nanami is gonna be pissed that I'm missing clean up," Satoru says around a giggle as they crash into Suguru's shitty apartment. They did the math. It was closer. Princess Satoru will have to deal with fucking on Muji sheets.
"Stop talking about other dudes when I'm sucking your dick."
"But you're not—oh." He pets Suguru's hair and clamps a hand on the edge of the kitchen counter. "Um. Whoa."
Sucking an alpha dick isn't that much different than a normal dick. Maybe it's a little thicker and longer than a normal dick. Suguru tries not to imagine what it looks like in rut. He'll find out soon. If he's lucky, god he hopes he doesn't mess this up.
It scrapes against the back of Suguru's throat as it hardens and he grinds his palm against his own erection in his sweats. He leans back and cups Satoru's balls as he sucks on the head and the gutted fuck above him turns him on even more.
"I thought about this a lot," Satoru starts. Of course he's a talker. Suguru wants to bite him, see what kind of yelp he'd make. But the words keep coming and they make the hairs on Suguru's arms stand up, so he lets him.
"During one HR seminar, I had this idea that you'd be warming my cock under the table." He throws his head back at a particularly hard suck. Shit. "And then when everyone left, you'd fuck me against the conference room table and I'd make it all meh-messy."
Suguru leans off of Satoru's dick with an obscene pop. He likes the way Satoru's knees go a little weak for a moment before he stands up tall again.
"We're so stupid," Suguru says. He stands and wipes his mouth and reaches out to grip Satoru's cock. He's hard as iron and he pumps him slow and hard. The veins feel good in his hands, like rivers on a map that he traces with a firm press of his thumb. "Could have had you all pretty like this for myself if I wasn't a fucking stupid kid."
Satoru growls, his hips pumping in time with Suguru's hand. It has to hurt, the way that Suguru is jacking him, dry and fast, but he arches his back and claws onto Suguru's opposite shoulder, his nails digging into the skin.
"F-fuck, we were kids. We would have, fuck! Fucked it all up eventually. I—shit fuck Suguru faster—I wouldn't take back the friendship. Not for anything."
Satoru licks his lips and smirks when he sees Satoru's eyes following the movement. He leans over and up and whispers, "I'll give you more than that."
Satoru's entire body gives a violent shudder and he cums buckets over Suguru's fist.
"Hell." Suguru stares at the mess and then stares at Satoru, who looks flushed and sexy and like he's ready to go again. He's an alpha. He might be. "I wanna be your mate."
Satoru huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, I got that."
"I wanna take care of you." Oh shit, maybe Suguru is also a talker. He keeps it up as he corals Satoru towards the bed. "Let's grow old together. Let's screw each other's brains out forever. Let's love each other."
"Yeah." Satoru has gone a little breathless. He lets Suguru push him on the bed, just barely. Suguru can see the tensing of his muscles, ready. He's so strong. It makes Suguru's hands shake in anticipation.
"You wanna fuck an alpha?"
This is the hottest thing he has ever seen. Satoru's cum is still running down his own stomach and Suguru's hand. His dick is still hard, standing long and straight against his cluster of white hair.
"I know this one will let me."
The pillows dent when Satoru throws his head back. His hand goes down his own body, trailing down the mess and fisting against his own cock, like he has to keep that part of him still too.
"He might," Satoru says softly. He bites his lip and looks at Suguru, the haze blinking out of his stare for a moment. "Can I?"
Suguru almost asks him what he means, but then the tremors hit, tickling the base of his skull. Satoru hasn't used enough of the tone for it to be outright effective. He remembers, Suguru thinks in awe, looking down at him. Even now, he wants to be the alpha that takes care of everyone.
I'm going to fuck the shit out of him.
"Try your worst," Suguru challenges.
The rumble vibrates between them. Satoru looks him in the eye the whole time. "Sugu, make me a mess."
He doesn't even need to feel the bite of nails against his flesh. A rush of heat makes him focus enough, and it's like his brain knows. This is Satoru. We can listen to Satoru. Do what he says.
Still, he finds a thrill, to shake it off, to ignore him for an extra moment or two. He can see it in Satoru's gaze, too, how proud he looks.
"What?"
The tone drops. "You're so sexy, Suguru." He arches his back and his fingers lazily play up the length of his dick. And Suguru almost wants to laugh. How can he be sexy, when there's this as a comparison?
He crawls over the bed now. Satoru lets him, watching him like a wolf, his gaze hungry and lecherous.
"I'm going to fuck you," Suguru says. Satoru's eyes flare, his chest expanding. Lips parted, he waits eagerly for Suguru to keep speaking. "You can use the alpha voice on me all you want. You can even tell me to stop. But I'm not going to listen."
A whimper escapes Satoru's mouth. "Yes, I—I want that."
"You want me to fuck you, even if you cry?"
He can see it, the flash of instinct, the little shudder at the thought of being dominated, ignored, bullied as it settles in Satoru's mind and he nods, his hair falling into his eyes. The hand on his dick doesn't stop moving.
"Have you taken it before?"
Satoru pauses, bites his lip, and shakes his head once.
Suguru feels a pulse in his groin. "Have you taken something else?"
"Ah," Satoru gasps. The air between them is growing hot and sticky. Suguru likes it. It makes him think this might be what hormone-drenched sex feels like for Satoru. "Ah, a dildo."
He says it quietly, almost shameful as he hisses and tugs at his cock.
"Was it big?" Suguru maneuvers to reach over to his bedside table and get the lube and condoms. He wets his hand. "Answer."
"It felt big," Satoru rushes, looking at the materials and then back at Suguru. His neck and chest are flushed. "But you look bigger than it."
Suguru breathes hard and gets on his knees, pushing Satoru's other hand away so he can see between his legs. Satoru is going to kill him.
"You fit something like that in that little hole?" It looks sealed shut, like it was panted on. It's going to take a while. His throat burns at the thought.
Satoru mewls, the sound high and broken. "I did, I could do it. I can take you."
The wet tip of his finger prods the entrance, massaging until he can feel the muscle flutter. He presses in and loves the sound that Satoru makes.
"We'll have to see. Won't you open up for me?"
Satoru, elite alpha of the Gojo clan, lets go of his dick and hooks his legs over his own elbows, spreading himself wide. "Like this?"
"Good." The word is punched out of him, leaving an impact. He rocks forward, slipping his entire finger in and then working to wiggle in a second.
The resistance is strong, the muscle of Satoru's ass flexing and trying to push him out. Satoru keeps making noises like it's uncomfortable, but then he'll shift his own weight to chase his fingers, ride out that burn that Suguru knows he's feeling on purpose.
"You like it," Suguru says, squirting in more lube and adding another finger.
Satoru nods, his hips still trying to grind himself down. Sweat is starting to form on his temples and under his knees; his elbows slip a few times.
"Gimme more."
The voice hits Suguru in a wave, making him shiver, the cold tendrils of something contrasting so heavily with his arousal but not shutting it off. It's like dunking his head into freezing water and coming up for air: electrifying.
He scrambles to obey. Alpha wants, alpha gets.
He twists in three fingers, transfixed at the way that Satoru's cock starts to drool onto his stomach and his eyes go hazy, losing himself to the drag of Suguru's fingers. The only sign that Satoru is present is the gutted commands that leave him.
"Another."
He's got nearly his entire hand in there, pistoning into the hot flesh of Satoru's body. Suguru's own cock is kicking and drooling with envy.
"Faster."
Several minutes later, just when Satoru's eyes are rolling back and his thighs start to shiver, he clamps down and plants his feet on the bed. Suguru's fingers fall out of him, his stretched hole gaping in the air.
"Enough!"
Suguru is ready, shrugging off the compulsion and rocking back. His lube-slick fingers shake as they try to open the condom.
Movement against the sheets is then punctuated by a confused, almost chirping sound. Suguru looks up and sees that Satoru has arranged himself neatly against the bed, turned on all fours, his head resting on his cross forearms. He'd look like the best of Suguru's wet dreams if his eyes weren't narrowed in anger.
"What is that?"
Suguru's hands spasm and he drops the foil packet. "Uh…protection?"
If Satoru had hackles, they'd be raised. Even presenting himself for mounting, he looks dangerous, explosive. A ripple goes through his muscle, like when a big cat is readying to strike.
"When was the last time you fucked someone?"
You see, Suguru doesn't really remember. "Like, years," he says, swallowing. That sounds lame.
"Same," Satoru growls.
Oh, so maybe not lame.
"So we've waited long enough." That same forced relaxation shivers out to his body, forcing those taught muscles to go lax. But the tone comes back, rumbling into the sheets. "Fuck me raw."
Yep, yeah. Suguru can do that.
"You want it that bad?" He lines himself up against Satoru. His skin is hot and sweaty. It feels incredible against Suguru's dick. The position has it resting between Satoru's cheeks and he can't help the compulsion to rock forward, loving the tension of Satoru's thighs flexing and trying to keep him still.
Satoru makes a wailing sound of frustration. Suguru hears a ripping sound and mourns his sheets. "Stop fucking around—I need it!"
"Shhh, baby," Suguru lines himself up more neatly. The tone sends shivers down his spine. He decides he likes it, it's like an extra hook in his gut, dragging his body forward and into Satoru. His toes flex against the bed as he grunts and puts some weight behind it—damn he's still so tight—and gets the head of his dick past the ring of muscle. "I got you."
The pleasure of it is already intense, making Suguru's breath go shallow and his hands go absentmindedly to Satoru's hips, stroking them. "Fuck, you feel good."
Satoru voice is wobbly, the tone gone. "I—I feel better deeper inside."
Fucking anal virgin, Suguru seethes. There he goes again talking out of his ass like the annoying. little. shit. that. he. is.
Oh. He hadn't meant to, but he's already rocking into Satoru's body, slamming into him to punctuate his own thoughts. He almost apologizes but then his ears turn back on and he can hear Satoru babbling against the sheets.
"Oh my god, yes—so much better than I imagined. Je—jehhhheeeesus christ fuck!"
Suguru's fingers squeeze hard. He hopes he leaves marks. He wants to dot Satoru's flawless pretty skin with blues and purples. Maybe he can't give him a bite but he wants to mark him in his own way.
"Keep talking," Suguru hisses. He leans back, his eyes going to the ceiling, and helps Satoru bounce on him. The sounds that his ass make as they slap against his thighs are picking at the loose thread of his sanity, threatening to unravel it. "Tell me how much you love my beta cock."
Satoru's knees spread even further on the bed. His ass must be stretched to the limit, and now the tension is in his hips and knees. It has to burn, maybe even hurt. Fucking masochist. "Oooh you're ruining me."
Satoru's eyes snap open and lock onto the body under him, the helpless way that Satoru is slamming himself back, the tension of his shoulders, the grip that he has on Suguru's torn sheets. Who's ruined?
"Can't look at omegas, can't even think of trying a knot." He whimpers on a particularly brutal thrust.
Something snaps in Suguru, he thrusts forward and then scrambles down, hooking his hands around Satoru's middle and hauling him up until they're both on their knees, back to front, Suguru's cock stuffing him full as his hands palm roughly against Satoru's chest, pulling at his nipples until Satoru yelps and then it breaks into a moan.
"Why can't you?" Suguru growls into Satoru's ear. The room reeks of their sweat and sex. "Don't you wanna try a slick omega? Wanna try riding on a knot? I bet you'd look good locked on one."
Satoru gasps, his cock kicking a splurt of pre-cum over his stomach. One hand keeps its noble mission of picking Satoru's chest raw but the other comes to circle Satoru's throat.
"Come on," Suguru goads. He feels his balls tighten and feels his hips thrust harder, wringing out every sound he can, feeling the vibrations against his palm. "Why can't you?"
"Don't want it." Satoru is gone, his eyes misty and unfocused. A part of Suguru will look back on this moment and realize that it was another mark of respect, of love. That Satoru let himself relax so fully to be so fucked-out. Right now, he has more pressing matters, like making Satoru come so hard he sees god.
"Aw." Suguru can barely keep up the act, loosing the rhythm a few times as he jostles Satoru around and presses him onto his back. One leg gets hooked over Suguru's shoulder and he crowds in, humping against Satoru to get himself even deeper than before. "Come on, why," he has to swallow and squeeze his own ass together to stop himself from shooting off. Fuck. "Why not?"
Satoru's stomach is a mess, the dried cum from earlier mixing with the puddle of pre-cum that has dribbled out of him. His stomach muscles flex with every thrust of Satoru's hips.
He looks up at Satoru, his eyes eyes out of focus and confused. He bites his own lip and rubs at his red and raw chest, shivering. "Suguru said I can only look at him."
He fucking explodes, folding Satoru's leg up to his ears, fucking him in a frenzy so sloppily that he almost doesn't register Satoru rearing back and coming so hard that it splatters his own neck.
"Yessss," Satoru groans, shivering and twitching like he's being electrocuted on a live wire. "Bury it, get it deep in me—so deep."
Suguru feels like every limb is going to fall off. Static numbness takes over every extremity. He doesn't know how he even manages to pull out and collapse at Satoru's side instead of directly on top of him.
Several minutes go by before either one of them can make a semblance of a sound.
"That was," Satoru pants, looking at the ceiling like it holds the secrets to the universe, "so good?"
Suguru fights of the urge to blindly agree and instead collects all of his measly reserves to act offended. "Why do you sound disappointed?"
Satoru shuffles until his laying on his side, propped up on an elbow. Suguru can see the bed get even dirtier as evidence of their tryst slides off of him. Fuck it. He'll have to burn these sheets anyway.
"Just thinking," Satoru says. His fingers reach out to trace Suguru's hip. His dick is spent and slick with lube, but it still gives an overstimulated twitch. Seductress. "I wonder if we can get you strong enough to mount me during my rut."
Guh, Suguru's brain says.
Satoru continues, "If you wanna help me, that is. But we'll have to get you ready to take a knot, too. At least once. That's what helps the most."
He blinks his beautiful eyes and maybe his facilities have come on a bit more, he smiles, looking a bit embarrassed. Which is stupid, considering what they've just done to each other. "If you'd wanna help me, that is."
Satoru. Satoru's rut. Satoru wants me to help him in a rut.
"What makes you think I'd even want your stupid knot?" Suguru brushes a hank of sweaty hair out of Satoru's face, liking the way his expression crumbles into a pout.
"Suguru," the voice has the strength of a kitten's mewl. It still raises the hair on the back of his neck, but in the delicious tingling way of a loving scratch.
"I'll think about it," Suguru amends. "Happy?"
Satoru makes that strange chirping sound again, like a high rolling of r's. Suguru pauses. Is that—that can't be?He blinks and reaches out to tuck Satoru close, gross sticky substances be damned.
"Do it again."
Satoru stills against him, unsure for a moment. Then he softens, tucks his face against Suguru's neck, and lets out his chirping happy purr.
"Their purr could calm a hormone spike better than any medicine."
He's never going to have a hormone spike, a delirious mood swing or imbalance. He almost feels guilty, taking this nice comfort from someone who could benefit from it more. But that thought is quickly swept away. Fuck anyone else. It's his, settling into his chest and warming a part of him that maybe evolution forgot but his heart hasn't.
There's not much he can offer in comparison, so he settles for stroking Satoru's hair, humming back at him—not an imitation of the purr, but a silly melody that he can't remember the origin of.
Satoru keeps chirping and purring for what seems like hours. The room is much cooler by the time they turn, adjust themselve, and simply look at each other.
His wandering hands do it before he's aware, travel to Satoru's wrist that is. The patch is barely hanging by a thread anyway, wrecked by the run and the sex. He peels it off quietly, feeling Satoru's eyes on him as he works his fingers into the hidden gland.
"What do you smell like?"
The question sounds innocent compared to everything else they've done. Satoru stares at him, his eyes gone soft and warm.
"Amaretto," he says quietly. "Someone—I think she was my mom or one of the other high-ranking wives—she always said she wanted to dunk me in her coffee."
The veins are stark, blue and purple against Satoru's skin. Suguru isn't sad, but there is a sense of loss that he can't felt but feel. "Sorry I don't smell like anything."
"S'okay," Satoru slurs. He blinks hard, looking satisfied and sleepy as he tugs his wrist out of Suguru's grip. He shifts and then—Suguru freezes—starts to rub his scent gland against Suguru.
First to his neck, generous around the dip where rich girls like to spritz their perfume, and the back of his neck, where his mating gland is not. Next, down the bumps of his ribs, digging across his chest. Last, skirting the length of his arms, grinding down into the hollows of his scentless wrists.
"There." Satoru's gaze has lost its tired edge. His voice is gruff and heated, pulling at Suguru's groin. A spark of lust ignites low in his belly. "My smell is the best anyway."
His eyes narrow and Suguru feels a kick of life in his limbs. Energy is on short supply, so he'll have to try extra hard to force Satoru down. Or, he swallows, maybe he'll let Satoru ride him until they both collapse.
"Good. You smell good." A final sniff against Suguru drags out a satisfied grumble in Satoru's throat. "You smell like me."
Hours later, when Satoru has wrung out four more orgasms against the sheets and Satoru feels like his dick will shrivel up and fall off, a random thought comes unbidden. He rockets upright in bed.
"Wuh—?" Satoru can barely keep his head up from the other end of the bed.
"Your scent," Suguru hisses. He wipes at his skin, but it's no use. He can't smell it, but it's probably soaked into him.
"Yeah," Satoru purrs, looking at him appreciatively, his nostrils flaring. "Now everyone will know that you're…"
fucking an alpha.
His eyes widen. He springs up, his legs giving out as soon as his feet hit the floor. "Oh—fuck! Shit!"
"Isn't there like, soap that will wash it out?"
Satoru scowls at him. (He looks so good with the bruises from Suguru's teeth on his shoulders and his red, bitten nipples and his deflated—wait, oh right—) "No! Oh my god, we're so screwed."
The panic drains from him. Suguru laughs first. Ridiculous, the both of them. He flings the sheets out of the way and leans down off the bed to plant a kiss against Satoru's pouting, delicious mouth. He can feel the moment that he breaks and smiles back, opening for him.
"I can hide who I'm fucking for thirty more days," Suguru says, twirling his fingers into the soft hair at Satoru's nape. "No one in the office knows your scent anyway."
A pout comes back to Satoru's mouth. "I don't wanna hide it, Sugu."
Heat curls deliciously in the pit of Suguru's stomach. How foolish he was all those years ago, to think that this alpha was anything else that what he is—what nature designed him to be. An honest protector and lover.
Betas are helpers. So, he helps.
"I think it'll be hot."
He sees Satoru's eyes dart down to the sheets covering his modesty. The hamster wheel begins to turn.
"...Oh?"
"Imagine: everyone will go crazy, trying to figure it out, and you're so professional that they'll never guess. I get to fuck you in the office for a month under their clueless noses. You get your pizza party. Win-win-win."
"Aw," Satoru says. He beams and then throws himself towards Suguru, hanging against him, stuffing his nose right where he smothered his own scent. "I knew you loved me."
He bites his lip, smelling nothing but the sweat and the lingering scent of Satoru's body wash. It's enough. "I love you too."
The next day, they go out together to buy new sheets and a candle.
They spend hours flitting from store to store. Satoru needs to bury his nose in coffee beans often, wiping his senses clean. Eventually, an independent seller shows them a perfect white oil wax, the scent warm and nutty, like toasted almonds. Sweet, like fresh vanilla.
Satoru complains still. It's not a perfect match.
Suguru doesn't care. He lights it and fucks Satoru on his couch until his pretty pretty alpha comes twice and goes boneless; a trusting, loving mess for him to finish in.
It doesn't have to be perfect, Suguru chides. Perfect is boring.
Whatever they have is much better.