lena | hiatus

For one hundred and fifty years, the nine of them only had one another. Choso only had the warmth of their cursed energy, the chattering hum of their thoughts, their terror as the shadows of the storage room pressed in on them. He could not blame them for being so afraid: children are naturally frightened of the dark. And just as naturally, he could not allow himself to be so frightened.

He was the eldest. He had to be brave for them.

He was brave for Eso, who loved to show off because he was so insecure. He was brave for Kechizu, who looked up to his two older brothers with wonder. For Noranso, whose soul trembled often with tears his fetal body could not shed. For Shouoso, who bickered terribly but loved tenderly. For Tanso, who always sought attention as a middle child. For Sanso, who was always annoyed with Tanso, but also always made up with him. For Kotuso, who had been the only one of them to be held by their mother, and now always longed for her touch. For Shoso, who was the most fragile-hearted of them all—the baby of the family, the one whom they all comforted most.

For one hundred and fifty years, Choso took care of them. Raised them. Nurtured them as best as he could from within his glass prison. Talked to them to distract them from the aching cold. Weaved them stories based on scant knowledge of the world inherited by their father's blood—visions of what it would be like to leave this place and feel the warmth of sunlight (how lovely that must be), listen to human music (whatever that might sound like), feel the earth of gardens beneath their feet (see the flowers fed by their mother's corpse).

For one hundred and fifty years, Choso had no one other than his brothers—

—and then, during the one hundred and fifty-first year, he met you.

The death painting wombs changed hands once before they entered their final home. Choso could see, with his half-formed eyes, sorcerers entering their dark chamber, letting sunlight flood through the open doors. He blinked slowly, unused to it. Were he a fully formed being and not an embryo, he'd have stood between the intruders and his brothers. He'd have used his blood to kill them all, maybe.

The intruders were curious about about the six youngest brothers. They were afraid of the three eldest—Choso most of all. They said they were ugly, pitiful things: abominations that should be killed out of mercy. What's an abomination, big brother? Shoso asked, and Choso did not have the heart to guess—although all nine of them could tell that in the eyes of these men, they were not fit to live.

The sorcerers used their techniques to shear at them, cut them, shatter them, but this was an exercise in futility. Choso's cursed energy shielded him, impenetrable, and Kechizu and Eso imitated him. They protected their weaker brothers. In the end, all nine of them were taken into a corridor hidden behind a thousand doors, and they were left alone for another hundred years.

It was there that you came to them. Choso's eyes were not developed enough to make out the details of your face, but he understood the lines of your silhouette: you were young, probably, with a straight back and energetic step. You had to stand on your toes to study the nine of them, and although he could not make out your features, he could hear your disgust when you said, "Yikes. These things are so grisly. And powerful. You want me to seal them?"

There was another presence beside you—taller, lanky, cursed energy enormous and oppressive. This man could not destroy the three eldest, but he could damage the six youngest.

Choso felt his brothers tremble, but he stayed still. Watching. He had to be brave for them.

If either of you noticed their fear, you did not comment.

"Yup!" the taller one of you said cheerfully. "Please work hard!"

"You're kidding me."

"Well, how are you ever gonna re-seal Sukuna's fingers if you can't handle these things? They're literal fetuses, you know. I don't even think they're sentient. I'm sure it'll be just fine!"

"Cursed wombs are not fetuses."

"They're not really cursed wombs. Just read the notes on them, yeah? And figure something out by next semester. Megumi's gonna start collecting the fingers in the summer, so we're gonna need replacements soon. Chop chop!"

"Next semester? You want me to figure out seals for these things by next semester? Are you paying me? Like, paying me a million yen?"

"I can treat you to a meal sometime."

"This is child exploitation, Gojo-sensei. There are laws against exploiting students like this."

"You're a legal adult now!"

"Then this is a labor law violation."

"Hm… well, yeah. I'll buy you tickets to the next Megan Thee Stallion concert, though."

"Oh. Deal."

The taller one departed. If they could properly breathe, all eight of his brothers would be sighing in relief—the looming presence was gone, the immense pressure of his cursed energy dissipated. They were all left alone with you, listening to the easy and idle melody of your humming. You were not weak, per se—Choso could sense that your cursed energy was just as vast as your mentor's—but there was something kinder about it. Something benign. Soothing and like it might lull him to sleep.

It felt warm.

For the first time in their long lives, Choso and brothers had human company.

Your presence was a stark contrast from their century and a half of existence. Gone was the constant darkness and terrible cold: the first thing you did when you began your work was complain about the temperature of their abode—'Does the Star Corridor not have central heating, or something? Ugh, I should get a kotatsu in here!'—and the second thing you did was drag in a space heater. It aggrieved you that you only had a couple of dim lights in the storage rooms—'Did the previous sorcerers who worked here have, like, night vision?'—so you brought in several lamps, too. You put up strings of lights, too—curious, new inventions that reminded Choso of his father's memories of festival lanterns. Fairy lights, you called them. Sometimes you flicked off every other switch in the room and kept only their subtle glow: 'For ambiance,' you once explained to Eso. 'If I'm gonna be trapped here for fourteen hours a day, I might as well make it look nice—right?'

This was probably your funniest habit, to Choso: you talked to him and his brothers. Or rather, you talked at them.

Shouoso thought you were crazy for this, but Eso was convinced that you were simply bored. The nine of them always had conversational partners in each other; you had no one but your inanimate research subjects. Choso thought privately that you also must have been lonely—sometimes your voice would sound wistful in a way that reminded him of Kotuso—but he did not mention it to his brothers. He did not want them to dwell on how alone they, themselves, were.

Well. How alone they were except for you.

You chatted at them frequently as you worked, reading their own records to them. Death Paintings'? you said. What a creepy name! This Noritoshi guy sure was something! Oh, it's a Buddhist thing… hey, guys, was your dad a monk?You fretted over Heian era textbooks that you could hardly read, so ancient was their script. I can barely make out the kanji for 'curse suppression', you once whined. Why can't Granny Tengen just teach me herself, instead of forcing me to read this?! She's immortal, so surely she can spare some time for me!

You cursed out Gojo, whom Choso surmised was your teacher. You moaned that your school was working you to the bone, but at least research assignments on seals were better than missions, during which you were simply useless. You complained often about your relationships and wondered aloud if you would ever find love or at least find someone who could 'blow out your back'. Choso understood what you meant by find love—this was a feeling engraved into him by blood, binding him to his brothers—but little idea of what your latter euphemism meant.

Between your monologues—which his brothers greatly enjoyed, for they had never had such lively entertainment—you studied the nine of them carefully. You looked at Choso the most; he was your most powerful specimen, and he would be the greatest challenge to seal.

Choso did not mind it, really. His brothers were anxious every time you picked him up, but your fingers were always so careful, and your cursed energy was always so gentle whenever you probed him. I'm always afraid I'll hurt you guys when I do this, you once said quietly to Choso, almost whispering. I know you're a special grade object and I can't destroy you anyway—but, like, you're human too, right? I mean… you look like a human baby… you can probably feel pain like one too.

His younger brothers trembled. Are we human, big brother? they'd asked after you left, and Choso had not known how to respond. He felt inadequate as the eldest, then: shouldn't he have all the answers?

You studied Choso every day for several hours at a time. Your cursed energy ran over him, a soft blanket. Sometimes you held him too, and he could feel through his glass prison the heat of your touch: something utterly foreign to him. His brothers noticed it too, obsessed over it, yearned for it. Your hold was the warmest thing they'd felt in one hundred and fifty years of existence, since they'd left their mother's decaying womb.

They asked him if they should try to speak with you, too fearful to do it on their own—worried about what would happen to them. If you would be repulsed by them. If you would ask your mentor to come back and seal them immediately, or discard them somewhere dark and cold for the rest of eternity.

It would have to be him. Choso always had to be brave for his brothers.

The day finally came when you reached out to him with your cursed energy—and he reached back.

You drew back, speechless.

"Holy shit," you said. "You guys are sentient."

Time used to be an endless, crawling thing. In the darkness of the storage room, Choso had no way of telling how many sunsets had passed nor how many moons had risen. Aside from his father's memories, he didn't even really have a sense of what the moon looked like, and he'd barely ever caught glimpses of the sun. He and his brothers often longed to see it, but now that you were here, there was less of a need.

You came every morning at around ten—you'd brought in an analogue clock and explained to them how modern humans kept time, splitting the days into 24 sections—and greeted them as Choso imagined the sun would.

Morning boys, you said. You talked to them now—not at, but to—and addressed them by name, treating them like people. How are you doing, Eso? Having a good morning, Kechizu? Did you sleep well, Noranso? Are you playing well with the others, Shouoso? Are you happy today, Tanso? Rise and shine, Sanso! Up and at 'em, Kotuso. What should we do today, Shoso?

Did you miss me, Choso?

Yes, Choso often wanted to reply. All of us did. But he never said it aloud, not wanting to spoil his brothers' delight at your attention—their cursed energy tremoring warmly as they spoke in turn. You could not understand their words, of course, but you could feel that they were responding to you, and it clearly made you happy.

Which fascinated Choso. The mere act of reaching for you with his cursed energy made you smile; he wondered what it would be like if he could instead move his underdeveloped limbs, grasp at you with his webbed fingers. But he was only a fetus, if even that—all he could do was tremble in his glass prison, listening to your laughter. The sound made him feel the way he did when he talked to his brothers about sunlight, music, and earth, when Kotuso talked about how gently their mother cradled his tiny body in her hands and begged Noritoshi not to take him away like all the others.

Longing, he believed the feeling was called. This word was faint but evident in the blood he'd inherited: you filled Choso with longing.

He and his brothers all longed to see you when you were gone, even though it was no longer so dark nor so cold in your absence: you kept the fairy lights on for them whenever you left, and it was warmer now, too. I can't leave the space heater on, so I asked Granny Tengen to turn up the temperature in this place, you said. She asked me why and I told her I can't let my pals in the storage room get too cold at night. She thinks I'm, like, crazy for befriending you by the way—but Granny indulges me, you know? Anyway, let me know if it's too hot.

Their cursed energy bubbled with delight—not because it was warmer now, but because you'd called them your friends, and we've never made friends with anyone before, big brother, isn't this exciting? Choso could make out the blurry silhouette of your grin as they chattered.

As the days passed, you only made their world brighter. You asked them what they were curious about, and they buzzed at your every suggestion, so you brought back every piece of the outside world that you could. You showed them magazines—Tanso adored the comics, Shoso the Natural Geographic, Eso the high fashion photography. Choso liked images of flowers, himself, so you brought them plants next. First succulents—stubby little things, with a waxy surface and muted colours—and then a thing called a money tree, with a twisted trunk and softer leaves. You brought in a lamp that shone bright with UV rays—you can think of it as a kind of sunlight, you explained—and all kinds of flowers, after that. Orchids and gardenias and lilies, and you took the nine brothers down from their shelf so they could sit on the desk instead, surrounded by brilliant petals as you worked quietly beside them.

You know, you said one day, people say that plants like music. Do you guys wanna test that theory? So you brought in speakers after that, and for the first time in one hundred and fifty years, they heard song. You cycled through countless pieces, explaining all the genres to the brothers as you gauged their reactions. Shouoso liked classical; Eso liked heavy metal; Kechizu liked punk. You grinned when you put on something that sounded cheerful, fun, had your body moving to its rhythm and your voice in its thrall. Shoso radiated with delight, and you beamed at him. You're a city pop fan, huh? Me too. Let's keep it on!

Sunlight, music, earth: you had brought with you all the things they'd longed for, Choso realised. It was no wonder that they longed so much for you.

For the slow crawl of time was now a rhythmic, exciting thing because of you, split into the sunrise of your smile and the moonrise of your farewells. It burst with colourful blooms and sweet melodies and warm touches. The ten of you spent months like that together, their days with you holding more beauty than all the past one hundred and fifty years combined.

Then the day came when you did not return.

Choso counted forty days before you returned.

You came to them ragged and wounded, gauze on your face, stitches on your hands. The death paintings had never experienced injury themselves, but Choso had inherited through his father's blood countless memories of carnage wrought by his curses. He could tell that you'd been close to dying in your absence, and his frail bones trembled as he envisioned your body in the death process, rusting with decay.

But you greeted them anyway. Said all your usual greetings to his brothers. How are you doing, Eso? Having a good morning, Kechizu? Did you sleep well, Noranso? Are you playing well with the others, Shouoso? Are you happy today, Tanso? Rise and shine, Sanso! Up and at 'em, Kotuso. What should we do today, Shoso?

You turned to him last, and he imagined that your smile softened just a hint.

"Did you miss me, Choso?" you asked.

Yes. Yes, everyday.

The brothers were panicked about the state you were in. Their cursed energy pulsed frenetically in the room, anxious, roiling. You could not hear their cries, their questions, but you could tell anyway what was on their minds: "You're worried about me, huh? I'm sorry for making you all so anxious. Promise I'm okay."

The words relieved his brothers somewhat, but Choso knew you were speaking falsely. He could always discern when his younger brothers lied to him—Tanso had a mischievous streak, and Shoso had a habit of covering up his loneliness—so he could easily hear your deception.

"It isn't a big deal what happened," you said. "I went on a mission. It went kinda badly. And the worst thing was—I ran into my family while I was on it. But that isn't such a huge deal. Gojo-sensei got me away from them pretty fast."

The brothers went quiet, listening. You had never talked about your clan before. From the sounds of it, you'd been raised by your teachers—Granny Tengen and Gojo-sensei and a fellow named Principal Yaga—so they'd all assumed that your birth family were gone. But here you were, voice heavy as you spoke of your blood kin.

"I won't get into it," you decided. "I don't wanna burden you guys with it." Then you reached out, brushed a finger over Choso's vessel. "'specially not you. You're worried the most about me, huh?" Your voice bloomed with fondness. "You strike me as the responsible type."

It's my duty as the eldest, Choso said, even though you couldn't hear him. I have to care for everyone here. I'd care for you, too, if I could. If you'd let me.

"I feel bad," you continued. "This is just what I get for slacking so much with my research. A seal is just an inversion of a barrier, y'know? In both cases you're imprisoning something. Nothing gets in and nothing gets out. If I'd figured out already how to seal special grade entities, I'd have just applied the same principles to barriers against special grades, and, well… I wouldn't have fucked up."

You're trying your best. You should give yourself a break.

You grew quiet. Avoidant. Paced back and forth, studied the row of them. Your cursed energy quivered, heartrending.

"You're the strongest cursed object in the room," you said, and Choso knew it was meant for him. "I just—I don't have any other test subject, you know?" Your voice was tight, gutted, swollen. Shoso always sounded like this before he cried, and Choso wished he could comfort you as he always did with his youngest brother.

"Can you forgive me for trying this, Choso?" you asked. "It wouldn't be for long. I promise."

I trust you, Choso could not say. You could only stand there, weighed by silence.

"I wish you could talk," you said, your hand cradling him.

Choso wished he could too—and he longed, more than anything, to cradle you as well.

You spoke to Choso as you laboured over your talismans. He could not see what you were writing, but from the movements of your hand, he could tell that your brushstrokes were careful. Precise. Practised. "It's kinda annoying writing in such tiny script," you said, tongue clicking. "But I'm used to it. I gotta do it on myself all the time. All along my own torso and down to my navel—gotta write backwards looking in a mirror, too. Sucks."

You were rambling. It was not the easygoing, delighted kind of chatter that he and his brothers were used to; this was fervent, scattered, distracted. Whatever happened on your mission had frayed you, and now your edges were unraveling before him. Tanso got like this, often. Over one hundred and fifty years, all of the brothers had at some point—except for Choso himself, of course. He needed to be strong for the rest of them.

But you were as fragile as Shoso, right now.

"A seal is meant to imprison something. If it's a weak curse, I can put it to sleep, but with a strong curse, I can only cage it. It's—awful. It feels awful when I do it to myself. Makes my skin crawl. I feel like I'm rotting from the inside. I can't stand it when people touch me either—since, you know, nothing gets out and nothing gets in. I'm surrounded by people regardless, but it's weirdly lonely anyway."

I know. I could sense you were lonely.

You picked up Choso's vessel, thumb stroking the label that bore his name. Distension. An ugly title for an ugly creature, something that everyone over a century and a half had wanted to kill. But your fingers trembled as you wrapped your talismans around him, and he could make out through the glass and amniotic fluid the way your lower lip was trembling. You held him like was precious—not a curse, but a treasure.

"Promise I won't let you stay lonely for too long," you told him. Your paper seals wrapped around his glass prison, blocking out all your lamplight and flowers and the music you had left playing for Tanso to help calm him as you took away his brother. Cutting Choso off from all the sunlight and life you'd brought into the room.

The world went dark.

Choso felt like he was sleeping, blanketed in silence and warmth. It wasn't unpleasant. But then that blanket began to suffocate him, his slumber dissolving into nightmare. He was in a void without sense, scent, sound, taste. He had no touch, either—and just a year ago that wouldn't have mattered to him, as he had never touched anyone in all his years of living anyway, but after feeling your touch, this was nothing short of agony. He was drowning in a hell without sunlight, music, nor earth.

Without his brothers. Without you.

You'd said it wouldn't be for long. If he waited, he'd be freed. But as time continued to crawl beyond this solitary space, an itch bubbled up in Choso's malformed body. How many minutes had passed? How many hours? Would you leave him there for days, weeks, months, years? Would your teacher return and take him away from you? Would you be sent on a mission and killed? Would his brothers be taken away in the meantime as well, would they be sealed by another sorcerer, would they be subjected to the tight grip of this hell? Would they feel the violent whip of electricity as they pushed and pushed and pushed—

Choso was fighting.

The seal—the barrier—resisted him. He pushed and lashed out with his cursed energy, but the seal retaliated—lacerations in his little body, blunt trauma to his aborted skeleton. Even in this insensate place, he could somehow feel pain. But he could not stop pushing at his prison walls, desperate to see light, and with each attempt to break free, he only wounded himself more.

Blood seeped into amniotic fluid. Poison converged into needles, rained against the walls. The glass trembled and nearly shattered, but stayed intact with the binding spell you'd placed upon it. Choso was not affected by his own blood, of course—but he was in so much pain that he felt like he was. He felt like he was rotting, festering, screaming, and then—

Light. Warmth. Flora. The talismans peeled away, and your face appeared before him. Fueled by panic and the sharp release of his cursed energy, his eyes were suddenly strong enough to make out your eyes in the sunlight you'd brought into their world.

You were very beautiful, Choso noticed. And you were crying.

"I'm sorry," you said. "I'm so sorry."

It's fine. I'm okay. But Choso realised you were not only talking to him; you were also speaking to his brothers, tears pearling as you placed his jar back into the shelf. The eight of them were wailing, and even though you could not hear them cry, you could feel the grief radiating from them.

It's okay, Choso said immediately. I'm okay. Your big brother's alright. There's no need to worry.

His siblings calmed. They buzzed with relief, but you either did not notice or you were not comforted by it.

"I'm so sorry I took him away from you," you said, voice very small. "You've always been together, haven't you? It must have been very scary."

It was, Eso said. But you returned him. That's all that matters.

Big brother was happy to help you get stronger, Kechizu reasoned.

I still can't believe you did that, Tanso ground out, tearful. What a horrible person you've turned out to be.

Choso shushed him. Be kind to them, little brother. They meant no harm.

"You love each other very much," you observed. "I don't think I could separate you all. I'm going to talk to Gojo-sensei and tell him I'll find some other way to replace Sukuna's fingers. I'll find a way to make him understand."

The group of them signed in relief, except for Choso. He'd intuited already that you would not be cruel enough for such a plan.

"I read in your notes that you were all birthed from the same woman," you continued. Your voice was frail. Choso watched you carefully. "That makes you brothers, right?"

His brothers forgot your betrayal, suddenly. Their energy grew warm and fond and excited. Yes! they chorused. We're brothers. We love each other. We only have each other. Choso's the oldest, you know. He's been taking care of us this whole time. Thank you for giving him back, thank you for giving up on your assignment—

But you could not hear their words. Perhaps you mistook their noise for mourning. Your voice swelled with pain, eyes squeezing shut.

"I'm sorry." Your voice tremored. "I have to go."

Your silhouette fled the room. Choso regretted his tiny, malformed body, wishing that he had hands that could reach you. He'd grab your wrist, pull you back. He'd anchor you there and tell you it was alright if you wanted to cry.

But all he could do was sit there, on that shelf—longing.

You did not open up to the nine brothers for quite some time after that. You returned as if nothing had ever happened, bidding them good morning as usual, bringing them new flowers and magazines. The younger ones were relieved by your cheer, but the older ones couldn't be fooled.

I'm worried about them, big brother, Eso said. I think they're still bothered.

Choso agreed. He could see the signs of someone obfuscating sadness, like Kotuso often did. Shoso, too, often became embarrassed of how often he cried. He didn't like to be babied now that he was older, but Choso couldn't help it: he was the baby of the family, and Choso had to take care of him most of all. Choso thought that if he were a full person, with a human form, he'd like to treat you just the same. Your voice sometimes quivered in a way that made it feel like you might break at any moment; Choso longed for hands with which he could catch the pieces.

You splintered a little bit in front of them, one day. It was after a rare two-day absence. You came to them with new flowers, apologetic, and held the pot close to them so that they could see the blooms. Choso's blurry vision was filled with a brilliant, red crush of petals.

"Carnations," you said. "They symbolize familial love. I saw them and thought of you guys." Your lips curved, a gentle slope. "You care about each other so much. Sometimes I'm a little jealous of you, you know."

Why would you be jealous? Choso asked gently. What happened? He wondered if you could tell that they were abuzz with curiosity, because you continued—voice subdued, smile waning.

"I have a brother too, but I don't have a very good relationship with him. He's a lot older than me. Doted on me a lot when I was young." You laughed a little. "Actually, he always worried after me—you kinda remind me of him, Choso."

But I wouldn't have turned my back on you. Why did he stop caring for you?

"It's kinda my fault that our relationship is so bad now." You looked down, fingers running through the blood red of your carnations. "When I was little, someone put themselves inside me. Another family member." You shifted back and forth on your feet; Choso wondered, for a second, whether you would turn heel and run again. "When I told people, my parents reacted very poorly. It was a big deal, y'know, a scandal—we're supposed to be a noble jujutsu family, and all. Though I think most jujutsu clans are kinda messed up anyway."

Choso thought of his cruel father, his decaying mother, his brothers who'd been trapped in darkness their whole lives. And he did not completely understand your modern idioms, what you meant when you said someone had been inside you—but he thought it must not have been too different from how Noritoshi Kamo planted rot inside his mother, placed nine curses upon her womb. He could not imagine someone inflicting such horror upon someone like you—someone who brought sunlight and music and flowers to beings whom the world viewed as aborted monsters.

But if your family were of the same ilk as the Kamo clan, then Choso understood completely.

It wasn't your fault, he told you simply—just as he'd been telling his brothers their whole lives. It wasn't their fault what Kamo Noritoshi had done to their mother. It wasn't their fault that she'd been cursed to die.

"Anyway, everyone in the family had a falling out because of it. My mother thinks I'm a liar, and my father blames me. He got so mad, he placed a fucking curse on me." You snorted, voice edged with such bitterness that Choso hardly recognised it, coming from you. But then you lost that sharpness, words soft and uncertain. "My brother's just sad about it, though. I don't really give a shit about my parents, but I miss my brother a lot."

I'm sure he misses you too, Choso said immediately, instinctively. You did not look at him.

"When we were little," you said quietly, "he told me he'd always take care of me—but I guess he'd been lying."

Choso could not understand it. He tried to imagine himself in your brother's position—you, his youngest sibling, another small and scared thing looking to him for guidance in a dark and cold place. How precious you would have been to him. How close he'd have held you to his heart. How much he'd have vowed to protect you, just as he'd vowed to protect all his brothers, and how he'd keep that promise until death.

I don't understand your brother, he said plainly, and his siblings all chorused in agreement.

"Anyway," you said, stretching, "it's all in the past now. Gojo-sensei got me out of there and Granny Tengen and Principal Yaga took me in. They're kinda my family now." Then you tilted your head, eyes gleaming with fondness. "And I have you guys, too."

Yes. You will always have us.

The thought came to Choso, unbidden, inevitable: if he were a full human, if he had a mouth with which to speak to you and hands with which he could hold you—then he, too, could have been your family.

Once, Choso and his brothers saw you weep.

From their father's memories, they understood what it was like for a fully formed human to cry, though they had not themselves experienced it: their bodies were not developed enough to shed tears. It took them all a moment to recognize what was happening: 1 o'clock in the morning, the sun lamps turned off, the carnations sitting quietly around them in the dark. You stormed into the storage room, slamming the door shut behind you; the dim, golden fairy lights chased shadows across your body as you moved.

The brothers were on the table that night—you'd left them there intentionally, because you'd realised that Eso enjoyed being surrounded by your flowers—and they could see you fully as you sunk into the floor, curling into yourself. Your face dropped into your hands; your shoulders trembled. You were in a state of half-undress, Choso noticed. A smear of black seals ran up and down the midline of your torso, all the way down to your navel.

Something was different about your cursed energy today: they were all intimately familiar with the pulse of your emotions, so they recognized it instantly. Beneath your usual warmth, something dark was stirring. It felt like rot, like decay. Like them.

It felt like you were cursed.

A fist slammed on the door outside. The force shook the walls; Shoso and Tanso trembled, although Choso was not worried for any of his brothers. He would use his cursed energy to shield them all. It was you for which he was concerned: someone was following you, someone with significant cursed energy. If Choso were a full human, had a mouth with which he could speak to you and hands with which he could protect you—then he would tell you that it would be okay, and then he would use his blood to pierce whomever was making you cry.

But you seemed largely unbothered by your pursuer. "Fuck off!" you yelled at the door. "How the fuck are you even here?"

"I'm not leaving you alone!" someone yelled. A man, Choso guessed, though it was hard to tell from the timber of their voice.

"Yes, you are. If you don't, Master Tengen's gonna kick you out. It's their domain."

"I don't give a shit about Tengen!"

"Too fucking bad!" you retorted, and sure enough, Choso felt the air shift and fold around them, the atmosphere shuddering as Tengen worked her sorcery. This entire room—the entire Star Corridor, as you often called it—was under her protection. She rejected intruders, hiding the space away from danger. When you were little and running away from your clan, you'd intuitively sensed the safety of her barrier and snuck your way into her abode, where she'd found you weeping.

I always feel safest here with Granny Tengen—and with all of you, you'd told them once. You'd smiled at them fondly, eyes lingering on Choso longest. I always feel like Choso is watching out for me.

It's my job as the eldest to watch out for everyone here, he'd said at the time.

But now that a threat had shown itself, Choso felt absurdly useless. It was Tengen who acted: the barrier rippled, and the man outside was cast away. You breathed a sigh of relief, and then you drew your knees to your chest, making a noise that might have been either a laugh or a scream. Maybe a sob. Choso listened quietly, counting the seconds between each of your breaths.

Are they hyperventilating, nii-san? Kechizu asked, worrying.

Give them some time, Choso said, stolid.

You calmed yourself, eventually. Breathed in deeply, rubbed your face. Kept your eyes to the floor. "I'm sorry you had to see that, guys," you mumbled. "I'm sure it was unpleasant."

It was Shoso who replied: Don't apologise. We're just glad you're safe.

Yes, Choso said. You can always come to us.

And you can always talk to us, Eso added.

Perhaps you understood them. You trembled as you studied them, fingers ghosting glass vessels, one by one.

"I was dating that person," you said. "It was going great, but—well. My father cursed me, remember? I've sealed it well, but whenever someone tries to put themselves inside me, the curse activates. I keep it contained in my body, but it's quite unpleasant. I can never enjoy it, and it disappoints people."

There was that idiom again. Inside me. Choso remembered the suffocation of being sealed, the violence he tried to inflict on his walls. He thought of the way his blood poisoned his own mother's womb as she carried him. Did you feel like that, when things were placed into your body?

"My father will never remove this curse. My brother could do it, but he won't consider it. He doesn't want to go against his family."

But you're his family, Choso replied, and it was only then he fully understood your situation—

Your brother did not see you as his family. All of your kin had rejected you, severed the blood that tied you together. Now all you had were your three teachers and a collection of aborted curses.

Choso's heart was a tiny, malformed thing—but it ached for you. Ached so deeply that he felt it in the marrow of his bones.

"I've always," you confessed, voice low, "wanted to fall in love. I like to tell myself I someday will, and someone will love me back, and it won't matter that my family doesn't love me, you know?" A noise left your throat, and Choso's heart trembled. "But I'm starting to think it won't happen. I can't get close to anyone with a curse like this."

That's not true. You can always be close to us.

You stared at Choso for a long time, and he wondered if you could hear his words.

"Do you think," you asked suddenly, "I could hold you, Choso?"

Of course.

You picked him so gently. Pressed him close to your heart, and he could hear it beat as blood pulsed through its chambers painfully.

Then he heard you.

Choso heard you, with his delicate, barely-formed ears, crying softly. Felt with the fragile barrier of his skin the curl of your cursed energy around him, lonely and grieving and wanting. His fingers—tiny, useless things—twitch, longed to wipe away your tears.

He thought once more about what it could have been like had he not been aborted and forced into this glass prison by his father. What it would be like to have a full-grown body, however distorted and cursed it may be. If Choso had arms that could hold you and hands that could reach you, he'd draw you close to him and let you cry into his pulse. And he'd tell you that he loved you—the kind of way he loved his brothers, the kind of way that would make him die for you. The kind of way you'd always wanted to be loved.

The kind of way you'd always deserved to be loved.

Not too long after that incident, the brothers were torn away from you.

Mahito came to them, human-shaped and cruel-hearted. His cursed energy did not have the warmth of yours; it was ugly and unsettling and left something crawling beneath Choso's skin. He did not like the inhuman touch pressed upon his glass prison; he liked it even less around Kechizu and Eso. But they were stolen away by him anyway, and then they were incarnated, one-by-one, into the bodies of full humans—bones cracking, sinew and muscle reshaping, blood filling with poison. Their minds were rewired with their brains, inheriting the sense and knowledge of their stolen fleshsuits.

When Choso laid his eyes upon his Eso and Kechizu, he knew this: human society would never accept them. The jujutsu sorcerers would hunt them down—curse them, shatter them, shear them. Call them abominations, just like they once had in that Star Corridor. What's an abomination, big brother? Shoso had once asked, after the humans had tried to destroy the nine of them—and now Choso knew.

And he had to carve out a place in this world for these abominations—his perfect, beautiful younger brothers. He had to be responsible for them, after all. He had to be brave for them.

"That cursed spirit, Mahito," Choso started, "his vision of the future is convenient for us. We'll help them realise it."

Eso and Kechizu were softer-hearted than him. They did not like the idea of killing humans, Choso could tell—both of them shifted uncomfortably, thinking.

"But nii-san," Eso eventually said, "they wish to make enemies of those Jujutsu High students—the ones from the place we were kept. That would include…"

That would include you.

Choso had already considered this. Had thought of you the moment he'd been incarnated, in fact. He thought of your music and sunlight and flowers, the lights you strung up for him and his brothers, the songs you hummed for Shoso, the photographs you always showed Eso. He remembered the way your heart beat against the glass barrier separating him from you, the way your body trembled, how he could do nothing but listen to you cry. He now had arms that could hold you and hands that could reach you, and it pained him that you were not within his grasp.

You would never be within his grasp. Mahito had told him so, soon after incarnating.

"When you took us from the Star Corridor," Choso had asked him, "were there any sorcerers who tried to stop you?"

"A couple of orderlies," the spirit had replied, blasé. Cruel. "They were easy to kill." Then he'd given him a curious look. "Why? Did you know them?"

"Not well," Choso had replied, carefully neutral. "I was only curious." He had kept you protected from this cursed spirit whom would have disdained you—tried to leave the memory of you behind, tucked away in the Star Corridor where you'd always felt safest.

But he still held onto you—thought of you everyday. It was inevitable. Whether he was feeling the sunrise on his skin for the first time, or breathing in the fragrance of carnations in Shinjuku Gyoen, or wandering the streets of Roppongi, listening through the bright melodies you used to play for his youngest brothers—he could not help but think of you. Even as he consorted and plotted with the very spirits who had killed you, he remembered the rhythm of your heart.

He still longed for you.

"When the humans and their hypocrisy are finally erased," Jogo declared one day, while they were all recuperating in Dagon's domain, "the world will be better for it."

"I still think we should keep some around to hunt for sport," Mahito said. "It's fun to watch them struggle."

Choso looked down, studied his fully formed fingers, his empty palms. The sun shone down on him, and the sand was warm between his toes—but all he could feel was a relentless, oppressive cold.

For one hundred and fifty days, Choso grieved.

As soon as he'd been born into this world, his loved ones had died: first you, then Eso, then Kechizu. All of you cleaved away from him, leaving him incomplete. But he could not falter, even though you were all gone: Choso was still the eldest brother, and he still had so many younger brothers to attend to. Noranso, Shouoso, Tanso, Sanso, Kotsuso, Shoso—and now Yuji.

Yuji, who was so strong yet tender-hearted, deep in his own grief. Yuji, who was the youngest and most fragile of his siblings by far. Choso had to be strong for him.

The two of them wandered the wreckage of Tokyo with nothing for company but monsters. Yuji had no wish to return to his friends in Jujutsu High, and it meant that they were utterly alone. Sometimes during the night, as they slept in the ruins of some abandoned apartment without heat nor light, Choso stared into the pitch darkness of Shibuya and felt like he was once more on the shelf of that storage room.

"Are you still there, little brothers?" he once murmured half-asleep, instinctively. And he heard no chorus of little voices—yes, nii-chan, we're here—but Yuji snored loudly, and Choso felt himself relaxing anyway. He had Yuji, and someday when he returned to the Star Corridor, he'd hear the rest of them, too.

But when the sun came up and he opened his eyes, he heard no cheerful good morning, did you miss me?—and nothing could chase away the ache he felt after. He would never hear your voice again, nor feel your touch again, nor hear your voice again. It scared Choso, the idea that he might forget your voice—or Eso's, or Kechizu's. Sometimes he laid awake the whole night, trying to remember the timbre of your laughter, sometimes thinking about the sound of your tears. He heard Yuji talk in his sleep during those moments, calling out for a Kugisaki, a Nanamin, a Junpei—thinking of his own loved ones, thinking of voices he'd never hear again.

For one hundred and fifty days, Choso and Yuji lived alone in the world, grieving their loved ones.

Then, on the one hundred and fifty-first day, they met you.

It was a human who led them to you.

He was a civilian. Some scrawny, starved teenaged boy who'd been wandering the hellscape of Ebisu with his little sister. The two of them had been separated at some point; by some miracle, she had survived on her own for several days, and he'd managed to find her again. He'd been waylaid by a massive curse, which Yuji had handily blown back with his fists, letting Choso deal the finishing blow with his piercing blood. The boy came readily out of hiding afterwards; it was Choso who had to coax out the younger sister. He'd crouched down, assured her that no harm would come to her. Yuji stared at him, his surprise visible as Choso managed to calm the child down, but Choso himself felt perfectly at ease. He'd been dealing with scared children his whole life, after all.

After several rushed bows, the boy begged the two of them to escort him back to some refugee camp he'd found.

The two of them frowned even as they walked him and his sister, uncomprehending.

"Refugee camp?" Choso asked.

"Who was able to get a refugee camp running here?" Yuji frowned. "The place is overrun with cursed spirits."

"Amazing, isn't it?" The man had barely escaped death, but he was cheerful as he spoke of this sanctuary, carrying his kid sister on his back. Choso smiled at the sight: he'd have done the same with Tanso or Choso, were they here with him. "Someone set up this huge barrier around an apartment complex… not even the biggest and scariest curses can get past it; they just get fried. Kinda like a bug against one of those electric flyswatters." He glanced at Yuji. "I think the person running the place wears the same uniform as you, actually."

"A barrier?" Yuji paused. "Must be my upperclassman."

Choso could not help it: he found himself thinking of you again. Hoping. Logically speaking, there'd have been no way you'd have escaped Mahito—he'd killed all the orderlies in the Star Corridor, which must have included you. Between your research and looking after Tengen, you spent fourteen hours a day in that place. But maybe—maybe—you had been sent away that day, and maybe you'd have been kept away from Shibuya during all the slaughter, and maybe—

"Oh," the boy said, "here it is!"

Choso felt the veil before he saw it. Recognized it.

Yuji walked up to it, oblivious. He rapped his knuckles on the barrier, which lashed out at him with electric fury. He did not flinch, but Choso knew it must have stung: seals are an inversion of barriers, and he could still remember the violence of being sealed by you. Yuji glanced at the mild burn on his hand, then nodded.

"Yeah, this is definitely my upperclassman's work." He shifted, frowning at the dark curtain before him. "I won't be able to go in past this point, so you can just head on in without us."

Choso paused. "You'd be denied by your classmate?"

"Not intentionally. Senpai's barriers never let any cursed spirits in and have extra resistance against special grades. And, well, with Sukuna inside me…" Yuji looked down. "Actually, it could be that they wouldn't want me around anyway, after everything that happened. We should probably get going."

Choso's feet were rooted to the ground. He found himself unwilling to move, even as Yuji turned around to retreat. His little brother's eyes were on the ground, head low, and it looked nearly like he was about to dart away and hide, but—

"Itadori! Itadori Yuuuuji!"

Someone came running through the pitch darkness of the veil, nearly tripping as they stopped. They were panting, dripping sweat, looking on the verge of hyperventilation, but they nearly dived for Yuji's arm, catching him by the wrist. Their features were hidden, and their voice was so hoarse from yelling that it was hardly recognisable.

But Choso remembered the silhouette that spent months talking and laughing with him and his brothers, and he thought—hoped—

"Senpai?" Yuji said, bewildered.

"Don't you dare leave!" you—or Choso hoped it was you, his longing so deep that it nearly ached—wheezed, glaring at him. "Megumi will kill me if I let you go! He's been trying to find you for weeks now. Why'd you run away, huh?"

His younger brother's expression crumpled. "You know why, Senpai. I mean—you must have heard the news, right? I can't go back… I'm a—"

"—you're my kouhai," you interrupted. "I don't wanna hear it til after you've showered and had something to eat. Come on. Let's go inside."

"But—"

"No buts. Seriously, you reek. I know you're going through a lot right now, but you have to take care of yourself. When was the last time you ate a proper meal?"

Yuji went quiet for a long time. Stared at you and asked, "You sure?"

"'course. You're always welcome with me. Any of your friends are, too." You peered around his shoulder, met Choso with a keen gaze. Perceptive, too. Most discerning sorcerers would be wary of Choso; he felt more like a curse than a human to anyone who studied him carefully. But you seemed unconcerned anyway, stepping forward and peering at him not with caution, but with overt curiosity.

Choso felt the warm, tender touch of your cursed energy, and he knew.

He reached out with his own cursed energy—not on decision, but on instinct—and your eyes went wide.

"Oh," Yuji said. "Sorry for not introducing you. This is—"

"Choso?" You stared at him, pupils dilating, irises bright. He recognised your eyes, even though they were no longer so sad. They were still beautiful, after all. "You're Choso, right? From the Star Corridor? Special grade, born in the Meiji era, oldest brother of—"

"—nine," he finished, and his lip trembled. "And you're—"

Arms around his neck, a body slotted tightly against his. Choso nearly stumbled back from the force of your hug. He returned it without thinking, with arms that could finally hold you and hands that could finally reach you, and he felt your warmth directly against his beating heart. You laughed as he wrapped himself around you, almost screamed when your feet left the ground, and you were still beaming when he finally put you down.

"Did you miss me?" you asked, glowing, and after countless days of longing, Choso could finally say—

"Yes."

end part 1

thank you for reading pickle jar fic!!! every word of this was a struggle alsdjflsdj it is definitely a departure from my usual writing style that I don't believe I liked rip. some notes:

the death paintings are a series of nine paintings in buddhist art depicting the stages of decay of a woman's corpse. I chose the title "still life" because it is sort of the opposite of a "death painting" in name, often featuring things that are literally alive (e.g., flowers).

the reader's weirdly detailed and traumatic backstory is setup for the romance in part 2, which strongly contains themes of familial relationships (that is, of course, the crux of choso's character!). I didn't love the info dump of their backstory; it's not my usual style, but it was kind of unavoidable with how this whole thing was written from choso's pov and how the reader kind of treats of him as a therapist to vent to. please forgive me... mea culpa

When Zanka first met you, he knew instantly what your presentation was.

Now, you didn't look like the classical image of an omega (fragile, elegant, something meant to be kept in the privacy of a luxurious house or on the arm of a nobleman), but you did have the scent of one. Zanka, himself, couldn't smell you—betas are all noseblind, unable to detect pheromones—but every single alpha in HQ could. To this day, their heads always turn as soon as you enter the room, enticed by whatever honeyed scent trails after you. Some of them openly trail after you, offering little gifts in the hopes of starting a courtship. Even Enjin, who's met far more omegas than most people will ever encounter in their lifetime, sometimes gets distracted by your presence.

“She smells like fresh flowers,” Delmon once told him. “Tuberoses, I think. They're tough to grow—tougher than any other species.”

Zanka understood the attention after that. Flowers are incredibly rare on the Ground, and most species smell foul thanks to the toxicity of the soil and their frequently carnivorous nature. Even the full garden and all the resources of the Nijiku Estate could hardly support more than a handful of lilies. Zanka couldn't tell you what a tuberose would smell like, and couldn't even really tell you what one would look like—but it must be something addictive, with the way you're always turning heads. He can't be sure, though. Zanka won't ever know your scent.

He has no biological reason to look at you as much as he does. No biological reason to be mesmerised by you as much as he is. No biological reason to want you the way an alpha would.

But it's really hard not to want you. Really, really hard. Which is unfortunate, since he has no business looking at an omega.

“You're so old-fashioned about this stuff," you whine at him one day, looping your arm around his and pressing yourself to his shoulder. Zanka’s heart rate ticks up, but he keeps a straight face. Somehow. He distracts himself with your musings. You love to interrogate people about their thoughts on mismatched relationships—alphas with betas, and omegas with betas, and omegas with omegas—and right now he's the focus of your scrutiny.

“What do you mean you’d never date an omega?” you demand. “What don't you like about us?”

Zanka studies your face carefully. You don't look hurt, exactly, but you do look disappointed. He gets it. Exceptionally rare and desirable, omegas have a tough deal in most parts of the Ground. In places like Kamuatari District, you'd have been courted by multiple suitors, then engaged to an alpha soon after coming of age and safely married off long ago; elsewhere, you might have ended up exploited, or trafficked, or worse. It was his old man’s opinion that alphas couldn't be trusted around unmated omegas, and that omegas should be considered a kind of protected class. The rest of Kamuatari district felt similarly; it was unusual for omegas to marry anyone other than alpha suitors who could take proper care of them—except for maybe the occasional beta with enough wealth and rank among the Hell Guard, but those marriages were usually considered a farce. It was also unheard of for omegas to freely talk to anyone without the company of their alpha mate. Zanka’s mother, herself, never left the Nijiku Estate unless it was on the arm of his father, and said that doing otherwise would be “foolish”.

When Zanka first told you about this, you'd balked at him—probably because you seem deeply uninterested in finding an alpha to chaperone you for all your exploits—though you also kind of understood it.

It does make me nervous sometimes that this place is full of alphas, you'd said, seating yourself on Zanka’s lap. He’d tried not to look at your doe eyes or pouty lips, nor the dangerously low cut of your top. That's why I like it when you hold me, you know. You make me feel so safe.

Zanka said he was glad to hear that, and then he prayed to every god in existence that you wouldn't notice his flustered expression or very obvious boner. Just as he is right now, trying to ignore the press of your chest against his arm.

“It ain't that I don't like omegas,” he replies carefully. “But I’d never be able to take care of one as their mate, y'know? Not as a beta.”

“That's stupid,” you say plainly. “What could an alpha do that a beta can't?”

He tries not to splutter. “Ain’t it obvious?”

You stare blankly. “No?”

Zanka wants to die. You have to be playing dumb. But then again, you've never been in a relationship, so maybe you're just astonishingly ignorant about certain mating rituals. He has half a mind to tell you to ask an omega, but then he realises there are none besides you in HQ.

“Like,” he starts, struggling. “We can't scent ‘em so other alphas stay away. Or make ‘em feel protected. Or take care of them during… you know.” During heats, he wants to say, but can't get out. Zanka’s pretty sure that he's already red up to the tips of his ears; if he goes anywhere near the topic of knotting, he’ll probably combust. “Anyway—omegas never pay attention to me. Don't ya think that says something? I'd never be enough for one.”

“I think you’d be enough for anyone,” you grouse. “I wish you'd stop talking about yourself like that, Zanka.”

“Like what?” He gives you a bewildered look.

“Like you’re always looking down on yourself. Saying you’re a mediocrity, or you’ll never be enough, or whatever.”

Zanka shrugs. “I ain't lookin’ down on myself—just sayin’ the truth. Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a beta or a mediocrity, but everyone’s gotta acknowledge their own limits.”

“I think you were raised to believe in too many limits,” you say, actually sounding a little sad. Zanka would hate hearing that from anyone else—his family’s business isn't anyone’s but his own—but he knows you mean well. And anyway, you were probably raised with infinitely more limits than him. You're an omega, after all.

“Doesn’t matter much now,” Zanka tries to console you. “I’m with the Cleaners now, ain't I? And stuff like that doesn't matter to most people here.”

Though it does matter to him. He's not one to forget about his limits. Even if he's fine with being a beta, a mediocrity, a disinherited nobody—he knows it wouldn't be fine for you, eventually. Or at least he wouldn't be fine giving you that kind of life.

Sometimes, though, when you smile too long at him or stare at him in that pretty way of yours, Zanka wonders if that could someday change. After he's different, after he's powerful, after he's more than some failed heir—then maybe he'd have some kind of business looking at you. But it feels pointless to think about it as he is right now.

After all—he's a beta anyway.

Whenever you go into preheat, you ask Zanka for his sweaters and T-shirts. The fabrics of your clothes are so nice, you always say, nuzzling into whatever you've stolen off his body. Makes for good nesting material, you know?

Zanka’s never thought too hard about it. He's always heard that omegas want comfortable nests, after all—it keeps them feeling safe during a vulnerable and sometimes painful time. It's no skin off his back if you want to borrow some old clothes that would make you feel a little better during your heats, especially since yours are so brutal. You're already looking ill right now, before it's even started. Practically shivering on the couch, deep bags under your eyes from all the sleep you've lost over the past couple of days. When he drapes his cardigan over your shoulders, you immediately burrow into it—pull it tight around your body and press your nose against the blue cotton. You breathe in deeply, sighing with relief—something he's seen you do plenty of times.

Zanka’s never quite understood this particular habit of yours. “Why d’ya always sniff my clothes?” he asks. “Is it an omega thing?”

“Kinda,” you murmur. “It's comforting.” You're so tired that you sway a little bit; he allows you to lean against him and rest your head on his shoulder. “Omegas like familiar scents during their heats—don’t you know that?”

“No,” he admits. “Talkin’ about heats was real taboo in Kamuatari District. I know the broad strokes of what happens, but nothin’ else.” Which is probably a good thing: Zanka thinks he’d die if he did learn, in detail, what happened to an omega during their heat. It's a calculated decision when he asks, “Anyway, whaddya mean you like my scent? Betas don't have scents.”

You frown. “What are you talking about? You totally do. It's just very faint.” As if to prove a point, you close your eyes and lean in very close to his nape. He can feel the soft tickle of your breath against his pulse, your lips inches from his throat.

Zanka stops breathing.

Your voice is low, almost velvety, when you speak again: “None of your alpha friends or family ever told you about your scent?”

“N-nah,” he says. He's stuttering and his face is burning, but you don't comment on it, merely staring up at him in a way that’s making him pray—again—that he won’t get a boner. “It was real taboo to talk about scents in Kamuatari District, too.”

You tilt your head. “Taboo?”

“Yeah. Ain't it rude? It's like commentin’ on someone’s body.”

You let out a laugh: faint, tinged with amusement, and maybe derision too. “That’s awfully silly. An omega’s body is already everyone else's business—wouldn’t you agree?”

You give Zanka one of those long, penetrating looks again, leaning into him. He becomes acutely aware of the obvious view down your shirt and tries to think about literally anything else. You always get extra touchy with him during your preheats: you’ve had some downright horrifying experiences with alphas during previous ones, and it eases your anxiety over it when you're physically close to Zanka. It makes him feel extra scummy for checking you out. You're going to him for comfort; he should definitely not be thinking about the way your curves feel against his body.

“Uh,” he replies.

You press your lips to the shell of his ear, voice soft: “Do you wanna know what you smell like, Zanka?”

“Uh.”

You inhale, breathing out a little sigh afterward that has him shivering.

“Like incense,” you murmur. “Sandalwood, I think. It's very pleasant. Calms me down during my heats.”

He swallows. Hard. “Y-your heats?”

“Mhm.” Your hand brushes against his thigh; his heart jumps. “Mine are really bad, you know. It always hurts so much because of how empty I am. But your scent always helps my body relax. Makes me feel better.”

Zanka is going to die.

He knows you're not trying to make any suggestive comments. Incense helps everyone relax; that's why so many people burn it in the first place. And there's no way, biologically, that Zanka’s scent could provide any kind of sexual or physical relief to you during a heat—he isn't an alpha, after all. But holy shit does everything about this moment feel suggestive. He pulls back, face burning, pants mortifyingly tight. Thankfully, you don't look at his lap.

“Zanka?” you ask, blinking. “Is something wrong?”

You look so innocent—and even kind of worried, like you've done something wrong. Guilt floods him.

“No,” he says quickly, trying to adjust his pants as subtly as possible. “Nothin’ at all. You just made me think—aren’t ya uncomfortable right now? Since you're in preheat. Maybe I should get ya more clothes for your nest, and you could get around to making it faster.”

You blink, then smile a little.

“Sure,” you say. “Why don't you help me build it, actually?”

Zanka ends up giving you half his wardrobe and spends most of the evening watching you meticulously arrange and re-arrange a pile of blankets and sweaters on your bed. He can't determine what makes you satisfied with certain parts of your nest and what makes you decide to demolish others, but that's fine since he isn't helping with actually building it. His only role is to rub his wrists along whatever shirt he's donating to your cause, or holding it against the crook of his neck until you deem it ready to use.

“This is how you scent things,” you explain patiently. “You rub your scent glands on it, or you press your whole body against it. Easy work.”

“But I don't have scent glands.”

“Of course you do. How else would you have a scent?” You frown. “Wow, you really don't know anything about mating biology, do you?”

“It ain't like I need to know about it,” Zanka points out, “since I'm a beta and all.”

“It could still come up,” you insist. “Sometimes omegas and alphas will try to mark their beta mates on their scent glands. Almost never takes, but it happens.”

Zanka imagines, almost against his will, the feeling of your teeth and lips on his neck; he can feel his cheeks going pink. “Sure,” he replies, hoping he doesn't sound too affected, “but omegas ain't ever interested in me, alphas don't look my way, and betas don't do any of that. My ex never wanted me to scent anythin’ for her.”

You freeze. “You have an ex?”

“...yeah?” Zanka is understanding, all of a sudden, that he's said something wrong. From the fleeting twitch of your mouth and the way your breath stops, he can tell you're upset. He wonders what tuberose and bitter orange would smell like together; Enjin had once said, when you had shut yourself into your room for three days straight, that it was very easy for him to tell when you were depressed. Zanka had then decided that since he couldn't smell your moods, he'd simply learn your microexpressions instead—and they’re alarming him right now.

“Met her in the city while I was out on a job, before ya joined the Cleaners,” he says carefully. “Didn't last long.”

You relax. “Oh,” you say. “I guess that's fine.”

Zanka isn't sure why his dating history is being judged or the criteria by which you're judging it, but he feels like it's a bad idea to ask. “Anythin’ else I can do to help here?” he says instead, studying your nest carefully. He still can't see any rhyme or reason to how it's arranged, but if he memorises it, he could re-build it for you next time anyway.

You hesitate. “I mean… you could…”

You don't often get shy—at least, not compared to Zanka. It's weird watching you fumble with your words. “I kinda thought… you know, when my heat comes for real… it’s always really tough since I'm alone…”

Oh. Of course. “Is there anythin’ I can get ya?” he knows to ask. He asked Enjin once how to help an omega through their heat, so he knows the basics: “Water? Snacks? Meds? I'll run out and get whatever ya need.”

“No, I've got all of that sorted. But… company would be nice, you know?”

Zanka stares at you for a little bit before he realises what you're asking, and he has to swallow a lump in his throat. “Are ya askin’ me to help you find a heat partner?”

You give him a dumbfounded look. Probably surprised he's already intuited what you're about to ask, given how clueless he is about other mating rituals. “What? Well, I mean—”

“There's a lot of alphas here who'd be happy to help, I think. I could ask one of them for ya, if there's someone you're thinkin’ of?” Zanka tries to sound casual, even though the idea is unsettling to him. Heat partners weren't a thing in Kamuatari since omegas got married so young there, but they make sense out here in East Ward, where omegas tend to stay unmated for longer. Zanka’s not judging anyone for it. The thing is, when he tries to picture you spending your heat with any of the alphas he knows and trusts—Enjin or Tamsy or Semiu—

—he’s realising that he'd want it to be no one other than himself.

Which is stupid. He's got no business looking at an omega. No business looking at you. What could he do to help you through your heat?

Maybe his mood is showing on his face, because your eyes go soft.

“No, I'm not asking for that either. I'm fine spending it alone.”

“But you should have an alpha take care of ya. Nearly all omegas need it.”

“I don't.” Then you give him an uncertain look, which borders on shy, and which makes his heart jump in a way that feels like it might require medical attention. “But it'd be nice if we could talk a little through our chokers, while I'm going through it?”

Your heat runs its course over the next week. You'd ordinarily hole up in your room the whole time, completely alone, and Zanka would have no clue what's happening in there other than the fact that you’re suffering. It always makes him feel on edge. So this time around, it's a relief when you call at night and he hears your voice—even though it's always ragged and exhausted, like you've been completely wrung out by heatsickness.

“Wish you could hold me,” you murmur once, sleepy and wistful. “It always makes me feel better when you do.”

“I don't think I could actually do much for ya,” Zanka tells you, trying to ignore the funny squeeze that his heart’s doing at your words. “Betas are pretty useless for heats.”

“I don't think you're useless,” you say. “And you always do a lot for me.”

Your voice is so small. It reminds Zanka of that one time where things had gone really sideways for you—stranded and alone in the desert due to a trash storm, weak from an early preheat. You were an impossibly good find for the traffickers who came across you: there's nothing on the market more valuable—or vulnerable—than an unmated omega in heat. Zanka, Enjin, and Gris had found you locked up in the trunk of a car, curled into a ball and trembling in pain. Your entire body was burning with fever and fear, and you screamed when Enjin and Gris tried to untie you. You’d been too delirious to recognise their faces or even their scents: all you knew was that there were two alphas trying to grab you, and they could have done whatever they wanted with you.

It was Zanka who'd helped you in the end. He hadn’t had a choice: he was the only beta among them, the only person who didn't smell like a threat. He took you into his arms—carried you, because you were in too much pain to walk—and delivered you to the clinic, your scalding tears pressed into the crook of his neck the whole time. Please don't go, you'd begged, crying against his pulse. I’m scared, I'm so scared, please don't let them touch me. But his mother’s words rang loud and clear through his head—It’s dangerous for an omega to see anyone other than their alpha during a heat—and Zanka had left, in the end, trying not to listen to your wounded pleas.

You hadn't held it against him. If anything, you trusted him more coming out of the whole ordeal: that's when you started getting all touchy with him, clinging onto him because it made you feel safe despite being constantly surrounded by alphas. But he feels shitty about it to this day, and he’s only been thinking of it more since your latest heat.

He thinks that's what’s gotten him into such a bad mood lately. Your heat’s finished up and you're perfectly healthy now—but Zanka feels agitated, somehow, whenever he sees you.

Specifically, he feels agitated when he sees other people near you.

Now, Zanka considers himself pretty friendly with everyone, unless your name is Rudo and you steal Lovely Assistaff and call it a dumb stick. Then Zanka might try to beat your ass. But otherwise, he's never felt badly toward any of his fellow Cleaners. It's confusing, then, how he gets antsy when he sees you talking with Semiu. How he catches himself frowning when you light a cigarette for Enjin. How his eyes narrow when he watches you and Tamsy sparring and you're clearly on the defensive, brow pinched, breath short. He stares at the two of you, hawklike, every muscle in his body tense.

Please don't go. I'm scared, I'm so scared, please don't let them touch me.

You're strung up by Tokushin, wailing at being bound, and suddenly Zanka’s staff has the other Giver trapped against a wall, its spikes dangerously close to his body. Tamsy seems unfazed, whistling—as if impressed. His eyes lose their golden glow; you yelp a little as you fall to the ground, and Zanka’s gaze snaps to you as you land on your feet.

“Zanka?” you ask, running up to him. “What's wrong? What happened?”

Your eyes dart between him and Tamsy. Tamsy shrugs, nonchalant. “Beats me.” He tilts his head, his keen eyes roaming over Zanka’s form. “Did I do something to offend you?”

Zanka realises that he has no answer. He tries to retrace his thought process, but can't come up with anything concrete—it’s like he blacked out between the time you got strung up and this moment, when you ran to his side.

He remembers being worried, though.

“You were bein’ awful rough with her,” he says, voice tight. “Sounded like she was in pain.”

Tamsy hums. “But we’ve sparred a million times, and she always screams like that. You've never gotten so worried before, Zanka.”

There's nothing he can say to that. He feels like a crazy person. He had no reason to attack Tamsy, but he doesn't want to release him—not until you’ve gotten away from him. I'm scared, Zanka keeps remembering. I'm so scared, please don't let them touch me. You weren't just saying that about the traffickers—it was also about Enjin, and Gris, and everyone else in the Cleaners who tried to crowd around you and nearly suffocated—

“Zanka?” you say softly. You touch his arm, and all the tension leaves his body. Anima and rage drain out of his vital instrument; Lovely Assisstaff returns to its original form, fragile and benign. Zanka tracks Tamsy’s movements carefully in his periphery, but stays turned to you.

“Were you worried about me?” you ask, peering at him curiously.

He shifts, uncomfortable. “Yeah. I know it don't make sense, but—”

“That's alright,” you dismiss. “No harm’s been done.” You give Tamsy an apologetic look. “Honestly, I was kinda tired from my heat anyway. Zanka probably just noticed. Let's call it quits and get back to it tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Tamsy says neutrally, then inclines his head to Zanka. “As long as Zanka’s fine with it.”

I'm not, he nearly says, for some reason he can't fathom. Now that he thinks about it, he also can't fathom why Tamsy would ever defer to him in the first place. It's strange, though Zanka's feeling some of the tension leave his jaw, hackles receding. Weird.

He tries to ignore it, turning to you. “Whatever ya feel comfortable with. I just don't want ya tirin’ yourself out.”

“Tomorrow, then.” You tug on Zanka’s arm, leading him away from Tamsy. “Let's get out of here.”

Zanka watches Tamsy the whole time as the two of you leave, tracking the movements of his feet, his eyes, his hands. It's only after the door swings shut behind the two of you that he finally relaxes. He tastes something in the air as you pull him close—sweet, fleeting, foreign. It's gone before he knows it.

It takes Zanka some time to realise that you've started to wear perfume.

“It’s nice,” he compliments you once he does, sitting next to you as the two of you do maintenance on your respective vital instruments. His staff is shiny with linseed oil; its earthy scent layered with your fragrance is pleasant. He finds himself watching you work, his eyes lingering on your nape as you bend over your desk, biting your lip in focus. “Where’d you get it?”

You blink at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, where's your perfume from? That stuff’s real pricey, right? S’hard to make.” That's what Enjin told him, anyway: his own cologne was terribly expensive, its ingredients imported from some faraway village. When Zanka asked what was even the point of using it, Enjin said it was just for polish. Then Bro ratted him out and said it was actually for picking up betas.

Zanka hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but now it's making him uneasy. It’d be crazy of you to seek the attention of a beta when you have so many alphas around you, who are much more qualified to mate with you—but then again, maybe that's why you're always so curious about people's stances on mismatched relationships. Maybe you've found a beta you're interested in. You've always been a little unconventional, after all.

He swallows at the thought, thinking back to all the interactions you've had with him. The touchiness, the nesting, the way you seem to long for his presence during your heats. It really wouldn't make sense—not when there’s Enjin and Tamsy and Semiu, not when omegas never look his way, not when you should have been married long ago to an alpha who could take proper care of you—but maybe, just maybe—

“I got it in Canvas Town, from a specialty perfumer,” you say smoothly, watching him carefully. “Can you pick out any notes?”

Zanka frowns. “Not really. I'm not good with noticin’ that type of thing. It just smells sweet to me.”

“Give it a try,” you say. “I'm curious what you get from it.”

You offer your wrist to him, and Zanka studies it, swallowing. He's for some reason mesmerized by the sight of it—staring more openly than he ever has at your legs or scandalously low-cut tops—and his hand almost trembles as he takes it and gently angles your pulse toward his face. He reminds himself that you hug him and sit on his lap and hang off his arm almost every day. It’s not a huge deal to smell your wrist, in comparison. It should be a quick and casual thing.

But then he breathes in and his mind goes blank.

Your scent is fucking heavenly.

Zanka didn't know a perfume could smell so good. Enjin’s cologne is underwhelming to him, as have been most other ones he's smelled. But yours is rich and soothing and beautiful—made from some kind of flower, he guesses. But not one he's ever known. It's strange and overpowering and it makes him feel fucking ravenous—like he wants to drink it all in. Or drown in it.

Zanka only realises he’s pressed his lips against your skin when you make a small noise.

He doesn't know how it happened. It's like he blacked out again—but now that he's awake, he jerks back, as if you’d just slapped him. “Sorry!” he yelps, mortified, because what the fuck did he just do? (Something that was definitely an HR violation, he thinks.)

But you don't look mad. You look… flustered. Your eyes are hazy; your lips are parted, breath heavy. Something shifts, and Zanka glances down to see you pressing your thighs together.

If he didn't know any better, he'd think you were aroused.

Zanka swallows, trying to ignore the thought. But it's hard when you're looking at him like that—eyes hooded by your lashes, pupils blown—and harder still, with how good you smell. You've tugged away your wrist but for some reason he can still practically taste your fragrance in the air—heady and almost cloying, now. Springtime bloom, fresh juice on his tongue. It's painfully distracting.

“It's okay,” you say, clearing your throat. “The insides of my wrists are just a little sensitive. There's a scent gland there, remember? Usually only a mate would touch that spot directly.”

Zanka is going to die. Or he's going to get sued for harassment.

“I’m real sorry,” he blurts out. “I dunno what came over me. I shouldn't have done that—”

“No, it’s really fine.” Your voice is gentle. His panicked breath evens out, and he takes in your new fragrance again: mellow, sweet. He feels himself relaxing, focusing on your questions: “What did you smell, though?”

“Flowers,” he says immediately, “and a couple of other things.”

“Like?”

“I dunno. Honey and fruit, maybe?”

“Citrus?”

He thinks for a minute. “Yeah.”

You give him another one for your long looks. He wonders what you're thinking, but you don't let it on, only nodding to yourself.

“I see.”

Zanka feels like he's going insane.

Whatever new fragrance you're wearing is overpowering. Ordinarily if a fragrance permeated everything like this, it would make him annoyed at best, nauseated at worst. But something about this particular scent—syrupy, heady, the memory of your skin against his lips, the sensation of your pulse beneath his mouth—is driving him toward some dangerous edge. He tastes the air and he thinks of you: fingers petal-soft, eyes citrus-bright, voice honey-sweet. The dip of your collarbones, the soft lines of your body. He feels like he'll fall off a cliff whenever you're around.

It makes him feel so, so scummy—like a real scuzzball. All you're doing is existing around him and it's giving him the worst thoughts about you—thoughts he has no business having.

The worst part is that your scent is ever-present, lingering even when you, yourself, aren't there. It's in the dining hall, in the common area, in the threads of his clothes. It's in the training room, when he's trying to focus on sparring. It's in his sheets when he's trying to sleep at night, hoping he's not gonna have some kind of filthy dream about you—waking up mortified when he does, his cock throbbing and leaking, aching to be inside you. It's even there when he's meditating, trying to focus on the weight of Lovely Assisstaff but thinking instead of how your weight feels on his lap—how it'd feel if you sat there, straddling his waist, moaning pretty in his ear as you ride him.

It makes me feel so safe when you hold me like this.

Man. He really is a scuzzball.

He thinks his guilt over this might be responsible for his bad mood lately. He snaps at people when you aren't in his line of sight. He flattened Rudo during training, the other day, after he spotted the two of you having lunch together. He saw you share a cigarette with Enjin—Enjin! His fucking hero!—and he accidentally crushed the glass in his hands.

Zanka tries to get your perfume out of his clothes, but it's not coming out no matter how much he scrubs things. He's forced to stop trying, because if he wears out the threads then your nests won't be as comfortable anymore. But it's driving him fucking crazy.

He's in the canteen, scowling and sleep-deprived, when Enjin comes upon him and whistles at the piss-poor state he's in.

“Alright,” he says in that knowing tone of his, pulling up a chair. “What's going on?”

Zanka can't respond at first. What the fuck is he supposed to say? I’m smellin’ my friend’s perfume everywhere and it's makin’ me so horny I can't focus? It sounds insane. He feels insane. So he ends up just saying, vaguely, that he wants to get your new fragrance out of his clothes, and it's annoying him that he can't figure out how.

Enjin blinks. “New fragrance?”

“Yeah. I'm sure you've smelled it—it’s everywhere, ain't it?” Zanka wrinkles his nose. “S’nice in small doses, but distracting as hell like this.”

“What do you…” Enjin takes a beat, studying him. Then he smiles. “Yeah, it is pretty distracting. But are you really sure you wanna get rid of it? Lots of guys would love it, you know.”

“‘course I do,” Zanka lies. “I don't want people thinkin’ I wear perfume anyway. Ain't my style.”

Enjin nods. “I get it. Well—perfume like this is hard to rid of, but it's doable. I've done it plenty of times before. You gotta take a really hot shower—scrub your neck and wrists especially. And your hair, obviously.”

“And my clothes?”

“You'll need to go shopping—or use bleach.”

Zanka feels nothing but despair looking at the state of his wallet—being disinherited means he can't spend the way he used to—but he goes to buy new casual wear anyway. He makes sure it's all nice—not only because he's still got the instinct of presenting himself like a noble scion, but also because he doesn't want to loan you anything of shitty quality during your next heat. You should be comfortable.

Enjin’s advice does work. Zanka still tastes you in the air wherever he goes, but at least it's not clinging to him. It's enough to stop his daydreams about you, at least. Most of them. He's still having ones at night, and he's still waking up with raging boners, but at least it's something. He finally has some semblance of nonsexual peace.

The next time you run into him, you freeze.

“Hey,” he greets, waving, “how’d your mission go? You went to Canvas Town, right? I heard that things got kinda—”

You march up to him, ignoring him completely. He squirms under the intensity of your gaze, the tightness of your jaw. You layered a new perfume with your usual one, he notices. The citrus is stronger today.

“Zanka,” you say, “has something been wrong?”

He flushes, because the answer is yes, but he can’t exactly say that his dick gets hard whenever he smells your perfume anywhere—and that he's been smelling it everywhere.

He lies—badly: “N-no…?”

“Are you mad at me?” you ask tightly.

“What? Of course not.” He frowns at the crease in your brow. You're distressed. “What's even makin’ you think that?”

You ignore him—again. “Then are you seeing someone?” you try, and his jaw drops.

“Huh? No! Of course not.” He pauses at his own words—’Of course not?’ Why would it be obvious to you that he isn't? Though it's plenty obvious to him, given that he's been fixated on the thought of you for the past two weeks, and smitten for nearly the past year—but you relax, and he lets it go.

“What’s wrong?” he asks earnestly. “Yer anxious about something.”

You seem to think for a little bit, and then you sigh. “I am,” you admit, voice small, and it sets him on edge immediately.

“What's wrong? Is someone botherin’ ya? An alpha?” He nearly pauses again, because what a weird fucking question. Why would it be an alpha? It's probably more likely all your paperwork for the collateral damage on your missions, which you truly suck at doing. No alpha with the Cleaners has ever given you any issues; Enjin, Gris, and Bro have always made sure of that.

You don't seem to question his suspicions, though. “No, not exactly,” you say. “I can handle it myself, but I've been feeling kind of stressed.”

“What can I do to help?”

You look at him through your lashes, pleading. He realises he'd do anything for you in that moment.

“Can you hold me?” you ask. “Just for a little bit. I just need a hug.”

“Of course,” he says immediately, and you loop your arms around his neck and press your face against his shoulder, hair and breath tickling his jugular. It’s oddly pleasant. He swallows as he's surrounded by that perfume again—pulled in, all dreamlike. He thinks about separating from you, but you take one of his hands and lace your fingers with his. He shivers when your thumb runs delicately along his wrist, lingering on his skin.

His mind feels halfway to fraying by the time you let go. You seem happier. Satisfied.

“Thanks,” you say brightly. “That made me feel better.”

You look content—refreshed, almost. Zanka feels himself relaxing as you wave goodbye, rounding the corner so you can run an errand for Semiu. It's only after you're gone that he’s realising the scent of you is clinging to him again, and he nearly holds his head in his hands.

Back to square one.

After another week, Zanka feels like he's getting close to his limit.

For nearly twenty-one days, he's been suffering from intrusive thoughts of you, most of them wildly inappropriate. And as if it isn’t bad enough to dealing with your new fragrance and the sudden, mortifying spike in his sex drive—he now has to deal with your new wardrobe choices. You have a sudden preference for wearing very tiny skirts, and it’s been giving Zanka catastrophically high blood pressure since you keep bending over and giving him a full view of your ass. He always scrambles to get you to straighten up so he’s not looking up your skirt—and also to stand behind you so that no one else is tempted to do the same.

It’s starting to become a struggle to exist around you—but he doesn't exactly want to avoid you, either. He likes being near you. And he's on edge when he's not. After all—if he, as a beta, is thinking about you this way, what are the alphas around you fantasizing about?

Still. He wishes, at the very least, that you'd stop sitting in his lap and squirming around. It gives him a genuine heart attack every time you do it: what if you notice his dick pressing against your ass? But you seem none the wiser, just rubbing up on him anyway.

It’s torturous. And wasteful. He's running up the water bill with how many cold showers he's taken lately—but he doesn't have a choice. He is not gonna be that creep who jacks off to the thought of his friend, who trusts him pretty much unconditionally even during heats. He’s not a total scuzzball, alright? It's a line he won't cross, no matter how good you smell or how nice you feel or how pretty you are when you smile at him.

Then you return his clothes—the ones you borrowed for your nest—and he finally hits his limit.

You're so nonchalant about it. A little careless, even. “Sorry I didn't get the chance to wash them,” you fret, placing your basket of laundry at the foot of his bed. “I've just been so busy since my heat finished, you know, all these missions and then the paperwork… but you must be running out of clothes, huh? You keep buying new ones.”

Zanka swallows. He hardly wants to admit the fact that he's been trying to smell less of your new perfume—it’d be a dick move, and anyway, it's really nice—so he shrugs and says, “I don't mind it.”

You frown. “I'll pay you back anyway.”

“Nah, don't worry about it.” He nods at the laundry. “Don't worry about this, neither. Won't be a big deal to wash some clothes.”

You smile gratefully. “Thanks. When I get back from this next mission, I'll make it up to you, okay? I'll take you out to dinner. My treat.”

Zanka thinks the last thing he wants to be doing is sitting in public with you, trying to hide his boner under some restaurant table, but he nods. “Let's do barbecue.”

You grin. “You got it.”

He signs in relief after you've gone: your fragrance is a little fainter now in the absence of your body. Just another cold shower later and he’ll be fine—he’ll do it after he gets the laundry started.

Then he actually starts sorting through his clothes, and he almost loses his damn mind.

His clothes are doused in your fragrance, flora and honey permeating every seam and stitch. So sweet it's nearly cloying. So strong it's almost like you're still here with him—breath sweeping across his collar, thumb trailing along his wrist. An omega’s body is everyone’s business—wouldn’t you agree?

He doesn't realise he's buried his face in his shirt until he’s closing his eyes and inhaling—groaning as he does. He nearly throws it on the floor as soon as he hears the noise he's making, because what the fuck is he doing? Zanka absolutely has to stop. But his whole body’s gone hot and his mind has gone foggy and he can't stop breathing in the smell of you—like he's some kind of addict, drunk on just the ghost of your presence.

Then he catches another scent layered into the fabric, and his eyes snap open.

It smells like sex.

He rifles through every piece of clothing in the basket; all of them carry that very specific, unmistakable scent. Like you lovingly built that nest with his clothes and brought someone to bed and let them fuck you in it. Except that doesn't make sense—you hate it when anyone other than Zanka comes near you during your heats, and anyway, he'd have noticed if you'd gotten a heat partner. You spend way too much time around him for him to miss it.

What do omegas do during their heats without a partner, anyway? People in Kamuatari District never talked about it; he’d always assumed they just slept through their discomfort and tried to ignore all the symptoms of heat sickness. He hadn't known enough, at the time, to realise that that wouldn't be very realistic. He hadn't known that heats were so painful until he saw you crying in the trunk of that car, sweating and trembling. Until he picked you up and listened to you whimper against his neck. Until you crawled into his lap two months ago, whispering into his ear: It always hurts so much because of how empty I am, but your scent always helps my body relax. Makes me feel better.

Zanka is a beta. He’s biologically incapable of giving you any kind of relief during a heat. But now he's putting two and two together, your words with your scent, and now he can't help the mental image he's forming: you, in a nest built with his things, panting and filling yourself up to chase away that emptiness. Wet and messy and getting slick all over his clothes. Warm and fragrant as you wear his shirts and take care of yourself with your fingers, crying into his fabrics.

Calling him afterwards, fucked to exhaustion and wrung out by countless orgasms, to tell him you wished he could hold you.

Zanka inhales sharply at the thought. Notices that his cock is fucking aching.

His sex drive has been unmanageable over these past few weeks, but it's still never been like this. His dick is pulsing and twitching and painful, and he can't stop breathing in your scent, and he keeps imagining the little sounds you must make in your nest while you touch yourself, and holy shit he is a scumbag for doing this, but—

—he’s unzipping his pants and freeing his cock.

Guilt wells up in him when he wraps a hand around his length. Shame burns across his face. He’s going to hate himself for this later; hell, he already hates himself. But he's just so hard, already leaking prespend everywhere, and it's only getting worse the more he presses his face into his fragranced shirt. Zanka can't help his reaction when he squeezes his cock and finally starts to stroke himself: he makes a noise that's halfway to a whine, his hips bucking toward his hand. Just the smell of you is making his whole body feel sensitive—almost possessed.

He finally caves with the fantasies. Imagines stuff that would make him die if he actually tried it in real life, but he's now convinced you've been intentionally making him think about: squeezing your curves whenever you sit pretty on his lap in public; rolling his hips against your thighs as you squirm on top of him; bending you over whenever you wear that little skirt around him and taking you like that.

It's confusing. Zanka’s not even really a fan of doggy style. He’s a missionary kind of guy, would want to look at your face and hold your hand if he ever did somehow get to sleep with you. But he’s been thinking nonstop about fucking you from behind lately for some reason, and he's thinking about it now as he fucks his fist and groans into his used shirt, as if drunk on you.

It doesn't take long to finish—he’s been pent up for weeks, after all. His cock is twitching and his hips are stuttering and now he's spilling himself into hand, his whole body burning with shame as he cums to the scent of you. But he's relieved, almost—desperate to be rid of the non-stop tension that's been plaguing him these past few weeks. Finally free of all his fantasies, which he hopes to tuck away and never think of again.

But as his panting subsides, Zanka realises something horrible:

He's still incredibly hard.

After his third orgasm, Zanka reasons that something must be physically wrong with him. He just can't quite figure out what. Did he accidentally ingest an aphrodisiac? Get hit by a weird vital instrument? Went too long without jerking off? He has no idea, and he can't really think well enough to figure it out. All he can focus on is fisting himself toward his next orgasm, face still buried in the shirt that you wore during your heat. He’s already dripping and messy with cum—it’s gotten all over his fingers, his length, and now his abs, after getting rid of his shirt—but somehow he still needs more.

His blood is scalding, his body is aching with tension. He feels like an animal. All he can think about is bending you over and fucking you, and he's glad that you've left on a mission with Follo or else he'd be at risk of going to your room and—

“Zanka?”

His eyes snap open. You're in his room, for some reason—eyes wide, jaw slack. Your gaze is darting between his lap and the shirt he's holding against his face.

Damning evidence.

“What are you doin’ here?!” he yelps. He finally drops his shirt, and fumbles to pull his pants up, face burning. “l didn't want ya to see—”

You do that thing where you ignore him again, opting instead to watch him intently. The door locks behind you with a click, and for some insane reason he can't fathom, you walk over to him and lean toward his neck.

Dread and arousal pool in his gut. His whole body goes stiff; he's trying not to grab you and pull you toward him, which is very hard when he can feel your breath on his neck and smell so much nectar in your hair. He almost can't process it when you look at him and point out, “You’re in rut.”

Zanka blinks. “What?”

“You're going through a rut, Zanka.” Your brow furrows. “Which isn't surprising.”

He gapes at you. “What do ya mean, ‘not surprising’? Of course it's surprisin’, it ain't even possible! I'm a damn beta—”

“No, you're an alpha.” You tilt your head. “You haven't noticed? Most people do, right before they present.”

Zanka’s mind goes blank. He can't be an alpha. He’s a beta—he made peace with being a beta years ago, at the same time he made peace with being untalented, pathetic, a disappointment to his entire family, the laughingstock of Kamuatari: the Nijiku clan scion who turned tail and ran away from the Academy. He’s even come to like being a beta—that’s who he is, even for all the limits it's brought him. And sure, it means he’ll never be enough for you, but at least he doesn't turn into some mindless, aggressive animal over your—

He breathes in your perfume again, and a horrible realization crashes through him.

“You really didn't know,” you say, blinking at his expression. “I thought it would be obvious. Your behavior’s been really odd lately. I wasn't sure if you'd turn out to be an alpha or an omega, but I guess we know now.”

His dick is so hard, he can barely think.

“But I've been a beta my whole life,” he protests—as if you can do anything.

You give him an apologetic look. “Some people just present late. I guess you're going through your first rut, now.” You look at him with those pretty eyes that he's been thinking about nonstop for the past month, and he swallows thickly. Realises that everything adds up. His bad moods, his antsy behaviour when he sees you with other alphas, his sudden fantasies about mounting you.

“Do you want help?” you ask mildly, and Zanka nearly jumps.

“H-help?”

“Yes. Do you want me to help you through your rut?” Your eyes flick downward, where the outline of his straining cock is visible through his pants. “I’ve never been with anyone during their rut before, but I think I could do it. It can't be too different from helping an omega during their heat.”

“No way,” he blurts out, panicked. “If I'm really an alpha”—something that still feels like a lie, even though it's getting harder to deny—

“it ain't safe for ya here, is it? Yer an unmated omega. You gotta get out before I…”

You raise a brow. “Before you do what? Something I've been trying to offer for a while now?” You sound faintly amused. “Besides—it’s not like alphas lose all sense during their ruts. You could turn me down now if you want. I'll leave and lock the door to my room, if you’re that worried.”

Zanka thinks he’ll die if you leave right now—if he's cut off from your scent, your smile, you. Still, he struggles—not only from the pain of his arousal, but also from the mad tangle of his thoughts. Alphas are dangerous for omegas, he hears his mother say. Omegas should be protected, his father echoes. There's nothing more dangerous for an unmated omega than to be near an alpha.

Please don't let them touch me.

“But we aren't mates,” he finally says, jaw clenched, chest torn.

Your eyes soften. “You’re so old-fashioned.”

“I just”—he swallows, suddenly aware of how clammy his hands have gotten and how much he's been sweating—“I just don't wanna mess things up between us. Or do somethin’ we’ll regret. I don't want ya wakin’ up tomorrow feelin’ horrible ‘cause I lost control and knotted you, or somethin’.”

“I don't think I'd mind if you did,” you say plainly, and he chokes. Feels himself going red, a full-body flush. Your mouth curls playfully, and now he's realising that you're a horrible tease. You still have a merciful streak, though: “But we don't need to go that far,” you reassure him. “I think alphas must be pretty similar to omegas—just a familiar scent would probably help a lot, right?”

Before he can reply, you're baring your nape to him, offering him the pretty slope of your neck. It obliterates all thought from his mind, leaves only hunger behind. He's been chasing the ghost of you through your fragrance for weeks; now you're here, in front of him, ripe and offering yourself.

It takes a moment for Zanka to realise that he's pressed his face to the crook of your neck, that his tongue is searing a hot path along your scent gland. You whimper, and the noise goes straight to his cock.

You tug him into sitting on the bed with you, giving him access to every scent gland in your body. He's torn between some animal part of his hindbrain that's screaming at him to pin you down and fuck you, and another part of him that’s too afraid to hurt you. Being rough with you is never something he'd thought of doing before all this. And even with his supposed new, alpha instincts, it feels wrong—this feels wrong. You aren't his mate. He hasn't even courted you a little. He should tell you to leave.

But he's also so horny he could die.

Zanka tries to spend time on your neck, not only because your fragrance is strongest there, but also because he can feel the way you shudder every time his teeth catch on your skin. He sucks gently and breathes you in; your scent blooms beautifully for him. His cock is painfully heavy in his pants, throbbing for you every time you whine.

At some point you must have pulled off your shirt—or maybe Zanka did, eager to access more of your skin. Faintly, he notes that you weren't wearing a bra, for some reason; he's too distracted to linger on it, kissing a trail down to your bare tits, his mouth hungry on them. You cry when he does, back arching as he sucks your nipples. The noise makes him groan, brings back his hindbrain instinct to pin you down and fuck you. But he’s just worried enough to stop himself: afraid of hurting you, knotting you, messing things up.

He starts touching himself instead.

He doesn't notice it until he's begun fisting his cock again, his hips jerking as he continues to mouth your tits. He’s leaked so much by this point—through his boxers, all over his hands, onto the sheets—that there's no point in trying not to be messy. Apparently you don't care much; he feels your hand gently touching his own, trying to palm his cock. He lets you, almost gasping when he feels your thumb playing with the head, teasing him. Then your grip firms up, warm and tender as you slowly start to pump his cock.

He whines.

It's embarrassing. Probably. He’s too desperate to finish right now to really care. Zanka focuses on your touch, on the taste of your skin, on the little noises you're making as his tongue swirls around your nipple. He ends up panting into the swell of your breasts as he climaxes—so hard that his spend ends up covering your fingers and stomach and skirt. He keeps mouthing at you as he cums, littering your honeyed skin with marks.

He only stops when he comes down from his high. Vaguely, Zanka notices that he finally feels better, but not by much. His cock is still weeping, balls heavy even though he's just had his fourth orgasm—his strongest yet. Even though he just got to touch you in a way he never thought he'd be able, something he thought he'd only ever experience in his dreams.

“Sorry,” he pants, “‘m so sorry, I dunno what's wrong with me.”

“It’s fine.” He feels your fingers run through his hair, comforting. “I’m like this during my heats, too. You don't have to feel sorry for what your body’s doing. Just keep going until you feel better.”

The words do something to him. Makes him give up on his self-control, or maybe it's just his alpha instincts winning out over his rational mind. Everything passes in a drunken haze: he's aware of you squirming and moaning as his mouth trails over your body again, as he presses his nose against every inch of you. He smells flowers and incense the whole time, tastes his cum on your skin, licks a path down to your thighs. Desperate to smell more of you, he pushes up your skirt, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees your pussy exposed and twitching for him underneath it. No panties. Without thinking, he closes his eyes and presses his face against you—nose flat against your clit, mouth salivating against your glistening cunt—and he inhales. Takes one deep, long ravenous breath, then groans. The scent of you goes straight to his cock.

He's not really thinking when he starts to lick.

He's too far gone to use any real technique, guided by pure hunger as his tongue works on you. You react immediately: body convulsing, voice squealing, scent blossoming. Vaguely, he's aware that you're grinding your clit against him, that his hips are jerking against the mattress—humping the sheets as you fuck his face, cock twitching and balls tightening just at the taste of you. He shudders as your fingers tighten in his hair and you pull him closer to you, drenching his face in slick. He licks and sucks at you, drinking it up greedily as be thrusts his hips against the mattress, and he's closer and closer and closer to—

—his vision goes white.

When Zanka comes to, he's vaguely aware of his cock spurting against the sheets, his abs growing stickier as he cums untouched just from the taste of you. There's so much of it. It's fucking unbelievable.

But it's still not enough.

Zanka needs more. He feels like he’ll die if he doesn't get more of you. He keeps eating you out through his impossibly long and messy orgasm, which he's not sure will ever end. He starts sucking at your clit—all instinct, not intention—and you whine and jerk your hips. Your body is so sensitive, pussy gushing with slick. Vaguely, he's aware of you crying his name, thighs squeezing around his head—I’m gonna cum, I'm gonna cum, Zanka, Zanka, oh—

Zanka only takes his mouth off you when you push him away, face pinched and exhausted. He's vaguely aware of you saying something about being overstimulated, but it's neither your words nor the strange quality of your scent that brings him back to reality—it’s the fact that tears have pearled at the corners of your eyes.

“What's wrong?” he says, leaning over you. He rests a hand over your cheek. “Did I—did I hurt ya? Did I—”

“No,” you reassure him. “No, I just—just needed a break.” Your eyes are still shiny, a little wet. Zanka’s never liked it when you cry, but right now it feels agonizing to see your tears, closer to a physical discomfort than an emotional one: as if it's hardwired into his body to fix whatever's upsetting you.

He crawls up and takes you into his arms, allows you to bury your face into his neck. You kiss him there—his scent gland, he guesses, from the way he shivers—and now he can smell the incense in the air changing, somehow. It shifts from sandalwood into something gentler.

“You don't have to worry,” you murmur. “I really am okay.”

“It’s still botherin’ me,” he replies, disconcerted. “I know it don't make sense, but it's freakin’ me out to see you cry even a little.”

“I know,” you reply. “Alphas instinctively can't stand to see their partners in distress. It's the same with omegas. But you'll get used to it. It gets easier to ignore over time.”

He makes a face. “Why would I wanna get used to seein’ you cry?”

You smile at him, looking sly. “Well, most of the crying I do in bed isn't ‘cause I'm sad.”

Zanka feels his brain short-circuit. His concern evaporates, immediately replaced by mental images that fill him with immense guilt, even with the mind-screw of his rut. He can't help it, though—if just his mouth was enough to get you tearing up, then what would happen if he were to use his cock instead? And he isn't going to—he really, really can't—but if he were to knot you—

Zanka inhales sharply. Tries not to let the mental image affect him, but of course he's been throbbing and leaking this whole time anyway. You evidently notice it, rolling your hips against his so his cock is pressed against your abdomen, smearing cum and prespend across your skin.

“You're still hard,” you murmur. “You need more, don't you?”

“I don't wanna bother you no more,” he says. “Yer tired enough already.”

You shake your head. “I'm fine.” Then you wrap your legs around him, adjust your hips and shimmy a little beneath him. “Let me help you, Zanka.”

He has a mind to protest, but his hesitation disappears as soon as you start moving—lining your pussy with his length. You don't push yourself onto him; you just let the head of his cock catch against your folds, warm and sticky for him.

Zanka shudders. He nearly thrusts inside you, but the last thread of his self-control stops him. There's so much cum coating his cock; he'd push it all inside you if he fucked you, and that would be terrible, given how fertile omegas are. Plus there's no way he'd last inside you: he'd cum almost immediately.

“We can't do this,” he grunts out, trying desperately to cling to his senses. “I could get ya…”

“We don't need to,” you reassure him. “We can just do this.”

Zanka doesn't have it in him to resist. He sits up, takes his cock in hand and starts moving immediately—dragging the head back and forth between your soft folds, smearing cum all over your clit. You're so wet that your pussy is making the filthiest noises just from this, squelching with each movement of his length. And somehow, you're getting even more aroused—you whimper as more slick starts to leak out of you, your body unable to control itself.

He can hardly process it. “Omegas really do need alphas,” Zanka says, dazed. “Look at how you're reactin’ just to this.”

You shake your head, voice breathy as you reply: “It has nothing to do with you being an alpha. My body’s just always like this around you.” You gasp as his cock slips inside you on accident; his jaw clenches as he feels your pussy twitching around his tip, and it's all he can do to stay still, panting. Nearly impossible, with how warm and soft you feel. “Even when you were a beta, I was like this.”

His breath hitches. “Y-yeah?”

You nod, looking a little embarrassed. “When I go into preheat and I sit on your lap,” you admit, “I always ruin my panties. And during my heats, when I'm wearing your shirts and smelling you, I end up getting slick everywhere. I can't help it.”

“But I’m—was—a beta,” he argues, even as his cock keeps running between your folds, even as he presses his face into your neck again.

“It doesn't matter,” you say through your panting. “You could have turned out an omega and my body would still act like this. I want you, Zanka—”

Your voice cuts off into a strangled moan. He doesn't fully understand why until he feels your walls squeezing around him, his cockhead pressed up against what must be your cervix. He groans as your slick drips all over his balls, which are now flush against your body.

“Zanka,” you whine. “Zanka, I’m gonna—”

You don't need to finish your sentence. Zanka feels you start pulsing around him, trying to milk him. And he's only been inside you for all of thirty seconds, maybe, but his balls are getting tight and his cock is starting to twitch—and he manages to pull out right as he peaks again, shooting cum all over your body. It splatters all over your breasts and stomach, his scent clinging onto your skin—now stronger than ever, incense and musk—but you hardly react. You're too caught up in your own orgasm, shaking beneath him, covered in his marks and spend.

He's made such a mess of you. He'd be mortified if he weren't being driven mad by his rut—which Zanka is now convinced won't ever end. He's still hard, still throbbing, still needs to be inside you. You look like you're no better off, thighs rubbing together, a puddle of slick beneath your ass. You’re just as delirious as him.

You act on it, too. Zanka’s widen as you roll onto your stomach, then stick up your ass up for him. He doesn't know much about mating rituals but he knows enough to understand what's happening: you're presenting yourself, offering your pussy to him. It's some kind of omega breeding instinct, he faintly recalls. And suddenly he's thinking of all those times you bent down around him, skirt revealing your ass and thighs, lacy panties barely covering your core. It finally hits him:

You've been presenting yourself to him for the past week.

You turn to look at him, eyes glassy, pupils blown. “I want you inside me,” you whimper. “Please.”

Something tickles the edge of his mind. His brow furrows. “But—”

“You don't need to knot me,” you whine, “but I need you to fuck me. Please, Zanka, I'm so empty—I’ve been empty for so long, for so many heats, please—”

The crying does something to him. Again. He needs to take care of you, to make it stop. He’ll do anything.

You whimper when he presses against your entrance again, then moan, loud and guttural, as he pushes inside you. He can't think of anything other than his intense need to fuck you, suddenly: he starts mindlessly rutting into you, his cock splitting open your pussy, wet and filthy noises filling his ears as skin slaps against skin. Zanka’s convinced he's become some kind of beast—unable to focus on anything other than being inside you.

You keen when he noses your neck again, breathes and pants against your scent gland. He can feel your cunt tightening each time he mouths at you like this—your skin between his teeth, fragrance blooming under his tongue. Suddenly he realises he needs to sink his canines into you, his entire body screaming with an instinct he doesn't really understand. There's a distant, human part of him telling him that's a bad idea, but it's drowned out by the boiling pressure of his rut.

Zanka opens his mouth—and he bites.

You cum when he does. Gush all over him, your arms and knees giving out. You're getting tighter and tighter, somehow—almost as if you’re trying to push him out—and it's making him desperate to stay inside you, his thrusts getting aggressive, erratic. He groans when he finally manages to bottom out, cock deep inside you, your pussy impossibly tight. Relief floods him as he finally—finally—spills himself inside you. He collapses on top of you as he does, pumping you full of cum as he licks at the mark he's left on your neck.

Some faint part of him tells him to pull out, but he realises that he can't. Something’s stopping him from moving his hips back, keeping the two of you locked together as he fills you up. He’s got no choice but to lie there, letting his cock twitch and spurt inside you for what feels like forever. He's vaguely aware of you drooling onto the pillow, your eyes glassy, as you're made to take it all.

Zanka's panting and exhausted when he's finally done. Doesn't know much time has passed or how much cum he's given you, but it must have been a lot: his spend leaks out of your overfilled, twitching pussy as soon as he pulls out, and you whine as it does. He flushes at the sound and sight; he doesn't know what came over him, to leave you in a state like this. He’s going to miss being a beta.

Zanka’s so fixated on the sight of you, it takes a moment for him to realise his erection’s finally gone down. The haze of his rut is beginning to recede; he can hear his own thoughts again.

“It finally worked,” he murmurs, relieved.

“Figures,” you mumble. “You needed to knot me.”

This makes him freeze.

“W-what d’ya mean?” he asks, although he's already sorting through his memories of his last twenty—thirty?—minutes. Being locked inside you. His orgasm lasting as long as it did. His sudden, inexplicable urge to bite you: something he's never thought about before.

Then he blanches, looking at the mark on your neck.

“I—” He swallows. “Did I…?”

Every horrible thing he's ever heard about alphas suddenly floods his mind. The things they do to omegas in heat. Taking advantage of them while they're weak. Claiming them against their will. Knotting them and getting them pregnant. Locking them in the back of some trunk, leaving them tied up and crying.

Zanka feels sick.

You seem unconcerned though. You notice the line of his sight and touch your neck where it's still swollen and tender with his bite, wincing. “Oh, this? Don't worry about it. It won't take since I'm not in heat.”

He swallows, still not allowing himself any relief. “But… ain't you worried about bein’ knotted?”

“No—it’s also low risk, since I'm not in heat. And I take meds for this kind of stuff, too.” You smile at him, reassuring. “Promise you won't be a baby daddy in nine months. You can relax.”

But Zanka can't bring himself to, somehow. Now that his head’s clear and his body’s calm, he can't think of anything other than the fact that he's never had any business looking at you—and definitely no business touching you like he has. And it isn't like he hasn't been pining after you anyway—like an idiot—but even in his craziest dreams where he did have a proper chance at being with you, things didn't play out this way.

You must sense his anxiety—maybe in his face or his scent or his body language, he guesses—because you’re frowning at him, now.

“Zanka,” you say quietly. “Do you not like me?”

He stares. “What?”

The question feels absurd. Crazy, even. Zanka just spent a month chasing after your scent and the better part of the evening knotting you. He wonders if you're joking, but you’re looking at him with an expression that can't be described as anything other than hurt.

“You aren't happy about knotting me or biting me,” you observe. “And you've been ignoring my signals for months. Is it that you don't want me?”

The air is starting to change. He tastes citrus now, sharp beneath the sweetness of flowers and honey. Zanka swallows. “That ain't it,” he blurts out. “I—I only didn't say anythin’ for so long ‘cause I thought there'd be no way you'd be interested in someone like me… I mean—you'd be better off with an alpha, wouldn't ya?”

“But you're an alpha now,” you point out, voice small. “Shouldn't you be fine with giving us a chance? Or are you just going to make up some other reason that you aren't going to be enough for me?”

Zanka goes quiet. His first instinct is to argue with you: But you could be doin’ better for yourself. You're surrounded by people who are stronger than him, more talented than him, more than him. You're so sweet and kind. And you're an omega. You could get yourself engaged to any alpha of your choice—not the disappointment of the Nijiku family. Not the noble scion who turned tail and ran away from Kamuatari District. Maybe it'd be different if he’d already overcome all that, like he's trying to do. But as he is right now? Zanka’s got no right to be looking at someone like you.

His jaw tightens. “I ain't makin’ anything up… it’s the truth I gotta be better than what I am. How am I s’pposed to ask you to give me a chance before I make somethin’ of myself?”

You frown. “Is it so hard to accept that I simply want you as you are?” you ask, and every retort that Zanka had lined up dies in his throat.

The air is thick with the scent of oranges; you've pulled your knees to your chest, and you're staring at the door. You're trying not to let it show on your face how sad you are, but Zanka knows every dip of your brow and twitch of your mouth: your heart must be hurting bad.

Zanka sighs. He truly is a scuzzball.

He pulls you in, holds you the way you like during your preheats—with your face close to the crook of his neck. You breathe in deeply, and he feels you shuddering against his body.

“I've been real unfair to ya,” he says.

“You have been,” you agree, and the corner of his mouth twitches.

“I just don't wanna do things half-assed with ya.”

“I know. That's why I was okay waiting for as long as I did.” You look him in the eye, uncertainty in your gaze. “Are you turning me down?”

“No. I'm askin’ if I can court ya.”

Your eyes go wide. You actually look a little flustered: a proper role reversal. “You want to court me? Like—for mating?”

Zanka flushes, probably going bright red. He didn't think this would be such a big deal: it would have been the typical order of things in Kamuatari District. “...well, yeah? You're an omega, ain't ya? And I really like ya. If we do this, I'd be serious about it. I'd make you my mate, if you'll have me.”

You give him a long, disbelieving stare—and then you smile.

“You really are old-fashioned,” you say, sounding endeared. Then you lean up, glowing, and press a chaste little kiss to his lips.

His heart nearly gives out.

Zanka’s eyes go comically wide. His face burns; his pulse ticks up. You blink at his expression, then start giggling.

“Why do you look so flustered?”

His mouth opens. “You just kissed me!”

“Yes—after you fucked me and spent half an hour cumming inside me,” you point out dryly, ignoring the way he chokes. “I thought kissing wouldn't be a big deal after all that.”

He almost splutters. “You know I wouldn't have done that if I weren't in rut!” Zanka frowns as he tries to piece together his scrambled memories of the past couple of hours; the more he recalls, the more he wants to crawl into a hole. The bottom of a well would work just fine.

“...I did this all backwards,” he groans. “This ain't how I wanted things to go.”

You hum, watching Zanka with a glint in your eye that makes him feel wary. You lean toward him, breath sweeping over his mouth, a playful little smile on your lips: “Guess we’ll need to make up for that, won't we?”

For the next twenty minutes, you and Zanka make out like you're teenagers, which actually remains fairly tame until Zanka’s cock starts twitching back to life. He then learns the hard way that ruts can last anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours, and the relief that you can get from knotting an omega lasts maybe thirty minutes, tops. A full hour if you're lucky. His first rut lasts around fourty-eight hours in total; he spends most of those two days inside you, your pussy eagerly warming his cock.

“I'm just trying to give you some relief,” you tell him at one point, voice innocent, and even with his mind absolutely blitzed by rut hormones, Zanka does not believe you in the least.

But you are very good at taking care of him. You make him drink plenty of electrolytes and get Follo and Eishia to bring you both meals. You tell his alpha friends to keep a wide berth from his room, saying vaguely that he'd caught a horrible flu and doesn't want to be disturbed. You drag him to the shower even though all he wants to do is keep you pinned underneath him in bed; you wash his back and hair, trying to kiss the tension out of his shoulders and neck as you do. You take his temperature frequently: it's unusual but not rare for alphas to get fevers during ruts. Zanka dodges this risk, but maybe only because you're letting him knot you so frequently.

Apparently as soon as you’d figured out that Zanka’s presentation was about to change, you’d started “researching” how to care for an alpha during their rut—that is, you asked Enjin and Bro point-blank what you should do. This is probably why, the morning that Zanka returns to work and enters the canteen, Bro gives him a thumbs-up and Enjin mouths a ‘congratulations' at him. Or maybe it's because you're absolutely covered in Zanka’s scent and everyone in HQ can tell that the two of you had marathon sex and that he didn't bother pulling out even once.

Somehow, he manages not to die from embarrassment. But he does come close.

It's not all bad, though. Zanka doesn't mind that people know that he's yours. It calms him down whenever you pass him by and he catches his own scent clinging to you; he'd otherwise be worried about alphas giving you unsolicited attention. When he mentions this to you one day, you blink and give him a little laugh.

“But everyone's always known that,” you giggle. “I've been scenting you for ages. Why do you think omegas have never shown any interest in you?”

Zanka isn't mad about this, exactly, but he’s still surprised. “Did everyone but me know that you were wantin’ me to court ya?”

“Pretty much.”

“Even Enjin and Gris?!”

“The two of them before anyone else.”

His mouth opens, then closes. “Why didn't they tell me?”

“Well, Gris thought we should be left alone to work things out for ourselves, like proper adults,” you say mildly. “Enjin just thought it was funny. And he was wondering how long it would take you to notice.”

Zanka feels like he might die from embarrassment, after all. This doesn't stop him from going to Enjin for advice when you go into preheat though—and Delmon, too, because he's one of the few Cleaners who's been married. The two of them give very good instructions for how to take care of an omega during their heat, and Zanka is endlessly grateful for it. (He does wish that Delmon hadn't yelled it at the top of his lungs, though.)

For several days, he prepares for your heat—the first one you'll ever spend together.

He thinks it'll be fine. Probably. It shouldn't be a big deal. You've had plenty of sex and he's knotted you plenty of times before. You're both on medication so there's no risk of pregnancy. He’s bought enough electrolyte drinks to last a full week. All your favourite snacks, too. He’s also prepped several days’ worth of meals for you—apparently omegas have a weak stomach when they have heatsickness, and the canteen doesn't have any good options for you since HQ is so dominated by alphas. You burst into tears when he got you to taste-test one of his meals, then asked him to claim you once your heat started up.

Zanka is 99% sure that was just your preheat hormones talking, but it still made his entire face go red.

It'll probably be fine. There's no way Zanka could screw this up, right? Taking care of your partner during their heat should be the simplest, most intuitive task in the world. He can't be such a fuck-up that he'd fail you at a time like—

“You don't have to be so nervous,” you say, and Zanka nearly jumps. “It's just a heat. I'll live.”

“Who said I was nervous?”

“I can smell it on you,” you point out. “You smell like cedar-leaf incense when you're upset about something. Sandalwood otherwise. Oh, except when you're horny. Then you smell like agarwood.”

“You can tell when I'm horny?”

“Of course. If not by your scent, then because of your dick. You're really bad at hiding it when you're hard, you know.”

Zanka is going to die. This is one of those moments where he deeply misses being a beta, though not even that would apparently save him from the way his blood rushes to his dick every time he sees you. Truly damning evidence.

He expects you to tease him, but you ignore his mortified expression. Instead, you take one of his hands in yours, your thumb lingering on his wrist.

“It’ll be fine. I promise. I know you'll be a good heat partner.”

You stare at your bed, then, where Zanka has meticulously set up your nest—half made of his clothes, half made from sheets and blankets. He scented every piece of it, of course. He's certain that he did at least this much right, so he's confused when you give him a dubious look.

“Did you make this?” you ask.

“Who else?”

You blink. “But how did you know how to make a nest?”

“From the last time we did it together. I was still a beta, remember—so I couldn't figure out what made for a good nest. I just memorized what yours looked like.” His brows knot up. “I still don't have much of an instinct for buildin’ these things, though. Guess I ain't the best alpha, but I'm learnin’.”

Zanka doesn't expect it when you laugh—nor when you fall into your nest and drag him down with you. You're curled up in his arms, rubbing your face into his neck, when you explain, “That's because alphas don't make nests, Zanka. Alphas can help by scenting fabrics for their omegas—but only omegas do the actual building.”

“Oh.” He runs a hand through his hair, hoping his scent isn't giving away his embarrassment. “See—I still ain't the best alpha. Bet I fucked it up real bad. Let's remake it.”

You shake your head, then place a long and chaste kiss on his mouth. He tastes tuberose and honey in the air, blooming sweetly just for him. You're cradled by cotton and incense, and his heart swells when he studies the lines of your expression: safe, loved, happy.

“No,” you say. “You’re perfect.”

end

thank you for reading all the way to the end, you are truly god's strongest soldier <3 extra notes:

some thoughts on a/b/o and the worldbuilding/themes in this fic

FYI tamsy is actually an omega; he is just pretending to be an alpha. he actually noticed, before everyone else, that zanka's presentation was about to change lol

tuberose is a very commonly used perfume ingredient and is thought to be very sensual

I AM VERY RUSTY

Your phone lights up with a text. You grab at it with a desperate eagerness, shoulders hunching forward as you flick open his text --

katsu: omw

You nearly topple out of your bed as you hastily turn the lights back on, grabbing the dinner dishes to shove them into the microwave. By the time you hear the tell-tale scritch of keys in a lock, you're sitting by the table, a wide grin plastered to your face, waiting as Katsuki pushes through the door.

He looks tired, but the light behind his eyes still manages to flicker to life as he sees you and the spread you'd prepared. It's not much, but it's something. And, its yours.

"Hey," he says, shrugging off his jacket and carefully hanging it on the hook near the door. You can tell by the drag of his voice that he's drunk, but that's the norm for a host. You lean in to give him a quick kiss as he settles down next to you, nuzzling his head against your neck.

"Long day?" you ask, reaching up to run your fingers through his over-moussed tresses. You've always liked his hair soft, just out of the shower, puffed up like down feathers on a baby bird. Like this, your hand catches in the clumps of hard gel, but he groans contentedly just the same.

"Ain't it always?" he asks, his voice scraping through him as he picks up his head to look at you, "Thanks for waitin' up... you didn't have to."

You shrug, "I wanted to. And plus, they were having a sale on carrots, and we still had leftover potatoes, so I made curry."

You nudge the pot closer to him as he manages a tired smile, rubbing at his eyes.

"Thanks, doll -- it smells amazing but --" his eyes flicker towards the clock on the wall, it's minute hand ticking closer and closer to 1AM. You try your best not to wilt.

"No, no -- it's okay! Of course you're tired -- c'mon, lets get you in bed." You reach up to clear the dishes away, only to be tugged back down into Katsuki's arms. His lips find yours, chapped and warm. You can smell the scent of someone else's perfume on his skin; there's a smudge of lipstick high on his cheek.

You let him kiss you, let him pull away on his own before reaching up to wipe at the smug with your thumb.

"Y'missed a spot," you say, attempting a grin. You can't lie and say that it doesn't wear on you -- it does. But you have to be strong, for him, you think. For him.

Katsuki catches your hand before you can pull away, and presses his lips to the inside of your wrist. You shiver, the room slowly constricting in around you as he makes his slow way up your bare arm before nibbling at the soft spot just under your jaw.

"They ain't you..." he murmurs, tugging you to him, his perfect doll. And you let him. You always let him. "None o'them are..."

His words go even more lopsided as he hoists you up onto the bed, his nose still buried in your pulse-point. You wonder if he can feel the way your heart stutters, how he's always able to make it dance like a marionette beneath his skillful hands.

"K-Katsuki..." your breath hitches as he tugs up your sleep shirt, his fingers so familiar now with the cartography of your body. You wonder if it's because he gets in so much "practice" at work.

"Mm - fuck -- you're already wet --"

You let your eyes slip shut as his fingers dig into your cunt, the rough thrust stinging just like it always does. He knows you, deeply, intimately. Just like you know him.

You moan out his name and scratch at his back, you tug at his shirt till he finally relents in taking it off. You gasp when he pushes into you, reveling in the burn of the stretch. He's big, and thick, and maybe that's why he's got so many loyal clients.

But you don't think about them now. All you think about is that he's here, fucking you. In your bed, moaning into your skin, calling out your voice.

You hold that thought to your chest, squeezing it until it brings you over the edge, and you're breaking -- cumming hard just the way he likes, clenching down on his cock, milking him for all he's worth.

Sometimes, you think it's a miracle he's still got any cum left for you.

Sometimes, you walk down the street, eyes lingering on the pretty girls with flashy nails and perfectly done makeup, and wonder how many of them Katsuki's fucked.

"Curry smells good," Katsuki murmurs, pulling out to crumple beside you, an arm slung around your middle. You allow yourself a smile.

"You can heat it up for breakfast tomorrow."

"Mm," he say, cracking open one single bloodshot eye, "then everyone I kiss'll know I've had curry for breakfast."

You roll your eyes and settle in next to him, letting the thin blanket wrap around you both. Moonlight bleeds through the bottom of your curtains, spilling across the floor. You shift just a little bit closer.

"I can make you some eggs in the morning if you want."

Katsuki shakes his head.

"Nah. Let'em smell it -- that I've got someone makin' me curry in the mornings."

You let out a tiny laugh, feeling a sliver of warmth coiling inside your chest. There he is, the Katsuki you fell in love with. He's still in there, somewhere, beneath this too-thick veneer of who everyone else wants him to be.

Katsuki's breathing evens out. You turn to look at the rapidly cooling dishes on the table, still untouched. You bite back a sigh and flip over to face Katsuki again. He looks so peaceful sleeping like this, next to you. You can almost pretend it's just the two of you again.

Almost.

But it's worth it, you tell yourself. It's only until he saves up enough money to get you both some place nicer. And then it'll be over -- and that's what you've got to hold on to. To look forward to.

You let your eyes fall shut, let your breathing sync up with Katsuki's as sleep slowly drags you under, just like it has every night before.

It's worth it, you think.

Katsuki shifts, turning away from you.

After a few seconds, you shift to turn away from him.

The dishes sit, uncovered, on the table, drenched in distilled down moonlight.

You sigh again.

It's worth it --

The agency is empty save for the occasional janitor and night-shifters. Most of his sidekicks have already gone home to get a good night’s rest and to return to their families.

Katsuki’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes when he nods past a tired Kirishima, no doubt coming back from a long patrol. He keeps his head down when he mumbles goodbye in hopes that Eijirou won’t notice the bags that drape below his eyes. So he looks at the floor, he thinks about the winks of sleep that have somehow, in the dead of night, leaked from the cracks in between his fingers like sand, he finds that he’s losing himself, a little more than yesterday, every single night.

As if he’s slipping away, as if the colour drains from his hair and from his eyes until pools of ash and red submerge him, until his feet are soaked. When Katsuki lies awake on his cold mattress, oftentimes alone, when sleep eludes him, he’s forced to reconcile with the past. The field that he laid on when he was seventeen (when he wasn’t enough, when he lost) now houses a dozen residential buildings. The blood-tainted dust is buried, but it continues banging on the chambers of his heart to be let out. Much like how he deals with the civilians that need saving, like how he rescues a stray cat that comes baring teeth, he tilts his face away systematically, instinctively, and he deals with his expired trauma the only way he knows how: not at all.

In the wee hours of morning, while his room is sterile like the hospital, white as the moon, the feelings he turns away come back biting like a dog. Sometimes, he admits defeat. He surrenders to the fangs that sink deep into his skin, drawing blood till he’s left empty. Then, the guilt that has tied his career down will be overthrown by muscle memory: his hand will reach for his phone, he’ll squint when the blue light from his screen hits him all at once. It will uproot his ribs and reveal the throbbing ache that was left behind them all those years ago.

And he will call you to soothe it.

“Sir?” His assistant knocks tentatively on the door, briefcase already in clutch, Katsuki then remembers he’s working, he remembers the numbness, his exhaustion. “I saw that on the team calendar—I mean, are you sure you want to pull another shift this Saturday?”

He feels the syllables before he sounds them, “yes, I’m sure.” he says, but the words on his tongue are bitter like poison, a lie, “book me in for next Sunday as well.”

When the justification of his insomnia comes crumbling down, Katsuki tells himself that being a hero means sacrificing yourself for the greater good. He fights like the world expects him to stand back up and to return as the hero that they know, the hero who killed All For One.

Being a hero was never about the awards, it didn’t matter how many plaques or trophies adorned the shelves in his house, much less the weekly rankings published on the HPSC’s website. It had always been about redemption. He fights like his life is on the line each and every single day, as if to say to Edgeshot, to prove to him: my heart was worth it, wasn’t it?

So every time he steps into a fight as Dynamight, it’s done so with violence, he takes punches and throws them back, he spits out blood and grits his teeth and wins. As an act of penance, of atonement, for when he wasn’t enough, for when he lost.

But his lies are picked apart by the voice in the back of his own head, quiet like tonight, small, it screams into the void.

When his assistant pushes on the door, he sees the plate that’s hung on his door, spelling out his pseudonym—but it symbolises less a responsibility as a civil servant and more of a duty to the man who gave up his life for him. For him. That name weighs heavy on his chest because for every step forward, it is pulled back by guilt and obligation with the cold reminder that he wasn’t good enough.

Katsuki sighs.

“Anything else?”

He chooses to resume working, the paperwork he completed earlier today is closed, then reopened again on his computer so he can pretend that he doesn’t see the concern that seeps from his assistant’s eyes.

“No sir, not at all.”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It was Tuesday when you first met him. You were seventeen, in a hospital after breaking a leg from falling down a flight of stairs. It’s trivial, and you get a few good laughs out of it. Your friends at school enjoy drawing on the cast around your foot and the time you spend in this building is just a minor inconvenience that will go away with time.

You remember seeing his ash blond hair, matted with blood, on the news when he was laying down his life for the world. It’s weird, you’ve seen the most vulnerable moments of his life broadcasted on live television while you’re just a passerby that he doesn’t really register walking past every Tuesday.

Your usual icebreaker dies on your tongue.

You think his eyes have glazed over your features before. Unremarkable, in the hallways of the hospital. Maybe his hand has brushed against yours when you both reach for the last remaining drink in the fridge. Though, you also think, he won’t remember.

But you are your mother’s daughter and you persist. When you’re sitting in your father’s car, your sister is holding your hand on the way home, you think about that boy. You have a week’s time to think about him, to come up with something to say. What can you tell a boy whose name you don’t know?

He is world famous at seventeen. He is your age but he has seen more death than you could possibly imagine, he’s carried more weight on his shoulders than you ever can, and he is known for the sacrifice he made as Dynamight, society knows him by the hair you see on television because he is significant and his life is right in front of him.

You think about the things you could say. You practice in the bathroom mirror, but the insecurities leak too easily from the gaps of your teeth and you fail. You try to run the syllables through your tongue but they become too rehearsed, mediocre. You try your damndest to create brief windows of time that allow you to speak. While he is waiting at the pharmacy, while he’s watching the news, and as he is queueing behind you at the cafeteria.

But when you’re really next to him, in crutches, the wounds that mar his skin can’t be soothed by the words you speak.

You look into the mirror, everyday you smile and you rinse and repeat till your countenance sits right with you, you rehearse till the rehearsed words sound correctly, but you are in your father’s car, your sister is holding your hand and your heart is in one piece. What can you say to a boy who belongs, already, to the world at seventeen?

“What the hell is your problem!” The words tumble out of your mouth before you can look up. You berate whoever it is that knocked his entire cup of hot chocolate into the back of your shirt until you’re burned and drenched.

This is the first time you regret speaking. The hours you spent standing in front of the mirror, learning to shape your mouth and lips into something palatable, relatable to a god, is reduced into nothing when you look up and see him.

“I...” The boy’s voice is weak. Too weak. It’s quiet and if not for the fact that he is right behind you, maybe you wouldn’t have registered it at all. “I’m sorry.”

He’s so awkward when he says it that you can tell “sorry” isn’t a word that usually exists in his vocabulary. He doesn’t look at you, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and he is anything but the hero that you’ve seen on screen.

You look at his hands, covered in smoking hot chocolate that’s still dripping onto the floor. Now, you think you briefly remember the nurses around you scrambling for the janitor, for the mops. But, then, all that you remember is feeling sadness creep into your bones. This boy who you have spent days thinking about like some hero is weak and twitching in front of you because of a cup he can no longer hold. You look at his hands, the stump that twitches, and his other hand that moves to grab it, to grab the air a few inches above because the spasm of what used to be his right hand is a vulnerability that Dynamight cannot show.

You looked at him like how a man looks at a stray dog—with pity. And he hates that, so he looks down. You realised, then and there, that he was just a boy. He was a boy unaccustomed to the damage that the world chose to give him. He wasn’t a god, he was just thrusted into the middle of it all, forced to see the death that he wasn’t supposed to see, and forced to carry the weight that was unfitted for his shoulders.

You thought he was going to pull away, but you are your mother’s daughter, you persist, and your hand is hooked around his remaining wrist—boney, rough with scars. This is the first of many times in which you say to him, “It’s okay. Things happen.”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Katsuki thinks of you when he’s discharged. When he sits in the car with Masaru driving, Mitsuki is next to him and he thinks of the piece of paper that has your number scribbled over it with broken crayons. It sits in his pocket, warm, it tingles his skin.

He forgot what you said, and what you did, but he can’t forget how you made him feel. It’s stupid—he tries to convince himself. It’s stupid to remember a girl he’s talked to a few times here and there at the hospital. He should be focusing on school, on recovery, but he thinks of what you mean, what you can mean. He remembers your grin when you smuggled that piece of crumpled tissue into his pants like an inside joke, he tries to decipher the words you blur between the lines. What audacity, he thinks, and he can’t help but love that.

He sees you again when he’s at a party he’s been dragged to. He’s freshly eighteen, bravery is plastered onto his face but it is embarrassment that nips at his heart when he makes eye contact with you. He never called you, never texted, but the piece of paper lays amidst his books, unforgettable, undeniable.

He was never good at deciphering your words, or your gaze for that matter. He can’t tell whether you remember him just by looking at you. Your eyes pause a little too long on the scar that slashes his cheek for someone who has seen it before, but what does he know? Everyone looks at him like meat. Your eyes hold a certain judgement he’s scared of. Quiet, accepting, but judgement nonetheless.

He debates whether he should come over and strike up a conversation. If he were to talk to you like nothing happened, what would you do?

When he meets your eye again, sweat is condensing in his enclosed palms with the callouses pressing into his flesh like fingertips, it is now that he realises he should’ve called you, texted you, it is now that he comes over.

“Sorry for never reaching out, just—haven’t had the time.” He lies through his teeth like it is second nature.

This is the first time that he tests you.

“No worries. Things happen.” You say, with a tone that makes Katsuki’s jaw tick. He hates how easiness rolls off of you, like waves, because it isn’t fair that he’s spent the past few months remembering your hand around his wrist, your words in his ear, when you haven’t been suffering at all.

The night is young, but even when it goes on, you never ask him why, but it feels like you’re toeing a line that was just established, like you’re rubbing a fresh wound. So you let him have his boundaries even when it involves you. He’ll ghost you, he’ll lash out at you for something that is not your fault, he will treat you like you’re disposable and like you’re garbage. And maybe you already knew that when you snuck your hand into the pockets of his pants with your lover’s grin. Maybe you already knew what you were signing up for.

You let him come back into your life when he’s ready because you feel like you’re doing something good, like you’re doing charity. You don’t ask questions, you never do, because when you look into the mirror, you’re your mother’s daughter, and what you see between the gaps of your teeth isn’t enough to be begging a god for his time.

When he disappears, he usually comes back in a week or two. He will coat his apology and his excuses in sweet words that you’re not sure what the real meaning is—I’ve been busy; you’re still my favourite, he’d say, and you can’t help but laugh when he lies with unblinking eyes.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

He was nineteen when he lost his first kiss. Drunken, he was blushing all the way down to his neck when he shoved against the lips of another girl, albeit a bit off-centred. He doesn’t dare admit to her that it’s his first time, but he thinks she already knows. It’s embarrassing—because the lack of experience is a vulnerability that Dynamight cannot show. So he’s stuck kissing a girl whose name he does not know in the corner of somebody’s house. He’s violent and awkward when he pushes her up against the wall. It’s messy—her spit tastes like a substance that he should not touch, and all that he feels is a burn that numbs his lips.

He forgot how he got here. The faces in the crowd blur together, unremarkable, and Katsuki fails to recognise even a single person in this room.

It’s less magical than what his friends described it to be. Denki framed it as the best moment of his life when he pressed lips with Jirou, and Eijirou claimed that kissing Mina was what made him a man. Maybe it’s the alcohol buzzing in his system, it makes his head warm, fuzzy, and his blood rush, but this girl feels like nothing in his palms. The way she puts her fingers on his cheek, where people look at for a bit too long, is uncomfortable, it makes his face itch. Her lips are cold, he’s already forgotten what she mumbled before he kissed her, let alone what she did, he only remembers the agony. He feels less like a hero and more like a cheap prostitute that got taken advantage of.

(Maybe it’s the alcohol buzzing in his system. Maybe it’s the fact that this girl isn’t you.)

He thinks, beneath the flashing lights and loud music, a snarl is present on this girl’s face. Her lips are pulled taut by her cheeks but his vision is falling and he can’t tell what she’s saying. What a prude, probably.

He leaves the party right after. He was somehow able to sober up before pushing the girl away. He doesn’t glance at her, because he knows he’ll be looked at with judgement, or worse, with pity. He sneaks past the crowd and out the backdoor all without replying to a single person that screams at him. His hand is in his pocket, the one that tingles his skin, and he’s already fishing out his phone. The blue light from the screen hits him all at once when he dials the number he’s memorised by heart.

You were asleep, but the guilt that steeps in his heart from waking you up was quickly drowned out by your voice. The grumbles that resonate in his ear, somehow, for the love of god, cools his head and puts out the fire that is his lips. You tell him to come over, and he isn’t sure what the implications behind those words are, but he shows up anyway, you kiss him and take the pain away.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It was a Sunday when you two first had sex. The last time he’s talked to you was a month ago. That night, right before the words die on his tongue, he calls you. “I’m lonely.” He says. His voice is grainy over the phone, it’s pressed up against your ear and you can almost feel the hot breath against your skin. He says it like he knows you understand him—and you do. He doesn’t need to spell it out and maybe that’s why he keeps you around. He gets a woman for sex and he gets to keep his pride intact all at once. Your lips will sweep his problems under the rug, you’ll ignore the dark circles under his eyes and you’ll just pretend that he loves you.

He wonders about how long this will go on, how long it can go on. He thinks about your dignity and how he’s held it hostage in a jar. He thinks about your hands, the pity in your eyes, and he doesn’t care.

(He remembers your grin when you smuggled that piece of crumpled tissue into his pants like an inside joke, he tries to decipher the words you blur between the lines.)

For nights like this, his loneliness becomes the excuse that allows him to call you. In the dead of night, when he mumbles words amalgamated with want and sadness, lust is a disguise that reveals itself a little too easily from the gaps of his teeth, but you show up at his door anyway.

You feel his eyes rake over you, he meanders, he takes his time, like it isn’t cold out, like you owe him to be standing here like this. You shudder, half-mooned lids glide over your skin, like honey. You eat with your eyes first—so you show up in your tight skirts, crop tops and eyeliner—a costume, an armour. But you are your mother’s daughter, you persist, and you feel like a prize to be won.

Katsuki doesn’t say much, he never does. He only hooks his hand around your wrist and pulls, until you topple into his house, until you are wrangled in between his sheets and his limbs before you have the chance to ask “why me?”.

It’s almost like he’s doing this intentionally. He shocks you into submission like a fisherman to his prey because he wants you when you’re soft and docile. But you are capable of reading between the lines—you hear the pleas that hide behind lust and gluttony: take the pain away.

So you do.

Even before the words tumble out of your lips, the vowels and fricatives already feel foreign and slimy on your tongue. It's why you don your costume, your armour: of tight skirts, tight tops, and tight eyeliner. They squeeze the fat of your thighs, the meat on your shoulder, and at your tear glands. But you walk in anyway, you let your legs rest on the linen of his bed, your elbows against the pillows. Your costume clings to your skin, your armour cups itself around your dignity. Mold. Mockery.

You don’t ask because you already know the answer. Because you are your mother’s daughter and you persist: because you are here.

You let him mar you with his teeth. Despite the bites that will show up purple the next morning, you lift your head even more. He is ravenous—holding you down to the bed like a ragdoll, you figured that he doesn’t care about what you think nor how you feel. He doesn’t really register what’s beneath his palms, even when he’s cupping your heart in one and choking you with the other, his prosthetic is cold around your neck, it numbs the bruises he’s sucked into your skin, you can’t help but like that.

“Fuck,” he moans, with his chapped lips tickling the hairs on your neck. “Kiss me.” he says, like you are lovers and these rendezvous are anything close to romantic.

He slides into you easily, like it’s meant to be. He does it so painfully slow that you dig your heels into the muscles on his back: hurry up and fuck me—he understands the words you don’t say.

He’s looking down at you, and you like him like this: when he’s above you with his eyebrows slightly furrowed, vermillion eyes piercing, looking at you. His gaze will move from your eyes to your lips, they’re staring at him, he thinks. He’ll lean down and suck on them. He kisses with his teeth, unkind, aggressive—you like it like that, he knows, when he’s in your arms.

“You’re so pretty when you cum.” You blush. Yeah.

He’s breathing hard, his lips break into a smile—a genuine one. He loves it when you pull your kiss-bruised lips between your teeth, when your nails scrape down his back until long red marks appear. He moans even harder, louder.

Against your better judgement, you let this go on. You let him bury himself in you, deep, painful, so he forgets the agony that tortures him everyday. You feel like a martyr—a sacrificial lamb for the pillars of society. You let yourself feel good—charitable—in his arms and in your heart (with his cupping hands), beneath him, you allow yourself the belief that you’re doing something good (your armour, costume). You look at the empty jars in his cabinets and think about your dignity (mold, mockery). You let him hold you by the throat and shudder into your nape (because you are your mother’s daughter and you persist, but no one is there to hold your hand and your heart will be in pieces).

Somehow, you find yourself listening to his snores at dusk. You think he’s gotten better at lying. You’ll smile in his ear and realise a bit too late that you’ve been caught like a deer in headlights.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

You’re sitting in front of the television, your head on his shoulder, and Katsuki has his arm wrapped around you. It’s a little cold, but the both of you are too lazy to find a blanket. A show that neither of you care about is playing on screen, it acts as the source of light, and as something to fill up the silences.

You two should both be asleep. He has an early patrol and you have a presentation tomorrow. The show isn’t particularly interesting, but you just can’t find it in you to go home and get onto your bed.

You don’t live here, but you know where things are. You don’t have the access card to his apartment building but somehow the security guard recognises you. There’s a second toothbrush in the sink, your clothes are mixed with his in the laundry basket but your name isn’t put down on paper. It lures—begs—you to have the “what are we?” conversation with him. A part of you wants to know, that part is irrational and wants to be his. That part of you sits down in the shower and imagines what it would be like to hold his hand outside of bed and sex. The rational part of you, though, knows the question will break whatever it is that you have with him. Because you know Katsuki. You know the guilt that pulls on his heart, you’re familiar with the pride that nestles itself into his skull, and you know he won’t let himself have this. And you’d rather have him like this than to not have him at all.

He lets you stay the night.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It’s winter. The colleagues you entertain get braver and they’ll somehow get you to go out with them. Bar-hopping like you’re in college, sure, you’ll continue entertaining them. You’ll be in your short skirts, tight tops, with your eyeliner smudged. You down the drinks like water while your colleagues holler, you’ll pretend that you don’t notice your supervisor’s gaze on your chest. You’re having fun, you really are.

It’s the group’s third stop of the night, sweat has accumulated on your back with how crowded this bar is. It seems that everyone is here—out on the dance floor while the swaying bodies spill the drinks that leave a sticky residue on your skin.

The group of seven you arrived in have already split into groups of two or three. Your coworkers are nowhere to be seen, maybe they’re throwing up in the bathroom, maybe they’ve ended up on someone’s bed. You don’t really care.

Everyone’s dancing, and this guy nudges your arm with his, you flinch. “You here alone?”

“No.” You say, regret is already pooling in your stomach. Why did you ever agree to come? You know you don’t like going out.

“You should join us for a few, we promise you a fun time,” he winks, and you think you throw up a little in your mouth. You feel the shape of rejection before you sound it, but the words die on your tongue.

“Sure.”

You don’t drink anything more. There’s enough alcohol in your body for you to continue lying to yourself. His arm that started behind your seat slowly inches down, closer, they’re testing you. You entertain him, you let him ghost his sweaty palms over your exposed back, then your thighs.

He drags you to the dance floor, then off, all before the song ends. You know where this is going. He’s pulling you to the walls, he continues looking at your body, he doesn’t even try to pretend he’s here for anything else, and you think this feels worse than your supervisor’s eyes on your chest.

When he kisses you, his breath is an unfortunate mix of alcohols that don’t work well. You wonder how many drinks he’s had when his teeth knock against yours.

He tried to be smooth, you can tell. He’s selfish but he pretends he’s not, and it reflects in how he kisses you. He’ll push you to the edge of the bathroom, his hands will be on your waist, then your thighs again, and you’ll pretend you don’t know where this is going. He’s not as clingy as what you’re used to, he doesn’t grip the back of your neck like you’re going to run away like he does.

The man whose name you do not know is slipping his tongue into your mouth when he’s suddenly pulled away. “What the fuck is your issue?”

Your vision may be swirling, your face feels hot and you’re slightly out of breath. But there’s no confusing ash blond hair and the vermillion eyes that you’ve seen a thousand times when they’ve been on you, above you, crying.

“Fuck off.” Katsuki says with no room for argument. He takes your hand and pulls you behind him. It’s winter, and you can’t help but lean into his warmth.

“Ohhh, I see how it is! Nasty ex?” Laughing, his speech is slurred. Before Katsuki can say anything, though, you speak first. “He’s not my ex.”

He doesn’t seem to register any of that. The statement was useless, but Katsuki grips your hand tighter. Then, for a reason you can’t understand, the man tries to pull you back into his arms.

You feel it before you see it, Katsuki’s eyes flare up with anger, it’s dangerous. It flows and seeps and you already know this isn’t ending well.

There’s a nasty crack—you think the man’s nose is broken. Maybe it’s the trashy bar, because the music just gets louder and people shift away and pretend they see nothing. You’re the one who pulls a heaving Katsuki off the floor. You don’t look at the man who’s still left twitching on the floor, you don’t wish to see the bruises and blood that no doubt line his face. You pay attention to ash blond hair and vermillion eyes instead.

“What do you think you’re doing?” You raise your voice so he hears you over the music. He’s silent, he’s still seething, you think. You wait, because that’s all that you do.

He clicks his tongue and you see the conflict through his eyes. You know his pride is weighing heavy on his shoulders when the anger in his eyes melt into something more vulnerable. It’s something Dynamight can’t possibly show. His eyebrows are downturned, he’s completely sober, you realise. You let yourself imagine what he could’ve said, if things were different. If he was something more than the boy you recognised on television, maybe you wouldn’t have needed to sneak a piece of crumpled tissue into his pants like an inside joke. Maybe, you would’ve been able to walk into this room with his hand around your waist instead.

The smell of smoke and sugar is inundating you when you see the sweat that forms a light sheen on his forehead. Then, you’re pulling him by the hem of his shirt and kissing him.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

You wish you never said anything.

“That can’t be healthy..” Mina is holding your hand like she’s preparing you for the blow. She looks at you like how people look at stray dogs, with pity in her eyes. She’s understanding, she’s nice, it’s why you’re friends with her. But she’s too kind, she’s a hero—and she’s meddling in your business.

You wish you never told her anything.

“It’s, like, a friends with benefits situation?” Your justification is crumbling right beneath your feet. You can’t meet her eyes when these words escape your lips, bitter, like poison.

“He’s using you—!”

“I know.”

Maybe it’s because she can sense the tension, but she leaves soon after that. The wine she brought lays unopened on the table, you try to numb the guilt with shows, music. You can’t, because the truth leaves a gaping hole in your heart.

Some time after Mina left, maybe it’s been a few hours, you’re sitting alone when he phones you. “Hey,” he says, like foreplay, like the both of you don’t know why he’s calling. “Hi.”

“How are you?” he then asks, voice quiet. You’re sitting next to the window, the glass cold against your arm. You want to scream at him, you want to admit that you’re not doing well, but that’s not what Dynamight wants. You look out the window, onto the street, the world that owns him. He says your name, and it makes your breath stutter. You sigh, “I’ll be there.”

He must be feeling particularly lonely tonight, because when you knock on his door, he opens it immediately, like he was standing beside it waiting for you. “Eager?” You whisper. He smiles.

Tugging you by your sleeve, you two fall into his bed, his linen sheets. You feel at home, maybe you’ve spent more nights here than your own bed.

His mouth is over yours already.

You feel hot, stuffy. He’s whispering words into your ears that are too filthy to repeat. Closing your eyes, you pull at his shirt, he takes the hint and sheds it. One last time, you think, and never again.

He kisses you on your lips, he tugs on them before moving downwards. You’re unravelled like a present, clothes fall off your shoulders till he’s down between your thighs. He wraps them around his head, “I love it when you moan my name.” So you do. “Katsuki,” you say, like a prayer, when he licks your clit, fingers scissoring deep, pressing on your g-spot. “Fuck,” you’re pulling his hair, it makes him moan into your cunt. “Make me cum.”

You look down when you finally orgasm, it wracks through your body, until you’re left twitching. He’s pulling his fingers out of you when he puts down your legs, and while holding direct eye contact with you, he puts them into his mouth, as if there’s something more than just lust and gluttony in his eyes, as if to say: I love you.

Then he’s slipping into you again, slowly. The fingers on his prosthetic hand wrap around your throat, it makes your head dizzy. You taste yourself on his lips when he finally begins moving. Kissing, pumping, deep and agonising. He doesn’t last long. His moans get louder in your ear, his hands become desperate, pressing into your thighs until bruises are left behind. “Baby, please. Kiss me.” He comes with a shudder.

It’s quiet, the silence feels fragile.

You’re sweaty when you lay next to him. His movement is languid when he pulls you closer, you let him. His hand is around your waist, yours on his chest. Mina’s right. Your heart is in your throat when you say, “I can’t do this anymore.” A few syllables muttered is enough to make him cold, completely frozen in your grasp. “What?” He furrows his brows, disbelief evident in the way he frowns.

The look you give him makes him want to cry. Sadness pools in your eyes, so he holds you tighter. He cradles your head, but it’s too late. Your mind is set, both of you know that.

It is now that he realises he is holding a person with a soul. When he calls you up, while you’re something less than a bad habit, you’re something more than a porcelain doll in the palm of calloused hands—you are the prettiest girl he’s ever seen since the age of seventeen. You’re the air that he breathes, and it is now that he realises he has ruined you with his maw.

Mina visits you the next day. She comes in with the extra key you gave her with food in her hands, as if she knew before you told her that this has destroyed you.

I broke it off.

Your apartment is a mess. Takeout bags are everywhere and your living room looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in a few weeks. Mina smiles with something you don’t want to know about, pity maybe, sympathy maybe. You’re too tired to feel guilty when she begins cleaning. Packing away metal cans and dirtied plastic boxes, she helps you take out the trash, vacuum, while you stay glued next to the window. Maybe you should’ve never said anything, maybe life would be better if things just continued the way they were.

“You did the right thing.”

She comes again the next day. Then again. She comes over for at least an hour everyday for a week straight. You begin feeling bad for how much of her time you’re taking up, but she insists. She visits just to spend time with you. She makes sure you eat, she makes sure your apartment isn’t a complete mess.

She starts talking about it when two weeks have passed. Gentle prompts that give you the reins to open up however much you wish, and you realise it now just why she has so many friends. But she still looks at you with the same smile, pity and sympathy.

“I think I was okay with letting him use me because I guess I just always felt like—well—like I deserved it. What he gave me actually felt like something more than what I deserve. I’m just normal, you know? And—he’s a god.” She’d hum and let you continue. The silences aren’t awkward like you had feared, but she turns on the television to fill them in anyway.

It takes roughly one more week for her to start giving her opinion.

“You’re not any inferior, okay? He’s just a hero. Just a hero.”

No one really notices, maybe your parents ask once more about “the boy you always mention”, Mina asks whether you want to talk a few more times, you nod sometimes, and shake your head other times. You don't really notice how it gets better, it just does. You smile more at work, your apartment gets tidier and you can look at things without immediately thinking of him.

You’re not over it, you’re nowhere close to that. And when you’re alone in bed, maybe during the nights you can’t sleep, you ask yourself what even is there to get over. You two were never a thing, you existed between boundaries, your lives don’t really cross paths. The only reason you’re friends with Mina was by pure coincidence. He never invited you to hangouts, to events, and your coworkers don’t know about him. He called you when he needed you, and you gave him what he wanted. Only one of your colleagues figured there was something off, but even then, it’s easier to say “oh it’s nothing” than to explain the limbo that you were in. Life continues as if nothing is out of place. You get a promotion at work, you install a dating app then delete it a few weeks later. You go drinking and have sex.

You find out he has a girlfriend three months later. It was involuntary. You find out at work, from people who know nothing about your life gossiping about heroes because they’re far away, because they’re not real people with real souls.

“Dynamight got a girlfriend, you know.” Your coworker says it casually, like it’s the weather, and maybe to her it is.

You should’ve been able to hum and nod like a normal person, but instead you clench up and act like you’ve been caught doing something you weren’t supposed to.

“Oh.” is what you manage, but you straighten up and try your best to act normal. “Really. Who is it?”

“I think it’s Illus-o-Camie, like, the Glamour hero.”

You remember seeing her name on his phone once. You were laying next to him after sex when a notification pops up on screen, she was thanking him for something. You don’t try to hide your gaze back then, Katsuki just rolled over and swiped it away. “Work stuff.” He said.

“That’s nice.” You say, the words bitter on your tongue—a lie. “They look cute together.”

“I know right!”

You text Mina that night, it’s a Friday so you ask her to come over. When she walks in, you get deja vu from how she looks—the pity-sympathy smile—it’s almost like she already knew, and just didn’t tell you. Against your better judgement, you ask, “How long have they been together?”

“A month.”

You feel your heart break. But you’re your mother’s daughter, you persist. You nod and you hum.

“I’ll be okay.”

“You’ll be okay.”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

He wasn’t supposed to be here. It’s Thursday, it’s cold, but he couldn’t really say no when his friends asked him to go out. The atmosphere isn’t bad, everything’s buzzing and kinda fun. He isn’t drinking because he has something to do early in the morning, he’s also the designated driver. He thinks it’s going to take one or two more hours before everyone heads home, he sighs. Mina is slung over Eijirou’s arm, Denki is in a bathroom stall with Sero, vomiting up the alcohol he’s ingested in the past hour. So now he’s alone. This bar is pretty shit from what he’s seen, but it’s exactly how heroes like them can drop in and not have anyone notice.

He’s waiting outside of the bathroom when he thinks he’s hallucinating.

You don’t like going out. You always tell him that. You dislike the feeling that alcohol gives you and you hate crowds, so he didn’t believe it when he saw you, just—there. On the dancefloor, with a man he couldn’t recognise.

He thinks about what you mean to him. You’re not his girlfriend, maybe not even a friend. So he weighs his options, it seems that no one realises his true identity. Kirishima is too busy with his girlfriend and the other two are nowhere to be seen. No one’s gonna stop him, no one can.

He looks at you, your skin is smooth even under the strobe lights, with a light sheen, probably of sweat. He wonders whether you’re having fun, if the frown on your lips are anything to come by, you aren’t. Your body is still against his, though, a little too close for his liking. How the man touches you leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but he isn’t someone to you. He has no right to do anything, really. He isn’t important enough to go over there and rip him away from you.

He briefly remembers jealousy gripping at his nerves, his entire body is hot and—and then that douche is kissing you, so all that he just thought about goes flying out the window. He’s too much like a tunnel-visioned racehorse when he all but rips the man away from you by his hair. He’s sober, he’s a hero and he’s a god, yet, he’s standing in some trashy bar with words in his heart that can’t be admitted, punching a man’s face in all because of a girl.

He has no idea how you managed to pull him off of the poor excuse of a man that’s laying on the floor, bleeding and twitching. Your lips are moving, they’re still slightly wet from what’s presumably that guy’s spit. They’re bruised, swollen, and he wants to kiss them better. He can’t decipher what you’re saying, but you’re looking at him expectantly, waiting.

He’s frustrated. How dare you. You mean nothing to him. You can’t. You shouldn’t.

But then you pull him by the hem of his shirt, and the rest is history.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

When Camie first brushed his face, he wanted to grimace and cry. He made sure that never showed on his face, because his manager insisted that this was a necessary publicity stunt for his plummeting popularity. It’s partly your fault, for calling your whatever off right before the HPSC check-in.

(He lies, he revels in his delusions, each and every day, each and every passing second, to convince himself that you wouldn’t have stayed.)

There’s nothing wrong with Camie. She’s hot. She’s pretty. She’s got a model body and face, her acrylic nails that are always done tingle the botched bit of skin on his face, while she looks at him with makeup that’s never smudged.

(He schools his face into a non-grimace.)

People like to ship them together. He has a verified fan account that’s dedicated to this very duo. But Camie has always been just a friend, an acquaintance, if anything.

Bakugou isn’t sure why he didn’t push her away. Or make a slightly unpleasant face when they weren’t under the scrutiny of the public. Camie’s smart, she’s good with people. There’s no doubt she’d pick up on his hesitance—unwillingness.

Camie is an accessory on his arm at the annual hero awards. He questions the meaning of this. What does this matter, in the grand scheme of things? Will his image of being a good boyfriend to a fellow hero save more lives? Will it deter any villains from attacking the city? What does his personal life have to do with anything?

(He feels less like a hero and more like a cheap prostitute that got taken advantage of.)

Everything, someone would say. His manager, Camie, you. His mental well-being affects his performance and subsequently the people he saves, the buildings he destroys. But he’s fared alright—well, even—in the worst times. Right after the Great War, after you whispered those bone-chilling words in his ears.

He realises that, somehow, when he tries his best to fulfil a duty he promised a dead man, he loses the very essence that made him a hero, a god. He strips himself of meaning, of purpose, to slowly let himself go. He sheds them off Dynamight like clothes for the public to see, so he is palatable, so he is malleable. He does something that his younger self would have insulted and dismantled with ease—he lets society swallow him with the definition they’ve assigned to the word heroics, and the indignity that is dredged with it.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Camie is not your friend. She’s a fake bitch who just got caught in the crossfire.

Serves her right, you think. She deserves it for the times she’s brought Katsuki to crowded bars, the times she’s forced him to wear matching necklaces that erode with sweat. It isn’t fair. She was labelled with a title you’ve fought tooth and nail for. By the press, by Katsuki. You can’t possibly fathom what she could have done that gave her the right. It feels stolen, as if she came as a thief, and for all the sleep and dignity and face that were confiscated from you, you laid barren on his linen sheets while the identity girlfriend was nicked, like an heirloom, right in the dead of night from your fingertips.

When you see her face, perched against his, it’s like you’ve got vomit on your tongue that water can’t wash off. So you stop flipping through magazines, you don’t use the television and social media has been wiped completely from your phone. You cut yourself off from the world of heroics and all that’s in it. Uprooted and replanted so you can focus on your boring job and boring friends. Work, drink, have sex, cry, and rinse and repeat. This routine is rehearsed until it becomes ingrained into your habits, into every twitch of a finger. You stop seeing Mina, and all of her hero friends too. You dye your hair, pierce your ears and sign up for a gym membership. You become another person.

In a year, you’ve gone from the sheep that lays bleeding in a wolf’s maw to the butcher himself.

(But sometimes, when the skin of hatred slips off, at dawn, with the windowsill cold against your arm, the teeth marks reopen. And despite the desperation with which you pull on the costume of a hunter, your armour, it collapses until you drown in spools of ash and red all over again.)

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

“What are you doing here?”

“Camie and I broke up.”

You look at him—really look at him. He’s meeting your eye with not a hint of waver, he isn’t frowning, but not exactly smiling either. Guilt is the guise that’s on his face but you know Katsuki.

“Let me rephrase the question: what do you want me to do?”

“To take the pain away.”

While you stand at the doorway, he’s the one that’s banished to your windy corridor. He stands there because he knows he owes you something. He lets you weigh your options, but he wants you to open your arms and welcome him home. It’d be so easy to just close your eyes and let him ravage you. But—

“You never liked Camie, not like that.” You remember her acrylic nails, her flawless makeup. Some armour, some costume.

“Shit, was I that obvious?”

You think about what you could say.

Camie didn’t—doesn’t deserve that. No one should be used and disposed of, not even by a god.

“No, I just know you well enough.”

He really doesn’t look guilty, not at all.

“I missed you.” He says.

So you think of his empty words, the promises that were not made to last. You think of the nights he calls you, the times he left you alone.

(“He’s using you—!” “I know.”)

You didn’t deserve that.

“Do you? Or do you just miss what I gave you?”

“That’s not—fuck. I’m sorry.” His voice is quiet. The word “sorry” still isn’t something that comes by his vocabulary regularly. “I don’t know.”

You sigh. It’s Sunday. You have work early in the morning. You’re cold. You haven’t showered.

“What do you want from me?”

“Just—let me try again. I missed you. I really did.” He gulps. “I do. I’ll treat you right.”

When he looks at you with glassy eyes tonight, he’s just a boy you met at the hospital. When you were seventeen, when you wanted to be wanted. He was a god then, and he is a god now.

Will you be able to notice his crocodile tears when all that you see in the reflection of his eyes is mud tangled with your bloodied roots?

You don’t know what to say to him.

When a plant is uprooted, the old pot is left behind to rot. The soil will be depleted of its nutrients, it decays because the plant is nowhere to be found.

“I don’t think you can.”

Stealing My Blog Layout

Aya's blog is completely stylized the same way as my own, copy/pasting my pinned, rules and tag formatting. Of course I don’t “own” the nickname/pet name of ‘Peach,’ but it’s pretty obvious where the theming came from. The name, Aya, is part of one of my selfship names, ‘ayarei.’ Don’t know if this was intentional or not. The pink divider used was also made by me months ago for an old theme. The icon and header art used are personal comms from @/fittsysart.

copy & pasted rules plus mimicking my formatting.

Stealing My Writing

So far, there have been three pieces of mine that have been stolen and reposted as Aya's own work. I would highlight the similarities, but it would be the whole post (minus one or two words/excluded sentences).

carrying him to his dorm room : theirs / mine

biting as a love language : theirs / mine

hating valentine’s day : theirs / mine

Stealing My Selfship Comms & Lore

I can't believe I have to even say this, but Aya has stolen all her lore for her OC, 'Ayane,' from my katsurei selfship. My own commissions, the copy/pasted trope info and the lore about our daughter, Ryuko. The only "difference" is Ryuko being changed to 'Naoto' and her OC being a hero (but kept my quirk ideology).

She's using two commissions of myself as her OC, 'Ayane.' Ayane's information is Ryuko's info, which is copy/pasted from her selfship page on my blog.

Aya Admitting Fault

I did attempt to message Aya in an effort to reach an understanding, but was immediately met with hostility (not surprised). I'll let the post speak for itself. She also went through my blog (presumably) and followed a bunch of mutuals and recent blogs I've reblogged from.

She followed me, tagged me in a post and then blocked me.

I tried to be as detailed as possible, but I cannot keep up with her blog now that she's blocked me. I have dealt with plagiarism in the past (with writing, my about me facts and selfship lore separately), but this one takes the cake. I'm beyond upset and cannot believe in 2025 I have to say DON'T DO THIS SHIT. I shouldn't have to defend the right to my own fucking commissions, let alone my writing. I’m not even a non-sharer, I don’t care if you ship with Bakugo in any regard. I encourage it! But my selfship with Bakugo is extremely personal to me, especially Ryuko. To have someone come in and just blatantly steal that away from me with no remorse is devastating.

"AND?"

"there's no 'and,' phainon."

"yes, there is." and he chuckles, throwing his head back, the rays of the setting sun illuminating his entire figure, shimmers of refracted gold and fire flickering off the tips of his white hair and the glow of his warm skin. but even the brilliance of the sun is no match for the radiance in his smile and the pure joy in his eyes.

you especially love the way he laughs with his whole chest, as if he isn't carrying the weight of a million burdens on his wary back. you don't know what those burdens are, he never talks about them, but they must be heavy, and you'd do anything to shoulder some of that pressure for him.

"i'm serious. i said my part already."

"so that's it? you tell me you're madly in love with me, and there's nothing else you want to say?"

phainon's quieted down, but there's a teasing smile at the corner of his lips. he's gazing at you, amusement painted so evidently in the pure cyan of his irises, and if you were less of a confidant, more of a passing stranger, you'd give in to his witty quips and your yearning heartstrings.

"or should i say - there's nothing else you want to ask?" he arches one brow, which you snort at as you turn your cheek and face the other way.

the two of you are sitting on an empty grassfield that stretches down the sloped hill to the parking lot where your bicycles are tossed onto the pavement without a spare thought, and beyond that, there's layers upon layers of tan stucco houses that extend past the horizon. your university is located right next to the suburbs, and the two of you have made it a routine throughout the past four years to bike the four-mile stretch from campus whenever either of you needed to escape the suffocating libraries and poorly-lit hallways. but with this being your last summer before the two of you move to two different cities for two different careers, this place, this moment, will eventually become nothing more than a fleeting memory.

so no, there isn't anything else you'd like to say, and you shake your head once more.

"then, what am i supposed to do with your confession?"

you shrug as you tuck your knees and feet in to stand up. phainon takes the hint, and begins to brush away at any stray blades of grass from his pants.

"i don't know," you chirp, as you stretch your arms out and roll your shoulders back.

but if there's anything you do know, though, it's that your confession is only another addition to his laundry list of concerns. instead of shouldering some of his problems, you're laying more on top of him.

you can't take it back now. neither of you are naive or callous enough to pretend that you never uttered those words. and it's not like you didn't mean to tell him.

"i'm scared, you know," you finally whisper. both of you have stood up, and are making your way down the curve of the hill.

phainon increases his pace to join you at your side. "of what?" he asks.

"i'd rather push you away, than have you leave me."

"why would i ever abandon you?"

you click your tongue. "i didn't say 'abandon.' sometimes, people separate because they're better off as friends, but they can't stay friends after breaking up because their history has become… too complex."

he hums. it's a soft sound, one that blends right in with the passing breeze, akin to a lonely songbird's tune to itself.

"so you're worried that'll happen to us?"

"i suppose."

"always so elusive," he teases with a nudge to the side of your arm.

you bump him back with an elbow and a snicker. phainon's always been excellent at towing the line between comedy and melancholy.

"you're mysterious, too, phainon," you mumble. and just because you feel like it, you take off, rushing down, letting gravity pull you down as you try to maintain balance, your ankles always at the brink of rolling with each stagger downwards.

he yells after you, the latter half of your name swallowed by the pounding in your ears. but you don't stop or look back at him, don't check to see if he's running after you, and continue to race your way to your tattered bike.

(it's an old and rusty thing, chains worn out, tires caked in mud, rubber handles weathered smooth from the callouses lining your palms. you'll throw it out, too, along with this love you have for phainon.

he doesn't need it, and you don't want it either.