"Well, we're very invested in you staying healthy. Although I do admit your scars look really sexy."

He lifts a hand to touch his lip scar. "...sexy?" Then he shakes his head. "They show weakness."

Is that why the mask?

"They show strength. They show you survived, you won against whoever gave you them. You're very powerful."

So cute.

"So, let me check you over, I wanna make sure nothing'll need stitches or antibiotics. And does anything particularly hurt? Thought I might've sprained my hand earlier but it feels fine now."

"Nothing hurts. You fuss too much."

But he lets Tōkan inspect him. He's less beat up than Tōkan himself, he was immobilised for half the fight, and nothing looks serious.

Tōkan himself notices that there's a gash on his own shoulder and a cut on his ankle that were being kept sealed by mud and which start bleeding somewhat freely once he cleans them up, but there's gauze in one of the cupboards in the bathroom which Inori wordlessly gives him to stop the bleeding before they get Harutsugu to stitch him up.

"He's used to it. He's done it a lot for me."

"I guess this kind of ruins my plans to get a quickie in with you before we go down for cookies."

"—there's cookies? Say so earlier, dumb alpha."

He's already pretty much done so he jumps out of the tub and starts drying himself.

Tōkan is once again filled with fondness for his boyfriend.

Harutsugu left folded clothes for both of them by the bathroom door, and yeah this is Harutsugu's T-shirt but they all use the same fabric softener so he's got the scent associated with Inori which gets him into an even better mood. He replaces the gauze and follows Inori downstairs.

The cookies aren't yet done, so Inori feels betrayed twice over, but when he sees Tōkan walk into the dining room/kitchen he looks at his alpha dad and says, "Haru, Tōkan needs some stitches."

        "Oh! I didn't realise it got that bad, let me grab my kit."

"You're very casual about this."

    "The number of times he's arrived home looking just as bad as this, if not worse..." sighs Kuroji.

        "He takes after you~! 😘" Harutsugu calls from the other room, and Kuroji flushes a bit.

    "I was never this bad!"

            "Haru told me some stories that are pretty bad," says Suzume as she skips into the room in a pink dress. "Hi, Tōkan~!"

"Hey, Suzu. How are you doing at school?"

            "Fiiiiine. You always ask that!"

"Well, I'm interested in the academic success of my pupil! It wouldn't do to help you study if you didn't use it to get great grades."

        Harutsugu shows up again with a box of supplies. "Tōkan-kun, please sit so I can take care of you."

He does as instructed and Harutsugu starts to treat his shoulder wound first, carefully.

(Inori walks over to the freezer and grabs an ice cream tube then plops down at the table to start eating directly from it with a spoon.)

(Loooooooooove~)

(Harutsugu and Kuroji both notice the way Tōkan looks at Inori and look at each other in, respectively, despair and deep fondness.)

(Tōkan notices this out of the corner of his eye but doesn't give it much attention. Watching his boyfriend be constantly adorable is very diverting.)

            "Tōkan, are you going to sleep over tonight?" Suzume asks, eyes shiny.

He opens his mouth to reply but Inori interrupts him with,

"Nah, I'm spending the night at his."

He doesn't say "You are?" because by this point Inori just basically does whatever he wants and if he wants to sleep over at Tōkan's, Tōkan is more than happy to have him.

Harutsugu and Kuroji once again exchange looks, but this time they're less immediately easy to decode. Tōkan feels like they are going to want to talk to the two of them about something.

(Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove~)

Harutsugu finishes stitching Tōkan up and tells him to go see a doctor if he starts getting a fever or anything like that, observing that alpha males are more prone to infection than the rest of the population.

"You are? Why?"

        "I think we have higher rates of immunodeficiency," explains Harutsugu. "Omegas have better immune systems, that's one of the reasons why we think your sister's a beta even though we can't fully tell yet, she's caught a lot more colds than you had by her age and you hadn't even ever caught a flu by then."

"Hm."

The cookies are done soon enough, and they all relocate to the tea room to have them. Inori, of course, continues to be an absolute black hole. Tōkan supposes they never did get that ice cream anyway.

But after they're all done (which means Harutsugu, Kuroji, Tōkan, and Suzume have had some cookies and tea while Inori inhaled everything they didn't consume) and Suzume's excused herself to go back to her room, Harutsugu says, "Tōkan-kun, Inori-kun, could you stay here for a few more minutes? There was something Kuroji and I wanted to talk to the two of you about."

"Is this gonna be boring?"

    "Probably," says Kuroji, "but it's important."

Tōkan continues kneeling and listens attentively.

    "So... you're an alpha/omega couple," starts Kuroji, rubbing a hand against the back of his head. "There are some... unique challenges to that nowadays."

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

        "How are your parents taking this, Tōkan-kun? 🤔" asks Harutsugu. "I realise we've been remiss in not asking about them all this time."

"Ah, heh, that's... a subject."

"His dad's a shitstain and his stepmum doesn't care about him," he summarises.

    "Inori!"

"Not... not entirely inaccurate," Tōkan says, and now it's his turn to scratch the back of his head awkwardly. "My biological mother was an omega, and my—my father raped her. Basically." And that was very much not what they were expecting, although Harutsugu seems less surprised than Kuroji. Figures. "She loved him, and... I think my father came to love her too, after a fashion. But he hid her, I'm sure you'll never hear anything about Kokonoe Tochima and an omega. As far as his image's concerned, his alpha wife is my mother."

        "I... see," says Harutsugu. "Your mother... was... an omega?" he asks, carefully.

"She's dead. Died when I was small. And I was raised by the man who raped her and who continually told me that alphas are superior to omegas and we should never intermingle, all my life. He got married to a woman who didn't want kids, so it was great that he'd already acquired an heir."

"Like I said. Shitstain."

This time neither of his dads berate him for it.

"So, yeah, it's hard for Kokonoe High to not have that... culture... about alphas and omegas when the headmaster and owner is like that. And I haven't told him about Inori."

    This is clearly throwing some of the conversation they had planned for a loop. "And you don't plan to...?"

"He'll hear it from the rumour mill eventually when my relationship with Inori becomes sufficiently public, although everyone at school who even knows we're seeing each other thinks I'm just..." And Tōkan has to stop himself for a second and look down at his lap so that he doesn't show just how angry this makes him feel. "Using him. For his body. For the sex."