Harutsugu squeaks out a strangled noise but Kuroji just nods.

"Your friend thinks I just seduced you with my pheromones to bag a rich alpha or something," Inori adds, and for some reason it's Kuroji's turn to look somewhat embarrassed.

"...he doesn't. Not really. That's just a story Subaru's telling himself in his head that he knows isn't true. He knows me well enough for that."

    "I see that you already have experience with much of what we wanted to talk about," sighs Kuroji after a bit.

Tōkan honestly has so much trauma about this it's kind of tragically funny. Though if he's honest with himself Inori's existence is a very effective therapeutic treatment.

        "I guess it would be too much to hope for Kokonoe High to have gotten better since I left 😔," sighs Harutsugu.

"I... believe my grandfather is actually not as bad as my father in this respect, though we haven't had much contact. I would give it even odds that Kokonoe High might be worse, now." Also not what Harutsugu wanted to hear.

    "Then forgive me if what I'm saying will sound repetitive," says Kuroji. "This won't really get better. We're... a porn trope, to a lot of people. Alpha/omega couples. Especially with male omegas, for how rare we are. Many people won't take your relationship seriously, will think you're being immature—or that you're just sex-obsessed."

        "Kuroji!"

    "Haru, this is part of it." He looks at Tōkan again. "Waiters at restaurants are going to always expect confirmation from you, as if you need to give Inori-kun permission to get what he wants—"

"I'll kick their asses!"

    Kuroji and Harutsugu both act as if they didn't hear that. "People will feel very free to make passes at you—at both of you. If you tell them you're paired that helps, but given how many people recently have just been pairing for utility in not having to deal with heats and ruts so much, that'll do less than you expect."

Probably not the time to mention how intensely nonmonogamous the two of them are likely to be. That's a conversation for later.

"What's a pair?"

"...Inori-kun, love, did you by any chance skip your sex ed classes?" (Harutsugu once again lets out a strangled little noise when Tōkan says the word "love".)

"They're useless. I always just use fighting spirit. And now I have you. I don't need all that crap."

    Kuroji and Harutsugu sigh a synchronous "we love our son but he can be a lot sometimes" sigh and Kuroji explains: "Omegas have these glands on the nape of their necks, while alphas have this special hormone in their saliva. There's another hormone that those glands secrete while an omega is in heat, and if an alpha bites it hard enough to draw blood, then... It's like an immune reaction of sorts. The alpha's body will start producing a certain kind of antibody that'll make them substantially more tolerant to other omegas' pheromones while on the other hand they will be much more affected by the pheromones of the omega they bit; and conversely, the omega's heats will be much more subdued and often not occur at all if the omega isn't in the presence of that alpha's scent, but they'll go on overdrive around that alpha. This is usually called pairing."

        "It's meant to be used for love and romance," sighs Harutsugu with a wistful look in his eyes. "Your father and I are paired, like that. But nowadays most people just use it to manage their hormonal cycles and not have to worry about it."

    "It's a risky proposition, it's pretty common for the alpha/omega pair to start a relationship after that if they're not careful and those usually... don't go well."

        Harutsugu nods sagely. "It's like I said. If you don't do it for romance, the romance won't work for you."

"Wait, so... if Tōkan bit my neck I wouldn't need to worry about heats for the rest of my life?" Inori asks, turning to look at Tōkan with a thoughtful expression.

        "You shouldn't rush into it!!!" Harutsugu immediately interjects. "You can't undo it, and it's a very special bond, you should make sure you really love the person you're pairing, and..."

"Do it," he tells Tōkan as if he didn't hear Harutsugu at all, and Harutsugu himself looks like he's about to pass out. "I wanna pair with you."

"—Inori-kun, Harutsugu's right, we shouldn't rush into it."

"Why? It's a pain in the ass. Then I can just have fighting spirit all the time and only have heats around you and you can fuck me and we're fine." It's honestly a wonder that Harutsugu is still alive, it looks like his soul leaves his body every time Inori says anything.

"But we don't know that we're going to work out long term, we need to make sure we're, we're ready to be together and really in it for the long haul and, and that we love each other..."

"I've never been with anyone before you. And I don't wanna be with anyone other than you. This is dumb."

"...Inori. It's... I'm of a mind with Harutsugu, I... I want to do it with someone special." Or multiple someones, Tōkan will need to explain to Inori that this isn't as monogamously-binding as Kuroji made it sound. "And you're special, but I don't want to make rushed decisions while we're still young and this could be a passing fling..." It's so not a passing fling.

"You said you loved me earlier today. Didn't you? So we're fine."

He had HOPED that Inori had FAILED TO CATCH THAT but it seems like whether Inori remembers something Tōkan said during a heat episode or not depends on how much it would MAKE HIM SUFFER.

"Well... do you? Love me?" God this is awkward he does not want to have this conversation in front of Inori's dads this is SO not the time and place.

"...dunno."

Tōkan shoots Inori's dads a desperate look and they give him understanding looks. Yes, they know.

(Also, Harutsugu looks like he might be about to cry.)

"Let's talk about this later." And it is a testament to Kuroji and Harutsugu's trust in Tōkan that they seem satisfied with Tōkan's judgment.

Sigh. "Fine. Dunno what the big deal is."

    "Anyway... I suppose the warning I wanted to give you is moot." He looks at Tōkan specifically. "You've... clearly given this a lot of thought."

Tōkan smiles and nods. "Yeah, I... I guess it came out by accident, earlier," and he does not need to explain how. "I love your son. He's... he makes my life brighter and better. He makes me better. I know I'm just a teenager and we've only been together for a short while, but I guess I'm sappy like that. I want... I want to see where this is going, I want to try to make it work, I want—I want him in my life."

Inori punches him.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You're saying weird shit again."

And he's blushing hard enough he might be actually emitting light.

"...I love you so much, Inori."

Another punch.

Harutsugu looks like he wants to argue (and Tōkan's guess here is that it's something like "Didn't you say you loved him the first time we met????") but he decides against it.

    "Harutsugu may be a grump but we're both really happy," says Kuroji. "We—put on a good front, the day we first met you, Tōkan-kun, but we were scared."

        "If you were to have broken Inori's heart I would have crushed you 😊," says Harutsugu brightly, and, "Ow! 😥" now it's Kuroji's turn to punch his partner.

    "And it really warms our hearts to see this," Kuroji continues. "And I know you can't promise anything, you're young, but... it is a big relief that our little troublemaker found someone as sensible as you."