Tōkan lifts both eyebrows. "'Ran into', huh?"

"...fine, I went to look for him to talk to him."

"Interesting."

"He didn't tell you?"

"Hasn't come up."

"Hmm."

"What'd you talk about?"

"I... tried to start over with him. Be less shitty."

"And it was a pain in the ass because Inori kept being an asshole to you for most of the time."

"...yeah. But... I think I deserved it, at least a little bit."

"Oh?"

"You're mad. All the time. And sad. And upset. And hurt."

"Huh?"

"About, about being an alpha. About alphas existing, about people like Hōji and Karato, about people like those eight kids who tried to ambush you."

"Ah. Yeah. I am."

"And about your shitstain of a father—why are you laughing?"

He shakes his head and leans forward to prop his face up on his hands. "Inori used the same word to describe him, a while ago."

"...I guess the opinion is universal."

"I wish. But no, he's a handsome, productive, rich, successful alpha who manages far more money than I would ever know what to do with. Everyone—every alpha—wants to be him. Or be with him. Or fight him. Or all of those."

"...yeah."

"And kids here hero-worship him, and idolise him, and meanwhile here I am, his unruly kid, ungrateful heir. If I weren't good in bed they'd all hate me."

Subaru blushes and looks away. "I'm pretty sure it's not just that."

"No, but it made you blush, and it was worth it."

"Asshole."

"I've been told."

"Anyway. My point is that I, I'm not. I wasn't. I don't know if I am. Mad like you, I mean. Yamada is one of only a handful of omegas I've talked to since I was little, and I know very few betas, too. It's so easy to, to rationalise. To side with your friends. And being in rut is still a legal defence, and if the omega claims they weren't in heat who's gonna believe them? And maybe they weren't but then the alpha can just claim they smelled someone else's pheromones and tried to hold back but lost control."

"They do that for beta rape cases, too," Tōkan adds.

"Huh?"

"If an alpha rapes a beta, they'll claim they got in rut earlier and lost control. It's almost literally a get-out-of-jail-free card." He looks up at Subaru, more seriously. "This world is fucked up. 'Course I'm mad about it all the time. I still have to see Karato's fucking face every other day in algebra and pretend that I don't want to punch it in. The history teacher's revisionistic bullshit gets on my nerves every time, I will someday lose control and stab the P.E. teacher, I will someday lose control and reduce Hakeru-san to pulp when she calls me to her office to tell me I need to portray a better image because I'm bad PR."

"She does what? I thought it was about your grades!"

"Oh, it is. But not just my grades. She always has more stuff to say, as if it were her job to protect my father's image. Fuck that." He shakes his head. "Anyway, yes, I'm mad about it."

"And I... want to be. Mad about it. Like you. I want to, to get it, to understand how much all of this sucks, on a, a gut level. To get rid of this bullshit programming this school and my family keeps writing in my brain, to not have all the excuses ready-made and then have everyone around me agree with them."

"They'll still think it," Tōkan says, leaning back. "For as long as you're in an alpha school, anyway. And it'll make you stand out, make you another thorn in everyone's side. And you're not popular enough that you can afford it, or so you think; you're gonna get shunned, your friends will leave you, you'll get bullied again. Being Kokonoe's best friend won't help. Right?"

"And I can't sweeten the deal for you, that might actually happen! Although I don't think it will, the school has many decent people in it, and the fact that I've already had all of those fights myself means that it's no longer really new, and if anyone would agree with Kokonoe, well, it would be Kageyama, right? But that might still happen. And... and I knew it could, when I realised how much every alpha around me sucked and how I wasn't going to just let them suck. Maybe I didn't quite know the scale of it, but I back all of my choices, here. If the price had been being alone then... I'd have been alone. Better alone than surrounded by unrepentant rapists."

"...Yamada said the same thing."

Tōkan smiles. "'Course he did. He's a smart boy. Anyway, what did you two talk about?"

"Oh, I... actually think I shouldn't tell you? Oh for the love of—stop doing the mindreading thing. Respect your boyfriend's privacy."

"Sorry, can't really help it. But I'll try not to draw too many conclusions. And, Subaru? Thanks."

Inori isn't sure why he's dithering.

He thought about the thing Subaru said long and hard, and found something that almost made sense in it, and he thinks... that he's in love. He thinks so. He does. And that was what Tōkan had asked for, wasn't it? Before he'd agree to pairing, Inori had to be in love. And he wants to be paired. Right?

But still he's dithering.

And this is the kind of shit that Tōkan would be great at figuring out but he can't well ask, can he? He's all... compromised.

This is confusing and he hates being confused and he wants to hit the thing he's confused by but he likes the thing he's confused by so he can't go punch it and that's extremely irritating and just makes him want to hit something even harder.

"Hey Haru."

"—oh, good morning, Inori-kun! I didn't hear you come downstairs. Not spending today with Tōkan? 🙂"

"He's studying for finals with friends. Where's Kuroji?"

"He just left for work, said he needed to finish some stuff at the office. Did you want to talk to him?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh! What about?"

"How'd you know you wanted to pair Kuroji?"

"I knew I wanted him from the moment we met~ 😌" he sighs dreamily. "And when we started going out I knew I was going to marry—wait," and he turns around to stare at Inori with horror. "Why are you asking this? 😨"

"What's it got to do with getting married?"

"Yamada Inori you are expressly forbidden from pairing with Tōkan!! You are both too young! 😱"

"How old were you when you and Kuroji got paired?"

"That's got nothing to do with anything! 😤"

The front door opens and closes then Kuroji emerges at the entrance of the dining room. "Hey, I forgot some—oh, good morning Inori-kun."

"Kuroji, help me tell our son he shouldn't get paired!!! 😤"

Kuroji looks at both of them for a second then sighs, walks over to Harutsugu, and pulls him in for a kiss.

Harutsugu squeaks and apparently entirely forgets about the conversation for a second.

But then Kuroji pulls away and says, in a soft voice, while he pushes some hair away from Harutsugu's face with a finger, "Don't you want Inori-kun to have this in his life?"

"But—our babies—! 😢"

Kuroji turns to look at Inori, who's been regarding this whole interaction with great suspicion, and says, "What do you want to know?"

"I was asking Haru what pairing's got to do with getting married," he replies.

"It's almost as strong a commitment, if you're doing it for the right reasons," he says. "You'll be his special person and he'll be yours. You can't undo it if you regret it. There'll be no one else you'll be able to pair with, forever." 

Which rings a warning bell in Inori's head. Tōkan wouldn't just... want to be monogamous like that, would he?

"I'm not ready to give my boy away 🥺," whines Harutsugu.

"You're not giving anyone away, Haru. We've still got a few years until they'd actually move."

"How old were you?" Inori asks, squinting again.

"We started dating when I was a sophomore in high school and Haru was a freshman at college, and we paired a year after that then got married two years later."

"Y-you're giving him ideas!"

"Stop being so hypocritical," Kuroji says fondly.

"That's not helping," he sighs.

Kuroji lets go of his husband to walk over to the stool next to Inori and sit on it, facing him. "What do you need help with?"

"He said we could pair if I decided I liked him—"

("Betrayal!" 😨)

"—and I do, but now I can't tell him and I don't understand why."

Kuroji looks at Inori for a few quiet seconds then sighs, puts his suitcase on the floor, says, "I'll finish what I needed to tomorrow," to Harutsugu, and wraps his arms around Inori, who squirms a bit but doesn't protest. He lets go and asks, "Tell me about it?"

"Haru's gonna yell."

"We can ignore him."

"I'm bullied by my own son and husband. 😔"

"...that day when we got ambushed and you drove us to Tōkan's apartment, his dad was there."

Harutsugu pauses what he's doing then turns around to look at Inori with a very concerned look on his face.

"So... you met him."

"He called me a low-life omega with no respect for his betters and told Tōkan that if Tōkan wanted a piece of ass to get his dick wet his dad could find him one of better breeding."

Harutsugu shatters the egg he'd been trying to crack in his hand. "He said what. 🤬"

"I almost bashed his skull in but Tōkan humiliated him and it was very satisfying." Blush. "And after his dad left I tried to convince Tōkan to pair me."

Harutsugu seems oblivious to the implications as he washes his hands. "I believe I need to have a chat with Kokonoe Tochima. 🙂"

"Haru, don't get into a fight with one of the most powerful alphas in the country," Kuroji sighs, before turning back to Inori. "Go on."

"He said the same stuff Haru was saying, that it was special, and then he said he wanted me to like him and I didn't know if I did but I do but now that I know I can't just tell him and I don't know why."

"Inori-kun, I think you're skipping over some important steps. Tell me more about your conversation with Tōkan-kun."

"...he said we should talk about it rather than me trying to just get him to do it, and... I said that that was stupid, it's just hormones, who cares about hormones, and he asked me if I liked having sex with him," (strangled dying cat noises from Harutsugu), "and I said yeah and then he asked me if it felt like just getting off and getting it over with and..."

"And it doesn't," concludes Kuroji. "It really doesn't, does it?"

Inori shakes his head.

"Having a relationship isn't just about sex but the sex is important, it's good and healthy and it brings you closer. He told you that, didn't he?"

Nod nod.

"What did he say next?"

"That he... was afraid he'd hurt me or push me away and if he did that after we were pairs he'd have taken something important away from me that I couldn't have again." That note of discordance is back. "And he told me he wanted me to like him... and I didn't know what that meant so that's why I asked you and Haru."

"...Inori-kun," says Harutsugu, drying his hands off and walking over to the kitchen counter. "I think maybe you... aren't as sure as you thought you were, that this is really the best decision."

"But it is!!! I like him! He likes me! I'll never find anyone else!!!!!"

"Your father fell in love with me," Kuroji says quietly, "when he saw me fight off this alpha who was harassing a girl in heat. And then he took three weeks to say anything or even introduce himself, not until I did it again to someone else." Kuroji is flushing slightly and Haru's gone bright and perky and smug.

"...what's that got to do with anything?"

"Love can find you in strange ways that you wouldn't ever expect. Tōkan isn't the only person you could like, there are others."

"But I don't want others I want him!"

"And that's good! A healthy relationship is one where you want to be together! But the world isn't always so kind as to give us what we want. Each new day you spend with him gets you to know and understand him better. You don't know everything there is to know about Kokonoe Tōkan and he doesn't know everything there is to know about Yamada Inori. And the best world is one where you both love everything new you learn and always want to be together, but there's still a chance.

"So maybe the reason you're waiting is that you want to wait. That there's a part of you that noticed that this could still go wrong."

"...I promised myself that I would never give up on your father's happiness," says Harutsugu, "and that I would do my best to be your father's happiness. And I got it. So you shouldn't give up on your love. But not deciding right now about the rest of forever isn't giving up."

"...'kay. Thank you." He hops off his stool and sidles off. Then sticks his head back into the kitchen to say, "And call me when the pie's ready," before running back upstairs.

Kuroji walks around the counter and smiles at his husband. "Want any help?" but Harutsugu looks down at him and hugs him and starts bawling.

"I DON'T WANT MY BABY TO GROW UP! I NEVER SIGNED UP FOR THIS!!!! 😭"

Later that afternoon Inori's waiting for him again by his school's gate. "Oh, hey, Inori-kun. Didn't expect you'd show up today."

"Hey. And hi, uh... Satoru."

"Subaru," he sighs, but there's a small smile playing on his lips. "Guess I'll let you two have your couples' fun. See you tomorrow, Tōkan."

"'Sup?"

"Take me on a date."

"...right now? Alright. Where?"

"Dunno. Somewhere with food."

"Alright." He's got an idea, so he starts walking, grabbing Inori's free hand as he goes. "Any reason?"

"Yeah."

...he's honestly not sure what he'd been expecting.

"So, uh, how's your studying going?"

He grimaces. "It's not."

"You... think you're okay for finals?"

"Nah."

"...you see the tension between those answers?"

"No."

"Now you're just being contrarian."

"No."

He pulls Inori in close and kisses him on the cheek.

Inori pulls away immediately, covering that cheek with a hand and glaring at him.

"If you don't want me to be sweet at you in public you need to stop being adorable in public."

Glare.

"So, again, how's studying?"

"None of your business. Stop fussing."

"Come on, love, do I have to remind you that I care about you and want your happiness and I worry about you and I am not trying to imply all of the negative things the little gremlin in your brain is telling you I'm implying every time?"

Grump. "How do you even know about the gremlin in my brain anyway."

"You fit a type."

"No I don't! I'm just me, I'm not any types."

"Cm'ere," he says, extending his hand to Inori again.

He (grumpily) takes it.

"From the top, how is your studying going?"

"Dunno. 'M not studying. Class is pointless and boring. Maybe I'll remember everything when I take the exams."

"And if you fail your finals you're gonna need to take remedial ones in the summer..."

"Ugh."

"How 'bout this, I'll help you study while we snuggle."

"You're just gonna distract me."

"No I won't, we can figure it out."

"Don't you need to study? I thought your grades were bad."

"Oh yeah I totally do, this'll be two or three birds with one stone."

"...three?"

"You study, I study, we snuggle. Three."

"Hm."

The place Tōkan is taking them seems to be a gaudy café in green, blue, and red colours with the imagery of various imaginary creatures as well as appropriately thematic food and drinks.

And Inori is going through the menu with an increasingly confused expression on his face.

"What... is all this. Why is there a yellow rat."

"—Inori-kun, oh my god, I need to introduce you to Pokémon."

"The... famous video-game?"

"What do you play all day on your phone if you don't know Pokémon!"

"Sudoku."

"...I don't know what I was expecting but I was not expecting that."

"Well, let your first introduction to the world of Pokémon be some delicious food, then."

Sure, whatever, he can find something that looks nice enough.

"Good evening, welcome to Pokémon Café Tokyo, do you wish to order drinks?" asks an arriving waitress.

"We'll order everything already," says Inori before rattling off his order.

The waitress turns her fixed smile to Tōkan but after he tells her what he wants she doesn't go away. "Do you... need anything else?"

"Oh, um, I wanted to confirm his order with you!"

"...what did you just say."

The waitress looks at him nervously for a second but then turns back to Tōkan.

"...well I am certainly not going to be the one to choose for him, am I," he says, going from friendly to glacial in a heartbeat.

"Repeat what you just said to my face, dickhead."

On the one hand every single cell in his body is screaming for him to be conciliatory.

On the other hand, what.

"I'd like another waiter, please," he says instead.

The waitress looks like she's probably about to have a nervous breakdown. "Um. Um. We don't—we divide the restaurant per table—"

Inori gets up, shoots her an even filthier look, and says, "Asshole," before stalking off and through the door.

"I believe we will not be having our meal here, this evening," Tōkan says, getting up too and following after his boyfriend.

...then he has to jog because Inori has not stopped walking and is a ways away already.

"Inori-kun, wait for me!"

He doesn't, but he's not fleeing Tōkan himself, Tōkan can catch up easily.

Yeah, okay, no talking right now, that was actually... kind of wow.

He doesn't look at Tōkan and just keeps walking, by the looks of it not even particularly paying attention to where. Just stomp stomp stomp.

And Tōkan follows behind, nervous but not very worried. Give his boyfriend the time he needs to cool off and all that, but be there for him at the end.

It gets dark before Inori winds down, but eventually he does. He finds a bench and flops down onto it, dropping his lead pipe on the ground with a loud clang.

Tōkan sits next to him after a moment and carefully, slowly, giving Inori as much time to punch him out as he could want, puts an arm around his shoulders.

He doesn't punch anyone, just stays there, breathing heavily, clutching the air in his hands tightly. Not completely wound down yet, apparently.

But he lifts a hand to his face to lower his mask and looks up at Tōkan. "She meant what I think she did. Didn't she. I'm not—not—"

"She absolutely fucking did, she thought we were a 'modern couple' where you'd ask for what you wanted but I'd still be the one to confirm it."

"why is that a thing"

"...I'm sorry. I guess, uh, that place was a bit more upscale than the places we usually go to. And..."

"And fucking rich alphas think all omegas are meant to be property."

"It's... probably something like restaurant policy, she probably didn't personally..."

"that makes it worse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Tōkan kisses the side of Inori's head then starts lightly running his fingers through Inori's hair in a slow, soothing motion. "Not the best introduction to Pokémon."

Inori storms away from the bench and turns around to glare at Tōkan. "Fuck the video game!!!!" Thankfully they're on a pretty deserted small park so people are not going to show up to make a scene about him making a scene. "In real life that bitch thought that I, I, I belonged to you or something!!!!! And I saw everyone else just, just looking at me like I'm a crazy bitchy omega and, and I must be so much work for you to keep in line and why couldn't you find someone nicer to settle down with, another alpha even, not a crazy, unpredictable omega!!!!!!!"

He gets up and once again walks up to Inori to wrap his arms around him. "I like you. I like you. I want you, not some nice alpha."

"I know!"

...sigh. "I know. It just—fucking pisses me off—Kuroji said it but I didn't, didn't think, it'd never—"

"...you know what?" He unhugs and grabs his phone then starts tapping at it. "Fuck it. Let's have our date right here."

"...huh?"

"I'm getting us a picnic."

"...it's the middle of the night."

"It's the beginning of the night," he corrects. "And we're in a cute out-of-the-way park in the middle of nowhere so we're going to have a nice, cute picnic together. No rude staff making seventeenth-century assumptions about our relationship."

And he slowly lowers down to a cross-legged seat, holding one of Inori's hands and lightly pulling on it.

...yeah, okay. He follows along and gets down to a seat, too, but grumbles a bit. "I still want to beat someone up."

"Maybe we can find a shitty alpha or three on our way home."

Inori spends the next short while leaning on Tōkan's shoulder in silence, wondering if he overreacted. Which is a first, honestly, he's usually pretty on board with yelling at people who are being shits and maybe breaking a couple of their bones.

She wasn't even an alpha, she was just a beta, doing her job. Probably indoctrinated into the whole stupid worldview, but still. She only said the one thing... which he could've misinterpreted...

Except he didn't. Tōkan is never wrong about these things. She totally meant to say that Inori needed his permission to order whatever he wanted, and... he's not sure how other couples would've responded. Normal people are weird and don't get mad even when other people insult them to their faces. So they wouldn't have gotten mad.

And there's couples that would've agreed, he knows that much. And couples where the omega wouldn't even have been allowed to order anything by their partner. Which sends his blood boiling to just think about. He needs to distract himself

...oh. "Tōkan-kun..."

"Yes, my heart?"

"Kuroji said that if you're paired you can never have anyone else..."

"Ah. Yeah, um, that's not... quite true. You remember how he said omegas can only be paired if they're in heat?"

"Yeah."

"And once you're paired you can only get in heat again around the alpha you paired with. Or, probably not only but a lot less often otherwise, your heats are irregular but some people do just stop having heats away from their alphas altogether.

"So you could get paired with someone else, after pairing me, but... I'd need to be there, around you, to induce heat in you to let the other alpha bite you, but I'd also get in a worse rut than I've ever had at the same time which... I don't want to say anything about me here but I'm pretty sure most alphas get really possessive and jealous. So even if you had an alpha that was willing to stay with you for however long it took for you to heat again to get your new partner to bite you, they'd probably change their mind when it happened.

"And since you're much much much less fertile while not in heat..."

Oh.

Oh wow.

Meanwhile alphas can just... never rut again and bite however many people they want.

"I hate this so much."

Tōkan catches some of what Inori's thinking because he says, "For what it's worth, alphas are also a lot less fertile if they're not around a heating omega, that's another reason why alpha/alpha couples have so much trouble having kids. But, um, yeah, omegas got the short end of the stick there."

"Every fucking stick. There's nothing good about being an omega. Nothing."

He's not about to tell Inori the ways in which him being an omega is good for Tōkan because that's the entire fucking point and if he did Inori would rightfully break his jaw.

"...well, there's... the part where we could have kids together someday."

...

Kids with Tōkan.

That sounds terrifying he's not scared of anything.

That one Inori is fully on the "they're too young for that" bandwagon for.

"Could've been a beta girl instead," he mumbles.

"That's true. And I'd like you all the same. Because you're you."

He's really cute when he goes all blushy BSOD like that.

But a car pulls up close to where they are.

"Delivery for Kokonoe-san?"

"That's me, thank you." And they get an honest-to-god picnic basket wrapped in a blanket. He starts setting it all up, and he's included stuff Inori likes: burgers, pies, cakes, lots and lots of sushi, much more food than Tōkan would've thought two people could get through if one of them weren't Yamada Inori.

He eyes the selection for a bit but once the delivery person is properly gone he tackles his boyfriend and kisses him on the grass.

Tōkan is still a teenage alpha so he's just absolutely not going to complain at all. He's not even particularly mindful of decency, Inori isn't in heat so they aren't really in danger of crossing the line all the way to illegal.

After Inori's had enough of it that he's kind of slowed down and no longer has his hand any places it shouldn't be Tōkan pulls away for a second and asks, "What's the occasion?"

"...the occasion is that I like you."

Okay! He guesses it's his turn to tackle his boyfriend and make out until the fire dies down.

...or until he decides to stop because it's actually quite likely that the fire won't die down, he's starting to have dangerous thoughts about risk likelihood of being caught while in a wide open park right next to a road not so empty that cars haven't been showing up every now and then. Dangerous thoughts which he should leave for later when they're at his place.

"I like you too, Inori-kun," he says after he manages to finally wrestle his thoughts away from that. "Is that why you were asking about pairing?" He had an inkling, after Subaru talked to him, but he didn't want to try to pursue it very far.

"...a bit."

"...but you're having second thoughts about pairing."

"Kind of." He pulls away then notices that the food is getting cold and starts scarfing it down.

"Should I not do the 'guess what you're thinking and feeling' thing?"

Inori pauses for a moment, then says, "No. You... should do it. It... helps."

Tōkan should also be eating, he guesses. While he thinks.

"You got it," he says slowly. "Didn't you? The thing about... us being too young. The heat thing, and having kids. You hadn't thought of that?"

He hums an affirmative around his food.

"Yeah." He leans close to Inori to kiss his temple. "I like you. We don't need to pair anytime soon. Your parents didn't until one year in, right?" And Tōkan's parents never did, he doesn't say. "We can wait. And until then you're still the strongest and you can still kick the asses of any dumb rapists who thought it was a good idea to exist in public in the same city as you."

He punches the air and swallows his food. "RIGHT ON."

They don't run into any shitty alphas on their way back to Tōkan's apartment, to Inori's chagrin. Inori has barely taken his shoes off and dropped his pipe by the door before he's on his way to the master bathroom, and Tōkan follows on his heels after locking the door and leaving the picnic basket in the kitchen.

When he walks in he finds Inori perched on the edge of the immense bathtub, naked, intently watching it get filled with water.

"You know, many people prefer to be in the tub rather than out of it," he says as he strips.

Inori turns to look at him for a few seconds but then turns back to the water without saying anything, watching it like a hawk.

You know you're in love when you find the most minor, dumb, ridiculous little eccentricities of your partner's endlessly lovable.

He follows his own words and gets in, making sure to grab the soap and the bath salts on his way. Then he positions himself so that he can watch Inori and gets to doing that.

After a few seconds he notices. "What."

"My boyfriend is very pretty and cute and I like looking at him."

"'M not cute," he grumbles, but he's long since given up on getting Tōkan to stop. And maybe he likes it a little bit he is the strongest and most powerful and dangerous and not cute at all.

"Well he's still pretty and I still like looking at him," he says, shrugging. "Although I'd love it if he were a bit closer so I could do that more thoroughly."

"You're just horny."

"I'm always horny."

"I'm not."

"Maybe, but you can indulge me anyway then."

"I'm not in the mood."

"Liar."

"Shitty alpha."

"That story about how alphas have predator instincts isn't completely false, you know."

"Is the big bad wolf gonna chase me?" Inori says, voice dripping with sarcasm. Don't mind the flush on his face, that's just the heat of the steam. And don't mind his growing erection, that's just a physiological event.

"If the little lamb won't be still, he might." Tōkan tips forward to get on all fours in the tub and start slowly stalking towards Inori.

The little lamb does actually stay still. This time.

So the wolf can gently pull it into the water and kiss it.

He gets himself back into a sitting position and pulls Inori onto his lap, Inori's back pressing his cock between their bodies, and starts kissing and licking and biting the skin of Inori's shoulders and neck. "What a tasty little lamb."

Whine. "You're terrible and I hate you," says the man who's leaning back to press himself against Tōkan and give him better access to his skin.

Tōkan wraps his arms around Inori, reaching one hand down to stroke him and the other up to play with one of his nipples. "I really like you," he breathes between kisses and bites.

"If you like me put it in you coward."

He laughs but complies—or rather, he lifts Inori up so he can comply. He got lubricating bath salts so the water isn't the annoyance it usually would be, and that plus Inori's own wetness and the past several months of practice makes it easy to get in.

Practice or not it still hurts but he's been Pavlov'd into finding even that to be enjoyable, so the moan is in large part pure pleasure. All this shitty alpha's fault.

Once he's all the way in he reaches back to where Inori had been perching to find the water controls and make the tub stop filling up, then turns on the massage jets.

"You always feel so good around my cock," he breathes into Inori's ear. "Maybe I should keep you there all the time."

"That's," gasp, "impractical," he says in a thin strained voice. "And you'd get bored."

"I'm never bored of you," he says, then resumes his ministrations, adding hip movements to them.

Inori helps, to the extent that he can, although it's always difficult to really properly take actions when he's like this. His brain is mostly mush.

That's fine, Tōkan is not in any rush. He seems to be in a patient phase.

His mouth gets more aggressive, bites getting more frequent as his movements get a bit faster and more forceful. And every time he licks close to the nape of Inori's neck Inori shivers and tenses, but doesn't pull away.

But then he starts actually kissing and sucking and even lightly biting there and Inori jumps every time, takes a quick ragged breath in, whimpers a bit. "Sensitive?" Tōkan whispers.

Inori just nods then shivers again, not really super able to words right this moment.

"I could bite you," he says, then demonstrates, harder than he's been doing but definitely not near enough to break the skin. "Much harder than this. It would be easy... And you taste so good, little lamb."

Another shiver, this time accompanied by a small pitiful whine. He doesn't pull away, though, and actually seems to even be pushing himself closer to Tōkan.

Tōkan bites again, harder, but then licks and kisses Inori's neck. "Not today. When you're ready, my lamb."

Inori turns his head back and to the side so he can kiss his boyfriend. He's feeling rather very needy right this second.

"Yamada told you, then."

Tōkan grins. "He did. I'm curious how exactly it went with you."

"He was trying to buy romance manga to see if it'd help him figure out what love is."

"...that's so fucking cute."

"He's clueless."

"Come on, Subaru, you can't seriously say you don't think that's adorable."

"I'm gay, Tōkan."

"And?"

"...yeah fine it's kinda cute. Not my type though."

"It wouldn't be, would it, your type has a bigger co—"

"Tōkan-kun?"

He looks over to look at the source of the voice. "Oh, hi, Tami-chan. 'Sup?"

"Is it true?"

...he doesn't need to ask what she means, from the tone of voice it's kinda obvious, but he does anyway. "What is?"

"That you're dating an omega?"

Sigh. "Yeah."

"That it's Yamada Inori? The crazy boy from Yoshikiri High?"

"Inoue, you are not seriously saying you expected his answer to be in the negative, here."

"...no, I guess not, just..." She looks at Subaru, then back at Tōkan. "Why? Everyone thought you two were gonna end up together..."

Oh, ouch, why would you say that in front of Subaru, Tamiki, that's insensitive as fuck. He glances at his friend for a second, who is keeping an impassively nonchalant face, but he can see the note of tension. "It's complicated." It's really not, not objectively, but this is fucking Kokonoe High, anyone dating an omega is news.

In any case, he has a pretty good guess about what the next question is going to be.

"...is it the sex? I've heard stories about—and there was a rumour Yamada Inori doesn't take suppressants—"

"Tamiki, I beg that you think about who exactly it is you're talking to for a moment. Inori did not seduce me with pheromones and however good or bad the sex is it was never going to be the main reason." And the next thought: "He's not pregnant either."

"And is your father..."

"He's aware of it," Tōkan shrugs. "You can guess how he feels about it. I've never been particularly fond of the idea of making him proud."

She chews on her lower lip for a bit, while her face goes through several complicated expressions in a row.

"Also if you could let Naoko know that she can just come talk to me rather than relying on rumours, that'd be appreciated."

"How'd you—" Sigh. "Yeah I will."

"Thank you. Anyway, uh, sorry if I'm... disappointing or anything. Nothing really needs to change."

She looks at him dubiously then says, "Okay."

"...on a completely different note, did that book you were looking forward to get released? We haven't caught up in a while, I lost track. It was this month, right?"

"Oh! Yeah, next week, I'm so excited! I'm gonna reread the whole series this week so everything's fresh in my mind..."

"That bothers you," Subaru observes after their next class; Tamiki occupied all of the rest of their break so Tōkan and he couldn't resume their conversation until now. "The thing with Inoue."

"Yeah. I knew it was gonna happen eventually, actually kinda surprised if took this long."

"No one really took the idea of the Kokonoe heir actually doing that seriously, I guess, especially with how much you always said that you'd never have sex with an omega."

"Come on, the fact that we were having sex was obvious months ago, he keeps showing up."

"Yeah and a lot of people took that as a sign that everything you'd said about the subject was just trying to posture about being so modern and actually you were just like everyone else and thought omegas were sex toys."

He lets his head hit the wall behind him and stares at the ceiling. "What'd I do to deserve this."

"You want a list or..."

"Fuck off, Subaru."

"You're just whining, you knew about everything I said."

"I want to live in a world where it's not a fucking international incident that someone from Kokonoe is dating an omega."

"Not just someone, it's you and the demon omega from Shikiri. When Tōta got an omega girlfriend—"

"Well he definitely thinks omegas are just sex toys, I'm so goddamn sad for his girlfriend."

"By all appearances she agrees..."

"That makes it worse. You see how that makes it worse, right?"

"I'm not kinkshaming."

"It's—I mean I guess maybe she does kink on it but it's a whole society thing. Omegas are people, and people aren't toys."

"I think this might be the hundredth time we've had this conversation," observes Subaru.

"It just keeps coming up."

"It's Kokonoe High."

"Well I'm gonna fix it."

"The school?"

"The damn world. ...but probably starting with the school. I am the Kokonoe heir."

"You think your father's actually gonna let you touch the school before he's dead?"

"I'll finagle something. He's very preoccupied with his image—"

"Like father, like son..." murmurs Subaru.

"Okay first of all how dare you."

"I'm not wrong."

"But you don't have to say it."

Subaru just offers Tōkan a cheeky grin.

Which he has to respond to with a kiss that makes Subaru squeak. Tōkan feels satisfied enough that he continues. "Anyway, he needs his heir to inherit something, and I'm pretty sure he's not even trying for another one. It would not be like him to cheat on his wife or even get a kid on the side with her consent, I existed already before they got married is the only reason she tolerates me, and she doesn't want to have any kids of her own. Plus she's getting old.

"So the old man's stuck with me, and even if I'll forever be a brat in his eyes it'll still be better if I have something to my name."

"The school's kind of important though."

"Yeah but he hates it. He has no patience for teenagers and no real training as a teacher or anything like that; he went to business school. He'll be happy to offload it onto me if I frame it the right way."

"Well good luck with that. Your father's right, managing a school does sound like a nightmare."

"This stupid goddamn world is a nightmare."

hey <

> sup?

wyd after school <

> no particular plans
> mb study (⌐⊙_⊙)

{ಠʖಠ} <
dont do that <

> got a better idea? ♥‿♥

ye <
lets meetup <
u can bring satoru ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ <

> subaru

⥀.⥀ wtv <

> so... not a date?

? <
idc it could be a date <

> love, dates are between people who are dating

ur fucking satoru <
subaru* <
so it's like dating <

> ...
> I like you but no it's not :P

idc <

> well, fine by me
> you come over to the gates?

ye <

> ( ˘ ³˘)♥
> why are you typing like that anyway
> doesn't your phone have autocorrect?

not on my phone <
im at the school library <

> what for?

studying <

> 𓏗𓏗

stfu <

Tōkan shows this conversation to Subaru as they pack their things after their last class.

He snorts and says, "He's really weird."

"Yes he is," sighs Tōkan fondly.

"And I presume you want me to come?"

"I think that was the closest he could get to saying he did, yeah."

"I'm not fucking him."

"Yes, I know, you're gay and he's not interested. Even though it'd be pretty hot to watch—"