"—so you'll help?"

"Of course I'll help, idiot, no matter how much of a complete asshat you are I'm not about to let Yamada Inori go to jail. Do you have his number?"

"Uh, yeah, but he's really bad at using his phone and might miss any texts or calls for days, you'll be better served getting Tōkan's."

Pause. "That sounds concerning. You see how that sounds concerning, right?"

"—it's not like that! Inori would absolutely mow down anyone who tried to control his communications. I'll give you both their numbers, you can call or text both, Tōkan will put Inori on the line if you're concerned."

"So he's 'Inori', huh? Alright, alright, I'll believe you, provisionally. You are right that everything I've heard about this guy makes me think there's no way he'd let an alpha push him around but people will surprise you."

...Subaru covers his lips to hide a smile. "If you ever imply to him that the possibility even crossed your mind he might punch you."

"...he sounds like a cool guy. I wanna be friends with him." He has Subaru give him both numbers and texts them to his parents. "Alright, sent. Tell them they can relax, now, my parents are really fucking good at what they do."

"Yeah. I know. I owe you, big time."

Snort. "You do, and don't you forget it."

"So, uh... do you wanna catch a movie?"

Eyebrow raise.

"Fine if you'd rather never see my face again, but hanging out with you was... fun. I really did mean what I said, if I weren't gay..."

"Little consolation. You are—what's that face."

"It's... nothing."

"If you wanna be friends again act like it. Spill."

"...I've been... rethinking my sexuality recently..." As of yesterday.

"No. Nuh uh. If you wanna figure out if you actually are into omegas you will need to find another test subject." He's blushing a bit, though. "...but yeah, let's go catch a movie."

Ōta Makino is in the middle of a meeting with a client when she sees her phone light up on the table from the corner with a message from her son. It's not urgent, he'd call if it were, so she finishes the meeting before checking the message.

And then she vibrates with a mix of excitement and rage. Excitement because she's such a huge fan of Yamada Inori, and rage because fucking alphas.

She tries calling Yamada, first, but her son's message does mention he might not answer, so after the call fails she stops and takes a deep breath. Calling an alpha. Sure, a seventeen-year-old one, but it's the seventeen-year-old heir to the larger part of the Kokonoe empire.

Why did Yamada start dating him? And it's caused him this headache. Nothing good comes of getting involved with alphas, especially those alphas.

Nothing to it.

"Yes?" answers the voice. A lot deeper than she'd been expecting, and makes it even harder to try to keep a fair even image in her head of Kokonoe being just a boy.

"Hello. This is Ōta Makino. Am I speaking to Kokonoe Tōkan?"

There's a short pause before the response. "Yes, this is him. How may I help you?"

So polite. ...no, Makino, stop projecting. Everyone is polite, this has nothing to do with anything.

"Is Yamada Inori near you? I tried to call him just now and he didn't pick up, but I'd been told he often misses calls and that I should call you if he did. Could I talk to him?" It's extremely suspicious, though.

"Yes, Ma'am. Would you rather call him again? I'll let him know he should look at his phone."

You'll let him know, huh?

...still, a lot more helpful than he could've been.

"That would be ideal, thank you. I will call him in a minute." Then she hangs up and... waits. This kind of maybe-adversarial relationship is still pretty thrilling, though, and one of the reasons she went into Law. Nothing makes her feel more alive than this.