Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Yuuji Itadori stopped believing in superstition on the morning of his sixth birthday.

When he was a kid— nearly too young for most people to have proper memories of that time— Yuuji had lived a life steeped in his mother’s superstitious nature. Too innocent to question why his mother cooed after he sneezed with a proud gleam in her honey colored eyes. Too young to understand why his mother handled the spiders they found in their kitchen with care when it was breakfast time, but crushed the ones they found at night without a sliver of mercy. Too small to question why she refused to allow him to move his bed so that the headboard lay against the northern wall beneath the tiny windows of their shared bedroom. 

All of the seemingly meaningless occurrences that happened day to day that his mother observed with the kind of reverence that one might save for a visit to a God’s shrine. Yuuji had, at the time, thought about these little pieces of madness with a wonderment that only children experienced in the face of life’s mundane happenings. A type of magic his mother had taught him how to see in the moments that everyone else overlooked.

It wasn’t until the morning of his sixth birthday that he realized that there was no such thing as magic at all.

A sneeze was only a sign of an oncoming cold. A spider was merely a pest. And North was nothing but a cardinal direction. The world was full of meaningless moments that more often than not, added up to an insignificant life. No amount of dreams or wishes or superstition could change a person’s luck in life— only hard work. 

That was something Yuuji Itadori knew as well as he knew his own self.

But perhaps, if he had still believed in magic…

If he had believed in the idea that the world contained some kind of wonder, even in the small, mundane moments that other people missed… Then maybe he would have recognized it sooner when magic re-entered his life.

***

Though autumn had just begun, it felt as though winter was well on its way.

Summer had long since folded its wings away and the fall had faded from the quiet breaths of cool air that marked the change of seasons to more frigid winds that stretched their frosted fingers across the land.

Yuuji’s breath escapes from his lungs in clouds of smoky white, rising before his eyes with every even exhale. His hands tuck deeper into the pocket of his worn hoodie that’s a bit more threadbare than he could remember it being last season. The promise— or perhaps the threat— of an early snow hangs from the eves of the stars, scattered like shards of diamond across the inky night sky— and its sharp, pure scent clings to the back of Yuuji’s throat as he drags in every new breath.

Deep in the heart of Hino, on a mid-October night, Yuuji Itadori walks the lonely streets. It has been hours since they have cleared out of pedestrians, given both the late hour and the biting cold that rides on the back of the wind. It’s a small mercy that there is no one around to watch as Yuuji makes his way from the train station and bypasses the better part of town entirely. He knows the way by heart, dodging busier streets on the off chance that there might still people lingering outside and cutting through alleyways to avoid anyone becoming too familiar with his face in this area. Until finally he slips into a neighborhood that leaves much to be desired in the kind of people who live there and a sense of safety for whoever is unlucky enough to wander through.

Of course, it is precisely the kind of undesirable location that makes a perfect cover for one of Tokyo’s hidden gems. Hidden behind the cracked veneer of run-down neighborhoods and elevated crime rates, yet right on the fringes of Tokyo’s more prominent and well-to-do districts, lay its best, worst kept secret. Wedged between a laundromat— which was most certainly some kind of money laundering scheme— and an old tech store that definitely did not stock anything made past the year 2009, the Fantasy Room is Tokyo’s oldest, functioning omega house.

Having been in the business of selling what every Alpha wanted for nearly three hundred years, the Fantasy Room was a place that dealt in the art of manufacturing ‘magic’. A place where Alphas of any rank could come and pretend— if only for a few hours— that they were the undeniable object of an Omega’s rare affections. The Fantasy Room had withstood the test of time and even throughout the crackdown on omega handling laws that had come to fruition during the seventies when Omegan activists had fought for equal standing in Japan. It was a veritable miracle that the Omega House managed to bypass the loopholes of the new legislation surrounding the employment of omegas, leaving it mostly unscathed— for better or for worse. And for the last several decades— not counting the near two hundred and fifty that it had existed before it had been forced to change with the times— the Fantasy Room operated under and held its employees to one rule only when it came to catering to their clientele…

To make an Alpha believe in the magic of an omega.

Of course, it was all a stupid game. An “omega’s magic” was no more real than the fairytale concept of true mates or any of the inane superstitions that people subscribed themselves to. Stories about the siren scents of omegas luring in their fated alpha or the glowing red eyes of an Alpha that had found their truest match were nothing more than sweet lies fed to the hapless omegas who were forced to endure unwanted arranged marriages and whose parents wanted them to go quietly to the altar. 

Yuuji had laughed along with the other boys in middle school about what went on in omega houses. Before their pre-pubescent bodies had presented their secondary genders and the concept of Alphas and omegas was more of a vague dream than the threat it truly was. He had giggled and looked wide eyed at the vulgar paintings of geishas and the various— utterly confusing— positions they twisted themselves into. But it had always been a joke. Nothing more than a joke.

Now, at the age of twenty two, there was nothing funny about where he had ended up in life.

Despite it’s long standing reputation and nearly ancient roots in Tokyo, the Fantasy Room was nothing more than a cesspool. A place where nothing good happened and no one important was ever remembered. A place filled with bottom shelf sake, broke dreams and low ranking Alphas that treated omegas as though their only purpose was to be hunted for sport and hung up to be marveled at. It was a place that— only a year ago— Yuuji never would have imagined himself to be caught dead at, let alone find employment in. But as everything in life tends to do… Things changed.

Yuuji withdraws his hands from his pockets and lifts them to his mouth, breathing hot air across his raw, red knuckles. The night has deepened further as he’s made his way from the train station. Cold air dips its fingers mercilessly under his collar and shiver crawls down his spine. He forces himself to ignore the sting of icy wind against his face that causes tears to gather in the corners of his eyes. He is almost there.

Above his head the flickering glow of lamplights lends a steady hum to the air. It’s just enough for Yuuji to be grateful for, given that he feels far less alone as he walks from one puddle of light to the next along the deserted street. Up ahead, the familiar glow of neon lights are like multicolored beacons of lighthouses in a sea of silent darkness. Yuuji’s eyes catch on the three story building where the neons illuminated three sets of wide windows, one on each floor. Even from several yards away, he has a clear view of the silhouettes that move seductively behind fluttering curtains in each window. Their twisting, sensuous bodies are faceless and therefore the epitome of every Alpha’s desire— a siren’s call to any Alpha in the vicinity that this was a place where they could find their dreams come to life.

Yuuji can’t help but wonder idly about which poor souls had been put on shift to work in the windows that night. He always hates getting put on the window shift in the cold season, if only because the omega house was owned by a man too cheap to fix how drafty it could get and he didn’t particularly enjoy freezing half to death for six hours. 

As he slips past the front entrance to the omega house, he sees that there are six intimidating guards stationed at the front door. While he isn’t afraid, he says nothing as he passes them, and neither do any of the enormous beta guards say anything to him in return. After all, they are paid not just for their ability to throw out grown alphas on their asses, but for their neutrality when it came to an omega. 

Yuuji moves like a shadow as he ducks into the dark crevice between the omega house and another crumbling building, edging into the long alleyway that stretches from the street toward a dead end on the other side. A pile of unidentifiable trash is nestled near the mouth of the alley, the stench of which causes Yuuji to lift the cuff of his sleeve up to his nose in an attempt to stifle it. It has been there for weeks, but not a single person has been brave enough to clean it— and Yuuji definitely was amongst them.

At the other end of the alleyway he spies a shadowy figure standing half bathed in a pool of yellow light that spills from an open doorway into the darkness. Gravel crunches under his shoes as he approaches and the figure, who turns on a dime at the sound of footsteps, lets out a low, impressed whistle.

“Well, well, well,” says a viciously teasing voice, “Look who showed up on time for his shift for once in his fucking life .”

Yuuji’s eyes follow the cherry red ember of a lit cigarette as it waves around in the shadows between them. And despite the vaguely insulting greeting, a genuine smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Nobara-chan! I didn’t know you were working tonight!”

His friend huffs and shrugs, then bobbles her head back and forth in a way that causes her short cropped, copper hair to swing around her face. The puffy parka she’s wrapped in drapes down to her knees in an effort to keep out most of the cold, but Yuuji can see the peek of glittering fishnet stockings that wrap around her bare legs. The sexiness of them is negated entirely, however, by the fluffy, hot pink slippers she wears on her feet. 

“Amanai called out last minute and I owed her one after she took that douchey alpha off my hands last week before I nearly lost it and bashed his head against the bar,” Nobara says by way of explanation.

Yuuji hums and nods as the memory surfaces in his own mind. He’d honestly thought that the douchey alpha in question could have used a firm reminder that the Fantasy Room was not reality— preferably by losing a few teeth under his friend’s tender attentions, but alas, then she would have been fired and Yuuji would have been left to suffer alone.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t come in again tonight, then,” Yuuji grins mischievously. Nobara sneers in disgust before she takes another deep inhale off of her cigarette.

“Knowing my luck he’ll show up with a horde of douchey friends,” she says while blowing a cloud of smoke into the air above their heads.

Yuuji laughs and readjusts the strap of the large duffle bag on his shoulder. “I don’t believe in all that stuff, so if he does show up, it’ll be purely a coincidence.”

Nobara rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up. You and your logic are too much for me to handle tonight.”

“Fine,” Yuuji sighs, though a smile is still firmly planted on his face. “Anything interesting happen yet?”

“You missed a temper tantrum from that new omega… The whiny one with the blonde ponytail? Miguel sent them home early because they wouldn’t stop bitching about being put on window duty tonight because of how cold it’s been.”

“Having window duty when it’s freezing cold outside is a right of passage.” Yuuji frowns.

Nobara shrugs. “That’s what we all told him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

It wasn’t that Yuuji was particularly disappointed that the new male omega won’t be working that night’s shift alongside them. Though Yuuji had been the only male omega currently employed at the Fantasy Room up until a week ago, his apathy was not due to jealousy over his territory being encroached upon. If anything, he had been relieved when Miguel announced another male omega hire— as it meant less attention would solely be put onto him in the long run. However, while he hadn’t expected to be fast friends with the other male omega, the man had been… terrible to say the least. And it was his spoiled, childish attitude that made Yuuji want nothing to do with him.

“Shigemo just likes to hear the sound of his own voice,” Yuuji says.

“Well, he would be the only one who does,” Nobara mutters as she holds out her cigarette between them in offering. 

“No thanks,” Yuuji declines with a shake of his head. “I can’t smoke before my shift. I swear they always complain about how I reek of tobacco even though half the time it’s them that smell like it.”

“Maybe… And here’s just an idea… If you took off that little patch for once they’d smell something else on you?” Nobara comments with a sly, questioning arch of her brow. 

Yuuji sends her a half hearted glare as one of his hands comes up to scratch self consciously at the edge of the patch plastered across the scent gland on his neck. “You know I won’t.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” Nobara grins back sharply— a slice of violence on her pretty face. “But suit yourself… I’m just saying that any of those dumb, knot-headed mutts would be willing to tip you triple if they could get a little whiff of whatever sweetness you’re hiding under there.”

Yuuji slaps his hand over his patch protectively as Nobara’s tiny hand darts out, viper fast towards him. He knows that his friend would never cross such an established boundary, however the threat of it— no matter how pretend it might be— still makes his heart beat hard against his ribs. 

“Cut it out, Nobara-chan,” Yuuji whines as he pushes her back with gentle force. Nobara merely laughs and dances out of reach.

“Now, now children, am I going to have to break up a fight?” A deep voice suddenly sounds as a hulking shadow fills the doorway beside them. 

“Panda!” Yuuji greets happily, grinning up at the newcomer, “You’re working tonight too? You never work Thursdays, man.”

The enormous male beta steps out into the alleyway, holding his own, unlit cigarette up in greeting. Nobara has already flicked open her lighter and holds out the open flame between them. The large man lights his cigarette, letting it burn to a bright cherry red and then lifts it to his lips to take a long drag of smoke into his barrel chest. Standing beside Yuuji the man is a full foot and a half taller than him, which is intimidating in itself, but beside Nobara’s diminutive height, he looks like a monster. Of course, the set of rounded, velvety black ears nestled into the man’s dual toned, white and black hair takes a bit away from the entire effect. His dark skin is decorated with Rorschach splashes of vitiligo that is offset by the garish, oversaturated yellow light that spills over them all.

“Evening Yuuji,” Panda says with his own bright grin. “Boss gave me a call a few days ago saying something about needing extra hands tonight. Apparently there’s some kind of special group coming in tonight… Booked out the whole club and everything.”

“Special group?” Nobara squeaks out, her eyes practically glowing with greed. Yuuji pushes at her shoulder with a light laugh and she hits him in the stomach twice as hard. As Yuuji doubles over from the hit, Panda lets out a low, rumbling laugh.

“That’s right,” Panda confirms, still smirking at Yuuji’s misery. “Apparently it’s a couple of big shots from uptown… Owns some real estate in the area I think.”

“A property investor?” Nobara asks skeptically.

Panda hums and sucks in another inhale of smoke. “Maybe… Couldn’t tell you either way honestly. Miguel has been up our asses since he told us about it. He’s got triple security at the doors and put me on the bar tonight.”

“Really? How did he manage to get Momo to agree to that? She never lets anyone else work the bar on her weekdays,” Nobara says with a frown of suspicion.

“Wasn’t her choice,” Panda shrugs, “Miguel isn’t taking any chances with this group apparently. Wants all of his best out on the floor and eyes on every corner. Sounds to me like Miguel doesn’t trust the guys coming in tonight, but I couldn’t tell you why.”

“Why let them come in at all, then?” Yuuji asks, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Money talks, and Miguel is fluent in that language,” Panda says with a humorless grin. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your eyes sharp tonight, just in case. Don’t let those dollar signs cloud your judgment, alright?”

“Of course we won’t!” Yuuji bobs his head in eager agreement.

“Speak for yourself,” Nobara mutters, but Yuuji can see the thoughtful look on her face and knows that she is contemplating Panda’s warning seriously.  

Panda grunts low and checks his watch. “It’s almost eight thirty. You guys better head in if you want to be ready in time for show time.”

Showtime. Yuuji cringed at the wording, even though it was true. Their job was nothing more than to put on an act. A very convincing act. 

“We’ll see you up there,” Yuuji says instead, hiding his distaste for his own thoughts.

“Save me a shot of something yummy,” Nobara grins up at the enormous beta.

“Only if you’re good,” Panda teases back as he pats the top of her copper head. “Naughty girls don’t get treats.”

Nobara sticks out her tongue at Panda and dodges out from under his hand before she flicks her cigarette butt to the ground and crushes it beneath her slippered heel.

“What about me?” Yuuji asks with a bright smile as Nobara wraps her cold fingers around his wrist.

“Oh, I’ll have your usual ready for you around midnight, little man,” Panda says and reaches out to ruffle Yuuji’s hair as he’s dragged inside the club behind Nobara. Yuuji lets out a loud laugh, even as Nobara mutters under her breath about blatant favoritism.  

“Thanks, Panda! You’re the best!” Yuuji beams and waves over his shoulder as the metal door swings closed and muffles Panda’s low, rumbling laughter.

Nobara pulls Yuuji along behind her, as though he is a particularly well behaved pet. The walls of the narrow hall are marked with hundreds— maybe thousands— of scrawling signatures. Names of the many, many omegas that had passed through the same hall in a different time, though their job had been exactly the same. Yuuji’s never had the courage to put his name on the wall alongside the rest of them. Not when it feels a bit too permanent, as though his presence in such a place will never be forgotten, not only by him, but by everyone who comes after him.

The peeling pink paint has seen better days and the linoleum floor is cracked and scuffed. The vents— which definitely had been installed sometime late in the eighties— pumps out an artificial sweet scent that is meant to mimic an omega’s heat scent, but with the amount of time that has passed since the last time anyone cleaned them out, all Yuuji can smell is dust. 

At the other end of the winding hall there is a tall, metal door. Yuuji can already hear the squawking and squabbling of the other omegas that have already arrived and are getting ready for their shift on the other side of it. When Nobara shoves open the door the torrent of sound rushes over him like a tidal wave. Someone is playing music on their portable speaker— some new pop song that Yuuji knows the chorus to, but nothing else. Several pairs of eyes swivel toward the doorway and a small chorus of hellos rises up above the chatter. 

“Hey guys!” Yuuji greets in return with a sunny smile as he is tugged by Nobara through the crowded dressing room. There are at least thirty omegas in various states of undress scattered through the room. Most are packed in like sardines by the beat up vanities that are pushed to one side of the dressing room, finishing up their last touches of makeup before they are made to gather upstairs and work their magic. Nobara and Yuuji bypass them entirely and make for the row of lockers that line the far wall, where the crowd has blessedly thinned out. 

“Hopefully they are a bunch of money hungry investors,” Nobara mutters under her breath as she sneers at the state of the dingy dressing room. “At least if they buy this shithole they might be willing to spend some dough to fix it up the right way.”

“Or just tear it down completely,” Yuuji replies as they stand before the lockers. He sets down his duffle bag on the metal bench and unzips it with a flick of his hand. “It’ll take more than a few coats of paint and some new light fixtures to make this place anything other than a dump.”

Nobara sighs as she opens her neighboring locker and slides her puffy jacket from her shoulders. “Isn’t that the fucking truth.”

Yuuji shrugs and reaches to open locker labeled number 9. The dented gray metal is nearly covered in a wide variety of stickers accumulated over the past several years. One of the larger ones plastered onto the surface— provided by Nobara back when Yuuji had first gotten the job and had claimed the empty locker next to hers— proudly proclaims ‘Will flash ass for cash’ in thick, glittering neon pink letters. The sight of it never fails to make him laugh at the absurdity of it all. Not just the sticker, but the fact that he, Yuuji Itadori, had lowered his standards so far that he was willing to work in Tokyo’s most infamous omega house. 

He pulls out the set of heels he keeps at all times in his locker and spies Nobara’s hand snatching a piece of lavender lace out from the depths of his bag. Her grin is wicked as she twirls the lace thong around her index finger.

“What do you use this for, Yuuji-kun? To floss your teeth?” She cackles with vicious glee at the sight of the flush that spreads from the roots of Yuuji’s pink hair, down to his collarbone. 

Yuuji snags the lingerie back from her and stuffs it into his bag. It’s not as though there’s anything to really be embarrassed about— not when most of the omegas working at the Fantasy Room own far worse than a lace thong. However, even after nearly a year of working at the omega house, Yuuji still has not been able to shed the sense of shame that surrounds his profession.

“If you don’t behave I’m not going to let you use my shit anymore,” Yuuji whines.

“Oh please, you’d never ,” Nobara scoffs. Yuuji pouts even though she’s right. 

He sets about getting ready for his shift while Nobara sits on the metal bench, back against her locker as she flicks her lighter back and forth between her fingers. Her eyes subtly flickering around the room, settling on the other omegas as they preen in front of the mirrors and swipe glitter onto their skin. She’s never made it a secret that she holds more attraction to women rather than men. Though secondary gender mattered very little to Nobara, when it came to being a man that was an unforgivable offense. It was a small mercy that she had taken pity on Yuuji during his early days at the club and had made him into a friend, rather than a foe. Although Yuuji was mostly certain it had more to do with the fact that he had never been anything but respectful to the female omegas who worked at the Fantasy Room. Still, he was grateful to have made such a formidable friend in such an unforgiving place. 

Several minutes later, after shimmying himself into a lingerie set made of cherry blossom pink satin, Yuuji sat himself beside Nobara on the bench. A hiss of discomfort ekes out between his teeth at the chill of the metal against his bare ass, though it warmed quick enough and he pulls on the pair of clear heeled boots. It’s as he’s finishing the laces on the first boot that the door of the dressing room swings open violently and slams into the wall with a bang. 

Several of the omegas let out startle shrieks at the sound and all eyes swivel toward the threshold where the owner of the Fantasy Room stands, looking as though he has just seen a ghost. Miguel has never been what Yuuji would consider a good man— the beta has never made it a secret that he holds no loyalty for anyone but himself— but he can at least admit that the man has always done his best to protect the omegas who work for him. In Yuuji’s opinion, it truly might be his only redeeming quality. 

“I need everyone’s full attention, right now!” Miguel hollers, far too loud for the tiny room they are packed into. 

Yuuji can see the thick drip of sweat along the man’s brow and temples, gleaming under the yellowed lights. His gaze swivels back and forth around the room, as though looking for something. It occurrs to Yuuji that the man— who was squirrely at the best of times— looked downright panicked .

“Ew,” Nobara sneers emphatically under her breath as she takes in the sight of their sweaty, twitchy boss. Yuuji trembles as a laugh threatens to leave his chest at his friend’s tone of utter disgust. 

“Everyone listen up, alright? We’ve got some very important clients coming in this evening,” Miguel stresses with a slow, clear tone. His eyes dart around the room, meeting everyone’s gazes with a wide kind of pleading that reminds Yuuji of a cornered animal, begging for help. “I need everyone to be on their best behavior tonight and give them your full attention.”

“What about the bachelorette party that was scheduled to come in tonight?” The question is asked by a bored looking girl sitting on a vanity stool close to the door.

“The bachelorette party has been canceled,” Miguel is quick to snap back.

Immediately a hush of whispers sweeps through the room. Even Yuuji can feel the sting of shock as his mind grinds down their boss’s words to make sense of them. Considering the way that Miguel was always looking to make some extra cash, there was no conceivable reason that he would allow a high paying group to cancel without good reason. Especially not one that would willingly spread gossip of their experience and drive more clients toward the Fantasy Room… It didn’t make any sense. 

“Enough!” Miguel snarls out the command as though he were speaking to an unruly pack of dogs, rather than a bunch of gossiping omegas. Yuuji’s knuckles crack as his fists tighten where they rest in his bare lap. “I don’t want any of that territorial bullshit you think I can’t see you doing. No poaching clients from each other and absolutely no fishing for extra tips. You’ll all be receiving a flat fee for your services this evening that has already been paid in full by their booking. And if I hear a single one of you is angling for more cash you’ll be out on your ass before sunrise. Got it?”

The whispers swell up into a wave of groans and complaints, including from Nobara and Yuuji.

“Come on, Miguel! That’s not fair!” Nobara snarls through bared teeth, her little omegan fangs glinting in the light. “We’re here to make a living you know!”

Miguel points a threatening finger in her direction, a dark glare on his face. “Can it, Kugisaki! Or else I’ll send you home first before the shift even starts as a warning to the rest of them.”

Nobara’s mouth snaps shut, even as a feral growl rumbles in the back of her throat. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks for all the world like she wants nothing more than to bite off the finger that is pointed in her direction and swallow it whole. 

Yuuji keeps his own traitorous words hidden behind clenched teeth, even as the irritation of all the omegas in the room becomes a palpable thing that pets him the wrong way. The air, now oppressive and malicious as everyone’s good mood has dissipated like smoke on a gust of wind, feels as though it is choking him when he draws a breath. The prospect of swindling some extra money and talking shit amongst themselves about the sad desperation of lonely alphas has been well and truly ruined. Now, it feels as though he’s actually got to work.

“Oh, one last thing,” Miguel says, “No switching shifts off amongst yourselves. I want you all out on the floor at all times. No breaks longer than five minutes and remember, I’ll be watching.”

With one last glare sent around the room, Miguel turns his back on them and the door swings shut with a thud. The metallic echo still rings in the air as all of the omegas begin to mutter mutinously amongst themselves. 

Yuuji sighs and slumps back against the lockers. Disappointment is sharp in his gut as his thoughts move toward darker corners of his mind, filled with collection calls that he’s been dodging for the last two weeks. 

“What the fuck crawled up his ass and died?” Nobara growls as she stands up. Her hands land on her hips as she glares at the closed door where Miguel had been. “No tips? Just who does he think he is? What kind of people come to an omega house and think they can just pay a flat rate? As if we’re just a stupid commodity— fucking rollback prices and everything. Let’s just have a god damn flash sale while we’re at it. Pay for one omega? Get the next two for free! What bullshit!” 

Another twist goes through Yuuji’s stomach as he digs a hand into his duffle to retrieve his makeup bag. With Nobara’s dark muttering in his ear, he meanders over toward an vacant spot before the vanities and pulls out his own meager collection of cosmetics. There was nothing fancy about the way he applied his makeup, given that he had only just started to be brave enough to try it in the last few months. A simple swipe of dark eyeliner to accentuate the honey shade of his eyes and a swipe of light gold glitter dusted across his lids. 

He’d been told by Nobara that heavy makeup would only make him look older— though not in a way that most Alphas preferred. It had been a disgusting realization for Yuuji to understand the meaning behind such a comment. And more than once, it had been proven to him that there was a subsection of despicable humans— Alpha and beta— who came to the Fantasy Room looking to indulge in their imaginings of an omega who was just barely legal. 

“No tips, he said. I’ll show him no tips,” Nobara mutters darkly as she rummages through Yuuji’s duffle without permission. He doesn’t scold her this time, in part because his mouth his hanging open as he applies a coat of mascara to his lashes. Blessedly, she bypasses the mountain of lewd lingerie in favor of snatching up a small white box. She rattles it in Yuuji’s direction. “Can I use one of these?”

It is his package of scent blocking patches. 

“Sure,” Yuuji says slowly with a frown, “But why?”

Nobara doesn’t respond at first as she pulls out one of the patches and peels away the waxy paper covering its sticky surface. She slaps it over her scent gland and immediately the familiar sweetness of her crushed rose petal scent drifts away to nothingness. 

“No tips, my ass!” Nobara grins devilishly as she tucks the box of scent patches back into Yuuji’s bag and stuffs it into his locker for him.

“I don’t get it,” Yuuji says in confusion as he finishes up his makeup with a swipe of clear gloss across his lips. 

Nobara moves to stand beside him and begins to adjust her clothing— if one could call the scrap of fabric masquerading as a skirt a piece of clothing .  

“Oh, my dear sweet little Yuuji-kun,” Nobara hums in a patronizing tone that makes him want to bare his fangs at her. She tugs at the edge of the navy, pleated skirt that hangs low on her thick, rounded hips, yet does nothing to hide the bare, lower curves of her ample ass cheeks. “I know that you are the only omega in Tokyo who uses those scent patches for the ‘Greater Good’  or whatever the fuck your reasoning is, but some of us— let’s not name names— have something a bit more… spiteful in mind for their uses.”

Yuuji frowns as he watches Nobara fiddle with the single gold button on her outfit’s matching jacket. The cropped item looks almost military in its style, though there’s no decorum in the way that the high collar dips perilously low down her chest and squeezes her breasts together. He wonders how long it will be before the button pops off from the strain.

“You’re going to scent bomb them, aren’t you?” Yuuji deduces with a disapproving glare.

“I’m going to scent bomb them!” Nobara beams at him with a slightly vicious glow in her eyes.

Scent bombing was a one way ticket to jump starting a riot. 

“You can’t do that, Nobara-chan. Come on, be serious,” Yuuji pleads as he turns to face her.

Thankfully the rest of the dressing room has mostly cleared out by then and only a few omegas linger at the other end of the room. Locked in their own plots, most likely, of how to sway their current predicament in their own favor.

“Sure I can,” Nobara says, “It’s not like it’s illegal.”

“Well, actually—” Yuuji starts.

A small hand is slapped over his sticky, glossed lips and Nobara’s face leans in close to his as she shushes him rapidly. “No, no. I don’t want to hear from you right now. If Miguel is going to take away our fundamental right to strip a pathetic Alpha of all the cash they’ve got, then I’ve got the fundamental right to fuck shit up. ”

“Ah don’ thin’ tha’s righ’—” Yuuji’s words come out muffled against her palm.

“It’ll be easy, Yuuji-kun, I’ll just wait until I’ve got a little group in the right position, rip this baby off and BAM! Insta-rut,” Nobara cackles. “They’ll be so horny that they’ll practically throw cash in our direction!” 

Her hand falls away from Yuuji’s face and she reaches for a makeup wipe to get the gloss off of her skin. Logically he knows that once his friend has an idea in her head, there are very few and far-between things that could derail her from her mission.

Of course, she was right… Scent bombing wasn’t exactly illegal, though it was heavily frowned upon and often resulted in large fines. It was the approximate weaponization of an omega’s scent, given that they saturated the scent patches so heavily while being worn. When an omega took one off after even a few hours of wear, their scents were so built up— so powerful— that they had the capability of sending any Alpha in the vicinity into a false rut. 

An Alpha in rut— even a false one— was a loose cannon at the best of times. With elevated aggression levels and, in the cases where the Alphas were unmated, willing to put aside their own inhibitions and find a mate in any available omega that might be unlucky enough to come across them. Yuuji had grown up on cautionary tales on the perils of being an omega cornered by an unmarked Alpha in rut, and after he’d presented it had been an all too terrifying possibility of getting forced into a mating because of a biological imperative. 

Nobara had always enjoyed playing dangerous games, but Yuuji could admit to himself that this might be the worst one yet. 

“Come on, Yuuji-kun,” Nobara says with deceptive sweetness as she pats down the scent patch on her throat and then ruffles his pink hair. The manic glint in her eyes makes Yuuji’s stomach twist with anxiety. “The show’s about to begin!” 

Nobara slips from the dressing room, leaving him utterly alone in the tiny, dingy space and Yuuji sighs out a long breath. He glances at himself one last time in the mirror, at his eyes covered with glitter and the soft pink satin stretched across his muscled body… He wonders when the reflection before him had stopped feeling as though it belonged to him anymore.

Then again, he knows that it has been a long, long time since he’d felt as though anything belonged to him at all.

Chapter Text

It’s almost midnight and the very important guests still haven’t arrived…

And Yuuji isn’t bothered about it. Nope. Not even a little bit. Not. At. All.

In fact, he is entirely unbothered about it, even as he sits on a barstool and twirls around in bored circles. His gaze travels around the main room of the club and he sees that he is not alone in his unbotheredness— at least if the scowls splashed across the other dolled up omega’s faces are anything to go by.

“This fucking blows,” Nobara moans pitifully from her perch beside Yuuji. Head leaning into her hand, she scrapes her fingernail through an unidentified sticky spot on the otherwise shining bar top. There is a shot glass full of garish, pink liquid set before her that has been poured for nearly two hours. Given that all employees were only allowed a single alcoholic drink during their shift, Nobara was determined to save it, though even Yuuji had to wonder what she was saving it for at this point. 

Yuuji hums in petulant agreement as he swirls around on his stool again before coming to a stop with his back pressed against the edge. He looks out across the room and immediately spies one of the new female hires that started just a few days ago. Her ankles wobble precariously as she walks in a set of six inch heels and there is a skittish look on her face that reminds Yuuji of prey.

“I give her two weeks,” Nobara mutters spitefully as her gaze follows Yuuji’s.

“That is uncharacteristically generous of you, Nobara-chan,” Panda’s low rumble comes from behind the bar. “I give her one.”

Yuuji huffs a laugh under his breath and turns back around on the stool. His eyes find the large beta, who is cleaning a martini glass— the same one he’s cleaned at least five other times since the shift started. And while it would appear that the enormous man is not paying attention to anything in particular with a guileless smile plastered on his face, Yuuji knows that Panda sees everything.  

“Can I have my usual?” Yuuji asks.

“Sure thing, kid,” Panda says with a bob of dual-toned his head. He immediately turns and reaches for a bottle set up high and sets about making Yuuji’s preferred drink.

“What do you think would happen if we all just…went home?” Nobara says with a furrowed brow. Yuuji contemplates the words seriously for a moment as he reaches down to adjust the edge of his satin thong that has been digging mercilessly into his hip for the better part of a half an hour.

“Worst case scenario?” Yuuji says slowly, “We all get fired and Miguel puts a bounty out on all of our heads.”

Nobara hums thoughtfully and nods. “Best case scenario?”

“Best case scenario we go home early and I get to read the newest edition of my favorite Manga and maybe sleep for more than thirty minutes,” Yuuji sighs forlornly. 

Nobara groans in disgust. “Couldn’t be me. I need to be unconscious for at least ten hours to even feel human the next day.”

“You get used to it,” Yuuji mutters back as an embarrassed flush creeps up the back of his neck.

“No, see, that’s what crazy people tell themselves to make themselves feel better about their insanity,” Nobara flicks the end of Yuuji’s nose. Yuuji huffs a laugh as he slaps her hand away from his face just in time for Panda to sidle back up to the spot in front of them.

“Here you go, Yuuji-kun,” Panda says as he slides a low high ball glass in his direction. Ice clinks against the sides and the sweet scent of vanilla and cherries is undercut with the burn of alcohol and mingled with ginger ale. With all of the glee of a child on Christmas morning, Yuuji uses two hands to pull the drink toward himself across the smooth bar top.

“Panda, you are a God.”

“So my husband says,” Panda grins lasciviously.

“Oh, yuck. Please do not talk about your man’s beastiality kink in front of me,” Nobara pretends to gag. Yuuji giggles as he takes a sip of his adult Shirley Temple while Panda bites down on his own sly laughter.

“You think it’s a joke,” Nobara huffs as she pokes at Yuuji’s cheek with the tip of her acrylic nail. “But he’ll tell you all about pet play if you give him half a chance.” He swats her hand away and she sighs before lowering her head into her folded arms atop the bar. “If I have to sit here doing nothing for another hour I’m going to explode.”

“Maybe that is the best case scenario,” Yuuji says with a grin as he leans forward to take another sip of his drink. A single moment passes as Nobara shifts upright in her seat again, unable to sit still, before suddenly a sharp elbow is thrust hard into the tender space between his ribs.

“Ouch!” Yuuji yelps in surprise more than pain and sends a scathing glare in Nobara’s direction. “Look, I know you’re bitchy about missing out on some extra cash tonight, but quit taking it out on me!” 

Nobara’s tawny eyes glint like two flames as they narrow in Yuuji’s direction. A slender hand darts upward, far too fast for him to dodge in time and wraps unforgivingly around his chin. “Use your fucking eyes for once, dumbass.”

He hisses at her, not unlike an enraged cat, as she uses her hold to move his head around. It takes him half a second to process that she is pointing his gaze in the direction of the club’s entrance hall. There are several gauzy curtains that drape from the ceiling to the floor, stretched across the gaping archway, dividing the main room of the omega house from the entrance. But even still, through the low lights and the hazy softness of the curtains, Yuuji immediately sees what Nobara already has— a massive group of shadows moving just beyond the curtains.

They’re here.

“Oh, fuck,” Yuuji mumbles as Nobara releases his chin.

“They’re here!” Nobara hisses, echoing Yuuji’s exact thoughts. 

He barely has time to collect himself before Nobara launches herself off of the barstool beside him with the same grace of a tigress on a hunt, even in six inch heels. A ripple of awareness is spreading through the rest of the club as the others take note of the new arrivals, lingering beyond the curtains. They’re not entirely unlike deer noticing a pack of predators on the outskirts of their thicket, except this herd was more than willing to offer themselves into the jaws of whatever beasts were hunting them and reap whatever rewards might befall them before their ultimate deaths.

Yuuji’s eyes are still pinned on the shadows beyond the curtains. Mind reeling as he tries to ascertain just who and how many they were dealing with. He subtly raises his nose and scents the air, but the only thing he notes is the swirl of artificial sweetness that is pumped into the vents and the tangle of omegan scents from the other employees on the floor.

“Better hurry up, kid, or else all the good places will be gone,” Panda urges from behind the bar, though there is an amused lilt to the tone. The telltale clink of glassware signals that he is readying the bar for whatever their visitors might order. 

Yuuji’s stomach drops as he scans the room once more and realizes that his split second of observation has cost him greatly. After all, the first rule of the Fantasy Room is that hesitation will always be your downfall. If you hesitate, there will be others who will gladly take your place— others that will step over your body to climb to the top.

His gaze finds that the rest of the omegas have scattered themselves throughout the club. There are several lounging areas with plush couches and low tables, as well as specific set ups designed for an omega to pose their body in the most advantageous way to pull in a client. On one such display that is next to the entrance, Nobara has set herself up so that she lays artfully draped on the display, like the statue of some vengeful goddess of sex come to life. She tugs at the waistband of her farce of a skirt and hoists it an inch higher so that her ass is hanging out entirely. 

“Not fair,” Yuuji mouths in her direction with a pout when her gleaming eyes find him. He finds absolutely no sympathy within them, only triumph and a silent taunt.

You snooze, you lose, bitch. 

Yuuji sees the shadows stirring behind the curtains where the group is getting ready to enter the club and his heart leaps into his throat. He faces back to the bar and yanks the straw from his glass before he chugs the last few mouthfuls of alcohol. It burns on the way down, but it is just enough of a spark to light a fire within him, which he knows by now, will burn away any and all shame that lingers within him.

Without a word, Yuuji hoists himself up onto the bar and positions himself into a long, lean line of muscle, unblemished skin and effortless seduction. His ears prick as the hum of unfamiliar voices gathers closer as people move up to the curtain and his heart beats in time to the low, rolling music that comes from the speakers. He glances back over his shoulder and finds Panda’s unimpressed expression fixated on him atop the bar.

“I’ll give you twenty percent of whatever I make off of them to you if you don’t push me off,” Yuuji pleads with wide eyes and a pout.

Panda merely blows out a sigh through his nose and rubs at the fringe of white and black hair across his forehead. “This place is going to send me to an early grave, I just know it.” He mutters under his breath.

“Panda,” Yuuji hisses, pleading now.

“Make it thirty percent and you have to wipe down and sanitize the any part of the bar that’s been under your bare ass,” Panda says.

Yuuji blanches for a moment, mouth gaping. 

Panda grins as he folds massive, muscled arms across his barrel chest. “Take it or leave it.”

“Fine! Fine, fine, fine! I’ll take it, but hand me that bottle of sake?” Yuuji asks with a hopeful glance toward the top shelf behind the bar where an outrageously expensive bottle of sake is sitting.

Panda raises an eyebrow at him, but effortlessly takes down the bottle and passes it to Yuuji. “If the boss gives me shit for this I’ll throw you under the bus.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re the best, Panda?” Yuuji beams and resituates himself on the bar with the bottle of sake clutched loosely between his legs. 

“Yeah, yeah… Get ready… It’s showtime.”

Yuuji takes a steadying breath, allowing the person he is beyond the walls of the Fantasy Room to slip away. Like a snake shedding its skin, he feels himself settle into the persona he has spent the better part of the last year creating— mostly to draw in clients, but also to protect him from the crippling shame that still plagued him for taking this job. No longer was he Yuuji Itadori, and instead he was simply a male omega available for hired company at the Fantasy Room. 

He lifts his— purposefully— heavily lidded gaze toward the entrance of the club and watches as the curtain rises to reveal a swarm of well dressed men and women as they spill into the club. 

Dark like an oil slick, they spread out almost immediately, oozing into every available crevice as though they have an inherent right to take up as much space as they please. Usually, Yuuji would roll his eyes at the alpha territory marking bullshit— it’s not uncommon for a low ranking alpha to get it into their heads that the world is their oyster and their presence is a gift to all who encounter them. But this time, he can practically feel the way the atmosphere in the club shifts— can sense the creeping chill of danger that seeps into the room as the mysterious, special guests enter. And he thinks, maybe for the first time, that the animal instinct inside of him— long buried by years of evolution and modern law— which urges him to run, might not be wrong.

He tries not to think about how difficult it is to repress the urge to run and instead, spreads himself out before them like a freshly prepared meal. He takes a steadying breath, plasters the imitation of a sly grin onto his face and aims it in the direction of the first alpha bold enough to approach the bar.

“Care for a drink, alpha?” Yuuji purrs as he shakes the bottle hanging between his spread legs. The action draws the alpha’s gaze unerringly to the place between his thighs and Yuuji sees the moment that the alpha’s pupils dilate in interest.

Showtime, indeed.

***

None of it makes any sense.

Since Yuuji first started working at the Fantasy Room the job had been entirely straightforward. Survival of the fittest within the club’s walls dictated that any omega employee should be able to sniff out the richest person in the room, for maximum success. The alphas who frequented such a hole in the wall in the heart of Hino were never the sort to flaunt absurd amounts of wealth— though they certainly were willing to talk a big game about their finances, rarely did they have the funds to back it up. Low ranking alphas were a dime a dozen, passing through the Fantasy Room every night of the week, as though they had nothing better to do. And maybe they didn’t, but Yuuji wasn’t going to complain since a low ranking alpha’s money was just as good as an elite’s.

But these people…

Males and females alike— nearly fifty of them in total, if his quick headcount was accurate— and all of them were very obviously not simple, low ranking alphas. Each of them dripped with a sense of extravagance that far exceeded the normal limit of what was expected from the clients of the Fantasy Room, dressed in clothing that bypassed accessible luxury brands and slipped into the realm of bespoke. Well groomed to the point that Yuuji had the insane thought that they looked as though they were attending some kind of high profile business meeting, rather than a second rate omega house. And strangest of all, was that not a single one of them was without a scent patch.

While it was taboo for most unmated omegas to go without a scent patch in polite society, in an omega house, an omega’s scent was a leg up in the rat race to corner the best clients. For an alpha to dull their own scent— or make it disappear entirely— was downright unheard of. Because while society had long since moved past dominance fights to secure mate matches and settle territory disputes, an alpha’s scent was the first indicator to others what kind of rank they held. To omegas it signaled what kind of mate they might make as an alpha— the more powerful their scent was, the more capable the alpha would be to provide for them. The higher rank an alpha held from their bloodline, the stronger their scent would be— the stronger they would be.

And so, it was the only logical conclusion then, for Yuuji to jump to, that the alphas who milled around the Fantasy Room must be at least a Grade 2 or above. Covering up their scent while traveling in such a well organized pack was far beyond the norm for society in general… Which then had him begging the question: What the fuck were they doing in a place like this?

The Fantasy Room was not meant for people like them. Not when there were more elite omega houses located in bright, fast paced Shibuya or the shadowy night markets of Shinjuku— the ones that employed high caliber omegas from good breeding, primed specifically for use by Special Grade alphas. The ones that kept a constant rotation of omegas that were balanced on the cusp of their heats— the ultimate siren call of desire to any alpha with a knot— to maximize the experience for their clients.

With places such as that, there was no earthly reason why these alphas, with the obvious level of prestige and power they emanated, would ever willingly choose to come to the shit hole of Hino.

So then why? Why, why, why? 

The question echoes around in Yuuji’s head even as he keeps his lips tilted up and he smiles at a young female alpha with long, shiny blue hair that lets him pour a generous splash of sake into her mouth. Her wide eyes linger on the way the satin lingerie stretches across the expanse of his body— straining over smooth, soft skin and ridges of muscle. Her hand perches lightly on his thigh, as though she’s almost a bit afraid of touching.

“It’s alright, alpha,” Yuuji coos at her as his fingers barely trace the line of her throat, feeling the way it works to swallow the alcohol he pours into her mouth. “You can touch if you want.”

The young female alpha gapes a bit and stutters out a string of what Yuuji thinks are words while her cheeks flush a brilliant shade of red. He holds back a real laugh, slightly endeared by her innocence. It’s refreshing to see the quality in someone that has come into an omega house— usually the alphas who come in are more willing to touch first and ask permission later. 

Yuuji hums and lets his thumb slide over the younger female’s lower lip. It quivers beneath his touch as he leans in until their faces are only a few inches apart. 

“Do you want another taste?” He whispers to her as his eyes slide across her face, still slightly rounded out with youth.

The young female alpha’s face glows ruby red with a blush and Yuuji withholds another giggle at the sight. Dutifully, however, she opens her mouth and this time Yuuji stays close as he pours the sake into her mouth. When she closes her eyes and swallows, he lets his eyes dart down to her neck, tracing the nearly invisible outline of the patch over her scent gland. 

The girl opens her eyes again and Yuuji is once more back to being attentive. He leans back on his free hand and lets the young female’s gaze rake up his body, skimming across the defined muscles of his abdomen, half hidden beneath the pink satin garter belt.

“Well aren’t you a delightfully playful morsel,” says a low, smoky voice.

Yuuji lifts his gaze away from the young female and sets his sights on the older female alpha leaning against the bar nearby. Her body is framed in a dark, corseted dress that hugs close to her voluptuous curves and her stunning silver hair hangs in a neat, thick braid over her shoulder and down to her waist. A martini glass is held delicately in one hand, sheathed in a black satin glove and she eyes Yuuji from head to toe as a particularly hungry lioness might watch a wounded gazelle.

“I live to serve, alpha,” Yuuji simpers with a bat of his eyelashes. Thankfully the teasing hint of sarcasm is not lost on the silver haired alpha and if the smoky laughter that ekes out of her plush lips is anything to go by, she finds it just as humorous as he does.

“Such sharp teeth for such a little thing,” the female alpha purrs as she moves toward him. In response, the younger female darts away like a minnow scattering out from under the shadow of a shark. “Careful, pet, or you might just cut yourself.”

Without hesitation, the female alpha comes to stand between Yuuji’s parted thighs and reaches her free hand up to drag a satin covered finger in a line down his chest. Even covered by the softness of the glove, Yuuji feels the pointed tip of a nail snag on the edge of his garter belt and then lingers on the trembling muscles of his stomach.

“Maybe I like a bit of… bite ,” Yuuji says with a smirk even as he suppresses the urge to wriggle out from under her touch. There is no denying the unmitigated danger that oozes from the alpha before him— no ignoring the way that Yuuji’s heart trembles in his chest with a trace of fear. 

The female alpha grins and bares her fangs— sharp as any weapon and long enough that Yuuji knows instantly, even without her scent permeating the air, that she must be a Grade 1— or maybe even a Special Grade. Her satin covered hand glides down over his hip, until it comes to rest on the smooth curve of his bare, upper thigh.

“It’s a pity I’m here on business tonight,” the female purrs low in her throat with the ghost of a disappointed frown on her lips. “Otherwise I’d imagine we might get up to a bit of fun.”

Yuuji’s mind catches on the phrasing and immediately reaches for the foothold on finding out some more information. He lets his free hand reach out slowly toward the alpha’s sleeve and tugs on it like a child seeking attention while his own face drops into a pout. “You can’t have any fun tonight, alpha? Not even for a little bit?”

His ears perk when he hears a huff of laughter converted into a cough coming from behind the bar. However, despite Panda almost blowing his cover, Yuuji keeps himself demure and soft beneath the terrifying alpha’s attention. Her hands frame his muscled thighs and rub circles into the soft, hairless flesh.

“Unfortunately not, pet,” she says with an air of amusement. Her eyes are no longer on his, but instead linger on the apex of his thighs, where his delicate omegan parts are hardly hidden beneath the thin stretch of light pink satin. “Though I do so wish it was different, duty calls on me tonight. And far be it from me to rob the Honored One’s triumph of the night and his ‘ genius idea’. Not that he’s even here on time to appreciate such restraint…”

Honored One.

Yuuji racks his mind for any kind of recognition of the title, but comes up empty handed. If this “Honored One” is a high profile figure in Tokyo, he certainly has never heard of them before. However, if the female alpha is to be believed, the “Honored One” in question isn’t even there yet.

“Either way, at least the evening promises some entertainment… Though most of you leave much to be desired for a proper omega, it is certainly amusing to watch all of you bow and scrape to us,” the female alpha says with a mean grin. Yuuji flinches as the alpha’s sharp nails scratch into his skin and he sees the slightly malicious gleam in her gaze. “That one over there is especially desperate. Don’t you agree, pet?”

Yuuji bites his lip as he follows the female’s gaze across the room. Though he tries, he knows he is not successful in hiding the way his body tenses when he realizes the female alpha is talking about Nobara. It isn’t too difficult to spot her, perched in the lap of a broad blonde man who is wearing the fiercest resting bitch face Yuuji has ever seen in his life. Nobara’s hips swivel in a cruel, ghostly grind above the man’s wide lap as she leans forward to whisper something in his ear. To his utter shock, her jacket is still hanging on by the ungodly strength of that lone, golden button. However when Nobara turns her copper head, and the neon lights catch her expression, Yuuji can see the expression of frustrated fury, barely concealed in his friend’s face. It only deepens when the blonde man’s stoic face refuses to give even an ounce of reaction to her techniques.

“Bad luck for her to have picked the only alpha in this place with the self control of a monk,” the female alpha sighs without pity. “She’d be better off trying to seduce a brick wall.”

Yuuji is only half listening to her words as his eyes stay locked onto Nobara’s face. A sense of dread begins to curl in the pit of his stomach as he sees the twitch of her brows and the curl of her lip as the male alpha still does not acknowledge her. As if she wasn’t an omega throwing herself eagerly at an alpha, but merely a gnat buzzing in his ear— annoying, but easily ignorable.

Perhaps it was a bit of karma due for Nobara’s penchant for playing with desperate alphas the way a bored cat would bat around mice. She’d never made it a secret that she disdains members of the opposite sex, but God forbid if a male alpha didn’t find her appealing. It should have made Yuuji laugh to see his friend struggling to draw out any kind of impression from the man below her, but instead, he only felt the beginning creep of panic.

Barely a few moments later, after she raises a hand to ruffle through the blonde man’s perfectly styled hair, only for him to grasp her wrist in a firm, but gentle hold. And it is at that moment, when a flash of such terrible rage takes over his friend’s normally beautiful features, that Yuuji knows his panic is well warranted. His heart drops as he watches Nobara say something to the man, who murmurs something impassively back. Nobara’s anger only multiplies and Yuuji recalls their conversation in the dressing room.

“Don’t do it, you idiot,” Yuuji whispers to himself.

“What did you just say?” The female alpha asks sharply.

Yuuji startles, but pays her no mind as he begins to slide down from the bar. He’s sure that the move must appear as ungainly as it feels, but his mind is set on one objective only. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go— My friend— I need to— Sorry!” 

He stutters through the words as he slips away from the dumbfounded alpha. In an attempt not to draw attention to what he knows is about to happen, Yuuji forces himself to walk with measured steps across the room. However, he has only made it halfway to where Nobara and the blonde man are sitting before he sees Nobara reach up toward her neck, where the scent patch is stuck to her skin.

“Don’t!” Yuuji calls out, but it is lost beneath the thud of the bass and the chatter of the guests. 

And then, it is too late.

As if in slow motion, Yuuji watches Nobara peel back the edge of the patch and expose her glistening scent gland where the natural sheen of oil that holds her crushed rose petal scent has gathered for the last five hours since the patch was applied. The smell of her is less of a siren call and more of a punch to the goddamn face.

Scent bomb.

The entire club goes still as the overwhelming, rose petal scent declares that a fertile omega in their prime is there and ready to be taken. Yuuji barrels across the room, paying no heed to the alphas he knocks shoulders with as he flies to Nobara’s side. The blonde man’s mouth is hanging open and Yuuji can see the way that his hand has gone white knuckled where it’s wrapped around Nobara’s wrist. The faint glimmer of triumph in his friend’s tawny eyes is fading fast into something a lot more rational.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He hears Nobara’s desperate apologies as he reaches her. Without a word, Yuuji wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her from the blonde alpha’s lap. 

“Let go,” Yuuji snaps, baring his sharp, omegan fangs at the man. And whether it is Yuuji’s demand or the man’s own rationality coming back to him, it works and his hand drops from Nobara’s wrist. Yuuji lets out a low warning growl as he tugs Nobara into his side and eyes several other alphas that have stood up from their seats and are crowding closer to the source of the scent. He has never been quite so relieved to have never given into the stigma of omegas needing to be soft. Not when his muscles bunch and quiver, readying themselves to be useful. He might not be able to take down a Special Grade alpha by himself, but he could certainly fight off a few Grade 1 or 2 alphas without much trouble— and he is not above proving that to the ones who circle around them like hungry predators. 

In the corner of his eye he sees some movement by the entrance, though he doesn’t dare to take his sights off of the alphas closing ranks around them. He wonders if Miguel is so unwilling to lose some customers that he would allow these scent-drunk alphas to have their way with them.

Yuuji lets out another warning growl as one of the alphas gets bold and reaches for Nobara, their glazed gaze is utterly devoid of rational, human thought— total animal instinct having taken over. There is a calculated aggression in the lines of the alpha’s body, and Yuuji braces against his inner, primal omegan mind that wails at him to keep quiet and still in the face of a strange, unmated alpha’s attention.

“Back up,” Yuuji snarls out, the words scraping like glass along his throat.

And then suddenly, as if by magic, the alpha straightens up and cringes. Yuuji feels a flicker of confusion for barely half a heartbeat before he realizes what has the alpha so startled. 

The growl that fills the room is unlike anything Yuuji has ever heard before. It is not especially violent, but it is deep. A seismic shift of tectonic plates beneath the Earth’s crust, rather than a rumble of distant thunder. Yuuji feels it first before he hears it— rumbling in his bones, vibrating through him as sure as his own heartbeat and he feels the innate urge to bare his neck to the alpha who wields such undeniable power.

The change is immediate.

The handful of alphas that have gathered close around him and Nobara go utterly still, as though they were now the prey. Yuuji feels Nobara’s hand tighten around his arm and sees the way she bares her neck to the side as have the other omegas in the room. The taste of metal blooms across the back of Yuuji’s tongue as he grits his teeth against the urge to bare his own neck in submission— unwilling, even now, to let his guard down while there is a threat nearby. It is perhaps more stupidity than bravery on his part, but he has never been able to change this part of himself, no matter how many times he has been taught the lesson.

“Well what have we got here?” An amused, male voice rumbles through the club.

Several of the nearby alphas shift uneasily on their feet, as though they might try to flee if given half a chance. Yuuji eyes them sharply, ready to defend himself if they move in the wrong way. However he realizes swiftly that his worry is placed on the wrong targets, as he senses the approach of the apex predator that has made itself known.

It’s the scent that Yuuji catches first— though there was no conceivable way anyone in the room could miss it. Piercingly sharp and frigid, the alpha’s scent is like a gust of snowy wind off the peak of a mountain mixed with the sweet burn of salt from the spray of an icy ocean wave. Yuuji makes the mistake of inhaling it deeply and feels the sting of it against the back of his throat, though there is no pain— only all consuming power. The strength of the scent is so intense that there is no doubt in his mind that the alpha— whoever they are — is a Special Grade.

When Yuuji allows his eyes to finally leave the scent-drunk alpha that had reached for Nobara, his gaze immediately finds the figure of the Special Grade alpha. And Yuuji realizes then that while he has known and met a wide variety of alphas, he has never witnessed one like this.

The male alpha is tall— towering more than head and shoulders above nearly everyone in the room— and broad. Even without the overwhelming presence the alpha exudes, the sheer size of him would be enough for anyone to guess at his ranking. Endlessly long, lean legs wrapped in clean cut, dark trousers lead into a tapered waist and a thickly muscled chest covered in a black, long sleeve turtleneck. Yuuji’s breath catches on the pale skin that stretches along the alpha’s thick, unmarked neck and the sharp jawline that frames the dangerous smirk on plush lips. But most peculiar of all, is not the undercut, snow-white hair atop the man’s head, but the black, silk blindfold that shields the man’s eyes from view completely.

The Special Grade alpha comes to a stop merely a foot away from where Yuuji and Nobara stand. He towers over them, limbs loose and relaxed— almost lazy— as he sticks his hands in the pockets of his trousers and his smirk grows deadly enough to rival the Devil’s. It occurs to Yuuji, as he tilts his head back to stare dumbfoundedly up at the blindfolded Special Grade— rather than baring his neck in submission — that he now has a pretty solid guess as to who the “ Honored One ” might be…

“Imagine my surprise when I walk into this… lovely… establishment and find that there’s a bit of a scuffle happening in here,” the alpha says in what should be a teasing tone, but Yuuji can hear the lingering threat beneath the words loud and clear. “My dogs are usually so well behaved, I can’t help but wonder what could have happened to set them acting like a pack of untrained mutts.”

Nobara cringes further into Yuuji’s side away from the Special Grade’s attention. By now the clinging rose petal scent has dissipated into something much more manageable, but there is no hiding the way it concentrates around her. Yuuji pulls her in closer and against every omegan urge that tells him to behave before this powerhouse of an alpha, he does the dumbest thing he’s ever done in his life and talks back.

“I have a hard time believing in your training regiment if all it takes is a concentrated scent to set a bunch of alphas off as if they’ve just discovered what their knots are for,” Yuuji says with a scathingly unimpressed tone.

The Special Grade alpha is silent for a long moment as Yuuji stares up into his face. 

Part of his brain can’t help but note how undeniably handsome the alpha is, however the more primal part of it that is concerned with living through this interaction does not allow him to dwell on it. There is a shuffle of movement behind the Special Grade’s shoulders and Yuuji’s eyes flit over— just barely, just for a second— and catch sight of another tall male standing just over the Special Grade’s shoulder. It is undeniably another high ranking alpha, judging by the wide stretch of their thick shoulders and the way they hold themselves— straight backed but loose and easy with uncontested strength. They’ve got long, dark hair half pulled up out of their handsome, sharp edged face and a set of dark fox eyes watch Yuuji with the barest glimmer of interest.

“A concentrated scent?” The Special Grade asks sharply, unerringly drawing Yuuji’s attention back to him. “Why don’t we call it like it is… You think your little friend is the first omega to scent trap an alpha?” 

Yuuji bristles at the comment and feels Nobara tug at his wrist. A silent plea for him to shut the fuck up and quit while you’re ahead, dumbass— but Yuuji has always had issues with doing the smart thing.

“She wasn’t trying to scent trap an alpha,” Yuuji defends— loyal to the last.

The Special Grade scoffs a mean laugh and reaches up to run a lazy hand through the artful mess of snowy strands. 

“Yeah, right. And you expect me to believe you? Especially when you’ve got your own little patch on your throat and are probably planning to do the same thing?” Yuuji inhales sharply through his nose and reaches a hand up to cover his patch on instinct, but the Special Grade continues on mercilessly. “What did you think would happen? That you’d bag one of mine with your weak, pathetic scent and get yourself a nice cushy life somewhere in the ranks? Please. I’ve seen omegas try every trick in the book, and let me tell you something,” The Special Grade alpha leans down the several inches between them until his face is directly before Yuuji’s. And though the alpha’s eyes are entirely obscured by the lush, black silk wrapped over them, Yuuji has no doubt that he can see him just fine as he hisses out softly venomous words. “You are nothing special. ”

Yuuji seethes under the alpha’s gaze— though he can’t see his eyes at all. Any trace of beauty found in the Special Grade’s ethereal face is snuffed out between one heartbeat and the next. The Special Grade alpha might be the most handsome man in the room— the most handsome man Yuuji has ever seen — he is, at that moment, the ugliest person in the world.

Before he can say those exact words to the alpha before him, Miguel appears in a flustered state of sweaty terror beside them.

“Gojo-sama. Please, forgive me for this appalling lack of decorum. I am terribly sorry for the interruption to the evening. I can’t imagine what must have given my employees the idea that this was acceptable behavior. I assure you that they will be dealt with accordingly and—”

“Fire him,” The Special Grade alpha says simply as he stands up to his full height once more, towering over them. He doesn’t spare a single glance in Miguel’s direction as the man splutters. Yuuji hardly notices the way that the dark haired alpha behind the Special Grade’s shoulder leans forward— only a few centimeters shorter than the white haired alpha— to whisper something into his ear with an impassive expression. His dark fox eyes never leave Yuuji’s irate face as he speaks swiftly in hushed tones that even Yuuji can’t detect. 

“What?” Nobara squeaks in outrage, still hidden behind Yuuji’s shoulder.

“I— I— I—” Miguel stutters, his mouth flopping open and closed like a fish.

“You. You. You,” The alpha mocks viciously, clearly ignoring whatever the dark haired alpha had said to them. “You heard me. Fire him . He has offended me and I will not support your business if he remains here. Omegas practically grow on the trees around here. I’m sure you’ll have no issue filling their position with another one who knows better tricks… I know male omegas are something of a rarity this far out in the sticks, but I’d rather take a female omega with good manners than a male omega who doesn’t know his place.”

Yuuji burns from the inside out. His jaw clenches so hard that his fangs dig into his bottom lip and pierce the skin as he glares up at the alpha before them, so callous in his wild demands. So rude. So fucking spoiled . He’s such a— a—

“You’re a fucking dick,” Yuuji says aloud as his anger burns red hot in his chest.

Nobara’s hand tightens painfully around his wrist and Miguel lets out a truly dramatic gasp. The club seems to hold its breath as the Special Grade alpha looks lazily down at Yuuji with an expression on his face that suggests he thinks of Yuuji  as nothing more than some kind of insect under his shoe— his existence amusing, but utterly meaningless in his world.

“Oh really?” The white haired alpha drawls, pink tongue swiping along his bottom lip and leaving it shiny with saliva. There is a dangerous flash of long, sharp fangs pressing deep into the plush skin for a moment and Yuuji hopes that he cuts himself.

“Yeah, really,” Yuuji growls out. The fire his anger is more than enough to burn through the blaring alarm of danger that sweeps up his spine. “You’re a fucking dick. I don’t give a fuck who you are or what ranking you’ve got. Just because you’ve got power that most other people don’t, doesn’t mean you can go around ruining people’s lives with it like they mean nothing. You don’t even know me. You have no idea what losing this job means for my life.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to defend your little friend who thought it was a good idea to scent bomb a room full of Grade 1 alphas,” the Special Grade snaps with a mean smile.

“And maybe you should have your dogs on tighter leashes if they can barely fucking control themselves,” Yuuji snarls back. “Or better yet, you should learn some fucking manners yourself.”

The Special Grade alpha lets out a low, rumbling growl and the scent of snow and ocean salt swells to unbearable levels. It’s an age-old tactic to get unruly omegas to submit to an alpha when they were misbehaving. Most omegas had varying levels of resolve against different scents, but as the rest of the room goes silent and bares their necks, Yuuji refuses to bend.

“No,” he snarls out, watching with no small amount of malicious triumph as the alpha’s face twists from an expression of pitiless condescension to one of stunned confusion. Yuuji can practically read on the man’s face the shell-shocked befuddlement of someone resisting him, and he knows that not once has this alpha ever been told the word no .

Yuuji is all too glad to be the first.

“No,” he repeats again, flashing his own fangs in a bared snarl, “I would never stoop low enough to bare my neck to an alpha as despicable as you. You think that the rest of the world is yours to toy with, but you’re wrong and I hope one day, when you’re finally abandoned by all of the people who were forced to put up with you that you remember this moment when someone who is nothing special refused to bare their neck to you.”

The Special Grade alpha merely stares down at Yuuji with his— stupid— blindfold on. His lips slightly parted as he breathes slow and steady while the scent of ice and ocean spray swirls around them, but still Yuuji does not yield.

“Yuuji,” Nobara whispers under her breath in terror.

“Itadori! You’re fired,” Miguel’s trembling voice snaps from beside him.

“No fucking need,” Yuuji mutters without looking away from the alpha towering over him. “I fucking quit.”

Wordlessly, Yuuji turns his back on the snowy haired alpha, not bothering to wait for a reply from him as he still stands in deadly silence. Nobara clings to Yuuji dutifully as he winds his way through the club— silent and still as a graveyard. His eyes catch on Panda’s from across the room, but the large man makes no outward sign of approval or disapproval, he merely watches, as he always does.

Yuuji slips down a dark hall that leads to the stairwell and reaches for the heavy metal fire door. His hand is stopped by Nobara’s white knuckled grip. 

“Yuuji—” she starts desperately.

“Don’t ,” Yuuji begs her quietly, already feeling the way his chest is constricting beneath the crush of panic. “Don’t tell me I’m an idiot. Don’t say that I shouldn’t have done that. I know I make some stupid mistakes, Nobara, but telling that asshole off for talking to me like that is not one of them.”

Nobara lets out an uncharacteristically shaky sigh and then a wet laugh.

“Nah,” she says wetly, “I was just gonna tell you that was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen someone do.”

Yuuji’s lips tremble into an attempt of a smile. He glances back at her where she stands with tears lining her eyes. “You think so?”

“Definitely,” she sniffs delicately and rubs the edge of her sleeve into the corner of her eyes to soak up the tears before they have a chance to ruin her makeup. She breathes in slow and deep and sets her shoulders straight. Yuuji nearly laughs when she shoots him a half-hearted glare. “What am I going to do without you around here?” 

“Thrive, most likely,” Yuuji says with a wobbly grin, “With one less man around here to bother you.”

Nobara snorts a laugh that sounds awfully close to a sob, but he doesn’t point it out. “You want me to come with you?” 

Yuuji shakes his head. “Nah. I need some time alone to cool off… But I’ll call you later this week and maybe we can hang out?”

“Okay,” Nobara hiccups as a tear rolls down her cheek. All at once, she throws herself into his arms and on instinct he wraps his arms around her tight. “Thank you.”

Yuuji swallows back the lump in his own throat as he nods against her silky, copper hair. After a few moments they part and Nobara wipes away her tears again. She takes a deep breath and looks for all the world as though she’s preparing to go back into battle as she starts walking down the hall toward the main room of the club without a word. He watches her go until she disappears behind the beaded curtain at the other end of the hall and then follows the stairwell back down to the dressing room.

He stands alone in the middle of the empty room, listening to the vent as it wheezes tiredly in the wall. His reflection mocks him in the line of mirrors above the vanities— the lingerie on his muscled body is far too lewd and the glitter on his eyes is trashy. He looks like a whore. He feels fucking worthless. Despite his big talk upstairs, he can feel the tremble of panic spreading under his ribs, clinging to the underside of his heart as it threatens to squeeze the last remnants of anger and bravery from within it. 

“What a fucking moron,” Yuuji mumbles despondently to himself as he stares at the mirror.

“I mean, you’re not wrong,” says a low voice from the doorway.

Yuuji startles hard enough that he nearly falls over, wide eyes swiveling toward the doorway where he’d left the door wide open and finds the placid face of a woman staring back at him. The light purple bruises beneath her eyes stand out on pale skin, but they’re almost certainly from a lack of sleep if Yuuji had to guess. Her long hair is a dark shade of brown under the dingy lighting of the dressing room and Yuuji spies a beauty spot beneath her eye that looks like a bit of dark chocolate dripped in cream.

Her expression remains impassive as she looks Yuuji up and down. A cigarette dangles from the corner of her mouth and she sucks in a mouthful of smoke before she exhales around the stick. There is a patch on her scent gland, nearly invisible, just as the others had on upstairs, but Yuuji still spots it easily. He vaguely wonders if the Special Grade had spoken the truth about the rest of the people in the club all being Grade 1 alphas.

“You okay, kid?” The woman asks as smoke curls out lazily from between her lips.

Yuuji’s heart stutters as he gapes in surprise for a long moment. “What?”

The woman stares at him as though he is stupid— and to be fair, he also feels stupid. However, to the woman’s immense credit she doesn’t say anything about the dumb response and instead she takes another long drag before she plucks the cigarette from her mouth. Yuuji’s eyes catch on the back of her pale hand, where a brilliant blue eye has been tattooed on her flesh in an elegantly stylized way. 

“Thought it might be best if someone came to make sure you were alright after that piss poor show of manners.” She says with a small shrug.

“Oh,” Yuuji cringes, “Listen, I know that I was way out of line and trust me, it won’t happen again. I don’t even know what came over me back there, but I—”

“No, no,” the woman shakes her head as she blows out smoke. “I’m not talking about you.”

Yuuji’s mouth pops open again. The woman seems to hide a small smirk as Yuuji comes to the realization that her reference to poor manners was for how the Special Grade alpha acted towards him.

“Oh, no way. Nuh-uh. No thank you. Look, I know you think you might be helping me… Or like, making me feel better by lying to me about how badly I fucked up, but that is the last thing I need right now,” Yuuji mumbles frantically as he waves his hands between them, as if to dispel the woman’s words from between them.

The woman lets out a little laugh, though Yuuji can’t see any humor in the situation.

“At least you have some self preservation instincts,” she says.

Yuuji huffs out a stressed breath and rubs his hand through the fluff on top of his head. The dressing room isn’t as well heated as the main room upstairs and he is viscerally aware of how naked he is before the fully dressed woman.

“Seriously though, you deserve an apology for what it’s worth,” the woman says.

“I just had to quit my job— or else risk being fired for no reason other than an asshole of an alpha demanded it to happen— and you think an apology is going to make a damn difference?” Yuuji asks incredulously.

“No, of course not,” the woman confirms, soothing some of the anger out of Yuuji’s chest, “But you should know that there’s some respect due for anyone brave enough to tell that spoiled boy where he can go shove it… Gojo is practically a God amongst us mere mortals, but he’s been treated as such by everyone around him for so long that he’s forgotten how to interact like a normal human being… Treat someone like they’re unreachable and they go untouched by the moments that matter.”

“And you want me to believe that this was a moment that matters?” Yuuji asks in disbelief even as his mind struggles to decipher her cryptic words, “Getting shit on by some nobody omega in this stupid hole-in-the-wall omega house? You honestly can’t expect me to believe that he’ll remember this by tomorrow, let alone have it mean something to him.”

The woman hums thoughtfully and chain drags a few lungfuls of smoke. 

“And anyway, shouldn’t you be down here reprimanding some shitty little omega for disrespecting your boss like that instead of encouraging it?” Yuuji asks with an arched brow as he crosses his arms over his bare chest.

“What makes you think he’s our boss?” The woman asks.

“Oh, please,” Yuuji rolls his eyes as he thinks back to the unmitigated way the Special Grade alpha exuded his power over the rest of the room. “I’m an omega, not a fucking idiot.”

The woman nods diplomatically. “Fair point. You are definitely not an idiot, but you were right about him being a huge dick.”

Yuuji wheezes at the words and promptly chokes on his spit. The convulsing in his chest is reminiscent of laughter, however he can’t breathe well enough to actually do so. The woman’s lips quirk up in the ghost of a grin. When he finally manages to regain his composure he straightens up and leans against the vanity beside him. Wordlessly, the woman steps further into the dressing room and holds out her cigarette between them in offering. 

He stares at the cigarette and then the strange woman before he thinks fuck it , and takes it from her. A deep breath of smoke is pulled into his lungs and at once he feels all of the tight coils of panic, fear, worry, and anger unravel within the deepest part of himself. As though someone has reached in and tugged on the end of a loose string and untangled the entire knot of emotion.

As he breathes out slowly, his limbs go loose. He wants to take another breath, but dutifully holds out the cigarette back towards the woman, unable to be greedy, even when presented with an answer for at least some of his problems. 

“So what’ll you do now?” The woman asks. 

“Why should I tell you when you’ll probably just use the information against me somehow?” Yuuji asks.

The woman’s eyes glint sharply with intrigue, as if she suddenly realized that Yuuji knew exactly what kind of game she was playing with him. “Clever,” she hums, “But let’s pretend that I would never do something like that.”

Yuuji knows that is her way of telling him that he has no choice but to answer. A sigh shakes free of his lungs and he looks up at the water stained ceiling above their heads. 

“Dunno.” He shrugs. “Go home. Find another way to pay the bills.”

The woman nods, as if she understands just how monumentally fucked Yuuji is by being fired. “What’s your name, kid?” 

Yuuji looks back at her, eyes catching on the dark beauty mark beneath her eye. The hair on the back of his neck stands up, sensing the snare that has been set around his neck. She watches him, as if waiting for him to try and escape it, as if she expects him to struggle, but Yuuji has never been good at doing what is expected of him.

“Itadori.”

“Itadori.” The woman repeats through a mouthful of smoke, the sound of the vowels rolling across her tongue like marbles. He can’t help but think that the way she says his name is akin to it being weighed— as if she’s testing the value of it, though he can’t possibly fathom why . Finally, seemingly satisfied with the result, the woman nods and drops her cigarette butt to the ground. She doesn’t bother to grind it under her heel and lets it burn against the cracked linoleum. “Very well then. Hope you figure it all out for yourself.”

She turns and starts walking toward the door before she suddenly pauses and doubles back. Yuuji resists the urge to flinch as she reaches into her dark jacket and pulls a tiny white card out of the left breast pocket. She holds it out to him, just as she did with the cigarette and he takes it with shaking fingers. The woman flicks the sturdy card stock that he grips between his fingers and gives him a startlingly serious look.

“You ever get into trouble, you find someone with one of these,” she raises her hand and flashes the blue eye tattoo toward him meaningfully, “And you give them that. They’ll get you the help you need.”

Yuuji stares open mouthed at the woman who drops her hand and allows the ghost smile to pull at her lips once more. “See you later, Itadori.”

He watches as she vanishes, just like the smoke she breathed into the air, and he is once more left alone in the silence of the empty dressing room. After several long moments, he glances down at the card clenched in his trembling fingers and finds that the side staring up at him is blank, but when he flips it over he finds a small stretch of kanji etched in deep, black ink in the center.

目の下

“Under One's Eyes?” Yuuji reads aloud slowly with a creeping sense of dread. He lifts his eyes to meet his own terror filled gaze in the mirror and lets out a shaky breath. “Oh, I’m so fucked.”

Chapter Text

Saturday breakfast in the Itadori household was as close to a sacred ritual that Yuuji had ever witnessed outside of a temple. But it had not always been that way.

When he was young and the wound of losing his mother was still fresh and bloody, everything felt like a punishment. The sunshine on cloudless days held no warmth. The bare walls of his new room in his grandfather’s house mocked him as though they were the bars of a prison cell. The sound of laughter made only anger churn in his belly as he wondered how anyone could possibly be happy when he had nothing to be happy about.

It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

He’d been given no choice but to leave the only home he’d ever known behind to live with his grandfather, as he was Yuuji’s only remaining relative. And to his child’s eyes, everything in the new world he’d been thrust into, was utterly wrong. The cabinets were too high to reach and there was no lstool for him to use like the one his mother had painted pink butterflies on. The smell of his blankets wasn’t right— saturated with his grandfather’s mild beta scent instead of the sweetness of ripe peaches and summer sunshine that belonged to his mother. And the endless sounds of the outer city neighborhood were too loud compared to the peace and quiet of the countryside.

Everything was wrong.  

And Yuuji, at only six years old— for a boy who had been nothing but toothy grins and sweet words—became full of the only kind of rage a child could possibly know. An unstoppable anger that accompanied the brutal realization that life wasn’t fair.

Days passed. And then weeks. And then, even though it hardly felt as though any time had passed at all, six months had gone by since the day his mother had left. 

His grandfather— for all of his cranky attitude and trouble with expressing his emotions— had done his best to help Yuuji acclimate to the new “normal” of his life. But for all the good it had done, Wasuke Itadori could do nothing except watch as his grandson retreated deeper inside of the sorrow that a child of his age should never have had to carry. Like a little soldier, lost on the front lines, Yuuji hid himself away behind the walls of his grief that he had built around himself, which made it impossible for anyone to reach him.

It was a vicious cycle. One that seemed to have no end in sight as the seasons changed and winter stripped the final breath of life away beneath its cold, snowy grasp. It was a time that was all too easy to see the only bleak hopelessness of a world that would never be fair. And then, like a miracle— like magic— something changed.

It was a day that was not entirely unlike the one that had come before, nor any different from the one that would come after. 

Yuuji couldn’t remember what his nightmare had been about when he’d awoken from it. Scrawny legs tangled in the cheap, scratchy sheets that smelled all wrong. His tiny, unpresented body desperately searching for the comforting scent of his omega mother that was not there. Bright honey colored eyes filled with tears as his heart beat a frantic tattoo against his fragile cage of ribs. The window ledge outside had a layer of fresh snow on it and beyond the frosted glass fat flakes fell lazy and slow from steely gray clouds. 

Maybe it was the cold. Or maybe it was the way that he could not shake the nameless terror that circulated through his veins from a nightmare he could not quite remember the details of. Maybe it was the way that he realized at that moment that he didn’t know what his mother’s favorite color was. Or maybe it was simply because his door had been left open a few measly centimeters and the scent of food drifted into his room like a siren call to his rumbling belly.

Whatever it had been, Yuuji found himself slinking out of his room on silent feet. Creeping down the stairs like some kind of thief, clutching the tattered stuffed tiger he’d had since he was an infant in a tiny, white knuckled grip. Prepared to use it as a shield, should the worst happen. He’d craned his neck around the edge of the doorway leading into the kitchen and had observed the way his grandfather moved throughout the kitchen.

Wasuke Itadori was by no means a graceful man. In both word and action, he would far more often use a heavy hand and often a harsh tone compared to a soft touch or a gentle voice. He had loved and lost far too much to believe that the world was fair , though he could admit the wrongness in watching such jaded emotion fester within the innocence of his grandson. But on that morning, which was not so very different from the one that had come before, nor the one that would come after, Yuuji saw his grandfather in a way that no one else in the world had the privilege to.

The little radio on a shelf above the kitchen sink was playing old classical music and in the thin, watery light that came in through the frosted windows, Wasuke Itadori had danced.  

The steps were not choreographed— in truth, the only reason why it seemed like dancing was because it was movement , plain and simple. Wasuke moved to a rhythm, not entirely in sync with the classical piece crackling through the old radio. Stirring the miso soup on the stove, fluffing the cooked rice, poking at the grilled fish that spit hot oil from its pan. All if it was nothing more than basic steps— forward one, back two, side shuffle, start again. But to Yuuji, who hid on the threshold and watched, it looked like the most intricate routine he’d ever seen in his— admittedly short — life. 

Effortless.

Of course, the wide eyed wonder was quickly sapped from Yuuji when his grandfather had spoken in that sharp yet kind way of his, without taking his gaze from the soup on the stove.

“You going stand there all day, brat? Or are you going to set the table?”

Yuuji could remember the way his heart beat hard enough that it felt as though it might burst through his chest. Fingers clenched around his favorite stuffed tiger that had a missing button eye and had been sewn up with jagged stitches by his mother when he’d accidentally ripped the arm off only a month before she’d left.

And maybe it was the way that he caught sight of the quiet smile on his grandfather’s face as he studiously kept himself from looking in Yuuji’s direction. Or maybe it was the soft curl of emotion in his young, fragile heart that he did not quite have a name for at that age.  Or maybe he had simply grown tired of being alone. All alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

So Yuuji set the table. Not for two, but for three. Mostly because there were three chairs— one for grandpa, one for mama, and one for Yuuji — and Yuuji could not fathom the idea of leaving his mother’s place empty. After all, there were only so many milestones he was willing to reach that day.

With trembling fingers and his heart in his throat, Yuuji placed down three sets of chopsticks, three ceramic tea cups with sakura blossoms painted onto them, and three napkins. All the while, Wasuke watched him, but spoke not a single word. Not even when Yuuji set his stuffed tiger in the seat where his mother had always belonged and he sat at the table himself.

Wasuke had quietly set Yuuji’s tray on the table, with each food portioned out on their individual plates, just as he placed a tiny bowl of rice before the stuffed tiger. He poured the green tea from the old, iron kettle into three cups— not two. And he sat himself down in the seat across from Yuuji. 

“Thank you both for joining me, this morning. I am very glad to share a meal with such esteemed guests,” Wasuke said quietly as he fiddled with his chopsticks.

The absurdity of the words startled a giggle out of six year old Yuuji and he raised a hand to slap it over his mouth to stifle the loud sound. Honey brown eyes went wide with a mixture of terror and wonder as he peered at his grandfather, who wore a smile far softer than anything Wasuke Itadori had ever been known for. And even though they hadn’t said a single other word as they shared their meal together— and though neither of them would ever know it— they each felt, at that moment, for the first time since they had lost both a mother and a daughter respectively, that someone had finally reached in and turned on the lights in the dark place that their hearts had been stuck in.

And so it went. 

Saturday breakfast— every week, without fail. Sometimes they would speak and sometimes Yuuji could not utter a word around the lump in his throat. Always three settings at the table, until eight year old Yuuji had lost his stuffed tiger on the train— something that he had cried about for several weeks straight — and Wasuke had insisted on removing the third chair since it was finally just the two of them— something Wasuke still sometimes cried about in the late hours of the night after the rest of the world had gone to bed and only the moon was there to witness his weakness . And then, on a day that was not entirely unlike the one that had come before, nor any different from the one that would come after, Yuuji Itadori sat at the table across from his grandfather, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, with an old radio playing soft, classical music in the background and he realized that things were okay.

Not perfect.

Not perfect because the skin of the grilled fish wasn’t as crispy that morning as Yuuji preferred it. Not perfect because his favorite cartoon had been canceled a week ago and he’d never know how it ended. Not perfect because his grandfather’s cough had gotten a little bit worse. Not perfect because the table would always be missing a third chair.

Things were not perfect— nor were they fair, but Yuuji finally knew that they would be okay.

***

“Put me down, you damn brat!” 

“Come on, old man. If I was the one with a free ride like this everyday I wouldn’t complain half as much as you do.”

The glare Wasuke  gives Yuuji may as well be nuclear. It’s a miracle that the skin on his face isn’t half melted off from the sheer force of it, however Yuuji refuses to allow the old man’s bitter complaints to sway him. Because despite his grandfather’s bitching, they both know that he’s in no shape to take the stairs on by himself. 

“I might be old, but I can still kick your ass,” Wasuke threatens darkly, eyes narrowed with elderly petulance. Yuuji’s chest trembles with repressed laughter, though he’s viscerally aware that there is little levity in the situation.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you old man,” Yuuji replies dutifully, as part of him knows without a doubt that if Wasuke Itadori truly wanted to kick his ass, he would find a way to do it. Over the near eighteen years he has lived with his grandfather he has learned to never underestimate him.

“You better not have burned the rice,” Wasuke grumbles andYuuji knows a concession when he hears one. 

“That only happened one time and I was twelve,” Yuuji groans  as he descends the last few stairs from the second floor. He angles his body easily so that his grandfather’s head doesn’t smack into the doorframe as they pass into the small kitchen. The tile beneath his socked feet is cold, but the smell of breakfast lingers heavily in the air. “I haven’t burned anything in years and you know it.”

Wasuke grunts and mutters something unintelligible under his breath— most certainly some kind of insult without any true heat to it— far too low for Yuuji to catch it. He allows his grandfather to get away with it, if only because he suddenly has a lump in his throat as he takes note of the way the ridges of the older man’s ribs are protruding alarmingly, felt starkly even beneath the clean layers of Wasuke’s pajamas and his dressing robe.

Despite the old man’s grumbling, he doesn’t complain any further as Yuuji sets him down in his seat at the kitchen table. He turns away and quietly begins to tend to their breakfast, portioning out the food onto each tray. It allows Yuuji a moment to collect himself as the helpless tide of emotion threatens to pull him beneath its waves, but also gives Wasuke some perceived privacy to situate his legs— skin and bones— beneath a lumpy, crocheted blanket that hangs off the back of his chair.

It is a monstrosity of mixed colors and missed stitches— a gift from Kugisaki, right after she had announced that she had started crocheting because she needed a hobby that did not include whoring her company out to desperate alphas. Though it was gifted to Yuuji suspiciously close after he’d drunkenly let slip that he couldn’t afford to keep the heat on all the time in the apartment and his grandfather— though Wasuke would rather die rather than complain about it— was perpetually cold with winter settling its claws into Japan. 

Wasuke had sneered at the misshapen, rainbow mess that had tumbled out of its newspaper wrappings on Christmas morning, but when Yuuji had reached to take it with an offer to hide it away in his own room, the old man had practically bitten his hand off. Without fail, Wasuke Itadori had used it every day since and when Nobara had come to visit last spring and saw the blanket over Wasuke’s lap, she’d squealed and kissed his wrinkled cheek and gushed about how happy she was that he liked it.

Wasuke, to his credit, had given her one of those soft smiles he never gave anyone— and then promptly whacked the end of his cane into Yuuji’s shin when he’d teased the old man about blushing when Nobara was out of earshot.

Yuuji moves towards the simmering pot on the stove and stirs the soup a few times for good measure to give his grandfather enough time to tuck his skinny legs beneath the blanket, as though they were something shameful to be kept hidden away. As he plates the grilled fish onto each tray he winces at the sight of burned edges of the skin. However, when he sets his grandfather’s tray before him on their tiny table, the old man says nothing.

The silence is nearly oppressive as they begin to eat, as it has been for the last several weeks since Wasuke returned from his latest stint in the hospital. No longer was his sickness contained to a lingering cough and a decrease in energy, though much to the doctor’s and nurse’s dismay, Wasuke still refused to become an inpatient. Yuuji couldn’t say that he was entirely thankful for this, since he wanted nothing more than for his grandfather to feel better, but he could admit to himself that the idea of living alone in their shared apartment might just be what put him back into that dark place he hasn’t been to since his mother died. 

As Yuuji chews on his rice, he catches sight of the knobs of bone in his grandfather’s skinny wrists. Something terribly like guilt curls up and makes a home for itself inside his chest before he ducks his head and averts his gaze. The quiet clink of chopsticks against plates and bowls is the only sound in the small kitchen— the old radio long since lost sometime during the past two decades and never replaced by a new one.

“So,” Wasuke finally breaks the silence first, “How’s the Yoshino boy doing?” 

Yuuji slurps up some of the soup. “Junpei’s doing alright. Pretty busy with school and finals coming up. Plus he’s been hounding me to teach a few classes down at the dojo.”

“And are you going to?” His grandfather asks.

“Not sure where I’d find the time,” Yuuji mutters under his breath. “But if someone can benefit from learning from me then I’ll do my best.”

“I still think you should have stuck with it when you were a teenager… You could have competed at a national level,” Wasuke mutters darkly, though there’s no real heat behind it.

Yuuji chuckles and stuffs some rice and fish into his mouth. “I think you’re a bit biased in your opinion, gramps. There are people way better at Jujutsu than me.”

Wasuke sends Yuuji a glare across the table. His hollow cheeks pull taut beneath wrinkled skin. “Stop selling yourself so short or you’ll spend your whole life believing you aren’t tall enough great heights.”

Yuuji resists the urge to roll his eyes as he bites back a grin. He puts his hands together, fingers steepled and bows his head at his grandfather across the table. “Yes, o’ wise and generous Master Itadori.”

Wasuke grunts in reply, clearly finding no humor in the action the way that Yuuji had intended.

The room lapses back into silence with only the clock above the stove ticking away the time. Yuuji counts his breaths. Counts the number of faded, pink petals— 16— on the chipped, ceramic tea cup in front of him. Counts how many pieces of seaweed are left in his soup as he lifts his bowl to his mouth.

“And what about that little girlfriend of yours?”

Yuuji inhales his soup so quickly that it scalds his throat. He sputters out a wet cough as he puts down his bowl and tries to control his breathing. In his mind there is an endless refrain of whatthefuck?whatthefuck?whatthefuck?, like a bell that has been struck. When he’s finally able to drag in a wheezing breath he forces out two rasping words. “My what?” 

Wasuke hides a sharp grin as he takes a mouthful of rice and fish from his tray. He chews thoughtfully for a moment, leaving Yuuji to stare at the old bastard with wide eyed confusion while his chest still heaves. “You know, that little redhead with the attitude problem. Haven’t seen her around in a while. Did she finally find a reason to break up with you?”

Yuuji’s neck burns with humiliation at the implication, not only that his grandfather thought that Kugisaki was his girlfriend, but that Yuuji’s open to dating other omegas. Same secondary sex relationships were far more accepted in modern times than they were even fifty years prior, though the more traditional, older generation still found it distasteful. Still, despite Wasuke being more open minded about who a person was allowed to love, that did not equate to Yuuji being comfortable with discussing the concept with him— especially when he was at the center of such a conversation.

“Kugisaki is definitely not my girlfriend.”

“Uh-huh. Sure,” Wasuke raises a thin, gray eyebrow in his direction as he slurps up some of his soup in a way that is entirely too patronizing for Yuuji’s tastes.

“She isn’t!” Yuuji defends, nearly cringing at the very idea of being with Nobara-chan in a romantic way, not because she wasn’t a beautiful girl, but because he knew her disdain for men ran all too deep and he was unfortunately no exception even given his secondary gender. “We just get along well. That’s all!” 

Wasuke frowns at Yuuji’s insistent— frantic — denial. The familiar creep of guilt sweeps through Yuuji, though he isn’t sure that he’s done anything to warrant the feeling. He watches warily as Wasuke sets down his soup bowl with a long sigh— tries not to focus on the way that his hands tremble just enough that the ceramic clinks violently against the tray before it goes still. 

“Yuuji,” Wasuke says in a tone that holds enough tired disappointment that all at once, Yuuji is nothing more than a child before his guardian, being scolded for coloring on the walls, or climbing on the counters to steal the hidden candy on the top shelf before dinner. The urge to defend himself rears up its head on instinct.

“Come on, gramps,” Yuuji sighs as he leans back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest. He knows what’s coming next. “Can we not do this today?”

“Do what?” Wasuke snaps back irritably, “I haven’t said anything yet.”

Yuuji rubs nervously at the dark bristles of his undercut.

“Well?” Wasuke prompts abruptly when the silence between them stretches for a bit too long.

“You’re going to say something like I’ve got no friends and I need to get a life,” Yuuji mutters finally.

“That’s because you have no friends and you need to get a life,” Wasuke points his finger threateningly at him across the table. The glare on his wrinkled face is dark, but not out of anger. Yuuji has lived with his grandfather for nearly two decades and he knows where to look to find the softened edges of him behind the hardened mask he wears. It is not fury that motivates his grandfather’s harsh tone, but pure concern.

The guilt inside of him curls tighter at the thought of his grandfather worrying so thoroughly over his social life— or lack thereof.

“Gramps, I promise everything is—” Yuuji starts.

“If you say the word ‘ okay ’ I’ll know it’s a lie. And you know I can’t stand liars,” Wasuke interrupts with a snarl. Yuuji snaps his mouth shut immediately in response and Wasuke lets out another tired sigh. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been moping around here for the last few weeks after you lost your night shift job at the convenience store?”

“I have not been moping,” Yuuji drawls as his mind wanders down the path of the truth that he could never reveal to his grandfather.

Actually, gramps… It wasn’t a convenience store that I was working at for nearly a year. I was going to work as a glorified whore at the Fantasy Room in an effort to help pay the bills… But while we’re on the subject, here’s a funny story: I quit working there two weeks ago because I said some nasty, insulting things to a Special Grade alpha and I’m still not entirely sure if I’ve been put on some kind of hit list or not… But that’s neither here nor there… 

“Pay attention, Yuuji! This is serious!” His grandfather snaps, bringing him out of his spiraling thoughts. “You’ve absolutely been moping as if losing some shitty job at some shitty convenience store is a great loss in your life. For fucks sake, kid. When are you going to give yourself a damn break?”

“I don’t need to take a break, gramps. I’m doing just fine,” Yuuji says as he crosses his arms defensively over his chest. 

“I told you not to lie to me,” Wasuke growls, “You aren’t fine and we both damn well know it.”

Yuuji drops his gaze to the table. He feels all too small beneath his grandfather’s stern gaze, but if the sight of his contrition does anything to soften Wasuke’s heart, it certainly doesn’t show as he continues on his tirade.

“You work too hard, Yuuji. You’re too young to think that your only choice in life is to be stuck in the rat race. A kid like you should be out making stupid mistakes and going on dates with little red heads that have bad attitude problems… You should be working yourself to the damn bone like you’ve got no other choice!” 

But I don’t have another choice. Yuuji thinks to himself as an image of the bills he’d stashed in his bedside table comes to the forefront of his mind. His eyes lift from the table and trace along the hollow curve of bone beneath his grandfather’s eyes— yet another reminder of how much weight he’s lost since he’d gotten home from his last trip to the hospital.

“Don’t get me wrong, kid. Going to school and having a strong work ethic are great qualities to have, especially at your age… But not when that’s the only thing you do!” Wasuke says.

“I do other stuff!” Yuuji whines back with his own glare.

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” His grandfather huffs as he crosses his own arms in a mirrored image of Yuuji’s pose.

“I— Well, I went to the movies with Junpei last weekend!” Yuuji points out.

“Doesn’t count. I had to hide the remote so that you wouldn’t buy the stupid version on Webflix,” Wasuke says. 

Yuuji’s mouth drops open. “That was you?” 

“Who else would it have been? There’s no one else in this house who could lose it.”

Yuuji huffs and racks his brain for another example. He opens his mouth and—

“And don’t tell me that you have future plans. They don’t count either because I know for a fact that you don’t actually follow through with any of them,” Wasuke says. 

Yuuji closes his mouth again, his chin juts stubbornly as he turns his face away from his grandfather.

The old man sighs and taps a hand down on the table. “You go to class and you go to work and you come back home and that’s it! Over and over again. And don’t tell me that the time you use to volunteer at the dojo is the same as actually enjoying yourself there. It still counts as work if you’re there for other people instead of yourself! It isn’t healthy, Yuuji. You should be out doing whatever your dumb generation thinks is fun these days. It isn’t right that you hardly spare any time to let yourself live… Just think what your mother would have to say about—”

“Don’t,” Yuuji says flatly as he holds a hand up to silence the rest of his grandfather’s sentence. The sharp press of his fangs against his lower lip threatens to draw blood as he clenches his jaw tight. “Don’t bring her up. Don’t use her against me… I can’t— I don’t—”

“Alright… You’re right,” Wasuke concedes softly with a nod. He settles back in his seat, a bit more calm than he was before. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have used her like that against you… But come on, kid. Look around. You don’t want to spend the best years of your life wasting away in this tiny apartment with a sick old man who has already lived a full life.”

“But I—” Yuuji starts.

“It’s not a bad thing to do something to make you happy for once, you know? It’s your turn now… And I’ll never rest easily knowing that you let every opportunity for your own happiness slip by because you thought it was your job to try and fix everything for everyone else,” Wasuke leans forward and reaches a trembling hand out across the table. It is as much of a peace offering as that offer to join him for breakfast was all those years ago. “Please. You’re a good kid. You’re a strong kid, and I know how much you want to help others… But who’s going to help you when you won’t do it yourself?”

Yuuji says nothing to his grandfather’s soft question. His gaze is locked onto his deeply creased palm that reaches out across the table. The slow, steady thrum of his heart thuds in tandem with the ticking of the clock above the stove. He has the vague feeling that it is counting down to something, but cannot quite figure out what. There are so many words that Yuuji wishes he could put into the space between them that only seems as though it stretches wider and wider with each passing day. As though he could build a bridge with consonants and syllables and make his grandfather understand that he has no choice. 

Just as Yuuji is about to reach his own hand back, Wasuke sighs deeply and brings his hand back into his lap. As e stares down at his gnarled knuckles, refusing to meet Yuuji’s stare, Yuuji is overcome with the most terrible feeling that he has just missed a chance that he will never get again.

“You’re a lot like me when I was a young man, Yuuji. I thought I knew everything about what I wanted in the world and how to get it… But in the end, I knew nothing at all,” his grandfather says quietly, his voice hardly above a whisper. When he finally raises his eyes back up to meet Yuuji’s, the faded edges of memory linger within them, blurred beside a dimming flicker of hope. “Just promise me that you’ll try to take care of yourself even half as well as you take care of others.”

Yuuji remains silent.

Any promise he could make to his grandfather goes unspoken, because he knows better than anyone that a promise that isn’t made, is a promise that can’t be broken.

Chapter Text

It has only been a few weeks since Yuuji (was forced to) quit working at the Fantasy Room, but by the way Nobara flings herself into his arms like he is a long lost soldier returning from war and she is his devout, heartbroken widow, he’d be inclined to think it has been years.

“Yuuji-kun!” She cries out, her breath hot against his cheek as her arms wrap around his shoulders in an iron hold. The crushed rose petal scent of her lingers in his nose as she rubs her neck against the scarf wrapped around his own. Laughter springs forth from him easily as he wraps his arms around her waist in a tight hug. A piece inside his chest that lives perilously close to his heart goes soft and gooey with the rare show of friendly affection— so different from her witty and sharp attitude that she affects more often than not. 

“It’s hardly been a month,” Yuuji says with a smile as he pats at her hat covered head. 

Nobara pulls back finally and pouts up at him. “It’s been forever.”

Yuuji laughs again and shakes his head. Above them, gray clouds have blanketed themselves across the sky. The tips of surrounding skyscrapers dig into their underbellies and threaten to dumb open their contents on the unsuspecting heads of Tokyo’s citizens. They stand outside of Yuuji’s favorite ramen shop— the one that is close to his university campus. Nobara is dressed in an outfit that is far too trendy to truly be able to ward off the damp chill in the air, while a designer bag hangs from her shoulder. Meanwhile Yuuji wears his worn out hoodie and a pair of decent jeans. Atop his head, he can feel the first few sprinkles of rain falling from the steely clouds.

“Come on, let’s get a table,” Yuuji says. Nobara follows him as he pushes open the door. The scent of savory broth assaults his nose as they enter and are shown to a small table near the window. The ramen shop is small and comfortable, with only a few other customers since the lunch rush hasn’t officially started yet. 

As they settle into their seats the heavens open up and torrents of rain fall from the dark clouds. Nobara cringes at the sight of it as she tries to fix her short copper hair in the reflection of the window beside them.

“Why does it always rain on the days I forget to bring my umbrella?” She grumbles.

Yuuji unwinds the lumpy, knitted pink scarf— one of Nobara’s creations— from his neck and sets his own umbrella— the one he brought because he actually checks the weather— beside their table. Their young alpha waitress asks for their drink orders with a smile, to which Nobara wiggles her eyebrows with a suggestion of shots of Sake. 

“It’s not even noon yet,” Yuuji says with a shake of his head, “And besides, I have class in a few hours.”

“Oh, Yuuji-kun is such a spoilsport. What about just one?” Nobara asks with a bat of her eyelashes. The waitress looks increasingly distressed as she stands beside the table, as though she’s expecting a real fight to break out between them.

Yuuji rolls his eyes at his friend. “Because it’s never ‘just one’ with you. And I refuse to show up blackout drunk to my Advanced English class… Again.”

“Again?” Nobara asks with a raised brow and a wicked grin.

“You don’t want to know,” Yuuji mumbles and then looks apologetically at the waitress. “I’ll just stick with water.”

“I repeat: spoilsport,” Nobara sighs, rolling her eyes. “Fine. I’ll just have water too.”

The waitress seems relieved to have a chance to escape, darting off to retrieve their drinks. Nobara picks up her menu and Yuuji sees the way her nose wrinkles deepen as her eyes scan further down the page. He had been wondering why Nobara had suggested meeting at the ramen shop— though he’d made mention of it to her being his favorite. However that same soft, gooey part of his heart seems to melt a little further as he realizes that this is one of Kugisaki’s silent kindnesses. Most people saw her only for the hardened exterior and vicious attitude she spouted on a regular basis, but if they cared to look closer, they would see that Kugisaki’s brand of friendship involved silent kindnesses— the things she hears you talk about in passing that mean the most, like the blanket for his grandfather and suggesting his favorite ramen shop. Little things that add up over time.

“How’s the job search going?” Nobara asks nonchalantly.

Yuuji sighs. “Not terrible… Junpei said he’d get me an interview at the cafe he used to work at. I guess they’re looking for a new baker.”

“Oooh,” Nobara coos as her eyes glint playfully over the the top of her menu. “And how is my little Yoshino doing?”

Yuuji glares back at his friend. He’s all too aware of Nobara’s intent behind the seemingly innocent question. Over the year that they’d been friends, Nobara had met Junpei only once and it had been enough to put the fear of God into Yuuji’s oldest friend— and Nobara was more than willing to eat poor Junpei for breakfast, if given half a chance.

“You leave that sweet boy alone,” Yuuji threatens half heartedly.

Nobara merely laughs in reply before turning her attention back to the menu. Several moments go by in silence. Yuuji’s leg bounces under the table, his sneaker squeaking against the tile floor in a way that Nobara will surely be annoyed by, though she makes no comment on it. As if she’s waiting for something… 

“Sooo,” Yuuji says slowly, drawing the word out as he looks over his menu as casually as possible. It’s all for show, since he gets the same thing every time— something, of course, Nobara already knows, though she must be feeling merciful since she doesn’t leap at the chance to call him out. “How’s work?”

The slap of a menu hitting the table between them startles Yuuji in his seat. A petulant, drawn out whine comes from Nobara, loud enough to garner a bit of attention from some of the other customers strewn throughout the restaurant and she reaches across the table to grab his wrist in a tight grip. Yuuji barely withholds the laughter that trembles in his chest at the sight of such dramatic devastation splashed across his friend’s pretty face. 

“You have no idea how terrible it has been since you abandoned me!” Nobara whines. 

“First of all, I did not abandon y—”

“Shh! Shh!” Nobara hisses as she shoves her hand against Yuuji’s mouth before he can finish his sentence. He gives her a dead eyed stare above where her fingers are plastered over his parted lips. “You did too! You’ve practically left me for dead. Your very best friend in the whole, wide world. Am I nothing to you?” 

“Are you done yet?” Yuuji asks, with an impassive glare. The words muffled against her fingers. 

Nobara shifts back in her seat and folds her arms over her chest with a roll of her eyes. “Yes, yes. Fine, I’m done. But still, you have no idea how absolutely shit work has been for the last few weeks. They hired some new girl to take your place and she’s just absolutely insufferable. A real bitch, you know? And then there’s Shigume who still hasn’t learned to shut the fuck up and thinks we should all be kissing his feet and bowing like he’s some sort of prince— as if he’s the only man with a cunt between his legs I’ve ever fucking met before.”

“Christ, Nobara! Keep your voice down,” Yuuji hisses as an elderly female omega shoots a scathing glare in Nobara’s direction when her words carry a bit further than their table. 

Nobara hardly notices. “Not to mention I’ve hardly seen Panda anymore now that his husband’s been traveling for work or whatever and he gets to play jet-setter-sugar-baby in his free time. And, and, and, Miguel has had me working window shifts on the weekends as punishment for that stupid shit I pulled with your scent patches… Of course it’s not like I’m missing out on anything since the regulars have practically been scared off by the blue eyes that hang around the joint now. I’m telling you, it’s fucking ridiculous. I feel like I’m on a reality TV show and—”

“Ready to order?” asks a chipper voice of a new waitress that stands beside their table. She’s a sweet cheeked beta and Yuuji wonders if they’d scared off the other one, but dutifully tells the girl his order with a polite smile. Nobara hesitates over the options for several long minutes before she finally tells Yuuji to order for her, much to his embarrassment. The waitress giggles as Yuuji’s blush, clearly assuming that Nobara is his girlfriend or something, but he has no way of refuting it without looking like an idiot. 

“She thinks we’re on a date,” Yuuji mutters under his breath after the waitress takes their menus and leaves.

Nobara smirks and rests her chin in her hand, elbow propped on the counter. “Oh please, as if you’d be able to pull someone half as gorgeous as me.”

Yuuji rolls his eyes. “Jeez, Nobara. Have some mercy on my poor ego.”

“Never.” Nobara bares her little Omegan fangs in what is supposed to be a grin, but only serves to make her look like a feral animal.

“Whatever,” Yuuji says, though he’s not offended— not really. “Now tell me about this insufferable new girl and don’t leave anything out.”

“Well!” Nobara announces dramatically as she brings her other hand up to fold her fingers beneath her chin. “Her name is Mai and she’s an absolute brat. I’ve got a running theory that she’s some kind of disowned omega of some rich family, because no person who’s ever had to budget their money talks the way she does. It’s a little bit weird though because she goes from acting like she’s hot shit one minute and then the next she’s having this big breakdown and sobbing her story to anyone who will listen about how she’s trying to live outside of her dumb sister’s shadow for once in her life or whatever and how she’s going to, and I quote: ‘Prove that she’s better in every way.’”

“Well that sounds a bit… dramatic,” Yuuji says.

“Oh, trust me. It’s the most dramatic thing I’ve ever seen. And remember I had to sit through Amanai’s mental breakdown that time that she nearly got herself abducted into a cult,” Nobara says pointedly.

Yuuji lets out an incredulous laugh as the memory trickles back to him. “Oh, wow. I almost forgot about that.”

“I don’t blame you. I’ve tried to block it out of my mind with very little success,” Nobara shakes her head with a grimace. 

“Anyway… So this girl clearly seems like she’s got some family issues and was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Any clue as to how she ended up in a place like the Fantasy Room?” Yuuji asks. 

“Honestly, no fucking clue,” Nobara says with a shrug. “There was this time last week when I caught her out in the alley arguing with someone… Pretty heated from the sound of it… Maybe some kind of lover’s spat, although I’d be willing to bet that if she really did have some kind of partner that she’d make it everyone else’s business… So maybe not.”

“Other people do actually enjoy having love lives, you know. Not everyone is set to die miserable and alone like us,” Yuuji comments.

“Uhhm, first of all, speak for yourself,” Nobara says with a glare, “You might have that set for you because you’re an antisocial, workaholic nightmare, but I like to think that there’s still hope for me… I just have very high standards that are practically unattainable, and therefore I have not found anyone worthy of my affections.”

“Mmhmm. Right,” Yuuji hums.

“Anyway! Let me finish telling you my gossip before you start harassing me,” Nobara says as she reaches across the table and pokes his cheek. “As I was saying… Caught her arguing with some guy in the alley… One of the blue eyes I think. Clearly there was some kind of connection there, but they change out so often and honestly they all act like robots half the time so it’s hard to keep them apart anymore.”

Yuuji’s brow furrows. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“Huh?” Nobara asks.

“That’s the second time you’ve referred to ‘blue eyes’. Who are you talking about? Is it some kind of new client?” Yuuji asks.

“Well…” Nobara drifts off. Her eyes dart out the window where sheets of rain are still falling from the sky. “Remember that night when you— you know— got fired?”

“Obviously,” Yuuji mutters bitterly.

“Right… And you remember those ‘very important guests’ that Miguel was shitting his pants over that night?” Nobara asks.

“Do you honestly think I’ve forgotten this quickly? It was barely a few weeks ago,” Yuuji complains.

“Yeah, yeah, I know… I’m just saying…” Nobara holds up her hands in defense. 

“What about them?” Yuuji sighs, rubbing at his forehead where an ache has bloomed suddenly.

“I mean… It’s nothing really important or anything. The lot of them just decided to keep coming back… I mean. I think we were right from the start about them being investors or something. Most of them just hang around a few times a week and like, keep an eye on the place or whatever. It’s actually kind of creepy, to be honest. They always wear scent patches so you don’t know who you’re dealing with and on top of it, they don’t even look like they’re enjoying themselves half the time. Like I said, they’re all just a bunch of robots in disguise. And it isn’t helping that Miguel is a sweatier mess than usual about them being in the club. It used to be a little funny to watch him lose his mind a little bit every day, but now it’s just excruciating. Sort of like those sad animal commercials that come on late at night? You know? For three hundred yen a day, you can save this emotionally stunted beta—”

“Alright, alright. Slow down. Let’s back up,” Yuuji tries to derail her, though his words are lost beneath her tirade.

“And don’t get me started on the creepy eye tattoos that some of them have—”

“Eye tattoos?” Yuuji interrupts. A memory catches in his mind, thin like spider silk on a thorn. He thinks about the little white card that the strange woman had given him and the blue eye tattoo on her hand.

You ever get into trouble, you find someone with one of these… They’ll get you the help you need...

“ Are they on their hands?” Yuuji asks, half distracted by his thoughts.

Nobara stops and tilts her head like a confused puppy. “No… Well. Not always at least. I’ve only seen one or two of them in the club with it on their hands. Remember that big blonde asshole who had a monumental stick shoved up his ass?”

Yuuji rolls his eyes. “Just because the guy didn’t have any interest in you doesn’t mean he’s an asshole. What if he’s actually a really nice guy?”

“I doubt it, but whatever. Remember him? He definitely had a tattoo on his hand that I noticed that night. I’d just thought it was some weird Evil-Eye bullshit or something. But me and the rest of the girls have all noticed that the ones who come in always have a tattoo of a blue eye somewhere on them… Hence the rather creative nickname. Most commonly I’ve seen them on their wrists, right under the hem of their sleeves, but Sasaki said she was entertaining a female that had one on their neck— it’s easier to just refer to them all as the ‘Blue Eyes’ since they definitely won’t share their names with any of us… but wait a minute…” Nobara trails off as the light of realization goes off behind her amber eyes. She pins Yuuji with an accusatory glare. “How did you know about them?”

“Uhh… Well…” Yuuji reaches up and rubs at the back of his head. The bristles of his dark undercut are soft against his palm— grown out for too long now that he doesn’t have Panda to clean it up every few weeks. 

“Yuuji-kun,” Nobara drags the nickname out sweetly, however there is a vicious twinkle in her gaze. “What are you hiding from me?”

“Nothing! Seriously! It was just… After that whole fiasco happened—”

“—You mean when you were fired?”

“— You mean when I took the fall for you?”

Nobara flaps her hands in his face. “No, no, no! You’re doing that thing you always do when someone gets close to finding out a secret you’re hiding! You’re deflecting!” 

“I am not,” Yuuji snaps as he swats her hands away. “I’m trying to tell you that after I went back to the dressing room one of those people… I don’t know… Some woman. She was down there and just like, wanted to talk? It was weird, but she had one of those same eyes tattooed on her hand. That’s all!”

Nobara looks at him shrewdly, tawny eyes narrowed as though she could catch some kind of hint of a lie on him. “She only talked to you?” She finally asks.

Yuuji swallows as the memory of a tiny white business card, pinched between his fingers flashes through his mind. “Uh… No?”

“What do you mean no?” Nobara asks as her eyebrows climb higher on her forehead. “Are you asking me?”

“No! No. I just… Well she kind of. I don’t know. Gave me her business card?” Yuuji says, though the words once again sound like a question.

He nearly starts to squirm in his seat as the silence drags out between them. Nobara’s incredulous gaze rapidly darts across his face, still looking for something though he’s got no idea what it might be. Just as he’s about to tell her to quit it, their waitress arrives at their table with a bubbly smile and two steaming bowls of ramen.

To her credit, if she senses the tension between them, the waitress makes no mention of it and by the time she leaves, Yuuji is left feeling the quiet curl of dread in his stomach.

“You’re starting to freak me out, Kugisaki,” Yuuji mutters as he picks up his chopsticks and spitefully breaks the yolk of the egg sitting on top of its bed of noodles. “What is your deal? It’s not like anything bad happened. So she gave me a business card? Who cares?”

“Yuuji?” The utterly serious tone of Nobara’s voice has Yuuji glancing up from his bowl in surprise. The curl of dread slipping up his chest to sit in the hollow of his throat. His friend’s face is eerily impassive as she speaks in a low, hushed whisper. “What do you know about the Gojo clan?” 

Yuuji freezes. The noodles caught between his chopsticks tremble for a second before they fall with a splat back into the steaming broth that splatters onto him. All at once, his mind is transported back to that night so many weeks ago. The scent of ice and snow and salt burning the inside of his nose. The mocking tilt of his handsome face, eyes covered with black silk. The sneering curl of the Special Grade Alpha’s mouth, revealing deadly sharp fangs, while he’d spewed insults at him. Miguel’s trembling voice addressing the spoiled, arrogant piece of shit— practically pleading for mercy… 

“Gojo-sama…”

Gojo-sama…

“The Gojo clan?” Yuuji says slowly, rolling the words in his mouth as though by learning their shape on his tongue he could understand their meaning. “Am I supposed to know something about them?”

“Do you really not know anything about them?” Nobara presses, leaning forward in her seat. Yuuji feels very suddenly as though he is a bird caught in a cage— a desperate urge to escape ricochets throughout him. “You’re telling the truth?”

“I don’t know! I don’t think so?” Yuuji snaps nervously. “You’re being all cryptic and weird about this whole thing and making me feel like a crazy person for not knowing anything about these people! It’s been weeks since I was at the club and I didn’t even think the business card thing was anything other than some weird form of business casual apology? Like an HR thing? As far as I know the only person I’ve ever met with the family name Gojo was that white haired douche of an Alpha who— if you remember correctly— insulted me and got me fired. And I mean, who even wears a blindfold like that? And at night? When he could definitely still see everything through it? I feel like you’re gaslighting me. Are you gaslighting me? Is this a prank?”

Nobara suddenly reaches across the table and slaps a hand over his mouth to stem the flow of word vomit that was steadily rising in volume. “Yuuji, I love you, but you’re freaking out and you need to shut the fuck up for like, a second, okay?”

Yuuji glares at her over the tops of her fingers, however the effect is ruined by the fact that his heart is thundering in his ears and he feels the rising tide of panic threatening to drown him beneath its waves. 

“You can’t just say shit like that out loud. You have no idea who might be listening,” Nobara says to him, voice still dropped in a whisper. Yuuji’s eyes widen and he makes a whimpering sound behind her palm before he pushes it away from his mouth and leans forward across the table until their foreheads are nearly touching. The steam from their ramen coats their faces, but Yuuji can hardly spare a fuck to give for the beef-scented droplets that cling to his skin.

“Are you being serious right now? Why are you even talking like this?” He whisper yells. “Because you sound fucking psychotic. You sound paranoid. Since when do you act like this? You’re not scared of anything! I mean, it’s not like they’re yakuza or something, right?”

Nobara says nothing as she stares back at him. 

Yuuji feels the earth drop out from underneath him.

“Right?” He stresses, practically begging with his eyes for Nobara to crack a smile and say it was a joke— fuck, he’d take the most malicious insult she’s got in her arsenal compared to this torture. 

“Yuuji…” Nobara murmurs quietly. Her eyes are wary as she reaches toward him cautiously, as though he were some kind of spooked animal. He inhales sharply and scents the soothing sweetness of rose petals clouding around their table— an age old tactic of omegas who used their scents to calm and placate. Yuuji wrenches himself backwards and out of her reach. The steady drip of panic starts to seep into his veins and the need to flee returns.

“No. No. Don’t do that. Don’t fucking joke about this shit, Kugisaki. It’s not funny. You can’t really expect me to believe that those guys were actually yakuza… Because then that means… Oh fuck… That would mean—”

Yuuji’s voice breaks as the terrible, horrible, ugly truth stares him in the face. All of it makes sense. All of the things that he had willingly ignored that night. The well tailored clothing. The deadly serious demeanor of every person in attendance. The lack of scents on all of them except for that outrageously powerful Special Grade who had looked down at Yuuji as though he were nothing more than some kind of gutter rat.

You’re a fucking dick…

“Oh, God,” Yuuji gasps and throws a hand over his own mouth as he leans back in his chair. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Sweat dews on his brow as chills race across his body. He stares unseeingly at the greasy mass of noodles in his bowl as his heart thuds loudly in his ears. The sour taste of garlic mixed with bile in the back of his throat heralds that his words might just ring true. 

“If you puke in this restaurant I will literally never speak to you again,” Nobara threatens darkly. If Yuuji had been able to take notice of anything but his own spiraling panic, he would have noticed that her expression was actually worried. Which in itself, was the most terrifying thing of all— because Nobara Kugisaki didn’t worry about anything.

“Please,” Yuuji begs as he lifts his glassy gaze back to his friend’s. “Please, please tell me that I did not insult a family member of a fucking crime syndicate.”

Nobara tilts her head back and forth on her shoulders as if she’s weighing the possible outcomes in her mind. Yuuji’s stomach churns at the sight. 

“You did not insult a family member of a fucking crime syndicate,” she finally says.

“Oh, thank God,” Yuuji sags in his seat with the sweet relief that courses through him like a drug. 

“But…” Nobara drawls, dragging Yuuji’s attention back to her in an instant. Her tawny eyes hold not a single shred of humor in them as she speaks. “You did insult the heir of a fucking crime syndicate.”

Yuuji’s head spins as his heart stops and he swears he can feel the moment the world grinds to a halt under his feet.

***

A groan reverberates against the walls of the narrow alley that Yuuji is currently doubled over in. One palm scrapes against a brick wall as he braces himself against it, while the other clutches at his heaving stomach. The puddle of bile and his barely digested breakfast at his feet washes away with the deluge of rain from above even as his stomach cramps with pure, undiluted terror and forces him to retch once again. His eyes swim with tears, making the red of his shoes smear and blur against the cracked asphalt beneath them.

In the corner of his eye a shadow emerges around the corner of the alley, drawing nearer with light footsteps. Nobara makes a sound of disgust in the back of her throat as she approaches him, holding his umbrella aloft to protect her from the downpour.

“You owe me at least four hundred yen for that uneaten ramen,” she says offhandedly, the words muffled into the lumpy knit of Yuuji’s scarf that she had been kind enough to snatch from the back of his chair in the restaurant. He glances toward her with wide eyes, opening his mouth to reply only for another cramp to curdle through his stomach. Nobara’s nose wrinkles delicately as she watches another spray of watery vomit hit the ground.

“I’m going to get fucking murdered,” Yuuji moans raggedly as he breathes through his mouth. Though his belly trembles, nothing comes out this time. Yuuji spits out bile and grimaces as some of it hits the toe of his shoe. There are black dots swimming at the edge of his vision as he leans against the brick wall, entirely drenched and trying to breathe through bouts of nausea and blind panic. 

“Oh please, would you stop being such a drama queen?” Nobara says with a roll of her eyes.

Yuuji shoots her an unamused, sidelong look, though the impact of it is most certainly diminished by the way that drool is coming out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes are entirely bloodshot. “Easy for you to say, but you’re not the one who called the heir of the yakuza a fucking dick.”

“I mean… It was really only the heir of the Gojo clan, specifically,” Nobara corrects quickly.

Yuuji whines and gags again. “That might be even worse.”

“Oh come on, you didn’t even know about them until ten minutes ago,” Nobara sniffs.

“Yeah, speaking of that timeline, when did you even figure all of this out? You’re acting way too un-fucking-concerned for a girl whose job is apparently under “new management” of the yakuza!” Yuuji accuses with a pitiful glare.

Nobara shrugs a delicate shoulder, but the way her eyes skitter away tells Yuuji far more about what she thinks of the entire situation than anything else.

“It’s not like it was hard to dig up some info… You know how alphas like to blabber around omegas as if we don’t fucking hear a word they say. Some of the girls have overheard stuff about the Gojo clan and about how the Fantasy Room technically falls under their jurisdiction or whatever. After that it was just a matter of piecing shit together,” Nobara says evenly. “But we’re getting away from the point…”

“You mean the fact that I’m going to be murdered in cold blood and my body is going to be dumped at sea, never to be found again?” Yuuji shudders.

Nobara rolls her eyes. “I think if the guy had any real kind of issue with how you spoke to him that night then his lackey wouldn’t have just given you a business card and moved on with their day.”

“Maybe he was just waiting until someone told me about who he really was so that I’ll live in fear until the day he decides to end me,” Yuuji says as he hangs his head down and watches rainwater run a miniature river toward the street.

“Tch,” Nobara clicks her tongue. She takes a step forward, uncaring for how she stands in a puddle and grabs Yuuji’s arm to haul him upright. “Come on. Clean yourself up and get a grip. I refuse to be seen out in public with someone who acts like this.”

The words have no actual heat to them and Nobara’s touch is almost uncharacteristically soft as she brushes her finger under Yuuji’s eyes to swipe at the tears and rain water that run down his cheeks. The umbrella lifts above his head as she wraps his lumpy pink scarf around his neck one handed. A breath shudders out of his chest as he lifts a hand to wipe at his chin. Even though his head still feels woozy and the world seems to be tilted to the right a few degrees for him to be able to stand up straight, he does his best as he leans against Nobara’s side. 

“Listen,” Nobara says as she pats at his sopping wet hair, pushing some of the pink strands plastered to his forehead, “I really don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. Those guys haven’t shown any interest in anyone outside of their own ranks, you know? Some of their guys come in a few nights a week and scope the place out, but that’s it… It’s actually kind of annoying since they scare off the regulars and aren’t allowed to show any interest in the omegas while they’re on the clock or whatever. They poke around and watch the door better than half the guards that Miguel has hired and then they leave. I swear to you, not a single one of us has heard them asking about you or for your name.”

“They already have my name,” Yuuji says quietly. “That woman who gave me the business card asked for it and like an idiot I gave it to her.”

Nobara sighs as she loops an arm through his and pulls him back toward the mouth of the alleyway. “I mean, you’re definitely an idiot… But not one who’s worth killing.”

“Gee, thanks,” Yuuji snips.

Nobara pinches at his arm through his soaked sweatshirt in retaliation. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Yuuji asks as they slip back out onto the sidewalk. The rain has slowed enough for the lunch crowd to have filled in the area. Shoppers and window watchers and tourists and businessmen all clog up the sidewalks, but it’s almost a relief to feel a bit hidden behind them. Nobara effortlessly steers them around the thicker groups of people that clearly have no idea how to properly walk. She leads them across the street and into a small park across the street from the ramen shop. They meld onto the pathway and become nearly invisible amongst the other people meandering around.

It’s quiet between them for a long time as Yuuji is drawn back into his memories of that night all those weeks ago. The intense urge to bare his neck that he managed to resist through sheer, stubborn willpower… The acidic words from such pretty, pretty lips… The strange woman’s vague promise of help, though for what? Did she know the Gojo heir would put a hit out on him? Was she offering to protect him from her own boss?

“My head hurts,” Yuuji mutters as an ache settles into the spot between his eyes. 

“I wouldn’t stress about it,” Nobara shrugs beside him.

“Too late for that,” Yuuji mutters. “Consider me stressed.”

Nobara comes to a stop in the middle of the path and glares up at him. “I mean… You told me that lady cornered you in the dressing room and gave you that business card. Did she say anything else to you? Anything that might lead you to believe that they’d actually try to kill you?”

Yuuji gulps. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Well how else do you want me to say it?” Nobara hisses like an agitated cat. 

“I don’t know but just… Just shut up. And I guess she didn’t really say anything else? Oh, well… She did agree with me that her boss was a huge dick.”

Nobara lets out a cackle. “Oh that’s too good… I bet you were probably just saying what most of them have been thinking for a long time.”

“I’m being serious,” Yuuji says with a frown.

“So am I!” Nobara glares again. “Why would that weirdo lady give you a card like that, like some kind of mafia fairy godmother, only to turn around and let her boss kill you? It’s like letting a cow sleep in the house like a pet and then deciding to make hamburgers out of him the next day.”

Yuuji moans again as his stomach twists uncomfortably. 

“I’m just saying, that seems a bit counter productive, doesn’t it? And anyway, I think you’re forgetting the most important part of this whole exchange,” Nobara says.

“I’m sure you’ll love to tell me what that is,” Yuuji mutters.

“You’re giving yourself way too much credit! What makes you think that some spoiled, Special Grade alpha heir of a powerful clan has the time to give any fucks about some puny omega like you? I mean, he even told you at the club that he basically thinks you’re worthless… I’ll bet he has way more important things to focus his energy on than caring about some mouthy omega who told him he was being a dick.”

“Yeah…” Yuuji breathes out as a tiny glimmer of hope begins to shine through the fog of panic that had surrounded him. “Hey yeah! You’re right!”

“Always am,” Nobara shrugs with a haughty little smile.

“There’s no way he remembers me out of all the people he probably meets all the time,” Yuuji nods to himself, forcefully pushing the thoughts of kidnapping and murder from his mind. “I’m practically nobody! I bet he has way more important people to kill!”

“That’s the spirit!” Nobara cheers with a smile and a little punch of her hand into the air that jostles the umbrella clenched in her grip.

“Yeah!” Yuuji grins brightly. 

Like a late frost under the new spring sun, the last dredges of panic inside of Yuuji melts away. The reminder of his insignificance in whatever world the heir of the Gojo clan lives in brings a swell of such bone deep relief that Yuuji nearly slumps into a puddle on the ground. Their lives couldn’t be more opposite and he can’t deny— especially now that he doesn’t work in the Fantasy Room anymore— that there is absolutely no way they will ever cross paths again. True enough it was a one in a million chance that they even met in the first place— disastrous as it turned out to be for Yuuji’s peace of mind at the very least.

Still, Yuuji smiles quietly as he truly believes that the white haired Special Grade Alpha has already forgotten him. And maybe, one day, a long time from now, he’ll find that stupid business card in the bottom of that bag, forgotten about, just like him and he’ll have a good laugh over his spiral of panic. And then he’ll throw it away and forget as well.

“Come on,” Nobara says, breaking him out of his thoughts as she tugs on his arm. “I didn’t get to finish my lunch thanks to your dramatics, so you’re buying me something.”

Yuuji lets out a laugh and feels the relief shudder through his bones with the bright noise. He lets himself be pulled by Nobara toward a yakitori stand in the distance and thinks about how he’s never been so grateful to be nobody special.

***

A few yards away from the pair of young omegas, a beta in a dark, bespoke suit stands half hidden behind a barren tree, under the protection of their dark umbrella. A lit cigarette dangles, nearly forgotten, between their fingers as they watch the male omega’s head of cherry blossom hair wind its way through the crowd on the park path. 

With a quiet sigh the beta takes one last inhale of smoke into their lungs before they drop the cigarette into the mud at their feet. They reach for their phone nestled in the pocket of their long wool overcoat. A breeze splatters frigid rain against their face as they swipe open their phone with deft fingers and pull up a message thread with an unsaved number. Their face is a mask of neutral emotion as they begin to type with one hand.

>>  I have eyes on the target. How do you want me to proceed?

They send the message and barely a minute has passed before a high, clear note rings out signaling a reply. Smoke curls out of the sides of the beta’s mouth as they finally exhale and stare down at the screen.

Do nothing. It is too soon. <<

The beta breathes out a long, put upon sigh as he reads the words over a few times. They lift their eyes and spare a glance across the park where the two omegas are splitting some yakitori, nestled under their shared umbrella and chatting with close familiarity.

Their carefree smiles are almost enough to make the beta feel guilty… Almost.

The beta turns to leave the park without a word, slipping away like smoke on the wind, as though they had never been there to begin with. Their footsteps in the mud are washed away by the rain by the time their short response is delivered.

>> Understood, Boss.

Chapter Text

The clock above the door reads 6:07 a.m.

Exhaustion tugs at his eyelids, while sweat drips down his neck. A timer is beeping relentlessly as he opens the industrial oven before him and a blast of superheated air washes out across his face. The scent of butter and sugar and yeast clings to the air around him like some kind of heavenly dream, but it is all a lie— Yuuji is in hell.

His back muscles twinge as he hauls out a wide tray of sweet bread, steaming and baked to perfection. He is allowed only a moment to spare some appreciation for his talents before the metal door of the kitchen is shoved open and bangs against the wall.

“Itadori!” A loud, stressed voice barks into the kitchen, causing Yuuji to jump. “I need those trays of fruit tarts and the azuki cream croissants! Now!” 

On the threshold between the kitchen and the front of the bakery, the portly, half-balding owner— one, Mr. Yaomoto— looks as though he’s made a deal with the Devil who has finally come to collect. Behind him, Yuuji can just barely see the gathered crowd of Uni students that have flooded the cafe. Despite the fact that they had opened less than thirty minutes ago, each of them stood in an orderly line, still sleepy eyed and in search of their sugar and caffeine fixes before they hauled ass to the library to prepare for their finals. 

Yuuji spares half a thought for how dearly he wishes he could be on the other side of the counter— though in actuality he knows that he would likely still be in bed if given half a chance. He’s got his own finals to worry about on top of baking endless amounts of sweet buns and cakes, but after being fired from the Fantasy Room , he’d needed the job more desperately than ever. After all, there wouldn’t be any finals to worry about if he went completely broke and became homeless. 

Lost in his thoughts, Yuuji’s mind is a thousand miles away when he reaches for one of the trays of azuki cream croissants— as instructed— and completely forgets that the tray beside it was taken from the oven only a few minutes prior. 

A yelp of pain spews out of him as the burn forms before he even realizes that his arm had touched the searing hot metal. The near instant red mark slices across his flesh as Yuuji cradles the injured arm close to his chest. 

“Focus, Itadori!” Mr. Yaomoto snaps as he shoulders Yuuji out of the way and uses two dish towels to haul the tray of croissants into his arms. “The last thing I need is you getting sloppy, burning off your fingers and filing a lawsuit against me!” 

Yuuji holds his tongue as the older man bustles back out front where the cashiers are hustling back and forth like little mice, gathering up sweet treats and brewing coffee for the customers. 

As the door swings closed behind Mr. Yaomoto and Yuuji is once more left alone, he lets his head slip down to rest his chin against his chest. Lungs heave in the humid weight of the hot air in the kitchen as he attempts to breathe through the stinging pain of his newly acquired burn. Eyes flicking open, he stares down at the metal surface of the counter and finds his distorted reflection staring back up at him. 

 When Junpei had mentioned the job available at the cafe where he used to work, Yuuji had imagined it would be easy money. Certainly easier than pretending to like scumbag alphas while wearing skimpy lingerie and letting go of every last shred of shame left in his soul. Sure, the hours were a bit odd, given that he’d been told to arrive by two in the morning to ensure the right amount of fresh baked goods were ready for when they opened at five. But with the perfect location, set on a street nearly exactly halfway between his university’s campus and the train station— and the fact that Mr. Yaomoto had promised during their interview to pay him cash under the table, rather than putting him on any official records— Yuuji had jumped at the opportunity. 

He’d been naive enough to believe that given the way he’d always loved cooking and baking at home— learning from his grandfather at every turn— the job would be a literal cake walk… But oh, had he been wrong… So very, very wrong. 

It had been only a few weeks since he’d started and already he felt the toll the job was taking on him. His already messed up sleep schedule was practically non-existent anymore. His body ached with the odd muscles used as he mixed batters and hauled up tray after tray after tray and cracked four hundred eggs in a row. And with winter finals approaching quickly, he found himself slipping behind in class, mind foggy from being up so early. In short, Yuuji wondered how long he could keep it all up… And then he remembered the amount left in his savings account and the name of the collections agency as it flashed across his phone, and he knew that he would keep going just a little bit further.

“Itadori! Get your head out of your ass! Where are those fruit tarts?” Mr. Yaomoto’s harsh bark echoes into the kitchen as he shoves open the door again.

“Right away, sir!” Yuuji calls back as he draws himself up again. He spares a last look for his exhausted reflection warped in the dented metal and then glares at where the burn has started to blister across his forearm. He snatches up the tray of completed tarts and moves toward the door where a purple-faced Mr. Yaomoto looks like he wants nothing more than to yell at him once again for moving too slowly.

Another bead of sweat drips down his neck and he catches sight of the clock as he passes through the door.

6:15 a.m… Fuck. 

***

Yuuji’s body slams to the ground. The tatami mat does little to cushion his brutal fall while the breath is pushed forcefully from his lungs. His forearm screams as the blister along his flesh stings beneath the wrappings that he had carefully— so fucking carefully— applied before his sparring session, though they did little good to block the brutal hit delivered by his friend. A groan shudders out of his chest as pain ricochets along the tense muscles of his back, eyes squeezing closed in defeat.

Even through his closed eyes, a shadow blocks the light from above him. 

“You’re fighting like shit today.”

Yuuji cracks open an eye and glares half heartedly at the green eyed omega looming above him. 

“Junpei… Buddy… I mean this with so much love, but respectfully… Fuck off.” 

The other boy’s normal solemn face is overtaken with a sly expression— one that is borne from years, no, decades of friendship and closeness built between the two of them. A few pieces of his dark brown hair have come free of the small ponytail at the back of his head, the strands falling down over his forehead in a sparse mimicry of the side bangs he once used to cover up the scars lining his flesh. 

“Someone’s moody,” Junpei says with a smirk, though there’s no real taunt in his tone. If anything, Yuuji can hear the clear concern that echoes in his friend’s voice.

Yuuji groans again and rolls his eyes as he pushes himself up to a sitting position. His loose pants rustle as he pulls his legs in to sit cross-cross on the tatami mat. Shaking fingers tug on the wrappings around his blistered arm until the raw, red wound is exposed to the air. 

Junpei makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Yeesh… That doesn’t look good.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Yuuji mutters back as he pokes uselessly at the bubbled skin. Junpei crouches down beside Yuuji, his whip-thin body moving with astounding grace, even in such a simple movement. 

“Don’t fuck with it,” Junpei snaps as he takes Yuuji’s wrist into his hold. Fine boned fingers clutch at him and his touch is so familiar that Yuuji is sure he’d know it in any universe. 

They had been friends for nearly as long as Yuuji cared to remember— inseparable from the first moment they’d been introduced to each other as desk neighbors in the first grade. Junpei and Yuuji had forged a bond in the way that two children— who felt as though they had nothing else— could. Perhaps if things had been different— if Yuuji had not felt like a sailor lost in a storm at sea inside his own heart or if Junpei had been shown a single shred of kindness from anyone else before Yuuji had come along— they might not have clung to each other as desperately as they had. But things had not been different and for years upon years, Yuuji and Junpei had been as close as two friends could be.

Junpei was the first one to learn about Yuuji’s early presentation as an omega. Yuuji was the subject of Junpei’s unwitting affections— and the honorable recipient of Junpei’s first attempt at a kiss when they were on the cusp of teenhood— until Junpei presented as an omega as well. Junpei was the one who introduced Yuuji to the beloved world of cinematography— the good, the bad and the delightfully terrible. And while Yuuji was the one who was nearly expelled for fighting— a.k.a: kicking the ever loving shit out of— the five upperclassmen that had mercilessly bestowed Junpei with the myriad of cigarette burns across his forehead, Junpei had been the one to beg Wasuke Itadori to allow Yuuji to attend Martial Arts class alongside him, barely a month after the incident.

Nearly sixteen years later after that fateful day they sat beside one another in the back of their first grade class, Yuuji and Junpei were not quite as inseparable as they once had been, but their loyalty and friendship remained just as unbreakable.

“Did you put anything on it?” Junpei asks as he inspects the burn under the dojo’s bright lights.

“I held an ice cube on it for like thirty seconds?” Yuuji replies.

“Tch,” Junpei scoffs and glares half-heartedly at him. “Don’t let it get infected.”

“Aww, Junpei, you do care,” Yuuji bats his lashes animatedly at his friend.

Junpei drops Yuuji’s hand and cuffs him upside the head as he rises fluidly to his feet. “Nah. I just don’t want the only sparring partner I’ve got to lose an arm.”

Yuuji rolls his eyes and rubs at the spot that Junpei slapped. He watches as his friend slips away and begins stretching. Sweat has gathered on the light gray material of his shirt that clings to his skinny chest and his pants billow around his slim legs. Ever since presenting as an omega, Junpei had grown into the whip-cord thinness that he always had growing up. Rather than the gangly, awkward pre-teen that stumbled alongside Yuuji on the playground, Junpei had shot up several centimeters and somewhere along the line his skinny limbs had become lithe. Had become something a bit closer to elegant… Though Yuuji would rather die than admit that to his oldest friend. Especially when Junpei would just do something like put him in a headlock for saying it. 

“Come on,” Junpei says from across the mat. He brushes back his hair from his face. Unafraid in a way that his younger self could scarcely dare to dream about being, of the way it puts on display the long-faded cigarette burns, scattered like malicious constellations across his forehead. “We’ve hardly even warmed up and the class doesn’t start for another hour and a half.”

Yuuji grunts in acknowledgement as he shoves himself up to his feet. Sweat gleams across his bare chest, settling into the dips and valleys provided by the cut of his muscles. Where Junpei had become something elegant as an adult omega, Yuuji was still not quite sure what shape he had taken. Most omegas preferred to lean into society’s standards of beauty for them and allowed their curves to soften and widen, as if to say 'Look how fertile I am’ at any given moment, but Yuuji had never felt inclined to gentle himself. 

Weekly sessions at the dojo had strengthened his body— soft curves gave way to hardened muscle over years of consistency. And despite his narrow waist and the slight curve of his hips and the fat that gathered in more… acceptable places… Yuuji more often passed for a beta than an omega— especially without a scent to mark him with.

Junpei twists his lithe body into a series of complicated moves that he manages to make look effortless. His feet hit the tatami mat with a smack when he lands from a graceful, arching kick and he faces Yuuji with a grin. One hand raises up to beckon him forward, a playful taunt rising in his eyes. Yuuji rolls his head back along his sore shoulders, feeling the tension ease from them as he shakes out his arms. Though his burn stings, the addictive draw of a spar has Yuuji pushing past the discomfort as he falls into a beginning stance.

“Atta’ boy, Yuuji-kun,” Junpei smirks, “Give me your best shot.”

Yuuji breathes out long and slow as he centers himself.

***

Less than ten minutes later, he feels no remorse when he hits Junpei with an ungodly kick combination and his friend crashes down to the mat with a grunt. 

***

“Thanks again, Itadori-senpai!” 

“See you later, Yoshino-san!” 

Yuuji waves at the two young, female omegas that are rosy cheeked and beaming at him. Junpei waves a hand over his shoulder as he locks up the dojo behind them with a jingling set of keys. They’d stayed behind to see off all of the omegas that had attended Junpei’s self defense class that evening, but Yuuji can’t help but feel a little on edge as he watches the two young girls walk off into the night.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to walk with you?” Yuuji calls out to them. The frigid air burns the back of his throat as he breathes. A shiver makes its way down his body as the wind cuts straight through his sweatshirt and chills the slick of sweat still on his skin, hidden beneath it. 

“We’ll be alright!” One of the girls calls back with a kind smile. The other one muffles a giggle into her mitten before they both turn around, loop arms and start making their way in the opposite direction.

Yuuji waits until they turn the corner and are out of sight before he finally turns around. Junpei stands a few feet away on the sidewalk and is watching him with a softened expression that makes Yuuji want to reach out and pinch him.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Junpei teases.

“Shut up,” Yuuji rolls his eyes and knocks his shoulder gently against Junpei’s as he passes him. “This part of town can be weird at night.”

“It’s barely past nine p.m… I think they’ll be just fine,” Junpei replies as he falls into step with Yuuji.

It’s quiet between them as they walk down the side streets that lead to the train station. Exhaustion hangs heavy around Yuuji’s shoulders and his muscles burn from the sparring that he’d done with Junpei earlier. It’s been just over nineteen hours since he stumbled out of bed in order to get to the cafe on time and he swears that he can feel every single second of them as an individual weight that tugs on his eyelids. Mentally he calculates how much time it will take to finish the last of his economics essay and how much time that will leave for him to get some sleep before he has to be up again to catch the 2:30 a.m. train and—

“You’ve gotta teach me how you did that kick combo,” Junpei says, interrupting Yuuji’s train of thought.

His hazy brain takes a few seconds to connect to what his friend has said and he remembers their earlier spar. “Oh yeah, man. For sure… Maybe I can swing by again sometime later this week?” 

“Sure,” Junpei nods. “I’ve got three finals left, but I’ll be free on Thursday if you can make it.” 

Yuuji cringes. “Ah, I can’t do Thursday. That’s my busy day.”

“You say that as if most of your days aren’t already busier than any normal person should be able to manage,” Junpei mutters with a frown. 

Yuuji shrugs. “It’s fine. Once finals week is over I’ll get a break.”

Junpei hums under his breath and casts an unconvinced look in his direction. Yuuji steadfastly ignores his friend’s gaze, already sure that he would not like what he found there, were he to look close enough. They walk in comfortable silence for another block before Junpei’s voice fills the space between them again. “So… You know, aside from the nasty burn you got, how are you liking the cafe?”

Yuuji tries not to give anything away on his face. 

For the eleven months that he was employed at the Fantasy Room he had managed to keep Junpei in the dark about it. Though given the way that his childhood friend knew veritably everything about Yuuji and could sniff out a lie on him faster than a shark caught blood in the water, there had been more than a few close calls. Still, by some strange miracle— and more likely, Yuuji’s quick thinking and a few carefully crafted, Oscar worthy excuses— he had managed to avoid the brunt of his friend’s suspicions. 

So when he’d told Junpei that he had been fired from his “night shift at the convenience store” , Junpei— the sweet, loyal, childhood best friend that he was— suggested to Yuuji that he knew a place that was looking to hire someone with experience in cooking and baking. And like a fool— or at least a desperate son of a bitch who couldn’t afford to miss a payment on rent— Yuuji had blindly accepted the offer to set him up for an interview.

In hindsight, he thinks he should have been a bit more wary about being so eager to take the job. With the way Mr. Yaomoto is almost certainly out to get him and is all too happy to give Yuuji the shit end of the stick most days. But his grandfather always said that ‘ Beggars can’t be choosers’ and Yuuji is most certainly a beggar in this scenario.

“Pretty sure I’m going to get fired by the end of the month,” Yuuji says honestly.

“Nah, you won’t be,” Junpei says with far too much positivity in his tone for Yuuji’s tastes.

He sends a mutinous glare over at Junpei who casually walks beside him, hands tucked away in the deep pockets of his shearling lined coat. “Honestly, you should be worried too. Since you’re the one who got me the job in the first place… Mr. Yaomoto probably thinks you’ve got shit judgment since you suggested hiring the world’s biggest idiot.”

Junpei’s fist thuds into the meaty upper part of Yuuji’s arm in an instant. There is not as much power behind the punch as Yuuji knows his friend is capable of, but the thud of it hurts all the same. 

“Hey!” Yuuji barks as he moves a step away from Junpei and glares at him. “What was that for?”

Junpei points a threatening finger at Yuuji, a glare on his own slim face. “No one’s allowed to say mean things about my best friend. Not even you.”

Yuuji stares back at him as they stand in the middle of the empty sidewalk. Junpei’s hair is pulled back from his face, scars proudly on display— as though they were not a remnant of a traumatic experience, but rather a badge of honor. Something he showed to the world to tell them ‘Look what you tried to do to me and see how much stronger I am for it’ . He has always been grateful for Junpei’s friendship and the way that he’d been a constant in Yuuji’s life at a time when everything else seemed entirely uncertain, but he can’t help but wonder when the sensitive little boy who needed Yuuji’s protection transformed into this confident young man— When did that happen?

In the pit of his stomach, gratitude curls up, warm and glowing golden at the fierceness of his friend’s loyalty in defending him— even if it means reprimanding Yuuji for the way he speaks about himself.

“Fine, fine,” Yuuji says with a sigh, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

Junpei narrows his jade eyes in Yuuji’s direction, surveying his face as though he might find something else there. Finally he nods, deeming Yuuji to be truthful in his acceptance of the chastisement. As they start walking down the sidewalk again, Junpei adjusts the strap of his backpack over his shoulder with a huff.

“Mr. Yaomoto would be the real idiot if he fired you,” he says firmly. “I’ve tasted your baking more than enough to know that it’s better than anything in that part of the city and Yaomoto-san definitely knows that too… If he fired you, he’d have to deal with finding another replacement who’s not half as good as you.”

“He could always hire back Todo,” Yuuji points out. 

“No way,” Junpei says immediately with a frantic shake of his head, his ponytail flopping from side to side. “You never saw the monstrosities that Todo used to make… He called them Baked Expressions of Self Love. It was wild. Not even Mr. Yaomoto would be desperate enough to hire him back.”

There’s a glazed look of horror in Junpei’s eyes as he shudders in disgust at the memory of whatever tragedy Todo baked at the cafe during the time that he worked there. Yuuji snorts out a laugh at the sight of it.

“Whatever happened to that guy, anyway? I knew he worked at the bakery with you before you quit, but I used to see him around campus all the time too… It’s like he just disappeared or something. Wasn’t he at the top of our class?” Yuuji frowns. 

His mind wanders back to the several times he’d seen the enormous Grade 1 alpha at the University’s gym— always benching more weight than Yuuji could ever dream of lifting at a time. At first he’d assumed that the boy to be a big knot headed jerk, the same as most of the douchey, high ranking alphas that paraded around the gym like a bunch of sweaty peacocks. However, it had been during an early morning session that Todo had approached Yuuji during his workout and sheepishly asked if he could use one of the scent patches that he’d spied in Yuuji’s gym bag.

Yuuji had never figured out the reason why an alpha like Todo— so confident in his second gender and a prime specimen of strength — would want to cover up his scent, but given Yuuji’s own proclivity to hide his scent, he could not begrudge the alpha for doing the same. After that morning, they’d often had small, friendly bouts of conversation, though nothing ever deeper than surface level Hello’s and How are you’s . They’d even had a calculus class together the previous semester, but now that Yuuji thinks about it, he hasn’t seen the boy around in ages— not that Yuuji has exactly had the time to notice anything as of late because of how busy he’s been.

He glances over at Junpei and finds his friend’s brows drawn together in thought. 

“I know he quit working at the cafe in the early fall about a month after I’d left and I thought I’d heard something about him graduating early… but there was another rumor going around that he became some kind of sugar baby.”

“Todo?” Yuuji says far too loudly for the quiet, dark neighborhood they’re walking through. Junpei shushes him quickly and Yuuji clamps his mouth shut for a moment as his mind whirls in circles. “Todo Aoi? A sugar baby? Wait, we're talking about the same person right? Six foot three, three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle, Grade 1 alpha Aoi Todo? Is this some kind of joke?”

“Oh shut up, would you!” Junpei shoves at Yuuji’s shoulder as he continues to gape in shock. “I’ve got no idea if it’s actually true… I’m just saying that I overheard the girls who run the cashiers at the cafe talking about it on the day I went in to tell Mr. Yaomoto to hire you.”

“Well, well,” Yuuji grins slyly at his best friend. “Didn’t peg you as someone who put any stock in the rumor mill… You little eavesdropper, you.”

Even in the darkness, Junpei’s cheeks are dusted with an embarrassed blush. As his chin juts out stubbornly and he attempts to glare back at Yuuji, he can’t help the way laughter tumbles free from his mouth.

“Be nice to me or I won’t let you borrow my copy of Human Earthworm IV. ”

“No!” Yuuji gasps, “No, please! I’ll be good, I swear! I missed it in the theaters and it won't come out on Webflix for another six months!” 

Junpei simply shrugs apathetically, but there’s a tiny smile curling up the edges of his lips. Down the street, as they take the last corner, the lights of the train station come into view. Only a few shadows of other travelers are standing on the platform as they get close. 

“Have you finished that essay for our cinematography class?” Junpei asks.

Yuuji groans. “Haven’t even started it yet… I’ve got no clue when I’ll find the time to write it,” Yuuji says forlornly.

“Maybe Professor Tengen will allow you to type up your essay instead? Might take a bit shorter,” Junpei replies.

Yuuji rolls his eyes and drops his hand back to his side. “ Yeah, right! That ancient bag of dirt masquerading as a man probably doesn’t even know what a computer is.”

The comment draws a soft laugh out of Junpei as they approach the entrance to the train station. They find a place on the platform a few yards away from the closest other traveler and shift their backs against the chill wind that whips through the station. Huddled like a pair of Emperor penguins, they stand side by side with their heads bowed close to each other, displaying a level of comfort and closeness that came from living almost an entire life at each other’s sides… In fact, Yuuji realizes that he can’t remember a time when Junpei wasn’t standing beside him like this.

“Hey,” Junpei’s soft voice says out of nowhere.

“Hmm?” Yuuji hums as he looks up from his phone where it’s cradled in his half-frozen hands. The messages are opened to reveal a series of increasingly whiny texts sent from Nobara who was working at the club that night.

“Can I be real with you for a second?” Junpei asks gently, his fingers twist nervously against the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. They’re close enough that Yuuji can smell the tang of Junpei’s sweat, mingled with the bright lemon and sweet honey scent that bursts from his exposed scent gland. The teasing, wry expression that his friend usually wears has disappeared and in its place is a kind of deep concern that has guilt wriggling up Yuuji’s throat.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Junpei huffs, warm breath washing across Yuuji’s face. 

“Like what?” Yuuji asks with honest innocence.

“Like you’re some kind of puppy left in a box on the side of the road,” Junpei nudges his sharp shoulder into Yuuji’s. Standing beside each other like this, Yuuji is reminded that his friend has grown to be more than a decent handful of centimeters taller than him— When did that happen?— “I just want to be honest with you, okay?”

“What did you do, Junpei?” Yuuji asks.

“It’s nothing that I’ve done. I’m worried about you ,” Junpei frowns.

Shame sits heavily in the hollow place within Yuuji’s chest. The gaping maw of a beast made of his guilt opens wide, threatening to swallow him whole if he does not tread carefully. Instead, he braces himself and swallows down the words that knock against the backs of his teeth— the ones that want to spring free whenever his grandfather gives him one of his searching looks, or when Junpei starts to see past the thin veneer of ‘Okay’ that Yuuji has painted over the crumbling walls of the life he once knew, or when Nobara’s vicious gaze digs into him like a freshly whetted blade.

“Ohhh,” Yuuji coos with a false smile in an attempt to throw him off. “Junpei-kun is such a good friend!”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Junpei mutters and throws a sharp elbow into Yuuji’s ribs.

Yuuji fakes a gasp. “Junpei! You shouldn’t say mean things about your friend!” 

“I’m being serious,” Junpei glares.

“You’re the one who made up that rule, not me.”

“Come on, Yuuji. Seriously.”

Yuuji freezes when Junpei’s hand lands solidly on his shoulder. The warmth from his palm seeps through Yuuji’s sweatshirt, fingers squeezing tight into the hard muscle beneath. There have been few times during the near two decades of their friendship that Yuuji has truly seen Junpei hurt. The way his face seems to crumple in an echo of the soft spoken little boy who was bullied mercilessly for nothing more than being different is haunting to bear witness too, yet Yuuji looks upon it now.

“I know you’re going to just tell me that you’re fine, and that’s okay… You don’t have to tell me every single time something is bothering you,” Junpei acknowledges quietly. Yuuji’s heart twists in his chest at the way his friend’s eyes flit away nervously and then back again. “But don’t pretend like I’m some kind of stranger who doesn’t know you. ”

“I’d never—” Yuuji starts, nearly breathless with the hurt that punches through him.

“I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty or anything. We’ve both got our own secrets, but… You’re my best friend. You’ve always been there for me. And sometimes I can’t help but feel like you try to pretend like you don’t need anybody at all.”

Yuuji’s throat clicks as he swallows. Behind him, the train squeals down the tracks, closer and closer to the station.

“Junpei, I—”

Junpei reaches up his other hand and sets it on the opposite shoulder. He holds Yuuji in front of him, grip tight, but not enough to hurt, as he looks down the gap of centimeters between their heights. No longer were they the little boys that played together every day after school… When did that happen?

“You don’t have to do everything by yourself, you know?” Junpei says, his voice raising slightly as the noise from the approaching train threatens to drown out the sound of it. “You don’t have to protect me anymore, Yuuji… Not even from yourself.”

Yuuji stares wide-eyed at his friend as they stand on the platform. The train rushes past, bringing with it a gust of frigid air. People begin to gather near the edge of the platform— all too eager to escape from the cold and finally make their way home. 

“If you ever need help, you know you can ask me, right?” Junpei says finally as the doors of the train slide open beside them.

Yuuji is helpless to do anything but nod back at his friend. 

He stares at his green eyes, illuminated by the harsh fluorescent lights that pour out from the train. The faded scars along his brow shine silver against his pale skin. His slim face looks delicate and angular in a more mature way than it ever had when they were both gangly, thin teenagers. There is no trace of that little boy who had nursed split lips and black eyes without a single tear shed, who had, somehow, retained his tender hearted nature no matter how many times the rest of the world tried to beat it out of him with fists and feet and venomous words…

He looks like he’s grown up— When did that happen?

Yuuji wants to ask what Junpei sees when he looks at him, but he's not sure if he would like the answer.

Chapter Text

Yuuji winces as the floor creaks beneath his battered sneakers. A snorting half-snore seems to answer in reply from nearby.

Like a chicken in the shadow of a hawk he freezes and looks up immediately from his half-tied laces and down the darkened hall leading away from the narrow genkan toward the open doorway that leads into the apartment’s tiny living room. The only sound that disturbs the near silent house is the murmur of the infomercials clogging up the channels of late-night television. White light splashes against the hallway walls as the screen changes every few seconds.

Yuuji strains his ears for any further signs of movement, but all he can hear is the quiet, rasping inhales of his grandfather’s snores coming from the living room alongside the murmuring TV. The quiet click of the oxygen machine is an unsettling, off-beat marker that accompanies each deep breath Wasuke makes in his sleep. 

It’s nearly two in the morning and the scales of sleep have not yet fallen from Yuuji’s own eyes. He moves clumsily, body aching from the lack of sleep and the sparring he’d done yesterday. Usually he’d pride himself on his physical prowess, especially as an omega, but now as his fingers fumble with his laces, he cringes at his inability to tie his shoes faster than a herd of snails could cross a six lane highway. 

Of course, it would have been far easier to deal with his clumsiness in the quiet of the household if he’d still had the buffer of his grandfather sleeping upstairs. Wasuke’s move from the bedroom to the living room had been the most recent development in the on-going battle against his declining health— and had only actually occurred after multiple failed arguments and close calls with Wasuke’s diminishing balance. Only after Yuuji had gotten the job at the bakery had his grandfather finally given in— relenting yet another coveted piece of his independence because it was made apparent that Yuuji would no longer be around in the mornings to help him down the stairs. 

It made Yuuji’s chest ache to see the utter defeat that had taken over his grandfather’s expression when he’d given in to Yuuji’s logic of setting him up on the first floor. He thought of the man that had raised him— the one that danced around the kitchen on strong, limber legs— and knew how difficult it was for Wasuke to give up so many pieces of his freedom as he grew older and sicker. However, Yuuji’s own peace of mind was soothed far more in knowing that his grandfather would not accidentally fall down the stairs of their home while Yuuji was cracking eggs and making cakes in the early hours of the morning. Though Wasuke would surely slap him upside the head if he caught even a whiff of sympathy off of his grandson, Yuuji knew that the old man could see as plainly as him that he was growing weaker by the day.

The transition had been made easier only because Yuuji had used a large chunk of his savings from the club to purchase a medical grade automatic bed— used, of course— that he’d installed in the living room, thereby giving Wasuke a more comfortable place to sleep and lounge during the time that Yuuji was at work and school. When Wasuke had insisted on knowing just where Yuuji had gotten the funds for it, Yuuji had insisted— lied— that the insurance company had covered most of the purchase. And while the purchase had been proven to be a worthwhile asset in the nearly six weeks since Yuuji had gotten his new job, it certainly made sneaking out in the middle of the night all the more difficult. 

Oh so slowly, Yuuji lets his limbs unfreeze, the muscles aching from the sparring he’d done with Junpei only a few hours earlier. Quiet, controlled breaths slip out of his mouth as he reaches for the black nylon duffle bag— now devoid of any of the lingerie that Yuuji had graciously gifted to Nobara— from the ground at his feet. Silently he slips the thick strap over his head so that the bag sits as a comforting weight against his back. The lumpy pink scarf slips from its hook on the coat rack with a hush of yarn against wood. Yuuji casts one last look in the direction of the living room where the click of the oxygen machine follows every long, rattling inhale. He tries his best to ignore the terrible, horrible ache that has burrowed into the space beside his heart as he turns and reaches for the doorknob and slips out into the cold, dark night.

Despite the frigid wind that cuts through Yuuji’s sweatshirt— hardly enough to be considered a proper winter coat— the walk to the train station is almost peaceful.

Not a single other soul walks the streets beside him at such an ungodly hour and he allows the cold air to wake him up with each icy brush against his cheeks. Nobara’s scarf is wrapped close around his throat, scratching against his freshly applied scent patch and providing a sticky warmth where his nape grows damp with sweat. He walks quickly through the dark streets, not from fear, but rather from his own paranoia of missing the train— though he has never missed a single one before, he has no intentions to start now.

Music crackles through the old pair of headphones nestled into his ears, low enough that he can still hear his own breaths and the slap of his sneakers on the sidewalk. The quiet lull of his lo-fi playlist gives his walk a bit of ambience, turning it into something less like a trudge toward his minimum-wage job and more like something he’d see in one of his favorite slice of life anime. The ones where life isn’t any more difficult than finding out that the handsome, kind Alpha has a crush on the main character who is oblivious to their own beauty and has a heart of gold. 

Perhaps, Yuuji thinks, in another life, he could have some kind of life like that for himself… Though he’s more inclined to believe that the only kind of anime he would find himself in is the one where the writer kills off all of the favorite characters and nothing ever seems to go right.

Born to shoujo, forced to shonen. He thinks to himself, still a bit sleep deprived. He shakes his head to himself, amused at such thoughts as he treks toward the deserted train station. It isn’t one of the nicer, more updated ones, given that their suburb lingers on the fringes of Tokyo, but still it isn’t entirely dilapidated and Yuuji has never felt anything other than safe while waiting on the platform.

The playlist shuffles and a new song crackles to life in his ears as he finds a spot to stand under the flickering lights that line the platform. He digs his battered phone out of the front pocket of his sweatshirt and is relieved to find that he’s still nearly fifteen minutes early for the train. A yawn cracks his jaw open as he tucks his hands into the front pocket to hide them from the raw, cold air and he nestles his nose into the soft, knitted scarf a bit deeper. 

A few minutes pass and another song starts up. He recognizes it almost immediately as one that Junpei had shown him before their self-defense class had started last night. Music and movies were the two things that they had bonded over so thoroughly, though there were so many other things that kept them glued together as they had grown up. When he thinks back on how they first became friends, the memory is faded at the edges, as though it has no end and no beginning… As though he cannot recall clearly the moment that they first met, but immediately skipped to being best friends. Much like Nobara-chan, who seemingly dropped into his life during a time he considered himself to be at his lowest, Yuuji had come to find that the most important people to him had a habit of simply falling into his life at the most unexpected times.

Suddenly, there is a movement to Yuuji’s left.

His heart ticks faster in surprise at the shadow that darts across his peripheral vision. Given how early it was, he’d never seen another person take the train with him— or even get off the train when it arrived. And yet now, in the corner of his eye he sees the figures of not one, but two people… Two very short people.

His brain stutters in confusion though he keeps his eyes down. Beneath the trickling beat of his music, he can hear the cadence of words being spoken. Yuuji’s heart thuds against his ribs at the nonsensical thought that the newcomers might be speaking to him. With deft fingers he turns down the volume of his music without taking his phone from his pocket—without giving away the fact that he has done so— and listens to what the new arrivals are saying. 

“— Can’t believe I ge-get saddled with babysitting duty. Like I’m some kind of fuckin’ na-nanny… Who would ever want to take care of a fuckin’ brat like you— ”

Yuuji’s heart leaps into his throat at the sound of the man’s slurred and hiccupping insults. There is a clear distortion to his voice, as though whoever he is has been drinking heavily, but that is the least of the reasons why Yuuji finds himself suddenly full of rage. Heat boils up from his belly in an instant and sets his blood on fire. It feels as though he’s fallen into some kind of alternate reality or something because surely— surely— this can’t actually be happening.

“G-God damn… They were right, huh? You really don’t fuckin’ talk, do you? The fuck is wrong with you? You some kind of mute or somethin’, you little freak?”

Yuuji’s fist cracks where it’s hidden in his pocket as he lifts his head slowly and shifts his gaze to his left. Although he’d expected the sight, he still finds himself stunned by what he sees.

The drunk man stands several feet away from Yuuji— clearly at what he thought was a distance safe enough for him to utter such terrible things without getting caught. He’s short and round in stature in a way that almost looks fat but Yuuji can see the bulk of the man’s arms where they’re stuffed in an ugly yellow jacket. He’s swaying a bit on his feet even as he attempts to leer down in the face of the skinny, little dark haired boy beside him. One meaty hand is wrapped around the boy’s thin upper arm and he’s shaking him as though he were trying to get his attention, even as the little boy stares up at him with an unwavering stare.

“C-Can’t imagine what makes a shit stain like you any special… Not worth the trouble if you ask me…” The man’s crooked teeth are bared in a malicious sneer as he leans even closer to the little boy’s face. “What’re you fuckin’ deaf now too? Am I gonna have to teach you a lesson in manners? Looks like they got a little rough with you, brat. Amiright?” 

The man’s tugs hard enough that the little boy’s face pinches in a flicker of pain— though he doesn’t utter a single sound— and Yuuji sees red.

“You think I fuckin’ wanted to do this shit? You think I don’t have anything better to do than drag some halfwit fuckin’ weirdo like you halfway across the city in the middle of the fuckin’ night? Huh?”

The little boy moves then. He tilts his chin away from the drunk man’s angry face until he’s facing in Yuuji’s direction, though his eyes are glued to the ground. And while he might have been boiling with rage only a moment before, his blood goes absolutely frozen when he spies the dark bruise splashed across the little boy’s cheek from a hit that had to have been recent— very recent.

“The very least you could do is sh-show me a little bit of gratitude for not g-giving you one to match, dontcha think?” The man slurs as he reaches a meaty hand out and grabs the little boy’s chin to turn his head back to face him. “Come on, brat… Say it… Say thank you, Jogo. Go on. Say it. Open your mouth, little boy. Come on, you can do—”

In a move almost too quick to follow, the little boy moves his head. A flash of teeth— slightly crooked as though they are still growing in right, but no fangs given his unpresented age— and a pained howl rings out through the night.

Yuuji watches in shock as the little boy latches onto the drunk man’s finger. Teeth digging viciously into the skin enough that Yuuji catches sight of red painted against the man’s skin.

“You fucking brat!” The man hollers loud enough that the sound echoes off the train station walls. He rips his finger from the boy’s mouth and sends the kid stumbling backwards, barely managing to catch himself. The drunk man holds up his hand before his face and sees the tiny row of teeth imprinted along his flesh, spots of blood dripping down toward his wrist. When his glazed eyes latch back onto the boy’s face, there is a volcanic rage brewing in his eyes. “I’ll fucking kill you. ”  

The man takes a step forward, grabbing hold of the boy’s arm again in a punishing grip and raises his other fist high above the boy’s head.

Yuuji’s snarl echoes from deep within his chest in response. “That’s enough.”

The drunk man startles as though a warning shot had been fired. 

True enough, even Yuuji does not fully recognize the sound of his own voice, distorted with the amount of unadulterated rage that courses through his body. It is a twisted kind of satisfaction that he feels inside himself as he watches the drunk’s beady eyes widen and flit toward Yuuji, filled with shock as though he truly hadn’t realized they weren't alone. 

Yuuji’s stance widens as he faces the pair head on, standing beneath the flickering light and bathed half in shadow. With the cold whip of wind swirling through the station it is too hard to tell what designation the man holds. Not that it matters— a piece of shit was still a piece of shit, no matter what their secondary biology dictated them as.

“Hey man… This is none of your business,” The drunk man starts to snarl in what he clearly believes to be a show of power. The threat merely rolls off of Yuuji like water on a duck’s wing as he takes a step forward into the light, unleashing the full power of his fury on the man. His fangs are bared in his own snarl, a glare burning hot and bright behind his eyes as he stares down the asshole before him. However, it is as Yuuji’s face is illuminated by the terrible flickering lights of the station, that the man’s entire demeanor changes .

The man’s hand drops instantly. Beady eyes widen into saucers as his mouth gapes open. “But… I don’t— What—”

“Shut up,” Yuuji snaps harshly, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

The hot curl of protectiveness takes root inside his body as he rolls his shoulders back and looms over the shorter man. The drunk seems to shift warily on his feet, though he doesn’t release the little boy’s arm from his grip. He seems to stutter for a second as his gaze warily moves back and forth between the little boy and Yuuji.

“But what about the…” The drunk man slurs out in confusion, waving a hand up at his— ugly— face. “And what happened to the… the… your—”

“Are you even listening to me?” Yuuji cuts off the drunk’s strange ramblings. He takes another step closer, eating up the distance between them. “What gives you the right to talk to a kid that way? To talk to anyone like that? Better yet, what makes you think that you could do that shit in front of me and I would let you get away with it?”

“I didn’t— Hanami said— But maybe I didn't— I'm so confused—” The man stutters out. Yuuji can sense the weakness in the man now as he looms over him. Nothing more than a pathetic piece of shit with a complex and a habit of picking on people deemed less than him.

“I don’t give a fuck if you’re confused,” Yuuji snarls. The words reverberate through the empty station, deep and unforgiving in a way that normal omegas aren’t usually capable of. “I don’t give a fuck what you thought.”

As if finally sensing the true danger that he is in, the drunk man releases the boy and takes a step back as Yuuji closes the distance between himself and the little boy. “No please… Please!”

Without a second thought Yuuji positions himself between the drunk man and the dark haired boy, shielding him from the scum’s sight. Yuuji leans forward a bit, a sneer on his own face as he glares down at the man.

“Fuck off,” Yuuji whispers menacingly under his breath. “Before I give you a real reason to beg for mercy.”

The drunk man’s face goes bloodless. He stares up at Yuuji for half a second more, looking as though he’s seen some kind of ghost, and then, in an instant he turns on his heel and runs.

The furious creature pacing inside of Yuuji watches with blood thirsty satisfaction as the weaker prey runs away from him. Though his instincts are screaming at him to chase , Yuuji stays rooted in place. He soon loses sight of the drunk as he wobbles away quicker than Yuuji had thought him capable of— as if the Devil himself is on his heels.

In the distance, the screech of an approaching train jars Yuuji’s mind out of the focus of a predator that it had sunk into. He winces at the sound, blinking harshly as though waking up from a deep sleep  and by the time his gaze refocuses, the drunk man has disappeared out of the train station. 

Metal on metal shrieks through the night as the train rushes into the station. The lights of the train windows fly past him, illuminating the platform in a slowing strobe. His breath fogs before his face as an icy wind gusts alongside the arriving train and sweeps the last of the red hot rage out of his body. A hiss signals the train’s stop beside the platform and Yuuji feels a tug on the back of his sweatshirt.

His heart pounds hard against his ribs as he turns around. The movement dislodges the hold of the tiny, pale hand that now hovers in the air between them. Yuuji’s wide gaze settles on the round face of the little boy— no more than five or six— that stands before him. Spring green eyes stare up at him from beneath a cloud of unkempt, ink-dark hair and are filled with a solemnity that hardly belongs on a child’s face. The black and blue bruise is stark against his pale skin where it’s splashed like malicious, haphazard watercolor across the boy’s chubby cheek.

“Excuse me,” the little boy’s quiet voice is timid and yet determined in its politeness. Yuuji’s heart squeezes tight in his chest as he realizes the little boy is dressed in nothing more than a matching set of anime superhero pajamas. “Can you take me home please?”

Beside the platform the train doors slide open and warm, white light spills out over them.

“The next station is… Shibuya.” The automated voice replies from within the train.

***

Exactly nine days before Yuuji’s seventh birthday, he ran away from home.

Except, it wasn’t really home. Not yet.

Not when he still woke up in the middle of the night and reached across his bed for the soft, warm curve of his mother’s arm, only to find that he was utterly alone. Not when he still forgot which drawer had the chopsticks in it, because it wasn’t the one to the left of the sink like it had been before. Not when the bottom step of the stairs squeaked under his foot no matter what place he put his weight on it and his grandfather always caught him when he came down from his room. Not when his mother’s absence still felt like a wound that had been stitched up quite right and pulled on all of the tender, delicate parts of himself that hadn’t healed yet.

It wasn’t really home… But he still decided to run away.

The cherry blossom trees were in bloom and yet, the ground was covered in a thin layer of snow. Nearly unheard of for that time in the season, and yet, the delicate pink blossoms were covered in a fine dusting of frost, gilding their beauty in glittering crystals that would tragically only serve to make them wilt faster.

Part of Yuuji was glad to see it happen. 

He had hoped— against hope — that the trees simply wouldn’t bloom that year. His mother had always told him that the flowers bloomed for his birthday, so that the world could rain its own confetti on his head in celebration with pale pink petals stuck in his hair that matched the exact same shade. And as any foolish child would do so, in the face of their mother’s sweet conviction that the universe existed solely for— and in— their beloved child, Yuuji had believed her.

But the natural world would not stop its ancient cycles on the whim of a grieving child, and so the cherry blossom trees still bloomed, but now there was snow on the ground. And Yuuji knew that the sight of their pale pink petals— no matter if they were covered in frost — not only marked another year of his own life, come and gone— the first of many without his mother at his side — but they also brought tidings of the approaching school year.

Unbeknownst to Yuuji at the time, Wasuke Itadori had been firm in his decision to withhold Yuuji from attending classes for far longer than the school district had recommended. Teachers, therapists and principals had argued that Yuuji would only suffer for it, given that he’d fall behind a grade, but Wasuke had remained resolute. After the boy had been forced to come live with him under such traumatic circumstances, Wasuke could not bear to force his grandson to attend a new school as he navigated the difficult emotions that accompanied his mother’s passing. 

However, Yuuji did not know any of this.

And so, ten days before Yuuji’s seventh birthday, when his grandfather had mentioned, merely in passing, that they would have to go into the city to purchase his new school uniform, Yuuji had felt one, singular emotion— panic. Of course, for Yuuji, when faced with such utter panic, there was only one logical thing to do— run far, far away. So he did.

He’d waited until night time. He knew his grandfather would almost surely try to stop him from leaving— he was a sneaky old man and would try to trick Yuuji into staying by making crepes for breakfast. He’d grabbed a backpack— the one decorated with characters from his favorite superhero cartoon show that his grandfather had bought to surprise him with on his birthday that Yuuji had found in the “secret” hiding spot at the back of the linen closet. He’d packed it full of necessities for a ( nearly ) seven year old on the run— three pairs of clean underwear, his stuffed tiger, three hero action figures, a pajama shirt and two packages of instant ramen. He’d put on his winter coat— because his mother had always made him wear a coat if there was snow on the ground — and double knotted his sneakers— since he’d only just learned how to tie his own shoes, but they sometimes still came undone. Then he slipped out the front door and started walking.

He didn’t get very far.

The moon was high and full, gleaming like a fat silver coin against a backdrop of glittering stars. The air still held the bite of winter, though perhaps it had been dulled to a nibble, so close to true springtime as it was— despite the wintry blanket spread across the suburban neighborhood. The streets were quiet and empty— their neighborhood altogether a safe place, though no one would willingly allow a young child to wander the streets unattended in the middle of the night. And although it had felt like an eternity since he’d closed the front door behind him, when Yuuji came upon the small park that his grandfather often brought him to— less than a mile from their home, not that he knew that— he thought that maybe, just maybe , he could rest for a little while.

By that point, most of the childish bravado that Yuuji had felt while packing up his belongings— more than ready as a mere (almost) seven year old to start his life on the streets if it meant avoiding going to a new school— had fled from his system. His eyes felt heavy and he wished he’d thought to bring a blanket and a pillow. The ground was covered in a crunchy layer of snow and clinging ice, but he managed to find a snow-free spot beneath one of the curved plastic tunnels next to the swings. The ground was damp and cold as he shuffled in on his knees and then sat cross legged under his makeshift shelter. 

He sat for a while… Until his belly rumbled. Of course, he should have a snack, and then he would be on his way again! Yuuji unzipped his backpack and rummaged around until he pulled out one of the ramen packages, only to realize that he had no hot water to make it with… Not even a bowl… Perhaps he could melt the snow to get the water… but how would it get hot enough? And where would he buy a bowl? More importantly, how could he buy a bowl when he had no money of his own? Would he have to sell something to get money first? He reached into his bag and pulled out his three action figures.

Yuuji eyed them, clutched in his chubby little hands, with carefully appraising eyes. Only two of them were really his favorites, so maybe he could sell the third one? But then he would have the full set anymore and it wouldn’t be any fun to play with just two… Maybe he could sell his tiger? 

Yuuji’s eyes had cut toward the battered, beloved stuffed tiger that was nestled inside his backpack and immediately struck that thought from his mind. 

He definitely could not sell his tiger… But then what could he—

“Hello there.”

At the sound of a stranger’s voice, Yuuji had startled bad enough that he’d bonked his head against the side of the tunnel. With tears stinging in his eyes as he rubbed roughly at the side of his head, he’d turned to look at the person that had approached him. His little heart thrummed against his rib cage, fluttering like the frantic wings of a trapped hummingbird.

In the darkness of the night, crouched down a few feet away from where Yuuji was huddled beneath the tunnel, a boy with night-sky eyes watched him silently.

His grandfather always told him not to talk to strangers. Yuuji clutched his action figures to his chest, glaring at the older boy and said with every ounce of courage he could muster, “Go away.”

The older boy’s lips twitched into a tiny half smile at the rude order. His dark eyes scanned down to the backpack in front of Yuuji, the tips of Tiger’s ears peeking out of the top. Yuuji snatched the bag and pulled it in closer to him— just in case the stranger got any big ideas. 

“It’s late,” the boy said in a low, calm voice, “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“I’m not a baby,” Yuuji replied, glaring even harder at the stranger. “I’m almost seven.”

“Ah,” the boy inclined his head and nodded. “My apologies… Seven is a very grown up age.”

“Yep, it is,” Yuuji nodded his head in agreement, warily watching the older boy.

“Right… And as a very grown up seven year old, what are you doing out so late?” The boy asked, one of his dark brows raised in question.

Yuuji’s lip jutted out in a pout as he struggled to close up his backpack— his pajama shirt had gotten caught in the zipper and refused to budge. “I’m running away.”

“Running away?” The boy asked, though, surprisingly, there was no judgment in his voice. “That’s a very grown up decision to make.”

“Yep,” Yuuji confirmed as he continued to struggle with the zipper. 

“And where exactly are you running away to?” The boy asked.

“Far, far away from here,” Yuuji replied.

“Mmhmm,” the boy hummed. “And how are you going to get far, far away?”

Yuuji shrugged and thought really hard. “The train, I guess… Then maybe I’ll go to the airport?” 

“Airport, huh? You plan on leaving Japan?” The boy asked.

Yuuji fixes the dark eyed boy with a glare that would certainly have his grandfather reprimanding him if he’d seen it. “ Duh. ”

The boy seemed to smile without moving his face at all. As though his expression moved so imperceptibly between emotions without moving a single muscle, yet it was conveyed all the same. Yuuji could see the amusement in the boy’s fox eyes, but it wasn’t mean.

“I’m going to go somewhere that I’ll never have to go to school again,” Yuuji said darkly— or at least with as much darkness as a seven year old child could conjure up. As he wrestled with his bag, a wide, pale hand with knobby knuckles came into view. Yuuji paused and looked up at the boy’s reaching hand. He found the boy had sat fully on the ground, heedless of the snow beneath his crossed legs as he watched and waited patiently for Yuuji’s response. Strangest of all was the way that Yuuji couldn’t find a single trace of the kind of look that most adults— except for his grandfather—had when they looked at him… Like they felt bad for him.

“Can I help you with that?” The boy asked quietly, dark night eyes filled with nothing but patience— as though he had all the time in the world to wait for Yuuji’s reply. Even with the moonlight, it was impossible to see what color the boy’s eyes truly were, but the stars reflected in them like two puddles of the night sky— not that Yuuji, with all of the observation skills of a (almost) seven year old, had noticed…

Yuuji hesitated and glanced down at the stuck zipper. He did not want this older boy to steal his bag… But the zipper was really stuck… 

Slowly he nodded, holding out the bag between them. The boy took it with careful hands and began to work at the pajama shirt that had gotten stuck in the teeth of the zipper. Never once pulling too hard, but instead working slowly and steadily and gently.  

“You know, I don’t really like going to school either,” the boy said. His eyes were focused intently on the zipper and Yuuji watched avidly as his pale fingers worked with a careful reverence that most adults didn’t use when handling toys or other things that children seemed to love.

“You don’t?” Yuuji asked in surprise, “But you’re super old ,  are you sure you should even still go to school?”

The boy huffed a laugh under his breath. That crooked half smile lifting his lips once more. 

“I’m in my last year of high school,” the boy replied calmly, without any offense in his tone. “But then again, I think I’ve forgotten what it felt like to feel young… So maybe you’re right.”

Yuuji shrugged. “I know a lotta stuff.”

“Mmhmm,” the boy hummed while his face did that funny smile-without-moving-thing again. “So how come you don’t like school?”

Yuuji frowned down at the soggy ground beneath them. Under the moonlight, the lingering snow and ice glittered prettily, though it was still just as frigid.

“I just don’t want to go,” Yuuji said stubbornly and poked his bare fingers into the thin crust of ice. “It’s a new school.”

The boy hummed and nodded in sage understanding. “I see…”

Though the boy had not prompted anything else from Yuuji, he twitched with the urge to speak— unable to stop himself from spilling all of the thoughts that had been jumbled in his head for weeks.

“I won’t know anyone there. Not even the teachers. And what if it’s not the same as my old school? What if no one is as nice as my old friends there? Or what if they don’t want to play with me? What if I don’t like what they serve for lunch there?” Yuuji found, once the words started to tumble from his mouth, that he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “What if I can’t find my classroom? And what if my teacher is mean to me? And what if I don’t understand the lesson? And— And what i-if…I— I d-don’t—”

Yuuji sobbed— the sound nearly too loud for the moonlit park. All at once, hot tears streamed down his round cheeks as his tiny, cold fists clenched in his lap before he pressed them to his quivering mouth. The face of the boy across from him went blurry as he began to cry— the stifled, helpless sobs of a little boy who had kept his feelings a secret for too long echoing through the quiet night.

“Oh, hey. Hey now, don’t cry,” the older boy’s calm, soothing voice coaxed, “Come on, little one. It’s going to be alright.”

Yuuji’s tiny shoulders shook from the force of his cries. It was perhaps a desperate search for solace that had him reaching out his hands blindly for the closest available source of comfort— even though it came in the form of a kind stranger— and the older boy did not hesitate to reach back.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Yuuji found himself held tight in the cradle of the older boy’s arms, shuddering through wave after wave of wracking sobs. His tears wet the soft, dark material of the boy’s sweatshirt where he pressed his cheek in tight to the boy’s warmth. A wide hand rubbed soothingly down his fragile back as he heaved for breath.

The boy’s quiet voice murmured softly in Yuuji’s ear— mostly nonsense that was made to comfort the little boy as he broke down. And, despite the utter lack of decorum in it, Yuuji found himself seeking the source of the boy’s scent out in an instinctual search for further comfort. His cold nose pressed into the warm curve of the boy’s neck and he inhaled deeply the scent of a newly forged alpha— already strong in its intensity. Perhaps too strong for a boy who claimed only to be in high school, though Yuuji was hardly old enough to know so. The heady scent of petrichor and woodsmoke filled his lungs as he gasped through his sniffling whimpers— slowly calming down until the boy’s quiet comforting could be heard above Yuuji’s soft, hiccupping breaths.

Yuuji rubbed his nose against the older boy’s scent gland, allowing the dark, heady scent to soothe his aching heart while the scent of the snow surrounding them burned cold and bright beside it. Helpless to do anything but suck down deep lungfulls of the smell— despite the utter lack of propriety in the behavior— as the smell of lightning and snow sat heavy in his lungs. 

The older boy’s hand squeezed gently at the nape of his neck— the same way that an alpha parent might try to soothe their young by establishing that someone else was in control of the situation and would not let harm befall them. His broad chest rumbled with a deep, hitching purr— one that sounded out of practice, or perhaps as though it had never been used before, and yet like a charm, it worked. Yuuji melted against the older boy until his breaths finally evened out and he lay his head against the boy’s damp shoulder.

“That’s it,” the boy murmured, the sound of his voice still balancing on the edge of youth. “You’re alright now. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Yuuji shook his head and whimpered. “No.”

The older boy nodded his head, chin brushing against the top of Yuuji’s fluffy mop of hair. “Yes, it will.”

“How do you know?” Yuuji asked quietly, too exhausted to put any anger behind the words.

The older boy was quiet for a long moment— only the sound of his rumbling purr echoed in Yuuji’s ear. He was quiet for so long, in fact, that Yuuji pulled back and looked up at the boy’s face, thinking he hadn’t heard him at all. However he found the boy looking out across the snow covered park with a solemn, thoughtful look on his angular features. As though his night-dark eyes were not just seeing the boundaries of the tiny, suburban neighborhood that surrounded them, but something far beyond it— something that Yuuji wanted to see too .

“Sometimes it will feel like it won’t be. Sometimes it feels like nothing good will ever happen again… Like the world is playing favorites and you aren’t one of them, but that isn’t true,” the boy said finally. “Maybe you’ll go to school and things will be hard, but do you think they’ll be hard forever?”

Yuuji pouted and turned the words over in his little head. “I don’t think so.”

“Me either,” the boy concurred with a sage nod. When his night-dark eyes met Yuuji’s once more, he wondered how it was possible that two pieces of the sky managed to fit themselves into the boy’s face.

“But I still don’t want to go to school,” Yuuji said shamefully, ducking his head away.

 “That’s okay,” the boy said gently, nudging Yuuji’s chin with a gentle knuckle placed beneath it that tugged his face back up to face him. “You don’t have to want to do hard things, but I think that the people who do them anyway are the best of us all.”

Yuuji frowned as he mulled over the words in his young mind. He thought immediately of his favorite superhero show and about the hero and how he always saved the day and was called the Strongest of All. Yuuji has always, always always wanted to be just like him… But—

“But what if I’m still afraid?” Yuuji asked quietly. “What if I’m too afraid?”

The boy’s arms tightened around Yuuji as his broad, warm hand squeezing gently at his nape. Yuuji’s eyes— when had they gotten so heavy?— fluttered closed. 

“Everyone’s afraid, kid. Everyone’s afraid all the time,” the boy muttered quietly, his voice nearly lost beneath the deep rumble emanating from the center of the boy’s chest. It vibrated beneath Yuuji’s ear as he laid his head against the boy’s shoulder, allowing it to further soothe him into a state of utter contentment. A sound that promised safety and protection. His nose nestled into the warm skin on the boy’s neck, right into his scent gland where the thick, cloying smell of petrichor and wood smoke melded together— lightning and fire— while the scent of snow swirled around them as the wind brushed past their cheeks. The combination only served to push him deeper into the dark embrace of sleep. 

Yuuji felt the last few moments of consciousness slip away from him as the boy’s voice murmured quietly beside his ear. 

“You’re going to be afraid, no matter how strong you get. But being strong means being brave. And being brave means that you keep moving forward and trying your best… Even when it means doing hard things…”

Yuuji couldn’t reply to the boy’s words. 

He slept and slept and slept . Wrapped up in warm arms and the smell of lightning and fire and fresh fallen snow. Safe, safe, safe. Dreamless and small and full of so much potential.

In the morning, when Yuuji woke as the sun peeked over the blooming, frost covered trees and the sound of his name was called on the wind— frantic and terrified — the boy was gone. A fresh layer of snow had fallen across the ground and revealed no footsteps leading away from him, but as Yuuji woke beneath the plastic tunnel all alone, he still felt warm. 

When his grandfather’s neighbor had finally found him, he didn’t cry the way that the adults probably expected him to. Wasuke had laid into him— after his initial terror and subsequent relief of losing and then finding Yuuji had worn off. Yuuji had promised— as children so easily do— to never do it again and accepted his punishment of not being allowed to watch his favorite cartoons for almost a whole week— 

(Wasuke had given in early and Yuuji had gotten off on good behavior)

A few days passed and the late snows had finally melted, but to most everyone’s shock, the sakura blooms did not wither and die faster despite the late frost. In fact, they seemed to last longer that season than any of the more recent ones anyone could remember.

A few weeks passed and on the first day of school— despite his most terrible expectations — Yuuji made a friend. A quiet, solemn boy named Junpei, who sat beside him in class and reminded Yuuji of the stray orange tabby that was missing one ear, who had scratched Yuuji when he’d tried to pet him, but kept coming back day after day to eat the scraps from Yuuji’s breakfast that he managed to sneak past his grandfather. 

A few months passed, and suddenly, all at once he realized that he didn’t feel so afraid anymore… In fact, he couldn’t remember why he had been so scared in the first place.

As more time came to pass, his childhood memories began to fade— as they so often do, turning soft and worn at the corners, like a picture that someone had lovingly held too many times. Sometimes he was reminded of that night, either through Wasuke’s own brand of harsh teasing for the heart attack he’d nearly given him when he’d woken up to find Yuuji’s bed empty or his own tattered memories. He wondered if perhaps he had imagined most of it— wondered if most of it was all a dream — 

The way the moonlight painted the spring snow silver and frost dusted the cherry blossoms on the trees. The hot sting of tears over childish fears and a terrifying, new world that felt far too big to be held in such a little, broken heart. And the boy with the night-dark eyes, who smelled of petrichor and wood smoke, who never once made Yuuji feel anything less than seen for the first time in a long time. 

But sometimes, when he wakes from his dreams and the fast-fading remnants of lightning and snow and cherry blossoms linger in his nose and he knows, deep down, that it wasn’t.

***

The train clatters over the tracks, swaying back and forth imperceptibly as it zooms toward its destination. Light flashes in through the windows in quick bursts, courtesy of the high-rise buildings that have started to sprout up like weeds as they draw deeper into the city. Yuuji stares warily across the gap between him and where the little, dark haired boy sits perched in the opposite seat, staring even more warily back at Yuuji with those pale green eyes.

“Uhh… So…” Yuuji mutters as he twists his fingers nervously in his lap. His brain furiously searches for some kind of topic to latch onto. “Who do you like better, All Might or Endeavor?”

Silence is the boy’s only answer as he raises a single thin, dark eyebrow— and seriously, who the fuck taught a literal child how to look so thoroughly unimpressed like that?— and looks pointedly down at his Eraserhead themed pajamas.

Yuuji cringes as embarrassment crawls up his spine. Though he’d like to think of himself as an anime connoisseur, there was something so humbling about a child judging you for your knowledge on a topic that was intrinsically childish. He rubs a hand across his mouth, as though he could wipe away his frown before it could fully form. Spring green eyes raise back up and the boy’s silent stare holds a clear What do you think? 

“Right… Right, of course. Yeah. Duh,” Yuuji mumbles as if it were obvious— which it absolutely was. 

The train continues down the track, speeding deeper and deeper into the city. The lights of the office buildings have started to become more concentrated and flood the car with their dim glow as they pass the businesses of Tokyo that never sleep. Aside from his plea for Yuuji to bring him home, the dark haired little boy hasn’t said another word. 

It is… Not annoying, per se— of course not. After all, the boy was probably traumatized and had been through something that Yuuji couldn’t even begin to fathom… But it definitely makes things more difficult.

Yuuji digs the tip of his tongue into the sharp point of his little fang— a bad habit that he has been unable to break since they grew in more than a decade prior— and he wonders for the millionth time in the last twenty minutes how the actual fuck he manages to get himself into these situations… Seriously… A mute kid that he probably saved from some Dateline episode fate that he now has to get back home? What’s next? An apocalyptic outbreak of a zombie virus?

It’s a can of worms that Yuuji isn’t entirely ready to address the depth of as he sighs and leans his head back against the cracked pleather headrest. He tilts lazily to the side and watches the blur of lights beyond the windows and wills his palms to stop sweating so much. A few quiet minutes go by before he sees movement in his peripheral vision.

With slow, careful movements— like prey that is trying to avoid the attention of a sleeping predator— the little boy shifts around on his seat. He pulls his knees up under him and leans his elbows onto the small ledge beneath the train window, peering out into the nightscape beyond. Yuuji’s heart tugs painfully in his chest as he watches the little boy, urging him to do something. Say something. Anything.

“Do you maybe know like… Your parent’s address or their phone number or something?” Yuuji asks carefully, trying not to feel like an absolute creep as he does so. He reminds himself firmly that he is trying to help the boy, even as the eternally ingrained Stranger Danger lessons that his grandfather instilled in him blare like a red alert in his mind. Part of him is relieved when the boy keeps silent and looks at Yuuji as though he still doesn’t entirely trust him.

Good. Yuuji thinks. The kid’s got some brains. 

The boy’s gaze darts away quickly from Yuuji’s face and he sees how the boy’s tiny hands curl into fists on the window ledge. Something twists painfully inside of Yuuji’s chest at the sight and he feels the urge to reach across the space between them and draw the little boy into the protective circle of his arms. He definitely won’t of course— the last thing he wants to do is terrify the boy even further— Omegan instincts be damned. But there is an ache, hollow and gaping, that he somehow had never noticed before, taking up space between his ribs, beneath his heart, that echoes with the need to comfort. The want to coo and coddle the scared— ridiculously standoffish — little boy and tell him that it’s okay to be afraid… 

“Are you going to take me home?” The little boy asks quietly. His soft, high voice is far too serious for what a child ought to be, but Yuuji is far too relieved to simply hear it at all to focus on such details.

He straightens in his seat, taking care not to move too quickly and frighten the boy back into silence while he nods. “Yeah, buddy. Of course I am.”

“But you don’t know where I live.” The little boy frowns.

Honestly, Yuuji can’t even argue with that logic, but that is hardly enough to deter him.

“Sure, but there’s plenty of other ways we could probably get you home,” Yuuji says while his brain actively scrambles to think of them. The little boy seems to sense this as well as he arches his brow again in Yuuji’s direction. It’s nearly enough to make Yuuji laugh, before a flash of bright light from a nearby building illuminates the cabin and he sees the splash of black and blue beneath the little boy’s eye.

The warmth of humor curdles sourly in his stomach at the sight of it. He doesn’t want to imagine what the little boy had had to endure before he’d gotten to the train station. The thought alone, in addition to seeing the bruise, is enough to ignite the smoldering flame of his anger that lives behind his sternum. Perhaps it was for the best that the little boy wasn’t too keen on over-sharing, lest Yuuji get on the next train back and hunt down the fat, greasy fuck that had been far too comfortable with hurting a child.

Subtly, Yuuji shakes himself free of his troubling thoughts. He eyes the solemn little boy across from him and sniffs the air. Aside from the stale, neutral scent of the train, there is only the ambiguously sweet scent that drifts off of the little boy’s undeveloped scent patch. Given that the boy could hardly be more than six years old, it doesn’t surprise Yuuji in the slightest. Most children presented during puberty— if not a bit later— and until then their scents remained neutral enough to be considered betas. 

It was only in extreme situations that a child might give off a scent of distress in order to call attention to an omega parent or an alpha protector, but usually, all children held the unintrusive, sweet scent that reminded Yuuji of the sweet buns he made in the bakery. 

Yuuji sighs and shifts forward in his seat. Leaning his elbows on his knees he folds his hands together and rests his chin on them in a decidedly non-threatening position. “Alright… Here’s the deal, little guy. We’re headed into Shibuya station now. Not gonna lie, it’s a little inconvenient that we don’t know where exactly your parents live, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Our first stop is going to be where I work, okay?”

The little boy’s nose wrinkles in distaste. “You work at a job? A real one?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Yuuji nods with emphatic disappointment. “I work at a bakery where I make lots of yummy cakes for super ungrateful undergrads.”

The little boy’s brows furrow together and his lips move silently as they mouth the words ‘ungrateful undergrads’ to himself over and over again. Yuuji resists the urge to laugh at how precocious the little boy is turning out to be— like a miniature, disdainful business man stuck in the body of a kindergartner. 

“I’ve gotta find someone to cover for me and then I’ll figure out a way to get you home. Deal?” Yuuji asks.

The little boy stops mouthing the words for the fourth time and lifts his eyes back to Yuuji’s. He can practically see the way the thoughts whir behind those spring green orbs, illuminated every so often by the lights beyond the window. 

“Do you—” the little boy starts and then stalls. His eyes flicker nervously from Yuuji’s face to the floor and then back again. Yuuji waits patiently for him to continue. “Do you know how to make strawberry shortcake?”

A smile steals unbidden across Yuuji’s face and he feels as though the sun has finally broken through the clouds— he almost expects angels to start singing in his ears— when he sees the pure, innocent hopefulness in the little boy’s expression. The first real mark of childhood that he’s witnessed so far in the dark haired little boy. He wonders yet again who taught this little boy how to hold back his emotions better than most adults that he knows— both for better or for worse.

Yuuji lets out a playful scoff that makes the little boy’s eyes widen slightly. “Do you know how to make a strawberry shortcake? He asks!”

The little boy shrugs timidly and glances away, but it’s too late— Yuuji can see him biting back a shy, tiny smile that transforms his solemn little face into something much closer to childlike delight.

“Of course I do!” Yuuji crows, perhaps a bit too loudly, although there is no one else in the train car to bother this early. “What kind of baker would I be if I didn’t know how to make strawberry shortcake? ”

The little boy’s hands fly up to smother a giggle as it escapes from his mouth. Spring green eyes wide with surprise and wonder, as though somewhere along the line he’d forgotten that he was capable of making such a sound.

“Is strawberry shortcake your favorite?” Yuuji asks as warmth begins to fill up the hollow space between his ribs. 

“It is!” the little boy says with wonder. His little head bobs up and down, the puff of dark hair fluffing around his face as he nods. “Yes it is!” 

Yuuji’s heart softens like a scoop of ice cream under the summer sun at the sight. Dramatically, he looks over his shoulder, up and down the empty aisle of the train before he leans a bit closer across the gap between them. “Can I tell you a secret?” He asks in a hushed whisper.

The little boy’s green eyes go even wider as he unconsciously leans closer. 

“Yes,” the little boy whispers back.

Yuuji bites back a grin and whispers, as if it were some monumental secret. “It’s my favorite too.”

The little boy gasps from behind his tiny palms. “Really? ”

“Really, really,” Yuuji nods his head. “My gramps is the one who taught me how to make it and mine isn’t as good as his, but it’s still pretty delicious.”

“Wow,” the little boy murmurs to himself. “Can you make some for us when we get there?” 

Yuuji can’t tell if it’s a good thing that the little boy seems to be drawing out of his timid shell and that he’s not showing any overly signs of distress from whatever he’d been put through— or if he should be worried that the little boy seems more concerned with getting a sweet treat than being reunited with his parents.

“I sure can, little buddy,” Yuuji agrees anyway, “Oh, but I just remembered, I just need one thing before I can make us anything at all.”

“What? What do you need?” The little boy asks as he bounces in his seat. 

“Well, since we’re going to be sharing cake together, I’ll definitely need to know your name,” Yuuji says as casually as possible as he leans back in his seat.

The little boy blinks at him, brow furrowing again in that way that reminds Yuuji of a tiny, little salary man whose business deal has gone wrong. “My name?”

“Sure, sure,” Yuuji nods, aiming for nonchalance, “I mean… I’ve only ever shared strawberry shortcake with someone that I know by name, you know?”

The little boy frowns and Yuuji can feel him slipping away. The train bends around a corner on the tracks and a blur of neon lights melds together in the corner of his eye— they were getting close. The little boy looks down at his lap and Yuuji knows he has to try something, otherwise the boy will retreat back into his shell completely.

“My name is Yuuji Itadori!” Yuuji blurts out suddenly. He watches the boy as he looks back up with a reserved kind of emotion in his gaze. Little fingers twist into the soft flannel of his pajama pants, scrunching up the anime hero’s face. “But you can just call me Yuuji.”

The little boy makes a face as though he’s just tasted something sour. “Nanamin says that it’s bad manners to call someone by their first name unless you’re really good friends with them. And Nanamin also says that having good manners is really important. ”

Yuuji’s smile softens at the little boy’s insistence on formal manners, even as his mind snags on the name that the little boy had used. The familiarity of the childish nickname must indicate some kind of close relationship to the boy… Nanamin… A parent? A relative of some kind? A friend?

“Your friend Nanamin isn’t wrong,” Yuuji says with a small grin. “Manners are important, especially when addressing someone you don’t know, but you have my permission to use my first name.”

“Because we’re friends now?” The little boy asks with another innocent flicker of hope in his round, little face. Yuuji’s heart softens even further in his chest at the sight and he nods with a gentle smile. 

“Yeah, buddy. We’re definitely friends now,” Yuuji says.

The little boy nibbles on his lip, clearly deep in thought as he weighs out the choice before him. Yuuji can only imagine the lessons he’s heard from his parents and teachers and the mysterious Nanamin, about telling strangers his name. But then again, Yuuji would think that this is a special circumstance that leaves a bit of wiggle room for acquiesces to be made.

Finally, the little boy seems to make up his mind. He nods to himself and reaches out a pudgy hand into the gap between their seats. It hovers in the air, fingers widely outstretched, reaching toward Yuuji.

“My name is Megumi,” the little boy says proudly with a little bow of his head. “But you can call me Megumi, because we’re friends now.”

Yuuji’s grin widens as he reaches his hand across the gap, enveloping the tiny palm into his own calloused hand until it’s swallowed up. He shakes their hands gently by way of greeting.

“Hello, Megumi.”

The train clatters over the tracks as it speeds through the night toward the heart of the city— unstoppable.

Chapter Text

The bell above the front door of the cafe jingles merrily as it opens, letting in a blast of cold air and the shivering form of Junpei, who nearly tumbles over the threshold. His dark hair is in wild disarray, half pulled into a sloppy ponytail and there is a pillow mark indented across his flushed cheek. Sleep still clings thickly to his lower lashes as he blinks rapidly, as if still adjusting to being conscious— in his defense, however, it is still only three thirty in the morning.

Yuuji is actually quite impressed with how quickly his oldest friend answered his frantic call to action. And when Junpei finally spots Yuuji standing at attention in front of the metal door that leads into the kitchen, he gives him an exhausted look while a yawn cracks open his jaw.

“How long have you been standing like a creep in the dark, waiting for me like that?” Junpei asks, waving a floppy hand in Yuuji’s direction where he stands guard in front of the kitchen door. Junpei shakes his head and rubs the hand down his face in an attempt to scrub the leftover sleep from his skin. “Actually, never mind, I don’t want to know. Let’s focus on you telling me why exactly you called me at ass o’clock in the morning and refuse to tell me what is going on, aside from, and this is a direct quote: ‘I need your help right fucking now and you can’t tell anyone else about it’.”

Yuuji shuffles his weight from one foot to the other as a pang of guilt shoots through him. He feels bad— truly, he does— for disturbing his friend’s already tenuous grip on a steady sleep schedule. Given the fact that it is their finals week, his packed work schedule at the dojo and Junpei’s inability to stop himself from staying up way too late watching movies on a regular basis, his best friend needs all the rest he can get. But at the same time, he can’t bring himself to regret calling him for help when he thinks about the enormous problem he’s got— said problem that is currently in the kitchen and licking clean a pair of beaters covered in cake batter. 

“All I’m saying is that this had better be good,” Junpei sighs when Yuuji’s telling silence stretches out between them.

“Uhh… Well… That might depend on your definition of the word ‘good’.” Yuuji grimaces.

Junpei rolls his eyes so hard that it is a wonder they don’t fall out of his head. “Well obviously I didn’t mean good in the literal sense! You were breathing down the phone line like a horror movie antagonist and hung up on me when I tried to get any details out of you! Of course it can’t actually be anything good.”

Yuuji uncrosses his arms in order to flap his hands toward Junpei’s face as he shushes his friend aggressively. He strains his ear toward the kitchen, carefully watching the closed door, but there is no obvious sign that Megumi has overheard their conversation. Junpei follows his gaze, brow furrowing in confusion.

“Seriously, man. You’re really starting to freak me out,” Junpei says with a tremor of unease. “Remember when I told you, like, six fucking hours ago, that you could rely on me? I didn’t think you’d be so extreme in making me prove it to you… Wait. Are you like… On something? Because you know I won’t snitch on you, but I really gotta tell you that I don’t condone the use of any kind of—”

Yuuji’s mouth falls open in shock. “Whoa! Hey! I’m not on drugs!” 

“Well how am I supposed to know that?” Junpei hisses back with a glare. 

“I don’t know! Maybe because I’ve never had a drug problem before in the fifteen years that we’ve known each other?” Yuuji snaps.

“We were literal children for most of that time—”

“So then at what point exactly do you think I picked up a fucking drug problem?”

“Shut up! We’re getting off topic! It’s three in the morning and I walked here in my fucking pajamas and you still haven’t told me why.” Junpei says with a glare of his own.

Yuuji goes quiet once again. The figurative wind taken out of his sails as he is reminded of what exactly he’s gotten himself into. “Well… I—”

“Yuuji,” Junpei says softly as he takes a step closer. His face is open and calm, the way that it has always been since Yuuji met him as a child on that long-ago first day of school. “C’mon. I’m just bitchy because I’m tired, but I really did mean what I said before… You can tell me anything and no matter what happens I’ll always try to help you, however I can.”

Yuuji swallows back against the burn in his throat as he nods his head. “Yeah, man… Yeah I know that.”

Junpei nods, seemingly pleased with their understanding. “Okay, good. So then tell me what’s going on.”

“Well… ” Yuuji draws the word out slowly. “There’s something out back that I need help getting rid of…”

Junpei goes deathly still. Wide eyes flicker from Yuuji’s face to the metal door and back again. “Please, please tell me that there isn’t a body in the freezer out back—”

“Oh my God, Junpei. First I’m a drug user and now you think I’m capable of murder?” Yuuji asks wildly. “Who do you think I am?” 

“—I’m too young to go to prison for life as an accomplice,” Junpei continues, speaking over Yuuji’s voice. 

“No! There’s no—” Yuuji winces at how his voice echoes through the empty cafe and he glances back at the door quickly. The kitchen still remains silent as Yuuji takes a deep breath and turns back to face his friend, lowering his voice to a hushed, even tone. “There’s no body in the fucking freezer, Junpei.”

“Oh, thank God,” Junpei sighs out, looking— alarmingly— relieved by this confirmation.

“But there is a kid,” Yuuji says quickly. 

Junpei’s mouth snaps closed hard enough that Yuuji hears his teeth click together. He stares in silence for several long seconds before he slowly shakes his head back and forth, much like a dog trying to dry itself off. He rubs the back of his hands against his eyes a bit too hard and then fixes Yuuji with a look of hysterical confusion. “I’m sorry… I think I just hallucinated… What did you just say?” 

“Uhh…” Yuuji lifts a hand to rub at the prickly hairs of his dark undercut out of nervous habit. His eyes dart around the room, avoiding Junpei’s wide eyed gaze that pins him in place. “So… I was at the train station by my place, coming into work like normal. And usually I’m alone, you know? There’s hardly anyone who ever travels this early and I was listening to music— you know that new song you showed me the other day? It’s really good by the way—”

“—Yuuji…”

“—But then I heard someone talking and it was this guy— and oh man, he was so ugly, dude. Seriously, the definition of butt ugly— and he was clearly drunk, which only makes it worse. But there was also this kid with him! And I couldn’t just leave him there, or like… Let the guy take him—” 

“—Yuuji…”

“—Because he’s got this bruise and he looked so scared! And he’s so shy, but he was trying to be so brave and I didn’t know what to do! And then he chomped on the guy like a piranha and I didn’t want to freak him out and I didn’t have anyone to cover for my shift and I can’t afford to let Mr. Yaomoto fire me— he already hates me as it is, and don’t tell me he doesn’t because he totally does— And so I thought I’d just, like, let him hide in the back until I could bring him home? Or something? But I didn’t know what else to do and I just—”

“Yuuji!” Junpei’s voice rises above Yuuji’s frantic rambling as he grabs hold of the front of his sweatshirt in both of his fists. “Take a breath, man. You’re not making any sense!” 

Yuuji opens his mouth and closes it again. His chest heaves for breath as though he’s just gotten done running ten miles and his pulse thuds frantically beneath the thin skin of his neck. Junpei’s grip is unwavering in the front of Yuuji’s sweatshirt as his serious gaze roves across Yuuji’s face— he cringes at the thought of the picture he must make. 

Maybe he is going crazy.

“Breathe, okay? Now… What are you trying to tell me?” Junpei asks slowly. 

Yuuji opens his mouth and Junpei shakes his fists, still holding Yuuji’s sweater.

“Five words or less,” Junpei commands with a narrow eyed glare.

Yuuji closes his mouth again, teeth clicking together as he rolls the unspoken words around on his tongue for a few seconds before he finally speaks. “I stole a kidnapped kid.”

Junpei stares at him for several long seconds, blinking slowly as the incredulous silence stretches between them.

“You stole a—”

“A kidnapped kid,” Yuuji confirms, voice coming out a bit hysterical. “Yep.”

“Oh my fucking God,” Junpei seethes as he releases Yuuji’s sweatshirt and reaches up to run his fingers through his long hair. “You kidnapped a fucking child?”

“I did not— Well, actually… Does it still count as kidnapping if you’re saving the kid from a different kidnapper?” Yuuji wonders aloud.

“Oh my fucking God,” Junpei groans out again, pushing his balled up fists into his eyes. “You kidnapped a child and now you’ve made me an accomplice! I can’t believe this!”

“You know I thought you’d be a lot more chill about this whole thing,” Yuuji frowns.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Junpie snaps, dropping his fists from his face and narrowing his eyes in Yuuji’s direction. “Exactly what part of all of this,” Junpei frantically flaps his hands in the air around them, “Am I supposed to be ‘chill’ about?”

Yuuji pouts as he re-crosses his arms over his chest petulantly and scuffs the toe of his sneaker against the floor. “I mean, preferably all of it…”

Junpei makes a truly disgusted scoffing sound. He spins himself around and takes a few steps away, back facing Yuuji as he takes a few deep breaths. Yuuji has known Junpei for a decade and a half and has always— always— known him to be quiet and steadfast and painstakingly loyal. No matter how badly Yuuji seems to fuck up, Junpei has always stood beside him and done his best to help… Now he wonders if this will finally be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Look man,” Yuuji starts softly, taking a step closer to Junpei’s turned back, “I didn’t know who else to call… I know I did this all wrong, but I knew that you’d be the one to help me figure it out… This is me asking you for your help.”

Junpei tilts his head back and gazes at the ceiling. His narrow shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath and he mutters something too low for Yuuji to catch fully. When he finally spins back around and looks at Yuuji with a truly put-upon expression, Yuuji knows that this is not the final straw.

“You’re lucky that it’s almost endearing how absolutely, fucking stupid you can be sometimes,” Junpei sighs.

Yuuji beams a sunny smile back at his friend. “So you’ll help me, then?”

“I mean, someone’s got to,” Junpei replies with a shrug. “So where are they?”

Yuuji points with his thumb over his shoulder. “He’s in the kitchen, but listen. He’s really skittish, okay? He’s kinda like you were when we were kids…”

“Oh great, so he doesn’t trust anyone and thinks the world is out to get him?” Junpei asks with a roll of his eyes.

“I mean, probably, yeah… He was kidnapped after all,” Yuuji says.

“Yeah, you’re going to have to explain that whole thing to me again. This time, preferably, without sounding like you just did six lines of coke before I got here,” Junpei says with an unimpressed look.

Yuuji rolls his eyes, but still relays the story of what happened from the moment he arrived at the train station, up until he found himself calling Junpei at ass o’clock in the morning. When he’s done with the explanation, Junpei rubs at his forehead, as though he can will away the headache that Yuuji is sure has started to form between his eyes. 

“I know that your big, dumb heart is always in the right place, Yuuji, but you can’t seriously think that bringing that kid here was the right thing to do… If he really was kidnapped by that creep there’s a certain kind of protocol that has to be followed!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Yuuji hisses back. “I’m so sorry, Mr. High and Mighty. As if you wouldn’t panic a little bit if you were in my shoes. It’s not like I’ve had to deal with the protocol of saving a potentially kidnapped child before!”

“I mean, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re in a bit of shock, honestly,” Junpei says with a long sigh, “Seriously though, you need to take him to the authorities. Who knows how long he’s been missing, or how far from home he is… That’s literally the only thing that needs to happen right now. He’s probably terrified that a different stranger has taken him to a fucking bakery in the middle of the night.”

Yuuji nervously nudges his fangs into his lower lip at the thought. He knows Junpei is right— his calm, level headed childhood friend usually is— but there is something nudging itself up against Yuuji’s heart that makes him hesitate. It’s not that he doesn’t want Megumi to get home safe. Of course not… But… 

Suddenly, a huge crash echoes through the empty cafe.

Both Yuuji and Junpei startle at the sound, eyes going wide as they meet and a silent ‘Oh, Fuck’ gets shared between them. They burst into movement as Yuuji spins on his heel and shoves into the kitchen with Junpei hot on his heels. As the metal door opens with a bang against the wall of the kitchen, Yuuji’s heart races in his chest, eyes wildly scanning the room as he braces to fend off an attacker— 

Until his eyes land on the source of the noise and immediately the panic in his chest transforms into humor. 

Megumi stands beside the metal counter, looking as though he has just walked through a blizzard. Covered head to toe in flour, every inch of the little boy is dusted in white while his tiny hands hold the remnants of a ripped bag above his head. Several metallic bowls are clattering around on the floor, accompanied by a spray of flour that is truly impressive in its reach across most of the room.

Yuuji’s chest trembles with laughter and he hardly manages to shove his fist against his mouth in an effort to stop the giggles from freeing themselves. Megumi slowly lowers his hands, wide, spring green eyes surveying the ripped bag in his hands as though it were a particularly difficult mathematics problem. When his tiny, solemn face turns toward the doorway where Yuuji and Junpei stand poised on the threshold, Yuuji can’t stop the laugh that ekes out of him at the sight of such brutally wry cynicism written across the child’s face.

“You okay, Megumi-chan?” Yuuji asks as he gains control over himself enough to be sure he won’t outright laugh.

“I wanted to help,” Megumi says stiffly. Beneath the dusting of flour, Yuuji can see the bright pink flush that crawls across the boy’s round cheeks.

“I can see that, buddy,” Yuuji tells him while biting back a grin.

Megumi’s frown deepens for a moment before he seems to realize that they are no longer alone. The boy’s entire demeanor changes in an instant, as his eyes latch onto Junpei where he stands over Yuuji’s shoulder. Like a door slowly sliding shut, Megumi’s expression closes off. Yuuji can practically see the progress that he’d made with the kid begin to slip away. Before that can happen, Yuuji turns slightly, wraps an arm around Junpei’s shoulder and hauls him close. 

“This is my best friend, Junpei!” Yuuji says with what he hopes is an easy-going smile. 

Megumi merely looks warily at Junpei as though he’s still deciding whether or not he is to be trusted. Yuuji’s elbow finds the tender place between Junpei’s ribs when his friend remains silent for a beat too long.

Junpei chokes back a grunt of pain and raises a hand in greeting. “Hi there!” 

Megumi remains silent as he stares. Junpei’s hand slowly lowers back down and he clears his throat awkwardly. He leans in closer to Yuuji’s ear as he whispers. “You didn’t tell me the kid could compete for an Olympic gold medal in the ‘Death Glare’ category.”

Megumi’s eyes narrow threateningly— or at least as threateningly as an elementary school aged child, covered head to toe in flour could be. 

“Whoa! Heyyy! Okay! Wait right there, little guy. I’ll be back to help you clean up in just a second, but first I gotta have a little chat with my good friend Junpei!” Yuuji says as he steers Junpei back out into the front room of the cafe and lets the door swing closed behind them. 

“That stare went straight through my soul,” Junpei mutters as he places a hand over the center of his chest and shudders.

“Yeah, he does that,” Yuuji shrugs. “He’s not much of a talker… But look. You definitely are right about bringing him to the cops.”

“Oh, good to know that you’ve finally come around to the logical conclusion that literally anyone else would have made immediately,” Junpei scoffs.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it… But I’ll need someone to cover my shift this morning since I don’t know when I’ll get done. They’ll definitely, like, ask me questions and stuff, right?” Yuuji says.

Junpei shrugs. “Probably, man. If you were the only witness at the train station then you’re the only one with an accurate description of the guy who might have taken him.”

“Right,” Yuuji says as he digs his tongue prods at his fang. The taste of blood blooms in his mouth as it scrapes open the tender flesh. 

Across from him, Junpei breathes out a long breath, causing the long, dark pieces of hair that had fallen out of his ponytail to flutter in front of his face. “It’s a good thing I spent this past summer covering for Todo every time he took off with his mysterious lady friend… I can cover your shift for today.”

“Really? You’d do that?” Yuuji asks hopefully.

“You’re my best friend… There’s not a whole lot that I wouldn’t do for you,” Junpei replies with a tired smile.

“Would you help me hide a body if I stashed one in the freezer out back?” Yuuji prods with a grin.

Junpei rolls his eyes. “I would help you hide a body if you stashed one in the freezer.”

“What about helping me clean up all of that flour that the kid dumped everywhere?”

“Not on your life. That’s where I draw the line.”

“Dammit…” 

***

Yuuji tries not to let the solemn-faced little boy see the soft, fond look on his own  as he watches him tug at the enormous black sweatshirt he’d been swaddled in. 

While they had been able to save the boy’s pajama pants from the worst of the flour coating he’d received, the Eraserhead themed shirt was unsalvageable without a good washing. Junpei had been the one to suggest taking one of the sweatshirts branded with the cafe’s logo, however the only issue was that the only sizes left were an adult large. 

Megumi, however, did not seem fazed. As he stood in the front room of the cafe— mostly devoid of flour aside from a fine dusting in his inky hair and a smudge along the back of his neck— he grudgingly took the sweatshirt from Yuuji’s hands and pulled it on. The black fabric practically swallowed the boy up like a void in the dimness of the cafe. 

“It’s very warm,” Megumi mutters with a frown, tiny fingers tugging at the strings hanging down from the hood. He disdainfully eyes the way the hem brushes at his skinny ankles and the tops of his little white sneakers. “But it’s too big.”

“Yeah,” Yuuji nods, “Sorry about that, Megumi-chan.”

“On the bright side, when you get to the police station they’ll probably be able to get you a change of clothes,” Junpei chimes in from where he’s leaning against the wall beside the kitchen door. He shoots Yuuji a meaningful look that promises swift retribution if Yuuji takes any more detours with the kid.

Yuuji rolls his eyes and sticks out his tongue at his friend while Megumi’s gaze is still pinned on the hem of the gigantic sweatshirt. Even in the shadowy light of the cafe, Yuuji can see the dark smudge of his bruise painted across his skin. Something sickly twists in his gut at the sight of it, but he keeps his face plastered with a neutral smile as the little boy looks up at him.

“We should probably get going, huh?” Yuuji asks.

Megumi nods slowly, hands fisted in the thick sweatshirt wrapped around him.

While he knows that he can’t expect the boy to inherently trust him, it still makes his heart ache to see how tentative the little boy is with him. That nagging urge— the one that speaks with a primal voice, almost unrecognizable to the modern omega he is— compels him to snatch the boy up into his arms and tuck him away, safe and sound. Police station be damned, there’s nowhere else in the world that Megumi would be safer than with Yuuji.

It’s crazy to think that way. He knows it. He knows it. And yet it doesn’t stop the quiet, growling part of him that snaps and barks in protest at giving up the boy so easily.

“Hey, man,” Junpei’s gentle voice breaks him out of his thoughts, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder makes him startle. “You going to be alright? I can take the kid if it’s too much.”

“No!” Yuuji says almost frantically, eyes going wide as he turns on Junpei fast enough that it dislodges his hand, leaving it hanging in the air between them. 

Junpei scans his face, clearly looking for something, though Yuuji can’t hope to understand what. 

“Okay,” his friend finally says in the slow, calm way that he has perfected in his adulthood. “Text me when you’re done at the station. They’ll definitely keep you for questioning, but don’t freak out over it. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I know that,” Yuuji huffs and then sighs. His shoulders drop heavily and all at once he can feel a steady weight on the back of his neck. “I know.”

Junpei merely hums under his breath and then turns toward Megumi. The little boy had watched their quiet exchange with bright, sly eyes— eyes that were far too intelligent for a child his age to possess. 

“You be safe, alright?” Junpei eyes him and arches a brow. “Take care of yourself.”

Megumi stares back in silence before he nods once in acknowledgement. 

Junpei lets out a sigh as he turns back to Yuuji, eyes wide as he shudders in exaggeration at the little boy’s dead eyed stare. 

“Text me,” Junpei insists quietly with a glare.

“Yes, yes. I will, mother hen. Pinky promise,” Yuuji grunts as he moves to snatch his duffle bag from the ground and allows it’s familiar, heavy weight to settle on his shoulder. As he moves toward the front door of the cafe, Megumi’s soft steps follow diligently behind him. The bell above the front door jingles and a frigid wind bites into the skin he’s left exposed on his face and hands. Another glance over his shoulder toward Junpei finds his best friend watching Yuuji and the dark haired little boy with a strange expression on his face— one that he hasn’t seen before. One that he isn’t sure he wants to know the real meaning of.

The door closes behind them with a quiet click and they set off into the darkness of the early morning.

After having to clean up the kitchen of Megumi’s flour disaster, it far closer to dawn than it had been when he’d called Junpei. Though the sky is still painted with the muted gray and dark blues of the hours between morning and night, they are no longer alone on the sidewalks. The neon lights that never sleep guide their way through the busier streets of the city. Dead-eyed university students and sleepless business men lumbering along the sidewalks beside them. Not a single one of them spares a glance in Yuuji or Megumi’s direction, though Yuuji can’t stop the curl of anxiety that settles in the middle of his chest.

His palms begin to sweat and he stuffs them into the front pocket of his hoodie. He tries not to allow his own worries to trickle out, lest they affect the little boy who dutifully trudges alongside him. Yuuji spares a glance down at the little boy and finds that his face is still pulled into a dour expression. 

“I’m sure you must be excited to get back to your mom and dad finally,” Yuuji blurts out and then cringes with the little boy’s frown deepens as he looks up at him. He feels wrong footed and bites at the inside of his cheek— little Omegan fangs digging into the flesh as he worries more. There had been a part of him that had thought that the kid— no matter how reserved his behavior had been up until then— would be thrilled to know that he was going home…

Unless…

“Are you—” Yuuji cuts himself off as his inner monologue battles against his bleeding heart. Part of him knows he should keep his mouth shut and be more sterile about the entire situation— the way Junpei certainly would have handled it. Megumi’s isn’t some kid he already knows and is simply trying to help. Best case scenario, the cops won’t put any blame on him for kidnapping Megumi from the start… Worst case scenario…

Yuuji shakes his aching head, trying to dispel the thoughts that cling to his mind like creeping ivy. 

“Sho-chan says you should never start a sentence that you can’t finish,” Megumi’s little voice says seriously. 

His spring green eyes stare up at him— unaware of the mental breakdown that Yuuji is teetering on the edge of. Yuuji looks back at him, teeth grinding up all of the excuses he’d made in the thirty seconds of silence that had happened between his unfinished sentence and this—precocious— child’s reprimand. He can’t help but find himself struck by the stone-faced maturity that the little boy seems to exude— and subsequently, can’t help but wonder what made him this way?

He lets out a slow breath and wipes his sweaty hands on the inside of his pocket. 

“Are you going to be okay?” Yuuji forces out the question.

Megumi arches a thin brow and Yuuji feels frustrated that he suddenly feels like the clueless, fumbling child in this scenario.

“You know, going home?” Yuuji clarifies. “Are you going to be alright when you get home?”

Megumi’s gaze darts away from Yuuji’s. “I’ll be okay.”

Much like his grandfather, Yuuji can sniff out a lie like a bloodhound on a trail— and Megumi was telling one big, fat lie.

The worry that has made a home for itself in Yuuji’s chest squeezes tight around his heart. It’s not his place to press a child for answers regarding their home life or living situation— even when that dark bruise smudged against Megumi’s skin makes Yuuji’s blood burn to look at it. But perhaps there was something else he could do instead…

“You know, I ran away from home when I was a kid,” Yuuji says amiably as they continue walking. The sound of little footsteps slap against the pavement in an effort to keep up and Yuuji unconsciously slows his stride.

“I didn’t run away,” Megumi snaps petulantly. In the corner of his eye, Yuuji can see the way that Megumi ducks his head, though the tips of his ears burn bright red. Liar, liar, pants on fire. He thinks to himself as he smothers a small smile. And out of mercy for the solemn little boy’s pride, he doesn’t point it out.

“Yeah, I was probably around the same age you are now,” Yuuji says.

Megumi is quiet for a few moments. “Why?”

Hook. Line. Sinker.

“Wellll,” Yuuji draws out slowly, his breath fogging in front of his face in the cold air, “It sounds silly now, but I didn’t want to go to school.”

“Really?” Megumi’s little nose wrinkles adorably as if the thought disgusts him.

“Yup,” Yuuji says, popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word dramatically. “I’d moved to a new place and I missed my old friends and my old school… I thought if I ran away then I wouldn’t have to go anymore.”

Megumi frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Mmhmm,” Yuuji agrees with a small smile, “But at the time I thought it was the best idea ever.”

“So what happened then?” Megumi asks.

“Well I didn’t get very far,” Yuuji says. “And thankfully, someone found me before anything bad could happen…”

It had been years since Yuuji had spared a thought for it. The late spring snow and the frost covered sakura blossoms and the boy with the night dark eyes— the one that had smelled of petrichor and woodsmoke— who had comforted Yuuji as he’d cried his little heart out beneath the stars.

“Like you found me?” Megumi asks quietly.

Yuuji’s heart lurches in his chest and his eyes snap down to the timid little boy beside him. His tiny fingers twist with uncertainty in the thick fabric of the sweatshirt.

“Yeah, buddy. Like I found you,” Yuuji says thickly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. After all of this was over he was going to call up the doctor and get himself checked because these mood swings and hormonal urges were not normal. 

“And then what happened?” Megumi asks.

“Well, the boy who found me made sure I was safe, and in the morning one of my grandpa’s neighbors found me— safe and sound. And that was it,” Yuuji shrugs.

Megumi frowns. “But what about the boy who found you?”

Yuuji shrugs again, despite the fact the question strikes a chord deep within him— something that he has asked himself in the many years since that day. “I dunno… I never found out his name and I don’t think he lived in my neighborhood… It was just by chance that he found me that night. I’m sure he probably forgot all about it after a while.”

Megumi sniffs and looks down at his feet. For several long moments they walk in silence. Yuuji is starting to get worried when the little boy finally murmurs aloud. “Will you forget about me, too?”

Yuuji stops dead still in the middle of the sidewalk. Although Megumi slows to a stop as well, he refuses to make eye contact. It is purely instinctual the way that Yuuji drops into a crouch before the little boy and holds out his hands between them. Megumi’s eyes go wide as he stares at Yuuji’s upturned palms— calloused and rough in a way that was not inherently acceptable for an omega, but ready to comfort nonetheless.

Slowly— very, very slowly— Megumi lifts his hands up, allowing the dragging sleeves to bunch in the crooks of his elbows and reaches back. When his hands settle against Yuuji’s, warm and toasty and utterly small, Yuuji folds his cold fingers around them. Megumi’s spring green eyes dart up to meet Yuuji’s earnest gaze and he maintains the soft smile on his face as he speaks clearly, with every ounce of truth he possesses.

“I promise you,” Yuuji says firmly, “I will never forget you.”

Megumi shifts on his feet, back and forth, back and forth. His eyes slip down to where their hands are clasped together. “How can you know?” Megumi asks as he juts his tiny chin stubbornly. “Everyone always says they won’t forget, but then they always do.”

Yuuji shakes his head. “Not me. I don’t make promises that I can’t keep.”

Megumi raises his eyes up and searches across Yuuji’s open and earnest face. He waits patiently as the little boy draws his own quiet conclusions. People walk around them on the sidewalk and dawn is fast approaching above their heads— the dusky velvet darkness giving way to the gentle golden glow that limns the skyscrapers around them. Yuuji thinks that he would gladly wait as long as it took for that distrustful look in this serious little boy’s eyes to disappear completely whenever he looks in Yuuji’s direction.

Finally, Megumi nods, slow and wary. “Okay…”

“Okay?” Yuuji feels a grin growing wider and wider across his face. A dusting of pink spreads across Megumi’s cheeks as he ducks away from Yuuji’s bright attention, though he still doesn’t pull his hands away. Yuuji squeezes his little hands gently, but his smile doesn’t dim. “Okay!” 

Megumi rolls his eyes— seriously, who in the world taught him to have so much sass?

Yuuji releases one of the boy’s hands and stands back up to his full height. He keeps his hold loose in case the boy wants to pull away, but Megumi allows his hand to stay nestled in the warm, slightly sweaty hold of Yuuji’s. 

“Next stop is the police station,” Yuuji says brightly, even though the ache in his chest grows a little stronger at the thought of parting ways with the dark haired little boy. As they start walking again he hears Megumi scoff quietly under his breath. The sound is so incongruous with the innocence of his childish face that Yuuji nearly laughs.

“What was that sound for?” He asks with a curious raise of his brow.

Megumi juts his chin out and glares at a young woman who rushes past them, dressed in running gear, and nearly bumps into the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” Megumi says quietly.

“C’mon, Gumi-chan! You can tell me,” Yuuji coaxes.

Megumi side eyes him with an unimpressed glare, either from his insistence or from the shortened version of his new nickname. Finally, he sighs and says, “The police are not to be trusted.”

This time, Yuuji does laugh. A loud, abrupt sound that jolts out of his chest. Megumi, however, does not look amused. When he recovers, he gently squeezes Megumi’s hand in reassurance.

“Of course they can,” Yuuji says with a smile. “It’s their job to make sure that people are safe. It might be a little intimidating to talk to them, but they’ll always do their best to help you.”

“Not if they’re kept in someone else’s pocket,” Megumi glares.

Yuuji’s brows draw together as his smile falters at the sight of such vehemence in the little boy’s gaze. And not only that, but the way that his words seemed not to fit him— as though there were someone else’s words that Megumi had overheard and repeated back like a little parrot.

“And who in the world told you that?” Yuuji asks as he frowns down at the boy. “Was it your dad?”

Megumi’s nose wrinkles as though he smelled something foul and he shakes his head firmly— the movement frees a puff of flour from his dark locks. Yuuji is amused by the sight of it for 0.03 seconds before Megumi speaks again.

“Gojo-san is not my dad.”

Yuuji freezes. 

His heart thuds so hard against his chest he thinks for a moment it might burst between his ribs. As it picks up speed, thundering inside of him, he feels as though the world tilts slightly to the left beneath his feet, throwing him entirely off balance. Slowly— so very slowly— he turns to face Megumi as they stand in the middle of the sidewalk. The little boy watches him warily while Yuuji systemically tries to keep his sanity from crumbling apart.

“Wha—” He tries to speak, though his voice comes out as a wheezing, high pitched squeak. Yuuji clears his throat and tries again. “What did you just say?”

Confusion paints itself across the little boy’s expression as he glares up at Yuuji. “Huh?”

“Who… Who did you say is your dad?” Yuuji wheezes.

“No I said Gojo-san isn’t my dad,” Megumi corrects with a scathing glare. “He just takes care of me.”

Gojo-san… Gojo-san…

Gojo. Gojo. Gojo.

Yuuji practically feels the moment that his sanity snaps like a rubber band.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says quietly as he stares down at the little boy who holds onto his hand like a life line.

Megumi’s little brow furrows. “Nanamin says that’s a bad word… but Sho-chan says it all the time when she thinks I’m not listening.”

Yuuji makes a slightly hysterical noise in the back of his throat as his mind whirls in dizzying circles. Everything he learned from his conversation with Nobara— the night at the Fantasy Room — it all comes crashing back into his head like a tidal wave. 

Shit…

Shit…

“Shit…”

“That is also a bad word,” Megumi says matter-of-factly, startling Yuuji out of his thoughts. “You said that word a whole bunch of times… Are you okay, Yuuji-kun?”

Yuuji glances down, wide eyed and wondering at the dark haired little boy with his bright spring green eyes, dressed in an enormous sweatshirt and flour still dusting the roots of his hair… The little boy who was apparently the “son-not-really-son” of the fucking yakuza heir that Yuuji insulted. Unless…

“Wait, wait,” Yuuji says abruptly, heart racing in his chest. “What does Gojo-san look like?” 

Megumi nibbles on his lip and glances off to the side. Yuuji can sense that the boy is closing off a part of himself, most likely out of trained loyalty for his family— or whatever the Gojo clan is to him— which Yuuji can only imagine is the kind that lesser people have died for.

“Let me guess,” Yuuji says quickly, trying to prevent the little boy from hiding back in his shell. “He’s way too tall for his own good, he’s got white hair and wears a stupid blindfold even though he can clearly see?”

Megumi’s eyes widen as his little neck snaps his head back up in his direction. “You know Gojo-san?” 

“Ohhh, God,” Yuuji drags out the words in a low moan as he tilts his head back in horrified exasperation. “This is so sick and twisted.”

“Did he send you to find me? Is that why you were at the train station? How did he know where I was?” Megumi tugs on Yuuji’s hand rapidly with each rapid fire question. 

Yuuji shakes his head in an attempt to stop his brain from feeling as though it’s melting out of his ears. Part of him tries desperately to reconcile with the fact that not only has he found himself right back in the middle of the sticky web that surrounds the mysterious Gojo clan— and what the fuck are the odds of that even happening? — while the other part tries valiantly not to paint his prejudice onto the little boy standing before him. 

The last bit of him is focused solely on one, resounding thought, and that is how stupid he would have to be to bring the son— not the son?— of a high ranking (a fucking heir) of a literal crime syndicate, to the fucking cops.  

“Oh God,” Yuuji mutters under his breath again. An ache forms in the base of his skull as every thought wars against the other. A constant push and pull of shoulds and should nots that Yuuji can hardly make heads or tails of. 

What if there was a warrant— or several— out for a member of the Gojo clan? What if they knew Megumi in connection to the Gojo clan and would try to use him as bait? What if Megumi was right and the cops were in someone else’s pocket? But what if they weren’t? 

So many variables. So many terrible, horrible ways that things could go wrong if Yuuji were to make the wrong decision. And it was all Gojo's fault.

“What a fucking dick.” 

“You really like to say bad words,” Megumi points out, seemingly delighted by it, rather than offended.

Yuuji grunts in acknowledgement of the boy’s comment and glances around at their surroundings. The sky has further lightened above them and he knows that soon enough the streets will be crawling with commuters. Logically, he’s sure that there are eyes and ears on every corner of the city, though there was no telling who they might be loyal to… And never mind going to the cops…

“Junpei is going to kill me,” Yuuji mutters to himself before he looks back at the little boy. “Alright. New plan.”

“Huh?” Megumi tilts his head to the side like a confused puppy. It would be way more adorable if Yuuji wasn’t currently mid-crisis.

“We’re not going to the cops anymore,” Yuuji clarifies. The words burn against the back of his throat like acid while his moral compass swings wildly in the wrong direction. He resists the urge to look over his shoulder, as if Junpei has somehow sensed that Yuuji is about to do something dumb. Still… Yuuji is sure that his best friend would understand if he knew the context of the situation— and Yuuji would much rather take his chances against the law than he would against those who willingly put themselves above it.

“But… You said the police make sure people are safe… You said they would take me home?” Megumi shifts nervously on his feet and nibbles at his lip.

“Nah,” Yuuji shakes his head and shrugs off the strap of his duffle bag, letting it fall to the ground. He falls into a crouch before the boy and pulls his hand out of his grip. “I’ve got a better idea...”

He rummages around the bottom of the duffle bag, bypassing the thin layer of crumbs from a half eaten protein bar, Megumi’s ruined pajama shirt, his books for school— 

“Ahh, there you are, you little sucker,” Yuuji says victoriously as his fingers find the slightly crumpled business card hidden in the folds of his gym shorts. Silently, he praises whatever had possessed him to simply leave the card in his bag, rather than throw it away as he’d been tempted to do several times since that night it had been given to him. When he holds it up between himself and Megumi, the little boy’s eyes light up with recognition when they see the kanji printed in deep, black ink. And not only that, but Yuuji catches his first glimpse of true relief in the little boy’s gaze.

“You really do know Gojo-san!” The boy cries out as he snatches the card with tiny fingers. 

“Yeah…” Yuuji rubs at the back of his neck as he zips his bag back up and straightens up. “We’ve uh… We’ve met…”

“But when?” Megumi frowns as he looks back up at Yuuji.

“That’s not really all that important,” Yuuji mumbles quickly, ignoring the flash of scent memory that burns in the back of his throat— the clinging, furious smell of snow and salt and power. “The important thing is that I know where we can find someone who can get you back to him.”

He pulls his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and checks the time. It’s still way too early for anyone to be at the club— except, it’s a Wednesday, and maybe, just maybe, if they’re lucky, they can catch the doors being unlocked by the weekly cleaning crew that Miguel had grudgingly hired after one too many complaints about the level of the club’s cleanliness. 

“Come on, we’ve got a train to catch,” Yuuji says as he holds out his hand again. 

Megumi glances at the little card clutched in his fingers and then reaches back. His hand slips easily in against the callused warmth of Yuuji’s palm. A tiny smile decorates the little boy’s face as they start their trip back to Shibuya station, but Yuuji is smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it— even as he feels his heart ache unbearably at the sight of it.

Chapter Text

In theory, the time that it took to get from Shibuya to Hino— if one were to take the train— would take less than a half an hour… But that would only be the case if everyone else in Tokyo wasn’t currently crammed into the enormous terminal. 

Yuuji could count on both hands the amount of times that he had gotten himself turned around in the maze-like Shibuya Station. There was nothing more humiliating than feeling as though he’d been reduced to nothing more than a mouse desperately sniffing out a piece of cheese— and trying not to miss his train. With the sun having risen just as Yuuji and Megumi slipped down the stairs into the underground station, they were merely two more bodies amongst the horde of rush-hour commuters.

His hand tightens around Megumi’s little fingers as bodies press in on all sides. A fine coating of sweat glazes the back of his neck and a swirl of scents presses uncomfortably around them in the confined space. Though most public transit stations had some kind of state-of-the-art filtration system for the build up of concentrated scents, there was only so much that could be done in the face of hundreds , if not thousands of scents passing through the station every single day.

Yuuji feels the press of Megumi’s little body close to his legs as they descend into the lower levels. When he glances down at the boy he finds that his wide green eyes are alert as they dart around at every person nearby them. It takes only a split second of distraction and an older business man who pushes past them roughly— such a dickhead move— for Megumi’s fingers to slip from Yuuji’s grip.

His heart flies into his throat as the thought of losing Megumi in such a tightly packed crowd flashes through his mind instantaneously. Fear rockets through his veins like a strike of lightning and it is only by the grace of his absurdly quick reflexes that he manages to snatch Megumi’s wrist before he gets swept away by the tide of commuters. 

Panicked green eyes find his and— although he will deny it to be anything but out of necessity — Yuuji doesn’t hesitate to haul the little boy up into the protective circle of his arms. 

Megumi stares warily at Yuuji even as his skinny arms wind themselves around Yuuji’s shoulders. 

“There’s a lot of people in here, huh?” Yuuji says softly, keeping his voice steady so that his own nerves don’t send Megumi into a panic. “I don’t want us to get separated by accident, so would it be alright if I picked you up for now? If you don’t want me to, that’s just fine, but I promise I’ll put you down as soon as we get out of this crowd and situated on the train.”

Megumi hesitates for a moment before he nods in agreement. Yuuji feels relief fly through his chest. The boy’s slight weight is hardly a burden to him as he carries him through the crowd while they make their way toward the correct platform. Thin arms hold tight around Yuuji’s neck while his head swivels around, now able to get a good look at the sea of humans that moves in waves through the train station. 

By the time they make it to the correct platform— Yuuji is more than impressed with himself for not getting lost, thank you very much — Megumi’s head has drooped enough to rest against Yuuji’s shoulder. The inky black fluff of his hair brushes softly against Yuuji’s jaw while he presses in with the crowd, standing a polite distance away from where the train will arrive.

He shifts slightly to adjust his duffle strap and then uses his other hand to support Megumi’s back. The boy’s soft, warm breaths brush against the side of Yuuji’s neck, just below where his scent patch is plastered to his skin. 

“You okay, buddy?” Yuuji murmurs to him quietly. 

“Mmhmm,” Megumi hums sleepily. 

Yuuji bites back a smile even as he wonders when the little boy had last gotten any sleep. He had no clue knowing how long the boy had been missing, or how he had been taken— if he was wearing his pajamas then surely he hadn’t run away from home the way that Yuuji had when he was a kid… Then again, he was wearing shoes so clearly he had anticipated walking somewhere? It didn’t make any sense. Megumi seemed like he was a smart kid— smarter than most almost -seven-year-olds that Yuuji had ever met. And clearly he understood the weight of what kind of job— if being a mob boss could be considered an ‘occupation’— his… Caretaker?… was involved with, right? 

Yuuji sighs and subtlety adjusts the dozing boy’s weight in his arms as the train finally arrives. It is by a single stroke of luck that he manages to find an empty window seat and settles himself down into it. When he goes to move Megumi into the seat beside him, the boy mumbles sleepily and tightens his arms around Yuuji’s shoulders. His arms go slack around the little boy as he Megumi himself against Yuuji’s side and tucks his face into the curve of his neck.

One of Yuuji’s arms is pinned behind Megumi’s back, but he has no issue with it as he settles into his seat beside the window and allows the boy to sleep a bit longer. The announcement over the speaker system tells them that the doors are closing and the train lurches smoothly into motion. A nearby woman gives them a fond look from where she’s seated across the aisle. It has Yuuji’s face burning with embarrassment while a bolt of inexplicable pride surges through his chest. 

Though he has worn scent patches practically since the day he presented as an omega and he took the strongest suppressants available every six months, religiously , to avoid going through a full heat, it would be a lie to say that he’d never felt the stirring of Omegan instincts that roared beneath the surface. 

He’s felt the tug in his gut when he sees a new mother cradling their infant child. He’s felt the phantom itch for alpha fangs to dig deep into the flesh of his neck during the height of his heat— even with the suppressants dulling the more carnal cravings to a distant, controllable urge. And for years since he came out on the other side of puberty— mostly unscathed— he’s felt the innate desire to find a proper mate and breed until he has a child of his own.

Of course it all went ignored. After all, it was practically archaic to think that any omega would be living an incomplete life if they weren’t barefoot and pregnant with a litter and a proper alpha mate. Modern times made it possible for omegas— just like Yuuji— to suppress their heats and cover up their scents and live entirely fulfilling lives without doing the whole 50’s American housewife thing. Yuuji has never felt as though he’d missed out on anything— has never once regretted not experiencing a full heat, or better yet, sharing one with an unworthy alpha… 

But there was something about the way that Megumi’s tiny body clung to his own that settled a part of him— buried deep within his heart and pushed into the corners of his soul— that he’d never felt before. 

As he sits in his seat, the gentle, unpresented scent wafting off of him lingers in Yuuji’s nose. Not too sweet, but a mild, soothing smell that untwists every tight knot in Yuuji’s chest. The sound of his soft, even breaths, puffing against Yuuji’s shoulder has him feeling as though there is a little puzzle piece— perhaps one that every omega has inside of them— that suddenly clicks into place… As if there is a part of him that recognizes the shape of Megumi that fits so perfectly in the protective circle of his arms and his heart says with beats and thumps: Oh, there you are… 

It’s absurd, of course. Yuuji knows this. 

Megumi isn’t his. No matter what circumstances put him into Yuuji’s care for the less-than-a-day they’ve been together. No matter the way his Omegan instincts seem to scream that Megumi would be safest with him. Not even because of the wild coincidence that Megumi belongs to the very same Gojo that Yuuji happened to verbally eviscerate not a month prior… Yuuji has no claim over the boy. None. But there is a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. A primal kid of pull that tells him that if anyone— anyone— tried to harm him, he would do something utterly unforgivable. 

As he leans his head back and closes his own eyes, one hand rubbing idle, soothing circles across Megumi’s skinny shoulders, he has the wildly outlandish thought that this is what it would feel like if he had a child of his own… But when his mind tries to conjure the image of them all he can see is a cloud of fluffy black hair and spring green eyes.

He tries not to think about it anymore after that.

***

As they step onto the platform in Hino, Yuuji breathes a sigh of relief that the crowd has blessedly thinned out. Never before has he been as grateful for the fact that not many people willingly came out this far from the other districts in Tokyo unless they had business to attend to. And while he’d known that the streets of Hino were nearly deserted at night— aside from those who had far more underhanded dealings to attend to— there was no denying that the neighborhoods surrounding the train station were just as desolate beneath the light of day.

Yuuji keeps his pace steady as he cradles the snoozing boy against his side. The winter wind is sharp as it whips past them, careening through alleyways and breathing its frigid breath down their necks. It isn’t long before Megumi is snuffling softly against the worn material of Yuuji’s sweatshirt, rubbing his cheek against it like a tiny animal searching for comfort. A quiet, squeaky yawn is wrenched from the boy as he drifts back into consciousness, but before Yuuji can say anything, the little boy stuffs his freezing cold nose against the patch plastered over Yuuji’s scent gland.

Yuuji inhales so quickly that he chokes on his spit, though it does nothing to deter Megumi as he inhales over and over again, huffing warm breath against the scent patch. It is entirely obvious that he is attempting to seek out Yuuji’s scent, much to Yuuji’s chagrin, though he certainly won’t find it.

After a few more desperate sniffs against the side of Yuuji’s neck, Megumi pulls back with a sleepy frown on his face. His cheeks are still flushed with the sleep-warmth of being snuggled against Yuuji for close to an hour. Green eyes filled with innocent questions blink dazedly at Yuuji.

“You don’t smell like anything,” Megumi whines quietly, much like— well, much like a child would. 

A memory flashes through Yuuji’s brain of a time when he had said something nearly identical to one of his babysitters when he was no more than nine— and the swift smack upside the head that his grandfather had delivered for his impertinence. He doesn’t have the heart to chastise the little boy— who has already been through so much— for having the same kind of natural disappointment. 

Children sought out the scents of those around them— especially those they felt safe around— in order to establish a connection with them. In most cases it was done out of pure innocence, though as children grew older they were taught for the most part that it was considered impolite by societal standards to go around sticking their noses against people’s scent patches. Even a curious sniff of the air in a confined, public space was frowned upon once someone reached the proper age of knowing how impolite it really was to be sniffing people. Of course, it was natural to establish scent familiarity with people they found comfortable around, but in today’s day and age, pack bonds that were formed through regular scenting rituals were saved specifically for family members or relatives. 

Definitely not strangers that they had met only a few hours prior at a train station after being kidnapped for who knows how long.

Yuuji stiffens slightly as Megumi’s focus narrows onto the patch that covers his scent gland. His tiny fingers poke at it, but don’t dare to tug at the edges. Yuuji resists the urge to snap defensively at the boy for his curiosity, even though it has been ingrained in him for years to not allow anyone to remove his patch.

“How come you wear one of these? Do you smell bad?”

Yuuji snorts out a laugh, even as his heart bangs around inside his chest. “I don’t think I do… But I wear it because I don’t want other people to know what I smell like.”

Megumi frowns. “Why not?”

“Because it’s no one’s business,” Yuuji says lightly.

“Gojo-san says that ‘only someone who has something to hide would willingly cover up their scents',” Megumi parrots in his small, childlike voice. 

Yuuji can’t help but recall the unholy strength of the Special Grade’s scent that leeched off of him in furious waves. He tries his best to hide the way annoyance scrapes down his spine at the mention of the pretentious alpha. “Well… Your Gojo-san certainly seems to know everything doesn’t he?” He grits out bitterly.

“No way,” Megumi wrinkles his tiny nose in distaste, “Gojo forgets lots of important stuff all the time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Yuuji asks with a sly smile. He can’t help the way he feels entirely too gleeful to hear what Megumi has to dish about the Special Grade alpha… Even if it is only things that a nearly seven year old might not like. “Like what?”

“He forgets I don’t like chocolate chips in my pancakes and always uses up all the batter before saving me any plain ones,” Megumi says darkly. “And he forgets food in the oven all the time so we have to order take out for dinner… Nanamin says that he’s going to burn the house down one day.” 

Yuuji can’t suppress a spiteful giggle at the thought. “Not a very good cook, is he? Color me surprised.”

“And he used to always forget what time I get out of school, so now Ijichi-san is the one who picks me up because he’s never late.”

“I see… No time management, then…”

Megumi goes quiet as his little fingers twist into the knitted cords that hang down from Yuuji’s hood. “Sometimes he forgets to play with me… Even when he promises that he will… But it’s okay because he’s really, really, really busy with work all the time.”

Yuuji frowns darkly at the thought of little Megumi waiting for some uppity alpha who can’t spare a fucking hour to play with his own kid— not kid?— and part of him thinks that he might have to hunt down the Special Grade alpha himself, if only to give him a piece of his mind for a second time. 

Instead of spiraling deeper into his darker thoughts, Yuuji shakes himself free and bounces the little boy on his hip. “Well, tell me what kind of games do you like to play, Gumi-chan?” 

Megumi’s spring colored eyes brighten as he beams a smile back at Yuuji— thoroughly distracted from his father’s— not father’s?— shortcomings. “Oh, oh! I like to play zoo keeper! I have lots of different stuffed animals at home and I’m always the zoo keeper, so I have to take care of all of them. I have to feed them and make sure they get medicine if they’re sick and I have to make sure that there is enough enrichment in their enclosure. ”

“Wowww,” Yuuji draws out the word as he tries not to laugh at the adorable way in which the little boy slowly pronounced the more difficult words. as though someone had only recently taught them to him and he had not had a chance to use them for himself yet. “Those are some very important jobs at a zoo. And what are your favorite animals at your zoo?”

 Megumi suddenly leans back in Yuuji’s arm as he wriggles in excitement. Yuuji readjusts his grip and rebalances the boy’s weight in his arms— though it is worth it to see the way his pink cheeks glow with excitement.

“The wolves!” Megumi chirps. “The wolves are my very most favorite!” 

“Wolves are definitely the coolest,” Yuuji agrees easily.

“Yes! Right now I only have two wolves. Shoko-san got me them for my birthday last year! One is white and one is black and their names are Kona and Kai and—” Megumi launches into a ramble that Yuuji can hardly keep up with. He keeps a sunny smile plastered on his face, more than content to simply let the little boy talk his ear off about one of his favorite subjects, even if he can barely make out the rapid fire words he speaks. However, as they make their way down the sidewalk, edging away from the more populated area nearest the train station, Yuuji hears the telltale sound of footsteps behind him.

At first, Yuuji thinks nothing of it. Megumi barely stops to draw breath before he jumps into listing every single wolf fact he has learned in his— admittedly short— life. Yuuji keeps an ear open for the little boy’s ramble, though he can hear the steady snap of footsteps that stays only a short distance behind them… Never faltering… Never deviating from the same exact path .

Yuuji chances a subtle look over his shoulder. His heart thuds hard against his ribs at the sight of a hooded figure following them. Though it is broad daylight, Yuuji can’t help but feel the icy creep of fear that slips down his spine at the sight. In an attempt to prove himself to be a bit crazy— given the fact that his entire day has been crazy so far— he slows down beside a shop and feigns interest in a sign that promises a fifty percent off sale. Megumi seems not to notice that anything is amiss as he rambles on and on— now talking about the territorial habits of wolf packs— and Yuuji waits for the sound of footsteps to pass by them… But it doesn’t come.

In the corner of his eye, Yuuji sees that the hooded person has slowed to a stop, while still maintaining the exact amount of distance, and is also feigning interest in a nearby sign. 

Sweat collects on the nape of Yuuji’s neck as he starts walking again. He keeps his movements nonchalant, unwilling to accept that he has unwittingly become prey before he’d known there was a predator nearby. Without fail, the footsteps start up again as they continue down the sidewalk.

A coincidence… He tells himself as his thoughts spin wildly towards more sinister intents. It’s just a coincidence…

However, through the scarce populace that mills around the streets, the person following them does not deviate. They never draw any closer, but neither do they fall back. Step for step, they tail Yuuji and Megumi as they walk along the sidewalk, beneath the bleak light of the winter day. Mentally he calculates how far they have to go before they reach the Fantasy Room — nine and a half blocks— though he knows even if they were closer, there was no guarantee that the doors had been unlocked by the cleaning crew yet. And on the off chance that they hadn’t been unlocked yet, Yuuji and Megumi would be forced to wander around Hino while being stalked by a stranger. 

He knows that if he were to start running it would alert Megumi to the danger and perhaps frighten him beyond consolation. Just because the kid hasn’t broken down about the trauma he’d been through so far doesn’t mean that he wasn’t liable to do so still. 

Yuuji’s only hope is that maybe their stalker didn’t know the back streets of Hino as well as Yuuji did. 

In order to test his theory, Yuuji turns a corner, down one of the narrow side streets that leads away from the main, open road. Only a few moments later, the echo of footsteps follow closely behind them. Yuuji is quick to duck down another alley and sure enough, the person follows.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Not good,” Yuuji mutters to himself, too low for Megumi to catch as he still obliviously mumbles about animals— having moved from wolves to bunnies to frogs of all things in the span of only a few minutes. 

At that point, Yuuji knows there is no way the stranger hasn’t realized that Yuuji knows they’re being followed. Though to what extent— or for what purpose— still remains unclear. His heart pounds in his chest as he subtly quickens his pace, ducking around a corner fast enough that Megumi has stopped talking and is now peering around at the cramped, dingy walls of the alleyway they’ve found themselves in. 

Yuuji says nothing, not daring to look over his shoulder to see the person following them, though he’s almost positive that the sound of their footsteps is growing closer.

Closer. Closer. Closer. 

Hunter and hunted. Predator and prey. Yuuji is nothing but an animal being corralled into a closing net. 

Finally, Yuuji turns down another alleyway and is quick to dodge around a few overflowing trash cans that block the view of the other side of the alley from its mouth, only to find that there is no other side. He stalls in place and stares at the dead end before them. The brick wall towering nearly double his height— impossible to climb over— and covered in scrawling, lewd graffiti. 

“Well, well… You are quite the slippery little fish, aren’t you?” Comes a high pitched— almost playful— voice. Yuuji breathes out slowly and feels Megumi’s little hands clench in the fabric of his sweatshirt. He tells himself that there is no room for the terror that has started to build in his chest… He can’t afford to be afraid… Not now.

Slowly, he turns around and comes face to face with the person that had been following them. Their face is partially obscured by the shadows cast from their hood, though Yuuji can see a slice of pale skin and a lock of long, icy blue hair.

“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Yuuji says with a blank expression. The tone of his voice drops down into a tone that is clearly meant as a warning to go the fuck away. 

The person across from him giggles in a rather unsettling way and Yuuji feels Megumi stiffen in his arm. He shifts his weight against him, curling an arm tighter around his small body in an attempt to silently comfort him. 

“Oh no, no. Of course not. Don’t be silly… You don’t know me. But I know you… Yuuji Itadori… ”

Fear rips through Yuuji’s carefully constructed calm like a serrated knife. Still, even with his heart racing out of control and lungs seizing for stuttered breath, Yuuji refuses to bend to it. Not yet. Honey colored eyes dart from the hooded stalker to the blocked mouth of the alleyway where people walk past without knowing what was about to happen within the shadows. 

“At least you’ve saved me the trouble of introducing myself,” Yuuji says slowly, with far more confidence than he feels. Fear trembles through his body while he curls his arms protectively around Megumi, who has gone as stiff as a board. He can’t help but give the kid some credit where it’s due, because he certainly has some incredible self preservation instincts. Now… If only Yuuji can get them out of this mess.

“Tisk, tisk,” the person across from them tuts. “Oh, that just won’t do. Aren’t you going to at least ask who sent me?”

Yuuji ignores the bait being set before him, even though curiosity burns hot like a red ember, burrowed within his chest.

“Here I was, excited to finally meet the man himself. In the flesh! Only to find myself sooo disappointed in reality,” the person across from them tilts their head, allowing the light to catch a slash of a mocking grin, hidden beneath their hood. “Come now, Yuuji-kun. Don’t you want to play a game with me?”

“I’m not really one for games, to be honest,” Yuuji replies stiffly as he fights to keep the sound of fear from his voice.

“Mmm… Maybe not…” The person drawls as he takes a step forward, forcing Yuuji to shuffle back to keep distance between them. “But I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice… After all, you’ve taken something of ours that does not belong to you.”

A fierce growl echoes through the alleyway. The sound drawn up from the deepest pit of Yuuji’s chest, filled with an unignorable warning— fuck around and find out. 

“You try to take him from me and I’ll put you in the goddamn ground,” Yuuji snarls, baring his fangs at the stranger. Muscles tremble beneath his skin, corded with barely restrained anger. 

The stranger releases a high pitched giggle— nearly maniacal in its tone. “Oh! How wonderful, and here I thought this might be over too soon before I could have some fun. ”

Yuuji catches the way the stranger shifts their feet against the ground, their body dipping into an offensive stance. There is a split second, between one heartbeat and the next, in which Yuuji ducks down and releases Megumi, pushing him out of the way, before the stranger lunges at him. A wink of silver shimmers between the shadows of the alleyway, reaching for Yuuji in a controlled arc, only for it to be stopped as Yuuji swings his dufflebag out and around, using it as a shield for the blade to hit, rather than be buried in his flesh. 

It is just enough of a surprise to make the attacker hesitate and allow Yuuji to throw his weight forward from behind the duffle bag, sending the stranger stumbling back several steps. They manage to catch themselves as laughter rings out loud and clear. The hood has fallen back to reveal a pale face framed by long, icy blue hair. Strangely enough, however, the face is lined with dark tattoos that seem to mimic stitches running up and down, side to side— marks that are meant to be seen. A malicious glint in their mismatched eyes is aimed in Yuuji’s direction, though their mouth is split with a wide, laughing grin.

Yuuji drops the duffle bag to the ground and spares a single glance in Megumi’s direction to find the kid huddled against the far wall, watching the events unfolding with wide, terrified eyes. When he looks back at the laughing stranger, he swallows down the urge to run that his secondary biology all too often curses him with. Instead, he allows the sweet coil of tension to fall into his muscles as he moves into a defensive position— one that he has practiced to perfection for years.

The stranger’s grin sharpens like the blade that is held aloft in his hand. Lazily he waves it around in looping circles. “Oh, oh, ohhh! So you do know how to play!”

There is no other warning for when the stranger lunges toward him again. He leads with the hand holding the knife and Yuuji finds the open spot beneath his arm with a direct jab of his fist as he ducks under the swing. Breath is shoved out of the stranger’s lungs as Yuuji delivers another blow to his ribs before he finishes the chain with an arcing kick aimed at their waist. The stalker manages to twist away at the last second, fleeing out from Yuuji’s range, all while giggling under his breath. As if the pain only proves that his insane ‘game’ is more worth playing. 

“What fun, fun, fun,” the stitch-faced stranger smiles maniacally as he begins to circle out a few paces beyond Yuuji’s reach. Yuuji angles his body accordingly— never allowing his back to be turned to the stranger, while still ensuring that Megumi stays behind him. “You know, I was only sent to get the kid back… Hanami made a mistake in thinking Jogo could be trusted not to fuck it all up… But now I think that I much prefer this outcome… Since collecting you as a prize might just be the better deal.”

“Good fucking luck,” Yuuji spits out in reply.

The stitch-faced stranger tilts his head back and laughs once more before he grins viciously in Yuuji’s direction. “I did say I wanted to play a game, remember?”

The man takes a step just a bit too close to Yuuji, and the sweet burn of his muscles waking up brightens all of his senses as Yuuji moves toward him. His fists fly, nearly too quick to follow, raining blows down upon the stranger who manages to block all of them— barely . The stranger swipes his blade out in a messy arc, managing to slice into the material covering Yuuji’s extended forearm though it is not enough to pierce his skin. Yuuji grits his teeth and ignores the close call as he shifts his weight into his lower body and then delivers the same kick combination that had put Junpei on his back the day before. The same effect is had on the stranger, who goes down when Yuuji’s foot makes contact with their jaw in a loud crunch of bone.

A howl of pain echoes off of the narrow walls of the alley as the stranger staggers back against the brick. Yuuji looms above him, shaking out the tension in his arms in preparation to use his fists. 

“Wanna know what we need him for?” The stitch-faced stranger asks through a bloody smile. They spit out a wad of blood onto the ground as they stagger back up to their feet.

“Stay down and shut up,” Yuuji hisses out, fangs bared as he lifts his fists up again. “You’re outmatched, asshole.”

The stranger ignores him as his mismatched eyes latch onto  a point over Yuuji’s shoulder— directly toward Megumi. 

“Don’t you dare look at him!” Yuuji snarls as he steps in the way, blocking the kid from the stranger’s malicious glare. Instead, the stalker pins Yuuji beneath it.

“They were going to let us all have a turn passing him around, before we had to ship him off to the buyer,” the stitch-faced stranger mocks venomously. Yuuji’s stomach clenches with rage as his heart lurches sickly.

“I said, shut up,” Yuuji growls.

“I don’t really prefer them as old as him,” the stitch-faced stranger murmurs, voice low and dripping with taunting, “But with him being connected so closely to the Honored One , I was willing to make an exception. Who wouldn’t want to break a toy as shiny and important as him?”

“Y—Yuuji?” A tiny voice calls from behind him.

Yuuji clenches his fists so tightly that his knuckles begin to ache. Heart thudding in his ears like a war drum, Yuuji stares at the terrible smile stretched across the stitch-faced stranger’s face— at the utter unrepentance in his face of admitting to something so heinous. The stench of blood fogs up his mind as the disgusting implications of their words sends rage careening through his insides. He blinks once, twice, in an attempt to shake off the haze of red that has started to descend upon him— and his hesitation costs him.

Though it had been for only half a moment, it was enough for the stranger to push himself off of the wall and barrel into Yuuji. It is his weight, more than his ability to fight, that has Yuuji falling to the ground with a heavy thud. The breath ekes out from Yuuji’s lungs on impact as the stitch-faced stranger lands— almost gracefully— on top of him, their knees pining Yuuji’s arms to the ground. They raise the knife high above his head.

“Yuuji!” Megumi’s terrified voice cries out, muffled through sobs. 

The flash of silver shines like a beacon in the shadowy depths of the alleyway as it arcs down toward him. Yuuji manages to wriggle one arm free from beneath their heavy knee and thrusts a hand up between them, just in time. Pain obliterates every single thought in his mind as the edge of the blade burrows into the flesh of his palm. Blood rains down over him in a crimson spatter as he clutches at the edge of the knife and screams between his gritted teeth.

He gasps for air like someone who has finally come up from beneath the waves, and his head tilts infinitesimally toward the sound of Megumi’s cries. He feels his chest cleave in two at the sight of tears falling from the boy’s green eyes, tiny fists clenched as he stands in a half crouch— as though he wants to run and join the fight, but knows he will not win.

“Maybe if you join us, the boss will let you have a turn first, ” the stranger murmurs from above Yuuji.

He slides his gaze away from Megumi’s terrified face and looks up at the vicious expression looming above him. Blood drips steadily from where his hand still grips the knife, falling onto Yuuji’s face. He blinks away the bloody tears that slip down his cheeks and soak into the hair on his temples. But it is too late— the world explodes into shades of red. 

Between one moment and the next, it is no longer Yuuji who is pinned beneath this stranger in a dim, dead end alleyway— it is a vicious creature, who has fire in their belly and death in their veins.

Time seems to blur as Yuuji moves. His fist comes up and smashes into the stranger’s chin, throwing their balance off of him. Their arm swings wide, but as Yuuji lunges upward, he grabs their wrist and presses hard on the back of their elbow. The satisfying snap of a breaking bone meets Yuuji’s ears and he smiles. Metal clatters against stone as the blade goes skittering across the ground and out of the stranger’s reach— but even if they still had it, it would make no difference. 

Yuuji is done playing.

As he pins the stitch-faced stranger down in a mirror image of how he had been pinned, he listens to the yowls of pain coming from their mouth— no longer smiling, only pathetic. In the vague, distant corners of his more rational mind, he knows that the cries are far too loud for other people not to have noticed that something must be happening in the shadows. And Yuuji has never been so grateful for the fact that the people of Hino know how to mind their own fucking business.

The first hit of his fist into the stranger’s face has him crumpling in on himself, but Yuuji isn’t finished yet. It’s easy to lose count of how many hits make contact— blow after blow after blow— until the pale flesh of the man’s face is mangled with bruises and blood and Yuuji’s bruised knuckles scream with pain. However, the fierce burn of fury has taken root in his chest and refuses to let go. 

There is a single, wild movement from the person below him that nearly throws Yuuji off, and then he feels the keen burn of agony as something sharp plunges into his thigh. It is then that he realizes that there was more than one blade on the stranger, but he is too far gone— swept away by his rage— to allow it to stop him.

Without hesitation, Yuuji reaches down and grabs their wrist and yanks , unbidden of the gleaming blade clutched within his grasp, that is pulled unerringly from the newly made stab wound in Yuuji’s thigh. There is a vicious satisfaction in watching their mismatched eyes go wide with horror as Yuuji takes the weapon, like a parent might confiscate a child’s favorite toy and chucks the knife away from them. So certain in his crimson fueled rage that he is the weapon and does not need anything else to finish the job. Then, without another thought, Yuuji bends the offending hand backward with an unyielding grip until he hears the tell-tale snap of bone and feels their wrist pop out of place beneath his bloody fingers. 

The stranger yowls again and manages to wriggle away, shuffling pathetically on their side across the ground. Without the use of one arm and with a broken wrist, they can hardly fight back. Their whimpers of pain are like music to Yuuji’s ears as he stands up to his full height and follows the stitch-faced stranger as they wriggle like a worm across the dirty ground. Step for step, Yuuji follows, taking his time and simply looming over him.

“Nothing left to say?” Yuuji asks through heaving breaths, voice a deadly rumble. 

The stranger, whose face is so bloody that it covers up nearly all of their strange stitch tattoos, sneers up at him. “You’ll fucking pay for this. You’ll see . When they find out what you’ve done— When you find out who you’re fucking with, you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

“Shut. Up.” Yuuji snarls down at him. 

Before the man can make another comment, Yuuji delivers a brutal kick to the side of the stranger’s head. Instantaneously, they crumple to the ground, limp with unconsciousness. Yuuji’s chest heaves as though he’d just run a marathon as he stares down in disgust at their attacker, now laying out cold in a puddle of theirs and Yuuji’s blood. He clenches his fist at the sight of the unconscious stranger, rage bubbling just beneath the surface of his skin and then hisses at the ricochet of pain up his arm. He glances dazedly at his sliced palm, still dripping steadily down his lax fingers and to the decent stab he’d received in his thigh. His jeans are stained with dark blood as it oozes from the puncture, though thankfully it is not deep enough to prevent movement.

He stumbles over, almost staggering beneath the pain. Head buzzing with static, Yuuji moves as though he is underwater, slow and clumsy in a way he hadn’t been only moments before. He snatches up the two pocket knives, still slick with his own blood, before he stuffs them into his back pocket and forces himself to straighten up. Tilting his head back, neck straining, Yuuji forces himself to inhale a stinging breath of frigid air.

Slowly, like a tide receding from the shoreline, he feels the haze of red begin to retreat from his mind. The heat of his fury begins to well and truly cool while the pain resurfaces in a dizzying rush. He blinks in vague confusion as the muted gray world around him comes back into focus, as though he had been trapped behind a veil and only then had it been lifted from his eyes.

A quiet whimper reaches his ears and his heart leaps into his throat. With dread filling his gut like lead, he turns toward Megumi and finds that the little boy’s watery gaze is wide and horrified as he stares back. Something cracks deep in his chest as he takes a slow step towards him. When the boy cringes back into the wall, Yuuji freezes, and the fissure within him grows wider. He swallows harshly against the lump in his throat as he crouches down, a few feet away from the boy and watches him pleadingly— hoping he might understand.

“Megumi,” Yuuji croaks out. “I’m so sorry, Megumi. That you had to see that, I— I just wanted to protect you… I couldn’t… I couldn’t stand listening to what he was saying and I’m so sorry that you saw what I— What I—”

Yuuji stumbles over his words as the hot burn of tears lines his bottom lashes. He glances down at the ground where a small puddle of his blood has started to form. Breathing against the waves of pain that threaten to consume him as the tears make the world go blurry at the edges.

It’s all fucked up… All of it… He thinks to himself. He’ll never trust me again… I’ve fucked it all up… 

“Oof! ” Yuuji breathes out in surprise as a tiny body barrels into his chest. 

Instinctually, his arms raise up and clutch at Megumi who snakes his skinny arms around Yuuji’s neck like two tiny, iron bands. 

“Yuuji!” Megumi cries into his neck, body trembling with his sobs. “You got hurt! You got hurt because of me. Don’t cry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” 

“No, no,” Yuuji murmurs soothingly as his bloody hand comes up to cradle the back of Megumi’s skinny neck. “No, it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault, Megumi. You’re alright now. I’ve got you.”

“I was so scared,” Megumi whimpers, almost too quiet to hear as he buries his face into Yuuji’s scent patch. “I was so scared he was gonna hurt you and take me back. I don’t want to go back. I want to go home. I want to go home! I want to go home! ”

Yuuji swallows down the lump in his throat again as his eyes cut toward the unconscious figure across the alleyway. 

“I’m going to get you home, Megumi…” Yuuji whispers into the fluff of inky hair against his cheek. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”

Megumi pulls back slightly from his hiding place against Yuuji’s neck. His little chest hitches with quiet, hiccupping sobs and his watery green eyes find Yuuji’s unerringly. “Promise?”

Yuuji thinks that perhaps he has never meant something more than he does these two simple words. 

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Yuuji had never given much thought to what it might feel like to get stabbed.

He’d watched enough movies filled with action and adventure and heroes thrust into peril to understand that it certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience. Yet he’d watch those scenes— where the hero writhed in agony, grasping bloody fingers at the gaping wound in their side, while still somehow managing to fight in the last battle— and thought to himself, with all of the confidence of someone who never thought they’d actually have to: I could probably do that.

Now, as Yuuji sneaks through the back alleys of Hino, heart pounding with fear in his chest and leaving a bloody trail behind him, he was all too willing to rescind his previous conviction on the matter… Because being stabbed, as it turns out, hurts like a motherfucker. 

Megumi holds tightly to his shoulders, having refused to budge even a millimeter as they fled from the dead end alley. The metallic tang of freshly spilled blood seemed to cling to them, along with the heady scent of violence. With the smell of it thick in Yuuji’s nose, he can’t stop his mind from going back to the shadow-filled alley where their attacker had been left lying in a pool of their own blood— stitch tattoos covered in blood, face crushed nearly to a pulp and barely breathing.

His jaw aches from clenching it against the pain that blazes through his leg, back molars grind with each determined step as he limps his way through back streets and abandoned alleys. The inability to shake free of the iron bands of paranoia that have wrapped themselves around him forces Yuuji to take a longer— more unpredictable— route to the club. And although he hasn’t drummed up enough courage to check, he can feel the wet spread of blood that saturates his jeans, made ice cold by the inescapable winter wind.

Despite the pain and the paranoia that dogs his every step, Yuuji feels a strange sense of calm settled within him. A distant part of his brain whispers that maybe he might be in shock, if only because this calmness does not feel normal, but rather like someone has wrapped him up in a thick blanket and the rest of the world has muffled itself. But on the inside, his head is a tangled knot of endless, screaming thoughts.

Who were they? How did they find us? Who sent them?

How did they know my name?

It is that last, damning question that rattles around inside of him. Like stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through his mind, upsetting the sense of balance his life has always held. Yuuji digs his fangs into his bottom lip in a desperate attempt to ground himself, lest the tide of his thoughts wash him out into an endless sea of confusion where he might finally succumb and sink below the waves. The delicate flesh of his lip is all too easily shredded beneath the razor sharp points and the taste of his blood blooms across his tongue— he can’t bring himself to care much about it… After all, what’s a few more drops spilled from him?

Vaguely he wonders how long it will take for someone to find the body. 

He cringes away from the thought of it. Barely a moment was spared to linger in the alley as he’d gathered up a weeping Megumi and his discarded duffle bag that now had a decent sized slash along the top. Fear of being discovered by someone that may have heard the altercation and came snooping around kept him from loitering around and so he hadn’t gotten a good look at the stitch-faced stranger to check if they’d still been breathing. Yuuji’s lungs seize as the thought crosses his mind that he may have killed someone. 

Would the police be able to trace it back to him? What if there were cameras on the street that had caught them? Would they find evidence of him at the scene of the crime since he’d spilled his own blood on the ground?

Another fierce gust of wind wraps around them. Megumi shivers against him and Yuuji tightens his grip on the little boy. He forces himself to swallow down the panic creeping up his throat, threatening to choke him with increasingly horrible ‘What If’s’. 

He had two priorities to focus on. Two things that should have been so easy, and yet, the universe seemed utterly determined to make it harder. 

1. Get to safety.
2. Get Megumi home.

That was it.

Yuuji can’t help but remember something his mother had said so very, very long ago. The memory was saturated with golden candlelight and faded by the passage of time. The feel of her gentle fingers threaded through his hair as he lay against her chest— listening to the slow beating of her heart in tandem with the crickets that chirped beyond the open shoji doors. The scent of night swirling around them, even as the smell of peaches and warm sunlight lingered in his mother’s scent— the sight of a wavering flame atop a thick pillar candle that seemed to be the only light in such all-consuming darkness. And his mother’s voice, that now, years later, he had nearly forgotten the sound of, speaking lowly in his ear.

“Remember, my little sakura. Even the stone you trip on is a part of your destiny…” 

Yuuji had heard her, even half asleep as he’d been, because he listened to every word she said. 

Perhaps it might have been easier for him if he still believed that such words held any kind of value. His mother’s tender heart for superstition had once nurtured his own, but it had been a very long time since Yuuji had painted his problems with such silver-linings. It might have been simpler to blame the terrible things that had happened to him on a larger, greater plan— on fate — but it wouldn’t be right. Because Yuuji knew— had learned the hard way — that there was no mystical sway of the universe that put everyone on the paths they needed to be on. And there was no such thing as destiny. 

A stone in the middle of the path was nothing more than an unearthed rock— one that could be picked up and moved. And all of the bad things that happened before a person reached a moment of good did not mean that such a moment was worth more than if they had not suffered at all. People suffered for their entire lives, thinking foolishly that fate might smile upon them one day and if that day ever came, they would open their arms gladly to their newfound fortune and forgive the universe for their suffering in the name of fate.

But not Yuuji.

Perhaps there had been a time when Yuuji believed that fate held all of the tangled strings of his destiny, but he had long since cut himself free from their noose. 

“Where are we going?” Megumi asks timidly in Yuuji’s ear, shaking him free from his thoughts and shoving him back into the moment. 

Focus, Itadori. He scolds himself internally. Priorities. 

“Somewhere I’ll be able to find one of Gojo-san’s friends…” Yuuji replies with a surprisingly steady voice. “I hope…” 

Megumi doesn’t respond as he peers around the alley they’re caged into, less than a block away from the club. Since they’d fled from the scene of the fight, the boy’s tears had slowed to a stop, though any hint of joy had been sapped from him. Little green eyes are rimmed with red and he sniffles continuously, nose running from both the cold and his tears. Yuuji catches the way Megumi’s eyes lock onto something across the way, and when he follows the boy’s gaze he finds it locked on the small horde of stray cats that have gathered nearby a line of trash cans. Some of them have perched themselves on top of the trash piles and watch them imperiously as they pass.

Yuuji notes the wide-eyed look on the little boy’s face and jostles him gently in his arms. “Do you have any big cats at your zoo?” He asks quietly in a desperate attempt to see Megumi shake free of the lingering terror.

Megumi is quick to shake his head, never taking his eyes away from the cats. Yuuji’s gaze snags on a pair laying near the wall beside a trash pile— a large white one has a less-than-thrilled looking black kitten pinned down beside them and is grooming them within an inch of their life. It’s amusing to watch the tiny black kitten bat its paws at the adult white one in an attempt to escape, only for it to be pinned more firmly as the white one bites the scruff of its neck. The black kitten seems to settle after that and the white one resumes grooming the top of its head, spiking up its fur in unruly black tufts and only serving to make the little kitten look entirely too adorable to be anything remotely close to vicious. 

“Maybe you could ask your Gojo-san for one to add to your collection?” Yuuji suggests softly, even though the thought of the Special Grade douchebag doing anything kind for someone is difficult to imagine in itself. 

Megumi shakes his head again and peels his eyes away from the cats. His chin juts out stubbornly as he resolutely faces away from the group of strays. 

“I don’t like asking Gojo-san for things,” the little boy says, unprompted. 

Yuuji stalls for a second as Megumi’s churlish tone takes him by surprise. 

“But he—” Yuuji cuts himself off, pursing his lips as he thinks through his word choice before speaking. “I understand that Gojo-san is not your dad, but he takes care of you, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Megumi shrugs, fiddling idly with the strings of Yuuji’s sweatshirt. 

“I’m sure if you asked him nicely for one then he might say yes?” Yuuji asks, hoping to assuage his own doubts about the Gojo heir’s ability to treat anyone with kindness— let alone Megumi. The little boy merely shrugs again, remaining silent as he shifts to hide his face against Yuuji’s shoulder. He can sense the little boy retreating from the conversation and so Yuuji leaves it alone, unwilling to press too hard.

As they turn the last corner that leads into the alley behind the Fantasy Room, Yuuji breathes a shaky sigh of relief. Each step has Yuuji wincing in agony as the stab wound throbs viciously and it is only by the grace of some fucked up God that no one has crossed their path. As they near the familiar back doorway he feels some of the tension in his chest release when he sees that it has been left propped open by a bucket filled to the brim with dirty rags. 

Yuuji nonchalantly— or at least as nonchalantly as a bloodied up, limping twenty two year old, hauling an equally blood-soaked child in their arms can be— edges closer, his back pressed against the crumbling brick wall so that he and Megumi remained hidden behind the propped open door. He tilts his head, listening for any stray voices coming from inside, but there is only silence. When he scents the air, there is only the smell of the blood that coats them both and the wintry promise of snow. 

“Alright,” Yuuji says quietly as he braces his back against the wall in an attempt to alleviate some of his weight off of his injured leg. “We’re going to have to be really quiet when we go inside, okay Gumi-chan?” 

“How come?” Megumi asks, skinny brows pinching on his forehead. The boy’s voice, however, has already dropped obediently to a whisper.

Yuuji feels his heart ache where it’s hidden behind his ribs at the sign of such innocent trust and he wonders why he hadn’t realized that he had been missing a Megumi shaped piece in his life until now… Surely he should have felt that something so vital was entirely absent. At the same time, he tries desperately to not think about how close they are getting to the moment where he will have to say goodbye— despite the fact that it has been his only goal to get Megumi home where he belongs.

“Is this someone’s house?” Megumi murmurs innocently.

“Uhhh, not really,” Yuuji mutters back.

There’s no way he would ever tell Megumi the truth about the club, nor could he admit to the boy that they had to be careful because he wasn’t exactly welcome— due in no small part to his own… Caretaker? But perhaps a little white lie wouldn’t hurt…

“Then why do we have to be so quiet?” Megumi frowns in confusion.

“Because there’s people who are sleeping inside,” Yuuji lets the white lie slip from his lips. “We have to be extra quiet so that they don’t wake up.”

Megumi’s frown intensifies as he glances up at the sliver of sky that’s visible between the tops of the cramped buildings. The morning light has well and truly broken behind the thin layer of clouds and a flock of birds passes overhead.

“But it’s daytime,” Megumi points out and then pauses and looks at Yuuji with his little furrowed brow. “Are they like Gojo-san?”

Yuuji’s brow furrows in a mirrored look. “Does Gojo-san sleep during the day?”

“Yep,” Megumi confirms with a bob of his head, “He works alllll night long and sleeps until lunch time!”

Yuuji cringes at the implication of what a yakuza heir might be doing out and about during the deepest hours of darkness— no doubt up to no good — but he does not put a voice to those thoughts. 

“Right,” He mutters instead. “Well these people are like that too, I guess. And they’ll be super grumpy if they have to wake up before they’re ready, so we’ll have to be super sneaky. ”

 Megumi’s nods sagely— the action looking far too wise for such a small child to make it. “They really are like Gojo-san.”

Yuuji can’t help but bite down on his lip to hide a grin at the revealed knowledge that the fearsome heir of the Gojo clan was apparently not a morning person. He pushes thost thoughts to the side and refocuses, listening one last time to make sure that no one is approaching the doorway. With a quiet hiss of pain, Yuuji rebalances Megumi on his hip and uses his free hand to mime zipping his lips and throwing the key over his shoulder. Megumi’s springtime eyes follow the movement and then mirror it perfectly. 

Satisfied with Megumi’s dedication to the act, Yuuji steps over the mop bucket and slips soundlessly into the basement hall of the Fantasy Room. He moves quickly through pockets of shadow, eyes adjusting to the dimness around them, while double checking the floor behind him to make sure that no blood has dropped from his wounds onto the floor. 

Megumi peers at the multitude of names scrawled along the walls with curious eyes, though he remains entirely silent. Yuuji thinks that maybe he should have covered his eyes or something when he spies a lewd drawing that should not have been able to achieve such a level of filthy detail using only stick figures — but it’s too late now… And if the worst thing that Megumi reports to the Gojo heir is that he saw a stick figure orgy drawn on a wall, then Yuuji would consider this fucked up, whirlwind adventure to be a success. 

Yuuji beelines toward the dressing room at the opposite end of the cramped hall. He knows for a fact that it is the safest place for them to be in the building, given that the cleaning ladies won’t dare to go inside.

Nobara had told him, not long after he’d started working at the club and he had questioned why keeping the dressing room clean was part of the employee’s responsibilities, that a previously hired omega had once caught the cleaning ladies snooping through her locker when she’d come in early for her shift. Though the omega in question had been fired for misconduct not long after the incident, they had managed to strike fear into the cleaning lady— and ‘had beaten her ass’ if Nobara’s gossip was to be believed— to the point that none of them dared to enter the dressing room anymore. 

When he reaches the door of the dressing room he opens it silently and is greeted with the sight of pitch black darkness beyond the threshold. Behind him, the sudden sound of feet on the stairwell and the tittering, gossipy voices of the cleaning ladies startles him into movement. He creeps into the dark room and closes the door behind him with a soft click. Megumi’s breaths ghost across the side of his cheek while he hangs onto his shoulders and Yuuji keeps his back against the door, listening as the ladies pass.

Finally, after they seem to have moved on, Yuuji lets out a breath of relief and turns slightly to the left. He stretches out his uninjured hand blindly across the cool, concrete wall until his fingers brush against the metal plate of the light switch. With a flick of his fingers, the switch is flipped and the aged fluorescent lights above their heads hum to life, flickering ominously several times in a strobe effect before they finally stay lit. Yuuji blinks a few times as his eyes readjust to the light and he peers around the familiar space, only to freeze when his gaze lands on a lump of blankets in the middle of the floor that had definitely never been there before.

A head of dark hair, tossed into a wild mess on a makeshift pillow peeks out above the top of the blankets and two slender, socked feet stick out the end.

“What the— ” Yuuji whispers to himself with mild dread.

“Wow!” Megumi says at full volume, clearly forgetting their promise of silence made only a few moments earlier. “There really are people sleeping in here!” 

Yuuji watches in horror as the sound of the little boy’s voice effectively startles the sleeping person awake. Their body launches upward into a half crouch, one knee planted on the ground with the other bent up at a ninety degree angle to stabilize. If their precise, lightning fast movements weren’t enough to set Yuuji’s heart racing, the glint of metal clutched in their hands would be . The girl’s hands are rock steady as she aims the revolver unwaveringly in their direction, eyes narrowed in focus, though the remnants of sleep seem to cling to her lashes. The blankets pool around her, revealing that she is wearing a tight pair of black leggings and a thin tank top that exposes her bare arms to Yuuji’s gaze— along with the horrifying amount of scars that litter the pale canvas of her skin.

“You have thirty seconds to tell me who you are and why you are here before a bullet finds the place between your eyes,” The girl says in a low, cool voice. Her finger deftly moves to pull back the hammer on the revolver with a deadly click that affirms the legitimacy of her threat. “And don’t even think about lying.”

Yuuji’s heart thuds hard and fast against his ribs in fear as he remains frozen and speechless, held at gunpoint in the dingy dressing room. He watches the girl’s face as she seems to blink free the last bits of sleep from her eyes and flicks them imperceptibly away from Yuuji’s face toward Megumi. It is then, between one heartbeat and the next that the girl’s face transforms.

Her mouth drops open with a small gasp and her shoulders sag, allowing the revolver to drift downward as she stares in utter shock at the little boy in Yuuji’s arms.

“Megumi?” The name is barely a whisper breathed from the girl’s lips, but it falls between them with such heavy familiarity that it hits him like a punch to the gut. Yuuji realizes belatedly, as her words catch up to the part of his brain that isn’t focused on the gun half aimed in the direction, that she knows Megumi. 

She knows Megumi.

And just like that, another stone is unearthed.

***

After everything that has happened in the less-than-twelve-hours that have passed since Megumi dropped into his life— or is it the other way around? — Yuuji knows he shouldn’t be so easily surprised when something unexpected happens… And yet…

“Look… Clearly you know him and that’s cool. Real, real cool. But uhh, maybe you could put the gun down or something?” Yuuji says carefully, never letting his eyes stray from the weapon in question. The girl seems to realize how much she has relaxed as she snaps back into position in an instant, however Yuuji notices that both the gun’s aim and the girl’s focus is entirely on him. 

“How about you do what I told you to and I won’t blow your brains out?” the girl snaps back. Yuuji can see the way her left eyebrow twitches, just a tiny flash of movement, and he knows that despite the venom she’s spitting from her mouth, there is distraction inside of her.

Hesitation.

Yuuji moves with aching slowness. The stab wound in his thigh gives a vicious throb as he gently tugs Megumi’s skinny arms from around his shoulders. The kid makes a small sound of distress and attempts to cling, but Yuuji allows a quiet rumble to echo in his chest as he soothes a bloody hand across the back of his neck— heedless of the agony that zips through his veins at the touch against the gash on his palm. He lowers the little boy to the ground while maintaining eye contact with the girl’s icy gaze. It feels as though he is moving in slow motion as he straightens back up and raises his hands in an open gesture that proves he is not a threat. Refusing to look down even when he feels one of Megumi’s hands tethers itself in the hem of his sweatshirt.

“My name is Yuuji Itadori,” Yuuji says quietly, his voice clear and calm, even as his own fear curdles in the pit of his stomach. “I’m an omega that used to be employed here… I’m in a bit of trouble and needed a place to stay for a little while.”

The girl’s lip curls in a sneer, the revolver steady in her unwavering grip. She juts her chin at Megumi where he stands tucked close into Yuuji’s side. “And what about him? I know for a fact that albino stick bug wouldn’t let him out of his sight for even a single second, let alone entrust him into the care of anyone other than one of the Six Eyes… Or is that the kind of trouble you’re running from?”

Six Eyes? Yuuji’s mind echoes in confusion before he pushes the words away. He rationalizes that there will be time later— hopefully — to get some kind of answer out of this girl who clearly knows Megumi… Unless she decides to follow up on her threat and shoot him where he stands. 

“It’s a bit of a long story,” Yuuji hedges nervously.

“Then shorten it,” the girl demands with an icy glare. 

“I’ll tell you, okay?” Yuuji concedes, spreading his hands wider in innocence. “But only if you put the gun away.”

The girl hesitates. Her dark eyes narrow slightly as she glares at him down the slim barrel of the revolver, but when Megumi whimpers and attempts to hide himself behind Yuuji’s leg, her gaze flits toward him. Almost imperceptibly, her gaze softens, there and gone again before Yuuji can even be sure that he saw it. 

“I didn’t know there would be someone in here,” Yuuji tells her honestly, speaking slowly so that none of his words could be misconstrued. “I’m sorry for scaring you, but please… Put the gun down. If not for my sake, then for his. He’s been through enough.”

Maybe it’s a cheap shot, using Megumi as a play on the girl’s sense of morality, but then again, if it keeps him from getting shot, then he’s actually not sorry at all.

The plea to spare Megumi some trauma seems to do the trick and the girl releases a long breath. Her chest rises and falls deliberately a few times, as though she is finally allowing herself to breathe fully. In a smooth, practiced movement, the girl lowers the gun, and defly uncocks the hammer. Scarred arms go loose and pliant as she rises to her feet in a graceful motion. She is the same height as Yuuji, the both of them looking eye to eye with only a few paces between them. The gun hangs loosely at her side, cradled in her palm with such naturalness that the sleek Smith & Wesson revolver almost looks like an extension of her arm. Yuuji has no doubts that she could have it aimed and fired before he had time to blink, though it is not a theory he is willing to test.

The girl lifts a scarred hand to brush back some messy locks of dark hair from her forehead, the rest of it falling in wild disarray, chopped neatly to hang just below her chin. Under the dim lighting, it’s impossible to see what shade her dark eyes really were, but Yuuji swears he can see a glint of green as they rake across Yuuji in a way that makes him feel like something pinned beneath a microscope. 

“Speak,” the girl demands grimly.

Yuuji huffs and bites back a retort along the lines of asking if she wants him to bark. Instead he does something that takes him by surprise— he tells the truth.

“I found Megumi early this morning at a train station east of Hino. I’m well aware that he’s part of the Gojo clan and have been trying to get him home. The last place I knew of members of the Gojo clan hanging around was here. So… Here we are,” Yuuji finishes lamely, the story shortened and with so much going unsaid.

The girl arches a dark, angular brow in his direction as she eyes his blood stained jeans and the weeping gash on his out-turned palm. “And the wounds are from what? A bear attack?”

There was no offer of sympathy in the girl’s voice, nor even a bit of shock the way that a normal person might have in reaction to seeing the kinds of holes that had been poked in Yuuji’s body. It should have thrown Yuuji for a loop— how utterly unphased she appeared to be as she assessed the wound on his thigh and hand with a calculating look in her gaze that spoke of an intimate relationship with pain. With suffering. 

“No bear,” Yuuji admits the obvious, “But we were cornered by someone who was clearly connected with whatever group has been targeting Megumi. Couldn’t tell you who they worked for… They weren’t exactly keen on having a regular conversation.”

The girl looks mildly— morbidly— amused at his description of the events, but she says nothing for several long moments. Her posture is perfect, without a single shred of self consciousness in the angle of her body despite the fact that the massive amounts of scarring spread across her exposed flesh were on display. 

“You’re acting surprisingly calm for some random normie who got roped into babysitting Gojo’s brat and who clearly got his ass handed to him for his troubles,” the girl comments offhandedly.

“You should see the other guy,” Yuuji shrugs, honest to a fault— and honestly, still in a bit of shock.

The girl lets out a sound that maybe could pass as a laugh if someone who had never truly laughed before in their life was told to laugh without knowing what real joy sounded like. She pins Yuuji with pine dark eyes, calm and dangerous like the deepest parts of an ancient forest, filled to the brim with secrets. 

“My name is Mai,” the girl says finally.

‘Her name is Mai and she’s an absolute brat.’ Nobara’s voice rattles around in Yuuji’s memory. The conversation that they’d had during their lunch date a few weeks ago comes rushing back to him in an instant. Of course, he’d been a bit more preoccupied with his spiral out of control after finding out that the Gojo clan was in fact a crime syndicate family, that he’d quickly forgotten Nobara’s whiny complaints about the new omega that had been hired at the Fantasy Room. 

Standing before him, with the sleek revolver cradled in her steady grip, silvery scars lining her arms, and a face that was pretty in the kind of way that a poisonous flowers might be, Yuuji could tell that Nobara’s initial assessment of the girl had been both right and wrong. Because the girl— Mai — might be a bitch, but it was evident that maybe she had a good reason to be…

“No family name?” Yuuji finds himself asking in return.

Mai tilts her head and arches that sharp brow in his direction. “Nope.”

Yuuji knew a warning when he heard one and despite what most of his grade school teachers assumed of him because of his lack of attention span, he was not stupid. 

“You gonna tell me how you know him?” Yuuji tries again, making a gesture toward where Megumi is still hiding behind his leg. 

“Nope.” Mai repeats, more firmly this time. 

Yuuji nods, expecting the answer even though he’s not pleased about it.

 “Right. Well…” He shifts on his feet and then hisses out a pained breath as the stab wound burns in agony and bleeds sluggishly. When the dark spots clear from his eyes at the pain he finds that Mai is watching him with a shrewd kind of observation, much like a predator that hasn’t quite decided if the injured prey they’ve cornered is safe to eat or filled with rot.

“Any chance you know how to stitch up a stab wound?” Yuuji asks, partially joking as he breathes through the pain.

“Actually, yes,” Mai deadpans. 

Yuuji swallows harshly at what that simple answer implies about the girl. He struggles not to let his gaze stray toward the exposed length of her slender, pale arms, covered from shoulder to wrist in those silvery scars. 

“Uhh… Would you maybe be willing to— to do that? For, uhh— For me?” Yuuji asks, stumbling over his words. “I can go get the uh… The first aid kit?”

Mai keeps him pinned under that unnerving stare for another miserably tense moment, until finally she bestows mercy and clicks her tongue disdainfully. “Tch. And get your blood all over the bathroom I had to spend an hour cleaning yesterday? No way. Just… Sit down before you pass out from blood loss or something. I’ll go get the med kit.”

Mai moves toward the bathroom, exposing her back to Yuuji’s gaze. He’s surprised to find that her pale shoulders, defined by lithe muscles, are entirely free of scars, however the skin is not entirely free of markings. Just below the edge of her hairline the finely inked outline of a black snake curls along her slender nape. He sees it for only a moment before she disappears into the adjacent bathroom.

As the sound of her rummaging for the med kit  reaches his ears Yuuji allows his chest to heave with a shuddering sigh. The panic that had curled tight in his sternum has not yet abated, though his heart finally begins to slow. Megumi’s hand tugs gently on the hem of his sweatshirt and he casts his gaze down to the little boy. 

“You okay, Gumi-chan?” Yuuji asks quietly. 

Megumi nods his head but doesn’t take his eyes from the open doorway leading to the bathroom. “I don’t like her.”

Yuuji hums under his breath, in neither agreement, nor disagreement. He is not quite sure what to make of the strange girl yet…

“Let’s sit down for a little bit, okay? Mai said she can fix me up,” Yuuji says as he leads Megumi toward the parallel rows of metal benches near the wall of lockers. He nearly staggers as his injured leg buckles beneath his weight and as though all of the adrenaline that had kept him moving after the fight has suddenly abandoned him, he slumps down onto the bench like a puppet with its strings cut. 

“You’re really bleeding bad, Yuuji-kun,” Megumi’s little voice murmurs from below. 

Yuuji tries to school the grimace of pain off of his face, though he avoids looking directly at the little boy because he is sure he’s not entirely successful. He breathes through a wave of agony, feeling utterly weak and wounded.

“It’ll be alright,” Yuuji grits his teeth and flashes what he hopes is a convincing smile at the little boy. “It’s just a scratch.”

Megumi says nothing as his springtime eyes stay locked on the deep gash slashed across Yuuji’s palm.

There is a sound of muffled cursing and a slam of something metal from the bathroom before Mai re-emerges, med kit in one hand, revolver in the other.

“Hope you’re up to date on all of your shots,” Mai comments with a wry look as she approaches the benches. Yuuji shoots her a half-hearted glare, though he’s sure that the effect is somehow lost a bit with him looking so bloody and pathetic, breathing through the waves of pain like a spent racehorse after a derby. 

There is no shame in the girl’s movements as she sits herself on the bench across from Yuuji and Megumi. Their knees practically knock where they’re parted around one another. She eyes the mass of blood soaked denim that covers his leg with a sterile look.

“Strip,” She says simply. 

Yuuji flushes at the order, even though he’d given most of his own shame at being half naked in front of strangers during the year he’d spent working at the Fantasy Room. He thinks perhaps the only reason why he hasn’t dissolved into a pile of mortified goo is because of the way that Mai looks at him as though she isn’t really seeing him, but all of the external parts that make him up. It’s unnerving, but at least it isn’t setting off any alarm bells in Yuuji’s head.

Mai finally looks away and turns toward the metal med-kit sitting on the bench beside her— beside the fully loaded revolver. She begins to rifle through the mess of bandages, gauze and antiseptic spray, dark brows furrowed in focus. Yuuji takes the distraction for the thinly veiled attempt at privacy that it is as he shifts himself as much as he is able to and shimmies his jeans off of his lower body. Megumi stays silent as he perches himself beside Yuuji on the bench, watching with green eyes that miss nothing.

He is left in nothing but his dark boxer briefs and his bloody sweatshirt, shivering through the release of his adrenaline and clenched in pain. When his pants finally drop fully to the ground, pooled around his ankles before he kicks them aside, he can’t help but wrinkle his nose at the cloying scent of fresh blood that rises around them. It is so strong that it seems to blot out everything else, even the over-powered artificial scent that is pumped out of the club’s ventilation system.

A jarring thought passes through his mind that part of the reason he’d had no idea that Mai was in the dressing room was because she had no scent. Out of habit, Yuuji’s eyes stray toward the girl’s neck, anticipating the sight of a patch— oh so similar to his own— decorating the slender length of it, but what he sees there sends a bolt of horror straight through his heart.

There was no scent patch, because there was no scent gland. 

Dread curdles hot and sour in the pit of his stomach at the sight of melted flesh in place where the tender, pink stretch of a scent gland should be. Burned and mutilated beyond repair, the ruined gland shines silvery in a way that suggests that the damage had happened a long time ago, though the ragged edges of the burn still looked raw and red. He cannot look away from the mass of melted flesh, feeling the overwhelming fist of pity as it wrapped itself around his lungs, squeezing the very breath from within him.

He could remember with painstaking clarity the first time he’d ever heard of such a monstrous practice. Nearly thirteen years old, Yuuji had caught wind of a local news station covering a story of a sex trafficking ring that had been dismantled by the police. Wasuke had left the room— otherwise he would never have allowed Yuuji to watch something so horrific— and Yuuji had stood frozen in front of the T.V. in the middle of the living room, watching the shaky camera footage taken on a policeman’s body cam.

A dark room filled with pale, sickly kids, their wide eyes haunted with all of the things they had gone through— so deep in their trauma that they hardly even noticed that they were being saved. But while that image had stayed with Yuuji until even now, he had also been unable to let go of what had been revealed after the children had been saved. 

The children that had been rescued, it was revealed by the news anchors covering the story, had all been taken before they had presented. To the monsters that had taken them, it did not matter what the child would turn out to be— alpha, beta or omega, it didn’t matter— not when there was a way to circumvent the pesky business of second gender presentation altogether. Because ruining a pre-formed scent gland was a cruel way of ensuring that a child would not present at all. Without the ability for their body to expel the massive amounts of hormones that were created during presentation, the body would— in most cases— reabsorb them and destroy them. Much like the white blood cells in a body’s system fighting off an infection, if the presentation hormones were unable to be expelled, the body would soon see them as an enemy. 

A newly made omega went into heat, while a newly made Alpha went into rut, but without the proper expulsion of the hormones that had built up in the first few years of puberty, preparing for presentation, the blockage was enough to result in hospitalization— and sometimes even death— for whoever suffered such cruel torment. For those that survived, it resulted in a lack of secondary gender entirely. Though they were scentless like a beta and held no internal schedule for annual reproductive urges, they were not considered betas in society. They were something other. Even after all that they had suffered, after they had been saved, they still did not have a place within the bounds of society. 

Yuuji stares at the mutilated scent gland stretching across the girl’s and could think of nothing else but the way those children’s haunted eyes had stared up at the police officer that had infiltrated the base of the trafficking operation— looking as if they had given up hope of being saved so long ago that they hardly recognized salvation it when it stood before them. 

“Are you done yet?” Mai’s sharp voice breaks through his mind, startling him enough that he feels caught. His eyes dart away from the mangled flesh and catch on the girl’s calculating gaze. In their dark pine depths, Yuuji can see the danger lurking just beneath the surface. “Or do you want to wallow over my trauma a bit more before we begin?”

Yuuji swallows hard and shakes his head. Pinned under her glare, as if daring him to breathe a single word about the mark of ruin painted on her flesh, Yuuji stays as still as a rabbit caught in a snare— one wrong move and something would snap. Still, he can’t help but be a bit taken aback at the way Mai didn’t deny the atrocity, nor try to hide it from Yuuji’s observation.

 Megumi shifts nervously on the bench beside Yuuji and it seems to be the one thing capable of breaking the tension in the room. As both Mai and Yuuji focus on reining themselves in, if only for the sake of the little boy, who remains strung as tight as a bow string as his wary green gaze swivels between the two of them.

“Right, then,” Mai drawls, breaking the silence once again. “Brace yourself.”

She leans forward, one hand braced on her knee as the other reaches out and is set against Yuuji’s bare thigh. Yuuji hisses out a pained breath as she subtly tugs at his flesh to inspect the stab wound, causing it to bleed sluggishly. Not a single flicker of sympathy crosses her face as she inspects the injury with a keen eye and then tuts under her breath.

“Whoever it was, they got you good, but you’re lucky enough that it doesn’t seem to have severed anything too important,” Mai says as she leans a bit closer and frowns at the wound. “It’s not too deep at all, actually… What did they even use?”

Yuuji grunts under as she releases him and leans down to swipe his jeans off of the floor. From the back pocket he pulls out the two knives that he’d confiscated from the attacker. Mai looks at them with an unimpressed brow arched and scoffs. 

“Well at least you know they weren’t actually trying to kill you, then,” Mai comments offhandedly as she turns to rummage through the med kit again. Yuuji tosses the knives back onto the pile of his jeans. Yuuji swallows as she pulls out a sterile needle, encased in plastic and a roll of suture thread from the depths of the kid. 

“What makes you say that?” Yuuji asks, trying not to watch with growing trepidation as Mai pulls on a pair of sterile gloves and then begins to prep the needle. Her steady hands don’t tremble or shiver as they move with practiced efficiency.

She’s done this before… Yuuji thinks with distant, growing discomfort.

Mai scoffs, unaware of Yuuji’s thoughts as she takes up the antiseptic spray from the kit in one hand. “Please. Those are practically butter knives. There’s no way anyone would willingly start a fight with the intention to kill someone if they only had those as their weapons of choice.”

She doesn’t warn him as she sprays the wound liberally with the antiseptic, causing it to burn. Yuuji clenches his jaw and breathes out harshly through his nose in an attempt to regulate the pain— entirely too aware that he’s about to be subjected to something worse than a bit of antiseptic spray. 

“It certainly seemed like they were determined to try,” Yuuji replies through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, well,” Mai shrugs, setting the spray aside as she takes up the prepared needle. Her dark pine eyes meet his and glint with something wicked. “I bet that they just wanted to see how much they could scare you… but you don’t strike me as the type to get spooked easily.”

Yuuji remains silent, grateful for the distracting burn of the antiseptic that keeps his mind focused on not saying something he shouldn’t. In a distant corner of his mind he can hear a voice— one that sounds suspiciously like Junpei’s— screaming about lawyers and rights and shutting the fuck up.

“Alright,” Mai announces as she holds the needle aloft between them, allowing it to glitter beneath the low lights. She leans forward across the short distance between their benches and lets her steady hand poise the needle to puncture Yuuji’s skin. “Deep breath and don’t be a bitch.”

The shock of genuine laughter is pulled from Yuuji at the same time that the first pierce of the needle goes through his skin. It’s not enough to take away the agony as Mai begins to stitch up the wound with careful, measured movements, but it helps. Almost immediately, Yuuji feels a tiny warm hand tugging on his clenched fist. He glances at Megumi’s nervous face, teary green eyes darting between the glint of the needle pushing through layers of bloody skin and Yuuji’s grimacing face.

“Sho-chan always holds my hand when I get boo-boos,” Megumi whispers, voice wobbling with the threat of emotion.

Yuuji’s heart thumps hard in his chest, glowing golden as he stretches open his aching hand and allows Megumi’s little one to find purchase on his fingers. 

“Thank you, Gumi-chan,” Yuuji whispers back with a real smile on his lips, “You are such a kind friend.”

He gently squeezes the boy’s hand when his words die off with a bitten down grunt of pain as Mai tugs a bit too harshly with the needle.

“Almost done,” she mutters under her breath, without looking away from the neat line of stitches. Yuuji closes his eyes, but never once holds too tightly onto Megumi’s hand— unwilling to hurt him in any way, even as he nearly drowns in his own. It could be hours or days or years that have gone by as he feels the pierce of the needle and the final tug of thread in his skin as the wound is fully closed. 

“Barely even a tear,” Mai says dryly as she ties off the end of the suture thread with a no-nonsense tug. “Consider me impressed.”

Yuuji lets out the heavy breath he hadn’t been aware of holding in his lungs. He says nothing as he stares down at the neat, uniform row of stitches in his skin, hardly an inch or so long. When he lifts his eyes away from it, he finds Mai pulling out some gauze bandages from the med kit. She begins to wrap his leg without a word.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Yuuji says carefully.

Mai’s expression goes sour as she knots the gauze a bit too tightly, pinching the skin of his inner thigh, as if in reprimand. “Careful, Itadori.”

Yuuji winces and shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

The girl tuts under her breath and then reaches viper fast across the space between them to snatch the wrist of his injured hand. Megumi’s fingers squeeze against Yuuji’s other hand as he frowns at Mai, watching as she inspects the deep gash across Yuuji’s palm.

“Not sure what kind of stupid luck you’ve got, but it’s a miracle they didn’t sever the tendons here,” she comments under her breath, tracing a finger in the air above the wound. “There’s not enough thread to close it up with stitches, but I can wrap it after it’s cleaned out.”

“It’s fine, I can do it,” Yuuji says, not waiting for a reply as he reaches toward her bench to take the antiseptic spray sitting close— too close— to the revolver. He shoots Megumi a soft smile as he wriggles his other hand free from his grip and begins to tend to the wound on his palm. After cleaning it, he wraps it with deft, practiced moves that he knows by heart after spending years training at the dojo.

“You actually know how to fight and yet you let someone get the jump on you like this?” Mai scoffs incredulously, watching him wrap his hand with obvious interest. 

“Usually when I fight people, I know who they are and I’m expecting it to happen,” Yuuji mutters. “There’s also a serious lack of knives being used.”

“Riiight…. About that… Not that it’s any of my business or anything— and believe me I don’t want it to be my business— but you do know who you’ve been hauling around with you, right?”

Yuuji’s movements stutter as he finishes wrapping his hand. Sending a sidelong glance at Megumi perched beside him, who is watching in wonder the way Yuuji ties a knot one handed, clearly more concerned about Yuuji’s injuries than he is about the obvious trap that’s being laid using him as bait.

“Why else would I have come here?” Yuuji says in reply, rather than answering the question at face value. Even though Mai clearly knows Megumi and was willing to stitch up the hole poked in Yuuji’s leg, that means very little in the way of building trust. Especially after the day he’s had. “It’s not like I could bring him to the cops… Not unless I wanted to put myself on a list.”

Mai lets out another one of her unpracticed, humorless laughs. “Well at least you’ve still got a brain rolling around up there… Still, you shouldn’t have brought him here either.”

Yuuji’s shoulders go tense at her insistence. Though he’s always been an only child, he knows the sound of a younger sibling when he hears one. He levels her with a glare. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission to be here.”

“That’s not it,” Mai snaps back waspishly. She crosses her arms over her ample chest and leans her shoulders back against the row of lockers behind her. The scars on her arm glint silver on her flesh, though she doesn’t move to cover them in any capacity. There’s a stormy look on her face, though Yuuji tells himself it’s for the best not to ask about it— he’s already got enough on his plate as it is.

“I’m not going to snitch on you if that’s what you’re—”

“That’s not it either,” Mai cuts him off sharply. 

Yuuji huffs in frustration and snaps back. “Then either tell me what it is or leave it the fuck alone!” 

“Bad word,” Megumi whispers under his breath beside him while Mai levels a glare back at Yuuji that would melt the skin off of a lesser man.

“Listen, kid. I don’t know you and I don’t care to know you, but he—” she growls low in her chest as she points at Megumi with an accusatory finger, “— is a ticking time bomb. I’ve got no clue what could have possibly happened for him to be put in your care— again, I don’t want to know— but I’m telling you that this is one of the last places in the world that he should be right now.”

The anger Yuuji had felt building in his chest like a slow burning fire is banked by her icy words. He stares at her in confusion as his mind races to put ill-fitting pieces of this massive puzzle together. “But the blue eyes are—”

A snarl echoes throughout the locker room. The sound does not hold the weighted timbre of an alpha command, but it is a threat all the same. 

“Stop talking about shit you have no understanding of,” Mai cuts him off with a sneer. “Clearly you’ve talked to some of the air-headed idiots that still work here and you think you know anything about the Gojo clan if you’re using that stupid nickname that they’ve been— Wait a second. That brat Kugisaki and the rest of the airheads in this joint won’t shut up about a male omega who got fired for standing up to Gojo… That was you?!” 

Yuuji swallows heavily, but Mai hardly gives him a chance to respond.

“Only someone with a death wish would speak that way to Gojo and think they can get away with it… I take back what I said about you having any form of good luck. Clearly you’re cursed. I mean… What are the chances of you running into his kid and getting into brawls with strangers who are hunting him down?” Mai mutters mostly to herself.

“I’ve been asking myself the same fucking thing,” Yuuji murmurs to himself tiredly.

“Bad word,” Megumi whispers again, tugging on the sleeve of Yuuji’s sweatshirt in reprimand.

Mai shakes her head, as if to dispel the thoughts swimming across her dark pine eyes. When she refocuses them on Yuuji there is a steely glint of determination within them. “I’ve come too far to have a target painted on my back. I stitched you up and now you owe me.”

“I didn’t exactly ask for—” Yuuji starts.

“All I want is for you not to breathe a word that you’ve seen me here. Not a single fucking word. Not to your mommy, not to yourself in the bathroom mirror, not to your pet fucking turtle. Alright? You never saw me. We’ve never met. And if I’ve heard you’re running your mouth about me being here, then the Gojo clan will be the least of your worries.”

“But I—” Yuuji tries again.

Mai holds up a hand between them. Yuuji can see a thin webbing of scars that criss-cross over her palm. They too are silver with age, but there are so, so many of them that it makes his stomach turn sickly at the thought.

“Save it. I don’t want to hear anymore,” Mai says without a single ounce of empathy. “It’s a miracle that you aren’t already dead in a ditch somewhere if what I’ve heard is true about what you said to that bleached string-bean. The Gojo clan doesn’t exactly forgive and they never forget . Sooner or later they’ll decide to take you out and if you even think about using me as some kind of leverage then you’ve got another thing—”

“You’re wrong! Yuuji-kun has this!” Megumi’s righteous little voice calls out from behind him. 

Yuuji turns abruptly, hissing as his stitches pull at the sudden movement to find that Megumi had slipped off of the bench at some point and was standing near the doorway. The zipper of Yuuji’s duffle was drawn open and clutched in his little fingers was the white business card.

Even from a few feet away, Yuuji can see how part of the card has been stained in crimson where his blood must have soaked through the nylon bag. The thick black kanji etched into it is still stark— its message easily readable— even despite the splatter of red.

Megumi’s glare is fierce as he stares down Mai, brandishing the card between them like a shield as he takes his place beside Yuuji on the bench again. The way his dark brows pull together, it is almost a mirror image of— wait a minute. 

Yuuji looks back at Mai, a question rising like a plume of smoke in his head— a signal that calls for attention. Except, when he settles his gaze back onto her, he finds that the vicious apathy from before has disappeared entirely and in its place, there was something a bit more like awe splashed across her expression. Her pine colored eyes shift away from the card and meet Yuuji’s steady gaze, dragging her eyes across his face as if searching for something. As if she’s seeing him for the very first time.

“Who the hell are you?” Mai asks, voice quiet with disbelief.

Yuuji shrugs and answers honestly. “Nobody important.”

Mai laughs out loud, but the noise sounds wrong, as if the joke is not quite a joke at all. In another viper fast move, Mai snatches the card out of Megumi’s fingers.

“Hey! Give it back!” Megumi shouts indignantly. The little boy lunges at her to retrieve it, only to be snatched back by Yuuji’s arm around his middle. The boy wriggles in his hold, tiny fists tapping at Yuuji’s arms as he glares savagely at the girl across from them. A tiny, unpracticed growl echoing from his chest, like the feral little creature Yuuji is realizing he is. 

Mai stares at the little card held between her fingers, eyes wide and glowing as though she’s looking at some kind of deliverance. “Do you even know what this is? What this is worth?”

Yuuji uses his free hand— the one not being used to wrangle a furious six year old— to scratch at the back of his head. “Uhh… Pretty sure it’s just like some kind of calling card? Like as a way of saying that I was forgiven for telling that Gojo guy to fuck off?”

Mai laughs incredulously under her breath— such a soft, gentle sound that is entirely at odds with the knife’s edge personality she has displayed up until that moment. He watches curiously as she brushes a single fingertip across the dark lines of kanji, uncaring for the blood that has stained the thick paper. Like a magician with a playing card, she flicks it up until it is pinned between her middle and forefinger. She waves it lazily at him, but Yuuji is far more focused on the look in her dark green eyes that is practically feral. 

“This, you idiot, is protection. This is a get out of jail free card,” Mai murmurs quietly.

Yuuji frowns at the little white card. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

“A piece of fucking paper that’s from one of the most powerful families in Japan— fuck— maybe in the whole fucking world. You have one of these given to you and nobody can touch you… Anything that little pea brain of yours can think of that you want, you just wave this card in the right direction and bam. It’s done.” Mai hisses irately. 

Like some kind of mafia fairy godmother… Yuuji’s mind hisses back the words that are plucked from his memory.

“Are you sure?” Yuuji glances at Megumi, who has finally accepted his fate of being stuck in Yuuji’s hold, though he still glares at Mai as though she has committed several war crimes in front of him. “Because it didn’t really come with any instructions like that… It just seems like an I.O.U. from one of them, but not on the level of a genie granting wishes.”

“You are a fucking moron,” Mai says with utter disdain.

“Hey!” Megumi whines loudly, resuming his struggles against Yuuji’s arm again, taking offense to the insult directed at Yuuji. “Bad word!”

Mai ignores the struggling boy as she turns the card over and over between her deft fingers, eyeing it as though it is a precious jewel in her grasp instead of a blood stained piece of paper. Yuuji can practically see the methodical thoughts working behind her eyes as she debates something deeply, though Yuuji has no hope of knowing what it might be. Finally, after a few moments pass, Mai flicks the card once more and fixes Yuuji with a particularly unsettling smile.

“How about we make another deal?” Mai asks with a tilt of her head.

“I never asked to make any deals in the first place,” Yuuji points out with a stony look on his face. It’s very difficult to feel menacing while wearing only boxer briefs and a bloodied up hoodie while also trying to contain a wriggling child, but he does the best he can.

Mai waves her free hand at him and tuts under her breath. “To-may-to, to-mah-to… But listen up. There’s a chance that we can help each other. I’m willing to bet that Gojo’s got every single member of the clan running around Tokyo trying to find this little sprout—”

“— Which is why we came here— ” Yuuji interjects testily.

“But I know where you can go to find them!” Mai says with a sharp grin.

“The Gojo clan has been skulking around this place for weeks,” Yuuji snaps, truly starting to get irritated as Mai insists on spinning them in circles. “I brought him here to give him to one of them!” 

“You can’t do that! Those stupid grunts that have been patrolling this area wouldn’t know their ass from their elbow without a goddamn map,” Mai says, shaking her head. “Plus, if you bring the kid to one of them and they probably wouldn’t even recognize him. They’ll think you’re a liar and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Well doesn’t that sound familiar,” Yuuji deadpans. 

Mai doesn’t rise to the bait. “You need to give him to one of the Six Eyes… I’d put money down that they’re the only ones who actually know who he is.”

“I thought all of the members of the Gojo clan were known as blue eyes … Kugisaki said—”

“That girl thinks she knows everything,” Mai sneers. “Just because the omegas in here have taken to calling them the ‘ Blue Eyes’ doesn’t mean anything.”

“Blue Eyes! Six Eyes! What does it fucking matter anyway? An eye is a fucking eye!” Yuuji growls in frustration.

“It fucking matters!” Mai snarls back, her own temper rising. “People have gotten their fucking tongues cut out for less of an insult against the Six Eyes. Do you want to fucking lose your tongue? How about getting your fingernails ripped out? Does that sound like fun to you?” 

“Alright! Alright! I get it!” Yuuji huffs in exasperation as he manages to wrangle Megumi into stillness within his grasp. “So then what the hell is a Six Eye?” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Mai says, waving her hand between them.

“I’m six! Hey! Me too! I’m six, too!” Megumi says furiously at the same exact time, clearly fed up with being on the outside of the conversation.

“Then why the fuck did we just—” Yuuji starts.

“What does matter,” Mai cuts him off loudly, “Is that you have to get the kid to one of them if you actually want to survive the interaction. You didn’t think you’d just approach one of the members of the clan so easily, did you?” 

“Well that’s why I’d give them the stupid card,” Yuuji stresses, eyes darting to the card in her hands. “So they’d know it was for real.”

Mai’s face blanches as she holds the card to her chest as if it is something infinitely more precious than a piece of paper with a mafia promise written on it. 

“You can’t do that!” She gasps frantically. “Once you give it back there’s no refund! It’s not something you can keep using over and over again.”

“So what?” Yuuji asks, body going tense as his anger reignites in his chest. Unconsciously, he releases Megumi and sets him on the bench at his side.

“So what?” She repeats incredulously. “So you’d be giving away one of the most powerful favors that anyone could ever owe you!” 

“I don’t need any favors done for me!” Yuuji roars loudly, a growl blooming in his chest as he rises to his feet— painful stab wound be damned — and towers over her. His chest rumbles with the threatening growl and he watches as Mai’s face goes still, looking up at him with a touch of real fear in her pine colored eyes. There is a small tug of guilt in the pit of his stomach at the sight of it, but he can’t bring himself to regret his reaction. He breathes in deeply and lets it out slowly, trying to soothe back the wildfire of his anger that had risen so suddenly inside of him. The pain in his hand and leg keeps him tethered to the moment as he steadies himself. 

He glances down at Megumi, sat on the bench where Yuuji had placed him. The boy stares back up at him with wide, spring colored eyes, though there is no fear within them. So young and trusting— so painfully trusting. Yuuji sighs and looks back at Mai, still clasping the little card to her chest protectively.

“I just want to get him home,” he says tiredly. “He wants to go home.”

Mai is silent as she watches Yuuji, the fear in her gaze washing away with each passing moment. She looks down at the card in her grasp and eyes it shrewdly. Every thought painted across her face before she slams the impassive mask back down over her features. Yuuji simply waits.

“Fine. Fucking fine,” Mai says sharply, thrusting her hand out between them and extending the card to him. Yuuji takes it back quickly before she can change her mind about it. Her dark eyes rove across Megumi for a moment, but when she lifts her dark eyes back to his, there is something lurking in their depths that he hadn’t seen there before. “Go ahead and ruin your best shot at a good life over some stupid kid who won’t even remember your name in a couple of months.”

“That’s not true!” Megumi hollers furiously, far too loudly for the small space they’re in— uncaring for remaining untaught by the cleaning ladies in the face of defending himself.

Mai presses on, ignoring Megumi’s outburst. “But I’m telling you right now, that the best thing you could do for yourself is cash that in for a few hundred million yen, buy a one way ticket out of this hell hole, change your name and never look back.”

Yuuji looks down at the card pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Not until I get him home,” he says quietly. “Maybe not even after that.”

Mai tuts under her breath in contempt, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. “You’re too good of a person, Itadori… It’s going to get you killed.”

“It hasn’t so far,” Yuuji mutters.

“You think you know what you’re doing, but you’ve got no clue. You’re treading a fine line between normal life and the underworld… It’s all just a sticky fucking web… Once you get in, there’s no getting out. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Yuuji’s mind catches on her words. He looks at the mutilated skin on her throat and wonders distantly what she would have presented as, if someone hadn’t so brutally taken the choice away from her. He turns his gaze toward Megumi and speaks with quiet, unbreakable determination as he stares into innocent, endless spring green.

“I’ll take my chances.”

Chapter Text

The pants don’t fit right.

The waistband itches where it cuts into his hips. The cheap material sits too tight against his muscular legs and the elastic hems at the bottom of each leg squeeze too tight. It is honestly impressive how uncomfortable Yuuji is because of a pair of damn pants, considering that the newly stitched up stab wound on his leg still barks in agony. 

Megumi has nestled tight against his side, held securely in the circle of his arms, seeking out the limited warmth that radiates off of him . Despite the way the extra weight makes his injured leg shake with every step, he refuses to wake the boy from the doze he’d fallen into. In fact, Yuuji would rather cut his own leg off entirely, then risk waking up the exhausted little boy.

As he makes his way through the quiet suburban neighborhood, he cannot shake the jittery feeling of anxiety that has plagued him since they left the safety of the club. Every other minute he is looking over his shoulder, carefully checking the dark mouths of every alley that they pass and listening for any approaching footsteps— but there is nothing.

The sun had gone down nearly an hour ago and twilight paints the world around them in shades of blue shadow. The early winter evening settles in firmly, chasing people back into their homes sooner rather than later— and for that, at least, Yuuji is grateful. Because although the neighborhood they’ve found themselves in might not seem to be dangerous, Yuuji could do nothing but hope that Mai could be trusted.

***

After stripping off their remaining blood soaked clothes, Yuuji scoured the other lockers for something decent to wear. The extra set of gym clothes that he’d packed in his duffle had gone to Megumi, though the gray sweat-shorts practically reached the kid’s skinny ankles and the long sleeve shirt was practically a dress. Still, they were clean clothes, and while Megumi had appeared entirely unimpressed by the fashion choices, he seemed to know that he was in no position to complain about them. 

Yuuji folded up the sleeves of the long shirt and tied the drawstring tight along the boy’s skinny hips. He looked a bit ridiculous, but it was better than the new— and ruined— sweatshirt from the cafe that had been soaked in Yuuji’s blood. He tried not to let the guilt drown him as he gently folded up the equally blood stained— ruined— hero themed pajama pants before he shoved them into Yuuji’s shirt beside the boy’s flour dredged shirt. 

The boy quietly sat on the bench, refusing to let Mai out of his wary sight while Yuuji started to hunt down some clean clothes for himself. It was a bit more of a challenge since most of the lockers held nothing but skimpy lingerie and six inch heels. He’d started to believe that he’d have to deliver Megumi to safety in nothing but his underwear and sneakers in the middle of December, but then he’d come across the locker of the only other male omega employed at the Fantasy Room. 

Shigemo’s clothing choices were limited to a baggy pair of sweatpants that were several inches too short and a truly hideous shirt with the sleeves cut off. Yuuji had stared at the offending items and thoroughly debated whether walking around in his underwear was preferable— it was unfortunately, a close call. Ultimately, however, he had gone with the new choice of clothes since they were, in fact, not covered in blood.

Mai had smirked at the sight of him dressed in the terrible garments.

“Not a word,” Yuuji muttered as he uselessly tried to adjust the hem of the homemade cut-off tank before he hauled what had been Megumi’s sweatshirt over his head, nose wrinkling in disgust at the smell of blood that wafted off of it. Still, it was better than his own, that was thoroughly ruined by the dark stains that covered it— surely he’d have to burn it or something, right? To get rid of evidence or something? 

Mai held up her hands in a lazy motion of self defense from where she stood beside her locker. The makeshift futon she slept on had been stuffed into the unused linen closet in the bathroom and the pillow she’d been using had turned out to be a laundry bag, from which Mai had pulled a pair of black sweatpants and a skin tight, black long sleeve that she now stood dressed in. The high neck of her top obscuring the melted flesh where her scent gland should have been

“I wasn’t gonna say anything. Pinky swear,” Mai said with a lazy smirk as she folded all of her fingers in except for her slim pinky that she wiggled in his direction. “That whiny bastard deserves to have his shit stolen.”

Yuuji hummed in reply, biting back his own smirk at the petty commentary. At least, it seemed, they could agree on the fact that Shigemo was a whiny son-of-a-bitch. He toyed with the white card in his hand before he shoved it into his duffle bag alongside Megumi’s ruined pajamas— all too well aware of how Mai’s sharp gaze watched the motion like a hawk hunting a mouse. 

As he zipped up the duffel he cringed at how the crust of dried blood on his body had started to itch, but he did not dare to take a shower, since his only two options were to leave Megumi under Mai’s watch or to bring him into the bathroom with him— both of which were not happening. 

“Here’s the deal,” Mai said, effectively breaking him out of his thoughts. “I’ve got to make a call if this plan is going to work, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll go through right away… So you both will have to wait it out for a while.”

“So we’ll just have to sit here and hope that you aren’t ratting us out for your own gain?” Yuuji put a voice to the brutal assumption, though Mai looked anything but offended. Instead, she grinned sharply, as though she were proud of the reputation she had garnered for herself.

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me,” She mocked with a snake-like smile.

“Not likely,” Yuuji muttered as he eyed the revolver that was held in her hand once more. It seemed as though she never moved more than a foot away from the weapon. Had it within reach at all times.

“Right, well that’s a you problem , I guess,” Mai shrugged apathetically as she closed her locker and stretched her arms over her head. Yuuji heard the gentle pop of bone as she twisted her spine this way and that, then dug into the pocket of her sweatpants for a slim black phone. With her free hand she began to fiddle with the screen while the other absentmindedly clicked around the chamber of the revolver. The ticking sound only served to put Yuuji further on edge until she finally stopped and stuffed the gun at her back, held beneath the tight waistband of the spandex leggings she had on under the sweatpants. Eyes glued to the phone screen, she made her way toward the door. “Wait here. I’ll be back soon with news… Or maybe not…”

Yuuji rolled his eyes and muttered sarcastically under his breath. “Wonderful.”

Mai didn’t deign to respond to it as she moved like a silent shadow to the door of the dressing room. And while Yuuji might have thought to check to see if anyone was beyond the door, Mai did not hesitate to throw it open as though she owned the place and stepped out into the— thankfully— abandoned hall. He saw her raise the phone to her ear as the door swung shut behind her, and caught only a few muffled words.

“ Well good morning to you too, bitch… Listen, I need to cash in a favor— ”

Yuuji stared at the closed door for several long moments before a tug on his borrowed— stolen— sweatpants drew his attention downward. He found Megumi peering up at him, drowning in clothes far too large for his tiny body and a pensive look on his face. 

“What’s up, Gumi-chan?” Yuuji asked the boy.

“Am I going home soon?” he asked quietly.

Yuuji’s heart twisted in his chest as he ruffled his uninjured hand through the cloud of inky hair atop the boy’s head. His fingers dragged against the flour still stuck in his roots and he hid a grimace.

“Soon, buddy,” Yuuji replied.

Megumi nodded and then cast a look around the dingy locker room. A slightly disgusted look tugging on the edges of his expression— one that Yuuji couldn’t help but agree with.

“So…” Yuuji trailed off, drawing Megumi’s attention back to him. “What do you wanna do while we wait?”

Megumi frowned and looked around the room again, as if committing every detail to memory— which Yuuji wished desperately that he wouldn’t do, as he, himself, spied a rogue nipple tassel stuck to one of the vanity mirrors.

When spring green eyes returned to meet his gaze, Megumi looked innocently indifferent as he asked, “We could maybe play pirates?”

Yuuji found himself grinning back. “Oh, absolutely.”

***

A dog barks in the distance— and though it is not particularly vicious, the sound makes Yuuji startle hard, heart beating wildly in the hollow of his throat. His arm tightens around Megumi’s little body, tucked into the curve of his side beneath the puffy parka that he’d stolen out of Nobara’s locker. Her crushed rose petal scent clings to the fabric of it alongside the stale smell of the cigarettes she smokes on her breaks. He knows that she would kill him if she were to ever find out that he’d taken it, but he figures that after he returned Megumi he’d figure out a plan to sneak it back to her.

Yuuji’s chest aches with such sudden ferocity that it steals the breath from his lungs. Sucking in a mouthful of frigid air, he tries to blink away the sting of tears gathering on his lower lash line. The thought alone that soon— very soon— he would have to say goodbye to the little boy cradled in his hold is nearly too much to bear. 

It should be ridiculous to imagine that after knowing the boy for a single day— less than twenty four hours, even— would be enough to have Yuuji feel as though giving him back is like ripping a piece of his heart out of the cavity of his chest… But it is not. Especially not when he recalls the red haze of rage that had descended over him when the stitch-faced stranger had made a direct threat aimed at the little boy. A reaction that even now, Yuuji has a hard time believing actually happened.

In almost every middle school, every new batch of freshly presented omegas were rounded up and sat in an empty gym, desks all facing an out-of-date T.V. that had an overly cheery omega explaining through a false smile, the brave, new world of omegahood . Most newly presented students mocked the secondary sex-education movie for its out-of-date clothing and cringe worthy dialogue— some to the point that they missed most of the lessons the overly cheery omega taught them. But Yuuji, who had been so— painfully — young, who had sat— alone— in a classroom with only the middle school health teacher— who had stared at him with the kind of morbid curiosity that most people felt at witnessing a victim of such early presentation— had been so focused on the video, that even now, years later, he remembered the entire thing by heart.

Including the portion of the video that had detailed the concept of a red rage response. 

Though it had many names, some less forgiving than others, it was by definition a biological reaction, induced by an omega’s secondary genetics inherited not from their parents, but their most ancient ancestors. A primal response dictated by a mated omega to protect their young in the face of unmitigated danger. Originally it developed in the omegas that lived and thrived in pack settings several thousand of years ago, but had, overtime, receded as society became a less violent environment to raise a family in. After all, the omegas of the modern age weren’t exactly fighting off rival alphas that had taken over packs or very hungry saber tooth tigers the way they used to.

Although, while the response had been driven back into the recesses of an omega’s more primal hind-brain, there had been many scientific studies done on how the concept still managed to manifest itself to this day. Rather than being bred out over a hundred generations, the response remained, if only to be buried deep within an omega until a time when it was necessary to protect. Some omegas who claimed to have had their response activated reported immense strength or incredible speed. An omega in Taiwan lifted an entire, overturned school bus off of their five year old and an omega in New York ran up twelve flights of stairs in order to save their child from the top floor of their burning apartment complex. 

More than once, incarcerated omegas would claim to have been under the influence of a red rage response when they had committed a serious crime. It had happened enough that the debate of what exactly set off an omega’s primal response and how to be sure that it had happened had ascended all the way into the lawmaker's hands. However, despite the shows of intense power used in effort to save their children from horrible fates, there was one thing that all omegas who went through a red rage response reported that was a key factor of ascertaining if an omega had truly undergone a red rage response… And that was that they did not remember it. 

Some claimed they blacked out entirely while others said that it felt like being in a dream that you could not remember the details of. Some said that it was like the few moments in which the event had occurred had simply been taken out of their recollection, while others claimed that the memory loss extended as far back as months before whatever had happened to set off the response within them. And Yuuji always thought that, while it was an interesting concept, the entire idea of ‘awakening an inner, primal omega’  was a bit absurd. 

Or at least, he had , until he’d stood in a shadow-filled alleyway across from a stitch-faced stranger one moment, and the next, he was blinking himself back into awareness and cradling a tiny, black haired little boy with bloody hands.  And even now when he tries to recall exactly what happened in that alleyway, all he can see through the eye of his memory is a blurry world, painted in shades of red. 

Megumi lets out a tiny snore against the curve of Yuuji’s neck. Effectively lulled to sleep by the gentle sway of Yuuji’s altered gait. Entirely at peace, wrapped in the safety of Yuuji’s arms and entirely unaware of Yuuji’s spinning thoughts. Megumi sleeps like the dead, cozied into the space against Yuuji as though he’d always been meant to fit there. As if a puzzle piece he hadn’t known was missing slipped right into place…

But that is crazy. 

Because Megumi is just a kid… Some random kid that had been thrust into a terrible situation, who just happened to cross Yuuji’s path. And while it makes Yuuji sick to his stomach to imagine what might have become of Megumi had he been even a moment too late to catch his train, that didn’t mean he had any right to the sense of claim that the primal part of himself insisted on extending over the boy.

Scientific theory aside, memory gaps aside, bloody hands aside… Megumi did not belong to him. Megumi was not his. So there was no reasonable explanation as to why Yuuji should even suspect that he had succumbed to a red rage response. But as he tries to think back to the fight, he only recalls blurry and half-finished memories, stained in red.

Which is crazy.

So Yuuji forces himself to push those thoughts into the furthest corners of his mind. Makes himself put the strange— bloodthirsty— reaction he had during the fight in a box, deep within himself, and seals it up tight so that it will never see the light of day again. 

And instead as he makes his way down the quiet streets of the suburban neighborhood that Mai had given him directions to, Yuuji holds the little boy a little bit tighter, and focuses on committing to memory the sound of soft breaths and the sugar-sweet scent that undercut the threat of snow in the winter night air. And if he slowed his pace down, if only to make time go a little bit slower , so that they might not have to say goodbye that much sooner, then that was a secret between him and the moon.

***

“Argghhhhhh!!! Ahoy me matey!!!! Yo ho ho and a bottle of—”

“Uhhmm… Yuuji-kun?” Megumi’s little voice cut into Yuuji’s exuberant impersonation of a pirate. He paused, freezing in place where he was knelt on his uninjured leg upon the metal bench, his injured hand raised up in an imitation of a hook.

“Aye?” Yuuji asked, still too deeply entrenched in the impression.

Megumi’s thin little eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What are you doing?”

Yuuji hesitated, glancing from Megumi to his pretend hook hand. He cleared his throat as his hook-hand dropped slowly back down to his side. His voice a mixture between normalcy and piracy as he spoke. “Well I’m… I’m being a pirate. Just like you, a’course!”

Megumi’s nose wrinkled in distaste as he shook his head. “No, no. I don’t want to be a pirate. I want to be the Royal Navy.”

“Huh? The Royal Navy?” Yuuji repeated slowly, eyebrows flying up to his hairline as he stared in bewilderment down at the little boy. Megumi, however, brightened considerably. His solemn face lighting up in childish excitement as he waved his hands animatedly in the air between them.

“Mmmhmmm! Yep! The Royal Navy! They’re the ones that hunted down all of the pirates and killed them!” Megumi announced.

“And you want to be one of them?” Yuuji asked, not following the logic.

“Of course! Pirates steal treasure from people who earned it fair and square and its not nice at all. I don’t want to be one of the bad guys. I want to be one of the good guys!” Megumi enthused, looking at Yuuji as though it were obvious.

“Oh,” Yuuji said dumbly as he situated himself to sit on the bench, wincing as his weight shifted in the wrong direction for a moment. “Well that sounds cool I guess.”

Megumi shrugged, seeming to deflate before Yuuji’s very eyes. Panic surged inside of him at the thought that he had somehow ruined the boy’s idea of a game. The tips of the boy’s ears were painted with a pink blush as he ducked his head and avoided Yuuji’s gaze, wringing his hands in the extra long sleeves of Yuuji’s shirt that had already fallen out of their careful folds. Yuuji softened a bit at the sight and couldn’t help but recall a certain dark haired best friend of his who had been just the same. Confident one moment and achingly shy the next— needing someone to come along and help them break out of their shell.

“Okay… How about this,” Yuuji said as he tapped the top of Megumi’s head gently with a single finger and Megumi timidly lifted his gaze up from the floor. “How about I’ll be the pirate and you can be the Royal Navy? After all, if we’re both in the Royal Navy then we’ll have no one to chase and if we’re both pirates then we’ll have no one to chase us!” 

The hesitation flees from his springtime eyes and he bobs his head in a firm nod, sending wild, dark hair flying around his face. “Yes, Yes! Good idea, Yuuji-kun!” 

Yuuji’s heart aches in his chest, but it is the good kind of hurt. The kind that tells him that he’ll remember this moment for a long, long time.  

***

The house looks innocent enough.

It sits on the corner of the street, half hidden behind high brick walls. Neat lines of shrubs guard the path up to the door like tiny little sentinels, though it’s hard to tell what color anything is given the way the moon has disappeared behind a blanket of clouds. Not a single light is on, not even the one that hangs beside the front door.

“Nobody home,” Yuuji mutters to himself quietly.

He stands outside of the gate, staring up at the house and shivering as the icy wind nips at his exposed ankles. The air is scented sharply with the promise of snow, but Megumi remains blissfully unaware of the cold, tucked snugly beneath Nobara’s puffer jacket and leeching Yuuji’s own body heat. It is a bit shocking— if not outright impressive— that the little boy has managed to stay asleep during their trek from Hino to the small suburban neighborhood a few districts north. His warm nose remains pressed against Yuuji’s covered scent patch, unconsciously seeking the comfort of his smell, even though it is not there.

The boy’s own scent is still the vague sweetness of an unpresented child, but there is an underlying scent that settles something deep in Yuuji’s primal mind. Beneath the lingering smell of flour and blood, there is the warm scent of contentment . It was clear that Megumi was well trained in hiding the majority of his thoughts and emotions during his waking hours, far more than any child his age out to be capable of, but while he slept, that veneer of solemnity disappeared. What he could not show through his emotions, his body admitted through the series of scents that exuded from him… After all, scents never lied.

Yuuji sighs and adjusts his hold on the sleeping boy, ensuring that his legs are tucked up under the long jacket so that none of the cold air can reach him. Through the material of the blood stained cafe sweatshirt, the cold caress of winter has long since seeped through. He stares up at the dark, silent house and thinks that there is no other choice anymore…

Soon he would have to say goodbye. Too soon. 

But that was a good thing… Right?

His heart thuds hard against his ribs as he denies the answer that echoes inside of his mind. Without jostling Megumi in his hold, he unlatches the front gate. It squeaks only a little bit from disuse as he pushes it open. Up the path on silent feet, Yuuji moves through the puddles of darkness, passing by the tiny sentinel shrubs that guard the way. 

When he steps up to the front door, there is a small key-code box above the handle. a little green light flashes in the darkness, taunting Yuuji in three second intervals. A silently mocking  beacon that seems to say, over and over: don’t fuck it up.

His breath sighs out of him, lost to the night in a wisp of white cloud, as he reaches for the code box and types in the code.

***

“Avast! Captain Gumi of the Royal Navy, we finally meet again! I have been waiting for this moment for a long, long time…” Yuuji grinned down at the little boy as he held out his makeshift sword (one of Nobara’s makeup brushes). 

“Do not address me, pirate fiend!” Megumi cried with way too much passion for Yuuji to not giggle at it. The little boy stood on the opposite bench and brandished his own pretend sword (one of Nobara’s eyeliner pencils) in return. “Today you meet your maker!”

Megumi wore the little military style jacket that was part of Nobara’s slutty schoolgirl outfit, but it managed to look like an actual costume on his tiny body (something Yuuji had tried to dissuade him from, but Megumi had been adamant about as soon as he’d seen it hanging in Nobara’s locker when Yuuji had opened it to find their ‘swords’). Meanwhile Yuuji had Nobara’s fluffy headband— the one she used to keep her hair out of her face when she washes off her makeup after shift— strapped around his face so that it was covering one of his eyes.

“I think not, Captain Gumi!” Yuuji cackled evilly from his place beside the bench. “I’ll be sending’ ye to Davy Jones’ Locker before ye can lay a single hand on me!” 

Megumi cried out and lunged at Yuuji. Their pretend swords clicked together as they dramatically fought one another. The kid was still several inches shorter than Yuuji, even as he stood on the bench while Yuuji stood on the ground. They pretended to fight for a few more moments until Yuuji graciously allowed Megumi’s ‘sword’ to strike him in the chest. 

“Arghhh!! No!!!” Yuuji groaned in pretend pain, even as his leg twinged a bit. The stitches pulled uncomfortably beneath their bandage wrappings and perhaps the ‘pretend’ pain wasn’t so pretend after all.

“Now I’ve got you, pirate! You’ll be sent to the gallows for your crimes!” Megumi crowed, baring his teeth in a feral little grin. The way it transformed his little face was all too familiar…

“You’ll never take me alive!” Yuuji protested as he bypassed the eyeliner pencil digging into his pec and ducked down, reaching out to haul Megumi up into his arms. 

The little boy let out a delighted shriek and giggled as Yuuji’s fingers dug into his ribs. One of his legs flailed out and caught Yuuji right in the thigh, causing him to grunt in true pain as it made contact with the stab wound. The breath rattled from his lungs as he staggered a bit and quickly released Megumi. Immediately, he slumped down onto the bench and pressed a hand to his leg in an attempt to staunch the waves of agony rippling outward from the wound. 

“Oh! Oh no! Yuuji-kun! I’m so sorry!” Megumi’s frantic little voice could be heard over the thud of blood pounding in his brain. “I didn’t mean to! Wait! We’re not playing anymore, okay? You’re not a pirate anymore so I’m allowed to help you, okay?” 

Yuuji huffed a laugh through clenched teeth, blinking away the black dots swimming in his vision. “It’s okay, Megumi,” He said breathlessly, hand holding tight to his thigh as if he could somehow hold himself together. 

“No! No it’s not! You’re hurt,” Megumi insisted, voice wobbling on every word. Yuuji finally looked up and felt his heart drop straight to his feet at the sight of fat tears rolling down the curve of his cheeks.

“Oh, buddy, it’s okay. I’m fine, see?” Yuuji murmured as he straightened up again, holding back a wince.

“No!” Megumi said loudly, shaking his head. His little hands are trembling as they reach up to wipe away the tears falling against his flushed cheeks. The sight makes something twist inside of Yuuji’s chest. “It’s not okay! You got hurt! Got hurt because of me .”

All at once, the dam that had been holding back all of Megumi’s emotions seemed to shatter before his very eyes. A tidal wave of all of the fear and pain and guilt— too much for such a tiny body to hold onto for so long— came crashing down. His chest heaved with hiccuping sobs that shook his shoulders so hard that he nearly fell over.

“Ohhh, Gumi-chan,” Yuuji cooed as Megumi dropped his pretend sword and reached out blindly for Yuuji— who did not hesitate to reach back. “It’s not your fault, buddy. Okay? None of this is.”

“Y-yes it i-is!” Megumi hiccuped as another round of wails dragged him under. He grasped at Yuuji’s shoulders, hiding his wet face in the crook of Yuuji’s neck while Yuuji rubbed his uninjured hand up and down his heaving back. He was speechless in the face of such an onslaught of emotion from the stoic little boy he had come to know throughout the day spent together. 

“It’s not,” Yuuji murmured.

Megumi sobbed harder. “But you ne-never would have been h-hurt if you di-didn’t find m-me!” Megumi blubbered, clutching closer in some kind of attempt to fuse them together.

“Megumi,” Yuuji’s voice was kind, but stern as he spoke. “Look at me, buddy. Come on, it’s okay.”

Yuuji waited patiently as the sobbing boy managed to collect himself enough to pull back from his hiding spot in Yuuji’s neck. His little face was blotchy and red, snot dripping from his nose while his eyes were lined with tears. A look of such utter heartbreak in his expression that Yuuji was sure he heard his own heart shatter on the floor. 

“It is not your fault,” Yuuji said, the words even and measured, crystal clear so that there would be no mistaking them. He held eye contact with the boy as he spoke. “The people who tried to hurt you, the person who hurt me, they are the ones who did something wrong. Not you… I would choose to find you a million times again if it meant that you would be safe and sound. Do you understand? It is not your fault. It will never be your fault. And I am so glad that I found you at the train station so that I can make sure you get back home. Okay?”

Megumi shuddered as a silent sob shook through him, but he nodded his head in understanding. 

Yuuji didn’t say anything else, merely tugged the boy back into his hold, allowing him to fall back into his little hiccupping sobs. Giving him a safe place to let go of the emotions he’d kept inside of himself through everything that had happened in so short a time span. Letting him know that when he was with Yuuji he would always be safe— he would make sure of it.

***

Inside the house, nothing but shadows greet them.

Standing in the unfamiliar genkan, while the mechanical whirring of the code box resetting itself shivers through the dead silence, the door shuts and locks behind him, leaving him drenched in darkness. Despite the anxiety that has curled itself up like a beloved pet in the hollow of his throat, Yuuji keeps his breathing controlled. Through years of training in martial arts he is able to ground himself using a calm breathing technique, but while it keeps him centered and focused, it does not lend him any courage to move further into the house. 

Frozen in place, he stares down the shadowy hall stretched out before him. As far as he can tell using the barely outlined shapes in the dark, there is a doorway to his left and a set of stairs outlined on his right. Distantly he realizes that if there is more space upstairs that only means more places for a potential attacker to hide…

Megumi snuffles into the crook of his neck, settling more firmly against Yuuji, and lets out the tiniest snore Yuuji has ever heard in his life. It is somehow this sound alone that finally has Yuuji putting one foot in front of the other and moving deeper into the unknown hours. He steps up out of the genkan and winces at the squeak of his sneaker against hardwood— forgoing entirely the tradition of taking off his shoes, if only because he cannot allow himself such comfort when he does not know yet if he’ll have to run.

Quietly, he ducks his head to the left, choosing to ignore the stairs, and squints into the dark room revealed over the threshold. The curtains are drawn, but Yuuji can make out the shadowy shapes of furniture— a couch, two chairs, a low lying table between all three— spread throughout the room. He takes note not just of how neatly arranged everything seems to be, but of how sterile the arrangement is. As though someone had been hired to come in and stage the home, rather than someone live there and make it a home. 

Yuuji can’t decide if he’s relieved or more ill at ease when he comes to the conclusion that no one actually lives there. Part of him thinks that maybe it’s too late to feel discomfited by most of the things he’s gone through since the moment he scared off that creep at the train station…

Has it really only been a single day? It felt like a lifetime has passed since then.

Yuuji breathes a near silent sigh, keeping his ears alert as he shuffles on careful steps deeper into the living room. He lays Megumi on the stiff couch, though he makes a token sound of protest as his arms are prised from around Yuuji’s shoulders, but once he is settled beneath Nobara’s coat he nestles in comfortably. 

Callused fingers of his uninjured hand run gently through the boy’s inky, soft hair after he sits himself beside Megumi’s head. The muscles of his back are rigid with tension as he keeps his eye on the empty, pitch black doorway they had just come in through. One hand rubs gently along the nape of the little boy’s neck, soothing him deeper into dreams while Yuuji settles himself in to wait. 

***

By the time the door of the dressing room opened again, Megumi had settled down. The little boy, having tired himself out after crying against Yuuji’s chest for longer than expected, was dozing quietly. Somewhere halfway between waking and dreaming, Megumi nuzzled close to Yuuji’s covered scent patch and mumbled whispered words against the warmth he found there. He hardly twitched when Mai re-entered the room. Her face was an impassive mask as she checked subtly over her shoulder and shut the door firmly behind her. 

Her dark pine eyes tripped over the sight of Megumi’s prone form, snuggled against Yuuji’s chest as though he didn’t have a care in the world. A flash of softness— there and gone again between the span of a single heartbeat— flew through her gaze before she lifted it to meet Yuuji’s.

“He really trusts you, huh?” Mai said by way of greeting.

Yuuji hummed quietly in reply as he glanced down at the dozing boy. His round cheeks remained flushed from his emotional breakdown, shining wet and sticky with half dried tears, some of which still clung to the thick frying of his lashes. Little fingers tangled in the fabric of Yuuji’s borrowed— stolen— top, white knuckled even in his state of drowsing, as though he’d still fight against being separated even while unconscious. 

Mai moved silently across the room— her movements unnerving in how fluid they were. She said nothing as she sat on the bench across from them, mirroring their position from earlier, only now they sat in opposite places. She fixed him with a serious look, not giving anything away at the edges of her expression.

“I talked to my contact,” Mai said carefully.

“Let me guess, you can’t tell me who this contact is, right?” Yuuji prompts wryly, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb Megumi.

“Don’t ask stupid questions you already know the answers to.” Mai glared back venomously. “I had to cash in a big favor to even get this kind of information, so the least you could do is act a little grateful.”

Yuuji breathed out slowly, raising his eyes toward the heavens. “Do I even want to know what kind of things you’ve done for people in order for them to owe you favors large enough to justify asking for info about the Gojo clan?”

“Oh, definitely not,” Mai grinned sharply. “You’d be clutching your pearls if I told you about that… But if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t someone actually in the clan that owed me.”

“But they’re trustworthy enough to help get him back? Are you sure they’re loyal to Gojo?” Yuuji asked, eyeing her skeptically. 

Mai nodded, but the look on her face was darkly begrudging. “Loyal like a dog begging for scraps from the hand that beats them.”

Yuuji hummed at her words, but filed the information away for later. There would be time after all of it was over— when Yuuji went back to his plain life— to think about what Mai’s cryptic bullshit actually meant… Not that it would ever matter, since he’d probably never hear from her again after Megumi was gone. As he unconsciously shifted his weight on the bench his leg twinged, forcing a wince to cross his face.

“I never said thank you earlier,” Yuuji said quietly, glancing at Mai across from him, “You know, for helping me and making sure I didn’t bleed out or something. And for not shooting me, I guess.”

Mai’s dark eyes met his, filled with some deep emotion swirling within them. “I didn’t do it for you.”

The words are so brutally honest that Yuuji went still as they settle between them. 

As if sensing the change of tension in the room, Megumi snuffled against his shoulder again. Yuuji dropped his gaze to him, checking to see if he’d awoken, even as he rubbed a hand down his back, feeling the fragile bump of bones beneath his fingertips. The boy’s heartbeat hummingbird fast where it rattled against the ladder of his ribs and the sweetly ambiguous scent of him washed down Yuuji’s throat on every inhale— sweeping away the lingering remnants of blood and fear and panic from within him.

“I knew his dad,” Mai said suddenly.

Yuuji’s gaze shot up in surprise to stare at the girl across from him, however she was not looking at him. Instead, her eyes were pinned on Megumi’s dozing form, that same softness from before still lingering in the dark green depths. There was something in her face that told Yuuji maybe she wanted to say more… But he knew better than to ask. So instead, he sat in silence and watched her take her fill of the sight of Megumi— safe and sound— while demons of whatever past she had come from danced in her eyes. 

“He was a real piece of shit,” Mai continued quietly, lost in her thoughts— or perhaps, memories. “But I guess we all hoped that having a kid might change him or something… God, he looks just fucking like him.”

The way she spit the words out with such utter hatred had Yuuji nearly flinching from it. So much venom— pure animosity— contained in her words that for a brief moment, Yuuji believed it was directed at the little boy in his arms, rather than a man not even in the room with them. He tightened his hold around Megumi, who whined sleepily in complaint about getting squeezed.

The noise seemed to bring Mai out of whatever dark place she had descended into as the vicious look on her face was wiped away in an instant. Her gaze lifted back to Yuuji’s and the careful, cool mask of indifference slid into place— but it was too late… Yuuji had seen what lay behind it. 

“So which yakuza family are you from, then?” Yuuji asked tonelessly.

Mai’s dark eyes glinted with shock for half of a heartbeat, before the look was gone. A smirk tugged at the edges of her lips and revealed a set of dull, straight teeth— yet another marker of stunted presentation. He refused to allow himself a glance at the mutilated mark on her throat, covered by the high neck of her tight top.

“Very clever, Itadori,” Mai taunted back, though she didn’t deny it. “But you’re going to have to be a lot more clever than that if you want to get any answers from someone like me.”

Yuuji shrugged lightly, jostling Megumi’s head a bit on his shoulder. It wasn’t enough to wake up, though he did make another annoyed noise in his sleep. Yuuji brushed a hand against the nape of his neck, soothing him. He kept his mouth shut, since he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to get any answers from Mai. Despite the fact that some of the puzzle pieces before him started to fall into place, he didn’t think he truly wanted to see the entire picture. Not now… Maybe not ever. 

“Alright, enough foreplay,” Mai said as she slapped her hands against the tops of her things. Yuuji choked on a huff of laughter at her choice of words as she continued. “I’ve got the address for one of the Six Eye’s safe houses. It’s in a suburban district not far from here… My contact has ties to one of them and is going to try and get in touch with them to arrange a pick up… Only catch is that you’re going to have to wait around there until they decide to make contact.”

“Figures,” Yuuji muttered, though he hadn’t expected anything different. It wasn’t as though Mai would hand over some kind of direct contact to one of the higher up’s working for the Gojo clan. Still, it was inconvenient to imagine just sitting around in a strange place, waiting for someone else to make the first move. It made Yuuji twitch just thinking about it.

Mai hummed under her breath as she lifted a hand to brush back her short cropped, dark tresses. “It’s probably best if you wait here until it gets a bit later… No use walking around on that bum leg until you’ve got to, plus you can use the cover of rush-hour commuters to blend in, especially if someone’s still tailing you. No one else should be here until around three-thirty, so it’s—”

“I know what time people start arriving for shift,” Yuuji said, a bit snappish.

“Ahh, that’s right,” Mai replied airily, “I keep forgetting you worked here too…”

Yuuji knew that was an outright lie. There was probably nothing that this strange, mercurial girl forgot. 

He had no real reason to trust her. Not after she’d held him at gunpoint and made it abundantly clear that she had a selfish streak a mile wide. It was apparent that she had not cared for anyone or anything other than herself in a very long time. The only commodity she traded in were favors owed that she could use for her own personal gain… 

But then there was the way she looked at Megumi— that spark of deep recognition in her eye and beside it the long buried flicker of something soft that might have once lived within her. A softness that remained so deeply rooted within her that she could not weed it out, no matter how hard she tried. 

Yuuji knew beyond a shadow of doubt that Mai did not give a fuck about him , but he could read it on her face, as clear as crystal, that she cared— in her own brutal way— about Megumi.

And that was enough for now.

***

Yuuji startles awake.

A sharp inhale is sucked in through his nose as he jolts back back into consciousness. Eyes springing open, he looks around wildly, confused and a bit panicked when he finds nothing but pitch black darkness surrounding him. For a moment he cannot remember where he is or how he got there, unsure of even at what point he had fallen asleep. When he moves his outstretched leg, drawing up the knee, he hisses through his teeth at the burning pull of skin across his thigh and all at once, everything comes rushing back.

Megumi.

The train station.

Megumi.

A fight? A stranger obscured by shadows…

Megumi.

The safe house.

Yuuji peers around the room as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. His neck and shoulders are stiff from his head lolling downward in his sleep and he grunts as he shifts minutely on the rock-hard couch. Thankfully Megumi is still sleeping soundly beside him, tucked beneath Nobara’s jacket and with Yuuji’s wrapped up hand clasped protectively across the back of his neck. The house is silent aside from the wind beyond the windows that blows by once in a while and Megumi’s soft snores. 

Yuuji wonders hazily what it was that caused him to wake up, since he can’t recall any dreams.

Against his will, his heart thuds hard in his ears as his heart rate spikes. The lack of knowing is almost worse than knowing itself. He attempts to control his breathing, using the same techniques he’d use in a fight at the dojo. There is no telling when one of Gojo’s guys will show up, and so Yuuji will just have to—

Suddenly, an enormous hand emerges from the darkness behind Yuuji and wraps itself firmly across his mouth. Yuuji thrashes on instinct beneath the iron grip and feels the press of damp cotton over his mouth and nose. His wrapped up hand comes up to grasp at the thick wrist of his attacker, pain goes off like a flare, sparks blooming behind his eyes as the shredded flesh of his palm screams in agony.  Beneath his grip, the hold refuses to budge and his heart thrums wildly as the instinct to flee builds up inside of him, knocking at his ribs. The need for air burns through his lungs, though he knows as soon as he does so it’s all over. 

The large hand tightens on Yuuji’s lower face as he squirms and resists for as long as he’s able to. Finally, lungs fit to burst, Yuuji gasps for air and his mouth is flooded with the acrid scent of chemicals. The dark world around him seems to shiver and sway as he inhales the chemicals, burning their way down his throat and settling into his lungs. The effect is almost immediate as unconsciousness— so different from the peaceful sleep he’d just been in— barrels into his head like a stampede. His muscles turn to liquid inside of him, bones melting into mush.

“Yuuji?” Megumi’s sleep-raspy voice calls out in quiet confusion from beside him— a million miles away . He aches to reach out for the boy, to reassure him that it’s all going to be okay , but cannot make himself move. 

“Izzalrigh’Mmmegmi,” Yuuji manages to slur out from behind the cloth in a last ditch effort to keep Megumi calm. 

Distantly he feels the large hand drop away from his face. Sluggishly he sucks in clean air, still clinging to the vestiges of consciousness by the tips of his metaphorical fingers, though the world feels half steeped in a dream. Even his own body feels wrong— was it his still? His head drops back, the bones of his neck gone plaint— or are they gone entirely? Does he have any bones left at all? It feels as though he’s falling— tumbling backwards, flipping in on himself, falling apart— will he get put back together?

He hears a distant rumble of thunder— his mother’s voice echoes in the chamber of his memory. Distorted beneath the sound of rain— when had it started to rain? 

“Say it with me, my little sakura… Kuwabara kuwabara…" His mother croons to him.

Lightning strikes. 

His mind goes blank— Gone.

Chapter Text

The river is made of starlight.

Or perhaps that is not right. Maybe it is only the reflection of the vast, endless skies stretched out above him, painted against the mirror of dark water that cradles his body. His eyes are closed, but he can see everything. Even the things he has no name for, swirling in the distance of the celestial tapestry laid out above him. 

The water is warm, despite its darkness. Flowing against his bare skin as he floats on a gently tugging current, further down the winding path. Though his body is submerged, dangling loose and pliant, he does not have to struggle to keep his head above the ripples that lap at his cheeks. If anything, he feels the warm curl of trust as if it were hands holding him up. The roots of his faith, grown like the bones nestled deep beneath layers of muscle and tissue. Hidden, but there.

How long have I been here? He wonders.

Does it matter? A voice whispers back. The sound of it echoes from deep within him— a place that he has not touched in a long, long time. Somewhere hidden in the corners of untouched memory, thrown into the depthless trenches of his psyche. Memories left to rot. Memories meant to be forgotten.

But why? He wonders. What did I want to forget so badly?

Does it matter? The voice whispers again.

He drifts through the star flecked water, bathed in the light of galaxies— endless in their beauty, fearsome in their infinity. He feels his finger twitch. It is not much, but the movement makes something wriggle in the back of his placid mind— thoughts like the glass surface of the water on a windless day. His finger twitches. Something roils inside of his calm body— a wave rising up. Something tells him— not the voice from that deep, secret place — that he must do something. His finger twitches. The barest hint of movement that sends ripples along the muscles of his arm, up to his heart that tugs urgently in his chest.

An urge to… to… to?

To what? He wonders as he floats. The hands of his blind faith now feel too tightly wrapped around him. A cage, rather than a solace. He is cradled in starlight, but stars are made of fire — and oh, he is burning. 

It does not matter. The voice whispers.

Yes. Yuuji thinks. It does. 

Though his mind struggles to reach for the reason, he knows by the swell of relief in his lungs that it is the truth. 

Wake up.

Wake up? Yuuji thinks. But I am not sleeping.

Yuuji’s body jerks violently. All at once, the weightlessness the water had held him in, drops away and the gentle cradle trust that had held him becomes a vice grip around his body, dragging him down, down down.

Down into the deep. Into the dark.

There is barely enough time to draw breath before his head is pulled beneath the surface. The warmth of the starlight now burns frigid against his skin— so blazingly hot that it is cold. Ice gilds the tender flesh of his bare body. Has he ever felt this cold before? He reaches up toward the surface where the tapestry of galaxies shines with a trillion beacons above his head. Fingers outstretched, he reaches for something he will never be able to touch. Lungs screaming in agony as the light finally fades away and still he is pulled down deeper, deeper deeper. 

When only darkness remains— true, unending pitch black — the hold releases him.

Floating in the icy waters, surrounded by nothing , Yuuji is left to remain. His limbs are clumsy and slow as they beat at the water in a bastardized attempt to go. Anywhere but there.

His lungs burn, burn, burn. The smell of smoke is thick and acrid in his nose. 

“Close your eyes, Yuuji.” Yuuji’s mother whispers in his head, ringing clear as a crystal bell. “Look away.”

Yuuji’s mouth is filled with ice as he opens it and screams.

***

Yuuji wakes to the echo of a dying scream.

His throat feels ripped raw and the taste of blood bursts bright and metallic across his tongue. The hinge of his jaw aches fiercely from being rent open to release the ragged cry of pure terror that still echoes in his ringing ears. Chest heavy as it heaves for air, it feels as though water sits at the bottom of his lungs, gurgling in an attempt to drown him from the inside. Sweat drenches him from the roots of his hair, fat drops sliding down his temples and rolling down his neck to dampen the loose collar of his shirt. His head swims, the world around him still hazy and scrambled— as though up is down and east is west.  The leaden hang of his head on his stiff neck makes the muscles of his shoulders bark in agony. 

Distantly, as though he is looking at himself from two rooms away, he realizes that his arms have been drawn back. Wrists pressed close together, wrapped in something rough that chafes against the thin skin there. Though he cannot recall why it is , he knows without a doubt that something is wrong. 

Yuuji pushes back against the riptide of confusion that attempts to drag him further from the shores of his clarity. He forces his eyes to creak open, blinking hard in what feels like slow motion as he tries to make sense of what he is seeing. 

Stiff neck bowed over his lap, his lower body bent at a right angle. With his shoulders pinned back against something hard and upright, Yuuji dazedly comes to realize that his body has been positioned in a chair. Warm light floods the edges of his vision, steeping everything around him in golden tones. On his next breath, he forces the air in through his nose, scenting the stale air that surrounds him, though it gives nothing away except for the smell of wood and dirt and disuse.

Across his legs, the gray sweatpants are stretched too tight and a new wet patch of blood has bloomed in the material covering his thigh. Yuuji stares at it, trying to make sense of the sight and only vaguely remembers a flash of silver and a howl of pain. When he tries to move his legs, he feels the rough rub of rope against his bare ankles and the unyielding press of wood against the back of his calf— bound to the front legs of the chair. And when he tries to move his arms again, he realizes that his wrists have been similarly— expertly — bound together and to the back slats of the chair.

Trapped.

It is as though the word alone has Yuuji’s primal mind lurching into action. Fight or flight response kicking into overdrive as his heart stutters in his chest. He struggles uselessly against the rope binding his wrists, breath speeding up as his scrambled mind pieces vague and hazy memories together. The safehouse. The scent of chemicals. The darkness that followed afterward.

And then nothing.

Yuuji lets out a low whine—  a purely Omegan sound that is usually only used to call out in distress. Though Yuuji has never made such a sound before, it seems as though his hold on his more primitive inhibitions have vanished, revealing that his inner omega has no compunctions against using any tactic necessary to free himself. 

He struggles with the bonds, shifting them back and forth despite the burn of rope against the delicate skin. Desperate to find some kind of weak point, though there was none. Mindlessly driven by the primal urge to flee that he cannot overcome with logic in his drug-addled mind. 

Another whine slips past his chapped lips on a frantic breath. Yuuji can feel his mind slipping away beneath the waves of panic with every passing moment that he remains trapped in the chair. He swallows down around the lingering taste of blood, throat clicking with dryness. With every last ounce of strength he has, Yuuji forces his head to lift up, wincing at the stiff pain in his neck. Blearily he blinks away the splotches of darkness that meld with the golden glow surrounding him, peering around in an effort to glean some kind of understanding of where he is.

Before he can make out any details, he realizes that he is not alone.

Merely a few feet away, directly across from Yuuji, another chair was set, but what was more interesting was the man that currently occupied it.

The light thrown around the room seems to cling to him, as though there is a halo of gold shrouding him. It gilds his skin, shining like a beacon before Yuuji’s eyes, and makes him look so utterly warm. A flame that flickers, daring Yuuji to reach out and touch it. He is so consumed with his observation of the man’s golden aura, that he hardly notices the way his dark fox eyes are pinned on him. 

When he blinks, his eyes almost drunkenly take in the rest of him. The sharp cut of his jaw and impassive expression. The dark hair that falls down his shoulders, half pulled into a knot behind his head. The rigid, nearly military , stiffness to his perfect posture and the set of his broad, thick shoulders, wrapped in dark cloth. A dark harness lays strapped over an equally wide chest, where two holsters settle on either side of his tapered waist— each of them filled with the matte black metal of a gun. Legs crossed, ankle over knee, in the only evidence of ease , displaying powerful thighs wrapped in black cargo pants and a pair black combat boots laced up on his feet.

And on the back of his hand— that deftly twirls a wicked looking blade between thick fingers— was a tattoo of a brilliantly rendered blue eye.

A blinding flash of realization strikes like lightning through the fog surrounding Yuuji’s mind. He knows him— had seen him. The familiar dark, fox eyes staring back at him from over the shoulder of the white haired Special Grad alpha all those weeks ago. Watching carefully, keeping silent, waiting for something.

“You—” Yuuji’s voice cracks from disuse. The tender flesh of the inside of his throat still feels ravaged from the brutal claws of his terror. He coughs, wincing as it scrapes up from within him, and tries to swallow though his mouth is equally dry aside from the remnants of his own blood.

The man does not move a single inch in his seat as Yuuji struggles to regain a semblance of balance. His head wobbles heavily on his neck, the muscles quivering from the effort of trying to hold it up. When the coughing finally subsides and each inhale is a rasping wheeze, Yuuji blinks owlishly at the man across from him. 

“You work for Gojo?” Yuuji manages to rasp.

If the man is surprised by the question, he makes no move to indicate it. In fact, he doesn’t move at all. If he focuses hard enough, he can see the infinitesimal movement of the man’s thick shoulders, rising and falling with measured breaths. However his stillness is absolute, as though without the need for breath, he might become nothing more than a statue. Dark fox eyes simply watch Yuuji, calm and collected and utterly unperturbed by the sight that Yuuji must make before him— bleeding sluggishly from the wound on his thigh, head bobbing up and down drunkenly as he fights the drug-induced-haze that threatens to drag him back into the darkness, half feral with the need to know. 

Yuuji fights back against the heavy pull of his eyelids, squinting at the large man seated across from him. He distantly wonders if he’s an alpha, though there is no scent in the room. Nothing aside from the stale rot of wood and paper and fire. The darkness bleeds into the golden light that swims in his peripherals.

“Megumi—” Yuuji croaks, battling valiantly against the reaching hands of darkness that threaten to drag him down, down, down. He feels as though he’s balancing on the precipice of his own consciousness, but he doesn’t want to fall. He doesn’t want to go back. Not yet. Not until— “Is Megumi safe?”

The words burn like wildfire in Yuuji’s mouth. Unbidden, he feels his muscles begin to loosen as the darkness creeps closer. Weakly he tugs at the ropes binding his hands, ankles pulling at their bonds despite the throb that goes through his injured thigh with every pull. The warm seep of fresh blood wets the fabric of his pants. There is a frantic edge to the beating of his heart as he wriggles in his seat. Not necessarily to escape, but because he needs to know—

“Iz ‘e safe?” He repeats on a loop. The question pulsing through his veins with every thud of his heart. He blinks heavily, the world shifts around him. Dark and light. Dark and light. Head swimming like its nothing but an aquarium and all of his thoughts are scattered fish. “IzzMeg’misafe—"

There is a solid warmth, pressed beneath his chin. The hold is firm, but not painful, as it gently guides Yuuji’s sagging head upward. Yuuji blearily opens his eyes when did they close? — and he stares up, up, up at the stoic, handsome face of the dark haired man. Inky hair falls around his shoulders, head haloed in golden light as he looms above Yuuji like some kind of apathetic God, watching Yuuji with clever fox eyes that gleam, night dark and endless like the skies that had stretched above the river— what river?

Yuuji’s mouth opens again, but the only noise that leaves his throat is a pitiful whine. The hold tightens against his jaw, but not enough to hurt.

“The boy is safe,” the man says so softly that Yuuji nearly misses it as he is devoured by the man’s gaze— finally, a darkness he finds himself unafraid of. “You did well. Sleep now.”

Fear abated and permission granted, Yuuji allows himself to slip below the dark waters once more. 

***

The next time Yuuji rises back up from the darkness, his head— which feels as though it has been run over by a train— is a bit more clear. 

Before he is even fully aware that he is conscious, though the memory of what had happened comes rushing back, however what happened between the moment he had been drugged in the safehouse and now is steeped in shadowy, half-baked recollections. Starlight and soft words melded together in a way that Yuuji cannot make sense of.

He groans at how stiff body has become, bound upright in the chair beneath him. Rope burn has set in against his bare ankles and wrists, any movement drawing a hiss from between his teeth as his nerves are set alight. Every miniscule twitch sends stinging pain racing across his chafed skin, though he knows he should probably be grateful considering the fact that he is even still alive.

Yuuji licks his chapped lips and breathes out slowly. Opening his eyes, he is met with the familiar sight of his lap, sweatpants covered in fresh stains on his left thigh. The golden light has not dimmed in the room around him and the scent of wood and paper and fire has not dissipated, though there is no trace of any other smell. Digging his fangs into his lip against the bark of pain that races down his stiff neck, he raises his head and blinks away the last vestiges of dizziness that crowds in behind his eyes. When they finally clear of dark spots and he sees what is before him, he freezes in place.

The chair opposite him has been turned around and there, sitting with endlessly long legs spread around either side of the back and one elbow leaning against the narrow top with a broad hand cradling a razor sharp jaw in its palm, is the source of most of Yuuji’s recent problems. 

Gojo. 

“Morning,” the Special Grade drawls in a low, smooth tone. 

Yuuji immediately feels a flare of irritation burn bright through him at the sound of his voice, despite the several weeks that separate them from their first— and only — meeting. Unbidden, his lip curls in the beginnings of a snarl while his eyes narrow, taking in the white haired Special Grade in all of his douchey, blindfolded glory. It takes a moment, so deep in his immediate reaction of bitter disgust to realize that the alpha is smirking at him. 

“So you do remember me, then…” Gojo drawls, the words shaped by the sharp fangs that flash in his direction. His voice rumbles through the room, but it is the sheer arrogance that laces his tone that sends another surge of fury through Yuuji’s aching body. Though the alpha’s eyes are still concealed by the strip of black silk, there is little doubt that his focus is entirely on Yuuji and he knows better than to assume that the relaxed pose he’s fitted his ridiculously long body into is anything but lazy. His lackadaisical tone proves the lack of fucks he apparently gives as he continues, “Well I suppose that means we can skip past the pesky subject of re-introductions before we begin.”

Yuuji sucks in a deep breath, however all of his words die where they’re born against the back of his tongue as he is struck by the realization that he cannot smell the Special Grade across from him. There is not a single trace of that desperately powerful scent of snow and salt, eager to burn its way through him. Only the scent of disuse and paper and wood amalgamated into a single scent. Still, it is devoid of any lingering tells that there is anyone in the room, and that is what makes Yuuji start to itch in discomfort. 

Distantly he wonders what purpose it serves the alpha across from him to remain scentless now, especially after Yuuji has already known the smell of him. His aching head refuses to allow him to delve deeper into the ‘whys’ of it all and so instead he blatantly ignores the bait set for him by the white haired alpha.

Subtly looks around the space, now that most of his faculties have returned to him. The room is smaller than Yuuji had originally realized, with the two chairs standing opposite one another and several feet between. Lying on the fringes of the space, upon the unfinished dirt floor, are dozens of paper lanterns lining the floor casting a warm glow around the room. Concrete walls are lined with sheafs of paper, all of them painted with different symbols that Yuuji doesn’t recognize. All it amounts to is an odd, slightly underused basement of sorts— one apparently used to hold hostages of the fucking yakuza, but a basement nonetheless.

“Nothing to say this time around?” Gojo goads. “But you were so chatty the last time we met.”

Yuuji’s eye twitches as he tears his gaze from their surroundings in order to pin a disdainful glare on the alpha across from him. The Special Grade’s smirk grows vicious, razor sharp fangs glinting in the low light, as though he believes he is winning something. 

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt when clearly you just want to listen to the sound of your own voice,” Yuuji manages to spit out with far more venom than he’d ever thought himself capable of before. His voice is still shredded halfway to hell, but at least he has the clarity to speak full, cognitive sentences rather than rambling like a strung out moron.

“Hmm… Not very friendly, I see,” Gojo says lightly, as though he’s commenting on the affability of a pet dog.

“Why would I want to be friendly with someone who did their best to ruin my life in a single night?” Yuuji sneers.

“Ah, I see now. You’re holding a grudge… And here I was thinking you’d already have moved past that little debacle,” Gojo tilts his head upright, lifting it out of the cradle of his wide palm.

“As if it was so easy for me to forget?” Yuuji mutters through barely contained rage.

“You’re not the first to tell me that I’m unforgettable,” the Special Grade alpha taunts, though Yuuji can hear the serrated edge of his voice, hinting at frustrated fury. Still, he cannot stop himself from returning fire.

“Believe me, it is not intended as a compliment,” Yuuji bares his fangs at the alpha. The lack of overwhelming scent seeping off of the alpha helps to keep his head level and his confidence high. And without the urge to submit to the rolling release of the Special Grade’s pheromones, Yuuji has no difficulty keeping a scathing glare locked on the place where he approximates the alpha’s gaze to be hidden behind black silk. 

“You know, for someone who is clearly at a disadvantage, quite literally tied up and at my mercy, you seem awfully determined to piss me off ,” Gojo replies, his words carved against the dangerous edge of his tone. Despite the sound of undeniable threat that comes from him, the bottom half of his expression appears entirely bored. “I can only assume that your confidence is coming from the incorrect assumption that I might offer you some kind of gratitude for your actions.”

“You’re the last person on earth I’d expect would willingly give anyone gratitude for anything,” Yuuji sneers.

“Because I’m a fucking dick?” Gojo asks, folding his lengthy arms along the back of the chair as he throws back the same exact words that Yuuji had spat in his face all those weeks ago.

“No,” Yuuji corrects sharply. “Because you’re the worst kind of person that thinks everything in the world is owed to you.”

Gojo tilts his head to the side in thought, cheek lying against his forearms folded across the back of the chair. “I could just kill you, you know.”

“If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already,” Yuuji says immediately, even though his heart thuds hard against his ribs at the white haired alpha’s threat.

“You’re far too confident for someone who is in your position. Tell me, do you think I’ll have some kind of tender-hearted reticence because you saved Megumi?” The alpha asks, fangs glinting dangerously in Yuuji’s direction, daring him to use Megumi as shield. 

“No, of course not,” Yuuji denies quickly— and it is the truth. “I have no doubt that you have any reservations about killing people who piss you off… But… Well, it’s obvious isn’t it?”

“What is?” Gojo prompts, voice going dark at the edges.

Yuuji looks at the alpha across from him, and then glances around at the basement where he’s being held hostage before his gaze settles back on Gojo. He shrugs as much as he’s able to with the ropes binding his wrists back and winces at the stiffness. “You need me for something.”

Gojo lets out a humorless laugh. He drops his hands lazily over the back of the chair, allowing his long arms to dangle toward the floor— pale, elegant fingers stretching downward with a tiny wiggle. Beneath the dark material of his turtleneck, the bulge of his biceps flex lazily, as if the muscles were slowly waking up. 

Yuuji recalls viscerally how the Special Grade had towered above everyone else at the club by more than a head and shoulders. The sheer size of him was not reserved to a vertical height, but also matched with ample musculature that filled him out. Even now, as he sat across from Yuuji it was easy to tell that the Special Grade alpha was stacked. Broad and muscled and thick along his massive body, all tightly packed and folded up to fit— somewhat — on the seat across from Yuuji. 

“Well, you seem to think you’ve got it all figured out,” Gojo mocks. “Why don’t you tell me what else I am?”

“Where would you like me to begin?” Yuuji is quick to snap back, chest puffing up in righteous anger despite his prone form still being tied to the chair. 

Perhaps it is because of such false confidence that Yuuji doesn’t anticipate the subsonic growl that suddenly rumbles through the room. It trembles through his bones, shivering through the soles of his shoes, pressed into the dirt floor beneath him and it makes the very walls of the room shake. The noise emanates from the broad chest of the Special Grade alpha, and is a clear threat to  any lesser being to submit. 

Yuuji swallows harshly against the lump of fear that lodges itself in his throat, but gives no other indication that he is affected by the noise. Instead, he levels a truly nuclear glare at the white haired alpha and allows his own growl to slip out. Not nearly as powerful, but there nonetheless— lingering beneath the deadly sound in some kind of vicious harmony. His words take shape around the rumbling of his growl, echoing in the depths of his chest. “That didn’t work on me the first time you tried it, Gojo-san . What makes you think it will now ?”

In an instant, the Special Grade alpha launches up from his seat, uncontrolled and abrupt enough to send the chair clattering to the floor on its side. Between one heartbeat and the next, with a subtle flourish of movement, Gojo reaches for his thigh and withdraws a sleek black gun from the holster that Yuuji had not noticed against the dark material of his tailored trousers. The towering alpha stands, throat still vibrating with a growl, fangs bared as he aims the gun directly at Yuuji. 

He makes no other moves in his seat, heart hammering in his chest as he is struck by the thought— with very poor timing — that perhaps he is in way over his head if he is being held at gunpoint for the second time in— wait, how long has it been? 

It also occurs to him that the gun is perhaps a bit redundant in the hands of a being that has been honed by time and genetics into the shape of a perfect, apex predator. Truly, there is little doubt in Yuuji’s mind that a Special Grade of Gojo’s caliber could rend and tear someone to pieces in the blink of an eye… So maybe the gun is just more of an artistic choice? 

The sound of a door opening from somewhere above them makes the sound of unadulterated fury in Gojo’s subsonic growl die off completely. Yuuji’s ears prick, though he doesn’t dare to look away from the gun that remains unwaveringly aimed in his direction— since he’s not completely devoid of self-preservation instincts, after all. The sound of creaking hinges and the snap of a bolt sliding into place comes from that same place somewhere above them and it is swiftly followed by the heavy fall of footsteps drawing nearer.

“I thought I made it clear you were to wait until I returned before you started the interrogation,” a soft voice comes from the darkness beyond the circle of golden light that has enshrouded Yuuji and Gojo. 

The sound of it snags on a thorn, deeply embedded in Yuuji’s memory, though the thread of it is as thin and delicate as spider’s silk— worn down by time and distance. Like a dream you can’t quite remember in the morning, it sounds almost familiar, but entirely foreign. Yuuji wants to look toward the source of the voice, but refuses to look away from the irate Special Grade towering over him.

Gojo seems to have the same idea, since he keeps his blindfolded gaze tilted in Yuuji’s direction even as he replies to the new arrival with a flippant scoff. “It’s not my fault that he woke up. You were taking too long. And besides, we were just making a bit of small talk while we waited, isn’t that right Itadori?” 

Gojo asks with a nearly feral grin stretching his plush lips. 

For some reason, it is the sound of Yuuji’s name dropping from between the man’s lips, stretched as they are in a feral, furious grin, that finally breaks the dam withholding the torrent of fearpanicterror that suddenly rushes through his veins. A bolt of lightning straight to his heart that sends it pounding wildly in his chest. His shoulders shudder minutely as he tries to breathe through the overwhelming realization that he is fucked. So, so, so fucked. 

“Is it still considered small talk if it’s with your prisoner?” Yuuji asks, steeling himself against the onslaught of terror that tries to sweep him away. 

“You’re not a prisoner,” says the soft, low voice, its owner coming into view out of the shadows, as they come to stand behind Gojo’s right shoulder. He stands only a scant few centimeters shorter than the Special Grade, which still puts him at his own towering height and is dressed in the same clothes— black cargo pants that fit close to his powerful legs, combat boots and a black shirt with the sleeves tightly pulled down to his wrists. The double holster has remained strapped across his wide chest and remains filled with two dark metal pistols, but the only addition, Yuuji notes, is a dark glove that now covers only one of his hands… And subsequently has hidden the tattoo of the blue eye. 

Yuuji blinks in confusion and then looks down purposefully at his bound body, propped in the chair. He wriggles his bound legs and then his bound wrists before he pins the dark haired male with an unimpressed glare. “Well I’d hate to see how you’d treat one of them, then.”

Gojo huffs a petty growl under his breath. “You’re not considered a prisoner because we don’t take prisoners.”

Ice crawls down Yuuji’s spine at the blatant implication, though he thinks he does an admiral job not showing the way that the words make his stomach clench in terror. He sees the way the dark haired male folds his— frankly, massive — arms across his chest and shoots Gojo a blank look.

“We agreed on holding a civil conversation with him,” he says in his low, calm tone as he eyes the gun still aimed unwaveringly in Yuuji’s direction. 

Gojo tilts his head to glance back at the dark haired man and he lifts the gun into the air with one hand, wiggling it a little. “This is me being civil.”

The dark haired man raises a black brow in Gojo’s direction, but says nothing further. There is a moment of silence before Gojo releases a long, petulant sigh— the sound of it belonging more to a spoiled child not getting their way than a grown man whose secondary gender effectively made him an apex predator. 

“Fine,” Gojo mutters, as he easily slides the gun back into the holster strapped to his thigh. “You never want to have any fun, Getou-kun.”

Gojo and Getou. Yuuji thinks to himself, more relieved to have the gun put away than to finally have names for both of their faces. 

“Get on with it already,” Getou jerks his chin towards Yuuji. “The others are waiting upstairs and I won’t be held responsible for your lack of time management skills. Again.”

The tone of his voice is nearly mutinous, however Gojo’s grin goes playful at the edges as it’s aimed in Getou’s direction. It is gone in an instant, almost fast enough that Yuuji questions whether he imagined it or not, as Gojo turns his head back to face Yuuji. The black silk of his blindfold seems to absorb all of the golden light around them. The way that he can feel the man’s gaze piercing through him has him wondering what kind of sorcery he is using. What if he was actually blind and just has really good coordination? Or uses echolocation like a fucking dolphin or something? Or was it some stupid illusion and he could actually see through the material this whole time? Or what if—

“My Eyes tell me that you’ve been a very busy little bee,” Gojo drawls and Yuuji stiffens. The absurd thought crosses his mind that the white haired alpha somehow read his mind before he recalls Mai’s passing comment about the Gojo clan being referred to as the Six Eyes. Gojo seems to take Yuuji’s thoughtful silence as stubbornness as he continues on. “Running all over Tokyo with my ward and getting into a bit of trouble by the looks of all that blood staining those truly hideous clothes… Care to explain yourself? Or should I come to my own conclusions about you the way that you have so kindly done for me ?”

Yuuji’s brow lowers in genuine confusion. He watches Getou as he pulls the other chair back upright and Gojo seamlessly folds himself down to sit in it, as though it was his divine right— a king on a throne in his grand hall, rather than a man on a chair in some dingy basement. Left ankle crossed over right knee, he bends his ridiculously long legs up in a way that— against all odds — looks elegant. There is a slight slouch to his body that comes off as purposeful, much like the way a panther might laze about on a tree branch, waiting for a gazelle to wander too close, assuming the danger to be asleep. Getou comes to stand in the same place, towering over Gojo’s right shoulder, his dark gaze pinned onto Yuuji as they both patiently wait for his response. 

Yuuji wonders just what kind of trap has been set for him with such a question being asked. His mind whirs in confusion that he can’t help but voice aloud. “Hasn’t Megumi told you what happened?”

Silence meets his response. Both men do not move a single muscle as they stare him down. Yuuji struggles not to flinch beneath their gazes, not out of fear, but rather the combined force of their attention that presses against him like a physical touch. 

“You’d allow the testimony of a six year old to determine your fate?” Gojo asks, dead calm as he watches Yuuji with an impassive mask dropped over his face.

“It’s not just any six year old,” Yuuji points out as if it should be obvious. “It’s Megumi.”

The cut of Gojo’s jaw sharpens dramatically as he seems to clench it, a muscle feathers near the hinge, as though he is grinding his back teeth. “And what if he’s reported to us that you did unspeakable things to him. If he’s said that you hurt him in unimaginable ways and that you planned to ransom him back to us? Or that you were working with those who sought to take him in the first place?”

Yuuji stares back for a long, drawn out moment, mulling over the man’s words before he finally shrugs his shoulders to the best of his ability. He barely hides a wince of pain from having them pulled back in such an uncomfortable position for so long. 

“I mean… It wouldn’t be true, obviously. But we both know you’d trust his word over mine every time,” He says simply. Gojo remains silent in the face of this response and Yuuji— who apparently has no self preservation instinct — opens his mouth and continues. “I think we’ve already established that you probably have no issue with killing those who you deem to deserve it… And on the list of things people could do to deserve it, anyone who had hurt Megumi would be pretty high up there, so I doubt that if you really thought I treated Megumi that way then I’d already have been covered in chum and tossed into shark infested waters. So you might as well cut to the chase and tell me what you want from me.”

Gojo hums a mildly amused, if not a bit frustrated, noise from his throat as he tilts his head to the side. “Fair enough, you’ve got me there. Lucky for you, Megumi did not say any of those things. In fact, the kid had a stellar five star review of your daring rescue… Told me he even got to play pirates… Which is definitely not what I’d expected, but far better than what had been assumed. So… What do you want for it?”

Yuuji frowns in bewilderment. “Want for it?” 

“Obviously you had to have had some kind of motivation for bringing him back unharmed. And I’ve been informed that you were given a little gift from one of my Eyes. So what’ll it be?” Gojo says plainly.

“I— I don’t want anything,” Yuuji says truthfully. 

“Lying about it only makes you look like a fool,” Gojo snaps. 

“I’m not lying,” Yuuji growls back. “I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to get Megumi home safe.”

“A car? A private island in the Maldives?” Gojo starts suggesting rudely, willfully ignoring Yuuji’s explanation. “How about a pretty little stack of cash to put towards all that debt your old man has racked up after all those stays in the hospital?”

Yuuji’s heart stops dead in his chest at the callous mention of his grandfather. His arms strain against the ropes, as though he might break free from them and he shoots a death glare back at the alpha. A growl trembles out of his chest in warning. “Don’t you dare bring him into this. He’s done nothing wrong and he’s none of your fucking business, so leave it the fuck alone. ”

Gojo pauses, seeming to realize that he’s pressed too hard on something tender. But rather than press harder on a sensitive topic, he tilts his head to look back at Getou, who stands like a particularly menacing brick wall behind his shoulder. Gojo holds out a hand in Yuuji’s direction and waves it up and down, as if to indicate something to the dark haired man.

“Do you see what I’m dealing with?” Gojo snaps irritably. “And you want to reprimand me about being civil?”

Getou hums under his breath, the sound coming from deep in the barrel of his chest. His dark gaze never wavers from Yuuji’s face as he inspects him the same way that someone might look at a very rare insect that had landed on them— how interesting, but is it deadly?

“He certainly seems to grasp the situation fairly well,” Getou murmurs evenly. “And he’s humble.”

Gojo huffs out a breath and brings his outstretched hand up to run frustratedly through the snowy hair atop his head, pushed upward by his blindfold. A little voice in the back of Yuuji’s mind whispers about how long the alpha’s fingers look, carding through the unkempt, icy locks. 

“We’re losing our touch,” Gojo bemoans sulkily as he tilts his head back, arching his elegant, pale neck along the back of the chair. A cord of muscle twitches along the side of it, flexing to allow the tilt, but Yuuji’s eyes immediately stray toward it not for the sultry look of its exposed length, but to search for the telltale sheen of a nearly invisible scent patch plastered over the alpha’s gland. 

“Megumi told me that you think those who cover up their scents have something to hide,” Yuuji says conversationally, eyeing the Special Grade as he lifts his head back up and, presumably, stares back. “Why use one for yourself now? Are you hiding something , Gojo-san?” 

Gojo’s lip curls up in a resentful reaction, but almost immediately, Getou’s broad, bare hand comes up and holds tight to Gojo's shoulder.

“Careful, Itadori,” Getou reprimands sharply, though his voice does not raise. “Just because I admire your ability to keep your head in the face of disturbing affairs does not mean you are not still liable to lose it.”

Yuuji’s mouth closes with a snap. Unlike the times that Gojo had tried to chastise him— in that pompous, petulant way that only served to infuriate him— Getou’s calm voice held all of the reprimand without having to yell or scream or growl— yet still, it sent a shiver down his spine. He still refused to lower his gaze, but he sat in his seat, quiet and subdued— if not grudgingly — before the two males.

Gojo casts another exasperated look in Getou’s direction, though he does nothing to brush off the bare hand gripping his shoulder. “Do you want to be the one to interrogate him?”

“Get on with it," Getou replies sternly. 

Gojo sighs out another petulant breath and uncrosses his long leg, allowing his foot to fall back to the ground. He bends the long line of his body forward, putting his elbows to his spread knees and steeples his long fingers together as a serious expression— almost jarring in its seriousness compared to the petulant fury directed at Yuuji or the playful viciousness directed at Getou— descends on his face. Or at least, what can be seen on the lower half of it that is not obscured by the wide strip of black silk. 

“Might as well start from the beginning, then,” Gojo says in an even tone. “You found Megumi at the Musashi-Itsukaichi station, correct?”

Yuuji’s confusion must show on his face immediately, because the white haired alpha nods his head and mercifully provides context. 

“There are cameras everywhere in Tokyo. Not all of them are owned by those who use them for more… nefarious reasons… But they certainly do come in handy in a pinch. The time stamps on the footage recovered from the Musashi-Itsukaichi station puts you entering the station through the North entrance at two twenty-six in the morning on December sixth, is that correct?” 

Yuuji nods his head, ignoring the dull throbbing that still rattles around his brain. “Yes.”

“Hmm,” Gojo hums and then reclines in the chair again, all long limbs and thick muscles and condescension. “Curious time to be out and about. Not exactly a common commute, wouldn’t you say, Getou-kun?” 

“I won’t participate in your games,” Getou mutters in reply, not giving an inch to the way Gojo fishes for a comment.

Yuuji swallows and knows that there is no point in lying. Not when the two alphas before him have made it clear that they are ten steps ahead of him. He wonders if it has more to do with the fact that they are part of the yakuza— born and bred for this kind of lifestyle— or if it is due to their clear superiority in terms of their second gender. Because while Getou is still wearing a scent patch, there is no doubt in Yuuji’s mind that the male is a powerful alpha in his own right. He thinks about the children’s stories he used to believe about the rare abilities of high ranking alphas— about how any alpha with a Grade 1 ranking had insanely fast reflexes, or how they could sense impending danger or how a Special Grade alpha was rumored to heal faster than normal or be able to hear— and identify— a specific heartbeat from over a mile away.

He wonders if it’s true, and if Gojo can hear his as it pounds against the ladder of his ribs.

“My job— my new job,” Yuuji says pointedly, trying not to sound too bitter, “I’m required to work early hours.”

“At the cafe, right?” Gojo asks, looking for confirmation that Yuuji certainly does not have to give. “Quite a little homemaker omega, aren’t you? What a resume you’ve got for yourself… First a companion at an omega house and now a little cake maker. Your alpha will be a lucky—”

“Enough," Getou warns darkly. 

To Yuuji’s surprise, the white haired alpha straightens up and seems to reel in whatever spiteful attitude had been inspired in him— merely by Yuuji existing in the same room as him. Still, despite Gojo being properly chastised, Yuuji feels no satisfaction in it. Only the sting of anger building behind his eyes.

“So the Musashi-Itsukaichi station,” Gojo prompts after a moment. “Unfortunately, the cameras only showed footage of the North entrance, where you went in… Nothing from the platform, nor the South entrance at all. You went in by yourself and you got off at Shibuya station, at approximately three oh-seven in the morning, with the addition of my ward. How did that happen?”

Yuuji blinks back the stinging threat of fury, unwilling to shed a single tear— out of frustration, or otherwise— in front of this arrogant, callous, dickhead of an alpha.

“I was by myself on the platform and then there was some guy. I overheard him through my headphones saying… Saying some nasty shit to someone. I turned and saw that he was talking that way to a kid and I dunno… I just stepped in.”

“You. Just. Stepped. In.” Gojo repeats slowly, carefully enunciating each word.

Yuuji nods, thinking back to that moment at the train station. “I mean, yeah. I wasn’t just going to stand there while some fat, greasy fuck shit talk a literal child. Let alone allow him to put his hands on one.”

He’d thought, given his interactions with the head of the Gojo clan, that he knew what the man’s anger looked like. Had seen him bare his fangs and growl with fury as they traded venomous barbs back and forth. But this… This frigid rage that takes over the Special Grade alpha’s face is something else entirely. It makes Yuuji supremely aware that maybe Gojo hadn’t truly been angry with him before… Not when this icy fury put a bone deep terror racing through Yuuji’s body at the mere sight of it. 

“I don’t suppose you managed to get a name?” Getou’s voice breaks Yuuji from his thoughts. His eyes dart toward the dark haired male and finds that his face has gone a dangerous shade of impassive. As though the part of him that had been in the room before has been removed entirely, leaving behind something empty— something vengeful. 

“I honestly can’t remember,” Yuuji says softly, treading carefully with his words. Unwilling to acknowledge that the dark, dead spots in his memory are no longer confined to the fight in the alleyway, but have begun to appear when he tries to recall when he’d found Megumi at the train station. Which makes no sense, because surely, he would not slip into a red rage response twice in the same day, let alone for a little boy that he’d never met before. Yuuji swallows down the flutter of nerves he feels rising in his belly at the realization that he cannot rely on his memory as loyally as he once thought he could. He clears his throat again. “Everything’s a little hazy after I realized he was about to hurt Megumi… I was more focused on scaring the fuck out of him and making sure the kid was okay.”

It’s not exactly a lie. However, he does not want to examine the way that in place of the drunk man’s face, there is nothing but a black void. It is a small mercy that neither alpha seems to notice his spiraling panic. Gojo makes a soft growling noise under his breath, shoulders practically vibrating with contained anger. Getou’s hand returns to his shoulder where he appears to squeeze the muscle there— hard. 

“What about your wounds? Your thigh has been bleeding since you were brought in and there’s that wrapping on your hand,” Getou says, dark eyes flickering down toward the dried spot of blood on Yuuji’s clothes. 

“Oh,” Yuuji says dumbly, glancing down as well, only to find that there is a newly formed patch of crimson staining the left leg of his pants. “Yeah, that… It didn’t happen at the train station with the guy that had Megumi first. It was after we got to Hino— well. I guess I should tell you about the bakery? Junpei had to cover for me and stuff, so he saw Megumi too— Oh, God, wait. You’re not going to kill Junpei, are you? I swear he has no idea who you guys are or who Megumi is to you. He’s an innocent in all of this and I didn’t—”

“Relax,” Getou’s low voice says firmly. “Your friend is safe. We know he is not involved.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Yuuji breathes out a sigh of true relief, ducking his head down and squeezing his eyes shut. With his eyes shut and willing away the panic, he manages to miss the mildly amused look that Gojo exchanges with Getou at the sight of it. By the time he manages to calm his raging heart and lift his head again, both of the men’s expressions are schooled back into stone cold impassivity. “Well, after Megumi casually dropped the name Gojo, I knew that I couldn’t exactly bring him to the cops.”

“The police in the Shibuya district are in our pockets, Megumi would have been safe there,” Gojo comments offhandedly. 

“Well how was I supposed to know that? ” Yuuji snaps irritably. “All I knew about the name Gojo was that it was attached to a huge, fucking dick.”

Gojo bares his teeth in a wicked smile, half feral with intent. “Careful, sweetheart. Compliments like that will only get you so far with me.”

Yuuji burns with the implication. He inhales sharply and chokes on his dry tongue, hacking coughs as the white haired alpha lets out a bright, mean spirited laugh. 

“Focus,” Getou comments firmly from behind Gojo’s shoulder.

Gojo waves a lazy hand up toward him, but does seem to settle at the reminder. “So you didn’t go to the police with him. And instead you got off in Hino where we tracked you to the Omega House known as the Fantasy Room. ”

“If you already know all of this, why even bother asking me anything?” Yuuji asks with a half hearted glare, still coughing gently on every other breath.

“Because while we can track your starting and ending location, there is a lengthy stretch of time that remains unaccounted for. There is an unfortunate lack of functioning cameras under our possession in that area, since the more unsavory locals have taken to destroying any threat to their peace of being able to commit whatever crimes they desire without any prying eyes. We have footage from the Hino station that shows you getting off the train and appearing to be perfectly fine, but when the cameras picked you up outside of the Omega House, you were walking with a limp and appeared to be moving like someone who was being chased, ” Getou says with cut and dry observation. 

Yuuji glances down at the fresh spread of dark blood across his clothed thigh. His mind scrambles to pull together details out of the scattered recollections he has of that time. As though his memories are nothing but a moth-eaten old coat, with pieces missing in essential places. He clenches his eyes shut and tries to think, very well knowing that if his explanation of the events is deemed inconclusive, or even too vague he may just end up dead in a ditch when all of this is over.

“We were followed from the train station at Hino,” He starts slowly at a place where his memory still remains intact. “I knew someone was tailing us pretty quickly, but it was hard to tell how long they had been following us for… I tried to lose them, but they were persistent. I made a stupid mistake and took a wrong turn into a dead end alley where they cornered us…” Yuuji trails off as the memory devolves into hazy shadows and nothing but an impression of the pure feeling of rage that Yuuji had felt during that time. He lifts his gaze back up, looking between Gojo and Getou as he puts as much weight behind his words as possible as he speaks with nothing but truth in his words, hoping that it makes up for the lack of details. “My only priority was ensuring that Megumi remained safe. I knew that the person who attacked us had every intention of taking him back if I wasn’t able to stop him… And I refused to allow that to happen.”

Both men were silent across from him as the words sunk into the silence of the room. Something seeming to shift between them, like a deadbolt sliding into place. Sure and solid and purposeful. 

Gojo’s shoulders are a tense line, quivering slightly as he lowers his head and appears to be staring down at the floor beneath his spread thighs. Back rising and falling with controlled breaths as he seems to collect himself. Getou, however, remains upright, though just as tense.

“We’ll need as many details about them as possible,” Getou says, voice dark with the promise of retribution.

Yuuji hesitates, as his scattered mind scrambles to dig into the dissolved memories. He shakes his head as he tries— tries so hard — to remember. He closes his eyes and breathes out slowly as he tries to put himself back in that alleyway and allows the feeling of utter rage to lap against the edges of his consciousness. From the darkness he hears a maniacal laugh and feels the harsh contact of his fist against flesh and bone and the squish of blood. The dim shadows part for a moment, like a veil being lifted, and Yuuji’s mind provides a split second glimpse of a pale face covered with black stitch-like tattoos and mismatched eyes. And then, like smoke on a gust of wind, the image winks out again and his memory is plunged back into darkness.

When Yuuji reopens his eyes, blinking harshly in the golden light of the basement, he holds onto the glimpse his faded memory provided him with like a lifeline.

“I don’t have a name for you, but whoever they were, they had mismatched eyes and their face was covered in these tattoos,” Yuuji says quietly.

“Face tattoos?” Getou raises a brow sharply.

Yuuji nods, stiff neck aching in agony. “Yeah. They were these black stitches—” 

“Stitches?” Gojo asks sharply, raising his head instantly. 

“Are you positive that this person had black stitches tattooed on their face?” Getou asks after a beat of silence. And while someone else may have been fooled by the calm, quiet tone of the man’s voice, Yuuji almost flinched at the utter malice that gleamed in the dark depths of his eyes.

Yuuji peers at the pair of powerful alphas and says with the only assurance he can offer. “Yes.”

Gojo turns his head fully to face Getou. The dark eyed man pulls his gaze away from Yuuji and tilts his head to meet Gojo’s supposed gaze, a long tress of his dark hair slips over the man’s powerful shoulders and gleams in the golden light cast around the room. Yuuji watches as the two men seemingly stare silently at one another for a long moment, as though they were sharing in a secret, silent language that only they were privy to. It is a similar look that Yuuji has often felt himself share with Junpei— a quiet, innate understanding of one another’s thoughts, built from years and years of knowing each other. 

He vaguely wonders how old the two men across from him are— how long they’ve known each other — but he can’t truly guess. They seem at least a decade older than him, but perhaps less… Not old, but old enough that Yuuji suddenly feels as though he is a child intruding on an adult conversation— wordless or not. 

It occurs to him once again that despite all of the bravado he’s faced Gojo’s piss poor attitude with, he is well and truly in over his head in a world he has no full understanding of. 

Finally, Gojo turns his head away from Getou and presumably stares at Yuuji. A frown seems to tug at the edges of his lips, but doesn’t fully form. Yuuji finds himself bracing himself as though he is about to be struck.

“Tell me, Itadori,” Gojo begins slowly. “What do you know about the Ryoumen clan?”

Yuuji stalls for a second, thrown off by the question. His brow draws low in an exhausted glare aimed at the Special Grade across from him. “Ryoumen clan? What are they, friends of yours?”

A deep growl echoes off of the walls as Gojo snarls, causing Yuuji to freeze in place. 

“No. Not friends,” the white haired alpha mutters viciously.

Despite the threat that hangs in the air, Yuuji can’t help but scoff lightly. “You know, contrary to what you people seem to think, I am not familiar with any of Tokyo’s underground crime syndicate families. Everything I have learned about the world of the yakuza has been against my will since that fucking night you tried to ruin my life for no other reason than you couldn’t stand that someone actually called you out on your bad fucking behavior—”

“Careful, kid,” Getou warns sharply again without raising his voice at all.

Yuuji grits his teeth at the warning, but obliges and quits while he’s ahead. Still, he can’t help the way his lip curls in a tiny sneer, baring a sharp fang back at the alphas. “I don’t know anything about the Ryoumen clan. Or the Gojo clan. Or any other clans for that matter!” 

“Understandable,” Gojo mutters, seeming to have collected himself as he reclines in his seat— the very picture of lazy arrogance. “Considering you used to be a nobody from some backwoods village out in Sendai—”

“Hey!” Yuuji snaps angrily, even as his heart thuds hard in horror at the realization that these people know much more about Yuuji than he’d thought possible. Bringing up Sendai, where he lived with his mother before— Before. What purpose did it serve? Did Gojo simply want him to know how deep into Yuuji’s past they had dug into?

“—But now you have made yourself into a target… Whether you meant to or not.” Gojo continues, breaking Yuuji out of his spiraling thoughts. 

The alpha’s words hang between them like an executioner’s blade. Yuuji immediately swallows down his retort, suddenly feeling as though the wind had been taken from his sails. He slumps in his chair, muscles straining and burning from being tied up for so long. All at once he feels so tired. He wants to go home. 

“So then what does this have to do with me?” Yuuji asks quietly, still staring down at his lap as he fights off the wave of weariness that attempts to settle into his bones. “And why is the Ryoumen clan so important?”

Gojo blows out a long sigh between parted lips. “Isn’t that just a loaded question, though we only have time for the short version of the story, I suppose, given that we’re on a bit of a time crunch—”

“— You’re already late, what does it matter anymore?” Getou mutters mutinously from behind Gojo, though the white haired alpha barely acknowledges the comment as he continues.

“The Ryoumen clan is another Tokyo based family. They were suspected to have disbanded since the head of their family fucked off and died several years ago  without a legitimate heir to take over as head of the family. Caused a real uproar in our community, as you can probably imagine,” Gojo says as he gestures a hand toward Yuuji. Which, no, Yuuji can’t imagine.

“If they’re all gone, why would they be a problem for you?” Yuuji asks.

“Well, see, that is the trick of it all. Because for all these years, we all thought the Ryoumen clan had been destroyed from the inside out— a bit of poor management skills combined with volatile tempers, you know? But recently, there have been a series of incidents that all seem to point in the direction of a resurgence of their presence,” Gojo says, voice surprisingly low and soft, as Yuuji hangs onto every single word. “Reports of those who don’t belong, sniffing around my borders and pushing their luck where they see fit.”

“And you think they’re part of this other clan?” Yuuji’s brow furrows in confusion.

“I do,” Gojo says simply with a dip of his chin, “Considering all of the documented incidents involve individuals who were marked in similar ways that were once the blatant indication of affiliation with the Ryoumen clan.”

“The stitch tattoos,” Yuuji mutters in realization.

“Bingo!” Gojo crows, far too loudly for the small space, causing Yuuji to startle. The alpha’s sharp fangs glint in the low light as he bares them in a humorless grin. “Which, imagine my surprise when a supposedly dead clan starts to resurface like a bad batch of zombies? Of course, most of the places they’ve been scoping out for weak points are negligible in the grand scheme of things, but really, it’s the principle of the matter, you know?”

Yuuji’s brain fires off several thoughts at once as multiple pieces of the puzzle he’s been trying to make sense of, suddenly fall into place. He gasps aloud, “The Fantasy Room! ” 

Gojo goes quiet and both alphas stare at Yuuji, waiting for him to expand on his comment. He shifts in the chair he’s bound to, feeling the rough chafe of rope around his bare wrists. “The Omega House is part of your territory! Or maybe it’s just all of Hino? But that’s why you all showed up that night, right? It was some kind of attempt to scare them off by a show of strength in numbers?”

Both men meet his revelation with silence. After a moment, Gojo barks out a laugh, low and smooth— and catching Yuuji entirely off guard by the genuineness of the sound. 

“We really are losing our touch if a little omega from the sticks has managed to pick up so easily on our motivations,” the white haired alpha shoots a sharp grin toward Getou.

“I think this one is just exceptionally observant,” Getou hums, deep in thought as he eyes Yuuji carefully. 

“Yeah, well, this one is right here,” Yuuji snaps back, feeling a flash of irritation, “And this one would say that it was pretty fucking obvious. I mean, you showed up with like, fifty unscented alphas. And you weren’t exactly subtle with your arrival when the first thing you did was cause a scene and berate me for protecting my friend.”

“You think it was me who caused a scene? What about your ‘friend’ who attempted to scent bomb a room full of Grade 1 alphas because she was throwing a tantrum for attention?” Gojo reminds him with a sneer.

Yuuji winces at the reminder of Nobara’s stupidity, but stands— sits? — his ground.

“Anywayyy,” he draws the word out in an attempt to move on.

Gojo huffs a breath out and Yuuji can’t tell if it’s amusement or disdain— probably both.  

“Well, all that considered, and despite your frankly ungrateful attitude before, I have a deal for you,” Gojo says.

“Why does everyone think I’m interested in making deals with them?” Yuuji mutters with a shake of his head.

Gojo’s lips split wide in a grin that’s sharper than any blade. “If you don’t want to make a deal, then consider this part of a repayment plan for your debt. ”

“Debt?” Yuuji’s voice raises in disbelief. “Aren’t you forgetting that I was the one who saved your fucking kid? Weren’t you just asking me what I wanted from you not twenty minutes ago? And now somehow I’m the one who owes you ? How the fuck does that work?” 

“If you recall, you were the one who so humbly denied receiving any sort of payment for your services… Such a demure, little omega. Do you feel like a martyr, Itadori?” Gojo taunts brutally, “Do you think you’re somehow better than the rest of the sheep because you refused to accept anything from the wolves?”

“That’s not it,” Yuuji denies from between gritted teeth, though the Special Grade seems to not take any note of it. 

“Either way, that offer has expired and unfortunately for you, my patience has run out. Consider this debt of yours owed in exchange for me not ending your miserable little life for insulting me with every other goddamn word out of your mouth,” Gojo snaps darkly.

Getou shifts minutely behind Gojo’s shoulder, but makes no comment. Perhaps he is like Yuuji and is viscerally aware of the very real threat in the Special Grade’s tone. 

It is quiet enough to hear a pin drop as they sit in silence for a few long moments, until finally, Yuuji gives in to the pressure of the alpha’s warning. 

His shoulders slump forward, as much as the bindings keeping his arms pinned behind him will allow. He is tired… So very, very tired. His voice a rasping whisper as he speaks. “What do you want from me?”

Gojo does not respond immediately, but Yuuji keeps his head hung low as he blinks against the sting in the corners of his eyes. He watches the fresh seep of dark blood that blooms across the material covering his thigh, though he hardly feels the pain.

“It’s been impossible to pin down any of Ryoumen’s suspected allies, let alone identify any of them past common facial markings. There seems to be no hierarchy established amongst them, nor does there appear to be any predictable patterns made or motivations for their movements. Every time we get close, they seem to scurry off back to hide in whatever hole they crawled out of,” Gojo says conversationally. 

Yuuji scoffs, keeping his gaze down as he mutters sarcastically, “Gee, I wonder why.”

“Hmm? Something to say?” Gojo prompts scathingly.

Yuuji finally raises his head back up and raises a judgmental brow in his direction. “I mean… Were you guys even trying to be inconspicuous about your presence? You rolled up, squad fucking deep on a random Thursday night and then a bunch of suits started to hang around the club on a regular basis— which from what I’ve been told, they didn’t exactly make it seem like they were there for the entertainment, if you know what I mean? All of the girls knew immediately that something was up as did most of the customers… And if the regular creeps that literally have no shame are getting scared off from coming around, I highly doubt that these supposed members of a rival clan wouldn’t be able to sniff out a trap that obvious. ”

Gojo hums under his breath and casts  look back in Getou’s direction.

“And the eye tattoos?” Yuuji finds himself continuing, now that he’s on a roll. “I mean, come on… You might as well just write ‘Property of Gojo’ across their foreheads and call it a day. I mean, no one who goes to that club as a paying customer has any dignity left anyway, but there’s a fine line for even the most fucked up people of how much they’re willing to put their perversions on display. Especially in front of a bunch of hired suits with guns… The nasty fucks who spend their time at the club usually only want omegas around when they decide to indulge their own bullshit because they think they can get away with it.”

“So you agree then?” Gojo asks suddenly, leaning forward in his seat.

“Agree?” Yuuji asks, confused by the whiplash the question gave him.

“That we are in need of someone on the inside of the operation. Someone that is unrecognizable… No, untraceable, back to my clan. Someone that won’t set off any alarms when Ryoumen’s little friends start sniffing around again,” Gojo clarifies.

“Someone from the club?” Yuuji asks, already shaking his head in denial. “No way! You can’t do that. I won’t give you anyone’s names. No one else deserves to get dragged into whatever petty pissing contest you’re participating in.”

Gojo lets out another low laugh, the sound of which scrapes its way up the back of Yuuji’s neck.

“Well isn’t it just a bit of good luck that I’ve already got a candidate in mind. One who knows their way around the joint and has intimate knowledge within the bounds of the situation… One who is hardly in a position to refuse,” He says pointedly as his blindfolded gaze remains set unwaveringly in Yuuji’s direction.

It takes Yuuji all of three seconds before the realization dawns on him with the force of a punch to the gut. He wheezes out a gasp of shock. “ Me ? No way! You want me to go back in there?” 

“What?” Gojo asks with a lazy shrug of his enormous shoulders. “Wasn’t that place your dream job or something? You acted so horribly upset when I had that sweaty little man fire you.”

“That wasn’t— ugh—” Yuuji stutters in frustration. Anger ignites, hot and molten in the center of his chest as he juts his chin stubbornly and glares at the alpha across from him. “No. I won’t do it.”

“Again, I would like to point out that you really don’t have much of a choice in the matter. Think of this as an extension on an ostensible death sentence. If you perform well and get me what I ask for, I might just change my mind about getting rid of you for good… But if you perform poorly… Well…” Gojo dramatically drags a pale finger across the front of his neck in a crude gesture of execution.

Part of Yuuji thinks that it might be for show, but there is a much larger part of him that trembles in fear at the insinuation. 

“What do I get out of it?” Yuuji asks, voice rasping up his throat. His head has started to throb harder as the conversation weighs more heavily on his scrambled mind. The effects of the chemical he’d been drugged with still having not released him entirely from its grip. 

“Aside from your depressing life out in the sticks kept intact?” Gojo points out with a flash of sharp fangs. “What more could you possibly want?”

Yuuji pushes out a long breath and steels himself. He fixes Gojo with an even stare and speaks with clear, concise words that could not possibly be misconstrued, “I want you to leave me alone.”

Gojo lets out a bark of laughter. Serrated and abrupt, it cuts into Yuuji’s tender flesh deeper than any knife. The Special Grade suddenly unfolds himself from his seat, towering upward at his full height. Dressed in tailored clothing he looks like the picture of understated wealth— the kind that belongs to people who have so much money that they feel no urge to flaunt it brazenly— however, there is an undeniable edge of danger that clings to him like a dark shadow.

The way he moves toward Yuuji, long legs eating up the short distance between them in a matter of two strides, is calculated and precise. Not a single movement wasted— an apex predator in his prime. When he comes to stand less than a foot away from him, large pale hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers, he is the picture of composed, but Yuuji is not fool enough to believe it. Not when he can feel the menace radiating off of him in waves. 

“Say that again,” Gojo demands, voice low and lethal.

Yuuji is forced to strain his neck as he tilts his head back in order to maintain ‘eye contact’ with the blindfolded alpha. Trembling minutely as he stares up at the powerful alpha, whose broad body fills up every available inch of Yuuji’s line of sight. 

“If I do this for you…” Yuuji says, voice barely quivering as he is pinned beneath the unequivocal attention of the Special Grade before him. “If I get you information about the Ryoumen clan, I want you to leave me be.”

Gojo says nothing further as he looms over him.

With more bravery than he once imagined himself capable of, Yuuji keeps going. “You leave me alone. You leave my family alone. You leave the other omegas at the Fantasy Room alone. I don’t want to hear a fucking whisper about you or your clan and I never want to see your face. Ever again. That’s what I want.”

Gojo leans forward, bending in half at the waist, until his face is only a few inches from Yuujis. Unconsciously he finds himself inhaling, though there is still no trace of snow or salt in the air. Nothing except for the vague smell of minty toothpaste and the metallic scent of fresh blood oozing from between the stitches on his stab wound. 

Yuuji’s breath shakes free from trembling lungs as Gojo's grin slowly widens as he looks down upon him. The expression is nothing short of the look of a predator whose teeth have finally closed around the delicate neck of its prey.

“Deal.”

***

Soon after their deal has been ironed out, Gojo leaves the dungeon—Sorry. Basement.

Getou lingers behind, watching Yuuji where he remains strapped to the chair and listening to Gojo’s retreating steps. The telltale slide of a bolt being undone reaches Yuuji’s ears and the creak of hinges before the shutting of a door signals that they have well and truly been left behind by the Honored One. 

Yuuji’s mind reels with a swirl of questions and answers that he has received in the short time since he had awoken. It’s hard to tell how long he’s lost to his thoughts when he finally refocuses his gaze on the brick-shit-house of a man still standing across from him, watching in silence as Yuuji rides the razor sharp edge between okay and full mental breakdown.

“So, how long have you known him?” Yuuji asks, jerking his chin upward, assumingly where Gojo had gone. 

“Too long,” Getou replies shortly.

Yuuji winces in real sympathy. “I feel sorry for you.”

“You shouldn’t,” Getou says and Yuuji can feel the way that the conversation ends there. 

He shifts around on his seat and winces at the way that the ropes have rubbed the skin raw on his wrists and ankles to the point that he expects any moment to feel the slick of fresh blood. 

“What are the chances you’ll untie me?” Yuuji asks boldly.

Getou raises a dark brow and tilts his heat a bit to the side in thought. His ears hang heavy with two black gauges nestled into the stretched lobes, partially obscured by the long length of his half-down hair. 

“What are the chances you’ll do something stupid if I do?” Getou asks in return.

Yuuji shrugs and wriggles in his seat again. “I mean. You’re the one with those shiny guns. Couldn’t you just shoot me or something?”

Even as he says the words, his gut clenches in residual fear. Getou huffs a breath out of his nose in what Yuuji approximates to be amusement, though his face hardly moves at all to convey the emotion. Without a word, Getou moves toward Yuuji and then disappears behind him. There’s a moment where Yuuji feels the hulking presence of the man behind him and his breath catches in his chest, though he can’t tell exactly if it’s fear or not that motivates it. Then he feels the gentle tug of deft fingers working at the knots binding Yuuji’s wrists together. 

He hisses as it pulls a bit and rubs against the chafed skin. Getou’s movements stall for a moment and then return, even more careful than before. It sets something alight in Yuuji at the thought of such an enormous man being careful with him.

“You’ll need to be vigilant,” Getou says suddenly, “The leaders of the Ryoumen clan have never been known for their mercy . They will not show you any if you are caught by one of their own.”

“I sort of figured that out for myself, given the fact that guy who cornered us in the alley was ready to slice me up without so much as a ‘ hi, how are you? ’” Yuuji says calmly, as though the thought alone doesn’t send a shockwave of residual fear through him.

Getou hums, the sound rumbling out of him like distant thunder. “They are dangerous.”

“All of you are dangerous,” Yuuji corrects a bit harshly. 

“That is true,” Getou agrees solemnly. “I should also think that it goes without saying that double crossing us is not a wise decision. Gojo is many things, but forgiving is not one of them.”

“Yeah, funny enough, I gathered that too from the way that he still obviously hates my guts for basically telling him to go fuck himself that time at the club,” Yuuji mutters. 

Getou huffs another amused breath from behind him and with one more gentle tug, Yuuji’s hands are freed. A groan of pure relief is drawn up from the depths of Yuuji’s chest as he finally pulls his arms back into proper position. The muscles quiver and shake after straining for so long and when he peers at his wrists he finds that he was correct about blood being drawn. Two red, bloody bracelets line the thin skin of his wrists, the top barrier effectively scraped away by the rope.

Getou moves to the front of the chair and folds with surprising grace to one knee before Yuuji, bending to reach for the ropes at his ankles. Yuuji has the thought flit through his head that Getou did things out of order by freeing his hands first and then put himself in a vulnerable position at Yuuji’s feet. However, a flash of silver is his answer as Getou expertly flips a serrated knife out of a hidden holster around his ankle and slices easily through the ropes beside either leg. 

Getou draws back up to his full height and moves back a step to watch as Yuuji shakes out his tingling, sore ankles. He says nothing as Yuuji attempts to stand, only to fall a bit as his leg barks in pain, the stab wound pulling uncomfortably against the fabric of his sweatpants where they are stuck to the skin by way of dried blood. 

“He didn’t say so, but Gojo was quite impressed with your willingness to defend his ward,” Getou comments idly.

Yuuji spares a glance up at him, disbelief written into every line of his expression. “Yeah, right.” He says, entirely unconvinced.

Getou’s lips twitch into the ghost of a frown. “There are few things in this world that the head of the Gojo clan is willing to accept as his weakness. That little boy is one of them. The fact that you saved him of your own free will… And without the expectation of anything in return? I can’t speak for his reaction, but you should know that it most certainly means something to him.”

Strangely enough, Yuuji feels his heart leap into his throat at the words. He takes a moment to swallow around the lump it makes in the hollow of his throat and allows a trembling breath to leave his lungs. “I would have done the same for anyone who needed it.”

Getou merely looks at him. Dark eyes search across his face, looking for something that Yuuji has no hope of understanding. Yuuji feels his heart thrum nervously beneath the hinge of his jaw and he quickly averts his gaze from the other man’s. Instead, he casts his gaze around at the basement room. The strange papers lining the walls and the paper lanterns on the floor. 

Yuuji turns slightly to look down at the seat where he’d been bound, ropes hanging limply over the back and pooling on the floor around the two front legs. “I’m guessing we’re at some kind of secret hideout or something, right? I’m curious to know how you’re going to get me out of here without—”

For the second time, Yuuji feels an enormous hand close over his mouth. This time, however, as he is mid-sentence, there is no time to stop the way he instinctively inhales and breathes in the harsh— unfortunately familiar — burn of chemicals. He feels his legs sway beneath him, body already weak against the reaction to the chemical cocktail saturating the material of Getou’s glove that covers Yuuji’s mouth and nose. In slow motion, he manages to turn his head, eyes swiveling up and over his shoulder and catches sight of night dark eyes.

“Ohyersuchadiiickkkk—” Yuuji manages to slur into Getou’s glove-covered palm. His legs tremble and he distantly feels a thick arm wrap around his waist. He thinks a bit hysterically that there’s no way he’s going to allow himself to pass out like some kind of omega in distress.

And then the world goes black.

***

Less than a second later— truly, only the blink of an eye — Yuuji groans aloud and flings an arm across his eyes in an attempt to block out the piercing light that is attempting to murder him. His head pounds with a raging headache that intensifies as he tries to stuff his head further into his pillow. The scent of his grandfather’s laundry detergent fills his nose as he breathes in deep, attempting to push past the pain. 

Wait. 

Yuuji launches upright, hissing at the way his head sways and the bright burst of pain behind his eyes, like fireworks of agony, nearly blinds him. He clenches his eyes closed for several long moments before he’s able to get a handle on himself. But when he finally opens them, he is stunned to find himself sitting in his twin sized bed back in his grandfather’s apartment. 

“What the fuck,” Yuuji whispers with dawning horror. “What the fuuuck.”

He mentally recalls the interrogation with Gojo and Getou’s gloved hand, saturated with chemicals, covering his mouth and making the world go blank. 

“That fucking asshole,” Yuuji snarls under his breath, even as it transforms into a hiss of pain as his head throbs unforgivingly.

He whips the comforter back and sees that he’s no longer dressed in the bloody clothes that he’d stolen from Shigemo’s locker, but rather he’s in a pair of his own sweatpants and a familiar t-shirt. He winces as he stands up out of bed and pulls down his pants, only slightly relieved to find that he was wearing the same boxer briefs, though it does little to settle the way his stomach flips at the thought of Getou— or someone else — dressing him in fresh clothes. 

The sunlight shines in merrily from beyond his frosted window. A sunny, winter day full of potential beyond the glass panes, but Yuuji finds no joy in the sight. His mind is still stuck in a basement— who knows how far away from him— pinned beneath the stern gazes of two men that clearly controlled his fate. 

He stumbles from his bedroom, pressing a hand to his temple as he descends the stairs, wincing at the pull of his stitches in his leg. 

“Yuuji?” his grandfather’s surprised voice filters into his ears, calling from the living room. 

Yuuji comes around the corner and stares, wide eyed at Wasuke, sitting up in his bed with their neighbor, Mrs. Takahashi, sitting beside him with a bowl of soup balanced in her hands. Both of them stare at Yuuji in surprise, taking in his disheveled appearance.

“I didn’t hear you come in last night, brat,” Wasuke mutters, bushy eyebrows lowering over his eyes. “You were gone all day yesterday.”

Yuuji swallows harshly and wills himself to get a fucking grip. 

“Uhh… Yeah… Yeah, I met up for a drink with some friends after our finals were done… We just… Lost track of time celebrating and stuff. I didn’t want to wake you when I got back,” Yuuji lies.

By the way that Wasuke’s expression lights up— or as much as the gruff old man is ever willing to display— he hardly notices, or cares , that Yuuji’s voice had quivered with the lie he told.

“That’s great, kid!” Wasuke says with a flash of a smile. Mrs. Takahashi smiles politely at Yuuji and nods. His stomach twists as he thinks of the truth. “You ought to do that more often!” 

Yuuji squeaks out a response and nods jerkily. “Uh… Yeah, definitely. I will definitely do that.”

“Good, good.” Wasuke nods to himself, pleased by the development in Yuuji’s previously non-existent social life. 

Yuuji eyes the window on the other side of the living room. His eyes snag on the sight of a dark car parked on the other side of the street. Heart thumping faster in his chest, he unconsciously moves toward the window, ignoring the looks that his grandfather and Mrs. Takahashi gives him as he tugs the curtains closed with a snap.

When Yuuji turns around, he stills beneath their confused gazes. “Oh, uh. Sorry, I just figured that you couldn’t… Uhm… See the TV with the glare?” 

Wasuke hums and eyes Yuuji suspiciously, but Yuuji quickly moves back out of the living room. He goes into the kitchen on the other side of the hall and hides out of sight. Hands trembling, he braces himself against the counter and hangs his head down between his shoulders. The muscles twinge in his neck and the ring of red, raw skin like two bracelets around his wrists are a stark reminder of where he really had been.

Yuuji clears his throat and blinks back against the sting of frustrated tears. “Hey gramps, did I mention that I got my job back at the konbini?”

“You did?” Wasuke’s harsh voice replies from across the hall. “Since when? I thought you enjoyed working at the bakery? Especially after all the cooking we did together while you were growing up?”

“Yeah… I guess it was all just a misunderstanding with my boss at the convenience store… And I didn’t really plan on quitting at the bakery,” Yuuji replies, staring blankly at the aged, linoleum counter top between his splayed fingers. The bruises on his knuckles, a testament to what had happened, even as his memory gaps continued to grow larger with every passing moment.

“Christ, kid. It’s always one step forward and two steps back with you!” Wasuke barks in frustration and then devoles into quiet, furious mumbles that Yuuji can’t quite make out from his place in the kitchen.

Yuuji’s vision blurs as the tears finally fall, splattering against the counter between his hands. Desperately he clutches at the edge of it, as though that is the only thing holding him upright. The tick of the clock is the only noise in the kitchen as he sobs silently and wonders, not how he’s managed to get himself in this deep, but how he’s going to get himself out.

Chapter Text

There is something terrifying in the way that the rest of the world has not changed and yet everything is different now. The lens through which Yuuji views himself and everything around him has been shattered and yet it is almost a shame how easily his life seems to return to a state of normalcy after everything that happened. As though the disintegration of the unspoken boundaries that separated light from dark, day from night, good from bad, is entirely Yuuji’s fault. As if it is a crime that only Yuuji is bound to pay the price for.

The concept of safety is nothing but an illusion. 

In the days following Yuuji’s return, there is never a moment where he allows himself to believe that he is not being watched. Every car that lingers on the curb across from his house seems out of place. Every rustle of footsteps following behind him sends a trickle of panic down his spine. Every moment of every day, Yuuji is merely waiting. 

Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for something to break.

It does not help that he thinks about Megumi far more often than one might expect after spending less than twenty-four hours with someone they had only just met. Especially a child. And yet, Yuuji finds himself wondering, multiple times a day, what the little, dark haired boy might be up to. Deep in the place beside his heart, buried amidst the tender tissue that holds his very life force safe and sound, there is an ache. Every time he breathes, he can feel it there, slipping the knife-sharp edge of grief— ridiculous as it might sound— into the space between his ribs. But as the days pass, and the entire ordeal seems more and more like a dream— or perhaps a nightmare, depending on the perspective he’s opted to have in the given moment— rather than a reality, Yuuji feels the quiet creep of guilt and shame begin to settle across his shoulders. 

He has no reason to worry for a little boy he hardly knows. No reason to still think of him and wonder… Wonder if he too can see the snow flurries falling from the sky. Wonder what he has asked for for Christmas. Wonder if he has nightmares, the same way Yuuji does, filled with playful, malicious laughter and blood stained hands and bruised knuckles. 

The thoughts torture him and every single time he must swiftly remind himself that he will never see Megumi again… And every single time, something breaks a little bit more inside of him. 

By the fifth day after he was returned home— something that he has still not quite figured out the mechanics of— he feels like nothing more than a shell of himself. 

Sleep has not come easily. Due in no small part to the nightmares that have plagued his— already shoddy, at best— sleep schedule. The nights feel too long— something that Yuuji had often wished for, even just a week prior, when there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get done all that he needed to do. But now, every night as the hours tick by and the darkness deepens beyond his window, Yuuji lies awake and stares at his ceiling. He watches the way the shadows cast by the branches of the tree beside his bedroom window reach their long fingers as far as they’re able to, though they never seem to grasp what they desire before the darkness devours them entirely.

Yuuji knows the feeling.

True to his word, he’d kept the position at the cafe. Much to Mr. Yaomoto’s combined displeasure (of having to suffer through Yuuji’s presence) and relief (of not having to find a replacement for him so close to the holidays). Every morning he has made his normal trek to the train station before the rest of the world is awake and every morning he has felt the crushing disappointment to find the train station utterly empty besides himself. 

It is perhaps the last bit of stubbornness that he still possesses that keeps him from returning to the club. At first, he told himself that he was preparing for it, but as the days trickled by and he watched the time pass from seven, to eight, to nine and dodged Wasuke’s questions about when his, (entirely made up), part-time job at the Konbini would start back, he knew that it is out of fear that his avoidance stemmed from. 

He knows that there is little choice left in the matter of whether he wants to go back or not. Gojo has given Yuuji no other impression other than the fact that he is a man who will hold someone to their word, or else face the consequences of going against it. But still, Yuuji cannot make himself go.

Not yet. Not when the thought of doing what Gojo has bid him— as though he is some kind of undercover agent— makes something raw open up and bleed within him.

But on the seventh day— exactly one week— after the entire ordeal with Megumi and the Gojo clan, at precisely 7:42 a.m. there is a loud knock at the front door. 

“I got it,” Yuuji says as he wipes his hands on his jeans, dusting away the extra flour from them. His grandfather’s tiny kitchen is warm from the oven running and the scent of sweet vanilla and matcha fills the air. In an attempt to distract his mind from the spiraling thoughts of what he’d gone through, Yuuji has thrown himself into baking— trying new recipes and perfecting some of his grandfather’s older ones that he’d learned much earlier. 

“Not like I’m racing you to the damn door,” Wasuke grunts under his breath in a sarcastic reply from where he sits at the tiny table, hunched over in his seat with Nobara’s monstrosity wrapped over his bony shoulders. The yellow nub of a pencil is clutched between gnarled, trembling fingers and a pair of thick glasses lay perched on the edge of his nose as he stares intently at the Sunday crossword in the Japan Times. 

Yuuji can’t stop the chuckle that leaves him in reaction to his grandfather’s comment, however as soon as he leaves the kitchen and is out of sight, the smile drops from his face. His heart beats a bit faster in his chest as he stares down the hall toward the front door. Unbidden, his eyes dart around the small entryway for something that could be used as a weapon in a pinch. Nobara’s scarf could definitely be used to strangle someone… Or maybe the umbrella could be used to impale?

Another knock echoes inside, a bit more urgent than the first. 

“You gonna let them in sometime today?” Wasuke snaps from the kitchen.

Yuuji steps up to the door, one hand hovering over the handle of the umbrella as the other reaches for the handle. He lets out a trembling breath and opens the door. As soon as it opens a body shoves its way inside. Yuuji’s heart lodges itself in his throat as his hand closes around the handle of the umbrella in a vice grip— mental calculations of blunt force and escape routes and potential witnesses fly through his head as two arms lock around him. Panic nearly blinds him until the bright, tart scent of lemons and the heady sweet stickiness of raw honey cloud around him, tinged slightly sour in concern and the tension in his chest unravels instantly. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Junpei murmurs in his ear by way of greeting. Lean, well muscled arms wrapped tight around Yuuji’s shoulders and hold him close in his best friend’s embrace. The relief is almost painful as Yuuji’s body goes lax against Junpei, and both arms unconsciously lift to wrap around him in return. Yuuji tilts his nose toward the juncture of Junpei’s neck and inhales his familiar scent, allowing it to wrap him up in a familiar comfort he has known since they were only children. Bright citrus and sticky honey coats the back of Yuuji’s throat on each inhale while his muscles— that had been strung tight with tension since he had been returned home— unwind with slow increments. 

Together they stand there in the entry for a long moment, simply taking specific, Omegan comfort in seeing one another again, before Wasuke’s harsh irritation interrupts them. 

“I can feel the cold air from here!” He snarls. “Shut the damn door!”

Junpei lets out a soft laugh as he pulls back from the hug first, looking down at Yuuji with a tiny grin on his lips. Yuuji manages to return it, feeling the first semblance of relief starting to trickle back its way into his heart. He reaches around Junpei and closes the door with a snap. 

When he turns around and leans his back against the solid— if not slightly dingy— white painted wood, he finds Junpei watching him with his arms crossed over his chest. An unimpressed look on his face. 

“What happened to my sweet best friend whom I just shared a reunion with?” Yuuji asks. 

“Now that I know you’re not dead , I can give you a piece of my mind,” Junpei replies as he stares down the scant handful of centimeters between their heights. “You’ve been dodging me for a whole fucking week and don’t even try to act like you haven’t.” 

“Dude, you know I’ve been busting my ass with studying for finals,” Yuuji says in defense— which, to be fair, isn’t even a complete lie. Though it certainly isn’t the whole truth. He had been dodging Junpei, given that he knew without a shadow of doubt that he wouldn’t be able to lie fully to his friend about the events that had happened after he and Megumi had left the cafe. And alright, maybe it was a shitty thing to do, but he hadn’t been ready to open that particular can of worms while he was still trying to make sense of the fact that he had been hired by a fucking mob boss to dig up dirt on a rival clan. 

“Yeah, right.” Junpei rolls his eyes. “You love any excuse to procrastinate, especially when it comes to Tengen’s assignments. That old fart gave us a fifteen page essay for a final and you’re telling me that you, what? Did it all and didn’t text me even once to tell me some weird, obscure fact or about the new manga you’ve been reading? I call bullshit.” 

“Hey,” Yuuji whines back, jutting his chin out stubbornly as he pouts at his friend. 

“And plus, don’t think that I’ve forgiven you for not even fucking calling me after I covered for your ass at the cafe. You never even told me what happened with—” 

“Shh!” Yuuji quickly shushes Junpei, throwing a hand upward to cover his mouth and stop the stream of words from leaving. When Junpei arches an imperious brow down at him, he shoots a meaningful look in the direction of the kitchen where his grandfather is being suspiciously quiet.

Junpei takes Yuuji’s wrist into his gentle grasp and lowers his hand away from his mouth, dutifully lowering his voice to a whisper between the two of them. “You haven’t told Wasuke-san about the whole kidnapped-kid thing?” 

Yuuji fidgets slightly at the comment, averting his gaze for a split second. “It hasn’t exactly come up…” 

“Why not? He’d probably think you were some kind of hero or something,” Junpei whispers, “Helping some random kid get away from the creep who took him and getting him back to the police to find his parents? That’s exactly the kind of shit Wasuke-san loves to brag about when it comes to you. Honestly I’m shocked that it wasn’t in the paper or something, otherwise he’d probably cut it out for his Yuuji themed scrapbook—” 

“My grandfather does not have a fucking scrapbook,” Yuuji snaps under his breath. 

“Whatever, that’s not the point,” Junpei murmurs. “He’d be thrilled to know you were some ‘Good Samaritan’, helping to save the youths of Tokyo and aiding the police in a missing child case.” 

“Ah… Yeah. Definitely. Because that’s something I definitely did. Yup,” Yuuji mutters as he glances away from his friend again. Junpei stiffens in an instant. His jade eyes narrow, looking Yuuji up and down as he shifts on his feet in the genkan. Like a hunting dog with a new scent, Yuuji spots the exact moment when Junpei figures it out. 

“Yuuji…” Junpei trails off. 

“Hmm?” Yuuji hums, avoiding eye contact entirely. 

“You did take that kid to the police like you said you were going to… Right?” Junpei asks slowly. 

Yuuji pokes the tip of his tongue into the sharp point of a fang. “Well…” 

“Yuuji,” Junpei hisses with a glare. 

“There’s a good reason, I swear, just—” 

“Yuuji?” Wasuke calls loudly from the kitchen. There’s enough irritation threaded into the tone that Yuuji instantly knows that his grandfather is pissed that they had dropped their voices and he was no longer able to eavesdrop comfortably from the kitchen. “Is that Yoshino I hear?”

Junpei backs off instantly, though he mouths a silent warning to him. 

This isn’t over.

Yuuji lifts his hand— newly unwrapped and sporting a rather disgusting stretch of scabbing across his palm— to make an incredibly rude gesture in return. Junpei merely shakes his head and toes off his shoes, setting them to the side of the genkan before he makes his way deeper into the apartment. 

“Wasuke-san!” Junpei calls out brightly as he disappears into the kitchen. “Long time no see, old man!” 

“Old? Old ? Who are you calling old?” Comes Wasuke’s harsh reply, however Yuuji can hear the grin hiding in his voice. 

With a sigh he follows Junpei’s lead. Entering the kitchen, he finds that Junpei has made himself at home in the seat across from his grandfather at the little table, pouring himself some tea from the steaming pot set in the center, straight into Yuuji’s cup and drinks from it with a pleased little smile on his face. 

“What brings you to our neck of the woods?” Wasuke asks Junpei, watching him from behind his glasses that make his eyes look comically magnified behind their thick lenses. 

“Didn’t Yuuji tell you?” Junpei asks with feigned confusion and an evil glint in his gaze as he looks toward Yuuji, who lingers on the threshold. “He promised to teach a nine week class at the dojo in the spring.” 

“Oh, really?” Wasuke asks with a frown, the expression only serving to deepen the crags of his aged face. He swings his penetrating gaze toward Yuuji as well, who feels decidedly as if he has been put on trial for a crime he cannot remember committing. And with his head turned around to face Yuuji, Junpei’s threatening expression goes unseen by Wasuke and Yuuji knows he is being punished. He swallows back all of the words he wants to say to his best friend and instead, plasters a weak smile onto his face. 

“Yep, I sure did,” Yuuji replies. 

“And how exactly are you planning to make time for that now that you’ve gotten your job back at the konbini?” His grandfather asks archly. 

“You got your job back?” Junpei asks in genuine surprise. 

Yuuji shoots a glare at his grandfather, who seems utterly unperturbed by his pot-stirring ways. When he flits his gaze back to Junpei, the boy is frowning in concern. 

“I mean, yeah… I did, but it’s not a big deal. I don’t even know if I’ll stick around very long. Maybe I’ll just do it until next semester starts up,” Yuuji trails off noncommittally. His mind distantly wonders how long it might take for him to get the information Gojo wants about the Ryoumen clan. Surely it wouldn’t take longer than a few weeks, at the most. More than enough time to corroborate such a lie about being rehired at the pretend konbini clerk job he’d claimed to have.

Wasuke grunts under his breath at this and settles back in his seat. His hands tug at the edges of Nobara’s blanket, curling it closer around his frail body. Junpei merely narrows his gaze before he turns back around in his seat and casual-as-he-pleases reaches across the table for the newspaper and stares at the half-finished crossword. 

“So tell me, Yoshino— because my grandson hardly ever mentions his friends, because he’s got no social life—” Yuuji splutters in offense, though Junpei and Wasuke both ignore him. Wasuke even goes as far as to hand Junpei the nub of a pencil so that the omega can scratch down an answer on the crossword. “How are things going?” 

“As well as they can be,” Junpei replies easily as he sips from Yuuji’s tea cup. “I’ll be glad to pass this semester and finally be done with school altogether. Graduation can’t come soon enough and I’ll be able to spend more time down at the dojo.”

Yuuji listens as he moves back into the kitchen and takes up space near the oven. He checks the matcha sheet cake he’s got baking to use for the matcha swiss roll he’d planned to make. Sticking a finger in the bowl beside it, he grimaces at the fact that buttercream frosting is not as silky in consistency as he’d wanted it to be, though when he pops it into his mouth it tastes better than the last batch he’d made.

“I heard through the grapevine that Gakuganji-san has been talking about retirement lately,” Wasuke hedges, “Any idea if he might be willing to hand over the business to you? You’ve certainly been there long enough.”

Junpei lets out a soft, humble laugh at the statement. “I don’t know about all of that… Yoshinobu-sensei is a bit of a mystery even to the people he’s closest with. I would be honored to be considered, but I know there are far more qualified members of the dojo that have tossed their names around in terms of inheritance when the topic comes up. I’d hate to overstep my boundaries.”

Wasuke huffs out an annoyed breath that devolves into a hacking cough. Yuuji can’t help but glance over his shoulder, his body going tense as his grandfather’s shoulders heave from the force of the cough. Even Junpei is sat at attention, ready to leap into action. Thankfully, Wasuke manages to get the cough under control and eventually slumps back in his seat as his breaths evens out. The old man continuing as though nothing had happened at all. 

“It shouldn’t be about who’s been there the longest,” Wasuke says, still slightly breathless. “It should be about who has the most heart to do the place justice and keep the business alive.” 

“I agree,” Junpei concedes with a dip of his head. 

“Then stop being so damn humble about the damn thing and throw your name into the ring as well,” Wasuke snaps with a glare.

Junpei lets out another soft laugh and ducks his head, more than used to Yuuji’s grandfather’s harsh way of speaking kind words. “Maybe I will, Wasuke-san. Thank you for your wisdom.”

Wasuke merely grunts and looks in Yuuji’s direction where he has straightened back up from pulling the sheet cake out of the oven. A plume of sweet, matcha scented air blasts through the tiny space. 

“While you’re at it, maybe you can convince this brat that there’s more to his life than just working side jobs and sitting up at home with a sick old man,” Wasuke starts with a glare aimed at Yuuji. 

“I don’t know, Wasuke-san… I’m not some kind of miracle worker,” Junpei says lightly. 

“Tch … Even if he spent more time at the dojo it would be good for him! You know his father was a hell of a fighter. Never saw anyone move faster in the ring… It was probably part of the reason why Kaori fell for—”

“Alright, alright,” Yuuji cuts off his grandfather, feeling a hot flush of embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. It was not often that his grandfather complimented him— or even mentioned the similarities between Yuuji and his father, let alone spoke about his mother and father in the same sentence, but it was enough to make him feel off-balance. “That’s enough of that.” 

“I’m just saying, that it runs in your blood,” Wasuke snaps back. 

“I believe it, Wasuke-san,” Junpei says— inserting himself like the traitor he is. “The way Yuuji moves in a fight should be criminalized. Quick as an adder and twice as deadly.”

A proud little smirk crosses Wasuke’s lips and Yuuji swears he can feel his grandfather’s pride in him wrap around his heart like a warm blanket. 

“No. My grandson doesn’t move like a snake… More like a tiger,” Waske murmurs in stern correction.

Junpei dips his head and laughs lightly. “Fair enough.”

“You shut up too, Yoshino,” Yuuji snipes as he turns off the oven and lays the sheet cake to rest on a cooling rack. “Flattery will get neither of you anywhere.” 

“It’s not flattery if it’s the damn truth,” Wasuke gripes.

Yuuji merely rolls his eyes and leans back against the counter top. “Junpei and I are actually going to go for a walk around the neighborhood.” 

“We are?” Junpei asks with a frown.

Yuuji shoots him an exasperated glare. 

“I mean, yeah. We are. The weather is so nice,” Junpei corrects instantly, sending a totally-not-suspicious smile in Wasuke’s direction. The old man’s face remains unimpressed as he points a shaking finger toward the window above the kitchen sink. 

“It’s going to snow soon,” He deadpans. 

“I like the snow,” Junpei says with a guileless smile. 

Wasuke merely raises his bushy brows at him and then shakes his head. He pulls the crossword back across the table, inspecting Junpei’s additions with a keen eye, but he says nothing about the obvious ploy to get out of the house. He’s far too old to have the wool pulled over his eyes and yet he allows Yuuji and Junpei to believe that they have succeeded, just as he did when they were children.

Junpei drinks down the rest of his tea from Yuuji’s cup and scoots the chair back from the table. It scrapes across the floor as he rises and moves toward Wasuke with single minded intent. 

“It was nice to visit you, Wasuke-san,” Junpei says with a real smile pulling on his lips. “Maybe I can swing back by sometime for lunch before the break ends?”

Wasuke grunts and scratches something down with his pencil. “Do what you want, kid.”

Junpei remains undeterred as he comes around to Wasuke’s side and leans down to wrap an arm around the old man’s hunched shoulders. The old man huffs under his breath in exasperation, however he doesn’t move a single muscle to pull away from the side-hug. And when Junpei straightens up again and smiles brightly, Yuuji is sure that he can see the curled edges of his grandfather’s own smile lighting up his face.

***

“Going down this slide used to scare the shit out of me when we were kids.” 

“Yeah, I know… Why do you think I always dared you to do it every time we came here?” 

Junpei shoots Yuuji a dirty look from where he’s standing beside the death trap masquerading as playground equipment. There is rust on the skinny, metal ladder leading up nearly nine feet to the top and a dusting of frost covering the metal sheet of the slide itself, which is far too steep to be considered safe in any capacity. It is the only remaining piece of equipment on the playground that has not been replaced by bright, modern pieces of plastic with their curved, child-safe edges and their reasonable heights. 

“How many people have nearly killed themselves on this thing, you think?” Junpei mutters as he kicks at the base, causing it to wobble back and forth a bit. “It needs to be condemned.” 

“Why don’t you write a letter to the city council,” Yuuji tells him from where he sways listlessly on one of the swings nearby. A bit too tall for it now, his toes drag against the frozen dirt beneath him with every pass. 

“Maybe I will,” Junpei says, just to be difficult. 

Yuuji resists the urge to roll his eyes. With one last wary look at the nine foot, metal monstrosity, Junpei comes to stand in front of the swing set. The metal hinges of Yuuji’s swing creak with every pass back and forth, though Yuuji’s nearly glad for it, given that the sound fills up the lengthening silence between him and his oldest friend. 

“So are we just going to not talk about it?” Junpei asks finally, breaking the tension. “Or do you want to play that game you love, where you pretend you know how to lie?” 

Yuuji glares mutinously at him, still swaying back and forth, stubborn in his silence. He knows that it isn’t Junpei’s fault that he’s gone and gotten himself tangled up with the wrong— the worst— kind of people. But he can’t deny that he’d do anything to keep those closest to him as far away from the mess that surrounds his affiliation with the Gojo clan as possible. 

It is a blessing that he has a friendship as deep and unyielding and utterly loyal as the one he shares with Junpei, but damn if he isn’t making it hard to keep him at arms length from matters that might literally get them both killed. 

“Come on, man,” Junpei’s voice drags Yuuji back out of his spiraling thoughts. He glances up and finds his friend watching him worriedly. “Don’t shut me out like this. You’ve been isolating yourself for too long—” 

“It’s only been a week since I saw you—” Yuuji interrupts. 

“I’m talking about the way you’ve been for months , Yuuji,” Junpei snaps back, throwing a hand up to tug frustratedly at the loose strands of his hair that have come free from his sloppy ponytail. His scars look silver in the dingy, winter light. “I’m talking about how you’ve been acting as if it’s you against the world for literally, fucking months. You hardly talk about any of the stuff you used to enjoy doing, getting you to come to the dojo is like pulling teeth. I can’t even remember the last time we went out for a drink or had a movie night or did anything on a whim. It’s like you’ve put yourself on some island that no one else can reach.”

Yuuji’s chest aches with guilt as every single one of Junpei’s words hit their mark. He knows that Junpei is right. He’s felt it too— this slowly widening gap between himself and everyone else. And yet, he’d done nothing to stop it… Sometimes he wondered if there was anything he could do anymore to undo what had been done. 

“I just don’t want you getting caught up in my bullshit,” Yuuji mumbles softly with a self deprecating shrug. 

Junpei scoffs out loud and fixes Yuuji with a look of exasperation. “Well it’s too fucking late for that, don’tcha think? We’ve been caught up in each other’s bullshit since the day you beat the shit out of those five fuckheads who burned the crap out of my face… Probably even before that.”

Yuuji sighs and darts his eyes away in shame. “Yeah, I guess so.”

The words he wants to say to his friend are lodged in the hollow of his throat. He wants to tell him everything. About what happened with Megumi and the nightmares of the attack— what he can remember of it, at least — that plague Yuuji’s mind whenever he manages to get any sleep. About Mai and her scars and her melted scent gland and the fucking Gojo clan. About the Special Grade alpha who smells of snow and salt and has an attitude the size of Mt. fucking Everest, but who Yuuji also can’t stop thinking about… And all of the fucked up business with the Ryoumen clan that had seemingly fallen into his lap though he had no idea where to begin.

It was too much. Too much for one person to handle alone. And yet, Yuuji can’t force the words past the guilt that threatened to strangle him. He loves Junpei far too much for him to ever allow him to get as close to the underworld that Yuuji has so clumsily tripped into— freefalling into danger and he still has not hit the ground.

The creak of frozen hinges alerts Yuuji to the fact that Junpei has settled himself on the swing to his right. To anyone passing by the little, neighborhood park, the sight would almost be comical. Two grown omegas, hanging off the swings at odd angles, legs too long and almost double the triple for their recommended use. Junpei, perhaps sensing the darker path Yuuji’s thoughts had taken, stays quiet as he begins to sway back and forth on his own swing. 

Silence stretches as they move in opposite directions. Back and forth, back and forth. Nothing more than a quiet swaying… Until Yuuji sees that Junpei has started to pump his legs— the long limbs moving out to the side awkwardly since they were too long to go directly under the swing— enough for him to start gathering momentum. Yuuji feels that childish bite of competition that has dogged their heels throughout their entire friendship, and mimics Junpei’s movements. Soon enough, the two of them are rocking the entire swing set with the momentum of their movement. 

As Yuuji goes up, Junpei comes down. At the pinnacle of each upswing, Yuuji feels himself lift a bit from the seat— light as a feather for a single moment in time, before his weight and gravity drags him back down. A laugh, bright and carefree bursts from his chest, setting something alight that warms him from the inside out, despite the cold air that stings his cheeks. He hears the sound of Junpei’s laughter, gathering and fading as he swings by him. It takes another moment before they somehow manage to even out, moving parallel with one another for a few back and forth swings. And then, as though they’d come to a silent agreement— or perhaps read each other’s minds— they both launch themselves out of their swings at the same time as they both rise upward. 

For a single moment in time, they are both airborne, weightless and delighted with childish glee, before they land hard on their feet and stumble forward a few paces. By the time they right themselves, they look toward one another, breathless smiles painting their flushed faces as a glimmer of the childhood they shared gilds the edges of this moment alone. Golden and fleeting and infinite. 

A silent reminder of how far they have come together— and how far they are still willing to go. 

Junpei’s face transforms into something achingly soft as he stares at Yuuji across the short distance between them. “At least tell me that the kid is safe?”

Yuuji swallows harshly against the lump that forms in his throat at the earnest trust in his friend’s voice. The way that there is no expectation of an explanation in his expression. No pressure to say something that he is not ready to reveal— just the simple understanding that Yuuji will tell him when he is ready. 

Unable to stand the force of such gentle earnestness, Yuuji looks away. Unbidden, his eyes stray to the place beside the swing set where the hide-away tunnel used to be, but was more recently replaced with a mega-sized, rainbow xylophone. 

“You got him where he needed to go, right?” Junpei asks quietly. 

Yuuji absently nods his head and thinks of the little boy with spring green eyes who he will never see again. Heart aching in his chest he speaks in no more than a whisper. “Yeah… He’s back where he belongs.”

Junpei’s eyes rove across Yuuji’s face, though it feels less searching and more as though he’s trying to reassure himself of something. Finally, he nods. “Alright… Then that’s enough for now.”

Yuuji blinks away the hot sting building behind his eyes and looks up at the dusk painted sky. The steel colored clouds hovering near the western horizon are lined in gold from the setting sun. Splashes of pomegranate pink and burnt ochre and bloody crimson stain the rest of the sky that has not been claimed by the deep blue creep of twilight or hidden behind the smattering of puffy clouds.

He blinks again and feels the frigid kiss of a snowflake that falls onto his cheek and melts against his skin.

***

Several hours later, when the deepest hour of night has swaddled the rest of the world in its shadows, Yuuji lies awake in his narrow bed. Unable to sleep after waking in a cold sweat, panting for air and grappling with the sheets that have twisted themselves around his waist, while his mind attempted to convince him that he was too late . 

His eyes ache, though he doesn’t dare to close them. Not when the very real threat of his mind sabotaging his dreams with memories of Megumi’s cries and his own, blood soaked hands still lingers too close for comfort. 

The sheets are too rough against his over-sensitive skin to remain wrapped up in them and so the chill seeping in from the edges of his window has successfully cooled down his overheated body, though his sweat has gone frigid where it still slicks his skin. His thoughts scratch incessantly against the curved bone of his skull, as though they might claw their way out and free themselves from the endless, looping track that Yuuji runs them on over and over and over again.

On his nightstand, his phone buzzes with an incoming text. 

Yuuji frowns, mind pausing in its slow, spiraling descent as the room is illuminated by the beam of blue light emitted from his phone screen. Despite the hour, he is not immediately alarmed by it. Nobara texts him every night that she works at the club to give him an update on the goings-on at the Fantasy Room . And then it dawns on him that it is Thursday. And Nobara does not work on Thursdays. With Junpei most certainly asleep given the ungodly hour and his grandfather comfortably— if not grudgingly— asleep downstairs, there is no one else that could possibly send him a text. 

Curiosity awakens in his chest, alive and trembling beside his beating heart. An odd sort of panic begins to sweep its way through his lungs as he forces a breath out and wills himself to ignore the text. Surely, it can wait until morning.

The phone buzzes again.

Yuuji is up and reaching for it between one heartbeat and the next. His hand is stiff as it curls around his phone, newly healed skin tugging tight and slightly painful where a thick scar has formed. The blue light nearly blinds him as his phone unlocks automatically and he opens the two new messages with a swipe of his thumb. He instantly wishes that he hadn’t.

On the screen a message display indicates two texts sent from an unknown number. Simple and innocent at first glance, but Yuuji knows better. His heart gallops in his chest and a new slick of sweat rises on the nape of his neck.

Time is wasting, Itadori. <<

And I’m running out of patience. <<

All at once, Yuuji feels the rise of panic in his throat. As he stares at the messages, wide eyed and in horrified shock, he has the slightly hysterical thought that maybe he is still stuck in one of his nightmares. When the screen goes black, the rest of the room is plunged into darkness. Yuuji breathes, in and out, in and out, in and out— but it does not stop the swell of terror that threatens to drown him from the inside. With shaking fingers, he pinches the tender inside of his arm and winces when it stings.

Definitely not dreaming, then. Yuuji thinks to himself, though there is no relief in it. 

His hands shake as he unlocks the phone again and stares at the messages. There is no doubt in his mind who it is— and he is not even surprised that they’d somehow gotten his number. And yet he types back with trembling fingers.

>> Who is this? 

As soon as he sends his reply, he tosses the phone away from him. It lands amidst the blankets with a tiny bounce, face down on the bed. Yuuji hardly has time to collect himself, fingers tugging absently at the roots of his grown-out pink hair and trying not to freak the absolute fuck out, when the phone buzzes again almost immediately. As though the other person had been waiting on the other end for Yuuji’s reply. 

The thought sends a curl of heat through Yuuji’s gut. Unable to stop himself, he snatches the phone back up and opens their messages, the reply staring him in the face like a mocking insult.

Oh, sweetheart. We both know that you know the answer to that. << 

Yuuji frowns at the reply, flushed with humiliation at the use of the condescending pet name— he can practically hear the disdain dripping from Gojo’s tone as he reads the words back to himself. But before he has a chance to answer, a little bubble pops up, indicating that the other person is typing. As soon as the next message comes in, phone buzzing in the cradle of Yuuji’s scarred palm, he feels a rush of fury sweep through him like wildfire.

Tomorrow night you will return to the Fantasy Room. <<

No more hiding. <<

The heat of his anger burns away the last remnants of his inhibitions as Yuuji furiously types a reply before he can think better of it.

>> You think I’m hiding? I’ve been busy. My life does not stop just because the ‘Honored One’ makes a request of me. 

As soon as Yuuji hits send, his heart plummets into the frigid waters of reality. He stares at the screen, mouth dropping open slightly in shock as he wonders what the fuck is wrong with him. Was he possessed by some kind of evil cursed spirit? What the hell was he thinking, poking the bear with a metaphorical stick, especially after spending days running his mind ragged with endless possibilities of torture, death and other terrible outcomes if he failed to produce what the yakuza heir wanted from him?

Several minutes pass as he stares at the unmoving screen, tapping the screen every few seconds so that it won’t go dark again, but there is no reply from the unknown number. After almost fifteen minutes has passed and Yuuji’s heart has settled back into some semblance of calm , he lets out a sigh and comes to believe that he will hear nothing further from Gojo. He shoves his phone under his pillow and lays back down, restlessly shifting around while sleep refuses to claim him— acutely aware of his phone, still and quiet, resting beneath his pillow.

An hour— A lifetime? A minute?— passes and his body finally manages to relax. His heart calms in his chest as he listens to the wind rattling the window panes. The once-distant call of sleep seems to crawl closer with each passing moment, lulling him into its embrace, until suddenly—

His phone has barely stopped buzzing with the incoming text before it is in Yuuji’s hand. Eyes blinking blearily in the blinding blue light as he stares at the screen. Another text from the unknown number fills up the entirety of the screen and Yuuji goes cold with terror at the sight of it. 

In lieu of more verbal sparring, there is a high definition picture sitting in their message thread. The colors are far too crisp, the details too sharp, the angle too perfect for the shot to have been taken on someone’s phone on a whim. It was not the work of someone who had happened upon the right place at the right time— No, this picture was taken with the sole purpose of providing an intimate look into a private moment. 

It is set at an angle, where Yuuji’s front is facing the direction of whoever had taken the picture. He stands in the little neighborhood park less than half a mile from his house, with Junpei beside him. Though Junpei is angled so that only the edge of his face is visible it is still enough to easily identify him. Yuuji, on the other hand, is glancing away in what appears to be shame or embarrassment. The only defect of the picture is the small, gray smudge in the bottom corner where a snowflake had fallen into frame at the exact moment that it had been taken.

As Yuuji stares at the picture— at the unspoken threat that someone was watching— his phone buzzes again, three times, rapid fire. Yuuji blinks owlishly at the three new texts that lay beneath the image.

Very busy, it seems. <<

Be a good boy & get to work. <<

Tomorrow. Don’t be late. <<

Sleep does not find Yuuji for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

In hindsight, it was a mistake not to tell Nobara about his imminent return to the Fantasy Room.

They text each other daily— which consists mostly of Nobara bitching about people at the club, showing Yuuji the bougie things she bought with her earnings from the club, or about how she was wasting her potential while working at the club. But not once, in the week that Yuuji had spent in self-imposed isolation since he’d been returned home by the yakuza— that had kidnapped and interrogated him— had he entertained the thought that he should tell Nobara of the fact that he would be returning to the club.

Part of him had convinced himself that it wouldn’t actually happen— because surely, it had all been some kind of fucked up nightmare. And up until he’d received Gojo’s texts last night, he’d been content to live in such delusion, but now, the bubble had popped and Yuuji felt as though he was standing naked out in the cold. Forced to face the music when he does not know how to play the instrument handed to him. 

Still, the following night, Yuuji finds himself staring down the dark length of the alley hidden behind the Fantasy Room, finding little comfort in the familiar sight that awaits him. Unbidden, Yuuji checks over his shoulder— as has become a habit— and finds the street empty. It does little to assuage his nerves though he does his best to shove them into a corner of his mind.

Flurries have started to fall from the cloud-covered sky as Yuuji forces his feet to move his body forward, trying not to feel like a dog coming to heel as he trudges down the dark alley. His steps are muffled by the small accumulation of snow on the ground and so it is no surprise that the copper-haired omega, standing beside the propped-open back door of the club, doesn’t hear his approach. Her back is turned toward him, arms held close to her in an attempt to conserve warmth, though a cigarette dangles precariously in one hand. 

“You really should try to cut back on those,” Yuuji says offhandedly.

The screech Nobara lets out in response is enough to startle the pack of feral cats who have made their home in the alley, who go scrambling across trash bins like a set of wildly chaotic— and furry— drums. Yuuji’s ears are ringing as Nobara whips around on her heel, one hand held up threateningly between them and clutching at a small, pink taser that crackles and spits at him viciously. Wide, amber eyes stare at Yuuji as though he is a ghost and in her other hand, her cigarette drops to the ground as her fingers go lax in shock.

Yuuji raises his unscarred hand and waves at her. “Hi.”

Nobara’s mouth, dropped open in shock, suddenly transforms into a sneer full of bared fangs. “What the actual FUCK are you doing here?”

Yuuji steps closer, only for Nobara to hiss like a pissed off cat.

“Everything alright out there, Kugisaki-chan?” A voice calls from just inside the door.

Yuuji freezes, eyes darting toward the open door and despite Nobara’s clear fury at the unexpected sight of Yuuji, she moves toward the door while shoving the deactivated taser back into her coat pocket and calls back. “Everything’s fine!” Then shuts the door with a slam.

When she turns her narrowed gaze back on Yuuji, he truly feels a bit worried for his own well-being.

He swallows and goes for an attempt at levity. “The taser is a nice touch. Is it new?”

Nobara points a sharp acrylic fingernail in his direction menacingly while she bitches at him “Don’t try to be cute with me. It is new and you’ve got about thirty seconds to tell me what the hell you’re doing here before I show you how it works!”

She raises an expectant eyebrow at him and crosses her arms over her chest as well as she’s able to. In her new, white puffer— that has surely replaced the one Yuuji stole to keep Megumi warm— she is doing a very impressive impression of a particularly pissed off marshmallow. 

Yuuji braces himself and tries valiantly to appear nonchalant as he forces his shoulders to shrug. “Miguel hired me back.”

“Bull. Shit.” Nobara says in an eerily identical tone compared to the way Junpei’s had been only a day before. 

Yuuji lets out a tired laugh, though it is neither forced, nor fake. If anything, there is relief to be found in the realization that his friends know him well enough to immediately sense when something is wrong. It is a comfort to Yuuji that he is known so well, even if it is a pain in his fucking ass at the moment.

“No really, he did,” Yuuji replies, though he winces at how flimsy the defense sounds even to his own ears. 

Nobara shakes her head wildly, sending short cropped, copper hair flying around her face. When she stops, she sends a mutinous glare in his direction, clearly unaccepting of Yuuji’s half-assed explanation. Flurries cling to the top of her head, falling thicker now as they stand in the shadowy alleyway.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, you bitch,” Nobara snaps. “Miguel is as spineless as a fucking sea cucumber— and even if he actually had a backbone, there’s no way in hell he’d be stupid enough to go against the wishes of the fucking yakuza. He’s a greedy bastard, but he values his own life above making a quick buck off the back of someone else.”

She pauses and stares at Yuuji as though she’s trying to angrily put together a puzzle without having all of the pieces. He can’t deny her assessment of their boss— former boss? — was entirely correct, which made it all the more difficult to sell the lie to her. However, Yuuji knew that telling her the truth was not an option— not if he wanted to keep her from getting tangled up in the knot that Gojo had successfully tied him up in. 

“I don’t know what to tell you, Nobara-chan,” Yuuji says, attempting confused indifference.

It does not work.

“Tell me what happened,” Nobara snarls at him, little omegan fangs bared and crushed rose petal scent turning burnt at the edges with the rawness of her rage. “Something had to have happened for him to just magically allow you to come back after almost a month and a half. No one’s been fired, there’s no spots to fill. And as we’ve established, Miguel is an idiot, but he’s got enough self preservation instincts to know that going up against the yakuza is a bad idea. So tell me what the fuck happened.”

“Nothing happened!” Yuuji cries, even as his hand rises up to scratch at the short hairs of his undercut.

“Aha!!! You’re doing that thing!” Nobara shrieks suddenly, pointing an accusing finger in his direction. “You always do that when you’re trying to lie!” 

“No fucking way! I do not!” Yuuji snaps back, even though he drops his hand immediately as though he was burned. 

“Yes, you absolutely do! And what the fuck happened to your hand?” Nobara launches forward and snatches his wrist where it hangs at his side. 

In the low light of the alley she inspects the healing scab of the deep wound stretched across his palm. The puckered, pink line of healing flesh where the stitch-faced stranger’s blade had sliced into him still flakes with clotted blood. Yuuji knows that the scar won’t be the prettiest to look at once it heals fully, but part of him doesn’t mind it. Not when it is a reminder written into his skin that what happened that day was real — especially considering his spotty memory when it came to recalling the entirety of it.

“I cut myself while I was prepping at the bakery,” Yuuji mumbles and tugs his wrist out of her grip. 

“Yeah fucking right. You told me that your grandpa practically raised you in the kitchen,” Nobara hisses. “You’re a moron, but not when it comes to cooking.”

“Accidents can happen.” Yuuji shrugs.

“Look, if you’re going to keep trying to lie to me then I’ll just have to—”

Suddenly, beside them, the back door is shoved open. It clangs against the brick wall as it swings wide and the noise sends the re-gathered herd of feral cats scattering again. Nobara squeaks in surprise and jumps, her hand halfway to her pocket where the taser is hidden— though she’d certainly deny it until the day she died if Yuuji were ever to say something about it. Both of their gazes swivel toward the open doorway where yellow light spills out over them. 

Standing on the threshold, is none other than Mai. Towering several inches higher in six-inch heels, Yuuji takes immediate note of the way the black material of her dress lays tight to every dip and curve of her body, as slick as an oil spill. A tight, high neckline clings to her throat and leads down over her shoulders, while the sleeves of the dress are one solid piece that extend into gloves. The dress falls down to her ankles, but here are two perilously high slits that lead up either leg and stop at her hips and despite the fact that more than 85% of her skin is covered, the outfit is more provocative than some of the skimpier lingerie sets that Yuuji has seen on the other omegas who work at the club. 

Distantly, Yuuji recalls the way that Mai had refused to allow her pistol beyond reaching distance. He stares, perhaps a bit too hard , at the way the dress clings like a second skin against her ample curves and wonders where exactly she has it hidden.

“Christ on a fucking cracker, I can’t go anywhere around here without being forced to look at your fucking face,” Nobara mutters bitterly as she shoots a glare in Mai’s direction. “Don’t you have to go be a bitch somewhere else?”

Mai merely arches a brow back at her. The smoky makeup applied around her eyes and the sharp lines of eyeliner only serve to make her gaze more dangerous. Yet, Nobara, true to herself, doesn’t shrink even a little bit beneath Mai’s intense gaze. It is a testament to his friend’s absolutely iron-clad confidence— or perhaps a lack of self preservation skills— since even Yuuji feels a sliver of fear crawl down his spine at the sight of such malicious apathy in the dark haired girl’s eyes. 

Without a word, Mai turns toward Yuuji and stares at him as though he is the most boring sight she has ever beheld. Not even a flicker of recognition passes through her expression as she spares him a glance before she blinks away disinterestedly. 

“Tell your boyfriend to come back when you’re off the clock,” Mai announces indifferently.

“He is not —” Nobara starts in affront.

“I am not —” Yuuji negates at the same time.

“Don’t care,” Mai cuts them both off snappishly. She crosses her fully covered arms across her chest, managing to make the minor movement look effortlessly graceful and utterly full of contempt. “Miguel needed someone to tell you that you’re off window duty tonight. Congrats.”

Nobara’s cheeks glow red with anger, unable to even form words, but Mai doesn’t seem to care. She casts one more bored look in Yuuji’s direction and he’s struck by the way that she looks so utterly uninterested in his presence. Then again, he remembers how she made it perfectly clear that if he were to ever mention seeing her or knowing her in any capacity then she would do something unforgivable.

Without another word Mai turns away and disappears back into the depths of the club, not even bothering to shut the door behind her.

“God, she is such a bitch,” Nobara hisses viciously under her breath.

Yuuji merely stares after Mai, choosing to remain silent, lest he admit something that he shouldn’t. Nobara doesn’t hesitate to slap him upside the head after a beat of silence.

“Ouch!” Yuuji snarls at her, turning to make a grab for her even as she dances out of his reach. “What the hell was that for?”

Nobara shrugs and reaches into the pocket of her new white puffer and pulls out a fresh cigarette and her lighter. She lights the end with a deft flick of her fingers and takes a long drag. 

“Because you’re annoying and I can’t stand you sometimes,” Nobara drawls. “Don’t think this is over. You’ll tell me everything eventually.”

“Even if I had something to tell you— which I don’t— what makes you think I’d give in eventually?” Yuuji asks, still rubbing at the stinging spot she managed to hit and wondering idly at how much power she has stored up in her tiny body.

Nobara breathes out a plume of smoke and shoots him a feral grin. “Because we both know you can’t keep a secret to save your life.”

If you only knew how wrong you are, Nobara-chan… Yuuji thinks to himself as he glares half-heartedly back at her. When he glances away, he finds that the herd of feral cats have settled back down around the trash bins. Their gleaming eyes stare out from the darkness, keeping careful watch on them.

A tap on his arm draws his attention back and he finds Nobara holding out the cigarette toward him. The glowing red cherry is a tiny beacon in the darkness and Yuuji feels like a ship lost at sea. Without a word, Yuuji takes it from her fingers and lifts it to his lips. Breathing in a heavy lungful of the acrid smoke— the harshness of Nobara’s cigarettes always takes him by surprise —  he holds it in his lungs for a long moment until he feels something untwist inside of him. Eyes slipping closed, Yuuji tilts his head back and breathes out long and slow, feeling the gentle brush of snowflakes as they land across his face.

A low whistle from Nobara echoes through the alley. Yuuji opens his eyes and finds her watching him, her face wiped clean of any trace of lingering irritation and in its place is something alarmingly close to worry. 

“So whatever it was, it must have been really bad, huh?” She asks quietly.

Yuuji flicks some ash to the ground. It lands on the toe of his sneaker and even in the dark he spies a dark stain beside it where some of his own blood must have dried.

“Yep,” Yuuji confirms, voice heavy with exhaustion as he lifts the cigarette back up to his lips.

To this, Nobara— blessedly — says nothing at all. 

***

The dressing room goes silent when Yuuji enters.

A dozen sets of eyes swivel towards him, mostly imbued with the distant kind of curiosity that accompanies someone finding out a bit of gossip about someone they don’t quite know. 

Yuuji fights down the urge to fidget under their looks, unwillingly to give Nobara any more reason to believe that something is wrong. Especially considering the fact that she hasn’t stopped watching him as though he is one wrong-move away from falling apart at the seams completely. Instead, he waves to Amanai, who sits at a vanity and is ever-so-carefully sticking tiny, holographic stars to the delicate skin around her eyes. She stares at him in shock for a moment before she manages to collect herself and a pretty smile splits her face. One of the girls beside her leans closer to whisper something in Amanai’s ear while her eyes watch Yuuji like a hawk.

“What do you all think this is, some kind of exhibit at the zoo?” Nobara’s harsh voice rings out from behind Yuuji. “Quit your staring!”

The other omegas immediately avert their eyes and go back to what they had been doing before Yuuji and Nobara entered. Yuuji’s stomach clenches, though he’s never been so glad for Nobara’s abrasive attitude or her ability to feel zero shame in calling out the behavior of those around her. Yuuji makes his way through the room to the row of lockers on the back wall. 

In the corner of his eye he sees Mai sitting on a bench a little ways away though she hardly spares a glance at them as she frowns down at the sleek phone in her glove covered palm. Yuuji sets down his duffle on the bench and Nobara squeezes in beside him on the other side. She sheds her puffer and opens her own locker to stuff it inside while Yuuji tests the handle of his old locker— only slightly relieved to find that it is unlocked and has remained unclaimed by anyone else. With an easy breath that still tastes of the harsh cigarettes that Nobara prefers, Yuuji opens the locker, only to pause in confusion when he sees what is waiting inside for him.

The box is unassuming— matte ivory and wrapped with a glossy black bow. It appears to be made from sturdy material that denotes it is of high quality. It is not overly large, given that it fits easily in the locker, but there are no outward clues as to what might be inside of it. There isn’t even a brand name written on the box or a tag attached to hint at where it could have come from. Yuuji stares at it as though a venomous creature has curled up and made a home for itself inside of his locker and makes no move at all to pick it up.

“I’m sorry , ” Nobara says suddenly from beside him, her voice far too loud for the small space of the dressing room to not draw attention. “But what the fuck is that?”

Yuuji hisses out a shushing noise at her, but it is too late. The damage is done. 

“What is it?” Someone asks from across the room.

“Nothing!” Yuuji hollers back, a bit frantic in his attempt to deflect.

“Itadori has something?” The girl who had whispered to Amanai calls out.

“No I don't!” Yuuji whines back.

And maybe if it had only been the other omegas in the room, he could have gotten away with hiding the box away, but with Nobara standing beside him there is no way that he will have any peace. She scoots closer and uses her hip to bump him out of the way, sending him stumbling a few paces away from his locker. By the time he rights himself, Nobara has the box held in her hands and is staring at it with wide eyes that Yuuji would think she’d reserve for a thick wad of cash or a plate of strawberry mochi.

“Do you even know what this is?” She asks him as her eyebrows raise high on her forehead.

“Uhh… A very nice box?” Yuuji asks tiredly as he slumps onto the bench and leans back against the lockers. Several of the other omegas in the dressing room start to edge in, eyes bright and locked on the box in Nobara’s hands. His friend bares her little fangs and growls in frustration, shaking the box gently at him.

“Useless! You’re absolutely useless,” she seethes at him.

Yuuji frowns and points at the box. “I’m not exactly wrong though, am I?”

“That’s not the— ugh. Just shut up! You’re hopeless,” Nobara snaps and then turns her attention to the box.

“How did it even get there?” Another voice pipes up from one of the approaching omegas.

“Yeah! How do we know it’s even for Itadori? It’s his first night back!” Someone else points out… Which… Isn’t entirely an unfair observation.

“Did anyone see someone come in and deliver it?” Amanai asks out of curiosity. 

Nobara lifts her gaze again and pins Yuuji with a meaningful look. Yuuji shakes his head and gestures with a hand toward the box.

“Go ahead,” he says, “I don’t care if you open it. For all we know it’s not even meant for me.”

Even as he says the words they feel false on his tongue. Still, Nobara’s grin goes wicked as she unceremoniously tears the glossy, dark ribbon off of the box and lets it pool at her feet on the floor. She lays the box on the bench in front of her and the rest of the omegas crowd in, no longer able to keep up the pretense of disinterest. All of them watch intently as Nobara reaches to lift the lid of the box, revealing that whatever is inside has been artfully wrapped within thick sheets of black tissue paper and an ivory envelope sealed with glossy, onyx wax that is nestled on top.

Yuuji feels a rising sense of dread, heart thudding hard against his ribs as Nobara plucks the envelope off the top and unceremoniously pops the wax seal open with her absurd acrylic nail. The room seems to collectively hold its breath as she pulls out a single piece of thick paper. Her fiery, amber eyes flit across whatever is written and then lift from the note to settle on Yuuji.

“Good boys get rewarded for following instructions,” Nobara says slowly as she turns around the note so that Yuuji can confirm that she is not making it up. 

Yuuji feels his face burst into flames as a chorus of excited voices ring out. He is struck by the desperate wish that the floor might open up and swallow him whole, though he has no such luck. 

“I want to see what it is!” A voice shrieks.

“Open it up, already!” Another squeals.

“I didn’t even know you were like that, Itadori!” A girlish giggle titters nearby.

A movement to Yuuji’s left has him glancing over just in time to watch as Mai storms out of the room— something that no one else seems to notice as the rest of the omegas fawn over the note and its demeaning— damning— words. Nobara has a thoughtful look fixed on her face as she watches Yuuji, the sight of which sends a shiver down his spine, since no one and nothing is safe when Nobara puts her mind to figuring something out. 

“Is it from a regular?” An omega pipes up.

“I didn’t think you had an alpha, Itadori,” the girl who had been sitting next to Amanai says snidely. 

“I don’t,” Yuuji tries to say, though the words get lost beneath the clamoring of the other omegas as— all at once— they reach toward the open box. Several hands rip and tear at the black tissue paper, not unlike a pack of hyenas descending on a kill. There is a gasp and a gleam of gold and a glitter of crystal in the low light as a hand victoriously holds up a piece of lingerie.

The briefs are made with pale pink silk, so sheer that the see-through fabric appears almost opalescent, gleaming in the dim light like the inside of a seashell. At the hips are identical sets of delicate, light gold chains, holding the material together while fine strands of braided gold dangle from them, decorated with tiny glittering gems the color of freshly bloomed sakura blossoms. Yuuji cringes at the sight of it, though his torture does not end there as two more girls snatch up what appears to be a garter belt, made from the same sheer, opalescent pink silk and dripping with fat, ivory pearls and matching crystals. They hold it above their heads like a prize and Yuuji is actually quite sure that he’s seen the same exact scene unfolding in a nature documentary.

The last piece in the box, however, is what manages to push Yuuji over the edge. 

Severely lacking in material the same way that the garter belt and the panties are, the item is lifted from the box and is held up for further inspection by Amanai. It is a simple, yet elegant design, solely constructed with delicate loops of champagne gold with gem covered chains connected to a thin, golden collar made to wrap snugly around the wearer’s throat. Draped in glimmering gold and delicate pink gems where the chains fell in widening loops until they split and connected on either side to a matching set of thin, golden cuffs meant to lock around the wearer’s wrists. 

It is lewd and luxurious and possessive by nature. The sight of it makes Yuuji burn bright and cold like a dying star and he wishes, for a moment, that he’d turn to ash like one as well. 

He watches with a distant acknowledgement as the omegas fawn deliriously over the luxurious lingerie. One of them is typing something frantically on their phone while three others crowd over their shoulder to watch. After a moment they seem to have found what they’re looking for as their mouths collectively drop open at whatever has popped up on the screen.

From his place on the bench, feeling as though he’s having an out-of-body experience, Yuuji hears incredulous whispers going on about designer brands that far-surpassed the simplicity of accessible luxury and figures with more zeros at the end than Yuuji has ever seen in his own bank account. A wave of nausea washes over him and he resists the urge to curl up in a ball and die right there on the spot, even as an ember of fury still burns deep inside him. The other omegas chat excitedly amongst themselves, looking over the pieces and touching with their grubby little fingers. 

Finally, it is Nobara who seems to notice Yuuji’s suffering— or perhaps has decided that he only deserves to suffer at her own hand— and puts an end to it.

“Alright, alright. Enough. You guys are acting like a pack of vultures. Clearly the gift was meant for Yuuji-kun, so the mystery is over—” 

“Yeah but who exactly sent it to him?” Asks the girl that had been sitting next to Amanai, who is holding the dainty set of briefs rather protectively to her chest.

“It’s none of our fucking business, Sasaki!” Nobara snarls back, thrusting a hand out toward her. “Now hand it over and fuck off.”

Begrudgingly, or perhaps unwilling to face Nobara’s wrath, the rest of the omegas grumble as they put back the lingerie into the half destroyed box. With lingering, side-eye looks cast in Yuuji’s direction they scatter themselves back around the dressing room. However, none of them are focused on anything other than sharing speculative whispers amongst themselves and looking at Yuuji as though they now saw him in an entirely new light.

Yuuji remains slumped against the lockers, staring blindly at the open box where opalescent pink silk and champagne gold glints back at him. His stomach shifts and twists uncomfortably while bile gathers at the back of his throat. He swallows harshly, unwilling to be sick in front of so many witnesses, though his head swims along the waves of nausea that threaten to topple him. 

It was one thing for Yuuji to be forced into an agreement with the yakuza— gathering information as an inside source when he had no training and no stakes in the matter. It was another to be forced back to work at the very place that had been the biggest source of shame surrounding him for the last year… It was another thing entirely to be outright mocked for it.

When he’d first gotten the job, back when he’d steadily been sinking into a pit of debt and relief— any relief— was welcomed, no matter the cost, Yuuji had known that a certain amount of shame would have to be shed. For the first few months, he’d grappled with the thought that he was giving something away. A part of himself that should be saved for his mate, rather than given out piece by piece to unworthy, low grade alphas that held no claim on his mind, body or soul. And although the childish illusion had long since been shattered by the cold reality of life, that there might be any sort of truth to the fairytale stories of True Mates finding one another against all odds— two halves of a whole, connected by the tangled strings of fate, destined to share a life, a heart, a soul— Yuuji had been… Let down.

In the span of less than three months from the first day he’d started working at the Fantasy Room, Yuuji had seen enough sexist, disgusting, rude alphas to realize that the concept of finding a mate of the same caliber that he’d been told about as a child, was a sham— never mind entertaining the idea of true mates. And after arming himself with lies, the same as the other omegas at the club, he’d been so steeped in the bullshit of it all, that he’d nearly forgotten the shame of it.

But this… This splayed open box overflowing with pearls and silk and gold and shameshameshame was like a slap to the face. Brutal and so very mean . 

Because while there was no point in pretending as though Yuuji had anything left to save for an alpha— let alone one designed to be his perfect counterpart— there was nothing worse than being outright mocked for it. To have a powerful, Special Grade alpha, nearly mythical in their existence alone, look at Yuuji and see him not as a person with potential and hopes and dreams and a life beyond the bounds of a seedy Omega House, but as nothing more than a bauble to keep desperate alphas entertained enough that they were willing to spill their secrets? It was unbearable. It was absurd. It was enraging. 

“Hey, are you alright, Yuuji-kun?” Nobara asks softly as she takes a seat next to him, setting the box of lingerie neatly packed and closed, sitting on her lap. “I shouldn’t have let them get carried away like that.”

Yuuji grunts in reply. In the corner of his eye he sees her hold out the small envelope toward him, the note tucked safely back inside. He takes it from her and immediately tears it straight down the middle, then folds it up and tears it in half again. Nobara hums in consideration, though she doesn’t sound judgemental of the action when she speaks. 

“I take it that this might be some part of the whole ‘secret bad thing that happened ’?” Nobara asks quietly enough so that no one else hears it. 

“Mmhmm,” Yuuji hums under his breath as he stares down at the mess of shredded paper in his palm. 

Nobara sighs. “Damn… Well… Let me know how I can get in on it too, because—” 

“No,” Yuuji turns toward her, fast as a whip, as the word drags up his throat with a low growl. His eyes burn bright as they bore into hers, begging silently for her to understand. Nobara freezes beneath the gaze, but he doesn’t give her a chance to respond. “Don’t even joke like that. I want you as far as fucking possible from any of my bullshit. Okay?” 

There is not a hint of levity in his voice as he speaks, low and clear to Nobara. She seems to immediately know that she has stepped over an invisible line drawn in the sand as she gathers herself again and nods slowly. 

“Okay,” she replies with a serious glint in her amber eyes. 

Satisfied with her response, Yuuji glances at the closed box sitting innocently on her lap. Its contents hidden away, yet their meaning still taunts Yuuji in a voice that sounds like the low, malicious teasing of a certain white haired alpha. With a glare, Yuuji snatches the box from Nobara’s lap and reaches for his duffle bag on the bench beside him. Without a word, he shoves the box, uncaring for how rough he’s handling it, as deep into his bag as possible. 

“You’re not even going to wear it?” Sasaki’s snide voice rings out from across the room. 

“One more word about it, Sasaki, and I’ll make sure you regret it,” Nobara snarls without missing a beat. 

Yuuji ignores the hiss of dissatisfaction that echoes from the other girl across the room and stands from the bench. He turns his back to the rest of the dressing room and unceremoniously stuffs his duffle into his locker, allowing himself a moment to close his eyes and breathe through the wave of panicrageconfusionshame that burns through his veins. He hears Nobara shift to stand beside him and the squeak of her locker’s hinges screeches in his ears as she opens it. There is a quiet rustling and then a small tap against his chest. When he reopens his eyes and looks down, he finds Nobara’s pale little hand holding out a set of plain black lingerie.

He meets her amber eyes and feels a surge of such blinding gratitude that he is nearly overcome by it for a moment. And despite the way he feels as though he is a lifeboat set adrift in storm tossed seas, he can also see the beacon of light cast out through the storm by her unwavering friendship.

Yuuji blinks his eyes that sting with tears and sees Nobara’s nose wrinkle as she snuffs delicately and looks away with a stubborn pout. 

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t you dare go getting all teary eyed over a fucking thong,” Nobara snaps as she waves her hand around in his face until he takes the lingerie from her grip. "God, you're so fucking embarrassing."

Yuuji watches as she starts to busy herself with getting ready— studiously avoiding looking in his direction again. His heart thuds hard against his ribs with a sweet, unyielding ache that slowly but surely melts away the a bit of the creeping frost of shame that has settled over him. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Nobara-chan,” Yuuji says with the beginnings of a smile that feels a bit closer to being real than he’d thought possible. He nudges her shoulder gently with his own. “Thank you.” 

“I told you to shut the fuck up,” Nobara growls under her breath as she reaches out to punch him firmly in the shoulder. Yuuji huffs a laugh and starts to get ready for the shift. As he’s shimmying his way into the borrowed, black thong, he hears Nobara’s voice so soft that he practically misses it. 

“You’re welcome.”

***

Later that night, as he rides alone on the train back home, Yuuji unzips his duffle bag with slow, cautious movements. He checks over his shoulder, up and down the aisle, though the cabin is just as empty as it had been since he’d gotten onto the train. 

In the dim flickers of light that pass by in the buildings beyond the railway, Yuuji uncovers the white box. One of the corners has been dented from his earlier, rough treatment and it makes something almost regretful rise up in his chest. 

With trembling fingers, Yuuji opens the lid of the box in what feels like slow motion. He stares into it, watching the way the pearls and gold and crystals all gleam in the darkness. A nest of extravagance, with the note perched within folds of opalescent silk. Yuuji stares at the words on the paper and though they have been typed out, he knows exactly who they belong to. One hand reaches ever so slowly into the box and Yuuji nearly gasps at how soft the material is against his fingers— though he pulls back immediately when one of his callouses catches against the fine material. The curve of the body chain's collar glints in the low light and something ignites in Yuuji's chest. 

Alone in the dark, with no one else to witness it, he marvels at the splendor of the gift. Meanwhile, deep in his chest, his heart beats hard and heavy against his ribs. 

And he tries not to think about why.

Chapter Text

For the second Christmas Eve in a row, Yuuji is stuck working a shift at the club.

The previous year, he’d been forced to work the holiday, given that he was lowest on the totem pole, but this year, he had no one to blame for taking the holiday shift but himself… Well… And Nobara.

He’d gotten the call early that morning from the copper haired omega, who sounded as though she’d swallowed a handful of rusty nails before deciding to pick up the phone. She’d hardly gotten a few words out before Yuuji knew exactly what was happening. It was no secret that Nobara thoroughly enjoyed her heat to her greatest advantage. Every three months since Yuuji had gotten to know her, Nobara would begin to show all of the classic symptoms of an unmated omega going into heat. Alongside her heightened sensitivity to light and noises, she became drastically more irritable— which was saying something, considering her already shitty attitude. Endlessly hungry and more prone to steal Yuuji’s gym shirts from his bag when she thought he wasn’t looking to add to her nesting collection. 

Nobara loves her heats. Not once in the years since her second gender presented has she suppressed a single one— and fully claimed it to be an infringement on a modern omega’s right to equality. She’d wax poetic for anyone and everyone to hear about the benefits of a week-long fuck fest that every omega had the Gods-given right to enjoy for themselves. And when Yuuji had accidentally let slip that he’d never gone through an unsuppressed heat aside from the very first one he’d had when he’d presented early, she'd laid into him as though he’d admitted to a war crime.

Shock and righteous anger on Yuuji’s behalf had motivated a particularly passionate speech from her about the joys of a well-spent heat and the reproductive freedoms of the modern age— as though he were some sheltered omega maiden who believed they were only allowed to share a heat with their True Mate or something. But despite Yuuji’s protests that this was not the case for him, she’d always get a bit preachy about the whole concept whenever her heat symptoms started back up in a vicious, three month cycle. And every now and then, she’d pester Yuuji about his own upcoming cycle in an attempt to sway him towards going without the suppressants that he had taken religiously for the last sixteen years and allowing nature to take its course. 

"Being on those things for so long can’t be healthy."  She’d bitched at him one time. "Having a full heat is the perfect excuse to act like a bitch, get railed within an inch of your life for a whole week and get pampered by some knot-drunk alpha. Who wouldn’t want that?"  

The answer, of course, was Yuuji. Yuuji wouldn’t want that. But as far as most things went when it came to Nobara, there was no convincing her of anything that she had not already made her mind up about. Yuuji’s sex life— or lack thereof— included. He’d never cared either way about what Nobara’s opinions were on the entire thing— it was his business what he chose to do, or not to do about his heats. But now, as Yuuji sat in the nearly-empty dressing room on Christmas Eve, after assuring Nobara that he would take her shift in exchange for an I.O.U. to be cashed in later, he had never resented his friend more for her sex life.

The only gift that Yuuji is glad to have received in turning up tonight, is that he is amongst the first to find out— from a rather sweaty and panicked looking Miguel— that Shigemo has finally decided to quit. He knew that hardly anyone would miss the blond omega’s whining and would be glad to know that Miguel had found a swift replacement, who was also starting that very same night. Another male omega who went by the name of Inumaki and had not spoken a single word to anyone since he’d arrived at the club an hour before the Christmas Eve shift was set to start. 

Yuuji sits on the metal bench before his locker and smoothly slides the sheer, nude stocking covered in tiny, glittering gemstones up his leg. The wide, opaque band at the top of the stocking is secured in place over the neat row of Yuuji’s stitches at the top of his thigh. He clasps the stocking using the clear eye hooks hanging from the matching garter belt that glitters in the low light with the— frankly absurd— amount of tiny rhinestones covering it. 

The set doesn’t quite fit right, given that it is Nobara’s— though she never actually wears it— and so Yuuji has been forced to wear a set of panties and a bralette in a slightly different shade of nude. It doesn’t look too terrible , though Yuuji can still pick up on the difference in their colors— still, he’s sure that not a single alpha will notice a damn thing amiss.

He’s slowly unraveling the other glittering stocking in his hands when a blur of green flickers in his peripheral and settles onto the bench beside him. Keeping an eye on the stocking, he meticulously pulls it up his other leg and secures the band with the garter clips before he slowly lifts his gaze and is both shocked and wary to find Mai sitting next to him.

She’s dressed in a dark green velvet dress made in the same style as the oil-slick black one he’s seen her in more often than not. The high, tight neck wraps around her throat and hides the mass of melted flesh that is her destroyed scent gland, while the long, tight sleeves end in gloves to cover the stretch of her scars. Bare, milky thighs protrude from the high slits up either leg and he knows that were she to turn around, the unblemished expanse of her pale back would be revealed through a large cutout that ends right above the swell of her ass. 

Dark pine eyes lock unerringly onto his, watching him like a crow might stare at a piece of something shiny, left out for it on a window ledge. 

In the week since he returned to the Fantasy Room , Mai has been meticulous in her avoidance of him. Not a single look out of place or any sign of familiarity in her gaze as whenever she had no other choice but to address him. She seemed to be a master at playing ignorance, or perhaps she’d been trained in the art of subtlety, but either way, it was as though they were virtual strangers. But every now and then, when the stab wound on his leg twinges, he thinks back to her steady hands threading the surgical needle and her sharp, wary gaze following him— switching constantly between apex predator and cornered prey.

“Can I help you, Mai-san?” Yuuji asks softly, careful not to give away any hint of surprise, nor familiarity. It is the least he can do to give her that much, especially when she made it clear what could happen to him if he chose not to play along. 

There are only three other omegas on schedule for the night, including the new omega, Inumaki who sits silently at one of the vanities. He’s dressed in a tight, mesh shirt and a pair of matching boy-shorts that nicely frame his compact, lean body. Platinum blonde hair falls over his forehead in an artful ruffle and he appears intently focused on applying his eyelids with a fine silver glitter, while a black medical mask is hung over his mouth. 

The other two omegas have already fled the dressing room at Miguel’s behest. Despite the fact they close early, before midnight, the alphas are always extra needy when they come in. Miguel claims that the lack of omegas on shift makes the customers a bit more desperate for attention considering that it’s a holiday that brings out their loneliness the most. And while Yuuji has never felt inclined to feel bad for any of the piece of shit alphas that come into the club regularly, even he can admit that the concept of purposely depriving lonely people of company is a bit cruel. 

“I told you it would be impossible to get back out,” Mai says suddenly.

Yuuji’s body stiffens as understanding rolls through him, though it is impressive how he keeps his expression neutral as he stares blankly back at her. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Mai sneers under her breath, even though Inumaki is on the other side of the room and soft alternative music is playing from his phone settled on the vanity beside him. Still, Yuuji keeps his voice low as well. 

“Oh, so we know each other now?” Yuuji pauses to raise a brow in her direction. Mai’s lip curls in distaste, though she says nothing in reply. “Thought so.”

He wordlessly tugs at the edge of his panties where they dig into the cut of muscle along his hip. Mai is silent as well and Yuuji assumes that is the end of their conversation. He stands up from the bench, entirely unwilling to put himself through the torture of making vague, riddle-infested small talk with the dark haired girl that would only serve to put him in an even fouler mood. However, as he takes a step away, a velvet soft, iron grip wraps around his wrist and holds him in place. Yuuji turns slowly and stares down at Mai, only barely able to contain his shock when he finds that her face has been wiped clean of its disdain and is now filled with— dare he say it— trepidation. 

Mai is nervous. And like the idiot with a bleeding heart that everyone always accuses him of being, Yuuji feels himself soften at the sight of it. 

“Is everything alright, Mai-san?” Yuuji asks quietly, not a hint of judgment in his tone. 

“Look, I just—” Mai cuts herself off, darting her gaze toward Inumaki and then away entirely. She releases Yuuji’s wrist, having realized that she still held it and drops her hands to her lap. Yuuji can practically see the way she rebuilds the hardened shell she keeps so close around her at all times. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

Yuuji blows out a sigh and allows himself to take a seat on the bench beside her again. His thigh twinges, the stitches pulling awkwardly against the healing skin. Soon he’ll have to find a way to remove them, but he doesn’t want to think that far ahead. Mai catches the hitch in his breath and her eyes lock onto the exact place where the scar is hidden beneath the opaque strap of the thigh-highs he’s wearing. 

“How’s it healing?” Mai asks softly.

Yuuji isn’t dumb enough not to recognize an olive branch when it’s being held out to him. 

“Pretty good, I think…” Yuuji replies easily as he also glances down at his thigh. “To be honest, I haven’t been stabbed many times in my life, but I’d say this one was pretty minor.”

Mai snorts under her breath in what might be considered a laugh if someone who had never laughed before in their life was instructed to do so on the spot. She grows quiet as Inumaki rises from his seat at the vanity, makeup bag in hand, and moves towards the lockers. Yuuji dips his chin in a nod as Inumaki meets his eyes and nods back. The silent, male omega stows his makeup bag and phone in his locker and leaves the dressing room without a word. 

“Something about that guy doesn’t feel right to me,” Mai mutters as she eyes the door that just closed behind Inumaki. 

Yuuji rolls his eyes and starts to pick at a rhinestone that is halfway coming off of his garter belt. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt that way about everyone. ” 

Mai merely hums in acknowledgement. “It’s creepy that he doesn’t say anything.” 

“Some people just don’t like talking,” Yuuji says with a shrug. 

“Oh, yeah? Then what’s been your excuse for actually shutting the fuck up for once, since you came back?” Mai asks with an arched brow.

Yuuji cringes internally at the callout. Since his grand reappearance at the club, he has kept mostly to himself. All in all, it has been easy enough to do considering that up until that moment Mai had seemed as though she’d rather fling herself off a cliff than admit that they knew each other and the rest of the omegas employed at the club have given him a wide berth since the reveal of his mysterious ‘gift’ on the night of his return. 

Night after night, Yuuji has diligently showed up at the Fantasy Room in an effort to fulfill his end of a deal he never signed up for. And aside from shit-talking with Nobara on their breaks or making painful small talk with the alpha customers who come in, Yuuji has not tried to make connections with anyone else. After all, he was there for a reason. One that did not include making friends, but rather, had the potential to make him plenty of enemies. 

“Don’t burst a blood vessel trying to come up with some kind of lie,” Mai snaps suddenly, breaking into the lull of Yuuji’s silence, clearly having mistaken his thoughtfulness as desperation. “It’s pretty fucking obvious that you’re here on Gojo’s orders, yeah?” 

Nerves flutter in Yuuji’s stomach while he struggles to keep calm. “Wha— What makes you say that?”

Mai scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t insult my intelligence that way. The whole thing is about as subtle as a fucking hammer to the face. You insult the ‘ Honored One ’ and are supposedly fired, you save his fucking kid from being kidnapped and then you magically are allowed to come back even though Miguel still practically shits his pants at the very mention of any yakuza business happening in this joint? It’s not exactly hard to figure out.” Yuuji frowns at her words, rolling them around in his head, but Mai gives him no time to defend himself, nor any warning for what she says next. “So did you fuck him or what?” 

Yuuji chokes on his spit as he inhales sharply, devolving quickly into a series of hacking coughs. His face burns hot as a mortified flush scorches its way up the back of his neck and into his cheeks. Wide eyes find Mai’s slightly amused and very smug expression. 

“Based on that reaction, my guess could go in either direction,” she comments idly. 

“No! No. Absolutely not ! Why would you— Why? Just no,” Yuuji gasps for breath as he wildly denies Mai’s absurd assumption. 

The dark haired girl levels an unimpressed look at him. “Why, you ask? You’re kidding me, right?” When Yuuji merely stares at her with wide, imploring eyes she rolls her own and gestures toward him with a hand. “The fucking lingerie?”

Yuuji makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. Of course. The fucking lingerie. 

The fucking lingerie that still sits crammed into its box and is pushed as far into the depths beneath Yuuji’s bed as possible. Out of sight, out of mind… Which is the best that Yuuji can do short of throwing the entire thing in the garbage or setting it on fire— especially considering the fact that Nobara told him she would personally skin him alive if he did either. Though perhaps it would have been better to face Nobara’s threat of bodily harm, rather than suffer through the torture of knowing what lurked beneath his bed, like some kind of monster. Because try as he might, there are still times when he can’t stop his mind from wandering to the contents of the box. 

He remembers the sight of gleaming, opalescent pink silk, more finely made than anything Yuuji has ever seen before— and softer too. He recalls dainty gold chains that speak of time and craftsmanship that only money— a lot of fucking money— could buy, dripping with crystals so clear cut and pearls so perfectly shaped that they were almost certainly precious . He thinks about the slim, gold cuffs and collar and how they might grow warm from the contact with his bare skin— a blatant show of ownership — subtle and inescapable. He wonders if it might fit perfectly if he tried it on… 

And that is where those thoughts always end. Forcing himself to think of other things— the weather report, his grandfather’s medication list, the answers to the latest crossword, anything. Anything other than thoughts of silk and gold and pearls— and possession. 

He would shut his eyes and force himself to sleep, but in the morning, when he woke up, panting for breath and flushed hot with sweat dewing at his temples, he knew those treacherous thoughts had not so easily given up their hold over him.

“I did not fuck him,” Yuuji rasps, though his tone is firm. He can’t help but still feel horrified by Mai’s implication, even while a twist of heat builds in the pit of his stomach at the same time.

The dark haired girl simply shrugs, looking entirely disinterested either way. “Whatever. I don’t really care. If you want to feed me the shitty excuse you cooked up for Kugisaki that’s fine—”

“I’m not lying,” Yuuji insists with a growl. “I wouldn’t touch that mother-fucker with a ten foot pole.”

Mai stares at him levelly for a long moment. Then she leans back against the lockers, looking almost impressed. “Interesting… People usually fold pretty quickly when it comes to that albino beanstalk. Consider me fascinated by your will to resist.”

“You hardly know me, but what makes you think that I’d enjoy fucking someone who thinks everyone else in the world is nothing but dirt beneath their shoe?” Yuuji snaps.

Mai shrugs and pulls absently at the tips of her gloves. “Some people are into that.”

“Not me.”

“And Gojo has a reputation for collecting shiny things.”

“I am not a— a shiny thing,” Yuuji snaps in disgust.

“Sure you aren’t,” Mai sniffs with a roll of her eyes and stares at him pointedly. “Pretty, little omega like you? With the balls to actually stand up to a Special Grade that could level a city with his scent alone? You might as well paint a target on your cunt and call it a day.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m just speaking the truth… The Gojo clan as a whole has a bad habit of hand picking the ones that will serve their agenda best and leaving the rest behind.”

“Believe me,” Yuuji says through gritted teeth, “I am under no illusions that Gojo and his clan are firmly in the category of people not to be fucked with.”

“They’re all a bunch of bastards,” Mai agrees bitterly, as though she can’t help herself, but then narrows her dark pine eyes at him. “And yet you’re willing to do their dirty work?”

Yuuji darts his eyes away and Mai lets out another harsh not-laugh at the guilty sight.

“Trust me, kid. You’re hardly the first one to give in to Gojo’s demands. The guy might be a royal asshole, but he holds the whole fucking world in his hands. He’s practically a God amongst us mere mortals and once he’s got someone in his sights there’s no escaping it. There’s no shame in admitting that you’re a pawn for him… You definitely wouldn’t be the first . ”

“You know, you certainly seem to know a lot more about the Gojo clan than you originally let on,” Yuuji says mulishly, attempting to divert the conversation.

Mai doesn’t reply to this and instead she shoots Yuuji a put upon look. “And you still don’t understand the absolute shit-storm you’ve gone and gotten yourself into.”

“It’s not—” Yuuji starts, only for Mai to cut him off.

“Please do us both a favor and don’t say a fucking word. It’s obvious that Gojo’s got you snooping around here for something, but I’m telling you right now that when— or if— you ever find it, you’ll be dead before you can tell him.”

Yuuji swallows against the swell of nerves that flutters up from his stomach and into his throat at her bluntness. It’s not exactly something that he hasn’t given thought to since Gojo forced him into this ‘agreement’ but he certainly hadn’t put a voice to them. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mai continues, oblivious— or perhaps all too aware— of Yuuji’s minor mental breakdown currently happening beside her, “I’m glad that all of Gojo’s little foot soldiers are gone, but it’s a little on the nose that the same night you show back up is the first one that none of his Eyes step foot in this place after a month and a half straight of lurking around, don’t you think?”

Yuuji glances away from Mai’s accusatory gaze. He can’t help but be grateful that no one else seems to have made such a connection, because now that she points it out, it does seem more than a bit suspicious. 

“All I’m saying is that whatever little errand Gojo has you running for him will only end badly for you. He has a habit of giving people impossible tasks and not giving a fuck about what happens to them after they sacrifice everything to complete them,” She says bitterly.

“Speaking from experience, are we?” Yuuji snaps back, tired of her brutal honesty and the way that she is putting a voice to all of his worst fears. 

“No.” That is all she gives him, though he hardly expected anything more. 

Seemingly done with the conversation, Mai stands up in a huff. Yuuji’s mind spirals a bit as he grasps at something else to say. It’s clear to him that she’s somehow involved— or was at one point — in yakuza business. However, she’s hidden it away behind smoke and mirrors, and is unwilling to hand Yuuji— or anyone for that matter— any more pieces to put together.

As she heads for the door, Yuuji stares at her bare back, exposed by the large cutout of her dress. Not a single scar marks the perfect, pale skin and the collar wrapped around her neck successfully hides the snake tattoo that lays along her nape. 

“Do you know anything about the Ryoumen clan?” Yuuji blurts out suddenly and then cringes at how desperate his voice sounds. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that he was not cut out for espionage.

Mai freezes in place, barely turning her head to the side as she speaks in a soft, deadly voice. “ What did you just say?”

The words are nearly lost beneath the sound of the vent kicking on. Artificial sweetness is pumped out into the dressing room, making Yuuji’s nose tickle. He swallows heavily as Mai turns around fully and stares at him with a blank expression— her dark pine eyes as unwavering as the barrel of a gun aimed in her direction.

“I asked—” Yuuji clears his throat nervously, pinned beneath her stare. “I asked if you know anything about the Ryoumen clan?” 

Viper fast— and entirely too swift for someone wearing six-inch heels— Mai lunges at him. Yuuji lets out a terrified yelp that he will most certainly deny later and cringes back against the lockers. Mai snatches his chin in an iron grip and lifts his head up to meet her feral, burning stare. She leans her head down until they are sharing the same breaths and for a wild moment he thinks that she might bite him— or worse, kiss him — but then she is hissing out near silent words that he has to strain to hear even despite their closeness.

“If information about the Ryoumen clan is what Gojo has sent you to dig up, you’d be better off digging your own grave and getting right in. No one, and I mean no one, gets close to the Ryoumen clan without blood being spilled,” Mai warns, her voice a menacing hiss beneath the creak of the vent above their heads. Her wide, dark pine eyes beseech Yuuji to listen , even as her grip tightens on his chin, hard enough to bruise. “Gojo knows this . He’s set you up for failure. He’s set you up to die. ”

A gasp trembles out of Yuuji’s lungs, eyes going wide at her words, so heavily laced with truth that he can find no motivation to deny them. Mai straightens up, but does not release Yuuji’s face as she squeezes harshly one more time.

“It’s too late to run, little rabbit. Gojo’s snare is already wrapped around your neck and the more you struggle the faster it’ll break,” Mai murmurs to him softly. There is no pity in her voice. It is as though she is talking to a particularly dumb animal that had no hope of helping itself. 

When she releases Yuuji’s chin and slips away, moving towards the door Yuuji can do nothing but watch her go. His heart thuds hard inside his chest, her words replaying through his head over and over again. And the worst part is that he knows, deep down, that she is right. 

He watches as she reaches the door and finds himself speaking without making the conscious decision to do so. “Megumi got back safe.”

For the second time, Mai freezes. One of her gloved hands rests on the door handle and he sees the way her head dips downward momentarily. Her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath before she turns her head to the side so that he can see the frigid expression decorating her profile. 

“Like I give a fuck about some dumb kid,” Mai mutters quietly.

This time, Yuuji knows she is lying. He recalls the way that her dark pine eyes had watched Megumi wistfully, as though she could see something in him that might disappear at any moment. As though she wanted to reach out for him, but didn’t dare to.

“I just wanted you to know… It seemed like you knew him—” Yuuji replies softly.

“Not anymore,” Mai cuts in viciously, tilting her head so that she can glare at him over her shoulder.

“But you—” Yuuji tries again.

“Trust me, Itadori, I’m not playing the fucking martyr here. The fact that that little boy has no idea who I am is for the best,” Mai snaps, a glint of something dangerous and so very sad, hidden in the forest of her eyes. “Some bridges should stay burned.”

And then she is gone.

Yuuji stares at the door that she had disappeared through. Her words turn over in his mind again and again, but all Yuuji can think about is how, despite being given more pieces, the puzzle set before him is nowhere near to being complete. 

***

Yuuji leans against the bar and casts an idle glance around the club.

Despite the air of desperation that hangs in the air from the holiday depression, there are fewer customers than he had expected— though perhaps that was a blessing more than a curse. 

Although the club regulars had mostly returned— after word had traveled fast about the Gojo clan’s Eyes backing off from the area— what seemed like the slimiest and most foul additions to alpha society had also come crawling out of the holes they’d hidden themselves away in during Gojo’s occupation of the Fantasy Room. And unfortunately, it became apparent very quickly that most of them were plagued with bad tempers, as though their inability to enjoy objectifying omegas for a handful of weeks was somehow an omega’s fault, rather than some seedy form of self preservation. 

And while Yuuji couldn’t say that he was thrilled by the fact the alphas showing up night after night at the club were all piss and vinegar, nothing particularly exciting had happened in the week since he’d made his return. Every shift had been entirely, utterly, painfully boring.

And therein lay the problem.

Because while the creeps and the perverts and the veritable scum of society had seemingly gotten the memo that the Fantasy Room was back on the list of their usual haunts, there had been absolutely no sign of the Ryoumen clan at all. 

Not a whisper or a murmur of the name. Not a single strange coincidence or anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. 

It occurred to Yuuji by the fourth night he’d ended his shift at the club with nothing to show for his efforts— nor any leads that might help wipe away his ‘debt’ to Gojo— that perhaps the Ryoumen clan, if it still existed at all, had never come anywhere near the Fantasy Room to begin with. Yuuji had even entertained the idea that maybe the threat of a rival clan encroaching on Gojo’s territory was nothing more than a manic imagining of an alpha with too much power for his own good, too much time on his hands and too much of an ego to see past his own self importance. 

And yet for Yuuji, who was bound and gagged by an order from a man who could quite literally destroy his entire life, had no choice but to persevere and hope that the next time they met— because he was so terribly certain that they would meet again— Gojo would be lenient when he had nothing to give him.

“Quit standing around, Itadori,” Miguel’s hissing reprimand jolts him out of his thoughts. He turns to find the man on his other side, wearing a displeased expression. “You’re here to work, not to be another piece of furniture.”

Yuuji bites back a retort about society seeing omegas as nothing more than accessories, but Miguel is already walking away. He lets out a sigh and glances around the room once more. He sees Inumaki perched on the lap of a dark haired, solemn faced alpha whose broad shoulders fill out the fashionable white top he’s wearing. The alpha has his face half hidden against Inumaki’s neck and is whispering something into the male omega’s ear with the smallest smirk on his lips. Even now, the black medical mask remains strapped across Inumaki’s face, hiding his mouth entirely.

Across the room, Mai is sitting on the arm of a chair set at a table where a group of alphas are playing a round of cards. Her face is plastered with a vaguely simpering expression— the kind of look that screams ‘Impress Me’ that some high-and-mighty alphas went feral over. 

Another group of alphas lounges on a set of low couches a little ways from the bar, one that none of the other omegas have gone near in a while. Dread sits heavily in Yuuji’s gut at the thought, but given Miguel’s vague warning, he has no choice but to saunter over to the group. 

There are four alphas in total, all sitting spread legged and simply oozing with conceit. Low grade salary men, if Yuuji had to guess based on the department store suits they’re all sporting— he can practically smell the polyester. Ties halfway undone around their necks in ugly patterns and a pig-headed air about how they converse with each other, as though the dick measuring they did at the office wasn’t enough to satisfy them. He doesn’t recognize any of them, but then again, since Gojo’s Eyes have left the vicinity there has been a swell of new customers. As though word had spread throughout the shadows where such slimy alphas resided and they all knew the Fantasy Room was fair game. 

Only one of the men raises their gaze as Yuuji approaches and the immediate, sneering look that finds a home on his face tells Yuuji exactly what the man thinks of his appearance. His disgust seems to catch the attention of the others who look in Yuuji’s direction as he sidles up beside one of the couches. Like a well worn coat, he slips the persona he’d crafted for himself to use at the club in order to spare his own feelings over himself.  

“Looking for some company, alphas?” Yuuji lets his voice drop to a low simper.

“Tch,” the disgusted alpha scoffs. “I’d rather stick my dick in an electrical socket than deal with a boy bitch like you.”

Yuuji allows the insult to roll off of him like water on a duck wing. It isn’t uncommon for some alphas— usually male alphas— to disdain male omegas entirely. He’s been insulted plenty of times for his secondary gender by alphas who still believed that society should be upheld by a Male/Female structure. Alphas should be male, Omegas should be female— or so they said it should be. The nature of misogynist alphas was for them to believe that male omegas were redundant and served no purpose in society. Given that it was more difficult for a male omega to get pregnant, they used such statistics as fodder for half-baked arguments that usually devolved into a male omega being called a slut— and exposing their deeply repressed secondary-gender dysphoria.

The entire concept was a remnant of ancient times when an Emperor or Shogun might keep a favorite male concubine, claiming that their wombs were barren and therefore held no threat of producing any unwanted heirs outside of their marriage bed. Of course, in modern times it was proven entirely false, despite a male omega’s difficulty in procreating, it did not mean that they were barren entirely. Still, there were alphas who subscribed to such misogynistic views and Yuuji had the unique luck of being the target of their vitriol whenever they showed up at the club.

“Oh fuck off, man,” the alpha closest to Yuuji says jovially, belying the truly foul words he says afterward. “A hole is a hole and boy bitches get just as wet when you know how to push their buttons.”

The alpha’s hair is a garish bright red that almost certainly is fake. He turns a feral look on Yuuji, eyeing him the way a scavenger might look at a half-picked-clean carcass. 

“Have you lost your way, little fish?” The red-headed alpha says with what must be an attempt at a purr, though the noise grates against Yuuji’s nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “Or have you come to appreciate our presence?”

Yuuji swallows back the urge to tell the piece of shit in front of him to go fuck himself and instead plasters a sultry smile onto his face. A visceral wish for Nobara’s vicious presence shoots through his body, but there’s nothing to be done because he is utterly alone. 

“I saw you from across the room, alpha… I was hoping you’d allow me to keep you company for a while?” Yuuji asks demurely in a voice that does not sound like his own. Immediately playing to the alpha’s ego as he lowers his eyes in feigned timidity. It works like a charm and the alpha bares his slightly crooked teeth in an approximation of a smile that looks more like the expression of a rabid animal— one that needed to be put down. He catches sight of the small, dull fangs hidden in the alpha’s mouth— the mark of a low grade alpha, though Yuuji had already guessed that much. 

“Come on then, fishy,” the alpha grunts and pats at his lap. “I’ve got your seat all nice and warmed up for you.”

Yuuji is almost impressed by the way he barely hesitates— a show of how desensitized he has become in the face of lewd degradation— before he saunters forward and perches himself daintily on the alpha’s lap. The unfiltered scent of something vaguely fishy, mixed with stale sweat and body odor, sits on the back of Yuuji’s tongue as he inadvertently inhales the alpha’s scent. Without a shred of common decency, the alpha lays his clammy hand on Yuuji’s hip where the strap of his panties digs into his flesh and it is only through careful training that Yuuji manages to resist the urge to flinch away, even as his entire body revels against the foreign touch.

The other alphas eye him with a mixture of different expressions all varying from outright disgust to obvious attraction. Rather than making it obvious that he can feel their gazes tracking paths across his body like a physical touch, he simpers at the alpha beneath him and bats his lashes. 

“What a needy little bitch,” the first alpha spits out, his tone tinged with rage. Yuuji spots that one of his fangs is broken clean in half— brittle fangs being another common affliction of low grade alphas.

The alpha below Yuuji squeezes his hip too tight and sets his other hand against Yuuji’s ribs. Part of his hand rests against the borrowed garter belt and Yuuji internally cringes at the thought of Nobara’s hissy fit she’ll definitely throw when she learns that Yuuji had to burn the lingerie set after this. 

“I don’t mind them so much,” a third alpha comments from the other couch. Yuuji notes that they’ve shed their suit jacket and two large sweat stains can be seen beneath his armpits. “They’re just like dumb little animals. Don’t know what to do without a knot stuffing them up inside. Can’t function without being filled. It’s kind of cute.” 

“Hear that, little fish?” The alpha beneath him asks as his hands paw and squeeze along his body. “The boys think that all you want in life is a fat knot filling you up… That true?”

Yuuji’s tongue feels swollen, pressing tight against his fangs as he keeps the building snarl in his chest contained. The taste of blood blooms across his tongue, though he swallows it quickly before the alphas smell it on his breath. His heart slams against his ribs and fire races through his veins, his body begging him to move, to hit— to hurt . Instead, he lets out a slow breath and allows his eyes to grow a bit glossy and his face to smile dumbly, playing the part of their fantasy. 

“I want whatever my alpha wants,” Yuuji says dutifully, even while the words burn like acid on his tongue.

The red-headed alpha below him lets out a growl of satisfaction while the one with the broken fang grunts in disgust. 

“Fucking idiots, the lot of them,” Broken Fang sneers, “Wouldn’t know their ass from their elbows if alphas weren’t around to put them in their place.”

Yuuji shifts his weight on the alpha’s lap and dutifully ignores the hardness he can feel poking at him from behind. Though the movement is meant to alleviate some of the pressure on it, Yuuji is forced back down by the alpha’s bruising grip. 

“Uh, uh, little fish,” the man snarls aggressively in his ear while his scent— still vaguely sour, like an uncleared aquarium— goes rotten. “You stay where I put you.”

“Yes, alpha,” Yuuji says airily, affecting the dumb-omega persona that the piece of shit seems to favor. He wonders how long he’ll be able to stand it before he passes out from the stench.

“Come on, Dagon,” another alpha, who has their hair styled a truly horrible comb over, snaps from nearby, one that has been silent since Yuuji’s arrival. “You were just getting to the good part.”

The alpha beneath Yuuji— Dagon— grunts under his breath as he rolls his hips up into Yuuji from behind. A hot flush builds against the back of Yuuji’s neck, a mixture somewhere between rage and humiliation. It’s not new behavior from a customer that frequents the club, but it still serves to set Yuuji on edge… Or perhaps the month and a half that he’s been away has reset all of the righteous fury that gets lit like a bomb fuse at the first sign of despicable behavior. 

Neither Dagon nor the other alphas seem to take notice of how anger churns like stormy seas in his stomach. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it now that we’ve got… company,” the sweat-stained alpha speaks from his place on the other couch. Yuuji notes that he’s watching Yuuji with unbridled hunger in his beady eyes, though there’s a dash of uncertainty playing at the edges of his expression. 

“It’s not like it will even know what we’re talking about,” Comb-over says offhandedly. 

Dagon’s sweat-slippery fingers knead at Yuuji’s thigh in a way that makes bile crawl up the back of his throat. The casual possession that is imbued in the red-headed alpha’s touch makes Yuuji feel sick to his stomach and the creep of shame begins to crawl across his bare shoulders. Because while being used as an item is the exact job description of an omega employed at any Omega House, he cannot deny that at that very moment it feels as though he is having something vital taken away from him.

“Just fucking get on with it already,” Broken Fang snaps angrily. “I’m getting fucking sick of watching you touch that thing like that.”

Dagon huffs under his breath and another wave of the alpha’s fishy stench washing across Yuuji’s face and tempting a gag up his throat. “Shut the fuck up, man. Like you wouldn’t be a little distracted by a prime piece of ass in your lap.”

Yuuji barely has time to brace himself before the man’s sweaty hand lifts to squeeze roughly at his covered pec. Broken Fang throws a scathing glare in Dagon’s direction, though the red-headed alpha pays it no heed as he continues to molest Yuuji’s chest. 

“Seriously, Dagon. The rest of us don’t want to get ourselves killed just because you were too fucking horny to tell us the truth about what happened that Jogo had his shit fucked up over,” Comb-over says pointedly.

A chord strikes somewhere deep in Yuuji’s mind, where the shadows of his broken memory cluster thickly together. 

Jo-Go? Yuuji’s mind repeats slowly. Like the string of an instrument being plucked, a brand of uncomfortable familiarity vibrates through him at the supposed name. Why do I know that name? 

“Fine, fine,” Dagon mutters spitefully, “You fuckers are all work and no play.”

“Excuse me for not wanting to be left out of the loop and get my throat slit because I said the wrong thing to the wrong person,” Comb-over snaps back.

“So is it true then?” Sweat Stain mumbles nervously as his voice drops to a hush. “Jogo lost the package?”

“That’s what Hanami claims,” Dagon replies slowly.

Yuuji’s mind grinds to a halt.

Hanami? HanamiHanamiHanami?

Why was that name so familiar? 

Yuuji stretched his mind into the abyss where his memories had faded into blurry half-formed scraps. Not just of the time he’d blinked back to himself in the shadowy alleyway, but also at the train station— when he’d first found Megumi and had come back to himself from the edge of a precipice at the sound of the little boy’s voice. Frustration bleeds through his carefully curated mask for a split second before he manages to get a handle on himself, while the thread of recognition slips away once again.

He resigns himself to focusing on the alpha’s conversation as they continue speaking as though he is not even there.

“And we’re supposed to trust them on their word about it? What if it was all just a setup? You know how Jogo’s been chomping at the bit to pick a fight we all know he can’t win. How do we know that this wasn’t just a way to get him to shut the fuck up for a while?” Broken Fang asks pointedly.

“Hanami is a trusted source,” Dagon replies sharply. 

“Are you sure about that?” Comb-over interjects with an unimpressed look. “Because the last thing I heard from them was that this place was a secure location. But when I talked with my buddy about a month ago he said this place was crawling with eyes like flies on a piece of shit. So either he was lying or Hanami doesn’t actually know shit. ”

Yuuji’s mind snags on the casual mention of ‘eyes’. He knows without a shred of doubt that they’re talking about Gojo’s clan members that were hanging around the club for weeks and it's clear they know something about the yakuza clans and their rising tensions… But how much?

“Nah,” Dagon mutters lowly, bringing Yuuji hurtling back into the moment as his sweaty hands run a path along the outsides of Yuuji’s thighs and tug at the garter straps holding up his thigh highs. Yuuji’s breath catches as the alpha’s fingers pass far too close to the stitched up wound hiding under the top strap of his stocking, though thankfully they pass and come to settle at his hips, touching with no deeper regard than someone might spare for a cup or a pencil or a plate. “The Gojo clan has never given a real shit about Hino. It’s always been at the fringes of their territory, but they’ve never staked a claim on it in all the time since the clan dissolved.”

Yuuji goes tense before he forces himself not to stiffen in the alpha’s lap, lest he give himself away. His mind, however, is a riot of connections being made.

Dissolved clan? He wonders a bit frantically.

“Then what the fuck were they doing here? Ain’t no way my buddy mistook the sight of those creepy eye tattoos they brand all their people with,” Comb-over snaps.

Dagon shrugs, the movement jostling Yuuji where he’s perched stiffly on his lap. “Fuck if I know… Maybe they caught wind that Sukuna has been sighted in the area.”

“Sukuna? Here?” Sweat Stain’s trembling voice pipes up from where he sits. “B-but why would he be here? I thought that he hardly ever left Kita?” 

“Why do you sound like you’re fucking afraid of that asshole?” Broken Fang scoffs, “Everyone knows that bitch is all bark and no bite. Just like his coward of a fucking father.”

Yuuji’s head spins in circles as he tries to make sense of everything he’s hearing, though he has no fucking clue the weight of any of their words. And still, all the while he searches in the crevices of his blotted out memory for any remnant of the name Jogo and Hanami. 

“Sukuna might be a bitch, but he’s still the heir,” Dagon growls suddenly, causing Yuuji to flinch in place. He freezes and tries to play the part of the timid, dumb omega they believe him to be as he averts his gaze downward. Catching the way that the other three alphas immediately defer to the reprimanding tone of Dagon’s voice— if it wasn’t clear before that he was somehow their ‘leader’ it was made apparent in that one fell swoop. “You don’t have to fucking like him, fuck knows I’d string him up by his intestines if I had half a chance and the fucker didn’t hide behind smoke and mirrors all the god damn time, but shit, you gotta keep a tighter lid on your personal bullshit against him, got it? At least for now…”

The three other alphas make aborted noises of acknowledgement, some looking a bit more chastised than others. 

Dagon shifts beneath Yuuji and he is suddenly aware of the hard erection poking up into his left ass cheek. The red-headed alpha lets out a grunt of satisfaction while Yuuji viciously bites back the urge to release the rage-filled snarl that is brewing in his chest. 

“All I know is that things are heating up… Soon, there might be an all out turf war if shit keeps going in this direction,” Dagon says through a huff of breath. The alpha’s arousal pheromones seep like a cloud of poison into the air and Yuuji tries not to breathe them in too much.

“But if the Gojo clan hasn’t ever tried to claim this district then why would they give a shit if Sukuna started toeing the line?” Sweat Stain asks timidly, as he wrings his pudgy hands in his lap.

Dagon hums while his hands brush up the sides of Yuuji’s ribs. “Look, I’m not at liberty to say much about it, but it definitely has to do with Jogo’s fuck up.”

“Oh so now you want to talk about that fuck-up,” Broken Fang sneers.

Dagon snarls back, his fingers digging harshly into Yuuji’s waist in a way that he knows he’ll have bruises from them tomorrow. 

“I’m telling you all that I fucking know, which isn’t a fucking lot . All I’ve been told is that supposedly Hanami had to take the fall for a huge job that Jogo fucked up at the beginning of the month. The little fucker lost something important I guess.”

Jogo. 

The name echoes clearly through Yuuji’s memory.

Hanami.

Threads pulled taut in his mind, ready to fray and snap beneath the pressure with which Yuuji fought to pull them to the surface. He knew those names. How did he know those names? 

“Apparently Jogo was given some kind of package to deliver, but from the way Hanami spins it, the ugly fuck went and got too drunk to finish out the job. Ended up losing track of the package and was found sleeping off his hangover under some train bridge out here in the fucking boonies… Couldn’t even remember being given the package well enough to report how he’d lost the damn thing.” Dagon says mockingly.

Train bridge out here in the fucking boonies… Yuuji’s mind latches onto the words. 

“Fucking idiot,” Comb-over mutters under his breath.

“So what? He lost some fucking drugs— or fucking used them — and that’s what’s got the Ryoumen’s fucking panties in a twist?” Broken Fang snaps.

Yuuji can hardly believe what he’s hearing. 

Ryoumen. His mind tolls like a struck bell. 

Ry-ou-men. Ry-ou-men. Ry-ou-men. His heart thuds in three-fold intervals.

He barely manages to refocus himself on the conversation before his mind begins to spiral out of control. 

“Nah… There’s definitely more to it than that,” Dagon hedges. “When Hanami told me about what happened they said it wasn’t just any old package. Definitely not drugs.”

“Weapons?” Sweat Stain murmurs anxiously.

“Maybe,” Dagon shrugs, jostling Yuuji again and the alpha drops his hands back to his thighs, squeezing the muscled flesh hard. “But not just a normal weapon… Hanami told me that whatever it was, was a once-in-a-lifetime trade. No second chances. Whatever it was they had, was something that couldn't be replaced or replicated.”

Package? Yuuji thinks to himself slowly. What package could they possibly have that— 

Yuuji lets out a gasp as the dots all connect in his mind. Like lightning striking behind his eyes, everything comes blaring back into his head, searing through the dark spots of his memories in a single, blinding moment of recollection. 

The train station. The slurring remarks of the drunk— 

“Come on, brat… Say it… Say thank you, Jogo. Go on. Say it…”

The alley way. The malicious, mocking, stitch-faced stranger—

“Hanami made a mistake in thinking Jogo could be trusted not to fuck it all up… ”

Megumi.

The lost package wasn't drugs or weapons or a package at all... It was Megumi.

“Oh, fuck,” Yuuji says loud.

The red-headed alpha beneath him lets out a grunt of approval, entirely unaware of Yuuji’s mental breakdown and interpreting it instead as some kind of approval. He grips Yuuji’s thighs tighter, fingers digging into the soft inner flesh. 

“Yeah, you fucking like that, little bitch?” Dagon hisses hotly against Yuuji’s ear. 

Yuuji feels lightheaded and breathless as his mind and heart race in tandem. Synapses bursting as connections are made in a fraction of a second, nearly too quick to keep up with. It is hardly intentional the way he makes a small noise in the back of his throat, born of the utter shock of realization coursing through him, however the alpha below him takes it as a sign to continue.

“Can you fucking focus you god damned knot head?” Broken Fang growls out.

Dagon pulls back a bit where he was sniffing behind Yuuji’s ear with hot, sour breaths. Yuuji forces himself to focus as the alphas continue, nearly vibrating from the way he has gotten so much information all at once.

“I told you all I know, man,” Dagon says with visceral irritation at being interrupted.

“And I call bullshit. You’re always claiming you hang around with those inner circle fuckheads. Ain’t no fucking way you don’t have some kind of idea what it was Jogo lost,” Broken Fang points out.

“Must have been something big,” Sweat Stain mumbles, fingers twisting nervously together.

Dagon sighs heavily, as though the needling for more information from his companions is supremely annoying, though Yuuji can’t claim he too isn’t invested in what his answer might be. If they were referring to Megumi as the ‘lost package’ then he needed to know why it was so important that they had him in the first place.

“Look, it’s not like I’ve ever fucking seen the Ryoumens in real fucking life, okay? I’m just a fucking call-in when Hanami needs a cleanup crew after a job. But, I swear that all I fucking heard is what Hanami told me… And they said that whatever this fucking package was, in the Ryoumen’s possession, might have been the one thing that would have guaranteed a full take down of the Gojo clan— like, nuclear fucking levels of destruction,” Dagon explains. “That’s all I fucking know, alright?” 

“But whose fucking idea was it to use this mysterious fucking weapon? Where did they even find it? And who planned the drop off? Going up against the Gojo clan without a real fucking plan is a suicide mission, so then what was the fucking point?” Broken Fang takes the opening and tears into Dagon.

“I told you, man. That’s all I got,” Dagon growls in warning.

Yuuji knows a lie when he hears one, but it is far above his pay grade to fucking confront the alpha himself for more information. Especially when it could blow his involvement with the Gojo clan wide open and not when his mind is already a tangled web of new questions and old answers. Yuuji can’t make heads or tails of it all, but he knows with striking clarity that he has to go. Now. Has to get away from these alphas before he gives himself away and ruins everything. 

“Excuse me, alpha? I have to—” Yuuji starts to excuse himself in the practiced way he has been trained to do so since he started at the club. His voice is still airy and light, though even he can hear the quiet trembling quality to the words as he struggles to contain himself. But before he can rise from the alpha’s lap, the man’s sweaty, firm grip latches onto his waist and pins him down.

“Just where do you think you’re going, little fish?” Dagon hisses bitterly in his ear. His grip is bruising where it clutches at Yuuji’s waist, keeping him held down against the man’s prominent erection. 

Yuuji swallows back against the rising swell of fury in his chest, entirely too aware of the other three alphas watching him sharply. He forces himself to remain calm as he murmurs, “I need to—”

“Hey,” Dagon snarls as one hand comes up quickly to snatch Yuuji beneath his jaw, tight and unyielding as his grip pulls Yuuji’s face in close to his own. “I’m your fucking focus right now, yeah? You do what I say. And I say that you’ll stay right. Fucking. Here."

Dagon emphasizes each brutal word with a thrust of his hips against Yuuji’s backside. Yuuji goes still for a moment, purely out of shock at the treatment. Because while the Fantasy Room might be one of the seediest joints in Japan, it wasn’t a fucking brothel. And even Miguel held the customers to some standards of behavior.

“Listen, man,” Yuuji starts, immediately deepening his voice back to its normal pitch, rather than the airy, dumb voice he’d affected for the performance. “I don’t think—”

Dagon shakes Yuuji’s head with the iron grip he has on his jaw, as if he was reprimanding a disobedient dog. “Good thing you’re not getting paid to think , huh?” 

Yuuji is stunned by the alpha’s boldness— his fucking audacity. 

It’s his hesitation that seems to give Dagon the wrong impression— or at least has him believing that Yuuji has been subdued, as the alpha leans in and takes a deep breath beside Yuuji’s neck. The action makes a deep, innate part of Yuuji squirm in discomfort— a primal piece of him that rebels against the thought of the wrong alpha getting anywhere near his neck.

Wrong. Wrong. WRONG. His mind screams like an alarm. It’s all WRONG.

“Can hardly fucking tell what you smell like,” the alpha grunts in complaint, hips arching disgustingly. The alpha's free hand lifts off of his waist and moves toward the side of Yuuji’s neck— and all the while, Yuuji sits there immoble. Feeling as though he has been lifted out of his body and was simply watching the events unfold from afar. 

“How about a little taste, fish? Don’t you want to let a real alpha scent mark you? I’ve heard it makes your kind going fucking dumb. Like a mindless little slut over an alpha’s scent claiming you… C’mon… I promise I’ll make it so good,” Dagon hisses, the words coming out garbled with lust while his fishy pheromones cloud the air and make Yuuji want to gag. 

Unbidden, Yuuji’s eyes dart across the room and immediately find Mai’s dark gaze pinned onto him. Her expression is carefully blank, as it always is, but there is something swirling in her eyes. Yuuji is so struck by the sight of such venomous hatred in the depths of her dark pine eyes that he doesn't notice the way that one of her hands is slowly lifting up her dress along her thigh and reaching for something—

The scratch of a ragged fingernail against the edge of Yuuji’s scent patch is what finally— finally — seems to break him out of the stupor he’d been put into and all at once, instinct takes over. His muscles coil sweetly with tension as he moves, as swift as a tiger bursting from tall grasses. And all he knows is the thump of his heart, reminding him with each heavy beat that he is not the prey here…

A sickening snap of bone echoes in his ears like a gunshot— and is followed immediately by a howl of pain. Yuuji is shoved off of the red-headed alpha’s lap as he clutches at his face where blood gushes from his broken nose. The alpha’s eyes are wide and feral with furious surprise as he looks down at where Yuuji is sprawled on the ground. Even still, from his place on the floor, Yuuji bares his sharp little Omegan fangs up at the revolting alpha as his rage finally boils over into his veins.

“You fucking bitch!” Broke Fang snarls as he stands up from his own seat, face nearly purple with rage. Yuuji looks over in time to see Broken Fang lift his fist over his head and he ducks his head back down, bracing for the blow he knows is coming… 

But it never comes.

Quivering with residual fury and breathless with fear, Yuuji slowly lifts his head to see what the holdup is. He is struck with shock when he finds the sight of the dark haired alpha that Inumaki had been entertaining, standing just behind Broken Fang’s shoulder— nearly head and shoulders taller than the low grade alpha— and holding him at the wrist in a tight grip that prevents the broken fang alpha’s fist from falling. 

The dark haired alpha’s expression looks mildly amused, as though he is merely innocently curious about the situation unfolding. His sterling gray eyes drift to each of the alphas who make up the sorry group before him, gaze skirting over Dagon, who is still whimpering and clutching wildly at his broken nose while Sweat Stain and Comb-over stare up at him with wide, terrified expressions. The dark haired alpha seems not to care about any of them, however, as his gray eyes finally come to rest on Yuuji and a small, comforting smile lifts his lips.

“Are you alright?” The dark haired alpha asks in a quiet, amiable voice, as if he was simply there to make pleasant conversation. 

Yuuji’s brow furrows even while he nods dumbly in response to the question.

“Well, that’s good news,” The dark haired alpha grins gently and then, there is a horrible popping sound, followed by another round of howling cries. Yuuji blinks in shock as the alpha with the broken fangs goes down to the floor like a sack of potatoes, clutching his mangled, broken wrist to his chest. 

It is at that moment that Miguel finally makes his appearance, dripping with sweat as he huffs and puffs and hovers at the dark haired alpha’s shoulder while his hands flap around anxiously. 

“What is happening here?” He hisses, looking wildly between the two incapacitated alphas, the two silently horrified alphas, Yuuji on the floor and the dark haired alpha. “You are causing a scene, gentlemen!” 

Yuuji swallows against the torrent of words he wants to say and prepares to appease Miguel by any means necessary, however there is no need, as the dark haired alpha turns to the club owner with a dark brow raised.

“I believe I should be asking you that question,” The dark haired alpha prompts and though the gentle smile remains plastered on his face, there is menace in his voice. “Exactly what kind of establishment allows this level of poor treatment to its employed omegas? What kind of business would let mongrels like these through the front door?”

“I— I—” Miguel’s eyes go wide as he stutters nervously beneath the dark haired alpha’s gaze. “I assure you, we only allow—”

“Whatever you’re about to say next, I assure you, I won’t believe it,” The dark haired alpha interrupts sharply. “This… Scum… Has made it obvious that they aren’t fit to be allowed into any omega house— Hell, they probably aren’t even fit for society.”

Yuuji feels a touch at his shoulder and he jolts, ready to defend himself before he looks over and finds Inumaki crouched beside him. The platinum haired boy makes a gesture toward Yuuji and then makes an ‘OK’ sign with his hand as his delicate brow pinches in a frown. Yuuji takes it to be the silent approximation of the boy asking if he’s alright.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine,” Yuuji replies quietly, even though he can admit that his voice shakes a bit.

Inumaki frowns as though he hears it as well, but Yuuji doesn’t have the wherewithal— nor the inclination— to explain to the silent boy that he’s far more shaken by the contents of the conversation he'd heard, rather than what happened immediately following it. The masked omega seems to let it go, nodding once, then straightens up and offers a hand out to Yuuji.

Yuuji takes his hand and hauls himself up, surprised at the masked omega’s own strength as he helps get Yuuji standing again. As he steadies himself on his feet he tunes back into what the dark haired alpha is still saying to Miguel.

“—hope that no one feels inclined enough to report you to the city for blatant abuse of omega employees.” 

Miguel stutters and flushes an ugly red color, barely able to get a word out as he blusters uselessly. 

“Look,” Yuuji starts, drawing the dark haired alpha’s attention back to him. Those steel gray eyes pinning him in place. “I appreciate you stepping in like that, but I had it under control.”

The dark haired alpha, who, now that Yuuji is really looking at him, hardly appears to be a few years older than him. Youth still clinging to the sharp edges of the boy’s face, with a touch of naivety as he stares back at Yuuji. Gray gaze taking in his face carefully, as though he is looking for some kind of hint of a lie, until finally his face lights up with a soft smile.

“I could tell,” The dark haired alpha says with a nod. He then turns back to Miguel and the smile slides right off. “The next time I come here, if I see a single incident of mistreatment against any of these omegas, getting shut down by the city will be the least of your problems. Is that understood?”

Yuuji marvels at the commanding nature of the boy’s tone, despite his age and thinks that clearly he is someone who is used to being listened to.

“Ye-Yes! Understood!” Miguel rasps, lifting his sleeve to blot at his drenched forehead.

“Good,” The dark haired alpha nods and then glances at a point over Yuuji’s shoulder. “Now get them the fuck out of my sight.” He orders darkly. 

Suddenly, four alphas dressed in dark suits come forward from behind Yuuji and Inumaki and begin to haul away the alphas that Yuuji had been eavesdropping on. Sweat stain goes easily enough, practically blubbering while his wide eyes stay glued on his injured comrades, but as a female alpha with a no-nonsense expression and a body built like a fucking linebacker starts to grapple with Comb-over, the nasty alpha seems to gather enough brain cells to realize that he is about to suffer the consequences of his friend’s bad behavior. The glare he throws in Yuuji’s direction is practically nuclear as the female alpha manhandles him upright, arms pinned behind him.

The alpha with the comb-over spits in Yuuji’s direction and hisses angrily. “You fucking bitch. You’ll get what’s fucking coming for you eventually. Uncontrolled omegas need to be put down when they forget their place in the world!”

“Fuck you, man,” Yuuji snarls back, unable to hold back the rumble of his growl as it builds in his chest. “I’m not a fucking dog.”

“No!” Comb-over fights against the female alpha’s iron hold with very little success as he is dragged away. His hollering voice echoing through the club. “You’re something far fucking worse! You’re a fucking disease. You serve no purpose. You’re fucking nothing.”

A hot flush creeps up Yuuji’s neck as anger threatens to wrap him in its claws. His growl sharpens as he takes a step forward, only to be held back by Inumaki’s surprisingly firm grip around his wrist. In the back of his mind he is aware that the rest of the club has been horribly silent for the entire duration of the exchange— though he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed.

“I’d rather be nothing than be a pathetic piece of shit like you who has to pay for company because you’re so fucking insufferable that no omega in their right mind would give you the time of day!” Yuuji shouts back, nearly vibrating with rage.

The alpha is nearly across the room, being dragged by the absolute tank of a female alpha, toward the door. He looks entirely incensed by Yuuji’s comment as he kicks his feet uselessly like a toddler throwing a tantrum, shrieking with fury as he finally disappears out of the club.

Yuuji tries to breathe through the ebbing waves of anger now that the alpha has gone, though it still threatens to drag him under. Inumaki’s grip loosens on his wrist and he manages to get ahold of himself enough to cast a slightly apologetic look down at the platinum haired omega.

“Sorry, Inumaki-san,” Yuuji mutters quietly. 

Inumaki hums quietly behind the black material of his mask and simply pats Yuuji gently on the arm. It says more than enough. Yuuji gives him a brief nod and glances up just in time to find the dark haired alpha watching the exchange between them with a fond sort of look— his lips quirk into a small half smile as his gray eyes flit over Inumaki’s face. It’s gone in an instant as he turns back to Miguel.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality this evening,” The dark haired alpha drawls with all of the sarcasm in the world, even while a smile remains plastered on his face. Miguel goes a little green around the gills, but manages to make an aborted squeaking sound in acknowledgement as he starts to duck away.

The dark haired alpha watches Miguel scuttle away with a dark kind of satisfaction lining his expression. Then he turns his steel gray eyes back to Yuuji and nods once, as if to say ‘This was fun, let’s do it again sometime’.  

He glances toward Inumaki one last time, eyes going soft at the edges for a split second before he turns on his heel and leaves. Yuuji can’t help but watch his broad back as he goes, striding purposefully toward the door. Nearly halfway there, another man dressed in a well tailored suit sidles up beside him and falls seamlessly into step. The suit leans in to whisper something in the dark haired alpha’s ear as he holds out a long, white wool overcoat. It is only because Yuuji is paying such close attention, that he immediately notices the flash of blue against the back of the dark haired alpha’s hand as he reaches for the coat.

“No fucking way,” Yuuji mutters under his breath, but the dark haired alpha is already gone.

Deep down, he knows that he is not wrong about what he thinks he saw.

A blue eye.

That mother fucker.

Inumaki makes a small, curious sound beside him. Yuuji instantly realizes that he must have said that last bit out loud as he blinks back to himself and tears his gaze away from the empty doorway that the dark haired alpha— one of Gojo’s fucking Eyes— disappeared through. There is a long moment of silence as he pushes the tip of his tongue into the point of a fang until the taste of blood blooms across his tongue.

“If that guy comes in again… Stay as far away from him as fucking possible, okay?” Yuuji asks, his voice low but clear as he glances down at Inumaki. The boy’s brows draw together in confusion as he stares back, entirely silent until he finally bobs his head in a nod and makes a soft humming sound from behind the black mask.

Yuuji takes it as a sign of agreement.

Chapter Text

Christmas morning passes with gentle acknowledgement.

It greets them with a few fresh inches of snow on the ground. Gleaming silver under the bright sun and cloudless skies that herald the holiday. It is a sight that has Yuuji feeling a bit lighter than he had when he’d crawled into bed at nearly three in the morning.

Despite the tumultuous night he had at the club, the stress did not seem to translate to disturbing his dreams. He wakes up in the same position he remembered falling asleep in and when he glances at his phone, he finds that it is nearly noon. The house is suspiciously quiet, but Yuuji does not rush to rise as he lays in bed and responds to the text from Junpei and sends one off to Nobara— who no doubt is celebrating the holiday steeped in heat hormones and slick pheromones. 

His own mind is a tangle of thoughts, knotted together with all of the knowledge he recovered last night from the disgusting alpha and his buddies. Information about the Ryoumen clan and about at least two of the members that were targeting the heir of the Gojo clan in an effort to topple it. All of it whirled around like an agitated swarm of wasps stuck in his mind. Confusing and painful and too much. Yuuji forces himself to push the thoughts aside, unwilling to allow Gojo or his stupid mafia war business to ruin his holiday.

Since Wasuke and Yuuji were the only family each of them had left, there was no threat of relatives banging down their door. And while there had once been a time when Yuuji had resented the fact that no one would come to their house to celebrate the holiday with them when he was a child, he had come to appreciate the quiet stillness of spending the day with his grandfather alone.

Finally, when the sun has started to creep in through his frost-covered window, Yuuji pushes himself out of bed. He tugs on sweatpants and a long sleeve printed with the logo of the dojo Junpei works at and makes his way downstairs. As he steps off the bottom step— that still creaks loudly, even after all these years and no matter where Yuuji sets his weight on it— Wasuke’s harsh voice rings out from the kitchen.

“About time, you lazy brat!” 

Yuuji allows a grin to tug at his lips before his jaw is cracked open by a yawn. He enters the kitchen and nearly stumbles in shock when he finds Wasuke not in his seat at the table, wrapped up in Nobara’s ugly-ass blanket, but rather, standing at the stove. A spatula is held in his gnarled and trembling hand, while the other braces him against the walker that Mrs. Takahashi had been kind enough to bring for him a week ago. 

The thick, heady scent of the American style breakfast being cooked fills the first floor. A tradition that they had upheld for well over a decade, since Wasuke favored more traditional meals for breakfast and Yuuji had always craved the heavy, sugar-filled Western style meals. Yuuji stares at the plate stacked with bacon and scrambled eggs and back to where Wasuke was entirely focused on flipping a blueberry pancake in the sizzling pan atop the stove before him.

Yuuji swallows as his mind treacherously reminds him, almost reflexively, that Megumi does not like chocolate chips in his pancakes… But does he like blueberries? He never got the chance to ask.

“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help?” Wasuke snaps as the pancake successfully flips and lands with a splat and a sizzle. “Coffee’s all set up and ready for you.”

His grandfather juts his chin towards the other counter where a tiny bag of coffee grounds sits beside the dusty coffee maker that he must have hauled out of the cupboards where it’s kept for the rest of the year. Wasuke has always hated coffee and the smell of it, so Yuuji keeps his consumption at home limited, though he can’t resist on Christmas morning. 

Yuuji’s heart thumps painfully at the thought as he eyes his grandfather’s hunched back and the white-knuckled grip he has on the walker. It seems to be the only thing holding him up— or perhaps that’s just his steely determination to disallow another one of his precious freedoms be taken from him by age and sickness.

Yuuji says nothing as he brews the coffee and sets the table with western cutlery. He pours himself a cup of coffee— slightly burned and not strong enough since the coffee maker his grandfather had bought nearly thirty years ago has seen better days. 

“Make yourself useful and carry these to the table,” Wasuke grunts as he flips the last steaming pancake onto the top of the stack and shuts off the stove with shaking fingers. Yuuji waits until Wasuke has slowly shuffled his way over to the table before he takes up the plates laden with food. Wasuke grunts as he uses the walker to get himself settled in his chair and tugs Nobara’s blanket over his scrawny legs. 

Yuuji says nothing as he sets the plates in the center of the table, nearly too big for the tiny surface. He sits himself in the seat across from his grandfather— just as he always has. 

“Thank you for cooking,” Yuuji murmurs quietly, though he hopes that his grandfather can hear the heavy sincerity that threatens to drag his heart underground. 

“It’s Christmas,” Wasuke grunts out by way of answer as he reaches with his fork to snatch a pancake off the top of the stack. “Besides… You put too much sugar in the batter and your eggs turn out like rubber. I’m not going to suffer from a poorly made breakfast on a holiday, of all days.”

Yuuji hides a smile behind the rim of his coffee cup, but says nothing to his grandfather’s mild complaining. As they eat their breakfast, which is actually much closer to lunch given the fact that it’s almost noon, they are wrapped up in companionable silence. Only a few words are spared for conversation, but mostly they simply sit in contentment as Yuuji eats his weight in pancakes and Wasuke picks at his own plate, hardly eating more than a few bites though he does drink two cups of green tea. 

It’s half past-noon by the time they finish up. Yuuji insists on cleaning up since Wasuke cooked everything and his grandfather only puts up a token objection before he shuffles off toward the living room, Nobara’s blanket wrapped around his shoulders and trailing after him like a multicolored cape. The sight of his slow, aching movements has something twisting uncomfortably in Yuuji’s belly, though he pushes it away forcefully as he scrubs the dishes by hand.

When he enters the living room a little while later, he finds that his grandfather has settled into his armchair. It is an ugly thing, covered in cracking, fake leather that has not been repaired in years since Wasuke had bought it and nearly too big for the space, especially with the newest additions of the medical bed that takes up the entire other half of the room. Still, Wasuke has refused to get rid of the chair because he has been staunchly unwilling to accept that his home was slowly turning into a hospital room.

Yuuji settles into the chair set beside the armchair, both of them facing the small, outdated T.V. that has been muted and is playing some American Christmas movie. A tiny side-table is set between the two chairs and a miniature, fake christmas tree has been set on top of it, encircled with a modest pile of brightly wrapped gifts. 

“You wanna go first?” Yuuji asks as he cradles his cup of coffee against his chest, allowing the warmth to seep through the material of his shirt and warm the space over his heart. 

Wasuke rolls his eyes. “Isn’t Christmas about letting the kids rip open their gifts like animals?” 

“I don’t think I was ever a kid like that,” Yuuji says in reply, recalling nearly all of his Christmases spent with his grandfather and painstakingly taking time to carefully unwrap all of his gifts.

“No, you aren’t,” Wasuke replies softly, avoiding eye contact.

Yuuji takes a sip of his scalding coffee in order to avoid the way his chest twinges with some kind of repressed emotion. With one hand he reaches into the pile of gifts and holds it out for Wasuke to take.

He watches his grandfather struggle a bit to open the package with his gnarled and trembling fingers, though he doesn’t dare say a single thing about helping him— since he values his life.

The paper falls away and reveals a shoebox that, when opened, is filled with a new pair of slippers that Yuuji had chosen not just for the thick fleece lining, but for the tread on the bottom. His grandfather was stubborn enough to continue to try walking— as even that morning had proven true— no matter how his body was hurting. The slippers were designed to be walked in, which, if Wasuke’s calm, appreciative expression indicated, he knows that as well. 

“Very thoughtful, Yuuji,” Wasuke murmurs as he strokes his shaking fingers along the soft, chestnut suede lining the outside. 

“Thought they’d keep your feet nice and toasty,” Yuuji says in reply.

Wasuke nods and stares at the slippers for another long moment— almost too long — gnarled fingers petting at the soft, fluffy inner lining before he gently sets them aside. He fixes Yuuji with a look and nods toward the tiny pile of presents. 

“You next,” he prompts. 

Yuuji sets his coffee down on the floor beside his feet and does as he is bid. The first gift he opens is a new set of MMA gloves from Junpei that comes with a note written in his friend’s cramped scrawl that promises he won’t go easy on Yuuji the next time they spar at the dojo. Wasuke opens his gift from Junpei as well and finds a book of 1,000 new crossword puzzles and his own note that explains Junpei had bought the same book for himself and that they would compare answers the next time he came to visit. 

They open their respective gifts from Nobara together— obviously marked as from her because of the garish, pink wrapping paper that sheds a metric shit-ton of glitter onto their hands and laps. For Yuuji, a pair of bright orange, knitted socks that are several inches too long at the toes and stretched too wide at the top that Yuuji knows would make them pool around his ankles if he were to put them on. And for Wasuke, a slightly misshapen, neon purple hat that has some kind of wonky smiley face stitched onto the front that he puts on immediately after opening it.

As Yuuji picks up the last present from the table, Wasuke shifts a bit in his seat. 

“Don’t go thinking it’s anything fancy or nothing,” His grandfather grumbles as his gaze darts off to the side. Yuuji hums in acknowledgement as he weighs the gift in his hands. It is small and rectangular, wrapped in a sheet of newspaper that Yuuji recognizes as the most recent crossword from the Japan Times that Wasuke had completed with Junpei. He spares a moment to smile softly at the sight of his grandfather’s shaky scrawl and Junpei’s tight, cramped handwriting mixed together where it filled in the puzzle. Whatever it is, it isn’t particularly heavy, but it feels solid in his grasp.

“Since when have we ever gotten each other fancy gifts?” Yuuji teases.

Wasuke grunts something under his breath that quickly devolves into a series of hacking coughs. Yuuji subtly slows down his movements, without stopping completely, as he ever-so-carefully performs his usual ritual of opening the gift. It is fortunate that the careful opening of the present is also a way to disguise the fact that Yuuji gives his grandfather a few moments to collect himself. 

By the time the coughing fit passes, Wasuke tugs Nobara’s blanket tighter around his skinny shoulders. Yuuji glances away quickly when his eyes accidentally catch on the stark outline of his grandfather’s collarbone beneath his pale skin, pulled too tight over the bone, from where it hangs out of the neckline of his oversized pajama shirt. 

“What’re you waiting for, the coming of the next messiah or something? Open it up!” Wasuke snaps through a wheezing breath, though Yuuji knows his harsh tone is due in part to his embarrassment over the fit of coughing he’d just gotten down with. As though any reminder of his failing health was deserving of a bad attitude. 

Yuuji simply rolls his eyes good-naturedly and pulls off the paper easily, since he’d delicately split the edges of the tape holding the paper closed without ripping it at all. When the newspaper falls away, he stares down at the cover of a book. The cover is a plain blue and the fat white font in the center announces the title.

“Cooking for Dummies?” Yuuji reads aloud. There is no author listed, but the book is thick and of good quality. Yuuji smiles and lifts his gaze to his grandfather who is watching intently. “Thanks gramps. I’m sure this will come in handy… You’re always telling me I could still learn a thing or two.”

Wasuke hums quietly and points a gnarled, shaking finger toward the book. “Actually, kid. There’s—”

A sudden, shrill ringing cuts off the rest of Wasuke’s words and both of them cringe at the sound of Yuuji’s phone ringing. Yuuji sets the book aside gently on the side table. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Yuuji mumbles with a flush on his cheeks as he does battle with his pocket to get it to relinquish his phone. 

Wasuke’s face is pulled into a deep frown, the crags of his wrinkled skin have deepened as his brows furrow while he watches Yuuji struggle. It’s no secret that his grandfather hates most modern technology— aside from his beloved T.V. The stubborn old man having refused to get a cellphone for himself or even a computer, preferring to use the landline as well as to pay any bills, (aside from the stack of them that Yuuji had hidden from him), by mail. Any reminder that Yuuji had no such qualms about using more up-to-date tech was met with consternation and a gruff mumble about ‘kids these days’. 

When Yuuji finally pulls his phone free from his pocket and glimpses the number flashing across the screen, he nearly swallows his tongue. The phone slips from his fingers as he fumbles it for a second in his shock, almost dropping into the coffee cup by his feet before he manages to catch it. Such clumsy surprise has Wasuke’s face shifting into a narrow eyed look of suspicion.

“Who is it? You getting a call from your little girlfriend or something?” Wasuke asks in his harsh tone, however there is an undeniable note of curiosity in it— the nosey old bastard. 

Yuuji’s heart thuds hard against his ribs in panic as he stares down at the familiar unsaved number. The one that has haunted his inbox for days, silently mocking him with the picture of him and Junpei at the park.

“Aren’t you gonna answer it?” Wasuke prompts.

Yuuji gasps as though he has suddenly come up for air from beneath the water. He rises from his seat so quickly that he almost spills the coffee by his feet.

“Careful, brat!” Wasuke reprimands sharply.

“Sorry! Sorry! Yeah, I just gotta… Uhh… Hold on… I’ll be right— Be right back!” Yuuji stumbles over his nonsensical words as he flees from the living room.

“Don’t hurt yourself trying to use that fucking brain of yours,” Wasuke mutters behind him.

“I won’t!” Yuuji calls back, not entirely registering the insult as he beelines for the front door. He hardly spares a thought to snatch a sweatshirt from where it hangs from the coatrack before he’s slipping outside into the snowy morning. The phone vibrates like a tiny little bomb in his hand as he pulls on the sweatshirt, leaving the hood up. Despite the sunshine and the clear skies, the air is bitingly cold.

He knows he doesn’t have much time before the call is sent to voicemail and Yuuji briefly entertains the idea before he remembers who exactly is waiting for him to pick up. With a trembling finger, he swipes open the call and lifts it to his ear. His breath stalls in his chest as he waits for a greeting, but only silence meets him. Yuuji frowns and pulls back the phone to check the screen, but it confirms that the call is ongoing.

He puts it back up to his ear and murmurs. “Uhh… Hello?”

A tiny, crackling gasp explodes through the speaker, loud enough that Yuuji startles and pulls the phone away from his ear again. Even a few inches from his head he can hear the tumult of a familiar little voice speaking rapidly over the line.

“OH MY GOSH! It IS you! Yuuji-kun! It’s you, it’s you, it’s really you! I knew it! I knew it was gonna be you!” Megumi’s excited shouts echo through the phone while Yuuji’s mind struggles to catch up with what the fuck is going on. 

“Me— Megumi ?” Yuuji gasps back, brain finally coming back online as his heart begins to race. “Is that you?” 

“It’s me! It’s really me! Hi!” 

He can practically hear the little boy’s beaming smile through the phone. Such a stark difference compared to the solemn little boy he knew from the day they spent together. Yuuji makes a slightly hysterical noise in the back of his throat as the shock clouds his thoughts.

“I took Gojo-san’s phone and I was playing games on it last night. And he still doesn’t know that I have it. He has five different phones too, did I tell you that? And this is the one he lets me play games on!” Megumi tells him.

“Uhh… That’s cool,” Yuuji wheezes out breathlessly, chest seizing with the waves of panicked confusion that threaten to consume him.

“Yep! But I got bored and I was looking for a new game. But I pushed the wrong button and I saw a picture with you in it! You were at a playground! And then I saw your NAME!” Megumi rambles quickly.

“Oh,” Yuuji says dumbly, unable to follow along fast enough.

“I know how to read really good! Getou-san has been helping me practice my letters and I saw your name! I sounded it out all by myself, just like he told me too and I read your name! Your name is spelled I-T-A-D-O-R-I! Did you know that? And my name is spelled M-E-G-U—”

“Heyyy! Hey, buddy. Listen, listen,” Yuuji interrupts as his head finally catches up to the situation at hand. The realization that Megumi has called him from Gojo’s phone hits him like a ton of bricks to the face. His voice shakes minutely as he tries to let the kid down easy. “I really don’t think that Gojo’san would like it very much if he found out that you called me on his phone.”

Megumi makes a small sound of disappointment on the other end. “Nuh-uh. He always loses his phones. Sometimes when I hide them on purpose he doesn’t even look for them. He just goes to buy a new one.” 

Yuuji stalls at the words, trying to filter past the potentially problematic handling of a situation in which someone simply went to buy a new phone every time they lost one. 

“Right… Okay, still… You really shouldn’t be calling me, Megumi,” Yuuji says as firmly as he dares.

Megumi is quiet for a beat on the other end.

“Do you— Do you not want to talk to me anymore?” His tiny voice is muffled with timid sorrow on the other end and immediately Yuuji’s heart drops out of his ass at the heartbreaking sound of it.

“No!” He says a bit too loudly. “No, that’s not it at all, buddy. Of course I still want to talk to you, Gumi-chan… It’s just—” Yuuji cuts himself off, mind working rapidly in an attempt to come up with a believable excuse that won’t leave the poor kid heartbroken and rejected.

“Then why can’t I call you?” Megumi interjects, his little voice a bit snappy with the childish irritation at not understanding the very adult nuances currently going over his head.

Yuuji blows out a sigh as he mentally begins to list all of the reasons why it is a very bad idea for Megumi to be calling him so casually from Gojo’s misplaced phone. However, none of them would seem to fit as an excuse to give to a six year old as to why he couldn’t talk to his new friend. 

He can practically feel the moment that his mind simply gives up and he internally says fuck it. 

“You’ve got me there, kid,” Yuuji says finally, “I’ve got no further arguments.”

“Hooray!” Megumi cheers on the other end. “Can I tell you what I got for Christmas?”

“Yeah, buddy. Tell me what you got from Santa,” Yuuji says with a growing smile.

And just like that, Megumi is off like a shot. His excited, rapid fire speech is the polar opposite of the quiet wariness that Yuuji had witnessed in him before. Childish glee is the only emotion in the boy’s voice as he prattles on about his Christmas gifts and his opinions on all of them— A new winter coat? Not cool. A new bento box for school? Not cool. A life sized dolphin plushie? The coolest! 

Yuuji can’t help but wonder if the boy’s current excitement is due to how relaxed and safe he feels now that he is home. Begrudgingly he thinks that if that is the case and Megumi is this different when he is happy then maybe Gojo might be doing something right. Compared to his original opinions on how a petulant, spoiled narcissist like him could possibly parent a child with kindness or provide a happy home environment. He is almost glad to be proven wrong, if only for Megumi’s sake.

“—And then I asked Nanamin if dolphins can live at zoos too, but he told me that they only live in aquariums because they have to be in the water. But I don’t really like other fish a whole lot. Their eyes are kinda weird and I don’t ever like the taste of the sashimi Getou-san gets when we have sushi takeout for dinner. Gojo-san likes eel rolls and I think eel is gross too. Did you know that electric eels can produce up to six hundred volts of electricity? And did you know—”

The boy is as unstoppable as a train. Yuuji hums diligently and murmurs things like ‘Wow, I didn’t know that!’ or ‘That’s pretty cool!’ at the appropriate moments while Megumi goes on and on, hardly pausing to catch his breath. 

Standing outside with only his sweatshirt and not even a pair of shoes, he has started to feel the effects of the cold. He’s forced to switch the phone between his hands so that he can warm up one at a time under the opposite armpit, alternating his weight from foot to foot as his socks grow damp from the un-shoveled snow on the front walkway. His nose burns from the cold and his eyes water, but he is sure that he’d rather die of fucking frostbite than interrupt Megumi’s ranting speech that has moved on from electric eel facts to elementary gossip about a girl in his class that he doesn’t like.

“—Her name is Tsumiki and she always follows me around the class and she always wants to eat snack next to me and—”

“Do you think maybe Tsumiki just wants to be your friend, Gumi-chan? And that’s why she keeps trying to spend time with you?” Yuuji asks with a bitten off grin.

“Blegh!” Megumi scoffs in disgust with his childlike voice and the sound is so utterly serious that it startles a laugh out of Yuuji. “Ew, no way! Girls are disgusting.”

“One of my best friends is a girl,” Yuuji says casually through his giggles.

“I thought I was your best friend!” Megumi whines petulantly over the phone. 

Yuuji chuckles again. “You’re allowed to have more than one best friend, Gumi-chan. I’ve got three. Remember Junpei who you met at the bakery? He’s a very loyal friend and he always helps me when I ask for it.” 

“Hmm, yeah,” Megumi mutters grudgingly. Yuuji can practically picture the frown on his little face.

“And Nobara-chan is really nice once you get to know her,” Yuuji says generously as he pictures his spit fire of a friend. 

“I dunno…” Megumi trails off, clearly weighing the truth of Yuuji’s words.

“And then I have you of course,” Yuuji confirms brightly. “You’ve told me so many cool facts about animals that I never would have known about. Oh! And we both love strawberry shortcake, remember?”

“I never got to eat your strawberry shortcake though,” He says finally, disappointment lacing his tone.

“That’s alright,” Yuuji says as his heart pangs in his chest. “Maybe one day you’ll get the chance.

And maybe one day Hell will freeze over. A voice whispers in his head.

Megumi hums in thought and is quiet for a moment on the other end of the phone. Suddenly, he lets out an ear piercing gasp. “Oh! Oh! I know! You can come over to my house and make it for me!” 

Yuuji’s stomach drops. “Uhh. Hold on… I don’t think—”

But it’s too late. Megumi has already been swept up by this new, shiny potential.

“Yeah! Yeah ! You can come here and cook in our kitchen! We have a really big oven that you could fit lots of cakes in! And Gojo-san really loves sweets too! I don’t like sharing food with him because he always takes really big bites even when he swears he won’t. But Sho-chan always tells me that ‘sharing is caring ’ so I guess he can have a slice too… Oh! But we’ll have to be careful about using the sugar because I switched it with the salt after I got home because I was really, really mad at Gojo-san for not letting me say goodbye to you. Getou-san caught me when I made a mess by spilling it and then he helped me clean it up and then he helped me switch allll the sugar with salt! He says that Gojo-san doesn’t need anymore sugar anyway. Oh, oh, oh! Hold on! I’ll go ask Gojo-san if you can come over!” 

“Megumi! Wait!” Yuuji shouts into the phone, but there is only a distant shuffling noise over the phone and the quiet slapping noise of what must be tiny feet against hard flooring. Yuuji’s heart rate spikes as he listens to Megumi going somewhere, presumably to find Gojo and ask if Yuuji can come over to make cake like some kind of fucked up playdate. 

He debates if he should simply hang up the phone— and then throw it into traffic on the nearest highway so that the call can’t be traced back to him— but then he hears a tentative knocking sound on the other end of the line. Anxiety creeps over him, as though he were there with Megumi while a muffled, deep voice calls out something indecipherable.

A quiet little sigh comes from Megumi, muted in a way that suggests he is holding the phone far away from his mouth. There is a click and a squeak that echoes down the line and then Megumi is speaking softly.

“Uhhmmm…. Gojo-san?” Megumi’s timid voice asks.

“Megumiiii! What’s up, kiddo?”

The deep timbre of Gojo’s voice is enough of a shock to Yuuji’s system as it echoes down the line unimpeded that he goes still. However, with the sound of it steeped in such outright playfulness, as it is directed at Megumi, leaves Yuuji practically breathless. 

It’s not that he’d thought the alpha was incapable of being anything other than arrogant or conceited or petulant… but, well… He hadn’t thought that the alpha was capable of being anything other than arrogant or conceited or petulant. The unexpectedness of hearing the Special Grade’s voice dip into such an unfamiliar, teasing tone has him spiraling enough that he nearly drops the phone.

“Hey, wait a second. Is that my phone?” Gojo’s voice rumbles, though there’s not a single shred of reprimand in the smiling voice. “Damn, I really thought I lost that one. Good thing Shoko got me one for— I meannnn! Santa brought me one. In his sleigh. That flies. With magic reindeer—”

“I already know Santa isn’t real. My friend Haru told me at school,” Megumi’s little voice says with far more judgment than a child his age should possess.

A groan from Gojo echoes down the line. Yuuji swallows heavily at the sound and staunchly ignores the way his body feels as though it has been dipped in molten lava. He tries to tell himself that it is residual disdain for having to listen to Gojo’s voice and not at all related to the way that the deep, baritone sound vibrates through his very bones.

“Oh, thank fuck for that,” Gojo says, deep with relief. “The whole ‘keeping the Christmas magic alive’ thing is exhausting. Wait! How long have you known? Does that mean I didn’t have to do that elf on the shelf bullshit all month? Also Haru? I never would have pegged that kid as a narc!” 

Gojo’s low, rumbling laugh makes something clench inside of Yuuji. Unbidden, he feels a smile starting to tug on his lips before he remembers with icy clarity exactly who is on the other end of the line and the look drops off of his face in an instant. 

“I knew it was you moving the elf before Haru told me about Santa,” Megumi says imperiously. 

“You did? How? What tipped you off? Gojo asks, his mischievous voice getting louder over the line as though he was moving closer. There is a responding shuffle of movement as if Megumi had moved as well.

“You thought I was sleeping, but I saw you take him out of the box and you asked Sho-chan about the elf rules when you were on the phone,” Megumi replies.

“Huh,” Gojo says, a smile evident in his voice, entirely unbothered by the fact that the surprise was ruined. 

“And then you told her that you thought the elf was ‘creepy as fuck’.” Megumi says slyly.

Yuuji throws a hand over his mouth to stifle the bark of laughter that leaves him. It’s entirely apparent that was a detail the boy didn’t need to share, however he clearly wanted to.

“Whoa, hey! We talked about this little man,” Gojo scolds him, however there is nothing but mock sternness in his voice. “None of those big boy words until you can reach the kitchen cabinets by yourself.”

“But I can—” Megumi starts.

“Without using the step stool,” Gojo clarifies.

Megumi grumbles something under his breath that sounds particularly mutinous.

“So what did you wanna talk about, my frowny little friend?” Gojo prompts, his voice low and soft and close. Yuuji feels his heart lurch in his chest at the sound of it, his fingers curling tighter around his phone unbidden as a breath hitches in his throat. Warning bells scream in his head as he shakes himself free of the warmth that settles around him like a well used blanket. 

“Oh!” Megumi’s little gasp has Yuuji wrenching open his eyes— when exactly had they closed? “Yuuji-kun is on the phone! I want him to come to our house and make strawberry shortcake and I want you to say yes!” 

Yuuji holds his breath, nearly vibrating as the silence on the other end of the line stretches out for a second… A minute… A whole fucking year — Endless. Far more damning is the lack of response than anything that Gojo could have possibly said in reaction to Megumi’s words.

“Oh, wait! I forgot to say please,” Megumi corrects himself quickly. “Please, can Yuuji come to our house and make strawberry shortcake and please can you say yes?” 

A low intake of breath is heard on the other end of the line and Yuuji’s entire body braces for impact.

“Haaaah? ” Gojo’s harsh, questioning noise echoes through the phone.

A sudden shuffle of movement causes static to crackle across the speaker.

“Hey!” Megumi whines in abrupt complaint.

“Give me the phone, kid,” Gojo says, voice dropped low and devoid of any of its previous, jovial nature.

“No! You gave it to me!” Megumi growls. “I need it to call my friends!” 

“I let you borrow it . You’re in fucking kindergarten. You don’t need a phone. None of your friends have phones to call them on anyway!” Gojo hisses quietly. There is more frantic shuffling and a quiet grunt from Megumi followed by the quiet, rapid patter of feet against hard flooring and the muted snarl of a curse. 

“I’m not a baby! And Yuuji-kun has a phone! He’s my friend!” Megumi calls back breathlessly, however the sound of his voice comes and goes as though the phone is being moved closer and further from his face as the echo of running feet against the floor still can be heard down the line.

“How are you so fast? ” Gojo’s low growl comes down the line.

Suddenly there is a tiny squeak, followed by some rustling and then the shriek of a child losing their fucking cool.

“Noooo!” Megumi wails, growing more distant with each passing second. "Give it back!"

“Just give me a second!” Gojo says mutedly and Yuuji hears the snap of what must be a door being closed. Another muffled wail is heard and the sound of banging against some kind of solid surface, indicating that Gojo must have locked himself into a different room away from Megumi.

His amused thoughts are cut off by the sound of a deep breath that rattles through the speaker. A shiver rolls down Yuuji’s spine, and despite the fact his hands are numb and his nose is dripping, he knows it has nothing to do with how cold he is.

Fear. You're afraid of him. His mind supplies stubbornly before any other excuse for it can be made. 

“Itadori?” Gojo’s voice rumbles down the line.

Yuuji bites back a gasp at the sound of his name shaped by the Special Grade’s voice. Immediately he reprimands himself for such a reaction and firmly reminds himself of all the reasons why the white haired alpha is entirely unlikable— smooth voice be damned.

“Gojo-san,” Yuuji replies evenly— and is terribly impressed that none of the shakiness he can feel trembling through his chest has affected his voice. 

“Fuck,” Gojo mutters quietly to himself. “I thought the kid might be lying.”

“About me being on the phone, or about inviting me over to make him cake?” Yuuji asks dryly.

“Both,” Gojo says plainly with a put-upon sigh.

“Ah. No luck for either, I’m afraid.”

“Fuck,” Gojo repeats, harsh and bitten off under his breath in a way that makes Yuuji jolt in place, stomach clenching wildly. “Well, I guess there’s nothing for it. Cat’s out of the bag, as they say… But you already knew this number was mine, didn’t you, Itadori?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Yuuji snips back, “I don’t have your number saved.”

Gojo huffs a breath on the other end that sounds almost amused— so starkly different from the genuine playfulness that he had used when speaking to Megumi, but also light years away from the conceited petulance that Yuuji had bore witness to from the man during both of their previous encounters. 

“Nahh, I would never assume that. But you did pick up without knowing that Megumi would be the one calling you. Tell me, did your little heart start to race when you thought it was me calling you?” Gojo taunts in his baritone voice.

“Go fuck yourself,” Yuuji bares his fang as he snarls, despite the fact that the alpha cannot see the display. 

This time Gojo lets out an actual laugh, though its deep timbre is tinged with darkness. “Touchy subject?” He says, low and mocking. As though he doesn’t already know how insulting the words are.

“You know damn well that I’m not exactly at liberty to allow your calls to go to voicemail,” Yuuji hisses in offense. 

“Oh?” Gojo drawls with false bewilderment. “Are you waiting around for my call like some heartsick, teenage girl?”

“Of course not. I’m just not stupid enough to ignore any calls from the man who is metaphorically holding me hostage ,” Yuuji snarls. 

“Trust me, Itadori, you are not my hostage,” Gojo clarifies. 

Yuuji stalls for a second at the dark waring in his voice. And maybe he is stupid, because he continues on with no regard for his self-preservation instincts that scream at him to shut the fuck up. “I may as well be. You’ve twisted me up in this stupid fucking debt as though I owe you a goddamn thing. A prisoner bound by promises is still just as fucking trapped as one that’s wearing shackles.”

“How poetic, Itadori,” Gojo mutters mockingly. “But incorrect nonetheless. I told you once before that I don’t take prisoners.”

Yuuji swallows harshly as fear threatens to choke him. The very real threat that the man on the other end of the line holds over him is just as sharp as an executioner’s blade. Poised over his neck and ready to fall at the slightest sign of betrayal. Still, he forces himself to remain steady as he clutches the phone in his hand.

“Yet you admit that you’ve dragged me unwillingly into this… This scheme?” Yuuji snaps.

“Scheme? What am I? A Bond villain now?” Gojo scoffs incredulously.

“No, not a Bond villain,” Yuuji growls, “Maybe something worse, though.”

Gojo hums down the line. “I like to think of myself as an opportunist. Unlike the rest of the sheep who allow such simple things like morals to keep them from achieving their goals, I see the world and its people not for who they are, but for what they can give me. And you, little Yuuji-kun, were so perfectly gift wrapped and put directly in my path. I’d be a fool to pass up such a perfect chance to not get my hands dirty.”

“That’s funny, because I distinctly remember you making it very clear that I had nothing to offer the first time we met. Not a hostage and nothing special, yet you’re more than willing to use me as fucking bait. A fucking opportunity made out of male omega who doesn’t know his place . What a walking contradiction you’ve made out of me, Gojo-san,” Yuuji growls low and dangerous in his chest. 

  The words are exactly the ones that Gojo had spat so venomously at him on the night they had first met. Yuuji had thought that he’d gotten over the sting of those words, but now, standing in the bitter cold with his phone clutched in his numb hand and rage boiling beneath his skin, he thinks perhaps he hadn’t moved as far past them as he’d thought…

“Itadori—” Gojo murmurs his name slow and careful and it is that hesitance that pushes Yuuji over the end. As though he is some kind of rabid animal that needs to be handled with care. As though he is the crazy one for still being upset over a moment in time that the Special Grade alpha had probably forgotten about the very moment he’d left the Fantasy Room that night. 

“Anyway. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore,” Yuuji barrels on, clearing his throat of the lump that has formed there. “What’s done is done. I do as you tell me, I get you your information and you don’t kill me. Right? Nothing else to it.”

Gojo hums over the line. His voice sounds far away, as though he was holding the phone away from his mouth. Or maybe it is simply the way Yuuji can feel himself untethering from the conversation. Still, he can’t help but feel as though he’s missed something as Gojo remains poignantly silent on the other end of the line. His gut feels as though it has been scooped out, like he’s missed the last stair by accident and is suddenly off balance and wrong footed. Unsure of where to go or how to calm his racing heart from the invisible danger that exists only in the form of a promise made by the Special Grade alpha who held his entire life in his hands. 

It’s fear. His mind reminds him. You’re afraid of him. 

Are you still sure about that? His heart whispers back treacherously. 

Yuuji lets out a sigh and shakes his head, dispersing the troublesome thoughts. “Either way, no matter what circumstances led to this opportunity, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve already gotten what you’ve asked of me.”

Gojo draws in a sharp breath on the other end. “You’ve gotten information on the Ryoumen clan?” 

The amount of disbelief in his tone sets Yuuji’s teeth on edge. His sharp, Omegan fangs nudge into his lip as he gnaws on them in frustration. “What, you didn’t think I was capable of it or something? Do you actually get off on giving people impossible tasks?” 

“No need to get defensive, Itadori,” Gojo hums deeply, entirely nonchalant as though he couldn’t care less that Yuuji had done as he had asked. 

“Do you want to hear it or not?” Yuuji bypasses the obvious goading.

Gojo makes a sound of negation in return. “It’s not a conversation I’d like to have over the phone.”

“Great,” Yuuji mutters bitterly. “So what? You gonna kidnap me again so we can have another conversation in person?”

“Maybe… If the mood strikes me. Guess you’ll just have to wait and see what I decide.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Another sharp-edged laugh rumbles down the line. Yuuji finds himself all the more thankful that the two of them are separated by miles— who knows how many— as the sound causes his stomach to clench and a shiver to roll across the back of his neck. The absolute absurdity of the reaction is not lost on him and he feels the spark of misplaced ignite in his chest— unable to be sure which of them he’s more upset with.

Gojo, for his teasing banter, double-edged in deeper meaning. Or himself, for not minding the sound of the alpha’s voice in his ear. 

“If you don’t want to hear it over the phone, that’s fine, I guess. You’re the fucking boss, right? Just make it soon. I don’t want this hanging over my head for any longer than necessary,” Yuuji snaps, entirely aware that he might not be in the proper position to be making demands of the alpha. 

Gojo makes a tutting sound on the other end of the line and Yuuji bristles at the chastising tone. “It’s Christmas, Itadori? Shouldn’t you be in a better mood? Grateful for all of life’s blessings and all that.”

The snarl that is drawn from the depths of Yuuji’s chest vibrates out of him so aggressively that it nearly takes him by surprise as well. In immediate answer, Gojo’s own deep, alpha growl echoes down the line, reacting instinctively to the level of threat in Yuuji’s. The noise may have been enough to deter a different omega from continuing on, but Yuuji’s anger burns far too bright and hot to be doused so easily.

“Grateful? Do you think I have any fucking reason to be?” Yuuji says, voice full of rage. “I’m living paycheck to paycheck and working a shitty job because you got me fired from the only job that was keeping my head above water. I was stabbed by some fucking goon who was hell bent on taking down your family. And now? Now I have been indebted to you even though I was the one who did you the favor of saving your fucking kid in the first place! A debt, that I’ll remind you, involves me putting myself in the line of fire to find out information about  fucking yakuza family, as if that’s a normal fucking thing to ask of a normal person who has never been involved in that shit in the first place! And you have the fucking audacity to tell me that I should be grateful ? Are you insane?”

As soon as the last words leave Yuuji’s mouth, he feels his anger losing steam. All of the words he’d spoken had dragged out the dredges of the furious grudge he’d held against the Special Grade alpha since that fateful night that he had stared down at Yuuji and told him he was nothing. 

He had not planned on spilling everything to Gojo, but once it had started, he could not stop it. And now, while the words hang between them in the ether, he feels empty and cold. Ripped open and bleeding as though he is nothing but a body splayed open on an operating table, vulnerable and unable to do anything as he is poked and prodded and inspected by others who want to know what made him tick. Part of him wishes that he could scoop the words back into himself— shove them into the tender places they had been torn from, as if there was any hope of making them fill in all of the empty spaces he has inside of himself.

Gojo remains silent on the other end of the phone. Nothing but the quiet, almost harsh breaths that heave from Yuuji’s lungs, that punctuate every other vacant moment that passes without a word. Yuuji can almost imagine how furious the Special Grade must be to have been spoken to that way, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Instead, he lets out a long sigh. His voice laden with exhaustion as he speaks his wandering thoughts aloud. “You can retrieve the info whenever you want, because I know you’ll do whatever the fuck you want anyway… But I have to know, are you just going to make me jump through a different set of hoops once this is done with? Are you going to make me run in circles until I actually get taken out by some other hit man or a different stalker, or fuck… Are you going to be the one to hold a fucking gun to my head after this is all over?”

“No.” Gojo’s responding snarl thunders out of the speaker. 

Yuuji pulls up short and nearly bites his own tongue off as the alpha command trembles over the phone. For a moment his neck strains as he tilts it instinctively, baring it to the side under the sheer force that Gojo puts behind the single word. The Special Grade’s breaths crackle over the line, heaving in and out furiously as though he was trying to gain control over himself once again. Yuuji’s breath shudders out of him and he grits his teeth before he makes himself straighten his neck. His more rational mind chastises him for giving in to the primal response.

“You say no,” Yuuji says between clenched teeth, neck muscles straining in an effort not to bare it to an alpha that isn’t even there. “As if your finger isn’t already on the trigger.”

Another growl rumbles low and dangerous from the other end of the phone. Rage simmers in the sound, the same way that it burns a hole through Yuuji’s chest. Tears sting in the corners of his eyes that he tries and fails to ignore as they fall down the curve of his cheeks and go cold almost immediately. He breathes out a trembling breath, the white fog of it steaming before his face in a cloud of white. Numbness has settled into the corners of his body, but can’t tell if it’s from the cold or from the piercing shard of ice that has suddenly lodged itself through his heart.

“I—” Gojo starts, his voice rough and heavy as though he’d swallowed glass. And despite how fragile he feels, Yuuji steels himself and cuts Gojo off immediately. Unwilling to hear anything the alpha has to say— so sure that if the Special Grade were to taunt him at that moment that he might shatter entirely. 

“I won’t be back at the club for another three days. Send someone you trust to come collect the information, but don’t you dare step foot in that place. I never want to see your face again, Gojo,” Yuuji says the words without a single inflection of emotion in his tone. “That was the deal, remember?”

The words taste like ash on his tongue even though he tells himself that this is what he wants. 

Gojo lets out another harsh breath and there is a distant, muffled sound of a sharp curse. Yuuji tells himself that he doesn’t care, even as his ribs squeeze unbearably tight around his lungs, forcing the very breath from them.

“Tell Megumi I hope he has a good rest of his Christmas and delete my number,” Yuuji says calmly and then allows his voice to dip into the frigidness of finality. “Goodbye, Gojo.”

He hangs up the phone before Gojo has a chance to respond and pretends that his hand is not shaking as he lowers the phone away from his ear. He stands there numbly for a long moment, staring down at the screen before it goes black. His fingers are raw and red and he sniffles and rubs at his dripping nose. The bottom of his socks have soaked through from the snow and it is on numb feet that he turns and walks back toward the house. 

When the front door closes quietly behind him, he stands silently in the genkan and winces at how the warm air burns as it brushes against his hypersensitive skin, frozen from the cold. Moving slowly, as if he is in a dream he reaches down and peels off his socks and cringes at how sopping wet they are.

“Yuuji?” Wasuke’s rough voice calls from the living room. “You were out there for a while. Everything alright, kid?” 

Yuuji swallows around the lump in his throat, willing his voice not to quiver as he calls back. “All good, gramps.”

There is a quiet shuffling noise and Yuuji looks up to see his grandfather’s head poke around the corner of the doorway. His new purple hat settled firmly on his head and a twinkle of teasing hope in his deep set eyes. 

“Girlfriend troubles?” He asks with a well-meaning smirk.

Yuuji lets out an exhausted laugh. “No, gramps. No girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend troubles,” Wasuke nods to himself as though he’d answered his own question.

Yuuji wants to correct him, but when he reaches for any words, there is nothing left inside of him and by the time he manages to gather the strength to reply, his grandfather is already shuffling back into the living room.

“Come on, then brat. They’re playing reruns of that stupid game-show you used to love,” Wasuke snaps. “And bring me some tea!”

Yuuji makes no move from his place in the middle of the genkan. The quiet drip of melting snow off of his soaked socks is the only noise aside from his quiet breaths. A sudden hitch in his chest heralds a sob that attempts to claw itself up his throat that he barely manages to stifle behind his free hand. 

He breathes through the sting of tears and fights back the strange urge to cry that he has no reasonable explanation for having. He should be happy that all of the business with Gojo will finally be over. He should be relieved that his life will return to normal. Thrilled even.

So then why does he feel as though something has been broken inside of him— hopeless to do anything but try and pick up the scattered pieces from the floor and try to put himself back together?

***

A little ways down the street from the Itadori household, a black, unmarked car idles against the curb.

The fully tinted windows give away no clues as to who might be sitting inside it, though some of the neighbors have already made their own assumptions. Most of them are suspicious not because of how out of place the vehicle is in the slightly run-down suburban neighborhood, but because they each wonder which of their neighbors is holding out and apparently has wealthy family relations from one of the inner city limits. They peek out their windows to get a glimpse of whoever might get out of the car or where they might be going, but still, no one thinks that anything is amiss. It is, after all, Christmas Day, and plenty of them have visiting family coming to their own homes to celebrate. 

They have no idea that a beta dressed in a well tailored, blood red suit sits comfortably in the back seat. Though they are kept warm by the luxury car’s heating system, they keep their heavy wool coat curled around their narrow shoulders. Through the tinted window they keep their eyes pinned on the front yard of a home at the other end of the street where Yuuji Itadori stands outside of the small apartment he shares with his grandfather, Wasuke Itadori. 

The beta takes note of the distress that lines young Itadori’s face as he speaks on the phone. The expression, of course, is in direct correlation to the conversation that the beta has been listening to on the wire-tap device that is cradled in their hands, tapped into young Itadori’s phone connection.

“ — ger isn’t already on the trigger.”  Young Itadori’s voice crackles over the speaker of the wire-tap device. A low rumble is interrupted by static as the connection wavers. The beta diligently adjusts something on the device, wincing imperceptibly as the static grows louder and then lessens enough to hear young Itadori’s voice crackle out again.

“ — be back at the club— three days. Send one of your men to—” The static returns for a moment again, and the beta adjusts another knob. “ — That was the deal, remem—” The static returns. The knob is adjusted. “ — oodbye, Gojo.”

The call is ended and nothing but static crackles out of the wire-tap device.

The beta flips a switch that sends the warm cabin of the car into deep silence. With gloved hands they lay the device aside on the white leather seats and then reach for the sleek phone sitting perched on their slim thigh, which has been running a call of its own for the past twenty minutes. 

The beta does not dare to utter a single word.

Finally, a sigh hisses out of the phone speaker. 

“And what should we make of all this? Hmm?” The voice belonging to the person on the other end of the line rumbles.

“I believe that Gojo is far more invested in the well being of Yuuji Itadori than we had previously assumed,” The beta replies evenly. “However the depth of that interest is yet to be determined.”

“Indeed,” Comes the low, humming reply. “Three days…”

“Should I arrange a meeting, boss?” The beta asks demurely.

“No.” The other replies with a sharp air of finality. “I’d much rather wait and see how this all comes together on its own. There’s no rush to play our hand yet… Let Gojo and his dogs chase their own tails for a little while longer.”

“Waiting is a dangerous game,” The beta warns reservedly.

“Then it is a good thing I am not playing anymore.”

The line goes dead.

The beta lets out a sigh and slips the phone back into their coat pocket. They glance out the window once more and find that young Itadori had already returned inside. With a quiet hum of contemplation, the beta leans forward and knocks twice on the privacy divider, alerting the driver that they have finished. 

The sleek, black car purrs almost silently as it pulls away from the curb and drives away with no one but the nosey, old Mrs. Takahashi bearing witness to its departure as she peeks out between her curtains.

Chapter Text

Three days.

Seventy-two hours. Four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes.

Two hundred and fifty nine thousand, two hundred seconds.

A long weekend. 

A lifetime. 

Yuuji has never been someone who hates time off. Given the multiple jobs that he’s kept up a steady rotation of since the time he turned sixteen, school, time at the dojo and trying to juggle a (meager) social life at the same time— Yuuji has long since grown used to having a packed schedule. Therefore, any time off is considered a precious gift that he treasures beyond comparison and mourns for when it's gone. 

Now, however, as Yuuji stands in his small bedroom and stares down at the splayed open duffle bag that he has obsessively unpacked and re-packed at least seven times in the past hour, he thinks he might understand why a trapped animal would gnaw off their own leg if they became desperate enough to escape.

Yet, by design, this trap is of his own making.

Previously when he’d taken the time off— back before he knew anything about the name Gojo or the tangled web of the underground world he lived in— Yuuji had relished the thought of having three whole days after Christmas to relax. And then he was fired. And then he found a little boy at the train station. And then he was kidnapped and interrogated. And then he had been forced to dig up information on a rival yakuza clan he had no true understanding of. And then— And then— And then—

He couldn’t have possibly anticipated everything that had happened in the past several weeks, let alone even a fraction of it. So, while the time off had been a mercy at first, now it was nothing but a noose that was slowly tightening around his throat. And though he has not chewed off any of his own limbs— yet — he has not been able to shake the trembling sense of unease that plagued him since his last conversation with Gojo.

Sleep has been elusive as paranoia crept in like ivy, growing in any untended areas, swift and choking. Its presence is a terrible weight in his chest, planted between his lungs and spreading its roots deeper with each passing hour. In the last few days Yuuji has done everything in his power to relax, all to no avail. He could not focus long enough to watch any of his favorite movies and his grandpa snapped at him when he hovered indecisively in the kitchen, unable to pick something to cook. Nobara was still entrenched in her heat, and Junpei was off visiting his grandmother with his mother, so Yuuji did not want to interrupt. Which left him twitchy and irritable for three— endlessly long — days… All the while, checking and rechecking and triple checking his phone.

But every time he looks, there is nothing there.

Not that there would be of course. Not with the way that Yuuji has explicitly made it clear that he wants nothing to do with the heir of the Gojo clan. Never wants to hear his voice. Never wants to see his face. Never wants to hear his name or know anything else about him.

Never again...

Yuuji sighs and scrubs a hand through the pale pink locks atop his head. Calloused fingers catch on a small tangle and he winces, thinking about how long it’s been since the last trim. Dropping his hand, he absentmindedly rubs at the aching center of his chest, pressing hard against the sturdy bone of his sternum. Beneath his fingertips, even through the worn material of his white t-shirt he can feel the anxious flutter of his heart where it beats against his ribs like a frantic bird banging against the bars of its cage, begging to be set free.

Dazedly he stares down at the mess of lingerie and extra clothes packed in alongside a pair of absurdly tall heels and his makeup bag, though he can hardly see them for what they are. His brain instead lost in the echoes of his last conversation with Gojo. 

On top of his bed covers his phone buzzes, signaling an incoming text as the screen lights up. Before it has finished vibrating it is already in Yuuji’s hand, fingers swiping it open.

What’s up, loser? FYI: Just got done with my heat. Won’t be in tonight. << 

It’s just Nobara. Get a fucking grip, Itadori. Yuuji thinks to himself as he blows out a long sigh and wills his heart to stop fucking fluttering in his chest. He sends back a quick response.

>> Gotcha. Hope everything went well.

Nobara’s response is swift.

Ehh. Not the best knot I’ve ever had. But now I’ll have to find out if this gal knows how to do more than just fuck ;) <<

Yuuji finds himself chuckling at his friend’s vindictive nature, but still gently chastises her.

>> Make sure you go easy on her… It couldn’t have been easy trying to keep up with you for a whole week. 

Nobara’s response is lightning fast and consists of nothing more than a series of emojis including a devil face, several eggplants and peaches and far too many middle fingers. 

Yuuji huffs a breath out of his nose and grins at the sight. He stares down at his phone for a long moment until the screen goes dark and only his face is reflected back at him. Without fully registering what he’s doing, his thumb swipes against the screen, waking it back up. It opens automatically and he navigates instinctively to the inbox— and opens up the message belonging to Gojo’s unsaved number.

He should have deleted it by now. He knows he should.. . And yet, for the last three days, every time the thought has struck him, something has held him back from doing so. 

The high definition picture of him and Junpei at the park glares up at him in shades of blue light. His thumb deftly swipes along the screen as he scrolls up and reads the small thread of messages. Hardly a handful of lines are on screen— the same set of characters that were there every single time he’s done this in the past seventy two hours. Yuuji stares hard at them, as though this time might reveal something he’s missed… Something important… But there is nothing. 

Yuuji’s thumb hovers over the message bubble and even goes as far as to click on it so that the keyboard pops up. It is the sight of such potential laid out before him in the form of consonants and vowels that finally jolts him back into reality. 

An embarrassed flush crawls red hot up the back of his neck and settles into his cheeks as he clicks off his phone and tosses it onto the bed like it is a live grenade. The phone lands with a bounce amongst the sheets and smacks into the far wall, before it slides down to the floor with a clatter.

A groan of annoyance rends itself out of Yuuji’s chest while he shoves his fists into his eyes hard enough that little points of light burst behind his eyelids. He forces himself to breathe in and out over and over again until he is sure that he won’t shake out of his own skin.

When he drops his hands finally and blinks away the lingering spots of darkness, he stares down at the duffel bag again. With trembling fingers he reaches for the contents tucked away within the black nylon— entirely sure that the eighth time he packs it will be the charm.

***

Yuuji pushes open the door and a hush falls over the dressing room.

He stubbornly ignores the curious looks he gets from the other omegas that have already arrived, some more blatant than others. When his eyes accidentally catch Amanai’s gaze, hidden behind low lids, covered in star shaped glitter, she ducks away quickly and hides behind a curtain of dark hair. The feeling of his back molars grinding against each other keeps him grounded enough that he does not lash out at them— since it’s not really their fault that Yuuji’s life is so mysterious.

Inumaki gives Yuuji a small wave from where he’s sitting beside his locker. Yuuji nods back in his direction, but offers nothing else to the platinum haired boy. A deep blue mask is wrapped over the lower part of his face and he silently returns to tightening the laces on an indigo corset that cinches in the boy’s already petite waist. Pale skin is wrapped over lightly defined muscles, but Yuuji knows the sight of hidden strength when he sees it. 

The only person in the room who seems to not give a fuck about his presence is Mai. She sits, straight backed and stiff as a doll at an open vanity, painstakingly drawing a knife-sharp wing of black eyeliner across her lid with a rock-steady hand. Her dark pine eyes remain locked on her own reflection, hardly flickering in Yuuji’s direction as he passes behind her— though he expects nothing less after the hostility with which they ended their last conversation.

As he approaches his locker a few of the omegas skitter away like mice beneath the shadow of a hawk. They settle off to the side and Yuuji can hear the soft hush of their shared whispers as they— almost surely — start to talk about him. When he opens his locker he can practically feel the way that some of them crane their necks in an effort to get a peek at what may, or may not be waiting inside. The room itself seems to let out a disappointed sigh as Yuuji purposefully shifts a bit to the side so that they can see there is nothing there. At least, nothing more interesting than the usual mess of clearance sets of lingerie stuffed into a pile.

“What, no more gifts from your sugar daddy?” Sasaki’s bitter voice rings out from behind him.

Yuuji’s shoulders go stiff before he turns to shoot a dry look over his shoulder at the other girl. “Nope.”

Sasaki scoffs and folds her arms across her lace-clad chest. “What, did they get sick of how ungrateful you are or something?” 

“Cut it out, Sasaki. You’re being mean, ” Amanai hisses as her eyes dart unsurely toward Yuuji.

Yuuji’s mind snags unpleasantly on the word ungrateful. 

Do you think I have any fucking reason to be? His own voice rings out within his memory.

That was what Yuuji had snarled at Gojo when he’d pointed out that Yuuji should be grateful. Because it was the truth… Wasn’t it? 

“Or maybe he realized you’re a prude and won’t put out for anyone, let alone take off that dumb patch. As if your scent is that fucking special or something,” Sasaki continues venomously.

Yuuji blinks back to himself and stares back at Sasaki. There is a small tear in the lace beneath her left breast and pilling of the material of her garter, denoting the wear and tear they had been through over time. Tell-tale shadows of sleeplessness paint lavender smudges beneath her eyes that haven’t quite been covered up fully with concealer. The press of her ribs is a bit too tight against her skin and the bones of her wrist look odd and knobby. He is starkly reminded of a beaten dog that lashes out at kind hands— not out of resentment, but rather to protect itself from being disappointed once again when it ends up on the receiving end of cruelty.

“Actually, I was the one who dumped him,” Yuuji says suddenly, the words already slipping past his lips before he consciously decides to speak them.

Sasaki’s mouth drops open in shock as the rest of the omegas in the dressing room begin to whisper frantically. He holds her stare for a long moment as a burning flush creeps into her cheeks and she finally looks away, mouth set into a frown.

Yuuji can hardly feel satisfied by the sight of it as his stomach twists with a different brand of embarrassment— wondering why he said something so fucking ridiculous aloud. Especially when he turns back around and accidentally catches Mai’s shrewd gaze in her reflection. There is something not quite, but close to pity in her pine forest eyes.

Or maybe that’s just his own emotions reflected in the dark mirror of her gaze. 

***

The club is surprisingly calm, but Yuuji remains on edge, skin prickling with awareness as if the air is charged with the same electricity that heralds a lightning strike.

The first two hours of the shift are spent entertaining a rather soft spoken, low grade female alpha who suffers from crippling insecurity. Perched on his knees between her spread legs, he listens attentively while resting his head on her thigh and allowing her to play with his hair. All in all, it wasn’t a bad deal, since she was actually rather pleasant, if not a bit odd, and the position he sits in allows him to keep an eye on the door while he waits impatiently for one of Gojo’s people to arrive. 

Three days.

He’d told Gojo that he would be back at the club in three days. 

Surely, the alpha who had wanted nothing to do with him would be chomping at the bit to get this part over with so that they would never have to deal with one another ever again. Yuuji isn’t dumb enough to think that Gojo, himself, will show up. There is little evidence to suggest that Gojo would be willing to lower himself to retrieve information himself when it was made clear that he has a multitude of foot soldiers ready to do his bidding— and more than likely to die for it, if it came down to it. 

Yuuji has even gone as far as to write down everything that he’d heard during the conversation between Dagon and his companions, just to make sure that he won’t forget any details. And to ensure that Gojo cannot hold anything else over his head— or come looking for more intel. The piece of paper now sits nestled beneath the thick, opaque material of his midnight blue thigh-highs. 

However, as the hours crawl by and Yuuji moves on from the insecure female alpha, to a shifty-eyed male alpha wearing a hideous Hawaiian print shirt, to another female alpha who boldly informs him of her interest in finding an omega to indulge her age-play kink— he had quickly extricated himself from the conversation when it turned toward his thoughts on the concept of adult diapering— but there is no sign of any members of the Gojo clan.

Not a single flash of blue, tattooed against skin. Not one alpha that walked through the doors reeking of anything other than sweat and cigarettes and desperation. Nothing — not a single fucking sign— to indicate that Gojo had sent someone to retrieve the presumably precious information that Yuuji dug up.

The hours tick by and as the clock draws closer to midnight, Yuuji feels less like a princess whose carriage is about to turn into a pumpkin and more like a rage monster who is about to unleash his fury on an unsuspecting, (preferably white haired and blindfolded), villain. Still, he forces himself to appear as nothing more than the picture of a calm and collected omega, meant for nothing more than to be painted in the shades of a passing alpha’s fantasies. 

He idles by the bar, chatting up an older male alpha. They are far past middle age and surprisingly kind, if not more than a bit perverted by the way their wrinkled hand keeps straying down to cup Yuuji’s bare ass cheek when he thinks Yuuji won’t notice, without a single break in his rambling, one sided conversation. 

Yuuji sips at a mangled version of his preferred drink and tries not to show his distaste with every swallow. With Panda still away, traveling with his husband— or whatever the fuck it is he does, since working at the club was more of a fun hobby than a necessary form of employment for the beta— there was a fill-in working behind the bar that night who had a tendency to make his drinks a bit too strong. 

“I just don’t know what to do about my kids, you know?” The elderly male alpha continues while his hand pinches gently at Yuuji’s flesh. “They want to be with their mother of course, but I want to be included in their lives. I just don’t want to overstep my boundaries. My therapist has been saying that it’s important to respect your own boundaries and those that belong to others but—”

Yuuji hums and nods dutifully at the appropriate times as the geezer rambles on, allowing his own gaze to glaze slightly in a doe eyed look. He feels removed from himself, as though he’s standing in another room and simply is watching the way the old man’s hand palms at his hip. Wrinkled hands feeling across muscle and soft skin while never missing a beat in conversation, as though touching an omega so brazenly was an inherent right. Second nature. Not even worthy of true attention, which, Yuuji supposes, might just make them even since he has hardly paid attention to a single thing the man has said in the last thirty minutes.

He lets his eyes furtively glance around the room and finds Inumaki at the other end of the bar where he is signing something with his hands toward the bartender. Across the room, Mai has captured the attention of a rather mousy looking female alpha, who watches her as though she is a dark Goddess, ascended from the underworld in order to snatch her soul— which Mai probably fucking loves. And Amanai and Sasaki are tag-teaming a group of six alpha salary men as they innocently caress and twirl around one another on a small, raised dais in the center of the lounge area. The rest of the omegas on shift all seem content as they entertain the alphas scattered throughout the club… But there is no sign of Gojo’s Eyes.

Yuuji bites back a frustrated sigh, though it is clearly not done well enough, because the geezer beside him snatches his hand away from Yuuji’s body as though he’s been burned. He stutters over his next few words, as if he’s suddenly realized that he’s being a nuisance— the illusion fully shattered.

“No, no, it’s alright alpha,” Yuuji coos at him sensually, willing away the frustration that burns like a red-hot ember, buried in the center of his chest. The old man is reluctantly appeased by the show as he relaxes beside him one again and Yuuji resigns himself to more waiting.

After another twenty minutes pass, the geezer has his eye caught by one of the female omegas who saunters by. The elderly alpha stutters half-baked apologies— as if him finally leaving Yuuji alone isn’t a favor in itself— while he waddles away. Yuuji simply smiles and nods as he is left alone at the bar.

He sighs in relief, allowing the performative mask to drop from his face for a few moments as he lingers by the bar. Although he can feel Miguel’s beady gaze on him, willing him to return to the fray, he knows that the club owner will do nothing more than send death stares at him from across the room. Part of him wonders what kind of explanation Gojo had given the sweaty man as to why Yuuji would be returning— and honestly, he would’ve paid good money to have witnessed it. But given Miguel’s twitchy behavior whenever it came to addressing Yuuji since he’d come back to the Fantasy Room, it’s apparent that he believes Yuuji is somehow also involved in the Gojo clan’s business… Which, he supposes, isn’t too far off the mark at this point.

As he sips at the butchered version of his adult Shirley temple, a dark shadow slinks up silently beside him. Yuuji doesn’t bother to give Mai the satisfaction of surprising him by her approach, though since their last conversation ended so poorly, he’s shocked that she was willing to come anywhere near him. Especially with so many watching eyes in the same room. She’s wearing the black dress she seems to favor, skin tight and covered from neck to fingertips as the oil-slick material shimmers and glints to her generous curves.

“You look like a dog that got kicked out of the house,” Mai mutters.

“You always say the sweetest things,” Yuuji shoots back with a half hearted glare.

Mai snorts at that, but says nothing further as she flags down the bartender with a wave of her gloved hand. He hears her order a double shot of tequila on the rocks, which makes Yuuji shiver just to look at as it’s slid across the bar toward her— and be a bit more appreciative of his own, mangled drink.

“Want a sip?” Mai asks casually as if they’re friends. 

“I’d rather eat the glass it’s in,” Yuuji replies honestly, wrinkling his nose at the death juice sloshing around in her cup as she wiggles gently it in his direction.

“Suit yourself,” Mai says as she takes a deceptively dainty sip of tequila. Her face doesn’t twitch at all as she swallows. “Stick to your diabetes in a glass.”

“Some people don’t actually hate themselves or pretend to enjoy pain, you know,” Yuuji snaps, which, maybe it is a bit of a cheap shot, but he is far past the point of believing that anything he says will have enough impact to hurt Mai’s feelings. 

Mai lets out a huff of humorless laughter and gestures to the rest of the room. “Well, let me know if you see any of them around here.”

A laugh gets startled out of Yuuji by the comment. He shakes his head and snorts quietly over his drink while ignoring the deceitful feeling of camaraderie that has somehow bloomed between them. After all of Mai’s hostility and distancing herself from him and the situation he was tangled in, he knew better than to think that her approaching him was anything less than fueled by personal incentive.

“Soooo… You wanna talk about why you look like a deer who knows they’re about to get shot?” Mai prompts before taking another demure sip.

Yuuji rolls his eyes. “First I’m a dog, now I’m a deer. Any other animals you want to use as metaphors for my appearance?” 

“Give me a few minutes and I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Mai mutters back easily.

“I’d rather if you didn’t,” Yuuji huffs.

Mai shrugs. “Fine, then do something to fix your face.” 

Yuuji breathes out a sigh, attempting to push the swell of frustration rising up within him to the furthest corners of his mind. Logically he has no control over what Gojo chooses to do or not do, but there is no denying that he’d put himself in a state of purgatory for the last few days, waiting and wondering how this meeting might go. Tortured by his own thoughts of who will be sent, what he will say, how it will end. 

Gloved fingers snap twice in front of his face with two sharp clicks. Yuuji blinks and looks back at Mai’s impassive gaze.

“Come back, Itadori,” She murmurs, “Don’t let yourself slip in a place like this.”

Yuuji nods in silent agreement. He takes a fortifying sip of his drink and allows the harsh burn of alcohol to linger on his tongue, as though it might make him get his shit together a bit faster.

“So what dire warning have you come to give me this time?” Yuuji prompts under his breath.

Mai sniffs as she takes another sip of tequila and swallows. “Can’t a girl just make some conversation?”

“No,” Yuuji scoffs. “Not when that girl is you. ”

“Fair enough,” Mai purrs, a sharp smirk tugging on her lips. Her body twists around so that she can lean her elbows back against the bar, but remains able to keep her eyes on the rest of the room. “To be honest, I want to know what the fuck you meant by what you said in the locker room before shift.”

“Huh?” He raises a brow.

“You know,” Mai says and then leans closer, lowering her voice. “About how you dumped Gojo-san?”

Yuuji grunts in embarrassed annoyance. “Ugghhh. Just forget I ever said that.”

“Ohhh,” Mai purrs with a devious glint in her dark eyes. “No way. I mean, I was just teasing, but damn, there’s actually something behind it, huh?”

“No, there isn’t,” Yuuji says between gritted teeth.

“I thought you said you didn’t fuck him?” Mai asks with a feral grin.

“I didn’t!” Yuuji replies emphatically.

“Mmhmm.” Mai rolls her eyes. “So then why are you being so defensive?”

“Gee, I don’t know! Maybe because everytime I have a conversation with you I feel like I’m fighting for my fucking life!” Yuuji hisses with a glare.

Mai hums under her breath and hides her smirk behind the rim of her glass, taking another sip of straight tequila. After she swallows she bares blunt teeth at him in a feral grin. “I do love it when my prey struggles a bit.”

“Oh, ew,” Yuuji mutters, “Would you fucking cut it out? Christ. I think I liked it better when you hated me and refused to speak to me.”

Mai shrugs and turns her gaze back out across the room. “I’ve never hated you. I just think you’re a fucking idiot… And I’ll admit that torturing you for answers has a certain appeal.”

“Sadistic bitch,” Yuuji snaps. “I haven’t got anything for you.”

“We’ll see about that,” Mai says.

Yuuji subdues yet another groan of frustration and is about to snap something back to Mai when she stiffens beside him. Her gaze is pinned on something across the room and when he follows her line of sight he sees that a newcomer has entered the club.

The man is tall, with dark skin and a bald head that shines beneath the low lighting of the club. He is dressed in a dark suit and seems perfectly at ease as he scans the club. Yuuji goes rigid when the man’s eyes settle on him and stick. Immediately, the man cuts through the crowd, making a straight line for the bar and Yuuji has the sinking realization that this is it. 

By the time the man approaches them, Yuuji has managed to wrangle his heart back down into his chest and out of his throat. His eyes catch on the slight shimmer of a nearly invisible scent patch on his neck and is positive that the man must be Gojo’s contact. 

“Yuuji Itadori?” The prompts in a deep voice as he comes to stand less than a foot away.

“Yes, that’s me,” Yuuji confirms quietly. 

Beside him, Mai shifts a bit to the side, leaning her body away as if to get as far from the strange alpha as possible. She lifts her glass to her lips and tosses back the last mouthful of tequila in one shot. The glass rattles as she drops it back to the bartop and hardly spares a glance in Yuuji’s direction as she saunters away without another word. 

“Catch you later, kid,” Mai says, half over her shoulder as she goes. 

Yuuji merely nods and then turns his gaze back to the suited man standing before him.

“I guess we could go speak in one of the private rooms?” Yuuji says offhandedly, trying to break the tension. The man inclines his head in agreement and gestures with one hand for Yuuji to lead the way. Yuuji shifts his weight back and forth, finding balance on the towering heels, before he steels himself and nods. “Right, let’s go then.”

Soon it will all be over. He thinks to himself as he leaves his drink behind on the bar and starts to carve a path through the club with the dark skinned man following closely behind.

Remnants from a time long past when Omega Houses— and the Fantasy Room specifically— were nothing more than glorified brothels, the private rooms were now only used as spaces where an omega could willingly choose to bring a customer— for the right price . With the more modern labor laws that had been put into effect in the last fifty years or so, surrounding omegas in the workforce, Omega Houses were disallowed from outright forcing their employees to become sex workers— therefore the company of an omega became the new, coveted commodity. And while it was no secret amidst the employed omegas at the Fantasy Room that some of them were more willing to hand out sexual favors in order to scrounge a bit more from specific customers, Yuuji has never been inclined to be counted amongst them. 

Perhaps it was because of his staunch lack of approval of the private rooms, that seeing him making his way toward them— not just alone, but with an alpha — had nearly all the other omegas in the club watching in complete disbelief. The feeling of their gazes drag across his flesh like corporeal touches and though he knows internally that he is not doing what he knows they have already assumed, it still makes his gut twist with shame. Though he tries to push the feeling down and remind himself that he knows the truth about the matter, he is powerless to cull the uneasy sentiment entirely. 

Soon it will all be over. He thinks to himself.

Which is exactly what he wants… Right?

The conversation and low, sensual bass coming from the main room of the club falls away as they pass through a set of velvet curtains, the same shade as the darkly painted walls of the main club, that obscure the hidden hallway. The narrow hall is several yards long and has four doorways on either side. Yuuji stops beside the second door located on the left wall and gestures toward it.

“We can talk in here,” Yuuji says, swallowing down the rise of nerves in his throat.

When the dark skinned man makes no move to enter, Yuuji pushes open the door and reveals the private room. The space is outfitted in black and tan leather furniture, with black carpets and equally dark walls that make the room feel smaller— nearly claustrophobic. A small, fully stocked bar is set off in the corner and in the center of the room, three low, curved couches are set in a wide circle around a raised stage. 

The room smells slightly musty, as though it hasn’t been cleaned or used in some time. Even the artificial, sweet scent that is constantly pumped through the club's vents seems to be absent. Yuuji inhales and wrinkles his nose in distaste. He thinks for a moment of mentioning it to Miguel, but then his mind reminds him that he might not even be allowed to work there after all of this is said and done. 

After all, the whole reason he was allowed to come back will be fulfilled… So what was the point in sticking around?

“So,” Yuuji says as he turns back around to face the alpha.

He feels his pulse skyrocket as he catches the alpha purposefully closing the door behind himself as he enters the room. The fine hairs prickle across the back ofYuuji’s neck as the alpha reaches for the handle and flicks the lock before he turns and gives Yuuji a knowing little smile.

“Safety precautions,” The man says, sharp fangs flashing in the low light while he steps away from the door. “Gotta make sure we don’t have any eavesdroppers.”

Yuuji tries not to reveal how shaky his next exhale is while something wriggles unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach. “Uhh… Right. Yeah, of course.”

“Let’s have a seat,” The man suggests easily, moving toward one of the couches. 

Yuuji hesitates as he watches the alpha make himself comfortable. Unbuttoning his coat, the alpha allows his arms to flop down along the back of the couch. Thick thighs spread out and immediately take up more room than necessary. As though it’s his divine right to dominate every space he inserts himself into— like every other alpha on the fucking planet. 

He perches himself on the couch a little ways down from the alpha. His muscles are locked stiff with tension while his heart beats unsteadily in his chest with nerves, but if the alpha notices anything, he doesn’t say so. Instead, he starts to rummage in one of his pockets for something.

“So I guess… I guess I’ll just get right to it, if that’s okay?” Yuuji says, wincing at how uncertain and soft his voice sounds as it comes out.

The alpha pauses for a moment and lifts his dark eyes up to stare at him. Yuuji fights the urge to squirm in discomfort beneath the gaze, when finally the alpha shrugs and says, “It’s your show, sugar.”

Yuuji’s teeth clench at the pet name directed at him, though he gives no other outward sign of the disgust that roils through him. The alpha finally pulls out a carton of cigarettes from his suit pocket and doesn’t hesitate to tap one out between his thick fingers. With his other hand, the man flicks open a lighter that Yuuji would swear appears out of thin air. The flame gutters for a moment while the alpha holds it to the end of the cigarette and sucks encouragingly at the filter.

“You can’t smoke in—” Yuuji trails off as the alpha levels him with a blank look and takes a deep, purposeful drag of smoke. “— Here.” 

Yuuji clears his throat awkwardly and finds himself further stunned when the man deliberately blows smoke in his direction. A flicker of anger, not unlike the guttering flame of the alpha’s lighter, starts to climb higher inside of him. He wonders at how little regard or manners this member of the Gojo clan has, however a more cynical part of himself thinks that maybe this was all part of Gojo’s design. Maybe he’d given one of his grunts explicit instructions to make Yuuji’s life as miserable as possible during the time it took to relay the information he’d gotten about the Ryoumen clan.

“You wanted to talk?” The alpha breathes out through another thick cloud of smoke and gestures to Yuuji with the hand holding the cigarette. “So talk, sugar.”

Yuuji falters for barely a second before he braces his fists against his bare thighs and forces himself to suck it up.

Soon it will all be over. He tells himself. Over and over and over again, until he actually believes it.

A mantra. A promise. A lament.

The alpha, to his credit, doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush as he smokes in silence, eyes pinned on Yuuji.

“Right… I’ll just— Start at the beginning?” Yuuji asks.

The alpha blows out a ring of smoke followed by another. “If you’d like.”

Yuuji nods and then reaches for the hem of his thigh high, refusing to acknowledge the fact that his fingers are shaking as he pulls out the neatly folded square of paper that he’s written all of the information down on. 

“Uhh… Some of it might be a bit confusing because I was just writing a stream of consciousness and stuff, from what I can remember. So— Ummm…” Yuuji’s voice trails off uneasily as the alpha scoots closer to him across the couch. One of his arms slides down off the back of the couch and comes to wrap around Yuuji’s waist, hand coming to rest over the band of Yuuji’s panties wrapped around his hip. As if in a dream, Yuuji glances down in disbelief at the bold hand clutching his hip and then back to the dark skinned alpha’s face. A visceral cringe rocks through his body at the sight of an unhinged grin decorating the man’s face.

“There now, isn’t that a bit more comfy, sugar?” The alpha asks, smoke blowing straight into Yuuji’s face. Rage strikes like a match in his chest, heat suffusing into his veins as he sits up straighter, completely unsure of what the fuck is going on and suddenly, viscerally aware that they are in a room together, entirely alone, with the door locked. 

As Yuuji reels from the brazen display he is completely caught off guard by the way the alpha leans in close and tries to sniff at his neck.

“Hey, man! Watch it!” Yuuji snaps irritably, flinching away instinctively, though he can only go so far with the alpha’s arm caging him in on the other side of his waist. 

The alpha appears entirely unaffected by Yuuji’s irritation and merely levels a disdainful look at him. “You wear scent patches all the time?”

“That’s none of your business,” Yuuji sneers, well and truly pissed off not just at the alpha beside him, but at Gojo for sending this fucking asshole to do his bidding. “Do you want this fucking intel or not?”

The alpha backs off a little bit, leaning against the back of the couch as he stretches out the hand holding the cigarette between them, as if ushering forward the conversation. 

Soon it will all be over. He tells himself.

“Right… So the Ryoumen clan,” Yuuji prompts, jaw aching from how tense he has been holding it. His fingers fumbled slightly with the paper in his hands, shaking now from anger, rather than nerves.

Suddenly, there is a strange popping noise that echoes from a place outside the private room. A tinny, shrill noise follows close on its heels, as though someone had scraped a fork against a plate. Yuuji immediately turns his head towards the closed door, ears pricked as his attention is diverted. 

“Did you hear that?” Yuuji asks sharply.

A heavy hand lands high on Yuuji’s bare thigh. He whirls back around, already recoiling from the alpha’s touch,.

“What was that you were saying about the Ryoumen clan?” The alpha asks, his voice low and dark as he leans in close to Yuuji. It is then, with his face only a few inches from Yuujis, in the dim light of the private room, that Yuuji sees a smear of what appears to be ink across the man’s nose. 

No. Yuuji realizes with a sinking sort of dread. It isn’t ink that’s smudged on the man’s face, but rather, he can see that some kind of thick makeup that matches his skin tone has been smudged away to reveal a thick line of black etched into the man’s face. 

A tattoo.

The wrong kind of tattoo.

Yuuji’s heart thuds against his ribs as the slow, dawning realization that something is very wrong comes to light. Before he can gather himself, another round of popping noises echoes from beyond the room and this time Yuuji knows that it is the high pitched, distant sound of screaming that he hears muffled through the thick, concrete walls. Instinctively, he makes a move to stand up.

“I think something's wrong,” Yuuji says, attempting to deflect from the horrible, gut churning comprehension that he is in danger. “We should go check and see—”

“Now wait just a minute, sugar,” The alpha says, wrapping his hand around Yuuji’s wrist and pulling him sharply back down to the couch. “You were just about to tell me what exactly you think you know about the Ryoumen clan…”

Yuuji’s stomach clenches as he makes a move to grab the man’s hand where it’s wrapped, iron clad around his wrist. “I was just… Didn’t Gojo tell you…?” He trails off as he attempts to squirm out of the man’s hold.

The alpha takes one last drag of his cigarette and then allows the smoke to eke out at the corners of his maliciously grinning mouth. “Who said anything about Gojo?” 

A heartbeat passes. And then another. And then Yuuji is launching himself upward, attempting to rip his wrist away from the alpha— an alpha who most assuredly does not belong to Gojo’s clan— while he pulls the other back and forms a fist. The dark skinned alpha moves viper fast as he stands in tandem and easily catches Yuuji’s flying punch in his broad grasp. Knuckles stinging from the impact and unbalanced in the towering heels he’s got strapped to his feet, Yuuji is effectively trapped. Adrenaline screams through his veins, willing him to move— to fight. 

Beyond the room, another round of pops rings out, followed by screams. 

Something is very, very wrong. 

Yuuji lets a growl ripple out of his chest as he lifts a knee, aimed straight for the man’s crotch. The alpha releases Yuuji’s fist in order to dodge the movement, which gives Yuuji a split second to make a run for the door. He barely makes it three feet before he is snatched from behind,  a thick arm coiling punishingly around his neck. The alpha’s hand grabs his opposite shoulder and the hold tightens around his throat. His thickly muscled bicep flexes and effectively cuts off Yuuji’s air supply. It’s a move he’s used all too often at the dojo— with much less sinister intentions— and he knows from experience that he has only a few moments before unconsciousness will take him out. 

“You should have fucking run when you had the chance,” The alpha hisses into Yuuji’s ear as dark spots begin to dance at the edge of his gaze. Yuuji grapples at the man’s thick arm, nails scratching into flesh, though he feels as weak as a kitten as his struggling begins to slow— with his brain losing oxygen so quickly he can feel the fight draining out of him. Hot breaths rasp against his ear. A tongue flickers against his skin as the alpha speaks, “He’ll never stop hunting you… Not now that he knows you actually exist.”

As darkness truly starts to crowd in against Yuuji’s peripherals, there is a sudden slamming noise that comes from nearby. Followed by another. And then another. 

Bang! Bang! Bang!

For a slightly hysterical moment, as Yuuji’s brain functions with less than half of the oxygen it needs, he believes that it is the sound of his own heart. Pounding against his ribs, as though it has a better shot of surviving outside of his body. Yuuji can’t blame it for thinking that way— 

And then, all at once, he is proven wrong.

One last, enormous slam echoes through the room and the door is thrown wide open. It slams into the opposite wall and there, standing on the threshold, silhouetted by the dim light of the hall there is some kind of dark, avenging angel wielding a gleaming, silver revolver. 

“Drop the gun and I won’t kill him!” The alpha’s shout ricochets through Yuuji’s already ringing ears. His head pounds as blackness begins to consume him.

Run. He wants to shout at them, as though he could somehow warn away the dark angel from being hurt as well. Instead, a jagged, rasping noise passes his lips, jaw sagging open uselessly without any words or breath to give. But the dark angel does not run. They step into the room and slam the door behind them in a swift movement, plunging the room back into shadowed dimness. And before Yuuji can make sense of it— or as much sense as he has left in his addled mind— a single shot is fired. 

Without warning, Yuuji is wrenched backwards by the sheer force of the alpha behind him falling and dragging him down. Like two puppets with their strings cut, they tumble to the floor in a heap. The alpha’s arm goes lax around Yuuji’s battered throat, allowing him to finally gasp desperately for air. His hands scrabble at his bruised neck, hacking and coughing as he drags in ragged, aching breaths— body still not entirely recovered from the whiplash of nearly being strangled to finally being able to breath. 

Steadying himself on his hands as he leans over the floor— and coughing hard enough that he’s sure one of his lungs will end up on the ground beside him— he hardly notices the wet, warm spread of liquid that has started to seep into the carpet. Another moment passes before he registers the feeling of sticky warmth squishing between his fingers. 

Blinking open his eyes, tears clinging thickly to his lashes and blurring the world around him, he stares down at the dark carpet where it has been saturated with wetness. Dazedly, he lifts a shaking hand and finds his palms stained with crimson. As if in slow motion, he turns his head to the side and finds the prone body of the dark skinned alpha laying on his back beside him. Splayed out and deathly still, eyes opened wide with eternal shock— and a bullet hole bored dead center between them.

Dead. 

Yuuji reflexively retches at the sight of the corpse beside him. Half scrambling to put more space between them as gags continue to flee his ravaged throat, he can practically feel the near hysterical slip of his mind—

He’sdeadhe’sdeadohgodohgodthat’sadeadbodyohgodohgodoh—

 A strong grip suddenly wraps itself around his upper arm, wrenching it upwards and dislodging one of his hands, that has been pulling far too hard against his hair.

“Get the fuck up,” Mai’s unyielding voice snaps from above him. “Now.”

Yuuji trembles as he is heaved up to his feet by Mai’s incredible strength. His eyes dart between her face, the revolver in her hand and the dead man on the floor.

“You— You— Oh God. You fucking killed him. You really fucking killed him—” Yuuji mumbles out nonsensically, voice rising with panic as his breaths begin to come faster. 

“He was about to do worse to you,” Mai snaps harshly, velvet covered fingers tightening brutally around his wrist.

Yuuji’s eyes catch on the thin trail of blood from the bullet wound between the man’s eyes. The rivulet of sticky crimson washes away more of the dark makeup that had been obscuring a thick strip of black, tattooed across the bridge of the man’s nose and leading toward the tip. From the main room of the club there are several more warning shots that tremble through the walls. They are followed by more screams and as if instinct suddenly urges him to do so, Yuuji automatically lurches toward the door.

It is only Mai’s iron hold on him that holds him back. 

Yuuji whirls around, snarling wildly and half blind with the panicky need to do something.

“We have to go help them!” 

“No fucking chance. Save that martyr bullshit for another day, Itadori,” Mai growls back as her voice dips down into a warning sound. “ You need to get the fuck out of here.” 

“I can help them!” Yuuji insists, ripping his arm out of her hold. “We have to help them! They’re going to be killed. We can’t just—” 

A hard slap to his cheek silences him immediately. He goes still, cheek stinging as his jaw is taken into her hard grip. Her eyes have gone so dark that there is no hint of color with them— only the apathetic calm of someone who has seen— and distributed— death before. 

“Right now they’re distracted and that’s the only reason you’re still alive. You go out there and you’re giving them exactly what they want. Don’t you fucking get that? They’re here for you, ” Mai snarls viciously. 

Icy terror spreads instantly through his veins as her words strike a primal chord inside of him— one that tells him to run. Mai tightens her grip on him, as though she can sense the way his mind has started to slip away again into a state of panic.

“You need to listen to me now, alright? I’m promise, I’ll go back and help them as best as I can, but you need to get the fuck out of here. Do you understand?”

“I—” Yuuji starts, voice wrecked from where it rasps up his battered throat.

Mai shakes his head in her grip like an owner reprimanding a misbehaving animal. “Shut up! I’m not asking for a lot here, Itadori. Get yourself out. And maybe I’ll consider us fucking even for saving your God damnned life from this pathetic piece of shit.”

Yuuji gasps as though he’s finally come up for air— as if only now he has been released from a chokehold. He stares into Mai’s dark pine eyes and everything shifts into clarity. The hazy fog of fear recedes like a tide going out and all that is left upon the barren shore within him, is the burning desire to survive. 

“Okay,” He breathes out on another trembling gasp, his chest rising and falling like a horse that has just finished a race. The ancient instinct to live rises up inside of him, stripping away all of the terror from his numb limbs. He feels as though he has been wrapped up with live wire, every nerve awake and firing simultaneously. Deep down, he shoves the last vestiges of panic and fear into a box and locks it away. Lifting his face he repeats himself more clearly, staring determinedly into Mai’s grim face. “ Okay .”

Mai scans his face for a split second— looking for something— before she nods tightly. Another round of shots can be heard being fired in the main club, but this time there are no more screams and instead they are followed by a series of deep, shouting voices. A piercing, girlish scream cuts them off and then is silenced by another shot. 

Yuuji refuses to allow the curdling horror in his stomach to cripple him as he tugs free of Mai’s hold and ducks down, reaching for his heels and unlaces them as fast as possible. Mai moves like a slip of shadow towards the closed door. Resting her ear against the thick wood, she listens to whatever is happening beyond it. Yuuji shoves the heels off, leaving them carelessly lying in the pool of blood on the carpet that has only gotten bigger.

He approaches Mai on silent, bare feet. Her dark gaze cuts toward him as she pulls away from the door.

“Head for the stairs,” She says sharply without any further explanation. “Get outside and don’t stop running until you’re as far from this place as fucking possible.” 

“Okay.” Yuuji nods shakily. He wipes his trembling hands unconsciously against his bare torso, realizing half a beat too late— stomach swooping in disgust— that they are sticky with blood.

“And Yuuji?” Mai says softly, placing her free hand on the door handle. Shock ripples through him at the sound of his given name and he meets her gaze with wide eyes. Mai dips her chin to look down the scant few inches that separate them now that he’s barefoot and lets out a soft breath— her voice barely a whisper between them. “No matter what happens, don’t look back.”

A fresh wave of horror descends on top of him, threatening to sweep him back out into the riptide current of panic. Yuuji grits his teeth against it and forces himself to nod.

He holds his breath and waits in silence as Mai slowly opens the door. Heart tripping in his chest he obeys her silent command to wait as she lifts a gloved hand up between them. She rests her shoulder against the door frame, tilting her head to listen to the voices, now clearly heard with the door open. Several deep voices growl threateningly beyond the velvet curtains that hide the hidden hallway from the main room of the club— though it is difficult to decipher any specific words. A metallic click startles Yuuji and his wide eyes dart down to find Mai deftly fiddling with the gleaming revolver.  

She lifts the gun to her chest and cranes her neck around the doorframe, dark gaze observing the narrow hall before she lets out a single, slow breath.

“Go,” Mai commands— and that is all it takes.

Both of them burst out into the hallway. Yuuji turns sharply to the left, toward the staircase while Mai goes right, back toward the main room of the club. True to his word, though it kills him to do so, Yuuji keeps his head straight and does not look back. His bare feet pound against the floor, tacky with the dead alpha’s blood as he runs toward the fire doors at the opposite end with the single-minded intent of escaping. 

Behind him, there is a loud shout of alarm, followed by several bangs of gunshots melded with renewed screams of terror. Yuuji’s fingernails cut into his palms as he clenches his fists and pushes himself faster, ears ringing with the sounds of gunfire and fear. The urge to turn around and go back is nearly overwhelming. To help. To do something— anything other than run away like a coward. 

It will never be over. A vicious voice whispers in his mind— one that sounds hauntingly close to the alpha who now lays dead in a pool of his own blood back in the private room.

Yuuji blinks back the hot rush of tears as he finally reaches the fire doors and shoves them open with a desperate gasp, just as another round of shots go off behind him. The metal door slams shut behind him as he launches himself down the frigid stairwell. Bare skin stinging from the rush of cold air, his body erupts in goosebumps. It is, of course, only a surface level reaction, since the adrenaline pumping its way through his veins keeps him warm like a wildfire lit within his blood.

Taking the stairs down two at a time, his breath wheezes through his brutally bruised windpipe. He lets out a yelp as he trips off the last step in his haste and clatters into the door at the bottom of the stairwell. With a grunt, he shoves it open and spares only half a glance over his shoulder to make sure that no one has followed him down— only to run head first into another body. 

Yuuji stumbles backward with a gasp before two hands catch him by the upper arms in an unyielding grip.

“There you are,” A familiar voice croons maliciously.

Yuuji sucks in a harsh breath, dragging like a knife down his throat. Dread curls ugly and molten in the pit of his stomach as his eyes lift in shock to find the red headed alpha Dagon standing before him. The alpha’s nose is slightly crooked and swollen across the bridge, while dark bruises linger beneath both of his eyes from when Yuuji punched him in the face. The alpha leers down at him with fury burning in his eyes. The heavy scent of the alpha’s pheromones being pushed out at an alarming rate is more than enough to make Yuuji dizzy with instinctual fear, because the sour, fishy smell is tinged with pure rage. 

His hesitation is just enough for the alpha to slam Yuuji into the wall. One of the alpha’s hands wraps firmly around his already damaged neck. Yuuji wheezes out a desperate breath and tries to tug the alpha off, though his grip is already weak from the first time he got choked out. There is a flash of silver that winks beneath the fluorescent light and Yuuji goes cold with terror at the sight of the wicked blade held in Dagon’s hand.

“I’m supposed to bring you in alive…” Dagon mutters with a spiteful grin on his ugly face. “But they didn’t say anything against taking off a few pieces first…”

The alpha’s lips twist into a snarl as he brings the edge of the knife to rest against Yuuji’s cheek. A whimper claws its way out of Yuuji’s throat as his already flagging strength begins to fade beneath the alpha’s grasp. Dagon drags the point of the knife across his skin with enough pressure to send pure terror rushing through his body. The blade caresses him, almost lovingly, until it comes to a stop at the corner of Yuuji’s mouth.

“Should we start with this unruly, little tongue of yours? What do you think, little fish?” Dagon asks with a hateful glint in his eyes. “Do you think that mouthy bitches deserve to keep their tongues?”

The pressure increases against the corner of Yuuji’s mouth, digging in to the space between his lips. Yuuji goes utterly still, unwilling to harm himself by moving into the blade by accident. Angry pheromones fill up the narrow hall, so thick and cloying that every desperate inhale Yuuji takes is chased out by a gag. The sickening bite of sharp metal into his skin makes fresh tears squeeze from his eyes.

Please just let it be over. He begs desperately to anyone who might be listening.

And suddenly, as though someone did hear him, the doors of the stairwell come crashing open and a blur of pale skin and platinum hair barrels into Dagon’s side. 

Yuuji goes tumbling to the side as the alpha is thrown to the ground. The knife goes skittering across the floor, silver flashing beneath the fluorescent lights and edged in a thin line of crimson. Feeling as though he’s in a daze, Yuuji rights himself, leaning back against the wall as he stares blankly Inumaki now struggling beneath the red-headed alpha. Dagon’s beefy hands have wrapped themselves fully around Inumaki’s slender throat, squeezing tightly as he mutters incoherently with rage. With each passing second, Inumaki’s thrashing gets weaker, eyes fluttering closed while his exposed mouth— since his mask has been ripped free— gasps for air.

He’s going to die. Yuuji thinks distantly.

You can’t let that happen. A deep part of him snarls back.

It is part instinct and part revenge that has Yuuji moving without a second thought. Something innate that speaks to a time long past, when survival was everything and there was no such thing as playing fair. 

He lunges for the knife, snatching it up with blood covered hands and moves faster than anyone can react. Stepping up behind Dagon’s prone back, he moves in a way that he never has before— has never imagined himself capable of— however he does not hesitate. And he does not miss. 

The knife finds a home for itself, plunged through the back of Dagon’s neck. Pushed deep through bone and tissue, it comes out the front of his throat with a sickening, wet crunch. Blood pours from the wound a wet gurgle of surprise echoes off the walls— half caught on a gasp for air that will never make it to his lungs. Yuuji pushes harder— furious with the need to ensure that the deed is done right— though the hilt has already the back of the alpha’s neck with nowhere else to go. Red douses Inumaki where he lays prone beneath the alpha, painting the boy in disgusting, sticky crimson. Yuuji is too far gone to notice that the boy neither flinches in shock, nor does he look afraid.

As the alpha tilts sideways and crumples to the ground, the hilt of the blade slips out of Yuuji’s hands. He watches the alpha jerk against the tile floor with a few last desperate pulses of life, before he finally falls still. Blood pools excessively around the body. A thick puddle accumulates rapidly where it gushes from his neck and spreads across the cracked linoleum floor.

Yuuji stares down at the second dead body that he’s seen that night. Except this time he is viscerally aware of the fact that this time it is his fault . 

Training in the dojo was one thing— he had even taught classes on how people could defend themselves if they were ever put in a position to need to… But killing someone? Ending someone’s life? 

Yuuji has never, ever wanted to do that. 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Yuuji mutters over and over again as he stands above Dagon’s cooling corpse. The spread of blood expands rapidly and Yuuji shuffles awkwardly until his back hits the wall to avoid having the crimson touch his bare feet. He lifts a hand to press against his mouth, despite the uncontrollable way it shakes, either to keep in a gag or to keep in a scream— maybe both.

The walls feel as though they are closing in around him. His lungs collapse in on themselves in his chest. Blood roars through his veins— or is he actually screaming now? He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.

A gentle, cool hand wraps around Yuuji’s wrist and he lets out a pure, omegan whimper of distress. Tearing his gaze away from the corpse he finds Inumaki’s serious, lavender gaze locked onto him. The boy’s face is laid bare now that his mask has been ripped off and lies ruined on the floor, soaked with blood. His pale face is spattered with gore, along with the rest of the bare skin exposed by the lingerie he’s wearing, but the boy does not seem any worse for wear. Fuck, he hardly even seems phased. 

Yuuji on the other hand… 

“I’m— I’m—” Yuuji stutters, teeth chattering as shock settles into his system. Each of his limbs feel numb and hot and cold all at the same time. “ I’m really freaking out, man.”

Inumaki makes a sound in his throat and taps the inside of Yuuji’s wrist. With his other hand he points toward the other end of the hall. Yuuji barely resists when Inumaki’s fingers tug on his arm, falling into step beside him. His body feels foreign, as though it does not belong to him. The squish of blood between his toes makes bile rise, hot and sour in the back of his throat. A curdled stench lingers in the air, melded with the metallic tang of freshly spilled blood. 

Inumaki picks up speed as they run down the hall, forcing Yuuji to follow at the same pace. It feels like both an endless moment and a blink of an eye has passed by the time Inumaki is shoving open the door. They barrel out into the night, stumbling into the cold darkness of the alleyway behind the club. A fresh inch of snow has fallen in the time since the shift started and it sears through the bottom of Yuuji’s feet as they sprint down the alley.

For the second time that night, Yuuji breaks his promise to Mai and casts a look over his shoulder. The flash of red and blue lights illuminate the other end of the alley. If it weren’t for the rush of blood in his own ears, he might have heard their sirens.

Inumaki pulls him around a corner and suddenly they find themselves on a narrow, one-way side street. Yuuji barely recognizes it, steeped in shadows as it is, from his trek with Megumi to the club. All of the houses are dark given the time of night, but a lone dog barks continuously in response to the commotion only a single street over. Snow is still falling hard around them, clinging and melting against Yuuji’s bare skin, drawing lines through the smears of scarlet that decorate his bare body like a grotesque, abstract painting.

Just as he starts to wonder where Inumaki is taking them, the platinum haired boy comes to a sudden halt. Yuuji’s arm wrenches in Inumaki’s grip as he’s yanked up beside a sleek black car that is parked on the side of the street. Without any hesitation, Inumaki throws open the back door of the sedan and practically shoves Yuuji inside. 

As Yuuji shuffles sideways across the leather seat, he realizes that the car is warm inside, as though it has been running for quite a while. The overhead lights do not go on even though the door is open, but Yuuji can see the shadow of someone sitting in the driver’s seat. His breath catches in fear for a moment, before Inumaki shoves in beside him and slams the door closed behind him. Inumaki reaches a hand out and slaps the middle console of the front seats hard with the flat of his palm and suddenly, the car is moving— peeling itself away from the curb with a subtle rev of the engine.

Yuuji sits in the dark cabin of the luxury car, the sound of the engine purring barely heard over the sound of his frantic breathing. The bottoms of his feet ache and sting as the steady warmth starts to seep into his frozen skin. He shifts on the leather seat and cringes at the feeling of his skin sticking to the fine leather from the tacky blood smeared across his entire body. 

He glances, wide eyed, at Inumaki, who peers back at him, barely visible within the shadows of the cabin. 

“What the fuck is going on?” Yuuji manages to rasp, voice quaking as his teeth chatter uncontrollably. 

Inumaki makes a soft sound in the back of his throat and shrugs his shoulders. Yuuji winces as the car passes under a streetlight and the spatter of blood across the boy’s pale face is made visible once again. 

“If you’ll pardon my intrusion,” The driver says suddenly. Yuuji flinches hard, back pressing against the corner of his seat like a cornered animal. Logically he knew someone had to be driving the car, though his mind feels so terribly stretched thin that he’d managed to forget that little detail. “Inumaki-san has limited use of his voice and is unable to explain the order of events. I would like to inform you in his stead, that we are currently en route to the Gojo family estate.” 

“Gojo… Family estate?” Yuuji repeats back softly, the words sounding like a foreign language to his muffled ears. Tongue swollen as it rolls around all of the consonants and vowels together within his mouth. His head sways forward as though someone has tied a cement block around his neck. All at once he feels dizzy… Tired…

“Indeed. It is fortunate that Gojo-sama had the forethought to install Inumaki-san’s presence in case something like this were to occur. I can only imagine what might have happened if—” 

“I don’t—” Yuuji interrupts abruptly, words slurring together— head swimming as the shadowy world bends and twists around him. His heart thunders in his ears, body too hot and too cold and entirely numb all at once.

Toomuchtoomuchtoomuch. 

“Itadori!” A voice calls nearby. The sound is ugly— far past simply rough with disuse, but rather as though the speaker had swallowed a handful of glass. 

Yuuji opens his mouth to tell them that he might be on the verge of passing out.

And then he promptly passes out. 

***

Yuuji hardly stirs when the car finally comes to a stop.

Smothered by exhaustion and the heavy drop of adrenaline, he remains deeply entrenched within the realm of unconsciousness. Slumped over, with his head pressed into the curve of Inumaki’s throat, he unknowingly presses his nose closer to the comforting scent of lilac flowers and the cool freshness of spring rain that has been twisted and melded with the metallic tang of forged steel. Instinctively, he inhales deeply the mixed scent of a happily mated pair, seeking out the unspoken comfort that lives within such a bond.

The engine is cut, leaving the car to tick and cool. The driver’s voice is too distant to make out as he speaks quietly before one of the back doors is opened and a frigid gust of mountain air sweeps through the toasty cabin. In his sleep, Yuuji lets out a whine of discomfort while he tries to bury his face deeper into the side of Inumaki’s neck. A rough, gravelly sound answers him— almost a coo of comfort, if it weren’t for the shredded quality to the sound. Unwilling to be released from the quiet embrace of darkness that he has fallen into— unconsciously relishing the calm after the storm— Yuuji listens as though he has been submerged under water, hearing bits and pieces of voices.

               —re you alright?

                                  —nsidering he killed a man who— —ell enough, I gue—

      —uck, Gojo won’t be pleased to hea— Shit look at— —vered in blood —s it his?

                                           —ot as f— —an tell.

             Alri— —et him out of the—

Don’t touch him.  

I’ll do it. 

Yuuji whines at the sound of the threatening growl that rumbles nearby— though it is not out of fear. 

The warmth of Inumaki’s body shifts away, which prompts a quiet whimper from him as he attempts to seek it out again, blind and helpless as a newborn pup. The growl suddenly cuts off and a soft, soothing coo reaches him through the shadowy realm of his dreams. A deeper part of Yuuji stirs at the noise— something ancient and unused, that replies instantly to the call. As though someone had said his name, but it was not one he fully recognized for himself.

Yuuji makes a sleepily inquisitive sound, unable to fully re-surface from sleep as his body is gently shuffled across the leather seat and then pulled into the warm, sturdy circle of a pair of arms. Lifted and folded close, he is pulled bodily from the car as though he is nothing more than a sleeping child. One arm cradles beneath his legs while the other holds steady beneath his back, never wavering under his weight for even a moment.  

Cold air nips at his exposed skin as he’s drawn from the warmth of the cabin, biting and filled with the promise of ice. Yuuji wriggles in the hold, letting out a displeased grumble before a thick, warm material is draped and tucked around him securely. Immediately, he resettles, feeling the warmth imbued into the material beginning to seep into his own skin and turning his face, he rubs his nose against the softness he finds there. 

He feels as though he’s floating, swaying gently as the person walks, wrapped up in their heated embrace. Even still, another sharp, piercing gust bites at his exposed nose and Yuuji whines out another displeased sound. A rumbling softness responds, vibrating beneath his cheek where it is pressed against solid warmth, prompting him to tuck closer to the source. The arms shift beneath him, drawing his body even closer and as Yuuji resettles in their sure grip, his nose makes contact with the petal softness of skin. When he inhales, he is deeply overwhelmed by the way the scent of snow and salt burns its way through his body— not just filling his lungs, but every single empty part of himself. As though every barren place within him has simply been waiting to be filled by salt and snow and ice and power.

A high pitched keen leaves Yuuji’s throat— unconscious though he remains— as one of his hands abandons the cocoon of warmth surrounding him to latch on. His scarred palm holds tight to the other side of the alpha’s neck while Yuuji sleepily shoves as close as he’s able to and starts to suck down greedy lungfuls of the powerful scent at its source. 

Another approving rumble replies wordlessly to the action. One of the broad hands tightens its hold around Yuuji’s bare hip, cradling his body close and encouraging the way he presses closer, closer, closer.

Like magic, the smell burns away the last vestiges of tension lingering in his sleeping body. Lulling him into a deeper state of contentedness, his muscles go loose and pliant— well and truly giving up any control. The effortless hold around his body allows him to nuzzle deeper against the side of the alpha’s neck. His slightly parted lips rub back and forth against warm, bare skin and uncontrolled pants fan hotly against the alpha’s scent gland. Practically boneless, Yuuji does nothing to stop the way he tumbles deeper into the warm abyss of sleep, breathing in the heady, unmitigated smell of—

Safety. His hindbrain croons with delight. Safe here. Safe safe safe. 

And Yuuji, even with the way he is caught in the fog between dreams and reality, has no arguments against it.

Beneath his ear, the steady growl has not wavered, though there is no trace of a threat within the sound. It vibrates through his bones— through his very soul— as he is carried away from the cold. A deep voice murmurs nonsensical words that do not penetrate the haze of dreams deep enough for him to decipher their meaning. All he can glean from them is the vaguely encouraging tone that is laced with the rough, comforting rasp of a growl. Yuuji nuzzles closer into the broad chest where the sound emanates from. The muscled arms tighten around him and the voice drops even lower, taking on a sweet edge of praise that makes Yuuji’s gut instinctively fill with hot, molten honey in response.

Safe. His mind whispers once again as his heart finally settles in his chest for the first time, perhaps ever . 

After a while, Yuuji feels himself being lifted up effortlessly and then pulled gently away from the source of the warmth and gentle growling. Unbidden, a whine slips up his throat at the thought of being separated. His scarred palm tightens against the silky skin of the alpha’s neck, unwilling to part as his whine grows more desperate at the edges. In a desperate, unspoken plea for mercy a purr stutters to life in his chest— since the sound of an omegan purr is a tactic in itself to lure an alpha to return.

Because surely, this is his alpha. There is no doubt in Yuuji’s heart about that.

Yuuji feels a wide hand cradle the side of his face as he is laid on a mind-numbingly soft surface. His body, blessedly, remains wrapped in the soft, snow and salt scented material. 

In a dazed stupor, caused by the presence of such intense pheromones and more than half asleep, Yuuji trills softly— happily— and his purr grows louder. It is something that, if he were even a little bit more aware, he would be mortified to realize what he has done. Since it is no secret that purring is a sound sacredly reserved for mated pairs to convey their emotions to one another. A wordless call to the other half of a whole that says—

Stay with me. I’m safe with you. My alpha. Mine. Please stay. Please keep me. I’m yours. 

Yuuji feels the gentle touch of fingertips drift across his face— no more than the brush of a butterfly’s wing. They trace a path across his forehead, over the slope of his nose, against the slightly chapped curve of his bottom lip, along his jawline. All the while, Yuuji’s purr vibrates through his chest as he tilts his face toward the ghostly touch. Heat pools in his gut as he craves more.

Greedy. His mind whispers.

Yes. He agrees— because from his alpha he demands nothing less than everything.  

Except, he realizes at that moment, that despite the enticing cadence of his purr calling out to his alpha, there is no responding sound. The purr stutters in his chest, guttering like the flame of a candle beneath a strong wind, as doubt begins to creep in at the edges of his mind. Displeasure curls at the edges of the noise, suddenly unsure of how welcome it is. If a scent patch had not been plastered to his skin, surely the air around them would have turned sour with embarrassment. 

What if he is wrong? What if this isn’t his alpha? What if he’ll be alone forev—

Suddenly, a responding purr calls back to him— deep and loud and achingly sweet. It trembles with something close to hesitance, or perhaps it is merely a lack of practice? As though the alpha has never done it before. 

Yuuji’s purr gets stronger, sweeter at the edges at the understanding that he has been accepted. His insides go gooey and warm as the sound of two purrs twining around one another becomes one. The harmony of their vibrations only serving to deepen the sound of contentment— of belonging— that fills the air. The noise settles deep inside of Yuuji and shifts a piece of himself— one that hasn’t fit quite right for a long, long time— into place. 

As he slips away into the unreachable depths of dreams, with the scent of snow and salt razing all of his fears and uncertainty to nothing but ash and the adoring sound of two souls calling out to one another, he feels a bit like he has finally come home.

Chapter Text

Consciousness returns in increments.

Slow and leisurely, as though there is all the time in the world, Yuuji’s mind wanders winding paths through the hazy cradle of sleep toward the fragile barrier between dreams and reality. Pliant and cozy, he nestles deeper into the warmth that wraps around him, reveling in the comfort of feeling so utterly safe. Not a single thought is stirred beyond the primal understanding of protection that encompasses him— borne in the powerful arms wrapped around him and the scent that coats his throat, thick like syrup, with every deep inhale. 

A low, vibrating purr replies from underneath his cheek, echoing from within the basin of the firm chest that rises and falls with deep, even breaths. One of Yuuji’s fists clings tight to the material covering the body beside him, faceless and unknown in the depths of his dreams, though he knows without a doubt that their touch is welcome. Merely aware of the bone-deep knowledge that whoever it is fits beside him— two pieces of the same soul.

He presses his face closer to the warm curve of petal soft skin. Lips graze across the light sheen of oil that coats his alpha’s unmarked gland and tastes of fresh snow and the sweet spray of sea salt. A low rumble of approval vibrates beneath his ear, encouraging him as his tongue darts out to catch more of the taste. A broad hand possessively cradles the back of his head while long fingers curl into his hair, holding firm, but never forcing him closer. Another hand pets down the ladder of his ribs, the dip of his waist, the swell of his hip, until it rests greedily between the dimples on his lower back— the very tips of his alpha’s fingers brushing against the curved cut of muscle at the top of his ass. Sticky heat swirls down Yuuji’s spine at the covetous touch. A whine slips free from his throat as he arches closer to the long line of warmth beside him, chest stuttering to life with a purr. A responding purr, deeper and edged in desire calls back immediately— much more practiced and even than before— though it does nothing to stop the quietly indulgent reprimand that follows swiftly.

That’s enough, darling. 

Yuuji whines as the body pressed close— never close enough — begins to shift further away. Disappointment hangs heavily on the eves of his consciousness, threatening to tear him from the deeper places he’s drifted to. A low, soothing coo reaches his ears and immediately, he calms. The feeling of something wrapping around him, tucking soft warmth closer to his bare skin, accompanies the soothing noises. Gentle fingers card through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead before a pair of lips descend upon it, feather soft and whispering.

Settle for me, sweetheart. 

It is unthinkable to do anything but obey the sweet, commanding voice that speaks against his skin. Yuuji goes pliant beneath them, tension easing out of his muscles, leaving him boneless and at ease. His purr still vibrates within his chest, though it is more subdued now— less frantic. Rather than calling his alpha to his side, it is a wordless compliance to their command. Acceptance on the basest level that his alpha will take care of him— there is no need to worry. 

Very good, Yuuji. Good boy.

A shudder ripples down Yuuji’s spine as the words settle like molten honey deep within him. Dripping through his veins like gold, the praise makes him unconsciously preen, tilting his face towards the source with a pleased note gilding the edges of his purr. A low ripple of laughter replies, there and gone again in a fleeting moment. It is followed by another press of lips that passees against the skin of his temple— excruciatingly tender — before it pulls away completely. And Yuuji, who has been so utterly settled beneath the commands and praise of his alpha, allows the lapping waters of sleep to carry him a bit further downstream. The distant sound of a door closes nearby as he floats. And as it so often is when dreams are involved, it is difficult to ascertain how much time has passed before the gentle waters of sleep begin to grow tumultuous— a minute? An hour? A day?  

His body attempts to rouse him from sleep with gentle twitches and shifts, while his mind resists the stubborn tug of awareness. Deep in the divide between his waking thoughts and the ignorance of illusion provided by dreams, a gentle foreboding lingers within him. Something that whispers for him to stay this way for a little while longer… 

But as most things happen, once Yuuji realizes that he is trying to stay asleep, consciousness returns all too swiftly. 

Eyes creaking open, Yuuji  stares into the muted shadows that surround him. Remnants of sleep cling stubbornly to his lashes where they stick together with every sluggish blink. He comes to realize that he is laying on an absurdly soft surface, body curled on his side with his knees drawn up and bent elbows pulled into his chest. Beneath his cheek, his folded hands are slightly tacky with drool. And from head to toe, he has burrowed himself beneath a thick, dark blanket, completely surrounded by the rich softness. 

Mind still addled by sleep, Yuuji shoves his nose into the folds of the blanket and inhales lungful of the scent that has seeped irreversibly into the finely woven material. The glacial bite of fresh show melds seamlessly with the sweet salt of sea spray and both are muddled by the undeniable edge of raw power and the gentle caress of contentment. It burns pleasantly in his nose, soothing his nerves like a balm and urges him to nuzzle closer. A soft purr begins to echo in the drum of his chest, vibrating outward and shaking through his bones as the scent settles him and—

Sensibility slams into Yuuji with all of the delicate force of a train. 

In a flash of movement he launches himself upward, wrenching the blanket off of himself and wincing against the harsh, bright light that temporarily blinds him. The purr in his chest stutters to a halt as shock ripples throughout him and yet, despite the purring his mind has far more horrible realizations to focus on. Heart pounding wildly against his ribs, the events of last night sweep through him in a tidal wave of terror. 

The sound of gunshots and screams ring in his ears, though he knows it isn’t real. One hand flies up from his lap to cradle the front of his throat, only to wince and draw in a ragged gasp at the tender ache that accompanies the touch. 

“Oh, God,” Yuuji rasps out in a shredded voice. 

His mind flies rapidly through memories— one after the other, twisting together until he can’t discern the end of one and the beginning of another. 

Running through the alley behind the club, feet stinging against the frozen ground while sirens wail in the background. The warmth of a body pressed against his own, the taste of snow and salt and desire painted across his lips. The dark shadow of Mai in the doorway, standing like an avenging angel with a smoking gun in hand. Two purrs, in perfect harmony, calling out to one another in the darkness. An arm around his throat, blood rushing through his ears as the gaping maw of darkness opens to swallow him whole. Strong arms carrying him away from the cold. The hilt of a knife clutched in his hand and the startling ease with which it took to shove it through a man’s throat— a wet gurgle—a spray of crimson— the feeling of blood, still warm, beneath his foot. 

Bile rises in the back of Yuuji’s throat, stomach churning violently as he clasps a hand over his mouth to keep in whatever might spill out otherwise. Horror races in icy waves across his body as the sickening realization strikes him—

Murderer. His mind whispers. 

A whine of distress ekes out from behind his hand, wrenched from deep within him. His body trembles uncontrollably, shivers racing across his exposed skin as he battles against the horrific understanding that threatens to rip him apart from the inside out. The visceral memory of how easy it had been to shove a knife between bone and skin and sinew replays itself over and over and over again. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes as he drops his gaze to look upon the masterpiece of lewd horror that his body has become— covered in smears of dried blood and ruined lingerie, stinking of smoke and death and fear. 

Yuuji scrambles from the bed, nearly tripping as the dark blanket wraps itself around his ankles. Entirely too far gone in his panic, he does not notice the way the linens on the bed are rumpled in the shape of not just his own body, but another that had laid beside it— and the fact that the warmth of that other body is still fast fading from the sheets.

Stumbling over the edge, he barely manages to catch himself before he crashes to the floor. Wildly searching around the room for an exit and completely panic ridden, he is reduced to nothing more than a trapped animal.

Through blurry eyes he spies a door against the furthest wall and makes a desperate dash for it. Knees shaking and legs wobbling, Yuuji muffles his sobs against the scarred palm of his hand while the burn of bile stings in the back of his throat. Something terrible rises up inside of him that he cannot control— 

Get it out. Getitoutgetitoutgetitout. His mind screams at him. 

Shaking fingers slip, sweat slick against the metal doorknob until finally he manages to twist it and wrenches the door open— only to run face first into a wide, firm body. 

A gasp tears itself up his ravaged throat as he stumbles back from the force of the collision, losing balance on his quivering legs. There is a split second where he is sure that he is going to fall— but then, two hands latch onto his arms, preventing him from toppling backward. Yuuji blinks through the tears falling fat and fast from his eyes and stares up in bewilderment at the person standing before him. 

The sight of dark, fox eyes set into a familiar, stoic face has Yuuji trembling harder.

Getou’s dark hair is pulled up partially, draped over broad shoulders while the other half is tied in a knot behind his head. The tight hold of his broad hands against Yuuji’s upper arms does not hurt, but there is an unyielding quality to them. Yuuji’s teeth chatter as panic crawls, slimy and cold through his gut. Words refuse to pass his parted lips as he inhales and exhales far too rapidly, making his head dizzy from the swift retreat of oxygen.

“Itadori?” Getou’s soft voice sounds far away— washed out by the rush of terror ringing in Yuuji’s ears. Yuuji shakes his head and weakly tries to pull away from the alpha’s hold. His hands refuse to budge, spreading warmth against Yuuji’s frigid skin. 

“I can’t—” Yuuji starts, voice breaking on another whine of distress. 

Mortification rises hot against the back of his neck as his inner omega senses the alpha before him and immediately makes a plea for help. Still, the rational side of his mind rebels against the urge of instinct as he tries to pull away from Getou once more, wanting nothing more than to hide himself away as he crumbles beneath the weight of his emotions.

A sob wrenches out of Yuuji’s aching chest as the hot sting of tears floods down his cheeks. Wet, gasping breaths pass over his lips as guilt and shame and terror— absolute, fucking terror— crashes over him again and again, like the waves of a storm against a shifting shore and Yuuji cannot find his footing beneath the onslaught. Pushed down and down and down again until he is sure that he’ll never get up again. Drowning on dry land— adrift on a riptide that refuses to let him go. 

Make it stop. He begs, though he cannot be sure who he is asking. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it—

Yuuji is suddenly hauled forward by the alpha’s unyielding grip and pulled up tight against the wide expanse of Getou’s chest. A half-choked sound of shock slips from Yuuji’s mouth even as he puts up a token struggle. In response, one of Getou’s hands moves from his arm to firmly cup the back of his neck. His warm, calloused palm applies a steady pressure to the nape and squeezes gently in a way that gives an omega a sense of safety and stability. 

Yuuji shakes so hard that his knees threaten to give out beneath his weight. They wobble and go slightly numb, as though they have been cut off entirely below the knee. In response, Getou’s other arm slips around his naked waist, effortlessly taking Yuuji’s full weight into his hold while still allowing Yuuji’s feet remain planted on the floor. 

“I can’t—” Yuuji rasps again as his body and mind war with one another— both ripping themselves to shreds. “I can’t.”

“You’re alright, Itadori,” Getou’s voice echoes within the barrel of his chest where Yuuji’s wet cheek is pressed against it.

Yuuji attempts to shake his head, though it does nothing to dislodge the firm grip of the alpha’s hand on the back of his neck. A sob rips free from his chest, agonizing as it’s dragged like shards of glass up his throat.

No. Yuuji thinks. No it’s not okay. Because I’m a— 

Murderer. His mind sneers. 

The wet gurgle of a man’s last breath echoes alongside his sobbing breaths. The wet spray of blood splattering against the floor. The still, cooling corpse lying in a pool of its own blood— a knife plunged through the back of its neck.

I killed him. I killed him. I killed— 

Suddenly, a growl resonates out from Getou’s chest. Deep and savage— it is a sound that belongs solely to an apex predator— though there is not a single ounce of violence in it as it is directed at Yuuji. It vibrates through every part of Yuuji’s body, still caught in the throes of his panic, and instantly, as though a switch is flipped, Yuuji goes limp in the alpha’s arms. 

Another whine crawls out of him, but this one is far more breathy than the others. Rather than steeped in distress, it is carved out of him by relief. Instinctually, his body goes lax as the rumble of Getou’s growl chases away every single shred of terror from within him. A siphon that sucks out every dark poison of his fear within him— a voice that says unspokenly that no other danger could harm him while he is under the protection of this vicious predator. Yuuji feels not unlike how he did as a child, when he’d sit in the bath and allow the water to drain around him— feeling his body grow heavier with each passing moment as he was pulled back down by gravity. 

Getou’s hand flexes along the vulnerable nape of his neck. The scrape of calluses sends a shiver racing down Yuuji’s pliant spine and he raises his own finely trembling hands to fist into the soft material of the alpha’s shirt at his thick, firm waist. 

“That’s it,” Getou’s soft voice murmurs around the steady, deep growl that still thrums in his broad chest. “Settle for me.”

Yuuji releases a breath and feels the way his body responds to the alpha’s command instinctually— as though it recognizes him. Muscles go loose as he puts his entire weight against the alpha, innately knowing that he will not fall. With his ear pressed against Getou’s chest, the lulling thrum of the alpha’s low growl has Yuuji’s eyes fluttering shut, tears rolling down his cheeks. 

“Just like that,” Getou hums encouragingly. Yuuji shudders, fists tightening in the material of Getou’s shirt as he turns his head into the plush strength of the alpha’s chest. Though he does not quite reach Gojo’s towering height, the dark haired alpha is not far behind, standing a full head above Yuuji— which puts his face just below the center of the alpha’s chest. Nuzzling in, nose brushing against the damp shirt where his tears had soaked through, Yuuji presses close to the steady, slow pulse that echoes like a drum in the hidden depths behind Getou’s ribs. 

Like a cresting wave, the memories of last night begin to build in the back of his mind once more. 

MURDERER. His mind screams. 

Gunshots. Screams. A wet gurgle— a sobbing breath. Blood spattering. A corpse— a knife— a pool of blood. 

“No,” Getou’s voice commands, bringing Yuuji sharply out of the clutch of his horrific memories. Blinking his clenched eyes open, he tilts his head back slightly, feeling the tight— but not painful, never painful— hold of Getou’s hand around his nape. Unable to go far, Yuuji rests his chin against the alpha’s sternum and stares up at his stoic, handsome face. Dark fox eyes are entirely focused on Yuuji as he squeezes the back of his neck once— twice, gentling him by touch alone.

“I—” Yuuji’s voice breaks softly. The hand squeezes once more. “I killed him.”

The broken whisper dies on his lips as he stares up at the alpha. And perhaps it is because Getou neither tries to tell him that it is okay, nor does he try to lie that Yuuji feels nothing but relieved by his reply. 

“You did,” Getou nods, not bothering to deny it.

Yuuji whimpers lightly in shameful horror, attempting to hide his face in the alpha’s chest once more. However, Getou moves his hand from the back of Yuuji’s neck, slipping easily around to cup his chin with gentle but firm fingers that he uses to guide Yuuji’s face back up. From this close, Yuuji realizes distantly that the alpha’s eyes are not just dark, but rather a deep purple that appears almost black. Staring helplessly into the swirling depths of night dark eyes, he has no choice but to listen. 

“You killed him,” Getou says honestly, ignoring Yuuji’s renewed whine of distress as he continues. “Because if you had not, you would be the one who was dead,” 

“I don’t—” Yuuji chokes on the words as they tumble out, half mangled by a sob. His mind is a swarm of convalescing emotions. Guilt and relief and horror and shame— and he feels so very small beneath their crushing weight. “I can still feel it. I can hear— Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”

Instantly, Getou’s hand slips up from his chin to cup his cheek, guiding his face back to the firm warmth of his chest. Settling once more against the place where the alpha’s heart beat thumps strong and slow and his growl rumbles low like thunder in the distance. 

Yuuji chokes on an exhausted sob, eyes watering enough that the world goes blurry at the edges. The calloused fingers of Getou’s other hand sweep a line up Yuuji’s back, scraping against bare skin and blood stained lace as Yuuji’s shoulders shudder beneath the weight of his guilt and gratitude and shame and relief. Every conflicting emotion drags him in a different direction, stretching him so far that he is sure he will be torn apart— and knowing that if he is ripped apart, there will be no putting him back together again.

Getou does not reprimand him for his tears, nor does he demand Yuuji pull himself together. Maybe if he did, then Yuuji would not have sought more comfort from him— strange enough in itself considering that the first and only time Yuuji had ever interacted with him the lines of acquaintance still blurred with those of someone totally unknown. 

He stands on the threshold, held in the arms of a veritable stranger, listening to the deep, rumbling growl that settles itself into his bones and lulls him into a place of fragile peace. Enough so, that Yuuji drifts back into the hazy space between waking and dreams. Content to let darkness hold him for a little while longer. 

***

The second time Yuuji wakes, it is abrupt. 

A rude tug on his consciousness has him gasping for air and his muscles jerking. His eyes open stiffly, glued shut and crusty with salt from his tears. With his face swollen and nose stuffy, he winces at the headache building behind his eyes while embarrassment swims at the edges of his mind. He cannot deny the utter mortification that spreads through his limbs as he realizes not only does he not remember falling asleep after having a full-blown panic attack in front of a man he hardly knew, but that this would be the second time that said man tucked him into a bed. 

“The fuck is wrong with me?” Yuuji hisses, voice cracking with a yawn. 

His mind promptly provides several examples of answers to that very question. The least of those are breaking down in a stranger’s arms and purring for a man who Yuuji had thought, until very recently, had despised him.

Body aching, he pushes himself upright and the thick blanket he’d been tucked under falls away from his body. Instantly, the scent of snow and ice and salt rises up to Yuuji’s nose and he freezes in place. In what feels like slow motion Yuuji looks down at the blanket pooled across his lap. Honey colored eyes trace across the pattern of fine stitching, the thick, dark wool is butter soft to the touch and… Is that a sleeve?

Yuuji’s scrambled mind stutters for a moment over that specific detail. The dark material sits like a void, stretched inky black across the soft, white linen of the duvet. After a moment, Yuuji allows his gaze to follow the long— too long to belong to any normal person— wrinkled line of a sleeve up to the broad stretch of material that has clearly been tailored to fit a set of absurdly wide shoulders. On the upturned collar there is a spot of glistening drool, seeping into the fine, dark wool.

One hand reaches down to gingerly pluck at the collar and lifts it with all of the tender care and caution that one might use while handling a venomous creature. Yuuji’s heart flutters in the hollow of his throat as he brings the material up to his nose and takes a tiny sniff. The damning presence of snow and salt and power floods his senses and immediately his body reacts. A trillion synapses fire off simultaneously in his head as his veins flood with an overwhelming rush of panic and safety and terror and contentment and—

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” Yuuji hisses out frantically as he shoves the coat— Gojo’s fucking coat — off of his lap and into a heap on the floor. The edge of the sleeve remains caught on the bed and Yuuji stares at it in horror, as though it might spring back up and lunge for his jugular at any moment. 

A strange amalgamation of disgrace and satisfaction curls hot through his belly as he struggles to regain composure. His mind frantically pieces together the half-baked memories from last night and that morning. Gojo’s undeniable presence, gilded in a softness that Yuuji had never expected him capable of. The sound of the alpha’s responding purr— which, what the fuck was that about? And the way his belly flutters at the murmured words, muted and muffled by the layers of sleep that had cocooned him— commanding and tender and possessive and honeyed and—

A groan tears itself out of his aching throat as he throws his hands up to tug on the ends of his hair. Far more harsh than the alpha’s touch had been that morning— Yuuji stops that thought in its tracks. Vexation crowds into the limited space within his mind, tainting every thought it touches. Any of the tender sweetness that had fortified the memories from that morning crumbled beneath the pressing force of Yuuji’s mounting resentment against his own weaknesses. Was he truly so desperate for any sign of affection that he would stoop low enough to receive it from a man that had done nothing but make his life difficult?

Yuuji frowns at the thought as his gaze snags on the dark material of the alpha’s coat where it lies hanging half over the edge of the bed. Something deep within him howls at the thought of the coat lying on the floor, while his much more rational mind forces him to remember that he should not care. 

So what if it gets dirty? So what if it gets ruined?

That’s not my problem. Yuuji tells himself firmly. 

His fingers twitch in his lap and lift slightly before he can stop himself, reaching towards the coat. 

“No, no. Stop it.” Yuuji mutters almost hysterically, as he snatches his hand back and pushes his balled up fists into his eyes, obscuring any view of anything . Light bursts through the dark behind his closed eyelids and he manually breathes in deep and lets it out slow. 

Several deep breaths later, Yuuji drops his hands back to his lap and— while keenly avoiding looking at the coat— finally takes in his surroundings. Given that he’d been entrapped in a spiral of panic before, he’d hardly had time to observe the room that he’d been put in, but now he finds himself all too willing to look at something— anything else. 

The space is large, but not overly so. The enormous bed Yuuji sits on is low to the ground, with the wooden headboard pushed up against one wall and to the right, the wall is made mostly of wide windows that let in the bright light of day. The decor of the room denotes an antiquated design, with exposed beams of traditional craftsmanship made of dark wood, whose aged quality makes it appear old-world, rather than out-dated. A traditional painting is set on the wall to Yuuji’s left, stretching wide and its design is a clear tribute to the Azuchi-Momoyama period, though even from where he sits, Yuuji wonders over the fact that the painting perhaps looks a bit too weathered at the edges to be anything but an original. 

Everything about the room speaks to a quiet sense of opulence— one that can only be cultivated by generations of indulgence that has softened overtime. It is a clear marker that whoever owns this place does not simply have money, but has no need to worry about the concept all together. 

Muscles aching faintly, Yuuji scoots himself to the edge of the low bed, opposite to the one where the coat lays half draped across the ground. Sliding his legs over, he levers himself up, grimacing at the fact that he is still wearing nothing but his blood stained lingerie from the club— the sight of which makes a hitch of panic crawl up his throat, though he forcefully pushes it away. 

The polished wooden floor is warm beneath his bare feet and sunlight streams over him from the open windows. After feeling cold for so long, Yuuji relishes in the warmth for a moment, not unlike a cat basking in a patch of sunlight, as he stretches his limbs out. As he drops his arms back to his sides and shuffles toward the windows, below which a set of arm chairs and a table set with a small vase filled with a single white flower sits. Yuuji sets his hands against the windowsill and stares out into a world of white. 

It’s apparent immediately that the room he’s in is located on the second floor of the building. The height provides a breathtaking view across the utterly massive inner garden of the estate. A frozen pond— more the size of a small lake, really— extends from the center out toward the furthest, hidden edges of the garden that are secluded by towering trees. Their bare branches hang low, heavily laden with clinging snow while icicles hang like diamond daggers in the light of the sun that sits high in a brilliant blue sky. A curved bridge sits perched across the thinnest edge of the frozen water, reaching out to a small, inner island that contains a snow covered gazebo surrounded by skeleton saplings. And even the wind seems to be allied to steal Yuuji’s breath as it stirs up glittering clouds of flurries with every gentle gust. 

Yuuji feels something tender and full of awe twist within his chest at the sight. He cranes his neck, forehead pressing against the icy glass in an attempt to try and get a glimpse of the rest of the buildings that linger on the fringes of the inner garden. Breath fogging the glass, his view is obscured, though it doesn’t matter much since he can only make out a few other snow covered structures that have no other outwardly identifying marks. 

What he does manage to glean is that the place is unequivocally, fucking huge. But if his memory serves correctly— which these days for him, is entirely debatable, though it never used to be the case— and this is the Gojo Estate that the mysterious driver had told him they were headed to, then he should have expected nothing less. 

He stands there for a few moments longer, taking in the view before he feels a low tug in his gut, signaling his need for the bathroom. With a grimace he pulls away from the window and sweeps his gaze across the room once more— and definitely does not look in the direction of the black lump on the floor. There are two closed doors that he can see. One of them he recalls was the one he’d opened earlier— and then cringes to remember what— no, who— had been waiting for him on the other side. 

He moves toward the other closed door, which is nestled between a large potted plant that has vibrant green fronds that tower nearly at eye-level with him and a modern looking dresser that somehow manages to fit in with the lavishly antique décor. 

When he pulls it open he is relieved to find a generously sized, fully outfitted bathroom. After he relieves himself, Yuuji stands before the counter and washes his hands. The water sluices over his palms and in the spotless, porcelain basin, swirls of pink circle down the drain. Yuuji pauses and stares at the way that the blood wipes off of his palms before he glances up at himself in the mirror above the sink. 

For a moment, he is stunned, because surely the haggard, haunted creature staring back is not him. It can’t be. But his eyes find the same honey golden color that has always belonged to his gaze and the soft pink locks undercut with short, dark hair. The shape of his face is the same, square jaw and wide eyes surrounded by a fringe of dark lashes. Though the creature is shaped like him, he cannot reconcile with it— a version of himself, hollowed out and changed, stares back at him. 

The shadow beneath his eyes that speaks to more than simple sleeplessness. The vicious ring of bruises that encircles his throat in startling blues, purples and blacks smudged into his skin. The rusty smears of dried blood that flake free with every subtle movement. All of it is framed ineffably by the lewd shock of the lingerie that remains wrapped around his muscled body and he is nothing more than the very picture of battered innocence and wasted potential.

Yuuji’s breath comes short as his hands grip tight against the edge of the counter. A smear of blood lays stark against the skin stretched over his jaw, flecks of splatter crawling up his cheek— the same cheek that Getou had so softly held in his calloused palm. He feels a gag build in the base of his throat at the visceral reminder that slams through his mind— unavoidable. 

 Powerful shoulders hunch inward and he drops his head, hanging it over the sink. His gaze unerringly finds the smear of pink still staining the basin of the sink, water rushing from the faucet and filling his ears with roaring, white noise. There is an ache within him— one that he cannot pinpoint the exact source of, though it is there all the same. 

Unbidden, his mind forces to the forefront, the memory of what it felt like to shove the blade through Dagon’s throat. A shudder rolls down Yuuji’s spine as he swallows around bile and gasps for a desperate breath. He shakes his head back and forth, as though it could somehow physically dispel the vivid recollection— but it does not work.

A ragged inhale gets stuck halfway up his throat as he stumbles back away from the counter. Half blind by fresh tears, he turns and fumbles toward the large, standing glass shower in the corner of he room. With violently shaking hands, Yuuji reaches for the handles of the shower, turning them without any shred of understanding until water descends from the ceiling like heavy rainfall. Frigid water pours across his aching body, forcing him to shudder uncontrollably, though blessedly it provides a momentary distraction from the inescapable hold of panic.

The icy rush of water stings across his flesh as he begins to scrub madly at the rusty smears of blood that linger across his skin. Tearing frantically at the flimsy material stretched tight across his body, he tosses it into a ruined pile on the tiled floor. Water logged and ruined, pink swirls of blood seeps from it around his feet. Yuuji digs his fingers into the curled edge of his scent patch, unable to stand the clinging, sticky feeling where it lays against his throat and rips it with a gasp from his bruised neck. The stretch of his revealed, unmarked scent gland twinges in sensitivity as it is assaulted by the icy water, but Yuuji merely grits his teeth and starts to roughly scrub away the build up of sheer oils that coat the tender, pink gland. Staunchly ignoring the way his breath hitches and his thighs tremble involuntarily as the touch-starved area is assaulted by his savage touch. 

Like a man possessed, Yuuji stands beneath the frigid fall of water, body shuddering as the minutes tick by. 

“Please, please, please,” Yuuji begs aloud, voice lost beneath the spray— as though his pleas might break through the iron grip of guilt that has wrapped itself around him. Even while the understanding of Getou’s words rings true in his head.

You killed him. Because if you had not, you would be the one who was dead.

Any of the comfort that the dark haired alpha had provided— yet another wildly confusing aspect for Yuuji to later dissect— has dissipated. 

“No more. No more. Please, no more,” His rasping voice breaks, nothing more than a harsh whisper of desperation through chattering teeth. Deep in his chest, a purr stutters to life and then dies just as quickly. Over and over again the vibrations come to life and are quelled brutally as his instincts reach out for an alpha that is no longer there and his rational mind shuts down every single attempt. Trembling hands scrape raw against his naked flesh and though his skin is clean of blood, he feels no closer to being cleansed. 

***

There is no way of knowing how long it takes him to come back down to earth. Without the gentle guidance of the alpha— a stranger, Yuuji’s mind reminds him sharply— still manages to calm himself down, though he is halfway frozen by the process. He twists the knob of the shower and manages to warm up, though his teeth still chatter by the time he gets out. Body rubbed raw, his nerves feel flayed open and sensitive to even the brush of air around him as he steps gingerly out of the glass shower and takes a fluffy towel from the nearby rack. Despite its softness, Yuuji flinches as it passes over his wet skin and wraps it firmly around his waist. 

Stubbornly he avoids his own gaze in the mirror above the sink as he begins to rummage through the cabinets below. He quickly finds that they have been fully stocked with a vast array of unused toiletries and he snatches an unused toothbrush and toothpaste from one of the drawers. As he brushes his teeth— finally eradicating the subtle taste of death in his mouth— he snoops around the other drawers. 

When he pulls out one near the bottom, relief floods through his system at the sight of a box of scent patches nestled between a package over-the-counter heat suppressors and an unopened heat-aid that has Yuuji blushing wildly at the sight of. 

Snatching the scent patches from the drawer, he closes it with a slam that is far too loud in the echoey space. Heat builds in his cheeks as he tries to blink away the mental image of what someone using the heat aid might—

“Fuck,” Yuuji hisses as his fang digs too hard into his tongue and the taste of blood lingers in his mouth. With a sigh he shakes himself free of the lingering, lewd thoughts even though his cheeks remain flushed. 

With finely trembling fingers, still clumsy from the cold of his shower, he pulls open the new box of scent patches. The brand is one of the more expensive ones that claim to last longer and endure more saturation than the cheaper ones Yuuji has been buying for years. And though it is a bit ridiculous considering what else he has been worried about, something tight unwinds inside of his chest in relief at the realization that he won’t have to go without them. 

He rips one free from its casing and, with a practiced movement that is more muscle memory than anything else at this point in his life, he places the fresh patch across his clean scent gland. The nearly invisible material of the patch does little to hide the tender pink stretch of his gland, though it makes it look almost blurry through the thick, clear lining.

Wandering back into the bedroom with slow steps, lower body wrapped in the towel and mind hazy from the exhausting spiral of panic that he’d just gotten done with, he pointedly ignores the heap of dark fabric on the floor. Though the smell of snow and salt calls out tantalizingly from the material he moves toward the dresser set against the wall a little ways from the bathroom door. Hesitating for only a moment, he opens one of the drawers, figuring that if he’s to remain here for who knows how long, he can’t exactly walk around the place naked.

Hidden within the top drawer are piles of neatly folded clothing. Sets of dark boxer briefs and folded black socks that make Yuuji shudder when he finds out how soft they are. His gaze is pulled to the side of the drawer where a neat pile of much thinner clothes lays and he picks one up delicately, only to find a black, silk thong dangling from his fingers. 

Despite his ability to feel little to no shame about wearing skimpy undergarments, the sight of the thong put there by someone who worked for Gojo— or fuck, even Gojo himself— sends a strike of understanding ringing through his skull that perhaps these clothes were always meant for Yuuji to use. As though, whoever had put him in this room specifically, had also taken into consideration his own tastes, even down to his underwear. Or at least, what they assumed to be his taste in underwear, given his profession at the Omega House.

“This is not fucking normal,” Yuuji mutters in quiet horror.

From the door on the other side of the room, a knock echoes against the wood.

Yuuji drops the thong as though he’d been burned, heart racing in his chest as he slams the dresser shut and whips around to stare at the other door across the room. Frozen like a deer that has just caught the scent of a predator on the shifting wind, Yuuji does not dare to move a single muscle. 

Another knock echoes through the room, sharp and short— painstakingly polite with no hint of familiarity. Yuuji jolts as if he’s been electrocuted and stumbles away from the dresser, uncaring for his half-nakedness— entirely accustomed to the thought of strangers seeing him in various states of undress— as he makes his way to the other door. Breath shudders nervously out of his chest as he reaches for the handle, finding the metal warm against his scarred palm. Wrenching it open only to find a wall has been built in front of him— a wall that is wearing brown leather dress shoes, a tailored khaki suit, a blue button down and the ugliest tie Yuuji has ever seen.  

The wall’s hand is raised between them and drawn into a fist, prepared to knock for a third time on the door. Yuuji drags his gaze up from where the ugly, yellow spotted tie rests against the wall’s impressively broad chest, until it settles on the wall’s— the man’s — handsome, angular face. Pale blonde hair is neatly styled away from the planes of his dispassionate face. Staring down at Yuuji, the slight widening of his narrow, hazelnut eyes is the only indication that the stone-faced wall of a man has been taken by surprise. It occurs to Yuuji that he has seen him before, as he is the male alpha that Nobara had tried— and failed spectacularly —to seduce all those weeks ago.

“Good,” The man says in a dry tone as he drops his hand back to his side. “You’re awake.”

Yuuji blinks at the blonde man in confusion, tilting his head slightly to the side. “Uhh… Yep?”

The blonde man nods, keeping his hazelnut colored gaze locked firmly on Yuuji’s face. Internally, Yuuji cringes at how blatantly he’d taken stock of the alpha standing in front of him before he reminds himself that he has every liberty to be observant given that he is the one in a strange place, surrounded by unknown people. Still, he is completely aware that he does not paint a pretty picture, if the haggard reflection of himself earlier was anything to go by. And it occurs to him that the man’s avoidance of looking over Yuuji perhaps stems from the discomfort of the visual he made. Alphas usually can’t stand the thought of a battered omega, no matter how many degrees of separation lay between them— and there was no world in which the man standing before him isn’t an alpha.

It is a fact that is made more apparent, not just because of the sheer size of him, but the headiness of his scent that has suffused itself into the air around them. The thick smell of bergamot and leather twine together, strong enough to denote the man as a Grade 1 alpha, however the tang of the more alphan scent notes are undercut by a phantom scent that reminds Yuuji of cinnamon and dark chocolate. However, when he takes another subtle inhale in order to catch it, the spicy sweetness has disappeared entirely, leaving only the alpha’s bergamot and leather smell between them— as though it had never been there at all. 

With as much decorum as he can muster— given that he has openly ogled and smelled the man in less than three minutes, flat— Yuuji casts a furtive glance toward the side of the alpha’s neck. Though the collar of his suit and dress shirt cover the majority of it, he finds that the tip of the alpha’s exposed scent gland is neither the tender pink of an unmated individual, nor the deeper, flushed red that a mated pair exhibited after sealing a bond between them. Rather, the skin covering the man’s exposed scent gland is pale and bloodless, stark against the subtle tan that the rest of the man’s skin holds— as if he’d recently spent time in the sun. 

“Pardon my interruption,” The man says evenly with hardly any inflection in his tone. The sound of his voice draws Yuuji’s focus back to his words instead of the interesting appearance of his scent gland. “I was sent to ensure that you have settled well into your accommodations.”

Yuuji shifts on his feet, suddenly all too aware of how raw and pink his recently scrubbed skin feels, exposed to the cool air that rushes in from the hall behind the blonde alpha. One of his hands drops to the towel at his waist and holds it tightly. He thinks of the dark haired alpha that had caught him in the throes of his panic attack and the indisputable presence he can recall from when he’d slept— Gojo. He wonders if sending the blond man was simply another way of distancing Yuuji from the Special Grade alpha, though for what reason?

“Oh,” Yuuji says, voice cracking unattractively as it rattles up his ravaged throat. “Yeah, it’s, uhh… Nice?” 

The blonde man dips his chin in acquiesce to Yuuji’s less than stellar review. “Excellent. I have also been instructed to deliver some of your personal effects that were recovered from the establishment known as the Fantasy Room. ”

Between them, the blond alpha lifts his other hand, giving Yuuji a glimpse of the blue eye tattoo of a blue eye across the back of it. In his grasp dangles a black bag which Yuuji snatches from him, more than a bit rudely, though he’s left with little patience for decorum after the time he’s had in the last twenty four hours. He releases his towel to yank open the bag and finds within it, his beat up red sneakers alongside the change of clean clothes that had been stashed in his locker at the club and most surprisingly his phone. 

He pulls it out and is unsurprised to find that it is completely dead when he tries to turn it on. Still, relief floods through him to have it nonetheless. A thought occurs to him and he warily glances back up at the man.

“Shouldn’t you… I don’t know? Not give this to me?” Yuuji asks as he gives the phone a little wiggle in his hand.

The blonde man’s impassive face barely twitches as he replies, “Why would you assume that we would not return it?”

Yuuji glances down at the ground and frowns, then shrugs. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d be pissed if you guys didn’t give it back. But like, aren’t you worried that I’ll call the cops or something? Or tell someone about all of this? I mean, technically speaking I’ve been kidnapped, right? Aren’t you the least bit concerned that I might rat you guys out?” 

The alpha stands silently in the hall, his imposing frame blocks out nearly the entirety of what lays beyond the threshold. Yuuji finds himself staring at the way that the man’s muscles strain against the pressed, unwrinkled fabric of his button down and the tell-tale bulge beneath the man’s khaki suit jacket that indicates some kind of weapon is hidden there— and suddenly he finds all of his questions answered.

“Right,” He says, ducking his head down and feeling a hot rush of blood in his cheeks. “Nevermind.”

Because why would a powerful clan of the yakuza be worried about some nobody omega ratting them out? What kind of threat would he ever pose to them that they could not immediately solve by force alone?

“Indeed,” the blonde man agrees quietly, blessedly ignoring Yuuji’s embarrassment. “You might be interested to know that the events of last night, surrounding the attack on the Omega House, are still being investigated.” 

The words pique Yuuji’s interest immediately. “Is everyone alright? Did anyone get hurt?” He tries not to allow the surge of panic in his chest to get a foothold, lest he be lost to it for a third time, but still he cannot stop himself from recalling the sound of gunshots and screams— Mai’s dark gaze as she commanded him to run before she herself dove straight into the danger. 

The alpha’s angular face gives nothing away as he dips his head slightly. A piece of pale blonde hair falls out of its careful styling and lands delicately over his forehead. “My apologies, Itadori-san, but I cannot disclose any more information about the situation at this time. However, I can assure you that such details will be entrusted to you soon.”

Yuuji bristles at the gentle disregard, as if he were some wilting omega who could not handle the truth.

“And why not?” Yuuji demands, despite how bratty it makes him sound. He thinks distantly that after everything he’s been through, he’s entitled to a bit of bitchiness.

Thankfully, the blonde alpha does not seem to take offense to Yuuji’s shitty attitude. Standing stiff and straight the man folds his hands together in front of him as though he is about to give some kind of lecture. Instinctually, Yuuji glances down at the tattoo of the blue eye across the back of the man’s broad hand, facing outwardly— always watching. 

“Unfortunately, my orders entail that I am not at liberty to discuss specifics until the investigation has concluded. Rest assured, that it has been already indicated that you will be the first to be informed when that happens,” The blonde alpha says firmly.

Yuuji feels a bit like a chastised child as his chin juts stubbornly. “So what, I’m just supposed to wait around here until that happens?”

“Indeed,” The alpha says simply. Yuuji throws a mutinous glare up at him as annoyance brews within his chest. “It has been relayed to me that you should feel encouraged to rest and recuperate, since you endured a rather traumatic series of events last night and you have not acclimated well to the repercussions.” 

Embarrassment floods through Yuuji as he realizes that Getou must have spoken to his man before he’d been sent to Yuuji’s room. He lowers his gaze from the hazelnut color of the blonde alpha’s eyes, feeling mortified by such an understanding, even while part of him wonders what Getou had said exactly. 

Had he told the blond alpha that he’d held Yuuji in his arms, as though he were about to fall apart into a million pieces? Had he told him that Yuuji had been soothed by the sound of his growl, as though he were some kind of child? 

Yuuji’s neck burns with humiliation at the thought, as for some reason, he wishes that the moment had been kept a quiet secret. Something small to be stowed away in his pocket, where he might only take it out and examine the memory when he was alone in the deep dark of night. 

The blonde man stands silently before him as Yuuji freaks out. It is made clear that things are willfully being kept from him and yet Yuuji knows that he has absolutely no leverage to push for more information about the subject. He hums in frustration in the back of his sore throat before another thought springs to mind. 

“Oh!” Yuuji gasps and looks up at the alpha again, “What about Inumaki? Surely you can at least tell me if he’s alright since clearly he’s working for you guys.”
His tone is full of scathing accusation, but once more the blonde alpha proves to be unflappable in the face of a pissy omega demanding answers from him. 

“Inumaki-san is currently being tended to by his mate,” The blonde alpha says simply, as though his words didn’t blow Yuuji’s preconceived ideas about the omega in question wide open. 

He gapes in shock. “Inumaki is mated?” 

“He is,” The blonde alpha replies. “For nearly three years I believe, though that is all I’m afraid I can say on the matter, as it is not my position to expound on a mated pair’s more personal details. Currently, he has been sequestered by his alpha within their rooms within the estate and I suspect they will remain so for the foreseeable future.”

The way the alpha says this has heat crawling back into Yuuji’s cheeks. He knows that mated alphas are all too often overly protective of their mates— even the ones who claim to subscribe to the more modern outlook on an omega’s independence and ability to take care of themselves. He remembers the way that Dagon’s hands had wrapped around the other omega’s skinny throat, squeezing harshly and choking the breath from him— he also recalls with startling clarity the spatter of Dagon’s blood as it sprayed across Inumaki’s front while Yuuji had shoved the dagger through the back of his neck. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Inumaki’s alpha would keep him contained after something like that had happened to his mate, though it still makes something squirm in his lower belly to think about it too closely. 

“But he’s okay?” Yuuji hears himself ask as he shoves away any lingering thoughts of the kind of comfort an alpha might take in reassuring themselves of the safety of their omega. 

The blonde alpha stares down at Yuuji, hazelnut eyes entirely unreadable, before he nods once. “He is okay.”

Though he doesn’t outwardly draw attention to it, Yuuji feels his chest heave with a sigh of relief. He clutches the back of his things in front of his bare chest like a shield as his shoulders relax a bit. With that question answered, Yuuji sets himself to the task of reassessing the situation. He attempts to glance around the alpha’s wide body in order to get a glimpse into the hall behind him, to find perhaps some kind of identifying marker.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me where exactly I am?” Yuuji asks petulantly as he rocks back on his heels. “Or is that a secret too?”

“I assure you, Itadori-san, the withholding of information from you is not done to purposefully keep you in the dark. You are permitted to ask questions freely, though their answers may vary depending on the orders given to whomever you ask them. As for your question of your location, if you’re referring to the Gojo Estate, it is located in an undisclosed area in the mountains beyond the borders of Tokyo,” The blonde alpha says with a painfully professional level of address, “Your room, however, is located in the Wive’s Wing on the northern side of the compound.”

“Of course,” Yuuji blows out a sigh of annoyance, “Like that isn’t completely degrading at all. Don’t know why I expected anything less.”

It wasn’t an uncommon practice for older estates to have a private sector built that belonged solely to the omegas kept as ‘wives’ to whichever powerful alpha controlled the clan. The word wife, of course, was only a moniker used to address them, since referring to the collection of omegas as ‘concubines’ in most elite households was considered a slight against the alpha’s true consort— the one that they had taken as a mate. 

The construction of a Wive’s Wing was a thin veneer of an excuse to hide away an alpha’s harem of omegas. Out of sight, out of mind— and most importantly, away from the alpha’s mate, who controlled the household alongside their mate in every aspect aside the power with which the other wives could be dismissed. The name itself was the only marker that held any aided in any semblance of validity to the construction of the wing and Yuuji can’t help but feel the phantom sting of rejection— as though his placement there is a purposeful statement that he is neither allowed to be seen, nor heard. Merely meant to exist in a hidden corner, waiting for an alpha to call upon them for use. 

“I believe your placement to be much less of an insult than you might be imagining, Itadori-san,” The blonde alpha says with the tiniest downward twitch of his thin lips. “The Wive’s Wing is the most highly secured area of the Gojo Estate. The entire wing is a space where unmated alphas are strictly prohibited from entering and effectively provides multiple amenities that lend to an omega’s ability to be self-sufficient while existing in a place of protection. In fact there is a private onsen merely down this hall, that you are more than welcome to use. Or not, if you’d prefer to remain in your rooms until someone comes to fetch you.”

Yuuji’s mind snags on the thorn embedded in the alpha’s words. 

Unmated alphas are strictly prohibited from entering… 

He thinks back to Getou’s presence, firm and warm against his body, growl rumbling beneath his ear. And while the alpha had never once been around Yuuji without wearing his own scent patch, he knows that the alpha is not mated— there’s no way. 

“I don’t believe you,” Yuuji snaps.

The blonde alpha goes preternaturally still and seems to draw up a bit taller. “May I ask what reason I have given you to do so?” 

Yuuji can vaguely feel the prickle of unease against the back of his neck— an innately primal response to a predator lurking nearby. However he surges ahead without care. “I’m not an idiot. The alpha named Getou was here earlier and you’re going to stand there and tell me that he’s mated? And what about you ? Your scent gland has no mark of a bond at all. I’m supposed to believe that you’re mated too ?”

The air between them shifts instantaneously into something more tense and Yuuji is not stupid enough not to understand that he has overstepped some kind of invisible boundary. He opens his mouth, as though he might be able to take back whatever words had offended the alpha before him, but the man cuts him off sharply before he has a chance. 

“I can understand your frustration with the situation, Itadori-san, but there is only so much rudeness that I am willing to excuse,” The blonde man says, voice iron-clad with warning, effectively cowing Yuuji into quiet petulance. “I will not indulge such outright impertinence with the kind of answers you’re looking for. What I can tell you is that Getou-san’s own mating status puts him in the same category as a fully mated individual. And as for my own, that is, quite frankly, none of your business.”

Yuuji cringes beneath the man’s reprimand, though his voice does not raise even a little bit above the softness that he’d used before. He looks down at his bare feet and glances at the alpha’s shiny brown leather shoes— his eyes fixate on a minuscule spot of crimson that has dried beside the laces of one of them. 

“So what? I’m just supposed to play ‘happy, pampered house omega’ here until someone just decides to tell me what’s going on?” Yuuji asks bitterly, his voice not quite as offensive as before. 

The blonde alpha lets out a near silent sigh and Yuuji lifts his gaze back up to find that he is pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, as if in an attempt to stave off a headache. 

“Until Gojo-sama returns, yes ,” The blonde alpha says with soft frustration. 

“Gojo isn’t even here?” Yuuji wonders aloud in surprise. “But he was just… I mean. He was here before, right?”

For a moment he feels a bit ridiculous for demanding answers, like some kind of panicky house-wife, regarding an alpha that did not actually belong to him. But that doesn’t take away from the way that his mind launches a thousand new questions about where he could be and why he isn’t there— all while staunchly ignoring the twist of discomfort deep in his belly at the thought that Gojo is not nearby. 

“Gojo-sama is, as I have indicated before, dealing with the events of last night personally. He will return when he is finished,” The blonde man’s voice dips deeper into a tone of no-nonsense, effectively leaving no room for further argument. Yuuji’s glare drops away from the man’s face and he stares mutinously at the wood grain of the doorframe. Part of him snarls at the fact that he is being left in the dark, while another part of him realizes that maybe he shouldn’t appear so ungrateful after quite literally having his life saved.

Of course, let’s not forget that it was Gojo who put my life in a position of needing to be saved in the first place… He tries to remind himself sternly, though the excuse rings a bit hollow within the chamber of his own head.

“If you do not have any further questions, I will excuse myself,” The blond alpha says with a polite bow of his head. “Should you need anything further, feel free to use the attendant call button on the intercom speaker located in your room. A beta attendant will arrive to see to your needs— so long as they are within reason and do not go against protocol. Good day, Itadori-san.”

With near military efficiency, the blond alpha turns on his heel and starts to walk away down the long hall. Yuuji stares in stunned silence at the space the large man had just vacated before he shakes himself back into awareness and takes a step out into the hall. 

“Hey wait!” He calls out, perhaps a bit loudly. “I didn’t get your name!” 

The man pauses and turns slightly, hazelnut eyes finding Yuuji’s gaze unerringly. “My apologies, Itadori-san. You may address me as Nanami-san.” 

A sudden, beaming grin takes hold of Yuuji’s lips as his chest seizes with a half-laugh-half-cough. Memory stirring within his head at the familiar namesake. 

“Ohhhh! Nanami!” Yuuji says through his smile.

At Yuuji’s reaction, Nanami turns to face him more fully, the ghost of a frown tugging at his mouth again. “Is something humorous about my name?” 

“No, no,” Yuuji shakes his head with a quiet chuckle, “I just recognize you is all.”

Nanami’s pale brows draw together in confusion for a brief second before understanding clears it away. “I see. You must be referring to the night at the Omega House when your female friend attempted to seduce me? I must apologize for my inability to control myself, I am not usually so affected by an omega’s scent, however the concentration of it and my own closeness to the source had a—” 

“Oh… I mean, yeah,” Yuuji says, cutting off the alpha’s words and making the corner of his lips twitch in subtle irritation that Yuuji now finds himself almost delighted by the sight of. “I definitely recognized you right away because of that… But I was actually talking about Gumi-chan!” 

Nanami fixes a blank stare in Yuuji’s direction as he repeats the words slowly, like they are a foreign language. “Gumi? Chan?” 

“Yeah!” Yuuji nods with a wide smile, taking utter enjoyment from the way the man’s eyebrow now twitches in frustration. 

“I suppose you believe I should know whom you are referring to?” Nanami asks slowly, enunciating every syllable as though he thought he was speaking to someone particularly stupid. 

Yuuji’s grin grows so wide it hurts his stiff cheeks. “Megumi, of course! He told me allll about you! Said you were a real stickler for rules. Said you and him had a whole argument about whether or not a dolphin was allowed to be a zoo animal.”

Nanami is silent for three whole heartbeats before he lets out a controlled breath, nostrils flaring slightly. Yuuji would almost think it was out of anger, if he couldn’t see the way the man’s cheeks had become dusted in pink. He bites at his lower lip in an effort to keep the trembling, slightly hysterical giggles contained inside his chest.

A thought occurs to him at that moment and he cuts off Nanami as he begins to speak. “Oh, wait a second. If we’re at the Gojo Estate, does that mean Megumi is here as well?”

Nanami’s lips twitch into a frown and Yuuji feels the tiny buoy of hope begin to sink inside of his chest once more.

“I’m afraid, after the more recent events surrounding young Megumi’s kidnapping, he has been removed from the estate and is currently being held at a more secure location,” Nanami explains.

Disappointment settles heavily across Yuuji’s shoulders at the realization that he has come so close to being reunited with his little, frowny friend, only to be thwarted. The worst part being that he can’t even feel angry about it— not when he knows that wherever Megumi is, he is safe.

“If that will be all, Itadori-san.” Nanami finally offers curtly, interrupting Yuuji’s disappointed thoughts. He watches the blonde man as he bows his head again to avoid eye contact. “Please do not stray beyond the boundaries of the Wive’s Wing until someone comes to collect you at the appropriate time.”

Nanami turns sharply on his heel and beats a hasty retreat down the hall— all but fleeing . A small bark of laughter manages to escape from Yuuji’s sore throat as he watches from his place by the doorway. 

“Alright then, see you later, Nanamin!” He calls sweetly after the alpha. 

Yuuji has to throw a hand over his mouth to muffle the torrent of giggles that rise up in his chest, like effervescent champagne, at the sight of the man’s hulking shoulders hunching up in embarrassment at the childish nickname. Nanami disappears around the corner without another word, stubbornly ignoring the laughter that nips at his heels.

It does not take long for the levity to dissipate once more as Yuuji is left standing alone in the silent hall. Looking up and down the long corridor he finds no other doors set along the walls. He knows that it means very little in the way of indicating if he is truly alone in the Wive’s Wing or not. Most rooms of a Wive’s Wing were constructed far apart, so as to further provide the illusion that an omega was somehow special— and so that they could not see the competition they unwillingly kept. 

With a sigh, Yuuji retreats back into his room, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. He rests his naked back against the wood for a moment and looks around the room that he is meant to stay in— until someone comes to collect him. 

As if he is some kind of pet.

The thought burns bright in his head before he wills it away, telling himself that will do him no good to dwell on it. Instead, he steps away from the door and moves toward the bedside. Begrudgingly he picks up the dark heap of material on the floor— a plume of snow and salt scented air rising to greet him, like arms held out wide for him to return into. With a glare he shoves the coat behind his pillows until it is concealed entirely. 

Shooting one last scathing look at the pillow— now a bit lumpier than its twin on the other side of the bed— he turns to sit heavily on the edge of the bed, still clad in only his towel. Digging his phone out of the bag Nanami had given him, he stares at the blackened screen. He hardly wants to use the intercom system to ask for a phone charger— so he reaches instead for the bedside table, thinking of how well stocked the bathroom had been. And just as he’d suspected, as he opens the small drawer there is a range of different phone chargers all neatly curled up inside. 

Snatching the one that is compatible with his own device, he plugs it into the outlet behind the nightstand and hooks up his phone. It takes several long minutes for the screen to finally light up where it’s cradled in his palm. When the phone finally blinks back to life, he is shocked to find that it is far earlier in the day than previously thought, with it barely being past noon. After this revelation, Yuuji debates his first course of action before navigating to his contacts and immediately puts through a call to his grandfather’s landline. Holding the phone to his ear, he listens as the line rings several times before the jovial voice of Mrs. Takahashi greets him.

“Itadori residence!” She says merrily. 

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Takahashi,” Yuuji says carefully, keeping his voice quiet so that she might not hear the shredded quality to it. 

"Oh! Yuuji? Is that you?” The older woman says with a small gasp of shock. “Your grandfather said he was sure that you’d give him a call, but I was starting to worry when he mentioned that you never came home after your shift last night! Is everything alright, dear?”
“Who’s that on the phone?” Wasuke’s harsh voice echoes from further away on the other end of the line. “Hey! I’m asking a question over here!” 

Something muffles the speaker and Yuuji hears Mrs. Takahashi mutter some kind of reprimand back at his grandpa.

“Everything’s fine, Mrs. Takahashi,” Yuuji confirms quietly, swallowing against the guilt that sits like acid at the back of his throat, burning its way down his throat. His free hand twitches against his thigh before he forcibly clenches it in the soft material of the towel. Despite the lingering, frigid tinge to his skin and the endless minutes he’d spent scrubbing down his body frantically, he swears he can feel the tacky stick of blood smeared against it. His ears ring with the memory of Dagon’s gurgling gasp and the sound of his body hitting the floor— the sight of blood spraying out from the wound in his neck— the wound that Yuuji killed him with.

“Yuuji?” Mrs. Takahashi prompts quietly and Yuuji flinches out of the terrible memory. 

“Tell that brat of mine that he better not be dead in a ditch somewhere, cause I ain’t coming to get him!” Wasuke shouts down the line. 

“Surely he isn’t, Wasuke-san, otherwise I don’t think he’d be able to call,” Mrs. Takahashi replies sternly. Yuuji can almost imagine perfectly the way that the older woman must be standing with a fist on a plump hip and sending a scathing glare in his grandfather’s direction. She was perhaps the closest thing that Wasuke Itadori would come to admitting as a friend, given that they had lived beside one another since he’d moved to the neighborhood right after Yuuji was born.

Yuuji clears his throat and winces at the pain, though he can almost convince himself it is able to pass off as a laugh. 

“You can tell him I’m not dead in a ditch anywhere,” Yuuji confirms quietly and then steels himself, “But, that being said, I won’t be back home for a few days…” 

“Oh? Yuuji, is everything—” 

“Everything’s fine!” Yuuji rushes to correct her, even though the lie sits bitter on his tongue. “Really, I just… Got invited to spend a few days with my friend at their house up in the mountains.”

He cringes outwardly at the half truth, half lie that spews between his lips. 

“Well doesn’t that sound like fun! A little vacation?” Mrs. Takahashi’s bright voice chimes. 

“What?! What sounds like fun? What vacation are you talking about? Tell me what he’s saying, god dammit!” Wasuke interrupts loudly from further away. 

Mrs. Takahashi— thoroughly used to Wasuke’s temper— entirely ignores the outburst. “Well, I just wanted to be sure that you were alright, dear. I’ve been seeing some strange things around the neighborhood lately. And you never know with this world anymore. People just can’t be trusted the way they used to be, of course you wouldn’t remember that… But just the other day, on Christmas in fact, I saw this car parked out front of my house. No one went in or out of it for almost a whole hour. Can you believe that? So odd and then—” 

“Quit your rambling, woman and give me the damn phone! Let me talk to my own grandson!” Wasuke crows agitatedly. 

Mrs. Takahashi huffs and the speaker is muffled again as she says something to his grandpa. There is a rustling sound and the faded sound of bickering before Wasuke’s voice crackles to life over the speaker, much clearer than before. 

“Better have a damn good excuse, kid. Twice is a pattern, you know! You know I don’t give a shit about giving you a curfew at your grown age, but you aren’t one to fuck off without a word. So what gives?” Wasuke grouches through the phone. 

Yuuji’s breath catches at the sound of his grandfather’s harsh, reprimanding tone that for some reason, brings a sting of fresh tears to the corners of his eyes. Soft, rasping breaths that rattle in his aged lungs echo across the line and Yuuji hardly has time to realize that something in his own chest goes loose at the sound of it. His eyes slip closed as he feels the serrated edge of relief cutting into the tension like a saw, freeing him from the fear that has rooted itself so deeply inside of his body. A piece of himself, belonging to the small child he used to be, feels utterly shielded from any further harm that the world might do to him— his grandfather is there and he is safe. 

“You still there, brat?” Wasuke snaps, interrupting Yuuji’s daze. 

“I’m here, gramps,” Yuuji replies quietly, voice cracking as it drags painfully up his damaged throat. 

“Why do you sound like you’ve swallowed a bunch of rocks? You gettin’ sick or something?” Wasuke asks gruffly, though Yuuji can hear the tinge of concern laced into the tone.

Yuuji clears his throat and winces at the agony. His voice rasps as he speaks. “Yeah, a bit.”

“Right, well what’s all this about a vacation?” 

Yuuji braces himself and hopes his voice remains steady as he replies. “Just what it sounds like… I got invited to stay at a friend’s house up in the mountains for a few days. And I know it’s a little spur of the moment, but you’ve been nagging—”

“I’ve never nagged a day in my life!” Wasuke grunts in offense. 

“— for me to spend more time away from work. Plus with the time off from school that I’ve got it was as good a chance as any. And you said—” Yuuji continues. 

“Now, don’t go putting words in my mouth!” Wasuke interrupts again. “I ain’t mad that you’re finally doing what a kid your age ought to be doing. Just took me by surprise is all. I didn’t think you knew the meaning of the word ‘spontaneous’.” 

“Hey! That’s not true,” Yuuji pouts stubbornly. “Sometimes I buy a new cereal at the store instead of the bran flakes you always want to get.”

“Truly thrilling,” Wasuke deadpans. “What a wild child I’ve raised.”

Yuuji rolls his eyes at the gentle insult. “Just think, it could be way worse. ”

Yeah, gramps. Just be thankful that my idea of ‘spontaneity’ involves picking a different cereal and not inadvertently joining a gang as an informant and then having to fight for my life and mur—

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, kid. You’ve always just been more reserved when it comes to choosing how to spend your time…” Wasuke clarifies. 

“Yeah, I get it,” Yuuji sighs. 

The other end of the line is quiet for a few beats. Yuuji rubs the pad of his finger against the soft grain of the towel wrapped around him. 

“You sure you’re good, brat?” Wasuke’s voice drops quieter, echoing oddly as though he’d cupped his hand around the receiver. “No one’s making you do shit you don’t wanna, right?” 

Yuuji tilts his head back and blinks away the burn behind his eyes. He can practically feel his grandpa’s scrutiny through the phone, searching for a single sign that Yuuji might not be one hundred percent truthful with him. Throat bobbing against the emotion that swells in his chest, Yuuji forces himself to swallow down every ounce of fear that lingers near the surface. Despite the fact that no one can see him, he forces himself to smile at the empty room and makes his voice as bright as possible.

Showtime. He thinks to himself.

“Of course not! Since when has an Itadori ever done something they didn’t want to?” Yuuji asks, forcing the sound of his voice to match the mental image of the person he had been before he’d fallen down the proverbial rabbit hole.

Wasuke is silent for a moment before he grumbles something under his breath on the other end of the line. Yuuji tries not to fold beneath the weight of his grandfather’s scrutiny. His fist unconsciously uncurls from its grip on the towel covering his lap and he looks down at the healing scar slashed across his palm. The raised, puckered skin of the scar marks where the stitch-faced stranger’s knife had burrowed deep into his flesh. It is ugly. There is no other word for it. 

Gnarled and imperfect where it divides the calloused flesh of his palm. Barely healed and already Yuuji knows that it will remain there forever— never to fade, never to lessen. And yet, as Yuuji stares down at it, he can find no remorse inside of him at the sight of it. His words to Megumi in the past still ring true even now.

I’d still choose to save you. 

Yuuji curls his hand into a fist again. 

“So how long will you be gone, then?” Wasuke prompts. 

I don’t know . Yuuji wants to admit, but instead he forces himself to say, “Probably not more than a few days I think.” 

“Well, don’t feel like you gotta rush back for anything. Hina-San is more than happy to stop by and harass me. She makes sure I get all those fancy medications you got organized in that pretty little color coded case… Ain’t nothing else exciting waiting here for your return. Unless you want to watch an old man shuffle around and watch daytime television, but you might as well slap some paint on the wall and watch it dry since that’d be more entertaining.” Wasuke snaps in irritation. 

Yuuji lets out a dry laugh despite himself. “Hey! Watching paint dry is my favorite hobby.” 

“Oh, trust me, I know it is,” Wasuke chastises gruffly. “But it ain’t good for you, brat. Too much spontaneity makes a man naïve to what matters in life, but not enough and he’s a fool stuck in his ways. Adventure is like a muscle… It’ll atrophy if you don’t use it often enough.” 

Yuuji huffs and feels his lips twitch slightly. “Since when did you get so wise?” 

Wasuke barks a harsh laugh through the speaker that quickly devolves into a quiet fit of coughs. He manages to gather himself back together quite quickly as he hums an almost fond noise down the line. “I’ve always been wise, you brat. You’ve just been too busy to notice.” 

“Right, right,” Yuuji says, nodding his head even though no one can see it. Teasing back easily, even though he knows it to be true. “Of course you have.”

A gust of wind rattles the windows along the other wall and Yuuji glances up in time to find a swirl of glittering, frosty diamonds whip past his window. The bright, snowy world beyond the windows looks pristine and lovely. Yuuji can’t help but wonder how far from Tokyo they really are, since he’d been unconscious for the journey, but even from within the walls of the estate, he can see the far reaches of frost covered forest and the cresting peaks of surrounding mountains. 

“Promise you’ll give me a call if anything changes, alright?” Wasuke prompts. 

“I will,” Yuuji replies quietly. 

“And take care of yourself,” Wasuke says.

Yuuji swallows heavily and tightens his fist enough that the crescents of his nails cut into his scarred palm. “I will.” 

There is a long beat of silence on the other end of the line before Wasuke lets out a sigh. 

“Good,” His harsh voice grumbles, followed by a cough. “We’ll talk later.”

Yuuji opens his mouth, but the line is dead before he can say goodbye.

Chapter Text

Yuuji tugs on the hem of the long sleeve shirt that he’d found in the set of drawers in his room and nearly purrs at how soft the material feels against his sensitive skin while trying not to think about how expensive the article of clothing might be. Especially given the memory that surfaces about the lingerie set that Gojo had taunted Yuuji with— the “gift” that still lingers like a thorn wedged in the back of Yuuji’s mind.

The shirt, much like the butter-soft jeans that now hug his hips, fit almost perfectly. As though someone had taken all of his measurements and had used the information to buy an entire wardrobe— which was ridiculous. Because there was no reason to believe that Gojo— or anyone who worked for him, for that matter— could have anticipated Yuuji’s stay at the estate. No one could have predicted such a turn of events as what had happened at the Fantasy Room last night and therefore Yuuji found it all the more uncanny that someone could have curated the small collection of clothing for him. Yet, he can’t find it in himself to care too deeply about it, wrapped up in softness and reaping the benefits of someone’s forethought. 

Laying on his belly, splayed across the wide bed, he scrolls mindlessly on the phone. Every so often swiping back to his inbox to stare at the two message threads that belong to Junpei and Nobara.

While Junpei had been less than thrilled to find out that Yuuji would be unable to attend the self defense lesson, he had easily believed the bullshit stomach bug excuse— or perhaps he merely hadn’t had the energy to fight Yuuji on its credibility. 

Nobara on the other hand, had been a different story entirely. Though she was still entrenched in the last few days of her heat week— and milking it for all it was worth— Yuuji knew it was only a matter of time before she found out about what had happened at the Fantasy Room. And though he was grateful that she had been as far away from the place as possible— maybe even a bit selfish , considering he still had no idea what had happened to the other omegas at the club— he knew that if she didn’t hear the news from him there would be hell to pay. 

Yuuji shoves the tip of his tongue against the point of one of his fangs— a bad habit that he truly needs to break— and wriggles the muscle against the sharpness, just to feel how it scrapes the thin flesh. Staring at the text exchange between him and Nobara, he tries to will away the guilt sitting heavily in his chest. Understandably, she had freaked out when Yuuji told her about the attack on the club and mercifully she was entirely focused on ensuring his safety that she hardly deemed his scarce details and avoidant storytelling tactics worth digging into. 

I’m just glad you’re alright. I can’t imagine how fucking terrifying it must have been… Any idea who did it?? << 

>> No clue. Nobody’s told me anything.

This wouldn’t have anything to do with that big secret about why you came back to the club, would it? Can you at least tell me if it was the Gojo clan? Are you safe? <<

Yuuji fidgets in discomfort as he reads over his friend’s words. Again and again and again.

Are you safe? 

How could he possibly answer such a question when he truly has no clue himself?

>> I’m fine, I promise. I think I’m going to lay low for a while.

You bitch. “Lay low for a while”?? You’re really not making me feel better about this whole thing. Are you in trouble? <<

>> Not in trouble, but I do have to tie up some loose ends. Promise me one thing?

I’d like to remind you that I am not stupidly selfless like you, Yuuji-kun. <<

I make promises, but I will absolutely break them if I think it’s the best course of action. <<

>> Don’t go back to the Fantasy Room until I can be sure that it’s safe.

Nearly an entire hour had gone by between Yuuji’s request and Nobara’s final reply. 

You owe me the truth when all of this is over. No more fucking around. <<

Yuuji stares at the message until his eyes start to hurt. Ceaselessly dwelling on the fact that he has tangled himself so thoroughly in this web that he has no other choice but to lie blatantly to the people he loves most in the world. Shame hangs heavy around his neck— a snare of his own creation, slowly tightening with every new lie he must tell in order to keep his loved ones safe. Inherently he knows that one day it will draw tight enough to choke him, but still he allows it to stay there, because the alternative— that his grandpa or Junpei or Nobara might somehow become mixed up in all of this alongside him— is unbearable to imagine. 

A groan ekes out between his lips as he flops onto his back. The slightly vaulted ceiling is held up by thick, wooden beams that have darkened with age but are surely just as sturdy as the day they had been put into place. Through the wide set of windows the sunset sets fire to the tops of the snow covered trees. Brilliant golden hues bathe the room and warm the side of Yuuji’s face.

The day isn’t even over yet. 

Yuuji’s mind struggles to comprehend it. The fact that it has only been hours since he’d fled the Fantasy Room with Inumaki, covered in a dead man’s blood and reeking of fear. Hours. Not days, or weeks, or years, or lifetimes— less than twenty-four fucking hours. 

Releasing his phone, Yuuji presses the heels of both hands into his eyes and releases a shaky exhale. Darkness paints the backside of his eyelids while bright flecks of color burst like fireworks from the pressure of his hands. He wonders if he pushes harder that it might erase the vivid images of death that haunt every single thought. The gruesome memories that cling to him without reprieve— sprays of sticky crimson, the sound of a gunshot, the feeling of the knife’s hilt held within his hand, the gurgling grunts of a man’s last breath…

Desperately he wonders how long it will take him to get over it.

If he ever will. 

Because no matter how much time passes— hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes— that alpha, no matter how terrible of a human he was, will still be dead. And Yuuji, no matter what kind of excuses he feeds himself to lessen the crippling sense of guilt, will still be a murderer.

A knock at his door suddenly interrupts his thoughts from spiraling further. Dropping his hands from his face, Yuuji frowns up at the ceiling. The cadence of the sound is different from Nanami’s perfunctory knocking and yet he had no clue who else it might be. When another knock rings out through the room, Yuuji forces himself upright with a huff. Scrubbing one hand along his face, hoping to clear any lingering traces of his morbid thoughts, he levers himself over the edge of the bed. Part of him hopes that someone has come to tell him that he can finally go home, though he knows it is a fool’s hope more than anything. 

When he finally pulls open the door, he is met by a familiar face.

The dark haired alpha with steel gray eyes stares down at Yuuji with a quiet smile. Though he is surely only a few years older than Yuuji— at the most— he is both taller and broader in the way that only a high level alpha can be. Dressed casually in a pair of gray sweatpants and a white sweatshirt that stretches flatteringly across his chest, the alpha appears far more relaxed than he did the night Yuuji had seen him at the club. The alpha scent rolling off of him carries a heavy metallic tang to it, like freshly sharpened steel, though there is a familiar sweetness that softens its edges. And his dark hair hangs in subtle disarray around his face making him look boyish and his quiet smile has inexplicably widened into something lopsided and downright sweet . 

Yuuji is sure that he does not paint a pretty picture, given the way his face still feels swollen from the crying he’d done earlier and the bruises around his swollen neck have deepened into a collar of dark purples and blues and blacks that paint a picture of violence across his skin. Still, he refuses to cringe beneath the boy’s steel gaze, given that after their last parting, he has no reason to fear nor despise him. He opens his mouth to say something pleasant in greeting— perhaps even kind— but instead… 

“I fucking knew it !” Yuuji announces, pointing an accusing finger up at the alpha’s face. 

The boy’s gray eyes widen in confusion for a brief moment at the vehemence in Yuuji’s tone, but rather than being offended, the bewilderment quickly clears and the boy lets out a laugh. The edges of his eyes crinkle as he grins down at Yuuji, all easy lines and subtle confidence that doesn’t feel standoffish in the slightest. 

“Knew what exactly?” He asks, grin wide and white and filled with sharp fangs. 

“That night at the club after you broke that asshole’s wrist,” Yuuji clarifies with a half hearted look of betrayal. “When you were leaving I knew I saw a blue eye on you!”

The alpha’s boyish grin holds absolutely no reticence. “Gojo-sama did say you were an observant one…”

Yuuji seethes a bit at the patronizing words, despite the fact that the boy’s tone is nowhere near condescending. “Clearly you weren’t even trying to hide it. Or are you one of those alphas who thinks omegas are too stupid to notice the obvious?” 

“No, no.” The boy shakes his head. “Nothing like that. I merely misinterpreted Gojo-sama’s warning about what kind of reaction you might have upon realizing he’d stationed us at the club for surveillance.” 

“And what reaction did Gojo say I might have?” Yuuji grits out. 

The boy merely laughs again. “He said you might be… Prickly.” 

“Prickly?” Yuuji repeats, voice low with displeasure. 

“Mmhmm,” the alpha murmurs, nodding his head. “I believe his exact words were ‘Itadori is as tender as a cactus—” 

“— A cactus?!—” 

“— When it comes to others infringing on his independence.’ I took that to mean that you might be less receptive to accepting aid outright, not that you had no idea you had received from the clan any at all.” The dark haired alpha says. 

“Why would I assume that Gojo would give me a damn thing?” Yuuji snaps, unable to contain the reaction. “He’s done nothing but take things from me since the moment we met.”

At this, the boy’s smile finally wavers, dipping into a frown of honest bewilderment. “Is that what you truly think?” 

“Of course it is,” Yuuji hisses. “He’s given me no reason to believe anything else.”

The boy watches Yuuji with wide, gray eyes, silent and assessing. If Yuuji wasn’t so entrenched in simmering frustration, he might find it a bit off-putting. Crossing his arms over his chest defensively he glares mutinously up at the dark haired alpha. 

“So, what? Are you here to drag me in front of your boss so that he can put me through the ringer… Again?” Yuuji asks. 

The question seems to snap the boy out of his observational daze. “ Ah. Unfortunately, no. Gojo-sama still has not returned to the estate yet. Without his presence none of us are at liberty to discuss anything further, though I can assure you, when he does return a meeting will be called wherein you will be allowed to attend.” 

“Great,” Yuuji sighs, heavy with sarcasm. “Any kind of timeline for when that meeting might happen? There’s only so long my excuses will hold up before my friends and family start to question where the fuck I am.” 

“Hard to say. Gojo-sama is a bit tied up at the moment.” The other boy shrugs.

“Doing what?” Yuuji prompts with an unimpressed air.

It is almost palpable how the air shifts around them. Tension creeps across Yuuji’s shoulders like frost, blooming over the back of his neck to send icy shivers down his spine as the dark haired boy’s demeanor seems to change before his very eyes. Though his expression remains calmly neutral, there is a new depth to the boy’s steel gray eyes— a darkness that had not been there before. His metallic scent cuts through the air, as sharp as any blade might be, swelling with a hint of violence that decimates the sweeter notes melded within it.

“Let’s just say that Gojo-sama insisted on taking out the trash himself.”

A shiver rolls down Yuuji’s spine as the words settle between them. Grappling with the fact that there is no way to misinterpret their meaning, Yuuji barely notices the small sound of greeting that comes from further down the hall. The dark haired alpha shifts slightly, turning to look toward the source of the noise and despite Yuuji’s whirring thoughts, he finds it curious how the alpha’s expression morphs from the darkly edged threat of violence to a sweet look of gentle fondness. His scent going heady and mellowing out, bringing forward the sweeter notes once more— lilacs and spring rains… 

“I hope you don’t mind our intrusion, Itadori-san,” the dark haired alpha says, shaping his words around the fond smile that tugs at his lips as he watches the newcomer approach, “But someone has been anxious to check up on you.”

Yuuji’s brows scrunch together in confusion as he takes a step forward and peers around the doorway, following the alpha’s line of sight. 

“Inumaki-san!” Yuuji says aloud in shock at the sight of the platinum haired omega walking towards them. His face is sans medical mask, and entirely exposed this time, showing a gentle expression on his slender face while the boy’s petite frame is swamped with an over-large blue sweater that most certainly does not belong to him. Long sleeves bunch in the crooks of his elbows as he carries a tray laden with covered dishes that waft deliciously savory smells into the hall between them. However, Yuuji’s gaze is most assuredly glued to the side of Inumaki’s slender throat, where the collar hangs wide and exposes his darkly flushed scent gland… and the vivid set of fang marks, bloody in their ferocity, where a fresh mating bite has been imprinted into pale, delicate skin.

It hits Yuuji like a train at that very moment, staring at the bloody imprint of alpha fangs on Inumaki’s throat and the way the platinum haired omega gravitates so easily toward the dark haired alpha’s. Fitting seamlessly into the alpha’s side as he comes to a stop and turns his face up to greet the dark haired boy with a smile, like a flower seeking the first rays of beloved sunlight after the long, dark hours of night.

Mates. 

He can tell easily enough that their mating was not recent , despite the way he could see a fresh trickle of blood leading towards Inumaki’s collar from one of the fang marks. Though it was a common practice amongst more recently mated couples— a symptom of the honeymoon phase, as he’d heard it been called before— an alpha usually had no reason to continue refreshing their mating bite after the bond had settled. The practice of keeping a fresh bite usually tapered off after the first six months to a year of the mated pair sealing their bond, since that gave the alpha time to ensure that their mark was deep enough. Depending on the size and sharpness of an alpha’s fangs, some mating bites were deep enough to scar the first time around and therefore did not need any further tending. However, there were also times when a mated pair might refresh a bond bite as a way to reconcile after something traumatizing had happened, as a way to re-establish a sense of security and assurance that their mate was unharmed.

Given the way Yuuji can see the slightly silver scarring of a bond bite just off center from the fresh bite, tells him that these two have been mated for a year— at least. Though, given the way they looked at each other with stars in their eyes, as though the rest of the world had faded to nothing except for the two of them, he could be entirely wrong.  

Yuuji gasps in a small breath as the understanding smacks into him and if he had not already believed his eyes, the scent that enters his lungs would be more than enough proof. The smell of fresh, spring rain and lilacs pour off of Inumaki in waves while the undercut of freshly sharpened steel oozes off the dark haired alpha. But it is the way that both of those scents braid themselves seamlessly to create something more— something that speaks to utter contentment and absolute devotion.  

The amalgamated scent of the two mates swells with unspoken emotion— a language all its own that only the two of them know how to understand. Yuuji shifts his weight on his feet, torn between watching the two mates who stare adoringly at one another and averting his gaze politely. Thankfully, his choice is taken from him when Inumaki makes a soft sound in the back of his throat that the dark haired alpha seems to interpret easily. His smile turns indulgent as he aims it at Yuuji. 

“Toge was very insistent on coming to check in on you after everything that happened. And with your ban on leaving the Wive’s Wing, we figured bringing you dinner might be more well received than just showing up empty handed,” The alpha explains. 

“You figured correctly,” Yuuji shrugs, eyeing the covered plates on the tray in Inumaki’s hands. 

“Cook mentioned that you haven’t called for any attendants, so you must be starving,” He continues amiably. 

At that moment, as though summoned by the alpha’s comment, Yuuji’s stomach rumbles. All three of them go still, surprised at the volume of it as they cast wary glances toward Yuuji’s abdomen. Yuuji grimaces as a blush of embarrassment heats his cheeks. 

The dark haired alpha lets out a small laugh at the non-verbal— but certainly affirming— answer. “May we come in?” 

For a whole entire half of a second, Yuuji debates saying no, but then his stomach lets out another long, growl that has his belly trembling under his shirt. With his flush deepening on his cheeks, he relents easily enough, stepping to the side to allow the pair entry as he mutters, “Fine.”

“So hospitable, Itadori-san. We are much obliged,” The dark haired alpha says with genuine gratitude that throws Yuuji for a loop. He watches as the alpha holds out a lean arm out to guide his omega forward into the room before him. Inumaki bobs his head to Yuuji as he passes with a small smile tugging up thin lips. 

“It’s your house or whatever,” Yuuji mumbles under his breath as they pass, though it holds no venom. 

He can’t stop himself from watching the pair as they move deeper into the room. The dark haired alpha never strays far from Inumaki’s side, but doesn’t cling too closely. Like binary stars, caught in one another’s gravitational pull they move instinctually to accommodate one another. It is captivating to witness and Yuuji finds himself utterly fascinated by it. The silent way they work around each other is like a perfectly choreographed dance— seamless in its sequence and yet completely impromptu. It reminds him of the way his grandpa used to move around the kitchen while he cooked, to a beat only he could hear— one that lived deep within his own heart. 

Wordlessly, the alpha takes the tray of food from Inumaki and sets it on the small table beneath the windows. Inumaki gives his mate a smile of thanks and tugs twice at the hem of the alpha’s sweatshirt, to which the alpha responds with a sweep of gentle fingers against the bare nape of Inumaki’s neck. 

Yuuji pretends that he was most certainly not staring like an idiot at the casual display of affection between two intertwined souls when the dark haired alpha turns back toward him. He averts his gaze and realizes that the door is still open. Closing it with a quiet snap, he leans his back against the smooth wood and watches the dark haired alpha cautiously. 

“I should have introduced myself sooner,” the alpha says goodnaturedly, registering the way Yuuji creeps into the room like a wary creature. The other boy takes a step towards him, meeting Yuuji halfway as he holds out his left hand in the space between them. “Yuuta Okkotsu.”

Yuuji registers the boy’s name as it is spoken, but it is the blue eye proudly emblazoned across the back of his extended hand that has his full attention. A myriad of blues meld together like watercolors, splashed haphazardly and spilling over the dark, clean lines that outline the eye itself. It occurs to Yuuji in that moment that each one of the eye tattoos he’s seen— Getou’s, Nanami’s, the strange woman at the club and now Okkotsu’s— are all slightly different. Nanami’s was cleanly shaded and meticulously colored, while the woman at the club had a more delicately stylized depiction. Getou’s was bold and colored with deep, purposeful strokes and Okkotsu’s was more soft around the edges of the blended watercolor pigments and denoted an air of free spiritedness. He wonders vaguely if each member had been allowed to choose their design with more meaning true to themselves, as long as the concept of the eye remained the same. 

Coming back to himself, Yuuji realizes he has been staring at the boy’s hand in silence for several long moments, but when he glances up at his steel gray eyes, there is nothing but gentle encouragement within them. Not a single shred of falsehood etched into the boyish lines of the young alpha’s face, despite Yuuji’s blatant— and rather rude— inspection. 

The scent of sharp steel and lilacs and fresh spring rain swirls through the room as Yuuji slowly lifts his scarred hand up and clasps it to the alpha’s. The broad width of his warm grip wraps firmly around Yuuji’s without being too tight or aggressive— solid and reassuring. 

“Yuuji Itadori,” He says as their hands shake up and down, once, twice… three times. “But you already knew that.”

Okkotsu lets out a gentle laugh as he dips his chin in agreement. “I did.”

Yuuji narrows his eyes while they let go of each other’s hands. “I’m still not really sure how to feel about that.” 

Okkotsu merely shrugs, still smiling gently and entirely unbothered. Beside him, Inumaki takes a step forward and makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, inexorably drawing his mate’s attention in an instant. Inumaki lifts his hands, sleeves of his borrowed sweater falling back to the crooks of his elbows as he starts to sign something rapidly to his mate. His pale, slender hands match the rest of him and Yuuji watches with a bewildered sense of awe as they form graceful, fluid signs that are swiftly responded to in kind by a flurry of rapid, sharper signs from the alpha.

The signed conversation ends with Inumaki making a small grumbling sound before he sticks out his tongue at his alpha. Okkotsu grins boyishly and reaches out with his tattooed hand to pass his palm across the bloody marks of his renewed mate bite. A smear of crimson paints his skin as he pulls it away while a fresh burst of their combined scent swirls into the air. Yuuji feels the urge to look away as Inumaki’s eyes flutter closed for a brief second and Okkotsu’s gray eyes seem to darken by several shades. It is clear that he is witnessing something far more intimate than a simple conversation. 

“Toge says that he wants you to know how horrible he feels for having to be dishonest with you,” Okkotsu says finally, sparing Yuuji from any more embarrassment. The platinum haired boy bobs his head up and down, lavender colored eyes wide and pleading as he looks at Yuuji. “It was integral to keep eyes and ears at the club for your own safety and with Toge’s advanced training in espionage he was the clear candidate for the job. Though he truly does not enjoy the part where he has to lie to people’s faces.”

“Oh,” Yuuji murmurs, “I didn’t— I mean. I don’t blame you for that, Inumaki-san.”

Inumaki hums, pale brows lower as he frowns at Yuuji. Pale fingers lift to sign something in his direction.

“Seriously,” Yuuji insists earnestly, “I can understand that you clearly didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. And besides, I’m more pissed off about Gojo’s inability to keep his fingers out of everything I do, apparently.”

The truth tastes bitter on his tongue, but it does a fantastic job of drawing a bark of laughter out of Okkotsu and a sharp grin from Inumaki.

“Oh, but that’s Gojo-sama’s specialty, Okkotsu says around his chuckles, “He’s never left well enough alone a day in his life.”

Yuuji can’t help the snort of laughter that bubbles up instinctively in his chest at the comment. Truly, the realization that Gojo had stationed his own people at the club to keep an eye on him as he’d performed like a circus monkey on his “mission” to obtain information about the Ryoumen clan makes irritation burn hot through his veins. But still, he can see the humor of Okkotsu’s comment, even if he doesn’t feel as though he knows the Special Grade alpha even a fraction as well as the boy standing before him. 

As their laughter dies down, he clears his throat and winces at the ache of his bruised throat. Inumaki makes a sound of concern and Yuuji finds his lavender gaze trained on his neck where the vicious necklace of bruises are smudged in hues of black and blue. 

“It looks about as bad as it feels, unfortunately,” Yuuji says as his own eyes catch on the far less vivid shadow of bruising that lingers on Inumaki’s throat in the shape of Dagon’s hand. “I’m just sorry that he got you too.”

Instantaneously, the good humor is sucked out of the room. The air between the three of them shifts as the line of Okkotsu’s body goes rigid with tension. The alpha’s face becomes chillingly devoid of anything but a dark shadow of fury at the reminder of what had happened to his mate. Internally, Yuuji chastises himself for drawing attention to it.

Too soon too soon too soon. His mind screams at him like the blare of a siren.

Inumaki slips closer to his mate, slender hand reaching for the alpha’s clenched fist where it hangs at his side. The alpha glances down at his mate, gray eyes latching onto the barest hint of bruising against his pale throat— interrupted only by the vicious, refreshed mate mark. Without a word, Okkotsu lifts his tattooed hand up to wrap protectively along the back of Inumaki’s nape. Long fingers stretching out to cover the vulnerable place on his mate’s body, as though the danger still stood in the room with them. A gentle tug has Inumaki slipping closer into the shadow of his broad body, tilting slightly to keep his mate safe from further harm. The entire interaction happens so effortlessly that it can be nothing other than pure instinct— the intuition of a mated pair to keep their other half safe from the world and the inherent knowledge that the safest place for them is at each other’s side. 

“That was the other reason why I wished to speak with you this evening,” Okkotsu says, entirely unperturbed by his more primal behavior in keeping his mate close. His voice is gilded with an edge of violence— one that is not aimed at Yuuji, but there nonetheless. When gray eyes lift away from Inumaki’s face and meet Yuuji’s gaze there is a profound gratitude shining out from within them. “I wanted to thank you.”

“Th– Thank? Oh…” Yuuji stutters out, suddenly uncertain as his stomach swoops violently. “You— Uhh… You don’t have to— I mean—”

“Don’t do that,” Okkotsu interrupts firmly, his tone as strong as the steel in his scent— unyielding. 

Yuuji’s mouth snaps shut instantly. The alpha’s mere presence and innate ability to command a room is so effortless that it makes him briefly wonder where exactly he might fall in the hierarchy of the Gojo clan. Because there is no way that this boy, so close in age to Yuuji himself, is not used to people listening when he speaks. 

“You will not belittle the action you took in order to save my mate’s life,” Okkotsu clarifies with stern force, gray eyes flashing with solemnity. “Without hesitation you acted beyond the spectrum of a normal person’s capacity of nerve. Toge knew the risks of taking on the mission, just as we all have come to understand that anything to do with the Ryoumen clan will surely end in blood. Still, that does not make it easier to accept those terms…”

Yuuji swallows harshly as the dark tone spews praise in his direction. His hands clench into fists at his sides as the ghostly cling of tacky blood coats his palms. Okkotsu flexes his own hand subtly against the back of Inumaki’s neck, as though he is affected by his own words as well. The pad of his thumb brushes against the inflamed red gland on his mate’s throat, sending another burst of their combined scent into the air, though his gray eyes remain fixed on Yuuji. 

“And if saving my mate’s life were not enough,” Okkotsu continues, his words heavy with indelible gratitude, “You are also the one who kept my little brother safe while under no obligation of loyalty to the clan, nor expectation of reward.” 

Yuuji’s heart grows wings and flies out of his chest as Okkotsu’s words register within him. 

“Megumi is your brother?” He gasps. 

Eyes wide in shock, he stares at Okkotsu through an entirely new lens— one that is colored by memories of his time with Megumi. In the span of a single moment the world seems to shift beneath his feet and as he tries to regain his balance, he searches to find any similarities between the tall, gray eyed alpha before him and the dark haired little boy with the springtime eyes, that had taken up residence in Yuuji’s heart. 

Okkotsu dips his head in confirmation. Though his gaze remains solemn, a small, proud little smile tugs at the edges of his lips. “Perhaps not through blood, but by a form of natural selection.”

“Darwinism at work?” Yuuji asks dryly before he can stop himself.

“You could say that,” Okkotsu shrugs a wide shoulder and tilts his head to the side. The action makes him look a bit like an overgrown puppy and the sight of it echoes through the recesses of Yuuji’s recent memory— reminding him of how Megumi had done the same exact thing. It is then that Yuuji thinks perhaps he can see more similarities between them than not— lack of blood relation be damned. The sound of Okkotsu’s voice brings him out of his mental cataloging of resemblances. “Both Megumi and I are the products of Gojo-sama’s knack for collecting strays.

So Gojo has a habit of collecting strays… Yuuji thinks to himself with no small amount of irony and wonders if he should count himself amongst them. If not to be kept and tamed, but to be studied for its curious behaviors— or perhaps its rabid tendencies. 

“No offense,” Yuuji says slowly, “But I can’t exactly picture a guy like Gojo as the type to bring home  strays… Seems more like the type to go out and drop a few thousand on a purebred.”

“Trust me on this one,” Okkotsu replies with a sly smile. “You’re very wrong about that.”

Yuuji opens his mouth to argue back— as though he has any ground to stand on when it comes to who knows Gojo better — only to be interrupted by the demanding rumble of his forgotten stomach. He darts a look toward the tray covered with food and barely catches the way Inumaki shoves a pointy elbow into his mate’s ribs in silent reprimand. Despite the fact that the omega stands well below the alpha’s height and even a few centimeters shorter than Yuuji, it’s apparent that he more than makes up for it with sharp angles. 

Okkotsu winces and dodges another jab from his mate. “Right, right. Enough verbal sparring. Let’s eat, yeah?”

Yuuji mumbles his agreement and Inumaki hums as he moves toward the small table, reaching to pull the covers off of several different dishes. He hovers uncertainly as Inumaki organizes three separate meals, until the platinum haired omega turns around to hand him a bowl of savory soup. Yuuji settles himself down on the foot of the bed, soup cradled in his hands and warming his palms. He tries to distract himself by counting the pieces of seaweed he can see floating in the broth as Inumaki perches himself in one of the lounge chairs set beside the table and Okkotsu sits on the floor, back pressed against the chair beside his mate’s thin, track pant clad legs.

The three of them tuck into their meals after Okkotsu murmurs a quick thanks and Yuuji shocks himself by how quickly he devours his portion. Staring at the bottom of his bowl forlornly, he feels the heat of humiliation rising into his cheeks at how ravenous he’d allowed himself to become— simply out of spite. Inumaki have hardly made a dent in their own meals, but Yuuji hesitates as he eyes the tray of food. 

Inumaki chirps quietly, drawing his mate’s attention before he signs something with one hand. Okkotsu nods and glances at Yuuji before he reaches up a long arm and grabs a bowl filled with rice and fish. The alpha holds it out toward him with a smile that crinkles the edges of his wide, gray eyes. 

“Don’t be shy, Itadori,” Okkotsu says with genuine kindness. “We brought this for you to share, so please, help yourself to what you need.”

 Yuuji hardly has the strength to complain as he all but snatches the bowl from Okkotsu’s grip. If either of the other boys are offended by the gluttonous display they make no comment on it, quietly indulging in their own meals in companionable silence. 

“So,” Okkotsu drawls offhandedly as he scoops up a bit of fish between his chopsticks and holds it up over his shoulder for his mate to share. “Megumi-chan tells me that you enjoy baking.”

Yuuji inhales so sharply that he chokes on a grain of rice. The fit of coughing that follows makes his throat ache fiercely, though he manages to control it quickly. By the time he blinks watery eyes at Okkotsu, the alpha’s lips are twitching with a barely contained grin— and seriously, did this guy have any other emotional settings other than violent retribution and taking the piss?

“I mean… Kinda. Yeah, I guess,” Yuuji shrugs.

“You guess?” Okkotsu prompts as he raises a dark brow in his direction.

“Well, I work in a bakery… Oh, shit! ” Yuuji yelps as realization sinks like a stone inside of him. “Oh fuck I didn’t show up for my shift this morning! Dammit… Okay, well nevermind then. I definitely don’t work at a bakery anymore…”

Okkotsu winces in sympathy while Inumaki makes a soft noise of concern. 

“Sorry, man,” Okkotsu offers with authentic remorse. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine… You couldn’t have known,” Yuuji sighs, poking at his bowl with his chopsticks in an impolite way that definitely would have made his grandfather reprimand him. Still, he feels deflated with the realization that, no matter how much he disliked Mr. Yaomoto, he still managed to let him down. 

“Honestly, I brought it up because Megumi won’t stop going on about how you’re going to make him strawberry shortcake when you come over for a playdate,” Okkotsu says.

Despite himself, Yuuji feels a smile pull at his lips at the thought and he raises his gaze back up to meet the alpha’s. “Really?” 

“Oh yeah,” Okkotsu nods, glancing at his mate who is also nodding vehemently enough that his platinum fringe sways wildly across his forehead. “He won’t shut up about it. It’s gotten to the point of obsession and he’s even created a bit of rivalry amongst the rest of us.”

“Dare I ask what kind of competition my strawberry shortcake is being used in?” Yuuji asks.

Okkotsu outright laughs at this. “Well, he’s taken to using— and this is a direct quote — ‘extra special slices of Yuuji-kun’s strawberry cake’ as marks of good favor. Those of us who have been approved to receive a slice of your cake are in Overlord Megumi’s good graces… The more slices of cake, the higher you rank as one of his favorites. It’s gotten to the point where we’ve all started a running tally.”

A laugh is dragged out of Yuuji at the mental image Okkotsu’s words make. He can just imagine tiny stickers of cartoon slices of cake with strawberries perched atop lays of cream stuck onto a posterboard with everyone in the Gojo clan’s having written their names into columns. 

Okkotsu grins and shakes his head. “You’re laughing, but believe me, it’s cut throat.”

“How many slices have you been promised then?” Yuuji asks through soft huffs of laughter. 

Inumaki makes a humming noise that draws both of their attention. He signs something to his mate that Yuuji doesn’t understand and then grins mischievously and points at himself before holding up five fingers. Okkotsu nods in agreement with a soft smile aimed at his omega and idly reaches with his free hand to wrap around one of Inumaki’s slim ankles. Long fingers possessively encompass the slender limb while his thumb dips beneath the edge of his mate’s sock to caress the delicate knob of bone. 

“Last I heard, Shoko-san was in the lead with at least seven slices after she gave Megumi a nearly life-sized dolphin plushie for Christmas. My darling mate has five slices, but I’m telling you right now that he cheated his way to the top— Ow!” Okkotsu merely grins as Inumaki pinches the side of his mate's neck with a playful glare on his face. “As I was saying… I’ve just pulled ahead of Nanami after the ensuing argument he had with the kid about how dolphins technically don’t belong at zoos, but aquariums instead. I swear, I’ve never seen a seven year old intimidate a full grown alpha before, but somehow Megumi managed to do it… Getou-san has a few slices, but I’m pretty sure that Gojo is somewhere in the negative and hasn’t earned a single slice at all— much to his endless devastation and the rest of our suffering since we have to listen to him whine about the injustice of it all.”

Against his better judgment, Yuuji can’t help but laugh harder at Okkotsu’s explanation. Even Inumaki’s breathless, gasping giggles can be heard, though they’re not much more than heavy puffs of air leaving the omega’s mouth. Yuuji sets a hand against his aching stomach as his laughter dies down, though the release of tension in his chest has the effect of making him feel nearly weightless. After spending an entire day wound tighter than a spring ready to snap, it is a relief to feel some of the strain dissipate from within him— even if he knows it won’t last. 

“I’m not sure how you did it, but that kid practically worships you,” Okkotsu says, entirely candid in his awe.

Yuuji shrugs, unable to stop the way his mouth curls with a pleased smile at the admission. He can’t ignore the way his heart beats a little funny in his chest at the thought of Megumi’s bright eyes and his shy smile and the serious attitude he used as a shield for any true, childish excitement— as though someone had trained him to hide it. It is no surprise to him that he misses Megumi fiercely enough that it aches, like a missing limb was cut from his body, and yet, he cannot help but feel wrong-footed for it. As if, because they had only known each other for a single day— and by chance, at that— he should not be permitted to feel the loss of the little boy. 

“He’s a good kid,” Yuuji murmurs quietly, throat thick with emotion. He keeps his eyes locked on the contents of his bowl, rather than meet the genuine gaze of the gray eyed alpha across from him.

“Yeah,” Okkotsu agrees. “He is.”

“Will you—” Yuuji bites off his words, but it is too late, they have already given him away. 

“I’ll tell him that you say hi the next time I see him,” Okkotsu says.

Yuuji snaps his gaze up, biting his lip as he swallows harshly around a rise of intense emotion. “Thanks,” he manages to croak out, unable to say anything else. 

A hush lulls between them once again as the conversation tapers off from there. Yuuji manages to get his emotions under control as they finish their meals, but he can sense the building of tension across his shoulders as more time passes. His eyes flit between the two mates, entirely comfortable in each other’s silent companionship as they pick at the remnants of their meals— entirely unaware of how his thoughts twist and tumble around in his head regarding the reason for their presence. Finally, when he can hardly stand it any longer, he breaks the silence. 

“So,” He murmurs, dropping his gaze to stare at the smears of sauce and the last few grains of rice at the bottom of his bowl. “Not that I’m not grateful for the food or anything… But why are you actually here?”

“Hmm?” Okkotsu hums in actual confusion and once again tilts his head in the way that reminds Yuuji so much of Megumi— enough that he wonders vaguely if Okkotsu is who he picked up the habit from. Dark hair falls across his forehead as his brows draw low over gray eyes and the scent of steel and lilacs and fresh spring rain tinged with the sourness of bewilderment swells throughout the room. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Yuuji bristles with irritation at the alpha’s reply, sure that he must be playing dumb.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re actually a pretty decent guy. And Inumaki too, of course… But I don’t know you. And you certainly don’t know me ,” Yuuji says emphatically, glancing between the mated pair. “I guess what I’m trying to gauge is the reasoning behind you showing up here. Bringing food and acting as if we’re all the best of friends when really, we all know why I’m here. Or at the very least, you understand what Gojo had me doing that got me caught up in that disaster at the club… You’ve already admitted that Gojo had you keeping an eye on me for some fucked up version of what I’m sure he thinks is ‘ the greater good’, so again I’ll ask, why are you here ? Why bother trying to be nice to me at all?”

Okkotsu stares at him for a long, silent moment, weighing the words carefully. Yuuji gets the distinct feeling that the dark haired boy is not the sort of person to speak without thinking through his reply. Though that doesn’t explain why Okkotsu merely gives him another one of his infuriatingly gentle smiles and speaks with quiet caution— the same way that one might speak to a skittish animal they are trying to coax into trusting them. “Why wouldn’t we be nice to you?” 

The impulsive scoff that scrapes its way out of his throat is filled with nothing but derision and he rolls his eyes, uncaring for how rude it comes across— though in the back of his mind he shivers to think how incensed his grandpa would be to know how he was behaving. Still, the lingering guilt does little to dissolve the frustration that pools heavy and hot in his gut— unable to stand the grating feeling of being wrong footed. Dragged into the strange, new world— quite literally, kicking and screaming— where he has been spun in maddening circles until everything feels as though it faces in the wrong directions. And the unmistakable realization that when he finally does leave this place, he has no clue of where to start when it comes to putting it all back to normal… If normalcy is even something that exists for him anymore.

And then come along these two boys— so deeply entrenched in the shadowy corner of the underworld that Gojo rules over and preaching of treating him with generosity . The entire sentiment feels like putting a square peg in a round hole and Yuuji cannot fathom the reason why. 

“Why would you believe yourself not to deserve our kindness?” Okkotsu presses, breaking through Yuuji’s frustrated silence.

“Gee, I dunno? Maybe because I don’t belong here?” Yuuji snaps back, frustration rising to a fever pitch within him. “I’m a stranger to you! Just some random omega who got roped into this mess by an alpha who clearly sees other people as cannon fodder in in a fucking war they don’t even know is happening. You have no real reason to want to be friendly or kind or anything with me. Especially when all of this ,” Yuuji waves his free hand around, indicating the room, the estate, the world that Okkotsu came from. “Is not where I belong. I mean, fuck — For all I know, Gojo is going to get back and somehow blame me for the shit show that happened yesterday and finally make good on that promise to execute me—”

Inumaki makes a low sound and signs something frantically, but Yuuji keeps his gaze trained on the alpha. 

“— So why bother wasting your time even trying to get to know me?” Yuuji finishes, chest heaving for air. 

Okkotsu keeps quiet for a moment, staring at Yuuji with calm, steely eyes. He reaches up over his shoulder to grasp at Inumaki’s dancing hands, taking them tenderly into his grip. Thumb stroking across the omega’s knobby knuckles in a sweeping gesture of unspoken tenderness, the alpha speaks with low, measured confidence. “Gojo-sama would never do that.”

“Are you sure about that?” Yuuji mutters with disdain. There is a part of him that knows that the boy sitting across from him must know Gojo far better than him— but why the fuck does that thought make him feel as though he is burning alive? 

“Absolutely,” Okkotsu replies, his expression growing more serious as his tone shifts into one of heavy sincerity. “Gojo-sama might be the human embodiment of a minefield, but he is a good man. He does not idly drag people into situations that he does not believe them incapable of handling and neither does he think of those under his orders to be expendable. You may not believe me, but he is extremely selective of who he chooses to bring into the fold, because he knows better than anyone that this life is not for the faint of heart.”

The words settle between them, but Yuuji cannot find it within himself to believe them at face value. Not when he still bears the marks of not one, but two men who attempted to kill him for what Gojo demanded of him. Not when he can still feel the sticky drip of crimson against his skin. Not when he can still hear the sound of a man’s last breaths— dying from a wound that he inflicted. And especially not when it would mean— if what Okkotsu says really is the truth — that Gojo sees something in Yuuji that speaks of more than random resourcefulness…

“Then what about you?” Yuuji asks, gritting his teeth against the realization that threatens to shake him down to his bones. Changing the direction of the conversation in order to avoid looking too closely at what that particular revelation might mean for him.

“Me?” Okkotsu prompts, unbothered by Yuuji’s diversion.

“How did you end up roped into all of this? Are you telling me this based on your own experience or are you just bullshitting me about what you think I want to hear?” Yuuji asks. 

The bite to his words rips easily through the delicate bubble of camaraderie that had been created since Inumaki and Okkotsu had appeared in his doorway. Okkotsu goes still and Inumaki frowns, the omega’s hand finding a place on his mate’s shoulder in a gesture of silent comfort. Yuuji swallows down the lump of shame that builds in his throat as he watches Okkotsu’s amicable expression shutter and shift into something far more solemn. It is the first time that he thinks he may have gone too far— allowing his misplaced anger to find a target in the kindness of the boy sitting across from him. Though he believes his frustration righteous in its own way, even he can sense the boundary he so carelessly stepped across. 

His eyes dart away from the dark haired boy’s stoic expression and catch on how Inumaki’s fingers dip beneath the collar of the alpha’s sweatshirt. A burst of their combined scent echoes from the touch and Inumaki’s fingers accidentally tugs away the material to reveal more of the alpha’s throat. The flushed red gland marking him as a mated alpha is entirely expected, but what has Yuuji stunned is the sight of a vicious, bloody bite mark set into the alpha’s flesh beside it. Though it is much smaller compared to the bite mark on Inumaki’s gland, it is no less deep and purposeful. It is, in the most primal sense, a mark of ownership — not by an alpha, but by an omega. 

“You’re not entirely wrong, though I know you said that with at least some kind of intention to wound me with whatever you perceive my past to be,” Okkotsu says, drawing Yuuji’s attention away from the taboo mark on his neck. When he meets the alpha’s solemn, gray gaze watching him without a single hint of reprimand, Yuuji still ends up feeling properly chastised for his rudeness. He drops his gaze to the floor shamefully, wondering how he could allow himself to lose control of his own frustration enough to spew venom at someone who had done nothing to deserve his vitriol. 

“I was a child when Gojo-sama took me into his home,” Okkotsu says, unprompted. Shock ripples through Yuuji as his gaze whips back up to the other boy’s face. There is a distant look in his gray eyes that speaks to the presence of memories. “He was under no obligation to do such a thing, considering that my lineage is tied to a different clan entirely— one that would have used me not for my own potential, but as a pawn in a game they had no hope of winning. If anything, I was a direct threat against Gojo’s position, but he did not treat me with anything less than kindness, nor turn me away despite the many voices that urged him to do so. He gave me a choice and a place to call home when no others would have made the offer. He allowed me time to grow to trust him and gave me the resources to build myself into an individual that could stand on my own— away from the connections to my previous clan as well as any expectations set upon me by others. It was Gojo who allowed me the freedom to decide where I wanted to stand and I returned willingly and chose, of my own volition, to devote myself to Gojo-sama. In return, after I had proven myself to him, he afforded me a place of honor within his family— one that I don’t believe I rightly deserve, even now.”

Yuuji swallows heavily against the burning questions that rise up to sit on the back of his tongue. Behind Okkotsu, Inumaki’s fingers squeeze against the thick column of his mate’s neck, as though to ground him.

“I’m— Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you,” Yuuji murmurs quietly, feeling the fight drain out of him with every passing moment. “I’m sure that your own experience with Gojo isn’t the same as mine, but that doesn’t mean I should have snapped at you like that.”

Okkotsu shrugs a broad shoulder. “I don’t blame you for being defensive. You’ve been through a lot and it might not mean much, but from what I’ve heard of the situation, you’re well within your rights to be wary of all of us.”

Yuuji averts his gaze downward again and lifts a hand to rub it through his hair. “I’m not usually such a dick to people who don’t deserve it, I swear.”

Inumaki makes a quiet sound of amusement and Okkotsu lets out a small laugh. 

“I believe you,” Okkotsu says lightly. 

Yuuji hums and casts his gaze toward the windows where the blue shades of twilight have finally settled across the world. His mind spins in circles as he replays Okkotsu’s words. “What—” He starts and then stops, wondering how much further he can toe the line of curiosity and rudeness. 

“Hmm?” Okkotsu prompts softly. 

“What position did Gojo give you?” Yuuji asks. His eyes dart toward the watercolor rendition of a blue eye on the back of his hand, where it holds one of Inumaki’s in its gentle grasp. There is a weighty pause after the question settles between them and Okkotsu looks at him with his steady, gray gaze. Yuuji feels himself leaning forward a bit in anticipation, as though his body knows inherently that what Okkotsu is about to say is important and cannot be disregarded. 

“Gojo-sama named me as his temporary heir.”

And despite the fact that Yuuji is new to this strange and dangerous world, he immediately understands the unmitigated value of such a title— the unparalleled honor. 

“It’s entirely unheard of amongst families that carry as much prestige as the Gojo clan. To choose an heir that holds no blood ties, let alone one that originated from a rival clan. And yet, Gojo did so despite the way that many others protested the decision and even demanded he step down from his position as head of the family. He remains firm to this day that I am to be the heir of the entire Gojo clan, should anything happen to him,” Okkotsu explains. 

“But— I mean… No offense… But why?” Yuuji breathes out in quiet shock as his heart thuds hard against the ladder of his ribs. Over the alpha’s shoulder, Inumaki’s face grows serious while his fingers squeeze at his mate’s tattooed hand. 

Okkotsu inhales deeply, a frown pinching the skin between his dark brows. “The short of it is that Gojo has no mate of his own and has made it abundantly clear that he has no intentions of finding one.”

Yuuji feels sick.

“He doesn’t want a mate?” Yuuji asks. Blood rushes through his ears, distorting the sound of his voice as the words leave him without conscious permission. The immediate recollection of the brush of lips against his skin and the sound of deep, soulful purring makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. 

“Not to my knowledge. Proposals have been made for a political marriage between the head of the Gojo clan and an omega from a rival clan, in order to bring peace and further reaches of power, but Gojo-sama has denied every single one of them. And while he isn’t exactly old, this lifestyle is unpredictable at best. Without a mate or a proper heir from a sanctioned union, Gojo was left with the task of appointing a temporary heir that met the standards expected of a proper Gojo heir— or at least as close as he could get— until, of course, a time when he takes a mate and sires one from his own bloodline. Though it’s been years and Gojo-sama has made no such intentions clear.”

Yuuji feels sick. 

“According to Gojo-sama I did, but others would still argue against it,” Okkotsu continues. “Many believe that his decision was made foolishly, but I think it was my loyalty to the clan, willingly given, that Gojo-sama saw as an eligibility for the title. Not to mention my ties to the clan only strengthened when Toge and I mated a few years ago. Given that he’s a lesser cousin directly descended from the main branch of the Gojo family tree, any of our children, if we’re blessed to have them one day, will carry forward a version of the Gojo clan’s bloodline in truth, rather than out of a spiteful decision..”

Yuuji feels sick. 

“Gojo doesn’t…” Yuuji whispers, chest aching where his heart squeezes brutally within its cage of bones. His earlier outrage is forgotten as something close to desolation sweeps through him. He thinks of that purr— Gojo’s purr. It had called to him. But he didn’t… He wasn’t… “But— But Gojo is a Special Grade. The bloodlines that create Special Grade alphas are practically ancient. He would just… He would just throw that all away? For what? He can’t just… I don’t know? Find an omega to create an heir with and be done with it? Is he that selfish?” 

The words ring hollow, even to Yuuji’s ears— nowhere near the actual argument he wants to make. His chest heaves for air in what he deems as renewed frustration, though he cannot quite pin down what emotion motivates the sting of tears that builds hotly behind his eyes. However, his heart trembles in rebellion as his mind shoves forward an image of Gojo standing at the side of a faceless omega, scent gland flushed red and bloody fang marks in his neck and—

Sick. Sick. Sick. 

Stuck in his thoughts, he doesn’t notice the way that Okkotsu’s expression softens slightly and a new light of understanding dawns within his gray gaze. The alpha huffs under his breath, drawing Yuuji’s attention back to him in time to see how he twines his fingers with Inumakies— effortlessly fitting them together like two puzzle pieces. Carved to fit one another in a way that no one else could ever compare to. 

“You’re right,” Okkotsu says, quietly after fleetingly pressing his lips to the backs of his mate’s knuckles. “Part of the reason why I was accepted, if not grudgingly, was because my secondary gender is considered at the rank of Special Grade. Though I couldn’t possibly hope to compare against Gojo-sama’s strength, it counts all the same. Still, there’s something else you have to know about Gojo-sama in order for the decision to make sense.”

“And what would that be?” Yuuji asks with hardly any heat, his head still caught in a sickening spiral.

A tiny, mischievous smile plays at the corners of the alpha’s lips. “Gojo-sama is the most selfish bastard I’ve ever met. He takes what he wants and anyone who’s ever met him can tell that he believes wholeheartedly that he deserves nothing but the best. He wants it all. He won’t settle for anything less and when he gets it, he will guard it fiercely. He won’t ever let it go.”

Yuuji quivers as Okkotsu’s words wash over him. For a moment, he swears he can smell the faded scent of snow and ice and salt that seeps from the material of the coat that he’d hidden away, still stuffed behind his pillows. The haunting memory of the alpha’s purr calling back to him, sweet and hesitant and unpracticed filters through his mind. The touch of the alpha’s warmth— so welcome as it settled a part inside of him that had never felt as though it had fit quite right. 

“So what… He wants to fall in love or something?” Yuuji asks, aiming for condescension with his tone, but entirely missing the mark as the words tremble and trip past his lips. 

Inumaki’s face softens with a smile as he watches Yuuji with lavender eyes. His mate’s own expression goes gentle at the edges as he glances up at Inumaki, as though any mention of the word love reminded him of his own. Yuuji shrinks in on himself a bit, feeling suddenly embarrassed by voicing such an intimate question. As though it was somehow his place to judge someone— even someone like Gojo— for wanting to find true and unconditional love in a cruel world. In a fleeting life. 

“I can’t exactly blame you for not believing it,” Okkotsu says with a small grin. “It’s a concept that many in the clan don’t agree with either. An alpha of Gojo-sama’s stature and in his position as head of the family is forced to give much of himself away and his hope for a real love is one that he has refused to relinquish, much to the frustration of those who believe his power is a commodity for them to trade. Thankfully, those of us who are honored with the title of being one of the Six Eyes fully support Gojo-sama’s stance on the matter. So there’s not much else anyone can do about it.”

Even though his stomach still twists uncomfortably and the phantom scent of salt and snow lingers in his nose, Yuuji latches onto the stable ground presented in the form of a change in the subject. All too happy to move away from the visions swimming within his mind of Gojo standing beside some faceless omega. And eager to avoid the treacherous path his thoughts are willing to take as they put the words Gojo and love together in the same sentence. 

“I thought that all of the members of the clan were known as the Six Eyes?” Yuuji says, sparing only half a thought for how Okkotsu might draw a line against divulging more information about the clan.

“Ah,” Okkotsu sighs out knowingly. The alpha shifts on the ground into a more comfortable position, leaning back on one hand as he stretches his long legs out in front of him. “It’s common to refer to the members of the clan as ‘eyes’ given the myth surrounding the family’s origin, but in the same vein, due to those same legends, the title of being one of the Six Eyes is an honor bestowed upon the six most trusted confidants of the current head of the Gojo clan.”

A frown pulls at Yuuji’s lips as his thoughts immediately snag on the conversation he’d had with Mai back on the day they’d first met— when he had unwittingly referred to Gojo’s clan members as ‘Blue Eyes’ and Mai had nearly ripped him to shreds. Her swift correct that their proper name was an important enough distinction in that it could cost someone their tongue, should they speak the wrong one, still stuck to the inner corners of his mind. Unbidden, Yuuji’s gaze drifts back to the flash of blue emblazoned across Okkotsu’s hand. 

He gestures toward it. “Is that what the tattoo means?”

Okkotsu nods, smiling all the while. In a smooth movement, he leans back up and folds his legs beneath him then holds out the hand in question between them to afford Yuuji a better view. “Very observant of you, Itadori,” Okkotsu says approvingly. 

I think that this one is just especially observant… Getou’s voice echoes in Yuuji’s memory in reply.

“The tattoos are to establish and identify the Six Eyes from any of the lower members of the clan. Given that we all function as individual support to the head of the family, we are also tasked with the job of keeping the clan running as a whole. Our positions are diverse and important, but no more integral than any other member of the clan. To receive the title of being one of the Six Eyes is more of an ancient tradition than anything else. Lots of pomp and circumstance, I’m afraid… Everyone thinks that it’s this mythical position to aid the great Heir of Gojo, but really it’s just a name,” Okkotsu explains. “And definitely a lot more paperwork than I’m sure the original Six Eyes could have ever imagined when they were bestowed the titles.” 

“Just how old is the Gojo clan, exactly?” Yuuji asks with barely concealed awe. 

“Well, let’s see,” Okkotsu hums, dropping his hand back into his lap as he glances up at the vaulted ceiling in thought. 

Inumaki makes a small noise, finally rejoining the conversation after being content to listen to his mate. Okkotsu shifts his gaze lazily towards his mate, his head leaning partially against Inumaki’s thigh and Yuuji still cannot get over how casually they touch each other. Constantly drawn into one another’s orbit, unable to resist the silent call of their souls— as though they cannot bear to be parted.

Inumaki signs something, fingers graceful and deft in the air between them. 

“Right you are, love,” Okkotsu praises the other boy for whatever it was he’d signed. The term of endearment slips off his tongue with such blatant adoration that Yuuji briefly feels as though he is some kind of intruder, witnessing the moment. Thankfully, Okkotsu rolls his head back upright along the broad line of his shoulders and fixes his gray eyes back on Yuuji. “The first real documentation of the clan can be traced back to just before the Heian period, but the Legend of the six eyed dragon comes from wayyy before that.”

“Six eyed dragon?” Yuuji repeats slowly, brow furrowing as he attempts to rapidly comb through any memories from his years of schooling for any stories involving ancient clans and dragons— six eyed or otherwise. 

As he’s pondering his general knowledge of ancient legend, Inumaki makes an excited chirping noise and signs something else to Okkotsu. The alpha smiles gently at his mate, fondness clear in every line of his features. 

“I can tell the story, but only if Itadori is interested. I don’t want him to feel as if we’ve come to give him some kind of crash course on Gojo-sama’s origins,” He says gently. The platinum haired boy’s face slips into a small pout that has the alpha laughing under his breath and reaching up to smudge his thumb against the curve of Inumaki’s lower lip, as though he could wipe the expression away.

“What story?” Yuuji asks, unable to help himself.

“It’s more like the legend that leads to the Gojo clan’s rise to power. It’s really just a bed time story that’s been blown out of proportion over the course of a few thousand years, but it does make for good storytelling. Not to mention it’s good propaganda that keeps people wary of the name Gojo… But I don’t want to bore you if—”

“No, no!” Yuuji says quickly, silencing the rest of Okkotsu’s sentence. “I don’t mind. I’m curious, actually.”

Okkotsu searches his face with those steel gray eyes— looking for something that Yuuji can’t hope to comprehend. Finally he nods, and straightens up a bit as he folds his long legs criss-cross beneath himself. 

“Alright then, I’ll tell you,” Okkotsu says.

Inumaki lets loose another excited chirp from deep within his throat and scoots down from his perch on the lounge chair to settle beside his mate on the floor. Lavender eyes wide and thrilled, he beams broadly at Okkotsu, who looks nothing less than besotted as he grins back at his eager mate. Yuuji can’t help but follow suit as he slips down from the end of the bed, setting aside the empty bowl and leaning back against the bed frame— unable to feel like anything other than a child getting ready for a bedtime story as the three of them settle in.

“Just promise not to judge me too harshly,” Okkotsu says good-naturedly as he takes his mate’s hand back into his own and turns his bright, boyish grin back in Yuuji’s direction. “I’ve only told this story a few times to Megumi and he is very adamant that I don’t do the voices half as well as Gojo does.”

Yuuji has the brief image fly through his mind of tiny Megumi curled up against Gojo’s broad chest, snuggled beneath the blankets as the alpha’s low, rumbling voice tells him a fairytale— and apparently, does the voices. He bites down on a grin and stubbornly ignores the way his heart flutters softly inside his chest. 

Okkotsu takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and a hush falls between them as he begins his tale.

“Mukashi mukashi…”

Chapter Text

Mukashi mukashi…

In a time when myth lived and breathed before the very thought of man existed, when the world was empty and there was more shadow than light, there hung two moons in the heavens.

Beholden to none but themselves, the twin moons roamed the dark, endless skies above the barren earth. Shining their pale light upon the empty land they believed themselves to be the only beacons in the vast void of the newly made universe. Entirely alone, the two moons never strayed far from each other’s sides. Together they carved a path across the heavens, shrouded in night and the ever-lasting glimmer of starlight. Beautiful and cold was their light, as was their love for one another, but so great was their devotion to one another that they swore never to part.

But beauty alone cannot fulfill a heart and warmth is necessary for love to grow.

For eons and ages the smaller of the moons, Sengen, dutifully stayed at her sister Benzaiten’s side. Millennia upon millenia, content to shine their cold light upon the desolate land. Unwanting for anything other than her beloved sister’s companionship— for hers was the only other light in the heavens aside from the stars, and as everyone knows, stars are quite solitary and do not often make friends beyond their own kind. 

It was not until a night that was not quite so different as the ones before, nor much different than the ones that would come after, that Sengen— as she traveled along the familiar path she and her sister had carved through the heavens— found her bright, eternal gaze turning down upon the world. For she had not looked upon the earth in quite a long time, maybe a few thousand years or so, but things were not the same as when she had last looked upon the empty world so very far below her. 

The world had changed. 

Rather than the vacant world that she and her sister had drifted above for so long, Sengen now saw, even in the darkness of night, that the earth had been covered in life. Beautiful, precious life— so rare and fragile and beloved . It lived within the mountains and the seas and the rivers that flowed to them, in the trees and the grass and the ground itself— breathing in time with the very heartbeat that belonged to the universe. 

Life. Beautiful, glorious life now harmonized with the heavens and flourished across a once dead land and stunned was Sengen to see such a sight. For so long, her gaze had been kept by her and her sister’s pale beauty and she had long since given up any hope of their cold light creating anything other than shadows. 

Thrilled by her discovery, Sengen turned to her twin and told her of what she could see.

“Cast your eyes down, Benzaiten,” Sengen begged her beloved twin. “See the tenderness that the world has been treated to! See the life that now stirs below us!”

But Benzaiten, who had long since noticed the changings of the earth and had come to realize that life— though certainly beautiful and delicate— could not flourish beneath her and her twin’s cold light. Indeed, the life that now hung from every nook and crevice of the once barren land turned away from their pale touch and Benzaiten, who was most prideful for a being of celestial light, had felt jealousy take root within her heart.

“What should I care for that which lies below us?” Benzaiten asked in return. “What beauty can life hold that might compare to ours? Why would I turn my gaze upon it, when life shies away from the darkness that holds our light?”

Discouraged by Benzaiten’s anger, Sengen did not ask again for her sister to look upon the earth. However, her own curiosity was not so easily dissuaded.

Though she followed the same path at her sister’s side— the one they had carved together across the star-scattered skies for thousands upon thousands of years— Sengen no longer felt content with keeping her gaze on the darkened heavens and time after time, she found her silver eyes wandering downward. 

She watched with utter fascination how the life that sprawled across the earth changed and grew beneath the phantom touch of a power she did not know. So fleeting and fragile it was, that Sengen witnessed with despair and obsession as again life was broken and rebuilt across the world. 

Made and unmade. Razed and reforged and rebirthed. Again and again and again until finally, Sengen could not take it anymore.

“Benzaiten, please,” Sengen said to her sister one day as they crossed the heavens, “You are older and know things that I do not and so you must know who has created this life. I beg you to tell me.”

“Why should I?” Benzaiten asked in return, irate to realize her sister’s interest had not faded over the years. “What reason could you have for needing to know that might convince me to tell you?”

Sengen grew furious at her sister’s reply, for she knew that Benzaiten certainly knew who had created the life that covered the earth and she could not comprehend why her beloved sister— whom she had shared the skies with since the beginning of time— would not share this with her as well. 

“I cannot understand who has the capacity to create such beauty time after time and destroy it all the same,” Sengen replied. “I must know who holds such kindness and cruelty in equal measure.”

But Benzaiten, whose rage had turned so bitter against the life that refused to bow to her and her sister’s beauty, turned away from her sister and refused to share her knowledge. Full of despair, Sengen looked upon the world that brimmed with life— ever changing and doomed to die— and she knew she would not be able to rest until she had found an answer. And so she began to drift away from her sister, turning to the stars as she began her search for someone who might be able to give her an answer— but stars, as everyone knows, are very secretive by nature and though they too knew the answer she sought, they would not tell her.

For ages upon ages, Sengen searched the heavens for her answer. Drifting further and further from her sister’s side, until she came upon a place so deep within the darkness of the universe that she found herself beyond the reach of light. And though she was cold and alone and quite scared without her beloved twin’s pale light to guide her, Sengen knew she must keep going.

Because sometimes, the most important things we must do are also the most difficult. 

And it was not so very long after she entered the deepest void at the very heart of the universe that Sengen finally came across the one who might give her the answer she so desperately sought. 

With countless, all seeing eyes, skin made of shadow, and eight slender arms that never paused their weaving motions, the Goddess of Fate was a sight that Sengen had never dared to imagine. She who knew all— past, present and future. Her blood red hair, as fine as silk, looped through her spindle fingers that endlessly wove the strands into a beautiful tapestry set upon a loom made of glittering darkness— one that told the story of everything that had happened since the very beginning and everything that would happen until the very end.

Over and under and over again. Over and under and over again. The Goddess did not stop her weaving as all eight arms moved in tandem, twining threads together and tearing them apart. 

“Goddess of Fate,” Sengen called with more bravery than any moon was ever known for. “I have come to ask a question of you.”

Fate laughed, but did not stop her weaving— countless eyes fixed upon the many layers of time and space and every soul that passed between them. “No one may question me.”

“Please, Goddess,” Sengen begged. “I have not come to question your weaving nor your work. I have traveled far to find an answer and only wish to know who is responsible for creating the beautiful life back on earth.”

At this, the weaver’s many hands went still.

“Your sister has not told you?” Fate asked the little moon.

“She will not say,” Sengen replied. “For I believe her to be jealous, not of the ability to create life, but that it does not thrive in the darkness, nor beneath our light.”

When the Goddess heard these words, she turned her gaze on the moon named Sengen— so pale and cold and lonely and curious. With her countless eyes she beheld the knowledge of all that had been, all that was and all that would be and she looked upon the anomalous little moon who had traveled through the heavens to find her answer. And from deep within the tapestry of time that the Goddess had woven herself, a strand of bloody red hair, fine as silk and connected to everything , began to unravel from a most tangled knot. A knot that Fate, for all that she knew of everything, had long since believed might never come undone.

“And why do you wish to obtain this knowledge?” Fate asked the little moon, while many of her countless eyes followed the strand of tangled red string to the place where the knot originated from. “What reason should a celestial being of the night have for wondering about that which happens during the day?” 

“Because it is beautiful ,” Sengen replied earnestly. “Because it is fragile and lovely all the more for it. Because its power lives within its resilience and though mine and my sister’s light is a thing of beauty all its own, we are cold and solitary beings. We do not hold the ability to create life, nor spare warmth to allow it to thrive, but I would know the name of the one who can do such extraordinary things.”

Fate looked upon the moon named Sengen for a long, long time. Her many fingers wrapped in bloody, red silk, tugging idly at knots and gazing as far into the future as her countless eyes could reach. She weighed the consequences of the truth and what it would bring upon the world, before she finally smiled and said two simple words. An answer— and a curse.

“The Sun.”

Never had Sengen heard a more beautiful name— the creator of life was known as the Sun. 

Sengen thanked the Goddess of Fate for answering her question and began her journey home, entirely unaware that when Fate had turned back to her loom, though one knot had come undone, another had been created– one that was far more tangled than the first…

After traveling back across the universe, Sengen returned to familiar, dark skies where she found her twin, who, (unbeknownst to Sengen), had been searching endlessly for her sister. And growing increasingly worried when she could not find a single trace of her sister. Benzaiten’s fury made her round, silver face glow bright and full in the sky, her turmoil pushing and pulling the waves of the ocean. An anger so destructive that the world was ravaged from her uncontainable rage. 

“The Sun!” Sengen told her twin, excitement eclipsing her sister’s rage. “It is the Sun who is responsible for creating life!” 

“And why should I care?” Benzaiten raged, so blinded by her furious jealousy that her beloved twin could be so consumed by love for another that she would cause such worry— such fear. “Why should I care for another celestial body who cannot possibly compare to my beauty? Though the Sun may hold the key to life, it cannot illuminate the night half as well as I can. It cannot live in the cold without decaying, it cannot survive in such darkness. Stop wasting your time with silliness like life and the Sun. You belong in darkness, here with me— nowhere else.” 

Heart broken by her sister’s words, Sengen began to drift away… Further and further from her twin she slipped away, until the gap between them was so wide that it stretched across the entire sky. Dutifully, Sengen followed the path they had carved across the sky together, but as the years passed and the distance grew, Sengen fell further and further behind— unwilling to share the darkness with her sister’s bitter fury.

So far had she drifted, that one day, while Benzaiten slipped below the opposite horizon, Sengen lingered at the other edge of the sky. And as the darkness of their skies began to fade and lighten, Sengen found herself arrested by the sight.

For she had lived a life— for far longer than time itself could recall— in darkness. And now, the dark skies that she had always taken comfort in, amidst the stars and her sister’s beautiful glow, gave way to brilliant, beautiful light. And color! Such glorious and riotous color— so different from the shades of shadow and starlight that Sengen had known the world to be painted in. All of it, illuminated by the golden light of the celestial body that rose above the horizon.

The Sun.

Sengen was sure that she had never before seen something so beautiful, not the life that flourished on earth, or her sister’s lovely silver light, or the Goddess of Fate’s long, crimson red hair she spun into threads. She looked upon the Sun, who lingered on the horizon and cast its glorious light upon the land, stretching tendrils of the golden warmth to brush against even Sengen— who had never known the touch of warmth and found herself enamored. 

As she slipped toward the opposite horizon— for soon the heat of the Sun’s light became unbearable as the Sun rose higher and higher with each passing moment and moons, as everyone knows, belong solely in darkness— she kept her eternal gaze upon the Sun. Watching as he rose high into the sky and cast his golden touch across everything within his reach. Content to merely look upon the celestial body that was responsible for such aching emotion in the moon’s deepest heart. But as she descended behind the horizon, the Sun, who had been busy gazing upon his own creations, finally looked upon the moon— and for the very first time, he beheld the shining silver beauty of her, that was unlike anything the Sun had ever seen before.

After that, Sengen would purposefully linger at the edge of the darkened horizon. Waiting until her twin slipped away so that she might glimpse a look of her beloved Sun and the Sun would rise each day to shine its light upon his beloved moon.

So great was their love for one another— growing like the life that the Sun had so tenderly and cruelly created and destroyed again and again. Stealing no more than glimpses of one another as they lived on separate sides of the sky, lingering for but a moment in a world made neither of light, nor of darkness, but of burnished color in between. For the moon could not bear the full, bright light of day for very long and the Sun was cursed to never know a world of darkness.

Doomed to remain separated, but with a love that was as large as the sky itself, Sengen desperately returned to the Goddess of Fate. This time, beseeching her to aid them— for only Fate had the power to change that which could not be altered. 

Pleading their love to the weaving Goddess, Sengen begged for help. 

“Please, Goddess,” Sengen begged, “Please grant me the ability to live in my beloved’s light. Allow me to withstand his brightness for more than a passing moment.” 

“Though your love is pure and strong I cannot grant such a wish,” Fate replied, weaving over and under and over again. “The Sun is meant to live in light and the moon is for the darkness. It is how it has always been and how it shall always be. This is my answer.” 

Heartbroken by this declaration, Sengen began to cry. And within Fate’s fingers, another knot appeared. Frowning at the tangled length of blood red hair, Fate held the knot within her palm and looked toward the devastated moon. 

“You may not be allowed to live within the same skies, but there is a gift I may bestow upon you yet,” Fate said. 

With her spindly fingers, sharper than any blade, Fate took up a length of her fine, blood colored hair and cut it from her head. Fate bound the end and twisted the strands together to create a brilliant, crimson rope. Fate held the newly made rope out to Sengen, glowing  in the darkness as she spoke instructions for the little moon to obey. For while the Sun and the moon may never be allowed to live in the same sky, they may still bind themselves together— and always be fated to follow after one another. 

Overjoyed, Sengen took the red rope and marveled at the way that she and her beloved Sun could remain tied together for the rest of eternity. 

“But be wary, young Sengen,” Fate warned, for she was wise and knew things that others had forgotten and things others yet did not know, “This bond is not easily repaired. Should it be severed or broken, it shall remain so until the end of your days and the pain of such separation will not heal, but fester and cultivate hatred where love once grew wild.”

But Sengen could hardly listen. Instead, the moon rushed back to her dark skies and waited on the opposite horizon for her beloved to finally rise. When he came above the skyline, bringing with him his golden light, Sengen showed him the red rope that Fate had made for them. 

“So we may tether ourselves to one another and never fear that the other shall not follow!” Sengen called with joy. She tossed the other end of the rope to the Sun, and together the two of them bound the rope around themselves. Pulled taut between them so that they might never be parted though they may fall out of sight— assured that where one went, the other would always follow. 

And for a time, all was good.

But greed is often mistaken as a symptom of love, and Benzaiten, who had watched her twin’s love unfold, now looked upon the red rope wrapped around her sister and was consumed by her jealousy. For so long she had shared the dark skies with her sister, content in their beauty and pale light and their love for one another that Benzaiten could not imagine what kind of love her sister had found in the Sun. And because she knew much more than her smaller, more naive sister did, Benzaiten knew that the rope Fate had bestowed upon Sengen could be broken— and so Benzaiten began to plot. 

Given that her sister would linger so far behind her, one day when Benzaiten slipped below the horizon, she raced along the path they had created in the heavens until she reached the place where the Sun was about to rise. Despite his heat, she braved his brilliant light, and when she spied the red rope wrapped around his celestial body, she became incensed with rage. 

Benzaiten called out, drawing the Sun’s attention. 

“Another moon?” The Sun asked, for never had he known of his love’s twin who disappeared before he rose each day. “You look like my beloved Sengen.” 

“I am Sengen’s sister,” Benzaiten said, “And I come to tell you of her most dearest wish.”

And the Sun, who knew nothing of hidden meanings and who loved the moon Sengen more than anything, was all too delighted to listen. 

“A kiss,” Benzaiten said. “My sister’s dearest wish is to receive a kiss from her beloved.”

The Sun hesitated. For he had been told by Sengen of Fate’s warning, and he knew that his heat and his light was not so easily handled by his gentle, frozen love. However, not knowing better than to believe his love’s twin capable of such foul intentions and entirely willing to do what his beloved wished, the Sun agreed. 

“A kiss for my beloved,” declared the Sun, “Her heart’s truest wish is my command.”

And so he rose above the horizon, leaving Benzaiten alone in her darkness, full of glee for what she had done— for when her sister’s bond was finally broken, she would be free once more to stay in the heavens at Benzaiten’s side. 

But on the other side of the horizon, Sengen, who had lingered in the brightening skies, watched as her beloved rose above the horizon, bringing with him the beautiful golden light of dawn. However, so distracted by the brilliant hues of color, Sengen did not realize how quickly the Sun approached. 

Closer and closer the Sun came, wishing only to bestow upon his love what she so dearly wished for. One kiss for his beloved moon.

And for Sengen, who had known only darkness and the kiss of frigid chill, the warmth of the sun was far too much. The flames of the sun threw heat from his shining, golden body far too hot for the moon to withstand. And by the time the Sun was close enough to lay a single kiss upon the moon’s glowing cheek, it was already too late. Because the Sun, for all of his uncontainable light of creation and tender acts of cruelty, and the moon, for all of her willingness to bind herself to such lovely impossibility, had not anticipated that their love might be too much for the other to bear. 

Unable to withstand the heat of the Sun’s touch, the moon began to crack and before they could do anything to stop it, the moon named Sengen burst into a million, million shards— scattering in all directions. 

For the moon had never been a moon at all, but an egg.

In an instant, gone was the moon named Sengen, and hatched from her silver shell by the kiss of pure sunlight, was a great dragon— as white as starlight and blessed with six eyes that could see any and all, and whose throat was wrapped in burnt and broken red thread. Ancient and wise was the dragon who had burst forth. Shrieking and tearing at its scales as it fell from the skies— for the grief of Sengen’s heartbreak was the only emotion it felt as it drew its first, screaming breath.

Drawn by the commotion, Benzaiten emerged over the horizon, only to find that her beloved twin had been broken. Shattered by the love that she had so foolishly chased. Furious with the Sun for its tender cruelty and devastated by the loss of its twin in the heavens, despite her own deceitful tongue that had set his adoring wrath upon her, Benzaiten drew upon her magic to banish the Sun from any skies the moon might be in. The Sun, who mourned his own broken bond and the loss of his beloved moon, disappeared beyond the horizon to remain eternally exiled from the darkness. 

Banished to earth— for dragons cannot live amidst the stars— the six eyed dragon grieved for a love it had never known. Heartbroken and alone in a world full of darkness, the dragon cried out for things it had no name for and beings it could not remember the shape of. And Benzaiten, who could not bear the thought of losing the last piece of her beloved sister, cursed the six eyed dragon to roam perpetually in darkness, beneath the watchful gaze of the stars and Benzaiten’s pale, cold light. Never to see the accursed light of the Sun that had taken Sengen away with a single, burning kiss.

And so the six eyed dragon lived by the pale light of the moon, forever mourning the great loss of things that had never truly belonged to it— its throat wrapped in the remains of a broken, red bond. For eons, the dragon roamed the earth by night, solitary and alone, shrouded in shadows.

It watched the pieces of time as they passed, not by the light of day but the silver glow of the singular moon. It watched as man became more and myth faded into memory. It watched as life grew and flourished further than it ever had before— watched as humans lived and died and loved and grieved. It watched as civilizations were born and destroyed in the span of a heartbeat. It watched as, eventually, humans began to take note of its presence— and talk of the great six eyed dragon who only came out at night swept across the land. It watched as humans began to look upon its beauty and wisdom and begged for its favor. 

 But the six eyed dragon, who had known nothing of warmth or kindness as it had roamed in darkness for years upon years upon years— and still grieved for a love that had never belonged to it— refused to bestow any humans with its favor. For what favor of good fortune can be born of cold rage and endless hatred— especially that which does not truly belong to the one who holds it?

And while the six eyed dragon had turned bitter with its heartbreak and loneliness, on the opposite side of the horizon, so too had the Sun changed for the worse. Mourning the loss of its beloved Sengen and infuriated by the meddling of the moon named Benzaiten, the Sun had sworn to never love again. Ever brighter it burned— hot enough that flesh could sear beneath its light without protection and crops could burn should its rage grow untamable. Anger and grief had taken the once beautiful, golden love it held for the moon and had twisted it into something unrecognizable— something malicious. The Sun’s tender cruelty had become cruelty alone, wrapped in burnt remains of red rope and fueled by the very fires that had destroyed his own heart. All the Sun knew was memory, for it had long forgotten the feeling of love.

For centuries upon centuries, the six eyed dragon spurned anyone who sought its wisdom and guidance until man became vengeful that they were considered unworthy of the dragon’s blessings. Full of rage, since they were so deeply entrenched in lives lived beneath the cruel light of the sun, that man turned their own fury upon the dragon. Together, groups of men began to hunt the six eyed dragon, determined to make it suffer for ignoring their pleas to end their own suffering, until one night, they found the great six eyed beast— and struck. 

Mortally wounded by a great blow, the six eyed dragon fled deep into a darkened forest. Unable to fly through the skies in order to remain under the light of the moon, the dragon slipped deep into a mountain pool, hidden away and shrouded by shadows. Content to sleep in the deep and the dark where it might heal— away from the terrible wrath of man.

It was not until many, many years later, after the world had long forgotten about a time of dragons or stories of a doomed love shared between celestial bodies, that a tiger came prowling through the forest. 

Bloody and beaten, the tiger had been hunted by men who thought that pieces of the world were theirs to take and own. The tiger had witnessed many of its kind fall to the terrible cruelty of man and this time, its own luck had fled, as it had been attacked as it slept. Though it managed to escape the hunter's brutality, the tiger knew that it was not long for this world and so it slipped deep into the forest— content to die if only he was surrounded by the peace that the ancient forest held. For the tiger knew that this particular forest was one where no man, nor beast dared to tread— for the stories of a monster that dwelled deep within its darkness.

When the tiger came upon a mountain pool, the great beast collapsed at its edge. Without any strength to continue the tiger allowed the darkness to claim it, though it did not realize that one of its paws fell into the still water. And it did not know that the miniscule ripples that shuddered across the water had awakened the ancient, sleeping power that abided beneath the surface.

Deep within the mountain pool, after many, many years, the six eyed dragon arose from its slumber. So terribly alone and still deep in pain, the dragon felt only rage at the one who had dared to disturb its resting place. Unthinkingly, the six eyed dragon, who had never known a love of its own— merely the shadow of grief belonging to the one that had carried him— rose from the depths to strike and therein, the Six Eye’s fate was sealed.

And at that moment, far, far away, in a place where light could not reach, a long forgotten Goddess paused in her weaving and watched as a single thread pulled taught upon her loom. One that she had never forgotten about from the moment she first noticed it when a brave little moon came to her looking for answers. Attached to a knot that had long since been woven into the tapestry of Fate herself, the red thread gleamed anew, as bright as freshly spilled blood— heralding a new wound made upon a broken bond. And the Goddess of Fate, who had watched silently through the ages— who had never forgotten — as two celestial lovers were torn apart by the jealous love of a sister, turned their countless, all-seeing eyes unto the earth for the first time in a very long time to watch the beginning of the final unraveling.

For as the Six Eyes rose from its resting place, furious and full of wrath, it did not realize that night had not yet fallen. And the Sun— who had never forgotten — that lay high in the sky, looked down and spied the creature that had so viciously destroyed his beloved Sengen. Enraged by the sight of the six eyed dragon that had shattered his love from within— and unable to admit after so much time of cultivating his rage, his own fault in the destruction of his love — the Sun swooped down from his perch in the sky. Fueled by hate and fiery rage, the Sun did not hold back as it brutally attacked the six eyed dragon. 

Still weakened by its mortal wound that it had suffered so long ago, the Six Eyes was easily defeated by the Sun. And in punishment for the crimes it had unknowingly committed merely by being born, the Sun stole the mighty six eyed dragon away and locked it in a place where the light of the moon would never again reach it. Locked away in chains made within the flames of the Sun himself, the six eyed dragon was to be convicted for its part in the destruction of the Sun’s greatest love.

For as everyone knows, Gods and celestial bodies often forget the role they play in their own downfalls, and anger has a way of erasing important details of our own greatest faults. 

After the six eyed dragon was locked away, the wounded tiger, who had unknowingly ended an age-old hunt, was bestowed by the Sun, his highest favor. Healed of its wounds, the tiger begged the Sun for the power to avenge his brothers and sisters that had been victims of man’s enormous cruelty. 

The Sun agreed readily, for he enjoyed finding a rage quite like his own in someone else. With his power, the Sun transformed the tiger into a man, though he was unlike any other man that had ever come before. A beast in its own right, with dark stripes lining its skin and an animalistic rage that could not be tamed by mortal flesh. And more than that, the Sun in a blinding moment of avarice— and hoping to cultivate such wild fury in another being— bestowed a great and terrible power upon the newly made man. As cruel and furious as wildfire, it was a power that burned as bright and eternal as the Sun itself— scorching deep within newly made veins. A blessing that transcended any sovereignty that had ever been known before and transformed the tiger made a man, into a God amongst mortals.

But no mortal man could ever hope to hold the power of a God and not have their story end in tragedy.

For years and years, the tiger made a man, who was bestowed the Sun’s gift of favoritism, used such power to take revenge against those that had invaded his home. Avenging his family and the land that had been torn apart by the greed of humans, the newly made man used his unmitigated power to destroy anyone who chose to stand against him. No matter who they were or what army they fought for, whether they were man, woman or child, old or young it did not matter— the newly made man ravaged the land and destroyed them all. Filled with a great and terrible yearning for violence, the newly made man allowed the burning flames of the Sun’s rage that were now his to wield to sculpt the world into a place where he alone held power over all— 

A domain of fire ruled over by a man who had once been nothing more than a beast, who now called himself the Sun King.

And all the while, the Sun watched from high above, refusing to set and burning the world beneath its light— feeling for the first time in a long, long time, something stirring within his blackened heart. Though it was not the love he once had felt for his beloved Sengen, it filled him with purpose all the same.

It was many years of terror and bloodshed and war before a boy chose to stand against the Sun King. A humble boy he was, who had lived as quiet a life as one might be able to in a time when fear and ruin was more common than peace. The boy had watched the world burn away to ash beneath the rule of the Sun King and with neither any sons to carry forward his name, nor any wife to return to, and nothing left to lose, he swore to bring an end to the Sun King.

Most laughed at his pursuit. A fool’s errand, some called it— madness, others said. But the boy did not listen, for though he had not lived a long life, he knew the value of one that could be lived in peace— and unlike those who came before him, he believed in the stories of a time long past. And so he set off in search of the only thing that might have power enough to break the chains that the Sun King had laid across the land— the Six Eyes. 

For nearly one hundred years, the boy searched across the land. And only after the boy had become a man, who had then become a rather elderly fellow who had turned gray and frail and bent over with age— after so long of searching and when he was finally beginning to lose hope— did he finally find it. 

In a land made of snow and ice, where the sun refused to set— hidden along a beach made of black sand, there was a cave. Deep within the sheer side of a cliff, the cave was deep and dark, but from its depths rose the wailing sounds of anguish of a being that was not made for the mortal world. 

The old man descended, following the wails into the depths of the cave. Deeper and deeper, until he reached a place where no light could reach and the wails of torment were so loud that the man could feel his very own heart breaking— and there he found it.

The Six Eyes. 

Shackled by chains forged in the very fires of the Sun and its throat wrapped with a bloody red string— frayed and burnt and broken, that cut so deep into its flesh that its own silvery blood poured endlessly from the wound. Thrashing and wailing, the dragon writhed within its bonds. And the old man, though weary and frail, with naught much time left, nor much strength to give, worked tirelessly to break the dragon’s chains.

Using rocks would not work, for they would crumble and chip against the chains. But when the man took up a single, pure white scale that gleamed like a fallen star and drenched in the dragon’s silvery blood, and struck it against the bonds, a clear chime rang out and a tiny dent was made. 

For a year and a day, the man worked to break the chains with the dragon’s own scales. Even when his hands were bleeding and his heart felt as though it might never be repaired after listening to the endless wailing cries of the heartbroken dragon— tortured by the memories of a love that had never truly belonged to it. Until finally, with one last strike, the chains were broken and the dragon was freed. 

The Six Eyes drew up to its formidable height, glowing as bright as the moon within the darkness as it looked upon the man with its six eyes. For so long, the dragon had put little stock in the notion of kindness, especially from man and was now shocked to find itself deeply indebted to the mortal that had freed him. 

“What is your name, mortal?” The dragon asked in a voice made of silver and starlight that did not belong to this world. “I would know it and bestow my blessing upon the one who has set me free.” 

And the old man, who was stooped with age and heavy with burden, still bowed his head before the great white dragon and spoke with trembling truth. “I am the one they call Gojo.”

 “Gojo,” The dragon repeated, shaking the stars as the name of its savior was spoken— and far, far away, in another place where light could not reach, a tangled knot of red thread suddenly came undone. “Ask me for what you wish and it shall be yours.”

But the man named Gojo had never been anything but humble in his wishes or hopes. In truth, he had never imagined anything for himself greater than to be successful in his journey so that he might help others. And so he replied, “I beg you, great and powerful Six Eyes, for you to end this time of cruelty, for surely your strength and wisdom will be enough to stop the Sun King.” 

“I would not give my aid to the other mortals of this world, only you,” The Six Eyes replied. “And my power is not enough alone to match the Sun.” 

“Then please, great and powerful Six Eyes. I would ask that you grant me some of your power so that I might end this time of cruelty so that others may live in peace.”

And this wish, the Six Eyes agreed to grant.

With every ounce of its ancient magic and mighty power and centuries old wisdom, the Six Eyes bestowed his blessing upon the man named Gojo. He was given a strength unlike anything that had ever been known before, however, though it was mighty and ancient, just as the dragon had said, the man named Gojo knew it would not be enough to defeat the Sun King. 

However, at that very moment, high above their heads, beyond the cave that they were hidden, the Sun, who was unaware of what had happened to its captive so deep below the earth and out of sigh from his fiery gazy, finally set upon the land where it had always shone. And for the first time in a long time, the moon, who had once been called Benzaiten by her most beloved sister, rose above the opposite horizon. 

“Child of my sister,” Benzaiten called from the heavens. “Come to me.”

The Six Eyes, now healed of its wounds, took up the man named Gojo upon its back and flew to the surface. There, in a land of snow and ice, beneath the pale, silvery light of the moon, Benzaiten met for the first time with the child of her beloved twin. 

“I have watched your pain,” Benzaiten said, “And know my own folly is what truly broke my sister. Her love for another I could not bear, yet it was this greed that ruined all. I will fix it, as I am able and the time has long since passed for mercy.”

The Six Eyes bowed its mighty head to the moon and together they turned their gazes upon the man named Gojo. And the moon, who had loved nothing so much as her twin, reached out and laid her own blessing upon the man named Gojo.

For while the Sun had the strength of one alone, the moon had always been stronger with two.

So deep was the moon’s love for Sengen that it poured every ounce of the ancient magic it possessed into the mortal man. Her touch laid upon him, manifested not simply in the divine power she gave freely, but forever immortalized itself in the bright white color of the man’s hair. 

So potent was the strength that now coursed through Gojo’s veins that time itself reversed. No longer was he old and frail, but young and virile— a man in his prime that stood on a pedestal of greatness. 

And while the combined power of the Six Eyes and the moon that had once been called Benzaiten, was certainly tremendous, it was still not enough to guarantee victory over the Sun King. Resigned to his fate, the man named Gojo promised to go forth still, despite the way victory was not guaranteed… And it was then, that the Goddess of Fate appeared before them all, with her hair the color of blood and skin made of shadows and her countless all-seeing eyes that had watched this knot of fate untangle and re-bind itself over and over again… 

The Goddess that had been forgotten by most knew that it was Gojo alone who might finally make the knot come free, but not without a sacrifice from Fate herself, who had been the one to tie the strings of Sengen and the Sun so very long ago. She stood before the man named Gojo, in all of her ancient beauty and spoke with a voice not of the mortal world. 

“Fate breaker. I have watched this thread of mine from the very first days it was woven into the tapestry of time. I have seen the many comings and goings of the universe, fleeting and infinite and I have waited for the one who may finally untangle this knot. You, Gojo, will be the one.”

The man named Gojo, now a God himself amongst mortal men, dropped to his knees in supplication. He bowed his head to the Goddess of All and whispered softly of his unworthiness. 

“You have been blessed, Gojo,” the Goddess said in reply. “Throughout heaven and earth, you alone are the Honored One. Do not be so swift to deny the sacrifice of Gods. Not when I too have a gift to bestow.” 

And so the man named Gojo watched as the ancient Goddess reached up and plucked two of her countless all-seeing eyes from her ethereal face and replaced his mortal gaze with them. With the ability to see any and all, the Honored One stood before the Goddess of Fate and the Six Eyes and the moon named Benzaiten— touched by the moon, with the blessing of the Six Eyes and armed with the eyes of Fate herself. 

“I shall fulfill my promise,” the man named Gojo said. “I shall defeat the Sun King and return the land to a time of peace.” 

“Be warned, Gojo,” The Goddess said softly, for she was very wise and very old and had seen another such story begin in quite a similar way. “The threads that bind the mighty Sun King are the very same that now wrap themselves around you. Woven thick by time and circumstance, these threads are not the same as those that frayed between the Sun and his lovely Sengen— they will not break or yield. Should you do this, whether it is by defeat or by victory that you emerge from battle, you and your descendants will forever be tied to the Sun King’s bloodline. Do you understand? A fate tied as closely as the one between you and the Sun King shall never be broken and should you choose to ignore it, it will pull tighter all the same.” 

“I understand,” Gojo replied, though in truth the words did not mean much to him, for he could see no strings around him. He had no mind for immortal promises nor could he comprehend the impact of such invisible bindings for his own descendants when his own life was not yet guaranteed. 

“Then go forth and remember these gifts,” The Goddess replied before she vanished in a wisp of darkness. And as the moon rose back into its heavenly path, the Six Eyes bowed once more to Gojo and leapt into the skies, to vanish amongst the stars.

Fleet of foot, the man named Gojo crossed the world once more, traversing the path he had walked for a hundred years to find the great Six Eyes. When he returned to the domain of the Sun King, unsurprised to find that all that he had known had been destroyed beneath the Sun King’s wrath, the man named Gojo met the Sun King in a glorious battle. 

For forty days and forty nights they fought beneath a sky of blood red, where neither the Sun, nor the moon rose above the horizon. Caught between light and dark, life and death, good and evil— the man named Gojo fought against the Sun King. Until finally, the Sun King was toppled by Gojo who used the power granted by the great white dragon, the moon and the Goddess of Fate, herself.

In the blink of an eye, Gojo stripped the Sun King of his cruel power, rendering him a simple mortal once more. However, the light of the Sun still ran in his veins— burning true and bright in an echo of the Sun’s favor that had been bestowed upon it, for the touch of a God cannot be so easily erased.

True to his word, Gojo returned the land to a time of peace. Forever keeping his all-seeing eyes, given to him by Fate, fixed upon the heavens where the Sun and the moon never more shared the same sky. As time wore on the legend of the man named Gojo and the Six Eyes passed down from generation to generation, and the clan that had sprung from the Honored One’s veins, carried forward the legacy of the power that had been bestowed on their ancestor.

In a time when myth became memory, when the world was filled with life and there was more light than shadow, there hung only one moon in the heavens. And though the Six Eyes was never seen again, it is said that when the wind is still, should you look to the skies when the moon is full and lingers at the edge of the West and the creep of dawn has started to spread in the East, you can hear the voices of two eternal lovers, calling out for each other across time— and the gentle sound of threads as they are woven over and under and over again.

***

Long after Okkotsu and Inumaki have bid Yuuji goodnight and the rest of the world has gone to sleep, Yuuji remains awake. 

He sits upon the bed, legs crossed beneath him, in the darkness of his room. Wrapped within the thick, soft material that still smells of snow and salt and power— he takes comfort in the tingling burn that slips down his aching throat on every deep inhale. Beyond the window, snow falls in thick flakes, settling silently across the landscape.

Yuuji watches as they fall in slow motion, all of the color leached out of the world. Between the thick, passing clouds, he spies the bright, glowing beacon of the full moon where it hangs heavy— nearly full — in the midnight sky. Pale light floods through the windows, illuminating him where he sits with his face turned up into its fleeting, silvery caress before another cloud passes and hides it away. 

“But what about the Sun King? Who was he?” Yuuji had asked Okkotsu after his tale had come to an end. “After the man named Gojo defeated him in battle, what happened to him?” 

“The legend says that the first Gojo showed him mercy. As the Goddess of Fate had told him, Gojo’s threads were tightly intertwined with the Sun King’s and could not be torn apart. So the first Gojo allowed him to live on and start a clan of his own,” Okkotsu had replied with a small, sad smile tugging at his lips. “One that carried forward his name.”

“And what name was that?” Yuuji had asked.

Okkotsu had watched him with solemn gray eyes as he replied with one simple word. 

“Ryoumen.” 

The night is deep and dark and Yuuji’s mind is full of myths. Myths of the wrathful, heartbroken Sun and the Six Eyes, who was born of love but knew only cruelty and of a King named Ryoumen and a man named Gojo whose bloodlines were eternally tied together by Fate’s red strings.

He wonders about the truth of them and above all, he wonders at the beautiful cruelty of such a vicious devotion and thinks that it must be both terrible and extraordinary to find a love worth breaking for.

Chapter Text

The next morning dawns bright and clear without a single cloud in the sky, though there are several more inches of snow if the accumulation on the windowsill is anything to go by.

Yuuji stretches out beneath the blankets and groans at the ache in his lower back that had most certainly come from sitting up and watching the snowfall under the moonlight, lost in his own thoughts for several hours. Laying tangled in soft sheets, Yuuji tilts his head to the side and watches the way the new sun glitters against the fresh, untouched snow. Its golden touch is utterly different from the gilded silver edges lent to the frigid flurry in the midnight hours, but it is a kiss of light all the same. 

With a sigh, Yuuji wonders at how long it might take for him to view the world without the mythical lens of Okkotsu’s fairytale shading every corner. Just as any good story is capable of, though the story has long since ended, he can feel the way it has dug its roots deep. Twisting and growing around his very bones and creeping into the furthest corners of his mind, like the quiet crawl of ivy, Yuuji knows that the tale of the Six Eyes will be embedded within him for quite some time. 

The endurance of such a story, despite not knowing how much of it is legend versus reality, speaks of nothing less than the utmost degree of faith that the Gojo family has in their power. To allow a myth of celestial bodies and dragons and fate to carve itself so deeply into the marrow of the family’s bloodline is to accept the— nearly delusional — idea that the Gojo name is aligned with divinity . And if Yuuji hadn’t already come to understand–especially when it came to anything have to do with the name Gojo — that this ancient clan did nothing by half measures and the evident importance of the inveterate traditions that have been carried forward by generations of Gojo heirs, then he might be more inclined to outright laugh at the whole concept. But there is something that holds him back from doing so and it all leads back to the other half of the story.

Because if the Gojo clan still remained steeped in the traditions and expressed homage to this day for the blessings it had been given in ancient times, then by association, it would make sense that the Ryoumen clan had done the same… Right? 

If the tiger-turned-man that was cursed to share the Sun’s rage was just as real— if not in truth, then most certainly by way of the sentimentality— then did that meal the Ryoumen family adhered to the conscriptions of their side of the story? What words did they pass down, from generation to generation, about their ancestor’s glorious power and their origins rooted in a wildness that could never fully be forgotten? What did they say of their forbearer that had ruled the world with cruelty and fear and fire , only to be toppled by a humble man named Gojo who had been blessed by the Six Eyes, the moon and Fate herself? 

Did they curse the man named Gojo? Did they still hold hate in their hearts for the one that had saved everyone else, but had ruined them in the process? Could it be that such an ancient myth was the root cause of the animosity that persisted between them to this day? Or was it true in part, of what the Goddess of Fate proclaimed to the man named Gojo— a warning that the Ryoumen clan surely never knew about if their own version of the tale persisted from their ancestor’s perspective — that the red threads from her loom had bound the Gojos and the Ryoumens together through the tides of time?

“Ughhhh,” Yuuji groans aloud as he lifts his hands from beneath the covers to push warm fingers into his temples where the building strain of a headache has started to form.

It shouldn’t matter. He thinks to himself.

None of this should matter to him. Legends of six eyed dragons hatched from the moon and the weaving web of Fate’s red strings had nothing to do with him. And there was nothing for him to glean from attempting to unravel the enormous knot surrounding the impact of the origins of the Gojo clan and how it connected them to the Ryoumen clan. Because despite the favor he’d done for Gojo— that had put him directly in the midst of such tangled threads he had no hope of finding the beginning or the ending of— and discovering information about the Ryoumen clan, he did not belong in this world. 

A pulse of pain ricochets against the inside of his skull and Yuuji opens his eyes to glare at the ceiling. Frustration clings to the edges of his mind as he spends a few silent minutes condemning Gojo for involving Yuuji in this mess in the first place. His irritation only building higher as he shifts his head on the pillow and finds the dark material of Gojo’s coat balled up beside him, though the feeling is steeped in shame.

Because that’s the other thing… 

While Yuuji can bitch and moan and complain about Gojo dragging him into this strange and dangerous corner of the underworld, he cannot escape the fact that something inside of him calls out to the alpha. It had been easier to blame it entirely on his anger— though he is certainly in no short supply of it still — back when he’d been fired from the Fantasy Room and every single piece of misfortune could, inexplicably , lead back to the white haired Special Grade. He’d used his rage as a shield, defending himself as a knight would against a dragon and the irony of that is certainly not lost on him. 

But recently, something has changed. Though he can, and will , hold onto the anger he feels towards Gojo— for involving him in his schemes against the Ryoumen clan, for firing him, for drugging and kidnapping him merely to make a farce of a deal in exchange for Yuuji’s own life — he cannot ignore the quiet curl of something new inside of him. Something that had not been there before… Or perhaps he had been too busy being furious to notice it.

Because he is not stupid enough to believe that the comfort he finds in tucking his nose against the dark material of Gojo’s coat and inhaling the alpha’s scent is nothing. He is not blind to the slow spiral into something new and terrifying that has suddenly come upon him like a storm against the shore. Brutal and inescapable as it shifts the sands and molds the coastline into something unrecognizable. Yuuji has never lied to himself before and he has no intention of starting now— even if he thinks it might save him some grief to do so. But he is not ignorant to the way the Special Grade alpha has managed to burrow himself beneath Yuuji’s skin and he cannot deny that there is a part of him that wants to return the favor. Wants to bury himself in the alpha’s powerful scent. Wants to know how it would feel to nestle against the alpha without the tacky stick of dried blood on his skin and the lingering terror in his veins. Wants to know if he managed to purr again, would Gojo purr back?

Another pulse of pain washes through Yuuji’s head, stirring a groan from the depths of his chest. The tension in his shoulders bleeds into the strained muscles of his neck and causes his jaw to clench. Physically shaking himself free from the damning turn his thoughts had taken, Yuuji sits upright in bed. He knows the odd, new awareness of his mixed reactions regarding Gojo will have to be addressed fully, but not yet… 

Not when he has so many other questions that desperately need answers. 

Pushing back the covers, Yuuji rises from the bed. Spine popping viciously as he stretches his arms out and rolls his head back along the line of his shoulders. A harsh breath is forced from his lungs as his head gives a particularly powerful throb in response to the movement. With haphazard care, he sloppily makes the bed— because none of Wasuke’s lectures about the importance of proper bed-making ever really stuck with him. He eyes the dark material of Gojo’s coat, glaring slightly at it in offense, as though it is somehow the coat’s fault that he wants nothing more than to bury his face against it. His fingers twitch at his sides, but before he can give in to the urge, he snatches the coat up and quickly shoves it behind his pillows just as he’d done the day before.

Ignoring the craving to pull it back out— and perhaps wrap himself within its warmth again— Yuuji forces himself to turn his back on it. He stares around his room and wonders desperately what exactly he can distract himself with. 

There is no way of knowing what the timeline involving him looks like. Though it had been mentioned that Gojo was not at the estate, there was also no way to tell if he had returned. And if he had, at what point would someone retrieve Yuuji from his room? That fact alone is enough to frustrate Yuuji to no end, given that he feels like naught much more than a bird in a gilded cage— one that was never bred for captivity in the first place. But there is another, far stronger understanding that resonates within him that there is little he can do about it. He is in the Special Grade’s world now and to disrespect such a high ranking alpha’s word, in his own territory, is a level of crazy that not even Yuuji is willing to descend to… At least, for now.

Yuuji sighs and heads to the bathroom. Rummaging through the stocked cabinets he finds an unopened bottle of painkillers and shakes three into his hand after opening it. Dipping his head, he turns on the sink and drinks straight from the tap, washing down the painkillers before taking his fill. As he rises back up, he catches sight of himself in the mirror again. The drip of water against porcelain rings in his ears as he stares back at his reflection for several long moments. 

Though the haunted look has fled from the edges of his expression, the bruises against his flesh have only darkened further. He lifts a hand and brushes soft fingers against the worst of the bruising that lingers like a collar across the front of his throat. The muscles twinge and ache beneath the fluttering touch and Yuuji winces once more at the way he comes to realize that his entire body feels one degree away from snapping in half. As though the trauma he suffered has settled into every crevice, pulling taut and stiffening each muscle and tendon beyond any hope of relaxation.

He eyes the shower behind his shoulder and thinks that the heat of the water might do him some good before he suddenly recalls Nanami’s words from the day before. Though he’d still been reeling from his arrival and the subsequent panic attack he’d gone through, he could clearly recall the blonde alpha mentioning something about the amenities of the Wive’s Wing that Yuuji was at liberty to use— including a private onsen. 

Yuuji nibbles his fangs into his bottom lip, weighing the pros and cons of leaving his room. On the one hand, he is nervous to withdraw from the little sanctuary that he’s made for himself within it. Not to mention the fact that he is viscerally aware that this is not some kind of vacation that he is meant to be relaxing on— despite the lie he told his grandpa. But on the other hand… He can’t help but feel as though it is a fair trade off and that if he’s going to be trapped at Gojo’s fancy estate, just waiting around for someone to come and get him or let him know what the fuck is going, then he may as well take advantage of the amenities that it has to offer.

Mind effectively made up, he discards his clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor and snags one of the neatly folded terry-cloth robes from the linen closet to wrap himself in. Making his way back out through the room, he shoots a conflicted glance toward the pillows that Gojo’s coat is hidden behind and has the slightly hysterical thought that he should hide it a bit better… Just in case… Before he shakes himself free of it and rolls his eyes at his own stupidity. 

He is unsurprised to find that the corridor beyond his door is completely empty and entirely silent. Shutting the door behind him, he still chooses to walk with quiet cautiousness down the hall, barefooted and wrapped in nothing but a thin robe. He hardly bothers to hide his curiosity as he makes his way through the sprawling warren that made up the Wive’s Wing. Meandering slowly through the winding halls he takes in every single, lavish detail not only because the space is truly a marvel, but because it means he might gather his bearings of the rest of the estate.

It is quickly established that the other private quarters in the Gojo estate’s Wive’s Wing are few and far between, although this is not a surprising revelation. The layout of a Wive’s Wing at any given estate never deviated too far from a specific blueprint— one that prioritized the privacy of each individual omega who was chosen to reside there. This of course, was a misconception, since most alphas that commissioned for the wing to be constructed were not necessarily sympathetic to their harem’s comfort, but rather, conscious of their own hindrances. Most alphas that had enough power or money to have a harem did not want to deal with the potential fallout that could come from their omegas living in such close quarters— absorbed by the idea of having their cake and eating it too. In historical context, cases of violently jealous omegas installed in high ranking households were all too common, as was the threat of spies who kept track of the head of the clan’s preferences amongst their harem— in order to gain favor or sell off the information to others who might do harm with it. So while the halls are winding and spacious and opulently decorated, there’s never more than one door to be found in each corridor.

A deep and lingering loneliness hangs from the rafters— one that Yuuji can feel the echoes of as real as any touch upon his skin. He wonders how many omegas lived here— and how long they were kept for their service to the head of the clan— and how horribly lonely it must have been to be considered one of the ‘ favorites ’. After all, once someone was put onto a pedestal, the only thing that awaited them was isolation.

Thankfully, true to Nanami’s word, the private onsen is not difficult to find with marked signs set inconspicuously against the walls that lead him through the sprawling wing. Following their direction, he passes through a particularly ornate hall, lined with windows against one side that provides a sweeping, inhibited view of the estate’s enormous inner garden. Yuuji gazes out at the snow-covered space, his pace slowing slightly as awe barrels into him. Coming to fully understand the sheer scope of how large the Gojo estate truly is— a palace in its own right. 

When he finally arrives at a wide, carved door that is appropriately labeled as the entrance of the onsen, he takes note of the warning written in stark lettering beside the door that the presence of any alpha, mated or otherwise, is strictly prohibited. The sight of it puts Yuuji further at ease as he pushes open the door and steps inside.

The chamber beyond the threshold is twice as long as it is wide and immediately reminds Yuuji of a sumptuously designed opium den. With low bearing furniture and cushions strewn across the rugs set upon the floor, dark wood and gleaming, golden accepts, the space is lusciously decorated while still remaining tasteful. Inviting and comfortable while still elevated beyond a normal sense of extravagance, the room holds the same blatant show of opulence measured with a quiet sense of dignity that is retained by the rest of the estate that Yuuji has seen thus far. 

Yuuji allows the door to close behind him and takes a deep breath. The stagnant air is filled with a delicate perfume of incense that rises from a gilded pot set out on a low table nearby. And immediately, Yuuji feels his mind taken over by a quiet, peaceful hum while his eyelids drag heavily on every blink. Already his body responds readily to the sense of relaxation that seems to fill the room, though it is apparent that its emptiness is not meant to be a common occurrence. Communal spaces were where omegas thrived in, and given the expansive, plush comfort of the room that beckons to Yuuji’s innate Omegan sensibilities, he is positive that the space was decorated solely for the purpose of giving the omegas in residence at the estate a place to gather— to gossip and take comfort in one another. The fact that it now lies empty unsettles something inside of Yuuji that he can’t quite pinpoint the source of. 

Along one wall, his eyes catch on a railing and the open area where there is a set of stairs descending out of sight. Bypassing the luxurious comfort of the lounge, Yuuji makes his way to the stairs and finds that the air rising from the floor below is filled with warmth and tinged with a promising mineral scent. He tugs the robe tighter around his nude body, feeling the nearly corporeal touch of humidity against his skin as he descends the wide, wooden staircase. 

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, there is an open-concept room, much smaller than the lounge above the stairs. Outfitted with a set of streamlined lockers along one wall that are a far cry from the dented, sticker-strewn monstrosities Yuuji is used to at the Fantasy Room , and several low, carved benches that look worn away by age and time, which make him wonder just how long this onsen has been here. An open doorway is set at the far end of the room and Yuuji can barely see a row of showers inside.

The emptiness of this room is not nearly as unsettling as it had been in the lounge and Yuuji finds himself further put at ease as he stows his robe in one of the lockers and moves toward the showers. Cleansing himself thoroughly as is protocol and uncaring of his nudity in the unoccupied space. Rubbing a hand through his freshly washed locks, he makes his way out of the shower and back into the locker room where a thick, glass door is marked as the entrance of the onsen. Fogged by steam, it is difficult to see anything on the other side of it, but Yuuji’s gaze is caught by the list of rules that are posted beside it— or rather, one rule in particular. 

喉を覆うものは許可されません

( No throat coverings allowed )

The concept isn’t exactly unexpected.

Any onsens— both public and private — were more often than not, separated by second gender, so the necessity for scent patches was practically null and void. It was a common practice to prohibit the use of scent patches at an onsen, since it was seen as a barrier between a person and reaching their fullest potential to relax. Yet, despite the fact that there was no threat of attracting unwanted attention through scent based interactions in second gender segregated spaces, there was almost always the option of retaining the last barrier of modesty surrounding a person’s scent. 

Yuuji being chief amongst the kind of people who preferred to keep their scents hidden, had never gone to any onsens in the past for this very reason— because from the moment he presented only a few days before his seventh birthday, Yuuji has worn a scent patch.

He blows out a hard breath and weighs his options. It would be just as easy to return to his room and allow his anxiety to hide behind the guise of ‘protecting’ himself, but the promise of relaxing in the onsen was so tantalizing… 

With a quiet, muttered reprimand at his own cowardice, Yuuji swallows harshly against the rising flood of nerves within him. Pushing past the deeply ingrained omens of danger that have been carved into him for years and years about the consequences of removing his patch, he can’t help but wonder when he’d become so fearful of himself. 

Carefully he reaches up, staunchly ignoring the way his fingers shake with trepidation, and peels the scent patch away from his skin. Immediately a shiver wracks his entire body as the sweeping feel of vulnerability crashes through him. As he folds the adhesive material of the patch up and tosses it into the small trash bin provided nearby, he tries valiantly to control the fear that flutters in his belly. Telling himself over and over again that he is fine. This is fine. Everything is fine. 

The tender, pink skin of his unmarked gland, now naked and caressed by the humid air, makes him quiver like the plucked string of a harp. Tentatively he brushes the pads of his fingers against the silky sheen of oil that slicks against the exposed gland, built up overnight beneath the patch he’d applied before bed. Belly trembling with a mixture of nerves and something close to, but not quite excitement, he pulls back his hand and eyes the shimmer of natural oils against the pads of his fingers. Rubbing them together, the fragrant burst of his sweet, yet unfamiliar scent invades his senses, taking him by surprise just as it always does. Given that he spends so much time with his own smell locked away behind an endless rotation of patches, it takes him a moment to acclimate to the heady scent that pours out from him— a piece of not just himself, but someone he does not know in the slightest.

It takes a few steadying breaths before Yuuji’s hazy mind clears of the effects of the intense sweetness surrounding him. Another wave of fear sloshes around in his gut before Yuuji straightens his shoulders and scolds himself internally for acting like a terrified child over something that is natural. 

Reaching for the handle of the glass door, he pulls it open before he can talk himself out of it. Immediately he is overtaken by a cloud of humid steam that is mixed with the frigid bite of winter air that prickles at his naked body. Stepping over the threshold, icy rock roughly kisses the soles of his feet while he brings his arms in tight against his sides. The door closes behind him with a near silent snap, but Yuuji’s attention is stolen entirely by the breathtaking sight laid out before him.

The rocky outcropping of the onsen extends nearly ten meters from the door, formed by smooth, dark stone that has been shaped by time and age and is worn away at the edges of a wide, deep pool filled with steaming turquoise water. While the door that Yuuji had just come through is built into the sturdy side of the estate, the other three walls of the onsen are non-existent. Above his head, the structure of the building extends outwardly to create and overhang, clearly meant to protect the pool from inclement weather or to provide shade, held up by four evenly spaced, wooden pillars that do little to obstruct the impressive view of the mountainside— open to the world and yet entirely secluded.

A trickling sound echoes nearby and Yuuji glances over to find a carved spout leading out over the edge of the pool that comes up from the rock itself, indicating that the onsen must be fed from nearby hot springs. Thick swirls of steam rise up from the milky, turquoise waters, obscuring the far corners of the pool from view and the tangy scent of minerals lays heavy in his nose. The natural beauty of the place is enough to make Yuuji feel as though he may have been a bit too keen on using the amenities, since it feels wrong for him to use something so luxurious after everything that has happened. It is a strange sort of discomfort he feels, as though he is inserting himself somewhere he does not belong— which is an apt enough assessment, because he does not belong here. 

A frigid wind wraps around him and Yuuji shivers, remembering his complete nudity as he stands out in the cold, admiring the carefully shaped wilderness around him. He finds a lip along the edge of the pool nearby where a set of stairs has been carved out of the rock. A hiss escapes from between his teeth as he steps into the heated water, rushing to submerge himself in its warmth as another biting wind races along his exposed skin. It stings against all of the sensitive parts of himself that had just barely gotten used to the cold as he settles himself in, allowing the water to lap against his bare shoulders.

Standing at his full height, the water would sit comfortably at his waist, however he keeps himself crouched low to soak up as much heat as possible while he wades across the pool. Steam billows across the top of the water, obscuring the furthest corners of the wide pool— surely big enough to fit more than twenty people comfortably within it. When he reaches the far edge he folds his arms together and rests them across the cold, rough surface of the dark rock, leaning forward a bit as he takes in the view.

From his vantage point he can see that the rocky outcropping that the onsen is nestled into is perched on the side of a deep ravine that runs down the side of the mountain. The drop off beyond the edge reveals a deep scar of similar, dark rock amongst the snow covered trees, at the top of which, the remains of a small waterfall trickles sluggishly from beneath the sheets of ice  that have frozen across it like a barricade. Everything in sight is covered by a thick layer of snow, the dazzling white of it glitters beneath the sun that rises steadily higher in a crystalline sky. 

The water ripples around Yuuji’s chest as he leans against the edge and lays his chin atop his folded arms. Closing his eyes in relief as his horribly tense muscles begin to unwind and the bone-deep satisfaction of release pushes aside any lingering worries. The brisk smell of snow and ice swirls around him, melded with the heady sweetness of his own scent and he cannot stop the way his heart flutters at the way the two scents mingle together. His mind begins to wander in a direction all its own and fleeting wisps of thought take shape, about what it might be like to stand in a room with the Special Grade, surrounded by his powerful scent while his own is laid bare. 

What would the alpha say if he were allowed to catch a whiff of Yuuji’s hidden sweetness? What reaction would he give if he too could witness the way that salt and snow melded so perfectly with Yuuji’s scent? Would he be angry? Would he accept it or would he reject it entirely? Would the revelation of Yuuji’s deepest secret be enough to—

“Your scent is quite lovely.”

The yelp that flies from Yuuji’s mouth echoes sharply off of the surrounding rock, shattering the calm silence of the onsen. Spine cracking painfully, he straightens up in an instant and the sudden reaction is met with a responding shriek of shock. When his wide eyed gaze swivels to the right where the voice had come from, he’s met with the sight of the culprit. 

A little ways down from him, seated along some kind of carved bench set into the rock wall of the pool, in a place that had been obscured entirely by thick steam until that moment, a female omega sits perched in the milky waters. A towel is wrapped snugly around her body, while her slim collarbones and shoulders are exposed above the surface. Pale skin stretches across her elegant throat and the pale pink of her unmarked scent gland is a perfect compliment to her complexion aside from what appears to be a set of thin, red scratches lining the edge of the gland. Light blue hair is tied up in a sloppy knot atop her head while angular bangs hang wet and limp from the steam across her forehead. Two slender hands are clasped over the girl’s mouth while she blinks wide, ocean blue eyes in his direction— her gaze filled with just as much surprise as there is blatant apology. 

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” The girl mutters from behind her hands, voice earnest and trembling in timidity— as though Yuuji hadn’t almost just shit himself out of fear. “I could tell that you thought you were alone when you came in and I didn’t know how to say something without scaring you. But I didn’t want to just leave all of a sudden and embarrass you for not noticing me or something or think that I hated you or— Ohhh my gosh. I’m just so sorry! Really, I am!” 

Slowly but surely, Yuujiu’s heart starts to climb back down into its rightful resting place after it had been launched into his mouth from surprise. It takes him a few moments of blank staring as he attempts to parse through the sudden rush of the girl’s words. Meanwhile the girl herself grows more and more flustered with each passing moment of silence, her face growing more florid with embarrassment until she more closely resembles a ripe cherry, rather than a girl. However, as he stares at her, a niggling in the back of his mind tells him that this is not the first time he’s seen her.

He wracks his memory for any trace of how he knows her, though it’s clear that the longer he goes without replying the more mortified the girl becomes. She lifts her hands and buries her entire face within the cradle of her palms, trembling slightly where she sits a few feet away. 

Yuuji finally clears his throat and tries to put her at ease “It’s— It’s okay.”

The girl shakes her head, still hiding behind her hands. Blue bangs sway around her face as she mumbles into her palms, only allowing Yuuji to catch a few words. Mostly they are platitudes and apologies mixed into self reprimanding, but he manages to catch the last bit, which is a little clearer than the rest. “— I swear, I’ll leave right now if it will make you more comfortable.”

Yuuji bites down on the way he wants to snap at her to do just that. The shock fully fading from his senses he becomes entirely cognizant of the fact that she had commented on his scent. Shoulders rising up to hug around his ears, Yuuji sinks a bit lower into the water, his back scraping against the rock wall of the pool behind him. The fight or flight reflex pulses wildly within him at the realization that someone can smell him — a concept that makes him feel far more naked than his utter lack of covering on his body. Still, by the way that the girl’s limpid blue gaze furtively glances toward his bare lap, hidden poorly beneath the milky waters, it is clear that their nudity is what had her feeling mortified by comparison.

After his time working at the Fantasy Room, Yuuji had very little shame surrounding the concept of nudity, since it was inevitable in the dressing room that either someone would see him naked, or vice versa. It was widely known that intersexuality was the most common indicator of someone’s predisposition to present as either an alpha or an omega during puberty, though that didn’t stop some people from using their primary sex to predict what secondary gender they might present with. It was the first lesson taught in gender studies in every school across the country that the secondary gender labeled as Omega was denoted entirely by a body’s ability to carry a child in a womb, just as the secondary gender labeled as Alpha was dictated by a body’s ability to fertilize an egg. Therefore— even though a small percentage of the population still clung to outdated ideals surrounding which parts belonged to which gender— it was less about what kind of equipment someone might possess, so much as it was about the end result when it comes to the roles asserted in procreation. Given this much more lackadaisical outlook on gender vs. genitalia and with the inherent ability to identify someone’s secondary gender based entirely off of other factors, such as scenting, the concept of shame surrounding nudity was often disregarded entirely.

For Yuuji, who has seen more than his fair share of naked omegas— all kinds of bodies with all kinds of junk— he could care less about what a person had in their pants, nor did he mind if others saw what he himself had. But in that moment, he would have been less offended if this girl had a few tentacles hiding under her towel, since all he could focus on was how exposed he feels, sitting within touching distance of another person while he does not have a scent patch on.

It is by some small miracle that he doesn’t launch himself over the edge of the onsen and into the ravine in order to escape. Instead he grits his teeth and fights against the urge to flee while he forces a few words out. “No, it’s alright… You were here first anyway. I just didn’t think— You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

The girl peeks at him from between slender fingers. Wary concern is written into every line of her round, innocent expression, but Yuuji cannot relax— still cautious of the potential threat that his mind has convinced him is nearby.

“Are you sure?” She asks quietly, still muffled by her palms. “I don’t want to ruin your time here.”

“I’m sure,” Yuuji makes himself say aloud, even as his mind rebels against the thought of sharing space with someone while his throat remains unprotected. He looks the girl over again and all at once, the thread of recognition snaps taut within him and his mind’s eye provides a hazy recollection of this same, timid girl— that he had wrongful assumed to be an alpha at the time— standing between his bare thighs and swallowing dutifully as he poured sake down her throat. “Actually, you know what? I remember you.”

The girl’s mouth pops open as her hands drop with a splash back into the water. Deep, ocean eyes stare at him with dawning horror. 

“Wha —” The girl chokes on a squeak. “ What? ”

“From that night at the omega house in Hino a few months ago? The Fantasy Room ? I remember you came in with the rest of the Gojo clan,” Yuuji clarifies, his chin brushing the surface of the water as he speaks.

“Oh, no,” The girl whispers while a new rush of rosy color blooms within her cheeks. 

“Oh, yeah,” Yuuji says with a tiny curl of a smile, mischief clear in his tone as he finds a tiny bit of humor in the innocent girl’s obvious embarrassment at being recognized. “I poured sake in your mouth, remember?”

“Oh my God,” The girl bemoans as she drops her head back against the edge of the pool with a heavy thunk. Staring blankly at the overhanging roof above the onsen, Yuuji can practically see the regret swimming through her ocean eyes. “This is mortifying.”

Yuuji can’t help but laugh aloud at her reaction and the genuine sound loosens a bit of the tightly wound bundle of nerves inside of him.

“You must think I’m so pathetic,” The girl mumbles quietly as she bites a tiny set of fangs into her lower lip and steals a timid glance at him. Yuuji feels a twinge of regret for teasing her as the slightly sour scent of the girl’s embarrassment swirls into the air between them.

“I promise you, I’ve seen way worse after my time working there,” Yuuji replies.

He had hoped that his words might make her feel better, though he realizes that they may have done the opposite when the girl clenches her eyes and lets out a groan of humiliation. Lifting her hands from the water she hides her face again, mumbling words like sake and never again. Yuuji’s chest lightens even further at the humorous display as he gives her a moment to collect herself, while also surreptitiously lowering rubbing at his neck where it’s hidden beneath the water— as though he might be able to wash away his scent completely while he tries to calm the jittering nerves that slowly return to his limbs. Finally, after a while, the girl seems to push past her obvious embarrassment and lifts her head from the edge of the pool to send a shy glance in his direction.

“My uhh— My name is Kasumi Miwa... You can just call me Kasumi though...” She murmurs.

“Yuuji Itadori,” He replies. Though he can't help but to be struck by her immediate insistence of him referring to her informally, it is a request that he does not make of her in return.

Silence reigns once more, with only the steady drip of the icicles melting in the bright sunshine and trickle of water from the carved spout at the other end of the pool and the whistle of the wind as it blows snow up from the ravine and through the open area of the onsen. The icy scent melds with the mineral quality of the healing waters and the inescapable sweetness that still seems to seep off of Yuuji in droves. 

“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you before,” Kasumi says gently, causing Yuuji to go tense as his attention is drawn back from his observation of the snow covered mountainside. He hopes that he is wrong about her meaning, but she clarifies before he has a chance to speak. “About your scent, I mean. It’s beautiful.”

Yuuji struggles to keep his expression neutral, even while his primal hind-brain— the part that has been so well trained over the many years that he has kept his scent a total secret from the rest of the world— recoils instinctively at the awareness pointed in his direction. Cringing internally, he sees Kasumi take a delicate inhale— nothing so overtly impolite as sniffing blatantly in his direction, though it still sets him on edge. It’s obvious she means no harm by it and is merely identifying him in the most basic and natural way, but that doesn’t mean that he wants anything more than to sink entirely beneath the surface of the water so that he can no longer be so intimately perceived. 

“It’s like… Fresh sakura blossoms,” Kasumi says lightly, watching him with her ocean eyes while another gust of wind wraps around them, swirling the frigid scent of snow and ice through the air. “But there’s also this warmth to it? Like warm sugar or a cake that’s just been baked? It’s so strong and comforting… I’m sure you must get compliments on it all the time.”

Yuuji snorts indelicately at the completely incorrect assumption.

“Oh, I didn’t mean—” Kasumi starts, already flushing in embarrassment again.

“No, no,” Yuuji says with a bitter shake of his head. “I’m just laughing because I really don’t get many compliments at all.”

The truth sits like acid on the back of his tongue. Kasumi cocks her head to the side in naive confusion, though Yuuji would never entertain the idea of explaining himself further. 

“Well,” Kasumi shrugs a delicate shoulder. “People are idiots. Your scent is delightful and they’re probably just jealous of how complimentary it would be to most alpha scents.”

Yuuji nearly chokes on his spit as he inhales sharply at the comment. “I don’t think— I mean. I’m not really concerned with stuff like that.”

Kasumi hums quietly in thought while her eyes drift across his face. He feels a bit like a bug put under a microscope, but the girl’s innocent expression tells him that the observation is anything but nefarious by design. 

“I get that… But I guess I always thought that finding a compatible scent was the best way of finding a compatible mate,” She says finally. “My grandma always used to say that an alpha and an omega’s combined scent would become perfectly intertwined if they were true mates. So much so that you can’t tell which one belongs to either one of them.”

Yuuji stares at the girl while his nose catches on his sweet scent carried on a swirl of snow laden wind. Breathlessly he asks, “Really?”

With his grandpa being a beta, he hadn’t spared much thought for an aspect of whimsy surrounding the concept of finding a mate. Wasuke had never remarried after his wife had died young and given his status as a beta, he’d never had to deal with the fanfare and tragedy that surrounded the mating process between alphas and omegas. And by extension, Yuuji himself had never thought much further about the idea of using his scent as a marker of compatibility in finding a mate, especially since he’d been taught so early to hide it from others. He’d heard the fairytale stories, of course and listened to the giggles of the other young omegas in middle school, tittering about what it would be like to find an alpha for themselves one day. But never had he given much time to the idea that compatibility went any deeper than a personality or someone’s interests… 

To think that others believed that harmony between an alpha and an omega’s scent was parallel to congruency in a relationship just seems a bit ridiculous.  

“Well, yeah,” Kasumi says, sending Yuuji a look that clearly says ‘Duh?', as if he is the one being ridiculous for not believing it. “I mean, think about it. It’s already been scientifically proven that the strength of an alpha’s scent directly correlates to their grade level, but it’s also been said that it can equate to their mate’s strength as well. Mind, body and spirit, a set of true mates is matched in every conceivable way. So of course it would stand to reason that if they are perfectly matched, that their scents would also combine seamlessly, right? I guess the whole thing is rooted more in silly kids stories, but I always liked the idea that somewhere out in the world there’s someone who might fit with me like a missing puzzle piece. Like all of my gaps and spaces will be filled up by them and vice versa, you know?”

Kasumi’s words taper off and her cheeks start to stain themselves red once more. Yuuji wonders if her body’s default reaction is embarrassment in any situation.

“Yeah, I guess,” He replies a bit stiffly. Stomach clenching wildly, he darts his gaze away from her and tries not to focus on the burst of his own heady scent in the air around them. 

Blessedly, Kasumi seems to notice his discomfort— or perhaps she cannot stand her own embarrassment any longer— and changes the subject.

“I’m surprised you remembered me,” She says lightly, circling back to Yuuji’s previous source of recognition. “I’m not really someone people notice a lot around here.”

Yuuji is snagged on her wording. “Do you live here at the estate?” 

Kasumi nods. “I do, but my presence here isn’t much more than the fulfillment of a promise to someone else. I wasn’t chosen to be here or anything— I mean. I didn’t really do anything to gain a place in the clan because of my own significance. I didn’t do anything to deserve it, I just got lucky.”

Yuuji frowns at the honest dejection in the way Kasumi speaks of herself— as though she truly believes the words. “So, what?” 

“Well, I guess I just mean that I didn’t do anything to deserve it, you know? I just got lucky.” Kasumi says.

“You think that the only way you could carry significance or be deserving of common decency is if you were important to the Gojo clan?” Yuuji asks in barely concealed disbelief, struck by the way that it is suddenly clear that this girl believes that her only source of significance depends solely on what the fucking Gojo clan thinks of her.

“I suppose when you put it like that it sounds a bit pathetic, huh?” Kasumi’s dark blue gaze blinks at him, as though she can see the merit in his argument but doesn’t think herself worthy of it.

“It’s not pathetic to put stock in other people’s value of your character,” Yuuji says, his words ringing with truth, rather than a mere pacification to make her feel better. “But it’s foolish not to value yourself outside of other people’s opinions. You owe it to yourself to believe that you deserve more than what a clan— no matter how important they might be— thinks you do.”

Kasumi ducks away shyly, neck flushing with color again. “You sound just like someone else I know… But I didn’t really mean it like that. I just meant that I’ve been given a place here because of a favor, rather than having earned it for myself.”

Yuuji burns with irritation at the thought of this girl, surely only a few years younger than himself, being made to believe that her existence was nothing more than a penance. That her place at the Gojo estate was some kind of act of charity. His voice is rough around the edges with subdued anger when he finally gathers himself enough to speak.

“It’s not a bad thing to have earned a place somewhere through a favor, but it’s not a fucking crime to think you deserve to be here regardless of any attrition owed by the Gojo clan,” Yuuji lets out a harsh breath, forcing some of the hot build-up of frustration out of his chest. He forces his lips to tilt up in a small attempt at comradery to soften the previous blow of harsh words. “Besides, that makes two of us that have done favors for the Gojo clan and have ended up here.”

Kasumi’s ocean eyes widen even further as she starts to shake her head a bit frantically in negation. A tendril of blue hair slips free from the precarious knot atop her head and lands with a plop into the water by her shoulder. “No! Not me ! Oh my gosh, no way . It was my grandmother who did the clan a favor! I couldn’t— No, I could never —”

Yuuji’s brows draw together as the girl continues to insist on her own uselessness. His immediate reaction is to chastise her for speaking that way, due in no small part to all of the times that Junpei had drilled it into his head that he was deserving of kind words, especially when they were coming from himself . However, since they had only met a short while ago, Yuuji keeps his mouth shut and instead takes the easy route of the conversation.

“Your grandmother works for Gojo?” He asks.

Kasumi takes the bait, guileless as a fish presented with a worm on a hook. “Well, no. Not exactly. She worked for the previous head of the family, Shoutaro-sama. My mom died in childbirth with me and my dad left the clan when I was really little so I barely remember him. It was just my grandma with me for a while and Shoutaro-sama favored her, so when she died a few years after I was born, he let me stay. It was really gracious of Gojo-sama to allow me to stay after he ascended as head of the clan right around the same time.”

Oversharing aside, Yuuji’s mind processes the new information given so willingly by this girl that he’s only just met. 

Shoutaro-sama. The last head of the clan— Gojo’s father? The thought is shocking enough, to believe that a man like Gojo had normal parents and hadn’t just sprung up from the ground like a demon, fully formed from the pits of Hell and sent to make people’s lives miserable.  

At the lull of silence, Kasumi seems to shrink in on herself a bit, as though she has just become aware that her tendency to overshare might not be welcomed. 

“Sorry,” Yuuji says quickly, lifting one of his hands above the water that still hides him up to his chin and waves it in the general direction of the estate above their heads. “I’m still new to this whole thing. It’s a lot to take in.”

“Oh!” Kasumi’s eyes brighten with understanding. “Of course! I should have thought of that. They told us that the new omega being brought in was an outsider that had gotten caught up in that horrible attack! I’m sure it must have been so scary for you.”

Before his next thought is even halfway formed, in the distance, deep within his mind, Yuuji can hear a tiny little voice screaming at him: Don’t do it. He thinks of how Nanami told him that he was not being purposefully kept in the dark. He thinks about the kindness of Okkotsu and Inumaki for coming to check on him and even speak with him, when they had no obligation to do so. He thinks about the way he deserves to be furious for being kept like a prize in the Wive’s Wing, simply waiting for Gojo to deem him worthy of being informed on the situation. He thinks about the way that this girl— Miwa — is so clearly desperate for someone to talk to…

He thinks about all of these things and on top of it, he thinks about how he has never before thought himself to be someone that took advantage of others for personal gain… But he is so very tired of not having any answers. 

“Yeah,” Yuuji breathes out, allowing his voice to shift lower and adding a purposeful tinge of timidity. His hands ball into tight fists as he battles internally against his next move, even as he lifts himself slightly above the water, feeling the water as it slides down his neck to pool in the dip of his collarbones— and allows the heady, overwhelming scent of sakura blossoms and sugar, melting sweet and soft and vulnerable, to seep into the air between them. “It was terrible… Nobody’s been able to tell me anything since I got here. I was lucky to escape of course, but all of my friends… I just want to make sure they’re alright.”

It’s a cheap shot— made even more so, considering how easily it works on the girl sitting beside him.

Kasumi’s ocean eyes go round with concern. Nibbling on her bottom lip and allowing a flash of tiny fangs, she slips into quiet contemplation— clearly debating the merit of telling Yuuji what she knows when faced with the unbearably sweet scent rolling off of him, edged in the barest smidge of devastation.

Yuuji pushes back against the sickening twinge of guilt that twists inside his gut and tells himself that technically he’s not doing anything wrong. Not really. Not when he didn’t technically demand any answers from the poor, unguarded girl that was so willing to wear a tender, bleeding heart on her sleeve.

“Well…” Kasumi says slowly, falling for the act so easily that another wave of guilt washes through Yuuji. “I mean… I guess I could tell you what I know?”

Going against the vile disappointment in himself, Yuuji allows his honey gold eyes to widen in guileless innocence, even while one hand rises to rub nervously at the back of his undercut. “Are you sure? I don’t think they want me to know anything about it yet.”

Part of him can’t help but hope that the girl might come to her senses. That she might remember that she has only just met Yuuji and that she has not gotten the full scope of whether he can be trusted or not. And yet, instead, Kasumi shrugs and tucks the strand of fallen hair behind the delicate curve of her ear. “I don’t know much about it myself. I was only told last night that there was an attack on the omega house in Hino and that there were three civilians injured in total, but I didn’t hear of any casualties.”

Yuuji’s heart plummets into his stomach at her words and then swoops up in a sudden swell of relief. The feeling rushes through his veins at the assurance that no one from the club was dead, however the fear still lingers at the thought that some of them had been hurt. Part of him wishes— desperately— that it were possible to go back in time, so that he could have gone with Mai. Though logically he knows that there was little he could have done without a proper weapon, the guilt of doing nothing but running away sits like a stone in his gut.

“Do you—” Yuuji clears his throat with a cough to disguise the thick emotion in his voice. “Does anyone know why they chose to attack the club? Or who they are?”

Kasumi shifts in the water and remains silent for a beat too long. It’s obvious that Yuuji’s question toes the line of this girl’s preconceived idea of what is an acceptable amount of information to divulge as her ocean eyes nervously dart away from him. Another twist of remorse tugs on his insides for putting this girl— still a virtual stranger for all he knows about her— in a position to break loyalty to the clan she’d grown up with, for a boy she hardly knew. 

“It’s fine,” He starts, reluctant to force the girl any further. “I don’t—”

“They only told us that it has something to do with the Ryoumen clan,” Kasumi says suddenly, taking him by surprise as her wide eyes focus back on him, tinged with naive desperation. It’s the kind of torment that makes Yuuji wonder what kind of manipulation this girl was used to if she was so willing to give people the answers they wanted, whether they deserved them or not. “I overheard Getou-san by accident… He said that the Ryoumen clan had officially overstepped their boundaries and that they were looking for something. And then he said that he was going to accompany Gojo-sama to take care of some things. Which I thought was weird, you know? I mean, usually the Six Eyes are dispatched to handle those kinds of things. Territory disputes or petty attempts at undermining the clan. But apparently this attack was a big enough deal that Gojo-sama went to deal with it himself. He never does stuff like that.”

Yuuji hums, remembering how Okkotsu had mentioned something similar about Gojo cleaning up the mess himself. “Gojo doesn’t like to get his hands dirty?”

Kasumi shakes her head quickly. Her eyes flit towards the glass door on the other side of the onsen, watching it warily and seeming to hold her breath, as though out of fear that someone might burst through it at any moment. Apprehension clings to the corners of her expression as her ocean eyes swivel back to him. When she leans in closer Yuuji stiffens out of habit due to the proximity, but he resists the urge to move away as Kasumi drops her voice so that it can hardly be heard over the gurgle of the water spout and the drip of icicles. 

“Gojo-sama doesn’t deal with most disputes in person because he has a penchant for spilling too much blood.”

A shiver rolls down Yuuji’s spine as the knowledge settles inside of him. It would be untrue to say that this is the first time that he’s realized Gojo was a dangerous man and yet the realization that he has ended lives— all too easily, by the sound of it— makes a sharp sense of foreboding dig its claws into the tender parts of him. There has not been a single moment since Yuuji first met him that he has not been viscerally aware of the man’s vicious personality. A Special Grade of Gojo’s caliber alone would be a menace to society, but with the access to incredible wealth and importance that the Gojo clan clearly holds for itself in the country— if not the world — it gives Gojo an edge to his savagery. A type of hostility that has been honed into an elite weapon. A sense of power that is limitless in its ferocity.

Eat or be eaten. Hunt or be hunted. Kill or be killed. 

The most basic laws of nature are solemnly transcended by any ordinary man. But Gojo, whose bloodline is blessed by the Gods and who spills blood without a care for how it stains his hands, is anything but an ordinary man— and somehow, the most horrifying part of all, is that Yuuji has found himself at the center of his focus.

Kasumi is quick to try and backtrack, though she has no way of knowing that Yuuji’s silence is closer to dread than it is to judgment of her perceived betrayal. “I don’t mean to say that he isn’t a good leader! He’s brought the Gojo clan into a place of power that a lot of people never would have thought possible. And he really is a kind person, but he just—”

“Kills people without remorse?” Yuuji offers dryly, voice cracking slightly as he stares at her owlishly.

Kasumi lets out a small squeak of dismay and ducks her head, cheeks flushing ruddy red in humiliation. Yuuji attempts to shake himself free of the spiraling web of thoughts concerning Gojo’s more sinister choice in hobbies.

“Let’s talk about something different,” He suggests suddenly.

“Yes, please,” Kasumi agrees, all too eager to put the topic of the head of the Gojo clan and his propensity for murder behind them. Guilt tugs hard behind Yuuji’s ribs when he finds that the girl’s ocean eyes are slightly glassy.

“Sorry for bringing it up. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. I’m just… Really, really out of my depth here,” Yuuji says with no small amount of shame curled up in his heart at the thought of distressing this girl he hardly knows.

Kasumi sniffles slightly and bites her lip anxiously with tiny fangs. “I can understand that. This place… This life. It can be…”

“A lot?” Yuuji fills in as Kasumi’s voice trails off. 

“Yes.” Kasumi nods emphatically. 

Yuuji lets out a humorless laugh and leans his shoulders back against the ledge of the rock pool. Warm water laps at his chest, brushing against his nipples, hardened from the icy chill in the air. He tilts his head back and stares at the underside of the wooden overhang above the onsen. A small splashing sound accompanies a new set of small waves sweeping across his skin as Kasumi settles in beside him. 

“It’s especially difficult now that there aren’t any other omegas around here,” Kasumi says quietly, as though her words are meant to be a secret. “Everyone’s nice here and no one is made to feel left out in the clan, but it’s just different. Betas are so solitary in their relationships that they don’t really get the importance of keeping close camaraderie amongst themselves. And alphas can be a bit… Well…”

“Overbearing? Rude? Territorial?” Yuuji tilts his head against the ledge and raises a brow in her direction as a dry look takes over his expression. “Should I keep going?”

“No, no,” Kasumi giggles softly, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You said it.”

Yuuji hums in agreement and turns away once more, closing his eyes as he listens to the wind blow across the mountainside. After a few moments of quiet lulls between them he says offhandedly, “You know, I thought you were an alpha when I first saw you.”

Kasumi sighs from beside him and he glances at her again to find her head tilted back along the length of her slender neck. The pink, unmarked gland on her neck shines from a collection of steam, scent oils and sweat— a look that Yuuji is sure his own mark mirrors, much to his dismay. A trickle of the girl’s scent reaches him from their close proximity, though it is weak and takes focus to find on the snowy air that swirls through the open onsen. Still, the sticky, sweet crush of blackberries is pleasant enough and a blatant calling card to her status as an omega.

“That was sort of the point, I think,” Kasumi admits as she eyes the overhang above them and absentmindedly swirls her hands through the water. “We were all instructed to wear scent patches and dress in a certain style that is more common for alphas to wear, but no one really explained why. And it’s not like we were told that we couldn’t tell anyone what our true second genders were, but no one asked. Most of us figured that it was a show of force in Hino, given that it was reported that borders were being tested by a rival clan. No one knew it had anything to do with the Ryoumens… But it makes sense that Gojo-sama wanted as many of us there as possible, since it might throw off others about how many people are instituted into the clan. Still… It wasn’t really my place to ask anyone, you know?” 

Yuuji mulls over her words. “Are there not a lot of people in the Gojo clan?” 

“Oh, no. There’s a ton,” Kasumi replies. “I mean, you’ve got the main family, which consists of the direct line of Gojo descendents, which isn’t too large. But there’s a ton of smaller families that have minor blood connections through marriage or have been loyal to the clan for generations. I’m pretty sure that the Gojo clan was only second to the Zenin clan in terms of numbers, though that’s probably changed recently since the Zenin clan was practically wiped out recently, but no one’s really complaining about that… And from what I’ve heard, the Gojo clan is entirely different in how they choose to operate.”

“In what way?” Yuuji lifts his head to look at the girl fully.

Kasumi mirrors him and sits up as well, but the way her face lights up as she leans in reminds him suddenly of Nobara when she has a particularly juicy piece of gossip to share with him. “Well, for one thing, in big-name families, like the Gojos or the Zenins, it’s usually much more common for them to only allow alphas to rise up in the ranks. Positions of power always go to first born alphas, which is like, the oldest standing tradition ever, so it’s no surprise that the oldest clans in the country have always elevated their alpha heirs and in turn they elevated other alphas who were loyal to them. But Gojo-sama has always been different in the way he’s chosen to run things around here. Even more different than his father,” Kasumi prattles away, entirely unaware of how Yuuji clings to every single word. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s really great that Gojo-sama is so open about accepting omegas into non-traditional roles within the clan… It’s not like I’m trying to say that omegas are only good for being kept barefoot and pregnant… But it does make this place a lot more lonely without anyone else to share it with.”

Kasumi tilts her gaze out towards the mountainside. And though she is watching the way the wind sways through the skeletal branches of the barren trees that drip melted snow, her eyes are hazy as memories filter through them.

“I remember when I was a little girl, growing up here when Shoutaro was still head of the clan. There were so many omegas that lived here. So many. Each of them helped to keep the estate running. Helped to take care of the children, cooked meals together, came to the onsen together or the lounge upstairs… It really felt like one big family, you know?”

No… Not really. Yuuji thinks to himself as the lonely image of just him and his grandfather, sitting at their tiny kitchen table with an empty chair between them, comes to mind. “That sounds nice.” Is what he says instead, swallowing down the lump of emotion that has suddenly formed in the hollow of his throat. 

Kasumi hums under her breath while a wistful smile curls up the edges of her lips. “It was… I miss it.”

Yuuji’s heart thumps hard, aching quietly at the sound of utter loneliness in the girl’s voice. He can’t fathom what it might have been like to grow up surrounded by so many selfless, caring hearts and helping hands, nor even a sibling to call his own. He also knows that he would never give up the simple little life that he shared with his grandpa raising him and yet, he has always wondered what it might be like to have such a large family dynamic— to have so much love and support so readily available… The fact that he might never know what that feels like, or worse, like in Kasumi’s case, to have such a thing and then watch it slowly fade away, makes his chest feel hollow.

“But you’re not the only omega left here, right? I thought Inumaki stayed here as well?” Yuuji asks, perhaps a bit desperately in order to lift both of their spirits.

“You know Toge-kun?” Her ocean eyes widen in surprise. 

Yuuji nods. “I do. We met at the club before the… Before.”

Kasumi bobs her head in understanding. “Toge-kun does usually stay here at the estate, but it’s hardly ever in the Wive’s Wing. Since Okkotsu-san stays here more often than not, especially when Gojo-sama has business elsewhere, he and Toge-kun usually stay in their suite in the Heir’s Quarters.”

“Because Okkotsu-san is Gojo’s temporary heir, right?” Yuuji asks, piecing together certain aspects of the dynamic within the Gojo clan. Kasumi seems to catch herself, as though she’s only just now realized that she may have said too much. Yuuji continues quickly, if only to reassure her. “It’s alright. Okkotsu-san told me about it last night when he and Inumaki brought me dinner.”

“Oh, I see,” Kasumi says, though she still shifts nervously in place.

“So then, it’s only you and Inumaki then?” Yuuji prompts, hoping to set her at ease again.

Kasumi nibbles tiny fangs into the curve of her lower lip. “Well, I guess there’s Utahime-chan, too. But she’s a bit older than me and she likes to keep to herself, so even when she comes to visit I don’t see much of her. She and her mate stay in the city and hardly ever come here unless there’s something big going on that Ieiri-san needs to be present for… Oh, and there’s Ui Ui! But he’s too young to stay here by himself, so he usually stays with his sister and she’s almost always traveling. Not that I really mind, since Mei Mei can be a bit… Much. Oh and there used to be—”

Kasumi suddenly cuts herself off and throws a hand up to cover her mouth. She turns a wide eyed, guilty look in Yuuji’s direction, though he’s got no clue why. 

He can’t help but arch a brow at her. “You alright?”

Kasumi shakes her head, sending damp strands of blue hair flying around her face and sticking to wet cheeks. Her words are a garble from behind her hand. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

Yuuji huffs a laugh out of his nose and shugs, completely unperturbed by her reluctance. It’s almost a relief that the girl has seemingly come to her senses and is trying to keep herself from revealing anything else about the clan she is a part of. However, the relief is short lived as Kasumi drops her hand back into the water and scoots a bit closer, causing Yuuji to go tense again at the proximity and sink lower into the water until his scent gland was fully covered by the water once more. Kasumi doesn’t seem to notice as her gaze swivels around the area, just as it had earlier, as if checking to make sure no one was around to catch them. But they are alone, and there is no one but the wind and the mountain there to hear their whispers. 

“It’s not really a secret,” Kasumi murmurs. “Everyone knows about it… It’s just a sensitive subject.”

Yuuji wonders, truly wonders, just how long it has been since this girl had someone— anyone— to talk to, for her to be so willing to disclose all of this to the first friendly face to appear before her.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble for talking to me about it,” Yuuji insists and it is almost comical how he is the one trying to keep the Gojo clan’s secrets away from himself after his earlier desperation to find out more. 

“Like I said, it’s not really a secret,” Kasumi continues, clearly unable to stop herself. “There used to be another omega who lived here full time… He was Nanami-san’s mate. I knew him when I was a kid, but I don’t remember too much other than how kind he was to everyone. He used to always take time to play with the pups and he snuck us these little chocolate candies he always kept with him. His name was Haibara and he—” The girl’s gaze shutters slightly and drops away, her voice becoming nothing more than a whisper. “ He died. ”

Deep behind the curved cage of bone protecting it, Yuuji’s heart stutters and drops. Immediately— brutally — he remembers catching sight of Nanami’s bloodless gland, pale and sickly looking against tanned flesh.

A broken bond. 

“He was only sixteen years old when it happened so it was… I guess it’s been well over a decade now since it happened. But no one’s ever really told the whole story of it, mostly because it still upsets Nanami-san so much,” Kasumi whispers in a rush, “All I know is that there was some kind of deal that went wrong while Shoutaro-sama was still the head of the clan. Haibara wasn’t even meant to be there! And Nanami-san was never the same after it happened— at least, that’s what everyone says. I didn’t really know him from before his mate died, since all of the pups were mostly confined to the Wive’s Wing and Nanami-san had only just mated Haibara before he died. I think they were only mated for a few weeks. Isn’t that so sad? And now I guess Nanami-san is so quiet and serious compared to how he used to be… I heard that Haibara was the only one who could get him to smile.”

Yuuji feels a sick curl of shame wrap around his heart as he recalls— with a growing sense of dread— the words that he’d so callously snapped at the blonde alpha the day before. 

And what about you? 

Your scent gland has no mark of a bond at all. 

I’m supposed to believe that you’re mated too?

Yuuji shudders in horror at the sheer level of disrespect that he’d show to the alpha. He thinks of the blonde’s stoic face and how he had not even deigned to answer Yuuji’s insolence when it came to asking about his bond mark. Clearly, Nanami’s restraint was clearly incredible, given that the only thing he’d done in the face of Yuuji’s downright invasive rudeness was to give him a mild warning about his manners. And Yuuji can’t help but berate himself for missing such an obvious sign of what not to ask about— especially during a first meeting. 

It was a topic of both common knowledge and utter secrecy. A broken bond was one of the most harrowing experiences that someone could go through and every year it seemed a new study was released about just how agonizing a broken bond was for those it was inflicted upon. Survivors often equated it to the phantom pain of missing a limb, except it was the other half of their soul that had been ripped away from them entirely. A constant, piercing ache that no medicine could touch, nor any therapy could heal— one that reminded them every day that the person they had chosen to share everything with, was gone. It was the closest to suffering death that a person could come to without dying themselves. 

Of course there were always frauds who claimed new ways of easing the pain with new age therapies or strange injections. And Yuuji had even read articles about team of doctors that had made headway on perfecting a procedure that could dissolve the remnants of a broken bond, but it was not something that most people were willing to seek out, since most mates who suffered a broken bond could not fathom letting go of their last tethers to their deceased mates. 

Still, it is a torture that most would not wish upon their worst enemies. A constant suffering— one that Yuuji can hardly imagine. One that Yuuji had so cruelly thrown back in Nanami’s face. A man who, he now knew, had lived with such terrible torment for over a decade. 

Yuuji swallows harshly, pushing a hand absently against the center of his chest where his heart hammers hard against the bone. He forces himself to ask the obvious, “Is that why Nanami is allowed in the Wive’s Wing?”

Kasumi nods, her own face pinched in dismay at the topic of conversation. “Ieiri-san says that she would personally oversee the procedure to dissolve his bond if he consented, but Nanami-san has made it clear that he doesn’t want that. He just doesn’t…”

“Doesn’t want to let go yet?” Yuuji murmurs as Kasumi trails off.

Yuuji rubs his fingers against his sternum and thinks about what he might do if he were in Nanami’s position— if he was given the greatest gift a person could receive in life and have it torn away after the barest amount of time. Would he give in to his despair? Or would he choose to dissolve the bond entirely, as though they had never been there in the first place? Or would he, much like Nanami, live through the excruciating pain of waking up every morning and living half a life without his mate at his side?

The two of them sit in contemplative silence for a long while— dwelling on thoughts of broken bonds— until Yuuji remembers something else.

“What about Getou-san?”

“Hmm?” Kasumi’s brow furrows in confusion. “What about him?”

Yuuji shifts in the water, still keeping his gland beneath the surface of the water, even as he tilts his body to look at the blue haired girl beside him. “Getou-san is an alpha, right?” 

Kasumi nods in confirmation. 

“And he’s unmated, right?” Yuuji presses. 

“He is,” Kasumi says slowly.

“Then how come I saw him in the Wive’s Wing?” Yuuji asks.

Understanding dawns across her face. “Ohhh…. Uhmmm… ”

Yuuji’s interest piques at the way that a new blush stains the girl’s pale cheeks and she ducks her head away. A flash of tiny fangs bites at her lower lip and the tart scent of crushed blackberries hits his nose, swelling sweeter and fuller around the edges as if she’s— wait. 

“Getou-san is a special case,” Kasumi says a bit breathlessly and Yuuji can practically feel the waves of embarrassed attraction wafting off of her as the topic of the dark haired alpha is brought up. “He’s not a mated alpha, but he’s… Well, I don’t suppose you’d fully understand because you weren’t raised within the clan or know about its teachings, but Getou-san is Gojo-sama’s Hātoshīrudo.”

“Hātoshīrudo?” Yuuji repeats slowly back.

Heartshield. 

“I know,” Kasumi sighs out with a girlish little giggle, mistaking Yuuji’s confusion for admiration. “The name makes it sound so romantic, right? When I was a little girl I used to be sooo jealous that the Gojo heir was the only person who got to have a Hātoshīrudo. I used to make this one little boy follow me around and pretend to be my Hātoshīrudo. Of course, that was back when everything I saw was through a child’s view of the world. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that the title of Hātoshīrudo isn’t exactly amorous even though it is intimate.”

“But what exactly does it mean?” Yuuji asks.

“I guess you could compare it to someone being Gojo-sama’s right hand. Except, that gets a little confusing because technically the head of the clan has six ‘right hands’. I’m sure you’ve at least heard people referring to the clan and throwing around the word ‘eyes’, right? There’s this whole legend about a dragon and—”

“The Six Eyes?” Yuuji cuts in abruptly. 

Kasumi’s eyes widen as her mouth gapes open. “You know the story? But I thought you’d only just gotten here?”

Yuuji shrugs. “Okkotsu-san told me about it last night. He mentioned that the Six Eyes are named as a tribute to the dragon in the story.”

“Right,” Kasumi nods and Yuuji is thankful for the way that this girl doesn’t seem to bat an eye when the conversation seems to shift directions so rapidly. He vaguely thinks that if he were to get her in a room alone with Nobara that she would simultaneously be eaten alive and be able to hold her own— at least when it came to gossiping. “There’s six confidants that every head of the clan holds closest to them and those positions are named in honor of the Six Eyes that bestowed its power and wisdom on the first Gojo. It’s convenient terminology, since the ones who are given the title of being a Six Eye are usually given the task to act as eyes out in the world for the head of the clan— especially when Gojo-sama is busy keeping the clan running smoothly.”

“That all makes sense,” Yuuji says with a frown, grateful for Okkotsu’s succinct storytelling skills as he tries to recall any mention of a heart shield in the myth. “But if the name Six Eyes came from the legend, where did the Hātoshīrudo come from?” 

“Oh! The Hātoshīrudo didn’t come from the legend,” Kasumi clarifies, “Actually, it’s rooted in real history, rather than legend! After the first Gojo heir gained all of his power, he married and sired children to carry on his bloodline, but of course as the generations went by, what was truth and what was myth started to get muddled. They say people started to doubt the validity of the power that the Gojo family kept in their blood and so there were like, hundreds of attempts made on the Gojo heir’s life. Sometimes it was to test their godly abilities, or to see if the Six Eyes had actually left its power within them, but others sought to break the cycle of power, since they were terrified of one, singular bloodline holding on to so much unmitigated power… After a while it was obvious that the assassination attempts were never going to stop and it was inhibiting the head of the Gojo clan from doing their job, so they realized that they would need some kind of bodyguard… But what kind of person could possibly protect the most powerful Special Grade alpha that had ever been seen before?”

Yuuji’s frown deepens as Kasumi pauses for dramatic effect and mutters dryly, “You’re looking at me like I should know the answer to this, but I promise, I’ve got nothing.”

A tinkling laugh flutters out of Kasumi, bringing the conversation back into a shade of levity. “The problem was that the Gojo bloodline had become so powerful that the idea of needing someone else to protect their heirs seemed a bit ridiculous. And not just that, but any regular samurai was hardly willing to sign themselves up for a fight they were sure to lose… So it was the fifth Gojo descendent… Or wait, was it the sixth? I can’t remember… Anyway, they decided to send their scouts to find every Special Grade alpha across the country and gathered them all right here at this estate. The Gojo heir offered them a life of comfort and elevated rank in exchange for accepting the position of their protector… Not to mention more money than the Emperor. So many of the Special Grades of the era volunteered that the Gojo heir was forced to hold a tournament, in order to weed out who was the strongest one— and the victor became the first Hātoshīrudo.”

“Sounds like a lot,” Yuuji mutters wryly, trying to imagine it. His mind immediately files away the fact that Getou-san is not only an alpha, but a Special Grade— though he’d never been near the man without him wearing a scent patch of his own, it made sense. The clear strength that nearly matched Gojo’s and the impeccable self control— both of which were characteristics that denoted a high rank for an alpha. Although two Special Grades in close quarters did not seem like the wisest of decisions…

“It’s a lot less intense of a process nowadays from what I hear… I mean, people aren’t really receptive to being summoned by powerful alphas or competing in tournaments. From what I’ve been able to understand, the scouting process remains the same, especially since Special Grade alphas become more and more rare with each passing generation. Of course, the reach of the Gojo clan extends further than anything most people can even begin to comprehend. Usually, the prospective Hātoshīrudo for the next heir is chosen by their parent. Shoutaro-sama was the one who scouted and selected Getou-san to become his son’s Hātoshīrudo.”

“So, what?” Yuuji cocks a brow in confusion. “He was just picked off the street and forced to become Gojo’s bodyguard? That sounds kind of shitty.”

“Oh, no, no! It’s actually a pretty rigorous training process that they have to go through first. And they’re given a full year to decide if they want to proceed with taking the position. That’s why usually the head of the clan will start scouting for their heir’s Hātoshīrudo from the moment they’re born. Gojo-sama was just a bit… Difficult … As a kid. From what I hear, at least! I think he went through seven or eight prospective Hātoshīrudo before Getou-san finally took the position. That’s why they’re so close in age! Getou-san is only a year younger than Gojo-sama and he took the place as his Hātoshīrudo when they were in their teens.”

“Alright, so Getou-san is Gojo’s Hātoshīrudo,” Yuuji says, “But that still doesn’t explain why he was allowed to be in the Wive’s Wing. I could understand if it was some low grade alpha, or maybe I’m just missing the point, because if Getou-san is a Special Grade, the same as Gojo, then wouldn’t his presence pose more of a risk to any of the omegas staying in the wing?”

At this, Kasumi seems to puff up in defense. Yuuji cuts her off as she opens her mouth, no doubt,  to defend the dark haired alpha’s honor. 

“I’m not calling Getou-san’s control into question, or anything,” Yuuji clarifies quickly. “I’m just curious about why he seems to be the exception to the rule. An unmated Special Grade alpha wandering around a wing where no alphas are allowed ? It just doesn’t make any sense even if he’s given special privileges or something for his position.”

Kasumi fiddles with the strand of hair that had fallen from her bun, looking away as nervousness starts to creep back in at the edges of her expression. “It’s kind of… Well… What you have to understand is that the Hātoshīrudo is the only person in the world that can get as close to the Gojo heir— aside from a mate if Gojo-sama ever actually decides to take one. And even then, people sometimes talk about how a Hātoshīrudo is a place that is closer to the Gojo heir than their mate. They spend every single day together from the moment the chosen Special Grade takes their vows as the Hātoshīrudo. Every secret of the Gojo clan, every word spoken behind closed doors, every movement made, every thought the Gojo heir has… The Hātoshīrudo shares it all. They are second in command if anything happens to Gojo-sama. Basically they hold just as much power as the Gojo heir, but there’s a price.”

Yuuji sighs. “Of course there is… And I’m willing to bet that it’s the kind of price that most people can’t afford.”

A mournful hum echoes out of Kasumi’s throat as she nods in agreement. “The Hātoshīrudo are offered the same limitless power as the Gojo heir and the title of being second only to the head of the clan, but in return, once they give their vows they are to be loyal to nothing and no one else in the world. They willingly give up any attachment in life— sever ties with their family members, undergo a procedure so that they can’t sire any children of their own, and are entirely disallowed from taking a mate. Their entire lives become centered around protecting the future of the Gojo clan and are the safekeeper of all of their secrets… But that’s not even the worst part.”

Yuuji stares at the girl, completely stunned by the sinking revelation. “How could it possibly get any worse than giving up everything for a single person?”

Kasumi stares back and goes utterly still. Her ocean eyes dart towards the door once again and she moves close enough that her lips practically brush his cheek as she whispers. The words are so quiet that they are nearly lost to the wind howling across the mountain side.

“The Hātoshīrudo accept a one way bond.”

Yuuji hears the words, but he cannot comprehend them. Several beats of silence pass as Kasumi pulls back and watches him for his reaction, however all he can do is breathe in and out, in and out, as his mind struggles to put their meaning together. Finally, like a bolt of lightning to the top of his head, Yuuji draws in a sharp gasp of shock between parted lips as he stares at her in abject horror.

“No fucking way.”

Kasumi nods emphatically, eyes wide and beseeching him to believe her. “Yes.”

“But that’s— How can they just— Wait. What?” Yuuji stutters out the words, feeling as though his brain is short circuiting with the utterly unfathomable information that he’s just been dealt.

“I know. It’s the same ritual that’s been performed since the very first Hātoshīrudo was chosen. I mean, I guess I can understand how in ancient times the only way to ensure that someone won’t form any other attachments is to create a bond… But it’s still carried on to this day. The last step in any Hātoshīrudo’s training, once they choose to accept the position, is to be given a bond bite by the Gojo heir that they are sworn to protect.”

“That’s just— That’s just wrong ,” Yuuji mutters in subdued horror, completely discomfited by the thought of a one way bond being created— never mind one that was made on purpose. “One way bonds are illegal. Not to mention, fucking excruciating and debilitating for the one that’s forced to accept the bond on their end. It’s not done. And that’s not even taking into consideration that they’re two Special Grades ! How have they not killed each other?”

“It sounds barbaric, I know,” Kasumi agrees, “But it’s worked for hundreds of years, so they must be doing something right… Since the Hātoshīrudo is always a Special Grade alpha, I’ve heard that the bond isn’t quite as painful, as it might be for any lower grade alpha to receive the Gojo heir’s mark. It’s strength matched against strength, right? I mean… It’s not supposed to be a method of torture or anything. Every Hātoshīrudo has willingly accepted the role and is given extensive training so that they know what they’re getting themselves into. That’s why the scouting process starts when an heir is so young. It takes a lot for someone to agree to the terms… But it’s the best way to ensure complete loyalty. A bond forged in blood, given to them by the one they have to safeguard with their own life? It’s a binding vow. One that can’t be broken on a whim… At least not unless they want to—”

Die. Yuuji’s mind immediately supplies the word that Kasumi will not speak. Not unless they want to die. 

He tries to process in silence, unable to grasp the true weight of what Kasumi has just admitted. It was true that a one way bond was considered one of the highest offenses that could be committed against an unwilling partner. Painful and horrifying, receiving a bite mark that was not reciprocated was something that was met with some of the harshest punishment that society could get away with. Even normal bonds could not be broken without inflicting serious harm on the pair that had equally distributed them, but for someone who was the victim of a one way bond, the task was entirely impossible. There was a reason why one-sided bonds were considered a form of war crime, given that to the one who received it, their lives were essentially ruined. 

Mate bonds were often considered as loops more than they were a direct connection from one end to the other. Mated pairs reported the ability of being able to sense strong emotions from their bond partners, such as fear or pain or happiness and more often than not, their bonds affected their daily lives however it varied between different sets of mates. But for one end of the loop to be left empty meant that the recipient of the bond would forever feel incomplete. Not only that, but the madness of living with that void— especially when it lived inside of them — was more than most could bear.

While it was all too common for an alpha to be the only one in an alpha-omega mate pair to administer a bond bite, the omega’s body had a natural series of reactions that allowed for this to happen. Biologically predisposed to be with one another given their ability to procreate, alpha-omega mate pairs were able to bypass the difficulties of forging a bond together. Pheromones released during a heat allowed an omega’s body to accept an alpha’s bite without any repercussions of not returning the bite to their partner. Omegas traditionally relied more on scents and pheromones to indicate their status as a mate and were often the ones to adopt their mate’s scents even without a fully fledged bond completed between them. An omega could emulate their chosen mate’s pheromones in order to ward off other alphas who came sniffing around, or to entice their partner into completing a bond during their shared heat.

The trouble only really began when mates with different secondary genders started to create bonds together. Modern law allowed for leniency in choosing a mate, which was a far cry from the barbaric banning of allowing people to simply choose to mate with who they wanted to, and not having to select a partner based solely off of their breeding potential. Betas were for all intents and purposes, the most “normal” secondary genders and did not receive nor administer any bites to their partners. But alphas who mated alphas and omegas who mated omegas, often ran into difficulties in trying to forge a bond, given that they had to create a bond through a bite to their partner at exactly the right time.

However, Yuuji can’t recall a single instance in which he’d heard about two Special Grades creating a bond together. Privately thought that Gojo allowing another Special Grade into his territory meant that the man was already playing with fire. Special Grades were indeed becoming more and more rare in modern times, but there was also the increasing trend of Special Grades becoming more aggressive as the years wore on. Territorial to a fault and stronger than any other alpha in the room with them, Special Grades were not designed to keep close company with one another— more the lone wolf type, rather than the kind to run with the pack.

It was unheard of for more than one Special Grade to linger in the same territory, unless there was a close blood relation, such as a parent and a child. But here was Gojo and Getou-san, not only living side by side, but sharing a bond… A one way bond, at that… 

Yuuji frowns as his thoughts guide him toward the dark haired man who had held him tenderly as he’d broken down in fear and confusion and guilt— haunted by a murder that he’d committed in order to save himself. And yet the alpha— the Special Grade alpha— had done nothing to put further blame on his shoulders and had comforted him instead. 

It’s clear that Getou-san has impeccable control, but had he truly given up his entire life— past, present and future— for the sake of one man? Had he really allowed Gojo to imprint his fangs upon his skin and tie him eternally to his side— even while knowing that if he should go against such a bond that death was the only promised outcome? Yuuji thinks all the way back to the first time he’d met him and wonders if his infinite loyalty to Gojo had already been carved into his soul?

Something unsettling twists deep in Yuuji’s chest at the thought— a strange sort of foreboding that he doesn’t dare to look too closely at.

“So what about you?” Kasumi says suddenly.

Yuuji snaps abruptly out of his thoughts and peers over in confusion at the other girl, blinking away the condensation from the steam that clings to his lashes. “Me?”

Kasumi’s ocean gaze darts toward the unmarked stretch of skin against the side of Yuuji’s throat, hidden below the surface of the water. He immediately stiffens under her observation, still reeling at what he’d learned about Getou-san and Gojo. 

“You’re not mated,” Kasumi says matter-of-factly, though it isn’t rude. “But do you have an alpha courting you at all?”

Yuuji goes utterly still. The warm water laps against his throat, but he feels as though his veins are filled with ice. The wind blows through his hair, stirring up the snow and steam around them, melding its frigid mineral scent with the strong, sweet notes of sakura blossoms and sugar that seep off of him no matter how he tries to hide it. 

“No,” He rasps, voice shredded entirely, though it has little to do with the collar of bruises wrapped around his neck, this time. “No, I don’t.”

If Kasumi notices the way her question shakes him to his core, she does an admirable job of pretending not to as she nods and shrugs delicately. “Me either,” She says softly, “I mean… There’s this guy… But I don’t think anything will ever happen with him.”

Still a bit flustered, Yuuji latches onto the new opening in the conversation. Kasumi’s cheeks have flushed a pretty shade of deep pink and she seemingly refuses to look in his direction. Her crushed blackberry scent goes a bit sour with embarrassment— or perhaps that is just how she always smells. 

“You have a crush on someone?” Yuuji asks, forcing his voice into a teasing lilt, lest he give away his own distress and Kasumi tries to dig deeper.

Thankfully, Kasumi takes the bait flawlessly, as she always does. “He’s… Well, he’s in the clan. But that’s not— I mean, he’s so nice, but he’s not. Well… You know.”

Yuuji raises a brow at her as she looks up at him timidly, ocean eyes beseeching him to understand her ramblings. He lifts a hand out of the water to rub at his wet locks that have started to drip into his eyes. “Actually, I don't?” He says, as gently as possible.

Kasumi ducks her head away, her blush going ruddy in her cheeks. “I meant that he’s not a…”

“A…?” Yuuji prompts gently when the girl goes mute again.

“He’s a beta.”

There is a single beat of silence before a laugh, bright and loud, is wrenched from Yuuji’s chest. The sound of it bounces off of the stone surrounding them and startles Kasumi out of her humiliation. His chest trembles, helpless with laughter until he finally manages to get a handle on himself and grins at the blue haired omega in conspiracy.

“So what?” He grins.

“Huh?” Kasumi asks, breathless with confusion.

“So. What? ” Yuuji repeats firmly. “So what if he’s a beta? Is that the only thing holding you back?”

“It… I mean— Being an omega in a prominent family is—” Kasumi starts to stutter.

A growl rumbles threateningly out of Yuuji’s chest, cutting off the girl’s words as he glares at her. “If you’re about to tell me some kind of bullshit about how being an omega in a prominent family means that your existence is allowed to be reduced to being some kind of bargaining chip, then I’m going to splash you.”

“But I—”

An arc of warm water flies up and hits the girl square in the face. Kasumi splutters in surprise and wipes the water from her eyes as she stares at Yuuji in shock. 

“I warned you,” He replies with a shrug. A soft, girlish giggle echoes out of Kasumi in reply— hardly offended, even now that she is dripping wet. Yuuji’s grin goes soft at the edges as she giggles quietly beside him. “Seriously though, why should it matter if the guy you like is a beta? Does he like you too?” 

Kasumi retreats a bit into shyness. “I think so…”

“Okay, well didn’t you just tell me that the Gojo clan does things differently when it comes to the hierarchy of second genders?” Yuuji grumbles back. “For fucks sake, their whole ideology of how their leader rose to power is based off of a bed time story about a fucking dragon and the god damn moon! Surely if you like him and he likes you, why should you at least try to be together?”

The girl grows more solemn as his words settle between them. Narrow shoulders droop low as she waves her hands through the water in front of her in a nervous movement. “I guess I just didn’t expect it to happen… I don’t really know if I’m supposed to fall in love with someone like him.”

Yuuji lets out a long breath through his nose and shakes his head before he leans it back against the rocky ledge. “I mean, I don’t really know much about it since I’ve never had those kinds of feelings for someone before, but I was always taught that you can’t exactly help who you love. Falling in love is something that just sort of happens , you know? Usually when you least expect it.”

He can feel the way Kasumi’s eyes trace a path across the side of his face. The water only barely conceals his unmarked scent patch and he resists the urge to cover it up with his hand. She says nothing else and after a while, she settles back against the ledge of the pool.

Together they sit in silent companionship, allowing the warm water to soak away their troubles— at least for the time being. It’s hard to tell how much time has passed, but Yuuji’s cheeks are stinging from the cold when Kasumi finally lets out a sigh and begins to shift around in the water. 

Blinking open his eyes, he watches as she stands from her spot on the carved bench. Water sluices down over her towel covered body, wrapped tight around her slender frame. 

“I have to get going,” She murmurs around a small, fragile smile while she dips her head in a tiny bow of acknowledgement. “It was really nice getting to talk to you, Itadori-san. I look forward to having you around.”

“Likewise,” Yuuji says, biting back the urge to tell her that there was no way he’d be sticking around the Gojo estate for any longer than necessary. 

Kasumi hums and nods, then wades through the milky waters toward the carved steps on the other side of the pool. She exits the onsen and disappears through the foggy, glass door without another word, leaving Yuuji entirely alone.

Yuuji stares at the door for several long moments, waiting to see if she might return before he finally lets out a long breath of relief. Rising from the water, his heated skin breaks out in goosebumps as it is exposed to the frigid air. He turns himself around and folds his arms atop one another along the ledge of rock along the edge of the pool and looks out over the mountainside. Measured breaths fog out in white curls in front of his face as he exhales slowly. Steam rises from his heated skin as he lifts a hand to cradle his chin in his palm. 

Unbidden, he reaches up with tentative fingers and rubs gently against the unmarked gland on his throat. Shivering in sensitivity at the touch, his thighs twitch and squeeze together beneath the water while the heady scent of sakura blossoms and warm sugar blooms into the air, mingling seamlessly with the traces of salt and snow. 

In the quiet, peaceful sanctuary of his solitude, he stares out at the world and wonders— not for the first time— what it might feel like to not have to hide. 

And then reminds himself— not for the first time— that he’ll never know.

Chapter Text

By the time Yuuji returns to his room, barefooted and pink faced, his muscles are loose and his mind is a bit quieter than it had been before. 

With one hand he rubs a small, fluffy towel through his damp pink locks soaking up the excess water that still drips from their ends while leaving behind the tangy scent of minerals from the hot spring. Catching sight of himself in the bathroom mirror, his gaze drags across the freshly applied scent patch plastered across his flushed throat. And though he’s far more used to the absence of the heady notes of sakura blossoms and warm sugar designated to his scent, he feels— for the first time he can recall since he’d first presented— as though he is missing something.

There is a kind of guilt that builds in the center of his chest, made by the keen sweetness of relief and the sharp sting of disappointment. One that he has never associated with hiding his scent. Given the way his grandfather had been adamant that Yuuji should know there was no reason to feel guilty for having to hide his scent— even when he was no more than a child at the time— he’d never felt the tug of regret. Not when he was pestered by Nobara to take off his patch in an effort to get more tips at the club. Not when he was told by well-meaning (or perhaps not) strangers that he was too pretty to be unmated at his age and that surely, exposing his scent would help him catch an alpha of his own. Not when he’d learned how to budget his income after getting his first job as a teenager in order to afford as many boxes of scent patches it would take to ensure they could be reapplied morning, noon and night— every single day. 

It seemed almost cruel that now, after he’d gotten to a point of learning to be content with the fact that he’d never been comfortable with the idea of sharing his scent, he feels the tight curl of shame wrapping itself around his heart as he stares at his covered gland. 

With a sigh, Yuuji tosses the damp towel towards the shower and tears his gaze away from his reflection. Uncaring that the terry cloth lands in a heap on the floor, he flees from the bathroom, all too eager to turn his thoughts to other matters. 

After his conversation with Miwa his mind feels scattered by the influx of new information. He mulls it over as he settles himself in one of the lounge chairs near the window. Dressed in a pair of comfortable sweatpants and a soft t-shirt from the mysteriously stocked dresser, he still feels a bit hot from his time at the onsen. Skin flushed with lingering heat and tingling with awareness as cool air seeps in at the edges of the window he sits beside, Yuuji relishes in the way his body has relaxed. He thinks idly about what Miwa told him, feeling as though he has been given several new pieces to the puzzle that has plagued him about the Gojo clan since the very beginning. He contents himself to waste away, lost to his thoughts, until someone comes to get him— because surely, someone will come to get him soon.

But as the time passes and the sun carves its well-worn path across the sky, transforming the shadows of late morning into those belonging to the afternoon, no one comes. 

Having moved from the lounge chair to laying diagonal across the bed, feet dangling off the edge, he messes around on his phone for something to do. Junpei’s latest message asking him how he was feeling went ignored and unreplied-to as he tapped through the apps in a useless loop of boredom. The hours tick by and he tries to ignore the anxious resentment that creeps into his lax muscles and undoes all of the progress that had been made during his time at the onsen. 

He watches an episode of the anime he’s behind on and searches up a few tutorials on basic Japanese sign language. He stares at the ceiling and thinks about the one-way bond between Gojo and Getou. He snoops around the room a bit more, though finds nothing else of interest aside from a, frankly enormous , dust bunny underneath his bed that the maids seem to have missed for at least a decade. And finally, he returns to the bed, flopping down onto it with a huff as he stews himself in the rise of acrimony, burning hot in the center of his chest. Wondering what the fuck is taking so long. 

At half past five, as the sun slips lower and lower in the sky and paints the world with golden hues, there is a knock on the door. Yuuji’s heart immediately lurches into a gallop as he launches himself up from the bed, thinking to himself that someone has finally come for him. He nearly trips over his feet in his haste to get to the door, but as he wrenches it open, rather than Getou or Nanami— or fuck, he’d even take Gojo at this point — he’s met with the sight of a demurely dressed, but utterly unfamiliar female beta. Standing with her head bowed and holding a tray full of food, the woman murmurs a quiet word about providing him dinner.

Yuuji forces himself not to scowl immediately, even while a flash of irritation burns bright along the back of his neck. His voice is not overly-friendly, though he manages to keep it from being altogether hostile, as he thanks her and takes the tray from the attendant. With a small bow, the woman says nothing further and retreats back down the empty hall. 

With a grunt of annoyance, Yuuji kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. Irritation boils over into outright anger as he slams the tray down on the small table under the windows. The silver dish covers rattle at the movement, along with the vase that holds the single white bloom. And though the smell of savory food begins to suffuse into the air and calls to his empty stomach, out of spite, Yuuji ignores it and paces back and forth across the room.

Every shred of peace that he’d scrounged for himself that morning in the onsen has been crushed beneath the onslaught of frustration. The understanding that he has been at the Gojo Estate for nearly two full days and not a single. Fucking. Word. Has come to him in the form of an explanation. 

Miwa’s explanation of the events at the club, while informative, did not give Yuuji a clear view of what was truly happening beyond the walls of the Wive’s Wing. It crosses his mind that perhaps he might be better off choosing to fully go against Nanami’s warning and leave the Wive’s Wing in search of answers. If he were to find Gojo— because who’s to say he hasn’t already returned when no one will tell him anything otherwise?— and demand to know what was going on, could he truly be blamed? Because the fact of the matter was that he did not know these people. Despite Getou’s softness in handling him during his panic attack and Nanami’s straightforward instruction and Miwa’s guileless kindness… All of them were strangers. And like a bird stuck in a glass menagerie, for all of the beauty he is surrounded by, the knowledge that he is trapped seeps into every single thought. 

The longer he paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the louder the vicious little voice inside his mind becomes. The more it condemns Gojo for what he has done— or better yet, what he hasn’t done. 

How dare he. Yuuji thinks to himself as his gaze catches on the dark material half hidden behind his pillows. Rage sits hot in his throat as he glares at the sleeve of Gojo’s coat . How dare he leave and demand Yuuji to remain locked away in an unfamiliar place. How dare he leave and not allow anyone to tell him anything about the attack. How dare he leave and— 

How dare he leave.

Yuuji stops short. His fangs dig sharply into his bottom lip, as though to stifle himself though no words had passed them. Mind grinding to a halt as those simple four words repeat over and over again. Taunting him with just how true they ring. 

Beyond the windows, darkness has finally begun to fall and all at once, like the last vestiges of sunlight slipping away over the horizon, Yuuji feels his anger dim alongside it. Like a struck match, it burns bright and dies quickly, leaving him burnt out as he falls into the chair beside the small table and stares listlessly at the tray of covered food. His stomach turns in knots as he willfully tries to ignore the root of his frustration. 

Yuuji watches as the receding sunlight paints gold streaks across the undersides of scarce clouds. Crimson red bleeds across the horizon and melts into a haze of brilliant orange and pink— a riot of color in a frozen world of white. He tucks his legs up onto the chair and lays his cheek against the backrest, keeping his gaze on the window until long after the sun has died another death in its eternal lifecycle. The food remains untouched and he sits in the darkness alone. Unwilling to get up, even when chillbumps arise on his skin and he yearns for the warmth of the salt and snow soaked material of Gojo’s coat. 

The furious, burning anger he’d felt before has cooled into a quiet ache of resignation. He watches his reflection in the dark glass and cannot stop the hollow pit from forming in his belly as the— utterly ridiculous— sense of abandonment seeks to find purchase within him. Though he is clothed, he feels naked and alone in this strange, dangerous world and for all of the heat of his anger that he’s used as a weapon to protect himself against Gojo so far, it does little to keep him warm.

Sleep pulls at his eyelids, despite the odd angle of his neck and when he finally falls asleep, it is dreamless— but it hardly makes a difference.

***

The night is deep, the world is dark and all is quiet and calm.

A cloudless midnight sky displays a velvet black canvas, spattered with diamond flecks of starlight. Their cold white light flickers and bobs along waves of the celestial tide that ebbs and flows around the moon where it rises higher in the sky with every passing moment. Approaching the pinnacle of its eternal path, it hangs fat and full like a burnished silver coin, dominating the heavens with its untouchable beauty.

Yuuji lays asleep, wrapped within a world of dreams filled with half formed faces and whispered voices speaking a language he does not understand— things that he will not remember the moment he wakes, no matter how hard he tries. 

Through the stillness of the room a muffled knock echoes against the door.

Yuuji does not startle, but rather, he blinks easily into awareness— as though, some part of him has been expecting this. His aching body has curled itself uncomfortably into the chair set before the window and he winces as one, numb foot falls with a thump back to the floor. Without the curtains drawn, the ethereal gleam of moonlight that spills through the windows gilds him in silver from head to toe. There is a silent moment of pure peace as he stares up at the moon and the remnants of his dreams— already forgotten— softly fall away. And then, another soft knock echoes through the room, more confident than the one before. 

Yuuji’s heart lurches in his chest as he sits up quickly. The hazy veil of sleep dissolves in an instant as he turns his gaze towards the door on the other side of the room. Forcing his breaths to remain slow and steady he keeps his eyes on the smooth wood and waits.

He does not have to wait long. 

A third knock echoes against the door and Yuuji rises from the chair. Limbs heavy and trembling slightly, he moves on silent, bare feet across the space. Unbidden, a yawn cracks his jaw open wide before he can stifle it against the back of his hand. The cool skin of his wrist brushes against the heated flush of his lips. Standing before the door, he swallows harshly and waits. 

He does not have to wait long.

The fourth knock thumps against the other side of the wood, harder than the rest combined. Yuuji’s hand moves before he consciously makes the decision to do so and the door is wrenched open beneath his grasp. Words of reprimand rise readily to his tongue as the door swings wide, the scales of sleep falling away rapidly from his eyes as he braces himself for whomever he might encounter on the other side. However, the moment the door fully opens, his words are swept away as a wave of confused shock rattles through him.

Beyond the doorway, the hall is dark and silent, except for a halo of golden light that illuminates a lone figure standing on the threshold. Tall and slender, their body is wrapped within the folds of a beautiful kimono made of deep blue and indigo. A pale hand is raised between them, holding aloft a simple paper lantern, balanced precariously on a thin wooden piece. The glow of candlelight within it gilds the space between them in gold, though its lower angle throws both Yuuji’s face and his visitor’s into shadowy relief. Still, it would be impossible to mistake the delicately feminine features that have been painted in traditional makeup as well as the long, light blue hair that has been pulled up into an intricate style and ornamented with the elegant silver headpiece that jingles lightly with any minor movements.

“Miwa-san?” Yuuji whispers, hands grasping at the edges of the door and seeking out balance as the world seems to tilt beneath his feet. “What are you doing here? ”

There is enough wherewithal inside of him to know that this is not a normal midnight visit… But to be fair, he can’t think of many midnight visits that fall under the ‘normal’ category to begin with. 

“Itadori-san,” Miwa says, her eyes passing no higher than his collarbone. Refusing to meet his gaze. Her voice is nothing more than a sigh in the darkness. “You have been summoned to stand before the Six Eyes and the great and wise judgment of the Honored One to give your testimony on the events that happened at the Omega House known as the Fantasy Room. As well as the information you received about the Ry-Ryoumen clan. Do you accept?” 

Yuuji swallows heavily as he looks at the girl. There is an immediate sense of understanding that tells him there is no denying this request, even though Miwa’s wording has done it justice. He has been summoned— in the middle of the fucking night and with no warning — and refusing to go is not an option. Because while it is all too easy to deny a request made by a man who acts petulant and spoiled, it is not as simple when faced with the reality that that same man holds power unlike anything Yuuji could possibly comprehend. 

Miwa shifts nervously on her feet as the silence grows between them and a pang of sympathy takes hold in his chest. The poor, lonely girl who had so readily spoken with him in the onsen and divulged— perhaps too much — information about the inner workings of the Gojo clan, now stands before him, clearly uncomfortable with her roles as the creepy and vague, but utterly polite summoner. And Yuuji is helpless to do anything but attempt to ease her burden. 

“Okay,” He whispers aloud, though the word falls flat for what exactly he is consenting too. Miwa’s eyes drop down to the floor as she gives a respectful bow at his response. 

“Please follow me,” Miwa takes a step back and then turns around. The quiet chime of her silver headpiece swaying atop the intricate hair design and the soft susurrus of her tabi covered feet against the floor is the only sound as she begins to lead the way down the hall. Yuuji hesitates for a moment, watching her move down the hall— hardly bothering to check and see if he is following behind. 

With a sigh, Yuuji steps out into the hall and gently closes the door behind him. The floor is chilly beneath his bare feet and he feels oddly underdressed in his sweatpants and t-shirt in comparison to Miwa’s elegantly folded kimono. By the light of the paper lantern balanced in Miwa’s hold, he is led slowly through the winding, lonely corridors of the Wive’s Wing and when they pass a stretch of windows, the light of the full moon casts its pale glow upon them. 

Tiredness forgotten, Yuuji takes in every single turn and twist they take through the corridors. When Miwa leads him out of the Wive’s Wing he spares a moment to stare in awe at the large archway that decorates the entrance, gilded in gold by the light of the lantern and covered in carvings… No. Not carvings— names. 

Yuuji reads as many as he can while they pass through the archway, stunned by the sheer amount of names that have been carved— some elegantly done while others seem much more crude. He is reminded of the walls of the Fantasy Room in the hall leading to the dressing room. Of all of the names of every omega that has passed through them on their way to make a living within those walls— for better or worse. It strikes him how similar these omegas must have felt, locked away within the Wive’s Wing, with nothing but their beauty and the hope that it would serve them in keeping the alpha of the house happy enough to keep them around. Each of them leaving their names on the doorway that led them to their fate, perhaps in the hope that someone like Yuuji might read them one day and know that they were more than a prize to be kept in a gilded cage. 

Hheart threatening to beat straight out of his chest as they leave the entrance of the Wive’s Wing behind them, the names of those omegas stay carved in Yuuji’s mind, just as much as they were carved into the gold painted wood. Miwa’s pace is steady and silent, walking them both through the newly revealed halls and Yuuji knows well enough that even if he were to ask her where she was taking him that she most likely would not answer. 

A menagerie of shadows is painted on the walls as they pass through new halls, twining and dancing alongside Yuuji’s own. After what feels like a lifetime of walking, Miwa lends them down a long hall that is open entirely on their right with only a carved railing stretched along its edge. Yuuji cranes his neck and dares a glance over the edge to find an open drop down to what must be the first floor. Without any lights to give the space any shape it is difficult to discern what kind of room it is, but it hardly matters as Miwa brings him past it and through another doorway at the other end of the corridor. 

There’s no way to keep track of how long they meander through the dark, though Yuuji is sure that it isn’t nearly as long as his mind has tricked him into believing. Still, there’s no way to stop the feeling of being lost from creeping over him as he follows Miwa step for step, turn for turn, through the unfamiliar estate. Much as he’s already been able to glean from the glimpses of the place outside of his window, the Gojo Estate is massive , and so it doesn’t surprise him that wherever Miwa is bringing him, it is taking three to five business days to get there. That doesn’t mean, however, that he isn’t using that time to wonder what the fuck is going on. 

Yuuji ascends a wide staircase a few paces behind Miwa, feeling a bit as if this whole thing might be a joke, but when they reach the landing at the top that thought is promptly struck from his mind. 

The landing is not overly large, but its outline is a perfect square. No other doors line the walls except for a wide set of shoji doors on the far wall, opposite from the top of the staircase. As Miwa leads him unerringly towards the doors, Yuuji’s eyes catch on the design on the floor— a glimmering circular design that extends across the entirety of the floor, which, at first glance, seems to be a mess of circles and dots all intertwined and scattered. However, as Yuuji’s gaze catches on a familiar outline of dots and lines, he realizes that the depiction is a replica of an eerily accurate star chart. 

Curiosity spears itself through Yuuji’s chest as he takes in the painstaking detail of the floor’s design, though it is interrupted by a quiet sigh of breath. Yuuji startles, heart trembling in his chest as he is swiftly reminded that this little midnight jaunt is not a simple tour of the estate, but in fact has a very real and borderline terrifying purpose. 

Glancing up, he finds that Miwa has come to a stop, several paces before the shoji doors. She stands completely still, her back still turned to him as he approaches from behind. Her head is bowed, but Yuuji can see that her eyes are shut tight and the light of the lantern trembles slightly from within her white knuckled grip. 

“I am not permitted to go any further,” Miwa whispers to him, breathy and practically non-existent. “You must go alone.”

Yuuji’s brows draw together in confusion, mouth opening to ask what she expects him to do, given that he’s got no clue what’s going on. However, before he can utter a word, Miwa goes to the floor in one fluid movement, gracefully folding herself into a kneeling bow and touching her forehead to the tops of her hands while the lantern remains held aloft. With his heart nearly flying out of his chest, he glances from Miwa’s prone form, bowing on the ground to the seemingly innocent set of closed door. A thousand versions of what might be waiting for him behind them springs to mind— and all of them he is meant to witness alone. 

Shaking himself free of the iron grasp his anxiety wraps around his chest, Yuuji steels himself and reminds himself that Gojo has not made any indication that he was going to kill him… And certainly he wouldn’t do it by luring him out of his room at midnight… right? 

A trembling breath leaves his lungs as he forces his feet to move him forward. Taking slow, deliberate steps toward the doors, he contemplates every single fucked up decision he made that led him to this moment. And yet when his mind retraces his steps back to that fateful night when all of this really started, he tells himself that there was truly no avoiding this outcome. Nerves jangling straight through his bones, Yuuji reaches a quivering hand toward the doors, realizing that after this, there will be no going back… If that was ever really an option for him at all. 

Yuuji braces himself as the door opens beneath his guiding touch.

For a moment, as the door slides open to reveal the space beyond, he thinks that there is nothing there… But then he realizes that isn’t entirely correct.

True enough, the room beyond the threshold is obscured in pitch darkness, except for a single, wide column of pale light that filters down through a circular window carved high into the ceiling. Moonlight, pure and brilliant, illuminates  a raised, circular dais that is no less than six feet in diameter and several meters away from where he stands in the doorway. 

Yuuji’s face scrunches in confusion as he stares blankly at the empty platform for a moment. His heart thrums wildly in the hollow of his throat while a sense of unease prickles across the back of his neck— nothing more than prey looking upon a trap set out for it. It is in his hesitance that he makes his first mistake and in thinking that the darkness equates to solitude. 

When a voice booms out from within the pitch black, Yuuji startles into a near full-bodied flinch. 

“Yuuji Itadori,” The voice calls out, even and deep and utterly unfamiliar, “Step forward.”

Yuuji nearly swallows his tongue as nerves threaten to consume him. The deep command in the unfamiliar voice is indisputable and he finds himself moving forward before he consciously makes the decision to do so. Unable to tell if it is an innate response to the demand or perhaps out of sheer self preservation. 

As he moves deeper into the room, traveling through the darkness— so dark that he cannot make out a single detail beyond the column of moonlight shining down from the ceiling— the doors slide shut behind him. Immediately his heart trips, beating rabbit fast against his ribs as his primal hindbrain blares an age-old alarm.

Trapped. It wails desperately, slipping readily into fight or flight mode. Trappedtrappedtrapped. 

He almost wishes that he had the bravery to force himself to laugh— as though by calling this entire thing a joke it might make the fear easier to bear. But there is no denying the weight of seriousness that presses against him on all sides from deep within the darkness. And so Yuuji shuffles carefully towards the illuminated platform since he has been given no other instructions. 

But as he draws closer and inhales quietly, his feet stutter beneath him as a powerful wave of scent— snow and salt and ice and power — slams into him with the force of a physical blow. Gojo’s scent is so strong in the air that Yuuji’s head wavers a bit, dipping into a more primal state of submission before he shakes himself free of it and forces himself to focus. The Special Grade’s crushing presence fills the room— even though Yuuji cannot see him , he knows without a shred of doubt that he is there. And whatever this odd tradition is, Yuuji has been forced into a position of participation, whether he wants to or not. 

When he reaches the edge of the moonlit dais the unfamiliar, deep voice echoes out of the darkness once more. 

“Ascend,” It commands. “And allow the moon to illuminate your intentions before Gojo’s descendent, the Honored One and his Six Eyes.”

Yuuji clenches trembling fists at his sides. Another breath has the razor sharp edge of ice and salt burning down his throat, yet somehow, as it seeps into his lungs, it settles something inside of him. He lingers for a moment at the edge of the platform and allows his gaze to follow the path of silver moonlight up to the high ceiling where the circular window frames the fat, full moon almost perfectly in its center. Yuuji quietly takes a deep breath, as though he were about to submerge himself in water and steps up onto the raised platform. 

Bathed beneath the silvery cascade of moonlight, all color is drained away, leaving him bleached in stark black and white hues. The moment he moves to stand in the middle of the platform, a chime, bright and clear, rings out through the pitch black room, echoing into Yuuji’s bones. Against all odds, Yuuji feels the sweep of a whispering breeze whip through the room. It barely ruffles his hair and is not cold in the slightest, yet still, his skin is covered with goosebumps.

There is no doubt in his mind that something ancient is in the room with them.

The hair on the back of Yuuji’s neck rises as a rumbling growl drifts out from the darkness. Nearly subsonic, it is a predator’s warning for lesser beings to flee while they have the chance. A sound that demands ultimate submission from anyone unlucky enough to be close enough to hear it. Yuuji’s neck aches with the sudden urge to yield itself, though he grits his teeth against it. The bloom of fresh blood on his tongue reinforces his resistance as he forces himself to keep his head straight, eyes fixed on the darkness in the direction where the growl originates from. 

“Throughout Heaven and Earth,” Gojo’s deep voice murmurs softly, his words carved around his growl— and oddly enough, Yuuji thinks he can hear multiple voices hidden within the layers of the sound. “I alone am the Honored One.” 

Light bursts through the room.

Dramatic. Yuuji immediately thinks to himself, though he can’t deny the way his heart thuds hard in his chest from the surprise of it. He squints against the sudden onslaught, though the light itself is not that bright and finds himself standing in the center of a large, circular room. 

The domed, wooden ceiling holds the carved, circular window at the pinnacle of its curve and the frame of it is gilded in gleaming silver— nearly a perfect color match to the full moon that lingers high above in the heavens and steeps Yuuji in its pale light where he stands on the dais. The rest of the walls are covered in paintings— No. Yuuji realizes immediately that they are not a series of paintings, but rather one enormous depiction that has wrapped itself around the room. His eyes catch glimpses of silver and gold, a touch of red where it winds a thin, twisting line around the room. The coiled form of a dragon, with scales as bright as snow and starlight, and six yellow eyes cresting along its magnificent head and a large tiger, wounded and wandering through a finely detailed forest of dark trees. It is not difficult to ascertain that the paintings are much more than an artistic design choice, but the visual representation of the story at the center of the Gojo clan’s creation. 

Standing on the dais, Yuuji is surrounded by six tall, shoji screens, spread out at even intervals with three to his left and three to his right. Each of them have been illuminated from behind, revealing the looming silhouette of a person sitting behind each one. However, Yuuji can’t determine any further characteristics about them, given that the lighting has been set to make them appear far larger than he’s sure they are and that it appears as if each of them must be wearing a headpiece that has been crafted into the shape of an eye. Their eerie shadows cast upon the screens make Yuuji feel as though six giant eyes are set upon him— always watching.

Every aspect of the room is grandiose and a bit off-putting in its bizarre purpose, but neither the six shadow eyes nor the painted legend on the walls holds a candle to the true showpiece of the room. A paragon that Yuuji’s gaze is unerringly drawn to makes his breath catch in his throat. 

Several meters away, another dais has been erected— taller than the one that he stands on and made of what looks like pure, white stone, upon which, a large body has been draped across and reclines against a decorative, silver kyosoku. Dressed in ceremonial garments that seemed too fine to have been made in the modern age and instead seem to have been plucked from a time when dragons roamed the earth and the sun loved the moon. The cloth nearly glitters in the low light of the room, made of the most beautiful icy shade, its threads seeming to have been spun from moonlight. However, the draping folds do nothing to hide the broad stretch of muscle and tightly coiled strength of the Special Grade’s physique. As Yuuji’s eyes draw a path up the long line of Gojo’s sprawled body, he is acutely aware that the alpha is much like a lazing predator, secure in its ability to hunt, but simply waiting for some unsuspecting prey to wander a bit too close.

His gaze traces a path up the thick, pale line of the alpha’s throat and finds that his face is devoid of the usual black silk blindfold that he seems to favor. Instead, his snowy hair lays in windswept chaos across his pale forehead, while a loose square of white fabric obscures Gojo’s face. Secured around his temples by a gleaming black cord, the fabric acts as a barrier between Gojo and any who might seek to catch a glimpse of his expression. However, in the exact location of where Gojo’s own eyes would be set into his face, two brilliant blue eyes have been painted upon the fabric. 

Yuuji distantly wonders if the illustration of ethereal blue eyes are merely a representation of the set that the Goddess of Fate had gifted to the man named Gojo. Though they are inanimate, their unblinking gaze has him feeling pinned beneath the weight of a predator’s stare.

“Yuuji Itadori. You stand in the presence of the Honored One,” Says the same booming voice as before, though Yuuji can now tell that it originates from whomever sits hidden behind the screen to Gojo’s direct left. “Illuminated by the light of the moon and beneath the sight of Six Eyes you have been summoned to speak to the knowledge you possess regarding the Ryoumen clan and designs against the great and powerful line of Gojo. Do you stand opposed?” 

Standing before these strangers, Yuuji’s  limbs quiver beneath the weight of their judgment. As if he is a man on trial for a crime he never committed— with testimony he does not know the true value of. Unbidden, his thumb traces the thick line of scar tissue where it stretches across his palm, the tenderness of the recently healed wound still sending a jolt of oversensitivity zipping through his nerves. 

“Do you stand opposed?” The voice repeats sternly and Yuuji realizes that he has been standing in silence for who knows how long.

“N-No,” He stutters breathlessly, voice sounding as though it belongs to some other version of himself— something timid and quavering under the burden of the strange attention he has garnered for himself. It is this thought— the realization that these people might look at him and see him as something broken down and afraid, after everything he has been through — that has him swallowing down the lump of fear and squaring his shoulders. He lifts his chin and levels an even look toward Gojo, staring back at those ancient, blue eyes painted upon the square of white cloth. Refusing to bare his neck, even as the almighty scent of snow and ice and salt burns through his lungs— a serrated edge that slices into him with every breath that is so very different from the softer, more mild version that lingers in the collar of Gojo’s coat. 

“And do you swear to speak no words of dishonesty beneath the sight of Six Eyes?” The booming voice continues.

Yuuji dips his chin ever so slightly, gaze never wavering from the painted eyes. “I swear.” 

There is no way of knowing if they are the correct words expected of him, but there is no denying the utter truth with which he speaks them. 

“And do you claim any other loyalty or devotion to any, but the Honored One, alone?” Asks the deep voice.

Yuuji’s breath catches as his gaze darts across the lazy sprawl of the Special Grade’s enormous body, taking in the danger the alpha exudes so effortlessly while lounging like an Emperor on his throne. For the first time, Yuuji wishes desperately that there was nothing to hide the man’s eyes so that he might see what kind of expression lingers in their depths in the face of Yuuji being asked such a loaded question. 

He resists the urge to fidget as heat crawls up the back of his neck and something sticky pools low in his gut. Yet, his voice hardly wavers as he replies honestly. “I do not.”

There is a beat of silence, in which Yuuji can practically feel the way the others in the room weigh out his response. Six shadowy eyes, cast upon the paper screens, watch him unwaveringly, as though waiting to see if he will crumble or stand true to his words. All the while, Yuuji does his best to remain utterly still, standing tall as he keeps his eyes trained on the alpha lounging against the silver kyosoku. It is because of this, that he sees the very moment that Gojo drags in a deep breath, broad chest rising and falling deliberately before he imperceptibly nods his head, causing the white fabric dangling in front of his face to ripple ever so slightly. 

“The Honored One accepts your word,” The voice announces and the rest of the room seems to release a breath. Yuuji vaguely wonders what would have happened if Gojo had not accepted his word though he’s sure he’d not enjoy the answer. “Yuuji Itadori shall speak.”

Yuuji stands within the column of moonlight that trickles through the high window, entirely aware of its ghostly touch upon his skin— silver and cold and beautiful . The room descends into silence and Yuuji keeps his own mouth shut, feeling as though the rest of the room is waiting for something— though he can’t be sure of what. 

Such a strange, almost other-worldly procedure is not something that he’d expected to take part in and yet, for everything he knows about the Gojo clan, he wonders how he could have expected anything less. Ancient and grandiose and rooted deeply within a mix of myth and magic and reality, the Gojo clan was far more than a simple yakuza family— that much was clear — but he wondered just how deep their traditions ran.

Not for the first time it occurs to Yuuji that he truly has no idea how he’d gotten himself in so deep. How the first few steps into the Underworld had so quickly become a slippery slope, dragging him further and further into a place where he knew nothing— a place where he was nothing.

“Tell us, Itadori,” A vaguely familiar, sultry female voice speaks from behind the shoji door directly to Yuuji’s right. “What have you learned of the Ryoumen clan?”

A deep breath rattles out of Yuuji’s lungs. Uncertainty flickers through him for a moment, wondering if he should answer the person who asked the question or speak directly to Gojo. The Special Grade sits utterly still, hardly even appearing to breathe where he lounges on his own raised dais. On the wall behind the alpha’s head there is a depiction of a faceless man drawn with a pair of bright blue eyes and a shock of white hair, holding a katana raised up and pointing at the silver full moon that is wrapped within the coils of the six eyed dragon. 

The Honored One. 

Yuuji’s mind tugs at the memory of the very first time he’d heard those words spoken. He thinks of how many things have changed since that night. How many things have stayed the same. 

He keeps his gaze locked on Gojo, deferring — for the first time— to the ultimate power that the Special Grade holds. Staring at the blue eyes painted across the white fabric obscuring Gojo’s face, Yuuji opens his mouth and speaks .

His voice hardly trembles, though he is forced to fist his hands at his side in order to hide their shaking. With a concise and unwavering assuredness Yuuji relays everything that he’d overheard from Dagon and his men and everything that he’d come to realize about the dead alpha’s damning words. About Jogo, the drunk man who’d had possession of Megumi at the train station and his apparent connection to the Ryoumen clan. About whoever the illusive Hanami was, who had orchestrated the retrieval and perhaps the destruction of a weapon— and how he believed that weapon to be Megumi— that had the ability to destroy the Gojo clan should it be placed within the hands of the Ryoumen clan. About the fact that the supposed heir of the Ryoumen clan, a man named Sukuna, was hiding somewhere in Kito, but was preparing to make some kind of move on territory presumed not to belong to the Gojo clan, but to the Ryoumen clan— or at least what had once been the Ryoumen clan.

He tells them everything. Beneath the sight of Six Eyes and the pale light of the moon, he peaks until his throat aches and the words run out on his tongue like a river dried up in a drought. And when he has finally finished, he stands before them with his breath rasping out of his lungs, as though he has just run a great distance— and is met with eerie silence. 

A shift goes through the room— one that even Yuuji can sense. Around him, behind each of the six screens, the shadow of six eyes turn subtly toward Gojo where he lounges on his dais. Throughout Yuuji’s retelling the alpha had remained  completely still and if he wasn’t sure of the importance of this odd procedure, Yuuji would think that he’d fallen asleep. But it is as he’s standing before the unblinking gaze of those painted blue eyes that Yuuji’s nose is tickled by the acrid stench of fury seeping its way through the smell of salt and snow that swirls violently through the room. 

Nerves flutter in Yuuji’s belly as the instinctual response of the more primal side of his brain screams at him to submit beneath the onslaught of such a threat. Though Gojo still has not moved a single muscle, the Omegan instincts within him warn that there is danger approaching. 

“You speak the truth?” A soft voice echoes from behind the screen to Gojo’s immediate right— one that he instantly recognizes as Getou’s. Yuuji’s gaze flickers away from Gojo for the first time as he glances toward the shadow of the eye against the paper screen that Getou must be hidden behind. 

“Every word,” Yuuji says with a small dip of his head. “It’s all true.”

“And you are sure of the name that you heard spoken?” Getou continues. His tone is measured, but Yuuji can hear the small thread of tension that winds its way through his words. “The name of the Ryoumen heir?”

Yuuji blinks once, twice, before he nods. “Sukuna. The Ryoumen’s heir is named Sukuna.”

The room is silent once more as his words are weighed and measured. Yuuji is entirely aware of the way that something seems to shift meaningfully amongst the Eyes. Something far larger than he could possibly comprehend the meaning of, though there is no denying the way with which it impacts the rest of the room. Gojo remains still where he rests upon the dais, head cradled against a fist where his arm is elevated on the kyosoku. Enmity sits heavy along every line of his body, tightened further beneath their fine casings. Yuuji can’t help but feel as though he has missed something very, very important. 

Before he can ask— uncaring if he even has permission to ask— the sound of the low, female voice interrupts the tense silence of the room. 

“And what of the alpha, Dagon? The one from whom you heard all of this from?” The voice asks, drawing Yuuji’s attention away from Getou’s screen. “Is it true that he is now dead by your own hand?” 

A choked off gasp catches in Yuuji’s throat. Icy panic slips down his spine at the reminder of what he had done while the iron fist of guilt and shame and horror wraps itself around his lungs, squeezing the breath from his lungs as he ducks his head. Vision swimming slightly, he drops his gaze to the ground, staring at his bare feet, bleached bone white beneath the light of the moon. Crisp memories— unforgettable— of how easily the knife in Yuuji’s hand had plunged through the back of the alpha’s neck and the wet gurgle of the man’s last breaths, force their way through his head. Disgust shudders its way through his limbs while the taste of blood blooms tangy and metallic across his tongue where his fangs have dug themselves too deep into delicate flesh of his inner cheek— viciously biting back the distressed whine that builds in the hollow of his throat. 

He is saved from answering by a sharp voice coming from behind the screen on Yuuji’s direct left. 

“The death of the Ryoumen affiliated alpha, Dagon, has been confirmed to be an act of defense to protect one of our own,” Okkotsu says, his tone devoid of any of the jovial kindness that Yuuji had come to know in it. “You know this.”

“Pardon my wariness in believing the word of a boy who, until very recently, has had no knowledge of our world. Your own, personal bias aside, given the status of your mate’s life and Itadori’s hand in saving it, there is still much to be discussed about how Dagon’s death presents a lack of accountability in the boy’s testimony. Itadori is an outsider and without any other witnesses to the conversation, there is no way to corroborate his statements,” the sultry female voice continues.

“Blood shed for the clan’s protection counts for something,” Another female voice, familiar in its smoky cadence, echoes from behind the screen that sits over Yuuji’s left shoulder. Though he doesn’t turn to follow the sound to its source, his mind is tugged back in time to the fateful night he’d sat in the dressing room below the Fantasy Room and was handed a little white card that had changed the course of his life. “Or have you forgotten the weight of unspoken loyalties and oaths forged in dire circumstances?”

“Spilling blood without knowing the impact of its significance speaks not to loyalty, but survival instinct. I maintain the opinion that Yuuji Itadori killed the Ryoumen affiliated alpha in cold blood, not due to any allegiance to the Gojo clan, but out of self preservation,” The other female replies sternly. “And so, I reiterate my point, in that, with the elimination of the source, the credibility of the information provided by the boy has become null and void.”

Yuuji winces beneath the weight of such judgment. Hands tightening into fists at his sides, the mysterious woman’s words ring in his ears over and over again. All the while he struggles against the tide of blood— blood that he spilled with his own two hands — that threatens to rise above his head and drag him beneath its waves.

“Then what are we to make of such personal sacrifice made in the name of the Honored One?” The deep male voice that had ushered him into the room asks pointedly. “To kill for the sake of someone else means to shed all parts of the person you were before the act was committed. Do you mean to say that we should disregard Itadori-san’s forfeit of who he was before this happened?”

The man’s words are brutally honest in a way that Yuuji is not ready to accept. His nails bite into the palms of his hands, gouging bloody crescents into the soft skin. A quiet kind of rage begins to build in the pit of his belly as he listens to the volley of voices speak about him as though he is not standing before them. As though the murder he had committed was something to be taken apart, like a carcass beneath the tender attention of a pack of vultures— he wonders how much more he has to give before he will be picked clean, himself.

“I mean to bring attention to the oddity that a mere boy, who apparently has no connections to our lifestyle, has gathered intelligence that even our most trained operatives have been unable to ascertain. I mean to proceed with proper caution around a child who has somehow managed to accumulate evidence that has eluded us for years about the Ryoumen clan’s very existence. And above all, I mean to rationally understand the motivations that a seemingly normal civilian would have to commit murder so easily in the name of a man that he did not know existed until very recently… Or so he would have us believe,” The woman says scathingly.

“I didn’t—” Yuuji says, his voice is nothing more than a shredded whisper of despair. Easily lost beneath the cacophony of the argument going on around him— debating the legitimacy of the murder he had committed.

“You seem to have wilfully forgotten that the boy has proven himself before this moment,” Getou’s soft voice interrupts, echoing coldly from behind the screen to Gojo’s right. “The fact that he found the stolen heir and kept him safe regardless of his affiliation to a powerful clan and risked personal injury to keep him out of the hands of our enemies speaks to his trustworthiness when it comes to his loyalty to the Gojo clan— previously known, or otherwise.”

A scoff reverberates out from the screen to Yuuji’s right. Disbelief written into the sound as the woman speaks with cold resolve. “Yet another act of ‘selflessness’ that was done without understanding the true weight it carried… One that has, in fact, only raises another point of concern.”

“Point of concern?” Nanami’s even voice speaks up suddenly from behind the last screen behind Yuuji’s right shoulder.

The woman hums deeply. “Indeed. We may talk in circles about the information provided by Itadori-san regarding the Ryoumen clan, but have we all so easily bypassed the curious nature of its timing? Are you all so willing to ignore the fact that the Ryoumen clan has been nothing more than figments of imagination— a mere gathering of whispers — for years and suddenly within the span of a single month, they have leapt out from the shadows and are so willing to be known? Their presence in Hino was not all that unanticipated given how it was their territory before the clan dissolved, but is it truly a mere coincidence that Itadori happened to hear integral information at the club he worked at? After he returned the Gojo heir safely home? I have yet to be convinced that Itadori has not merely acted out of self preservation and has decided to feed us any information deemed necessary to keep the Eyes blind to his true intent of being loyal to the Ryoumen clan.”

“Either he is a boy with no connection to our world or he is an undercover informant who has two-timed us,” The other woman’s voice curls around the room like a plume of smoke, acrid and ominous. “Which one is it?”

Another low scoff rings out in response. “All I’m saying is that people are willing to do anything— say anything — to save their own skin. I don’t understand how any of you could be so easily misled by your misguided gratitude to believe that this is anything but that.”

Yuuji’s chest quivers, lungs trembling as he lets out a breath. The crushing weight of the room’s judgment has him feeling as though he is sinking into the floor— as though he might be dragged right down into the depths of the earth’s core. 

“And all of this to say nothing of the other body that was discovered at the Omega House!” The low female voice snaps angrily. “Another Ryoumen clan member, shot dead with a bullet between the eyes. Found not in the room with the rest of them, but in a private space— one that sources claim to have witnessed Itadori entering moments before the attack began.”

“Your words are beginning to twist in on themselves,” Getou says quietly, “First you claim that Itadori has double crossed us and murdered his informant to sell the idea of loyalty to us while working for the Ryoumen clan. But now you claim that he has committed a second murder? Do you truly think the Ryoumens would so willingly allow the deaths of two of their own for the sake of such a ruse?”

Grateful for Getou’s distraction, Yuuji’s mind flickers towards thoughts of Mai. The way her silhouette looked like some dark, avenging angel in the doorway. Poised with a gun pointed in Yuuji’s direction for the second time— and she did not miss. True to his promise to her, he had not uttered a word of her presence at the club, unwilling to release his odd sense of loyalty to her, even if his life now depends on revealing such information.

“Please,” Yuuji rasps. “It’s not—”

“You are sounding awfully offended by the deaths of those that have threatened our clan recently,” Okkotsu speaks up, his voice edged in a threat.

The female merely hums from behind her screen. “It is our duty as the Six Eyes to look upon things from every angle. Or have your personal attachments deprived you of sight so thoroughly?”

The grating sound of a snarl echoes out from behind Okkotsu’s screen. The air goes taut throughout the room at the blatant sound of such a threat. Yuuji’s knees tremble where he stands, cast silver beneath the moonlight as he bows his head, appearing as though in prayer, though he only makes a single wish for this strange trial to come to an end. 

“I have made no claims against Itadori’s conscience, merely the motivations that bind him. What drove him to commit a murder for a clan he holds no true bounds of loyalty to. What he seeks to gain from this—” The female starts.

“You have made things difficult for no—” Okkotsu snarls.

“Surely we could—” The deep male voice begins.

“I don’t think—” The smoky female voice interrupts.

“And what of—” Nanami’s even tone joins in.

Yuuji trembles as the voices all meld together around him. Eyes clenching shut, he digs his nails deeper into the flesh of his palms, allowing the pain to tether him to reality. The pummel of his heart against his ribs grows harder and faster with each passing moment. And all the while, he can feel the ghostly spatter of blood staining his skin— can hear the wet gurgle of a desperate last breath.

Make it stop. He begs internally. 

Make it stop. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.

“Enough.” 

The word is more feeling than sound. A snarl drawn straight from the depths of Hell, Gojo’s alpha command stops the rest of the Eye’s arguments in their tracks. Every single person in the room goes still, a hush falling across the space as Gojo’s growl rumbles low and threatening, like wild thunder on a winter wind. Yuuji’s stomach clenches wildly, though it is an odd mix of instinctual fear and gratitude that winds its way through his veins. While the sound is pure danger , Yuuji feels it settle deep inside of himself, soothing something that he hadn’t quite realized had been restless. 

“Enough,” Gojo says again, his low voice undercut with a promise of violence should anyone step out of line. “You squabble as children might over nuances that do not matter. Should any one of you truly believe that Yuuji Itadori has spoken anything but truth within my presence, speak plainly. Or else remain silent.”

Not a single voice is raised in argument this time. To Yuuji’s right, where the sultry female voice had come from behind the illuminated screen, there is a soft draw of breath, but nothing more. Yuuji’s knees shake beneath the new weight of Gojo’s direct focus— and most certainly not because of how the sound of his name, spoken in the Special Grade’s deep, snarling tone sets something alight along the length of his spine. 

The sound of sliding silk and the shuffle of fabric reaches his ears and Yuuji finally opens his eyes to watch as Gojo rises fluidly to his feet. A specimen of pure, Alphan prowess, Gojo cuts a fine figure— all tightly coiled muscle, barely hidden beneath the finery he is draped in and towering above the rest of the room due to both the raised dais, his own absurd height, and the sheer magnitude of his presence. 

“The information imparted unto the clan has been given without any other loyalties to cloud their meaning.” Gojo says sternly, the words practiced and firm while the subsonic growl lingers behind them. It is though the voice of the Gods now pour out of Gojo’s mouth— otherworldly and unyielding. “With the divine right that flows within my veins, deposed unto me through the unbroken line of Gojo, I claim this to be true.”

Before Yuuji can try to ascertain the meaning of Gojo’s words, all at once, the lights around the room are extinguished. Plunged once more into pure darkness, Yuuji’s eyes strain against it, mind scrambling in confusion in an effort to catch up to what is happening. The column of moonlight remains as the only source of light, illuminating him in the center of the room like some kind of show piece as he stands there uselessly. The sound of Gojo’s thunderous growl tapers off into silence and though his ears still ring with the Special Grade’s threat, he can barely make out the sound of quiet shuffling at the fringes of the room. There is the soft sound of a door sliding open behind him, however when he moves to follow the sound Gojo’s voice rumbles out of the darkness. 

“Don’t move.”

It does not occur to Yuuji in the slightest to disobey the order. His muscles lock into place, body a rigid line as he stands, waiting beneath the moonlight. The darkness that surrounds him is absolute and serves to make him feel as though he is standing on a pale island in an endless void. However, there is no avoiding the prickle of awareness that drags across his skin as every single nerve in his body hones in on the gaze of the alpha, just beyond his reach. Lingering  in the shadows and watching him covetously. 

Aside from Yuuji’s gently trembling breaths, there is only silence. Though he is utterly aware of the way that the alpha’s gaze seems to circle around him— observing from every available angle while the darkness provides a place to hide— he cannot hear Gojo as he moves throughout the room. Finally, after what feels like a lifetime, he hears the quiet shuffle of silk and the slow, deliberate sound of footsteps moving towards him. Instinctually, the primal part of his brain— the one that has not been able to move past feeling like prey — screams at him to run as an enormous shadow emerges from the darkness. 

The thrum of his heart echoes dangerously in the drum of his chest as Gojo approaches the edge of the dais. Unable to resist the alpha’s command— or perhaps unwilling to — Yuuji remains entirely still. Willing prey, waiting to be devoured.

Without a word, Gojo steps up onto the edge of the platform, leaving behind the shadows that seem to cling stubbornly to his broad shoulders and allowing the silvery light of the moon, that has held Yuuji so tenderly, to embrace him as well. Given how wide the diameter of the dais is and Yuuji’s place at its epicenter, Gojo stands just out of reach.

Perhaps that is for the best… Yuuji thinks to himself as he gazes upon the man before him. Because surely this divine creation— this child of the moon — was never meant to be touched by unworthy, mortal hands. 

With snowy hair that glows pale as starlight and skin bleached of all color, he appears to be nothing more than a carved marble statue— like some kind of tragic immortalization of a beloved, fallen angel, encased in stone. Draped in finery and looking like nothing less than a God, the heir of the Gojo bloodline stands in silence, towering above Yuuji with Fate’s gifted eyes staring unblinkingly from where they are painted across the white fabric obscuring his features. The silver caress of moonlight falls around him like a veil— as though Gojo belongs within its shimmering rays. As though his ethereal beauty is merely a borrowed piece of the celestial body that had blessed his ancestor so long ago and now, standing beneath its light, he has merely been welcomed home within it.

Yuuji doesn’t dare to move. Heart stuttering in his chest, he looks upon the godly figure entrapped in mortal flesh, feeling the utterly encompassing unworthiness that settles inside of him like a stone sinking through still water. Any words he might have thought to say in that moment shrivel up his tongue— curdled by the knowledge that there is no world in which they might ever be enough.

Without warning, Gojo takes a measured step closer. His movements slow and intentional as he comes to a stop with only a few mere inches between their bodies. The moonlight seems to swell around them as the stars vibrate in anticipation— the heavens holds its breath as alpha and omega finally stand before one another with hardly anything to separate them.  

A whimper builds in the hollow of Yuuji’s throat as a wash of heat rolls down the front of his body, exuding off of the alpha’s broad body. Swallowing the yearning noise viciously, he keeps his chin raised so that he can maintain ‘eye contact’ with the painted gaze etched onto the white silk obscuring Gojo’s face. The overpowering scent of salt and snow threatens to nearly choke him as it wafts off of the alpha, but he cannot stop himself from dragging in a deep pull of the smell into his lungs, relishing in the way it burns its way through him, frigid and all consuming. The alpha’s towering form dwarfs him in a way that seems almost abnormal and the difference in their attire is stark enough to be jarring— Yuuji dressed in rumpled, modern clothing and Gojo in such formal attire. Especially with his newly acquired knowledge of the Gojo family’s origins, no matter how mythical they may be, there was no doubt in Yuuji’s mind that the man standing before him was not merely the head of the Gojo clan, but the Six Eyes’ Savior. The Heir of the Moon. Fate breaker. 

The Honored One. 

Who was Yuuji— utterly normal and nothing special— to stand before him?

Still, even as this damning thought ricochets throughout him, he keeps his head tilted upward. Refusing to bare his throat even now— especially now — when it is just the two of them beneath the moonlight. No show. No performance. Just the two of them, chest to chest with their hearts beating in time against their ribs as though they could reach out to one another across the meager distance. Standing beneath the eternal gaze of the heavens that has always, always watched them from above— and has been waiting for so very long to witness this moment. 

“Gojo-sama,” Yuuji murmurs the honorific for the first time, voice breaking slightly beneath the crushing weight of the alpha’s deific presence. Every single thing he thought to say to the alpha upon seeing him again has fled from his mind. Every reprimand, every furious chastisement, every pleading whine that has plagued his thoughts is struck from him at that very moment, leaving him bereft. He does not know what words he can possibly say to fill this moment, but knows all the same that the silence between them is unbearable. “I—”

“Satoru,” Gojo replies softly, silencing Yuuji in an instant. “My name is Satoru.”

Heat blooms deep within Yuuji at the low sound of Gojo’s voice, speaking his given name like a secret. Unbidden, Yuuji’s lips part on a soft exhale as the shape of his name carves a space for itself somewhere within the tender space between Yuuji’s ribs. Sitting warm and protected against the press of his frantically beating heart. 

“Satoru,” Yuuji repeats, consonants and vowels dripping from his tongue like a prayer. 

The alpha’s response is a deep, rumbling noise that mimics the subsonic growl from earlier, however this time there is no threat hidden within it— only content. A shiver rolls down Yuuji’s spine as the sound vibrates into the deepest parts of him. 

“I don’t—” Yuuji breathes out in a rush, head fuzzy with the powerful scent of snow and ice and the inescapable sound of the alpha’s satisfaction. “I don’t understand.”

“Shh,” Gojo— Satoru— hushes him gently, the heat of his breath skimming across Yuuji’s cheeks. “You did well.”

Yuuji’s mouth closes with an audible snap, fangs pressed into the twitching, slick muscle of his tongue as he lets the praise wash over him. Staring up at the alpha’s obscured face, he cannot tell what his expression holds, but there is no denying the way that the air around them is charged with something— something that has never been there before. 

Or maybe, Yuuji thinks to himself, it has been there all along. 

In his peripheral vision Yuuji sees the alpha lift a hand from his side, his movements slow and cautious. The silver thread of his wide sleeve falls down to the crux of his bent elbow, exposing bare, pale forearms, corded with strength that lead into the large, elegant hand reaching unerringly toward Yuuji. There is confidence in the movement and no small measure of restraint— clearly giving Yuuji time to pull away or deny the imminent touch… But he does neither. 

Against everything that his rational mind screams at him to do, while his heart kicks wildly against his ribs, he does nothing to deter Gojo as his long fingers glide effortlessly across the line of his jaw. The very breath is stolen from his lungs as the warm cradle of the alpha’s hand cups his cheek, holding him with delicate firmness— a silent understanding that Yuuji is something worthy of handling with care, despite his ability to endure ferocity. 

And Yuuji, who has surely fallen beneath some kind of spell the moonlight has cast upon them and against all odds, leans into it . 

The sheer size of the alpha’s hand allows it to stretch completely against the side of his face. Gojo’s thumb brushes maddeningly soft against the thin skin beneath Yuuji’s eye, while his fingers notch beneath the cut of his jaw. For a brief moment, Yuuji’s eyes flutter shut at the barest brush of tenderness against his skin before Gojo’s grip gently, yet firmly, shifts and his thumb moves to press at the underside of Yuuji’s chin— effectively baring the length of his throat for the alpha to view. Yuuji stares upward, eyes catching on the full moon that shines high above them as they bask beneath her light, but he still does not pull away. 

Something deep inside of him knows immediately that the intention behind the touch is not to force a show of submission. Given that Gojo does not angle his head to the side to expose the stretch of his covered scent gland, but rather to display the front of his throat. And maybe it is the way that his head swims with the overwhelming power of Gojo’s scent— of his presence — that it takes him a few moments to realize that Gojo is inspecting the dark ring of bruises stretched across his throat. 

A hot rush of something not quite like embarrassment pools low in his belly at the scrutiny and he reminds himself that this is the first time that Gojo has seen him since the night of the attack, therefore he has not witnessed the development of his injuries. As the seconds tick by with agonizing slowness while Gojo silently observes the bruises painted across his flesh, Yuuji feels the unmitigated urge to fill the silence. The need to somehow reassure the alpha that it is not that bad, despite the fact that the proof laid out before him says otherwise. As he’s debating what could possibly be said to put his alpha at ease, Gojo’s fingers twitch minutely against Yuuji’s flesh, tightening for a fraction of a second before they go soft once more. Though his thumb remains pressed beneath Yuuji’s chin, keeping his face raised, the rest of his fingers drift downward to caress the length of his throat, razing a path of heat along the taut skin, everywhere they touch. 

Instinctively, Yuuji’s spine arches the slightest bit so that his body draws closer to the alpha’s warmth. A soft, rumble of approval responds to the movement and the tip of Gojo’s fingers come to rest at the very edge of Yuuji’s scent patch. Mind hazy from the heat between them and the overwhelming scent that surrounds him, Yuuji is powerless to stop the soft, whining breath that trembles out of him as Gojo’s thumb moves away from the underside of his chin, only for it to press softly into the plump curve of his bottom lip.

In the quiet of the dark room, steeped within the light of the moon, a long breath is released from the alpha’s lungs. It is a trembling sound that is tinged with the promise of reverence, both tender and violent in its all consuming nature. Yuuji’s moves without conscious forethought, bringing his own hand up to wrap around the alpha’s wrist— not to pull him away, but to ensure that he stays. 

The warmth of Gojo’s skin sears itself into Yuuji’s scarred palm. The very evidence of what brought him here pressed against the man who holds his life— who holds him — in his hands. Unbidden, Yuuji shifts his face, edging closer into the alpha’s touch as his gaze lingers at the bottom edge of the white silk obscuring Gojo’s face. He can barely make out the strong, pale column of Gojo’s neck as it leads into his razor sharp jawline and the plush curve of Gojo’s lower lip, indented by the vicious point of a deadly fang. 

In the shadows, the alpha’s muscles quiver along the side of his neck as he holds himself rigid and suddenly Yuuji can see the tension, coiled tight as a spring, in every line of the alpha’s body. It strikes him that Gojo is furious. Barely concealed rage quivers behind the gentle touch upon Yuuji’s flesh— the alpha before him no more than a caged beast, pacing in its enclosure. Enraged at the sight of the harm that another alpha has done to him— of the pain that is painted across his skin, so much so that he can hardly contain it. The realization makes Yuuji’s fingers twitch where they remain wrapped around Gojo’s thick wrist.

“Satoru,” Yuuji whispers, lips quivering beneath the press of Gojo’s thumb as he shapes the alpha’s name against it. 

And like a miracle, a shaky breath is pressed from the alpha’s lungs, broad shoulders falling as the tension seems to seep out of him in an instant. The weight of Godliness falling away in an instant, as though it is the sound of Yuuji’s voice that tethers him back to the mortal plane once more. 

“I can—” Yuuji continues quietly, heart thudding hard enough that he’s sure the alpha can feel his pulse where it rabbits against the thin skin of his throat. “I can take care of myself.”

The words fall flat between them. Yuuji winces at how ungrateful they sound— petulance for the sake of petulance. He can’t pinpoint why he thought he had to say them in the first place, other than it feels like a last ditch attempt to hold on to the last defense he’s built between himself and the alpha holding him so carefully. For the sake of his poor, fluttering heart, he wishes that Gojo would break whatever spell of tenderness has taken hold of them— wishes that he would go back to the conceited, flippant alpha that he has come to know him as. If only to spare him from what might occur once all of the walls he’s built around himself come crumbling down. 

Even though he thinks that if Gojo were to do so, something might break inside of Yuuji for good. 

Instead, Gojo’s thumb presses a little bit harder into the curve of his lower lip before it slips softly along the flesh, smearing warmth across the seam of Yuuji’s mouth. The pad comes to rest against his top lip and pushes against the slick curve so that the point of one of Yuuji’s fangs is exposed. Yuuji trembles beneath the touch, every nerve alight as the drag of Gojo’s thumb scrapes against the razor sharp point.

Gojo’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep sigh— the sound of a man collecting the scattered pieces of himself back together. 

“I know you can,” The alpha replies, deep and honest. 

In Yuuji’s dazed brain, he scrambles to recall what it is in answer to. A hot flush drags up Yuuji’s neck and settles into his cheeks at the realization that Gojo has just agreed with him. There is no fight back, no taunting negation, merely a relenting agreement. 

All at once, he is grateful for the way that the moonlight has surely bleached away any of the florid color of pleased embarrassment that stains his face, lest the Special Grade see it and mercilessly use it against him. The alpha’s indirect praise glows warm and molten where it drips like honey between his ribs. Gojo says nothing else, but a hum echoes deep from within the basin of his broad chest. In the next instant, his thumb has released Yuuji’s lip and brushes butterfly soft against the curve of his cheekbone. Skin against skin, heat against heat— and Yuuji is powerless to do anything but tremble beneath it.

The moment is over in less than a heartbeat and Yuuji’s eyes flutter open— though he can’t recall when they had closed— in time to see Gojo brushing the same thumb that had pressed against Yuuji’s mouth across his own lips. Stunned by the sight, Yuuji swallows back a quiet gasp. The alpha drops his hand and takes a deliberate step back, leaving the intimate domain created between them. He takes his heat with him and Yuuji is left standing drenched in frigid moonlight, utterly bereft and entirely alone. 

“Miwa will escort you back to your rooms,” Gojo says as he takes another step back until he comes to stand at the edge of the platform. Standing tall and lethal, bathed in the moonlight and looking once more like an untouchable God that Yuuji has no right to reach for. Yuuji braces himself as his knees threaten to give out beneath him with the urge to fall to the floor in worship. 

“Wait— Satoru,” Yuuji murmurs, voice tinged with the desperation of a devotee. 

Satoru holds up a hand between them, though it is unclear what kind of warning it carries. Still, Yuuji bites down on the rest of the words that knock against the backs of his teeth, begging to be released. 

“Goodnight, Yuuji,” Gojo says, voice deep and achingly soft.

Before Yuuji can form the words to respond— before he can make his mind comprehend what just happened— Gojo slips silently off of the dais and back into the cover of darkness. Like a wraith returning to shadow, Gojo is there one moment and gone the next.

Three heartbeats pass before Yuuji draws in a gasping breath. Stumbling forward a step, his hand half raises in front of him, reaching out— as though a mortal might ever have any hope of catching a God. He stops himself quickly as reality shatters the strange bubble around him, feeling the sudden burn of humiliation at the realization of what he was about to do. Listening carefully, there are no further signs of movement in the room, only silence and the thundering cadence of his heart. It is hard to tell how long he stands there, staring into the pitch black surrounding him and wondering why he hoped against hope that Gojo might re-emerge. 

Finally, from behind him, comes the sound of the doors opening. Steeped in confusion and no small amount of embarrassment, Yuuji turns to find Miwa’s silent figure illuminated by the lantern in her hand, standing in the wide doorway. Without a word, he steps down from the dais and makes his way toward her, unwilling to stay in the room any longer if it meant being so totally alone. 

Still, he cannot help but spare one last look over his shoulder as he passes through the open doorway, only to find the last remnants of silver moonlight slipping away and leaving nothing but darkness behind.

Chapter Text

Against all odds, Yuuji manages to sleep after he returns to his room.

The moon hides herself away behind the dense cover of clouds that sweeps in on a sudden wind, drawn like a curtain across the midnight sky and Yuuji is powerless to resist the wave of tiredness that settles over him as Miwa leads him back to the Wive’s Wing. He bids Miwa a lackluster goodnight, all too eager to leave behind the strange, formal customs that he has been forced to participate in. Crossing to the bed, he drops himself heavily onto the plush surface and does not think too much about how easy it is for him to reach for Gojo’s coat and tuck himself beneath it. The heavy pull of exhaustion that creeps into every corner of his soul is nothing less than a culmination of everything that has happened in the last few days. It is a weight that drags his eyes shut before he has a chance to realize that he is tumbling head first into unconsciousness.

Any dreams he has are swiftly forgotten— a mere tangle of color and shadows, shapes and blank spaces, images that are nonsensical and oddly disturbing in their nature. Buoyed by the weightlessness of sleep, he winds his way through the innermost sanctum of his unconscious mind, free from the troubles of unraveling the strange web of dangerous secrets that he has found himself wrapped up in in real life. 

A voice, sweet and soft and achingly familiar, calls to him from deep within his memory, though he is too far gone, floating in the abyss to understand the words or their meaning. And by the time he wakes, he cannot remember any part of them at all.

His body rises swiftly to the surface of consciousness, leaving behind the world of darkened dreams. Though the sun is well past risen, it hides behind the same cover of steely clouds that had obscured the moon, casting the room in gloomy, gray light. Wind rattles against the window panes and whistles through the barren trees along the mountainside, heralding the approach of a storm. 

Yuuji’s eyes creak open, sleep sticking gritty against his lashes as he blinks into awareness. Coddled in the cocoon of warmth surrounding him, the howling wind sounds particularly unforgiving and the sight of snow flurries spraying against the window makes a shiver tremble down his spine. He burrows deeper into the soft embrace of Gojo’s coat and realizes that one of his arms has found its way into one of the sleeves. Body lax and mind drifting on the easy waves of unimportant matters, he buries his nose against the thick collar where the alpha’s scent is strongest. Allowing himself to breathe in slow and deep, relishing the cool burn of Gojo’s scent as it slips down his throat.

Automatically, the scent yanks him back into the fresh memory— still so vivid in his mind’s eye— of standing in the moon’s silvery embrace with Gojo— 

No. Satoru. 

The way the alpha had towered above him, broad and solid, dressed in fine clothes and smelling of sheer power. The heat of his hand cradled against him and the press of his thumb against his lip, revealing his fang for tender inspection. The way Yuuji had most certainly not imagined the way that Satoru had lifted that same thumb to his own lips and grazed it across the soft curve of flesh— the most indirect of kisses. 

Yuuji shivers and inhales a desperate gasp against the collar of the alpha’s coat, sucking in a mouthful of the salt and snow scent while a fever flushes through him. Deep in his belly something unnamable curls hot and sweet— sticky like melted honey, as it gathers inside him.

His mind provides a detailed recollection of just how big Satoru’s frame truly is. Standing bowed over him, neck arched imperiously as he gazed down at Yuuji from behind the white silk obscuring his face. Wide shoulders blocking out the world beyond his presence— overwhelming— as though he was the only thing Yuuji should be focused on. The Special Grade was nothing less than a perfect genetic combination, honed by generation after generation of powerful alphas before him. Destined to carry forward an ancient bloodline, unbroken by the test of time and only having become more worthy of the title as the strongest. Standing before him in clothing pulled straight out of the past and drenched in silver like a fallen piece of the moon, Yuuji was entirely inclined to believe the myths surrounding the alpha’s lineage because surely , Satoru Gojo was the closest thing to a God that might ever walk the earth.

For the first time in his life, Yuuji had felt every inch the omega his secondary gender presented him as. Though he’d always taken pride in how powerful his own body was and the muscles he’d willingly strengthened and trained, while standing in the alpha’s shadow Yuuji felt utterly small. Delicate in a way that he has never quite identified with, given his secondary gender and the characteristics put upon omegas by default in a society that all too often viewed them as less than. And yet, even with the effortless way with which Gojo had firmly manhandled him, all without losing a shred of the softness in his touch, Yuuji had never felt less than anything. 

In fact, he’d only felt more.  

An undeniable sense of protection had come with standing in the alpha’s presence— so different from the overbearing way Gojo wielded himself before. The undeniable dynamic between them, made all the more apparent by the way that Yuuji had allowed himself to slip into a place of submission. Because although his scent gland was never once laid bare to the Special Grade, the way he melted into his touch without complaint was submission all the same— one that he could all too easily imagine craving— coveting— for himself in the future. 

Molten heat floods through him at the half-formed ‘ what if’ that forms in his mind, unbidden of any logic that might linger within him. Thoughts of the alpha’s fingers pressed so sweetly against his skin, never tight enough to harm, but firm enough to offer no escape. The syrupy sweet trickle of warmth swims through his veins, burning hot enough that sweat begins to dampen the nape of his neck. Thighs rub idly together, the muscles in his legs clenching and releasing in slow, aching movements that are merely a hint of the friction that he truly craves while a needy whimper builds in the back of his throat. 

Tucking even closer to the collar of the coat, his jaw hangs slack and his mouth opens wide, greedily dragging the scent of salt and snow deeper into his lungs— as deep as it can go until it might become part of him and never leave again. A telltale slickness trickles out of his slit, dampening the material of his briefs that have pulled taut between the lips of his cunt. His hips twitch forward in a half aborted grinding movement that is hardly enough, though it makes his clit pulse with heat as slick cotton tugs against it. A desperate sound ekes out of him, breathy and entirely unfamiliar to any kind of noise he’s ever made before and it is that which makes the warm, golden haze of his arousal grind to a sudden halt.

As if a bubble has just popped, the cold reality of his reactions— and the source of their motivation— comes back to him in stunning clarity. Eyes wrenching open, Yuuji shudders in shame while attempting to stamp out the lingering embers of heat inside him. A wince tugs at his face as he feels his pussy give a weak flutter, as though in complaint for being so harshly denied what had been a promising orgasm. A creeping sense of betrayal shocks his overheated system as he turns himself over onto his back and wrestles his arm out of the coat sleeve. Shoving the material away from him, he sucks in long, measured breaths of the clean air— even while the remnants of the alpha’s heady scent still cling to his flushed skin. 

Sweat dews across his forehead and his scent gland pulses in time with his slowing heartbeat, while the heat pooling between his thighs refuses to fade. 

“Get a fucking grip, Yuuji,” He mutters to himself aloud, glaring at the ceiling and trying in vain to summon some more anger at his body’s treachery. It’s no use trying to pretend as though he is not— at least a little bit— attracted to Gojo—