Chapter Text
It was Shouta’s birthday, a gloomy November day made gloomier because it was his twentieth. In only two months, he’d come of age. In roughly two months he’d be out of the omega house and into an uncertain future with no home or livelihood secured yet. He stared blankly at the booklet explaining state benefits for people - omegas - like him. If he was lucky, he’d be approved for a year of an income and a subsidized room until he could get on his feet, doing who knows what. His options were limited. He’d wanted to be a hero once. He tried not to want that anymore. It was impossible, as impossible of a dream as being a happily mated omega. If only he hadn’t wanted it so badly, he could have avoided the mistakes that ruined his life before he was even a proper adult.
He had a quirk with no offensive use, and he was small and slight for his age, even for an omega. He should have listened to the people who’d pointed out that he’d be useless as a hero. He realized now that they were being kind, hoping to save him suffering with the wisdom of their longer life experience. Shouta had taken it as an insult instead, and then as a challenge. He’d even thought that he could use his omega status to his favor, and had accepted a proposal from a business associate of his father’s when he was fifteen. The man wanted children, not to be tied down to an omega. He had money. Shouta would give him what he wanted, and his alpha would pay his tuition and not get in his way when he graduated as a hero. It was an ideal situation, they’d both get what they wanted without stepping on each other’s toes.
It lasted a little over a year.
Shouta was sore and frustrated from the daily trying, then sick to his stomach and achy from the hormone shots and pills he’d had to take on top of it. None of it made any difference. He’d been taken to one doctor and then another, each one giving him false hope, until the treatments and tests piled up to the point where they had no choice but to tell him that it was hopeless. It wasn’t his alpha. It was him.
It wasn’t that he’d had strong feelings for his alpha. It wasn’t even the knowledge that he wasn’t capable of having children. He didn’t really want any, it just wasn’t sensible for a hero to be tied down like that. It was instead the thought that he was broken, that there was one more thing about him that didn’t make the cut, one more way that genetics had cheated him of the life he’d dreamed of.
He’d had just a taste of it at UA. He’d studied and trained harder than he thought possible. He’d defied the odds, taking down one cocky hero course student after another, the whole while so sore that he was barely able to walk. The last one, a lanky blond, hadn’t stood a chance once his quirk was activated. He’d gone down over the sweeping kick of Shouta’s leg, and he could still hear the roar of the crowd in his mind. He’d done the impossible. He was going to be a hero-
Until he wasn’t.
He couldn’t blame his alpha much for selling him off. He’d failed at the one task he’d been asked to do, and UA was expensive. Only now, he was used goods: tainted, defective, unwanted. He wasn’t even beautiful, which could have been his saving grace as someone might have taken pity on him if he were easy on the eyes. He wasn’t especially skilled in anything omegas were wanted for, and his grades... well. No one wanted an intelligent omega, unless it was to pass it on, which he couldn’t. His possibilities were diminishing. If an alpha took him on, he’d likely work for him, or at least he hoped so. He’d heard of some who were little more than a pimp, though he was assured again and again that the omega house vetted their alphas, and none of them were like that.
Well of course they weren’t, until they were. That was what Shouta never said in response, as it would get him nothing but trouble.
The other option was to struggle in poverty, which didn’t seem too bad if you didn’t think too hard about it- but Shouta was cursed with a very rational mind. He was going to suffer no matter what. He wondered if he should try to commit suicide. He didn’t want to die, especially not in any way that seemed like it would work, but having as many choices as possible was a small comfort to him. It was a plan he’d never carry out, but it was there, an alternative to whatever would happen to him.
“Shou-chan.” the cloying voice of the house mother disturbed his sulking. She set a tray on the table next to him on which was a single cupcake with a lit candle, and a packet wrapped in gaudy paper. He raised an eyebrow in surprise. Each month there was a small party for the omegas who had birthdays, but he’d never seen anyone given individual attention.
“Well, go on, dear. Open it.”
He pulled open the paper and found a thick manilla envelope inside. He frowned as he pulled out his records.
“It’s your marriage license, dear! Your new alpha has already signed everything. Your last birthday with us, and your gift is a wonderful new life and a new name. Aren’t you happy, Yamada-san?”
“What?” Shouta stared at her blankly as her words began to sink in. Married. He was married again. His heart was racing in panic. Who purchased an omega sight unseen? A used, infertile one at that? It was a pimp, it had to be a pimp. This was the worst day of his life, even worse than the day he’d had to leave UA. He was going to be sold like meat and there was no legal recourse.
“Who... is ‘Yamada’?” His voice was thick and cracking. Yamada, he was Yamada now, his own name taken from him for the second time in his life.
“A young Hero.” The house mother smiled. “Just getting started, but he’s employed by a top agency. He must already have a comfortable income to have come here, and it will only get better. You’re getting in on the ground floor.” she winked at him.
A hero. A bitter heat spread through his chest, anger and resentment toward this unknown alpha. A smug asshole who had what he’s always wanted, and thought that he could just march in here and purchase an omega without so much as an introduction-
But, he could, of course, and he had. Shouta deflated with a sigh. At least he wasn’t a pimp. Maybe.
“Let’s get you ready for your new life.” She stood, squeezing his shoulders from behind.
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Shouta packed his bags and tidied his dorm. He showered and shaved, and put on his best pair of jeans and his nicest gray sweater. He let the house mother drape a long white veil over his head, hanging to his waist. He waited in one of the receiving rooms, nervously toying with the lace trim. Some loud alpha was talking and laughing a few rooms over, distracting even through the walls. Idiot. If there was one positive thing to his leaving here, it was that he wouldn’t have to listen to boorish morons trying to get an omega to smile for them.
He stiffened as the heard footsteps approach.Through the veil he could see the house mother opening the door wide, and trailing behind her, a tall alpha. Long blond hair was tied up in a half bun, sweeping against the collar of a leather jacket with absurd spikes on the shoulder pads, practically cartoonish. He wore a pink shirt and ripped jeans tucked into leather boots with more garish boot straps decorating them.
“Shou-chan, this is your husband and alpha, Yamada Hizashi. Yamada-san, Shouta is delighted to be your bride.” She cooed, and Shouta fought back the urge to wince at the sound.
The alpha grinned, and peered down at the shape Shouta made in the veil. “Are you gonna come out?” he asked, lifting the hem of the fabric and leaning down and close to look him in the eyes. His hand raised, and cupped Shouta’s cheek. Shouta looked uneasily back, meeting uncanny green eyes framed by red glasses on a face that might be called handsome if not for a ridiculous little moustache. The rest of the outfit didn’t help, to be honest. Still, there was something familiar about him that made Shouta want to stare even as he mentally berated the other.
The alpha-Yamada’s- face split into an impossibly wide grin, and something that looked oddly like relief, a wet reflection against his eyes. “I’m so glad that I found you, Shou! I’m going to make you so incredibly, wonderfully, absolutely happy!”