Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It happens in broad daylight.

Snow falls lazily, the noon sky a bleached gray above the quiet winter woods of Hokkaido. Satoru is answering his usual weekday distress call from the Higher Ups—a Grade 1 sorcerer happening rather unfortunately upon a Special Grade curse—and after an hour of hiking he finally walks a fresher trail of broken brambles and hasty prints in the damp forest dirt. Residuals of cursed energy are a thick splatter across the empty canopy. Earth sits overturned ahead of him, snow dunes disrupted with newly felled trees.

Slashes; neat yet devastating; spiderwebbed in every which way he looks. The woods are deathly quiet, too.

Whoever this Grade 1 is—or was—he’s genuinely impressed.

And then he sees it. A blip at first, behind his blindfold.

Satoru falls to his knees no less than a second later.

He hits the ground with a gasp, all six of his eyes gone blind at hazel aglow and wide, Infinity dropping at pupils thinned to feral slits.

It’s a man, and he raises up from a full and deciduous thicket, features barely visible beyond the viscera and mud caked onto him and his tattered clothes from head to toe. His scent is buried underneath it, not a whiff of him to be found, and still Satoru’s pulse pauses in his chest so hard it knocks another breath out of his lungs. Still, it doesn’t stop him from feeling that intense knowing, the blood in his veins singing high and long next to the elated howl of his begging instincts.

Omega Primus.

The omega takes half a step closer. There’s something sharp in his hand, as covered in mud and guts as the rest of him, and in the next moment the forefront of Satoru’s brain starts to shove its way back online.

The cursed energy raging violently against his. The Grade 1 sorcerer he is supposed to be recovering.

The clear lack of Special Grade curse in the vicinity.

“You exorcized it..?” He whispers, breathless.

The omega only stares, but Satoru is not truly expecting an answer. Far as he can see, he doesn’t see a curse, and right now, in his Eyes, the fact that the omega is alive—feral, yes, but alive... To him it is more than evidence enough.

Something buried far down inside of Satoru shakes loose. His mind races wild again, alpha viciously sharp and prying at the edges. An abrupt bloom of pride next to the flood of relief starting up in his chest. What else but something so his could wreak such lovely havoc?

And this omega—this omega is his. He knows that he will never have another, now. Never look at another; picture another; will never accept any other cursed energy brushing up against his, powerful and overflowing and starting to pulse against the air.

Mate, his alpha croons, our mate, and the realization of it all moves him on a breathtakingly molecular level.

This omega had been stuck against an unregistered Special Grade for who knows how long.

Fought for his life so terribly that he’d been stripped down to nothing but instinct.

Lost his mind and won...

Satoru sinks his palms against the broken earth and deepens his posture. He will give this omega whatever he desires. If it is asked, Satoru will sit and learn to retwist the seams of atoms until he turns silver into gold. He will walk earth and then he will walk space, Satoru will give it all with his dying breath.

A low rumble builds in his chest, meant to coax and soothe and reassure his omega that he comes in perfect peace. The subaudio burr echoes around the woods with a rattle amongst the naked treetops, and he holds his bow, his promise, while he waits for the omega to acknowledge his submission. Limitless or not, mate or not, he is careful not to make a single wrong move. This is still an omega forced into the feral state of survival, and the gauge of his strength is something that already sits heavily on Satoru’s tongue.

If the Omega Prime wishes it then the alpha will let him land a killing blow—and knowing that the omega really can strikes a solidifying chord of satisfaction in him.

Slowly, Satoru bares his throat. Bares his life, as his world flips so suddenly right-side up.

A quiet trill meets his burr. It’s short and strained but it is there, a curt answering call into the still of the snowy atmosphere.

Acceptance.

Satoru wants to jump for fucking joy.

Instead he remains respectfully still, gaze half lidded and steady as the omega shuffles near, exhausted yet unwavering in his trajectory. He comes to a halt half a step away. Satoru’s fingers twitch, lungs expanding too big with emotion at the fact that the omega has not clocked him, the world's greatest threat, as docile enough to approach.

The omega falls heavily to his knees, mirroring Satoru’s bow at a far lesser angle. Satoru’s burr grows deeper in welcoming appreciation. Another short trill and finally he sits up, meeting glorious molten hazel once again, and for several thumping heartbeats they merely stare at one another until the omega starts to lean in.

Before now there is no way on earth that Satoru would let a partner, omega or otherwise, move in to scent him first—allowing an act like that is far too vulnerable for a man like himself—but instead of the usual mode of upset and ick he feels nothing but rapture. His omega is accepting his submission, accepting him, his alpha. He’s putting his trust on a platter and handing it to Satoru for safekeeping just like that.

Satoru will cherish it forever.

The omega’s nose is chilly along the column of Satoru’s throat, uniform tugged away as he takes his time before properly shoving his face into his neck to rub against him. Satoru doesn’t dare attempt to scent him back right now, overly aware of the feral energy still radiating harshly in the winter air. It’s practically all he’s aware of, the caked on dirt and curse blood doing a proficient job in hiding the omega’s scent.

A hot, wet lick draws a cold stripe up the side of Satoru’s throat; under his jaw to seal the marking, lips closing gently but firmly over his throbbing scent gland.

Satoru groans underneath the rumble still burring in his chest, low and wanting as his entire body lights up with the stark electric pleasure of being this powerless. He’s in horrible danger within the proximity of a feral omega like this, and yet every cell in his being is fucking thrilled at the newfound attention.

Another lick, another suck followed by a gentle scrape of teeth.

“Alpha.”

Satoru claws his fingers into the earth at his sides at the sound of his omega’s voice—at the first word he hears being the very award he sought through his submission; spoken on such a lovely hazy timbre.

Fuck jumping for joy, he is going to straight up cry.

“Yes, Omega?” He murmurs sweetly.

The omega leans back, looking up at Satoru with a gradually clearing gaze. The glow there is lessening, pupils slowly starting to round out. “You came for me.”

“I did,” Satoru says, and honestly he wishes he could’ve seen it; chides himself for not arriving sooner. “Of course I did.”

And it doesn’t even matter that they didn’t know each other before. They have each other now. He has Satoru until the end of eternity. Nothing else but that matters.

The omega seems to sigh at his answer, shoulders drooping, cursed energy coming to an ebbing dwindle.

Another sign of trust that squeezes at Satoru’s heart.

“Can we go then?” The omega asks, growing quieter still. He ceases his rumbling in return. “It’s getting...cold..”

Shit, is he..? Shit. If only he could catch even a tiny whiff beyond the blood and dirt. He’s trained his Eyes for a lot of things but how to spot the signs of an omegan post-feral crash in place of his nose is certainly not one of them.

He considers all of his options for a split second, but the alpha can do nothing save what is asked.

“Anywhere,” Satoru whispers back vehemently, “come here, Omega. Tell me.”

The omega tips forward with another weary sigh and rests his head on Satoru’s chest.

His heart skips, hard, and he flushes warm and pleased at how uninhibited the small act is.

“Shower,” comes the eventual answer.

Satoru doesn’t think twice about it. He wraps an arm around his omega’s waist and rips them through reality.

Chapter Text

The garden of the inner western wing at the Gojo Estate is as it was this morning. Satoru hears the soft gurgle of the pond and the rustle of the pines before his knees even settle atop the grass.

In his arms, his omega is letting out a confused and upset pitch, an edge of panic to the low sound. “Okay, yeah—I’m—” Satoru hurriedly drops his hands and speaks in an apologetic hushed tone, “shh sh.. I didn’t mean to scare you, it was just the quickest. It’s okay. I’ll explain it later, you’ll get used to it, I promise—”

The shoji at the engawa behind him slides open.

“Gojo-sama?”

Fingers tighten in the chest of his uniform at the appearance. Another low vibration, this one accompanied by the beginning of a warning growl, and Satoru watches keenly as the omega’s shoulders rise up defensively to his ears. He’s already barely calmed out of his survival state, and Satoru acknowledges that he is dumb as fucking rocks for not considering the fact that being warped through space-time would be of no help in that regard.

Yet it is the presence of house staff that’s really set him off.

The omega’s lilting growl grows antsier. “Alpha..”

Ah, that precious earthen voice—the need in it—the fact that this mark’s twice now, his omega purposefully seeking him out as a solution in discomfort. His omega, his mate, so readily relying on him so very soon... it positively zings through his being.

Satoru sits up into his height on his knees immediately, because even if he can’t smell him yet, his instinct just as easily tells him what his mate wants. It truly is such a startling new feeling for him, and he buzzes with the awe of it as he moves into action. He renews his protective hold and uses his stature to shield the omega, still halfway into his lap, from the prying eyes of his Head of Servants.

“Clear the house,” he tosses the order over his shoulder, wondrously calm as he keeps his gaze on his mate, “send everyone home, Jin-san, and don’t come back until I call for you.”

A swiftly closed door and retreating steps, but the omega’s hackles remain raised. “It’s alright. We’re alone,” Satoru reassures quietly, coaxing, “no one else will come. Here, you wanted to shower, remember? It’s that way—can you stand? Are you—?” As he asks it, he finds himself frantically scanning the omega’s body with Six Eyes. How could he be so foolish not to check if his mate was injured? “—are you hurt?”

The omega is silent in his lap, his growl having died out during Satoru’s brief ramble. “…No,” comes the tepid reply, “not gravely. Yes, I can stand.”

A second later proves that he can’t stand alone, yet nothing but more pride flickers through Satoru. More elation. “Such a strong omega,” he murmurs thoughtlessly; meaning it, as he lets the man lean into his side.

He barely receives a hum in return, and Satoru looks down to see the omega taking in the sprawl of the silent minka. Something overtakes him briefly—does he not like it? Would he look at Satoru crazy if he hands him his money and informs him that he can redecorate however it is he wishes to; that this is his now, all his, from now until the end of forever?—but the omega only presses a little closer to him, wordless, and quickly scatters Satoru’s train of thought until it’s nothing but an endless loop.

Omega wants to bathe. Bring him to water. Get him clean. Omega wants to bathe. He wants to bathe.

Satoru steadily leads his mate through the halls skirting around his personal chambers, opting for the empty suites across his wing’s main rooms.

He’s been nothing but exceedingly tame since and despite the shock of the teleportation, but that doesn’t mean the slightest thing—like being too close to Satoru’s den, too soon—still can’t set him off. Satoru has already thwarted one bad interaction, no need to make room for the possibility of others.

“You can wash here, Omega,” he explains once they’ve entered the empty suite’s master restroom, “there is a bath through those screens there as well, feel free to soak as long as you like—”

“My name is Nanami Kento.”

Oh.

Satoru’s brain feels like it just caught fire.

Kento. That’s the name of his mate. Perfect and strong, just like the omega himself.

“Nanami Kento,” He whispers back, savoring the rightness of the repetition; the searing that scores across his brain; Kento; his; his his his his. “Kento. I am—”

“Alpha.”

Haah.. Satoru hides a shiver. “Yes,” he answers, unable to help the syrupy way his voice dips.

Instinct-bright eyes flick between his despite the blindfold. Appraising clearly despite the thinned pupils. “I know of you already, Alpha.”

Satoru’s inside’s turn saccharine-warm. “You do?” He asks stupidly, far too awed by the notion of his omega already knowing him to supply the very obvious reason as to why.

“Yes.” Kento says simply, unlatching from Satoru’s side. He feels the loss immediately, his hands clenching at the air as he forces his arms to settle at his side, chastising his hindbrain for fussing over the small distance now between them.

Kento peers into the shower stall, from the marble tiling to the sterling inlay. His shoulders aren’t bunched up anymore, the cast of his feral energy a slowing wave between them.

He doesn’t appear to be crashing...

The alpha sings on the inside, prideful and joyful even while Satoru tempers relief. His omega really does seem to be comfortable around him.

“I will bring you clothes.” Satoru fights to keep his lungs working evenly. “Whatever else you want, just call for me, I won’t be far. And take as long as you like. You’re safe here.”

“Alright,” Kento murmurs, “I trust you.”

Satoru feels like crying again, but he can’t right now so he fucking preens instead, turns his head until he is sure the spot where Kento left his little mark is visible in his willing show of submission. Of both confirmation and remembrance.

“I know you do.” The alpha rumbles happily.

Kento lets out that same short trill from before, nodding Satoru’s way in further acknowledgement, and then again in polite dismissal.

Task in hand, that elation still so electric in his veins, Satoru carefully extracts himself from Kento’s space. He makes his way across the western wing into his own den, deeming the distance safe enough to stay within should his omega have any need for him.

He hadn’t appeared to be crashing, but his Eyes and nose are not interchangeable. He refuses to even consider the risk of venturing too far away.

Not that he really can, or even wants to, and he takes a moment to reel in the newfound awareness of this, the intensity of it, how the alpha’s more surface-like primal urges practically near override instead of their usual insist.

It’s almost like he’s discovered how to see all over again, only this time with a lodestone at his epicenter. If he was anyone else but who he is, he’s sure that his instincts would’ve completely snagged the reins by now.

He would be in there licking his omega clean regardless of permission, if he let himself give in.

Satoru does his best to snuff that thought. He returns to the suite across and deposits two yukata on the bed, first is pressed and washed and the other he rolled out of bed with just this morning.

It’s only his rationale that prompted him to bring a fresh one; the alpha practically vibrates with eagerness at the thought of Kento finding his acceptable to wear.

His phone goes haywire then, no doubt the Higher Ups wondering where he’s suddenly vanished off to.

Satoru frowns as he answers, the only thing on his mind being the severity in which he is about to tell the Higher Ups to fuck off, he can’t come back in even if he wanted to right now—but he presses the phone to his ear and is met with a voice decidedly rather preferable to the usual geezer ringing his private line.

“Oi! The old man is askin’ me about you, idiot, where’d ya go? And where’s my curse cadaver, huh?!”

Satoru laughs. “Shoko,” he grins, “there is no curse cadaver!”

Chapter Text

Satoru doesn’t stay on the phone long. Shoko is more than familiar with the routine of his disappearances, so the moment he starts his goodbyes they hang up without fuss. Aside from the inevitable meeting with the Higher Ups everything is perfectly in place—and even then, he knows very well how to bide his time with those ancient fools.

Sometimes it really does pay to be the sole leader of the most powerful Clan in the country.

Not alone anymore…, the alpha laments.

Taking a slow, deep and centering breath, Satoru closes his eyes behind his blindfold. He pushes at the ends of his mind, clearing away all of the useless, little thoughts that tend to clutter up with Six Eyes and allowing his focus to fully and truly shift.

There’s water running in the room behind him.

It’s nearly as loud as the uptick of his pulse in the silent house.

His mate is in there.

He met his mate today, and they’re showering in the spouse’s quarter, a chamber that has gone largely unused in the entirety of Gojo history.

True Pairings are rare amongst the strong, after all.

Yet here Satoru stands, sentry in the ancestral hall of his name, heady and buzzing with the fledgling claiming mark of a prime omega high on his neck.

A match like this could be seen as even more historical than his very own birth. Six Eyes, wielder of Limitless, the strongest Alpha Prime of his age, the most powerful sorcerer in the world—tied down—marked and mated.

Bonded…

The buzz in Satoru’s body flares much too pleasantly.

His mind flashes with the recent picture of neatly slashed trees and overturned forest floor, clean yet immaculate destruction dusted in freshly fallen snow. His skin tingles with the phantom sensation of how that pressing, feral energy had felt after he’d released Infinity, the breath knocked out of him and his knees cold in the wet dirt.

Fiery hazel eyes.

No Special Grade that he could see..

Curiosity burns intensely through Satoru, right next to an awful pull of desire and intrinsic impatience.

Just who is this mate of his?

How long will he wash for, the alpha huffs.

“Hush.” Satoru lifts his lip at his anxious instincts. The omega will wash for as long as he needs and not a second shorter. Besides, he’s been waiting all this time already—what’s a while more?

+

It was supposed to be recon.

In, out, and back into his hotel room in under an hour with a croissant sandwich from the pier to show for it. Just enough information about the location to smooth his pending transaction with his lead, and just enough time in the cool winter afternoon to appreciate the beauty of the nature surrounding.

Alas, his scouting had yielded immediate and inaccurate results. The Grade 1 curse he’d been set after was in fact no Grade 1.

If only he could remember what happened after he’d slipped.

Mud; ruddy; swirls thickly into the drain at his feet, the steam against his face heavy and soothing. His body thrums as his mind whirs, hitting the same blank wall over and over again.

No matter how hard the omega thinks, he can’t recall a thing of what happened after falling feral.

Droning dial tone on his phone.

Collapse, and then Collapse again.

Blood.

Abyss.

Abyss…

And no matter how hard the omega thinks, he can’t think past a thing save the scent of snow on snow, warm yet alive, and the massive blanket of cursed energy that had coaxed his consciousness to the surface alongside his feral instinct.

The omega had all but seethed at the strength of the pheromones permitting through the fouled winter air, reeled with how quickly it cleared away the dread of gore and ruined earth; the salt of his own hovering desperation as he slowly returned to himself.

It was as if he had blinked for a second too long, the fact that he was actually alive at all more than rocking his equilibrium—but then he woke up.

Mated, and he doesn’t even remember accepting it.

And yet the omega is opposingly willing and content with his place, in the presence of the one that had likely been sent to recover Kento’s remains.

He wants to scream. How did he escape that fuck-awful Special Grade curse? What happened to him?

Why did the omega go and to start a bond at a time like this?

A pensive sort of pressure presses upon Kento then, just at the edge of his mind. Kento’s lip curls as the sense of warning settles underneath his skin, the omega more sensitive than he’s felt in a long time. More awake, and no doubt maintained by the bonding mark.

Frowning, Kento scrubs and scrapes the last of the mud from his sore, buzzing body, unsure of how to process the startling turn his life has just taken—who with.

Dazed, his fingers make their way into his caked hair. He leans harder into the shower’s contrastingly relieving spray. Two days on home soil for the first time in a decade and this is how it treats him.

A True Pairing with none other than Gojo Satoru.

Kento can’t help the prick of frustrated tears behind his eyes, and he blinks them away as he laughs, high but quiet with a sharp bout of hysteria, because what else is he supposed to do?

He’d been warned that this path would take a turn. Who knew that it would bring him here, though?

Chapter Text

 edited 9/3/25.

Kento scrubs his body thrice, washes and conditions his hair for a fourth time, before he finally vacates the steaming shower. His effects are exactly where he left them piled—dead phone, broken axe balancing precariously on the filthy heap of tattered clothes he’d stripped out of, broken watch and wallet and ruined shoes..

Helluva trade off for his life.

How long was he out?

The question loops endlessly in his mind, around and around like horribly scratched vinyl.

He looks at the trail of blood and dirt he’d unconsciously tracked in and winces. Even during his most dire situations he’s never left a mess like this before. The omega might not care, but the off-ness of it sits wrongly within Kento, only adding to the fritz of his nerves; his sense of self.

Of course, he’s never been in a situation this dire...

Sighing; naked and sore but finally starting to feel in his limbs again; Kento pads gingerly across the large bathroom and stops at the sink. He swipes a palm over the fogged mirror, stare lingering on his bruised and busted knuckles before raising to appraise the brown of his own gaze.

Molten brightness lingers in a thin ring along his iris. At the edge of his mind that telling pensive pressure from before loiters, though he supposes he should be grateful that it’s at least lessened.

The omega is quiet, and that’s all he can help to stay.

What did you do? He frowns at himself, fingers lingering along the visage of his busted lip. A hand through his softened hair reveals the long, jagged cut through his left brow he found earlier, red and stinging like the rest of him.

Kento’s reflection bares no answers. For a breath he feels utterly and completely alone. Abysmal blank, over and over again.

Exhaling, Kento ties the towel around his waist and turns away from the mirror.

He can cry later. Right now he’s alive. He’s alive and he still has work to do, a sorcerer to face... He swallows back a wave of heavy conflicting emotion as he makes for the door.

Not just a sorcerer.

Bonded. Paired.

Why?

The omega remains silent.

The knob turns easily in Kento’s hand. He cracks the door and spills light into the dim room that he only kind of remembers being shown into. He braces as he takes in the oaken grandeur of the shadowed space around him, the dark vaulted ceilings and pale, finely embroidered panels.

The air is still and speaks of disuse, though the large space is certainly kept. His own filthy tracks taunt him on the glossy wooden floors—an opulent and far cry from the concrete and carpet that he’s grown used to in the west.

Fuck his life, he really is standing in the home of a clan leader.

He for once recalls a clear memory; the moment he realized who it was that had come to collect him. Even as far as Denmark where sorcerers are few but sorcery is not, the whispers of Six Eyes have reached. Yaga Masamichi had answered his desperate call by sending the strongest Special Grade to his rescue, only for a one in a million connection to form out of the woodwork.

The image of the man’s knees in the dirt flickers by, the severe timbre of his cool voice asking him a question he can’t recall the words to—Kento sees it through a haze at the horizon of his memory. Can almost touch the taste of alpha’s scent…

It is only as it suddenly blooms deep and fragrant under his nose does he realize it’s in his hands. Firm, silky fabric under the careful swipe of his fingers; brushing against his bare skin as he buries his nose along the hem.

He’s walked up to the bed without realizing. In his unbidden greedy hold is the expensive weight of a navy yukata, the calligraphy on the peeking tag too stern for him to piece together. It smells divine. Like early spring mountains and thick forests before a magnificent storm.

Like it belongs to him.

Another, white, smelling of detergent and dryer sheets, sits folded on the corner of the raised mattress. Kento inhales sharply, rearing back from the collar of the robe as the realization hits.

It’s not his—it’s his.

The omega stirs. Kento merely stares, unknowingly holding his breath, the gears turning sluggishly in his head. Is he meant to wear this? Isn’t that a bit much for a pair who has hardly met?

Determined as he is, the anxiety creeps in underneath his skin anyway, icy and achingly familiar.

Fuck his life, he’s really paired.

He grits his teeth as he folds the yukata back onto the bed, unsure how to feel at the offering. He’s.. grateful, but it’s too soon for him to even seriously accept an offer like this.

How could he, when all he knows about Gojo Satoru is that he’s unstoppable? He’s likely only alive because of the alpha decreeing it so—which is to say, Gojo Satoru is the only one between them that knows how their pairing happened…

What if the omega is tamed? He has no way of knowing.

He needs to tread carefully.

Kento picks up the white robe and slides his arms in. It’s solid in comparison, softer and lighter instead of the heavy firmness of the alpha’s linen. Nice by all means, and yet, as he ties it neatly at his waist on his way back into the bathroom, he cannot help the abrupt sense of conflict returning to him once more.

It needles at him as he gathers his things onto the vanity and then unearths a hamper—not that he thinks his wears are salvageable, but only because even weary and bedraggled he can’t stand to leave them on the floor—and it isn’t until he returns to the room that it grows any weaker.

“Whatever,” he grumbles to himself as he carefully sets about exploring around the room, ignoring the strange pain. Soon enough he’s discovered the switch for the sconces lining the wall behind the bed, the covered fire pit in the floor and the large mirror in the back of the closet. Blocked shoji screens meet him. Each drawer he pulls open to inspect yields nothing of interest or note, not even a pair of bloody socks, and by the time he’s standing in the middle of the room again he’s compiled a plan of action.

First, face Gojo Satoru. As much as he’s reluctant to acknowledge it, Kento knows that he won’t get any further without addressing their spontaneous bond. He doesn’t know what the alpha wants of him, but Kento can’t let it stop him from going on his way—he can only anxiously hope that they meet an amicable compromise regarding what to do about it.

Next, he will acquire acceptable clothing and get his phone charged. Check his correspondences and get in contact with Yaga, the embassy.

Kento moves back into the bathroom to fetch his broken axe, thinking to stash it underneath a pillow just in case. He isn’t sure how yet, but he’ll have to deal with restoring his ruined weaponry, too.

The needling feeling comes back. Unthinkingly, as if a moth to a bright beacon, Kento leaves the bathroom and takes up a seat at the end of the bed, right next to the yukata he folded. He fiddles with the leather bound hilt of his axe absently, glaring down at the offending piece of cloth at his side.

The omega wants it, he realizes when he takes a careful whiff of spring rains. A sigh seems to echo within him, pressure lifting as he just as absently trades his axe for the yukata. Kento presses the robe to his nose again; sighs himself; shoulders drooping with the resigned exhale.

Of course the omega is being fussy over the well scented offering. The omega is why Kento is so far from the previously perceived mark in the first damn place..

With that ashen resignation gnawing at his rapidly blanking mind, Kento stands and dons the navy yukata over the white one.

The needling feeling instantly stops, replaced by a whiplash of quiet content. Comfort washes through his body against his conscious will, warm and right.

Kento heaves another sigh.

Fuck his life..!

Chapter Text

Satoru has always been one with himself. Had been trained to be Whole since his eyes first opened, has always moved through his life with the same undoubted control in his baser instincts that he gives his conscience mind; his technique and his power.

Though sometimes he is more than other, feral is not a word that has ever come so close to him—the absence of wit and tact, of awareness… it is a Primal Phenomenon he has never experienced—not even when he died that one time.

He wonders, now, what it takes for the lapse to occur. What is the change like?

Satoru stands. There’s water running in the room behind him, the fledgling claiming mark of a prime omega buzzing heady and high up on his neck.

Would it be rude to ask him, so soon after it just happened?

Haven’t even smelled him yet, the alpha dismisses the urge for query, instantly reshaping his focus with a nudge of urgency. “Haven’t even introduced myself to him..” Satoru murmurs to himself, thinking of how to proceed. He’d completely intended to wait exactly where he was, unwanting to step away just in case, but the alpha feels that there is more to be done.

Should he not prepare to receive his mate properly into his home? The halls should be tidied to ease the omega’s steps. Food and drink should be readied and served hot. Maybe Satoru shouldn’t have sent all of the staff away?

That last thought disagrees with him as soon as he has it. The omega asked for privacy and thus it will remain absolutely unhindered, and the longer Satoru thinks about it the faster he concludes that it is indeed only right for him to do these things for the omega himself. The alpha simply won’t have anyone else’s intervention concerning his mate’s needs.

If the omega has a desire, any at all, he will be the one to deliver. Anything less than what he deems perfection will be considered as blasphemy otherwise.

+

Who is he?

What kind of man? What kind of sorcerer?

How forthcoming will he be about their bond?

Is he truly as merciless as his reputation declares?

These are the questions that hoard his whirring mind.

There is a pair of slippers waiting outside of the antechamber door when Kento finally dares to slide it open. Wooden floors gleam underneath as he slowly slips them on, the fine dark oak freshly polished, the pale walls smelling faintly of citrine and soap. Fresh like outside. He leaves the door deliberately cracked behind him as he takes his first steps forward, sweeping his gaze carefully over the gently lit corridors that corner his exit, empty.

He isn’t sure if he’s grateful or concerned at being left unattended. Left or right? Which way should he go?

Tired but determined, Kento tips his nose to the air.

There, down the way of his right, he picks up the tendril of something savory and beckoning. He moves; minds his pace and counts his steps. Takes ultimately nothing, aside from its pristine rustic beauty, of note of the sights of the mansion. The windows are shaded and all of the doors sit closed. A large black painting of golden deva sprinkles the path; an ivory vase depicting tengu and a richly carved coral plate. Old money every few strides.

Nothing to see, Kento resolutely tells himself.

Twenty yards and one corner turn, and the scent of fresh intensifies ahead of him. A growing weight in the air off the nape of his neck—as if someone were standing directly at his back, or watching him from a window, there and then gone as he spies a warmly glowing alcove.

The omega stirs.

Onward, then.

Open double doors frame the archway of the alcove, which turns out to be a very large den. A family den, according to the open kitchenette situated along the back; the table for four and the low mix of multiple lingering scent profiles.

He elects to ignore that slice of information, refusing to even cast discernment on the unknown. He’s here, facing his second Special Grade of the day, and after the quite frankly still reeling results of the first encounter, he genuinely cannot afford to cast off the brain power for anything else.

He can only hope that this time around it won’t end as chaotically.

The shoji and finely embroidered paneling gives away to walls of familiar dark wood and a splash of deep slate stone. Darker drapings cozy the ceiling. Soft and gray, a plush rug centers the room’s floor and a shelf stuffed with matching baskets in the other. This room is dimly lit, too—

—Kento freezes on his way up to the threshold.

He hadn’t been able to see on the angle walking up but now that he’s close he has a completely clear view. The den is larger than he’d initially given thought to, the obsidian kitchenette counters splitting and expanding in the L shape of an island bar.

Gojo Satoru stands there, back turned. Fussing with something.

Gravity defying strands stand as white as the whispers say they do, infamous black blindfold firmly in place. The man is tall, long and lean and burly; deceptively fit underneath the simple cream shirt and dark slacks. He looks.. comfortable, wide shoulders completely at ease despite Kento having arrived at his back—and the fact of that unknowingly draws Kento forward; another step and then another until he realizes that the freshness, the breeze he thought he’s been picking up on, is kin to the very scent blanketing the clothes on his back.

It’s not as thunderous, not as thick and piled, but it’s stormy all the same.

Yes, at this range it’s obvious.

It’s him.

A charge sweeps the air in his lungs; in the very space around his body. None of the rumors say anything about the strongest sorcerer smelling of warm mornings. Of early blooms. Like a gift returned, sweet and cared for.

Fuck. He is not prepared for this, is he? Because how unfair it is for his heart to go and stutter like that. How absolutely terrifying, the way a buzzing warmth presses at the edge of his mind and soul as the man’s presence washes over him.

Oh.

Oh oh oh—

This is—gods. What—what does—? Should he—?

“How do you feel?”

The low, cool voice breaks the silence—through the first curve of Kento’s mental spiral. And yet the buzzing in Kento’s being only intensifies at the cadence, at hearing it clearly and around words instead of a vibrating murmur through hazy scraps of memory.

The omega basks.

Kento stutters for air.

“I—” He hesitates, answering blindly, voice a broken murmur. “I don’t know.”

The man at the counter turns to look at Kento from over his shoulder, silent.

Kento finds it worryingly fascinating how appraised he feels being looked at through a strip of cloth.

Is this what it’s like to be looked at by Six Eyes?

Is this what it’s like to be looked at by—

The warm scent of spring’s breeze in his nose fluxes, cooler and crisper only for a moment—and Kento finds himself brimming with the startling and rapt attention of instinct as the man that is Gojo Satoru starts to move.

Still as stone, he watches as the alpha turns to face him fully, the action notably slow and purposeful. He isn’t sure he tries to stop his gaze from diving down the expanse of his impressive frame, just knows the seeping spread of appreciation humming high and loud somewhere in the back of his senses.

Sharp jaw, sharper collar bones; wide chest snug under soft cream cotton and strong tapered hips. Hands respectfully relaxed at capable thighs. Good.

Exhaling harshly, Kento scrambles to temper his racing pulse and snaps his gaze back up to the blindfold. Just where was he looking?

“Are you hungry?”

The simplicity of the new question throws him, pulls at his attention all over again until he is just as abruptly aware that, yes, he is in fact starving. He hasn’t eaten since his hotel’s 7am breakfast and he hasn’t a single clue as to the hour, now.

His stomach even does him the courtesy of letting out an embarrassingly loud growl.

Kento flushes, but his face heats even more in the next second as the lovely note of the alpha’s amusement reaches his ears.

The man rumbles with a quiet laugh, pearly canines peeking sweetly in the low light, and at once Kento feels off kilter and swept away all over again, wholly unprepared; wholly and horrifyingly defenseless, he realizes; to the entity before him.

“Well,” the alpha hums, “I have food for you anyhow,” he carefully waves a hand into the direction of the table of four indeed set for two, “will you sit with me?”

Kento, drowning, can only agree.

Chapter Text

Fir. Petrichor. The spray of ocean after it crashes against rock. Budding arctic thyme and, oh—

He’s blond.

A simmer starts up in the pit of Satoru’s body, at a plush mouth set towards more frown than pout; flaxen lashes and bright whiskey eyes ringed blazing red amongst a stunning, severe disposition and a disarmingly attractive shade of fatigue.

A firework of mixed things erupts in Satoru’s chest.

“Are you hungry,” he barely manages to ask the omega before him, his omega, who has accepted his gift of cloth. His yukata, navy and worn in, rests draped over strong shoulders, creating comfortable and soft lines that his fingers so suddenly itch to reach out and trace.

Going to smell like me, the alpha revels.

Satoru is saved from his lungs collapsing inwards with raw fascination and primal delight by the very distinct sound of a rumbling stomach.

The omega agrees to eat. The mark under his jaw hums.

Careful, so very mindful of that lingering gleam of feral instinct, Satoru resists the urge to preen and guides them to sit at the den’s table. He’d prepared glass noodles in a simple broth and still has meat buns warming in the toaster oven behind him, this morning’s pot of okayu simmering on standby just in case..

He wonders if any of it will be found lacking, nerves just brimming with a readiness that he cannot ever fathom finding the means to explain.

While the omega moves to sit, Six Eyes gleams in its false dimness, calculating the pulse of each and every vital in the omega’s body over and over, leaving Satoru rooted instead of pulling out the chairs like he’s actually been raised to do; body itself refusing to attempt anything that might startle his omega away.

So Satoru stands, and he looks—looks for internal bruising and tears and bleeding and miraculously only finds smatters of the first—counts each and every purple splotch before landing on the precious, rapid flutter of his mate’s heart. Can hear the sturdiness of its pump from where he takes his own seat on the other side of the table, when he listens just right.

For a feral omega who fought a Special Grade to the death, he sure is.. fairly uninjured. Prideful as it makes the alpha on the inside, the sorcerer can’t help but maintain an ounce of disbelief. The man he is can’t help but behold his own concern—

—and it is concern that he catches on the undercurrent of the omega’s scent. That pinch of thyme he’s been catching. His mate is worried about something and the realization of it sets off a dull nudge on the back of his instincts.

Earthen eyes continue to unabashedly roam over him, at once offsetting the rising inkling of fix it with yet another flicker of pride. “I am Gojo Satoru,” he interjects carefully into the silence; keen on rightfully introducing himself to his mate. His mate.

A soulmate. Him, once again, out of all people.

A pleased rumble escapes him before he can stop it. The omega snaps his eyes upwards as if caught in result, and an unbidden smile pulls quickly at Satoru’s cheek. “What brings you to me, Nanami Kento?”

“Shit luck,” the blond blurts, face flush, and Satoru barks out a laugh at the deadpan answer as he slides over a steaming bowl, but then— “I told you my name?”

That makes Satoru pause, the tips of his fingers still glancing over ceramic. All of the little good feelings that had started to stack just then, instantly gone with a flick, and silence reigns again as Six Eyes sharpens reflexively. Kento had told him his name.

“You don’t remember?” And here he had thought the man had been aware at that time. Maybe he really should get Shoko involved.

“Hardly.” Misty petrichor fluxes. The omega’s jaw ticks, thyme intensifying, and Satoru slowly takes his hand back. “I mostly just remember you. I remember dialing Jujutsu Tech, and then it’s.. it’s all just you. Your presence. Your voice. The..” Kento’s fingers twitch, his stare glazing over and coming back to fix somewhere beneath Satoru’s chin. “the snow... And then.. and then we were here.. but..?”

If it weren’t for the topic or the circumstances, Satoru is sure that he would be grinning from ear to ear at how he’s the only real thing in his omega’s mind. Of course you remember me, he’d like to say; to tease, I’ve been yours from the moment we met.

Only his neurons start flaring at rapid fire because his omega doesn’t remember meeting him, and if he doesn’t remember even that much then—

—oh.

“You don’t remember scenting me.” Satoru realizes, throat growing tight, fists clenching atop his thighs under the table as the fact settles. “You don’t remember marking me.”

“No.” It’s spoken low, almost mournful. “I do not. I.. I apologize, Gojo-san.”

Oh, the alpha’s chest stings. It catches him so off guard that he can do nothing but sit there once again, paralyzed and cold as right side up starts to tank sideways.

Does this mean that Kento doesn’t feel what he felt? What they felt? This fascinating, cosmic thing the Omega Prime himself bestowed upon them?

Does this mean that Kento does not accept his suit?

The first pulse of Rejection the thought brings courses through him with the hit of an ocean’s wave. It steals his lungs, clouds his sky with a flash of pain so deep that he grows dizzy with the weight of it—sick; his stomach churning and his mouth wetting with nausea as sideways dips another heavy degree. He can’t recall when he last experienced a whiplash quite like this.

And Kento’s timbre, a murmur yet, catches Satoru by the heel then; his quiet, awed words ushering him from the flood as they break the silence.

“I can feel it, though. Our bond..”

Where thyme heralded comes now instead a fragrant sea breeze. The room seems to darken where the omega’s eyes turn aglow under his set brow, thin molten rings gleaming around the bright iris. Satoru finds his breath gone again at the color, at how the omega’s scent thickens like the dawn of new summer as he brushes his large hand slowly down the sweet curve of his perfect throat, a perfect mirror of where the mark lay on Satoru’s own.

Kami, how he smells like home. Satoru finds himself zeroed in, each Eye facing inward; forward. Every sense he has, tuned into the omega and only the omega—him, his, and there—tiny yet warm and real where sure lips had truly only just brushed.

If Kento, unmarked, can feel the bond so soon.. the alpha’s body feels positively alive with its acknowledgment, the taste of hope on his tongue as real as the scent of wind and freedom and mine curling up his nose.

Another ache snakes around his ribcage, a familiar, surprising, taut pang of longing.

He said our, the alpha sings, and I want to keep him, the man realizes as the alpha revels, he‘s strong and I want to keep him.

“You didn’t mark me, did you?”

The question is innocent, but Satoru can’t help but chuckle as Kento presents the nail to the coffin of his thoughts.

“No,” he laments; smiling through another wave of whiplash because he will. “But I would like to tell you how it happened, if you’re up for it.” Satoru pauses, resists the urge to bite his lip in yet another bout of nerves. “Are you?” He hedges, “up to it, that is.”

Finally, Kento picks up his chopsticks and eyes his food. The awed air about him seems to dash away, the firey ring in his eyes cooled back down to earth.

With it, the humming of the bond dims, and Satoru feels tossed again as Kento looks up at him rather sternly and demands, businesslike, “every last detail, Gojo-san.”

Chapter Text

The flash of the principal’s name across the top of his phone screen had turned into a finger held up to an annoyed Gakuganji as he gladly answered—any excuse to get out of that fucking meeting, really, even if it only meant more work—

—Hokkaido a wintery sprawl of city and hills of trees beneath. Further north, a delicate, savage cascade of cuts ruining a snow trodden forest up the base of a mountain, around a frozen creek broken open by hasty steps. The thinnest smatter of residuals marking the chaos.

Impressive for a sorcerer on death’s door.

At the end of an underbrush a wild and beckoning storm of feral cursed energy flaring to life in the still air. An energy that caressed and called him and also stopped him in his tracks. So suddenly was it there—so suddenly had he instinctively aborted Infinity—right, perfect, right—right in front him, right before his Eyes—

On his knees before he knew it.

Bowing.

Baring his neck.

Fiery hazel locked onto him. Wild, wild, dangerous cursed energy bearing against his. An eon between their gazes.

And then it just… happened. They happened. A one in one million chance. He knew—and he knew that he knew, too—and then his willing submission was keenly acknowledged. Trilled at. Accepted in snowy silence, otherwise. He was claimed so easily, left with a mark without so much as a word or a bite and then promptly bestowed his rightful place; raw trust, unearned yet gifted regardless with ‘Alpha you came for me’ and feral warning ebbing to nothing, a relieved sigh squeezing at all the places in his heart he’d thought he left behind. A reset for everything he thought he knew about being in his own mind, body, soul…

…and even now, his instincts grow louder than his thoughts by the moment. Six Eyes bores behind his blindfold, eager for an uninterrupted observation of the omega, a deep and vast unsourced thirst that extends beyond his vision and cries out from every cell in his limbs.

Will alone keeps Satoru still, silent, and in his chair as his retelling comes to an end. He sits with the muscles in his body coiled tightly, hands fisted in his lap under the table. He is but a false image of calm. All he wants to do is fling this table out of his way and sit at his omega’s feet, kiss every exposed inch behind his yukata. Make his way up to that delicately corded neck and press his own teeth there, complete the bond, take—

“So, yes,” Satoru clears his throat, “that’s how we Paired. I showed up, you showed yourself, and then—”

“—and then I marked you.” The omega reiterates, deadpan.

“Yeah.” Satoru says as he mindlessly traces the bow of his mate’s mouth with his gaze; remembers exactly how those lips had pressed firmly against his throat and how those teeth had gently graced the Claim into his skin. “And then you marked me.”

And again at being acknowledged, the faint spot under Satoru’s jaw starts up a minute hum of distant warmth. To think that it’s only been an hour since it had been bestowed to him—to think that it was nearly outright Rejected just mere minutes ago—and yet it is still so reactive.

If it weren’t for his mate sitting right in front of him, its existence would be all that Satoru could focus on.

“Right,” comes the omega’s whispered reply, more to himself than anything. The look on his face is far off and pensive, gaze fallen to the table and brow taking on a rather deep furrow of thought. He’s suddenly so still that Satoru can’t help but feel a new wave of tension—his mate had initially been eating well while he’d been going about his retelling, but the blond has completely stopped now, chopsticks rested and hands halfway curled into fists along the tabletop. “I see.”

What do you see? Satoru almost demands, a vehemence on his tongue as the raw instinctual need to understand so that he can fix tightening the string of each of his nerves—but the omega’s scent fluxes a brief uncertainty then, keeping Satoru silent and rooted as his mate stares down at his food.

“Did I..” The omega raises his head, sends relief coursing quickly through the alpha when he starts gathering food on his chopsticks again. “Did we speak? When we met.”

Time crawls for a fracture as the answer forms on Satoru’s lips; as the memory settles at the top of his mind—

A low rumble builds in his chest, meant to coax and soothe and reassure that he comes in perfect peace. The subaudio burr echoes around the woods with a rattle amongst the naked treetops. He holds his bow, his promise, while he waits for the omega to acknowledge his submission, careful not to make a single wrong move.

The gauge of his strength is something that already sits heavily on his tongue. It strikes a solidifying chord of satisfaction in him…

A quiet trill meets his burr. It’s short and strained but it is there, a curt answering call into the still of the snowy atmosphere:

Acceptance.

—and “Yes,” Satoru answers, reverent and breathless and beholden as he thinks of the exchange, “of course we did.”

Kento hums. “What did I say?”

“I asked if you would have me.” The alpha tells him, and he is itching, dying now; breathless with the need to close the space between them as mine mine mine starts back up once more, louder. “You said yes.”

The omega’s hands still, a slice of bok choy stopped just at the tempting line of his bottom lip. Sandy lashes fluttering. Scent fluxing in response, too wild and fast and new for Satoru to pick apart.

“…Oh.” Kento mutters.

“Yes,” Satoru chuckles; barely snuffs the urge to smile with all thirty-two of his teeth, “oh.”

Across from him, the omega only remains unnervingly immobile, even more quiet than before—another stretch of thickened silence, and Satoru finds his amusement disappearing as soon as it came.

“Well,” comes the omega’s eventual and slow murmur, “you don’t seem to be lying to me.”

Satoru frowns. He’s not. He wouldn’t—why would he need to?

“Do I smell like I’m lying?” He asks, low and quiet.

“Hm.” Kento dismisses the question with another hum. He finally bites into the food he’s been holding to his mouth, motion returned to him with the seeming conclusion of whatever it was he’d been thinking. Yet—duly acknowledged and ultimately unanswered, a different set of emotions entirely nearly pushes out the caution and the careful Satoru has been operating with.

“Do you want—?” The omega starts; stops with a shoulder-heaving sigh, and Satoru’s attitude pauses. He sits ramrod with attention just as Kento’s eyes close, brow furrowing in deep contemplation.

Do I want..?

He waits, because what he wants in fact matters the least right now. Every inclination and desire of the alpha is attuned ahead; hardwired to the fledgling claim on his neck.

A beat, two, and then he is rewarded with that stunning earthen gaze piercing directly through him again.

“Where would you like to go from here, Gojo-san?”

Chapter Text

Agony.

It increases two-fold with each passing moment. With each second he forces himself to ignore the blaring instinctual urge to reach out and touch. To abandon the pretense of eating and draw nearer, close the great distance in the room.

“Do I smell like I’m lying?”

No, he doesn’t. He smells undoubtedly like the breeze you happily lift your face to. It’s all the more proof that even if he were to lie that it wouldn’t matter. The omega knows, and he feels the pain of that reality in his teeth. In his wretched pulse. In the prick of delicate sensation that overcomes him every time his gaze drops down to the lighty flushed graze of his mark along the alpha’s neck.

One sided, barely there, and still Kento feels it.

Irrefutable evidence.

His gums ache with the headache banging around his skull, his fangs threatening to lengthen from the strain. How he manages to talk at all becomes an increasing mystery. How does a strange man in a strange blindfold sitting a mile and a half too far away from him manage to look so warm and inviting?

How does he smell so terribly mouth watering?

Kento feels his heart hammer a hard thump in his chest.

Agony.

“And what,” Kento manages to speak around the thick of his tongue, chopsticks heavy in his motionless hand, “where would you like to go from here?”

What now? He asks because right now he does not know for himself—as at first he’d intended to mind his path; ask for clothes, seek out his superiors, continue his mission—but now he realizes that his own nose, his hands, and his sense of direction are no longer his. His senses are oddly left, all skewed from the focus it takes to keep his mind from racing any further than it already has.

What now? Those two little words form an endlessly looping echo, swimming at the pace of a rip current. He feels sick with them now, mouth wet and fingers shaking at the idea of going away, his lids growing impossibly heavier by the moment.

And suddenly Kento has to rest his bowl. It clinks noisily against the table along with his chopsticks, broth sloshing over the glossy rim.

The agony tips seamlessly into exhaustion. He presses a hand to his chest.

“Nanami-san?”

Is he breathing?

“Shit.”

Kento will take that as a no.

What now?

+

The inkling trickles in the moment ceramic lands with a heavy clink. He watches sandy lashes flutter and high cheeks catch flush, feels how the tiny, pleasant hum of his mark turns into a painful, tugging sting down his neck.

And then Satoru leaps.

His chair screeches with the speed in which he launches himself, cups and bowls shattering without a glance, and his hand cradles Kento’s head the second before it cracks against the shaken table.

Sweltering warmth meets his touch between damp, soft blond. A shaky exhale exits him. He curses again.

For all that Six Eyes is telling him nothing, he knows that the omega just dropped. Crashed. Feels it like a seventh sense, mind racing to categorize the sensation down to the molecular level as it spreads out from his mark.

The alpha bares his teeth at himself as he carefully crouches at Kento’s side and rights the man into his chair with a hand to his chest—he was careless to think—he should’ve—but the confused, pained grunt the omega lets out hoards his attention with an insurmountable weight. The alpha abandons the train of thought as quickly as it boards, and Satoru pulls Kento’s broad frame in his arms as a rumble builds instinctively in his chest. Loud and crooning, he stands, adjusting Kento’s weight easily in his arms.

The next second splits into listless fractals in the front of Satoru’s mind.

In my arms again.

Weighs nothing.

So pretty.

Help him, the alpha roars.

For a split of that split, cursed energy hums under Satoru’s skin; every intention to teleport, the location a pinprick in his mind; but he remembers Kento’s discontent from earlier and instantly decides against it.

The den will have to do.

Satoru passes through the curtain of the inner archway with long, hasty strides, beelining for the pile of blankets of pillows left there from the night before. His heart picks up as he blinks into the realization that he is holding his mate once more, his mate who is pouring off too much heat and a soured, peppery scent that his instinct tells him is pain.

The omega turns his scrunched face into his shoulder with a low groan, and the alpha holds him closer.

Shaking. Kento is starting to shake.

That very same initial inkling blooms cold and quick into panic. He’s never dealt with a crashing omega.

“I don’t know what to do,” Satoru says the second Shoko picks up his call, “Sho, what do I do?”

“Woah woah woah, slow down there. What are you hissing at me about this time—?” Shoko starts back, but Satoru swiftly cuts her off.

“He dropped. He dropped. I can’t see it and I don’t—”

“—he?”

“My—” Satoru bites his tongue against the alphan leak; blinks hard as Kento’s trembling hand so suddenly fists in his shirt. He looks down at the omega tucked securely in his hold, arrested again as his attention is met with an upset sound.

“Alpha.” Comes the pained call. “Hurts.”

“Satoru? What do you mean you can’t see.” Shoko continues, a hardening edge to her tone. “What’s going on over there? You’re not talking enough.” Shoko is saying, but now he’s shaking, and he can’t hear, and nothing else matters all that much, really, when his omega is clawing at his shirt in obvious turmoil for the second time within the day.

“Just get here,” the alpha grits out. The phone is gone from his hand by the next blink. “You’re okay,” he tells Kento, touch guided by nothing but instinct as he cups the back of his neck and cradles him close; discards tepid relief as it seems to ease some of the shaking in both of them.

“You’re okay.” And this time it’s a promise. “I got you.”

Chapter Text

Carefully, ever so carefully, the alpha runs the pad of his thumb across Kento’s nape, a slow arc that avoids the omega’s scent gland, but only just barely. He’s been at it for no more than an infantismal stretch of a moment, touch led by nothing but instinct, and already Kento’s breathing has settled a bit from its previous pain-laced stutter.

Another moment later and the pain in emanating from his mark dulls to a throb and Six Eyes tells him that his mate is truly knocked out. Head lolled against his bicep. Knees across his lap. Shirt still clutched tightly in his fist.

His phone rings again.

The flash of bright molten hazel almost startles him, the primal tell almost completely overtaking Kento’s iris in mere milliseconds as his eyes flash open—pupils but tiny pinpricks as his scent thickens into new, agitated notes.

Sharp thyme bleeds out of soft petrichor, consuming the air and suffusing the space between them in an almost dizzying rush.

Feral again, Satoru forces his body not to stiffen at the quick realization, instead opting to discretely lift his touch and rest his hands at his sides, palms up.

The rather insistent press of the omega’s flaring aura sets his own scent glands throbbing on his neck, pheromones threatening to rise in a purely alphan response. Satoru tries to suppress it—he does—but he also finds with a certain glee that he struggles to tamper the urge entirely. The omega’s presence is strong, domineering, even, and it coaxes at his baser instincts to the surface like a fish on a hook.

The prime in him revels in challenge. What is more challenging than the only disposition in the world that could truly, possibly best him?

And then Kento takes one look at his blaring phone, bares his teeth, and then promptly hits it with an angry flick of his finger.

A blip of cursed energy, so small and controlled, flickers and dies before Six Eyes. The device cracks cleanly down the middle, broken entirely, vertical ends going dark as Shoko’s ringtone dies abruptly on the air.

Satoru looks down at his now broken phone, utterly stunned. A tendril of steam wafts up with a quiet sizzle, electric and burnt in his nose.

Interesting, the alpha remarks. “The fuh…” Satoru mumbles.

The omega glares tired accusation at him. “Noisy.”

“Uh-huh..” Satoru blinks at the man on his lap, a dangerous giddy feeling stirring from far within him. Do that again, he wants to grin but he knows better to show his teeth so brazenly; show me everything; but then the omega’s blazing gaze bleeds out as fast as it had appeared—liquid fire returned to thin rings around darkening honey. It happens so fast that this time it does give him whiplash.

“What?” Kento’s brow furrows deeply, his lids already drooping low. His scent changes from sharp to soured again quickly. Satoru grits his teeth against the way it makes the hairs on his nape stand; the mark sting with muted pain, all off and wrong.

Our omega is weaning, the alpha presses impatiently on him, agitated and pacing in the stream of his senses as he notices a tremor wrack the omega’s frame.

Focus, he snaps at himself.

Right. He will happily accept this challenge, too.

Satoru breathes through his nose; leans down carefully into Kento’s breathing space. “What do you need, Nanami?” Only Kento isn’t there, eyes fully closed and body already swaying in another precarious tip forward. Satoru’s own body moves on its own accord—his arms open and his head tilts, and he dips just low enough to catch Kento’s head directly onto his shoulder. His arms encircle him instantly, bringing him in close enough to press their chests together.

Kento’s heartbeat is a tenebrous gallop against his own, skin still too hot. Tremors still working their way through him.

Satoru bares his fangs at nothing as worry spikes abruptly behind his sternum, making his stomach swoop unpleasantly. Coming and going between feral and awake like that cannot be a good sign.

The alpha looks over at his newly broken phone and buries the temptation to let off the growl building in his throat.

He won’t teleport his omega again, not when there is no telling what more it could do to him in his current state.

But he could be quick.

He could let his omega stay here and while he grabs Shoko himself—

—No, every fiber of his being tells him, but the alpha knew that already. He would not leave his mate behind even if he were truly capable of the feat. And how astounding it is to him that he isn’t—

—because he’s trying. He’s trying to put the omega down, lay him across the middle of the corner of pillows holding his scent the most—and yet his arms do not move and his feet do not budge.

A laugh, too high and too quick, bubbles out of Satoru.

He needs help. His omega needs help. He needs—

“Gojo-sama!”