Chapter Text
From that day I decided to live my life with you
The world slowly began to change
As if I were strong, as if to hide my weakness
Those days I spent acting
One day, those gazing eyes suddenly appeared and
Taught me things I never knew
When you have something that needs to be protected
You became all the stronger
Gentle comet
YOASOBI
Kosei Hoshimi considered himself fortunate that his heats were quiet. He remembered the other two omega girls in his high school group suffering from scandalous heats that forced them to miss school for a whole week every three or four months. Not to mention other less fortunate omegas whose hormonal cycles controlled their lives and bodies.
Even so, he couldn't help but complain to himself before, during, and after his heat. Just because it was quiet didn't mean it wasn't an annoying inconvenience in his life, how heavy his body felt, how easily he overheated, and worst of all, the smell.
He was usually proud of how well he hid his secondary gender; his height did most of the work, but he was also able to lead a normal life thanks to all his efforts to hide that sweet smell that inevitably permeated everything during his heat.
Vanilla and yuzu.
Despite his slight embarrassment at smelling like dessert, he saw the upside in that it was much easier to hide, especially when he was cooking. On days like this, newly freed from the weight on his shoulders of having to be careful during his heat, he was in the mood to go all out, cooking his best yakisoba while listening to the strange news on the radio, all in perfect calm.
“Now to eat,” he sat down in front of his meal, only to be interrupted by the doorbell, surely a delivery. “Whoops”.
As he went downstairs, a smile naturally spread across his face. It was Yasunobu Bando, the mechanic from Kansai Logistics & Repair, a small transport and maintenance company that required the services of the Taiyo warehouse to store various items. Kosei enjoyed working with him, perhaps because they were similar in age or because he had a slight suspicion that he was an alpha with the same discretion about his secondary gender as Kosei himself.
“Bando, good afternoon,” he greeted the young man who was already opening the van door to unload the goods.
Hearing his name, Yasunobu stopped to look at Kosei, carrying the delivery trolley and his clipboard.
“Good afternoon, Kosei,” he paused to glance quickly up and down at him, pausing at the usual smile of the Taiyo warehouse manager to copy the gesture. “You look better.”
Of course, someone as observant as Yasunobu would be able to notice that he had been acting strangely during the previous week. The blushing was constant, and the distance he kept from everyone who came to the warehouse must have been suspicious. If he really was an alpha, he was surely able to distinguish his sweet scent as omega.
“Summer affects us all sooner or later, doesn't it?” he tried to play dumb, pretending to be more attentive to the boxes Yasunobu was unloading onto the trolley.
“Yes, that's why it's good to see you feeling better,” he nodded without stopping his work, broadening his smile.
Kosei counted the boxes before securing them on the trolley and making some notes on his clipboard.
“Here you go,” he said, handing him the receipt.
“Wait, Hoshimi,“ he called, a little hesitant.
“Hm?”
Yasunobu climbed into the van to get a couple of things from the glove compartment, which he handed to Kosei: a melon pan and a bottle of vanilla-flavoured milk.
«Oh.»
“This is…”
“To cheer you up a bit!” Yasunobu replied, a little nervously. “I thought you might like vanilla. I thought some boxes we left here recently smelled like that.”
Either Kosei wasn't very good at disguising his scent, or Yasunobu was an alpha. Kosei couldn't confirm it from the distance he always kept from those who came to drop off goods.
“Thanks for the gift,” he said, accepting it and putting the items in the inside pockets of his coverall, feeling a little flushed, the remnants of his heat still present in his body, so he put more distance between them by pulling the trolley.
“You're welcome, take care,” he said goodbye as he got into the van.
“See you later.”
Kosei hurried back to the warehouse, breathing deeply to calm his racing heart.
“That couldn't be… no, no, I don't think so.”
He repeated to himself as he hurried to leave the trolley between the shelves. He would tidy up the boxes after eating, as hunger was pressing at that hour.
“Yakisoba, yakisoba… Huh?” There was nothing left on the table where he remembered leaving his food. “Where's my yakisoba?”
The sound of someone slurping between the warehouse shelves caught his attention.
“Mmm,” savoured the unfamiliar voice.
Someone… an intruder?
More slurping sounds were heard, and Kosei grabbed a broom. One never knew what kind of person might have wandered into the warehouse with so much merchandise.
And his scent.
He was afraid, but he couldn't just let an intruder wander around the warehouse like that. He was in charge of the place and had a responsibility. So, armed with the fearsome broom, he searched the aisles, following the slurping sounds of that person, stealthily, hoping to be the one to surprise them.
“Who's there?!”
The intruder, a tall young man in old clothes, looked at him and continued eating without reacting.
“Hey! That's my lunch!” he shouted, pointing at him.
The man seemed to think about something and got up, approaching Kosei, who prepared himself for whatever this madman was going to do.
“What is this feeling? Hmm… Good. Yummy. Tasty. Delicious.”
Bewildered, Kosei looked up.
“Uh?”
“The name?” he asked awkwardly.
“Huh?”
“What is its name?”
“Can't you tell? It's yakisoba.”
“Yakisoba…” he muttered as if the word seemed foreign to him, handing him the plate to wander the corridors to pick up the radio that was still broadcasting the local transmission. “And this?”
It turned out that the young man who had come into the warehouse to eat his lunch, rummage through his things, and make him risk his life on the streets in the midst of a disaster was not just any man, but the alien who had fallen from the sky the day before the monster attack, or rather, the kaiju Graim. To face this threat, he transformed into a giant of light capable of flying, using parts of himself as weapons, and smelling very different from anything Kosei had ever known.
Like before a lightning struck, wood, metal, and something burning.
Before he could think about it any further, the giant dissolved into beautiful sparks of blue light that took the form of that lost man once again.
“The awakening… of the kaiju,” he murmured.
“What… are you?” asked Kosei, unsure how to address him.
“Name?” he requested seriously.
“What?”
“What is your name?”
“Kosei… Hoshimi.”
“Kosei… Hoshimi,” he repeated, savouring the name.
Expecting a grand revelation from him, Kosei nodded, inviting him to say more.
“Oh. I remember!” The man smiled, finally sure of something. “My name is… Omega.”
Kosei stood still.
«Did he mean to say he's an omega? And what does that have to do with him becoming a 50-metre giant?»
Before Kosei could ask in a more polite way, the young man fell backwards, landing on his back on the grass. Kosei immediately rushed to his side, trying to lift him up.
“Hey! Are you hurt? Hey!”
The man opened his mouth, unable to open his eyes, too weak to speak coherently (not that there was much difference from how he had been speaking since Kosei found him).
“Stomach… my stomach…”
If he had hurt his stomach, it would be difficult to ask for help. Everyone had evacuated the area, and even if they hadn't, they wouldn't know how to explain what had just happened. Kosei had to insist on an answer.
“Your stomach…“
“…It's empty,” he moaned weakly.
“It's empty?”
Kosei asked incredulously, the situation becoming increasingly ridiculous and he didn't know what to do. Faced with his lack of response, the long-haired young man brought his face close to his chest, sniffing faintly, causing Kosei to blush.
“No, don't…”
He murmured indecisively, interrupted by the young man's faint voice.
“Kosei Hoshimi… you smell sweet…” he murmured with his nose against the coveralls at chest height.
“Sweet?” he asked, blushing even more, although the sound of the plastic on his chest when the man pressed his nose against it made him understand what he meant. “Sweet!”
He took the snacks Yasunobu had given him out of the inside pocket of his uniform. The melon bread was a little squashed and the milk was warm from having been against his skin for so long, but it was better than nothing. It wasn't as if there were any convenience stores open with the whole area still on alert due to Graim's appearance.
He felt a little bad about giving away something that had been given to him with such good intentions, but Kosei hoped Yasunobu wouldn't be offended if it was to alleviate the hunger of the saviour of his beloved city.
“Sit,” he said to the young man, placing a hand on his back to prevent him from falling backwards again. With the other hand, he fumbled to open the bottle of milk and give it to him.
With a small smile, the young man sniffed the warm milk before taking a sip and crossing his legs, sitting up on his own.
“It's a bit like you, Kosei Hoshimi. Mmm… sweet, yes,” he mumbled, licking his lips, struggling to find the right words.
«He can smell me… I guess he is an omega,» thought Kosei, a little taken aback by the directness of his words, opening the squashed bread to offer it to him. “Eat slowly, you might choke.”
The young man nodded, his mouth already full of bread.
Kosei allowed himself a long sigh of relief, sitting down next to the other one who was eating calmly. So much had happened in such a short time that he no longer knew what to do. It wasn't as if he could simply forget everything and go back to work.
Above all, he couldn't just leave the alien there, smiling happily as he wolfed down such a pitiful meal.
“Did you manage to remember who you are?”
“I am Omega.”
“No, not your secondary gender, don't you know your name or where you come from?”
“My name is Omega,” insisted the young man, frowning in confusion.
“Don't joke around,” he snorted incredulously.
The man seemed to be trying to think of a response or the meaning of “joking” in his head, before finally giving more importance to the food in his hands and continuing to gobble it down.
Recalling his human dynamic biology classes in secondary school, Kosei remembered that the terms “alpha”, “beta” and “omega” came from the Greek alphabet, a language from thousands of years ago, and were not exclusive to secondary genders. If the alien insisted that it was his name, he had to believe in that possibility; although in his state, he wasn't quite sure he could differentiate between his name and his gender.
And about his condition…
All his old clothes had been burned by Graim's attack, and it was a miracle in itself that he had survived without a single scratch. The same could not be said for his shirt, which was full of yellow holes, and his pants which had several dusty tears. He couldn't leave him alone in that state, especially with the possibility that he was an omega.
“Can you get up?” Kosei said, standing up. “We need to get you some clothes.”
“Hmm,” Omega nodded, following him, picking up the melon pan wrapper and the empty bottle. “What about this?”
Kosei looked around. Everything was closed due to the evacuation, and he couldn't wait for activities to resume because he didn't know how long it would take. Besides, he had to go back to the warehouse; he hadn't even had time to close it.
“Graim came from that way,” he pointed to his left. “So it's possible that the train station is working. We can take a train to Mishima there, and you can throw away the garbage.”
“Hmm.”
Omega nodded again, following him through the empty streets of Ohito with such confidence that it made Kosei a little uncomfortable.
«If he can turn into a giant, he shouldn't have any trouble defending himself, but he's still too confident.»
“What's a ‘train station’?” he asked, still visibly tired.
“It's a means of transport, like one of those, but much bigger,” he said, pointing to a parked car. “It won't take us to Mishima so we can get you some clothes.”
Omega looked at himself, stretching his shirt riddled with yellow holes from burns.
“It was torn… to pieces… to shreds. Yes. What is ‘Mishima’?”
“It's a city north of here, it's…” He thought carefully about his words, as Omega probably didn't even know the concept of a city. “It's a place like this, where many more people live, so there are more places where we can get you clothes. We are in Ohito, a small city in Shizuoka Prefecture.”
“Hmm,” Omega nodded again and looked back at the garbage in his hands. “And this is garbage?”
“Even what you're wearing right now is garbage.”
They were lucky enough that the train arrived just as Kosei and Omega were waiting to board, so it was a quick twenty-five-minute journey during which Omega asked about absolutely everything, the train, the rice fields, and the small villages they passed, and Kosei did his best to answer clearly. Luckily, Omega seemed to absorb the concepts taught to him very easily, so it wasn't necessary to repeat any explanations.
After another fifteen minutes by bus, they finally arrived at a GU, where Kosei practically had to drag Omega along, as his tattered clothes attracted too much attention.
“Hurry up, people might realise we're from Ohito if they've heard the news.”
“Is that bad?” asked Omega, with no intention of moving away from Kosei's side.
“Please, just pick something,” he asked impatiently. They couldn't stop to explain things so complex that even he didn't fully understand.
Omega nodded, Kosei's nerves not changing his behaviour in the slightest, and looked around at the mannequins with different styles of clothing. Immediately, one colour caught his eye: red.
He picked up a red sleeveless shirt and took it off the rack with a smile.
“I like this one.”
Kosei clenched his teeth, trying not to gesticulate. That sleeveless shirt exposed so much of his neck and chest that if he turned out to be an omega, it might look like he was trying to seduce someone. But Omega's innocent gesture was too pure to break his bubble.
“Then choose something to go with that too. How about this?” He pointed to a grey set with trousers and a jacket.
“Yes, I like it.”
He agreed, and Kosei handed him a large size. He sheepishly grabbed a pack of new underwear and a belt and pushed him into a changing room.
“Put it on now so we can go. I have to get back to the warehouse.”
“What's a ‘warehouse’?”
“Where you jump on to steal my yakisoba,” Kosei explained, exhausted, wondering what the hell he was supposed to be doing.
“Oh,” he nodded, stepping into the fitting room.
“Keep those clothes on if they fit. You can't walk around in what you're wearing.”
“Hmm.”
In a sight Kosei sat down to wait on the sofas outside the changing rooms. The good thing about department stores was that they had very good air purifiers and pheromone blockers to prevent the scent of any alpha or omega from sticking to the clothes, so even if due to exhaustion or stress a little of his scent escaped, he was safe there.
He couldn't say the same for other people; he could predominantly smell the scent of strawberry and white tea blossom from another omega. Perhaps a worker near her heat or during her heat who was unaware of how strong it was.
Or it could be that Kosei was still too sensitive after his last heat, even the pheromones of omegas made him nervous.
«It must be harder for some than others to disguise their natural scent,» he thought, activating the neutraliser on his wristwatch.
“This is very… comfortable,” said Omega, adjusting his grey jacket, reminding Kosei of what he was doing there.
Omega was comfortable, the clothes seemed to be of good quality, and the jacket covered the back of his neck. Kosei took it as a victory and got up to look for the price tags.
“Let's go pay… oh…”
Although the clothes weren't overly expensive, they weren't within his monthly budget. He figured he'd have to dip into his meagre savings.
“Hum?” Omega asked, confused.
“Nothing.”
Luckily, Omega was weak from everything that had happened and agreed to be guided by Kosei. Or maybe he had gained his trust; either way, it was making things easier. He took him to the till, where he resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose; it was the cashier who was giving off those strong pheromones.
“Good afternoon, did you find everything you were looking for?”
—Aki Misato— said the name tag on her work uniform. She was undoubtedly how people imagined omegas to be: short, with huge expressive eyes, so pretty that she could be compared to the mannequins in the shop.
The complete opposite of Kosei.
“Yes. Yes?” Answered and then questioned Omega.
“We'll take these, please,” said Kosei, showing her the tags on Omega's clothes.
“Allow me, I'll remove them for you.”
The girl replied, taking some scissors from a box under de cash register and approaching Omega to cut them off. To Kosei's horror, Omega did not hide that he was sniffing the air, curious about the scent on proximity, bringing his nose dangerously close to the girl's hair.
“Oh, you smell sweet too.”
“Huh?” She replied, turning pale.
“Ah! I'm so sorry!” Kosei hurriedly said, pulling Omega away from her and tearing off the label himself. “I'm sorry, we're from Ohito and he's still in shock from what happened, even his clothes are torn to shreds.”
He apologised, bowing slightly as he held out the labels for her to charge him so they could leave, feeling terribly sorry for the girl.
On the contrary, Omega could not hide his visible confusion as he was led out of the shop through the streets of Mishima back to the train station.
“She was…” He searched his limited vocabulary for a term. “Like crying. The opposite of comfortable.”
“Of course she was uncomfortable, you can't smell people.”
“Yes, I can,” he replied. “I can smell you.”
“You can, but some people don't like it, especially omegas.”
“But I'm Omega too.”
Kosei held his breath, certain that this alien was going to kill him.
To be continued…