Work Text:
My heat is going to be a week late, Yū’s thoughts echo for the nth time that day.
Sometimes, his brain just does that. The same thought resurfaces over and over, staying longer and longer each time, as if his brain is waiting for him to catch on and get the hint. Usually, it’s because he ends up forgetting something that’s going to happen, leading to him thinking —I forgot about something— but this mind-sent reminder is about an event that he actually does remember, so what’s the problem?
The thought is keeping him from going to sleep—the idea that he’s missing something he can’t piece together. He’s not the brightest, but he’s also not absolutely clueless.
My heat is going to be a week late, the thought rings in his head again.
Well, if he remembers his heat, then maybe the timing was the problem. What’s so important about the week after his usual heat? He itches to get up from bed to go check the monthly calendar hanging up on the fridge, but Kento is the lightest sleeper he knows. Though, after tiring himself out worrying over Yū, it wouldn’t be that surprising if he doesn’t get up. In fact, Kento—
Wait, Kento.
My heat is going to be a week late.
Oh, no.
In all the chaos of Yū being loopy on pain medicine and Kento being stressed out of his mind, they failed to realize that Kento’s heat was usually scheduled for a week after Yū’s, which means—
Our heats are going to happen at the same time.
They’re not talking.
Suguru is looking between them, eyebrows furrowing with concern, but his mouth quirks up slightly as if he’s amused.
He probably is. Suguru is always amused—always interested—even when Kento discusses some book with him that Yū can barely read without getting a headache, and even when Satoru gets into one of his moods and pesters him relentlessly, or even when Yū goes on and on about a meal he ate years ago. Secretly, Yū believes that Suguru listens so well because he has such big ears, not that those words will ever reach Suguru himself.
But Yū’s getting off track. They’re not talking.
See, Kento has this cute, little quirk where if he could put his head on the chopping block, he would. Hell, Yū would bet his life that Kento would also offer to cut himself up into perfect little cubes too, if it meant that someone he cares for wouldn’t be inconvenienced.
The great thing about their relationship is that Yū refuses to let him do that.
For context, Kento’s solution to their problem is to have himself—someone who has had no heat for a little under a year—take a stronger dose of heat suppressants than usual, then help Yū with his heat.
It doesn’t take a genius to recognize a horrible idea. Of course, Yū says something.
(“What if your heat gets triggered anyway?” Yū questions, tugging a shirt over his head. “What then?”
“Well,” Kento lays down the knife he’s been using to cut green onions, “I’ll just take another dose.”
Silence lays over the room, as Yū stares at Kento and Kento stares back.
“Are you being serious?”
Kento nods, sliding the last of the chopped greened onions into their bowls. “We don’t have many options, Yū.”
Yū blinks. “Uh, maybe not, but we do have another option.”
That’s reasonable, Yū wishes to add, but Kento doesn’t take well to having his logic questioned.
“No, Yū.”
Kento doesn’t look at him as he speaks, taking a seat at the kitchen counter. Yū internally sighs, walking over to sit next to him.
“Kento, what’s better?” Yū leans forward, so their eyes can meet. “Me feeling a little sick? Or you being infertile?”
Kento shakes his head. “You don’t just get a ‘little sick’, Yū.”
“I’ll deal with it if it means—”
“No, we’d have to take you to the hospital.”
“You’d be in the hospital too! Taking suppressants while in heat can give you a seizure!”
Kento says nothing, taking a slow slurp of his miso.
“Fine,” Yū shrugs. “Looks like we’ll both be fucked.”
Even though he wants to storm out of their apartment, he will never, ever waste food, so he drinks his miso straight from the bowl, leaves his dish on the counter, and then heads out for work.)
So that leaves them here, sitting across from each other as Suguru is probably realizing that they haven’t said a word to each other since they entered their senpai’s house. At this point, Yū is going to pray for a miracle.
Maybe the silence would end once Satoru comes back from his mission, barging in with all the expected brashness of an alpha coming off the high of a job well-done. Or maybe, Suguru woud continue talking about his student’s first Grade 1 mission, ignoring the tension in the room. If Yū really wants to hope, he can imagine Kento opening his mouth to apologize, admitting that he has an unwavering tendency towards unnecessary martyrdom that stems from his unrelenting need to be needed.
…Well, maybe the apology would be enough.
Yū knows that he can sit there and fantansize all throughout their oncoming dinner, but he remembers what his grandmother always use to say about his daydreams.
‘You can’t eat the mochi in the picture’, she’d scold, after Yū would start every other sentence with ‘if’ and ‘maybe’ .
The reality is that waiting until Satoru comes home is ridiculous, Suguru isn’t the kind of person to just ignore things, and Kento wouldn’t apologize in a way that Yū could appreciate if he thinks he’s right. One of Kento’s favorite lines is, ‘I’m sorry that you feel that way’. The reality is that the responsibility is on Yū to take charge, even if it makes Kento angry.
“Suguru-senpai, can I ask you a question?”
Suguru looks slightly surprised that he’s being spoken to, which makes Yū wonder how long he thought the staring match between he and Kento was going to last. He hums,“Maa, Yū-kun, you asked me a question just now.”
Yū’s eyes wish to roll in their sockets, but he holds back. Usually, he’s entertained by Suguru’s care for semantics, but usually, he isn’t in an argument with his mate and in desperate need of outside interference.
“Surugu-senpai. I’m serious.”
Suguru’s eyebrows raise. “Go ahead.”
Yū nods, eyes flickering to Kento, who’s staring lasers into his face. Gulping, he forges on.
“What’s worse to you: an allergic reaction or infertility ?”
Suguru’s eyes widen, while Kento scoffs.
“How mature, Yū. Suguru-san has nothing to do with this.”
“I’m just looking for an outside opinion since, y’know, you won’t talk to me.”
“I talked and you refused to listen.”
“You did the same thing to me!”
“Woah, woah,” Suguru waves his hand, probably trying to clear the sour funk now permeating the room. “What’s the problem?”
Yū cocks his head at Kento.
Are you going to explain or will I?
Kento grimaces, folding his arms and crossing his legs.
I’m not budging.
Yū glares.
Fine.
“Okay,” Yū turns to Suguru, putting both his hands together on the dining table. “My heat was pushed back a week after my mission in Roppongi, so it’s in two weeks.”
Suguru nods slowly. “Okay.”
“Kento’s heat is also in two weeks.”
“Ah,” Suguru leans his head back, as if he’s contemplating. “So, one of you wants to take suppressants, but—”
“—Yu’s allergic .”
“—Kento’s heat will happen anyway!”
The smell of sharp discord increases and it irritates Yū to be so angry when there’s a beautiful spread of food in front of him. After all, the taste of food can easily be ruined by an essence of disagreement in the air, but Kento is being so unreasonable and it’s not fair how he always puts himself on the line and how Yū is supposed to just go along with it and—
“I’m home!” A voice sounds from the genkan.
Heavy footsteps come closer to them, until Satoru slides open the door to the room where they sit.
“Woah!” Satoru exclaims, waving his hand in front of his face. “It smells kind of crazy in here. Best to leave the door open, yeah?”
Yū feels bad as Suguru sighs with relief, greeting, “Welcome home, Satoru.”
Satoru deposits a small bag—probably full of treats—near the door, before walking around the table to give Suguru a kiss, sitting across from him.
“So, what’s going on in here?”
“Kento-san and Yū-kun are having a dilemma,” Suguru responds, eyes moving between them to say more.
“It’s not a dilemma,” Kento speaks, looking directly at Yū. “There’s a clear solution.”
Yū never wanted to have such an argument at their weekly dinners with their friends, at their house. This was supposed to be fun and light, and it’s one of the only weeknights that Satoru isn’t working and he wants to spend it with them. Yū wishes he could turn back time and suck all the bravado he previously had away so they can actually enjoy tonight, but he’s in too deep. After all, spilt water won’t return to the tray. He’ll just have to clean up the mess himself.
“Our heats are going to happen at the same time.”
“Oh,” Satoru says in the same manner Suguru had.
“Both of them want to take the suppressants themselves,” Suguru explains further.
“But it’s not going to work out well,” Yū starts, before cutting a glance at Kento, who looks like he’s gearing up to talk back,“no matter which way we do it.”
Kento’s face falls into surprise as he closes his mouth and stares at Yū.
Being aggressive with Kento never works, because he’s as stubborn as they come and he’s willing to wait. If Yū knows anything about Kento, he knows that he has to give a little to make any progress.
Now, silence sits, but it’s a silence of contemplation rather than uncomfortable hostility. The smell of motsu nikomi and takoyaki start to tickle his nose, and it’s hard to focus on a solution when Yū remembers how hungry he is.
Suddenly, Satoru starts serving himself, even taking bites directly out of the serving bowls. Kento turns his head slowly to stare at the man next to him, fixing him with such an intense look that Yū has to hold his breath to keep from laughing. Silence continues except for the sounds of Satoru’s chewing, and eventually, Suguru sighs, “Satoru.”
Satoru licks his lips, lowering his chopsticks. “Sorry, just had to get something in my mouth.”
At that, Suguru smirks, making eye contact with Yu, and he just can’t hold back anymore. He bursts out laughing, trying to retain the smallest sliver of politeness by covering his mouth.
“Yū, what a dirty mind you have!” Satoru chides, but he’s smiling, which only makes Yū laugh more.
Kento rolls his eyes as he turns his head away, sighing, “You could’ve at least had the manners not to eat directly from the bowls.”
Satoru takes another bite of his negima yakitori , swallowing. “Don’t worry, my dear kōhai. I’ve already thought of a wonderfully simple solution to your ‘non-dilemma’.”
“What?”
“You two should just spend your heats with Suguru and I.”
Yū chokes on his water, immediately going into a coughing fit, while Kento almost drops a bowl of rice on the floor. Suguru starts to pat Yū’s back, and he looks just as surprised as them as he starts, “Satoru, wait—”
“Are you kidding?” Kento growls, setting down the bowl in his hand.
“What’s the problem?”
Kento’s expression can only be described as incredulous. “It’s inappropriate.”
“How?” Satoru shrugs. “We’re all adults here, it’ll work out. Suguru and I have talked about this before.”
Suguru’s eyes widen at that, and Yū has never seen him look more betrayed.
“Satoru, we didn’t talk about this exact situation and maybe, we shouldn’t talk about it right—”
“—And,” Satoru interrupts, looking relatively unbothered despite the atmosphere of the room, “it’ll be convenient. There’s two of you, and two of us, and our bed is very big.”
After that, Satoru waggles his eyebrows, and Yū swears he can see Kento forming the 7:3 lines in his vision, so he reaches across the table to grab his mate’s hand.
“Kento, please—”
“You think everything is a joke, you—!”
“Maybe we should all calm down,” Suguru speaks up, shifting like he’s going to stand. “Would anyone like some tea?”
“What I would like is for you all to stop acting like this is so outrageous,” Satoru scoffs, miffed. “What other options do you guys have?”
“Maybe we just,” Yū starts before Kento can respond, squeezing his hand, “need some time to think about it.”
Kento looks like he wants to object, but Yū gives him a look.
Not now, please.
Kento relaxes minutely.
Fine.
Satoru catches Yū’s eyes, and Yū tries to communicate with him.
Please drop it.
Satoru blinks once, and it’s as if a cat is staring directly at him as it slides a bowl slowly towards the edge of a counter. Yū is trying so hard—shaking his head, letting his eyes glance at Kento. Satoru looks between the two of them, blinks again, and then promptly proceeds to Hollow Purple the bowl as he opens his mouth.
“Would it help if I told you that me and Suguru are absolutely blessed in the sack?”
Kento shoots up from the table, ripping his hand from Yū’s.
“That’s it. We’re leaving.”
“Wait, wait—,” Suguru tries to wave him back down, but Kento’s already made up his mind. Yū can see it in his face.
“Oh, c’mon, it can’t be that serious.”
“Satoru, stop talking,” Suguru hisses as he leans closer to Yū.
“Yū, let’s go.”
Yū hesitates because of the delicious food crying to be eaten, and because Suguru has a hand on his shoulder, and because Satoru’s looking at him like he’s the deciding factor of whether this is going to become more serious than he had hoped it to be.
“But—”
“Yu.”
But Kento’s looking at him, and he’s angry, but he’s also begging.
I need to go.
Yū nods.
Understood.
“Sorry, Suguru-senpai,” Yū bows slightly to Suguru out of embarrassment, shame, and a million other emotions, before turning to bow to Satoru. “We’ll think about it, Satoru-senpai. Thanks for the dinner and have a good night.”
It’s so hard to walk away from a table full of food and friends, but Kento needs him.
They walk out together, Satoru and Suguru walking them quietly to the door. Kento exits with a curt goodbye, but Yū at least gives them a small smile and a wave, whispering that he’d see them at work.
Ijichi’s still outside from when Satoru got dropped off, but Kento wants to take the train, so they send him home. On the train shoulder-to-shoulder with pinkies linked, Kento whispers, “Thank you.”
Yū doesn’t move to look at him, but still says, “Of course.”
Yū enters the teacher’s lounge with nothing but pure joy from the knowledge that he won’t have to see his students again until the next day. He has nothing but love for his first-years, but if someone told him that they had a blood pact to embarrass him as much as possible, he would believe them.
(“Haibara-sensei, can curses have sex?” Makoto speaks with her hand up, despite the fact that Yū didn’t call on her.
“I—,” Yū sighs, shaking his head. “Makoto-san, please don’t interrupt me when I’m teaching.”
Makoto shrugs, lowering her hand. “Sorry. It’s just that the better we understand curses, the easier it’ll be to defeat them.”
“What does sex have to do with defeating curses?”
“Wait, sensei, she’s kinda right,” Koizumi interjects, twirling his pencil in between his fingers. “What if we can find a way to manipulate curses through seduction?”
When he started teaching, Kento told him to not let the kids push him around, citing Yu’s relaxed nature. Clearly, Yū was, and still is, in desperate need of that advice. The worst part is that the question was genuine. The second worst part is that he actually doesn’t know the answer.
Though, Suguru definitely knows.
“Seduction?” Yū repeats, tilting his head forward. He sets down the chalk he was using on his desk, trying to hold himself together. “ Why would a curse be attracted to you in that manner?”
“I mean,” Yonai starts, not looking up from filing her nails, “I’m pretty good-looking. I don’t know about these two though…”
At that, the kids break into an argument.
Yū thought that bringing up the next generation of sorcerors would be a noble cause, but sometimes, he worries at the fact that these students are what the future of Japan rests on. Often, he wonders if he and his schoolmates were that bad, and then he remembers that Satoru once asked Yaga if he could make a cursed corpse sex doll, so maybe this was some sort of generational karma.
Yū takes a deep breath. The kids’ argument has progressively increased in volume to the point where Koizumi looks ready to get out of his seat , so Yū shuts it down.
“Yonai-san, please put away the nail tools. Koizumi-kun, sit down. If someone else interrupts me again, I’ll volunteer all of you to clean the gym.”
“All I did was ask a question,” Makoto mutters, slouching down into her chair.
Koizumi mumbles something, no doubt directed at Yonai, who only rolls her eyes and pushes her nail tools off her desk into her backpack.
No doubt Satoru and Suguru would fall out laughing if they heard about this. Kento would at least pity him, but he’d laughing too. If Yū wants to keep his dignity and the respect of his colleagues, he wouldn’t dare repeat this conversation to anyone.)
Trying to push the memory away, he shakes his head and downs three cups of water from the cooler, before pulling out his phone from his bag. Just as he’s about to call Kento to ask what he wants Yū to order for dinner, Satoru and Suguru enter the teacher’s lounge.
Even though the last time he had seen both of them was the dinner-gone-wrong two nights ago, he promised himself to still treat them the same. They were his friends, after all.
“Yū, do you really not know that curses have a sex drive?”
Nevermind. Yū should treat Satoru like Kento would. Feigned ignorance and complete denial.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Satoru sits backwards on the wheely chair next to Yū’s, spinning himself around as he explains, “One of your students—Makoto, I think—told me that you wouldn’t answer her in class, so she had to ask me.”
“She didn’t have to ask you anything,” Yū frowns, starting to pull out his students’ homework to grade. “Anyway Satoru-senpai, why are you talking to my students?”
Satoru shrugs, smiling. “I’m a fountain of knowledge, so I must share what I know with the youth.”
Before Yū can tell Satoru to start sharing things with only his own students, Suguru clears his throat from the desk opposite Yū’s.
“Satoru’s right,” Suguru hums, pulling out a stack of papers from his bag. “Curses can, and do, have sex if intelligent and interested enough. And, of course, they would also need genitalia.”
Yū has no clue what face he’s making, but from the way they’re both laughing at him, it must be worse than the time he ate a mystery rice ball that had umeboshi in it.
Satoru recovers from his laughing fit, and Yū is saved from whatever demoralizing comment he was going to make by the buzz of his phone. With all the ruckus, he forgot to call Kento. Picking up the phone in his right hand, he continues to grade with his left as he accepts the call.
“Yū?”
“Hey, Kento.”
“Hello. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Close to your mission?”
“Yes, we’ll be arriving in two.”
Yū hums. “Be safe. Since you’re back late today, I’ll order. Want soba and kakiage?”
“Sound good. This time though, make sure to order more kakiage for yourself.”
Yū chuckles.
You eat someone’s food once , he thinks, knowing he’s just as possessive with his food. (Okay, even more possessive…sometimes.)
“Yeah, yeah.”
“How’s the school?”
“Still standing. I’m just grading.”
Kento hums. “Alright, we’re approaching. Bye, Yū.”
“See you, Kento.”
The line cuts as he sets his phone down, writing down their order on a sticky note. He notes that it’s oddly silent in the room, looking up to see Suguru looking at Satoru, and Satoru staring at him.
“Is he still upset?”
Yū blinks, trying to process the question.
“Um, no?”
“You don’t sound sure,” Suguru comments, eyeing him intently.
“I don’t know,” Yū shrugs, trying to hold back from fidgeting at the focused attention. “We haven’t talked about it yet.”
Suguru nods, making eye contact with Satoru. The stare continues until Satoru sighs loudly, “Fine. Yū, I’m sorry about the other night. I wasn’t trying to piss you guys off.”
“Eh, it’s fine. It’s just Kento, you know,” Yū lets the rest hang in the air, because they know. Kento’s pretty no-nonsense, but it doesn’t mean he’s not sensitive, especially to what he believes is teasing. Especially about something like heats.
Kento has never joked about heats.
“Well,” Suguru taps a pen against the page of a packet, “what do you think?”
“About what?” Yū asks, out of reflex more than anything. He knows what.
“Our offer.”
Yū lowers his eyes to his desk. He didn’t know the offer was still standing, after what had happened before. What he thought…
I need to talk to Kento.
While Yū doesn’t revere heats as sacred, or something to be conservative about, he doesn’t want to do anything without Kento there. It had always been them, ever since Yu’s first heat, and he can’t imagine a heat without Kento by his side.
And he isn’t going to betray Kento by insinuating that he would be fine having a heat with someone else—even their friends—if Kento didn’t agree to be there too. It was Kento or nothing, always, because he knew Kento would and has done the exact same thing for him.
“I don’t know,” Yū says slowly, letting his eyes slide from Suguru to Satoru. “I would need to talk to Kento.”
They both nod, going back to their respective tasks. Satoru, his phone, and Suguru, his papers. Looks like that answer was satisfactory enough.
They sit in silence, until a ping sounds from Satoru’s phone and he gets up.
“Well, I’m off!”
“Bye, babe.”
Satoru walks around the room to Suguru’s desk, leaning over. “Come here, handsome.”
Satoru and Suguru start kissing goodbye, so Yū looks back down at his papers until they finish.
“Bye, Satoru-senpai!”
“Bye, Yū—oh wait, I’m heading to Sendai for this mission. Want—”
“Oh my god! Really? There’s this place that serves the best—I mean, the best — gyutan there. You have to get me some. Kento and I went like two years ago, and we haven’t been back since, so it’s been so long. It was so perfectly juicy! You’d die if you had it. Oh, Kento likes it too, so can you bring back some for him? Oh, and Suguru-senpai, you would definitely love it if you tried it! Satoru-senpai, you have to get some for yourself too. As you bite into it, you’ll literally—”
“Yū.”
Clamping his mouth shut, he can feel his face start to go red as Suguru and Satoru start to laugh at him.
“Nothing like food to get Yū-kun excited,” Suguru shakes his head.
Satoru makes an affirmative noise. “Our Yū-chan’s such a kuishinbo . Don’t worry, I’ll bring back enough for everyone. Ciao!”
Satoru teleports out of the room with a wave. Once he’s gone, Yū shakes his head, pouting.
“The gyutan was really that good.”
“I’m sure, Yū-kun,” Suguru nods, before reaching in his bag. “Would you like a Yakult? I thought you’d like some, so I picked one up from the vending machine.”
Maybe one day, Yu’s shame would outweigh his will to eat, but today was not that day.
“Yes, please!”
“So, what do you guys like in bed?”
The table goes quiet, and Yū thinks to himself, how did we get here?
This is how.
(“I’m back.” Kento uses his hands to pull of his shoes, standing back up to give Yū a kiss.
Yū takes his bag, asking, “How were the missions?”
“The usual,” Kento hums, walking to the counter where the takeout sits. “Could’ve been worse. Did you order extra kariage?”
Yū watches him checking the boxes, rolling his eyes. “Yes, geez. You think us being together would mean we could share food sometimes.”
“When you say ‘share’, do you really mean ‘devour my portion’?” Kento says without looking back at him, walking towards the bedroom.
“Kento,” Yū laughs, setting Kento’s bag down on the couch, before following him into the bedroom. “You’re so heartless.”
Kento doesn’t respond as he’s undressing for the shower. Yū follows him in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet cover while Kento turns on the shower to let it start to heat up.
“Is there a reason you’re in here?”
“To stare at your butt.”
“You’re such a child.”
Yū flicks Kento’s butt before he gets in, but he leaves the shower curtain open some so Yū knows he’s willing to talk.
“Okay, I do actually have something to talk to you about, but I didn’t want to wait so we didn’t sour the food.”
“It’s about them, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Do you—I mean, would you really mind, if we did spend our heat with them? I know Satoru-senpai was being…,”Yū twists his mouth. “He was a being a bit of a jerk, but it didn’t sound like that bad of an idea.”
Kento says nothing.
“Kento?”
“I’m thinking.”
There’s no words for a moment, only the sound of water and scrubbing.
“We can say no,” Yū holds out a metaphorical hand for Kento. “If you don’t want to, that’s all that matters.”
“Do you want to?”
“Only if you’re there.”
It’s Kento or nothing.
No words again for the next couple of minutes.
“It’s not just that they’re…,” Kento turns the water off, letting the rest of the sentence go. Grabbing his towel, he steps out of the shower, not looking at Yu. “Heats should be with people you trust.”
“You don’t trust them?”
“No. Yes, I mean—Of course, I trust them. They’ve both saved my life, but—”
“But?”
“But Satoru is insensitive and critically unserious, and Suguru is his enabling other half,” Kento frowns slightly, putting the towel to hang as he finishes drying himself. “They don’t—and won’t—understand the gravity of the situation.”
Yū tilts his head. “Well—”
“Satoru’s a man who’s gotten anything he ever wanted, so why share something with him that he won’t value the same?”
And there’s the problem. Kento thinks that Satoru doesn’t care , and Yū might’ve been slightly offended on Satoru’s behalf, but Satoru can easily be perceived like that due to his aggressive affinity towards slightly harmful humor. Though, despite all that…
He cares a lot, though , Yū thinks.
This is the same Satoru who lent Yū a pair of pants when he’d ripped his own trying to do a split. The same Satoru that gave Yū teaching advice that was both terrible and terribly earnest. The same Satoru that took care of him during his almost-fatal mission recovery in high school, when Kento’s mission ran late. The same Satoru that hid all his worries behind a smile while taking the world on his shoulders.
Kento can’t really believe that, after all these years of knowing him.
“Heats are a time of vulnerability, Yū. I just don’t want us to do something we might regret,” Kento continues, opening a drawer to grab his razor.
“I don’t think we’d regret it, though? Remember, these are the same guys we’ve known for like, forever, Kento. Yeah, Satoru-senpai is a bit of a clown, and Suguru-senpai likes to encourage him, but that doesn’t mean they won’t care. I mean, Suguru-senpai’s the only one who is willing to listen to me talk about food for like, 30 minutes. You only give me 10!” Yū reaches out to pinch Kento’s butt as he leans over closer to the mirror.
Kento barely misses slapping his hand away, before shaking his head. “You have a problem, Yū.”
“And,” Yū raises a finger, “Satoru always buys you your favorite sandwich when he wants to bribe you.”
“Is that meant to be a good thing?”
“The point is that they do care,” Yū sighs, getting weary of going in circles. “I think—At the dinner, Satoru was trying to lighten the mood. You know, today, he actually apologized.”
“No need to lie, Yu.”
“I’m serious! He said he didn’t mean to make you mad. Why else would he apologize if he didn’t care?”
“Was Suguru there?”
Yū knew what he was asking. Suguru is the only person who can force Satoru to do something he doesn’t want to do, and is also one of the only sensible people they know, so if Suguru was around, he definitely could’ve made Satoru apologize.
“Not the point. C’mon, Kento.”
“I understand,” Kento acquiesces, rinsing the razor under the sink.
A second passes by.
“You’re not insecure about your body because—”
“No.”
Yū frowns, standing up so Kento can see him in the mirror. “You didn’t let me compliment you.”
“You would’ve just talked about my butt,” Kento rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.
“And your muscles!” Yū hugs him from behind. “And your face. And your—”
Kento elbows him lightly, huffing, “That’s enough.”
Yū kisses him on the cheek, and Kento hums. Yū keeps kissing, and he’s ready to offer up an activity they can do together, when Kento says, “I’m not totally against it—sharing a heat with them.”
Yū separates himself from Kento’s neck. “Really?”
“Mhm.”
“Yay! Should I text them in the groupchat? No, I’ll just call Suguru-senpai.”
Yū is about to unwind his arms from Kento and go grab his phone off the kitchen counter when Kento stops him, grabbing his forearm.
“But, we have to meet with them and talk it over.”
“Okay, I’ll ask when Satoru is back from his mission,” Yū moves to leave the bathroom, before remembering something. “Oh, I have to text him! I told him to get us gyutan because he’s in Sendai. Remember when we went? That gyutan was so good! Kento, do you remember?”
Humming, Kento pushes him gently out of the bathroom, turning off the light on their way out.
“Yes. It was good.”
“See? I tried to tell them that, but I don’t think they took me seriously.
Kento chuckles while pulling on his pajama pants. “You were probably just babbling.”
“Whatever, see if I listen to you when you talk about your little sandwiches ever again.”
“The fact you call them that means you never listened in the first place.”)
Upon hearing Satoru’s question, Yū promptly starts choking on his banana milkshake. Across from him, Suguru pops a mame daifuku in his mouth, looking thoroughly amused.
Next to Suguru, Kento scowls, nose scrunched in disgust, “How is that an appropriate question to ask right now?”
“Well, Yū said that we were going to talk about the logistics. What else would I ask?”
“Not those kind of logistics!” Kento hisses, setting down his Danish pastry. “We’re here to talk about things like how long the both of you should take off work, and who will be your teaching replacements.”
Satoru scoffs, waving his hand as he sticks a piece of warabimochi in his mouth. “That’s nothing. We could’ve texted about that.”
Kento’s eye twitches, and Yū has a feeling that things will get louder without intervention. Thankfully, Suguru speaks up, “Kento, it’s on the 17th, right? Satoru and I will just take the week off. Kusakabe and Yaga can cover our classes. Also, we got tested and we’re clean.”
Kento immediately relaxes at the reassurance that someone is taking things seriously, nodding.
“So,” Satoru drawls, starting to lick soybean flour off his fingers,“now that that’s out of the way…”
Before Kento can get worked up again, Yū blurts the first thing that comes to mind. “This isn’t weird for you guys?”
It’s the sort of question that Yū should’ve asked a while ago, not as their heats are nearing. It’s the sort of question that Kento would ask, though in a more eloquent manner—the sort of question that Kento did ask and Yū failed to truly understand. It’s the sort of question that’s finally settling in thanks to Satoru’s crudeness. He was so focused on making sure that Kento didn’t do something self-sacrifical, that he didn’t stop to think what this whole situation actually entails.
Yū knows that nothing has to change. They can have heat sex together, and then Satoru will stick another penis drawing in Kento’s pocket and Suguru will buy him snacks from the vending machine to eat on their lunch break and everything can be the same. But will it?
What if things are supposed to be different? After all, Kento’s only ever been his one and only. His first, last, and only. What would it be like, sharing Kento with others? With their best friends? It’s not about trust, or about being vulnerable, but everything that comes after. It’s starting to sink into Yū that this isn’t some theoretical heat. This is real. It’s going to happen.
No wonder Kento was freaking out before.
But, he doesn’t want to back out. He wonders what the sex will be like. He wonders what the after will look like. He wonders if he will change, along with everything else.
“Well, it’s certainly not appropriate conversation for a cafe, but Satoru doesn’t exactly care for social etiquette,” Suguru snorts, batting away Satoru’s stray hand going for his daifuku .
“Who needs those?” Satoru says, but his eyes are focused on the food display near the front of the cafe. “Anyway, isn’t open communication the best approach to this sort of thing?”
Yū is glad that they misunderstood his question, but when he looks at Kento, it’s like he’s looking right through him. Kento knows. Knows what he meant to say and probably knows everything he’s thinking about. Yū averts his eyes, knowing he’s in for it later.
“If no one answers, I can go first. I like—”
“Why don’t you just wait and see?” Yū basically shouts, because he refuses to get asked to leave a public place again just because Satoru plays around too much.
Satoru smirks like he got exactly what he wanted, Suguru laughs, and Kento has resigned himself to silence.
“Oh, I see, Yū,” Suguru leans closer to Yū over the table, touching Yū’s leg with his foot underneath the table. “Trying to build anticipation? Mystery is sexy, after all.”
“Super sexy!” Satoru exclaims way too loud. The waitress a couple tables over gives them a dirty look, and Yū wants to shrivel up into a worm.
Satoru opens his mouth again, but Yū stops him while he’s ahead, “Satoru-senpai, can you please go get me some cheesecake?”
Satoru pauses, “Sure, I’ll get some too. Anyone else?”
Suguru and Kento shake their heads.
Satoru leaves, Yū takes a breath, and Kento is still looking at him.
He avoids looking at either of them, instead looking down into his milkshake and his stomach is swirling, but it’s definitely not hunger or indigestion. It’s something else entirely.
“Kento, you should stay here.”
“There’s no way I’m staying here overnight, Yū,” Kento moves to stand, picking his watch up from a nearby medical tray. “Just take me home.”
“Shōko-senpai said she thinks it would be best if you stayed here overnight so she can monitor you,” Yū shakes his head, trying to push Kento to sit back down in bed.
“Yū.”
“Kento.”
Kento sighs, but Yū knows that he has to be just as protective over Kento as he is over Yu. It’s just something that they’ve always owed each other.
(Yū’s eyes are so watery that he can barely see his reflection in the toilet bowl. He coughs again and spits out phlegm. He turns his head to try and breathe better, and ends up feeling worse seeing Gojō-senpai sitting there, on his phone.
“Shokō said that she’s on the way. She has medicine.”
Yū groans in response. He can barely form words. Everything hurts. His throat, his eyes, and the scar stretching half of his face and torso. He didn’t think it would be this bad, taking heat suppressants.
Only half a pill, and his head was pounding 10 minutes later, and before he knew it, he was throwing up on Getō-senpai’s uniform, and almost passing out in the common room. Only half a pill and now he had to pull Ieiri-senpai away from her work. Only half a pill, and now his senpai is watching over him like some invalid.
It just wasn’t fair.
Yū hears the door to his room open and knows he’s really in it now. Kento’s here.
“Gojō-senpai.”
“He’ll be fine,” Gojō stands, tucking his phone into his pocket. “Shōko’s on her way over.”
“Thank you.”
“No problemo!” Gojō’s voice is further away, and the room to his door clicks shut.
Steps approach, and Kento takes Gojō’s place.
A hand in his hair.
“Yū, are you alright?”
Yū barely shakes his head.
“Yū. Yū, you can’t do stuff like this. You know that you’re—Something could’ve—Why didn’t you—”
Kento can’t seem to land on the words to say, but Yū gets the gist, even if his stomach feels like it’s eating itself.
“I can’t have something happen to you, Yū—I can’t. The fact you’re still here—it’s…”
Incredible. A feat of nature. Borderline impossible.
Yū had died. Sliced right in half, after having pushed Kento out of the way of the first grade curse.
But, as they had been cremating him, it happened. His body burned to ashes, then reformed, this time in one piece. (Though, after an X-ray, he’d been told he lost a bit of his intestinal tract.)
It was by all means, a miracle. An unknown innate technique that allowed Yū to rise from the like a phoenix from the ashes. But, recovery wasn’t easy.
He came back with temporary amnesia, IBS that lasted for months, a scar from his face to bottom of his ribcage, and a need for intense physical therapy. He had been dead. His muscles had started to atrophy, his brain cells had started to die, and losing part of his intestinal tract had done a number on him. And with all of this, came a weakened immune system, meaning a flu would most definitely knock Yū off his feet. All in all, it was a painful, slow reintroduction into living.
Taking a medication he has an allergy to wasn’t the smartest, but he hates being a burden. Kento is overbearing, at the least, and his upperclassmen never allow him to be alone. He knows how much Kento stresses all the time, worrying over him, so why bother him with a heat on top of it all? They helped each other with heats before, but Kento has looked so tired lately and Yū knows that it hasn’t been easy for him, or anyone else.
“ ‘M sorry, Kento. I jus’…didn’ wanna bother you.”
“Bother me? Yū, something like this isn’t worth your life. A heat isn’t worth your life. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Just next time—”
“I will,” Yū takes his hand and squeezes weakly. “I will.”
His door opens again, and multiple footsteps enter.
“The doctor is in!” Gojō exclaims.
Yū hears a sound like someone got hit. Getō hisses, “Satoru, quiet down!”
The smell of nicotine permeates the bathroom, and Ieiri pats him on the back, “Haibara, take this.”
Yū lifts his head to see Kento taking a glass of water and a white pill from Ieiri’s hands. He places it in his mouth slowly, and downs the cup of water.
He swallows, all eyes on him, and knows that he’s never doing something like this again. )
Kento refuses to budge, clipping his watch on with a frown, before saying, “You know I don’t like to stay here.”
And Yū has to relent. He sighs, picking up his phone to call Ijichi to take them home. He grabs Kento’s shoes from the corner of the room and watches him put them on.
Yū goes to sit on the bed, and Kento sits next to him, and he has the same look on his face as he did in the cafe. Like he knows that Yū hasn’t stopped thinking about what’s coming in three days.
“Are you worried?” Yū asks.
“Are you?”
Yū gulps, rubbing at his side. “It feels real, now that we’re getting closer. I’m not worried, it’s just…new.”
“New,” Kento repeats.
Yū nods. “Different.”
“Different,” Kento nods, grabbing his hand. “Do you still want to?”
“Yeah,” Yū nods. “I think—It’s just nerves.”
“I think we’ll be fine,” Kento hums, contemplative. “Worst case, we can just act like it never happened.”
“Kento!” Yū laughs, pushing their shoulders together. “I don’t think we’ll have to do that.”
A pause.
Yū continues, quieter. “I don’t want to have to do that.”
Silence sits for a while, but he can see Kento thinking.
“So, you want things to be different after?”
“Well, no—”
“You just said you don’t want to act like it never happened.”
Yū is struck quiet by Kento’s words. It almost makes it sounds like…
“Yū,” Kento calls for his attention. “You know it’s okay to be attracted to them, right?”
Yū blinks. “What?”
Kento just stares at him.
“I—I’m not!”
Kento sighs, sounding a little disappointed. “Yū, I accepted your fangirl crush on Suguru-san a long time ago.”
Yū is stunned into silence.
“It’s fine if you’re sexually attracted to him—to both of them. It’s a necessary component of having them as heat partners.”
Yū scoffs,“You are, too! Whenever Satoru-senpai is around, you put on the most obvious tsundere omega act!”
Kento frowns, “That’s factually incorrect.”
“Kento,” Yū laughs, putting his hand on his mate’s shoulder. “I’m around when it happens. You play hard to get with him all the time.”
“That’s the appropriate thing to do, seeing as I’m in a relationship with you, no?”
Yū’s laugh fades and they’re both quiet.
“Does this mean we’ve always been into them?”
“I don’t know. Would it matter if we had? Nothing between us would have changed,” Kento answers softly, squeezing Yū’s hand. “Nothing between us will change.”
“But things with them will change.”
Kento lets out a breath. “Yes, maybe, but it could be better.”
Yū tries to imagine a better. A future where he wouldn’t mind sharing Kento with someone else, or doing other things he never thought he would do, like kissing Satoru as he’s on his way to a mission, or scenting Suguru during their breaks in the teacher’s lounge. Or, even meeting up for every one of their heats from now on. And crazy as it seems, he finds himself feeling like he might like a future like that, so he squeezes Kento’s hand.
“Yeah, it could be.”
The day comes, and they let most of the day pass before heading over, only leaving as the sun starts to set. Sickly sweet preheat oozes off of them, and Yū likens the journey to going into a lion’s den covered in honey.
They’re received warmly, as usual, and everything is as usual, for the most part. The only thing is that there’s a tension that comes with everyone knowing where this is going. Suguru is smiling like the cat whose got the cream, and Satoru can’t seem to keep his body to himself, rubbing his feet against Kento’s legs the entire dinner. When Yū glances at Kento out of the side of his eye, he sees that his mate looks relatively unbothered with everything going on. In fact, Yū would say Kento is pleased with the way he scent seems to balloon with every touch from Satoru, or smile from Suguru.
Yū’s not entirely unaffected. His skin starts to itch near the end of the meal, and he eats more to compensate for the fact that he wants to bite everyone in the room. His scent must make it obvious because after he tries to go back for food a fourth time, Suguru puts a hand on his and says, “How about you guys go get ready for bed?”
Having showered before they came, Kento and Yū are left to wait for them to finish cleaning up in their bedroom.
“Satoru-senpai was right,” Yū comments as he takes a seat next to Kento on their bed. “Their bed is pretty big.”
Kento hums, but Yū can tell he’s starting to lose it from the way he’s looking at him. He leans over, starting to mouth at Yū’s scent glands and a flash of heat travels over Yū’s entire body.
“Just relax, Yū,” Kento says as he continues to kiss up and down his neck, making him shiver.
“Relax, Yū,” Kento murmurs and he puts a hand on Yū's thigh, leaning closer as Yū hears footsteps from the stairway.
“Yū,” Kento sighs as the bedroom door clicks open.