Chapter Text
Hakuno was different from her brother.
It wasn’t something someone could notice at first glance, really. Sometimes even she herself forgot at times with how near identical they looked.
In fact, if someone were to look at them, they would most likely be led to believe they were clones of the opposite sex instead of brother and sister—that was the charm of being someone else’s twin, she supposed, though she would have rather preferred not to bear such a striking resemblance to him. It would have saved the two of them —Hakuno believed the feeling was mutual— a lot of asinine questions such as whether or not they shared some kind of special, mystic telepathic bond through which they could finish each other’s sentences, or if they felt the same pain the other did if one of them were to scrap their leg.
However, no matter how alike they looked, people always seemed to be dead set in reminding them of what set them apart, and as soon as the two of them hit pre-puberty, the differences just became abysmal, irreconcilable.
All too soon, she started to feel the weight of what others might be thinking of her.
Hakuno was an Omega, where her brother was not.
It was so plain and simple, something so straightforward—omega, alpha, beta, heats: why did she have to care about them? Why did she have to let them dictate what she had to do in life? Her life was her own, and those were just stupid antiquated words to describe the certain physiological needs of people that due to their genetics just so happened to have a very strong desire to procreate every once in a month. It really should be this simple, and yet the reality of it has always felt like a rope around her neck.
Somewhere along the way, those simple words devoid of meaning started dictating the way she had to conduct herself in life, and the nightmare started.
Her mama tried to ease her more than visible social anxiety. She used to call her ‘my special omega girl’. She would whisper her so, as she tucked her to sleep into her bed, as she combed through her hair as she got her ready for school.
She didn’t think she was, though; if wearing wool socks that were itchy on her feet and dressing in expensive, dainty dresses with silly ribbons on her hair that always got in the middle of everything fun because she couldn’t get them dirty was what being ‘a special omega girl’ meant, then she didn’t want to be that kind of girl at all.
As soon as Hakuno realized she didn’t want anything of what her parents and teachers wanted from her, there were no more ooh’s and ahh’s at how well she could read in English at her young age, no more praises at how well-mannered she was, no more heartfelt compliments from other mothers at the playground at how cute and quiet a girl she was and how lucky a mother her mama was.
Adolescence had been a pain in the ass. Her early memories of it -the ones she could distinctly remember, at least- were filled with images of herself disappointing someone’s grand expectations of her some way or another.
Her teachers shook their heads disapprovingly at her most of the time, their mostly absent father wasn’t really a much better emotional support, either —one day you will give your mother an early death from embarrassment, he used to tell her—, and all she wished for was for someone, anyone, to understand her —she’s just a tad eccentric, her pediatrist would reassure her mother, saccharine sweet. She’ll grow out of it when she’s older—.
People always told her being born an omega was a compliment. It was a blessing; her parents got saddled with nondescript beta genes, but them? Hayato pulled a genetic jackpot and was born as a male Alpha—there was nothing that would be ever out of his reach, if he so whished for it. And as if that hadn’t been enough, life had also decided to grace such a lucky couple of betas with a female omega, one who one day would make them very, very proud by becoming a good little wife who stayed at home to cook and clean the house while her husband fucked every hole from work to home.
Hakuno didn’t want anything of that, but she couldn’t bear the look of sorrow on her mother’s face whenever the conversation about marrying and having kids arose, so she blended in.
Well, tried to, at least.
For most of her life, Hakuno has tried her hardest to blend in—and then promptly gave up when she turned fourteen, which was around the moment Hakuno and her bitter ass started to realize this was not the compliment people wanted her to believe it was. Mood swings, terrible headaches, nightmarish cramps, and then—
The heats.
The fucking heats.
Those never got easier after the first time despite what Mama used to tell her.
She went to a conservative school, and of course Sister Martha didn’t really go over the specifics of sexual mating cycles, so she never found out she could actually try relieve herself -never mind the fact that there were such things as heat suppressants- until she was old enough to get her own personal laptop, which meant she had to go through her pre-adolescent years and half of her adolescence being locked inside an omega shelter for entire weeks (we’re doing this for your sake, sweetheart) with minimal to no social contact since the rather impersonal clinic workers weren’t even allowed to speak with them.
After the fiasco that her upbringing had been, Hakuno has tried to lead a life as normal as possible, even if everyone around her seemed to hate seeing her alone, always going on about how she needed to marry a nice Alpha to take care of her and help her through her heats.
But Hakuno didn’t need that—not when science has developed so many nice drugs and procedures with which to suppress omega's heats. Now that science was able to give a reasonable explanation for the existence of heat cycles that went much beyond religious fables, now that humanity had found a way to subdue some of the alpha/beta/omega scripts hardwired into people’s bodies with the use of hormones and other chemicals, antiquated words such as ‘mates’ have completely lost their meaning to become a parody of what they once were.
‘Mate’ didn’t mean shit anymore—it might have held some sort of transcendental meaning to people of her parents’ age once upon a time, but those were other times.
The world where Hakuno lived? Not anymore.
Now it was a word primarily used by multinationals to sell other people shit they didn’t really need, and especially exploited on special holidays like Valentine’s Day and Christmas—and the things those shady companies would try to sell people… It gave Hakuno the creeps: mating services. Hakuno always thought a little bit distastefully to herself that that was just a softer term to describe modern day white slavery, but maybe that’s just her and her jaded ass speaking.
So of course, Hakuno could not be blamed when, during her annual appointment with her gynecologist, she had neatly replied to his assistant’s Disney princess smile, arms folded and a stare as deadpan as her tone, “You must have mistaken my appointment for somebody else’s. I’m not here for family planning. I have an appointment to get my dosage of Furoriadol because it’s either that or find me someone to fuck me through my heat so I don’t claw my eyeballs out.”
Her gynecologist’s assistant almost fell from her fucking chair.
A petty part of her would have found this satisfying…
“Not insured? What do you mean it’s ‘not insured’?”
…If only she could dispel the pit of dread sitting inside her chest when she heard those two little words coming from her doctor’s mouth.
Not insured.
Her doctor, a man named ‘Twice’—what were his parents thinking at the moment they were asked to give their newborn son a name? She's heard about foreigners being eccentric but this was a bit too much— took a moment to stop writing on his laptop to give her a dispassionate look from the top of the screen and across the desk she was sitting in front of.
“Exactly what the string of words ‘not insured’ mean, miss Kishinami. Your health insurance does not cover Furoriadol anymore.”
Of course, as if bad luck had some sort of perpetual hard on for her, there were few things that went well in Hakuno’s life—and now, at age twenty, Hakuno more than understood the reality of her condition.
If life was a tornado, Hakuno was the cow being spun around for cinematic value.
It wasn’t just the fact that she was misunderstood. Hakuno, ever so blessed to be born a female omega, was an anomaly within an anomaly in a society that valued people like her as little more than just pieces of meat.
Furoriadol was supposed to be her salvation; a two-dose injection that lasted around 7 to 10 years from what she’s read, depending, and then boom! No more heats.
But even that seemed to have been denied to her, somehow.
“But even so, there must still be a way to get it, right? What about social security health benefits? Do you really mean to tell me there are none of those for this at all?”
The man tapped his fingertips against the table as if in thought.
“Furoriadol, as well as suppressants of the same kind, is now considered to be a voluntary treatment, in no way required to treat any sort of illness, benign or otherwise—as such, it is out of the state’s coverage.” He explained with disturbing calm. “Your private insurance provides, at most, a discount for treatments such as Furoriadol, but it does not cover the entire expense of it, though if you truly require it, I can still ask my assistant to provide you with an estimated budget for the first dosage.”
Hakuno bit the inside of her cheek, feeling a little bit dizzy and very, very small. She really didn’t want to know; she already dreaded to think about the number, she didn’t need to see on a stupid paper the absurd amount of money this clinic would want to charge her for a simple, stupid dose of Furoriadol.
Instead, she sank into her seat, burying her face in her hands as she slowly shook her head.
What was she supposed to do now? Her heat was due to hit in a week and a half more or less, and she sure as hell didn’t want to get inside one of those dreadful state-provided shelters again.
What was worse, she’s always had suppressants to help her deal with her more virulent heats since early adolescence, but those were only given to her for free insofar that her parents’ (and now her own) insurance covered for those as well.
Now, however? Her insurance did not even cover for these certain kinds of suppressants anymore, and because the government thought of them as cosmetic drugs she couldn't even get them for free outside her insurance.
What the fuck was she going to do without those, now that she had to pay for them with her sad excuse of a paycheck? Forget trying to look for an Alpha; a few weeks was too short a time, wasn’t it?
…Shit, was an Omega shelter really her only choice? Will she have to spend her heat alone in a room with nobody else?
“…But know this, miss Kishinami; even if your insurance covered the expenses and I gave you Furoriadol or a suppressive of the same kind now,” Dr. Twice had said, as if able to read her thoughts simply by looking and gauging at her distressed expression, “it will not, in any way, stop your next heat. It is too late to stop it now without altering your hormonal levels to a point that could be detrimental to your health.”
Hakuno sank into the chair further, feeling smaller than before if it was even possible, vulnerable, and defeated as the man droned endlessly about her other options, none of them of real help at all.
She’s not experienced a full heat since she was seventeen -all of her past heats have always been mellow thanks to the suppressants, and just the thought of going through those terrible, virulent heats from her teenage years again was making her feel sick.
It was at moments such as these that Hakuno was reminded in the most painful of ways that she was not like her brother at all, and just how damn easier her life would be if only she hadn't been born like this.
In retrospective, if Hakuno was able to somehow go back in time to the past and tell her past self the shit that she would get herself into because of the simple technicality that she didn’t have enough money to pay for heat suppressants, she had a hunch she wouldn’t believe any of it.
The afternoon shift came and went too quickly today. It was early evening now and Hakuno was so lost in her own thoughts and worries that she didn’t even notice the hours passing by; at least not until Gudako, a young, energetic girl with short red locks majoring Child Education, sighed dramatically as she leaned on the cakes display.
“Why the hell does a random ass café like this,” the redhead says from behind her, wiping at a persistent stain on the counter, “have pizza discounts for college students? No, wait, screw that—why does a fucking cafeteria serve pizza in the first place? I get that this is a tourist trap and that globalization is pretty much unavoidable at this point, but isn't this clash of cultures a little bit too weird?”
As per usual, Gudako was complaining about something most people wouldn’t even care to put into question. From what she’s heard -and Hakuno’s heard that story plenty of times-, the woman was somehow under the impression their boss was actually involved in some kind of shady mobster business that he was somehow trying to disguise by running a seemingly inoffensive european-themed cafeteria. Her proof? Apparently Gudako lived nearby, and she assured her time and time again she’s seen people come and go from inside the shop at three am.
The worse thing about it was that the more she heard this absolutely ludicrous story, the more it gained a modicum of sense.
Come to think of it, all of their customers seemed always… too eccentric for a place that sold the cup of coffee far below your average cafeteria, and with how overly enthusiastic they all seemed to flaunt their riches at them, they sure as all hell did not belong in a place that was now selling shady pizza discounts for college students who couldn't afford the prices of an actual restaurant.
Not that Gudako needed to know that Hakuno was seeing some semblance of sense into her half-formed ramblings.
“Does it even matter?” Hakuno busied herself putting dirty cutlery away, sniffing at the air. Was it just her, or was there some faint spike in pheromones in the air? “If they pay for it and tip us nicely, who cares if a café makes money out of pizzas?”
“Yeah, but as I said, don’t you find it a little weird, though? Who the hell would think of eating pizza on a cafeteria?”
Hakuno shrugs. “Lots of people, apparently.”
“At 3am?”
Hakuno sighed, muttering under her breath 'not this shit again', too tired and upset for this kind of back and forth.
“If you’re going to be in front of a laptop for six hours non-stop like that group over there is," she pointed at a group of students who had been there since midday, "wouldn't you want to eat something a little bit more consistent and take advantage of any sort of dubious pizza deals?”
Gudako echoed her sigh, muttering something about still having four long hours to go.
“But they are from that horrid precooked brand that is sold on dollar stores, and the coffee is not even good,” Gudako stressed, wiping out her phone to scroll through her social media without a care in the world because she knew Hakuno wouldn’t snitch on her. “Sometimes I really wonder how we’re even staying in business.”
Gudako was right. The coffee wasn’t good at all—but then, did it have to be? Hakuno suspected the machine had long since been broken and that’s why the coffee tasted like water, but nobody complained about it and her boss never made the effort to buy a new one, and so she never said anything in the end.
She was about to take a tray and take it to the kitchen at the back when a bell chimed above the cafeteria’s front doors, signaling the arrival of another customer.
Hakuno stopped everything she was doing or about to do.
A sliver of cold crept down her back, and she stiffened immediately. A part of her recognized a familiar sort of wrongness that she couldn’t quite place the origin of except that it had nothing to do with the sudden gust of frigid air that came from the opened doors.
The chiming bell always worked to snap the two of them out of idleness. Gudako quickly straightened up and put her phone away, stricken by the same mounting sense of wrongness that had Hakuno tensing a few seconds ago, if the brunette had judge by the sudden spike in anxiety she smelled in the air around her.
Now, why was that? With Gudako being an Alpha herself, Hakuno was sure there would be very few things left in the world that would make her this shaken.
When Hakuno turned her head to greet at the new customer, she was reminded that there was actually a reason for this place staying in business—or at least another reason beside shady pizza deals and all sorts of jaded university students coming to their place in search for affordable coffee prices.
"Oh," the redhead gasped quietly to herself before a grin quickly spread over her features.
Hakuno was in the middle of having a mental crisis when loud music started playing.
‘Move fast baby don’t be sloo-oow, step aside, reload, time to go-oo~ ’
She had to react quickly to avoid dropping the tray she had in her hands and turned to glare at the music's source.
The culprit didn’t look the slightest bit sorry for it, and when she looked at her she only smiled knowingly and said, answering the call as she went, “Oh, hey, Hakuno! Mash is calling me, I’m taking my thirty right about now!”
Gudako didn’t even make the effort of unlooping the apron from around her neck.
“What?” Hakuno frowned, incredulous as she quickly turned her head to glare at her again. “But I just told you I was taking mine once I finished cleaning duty!”
“Yeah, well, change of plans: my girlfriend's calling me now and I'm sure you can wait a half an hour more to go outside to rage smoke,” Gudako shot back, and perhaps a little bit too cheekily, even going as far as deciding to wink suggestively at her, she added, “Have fun!”
Have fun, Hakuno mouthed in silent astonishment as she watched Gudako disappearing into the storage room.
Regardless, that was all she heard from her before she disappeared in a flurry of orange and white to the storage room, so Hakuno -now alone to deal against the elements- could only watch with a veil of apprehension as a familiar blond in a deep purple (and loosely buttoned-up) shirt and tacky golden chains around his throat walked in to the cafe, wiping away some rain droplets from his hair with a distasteful expression.
His clothes were soaked with water -did he not know umbrellas existed?- and his hair was tousled, ruined from the rain and the wind, yet he still looked just as perfect as any other day: from the confidence with which he held his head high, to the careless grace with which he stepped into the cafeteria.
He was effortlessly beautiful, and Hakuno kind of resented him for it.
There were people who would kill to be so attractive without trying—she herself wondered time and time again, with just the tiniest bit of jealousy, why did he even need to have eyelashes this long when he was a damned Alpha who wouldn’t be relying on them nearly as much as she would? There were many people who invested hours upon hours to look this gorgeous, but the man was an anomaly, as usual.
His eyes immediately zoned in on her the moment he took in some more few steps into the cafeteria, and with a small cryptic smirk that washed away whatever bad mood he was having, he walked towards the front counter, his gaze practically a physical caress on her skin.
Hakuno didn’t know who the man was aside from the fact that he must be rich -all those tailored suits, the cufflinks, the watches, the heavy jewelry, the golden chains, the furs- and an Alpha at that.
Everything about him spoke of Alpha, and every damned time he dropped by Hakuno felt sick with the onslaught of pheromones swirling in the air about them. He didn’t even try to disguise his scent -if anything, Hakuno would be hard pressed to believe he didn’t use something to make his scent stand out more- so every time he visited them for his mandatory fix of caffeine, Hakuno felt she was being put into some kind of totally unwarranted endurance test as his influence buffeted her with all sort of stupid urges.
"Gil", as he often referred to himself whenever he made an order, was a lot of things: he was a man who’s always carelessly treading the very thin line between being unpleasantly aggravating and being a necessary evil (since the man had no concept of money whatsoever he always tipped her excessively without a care in the world, which suited Hakuno just fine because thanks to that she’s been able to eat at least three meals a day).
He seemed young enough to pass as some jaded postdoc student, though he’s never given her the impression he was. Initial impressions led her to believe, in fact, that this Gil person was simply some stupidly pedantic bastard from the business district with a penchant for airing everyone’s dirty laundry, and the more he deigned himself to drop by under the pretext that he needed coffee, the more these impressions became grounded in reality.
If Hakuno had to describe the man in shorter words, she would simply say Gil was the enemy of all women. If patriarchy was a videogame, Hakuno was sure Gil would be its final boss.
She would go as far to say that Gil was the CEO of misogyny, yet men and women alike fawned over the asshole for no particular reason other than he was foreign, had eyes like red rubies, and was an Alpha.
While she could see the appeal, she didn’t really understand why people practically gravitated towards him. He was crude, overly cryptic for no reason whatsoever, pushy, arrogant, shallow, selfish, an overall a piece of shit, treated people like everyone's meant to serve him, sort of intimidating, and constantly infuriated when sleep-deprived—which he always was as it seemed, so that meant it was ridiculously easy to irk him.
If Hakuno had to name something she actually liked about him at all, then that would be the fact that he knew what he liked and he never danced around a subject, which saved her quite a lot of time.
…Okay, perhaps she wasn’t being fair. Perhaps and only perhaps Hakuno may have something for men with earrings.
So sue her.
But other than that? A piece of shit.
Bitch was that in spite of everything, Hakuno found herself becoming something more than just an exasperated service worker or even an acquaintance to him—mostly because she wasn't paying attention. Whatever the case, and before she could notice a change, not only did the man become a regular to this cafeteria, but also started to regularly show up every day—even on Hakuno's off days, too, from what she's heard from Gudako, which meant he was unavoidable.
Hakuno’s lip curled imperceptibly as she watched her—what, usual customer? Oh, yeah—her pain in the ass, approach her.
Hakuno sighed, sounding as though she was already entirely exhausted with a conversation that hasn’t even yet begun.
She was in a bad mood, she was aware of it, and she also knew she might be taking it out on him -this wasn’t his fault, so she knew this was completely irrational of her, but she couldn’t help it.
Gil, now standing opposite the counter, ran a hand through his unruly hair in an attempt to smooth it back. Without conscious volitions, her eyes darted to his chest, as some of his skin was revealed through the unbuttoned V of his neck. Hakuno was quick to notice that he always turned a shade darker this time of year, and it made the gold in his skin and the red in his eyes seem even more prevalent.
Her stomach made an involuntary -and completely unwarranted and unfair- turn when she thought about the customers that no doubt were gawking at him.
A quick side-glance toward the table where a group of students were sitting by, laptops and notebooks completely forgotten, all but confirmed her suspicions.
Well, fuck them for increasing the man’s already gargantuan ego, she didn’t care.
“You are alone? Where has your idiot friend disappeared to?” he asked, obviously referring to Gudako, currently hiding in the storage room.
Gil didn’t even deign himself to tell her what he wanted, assuming she would already know—and the worst of it was that Hakuno knew his orders better than she knew anyone else’s, so she didn’t need to be told at all.
“Gudako? She’s taking her thirty now.”
He rose an eyebrow, skeptical. “A break?” with a small smirk, he waved a hand at the cafe’s obvious lack of patrons with a knowing look. “Ah, it must have been a very trying few hours if she’s taking a break so early into her shift, I am sure.”
The blond was right, however, so she didn't answer that, returning his obvious observation of reality with her patented flat stare, which for some reason always seemed to amuse him.
There was a group of students from the university down the road minding their own business on a table on a faraway corner, but other than that the establishment was deserted. Unusually so, actually, but that was beside the point.
Well, whatever the man’s game was, though, he always tipped her nicely, so she wasn’t about to complain about his visits, even when he insisted in being a little cretin over shit nobody cared about. He might be a pain in the ass, but she wasn’t as stupid as to bite at the hand that fed her.
She was always the one who made his drink because despite the fact he’s sort of become a fixature to both their lives, the man gave Gudako anxiety -her literal words, not Hakuno’s-. In fact, said woman was currently pretending to be taking her break inside the storage room of all fucking places only so that she could eavesdrop their conversation and keep stealing glances at the two of them like they were having a ping pong tournament or something.
Hakuno suspected Gudako always avoided meeting his gaze while she was working because she'd burst out laughing if she did, as if the two were sharing some kind of stupid inside joke about her and Hakuno was too slow to catch it. Gudako was weird like that. And the rest of the staff? Too intimidated to take his orders.
Whatever the case, that left Hakuno as the only functional human being in that godforsaken cafeteria who could deal alone with him and his capricious ass. Funny, really, because she was the only Omega there, and one would think that a bunch of Alphas could well hold their own against the King of the spoiled, but apparently not.
At the very least he seemed to be an easy customer to please when he wasn’t being a pretentious dick on purpose. Gil's orders were roughly always the same with very minimal variations to them: a large Americano, extra shot. No cream or sugar. If he was feeling fancy, he might ask for a large extra shot with minimal milk to it.
Easy enough. He wouldn’t care if the coffee machine was broken or not. As it stands, his predictability in coffee taste was perhaps his only redeeming factor, keeping him from being a completely shitty bastard.
Though she barely knew him, Hakuno always got this certain feeing he had some kind of hidden agenda of his own. Considering the man was all small smirks and side-glances, Hakuno wasn’t at fault for mistrusting the man’s seemingly endless thirst for her subpar, watered-down coffee.
For all of her annoyance, however, a part of Hakuno was always dying of curiosity with each and every one of his visits; there was absolutely no reason for the man to have come in for the first time—some shady half-pizzeria half-cafeteria wasn’t exactly the place one would expect to find someone who seemed to be literally swimming in gold, and Hakuno was also pretty sure both hers and Gudako’s sub-standard barista skills were certainly not enough to warrant this many visits.
What kind of person drank that much coffee, anyway? She was sure any other human who took half as much coffee as the man did would have had at least two cardiac arrests by now.
Hakuno wouldn’t have minded any of this -she’s been working in shitty service jobs since she was legally able to do so and she’s had her fair share of dealing with less than savory Alphas who only came in to steal opportunistic glances at the more timid Omegas who were unfortunate enough to be on their own-.
She wouldn’t had minded at all, had the man not been using every little opportunity that was presented to him to blatantly watch her work and tease her for it.
Well, whatever. She didn’t care. She finished off the man’s drink, eager to be done with him and her shift as well so that she could go back to sulk inside her bedroom about how much of a shitty day she’s had.
“Aren’t you going to earn yourself a heart attack with all this coffee?” She said, her tone both bland and bored, ignoring her co-worker’s curious side-glances at the both of them as she turned back and began to struggle against this place’s ancient, piece of shit coffee machine.
There was a purr in his voice as he said, “A heart attack is far from being what I’m trying to earn for myself. I’d rather amuse myself with things of a less somber nature, and you well know that. Otherwise, I would not be losing my precious time here.”
“Of course. So what brings you here for the seventh time today?" she asked, frowning suspiciously.
The blond arched an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting that bestowing the pleasure of my presence upon this sad excuse of a dive cafe that can only sustain itself through questionable Friday deals is not a good reason enough for me to come and keep it from going into bankrupcy?”
“I just find hard to believe that a human needs as much coffee as you do.”
“But is it, really? I have come here for sustainment, as well as for my healthy dosage of daily merriment, as I always do. I have honestly never seen someone take as much time as you do to make coffee. It is a weirdly thrilling if slightly pathetic thing to watch, and of course I intend to see more of it. You mongrels always know how to entertain me—that merits a modicum of my respect.”
Hakuno gave him a tired, deadpan stare from behind.
If she didn’t know him any better, Hakuno would think his words had no second meaning whatsoever to them and that he was actually trying to compliment her in his own warped, self-absorbed way, but because she did know him better than that -more than she was comfortable with admitting-, she knew not to assume as much.
Hakuno should know, of course, since it really didn’t take long for Gil, since his very first visit here, to start giving her shit about the (apparently) intricate art of making good coffee, of all things.
Hakuno shook her head, reluctantly amused as she turned slightly to give him a droll sideway glance. He might be an arrogant fuck, but he was taking the edge off of her bad mood and was distracting her from this morning’s fiasco with her doctor and her insurance company, so she supposed he was momentarily excused. “I bet you have a lot of fun here."
The man tilted his head to the side and laughed quietly. “I try not to be so obvious. But then, you certainly don’t make it difficult. I could certainly use the distraction now, hence why I’m here. You certainly know how to best please me.”
From the curl of his lips and the heavy emphasis he’d placed on distraction, there was little doubt as to what he’d really meant—and okay, there was a legitimate possibility that Gil was just fucking with her now, but then on the other hand there was also the very distinct possibility that he was not; this wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she’s heard from him, Hakuno remembered that one time she had to sit through a very long and very convoluted rant over cryptocurrencies, during her own thirty-minute break while Gudako -as quietly as she could, which wasn’t much- laughed her ass off at her from behind the counter.
It was kind of exhausting. Hakuno’s seen how the pretentious Alpha has been watching her work, she’s noticed how he always kept coming even though the coffee was terrible and he kept making disgusted faces whenever he went to take a sip, so she figured out that much—still, though, trying to wear her down was a damned arrogant thing for him to try, and whether or not he was right on the equally bold assumption that he could, Hakuno knew the best answer to Gil's delusions was to keep a tight lid on her own curiosity.
Most of all, Hakuno wished not to indulge his cult-of-personality bullshit.
“Does this kind of trick you're trying to pull on me right now,” Hakuno made a vague gesture with her hand, turning her face slightly to look at him in the eye, “ever failed you before?”
"I wouldn't know," came the man's suave response. "I've never had to try a second time."
"Really?"
Turning around slowly, coffee in hand, Hakuno thought not for the first time that she wasn’t getting paid enough for any of this.
“Well, then it seems to me like someone’s gotten a little sloppy with the years,” she told him, an undertone of amusement in her tone--and at the sight of the man's slightly raised eyebrows at her obvious jab at his age, Hakuno found herself smiling wider. “Let me guess; no one's ever said ‘no’ to you, isn't that right?”
Gil actually had to think about it for a moment, because he stalled, taking more than just a few seconds to respond. It was obvious that hadn’t been a question he had expected.
“Should they?” he responded, sounding genuinely confused she would ask him such a question, as if Hakuno should of course understand the appeal. “Rarely do people throw themselves at others unless they want that, and omegas often offer themselves to me for the sole purpose of being taken care of. I’m merely obliging them, if that is what you’re referring to.”
Oh, so he's that kind of Alpha, then.
She's not sure why that surprises her.
Hakuno sighs through her nose, passing him his coffee so that she could be done with this as quickly as possible because she had a certain feeling this was threatening to turn into a whole conversation—seriously, this guy just loved to hear himself talk— and she really didn’t want to have this sort of painful conversation again while she was on her shift.
“You know, it sounds ridiculous when you put it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like Alphas like you are somehow doing us a favor by fucking every hole from work to home and back again.”
Crass, she knew, but she had a habit of letting her tongue come unglued when she was upset.
Not that he seemed to mind. If anything, her casual parlance always made him laugh, which is exactly what he did now.
He laughed, a chuckle that first started as a snort, and then, all languid grace, he reached out to accept the coffee.
The brush of his fingers, seemingly inconspicuous, lingered against the back of her hand more than it ought to.
The man’s red eyes were like fire, and despite herself, Hakuno’s breath caught in her lungs, and worse was that he noticed, for his small smile widened into a smirk and his eyes flashed briefly with understanding.
She hated her hormones. She hated them with every fiber of her being.
“But it is a favor, in some ways. I truly cannot abide seeing omegas suffer so, and you—” smug bastard that he was, Gil leaned in to take a whiff at the air around her, and a small smile made its way back to his lips, “—well, I suppose I need not say more? You reek of un-mated omega about to go in heat from miles away. Are you certain you're in any position to turn down suitors like this?”
A tinge of red dusted Hakuno’s cheeks as she tried and promptly failed to ignore the barely noticeable shiver of excitement that ran up her spine. The fact that she’d fallen for such an obvious bait wasn’t making this any better.
In fact, Hakuno almost snapped back with an automatic snarky remark in hopes she could recover from that momentary slip, but that was before the words suddenly died in her throat, belatedly remembering that the man must get off on insubordination, because every time she’s given him snark, she’s only been successful at making him glow.
The damned sadist.
She narrowed her eyes at his stupid, taunting face instead.
And then something came to her.
An idea, horribly ill-advised as it was, popped into her head so suddenly that if Hakuno had been a cartoon, there would be an audible ‘ping’ and a floating bulb light over her head to go with that as well.
Two could play this stupid game, Hakuno thought a little deviously to herself. If this guy is so intent on fucking with her, Hakuno can also play the embarrassing game with him.
Maybe if she manages to make him feel as awkward as he makes her feel, he will finally leave for good and never come back.
Looking up at him from beneath her lashes, she said, “…Well, perhaps it is.”
Now that seemed to catch his attention, enough that he forgot about his coffee as it now rested on top of the counter, forgotten.
“Oh?”
“Perhaps it is a favor, and I was waiting all this dreadful shift for you to come…” with complete disregard to protocol, shame and all manners, Hakuno leaned slowly over the counter and towards the blond, deliberately provocative, liking that for the first time in hours she seemed to have the upper hand at something. Then, in a sarcastic imitation of the man’s stupid coos, she continued, “…so that I could show you exactly what I want from you.”
The blond blinked first in what Hakuno thought must have been genuine surprise, and for a wonderful moment she felt almost triumphant, getting high on beginners’ luck despite how much of a pyrrhic victory this all seemed to be.
But then the man lighted up, and at the sight of Gil's obvious perking up, coupled with the conspiring smirk forming on his lips, Hakuno almost felt like groaning audibly, regretting she ever said any of that out loud.
“Is that so?” He reached a hand out to her, and she felt nervous. Her pulse quickened, perhaps because there was an Alpha leaning in closer as he cupped her chin with his fingers, bringing her gaze back to his, ever calculating, ever gleaming. "And here I thought you were too new to this to be so obvert about your desires—but if you wanted to take an Alpha so badly, all you had to do is ask.”
There was the barest feel of lips against her own and—
Shit.
ShitshitshitSHIT—
No! Backfired! Abort, abort!
Gil must have seen or at least sensed her panicking internally, her mind way too frozen to do anything else, because when Hakuno was certain he was going to do something, he pulled apart from her at the last second, chuckling at her lack of a witty response to that—and what the fuckity fuck was she even supposed to do with that?
“…Well, perhaps if you are going to be so assertive with your wants from now on, then I ought to stop underestimating you,” he purred, eyes dancing at Hakuno smugly. “Though a word of advice for the next time you decide to play games you cannot win; as much as it would amuse me to see you finally surrender to your truest desires, you might want to be careful with who you say that sort of thing to…” The man’s red eyes flickered down, then, to where Hakuno wore her faded nametag on her chest, “…Hakuno.”
Okay, with the benefit of experience and hindsight being 20/20 and all that, Gil's entire dubiously provocative demeanor probably should have been enough of a clue by itself to tell her that he didn’t mean to go any further than that (she really hoped he didn’t mean to go any further than that) and that he only intended to poke fun at her. This wouldn’t be the first (and unfortunately not the last) time he’s done that.
Regardless, she couldn’t help herself when her breath quickened at the faintest hint of warmth breath against her lips, despite herself—and when she said nothing to that, an odd scheming expression subtly made its way to the shape of his mouth as he regarded her with interested eyes like she just confessed her deepest secrets to him.
“Look at you, so tense over a mere brush of skin. ...So you are new to this, after all, I see,” he whispered, sounding more amused than he had any right to be, and when he took another fucking whiff at her neck as if he was assessing something, his grin only became that much wider. “I see,” Gil purred. “So much is clearer now - not that this changes anything. Taming an inexperienced omega never fails to excite me."
She took a few steps back from the counter and listened to the sound of his footsteps on the tiles, faltering just by the door. When Hakuno looked up, flushed with the color of angry shame, the man’s eyes were still heated as his smile took a disturbingly predatory quality to it, threatening to take over his entire face as it crinkled the edges of his—Jesus—eyeliner.
“I do so look forward for your next display of involuntary comedy, Hakuno. I knew I could always rely on you to keep me well-fed and entertained. Do be sure to seek me out if you have something more than useless reticence to entertain me with. I shall be expectant for the time you have a change of heart.”
And with that he strolled off, coffee in hand and leaving Hakuno open-mouthed, unable to do anything other than stare at his back, watching him go. “My- what. New? Inexperienced? I don't. I'm not- I'm not a virgin!’
There was another long moment of uncomfortable, seething silence that was made that much more awkward with the light acoustic music sounding in the background.
Belatedly, Hakuno realized she just—screamed that in the middle of the fucking cafeteria for everyone to hear. Even the jaded group of undergrad students had stopped doing whatever the hell they were doing before to stare at her instead, expressions landing somewhere between pitying and amused.
This was also the exact same moment that Hakuno could hear the storeroom door slam closed, most likely because Gudako locked herself in there to freely wheeze at her misery.
Smug, lucky bastard—always getting away with shit.
Hakuno sincerely wished she could have at least half of that ridiculous good luck of his and also one hundred percent less of his existence -maybe then she would have been able to afford Furoriadol and she wouldn’t be having this kind of angst over her next heat-, but since that didn’t seem like it was going to be happening anytime soon, the brunette contented herself with just wishing her shift could be over now.
Fuck this Gil guy or whatever his real name truly was, fuck that group of college students quietly snickering to themselves at her flustered face and slip of tongue, and most importantly fuck Gudako. It was all her fault for leaving her alone with that piece of shit just now to make her suddenly think about weird things she shouldn't be.