Chapter Text
This cannot be happening.
It simply cannot be happening to him.
Naoya stared at the small plastic stick in his trembling hand with horror. The two pink lines on the tiny screen were not blurry.
His first coherent thought slicing through his head was that the test was broken.
A defect.
Some cheap, mass-produced piece of garbage the pharmaceutical companies were peddling to gullible omegas. Of course it was wrong. He was a man, an alpha. His body did not work this way.
It could not work this way, he had presented at fourteen with a dominant pheromone signature that made lesser alphas lower their eyes. He had never once for a single fleeting second doubted the truth of his biology.
And yet.
His stomach lurched, a wave of nausea clawed up his throat. He hurled the pregnancy test into the dustbin before he lunged for the toilet, dropping to his knees just in time to empty his stomach into the bowl.
He heaved until there was nothing left, then he pressed his forehead against the tiles.
No. No. No.
This was a mistake. A sick, cosmic joke.
It had to be a curse. One that he’d picked up during that exorcism two months ago—that filthy spirit in the abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city. That was when the symptoms had started.
“It is a mystery, Naoya-sama,” the chief physician had stammered, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the floor. “Perhaps a rare autoimmune response. We will continue to monitor you.”
Idiots. All of them. He had continued his training and his duties nonetheless. His relentless grind toward becoming the clan head he was born to be. He could live with a little nausea. He was a Zen’in afterall. He had endured far worse.
But the symptoms had only worsened. The fatigue that dragged at his bones, then came strange and inexplicable aversions, for example, the scent of grilled fish at dinner made him want to vomit, when he had always loved it.
And his body… he had noticed it only yesterday, while fastening his obi, a slight curve beneath his otherwise lean frame. He had sucked it in, scowled at his reflection, and resolved to skip meals until it disappeared.
Then, three hours ago, he had made the mistake of visiting the main house.
His cousin, that simpering omega cousin who was married off to some minor clan’s heir, had been there, swollen and glowing with the indignity of her third pregnancy. She was laughing with Mai, one hand cradling her distended belly and Naoya had felt the world tilt sideways.
The exhaustion and sickness and strange cravings and aversions…nearly similar to things she complained about.
It was absurd. The resemblance was so grotesque and laughable, that he had actually snorted. What a joke. He, Naoya Zen’in, the most virile alpha of his generation, comparing himself to a breeding omega.
And then he had seen the unused pregnancy test in the cabinet of the guest washroom, left there by his cousin no doubt, like feminine litter. On a whim, a malicious little smirk curling his lips, he had snatched it. He would take the test. He would watch it come back negative, and he would have a good laugh for even thinking of such a possibility back then.
He had not laughed.
He had locked himself in his own private washroom, performed the humiliating act and waited the prescribed three minutes with his arms crossed. He had expected to see a single line and to feel vindicated.
Instead, he had watched in silence as the second line bloomed into existence.
Now, kneeling on the cold floor with the taste of bile in his mouth, Naoya did something he had not done since he was seven years old.
He pressed his forehead to the tile and wished, desperately, to wake up.
He sat on the floor of his washroom for another twenty minutes against the cool wall and his knees drawn up like a child having a tantrum.
His traitorous mind would not stop.
How?
If—if, in some alternate universe where the laws of biology were meaningless, he had somehow conceived... there was only one possibility. One person. One night that his body remembered even as his pride tried to bury it.
Three months ago.
Naoya closed his eyes and the memory crashed over him like dirty water.
To be fair, he had been looking for a fight.
That was the truth of it, even if he would never say it out loud. He had been wandering the less traveled corridors of the Zen'in compound when he had heard the familiar sound of someone not caring about his existence.
Toji Zen'in.
His elder cousin, the disgrace of the clan and the man with no cursed energy, no technique, no right to walk these halls. And yet Naoya had been unable to stop watching him since the age of fourteen. Unable to stop wanting some scrap of acknowledgment from the man who looked at everyone like they were insects.
Toji was leaning against a wooden pillar in the eastern courtyard with a thin cigarette dangling from his lips and had not looked up when Naoya approached.
"Still skulking around like a stray dog?" Naoya called out.
Toji took a slow drag of his cigarette.
Naoya's jaw tightened. Look at me. I am talking to you. You will look at me.
"What," Toji said finally, "You want something, little prince?"
The dismissal tone made Naoya's blood boil.
"I want you to remember your place. You may be older, but you are nothing. A Zen'in in name only. No technique. No honor. No—"
Naoya did not even see him move, but the latter did. One moment he was standing five feet away, mouth open to deliver another insult. The next, his back was slammed against the pillar, Toji's forearm pressed hard against his throat, pinning him in place.
"You talk too much," Toji said, "Always have. Running that mouth like you've got something to back it up."
"Get your filthy hands off me," he snarled, clawing at Toji's arm but the man didn't even budge. "I'll have you executed for this. I'll—"
"You'll what?" Toji's lip curled "Cry to daddy? Run to the elders?" He leaned closer, and Naoya felt the heat of him through his clothes. "You've been following me around for years, brat. Picking fights and running your mouth."
"I don't follow you. I monitor you, someone has to make sure the family's garbage doesn't stink up the—"
Toji's free hand grabbed his hip, fingers digging in like he was testing the weight of livestock.
"You know what I think?" Toji said, ignoring Naoya's choked protest. "I think you want my attention so bad you don't even care how you get it."
"Don't flatter yourself, you worthless—"
"Shut up.”
Naoya actually did.
Toji laughed. "Yeah. That's what I thought."
He pulled Naoya off the pillar by the collar of his yukata and shoved him toward a nearby storage room. Naoya stumbled inside caught off balance and before he could right himself, Toji was behind him, shoving him face-first against the wall.
He felt toji fumble with his clothes, touch his bare torso—
What is he doing?
"What are you doing?" Naoya demanded, trying to twist around. "You really think you can do this to me? You failure of a Zen'in? You deadbeat? I am the heir to this clan, I am—"
His words were muffled by two fingers entering his mouth. "Suck well. Wouldn't want it hurt would you?"
Naoya groaned against the fingers, and he couldn't take it anymore, he bit it. Toji chuckled behind him. "So cheeky."
"Whatever you're doing— stop it! I will—"
Two fingers entered him without warning, the fingers poorly covered in his own spit. The brutal intrusion that made Naoya's vision go white.
His hands clawed at the wall, leaving grooves in the old wood.
"You talk too much," Toji repeated, right against his ear. He crooked his fingers and Naoya bit down on his own tongue hard enough to taste blood. "So I'm gonna give you something else to do with that mouth. Scream if you want. No one's coming to save you, little prince."
"You—" Naoya gasped, legs shaking, "—you are dead. I will kill you myself. I will—"
Toji pulled his fingers out and Naoya heard the sound of a belt being undone and then something larger pressed against him, and Naoya's entire body went rigid.
"Last chance to shut up," Toji said, sounding almost bored. "Or don't. I don't care either way.
Naoya's mouth, traitor that it was, opened again. "You don't have the nerve. You're nothing but a—”
Toji pushed in.
Naoya's words died in his throat. His forehead smacked against the wall. The stretch was blinding, humiliating, wrong in every way his body had been taught to understand. He was an alpha. He was not supposed to be on the receiving end of anything.
And yet his body was reacting anyway. It was painful beyond imagination and yet his cock was half hard against his thigh. And when Toji began to move, Naoya found that he could not form a single coherent insult.
Toji fucked him like he was nothing, like he was a hole to be used and discarded. His grip on Naoya's hips was bruising, his pace was brutal. And every time Naoya tried to speak to reclaim some scrap of dignity with a sharp word, Toji would thrust harder and steal the breath from his lungs.
"You're so loud," Toji muttered after a while. "Even when you're getting fucked you can't shut up."
"Go—ah—go to hell–"
"I'm already there." Toji grabbed a fistful of Naoya's hair and yanked his head back. "I've been there since the day I was born into this rotten family. And you?" He laughed, "You're finally joining me, little cousin. How's it feel?"
Naoya wanted to spit in his face. He wanted to curse him. He wanted to cry, which was worse than all of it combined.
Instead, he passed out.
When he woke up, he was alone on the dirty floor of the storage room. His lower body ached. His yukata was ruined and when he pushed himself up on trembling arms, he felt something warm and wet trickle down the inside of his thigh.
He had crawled back to his quarters that night and had burned the yukata.
He had not told anyone and not sought revenge. Had not even mentioned Toji's name to the elders. How could he? His pride was bigger than that.
Because deep down in a place he would never, ever acknowledge that he had wanted it. Had wanted Toji to look at him. To touch him. To prove that Naoya existed in his world, even if only as something to be broken.
He stared at the ceiling of his room for three days.
Not literally.
It's a faulty test, he told himself for the hundredth time, pacing the length of his private chambers.
A defective piece of trash. I'll buy twenty more. Fifty. I'll take them all and watch every single one come back negative, and then I'll burn the company to the ground for wasting my time.
So he had done exactly that, he had sent a servant out for a dozen pregnancy tests—for a female cousin, he had snarled when the servant looked confused—and he had taken every. single. one.
All of them. Positive.
He had thrown the first one against the wall and watched it crack into pieces. Then screamed into a pillow until his throat went raw. He had considered whether it was possible to punch a fetus out of oneself through sheer physical force.
None of it worked.
Naoya groaned and dropped his head into his hands. He was going to be sick again. Not from the pregnancy this time but the sheer, unadulterated humiliation.
"No," Naoya said aloud, to the empty room. "Absolutely not. I am not telling him. I will simply… not have a child."
It took him another four days to work up the courage.
This was beneath him. Entirely beneath him.
He stepped inside anyway.
Toji was exactly where Naoya had expected to find him, against a pillar of the east garden. One arm draped over the backrest.
Naoya stopped in front of him..Crossed his arms and waited.
Nothing????
Toji did not look up or acknowledge him. Not so much as twitch a muscle in recognition of the fact that the Zen’in heir had just entered his presence.
Naoya’s eye twitched.
“Oi.”
…
“Are you deaf now?”
Toji’s gaze lifted. “Tch. You again.”
Again?? As if Naoya made a habit of this. As if he was the one who sought out Toji. He didn't.
“I need to speak with you.”
Toji hummed, “Then speak.”
Naoya opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
He closed it. Tried again. The words lodged somewhere in his throat refusing to form.
“…There’s something.”
“Mm.”
Naoya’s irritation spiked into genuine anger. “Don’t ‘mm’ me. Pay attention.”
Toji sighed. He tilted his head back against the woodrest.
“I am paying attention,” he said. “You’re just not saying anything.”
“I’m getting to it.”
“Sure you are.”
“…It concerns you,” he heard himself say.
“That so?”
“Yes.”
“Then say it.”
Naoya’s throat worked to say it finally but instead, he circled.
“There’s been… a situation.”
Toji stared at him unimpressed. “…Right.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t understand.”
“I don’t,” Toji said flatly. “Because you’re not making any sense.”
Naoya inhaled slowly through his nose, “It’s not something that can be explained carelessly.”
“Then explain it carefully.”
“I am.”
“No,” He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, eyes narrowing with annoyance. “You’re talking in circles, and you’ve been doing it for five minutes.”
Has it been that long already?
“I have not—”
“You have.”
Toji exhaled, losing what little patience he possessed. “Spit it out already. What do you want?”
"I have been… unwell," Naoya started.
"Okay."
"For approximately two months."
"Cool."
"Are you even listening to me?" Naoya demanded.
"Sure," Toji said, "You're sick. Go see a doctor. Why am I here?"
"I have seen doctors. They found nothing. Which suggests that the cause is not medical but—" Naoya swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. "—circumstantial."
"?"
"Yes. As in, related to a specific… event. Or encounter. With a specific… individual."
"Brat. Are you going to tell me what this is about, or are we going to play charades all night?"
Just say it. Just say the words. You are Naoya Zen'in. You fear nothing. You bow to no one. You—
"I might be," Naoya said, then stopped.
"Might be what?"
"I might be—" He couldn't. "There is a possibility that I am in a condition. A physical condition. One that typically affects—"
"Naoya."
"—omegas, yes, I know how it sounds, but the tests were very clear and I took a lot of them and they all said the same thing so unless the entire pharmaceutical industry is conspiring against me—"
"Naoya. What are you trying to say?"
Naoya's hands were shaking, he clasped them behind his back to hide it. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his temples. This was humiliating. This was the single most degrading moment of his entire life.
"I want you to know," Naoya said, his voice coming out higher than usual, "that I do not believe the tests. I think they are defective. I think the company that manufactured them should be sued into bankruptcy. I think the very concept is absurd and I reject it entirely. However—"
"Mn."
"However. In the extremely unlikely event that the tests are accurate—which of course, they are not—there would be a… situation. A situation that would require your involvement. In a theoretical sense… purely hypothetical."
Toji watched him for a moment. Then snorted.
“Unbelievable. You’re acting like—” He paused, gaze drifting to the ceiling as if searching for the right comparison. “What, you pregnant with my kid or something?”
It was a joke. He said it as a clearly a joke. Toji’s tone was the verbal equivalent of a shrug, he was mocking Naoya’s hesitation, reducing it to absurdity because that was what Toji did.
Naoya went very, very still.
Toji’s gaze drifted back down from the ceiling and saw the look on Naoya’s face.
Toji straightened a little. “…Oi.”
…
And then, like dawn breaking over a disaster, recognition dawned across Toji’s features. His eyes widened by a millimeter.
His mouth parted.
Then it closed.
Then it twitched.
“No,” Toji said flatly.
Naoya’s left eye twitched.
“No,” Toji repeated, sitting up fully now. “Absolutely not. You’re not serious.”
Naoya found his voice, though it came out rougher than he wanted. “The test was defective.”
“Was it now?”
“Yes. A scam. Those companies—they sell faulty products to—”
“You took a pregnancy test?”
Naoya’s face went hot. "I took it as a joke."
"And it came back positive?"
"It's a defective test," Naoya whispered.
"That's a lot of defective tests."
"They were from the same batch."
Then Toji did something that made Naoya’s blood turn to lava. He laughed. His head tilted back and he pressed two fingers to his forehead like he was processing a headache.
“You,” he said, almost to himself. “You, of all people.”
“Stop that.”
“The alpha supremacist. The ‘omegas are only good for breeding’ guy.”
“I said stop.”
“Pregnant.”
“It’s not confirmed!”
“This concerns you,” Naoya forced out, sharp and cold. “Whether you like it or not.”
Toji shrugged. “Do what you want,” he said. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
Doesn’t matter to me?
Of course it didn’t. Why would it? He had expected this. He had known this. Naoya scoffed.
“Fine,” he snapped, turning on his heel. “I didn’t come here for your opinion anyway.”
He made it three steps toward the door before Toji’s voice stopped him.
“For what it’s worth.”
Naoya paused.
“If it’s real,” Toji said finally, “that’s your problem. Not mine.”
Naoya’s hands curled into fists and he walked out without looking back.