Chapter Text
Oh, if only Himiko Toga had been born as a typical alpha.
Granted, as an alpha, she knew she'd lucked out on several fronts. Himiko learned she’d never have to deal with heat cycles, she'd never menstruate, cute omegas would swoon over her scent as it intensified over the years, and vice versa.
Except "vice versa" was the problem.
During early childhood, no alpha or omega produced a strong enough scent for anyone to really notice. Most alphas didn't begin to detect omega pheromones before the age of twelve, at the earliest.
But Himiko went feral over her first omega scent at the age of seven.
She had been playing tag with an omega girl, who then tripped, scraping an arm on the asphalt. The first whiff of something had filled her lungs with sheer uncontrollable giddiness, and the next thing she knew, her teacher was pulling her off of her crying friend.
As her teacher called her parents, she'd felt so dizzy sitting there alone in the school office, replaying the sight of the bleeding bite she’d left on the other girl's arm, right over the scrape. It gave her this funny rising feeling in her chest, and it was all very confusing.
"Himiko, I’m ashamed of you," her father had grimaced, wiping the blood from her lips. "I know you’re an alpha, but I thought you’d know better than to do something so… disgusting!"
Whining, she protested, “But you bite Mommy all the time and it makes her happy!”
"That’s because Mommy asks me to,” her father growled, pinching her cheeks, “And I don’t bite her like some rabid animal in broad daylight while everyone else is watching! Do you want to be treated like an animal, Himiko?”
“N-No,” she sniffled, tears leaking out in response to the sting of her father’s pinching.
“Then don’t act like one!” He finally let go, wagging his finger at her, “You'll never get a proper mate if you can't control yourself like a normal person."
Himiko paled at the prospect, looking to her mother in disbelief.
“That’s right,” her mother said, crossing her arms. “No one will love you like that. Now, promise us you’ll behave from now on.”
Both of them waited silently, staring down at her in stern disappointment. Feeling shot in the heart, she finally agreed, wiping her tears.
“I promise…”
Her father commanded, “Now, say sorry.”
“Sorry...”
Her mother patted her on the head, smiling at last.
“Good girl,” she affirmed, and that was all Himiko wanted.
The Toga family thought it was supposed to be an easy fix.
Put the child on some suppressants, and she would never embarrass them with any wild behavior ever again. Grind up the tablets and put it in applesauce or juice if they had to. It was supposed to be easy.
Again, if only Himiko had been born as a typical alpha.
Unfortunately, the suppressants didn’t work like they were supposed to. After a week, it was clear that they made her head too foggy for her to concentrate properly on her classes. Her parents switched brands around, until they found one that at least made her slightly less foggy. She found that if she fought it hard enough, she could at least function on the bare minimum level of alertness.
This was all normal, and a part of growing up, her father had told her. She would get used to it someday, he said.
But no matter what brand Himiko was on, the feelings never even diminished. New smells began emerging: sweet, sharp, dark, spicy. As the smells only grew stronger, her chest would bubble up with craving, with spiralling, rabid want that climbed and climbed to new heights, leaving her aching for close contact.
The haze of the suppressants made it harder to think straight, and she ultimately lost the battle to keep her impulses in check. That much was clear when she couldn’t help but bite her same friend again, when her family was invited over for tea the next year.
“I’m sorry...” Himiko slurred, starting to cry as her mother pulled her off of her friend. She begged, reaching for the other girl, “Lemme go! I won’t do it again!”
She would never forget the way her friend’s wide, teary eyes stared back at her in horror, before her parents took her away forever. As the front door slammed shut, Himiko’s heart sank.
“No one will love you like that.”
As she stood there, frozen and unresponsive to her mother’s yelling, her father dragged her by the back of her shirt and told her to stand in the corner for an hour. Silently, she obeyed, crying as they left her all alone in the room, the same thought echoing over and over in her head.
No one, no one, no one, no one—
She resolved that she couldn’t let it happen ever again.
Himiko’s childhood passed her by in a fuzzy, foggy blur.
For years, she fought through the haze of her suppressants to seem normal, and like she wasn’t an inch away from either falling asleep or jumping someone half the time. She’d barely managed it, and around middle school, she slowly began to stop taking her suppressants, eventually faking her daily dose in front of her parents every morning before school.
Then every night, alone in her room, she practiced desensitizing herself. It hadn’t taken her long to notice that her trigger was blood, feeling out of control every time she so much as saw another kid on the playground getting hurt.
So, she’d watch bloody horror movies, and concentrate as hard as she could on staying completely calm, like her life depended on it. The images awakened blaring, violent emotions within her. Even while her body burned with craving, to sink her teeth into flesh, and to fill her nose with that heavenly aroma, she eventually mastered the art of painfully tamping every single screaming feeling down.
This was what normal, reasonable alphas were supposed to do, she thought.
In her mind, it was the only way she could be loved. And she was so full of love, so full of hope for a life where she could give and take that love freely from friends, from a mate, someday. The last thing she wanted was to be unloved, to be looked at with such fear ever again.
With her head perfectly cleared, she performed swimmingly in middle school, making the top scores of her class. She graduated with honors and without incidents, finally making her parents prouder than they’d ever been. She was loved sincerely, at last. Life was finally happy, as it was supposed to be.
She wanted to ride on this forever.
Then came high school.
In her first year of high school, Himiko fell in love with a classmate named Akio Saitou.
Saitou was a cool, strong, pretty alpha boy, with gorgeous, curly hair and round, cheerful eyes. His voice was rich and warm, and he smelled strongly of crisp, cool pine. He was a member of the student council alongside Himiko, as well as a runner on the school track team.
He was kind, and fiercely protective, to the point of violence when another alpha threatened to hurt one of his omega teammates.
On the day she saw that fight happen during lunch, she had a hard time staying calm around him. His cute face had gotten all scratched up, and his lip had been bleeding. And that fresh piney smell radiated, filled the air, made her flush as she swallowed back saliva, her heart pounding with excitement.
When he emerged victorious, Himiko didn’t share the same sense of reverent fear her alpha colleagues felt at the sight. No, she wanted him in her arms as if he were an omega.
She knew this feeling wasn’t exactly typical, but it wasn’t like alpha/alpha pairs were completely unheard of. There was no way to know if Saitou was into other alphas like her too, but she knew for sure he liked girls. Heart full of optimism, she slowly began to close the distance between them, talking to him more and more before classes, during lunch, after student council meetings.
It seemed to work, because at the end of the school year, when she gave him a proper confession, he entertained the idea by agreeing to go on a date with her.
“Well! I’ve never considered dating an alpha girl before, but you’re really pretty and nice, Toga!” Saitou laughed, sweet and without malice. “Let me take you to a movie and we can see where this goes, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Himiko sighed dreamily, heart skipping a beat as his smell intensified for a brief moment.
She grit her teeth together, forcing her hands to stay still at her sides like she was clinging to life itself. Maybe this was that “beautiful suffering” that other alphas were talking about when they were near the ones they loved: it was too much, but so good anyway.
On the date, Saitou was gentlemanly and smooth, everything she wanted to be as an alpha herself. He looked incredible out of his school uniform, in his fitted Henley top and skinny jeans, said all the right things to make Himiko blush, and liked the same kinds of movies as her. Not to mention, near the end of their chosen film, he easily slid an arm around her shoulders. She couldn't help but melt into the close contact, feeling starved for it.
"Cute… you swoon just like an omega girl, you know," he murmured, sounding amused, and... hungry.
"Do I?" She licked her lips, playful and challenging.
"You do," he hummed, rubbing her shoulder. "Didn’t know an alpha girl could look all melty like that..."
She responded by sliding a hand over his thigh, whispering, “You wanna see what else an alpha girl can do?”
He gave her a wicked grin.
As the credits soon rolled across the screen, they left the theater together in a hurry, taking the quickest train back to his apartment, before his parents could get home from work.
They ended up on the couch, with her straddling his lap. Practically tearing off her blouse, he caught her mouth with his own. At the taste of his tongue, and the feeling of his nails digging into her skin, her eyes fluttered shut in delirious desire. The delicious, overwhelming smell of pine filled her lungs with need.
Letting out a soft whine, she nuzzled into the crook of his neck, desperation rising. Oh, how she wanted, wanted, wanted—
"Bite me," he'd growled into her ear.
As the last thread of her self-control snapped, that was the end of love as she knew it.