Chapter Text
Not all men are created equal.
That was the first life lesson one Haruka Sakura learned, long before he ever even understood the meaning of the word omega.
Even before the other children would pick on him on the playground for his 'fake' appearance and push him into the dirt for 'trying to show off', something he hadn't understood at only six years old as he'd yet to understand the significance of his oddly colored hair and eyes.
He hadn't understood then as he does now that they thought he was pretending to look flashy, that they probably thought he'd dyed his hair and worn contacts to look cool.
(As if he would want to draw the constant unsolicited attention his looks bring him...)
No, it had been his father who taught him this life lesson.
His old man had been a real piece of work, a traditionalist authoritarian alpha who believed all omegas were good for was staying home and looking pretty.
Bed warmers and child bearers were the extent of their worth to him.
As neither, Haruka was essentially worthless in his old man's eyes. The only hope his useless son had of being any good to their family at all was if he grew up pretty and proper enough to catch the eye of a wealthy alpha so they could marry him off and be done with him already.
The price this hypothetical alpha would pay would surely be enough to compensate the greedy son of a bitch for putting up with the brat for all these years.
Yeah, right.
Nothing would ever be good enough for his old man.
Truthfully, Haruka's mother wasn't much better than the old man when you really think about it.
She hadn't been outright abusive or anything as extreme as his father's beatings when Haruka had been bold enough to slip out into the night to prowl the streets for a rare chance of freedom only to be unlucky enough to run into the drunk bastard out stumbling on those same streets but it wasn't like she did anything to help either of them either.
She seemed like the perfect, submissive omega on the surface.
His father's ideal picture of what an omega should represent, never talking out of turn and tending to his every whim with her head bowed and a blank stare that reminded Haruka too much of those creepy haunted dolls you see in the horror movies he'd sometimes sneak.
As a kid, he hated her for never standing up to his father or trying to protect him and a part of him always will but now a part of him feels bad for her.
She was just as much a prisoner in that hellhole of a house as he was but that doesn't make her blameless in his eyes.
Haruka promises himself that if he ever does somehow acquire a pup through some reverse miracle, he'll protect them the way his mother should have protected him.
It's unlikely he ever will, seeing as male omega are infertile...yet another unfortunate trait that sets him apart as a freak in the eyes of his peers—cursed with all the instincts of fertile omega but with no real way to naturally fulfill that one stupid biological purpose those same desires serve.
It's fucking bullshit.
He's still forced to go through heats twice a year, locked in the shed out behind their house by his asshole of a father to ride it out without any form of painkiller or even food and barely any water.
It's probably the reason one of the first things he did after escaping his prison of a so called home was stop at a convenience store on his way out of town to grab a box of scent blocker patches and slap one over every one of his traitorous scent glands in that shitty store bathroom.
He had even ditched the clothes he'd been wearing in the bathroom's trashcan just to get rid of any lingering traces of his scent
It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest when he took that first breath not bathed in the sickeningly syrupy sweet stench of honey clinging to the back of his throat and too sweet cream making his teeth hurt and stomach turn.
But it isn't for another two prefectures that he feels comfortable enough to let himself take a moment and breathe properly, not until after he's stopped at an emergency clinic for omegas in need and picked up a bottle of heat suppressants that the doctor warns him not to take any more than strictly necessary.
A warning which Haruka has no plans of listening to.
He'll just pick up another bottle of suppressants from a different clinic in the next town under a fake name if he has to.
Anything to avoid ever having to go through another god awful heat.
...but it seems he got a little too comfortable.
He'd underestimated not just the cost of the medicine but the overall cost of travel and just surviving outside of the cage of his sheltered childhood.
He once again curses his shitty parents for not doing anything to properly prepare him for the real world as he counts out the last of his coins to pay for the last train out of town.
He hadn't had an actual plan for what to do once he got out of that podunk town, only focused on getting as far away from that hellhole as fast as humanly possible but now he wishes he had.
He knew the small sum of bills and change he'd managed to squirrel away buried in the old coffee tin behind the shed wouldn't last forever but he'd hoped it would have lasted a little longer than this.
...and it might have if he didn't throw away one of his only pairs of good clothes and spent nearly half of what he had left on the copay for his suppressant prescription.
But he didn't have a choice, damn it!
If he wants people to think he's a beta then he can't go around reeking of omega or risk going into heat when he doesn't even have a home to hole up in to sweat it out.
Right, a home...he'd been hoping to have found a place to settle down by now even if it was only for a month or two to work a part-time job just to save up enough cash to keep going for awhile but nothing felt right.
Safe.
Nothing felt safe enough, it was either too close to where he'd just escaped or way too overwhelming with the overpowering scents and crowds of the cities or the suspicious townsfolk of smaller towns not too pleased to host an outsider like him.
In the last city he'd stopped in, he'd even had to fight off a group of alphas trying to force themselves on him even with him presenting outwardly as a beta.
The memory of those would be rapists crying out for mercy under his fists is enough to make him snort out a dry, humorless laugh under his breath even with no one else in the train car with him.
They weren't nearly as tough as they thought when their supposed victim whooped all their ugly asses in two minutes tops.
Leaning back against his seat, Haruka glances from the still healing scabs of his beat up busted knuckles to look at his reflection in the window of the train.
He really does look like the unlovable stray people love him to compare him to.
...maybe he could apply to work in one of those creepy cat maid cafes alphas seem so obsessed with if he gets desperate enough?
The mere though drags another dry laugh from him.
Haruka working at a cafe?
Get real, he isn't exactly the most sociable guy and he seriously doubts he secretly has some super badass customer service skills to make up for his unfortunate looks.
He's never heard of such a stupid idea in his life.
A sudden pang of hunger immediately followed by his stomach growling embarrassingly loud has him biting his lip to muffle the humiliating whimper clawing its way up his throat that seems to only rear its ugly head to prove him wrong.
Okay, maybe he's had a few worse ideas.
He tugs the hood of his navy blue sweatshirt up over his head and curls up on his side after attempting to stave off his hunger pains with a few sips of his half full water bottle, trying to ignore the way his stomach is trying to eat himself and sleep on the warm train while he has the chance.
Who the hell knows when he'll get another chance to sleep inside after this...
He gets maybe an hour or two of rest before the train lurches to its last stop and he has to drag his happy ass off to investigate the apparent small city he's stranded himself in.
He grabs one of the glossy tourist brochures tucked into a closed display inside the train station and flips through it, if only to get an idea of the type of places he might be able to hide out in when it gets dark out again.
Makochi, huh?
Mismatched eyes take in printed images of admittedly pretty and delicate looking windchimes and a main street lined with cozy looking shops.
He looks up from the pamphlet to look out in the distance at the sun slowly creeping up the horizon where he's sitting on the peeling wooden bench of the sheltered train station and lets himself take in the view for a moment before his stomach growling again with a newfound hunger now that he's awake again brings him crashing back down to reality.
Maybe he could get some townsfolk to take pity on him and give him an odd job to earn enough change for a hot meal like back home?
Well, there's only one way to find out.
Haruka stands up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder to start the trek into town as the gravel lining the train tracks crunches under the soles of his sneakers and his breath comes out in small clouds in front of him.
He hugs his hoodie a little closer to try to conserve what little body heat he still has after sitting out in the morning chill even if only for a few minutes and eyes the sunrise in the distance.
He hopes it warms up soon as he continues putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward.
The cold makes his movements stiff and seems to seep right through his thin hoodie and white cotton T-shirt right into his very bones but the walk into town helps, if only a little by keeping him moving.
The sun has almost fully risen by the time he's made it past the sign welcoming visitors into town and he has a bitter thought that these towns people won't be nearly so welcoming to him when he hears what sounds like a women's shout in the distance.
His body moves before he can even think twice about it and he's sprinting off in the direction of the woman's voice before he can stop himself.
He finds them in no time.
A young brown haired beta woman is being cornered by a gaggle of alphas on the street, swinging a white plastic bag of...what looks like leeks and other root vegetables at her attackers who just laugh at her pitiful attempt to keep them at bay.
Haruka doesn't think, he just acts.
He ends up taking down all of the alphas on his own even if one of them manages to slice the back of his ankle before he can stomp down on his wrist with a sickening crack to disarm the bastard.
It stings like a bitch and stings even more when Kotoha—the beta woman he'd saved from those street thugs—dabs at it with an alcohol soaked cotton ball once inside the safety of her cafe.
"Sorry, I know it probably doesn't feel good." She apologizes, voice soft and soothing as she smiles up at him far too kindly for someone like him.
Haruka feels heat prickle up his neck and bloom across his cheeks as he quickly looks away from the woman currently holding his foot hostage in her lap on the stool next to him.
"I-It's fine! I shoulda seen the guy had a knife anyway...it's my own fault I got hurt." He admits, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.
"I wouldn't say that. You did pretty damn good for one kid against all those grown alphas." Kotoha hums, dipping the cotton ball back in the god forsaken alcohol again.
"Hey, I ain't no damn kid-ow, shit!" He curses, grimacing as the disinfectant stings a whole new spot he didn't even realize was cut.
Kotoha has the nerve to actually laugh at his pain, so much for being grateful to her savior.
"Sorry, sorry! I know it stings but you don't want it to get infected, do you Haruka-kun?" She laughs through the second apology as he huffs and looks away at a potted plant hanging in the far window.
A beat or two of silence stretches between them before she breaks it.
"...so how old are you, then?"
"Huh? Oh, uh I just turned 18 a few days ago." He admits, still trying to recover from the embarrassment of being mistaken for some helpless kid by a woman he just saved.
He's pretty sure he would have done the same thing even if he was a kid...
"Oh, that's only a few years younger than my little brother! I should introduce you two, I think you'd like him and I know Ume would love a cute little thing like you to bits!" Kotoha gushes, setting down the tweezers and cotton ball to the side to clap her hands together to blind him with a bright beaming smile.
Haruka is pretty sure his brain just short circuited.
"C-Cute!?"
"Yes, cute. You're very cute, Haruka-kun. Has no one ever told you that?"
"N-no! Why would they!?"
Now it's Kotoha's turn to look confused.
"...because you are?" She says it slowly like she isn't sure he can hear her right which just embarrasses the poor boy further.
"I am not cute." Haruka manages to grit out through clenched teeth, steam practically pouring out of his ears from how hot his face feels.
What's wrong with this lady?
Calling him of all people cute, she must be insane!
"Of course, you are! You look just like a little calico cat. Here, look!" Kotoha says before taking out her phone and pulling up a picture of a calico to hold it up for comparison.
...the picture of the cat does kind of remind him of his split hair if only one side was ginger and not white.
"Are ya makin' fun of me or something?" He asks, trying to force his voice to sound gruffer and more intimidating but Kotoha doesn't seem all that affected as she moves on to taking out a tube of antibiotic ointment for his cut.
"Nope, just thought you'd like to know how cute you are!" She says cheerfully, laughing when he sputters and blushes all over again.
What's with her and calling him cute so much?
Shit's embarrassing...
Thankfully, Kotoha lets up on her weird compliments and teasing to gently finish patching up his ankle with a gentle pat to the not injured side and another too kind smile that makes his chest feel oddly warm.
When was the last time someone looked at him like that?
Had anyone ever looked at him like that before this weirdo?
The thought makes him uncomfortable and he looks away again, taking his foot back off the beta's lap as mismatched eyes land on a poster in the front window.
"There, we go. All done! Now, how about I make you something to-" Kotoha announces cheerfully once he pulls away only for him to cut her off before she can even finish what she was saying.
"You're hiring?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah I am! Why? Do you know someone who'd be interested?" She asks, seeming to perk up but he's too flustered to notice how eager she is at the prospect of finally finding some help around the cafe.
"Actually...I was kinda hoping, uh I mean—I could really use some work right now?" He admits so sheepishly it comes out more like a question than anything.
Kotoha just stares at him for a moment like her brain short circuited this time.
"You're...serious?"
"Uh y-yeah? Why? Do you not think I can do it?" Haruka asks, feeling oddly defensive all of the sudden as he's met with a smile just as blinding as before.
"That's not it at all! I'm just surprised you're interested is all, I've been looking for someone to help me out around here for ages but I haven't found the right fit yet. Now, I have a feeling it was meant to be since you showed up at just the right time today."
Now it's Haruka's turn to just stare at her blankly for a moment.
Meant to be?
What the hell is this crazy lady going on about now?
Haruka guesses it doesn't really matter if it gets him a job that puts him one step closer to finding himself a home to settle down in as he listens to Kotoha begin to ramble on about details like pay and hours.
By the end of the morning, he's got his first real job outside of odd jobs repairing shit around town back home and his stomach is full after Kotoha serves him a steaming plate of omurice that she insists is an added bonus of being her first official employee.
Now, all that's left is for him to find somewhere safe and hopefully warm to sleep for the night.
All in all, his first day in Makochi seems to be pretty successful so far.