Chapter Text
⚠️Epilepsy Seizure
The rain had finally arrived, pouring over Kyoto in heavy, gray sheets that blurred the campus windows. Inside the quiet university library, the air was thick with the scent of old paper and damp coats.
Taki sat in an isolated corner alcove, a mountain of marketing textbooks piled around him. He felt terrible. The sudden drop in barometric pressure from the storm, combined with his lack of sleep and the fierce morning sickness from earlier, had created a perfect storm inside his body. His head was pounding with a vicious, blinding pressure—a severe flare-up of the post-trauma epilepsy he’d carried since the accident.
His hands shook so badly he could barely turn the page of his notebook. Just focus, he told himself, pressing his palms against his throbbing temples. Maki expects the data entry done by tonight.
A shadow fell over his table.
"You're late with the spreadsheet," Maki’s cold voice cut through the quiet.
Taki flinched, the sharp sound sending a spike of agony through his brain. He looked up, his vision swimming slightly. Maki stood there, looking immaculate as always, carrying the unmistakable scent of crushed mint and smoky vetiver. But as Maki looked down at Taki, his irritation faltered.
Taki’s skin was deathly pale, a sheen of cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. His usual scent of bright yuzu and wildflowers was completely drowned out by the sour, metallic tang of pure physical distress.
"Takayama?" Maki’s tone shifted from annoyed to suspicious. "Are you even listening to me?"
Taki couldn't answer. The static buzz in his ears suddenly went from a low murmur to a roaring, deafening screech. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered violently in his vision. He recognized the terrifying warning signs instantly.
An aura. A bad one.
"M-Maki..." Taki gasped out, his fingers clawing at the edge of the wooden table. His entire body began to stiffen, his muscles locking up as the seizure took hold.
"Hey—Takayama!"
Maki’s stoic facade shattered in a fraction of a second. Throwing his expensive bag to the floor, he lunged across the space just as Taki’s knees gave out. Maki caught him before his head could hit the heavy oak table, his powerful alpha arms wrapping securely around Taki's trembling frame.
Guided by pure, protective instinct, Maki lowered Taki gently to the carpeted floor, turning him onto his side just like he had on the street days ago. Taki’s body shuddered with violent, involuntary tremors. He was entirely trapped inside the storm in his own mind, his eyes unfocused and rolled back.
"Damn it, Taki, breathe," Maki muttered, his voice cracking with a raw panic he had never felt in his entire life.
Without thinking, Maki unleashed his pheromones. He flooded the small alcove with thick, heavy waves of calming, protective crushed mint, using his alpha command not to dominate, but to soothe, desperately trying to anchor the seizing omega back to reality. He cradled Taki's head in his lap, his large hand gently stroking through Taki’s soft hair, shielding him from the hard floor.
"I've got you. You're fine," Maki whispered fiercely, his heart hammering against his ribs.
For two agonizing minutes, Maki held him through the tremors. As the seizure finally began to recede, Taki's body went completely limp, resting heavily against Maki's chest. He was exhausted, drifting in a semi-conscious, post-ictal daze.
Slowly, Taki’s scent began to bleed back into the air—a soft, fragile puff of yuzu, mixed with that strangely deep, addictive sweetness Maki had noticed the day before.
Maki froze. Sitting there on the floor, holding the unconscious boy in his arms, his inner alpha roared with a terrifyingly fierce, possessive hunger. It wasn't just a reaction to a classmate in trouble. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to protect this specific omega, to shield him from the world.
He looked down at Taki's pale face, his fingers lingering on the boy’s soft cheek. Why does my alpha react to you like this? Maki thought, his brow furrowing in deep, conflicted confusion. What happened between us that night?
Taki let out a soft, subconscious whimper, his small hand instinctively moving to curl over his own lower abdomen, tucking himself into a defensive, protective fetal position even in his daze.
Maki watched the movement, a strange, unexplainable weight settling into his chest. He didn't know what it meant yet—he didn't know about the Hirota heir growing inside that fragile frame—but as he tightened his grip around Taki, keeping him warm against the chill of the library, Maki knew one thing for certain:
The wall of cold indifference he had tried so hard to build between them was officially beginning to crumble.