Chapter Text
The cheap wooden table in Taki’s cramped kitchen was barely big enough for three. Outside the small window, the hum of Kyoto’s evening traffic bled through the thin glass, but inside, the room was suffocatingly quiet.
Nicholas sat on a rickety plastic stool, his long legs cramped in the small space. His expensive leather jacket was draped over the back of the chair, his jaw tight as he stared down at his hands. Opposite him, Euijoo was pacing the length of the linoleum floor, his fingers biting into his own sleeves as his tangerine and honey scent flared with high, sharp waves of absolute panic.
Taki sat perfectly still in the center, his hands tightly wrapped around a warm mug of barley tea. Beneath the loose, oversized cream sweater Euijoo had bought him, his palm pressed flat against his three-month bump. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"You told him what?" Euijoo’s voice cracked, his pacing snapping to a halt as he glared at his boyfriend. "Nicho, are you insane? You told Maki that I am the one who's pregnant?"
"I didn't have a choice, Euijoo!" Nicholas hissed back, lowering his voice but matching his boyfriend’s fierce intensity. He looked up, his dark eyes tight with the stress of the previous morning. "He followed us to the private pharmacy downtown. He heard the pharmacist talking about unlisted prenatal vitamins and protecting a secret heir. He was choking the room with his pheromones, ready to tear me apart because he thought I was betraying him. He already had the whole story built in his head—he just had the wrong omega."
Nicholas shifted his gaze to Taki, his expression turning gravely serious. "If I had corrected him, Taki, he would have known instantly that you lied to him in his penthouse. His alpha instincts would have taken over, he would have claimed you on the spot, and the Hirota elders would have had their lawyers at your mother’s door by noon. I took the hit to buy us time."
A quiet, broken sob escaped Taki’s lips. He set the mug down with a clatter, his hands trembling so badly he had to tuck them into his sleeves. "He thinks... he thinks you and Euijoo are hiding a baby from the Wangs."
"Yeah," Nicholas muttered, running a hand through his dark hair. "And he promised to take the secret to his grave. He thinks he’s being the loyal best friend by keeping my 'scandal' safe."
"But this makes everything so much worse," Taki whispered, a tear finally slipping down his pale cheek. He looked up at them, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror. "Maki isn't an idiot, Nicholas. He's going to be watching the two of you constantly now. He’s going to be hyper-aware of Euijoo. What happens when months pass and Euijoo doesn't start showing? What happens when my bump gets too big to hide under these sweaters, and Maki notices that my scent is the one that smells like a nesting omega?"
Euijoo quickly crossed the room, dropping to his knees beside Taki’s chair and wrapping his arms around the younger boy’s waist. He let his tangerine scent bloom, trying to soothe Taki’s sudden spike of post-trauma anxiety before it could trigger a seizure aura. "Shh, Taki, breathe. Look at me. We still have a plan. Finals end in two weeks, and then the winter break starts. We just need to survive fourteen days on campus."
"Fourteen days is a lifetime when Hirota Maki is looking for answers," Nicholas warned grimly, standing up from the small stool. He walked over to the kitchen counter, picking up the heavy white paper bag from the pharmacy and setting it gently in front of Taki. "He thinks he solved the mystery, so his brain is satisfied for now. But you need to start taking these high-grade vitamins immediately. You're still too pale, Taki. And from tomorrow onwards, you do not walk anywhere on campus alone. If Maki is watching Euijoo, he’s going to notice if Euijoo keeps sneaking away to look after you."
Taki looked down at the premium box of vitamins. It was a bitter irony—he had violently rejected the medicine Maki had tried to force on him, yet here he was, accepting the exact same tier of elite medical care funded by Nicholas’s secret account, all to keep the Hirota heir alive.
"I understand," Taki whispered, his fingers tracing the soft wool of his sweater over his stomach. "Fourteen days. I just have to disappear before the web completely breaks."
But deep down, as Nicholas opened the door to lead a stressed Euijoo back to the dorms, Taki looked out at the dark Kyoto skyline and felt a chilling premonition. Nicholas’s lie had built a massive wall of protection around him, but walls have a habit of crumbling when an alpha’s true biological instinct comes scratching at the door.