Chapter Text
It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that Inosuke was the first one of their little group to present, even if he was the youngest, and it wasn’t a surprise, either, that he turned out to be an alpha.
“Which means I’m the leader of our pack!” he announced proudly. “Take that, Gonpachiro!”
Tanjiro had only laughed and told Inosuke that being a leader carried a great deal of responsibility, and, as expected, Inosuke took it as an invitation to fight him.
“You can’t fight him now,” Zenitsu interjected before it could get any further. He was beyond tired from slaughtering that mud demon with Tanjiro the day before (Inosuke was too busy hiding in a cave and dry-humping a rock to help them), and the last thing he wanted was for his small window of peace between missions to be disturbed by Inosuke’s hormone-fueled stupidity.
“Huh?” Inosuke scowled. “What do you mean I can’t fight him? Do you think he’s stronger than me or what?”
Zenitsu sighed, helping himself to a serving of rice. “A leader wouldn’t try to hurt his subordinates, now would he? A leader protects those who follow him, Inosuke. Especially if that leader happens to be an alpha.” Or whatever it is Gramps had told Kaigaku right after he presented and started trying to boss Zenitsu around.
Inosuke let go of Tanjiro’s shirt immediately, hiding both hands behind his back.
“Of course I knew that!” he all but shouted. “I’m the King of the Mountain, Monitsu! I know everything about being a leader! I was just joking! I would never hurt one of my minions!”
“Well, in that case, you probably already know that you have a few more responsibilities, now that you’re the only presented alpha of the group,” Zenitsu went on, “such as making sure we’re well-fed so that we’re strong and the demons can’t kill us that easily.”
“So no more stealing our food.” Tanjiro smiled innocently, and Inosuke sulked, but didn’t utter a word of complaint.
A few hours later, as Inosuke chased a small rabbit away from their hiding spot and Nezuko ran in circles around the fire, Tanjiro said, “I think we’ve successfully tamed the boar.”
“Yeah, at the expense of letting him believe he’s our leader,” Zenitsu scoffed. “He’s going to be insufferable, you know?”
“I guess we’ll have to suffer him a little for the cause,” Tanjiro told him, nudging him with his shoulder. “At least he won’t be stealing our food straight from our plates anymore.”
Zenitsu couldn’t very well argue against his logic, so he didn’t.
It was nice, in a way, to have Inosuke take care of them to the best of his abilities. He spent the next few weeks making sure they were always warm, well-fed, well-rested, and didn’t complain as much whenever Zenitsu had a crying fit or fainted mid-battle. He even patted his shoulder once, which freaked Zenitsu out so much, he stopped crying immediately. That had been unexpected, and, frankly, a little bit scary.
But Zenitsu had never been a lucky guy. Quite the opposite, actually. So he wasn’t at all shocked when Tanjiro himself presented as an alpha and all hell broke loose.
There was no stopping Inosuke from trying to fight him to assert dominance any longer. He would tackle Tanjiro to the ground at any given opportunity, and the worst part was, Tanjiro was fighting back. Zenitsu wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that.
Admittedly, Tanjiro never started a conflict, but it didn’t take much provocation for him to start growling back at Inosuke, and more often than not, Zenitsu would be awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of them punching each other bloody.
It made training, fighting and recovering a lot harder than it should’ve been. That is, until Uzui himself sat them both down and told them that their behavior was on the wrong side of flashy.
“One of my wives is an alpha, and you don’t see us fighting each other every waking hour of the day,” he told them, while Zenitsu laid on his back with a bloody nose because Tanjiro had accidentally head-butted him hard enough to make him see stars. Chuntaro was perched on his shoulder, pecking at his haori incessantly. “If anything, I’d recommend you two go down to the bathhouse and solve this the good ol’ fashioned way.”
Inosuke retreated his upper lip in a snarl. “We already had a bath this morning.”
Yes, a bath that ended up with Inosuke claiming his cock was bigger and Zenitsu shoving Tanjiro’s head underwater while screaming at Inosuke to put that thing away.
Uzui grinned out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m not telling you to take a bath.”
“I don’t think we’re following you, Uzui-san,” Tanjiro mused.
“He’s saying you two need to fuck,” Zenitsu interjected, and Uzui let out a booming laugh. “Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I need my beauty sleep or else I’ll be single forever! And I’d also really appreciate it if you two idiots stopped trying to break my nose whenever you want to have your little pissing contests! If all it takes is for you to fuck all those pheromones out of your systems then, by all means, do it before you give me another concussion!”
“We’re not going to fu— Zenitsu!” Tanjiro cried out, hiding his reddened face behind his hands. “I’m very sorry, Uzui-san! I promise the fighting stops right now!”
Inosuke grinned maniacally. “Is this you finally admitting defeat?”
The sound of Tanjiro’s heartbeat changed in a fraction of a second.
“No, this is me ensuring the safety of all members of our pack. If we’re making Zenitsu and Nezuko uncomfortable, that means we need to set our differences aside and call it a draw,” he declared.
“Spoken like a real alpha, Kamado!” Uzui patted him on the back with his stump, and Inosuke looked ready to punch Tanjiro in the face.
“Inosuke,” Zenitsu hissed. “Please. I’m tired of this. Think of poor Nezuko-chan, trapped in that box, listening to your never-ending groaning and growling. It’s maddening.”
Inosuke puffed out his chest and nodded. “Anything for my two favorite underlings!”
A muscle in Tanjiro's face twitched.
“They’re not yours!”
“Shut up, Monjiro!”
“These hormonal boys,” Uzui sighed. “Fighting each other is probably the stupidest way to see who’s the strongest, you morons. Almost all Hashira are alphas, except for Muichiro, Obanai and Shinobu, and instead of fighting like children, we acknowledge each other’s strengths and do our best to aid one another when we head into battle. That’s what real alphas do. If you must fight, fight for an omega, but do so honorably.” Admittedly, the thought of them fighting for an omega made Zenitsu's skin crawl, but he didn't utter a word.
Tanjiro bowed before him, grabbing Inosuke’s head and making him bow, as well.
“Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us, Uzui-san. We promise we’ll work hard to better ourselves,” he said. Inosuke only growled in acknowledgment.
Uzui's face then sobered, his red eye threatening to pierce through their skulls. “One more thing before you go back to training; if you give my tsugoku another concussion, I'm going to make your time in the corps a living hell.”
Tanjiro and Inosuke shared a very strange look before nodding, a lot more eagerly this time. That seemed to please Uzui, but it didn’t please Zenitsu. Nuh-uh. Not one bit.
Their pack was small and a bit unusual, with two alphas, a demon girl and an unpresented crybaby who was probably just a beta, but that was all Zenitsu had in the world, and he feared for its integrity. He’d never had something like that before, something of his choosing, and every time Inosuke and Tanjiro started grumbling under their breaths, Zenitsu would close his eyes and wait for the moment their pack would be no more.
But against all odds, Uzui’s words seemed to have done the trick, because the fighting was kept to a minimum from that day on, and Zenitsu went back to having full nights of uninterrupted sleep.
When they were headed to their next mission, though, Zenitsu quickly realized that they had a new problem in their hands: neither Inosuke nor Tanjiro were willing to close their eyes at night, and instead opted for staying awake until the first rays of sun started peaking in the horizon.
Not again, please! I don’t get paid enough for this shit!
“You do realize that if you’re not well-rested, I could get killed by this demon, right?” Zenitsu shouted at them that night, sick and tired of their alpha stupidity. “We all know I’m the weakest member of the pack, and you two are willingly risking my life because you’re too proud to go to sleep! You’re unbelievable! So utterly inconsiderate! The mightiest pair of alphas in all of Japan!”
He quickly regretted his choice of words, because as soon as he'd shut his mouth, Tanjiro and Inosuke spent a full hour arguing over who was going to sleep first, but Nezuko wasn’t having it. She crawled out of her box, grabbed her brother by the scruff of his neck and dragged him next to Zenitsu’s spot, huffing and puffing all the way back to her enclosure.
"Nezuko—” Tanjiro started saying, but she'd already slammed the door shut.
“I told you we’re both tired of this shit!” Zenitsu exclaimed. “Now close your stupid eyes and get some rest. And you, boar-head, are going to wake me up in a few hours so we can trade places. Are we clear?”
To his surprise, both Inosuke and Tanjiro nodded, although they didn’t seem very happy with the outcome.
Inosuke did end up waking him after a while, but he didn’t fall asleep afterwards. He stayed there, katanas propped against a tree trunk, even after Zenitsu urged him to get some rest.
“I’m supposed to protect my underlings,” he mused, careful not to wake up Tanjiro.
“You don’t have to protect us from the trees and the leaves, you stupid boar,” Zenitsu grumbled. “But you won’t be able to protect us when it matters if you’re tired.”
Too sleepy to question him, Inosuke crawled over to him and laid on his back, but kept his katanas close to him and his mask over his head.
Zenitsu stared at him in silence as he drifted into sleep, soft snores falling from his lips.
Inosuke was truly beautiful when he was like that, Zenitsu thought, with only his chest rising and falling in steady intervals, the sound of his heartbeat almost too soft to belong to someone like him, too gentle.
If Zenitsu were to be anything other than a beta, what would he smell on his friends? Would it be pleasant? Would it make him scrunch up his nose in distaste?
His eyes shifted from Inosuke to Tanjiro, both sleeping placidly, and he immediately felt a pang of guilt striking his chest. Whatever they smelled like, Zenitsu would probably think of it as the smell of home, a home that was likely not going to last for long.
One day, Inosuke and Tanjiro were bound to meet their mates and build lives of their own. Even Nezuko would, if Tanjiro ever found a way to turn her back into a human, and Zenitsu… well, he’d be lucky if they saved him a place in their hearts after all was said and done.
As the sun rose in the sky that morning, Zenitsu dried a couple of stray tears with the sleeve of his haori and brought his knees closer to his chest. Chuntaro came flying towards him and sat on the top of his head, making himself comfortable there, either out of sympathy or out of pity. His presence was comforting nonetheless, and Zenitsu resolved not to question his motives any further.
Maybe, he thought to himself, if he was an omega, he’d have a way to make them stay. Maybe he would be able to—
Zenitsu closed his eyes, chastising himself for entertaining such selfish thoughts about his dear friends, the ones who did everything in their power to protect him and Nezuko.
His stupid feelings weren’t their fault, or his childhood dreams of a knight in shining armor coming to save him from his grim reality. They deserved someone better, someone brave, someone who wasn’t scared of his own fucking shadow. They deserved the world, and Zenitsu could only offer them scraps.
Whenever they chose to leave, Zenitsu would bid them farewell with a smile on his lips and accept loneliness with open arms.
♢
A few months later, Zenitsu’s worst fears came true.
It was to be expected, really. Nothing lasts forever, much less something as frail as what they had.
When Zenitsu was assigned his first solo mission, he said goodbye without kicking up too much of a fuss. He cried a little, yes, and hugged his friends very tightly, but he didn’t dare look back as he took off and disappeared into the sunset.
The months that came and went were lonely, but at least he had Chuntaro flying above his head and chirping the day away to keep him company. He crossed paths with Tanjiro, Inosuke and Nezuko a few times, albeit briefly and rarely at the same time.
After Uzui called Zenitsu into his estate and told him it was time for proper tsugoku training, Zenitsu saw his pack even less, but at the very least he won himself a place in a family that was also shaped a little bit differently than the rest, a family that taught him to believe in his own strength despite everything else.
They saw something in him Zenitsu himself couldn’t see, but they nurtured it until Zenitsu caught a glimpse of it in the mirror and sank his teeth into it before it vanished.
The training with the pillars could be best described as brutal and fast-paced, but not as brutal and fast-paced as the whirlwind that was the subsequent battle against Muzan. Everything happened much too quickly after that night.
Amidst the grieving and mourning, some merciful god must’ve heard Zenitsu’s prayers, because he found himself sharing a room with his pack all over again, even if that room happened to be the infirmary of Butterfly Estate.
Zenitsu was too exhausted and in too much pain to ask Tanjiro what he meant when he asked him and Inosuke to come home with them, but if he was being honest, Tanjiro could’ve asked them to jump into an active volcano and they would’ve done it without thinking about it twice.
They held onto each other tightly, the four of them. They were all they had left, after all, and they weren’t willing to let go anytime soon.
With patience and care, they rebuilt the house Tanjiro and Nezuko had grown up in. It wasn’t an easy feat, considering none of them knew a thing about construction work, but a blessing came in the form of Tengen Uzui and his wives, who took it upon themselves to help them and didn't accept no for an answer.
It was tough on Tanjiro and Nezuko, everything from cleaning up the wreckage to rebuilding the house, and Zenitsu often wondered if they should just find a new one instead, but when he voiced his concerns to Hinatsuru, she looked at him with never-ending fondness and said, “Suffering is an important part of healing, Zenitsu-kun. It hurts them now because the wounds are still open, and it may hurt for a while longer, but they’ll be fine.” She smiled sadly. “We all will be.”
Zenitsu didn’t quite believe her then, when he still lulled himself to sleep with the sound of his friends’ breathing and woke up every other night by Tanjiro shaking like a leaf from a nightmare Zenitsu and Inosuke would have to pull him out of.
Tanjiro never regained the sight in his right eye or the full mobility of his arm, but that was to be expected. He never showed a sign of it bothering him, but Zenitsu knew better than to trust his words when the beat of his heart betrayed him so mercilessly whenever he so much as glanced at his reflection or one of his friends helped him with something menial.
Zenitsu himself suffered from constant pain, mostly around his hips due to a messy fracture he sustained while fighting Kaigaku, and in his lower back and his legs, a consequence of creating a new form of Thunder Breathing when his body wasn’t prepared for it. It was as if the lightning had tried to burn him from the inside out, for his skin was permanently riddled with zigzag lines in all shapes and sizes that reminded him of the weakness of his flesh.
Inosuke didn’t bear any physical marks aside from the scars all demon slayers were bound to carry for as long as they lived, but something fundamental in him changed along the years. His voice was dimmer, his eyes haunted by shadows that weren’t there before, and he never proclaimed himself the King of the Mountain ever again. Oftentimes, Zenitsu would catch him smelling the flowers, staring at the butterflies or listening to the song of the nightingales in complete silence, and his heart ached for the wild boy he used to be.
Nezuko’s speech hadn’t fully returned, even after a year of her becoming human again. At the beginning, they weren’t sure what was stalling her, but before they left Butterfly Estate for good, Aoi diagnosed her with something called aphasia.
“The words are there,” Aoi patiently explained, “but she’s not sure of how to assign them to different things or put them together in a full sentence. The years she spent as a demon took a toll on her body and her mind, but she’ll get better.”
“What can we do to help?” Tanjiro wondered, holding onto Zenitsu’s hand very tightly.
Zenitsu couldn’t help but gaze at the garden, where Inosuke had put his mask over Nezuko’s head and was running around on all fours with her on his back. At that moment, Zenitsu had the breathtaking realization that Inosuke would be a fantastic dad one day, and judging by the attentive way Tanjiro was listening to Aoi’s instructions, he would too.
The thought of one of them becoming a parent was almost laughable, though. They were just a handful of traumatized kids who'd won a war against a hoard of demons by the skin of their teeth, trying to make the most of what remained after counting their losses. There was no place in their lives for a child.
As the months went by, Tanjiro brought up the topic of taking on the charcoal business once more. They didn’t really need the money; all of them, including Nezuko, received a significant monthly pension from the Ubuyashiki family, but Tanjiro didn’t care about the money. It was the sense of normalcy that he craved, the assurance that killing demons was not all they were made for, that those years were just an intermission, not their whole story.
Zenitsu didn’t feel strong enough to help. His muscles ached too much most mornings, and it took a few hours for the stiffness to subside. Tanjiro didn’t begrudge him for it, and instead reminded him that there was no need for him to work in any capacity, a sincere smile on his lips that didn’t reach his right eye. It never did. Zenitsu found it beautiful regardless.
Inosuke, on the other hand, asked Tanjiro to teach him everything he needed to know to be of good use. Fifteen-year-old Inosuke would’ve sliced his own head off before asking for Tanjiro to teach him anything, but there he was, learning how to use an axe from scratch without claiming he’d been born an expert.
From that day on, they'd wake up at the break of dawn, made sure Zenitsu was tucked in properly, and had a quick breakfast before leaving for the mountain. Their chatter would always wake Zenitsu up without fail. They probably thought he couldn’t hear them, or else they would've waited a bit longer before loudly racing each other down the hill.
Zenitsu could never fall back asleep once they were gone. It didn’t feel safe to do so, and the silence was damn near unbearable. But with them gone, Zenitsu could take his time rubbing his joints and flexing his limbs the way Aoi had instructed him when he told her about his aches, and by the time their voices faded into nothing, he could get up and make his way to the kitchen.
He always made the right amount of noise for Nezuko to wake up without startle, so more often than not, they’d wander into the kitchen at the same time, ready to eat the breakfast Tanjiro and Inosuke had left for them, covered with a linen cloth.
As she boiled water to prepare some more tea that morning, Zenitsu couldn’t believe he once saw her as a potential girlfriend, let alone a wife. She was beautiful, that was undeniable, but Zenitsu had been desperate back then, and also quite certain that he was bound to meet a horrid death sooner rather than later, so he’d let his fear take the best of him. It brought him shame now, and rightfully so.
Besides, Zenitsu had long since figured out that, although he liked dainty girls with big eyes and long hair well enough, he much preferred strong men who could throw him around like a rag doll. Blame Uzui for giving him one too many accidental boners during his teenage years, honestly.
He couldn’t see Nezuko as anything other than a little sister those days, especially considering that she’d gotten stuck at the age of twelve and was only beginning to blossom beyond that. Strangely so, Zenitsu felt the need to parent her. Even if he didn’t understand where the urge had come from, he couldn’t help but remind Nezuko when a pot was too hot to be touched, to put on something warm before heading outside, to not run outside when it had just rained, and before bed, he’d sit her down and comb through her hair while helping her with her speech therapy.
Tanjiro would usually sit across from them, writing letters to their friends or patching up old clothes that did not need patching up, not when they could afford new ones, but no one was cruel enough to stop him. Inosuke never strayed too far, either, and would simply go over different books with furrowed eyebrows, asking Tanjiro and him how different kanjis were supposed to be read or written. Nezuko called him cute once, and Inosuke had to hide his face inside his mask while Tanjiro and Zenitsu poked fun at the redness that had reached the tips of his ears.
“Nezuko-chan,” he said. “Do you want to go to the market tomorrow? We’re running low on groceries, and I reckon we need a few more blankets.” He wasn’t sure why, but he’d woken up that morning with the unstoppable impulse to surround himself with blankets, so he stole Tanjiro’s and Inosuke’s and did his exercises while wrapped up in a messy cocoon.
Nezuko nodded eagerly. “Mochi!” she exclaimed, and Zenitsu’s smile dimmed when he remembered Kanroji. Wherever she and the Serpent Hashira were, Zenitsu hoped she was getting her fill of sakura mochi. She deserved it more than anyone.
When Tanjiro and Inosuke walked through the door a few hours later, all soiled and sweaty, they did so laughing. The sound was like music to Zenitsu’s ears.
They laughed a lot those days, more often than they did when they were fifteen and fighting for dominance at any given opportunity. The years had gone by and they were eighteen now, which wasn’t much older, but the war had aged them beyond what Zenitsu thought was possible. He found it hard to believe that he was nineteen whole years of age himself, that he'd made it through to the other side, but there he was, against all odds, living a quiet, happy life with his pack.
Maybe Gramps was right, after all, and there was a raging storm inside him that couldn’t be smothered, even if most days he didn’t feel mightier than a drizzle.
“You made onigiris!” Inosuke exclaimed, almost jumping at the sight of their dinner, but Nezuko’s glare stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Wash hands first,” she said, arms crossed on top of her chest.
Tanjiro chuckled, patting her head fondly. “That was very good, Nezuko! We’ll clean up before joining you for dinner!”
“But, Monjiro—”
“We’ll be right back!”
With that, Tanjiro grabbed Inosuke by the elbow and dragged him to the washroom, his hair falling from the ponytail it had been secured into with how quickly he moved.
Both Tanjiro and Zenitsu had let their hair grow, mainly because they couldn't bother with keeping it short anymore. Zenitsu's reached his chest and was long enough for Nezuko to braid when she was bored, and Tanjiro wouldn’t let his grow past his collarbones. Inosuke, on the other hand, chopped his all off when Tanjiro was still recovering from the events of the battle against Muzan.
He cut it with his own katana and without even looking in the mirror, and Zenitsu had to chase him around on a broken hip to even it out with a pair of scissors. Inosuke never said it out loud, but Zenitsu had a feeling he’d cut his hair in an unspoken show of grief after losing Kocho. Life wasn’t the same as it had been when she was around, and neither was Inosuke.
With his hair went most of his explosiveness, but not his strength or his bravery. Those remained untouched, flickering embers permanently ablaze in his heart.
They ate dinner that night the same way they always did, chatting about the coal Tanjiro and Zenitsu were going to take to town to sell in a few days. Inosuke still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with crowds, so Nezuko offered to go in his stead.
The next morning, Zenitsu and Nezuko made the walk to town right after breakfast, with Zenitsu signing a song he’d taught Nezuko to help her with her speech. Some words were missing, but Zenitsu slowed down and filled in the blanks when Nezuko’s mind couldn’t.
Life was simple those days, predictable as a well-rehearsed play, and Zenitsu liked it that way. After years upon years of twists of fate and monsters awaiting around every corner, mundanity was all he wanted for himself and for his pack.
And then it happened.
One fateful morning, Zenitsu didn’t wake up with the sound of Inosuke and Tanjiro stirring in the background. He woke up much earlier than that, feeling as if his insides had been set on fire.
Still half-asleep, he kicked the covers away, panting for air, and immediately felt something wet between his legs.
Everything around him was a blur of green eyes and red hair and panicked voices calling his name, which only made everything worse. All Zenitsu knew was that he’d never been harder before in his life, and that he was going to die if someone didn’t put a cock inside him and filled him to the brim with a knot as soon as possible.
Craving for the touch of an attractive man wasn’t an odd occurrence in Zenitsu’s life, not really. He’d given in to the temptation quite a few times during his solo missions, but not once in his entire existence had he experienced that sort of emptiness before.
Aside from the nearly lethal horniness, those three days involved a whole lot of tossing, turning and crying his eyes out.
Nezuko wandered into his room a few times a day to bring him clean sheets or a plate of food that Zenitsu couldn’t bring himself to eat. He was in too much pain to think about food. The cramps would make him bend over himself and wail as if he’d been stabbed through the stomach with a hot poker.
The shame tickling the back of his brain at the thought of Tanjiro and Inosuke witnessing the horrors Zenitsu was undoubtedly putting them through was enough to make him bite his tongue most times, but thinking about his attractive, strong, hard-working alpha friends when he was already half naked and with a hand between his legs proved to be a terrible idea.
He could hear them walking around the house during the evenings and the ungodly hours of the night, and if he focused hard enough, he could make out their uneasy heartbeats.
Something was keeping them on edge, and Zenitsu had a feeling it was him.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Zenitsu emerged from the room, weak on the knees and with his brain surrounded by a thick fog. Thankfully for him, Tanjiro and Inosuke were nowhere to be found.
“Aniki!” Nezuko exclaimed right upon seeing him, and rushed to wrap her arms around his middle.
Zenitsu almost fell on his ass with the force of her embrace.
“Nezuko-chan,” he mumbled, burying his nose in her hair. She smelled different, he realized, a lot sweeter than before, like burnt sugar and something else he couldn’t put his finger on.
“Alright?” she asked, looking up at him with wide brown eyes that once upon a time had been the prettiest shade of pink Zenitsu had ever seen.
Zenitsu nodded and patted her head. The familiar gesture always seemed to ease her anxieties, and this time was no exception.
“I’m much better now, it was just—” A heat. A goddamn heat. Because that was just his fucking luck, to present as an omega at nineteen. “It was just a heat.”
Nezuko nuzzled her face in his chest. “Zen hungry?” she wondered, and Zenitsu shook his head. Only ten minutes before he had wolfed down the breakfast and lunch Nezuko left for him in a manner which would’ve left the old Inosuke speechless if he’d been there to witness it.
“I think I’m just going to take a bath and then go for a long walk,” he said. “Would you like to come with?”
Instead of replying, Nezuko grabbed his hand and dragged him to the washroom, where a warm bath was already waiting for him. There was no way she knew Zenitsu was going to crawl out of the room anytime soon, so she must’ve prepared that bath for herself, but as soon as he started protesting, Nezuko stomped down her foot and shook her head vehemently.
She opened her mouth and then closed it shut, pursing her lips together as if waiting for the words to come to her.
“Take it!” she proudly announced. “Then dinner!”
Zenitsu didn’t have it in himself to deny her of anything, so he nodded and thanked her profusely before stepping into the washroom and closing the door behind him.
He’d already wiped himself down with a washcloth and the water from the pitcher Nezuko kept next to his door, but he still needed to clean all the slick and cum from his body before it drove him insane. His head still felt like it was filled with cotton, but the urge to shove his fingers deep inside him was gone since the early morning, and all he wanted now was to be clean.
He scrubbed himself as best as he could, then started all over again. Once the water started running cold, he climbed out of the bathtub and patted himself dry with a soft towel, not daring to look down at his crotch. He knew his cock had been rubbed raw, and his rear probably wasn’t much better.
It was almost laughable, him being an omega. And not only that, but him presenting so late in life was the cherry on top, when everyone else had presented as early as thirteen.
His fears of dying alone and loveless had long since disappeared, replaced by the need for a peaceful life and a safe pack, both of which he already had. He couldn’t fathom the idea of going into town and trying to find a mate, or of meeting someone new at all.
As he wrapped himself in a light yukata, he spotted two erratic heartbeats approaching from a distance, which meant Tanjiro and Inosuke were coming home.
Zenitsu was too old and too tired to be a coward. He left all his cowardice behind when he chopped Kaigaku’s head off and became the thunder itself for a fraction of a second.
Or so he thought, because as soon as he opened the door of the washroom, the cowardice came running back to him.
It was their scent. Scents, plural. Wet soil after it’s been raining for weeks on end, green firewood, the burning coal of an irori— he understood now, what everyone meant when they said Tanjiro’s and Inosuke’s scents were overpowering when they were together, because it was true.
Was his heat truly over? Could it be triggered again by the scent of two strong alphas in the vicinity? Zenitsu wasn’t sure what the answer to those questions was, and he didn’t have enough time to ponder on it, because he could hear noises coming from their bedroom. Yes, the very same bedroom Zenitsu had spent three days jacking off and crying in, that one.
He found them both standing in the doorway, staring at the aftermath of his heat, but he hadn’t even reached them when they turned their gazes to him.
Zenitsu’s knees buckled.
Oh, fuck.
“What are you doing standing there?” he hissed, his face burning without him being able to stop it. “Go somewhere else while I clean this mess!”
“Zenitsu,” Tanjiro whispered in a strange voice. “You’re—”
“An omega, yes. Yes, I am, I— I didn’t know, alright? I didn’t fucking know. I just— I always assumed I was a beta. I’ve always been enough of a freak with this stupid hair and now the scars but it never crossed my mind that I could be anything other than a beta. I certainly couldn’t be an alpha like you, but an omega? I didn’t—” He ran his hands down his face, taking in a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m an omega.”
Tanjiro smiled at him. “I was going to say, you’re alright, Zen! You made it through!”
Zenitsu’s face only got hotter at the sound of those words.
“Of course I made it through!” he shrieked. “It was just a heat, you idiot! It’s not like I went to war again or something!”
Tanjiro seemed mortified, but Inosuke kept looking at him with wide eyes, as if Zenitsu had grown not only a second but also a third head and maybe even a tail.
“I’m sorry, I just meant I’m glad you’re alright. Your, uh, your heat must’ve been rough on you,” Tanjiro corrected himself, sheepishly scratching the back of his head with his good hand.
“How could you possibly know what a heat feels like? All you two do is dry-hump whatever you can reach for less than twenty-four hours and then take a bath and it’s—” His eyes went wide with the realization. “Did you hear it?” he uttered.
If Tanjiro’s cheeks got any redder, Zenitsu would have to start worrying about his health.
“We tried to give you as much space as we could,” he mumbled.
Zenitsu low-key wished the demons were still around so that he could run into the night and get eaten by one as soon as possible.
“How much did you hear?” he asked in a small voice, then covered his ears when Tanjiro opened his mouth to speak. “No, no, no, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know! Just go away so I can clean this!”
“Zenitsu—” Tanjiro began saying, but Zenitsu wasn’t having any of it.
“Just go away and help Nezuko-chan with dinner while I clean up!” he cut Tanjiro off, resolved not to cry in front of them. “And what are you looking at, boar-head? Did you lose something?” He shoved Inosuke out of the way, but he didn’t budge.
After a few moments of silence, Zenitsu let out an undignified shriek and pushed past them, slamming the door shut behind him.
And once he was alone, he crumbled.
♢
Almost an hour later, Zenitsu stepped out of the bedroom, much more put together than he was before and carrying his dirty sheets with him. He left them outside, deciding it was much too late to go down to the riverbed. He’d have to wait until the next day to wash them thoroughly.
He was tired, exhausted even, and didn’t even try to make small talk when he sat at the table. To his surprise, there was a plate full of rice and shrimp tempura waiting for him.
“You didn’t have to serve me a plate,” he muttered.
Nezuko pointed at Inosuke with a timid smile.
“It was no bother,” Inosuke mused, decidedly looking away from Zenitsu when he thanked him.
Dinner was silent, as expected, only filled with the sound of the crickets and cicadas outside, as well as his friends’ uneven heartbeats. Zenitsu was so nervous, he couldn’t even read them properly.
Nezuko’s was steady, a bit tense, but overall calm. Tanjiro’s was beyond concerned, confused, a little scared. Inosuke’s was all over the place, too erratic for Zenitsu to even pick up a rhythm.
As soon as they were finished eating, Tanjiro started collecting the plates.
“I’ll be, uh… I’ll be waiting, in the bedroom. Your futons are still intact, in case you were worried about that,” Zenitsu tried to joke, but no one laughed. Inosuke barely even blinked.
That was the most unnerving part of that whole ordeal, Inosuke’s quietude. It was true that he wasn’t the same rambunctious boy he’d been at fifteen, but he was far from shy when it came to making fun of his friends. To say his demeanor was unsettling would’ve been a huge understatement.
“About that,” Tanjiro said slowly. “Inosuke and I think it would be a good idea for us to build you a new bedroom, or if you’d rather stay in our current one, we can build something for ourselves instead, or just clean up the storage room and turn it into an actual bedroom. Whatever you choose is completely alright with us, Zenitsu. For now, it’s probably for the best if we keep sleeping in the tatami room until we figure out sleeping arrangements.”
And Zenitsu tried to fight the tears, he really did, but his hormones were already spiking and then he was receiving such blatant rejection from one of his best friends while his other best friend didn’t utter a single word… it was impossible for him not to start bawling his eyes out on the spot.
“Is that why you’ve been so quiet all day long?” he demanded. “Because you think I’m going to jump your bones in the middle of the night? I’m not your friend anymore, I’m just a horny omega who’s gonna try to seduce you, huh?”
Horror washed over Tanjiro’s features, and Inosuke went red down to the scars on his bare chest.
“No,” Tanjiro was quick to say. “No, that’s not it, I promise—"
But Zenitsu was already pushing himself to his feet and hurrying back to their bedroom, with a very worried Nezuko following him closely behind.
“Don’t even try to talk your way out of this one, Tanjiro, you already made alarmingly clear what you two think about me!” Zenitsu went on, hot tears streaming down his face. He could barely hear his friends’ footsteps over the sound of his own blood rushing against his eardrums. “But you don’t have to worry about me, I’ll sleep in the fucking tatami room, you two can take the bedroom and transform it into an alpha cave or whatever, I don’t care.”
Nezuko shook her head furiously, pointing at herself with one hand and motioning towards her bedroom with the other. “With me,” she pushed out, nodding in encouragement.
“It won’t be necessary, Nezuko,” Tanjiro assured his sister. “This was just a big, big misunderstanding. We can all sleep here tonight, everything is alright—”
Grabbing his shikibuton with one hand and his pillow with the other, Zenitsu started making his way outside of the bedroom, but something stopped him dead in his tracks, an iron grip circling his wrist.
Zenitsu’s heart skipped a beat when he looked up and met Inosuke’s inexpressive eyes.
“Let go,” Zenitsu hissed weakly. “Let go now.”
He used to be terrified of both Tanjiro and Inosuke when he first stumbled upon them, but not anymore. Three years after their first encounter, Zenitsu knew he had absolutely nothing to fear. But right then and there, a primal part of him wanted to whimper and run as fast as his legs allowed him to.
The smells around him were impossible to ignore, and Zenitsu could’ve sworn he was smelling all the emotions going on in the room. He didn’t have names for them, but they were making him cry even harder.
“Inosuke,” Tanjiro snapped. “Let him go.” His voice was an octave lower than it usually was. That was a bad sign. A terrible, terrible sign. It meant they were going to start fighting soon, and Zenitsu couldn’t deal with it if they fought in front of him at that moment.
His pack had fragmented enough for a night, he wouldn’t be able to stand it if fell apart because of him.
“Please,” he whimpered.
Inosuke opened his mouth to say something, but Nezuko had already grabbed his hand and forced his fingers off Zenitsu in one swift motion.
As soon as he was free, Zenitsu rushed out of the room with nothing but his pillow clutched against his chest, and headed straight for Nezuko’s room.
The girl ran in behind him, dragging his futon along, and immediately threw her arms around his neck.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry, aniki. They’re dumb.”
That, at least, made Zenitsu let out a little laugh.
Nezuko was right; Tanjiro and Inosuke were very, very dumb.