Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Drupe (noun): a fleshy fruit with thin skin and a central stone containing the seed.

When summer’s sweet heat sticks like sugar to the tongue, the winds from the mountain blow hot across the treetops, and the fat stonefruit drop from their trees, heavy and ripe, you know Omega season has come.

It’s the time when Omegas share their annual heats in a riotous bacchanal of debauchery, feasting, and desire. The weather has to be just right, the air at its most humid and hottest, robes falling open at the chest and scent glands laid bare to the open air, before the first Omega falls to their heat.

And then — like a sudden sunshower — the rest of them follow.

During the heat season, the musk of constant arousal buried at the base of their scent, the Omegas in Kiyoomi’s village are escorted to a complex a little higher up the mountain so their pheromones are carried back down to the base where they live. It’s an assortment of cabins and larger rooms, with neat little paths and bridges crossing over the mix of streams and hot springs that feed the river their village relies on. There are natural baths for the Omegas to enjoy, shoji screens to shield them from the harshest of the light, incense constantly burning to maintain arousal and invoke their heats, a dining hall where they feast on food to give them energy for what’s to come, and as much wine and whim as they desire.

Though some of the village’s Omegas have chosen to live here full time — mostly older ones — the bulk of them still live in the village proper, and only come up here for the season. Kiyoomi thinks about it, sometimes; moving here, being waited on hand and foot by quiet betas, warming himself in the hot springs during the long, cold winters.

“But there are lovely things in town, aren’t there?” Oikawa purred into his ear when the season started, throwing his arms over his shoulders as they approached the complex, the stone pathway lit by torches that give off a soothing scent to ward off mosquitos. Blanketed by stars, surrounded by mulch and forest and mineral baths, the walk to the complex always felt like a warm, familiar blanket, and the knot of arousal inside of Kiyoomi slowly, slowly unfurled.

You could say that it loosens Kiyoomi up a bit — if, outside of season, he’s like a perfect sailor’s knot, his heat slackens the line.

That’s the only reason he didn’t shrug Oikawa off and throw him to the ground like he would if it were winter.

“Are you talking about yourself, by chance?” Kiyoomi murmured, aware that the newly minted Omegas were having their moment of awe.

Laughing, Oikawa patted his shoulder before pushing off of him to go and bother one of the younger ones. “Of course not,” he said, batting his lashes as he walked away. “I know what gold your eyes seek out.”

Kiyoomi nearly stumbled over a tree root, but he didn’t accept a Beta’s help in steadying himself.

Since then, they’ve spent the last few days acclimating. To each other, to their scents — the complex, of course, layered with the pheromones and arousal of Omegas from the decades since they settled this village — and to their bodies, most of all. It’s a time of leisure, but also of preparation.

Outside of the main complex, dotted across the mountainside, are smaller cabins that the Betas meticulously clean and maintain throughout the year. These are for the Omegas to set up their nests, and Kiyoomi chooses one near a trickling spring on the north face of the mountain, furthest from the rest of them. Aside from coming together for meals and for play, they spend time creating and scenting their nests, layering their pheromones so thick they’ll recognize it from the next mountain over, even in the madness of heat.

Kiyoomi in particular has enjoyed this, touching himself to the thought of a specific Alpha, one that Oikawa might call gold. Predicting when their heat will finally, truly take hold of them, isn’t an exact science, so he spends every moment he can making his nest — their nest, when the time comes — perfect.

There’s no time for thinking when that happens, after all; only doing. The first part of the Omega season is all about pleasure, pure and simple, but they do have something to prepare for.

Once their bodies are ready, they’ll all track down an Alpha — Omegas are outnumbered by at least three to one, more if any Alphas from neighboring villages visit, so they’ll have their pick — and drag them, drunk on their sweet and heady scents, back to their nests.

Omegas are territorial, and Kiyoomi starts to stake his claim early. His Alpha, the one he’s picked, is probably frantically looking for the tenugui he’d stolen practically right off his sweaty neck. Even though it started off saturated with his grassy, cedar scent, the more Kiyoomi buries his face in it as he humps his pillows and rubs it against his cunt, the more their scents merge into something perfect and sweet and dreamy.

Kiyoomi has committed it to memory, and all the other Omegas know to not even go near it.

So he can relax, enjoying the heat from the hot springs and the fruits of a rich harvest, the alcohol dripped right down his throat by the caretaking betas. The more he rides his fingers, biting his lip and moaning, as his scent sinks into his nest, the harder and harder it is to come.

His heat is getting close.

Eventually, there’s none of the Alpha’s scent left at all; just Kiyoomi and his claim.

***

Even though heat is supposed to be like an encroaching wave — the suffocating air in summer, the baking noontime sun — Kiyoomi’s heat hits sharp and sudden, like lightning, all at once.

He’s the first to fall to it, maybe because he’s been so focused on one Alpha.

“Oh, you’re a needy little thing, aren’t you, Kiyoomi?” Oikawa drawls, holding him in his lap while Kiyoomi bucks against him, ear to his chest, heartbeat pounding a tattoo in his skull. Petting down the line of his back makes Kiyoomi shiver and dig his fingers into Oikawa’s side.

The other Omega yelps, lightly hitting him.

“Unfair!”

His cry draws the attention, briefly, of some of the other Omegas, but they soon turn back to their own affairs, seeking their own pleasure.

They’re in a large room, covered in mattresses and pillows, that the Betas call the Preparation Chambers while the Omegas refer to it as the Coupling Den. Here, they’ll take care of the last bit of work before the heat; the part that gets their bodies truly ready, and gives them time to bond with their fellow Omegas. The rest of the Omegas — once one of them has fallen to heat, the rest are sure to follow — are being herded there by the Betas with promises of sweet umeshu and treats. Oikawa has some poured down his own throat and it dribbles down his neck, between his chest, right up against Kiyoomi’s lips.

It’s nice, being enveloped in his scent like this, and he laps away at the drink until Oikawa’s laugh echoes through the room.

“This is the first time you’ve been so eager for your heat, Kiyo,” Tooru teases, running a finger across his lips and pushing it in to watch him suck, before it creeps down his chest so he can start tugging him out of his gauzy summer robe. “Normally you’re so stoic and grumpy; is there something you’re looking forward to? Or someone, perhaps?”

“No,” Kiyoomi groans, petulant, feeling wetness spill between his legs as he grinds his cunt up against one of Oikawa’s thighs. “Of course not. Never.”

Some Omega scoffs; they all recognize the scent that Kiyoomi’s obsessed with.

Instead of answering, Oikawa hums, before the world seems to turn around.

No.

It’s just Kiyoomi, because Oikawa has flipped them over, Kiyoomi’s back pressed to the mattress. As their bodies touch, tacky with sweat, Oikawa’s bright raspberry and ginger scent blooms in the air, his heat clearly slipping into him. Licking the scattered remnants of umeshu on the side of Kiyoomi’s mouth, he clutches his cheeks before kissing him.

Even this starts a little sweet, like the tender kisses they shared in childhood, before their first heats; but soon enough Tooru licks into his lips, spreads them apart, sucking on his tongue while he buries his fingers in Kiyoomi’s curls, holding him still as Kiyoomi keeps grinding up against Oikawa’s thigh, already desperate for friction.

As the sour-sweet flavor of him starts to settle on Kiyoomi’s tongue, Oikawa pulls away, a strand of spit trailing between their lips.

“Who are you gonna hunt for, Kiyoomi? You shouldn’t lie to me.” He pulls back his leg, too, so Kiyoomi doesn’t have anything to push up against, pinned in place so he can’t get any friction on his burning cunt.

Tooru is a bastard, Kiyoomi thinks. He always is, always has been.

That’s why they’re friends.

“You know who it is,” Kiyoomi insists, letting his pheromones spread and envelop Oikawa until he shakes with arousal, before pushing his lips into his neck and biting down on the scent gland on his neck and sucking.

This’ll hasten his heat.

He deserves it.

***

Kiyoomi’s had his eye on Atsumu for a while. He’s a younger Alpha, new to their village, travelling alongside his brother across the countryside. The brother had some sort of injury that he needed to heal from, and Atsumu took on work to pay for their food and lodgings.

Until their arrival, Kiyoomi hadn’t been interested in anyone; he’d spend the nights of the mating run chasing the easy, older Alphas who knotted swiftly and readily, letting his heat break early so he could go back to the complex and continue lounging while the forest rang bayed with the howls and moans of sex.

But, just like the warm southern wind on which they’d arrived, the twins made the Omega inside him curl in delight.

Atsumu, especially, was fun. With his youth, he had more bravery and bluster than most of the Alphas in their town and Kiyoomi appreciated that. Wanted that. He was charming and moody, handsome and strong, always seemed willing to rile Kiyoomi back whenever Kiyoomi pushed him.

There was an Alpha who would bend, not break.

(At least, not easily.)

Most interestingly, he seemed resistant to Kiyoomi’s courting overtures. No matter how often Kiyoomi let his scent out around him, letting his robes hang loose so his nape peeked elegantly out from the back, loosing a low purr whenever he coerced the Alpha into doing him a favor, Atsumu looked to be immune. His expression never changed, like he was made of stone.

Any other Alpha would fall to their knees when he tried.

(He’d even flirted teasingly with a few in the village whenever Atsumu seemed to be too closed off, just to remember he could send an Alpha aching and desperate back to their dens, ready to knot their own fists at the memory of Kiyoomi.)

But whenever Kiyoomi came close enough to him to look deeply into his eyes, he knew the Alpha wanted him, as well; he just didn’t want to show it as readily, stubborn to his own will. When he would fix the collar of Atsumu’s robes and teasingly press his fingers to the edge of Atsumu’s scent glands, letting out the firework spark of smoke in his scent, he could feel the Alpha’s heart speed, a little stutter stuck in his throat.

Kiyoomi wanted to feel it pound in his chest, too.

***

His nose fills with the ungainly scent of summer fruit — raspberries, raisined in the sun — as Oikawa gasps, chest heaving into Kiyoomi while he bats ineffectually at him.

“Bastard!” Oikawa hisses. “Mean! Evil! Rude!”

Despite all his protests, he makes no move to really push Kiyoomi away, especially as his body warms, growing flush with the fever haze of heat.

Eventually, his protests grow into pants, his breath slowing as Kiyoomi keeps sucking a hickey onto his body. Whatever Alpha who ends up knotting him will undoubtedly be jealous of it. They'll probably nibble over it too, desperate to remap their own network of bruises on Oikawa’s skin.

His friend can thank him later.

When Kiyoomi finally surfaces, his work done, he feels breathless too. Oikawa’s pupils are dark, his lips pink as an involuntary whine slips out and he pouts, annoyed with the loss of pleasure.

“Who’s the needy little thing now?” Kiyoomi smirks.

Oikawa kicks him. “You’re a menace, Kiyo. Kiss me now, or I’ll make sure you regret it.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kiyoomi says, or tries to, but Oikawa’s already licking back into his mouth, impatient and desperate and hungry for more.

Omegas don’t completely lose their minds during their heats, not like Alphas in rut. They need to keep their wits about them, after all, in order to chase down an Alpha who’ll knot them. And, in order to properly lock the Alpha into their cunts, they need another Omega’s spit.

When an Omega’s spit mixes with their slick, it gets tackier, stickier. Young Omegas often end up with their fingers stuck up their cunts, accidentally, from how unexpectedly strong and it can be, tar-like, sweet molasses on the tongue. It helps with the knotting; glues their cunts to the Alpha they mount.

The only thing that can dissolve it is an Alpha’s cum, and lots of it. Kiyoomi’s spent many a heat with an ache in his belly from how much he needs. His slick has always been the stickiest, and Oikawa helps.

That’s why they’ve never completely gone; they need to be able to think ,to find each other first and their Alphas second.

Distantly, on the edge of the breeze that seeps in through the rafters, he can smell the spicy, tamed scent of a mated Alpha. Some of the Omegas in the enclosure are already mated and bonded, their bites dark on their scent glands, but they still need another Omega’s spit for their heat. Normally, these Omegas keep their nests close to the main complex,

The rest of them have to run, chasing the Alpha of their dreams.

***

The thing about Oikawa is that he’ll never deny that he’s a needy and demanding bastard of an Omega.

That’s fine with Kiyoomi, most of the time. But in the desperate haze of their heat, it’s infuriating.

“Fucking — stop moving, Tooru,” Kiyoomi hisses, his mouth hovering over Tooru’s cunt as his hips jerk and twitch in his hold.

No matter whose heat comes first, Oikawa has to be taken care of immediately. Otherwise, he starts whining, and the other Omegas complain.

Around them is a symphony of moans, Pretty omegas eating each other out, broad and eager ones fucking their friends and packmates with their fingers. The air is dense and heavy with the cacophonic perfume of their heatscents, vine-ripened fruits and fragrant flowers and a little heady spice to build a profile of late summer from their pheromones.

It’s a little much, Kiyoomi thinks, so he focuses instead on his friend’s cunt. His own scent is thickest here, a summer ramble in the bush, accompanied by the sweet musk of his slick, glistening and clinging to the brown hair surrounding his entrance.

Kiyoomi’s got a small mouth but a talented tongue. Oikawa always says so, so he dives in with aplomb, dribbling warm spit over Oikawa’s clit while the Omega wails into the pit of his hands.

“Kiyo, more, please- “

“Be patient, Tooru. It’s so uncouth.”

But there’s no room for modesty here; Oikawa’s robes are halfway off his body, covering nothing and baring his nutty, freckled skin to the summer air. Kiyoomi lost his clothes long ago, and all around them are a tableau of Omegas spread in varying degrees of nudity. Shy Omegas fresh out of puphood tentatively rubbing each other’s clits in the corner, still a little embarrassed by their pleasure. Bolder ones grinding on each other’s faces, and ready to shove their face in a needy new Omega’s cunt and show them fresh pleasure.

In pre-heat, they’re like a deer’s soft velvet antlers, malleable and sweet, all tender gooseflesh and blushing scents. But in the bracing, deep heat of summer, once the wave crashes over them, their shy desires have calcified from wanting into need, and they buck against each other while they fight for the natural impulse to catch and mate and fuck.

Kiyoomi licks into Oikawa, his thick lips spreading sweetly for him, sucking at his skin and drooling everywhere. His slick starts to thicken, clinging to his lashes and his cheeks.

Oikawa might be needy and demanding, but he’s easy for it; he reaches the next phase of his heat so fast, Kiyoomi’s a little jealous. He’s always been this way.

During their first shared heat, another Omega — mated now, and moved to another village with his Alpha who followed the faintest trail of his scent on the breeze — was the one to pull Kiyoomi off of his cunt as Oikawa shook through his orgasm, demanding more while Kiyoomi felt compelled to list. If he’d kept at it, he might end up glued to him instead of a knot, and that wouldn’t have been fun at all, would it?

A little wicked impulse infects him, so he reaches up OIkawa’s body to grab at his chest, circle around his nipple, squeezing it until he shocks a cry and tears from Oikawa’s eyes.

“Not fair!” He wails, bucking into Kiyoomi, and it’s music to his ears.

He could get lost here, like this, Oikawa’s hand fisted in his curls, Kiyoomi’s tongue buried inside of him as he milks orgasm after orgasm from his body, eager and needy and pleasure-drunk.

It’s like there’s a stone inside Oikawa, and he wants to split his cunt open like a stonefruit’s skin and suck it out, his juices dripping down Kiyoomi’s neck and chest. Messy summer freedom.

Kiyoomi closes his eyes when he’s devouring, so he doesn’t see it when Oikawa comes: doesn’t see his thighs lock around his head or his hands clutch a pillow that he uses to drown out his screams, his body curling in on itself as every muscle contracts with pleasure, his legs shaking, his eyes shut like he can’t perceive his own pleasure.

But he hears him: his guttural moan, the heaving sobs, the desperate panting pleas as he bucks against Kiyoomi’s face. It must be almost painful, how deeply buried in his cunt Kiyoomi is.

And he smells him: the special, thickest slick deep inside of him gushes out with a different scent. Something sweet and heady, rich. In Oikawa, it cuts the sharpness of his raspberry, making it syrupy like fruit wine now that he’s extracted the pleasure from him.

He’s reached the next stage of their heat, and Kiyoomi’s eyes open. He has to act fast; if he doesn’t, then Oikawa will abandon him and run out the door, chasing an Alpha barefoot through the dew-soaked ground.

Kiyoomi needs him for this. There’s no other Omega he trusts to get him there.

“My turn,” he says, rising from the heat-sink of Oikawa’s cunt, wiping away the sap-sticky slick and crawling up his body.

Oikawa takes a deep breath, and Kiyoomi has enough kindness in him to wipe away the sweat and tears, and make sure his head is nicely positioned against the pillows before he bears his own cunt down on his friend’s face.

Fuck, that feels good; his clit presses against Oikawa’s nose before he gets his placement right, but the brief dull pain is clarifying. Oikawa hooks his knees under his arms, grabbing Kiyoomi’s thighs to hold on for dear life and gain better traction as Kiyoomi falls onto the pillows, Tooru’s forehead buried under his torso.

It never stops feeling good, riding his friend’s face, playing with another Omega, chasing their pleasure. Oikawa’s tongue buries itself inside of him as he slobbers and spits into his cunt.

The air is filled with cries, rich with scent. Normally it would be too much for Kiyoomi, but Atsumu’s scent has imprinted itself in his mind, his body, grass like tumbling down the mountain in spring, cedar like the chest that stores his winter robes. Familiar, grounding. Perfect to hold Kiyoomi’s plum scent; perfect to burn with the crackling firework inside of him.

One of Oikawa’s hands falls away.

“Needy fuck,” Kiyoomi growls, because he can tell, from the wet sounds filling the air, that Oikawa’s fucking his fingers, still hungry for pleasure since he can’t chase his Alphayet.

Dangerous, when they could stick at any moment.

He can’t count how many times he cums like that, his slick soaking Oikawa’s pretty hair, the pillows, the sheets below them. It’s so long that Oikawa’s stopped fingering himself, orgasm almost too painful and the risk of sticking too high, and started spanking Kiyoomi instead like the pleasure-pain will cure the ache inside of him.

It would be easy to blame Oikawa — that he couldn’t work Kiyoomi enough to split him open, too, and extract the seed. But Kiyoomi feels like an unripe fruit, plucked off the tree too early, and he curses his shameless need for an Alpha making his heat bloom so fast.

He’s never taken this long before.

“Seriously,” Oikawa groans, beckoning over a beta for more sweet wine and fruit, both of them sucking the ripe juices off their fingers to get back their energy. “You were the first to fall, but now look at you — you’re taking forever.”

It’s an exaggeration; most of their number still lingers, toying with each other’s bodies, enjoying their pleasure. Only the mated Omegas, the ones who know the Alpha they’re finding, that have left.

But it is much longer than usual.

“Shut up and take care of me, Tooru. It’s not my fault you’re easy for it.”

Oikawa huffs in disbelief, about to argue about it — he hates admitting how quickly he reaches this stage of heat — but Kiyoomi shuts him up by pushing him to the mattress and mounting him again, sitting upright this time, a hand in Oikawa’s hair to guide him where he needs.

Even Oikawa’s muffled annoyance under him sends pleasurable little vibrations through his clit, up his body, and he shivers as he starts to rock his hips back and forth, facing the outer wall. Just shoji panels separate them from the outside. It’s easier, that way, to repair them if an overeager Omega breaks through them instead of sliding the door aside.

It’s good, it’s just — he needs a little more, a little more, but he doesn’t know what that little thing could be. He squeezes his nipple in desperation, spanks his clit while Oikawa yelps, mashing his fingers against it while he moans and cries, his palm buried into the thin wetness, but it doesn;’t help.

Nothing helps, and he has a brief moment of fear — maybe he’s run the course of his heats, maybe he’s changed, maybe he’ll never reach the next stage — before every nerve in his body seems to spark, his scent bursting like a firework, attuned to a little something beyond the room of needy Omegas.

Like thunder after lightning, a scent catches his nose; it’s faint, like a stain washed away. Kiyoomi only catches it because he’s become attuned to it, desperate for it.

Cedar and grass. A touch of spring in the deep bloom of summer. A touch of winter in the muggy air.

It’s the very scent he’s been savoring, sucking up the dregs of it in Atsumu’s robes and towels and all the little things he’s stolen from him over the last three nights of their shared pre-heat.

Opening his eyes and scanning the room, it only takes him a moment before he catches it, in a little gap at the base of the exterior wall.

A pair of eyes, honey-brown, with big, familiar eyebrows, peeking like a spy. Wide-eyed, the Alpha grows pale, pinned in place by Kiyoomi’s gaze.

The Alpha’s scent perks with a touch of prey-fear and chestnut arousal as Kiyoomi feels that last, elusive orgasm break over his body, pleasure sloughing over him like waves as his hips jerk one last time against Oikawa’s face, the slick in his body thickening, the pit in him falling out, freeing his flesh for the chase.

As Kiyoomi starts to rise, Atsumu — who shouldn’t have been near the complex at all, who should have been running across the mountain, hiding so the Omegas can have their fun chasing him — turns tail and flees.

Oikawa complains about Kiyoomi tiring him out somewhere behind him, reaching for towels to wipe off his slick, but Kiyoomi ignores him as a slow grin spreads across his face, the Omega inside of him ready to run.

Catching him is going to be fun.

Chapter Text

Atsumu knows the heat season is coming before anyone else does.

“You’re lyin’, ‘Tsumu, don’t mess with me,” Osamu grumbled when he tried to tell him, but he knew.

He might stretch the truth a little, but never when it matters.

Kiyoomi hangs around him too much for it to be anything but heat. And he can smell it on him, so clearly, the way his touches started lingering and his scent grew so heavy he could practically taste the fruit of him, the stonefruit fat and fleshy and desperate to get plucked from the vine.

It’s coming, sure as he can tell the start of winter from when the last bird disappears from the trees. Just like the harsh cold, heat season is inevitable, and they’ll all fall under its thrall, not just the Omegas. Heat season affects Alphas, too; it makes them want to run.

Atsumu feels the ancient urge inside of him. Like wings on his heels, he yearns to be close to the sun.

So when he smelled a rich and unfamiliar sweetness in the air, and noticed that Kiyoomi wasn’t darkening his doorstep as usual, thinking he was slick; when the chimes started ringing, and all the air seemed to get sucked out of the village — Omegas all chased up the mountain, seeking a cool wind to soothe them in pre-heat — Atsumu’s victory feels hollow.

He’s right, but at what cost? This is his first heat season around Omegas. Ever since he and Osamu first presented — and even before that, when they were young and rowdy and everyone around them pretended like they were meant for any fate — the two of them have been travelling. Belonging to no village or town, no clan or family or pack, they lacked any need to linger when the Omegas started to warm. Instead, they made an easy — to them, boys with brash personalities and sharp tongues — living by selling and trading goods, sharing stories and fleeing when the season came around.

The timing varied, like cherry blossoms.

Cherry blossoms were ephemeral, though; they lived and died with a brief, beautiful burst. But get trapped during the heat season, cross paths with the right (or wrong) Omega, and you were bound to someone, forever.

A weighty deal for feathered ankles.

But this year, an accidental injury left them needing to find shelter and work in the nearest village. Here, they both took positions as farm-hands, helping Kita and Aran with the harvest, Osamu joining Atsumu after he recovered.

It was honest, hard work. It made Atsumu broader, muscle tight against his skin which tanned in the sun, freckles sparkling over his shoulders like a flower field

And, somehow, over the course of those short months, it brought him Kiyoomi.

Whenever he finished up work and lounged around the village, fanning himself and drinking water straight from the cool spring in the center square, he always felt a heavy, heady gaze on him.

And whenever the weight of it would become too much, he would turn to see Kiyoomi watching him with hungry eyes, possessive and wanting.

Atsumu isn’t blind. He knows Kiyoomi’s a beautiful Omega, the sweet plum of his scent so heavy it runs down his skin like nectar on a summer night, strong and star-speckled and pretty. And he’s tall, too, with a proud face and broad hips and thighs, like he could match Atsumu in strength if he only tried.

But a life of travelling wasn’t one conducive to settling with an Omega, so he refused to let himself think about it. With too many uncertainties, it was best to stick with what he knew.

There was one other thing — because he and Osamu were always able to avoid the mating runs till now, he never even had to consider what it meant to pleasure one.

He was young that way, and tried to avoid mentioning it around the other Alphas, who seemed almost proud of having been chosen by an Omega once or twice, no matter who they'd settled down with in the end. And he always evaded talk about Alphas pleasuring each other. In some cases, it's better to live in ignorance. What happens during his rut is between him and the stars.

The idea of fumbling something with Kiyoomi, with an Omega who had his fair share of admirers and who seemed to know exactly what he liked, based on the way he touched Atsumu’s shoulder and made his scent flare around him, the idea of disappointing Kiyoomi with his inexperience, made him shy away.

(Still, though, he looked back at Kiyoomi when he wasn’t watching, when he flirted with other Alphas. He loved the way his heart pounded when Kiyoomi grew near. And whenever he plucked plums off a tree, he sucked on the fruit till the pit was dry.)

There’s no way to avoid the season — or the run — this time, though. A few days after the Omegas disappear, the Betas come door to door, cloaked in a scent neutralizer made from the medicinal plants that Kita grows, and make the Alphas follow them.

“Hang on, hang on,” Atsumu protests, freezing in the doorway while Osamu follows the Beta out. “Alphas outnumber Omegas, here. They’ve got their pick of the litter. What if I don’t wanna come?”

The Beta blinks. He adjusts his light summer robe. Despite the neutralizer, he smells like umeshu, the alcohol sharp in the air.

Kiyoomi flashes through his mind, the bare arc of his neck, his soft curls, the constellations on his neck. It’s nighttime, the sun barely set, and the air is cool, almost welcoming, but Atsumu fears it; the darkness shields that which he doesn’t know.

“You will,” the Beta says simply. “Or there will be consequences.” He looks towards their bags, always packed in case they need to flee suddenly, and Atsumu gets the idea.

Even so, it’s Osamu’s glare more than anything else that gives him the final push to step out of the doorway, closing the door behind them.

“Cheer up, ‘Tsumu. With your ugly mug and these numbers, there’s no way you’re gettin’ picked by any Omega. You’ll be home by sunrise, and with a good meal or two inside of ya,” Osamu says, trying to cheer him up.

It doesn’t work, because Atsumu knows from wanting. He knows desire.

And he knows hunger, more than anything else; he recognized it in Kiyoomi’s eyes.

***

The further they walk up the mountain, the more nervous Atsumu gets. All of the Alphas get herded into a cabin somewhere in the middle of the mating area, and he tries to commit the path they walk to memory. But the warm lantern light makes all the trees blend together, and there are so many twists and turns to the path; no landmarks, Atsumu realizes, because they’ve carefully manicured this section of the forest to be a maze.

Inside, the cabin reeks. Alpha pheromones are already heady, but some of them posture over each other and their scent grows sour and rank. A few of the Alphas — the mated ones, who have an Omega waiting for them — slip out quietly to wait near the Omega cabin, wherever it is. They must remember the path from years past.

The rest of them have to wait here until another chime rings out, then they’ll all scatter through the forest, Omegas hot on their heels, ready to be taken and bred.

Atsumu knows how it works in theory, but he’s heard there’s something special about Omegas in the season that makes all of this ritual necessary.

“How long do ya think it’ll take, ‘Samu?” Atsumu asks, after they’ve been fed a meal, served by smirking Betas, to ‘keep their energy up’. “Before the Omegas start runnin’?”

Osamu frowns at him. “How am I supposed to know? I’m just as new to this as you are.” He ends the brief conversation with a bite to an over-ripe plum. The dark juice from the red flesh drips down his lips and fangs, like blood, and Atsumu sighs, drawing deeper into himself.

All he’s ever heard of runs sound stressful, uncertain. He and Osamu have passed through villages after the runs, wide-eyed Alphas left exhausted and gaunt from sating Omegas, fresh and angry bites over their scent glands. From the smell of the Omegas in town alone — from Kiyoomi, and his insistent, sweet scent, the way he accidentally-on-purpose marks Atsumu — he knows this’ll be rough.

They’re all strong Omegas here.

A nearby snarl jolts Atsumu from his thoughts, and he rises just in time to avoid another Alpha getting slammed bodily into him.

Fucking Alpha nonsense; a couple of them have started fighting, all keyed up, and the rancid scent of their aggression sits heavy in Atsumu’s nose.

“They’re not gonna get picked,” an Alpha that he’s seen around the village scoffs, spitting a seed out on the floor. “Idiot Alphas.”

Or clever ones, Atsumu thinks, who don’t wanna lose their minds to an Omega in heat.

Oh.

Now there’s an idea.

Atsumu’s quick on his feet, but he also, sometimes, trusts his body and instincts a little too much. And it’s instinct that pushes him into the fray, even though Osamu tries to grab at his shirt to keep him out of trouble. And it’s instinct that forces him between the two fighting Alphas, fangs fully bared and snarling, spraying spit all over Atsumu, coating him in their disgusting scent, sour and harsh enough to make him gag. The Alpha inside of him rankles, but the human in him pushes them apart, his muscles straining as they both fight to reach each other, their claws tearing at Atsumu’s sleeves, while he forces out his own scent in the hopes of overwhelming them. He’s strong and young and everyone always knew he was going to be an Alpha, even when they tried to pretend there was a possibility he’d present as something else, so the fighting Alphas quickly quail to him, baring their necks in disgruntled submission.

This way, he’ll be covered in the rancid scent of fighting Alphas, pheromones that an Omega who has the whole world to pick from would never go for. No one’ll know how inexperienced he is, and he won’t get tied down to this village.

And it works.

Almost.

As the other Alphas settle into separate corners of the holding pen, and Atsumu retreats back to Osamu, he catches his own scent on his nose, and shudders.

“You reek, bastard,” Osamu groans, holding his nose and backing away from him. “Why’d ya have to do all that, huh? Stop playin’ at bein’ a hero, they’d’ve fought it out. Just gotta relieve a little tension, that’s all.”

There’s nothing but tension in the room, Atsumu notices. Some Alphas in competition with each other; others, like Atsumu, a little bit afraid of what’s to come.

And before he can say it has nothing to do with being heroic, and everything to do with cowardice, one of the Betas — noseblind and unaffected by everything going on, wearing a sleek, lacquered mask to hide their identity — comes up to him and claps him on the back.

“You’re cleaning yourself off before you cause a riot. Idiot Alpha, posturing and making a claim for pack leader. Go.”

He pushes Atsumu out of the cabin before he can protest — he wasn’t vying for anything, he was just helpin’, honest! — sliding the door open and closed behind him, until Atsumu is alone in the night, reeking of foreign Alpha.

The air is warm and muggy. Once the door closes, the din inside turns into a dull roar of sound, and Atsumu is left with the crickets and frogs.

On the one hand, he could make a run for it now.

On the other hand, he really does smell bad, and he doesn’t want to abandon Osamu, or lose him; not when he stayed in this town so his idiot brother could heal, after all.

There’s a stream nearby. If he focuses, he can hear the gentle trickle of cool, running water. He’ll clean off, and it’ll help him settle his head, a little woozy from involving himself in the fight. Afterwards he’ll figure out what he can do next.

He just hopes that he’s not out, alone in the forest, when the Omegas run.

***

It was rare to get a moment to yourself in the village. Everyone was busy with the summer harvest. Would wake at sunrise together and share meals and collapse in big piles under the cool moon, scents mingling easily.

And Kiyoomi was always hanging around, ready to steal away to Atsumu’s side during a break, to flood him with his scent and press their hips together and try to feed him fruit.

“I’m not a child,” Atsumu protested, once, after Kiyoomi pressed a sliver of orange into his mouth, finger lingering on his tongue so he could force Atsumu to suck it down. “I can feed myself.”

It was petulant and whiny, and it made Kiyoomi — older than him, more experienced, a few curious scars on his body — laugh.

“It doesn’t seem that way to me,” he whispered, stepping closer to Atsumu, caging him against the fence while the other farmhands watched them. He tore another piece of orange off, pressing it into Atsumu’s open, waiting mouth. “And you seem eager for it, don’t you, sweet thing?’

Citrus on his tongue, plum in his nose; his own grass and cedar scent hid easily enough on the farmlands and rice paddies, but the telltale scent of his arousal began blooming like chestnut the more Kiyoomi crowded him.

“Hungry…” Kiyoomi murmurs, gaze half-lidded as he runs his finger across Atsumu’s lips, wiping up the lingering oil and juice from the fruit. “This must taste good, doesn’t it, Atsumu? Otherwise you wouldn’t be taking it so easily from me.”

Then — curse of curses, Atsumu was eager for it — he slipped his own finger into his mouth, sucking it all clean; Atsumu’s spit, and everything else, disappeared into Kiyoomi while the Omega never broke eye contact.

Atsumu’s heart raced, pounding nearly out of his chest as his pheromones spiked, soaking the tenugui he kept wrapped around his neck. “I-I’ve gotta go,” he said, his chestnut arousal hanging between them like a winter treat between lovers, a thing to be shattered, as he broke past Kiyoomi and fled.

There were fireworks in his nose, sharp and strong — was that Kiyoomi?

He ran, promising to himself that he would apologize to Kita and take whatever punishment he dealt, until his heart pounded for a different reason and his legs couldn’t take it anymore. Of course he ended up in an orchard filled with plum trees that had yet to ripen; he must have been called towards this scent.

And the chestnut still clung to him, too. He dropped to the ground, back against a tree, spreading his legs while he slipped a hand into his robes.

There was only one easy way to deal with arousal, after all, and Kiyoomi wouldn’t mind if he thought of him through it; he provoked it, after all.

The sun glaring down on him, Atsumu grew freckles on his bare chest as he tugged himself to completion, biting his lip as he sucked on his own finger, imagining Kiyoomi’s hand in his place. He cleaned up the mess with his tenugui, which went missing while he apologized to Kita.

Although the Beta didn’t punish him — in fact, he’d smiled knowingly and just told him to not let it happen again — he still felt a little sideways, especially when he couldn’t find Kiyoomi or his tenugui afterwards.

The heat season started a few days later.

***

The cold water was refreshing when it was sloughing off the rancid scent of the other Alphas — and most of Atsumu’s own scent — off of his body, but now that he’s lost and wandering through the forest, it’s just making him sweaty and damp.

Dawn is near, and he’s been lost for an hour. He’d gotten turned around after leaving the stream, and — unfamiliar with this forest, confused by the even, manicured trees — he’d been wandering for ages, stumbling over rocks and gnarled roots, unable to even make it back to the stone paths he knows exist.

Fuck this place, and fuck this night; it’s been too much, already.

Eventually he makes it back to the stream, in what is clearly the same place he bathed. He’d made a perfect circle, and he can’t even scent out the Alpha cabin, because the entire exterior had been coated in scent neutralizer and surrounded by the same plants Kita grew. It would stop the Omegas from running directly to an empty cabin and getting confused in their heat, but it meant that Atsumu was totally and completely lost.

Disgruntled, tired, and sweating, he decides to pick a direction and walk, doing his best to keep straight, roughly downstream. He’ll end up somewhere eventually, he reasons, and in the worst case scenario he reaches the base of the mountain and misses the entire run. His nose fills with cedar and sap and vegetation, and he wonders if he should take another dip in the stream.

Shivering whenever he hears a sound, he looks up at the sky. With the fat moon out of sight, the stars are still bright enough to light his way, even though he knows dawn should rise within the hour.

How much longer until the Omegas decide to start running? How much more time until Atsumu has to run, and run, and run; not for his life, but for his sanity, his health, to avoid whatever it is Omegas do with Alphas in heat.

To avoid getting caught, lest he embarrass himself.

(If there’s a part of him that wonders, even for a second, about the thrill of it, it’s stifled under the memory of the Alphas he’s seen, aching and tired, after a run.)

Atsumu’s so lost in his thoughts, turned around by the sleepless night and his own exhaustion, that he doesn’t notice the treeline is growing sparse around him, the air a little lighter. Doesn’t notice that the path he’s following is taking him towards the heady scent of summer fruits and not the spice and smoke of Alphas. Doesn’t notice that the accommodations here are nicer and more sprawling.

Doesn’t notice much of anything until he stumbles onto a stone outside of a big house, and the smell in the air — like biting into a plum, the skin breaking under your fangs as juice dribbles down your neck — breaches his nose, and his skin grows cold from fear, instead of water.

Oh no.

He knows that scent. He’s dreamed about it. He’s felt it on his tongue, in his nose, surrounding his body. There’s gunsmoke in the air, too; the crackling firework of a familiar Omega, sharp on his skin like lightning after a summer storm.

Somehow he’s stumbled close to the secret Omega hideaway where they’ve been spending the last few days in bliss.

Atsumu feels frozen, pinned in place by their scents like he’s under a thick futon in winter. He can’t move, doesn’t want to make a sound for fear of alerting the Omegas inside, or the tired, watching Betas. In the lantern light, the golden flames glittering the night, he feels like a brittle sword.

Operating on instinct more than anything, he ducks down behind a carved bench when a Beta watchman walks by, the lacquer of his mask glittering with fire. He holds his breath as he waits for the footsteps to pass, hoping that the cedar and grass of his scent will register as natural on the off chance the Beta isn’t noseblind.

“Fuck,” he mutters, hand over his racing heart when he hears the Beta turn a corner and he’s safe. Adrenaline rushes through him, making him feel weak as he tries to rise. It makes him stumble, falling to his knees, gripping onto the bench for stability.

At this low angle, he can see through a narrow gap in the cabin wall. He’s closer to the cabin than he realized at first. What’s inside doesn’t register immediately, but, slowly then all at once, it clicks. He suppresses a gasp, gripping his torn, dirt-stained robes while clenching his thighs together and begging his scent — begging the chestnut, especially, — to not spike.

It’s nearly impossible, when what he sees —

What he witnesses, secretly, accidentally, a performance for anyone but him —

Is so tantalizing.

Inside, the Omegas are all curled together in a bacchanal of ecstasy, naked bodies writhing. They’re not fighting, like the Alphas, but are fucking each other, tongues and fingers in places that would make a sailor blush. It’s lewd and erotic and Atsumu has never seen anything like it, tongues against places that make him bite his lip, fingers buried between strong thighs, musk and slick on his nose.

He feels like a lit fuse.

Closest to him, like fate is playing a funny trick on him, he sees a familiar head of curls arched forward, star-marked neck bare, head bowed against a soft pillow on the floor as if in prayer, as the skin of a ripe plum breaks on his tongue.

The sounds Kiyoomi’s making are like no ritual he’s ever seen and no prayer he’s ever heard, not even the desperate ones sent up to forgotten gods

How could he have stumbled upon this? How could he have even thought this was his cabin, when the scent of the Omegas all together is like a beacon warning him to stay away lest he get devoured like he’s the summer fruit. The sounds coming from inside, breaking through the night, are of pure bliss — moans and desire, all mixed together. Is this what Omegas do before the runs? Is this their secret?

Inside, Kiyoomi raises himself up on one hand, muscle flexing, broad shoulders stretched wide. He’s naked, skin flecked with moles like a riverstone, below him, between his thighs, he sees —

Atsumu can’t help the whimper that escapes his throat.

There’s a light brown head of hair between his legs, tongue pressed up into Kiyoomi’s glistening cunt, and there’s no mistaking who it is. Oikawa, another Omega — not an Alpha, not someone who might be occupying Kiyoomi for this heat — who he knows from the village, but not well; he used to bring his brother treats when Osamu was bedridden.

He looks so happy buried in Kiyoomi’s cunt, face tacky with slick, his fat clit pushing against his nose. There’s a dark bristle of curls above him, dewlike droplets glistening like dawn.

Kiyoomi’s big hand drops to tangle in Oikawa’s hair, keeping him still so he can bear down on him, riding his face like a pillow, like the other Omega’s nothing to him but a toy. When he rises to his full height, eyes closed, head thrown back, spanking his clit and touching his body so prettily until his skin is flushed red, Atsumu bites his lip, adjusts his position.

His cock, half hard between his thighs, brushes against his robes and he gasps from the pleasure, a little pre-cum dripping out.

If he were in his right mind he’d run, flee, disappear into the night, but Kiyoomi has a way of freezing him in place.

Suddenly, Kiyoomi’s eyes open, finding him nearly immediately through the narrow gap, and Atsumu knows he’s caught. He’s stuck in place, a spike of fear and chestnut arousal in his scent, thinking about sliding his hand into his robes, baring his body to the stars, drunk on ripe summer plums as he watches Kiyoomi stare him down. Eyes glued tight to him, he squeezes a nipple, fingers wet with his slick, before spanking his clit and gasping.

As he jerks his hips across Oikawa’s face, the scent of night-blooming jasmine floods him, even from this distance; Kiyoomi’s orgasm, a sweet and secret thing, as his body shudders shakes, slick leaking out like a rainstorm over Oikawa’s blissful, rapturous face.

Atsumu has to run, but he’s frozen; stuck watching beautiful Kiyoomi, his chest pink with exertion, his body like the stars overhead.

Atsumu has to run, but he wants to be wanted; devoured by Kiyoomi, claimed by him.

Atsumu has to run, he realizes, rising on his heels and bolting when Kiyoomi drops Oikawa’s head and starts to stand, a dark shadow crossing over his face.

He knows what that look is; something more than hunger, something more than pleasure. Something ancient and necessary and instinctual.

Atsumu flees on feathered heels, Kiyoomi’s face emblazoned in his mind: it’s the way a wolf looks to a lamb.

Chapter Text

Kiyoomi takes off running the second he pulls himself off of Tooru, ignoring the other Omega’s yelp and protests.

“Not even a thank you? Rude!” His yell disturbs the gentle din of the night as Kiyoomi fights through the bushes and the trees, immediately catching the curiously faint trail of Atsumu’s scent.

Tooru’ll understand, he’s sure of it. Once their season is over, once Kiyoomi’s happily mated.

He’s powered by his heat as he runs; a single, narrow focus on the Alpha he’s tracking, the one he’s wanted for months now, whose scent triggered all of this. Atsumu needs to make up for it, and Kiyoomi has a good feeling about him and that sweet, untouched scent of his.

That make it all the easier to shape Atsumu to his desires, carve into the soft wood of his scent and teach him how to fuck Kiyoomi right.

Feet pounding against the grass and twigs, he’s grateful for the earlier bacchanal. The feast the Betas prepare is always perfectly calibrated for the run. Any alcohol left in his blood was burnt out while he and Tooru fucked, leaving behind nothing but sweet euphoria. They fed him fruit for power and strength, energy to burn off in the short term, and dusted everything with a special mix of spices and herbs that strengthened his nose.

All the better to chase Atsumu.

In the mountain forest, the Alpha’s grass and cedar scent is difficult to grasp, flickering like a flame in his nose as the verdant smell of nature blankets him. To a lesser Omega this would be infuriating, but Kiyoomi is made of stronger stuff. Not only does he love the thrill of the chase, he knows what perfect sweetness awaits him when he catches his quarry, and his cunt throbs at the thought of it.

Although he’s calibrated his nose to Atsumu’s base notes, he now knows to seek the out-of-season chestnut, the faint remnants of Atsumu’s arousal which stand out in the summer air. Just think; if Atsumu hadn’t spied on them, he might never have found him in the forest. No wonder Atsumu’s stayed so untouched; there are much easier Alphas to seek out, and even now Kiyoomi can catch their scent in the breeze.

But he has one quarry.

In his heat Kiyoomi is like a shark chasing blood; a marooned sailor seeking clean water. He’s naked and proud as he pounds through the forest, feet catching on stray rocks and twigs though he never quite feels the pain. He’s too alive for it, too delirious with need and want and his soon to be sated desire.

Occasionally he catches a glimpse of Atsumu; his tan skin in his short, summer robe, his dark hair, and each sight of him spurs Kiyoomi forward. It’s a tantalizing treat when the treeline breaks just enough for him to make him out, but he doesn’t let himself get lost in it, knowing there’s a feast for him to come. Once Atsumu disappears from view, he’s back to tracking him with his nose again.

And Atsumu is clever, so clever. He takes a twisting and winding path, like he wants to give Kiyoomi a merry chase; what a good Alpha for him, making his heart pump, his blood burn. He doubles over his own path, running in circles, dipping through a shallow stream to wash off some of his sweat, knowing it just carries his scent further.

The more Kiyoomi runs, the more he wants. Closing his eyes and trusting his senses, he lets his nose carry him forward, running on instinct. The desire that’s been festering in his belly for months and simmering during his heat is about to boil over.

He’ll catch Atsumu before the dawn breaks.

So intent in his journey, Kiyoomi only loses Atsumu once — when his soon-to-be Alpha edges close to the Alpha’s hut, hoping it hides his scent. And he’s successful for a few moments, giving Kiyoomi a break to breathe though his senses are all on high alert. There are so many smells here, ones that sting his nose from pungent arguments and Alpha posturing, and he hears the simmering confusion from the Alphas within. Should they run? Why is Kiyoomi here?

So many questions, but Kiyoomi doesn’t care. These Alphas are useless, don’t matter to him; Kiyoomi won’t give chase, no matter how much they look at him, peeking out and murmuring through the cracks in the walls, the Beta watchers keeping them at bay.

There’s only one worth catching.

Bracing himself, his slick so tacky between his thighs, Kiyoomi scents the air — drool dripping down his chin, his chest — until he catches the shallow edge of chestnut in the air, and runs.

***

Atsumu knows the gap is closing between them.

He can smell it — Kiyoomi, of course, like fire on the mountainside. No matter how fast he runs, or how cleverly he hides his path, scrambling down the mountain and scraping his knees, he feels the flame flickering at his heels.

When they were younger, he and Osamu bore witness to a wildfire. It was a dry summer, and there had been thunder but no rain; though they were young, they stood with the rest of the village-folk, watching the lightning strike a tall, dead tree.

He tasted metal in his mouth as he watched the flame crackle slowly down the trunk, burning like incense, before reaching the treeline and igniting the hillside, nearly all at once. The smoke and clouds darkened the dawn until it felt like night. They slept that night cloaked with ash, coughing even in their dreams, and when they awoke the fire was gone but the peculiarly sweet smoke lingered everywhere — in his clothes, in his mouth, in the rings of nearby trees.

Back then, he’d been in awe of nature’s power; the sheer devastation that a single act of the gods could manage. And now, years later, maybe he seeks it out: the firework spark of Kiyoomi’s arousal, the strength in his bones and muscle.

“Fuck,” he curses, tripping over a root and distracted by the sudden memory. Why had it come on so suddenly? Why is he thinking of it now?

Later, Atsumu would realize that it was the only warning he was given, some primordial instinct flickering to life inside of him.

But now, he feels a flash of fire in his nose, hears a snarl that raises the hair on the back of his neck, before something strong and powerful and sweet tackles him to the ground. The world turns over and over as they roll downhill, before finally settling in a narrow clearing.

The grass is soft here. That’s the first clear thought Atsumu has once his dizziness passes, before he opens his eyes to see —

“Kiyoomi,” he gasps, as if this weren’t inevitable; from the very moment he and Osamu stumbled into this village, his brother slung over his shoulder and dragged along by Atsumu, the Alpha was always going to fall into Kiyoomi’s gravity.

The Omega’s desire is just too strong to escape, and Atsumu’s always been drawn to flame.

As if in answer, Kiyoomi grinds his weary cunt against Atsumu’s bare thigh, his robe riding up, practically falling open in the struggle, leaving a heady and sticky wetness across his skin. Kiyoomi shakes as he wraps his thighs around Atsumu’s own, pinning him, his hands gripping his cheeks and turning his face to bare his neck, his weight keeping him down.

“You’ve been running from me, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi growls, his rasp of a voice sticky with summer sweetness. “You’ve put up a good chase, but I’ve practiced, you know — I could catch a trace of your scent for miles.”

Breathless, Atsumu scrambles for words. “Kiyoomi, I’m… I-”

I’m not used to this, maybe.

I don’t know what I’m doing, perhaps.

I don’t know what it’s like to be wanted this strongly, even.

But whatever the wants to say never gets a chance to see the light because Kiyoomi nuzzles against Atsumu’s neck, making him gasp as his mind goes blank from the warmth, wondering why until he feels a wet tongue lick a stripe up his —

Oh.

His scent glands, that’s what Kiyoomi’s trying to reach. Pressing his tongue against it, he expresses the gland, releasing the slick oil of his scent, the grassy cedar and the remnants of arousal, and Atsumu can only moan in relief, in pleasure, in ecstacy.

“You’re perfect for me,” Kiyoomi whispers, though there’s no one to hear them. The sound resonates through Atsumu’s body, making him shake; thunder in a summer storm. Something brushes against Atsumu’s cock, eager and hard from the thrill of the chase and Kiyoomi’s proximity. “You’re going to fill me up so well,” as his fingers card through Atsumu’s hair.

Is this what an Omega’s heat is like? Is this what he’s been running from? Why would he ever flee something so sweet?

Atsumu reaches up a hand to tentatively cup Kiyoomi’s head, burying his hand in the sweat matted curls; his fingers graze the tender base of his neck, and Kiyoomi answers him by pressing his teeth against his scent gland.

He bucks into Kiyoomi, gasping; his body tight like the air before a thunderstorm.

He can feel Kiyoomi smiling against him, and somehow this, more than anything else, settles him, as the smell of sweet, syrupy plums fills his nose, his heart, his lungs and every part of him. For a moment it nearly floods out the smoke — both Kiyoomi’s arousal nand the memory of it — and for once, Atsumu lets himself —

“Omi,” he croons, as the Omega’s hips grind against him yet again. A hand slips between them to undo the rest of the robe, before he slips it off of Atsumu’s shoulders with a tenderness that belies the thrill of the earlier chase. —

Lets himself want. Because he wants this, doesn’t he? Needs this Omega, needs to satisfy his heat.

There’s something inside of him — a pull from the deep Alpha instincts buried at his core — yearning for it, that screams to him.

You were caught, it says. You are desired. You are needed. You are wanted and loved, and you will give all that you can -

He wants this. Wants to be caged in by Kiyoomi, who won’t stop grinding, won’t stop sucking, won’t stop smiling as Atsumu’s virgin, unused, overactive cock twitches in interest between them.

The plum scent turns cloyingly sweet, before it’s overtaken with a touch of fire; that fire overwhelms the cedar, the grass, the chestnut of his scent — a wildfire, a nightmare — before their joint arousals merge like roasted chestnuts at the Autumn harvest.

Kiyoomi wants him. His scent is calling for him.

Atsumu wants and is wanted, and in this moment — in the hazy depth of summer, in the Omega’s season — that’s all that matters.

Things are simple: there’s an Omega, strong and wet and sticky, pinning him down. The ground under his back is hard below the soft coating of grass, and Kiyoomi’s cunt is soft and perfect and dripping for him.

“Tsumu, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi whines, nipping at his neck.

Atsumu turns to him, sees his eyes blown wide and black, desperate with hunger, with this next and final stage of his heat: the need to be bred, knotted, filled by an Alpha.

What a gift that it’s him.

“It hurts,” Kiyoomi begs, his hips pushing against Atsumu. His cock brushes against Kiyoomi’s cunt and he gasps, shocked by how nice the heat of it feels on him, how swollen and wet it is. “Atsumu, it hurts. Need you, please!”

He’s never seen Kiyoomi like this — reduced to begging. It feels wrong, it feels awful, and suddenly all Atsumu wants to do is help — to make him better, to make him feel better.

Get Kiyoomi back to the Omega he -

The Omega he wants to build a future with.

“H-how can I help ya, Omi? Tell me, please.” He lets out soothing pheromones but it can’t override the strong chestnut of his arousal, embarrassingly eager, as he pets Kiyoomi’s neck, just under his scent gland. “I wanna help you,” he gulps, feeling braver.

Atsumu’s mind is already so clouded by Kiyoomi’s heat that he doesn’t realize — not until Kiyoomi’s eyes narrow and clear and a grin breaks over his face — that he’s been played.

“Then breed me, Alpha,” Kiyoomi says, calling on something deep and ancient that connects the two of them.

Atssumu tries to get on top of him; all of his nerves are alight with the desire to serve, to give; the Alphan instinct to help an Omega in heat, the flattery at being desired like this, at being caught after an arduous chase..

If he knew how good this felt, would he have let himself get caught up in a run before?

“No,” Kiyoomi hisses, because he must have said it out loud. “You’re mine. You were made for me.”

Of course — he was meant to wait for Kiyoomi, for the only Omega whose scent could match him.

They’re wrestling, but it’s nothing like when he was a pup, wrestling with his packmates before they presented. This fight, this tussle, it’s all power and muscle and nerve, slick and pre-cum dripping between them.

What is he fighting for? Dominance? Control?

Or just the sheer animalistic pleasure of a brawl.

As their bodies twist and turn, twigs scratching their backs, pebbles embedded in their skin, their scents start to blend together. Twined like tumbleweeds, it’s impossible to ignore how perfect Kiyoomi’s plum matches his cedar and grass; how sweet the fire of his cunt is against the steady chestnut of Atsumu’s arousal.

It feels good, fueling the Alpha within him — this strong Omega, holding his own against Atsumu.

“Knew you’d be worthy,” Kiyoomi grunts, wrapping his hand under Atsumu’s knee to pull him off balance, while Atsumu snarls and uses the momentum from his fall to push Kiyoomi to the ground. The Omega grins up at him, the kiss of dawn in his eyes. “Knew you’d give me a merry chase, knew you’d put up a fight, Alpha. You’ve got me pinned, Atsumu. What are you going to do to me?”

All Atsumu can do is breathe. Heavy, desperate gulps of air, panting into the night as he stares down at Kiyoomi; this close, all he smells is fire.

This close, it’s no longer a warning.

Sneaking a hand around his back, Kiyoomi cants up his hips to rub his cunt against Atsumu’s thick, desperate cock. It wrings pleasure from his body, the lips briefly engulfing his head, something sticky lingering between them, and Kiyoomi uses his moment of distraction to flip them over.

Atsumu’s on the ground again, feeling the tangle of twigs beneath him, Kiyoomi beautiful and ferocious above him. The Omega’s got his hands pinned over his head, one wrist over the other, and his long fingers grip tight enough around them to bruise.

His knees are locked around Atsumu’s thighs, and Kiyoomi’s other hand is on his chest, right above his heart.

“So fast…” Kiyoomi murmurs, scraping at the skin just light enough to draw a gasp from Atsumu, but heavy enough to leave pink marks behind. “Are you nervous?”

Atsumu opens his mouth, but Kiyoomi doesn’t give him time to answer.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Atsumu. This is perfect, this is natural.”

His hand climbs up his chest, lithe fingers crossing over his neck to cup his throat and tilt his chin up.

When they reach his hair, he grips and tugs Atsumu’s head to the side, revealing the bare patch of his neck, already swollen from Kiyoomi’s earlier ministrations, to the encroaching dawn.

The air smells sweet — the humidity of morning, Kiyoomi’s plum, even Atsumu’s grass. As the rushing in his ears dissipates in favor of a calm acceptance of his fate and future, as Kiyoomi’s head lowers down to his neck, he starts to hear in the distance the pound of rushing feet, the howl of Alphas.

The run must have begun in earnest. Leave it to Kiyoomi to get a head start.

“I had a nice nest for us, Atsumu,” he sounds almost disappointed. “If we had more time, I could have taken you there, mated you there. I set it up all perfect for us. I had so many of your things -”

“I knew ya stole my towel - ah!” A scrape of teeth against his glands, his chestnut arousal leaking out, precum at the tip of cock.

“But you’re such a clever brat that this will have to do for now; I can’t bring myself to wait any long. Will you submit for me, Alpha?” Kiyoomi breathes out, scarcely a whisper, a secret stuck between them. “I caught you, I pinned you, I chased you. Submit for me, Alpha. Submit.”

The demand in Kiyoomi’s voice is the flint that sparks a fire inside of Atsumu, calling to the ancient, ingrained senses within him to listen to this Omega, to his Omega. Give him what he wants. Needs.

What they both desire.

Kiyoomi removes his hand from Atsumu’s hair so he can tilt his head back to a natural position, but it goes back down to his chest — his heartbeat has slowed to a careful rhythm, as if to offset the drumbeat of the run. Can Kiyoomi feel that? How he’s calmed down? How sure he is of his decision?

He doesn’t need words to submit.

It’s as easy as baring his throat.

And then -

“Fuck!” Teeth, buried in his neck, releasing the sweet nectar of his scent and practically screaming through the forest that an Alpha has been claimed for this round of the heat.

It’s not a full mating, not yet; Atsumu would have to bite back for that to happen, and Kiyoomi doesn’t give him a chance to reciprocate.

When Kiyoomi pulls his teeth out, his eyes are dark again, and blood and spit drips from his fangs as he licks them clean.

He’s wild now.

Atsumu doesn’t know what to expect from a heat, having avoided all the talk the Alphas shared around this time, but he certainly doesn’t expect Kiyoomi to rise to his knees, reaching between them to grip Atsumu’s cock — it twitches in his grip, so desperate for touch when he’s hidden from Omegas and sex for so long — before he grinds his cunt along the head, teasing and taunting, as if to punish Atsumu for evading him for so long.

“O-oh,” Atsumu can’t help but moan, Kiyoomi’s hand on his chest the only thing keeping his hips from bucking up into Kiyoomi and fucking him already. A warmth that couldn’t come from any sun blooms inside of him, prickles of heat low in his stomach, and he shudders as he feels the button of Kiyoomi’s pleasure, the slick and swollen folds of his cunt, glistening like dew-draped stonefruit kissing his head.

He does this for what feels like an eternity, squeezing when Atsumu feels his balls tighten and pleasure on the verge of eruption, cruelly cut down by Kiyoomi; it’s like he’s playing with him, grinding against his cockhead.

The only evidence of Kiyoomi’s pleasure — besides his drippy, drooly cunt, the slick thickening around his his head, so rich and sticky between them — is the way he throws his head back, laying bare his pretty spangled chest and neck, a perfect sight for Atsumu.

Atsumu’s the vocal one, begging and pleading for mercy, for pleasure, to cum, but Kiyoomi denies him all but the middle — he has an excess of pleasure, in fact.

It’s only when — “Omega, please, ya asked me to breed ya but I can’t do it like this. I need ya, Omi, I need- “

“What do you need?” Kiyoomi’s eyes snap open, wide, drool dripping from his lips. He looks hungry, he looks wild. “Tell me, Atsumu. What do you need? Beg for it,” he demands, and Atsumu —

Atsumu would give KIyoomi the world.

“I need to breed ya,” Atsumu gulps, Kiyoomi’s cunt just out of reach, the thick slick — is that really what it’s meant to look like? — hanging between them. “I need, I want to mate you, wanna knot ya, wanna stuff ya full of pups and bite ya and mark ya with my cum, please Omi, please Omega, let me breed you, please, I need -”

“Good boy,” Kiyoomi praises mockingly, before aiming Atsumu’s cock just right and dropping.

Atsumu howls — he feels like an animal, feeling Kiyoomi’s sweet, dark heat engulf his cock. This is what it means to give into his base instincts, desires, the little carnivorous entity buried deep inside him. For years he’s held it back, kept it at bay. Fleeing villages before the heat season comes, hiding away from Omegas.

But he was made for this, to bury his cock in an Omega’s — this Omega’s — wet, burning cunt, as Kiyoomi’s strong and lithe body writhes over him, hips bearing down on Atsumu to suck him deeper and deeper.

“Good boy,” Kiyoomi keens this time, earnestly, and the praise goes right to his head as Atsumu’s hips jerk up, into Kiyoomi, making his eyelids flutter with pleasure as he bites his lip. “Fuck, no one would think you’re so sweet and untouched from the filthy way you’re filling me up. My Alpha, you’re mine. You belong to me, don’t you know?”

Each possessive phrase, each wind of Kiyoomi’s hips steals away the remnant pieces of Atsumu’s sanity; he’s lost in their joining, their swirling, mixing scents, in Kiyoomi’s power and strength and the way his cunt seems destined to suck him dry.

He’s lost in the feeling of being owned. Claimed. Desired.

Wanted.

“Look, look,” Kiyoomi says, slapping his face gently to make him open the eyes he hadn’t realized he closed. “Do you see where we’re joined?” He points between them, where their dark hairs rub against each other and Kiyoomi’s hips keep a steady rocking rhythm, even as he’s lecturing Atsumu like he’s a pup. “You’re splitting me apart, Alpha, see?”

And Atsumu sees. The lewd way his dark, thick cock is buried between Kiyoomi’s lips, the way they’re spread so wide, the way Kiyoomi’s cunt is shaping itself around Atsumu’s dick.

His cock twitches in delight at the thought; Kiyoomi, molded to fit him.

But he notices something else — Kiyoomi isn’t really bouncing up and down, just grinding in small, frantic motions. There has to be a better way to cum than this, but he’s not even trying. Thick globs of slick are trapped in Atsumu’s pubes like frozen dewdrops, and Atsumu, suddenly, realizes —

“You’re stuck,” he says, but his knot hasn’t popped yet, so Kiyoomi should be able to pull himself away if he wanted. It’s so confusing — why is the Omega not chasing any pleasure he can? Is Atsumu insufficient?

A burst of sour scent fills the air; it’s from Atsumu, his pheromones spoiling with his own crushing disappointment in himself.

But then Kiyoomi’s hand comes up to cup his jaw, right where he slapped him earlier, soothing the slight sting and making Atsumu curl into the touch, desperate for warmth and comfort and the Omega’s fire.

“You’re doing perfect, Alpha,” Kiyoomi says, his voice giddy as he freezes. Atsumu whines; he liked the grinding. “Don’t be impatient, you must learn. I’ll teach you.” Grabbing one of Atsumu’s hands, he pulls against him, placing his palm flat on his stomach as if he can feel the place where they’re joined. If Atsumu imagines it, he can just barely feel his cock through Kiyoomi’s abs, a little mound of pleasure buried inside of him.

“Remember how you promised to breed me?” Kiyoomi asks, all innocent as he starts to grind again. “This is how we make sure it takes.”

Atsumu isn’t dumb, usually, but the Omega’s made him delirious with desire so he’s a little slow on the uptake. But he finally understands it — the thick, tacky slick, the ritual he accidentally spied on.

Kiyoomi’s slick is what’s keeping them together; Atsumu’s knot is just an added bonus. Maybe even a useless, vestigial organ, or just a helpful addendum during his own rut, though Alpha’s ruts tended to be weaker. It’s meant to maybe add to your luck in getting bred, in making sure the mating takes, but the Omega — Kiyoomi — is the one whose body works the hardest to make it happen, in control of snaring and keeping a suitable Alpha to fuck him full of pups.

That Kiyoomi picked him makes him feel heady with joy; that they’re stuck together until Kiyoomi is well and truly pupped, well…

Forgive Atsumu for lacking the capacity to process that thought, when Kiyoomi’s stomach is so warm against his hand, slick from the oils that the Betas anointed the Omegas in, meant to stimulate fertility and energy and leaving Atsumu’s fingers tingling with a peculiar pleasure.

“You should keep touching me,” Kiyoomi demands, pushing his stomach against Atsumu’s hand, his body a sinuous curve in the dawnlight. “Come, Alpha. Touch me — haven’t you wanted to? Haven’t you dreamed of it?”

Given permission to explore, Atsumu does just that. Traces lines across Kiyoomi’s body, cupping his chest, squeezing his nipples until Kiyoomi moans, pressing on the bites and bruises left behind by Oikawa.

That his Omega, though they aren’t mated yet, should be marked by another is audacious. Inconceivable. And yet Atsumu can see the evidence right in front of him.

His discontent must show on his face, because Kiyoomi just laughs. “Oh, Atsumu. You’re so easy to read, you sweet thing. Don’t worry about Tooru. I’m sure he’ll find an Alpha that suits him during the run; he’s probably already knotted by now, knowing him. He’s faster than you think.”

“But, then… why -” Atsumu doesn’t understand, but Kiyoomi’s able to comprehend his babble, cooing over him.

“We Omegas just have to help each other out, you know? It’s the only way to make sure we stick together.”

By the smirk on Kiyoomi’s face he’s sure there’s a joke, but Atsumu is too far gone on pleasure and lust and their heady, matched scents filling the air to parse it. All he can do is touch as though Kiyoomi is the bark on a birch tree, exploring his body like a wild mountainside.

He doesn’t learn how Omegas help each other, but he does learn that he likes the way Kiyoomi tightens around him when he presses against his clit, even from just a featherlight touch.

“Can I?” Atsumu’s hand travels low, thumb resting right above it. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for , and Kiyooomi must sense that, too.

“You want to make me feel good, Alpha?” Atsumu blushes, his face all red.

“Of course. Just wanna make you feel good, wanna breed ya —”

“Those two things don’t have to be related, you know. There are certainly Alphas out there who’ll do the bare minimum to fuck me through a heat, you know — ah!”

For the first time, Atsumu is able to catch Kiyoomi unawares, his hands squeezing around his waist as he thrusts up into him, annoyed at the mention and thought of other Alphas.

Especially the idea of them fucking Kiyoomi, trying to breed him.

“Oh, you are possessive,” Kiyoomi purrs. “Good. I am too, and if you want to remain in my good graces, Atsumu, you’ll lick your finger and play with it, yes, just like that, good boy—

Atsumu’s good at following instructions when he knows he’ll reap a righteous reward, and he plays with Kiyoomi’s clit just as he commands him, swirling his finger around and around it like a firm, midwinter berry.

“I like it a little rough, too, Atsumu, remember? Give it a little slap, a squeeze —”

Yes, he does remember watching Kiyoomi cum on Oikawa’s face, spanking his cunt, abd Atsumu obeys, landing a light, hesitant smack against it.

Kiyoomi bites his lip, clenches his fist.

“Harder,” he demands.

A taught, insistent slap makes Kiyoomi moan his way thorough a shaky, tight orgasm, throwing his head back while his cunt squeezes around Atsumu like a vice, and he’s so close, fuck, he’s so close, he can feel his knot pulsing, his hips tightening, desperate to cum.

He’s trying so hard, tears springing to his eyes with his desperation to help Kiyoomi, to breed him, to treat him the way a good Alpha should.

“This isn’t enough?” Kiyoomi frowns, before bending low, hovering over him. Atsumu misses the view, but being able to smell Kiyoomi, his proximity like lightning on his skin, is just as good. This close, he can be overpowered by his pheromones, can scent him, can smell the secret little notes buried deep within Kiyoomi’s scent, making it more complex than it might seem. Spice that dances on the edge of his arousal, peppery and bright; the soothing milk of fertility.“Then let me give you a little more…”

What could he mean?

He gets his answer when Kiyoomi drops lower, before his teeth scrape against Atsumu’s scent gland again and he has just enough time to grab Kiyoomi’s hips and hold on for dear life when Kiyoomi bites him once more, a facsimile of a claim.

That’s what makes him cum, in the end; bursts of it spurting inside of Kiyoomi, painting his walls, tangy brine in their scents now. It’s a shuddering, shaky orgasm, adn Kiyoomi doesn’t let go of him, just bites him through it, riding the crests and waves. He’s so full of Kiyoomi, engulfed by him, body and soul, and he wants to give him everything he’s got, straining his body to squeeze out every last drop.

When Kiyoomi finally rises, blood on his teeth and looking so satisfied, Atsumu can smell how much stronger their scents have gotten. How good they smell merged like this.

This is what he’s been avoiding? This perfect sweetness? Something that feels like heaven, so right?

Atsumu lets out a growl as he catches his breath, moving his hips out of instinct, which makes him realize something. “You’re still stuck,” he frowns.

He can feel the cum inside of Kiyoomi, swirling around his cock, so wet — can see the way his knot has swollen, bulging out around Kiyoomi’s entrance, keeping all that sweet mess inside.

But he can move a little easier now, and it dawns on him as he looks up at Kiyoomi, wide eyed.

“Has your little Alpha brain figured it out?”

It has — Kiyoomi’s slick is stronger than he thought. It’ll take far more than one orgasm’s worth of his cum to dissolve the bond. No wonder he was so insistent on getting bred, and no wonder he was so upset that they didn’t make it to Kiyoomi’s cabin. A nest would be a much more comfortable site for this.

Atsumu’ll just have to fuck him until they can pull apart, but that’s not a hardship. He wants to see Kiyoomi’s stomach swell with his cum, wants to see his knot buried in that sweet cunt for as long as he can manage.

Kiyoomi’s scent — like the ripest, oversweet plum, like a wildfire — blankets him, and it stirs something within Atsumu.

With a sudden burst of strength and will, he flips them over; Kiyoomim looks delighted, happy pheromones erupting from his body, and Atsumu, despite his swollen knot, starts to fuck him as best he can.

They’ve got a long morning ahead of them. No telling what it will take for them to separate, but even once they’re parted Atsumu won’t let them be separate for too long.

There’s a clear spot on Kiyoomi’s neck for him to mark, after all; a matching bite to the one still bleeding on Atsumu’s shoulder.

When his fangs break through Kiyoomi’s skin, circling his scent gland, he tastes the sweetest, summer fruit.