Chapter Text
The next week is weird.
Normally, Iwaizumi’s heats are carefully scheduled and mediated. Iwaizumi has them blocked off in his calendar months earlier, and even makes sure to cut down on his meetings the day beforehand, as well.
With his most recent heat hitting just a month earlier, this one was certainly unexpected. It’s shockingly quiet without him, because there’s no one else willing to draw Oikawa out of his shell.
The Alpha spends the week mostly restless in his office; he’s in twice as many meetings because he needs to pick up after Iwaizumi, and when he’s not on calls or meeting with disgruntled clients who were expecting an Omega and primped and preened for the occasion, he’s pacing in his office and inundating Hanamaki’s inbox with unnecessary messages.
Hanamaki’s pretty sure that Matsukawa is screening Oikawa’s PMs.
“I’m afraid I cannot share the status of an ongoing leave,” Hanamaki says, walking into Oikawa’s office three days into Iwaizumi’s heat, during one of his Designated Pacing Breaks, where he forces himself to sit down and clench a mug of coffee so hard that the ceramic might shatter, “but — off the record — I come bearing a gift.”
The gift — “Not a spiked candle, right Makki?” Oikawa huffs, and he looks tired enough that Hanamaki isn’t going to remind him of Ushijima’s insufferable nickname policy — is a loaf of milk bread that Oikawa eyes with the determination of a tiger.
“What’s the occasion?” Oikawa asks, clearly torn between digging into the loaf right now and maintaining a sense of propriety, as befits a manager with an office who just got caught fucking his right hand man in a bathroom.
Another reason Hanamaki’s lucky he’s a Beta; he’s sure his scent would spike or whatever if he had a different dynamic, and he’d be obvious about his thoughts.
“You look pathetic,” he shrugs, ignoring Oikawa’s whine of protest. “And I might feel a little bit bad for you.”
Also he felt a little bad for himself; he wishes he didn’t know that Iwaizumi’s careful schedule was probably thrown out of whack by this sudden heat, and that part of why Oikawa is pacing around his office relentlessly is because his own rut is due pretty soon. It always makes non-Betas screwy when the people they’re used to — and their pheromones — aren’t around.
It’s strange, understanding how Alphas and Omegas work in theory without being able to experience their reality.
He’s grateful for it, don’t get him wrong; there’s nothing he would change about himself. But it feels a little useless when all he can do to help his — god help him, he’ll only admit this once — friends, like Oikawa, is give them snacks and get them heat leave and hope for the best.
Luckily, when the whole world’s a mess, there’s Matsukawa.
“Let’s get outta here,” he says, knocking on Hanamaki’s office door at precisely 4:55 PM. “Dinner’s on me tonight.”
It’s Friday, a whole week since Kyoutani experienced the corporate equivalent of walking in on his parents fucking. Iwaizumi is due back on Monday — technically his heat broke yesterday, but Hanamaki used his powers of persuasion (read: bothering Yahaba) to give him an extra day — and, despite leaving early after an abnormally long week, Oikawa looked like he was getting back to normal.
Or, at least, the smile on his face was a familiar one; he always seemed to wear it when Iwaizumi was around.
Hanamaki is not going to think about that too hard.
“Really? It’s all on you?” Hanamaki fakes a simper, touching his chest and smiling like a debutante. “You sure know how to treat a silly little beta like me.”
“I can outrun you, Makki. I can still leave you here,” Matsukawa warns.
“No. Stop. Come back,” Hanamaki deadpans. Even though he’s looking at his computer to deal with a last minute request for scent accommodations from one of the Shiratorizawa guys — he knows they’re technically all one team now since the merger but it’s hard to think of Shirabu without wanting to bite him a little in a completely non-dynamic way — he knows that Matsukawa isn’t gonna leave him. “Give me five minutes,” he says instead.
Matsukawa laughs. “Sure,” he replies, pulling out the desk chair to sit down. “I’ll even be nice and give you ten.”
It takes him twenty, because Shirabu sees that he’s online and pings him directly because he hates him, apparently, and has missed the cardinal rule that a work DM anytime after 4:30PM on a Friday is an offence punishable by something an HR representative should not be thinking about.
When he finally turns off his computer, groaning while he headdesks, he looks up to see that Matsukawa was really nice and stuck around.
He’s also clearly tamping down a laugh. “You know,” he says, already standing and grabbing some of the supplies scattered around Hanamaki’s desk to hand to him to pack away, “you look cute when you focus?”
Hanamaki blinks. That’s not policy, he thinks for a second, before remembering that it is 5:17 PM on a Friday and work is illegal. “I don’t think I can look at my own face when I focus, Mattsun. How would I know?”
He’s not sure why a frown mars Matsukawa’s handsome face briefly, or why he covers it with his hands and exhales into it.
“You’re right, Makki. Ramen?”
“I always am!”
The line for ramen is long. It’s a popular spot for the post-work crowd, especially office-workers in their area. Yahaba’s a little further up in line and pretending not to know them, and he’s pretty sure he recognizes a few others from the office.
It moves quickly, but it’s slow enough for them to settle into their spots and watch the line take life.
There’s something magical about a queue; the way pockets of interaction form, making it a little interesting. There are a few duos and trios who huddle together, a small gap between them and the next person in line, muttering gossip and drama and plans for drinks, later?
Then there are the solo diners; there are unmated Alphas like Yahaba, half-posturing for a mate, lonely Omegas looking back and forth warily as though they’re suddenly overwhelmed, people switching spots and looking more relaxed once they do, and actually —
“Hey, Makki?” Matsukawa murmurs, bending over to whisper in his ear and make him shiver, just a little bit, from the surprise and nothing else, “do you think this is…”
“It’s a little oversaturated, yeah,” Hanamaki agrees.
As Alphas and Omegas have their own nuanced ways of interaction and secret language of pheromones, so too have Betas developed their own culture, out of a mix of necessity and the absolute shamelessness of the other dynamic genders.
‘Saturation’ is one of those concepts, and it refers both to the ratio of Alphas/Omegas to Betas as well as the perception of the ratio.
It isn’t a perfect science, but neither is scenting.
If a room is full of mated Alphas and Omegas, their scents and pheromones have probably mostly settled, and they’re less likely to engage in what Hanamaki likes to call — strictly when he’s off the clock — dynamic nonsense, then the saturation is low.
But if that same room were full of, say, Hanamaki and a dozen unmated Alphas and Omegas, their pheromones going crazy in proximity to each other, then the saturation is high.
It measures how likely a Beta is going to feel like an outsider, just because they don’t sense pheromones or scents or understand the loud but unspoken conversation of Alphas and Omegas.
Hanamaki — with his childhood full of Alphas and Omegas — is really good at sensing when the people around him are relying on that unspoken language, and when the situation is getting weird. Matsukawa, who grew up around Betas and went to a mostly Beta college, is getting better at it.
He feels proud of him for noticing, and pats Matsukawa on the shoulder. “Good boy,” he says, because if he pitches his voice just right, then…
“What are you doing?” Matsukawa asks, his voice trailing off when one of the younger guys a few behind them in line that Hanamaki’d guessed was an Alpha perks up.
“Havin’ fun.”
He watches the Alpha’s eyes scan the line, and then the crowd across the street too, before he falters and frowns, falling back onto his heels. The Alphas around him all wrinkle their noses like he’s emanating a sour scent.
Hanamaki wouldn’t know.
Narrowing his eyes, Matsukawa frowns too, before one of his eyebrows raises and his mouth curls in delight. “Are you doing something mean? I feel like you’re doing something mean. I like it when you’re mean.”
“I’m always mean,” Hanamaki shrugs, ignoring the way part of him curls in delight at Matsukawa’s praise, “I’m HR. That’s our whole deal.”
The laugh that raises is unexpected. “You think you’re mean, just because you have to deal with the clown show of my higher-ups?” Matsukawa says, stepping closer to Hanamaki and cupping the sides of his head, like he’s — “let me get this through your thick skull,” yeah, like that. “You have the patience of a saint and are nearly too kind for HR. You know Oikawa gossips, right?”
“If what you mean by gossip is that he just tells you everything he wants you to hear, then sure.”
“And do you know what he says?”
Hanamaki shakes his head.
“That you soften the language in all of their write-ups to make sure they don’t get in too much trouble with your boss.”
That’s true. But — “You have to understand, Mattsun,” Hanamaki says, shaking Matuskawa’s hands off his face and watching confusion take over, “that I have an ulterior motive. A thoroughly devious one, in fact.”
He’s leaning forward to look up through his lashes at Matsukawa. He’s handsome from his angle, and it’s nice to feel the heat of his body; Matsukawa’s like a furnace, and Hanamaki is colder than a penguin in January, so don’t mind him if he just leans into it a little, Matsukawa following him like a tired, corporate drone moth to a lamp that has to bother Legal and Payroll every other business day.
“Oh?” Matsukawa whispers — practically purrs — at him. “Then tell me, Makki. What’s your devious ulterior motive?”
It’s fun to play with Mattsun, Hanamaki realizes. He likes it, even.
“Keeping Oikawa and Iwaizumi out of complete trouble just makes me look better,” Hanamaki says. “If they leave, there goes my bottom line. And then what will I work on all day?”
This time, when Matsukawa laughs, it’s just as warm as he is.
But it gets cut off abruptly when Hanamaki feels another source of heat, right behind him, and a hand lightly touching his shoulder. Matsukawa looks up — and up, and up, and look, he has a slouch but this is just ridiculous — before he glares. “Can I help you?” he asks, like a man who has never been helpful in his life.
“I’d like to speak to your friend here,” rumbles the stranger — an Alpha, it has to be an Alpha — behind him. “And I don’t think he needs your permission.”
Hanamaki’s eyes widen, and before Matsukawa can say anything, Hanamaki kicks him in the shin, as if to say Don’t say a word, man, I got this.
“Actually,” Hanamaki says, turning around to look — what on Earth do they feed Alphas down here, this guy is so tall — up and glare at the stranger, “I do.”
“What-” The Alpha peers at him, leering really, looking up and down his body and lingering at his neck. Some Betas — Hanamaki one of the unlucky bastards — have vestigial scent glands, little patches on their neck that do nothing but mean that he’s had another place to lotion on his body, lest they get gross and dry. “You haven’t got a mating mark.”
The Alpha looks triumphant, and Hanamaki rolls his eyes.
“Duh,” Hanamaki says. “Use your brain, he’s not my Alpha—” he hears Matsukawa make a confused noise behind him and steps on his foot to shut him up.
There’s a reason everyone in his family just thought he was a late bloomer; even though Alphas and Omegas can look just like any other Beta, something about Hanamaki’s pink hair and matching cheeks, the baby fat he still carries in his cheeks, and muscle he’s never quite been interested in growing means that he read as an Omega for a really long time.
And he still does, in fact; Ushijima called three of his doctors to confirm his Dynamic before he got the job.
The thing about a high saturation environment is that it’s easy for Betas to disappear; slip away unnoticed, do whatever they want to do, and leave. Allegedly, most master thieves are Betas because they leave no scent behind.
If this were something Hanamaki knew, it’s definitely not because he once entertained the thought of burglary as a profession.
College was rough.
But just as Betas can hide, they can also blend in and even pretend to be something they’re not. Oftentimes it’s not on purpose; with the cacophony of scents and pheromones and other Dynamic nonsense, this Alpha looked at him, added 2 + 3, and got Omega.
That’s not even the same Alphabet!
“Well, if he’s not your Alpha, then I don’t see the problem — wait, no way. There ain’t no way.” He looks at Hanamaki again, leaning down to peer even more closely at his neck.
Alphas don’t wear cologne because their scent glands do all the work; it’s bullshit that they get that for free.
Hanamaki prefers Matsukawa’s scent, anyway.
“You don’t have a collar,” the Alpha accuses, but he sounds a bit unsure.
“Ow!” Matsukawa hisses, because Hanamaki’s stepped on his foot again.
Collars are an arcane tradition, so of course Hanamaki’s weirdest cousins practice it. Back in the day, they were meant to ward off accidental or unwanted claiming bites, and were thick affairs wrapped around the necks of Omegas, most of whom were unmated or in some courting stage. Nowadays, they’re more subtle and stylish, but in general Omegas wearing collars are accompanied by chaperones — mated Omegas or Betas — no matter where they go.
“He’s my escort,” Hanamaki says, reaching under his shirt and tugging out the narrow golden chain he’s started wearing because Matsukawa’s looked stupidly good on him, and he was jealous of it, “and it’s called fashion, look it up!”
Winded, the Alpha steps back, looking around. “S-sorry about that,” he says. Families that practice this — once again, Hanamaki’s weirdest cousins — tend to be a little insane and wealthy and unforgiving of random Alphas encroaching on their Omegas. The Alpha bows far too deeply for Hanamaki to be comfortable with, before turning tail and walking purposefully down the road, taking off into a full run when he thinks he’s out of their sight.
It’s all he can take to not cackle, but at least he can finally relax. “Hey, wasn’t that fun, Mattsun?” he says, tucking the chain back into his shirt, when Matsukawa’s hand grabs his, long fingers slipping easily under the necklace, and rubbing at the links.
“This looks good on you,” Matsukawa murmurs, and it’s distracting and nice, the warm hand right near his neck almost like it belongs there, when he hears a familiar throat clearing.
Yahaba still hasn’t entered the restaurant, and he’s looking at him suspiciously, and —
Ah.
Fuck.
He knows Hanamaki’s a Beta.
“Hey Mattsun?” Hanamaki says, grabbing Matsukawa’s hand and tugging it — with regrets — away from his neck, holding tightly. “Change of plans. Dinner’s on me.”
He drags him away from the mess before Yahaba can ruin his whole night, and they find a Denny’s where Hanamaki treats himself to the biggest sundae on the menu.
Mattsun gets a strawberry parfait, because he’s weird.
Yahaba [1:04PM]: is it possible to report a premeditated murder
Hanamaki [1:05PM]: …
Hanamaki [1:06PM]: …
Yahaba [1:06PM]: ???
Hanamaki [1:07PM]: Not if you’re the one committing it. Also, call the police?
Yahaba [1:07PM]: But it’s related to your position.
Hanamaki[1:07PM]: I’m not an Omega, despite whatever you think was happening last month. Also since when can we do markdown in our messages?
Yahaba [1:10PM]: i dunno, ask IT. Oh wait, you can’t.
Hanamaki [1:10PM]: dare I ask why?
Yahaba [1:11PM]: :^) kyoutani’s blooming and barricaded himself in there.
Yahaba [1:11PM]: Oikawa won’t stop bugging him through the door.
Yahaba [1:12PM]: you’re right, I shouldn’t report my own assassination attempt.
Yahaba [1:15PM]: ??? where are you?
“That absolutely should have been the fucking lead, Yahaba,” Hanamaki says, running down the stairs with an emergency kit he restocks every other month that he hoped he’d never have to use and Matsukawa on his heels. “I’ll premeditate you myself!”
“Woah woah woah,” Matsukawa says, badging Hanamaki into the fifth floor because his hands are full, “please don’t make me a witness.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not a witness.”
Matsukawa lets out a sigh of relief.
“You’re gonna be an accessory to murder.”
“Makki!”
Hanamaki met up with Matsukawa near the elevator banks, and — upon seeing the frantic look in his eyes as he pressed the call button over and over again with his elbow — opened the door to the stairwell and followed him down. It’s nice that Matsukawa is up for anything; he just wishes it’d been under better circumstances than this.
It’s gonna be real cathartic to sign Yahaba up for remedial emergency training, because he skipped every step of protocol.
“Why are we m-wording Yahaba?” Matsukawa asks, his voice carrying loudly as they jog past payroll, and both of them ignore the yelp that comes from that direction. “What did he do?”
“He didn’t follow protocol,” Hanamaki replies, and then, “Have you seen Oikawa recently, by the way?”
“Yeah, he said he was going to IT an hour ago because Iwaizumi wasn’t getting his messages or something, but I think he just blocked him.”
“Hmm.”
When they turn into the hallway where IT is — they have a big room to themselves with a lockable door, since there’s so much equipment they have to manage — they stop dead in their tracks.
Oikawa is on his knees, pawing at the door.
Koganegawa is trying — and failing — to tug him away, while Tsukishima is nursing a cheek with a suspiciously hand shaped red mark on his face.
“This is gonna be a bitch to report,” Hanamaki sighs, before gritting his teeth and walking towards Oikawa. He can be brave, dammit. He’s getting paid for this, dammit.
He’s gonna spin this into a nice quarterly bonus, because no one was restocking the Emergency Presentation Kit before he started working here, and all the supplies in it were out-of-date and scary.
“Hey, Oikawa?” he says, dropping to his knees and pitching his voice low and soft, the way his mother used to. “What’s going on?”
“He’s trying to hurt Mad Dog!” Koganegawa blurts out.
Tsukishima narrows his eyes. “Absolute brute of an Alpha.”
Oikawa groans, banging his head against the door. Inside, Hanamaki can make out a low, keening noise. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him,” he insists, looking at Hanamaki plaintively, “or whatever you think I’m trying to do. Tell him, Makki!”
Hanamaki sighs, looking between them. He knows the Betas just want to protect their friend, but given everything Yahaba told him — which wasn’t much — and everything he knows about blooming — which is very little — he has an inkling. And Kyoutani’s colleagues in IT aren’t gonna like it.
“He’s not trying to hurt him, I promise,” Hanamaki says, ignoring the way Tsukishima rolls his eyes. Maybe the whole company could do with a refresher on this. He already knows he’s going to need a stiff drink before the night ends, and maybe that’ll relax him without giving him a brutal hangover. “I know it doesn’t seem like it — an Alpha, trying to get in there? But you’ve gotta trust me on this, it’s not for a bad reason.”
He knows because Oikawa’s eyes aren’t blown dark, the way an Alpha drunk on an Omega’s scent would be. He knows, because Oikawa keeps trying to poach Kyoutani into Marketing, ever since he saw Kyoutani’s degree and realized he studied design. That’s why he keeps making up fake IT problems — Iwaizumi isn’t receiving his messages because he’s been in a meeting with one of their Product Owners for the last three hours — in order to talk to him. He knows because Oikawa is the epitome of control around every Omega except for Iwaizumi, and wouldn’t hurt a fly.
He knows because — “There’s an Omega in there,” Oikawa says, his voice hoarse, his every muscle aching with the urge to protect, “and he’s in pain, Makki!” — he’s an expert in Dynamic Nonsense.
“Alright,” he says, rising. “I’m gonna take care of this, don’t worry. Matsukawa, grab him,” he demands.
“Do you have hired thugs now?” Tsukishima hisses.
Matsukawa grabs Oikawa’s shoulders as Hanamaki opens the door and slips in; it’s almost not enough to stop Oikawa from following instinct and trying to wedge his way in, but luckily one of them does Iwaizumi’s stupid workout videos, and the other is Hanamaki.
Inside, the room — normally full of the IT techs replying to calls, or Koganegawa just talking — is eerily quiet, except for a wide-eyed Kyoutani huddled in the corner. He’s shaking, poor thing, sweat beading up on his forehead.
This is another thing he doesn’t quite understand the science of — why some people present late. Colloquially, they call it blooming. Practically speaking, it sucks.
Presenting as a child is relatively easy, especially if the doctors can ascertain your dynamic before it happens. There aren’t that many hormones in your body, and if you have forewarning you can prepare for it to happen. But if, for some reason, your doctor’s never noticed the Omega or Alpha waiting to emerge, and you went years — decades, even — without ever having your Dynamic spring to life, that’s a hell of a lot of hormones to emerge all at once.
Poor Kyouken-chan’s experiencing a couple lifetimes of nonsense right now, and Hanamaki will bet tomorrow’s croissant on the fact that he’s going to be really annoyed about this in two weeks.
Kyoutani bares his teeth in Hanamaki’s direction as he slowly approaches, but it calms down as he sniffs the air and realizes that Hanamaki is no threat at all. He has a sense that Oikawa’s pheromones might be permeating the door, and the scent of a panicky Alpha can’t be helping him at all.
“It’s all right, Kyoutani,” Hanamaki says, in his most soothing voice, reaching into the emergency kit and pulling out a vial, snapping it open to pull out a potent, wet scent patch, “I’m here to help you.”
“Aren’t you the one who says HR isn’t supposed to be helpful?” Kyoutani ekes out, his teeth chattering, like he’s too cold and too hot, all at once.
Pausing for a moment, Hanamaki laughs, just once. “You’re right,” he says, leaning forward to cup Kyoutani’s head with one hand and push it to the side. “And you can yell at me about this later.”
“What are you doing— fuck!” There’s a slow hiss as Hanamaki slaps the emergency patch onto Kyoutani’s swollen scent gland. It must sting and ache, the fast-acting medicine sizzling,as Kyoutani slowly falls into a temporary sleep.
It’ll last long enough to get him to a Hospital’s heat center, where he’ll ride out his first heat under the watchful eye of some nurses, instead of two nosy Alphas.
Hanamaki isn’t expecting anyone else to still be hanging around when he finally leaves his office at around 10PM that night.
First, he’d had to accompany Kyoutani to the hospital, since Kyoutani’s first emergency contact was still up in Sendai and his second contact was forged. Then, after he returned, he’d had to clear up the mess with Tsukishima, stop Yahaba from biting Oikawa for Bullshit Alpha Posturing, stop Koganegawa from biting Yahaba on principle, and return Oikawa to the watchful eye of Iwaizumi, who emerged from his horrible meeting with the Product Owners into absolute chaos.
He’d lost track of Matsukawa in the mess.
Then, he’d spent a few hours gathering information from all the witnesses, before spending the last three hours compiling it into several different reports, submitting official notices, generating tickets, adding a note to his calendar to update Kyoutani’s biodata upon his return — Kyoutani hated orientation, so he’s going to despise all of the new training material his Shiny New Dynamic mandates he internalize — and summarizing this mess for Ushijima, who has been visiting one of their satellite offices and sending him ??? via text every 15 minutes exactly, just like clockwork.
“Oh, good, you’re alive- don’t DO that!” Matsukawa curses, when Hanamaki tries to hit him with his bag.
“Sorry,” Hanamaki replies, blinking. “Thought you were a ghost.”
“What did you think attacking a ghost was supposed to do to it? They’re transparent.”
“Well,” Hanamaki shrugs, “maybe the ghost had a change of plans today.”
Matsukawa laughs, but it’s a little hollow. He must be tired too; it’s so late, after all, and it’s only Tuesday.
“Were you here this whole time?” Hanamaki asks. It just strikes him, and fills him with something a little soft and delighted.
“Well,” Matsukawa drawls out, “not the whole time.”
“Oh.” And maybe that’s disappointment, curling in Hanamaki’s chest.
No.
No it’s not.
It’s the thump from the plastic bag that Matsukawa is shoving at him, and it’s full of —
“Profiteroles?” Hanamaki holds one out like it’s the rarest jewel in Japan, even though it’s really just a day–old pastry on the Lawson shelf, wrapped in plastic that shines like a diamond.
“Yeah,” Matsukawa fiddles with his phone. “It’s just a snack to tide you over while I call us a cab and grab dinner.”
“Us?”
“Duh. I don’t trust you to fall asleep the second you get home, and then where will you be? Cramping and complaining about your back again. Come on.”
Hanamaki does get a cramp, but that’s only because he falls asleep on the couch while they watch old episodes of Sailor Moon, and wakes up with his head on Matsukawa’s lap, his colleague and friend and brother-in-arms and maybe something more snoring above him.
Incident Type: Public IndecencyReported by: Oikawa Tooru Employee ID: 200701
Incident Description: Makki, you naughty boy, I know your secrets.
HR Handler: Hanamaki Takahiro
HR Comment: Oikawa, this has nothing to do with my department.
Reporter Comment: I think you’ll find it has everything to do with your department.
“I knew it!” Oikawa cries, pointing an accusatory finger at Hanamaki, then Matsukawa, then back at Hanamaki like he can’t decide who to focus on. “I knew you were keeping secrets from us.”
“We’re friends, Oikawa,” Hanamaki replies, speaking slowly, like he’s talking to a particularly small dog. “Sometimes we meet up before work.”
“You’ve never woken up early in your life.”
“Which is why I’m late, and have to work till nearly seven tonight.”
One downside of Matsukawa crashing at his place is that neither of them remembered to set an alarm, and both woke up in a panic half an hour after they were due in the office. He gave Matsukawa spare clothes to wear, and they took Hanamaki’s old bus — which was, for once, not late — to work together.
Emerging from the elevator on to the eighth floor, they were greeted by Oikawa, with Iwaizumi hovering behind him like a guard dog who failed his training class, who’d been seemingly lying in wait.
“I know you have work to do,” Hanamaki mutters. “I have work to do.”
“You’re more than friends. Don’t lie to me, Makki, I thought we were friends.” Oikawa sniffs, like he’s actually hurt, even though Hanamaki can see right through him.
“We are colleagues,” Hanamaki gestures aggressively between him and Oikawa. “And we are friends. Off the clock,” he adds hastily, pointing at Matsukawa.
“You say that,” Iwaizumi cuts in, and Hanamaki narrows his eyes. It’s rare that Iwaizumi is vocally on the same side as Oikawa; normally he’s good at combating his bullshit, or he just gets drawn into his nonsense. But to have Iwaizumi back him up? He feels a little scared under the weight of their combined might, already. It must be a nightmare to be up against both of them at the bargaining table.
Marketing table.
…wait. What does their marketing department even do? Did they cover that in the Seijoh Orientation?
“You say that,” Iwaizumi repeats, “but Matsukawa is wearing your shirt. And those are yesterday’s pants. And you look like you haven’t gotten a lick of sleep. Which means that I win the bet, Loserkawa.”
“And!” Oikawa puts his hands on his hips, sticking out his tongue in triumph. “You look just like me and Iwa-chan after we spend a night toge- mean, Iwa-chan.”
Dead silence for a moment, before — “Ow! That hurts!”
“Why do you know what my shirt looks like, Iwaizumi?”
But Matsukawa’s the one who gets to the heart of it. “What do you mean together?”
Hanamaki hasn’t had his coffee yet, so it takes a minute. “That wasn’t on the paperwork,” he says. “That wasn’t on any of the paperwork that you filed. The required forms.”
They’d all assumed that Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s failed bathroom hook-up was a one-time affair, born of stress and hormones. Each of them have been led astray by the bickering and the HR complaints and the insistence that Iwa-chan was gross and Oikawa was trash; blinded by the obvious, obfuscating the truth.
And from there it becomes clear.
To Hanamaki, at least, who’s studied this. He’s giddy with power. “You don’t even file for heat and rut leave together. Is that because you don’t want to leave the department unstaffed? Are you insane? Of course you’re insane!”
“Uh-oh, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, pretending to whisper. “We’ve gotta go.”
“You’ve gotta go straight to HR,” Hanamaki says, walking forward to grab their arms, locking them all together in a chain with him in the middle and both Oikawa and Iwaizumi looking sheepish on either side of them.
The effect is undercut when Hanamaki yawns.
“We’re gonna go straight to the kitchen,” he amends, “where one of you will make me a coffee, and then to HR.”
Once he’s done harassing Oikawa and Iwaizumi — who have been mated for three years and never filed the paperwork with the guy Hanamaki replaced, so no one noticed or cared or thought to mention it to him — he’s the one to knock on Matsukawa’s office door, pastries in hand.
“Thought I’d treat you, this time,” Hanamaki says, “since you’ve been so good about my disaster of a morning. And night. And early afternoon.”
“Your life is a disaster, Makki, nothing new about it.” Matsukawa looks delighted to see him though, a smile slipping onto his face as he pulls off his headphones. “Come in, feed me like I’m a king and you’re my —”
“I am still HR, Mattsun, don’t say that to me.”
He mimes zipping his lips shut.
“I was thinking,” Hanamaki says, hand frozen over the bag.
“Are you going to keep the pastries hostage until you share your thoughts?”
He wasn’t going to before, but Matsukawa has a good idea. He closes the bag, watching Matsukawa pout.
Cute, he thinks. And that’s the heart of the matter.
For all that Alphas and Omegas exhaust him — either by nature or by design — they have it a little easier, in some respects. They know exactly when they like each other, for one; they don’t have to use their words, sometimes. Their bodies and hearts just know, and the mind follows.
Hanamaki, after Oikawa accused the two of them of being like him and Iwaizumi, had to use his brain.
He liked spending time with Matsukawa. Likes, present tense. He thinks he’s handsome, and warm, and stable, and understanding of the nightmare that is his life.
They could be something great.
Or at the very least, they could make a life together.
“Do you wanna be like Oikawa and Iwaizumi?” he asks, and it’s almost a confession.
Unfortunately, the object of his affections also hasn’t had his morning coffee. “What? Like roleplay stuff?”
Matsukawa is lucky Hanamaki doesn’t crush the bag of pastries.
“Absolutely not! That’s against so many regulations!” Hanamaki frowns. “I’m the shorter one and I don’t want to be Iwaizumi.”
“I could be Iwaizumi.”
“Neither of us are Iwaizumi.”
“Okay, okay,” Matsukawa says, but Hanamaki knows he’s still imagining it.
“You do a good Oikawa impression, though,” he says, carefully.
“Maybe I was practicing for our — “
Absolutely not, Hanamaki thinks, so instead he blurts out an:“I like you! I think we should date.” It’s insane how freeing it is, to be able to say it. He feels like his heart is thundering, like his blood is on fire, and all because of something so easy.
“Weren’t we already dating?” Matsukawa says, and Hanamaki wonders for a second if he should break Ushijima’s first rule of employee conduct: don’t punch your colleagues, even if they deserve it.
Hanamaki recovers, aghast. “What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re not dating!”
“We go on dates almost every day. You call them dates! To my face.” Matsukawa falters at the end, looking like he’s not sure what to believe anymore.
“Yeah but — “ I didn’t know they were romantic sits right on the tip of his tongue, but that sounds so stupid. Matsukawa knows his pastry order. He knows his second, third, and tenth favorite restaurants near the office. He knows his address by heart and lets Hanamaki drool all over his thigh and follows Hanamaki wherever he goes without any warning.
There’s a strawberry danish in this bag for Matsukawa, even though the taste of strawberries makes Hanamaki shudder. He wakes up early, just to share a quiet hour of the morning with Matsukawa, and get dinner with him right after work, even though he is not a morning person. He drops everything to handle the issues between Iwaizumi and Oikawa, just to grant Matsukawa a moment or two of peace.
It’s not fated mates and pheromones; not matching scents or mating bites.
It’s something subtle, and sweeter. And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe that’s love, for a Beta,
He still has to get the last word.
“But you’ve never kissed me!” Hanamaki says, triumphant, like an ocean storm.
Even that quells with the look Matsukawa is giving him.
“Is that all?” Matsukawa says, already standing and walking around the desk to meet Hanamaki. “That’s all you need to prove it, Takahiro? A kiss?”
The use of his first name is incredibly against their employee handbook, but Hanamaki is clocking off, right now.
“Maybe a little more than a kiss,” Hanamaki admits.
“Well,” Matsukawa says, bending over and cupping Hanamaki’s head between his hands. “That’s inappropriate, isn’t it?”
Hanamaki drops the bag, just as their lips meet. Matsukawa’s are soft, and it’s inappropriate to know the taste of his colleague’s chapstick, the sensation of his fingertips against his jaw, the way his curls feel when Hanamaki grips them.
It’s an absolute violation of a hundred different policies to swallow down Matsukawa’s breaths, to use them to fill his own lungs, to wrap an arm around his back and tug him close until their heartbeats match.
There’s no reason for HR to know the way Issei’s eyelashes feel against his soft cheeks, and it’s downright illegal the way those same lashes flutter as Matsukawa pulls away, a little shy, like he didn’t just change Hanamaki’s entire world.
He rubs his head, and there’s no reason for him to be so bashful. “So? Did I prove it to you, Makki?”
“I dunno, I think I need a bit more evidence before I submit this ticket,” Hanamaki says, tugging at Matsukawa’s ugly tie. “But — “ right into the hull of his lips, “you’ve gotta tell me when our anniversary is, okay? I need to register our day off with Yahaba.”
He’s on break for another fifteen minutes; if he can’t use his powers to commit a little HR violation of his own, then what’s the point?
“Hey, why do you like strawberry so much?” Hanamaki asks, once his lips are swollen from kissing and his stomach growls. His mouth is full, a mess of crumbs waterfalling down the side.
“I dunno,” Matsukawa says, holding the — slightly squashed — strawberry pink danish aloft and squinting at Hanamaki. “It just reminds me of someone I like, I guess.”