Chapter Text
“No,” Shōta says, automatically cutting whatever it is Hizashi and Nemuri are about to say to him off at the knees without any hesitation.
He recognizes the looks on both of their faces too well to let them even begin to launch their opening salvo.
The last time he’d given them that much leeway he’d woken up splayed out on the pier at Dagobah Beach wearing nothing but his capture scarf and clutching a bag of caramel popcorn. Getting home without being arrested for public indecency again had been a test of both his speed and his situational awareness.
His downstairs neighbor, old lady Kinato who, in his opinion, has impressively bad timing when it comes to opening her blinds, still wiggles her brows and winks at Shōta every single time they cross paths.
So, needless to say, Shōta’s not looking to repeat that experience, or anything even remotely close to it, any time soon. Or ever, really.
“Aww, Sho,” Hizashi whines. “How’re you gonna shoot us down when you don’t even know what we want to say?”
“You should trust us a bit more,” Nemuri pouts, one hand on her hip and the other wrist pressed dramatically to her forehead. “You’re never going to sweep some sweet omega off their feet if you keep acting like that.”
“You’re probably right,” Shōta admits easily enough. “Doesn’t change the fact that, whatever it is, my answer is still no.”
“Luckily that’s why you’ve got us to help you out,” Hizashi chimes back in happily, completely disregarding what Shōta had just said. “Whether you like it or not.”
Shōta stops.
Puts down his pen.
Turns in his desk chair to face both of them head-on.
“What,” Shōta grinds the word out, “have you two done now?”
“Nothing but start the ball rolling on making sure that you don’t die a bitter old lonely alpha,” Nemuri grins as she slaps a folder down onto Shōta’s desk. “You can thank us after you’ve found the love of your life.”
Shōta stares down at the lurid red folder with the words Han’ei Scent Exchange printed across the front in fancy gold calligraphy and tries to convince himself that murdering two of his best friends in the middle of the UA staffroom isn’t a good idea.
After a long pause and some deliberate deep breathing, Shōta’s almost sure he’s managed to bring his blood pressure back down through sheer force of will when the human embodiment of an ulcer walks by his desk.
“Huh,” Vlad huffs, ridiculous corgi mug in hand, “are you two still trying to get Eraser to lose his virginity so you can see if he’ll turn into a real boy?”
“I will fuck both of your parents and make you my step-son, leech boy,” Shōta warns without even bothering to look in Vlad’s direction. “Don’t test me.”
“Fuck you," Vlad cuts back. "My parents have better taste than that.”
“Obviously not,” Shōta deadpans. “They kept you.”
“Okay,” Hizashi waves an arm through the air between them. “That’s enough, you’re both big strong alphas, we all get it.”
“Yeah you can measure your knots la-” Nemuri goes to taunt but Shōta cuts her off.
“I’m gonna count to three,” Shōta announces, white-knuckling the final dregs of his calm. “And if that folder isn’t off my desk by two and this conversation isn’t over by three the only knot either of you two are going to have to worry about is going to be the one I tie your limbs into.”
“Graphic,” Hizashi mutters.
“One,” Shōta counts.
“He’s such a spoilsport,” Nemuri pouts.
“Two.”
The folder is still there.
Shōta pushes himself up out of his chair, one hand on his scarf and heat already building behind his eyes.
“We could both take him out,” Hizashi offers, already backing up a step. "Tag team style?"
“Oh honey no,” Nemuri is, somehow, already halfway across the room. “You’re on your own.”
Shōta lunges.
Hizashi screams, but unfortunately for him, it does nothing.
Nemuri’s cackling laughter gets cut off rather abruptly as a coil of Shōta’s scarf catches her around the middle.
“Three,” Shōta announces, mouth splitting open in a teeth filled grin.
~~~
Unfortunately, as Shōta finds out later once the real screaming is done, there’s really nothing he can do to wiggle his way out of the newest bullshit his two idiots have signed him up for this time.
Especially since, apparently, Shōta’s being conspired against on even more levels than he’d previously assumed.
Because not only was Tensei also involved in the entire debacle but Nedzu was as well.
So, as with anything else Nedzu decides to stick a paw into, Shōta’s just going to have to buckle down and suffer through.
In this case, suffering through means dealing with the fact that he has an unwanted year subscription to the deluxe package offered by one of the higher-end Scent Exchange programs available in their part of the country.
And it’s not even one of those services that is barely hiding the fact that they’re just catering to the fetish crowds or are a relatively safe way for some people, mainly omegas, to make extra money under the table.
No, Han’ei Scent Exchange is perfectly legitimate.
They’ve signed Shōta up for a godsdamn upscale kaori miai.
A legitimate fucking scent-based matchmaking service.
That, again, Shōta’s going to have to deal with for the next year.
Shōta really is regretting not killing all of them years ago and running off to finally fulfill his lifelong dream of being a cat hoarding hermit deep in the mountains somewhere.
Especially since, if the packet Shōta had read once things had calmed down is to be believed, Shōta’s now going to be getting weekly deliveries of tokens from various available omegas.
All of which will be saturated with each omega’s scent in the hopes that one of them will catch Shōta’s interest. If that were to actually happen, Shōta would then be allowed to send tokens of his own to see if his interest might be returned. Then, ideally, the agency would help further lines of communication be established between the two of them so they can develop an actual relationship.
It’s a rather safe and anonymous way to vet possible partners without the dangers and awkwardness that come hand in hand for both sides with in-person first dates.
It’s a system that’s been around for centuries, long before the age of quirks dawned, and it’s one Shōta has never had the slightest interest in.
And yet here he is.
What’s more is the fact that, since this is an upscale program, it’s more than likely going to be filled with people used to a certain lifestyle and with certain expectations and thoughts about heroics.
So even if the borderline impossible happens and Shōta does actually manage to stumble across a scent that calls to him, it’s probably going to belong to someone he’ll find absolutely insufferable in person.
So, again, this is all just a waste of his time.
~~~
Six months pass.
Six months of weekly deliveries. Six months of Shōta first ignoring and then reluctantly opening the distinctive red boxes that get delivered to his apartment every week like clockwork.
Six months of, just as he’d known would happen, Shōta having to open the vacuum-sealed packages on his balcony to keep from flooding his apartment with the sweet scents of various strange omegas.
And, just as he’d thought, Shōta hasn’t found a single scent that even remotely appeals to him.
Most of them barely garner a reaction at all, just more cliche sugar-sweet nonsense for him to block out. Just something to sniff quickly and then discard as nothing out of the ordinary.
A few smell almost uncomfortably young, fresh in that way that only still settling omegas do. Young enough, in fact, to have Shōta writing down the ID number stamped across the package so he can slide them to Nedzu to investigate at a later time.
There have even been a few that have been so sickly sweet, so overpoweringly sugary and cloying, that Shōta had found himself actually gagging as soon as he opened the seal on the package.
That is, of course, a reaction he would never allow himself to have in public for a number of reasons, but those packages were always resealed and immediately slingshotted into the shoot that leads to his building’s biohazard incinerator with a particular kind of viciousness.
So, it’s safe to say that Shōta isn’t expecting much from this latest package.
Fresh off a particularly draining patrol, he can’t even be bothered to take it out onto the balcony and go ahead and open it like he normally would in order to get the entire thing over with for the week.
Instead, he just tosses it in the direction of the sofa Nedzu had bought him and trudges towards his bathroom so he can hose himself off before he collapses face-first into his bed.
Shōta doesn’t think about the package for an entire seventeen glorious hours, too busy sleeping and then actually handling some of the housekeeping he’s been putting off for the past month.
It’s not until Shōta’s putting away his groceries, which do in fact consist of more than just jelly packets thank you very much Hizashi, he’s also bought eggs and rice, that he remembers the package.
With a sigh deep enough to crack his spine, Shōta shoves his shopping bags into a drawer and slumps back into the living room.
Sure enough the package is still there, mocking him from its place on the sofa.
Shōta scoops it up, uncaring of how the box rips at the edges when he pries it open enough to pull the vacuum-sealed packet from within out.
Shōta takes enough time to look at what he’s been sent this time, a snowy white handkerchief embroidered with a small green rabbit in one corner, before he moves to pop the scent seal.
The packet opens, Shōta has enough time to take in a single deep breath, and then his vision whites out around the edges.
Bliss.
When Shōta eventually comes back to himself, he’s kneeling in front of his sofa with the packet shredded and scattered across the floor around him.
The handkerchief is shoved between his face and the sofa cushion, there’s fresh cum cooling across his knuckles, and a livid-looking bite mark throbbing on his opposite arm.
“What the fuck?” Shōta doesn’t have the energy to be ashamed of the way the words come out slightly slurred.
No, he’s too distracted by the taste of his own blood in his mouth and the way that even now his cock is twitching in his hand, knot still swollen even as aftershocks of pleasure slice down his spine.
That and the absolutely haunting scent that’s currently flooding his apartment.
~~~
Shōta tries to put some distance between himself and the weapon of mass destruction that is that handkerchief.
Tries and fails.
Scent drunk like the exact kind of undisciplined teenage knotheads Shōta has always been hardest on in his classes, Shōta finds himself mouthing at the fabric twice more, hand milking his knot and mind gone, before he finally manages to grab at some small, ragged, measure of self-control.
Even then he only gets the thing tucked away in one of his less secure wall safes thanks to the strategic use of a clothespin and a pair of chopsticks.
Opening his balcony door to air the apartment out ends up being another test of his willpower. Every inch of Shōta strains against the way his instincts bite at him to keep and hoard and hunt that omega down so they can den up properly.
By the time he finally gets things squared away Shōta is a mess.
He’s filthy again, covered in a mix of sweat and his own cum, his shoulders are tight, and he can’t help the way he’s taken to pacing around the apartment.
It’s not until he finds himself sucking on the end of that pair of chopsticks and writing out an actual grocery list that contains way more fresh fruit and cuts of meat than Shōta normally eats in a year that he realizes just how far gone he is.
Which makes his decision to grab his capture scarf and throw himself off his balcony a perfectly reasonable one to make.
Putting some more actual distance between himself and the source of his crisis is obviously the best thing to do. Fresh air and space will absolutely help him calm down.
Only that doesn’t seem to work either.
Because all that happens is Shōta ends up pacing, barefoot and still filthy, with a low discontented growl rumbling in his chest, across the roof of his building for the next hour. It’s all he can do to talk himself out of going to the nearest home goods store and spending at least half of his last paycheck on the most luxurious bedding and throw pillows he can get his hands on.
He still ends up catching himself mouthing at the bite on his arm, gnawing at the skin absently like he hasn’t since he was a teenager unable to help the way his instincts pushed him to bite down on something every single time he popped a knot.
Hell, he feels more out of control now than he ever did then.
Shōta’s a full-grown adult with two full-time jobs, he hasn’t given himself a dry bite since he was fourteen.
He’s pretty sure this is what losing his actual mind feels like.
Which means the next logical step is to swing back down to his balcony and go attempt to drown himself in his shower, scarf and all.
Luckily, scrubbing down underneath absolutely frigid water seems to finally do the trick for Shōta. He feels more and more of his ability to think rationally coming back with each minute that passes.
By the time he’s washed twice, Shōta even feels like an actual person again instead of a seething bundle of hormones and instincts.
A freezing person but still, a person.
For a moment he contemplates just staying in the bathroom. There are towels in the cabinet, the floor’s clean, and he’s absolutely slept in worse places. Hizashi's first apartment included.
But allowing himself to be held hostage in his own apartment by a handkerchief is a step too far in his opinion.
Shōta can’t help the way he practically creeps back into the living room, a towel wrapped around his waist and one hand on his still damp scarf like that handkerchief is going to be laying in wait for him like some kind of assassin.
The still open balcony door has obviously finally done its work though because the air is no longer saturated with that scent.
Instead, there are only whispers of it left, tantalizing little traces curling through the air like they’re beckoning to Shōta specifically.
It’s unlike anything he’s ever smelled before. Unlike any other omega Shōta can remember ever being close to. Unique and captivating in a way he almost can’t believe is real.
Instead of the overwhelmingly sugary or flowery scents he’s accustomed to associating with omegas, this scent is rich. Deep and full and capable of making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
Electric like a thunderstorm and undercut with something decadent he can practically taste melting on the back of his tongue.
Shōta kind of wants to live in it. Wants to bury his face in the source, to glut himself on it and rub it all over his own skin and never let anyone else but him have it ever again.
He’s back to standing in front of his sofa and staring down at the exact spot that handkerchief had been laying without even realizing he’s moved.
At least, Shōta can’t help but think wryly and more than a bit exhausted, he’s not actually mouthing at the cushion. A small victory true, but one he's still going to take.
It’s only when Shōta finds himself pacing again, steps taking him in ever-widening circles that inch closer and closer to that wall safe, that he realizes staying isn’t an option, pride be damned.
He’s dressed and out of his apartment with his security system armed behind him within a handful of minutes.
And it’s not until he’s throwing himself across the rooftops with the desperation of a man being chased, that Shōta realizes one very important fact:
He might not have been willing to be held hostage in his bathroom, but he had allowed himself to be chased out of his own apartment by a scent.
And yet, not once during this entire mess, had he even considered ending the issue by destroying the token itself.
Instead the cause of all his current problems is sitting safe and sound in one of his wall safes.
Waiting for him to return.
~~~
Shōta manages to make it for two whole days, running on nothing but coffee, leftover adrenalin, and the stubborn refusal to just go home, before he’s ready to crash.
Crash and admit that, no matter how much he hates it, he’s going to have to do something.
Because he can’t go on like this for any real length of time.
He’s too strung out, too on edge. His mind’s been preoccupied in a way he can’t shake, instincts flaring wildly and thoughts constantly churning and pacing back towards that scent.
He’s been even more snappish than usual with his classes and Tsukauchi had given him a look again when Shōta had brought in an attempted rapist who couldn’t stop crying over how Shōta had gone out of his way to make sure both of their arms were broken.
Shōta’s also reasonably sure that he’s giving off an interesting mix of signals to everyone around him even with his scent dampening patches in place.
It is, Shōta knows, a state of affairs that simply can not be allowed to continue.
He’s either going to end up getting himself killed or he’s going to kill someone else by accident.
So Shōta’s only real course of action is to go about this entire thing logically.
~~~
His first plan, besides his half-baked idea of burning the apartment down and just living out of the staff room at UA, is to make sure there’s no quirk involved.
Chopsticks in hand and a gas mask swiped from Maijima’s workshop firmly in place, Shōta opens his wall safe.
The handkerchief is laying there, the embroidered rabbit on its corner looking deceptively innocent.
Erasure flairs but there’s no visible change that Shōta can see. Which, logically, doesn't completely rule out quirk use for a number of reasons but it's all he has at the moment.
Still, Shōta’s next course of action is far riskier.
Physical exposure to see if what happened last time was a fluke. Plus it'll allow him to see if being mentally prepared will make an actual difference or not.
Shoulders squared, he reaches up and pulls the mask off, determined not to lose himself again.
It doesn’t go well.
At least not by Shōta’s standards, considering what he was trying to accomplish.
Instead of being able to hold onto his control, Shōta comes back to himself actually in his bedroom this time, furniture shoved up against the door and all of his bedding pressed into a corner. One of his hands is busy jerking his cock halfway raw while the other hand is holding that demonic piece of cloth up to his face.
Even when he realizes what he’s doing, it doesn’t stop Shōta from feeling desperate, cock throbbing in his hand and knot already beginning to swell against his fist.
It takes shamefully little for Shōta to convince himself that letting things run their course again is the logical next step.
Only it doesn't pass as quickly as it did before.
As if the universe is laughing at him, Shōta doesn’t manage to drag his furniture back into place and himself back out of his room until the scent has finally begun to fade from the handkerchief. That addictive scent obviously finally overwhelmed by Shōta’s own from where he’d sucked and gnawed at the fabric and hadn't been able to stop himself from cumming all over the thing.
He manages to clean himself up and suck down a handful of jelly packets before he ends up passing out on his sofa this time, the now clean but still damp handkerchief somehow still clutched in his hand.
~~~
That, Shōta hopes, will finally be the end of it.
The scent has faded from the handkerchief so there’s nothing left for him to obsess over, nothing left to seep into his brain again and burrow deep. Nothing left to undermine his control and the normally tight grip he keeps on his instincts.
If he keeps the freshly laundered handkerchief in his pocket at all times and finds his hand drawn to it whenever he's not busy …
Well that’s no one’s business but his own.
~~~
Friday rolls back around and there’s another package waiting for him at his apartment.
Shōta rips it open with a surprising amount of eagerness, not even waiting until he’s inside his apartment.
It’s only when he finds himself staring down at the ID number that doesn’t match the one he memorized almost against his own will and feeling nothing but a sharp stab of disappointment, that Shōta realizes what has happened.
He’d been hoping that somehow, and against all logical thought, he’d gotten another token from the omega from last week. His idiotic instincts hoping for a show of continued interest despite that not being how this entire situation works.
Instead this is someone new. Someone whose token Shōta doesn’t even bother to finish opening and instead just turns on his heel and moves down the hall to shove the box and all straight into the incinerator shoot.
Shōta doesn’t want anything from anyone new.
He wants another green rabbit embroidered on something fresh and still drenched in that entrancing scent. He wants to move on from the ultimately impersonal nature of a handkerchief token to something more … intimate.
Shōta is quickly coming to the realization that he’s not going to be able to even himself back out until he gets what he wants. Until, for once, he feeds his instincts just a bit.
So, of course, the very next thing he does is hunt down that packet of information Hizashi and Nemuri had given him back when this all started.
Shōta’s new plan is simple and should be effective.
He’ll call the service, request to enter into an actual exchange with whatever omega it is behind that scent, and then once he gets another token he’ll just never tell anyone about it ever. Hopefully, he'll either be able to get whatever this is out of his system or, if push comes to shove, he’ll be able to get a steady supply of scented items to curb this distracting itch that’s taken up residence beneath his skin.
Then either way, once some time has passed, he’ll be able to move on with his life with no one else the wiser.
Somehow.
It’s a simple, logical, and overall solid plan.
It's absolutely going to work.
~~~
Except it’s not.
And it doesn't.
Two hours, six transfers, and three hangups later and Shōta has gotten exactly nowhere over the phone.
It doesn’t matter if Shōta has his address, full name, date of birth, the ID number from the original packet, or any other personal information they could ask for handy.
All that matters is the fact that he’s missing the one thing they apparently require to verify his identity.
The security password that was established when his account was opened.
The security password he has exactly zero chance of guessing correctly since the gods apparently do actually outright hate Shōta personally.
Because there’s only one person who has that password and it’s very much not Shōta or anyone he can intimidate, bribe, trick, guilt, or threaten it out of.
If he wants to do anything with his account then Shōta is going to have to do the one thing he’d been hoping to avoid all along.
Talk to Nedzu.
~~~
Shōta lasts two more days.
Two miserable days of clutching a handkerchief that smells like his own detergent and nothing more, and trying not to go slowly insane.
Day three finds him outside of Nedzu’s office, a slip of paper in hand and some mix of determination and resignation settled firmly in his bones.
The door opens right as Shōta raises his hand to knock just as it always does.
“Come in, come in, Shōta-kun,” Nedzu calls pleasantly from inside his office.
Feeling not unlike he’s about to enter some version of the underworld and make a deal with an actual devil, Shōta steps inside.
He moves across the room to Nedzu’s desk and puts the slip of paper down with deliberate carefulness, sliding it across the desktop with a finger.
“Ah, another client to investigate, I assume?” Nedzu wiggles just a bit before he reaches out to grab the slip with eager paws. “This has ended up being a rather fruitful endeavor, all things considered, if I do say so myself. So many hidden scandals to root through, truly entertaining. I’ll make sure to handle it as I have the others.”
“No,” Shōta forces himself to take a deep breath and bite the bullet as the saying goes.
Behind his desk Nedzu goes still.
“No?” Nedzu asks, head tilting just a bit to the side.
Shōta doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t have to. He can already see the puzzle pieces clicking together behind Nedzu’s eyes.
“Oh ho ho!” Nedzu crows happily, paws clapping together in glee, the paper strip waving in the air between them. “It seems our little scheme has actually paid off. How delightful.”
Shōta brings a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.
“Just do what you have to do and get an exchange set up,” Shōta grits out as he turns on his heel to stalk back across the room. “You’ve got the security password so I can’t do it myself. And don't tell the idiots.”
Nedzu’s delighted cackling follows Shōta out of the room and down the hall.
~~~
There’s a large box in a familiar shade of red settled on Shōta’s doorstep by the time he gets home that evening after an impulsive stop by a local shop.
Only this time when he opens it there’s a bundle of scent sealing bags, a wad of preprinted labels, and a stack of smaller ready-to-be-assembled boxes inside of it.
Nedzu really does work fast it seems.
Ten minutes later Shōta has a thoroughly scented token of his own sealed and packed safely away in one of the smaller boxes and settled with the rest of the building’s outgoing mail.
Thumb tracing over the now-familiar embroidered rabbit, all Shōta can do is wait and see if he'll be accepted.