The Spicy Omega
Translator: Katie
Editor: Derpy
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 15
As if announcing the advent of winter, it started snowing ever so slightly in the morning.
To me, winter was the season of thicker clothing, and wearing thicker clothing meant that my defensive and disguising abilities increased. It was a season I should’ve welcomed.
However, I didn’t have the leisure to say such a thing this winter.
I could probably say that my entire high school career—no, my entire life up till now, and my normal beta life from now on, relied on this period in time.
The winter break of my third year in high school.
As long as I could get through this, I could get down to business.
“It’s finally winter break…”
“What are you gonna do, Kijima?”
“I’ll be going to a vocational school after graduation, so I guess I’ll be preparing for that.”
Sipping on vegetable juice with a straw, I gazed at the lazily-sitting Kijima.
Kijima planned on becoming an auto mechanic.
After he graduated from high school, he planned to get his qualifications in a vocational school, gain experience in the real world, and slowly take over his family business.
I was surprised when I first heard of his unexpectedly thorough life plan.
I told him that if that was the case, he had all the more reason to try harder in his studies now, but he said that it wasn’t the same. No, it obviously was.
“Actually, I really wanted to meet up with you guys since I didn’t get to play during summer vacation, but I guess I’m not going to. I don’t wanna hinder your studies.”
“Thanks. Good luck to you too, Kijima.”
“You can visit me whenever you want, you know?”
“It’s bad that Amami doesn’t sound like he’s joking…”
I smiled bitterly at the usual exchange happening between Kijima and Amami—with Kijima sighing like he was expelling all the air from his lungs and Amami acting as if nothing was wrong.
After the winter break, students would be taking exams. With how busy they would be with the preparations, the days they could attend school were drastically reduced.
I wouldn’t be able to witness conversations like this much more.
“I’ll also be sad that I can’t meet you, Kijima. Send me pictures of your family’s dog, okay?”
“Sure, Koro does well even in winter.”
Kijima, being a dumb dog dad, immediately showed me a picture of Koro saved on his phone.
Maybe it was the winter fur coat, but the fluffy image of Koro smiling slightly was super cute.
“Karasawa, you’re a dog person?”
Today, I had class duties.
I’d completely forgotten about writing in the class diary, so I was now writing it in a panic after school. I’d be done once I submitted it to the homeroom teacher.
In an empty classroom, Amami was sitting in the seat in front of me, accompanying me for some strange reason. He was seated facing me with his elbows on my desk, grinning all while looking at me even though there was nothing interesting to see.
He was such a good friend for accompanying me as I was being kept in school.
“Not just dogs. I like all animals in general.”
“I see. You don’t keep any pets at home, right?”
“My mother isn’t great with animals. But I’ve thought of keeping one once I begin living by myself.”
“Living by yourself? You?”
What was with that look of surprise on his face?
He must have thought that it was impossible for me to live alone. How rude.
“If I get accepted into my first choice, it would be a hassle to commute from my parent’s place because of all the transfers, so I wanted to rent a single room somewhere.”
“You’d have to do all the household chores by yourself. Wouldn’t that be difficult?”
“It would be similar to my current living situation, though my room would be smaller, so it might be even easier.”
In any case, I needed to get accepted into my first choice or none of this would happen, so I ended the conversation and concentrated on the class diary.
While I wrote an entry about the classes today on the ruled lines, I suddenly realized that I had never seen Amami talk about his family.
My family was an ordinary family with two office workers.
Kijima’s family owned an independent business, but it wasn’t anything particularly special. His somewhat fierce-looking father and bright mother were undoubtedly related to Kijima.
In that respect, Amami had never explicitly talked about his family himself, and I had never seen him talk about anyone coming to visit him during the cultural festival or the sports festival either.
It made me think that maybe they didn’t get along.
Like the daytime dramas I used to watch, perhaps money and status could become a source of unhappiness.
However, if I couldn’t even ask the person himself about it, it was a useless thought to entertain.
Gathering my wits about me, I put the finishing touches into the class diary.
And Amami, who had been quiet until now, once again opened his mouth.
“Hey. Instead of living by yourself, how about sharing an apartment?”
I lifted my gaze from the diary and stared at my friend in front of me.
Amami had his usual smile on his face.
“With whom?”
“With me of course.”
“Hah. That’s quite the quick and crazy proposal.”
“Not at all. If we both get accepted into our first choices, we’d travel the same route, no?”
Speaking of which, that did seem to be the case.
Amami’s chosen school was so famous that its name was written below the name of the closest train station to it, but my first choice only had two train lines running to the closest train station.
I had a vague thought that, if I lived alone, it would be nice to live where I could take the first train line, but I could still compromise and take the other way to school.
“You’re really good at cooking, and I can do the other household chores, so we can split rent evenly. Wouldn’t your parents feel more assured if you told them you would be living with a friend?”
Amami was surprisingly sharp and saw right through me.
It was true that my parents were against me living alone.
If I lived alone, any action taken—should anything happen to an omega like me—would be too late. They told me they feared that.
I thought that things like that could happen regardless of your secondary gender, so wouldn’t girls be even more powerless than me at living alone? I was indignant, but in the end, my parents could only see me as helpless prey.
I was miserable, but here we were.
Even Amami must have thought of me as a weakling who needed an alpha as a shield so that men wouldn’t target me.
I restrained myself, condensing all my strength into my stomach so that it felt like all my power drained out of me.1
“It’s impossible.”
“Huh?”
Graduating from high school, and then graduating from college.
Even though we had a relationship where we could meet every day, it might soon become once a month, or once a year.
We might even get invited to a class reunion at some point, and it would all end once he refused.
One day, he would forget all about me and this shallow, insignificant relationship.
“If you want to share a room with someone, find someone else. It’s not possible for me.”
“Karasawa?”
“I’m done with the class diary. I’ll be leaving once I turn this in.”
Please don’t make me see you one day begin to live with your “fated one”.
When I stood up from my seat with my bag in hand, Amami also rushed to get up behind me, worried.
I turned away from the shouts of either joy or excitement from the underclassmen doing their club activities and flowed in with the thin crowd of school uniforms.
It was the usual after-school scene, but what was different was how Amami stuck by a few steps behind me as we walked together.
“…Hey, Amami.”
“…”
“What’s wrong…?”
I had started wearing a thick, dark blue duffle coat provided by the school a month ago.
The fabric at the hip area was being pulled back a bit.
Amami wasn’t saying anything in particular, he just quietly tugged on my coat as he followed behind.
Almost like a scolded puppy.
But unfortunately for him, he wasn’t a dog, but a man even bigger than me.
I veered off the path from school at a fast pace, and the moment I stepped into the usually deserted park, I turned around to face him.
“Fuck! What is it?!”
Amami let go of the coat he was pulling, and his stooped back immediately straightened.
The hand I shook off froze in place without being lowered.
Stop with that abandoned puppy look…!
“Did I say something wrong? All I did was turn down your request to be roommates.”
“…”
“I haven’t even taken the Center Test yet, so living alone is still a faraway dream.”2
“…”
“It’s still too soon, so there’s no point in thinking about it now… Uh…”
Amami remained still with his head down, cutting off my verbal momentum so I ended up finishing my words lamely.
It felt like I was bullying him, so a mysterious sense of impatience grew in me.
“…W-Well, it really is too soon, but maybe sharing a room for a bit… Is something I could consider… I guess?”
“!”
Amami, previously in his dispirited puppy mode, had all but lit up with that single compromise.
Surprised, I took half a step back but Amami immediately closed that distance, his usual smile back on his face.
“Really? Thank you! I knew you’d come around.”
“No, I only said I’d think about it, it wasn’t an agreement.”
“The truth is, I had also thought about leaving my parents’ home, but I would be too lonely… If I’m with Karasawa, I can be at ease.”
“…”
Amami patted me on my shoulder while giving me a big smile, so I had no choice but to return a forced, distorted smile.
When the person you’re in love with was smiling this happily at your existence, who could say, “Actually, never mind,” to that?
I could only hope that he’d forget about this so that I could nonchalantly dissolve it at my own discretion.
I needed to quickly decide on an apartment and move out of my parent’s place so that Amami wouldn’t come chasing after me. He should quickly forget about a friend no longer in his life and happily begin his glorious college life.
I thought I could rely on my uncle, who worked in the real estate industry, once I actually passed the exam, but it looked like I’d have to make a move sooner than I thought.
An alpha and omega, who weren’t blood relatives or even mates, living together under one roof… A dire situation like that goes beyond inappropriate or immoral.
It was impossible.
Above all, my body and heart wouldn’t be able to bear it.
“That’s right. Also, free up your Christmas and New Year’s for me.”
“Hah? Why?”
“The marking effect will wear off. I’ll need to reapply it during the break too.”
Before I could say anything, his long arms wrapped around my body and pulled me into a tight hug.
This place wasn’t as secluded from view as the usual place, so I looked around in a panic.
The people who were usually at the park weren’t there, and I didn’t see any pedestrians walking by the entrance facing the street.
Seeing that no one would see two guys hugging made me relax from relief, but then I realized that the current situation I was in was more dire than being seen by other people.
Relaxing in the presence of Amami was already such a difficult thing to do.
Even though he was someone I trusted most—my best friend.
“Hey, can’t we go back to the way we were before?”
“The way we were before?”
It wasn’t something I thought about before saying it, it just suddenly came out of my mouth.
Our bodies, which had left not a space between, separated, and Amami looked at me with eyes that felt like it was peering into the depths of my heart.
I must be making an unsightly face.
The rustling of winter clothing sounded loud in my ears.
“Back to friends, who wouldn’t need to do markings and things like that.”
“Friends, huh?”
If it weren’t for our mutual interest in being “lovers”, we would have remained normal friends.
Laughing at things together for no reason, passing by the days leisurely.
If we continued like this, pretending as if we were more than just friends to each other—we would have to end it decisively one day.
The moment the word “friends” came out of my mouth, it felt like Amami’s expression fell.
In the blink of an eye, Amami’s usual smile was back on his face. It was a change so slight I thought I had been mistaken.
“Then, who else would you have asked for protection if not me?”
“P-Protection… Something like that—”
“—Is something you don’t need? But Karasawa, you’ve actually encountered danger before, and if your mom and dad knew about that incident with Hasegawa-sensei, they’d definitely be sad.”
Though Amami was smiling, his words hit right where it hurt. They would find everything out for sure.
If my parents knew about the incident with Hasegawa-sensei, the precarious balance in my family would shatter in an instant.
The fact that I was pretending to be a beta, and the problems that occurred because of it—my warm household wouldn’t be able to keep its “normality”.
“Hey, you seemed to be getting oddly worked up… I was just saying things, okay? I’m the alpha you’re closest to, so relying on me is natural. You can use me if you want.”
Amami’s tone, which usually felt gentle, felt more like the whisper of a devil.
“…Use…?”
“That’s right. You don’t need to think too hard about it. We’re just doing this for our mutual benefit.”
“Benefit? Then, your benefit from this is…?”
For some reason, a shiver ran through my core, and as I wondered about it, I looked up at Amami.
Even though words were clearly coming out of Amami’s pretty and smiling mouth, my ears couldn’t seem to pick up anything.
Even though we were in such close proximity.
Our upper bodies, which had previously separated, met again and I leaned my head on Amami’s chest.
Amami’s refreshing scent, which didn’t feel like it belonged to a male high schooler, embraced me. It was strange how relieved I was by it to the point where I felt weak all over.
I couldn’t figure out why I had thought Amami seemed scary at that time.
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