Chapter Text
Handa has always been stronger and faster than the humans around him. When he was around five he broke another boy’s arm when he shoved him to the ground. When he was seven, he got into a fight and bit the other kid so hard that she needed to go to the emergency room for stitches. When he was nine, he punched one of his classmates so hard that their nose broke while the poor kid’s weak pummels had barely left a bruise on him. His mother told him that he needed to be gentle around the other children, even if they were mean to him.
“Humans are so fragile,” she told him, stroking his hair as she cradled him against her chest. “They’re slower than us, weaker than us. And they bleed so easily.”
So Handa drew into himself, pulled his punches and slowed his gait. He fell into his studies instead, much to his parents' delight, and hid in the shadows in the back of his classrooms, making himself small and unseen. He barely spoke except to his teachers and even though he hated most of his subjects, he surpassed his peers with ease and was transitioned into honors classes.
His classmates and teachers always thought he was going to be an omega. His parents kept telling them that they were wrong, knowing the power and ferocity bubbling just beneath the surface of Handa’s skin, waiting for the moment when they would finally boil over.
Then he met Ronaldo.
He was boisterous and confident and people were drawn to him like moths to a lantern. His blue eyes shone brightly and Handa watched, transfixed, from his corner of the classroom by the window. There was something about him that set Handa’s nerves on fire, triggering something deep inside his chest. The dam that Handa had been maintaining for years finally broke and all the rage and strength building inside him spilled over.
He presented as an alpha the next week. And the week after that, when Handa arrived back at school with his head held high and his amber eyes flashing with a confidence he hadn’t felt in a long time, Ronaldo walked over and introduced himself.
Handa’s stomach twisted and he felt his fangs grow, pressing into his bottom lip. He pushed Ronaldo away, but the more he pushed, the more Ronaldo pulled and Handa found himself in a reluctant friendship.
As he learned more about Ronaldo, he came to the conclusion that Ronaldo would never be an alpha. He was weak, with soft skin that bruised easily and blue eyes that were quick to tears. Sure, he could stand his ground in a fight and give back as good as he got in their frequent shouting matches, but Handa always assumed he’d be a beta.
He can still remember the funny tightness in his stomach the first day Ronaldo walked into class after winter break. The scent of smoke and pine poured off him and he smiled to himself as his classmates perked up. Eyes followed him across the room as he took his usual spot beside Handa.
“Guess you were wrong about me being an omega,” Ronaldo quipped. His blue eyes glowed with a mixture of pride and mirth.
Handa never really thought Ronaldo was going to be an omega, although he’d told him a hundred times he wouldn’t be surprised if he presented as one. Ronaldo was too confident, too intense. Too much of a pain in Handa’s ass.
Handa sneered and tried not to look like he was soaking in Ronaldo’s scent. It somehow filled him with warmth and set him on edge at the same time, but Handa was damned if he moved seats because of Ronaldo. He held his ground.
“It’s too bad. All the omegas are going to be disappointed that you’re such a lame piece of shit.”
“Well at least I’m not a fanboy who fills his room with Hatsume Miku posters.”
“Hatusme Miku is cool! You just wouldn’t know culture if it hit you in the face.”
He can smell the scent of pine lingering in the air as he walks through Ronaldo and Draluc’s front door, announcing himself with a gruff “Yo.” He mostly comes by to play video games with Draluc and torment Ronaldo, although he doesn’t seem to be in the room at the moment.
Draluc and John scoot over to allow Handa to plop down beside them. “Where’s that shit-for-brains hunter?” he asks, accepting the controller offered to him.
Draluc doesn’t bother to hide his knowing smirk. It’s very obvious that the reason Handa keeps coming over – other than the fact that Draluc himself is such a cool and fun beta – is because he’s inexplicably drawn to Ronaldo. For a while, Draluc believed Handa really did just enjoy making Ronaldo’s life a living hell for the fun of it, but then he went by Handa’s place and realized Handa’s pull towards Ronaldo was more like an obsession.
He went over one day when he was locked out of his apartment because Ronaldo knocked the welcome sign off the door. Fortunately, Handa was nearby and let Draluc come over to hang out until Ronaldo got over himself and fixed the sign. Draluc didn’t know what he expected to see in Handa’s room, but it certainly wasn’t what he found. He’d sanded as soon as he walked through the doorway, so shocked by the sight of it that he was afraid he’d had a heart attack and died for real. The entire room was covered in Ronaldo merchandise, from the painting covering an entire wall, – did Handa have that commissioned? – to the collection of plushies and the hundreds of posters decorating the walls.
He was in awe at the sheer stupidity of it. How Handa never realized the extent of his obsession is beyond him.
It does make some sense, Draluc thinks to himself. Relationships between two people of the same secondary gender are rare and stigmatized. It doesn’t feel like very long ago that couples were dragged out into the streets and beaten, sometimes to death. And although Handa’s mom is also a vampire and likely doesn’t care much about that kind of thing, Draluc has never met his father. Even if they were both supportive, it makes sense that Handa would worry about how the rest of society, especially his coworkers, would react.
Still, Draluc wonders how he’s so good at lying to himself when he’s so bad at lying to everyone else.
Maybe he’s just stupid .
“He’s at the grocery store,” Draluc replies as he navigates through the menu screen until the character selection pops up. “I do the cooking and cleaning, so he does the shopping. He should be back in a few minutes.” Draluc is pretty sure the real reason Ronaldo likes to go shopping by himself is so he can pick up adult videos, but Draluc is a good roommate so he doesn’t comment on it.
Handa groans dramatically. “Tell him to give us more time. I don’t want to deal with that asshole right now.”
Draluc chuckles. “He’ll probably just go hang out in his office and work for a while. You can eat dinner with us if you want, though.”
Handa scoffs. “Why the hell would I want to eat dinner with that piece of shit? He’ll just sit there and make stupid ass comments about how cool he is or whatever. I wish he’d just crawl into a hole and die.”
Draluc shares a look with John but doesn’t call Handa out on his bullshit. “Right. Well, the offer still stands. I’m making udon.”
Handa presses his lips together and looks down at the controller in his hands, picking at it. “I’ll think about it.”
They play video games for a while and argue about nonsense until Ronaldo gets back with the groceries. They’re in the middle of a fight when Ronaldo walks in, sagging beneath the weight of the bags of groceries in his arms. The noise causes Handa to turn towards him and lose the game. Draluc’s character wipes him out with just a few more punches.
Handa swears and slams the controller down on the table. Draluc shouts in protest and John lets out a startled “nuu!”
“Good job, asshole. You made me lose the fucking game.”
Ronaldo doesn’t even bother looking at them, just walks straight into the kitchen. “You were going to lose anyway. No one ever beats Draluc.”
Handa grits his teeth and stands up, his hands balling into fists at his sides. How dare Ronaldo talk to him like that? Like he’s weak. Like he’s insignificant.
He clicks his tongue as he watches Ronaldo start to pull out the groceries and put them away. He walks over and glares at him, leaning so far forward that it forces Ronaldo to take a step back so their foreheads don’t crack together.
“Don’t put these away, dumbass. Draluc is using them to cook dinner. They need to stay thawed or else it’ll take longer and I’m hungry.”
“Oh. Right.” He starts to put up the other groceries, but Handa snatches the bags away from him.
“Just get out of here. We don’t want you in here any longer than you need to be, gorilla.”
“Hey! Draluc, are you teaching Handa new insults?”
Draluc laughs, his eyes glued to the screen where he’s started another round by himself. “Not on purpose.”
Tears well up in Ronaldo’s eyes and Handa’s heart flutters painfully at the sight. “Well, fuck you guys.” He sniffles and turns away, leaving Handa to handle the groceries. “I’ll go hang out in my office. Since I’m obviously not wanted here.” The door slams behind him.
Draluc finishes his round and then pauses the game so he can check the groceries. He starts to pull out the pots and utensils when he looks back over to where Handa has laid out all the vegetables for him. He pauses, thoughtful. “It looks like Ronaldo forgot the celery.” He gives Handa a wicked smile, who returns it immediately. “I’ll go back to the store. You keep him distracted in his office until then. Got it?” He winks.
“Of course.”
Handa watches Draluc pick up John and head out the door, leaving him alone with Ronaldo. He can still hear him sniffling on the other side of the door and Handa feels that fluttering in his chest again. He feels this way a lot around Ronaldo, and it pisses him off.
He walks over and raps on the door a few times, tapping his foot impatiently. After a few moments of no answer, he turns the knob and finds it locked. “Goddammit,” he grumbles, knocking again. “Open the fucking door.”
He hears shuffling on the other side and the tap of boots on tile. Then the locks click and the door swings open, revealing Ronaldo with his bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks. Handa feels a twinge of guilt and his protective instincts tickle at the back of his head, confusing Ronaldo’s patheticness with an omega’s distress. He bites back the apology forming at the back of his throat.
“What do you want?” Ronaldo asks.
Handa knows he’s a shitty liar, but he can’t come right out and admit that he’s trying to distract Ronaldo while Draluc runs back to the store. Still, it surprises him that his voice doesn’t waiver when he says “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Ronaldo’s eyes widen and he opens the door a little wider, stands a little straighter. “You did?”
Handa scowls. “Yeah, because I’m actually a decent person, unlike you. I’m trying to show you how a real alpha behaves. Take notes.” He pushes Ronaldo aside and walks into his office, taking in the lack of decor. His walls are weirdly barren and his bookshelf contains nothing other than books on hunting vampires. It feels bleached, unlived in. Handa can barely detect any hint of Ronaldo’s life here.
His eyes catch on the collection of picture frames on Ronaldo’s desk. There’s one of Ronaldo and Draluc, who is grinning with John nestled in his hair. Ronaldo is putting his hands up to shield his face, but the photo still captures his scowl, his mouth open in a shout while Draluc ignores him.
There’s another picture of John by himself, waving at the camera. One of Ronaldo holding his first book, smiling at the camera with his eyes cast down and a hand scratching the back of his head. And two more of Ronaldo with his clients, his chest puffed out and his lips spread in a triumphant grin. Handa remembers being there for one of these and notices that he’s in the background, turned away with his arms crossed.
Finally, his eyes land on a picture of himself, Ronaldo, and Kameya in their high school uniforms. Ronaldo and Kameya are smiling brightly. Handa himself isn’t smiling, too busy scowling at Ronaldo, who has locked their elbows together and pulled him into the frame of the picture. He’s surprised Ronaldo even took the time to print and frame this picture. It’s been a decade since high school, and Ronaldo still has it tucked away in his office, nestled among his other important memories.
Ronaldo wanders over and follows Handa’s gaze. He smiles and picks up the frame, holding it out so they can both see. Ronaldo’s fingers make no marks as Handa had expected. There’s no dust on it at all, and although Handa realistically knows that Draluc probably cleans it, there’s a tiny spark of hope in the back of his mind that Ronaldo looks at it a lot.
“You remember when we took this?” Ronaldo asks. “We had some good times together in high school. None of us were very popular, so sometimes it felt like just us against the world.” He swipes his thumb over the frame as his brow pinches. He bites down on his lip and puts the photo back in its spot on his desk. “I always thought we were friends, you know? I guess you didn’t see it that way, but I always enjoyed your company, even though you would complain about me all the time.”
Handa doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he stays quiet, letting Ronaldo’s voice fill the silence instead.
“Until recently I was still holding out hope that you don’t mean the things you say to me. That you don’t actually hate me.” He turns to sit on the edge of the desk and scratches absently at the wood. “Wishful thinking.”
Handa flushes and looks away. “God, you’re such a piece of shit. You set me on edge like nothing else does. Probably because you’re a pathetic human being and a useless hunter, and you can’t cook or clean to save your life. If Draluc wasn’t here to take care of the place, you’d be swimming in garbage and five seconds away from a blood clot. But… I don’t hate you.”
Now that he’s thinking about it, Handa never hated him. If he’s honest with himself, what he really hates is the way that Ronaldo makes him feel. The scent of Ronaldo assaults his senses, setting his nerves on fire and causing every muscle in his body to tense up. Being around Ronaldo makes him possessive and unstable and he hates feeling like he’s never really able to find his footing in the tightrope of their relationship, like if Ronaldo touches him he’ll fall right off the edge.
“That’s not a great apology,” Ronaldo grumbles.
Handa’s head whips back around. “Because it’s not a fucking apology, you entitled piece of shit. You should apologize to me for making my life inconvenient.”
“How the hell do I make your life inconvenient?”
“Talking to you is exhausting because you have no social skills and exist to piss me off. You’re always here when I want to hang out with Draluc and you did something to my mom to make her obsessed with you.”
“As I’ve said before, I never tried anything with your mom. And I live here! Of course I’m going to be around. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.”
Handa grits his teeth and shoves Ronaldo so he nearly topples backward. “I should kick your ass for talking to me like that.”
Ronaldo scoffs and pushes himself to his feet so he can glare right into Handa’s eyes, not daring to back down from a challenge. “I’d love to see you try it.”
Handa takes another half-step forward, feeling the muscles in his back tense as he prepares for a fight. He’s fought Ronaldo a few times before and it’s a toss-up between who wins. One time Ronaldo punched him so hard that his nose broke and Handa hadn’t been able to do any sports for eight weeks until it was fully healed. “You’re gonna regret challenging me. I’ll tear you apart.”
“Fucking try it then, coward.”
Their chests are touching now as Handa glares at him, breathing heavily. He feels dizzy from the scent of vetiver pouring off Ronaldo now and although he tries not to, Handa can’t stop himself from breathing in huge gulps of the pheromones. He curls his trembling hands into fists by his sides.
It’s Ronaldo who leans in first. Handa has a brief moment of panic before their lips touch and Ronaldo turns his head, letting his eyes fall shut.
Handa sucks in a breath. His arms jerk up with his palms flat against Ronaldo’s chest as though he’s going to push him away, but he’s in too much shock to actually find the strength to do it.
Ronaldo pulls away on his own after a moment, looking breathless and terrified. His eyes dart between Handa’s as his face pales. “Oh my God, Handa. I’m so sorry, I thought– well, I don’t know what I thought. I just did it before I could even think about what I was doing. I’m really stupid. You can hit me if you want.”
Handa’s entire body is shaking so bad he thinks he’s going to spontaneously combust. He realizes with an intensity that nearly knocks him off his feet that he likes this. He liked kissing Ronaldo, even if he was frozen on the spot. He wants to reach out and pull Ronaldo against him, hold him, press him up against the desk and kiss the air from his lungs.
He swallows thickly and opens his mouth to reply – although he has no idea what he’s even going to say – when the front door slams open. “I bought the celery!” Draluc announces and John makes a happy little noise at his feet. Handa and Ronaldo jump apart and try their best to not look like they were doing… whatever they were just doing.
Then Draluc’s words register in Ronaldo’s mind and he roars, marching out into the kitchen. “What the fuck? You went back to the store?” He swipes at Draluc, who manages to dodge him and run to the other side of the room, clutching the bag of celery to his chest.
“Leave me alone, gorilla! Handa and I both love celery. I’ll leave it out of yours, I swear.”
“Yeah right! Come back here so I can beat your ass.”
Handa watches them squabble, feeling like he’s watching them through a fishbowl. Usually, he would join in and grab Ronaldo, maybe hold him down while Draluc shovels celery into his mouth. But right now, all he wants to do is go home and sleep until this day dissolves into a dream.
Draluc and Ronaldo must have noticed the change in his usual demeanor because they both stop fighting for a moment to look at him. Draluc straightens from his defensive position. “Handa? Are you alright?”
Handa doesn’t meet Ronaldo’s eyes, but he can feel his gaze burn into him. “I have to go,” he says abruptly, turning towards the window of Ronaldo’s office and pulling it open.”
“What?” Draluc shouts, rushing after him with John and Ronaldo close behind. “Where are you going?”
“I need to go… wash my computer.” He cringes but doesn’t give himself time to look at their faces before he jumps out the window and into the cool night air.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Draluc yells after him.