Shiro Nakamura had felt truly loved by only one person in his life, and that was Kei. The boy with chestnut-colored hair, light brown eyes, and who always had a happy smile on his pink lips. A smile that got so bright whenever he saw Shiro.
No one ever expected that Kei would fall so hard for Shiro, but he did. They were only a few years old when Kei confessed, in a childish manner, that he would marry Shiro when they grew up. None of the adults took it seriously, but Kei never stopped confessing his love for his best friend.
When they were twelve years old, Shiro and Kei declared to their families that they were a couple. The adults were thrilled. Shiro's father and Kei's father were close friends since childhood, and the thought of the two families joining together made the men very happy. Shiro's mother was to Shiro's surprise, delighted. Still, he knew that the only reason she even cared was that she had never thought that Shiro would find a good man, being nothing but an omega.
The day the boys officially became a couple, Kei had asked Shiro to come over to his fancy house after school. The boys went to the same private school for the wealthier boys in Tokyo, and they even ended up in the same class.
Shiro hadn't suspected that something special would happen that day, because the boys usually spent every free second together. But when they got into Kei's room, a tidy room with few things, the taller boy was nervous about something.
"Why don't you sit on the bed?" Kei asked, his voice slightly shaking.
Shiro frowned but did as his best friend asked. So there, Shiro sat on the bed, still wearing his school uniform, and looked at Kei with confusion. Kei was standing at the edge of the bed and seemed stiff. He acted strangely, and he kept on dragging his hand through his thick, short hair. Something Kei always did when he was nervous, and Shiro sure noticed this.
"What's up with you, Kei?" Shiro asked, starting to feel anxious.
Kei sat down on the bed beside Shiro and looked directly into the omega's eyes while he took his hands in his.
"I love you!"
Shiro smiled at his friend; he was relieved. He had thought it was something serious.
"I love you too. You're my best friend."
But Kei shook his head, and in his eyes, Shiro saw something different, a determination he had never seen in the alpha before.
"You are my best friend too. But I love you more than just as a best friend!"
"More?"
Kei closed his eyes and took several deep breaths before he looked at the boy he loved more than anything.
"I want to kiss you, Shiro. I want to marry you and bond with you. I love you so much!"
Kei stared into Shiro's eyes, and the omega shivered under the heated gaze. The words were not shocking; neither did they scare or repulse Shiro. Instead, Kei's declaration brought him such comfort and joy that Shiro burst out crying. That startled the other boy, and Kei became unsure, not knowing what to do and tried to comfort Shiro by awkwardly patting the boy's shoulder. Then the omega suddenly pulled Kei close to him and pressed his lips to the other boy. Kei froze up but soon accepted the kiss, pulling him even closer. After nibbling at each other's lips for a little while, the boys parted, and they looked at each other. They had just shared their first kiss.
"You should know by now that I love you like that as well," Shiro said with a bright smile, blushing.
Kei put his hands on Shiro's shoulders. He was trembling. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. It seemed to be too good to be true.
"You do?"
"Yes, of course! I love you so very much. You are my everything."
Kei cheered and embraced his Shiro once again. The boys were laughing and kissing. This wasn't the start of the relationship between Kei and Shiro; their relationship had started when they were born. But this was the natural development between two people that genuinely belonged together.
Two years later, Shiro and Kei were once again in Keis bedroom. The boys were still madly in love, but something had begun to change within both of them. Kei and Shiro felt weird in the presence of each other. Suddenly the boys were self-conscience. They noticed every little change in their body when they slightly touched each other, or the other did a particular movement. Like when Kei pulled off his shirt, and his bare stomach showed, a rush of heat passed through Shiro's body. Or when Shiro tiredly leaned his head on Kei's shoulder, and Kei could feel a tingling in the pit of his stomach.
It was when Shiro first got his heat that the boys realized that their relationship was bound to take a new turn. After awkwardly telling their parents that Kei had gotten his first heat, Kei and Shiro were left alone at Kei's house for several days. Kei's parents fully supported their son's relationship with Shiro. Kei's parents were supporters of Omegas, and Kei's father had worked hard during his whole career to strengthen omegas rights in Japan.
The fourteen-year-old boys were left with plenty of food and time to be alone, to take their relationship one step further.
Shiro was never scared when his heat started for the first time; he was looking forward to it. But Kei was nervous. The alpha boy wanted to take care of his love, but suddenly he doubted himself. And he wasn't prepared for the effect Shiro's pheromones would have on him. Shiro was a very potent omega, almost equal to a Prime-Alpha, and his pheromones could lure any alpha into losing control over themself. Kei was helpless under the strong pheromones, and he went into his first rut.
Luckily a first heat or rut didn't last long, but for two days, the boys were having so much sex that they almost didn't eat anything. They fucked like crazy; they couldn't keep their hands off from each other at all. And when the heat subdued and the boys woke up in each other's arms, they looked at each other and smiled shyly with cute blushes on their cheeks.
"That was crazy," Shiro said, his face pressed against Kei's neck.
He was lying naked under the duvet, pressed against Kei's hot, sweaty body. Kei's arm was around Shiro's waist and his cheek against the wet black hair.
"I never knew it would be like this," Kei said with wonder in his voice.
"I heard stories about how it is during a heat, but wow!"
Shiro laughed and kissed Kei's neck; the spicy smell filled Shiro with comfort.
"I'm glad we had both condoms and the pills," Shiro said, and Kei blushed.
"But I really want kids with you someday," the omega added and glanced at his boyfriend.
On Kei's face, a bright smile formed, and he looked down at Shiro.
"Me too, I want to have children with you. But first, I want to marry you and bond with you."
Around the omegas neck was a black leather strap, to protect him from being bitten by the alpha. They wanted to wait, but Shiro had a lot of bite marks on the leather strap and other parts on his body. Kei had lost control. The only thing he wanted to do was to mark Shiro, to make him entirely his, but he didn't want to do it like that.
The boys were fourteen years old when they lost their virginities, and Shiro had released his first album. He was still shooting movies, but he had started to dislike it. That pissed Shiro's big brother Hayate off. He had been the one that had pushed Shiro to become an artist since he was a child, and Hayate didn't believe that Shiro had it in him to succeed as a singer instead.
But Kei was Shiro's supporter. While he was following his father's footsteps as an ambitious politician, Kei encouraged Shiro in his change of career. All he wanted was Shiro to be happy.
As soon as the boys turned eighteen, they got married. It was a small ceremony with only their family and closest friends. The boys were wearing black suits, white shirts, and grayish ties. Both of them looked dashing, blushing, and stealing cute glances of each other.
It was a lovely wedding at the end of January. The young men spent their wedding night in their new home, a three-bedroom house they had bought together in a suburb in Tokyo. It was the night that Shiro's heat started that month, and the newlyweds finally became a bonded pair. Both Shiro and Kei were affected by the pheromones, but when Kei bit Shiro in the neck and marked him, a feeling Shiro had never known before filled the young man. He became so hot, and pleasure rushed through his body, making him come at with a loud moan. Everywhere Kei touched felt so incredibly good, and Shiro thought he was losing his mind.
When it was Shiro's turn to bite Kei, he was weak from the amount of orgasm he had experienced, but Shiro managed to mark his beloved. An alpha often refused to let himself get marked, even though he loved his omega. Still, Kei wanted nothing more than to belong to his Shiro truly. Most alphas saw that the act of being marked as weakening because their pheromones decreased, and they became less dominant toward anyone else but their omega. Kei never cared about being dominant towards anybody.
When Shiro bit Kei in the neck, a shiver went through the boy, and he got weak, collapsing back into Shiro's chest. The smaller boy, totally exhausted as well, tried to hold up his beloved, but they both fell on the bed, and within seconds, they were knocked out. So very tired, but beyond happy, they slept for hours.
Ten months later, Shiro and Kei became parents, only eighteen years old. The pregnancy had been rather easy for Shiro, without any complication. At the hospital, Ikumi was delivered through a c-section, and both Kei and Shiro instantly fell in love with the little girl. Her hair was black as Shiro's, but her eyes were the same as Kei's. A tiny little thing with the cutest button nose.
Ikumi was a quiet child who had the softest, gentlest cry. And she rarely cried all she did was observe everyone around her with her big eyes full of curiosity. Little Ikumi seemed perfectly content, and still, as an eight-year-old, she was glad most of the time. The small family was truly happy for many years. Kei was a loving husband and father, always there for them with encouragement and laughs. Shiro could watch his husband play with their child for hours; the father and daughter seemed to be in their little world when they played together.
No one ever expected Kei to get sick because he was always healthy, a strong young man that had never been seriously sick a day in his life. But it all began when his lower back started to hurt, and the pain never went away. First, Kei thought it was the bed and that he had to change the madras, but then after a few months, he suddenly started to vomit blood. The doctor told them that it was cancer, testicular cancer that had spread to the stomach, and the lungs. At once, they started chemotherapy, and it seemed to be working. Kei and Shiro were shocked and so very scared, but they were also determined to fight the cancer with all their might.
Shiro and Ikumi spent every day with Kei in the hospital, keeping him company while the drug flowed into his body, fighting off the rapidly spreading cancer cells. The days after the treatment in the hospital, when Kei was so sick and weak that he could barely stand on his feet, Shiro nursed him while Ikumi stayed at her grandparents. When Kei finally was starting to feel better, it was once again time to go back to the hospital and to start it all over.
Two months after the cancer was discovered, the doctors removed one of Kei's testicles, the one with the little tumor. The tumor was so small that two doctors had missed it when they first examined him. Kei started to lose his hair, but he never lost his fighting spirit. Kei was a warrior; he had so much to fight for, he said. And after four months, the doctors decided to remove the tumors in Kei's stomach. There were two, big as oranges, and the operation left a long scar from his chest to his lower abdomen.
After that, for a few months, it seemed like they were going to beat the cancer. It was all gone, except some small harmless ones in the lungs, but the doctors decided that Kei was done with chemotherapy. The little family started to recover slowly; laughs were ones again heard in their three-bedroom house.
But after six months, the tests showed that the tumors in the lungs had grown again. They were aggressive and spreading throughout Kei's body. And one year after the first diagnosis, the doctors told Kei and Shiro that there wasn't anything they could do. The body couldn't fight the sickness anymore.
Shiro was on the verge of breaking apart, but he never did, and neither did Kei. But as depressed, sad, and angry as Shiro was, Kei was as calm as always. And that made Shiro frustrated. He knew Kei better than anyone, he knew that Kei was devastated, but to see him act like everything was okay made Shiro angry and sad. Kei only said that he wanted everyone to remember him like that, energetic and happy. But for Shiro, it was even more heartbreaking. He knew that everything was coming to an end, and he hated that Kei pretended like nothing. Kei was just a shadow of the strong, carefree man he used to be.
Then Kei suddenly started to talk to his husband about Shiro finding love again once Kei was gone. That Shiro had to forget about him and move on. Shiro couldn't believe it. He was about to lose the love of his life. The man that he had experienced all his first with. The father of his child. And now everything Kei talked about was that Shiro had to move on.
Shiro responded with anger because he was scared. After all, he was so devastated that it threatened to break him apart. And when Kei secretly injected them both with that drug that made their bond go away, Shiro felt so unbelievably hollow. Like he was empty of all joy and meaning. His one and only had tossed him aside, like a piece of trash. But Kei was convinced that he had done the right thing, that he had saved Shiro from a life of loneliness and grief. Still, Kei never could have imagined how much the removal of the bond would affect Shiro. He saw his love lose all his light in one single night. Even at the hospice, Kei begged Shiro to forgive him. He was full of sedatives and was more unconscious than he was awake. But for Kei, only Shiro's happiness mattered now.
Shiro did forgive, of course, he did, but Kei never again saw his beloved smile at him. Kei drew his final breath, full of palliative sedation in the arms of his crying beloved. And Shiro finally broke apart.
It took years for Shiro to be able to smile again, and it was all thanks to Ikumi and Deion that he could find any joy in living at all. But the hole Kei left within Shiro seemed never to heal. Some days he missed Kei so much his body hurt, and it felt like he was pulled down into a pit of despair, and on those days, Shiro thought that nothing would ever get better.
But the scent of sandalwood and cedar, and encouraging words from a smiling red-hair changed everything inside om Shiro, and the hole slowly began to heal.