Suguru Geto didn’t often pay much attention to the intricacies of Alpha and Omega dynamics. As a Beta, it was a world he was happily removed from—no ruts, no heats, no overbearing instincts clouding his decisions. Yet lately, he found himself caught in its orbit, tethered there by you.

Suguru wasn’t sure when it started, this strange awareness of you. Perhaps it was the first time he noticed how exhausted you looked after fending off yet another overzealous Alpha who didn’t know the meaning of boundaries. Or maybe it was the way you brushed off the weight of expectations that came with being an Omega. Either way, you had slipped under his skin.

He hated the way some Alphas treated you, as if your worth was tied to your secondary gender. He wanted to shield you from it. But what could he do? He was just a Beta. Still, he tried.

That’s what made it so hard to see Satoru, his best friend, start gravitating toward you.

Satoru was everything Suguru wasn’t: loud, confident, a natural-born Alpha. And lately, he seemed to be paying a lot more attention to you. Suguru tried to tell himself it was harmless—Satoru flirted with everyone. But the way Satoru’s gaze softened when it landed on you set something uneasy alight in Suguru’s chest.

He wanted to be the one who stood by your side, not because of some biological pull but because he chose you, and you chose him. But could a Beta and an Omega even work? Suguru had never heard of it happening.

It was later that evening, in the quiet of his dorm room, when he let the words slip out. You were sitting beside him, close but not too close, your attention flicking between the CD case in his hands and the music playing softly in the background.

“I’ve noticed you and Satoru have been spending a lot of time together,” he said, the words careful and deliberate. He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, gauging your reaction. “I guess it makes sense. I just hope he’s not making things harder for you.”