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Shouto is in the middle of the difficult decision between the turquoise baby overalls and the lilac ones when he’s suddenly and viciously kissed on both cheeks.
“Oh, finally,” Mitsuki-san says. “How far along are you?”
Shouto blinks. He gets the distinct impression that there’s been a misunderstanding.
“These are gifts for my sister,” he says. “I don’t... have an alpha?”
Mitsuki lets out a disappointed sigh. “Oh,” she says, like Shouto just told her it’s going to rain nonstop for a week straight. “I should have figured.”
Shouto blinks for the second time. “Um,” he says. “That I don’t have an alpha? Hero work is very demanding, I don’t really have the time for—”
“And yet,” Mitsuki says. “You’ve been living with one since you graduated U.A. I hear he likes making you dinner.”
It’s not an accusation, exactly. But Shouto still finds himself blushing bright red. “Bakugou is nice,” he says uselessly. “And he makes great soba.”
The déjà vu creeps up on him. He’s pretty sure he had this exact conversation with Momo two weeks ago. Is it that weird? Don’t alphas cook for their omega friends?
“Nice,” Mitsuki repeats. “Do you know how many people call my son nice, Shouto?”
And, okay, that one definitely feels like an accusation.
It doesn’t help that Mitsuki-san is an alpha. The omega in Shouto wants to make himself smaller. To nod and apologize, even if he knows, rationally, that he didn’t do anything wrong and she’s not mad at him.
She’s probably mad at Bakugou, if anything, even if Shouto can’t figure out why that would be right now.
“At least two?” he says. “The little girl next door thinks he’s very nice for showing her how to make things go boom.”
The corner of Mitsuki’s mouth twitches. “Damn brat,” she says, not entirely unkindly. “He’s always been bad at this stuff.”
“What stuff?” Shouto asks.
Mitsuki makes a gesture in his general direction. “You know,” she says. “Pretty omegas.”
Shouto finally remembers to put down the lilac overalls.
“I’m not—?” he starts.
He’s not entirely sure how to finish, though. Pretty? An omega? He is undebatably at least one of those things, it’s just—he never thought it mattered? To Bakugou?
It was nice, when they first moved in together. He could say his heat was coming up and leave his heating pad lying around and stash his heat aids under the shared bathroom sink, and Bakugou would only grunt in acknowledgment. Maybe, if he was in a good mood, he would throw a nod Shouto’s way.
But—
That was it.
Three years of living together, and Bakugou has never once said anything about Shouto’s heats without Shouto bringing them up first. Sure, he stocks up on the fancy Swiss chocolate every month like clockwork, and sometimes, when Shouto’s on the couch whining from the cramps even with a heating pad, he’ll sigh and pull him into his lap and warm up his hands with his quirk only to shove them right underneath Shouto’s shirt, but they don’t—
The aren’t—
Bakugou doesn’t want to get him pregnant, does he?
That’s silly.
Mitsuki-san would know if he did. And—and if she did know, she’d probably march up to him just to kiss him on both cheeks at the sight of Shouto holding baby clothes, because if they’ve been living together for three years, if they’re both young, and if they both like each other enough to keep doing it, that obviously means—
Oh—
Oh.
“Honey,” Mitsuki says. “Come on now, you’re such a smart boy.”
No, actually.
Shouto is a whole, entire idiot, and he’d like to crawl into a hole right now, thank you very much.
“I just thought,” he says helplessly, “I figured, you know? It’s comfortable. And we both work a lot, and neither of us likes to go out that much, and the cuddling on the couch is nice, and Bakugou is nice, at least—at least to me, even when he makes fun of my fluffy socks, and—”
And Shouto would like to expedite the crawling into a hole thing, actually. Bunnies are nice. He could have a nice burrow and bunny friends. That doesn’t sound so bad.
“He likes you,” Mitsuki says. “He likes all that stuff because he likes you.”
“I didn’t know,” Shouto says, even if it feels painfully redundant. “I just—I figured he grew up?”
Mitsuki laughs. And then she’s running a comforting hand through his hair. “He did grow up, honey,” she says. “And you helped him.”
Shouto mostly remembers Bakugou yelling at him about how he loaded the dishwasher, those first few months of living together. Is that growing up? Learning to co-exist and share a dishwasher?
(He does it the way Bakugou likes, now.)
“I’m not sure I did anything,” he says. “I make a lot of trouble for him. I hate killing spiders, so he has to trap them and take them outside. I think I cried, the first time I saw one in the apartment. And then Bakugou tried to kill it, and I yelled no so loud that the neighbors thought he was hurting me.”
“I remember that,” Mitsuki says. “He called me complaining about damn spoiled omegas.”
“See?” Shouto whines. “He doesn’t like me.”
“Oh, he likes you just fine,” Mitsuki says. “Would have moved out a thousand times by now if he didn’t. But instead he buys your favorite kind of strawberry milk.”
Momo mentioned the strawberry milk too.
Shouto feels so, so silly.
“It’s not an expensive brand or anything,” he says defensively. “I offer to pay him back.”
“Sweetheart,” says Mitsuki. “That’s not the point.”
And yeah, Shouto knows that, but in the light of recent revelations he’s not exactly sure how he’s supposed to go home and do anything besides bare his neck and say sorry and offer to let Bakugou bite him right on his mating gland?
“I’m horrible,” Shouto says. “I’m horrible and he should hate me. I don’t even wear scent patches before my heats.”
“Why should you?” Mitsuki says. “It’s your home.”
“But he’s an alpha,” Shouto says gravely. “And I’m a dumb omega. Mitsuki-san, have I been leading him on? Am I a slut?”
And, more importantly, does calling yourself that in front of your potential future mother-in-law immediately make it true?
God. Shouto likes Bakugou. Like—like likes him.
Mitsuki snorts. “Oh, baby,” he says. “It’s not your fault. Alphas are supposed to take the first step, you know. That’s how courting works.”
Courting, right.
Courting like Bakugou cooking for him and buying his strawberry milk and tugging Shouto into his lap to help with the heat cramps. Like that? And Shouto just—didn’t notice.
And Shouto was content to let it keep going forever and ever and never once wonder why a handsome, available, not entirely horrible to be around once you got past the foul mouth alpha like Bakugou never spent time with other omegas.
The thought makes something bitter curl under his tongue.
Bakugou should never look at any other omegas. None who aren’t—
“Um,” says Shouto. “Mitsuki-san? Do you think I should get another pair of these overalls? For, um, for later? They’re cute.”
Mitsuki pinches his cheek. “I think you should,” she says. “But that son of mine better mate you first. I’m not getting any younger, you know. Tell him to hurry up. I want to play with my grandkids before my bones give out on me.”
Shouto feels warm, all of a sudden.
He pictures it. A little girl with blonde hair, and Bakugou’s smile, just that little bit too self-assured, and Shouto would get to wake up on a Saturday and do her hair and then he could pout at Bakugou for letting her play in the mud right after.
And then Bakugou would tug him close and press a kiss to his forehead, and it would be okay, because little kids should get to play in the mud anyway.
But they should probably have more than one kid so she doesn’t get lonely.
And if they’re gonna do that—
“Mitsuki-san,” Shouto says. “I have to go home.”
...
[bakugou <33]
your mom says we have to get mated
i think the tax benefits are good?
what the hell, princess?
you okay?
do you need me to come get you?
...
(Bakugou, it turns out, doesn’t particularly care about the tax benefits.
But he does care about Shouto, so it's okay.)