Paired With Fate

Chapter Three

Ichiro had mixed feelings for the man he once called 'dad'. Deep down at his core, that part of him that was an innocent child, who'd started life with the warm affections of two parents, still loved the man. Still wanted his praise and attention. Ichiro or rather Jason had been the first born and treated well despite his gender.  He did not know how his father felt upon learning that he was an Omega, perhaps the older man thought that this was fine, that his next child would be an Alpha.  Only that never happened...

Ichiro's eyes narrowed as he considered his two younger brothers now. "Have you got enough dinner money for tomorrow?"

"Ichiro, I'm a scholarship student now, my lunch meals are free," Jiro reminded him.

"And mine are on welfare!" Saburo piped in, without shame, as he flipped the frying eggs in the pan.  Ichiro winced as the drizzled oil spat in the hot pan; he wanted to take it away and shoo his little brother out of the kitchen... but then, who would cook breakfast?

"How about suppressants... do we have enough suppressants?" Ichiro suddenly thought, about to head to the tiny bathroom cabinet to check, but Jiro stopped him.

"I'm not due a heat for six weeks," he said, calmly and added; "and yours ended twenty days ago."

"And I don't have heats yet!" Saburo sang as he placed the eggs onto golden toasted bread, before placing the plates before the hungry older brothers.

"But they could start at anytime!" Ichiro said, worriedly.

"Saburo is thirteen," Jiro replied. If Ichiro was the emotional, overprotective one, then Jiro was the voice of reason. He kept their small family grounded. It was a heavy task for a seventeen year old, but the youth seemed to find no difficulties with the burden. "The average age an Omega Male starts their heat is sixteen, but usually no sooner than fifteen.  Both of us could be counted as being in the average range, Saburo will likely be the same."

"But I heard that there was this omega who had their first heat at twelve!" Ichiro pointed out.

"That was an Omega female," Jiro advised him.  "You know, the apartment won't fall down if you are not here for the night." At that moment, the drawer front for where the cutlery was stored fell off in Saburo's hand.  Thus was added the word; "Probably."

"I shouldn't go..." Ichiro fussed looking at his overnight bag sitting beside the living room door. It was just the money was so tempting...

Saburo placed the drawer front onto the side and carefully slide the plastic organiser out of the broken drawer so cutlery could be claimed.  "Then don't go," Saburo chipped in.  "I don't understand what is so interesting about rugby anyway.  When I go out with the girls, we usually go shopping or we go to Cece's place and bake brownies!"

Ichiro's jaw dropped and he pulled his little brother into his arms, sobbing dramatically;  "When did you get so big?  Who said you are allowed to date?  You have to be at least thirty... no thirty five before you bring home a girlfriend!"

"Dating?" Saburo squirmed in his brother's arms before pushing him away and sitting down before his breakfast.  "Who said anything about dating?  I'm talking about chilling out with my besties!  And besides, I like men!"  Ichiro froze, completely dumbfounded by the dropped statement.  Jiro said nothing just deftly slicing into his eggs on toast.

"There, there," Jiro attempted to offer rare comfort to his big brother as the man flopped down upon this seat, before placing his focus upon eating his breakfast. Unfortunately, his efforts felt rather flat.

*****

Ichiro was not a homophobic, he had no difficulties accepting that there were men out there that pursued men and women out there that pursued women.  He would even quite happily say that he found the latter idea hot!  However, it had been drummed into him since before he could remember that it was normal for a man to be with a woman when wanting a family.  That he should be with a woman when starting his own family.  Thus his eyes had only ever pursued women and men had never rated on his attractiveness index.