Naoko/ omega

The village lay in a valley, hemmed in on two sides by rice paddies and on the third by a forest where children were forbidden to go. In the rainy season the roads turned to mud so thick that wagons couldn’t pass for weeks, and then the village simmered in its own juices: in the smells of wet straw, chicken droppings, and sour dough. Everybody here knew everybody. They knew how much rice was in whose storehouse, whose daughter had stayed unmarried too long, whose son drank too much. And everybody knew Naoko’s family.

The family was large and strong — seven children, all alphas, except for one.

When the midwife delivered the baby and saw that it was an omega, she went silent. She didn’t cry out with joy, she didn’t laugh. She simply fell silent, and that silence was worse than any scream. The mother, still damp with sweat, raised herself on her elbows and asked, "What is it?" The midwife didn’t answer right away. Then she said, "A boy. An omega" And she laid the child on the mat as if she was afraid of getting dirty.

The father did not enter the room. He stood behind the shōji and listened. When he heard the word "omega," he turned around and went out into the yard. He sat on his heels by the shed until evening, smoking his pipe and staring at the field the field that now had no one to pass it on to. Not to this one, anyway.

Neighbours came to look at the newborn. They looked, shook their heads, said, "Poor things," and left, leaving behind an awkwardness that settled in the house like dust.

At first the parents thought of giving the child up. To take it to the forest, to leave it at the temple, to give it into service to anyone at all — just so they wouldn’t have to see this disgrace every day at the dinner table. But after thinking through the night, the father said to his wife:

"The neighbours already know. If we cast him off, rumours will start. They’ll say we threw away a child. And we have other children. They still have to marry. The shame will fall on the whole family."

The mother silently nodded. She rarely argued with her husband anyway. And so they kept the child.

They named him Naoko. The mother chose the name without much thought: "obedient child." Because that was all they expected from him.

Naoko grew up quiet. He hardly cried as a baby either he understood that his crying wasn’t wanted, or he simply didn’t have the strength. He was fed on leftovers: after the older brothers and sisters had eaten their fill, the bowl with whatever remained was silently pushed toward him. Sometimes it was a handful of rice. Sometimes a couple of slices of pickled radish. Sometimes nothing at all.

By the age of five he already understood that he was different from the other children in the family. The brothers were loud and sturdy; they went to the fields with their father, came back sweaty and loud, ate a lot, laughed, fought, grew. The sisters, also alphas, worked alongside the brothers, and no one told them that their place was only by the hearth. But Naoko stayed at home with his mother. He washed the floors, sorted the rice, cleaned the vegetables, hung out the laundry.

When he asked for the first time why he couldn’t go to the fields, his mother answered:

"Because you’re an omega. Your business is the house. Don’t disgrace yourself."

And he never asked again.

His father barely spoke to him. He didn’t look him in the eye. If Naoko crossed his path, his father simply stepped around him, the way you step around a puddle. That was even worse than his mother’s shouting it was as if Naoko didn’t exist.

At seven years old, Naoko was put into a corset for the first time. His mother called him into the bedroom, told him to strip to the waist, and took from a chest a long strip of thick cloth, still yellowish with age, with worn edges.

"Stand still," she said.

The cloth lay cold and tight against his ribs. She pulled it taut with sharp movements, paying no attention to Naoko’s flinches.

"Breathe," she said, but she herself pulled so hard there was nothing to breathe with.

"Why?" Naoko asked when she tied the knot at his back.

"So you don’t grow like a weed," she answered. "An omega must be slender. Who would want you if you turned into a barrel?"

From then on, the corset became his second skin. It wasn’t taken off even at night his mother said that the body grew faster at night, so it had to be watched all the more strictly. If Naoko loosened the knot by even a finger’s width, his mother noticed at once somehow, as if she could smell it. And then he got a smack on the back of the head and stood there, teeth clenched, while she tightened it again.

Out in the fields, his brothers and sisters were working. None of them wore corsets. When Naoko turned eight, he tried to make friends with the village boys. They were playing by the river: throwing flat stones, competing to see whose would skip the most times, shouting something about samurai and battles. Naoko approached them, stood a little way off, hesitated for a long time, then asked if he could join them.

The boys looked at one another. The eldest, the miller’s son, spat into the grass and answered:

"An omega? With us? Go home, you’ll get sick."

The others laughed. Not cruelly, more in surprise — the way you laugh at something that doesn’t fit. Naoko didn’t understand the joke, but he felt that they were laughing at him, and he left. He never approached the boys again.

The girls, however, accepted him. They would sit on the veranda at his friend Yuki’s house, sorting herbs for tea or just chatting, and when Naoko first came up to them, Yuki shifted to make room on the boards and said:

"Sit down. Want me to show you how to draw with a brush?"

And so he found his friends. Yuki, Haru, little Mie — they became his only refuge. With them he could laugh without being afraid that his laughter would be taken for insolence. With them he could talk about anything: about how strange the clouds were today, about the neighbour’s chicken that had run away again, about how Haru’s older sister had got married and left for the city. The girls gossiped, shared secrets, showed each other how to draw with ink, and for the first time in his life Naoko felt that he wasn’t merely tolerated — he was welcome.

Sometimes they helped him with his housework. If Naoko hadn’t managed to weed the garden, the girls would come and silently pick up the hoes so that he wouldn’t catch trouble from his mother. If he didn’t know how to wash a stain out of his father’s kimono, Yuki would show him. They asked for nothing in return — they were simply there.

The village had one school: a long, low building with a leaking roof, where an old teacher taught the children reading, writing, and arithmetic. All the children in Naoko’s family went there. All except him.

The first time he asked his father if he could go too, he was nine. His father was sitting at the dinner table, eating rice. He didn’t raise his head. He simply said:

"An omega mustn’t be clever. A clever omega is a misfortune for his husband. Stay home."

And that was it. The brothers glanced at one another, but no one spoke up for him. The mother silently put more fish on the father’s plate. Naoko left the table and stood for a long time behind the house, looking at the path the other children took to school.

It was the girls who secretly taught him to read. One day, as they sat on Yuki’s veranda, Haru pulled out a worn little book and asked:

"Do you want me to show you the letters?"

Naoko froze.

"I’m not allowed."

"We won’t tell anyone," said Yuki, moving closer.

So began his secret lessons. He learned the alphabet slowly, with difficulty, mixing up the characters, forgetting the readings, but the girls didn’t laugh. They patiently repeated the syllables with him, guided his finger along the lines, and one day he read his first word on his own. "Flower." He read it again and again, until the line blurred before his eyes with tears.

From then on, books became his treasure. The girls brought him whatever they could: old scrolls from the market, collections of poems that Haru’s older sister lent them, and even a book of fairy tales with pictures. Naoko read syllable by syllable, moving his lips, often not understanding the meaning, but the process itself — putting characters into words and words into sentences — felt like a miracle.

He hid the books under the mat in his room. If his mother had found them, the beating would have been terrible. But she never did.

---

At thirteen, he fell in love for the first time.

The boy was named Kenji. He was the headman’s son, two years older than Naoko, and in the village he was considered handsome: tall, with broad shoulders and a loud voice that could be heard across the whole street. Naoko didn’t know exactly why he had fallen for him. Maybe for the way he laughed, throwing his head back. Maybe because he had once picked up an old woman’s fallen basket and walked on without waiting for thanks. Maybe simply because at thirteen the heart is foolish and looks for something to lean against.

He couldn’t bring himself to confess for a long time. He carried the feeling around for a month like a splinter: it hurt, but pulling it out was terrifying. At last he chose a moment — a warm evening, when there was almost no one outside. He came up to Kenji by the well, stared at the ground, and said quietly:

"I like you. A lot."

Kenji looked down at him. In silence. Then he smirked not cheerfully, but crookedly, as if he had swallowed something sour.

"What’s wrong with you?" he asked. "An omega confessing to an alpha? How shameful."

Naoko stood there, unable to move.

"Get out of here," Kenji said, and left.

And the next day a rumour spread through the village. Kenji told his friends that Naoko had offered himself, that he had tried to drag him behind the shed, that he had said indecent things. The rumour grew like a weed: within a day the whole village knew. Naoko walked down the street and felt the looks on him — some disgusted, some curious. The old women at the well whispered to one another, covering their mouths with their hands.

In the evening his mother met him at the door. Her face was as white as rice paper.

"Is it true?" she asked.

"No, I only told him I liked him, I didn’t do anything —"

She slapped him across the face. Not very hard, but so unexpectedly that he swayed and hit his shoulder against the doorframe.

"Whore," his mother said. Her voice was calm, almost matter-of-fact. "You’ve disgraced us before the whole village."

She grabbed him by the hair and dragged him inside. His father was already waiting there. He didn’t ask any questions. He simply stood, holding a switch,a long, flexible one that still smelled of sap. Naoko tried to say something, to explain, but his father turned him to face the wall and began to beat him.

He screamed. Loudly at first, then quieter, then he no longer screamed, only sobbed. His brothers stood in the doorway and watched. One of them smirked. His sister was silent, but she didn’t look away. His mother sat by the hearth with her back turned, stirring the soup.

When it was over, Naoko couldn’t sit down for three days. He lay in his room on his stomach, his face pressed into the mat, and wept soundlessly so that no one would hear. After that, the whole family looked at him differently. Not as an omega, worse. Like dirt under their feet.

Only the girls didn’t turn away. Yuki came the very next day, sat down beside his mat, and said:

"We knew right away it was a lie. Kenji’s a fool and a braggart, everyone knows that."

Haru brought ointment for the bruises. Mie brought a rice cake, stolen from her kitchen. They sat around him, talked about little nothings, stroked his head, and Naoko wept again, this time from gratitude. That day he understood, once and for all: his real family wasn’t the one on the other side of the door. It was the ones sitting beside him now.

---

By the time he was fifteen, the talk in the family began to change. Before, they had simply ignored him; now they began to prepare him for a future, the future they had chosen for him.

His mother inspected him with increasing fault-finding: she made him turn around, lift his arms, pull in his stomach.

"The hips are too narrow," she would say, shaking her head. "Childbirth will be hard. And his figure is like a board. Whoever heard of an omega without any curves?"

Sometimes she made him strip to the waist and looked at his stomach for a long time. There, low down, was a tiny roll of flesh, natural, soft, barely noticeable. His mother would poke it with her finger and say:

"There. That. See? Fat. No one wants that. Who would marry you with a body like that?"

Naoko stood with his eyes lowered and said nothing. He was used to it.

"Your job," his mother would say over dinner, "is to keep the house clean and bear children. You’re good for nothing else. So pray that some fool agrees to take you."

His father said nothing, his face buried in his bowl. He never argued with his wife about such things.

At sixteen, at the dinner table, the same table where no one ever laughed, his father addressed him directly for the first time in a long while. He set down his bowl, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and said:

"If no one’s come to ask for you by the time you’re twenty-three, we’ll sell you to a brothel. At least we’ll earn a bit of money. Some use."

His mother nodded without even raising her head from her food.

Naoko froze with his chopsticks in midair. A brothel. The word was filthy and terrifying, like an illness. He knew what it meant, the village men sometimes went to the city and came back drunk, with jokes that made Naoko’s ears burn. That was now meant to be his future. If no one came. If no one wanted him.

He set down his chopsticks and left the table. No one called after him.

By eighteen, his friends and the other young people his age were already being asked for. Yuki married a carpenter’s son from the next village and moved away,before she left, she hugged Naoko for a long time and whispered,;"I’ll write to you, I promise." Haru, too, found a fiancé and was preparing for her wedding. Even Naoko’s brothers, one after another, brought brides into the house.

But no one came for Naoko.

His parents waited a year. Then another half. Then, when he was eighteen and a half, his father said:

"Enough waiting. We’ll sell him now. Why feed an extra mouth?"

His mother agreed. And so one morning they harnessed the cart, told Naoko to get in, and took him to the city.

He cried the whole way. The tears streamed down his face; he didn’t wipe them away — he didn’t have the strength even to lift his hand. He begged:

"Wait. Please. Just a little longer. Maybe someone will come. Maybe I can find work. I’ll give you the money. I’ll eat even less. Please."

His father drove the horse in silence. His mother sat beside him, straight as a stick, staring ahead.

"Please," Naoko whispered, "please, please..."

They didn’t answer.

The city met them with noise and filth. The streets here were narrower, the houses higher, the people more numerous. It smelled of fish, smoke, and something sweet and unpleasant. The brothel stood in an alley,a three-storeyed building with dark shutters; above the entrance hung a faded lantern. His father dismounted and went inside to negotiate.

Naoko was left standing by the entrance. His legs wouldn’t hold him. He leaned against the wall, clutching his kimono with his fingers, and tried not to scream. Tears mixed with the road dust streamed down his face. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. Just like that: they wanted to trade him, a living person, for money, like a sack of rice.

While his parents were arguing over the price with the mistress of the establishment,a plump woman in a bright kimono who was shaking her head in dissatisfaction, Naoko lifted his tear-streaked eyes and suddenly noticed that someone was looking at him.

In the corner of the room, by the window, stood a man. He was clearly neither a customer nor an employee: his face was too calm, his back too straight. He looked to be a little under thirty. His dark hair was drawn back in a simple tail; his kimono was a deep blue, without patterns, but of an expensive cut. He wasn’t a samurai,he wore no swords, but something in his bearing, in the way he held his shoulders, betrayed a man accustomed to respect.

He was looking at Naoko. Calmly. Without disgust, without lust, without pity simply looking, as one looks at something interesting.

And then he smiled. Lightly, at the corners of his mouth.

And made a funny face.

It was so absurd, so unexpected, a grown man in an expensive kimono making a face at a tear-stained omega in the doorway of a brothel, that Naoko, without understanding how, suddenly laughed. A short laugh, through the tears, but the sound came out, and he himself was startled by it. He had already forgotten the last time he had laughed.

At that moment his parents came back. His father was angry,his brows were drawn together, his fists clenched. His mother’s lips were pressed so tight her mouth looked like a thread.

"There’s no room," she threw out. "They said they’re full. We have to take him back."

His father spat on the ground and, without looking at his son, went toward the cart. His mother seized Naoko by the sleeve and dragged him after her. He didn’t resist. He only glanced back over his shoulder,but the man in the blue kimono had already vanished.

They returned home. Naoko went into his room, sat down on the mat, and sat there for a long time, staring at the wall. He didn’t know whether to feel glad or to weep. They had given him a reprieve, but for how long? Until he was twenty-three? Until next month? Until tomorrow?

He didn’t know.

---

                      **NOW**

A week later, his heat began.

It came in the night. He woke to the familiar warmth spreading through his body, to the sticky sweat, to the smell he hated more than anything in the world. The scent of heat sweetish, heavy filled his room, seeped through the cracks in the shōji, crept through the house. Naoko pressed his hand over his mouth and tried to breathe in short gasps, as if that could change anything. It was useless. You can’t hide a scent.

His mother, of course, caught it. She came in without knocking, looked him over as he lay curled on the mat, and said dryly:

"Change your cloth. And don’t you dare go out."

Naoko nodded. He had no strength to argue.

And the next day, something happened that he couldn’t explain.

He was woken by a jolt. Someone was shaking him by the shoulders, hard, desperately. He opened his eyes and saw his mother. She was on her knees beside him, clutching both his shoulders in her hands, and shaking him, repeating:

"Wake up. Please, wake up. I beg you, wake up!"

Naoko froze. His mother begging? Him? She had never asked him for anything. She only gave orders. And here "please"? "I beg you"? It was so strange that he grew frightened. Had something terrible happened? A fire? Had someone died?

"What’s happened?" he whispered, trying to sit up.

His mother didn’t answer. She grabbed his hand, yanked him up, dragged him after her. He could barely keep his feet. Inside the house, an incredible commotion was underway. His father, who always sat in his place with a face of stone, was rushing about the rooms, tidying things. He, who had never in his life picked up a cloth! The brothers were running with buckets. The sister was setting out dishes. Everyone was shouting at one another, not angrily, but in a flurry of excitement, the way people shout before a festival.

His mother led him to the bath, sat him on a stool, and began to wash his face herself. Her hands, usually rough and quick, were now almost gentle. She scrubbed his face with a wet cloth, adjusted his hair, muttered something under her breath. Naoko sat there, struck dumb. His tongue wouldn’t obey. He wanted to ask and couldn’t.

Then they led him to the bedroom. His youngest brother and his mother, together, began to undress him pulled off his simple house kimono, threw the heat-cloth into a corner, and told him to put on a fresh one. Then his mother took from the chest something Naoko had never seen on himself: her own furisode, silk, a soft pink, with embroidered plum blossoms along the hem. She had worn it when she got married. Now she brought it out for him.

"Stand still," ?she said, tying the sash. Then they sat him in front of a mirror. His mother fetched a little pot of beni and, dipping her finger in, began to paint his lips. Naoko sat motionless, like a doll. He didn’t like the feeling of lip paint sticky, waxy, as if his mouth had been sealed shut. But he didn’t argue.*

"What’s happening?" he finally managed.

No one answered. His mother finished his lips, inspected him, straightened a fold on his shoulder, then stood up and, with his youngest brother, left the room.

"Don’t come out until you’re called," she threw over her shoulder.

The door closed. Naoko was left alone.

He sat on the mat, in silk, with painted lips, and tried to stop the trembling in his hands. The bustle in the house continued he heard footsteps, voices, the clink of dishes. Something was happening, something big, and he was at the centre of it, but nobody was telling him why.

So he quietly went to the door that led to the yard and peeked out. By the fence his two friends were already waiting Haru and Mie. When they saw him, they waved their hands and began to whisper over one another:

"Naoko! You’re so lucky!"

"We’re so happy for you!"

"Just look at you!"

They scrambled over the low fence not at all the way well-bred young ladies should and ran into his room, shutting the door tightly behind them. They sat on the floor in a small circle and began to talk, interrupting each other.

"The imperial heir is coming to ask for you!"

"The one who will soon take power!"

"He’s twenty-eight, and he’s looking for an omega!"

Naoko looked at them, and his mind couldn’t take it in. The son of the emperor? Coming to ask for him?

"You’ve made a mistake," he said. "It can’t be. You’ve mixed something up."

"We haven’t mixed anything up!" Haru exclaimed. "The whole village knows!"

"But I’m in heat," Naoko said helplessly. "The smell is all over the house. It’s terrible. If he comes and smells it..."

"That’s a good thing!" Mie interrupted. "An omega in heat is..."

"It’s shameful!" Naoko burst out. "Mother always said..."

The girls exchanged glances. Haru took his hand and said:

"Your mother has said a lot of things. But think: maybe this is your chance?"

Naoko wanted to answer, but he didn’t have time. The door flew open, and his mother appeared on the threshold. She had a cloth in her hand and immediately began shooing the girls away the way you shoo chickens from a garden:

"Shoo! Shoo! Get out of here! Go home, you little gossips!"

The girls jumped up, laughed, embraced Naoko, and ran out through the yard. His mother followed them with a furious look, then turned to her son, took him firmly by the elbow tight enough to hurt and began to speak quickly, in sharp bursts:

"Listen and remember. Eyes on the floor. You bow to the gentleman not too low, but don’t hold your head high. Don’t speak unless you’re asked. Keep silent altogether if you can. Don’t eat anything from the table. If they offer, take one thing, the smallest piece, and chew it for a long time. Do you understand?"

"Yes," *Naoko whispered.(

"Not 'yes.' 'Yes, Mother,'" she corrected.

"Yes, Mother."

They went out into the main room. The table had already been laid the very best the house had to offer: rice, fish, pickled vegetables, even sweets that Naoko had only seen on feast days. His mouth watered he hadn’t eaten since morning, and lately they’d been feeding him so little that his stomach cramped.

And then he lifted his eyes to the guest.

In the room, by the table, stood a man. The very same one. From the brothel. The same deep-blue kimono, the same straight back, the same calm face. Beside him stood an attendant — an older man in grey, with clever eyes. And through the open door, in the yard, he could see the figures of samurai in full armour.

Naoko froze. It was him. The one who had made funny faces. And he was the imperial heir?

He stared at the guest’s face in disbelief, forgetting all his mother’s instructions. In the same instant his mother jabbed him in the ribs — hard, sharp.

"Bow," she hissed.

Naoko hastily bent into a bow — far too low, his forehead nearly touching the floor. His mother hissed again, this time with vexation. But the guest said nothing. He simply stood and looked. And, it seemed, he was still smiling.

The court ladies in the castle moved softly as cats — there were so many of them, and they spent so long attending to him that Naoko lost all track of time. The robing chamber swam in the rustle of silk and the scent of incense, while his mother stood by the door in her new kimono — a dark violet one, embroidered with gold chrysanthemums — and held her back as straight as if she had swallowed a pole. A gift from her future son-in-law, her pride. But her voice remained the same: sharp, like the bird that wakes you in the morning.

"Lift your chin," she commanded, while a maid fastened the first under-layer of Naoko's robes. "And don't slouch, for heaven's sake. Your shoulders already look like a farm boy's, not the consort of the imperial heir."

Naoko straightened as much as he could. A lady-in-waiting handed over the second kosode — a pale pink with fine silver threads. His mother immediately stepped closer, circled him, and suddenly jabbed a finger into his side.

"There. You see? A fold. Have you been eating in secret this week? Who gave you permission?"

"I didn't —" Naoko began, but his mother had already turned to the maids and added in a loud whisper:

"Pull it tighter. Let him look decent, at least for today."

The maids silently leaned into the sash, and for a moment Naoko lost all breath. His mother, meanwhile, bent close to his face and critically examined his mouth.

"Your teeth. That front one's crooked. When you smile at the lord, keep your lips closed. No, not like that — don't stretch them, you look like a fish. Like this." She demonstrated an unnatural half-smile on her own face. "Noble and modest."

"Yes, Mother."

"And stop calling me that. I've told you already: today you become a member of the imperial family. Address me as 'Lady O-Kiku' if anyone asks. If no one asks — stay silent and bow."

She jabbed him again — this time in the stomach, just below the navel, that place where every living person has a soft small curve:

"And this. Still haven't got rid of it. How many times have I told you: pull it in. The omegas where you're going are flat as boards. They'll compare."

Naoko swallowed and said nothing. One of the court ladies — the one with the kind face and clever fingers — caught his eye in the mirror and gave him a barely perceptible wink. He didn't smile, but something inside him eased just a little.

"Ah well," his mother suddenly said in a different, almost matter-of-fact tone. "Today you'll finally be gone. Out of my sight. And I'll be able to breathe peacefully, knowing at least some use has come of you."

Naoko lowered his eyes and suddenly caught himself thinking that these words were the most pleasant thing his mother had said to him all day. Yes. Today he would leave. And he would never again stand like this while she poked him with her fingers.

The maids, meanwhile, began to dress him in the main kimono and its splendour stole Naoko's breath clean away. It was not white, as he had expected, but layered in rich colours: the under-robe a scarlet like autumn maple, the second a deep blue like the night sky, and the outer robe a golden-orange, embroidered with cranes in flight above the waves. Cranes were everywhere: on the back, on the sleeves, along the hem each one stitched in silk threads so artfully that they seemed about to beat their wings. The obi sash was made of several layers, tied in a complex "lotus flower" knot, and it, too, bore embroideries: branches of bamboo, the symbol of resilience, and tiny plum blossoms.

"It's beautiful..." Naoko whispered, forgetting himself, and his mother immediately cut him off:

"Don't fidget. This isn't your own doing it's the lord's generosity. The whole attire is his gift. So don't disgrace the one who gave it."

When everything was ready, Naoko looked in the mirror and did not recognise himself. Staring back was not a village omega with perpetually hunched shoulders, but someone who seemed to have stepped straight out of an ancient painted scroll. The court ladies stepped back, admiring, and even his mother fell silent for a moment.

"It'll do," she finally said, and left the room.

The hall where the ceremony took place hummed with voices and music. Along the walls, like statues, stood samurai in full ceremonial armour, each with his hand on his sword, as though even on such a day calamity might strike. Guests in costly kimonos pressed together on either side of the aisle, and Naoko walked through them without feeling his feet. The court ladies held his elbows, reminding him in whispers: "Slower, my lord, do not hurry."

And ahead, at the altar, he was already standing. The prince. The man who had once made funny faces in the doorway of a brothel. Today he wore a formal robe the colour of indigo, with a golden crest upon his chest, and he watched Naoko approach with a faint, barely noticeable smile.

The priest began the prayer. His voice was low and steady, the words ancient, almost indistinguishable. Naoko stood with his eyes fixed on the floor, listening to his own heartbeat.

And then — he never understood how it happened — something rose up from his chest. Hot, enormous, too large for his ribs. He stared at the wooden boards of the floor and suddenly saw something dripping onto them. Drip. Drip. From his own face.

He was weeping.

Not quietly, not with restraint, but openly, like a child forgotten at a market stall. His shoulders shook; pitiful, shameful sounds tore from his throat, and he could not stop, even knowing he was disgracing himself before the entire court. All those people were watching. His mother somewhere behind him was surely already ready to kill him with a single look. But the tears kept coming — not even from grief, but from everything at once: the relief that he was leaving, the fear of what lay ahead, the memory of being taken to the brothel and weeping there, by the entrance, and no one had comforted him.

The priest faltered mid-word. A whisper ran through the hall. His mother, behind him, made a noise like a strangled cry.

But the prince — he did not falter. He listened to the prayer until the priest had spoken the final words, and only when the ritual was complete did he turn to Naoko.

Naoko was standing with his face buried in his hands, trembling. The prince silently stepped toward him, laid a palm on the top of his head — warm, heavy — then drew him close and pressed him to his chest, right against the golden crest. The fabric smelled of sandalwood.

"Well now," the prince said quietly, "I've had my whole entrance ruined. Here I am, trying to look like an important heir to the throne, and you're crying so hard everyone will forget why they came."

Naoko sobbed and tried to pull away, but the prince wouldn't let him. From somewhere inside his sleeve he produced a piece of soft cloth — not a formal handkerchief, but a plain cotton one, as though he had known it would come in handy — and, paying no mind to the white powder and rouge, began to wipe Naoko's face. Carelessly, domestically.

"You know," he went on in the same playful whisper, "at my first military ceremony, I was so afraid of embarrassing myself before my father that I stood up on the wrong foot, got tangled in my own sword, and nearly fell face-first into a brazier. Good thing one of the councillors caught me by the scruff. So crying is really nothing. It could have been worse."

Naoko gave an involuntary sob-laugh. A warm smile crossed the prince's face.

"There, that's better already. Now let's drink the sake — everyone's waiting. And you're not the only one, by the way — look, your girls in the corner are nearly crying from worry. I brought them specially."

"You... brought them?.." Naoko lifted his tear-streaked eyes.

"Of course. Did you think they'd make their own way to the imperial castle? I don't think Yuki's yet convinced she won't be thrown out. Come," he took Naoko by the hand, "you'll take a sip and you'll feel calmer."

He led him to the small table where the cups for the threefold exchange were waiting. The courtiers stared with all their eyes, but the prince paid them no attention — he was looking only at Naoko. He handed him a cup, helped guide it to his lips, for Naoko's hands were still trembling.

"A small sip," he said softly. "That's it. Good lad."

Naoko drank. The sake burned his throat, but inside him something grew very warm.

The feast began soon after, and when Naoko was seated in the place of honour beside his husband, he at last saw them. At a separate table, against the wall, sat Haru, Mie, and Yuki. All three in their best clothes, with hairstyles clearly done in a hurry, and wearing such expressions as if they expected to be told at any moment that it was all a mistake and they would be turned out. But so far, no one was turning them out.

"Naoko!" Yuki whispered, cupping her hands around her mouth, and waved, forgetting all decorum. Haru joined in; Mie nearly leapt up from her seat.

Naoko glanced back at his husband. The prince nodded.

"Go on, say hello. And tell them no one's going to touch them — let them stop shivering."

Naoko went up to his friends, and they immediately clutched at his sleeves, whispering over one another:

"Did you see this hall? The floors shine like water!"

"And those chandeliers, Nao-chan — are those real gold leaves?"

"You were crying, and we nearly died of fright! But the lord comforted you so nicely..."

"He invited us himself, can you believe it?" said Haru. "Sent a man with a cart, and he said: 'For Lord Naoko, a wedding gift.' And they sat us down and brought us here!"

Naoko's nose stung again, but this time from happiness. He hugged all three of them at once, caring nothing for any of his mother's instructions, and they stood like that, the four of them, until the music began playing faster and the dancing started.

And after that everything was as it would be on that evening Naoko would remember all his life. The prince asked him for every dance, but seeing how Naoko kept glancing at his friends, who were already gathering in a circle and starting a village round-dance, he simply let him go:

"Go on. Tonight you dance with whomever you like."

And Naoko, gathering up his many-layered skirts, ran to the girls. The round-dance spun, faster and faster, and they laughed, shy of no one in that vast hall. When his mother tried to push through to them and hissed something about "disgrace" and "behave yourself properly," one of the guards simply cleared his throat and gave her a long look. She backed away.

By the evening, tired but happy, Naoko sat at the table, drinking water (he no longer wanted sake) and listening as the girls discussed the courtiers' outfits. And then the maids approached and quietly said it was time to prepare for the night.

---

                      **NOW**

...The servants laid him on the bed, smoothed out the folds of the transparent fabric, and only then did he notice that his mother was still standing by the door. She hadn't left, as he had hoped, but had stayed behind, inspecting the room and him with a critical eye.

"Your hands," she said suddenly, her voice sharp.

Naoko didn't understand.

"Put your hands here," she approached, took hold of his palms, and pressed them against his stomach, just below his ribs. "Cover it. The corset must not be seen. The master must not know you wear it."

"But—" Naoko began.

"There is no 'but.' Did you think I would let you take it off?" His mother smirked, and that smirk was worse than a shout. "You've worn it since you were seven. If you take it off now, everything will go slack in a single night. You'll spread out like overcooked rice. And there," she nodded vaguely towards the hall, "the other omegas are flat as boards. They have no shame, they don't wear corsets. But you will. And you will cover it with your hands so no one notices."

Naoko was silent. Through the thin fabric of the robe, he could feel the stiff edge of the corset cutting into his body, the same as always. He had thought that at least tonight, on his wedding night, he would be granted freedom. For a few hours, at least. But it turned out—no. Even here, in the imperial bedchamber, his mother was still tightening his ribs.

"I don't understand," he said quietly, staring at his own hands pressed to his stomach. "Why this robe, then? If I still have to hide..."

She didn't let him finish. The cuff to the back of his head came swiftly, with a sharp crack—his head jerked forward, and his elaborately pinned hair nearly came loose.

"Because that is how it must be," his mother clipped out. "Are you really such a fool? Do you think the master married you so you could ask questions? The beautiful garment is for him. So that he will want to touch you. And the corset is for you. So you don't forget what you are, even in this bedchamber. And if you think for a single moment that you can now relax—you are mistaken. You are an omega. You are nothing. And you will be nothing as long as you live."

She straightened up, adjusted the sleeve of her own fine kimono—the gifted one, with the golden chrysanthemums—and added more calmly, almost matter-of-factly:

"Keep your hands where I told you. If I see you've moved them, you'll regret it."

And she left. The door closed behind her softly, almost without a sound, but Naoko flinched as if he had been struck.

The bedroom fell very quiet. He lay on the silk coverlet, in the semi-transparent robe, beneath which was the lace undergarment, and beneath that the old, worn corset, hiding his ribs. His palms lay on his stomach, concealing what must never be shown. The candles burned steadily, shadows lay on the walls, and everything around him was so beautiful that it made him want to cry. But he didn't cry. His mother had told him not to cry. And so he held on.

That garment—he hated it. He hated its slippery coolness against his skin, its 'prettiness' that hid the same old command: be a thing. Be a beautiful thing. He had thought that by getting married, he would shed the label of merchandise—but no. They had simply wrapped the merchandise in silk and moved it to a different shelf.

Somewhere deep in his soul, a thought still flickered: the prince was not like his mother. He had smiled, joked, wiped away tears. He had said, 'You're home now.' Perhaps he wouldn't notice the corset. Perhaps he wouldn't care. Perhaps he would simply hold him, and then even this shameful garment would cease to matter.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor.

Naoko held his breath and pressed his palms more firmly to his stomach. Just as his mother had ordered. He didn't know what would happen when the door opened. But somewhere very deep, beneath the corset, beneath the fear, beneath the habit of being nothing—something tiny still hoped that this man would not be like the others. Please. Let him not be like the others.