Chapter Text
The apartment had always smelled strange to Shoko.
Not unpleasant. Never unpleasant. Just full in a way she could never quite describe without sounding pathetic, even inside her own head. Suguru’s scent settled into the walls like cedarwood smoke and old paper, warm and grounding in the way powerful alphas often were. Satoru’s was sharper, colder at first impression—winter air before snowfall, expensive incense burned carelessly, something electric beneath it all that made every omega in a ten-meter radius instinctively aware of him. Together, the scents blended into something dense and domestic, the kind of thing that should have made a home feel safe.
Instead, lately, it only reminded her that she did not belong in it the same way they belonged to each other.
Shoko sat on the edge of the couch with one leg hanging over the armrest, cigarette burning slowly between her fingers while rain battered the windows outside. The television played some mindless variety show nobody was actually watching. Somewhere down the hall, she could hear the muffled sound of laughter—Suguru’s low and genuine, Satoru’s louder, impossible to ignore even through walls.
Once, she would have been in there with them.
That was the part that hurt most.
Not loneliness by itself. Shoko had lived with loneliness her entire life. Jujutsu sorcerers were lonely people by design. It was the gradual realization that she had somehow become external to something she used to stand at the center of. Back at Jujutsu High, it had always been the three of them. Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Ieiri Shoko. The strongest. The untouchable trio. The people everyone else orbited around but could never truly reach.
Then Satoru and Suguru fell in love.
Not suddenly. That was the irritating thing about it. It had happened so naturally that by the time Shoko fully noticed it, it already existed in every tiny interaction between them. Satoru seeking Suguru first whenever something amusing happened. Suguru unconsciously adjusting Satoru’s collar before meetings. Their scents tangling together more heavily after missions, after late nights, after heats and ruts that Shoko politely pretended not to notice.
And Suguru—Suguru who never defected, never abandoned them, never walked away from Jujutsu society despite every ugly thing rotting beneath it—had stayed because of Satoru.
Maybe because of her too, once.
But not enough.
Shoko inhaled deeply from her cigarette, ignoring the ache in her chest. Omegas were sensitive to exclusion in ways nobody liked discussing openly. People romanticized omegas constantly, but very few talked about how deeply social instincts cut into them, how rejection settled physically into the body. Especially from a pack.
And whether any of them acknowledged it or not, they had become one years ago.
Only now she felt like the stray animal hovering outside the doorway.
The laughter down the hall softened into quieter sounds. Movement. Rustling sheets.
Shoko closed her eyes.
She should not go over there.
Rationally, she knew that. Satoru and Suguru deserved privacy. They were together. They loved each other with a frightening intensity that often made everyone around them feel like intruders. But the apartment had felt unbearable for weeks now, heavy with coupled scents and quiet intimacy and the persistent awareness that nobody reached for her anymore.
Not emotionally.
Not instinctively.
And tonight was worse because her heat was approaching.
She could feel it under her skin already—irritability, heightened scent sensitivity, emotions stretched thin enough to tear. Usually she handled it well. Years of suppressants and practice made her more controlled than most omegas. But being trapped in the apartment with an alpha and another omega whose scents constantly intertwined was torture she could not admit aloud.
Shoko stood before she could stop herself.
The hallway lights were dim. Soft gold illuminated the wooden floorboards as she walked toward Satoru’s room, every step accompanied by the growing awareness of their scents thickening in the air.
Suguru.
Satoru.
Warmth. Affection. Arousal.
Something inside her chest twisted painfully.
She reached the partially open door before common sense finally tried to intervene.
Through the narrow gap, she could see them.
Suguru sat against the headboard with Satoru practically draped across him, long white hair spilling everywhere while Suguru carded gentle fingers through it. Neither of them had noticed her yet. Their scents flooded the room in heavy waves, deeply intimate in the way bonded pairs often were after vulnerable moments.
Satoru looked relaxed.
That alone was rare enough to hurt.
The strongest sorcerer alive trusted almost nobody completely. Yet here he was, eyes half-lidded and peaceful against Suguru’s chest while Suguru pressed absent kisses into his hair.
Shoko’s throat tightened unexpectedly.
It should not have hurt this much.
She did not even know what she wanted anymore. Not romance. Not necessarily. She loved them both in ways that surpassed ordinary labels, but somewhere over the years she had accepted she would always stand slightly adjacent to whatever existed between Satoru and Suguru.
Still—
Still she missed being wanted.
Missed being included.
Missed feeling like home instead of furniture.
Her hand lifted unconsciously against the doorframe.
The wood creaked.
Everything happened instantly after that.
Satoru’s head snapped up.
There was no softness left in him.
One moment he had looked relaxed, almost sleepy, and the next the room exploded with omega instinct sharpened by possession and territorial panic. His cursed energy flared violently enough to distort the air itself. Shoko barely had time to process the sudden hostility before Satoru moved.
Fast.
Far too fast.
She saw blue eyes blown wide with instinct rather than recognition.
Saw the split second where he perceived an unidentified presence near his alpha during a vulnerable moment.
Then pain.
Blinding, catastrophic pain.
Satoru slammed her against the hallway wall hard enough to crack plaster. His teeth buried into the side of her neck before anyone fully understood what was happening.
Not a warning bite.
Not restraint.
A full-force omega attack directly against her scent glands.
Shoko screamed.
The sound tore through the apartment with horrifying sharpness.
Then Suguru was there.
“SATURU!”
The pressure vanished instantly, but it was already too late.
Shoko collapsed before her legs could hold her. Warm blood soaked through her shirt almost immediately. The side of her neck burned with such overwhelming agony that she could not breathe properly.
Satoru stumbled backward like someone waking from a nightmare.
His face had gone white.
The scent flooding the hallway shifted violently from aggression to horror.
“Shoko—”
His voice cracked.
Suguru dropped beside her first, hands glowing faintly with cursed energy as panic bled through the alpha bond saturating the entire apartment. “Don’t touch it,” he muttered, though whether he meant himself or Satoru was unclear. “Shoko, stay awake.”
She tried to answer.
Nothing coherent came out.
Pain radiated through her nervous system in sickening waves. Scent gland injuries were notoriously dangerous for omegas because they affected more than physical health. Instincts, hormones, emotional regulation—everything intertwined there.
And Satoru had damaged hers badly.
Not intentionally.
That almost made it worse.
Satoru still had not moved.
He looked genuinely horrified now, blue eyes fixed on the blood coating Shoko’s neck and mouth trembling faintly in disbelief.
“I didn’t—”
For the first time in years, Gojo Satoru sounded afraid.
“I didn’t know it was her.”
Shoko laughed weakly despite herself.
Or tried to.
It emerged broken and wet instead.
Of course he had not known.
That was the entire problem, wasn’t it?
He had not recognized her scent closely enough to stop himself.
Not before hurting her.
Darkness swallowed her before she could decide which pain was worse—the injury itself, or what it revealed.
Recovery was hell.
Not dramatic hell. Not cinematic suffering filled with screaming or near-death revelations. It was quieter than that. Slower. The kind of pain that settled into everyday existence until living itself became exhausting.
The wound became infected twice despite reverse cursed technique treatments. Damaged scent glands healed unpredictably even under the best circumstances, and Satoru’s bite had been severe enough to rupture tissue most healers rarely saw outside of violent pack disputes.
Shoko spent nearly three weeks isolated in the medical wing because unstable omega pheromones could trigger dangerous reactions in others.
Three weeks.
Neither Satoru nor Suguru argued when she refused visitors initially.
That hurt too.
The room smelled sterile. Antiseptic. Artificial lavender from medical diffusers meant to soothe distressed omegas. Shoko eventually grew to hate the scent so much she vomited whenever nurses replaced the cartridges.
Her body no longer regulated itself correctly.
Some mornings she woke feverish and trembling from hormone spikes. Other days she felt emotionally numb to the point of dissociation. Suppressants barely functioned anymore because her damaged glands no longer processed them normally.
Worst of all was the scent loss.
Omega scent glands were deeply tied to identity. To emotional expression. To social bonding. Since the injury, her own scent emerged fractured and weak, difficult even for herself to recognize.
She felt less like a person.
More like something broken halfway apart.
Suguru visited first.
Not because Satoru did not want to, but because Satoru physically could not enter the room without destabilizing.
The guilt coming off him had become unbearable even from a distance.
Suguru sat quietly beside her hospital bed for nearly ten minutes before speaking.
“He misses you.”
Shoko stared at the ceiling. “Interesting way to show it.”
The words came out colder than intended.
Suguru accepted them anyway.
His shoulders looked heavier lately. Exhaustion carved faint shadows beneath his eyes, and his scent carried constant stress despite his efforts to suppress it.
“He hasn’t slept properly since it happened.”
Shoko laughed softly. “Good.”
Suguru flinched.
Immediately guilt twisted inside her chest because she had never wanted to hurt them. Not truly. Even now, even after everything, she still loved them enough that seeing pain on Suguru’s face felt unbearable.
That was the humiliating part.
She was the injured one.
Yet somehow she still wanted to comfort them.
“He made a mistake,” Suguru said quietly.
“No,” Shoko replied. “His instincts made a choice.”
Silence filled the room.
Suguru lowered his gaze slowly.
Because he understood the distinction.
Instincts only reacted with that level of violence when something fundamental felt threatened.
Shoko swallowed hard around the ache rising in her throat.
“He didn’t recognize me.”
“He did after.”
“That’s not better.”
Suguru’s hands tightened in his lap.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Rain tapped softly against the hospital windows.
Then, very quietly, Suguru whispered, “We failed you.”
That almost broke her more than the bite had.
Because it was true.
Not deliberately. Neither Satoru nor Suguru had consciously excluded her. But love—real love, consuming love—often narrowed people’s worlds without them noticing. Over the years they had folded inward toward each other while assuming Shoko would always remain nearby regardless.
And Shoko had let them.
Until loneliness hollowed her out so deeply that she stood outside their bedroom like a ghost begging for scraps of affection.
“I hate this,” she admitted suddenly.
Suguru looked up.
“I hate that I miss you both,” she whispered. “I hate that part of me still wants you here.”
Suguru’s expression cracked completely then.
He moved before thinking, stopping himself only inches from touching her.
Because omega injuries altered scent sensitivity unpredictably.
Because touch required trust.
Because he no longer knew if she felt safe around them.
The realization devastated him visibly.
Shoko turned away before she could cry.
Satoru visited two days later.
The nurses nearly refused him entry.
Not because they feared violence—Gojo Satoru would rather tear himself apart than hurt Shoko again—but because distressed omegas reacted unpredictably around injured packmates.
Especially when guilt saturated the bond this heavily.
Shoko expected anger when he entered.
Or excuses.
Or awkwardness.
Instead Satoru looked shattered.
His usual immaculate appearance had deteriorated badly over the past month. Dark circles bruised beneath his eyes. His uniform hung loose from missed meals. Even his scent felt wrong—frayed at the edges, unstable in a way powerful omegas rarely allowed themselves to become.
He stopped near the doorway.
Did not approach further.
Blue eyes locked onto the bandages around her neck and immediately filled with visible self-loathing.
Shoko had never seen him look small before.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Simple words.
But they sounded dragged from somewhere raw enough to bleed.
Shoko stared at him quietly.
“You know what the worst part is?”
Satoru’s throat moved.
“You were scared,” she continued softly. “And your first instinct was to protect Suguru from me.”
His face crumpled.
“No,” he said immediately, voice breaking. “Shoko, no—that’s not—”
“You thought I was a threat.”
“I didn’t know it was you.”
“But you should have.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
Satoru lowered himself slowly into the chair beside her bed, movements cautious like approaching a wounded animal.
Maybe she was one now.
“I knew your scent before anyone else’s,” he said quietly. “Back at school. Before Suguru and I even got together. You smelled like cigarettes and antiseptic and rain.” His hands trembled slightly in his lap. “I would’ve recognized you anywhere.”
“Not anymore.”
The truth sat ugly between them.
Trauma had changed things.
Scent memory around violent incidents often became tangled beyond repair.
Satoru closed his eyes.
When he spoke again, his voice sounded painfully young.
“I hurt you.”
Shoko finally looked directly at him then.
Really looked.
At the exhaustion carved into his face. At the way his shoulders remained tense like he expected her to disappear if he relaxed. At the terror still lingering beneath every movement.
Gojo Satoru feared very few things.
But he feared losing them.
Both of them.
And for the first time, Shoko understood that this had broken something inside him too.
Not equally.
Never equally.
But genuinely.
“I know,” she whispered.
Satoru inhaled shakily.
Then, after a long silence, he asked the question neither of them wanted answered.
“Can you ever trust me again?”
Shoko did not answer immediately.
Because trust was complicated.
Because she still woke from nightmares feeling phantom teeth in her throat.
Because instinctively she now recoiled whenever powerful omega pheromones spiked nearby.
Because part of her still remembered the split second where Satoru looked at her and saw danger instead of family.
But also—
Because despite everything, some damaged part of her still wanted to go home with them.
“I don’t know,” she admitted honestly.
Satoru nodded once.
Like he expected nothing else.
Then he bowed his head against the edge of her hospital bed and quietly started crying.
And Shoko, exhausted beyond reason, rested one weak hand in his hair anyway.