Chapter Text
You walked up the stairs leading to your apartment happily, you had gotten off work early so you were looking forward to surprising your boyfriend, Shawn, with some extra time together today. You had moved to Yokohama, Japan with him a little over a year ago for his work and was honestly quite content with the change. Since you lacked any real family back in the states there was nothing holding you there; plus, you and Shawn had been together for a month shy of a year before you left. So, it wasn’t like you were leaving your home country with a stranger. It took some time to find a job here that would offer you a work visa since you weren’t married to Shawn, but eventually, you found your job at the bank that you currently had.
After living here for about 6 months he had stated that he wanted to properly court you, an old ritual that was rarely seen nowadays, even between Alphas and Omegas, but you were happy nonetheless and accepted it. You hummed a tune quietly to yourself as you approached your door, removing the keys from your pocket and sliding it into the keyhole your mind far off in your own fantasies of spending the night with Shawn, maybe ordering some takeout, and then curling up together to watch a movie. You pushed the door open with a grin on your face and closed it behind you, sliding your shoes off by the front door, and then hung your bag up on the silver hook. You were so lost in your own head that it wasn’t until you had walked a few feet away from the foyer that something clicked as wrong. You turned around to find an extra pair of shoes by yours and took a deep shaky breath. Of course, it all made sense; the strange smell clinging to his clothes, the weird distance he had started to put between the two of you, and especially the way he was out all the damn time.
You knew deep down that going to investigate was unnecessary, once you were pulled out of your mind the smell of aroused Alpha was thick and trailed through the apartment as you made your way to the bedroom, like breadcrumbs left for you to find the scene of the crime. You could hear her through the door, not even bothering to be quiet, of course, you weren’t due home for another two hours. If it wasn’t for the scent-blocking cream that you wore for work, you were sure Shawn would have smelled you by now, you could only imagine the foul scent of distressed Omega that would have started to fill the space you once called home with him. Tears were already building up in your eyes when you opened the bedroom door to find her bent over the bed with Shawn behind her, ramming into her as she screamed out in pleasure. He froze the moment he noticed you come in and started at you as if he were a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, the beta beneath him having a similar look as well. He pulled out of her quickly and made a move for you but you dodged his hands. “I-I can explain…” he started. The beta on the bed quickly stood up and moved to collect her clothes, throwing them on haphazardly.
“Don’t. Fucking. Bother,” you spoke through gritted teeth, trying to reign in your feelings. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Apartment.” Shawn stared at you as if you had grown another head. He spoke your name softly and you lost it, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY APARTMENT!” you screamed stepping out of the doorway and pointing towards the front door.
“This is-“
“OH FUCK OFF!” you cut Shawn off and he quickly threw on clothes before exiting the apartment with the woman right behind him. You slammed your back up against the wall as you let the tears flow freely down your face, slowly sliding down to the floor with your hands in your hair, you screamed. You knew what he was going to say when you cut him off. It’s his apartment, not yours. Your name isn’t even on the lease, but at that moment you didn’t care. He could go stay with the beta he was sleeping with, you had nowhere else to go. After what felt like hours, but may have only been 30 minutes, you stood up slowly. Your throat hurt and you had a headache from the crying. You slowly shuffled your way to the kitchen and pulled open the pantry quickly grabbing out the unopened bottle of sake that you had bought for your upcoming second anniversary. You twisted the top and poured it into one of the choko you had also put away for the occasion. It definitely didn’t matter now. You took both the bottle and the choko with you to the living room and plopped on the couch, placing both on the coffee table. You sipped at the sake as you pulled out your phone, not wanting to waste any time looking for a new place. Of course, you knew you had to go through a real estate agency since renting on your own in Japan is basically impossible. Luckily, you remembered the agency Shawn used to find the place you were currently staying at, so you just went straight to their website and set up a phone appointment. They were going to reach out to you the next morning, which meant you had the whole night to yourself.
Now that you had that taken care of all you had to worry about was furniture, since like the apartment, pretty much everything here belonged to Shawn. The thought of him pulled at your chest more and you moved to drink more of the sake, forgoing the choko and just sipping straight from the bottle. You went back and forth on ordering everything through Amazon or taking a train to Ikea after you moved in and having the stuff shipped from there. In the end, laziness won and you started to scroll through Amazon putting furniture in your shopping cart to order once you got situated in a new place. You knew that you would probably be sleeping on the floor for the first week or so on an air mattress, which wasn’t ideal but was the best you could do for the time being. You also threw in some blankets and pillows for nesting, since all of your nesting material here smelled of Shawn. The bed you decided on was a daybed that would be perfect for making into a nest when needed if you didn’t decide just to keep it like that all the time. It was only a twin-size mattress, but that was plenty for just you. Plus you could like the back with pillows to sit against when watching TV. You slowly started to realize that you felt quite numb, but it was probably because your mind didn’t want to deal with all of what was happening.
After about an hour of scrolling and saving and adding items to your cart, you turned your screen off your phone and moved for the remote. You turned on the TV and scrolled through Netflix. You finally settled on Ghost in the Shell, not the whitewashed live-action, but the 1995 classic. You slowly sipped at the bottle of sake throughout the movie. When it was finally finished you realized what time it was, 8:32 pm. Your stomach growled to alert you to the fact that you still hadn’t eaten since lunch. You went to stand to go hunt through the kitchen but was instantly knocked back on your ass causing a giggle to escape from your lips. So instead you grabbed your phone to order delivery through UberEATS. You scrolled through the different options and settled on a ramen shop nearby that delivered and ordered a simple spicy tonkotsu ramen bowl with chashu on top. The app said that the food was going to be delivered in about 35-45 minutes so you had time to spare. You opted to put on some random show and scroll through social media while you waited.
Knock, knock! You weren’t sure when you dozed off but the next thing you knew you were being startled awake by a knock at the door. Confusion overtook you for a second before you remembered that you ordered food and you giggled to yourself as you stood up on slightly wobbly legs. You made your way over to the front door and opened it to see the bag of food on the ground by the door. You grabbed the food and went back inside towards the couch, kicking the door closed behind you. The couch caught you as you fell back onto it and placed the bag on the coffee table. A couple of minutes later, you took out the food and the chopsticks and after getting situated, you dug in as you watched the show you had put on earlier. Occasionally sipping on the sake as well.
××××××××××
That was a little over a week ago. Now here you were, standing in the middle of your new apartment, which was mostly empty. You had ordered the furniture and such, but it wasn’t due to come in until tomorrow. Until then you were stuck with a blow-up mattress as your bed and your 32” flat screen sitting on the floor next to your router, thank the gods for the attached TV stand; both in your living room/dining room/bedroom. You had explained to Shawn that you would be taking the TV since you paid for it, he did not like that and you basically told him to shove it. You also had a few boxes that were stacked up against the wall, a couple had some kitchen supplies, another two had clothes, there was one full of books (both chapter and manga), as well as another full of Blu-rays and a few PS4 games (probably had your PS4 as well), and the final two had figurines that you couldn’t wait to unpack. There were also a couple of poster rolls to keep your posters safe and a wall scroll for Sailor Moon that you had already hung up.
The only rooms that were separate were the toilet room, bathroom, and kitchen. Not that you minded, it’s not like you planned on having company any time ever. The apartment would work for your purposes, which were to eat, sleep, rest, and spend your heats, alone. The thought made you frown, with no friends you had nothing to do, in the end, you led a very lonely life, it just seemed that Shawn kept you from noticing. You had a couple of acquaintances back in the States, but no one worth keeping in contact with. You sighed and flopped onto the bed, only realizing your mistake after doing so and being happy that the mattress didn’t pop. You were tired from carrying all the boxes up the stairs and figured you could unpack tomorrow since you had taken the day off work to do so. You turned on the TV for background noise and rolled over facing the wall; passing out soon thereafter.
You awoke the next morning to the annoying beeping of the stupid alarm on your phone. “Forgot to turn that off,” you muttered to yourself as you shut it off. You sat up and stretched, feeling your back crack in a few places, and ran your fingers through your hair. After a few minutes of staring off into space, you pushed yourself up and headed to your boxes pulling out the tea kettle and a box of Irish Breakfast tea you had packed away. You shuffled into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water before placing it on a burner and turning the burner on too high. You then trudged back to your boxes as a yawn escaped your lips and picked out a mug from the box. It was black with “I prefer leaf water over bean juice” written on it in white lettering. You then had an idea and placed the mug back in the box. You picked up the box and moved it to the kitchen, opting to start unpacking it while you waited for the water to heat up. You left the mug on the counter and put a tea bag in it, then continued to unload the boxes contents. You also left out a bowl and a bag of Frugra, then you realized it, you don’t have any milk. With a slight growl of frustration you turned off the burner, grabbed your keys and wallet from the counter, and stomped back to the boxes again, not wanting to leave the house this morning, but needing milk for both your tea and your cereal, you rummaged through a box of clothes and pulled out a black hoodie to cover your grey spaghetti-strap tank top. You looked down at your plain black leggings and decided this was fine before heading to the door and slipping on a pair of black flats.
You walked down the stairs of your apartment building with your head down, your hair in your face as you kept an eye on your surroundings. The convince store was right around the corner, it wouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes to get your milk and then get back to your apartment. You walked into the store and were greeted by the person standing behind the counter, you looked over and offered a tired, but exhausted smile. Quickly you made your way to the milk and grabbed a 1000 ml carton of milk before heading back to the counter. You smiled again as you approached the counter and offered a good morning to the man there.
“Good morning, that’ll be ¥200,” he replied warmly. You pulled the money out of your wallet and handed it to him. He handed back the change and the receipt. “Have a good day!” he called after you as you headed out the door.
“You too!” you said as you made your exit, you weren’t paying attention though, and walked right into someone as you were walking out, nearly dropping your milk. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” you stated as you looked up to meet the eyes of the person you walked into. His eyes, which were the first thing you noticed, were a bright turquoise and he wore a black fabric mask over his nose and mouth.
“You should watch where you’re walking, little mouse,” is all he said as he moved around you to get inside, his voice was deep and intense, and it sent a tingle up your spine. You also noticed his scent, Alpha, warm and comforting, like a warm fire on a cold night, there was also the faintest hint of cedar. Your eyes followed him and you caught sight of his hair which was black and shaggy and he had what appeared to be piercings on his ear. He looked back at you one last time, causing you to blush from being caught starting and quickly averting your eyes, and then he went into the store and was gone. Something inside of you made you want to follow him in, perhaps get his name, maybe even his number, but you ignored it and headed back to your place instead.
Once back in the safety of your apartment you kicked off your shoes by the door, took off your hoodie, tossed it on the bed, and headed straight for the kitchen with your bounty from the store. A full grocery shop could be done later, this would work for now. You turned the stove back on and went about making your bowl of cereal. You leaned against the counter as you ate, staring off into space, the crunching you made as you ate barely registered to you as you let your mind wander. The way that man said “little mouse” was stuck in your head, almost amused. Then again you probably were a sight to behold, your hair was a mess, you wouldn’t be surprised if you had bags under your eyes, and looking back on it he was definitely taller than you. His scent was also trapped in your nose, nearly taunting you. A scent that made you want to curl up in his arms. The sudden whistle of the kettle pulled you from your thoughts as you quickly poured water into your cup. You then went back to the main part of your apartment and grabbed the other box of kitchen stuff, partially because you needed to unpack it as well, but mainly because you needed your sugar out of it. You started the process of unpacking the second box, placing the sugar container next to your cup, the pots and pans in the proper cabinets, and the silverware in the drawer. Luckily, you were pretty much able to grab everything out of the kitchen, since it was all your stuff anyways.
There was a knock on your door and you rushed over to it looking out the peephole. There stood a delivery guy with some boxes. You quickly yanked the door open and smiled brightly. “Hi! I have a lot of stuff here for uh…” he looked over the label and read your name aloud.
“That’s me!” you exclaimed excitedly reaching for the boxes.
“I have much more than this, do you want me to leave it out here or would you like me to bring it in?” he asked.
“Oh, bring it in if you don’t mind!” you replied. So that’s what he did. Bit by bit he carried boxes up the stairs and into your room. All of the boxes were marked with the Amazon logo for the most part and you were so excited to just have the furniture you needed. The hardest part was going to be building it all. You were helping to carry in the last box when you looked up and locked eyes with familiar turquoise ones. You nearly dropped the box in your arms before catching it quickly. You looked down to make sure you had a good hold on the box and when you looked back up the man was gone again, but you did see the apartment door closest to you close.
You thanked the man for the help and waved him off with a cheerful goodbye. “Well, now for the worse of it,” you mumbled turning to go back into your apartment, but not before glancing over towards the apartment next door, hoping to catch a glimpse of turquoise again. You closed and locked the door behind you, sighing and leaning up against it. When you closed your eyes for a second you saw them, those bright eyes. Your eyes flew open, why was this stranger on your mind all of a sudden. You pushed off the door and started to open boxes. Mainly you just wanted to put together the bed, dresser, and maybe a bookshelf.
You started with the bed, with hopes of it maybe being easy, but after 2 hours of yelling, cussing, and even a few tears, you realized just how much of a pain this actually was going to be. You sighed and decided to take a break. You stood up and stretched a bit before grabbing your phone. You looked through UBEReats, opting for delivery since you didn’t have groceries anyway, and started looking for something that sounded good. You chose a restaurant that you had ordered from many times and placed an order for gyoza, curry, and white rice. You sat in the center of the floor just chilling in the silence, giving yourself an internal pep talk about how you were not going to let a bed beat you. “I am the HBIC, and I'll be damned if I have to sleep on that uncomfortable blowup mattress again tonight!” you exclaimed louder than you meant to. Just then you heard a knock at the door and jumped slightly. “I hope they didn’t hear me,” you murmur to yourself, not wanting anyone to know how close you were to losing it. You opened the door without checking, just assuming that the food would be on the ground again but were surprised when there was a pair of beat-up black converse on the ground instead. You slowly looked up a familiar smell of a warm fire enveloping you until you came eye to eye with the man who hadn’t left your thoughts since you left the convenience store.