The Depth of Green

Chapter 11

Chapter 10 recap: Otabek accidentally calls Yuri 'Yura' and then offers 'Beka' as a nickname for him. Yuri learns that Beka volunteers at the local animal shelter and, once he returns to the house, is mocked for being 'fat.' That's it, I think?

Here we are, folks! The chapter where shit. Goes. Down. ;)

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The day, much like the first 22 years of Yuri's life, started out relatively well. Really, it was alarming, as a theme, how quickly things devolved.

There was nothing special about it, even in hindsight, as Yuri went through his routine. Up at the crack of dawn, making breakfast with Mila, enduring some taunt about his weight from the other omegas of the house, making lunch alone, and then off to the Monday showing; one of the only good things that could be attributed to life in the house was its complete reliance on schedules. Every day was the same, the only variation lying in the differences between showing days and non-showing days, and that only entailed a change in how Yuri spent his afternoons: whether he shivered in weather too cold for his clothing while enjoying conversation with Ot-- Beka, or he spent the time from 4pm to 6pm sequestered away in his closet, hidden from the rest of the house with Mila as occasional company.

No, the day was normal, and when Yuri pulled on his gloves, took up his parasol, and trooped out to the gardens, he was greeted by a pleased, only too fond smile, and an update on the situation with Champagne.

"I've discovered that if I stay away from the shelter for 48 hours before going to my sister's house, and keep a crinkling bag in my pocket, he doesn't attack!" Otabek announced with some glee.

"I'm glad to hear it," Yuri laughed, quietly, "getting mauled on a weekly basis certainly couldn't have been good."

"It wasn't," Otabek shook his head, "though Serena-- my niece--" he clarified, unnecessarily, "seemed a bit disappointed to be denied the pleasure of seeing me trying to detach her savage cat from my face." Despite his complaint, though, his tone was fond. He seemed like a man who would be good with children.

"I'm sure she'll manage without it," Yuri replied, not bothering to hide the amusement in his tone, a parrot of Otabek's, as it was. "Does she still like Dora? That might distract her."

Otabek didn't even get a chance to open his mouth before the gong sounded, and Yuri frowned as the former checked his watch, puzzled. It had barely been fifteen minutes, going by Yuri's mental count, why on earth were they being called back inside?

Except they weren't, Yuri realized, in the sort of underwater slow motion in which terrible things usually happened. There were only two occasions for which the gong would be rung: the beginning or end of a showing, or--

Or a match being made.

There, standing down the line of the fence in front of a slight, brunette woman, her parasol folded and held at her side, was Mila.

Yuri was going to be sick.

"What is it?" Otabek asked, confused. Of course, he wouldn't have remembered-- he'd told Yuri that they didn't have matchmaking houses in America, so, after so long away from Japan, he would have forgotten the custom. In the houses, there was one, one occasion on which a parasol could acceptably be lowered, and, of the same instance, one in which it had to be.

When an alpha claimed an omega, it was through, at first, only a verbal agreement, though a near-unbreakable one. In lowering their parasol, an omega showed themselves to the world, an indecent act unless they had been claimed or mated, in which case they were being shown off, arm-candy to their alpha. There was no proper way to come back from a fallen parasol if unmated, an omega's reputation tarnished if scorned and blackened further if their proposed mate went to great lengths to detach themself from the former's life, though Yuri honestly wasn't sure which would be worse-- a rescinded match and therefore social disgrace, or a match forced upon an omega, their feelings about their mate null and void and their choice in the matter nonexistent.