The next morning, Atem sat in the waiting area by the doors of Kaiba's office with a resignation letter tucked safely in the inner pocket of his blazer whie his body was heavy with remorse.

He'd barely slept at all last night, and after having told Anzu about what happened, she called him at 1 AM to give him an earful. He neglected to mention Kaiba's name, and only gave her details about their night, but she'd confirmed his worst fears.

This Omega would never accept him because it wasn't a consensual bonding in the first place.

He'd tried to apologize with a meal, where he'd gotten the Omega sloppy drunk, causing them to vomit a dosage of suppressants, which endangered them both.

I was not prepared to be assaulted by that scent right after a nice dinner! Atem fumed, gripping his knees in distress, thinking he only treated Kaiba carelessly because he thought Kaiba was an Alpha, when in fact it was the complete opposite.

He was an Omega in hiding, running the world in one of the top luxury businesses, ruling over other Alphas with ease. Hell, even the job application called for Top Alphas only, and had a rigorous set of standards.

So I was right. Omegas are just as ruthless. Everything I said at that dinner rang true, Atem mused bitterly, cringing at the memory of himself telling Kaiba how much he actively avoided Omegas…when the CEO was an Omega himself. How he hadn't been fired on the spot was a mystery.

The elevator dinged and Atem jumped to his feet, bending himself into a bow before he even saw who got out of it. It had to be Kaiba.

It was Kaiba, and when he stepped out of the elevator, he was extremely irritated to see one other person besides his secretary who was bowing to him.

Atem.

Great. Fucking perfect.

He swept past the spiky-haired man without another word and slammed the door, wrinkling his nose when he caught a whiff of Atem's pheromones, and they reeked of…anxiety? Fear?
He could smell Atem's fear. It was odd.

He knows he's losing his job today, Kaiba thought evilly, setting his briefcase on the floor and turning to gaze out the sparkling windows at Domino City.

He'd spent the entire night contemplating. Part of him understood that Atem was manageable. Another part of him screamed at him to stop being an idiot and fire Atem for being gropey in the car. Yet another part of him mildly enjoyed how helpless Atem behaved in his presence.

His phone rang, and he didn't pick it up. Atem could fucking wait. He needed to think.

Outside, Atem broke out into a nervous sweat, knowing exactly why Kaiba so obviously walked past him but didn't want him inside the office.

He hates me. I'm a threat to his entire existence, Atem thought sadly, wondering how he would save his own skin this time. Maybe he could continue like nothing was wrong. Blame it on the cologne and cling to the lie that it affected them both.

Claim that the cologne was ground-breaking and bonded two Alphas. Perfect. There it was. It complimented Kaiba's status as an "Alpha" and also stroked his ego. But only a fool would fall for that….

The phone on the secretary's desk rang, and she looked at him pointedly. "You may go in…" She said, and Atem nodded at her, pushing the glass doors aside and staying as far away from Kaiba's desk as possible when he entered.

Kaiba was dangerous, and he would behave as such. Kaiba was an Omega living an Alpha dream. He was a man to be feared.

Kaiba laced his fingers under his chin and noticed Atem behaving strangely.
Nice. He expected as much.
Atem had said something about being terrified of Omegas, but he sure didn't behave that way in the car.

"My resignation letter," Atem said, lifting it out from the pocket of his blazer and setting it down with two hands on the coffee table, pretending like that was Kaiba's desk. "Thank you for all the good memories here. I will cherish them."

A heavy silence followed, and Kaiba wondered if that was it.
Atem usually talked non-stop.
Something felt off.

"Say the rest of it," Kaiba said impatiently, drumming his fingers against the desk, wondering if Atem was going to step closer.

"The rest of…what?" Atem ventured curiously, and he realized Kaiba thought he had a whole speech prepared. Ah… well then, time to pull out the story he'd concocted earlier.

"I think you made something phenomenal," Atem said, trying to get into his salesman tone, making everything he said sound as casual as possible. "You wear a scent that I've bonded to. Do you realize what you've done? You've created an Alpha – Alpha bond with your scent! Even if it did backfire horribly, I think it's a smashing success. Unheard of!"

Kaiba stared intently at Atem, letting his words sink in. S-Seriously?

I'm not an Alpha! Does he still not get it? Kaiba grit his teeth and listened to Atem pressing on.

"You're a powerful and strong leader, and I'm always seeking your approval," Atem continued, watching Kaiba's body language closely for any changes. "I can't help it. I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you."

Thunderstruck at the sudden admission, Kaiba kept staring at Atem, his mind oddly blank, probably because he didn't disagree with anything Atem said. Sure, it was a statement laden with compliments, but the feeling was there.
Atem had always been circling him because…he was loyal, dedicated, and as he put it, "in love".

Fine. Then he could be in love all by himself.

Because they were still bonded by scent, and apparently, Atem was too boneheaded to figure that out too.

"You can take your resignation back," Kaiba said quietly, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. "You're a good employee and hard worker. It'd be a waste of my time trying to replace you. I accept your apology. Just don't pull that shit with me again."

Unable to believe his ears, Atem nodded, unsure of what to do next because he hadn't planned for this step. All of his rehearsed scenarios ended with him being fired, with only one scenario ending with Kaiba's legs spread on his desk.

"Are you deaf? Get out of my office!" Kaiba hissed, wondering where Atem's head was, because he wasn't mentally present.

Atem snapped back to reality and bent himself in half. "Thank you for forgiving me! I was ready to leave today. Thank you for giving me another chance."

He swept his letter off the table and hurried to the door, throwing Kaiba a soft smile, saying, "Let me treat you to a meal where we don't get drunk. Sound good?"

"Out!" Kaiba clenched his teeth and glowered.

Atem dashed out the door and into the safety of the elevator, his heart pounding with a mixture of relief and anxiety.

Forgiven!
He'd been forgiven! Again? How many times had he been forgiven?

I need to change my behavior around him, Atem balked privately, and he leaned against the wall, feeling oddly pent up.

Oh no. Oh no.
He knew this feeling.

Back inside the office, Kaiba opened his calendar and cursed under his breath, seeing a red line marking the next week starting from Sunday.

One more week until his peak Heat. Fuck.

There was no way around it. Time was the enemy now.

Either he accept Atem as a bonded mate and steel himself to have sex with Atem, or suffer a horribly painful Heat. On top of that, how would he manage to work through this horrible Heat?

He never took a day off, because that meant he was weak. He would never dare to show weakness as an "Alpha". Better to play it safe and give everyone the next week off to mask the fact that he would be shaking and shuddering, curled up in fetal position while trying not to die.

Palming his face in agony, Kaiba bit back tears of frustration.

He'd come so far, just to be thwarted but this one…Alpha, who was so stupid, he couldn't see that there was an Omega three feet in front of him, never shutting up about how the scent was "brilliant engineering".

It was just nature at work.

He pried his laptop open, ready to draft up a company-wide vacation letter when he saw a new email waiting for him at the top of his queue.

"From: ATEM
Re: Request Form for Vacation"

Kaiba reeled and clicked on it, reading the short message which was sent two minutes ago.

"Mr. Kaiba,

Apologies for the short notice, but I want to take a moment to reflect on my bad behavior while off your payroll. Here is my request form for the entire next week off, starting from this Friday.

Thank you so much,

Atem."

Coincidence?! Kaiba cried, gripping his hair in distress. Or was Atem acting unconsciously on his instincts because Alphas were driven by their instincts.

Holy shit.
What a stroke of luck.
Atem was still trying to be 'sorry' and sure, this was fine.
Great actually.

Kaiba clicked on the request form and saw that Atem would be five cities away, visiting a brother he had named 'Yugi', and he closed the window, breathing a heavy sigh of relief.

There was no need to give the entire company vacation time…. Or was there?

This was going to be a regular occurrence, Atem would run out of vacation days. Only Omegas were allowed one week off for Peak Heat.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Kaiba sent a quick email to his secretary, asking her to draft up a company-wide memo about staggered work schedules for each floor. He really should've been doing this years ago when his employee count surpassed 8,000, but now was better than never.

Each department would get to work from home, one week out of the month. This would probably help ease the crowds at rush hour too, when 1,000 weren't leaving his building to all go home 7:30 sharp.

Sighing to himself, Kaiba pressed a hand to his forehead and willed himself to keep it together.

Yes. This was fine. He would do this. It would be very visible in the press and would seem like a grand gesture of generosity. Perfect.

Author's note:

Atem gets un-fired lmaoooo kaiba pls make up your mind