Hi! So, Raph and Yuko began as a couple of quick mentions in my first novel, Free Love. Raph is the Beta sibling of the Omega MC in that book. Then, when I got into the epilogue chapters of Free Love, I fleshed out both Raph and Yuko a little bit more as characters, and I started to have a major author crush on them.
Not too far down the line, I wrote them a single short story that was intended to lure people into taking a quick poll for me... but... my thirst was not quenched. I wanted more. So did a few other people.
Eventually, some ideas came to me, and I started really developing their meet-cute story. So I announced I would do a long short story, posted in few chapters. Well, it kept growing and growing. Eventually it got so long, that I realized that the way Tapas statistics work, I was kind of shooting myself in the foot by having it exist only in the form of chapters added onto some other work.
There was also a timeline issue. Raph and Yuko's story starts roughly a year before Free Love starts, and therefore it could, theoretically, make sense to read it first. The way it's written, however, means that you can read it at any point without spoiling things in Free Love or Free Will.
Now, about the story. If you don't like Omegaverse BL, you may still really like Raph and Yuko because it's not BL and Alphas/Omegas/Fated Mates/etc are only glancingly mentioned in this story. Traits have nothing to do with Raph and Yuko's relationship-- they are both Betas. No one gets wolfy at all and there are no pheromones flying. They are LGBTQIA+ in that Raph is nonbinary and AMAB (assigned male at birth) and Yuko is a woman who was AMAB and later had gender affirmation surgery and uses hormones.
This story is largely fluff-- my definition of fluff being "a story where there's no big life or death moment or near-relationship-ending conflicts or anything. Just a love story with normal slice-of-life-y issues." If you want a little more drama, Free Love and Free Will can provide those. If you want the all d'awwww and very little d'oh! Raph and Yuko are here for you.
Without further ado, I hope you'll enjoy Raph & Yuko.
Raph Cooper (sibling of Gabriel) is a nonbinary acupuncturist, yoga instructor, and fan of healing crystals. Yuko is a jaded female financier from New York who ends up at the same yoga retreat as Raph, purely for business reasons. When they meet, though, these two Betas teach the Alphas and Omegas of the world a thing or two about what it means to be Meant-to-be.
Raph's life is in South Florida, and Yuko's in Manhattan. Can they keep the spark alive with twelve hundred miles and a world of difference between them?
Raph and Yuko is a fluffy prequel novella for Free Love. It is set in the same ABO universe as Free Love, Raph and Yuko are LGBTQIA+ Betas, so traits and other Omegaverse issues do not feature prominently in this story. The events of this story take place a year or so before Free Love begins.
You can read Raph and Yuko at any point... it contains no spoilers for Free Love or Free Will.
Cover art of Raph and Yuko by the talented and generous Heliodor!!
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