Howl to the Moon (Haikyuu Omegaverse)

Chapter 27: Naked

Dad and mom didn't abandon us, didn't abandon us, didn't abandon us, a little voice repeated in his head. Fuck, fuck, how could you blame them? You're an idiot, Atsumu. A failure and an idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

Not even the presence of Sakusa, sitting in front of him, calmed the growing anxiety unleashed inside him. For years Atsumu hated his parents, blamed them for everything that happened to him or Osamu. That they lacked a mother figure, that they were traumatized after abandonment, that their difficulty in communicating was due to the lack of their biological parents... Bokuto's father raised them as if they were his own children, but Atsumu always felt resentment towards his biological parents for leaving without saying goodbye when his previous pack was eradicated. But now he discovered  that none of that was real, that he had been blaming his family while they suffered tortures at the hands of the hunters.

He couldn't swallow or spit, for his lips and throat were so dry that his tongue felt numb, stuck to the roof of his mouth. His hands and lower lip continued to tremble and his eyes stung: he was beginning to see blurred by the tears gathering in his eyes but which he refused to let fall. He felt an irrepressible desire to apologize to his parents for the wrong thoughts he formulated for years against them as they slowly consumed themselves in horrible sufferings like the candle on the desk, but he couldn't do so, because his parents died many years ago away from their children. And now it was too late.

He inhaled shakily and dropped the paper to the ground. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear the rapid drumming in his ears. The world was spinning, the different parts of his brain shutting off one by one until he was left confused and incapable of anything other than feeling bad and sad, guilty for creating a wrong image of his parents and for hating them in silence, an open secret he now regretted. He rubbed his fingers across his eyes, the tears fell silently but he didn't even notice them.

Idiot, idiot, idiot. It's your fault, it's all your fault.

Atsumu got to his feet as he hunched over, one hand resting on the old wooden desk to keep himself from falling straight to the floor. He felt palpitations, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, the chill of a stormy december night penetrating his bones. He squeezed his eyes shut to stop the dizziness, tried to steady himself; nothing worked.

"Atsumu!"

A voice brought him back to the present. He opened his eyes and found himself face to face with the black and worried eyes of Sakusa, who was holding him by the arms so that he wouldn't collapse on the ground, but he hadn't even noticed it was so. It was strange, unfair that he was there, alive and protected with Sakusa by his side, while his parents were dead and his brother lived among hunters who would pay to put a bullet inside his head. Guilt increased, the voice in his head still whispering: idiot, idiot, idiot.

"It's not your fault, Atsumu. You're not an idiot. Stop muttering, what happened to your parents is the hunters' fault, not yours."

"I-it's my fault. Only my fault, my fault," Atsumu stammered. His voice sounded strange, alien to himself, but he felt that the words spoken contained a universal truth.

***

Sakusa stared into the omega's brown eyes, trembling and scared with watery eyes and traces of tears on his cheeks. His skin emitted a sour smell of sadness and despair, not a trace of the natural fruity scent that he normally emitted when Sakusa was with him. Anxiety was drawn in the omega's tearful face, in his elusive gaze, in the chills that shook his body. Sakusa didn't know what to do or how to face the situation, but he knew that Atsumu needed him for support, he could read it in his eyes as the boy kept muttering that it was his fault.