Not good enough von Gepo ================================================================================ Kapitel 4: The topic of sex --------------------------- Tatsuya waited for a quiet afternoon where they could sit outside and enjoy cake while watching the clouds. Peaceful. A good atmosphere to ask heavy questions: “Tell me about middle-school.” It had been on his mind for two weeks now. Had Murasakibara tried to court that boy? Had the Omega gone crazy for his pheromones? Had it been a miscalculated first heat which the giant had happened to walk into? But then the Omega would have been bitten. There had been no mention of mating. Did Murasakibara even get what had happened? Had anyone talked with him about it except for giving him sex-ed? “Teiko?” The giant lazily turned his head. “Teiko was … okay. We won a lot of games.” “Basketball?,” Tatsuya guessed. “Yeah, that. All three championships.” Holy shit. So their team won every year? He distinctly remembered Tsueda saying something like “basketball miracle”. His teammate was damn good and he knew. So he had been on a great team before as well. “That´s impressive!” He smiled down at the giant lying on the grass. “Can you remember any teammates?” “Akashi was our captain.” Murasakibara held up his fingers to count them. “Mido-chin was our shooter. I hated Mido-chin. He was always nagging. Mine-chin was power-forward. Kise was small-forward. And there was Kuroko.” “What was Kuroko?” He knew the name Kise. Kise Ryouta was a model who had started playing in his second year of middle-school and was now a famous player. Tatsuya had read about him in Basketball Monthly. “A phantom,” the other man simply answered. “What´s a phantom?” “Well … he´s invisible.” Murasakibara shrugged his shoulders. “Our sixth man.” “You seem to like him.” “He´s cute.” The lavender-colored eyes focused on him. “He´s even smaller than you.” “Hey, I´m tall for an Omega.” Tatsuya punched the other´s shoulder. “He is an Omega too.” Oh. Had he been the Omega? The Omega Murasakibara had slept with? His voice did hold affection. Could he ask? “Were you in love with him?” Murasakibara simply blinked. “I mean, did you like him? As more than a teammate?” How to describe it? “He was pregnant with my kid.” The giant looked away, his face clearly distorted in sadness. “He aborted it.” Tatsuya´s throat constricted. Oh god. Murasakibara was still hurting. Why did he even ask? Shouldn´t he have known this would be painful? He was an idiot. He choked out: “Why?” “He said he is too young for a child.” The giant man curled up his legs and lay on his side away from his friend. “I don´t believe him.” “You don´t think he was too young?” Tatsuya blinked in surprise. Did Murasakibara know what having a child meant for an Omega? “He was pregnant again a month later. He wanted to keep it.” The other sounded petulant. “Oh.” Tatsuya balled his fists. Well … it was understandable that he wanted a more reliable Alpha. It was understandable that he wanted to spare Murasakibara. But though he was dumb, he wasn´t this dumb. “It wasn´t yours?” “It was Aomine´s. But he didn´t want children. He punched Kuroko´s stomach.” The giant snorted. “I wouldn´t have done that. That´s bad. It hurts. It killed the baby. Aomine is evil.” Tatsuya could wholeheartedly agree. This Aomine guy had punched his pregnant mate to abort their child? That was plain horrible. Who came up with such a … he didn´t even want to think about that. It was disgusting. He told Murasakibara so. His friend turned and looked at him. After a moment of silence one of those extremely large hands grabbed his and squeezed them. He said: “I would never hurt my mate. Mates are to be protected. Especially pregnant ones.” “You are right,” Tatsuya said through his constricted throat, “Alphas are to protect Omegas, especially their mates.” “Coach Araki teaches us in manners. I wrote it all down. Just like you told me.” He could not do anything but pat Murasakibara´s head as an reward. His heart felt like he was stabbed. His friend might not understand or know much but his heart was in the right place. Life was to be cherished, mates to be protected. It was basic but oh so important. And Murasakibara really did his best to learn. Tatsuya moved over so that the lavender-haired man could lie his head on his lap. He began to stroke his hair, making Murasakibara hum in appreciation. Half a minute later he started asking questions again: “How come you aren´t mated to Kuroko?” “He wore a collar.” “Did he agree to have sex with you?” Did Murasakibara even know what that meant? “The best player of the month got the right to hunt him. He agreed to that.” Tatsuya choked on his spit and had to cough. Holy shit. An Omega had agreed to being the team´s bitch? Because there was no nicer word for that. He sincerely doubted that Kuroko had done so. Someone must have pressured him into that. Especially without protection. Did Murasakibara really mean a hunt as in those archaic events where a group of Alphas hunted down an Omega like a wild animal to be put down? Because those were organized rapes. They were forbidden in most countries due to their violent nature. A lot of Omegas had died in those events. Did Japan allow those? “So he was given a head start when in heat and you tried to find him and raped him at the end of it?,” he asked to avoid misunderstandings. “What does rape mean?” Those lavender-colored eyes looked up at him. “It´s when you have sex with someone and would not stop if that person says no.” “He didn´t say no.” The other seemed lost in thought for a moment. “He only cried.” “Did that make you stop?” Tatsuya was not surprised by the shake of then head on his lap. “Then it was rape.” “Is rape a bad thing?” How come no one had ever taught this boy about that? Especially after it became known that he had impregnated a boy? “Rape is a bad thing. It´s called rape if the other person does not explicitly say he wants to have sex with you. Or if that person is under thirteen or dependent on you. Like if you are his boss or a senpai or a teacher.” “What if you get something for it? Like candy?” Murasakibara seemed very focused. It gave Tatsuya the chills. Had his teammate been raped? “Then it´s called prostitution. It´s when you are paid for sex. It´s forbidden in this country.” Was that understandable? “I mean, you are not allowed to pay someone for sex and you are not allowed to get paid for sex.” “I got paid once. I never got paid again. I told my mama and she got angry at my teacher. Then the teacher had to leave school.” Murasakibara looked at him again. “I took his candy. Why didn´t I get punished?” “Maybe because you were so young?” Tatsuya thought he would choke any second now. “How old were you?” “Don´t remember.” The lavender-colored eyes looked sad. “I was smaller than him.” With his growth that must mean it had been in elementary school. “I got scolded for the time with Kuroko. Was that because I raped him?” “Yes, I think so. But also because you got him pregnant. Do you know what condoms are?” Was he really giving sex-ed to his teammate? His really gorgeous, clueless, giant teammate? “Our teacher told us about them. We tried them on on bananas. You wear them on your penis, so girls and Omegas do not get pregnant.” Murasakibara gave him a proud smile. “Right?” “Right.” Tatsuya smiled back. “You did not wear one, so you got scolded for that too.” “But I wanted Kuroko to get pregnant.” The smile faltered. “I like babies.” “Yes, but Kuroko did not want to get pregnant. It´s not your decision, it´s his. So you are only allowed not to wear a condom if your partner says he wants to have your kid. Understood?” This sounded so wrong. His friend did not know the first thing about what it meant to have a child. Could he explain that? Had Murasakibara even understood what he had been told up to now? “So he wanted to have Aomine´s baby but not mine?” The giant pouted. “Why not mine?” There was a multitude of answers to that. How should he explain? Could he explain? It wasn´t like he could just say “Go ask the person you raped”. It wasn´t as easy as that. Murasakibara would never get an honest answer. But he could only guess at Kuroko´s reasons and take the most obvious: Because Murasakibara was unable to care for a baby. “Is it because I´m dumb?” Those lavender-colored eyes sought his with a dulled sadness that spoke of years of abuse and degradation. “No,” Tatsuya felt compelled to say, even though it was most likely true, “one only has children with his mate. That´s because a mate protects you and cares for you. A mate earns enough money so that you and your children can live from it. So when an Omega chooses a mate, he looks for someone that cares for them and earns enough money.” Well, there was more to it than that but it was the gist of it. “Aomine neither cared nor did he earn money.” “And Kuroko did not mate with him, right?” “But he wanted to.” Murasakibara thought for a moment. “Mine-chin would have been a bad choice.” “It sounds like that.” Someone who punched a kid out of you was without a doubt a bad choice. “What happened to Kuroko?” “He dropped out in our last year.” There was another long moment of silence. “I think he did not like to be raped. He did not speak any more. He even stopped crying. I don´t think he liked the hunts.” “No Omega likes hunts. They hurt. They are also forbidden,” Tatsuya explained with controlled fury. So that Omega had been tortured and only escaped by running away. Were had the teachers been? Shouldn´t they have reacted to the fact that a mentally disabled student had raped and impregnated someone? “None of us got punished for hunting him,” Murasakibara informed him. “You should have been. All of you. Hunting an Omega is a very bad thing.” But could he really be angry with Murasakibara? He didn´t even understand. Maybe now he understood a bit. “As a fellow Omega I feel angry and horrified by what your team did.” Degrading one of their own team members to nothing more than an object for their satisfaction. “Are you angry with me, Muro-chin?” Murasakibara sat up and looked him in the eye. Was he? It was more like being angry at everything and nothing at all. He was angry about the situation Murasakibara described. It wasn´t really his fault. He was without question not able to be held responsible for what he had done. But wasn´t that the worst kind of situation? This Kuroko most likely knew. What was it like to be raped by someone who would never get more than a scolding for doing so? Someone like Murasakibara wasn´t likely to go to prison, right? Hopefully no one would ever get the idea. Prison did not make sense to someone who could not distinguish between right and wrong. “What can I do to make you less angry?” The giant hung his head and sounded sad. “I am not angry at you. I am angry at the situation. Who came up with this hunt idea? That person is to blame.” “Captain Akashi.” Murasakibara looked up, a sullen expression on his face. “He´s scary.” “And a bad person if he really made Kuroko agree to those hunts. No Omega ever wants to be hunted. If they say they do then they don´t know what they are talking about or they have been pressured into saying so. This captain Akashi most likely pressured Kuroko into agreeing.” “And that´s bad.” Murasakibara nodded. “Hunts are bad. Rape is bad. And you have to wear a condom if the other person says so. And … paying was bad too?” He used his fingers for counting off the new things he learned. “It´s called prostitution. It´s not allowed. Some people work as prostitutes, they sell their bodies. But it´s not really allowed and most of them don´t want to do it. They have to because they need money for food.” “I had a lot of food money at Teiko.” The giant smiled at the memory. Tatsuya just balled his fists. Of course his friend had no deep emotional reaction, for him it was learning something new. But did he even get what he had done? How much he had hurt this Kuroko? No, he didn´t get that. He most likely never would. It wasn´t his fault, he was … well, dumb. It was hard but true. So they continued to talk about sweets and snacks. Hosted by Animexx e.V. (http://www.animexx.de)