Not good enough   von Gepo
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                          Kapitel 25: Past and future
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Tatsuya woke to the sound of his boyfriend´s whiny voice saying: “I´m
hungry.”
“I admit I`d like to have a cup of coffee. How about a family restaurant?,”
Tsueda inquired.
“Breakfast sounds great.” Misses Murasakibara laughed happily. “I have
some more hours before I need to catch my train.”
“I don´t think I have asked, what kind of work do you do right now?”
“I work as an assistant in an accountant´s office. My late husband was a
lawyer, I was his secretary. When I needed work again to care for Atsushi, I
went back to my old job, the same office actually.”
“I remember reading in the file that your husband left after the incident?,”
Tsueda probed not so gently.
Tatsuya opened his eyes but stayed lax in Atsushi´s arms. His boyfriend was
carrying him down the stairs from the temple. Tatsuya did not want to interrupt,
this was something he wanted to know.
“Yes, that is correct … I was in love with him but he did not care for me
much. He casually slept with me and reluctantly married me when I got pregnant.
When Atsushi was in the hospital, he told me that he was tired of me and married
life and left.” She sounded mostly sad, not even bitter about what the man had
done.
“That´s a horrible thing to do. Did you even know if Atsushi would
survive?”
“No, the doctors were sure he wouldn´t make it. My husband promised to pay
the hospital bills, but after … he said without Atsushi, there would be no
reason to stay with me.” She sounded teary but she seemed to be able to hold
the tears back. “When it was clear that Atsushi would wake again, I called
him. I hoped he would come back but he said he had already found someone
else.” She sighed. “In the end, he payed nothing. The divorce gave me enough
money to pay for the hospital but not for rehabilitation. It´s my fault Atsushi
isn´t better off now.” At this point her voice finally broke and she sobbed.
“That is not your fault,” Tsueda tried to console her, “your husband
should clearly have helped.” He gave her some tissues and waited for her to
calm a bit. “Did you not get any insurance money? It was a car accident where
a driver hit your son, right?”
“Yes, it … I never inquired about that. Should we have gotten money?” She
still sounded a bit nasal but not as teary as before. “My husband was a
lawyer, so I thought he did everything that was needed.”
“Did you get aliments from him?” Tsueda´s voice held a quiet fury that
Tatsuya had come to know. It was the voice he used when he tried to stay calm.
“He said that if I tried to sue him, he would win the lawsuit.” She hung her
head. “I think he hates me.”
“No matter what he thinks about you, Atsushi is still his son. If he had the
money due to him, we would not be dependent on Mister Akashi.” Tsueda really
tried to keep his voice steady but it betrayed his anger. “The car insurance
should have paid not only for rehabilitation but also for special schooling,
specialized child-care and physical training. His father earns enough to be able
to pay for food and boarding.”
“I guess.” She sounded uncomfortable. “It´s too late now, isn´t it? Like
everything. I also lost my husband because I am plain and cannot make
decisions.” She cried into her hands. “I am a failure.”
Tatsuya clenched his fists and hugged Atsushi. Hard. How could she say that in
front of her son? How could she just stand there and blame herself but not do
anything? He wanted to rage and scream and he had to remind himself every second
that it would only make it worse.
“Can we go?” Atsushi said it not to him but to Tsueda. “I´m really
hungry.”
Tatsuya wanted to cry.

He simply kept silent. He thanked Atsushi for carrying him and he walked beside
him hand in hand to the restaurant. They poured over the menu, getting this and
that mainly for Atsushi and tried their best to ignore the adults. After a few
minutes of calming himself, Tsueda had begun to explain to Misses Murasakibara
what she had to do now. Even though she worked in an accounting firm, she seemed
overwhelmed with even the simplest tasks.
She did not know who had run her boy over. Neither the name nor the insurance
company affiliated. She did not have any papers from back then. She did not know
if her husband had ever filed a lawsuit against the driver. Tsueda looked ready
to smack her but he stayed calm and explained to her that she needed to call the
police where the accident had happened to get a copy of the files. She should
also look for a lawyer to sue her ex-husband for aliments. First she said she
could never do that. Tsueda was a bit merciless in telling her that no amount of
kindness towards her ex-husband would bring him back. After weeping over that,
she said she had no money to pay a lawyer. He gave her some addresses where she
could find help on that.
All the explaining, weeping, going over it again and again took hours. Atsushi
was on his ninth dish when his mother remembered she needed to catch her train.
Tsueda promised to pay for her food and asked her to leave her key on the door
before telling her to simply go. After she left, he looked close to trashing the
place. It was a strange look on a teacher but completely understandable in
Tatsuya´s opinion. Atsushi munched through all of it and Tatsuya simply decided
that if they did not have enough money, he would pay for everything else. Right
now he was happy that his boyfriend could be calmed with massive amounts of
food.
Honestly, he did not know how his boyfriend had turned out so decently. How he
even withstood all that emotional turmoil in the last few hours. Tsueda looked
shaken, Tatsuya felt something between anger, desperation and complete and utter
sadness for the life his boyfriend must have had. Most of all he felt a sudden
respect for Akashi for standing up to this women and telling her to leave her
son alone and surrender his care to him. No matter his faults, that had most
likely saved Atsushi´s life. Anything between being beaten to death by the
wrong crowd and starving would have been his fate otherwise. He felt like
weeping.
“Talking to mom always makes people sad,” Atsushi told them over pudding.
“Or angry. Me too. I always get angry as well. But that´s no good. It´s
wrong to kick your mom, I know.”
“You´re a very good boy, Atsushi.” Tatsuya leaned against him. “Your
mother loves you. She is just unsure and full of anxiety.”
“She is very passive,” Tsueda added. “It´s good that you try your best to
reach your own goals. You wanted Himuro as your boyfriend and got him. You want
kids, so you will do your best in training and get the job as a basketball
player. You are an active person.”
“It´s a good thing to fight for the things one wants.” Tatsuya kissed his
boyfriend.
“I want her back,” said boyfriend replied.
Tsueda and Tatsuya exchanged a look. After a moment, Tsueda answered: “I´m
sure she´ll visit again. You behaved well, so we can have her over.”
“Good.” Atsushi smiled widely. “Do you think she´ll tell me I´m a good
boy?”
“We can ask her to do that.” Tatsuya´s heart clenched again. Atsushi just
wanted to know that she liked him and she could not even say that much. For that
she would need to know what she liked in a son and it seemed like she could not
even say that much. Being with her must have felt like floating without
directions in a hostile world.
Atsushi stared into his empty bowl. After a moment he said: “Muro-chin … I
feel sad. Why do I feel sad?”
Tatsuya looked at Tsueda for a moment. How the heck was he supposed to answer
that?
“We all feel sad,” Tsueda explained. The anger had drained from his voice.
“Tatsuya and I wished that you had a mother that could say what she wants or
not. A mother that could scold you when you do wrong and praise you when you do
right. Your mother is not such a person and we are sad for you.”
Atsushi seemed to think hard on that and finally asked: “So you mean a mother
that could do my plans with me?”
“Yeah, exactly.” Tsueda smiled proudly. “A mother that notices when you
misbehave and says something about that. A mother that praises you when you have
been exceptionally nice.”
“That would be good.” Atsushi smiled at Tatsuya. “I´d like for Muro-chin
to be my mom.”
Wait, what? Tatsuya blinked in something between surprise and disgust. He
wasn´t Atsushi´s mom. Yeah, okay, he wished his boyfriend had a less shitty
one but he would not want to be his mother. One did not sleep with one´s
mother. How should he explain that concept to Atsushi?
“Himuro is your partner. He´ll be a good mom to your children. But your mom
will always be your mom. Everyone has their own and they can never be
changed.”
“I like my mom.” Atsushi looked at their teacher. “You are right, I don´t
want another. I´d like my mom to be like Muro-chin.”
“Maybe you can explain to her what you like about Himuro and what you would
need from her. You can make a wish. It´s her decision what she does with it.
But one can try.”
“I want her to be able to scold and praise.” He looked at his empty bowl
again. “I´d like that more than Lego and food.”
“You can tell her that the next time you see her.” Tsueda smiled.
Tatsuya could read that smile and he knew what their teacher was not saying.
Atsushi would have forgotten this conversation the next time they saw her.
Nothing would ever change with those two because Atsushi was too mentally
disabled to ever follow such a conversation and the people caring for him had
long given up on his mother.
He felt like crying again.

Tatsuya wrote a formal inquiry to be allowed to use the school´s heat room in
the family dorms. He got the signatures from both his parents and teacher Tsueda
got one from Atsushi´s mother. Tatsuya wasn´t sure what he did, maybe he just
told her to sign in a stern voice. That seemed to do the trick. Thinking about
mating felt wrong after what he had witnessed but the heat scorched those
thoughts from his head. Soon he was filled by nothing but thoughts of Atsushi,
the children they might have, the sex to get those children. In the end, he was
filled with Atsushi in the most literal sense, not even thoughts of him
remained.
He was the only Omega at this school who had ever chosen a mate from an S-Class.
The other Omegas in this dorm welcomed him anyway. He knew most of them from his
own special classes, he had held some of their babies and even visited one or
two outside of class. They asked him if he had down a pregnancy test yet which
he refuted. He would not need one. His perfect mate had been able to follow the
instruction to use condoms, no matter what Tatsuya said or did. He loved Atsushi
for it. He loved how he had someone at his side who was able to think before he
acted, even as a mentally disabled person. Despite everything, he was
well-raised and well-mannered. Tatsuya loved that about him and he knew who he
would have to thank for that. He did not like that fact though.
He dreaded meeting Akashi. One part of him wanted to scream and rage, another
wanted to thank him and ask for advice. How should he behave if he met him?
Because they would meet, no question about that. Every basketball tournament,
every miracle get-together. Friends were important and Atsushi´s old teammates
liked him despite his disabilities. It was why he had urged his boyfriend to go
to Kuroko´s birthday basketball game, even if Atsushi found it “too much of a
bother”. It only occurred to Tatsuya after their little dispute that his
boyfriend had no money to visit friends in Tokio and had long since given up on
asking for more of anything regarding costly things.
It was Akashi´s phone call that really brought home Tatsuya´s need to decide
on his opinion regarding the red-haired psycho. Was it possible to like and
dislike someone at the same time? Because the Akashi that called Atsushi, that
told him he had organized a practice match for their teams in Tokio, so that
Atsushi would be able to visit Kuroko´s birthday, that Akashi was extremely
likable. The one that ordered people around and looked down on Omegas and people
in general, that one seemed quite unlikable. But maybe having a split
personality entitled someone to be liked and disliked at the same time. So maybe
he should just adjust his behavior to whom of those two personalities he would
meet.
Somehow he was quite relieved that Taiga invited him over when he heard that he
would be in town. Like that, he would not have to meet Akashi so soon. He could
bring Atsushi to his friends, then go to Taiga and wait for his boyfriend´s
call to pick him up somewhere without having to see Akashi. It sounded perfect.
So he dropped off Atsushi in the park on the 31st of January and pointed him in
the right direction before taking off to meet Taiga.
He really wanted to tell his ex-brother about his mating. Not the gory details,
just … that it happened. Show off his bite mark and be happy for a bit. Not
that he wasn´t happy on a daily basis, just this special kind of happy when you
could tell others how happy you were. Yeah, well … something like that. At
least that was the plan until he found himself lost, brought to his friend via
rickshaw and was roped into preparing a party for Taiga´s
not-quite-yet-boyfriend. That was not how he had planned this. But cooking with
Taiga was nice anyway, even if the guy was as oblivious as can be. Tatsuya tried
his best to have him notice the bite mark but he didn´t.
Idiot. Thick idiot.
Maybe he should help his ex-brother with winning his own sweetheart. But
everyone seemed to be in on the joke that Taiga was Kuroko´s destined mate and
no one told him. It was so terribly obvious that everyone beside Taiga noticed.
Tatsuya debated taking his ex-brother aside when the bell rang and Furihata came
back with a tow of rainbow-color haired people in tow.
Including Akashi. Oh, the joy.

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