Cared For I - Atsumu

Chapter Four

Those words weren't shouted, but to the team, the impact of them felt like a nuclear bomb crashing down onto them.

"W-What?" Osamu stuttered, eyes wide in disbelief, the rest mirroring his expression.
Atsumu...crying? Every night?

" Don't 'what' me. He's crying and hurting and blaming himself every night and still defends you, agreeing with those words you take as teasing! Do you know how many times he's broken down in front of me?! Do you know? And what about the times I wasn't there, huh?! What about the times he broke down in his room, alone and hopeless even though his twin brother was right in the room across of his own? DO YOU KNOW THAT?! " Sakusa raised his voice, and Osamu flinched hard, lowering his head in shame and guilt.
The rest of the team wasn't much better once the meaning of those words sunk in.

" H-He...took th-those words to heart?" Suna stuttered, face contorting into an expression of guilt as he lowered himself onto the couch.
Ginjima and Akagi were looking as if they'd get sick any moment, face slightly green. Akagi opened his mouth a few times, looking like a gaping fish, before he shut it again and breathed out shakily.
Ginjima put his head in his hands, running one through his hair and fisting it. His eyes were wide open in horror as he remembered all the words he himself had shouted at the male. And to think that he took all of them to heart...

Kita felt like an utter failure.
He was the team captain, he was supposed to care and look out for everyone, yet he failed to do so with the one person who had been attacked the most. And not only that, but he thought Atsumu would be okay with this, he had always laughed it off, retorted and snapped back at the person who'd teased him at the moment, making everyone feel as if he really didn't care.
And some of those words were nasty and mean, there was no question about it. So to hear that he took them to heart, cried even about them, it...Kita was a fool. An utter fool who didn't deserve to be called the captain of Inarizaki.

But the one person who felt by far the worst was Osamu.
He thought Atsumu hadn't been affected by what they said, and oh god, he had talked so much shit about him as well, what if he seriously got the idea that Osamu thought of him like that?
Of course he took things easily to heart when they were younger, but he thought Atsumu had changed!
He was so confident and was it all a mask?!

"I think you out of all people should know that Tsumu let's certain words get to him easily, especially if they're coming from his friends and family", Sakusa was back to glaring at everyone, but his eyes were solely focused on Osamu at the moment, who shrunk in on himself.
"You had a fight some time ago, I think 'I wish you were never my brother' is what you said, or am I mistaken?", he began, stepping a bit closer and piercing the grey haired male's soul with their intensity. The words that he uttered however, bore right through it, leaving a gaping hole of despair.
" Do you know how long it took me to calm him down after that?"

Osamu shook his head weakly and Sakusa laughed coldly, without any humor in it.

"He took the bus to see me, moments from breaking down, and when I let him in and closed the door, he wasn't even able to take two steps before he collapsed on the ground from the amount of pain he was in. He wasn't breathing, didn't hear or see me and it took me about two hours just to get some kind of reaction from him", Sakusa straightened up again and stepped back, looking almost ready to leave.

"He never really recovered from it. He didn't sleep that night, neither did he eat anything, and he would burst out in tears randomly. The following morning I woke up to see him sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth, whispering about what he did wrong and why it was always him. When he saw, you know what it was that he said to me?!"

" What....?" Osamu whispered, looking at the ground on the verge of tears, arms clasped tightly around his body.

" I already changed, Omi. I already changed, I'm not a useless waste of space anymore, so why do they still treat me like that?! Why doesn't anyone like me, even now? Why does it hurt so much, Omi?"