Omega progenitor tomioka pt.2

Chapter 1

"You still haven't apologized," Mitsuri growled, her brow furrowed and her eyes filled with displeasure. Her sweet cherry blossom scent was heavy in the air, like a reminder, like a reproach.

Sanemi couldn't help but wince, unable to bring himself to meet her eyes. Kanroji wasn't the confrontational type, wasn't one to seek confrontation, more occupied with keeping the peace within their pack and making sure everyone around her was content and well cared for.

So for her to confront him head-on...

Rather than angry, she actually looked disappointed, which was much worse. Sanemi was used to anger, to people being angry, at him or at the world. He was used to anger because it was a dear friend, following in his footsteps since the blood had first stained his hands. He understood anger, intimately. He could face it.

What he couldn't deal with was a disappointed Kanroji. Whether one agreed or not, the Love Hashira was something like the human embodiment of kindness, understanding and patience. She was all the good things of this shitty world gathered in the form of a pretty girl with the color of a sakura mochi and the smell of a Hanami festival.

Making her disappointed had to be something like a crime against the gods. Or at least that's what Obanai seemed to think, perched in the nearby tree, as he glared at Sanemi. The Snake Hashira might be his closest friend within their unbalanced little pack, but if it was Mitsuri, the rest of the world could burn that Obanai wouldn't give a damn. Sanemi wouldn't get any help from the man, not as long as Mitsuri was unhappy with him.

"Shinazugawa... You used your alpha voice on him," she snarled, an ugly grimace twisting her thin lips.

And yeah. Yeah, Sanemi did, didn't he ?

The shameful guilt that lay heavily in his stomach was something he was as intimately familiar with as the anger boiling in his blood. The same kind of guilt that gripped him when he watched his alcoholic asshole of a father take out his anger on his mother, when he felt the hungry grunts from his siblings' bellies as they huddled together on the shared mattress or when he remembered, in the depths of the night, Genya's screeches at the sight of blood dripping from his face and staining his hands.

Guilt and anger, like an endless cycle with the first like fuel on the second's fire.

Normally, he was pretty good at ignoring guilt. He had become very good at running away from it over the years, very good at burying it far, deep down where it would form only a heavy and painful lump in his gut rather than a lake threatening to drown him with each breath. After all, it was easier to show only the anger.

He was an Alpha. People expected anger, violence, irascibility and sharp words. He had made himself a voluntary prisoner of the same things he had hated to see in his father.

How pitiful.

"You haven't even tried, have you?" Kanroji finally whispered, bitter and saddened at the same time.

"I- "

She shook her head, her eyes wet with unshed tears and her scent turning acrid. On the tree behind, Obanai perked up noticeably, his mismatched eyes accusing.