First therapy
Doctor Hasawa had her office in the same hospital he was staying in. Satsuki had lost no time in finding him a psychologist, one of the best of course. Or so she told him. A very nice, patient women. One who would be able to suffer his silences if he decided to be stubborn. His childhood friend really knew him too well. She even told him she expected better of him than to stay silent out of spite. That girl knew how to twist his sense of honor. She only left when this doctor came in.
Doctor Hasawa was a small, petite women. A mousy beta, someone far from intimidating or interesting. A person you would normally only perceive as background noise in a sea of faces. She introduced herself, explained a bit about her person and what she did. Behavioral therapy, whatever that was. It did sound like reeducating him in proper manners or something.
“I understand you were forced into this which is always a very bad thing. You have known for a bit of time this would come though. Did you come up with any ideas what you would like to change?”
Uuh, magic. He had been able to see the future. Wow. He answered, deciding to humor her a bit: “I decided to pay prostitutes instead of picking up random women, so that I do not run into this problem anymore.”
“So you already thought about what went wrong and how to change that, splendid. Could you tell me a bit about that process?” He only raised an eyebrow to that which prompted her to elaborate. “Please tell me exactly what you think went wrong and how you came up with this decision.”
“I did not ask her if she had a husband, boyfriend, aggressive dog, whatever, I just went with her. It`s too much of a hassle to ask random women about every kind of risk they have. So I decided to hire prostitutes because with them, such questions are settled beforehand. It´s not like I don´t have the money.”
“I see.” Doctor Hasawa nodded. “Why is the solution prostitutes and not a girlfriend for example?”
“I don´t do girlfriends.” He rolled his eyes. Why did everyone always think girlfriends were a solution to anything? They made life more complicated, not better.
“How come?”
“Because they are annoying, demand things and are always nagging.” Actually, why wasn´t Satsuki his girlfriend or wife? She was totally right, she behaved like one and he let her. “It makes them unattractive, I am not interested in sex with the same women all the time. Especially when she comes up with demanding me to change or buy her things or whatever for sex. I don´t see any sense in monogamy.”
“Have you ever experienced the trust, love and contentment that comes with giving yourself to one person only?”
Kuroko. He remembered that smile. Those baby-blue eyes filled with happiness just from seeing him. Those butterfly kisses when he cried on Kuroko´s shoulder. He remembered being his sun, being able to make everything all right just by being in the same room. Kuroko never asked for anything but to be allowed to stay by his side. Everything was easy with him. Kuroko wanted to be kissed, caressed, loved and Aomine had been content to do that. He never expected anything he did not want to give.
“I see you know what I am talking about. What happened with that person?” Doctor Hasawa asked with a smile.
He got pregnant. Suddenly he wanted Aomine to be his boyfriend, to care for a baby, to … he did not even know what else. He asked so much more than Aomine could ever give. It made him panic. He did not want to lose Kuroko, his love, their easy camaraderie – and did the worst he could have done. He closed his eyes. No, he did not want to think about this again. So he answered: “He married someone else.”
“When was that?”
“A month ago.” One fucking month and already Kuroko was pregnant again. They certainly did not wait. And why should they? It´s not like he had any claim on his ex. One who might not even think himself his ex because face it – Murasakibara was on to something. He knew about those hunts. He had played boyfriend while Kuroko got raped and impregnated by his teammates. He was no boyfriend, he was shit. It had felt like too much of a hassle to ask Kuroko what the fuck he was doing and why. He had enjoyed his friend´s company but he had not cared for him. Boyfriends cared for each other and he had been the only one cared for. It was his own fault Kuroko had left one day, only to be seen again in the arms of another man. He had not even looked for him when the Omega left.
“This seems to make you sad.”
“No shit.” Aomine scoffed. “Is that a disease now? Being sad?”
“There is a condition called extended grieve-”
“If you lost the only person you ever loved, would you not grieve? A damn month isn´t long for that. I am not letting anyone tell me mourning has anything to do with time. It fucking hurts and that doesn´t stop just because a week or a month or a year has gone by.” He glared at the women.
She blinked, opened her mouth but closed it again. It took a few moments before she answered: “I understand that it hurts. But if that grieve makes you do things that can cost you your job, your friendships and health, that grieve is too much. It won´t simply stop, that is right, but grieve should not make you unable to function in normal life.” She had a look of pity on her face. “One failed relationship should not stop you from becoming happy with someone else.”
“You don´t have a clue what you are talking about, bitch.” His lids contracted. “You have no idea what this person meant to me and what it does to me that I lost him. You don´t know what I did to lose him, so don´t tell me my grieve is not appropriate. Stop it with your shitty flower-filled world where everyone is nice to the other, so feelings are just some minor inconvenience.”
She had flinched back, stared at him, the door and back to him before deciding to try again: “Your tone seems quite aggressive to me and I have to admit it makes me afraid of you. If you think I do not understand, could you explain it to me, so that I do?”
“Oh?” She wanted to? Okay. Not like he had anything better to do. She had already forced him to revisit that chapter. “I won´t tell you his name because I don´t trust you not to run to the papers with the story. If you dare to, I promise to ruin you. If you think I am a threat when I am lying in a hospital bed, you don´t want to see me up. And that is already about what happened as well. I am a menace to people and that is all I ever was, so he was right to leave me. He was an Omega, a plaything to me and some of my Alpha friends. Every heat we hunted him down, raped him and had him abort the children afterwards. Even if he was pregnant, we raped him anyway, because why not? Still, he was in love with me. When he was pregnant with my son, he asked me to stop it all, to be mine exclusively, to be allowed to have my baby. I punched that baby out of him on the spot. He lost so much blood he nearly died. Know what I did when he crawled back from the hospital? I raped and impregnated him. Again, again and again. Until he learned not to come back to me anymore.” He smirked at the look of utter disgust on doctor Hasawa´s face. “Now, we were talking about extended grieve or some other shit?”
“You´re sick.” She stood, her eyes glistening with tears. “Dear god, you … I won´t hear this.” She shook her head and took a step back.
“Really? Sorry for destroying that happy world of bunnies and sunny days. This is life. Now run along, little girl and cry your eyes out before seeing your very normal, nice patients again.”
She did. She ran. He scoffed and shook his head. Yeah, right. So this was therapy? That was for nice people with whom talking might help. She was right. He was far from the point where talking could help with anything.
“Daiki!” Satsuki screamed from the door that doctor Hasawa left open. And here she went again.
He was allowed to go on Friday. Or maybe he had annoyed the nurses enough that they decided they did not want him here on the weekend. Whatever it was, he showered, put on his clothes and followed Satsuki out of the hospital on Friday afternoon. She told him she would move in with him for some weeks because the coach had asked her to do that. One had to control that he did his breathing exercises and rested. She was also to support him in looking for a new therapist, knowing he would never do it himself. Her monologue kept on and on without him having to add anything to the conversation. She told him to unpack his hospital stuff, she would go grocery shopping because his fridge was empty – not that it had ever been filled with anything but beer.
He enjoyed the quiet, knowing it would not last long. More than any therapy, having Satsuki around 24/7 was enough punishment his coach could be sure he would not do something that stupid again. How was he to survive her constant chatter for a month or three? Both seemed equally impossible. He liked her, yeah, but in doses. She had too much energy, was speaking enough for ten people and always wanted to do this or that. It was just annoying as hell.
She came back an hour later with two full bags, filling his cupboards with all kinds of things. She took out pans and a pot when he told her in all seriousness that he would not eat anything she cooked, her meals were a disaster after all. It made her struck his cheek before stomping off to his second bedroom. He sighed deeply – which hurt, yeah, thank you for noticing – and looked at the thinks she bought before deciding on katsudon. He was not much of a cook but he had been able to save their grades in home economics.
When he called her for dinner, she came out and sat with him while they finished their food in silence. He had taken out a box of ice-cream when she began to speak with a serious tone: “I know you do not want me here. But I will stay and you will have to accept that if you want to keep your job. So I do not want you to treat me like an enemy, we are both in this together. Let´s make the best of it.”
“I do not want you to cook.” What else? “You won´t enter my room without knocking. You don´t touch my porn, you don´t rearrange the flat. This is my home, you are a guest. Understood?”
She smiled at him, something like pride in her eyes. Yeah, he could do adult. The coach wasn´t wrong that he needed a chaperone, as much as he hated the fact. He did want to keep his job.
“Next topic: Therapy. It won´t do if I keep searching for therapists that you insult or scare off. If you think about a person that might be acceptable, what should I look for?”
Urgh. He did not want to adult anymore. Therapy was shit. Therapists lived in some happy-go-lucky-world where problems were solvable and talking made people happy. Though luck, it did not. Not everything could be fixed.
“Dai-chan, I know you don´t want to talk to someone. It´s okay to be afraid. But not talking about anything only seems to make it worse. I feel like I am slowly losing you. You need help and I am not enough for that. I need your input here. Otherwise I´ll have to send you to people where what happened with doctor Hasawa will happen over and over again. I don´t want that for you. You hurt and scared her but I know that means she hurt and scared you first. You only retaliate, you do not look for fights.”
Not really. He let out his anger on people unable to defend themselves. He had thought about Kuroko often enough to know that now. Satsuki was his best friend because she did not take his shit. He was able to be friends with Kuroko because Kagami would beat him up if he ever fucked up again. He needed threats to make relationships work. Therapists were just … too nice. Too much of a victim. They weren´t hard enough.
“I need someone I can fight with. Someone who does not back down, someone who can listen to anything and still keep their head. Someone who can defend him- or herself if needed. Someone who knows what to do with people who fly off their handle. Someone who has seen every kind of shit, murder, sexual assault, anything. Someone who is not shocked by depravity.”
“Daiki, you aren´t that ba-”
“Stop!” He threw the ice-cream box onto the table. “Just … stop. Stop making excuses for me. You and Tetsu both, you always think it´s not that bad. Know what? It is. Your words are nice but I know deep down that the shit I do is wrong. I need someone who still talks to me while being able to accept that I should be in prison for all the shit I did.”
Satsuki closed her eyes, tears running down her cheeks. After a moment, she simply nodded and stood. With a whispered “I´ll find that someone”, she returned to her room.
Somehow that silence was worse than everything she could have said.
