Chapter Text
His hands had always caused him trouble, Sakusa knows this, and he knows it well. Of course, they hyperextend in an almost morbid kind of way. They are knobby and stretchy and body parts should not be, but that had never bothered him. The way they looked, that is, that part didn’t cause him any harm.
But his hands did - they drove him crazy. The skin crawled and tingled, ached; he wanted to peel it off slowly and carefully. They touched things, hands always were the easiest way to contact the outside world. He thinks about that when he clenches and unclenches his fingers, wrapped in bandages in the hospital, the mask covering his nose and mouth, he hates the hospital, but it is his own fault he’s here. “So, can you tell us why you uh…” The nurse trails off, gesturing towards his arms and smiling pitifully. His mother left the room, crying about how she failed or something along those lines. Sakusa couldn’t bring himself to feel anything about her yet.
Hands dirty, hands dirty, hands dirty, hands dirty- “I don’t know,” He says coldly. “They felt wrong.” Dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty-
“On a scale of 1-10, can you rank your depression right now?” The nurse notes something, interrupting the tirade in his head.
“I’m not depressed,” He answers. “Or suicidal.” Sakusa bites the inside of his lip and looks down at the floor, craving the break hurting himself gave his head. He was uncomfortable, painfully aware of all the ways his body was touching the chair he was sat down on. It burned.
“Alright,” She writes something else on the clipboard, and Sakusa watches her bring her wrist up to rub at her nose. He flinches, eye twitching slightly. “Can you tell me what you are feeling then?”
“Annoyed,” He says. “I want to go home.” The nurse pities him, that much he can tell, but she is relieved in favor of a male doctor, one who sighs and looks him up and down, unamused.
“So,” He starts. “You’re being difficult.” Sakusa does not answer. He does not plan on it. “Listen, Kiyoomi, I’m going to tell you what’s going on, honestly.” He clears his throat, and picks up his own clipboard: “You came home from school, according to your mother, filled a tub up with bleach and dipped both your hands in. You have chemical burns up to your forearms. You showed your mother, she drove you here. They treated your burns, and now you think that because they’re wrapped up, you can go home.” Kiyoomi scowls. “Kiyoomi?”
“That is accurate,” He doesn’t want to talk about this. He knows it was wrong. He’s sorry - he doesn’t want to be like this, it’s painful and makes him do irrational things and he hates it, hates it, hates it, hates it- “I told her, my hands felt wrong.”
“Wrong how?” The doctor presses, jotting that down.
“Dirty. I wanted them to be clean. I tried using water, and they were still dirty.” Sakusa clears his throat, “I know it was a bad thing to do, can I go home?”
So they put him on medication, and his mother cries, and his father calls the school. It’s very hush-hush. They didn’t listen to him though - they put him on antidepressants, and he wasn’t depressed. Something is wrong with me, his brain says over and over and over and over, but he doesn’t want to die and he’s not sad. He tells his volleyball team that his mother spilled coffee on him, and they believe him. His visit to the hospital is officially listed as a failed suicide attempt, despite Kiyoomi saying that was not what it was.
He wants to do it again - but he doesn’t . He has no idea what he wants to do. His head repeats again, again, again, again whenever he sees the bleach, among other things. He ignores it because he is above the voice in his brain, and he is above going to the hospital for a shitty handwashing attempt.
---
Komori doesn’t say anything, but he knows there is something wrong with him. Sakusa convinces himself this is true, as he carefully scrubs under his nails, wearing two masks today. It’s what he calls a scary day - where his body is a livewire and the slightest touch makes him feel the familiar loss of control, breaking down into shortened breaths and scratching, scratching, scratching, scratching . “Kiyoomi,” Komori corners him in the locker room. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
“Yes,” Sakusa says quickly. “Of course.”
“Are you going to the training camp, then? The big one? In Tokyo?” Komori senses his frustration. Sakusa wants to say no right away, but he holds back. He loves volleyball, it clears his head like nothing else really quite does. It makes him feel solid, real, and he really doesn’t mind playing more - but communal showers, and other people, and new places that he can’t control.
“I don’t know,” Sakusa clears his throat. “I want to...but…”
“I’ll go if you go,” Komori’s eyes search him over, and something inside of Sakusa almost breaks. Can he see that he’s so intrinsically wrong ?
“...alright,” Sakusa agrees hesitantly. “Alright. Fine.” Komori cheers and Sakusa turns the water in the sink off, staring at the soap longingly. He’d be back.
---
Atsumu Miya makes him want to kill a man. “Hey, Omi-Omi?” If only his twin had hyper fixated on Kiyoomi instead. It didn’t help that Komori thought it was funny . “C’mon and hit for me! Please!”
“No,” Sakusa says again. “And that’s not my name.”
“Omi,” Atsumu whines. He almost hangs off Kiyoomi’s shoulder, out of what is probably a habit - Atsumu seems to be touchy with everyone else. However, when he tried to playfully shove Sakusa and he flinched, Atsumu seemed to get the hint. Surprisingly enough, Atsumu was very attentive to Sakusa’s issues. He washed his hands before they practiced together, he wiped down where Kiyoomi sat at lunch before he sat down. He was an enigma, truly.
“Fine,” Kiyoomi hisses. “Fine. Did you wash your hands?”
“Anything for you!” Atsumu cheers, bounding over to the court with a grin. Sakusa doesn’t understand why he’s entertaining this. He thinks he...he might actually like Atsumu - as a friend. The thought makes him shudder.
---
“It’s been a full week since we last met,” The therapist tells him. Kiyoomi hums in agreement. “How was training camp?”
“Fine,” Kiyoomi says bluntly. He bites the inside of his lip and resists the urge to use the hand sanitizer on the table (again, he reminds himself, you already used it twice). “I don’t...I don’t think the medication is working.” This is rare, him offering any information on his own volition.
“Oh? Can you explain more to me, Kiyoomi?” She’s never been anything but kind to him, and he has no reason to think she’d tell his parents he requested a switch. His mother, as controlling as she was, spent hours researching the best pills for depression and insisted he be put on them. Nothing changed, but he was tired all the time. He woke up groggy, and his brain was fuzzy at night time. His mind still repeated the same terrifying thoughts over and over again.
“I’m tired,” Kiyoomi tells her. “And nothing is changing.”
“Well, these things take time,” She writes something, anyway. “How are the panic attacks?”
“I don’t...they’re not like normal ones,” Kiyoomi clears his throat. He can’t believe he’s talking this much, but he’s so scared of himself. He thinks he’ll do it again, go to the hospital. And he’s scared of the hospital. “I just...sit there. And I can’t move.”
She hums, writing another note before closing her book and smiling tightly at him. When he leaves the room and his mother enters, she’s already crying. Great. Perfect. Kiyoomi picks at a mark on his wrist. He wills himself not to run. Jump out the window, jump out the window, jump out- “Let’s go, Kiyoomi, dear,” His mother wipes at her eyes, smiling weakly. She loves him, and she is trying so hard to support him, but he can’t do this much longer. Am I suicidal? Do I want to die? Am I dying right now? He gets in the car, pumping hand sanitizer into his hands and methodically spreading it. “She wants to add an anti-anxiety pill, did you tell her you were anxious?” She asks him. Kiyoomi waits a second, but nods. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“...I’m trying,” Kiyoomi whispers. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Kiyoomi,” his mother sighs. “I just want you to get better.” He wrings his hands, blinks back tears. “I know you’re trying your best. We’ll put you on something, alright?”
“Alright,” Kiyoomi agrees, scrolling through his phone. “Thank you.”