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Tobio presented as an omega when he was sixteen years old, a little on the older side but still within the proper age range. His preheat made him feel hot and sticky all over and aching for things he couldn't name and within a week he was back at school with a pack of scent patches just in case.
He wasn't upset, there weren't a lot of omegas who were professional athletes but they did exist. 35% of secondary genders were omegas, another 35% were alphas with betas falling under at 30% of the global population.
Omegas were generally advised not to do sports at a professional level, nor should they do any sort of high stress jobs like medical careers, performers or high pressure jobs that made them have long hours. He was no different, especially after he never had a heat after his presentation.
His mother clutched her hands together as the doctor smiled at him and threw around words like heat amenorrhea, fertility issues and over explained how his body was protecting itself instead of growing and preparing for the possibility of a child in the upcoming years. He blinked down and the doctor handed him some brochures labelled 'fertility for young omegas: what to watch out for' and 'heat amenorrhea and how to handle it'.
The car ride home was silent and tense. He watched as his mother knuckles grew white on the steering wheel.
"So what do you think?" she asked, breaking the silence.
He looked out the window, they had to drive into another city to get to a specialist that they were referred to after a few weeks of waiting. His parents and sister had to come home more now that he had presented, both parents worked internationally and travelled all over. Miwa worked in Tokyo now, a hair stylist but she modelled a bit on the side.
Both he and Miwa used to travel with their parents when they were younger, for holidays and long weekends when they had meetings they couldn’t get out of. After those they would spend the rest of the day walking around and exploring with him and Miwa until she started high school and it was just him and his parents. They were busy, he and Miwa didn't mind but when he started volleyball at the junior level and started getting noticed he started having to decline the travelling for volleyball practices and training camps.
He missed them.
Then he presented and all of a sudden they were back more frequently to scent things and buying him gifts and to make sure he was okay.
As an omega his parents kept waiting for his first heat to hit, they wouldn't be full ones until he finished maturing in his mid-twenties, but he should still get shorter ones and craving his parents scents especially in the first year. He never did get any after presenting and eventually after a year they made the appointment.
"I'm not quitting volleyball."
He peeked over at his mother who nodded once, as if she expected it. Both his parents were alphas but carried the recessive genes and while all of his grandparents had died, three out of four were also alphas. His grandmother on his dad's side was the omega and he knew that his mother had gotten along surprisingly well with her mother in law.
It also helped that his grandmother had been a singer when she had been alive, a well-established one and even now some of her songs were pretty popular or at least known. The fact that she was an omega didn't stop her from being successful and Tobio refused to let him not be successful as well.
The lack of heats, possible fertility issues and long term effects of training all sounded like warnings that were meant for something else. For people who wanted to be a parent with dreams of two kids and a picket white fence.
He didn't want that.
He wanted gold medals.
He wanted to play, to win, to improve and play with the best of the best. He didn't want to quit, to relax and reduce his training, he didn't want to gain weight and lose any of his hard earned muscle.
The doctor had explained that for him his heats wouldn't start until then and if he continued on this path that by the time he his twenty-five he might only have had preheats instead of full ones. No chance of kids, no urge for mating bites from alphas and no instincts that most omegas experienced in full. At that point his body would have adapted to it and the most he would get was a preheat in place of the heat.
Preheats which were hell, think cramping, mood swings, fatigue, cravings, back pain, nesting urges, food sensitivity, headaches, irritability and generally just feeling like shit. Except not for a few days leading up to his heat but those few days plus the entirety of his heat.
His mother hadn't even looked at him when the doctor kept explaining it to her, as if Tobio hadn't been in the room at all.
She was looking at him now.
"You do understand what continuing to play means, right?" her voice was calm and deceivingly careful as if he would break.
He shrugged, still looking out the window. "Yeah. I get it."
"I don't think you do," she said, staring pointedly at the road. "It's not just the possibility of never having kids, it's -" She stopped and swallowed back the words that Tobio already knew.
The discrimination that two third of the world already faced and he had drawn the short straw of that. Omegas were faster and had sharper reflexes than the other two secondaries, but they were more delicate. Not weaker, but alphas had the biological urge to protect them and betas had the urge to comfort them and keep them calm and happy. Happiness didn't win championships though.
He had presented a few weeks after his first U19 world championship where Japan took first place. He had been in second year and after that coaches had been vying to talk to him. Now he was seventeen, almost eighteen, and he already had a manager for himself that his parents had met and they had already agreed to skip college and go straight to professional leagues.
He had offers from all over the world, colleges offering full rides but he also had offers from D1 teams. Not even Miya had had that, and everyone else he knew had to do at least one year in D2 or collegiate level. Not that that was bad, it just meant that they had a transition period and some time for people to notice them.
He wouldn't have that extra year of training and to add to that now he had the label of omega slapped onto him. It wasn't made public and it wouldn't until he spoke to his coaches and signed on but could already see the potential offers draining away. The fact that he had to stay a certain weight to not get a heat but still have to take time off, or gain the weight and get the heat and also take time off made his skin itch. Either way it sucked, but right now the positive side of not having a full heat meant he couldn't get pregnant which meant no need for suppressants.
The list of pros and cons were not looking good.
His mother sighed and he startled a bit, his mind had started to wander.
"Of course you're not quitting, I know that. You're my son. You've always been stubborn and this is no exception."
He didn't respond and focused on watching the slow drizzle of rain start to streak across the window.
"I just hoped it would be easier for you. It isn't impossible of course, and I know you will do well." she hesitated and glanced over at him and seemed to blink for a moment before she spoke again. "I just wished that your health didn't come at the expense of you playing at your level."
And wasn't that a punch in the gut.
Because he could deal with it all, but in the long run he risked burn out twice as fast and twice as bad as other alphas and betas.
He could deal with the exhaustion, the overtraining to perfection, to the headaches, the cramps and his body aching with no reason. He could deal with the whispers and the stereotypes and coaches handling him differently like he was as fragile as glass.
He could deal with it.
He could not deal with slowing down just so his body wouldn't give out. The idea of his body betraying him for heats made his teeth ache and his chest feel tight. The fact that it might happen unwillingly or his body might betray him just because of his status of omega and his body was just trying to protect himself made him feel sick to his stomach.
He let out a small, flat sigh. "Me too."
Because that was it. The fact was it sucked. It sucked and it hurt in a way that he didn't even know could hurt at the fact that he might be damaging his body to an unrepairable level even before he hit the pros. That if he wanted kids in the future he'd lost the choice to it and most likely would only be mourning miscarriages for the rest of his life.
That choice was being made now. By seventeen year old him who hadn't even dated, who hadn't ever lived away from home, who hadn't played outside of the junior national team or high school. Whose first kiss had been sloppy and fun and so teenage-like that it had distracted him for the next few days at practice before he got yelled at to get his head back in the game. That was who was making the choice.
A teenager who had only been an omega for a year.
The drive was almost over and she made a few more turns before finally turning the car off in the driveway. He could tell she was looking at him sometimes and her scent, a mix of rosemary and sandalwood, souring a little and became more anxious with a hint of sadness.
He knew it sucked that he had to make this choice, but he was going to make it. At this point his mom knew that it didn't matter what she said or what his dad said because he was going to play professionally.
He didn't know how to explain it, not to her or his dad or Miwa or even to Hinata. He would rather destroy himself for perfection or chasing the high of a win than to have to live with the feeling of being ordinary. He knew that even Hinata was more relaxed about winning than him, but that was because he had never won like Tobio had. Had never tasted gold at sixteen on the U19 world championships, had never had the phone call from coach Hibarida telling him he was selected for the 2016 Olympic Games. He hadn't even had one offer.
Brazil was far but he didn't cry or scream or get upset. Tobio was better than him and had tasted gold and he wasn't going to let it go just because a stupid alpha didn’t make it as far as him.
Gold was proof that being an omega didn't stop the medal from being gold. Didn't make it less, didn't make it more. They were real and he wanted more of them.
It didn't matter that he probably would never be a parent, might never have a mate because who would want an omega who destroyed his body on purpose for a sport, or might never have a heat while a partner was in a rut.
He didn’t want to be anything except better.