Disclaimer: Digimon is not mine. I don't wish to own digimon. I do, however, wish to own digimon fandom. I mean, geez, have you seen how many talented authors write for this fandom?! [[sigh]]
Note: This is completely AU. There are no digimon. I am abusing the right to butcher characters. I'm probably also er… "borrowing" plots from somewhere… sorry?
Hard To Say
Chapter One - Swirl
"Good morning Taichi. How are you feeling?"
The same as I was feeling yesterday, I guess. Not too good, you'd probably tell me, because you look at me a little more frustrated and worse, more pitiful, every time you see me. It's not like I do it on purpose, you know? I don't want to make you worry. You shouldn't worry over a problem that's not there.
"Have you been doing well lately Taichi? I'd like to know if you've stuck to the things we've discussed last session. How did you go?"
I look away from you guiltily. But you probably think I'm looking at the wall or something. I haven't been doing too well in that either. Last night I did that thing you told me not to do. What was it again? Oh yeah, thinking. No thinking, you said. But I didn't listen to you. I thought about a lot of things. Will you be mad? If you ever find out that is.
"You know you can talk to me, or we could just talk about anything you want to talk about."
Your carpet is quite nice. I feel sorry that I've ruined the clean cream colour with my dirty sneakers. You didn't say anything about them, you know, because you're kind of professional about that type of thing I guess. Your face has the "business look" on it. You have the air of a professional around you, with your fancy pin stripe suit and your thin gold framed glasses. Do you know what's funny about glasses? Every time someone takes theirs off, it looks as if they have such little eyes. So small, like it doesn't suit the face they reside in without the glasses to frame them. I had glasses once you know, but that was because the optometrist was trying to make money off of us and told me to wear them when I didn't need them. So I wonder if you need yours, or if you were like me, and got sucked in. I would laugh if you did, though. I was only eight at the time, and you're a full grown woman. Your normal face, without the business type façade you put on, would remind me of aging mothers, looking after their kids, taking them to school, cooking for the family, bossing your husband around…
You hand me the box of Kleenex you keep on the coffee table. I don't understand why you have though. Is there something on my face? If so, you should tell me. I don't understand when people do that. Why they think because they know the reason behind an action then the person doing the action knows as well, and then helps them but the person doesn't understand that there's something wrong. I hate analyzing. I suck at it. You know those self evaluation sheets that they give us in class so we can check off our progress? I never fill them in. I don't like feeling as though there must be a strict guideline towards what I can and can't do, or how I should do things, and how I should be like everyone else, and fill the damn things out, but most of all, I don't want to see after I've finished the task, that somewhere along the line, I had forgotten to do the most crucial part and hadn't ticked the box. Or maybe that I had done it, but didn't know that I did, and do it all over again to get it right and be paranoid, always double-checking and following the stupid little table with neatly typed lines and spaces. They're going to take over my life.
And I still don't know why you're holding the Kleenex. I don't have a cold or anything. I think I would have felt snot dripping down my face by now. My eyes itch like crazy though.
You lean in close and I scoot back in the plush pleather of the sofa. You're a bit close for my liking. Gently, your hand tugs on a tissue and draws it from its home, rubbing my face with it. It comes away damp, so you scrunch it and throw it into your metal wastebasket and take another, repeating the same motions. This one is not so damp, but you still throw it away. We throw away a lot of things we don't really think about a lot. Well, until they're trashed of course. Then you chide yourself for waste and trees lost and all that other hippie mumbo jumbo.
You recline back into your chair and smile slightly. I don't know what you expect me to do now that you've done it.
I don't know a lot of things.
"It's all right not to want to talk right now Taichi, I don't blame you for it. You've had a rough time, and you'll need a lot of time to get through it. If you don't feel comfortable talking to me about it, perhaps you could talk to someone closer to you, maybe a relative or a friend? If you feel like you can talk about it to them, that's the best help anyone can give you."
You give me a lilt, and your motherly face shines before the high window pane of your office, glowing around your face as if water was flowing over your skin. The glow is backlit by the sun's demise, of course. It doesn't actually glow like that by itself. Nothing human shines like the sun. It is something behind human reach, something constant and ever always. Even though it hides its face for the night, it always welcomes me as I wake. I can depend on the sun to rise every day. I used to think that was all I needed to get on with my life, but I was wrong. Even if the sun is always there, it doesn't care about me. Even though the sun shines on everyone, it favours no one. It doesn't matter how much you love it, it won't stay the whole day even if you beg it until your voice breaks and dies away.
I shift in my seat and focus back on your eyes. Did you know that eyes tell a lot about a person? You can't hide anything in your eyes. It's always swirling with something, brightens and darkens, clouds and shines. It tells me everything I need to know about someone. Right now, your eyes tell me you're tired. You tried very hard today, the concealer hiding the slightest hint of bags under your thin eyelashes. No one would know you had been missing sleep if not for the darkish tint of your eyes, how the colours sway more then swirl. You need to sleep to be energized everyday, you know. Coach always says so, especially before a big match. He hates it when we show up half asleep. He says we're more likely to lose, no matter how much more skilled we are than the other team. It hasn't happened yet, but it's been a while since I've last gone to one of them anyway.
The blues are shifting again. They almost stop swaying, and your eyes get a little pinched, the eyelids shifting ever so slightly downwards. You blink, and it's gone, but the blues have stopped swaying. It's an expression I see often in many eyes these days.
Disappointment.
"Right then." You say standing up, and take three exact steps with the soles of your stilettos softly leaving indents within the carpet, three neat holes evenly spaced and would remain there until the cleaners come in with their vacuum cleaners and smooth it over, so that they disappear forever, or until you wear those shoes again. But they'll be different holes won't they? On a hopefully different patient who's crazy enough to look at other's shoes instead of at their face.
"I'm sorry, but it's time to go Taichi." You open the blue door slightly, turning back to me, eyes trained on my face, but I'm staring at the wall behind your shoulder blades. I get up from the comfy pleather sofa and scuff my shoes against the carpet. I want to tell you, you know? But I just don't want to talk right now.
"I'll see you on Thursday, at four. Don't hesitate to call me to book at another time." I smile slightly. I don't think that will happen any time soon. I think it would be a lot better for everyone if I started talking again, but it's hard to get going, you know? It's funny, because I'm – I was – one of those people who would never shut up and now…
I just don't want to talk.
End chapter one
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