OK Number 68 - So Far From God, So Close To The Tyre Barrier

"Well, there's some good news!"

Kallen looked up from the couch she was slumped into, and, not even having the faintest notion of what Euphemia was talking about, could only grunt an inquistive "Mm?"

"Today is the seventeenth of October."

Kallen, nonplussed, could only blink, feeling like a bit of an idiot for not catching onto what Euphemia was referring to. After a moment, she blankly replied "Very observant, it is indeed the seventeenth of October."

"Do you know the significance of that date?"

Kallen's instinct to reply 'Obviously not' was only beaten to the front of her mind by the trained pre-emptive biting of her own tongue. Euphemia, seeing Kallen's face play through the conflicting reactions, laughed, before explaining "It has been ten months since I was assigned to you as part of your contract. This is the last session you are legally required to attend. How do you feel?"

Kallen tiredly sighed. How did she feel? Listless, low on energy, and her arms still hurt worse than if they'd been sawn off at the sockets after Japan. Medical staff had valuated, and apparently she had torn most of the muscles in her upper arm, half of the muscles in her shoulders, and more than a few in her back. But even beyond this more sharp pain, there was a dull lethargy in Kallen's movements and actions, and even thought process, as she could only muster a reply of "Beh… I don't know."

At this, Euphemia's entire posture shifted. No, that wasn't right, Kallen acknowledged; her stance, her way of sitting remained the same, legs crossed with her thumb and forefinger wedging her chin, elbow atop the knee. However, possibly involuntarily, her eyes changed from casual to attentive, the lines in her face grew more focused and sharp. Her body didn't change its position, but it went from relaxed and almost in flux, such was the comfort it lay in, to solid as stone, not stuck bolt upright as much as it was bolt into position as she hung on every square inch of Kallen's being.

However, none of this was reflected in the tone of her voice, which remained soft as she replied "What's on your mind?"

Kallen sighed, before trying to sift through the various operating thoughts rushing through her head.

"It's just…" she began, before briefly faltering for just a second, "I've had all sorts of thoughts recently that aren't sitting comfortably. It's… I feel like my impulses are just increasingly just selfish and destructive."

"Impulses tend to be like that."

"Not when…" Kallen replied snappily, before stopping herself to calm herself and explain more clearly; "Over the last few weeks, I've noticed a big change in my thinking both on and off the track. In Japan, when Suzaku had the chance to… get the Rebellion seat, to finally breathe a sigh of relief this season, for the first time, I tried to block it. I was just thinking about how to prevent him from getting that sort of satisfaction. And then in the race, I repeatedly put others in situations where I could exploit their... their fears, cynically, I just didn't care. I did it to Naoto twice, once at the first corner and the second into bloody 130R. He has… real hangups about that corner, and I just cynically used it to get ahead, forcing him to either back out or crash, bullying him out of the way. It was sort of like… 'If you do not give up, I will crash into you.'"

Euphemia nodded, before encouraging "Go on."

Sighing, Kallen did, reluctantly, continue, saying "My… more instinctive mode of thinking has just devolved to… what do I need to do to get ahead? I just leap more and more to stuff that's straight out of the playbook of people like Lelouch, trying to harass people on track by forcing them to pull out to avoid a crash with me instead of avoiding the possibility myself, stuff like that, like intimidating Naoto to give up the lead. It's just… an unsettling trend."

Euphemia nodded again, seeming to understand, before asking "Have you tried to rationalise it within a framework, to at least see what it's coming from?"

"When I was trying to explain it to Naoto, just afterwards-"

Euphemia interrupted, clarifying "About the Rebellion seat or about your conduct and thought process in the Grand Prix itself?"

Kallen paused, before understanding, and explaining "About the seat, both of us were in too good a mood to even remember it. But I said that he needed to be selfish, he needed a streak of self-interest to get ahead in this sport, that he needed… well, for lack of a better word, some spine, or he could just end up holding the bag. And Naoto… he's waited so long, he's worked so hard…"

"You're talking about self interest now." Euphemia objected. "But you were worried about Naoto. That's hardly the mark of a self-obsessed egotist."

"Yea, but… It's hardly just magnaminity." Kallen explained. "There was a confluence of factors that made me have a dog in the fight for keeping Suzaku out of that seat. I had my worries about him getting a competitive seat, I had an interest in avoiding this. It's exactly what undid me last year, and… it wasn't in the car. I wanted him to stay in that place where he was unhappy. The only reason I didn't get my way is because Naoto has more loyalty to the team than to himself. You need to have your own back, he just doesn't."

Euphemia paused, biting her lip thoughtfully before she placed her palms down on the table, tapped them against the wood a bit, and finally spoke, "Well lets try to unpack this. You say that you need a mean streak to do well. Where do you get that idea from?"

Kallen huffed, if only slightly, as she tried to trace it back. Certainly, she had been unapologetic for most of her life, but there was certainly a point where it had become much more acute as she thought through it.

"Probably…" Kallen hmm'd, "The first person to personify the idea… exemplify it, like, was Kyoshiro Tohdoh. When I arrived on the team, especially after Monaco, it was clear that he had taken charge of the team, that nothing would stop him. It was a personality thing, he just mullered over Naoto psychologically, when I brought it up with my brother it was… strange. If I can be a bit rude, your sister did similar with Gino. Hell, you can go back to Marianne, who straight up crashed into people on the last race to seal a title."

"Twice."

"Well, once successfully, once not." Kallen nodded, recalling the two instances, the latter of which had earned her a disqualification from the championship. However, Kallen wanted to underline the point, and emphasised "But you have to have the ruthlessness if you're going to be able to do that. You need a level of commitment to winning, your mentality can't even process not winning. You need to be a merciless, success-fanatic to do… well, to do that. You would need to have no self doubt. You would need to be thinking 'I'm in this entirely for me, damn everyone else.' to do that sort of thing. You would only be able to commit yourself so totally to winning if you had that sort of self-absorbed outlook."

Kallen, now out of breath, had to take a break to breathe, as she shook her head. All the seriously successful drivers, as well as being totally unflappable behind the wheel, combined that with unfailing self belief, even to the point of minimising the accomplishments of others. Not one went about their business without careful thought put into the social engineering, how to get all the levers of the team to work to their benefit, how to get all the channels of resources and information pointing in their direction, how to bolster their coalition of driver, car, and crew chief and compromise those of competitors.

"How long have you felt this way though?" Euphemia asked. "I mean, clearly it hasn't been a problem forever, you weren't even mentioning it when we first had these appointments. Why is it a problem now?"

Kallen paused, uncertain, before eventually mumbling "It probably started around Belgium, that was my first noticing of it explicitly, when I was thinking of how to play Suzaku and Rolo fighting to my advantage."

"This was the first race back after Hungary, yeah?"

Kallen nodded, before confirming "Yeah, why?"

"At Hungary you… were very brave, yes, but you also were put into an incredibly stressful situation, both physically and emotionally. You were burned, you felt an obligation to try and rush in and help out in what was a life and death situation. I don't know if, by Belgium, you had sorted through a lot of the undeniable trauma that would have given you, to be under that kind of sudden stress."

"I'm fine." Kallen replied, instantly realising her response was too immediate. Pausing, she more slowly and more deliberately continued "I mean… my hands are burned, but I'm fine. What's that got to do with it?"

"People deal with it in different ways, consciously or not." Euphemia explained. "One thing that can happen is depersonalisation, derealisation. Externalise the trauma, dissociate yourself from the source of the trauma, it's a known… affect, disorder, mentally. In this case, we can at least see what might have led to it, but your perspective has changed you a bit. Compare to before, you were almost irritable in the car, but now, you're almost aloof. You're not the same for sure."

Kallen, a bit overwhelmed, could only shrug and reply "Well that might be where it came from but that doesn't make it true, or, on the flipside, that I'm any more comfortable with it being true."

"How does Suzaku fit into this equation?"

Euphemia's point was valid, and while Kallen did appreciate what was either Euphemia ignoring or conceding the fact that her sister Cornelia was absolutely the sort of prideful person who would selfishly minimise and play mind games on her teammates, the Japanese pilot did acknowledge that retreating to the safe, defensible ground that was the affable champion of 2018 was at the very least a wise strategic move.

Kallen looked down to think, before coming up with a response.

"Do I think he would crash into someone else on purpose to get ahead? No. But it's a matter of degrees. Do I think he's selfish? A bit, yeah. Like I said, you'd need to be to get as far as he has."

Euphemia tappeted her pen thoughtfully off her desk, before stopping, and asking "How long has this been an operating priority, or value for you?"

Kallen sighed again, rubbing her rubbery hands across her sweaty forehead, before trying to explain that "Consciously, I haven't ever… noticed it. I've always thought that I enjoyed… you know, being on the limit, trying to dabble with the slipping point of grip, getting as close as possible to having it snap on me without it doing so. It's really exhilarating, but it's not been the only one. We can go back to Monaco of 2017. It was definitely more than a bit selfish to not give up the spot, particularly if I'm to claim my only motive is to have fun, damn the position. I'm not saying I regret doing it, but I don't think… I don't think I can reasonably say just driving quickly is my only drive."

"Let me phrase it another way. Values tend to change as we pass through different stages of life. For example, the things that a teenager values are usually very different to what a parent values. Think back to a different stage of your life. How were your values different? How are they the same?"

"They've perhaps not changed as much as my conscious understanding of what they are has." Kallen elaborated, finally able to put words to the idea. "There's a deficit though. There's… what I think I value, I suppose. Consciously, I want to drive really quickly, get that jolt of adrenelin. But… unconsciously, I just wanna finish ahead of that little... whatever, by almost any means necessary. And as it turns out I'm not as unwilling to try shady stuff to do it."

Euphemia nodded, before cheekily commenting "At least you didn't beat him senseless."

Kallen shrugged, noting "Suzaku's got like half a dozen black belts and muscles the size of my neck, I'm not confident I'd win that fight."

With a laugh, Euphemia observed "But hey, at least you took that joke on the chin."

"I know, you've done a good job on that front." Kallen nodded, appreciating Euphemia's work on Kallen's nascent anger issues. "It's just… beyond just a desire to win. It's… he's the one person who I'm afraid of, when I strip back the sort of self-imposed… image I have to put up, on the inside, of myself, he's the one person that some bit of me knows can win if we were put in even cars. Well, him and maybe Xingke. The idea of him getting to be even bigger of a threat… ach. I just… that bastard Kururugi, I was thinking. I'm not losing to him for the second year in a row."

As Kallen finished the summary of her thought process, Euphemia looked thoughtful, indeed even moreso than she usually did. After some contemplation, Euphemia faced up, put her left forefinger towards the sky, and asked "May I offer a piece of advice?"

Kallen frowned, before nodding. Euphemia looked aside, before she explained, slowly and incredibly sincerely, "Stop thinking of it as horrible to have been given a rival in life. It can be a huge boon to you if you embrace it. If you were just running away with the whole thing, you would never improve. If you were just… unopposed, no one was close to you, you'd have no incentive to keep refining your skill, keep learning. Having someone close to you in performance… that's what keeps you on it, it's what ensures you can keep growing to become a more complete driver, you keep needing to find out how to extract more performance."

Euphemia paused, before continuing "As well… if you're going to fight someone… how do you want to be remembered? As the woman who beat a load of kneecapped, slow opponents without challenge, or as the person who faced off against the talents of her generation, Suzaku, Xingke, your brother, at the height of their powers, at their full strength, and beat them anyway? The latter, I think, is far more impressive. You're only going to be remembered as being as strong as the people you beat."

Kallen nodded, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully before summarising "So I want them to be as strong as possibly can be, so I can have a good fight with a worthy opponent at their peak."

"Aye." Euphemia nodded. "You can absolutely beat them, you're faster on your day. But if it's a fight you want, a fight you find enjoyment in, it's hardly any good to be fighting a handicapped opponent. If you beat Suzaku freakin' Kururugi, while he's on form… now there's something you can aim for. Of course, you do believe you're faster than him, right?"

Kallen nodded, replying "Of course, I do think so. If I pull out all the stops, I can beat him. Beating him… I could do it if I dedicated everything I had. I believe I can do it, but… part of that is me saying that I could simply to give myself the confidence. It's a self-fulfilling thing."

"Then it's like I said." Euphemia nodded, more severely. "Having an enemy, having a powerful one, isn't necessarily a curse. It can be a blessing too. Beating Suzaku on his day is one hell of a task, but it's not without benefits. Having someone that close makes it more enjoyable, especially from your point of view, and you can pick up new approaches. Hell, you went fitness mad this year because you picked the idea up from Suzaku. Because he was close to you on pace, you got better. That wouldn't have happened if he was stuck with a backmarker team. You wouldn't have improved, you wouldn't have gotten better at your craft if he wasn't up there, providing an incentive. I think you need him up there with you. He keeps driving you to get better."

Shakily, Kallen nodded. While Kallen had once thought, back in 2017, that Lelouch formed the opposite but equal force to Suzaku. Inauthenticity versus earnest effort, cheap tricks versus dedication, and so on, however Euphemia's framing also made sense, from outlook as well as driving style. Kallen and Suzaku were the big opposites, which made sense from who Kallen internally estimated to be a sharp end of the grid.

The only other serious competitor was Xingke, who seemed to possess both Suzaku's smooth style, even if he took more of a stabbing approach to moderation than a roll on/roll off doctrine, and Kallen's aggression and keen proprioception. Judging from Monaco, he lacked either pilot's stamina, and seemed to be suffering from some kind of long term illness, but his skills were unquestioned.

However, the issue at hand was her treatment of Suzaku, and Euphemia had put out the perfect rationale as to why he wasn't to be worried about. She shook her head, as she looked for how to express what she was feeling.

"I… see. Thank you. That really helps."

Euphemia smiled, seeming to have nothing more to say. Kallen, for a moment nonplussed, then stood, giving her most respectful saikeirei bow, holding her tilted torso for over ten seconds before standing, nodding, and moving towards the door. However, Euphemia cleared her throat and spoke up.

"One last thing."

Kallen blankly looked back, as Euphemia smiled.

"As I was saying, you have completed the amount of sessions mandated in our contract. You are now a free woman, you can walk out and never see me again. It's your choice now. Do you want to keep these appointments going? Have they been working for you?"

Kallen's eyes flicked down, before, without quite making eye contact with her therapist, nodding "Yes, I think they have."

"Same time next week?"

Kallen, looking up to match Euphemia's gaze, smiled "Yes, I think that will do."

Please be sure to leave a review if you enjoyed, thank ye so much for sticking through. This is the tenth chapter in Japan for the Grand Prix at Suzuka since Suzaku stormed off from Italy, a length I felt the occasion merited given the amount of stuff that was packed into what was a homecoming for many characters, but it is finally time to move on.

See ye next time.

~G1ll3s