"So how was your week?"
Haruko's client didn't shift from his unnaturally straight posture. "Um, fine," he replied, addressing the tissue box on the table between them.
A vague and noncommittal answer; it wasn't unexpected, considering his reluctance to open up during their first session. His nerves were apparently getting the better of him again, which was unfortunate. There was nothing that she would be able to help him with if he didn't talk to her. But Haruko was nothing if not patient.
"Did you and Misaki do anything fun over the weekend?" she prompted, relaxing back in her chair, her yellow legal pad perched on her knee.
Hei gave a minute shrug. "Nothing special."
"Well, it doesn't have to be special to be fun, does it? What sort of things do the two of you enjoy doing together?"
"Um, work, mostly, I guess." A somewhat rueful smile flitted across his features.
"Is she the workaholic, or are you?" Haruko asked, even though she was pretty sure that she already knew the answer.
"Well, we both like staying busy. Misaki can spend hours going over her case files, so much that she forgets to eat and sleep." He wasn't quite smiling, but the affection in his voice was obvious.
"And you?"
"Um, I can't sit still for that long, so I go for walks around the city. Yesterday I got her to take a break and walk to the park with me. And I'm teaching her how to cook. Trying, anyway," he added. "She says she wants to learn, but uh…well, she's getting better. Sort of."
Haruko smiled. "It's great when couples can participate in each other's interests - do you enjoy teaching her?"
"Sure. It takes twice as long to get anything done, but I just like spending time with her."
"How often do you get to see each other, outside of work?" She wasn't even sure that they did see each other during the work day, she realized; he'd never said whether they worked in the same department or not.
"Well, I moved into her apartment a couple weeks ago. So a lot, I guess."
Haruko raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How has that been working out?"
"Fine, I think."
"It can be a huge adjustment, learning how to live with someone, even someone that we love," she said. "Disagreements about who does what chores, annoying habits that we never realized the other person has, the lack of privacy. The key is to make sure that communication channels stay open, that you can talk about small problems before they become major issues." At his worried expression, she added, "And communication is what I'm here to help you with. How did the two of you come to the decision to move in together?"
"Um, since we started seeing each other I was over most nights anyway," Hei said. "Then there was a fire at my apartment building - someone left a hot plate on. Not me," he added, as if that would have been Haruko's first assumption.
Curious, she thought. Was there something there that he was worried about being associated with himself, or simply a general guilty conscience?
"The building isn't livable anymore," he continued. "So Misaki invited me to move into her place."
"I'm so sorry to hear about the fire - did you lose very much?"
He shrugged noncommittally. "I had time to grab my bag. That's all I have anyway."
Haruko tried to interpret an emotional context within that statement. The words themselves sounded nearly tragic, but his tone conveyed nothing more heavy than if he'd lost something as inconsequential as a store receipt. She couldn't get a read on his expression, either.
"Why is that?" she tried.
He shrugged again. "I've spent most of my life traveling; there's not much point in buying a lot of things."
"I suppose that's true; I suppose it can also be very freeing, to not be burdened with many material possessions."
When he gave no response to her comment, she continued, "So, how are you adjusting to living with your girlfriend? It's only been a couple of weeks; does it feel like home?"
His mouth opened to form a response, but instead he paused, his furrowing slightly. "I don't know. I mean, I like being that close with Misaki..."
"Do you feel welcome there, like it's your space as well as hers?"
"Sure. She made space in her closet for my clothes."
Haruko raised an eyebrow. Was that his definition of home? "I noticed that you called it her closet; if your clothes are there as well, then that makes it your closet it too. Feeling like we belong in a shared space can be challenging, especially if we're worried about accidentally rocking the boat. It's quite common in new relationships, but you can't build mutual trust if you're trapped seeing yourself as an outsider." She tapped her chin absently with her pen. "You said that you've spent most of your life traveling; was that even as a child?"
"Yeah. Since I was twelve."
"Your family moved around a lot, then? For your father's job?"
It was a perfectly reasonable assumption, but the way his expression suddenly froze told Haruko that she was way off base - and that she'd accidentally stumbled across an extremely delicate subject.
"No," he said shortly.
It was obvious that Hei was certainly not ready to open up to her about whatever this subject was. Haruko recalled what he'd said in their first session, that his girlfriend had suggested therapy because he had difficulty talking about certain things from his past. Perhaps this was it? Well, once they built up more of a rapport, they could delve into his history. For now, she wanted to focus on improving his self-confidence. Teach him the tools to cope with the small issues; then tackle the big ones. That meant making sure that he felt safe and supported in his current relationship.
"It can be difficult for people who have never had a permanent home to put down roots," she said as she wrote Father Issues on her legal pad and underlined it twice. "Sometimes that's because they're simply too restless to stay in any one place for very long; or it may be that the frequent moves were out of their control, and now they're afraid to trust that the rug won't be yanked out from under their feet yet again."
At the latter suggestion, his stony expression softened a bit as his brow furrowed in thought.
There it is, Haruko told herself. "Does that sound accurate?" she said aloud. "Are you afraid that if you put forth the effort to make yourself feel at home with Misaki, she'll suddenly abandon you?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "I…she won't abandon me. Misaki isn't like that. Even if we end up breaking up, it won't be - it won't be a betrayal or anything."
Betrayal - interesting choice of words. "But does that fear resonate with you?"
"Well, I hadn't actually thought that. That that was what I was doing. I mean, it's her apartment -"
"And she invited you to live there. Have you cohabited with a partner before?"
It was a simple question, but for some reason the furrow in his brow deepened. "Um," he began, "I…don't know. My last, um…relationship? I guess? Well, we were together all the time, but really I was living with my sister. And that wasn't…well, I guess I should say no. Not in a normal sort of situation. Like with Misaki. I don't really know how to do anything the normal way."
The cloud of confusion surrounding his mind on the subject was practically palpable. And as for her own confusion, well, absolutely nothing that he'd just said made any sense. "Just because you're in therapy doesn't mean you're not normal," she joked.
Her attempt at levity, however, failed miserably. Hei's shoulders stiffened and his gaze dropped away from hers.
Well, that was an unexpectedly touchy subject. There was something there in that past relationship - unless it had been the mention of his sister - that had obviously influenced his present views of himself and his ability to form relationships. Haruko was a strong believer in uncovering the emotions and experiences that affected her clients' current-day psyches; but oftentimes dredging up those old, uncomfortable memories could only complicate the present situation even further. She didn't want him to close off even further than he already was.
"Hei, it's alright," she said gently. "Nobody feels like they're normal, I promise. But therapy isn't about 'fixing' problems or aspects of ourselves that we feel are somehow 'wrong'; it's about coming to terms with the challenges that we've faced in the past, and learning the tools that will help us to cope with the challenges we're facing now. That's what I'm here to help you with."
Doubt flickered across his expression, but Haruko understood. They would get there eventually, once he felt comfortable enough to be open with her. And there was one subject she'd already discovered that could get him talking. "I'd like to talk about the assignment that I gave you last week," she said as she jotted down a note to herself to circle back to this last relationship at a later point. "I asked you to have Misaki tell you one thing that she loves about you. Were you able to speak with her?"
He nodded. "Yes, but, I meant to ask - am I allowed to talk to Misaki about what we talk about here? Because I couldn't figure out a way to get her to tell me without just asking, so that's what I ended up doing."
Oh dear. "Of course." Haruko made an opening gesture with her pen. "I encourage you to share as much with your partner as you're comfortable with sharing. Your goal is to improve the communication between the two of you, after all."
Relief flooded across his face. "Oh good. I didn't want to lie to her about anything."
Something in his tone waved a tiny red flag. She tilted her head. "Have you lied to her before?"
"Not - not exactly," he said, and left it at that.
"Maybe there are some things that perhaps you should have told her, but left out?" Haruko suggested.
His gaze flicked down to the tissue box between them. "Um..."
There's more of that guilt. These trust issues are a bit worse than I thought. "Well, we can dive into what untruths you might have told her in the past, and why. I think we should, in fact. But at a later time; for now I want to stay focused in the present. What did Misaki tell you?"
"Um, she said a lot of things, actually."
Haruko smiled. "I'm not surprised; you sound like you are, though. What is one thing that she said - the most unexpected thing."
"The most unexpected? Um." His brow wrinkled again. "She said that she loves that I'm always putting other people first."
"And why was that unexpected?"
"Because I don't," he said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"You don't? So why would Misaki believe that you do?"
"I don't know."
"Can you think of anything that you've done recently, where you put someone else's needs ahead of your own?"
"No."
"Now that does surprise me," Haruko told him with an encouraging smile. "Because all you've talked about in our session today is what you're doing to make Misaki happy. You moved in with her because she asked you to, even though it sounds like it's far outside of your comfort zone to live with another person; you're teaching her how to cook despite how challenging that must be."
"Well, making her happy is what makes me happy, so..." he trailed off.
"And what about your work?" Haruko asked. "You work for the police - surely that job in and of itself requires selflessness, no matter what your reasons for joining were."
"Well, that's just work," he said uncomfortably. "I just joined because Misaki said she would hire me, and I didn't know what else to do. It's mostly filling out reports."
His girlfriend was his boss? Not to mention, a female supervisor in a traditionally male role. That certainly added a new layer to their relationship. Haruko made a note on her legal pad, then snapped her pen closed.
"I have a new assignment for you this week. I want you to keep thinking about everything that Misaki told you, and see if you can understand why she would believe those things about you." She rose from her chair and walked around behind her desk to pull open a drawer, from which she removed a new spiral-bound notebook. "To help you with that, I want you to take a few minutes each night and write down everything that you did that day for someone else. Something that got you nothing in return." Returning to her chair in the little seating area, she handed the notebook over to him. He took it with no small amount of trepidation.
"Write down..."
"Our memories aren't the most reliable thing," Haruko told him. "They can be very selective, especially when we have pre-existing beliefs that may influence how we see ourselves or others. By making a record of these events as they happen, we can take a more objective look at our lives."
"Okay."
She could hear the doubt in his voice; but she'd had many clients use this strategy, and it almost always proved valuable. She was sure that if he could just get out of his own head, see himself the way the people he cared about saw him, he might start to believe it. " We'll go over your list in next week's session. And one last thing: this week, I want you to make one small change that will help you feel more at home in your apartment."
"Like what?" Hei asked, his face blank.
"I don't know - something simple. A new potted plant that you like, a reading chair or small desk where you can do your own work, separate from Misaki. It's up to you. Talk with Misaki about it; you two share that space now, so you should be in agreement about how you change it. After all, I'm sure it's been a huge adjustment for her as well, having someone new move into a place where she's been used to living alone. But you need to feel as if you live there too, and know that you have some kind of decision-making power in the relationship."
"Um, right."
"It probably doesn't feel as if we've made much headway so far," Haruko said gently. "This is a long process. I haven't pressed you on much yet; next week, though, I'm going to start asking for details in some things. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to; but all I can work with is what you give me. Okay?"
He blanched at that news, but nodded.
Haruko watched him shuffle out of the office, conscientiously shutting the door behind him. They'd hit on a few things during this session that were clearly troubling for him. She was going to have to learn what sort of family situation had to led to his frequent moves as a child, what exactly had his last relationship had been like that had left him so confused.
Betrayal, she mused. He used that word on his own. Did his last girlfriend cheat on him, perhaps? It would go a long way to explaining why he seemed to feel as if he needed to cater to Misaki's needs instead of his own, his fear of concrete investment in a relationship despite his obvious devotion to her.
Well, she would learn in time. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be anything that she hadn't seen and treated before. One step at a time, she reminded herself. He'll get there.