A/N: Hei's backstory that I'll be referencing from here on out is the same one I used in Distractions - see Into the Dark Night for more.
Also, shoutout to loremipsxm's A Guide to Admitting That You Love Her for the "Section Four thinks Hei's a straight edge" head canon!
"So you and Misaki both accidentally let the truth slip?" Haruko asked as she leaned down to pick up her cup of tea. Another cup was sitting on the table across from hers; it was the first time that Hei had accepted her offer of hospitality since he'd started coming to see her. He hadn't taken more than a sip yet, but still she saw his acceptance as a sign of the growing trust between them.
He nodded. "And, well, you were right, I guess. It wasn't her dating me that she wanted to hide; she's worried that the fact that she's in a relationship at all will make her look weak. It's hard for her," he continued, "being in charge of men who are older than her. People will say that she only got the position because of her father, or because the department is trying to make a political statement - but everyone who's ever worked with her knows that she works harder than anyone, and she's earned it."
Haruko smiled, always pleased to hear his unwavering support of his partner; but they weren't there to discuss the social politics of the National Police Agency. "How does it feel, to have your relationship out in the open now?"
"It's…more of a relief than I thought it would be," Hei admitted, somewhat reluctantly. "I'm so used to having to guard everything that I say and do; it's nice having one less thing to lie about."
Her client seemed happier than usual today - not that he ever showed up to their sessions in a bad mood. He was typically so guarded in his emotion that half an hour would pass before she could get a read on how he was feeling. "Did anything else happen this weekend, or is it just the relief that has you in a good mood?"
He blinked, as if surprised at her insight, then smiled. "Well, yes. Misaki gave me a key to her apartment."
Haruko took a sip of tea to give herself an extra moment to parse what he'd just said. "You didn't have a key?" she asked. "But haven't you been living together for several weeks now?"
"Yeah. But I don't really need a key. We leave for work at the same time - she drives, and I take the train, or at least I did - now I drive with her. If I got home before her I'd pick the lock to let myself in."
Nothing in his voice suggested that he saw anything strange in that arrangement. Oh dear, where to start… "Misaki didn't mind you essentially breaking into her home?"
"Does it count as breaking in if I live there too?"
Haruko started to laugh before she realized that he was genuinely asking. "I suppose not. But why hadn't Misaki gotten you a key before now?"
Hei shrugged. "Her only spare key is with her dad, and he's been traveling. She doesn't have much time during the day for errands like having a copy made, and since I didn't really need one, it didn't make much sense to bother. But I guess she'd been wanting to give it to me for a while, as a surprise for my birthday - the one on my papers was a couple weeks ago. Since I can't remember when my real birthday is, she gave me the key on Saturday."
Breaking into your own home every night because getting a key made was too much of a hassle? It was unconventional, to be sure - but if neither of them had a problem with an arrangement like that, Haruko didn't see the need to discuss it. Instead, she asked, "So what does a key you don't need represent to you?"
That question caught him off guard. His brow furrowed in thought. "I guess… it means that she really is serious about us. She wants me to stay a part of her life. The rest of the team knows about us now, and I can come and go like it's my home too. It's - it's real," he said softly as comprehension dawned on his features.
Haruko smiled warmly; she lived for breakthroughs like this. However, they were continuing to skirt around the larger issues; it was time to push. If she didn't push, then she was useless as a therapist.
"That was really sweet of her, to prepare a surprise like that for your birthday. But, what did you mean, you can't remember when your birthday is?"
"I've had so many aliases - each one with a different birthday that I had to memorize," Hei said offhandedly, still obviously basking in the glow of his newfound realization. "It's get confusing after a while. And I stopped celebrating my own a long time ago. There was no point. I think maybe it's in March…or is that my sister's?" A look of real panic flashed suddenly across his face. "Crap, I don't remember her birthday!"
Haruko resisted the urge to smile at the watered down curse. He'd only mentioned his sister once before, and that had been in oblique reference to something in the past. That, coupled with his emotional shutdown after mentioning his father last week, told her that something had happened to his family early on, something that had left him scarred. She had to navigate this conversation carefully.
"Why is it so important to remember your sister's birthday, when you don't seem to care about yours?" Haruko asked, watching his face.
He didn't meet her eyes. "It felt important to remember, after - after we left. Normal. I don't know why I bothered, because she didn't care. The sixteenth!" he said with a sudden exhale. "March sixteenth."
"It made you feel normal to remember her birthday," Haruko said, walking a careful line down the conversation. She desperately wanted to dig into his past further, but with something like this - whatever this was - it was best if he brought up the subject himself. "That's something you still struggle with, isn't it - feeling normal?"
He nodded, his usual reserve settling back upon him. Haruko decided to try and boost his mood a little again.
"That's something that's been holding you back in your relationship with your co-workers. Was it difficult to admit to them who you are? I'm proud of you for doing it, by the way - that was a huge step for you."
He actually blushed a little at her words. "Knowing that Matsumoto didn't have a problem with it helped. The others all respect his opinion. So it felt like the right time."
"You seem a bit hesitant still. What's worrying you?"
"Saitou and Kouno…I don't think they really believed me. I mean, they didn't accuse me of lying; if Misaki hadn't made it so obvious at the bar they probably would have thought it was a joke."
"Why don't you think they believed you?"
"I'm pretty good at convincing people that I'm someone I'm not," he said bitterly.
"We've talked about this before," Haruko reminded him, though she could sympathize with his co-workers. She herself was having trouble believing that he was anything other than the kind young man who sat on her couch every week, despite his continual allusions to some sort of dangerous, other self. It was a strange dichotomy. "Your perception of yourself is very different from how others see you; but you can't be faking it twenty-four hours a day. Those acts of kindness and selflessness that you do without thinking - you do them because that is who you are."
Her words didn't mollify him. "Saitou told me flat out that if he'd known who I was from the beginning, he would never have agreed to work with me."
"Has he shown any signs of not wanting to work with you since then?"
Hei shifted in his seat. "Well, no."
"Why do you think that is?"
"Well, they know that Misaki wouldn't bring someone untrustworthy into the team."
"Is it only Misaki's opinion of you that's convinced Saitou? Or do you think that maybe you've proved yourself to him already, on your own?"
"Maybe, I guess." He sighed and picked up his teacup to stare into it without drinking. "I've been so careful to hide that part of myself…the stories they've heard are completely different from how they've been seeing me. They used to swear around me all the time," he said. "When they stopped, I didn't notice at first. Then one morning Kouno spilled hot coffee on his shirt and swore - and handed some change to Ootsuka. She put it in her drawer. When everyone left for lunch, I looked in the drawer and found a jar that said Li's swear jar. Now they know that a year ago I was on their most-wanted list - and then this morning I saw Saitou add more money to the jar after saying damn it. That's how they've been thinking of me: as someone who can't handle cursing, when really I'm just used to not doing it. Telling them that I'm someone different hasn't changed anything."
He'd been so worried that his teammates would react badly to finding out about this truth; their reaction had proved to be the opposite of what he'd expected, and now he couldn't accept it. Haruko drummed her fingers on her legal pad. "You said you don't swear because you're not used to doing it. That's the only reason - it truly doesn't bother you when other people do it?"
"No. I just…always tried to set a good example for my sister. I don't know if it made any difference; my cousin was always swearing when we were growing up, and then…later…the people around us were…well, they didn't care about cursing in front kids. But she was younger than me, and our parents had always told me I had to be careful, because my sister looked up to me."
The hollowness in his voice tore at her heart. His family was definitely the source of a lot of his issues; Haruko wondered if maybe it wasn't time to start digging after all. For now, though, she said, "What if you did start swearing at work? I imagine a police bullpen is rife with colorful language. If it doesn't bother you to do it, it may help your co-workers feel more at ease with you - or at least help them see that you aren't exactly this naive person."
He finally took a sip of tea, collecting his thoughts. "That's the sort of thing I would do if I was working undercover in the department. Whatever I needed to do to fit in. But…how much of what I do is because I'm still operating like I need an alias, and how much is just, me? What you said last week, about reinventing myself… Misaki and I have talked about it a lot. The rest of the team hasn't seen me work - not the way I'm used to working. I hid it from them because of how they would react; now that they know, it'll be easier. I don't have to pretend that I don't speak Russian and Portuguese, or that I've had less hand-to-hand combat training than them. But, that person, the one who's had all that training…that's the person I've always hated. If I let myself be that person again, even in small ways…" His grip on the teacup tightened. "Kouno wants me to start sparring with him. When I train, I don't hold back. Not anymore. And I don't want to hurt anyone who's on my side. I can't be that person again."
There was a lot in what he'd just said - a lot of confusion and very little focus. Sometimes, a therapist was merely an editor for her clients' thoughts. Haruko folded her hands on top of her legal pad. "What do you mean, you don't hold back anymore? There was a time when you did?"
Hei nodded slowly and set his teacup on the table, where he continued to stare into it. "My grandfather ran a wushu school back in China. I started training there as early as I can remember. Kids always got hurt during sparring - bruises and skin burns and that sort of thing. It never bothered me, or anyone really. Then during one class I was up against this other kid. I aimed a strike at his face. He was a lot bigger than me; I expected him to block it, so I put all my strength into the punch. But he didn't block. I hit him square in the nose. I heard the bone crunch - there was blood everywhere - and he screamed. I thought I'd killed him."
The horror in Hei's voice was almost palpable. "What happened after that?" Haruko asked.
"I refused to spar for months after that. My grandfather convinced me to start fighting again, after he promised that I could hold back and not fight to win."
"It doesn't sound as if your grandfather was upset about what happened to that boy."
Hei shook his head. "It was a normal part of training; he knew that I hadn't meant to hurt anyone. He told me - he said that choosing nonviolence could be more challenging than choosing to fight, and he was proud of me for making that decision." At those last words, Hei's mouth twisted slightly.
When I train, I don't hold back, he'd said. Haruko suspected they were starting to approach the root of his pervasive sense of shame. "Why did you stop holding back then?" she asked gently.
"I couldn't hold back anymore; not if I wanted to keep my sister safe. So I learned to fight with everything that I had. And if I want to keep my new team safe, I have to do the same. That's why - I don't know how to change who I am."
"Protecting the people you care about is nothing to be ashamed of. What does your grandfather think about this change in your decision?"
Grief washed over his features. "I don't know. I haven't been in contact with any of my family in over a decade. I don't know if he's even still alive."
"You left home," Haruko said, piecing together the bits of information that he'd let slip throughout their conversations. The respect he obviously held for his grandfather, the fact that he'd (unconsciously or not) taken his father's family name as his own when he could have chosen anything, his devotion to his sister - a runaway was the last thing she would have pegged him as. "Why did you leave?"
He stared into his teacup. "A week after the Gates appeared, my sister became a contractor and killed our parents."
Behind her, Haruko's clock chimed the hour in a silent room.