The chime of the clock died away; the only sound left in the room was the quiet tick tick tick of the seconds bleeding out.

Hei stared down into his teacup, unwilling or unable to meet her eyes. He looked a bit dazed, as if he'd just narrowly avoided being hit by a truck.

Haruko felt as if she had been run over, as she mentally grasped for the right words to say. That must have been difficult was far too cold; I'm sorry woefully inadequate.

At last she said, "Can you stay? I have the next thirty minutes open."

Hei clasped his hands together, still staring downwards. After a moment, he nodded once.

"Okay," she said, and looked into her own teacup. The tea had gone stone cold. Hei had only taken a single sip of his and showed no interest in touching the cup again; still, this was no time for cold tea.

Haruko scooped up both of the cups and took them to the little sink in the sideboard. She poured out the cold tea, worry vying with relief as the questions flooded her mind. A contractor. She'd never seen one in person before, but working as closely with the police as she did, she'd heard the stories, and had worked with the victims.

And his sister. What would she have done if Suzu - she cut that train of thought off immediately. She'd dealt with those emotions a long time ago; there was no point in unearthing them now, not when a client needed her help.

She poured two fresh cups of tea from her cheery yellow electric kettle and returned to the little sitting area. Hei took the proffered cup wordlessly; again, he didn't drink, but held it in his hands as if to soak up the warmth. Haruko did the same with her own as she settled back into her chair, desperately running through a list of potential followup questions to get him talking again.

"You remind me of my aunt sometimes," Hei said abruptly, startling her. "Whenever she thought someone was upset, she would make them a cup of tea with leaves from a blue jar. She used a different jar for everyday tea. I'm pretty sure they were same leaves, but for some reason the ones from the blue jar tasted different."

Haruko didn't miss the shift in topic from his parents to his extended family; but if that was where he was most comfortable to start, then she was happy to oblige.

"Were you close with your aunt?" she asked gently, careful to keep anything that might sound like pity from her tone. She didn't think he would respond well to that.

He took a sip of his tea. "I guess. My sister and I were over at my grandparents' house after school all the time. Our parents had to work long hours," he added, almost defensively.

It was still too soon to ask directly about his parents, Haruko judged. Instead she asked, "What's your favorite memory of that time, of your grandparents' home?"

Hei paused in thought. "Playing with my sister and our cousins, I guess. We were all around the same age, went to the same school."

"What did you do together?"

"Just…played. I don't know. There was this tree in the yard that we used to climb in the summer, and pretend we were monkeys - except Xing, she always wanted to be a bird." A wistful expression crossed his features. "Sometimes Grandfather would come out and sit on the porch to smoke his pipe and watch us."

Haruko smiled at the detail. "My grandfather used to use a pipe too - I've always loved the smell of pipe tobacco because of it."

"I hate it," Hei said flatly.

"Why is that?" she asked, surprised at the vehemence.

"I can't...if I'm around that scent...I have to leave."

The need to avoid conflict in his relationships with other people was something that she'd noticed about him in their earliest conversations, and it was becoming increasingly clear that he shied away from internal conflict as well. Learning the tools to face and deal with difficult emotions was going to have to be their priority. For now, though, she was happy that he was finally starting to open up to her. It boded well for his progress.

"You have to leave - because it reminds you of him?" she asked quietly.

His mouth pressed into a thin line, and he nodded once.

"What happens if you don't leave, or can't?"

Hei shrugged stiffly. "Just a panic attack, sometimes."

"Just a panic attack?" Haruko asked, almost choking on a sip of tea. "Do those happen often?"

"I can deal with it, but if I don't have to I'd rather not."

He hadn't answered her question, she noticed. Haruko made a mental note to add that to the list - she wasn't writing anything down now, lest she accidentally distract him from his willingness to talk.

"What do you do to deal with it?"

"I just breathe through it," he said. "I know it's an automatic reaction; if I focus on what's actually happening in the present, I can calm my mind down and get my heart rate back to normal."

"Who taught you that?" Haruko asked. That was exactly the recommended technique for dealing with any sort of anxiety attack, yet he'd never seen a therapist before.

His parents had been killed when he was still a child, and he'd never seen a therapist, she abruptly realized. It was a marvel that he'd managed to cope so well thus far; even so, maybe they ought to move to two sessions per week.

"No one," Hei said, bringing her back to the present topic. "I figured it out on my own. It was…pretty bad in the first few months after we left home, almost debilitating sometimes. I knew I had to get control of it to survive; finally one night I remembered the meditations that my grandfather taught us to focus the mind during training, and it worked."

Survive. That was an informative word choice; though it didn't make much sense in context. He apparently had had a close, caring extended family. Why had he left? They'd come a long way from communication within a relationship. "Do you still have these panic attacks?"

"Sometimes. They sort of…come and go. A few years ago I had them all the time; then almost never. Then they started again, but not as bad. Having Misaki there now helps."

"She can help calm you down?" Haruko asked, trying to get an idea of how his partner was handling this aspect of their life together.

"I just remind myself that she's safe, that - that I'm not alone. I've only had a couple since we started dating, and they were small enough that she didn't notice."

Haruko didn't miss the relief in his voice; he hadn't told his girlfriend about these episodes, and didn't want her to find out. Haruko could understand why - that sort of vulnerability was often hard to share, even with loved ones. They would have to address this at some point, but she could let it slide for now. She didn't want them to wander too far astray from the elephant in the room that Hei had been dancing around for the past ten minutes.

"Have you told Misaki about your sister?" she asked, hoping to reintroduce the subject gently. "And the way you left home?"

He nodded.

"Was it difficult to tell her?"

"I'd never really talked to anyone about it before, so…it wasn't easy, I guess, because of that. But Misaki already knows the worst of me. I don't have to worry about telling her anything simple like this."

Simple. The murder of his parents by his own sister was simple? It was almost ludicrous; however, Haruko was starting to see the shape of his emotional acumen in the gaps between what he was and wasn't willing to talk about.

"It sounds as if you have a great respect for your grandfather," she said, "and close bonds with the rest of your family."

He blinked at the apparent change in subject. "Yeah. I mean, I did."

"How did they react to your sister's change?" From their very first session, no mention of his sister had passed without his expressing concern for her wellbeing. He'd obviously never stopped caring for her. If the rest of the family had disowned her, that could explain why he had left home.

To her surprise, however, he said, "I don't know."

Haruko's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, we all noticed that she wasn't acting like herself. I thought maybe she was sick; I'd never seen my mother so worried. But no one knew what a contractor was yet, and she didn't threaten anyone or use her power. It was just a little strange, that's all."

"What was she like, before?"

"She was...happy." A ghost of a smile appeared briefly on his face. "All the time. Even when she would get upset, it would be easy to get her to smile again. She wanted to be a nurse, like our mother - to help people feel better."

"She looked up to you?"

He nodded. "We hardly ever argued; completely different from my cousins - they fought all the time. Xing was usually the only one who could get them talking to each other again."

"I imagine all that changed, after she became a contractor?"

He nodded again, slowly. "She just woke up one morning...different. She didn't want to talk to anyone, didn't want to go to her dance classes. She didn't care about anything anymore."

He paused there. Haruko let the space in the conversation open up, but he continued to stay silent, staring down into his tea once again.

Haruko hated asking direct questions about sensitive topics, but sometimes it was the best way. She sensed that now they'd reached that time.

"Will you tell me what happened to your parents?" she asked softly.

The clock ticked away long, empty seconds before he spoke again. "I came home late from wushu practice. I had to climb in through a window in the back, because the curfew had already started and there were police in front of our building - because of the Gates. I don't know what they were afraid would happen, but everyone had to be inside after dark."

Haruko remembered that time well. The chaos, the panic, the destruction - she didn't know if there had been a curfew here in Tokyo. It had been weeks before she'd been able to leave her bed, let alone worry about returning to normal life. Once again, she pushed those thoughts aside, surprised that they kept slipping into her mind today.

Though really, she shouldn't be surprised.

"I'm not sure what they'd been arguing about," Hei continued in a flat, emotionless tone, "but when I walked into the room, I saw my father on the ground. My mother was pleading with Bai, then she saw me in the doorway. I don't know if she was talking to Bai then, or me - but she said to get out. Then Bai killed her."

Bai? She thought his sister's name was Xing…well, that wasn't what was important right now. He had delivered the details in a detached, clinical way, as if he was describing a crime scene wholly unconnected to himself. That ability to separate facts from emotion must come in handy working for the police; dealing with the emotions of his past he obviously struggled with, as well as the here and now.

He dealt with panic attacks on a fairly regular basis, it seemed, and had learned to navigate through them, using this separation technique. It was an effective coping mechanism; emotions couldn't be painful if you didn't allow yourself to feel them. But it just made them that much harder to handle when they did surface. And as his panic attacks demonstrated, they did surface.

"What was the first thing you felt, when you saw your sister kill your mother?" Haruko asked. She hoped that he could forgive her for asking the question. If he was serious about moving forward with this new life, he would.

Hei inhaled sharply, and his brow furrowed. He set the teacup down on the table slowly, as if it might break at any moment, and clasped his hands tightly together. Then he exhaled one long, drawn-out breath.

"Are you alright?" Haruko asked with concern.

His voice was tight when he replied, "Fine." He took one more deep breath, then said, "I felt…sick, at first. Like I had to throw up. Maybe I did, I don't really remember. And then…like…like I'd been abandoned. My parents were gone, and my sister may as well have died. I barely even had time to blink and suddenly I was alone." He ran a hand through his hair. "Is that terrible thing to say? My parents didn't die on purpose, they would never have abandoned me -"

"Hei," Haruko interrupted gently, "don't ever feel guilty for feeling the things that you feel. Your parents had always been there for you, then suddenly they weren't. Of course you would feel abandoned. But," she continued, "you had other family. Your aunt, your grandfather. Didn't you go to them?"

"No. I didn't even consider it." He sighed heavily. "Grandfather always said I have a problem with that - acting without thinking. I didn't know how they would react - I didn't think they'd hurt her, or anything, but they would have had to call the police. And then what would happen to her? What if she tried to stop them from calling? All I knew was that I had to get her away, someplace where she would be safe. There just wasn't any place like that," he finished in a low, hollow tone.

So he'd made a choice in the heat of the moment, and that choice had apparently defined the rest of his life.

"Do you blame your sister for what she did?" Haruko asked, watching his face carefully to be sure that she wasn't pushing too hard. Though he was difficult to read, she was beginning to pick up on the subtle cues that meant he was having trouble handling what he was feeling. He was close to that edge now, she thought, but they still had some room to work with.

His eyes narrowed. "It wasn't - I mean, I used to think, maybe if they hadn't pushed her, or maybe if I'd gotten home earlier. She didn't mean to kill them; she was still just learning how to use her ability, and anyway, she was only nine."

Haruko frowned to herself at his defense of his sister. "It was an accident, then?"

"It…no," he admitted. "She was trying to hurt them. She told me that much."

His self esteem problems were coming into clearer focus now: when he'd made that choice to walk away from his surviving family and look after his sister - a contractor, a killer - in a way that had been a moral choice. He had to come to her defense, in order to rationalize his own actions. No wonder he felt so insecure in his relationship with a woman who, by his own admission, had a strong ethical sense.

"Do you regret it?" she asked. "Choosing to help your sister run away?"

Hei thought for a long moment, hands gripping the fabric of his jeans. "No," he said at last. "Knowing what I know now, I think it was the safest choice for everyone. For Xing - Bai, I guess...well, that's complicated. She would have hated what she had become, but she was still - she was still a person, who needed me. She was still my sister."

He hadn't once mentioned his own reaction to any of this, Haruko realized. As the actions noted down in his notebook showed, he thought of others first, himself second. His only concern after his parents had died had been taking care of his sister. Their killer.

"Was it the best choice for you?" she asked.

He glanced up at her briefly - the first time he'd met her eyes since they'd started down this subject. "Probably not," he admitted softly. "But it's what I chose, and I don't regret it."

That sort of confidence was rare. The majority of Haruko's patients were plagued with doubts over the choices they'd made in throughout their lives, no matter how far in the past. Hei's worries seemed to be more focused on the future.

"You haven't been in contact with your family since then?"

He shook his head. "They think I'm dead. Xing too. It's probably better that way."

"Is it?" Haruko asked softly. A treacherous spark of hope kindled in her heart; she shunted the feeling aside to be dealt with later, when she didn't have a client who needed her attention. It was useless to let such hope take root; she knew that, yet emotions weren't something that one could control so easily. "Do you think they'd wouldn't be happy, to know that you're actually still alive?"

Hei shrugged half-heartedly. "Would they be? When I chose a contractor over all of them? Over my parents?"

A sudden knock sounded on the door and Haruko jumped. She checked her watch guiltily. "That's my next appointment; I'm sorry. We'll have to pick this up again next week. In the meantime," she smoothed down her skirt as she rose and went to her desk, where she plucked a business card from the stash that she reserved for her clients who needed more support than the once-a-week chats.

"This has my cell phone number on it," she told him, passing over the card. "If you need to talk, about anything, and can't wait until our next session, send me a text. I'll call you back as soon as I'm free. I know it's not easy to talk about these things, but it's like anything else: the more you do it, the easier it gets."

He cast her a doubtful look; she smiled sadly.

"This week, I want you to keep adding to the list in your notebook. And there's one more thing that I want you to try: imagine picking up the phone and calling your grandfather. Walk through the entire conversation. What will you say to him, how will he respond. What will he say when he learns that his grandson is alive after all?"

Hei's face went pale. "I don't know if I can…" he began, before trailing off.

"It's going to be difficult. I know. Even if you don't make it past hello, I want you to try."

He nodded stiffly, and Haruko walked him to the door. Before she opened it, she laid a hand on his arm. "Thank you for being honest with me today. Talk to Misaki about our session, and don't put too much pressure on yourself, okay? These things take time."

He gave her a small smile; she opened the door to see him out.

"Oh, you are here!" the young man on the other side exclaimed, his hand raised for another knock. "I thought - I mean, I was worried - "

"Just running a little late today, Keiji; I'm sorry," Haruko said as Hei left. She ushered Keiji inside.

Before she shut the door again, however, she watched Hei walking across the waiting room. His back was straight, his gait confident; there was a warm smile on his face as he stopped to chat with Toya at the reception desk. Seeing him now, she would never have guessed that he'd just gone through his most challenging, emotional session yet.

Interesting. If only she had the next couple of hours free to write up her notes and contemplate the session's revelations…but this was Keiji's time now. Suppressing a frustrated sigh, she closed the door.