InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I'M NOT INSANE, I'M NOT INSANE"

spinningwheels (spinningwheels) wrote in psychomanteum,
@ 2012-06-24 21:13:00

Entry tags:

daichi, renju

WHO: Daichi and Renju
WHAT: Counselling session.
WHERE: Sonozaki-san's glorious office.
WHEN: Post-headgod, post-Reina meeting.

Daichi made his way through the halls of Oozora awkwardly, clutching at a map to help him find his way to the counsellor's office. This was going to be...quite the something, to his reckoning.

He'd been asked to meet with her beforehand, anyway -- as part of his ongoing recovery from the accident he'd been involved in. Now, though, THAT trauma seemed almost secondary to what he'd endured last night.

In short, Daichi was reeling from two blows in the same calendar year, and his brain? Tiny bit frazzled. The wheelchair bound boy knocked three times, firmly on the door. "Sonozaki-san," he called, quietly. "It's Daiichi. I am here for my appointment."

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vajra_mind
2012-06-25 01:30 am UTC (link)

The door opened quickly, and Renju pulled it open wide to admit Daichi and his wheelchair. "Please, come in." The carpet wasn't the kindest material for wheels, but it could get through.

She closed the door, and the outside noises fell silent, save for the quiet rushing of the wind through the leaves outside the window.

"I'm glad to see you, Misawa-kun. You can go wherever you'd like." The tea she'd poured for herself from her meeting with Minami had cooled, she noted with a small frown. "Is there anything you'd like before we begin? Tea, water, coffee?"

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spinningwheels
2012-06-25 02:24 am UTC (link)

He was used to guiding his chair over unfriendly terrain; the carpet wasn't great, but nor was it the worst he'd ever experienced.

Daichi nodded to himself at how sturdy the door seemed. Appropriate, he felt, considering she was the school's counselor. "I'll have coffee, please. Black."

He carefully manuevered himself into a position facing her, across from what seemed to be her desk, and swallowed. Hard.

The odds of this being pleasant were very low, but he had to go on and see what would happen, after all.

"I'm not just here about last night. You...implied you'd read my file, so I'm sure you have a basic idea of what's going on, yes?"

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vajra_mind
2012-06-25 12:35 pm UTC (link)

Renju set the brewer up as Daichi wheeled himself into place. Coffee wasn't something she e partook in except under the direst of circumstances, but many people appreciated it, so, like the quality teas she'd offered to Reina, she kept a ready supply on hand.

Daichi had settled in front of her desk for the time being, so she sat behind it, her chair raised high enough that she could face him evenly. If he wanted distance now that his mind had settled down some from the previous evening, she was willing to accept that wish for the time being, but she still leaned forward just a little across the desk as she replied.

"Yes. I'm sorry--I know this is a shock you didn't need. I'm not going to belittle your experiences by saying that I know just how you feel, but I'm here to help you work your way through those feelings in any way I can."

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spinningwheels
2012-06-25 03:35 pm UTC (link)

"I suppose the rest of it can wait for the future," Daichi replied, after a moment, enjoying the smell of brewing coffee filling the well appointed office. "I would be a poor liar if I said last night wasn't weighing on my mind."

The fact that she was a professional helped. He could talk about his condition, glibly at times, with others, but any serious discussion would likely be limited to within these four walls.

"It's...a little scary," he admitted, "psychologically. Because I've thought about myself as...being like my persona before. Mine was Sisyphus. Constantly rolling a boulder up hill, only to have to do it all over again, over and over..."

Daichi paused, looking into her face with unblinking eyes.

"There's a connection, right? Between our personae and ourselves?"

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vajra_mind
2012-06-25 05:55 pm UTC (link)

Renju nodded without hesitation.

"Your Persona is..." She paused. There was much she can add to this discussion, but some of it could wait for later on, after he and the others had taken everything in thus far. For all the trials and tribulations she and the Iburi group had faced, at least they had, in retrospect, gotten their information in relatively digestible chunks.

"It's a representation of your self, in a way." She folded her hands on the desk before her, carefully considering her words. She'd done a great deal of study on this topic--for obvious reasons--and distilling it all into something comprehensible was difficult, even just those aspects she used in her own practice. "Carl Jung called it a mask people wear to deal with the world, but I feel that it's more accurate to call it a symbol of your self-perception: the parts of your personality that you know and accept, whether it's conscious or not.

"The relationship is clearer in some cases than in others," she added dryly, though it wasn't totally clear whether she was referring to him or something only she knew, perhaps even herself.

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spinningwheels
2012-06-25 09:19 pm UTC (link)

He almost laughed, for the lack of will to cry. "I would imagine so," he replied, after a moment's thought, "though I can't say I enjoy the idea of pushing a proverbial boulder uphill for all eternity."

It hit closer to the mark than he really liked to admit out loud; for the past year, the analogy was pretty damned accurate.

"That's...a lot to digest," he opted for, instead. "I'm also sort of curious about the fighting aspect of all of this. Those...our Personas, can be used in combat? What did yours do, for example?"

He was trying to envision this. Was it a video game, where he screamed out something and then death rained down around him? That...well, he could at least understand why the others found it appealing.

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vajra_mind
2012-06-26 12:18 am UTC (link)

”Don't worry. It won't be eternity."

But they were moving on from that topic, and elaboration could wait till later. "Personae usually have a specialty: attacking, casting damaging spells, healing or supporting, or gathering information. Prometheus... Though he wasn't precisely mine, he was a jack-of-all-trades. My Avalokitesvara was chiefly a caster."

She leaned back a little in her chair, recalling twenty-year-old memories of fights that were unlikely to face in many times that space. "The Persona also helps to protect you in other ways. Shadows' attacks can still cause pain, but there's rarely lasting damage, and for us, at least, it was difficult to actually die... barring unusual circumstances," she added with an unconscious shiver, recalling cold that still resided somewhere deep in her soul.

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spinningwheels
2012-06-26 12:31 am UTC (link)

"Unusual circumstances?" Of course he picked up on that point. How could he not? The entire thing indeed sounded like a video game made horrifyingly, vividly real. "Do I even want to know? And how do I know what mine does, anyway?"

Fair questions, all of those. Enough so that he'd forgotten the statement she'd led off with. What had happened, anyway? What could be bad enough that they couldn't do it again?

"What...exactly happened, all those years ago," he asked. "Was it just you five? Considering there's nearly eighteen of us..."

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vajra_mind
2012-06-26 02:02 am UTC (link)

"It's... difficult to explain, and I don't know if it will become relevant to you. We can't summon our personae where you can--the rules have changed, somehow, and we don't know what else has." Renju's frown indicated her clear dismay at this state of affairs.

"When it was us... there were sixteen. Something was hunting people, throwing them into another world--a place where they faced all the things they didn't want to accept about themselves." Renju's eyes darken at the memory of the place its Shadow had made her own. "And if they couldn't, they would die. It targeted us, and it was all we could do to help each other survive, let alone understand why."

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spinningwheels
2012-06-26 02:26 am UTC (link)

Daichi frowned as he listened. "Somehow," he said, dryly, "I can't imagine it'll have improved much for whatever we're about to go through. But...you all actually fought. With spells and such. That's..."

It was all starting to sink in, slowly.

"As long as you're honest with me," he said, quietly. "I'll...go along with this crazy escapade. Whatever it is. Just don't sugarcoat anything. Ever. You or any of the other adults."

The look in his eyes was almost solemn as his voice hardened, particularly when he spoke again.

"I've had things sugarcoated for enough lifetimes, Sonozaki-san."

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vajra_mind
2012-06-26 04:52 pm UTC (link)

"Never."

Renju's voice was firm, and the way she met his gaze without blinking made it clear that either she was a very good liar or being entirely sincere. "None of us are the type to try to protect people from truths they need to know."

She leaned forward again, her fingers linked in front of her mouth. "And especially within these walls, Misawa-kun, I operate on a policy of complete honesty. I will never lie to or mislead anyone who comes here to see me, and I hope I can expect the same in return."

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spinningwheels
2012-06-26 05:08 pm UTC (link)

Did he trust her? He...honestly wasn't sure. She had a stake in this, as did the other four adults he'd met just yesterday. There was a chance she was lying; Hell, hadn't the giant bear of a man been lying to his redheaded daughter by omission this entire time, about, well, EVERYTHING?

Daichi looked into her eyes, past the glasses, as if trying to see into the psychologist's soul. She looked right back at him, unblinking.

"I will tell you as much of the truth as I can bring myself to on any given visit, Sonozaki-san," he replied, after a moment's thought to sort out what he wanted to say. "There...there is much inside of me that needs to come out. Beyond just this. We...may become rather familiar with one another over the course of this year."

Perhaps that was why he was so worried about her lying to him. By necessity, he'd be meeting with this woman often. If he found out that she *was* hiding anything, well, he'd probably need another psychologist to recover from *this* one.

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	vajra_mind 2012-06-26 05:17 pm UTC (link)
	Renju's shoulders relaxed a fraction, and she nodded, offering a slight smile intended to relieve a little of the tension that had suddenly come between them. "I wouldn't have expected any differently. Healing is a lengthy process. You won't be pushed beyond what you can handle." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

spinningwheels
2012-06-26 05:37 pm UTC (link)

He nodded once, then again. Right now, he didn't feel up to anything more; he would have to make his own decisions on this Sonozaki character in the coming days.

In the end, though, he knew he'd be back, if only because having someone to talk to helped, a lot.

"Thank you. I...think I should be going now, though. I'll make another appointment with you to discuss the non-Persona stuff. It's...all too fresh, too in my head right now. But, there is something I want to say."

Daichi was already wheeling towards the doorway, hand reaching up the doorknob, and hesitating there.

"I hate this chair. I hate the fact that I'm in it. I hate the fact that I was struck down by an act of God in the form of a drunk driver."

And then, just like that, he was gone.

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