Chapter Text
"So..Miya-"
"Chinen is fine." He cuts her off, bored eyes never leaving the switch he toyed with in his hands. He pulled it out, from seemingly nowhere, sat down on the couch and hadn't moved since.
Azumi doesn't comment on it, smiling a tight-lipped smile.
"Ah, of course, apologies. I'm used to kids being a bit more informal. I see you're a boy of manners!"
"Not really." He grunts, pulling his feet up onto the couch. He folds into himself, becoming more and more occupied with whatever game he was playing. Azumi believes she saw animal crossing flashing across his screen.
She stores that information away for later.
"Well, how about you tell me about yourself, Chinen-chan? It's always good to use these first meetings to get to know one another!"
The boy, instead of answering, gives her a once over. His eyes are as uninterested as can be with a tone to match.
"No thanks. I'm good. I'd rather not talk to you."
Wow. Okay. Kinda rude, but fair enough.
"Are you saying you don't want to be here?" She asks, placing her pen down on her desk and folding her hands under her chin. The boy hums, going back to his game.
"Nah, not really."
She hums, tilting her head.
"Then why are you here?"
"Cus my folks don't want me ending up like every other child celebrity." He says, actually putting the game down for a minute to give her his full attention. She's a little stunned by the blunt honesty but makes sure not to let that show.
"Burnt out or depressed?"
"Dead." He deadpans, tone and face not showing any hints of a joke.
She gulps and lets out a long sigh through her nose.
"Okay then."
"Look, with all due respect, I'm fine," He starts, picking up the switch and going back to pressing buttons. "I have skating, my friends, good grades and I even read for fun! I'm doing better than most eleven year olds, so excuse me if I don't see any point in me being here.
"This is just taking up time I could use to skate with my friends. If I can't be doing that, then I'd much rather do this," he gestures to the game. "Is that alright with you?"
Azumi huffs but nods anyway. She's met many kids like Miya in her years as a child therapist. Stubborn, prideful and a genius to go along with it. However, unlike the rest of them, he does actually seem to be pretty well-rounded and while she is a firm believer in everyone benefiting from therapy, you can't make someone do something they don't want to do.
"Yeah, okay. But if you do want to talk, I'll be right here ready to listen."
He nods and goes back to his game while she turns to her computer, opening up some work and getting started on that.
Throughout the hour and a half he's scheduled for she repeatedly asks him random questions every fifteen odd minutes or so. He always replies with a one word answer, barely paying her any mind, she sighs and then goes back to work.
By the time the boy's mom is there to pick him up Azumi still knows next to nothing about this boy.
All she knows is that he was playing animal crossing, it's one of his favorites. He's eleven years old and in his first year of middle school. His birthday is coming up in a few months and his favorite color is purple.
A small win, she decides, but a win nonetheless. The first meeting usually always starts off rocky but she has hope that things will get better with the ongoing meetings and he'll loosen up soon enough.
But then the same thing happens at the next meeting.
And the next.
And the next.
And a few more after that.
And pretty soon it's been two months, six meetings, and they've made not a single drop of progress. The only thing that seemed to change was the amount of questions Azumi had been asking him, slowly dwindling as the time went on.
After their last session (where they just sat in comfortable silence for an hour and a half, her doing work and Miya reading some book for school) she began to plan out how to explain to Miya's mom that Miya really didn't need therapy. Or, at least, wasn't warming up to it in the way she hoped.
And that's what she plans to do as she prepares for Miya's seventh (and probably final) meeting. She's just about to pull up a calming playlist when Miya sulks into the room, not even sparing her a glance. He doesn't have his bag with his games or a book or anything with him, just his slouched posture and mournful aura.
He dragged himself over to the couch and fell onto it, curling into himself the second his slippers fell off. He buried his face in his arms, never once acknowledging her presence.
Azumi says nothing but doesn't pull up her work just yet. She turns to face him, arms crossed on the desk.
Sure, this kid may be a little rude and prideful but he's only eleven and an eleven year old acting the way he's acting? Not good. Azumi wonders if he had recently lost a competition or gotten hurt but she never saw anything like that mentioned in the constant articles about him.
"Is everything okay, Chinen-chan?" She asks him, voice soft and deliberate. In any other state he'd probably roll his eyes at her tone but all he does is shrug.
She hums, tilting her head a tad.
"Well…do you want to talk about it?"
He shakes his head, rather minutely, and doesn't move from his curled position. As little as Azumi knows he'd appreciate it, she decides to dig.
"Well, I noticed it was your birthday yesterday! Happy late birthday, Chinen-chan."
He stops, whole body jerking into a stiff position.
He doesn't say anything. She doesn't move.
"Chinen-chan…" she tries again, slowly leaning towards the boy across from her desk. He doesn't respond, whole body going more rigid than before.
"I know something's wrong…and that's okay. You're allowed to be upset here, you don't have to hide until it goes away. We can talk it out." She explains, her voice dripping with poorly concealed desperation.
He just shakes his stiff head, mumbling something she can't hear.
"What's that, Chinen-chan?"
"You don't care about me." He says, turning his head to the side to be heard correctly. "I don't want to talk about shit with a slime like you in this stuffy office."
He returns his head to it's original position, body loosening but still refusing to move. Azumi blinks, working her mind into an instant frenzy to find a way to solve this problem.
This was it. He may not have needed her services before and he might not even need her full services now.
But he needs a shoulder to cry on. An ear to listen and someone to help him find a sound mind once more. She can't do it all but she can sure as hell do that.
"Okay." She simply says, standing from her chair and moving about the room. She admits, it's rather small, not really seeing the need for a large office but now she knows the space will only benefit her.
She gets to work grabbing blankets from her closet, a few large seated cushions and a chair or two she had off to the side. She moves around the room, using the desk and the couch to her benefit as she creates.
Miya doesn't move his head up, not once. Not even when she asks him to shuffle over a tad so as to drape a blanket and hold it down with a rather heavy candle. She tried not to worry too much.
After ten minutes, and a whole lot of problem solving, she's mad something close to a blanket fort.
A rather sturdy one, spacious too if she does say so herself.
"Hey, Chinen-chan? Can we try something? It's nothing crazy, you don't even have to talk….but maybe you'd be more comfortable inside the fort?"
He finally brings his head from its downward position, though slightly. Just enough to glance at her face from his place above her. She sits, comfortably, on a large cushion with a blanket draped around her shoulders. She made it a point to accumulate such comfy things the moment she opened up her services as a child therapist. Comfy things bring comfy thoughts, that's her logic.
He takes a long moment to gaze at her creation, seemingly analyzing it with a steely judgemental gaze. It's not as scary as she thinks it's supposed to be, with his bed-head and puffy eyes but she doesn't mention it.
He doesn't speak but he does move, climbing off of the one free spot on the couch and dropping to his knees, crawling through the "entry-way" of the fort. He peaks his head in, curiously glancing around until he spots a small black bean-bag she was sure he'd love.
He did, making a beeline for the seat and settling in it. She, wordlessly, hands him a blanket(bright neon green) and watches as he cocoons himself in it, nothing but his face and a few pieces of start hair peeking through the material.
It's adorable and she struggles to reign in her urge to pinch his cheeks.
"There's no roof." He comments, glancing at the top of her contraption. She sighs, nodding her head.
"Yes…however I haven't made a blanket fort since I was twelve so…cut me some slack?"
He snorts, shaking his head. "I'm not cutting you anything, slime. You're an adult, I expect better."
She grins, throwing a random stress all she had laying around at him. He dodges, even trapped in his blanket prison, but she doesn't care, laughing all the same. He, however, squawks at the assault.
"Hey! You can't do that! That's…that's like–against the law!"
"What laws? The ones that say I can't throw stress balls at patients?"
"Yes!"
Azumi feels herself laugh before she actually hears it. Large cackles that start from the pits of her stomach, clawing their ways up through her body and out her mouth.
Yet even while she feels her body shake with laughter, she manages to grab another stress ball and throw it at the bundled up child. He squawks once more(through laughter, she notices) yet doesn't manage to dodge the throw, the ball hitting him square in the chest.
She pauses. He pauses. They stare at each other for all of three seconds.
She snorts. He snorts.
It's ten minutes later when they're finally composed, that Azumi manages to start asking questions.
"So….Chinen-san…I didn't do this for no reason." She begins, tossing a cupcake shaped stress ball in between her fingers. Miya's eyes watch it pass in between her fingers, back and forth, never trying to look anywhere else.
"You came in looking…"
"Like shit?" He suggested, quiet with his head tilted down. His eyes, finally having moved since Azumi stopped tossing the stress ball, were anchored to the ground.
"I was going to say worse for wear, but yeah. 'Like shit' works too." She feels herself grin, almost cheshire in nature, when Miya snaps his head up to stare at her in surprise for her language.
"What's wrong, kid?" Azumi asks, voice soft and quiet. It felt wrong to go much louder, seeing as Miya seemed like a kid that didn't enjoy talking about feelings and such. He wanted this private, flippant and non-committal.
He sighs, rolling his eyes in an over exaggerated manner. It was obvious whatever it was was hurting him a lot and he was barely processing how to feel it.
"My…friends." He starts, grimaces. "Well, ex friends now, I guess. They–"
He chokes on his words, face scrunching up in pain. It looked like this was physically painful for him to have to say.
"You don't have to if-"
"They left me." He interrupts her, spitting the words out with a soft sort of anger. She can tell he wants to be forceful, let the fire inside him burn bright but it's anything but, doused by his tears before he could even try.
"Your friends left you?" She clarifies, just to be on the safe side. He nods, not looking her in the eyes.
He wasn't an eye contact person when he was like this. That's okay, he didn't have to be.
"Oh, I'm sorry Miya." She says, being careful to keep any pity from her voice or eyes. She could tell he wasn't a pity person.
"Not your fault," he mumbles, picking up a stray stress toy and picking at it. She watches him scratch at a hole on the toy, over and over and over.
"It's not…is it yours?" She asks, being careful with her tone.
As much as she wants to have high hopes for her client, she knows how kids can be. While they can act like gifts sent from the heavens with perfect grades and behaviors and activities, they can also be little demons.
Well, not really, but kids can be cruel.
And she doesn't think Miya is that way but…well she doesn't know all too much about him. And if he is the one doing horrible things and pushing his friends away then she wants to correct that behavior now before it spirals into something dangerous.
He, quite obviously, tenses at the question. He feels like he's being accused, standing in front of the court with nothing but sweaty palms and a guilty look.
Azumi tried her best to quell this.
"I'm not accusing you of anything. I would appreciate it if you told me what happened. Like you said, you don't think I care about you so I can have a completely unbiased point of view. No pull for any side but the right one, y'know?" She's hoping this works.
And it does.
He doesn't open up right away. At first he just stares at her with a guarded look, his eyes thinned into a glare.
He keeps his eyes trained on her, watching her watch him watch her. He picks at the stress toy, his socks and a scab on his elbow. She raises a brow at that and he stops without another word.
Then he sighs, a sigh that sounds so tired it hurts and begins to speak.
"It was…the day before my birthday. They'd been acting more distant than usual but I…I didn't think anything of it. I should've seen the signs I was so stupid and naiv-"
"Focus. They'd been acting distant. Then what?"
He stares at her, wide-eyed and bewildered but continues with a nod.
"I was practicing my skating at my usual gym. A-and they walked in. Takashi said he wanted to talk….I stopped and asked him if it was a-about my birthday party…"
Azumi keeps a stone face but when his voice cracks at the end, fresh tears gathering at his eyelashes, she almost wants to break then and there.
She doesn't, of course. She didn't build up all those student loans just to break when a kid's voice cracks.
"Okay. Birthday party. Then what?"
He blinks some tears out of his eyes, wipes a stray one off his cheek and continues. He hasn't looked Azumi in the eyes the whole time.
"He said no. He said that none of them were coming. Th-they called me selfish a-and asked if I even wanted a party…or if I thought I was too good for them. They l-l-laughed at me. And t-talked about how I ruined skate-b-boarding for them and all th-thiis other m-mean stu-uff!."
The tears were now sprinkling down his cheeks, leaving by two and threes. He wipes them before they reach the chin.
"They hate me! They fucking hate me and I-I don't know what I d-d-did wrong!"
The tears in his eyes poured out of him as he choked back a sob. Azumi barely had any warning before he launched himself at her, curling his small arms around her waist and crying into her chest, hiccupped sobs and snot bubbles leaking onto her shirt.
Azumi wasn't deterred by this, not at all. After years in the field she's had quite a few kids cry on her.
So she easily jumped into action, throwing her arms around Miya and gathering him, more firmly, in her grip. She began to rub gentle circles on his back, rocking them back and forth while she shushed him, telling him that everything would be okay.
That just made him cry harder.
The blanket was still secured, firmly, around his shoulders and head so Azumi couldn't actually see his face all that well, which might have made it better. Miya didn't seem like the type that liked when people saw him cry. At least here he has plausible deniability.
"Chinen-san…it's okay, let it out," she breathed, over and over and over.
It's like this for a while. Azumi isn't sure exactly how long but it's quite a long time, with him bundled in her arms shaking like a leaf. Clinging to her as if she'd run away the second he let go.
After a few more minutes Miya pulls back, sniffling. He shoves off any remaining tears and all but forces his breathing back into place, shaking his hair out as he goes along. The blanket was now draped across his shoulder and he pre-occupied his hands with holding it up while he composed himself.
"Do you need a tissue?" Azumi asks, so softly, holding out the small packs she always had in stock. Usually the smaller ones made patients feel more like a person with feelings than another one of her clients.
He takes the pack with a swift swipe, trying—and failing— to rip them open with his lanky fingers soaked in tears.
He hands them to her to open. She does, hands him one and allows him to clean himself up.
"So you said you don't know why they did this?" Azumi asks after he's discarded his second tissue. He nods, a pitiful thing.
"Okay," she takes a second to think, assessing Miya's overall state to see what he needs from her at this moment. "You know what it sounds like, to me?"
"That I'm such a piece of shit that I ruined all of my friendships without even knowing what I did?" He suggests a lazy, self-deprecating smirk clinging to his face. She allows her stone-cold face to drop into one of thinly veiled sorrow.
"No. And don't say that about yourself, kid." She hopes her voice is soft yet stern. Whatever it is, it works because Miya gives her a short nod of agreement.
"It sounds like to me," she continues on, acknowledging the compliance while putting it in the past. "That they're jealous. Of you."
He snorts. She doesn't.
"They're jealous of me?" He parrots. She nods, fully going into therapist mode.
"A lot of people, when they feel inadequate, will oftentimes try to bring down the person or thing that represents their inadequacies instead of improving themselves."
He stares at her, obviously attempting to take in what she's saying, so Azumi continues with her explanation.
"For a lot of people, bringing down the source of their inadequate feelings is often a lot easier than working on the areas in which they feel inferior. So, for example, let's say there was a famous actor that was super talented and everyone talked about how talented they were all the time. Okay?"
"Okay."
"And let's say that the actor has a friend that everyone ignores in favor of the actor. It's not that they're bad but everyone talks about how amazing the other actor is all the time and often forgets about the actor's friend. Following?"
"Following."
"Great! So, the friend, who feels really inadequate, starts bad-mouthing the actor. All sorts of things about how rude they are and how they bad-mouth their fans and that their acting isn't even that good and all this other mean stuff."
"Oh." Is all he says. Azumi nods.
"Oh indeed." She brings her left knees to her chest, staring Miya straight in the nose.
"Instead of improving their acting skills and working to be as good of an actor as their friend, they turn to belittling and bringing them down, y'know?" He nods, silently soaking in her words.
"That's what your friends are doing. You said they mentioned skate-boarding?"
"Yeah. Quite a bit, actually."
"That's the source of the inadequacy," Azumi explains. "You're talented, kid. All the things you've managed to accomplish at such a young age…all the hard work and time you've put into your craft-"
"The training can be tough sometimes but…I love skateboarding. I want to work to be as good as I can because I love it. Of course, the competitions and prizes and stuff aren't all that bad.." Miya chuckles. Azumi actually smiles at his joke.
"The way they see it, bringing you down with words and pushing you off the pedestal they gave you is a lot easier than putting in even half the effort that you do to be as great as you are. It's the easy way out. The cowards way out, ya hear me?"
She waits for Miya to agree with her but he doesn't. Instead he drops the blanket from his shoulders, shooting up from his seat on the bean-bag as he begins to fold his blanket.
"We have five minutes left. I'll help you clean up."
She glances down at her watch and notices that they actually have ten minutes left but she knows an attempted escape when she sees one. So she rises to her feet and begins to take the blanket fort apart.
They do it in complete silence and by the time she's folding the last blanket he's already heading for the door, though a few minutes early.
She's expecting him to leave, wordlessly and then follow him out to discuss cancelling his future session with his mother when he stops at the door, hand on the nob.
Miya turns to her. Azumi pauses her folding.
"Thanks." He bites out. "For the…everything. For everything."
Azumi hums. "Anytime. That's what I'm here for."
"Right, because you get paid to listen." He rolls his eyes. She shakes her head, a smile tugging at her lips.
"Because I care, Chinen-san."
He doesn't respond to that and opens the door instead.
Azumi decides to take a chance.
"I'll see you next week, kid?"
He looks at her, looks out into the waiting room and then back at her.
"Yeah. Next week."
He doesn't even give her time to give a proper good-bye, instead slamming the door behind him.
She allows herself that suppressed smile, finishing her folding and tucking it into the bottom shelf of her cabinet