Chapter Text
It was almost closing time when I got a call from the receptionist downstairs. The city lights had already given a cold orange hue to the cloud cover above the roof window of my office, and I could hear the evening rush hour starting up on the streets below.
“Hey, doc. Got another client waiting.”
“Really? There shouldn’t be anyone else scheduled.”
“I think he’s looking for a consultation,” she insisted. “He’s definitely one of yours. Looks like a weirdo.”
“…Fine. Please let them know I’m coming.”
The office space I’d set up my practice in had a shared receptionist and waiting area. The setup—and more often than not, the receptionist's attitude—wasn’t ideal for setting clients at ease, but it was better than nothing. I put down the papers I’d been filing and headed downstairs.
It was late, so the waiting room was empty save for a single young man slumped on one of the plastic chairs arranged in a haphazard row. The one closest to the door, I noticed. Not that it was necessarily an indicator of anything, but I still tended to pay attention to those sorts of things.
What was obvious, though, was the reason why the receptionist had called him a weirdo. He was dressed in some sort of costume, complete with a sword that I hoped was just a plastic replica. He hadn’t reacted to my entrance at all; he kept staring into the wall in front of him, unfocused.
“Good evening,” I greeted with a vague wave to catch his attention. “I’m Dr Talbot. You were looking for me?”
Slowly, the man jostled himself away from whatever thought he’d been immersed in. He nodded. “I want to book an appointment.”
“People usually find it more convenient to make bookings over the phone.”
“I tried. It didn’t work out.”
Ah. That would explain the few calls I’d gotten over the past week, where the caller had immediately hung up on me. It wasn’t terribly unusual for clients to have trouble making appointments over the phone, often due to anxiety issues or difficulty committing without first seeing me in person.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Yes, we can schedule you in now.” I took out my pocket planner. The man straightened a little, or perhaps tensed. “Is Thursday good? I have an opening at one o’clock.”
“Okay.” He didn’t make any motion to check a calendar of his own, which in my experience was an indication of a few possibilities. By far the most common one being that the person did not have much going on.
“All right then,” I said while jotting down the time, “mister…?”
My question was left hanging in the air. The man simply stared at me.
“What is your name?” I rephrased.
He kept staring for a few beats too long. “Shinju Sakamura.”
“Very well, Mr Sakamura.” I wrote it down, anyways, despite how long he’d hesitated and the fact that he did not look very Japanese at all, apart from his getup. “I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.”
He nodded, stood and picked up that sword of his. My attempts at politeness hadn’t done much so far, but I still held the door open for him, and watched as he slunk back out through the reception area. As he went, I noticed the scarring on the crook of his bare forearm. Track marks. Right.
As far as first time client meetings went, this one certainly left me feeling like we had our work cut out for us.
---
By the time it was Thursday, I’d gotten occupied with several other clients. It was only at lunchtime when I started wondering whether the terse man would show up. He seemed to fit the profile of a first-time client who’d make an appointment only to lose their nerve soon afterwards. One of the minor tragedies of my work, situations where help was needed most but never fully asked for. However, as I was finishing my sandwich, the receptionist rang to let me know he had in fact arrived.
He was in the same chair as last time, but unlike then, he actually turned to look at me when I arrived. He was still wearing the same robe as before, still showing a bare shoulder, and I couldn’t help but think that it didn’t look like the right kind of attire for the fall weather that was steadily growing colder.
There was also a woman in the waiting room, from the put-together look of her going to the accounting firm next door, impatiently sitting on the chair next to the elevator and shooting deathly glares at my client.
“Mr Sakamura,” I called, trying to inject pleasantness into my voice despite my irritation towards the woman. “I’m ready to see you.”
He got up and we rode the elevator all the way up to my floor, in silence. Sometimes that was the most comfortable option for everyone involved.
“Is that a real sword?” I asked as I opened the door to my office.
For a second the man looked a little shifty, but then said: “Yes.”
Of course. “Could you please leave it next to the doorway? I don’t allow weapons in my workplace. Next time, it would be best if you could leave it at home.”
As I feared he got hesitant, almost confused. But in the end, he dutifully removed the scabbard from his belt and placed it against the wall.
“Thank you,” I said, hiding a quiet breath of relief. “Is this all right with you?”
“It’s fine. I’m used to having it, is all.”
“Do you feel unsafe without a weapon?”
“No.”
He was pretty good at shutting down my lines of inquiry. Time to get official, then. I motioned him towards one of my couches as I sat on the other one and pulled out my notes. He hesitated, again.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” I said as he continued to glare at the couch. It was a perfectly fine seat, in my opinion—I had really invested in these. “Or do you prefer to stand?”
After an intense glare-off against my poor couch, my client seemed to have gotten over whatever thought or memory it had sparked, and he sat down, slumping deep into the cushion. I bit down my desire to ask him about it.
“So, Mr Sakamura,” I started with instead. “Or would you rather I call you Shinju?”
“No,” he said immediately. “Neither of those.”
“What do you like to go by, then?”
He mulled it over. “Nothing.”
“That’s fine.” I jotted down some notes. I’d assumed he’d given a fake name for simple anonymity’s sake, but this seemed to go deeper than that. “May I ask what kind of help you were hoping to get from therapy?”
I’d pulled off yet another hard-hitter, apparently. He fell silent, this time for even longer. Both of our gazes slowly wandered towards the roof window and the grey clouds beyond it. My couches were strategically placed with that opportunity in mind. As this went on for a while, I let out a subtle cough to make sure my client hadn’t completely drifted off.
“I don’t think this is going to help,” he said, finally. That made me happy; it may seem odd but it’s a phrase I like hearing. Having the gall to say that out aloud means the client is being honest about their feelings, which can sometimes be the hardest hurdle to overcome.
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve had therapy before. It did not end well.”
“The relationship between a therapist and a client can be tricky. It’s natural for it to not work out sometimes.”
He made a noise that could almost be described as a chortle, but without much humor.
“Not everyone is a good fit for each other. After my session with you, if you don’t think I’m a good fit either, I’ll refer you to someone else. How does that sound?”
“Fine.” He shrugged.
“Even though you don’t think this’ll work, you still came. That’s a commendable start. What got you to make that decision?”
“There’s this… I have a reason I need to get better.”
“And what is that?”
He tensed, seemingly struggling to make a decision. “I can’t say. But there’s something I need to take care of.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to subdue my curiosity. “I’m glad to hear that you have a source of motivation to improve, even if you’re not ready to share it quite yet.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good thing.”
“How come?”
“I can’t take care of anything. Not when I’m like this.”
“How would you describe ‘this’?”
“I have trouble with—” he grasped for the right word, “—functioning. It’s getting worse.”
This was as good of a segway as any into the question I'd been wanting to ask since I saw his arm. "May I ask if you use any drugs?"
He glared at me. Despite the intense eye contact, I found it almost impossible to identify the emotion behind it.
"This is strictly confidential, of course," I assured. "Any history of drug or alcohol use would be useful for me to know."
"No," he said, tone flat.
"No?"
"It's not useful knowledge."
"You have history, then."
"No," he repeated, more forceful this time.
We sat in silence for a moment. I was trying to wrap my head around why he'd bother with such a blatant lie. The track marks were plainly visible, with his arm stretched out on the armrest. My client noticed me looking, and tilted his arm away, but his eyes were still obstinately locked on mine. I relented, knowing better than to push too hard on the first consultation.
“Let’s talk about your problems, then. Would you be willing to share what’s bothering you?”
He hesitated, still, which I found stranger now than when we were talking about drug use. He must’ve expected to have to speak about this at least. For a moment I thought his attention had started wandering off, but then he muttered: “Trouble sleeping. Issues with… time.”
“Time?” Sleeping troubles I’d figured out just from the dark circles around his eyes, but this sounded unique.
“It’s gotten out of my control.”
“That’s the thing about time, isn’t it? Nobody can control it.”
“I used to be able to.”
“Do you mean you used to have a better sense of how time passes?”
He looks at the floor. “Yeah, something like that.”
“So, it’s only more recently you’ve been having problems with time perception?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I know what normal time perception is like.”
I frowned, considering how to answer. “It’s quite normal to feel like time sometimes moves faster or slower depending on what we’re doing or how we’re feeling. Losing track of a few hours here and there is part of being human.”
“Yeah, that’s not it.”
“Are you experiencing any memory lapses?”
“My memory’s fine. My recent memory, at least.”
“You had problems in the past?”
“I don’t have any memories earlier than a few years ago. But that’s not relevant.”
I usually try to avoid looking shocked at anything my clients tell me, but sometimes it was hard not to. “Are you sure that’s not relevant?”
“It was amnesia caused by a head injury. I’ve since come to terms with what happened. It doesn’t matter anymore.” I was trying to scan him for any traces of emotional response. Whether he really didn’t have any or had gotten exceptionally good at hiding, I honestly couldn’t tell. A psychologist isn’t supposed to be a mind reader, but sometimes we like to entertain the idea that we get pretty close. Not so much in this case.
“I might matter. An injury on that scale could very well be the root cause of—”
“It’s not. My memory’s fine, now. I remember too many things, if anything.”
“All right then. If you’re certain you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to. We can concentrate on your current issues.”
“That‘d be good.”
I recollected my thoughts. “You said you remember too many things? What do you mean by that?”
He shifted in the couch, uncomfortable. “Maybe that’s not the best way to put it. It just feels like it sometimes.”
“Do you mean you find it difficult to let go of past events?”
“No, I mean remembering too much. Multiple times. Remembering things before they happen.”
“Remembering the future? That sounds quite interesting.”
At that, my client’s face darkened and he started staring at the floor.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. What I’m trying to say is that it seems like this all comes back to what you mentioned about having an unusual sense of time.”
He looked back up at me. “Yeah.”
“How would you say it affects your day-to-day life?”
“It’s not good.”
“If you could please elaborate…”
“Like I said, I can’t take care of anything. I hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten until I… until recently.”
“It's making it difficult to keep track of your responsibilities?”
“It might be that, or might just be me, but yeah, I’m doing a piss-poor job.”
“Could you describe what the experience is like?”
He closed off once more, all focus gone. I didn’t like needling him like this. It had become abundantly clear that he found it difficult to give a concrete description of his condition, but I wasn’t sure how much I could possibly help him without understanding his symptoms.
“All right,” I sighed, “let’s approach this in a different way—”
“Time’s slowing and speeding,” he said, suddenly. “Randomly, without warning. Skipping out of sequence. Pausing on a single moment. It’s getting impossible to keep track of when I’m awake or asleep. Which ones are nightmares and which ones hallucinations, and when do they finally give way to reality. Sometimes it all just slows down to a crawl, and I get stuck inside my head with no idea how much time passes. Maybe it could go on forever, if nobody shakes me out of it.”
He breathed heavily after the outburst, then slowly settled deeper into the couch. I took a moment to consider how to respond. “Do you have someone to shake you out of it?”
“…Kinda. But it’s not right.”
“You don’t want this person to see you in that state?”
“She shouldn’t have to.”
“This person, is she—”
“Let’s not talk about her.”
“If you don’t want to,” I conceded. “Either way, considering your situation, you did well to get to this appointment on time.”
At that, he let out a sullen huff. “It wasn’t really thanks to me.”
“Would you like some tea?” I needed some time to think about everything he’d just said. His mention of hallucinations was concerning, but I probably shouldn’t fixate on it, when there was so much else to go over.
“If it’s herbal.” Moreover, his voice had gone a bit hoarse. He didn’t seem used to talking for this long at once.
“Chamomile?”
“Mmhm.”
I started boiling water in my little tea-making corner. “Your experiences with time… do they happen in episodes?”
“It used to be episodes.”
“And now?”
“It’s almost constant. Like a background buzz. Sometimes it grows, and engulfs everything.”
“Is it happening right at this moment?”
“…Yeah.”
I took out two cups, making sure to leave the chipped one for myself. “Occasionally, you fall quiet for a while. Is that because you get stuck inside your head, as you put it?”
“……Yeah.” He looked a bit embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it. I can try to guide you out of it, if you want.”
I held his cup of chamomile out to him.
He took the cup and blew into it to cool it off. As he was raising it to his lips, however, he suddenly pulled back. He stared at the cup like it had threatened him.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Actually, I don’t want the tea,” he muttered, still staring.
“Did you remember something?”
“I don’t want the tea,” he repeated.
“That’s fine.“ I took the cup from him and placed it on the coffee table between us, and returned to my seat with just my own tea. “Feel free to drink it later you change your mind.” I tried to remember where we left off. “So, between back when this was more episodic, and now that it’s more constant, what changed?”
He finally took his eyes off the cup. “A lot. Now I don’t… I’m not…” He gave me a strange look, and despite my efforts, I really couldn’t decipher what he meant. “I wanted to get better. That’s why it got worse.“
“Do you feel like you’re doomed to fail?”
He didn’t answer that.
“Look,” I started. ”I personally believe everyone has a potential to live a good life. But my beliefs don’t really matter—what is important is to make you feel that you have the capacity to get better. That it’s possible for you to get back in control. Over yourself, over your sense of time. You might need some help with making that happen, but that’s okay. That’s what therapy is for.”
I put down my empty mug, pausing to give him an opportunity to respond. He didn’t, but seemed to still be paying attention.
“As for how exactly we can get you on the road to feeling better, I do still think that you’d benefit from a proper evaluation. It would of course be your own choice, but considering your mention of hallucinations and past head trauma, my first suggestion would be to see a clinical psychiatrist to get you a medical assessment—”
“No,” he interrupted, quite sternly. “I know what the problem is, I just need to find a way to deal with it.”
“Even if the key to finding that way is to find out more about the source of the problem?”
“I’m not going to see a psychiatrist. I won’t take any medication, either.”
“All right.” At least his refusals were very clear. “So you’d prefer a more results-oriented approach with therapy.”
“I just want to function, that's all.”
“That’s a bleak way to put it, but sure, we can start with that.” I tapped my pen on my notebook. “We’re going need more time to talk things out and figure out the best way to help you, but if you wish to proceed, we can book you in for repeat sessions. Can you do weekly?”
“Yeah, I can do whenever.”
“Now, before it’s time to wrap up this one, I do want to ask, have you seen a psychiatrist before? Was that the therapy you mentioned?”
As a response he gave a nod so subtle I was hoping he’d elaborate, but he didn’t.
“Have you ever been prescribed any psychiatric medication?”
He didn’t reply for long enough to make me worried.
“Sir—” I started, lowering my voice, but he snapped back quicker than I expected.
“No, I haven’t," he spat. "You said my hour’s about to end, didn’t you? I’ll just go now.”
“No need to worry, I still have—”
“I've got a bad habit of losing track of time.” He straightened out of the couch before I could get another word in. “Can I pay in cash?”
“Yes, but the first consultation is free.” He looked puzzled, so I added: “I see no point in taking money from clients before both parties are sure that I can help them.”
“Right.” He was hovering near the door, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether he was going to storm off or not. It was rather awkward, so I got up as well.
“I’m sorry if I’ve prodded into things you’d rather not discuss,” I said sincerely. “I’d generally prefer not to leave a session on this note, but if you want to leave, I’m not going to stop you. Before you do, though, do you have any wishes as to how to proceed? If you don't want to try a second session, my offer for a referral to another therapist still stands.”
My client picked up the sword he’d relinquished at my request. He weighed it in his hand. “Same time next week?”
“Oh? Sure.” Honestly, I was a little surprised. “Next Thursday, one o’clock.”
He gave an affirmative grunt and slipped through the door.
“I look forward to seeing you,” I called out after him as he disappeared into the elevator.
Well. I had to admit it it wasn’t the worst first session I’d ever had with a client, but certainly not the most successful either.
As the sound of the elevator died down, I returned to the office to pour out the now cold tea and wash the cups. My client had only left a few minutes early, but I still had a while to go till my next one. I wrote up a couple more notes, mostly out of habit. In the end, I was just glad he’d decided to go ahead with the next appointment. With that man’s attitude, it seemed to be a minor miracle he was trying to find help in the first place, and I ought not to squander this chance for him.
I put down Shinju Sakamura in my planner for next week.