Work Text:
It was a numbing sort of feeling, like when you touch something that’s too cold and your whole body aches with tension.
The early morning sun streams in gently, bathing the town in a golden glow.
Ritsu decides this is bullshit.
Why does the world get to look beautiful today? Why? Why?
He’s sitting in an extremely comfortable and plush chair. It feels amazing and he hates it.
He’s broken, depressed, and at rock bottom. And his ass feels like it’s resting on a goddamn cloud.
By all means, Ritsu should be happy. Everything he is currently experiencing (the cloud chair, the sunshine) is lovely. It’s a peaceful fall day.
Ritsu wishes it were raining.
He wishes that the sky would just open up and pour down rain onto everything in sight. He wishes that the sky itself was grey and foggy and cold, that the air would prickle with static energy, and that he was sitting on a shitty plastic chair.
When the bookish woman in front of him tucks a curl behind her ear, Ritsu wants to scream.
She’s calm and nice-looking. He’d heard somewhere that a bad therapist can make you feel even worse.
Ritsu wanted worse.
The truth was that Ritsu didn’t really want to get better. It seemed sort of self-defeating, and maybe it was because he was still in his “angsty teenage phase”…
But Ritsu couldn’t picture what improving would even look like.
To Ritsu, getting better didn’t really seem like a viable option.
Anger, sadness, and fear. Those were all easy emotions to comprehend. He can understand those emotions, and he’s been coping with those emotions. His coping methods may be “unhealthy and unsustainable” by definition- Ritsu recalled the therapist’s slight wince when he explained how the purpling eye bag from lack of sleep that framed his actual black eye was actually a badge of honor to commemorate his honed survival instincts.
But these coping methods were familiar, and comforting in the same way that a too-hot shower eventually felt normal after it burned your skin slightly.
But to get better- to “recover”, whatever that might mean- was a mystery.
His anxiety had always lived there in his ribcage, tucked right below his heart in a tiny little knot. It was tangled up with his other organs, and Ritsu didn’t know where to start untangling that wouldn’t break his entire delicate system.
When the therapist floated her pen in the air, nothing changed. Even though he flinched, he didn’t see her write anything down, so maybe she didn’t notice the way his fingers were now trembling slightly.