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"You've got a lot of damage still showing up on the brain scans. We can see dead spots, areas that don't have as much activity as they're supposed to. The lab report said you could be experiencing slower reflexes, delayed processing, brain fog, and higher levels of irritability. How have you been feeling lately, Fushiguro?"
The kid only scowls at the ground. His mouth twitches like he's fighting with himself over whether or not he'll speak. How vulnerable is he willing to be, or how weak can he admit he still is?
"The muscle tears and stress fractures have all pretty much healed up. You'll have some internal scarring, so you might feel stiff sometimes doing things you used to be able to do easily. That can be frustrating, but you just need to work through it and things should mostly go back to normal."
I can tell he's regulating his breathing. He doesn't like to show much, but his body gives him away. His hands are tense gripping the edge of the examination table.
"The physical side of it is one thing," I continue tentatively, "but how are you doing mentally? How has it been going with Doctor Hayashi?"
His demeanor suddenly changes. His shoulders drop slightly and his eyes dart off to the side. Maybe I'm imagining the blush of embarassment blooming beneath his skin.
"Have you been going to those appointments, Fushiguro?"
"I've never needed a therapist before," he mumbles.
"You've never seen a therapist before," I correct him.
Severe neglet from a young age, living alone with a sister only a year older than him since before he was in grade school, his only family member coming down with a mysterious illness right before he entered high school, the constant stress and danger from his responisbilities as a sorcerer, and now accute repeated trauma from the events of the last few months.
Not to mention the guilt.
His mouth stays closed tightly and his eyes remain gazing off toward the floor, unfocused as frustration and helplesness fight to overcome the urge toward self-sufficency he's clung to his entire life.
My head lolls back until my eyes meet the cracks on the ceiling. I've never been good with the emotional stuff.
Maybe I can recognize the tension growing in a young mind now in a way I didn't know how to before. I can see the origins of discontent and pressure that can fester and twist until there's no way to turn back because all the paths have burnt up behind you. The feeling that the only relief is in destruction of the thing that's plaguing you. Or of anything else that fits the bill. I've seen it now. I know you have to catch it early.
But I still don't know what to do about it.
So I outsource.
"Look," a sigh rips out of me as I bring my gaze back down to the face of a troubled, dark-haired kid, "can you at least tell me why you don't want to go? I can help you with the physical stuff, we can do all that in house from here out. But I'm no good at talking about feelings. Call it a weakness."
He finally brings his eyes up to meet mine. His gaze is heavier than it has any right to be. I get the feeling his eyes are searching for something behind mine, but I don't know what to give him.
Nanami told me once that I always looked bored. He said a curse could be chasing me down the street and I'd probably yawn.
"Nah, that's just how she is," Geto had told him.
"Yeah, she's always fuckin' bored," Gojo had countered, not missing a beat.
They probably couldn't tell at all if I cared that they'd said that about me. I didn't really, or it didn't bother me. It's just, walking down the street for the rest of the day, I'd catch my refelction in the shop windows and see half-lidded eyes, an apathetic stare. Even now, in the bathroom mirror, on a trip into town, in the reflection on a colleagues glassses, I never stopped seeing it.
What would a kid with a defensive glare and a burden greater than the weight of the world find in eyes like that?
He blinks suddenly, and speaks.
"I'm not very good at it either."
"Hm?"
"Talking. Feelings."
He looks away again.
I take a deep breath.
This is progress.
Ask him questions.
"Is it because it's someone you don't know? You're not comfortable talking like that with a stranger?"
"No, it's the same with everyone," he answers. "Well, except—"
Except who?
His face really is blushing pink now.
"Is there someone you're close with?"
A bit of red is starting to peek out at the tips of his ears. He stays silent.
"Is it…" I hesitate. Is this really the right question to ask? I can see him tense up as I speak. His eyes widen and his breath gets short. He looks so much like a little kid who broke the rules and is about to get found out.
I push through. I'm not sure what else to do.
"Is it someone you can still talk to?"
A shadow crosses his face suddenly, and his eyes go dull. The child-like expression is gone, replaced by a heavy grief far beyond his years.
"I couldn't talk to Gojo," he answers flatly, "if that's what you mean."
It was. I won't try to bring up his sister.
It must be someone else.
I speak before I even know what I'm going to say.
"I couldn't really talk to Gojo either. He's too thick-headed. Nothing would ever get through to him. I realized that pretty early on, so I usually didn't try."
He's still frowning, but huffs a sound of agreement. Am I optimistic enough to call it a laugh?
"He did have someone he was close to though," I continue, "back when he was your age. I imagine they told each other more than they ever shared with… anyone else."
More than they ever shared with me, at least.
"If you have someone like that—"
"It's not like that."
His frown has only deepened, but his ears are turning red again.
"Like what?"
"I just mean…" he trails off, trying to find the words to describe something indescribable. "It's not like I can tell…them…anything. It's just…"
"It's just?"
"It's like…if I need to say something to…them…they're the only one I can do that with."
His ears are completely red now, but it seems like a calm has come over him. A determination pushing through his embarassment. Like he has a mission he won't fail no matter what.
If I can decifer what he's feeling, can I help him achieve it?
"Devotion?" I ask. "You have someone you're devoted to?"
His eyes snap up to mine in a panic. He's like a deer in headlights all of a sudden, a rabbit who just got caught in a trap, or…
Or a teenage kid who just got caught with a crush.
Oops.
His eyes have begun darting all around the room, like he's looking for an exit, any escape from this topic of conversation.
I'll change course before he shuts down on me completely.
"Look, forget about all that," I start. "What can I do about you not going to therapy appointments?"
He doesn't say anything, but his eyes are roaming less frantically and his breathing has calmed down a bit. If anything can be said for this, at least he isn't looking as defiant as he did earlier.
"Do you want me to go with you? Drop you off and pick you up? Walk you there?"
He shakes his head.
"Is there anyone you think you'd be able to talk to?"
He looks like he's thinking, but that tension from before crosses into his expression. Tension that makes him scrunch up his nose like he's about to…
"There's no one."
No one.
"Okay. I'm not going to push you."
The tension releases, just a little bit. It isn't gone.
"The opportunity will always be open to you," I continue. "You just have to ask for it. Maybe I'll ask you every once in a while too. Just to check. That okay?"
He hesitates, but he nods.
"Alright. We've got a lot of other stuff to work on anyway. I really do need you to tell me how your head is feeling, and we should do some physio, just to get your muscles going again."
He nods again.
"Oh, and we should do some tests with cursed energy, see if you've got any blocks or loss of technique. Whenever you're ready, we don't have to do them today."
Before I can blink, a monsterous wolf appears behind him, eclipsing the light of the flourescents as its back arches up to the ceiling, claws scraping out a high pitched note across the floor.
"I can do this at least," he offers. I can barely make out his words over my heart beat drumming wildly in my chest.
"Good," I squeeze out, hoping to sound unaffected.
There's a sudden spark in his eye, then, for the first time since I met him, I see Fushiguro Megumi laugh.
The back of his hand comes up to cover his smile, and a small chuckle escapes him before he can hold it back.
"Your face…" he mumbles through his hand.
I glance over to the glass windows of the medicine cabinet beside me. In the reflection, I see something new for the first time.
Ieiri Shoko, you have never looked this shocked in your entire life.