daybreakacademy | Everything is fine~! (open)

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Everything is fine~! (open)

WHO: Tokidoki Rikugou, you
WHAT: He's getting help - awkward discussions, go! / Also functions as general open post
WHEN: Mid-February-ish
WHERE: Various? The therapists' office? Who knows?
NOTES: Likely descriptions of death and dismemberment. Assorted other unsavory things.

Therapy - [Semi-Open] -

Toki admitted to himself he needed to see someone after having a panic attack in front of Ekkehardt over Orihime's phone call, and fainting in Ky's class a couple of days later. Then Rex happened on the Outlands field trip and he came back a little broken, but more determined to get it together.

So, anyone who has witnessed panic attacks, disturbing behavior, whatever else he's done that's concerning* since the Tea Party- now's the time to discuss it. An hour with whoever about whatever. Lycans must be accompanied by someone, otherwise it's optional whether a third person is needed to facilitate things. Group threads if you desire. Assumption is he's been seeing counselors/psychiatrists/whatever the school has since the 5th (and taking sedatives). He isn't as immediately panicked beyond control at the littlest thing anymore (and better off for later dates in the month).

* dissociative 'what is reality' things and some nihilistic viewpoints are unrelated to werewolf trauma

Freespace - [Open] -

Anything else with anyone else. During all of February. Plot on Plurk/Discord if you want, or just start something and surprise me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yuya shakes his head. "I'm just glad you're talking to someone now. It's not the kind of thing you can really deal with alone, you know?"

He scratches along their cat's back. "Having an animal you can cuddle helps, too."

"It's still hard to talk about." He may have spent the first couple of sessions just crying and freaking out.

"Yeah, Kuroko was a good idea~!"

Even if Yuya got stuck basically taking care of her. She's soft and warm and he wonders why he never got a cat before.

Probably the same reason Yuya's stuck taking care of her. Kuroko stretches, and Yuys flinches briefly when her claws dig into his leg through his pants.

"They probably told you this, but... it's normally hard at first, and then it gets easier as you get better."

"You think it will?"

It's easier to talk when he's preoccupied with Kuroko and not paying as much attention to Yuya. A sudden irrational thought occurs to him and he panics a little, but that should stop soon. Maybe.

"You can't fail therapy, can you!?"

Because if you can, he will. He has no doubt.

"Uh--" Yuya leans back a little. "I don't think so? It's not like a class..."

He supposes the therapy can fail, but he's not about to fill Toki's head with that kind of doubt when he's just finally started getting help.

"You just need to take it one step at a time."

"Yes! That's what they say! But what if it takes too long and I give up!? That's a very real possibility here! How long should it take? Not that long, right!? It's just talking and some other stuff, it's not that hard, why is it so hard!?"

His fingers clench a bit too hard in Kuroku's fur. He's really trying, but he doesn't have a good track record with anything going right ever.

Kuroko lets out a hiss, clawing harder against Yuya as she tries to squirm away. Yuya moves to try and pry Toki's hands off her, out of interest to not be scratched up.

"Ow, ow--Hey, you've only just started right? This is something that happens gradually. Even if it takes a long time, the you in two months will already be better than the you now. And then two months after that. You can't give up this quickly!"

As Yuya detaches his fingers from the cat, Toki realizes what he's doing and pulls his hand back.

"I'm sorry, Kuroko!"

This is why he's never had a cat. Yuya's words are far from what he wants to hear. A slow progress measured in two month intervals. He can't even think that far ahead at the best of times. It seems an unreachable distant point completely removed from anything at present. He leaves Kuroko to Yuya and stands by the window again. After a couple of minutes, he ventures to ask a very important question.

"What's it like to be happy?"

What if he does this, makes it the whole way through, and then there's nothing?

"Will it really be worth it?"

Kuroko dashes out of Yuya's lap and into the bathroom to hide. Yuya rubs his leg, but he's pretty sure he's not bleeding.

He looks up when Toki speaks, pausing. Then he offers a soft, certain smile.

"It's worth it to not feel so scared all the time."

"You seem pretty sure of that~! Guess it must be true~!"

He doesn't mean it, but he tries to look excited over it anyway. He's said too much about what he's really feeling already. Though maybe that in itself was some kind of progress.

"Well..." Yuya tilts his head, glancing sideways for a moment. It's not exactly a huge secret, if he's not going into too many details. Maybe some solidarity would help Toki after all.

He shrugs. "I've been there before, so I know what it feels like... and I don't think I'd like where I'd be if I didn't have help."

That makes Toki stop smiling instantly. He can barely talk about himself, and he doesn't know if wants to hear Yuya recount whatever trauma he'd experienced, even if Yuya brought it up.

"Uh... what happened?"

It's the question he's supposed to ask, he thinks. Maybe Yuya thinks it will help to compare things. He's also a little in shock, because Yuya seems well-adjusted. If he's faking it like Toki, he's doing a very good job.

"I got attacked, too." He rubs his shoulder absently. "And I had a hard time moving and was really scared for a while. But it was years ago, so... I've had time to heal."

At least, it was enough time for him to heal. Five years hasn't been enough for Gongenzaka, and his heart sinks remembering that. He'd rather have hope that Toki will have an easier time now that he's actually started healing.

"Y-you were attacked? By what!?"

He doesn't want to know. This is not helping. For Yuya to have survived something like what Toki's imagining... It should probably be a hopeful thought, that Yuya was okay and normal and not scared all the time; but it just makes Toki feel weaker and despondent, because nothing even happened to him and he'd completely lost it.

"You're okay now, though!? I'm sorry if anything I've done brought back stuff for you!"

Flashbacks are horrible and he doesn't want Yuya thinking about whatever happened to him.

"W-wait--" Yuya springs to his feet, holding his hands out just short of actually reaching Toki to try and calm him down.

"Hey, it's okay. You haven't done anything--like I said, it's been years. I've had time to deal with it." The last thing he wants is Toki blaming himself for anything here. Between him and Gongenzaka, there's enough guilt going around.

"You'll get better, too."

Toki takes a minute to try and calm down; though advice given so far on that front amounted to basically 'shut up and breathe for a second'. Which, admittedly, is a very hard thing for him to do. But he thinks they're making some sort of progress here and he wants to try and keep discussing things.

"I didn't..." he needs clarify this. "I didn't get attacked. How can it affect me so much if it wasn't even me!? And you've... but you're... okay...?"

He's okay now, mostly, but rather than clarifying that he thinks there's something he needs to know, to understand Toki's problem.

"Toki... something happened with a lycanthrope, right? What was it?"

There's only so many things he thinks it could be to fill Toki with that much terror. But if he says he wasn't attacked...

"It was, it was a w-werewolf. My s-sister and I, we were at a shrine. The nezu shrine, close to where we lived, and there was a werewolf. It came out of nowhere and it, it-"

Toki has to stop there; he was getting too loud and it would be shrieking if he didn't. He holds up a hand to stop Yuya from interrupting, though. He's going to finish eventually. It would be easier to blurt it all out at once, but he doesn't want to have to repeat himself if the words come out too fast and rambling.

"It killed three people. Ginshu, my sister, she d-died and it was horrible."

So far, so good.

"Th-the thing just ripped her to pieces and there was blood everywhere and her arm landed right in front of me and the fingers were still twitching and her eyes were still moving but half her face was gone and it was tearing into her body with its claws and its fangs and it was eating pieces of her and I just watched!"

That didn't last long. But it was a valiant effort.

Well, Yuya wasn't going to ask the gorey details. But Toki offers them anyway, and Yuya's struck silent as he listens.

He shuffles closer, arms outstretched in offering to pull Toki into an embrace before he has another panic attack.

"You lost your sister. How could it not hurt this much?"

He watched her die. Yuya can't imagine that. Not the way Toki saw it, or the way Gongenzaka did.

This hadn't gone as well as Toki hoped it would, but it was better than most attempts. He clings to Yuya too tightly, much like he had with Orihime the first time he'd been able to talk about it. But he had distanced himself from the whole thing there and hadn't remained emotionally attached to the conversation. He can't stop himself from crying, but it feels more like release than panic.

"I'm sorry! I'm t-trying!"

It might take months after all.

"Do you want a new roommate?"

Yuya grunts as he's gripped tightly, but it doesn't take him long to put his arms around Toki in a slightly less firm embrace, his chin falling against his shoulder.

At Toki's question, he shakes his head. "I don't need a new roommate. I know you're trying, and I'll be here cheering you on. Okay?"

He still thinks Yuya would be better off with a new roommate. No one should have to deal with him right now, or maybe ever

"Okay."

Toki releases him and finds a spot to sit on the floor again, leaning his back against the wall. It's too much effort to stand and keep talking about things at the same time. He wipes his eye with his sleeve until everything's not completely blurry. He's really tired of crying so much.

"Yuya, do you... do you think that maybe it was like, not an accident, but the, the werewolf... did it know, did they plan it? I mean, they would be human most of the time right? I don't know much about that besides movies and things. But what if they just lost control and they killed people? I keep thinking about it. How horrible that would be. I know what it's like to have no control and if it's like that and they didn't mean to... But I'm still like... angry about it and I shouldn't be thinking like that, right? It killed her!"

That may be the worst part, that he can't condemn the lycanthrope for it, no matter how frightened he is of all of them.

Yuya slowly sits down across from Toki, more space between the now. He listens patiently while Toki tries to work it out--this is already way further than they got before, so the therapy must be doing something.

"... I don't know. If they planned it, or if it was just--where they were when they turned." He shrugs, helpless. "They really do... it's something from the way the blight affects them, that makes them violent and it's hard for them to control. Knowing how things are isn't wrong, it just means you understand what it really is."

He folds his hands in his lap, chewing on his lip. "But those people still hurt you, and your sister, whether they meant it or not."

Toki nods while listening to Yuya's explanation. It's like he's thought about, mostly. They can't help what they are, but he'll never know whether this particular incident had malicious intent or not. He prefers to the think the latter because it would be something he couldn't keep thinking back on. But he also wants it to be the former so he has something to channel the anger to.

"I don't want to forget it, but I want to... move on. I want it to stop hurting."

He barely knows what's he's talking about anymore. There's too many thoughts.

"I'm tired."

"It will. You'll get there." Yuya offers him a faint smile. "Promise."

He glances to his arm, considering the time for a moment. "... You want to go get ice cream from the cafeteria? I always feel a little better after eating something like that."

Everything is fine~! (open)

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