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Shigeo has always had issues with showing her emotions.
That was a simple fact that everyone who has even looked at her for more than two minutes knew. Especially her.
Some people thought that because she didn’t show much emotion meant she didn’t have any, but she knew it was the opposite. She felt so much , but that was the problem. What if she got angry and hurt someone again? Or too excited? Or sad? She couldn’t risk it.
Ever since the confession to Tsubomi happened, many people (including her own powers. Or maybe herself? A part of her?) told her that she cannot repress her emotions, she needs to “feel” them.
“But– how do I feel my emotions? Is that something I just– do? Automatically?” She turns to her brother, who is browsing through the section of self-help books in their library.
“Well–” Ritsu sighs before picking out a book, “Yeah? It sounds way simpler than it is but it’s true,” He picks up two more.
“That still doesn’t answer my question, though, how do I feel them? There has to be some steps to this.”
“You do know that this is why we’re getting the books in the first place, right? It’s not really something I can explain or articulate, these books are literally made to do that."
She slumps her shoulders, and leans her head against Ritsu’s shoulder, “I know. Thank you for helping me.”
“It’s no problem,” He picks another, “I wasn’t much help anyways, these books are probably gonna be the most you get in terms of explaining this.”
“Yeah, but you said you would help me if I do actually ‘feel' them.” She raises her fingers in air quotes.
“When you feel them, and I still stand by that. If you feel like you need to talk, for anything, not just emotions, you come and talk to me.”
“I know.” She grabs his hand, rubbing her thumb along his knuckles, “...And you know you can do the same with me too, right? I– I know that I haven't been the best when it comes to approachability– or being a good older sister and helping with stuff but, you can always talk to me. About anything. Even if it’s something negative about me, like you hated something I said or did, I won’t be mad.”
He’s eerily quiet as she speaks, and even longer after she’s done. They sit in their silence for what feels like an eternity before he squeezes her hand back and leans his own head against hers.
“I know. I love you.”
“...I love you too.”
“I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.” She says absentmindedly. Reigen looks up at her from his monitor, a confused smile on his face,
“Making tea? You’ve done it a million times, I would hope you know how to do it by now.”
“No–” She cuts herself off with a sigh and a head shake, “I mean the whole… ‘not repressing my emotions’ thing.”
Reigen sucks in air through his teeth, “Ah, that . Didn’t you tell me you got books for that? Haven’t you read any of them yet?”
She looks down at her hands, the image of the stack of books gathering dust in the corner of her room making her face go red, “…Not really.” At Reigen’s responding hum, she hastily adds “I tried reading some of them, really, but it wasn’t any actual help, it was just… people talking about themselves and their own stuff.”
“And you want me to help you with this?”
“If you can,” she sets the teacup down on his desk, “Ritsu said it’s kind of hard to explain, so I understand if you can’t”
Reigen scoffs dramatically as he types, “That’s because your brother is thirteen, I’m an adult! Of course I can help you with this!”
“Oh, okay. Thank you.” She sits down and grabs her bag, pulling out her notebook and flipping to a blank page.
“Hey, slow down a sec! Let me get my thoughts in order!”
“Sorry.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes, the only noise being from Reigen scrolling and mumbling to himself. It’s enough time that they both startle at the slam of the door as Tome barges in,
“Hey, guys! I’m–“ She cuts herself off at the situation in front of her, looking back and forth at Shigeo’s determined expression and Reigen’s concentration on the computer screen, “…What are you doing?”
“He’s teaching me about how I can feel my emotions instead of repressing them.”
“…Okay, sure he is.” She walks behind Reigen, looking at the computer screen despite his protests and looking back up at her friend with an annoyed expression on her face, “…He’s reading internet articles.”
Shigeo pauses, ignoring Reigen’s continued protests, “I could’ve gone on the internet?”
“Yep.” Tome turns back to Reigen, slapping him upside the head, “Hey! If you’re gonna cheat by using the internet, you could at least be a little nice and just print them out for her!”
“No, wait,” She stands up, joining Tome and leaning over Reigen to look at the screen, “I want to read them.”
Reigen attempts to shoo the two girls away, to no avail, “Hey, this is my computer! Personal space!”
“Oh, sorry,” She backs away, “Can I read them, please?”
“Of course you can!” Tome answers for Reigen, slapping her hand over his mouth before he can talk. He rolls his eyes before reluctantly nodding, and Tome’s hand comes off.
“You’re lucky I pay you,” He grumbles as he gets up from his chair, gesturing for Shigeo to sit in it instead.
“The pay is bad, you’re lucky I still come into work whenever I can.”
Shigeo interrupts their exchange with a “Thank you,” before sitting down and opening her notebook again.
Shigeo walks into the living room, looking at Ritsu play some fighting game. She doesn’t want to interrupt him since he looks concentrated, so she waits for when he’s done to tap on his shoulder, “Hey,” She starts, “I finally have steps.”
“...For what?”
“For feeling my emotions.”
“Oh! Okay!” Ritsu puts his controller down on the ground as he gestures for her to sit down with him, “Is it just the steps or have you actually used these steps?”
“It’s just the steps, if that’s okay. Reigen found stuff on the internet to help me, so I took notes on a couple of them, and I wanted to run it by you and some others to see if they were actually useful.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. What are they?”
“The first step is naming the emotion, and asking myself impartial questions without judging myself, like if the emotion is positive or negative and asking further questions to figure it out from there.”
Ristu nods, then realizes that his sister is waiting for a verbal response, “Uh, that’s helpful, sometimes I have trouble actually realizing what emotion I’m feeling until it’s been a while, so the questions will help you a lot.”
Her eyes light up, “Do you want me to get Reigen to print the articles for you? I can copy my notes for you if you want.”
He puts his hand up in refusal, “No thanks, I don’t really need it. What were the next steps?”
“The second one is asking questions about the physical feeling in the body, because emotions give a physical reaction. The article talks about asking questions of where the feeling is in the body, like throat, chest, and stomach, but it doesn’t give specifics, so I looked further into it to see the exact emotions’ responses in the body so I could name them.”
Teru wraps an arm around Shigeo, patting her on the arm, “That’s so cool, what are they?”
Shigeo leans the notebook in her lap towards Teru so he can see better, pointing at where she’s reading so he can follow along, “Negative emotions were really easy to tell the difference between. Anger causes tightened muscles and pressure, and your body temperature to go up; sadness causes low energy, a tightening in the chest and throat, and the body to feel slow or weak; and fear or anxiety causes an elevated pulse, shivering or shaking, shortened breath, and a dry mouth.”
“Hey, that reminds me! I heard somewhere that anxiety and excitement give a similar feeling in the body, so you can kind of trick yourself into being excited if you’re nervous or anxious!”
“That’s cool,” She adds, ‘can be mistaken with excitement, can trick myself’ at the end of her note, “But the positive ones were all really similar to each other. Joy and love were even paired together in one of the images I found, and one of them gave really vague things that didn’t go with actual physical reactions. But the general bodily feelings I found was that your body feels warm and energized, your muscles are relaxed, and you have a light feeling in your chest.”
Teru nods, taking his arm off Shigeo’s shoulder to lean down and reach for his cup, “Yeah, all of that sounds pretty accurate, it can help you pinpoint what exactly it is,” He sits straight and wraps his arm around her shoulder again as he takes a sip. Shigeo looks at his hand for a second,
“You’re shaking. Are you anxious?”
“Wh– No! No, I’m not anxious, I’m fine!” He waves his hand around, “I’m just excited that you finally have help like this!”
“Oh,” She smiles, “Well, thank you. It’s nice to have help on this, I’m really glad you’re letting me talk about this.”
“Yeah, of course! What were the next ones?”
“The third one is exploring the actual root of the feeling. This also was the first step in another one, so I just paired them together. It says to focus on the event or circumstance that led to the emotion, and to focus on the facts instead of making assumptions or making up a ‘story’. The other article listed specific stories and the emotions tied to them, like I’m hurt or upset if I say stuff like ‘crybaby’, or I’m angry if I say ‘difficult’ or ‘crazy’.”
“That’s good! It’ll probably help you a lot to look at it from a neutral place, instead of being all critical of yourself,” Tome nods as she sits with Shigeo.
Serizawa nods, “Something from personal experience, though, if you’re not careful with assessing the situation you could distance yourself from your emotions instead of getting closer to them.”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” Shigeo adds to her notes, “Is there anything you do to avoid that?”
“Well…” The man hesitates, and Tome speaks up to help him,
“I usually just talk to my friends about it, but if everyone’s busy or I don’t feel like going to anyone, I just… talk to myself?” At Shigeo’s head tilt, she continues, “Like, I pretend someone is in the room with me, or I’m speaking to an imaginary audience. Sometimes I use my stuffed animals as a person.”
“Oh…do I need a stuffed animal for that?”
“Nah, you can just talk to an object, or even the wall.”
Serizawa visibly relaxes at their exchange, “I thought I was weird, I do that too.”
“Nah, it’s not weird! If we can’t afford therapists, then we gotta make do with what we got!” Tome sticks her hand out for a high five, and Serizawa lightly pats her hand.
“So, I should talk to other people when I can, and if I can’t then I talk to an imaginary person?”
Serizawa nods, “It’ll almost always be better with another person since they can ask you clarifying questions and help you out, like, even if people make wrong assumptions about it, that just gives you the opportunity to explain yourself.”
“Okay then.” She writes down ‘talk out feelings with others, talk to imaginary people if no one can talk’, “And then the last one was considered a step, but I don’t really consider it one, it’s more of a reminder.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“It was talking about replacing self-criticism with self-compassion. It said that if it was difficult to be kind to myself, I could pretend I’m talking to a friend instead of myself.” She takes a sip of tea, her hands shaking as she sets the cup down,
“I think that really helped me understand it, because I wouldn’t say the things I say to myself to someone like Ristu, or Teru and Tome, or Serizawa and you. I wouldn’t be as mean to you guys as I am mean to myself, and– and that’s really unfair to myself.”
Reigen sighed, moving from the chair across Shigeo to sit next to her, pulling her into a side hug. He tightens his hold when she rests her head on his shoulder, “You better not get tears on my suit, I just washed it,”
He hears a sniffle, and a “‘m sorry,”
“No, don’t be, I was joking. You can cry, that was the whole goal, right? To– to actually feel your emotions instead of shoving them down?” at his kid’s nod, he continues, “Then there, you can cry.”
It’s like his words open the floodgates for her. The next thing he knows, she’s clinging to his jacket, hiding her face in his shoulder as she sobs loudly. He just pats her back and leans his head against hers, letting her cry.
It takes a while for Shigeo to fully calm down, at one point her powers make everything float around, making his tie float in his face and obstruct his vision. Nonetheless, he continues to let her lean on him, she needs it.
It takes even longer for her to separate from his hold, looking around at the mess of an office as she wipes her face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t worry about that, we can pick it up in a bit. Do you wanna go through your list?”
She silently nods, picking up the notebook that floated and fell on the ground, “Um, step one feels obvious, I feel sad.”
“Even if it’s obvious it can help to say it out loud, keep going.”
“Step two, because I feel that tightened feeling in my chest and throat, I have low energy, and I feel slow and weak, I’m sad.”
“And you cried.”
She nods “And I cried. Um… can I add another emotion?”
“Yeah, of course, you can feel multiple at the same time.”
“I think I’m anxious? I’m– I don’t really have the shortened breath, but I have the dry mouth, elevated heart rate, and shaking.”
“That makes sense, being vulnerable with anyone is scary, and in our heads there’s always a possibility of rejections if we show that, no matter if it’s real or not. But you don’t have to worry, I didn’t leave you after that whole thing, I’m not gonna leave you now.”
Shigeo nods and takes a deep breath, “I think I’m gonna cry again.”
“Hey– hey! Don’t do that!” He chuckles, “Don’t cry, it’s alright. Keep going with your list.”
She nods again, blinking away her tears, “Uh… the– the root of the problem was me thinking about how I treat myself, and I thought about, like– what if I treated Ritsu how I treated myself? Like if he came to me with a problem he had, if he trusted me with something like that, and I just broke that trust and spoke to him like I speak to myself, and it just made me feel like such a bad person.”
“Shigeo, you’re not a bad person because of a hypothetical scenario. You’re not even necessarily a bad person just because you do bad things, especially if you don’t mean to. People who do bad things can change and grow over time, especially if they recognize that they need to grow. And bad people don’t worry about being bad people.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” She yawns, “Thank you a lot.”
“No problem, it’s what I’m here for. Now,” He stands up and points at the empty spot, “You must be tired, you lay down and rest while I clean this up.”
She doesn’t argue against not helping him, instead she lays down against the seat and closes her eyes. He can’t tell if she actually falls asleep or is just resting her eyes, but he tries to stay quiet nonetheless. She needs it.