Chapter Text
Denji gets a social worker. If you find a better title that’d be grand.
Chapter 1: Denji gets assigned to a social worker
It is a chilly Monday morning when Denji awakes from his slumber on the dirty mattress. He stretches his limbs and slowly shifts his gaze towards the door. “Is anyone in there? Hello?” a female voice behind the wooden door asks accompanied by rhythmic knocking. Denji carefully places Pochita, who up until now was still sleeping on Denji’s chest, next to him, jumps up from the mattress and walks towards the door. “I still need a few more days to gather all the money”, he responds, opening the door.
A woman in a matching gray suit jacket and pencil skirt greets him with an unsure smile; that’s definitely not who Denji expected the Yakuza to send out. Upon hearing his words, the woman slightly tilts her head and looks past him and into the spare shed. “Do you live here?” she asks, a rather shocked tone in her voice. Denji shrugs: “But Pochita’s always with me, so I’m never really alone.” The woman touches the frame of her glasses and looks for whatever Pochita could be, but could only spot an orange something lying on a quite dirty mattress. She clears her throat and is about to ask something else, but hesitates when she spots the orange thing moving in the background. Her eyes wander across the room and back to Denji. There are multiple stains and holes littering his outfit, making it seem like he has little or no clothes to change into.
“Uh…”, she hesitates, “right… I’m Erika Hayakawa from the Office for Child Safety Services. Do you know where your parents are so I can talk to them?”
As she utters those words his face turns into a slightly sad expression. “My parents both died when I was very little” he answers, his eyes fixating themselves onto her black shiny pumps. She opens her leather bag, takes out a clipboard and a pencil and starts taking notes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”, she answers in a rather monotone way, “Can you tell me your name? Do you live here regularly or is this some sort of hiding spot? Do you know your age?”
“I’m Denji and that’s Pochita.” he points his finger towards the orange moving thing that’s now blinking at Erika “I live here. It’s not the best house but I really hope I can move into a better place someday. And I, uh, should be around 16 years old.”
Erika nods, writes down a few words onto the paper and repeats the process until Denji finishes talking and there’s a slightly uncomfortable silence beginning to form between them. “Why do you need to know all that about me?”, Denji asks, crossing his arms in front of him.
She blinks confused, adjusting her glasses again before looking back up at him. She didn’t expect him to question her visit. “I… You don’t know what the Office for Child Safety Services does?” she asks in an earnest tone; the first real emotion she’s shown after Pochita started to scare her a little. Denji shakes his head and Erika notices how malnourished his face and neck look. She takes a note of his physical appearance. “Uhm… Okay. I’m here to get you somewhere safe. I know this sounds sketchy, but here’s my business card.” She rummages around her bag and pulls out her business card. The bone colored card has her business information and information on her department written in Silian Rail. She hands it over to Denji. He casts a few glances upon it before handing it back to her and declaring that he can’t read most of what’s written on it bar her name and the city. She quickly puts the card back into her bag and takes another note of the newly gained information on her case subject.
“That’s okay. We can walk towards the office if you’d like, it’s not too far away. Only 15 minutes at most. We can also grab something to eat if you haven’t eaten already.” Denji’s face starts to beam at the sound of (possibly) getting free food. The bleak beginning of his day may turn towards a better (and tastier) ending.
Erika smiles at his sudden change in demeanor and tells him to follow her. He calls out for Pochita and they both quickly follow her. She didn’t expect to deal with some sort of dog. This is her second case in the six months she’s been at the Office so she doesn’t know how to handle details such as a dog. She quickly texts her department manager about the situation, hoping to get a quick response about her situation.
After a supposed 15 minute walk that turned into 10 minute walk and an hour long food session at a burger chain restaurant they arrive at the huge glass building. Erika leads them towards her small office, glancing at her phone every few seconds on the way up. Still no response. Let’s hope dogs are permitted in here. We’ll see.
Denji takes place on an orange metal chair across from the rightmost wooden desk. Erika closes the door and sits across Denji. Multiple government bodies are severely understaffed which is why they are the only two people in this room that usually seats three service workers behind their desks.
She turns on her computer and starts clacking onto the keyboard. Denji’s eating his third, but first to-go, burger. Occasionally he feeds Pochita a fry in between bites. Only now it dawns upon him that he has trusted a random stranger and followed her into her supposed ‘office’ just for food. Were his basic survival instincts that bad? Well, getting food is also important and part of survival, especially when you had absolutely zero money to finance said necessary food. And if this leads to even more free food he could get used to the idea of following strangers into public office buildings. Especially if those strangers are women wearing rather tight clothing that makes their asses look so good when they walk in front of him.
“Are you listening to me?” He tears his stare away from the half eaten burger in his hands and settles it onto Erika. “Yes, ma’am. What did you say?”
Erika shakes her head ever so slightly and starts typing onto her keyboard. “Do you know your last name, Denji?”
Even though Erika doesn’t have that much practical experience, she was one of the best in her college classes and has received the third best degree out of her year at university. Her professors forced the thought into everyone’s heads that you shouldn’t ask case subjects any technical questions outside of the office. That’s why she spent an hour listening to Denji talk about his favorite hobby – hunting devils. That was his response when she asked him what he likes to do in his spare time.
Denji shakes his head and takes another huge bite out of his burger. She types his answer into a standard form. So far it’s quite empty.
This question-answer process repeats for around twenty minutes until they get caught in a loop of Denji not knowing the answer to basic questions about himself or his family. Erika sights and adjusts her glasses again. “I’m really sorry that you’ve had to go through all this Denji. I really am. I was under the impression that you live with a relative of yours and you fought and now you’re hiding in this shed. I wasn’t aware that your situation is this bad.”
Denji tosses the empty burger wrapper he’s been holding onto for the entire conversation behind him. He doesn’t know how to react or answer. There hasn’t been a single person who has shown him a sliver of empathy or compassion towards him or his situation; it has always been humiliation and getting treated like dirt for wanting to live. It was always just him and Pochita surviving day by day.