Chapter Text
“My name is Dr. Saito, it’s a pleasure to meet you. What would you like me to call you?”
The doctor smiles at Tenko. She’s sitting across from him in a leather lounge chair similar to his own. They’re close enough that he can see the faint crows feet crinkle around her eyes as her lips move. He glances at the clipboard in her lap, seeing the bolded Shigaraki Tomura at the very top of the patient file clipped to its front.
“Shimura is fine,” he gruffs out.
Dr. Saito hums.
“Would you like something to fidget with before we begin, Shimura-san?” she asks, gesturing to the glass coffee table between them. A woven basket sits on the side closest to Tenko, containing various squishy and spinney and blocky…things. Tenko hesitates, before reaching out and grabbing a squishy thing. He stares down at it. It’s a round, yellow bird that’s slightly smaller than his palm, and when he squeezes it the eyes bulge outward.
“I’d like to begin by explaining my usual methodology for my sessions. I give my patients the option to meet me in-person or over virtual meetings. Therapy can be intimidating, so being in a space that’s familiar can be helpful. That being said, I like to meet patients in-person for these first sessions,” Dr. Saito explains.
“Given that my office is within the boundaries designated by your parole conditions, I encourage you to meet me in-person. Getting out as much as you can will benefit your reintegration into society. This meeting will be spent with me asking you questions and you answering to the best of your ability so I can better understand how to help you. I will be leading today. But for future sessions, you will be leading what we discuss with my guidance. Everything we talk about here is confidential, but you should know that I am a mandatory reporter. If I feel that either your or someone else’ safety is compromised, I will have to inform the necessary parties.”
She pauses, staring at him expectantly. Tenko jerks his chin, a poor mimic of a nod to let her know he understands, and the doctor continues. “Let’s start then.”
Dr. Saito flips through some pages before folding them behind her clipboard, grabbing the pen that was clipped to her lanyard and clicking it open.
“What would you say you like most about yourself?”
“I don’t know.”
“What would you say you dislike most about yourself?”
“Nothing.” He fiddles with the squish toy, passing it back and forth between his hands. The warmth of his fingers is making it more pliant.
“Nothing?” Dr. Saito repeats.
Tenko stays silent.
Dr. Saito hums. She jots something down.
“What is your goal in being here, Shimura-san?”
“I don’t–” …want to be here. The Commission is making me be here. That old, walking, skeleton is making me be here. I shouldn’t be here. I want to be left alone. “I don’t know. It doesn't matter.”
“Shimura-san,” the doctor cuts in, placing her clipboard and pen onto the table and linking her fingers together. Her voice is steady, but her mouth is pressed into a firm line. “I understand that talking about yourself is difficult, but it is important for your rehabilitation.”
When he doesn’t react, Dr. Saito picks her clipboard back up, flipping to the second page of his profile and scanning her eyes down the page. “You have already requested a change in psychiatrists twice now.” She glances up at him. “Others in the program are usually only granted a change in doctors once.”
Tenko shrugs. “I guess I’m just that special.”
“Or rather, your associate is,” she remarks, the picture of calm.
Tenko feels his brow twitch, displeased and failing at suppressing it.
Yagi had a way of getting under his skin.
“As I’m sure you’re already aware, the favor extended to him is thinning. If allowing you to walk the streets of Japan proves to provide nothing towards your reformation, the Commission will have no issue continuing your rehabilitation in Tartarus.”
“You would just love that, now wouldn’t you?” he spat. All of these damn doctors were the same. Tenko wasn’t stupid. He knew what he’d done. How many had died. And how many had wished, and continued to wish, he had died that day.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Tenko scoffs.
Dr. Saito presses on, seemingly unmoved by his ire. “Earlier I mentioned the two requests you had sent in, but it appears you had three doctors before me, not just the two you passed on.”
“And what of it?”
She started reading off her clipboard. “Dr. Kobayashi Kikiyo–your first doctor–but it was only meant to be a temporary assignment. Maternity leave, if I recall correctly. In her file of you, she astutely recalls your aggression–”
“How sweet of her to remember.”
“–but notes that she is optimistic of your success in the program due to your eventual cooperation during sessions.”
Dr. Saito looked up at him, appearing to assess his reaction, and then continued. “After her departure, your case was then transferred to Dr. Yamamoto Kei, which lasted a measly two months…” she trailed off, flipping the page and continuing to read, “...and then you were transferred to Dr. Tanaka Kenji, which lasted only two weeks.”
“Get to the point,” Tenko hissed, his hands twisting the squish toy like a wrung towel and his foot tapping against the polished hardwood floor of Dr. Saito’s office.
“You demonstrated progress, and then it waned. Can you tell me why?”
“Because those doctors sucked. The first one was…okay, but the last two were quacks.”
“Dr. Yamamoto is an accomplished man, as is Dr. Tanaka. I hold all my colleagues in the program with high regard.”
“Still sucked.”
“Why?”
“I dont…I don’t know!” Tenko did not like being pressed. He especially did not like being pressed by Dr. Saito, who was staring at him like he was a puzzle she had solved many times before.
“You’re very fond of that phrase.”
“Oh fuck off–”
“It’s because they were men.”
Tenko paused. The snarl on his face loosened and the curses died in his throat.
“I read the files–they all had solid approaches for your rehabilitation. But the fact of the matter is that Dr. Kobayashi saw more success because she was a woman. Because she wasn’t a man. Because the last thing that you want, Shimura Tenko, is another old man lying to you about how the world works.”
The stony look in the woman’s eyes melts, just a tiny bit, into something softer.
“I don’t want you to go back to Tartarus, Shimura-san. I agree with Dr. Kobayashi’s original assessment of you. You can have a normal life. But I need you to work with me.”
Tenko can no longer stand the look the woman is giving him, so he drops his head and stares at his hands instead. The fidget toy between his palms is practically deformed from his earlier anger, but still intact. He shifts the yellow bird, all ten of his fingers now making contact.
Nothing.
He cleared his throat.
“I like how good I am at video games,” he began awkwardly, his voice low and unsteady. “And I guess…I dislike how angry I get. It happened a lot more when I was younger, but…yeah.”
Dr. Saito picks up her pen and flips back to her notes, an encouraging smile on her face.
“Keep going.”