Warning: Gore, PTSD, mentions of suicide and character death.

"I'm dead."

"Not anymore, mind you, but I was. Three weeks ago."

The way she hangs her head is questioning, unbelieving, and he swears that if the woman were in any other profession she would have burst out laughing and told him to pack his bags for the insane asylum. Perhaps she is still going to tell him to do so, but her voice is calm, if not a tad belittling, as she nods and scratches something onto her clipboard. "Right," she mutters before she sets her clipboard aside and looks back up with a new smile on her face. "So, Neku -"

"- I'd really rather Sakuraba -"

"- Sakuraba-kun -"

"-san," he corrects testily. Her eyes cloud and her smile slips more toward a frown.

"I'm trying to build a closer relationship to you."

"I don't want that."

"Your parents do."

Silence.

He picks at his nails disinterestedly, tempted to pull his headphones out of his bag and over his ears, to drown himself in his beats, away from this woman and her trivializing trench coat. She sighs and takes the clipboard again, turning her pen in slim fingers.

Her eyes catch his, something like pity now evident within them. He blows out a breath and leans back, the squeaking of his chair filling their silence as she continues to turn that pen patiently. "So you're dead."

"Were," he fixes.

"Were," she echoes, though somehow her tone manages to get testier, the weight of her words not reaching her face. She lingers on it with distaste, as if an unforgiving taste on her tongue. She raps on the clipboard all the same, the tapping echoing loudly in the silence of the room, and he blinks languidly, lazily, as she poises her pen back over the paper. "So you would say that's your source of, ah, nightmares and anxieties?"

"That's all I got?" he replies, bored. He notes the way her cheeks puff at his tone, the way she shifts her weight from one side to another as a breath blows through her nose. Good, he thinks with vehemence, because this woman is irritating. However, the doctor straightens and tosses her mane of hair back over her shoulder and another small, sticky smile spreads on her lips.

"Is there more I should be aware of?"

"Probably. Dying is pretty traumatic, you know." He smirks at her expression, one of disbelief, one of incredulity, before she offers him another somewhat apologetic smile and scribbles again on her clipboard.

She lets out a sigh under his unrelenting gaze. This woman, these people, they don't know anything. Not that he blames them, exactly; after all, how would they know anything? How would they know that there is more than this world – that mortality is just an illusion?

No, to them, they'd only ever see him as a kid with an overactive imagination. Either that, or one that is seriously disturbed. It's what the past three therapists had said. It's what his parents thought. And this sure as hell isn't about to change with her – with her black glasses and tight posture, dark red lips curled into a frown as she taps the side of her clipboard with her pen.

The silence is only punctuated by the ticking of the clock, loud and intrusive, though each tick is another second he didn't have to speak. If she's annoyed, she hides it well. Her face is smooth, a perfect mask, not a single wrinkle on her skin.

"You're trying to throw me off." It isn't a question- just an observation. Her voice sounds tighter, composed, and through that perfect poker face he couldn't exactly discern her train of thought. "And this isn't the first time you've been to a place like this."

He shrugs. "I died, remember?" She stares at him and, for the first time since he sat down ten minutes ago, he feels an uncomfortable, intrusive prickle dance down his spine. This woman is sharp – different from the rest.

The tapping of her pen is no longer perfectly within the rhythm of the clock. It isn't a perfect set of four, it isn't subdivided evenly. Instead, they're off rhythms, jarring and disjointed, as if she were doing it on purpose. He frowns, his hands reaching for the ghost of the headphones that were no longer around his neck.

"You're being difficult," she says. And though she has read him perfectly, he only watches her disinterestedly, his face unchanging.

He catches her eyes, staring deep into them, and briefly he wonders what she can see in his. Can she read his annoyance? His pain? His unwillingness to allow her to see?

"What do you think?"

"I think you're a smart kid, Sakuraba-san," she mutters, though her voice is clear to his ears, even above the rhythmic scratches of her pen. After vigorously dotting something (probably placing a period), she tosses the board aside. Her chair squeaks as she leans forward, elbows on her knees as she peers over her glasses. "But so am I. You think I've never met your type before? Those who think they can win at this game?"

He stares back.

"I'm a professional, Sakuraba," she says slowly, letting each word sink in. "You don't want to talk? Fine. But you will – we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It's your choice." Her eyes glint like steel as her voice drops. "We don't have to be friends. But you've shown me that you, at a very basic level, know how to communicate, so I'm going to get it out of you."

He can't help the grin that breaks onto his face. Maybe this one will actually give a shit, now. His mind flashes to everything he's seen, everything he's experienced; knowing who God is and what it's like to face off against Him. "You really want to know, then?"

She smiles – this time it's authentic, though there is still something eerily cold about it. "I do."

He returns her cheshire grin, something he's picked up from a certain ash-blonde. He shrugs and folds his hands into his lap. "You asked for it."

i.

He wasn't aware of his surroundings. Though there were shapes - seemingly tangibile- all around him, he couldn't make heads or tails of it. Was that a person? Or a statue? Was that a bench? Or just a slab of stone? Was that a billboard, or a mural, with the way the colours blended as if smashed together until they bled into one another?

He had no idea where he was; it was all familiar, as if he had been here before. But how? Why? When?

And there it was, ten paces in front of him, a wolf. A wolf with its jaw pulled back into a sneer, fangs glistening as its mouth watered, a guttural growl erupting from its throat as the beast paced slowly once around him . It hovered dangerously in and out of his line of sight, the growl louder now, as it pounced -

"And this happens how frequently?"

He pauses mid recollection, his eyes misting as he tries to gather his thoughts. "At least twice a week." More rhythmic scratching on her clipboard. He waits patiently as her hand glides across the paper, partially obscured by the purple bindings as she scribbles. Her expression is unreadable.

"And this has happened since our first meeting as well, I presume?"

"Three times," he affirms, to which she frowns again and writes in another note. She sets the board aside and locks gazes with him. As they stare at each other, she reaches for the mug on her table. He does the same. They both take a generous sip of their drinks, coffee and water respectively, before they place their mugs back onto the coffee table with a small clinking of porcelain.

"A recurring nightmare," she says, more to herself than to him, but he still lets out a derisive laugh, which she chooses to ignore. "But go on," she encourages gently;he knows its not out of sympathy. She looks selfishly curious, as if she's been presented a puzzle that she is too eager to solve.

He takes a moment to leisurely crack his knuckles before he leans back, another satisfying whine of protest coming from the chair as he continues.

- and then it was biting him, his flesh raw and hot and bloodied as the fangs sunk in - white hot pain that somehow reminded him that he was alive. Its voice was a growl but somehow its words were clear. It always said the same three words: you can't escape, you can't escape, you can't escape.

He cried out in pain, head throbbing and leg flaming, as he fell to the ground, nails scraping and chipping against the dark concrete as he reached, grabbed, clawed at anything to hold him in place. Away from the wolf.

There was the shuffling of shoes - familiar, as if the natural rhythm in his step was buoyant and youthful. Then, whoever he was, the boy sat, watching him suffer for a moment or two before he reached out a hand. He didn't even notice as he reached out with his own, fingertips grazing nothingness as he, too, tried to reach. But then, an unfamiliar voice rang out, clear though somehow still ambiguous. Did it belong to the man or the wolf? Maybe both, he thought, and though he reached and reached, he couldn't quite make it.

And then it was cold. He didn't understand how, but he was cold. The boy's hand was out, his features indeterminate, but the shadow that hung over his eyes was more than enough to know what he was thinking. After all, didn't he wear a similar one too, after what felt like lifetimes ago?

Even still, even though he knew instinctively his motives, he was scared. He was terrified. He felt himself being lifted by nothingness - Imagination manifested, he presumed - higher and higher, the cold spreading from his neck like liquid fire. It burned, just how frighteningly cold he was, seeping into his veins like poison, leaving no feeling behind.

Then he couldn't breathe, he couldn't inhale; his lungs were frozen. His mouth was frozen. His trachea were frozen. There was nothing. There was nothing.

Only the hollow growling that suddenly became louder in the face of it all.

He was dying. He was dying.

And then he woke up.

His covers were thrown on the floor. One pillow had leaked a couple of feathers. He reached up, trapping one tear with a finger, his other hand grabbing his arm, trying to stop it from shaking. Everything - all of it - it felt too real.

He knows because he had done it once before. To her. But he opts to keep that fact out - after all, he's already been to hell and back (he wishes he were exaggerating, he thinks in hindsight) so he doesn't really want murderous intentions to be added to his track record. His hands find their way back to his forearms, despite his attempts to maintain his poker face. But as he was speaking he had shifted, moving forward in his seat, his voice dropping lower and lower until he couldn't help but to trail off at the end.

She is silent at first, for once not reaching for her clipboard, and he gives her a few moments to digest it all before she pulls up her notepad and begins to write. The quiet is near deafening. Her pen pauses as she looks at him critically.

"Right, I think that's enough for today."

He's shaking, he's shaking and he doesn't notice it. But it's after she says those liberating words that he realizes what he's doing, and even as he clutches the armrests, he grows frustrated when he sees his very palms quivering with him.

Why couldn't he stop it? Why couldn't he stop the shaking, the tears, the nightmares themselves?

His knuckles are white with the effort, but he senses the feeling spreading, unwelcome, as his breaths come up short, his feet feel numb, and her face begins to blur once more, her sharp and analytic features deforming to the same, indistinct nobody - yet somehow, somebody - of his dreamworld.

He abruptly stands up, knocking the chair back, and she blinks as he whisks away wordlessly, trying to hold onto his hand as it just shakes, no end in sight.

ii.

He stood there in silence.

It was the same as last time and he was terrified to call it familiar, but it was. Recurring nightmare or not, he knew the outcome. It was always the same. And this time wasn't about to be any different.

There was a crowd yet their voices were muted, nonexistent; whether they were voiceless due to the keening in his ears or if they actually had no voice, he didn't know - either way, it was unsettling. It was different than when he'd had headphones on, unable to hear anyone. This time, there was only nothingness. No beats. No rhythm. Just a slight buzz in his ears, as if they'd stopped working. Everything'd stopped working.

Except his eyes.

Her.

Standing there. Facing him. Her mouth parted slightly, her features set in something akin to pity. But she shouldn't be pitying him, rather, she should be terrified. Because he knew what he was going to do. And she should, too.

After all, he did this to her, at least twice a week, and the end result was always the same.

She'd be on the floor, lifeless.

"What is this girl's name?"

He pauses and shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Shiki Misaki," he replies, his voice tasting her name on his tongue like honey, and he can't help but to allow himself a smile as the last syllables ghost on his lips.

"And Shiki-"

"- Misaki-san -"

"Misaki-san," she says without missing a beat, though her eyebrows furrow with annoyance. Her voice is otherwise the same, though, if not a little more interested, as she continues, "was she your girlfriend?"

He pauses. He lets the question sink in, seeing how it does as it dips into the waters of possibility. He chooses his words carefully, his tone even and his eyes clouded. "We never really got to that part."

She nods, though something about her composure is warmer, softer, as she adds that to the file. She looks up and their eyes catch, but he looks away, trying to ignore the scratches of pen on paper that resume once more.

"Sorry," she says, but her tone is somehow not sorry at all, "continue."

He closes his eyes.

She gazed at him, her eyes still downcast - weak, as if she had already resigned herself to her fate. You weren't going to let me in, anyways.

But it was different than what he remembered; those words were new. When he thought about it, perhaps what she said was always different, from hopeful, to solemn, to simply… resigned. And it was her. Somehow it was much more cutting, much more painful, when she said it that way. As if she never gave it a chance. As if he never gave it a chance.

He'd raise his hand, and she with it. He knew exactly what he was doing - complete control. She choked, gasping his name, her voice high and alarmed. And then she spoke his name once more - gasping it out, lower, and again, resigned, the last emotion he wanted to hear from her mouth.

She rose higher still, her eyes pleading now, her voice trembling as she tried to say something - anything - to stop him. One hand flew to her throat as she tried sputtering, gasping, begging him to put her down. But he couldn't, he couldn't find it in him to scream - scream until his voice went hoarse. One hand clutched the other, trying to restrain, stop the surge of Imagination that only caused her to wheeze harder. Why? Why was he doing this? Why was he hurting her? Why was he trembling in rage, in fright, in despair?

It was then he noticed what was in her hand - a flash of metal. The glint of cold steel.

Before he could register what she was doing, she raised the gun.

BANG!

Except the bullet didn't hit him.

His voice was suddenly unlocked. He finally regained control of himself, though the strangled scream that erupted from his mouth wasn't in his control. He propelled forward, his fingers digging and smashing into pavement as he dove to her lifeless body. She was cold, not even spilling blood, but her fingers limply clutched the gun.

He suddenly understood.

He wasn't trying to kill her.

He was trying to stop her.

She looks at him critically. He's breathing heavier than normal. He shakes his head vehemently, orange hair quivering, doesn't even bother to excuse himself as he gets up quickly and heads to the door.

"She means something to you."

It's not a question.

"And you're afraid of hurting her."

He pauses as if he wants to say something, but instead, slams the door behind him.

iii.

It was another wolf, but this time, bigger – grotesque, his fangs dripping with something that looked uncannily like blood. He did nothing but circle him, each languid pace more exaggerated than the last. He was prey to the predator, nothing more than meat for dripping fangs.

He stared helplessly beyond the animal, to where Shiki was – just an arm's length away, yet too far to touch - and he wasn't going to risk the beast ripping his hand off, or worse. So he could only stare.

"If you were smart, you could've stopped her."

It was the same voice: the voice that dangled in his ear, taunting him as it caressed his skin in a way it shouldn't.

"If you cared, by now, you would've stopped her."

I do care about her, he protested. In fact, he maybe cared about her a little too much. Isn't that why she was here, anyways?

But the voice only sneered. "Not at the time – not this time, or the last."

What are you on about, he asked desperately, but the wolf only bared its fangs as he dug to extract meaning, a throaty growl his only warning as he reached out with a hesitant hand to steady himself. The animal took a half step back when he did, resuming its menacing circling with a snarl.

"You're going to watch her die."

Don't make me watch this again, he pleaded to deaf ears as the voice laughed humorlessly in his head. From the corner of his sight, he could see her raise the gun.

He closed his eyes.

"So she's been showing up in your dreams a lot."

He rolls his eyes and takes a liberal drink of water before setting his glass down. "That would be correct," he says more than a few beats later. She says nothing as he deliberately takes another slow sip.

"Not going to storm out on me?" she says testily as he places his cup back on the table.

He shrugs and gives her a pointed look.

She sighs and raps the clipboard with the back of her pen. "Look. She's important to you, we established this last time. But why was she in your dream?"

"Who knows," he says quietly. "Isn't it natural for the person you're crushing on to show up once in a while?"

"Not associated with nightmares, no."

He growls in frustration, taking the pillow behind him and squeezing it once. "Look, I'm telling you my dreams like I'm supposed to, I don't know what they mean."

"I'm trying to figure this out for you," she retorts hotly. He blinks once, stupefied. The silence between them only heightens with the ticking of the mounted clock, before she sighs and writes a note.

He hates that pen. He hates the rhythmic scratches that augment his speech, the way it scribbles harder when he pauses and tries to gather his thoughts.

And this time, it is only patronizing.

But they sit regardless as she waits for him to resume. He swallows stiffly. She sighs. "Anytime, Sakuraba-san."

"Couldn't you tell me what you're writing?"

She frowns before giving him a half glance of reproach. He drops his gaze and brings one knee into his hands. What can he even say to her, how can he even begin to describe the horrors of what he'd seen? How it affected him?

He can't. He doesn't want to. There is no way this total stranger is going to get anything out of him.

"This is how you communicate with people, Neku, you have to let me in!"

The words echo on his ear; he takes one slow, involuntary swallow. He's heard them before, almost word for word, each syllable striking a chord within him. He knows. He knows.

He knows.

But he can't. He opens his mouth, but the words choke him. His brain forms sentences that dissolve into a hazy fog before he can grasp it. He pictures it in his head, but before he can make heads or tails of it, it vanishes, like someone has disturbed the glass-like waters into disruptive ripples.

No matter what he does, he can't grasp it at all.

She watches critically as she chews the end of her pen. Her eyebrows furrow and she notes the subtle curl of his fist, the angry grit of his teeth, the guarded shift of his eyes as they slide out of focus for the briefest of moments.

"I can't tell you."

She lets out a sigh that's more of a growl as she sets down the clipboard with calculated irritation. "Neku Sakuraba, we've been doing this for almost three months now. And we've gotten absolutely nowhere."

He's not surprised by her words; he merely inspects his cuticles, but the idle activity does nothing to alleviate his anxiety. Her words are scathing but he blinks past them, their sharpness only irritable scratches against the walls he's constructed in his mind.

"You're not trying."

"You don't know that," he spits through gritted teeth.

"These past months I've tried to go deeper," her voice is clipped and tight, her eyes narrow behind glasses and her lip carved in a deadly line. "But you always push me out. I can't help you like this."

The scratches becomes something more akin to feral clawing, his mind a trap in itself that he can't escape. He can't shut out what is swiftly becoming dull pain in his mind, he can't close his eyes and not see the red behind his lids as an image pulses in his brain. It feels like he's breaking; it sounds like nails scratching a broken record as his head throbs like a particular headache he's never had before.

"Stop," he moans, but the rhythmic tapping of her pen against the clipboard only adds to the cacophony in his head. It persists, clashing against the ache of his brain in a rhythm that makes his head spin.

She leans forward, chair squeaking with her, as she peers at him with a frown. "I understand you're in a fragile state of mind, but this is when you have to talk to me."

He wants to scream at her, he wants to yell that he has no idea what will happen if he's pushed any further. After all, his head is already pounding, his eyes seeing red, as something suddenly slams into his mind, as if trying to break through restraints.

Don't kill me.

Don't kill me.

Don't kill me.

He clutches his head and she sucks in a breath. She's seen these cases before, she's seen the effects of her therapy and how it can break people. But she's never seen it to this degree; she hasn't seen this much trauma inside a boy's head before - and he's, what, only eighteen? The boy had commented that he'd seen death; he'd felt pain and suffering.

"I need you to work with me if you ever want to get over it."

His eyes scream defiance, his mouth set in a hard line as he grimaces. "I don't want to."

She shakes her head incredulously. "You're running away -!"

He glares at her, memories of her when she ran away from her problems strong amidst the fogginess. No. This isn't running away. This is defense. This is him, throwing up his arms, as Joshua shoots him. This is him, unable to raise a gun to his best friend's head, before the very person he refuses to shoot blows his brains out. This is him, running to Udagawa, checking his phone before he arrives, only to see him, on the floor, bleeding out as if in slow motion.

His mind thrashes in his head, so suddenly that his nails dig far enough into his palm and it draws blood. He sits up abruptly as he tries to figure out what he was remembering, but every attempt only leaves him empty-handed - as if the threads of silk had slipped through his fingers, the memory with them. He grasps and grasps, but each time it leaves further wounds within his hand and he clutches nothingness in his fists.

"This is not running away," he stubbornly bites back, more to himself than to her. She straightens and grips her pen, hard, a small voice in the back of her head chiding her for getting so upset. Something compels her to get to the bottom of this, get to the bottom of him, and she almost feels the urge to lock her door and physically drag whatever it is inside him out.

"I know you can feel it," she urges, though her voice is cold and detached.

But it's the words that set him off; it's the words that causes him to stand up in a rage and rip off the headphones around his neck. The keening in his ears only amplifies as he growls, images of wolves and that boy and of Shiki - floating in midair - clutching her throat as he's strangling her - growing bolder and larger and swirling in his eyes.

"I CAN'T FUCKING DO IT," he bellows, his voice so loud it cracks, and she only stares him down, her own eyes flashing dangerously as her hand stiffens into a perfect statue. "WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO?! I CAN'T FUCKING DO IT."

He takes a deep breath, his face starting to stain red.

She only watches him coldly, her lip curving deeper as she, too, draws her torso to full height.

"YOU LEAVE ME IN THIS FUCKING STATE, I LEAVE THESE FUCKING THERAPY SESSIONS WITH NIGHTMARES WORSE THAN BEFORE, OF COURSE I CAN'T GET BETTER. YOU'RE MAKING THEM WORSE!"

She grips the clipboard hard against her chest, her knuckles turning white as she begins to rise to her feet.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH! YOU WANT TO FUCKING KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?! I DIED. AND MY BEST FRIEND KILLED ME. TWICE. DO YOU FUCKING KNOW HOW THAT FEELS?!"

His voice rips through several octaves but she merely watches, wordless, as even he's not sure what he's shouting about anymore.

"YOU WILL NEVER, EVER, KNOW HOW THAT FEELS."

She raises her hand and he flinches, a tear forming in his eye. He ducks his head quickly and bolts out the door, slamming it behind him so hard that it rattles in the door frame.

It takes her a moment to register what happened. She doesn't quite process the outburst from one of her most stoic clients. A small voice in her head reminds her that he's the worst case she has ever seen.

She brings the hand slowly back to her side.

Her restraint finally snaps, her frustration erupting into a feral growl. She whips the clipboard across the room; it clatters dully as it hits the wall and falls to the floor.

iv.

There's no fight left in his dull blue eyes.

When he had first come in, they were guarded, steeled, ready to lash out at any second. There was a fire, a passion where she could visibly see the story he had - all portrayed in his eyes.

Now, they are empty. Cold. Even though a full week has passed since the last session, he doesn't sit aggressively like he had during the past six months. He doesn't pull his torso up challengingly, he doesn't have the ghost of a sneer playing at his lips. He merely sits in the faded green arm chair, his usual cup of water untouched. He watches her as she slowly, hesitantly, sets her clipboard down.

"I switched to an analog clock, you'll be happy to hear," she says drily, though he makes a motion of acknowledgement to her words.

"Sakuraba-kun?" She can't help that her voice is cautious. Though she has seen several explosions of temper when she managed to dig deep enough, this felt… different. It isn't rage that motivates him. It's something else.

She's pretty sure she already knows what it is, even if he doesn't.

He merely inclines his head half an inch higher, his lips curling into a small frown. She stares at him for a moment before clearing her throat. "I wanted you to know that, well, I am here to work with you." She reaches for her coffee, taking a long sip. He doesn't copy her motions; instead his eyes fall to where his own mug awaits.

She sets her cup back down on the table, clearing her throat. "Despite what I may have said when we began these sessions, I'm here to help."

"Because my parents are paying you," he responds coldly. Her eyes narrow behind her spectacles, but otherwise, her voice is carefully even.

"Because, believe it or not, I care."

His shoulder jolts ever-so-slightly, his mouth softening from a tight line and his lips part. He draws an unsteady breath, memories from his past flooding his brain. How can he tell her? How can he explain that those words had changed his world, opened his eyes to the people around him - After the first person had left him, after he thought he couldn't trust someone anymore? Three people – maybe a fourth; they tried to understand him. They changed him and gave him something better.

Then why? Why did he feel so broken?

He'd dealt with this feeling by reacting with anger, by being the stupid rebellious teenager that everyone already thought he was. It was nothing new, coming from him. He always tried to repel those who tried to see inside him, to see the pain, the strange numbness inside his head. He didn't want them to see the nightmares that plagued him at night, of someone he cared about doing something he could never prevent. More and more, their deaths were a suicidal act. Hell, he wished they'd kill him - he wished they'd shoot him dead instead of themselves so he wouldn't have to watch them die, the light in their eyes fading as he wailed, his sobs unable to accomplish anything, let alone bring them back. He wished they'd took him, so at least he'd wake up with alarm rather than the sickening feeling in his stomach.

But he can't tell her that.

And she seems to know.

So he stares at her instead.

She lowers her cup once more, having taken another sip of coffee in the meantime. The alien silence seems all the louder in the absence of the rhythmic ticking that had otherwise dominated their sessions.

Another beat passes before she clears her throat once more. "Well, why don't we talk about something other than your nightmares?" She offers a half smile. "It'll be a nice change of pace, won't it?"

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"You died, didn't you?" she says almost challengingly, but he says nothing, only grimacing at her words.

"You don't believe me."

"Well, it depends on the context."

He only shifts in his seat, though his eyes remain blank and his voice remains toneless. "You think that it's a coping mechanism."

The tone isn't accusatory, only deadpan – as if stating a mere fact. And that subtle hint speaks more loudly to her than a megaphone, for she only lets out a rather gentle sigh as she pushes the glass of water towards him with a finger. "I'm listening, either way."

"You wouldn't've initially."

"Circumstances change," she responds patiently. He gazes, eyes empty and unseeing; she offers the drink once more. After a moment, he finally reaches and takes a sip. Her eyes linger on him as he sets down the glass and straightens. "So," she starts, "speak."

And so he does. He spills it all. And as he talks, he shifts. As he explains, the colour in his eyes return, emotion highlighting not only his eyes but also his voice. But it isn't all good things, for the retelling causes his voice to crack here and there, and as he nears his conclusion, he asks for a break.

She grants it, scribbling a note for the first time in the hour since the session began.

By the time he reaches his conclusion, he's shaking all over again, his face white as sheet. She can't help but to feel a surge of sympathy. He seems to have never had a chance to tell this story, not to his parents, not to his past therapists, not to anyone. Probably because they would've dismissed it immediately.

She still has half a mind to, but something about him makes her think twice.

"Thank you." And she means it.

He only stares back.

She presses on, "you should take care of yourself when you go, okay? I'll see you in two weeks."

He opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but then closes it and gives a half nod instead. And without so much as another word, he's already out the door.

v.

He clutches the glass of water with both hands.

She sits in silence, her clipboard and pen in front of her as she waits.

He takes a shaky breath.

And then he begins again.

The wolf, it was back. But this time, it wasn't the predator, but the prey - shrinking against a wall as other malevolent beings moved around it, long dark shadows like claws, clutching and trapping the mongrel within them. They danced and flickered in the dying light, holding knives and swords and cleavers as it whimpered.

Then, the wolf was running. Only he was running, too, but he wasn't the wolf. Or so he thought - of that, he wasn't quite sure. But he ran, ran along the edges of the snaking buildings that was Shibuya, the roofs indiscernible, but soon he broke through the alleyways and the rooftops, only to arrive where he knew he'd end up all along.

Udagawa.

The big, painted Reaper stared back at him.

And then she was there. Sitting underneath the ornate splashes of black, blue, and white, her usual demeanor gone as she sat in solemn silence. She raised her head ever so slightly, his name forming on her lips before she was falling - falling back toward the mural. Only she didn't crack her head open against the concrete, nor did she begin to float and choke and sputter like she had in most of his other dreams. She fell through the black paint as if falling through water, a curtain, a cloud of coloured air as her hand shot up, fingers extended, her lips still frozen with the ghost of his name.

He reached forward - he didn't know if he was the wolf or himself, but he reached forward - and her fingers scraped his, but then she was gone, down the black abyss as he shrieked her name, his voice echoing into the darkness and merging with a guttural howl. He swore he could feel a presence behind him but he didn't dare turn around; he didn't know if it was wolf or man, but when it happened, he closed his eyes. He knew it was inevitable, as inevitable as death, as the Game, as Joshua raising the gun and shooting him because he wasn't strong enough to do the same.

He fell.

And he's quiet as he looks up. She offers a smile and inclines her head towards his water. After a slight moment of hesitation, he raises the glass to his lips.

"Are you okay?"

The question is innocent so he shrugs and gives her the smallest of quirks in his lips. And then it's her turn, as they had agreed upon the last session. She raises her clipboard and sighs.

Her words don't surprise him. He probably knew from the start. It makes sense, after all - it explains his initial reluctance to get to know her, to get to know anyone, his fear of being anything more to anyone.

"You've got a fear for intimacy, if your dreams are anything to go by."

The words sound strange and even a little frightening, but he hides that much behind another sip of water.

He sets down the glass and straightens.

"Thanks," he says quietly.

She puts down her clipboard and opens the door. "Is that all?"

He doesn't meet her gaze as he stands up after her. He ignores the chill down his spine and the cold feeling of realization that begins to sink into his bones. He merely shakes his head.

"See you in two weeks, then," she calls as he passes her. He catches her eye and gives her the smallest nod of acknowledgement.

vi.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

Her words echo in the quiet of the room, and for the first time he realizes that he misses the rhythmic ticking of her clock. Instead, it is silent.

Though notably less tense than before, silent all the same.

He takes a deep breath in, but she only offers a small upturn of her lips for encouragement. He repeats the same words in his head, his steady mantra from days past - trust your partner, trust your partner, trust your partner.

She is a stranger, but maybe it is worth letting her in. After all, she knows too much already.

Trust your partner.

Scenes flash through his head, rapid like a flickering picture, snapping from one scenario to the next. And it is everything he has wanted to forget – the pain, the suffering, the death that was around him. The very morbid fact he played in a game to win back the world, only to be shot down at its summation, only to be used as a mindless pawn by some higher force.

He doesn't realize he's crying until his shoulders physically shake, though the fragile state his mind is reduced to whenever he enters this room is something he is somehow used to already. He only swallows as she stares patiently.

"Why don't we start, then?"

He blinks slowly in surprise as she pulls out her clipboard, though the accompanying pen he was so used to seeing is absent this time around. He slowly unfurls his legs, the leather underneath him cracking satisfyingly as he leans forward, steepling his fingers and resting his chin upon them.

She takes a deep breath and flips open her clipboard. "After you, Sakuraba-kun."

He closes his eyes.

The wolf circled him, the usually-grey pelt stained a darker tint. He was once again uncertain of where he was, let alone who he was, as the wolf paced methodically, meticulously, before passing through him once, leaving chills as cold as ice down his spine.

"I think the wolf is you, Sakuraba-kun," she states matter-of-factily. "It seems to be a manifestation of your psyche, how you identify yourself. Lone wolf and all that."

This isn't news to him, but he continues.

The wolf passed through him once more, and then it was gone, leaving only Shiki in front of him. Her eyes were pleading, watering, as she held a knife in front of her. There was no more use for psyches, no more psychokinesis or her falling through holes that shouldn't be there. She only stared unflinchingly back as she raised her knife -

"Misaki-san," she says while turning to a new page of her clipboard. "She's been appearing because she's dear to your heart."

"That's not that surprising, doc," he drones back. She narrows her eyes, as if there's more she wants to say, but inclines his head toward him instead.

- and stabbed herself. There was no blood, no audible gasp of pain or any other reaction as her eyes suddenly emptied of emotion. They were surfaces of glass, nothing behind them as her consciousness faded. He reached forward, trying to catch her body as it tumbled forward in slow motion, until -

"It was all your brain's way of telling you," she says calmly as she flips to the next page. "It tried to tell you through your repression that you're afraid of losing her. You have a fear of intimacy and commitment."

"Right," he says, though his voice is hollow. It's too close, it's too real, and he could remember his wail of anguish even when he woke up, his parents pounding on the door.

"There's more to that, though," she says, and her eyes soften. He notices, for he takes another sip of water and fights past the cracks of his voice as he continues.

- something grabbed him, grabbed his arm and whirled him around once. It was the figure, the one that haunted him and followed him at night, whispering words in a voice too high to belong to a boy, that left him in cold shivers even after he'd awakened. He grabbed his wrist and wrenched him away; he could only look back and watch as Shiki fell to the ground, knife still plunged inside her, lifeless.

And suddenly, they were in front of the Udagawa mural. He didn't know how but there he was, the force on his wrist gone. He looked back once and saw no figure, only a phone, somehow in his clutches as a message blinked in his inbox.

Help me help me help me help me

I can't do it I can't do it I can't do it

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

He was too late, he was too late, and now he was going to die. He felt his feet beginning to run. He jerked his head up, wind slapping his face as he clutched his phone, praying, praying that he could make it on time. But he knew - he knew he'd be too late because as he rounded the corner, he froze.

He was on the ground.

The mural of the Reaper stood impassively, glaring down on the dead body beneath it. The hues of blue, black, and white were joined by a smattering a red. The body was cold, a phone in one hand, a gun in the other.

He flipped the him over. His friend, his only friend he'd ever made - the one he had tried to help and he couldn't get to in time - lay lifeless, tears still visible on his cheeks.

He didn't want to touch anyone.

He didn't want to talk to anyone.

He slid headphones over his ears.

He touched the mural with one hand.

He vowed to always come back.

But he'd already forgotten what his friend's face looked like.

.

"You realize what it is… don't you?"

Her voice is quiet, almost caring, but it falls onto deaf ears. His brain is whirling; he doesn't realize it when his fingers grasp at his cheek, his skin, pulling at his flesh as he remembers. He remembers it all.

The pain, the guilt. The text message. The body.

Getting close to someone again. Almost killing her. It was all too close, it was all the same.

No wonder he'd forgotten.

A sob breaks through his constraints.

And he's crying, his shoulders shaking as his friend's name, buried after so long, finally surfaces to his lips once more. She only watches in silence as he cries, each sob louder than the last, crying eight years worth of repressed memories until he's left with nothing, merely sniffling and crying and utterly broken.

She sits in her seat, waiting, her fingers steepled together. When her assistant came in earlier, she had waved her off, clipboard and pen included, instead taking her coffee.

"And a cup of water," she had called.

So that waits for him, too.

Ever since that day, he hasn't come back in.

She doesn't blame him. Stuff like this took a while to recover from, in her line of work. And he had buried it so deeply, so frantically, that this revelation probably answered a lot of his questions, addressed a lot of his concerns, and hopefully, allowed him to open up again.

After all, it has been a few years. A few years since tears had splashed violently down his face, sobs wracking his body as he tried over and over to control the shaking, control the broken gasps that escaped his mouth. He had sat there for more than a few moments, crying so hard that even she was at a loss of what to do. The stubborn and sarcastic teen - young adult, she should say - who had broken down his walls and let out all his guilt. He had gotten up - she had, too. She had offered him a tissue; he took a fistful.

He had apologized - and it surprised her, that was for sure - but she shook her head and told him it was nothing. That there wasn't really any need to come back, if he didn't want to return.

He was a client, but even she could feel the pain this had caused him.

Never before had she felt regret in her line of work. Sometimes it was necessary to rip the walls from their foundations, tear and smash them down until they were unrecognizable chunks before one's feet.

But watching him, the boy who had challenged her, ridiculed her, even made her believe in what he said - with the Game, with the Imagination, with the loss and sacrifice - break down so violently in front of her… well, it isn't exactly those moments she worked to see.

It's the moments after.

The recovery.

The acceptance.

The growth.

The door finally opens.

She stands up abruptly as he ducks under the door frame, his orange hair brushing against the wood anyway as he comes in. He wordlessly stands across from her, wearing the slightest of smiles on his face. He looks at the mug of water appreciatively.

She holds out a hand.

He grasps it firmly.

She can feel the warm glint of gold along his fingers.

Their eyes lock for the briefest of seconds.

"Neku-kun, how are you doing?" she asks. He doesn't miss the other question in her tone.

But he gives her a smile. A genuine, thankful smile, as he sits down into his armchair and raises the mug to his lips.

"Good."

And he means it.

Acknowledgements:

First of all, thank you for reading this fic to its conclusion.

As you know from the description, this piece was written for TWEWYbang, which was hosted over on Tumblr. The cover art was part of the BANG, along with one other piece that depicts the epilogue. To find these pieces along with my tumblr, head to my profile! If you'd like to know more about TWEWYbang, feel free to send me a PM.

And now, to the people I must thank...

Cyfix / Rie: My wonderful artist who had to put up with my slowness and changing of ideas. We live in almost completely opposite timezones - so thank you for putting up with me messaging you during your school hours! She drew the wonderful cover art of this fic,To see these two pieces in full detail, please go to my profile. Thank you so much for putting up with my pressure and nagging, and for drawing stupendous art.

Fabulousanima (Twin-Lupus on ffnet), Professor Maka: Thank you both for editing this along with your busy schedule! They caught so many of my mistakes, mainly my ton of tense shift errors, and helped fix a lot of the bits that didn't work. Without these two, this level of polish would have never been achieved. Big shout outs go to Professor Maka, who isn't even a part of the TWEWY fandom. Both of these are fabulous writers - they both dwell mostly in the Soul Eater fandom. Thank you both.

The Organizers: Thank you for putting in all the hard work to make this event possible.

Thank you, once again, for reading.

- jak .