X Therapy
by Taryn
Chapter Two - "Maybe You Have A Problem ..."
She cleared her throat, eyes roaming around the room. At the word 'problems', everyone had frozen, as if they hadn't expected to talk about problems here, in therapy of all places. "You all remember the little sheets I mailed you?"
Everyone nodded.
"Good."
The Therapist had an interesting little technique she had picked up along the way for group therapy – she called it the 'tattle' method. By passing around a sort of 'survey', she could pick up most of the problems without even having to meet the people she was working with. So, while the group was waiting in the lobby, she had her secretary pass out the "surveys". It saved her a lot of time in therapy and a lot of effort as well.
Some of the names she had sent out came back with little or no response, like Kusanagi, Yuuto, or Seiichiro.
Some though ...
She glanced at the survey on the top of her list – for Seishirou, it seemed. In big, bold red letters was printed neatly, but very boldly, "HENTAI, HENTAI, HENTAI."
Looking over at Subaru squirming on Seishirou's lap, she could only guess.
She cleared her throat again, realizing she had left the group in relative silence for the moment. "I'd prefer not to have to use these, so if we'd just go around in a circle, perhaps you could share some of your ...concerns ... about your fellow comrades with them to their face."
At the word 'comrade', everyone froze again, like deer in headlights. She randomly selected Kamui. "Kamui-san, perhaps you'd like to begin. What do you think of Fuuma here?"
"I am Kamui," Fuuma said.
Kamui's head jerked up, twisting around to glare over to Fuuma. "How many can I list?"
"Lets try the top three, shall we?" she said, picking up her glass of water and taking a sip. Aspirin, or some other kind of painkiller, sounded good right about now.
Kamui took a second, shooting one or two glares in Fuuma's direction while sorting out his thoughts. "Okay. One: He has an identity problem. Two: He has a bad set of goals. Three: He molests me while sticking various sharp implements in my body."
The Therapist spat out her water, choking slightly. Kakyou made a face as he got the brunt of the spray.
"Are you all right?" Yuzuriha asked.
"Yes ..." she nodded, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "I just wasn't expecting Kamui-san to be so ..."
"Honest?" Fuuma offered.
"Blunt," she corrected. "Nice choice of words, Kamui-san."
"I thought he liked that sort of thing," somebody whispered.
Everyone, especially Kamui, looked around for who had spoken, but they decided to be unforthcoming about it.
"Yes, I have that written here too ..." the Therapist said, looking at Kamui's survey, seeing in neat, bold letters, 'Masochist, likes it, likes it, gets off on it, etc.'
"I – I do NOT!" Kamui sputtered.
"Fuuma-san, I suppose you wrote this, then?"
"I am Kamui," Fuuma insisted.
She underlined 'Symptoms of schizophrenia' by Fuuma's name, as well as 'Sexual disorders' by Kamui's name, adding in little notes 'physical masochist – wonder what he'd think about leather ...' before asking, "Fuuma, do you have any problems with Kamui you'd like to share with us?"
Fuuma looked blank for a moment, then an evil smile crept across his face. "I told you. I'm going to kill him."
The Therapist blinked. "Why?"
"I don't rightly know," he said with a shrug. "But I will. Watch me." He got up and tried to make it over her to Kamui, but one of the Dragons of Earth – a pale Yuuto – stopped him, wrestling him back into his seat, then returning to his own chair that sat by Satsuki, not before moving it over a couple of inches. The Therapist made a few notes, feeling like she was going to cry.
"Let’s come back to you two. I'd like to move on." Actually, she'd like a gun. She shuffled her papers slightly. "Okay. Arashi-san. How about you give us Sorata."
Arashi arched a slender brow, a slight smile tugging at her thin lips. "He needs to get laid."
Sorata displayed the most pathetic starry-eyed look she had ever seen.
"But not by me." Arashi added.
Sorata fell over in his chair.
The Therapist tapped her pen against the pad of paper in her lap. "Well, unrequited love is fairly normal – can you tell me why this is a problem?"
"Arashi's an ICE QUEEN!" Sorata suddenly blurted out.
Arashi blinked.
"Excuse me?" the Therapist said.
"You heard me. She's frigid," Sorata sniffed. "I've been working on her for almost a year now, and she still won't let me touch her. I mean, what's wrong with me? I'm attractive, aren't I? I'm smart, make money, have a good sense of humor. You'd think she's a lesbian."
Arashi blinked.
"Sorata-san, have you considered that?" the Therapist asked.
"What?"
"Maybe Arashi is a lesbian. Have you ever asked her?"
"No. Nee-chan, are you a lesbian?"
"Yes."
Sorata got up and ran out of the room.
"Are you really a lesbian?" Karen asked. She seemed interested.
"No. I just wanted to get him off my back."
The Therapist sighed. She really needed an aspirin. "Ok ... who wants to go next?"
"I do," Seishirou grinned.
The Therapist looked at the man warily. She had a bad feeling. "Fine, but could you please stop touching Subaru-san like that? It's a bit distracting."
Seishirou sighed, "It's so rare we get tender moments," but stopped his busy hands for the moment, Subaru giving a sigh of relief. His relief was shared by the Therapist, who cleaned her foggy glasses.
"Now, what are these problems you'd like to share with us?"
"I'm dead," said Seishirou.
"I ... see."
"I've got quite a problem with that," Seishirou pointed out.
"Most people would," the Therapist agreed. "How did you die?" she asked, half-sarcastically, turning to a fresh page of notebook paper.
"Subaru-kun here killed me," Seishirou lamented. "He punched me through the chest."
The Therapist blinked and squinted. "You look fine."
"You don't believe me?" Seishirou asked.
"No."
"He won't get over it." Subaru whined pathetically from Seishirou's embrace. "He keeps saying 'I owe him' and so on."
Seishirou grinned. "You do owe me, Subaru-kun. And you're only half-way to earning my forgiveness." Seishirou winked, hands resuming their naughty business.
Averting her eyes, the Therapist wrote down 'Needs to get a hotel room' by both Subaru's and Seishirou's names.
"Sei-Sei-Seishirou-san!"
"Would you STOP molesting him?!" Kamui suddenly burst out, earning himself a few startled glances.
"Jealous, Kamui-chan?" Fuuma offered, giving Kamui a look. "You could come sit on my lap, if you want."
"I thought you wanted to kill him," the Therapist reminded him.
"Yes, well, I'm a bit confused myself ..." said Fuuma, scratching his head. "Did you know that sado-masochism stems from doubts about one's sexuality?"
"Yes. I. Did. Know. That," the Therapist bit out. She was rather annoyed that a teenage sadist would question her credentials. "Now would you please let me move on with the other members of the group?"
Fuuma looked hurt, but sat back down anyway. The Therapist rubbed her temples and jabbed her pen in the direction of the other couple on the outskirts of the circle. "Kusanagi-san, Yuzuriha-san, would you like to tell me what's going on with you two?"
Yuzuriha faltered. "I, uh ... Kusanagi-san and I ..."
"You're a couple," the Therapist offered, thinking back to their lovey-dovey glances at the beginning of the session.
"Yeah, I mean, I think we are ... right, Kusanagi-san?" Yuzuriha looked over hopefully at Kusanagi, who nodded.
Everyone in the room was quiet.
"And what does everyone think about this?"
Everyone in the room talked at once. The Therapist waved her arms for quiet. "Stop, stop, STOP! One at a time, please."
"She's a Dragon of-" began Seiichiro before he was elbowed in the ribs by Karen. The Soap girl gave him a 'shut the hell up' look.
"A Dragon of what?"
"Noth-ing," everyone sing-songed in unison.
Karen spoke, trying obviously to change the subject. "Well the main problem I see with this is that Kusanagi here seems to be in his mid-twenties, but Yuzuriha is only fourteen, is she not?"
"So?" Seishirou all of the sudden became defensive. "Love knows no age limits!"
"YEAH! Seishirou's nine years older than Subaru!" Kamui was eager to throw stones at the Sakurazukamori.
"So?" Subaru said weakly. "I'm ten years older than you."
"Than ... are you having an affair, Subaru-kun?" asked Seishirou pensively.
"No. It was just an example," Subaru squeaked out, being caught in a tighter embrace by the Sakurazukamori.
"I thought we had something ..." Kamui said softly.
"I don't like *squeak* little boys."
"I do!" Seishirou said cheerily.
The Therapist cleared her throat. "Back to Yuzuriha-san and Kusanagi-san ..." She looked at the group over the rims of her glasses, eyes icy with judgement. "You know, they have a word for this sort of thing, all of you. It's 'pedophile'. In America, most of you would be in jail right now."
They all considered this.
"I'd be in jail, anyway," Seishirou said perkily. "I kill people for a living."
"Moving ON! I've also heard that you, Kusanagi-san, hear voices."
"I hear the trees screaming."
"............"
"Psychoooo ..." Fuuma muttered under his breath.
"You should talk," Kusanagi snapped. "Not only are you a pedophile, but you're a sadistic homosexual pedophile."
"Touché."
"Oo~oh! BURN!" Kamui laughed, slapping his knee.
"Please!" the Therapist begged. "This isn't the CLAMP mailing list! Let's stay on topic!"
"CLAMP mailing list?" Yuuto asked.
"I have a subscription." Satsuki said from behind her laptop.
"Let's go to you, Satsuki," said the Therapist, desperate to hurry up and get out of this circus. "Who thinks Satsuki has an obsession with computers?"
Everyone raised his or her hand, except for Satsuki who was too busy on her laptop to notice. Yuuto eagerly raised both hands.
"Why, Satsuki-san, do you feel you don't have an obsession?"
"Huh?" Satsuki looked up from her computer. "Who says I have an obsession?"
"Everyone here."
"Oh."
"I've never even met you, and I still think you have an obsession," Karen pointed out.
"Why?" Satsuki inquired.
"You brought a laptop to therapy." Seiichiro explained.
"Oh."
"Her computer is trying to kill me, you know," Yuuto mentioned.
"How so?" Yuzuriha looked interested.
"Well, at first I thought it was just jealousy or coincidence, but then telephones started hopping into my bathtub, or toasters trying to strangle me. I think that's when I started to get suspicious. I just wanted to give that girl a little human contact, that's all."
"He's a pedophile, too," Fuuma pointed out. "Satsuki's only fourteen."
"Let's just leave the pedophile thing for a moment," the Therapist said. "Go on, Yuuto."
"I like her. Is anything wrong with that? Is that any reason to kill me?"
Satsuki held up her laptop, which was blinking the word YES.
"I'm sorry, but Kaichou only paid for fourteen people – we'll have to leave your computer out of this."
"BEAST doesn't hate you, Yuuto," explained Satsuki. "It just wants a taste of you."
Yuuto paled, moving his chair a few more inches away from the girl and her computer.
"You've named your computer," the Therapist said. "How ... interesting."
"It named itself."
"Jesus." Yuuto covered his face with his hands.
The Therapist thought about this for a moment, then copied 'dissociative disorders' and 'schizophrenia' under Satsuki's name. "Well, I think we've heard enough about Satsuki for now," she said, straightening her skirt. "We're running low on time, so I'd like to move on." The Therapist shuffled to the next person on her list. "Okay, we've got ... Kakyou ... is Kakyou awake?"
"I'd raise my hand, but I don't think I can move my arms," came a soft, gentle voice from the wheelchair.
"Oh. That's quite all right, as long as we know who you are. Kakyou-san, tell us what you might think is written on your paper," said the Therapist.
"I sleep."
"Yes, that's written here. Actually, oversleeping is a sign of depression. How much do you sleep, exactly?" she asked.
"Well, I've been in a self-induced coma for the last nine years," he said.
She blinked. "Is that so. May I ask why you woke up so suddenly?"
"To come to your session, of course. There are some issues I've been meaning to get off my chest, actually."
"Like?"
"Well, if I had any strength, I'd get out of my chair right now and go throttle the Sakurazukamori."
"Popular opinion," the Therapist said darkly. Seishirou sniffed pretentiously, clutching Subaru closer, who whined softly. "May I ask why?"
"He killed my girlfriend."
"Uh huh," she said. "I'm sorry to hear about that."
"I can *wheeze* relate to your loss." Subaru said. "Seishirou-san killed my sister, you know."
Seishirou smiled. "I thought we've been over that, Subaru-kun. Aren't we done with the issue?"
"Well, it's still a sensitive area."
"Like this?" Seishirou teased, licking at his ear, earning an irrepressible gasp from the Sumeragi.
The Therapist blinked. "If Sakurazuka-san here has killed so many people and is an obvious pedophile, then why isn't he in jail?"
"Well, most of the killing I do is for the government, so they don't really care what I do in my spare time." Seishirou offered.
"But, but-" the Therapist seemed unwilling to let it go. She turned to Subaru, a desperate look on her face, "Sumeragi-san, if he killed my sister, I wouldn't be sitting in his lap, letting him nibble my ear. I'd be trying to kill him."
"I already did. What's your point?" Subaru pointed out, squirming a bit on the older man's lap.
She thumbed through her notes, going back to the earlier moments of the session. "Oh. That's right. You did, didn't you."
Subaru nodded. "Anyway, I thought you were being paid to fix our problems, not judge them."
"Excellent point, darling." Seishirou seemed pleased, and pulled Subaru down for a nosebleed-worthy kiss. Subaru squirmed and squealed at first, but eventually quieted down as Seishirou finally caught his prey. They continued kissing with tongues for quite a while, during which Kamui had to be restrained by two Dragons of Heaven and one Dragon of Earth. The Therapist took out her handkerchief and wiped the fog off her glasses. Satsuki grabbed the kercheif when she was done, as did Karen, who blew her nose. Seishirou winked at the Therapist, who coughed lightly.
"Whatever," she said. "Kakyou-san, I'd like to put you on an antidepressant, if you don't mind.
"What kind?"
"Prozac," the Therapist said shortly.
"On it," Kakyou said dreamily.
"Lithobid?"
"That too."
"Cocaine?"
"Uh-huh."
"Okay, then I'm taking you off all of that."
Kakyou pouted slightly. Karen offered the handkerchief back to the Therapist, who shook her head, grinding her teeth. "You can keep it."
"Oh! Thank you!" Karen said, winking at the Therapist and stuffing the dirty kerchief down her bodice.
The Therapist twitched convulsively. "Let’s go to you two," she said. "You and Seiichiro-san. Friends?"
"Well, we're the oldest Dragons out of the group, I think," Seiichiro said with a confused expression. "So of course we've become friends."
"How old are you?" Seishirou asked. "Because I think I'm the oldest one here."
"It doesn't matter. You were interrupting Seiichiro-san," the Therapist chided. "Let him speak."
"Thank you," Seiichiro said kindly. Seishirou glared. "Anyway, I've got a wife and child. That's why I'm here. I don't really think I have any problems. I have a great marriage and a good little girl."
"Actually," the Therapist said. "I'm a bit confused myself. Let’s move on to Karen, then." The Therapist turned to her, a smile like honey on her face. "You're a soap land girl, right?"
"Soap land hostess," Karen corrected.
"Okay. Whatever. The point is, you sell your body for money."
"Yep." Karen said, swinging her long legs in her chair. "Sure do."
Yuuto just stared. He reached into his wallet for a moment, but caught the evil glare from Satsuki, gave a sheepish grin, and put his money away.
"Karen-san, why do you do this? I mean, why sell your body like this?"
"Mom beat me." Karen said shortly. "She was Catholic, got hit by a car, left me alone in this world." She paused, looking at the stares around the room. "And I can't find a decent guy to hang out with. Seiichiro-san here is the only guy I really ... I mean ...would ever ..."
"You have something for him?" the Therapist suggested.
"Er, no," Karen lied.
"So, you're a Catholic whore who was beaten and then orphaned by her mother," the Therapist backtracked.
"Yep," Karen said again. "That pretty much explains everything, doesn't it?"
"Uh ... yeah," the Therapist said, trying not to chew on her pen. Thinking hard enough, she decided she DID know a way to kill Kaichou with a communion wafer.
"Good. Wanted to get that stuff out of the way. Whew! I feel so much better!" Karen said cheerily, loosening her dress a bit. Everyone kept staring. Yuuto was having quite the internal struggle with himself, but Satsuki held onto his arm tightly, making his face paler then usual.
"Okay, I don't really know what to say." The Therapist rearranged the papers on her lap. "We've spent ages just going over your problems. I'd like to move onto something more constructive now."
"You mean this hasn't been productive? Noroku-san's been paying by the hour, you know." Kamui glared.
"I know," she said, trying her best to hide an evil smile.
Chapter One Chapter Three