Therapy Session Take #1

[perfecttune]

WHO: Mari and you (OTA, characters are free to interact with others as well)
WHAT: Mari is hosting a therapy session! Come if you would like, or if you want to argue against it feel free to show up as well! This is more informal than it seems although she did invite some guest speakers.
WHERE: One of the large buildings that was most likely a common area for everyone, or just a super large bedroom.
WHEN: After First Crossing
WARNINGS Talk about death and violence, specific CWs will be in the text.

A message goes out on the server from Mari: Sorry for the delay everyone! I thought it best to wait a bit till after the meeting Kel thoughtfully put together for all of us! If you would like to come for the Therapy Session, please come to building X. If you would like to bring anyone or anything along please do! Special guest speakers/appearances include Makoto Naegi, Daniil Dankovsky, and Soo Won.

Mari put her tablet down and went back to straightening the chairs she was able to gather in a circle. Surely this would be welcoming? This way they could all see each other and seek comfort if needed... but just in case, she had set up private areas using curtains as a makeshift divider in case others felt the need for a one on one talk...

It still felt strange to her to not have refreshments so she had cups filled with water just in case, surely even if they didn't need to drink it still helped to make the session feel welcoming?

As people filtered in she would call out a greeting. "Welcome and thank you for coming! If you feel comfortable taking a seat please do so! There are also refreshments over there."

Comments

Alas, she's been straight-edging this hard-knock life!

[urtitan]

[The dead aren't kind..? Her eyes rest on him with unspoken questions. He's an odd boy, that's for certain - blunt and cheerful and perceptive, and hard to read. She can't tell if his chipper attitude is genuine or merely a facade, and she doesn't feel like she has the right to try and peel it back, so for now, she accepts it at face value.

As for his assessment of her... well, how could he possibly know? She wants to shake her head, explain that it was more than just momentary shows of anger - but then, wasn't that how it manifested? At times, when someone close to her unwittingly evoked her ancestor's wrath, she'd channel him without being able to control herself, left to regret her words afterwards and unable to explain herself, her lips sealed by the vow.]

...

The dead, too, were once alive. I'm now part of the former group, but I still feel a great deal of attachment to the land of the living. However, that's why we're here, isn't it?

[toilet_bound]

That’s right. If the same logic holds true here. [For as chipper as he normally is, Hanako is being fairly calm and patient. Waiting for Frieda to come to her own conclusions on the matter.]

[urtitan]

[Her expression remains subtly saddened - the conclusion is clear: They, the newly dead, will become detached from the worlds of the living, too.]

There's only one way to find out - and we have no choice but to do so.

[She exhales. In a way, there's bitter irony in her path in death being as narrow and preordained as the one she walked in life, but she doesn't want to spread that sentiment and infect the others with her moroseness.]

[toilet_bound]

[Hanako is silent again, letting Frieda’s words sink in, then…

If he could float, he would have been petting her hair gently.]

There, there. I can’t promise that everything will work out, but keep striving and you will find answers. We aren’t alone in this, after all.

[He’s… trying to comfort her. Maybe it comes off more like he’s comforting a younger sibling (because, aside from Yashiro, that’s all he has experience doing…).]

[urtitan]

[It must seem easy to uplift her, what with the faint smile returning to her face at his words. Despite her sense of responsibility for those younger than herself, she's not above letting them cheer her up - and between her and Hanako, the age situation is a mess, anyway.]

That's true. We do have each other, and I'll try to keep my chin up until the end.

[She doesn't feel like she needs to tell him to do the same - besides his upbeat attitude, he likely has more experience with being dead than anyone else in their group.]

[toilet_bound]

“Good girl~” It’s praise, an apt reminder that, yes the age gap was a strange thing between them. Still, the fact that she’s willing to keep moving forward despite everything seems to relax him.

“Now… I’m sure there’s plenty of other people you’d like to catch up with. I’ll be around, don’t you worry!”

[urtitan]

[Now he's going too far, praising her like an adult would a child rather than a peer would a peer - but before she can get mildly huffy at him, he quite elegantly excuses himself, and she lets the matter go with a soft exhale.]

See you, Hanako.

[What an odd boy he is.]