Gokudera (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unrelenting_rhapsody) wrote2021-11-08 05:19 pm
unrelenting_rhapsody) wrote2021-11-08 05:19 pm
Well, let's talk...
Who: Gokudera, the school therapist.
When: Two months after Yama's arrival.
What: A frustrated woman tries to break through a shell.
Life in group these days was almost pleasant; he and Yama took a back corner to work on the boy's homework in a mix of Japanese and English, the girls were ready to be let go from group, and the asshat was pinballing between being annoyed the girls weren't open to advances and annoyed the Goth was no longer in school for mental health reasons. He figured another week or two and the boy would get himself expelled.
Or arrested.
His money was on arrested.
All in all the "Hayato, please stay back if you would?" was a bit out of left field. Fuck, baseball metaphors. Great.
Yama slid a glance at him and he shrugged slightly, no, he hadn't done anything exceptionally irritating that he knew so...yeah. Watching the others file out with cookies (the girls' gift due to their final day of counseling) was fun, then he eased over to the window, tucking himself on the small sill to crack a window and light up as a matter of course. Untriggered 'discussions' tended toward serious in his experience, which meant he needed nicotine.
The therapist sighed at that, still unhappy but not pushing the smoke detector angle this time since he had his hand fully out the window, breeze heading away. "Hayato..."
"Gokudera," he corrected almost gently.
"Gokudera," she sighed, settling in a chair, hands crossed as she watched him, "I'm worried about your lack of progress here."
That made him snort, deeply amused, "ah." That talk.
"Ah?" she sighed. "That's the problem here, you've been three full group cycles, with this one winding up as well...I can't help you if you don't want to be helped!"
He watched the end of cigarette through the glass, the creeping red glow followed by dull, soft grey..."do you know why I'm here?" This was an important question really, and one he'd never asked her.
Um. That wasn't how she'd imagined this going, it was already off script but..."deliberately sabotaging your school career is a bad sign in a youth..."
Oh, oh that was funny. He couldn't help the snickering, no. "Ah, the faculty reason. I suppose that makes sense. They'd have to downgrade the 'reason' after I sent the psyche on staff off crying."
She...hadn't heard that. She was the low risk student therapist, she new that, there was someone else on staff for student health given the prestigious standing and the money behind their students but..."what?"
"The faculty is pissed as fuck I'm not raising their academic scores immensely, but I'm not a scholarship student so they can't boot me for maintaining the exact grade I intend," he snorted. "You're my fucking punishment in that sense. Behave as we like or waste your life being in counseling. It's not why I'm here though, or why I'm with you."
"...why?" She knew, she knew she was playing into his control game with that question. He was smart, smarter than most she knew, she was starting to suspect he may be a nascent, if currently non-violent, psychopath and still she asked.
"I'm here to learn," he smiled, a sad, winsome smile she didn't know he could make. "Yours is a safe and secure location where I can study and identify psychology. You're vetted by Shamal, you're good at your job, and you're kind. Not factors I required honestly, but you don't press in order to feel like you're fucking conquering your students, like the other asshole on staff. I'm here to fucking study, and apply what I learn from you, so that when I encounter someone capable of handling my shit I know to talk."
She had...no idea where to start with that honestly. She was flattered, maybe? There had been a compliment in there somewhere she was sure but it still underlined how anti-authority this child was. "Learning..."
"Pegging your students, working to resolve their issues," he shrugged.
"And you think I can't..."
"You could, in time you'd have settled the girls even if you were approaching from the wrong angle initially, and Maddoc, the goth, you were trying to phrase reports that would get CPS involved, you were doing the right things."
How had he even..."how?"
He just laughed again, taking a final drag off his first cigarette, "I know you." Plus he was paranoid and knew how to hack the school network but that wasn't going to help here at all.
"And what do you think I can't handle?" she swallowed.
"I can give you the abridged version, see how your fucking nerves hold," he offered, no longer smiling as he stubbed out the cigarette and lifted a hand to idly massage his shoulder. After all, he could be wrong...sure. And he could also be from Mars.
She swallowed, hands itching for a notepad but if she'd settled intending to study him he'd have played around, she knew that. "I'd like to understand you better."
He chuckled softly and lit another cigarette, "you are a good person, don't forget that," he admonished softly, "but here we go then. What do you know about the fucking prodigy competitive circuits?"
Had he burned out?! Was that it? "I know they're very competitive and that children are pushed incredibly hard?"
"Hard," he snickered. "Sure. The kids push themselves as much as the adults do sometimes, I doubled in piano and chess at the insistence of the woman people called by mother." Tip of the iceberg really that.
"You were...good?" She'd touch back on the mother thing....later yes.
"I took internationals in both several years running. As well as additional chess championships in Dubai." Because Dubai was high on itself and hosted chess championships outside international leagues. Pissants.
"Ah." She wasn't sure even what that meant but she'd be looking it up yes.
"Outside competition, well, there's a fucking market for prodigies. People 'collecting' bright young things, sponsoring them and shit," he snorted, the smile more tooth than lip now. Sharp and hard. "In decent circles it's an amazing opportunity, children traveling, spending months in foreign countries studying and many grow up to be diplomats and shit. Anyone who doubles like I did can speak five languages, minimum. It's the low end." Just for reference.
Oh. Oh no. She already knew how this could go very wrong. "Oh."
"In other circles children are traded for financial favors and shit. Contracts with companies." It had started so simply, just another chance to study abroad, an older man who liked to hear him play when he got home from work. He preferred being away from his father and that bitch of a mother. Sure, he knew his father was getting international trade contracts because of his visits but it was...easy.
So easy.
"It lends itself to fucking abuses." The night he was given a glass of wine after a dinner party and his 'host' had made a grab at him. He'd bitten the shit out of that hand as a matter of course, and when he'd been sent home his mother beat the hell out of him, snarling about the fact he should be a grateful a useless bastard like him could be of any benefit to the family.
On one hand, with his head ringing and blood in his mouth where his teeth had caught his cheek, he was satisfied. He'd known, he'd known, that the bitch wasn't his mother. He had faint memories of a kind woman, a maid? With hair the color of his own and a deft hand for the piano...
...on the other, it was terrifying to realize he was just a commodity to the whole family, not just her. A week to recover and he was mailed off, back to the man he'd bitten. With some rule changes. He had to pay for the injury after all, and that had resulted in caning and a bite mark, all of which were smeared in an oil that promised scarring. Marked as 'owned' as it was put, he'd had many pups come through his hands, all learned to behave properly and were doing well now off in college or the like. Some curs were just less trained than others.
He didn't want to cause pain all the time mind you, no, the morphine shots after the caning helped some, even if it did weird shit to his head. He just needed to learn how to behave properly and he could go back to the nice little life he'd had competing and being special. Kept and pampered.
Those scars were why he always wore an undershirt and never showered at the school. He didn't want to have to hurt people for asking stupid questions about an 'alternative lifestyle'. "Such always does. People who can afford to frivol money away on children's competitions can afford most things honestly. A high powered, glittering meat market," the venom in those words made her shiver, even though Dera was staring out the window fully now. It wasn't the sort of thing you looked at someone for.
No.
Far from.
"And sometimes things go wrong, even for that level of fucked up." Like an idiosyncratic reaction to roofies for instance. Being wired for sound instead of unconscious meant there had been a screaming, bleeding child curled in a corner of a high end hotel, stripes unhealed on his back and bite still oozing on his shoulder...and a very high profile man dead, a shattered wineglass stem shoved through his eye. It had been a scandal to say the least, and the police had been utterly shocked.
They shouldn't have been honestly. Evil shit was everywhere these days. Worse when they'd tried to reach his parents and been sent to voicemail.
The child advocates had been leery about everything about him honestly. Freaked out by every little thing he said or did not say. They locked him away, ignored calls when his parents had finally called back or when they showed up in the proper country to 'retrieve' him. He wasn't released for any number of reasons, from 'health' to 'pending criminal proceeding' with Dera as witness in a sealed court case.
Not that they needed to hear much from him.
"Long story fucking short, I'm independently wealthy due to court settlements and pay my own fucking way through school. Shamal..." was contacted by Bianchi, the other child, one pushed into young chefdom no less. They hadn't spoken much given the different drives in their lives but SHE'D tracked down where to send a letter to the only other family they had, pulling a doctor out of whatever the fuck to come fetch the little broken prodigy out of state custody. Te other shattered bastard. His family seemed to have a pattern. And he, he knew, distantly, she'd given a fuck. On his better days he even wrote her letters, but those were few and far between.
His parents were alive, mainly because Shamal stopped him every time he woke up from screaming nightmares and bought plane tickets or researched hitmen costs. Shamal promised they'd be dealt with one way or another, some day, when Dera had a better plan.
He just...needed to get his shit together better to plan that well.
"...Shamal was the best option when the dust settled. We live here now, and I fucking double live, highschool here and studying normal fucking kids, and I attend college online at night and there I'm not 'slacking' so you can fucking rest easy on me cutting my academic career off at the knees," he snorted, flicking the last cigarette butt out the window entirely and rubbing his shoulder again.
She swallowed, hands shaking, "and that was how..."
"I knew the signs for Maddoc? Yeah. Next group I'll tell you fucking sooner so you can get the state in on that shit before people need a stay at a mental facility and shit." he stood, stretching. "Yama is with you for a long haul given his state, so I'm staying too. It gives us time to catch him up, don't worry about us. Worry about the fucking rich brat psycho who may elevate to fucking assault or worse soon. Hell, he might go after you, expecting his daddy's money will keep him safe from the fact he likes when you wear that blue blouse okay? Watch him. Carry protection." He actually reached out, patting her head gently, then headed toward the door. He was done.
And she...wasn't going to stop him...though she laughed a little raggedly when she realized he'd tucked an unlit cigarette in her hair as a gift when he'd touched her.
Dera for his part...was stuffing shaking hands in his pocket and...heading home. Straight home. He needed a fucking drink honestly.
When: Two months after Yama's arrival.
What: A frustrated woman tries to break through a shell.
Life in group these days was almost pleasant; he and Yama took a back corner to work on the boy's homework in a mix of Japanese and English, the girls were ready to be let go from group, and the asshat was pinballing between being annoyed the girls weren't open to advances and annoyed the Goth was no longer in school for mental health reasons. He figured another week or two and the boy would get himself expelled.
Or arrested.
His money was on arrested.
All in all the "Hayato, please stay back if you would?" was a bit out of left field. Fuck, baseball metaphors. Great.
Yama slid a glance at him and he shrugged slightly, no, he hadn't done anything exceptionally irritating that he knew so...yeah. Watching the others file out with cookies (the girls' gift due to their final day of counseling) was fun, then he eased over to the window, tucking himself on the small sill to crack a window and light up as a matter of course. Untriggered 'discussions' tended toward serious in his experience, which meant he needed nicotine.
The therapist sighed at that, still unhappy but not pushing the smoke detector angle this time since he had his hand fully out the window, breeze heading away. "Hayato..."
"Gokudera," he corrected almost gently.
"Gokudera," she sighed, settling in a chair, hands crossed as she watched him, "I'm worried about your lack of progress here."
That made him snort, deeply amused, "ah." That talk.
"Ah?" she sighed. "That's the problem here, you've been three full group cycles, with this one winding up as well...I can't help you if you don't want to be helped!"
He watched the end of cigarette through the glass, the creeping red glow followed by dull, soft grey..."do you know why I'm here?" This was an important question really, and one he'd never asked her.
Um. That wasn't how she'd imagined this going, it was already off script but..."deliberately sabotaging your school career is a bad sign in a youth..."
Oh, oh that was funny. He couldn't help the snickering, no. "Ah, the faculty reason. I suppose that makes sense. They'd have to downgrade the 'reason' after I sent the psyche on staff off crying."
She...hadn't heard that. She was the low risk student therapist, she new that, there was someone else on staff for student health given the prestigious standing and the money behind their students but..."what?"
"The faculty is pissed as fuck I'm not raising their academic scores immensely, but I'm not a scholarship student so they can't boot me for maintaining the exact grade I intend," he snorted. "You're my fucking punishment in that sense. Behave as we like or waste your life being in counseling. It's not why I'm here though, or why I'm with you."
"...why?" She knew, she knew she was playing into his control game with that question. He was smart, smarter than most she knew, she was starting to suspect he may be a nascent, if currently non-violent, psychopath and still she asked.
"I'm here to learn," he smiled, a sad, winsome smile she didn't know he could make. "Yours is a safe and secure location where I can study and identify psychology. You're vetted by Shamal, you're good at your job, and you're kind. Not factors I required honestly, but you don't press in order to feel like you're fucking conquering your students, like the other asshole on staff. I'm here to fucking study, and apply what I learn from you, so that when I encounter someone capable of handling my shit I know to talk."
She had...no idea where to start with that honestly. She was flattered, maybe? There had been a compliment in there somewhere she was sure but it still underlined how anti-authority this child was. "Learning..."
"Pegging your students, working to resolve their issues," he shrugged.
"And you think I can't..."
"You could, in time you'd have settled the girls even if you were approaching from the wrong angle initially, and Maddoc, the goth, you were trying to phrase reports that would get CPS involved, you were doing the right things."
How had he even..."how?"
He just laughed again, taking a final drag off his first cigarette, "I know you." Plus he was paranoid and knew how to hack the school network but that wasn't going to help here at all.
"And what do you think I can't handle?" she swallowed.
"I can give you the abridged version, see how your fucking nerves hold," he offered, no longer smiling as he stubbed out the cigarette and lifted a hand to idly massage his shoulder. After all, he could be wrong...sure. And he could also be from Mars.
She swallowed, hands itching for a notepad but if she'd settled intending to study him he'd have played around, she knew that. "I'd like to understand you better."
He chuckled softly and lit another cigarette, "you are a good person, don't forget that," he admonished softly, "but here we go then. What do you know about the fucking prodigy competitive circuits?"
Had he burned out?! Was that it? "I know they're very competitive and that children are pushed incredibly hard?"
"Hard," he snickered. "Sure. The kids push themselves as much as the adults do sometimes, I doubled in piano and chess at the insistence of the woman people called by mother." Tip of the iceberg really that.
"You were...good?" She'd touch back on the mother thing....later yes.
"I took internationals in both several years running. As well as additional chess championships in Dubai." Because Dubai was high on itself and hosted chess championships outside international leagues. Pissants.
"Ah." She wasn't sure even what that meant but she'd be looking it up yes.
"Outside competition, well, there's a fucking market for prodigies. People 'collecting' bright young things, sponsoring them and shit," he snorted, the smile more tooth than lip now. Sharp and hard. "In decent circles it's an amazing opportunity, children traveling, spending months in foreign countries studying and many grow up to be diplomats and shit. Anyone who doubles like I did can speak five languages, minimum. It's the low end." Just for reference.
Oh. Oh no. She already knew how this could go very wrong. "Oh."
"In other circles children are traded for financial favors and shit. Contracts with companies." It had started so simply, just another chance to study abroad, an older man who liked to hear him play when he got home from work. He preferred being away from his father and that bitch of a mother. Sure, he knew his father was getting international trade contracts because of his visits but it was...easy.
So easy.
"It lends itself to fucking abuses." The night he was given a glass of wine after a dinner party and his 'host' had made a grab at him. He'd bitten the shit out of that hand as a matter of course, and when he'd been sent home his mother beat the hell out of him, snarling about the fact he should be a grateful a useless bastard like him could be of any benefit to the family.
On one hand, with his head ringing and blood in his mouth where his teeth had caught his cheek, he was satisfied. He'd known, he'd known, that the bitch wasn't his mother. He had faint memories of a kind woman, a maid? With hair the color of his own and a deft hand for the piano...
...on the other, it was terrifying to realize he was just a commodity to the whole family, not just her. A week to recover and he was mailed off, back to the man he'd bitten. With some rule changes. He had to pay for the injury after all, and that had resulted in caning and a bite mark, all of which were smeared in an oil that promised scarring. Marked as 'owned' as it was put, he'd had many pups come through his hands, all learned to behave properly and were doing well now off in college or the like. Some curs were just less trained than others.
He didn't want to cause pain all the time mind you, no, the morphine shots after the caning helped some, even if it did weird shit to his head. He just needed to learn how to behave properly and he could go back to the nice little life he'd had competing and being special. Kept and pampered.
Those scars were why he always wore an undershirt and never showered at the school. He didn't want to have to hurt people for asking stupid questions about an 'alternative lifestyle'. "Such always does. People who can afford to frivol money away on children's competitions can afford most things honestly. A high powered, glittering meat market," the venom in those words made her shiver, even though Dera was staring out the window fully now. It wasn't the sort of thing you looked at someone for.
No.
Far from.
"And sometimes things go wrong, even for that level of fucked up." Like an idiosyncratic reaction to roofies for instance. Being wired for sound instead of unconscious meant there had been a screaming, bleeding child curled in a corner of a high end hotel, stripes unhealed on his back and bite still oozing on his shoulder...and a very high profile man dead, a shattered wineglass stem shoved through his eye. It had been a scandal to say the least, and the police had been utterly shocked.
They shouldn't have been honestly. Evil shit was everywhere these days. Worse when they'd tried to reach his parents and been sent to voicemail.
The child advocates had been leery about everything about him honestly. Freaked out by every little thing he said or did not say. They locked him away, ignored calls when his parents had finally called back or when they showed up in the proper country to 'retrieve' him. He wasn't released for any number of reasons, from 'health' to 'pending criminal proceeding' with Dera as witness in a sealed court case.
Not that they needed to hear much from him.
"Long story fucking short, I'm independently wealthy due to court settlements and pay my own fucking way through school. Shamal..." was contacted by Bianchi, the other child, one pushed into young chefdom no less. They hadn't spoken much given the different drives in their lives but SHE'D tracked down where to send a letter to the only other family they had, pulling a doctor out of whatever the fuck to come fetch the little broken prodigy out of state custody. Te other shattered bastard. His family seemed to have a pattern. And he, he knew, distantly, she'd given a fuck. On his better days he even wrote her letters, but those were few and far between.
His parents were alive, mainly because Shamal stopped him every time he woke up from screaming nightmares and bought plane tickets or researched hitmen costs. Shamal promised they'd be dealt with one way or another, some day, when Dera had a better plan.
He just...needed to get his shit together better to plan that well.
"...Shamal was the best option when the dust settled. We live here now, and I fucking double live, highschool here and studying normal fucking kids, and I attend college online at night and there I'm not 'slacking' so you can fucking rest easy on me cutting my academic career off at the knees," he snorted, flicking the last cigarette butt out the window entirely and rubbing his shoulder again.
She swallowed, hands shaking, "and that was how..."
"I knew the signs for Maddoc? Yeah. Next group I'll tell you fucking sooner so you can get the state in on that shit before people need a stay at a mental facility and shit." he stood, stretching. "Yama is with you for a long haul given his state, so I'm staying too. It gives us time to catch him up, don't worry about us. Worry about the fucking rich brat psycho who may elevate to fucking assault or worse soon. Hell, he might go after you, expecting his daddy's money will keep him safe from the fact he likes when you wear that blue blouse okay? Watch him. Carry protection." He actually reached out, patting her head gently, then headed toward the door. He was done.
And she...wasn't going to stop him...though she laughed a little raggedly when she realized he'd tucked an unlit cigarette in her hair as a gift when he'd touched her.
Dera for his part...was stuffing shaking hands in his pocket and...heading home. Straight home. He needed a fucking drink honestly.