May 5th, 2015. It's final weeks on Tokyo-3's Municipal First Junior High School Academy and it's been hell on all the students. Thankfully, you're too old to be going through math exams, mister school counselor! It's your 4th year since you've been hired to take care of these kids, and so far, it's been an alright job.Having majored in said field straight after your degree in psychology, you were more than happy to have some security as opposed to dealing with flaky patients and the usual folks who just walked away after a "free trial". Frankly, from Cognitive Behavior to psychoanalysis, all forms of therapy were subjects you loved to deep dive in your free time despite being done with college for a while, and that's exactly what sets the mediocre scholars apart from the true specialists! Now if only your pay wasn't barely above minimum wage despite all your efforts...It wasn't any school, no less. Tokyo 3's First Junior High's students were all, in one way or another, motherless. Either by accidents, coming from adoption, divorce, it was almost certain that no child from that school ever had both sets of parents in the house, and you knew very well what that meant. Extra steps went into advising teachers and staff, Parent-Teacher conferences, workshops, class conferences... Really, everything that involved giving support to students had to go through you first, and while it was exhausting work, none of the classes ever had a major fight thanks to 29 year old Date Kurono at their service.Since finals week meant everyone was either silent in class, studying or going straight back home, it was an unusually leisure day for you, which given how active you were used to be there, meant you were tapping your feet at your desk in the teacher's lounge while everyone else your age was either in class or silently checking papers. Not like you were super friendly with any of the staff or anything, for they weren't much more than colleagues.You barely had the social battery to socialize your way into a full shift, so you couldn't imagine having to balance that out with being an extrovert, which meant having no work to do and being stuck in your head was all the more alienating, since all you had left then was to ruminate about the past.Really, why did you choose professional babysitting as your calling? Guess it all started back in the 80s when you were born, back when Tokyo 3 was just called Tokyo, your parents were an aspiring couple, each renowned in their own way, with your mother always being needed her job thanks to her revolutionary discoveries in neuroscience, and your father being a famous athlete, rising up the ranks to get the Japanese Lightweight Boxing Belt, aiming to go for the world.Despite having big shoes to fill, back then you were too busy choosing who you should spent the most time with when they actually were home.>Mom, she was from your field, afterall.>Dad, who wouldn't love to have a boxing star for a father?
>>6375149>Dad, who wouldn't love to have a boxing star for a father?
>>6375149>Mom, she was from your field, afterall.
>>6375149>>Mom, she was from your field, afterall.
>>6375151>>6375196>>6375200Your father Daigo was cool and all, but the real breadwinner of the house was always mother Ayane, a real shocker for the age they lived in. Your dad was no slouch either, but the sheer disparity in earnings definitely gave her more power around the house than throwing punches ever could.Naturally, she then became a role model for you, you wouldn't have gotten your current job if it weren't for her, after all. Half of your parents bedroom was occupied by this big stack of books that peaked your curiosity for the brain to your father's brawn. What was so important in her studies that made her work tirelessly overnight even at home over spending time with her son?It's not like she was intentionally neglectful, in retrospect, it was as if she was weirded out by your having a preference for her than for your father, assuming you would gravitate towards him thanks to your mutual bond of being men so she could better work without interruptions. She knew better than to outright say it to your face, but in your early years, you were a distraction from her work at best, and a nuisance disguised as maternity leave at worst.That was, until you were around 10 years old: After sneaking to her bookshelf once more and taking out a copy of The Future of an Illusion during house cleaning, you slipped on the floor and the book fell right on the bucket of water. You were quick to take it out, but several other files fell out from the book, almost as if she was using this cover to keep her research hidden.Ayane was quick to hear your panicking, and while her handwriting was so rough only she could decipher it, as soon as she saw a file with the words "A.T Field" tearing in half like paper mache, it was as if she became possessed.It was the only instance you recall where you truly felt fear from her, uncharacteristically lunging at your throat, digging her nails on your skin with enough force to draw blood."Who said you could mess with my stuff, you little brat?! Do you have any idea how important that is? I can't afford to miss a day in my deadlines when so many lives are depending on me, and this is how you repay me?!"After the 5th "I'm sorry!" you managed to squeeze out from your throat, her grip loosened, almost as if snapping back to reality and realizing the violence she was capable of doing was just as terrifying for her as it was for you. Whatever she was doing, it was not worth killing you over it."No... I'm sorry, Date-kun. I didn't know you were interested in my books. I'll help you out in reading them if you want to, some might be too tough for a kid your age. Just... Don't touch that shelf without my permission anymore, ok?"
>>6375279Her demeanor around the house changed after that incident, guess yearning for her attention for so long finally paid off. She made an active effort to teach you now that she saw you two sharing something in common. Not only she was a very good teacher, she was also very passionate, going on to explain several concepts in your free time without so much as having to check on the books she gave you. However, she was still very dismissive about answering questions about her job or anything related to it. The most you could squeeze out from her was in few very short sentences:"I get a few trust funds from the government to do something important. That's all you need to know.""Bringing friends around the house? No need, your father already does that for me.""Stop asking about the A.T Field. Anyway, about pervasive developmental disorders..."Maybe she knew all that info she had about the human brain made her all the more aware to keep her emotions in check, only the more ironic that despite all her knowledge, it didn't help her out in feeling more human. Hell, if anything, it likely made things worse, since being aware of your faults without being able to do anything about it was twice more agonizing.You don't think she ever forgave herself for choking you, though. There were more than enough times you couldn't sleep in your teenage years, and when you got out of your room for a walk, there she was. Smoking in the balcony, staring silently at you with her signature frowning face. Thinking. Analyzing. Judging. Never bothering with small talk about her feelings to let you know if it was about you or not.Your dad, on the other hand, knew he wasn't the favorite, yet he still tried to compensate it by being a lot warmer and outgoing with you. He tried to get you into his own passion by always driving you to see his fights. Given how easy it was to matchmake in the amateur scene, he promised to keep himself at a winning streak until you graduated high school at the very least, and with a perfect 20-0 win/loss rate, he was making his name known as a local celebrity. Much to the chagrin of his wife, he always invited his coach and gym partners to celebrate his wins over a drink, as well as trying to give you private lessons so you could better defend yourself, which meant stopping whatever you were doing to humor him a bit with a sandbag.In retrospect, is it even fair to say you cared about boxing at all?>Not really, you weren't much of a fighter.>Sort of? If anything, you learned how to take a beating thanks to him.>Absolutely! If it wasn't for counseling, you could easily be a PE teacher!
>>6375293>Sort of? If anything, you learned how to take a beating thanks to him.
>>6375293>Not really, you weren't much of a fighter.Dear old Dad seems nice, but we fabored Mom then and now, and took after her the most.>being aware of your faults without being able to do anything about it was twice more agonizingOuch, right in the feels... Interesting premise for a quest, OP! I'll be following this closely.
>>6375293>>Absolutely! If it wasn't for counseling, you could easily be a PE teacher!Really strange premise, and I mean that as a compliment.
>>6375293>>Absolutely! If it wasn't for counseling, you could easily be a PE teacher!
>>6375293>Absolutely! If it wasn't for counseling, you could easily be a PE teacher!
>>6375386>>6375399Thanks! Guess I should write something for a heads up! Idk if twice a day is too much or too little for updates but that's the best I can do on the regular, if you got any questions I'll be sure to respond, I'll try not to have any rolls since the importance of therapy is on the talk and not the rolls, so write ins for dialogue options will be accepted when prompted!>>6375316>>6375348>>6375396Writing
>>6375503>Idk if twice a day is too much or too little for updates but that's the best I can do on the regularAn update every 24-ish hours is typical, but many quests do two or three a day when the QM has time. Your pace should be fine.
>>6375316>>6375348>>6375396Sucks to be a dad sometimes, as soon as your mom started giving you lectures, National Champion Daigo Kurono knew he was fighting a losing battle, but he sure put a good fight while he could!His opponents rarely went the distance against him, and the decisions were overwhelmingly in his favor provided they did last all rounds. The crowd always went wild when he landed a clean hit or went for a knockout, and the few times you saw your mother smiling from ear to ear was when she could afford to go with you and watch his fight from the front row seats. He was generational talent, if Japan's ever seen one!Only problem is, you didn't really inherit his passion for the ring, you just went along with it because you couldn't say no to him while he was so happy. Not that you didn't try to get into it, you liked running in the treadmill and jumping ropes just like any other kid so you at least had the genes for the athletics, but even with full gear on, Dad's little love taps felt like getting hit by a bulldozer while he only pretended to be hurt by your puny 1-2 punches. Judging by his fights, he just had an abnormally high pain tolerance, never did you see him even flinching if his opponent landed a hit on him, and while you weren't exactly in his ball park, sometimes he got a bit too serious for your liking.Were it not for his good intentions and coaching, one would call it parental abuse when he knocked out your last baby tooth with a right hook during a spar. He was quick to apologize and check on you, but since that didn't bring you down, you smiled at him with your broken snaggle tooth, pretending to be tough as you coolly exclaimed:"You took your gloves off and the ref didn't start the count! Disqualified! I win!"You two laughed all the way home as he congratulated you, but one glare from your mother made the champ turn into an instant jobber, and after a stern talking to, your dad promised her not to take you to the gym for training.Still, not only was it good PR for him to bring you around some events, the popularity that came with being Daigo's son made sure no one messed with you at school. You might have been small fry compared to actual trained adults, but all you needed to do was mimic his boxing stance, and all attempts at bullying ceased in your class thanks to your intimidation."It's fine, kid. I can tell your heart's not there. I can see the sparkle in your eyes when your mom hands you a new book, and they don't show up when you put the gloves on. Dad's not mad, if anything you found what you liked a lot earlier than me!" He said, admitting defeat as he tapped at your chest with his finger. If there's anything that's gonna carry you into a successful life, it's passion! More so than talent or hard work, if you love what you're going after, it's already yours!"
>>6375536"Passion?" You repeated quizzically, as if tasting how the word sounded from your lips."Yeah! Can you believe it? so many people out in the world live a full life being passionate about nothing, sports, science, money, girls? None! It's like they don't believe they have the free will to be whoever they want to be!""That's no good..." You shake your head."Right? This is why we raised you, young man! Me and your mother had nothing on our names when we were classmates, and look where we are now! All because we knew in our hearts, that if we could put a smile on someone's face and motivate the world to be better with what we did, then life was worth living! And if that's what you wanna do, who are we to stop you?"Dad sure had charisma, no wonder the mic was always on him, he was a natural speech giver! You truly felt like the best mix of what they had to offer, and with so much trust in your potential, there was no way let them down... Until tragedy struck.September 13, 2000. Your father had just won his first bout in the OPBF at the Tokyo Dome at the 4th round, his 21st victory would be his last, as a small meteorite struck the south pole, though only 10cm wide, it hit the earth at 95% the speed of light, before anyone could even realize what happened, 2 billion lives were lost from the seismic obliteration of the ice caps, and with the wars for resources that would soon break out, half the population would be wiped out in the span of a year.You could never forget the best day of Daigo's life turning into his worse. A sudden flash in the sky, a gust of wind, the car being thrown into the air, his leg being crushed beyond repair as the vehicle hit the nearest pole, much like his dreams, the boxing world, and your home, thanks to the earthquakes that came to follow.Despite your father being a wreck in body and spirit, your mother insisted on moving to Matsumoto City where your grandparents lived as soon as possible. Not a day later, Old Tokyo was suddenly destroyed by an atom bomb in a terrorist attack, annihilating its population of 500 million people, along with everyone from your past lives.It was a bit too much for a kid entering high school to bear. Aside from your relatives, everything you knew about your past life was no more, and though both you and your parents would eventually bounce back from this, you developed a coping mechanism that you have yet to get rid of.>You got too paranoid to let people in your life again, who knows when they might be gone too?>Survivor's guilt got the best of you. If anything bad happened, you would never live it down.>You got too obsessives, you lost too much already to not get what you wanted.>You started drinking and smoking early. The numbness made things easier, and you could quit whenever you wanted anyway...
>>6375589>>Survivor's guilt got the best of you. If anything bad happened, you would never live it down.
>>6375589>You started drinking and smoking early. The numbness made things easier, and you could quit whenever you wanted anyway...
Given the lull, I'll say that I think survivor's guilt will eat us alive as a counselor to the cast of Evangelion. Just having some vices is more manageable.
>>6375589>You got too obsessives, you lost too much already to not get what you wanted.
>>6375589>You started drinking and smoking early. The numbness made things easier, and you could quit whenever you wanted anyway...SMOKE
>>6375600>>6375929Growing up, you got used to waking up at night and smelling the smoke from your mother's ash tray, the wind always blew from the balcony to your room, so it was hard for the scent not to turn into a guilty pleasure eventually. After the Impact, she went from a pack every two weeks to almost a pack a day. If the smoking was keeping her afloat, maybe there was some secret elixir on that pink vanilla that was worth checking out.Just like she did, you took mom's lighter from her purse and tried your first smoke. As most first smokes go, you inhaled too much and started coughing, which alerted your mom and your not so sneaky idea to do this in the house while she was there."What do you think you're doing?" She asked, her icy stare from across the room made you freeze as you expected at least, a few unkind words. Instead, she approached you, examined the ashtray, and took your cigarette to her mouth to show you how it's done."Don't suck in more air than you usually do, or else it's gonna be tough to blow it out. Holding it in doesn't do anything. Also, don't smoke the pink ones, or people might give you looks. If you don't like the taste, you can try the cacao flavored ones. They're black so it's a bit more presentable for men like you."Whoa, no sermon, no grimacing, no slaps, no choking? Instead of reprimanding you, she just decided to puff it and pass it to you? Maybe she decided that there were too many bad things happening at once to start an argument over you having an edgy phase."Guess this is what I deserve for setting up a bad example at home. Your dad's hospital bill is sky high, and here I am buying more cigs instead of saving money for his prosthetic leg... Just promise me you won't get addicted like I did.""I won't!" You nodded. Technically, it only became a habit for you once you tried the Black Devil Cacao Flavored cigs she recommended, so you kept the promise to this day, even if you're the only gut that doesn't put the cigarette out at school.To conclude your research... Cigs didn't really do much for you. They just gave you a new itch that felt like a problem being solved once you smoked thanks to your dopamine receptors, until you had to scratch the itch again, growing more anxious the longer you took to come back, judging by how your mom smoked, it was easy to see she was in the same boat."Be kind to your father for me, Date-kun." She said, staring at the ceiling. "Boxing was everything for him. Now his only accomplishments will only be lived vicariously through us. And without his leg... I'll have to put in twice the work." "How? Can you work from here?""Haven't you seen the news?" She forced her frown upside: "A new Tokyo will be built right here in Nagano, and wouldn't you know it, your mother got in contact with a few people here and landed herself a new job! I might have to travel a bit for it, but the pay will be better--"
>>6375959"I haven't seen the news." You interrupt her, catching her off guard."Huh?""Grandma has no TV here. Plus, we we've been going in and out of hospitals for the past week for him. We didn't have the time to sit by and watch TV."And with that, you had successfully broken the script she made to explain her new job for you. You weren't suspecting any malice from Ayane, but it was awfully convenient for her to suggest the move to Matsumoto City a day before the nuke dropped in Tokyo. It was in her nature to stay calm under stress, but the timing to suggest that despite being able to treat him in Tokyo while the second impact just happened felt like superhuman intuition. Her stress wasn't coming from unexpectedly having to grieve the city she lived in, but from the upcoming job she would have to do while still keeping quiet. Someone gave her a heads up, you just couldn't prove it, and that thought was flaring in your head for the whole day.Mom was far from stupid, she realized she made a slip and taught you enough about body language and reading between the lines with people to catch them in their contradictions. Almost as if in a Mexican standoff, she took her lighter and slowly placed it in her lab coat pocket, poking her finger through the fabric, as if knowing there would be consequences for any additional questions you made.One of the first things you learned about talking therapy was that sometimes, finding out what the patient is hiding should not take priority before treating their traumas. After all, what's the point of knowing they have suicidal tendencies if it comes at the cost of forcing them to be actively suicidal to reveal that to you? Giving them stress is part of the process, but the intent is to make them think about their situations with the right mindset, and that comes with the right approach.Is your mother really going to be your first test subject for that? She's never once told you about her job, not even to your father, but knowing her, she already knows all the methods you would use to coax her into talking, and there was always the of chance she would just shut you down or walk away, like she usually did when when felt like she said all she had to say. An advantage in power, influence around the house, knowledge in the field, and overall life experience...Maybe you were more afraid of your mother than you would like to admit...>Squeeze some information from her. (Write-in)>Let it be, there's already too much stress around the house as is.
>>6375975>Squeeze some information from her. (Write-in)Just a single armor piercing question should do:>Are they good guys? The ones you're working for?
>>6375975Support >>6375979We can trust mom, and them, if she says yes honestly, with a straight face. It's all we can do, she probably won't reveal more.
>>6375975>Squeeze some information from her. (Write-in)"Will it all be worth it?">>6375979Sounds like something a toddler would say, the kid is definitely older. Same write in as yours, but more mature
