Chapter 22: Counseling 2
Translator: Soafp
What year is it now? What month, what day? What day of the week? What time is it? How old am I?
Everything is white. The entire room is white, from the ceiling to the floor. Even the counselor’s white coat is pure white.
In this bright room, I’m smiling faintly.
Today, I underwent regression hypnosis.
They say it’s a form of therapy.
“What are you doing? Hey, Mom, what are you doing?”
Click, click, click, click.
The counselor is typing on the keyboard.
I can see a memory from when I was four years old.
It’s a memory from when we all still lived in Minami-Osawa.
“Arahama-san, what’s happening?”
The counselor with the usual red-framed glasses asks me.
But my mother, who was there just before I napped, is gone.
“I don’t know… When I woke up, my mom and Uncle Yukihiko were there. I’m peeking through the gap in the door.”
Click, click, click, click.
I catch my breath.
“What do you see?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are the two of them doing?”
The sensation of seeing something I shouldn’t have.
The confusion of glimpsing a world I didn’t know.
The eyes behind the counselor’s glasses widen slightly.
Click, click, click, click.
The typing seems to have sped up.
“They’re naked. They’re kissing and… He’s on top of her… Cough… Oh, Mom’s coming closer. She’s naked… Mom… Um, I woke up… What are you doing…? Kai-chan? Yeah, he’s still asleep… Uh-huh… Okay.”
Yes. That day, Mom definitely said it.
Click, click, click, click.
“What did she say to you?”
“Don’t tell your dad or Kai-chan. She said, ‘A kid like you who’s not needed should do this when you grow up.'”
She called me “not needed.”
Click, click, click, click.
“Do what?”
“I don’t know… I’m starting to feel sick.”
“Are you alright?”
“I feel like throwing up… Ugh… bleh… cough, cough.”
The counselor leans in to look at me and pats my back.
“Arahama-san? Are you okay? Arahama-san? …Let’s stop here for today.”
In this pure white room, it’s been stained by my blood-tinged vomit. Dirty stains in a clean room.
It’s like me—dirty, dirty. Unwanted, unwanted.
Unwanted, that’s me.
As I stared at the soiled floor of the counseling room, that thought suddenly crossed my mind.
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