Sai breathed a sigh of relief. This particular office looked nothing like a prison cell. There was furniture here, for one thing, and dim lights overhead that didn’t flicker. Two expensive leather armchairs took up a good portion of the room, a side table nestled between them. The boy couldn’t help but notice the stack of thick textbooks on top of the table. He hoped that they might hold the secrets to his recovery, since he hadn’t had much luck with actually talking to psychiatrists.
Why did he still come here every week, then, if that was case? The answer to that question changed constantly.
Glancing toward the window at the far end of the office, Sai saw a deep, dark blue twilight closing in. Another day in his life was almost over. Soon, he could go home and sleep—if his mind slowed down and let him. It had been a long day, after all. It had been a long week. Really, it had just been a long life.
A wave of restlessness washed over him as he realized someone was speaking to him. Was it Dr. Richards, his former psychiatrist?
“You’ve told me before, Sai… that bad things happen to bad people, right?”
Silence. It wasn't Dr. Richards, though the words were similar.
“Yes.”
Silence. He had learned that answers were supposed to swift and sharp. Hesitation created mistrust, and mistrust led him to trouble.
“Okay. What kind of person are you?”
Silence. Sai watched as the psychiatrist took a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow, and shifted in his seat so he didn’t look as slumped.
“...That's a really nice suit, sir.” He had to say what was on his mind or it was like saying nothing at all.
“Thank you, Sai.”
“I think I'm boring you. Because I don’t know why I’m here today.” Silence. The psychologist’s mouth parted, but no words came out. “I mean, I don’t feel sick, so…”
“Do you think these sessions have been helpful at all?”
Silence. There was pain hidden in that silence. Would this psychiatrist be the first one brave enough to hear about the pain?
No, of course not. No one would ever be brave enough to make it through even half the story. So Sai filled the silence with meaningless chatter. “I don’t know. I’m either going to get better or I’m not. There’s no in-between.”
The therapist fumbled with the papers on the clipboard in his lap, tapping his pen on each page before moving to the next. Dr. Richards also took notes in the cells. Sai didn’t know what that meant. It probably didn’t mean anything.
“From what you’ve told me, you eat well enough. Your sleep patterns have improved considerably, and you’ve started exercising a bit more.”
“Yeah, I train. To be closer to my pokémon.”
Silence.
“So. Now I have a question.”
“Yes, Sai?”
Sai reached into his pocket and pulled out the black and white die Dr. Richards had given him all those years ago. He looked his new psychiatrist in the eye and asked what the man thought dice might signify if it was used symbolically in a piece of art or the like. Sai kept his gaze firm, but he was still so unaccustomed to seeing human faces that he had to look away.
Silence. A very, very long silence. The room grew darker. Twilight was here now.
“Well...”
Sai, in the end, couldn’t bear to listen. Couldn’t process what the psychiatrist’s answer was. He only remembered that Dr. Richards said black and white were polar opposites.
It had been a nice gift to receive at the time. But Dr. Richards had been paid by Team Rocket to give him medication that forcibly cycled his moods, causing his own thoughts to become black and white. Things were always all bad, or all good, and because of that, he crashed. He crashed and he drowned. He drowned in his own black and white thoughts, over and over.
When he was released as a part of the survival project, a thousand different freedoms came to him. But much like how twilight comes and goes, his emotions, harsh and deep, changed so often that he couldn't take advantage of that freedom. He wanted to feel infinite, yet little of him was actually infinite, unless you counted the nights he spent trying not to burst from the pain of loneliness. When he was confronted by that inability to speak, to coincide with anyone else's thoughts or beliefs, then he made use of the coping techniques he had learned in the cells, like he was now. A false sort of contentment traveled toward his heart, which beat with a morose fervor more often than not. Nothing was right, nothing was wrong. Existing was enough of an accomplishment during moments like these.
