Broken Like Me

Chapter Seven: Truth

Kageyama's therapy session was not going well. Dr. Kiyoko wanted him to focus on "confronting himself" today.

"Kageyama, in order to discover what a life worth living looks like for you, you need to pinpoint what's stopping you from achieving it." She said sagely with her legs crossed as always. Her silky hair in a gentle braid hanging on her shoulder.
Her statement pissed Kageyama off. What was stopping him? Shouldn't she know she's his therapist, why was she asking him?

"You know what's stopping me! Everything, my parents' neglect, having no friends, my sisters abandoning me, and being forced off of the volleyball team. Why are you acting like it's some kind of choice I made, something I can reverse."

He rehorted heatedly. He already had more than enough self blame to go around, he didn't need his therapist to make him feel like a failure as well.
But Dr.Kiyoko continued to push him to further reflect on issues of his own happiness.

"You see yourself as a victim of your circumstance, Kageyama. But tell me this, were you always so unhappy?"

Kageyama paused to think but he couldn't remember a time when he wasn't depressed. In fact, he couldn't tell where his depression started and he ended, depression was his ever present best friend. The truth was he was sacred, he didn't know who he was outside of his sadness. He was a shadow of a person, whoever he had been was erased long ago. He didn't know what happiness looked like, and he had resigned himself to the idea that perhaps he was incapable of possessing such an emotion. It wasn't all bad, just because he was destined to never be happy, it didn't mean that he had to be miserable all the time.

"I don't think I will ever be happy, I guess some people can never be happy and maybe that's just the sad reality I have to get used to."

Dr.Kiyoko jotted down some notes in her notebook and began to speak about the philosophy and practice of mindfulness that has been effective in countering depression and finding happiness.

Her voice droned on and strangely enough Kageyama's thoughts floated to Hinata.

Hinata was everything Kageyama wasn't, he was the exact antithesis of Kageyama. Hinata was all sunlight, ringing laughter, bright blinding colors, la sweet melody, filling up a room with his sunny presence despite his short stature.

Kageyama on the other hand was a gloomy never ending night, he was whispers of indignation and yells of anger, a deep frown etched permanently into a face, the dreary colors of a cloudy day, a lanky shadow lurking unwanted in the cobwebbed corner. He wondered if Hinata ever felt as sad as he did, he prayed that he hadn't, he wouldn't wish it upon his greatest enemy.

He figured that most people went through patches of depression or unhappiness in their lives but their general state in life was a plateau of sorts, the average of all their highs and lows. Kageyama on the other hand, felt like he went through bouts of extreme sadness and depression without the highs to accompany it. His life felt like a sad rollercoaster that only went down, it just continued to dip further and further, always leaving it's rider yearning, hopeful for a climb, imagining what the view must look like from the top. Only for him to eventually realize that the view from the top was never meant for his eyes. Anytime he spent yearning for that incline was a waste. He had come to accept the sad banality of his descend.

Perhaps the only true exception was his time on the volleyball court, where he deceived himself into thinking that the view from the top of the net, was the same view as the top of the track. Alas, he had crumbled that temporary mirage, watched it turn to dust before his eyes, his own hands responsible for the rubble.

As he continued to brood over his sad life, Dr.Kiyoko snapped him out of his thoughts, suddenly with a question.

"Kageyama our session is nearing its end, but I wanted to pose two questions for you to think about and we can discuss them more next time. Do you think that maybe you've convinced yourself that you don't deserve to be happy?" She said it in a kind tone, with no judgement to be heard.