Since this story is turning into its own beast, I'm going to start cross-posting it here. These chapters will parallel the other chapters in the Office AU series, which are currently located (out of order) in Distracting Drabbles; Chapter One takes place a little before The Flowers. The timeline isn't precise, mainly because I keep changing it. Whoops. Also, I apologize for this series being such a mess.

Haruko took a soothing sip of tea as she wrapped up her notes from her last session. The warmth of the tea was welcome - sessions with Ayami were always difficult. Not through any fault of Ayami's; in fact, the young woman had been making great progress in the past month. It was simply that listening to the descriptions of her abuse at the hands of her father, seeing the pain of remembered trauma flash across the girl's open and honest features, never failed to break Haruko's heart. Her husband always told her that she let herself empathize too closely with her clients; but Haruko felt that she had no hope of helping someone who she couldn't understand.

She closed Ayami's folder with a sad sigh and turned to her calendar. A new client had the next appointment. Thus far the only information Haruko had was the basics: male, age twenty-three, never married but currently in a relationship. The reason he'd given for wanting to start therapy was a topic from her menu of pre-written options: Communication within a relationship. Her colleague Mariko always griped about the options; she felt that discouraging a client from writing out their own reason for seeking counseling hindered their ability to be honest about the problems they faced. Personally, Haruko preferred the canned choices. In her experience, clients who thought they knew the exact issue they needed help with were usually wrong. Framing things more generally helped them get to the real root of things more quickly.

In any case, this new appointment would make a nice break from her usual clientele. Haruko loved her field of expertise, and she was damn good at it - but it had been a long time since she'd had a chance to do some straightforward relationship counseling. She glanced at the notes again. Age twenty-three, never married. Most likely he was ready to settle down yet afraid to commit; pressure from his girlfriend to get married would certainly put a strain on their relationship, especially if he was the type who'd never learned to express his emotions well.

The little pendulum clock on her desk chimed one. Haruko took another sip of tea, then rose and crossed her office to open the door and peek out into the little waiting room beyond. It was empty save for one person, a young man sitting rather stiffly with his hands clasped in front of him. Haruko did a quick assessment: casually but neatly dressed, tidy grooming - that was a good sign that he intended to take therapy seriously. He was gazing expectantly at her, eyes slightly wide with nervousness. It made her feel like a school principal. She was used to that feeling.

She smiled kindly. "Li Hei?"

He stood. "Um, yes."

"I'm Dr. Uchiumi Haruko. Pleased to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, doctor." He started to bow, but she laughed and waved a hand.

"No need for formality here - call me Haruko, if you don't mind. May I call you Hei?"

"Sure," he said as she ushered him into her office.

It was a warm and inviting room, decorated with a few live plants and colorful floral artwork. Her desk stood in front of a large window that overlooked the not-so-scenic freeway interchange, but let in a lot of light. The cushy office chair that she used for therapy sessions was placed directly in front of the desk, opposite a grey loveseat. A matching armchair formed the third side of the square, with a coffee table in the center. It was reminiscent of someone's living room - an intentional effect. A homey atmosphere coupled with Haruko's relaxed wardrobe and gray-tinged hair helped her clients feel as if they were in a welcoming place, a place where they might open up without fear of judgment or repercussions.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" she asked as Hei took in the room with a quick glance before seating himself in the armchair. Interesting choice, she thought. Most new clients instinctively chose the end of the loveseat - it was closest to the door (in fact shared a wall) and furthest from her own chair. The armchair would put them at right angles for their conversation; but it did offer the best window view, such as that was. "Tea?"

"No, thank you." He clasped his hands in front of him, clearly ill at ease despite his polite demeanor.

Haruko retrieved her own teacup along with a yellow legal pad and pen, and settled into her chair. "So, is this your first therapy session?" It was always good to find out if the client had any past experience with counseling, to understand whether that had been helpful or not; and if not, why not.

He nodded. No surprise there, considering his obvious nerves.

"Well, then let me explain how this works. I'm here to help you with your problems, whatever those problems might be. My goal is to help you reach your goals, without criticizing, judging, or instructing. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about; I'm merely your guide."

"Um, okay," he said. And nothing else.

A quiet one, she realized. Communication problems indeed. "Let's start with, why did you choose me as your therapist? There are quite a few of us in Tokyo to choose from." There were certainly many therapists who dealt with more mundane issues than she did, including those who specialized in relationships; it was strange that he hadn't selected one of them.

"My partner got your name from one of her colleagues at work," he said.

"Oh? Where does your partner work?" She smiled again, but it didn't seem to help put him at ease.

"With the police."

Ah, that explained a lot. The majority of her clients were victims of some sort of trauma, and those referrals did tend to come through law enforcement channels. His girlfriend probably did clerical work for one of the criminal investigations departments. "Are you with the police as well?" He certainly looked the part, she realized. Fit enough to handle the physical demands of the job, kind and honest features that would encourage trust from the public.

"Yeah. I just joined a few months ago. Misaki - my partner - she suggested it."

Haruko tapped her pen against the pad. "It doesn't sound as if you're very enthusiastic about the job."

Hei shrugged. The movement seemed odd, until Haruko realized that it was the first time he'd moved at all since entering her office. "I don't mind it; I like the physical activity. I just don't know if I'm a good fit for that kind of work. Misaki thinks I am, and she's usually right about those things, but…" he trailed off with another shrug.

Lack of commitment to a career…that could cause some strife in a relationship. She made a quick note on her legal pad.

"You don't record these sessions, do you?" Hei asked in sudden alarm, his gaze fixed on the pen in her hand.

Hm, paranoia? That's surprising. "No," Haruko assured him. "When I do record, I always ask permission from my client first - but I prefer not to. I just take the occasional notes, to help my memory between sessions. Is that alright?"

He eyed her pen for another long moment before nodding. There was a lot to unpack there, she was sure; but it would have to wait for a later session, after she was able to build up the trust between them.

"Well," she said, "I'd like to talk about your career goals at some point, since it sounds like you could use some clarity there. But I think we should start with a more basic question: why therapy? What is it that you hope to achieve from our sessions?"

"Misaki thought it would be a good idea if I talked to someone. We've, um, had some problems communicating in the past. Neither of us is very good at talking about our emotions. So we've been trying to work on that - and we're doing a lot better, I think. But there are some things that, I guess, she's not really sure how to talk about with me."

Haruko nodded. "You said both of you aren't very good with discussing emotions - but you're here alone. Why not couples' therapy?"

"It's not our communication that's the problem. Now, I mean - it used to be. Mostly, it's things from my past. That I've never talked about with anyone before. She's helped me through a lot just by listening, but some of it…" he trailed off helplessly. "She thought maybe talking to a professional would help. So, I told her I would make an appointment."

"What I'm hearing is that therapy was your partner's idea, not yours." And your job, as well; but we'll get to that later. Haruko folded her hands in her lap. "I'm going to be upfront with you, Hei. Wanting to do something because it's meaningful to someone you care about is perfectly valid. I'm glad you were willing to take this first step for her." It was certainly a good sign that he didn't seem to be blaming his girlfriend for forcing him into therapy; but that wasn't quite good enough. "If you're not fully invested in this process, if you're not here to work through your problems with honest intention, then you're not going to get much out of this. So let me ask again: what is it that you hope to achieve from our sessions?"

He blinked, then furrowed his brow. "I…I guess…relationships have never been easy for me. But I want things to work out between me and Misaki - I want to be there for her no matter what - and it's not going to work if I can't be completely open with her. I want to be open with her, and I'm trying. But, like I said, some things I just don't know how to talk about."

Some things, Haruko mused. It was an incredibly vague statement. In fact, everything he'd said so far had been far from specific. The first session was hardly the time to push, though. She jotted down a reminder to herself to bring it up later. "So, tell me about your relationship with Misaki. How long have you two been together?"

"Um, about four months."

Only four months? That was quite a short-lived relationship to already be talking about therapy. Haruko opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question when Hei added, "Not counting a year ago. I don't know if that should count or not."

"A year ago?"

Hei finally unclasped his hands and placed them on his knees, gripping the fabric of his jeans in a slight display of anxiety. "Well, we were working together on one of her cases, and the chemistry between us was just…hard to ignore. Then one night we were arguing about something, and…" He trailed off awkwardly.

Haruko was pretty sure she knew what he was leaving out, but it wasn't very healthy that he couldn't even put it into words. "You slept together?" she prompted.

"Uh, yeah."

"And what happened afterward?"

A guilty expression flashed across his face. "I, uh, sort of panicked. And left in the middle of the night without talking to her."

"I imagine she had something to say about that the next time you saw her."

The guilt returned in the knit of his brow. "Well, we didn't really get a chance to talk at all after that. I had to leave the country suddenly for, um, legal issues."

Again with the vague references and lack of detail - she was going to have call him out on that next week. For now, she said, "Let's go back to the part where you panicked and left her in the middle of the night. You clearly realize now that it wasn't the best reaction. So why do you think you did that?"

"I…don't really know, exactly."

"If you had to guess?"

He ran a hand through his hair. The more he talked and opened up, Haruko noticed, the more outwardly animated he became. "I think that was the first time I realized just how much I cared for her. I was afraid that she would regret it once she woke up, and I - didn't want to see that regret, I guess."

Haruko scratched another note to herself: low self-esteem in the relationship; avoids conflict. "Why would she regret it? Did you have reason to doubt her initial consent?"

"No," he said, blushing slightly. "She was, um, enthusiastic. But after…I'm not the sort of person I would expect her to want to be with, even casually. Misaki has a very strong sense of ethics, and I, well, I don't. We argued about it all the time. I was sure that she would see it - us sleeping together - as a, I guess, a moral failing on her part."

Haruko's eyebrow rose. There was quite a lot to unpack in that statement alone. But she didn't want to address it now; it would take at least one, probably more, fully devoted sessions. "But you're together now, so clearly she didn't feel that way. Have you talked about that night, discussed how each of you felt about it?"

"Yeah."

"And did she give any indication that casual sex was something she sees as a moral failure?"

His brow furrowed. "It wasn't the sex I thought she'd have a problem with, it was, well, because it was me. But she didn't, and now we're together."

The poor boy looks so confused, Haruko realized as the clock on her desk chimed twice. "Well, we're out of time for today. I think we uncovered some important issues that we can work on over the next fews weeks. For this week, I have a homework assignment for you."

"Homework?"

She smiled. "It feels a bit like school, I know; but I want to remind you of what I told you at the start of our session: there isn't much that you'll get out of therapy if you're not willing to put in the work. And most of that work will have to be done outside of this office." He nodded his understanding, though he still looked a bit apprehensive. Haruko continued, "This week, I want you to ask Misaki to tell you one thing that she loves about you."

He looked positively panicked now. "One thing…"

"That she loves about you," Haruko nodded. "I've gotten the sense that you feel as if you're not good enough for her, or that she looks down on you somehow. Sometimes it can be hard for the people who love us to articulate that in a way that we can grasp onto; so I want you to ask her. Just one thing. I bet she'll surprise you."

"Um, okay."

Haruko walked him to the office door, then shut it softly behind him and returned to her desk. She poured herself a fresh cup of tea, thinking about her new client. It was fairly clear that communication wasn't the real problem he was dealing with. Feelings of low self-worth had a tendency to prevent even the most heart-felt declarations of love and caring from being heard and believed. She would focus the next session on uncovering where that lack of esteem was stemming from; then it was simply a matter of working through it. Unless there was some hidden depth there, some unrevealed trauma - and Haruko was an expert at spotting trauma - it would be a straightforward issue.

Humming softly to herself, she added a few final notes to their session record. It was nice to start out a new therapy journey feeling so optimistic about a client's potential. She was going to enjoy working with Li Hei.