Empath

Chapter 19

Yui had just returned from an appointment with a patient. He walked into the bedroom, humming a happy tune.

Al looked up from his romance novel and gazed at him in wonder. "How do you do it?" he asked.

"Huh?" Yui blinked innocently at him.

"How do you stay so... upbeat... after meeting so many distressed clients?"

"Oh, I've just always had a knack for that, I guess," Yui replied, casually. "Back at the orphanage, whenever a new kid arrived, I'd do my best to lift their spirits. I'd tell jokes and help them with anything I could to make them feel welcome."

"Oh, right," Al murmured, with a distant look in his eyes, "I forgot you grew up in an orphanage. I guess you've always been surrounded by sadness, huh?"

"Yeah," Yui agreed. One side of his mouth pulled back into a little grimace.

"What made you decide to do this?"

"Ah, well," Yui began, as he plopped down onto the bed, "it all started when I met this girl named Katerina. She had just moved into the orphanage. She was so miserable when she first arrived that she never left her bed or interacted with the other kids. I went to introduce myself, and she just sat on top of her bed, above the covers, hugging her knees. When I tried to talk to her, she'd tell me to get out. So I did... But I couldn't stop worrying about her. So when it was time to eat in the dining hall, I didn't eat my portion. Instead, I snuck it upstairs to give to her. I knocked on the door and left it outside of her room. I continued doing this for a couple days, until the nannies found out I wasn't eating."

"After that, I went back to the girls' room to tell her that I couldn't bring her food anymore, and she actually spoke to me for the first time. She asked why I brought her food and why I cared. I told her because she's one of us and we gotta look out for each other. She told me not to bother. That I should just let her rot away... but she had eaten the food I gave her, so I knew she didn't actually mean what she said. She wanted to live and be happy. I sat by her and spoke to her. I told her about my parents, and I asked her about hers. She lost her father at a young age, and then her mother..."

His voice faded as he looked into the distance with his hands clasped between his legs. "Well, Katerina came from a family of witches. They believed in traditional witchcraft, and... believe it or not, her hometown was very old-fashioned in their religious beliefs. Her family was hunted down for their not-so-Christian ways. Her father had died in an accident when she was young, but her mother... She was threatened to be burned at the stake like it was the Middle Ages. But the neighbors didn't go through with their threats in that way. Instead, they sent her hate mail and gossiped and ruined her life in lots of more subtle ways, until she couldn't take it anymore... and ended her own life. Little Katerina came home from school one day to find her mother hanging from the ceiling." Yui picked aggressively at the skin around his fingernails as he reminisced.

Al was silent, mourning the loss of this woman he'd never met.

"With some encouragement," Yui continued, "Kitty came downstairs with me and joined the others in the dining hall. She'd laugh at my jokes with the other kids. Days went on. We became really good friends. She felt a lot better during the day, when we had activities to keep us busy. But at night, when everything was dark and quiet, those memories came back to haunt her. She'd blame herself for not helping her mother. She'd wonder if all she did was make things worse with her own interest in witchcraft. One night, she snuck into the boys' room and woke me up."

"She couldn't sleep, so the two of us went out to the balcony, and we'd chat and read stories and play games. I'd do my best to get her mind off of it. Eventually, her mood would lighten enough for her to be comfortable going back to bed."