Just Keep Moving (a Beastars Fanfic)

Ch8. Therapist and Protection Day

    Gouhin looked down from his window onto the bloody animal walking slowly through the streets. He or she was wearing a torn trenchcoat and a tiger mask, which didn't even bother trying to hide the fact that it was a mask. The panda sighed as he picked up his crossbow. Not knowing the species of the animal would increase the difficulty, but that didn't change the fact that most animals would still fall when hit hard enough on the head.

     The animal was clearly distracted by something, because they didn't even notice when Gouhin approached. A quick think on the head dropped the animal like a sack of bricks, and all that was to carry them back to the clinic. First he chained the animal's arms together, then he took off their mask.

     The face Gouhin saw wasn't that of any animal he'd seen before. The face was furless, and judging from its limbs, so was the rest of its body. The nails were either trimmed down or naturally rounded, and the teeth were a mix between those of herbivores and carnivores. Gouhin searched the animal, and he found a knife strapped to his patient's chest. That was removed, and from a search of the patient's backpack, he was a kid from Cherryton, which Gouhin inferred from the uniform at the bottom of the bag.

     The kid started stirring however, so Gouhin stepped back and prepared to greet him.

***

     When I regained consciousness, the first thing I felt was the cold iron of manacles in my wrist. Opening my eyes, I cussed. "Aw, shit," I muttered, and that pretty much summed up my situation. It looked like my captor was an absolutely jacked panda, and my knife was lying on a table in the corner of the room.

     "Alright, kid, I have a few questions for you," the panda said. I winced, his voice only serving to exacerbate my pounding headache. "First, what is your name?" he asked.

     With nothing left to lose in my current state, I answered, "It's Tim." The panda clicked something, and I was blinded by the flash of a camera.

     "When was the last time you ate meat?" he asked.

     I was confused by this question, but I still answered. "Just because I work at a meat restaurant doesn't mean I eat meat," I said.

     "Was that where the blood on your clothes came from?" he questioned.

    "Pretty much," I said. "Your teeth are that of a carnivore and herbivore," he said. "Which one are you?" 

    "I can eat from both diets, if that's what your asking," I said. "Why am I here?"

    "I'm here to treat carnivores of their meat addiction," he said. "That's part of my job as the psychotherapist of the black market."

    "Wait, if you're a therapist, do you have that confidentiality thing?" I asked. "You know, like what happens in the office stays in the office?"

    "I suppose I do," he said. "Why do you ask?"

    "Could you like, be my therapist?" I asked.

    "You're the first person to willingly accept right off the bat," he said. "But that's why I'm here. Go on."

     I ended up telling the therapist about how I felt from my first murder, hoping that he would be able to tell me why I felt that way. In the end, the panda, whose name I learned was Gouhin, came to the conclusion that I was still going through shock from taking my first life. He told me to return to his clinic after a good night's sleep, then dismissed me.

     By the time I left, the sun was already rising. I managed to steal two quick hours of sleep, but that wasn't near enough, and it showed when I fell asleep in the middle of Algebra 2. A free cups of coffee got me through the day, but I was ready to collapse when school ended.