#ishigaki w/ depression struck me and now i can't stop thinking about it so suffer with me

[norihisahyuga-archived]

Temperance ishinobu

Mizuta will never be used to this. He’s made this drive a thousand times over the last few years it seems, or at least it feels like that even though he knows the number must be well under a hundred. Still, the familiar anxiety that comes with sitting in this exact parking spot and waiting on Ishigaki to come outside and join him never fades or lessens in intensity.

He had been as supportive as he could be, though, and at least he can hold onto that. He might not be able to fix anything— not with the wrong words and the wrong gestures and not really knowing the extent of what Ishigaki had gone through— but he can always make this drive. Ishigaki used to drive himself, but the sessions with his therapist are emotionally draining and in the end the drives back home had become too difficult for him to handle with any kind of ease. So Mizuta had volunteered to drive him even if it meant not knowing how he would be when he came out of the office building.

Being so nervous is unfair, of course. Ishigaki deals with so much worse than Mizuta could ever imagine, and he hardly has it in him to be reassuring after having to lay out his emotions the way he does. So Mizuta does his best to contain it so Ishigaki does not have to worry.

“He’ll be fine,” Mizuta tells himself even though he knows this is not always the case. “And if he isn’t, I’ll just… Find some way to make him feel better. Like I always do.”

He doesn’t, is the thing. Not always. Depending on what mood Ishigaki is in, Mizuta has either succeeded in helping him feel better or failed uselessly in doing anything more than holding his hand or being his shoulder to cry on. This is not always his fault, and he knows this, but he always feels just a little bad about it just the same. If he can’t fix the past so that Ishigaki can have a more carefree future, then he should at least be able to help in the present.

His eyes, trained on the doorway, don’t miss the shift of movement behind the glass front or the moment when it swings open and Ishigaki steps outside. Winter had swept through Kyoto with a vengeance though Ishigaki has left his gloves sticking out of one pocket and only has his scarf hanging around his neck, not wrapped securely around it. His face, at least, looks dry.

Mizuta knows better than to breathe a sigh of relief, though, not yet. Instead, he cleans over the center console and pushes open the passenger side door just before Ishigaki reaches it so he can sit inside. Up close, his eyes are not bloodshot or rimmed in red, and there are no visible tear tracks on his cheeks. Not that this means anything, of course. There are other ways to empty yourself emotionally that have nothing to do with crying, and Mizuta knows all about it.

“Good session?” he asks, trying to keep his voice light and easy.

“Long,” Ishigaki answers, and Mizuta bites down on his tongue, trying to read the thoughts passing through Ishigaki’s eyes when his boyfriend turns to look at him. “Nobu, I…”

He stops and closes his eyes, and for a long moment he says nothing. Mizuta almost thinks he might have forgotten what he wanted to say and dozed off— that would be preferable, actually, he would live in suspense forever if it meant Ishigaki could rest— but the tension lines around Ishigaki’s lips speak more words than his mouth ever could. When he finally sighs and opens his eyes once more, Mizuta is gripping the steering wheel so tight it bites into his fingers.

“It was a good session, all things considered. We talked about a lot of hard subjects, is all. That happens a lot.” Ishigaki tries for a smile and doesn’t quite make it all the way there, but the thought is all that counts. “We talked about you a little bit, too, actually.”

Mizuta blinks at him. “Me? What’s there to say about me to your therapist? Did I do something?”

“Not everything we talk about is bad. He just found out today that you’ve been driving me to these sessions since I can’t really drive myself anymore.” Ishigaki words it carefully, but there is still the slightest weakness in his voice. Shame, probably.

“It’s not really that hard or long of a drive, so. And it helps, right?” Mizuta waits for Ishigaki’s small nod before stretching out a hand, resting it on top of his knee, and squeezing in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. “So I’m happy to help if I can.”

“I know that.” Ishigaki laughs and pulls his scarf off, winding the fabric around his fingers, pulling it taut. “We talked about that specifically. The ways you help me and what you do for me that I can manage things better. Because he asked if you did other things for me, too.”

Mizuta does. Ishigaki has hard days where rolling out of bed and getting to class on time is difficult enough without juggling the other details of his life. So there are days when Mizuta takes care of making sure he actually eats breakfast before leaving the apartment— “I’ll get something on the way to class,” always turns into “I forgot,” without fail, so home cooking is just easier— or texting him when he knows Ishigaki is between classes to ask him how he is, or if he remembers he has another class that day. Little things to make sure he can manage easier.

Still, the thought Ishigaki had been discussing this with his therapist is strange to think about. “Is there a reason he asked that, or was he just making conversation?”

Ishigaki laughs and shakes his head. “No, no he had a reason. He gets onto me about things and wanted to make sure that I was showing you proper appreciation.”

“You always do.” Maybe not in the ways another person would consider to be appreciative, but Mizuta gets more out of Ishigaki curling up next to him after a long day and just leaning on him and whispering “thank you” than he does out of any grand gesture. “Did you tell him that?”

“Do I?” Ishigaki asks, and the light and playful tone drops immediately.

Mizuta stares at him for a long moment before he turns around in his seat, reaching for both of Ishigaki’s hands, twining their fingers together so Ishigaki knows he’s serious. Too often, he lets things slide as jokes, but not this time. “Ishiyan, you always let me know that you appreciate what I do for you. There’s never been a time when I haven’t felt that.”

“Are you sure?” Ishigaki looks uncertain; his eyes drop from Mizuta’s, a sure sign this conversation is intimate and making him uncomfortable, but he finally drags his gaze back up and makes himself focus. “I just don’t want you to think that you have to do these things for me. It helps, but I really do need to learn to do them all for myself.”

That’s fair. Ishigaki needs to learn how to live his life without other people there to make things easier for him, a concept Mizuta understands well because he knows as well as anyone else that there is no real guarantee someone will always be there. One of his kouhai back at Kyoto Fushimi high had been alone once, after all, a story Mizuta remembers being uncomfortable when he listened to it because he, himself, has never been without someone there. His family, and then Ishigaki, and of course Midousuji in his own weird way. Someone has always been there, and so it had been easy for Mizuta to pick up little ways to make Ishigaki’s life easier.

“I understand the sentiment,” he says, running a thumb over Ishigaki’s knuckles soothingly, “but you aren’t alone right now, y’know? You’ve got me here and I like being able to help you.”

Ishigaki sighs, and this time his entire head drops. “I just… I really do appreciate you helping me the way you do. Even if it’s just something like a car ride because driving home was so hard sometimes, especially when I was so tired I just wanted to curl up in a hole somewhere.”

Mizuta remembers those afternoons, remembers looking up from his homework or cooking or the television or video games to see Ishigaki stumble in with bags under his eyes and looking as though every last drop of energy he had had been drained from his body. He also remembers how grateful Ishigaki’s eyes had been, how he had gripped Mizuta’s hands so tightly with both of his, when Mizuta tried to casually mention he wanted to drop Ishigaki off himself.

The excuse then had been that he might need the car. He gave up the illusion a few months later when it became clear he had no intention of dropping the task itself.

“I know you do.” He tries to mean it as much as he can, to put as much sincerity into his voice as possible, and wonders how effective it is. If he sounds as serious as he feels. “I really do know. You do show a lot of appreciation and it means a lot to me.”

Ishigaki takes one of his hands back to run his fingers through his hair, and he looks tired now, looks like he wants to slip between their sheets back home and catch a nap. “I’m glad to hear that. I just… I’m not trying to excuse my behavior. There’s a line between symptoms that are hard to manage and quite literally letting myself become a burden on you.”

“You’re right. There is a line.” Not sugar coating the truth is an important fact that Ishigaki had brought back with him from one session and one that Mizuta tries to adopt because he thinks it might be helpful for Ishigaki to know that Mizuta is aware of the truth. “But you haven’t crossed it. You really haven’t. Like, what’s the worst that happens so far? I talk to you a little more during the day or we eat together. Driving you here hasn’t negatively affected me at all.”

The smile he receives from Ishigaki is warm and soft and it makes his stomach flutter in a way that little else to nothing can make him feel. It seems like just yesterday he had been a stupidly naive kouhai bouncing around behind Ishigaki during their days on the Kyofushi cycling team, trying to win his approval and appreciation without ever realizing why. If he knew they would get this far together, he would have stopped and analyzed his actions sooner rather than later.

Ishigaki yawns, then, smothering the sound with a hand before flashing Mizuta a guilty smile. “Sorry, sorry, it was just a lot in one afternoon. Is there anywhere you want to stop by before we go home?”

The question is an unusual one; Ishigaki almost never asks unless he wants something specifically, and even then he mentions it directly. He must have brought this question with him from his session, an attempt at not just making this trip about him. “Nope. I’m ready to go home. It’s too cold out to do anything anyway.”

He pushes the center console up when he turns back around and is unsurprised when Ishigaki leans across the middle seat, his head resting on Mizuta’s shoulder. The weight is a reassurance in more ways than one and at a red light, Mizuta leans his cheek against the top of Ishigaki’s head to show him that he can feel him there, that he hasn’t forgotten his presence. As if he could ever do such a thing.

They might not be perfect, and things might be more difficult for his boyfriend than they have any right to be, but Mizuta finally finds the ability to relax before he pulls onto their street.

At least, for today, Ishigaki is okay.