The Weight of Absence
Lately, the counseling office has been busy.
After Berian’s interview appeared in Today’s Mage, the number of people inquiring about counseling had increased significantly.
Some contacted us via griffon for reservations, but others came in person.
“Counseling office? What’s the difference from a resolution office? You don’t find people?”
“We don’t handle missing persons cases separately. It’s a bit complicated to explain……”
“I heard magic power gets stronger here, so I came.”
“This isn’t a place to enhance magic. It’s a counseling office.”
“A customer’s here, and you’re not even serving tea? Hmph.”
“We don’t have anything like that prepared……”
And most of them were so-called ‘troublemakers.’
The troublemakers were mostly mages who, after seeing only Berian’s interview, mistook our counseling office for some kind of magic academy.
That was the better kind. There were also those who came simply out of ‘curiosity’ or ‘to see what kind of place the counseling office is.’
‘……I can’t just dismiss them all as troublemakers. It’s not like they have ill intentions.’
They simply didn’t understand the concept of a ‘counseling office.’
Since they didn’t know, they could misunderstand, and since they didn’t know, they could be curious.
So I couldn’t get annoyed.
I didn’t turn away the people who came to the counseling office. I kindly answered their questions.
“So what exactly is this place?”
“Well… do you happen to know anyone around here who’s suffering from past memories, or suddenly starts shouting or saying things that are hard to understand?”
“There’s always one or two crazy folks like that in the neighborhood.”
Of course, almost no one listened carefully to my explanations.
Even when I tried to explain kindly, they usually just listened with half an ear.
But not everyone was like that.
“Or someone who suddenly stops talking, quits what they’re doing, and locks themselves in their room?”
“……My daughter has been showing those symptoms for a while now.”
“I see. You must be worried.”
“Yeah. She doesn’t even go to work and just stays home like that, for no reason……. Is it, is it serious?”
“No, it’s not serious. Would you bring your daughter here? This is a place that treats people like that.”
One in ten, or maybe one in a hundred.
There are people who desperately need my help.
Even for that one in ten or one in a hundred, I couldn’t stop explaining. If I gave up explaining because it was annoying or tiring, I might miss those one or two people who truly needed my help.
Not all the new visitors were unfamiliar with the counseling office.
Occasionally, there were those who knew exactly what kind of place it was and came here.
“Is this perhaps a hospital that looks after mental health…?”
“Yes, that’s right. Are you here for counseling?”
“Um, is there perhaps a more private space besides here…?”
“Of course. Please follow me.”
I took such people to the counseling office, had a brief conversation, and examined them.
“It looks like depression.”
“Huh?”
And most of them had depression.
After receiving the diagnosis of depression, the clients’ reactions were mostly the same.
“Is it serious? I, I can get better, right, Doctor?”
They trembled as if they’d been told they had an incurable disease.
Of course, depression is quite a deadly illness.
It makes things that were once effortless incredibly difficult, causes people to quit their jobs, and can even drive them to take their own lives.
“You’ll get better if you take the medicine and get plenty of sleep.”
“I-is that so?”
But I always explained it in a way that made clients not take depression too seriously.
“Of course, it’s not something that can be cured overnight. Depending on the case, it might take quite a long time to treat.”
“Ah……”
“Some days it won’t feel so hard. Other days it might be especially difficult. There will be times when it seems like you’ll get better soon, and times when it feels like it’ll never get better, like an endless void.”
I didn’t make it seem completely light either.
“What’s important is that you recognize that all those days are part of the process of getting better. You have to believe that you’ll definitely get better someday. Then you will.”
Depression only begins to heal when it’s perceived as ‘something that will eventually disappear completely.’
If it’s seen as ‘a shackle that will never go away’ or ‘an incurable disease that will ruin my life,’ depression won’t disappear.
That’s what depression was like.
It seems trivial at first glance, so it must be taken seriously, but because it’s serious, it must also be treated as if it’s nothing. Only then can it be cured.
“Hoo……”
I finished today’s busy schedule and let out a sigh.
There weren’t that many clients, but today felt especially tiring.
‘It must be because there are so many new clients. After all, there’s a lot to explain to the new ones.’
I closed my eyes and rested for a moment. Fatigue rushed over me so suddenly that I felt like I might fall asleep.
Then I sensed someone’s presence and opened my eyes. Before I knew it, Eris had come out of the preparation room and was staring blankly at me. When our eyes met, she flinched in surprise, her shoulders twitching.
“What are you doing over there?”
“Weren’t you sleeping?”
“I wasn’t. I was just resting my eyes for a bit.”
“Ah……”
Eris nodded, then stood there without doing anything in particular, staring blankly at me again.
I wondered what she was doing, but…… it wasn’t the first or second time Eris acted like this, so I just let it be.
As I closed my eyes again to focus on resting, I felt a presence once more.
When I opened my eyes, Eris was pacing in front of me again.
“……What have you been doing since earlier? It’s distracting. Do you have something to say?”
“About what I mentioned last time. I think we need to supplement our human resources to run the counseling office smoothly.”
To run the counseling office smoothly…… what?
“Ah, staff?”
“Yes.”
It was a problem worth considering.
Until now, since there weren’t many clients, Eris and I alone had been enough.
But recently, with the sudden expansion of the counseling office and Berian’s interview, word had spread, and the number of visitors had increased.
If things continued like this, two people wouldn’t be enough.
‘We’ll have to hire a receptionist eventually.’
Someone to explain to visitors what the counseling office is.
If there was such a person, I could focus entirely on counseling as well.
‘We seem to need a security guard too.’
As the number of visitors increased, so did the troublemakers, so we needed a security guard to maintain order.
Using my connections with Chief Justin, I could call in investigators from the Public Security Bureau in emergencies. If it came down to it, I could step in myself.
But I couldn’t do that every time.
There were visitors who crossed the line just enough that it was awkward to call investigators or for me to intervene directly.
‘And once the inpatient ward becomes active and grows, we’ll need nurses to manage the ward. As the scale increases, we’ll also need a caretaker to manage the entire building……’
That was still a story for the distant future.
The urgent needs were probably a receptionist and a security guard.
“I’d like to hire too, but there’s no one.”
“No one?”
“We can’t just hire anyone.”
Even hiring a single receptionist required considering many factors.
“First of all, it has to be someone who clearly understands what the counseling office is. That way, they can explain to visitors what kind of place it is and what counseling is.”
The same went for a security guard.
The security guard I wanted wasn’t simply someone strong. Suppressing situations with violence in emergencies could be handled by Public Security investigators, or at worst, by me.
What the counseling office needed now was someone who could calm down troublemaking customers with an imposing tone.
Not with violence, but someone who could quietly handle troublemakers with words and presence.
“So, someone who can create order with presence alone, not violence. It would be good if they’re large and intimidating-looking, but unlike their appearance, patient and upright in character.”
Eris’s gaze as she looked at me was piercing.
“You’re really modest. You don’t ask for much.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“Obviously.”
I had nothing to say when she was so straightforward.
“……Still, I have to hope for at least this much. It’s better for me to do it myself than to hire someone incompetent.”
I had to be careful when hiring staff.
Why? Because what I was running was a counseling office.
‘Among the visitors, there are also clients who need counseling.’
They might be sensitive, anxious, or depressed.
It required much more careful and individualized service than other industries.
“For a while, it’ll just be you and me working.”
“Until we find someone worth hiring, yes.”
It was tough, but for now, I could handle being both counselor, receptionist, and security guard alongside counseling. Though it would mean cutting back on sleep and wearing my body down a bit.
‘Well, if I get too sleepy, I can just drink a bit of stimulant……’
I fiddled with the stimulant I always carried in my pocket, Call of the Dawn.
Meanwhile, Eris seemed lost in thought.
Soon, her eyes widened as if something had occurred to her.
“Teacher, has that person not been coming lately?”
“Who? If you say ‘that person,’ I don’t know who you mean.”
“The one who’s been coming to the counseling office for a long time. The one who was large and intimidating-looking. I think he said he was a hunter.”
“Draksan?”
Eris pondered for a moment before nodding.
“That seems right.”
“Now that you mention it, you’re right. Draksan hasn’t been coming lately.”
“Was his treatment finished?”
“No.”
No matter how much I racked my memory, it was certain.
Draksan’s symptoms hadn’t been completely cured.
In the first place, Draksan’s symptoms weren’t something that could be easily cured.
“……Why isn’t he coming?”
A sense of foreboding washed over me.
If a client suddenly stopped coming to the counseling office, there were two possibilities.
‘First, their symptoms were completely cured, so they no longer needed to come to the counseling office.’
People with mild depression often stopped coming to the counseling office like this after getting better.
I didn’t worry too much about cases like this.
‘……Second, their condition worsened so much that they couldn’t even visit the counseling office.’
The problem was this second possibility.
When their condition worsened so much that they didn’t even have the energy to come to the counseling office.
For example, when depressive symptoms became so severe that the desire for treatment itself disappeared, or when anxiety or panic disorder made going out impossible.
In Draksan’s case, the latter was more likely.
“When Draksan last came to the counseling office, his symptoms hadn’t improved at all—they’d actually gotten worse, right?”
“I barely managed to stop him from attacking you, Teacher.”
“Yeah. There’s no way someone like that got better overnight…… It seems like something happened and he can’t come to the counseling office……”
Draksan was suffering from ‘Intermittent Explosive Disorder.’
Though not official, it was also widely known as ‘anger management disorder.’
What people didn’t know was that those with intermittent explosive disorder often also suffered from depression or anxiety disorders.
Intermittent explosive disorder didn’t have a very good reputation.
It was probably because people often saw neighborhood thugs saying ‘I have anger management disorder’ while causing trouble everywhere, only to bow their heads obediently when facing someone stronger.
But people who truly suffered from intermittent explosive disorder, unlike those thugs, charged at others regardless of whether they were strong or weak.
Their anger couldn’t be controlled by reason or circumstances.
That’s why it was a ‘disorder’—because it couldn’t be controlled.
After explosively releasing anger due to uncontrollable impulses, they might feel relieved for a moment, but soon depression and emptiness would set in.
It was because of the self-blame of ‘I couldn’t control it again.’
‘And if the anger unique to intermittent explosive disorder turns not toward others but toward oneself……’
There was a risk of self-harm or self-injury in mild cases, and in severe cases, even extreme choices.
“……I need to go check on him.”