The Bad Cop, The Good Cop

Jimin was standing by the door of her therapist's office. This was her first time being out of her sister’s house since she got there.

But it had been almost three weeks since and her therapist gave her the option to keep their sessions in Joohyun’s house or finally have it here in her office.

Jimin had been struggling with the decision, but she knew that she wasn’t going to get any better if she stayed inside that room, alone with her dark thoughts.

She knew that doing this was one step, it wasn’t a big one, but it was still something.

“Just take your time, okay?” Jisoo told her gently as she held onto her hand, giving her a warm smile. “I’m going to be here the whole time.”

She looked back at her sister, trying to latch onto the hope she had for her. She needed it. Her sisters were always her biggest source of strength, and she was honestly glad that Jisoo took the time to be with her for this.

Jimin nodded her head and gave Jisoo a small smile. “Okay. Thank you, unnie.” Then she looked back at the waiting area. “You’re not gonna get bored?”

Jisoo giggled and waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll be fine. Plus they have the latest catalog of Vogue, and I need to know what Lisa looks like in it.”

That made her giggle. Her sister was so silly. But it was something and she was thankful for the momentary feeling of happiness.

“Okay, I’m gonna go in now.”

Jisoo kissed her on the cheek and slowly released her hand. “You got this.”

With a breath, she knocked on the door. Dr. Im told her she could go in so she opened the door slowly.

“Good morning, Jimin,” her therapist immediately greeted her with a friendly smile. “I’m glad you decided to see me here.”

Jimin bowed first before stepping in. “Good morning, Nayeon.”

Dr. Im stood up from behind her desk and coaxed Jimin to sit on the couch as usual, she followed, sitting down after Nayeon did.

“Is your sister here?” she asked.

Jimin pointed towards the door. “Jisoo unnie took me this time,” she said, then placed her hands back in front of her awkwardly. “She’s waiting outside.”

Nayeon simply smiled and waited for her to sit down. Once Jimin settled in, her therapist sat up straight, holding the clipboard on her lap. “Alright. How have you been since our last session?”

She took a moment to think. Recalling everything since the last meeting with Dr. Im. It was the other week, and Jimin just talked about Minjeong. And how she missed her.

Then the thoughts of Minjeong made her remember her situation and how she was scared of being herself again.

It was a lot. Jimin was given the chance to speak whatever she felt in her heart, and she honestly was so surprised at how honest she was with everything she said to her therapist.

“The same,” she said, feeling a bit defeated. “If I’m being honest.”

What a weak thing to say. She expected Nayeon to give a disappointing look, but the therapist’s expression didn’t change.

She took the notepad, clicked on her pen and started writing something on it. Then she looked back at Jimin, pen still ready to jot something down.

“Have you been taking the medicine?”

Jimin nodded her head. “Yes.”

“How do you feel?”

Jimin wasn’t sure how to answer that. Did she mean how she felt in general? Or how she felt about the change in her medicine?

It could be a lot of things, but she really didn’t know how to answer it honestly.

“I feel…” She trailed, fingers pressing onto each other to ease her anxiety, but she felt it bubbling up faster than expected because she knew that Nayeon was expecting an answer. “I feel the same.”

Maybe she needed to elaborate on that. But that was really how she felt.

She was hopeful, yes. But if she were to describe exactly what her heart was saying, then it hadn’t really changed since the start.

Nayeon was looking at her, not entirely giving a reaction, but she could also be waiting for Jimin to continue if ever she wanted to explain further.

She wondered if Nayeon was going to be disappointed to hear that. She was aware that most of the things that she wanted to say or could only say was going to be disappointing to anyone, really. And Jimin knew that her therapist had high hopes for her with regards to her recovery and she felt like there was no significant change.

But if she thought about it, she was trying really hard to do something about it. She did.

Finishing her meals, getting out of bed in the morning so she could stretch her legs, fighting the thoughts that barraged inside her head and that made her feel incredibly worse. She drank her medicine religiously and wrote a little bit in the journal that Nayeon gave her.

She could count multiple things she had attempted to do. But for some reason it felt like it wasn’t enough.

Even if she tried, it still didn’t feel like it was. It could be a curse. For her to always think of herself this way. That she could never amount to anything for anyone even if she tried and tried and tried.

But Jimin knew that it helped if she voiced out everything that she felt. Even if she said the same things over and over again. That she already told Nayeon the exact same thing during their last session, she still had to say it.

And that was the only thing she could do, really. She had to try. It didn’t matter how, or where or the way she said it. Even if she could get herself to do it, even if she kept telling herself that it was difficult. That she couldn’t do it on her own or that she couldn’t do it at all.

It mattered to her that she was still trying, and she didn’t want to give up.

But it was also difficult because she was still scared.

She was scared that she was going to hurt the people that she loved and that they wouldn’t forgive her this time around.

Jimin was hopeful, but she was so, so terrified of herself.

Aeri was just twelve when she first moved into Seoul. Her parents decided that traveling around the world should come to a stop knowing that Aeri needed to focus on her studies now that she was growing up faster than they expected.

But it was hard. She never really understood why of all countries, her parents decided to let her stay in South Korea and not go back to Japan. Because she was fluent in Japanese and English, maybe learned a few Chinese words for fun. But she never entered the realm of Korean culture.

So she learned everything from scratch. Her parents enrolled her into extra language classes and such, making sure she would be able to learn as quickly as she could to avoid any inconveniences along the way.

It wasn’t hard for them to just explain to her that it was because of her dad’s work that they had to live in Seoul. She may be young, but she wasn’t that naive nor stupid. Plus, Aeri always believed that she could easily adapt to any environment because of the many times they were traveling from place to place.

Though, she was proven wrong during her first few months of school. She didn’t know that her fellow classmates and students were that mean. They would bully her relentlessly for not knowing the vernacular to a tee. Every day seemed like a battlefield for her. Because she didn’t know when the next time she was going to find her belongings in the trash can or the toilet bowl.

And she would never forget the first time she met Jimin.