Counseling: the dishes

"So, I had a revelation just now that led to me asking you to hear me out ..."

Hizashi nodded. "I thought that's what happened." They had retired to the couch, the rest of the dishes left in the rack to air dry. He held her across his lap, her cheek resting on his chest, cuddling on the faded shirt he was wearing.

"Almost every single night of my childhood, my mom cooked meals. We were lower middle class, so we didn't eat out or get takeout a lot."

"Yeah, I hear that." He stroked her short purple hair, listening. She heard the clink of the beaded bracelet he wearing as he caressed her. Comfortable in the arms of her beloved, she continued.

"Meals are a big, sit down event in my family. So this means a lot of dishes - cutlery, pots, pans, you know. My mother didn’t like using the dishwasher - we didn’t have air conditioning, she said it was '<i>too expensive</i>' and the dishwasher '<i>made it too hot</i>' – so someone washed and I had to dry the dishes at night. Every night."

He noticed her ears folding back and her voice growing shaky so he tenderly kissed the top of her head. "That's a lot of nights. I know you lived there until you were at least eighteen."

"Yeah. Um. So, back to the big meals - this meant, well, big bowel movements. Right? Everybody poops."

He chuckled, ruffling her ears. "I'll never forget the first time I had to go when we started living together."

"Oh god, Zashi..." Her lips twitched in a smile despite herself.

"C'mon, it was hard! I had to get used to pooping with someone there."

"I know. It was when you tried to mask all the sounds with loud singing when I totally lost it. I mean, all you could think of was that one silly pop song and it was so - so funny!"

He sang a few lines before he couldn't through his giggling. They both laughed hard, clutching each other and wheezing. When they finally wound down she kissed him softly on the mouth.

"You are so awesome, you know that, Hizashi?"

"Mnn, baby, you're all right. You know <i>that?</i>" He teased her with a poke on the nose.

"Sometimes, when you tell me, I can believe it." She snuggled back in his arms. "Well then, pooping. Heh. Every night as I was finished, my body would have to empty up. I would leave the table ...and it would begin. My mother would start talking very loudly about how I was trying to get out of doing any work. The end result of this was I couldn’t go as fast as I needed, so it would take even longer."

"Oh, yeah," he groaned, rolling his eyes. "An audience is hard enough, but that must have sucked. I mean, you said it - everyone poops. What the hell'd she think you were gonna do, hide forever?"

"Yes!" Her ears snapped upright and she stared at him fervently. "My point exactly. Where the hell am I gonna hide where I can get out of doing them eventually? I lived there! I just had to poop!"

"So much poop talk." He struggled to hold back more laughter.

"I felt like shit at this point, too. Now she had worked up to how bad and disobedient I was. And when I came back it would be even worse. Remember how I said there were tons of stuff to dry? I would get one dish towel. After drying one pot and a plate or two, it would be soaking wet and completely unusable."

"Obviously." He frowned, seeing where this was going.

"So now this became my problem as well. Once more the abuse would start. I was doing it wrong 'on purpose'. I wasn’t <i>stupid</i>, right, anyone could dry dishes, it’s so easy.

"Except I had a sopping wet towel. And getting another towel wouldn’t help, because then it would become me '<i>making a fool out of them</i>', because of course one would need like, five effing towels to dry all the dishes. That’s how many there were."

Hizashi murmured something inarticulate but soothing to mask the confusion he felt.

"At one point I assumed what she wanted was to simply force me to dry each item for an absurd amount of time as torture, so I tried that. She started bitching at me that I was making fun of her, which was so far from what I was doing it was laughable. I was trying to appease her! I didn't know how!"

"I don't think you could, baby," he told her seriously. "Nothing would've been good enough, sounds like."

"I even told her that I couldn't win. I got yelled at if I did them or not, but you know... I always did them. I just tried so hard to be pleasant and happy when I did. She broke me almost every damned night. And if she didn't, my stepfather stepped in harder and then he caused me to snap.

Saying anything at all, even in a mild tone, it didn't matter. I was wrong, I was yelling, and I was a bitch."

He winced. "Uh - did your family call you that?"

Her eyes told him the answer before she could nod. "A lot. Those are different stories, though. We should probably stop here with this one."

"It's up to you, love. So maybe we can use the dishwasher from now on? I doubt it's gonna jack our bill up really high. They're really efficient now." He rubbed at his upper lip, his expression thoughtful. "Oh, and I think someone needs kisses."

"Wh - yeek!"

He grappled her to one side and rolled on top, burying his face in her neck. "Hold still!" His muffled voice whined. "I'm having trouble tickling the crap out of you!"

She wriggled and flailed about comically, shrieking laughter until he was satisfied she had worn herself out of all the bad emotions that night.