Chapter Text
“For someone so assertive at telling the world she’s happy, your eyes are far too empty.”
Misa sat behind the wheel, keeping her gaze on the road ahead. The streetlights slipped across the windshield one by one, briefly illuminating her face before vanishing behind her again as her thoughts drifted to the conversations she had had for the past few months.
“Miss Amane,” the therapist said, “you have nothing to be ashamed about. What you are experiencing right now is a perfectly normal outcome.”
“Normal?”
“Given your situation, yes.”
“That’s comforting,” Misa scoffed. “good to know the complete emotional shutdown is working exactly as designed.”
The therapist exhaled and adjusted her glasses. “People, especially the individuals within your line of work, often reach a point where emotions dull,” she explained calmly. “It’s the mind’s way of coping when things become overwhelming.”
“I’m not overwhelmed,” Misa replied sharply. “I’m just… bored.”
The therapist tilted her head slightly. “Bored with what?”
“With everything.”
Misa stepped on the car’s brake, slowing to a stop as the yellow light counted down to zero and turned red. Her gaze flicked to the passenger seat, where her first Oscars Awards lay carelessly there as if it were nothing more than just an afterthought. A decade ago, she would have done anything for it. But now that she was here, why didn’t it feel the way it was supposed to?
“Three months ago, you described acting as the only thing that made you feel alive,” the therapist said, “and now it’s not anymore?”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
Misa bit the inside of her mouth, and looked away. She didn’t know how to answer.
She caught her reflection in the rearview mirror, then clicked her tongue sourly. Her bright blonde hair, mascara-layered eyes, wine-coloured dress, and deep cherry lipstick all seemed to contrast sharply with what she was feeling inside. Irene had insisted, because in her words “there’s no way you wouldn’t win tonight”, that she should wear red. Red, for all its supposed luck, felt strangely hollow tonight.
“Should’ve worn black instead,” Misa mumbled darkly.
The light turned green, and she eased her foot onto the accelerator and smoothly took the left turn.
“Numbness usually happens when the mind is trying to protect itself from something it hasn’t fully processed yet,” the therapist said again in another session. “Or when there are feelings buried because of the fear of confronting it.”
“I don’t have any of those.”
“Most people who say that, usually do.”
Misa let out a short humourless laugh. “So you’re saying I’m lying?”
“I’m saying you might not be ready to look at it yet.”
The traffic light faded behind her in the rearview mirror as the car rolled through the quiet intersection. The city had begun thinning out, the glow of storefronts replaced by long stretches of dim streetlights.
“You’ve achieved a great deal, Miss Amane,” The therapist leaned back slightly in her chair. “Fame, recognition, success. Sometimes when a person reaches the goal they’ve been chasing for years…”
“They realise it wasn’t worth it?”
“Sometimes they realise it wasn’t the real goal.”
Misa’s fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel.
“That’s a very philosophical way to tell someone their life is meaningless,” she had said dryly.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Close enough.”
Outside the windshield, another set of headlights passed by, briefly washing the inside of the car in white light before disappearing down the road.
“Tell me something, Miss Amane.”
“What?”
“When you imagine being truly happy… what does it look like?”
Misa was slightly taken aback by the question. She opened her mouth to answer.
Then stopped.
Because the image that surfaced in her mind had nothing to do with cameras, red carpets, or gold trophies. She never told the therapist that. Instead she had simply leaned back in her chair and sighed.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”