Rough Day

"A couple of hours hm? I did hear that the games were pretty short, but it's the collection and RNG that makes the time tick away." Ater said, half-focused on the game. And as he said that, he got into another scramble with a bug trainer. It wasn't something that helped his point since those battles were scripted and he couldn't catch anything from them, not like encounters in tall grass.

But as the screen transitioned at the end of the battle, he looked back to Sarah, pulling himself away from the game for a moment to address something she said. "Yeah, I've heard keeping yourself occupied helps with that. But you know... Well, this is a bit early to suggest this since we've just met and all, but if you need an ear to hear you out--" he pointed to his own ears, making them twitch a bit as he offered a friendly chuckle, "--I got two big ones ready to do so.

She wasn't likely to take up the offer, but he wouldn't be able to say he didn't try. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

A deep-rooted trauma, she says? It got the kitsune to wonder what it was she had been through. He had not an inkling, nor the guts to ask right out in such a sensitive time, but he knew she was either making a big deal about something, or it was definitely a big deal, and when people spoke the way she did, with deep sadness with a lot of negativity weighing down her spirit, he knew it couldn't be the former.

The two sides of him wanted to know. One, so he could try and help her work through it, and the other, in order to see how that can be used, perhaps twisted to work for a long-term plan.

Ater was startled when she suddenly grasped her throat, and for a moment, he thought she was trying to act out what that trauma was, but this quickly proved to be wrong as she went for her bag and started digging through it. She told him about her condition with panic attacks, and he halting nodded.

"AA-ah, I see... Sorry, that caught me off-guard. Can I get you anything? Should I take you to the infirmary? Shoot, I don't know what to do in this situation." The last part was supposed to be an inner thought, but it escaped him.

Was there a word to describe this exact situation? Where the one who was having a panic attack was the one telling the other guy to calm down? Maybe, maybe not, but it got Ater to breathe and just observe. She might just be saying that, but he couldn't be sure. If things got worse, he'd have bolted her out of there straight to the nurse, despite what she said.

She apologized and said that she was feeling fine again, which he doubted a bit out of worry. He finally got his nerves in check when she laughed and mentioned how it might have been just as terrifying to witness the attack as it was to experience it. With a sigh as he leaned back, he said, "Woman, you have no idea. I was ready to pick you up and run you all the way to the nurse."

He looked at her for any signs that she was just hiding her panic attack. "So, you're really fine right now, right? Not just playing coy?"

Hip-hip-hooray for drugs then? She seemed fine, but Ater elected not to let his guard down. Otherwise he'd start panicking if she ever starts going like that again, even just slightly. She just took everything is stride though. At least it seemed like it to him, which gave him more confidence that she knew what she was talking about.

Then he heard that things could get much worse. And that attack wasn't that bad according to her. Now that just made Ater want to keep an eye on her in case those happened. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be in that position, feeling like death has come for you and all you could do is tense up.

"How am I? A bit spooked, but otherwise doing fine." He wanted to say something else he was concerned with, but decided not to bring the topic back to that area. "So what class are you in?"