Stress Relief: A TGSC Short

HQ – Fitness Floor
Tokyo, Japan
August 2015

“Your form is tenser than usual. Locked around the shoulder area,” Peters noted. He approached A and gently adjusted her figure to the right form, “There. What’s been eating you lately?”

“Work. You know how it gets,” she replied. Peters studied her before asking her to form a punch, which she did. He moved her arm to the right angle, “Too high?”

“Too stiff. You need to relax or you’ll end up splitting your arm and not your opponent’s face,” the other man explained. She gave a huff and nodded, attempting to relax her arm the best way she could. “You never had trouble with simple positioning, A.”

“I know. Shit, right?” she relaxed and stretched, Peters flexing his fingers before starting to stretch his arms in preparation for the next exercise. “When work gets too much, I get tense. Really goddamn tense. Particularly around the shoulder, back, and arm area,” she told him. “Getting massages is a pain in the wallet so I try to calm myself down. But that never really happens.”

“Hence the stiffness.”

“Yeah.” A took a swig from her water bottle, “I thought doing sports would somehow able to lessen the stress.”

“It does if you do it right.” She made a face at him and Peters chuckled, moving into position onto the mat. “Come on. Let’s try that again.”

He attempted to guide her into a quick and easy spar, which A ended up following. Throughout the duration of it, he noticed that she really was tenser than usual – her limbs wouldn’t be as flexible, she’d cringe a little more when throwing a punch – it was like her body wasn’t able to get all the heaviness of work completely out.

They stopped roughly twenty minutes later and A was wiping the sweat off her brow, panting. Peters hardly looked exhausted.

“Tell me something. Is this mental or physical?”

“What?”

“Your stress. Is it mental or physical?”

“I…” she frowned, “Fuck. That’s actually a good question.” He watched as she rose from the mat, having just completed a few stretches to cool off, “It’s mostly up here.” She tapped her temple, “Which leads to my body getting the worst of it.”

“Thinking too much?”

“The case is getting to me,” she admitted. “I need and actually want a break for once. But I can’t – we can’t. You know we have to get this done.”

He did. The whole Squad had been working hard on a particular case the past two weeks. “Don’t you have any spare shit to do when you get stressed? Like some kind of de-stress method?”

She just blinked at him.

“Uh. Touta does tai-chi during the weekends and Mack does word cross puzzles and Sudoku,” he explained. “And I either game or go for a run when I need it. That’s how we de-stress,” he told her. Peters briefly remembered when he had asked the remaining ½ of Squad A how they handled their own periods of mental and physical strain.

(He also remembered how Mack just showed him the two puzzle books stuffed in his workbag. “One of the few Mathematics I genuinely enjoy,” he said with a shrug. Peters wasn’t sure how the older man was able to enjoy 9-by-9 puzzles, but “you do you”.)

“…are you seriously telling me that you have no recreational activity that helps you get out of the stress zone–”

“I read!” she snapped, her face turning an unusual shade of pink. “That counts, doesn’t it?”

Peters didn’t reply. He merely sighed and slid on his gloves once more. “Let’s go through that sparring exercise again.”

* * * * *

“I don’t think she’ll appreciate you searching through her things,” Touta advised. Peters glanced through her notes and flipped through the pages of her sticky notes, trying to look for some kind of clue. “Peters.”

“I’m just looking for a clue,” the American defended. He caught sight of a small, intricately colored doodle on a paper and inspected it closely, “She draws?”

“More like doodles,” Touta noted. “And colors. Find something?”

Peters took a mental note. “I think I did.”

* * * * *

He didn’t know why they were all the rage, but apparently his older brother had been using one, too.

He discovered them through Jake’s Facebook; Peters was scrolling through the internet and looking for potential activities for her when the doctor’s post had caught his eye. On the screen was a picture of two peculiar objects; on Jake’s table were a set of colored pencils and a thick book below. It was opened to a page of birds colored blue and red. The caption read ‘Sunday night stress relief. It somehow manages to work’.

That was how the idea of adult coloring books clicked in his head. Peters messaged his brother immediately after seeing, and the two brothers got into the discussion of coloring books and how they (apparently) worked for him.

            Jacob Peters: It works well if the person gets stressed or pressured easily. When they do, the coloring works like a charm. Who’s this for?

            Samuel Peters: A co-worker. Well. Actually, it’s my squad mate.

            Jacob Peters: Ohh. I see now. :) Well, I recommend it very much. It really does help out a lot. Are they the stressful type?

            Samuel Peters: A (co-worker) is one of the most easily stressed people I’ve come across. Sort of like you when you were tackling med school. :P

            Jacob Peters: Aha. Makes sense. Best of luck to you, Sammy.

            Jacob Peters: PS, mom and dad are asking about you. Email them back.

Buying the items at Kinokuniya was a piece of cake; he easily spotted the coloring books on the ‘bestseller’ shelf and the colored pencils over at the office supplies section. While lining up, he spotted many youths purchasing either the same coloring book or a different one. One girl in particular was having two coloring books gift-wrapped.

Peters prayed that A wouldn’t find the gifts too childlike.

* * * * *

“Just open them.”

“No need to be so pushy,” she sighed. Despite that, A carefully unwrapped the red wrapping paper. “Isn’t it too early for Christmas?”

“I’m going to take those back if you keep complaining,” he half-threatened. Snorting, A continued to remove the paper until managing to remove all of it neatly. Upon seeing the gifts, she was momentarily speechless. Peters gave a shortly nervous laugh and rubbed his neck.

“A – A coloring book?”

“And pencils. Too weird?”

“…not exactly,” she admitted. A opened the book and flipped through the pages slowly, “Why did you get me this?”

He chose not to mention the fact that he snooped through her notes in order to get a clear idea of what she liked to do in her spare time.

“Touta has his tai-chi and Mack has his puzzles,” he explained with a small shrug. “Then I have my running. It’s the least I could get for you. Wouldn’t want our SL to stress herself too much,” he added after with a smirk. A punched his arm but despite that, she was smiling.

“…thanks. That’s really nice of you.”

“Anytime.” Peters gave a salute, “Don’t pay me back. It’s a gift. Use it well, okay?” A nodded and he left her office, pausing right outside her door to hear her open up the box of colored pencils and eventually start to color one of the book’s featured designs.

Not even hiding his satisfied smile, Peters walked off to bother the rest of his teammates and give the Englishwoman some time off.