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SUGURU'S MEMORIES — PART FOUR

featuring — professor geto and professor gojo

summary — long before it all fell apart, they were just two surgeons leaning on each other to make it through the night. suguru, too tired to keep pretending he was fine; satoru, too reckless to admit he wasn’t. between aneurysms and clipped sutures, they joked like brothers and bled like men who knew the crash was coming. and then she arrived, and nothing between them stayed the same.

word count — 12.8 k

note — this memory flashback is for my ongoing medical AU series. if you've been following "remedies & reasons" and "symptoms & causes," this is a glimpse into the past of our beloved characters from suguru's pov. while it can be read as a standalone, it's best enjoyed as a reader of the main storylines.

warnings — angst, graphic surgical detail, substance use, addiction, smoking, unrequited feelings, guilt, parental neglect, mental health struggles.

author's note — welcome to the last part of suguru's memories ! it's been a lot of fun to write about their past from suguru's point of view. this chapter is more like the beginning of the story when s&c reader enters the picture. hope you enjoy <3

masterlist + playlist + ao3 + support my writing

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I stretched my arms over my head, my spine cracking loud enough to startle the nurse on the other side of the break room.

Twenty hours into a twelve-hour shift yet again, and I was running on caffeine, a stale protein bar I found at the bottom of my bag, and the vague promise of mortality being optional if you just drank enough terrible hospital coffee.

I should really start saying no to these weekend shifts more often. But then some idiot thought it was a good idea to steal a streetlamp, crash into a guardrail, and end up with two broken legs and a mild concussion and somehow it became my problem to fix. God, I hate teenagers.

I checked my phone. A couple texts from her. She was still interested in observing some surgeries next week, undeterred by the last... incident.

But there was something achingly familiar in her persistence. She reminded me of how I used to be before bureaucracy and disappointment burned the joy out of me.

I should probably warn her that Satoru’s leading next week’s surgical block. Maybe tell her to sit this one out. Or tell him not to be an asshole about it. But I guess it’s easier to warn her than telling Satoru to shut his mouth for once.

Get ahead of the inevitable disaster or so. Satoru misinterpreting her curiosity as arrogance, her calling him a megalomaniac, him calling her insufferable, and me standing between two egos with an open skull bleeding out on the table all while the nurses pretend not to stare, wondering if we’re about to throw punches over the operating field.

In all our years together, I rarely saw anyone get under Satoru’s skin like she did. It was... funny, in a morbid sort of way. Maybe “funny” wasn’t the right word. Fascinating, definitely. Concerning, certainly. Watching her hold her ground against him, watching him actually listen. No one else managed that. No one else ever had.

I made a mental note to reply to her later, when my brain wasn’t functioning on fumes. Running these marathon shifts was killing me, but what else was new?

Suddenly the door to the break room swung open and Satoru walked in. He kicked the chair opposite me out with one foot, and dropped into it with a long sigh.

“You look like shit,” he said.

“Good to see you too.” I didn’t bother to lift my head from my coffee.

“You know, normal people sleep when they’re tired. You should try it sometime.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“At this rate, that’ll be Thursday.”

I shot him a flat look. “Optimistic. I was aiming for Wednesday.”

“Seriously, Suguru. Keep this up and the hospital’s gonna start confusing you for a patient.” He leaned back lazily, arms folding behind his head. “Want me to wheel you into the ER? Get you a nice little ID bracelet?”

“If I collapse, just bury me in the break room. Save everyone the paperwork.”

Satoru laughed and tipped his chair onto two legs like he wanted to be the next head trauma in the ER. “Tempting. Always said you belonged here.”

“Dead?”

“Chained to your job. Same thing, really.”

“You’re more chained to this job than I am.”

“Am I?” He reached over to steal my coffee and took a sip before he made a face and shoved it back at me “God. How do you drink this shit?”

“Years of practice,” I said, reclaiming the cup. “Like tolerating you.”

He laughed at that. A real one, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes. It dragged my attention up from my cup for the first time.

He looked good, put together, like always, but his eyes gave him away. Dark around the edges, duller than they should’ve been. And there was stubble along his jaw, like he hadn’t bothered pretending he had time for anything as ordinary as shaving. I’d known him too long not to notice.

“How was your last case?” I asked, taking another sip of that out of this world awful coffee.

Satoru groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “Teenage boy. Fifth concussion tonight. Decided it was a brilliant idea to skateboard down the parking garage ramp at three a.m.”

“Kids are fucking stupid.”

“Yeah. I hate them,” Satoru agreed, slumping further in his chair. “When I was their age, I at least had the decency to do dumb shit alone and suffer in silence. Not make it my mission to annoy every doctor within a ten kilometer radius.” He huffed out a breath. “And guess what, I let one of the new kids close after a basic craniotomy yesterday and it fucking looked like frankenstein. I had to rip out every stitch and redo the whole damn thing. Took longer than the actual surgery.”

“You’re too hard on them. Remember when you convinced me to break into the anatomy lab so we could practice sutures on the cadavers?”

“And we got caught by Professor Yaga? He was so impressed with my technique he let us off with a warning.”

“He was impressed with my technique. You were butchering that poor dead guy worse than whatever killed him in the first place.”

“Lies and you know it.”

“In your dreams,” I said.

He nudged my chair with a lazy little kick. “Says the guy who can’t tie a one-handed knot to save his life.”

“I did one last week,” I said. “During that carotid repair.”

“Video or it didn’t happen.”

I rolled my eyes, but I was already fighting a smile.

We were in our thirties now—on paper, respected attendings with research grants and titles and all the shit of adulthood. But at the core? We were still those two idiots from university, trading punches over textbooks and racing each other to finish anatomy labs. Still never letting the other win too easily. Still measuring ourselves by each other’s standards, like we didn’t know how to stop.

We weren’t just friends. We were brothers, shaped by decades of pushing each other, challenging each other, holding each other accountable in ways no one else could. And looking back now, I realize it was this—this stupid, effortless banter in break rooms reeking of bad coffee—that mattered more than anything else.

Because everything else changed. People left. Dreams cracked under the weight of reality. Even we weren’t the same in the end. We’d seen each other at our worst. At our breaking points. And still, somehow, we stayed.

And maybe I didn’t know how to say it at the time, but I was grateful. Grateful to have something that didn’t shift under my feet. Grateful to have him, exactly as he was.

Even when I wanted to strangle him. Which, let’s be honest, was often.

I was about to throw something appropriately cutting back at him when both our pagers went off at once.

“Ruptured aneurysm. Emergency transfer from Central. ETA ten minutes,” I read aloud, exhaustion shoved aside in an instant.

“Race you to the OR?” Satoru was already on his feet. “Winner gets to clip.”

“This isn’t a game, Satoru,” I said, even as I stood up too. He knew exactly which buttons to push to get me moving.

“Everything’s a game if you’re good enough at it,” he said, already backing toward the door. “And I’m very, very good.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” I muttered, but my feet were moving. “Last one there buys drinks at Joe’s after shift.”

“Deal.” And then he was gone.

I knew he’d take the main corridor, so I cut through Radiology— fifteen years in this place, and I knew every shortcut like the back of my hand. Besides, Satoru couldn’t resist slowing down to flirt with half the staff. His personality always cost him time.

I half-jogged down the hall, dodging a startled tech pushing an EKG machine. I could picture Satoru doing the same on the opposite side, both of us too proud to full-on sprint but pushing the definition of “brisk walking” to its absolute limit.

I rounded the last corner into the surgical wing just as Satoru appeared from the other side. Our eyes met across the hall, both of us pretending we weren’t breathing harder than we should be.

“Nice of you to catch up,” he called, speeding up the second he realized it was going to be close.

We hit the scrub room door at the same time, shoulders bumping hard as we both tried to squeeze through. Grown men. Respected neurosurgeons. Still acting like fucking kids.

But that’s how it’s always been with us. And maybe, after everything, I was glad we hadn’t changed that much.

Ten minutes later, we were standing side by side at the scrub sink, aggressively soaping up to our elbows, neither of us willing to admit our race had ended in a tie.

“Fifty-eight-year-old male,” Satoru said, his voice shifting from playful to professional. I’d heard these rapid shifts a thousand times before, but somehow, I still can’t quite get used to it. “Previously diagnosed with an unruptured aneurysm in the anterior communicating artery. Opted against preventive surgery last year. Ruptured during his grandson’s baseball game.”

“Classic subarachnoid hemorrhage presentation,” I continued, rinsing my arms under the water. “Sudden onset of the worst headache of his life, nausea, photophobia, brief loss of consciousness. Glasgow Coma Scale 11 on arrival.”

“Could be worse.”

“Could be better.”

Despite the constant back and forth, there was a rhythm to us when we worked. Instinctive, seamless, like speaking a language only we understood. Years of moving in sync, of filling in each other’s gaps without even thinking about it.

“The surgical approach is straightforward,” Satoru said, already slipping into the next step of planning. “Pterional craniotomy for access. Quick entry, minimal retraction. The bleed’s localized—we need to work fast.”

“The real challenge’s the temporary occlusion,” I added, catching his eyes in the mirror. “The clip placement has to be perfect on the first try. No margin for error.”

“Exactly why I should do it,” he said, scrubbing meticulously between each finger. “My hands are steadier.”

“I’ll believe it when you stop tripping over your own arrogance.”

“Says the man who’s been awake for what, twenty-four hours? When’s the last time you actually slept, Suguru?”

The use of my first name caught my attention. He only did that when he dropped the act and let the real concern slip through.

“I got a solid four hours yesterday,” I said, which was only a slight exaggeration. “Besides, I’ve operated on less.”

“Yeah, and I still have nightmares about that corpus callosotomy you nearly botched.”

“I didn’t botch it. The patient had an anomalous venous drainage pattern. Not on the pre-op imaging.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” He grinned, but it faded quickly. “For real, though. You good? If you need me to take lead, I will. No gloating. No bullshit.”

For a second, I wanted to be offended, but one look at him told me this wasn’t about ego. It never was, not when it counted. Maybe that’s why we’d made it this far.

“I’m good,” I said. “We’ll follow protocol. First scrubbed gets primary. Second assists. Fair?”

“Fair,” Satoru agreed, nodding once. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “She’d love that,” he added, almost offhand.

“Who?” I asked, though I already knew.

His hands slowed under the water for a second. “The first-year.”

“You’re talking an awful lot about her lately.”

“She’s different.”

“In a good way?”

“I don’t know yet. She irritates me, I guess.” He glanced out through the scrub room window, where the patient was being sedated. His face softened almost imperceptibly. “Talks too much. Wants too much.”

“I thought you liked dedicated students.”

“It’s not the same.” He shook his head slightly. “There’s something about her… I don’t know. She’s the kind of crazy who might actually love this shit.”

“What, aneurysms?” I rinsed the soap from my arms, glancing at him sideways.

“Yeah,” he said. “The blood, the pressure, the stakes. All of it.”

I watched him a beat longer. And it hit me. “Don’t tell me you like her.”

“Huh?” Satoru looked up at me, genuinely startled.

“You don’t like anyone, Satoru,” I said.

It wasn’t an accusation, just a fact. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen Satoru pursue anything beyond distraction. A warm body, a clever smile—enough to pass the time, never enough to stay. Real connection was messy. Complicated. It asked for things Satoru didn’t know how to give—honesty, vulnerability, the kind of weakness that comes from being seen.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel. He just never let anyone close enough to prove he did.

“I like you,” he shot back, smirking.

“You know what I mean.” He did. He just didn’t like hearing it. “You’re not built for... that.”

“For what?”

“Something serious.”

He went quiet, the smirk fading at the edges. And for a moment, I almost felt sorry for saying it. But the truth was, back then, I couldn’t picture him letting anyone close.

I thought about the first-year. Her sharp mind and that steady, unflinching gaze. Stubborn enough to stand her ground against either of us without blinking. Too stubborn for her own good sometimes.

I’d brought her into our research because I saw potential. Not so she could become Satoru’s newest obsession.

“She’s a student,” I added. “And way younger than you. Stay away from her if you can’t control yourself.”

He didn’t say anything. But the slight furrow in his brow told me the warning had struck a chord. Even if I already knew he wouldn’t listen. Satoru never could resist crossing the lines he wasn’t supposed to. Especially when I was the one who drew them.

A nurse stuck her head into the scrub room. “Aneurysm patient’s in OR 3. Prepped and ready. We need you both now.”

I rinsed the last of the soap from my arms and reached for a towel. Satoru was still scrubbing between his fingers, slower than usual.

“Looks like you’re assisting, genius,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, but he didn’t argue.

Rules were rules. Even for him. Or at least, I hoped they still were.

We pushed through the double doors into the OR, the conversation shelved for now but not forgotten. The room was already in motion—scrub nurse arranging instruments, anesthesiologist monitoring vitals, residents hovering like satellites around the table and trying to look useful. The familiar chaos of an emergency procedure.

As we moved to our stations and started gowning up, Satoru leaned in. “I don’t like her. For the record.”

“The fact you’re bringing it up again makes me doubt that,” I muttered, sliding my arms into the gown the nurse held open.

“I just wanted to be clear.”

“You’d better be,” I said, as gloves snapped over my wrists. “You know I’m her mentor. You mess with her, you mess with me.”

“I’m not gonna do anything.”

“Good.” I stepped toward the table. “Just try to get along with her without making it weird.”

He took his place across from me, checking the drapes, scanning the tray like he hadn’t already memorized the layout. Then, casually—too casually—he asked, “Did she say anything about me?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Anything.”

I hesitated, grimacing slightly as I thought back to last week when she came storming into my office, furious after one of Satoru’s lectures. She’d ranted for nearly twenty minutes about his condescending attitude and insufferable teaching methods, and I’d nodded along, pretending to listen, when all I really wanted was to go home and not deal with either of them. It struck me then that they would probably never get along.

It would have been almost funny, if dealing with the two of them wasn’t already giving me gray hairs.

I never even considered that he might really do something as stupid as pursuing her. How wrong I was. How wrong we all were, about what would unfold between them.

But there were more pressing matters at hand.

I reached for the first instrument and noticed it immediately—the slightest trembling of my fingers. Not enough for most to see. But enough for me. Enough to matter when you were working millimeters away from catastrophic brain damage.

Satoru saw it too. Our eyes met across the table. We didn’t need to speak. Years of working together had carved that silence between us into something functional.

I made the decision before I could overthink it.

“Satoru, take the clip.”

“What?”

“Your hands are steadier today. I was up all night with that trauma case. You lead the clipping. I’ll handle exposure.”

“You sure?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” I said.

The patient came first. Always. Satoru didn’t argue. For all his showiness and ego, he knew when to shut up and work.

“Alright, friends,” he called out, voice bright and commanding as he turned to the room. “Let’s save a life today.”

****

Hours later, I was slumped in a chair in the surgeon’s lounge, filling out post-op notes with handwriting you’d barely be able to make out the actual words anymore. But the patient would live. He’d go back to watching his grandson’s baseball games. And despite the exhaustion dragging at every cell in my body, despite having to let Satoru take the lead—it still felt like a win.

Second later, Satoru strolled in, dark blue scrub top replacing his usual white coat, carrying two cups from the decent coffee shop across the street.

“Peace offering.” He sat one down in front of me. “Figured you could use something better than whatever swamp water they brew here.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Just one brilliant neurosurgeon appreciating another.”

“Thanks.” I took the cup, sniffed it suspiciously, then took a sip. “And... thanks for earlier. For not being a dick about the clip.”

Satoru dropped into the chair across from me. “Don’t mention it. I would’ve done the same if the positions were reversed.”

“Would you, though?”

He paused, then grinned. “Probably not. I’d have milked it for all it was worth. ‘Remember that time I saved your patient because your decrepit hands were shaky as fuck?’ I’d never let you live it down.”

I tossed my pen at him. He caught it without even blinking.

“But seriously,” he said, tossing the pen back onto the table. “It takes guts to make that call. Not everyone would put the patient ahead of their pride.”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s just what you’re supposed to do.”

Satoru’s phone lit up then, the screen facing up on the table beside him. I glanced at it—just out of habit—but the name froze me for a second.

Gojo Kenichi. His father.

“You’re not gonna get that?” I asked, nodding toward it.

Satoru didn’t even look. Just reached over and flipped the phone face down. “Nope.”

“That’s, what, the third call today?”

“Fourth. He’s been on my ass about some board seat opening up. Wants me to step in, get involved with the hospital leadership. I told him I’m not interested.”

“He’s not the type to drop something just because you said no,” I said. “You know that.”

Satoru scoffed. “Yeah, well, fuck him.”

I watched the way he pressed his thumb against the side of his phone, not hard enough to crack it, but like he wanted to.

Gojo Kenichi had spent most of Satoru’s life pretending his son didn’t exist. Cold dinners. Missed birthdays. Praise handed out like corporate notes—rare, impersonal, and always transactional. Satoru had grown up in that absence, carving out space for himself in the absence of anything resembling paternal affection.

And now, when his name opened doors and his reputation meant something, the old man wanted him close. Not out of love. Not even guilt. Just strategy.

It wasn’t surprising. But that didn’t mean it didn’t cut deep.

Satoru always acted like it didn’t bother him. Like he’d long since written them off, scrubbed them from the list of things that had any power over him. But I’d seen it—the quiet after another award, another publication, another impossible case pulled off with grace—and still no call. No pride. Only silence.

He’d never asked for their approval. But I guess that didn’t mean he hadn’t wondered what it would feel like. But then Satoru shifted the conversation like he always did when it got too real.

“How’s your mom?”

“She’s good. Still teaching pottery classes twice a week. Says it keeps her young.”

“Sounds like her.” Satoru gave a faint smile. “And Hanami?”

“She’s seeing someone,” I said. “Some guy from her work.”

It was still strange, seeing my sister as an adult. All independent and such. And yet, some part of me, the part still stuck in big brother mode, didn’t like the idea of anyone getting close enough to hurt her.

“She sounds happy,” I added.

“You met him yet?”

“Not yet. But I will.” And I didn’t have to say the rest. He already knew. If the guy so much as made her cry, we’d both be knocking on his door. Probably without knocking.

Satoru laughed under his breath. “If he hurts her—”

“I know,” I said, smiling despite myself. “We’d both break his face.”

Satoru leaned back, studying me like I was some post-op complication. “If she ever gets married you’d need a plus one, you know?”

I groaned. “Not this topic again.”

“You still seeing that radiologist?”

“Ended it last week.”

“Oh?” One eyebrow lifted, just enough to be annoying.

“I can’t handle it,” I said. “Working twelve-hour shifts and then going home to talk about work some more. I need a few hours a day where no one says words like ‘subdural hematoma’ without making me want to jump out a window.”

“Poor you.” He tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Might want to consider dating someone normal for once. You know. Nine-to-five job. Doesn’t know what a ‘laminectomy’ is.”

I let out a dry laugh. “Hard to meet anyone when you never leave the building.”

“Fair point,” Satoru conceded, sitting up to take a slow sip of his coffee. “When was the last time you went on an actual date? Outside the hospital, I mean?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“That long, huh?” He grinned. “You know they invented this thing called dating apps? Even someone like you could figure it out.”

“And deal with people who want a free diagnosis for their second cousin’s mystery headaches? Yeah, no thanks.”

Satoru laughed. “God, we’re pathetic, aren’t we?”

“Speak for yourself. At least I’m not drooling over a student.”

He blinked, and for a second, he looked like a spoiled brat who’d just been caught in the act. “I’m not drooling over anyone.”

“Right,” I said, drawing the word out deliberately.

“I’m serious, Suguru.”

“So am I.”

I leaned forward slightly, locking eyes with him. “I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re lying. You don’t ask if someone’s said anything about you unless you care.”

“I was making conversation.”

“Twenty-five years, Satoru.” I let out a sigh. “Twenty-five years, and I’ve never once heard you ask about anyone’s opinion for the sake of ‘conversation.’”

He stared into his coffee, suddenly quiet. But then, “Even if I was interested—and I’m not saying I am—nothing’s going to happen.”

“Because you know better, or because you’re afraid?”

His head snapped up. “Since when did you become my therapist?”

“Since your taste in women started threatening both our careers.”

“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Is it? You know what happens when attendings get involved with residents. Now imagine what will happen with a students. Committees. Reviews. Research grants getting jeopardized. You know how it is.”

“Nothing’s happening,” he said firmly, but he couldn’t quite meet my eyes.

“Keep it that way,” I told him. “She’s too good to get dragged into hospital politics. And you’re too good a surgeon to throw your career away over an infatuation.”

“She’s not an infatu—ah, forget it.” He shook his head and pivoted hard. “The patient’s post-op scans looked good. Clean occlusion. No signs of vasospasm.”

“Yeah.” I let him change the subject. “Your clip placement was solid.”

“Our work,” he corrected. “Your exposure was textbook perfect. Couldn’t have done it without that.”

“We’ve always made a good team,” I admitted, “when you’re not being an insufferable ass.”

“And when you’re not being a self-righteous prick,” he countered, but he was smiling now.

We fell into an easy silence, the tension bleeding out. Outside the window, the sky had darkened completely. Another day ending. Another life saved. The rhythm of our existence.

My pager buzzed sharply against my hip, slicing through the quiet. I checked it and sighed. “Trauma coming in. Car accident.”

“Want me to take it?” Satoru asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve got it. You’ve done enough showing off for one day.”

He grinned. “There’s no such thing.”

I grabbed my coffee, heading for the door. Behind me, Satoru called out.

“Suguru.”

I paused, glancing back.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t thank me,” I said. “Just don’t be stupid.”

“No promises.”

And that, I thought as I hurried toward the ER, was what worried me most.

****

Satoru and I never fought over women. It was the one unspoken boundary we never crossed, even through all the rivalries, the challenges, the years of pushing each other to the edge. Until I brought her into our lives. And suddenly, the one line we’d never dared to touch was the one that cracked everything open.

I still remember the moment I realized she wasn’t like the others.

After calling in more favors than I want to admit, I got her into the university. In the middle of the year, with a full scholarship and a decent apartment within walking distance of campus. You don’t want to know how many board members I had to charm, bribe, or threaten to make that happen.

But I did it without hesitation. Because she was worth it. I knew it the second I walked her through the university’s halls, through the lab that had taken me years to build from nothing.

Takuma Ino, one of my better postdocs, was hunched over his workstation when we came in, still beating his head over with the same neural interface glitch that had been killing us for weeks. Feedback loops that turned signal clarity into static. A problem so maddening it made you feel dumber every time you looked at it.

I was halfway through giving her the standard tour when she stopped walking. Eyes narrowed, focused not on me but on the code running across Ino’s screen. Without asking, she crossed the room and leaned over his shoulder.

“Your feedback loop,” she said after a moment, finger hovering above a block of code. “You’re treating synaptic plasticity as a constant, but it isn’t. It follows a logarithmic decay curve, not linear. That’s why your model keeps destabilizing.”

Ino looked up, startled, ready to dismiss her. But then she grabbed a marker and started writing on the whiteboard.

“See?” she said, her tone almost impatient. “If you adjust for the temporal variation here, and introduce a compensatory algorithm along this pathway”—her hand moved swiftly, the calculations appearing almost faster than I could follow—“the feedback stabilizes.”

It was quiet.

Ino stared at the whiteboard, then at his screen, then back again. His mouth opened like he meant to argue, but nothing came out. He punched in her code, line by line, and almost immediately, the system stabilized.

“Holy shit.” Ino turned to her. “How the hell did you even see that?”

It hit me then. She wasn’t just smart. She had that rare kind of brilliance you couldn’t teach, the kind Satoru always had, like it was wired into his bones.

Watching her work felt almost painfully familiar. That restless energy. The refusal to accept limitations just because someone older and supposedly wiser said so. The way her mind jumped three steps ahead because it simply couldn't help itself.

It was like staring at a younger version of Satoru. Before everything. Before the expectations. Before the pressure. Before the drugs and the endless weight of being extraordinary.

I told myself bringing her onto the project was purely practical. Her talent was exactly what we needed. When I introduced her to our team, I thought nothing more of it. She was a student—promising with a sharp mind, an investment in the future of neuroscience, if you want to say so. Nothing else.

But maybe that was part of it too. From the very beginning, there was an ease between us I couldn’t explain. Some unspoken closeness that usually took years to build. Maybe she felt familiar because, in some strange way, she was. Some part of me, the part shaped by decades alongside Satoru, recognized her before I even knew what I was seeing. And by the time I realized how close I’d let her get, it was already too late to pull back.

I wasn’t surprised by how Satoru reacted the first time I brought her into the OR. What surprised me was what happened after—when she answered his question without flinching, no hesitation, none of the nervous stammering his presence usually provoked.

To be fair, I thought he’d hate her. She was exactly the kind of student he couldn’t stand—young, stubborn, brilliant enough to know it, and not afraid to challenge authority. The type who walked into a room already convinced they were the smartest one in it.

Normally, Satoru would’ve chewed someone like that up just to prove a point. Call out their poor logic in front of a full OR, pick apart flawed reasoning until the student couldn’t tell if they were still breathing or not. He hated arrogance in people who hadn’t earned it. Hated it more in students who thought they had.

But she wasn’t like the others. She was smart. Not loud-smart or textbook-smart, but sharp in a way that cut straight to the core of a problem. And beneath the confidence, there was control. Restraint. A precision Satoru usually only found in himself.

I’d expected whiplash. A clash. Maybe even the start of his usual fallout he saved for students who thought they were smarter than they were that usually ended with someone crying in the stairwell. But this time?

I didn’t see annoyance in his eyes. Or disdain. I saw interest.

That’s when I knew something was off.

Twenty-five years of friendship teaches you how to spot the shift. The tells he didn’t know he had. With Satoru, it always started the same: left eyebrow, not the right—meant he was surprised. Then the tilt of his head, just slightly, like he needed a new angle to understand what he was looking at. Meant he was intrigued. Then came the narrowing of his eyes.

Meant he was interested, and he didn’t like it.

In all our years together, I'd rarely seen Satoru truly impressed by anyone. He was always the smartest person in the room. Always ten steps ahead. Already bored with the conversation before it began. Students, residents, even other attendings—they were predictable variables to him, operating inside a system he'd already solved.

But she wasn't. She was the first unsolved problem he hadn't already dismissed. I could count on one hand the number of times that's happened.

I knew he hated it and when he repeated her name, I knew we were in uncharted territory. Satoru didn't bother learning names unless they mattered. Unless the person behind them had somehow breached his indifference.

I'd brought her into our world thinking I was nurturing a promising student, advancing our research and all that. I hadn't realized I was introducing Satoru to the one person who might actually be able to reach him—and break him.

Looking back now, I wonder if I would have done anything differently had I known. Probably not. Some chemical reactions are inevitable once you introduce the right elements.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Satoru getting obsessed with puzzles was nothing new. I figured he’d treat her like any other complex problem—fixate until he cracked the code, then lose interest once the mystery was solved.

I’d seen this pattern play out countless times. A weird case, a challenging research problem, some theory that didn't fit his understanding—he’d drive himself crazy figuring it out, barely eating or sleeping until he could explain it. Then he’d move on to the next thing, always chasing that hit of solving what nobody else could.

I thought she’d be just another challenge for him, that his intensity would push our research forward, maybe even teach him some humility along the way. God knows his ego could use it. But that wasn't how it turned out in the end, was it?

After the surgery I asked him what he thought of her and he said he hated her. I laughed at the time. Maybe because we were both tired after another long shift, maybe because it was actually funny how easily she could get under his skin.

I’ve known Satoru since we were kids. I’ve seen him flirt with countless women, date casually, charm his way through every social situation without breaking a sweat. But I’d never seen him react to anyone the way he reacted to her.

I guess I should have paid more attention. Because the signs were there. The way he’d actually show up on time to meetings she attended. The way he’d listen when she spoke instead of cutting in with his usual impatience. The way he’d argue with her for hours, not to prove himself right like he did with everyone else, but because he actually cared what she thought.

By the time I realized what was happening, the chemical reaction was already well underway. Unstoppable. Irreversible. And I had been so focused on protecting her from hospital politics, from career pitfalls, that I completely missed the more obvious danger.

Satoru Gojo falling for her.

And maybe worse, her falling for him too.

In the beginning, I told myself it didn’t bother me. I was her mentor. Her professor. And the pride I felt when she cracked a difficult equation or solved a problem I’d spent weeks chewing on was professional. Satisfaction in a promising mind. Nothing more. And for a while, that was almost true.

Those early months were some of the best I can remember. Working with her, working with Satoru—it felt easy in a way nothing had in years. Like back at the pond with Eri. Like how it used to be before the weight of everything twisted us into who we’d become. We balanced each other without needing to name it. Pushed each other without ever pushing too far. A perfect team.

But then I caught myself staying later than I needed to just to keep the conversations with her going and discussions that started with data points and neural algorithms slowly slipped into literature, philosophy, stories I hadn’t told anyone in years. I told myself it was harmless. That it was good she challenged me. That I just appreciated the company.

“You’re working too hard,” I said one night, finding her still in the lab long after the others had left.

“Not hard enough,” she said.

I should’ve told her to go home. Told her to rest. Be smarter. Be careful. Instead, I said, “Let me buy you dinner.”

And that night over two bad vending machine sandwiches in the cafeteria became the first of many. Late meals in the break room. Research papers passed between bites of cold noodles. Debates over sugary energy drinks at the crack of dawn. Somewhere between the lab work, we built something else. Something I pretended was just mentorship.

But something shifted, whether I wanted to see it or not.

The way she bit the inside of her cheek when she was reviewing results, like she was holding back a critique she hadn’t finished formulating yet, or the way she tilted her head or tucked her hair behind her ear when she was thinking.

All of it snuck in slow. Quiet. Dangerous in its subtlety. And I was too far in before I realized it.

I’d always taken pride in knowing myself. Even as a kid, when Satoru was burning too bright for his own good, I was the one keeping our feet on the ground. I stayed calm when the system chewed him up. I cleaned the mess after his recklessness left fallout. I was the constant. Predictable. Controlled.

But this... this wasn’t something I could name. Couldn’t put it in a folder and file it away like a case note or a data set. It didn’t behave. It crept in sideways.

I felt it the first time her hands lingered on mine after a surgery that had wrung everything out of me. It had been a long one—some nightmare of a cranial bypass that pushed the team to its limit and left me standing at the scrub sink after, gloves still on, feet numb, mind somewhere stuck on the final suture like it mattered more than the air in my lungs.

I didn’t hear her come in. Didn’t register her presence until her hands reached gently for mine. She peeled the gloves off slowly, carefully, like it mattered that she didn’t rush. Like she knew how tightly I clung to function when everything else started to fray.

She had handwritten notes with her—probably meant to ask something about the experiment we’d shelved that morning—but she dropped them on the edge of the sink without looking, and the pages slid into the basin. Water bled across them. Ink smeared into nothing. She didn’t notice. Or she did, and didn’t care.

She stepped closer and rose slightly onto her toes to reach the back of my head, fingers tender as they untied the knot of my mask, and for one second, just one, I wanted to pull her close and not let go.

Her chest brushed mine as she leaned forward, barely a breath of space between us as she undid the second knot. But she didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. Unbothered by the mess of me. And it hit me then—how close we were. How close I’d let her get.

She pulled the mask away, setting it aside, and finally looked up at me. Not with concern. Not even with pity. Just a tiny smile and that calm attentiveness she always carried, like nothing escaped her notice and none of it scared her. And for a heartbeat, I forgot every reason I wasn’t supposed to feel the way I did.

I must’ve made it back to my office eventually. I didn’t even remember the walk. A knock stirred me sometime later.

I blinked against the dim light, my neck stiff from where I’d passed out on the office couch. Someone had draped my jacket over me. I didn’t remember doing that.

The door creaked open and a nurse stepped in with a clipboard in hand. “Sorry, Dr. Geto. Post-op reports from the OR.”

I sat up, muttered a thanks, took the clipboard. She left without waiting for more. I flipped through the pages—scanning vitals, surgical notes, post-op instructions. And then I saw her signature. Tucked at the bottom of the last page.

She’d taken care of everything.

Post-op orders. Equipment logs. Medication sheets. Follow-ups scheduled, rooms cleared, the whole chain managed in silence while I’d been unconscious and useless in my own office.

She wasn’t authorized to handle most of it. Technically. But when you work under the two neurosurgeons who run half the building, people stop asking questions.

She hadn’t left a note. No message. Just her name on the page. And that’s when I felt it. Not the slow pull I’d been pretending wasn’t there. Not the vague irritation I’d mistaken for protectiveness. This was different. Clearer. Sharper. Unignorable.

I felt something for her.

I didn’t name it then. Didn’t let it bloom into anything that could be spoken aloud. But I knew. I knew it the way you know a fracture by the way the bone holds wrong, the way the body tells the truth before the mind catches up.

It stayed quiet, buried under all the roles we were supposed to play—professor, mentor, colleague. It wasn’t loud. But something had shifted. And I wasn’t the same after that. Not really.

I told myself I could handle it. That it didn’t mean anything. But deep down? I already knew better. But what can you do when you realize your best friend since childhood feels the same?

And worse—when she does too?

I noticed it the first time she laughed, really laughed, at something Satoru said. We were in the lab well past midnight after another failed run, everyone tired and a little on edge. Satoru cracked some stupid ass joke, I guess to lighten the mood or whatever, and everyone laughed in that weird way you do when you're running on four hours of sleep.

But her laugh was different. It was the kind of sound that didn’t care who was listening. She threw her head back, wiped at her eyes. It wasn’t even that funny what he said, really. But the way her eyes found Satoru’s across the table, like no one else was there—it stuck. And I felt it then. This strange pull in my chest.

I told myself it was nothing. That I was tired. Overthinking. As if I didn’t know myself better than that.

But the feeling didn’t go away and I noticed it more and more—in small moments, mostly. Like how her gaze lingered on him when he wasn’t looking, how his attention always found her voice first and how he’d finish her sentence when she stumbled through explaining her thought process, or how she’d quietly slide her notes over for him to see—like it was natural to share everything she was thinking.

None of it was obvious, and maybe that’s what made it worse. It crept in, slow and silent, like a shift in gravity I couldn’t prove but couldn’t unsee either.

One night, when we were supposed to be reviewing data in his office, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You’ve been staring at that photo for ten minutes,” I said, finally, after watching his eyes drift to the same spot over and over again.

Satoru was slouched across from me, elbow on the desk, gaze flicking toward the framed picture on the shelf. It was our research team—a random picture we took a few weeks ago. But he wasn’t looking at the group. I didn’t need to ask who his eyes kept landing on.

“It’s a good picture,” he said.

“Good picture, or someone good-looking in it?”

“You’re reading too much into it.” And the way he said it told me everything I needed to know. Too quick. Too flat. Dismissive in that way Satoru only got when something did matter, and he didn’t want anyone to see it. “Let’s call it a night.”

Maybe it was those small, fragile feelings I didn’t want to name that made it worse when our research project fell apart. Not just because of the failure itself. But because of everything it dragged up with it.

****

By the time surgery day arrived, it felt like we’d been holding our breath for weeks. Our neural interface project had drawn serious attention—journalists, specialists, the kind of people who only showed up when something was either about to change the field or crash spectacularly. If it worked, it would redefine prosthetic integration. If it didn’t, it would be our greatest failure.

Very publicly.

The stakes couldn't have been higher.

That morning, the observation gallery was packed. Doctors. Investors. Even a few camera crews. I’d never seen so many people in one place all pretending they weren’t secretly hoping to witness a train wreck.

We scrubbed in quietly, running through steps we’d memorized a hundred times. She stood next to me, her movements steady as ever but I caught the shift in her breathing, the slightest pause before she pulled on her gloves. Something in the way she adjusted her mask a second time, even though it didn’t need fixing.

“Nervous?” I asked.

She glanced over. “It’s not every day you have an audience like this.”

She was usually the composed one—the calm in any storm, the person who double-checked everything without making it look like she didn’t trust you. Seeing her even a little unsettled did something strange to me. It caught me off guard. Melted something tight and quiet in my chest.

“Remember, they’re here to witness history, but we’re here to make it,” I said, trying to reassure her with a confidence I wasn’t entirely feeling. “We’ve prepared for this. We’re ready.”

She gave a small nod. Nothing flashy, but it was enough. I told myself the words were for her, but I think I needed to hear them just as much.

Just before we entered the OR, I caught her glance up toward the gallery—and I didn’t have to follow her eyes to know who she was looking at. But I did anyway.

Satoru was there, watching her with this look I’d never seen before. Open. Soft. Proud. Something passed between them I wasn’t meant to witness. I felt it twist in my chest, but I pushed it aside. We had work to do.

The rest... I don’t want to think about too closely anymore. The procedure fell apart—nothing connected the way it should’ve, and all our adjustments failed, one after the other.

Then the seizure started.

She left the room when it happened. I don’t blame her for it. She was still young, still is. Probably too young for all what he dragged her into.

I can still see her face as she backed away. Guilt, shock, something close to grief. I wanted to go after her, but I couldn’t—not until we stabilized the patient. By the time I could leave, she was already gone.

I was worried about her. I knew how much she carried, how seriously she took our work. How much it meant to her—same as it meant to me. And here’s the fucked up part: I stopped being worried the moment I saw Satoru leave the gallery the second she stepped out of the OR.

I knew he’d find her. Knew he’d care for her. That should’ve made me feel better. And it did. That was the worst part.

Because yeah, I wanted to be the one to reach her. To say the right thing. But I was also... relieved. That she wasn’t alone. That he could give her what I didn’t know how to. It’s a strange thing, envy and relief, sitting in the same breath.

Afterwards, I smoked. A bit. A lot.

I ended up on the hospital’s back balcony—the quiet one, where no one bothers you if you look like you don’t want to be found.

Failure wasn’t new to me. Not really. Not in this line of work, where even your best isn’t always enough. I’d read the papers, heard the lectures, told myself all the right things—about resilience, about learning from mistakes, about how medicine is as much loss as it is progress.

But none of that helped.

I hated this feeling.

Not in the abstract, not in the intellectual sense. I hated the actual texture of it—how it crept in behind your ribs, how it clung to your skin long after the day ended. I hated the silence after it was over, the way no one said what they were really thinking. The way people looked at you—too gently, like you might break.

And worse, the way you started to look at yourself.

There’s a particular kind of helplessness that comes when you do everything right, and it still fails. When you know the procedure, follow every step, and the body still betrays you. When you’re left standing in an operating room full of people, heart pounding, hands steady—but nothing works.

You can be brilliant. Focused. Meticulous. And still lose.

And that shit rots something deep inside you.

Every time it happens, it chips away at that quiet voice that says you’re good at this. That you’re meant for this. And eventually, you start to wonder if the voice was ever telling the truth.

I lit cigarette after cigarette because I didn’t know what else to do with the failure sitting in my chest, taking up all the space where certainty used to be.

Smoking’s always been my one visible vice. I know exactly what it’s doing to me. But knowledge doesn’t beat habit. And this one’s been with me since forever.

That was always the difference between Satoru and me. He tore himself apart out loud—painkillers, chaos, pushing boundaries until someone noticed. I hid mine in discipline, in routines, in quiet control. But maybe it came from the same place. Maybe we weren’t so different after all.

I was on—I don’t even know what number cigarette—when I heard the door behind me click open.

Her eyes were red, and I hated that I hadn’t been the one there to wipe her tears. And worse—I hated that it wasn’t really my place to want that in the first place.

I asked if she’d cried. Stupid question, I know. But I asked anyway, hoping maybe she’d say “no, I didn’t cry,” and tell me it was just the cold or lack of sleep, or something other that would make all this feel a little less like failure.

But she didn’t say anything. Just looked down at the cigarette in my hand, then at the pile of crushed butts by my feet. I followed her gaze and realized for the first time how many I’d gone through.

I asked if she wanted one. Another stupid question. Like what I needed right now was to drag someone else into nicotine addiction as well. Still, I would’ve given her one. Might’ve even lit it for her, let my hand brush hers for longer than I should have and stayed that close until everything stopped hurting.

But she told me they weren’t good for me, and I almost laughed. Compared to whatever pharmaceutical Satoru was running on these days, cigarettes felt like fucking herbs.

I lit another one.

Then I asked the real question. The one I hadn’t said yet. If she was going to join him—Satoru, I mean—on his version of the neural interface project. Because I knew he was waiting. Knew he’d never liked my cautious models, never trusted slow progress when reckless innovation could give him a bigger headline. He’d been waiting for a moment like this, and I knew he’d take it.

And I knew she wouldn’t say no to him.

So no, her answer didn’t surprise me. She didn’t say yes—but she didn’t have to. I saw it in her eyes. Eyes say more when you’re trying not to give anything away.

And she wasn’t giving anything away.

Not to me, anyway.

The days after the failed surgery were quiet in the worst way. I threw myself into work—consults, lectures, anything that let me keep moving, my hands busy and my mind elsewhere. Satoru, meanwhile, wasted no time pushing forward with his own version of the neural interface—an aggressive approach I’d argued against for months. But to my surprise, Yaga approved it.

And she joined his team. Not a surprise.

I told myself it made sense. She wanted results. He offered results. I was still stuck on protocols and review cycles and playing things safe.

Weeks went by. I pulled back from research altogether, telling myself I needed the distance. That it was temporary. That I'd get back into it once I'd processed the failure—my failure. But if I was honest, I was just avoiding them.

Avoiding the sight of the two of them hunched over the same terminal, finishing each other’s sentences like it was easy. Avoiding the way she smiled at him without thinking. The way his hand would rest on the back of her chair when he leaned in to explain something.

Avoiding the truth I didn’t want to name, if I’m being honest. She’d chosen his approach over mine, his mentorship over mine. His presence in her life over mine.

And yeah, it stung professionally. Of course it did. But that wasn’t the part that kept me up at night. The part I couldn't shake—the part I couldn't say aloud—was that I was jealous. Not of the data, not of the credit, not even of the results.

Of him.

I’d developed feelings for my student. Lines I knew better than to cross had started blurring in my head long before the surgery fell apart. And when she chose him, it wasn’t just my work she stepped away from. It was me.

And feelings like that don’t disappear just because you know you’re not allowed to have them. They sit with you if you want them or not. And the fucking worst was the irony of it all. Becasue for years, I’d been the one reining Satoru in. The one reminding him where the lines were. Pulling him back from the edge every time he veered too close.

Now, I found myself envying his recklessness. His ability to reach for what he wanted, no matter how messy or stupid. While I stood still, choking on restraint.

That was the thing, wasn’t it?

I'd built my whole identity around control. Around being measured, professional, precise—in the OR, in the lab, in life. I was the one who made things work, who kept the foundation from cracking while Satoru thrived on chaos. He didn’t just ignore lines—he redrew them in real time, and somehow people always followed. Professors, patients, students. Her.

And I’d been okay with that, or at least convinced myself I was. I told myself we needed that balance. But lately, I wasn’t so sure anymore. Because control, as it turns out, doesn’t always get you what you want. It gets you stability. It gets you respect. It gets you responsibility and silence and an inbox full of things no one else wants to deal with. And Satoru?

Satoru got the girl.

And it’s so fucking funny becasue I was the one who reminded him not to cross that line, while I was the one choking on it. Every glance I didn’t hold too long. Every comment I didn’t let slip. Every feeling I folded down into something clinical. I didn’t act on anything. Of course I didn’t.

And yet, he did. Or maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe it was just that he existed so loudly, so brilliantly, she couldn’t help but orbit him.

And I stood still. Careful. Quiet. Watching.

Always watching.

Yet even as I envied him, I worried for her. Because I knew what came next. I’d seen the pattern before and it always ended the same way. And when they left—or when he left them—he acted like it didn’t matter. Like he hadn’t let another person see the soft part of him and then pushed them away before they could hurt him.

And I didn’t want her to be his next casualty. Yet I couldn’t say any of it. Because who was I to say anything at all?

So I kept my distance. Watched from the sidelines as they drew closer, while I drifted quietly further away from both of them. Not all at once, not because of some big thing or betrayal, but in the way erosion happens—slow, silent, unremarkable until one day there’s a canyon where there used to be solid ground.

Satoru and I had made it through worse, or at least I thought we had. But something between us shifted during those weeks. It wasn’t just professional disagreement anymore. It was the lack of unspoken understanding—the confidence we used to have in each other’s decisions, the sense that we were always moving in the same direction, even if we took different paths to get there. And maybe that’s where it began to fall apart—

No.

Stop that.

I’m doing it again, right?

Spiraling into theories won’t change what happened. And this isn’t about rewriting cause and effect like I’m still in the lab trying to model failure from a cleaner angle.

Back then, I didn’t even know what the hell I was feeling. Not really. I shoved it down, put my head down, did the work. Surgeries, lectures, data sets. Keep moving, keep pretending. I told myself that was control. That was maturity.

What a fucking joke.

But it worked. For a while, anyway.

I was fine.

Or close enough to pass.

****

A few weeks later, I was back on my feet like nothing had happened. Same routine, same grind.

The day had started with an emergency craniotomy—unexpected, complicated, and the kind of case that demanded more focus than I had to spare. I got through it. Barely.

No time to breathe afterward, either. I was shuffled straight into a lecture hall full of third-years who couldn’t tell a cerebellum from a cortical shadow. Did my duty. Explained what they should’ve already known. Answered questions that made me question the curriculum, and walked out more drained than I’d been in weeks.

Back in my office, I had a stack of exams to grade. Underwhelming essays, mostly. I’d planned to get through them quickly, head home, maybe eat something that hadn’t come out of a vending machine or been reheated twice.

I was halfway through an agonizing essay in which the student confused the amygdala with the hippocampus when the knock came.

“Come in,” I said, not looking up.

The door opened, and then a voice: “You forgot this.”

I glanced up when Dr. Kimura stepped in, holding my jacket. “You left it behind after your lecture. I figured if I didn’t grab it, one of the students would.”

I blinked, a little disoriented. I hadn’t even realized it was missing.

“Thanks,” I said, rubbing at my face. “Appreciate it.”

Mio Kimura was the new head of pharmacology, sharp in every way that mattered, with a clinical wit and a kind of elegance that didn’t falter under pressure. We’d sat on a few panels together, shared the occasional tired conversation between meetings. Always professional. Always polite.

“Long day?” she asked, as she set the

“Emergency surgery this morning. Then three hours of students asking if dopamine is a hormone.”

She huffed a small laugh. “Ah, the future of medicine. We’re in such good hands.”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning back. “Just hoping I’m not the one they’re operating on when the time comes.”

“Morbid optimism.”

“After three hours of explaining basic neurochemistry to students who should know these things by now, it’s hard not to be a little pessimistic.”

Kimura smiled and shifted her weight, one foot to the other, then, “You know... that thing with the neural interface—no one blames you.”

“I wasn’t asking for absolution.”

“Didn’t say you were,” she replied. “Just... don’t let one failure rewrite everything that came before it.”

I don’t know what hit me wrong about her words. Maybe it was just that strange effect that sometimes well-meaning words have.

Recovery had never been my strong suit. Satoru? He failed fast, laughed louder, moved on like gravity never quite reached him. I didn’t bounce. I absorbed. Dissected every error until it calcified into something permanent. Scar tissue, but in my head.

It made me precise, but never light. And lately, never enough.

I knew she wasn’t trying to cut. She was being kind—the same way a few others had been lately. A few too many glances from colleagues. A few too many “you okay?” between passing small talk. I thought I’d been hiding it well. Apparently, not well enough.

“I know,” I said. “But thank you.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Kimura said after a moment. “Would you like to get dinner sometime? There’s a new place downtown I’ve been wanting to try.”

A simple question. Uncomplicated.

Under different circumstances, I might’ve said yes. She was everything I should’ve wanted—intelligent, respected, and didn’t ask for more than you were willing to give, but offered enough to make you consider giving it anyway. But I hesitated. Maybe if it weren’t for her.

“I’m flattered,” I said carefully. “But I’m not looking for anything serious.” Which was a lie. I just didn’t want anything serious with Kimura.

Her mouth twitched but she covered it quickly with the grace of someone who’d been told no by sharper men than me.

“It doesn’t have to be serious,” she offered. “Just dinner.”

And I did think about it. Longer than I probably should have. Maybe it would help. A reminder that I could still sit across from someone and talk about things that weren’t broken. A chance to remember what normal human interaction felt like. But even as I entertained the thought, I knew I wouldn’t be able to show up fully. Not with everything else going on around me.

“I don’t think I’d be good company right now,” I admitted, and for once, the honesty felt harder than any excuse would have.

“No need to apologize,” she said. “The offer stands if you change your mind.”

She made it to the door, paused, and looked back. “For what it’s worth, Geto—most of us still consider you the best surgeon in this hospital. One bad outcome doesn’t change that.”

With that, she was gone.

And I was left sitting there, staring at the door like it might open again and offer some version of comfort I’d actually know how to accept.

Most of us still consider you the best surgeon in this hospital.

It should have meant something. Probably did. Coming from someone like her, it wasn’t just a kindness. She was not one to bother with empty praise. But I couldn’t believe it. Not really.

Not when all I could see was the seizure. The neural interface spiking red warnings across the monitor. The patient’s body convulsing on the table while I stood there, two seconds too slow. Not when I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes after it was over. Not when the patient’s life slipped through my fingers while the gallery watched from above like it was a performance.

Best surgeon in the hospital.

What the hell did that even mean, when it still wasn’t enough?

I rubbed at my temple, trying to silence the noise in my own head, but the thoughts kept circling. What if it wasn’t just one mistake? What if I’d reached my limit and didn’t know it yet? What if all this time, I’d just been good at hiding the cracks?

What if Satoru really was the better one? Not just louder, not just flashier… but braver? Willing to try what I wouldn’t? Willing to ask for what I never let myself want?

I shoved back from my desk, hard enough that a pen rolled off and clattered to the floor. And then, before I could get a breath—

The door burst open again.

Satoru didn’t knock. Of course he didn’t. His shirt clung to him with sweat, hair damp, breathing sharp like like he’d just sprinted across campus. Running clothes, no bag, no effort to clean up before barging in.

He dropped a stack of papers onto my desk without so much as a greeting. “Need your opinion,” he said. “We’re almost ready for the first trial, and Yaga’s on my ass to move faster.”

This was how it had always been. Him crashing through the door like a storm, disrupting whatever I was working on (not that I was working on anything, but that’s beside the point). Once, that energy had been familiar—welcome, even. These days, it felt more like a burden I wasn’t sure I had the energy for.

“You just ran five kilometers to ask me about this?” I said, already reaching for the pages.

“Twenty,” he corrected, pacing across my office like standing still for too long might kill him. “Couldn’t sit still. So? What do you think? Are we ready?”

I scanned the printouts. Protocols, projected success rates, surgical outlines—his typical brilliance, structured just enough to pass inspection, reckless enough that I could already see where the risk lived.

“The approach is strong,” I said slowly, “but there’s still a risk of—”

“Yeah, I know. But we’ve mitigated that with the new algorithm,” he cut in, barely listening. His pacing didn’t stop. “I need to know what you think. Honestly.”

He’d been working out more lately. Not that it was my business but he looked like he hadn’t stopped moving in hours. And he kept flexing his fingers like they couldn’t quite settle, like there was too much electricity in his veins and nowhere for it to go.

“You’ve been working out more,” I said, careful not to make it sound like anything more than an observation.

“Helps clear my head.”

“Clear it of what?”

He froze for a sec. “What do you think? My mind keeps going to her. I try to stop it. I really fucking try. But it doesn’t—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I just can’t.”

That irritated me. Not because I didn’t already know, but because he never said things like that out loud. Not to me. Not to anyone.

“So... cardio,” I offered, dry.

“Yeah. Since the kind of cardio I actually want to do isn’t an option.” He laughed and scrubbed both hands through his damp hair, gripping it at the roots. “And jerking off just makes it worse.”

I winced—the last thing I wanted to think about was him jerking off to the thought of our student. “Jesus, Satoru."

“I know—sorry. But I can’t stop. I don’t even know what the hell she did to me. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it myself.”

For a second, I thought he might actually have a mental breakdown right there in my office. I didn’t want to feel sympathy. But I did. Because the truth was, I understood. More than he probably realized. That feeling of wanting something you’re not allowed to want.

“Satoru—”

“I know what you’re going to say. And don’t worry. I’m not pursuing her. I swear. I just need… distraction. Something to keep me from doing something stupid.”

He said it like a promise. But it didn’t sound like one.

Satoru had never been great at restraint—especially not when it came to the things he wanted. Arguing with him would’ve been pointless. It always was. You push Satoru directly, and he digs in out of sheer spite. The only way to steer him was sideways.

“Let’s get coffee,” I said, already pulling on my jacket. “You can brief me properly once you stop dripping sweat all over my office.”

Five minutes later, we were parked on one of the benches outside the university cafeteria. Same place we’d always gone, years ago, when we were just two overconfident med students who thought the world would rearrange itself around our brilliance.

Satoru had a coffee and some sugary abomination he probably stole off a children’s menu. I had an espresso and a headache.

I flipped through the research while he watched students pass like he wasn’t seeing any of them. The data was good—annoyingly so. The risks were still there, but minimized. Her handwriting. I knew it. They’d made progress. Real progress. And as much as I wanted to pick it apart, I couldn’t.

“You’re ready,” I said eventually, closing the file. “Your approach is solid. So why the hell are you this nervous? That’s not like you.”

He didn’t answer right away. Just stared into his cup like it might give him the right words. The usual arrogance was gone, or maybe just thinned enough for the truth to bleed through.

“I can’t fuck this up,” he said. “Can’t stand seeing her cry. Not again.”

It wasn’t about the research. It never was. His fingers tightened around the cup.

It was strange seeing him like this.

The man sitting next to me wasn’t the boy who used to light firecrackers in the faculty lot or argue with professors just to prove he was smarter. He wasn’t even the surgeon who once walked out of a failed procedure and still managed to charm the review board into doubling his grant.

But I'd never seen him like this—so completely, utterly in the grip of something he couldn't control. Not even during the worst of his addiction. And that was saying something.

“You’re really gone for her,” I said.

Not a question. He didn’t bother pretending otherwise. Instead, he set his coffee down and turned toward me.

“I never apologized to you.”

“For what?”

“Everything. You’ve always stuck with me, even when I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t mean to steal your research. Or her.” He hesitated, which wasn’t like him either. “I just… I saw a chance to do something right.”

Satoru didn’t apologize. Not with words. His remorse usually came in the form of overcompensation—buying a coffee he’d pretend was for himself, fixing problems he caused without ever acknowledging them aloud. He’d make grand gestures when no one was watching and act like they meant nothing.

But this—this was an apology. Maybe not a clean one. Maybe not even a fair one. But it was as close as he could get. And I didn’t know what to do with it.

“It’s fine,” I said, because that’s what you say when you don’t know what else to say. “Just don’t mess it up.”

We both knew I wasn’t talking about the research.

“It’s not fine. I know you’re still pissed about your research failing. You don’t show it, but I know you. I know the bug boy’s still in there somewhere, taking notes on all the ways this went wrong.”

“I’m not a bug boy anymore, Satoru.”

“Maybe not. But you’re still you. Still carrying failure like if you punish yourself hard enough, it’ll change the outcome.”

I glanced sideways at him. “Sorry I’m not out there running twenty kilometers like a maniac to sweat out my trauma.”

“Ouch.” He let out a low huff, not quite a laugh. “I’m gonna let that slide because you’re a dumbass. And because I deserve it.” Silence, then he added, softer this time, “We really got old, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We did.”

We sat in silence after that. The sun was warm on our faces, the kind of afternoon that softened everything, if only for a minute. And for a second, it felt like nothing had changed. Like we were still just two idiots with too much ambition, dreaming about the future like it wouldn’t one day burn us alive.

Then Dr. Kimura passed by. She gave me a polite nod—nothing more—and kept walking without so much as a glance at Satoru.

“She’s pissed at you, or what?” he asked once she was out of earshot. Satoru had a knack for reading people, even if he didn’t always know what to do with the information.

“She asked me out,” I said. “I turned her down. Wasn’t very subtle about it.”

“You’re always so serious. Would it kill you to let someone like you?”

And I hated how hard his word hit. Let someone like me? As if I had a choice. As if I hadn’t already let someone in, only to watch her fall for someone else. And not just anyone. Him.

Of course it was easy for him to say that. The woman I could barely admit I wanted was already halfway in love with him, and that thought twisted into something ugly. So I shot back without thinking.

“And you don’t take anything seriously,” I snapped. “She’s not just another number in your phone. She’s our student. You don’t get to screw around with that.” And just like that, we weren’t talking about research anymore.

His expression hardened. “I’m not screwing around.”

“You sure? Because it’s not just you who gets burned when it goes bad.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you’re reckless. Always have been. I’ve seen how this goes with you. You want something and then you’d run it straight into the ground.”

He stood suddenly, coffee cup crushed halfway in his grip, liquid sloshing over the rim. “She’s not a fucking fling, Suguru.”

“Then prove it,” I said, rising to meet his eyes. “Prove it by walking away.”

Voices around us dropped. A few heads turned, and you could feel the odd shift in a room when something private becomes a little too loud.

Satoru stared at me. “You don’t trust me.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“You think I don’t care? That I haven’t been trying to get this right—”

His hand suddenly spasmed. The coffee cup slipped, hit the ground with a wet slap, and brown liquid spilled across stone. He didn’t move to clean it up. Just stared at his fingers like they’d betrayed him. The tremor hadn’t stopped.

“How long’s that been happening?”

He didn’t answer.

“How are you, Satoru?” I asked. “Really.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. And you can’t lie to me about this. Not again.”

He turned his hand over, watching his own movements strangely detached. “It’s under control.”

“Is it? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like resting tremor. So, you’re either in withdrawal again or you’ve built up a tolerance so high your system’s folding under the ceiling effect.”

We’d done this before. Over and over. Same goddamn script, same stubborn deflection, same brick wall I kept slamming into like an idiot expecting it to give.

“It’s not that,” he said.

“Then what is it? Sleep deprivation? Autonomic dysregulation? Adrenal fatigue? Hyperthyroid crash? Don’t bullshit me, Satoru.”

“You done diagnosing me?”

“No. Not even close,” I snapped, eyes narrowing. “You’re sweating through your shirt, you haven’t blinked in a minute, and your fine motor control’s shot. You’re in fucking freefall.”

He turned away.

“You really think if you pretend hard enough, no one sees it?” I pushed.

“I said I’m fine,” he snapped. “No need to worry.”

“You’re not fine,” I bit out. “You’re showing classic signs of parasympathetic failure and you’re leading a surgical trial with a patient load that could bury you—”

His gaze snapped to mine then. “Shut the fuck up, Suguru.”

The air went still.

But I didn’t flinch. I just exhaled slowly, centering myself.

Because for him to snap like that meant I’d hit something raw. A nerve. A weak point. And weak points don’t form without feeling. He really did care for her. More than he wanted to admit.

“Listen to me,” I said. “If you get close to her—and she finds out about this—it’ll destroy her and I won’t stand by and watch that happen.” I saw the hit land. Didn’t stop. “So keep your fucking distance.”

He bent to gather the papers he’d dropped, hands still trembling slightly. “Thanks for the advice. But I have it under control.” His voice was clipped. Dismissive. Final. “You should get some air,” he added as he turned. “Run some laps. Heard it helps.”

And then he walked away.

I watched him go, and something heavy settled in my chest, smoldering like the end of a cigarette left for dead.

He wouldn’t listen. He never did—not when it came to the things he wanted. And something told me he wanted her more than anything.

In the end, we were both fools. Him, for chasing something he shouldn’t touch. Me, for pretending I wasn’t reaching for the same thing.

I stayed on the bench long after he’d gone, watching the shadows stretch across the courtyard like cracks in something once whole. My coffee had gone cold. Forgotten. My thoughts circled like vultures and beneath it all, a quiet certainty pulsed like a fault line under my ribs—something was going to give.

Satoru, for all his promises, wouldn’t stay away. I knew that. And when the fallout came, because it would, I’d be left to clean up the wreckage. As I always was.

Maybe this was always going to happen. Maybe we’d used up all our luck.

For years, we walked the tightrope without falling—genius and control, chaos and caution, perfectly calibrated just enough to survive each other. But everything has a cost. And maybe this was ours. Maybe she was the price.

I used to believe we were unshakable. Now I think the crack was always there. Maybe this was the moment it started to give. And maybe the tragedy isn’t that we’re breaking now. Maybe it’s that we thought we never would.

I crushed the empty coffee cup in my hand, tossed it into the bin, and walked away. The courtyard was nearly empty now, all the noise and motion drained away with the light.

Whatever came next, one thing was certain: We couldn’t go back to what we were. And I couldn’t keep pretending I hadn’t already stepped past a line I swore I wouldn’t cross.

There was only forward now.

Into whatever storm waited on the other side.

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author's note — wooaa it's done !! it always feels so good to wrap something up, now i'm back to the familiar dread of having to continue the actual stories oh my haha (and studying for an exam soon, which this was a very convenient excuse to postpone studying for).

i hope you all enjoyed the sidestories of suguru <3 i loved writing them and can't wait to have more air to continue the main stories. as always, thank you so much for engaging with my writing, your messages always make me the happiest. until next time! <3