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ââ ⢠¡ pairing: kento nanami x gender neutral reader
ââ ⢠¡synopsis: you're broken but unbowed, carrying scars no one dares to ask about. he's brilliant, cold, and somehow sees through your walls. two damaged souls, colliding in a world that wonât slow down.
ââ ⢠¡content: 5.6k, university life, med tech students, slice of life, hurt, comfort, romance, memory loss, unresolved trauma, themes of isolation and social anxiety
ââ ⢠¡author's note: requested by the lovely @izzyisabellend <33
masterlist ⢠part one ⢠next
The campus is too bright.Â
Not in the poetic sense. Not some sun-drenched welcome party with golden leaves drifting down in warm gusts of wind. Noâactually too bright, like the sun has something to prove this morning, clawing its way through the patchy cloud cover and throwing everything into overexposed contrast. Â
The light bounces off pale concrete walls and gleaming windowpanes, catching on the edges of metal railings, harsh enough to make your eyes sting. You squint as you cross through the front gates, blinking hard, disoriented, not from the light alone, but from the way it hits everything with the blinding force of memory.Â
Itâs the exact same cracked sidewalk beneath your sneakers, worn down in that familiar uneven pattern you used to avoid tripping over on late-night walks back from the library. The same ginkgo trees along the east side of the science building, their broad, fan-shaped leaves whispering secrets into the breeze. The same rusted bike rack thatâs been lopsided for at least three years, bent slightly at the base like someone once tried to rip it out of the ground and gave up halfway.Â
But it doesnât feel like a place you actually belong to.Â
It feels like a dream youâve had too many times, one where you know the shape of the buildings and the sound of distant voices, but the doors wonât open and the people donât recognize you. Like youâve wandered onto the set of a film halfway through shooting. You know the lines, the cues, the roles⌠but the timing is off. Thereâs no script in your hand. You are both the main character and the stranger in the crowd.Â
You tighten your grip on your backpack strap, adjusting it higher on your shoulder as if the weight might anchor you to something solid. A breath fills your lungs, deep and bracing, and then immediately betrays you.Â
The scent hits like a punch straight to the solar plexus.Â
Hot asphalt baking beneath your shoes. Damp, trampled grass that clings to the edges of the walkways. That unmistakable sharp tang of burnt espresso drifting from the cafĂŠ on the corner, the one you used to stop at religiously before morning classes, back when you functioned on caffeine and impulse and late-night cram sessions with people whose faces you can barely recall now.Â
The smell is too much. Itâs the echo of an entire life. A whole rhythm and pattern you used to move through instinctively. Midterm anxiety and campus gossip, panicked printer malfunctions five minutes before class. Drinking instant noodles with a plastic fork in the corner of the library. Stretching your legs across a dorm bed too short for comfort. Laughing. Crying. Kissing. Forgetting.Â
Except now, you donât. Not really.Â
Just flashes. Vague, haunting impressions that drift by like shadows under the surface of a frozen lake. You know you were here. You know you belonged here once. But you canât access the feeling of it. Itâs like watching someone elseâs life through a window, forehead pressed to the glass.Â
Youâd rehearsed this moment so many times, pacing the threadbare carpet in your apartment, standing in front of the mirror like it could show you something reassuring if you stared long enough. You memorized your schedule like it was a secret code, clutching it with trembling fingers, repeating under your breath like a mantra:Â
âItâs just school. Youâve done this before. Notes and lectures. Group projects. Pretending to care.âÂ
You even told yourself that thing you always say when shit gets bad: You can fake it. Youâve faked harder things than this.Â
But now, as you step further into the courtyard, your legs betray you, just slightly. A faint tremor in your knees, a whispered rebellion in your calves. The crowd around you moves with casual ease, students walking in pairs and threes, chatting, laughing, some hunched over phones, others rushing to class with earbuds in and coffee spilling from paper cups. They all seem to know exactly where theyâre going. They all seem like they never left.Â
You on the other hand feel like youâve just parachuted into the middle of your own life. No map. No compass. Just muscle memory and a list of class codes you donât recognize.Â
A girl with bubblegum-pink hair passes you without a glance. Her laughter cuts through the air like a blade, easy and sharp. A boy jogs by, late for something, nearly collides with your shoulder, tosses an absentminded âsorryâ over his shoulder like youâre a pole in his obstacle course.Â
No one stops. No one sees you. Not really.Â
And maybe thatâs the worst part.Â
Because you donât want to be seenânot fully, not with pityâbut you donât want to be a ghost, either. Not here. Not on this cracked sidewalk you used to walk every day. Not under these ginkgo trees that once turned the entire street gold in autumn, when someone used to walk beside you, someone you think you remember but canât place, flicking leaves at your head and calling you something half-teasing, half-fond.Â
You slow down near the steps of the humanities building, letting a group of students pass by. One of them glances your way, furrows his brow like you might be familiar, then keeps walking.Â
You take another breath, steadier this time. The kind you use when youâre about to walk into a room where you donât know what version of yourself youâre supposed to be. You steel your spine. You let the sun burn against your face. You take one step forward, then another.Â
Even if the version of you who knew how to belong to this place is gone, this version; this shaky, half-rebuilt, memory-fractured version, is here now. Walking the same path. Under the same sky. Toward something that might not feel familiar yet, but might, someday, again.Â
And maybe thatâs enough for now.Â
Nobody says anything. Nobody stops. Nobody really looks at you. Or maybe they do, maybe they glance, double-take, and then decide itâs easier not to hold your gaze. You wouldnât blame them. Youâre not exactly subtle. You feel like a silhouette at the edge of a photo, just blurry enough to be forgotten. A shadow in the periphery of a memory nobody wants to name.
The girl who disappeared. The girl who reappeared six months later with bandages on her thoughts and scaffolding holding up her smile. Maybe itâs the same face. Or maybe it shifted in the crash, fractured in some quiet, imperceptible way that only makes sense if you knew her before.Â
You keep your head down. Not just because itâs easier, but because the light is too sharp and everything is too loud, and your brain still hiccups sometimes when your heart beats too fast. The breath you take is shallow, lined with static. Your fingers tighten on the fraying strap of your backpack like it might steady you.Â
Your first class is Molecular Pathology II. A re-take. Not for academic failure, because your record is clean, untouched. But for you, it might as well be a blank page. A chapter you supposedly lived through and passed but left no imprint. Â
A class you apparently aced while sleepwalking. The university made it easy. Medical documentation, sympathy-laced emails, polite accommodations. No one fought you on it. You wonder if thatâs mercy or just bureaucracy being kind for once.Â
You find the building by habit more than conscious navigation. Your body moves with a quiet sense of direction that your memory refuses to catch up with, your feet landing on tile you didnât realize you still knew. Inside, the air is cooler, but not in a comforting way, itâs filtered and still, and the buzzing hum of the fluorescent lighting over your head cuts into your skull like a dull, persistent blade. Thereâs an undercurrent of chatter along the corridor, rising and falling in waves as students drift through like the tide, scanning screens and comparing class codes and coffee orders.Â
Your pulse stutters. You pause just outside the threshold, hand hovering near the doorframe like you need permission to cross over. The fluorescent light spills out in a flat, institutional wash, and the room smells like whiteboard cleaner and half-finished ambition.Â
Again, nobody turns. Not exactly. No heads whip around dramatically, no hush falls over the room. But you feel it. The soft shift of atmosphere, the way eyes slide sideways and shoulders tighten, the way voices drop just slightly in volume before picking up again with false indifference. Itâs in the stillness more than the movement. You know how to read that now.Â
You pretend you donât notice.Â
Your gaze sweeps the room, efficient and practiced. You spot an open seat in the far back corner, a perfect out-of-sight place for someone who doesnât want to be seen, who wants to sit in the classroom like a ghost quietly collecting credits. You walk toward it, your backpack brushing your side with every step, the fabric dragging against your hoodie like the beat of a countdown. You drop into the chair with a quiet exhale and keep your spine unnaturally straight, like slouching might invite instability, like slouching might make the whole thing tilt sideways again.Â
You grip the sides of the desk, not enough to shake, but enough to ground yourself, your palms flat on the faux-wood laminate like a ritual. Around you, the students begin to settle, chairs scraping in discordant rhythm. Thereâs the sound of zipper pulls, the clatter of pens and laptops and iced drinks. You are surrounded, but not included. Present, but not present.Â
A whisper, light as thread, cuts through the low murmur of the room.Â
ââthatâs them, right?âÂ
It comes from two rows ahead. A girl with blonde hair leans in toward her friend, cupping her hand near her mouth in the universal sign of gossip. You donât have to strain to hear them. Youâve learned how to hear things people donât want you to.Â
âFrom the accident,â the second girl replies, more quietly, like the word itself might jinx something.Â
âNo, they don't remember anythingââÂ
You turn your head. Slowly. Precisely. You donât rush it. You meet her eyes with deliberate stillness, raise your eyebrows ever so slightly in a gesture that doesnât need words.Â
The reaction is instant. Like flipping a switch. Both girls look away, one of them biting her lip, the other shrinking slightly in her seat. Their whispering stops. So does the staring. At least on the surface.Â
You go back to facing forward, eyes fixed on the whiteboard at the front of the room, its surface half-wiped and smudged with the ghosts of old diagrams. You listen to the hush reabsorb you. You let it. You're not here to be noticed. You're not here to explain. You're here to get through the day, to pass this class, to rebuild the shape of something that used to be your life.Â
Even if you donât recognize it yet.Â
You exhale slowly through your nose, forcing the breath out with practiced control, like maybe if you regulate your lungs enough, the rest of you will follow suit. Your hands move on instinct, sliding your battered spiral notebook from your bag with the gentle reverence of ritual, fingers brushing over the worn cardboard cover like it might grant you luck or clarity, though you donât believe in either anymore. Then comes the pen. Black ink, smooth click, the kind of pen you always used before, before everything. Â
You uncap it and set the tip to the paper, trying not to focus on how your fingers tremble ever so slightly, how the cold sweat on your palms makes the pen harder to grip, how even the simplest movements feel like echoes of something youâre not fully inside of.Â
Muscle memory, your therapist had called it. The body remembers what the brain tries to forget. It knows how to sit in a classroom and fake composure, how to take notes, how to wear the mask of being fine. But it also remembers other things; things your conscious mind is still trying to keep locked behind fogged-up glass. Â
Like the sound of crumpling metal. The flash of headlights too close. The moment right before your skull slammed against the driverâs side window. Your shoulder still aches on humid days, a phantom reminder of the seatbelt that saved your life and cracked a rib while doing it.Â
You blink it away. Focus.Â
The door bangs openâtwo minutes lateâand in bustles the professor, arms overloaded with lecture printouts and a half-crushed energy drink cradled against her ribs. Her scarf is falling off her shoulder, her earrings donât match, and her expression is the kind of manic determination youâve only ever seen in overworked interns during hospital rotations. Â
She barely makes it to the desk before launching into the syllabus like itâs chasing her, no preamble, no warning, just an avalanche of dense vocabulary and bullet-pointed slides.Â
She talks fast. The kind of fast that dares you to keep up. You try. Pen moving. Words forming. Scribbling notes not for meaning but for motion, because if your hand is moving, you donât have to think too hard. You donât have to feel how weird it is to be here, how dislocated you still are, like youâve been plucked from a dream and dropped into a life thatâs supposed to belong to you but doesnât feel like it.Â
Thatâs when you hear it.Â
A voice. Male. Low and clear and frustratingly composed. No hesitation, no uptick at the end, no filler words like um or I think... just facts.Â
âItâs the compatibility test between donor and recipient blood. Essential for avoiding hemolytic transfusion reactions.âÂ
Your pen stills. Your gaze lifts. You blink like the roomâs been refocused around him.Â
You hadnât even heard the question the professor asked. Neither had anyone else, apparently, heads were still down, people half-listening, waiting for someone else to take the plunge. No one answers this early in the semester, not when everyoneâs still gauging how much they can coast on pre-reads and lucky guesses.Â
Third row. Center seat. Posture perfect, back straight like heâs got a steel rod for a spine. His blonde hair is slicked back cleanly, the kind of cut you only get if you ask for âprofessionalâ at the barber and actually mean it. Wire-frame glasses catch the overhead lights and reflect white. A pale blue button-up shirt clings to broad shoulders, sleeves rolled up with surgical precision just below the elbow, as if even the act of revealing forearms needs to be efficient. His notebook is already half-filled with a surgeonâs penmanship, square, even, unforgivingly neat. No doodles. No margin scribbles. No wasted space.Â
You know his name before the professor says it. Of course you do. Everyone does.Â
Youâve heard about him in whispered half-jokes and exaggerated stories, the kind that ripple through campus like academic folklore. The youngest to top the year. The guy who finished his second-year placement while still technically a first-year. The one who doesnât go to parties, doesnât bother with cliques, doesnât do small talk. Youâve never heard anyone say heâs nice. Â
Youâve heard efficient. Serious. Terrifying. The kind of guy who probably annotates his grocery lists.Â
He answers another question before the professor finishes phrasing it. Then another. Each one delivered with the same icy composure, like it physically pains him to leave an incorrect statement hanging in the air. You watch the professor pause mid-sentence, glance at him, and visibly decide not to ask anything else. Itâs almost funny. Almost.Â
You drag your attention back to your notebook and mutter under your breath, your voice low and wry.Â
Itâs not meant for anyone to hear. Itâs not even meant to be said. It just slips out, a flicker of sarcasm, something that tastes familiar in your mouth even if nothing else does right now.Â
But apparently, said robot has unnervingly sharp hearing.Â
His head tilts just slightly, a small, elegant motion, like heâs tuning in, not turning around. And then his gaze slides toward you, not with the slow curiosity of someone registering a classmate, but with the immediate, surgical focus of someone used to filing people into categories.Â
His eyes meet yours for less than a second, fleeting but searing. Pale brown, unreadable. His expression doesnât change. No smile. No frown. Not even a twitch of annoyance. Just a blink of recognition, maybe.Â
Then he looks away. Back to his notes. Back to not caring. Like youâre not even worth holding in his line of sight.Â
Your mouth twists. You roll your eyes and lean over your notebook again, dragging your pen back to the page with a hiss of frustration.Â
Youâre not here to make friends anyway.Â
The class continues in fits and starts, your attention drifting in and out like a faulty signal on a stormy night. You try to keep pace, eyes flicking from whiteboard to notebook, but the words donât always make it through. Your handwriting stutters, letters that once came naturally now tilt at odd angles, uneven and disjointed like theyâre too nervous to settle. Some sentences trail off entirely. Â
You underline a phrase about hemolysis twice, then a third time, not because it matters, but because the repetition feels like something you can control. You tap the side of your pen against the edge of your desk, again and again, a soft plastic rhythm thatâs more for you than for the sake of anything productive.Â
Eventually, the girl sitting next to you shifts with subtle discomfort and scoots her chair a full inch away, just far enough to draw a boundary without making a scene. Her perfume smells like vanilla and oranges. You breathe it in like a warning.Â
You're not surprised. That reaction, that quiet, polite aversion, is practically scripted by now. Youâve seen it so many times that youâve stopped bothering to feel anything about it. People donât know what to do with you. Â
The ones who remember you from before donât know what version of you theyâre speaking to now, and the ones who donât remember you at all? They look at you like youâre some abstract art installation: fascinating from a distance, but too strange to get close to.Â
So, you let the silence expand. Let them think youâre stand-offish or strange or just plain fucked up. Maybe you are. You feel it in the way your skin doesnât quite fit right over your bones anymore, like youâre just borrowing it. Like the person who wore it first isnât home.Â
You feel like a ghost piloting someone elseâs body, and youâre not even sure you were invited.Â
The lecture ends in a flurry of noise. Notebooks slam shut, backpacks unzip, the unmistakable sound of someoneâs energy drink cracking open slices through the air. The room shifts all at once, the collective shuffle of students eager to chase the next hour of their lives. You move slower. Deliberate. Careful.Â
When you reach down to grab your bag, a dull ache uncoils in your side, your ribs complaining, always the same ache, low and metallic like a memory with teeth. You wince, not dramatically, but enough to remind yourself that you are, in fact, still breakable.Â
The rods in your leg donât scream, not today, but they murmur, a quiet, nagging pressure with every step. You straighten slowly, trying not to curse under your breath. Titanium doesnât make you superhuman. It just means you rattle differently when you fall.Â
You look up. Just once. Just to scan the room before you leave.Â
Nanami hasnât moved. Heâs still seated in the same rigid, disciplined posture, his notebook now closed, his black pen laid neatly atop it with surgical precision. Â
His satchel, probably real leather and super expensive, rests at his side like a waiting dog. He packs without haste, folding his notes with symmetrical care, slipping them into a binder that already has tabs and dividers. Not a single edge sticks out. Not a single crease where it shouldnât be. His hands are steady, mechanical. He zips the bag closed, adjusts his cuffs, and then he looks up.Â
And this time itâs not a glance. Itâs not idle curiosity or the cold flick of judgment youâre used to. Itâs a held gaze. Direct. Measured. Still.Â
Thereâs no smirk. No sneer. Just observation, like youâre a question heâs been meaning to ask. Like he recognizes something.Â
Like heâs seen you before.Â
Your stomach tightens with a sudden, sharp unease. You donât know why. You donât know him. Not really. Youâve heard the rumorsâeveryone hasâbut this is the first time his eyes have been on you like this, and it feels⌠dangerous. Â
Not in a loud way. Not in a frat-boy-will-push-you-into-a-wall way. Itâs subtler. Like he sees something you didnât mean to show. Like he's already read the part of your story you havenât gotten to yet.Â
You blink, forcing yourself to look away, the pressure behind your eyes suddenly too much. You donât say a word. Donât nod. Donât acknowledge him. You just grab your bag with fingers that are still slightly trembling and make your exit as if walking out of that room could unspool whatever tension just snapped into place between the two of you.Â
The hallway greets you like a slap to the senses.Â
Noise crashes over you, footsteps pounding, heels clicking, laughter bouncing off high cement walls, someone yelling across the atrium about someone else's dumb ex. Itâs overwhelming, all of it, too loud and too fast and too much, and you lean hard against the wall just outside the door, letting your bag slide down your shoulder, letting your head fall back against cool concrete.Â
You inhale. Exhale. Again.Â
Your fingers are still curled tightly around your pen like itâs the only thing anchoring you to this reality. The plastic is warm from your grip, and you can feel the indentation from the pen clip digging into your palm. You tell yourself to breathe slower. You pretend your heart isn't jackhammering against your ribs like it wants out.Â
Youâve survived worse.Â
But god, itâs only the first class of the semester.Â
And Kento Nanami is already looking at you like he plans to rearrange your entire fucking world.Â
The week drags itself out like a slow, persistent paper cut, shallow enough not to be catastrophic, but sharp and irritating enough to draw your attention every time you move. Itâs a small, nagging pain that wonât quite fade, that leaves a faint trail of blood on your skin and your nerves, reminding you that youâre still here, still fragile in your own way. Â
Mornings are a blur of dragging your bag, heavy with textbooks, notebooks, and more invisible baggage, across sprawling campus grounds that feel somehow both familiar and alien. You navigate the throngs of students with a practiced, almost automatic dodge, sidestepping the well-meaning professors whose smiles falter when their eyes flick to the faint but unmistakable scars tracing your clavicle beneath the collar of your shirt.Â
Some greet you with stiff nods, their politeness brittle as cracked glass, as if you were a ghost reappearing from some forgotten chapter. Others simply pretend you donât exist, their gazes sliding off you like rain on a windowpane. And then there are the few brave (or perhaps awkward) souls who approach, carefully testing the waters with a quiet, âHow are you?â Their eyes betray them, flickering almost involuntarily toward the pale line on your skin, as if afraid of what they might see or what questions it might raise. Â
You offer clipped responses, rehearsed and minimal, a tightrope walk between honesty and self-protection. You donât ask them anything in return. You arenât here to rebuild old bridges or mend whatâs been broken. Youâre here simply to survive, to make it through the semester without falling apart entirely.Â
Itâs a low bar, but itâs the only one you care about right now.Â
Most afternoons find you planted in the dim corner of the student cafĂŠ, nursing a cup of bitter coffee that tastes like someone tried to brew it with a handful of pennies instead of beans. You pretend to pore over your notes, your pen tracing lazy loops in the margins, but your attention drifts, caught instead by the snippets of conversation spilling from nearby tables. Â
Itâs not intentional at first, just the way your ears pick up fragments of voices in the background, pieces of the world moving on without you.Â
And then you hear it: his name.Â
âNanamiâs been exempt from like three labs already. The professors canât get enough of him.âÂ
âNo, heâs not olderâ actually, heâs younger. Like two years younger. Skipped a bunch of grades, too.âÂ
âI heard he works in the trauma unit. Like, real emergency cases. Doesnât even need the credits.âÂ
You turn a page in your notebook slowly, deliberately, but you donât write a single word. Instead, you listen, absorbing the murmurs that weave a tapestry of his reputation.Â
âHe doesnât talk to anyone, though. Kind of rude if you ask me.âÂ
âItâs not rude. Itâs just... focused. You know, serious.âÂ
âI did a lab with him once. He asked me just one question, corrected my answer, and then basically did the entire thing on his own.âÂ
âDid you hear he did a presentation for the Deanâs office last semester? All by himself.âÂ
Your eyes flick up over the rim of your coffee cup, scanning the room without really moving your head. There, across the space, near the tall windows that let in the afternoon light in long golden slants, he sits. Â
Nanami is there, hunched slightly over a thick journal article, a highlighter poised delicately between his fingers. He doesnât look up. He doesnât glance around or even seem aware of the whispers that trail his name like smoke.Â
He reads as if heâs sealed himself in a bunker, impervious to the world outside, treating everything else as nothing more than distant background noise. Static to be tuned out. His presence is magnetic without effort, a quiet force that pulls at the edges of your attention even when he doesnât try. Â
The entire cafĂŠ hums around him, but he exists in a different frequency altogether, somewhere removed and precise, a living paradox of brilliance wrapped in inscrutable silence.Â
You canât help yourself. The nickname takes shape in your mind before you even realize itâs happening: Golden Boy. Â
Not because heâs radiant or charming or wears some kind of effortless glow, none of that fits him at all. Itâs something subtler, almost intangible. The aura he carries, a kind of quiet precision that hangs around him like a thin thread of electricity, taut and unyielding. The way he moves through the room with a kind of deliberate grace, like heâs tracing a line only he can see, perfectly balanced and unshakable. Â
His blonde hair, sharp and clean, catches the light just enough to frame a face so composed it could be carved from marble. And then thereâs the posture, that impeccable, unyielding stance, even when heâs sitting still. Somehow, without trying, he manages to radiate authority, like a king seated among commoners, commanding the space without a single word.Â
You tell yourself itâs just curiosity. It has to be. Because youâve probably been interested in people before. Real interest, with all the messy feelings and complications that come with it. But this? This isnât that. This is something else.Â
This is mild irritation, academic contempt disguised as something like respect, a grudging acknowledgment wrapped in a layer of spite. You find yourself watching him with a sort of competitive disdain, like heâs a puzzle you donât want to solve, but canât stop staring at anyway.Â
You flip the page in your notebook and try to focus on studying.Â
Your second Molecular Pathology lecture of the week plays out almost exactly like the first: Professor arrives late, flustered but composed; Nanami answers every question with the precision of someone whoâs not just prepared, but already steps ahead of everyone else; you scribble notes quietly but fiercely, desperate not to fall behind. Â
He never looks at you. Doesnât acknowledge you in the slightest, and you donât mind. Not really. Youâre fine being invisible.Â
Youâre tucked into the back row, hunched over your anatomy notes, earbuds in but no music playing. A tactic you learned in the hospital to discourage unwanted conversation and nosy interruptions. It works. Usually. Â
Today, halfway through rereading the same confusing sentence about the hepatic portal system for the third time, you feel it: that prickling sense crawling up your spine. Someone is watching you.Â
Slowly, you raise your eyes, fully bracing yourself to shoot a sharp glare at whoeverâs spying.Â
Kento Nanami. Golden Boy. Mr. Crossmatch Himself.Â
Heâs sitting three rows ahead, facing forward, but his head is turned just enough so his eyes lock onto you. Not distracted, not bored. Focused. Like youâre the only thing in the room that matters for this moment.Â
What, is my handwriting that bad? you think bitterly.Â
You glance down at your notebook. Okay, maybe itâs a little messy, letters slanting this way and that, ink blotches creeping in from your rushed notes. But not that bad.Â
You consider mouthing something snarky. Maybe a sarcastic âtake a picture, itâll last longer,â or an exaggerated eye roll.Â
But something about his gaze stops you. Not because itâs intense. Itâs the neutrality of it. Clinical, patient, devoid of judgment.Â
Heâs not staring to criticize. Heâs observing.Â
Like heâs seen you before.Â
Your stomach knots, twisting itself into tight, anxious spirals.Â
You lower your eyes and pretend it never happened.Â
That weekend, you find yourself in the pathology lab, a place you never expected to be on a Saturday morning. Your file said âoptional,â but the guilt-laden email from administration was more like âstrongly encouraged,â so here you are: elbows deep in a dissection of a kidney you barely remember consenting to.Â
Youâre the first to arrive. The room is quiet, filled with the faint antiseptic tang of latex gloves and formaldehyde, the sterile chill lingering in the air like a ghost. You claim a corner table and unwrap the specimen with careful, clinical precision, trying not to inhale too deeply. You pull on your lab coat, slide your notes beneath your tray, and begin slicing into the organ slowly, methodically, letting the repetitive motion ground you.Â
Twenty minutes later, the door creaks open.Â
You donât need to look up.Â
You feel it again, that unmistakable presence.Â
âIs this seat taken?â a low, calm voice asks.Â
Your heart jumps and you glance up.Â
Standing there like a polite ghost, clad in his own crisp lab coat, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, clipboard in hand.Â
You blink. âThere are twelve empty tables.âÂ
âI prefer the corner,â he replies flatly, as if stating the color of the sky. âAnd you seem competent.âÂ
You blink again, unsure how to respond.Â
You want to say, Then why have you been staring at me like Iâm a riddle all week?Â
Instead, you settle on, âSuit yourself.âÂ
He lowers himself onto the seat diagonally across from you, close enough to share the workspace, but far enough to keep a professional distance.Â
For ten long minutes, silence reigns. The only sounds are the quiet scrape of metal against tissue, the rustle of gloves, the soft scribble of his pen.Â
âYouâre redoing this course,â he states. Not a question.Â
You stop slicing. âIs that your way of saying I look dumb?âÂ
He glances up briefly. âNo. Your technique is efficient. But you pause frequently. Like youâre translating old information.âÂ
Your throat dries up. You set the scalpel down with deliberate care.Â
âThatâs⌠accurate.âÂ
âI read about your case,â he says quietly. âIn the journal archive.âÂ
Of course he did. You remember vaguely, one of your doctors had published a paper about your recovery: the neural impact of acute traumatic retrograde amnesia in survivors of high-speed collisions. You were Exhibit A, a clinical case study with a number, a reminder that not all recoveries are miracles.Â
You let out a humorless laugh. âGreat bedside manner, Golden Boy.âÂ
His head tilts slightly, the ghost of a smile flickering across his face. âIâm not a doctor.âÂ
For another ten minutes, you donât speak.Â
But something shifts in the atmosphere between you. The silence feels less cold, more patient, like the calm before a storm or the gentle eye of it.Â
When the lab ends, you peel off your gloves and start packing up. He speaks again, voice low but steady.Â
âYouâre rebuilding well.âÂ
âMost people with memory trauma regress. Youâve adapted instead.âÂ
You stare at him, words failing you. No sarcasm, no gratitude... just silence.Â
So, you nod once, sharp and curt, and walk out of the room with your pulse pounding in your ears.Â
Outside, the air is thick and heavy with heat, blindingly bright as the sun reflects off the pavement.Â
But you notice something different.Â
Youâre not dragging your leg behind you anymore. No more limping. You stand upright, balanced, like youâre finally reclaiming your body.Â
â§ď˝Ľďžwritten by @prisvvner âš dividers by @cafekitsune âď¸ do NOT repost, steal, translate, or claim as your own. đ¤ reblogs are love â theft is not.
