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The white coat felt heavy on Mafuyu’s shoulders.
"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow…”
Mafuyu snuck a glance at the people beside her—all starry-eyed graduates, ready to leave the hell of medical school and dive into the deeper hell of residency.
The buzz of chatter electrified the ceremonial hall with a low energy—two seats over, a girl chattered excitedly to her neighbor about the location of her new residency (only a block away from home!) , those behind Mafuyu plugged up her ears with their heady expectations for the future, while in front of her, a boy gazed up at their opening speaker with barely-disguised awe—pulling his white coat reverently further over his shoulders.
Mafuyu was surrounded by people, yet at the same time, she had never felt more alone.
“I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism…”
The speaker finished his speech and walked off the podium (to light applause), replaced by the headmaster of the medical school—the one who would give their commencement speech and thereby crown them medical school graduates.
As they changed hands, Mafuyu vaguely wondered how her classmates, starry-eyed and hopeful for the future, would react if she killed herself right here and now—dug her nails deep enough into her chest to rip her heart out and fling it at the headmaster as a last fuck you before slumping lifeless to the floor.
With her luck—being surrounded by medical professionals—she’d survive without any permanent injury.
“I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug…”
She felt cold purple eyes staring at the back of her head and, with a sigh, she waved the idea away—instead slotting herself back into the comfort of nothingness.
“I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know…”
Her phone lay heavy in her pocket—awash of the Nightcord buzzes and pings that used to fill her heart with such warmth.
She hadn't downloaded that app in years—her phone heavily monitored by her mother after the incident —but her account still lay burned in her mind's eye, username Yuki, profile picture a simple snowflake against a pastel purple background.
K.
A wave of want and need teetered and rocked the fragile ship of Mafuyu’s, threatening to swallow the girl whole.
She let out a hollow chuckle to herself.
Even after all this time, she still means the world to me.
“...Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.”
Her friend—her better half, her lover —made a promise all those years ago; now broken apart by Mafuyu’s own selfish hands. But Kanade was better off without her, right? Better off without her weakness, or sullenness, or patheticness, or her family issues.
She couldn't let her stay tethered to Mafuyu’s side and drown with her under the waves—so she cut the chains first.
I'll take my life before you lose yours.
Some part of her screamed.
“Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm…”
With a resounding boom, the headmaster finished his long-winded speech, handily congratulating his charges and sending them out to the world.
The whoosh of flying hats, screams of joy, and tearful sobbing hit her ears.
Mafuyu picked up as many broken pieces of herself as she could and ascended from her seat, glancing around for her mother—who stood in the back of the hall, smiling with too many teeth.
In the corner of her eyes, Mafuyu spotted a glimpse of movement—the imprint of long white hair and light blue eyes that seared into her brain and caused her to whip around violently, searching for the source.
A girl pushed her way out of the crowd, shaking and curling their arms closer to their body.
“…If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”
Her fingers curled in on herself— like a parent slapping their child’s hand away —and Mafuyu stared helplessly after the girl, now just a speck in the distance.
It could've not been Kanade.
It could have been some random person with the same hair color or the same style of movement.
But as Mafuyu made her way over to her mother—plastering on a fake grin—she couldn't shake the feeling, that damn feeling, that someone above had given her a last chance at salvation.
And damn it, I would do anything to escape this hell.
“Mother, may I go to the back of the hall for a moment? I fear I may have lost something on the way.”
Before the okay left the older woman’s lips, Mafuyu was off in a flash—off and running for her life.
She pushed and shoved against the crowds of people, most definitely tripping a few poor graduates in the way and pissing off a family of others, but she was lost to the world, instead set on the white head of hair that was bobbing away into the distance but coming ever closer and closer with every pounding step that Mafuyu took, legs burning and lungs heaving as she grabbed the shoulder of the girl who whirled around in surprise—
“Wha—”
“Kanade,” Mafuyu forced out, breathing heavily. The months she had spent locked up in her room had diminished her athletic capabilities, and now the newly-acclaimed doctor could feel the ground spinning around her as she placed her hands sluggishly on her knees.
Once the fog in her mind cleared, she looked at Kanade—with brown eyes.
Brown eyes that she had, somehow, perhaps by the blinking lights or the dimness of the room or the monster in her mind that loved to dredge up and torture Mafuyu with thoughts of the past, confused for blue.
Eyes that blinked at her with glassy-eyed confusion.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
Mafuyu straightened up.
“You don’t. Sorry for bothering you,” she forced out through clenched teeth, trying to ignore the cold that seeped slowly back into her heart with every second she spent speaking to this lookalike, “—I’ll be going now.” Her body twisted and Mafuyu began to walk away jerkily, the white coat on her body swaying over her shoulders like heavy chains.
“Wait—” And Mafuyu hated the way her body turned rigid and flipped around at the slightest word that this not-Kanade spoke. “Did you just graduate from Shibuya Academy?” The girl smiled ruefully. “I think I saw you amongst the others in the ceremony—oh, yeah, and the coat and all.” From her sweater vest’s pocket— she even dresses like her —she pulled out a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a photo that she showed to Mafuyu.
The photo depicted a young white-haired girl and a black-haired boy—probably both of middle school age—tumbling around together in the living room of an unknown home. The boy’s mouth was ajar, probably communicating some jest or joke, while the girl’s mouth was thin-lipped, evidently trying to stem the laughs close to tumbling out to her throat. A few words were scribbled near the margins, a name she didn’t know.
“My brother. Would be around the same age as you. Do you recognize him?”
Mafuyu shook her head. “I went to an all-girls school.”
“Fair enough—he never made too much time in his life for socializing, anyways. He wanted to be a doctor, you know? Planned out his whole life that way. Always was working to keep his grades up, bustling himself from internship to research lab to football games to the library to his bed once his body couldn’t take any more of the studying. Shibuya Academy was his dream school—he would have graduated with your year.”
“What happened?”
The white-haired girl’s smile dimmed. “The work was too much for him. On his way home from the library, he ran a red-light in an attempt to make it back before 2—and crashed straight into a car.” She laughed humorlessly. “Ambulance, actually—property of Shibuya Academy. Ironic, right? Killed by the thing he had been pushing so hard for.” Her fingers curled into fists. “I wanted to watch, but after seeing the diploma handouts—alphabetically, passing over the space he would have been—I couldn’t handle being there any longer.”
Oh.
“I wish I just—had been there more for him. He really loved to overwork himself, and—I wonder if I had talked to him, dissuaded him from working so late, gotten him somehow to come home before midnight, if things could have been—no. Nevermind.” She shook her head rapidly from side to side. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to dump all of that onto you and spoil your day. Who are you looking for? Maybe I could help find her.”
Mafuyu let out a breath. “It’s alright—she probably isn't here anyways. I just thought you looked like someone I knew.”
“Well, I hope you find who you’re looking for. A friend?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, keep them close.”
With a slight wave, the girl disappeared amongst the crowd milling about in Shibuya Crossing.
Mafuyu stood immobile, staring out at where the not-Kanade had once been. As if possessed, her legs started moving, wheeling her up streets and down alleyways to the one place she thought she never would deserve to come to again.
Mother’s probably worried by now, she thought dully.
She pulled out her phone and punched in a few numbers, bypassing the parental controls because her mother still didn’t trust her, didn’t want her to be her own person after all this time. The digital “lock” easily switched itself off and Mafuyu called a contact she thought she’d never be able to, no, never let herself call, again.
Ring…ring…click!
“Hello?”