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They called her strange.
Not behind her back—no, Akiko Yosano had never been afforded that courtesy. The word followed her down corridors, clung to the hems of her coat, slipped between the sterile clinks of instruments like a second, sharper kind of echo.
Weirdo.
She wore it like perfume.
Because if they were going to name her, then she would decide what it meant.
The dermatology ward was not where legends were made.
Not in the way people liked to imagine, anyway.
There were no dramatic heart monitors flatlining, no heroic last-second saves that turned doctors into saints. Skin was quieter than that. It peeled, flared, scarred, healed. It told stories slowly—about neglect, about pain, about survival people rarely spoke of aloud.
And Yosano listened.
Her office smelled faintly of antiseptic and something floral she refused to identify. Patients didn’t quite know what to make of her at first glance—the sharp eyes, the poised smile that never fully softened, the way she studied them like a puzzle rather than a problem.
“You’re staring,” one patient muttered once, tugging self-consciously at their sleeve.
“I am,” she replied, not apologizing. “Because your skin is telling me things you aren’t.”
That was the part that unsettled them.
That, and the reputation.
She had not always been here.
Before the clinic, before the carefully controlled environment and her growing list of successful treatments, there had been harsher places. Places where “care” came with conditions and “healing” meant enduring something worse first.
That history clung to her too.
It was why other doctors whispered. Why some refused to collaborate. Why a few—only a few—watched her with something like wary respect.
And why every comparison inevitably circled back to one name.
Kouyou Ozaki.
If Yosano was a scalpel—precise, unapologetic, cutting where necessary—Kouyou was silk drawn over steel.
Elegant. Untouchable. Unquestionably the best.
At least, that’s what the world said.
“The greatest dermatologist of our time,” the journals praised. “Revolutionary,” the conferences agreed. Patients spoke her name with reverence, like it alone could soothe what ailed them.
Yosano didn’t disagree.
That was the irritating part.
Kouyou was extraordinary.
Which meant Yosano had settled, quite deliberately, for second place.
It wasn’t lack of ambition.
People misunderstood that.
They thought settling for “second best” meant giving up, meant resignation. But Yosano’s choice had never been about inability—it was about direction.
Because Kouyou healed beautifully.
Yosano healed relentlessly.
There was a difference.
They met properly for the first time at a conference neither of them particularly wanted to attend.
The room was filled with the low murmur of intellectual vanity—doctors discussing breakthroughs with just enough humility to remain socially acceptable. Yosano stood at the edge, half-listening, wholly unimpressed.
“You look like you’re considering setting something on fire.”
The voice was smooth, measured.
Yosano didn’t need to turn to know who it belonged to.
“Only metaphorically,” she replied, finally glancing sideways. “For now.”
Kouyou stood beside her, immaculate as always. Not a strand of hair out of place, not a crease in her expression. She didn’t blend into the room—she commanded it without effort.
Yosano smiled, sharp and unhidden.
“You’re even more intimidating up close,” she added.
“And you,” Kouyou said calmly, “are exactly as unsettling as I was told.”
There was no insult in it.
Only observation.
Yosano liked that.
They should have clashed.
That’s what everyone expected.
The infamous “weirdo” and the untouchable prodigy—two forces in the same field, bound to collide.
But rivalry requires opposition.
And what they found instead was… recognition.
Kouyou saw it first.
Not the eccentricity—anyone could see that. But the method behind it. The deliberate choices. The way Yosano approached treatment not as restoration, but as confrontation.
“You don’t avoid pain,” Kouyou noted once, reviewing a case Yosano had handled.
“No,” Yosano replied. “I use it.”
Kouyou’s gaze lingered, thoughtful.
“Most doctors would consider that cruel.”
“Most doctors,” Yosano said lightly, “don’t get my results.”
A pause.
Then, unexpectedly—
“…No,” Kouyou agreed. “They don’t.”
Their collaboration began quietly.
A shared case. Then another.
Patients who had exhausted every conventional option found themselves passed—sometimes discreetly—from Kouyou’s refined care to Yosano’s more… aggressive approach.
Where Kouyou restored, Yosano rebuilt.
Where Kouyou soothed, Yosano forced the body to remember how to fight.
And somewhere between silk and steel, something remarkable began to form.
“You could surpass me.”
The statement came without ceremony.
They were alone in Kouyou’s office, late evening light stretching long across polished floors. Files lay open between them—evidence of months of shared work.
Yosano didn’t look up.
“I could,” she agreed.
There was no false modesty in it.
Kouyou’s expression softened, just slightly.
“And yet, you don’t intend to.”
Finally, Yosano met her gaze.
“Why would I?” she asked. “You’re already the best.”
“That has never stopped anyone before.”
Yosano leaned back, folding her arms.
“I’m not ‘anyone.’”
A beat.
Then, quieter—
“You heal them when they’re ready,” she said. “I handle them when they’re not.”
Kouyou studied her carefully.
“…You’ve chosen the harder path.”
Yosano’s smile returned, edged and unrepentant.
“Of course I have. I’m a weirdo, remember?”
Reputation never left her.
Patients still hesitated before stepping into her office. Colleagues still whispered. The word still followed her like a shadow she refused to shake.
But it changed.
Slowly.
Subtly.
Weirdo became unconventional.
Unconventional became brilliant.
And brilliant—
Well.
Brilliant didn’t need to be first.
One evening, as the clinic emptied and the world outside softened into dusk, Kouyou paused at Yosano’s doorway.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, composed as ever, “I do not consider you second.”
Yosano didn’t miss a beat.
“That’s because you’re biased.”
A faint smile—rare, but real—touched Kouyou’s lips.
“Perhaps.”
She turned to leave, then added, almost as an afterthought—
“The world may call me the best. But there are cases I would never touch without you.”
Yosano watched her go, something quieter settling beneath her usual sharpness.
Then she exhaled, rolling her shoulders, already reaching for the next file.
“Second best,” she muttered, not without satisfaction.
Because someone had to stand where the world faltered.
And she had never been interested in easy victories anyway.