"Playing doctor," I had once said to a group of younger children, a toy stethoscope hanging around my neck—the innocent voice still echoing in the orphanage basement. They laughed, mimicking my gestures.

There, the room felt foreign to me: the sharp smell of disinfectant, the operating lamp hanging like a false moon, the pulse of monitors, the measured steps of nurses.

A nurse had tried to refuse me entry the first time.

"Kairi, you’re not allowed in yet, dear. Your father will be angry." Her voice was gentle, but carried the tension of someone guarding a secret.

"But I only want to watch," I murmured, my lips curling into a small pout as my eyes began to sting.

"You’re a handful when your father’s not around, aren’t you?" A familiar, slightly gravelly voice carried across the room—not scolding, but tinged with warmth.

"Grandpa?" I turned toward the doorway, relief blooming in my chest. I had always been closer to him than to my father.

"Oh—Director Izumi," the nurse greeted quickly, straightening in place.

"Mm. No need for titles," he said with a mild wave of his hand. "Just call me Kairi’s grandfather—Hirotaka Izumi."

The nurse gave a quick nod. "Of course, Mr. Hirotaka. What brings you here?"

"I was making my rounds," he replied easily, stepping fully into the room. "And along the way, I found a certain little chatterbox straying where she’s not supposed to be."

"I’m not a chatterbox," I protested, cheeks puffing.

He chuckled, the sound low and warm. "All right, all right—just teasing. How’s school? Keeping up?"

I nodded quickly. I was only twelve at the time, and around him, I never felt the need to dress my answers in anything more. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

He turned back to the nurse. "Let her stay. She should see what medicine is beyond textbooks."

The nurse hesitated. "Mr. Izumi, I’m not sure if—"

"What’s the harm?" His voice stayed calm, but there was a quiet finality to it—the kind that came from years of making critical calls in operating rooms. "If she decides to be a teacher someday, so be it. If she chooses medicine, so be it. But the choice will be hers."

He met the nurse’s eyes, and after a moment, she gave a small nod. "If there’s any trouble, I’ll speak to her parents myself," he added.

With that, she stepped aside, and my grandfather guided me forward with a hand on my shoulder.

"Grandpa, what’s that?" I asked, pointing to a small, silver object on the tray.

"That," he said, leaning slightly so I could see it more closely, "is called a scalpel. A surgeon’s most precise tool. We use it to remove what shouldn’t be in the body—or to reach what needs to be healed."

His answer was matter-of-fact, but there was a kind of reverence in his tone, as if he was speaking of something both dangerous and necessary.

"Grandpa... were you a doctor before?" I asked.

A faint smile tugged at his lips.

"Before? No, Kairi. Once a doctor, always a doctor."

His voice carried the same steadiness I imagined his patients had trusted for decades—calm, measured, but warm enough to reach through any fear.

I puffed my cheeks. "That’s just a fancy way of avoiding the question."

He chuckled, the sound like a low heartbeat in the quiet room.

"Alright. Yes, this old man of yours was once a doctor. And like any good doctor, I saw a problem and treated it. I pushed for the hospital and the institute to merge, so we could share resources and strengthen both. It was like joining two arteries to improve blood flow—separate, they’d strain; together, they could thrive."

His gaze softened, but his tone carried a hint of regret.

"But Hiroshi—your father—took a different path. Maybe he worried you’d inherit the same long hours, the same heavy responsibilities. Maybe... he thought protecting you meant keeping you out of the operating room."

Hirotaka Izumi, my grandpa, looked at me over the rim of his cup; the desk lamp cast a gentle shadow across his face. My fingers gripped the armrest until my knuckles whitened, trying to hold back the wave of words pressing in my throat.

I lowered my gaze, watching the faint reflection of the overhead light in the polished steel instruments. His words sat heavier than I expected—like they belonged to some future version of me I hadn’t met yet.

"Besides," he added, eyes still on the operation, "the first time you see blood on the table, it will feel like the whole world narrows to that single point. But if you breathe, you’ll remember—blood isn’t death, it’s life trying to stay."

I blinked at him. "That’s... not how I usually hear it."

"That’s because most people only see the color," he said, finally looking at me again. "A doctor learns to see the story behind it."

For a moment, the rhythm of the beeping monitor seemed to match the calm weight of his voice. I found myself leaning closer, not to see the patient, but to hear him better.

He noticed. "You don’t have to decide now, Kairi. Whether you become a doctor or not, learning to see... will serve you everywhere."

Something in me wanted to argue, but instead I nodded, my fingers curling into my sleeve. I didn’t know why, but it felt like he wasn’t just talking about the operating room.

"I... I’m just curious, Grandpa," my voice came out hoarse. I lowered my gaze, watching my fingertips play with a loose thread on my shirt.

"If—just hypothetically—I became a doctor. Not because I truly want to, no. Just... what if that could make Father change his mind?"

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, the springs creaking softly, eyes narrowing as if he were reading something written between my words.

"You think medicine is a tool to bargain with someone’s heart," he said at last, not unkindly. "But medicine isn’t about leverage—it’s about life."

His gaze shifted toward the operating room window, where the faint silhouettes of a surgical team moved under the bright light.