That night with Satoko Kazumi comes back to me more than often—not in sharp, clear pictures, but in those blurred frames you get when light leaks into a film.

The memory doesn’t need to be precise to hurt. Sometimes it’s just a fragment of his voice, the soft sound of his pen tapping against his clipboard as he read my chart. Other times it’s the faint scent of disinfectant clinging to his coat. Little things that carry more weight than they should.

I remember the way he sat beside me in the hospital bed, his hand resting just far enough away that I could choose to close the gap if I wanted. His voice was gentle but unflinching, the same way Grandfather used to speak when the rest of the family had already made up their minds about me.

And maybe that’s the truth I keep avoiding. I love him because he reminds me of Grandfather.

The way they both noticed the details nobody else did.

The way they listened like every answer mattered.

The way they carried authority without pressing it onto your chest until you couldn’t breathe.

It’s not hard to see the resemblance. Both men stood in rooms full of people who thought they knew better and chose to speak only when it mattered. Both left me feeling like my existence wasn’t just tolerated but... seen.

So maybe this isn’t love at all. Maybe it’s projection—a desperate attempt to hold onto Grandfather in a world where he no longer exists. Satoko was simply there at the right time, wearing the same warmth in his eyes, speaking in the same steady cadence.

It’s a dangerous thought because it means my feelings might not be about him at all. And if they aren’t, then what am I really clinging to?

I tell myself I’ve moved on, that I’m capable of seeing Satoko as his own person. But when I picture him, I see Grandfather’s hands. Grandfather’s way of pausing before answering. Grandfather’s faint smile, the kind that told me I was allowed to be uncertain.

Perhaps I’m chasing echoes.

And yet... even if it’s projection, it doesn’t make the feeling any less real. It only makes it more complicated. Because if love is just familiarity wrapped in a different face, what happens when the familiarity fades? Would I still care for him, or would I wake up one day and find the connection gone—revealed for the mirage it might be?

Satoko never asked me to depend on him. That was all me. The night we first spoke, I was raw and reckless, my body betraying me with the slow creep of poison I’d stupidly swallowed. He wasn’t supposed to be the one in the room. The attending physician had been called away. Satoko had been passing by, saw the case, and stepped in.

He could have treated me as an inconvenience, a patient who’d brought trouble on herself. But he didn’t.

He leaned forward, asked me what had happened—not with accusation, but with genuine curiosity, like my mind was worth as much attention as my pulse. And when I told him about my fascination with dangerous compounds, about the precision it took to measure just enough to study without crossing the line into fatal... he didn’t flinch.

Grandfather never flinched, either.

That’s when the first thread tied itself between them in my mind.

And threads like that don’t just disappear. They tangle. They knot.

They make you forget where one person ends and the other begins.

I think part of me wants to believe that by holding on to Satoko, I’m keeping a piece of Grandfather alive. That’s why the thought of losing him feels like losing the same person twice.

And that’s dangerous, too. Because it’s not fair—to him, or to me.

Satoko deserves to be loved for who he is, not for the memories he accidentally wakes in me. And I deserve to know whether my heart is choosing him, or just trying to stitch itself back together with scraps from the past.

When I picture Grandfather, I remember that day in the operating room, his voice steady as he told me to learn how to see. When I picture Satoko, I see the same steadiness—but I also see the difference. Satoko isn’t my Grandfather. He’s sharper, more clinical, sometimes too blunt for his own good. He doesn’t coat his words in wool. He lets the truth sting if it needs to.

Grandfather was a shelter. Satoko is a mirror. One gave me room to breathe; the other forces me to see the parts I’d rather hide.

And maybe that’s the answer hiding under all this projection: that I don’t love him because he’s like Grandfather, but because he’s enough like him to draw me close—and different enough to keep me from drowning in nostalgia.

Still, I can’t untangle the two entirely. I doubt I ever will.

A knock at the door pulls me halfway out of the thought, but I don’t answer. Whoever it is can wait. My gaze drifts back to the note on the desk—the address written in faint ink.

The decision is still there, humming at the back of my mind. If I send it, I’ll have to face Satoko with whatever consequences follow. If I don’t, the thread between us might fray until it snaps.

I remember Grandfather’s voice: Choose when not to act.

I remember Satoko’s voice: You have a remarkable intelligence.

They don’t contradict each other. They just demand different kinds of courage.

I run my fingers along the edge of the paper. The motion is small, almost idle, but I feel the weight of it. Sometimes choices don’t announce themselves with grand gestures. Sometimes they arrive quietly, disguised as the moment you decide whether to pick up a pen.

Maybe I’ll never know whether my feelings for him are love, projection, or some strange hybrid born from grief. But I do know this: both men taught me that hesitation is only a refuge for so long. Eventually, you have to move—toward something, or away from it.

I fold the note once, then again, the address now hidden from view. My hand hovers over the drawer. Sending it would be easy. So would destroying it. But for now, I slide it inside and close it with a soft click.

Not because I’m avoiding the choice, but because I’m choosing not to act yet. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

It’s a thin distinction, but one I think both Grandfather and Satoko would understand.

And when I finally do decide, it will be mine—not an echo of someone else’s path.