Chapter Text
Maki sighed entering the dormitory she had been calling home for three years now. Her feet ached with every step she took before throwing herself ungracefully onto the preowned couch that smelled so much like her roommate Nozomi’s incense. She loved helping out in the hospital but dammit doing rounds with the nurses was really killing her legs. The redhead could swear up and down that all the walking made her lose at least five pounds this month.
A pile of unfinished schoolwork sat piled high on the coffee table. The mere image of it made Maki want to burn the documents in the sink, she didn’t have the energy to do anything let alone use her brain. Instead she pulled out her phone choosing to scroll through social media.
All her old high school friends seemed to be having fun. A picture of Kotori new dress designs, she was apprenticing abroad learning the fundamentals of fashion from experts. A picture of Rin in a cat cafe somewhere in Tokyo. One of Honoka playing karaoke with her little sister.
God she missed her friends. Sure she had Nozomi but she was always volunteering at the hospitals shrine. Work and study really made Maki’s social life non existent, and even though she did like time to herself, she didn’t like feeling completely lonely.
With a huff Maki turned over on the couch, the spring wire squeaking underneath her uncomfortably. With nothing to do, and exhaustion creeping in she decided the best thing she could do was sleep. Nozomi wouldn’t be home for another three hours and it was the elders turn to bring home dinner.
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Maki woke up to a shove on her shoulder. Opening her eyes to see her roommate looking tired but smiling nonetheless, plastic bag in hand.
“I’m home, I brought your favorite.”
“oh , thanks”
“No problem, let’s eat at the table.”
“Maki nodded in agreement, getting off the couch stretching. Her back popped loudly, a pleasing but painful sensation going through her spine as she walked to the small eating area.
The redhead sat on her side of the table. Nozomi was parting the take out onto two paper plates in front of her, putting more of the tomatoes onto Maki’s plate knowing the redhead liked them more. It was almost an unspoken rule that whenever they ate something one of them favored that person would get a little bit more. This time though she didn’t seem to be stopping, the first plate almost overloading with food.
“Uhm, Nozomi are you ok?”
“Huh?” She looked up at Maki confused before looking down at the mess being made on the table. “Oh crap..” The younger handed her a napkin and Nozomi embarrassed, picked it up, tossing the soiled napkin into the bin.
Although her display was amusing it was a bit worrying. Nozomi never acted like that, she was always grounded but she seemed a bit frazzled, like her mind was occupied with something else.
Maki helped her roommate transfer some of the food onto the other paper plate setting one in front of herself and the other in front of the bustier girl. “Is something wrong you seem a bit, I don't know, out of it?”
Nozomi’s eyes widened slightly, dropping her chopsticks, her cheeks blushing a light pink “Oh, is it really that obvious?”
Maki wanted the laugh at her, “Yes, extremely obvious, whats up?”
The purple haired girls face fell slightly, it was unnerving to see her roommate that always smiled look so glum it made Maki sit up straighter anxious about what could be wrong to make her look like that. It had to be pretty serious.
“Well,” Nozomi shifted in her seat smoothing a napkin over her lap, “There was an accident after you left the hospital. They wheeled in a girl with serious injuries. It was pretty severe. Her siblings were at the shrine with me when they got the news she passed. It was pretty heartbreaking but that stuff happens all the time but.. I don’t know something just felt off, it felt bad.”
Maki’s appetite suddenly disappeared, hearing about death still got to her even though it was a constant thing in her life. Hell she even performed surgery on a cadaver once and almost passed out. “Oh...”
“Yea, I know it shouldn’t be a big deal but..the aura was just so dark.” Nozomi seemed to notice the uncomfortable look on Maki’s face. She cheered up instantly putting on a fake but sincere looking smile, “Sorry, I made a big deal out of nothing, lets eat.”
They both ate in relative silence, Nozomi spacing out every once in awhile. Despite not being hungry after that story Maki still managed to finish her meal. Throwing the plate away she excused herself and gathered her papers from the coffee table before going to her room to finish her assignments.
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The familiar smell of antiseptic and cleaners greeted Maki as she walked in the doors of the hospital. Nurses and doctors milled around, the sound of beeping filling almost every room. She had no idea what they had planned in store for her today but hopefully it wouldn’t be too labor intensive. Her feet still hurt and her shoulders and neck were as stiff as a corpse from laying on that dumb bed wrong.
The day had started off bad but it couldn’t possibly get worse right?
Wrong.
Very, very wrong.
She had morgue duties today with a mentor. Despite loving working at a hospital there was one thing Maki could go without and that was working with dead bodies. It was uncomfortable and awkward. She had been pushing the thought of having to learn a morticians job out of her mind, but she had to learn it eventually.
The elevator ride down to the morgue was an uneasy one. No one else went down to this floor leaving Maki alone in the elevator. The music doing little to calm her nerves.
The elevator door dinged and Maki had no other choice but to step out. This floor smelt far more different than the rest of the hospital. It smelled metallic, like stainless steel and blood, with the lingering scent of formaldehyde.
It sent shivers down her spine. Besides the smell, it wasn’t dark like she expected it to be it looked normal. Like another floor. But the only patients in these rooms were dead. And it was cold. The blue scrubs she wore no longer felt sufficient in keeping her warm but she pushed on walking into the correct room the paper had instructed her to go to.
To her surprise a cadaver was already on the table in the center of the room. A white sheet slung over the body.
Maki walked closer. Her gut clenching and churning.
The body was small. Not like a child but that of possibly a teenager, but it was still considerably tiny.
It made Maki feel sick, like she wanted to vomit, faint, to run away.
But it also made her curious, she wanted to see, wanted to know why this person had died, what they looked like. She wanted to remove the white sheet, but she knew she should wait for her mentor.
Instead the redhead tried to distract herself with other things in the room, looking over the various instruments that were to be used on the small body.
With every minute passing Maki’s desire to lift the sheet grew. Her mentor had still not shown up after ten minutes. Talk about being unprofessional.
Purple eyes moved from the door frame to the small body on the autopsy table.
It wouldn't hurt if she took one peek would it. Just a small one to see the extent of the damage. She didn’t want her mentor to show up later and take the sheet off only for Maki to get sick mid lecture and leave. No it would be better if she found out now. To save time.
Nervously the redhead walked up to the table. She grabbed one corner of the sheet slowly tugging it up, her hand shook and she scowled at how anxious she was. She was going to be a surgeon she needed to get over tiny things like this.
With a swift movement Maki pulled the sheet back letting it go, stopping just before the lower waist of the cadaver.
“Holy shit..” There before Maki had to be the prettiest girl in the morgue.
The prettiest girl with gaping holes in her abdomen. A fresh body, a body that still had blood seeping from the wounds pooling the inside of the table some dripping into the drain at the bottom of the table.
But despite the gruesome wounds the girl looked to be peacefully sleeping. Her black hair still in pigtails, not yet cut out, framed her soft childlike face. Her skin pale still looked soft to the touch. She looked angelic in a morbid way, a fallen angel laying in her own blood.
The prettiest girl in the morgue definitely.
What Maki didn’t expect was for the prettiest girl in the morgue to move.