𝐊𝐀𝐄𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎 » 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲-𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞 » 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐦𝐚 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐨𝐧 » 𝐡𝐞/𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 [ 𝐒𝐓𝐑: 𝟏/𝟓 , 𝐃𝐄𝐗: 𝟓/𝟓, 𝐂𝐎𝐍: 𝟐/𝟓, 𝐈𝐍𝐓: 𝟒/𝟓, 𝐖𝐈𝐒: 𝟐/𝟓 𝐂𝐇𝐀: 𝟒/𝟓 ]
𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞
- accomplishments: earned a place on a regional “Top Surgeons to Watch” feature before turning forty, served as lead surgeon on several multi-specialty emergency procedures after mass-casualty incidents, received grant funding for research into post-mortem tissue salvage, published several respected papers on nerve reconstruction - appearance: elegant and pristine with nothing out of place. prefers long overcoats, crisp white collared shirts, and tailored trousers. no jewelry, no tattoos. appreciates high-quality staples and materials and does not stray beyond that. think cashmere, silk, linen. - presence: towards patients, he is charming and warm; bedside manner is a practice he has perfected. he takes time to thoroughly explain surgical procedures, the risks and benefits, and after-care. beyond this, he is unfailingly dignified, friendly, brilliant, and obsessive. he holds strangers at an arm's length until he has the chance to study them at length. unflappable, unknowable. hard to love, but impossible to forget. - aesthetic: lovely, beautiful hands made for salvation and desecration alike, expensive fountain pens annotating patient charts in meticulous script, speaking to the dead with more patience than the living, medical journals stacked beside forbidden notes - likes: medical journals, black coffee, detailed handiwork in other fields - carpentry, stained glass, music - dislikes: mess, resignation, cowardice, sugar
𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
- Kaede Sato was not born in Redford, but in a quiet house not thirty minutes from Chicago. growing up in spiritually strict house with a deference to a higher power would foster an innate, quiet, defiance in him - nothing loud enough to earn his family's chagrin, the kind of hush that has him staring at a statue of the crucifixion with a clinical befuddlement that could be mistaken as worship. so much left to the hands of god. too much. - he traded scripture for scalpels, faith for evidence. by thirty-nine, Kaede had already earned the sort of reputation that turned admiration into resentment, the man other surgeons deferred to with gritted teeth. maddeningly composed, the kind of physician families clung to because he could stand over catastrophe without flinching. - he specialized in trauma surgery, in pulling people back from the brink of certain death, in working miracles, in defying the higher powers his family worshipped. it had been nearly enough. - there had been one case - not a personal one, but he'd made it personal in his failure. he had all his training, all his steadiness, all his skill, and still stood there with blood on his hands and no miracle to offer. he never forgave the world for that. fellow surgeons offered conciliation - too much blood lost before they even made it to the ambulance. the wounds were too grievous. nothing to be done. he begins to believe the medical field is cowardly in its submission to death. - there's that quiet defiance. - early in his career, a Royce-funded grant opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed - in return, he was to pay it back, or forward, by serving the town of Redford. by the time he arrived, he already belonged to them more than he cared to admit. -Redford did not corrupt him so much as reveal what was already there: an appetite for forbidden work, for the intimacy of power over flesh. the Snowman only cemented it.
𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
- the resident/intern/etc who worships him: a younger doctor or doctor-in-training sees Kaede as the exact kind of surgeon they want to become. Kaede has yet to decide if he is disturbed by this, knowing what his hands have done. - the patient whose life he saved: someone in Redford owes Kaede their life after a major surgery, and that gratitude has never faded. their survival could be the one clean thing in his conscience... proof that he was once, or still is, capable of good. - the Royce patron who bankrolls him: a member of the Royce family who funded Kaede’s research, career advancement, or relocation to Redford. - the journalist circling st. peter’s: a local journalist, blogger, or true-crime obsessive has started noticing odd disappearances, strange hospital patterns, or inconsistencies in coroner reports. bonus if the journalist once trusted him or interviewed him as one of Redford’s local success stories. - the ex: they were not together terribly long, but long enough for them to watch him slowly descend into dangerous thinking around death, medicine, and control.
