Yuri Maksim

[NIKITA]

Yuri Maksim.

Twenty-four years old.

A mid-level engineer at Pavlenko Company.

My little brother.

The man I loved so much, the man who made everything feel better.

My favorite idiot.

The brother who made med school bearable even though he was always a coward in some places. Standing there and looking at me is Yuri. I don't know what I should do or even feel, but one thing is sure, there is just no way in hell this man is my brother.

****

[FLASHBACK]

"C'mon Yuri, please, brother. I have a project I need to finish. The semester is hitting me hard, but not as hard as the game I want to play, but my brother stops me. I promise to be your slave for a week," I say to my brother, who just stares blankly at me.

I know he means well, but why can't he see that I've been working on projects nonstop? In a semester, we have twelve projects, and I have already finished nine, which leaves me with just three, but brother dearest won't let me play the darn game.

"No, Niki, you have to go back and study; some of us depend on you having a bright future. I know you're studying to be the chief of surgery, and I know you've been doing your best, but you need to shove your ass in that room and study," Yuri insists, and I want to smack his brains with the pad I'm holding.

As I'm still contemplating dealing with him, I hear him call the cavalry, and boy, and I'm dead now.

"Mamochka! Papa!" That sneaky little bastard. "Niki says he's studied enough for med school and that he needs a break!" that little devil.

Mother comes to the game room, and one look from her is enough to tell me that I'm never going to be too old for her beatings.

Papa is laughing while Raisa is in her own world with her phone in her hand.

The people who should save me are enjoying this, and then I can't even blame them; no one dares to cross mamochka, no one, not even papa. Defeatedly, I sigh and walk back into the study room, locking myself in because I really need to study.

Everyone in this family is either in the medical field or studying for it; everyone except for Yuri.

"Hey, Niki, what will you do if I get sick again? I don't want to go to the hospital; I can't go back there," Yuri says to me an hour later, and even though I want to give him the stink eye for ratting me out, I understand him.

Since birth, Yuri has always been the outcast, but not in the wrong way. While we loved playing with stethoscopes, he loved playing with engines and electronics. He believes that his being an engineer will reduce the chances of more people ending up in the hospital.

"You won't get sick, brother, and if you do, we all are doctors and even have our own lab in the house. It will be okay, brother, don't worry. Why are you asking this today?" I ask him politely, all his mischief forgotten.

My brother never pops up with such questions out of habit. There is always a reason for everything Yuri does and says, so I want to know why now. He's been okay for the past ten years. Nothing could indeed be wrong, right?

"Yuri…" I ask again, dreading the answer that he will give me. I don't want to overthink, but we can't go through that shit again. It's been ten years already, and we have all been okay. I remind myself that we are family and. If I'm so stressed about it, then even he is stressed out.

"God, no. It's not what you think; get your head out of the gutter and come back to life, you," he says, but I still don't believe him. Then again, that is all the motivation I need to finish my projects and secure a spot as Todorov's chief surgeon.

Being the chief surgeon will have its perks like I can monitor every operation. I can step in whenever and I can always know which patient and which doctor is assigned to the patient.

I have to be the chief surgeon before it strikes again.

I need to be ready, and I say to myself as my brother walks out of the room, leaving me wondering about many things. Like what is he scared of, and why he had to ask me that darn question again. I can't blame him, though.

That shit's been eating him for years.

***

I snap back to reality. Back to the man who resembles my brother. The man who looks everything like Yuri Maksim but is not him. I know Yuri, and that is how I know that my brother would instead drink a whole tank of water than show up in a hospital.

He would even give up just to not step back into the hospital.

From a young age, he always believed that anyone who was taken to the hospital would never come back the same way they left, and he didn't want to be that person.

He had gone in, and Yuri was never the same after that.

Nothing was ever the same ever since he was wheeled in on that stretcher, with lights filling his eyes. The dizziness he felt, the pain, and the audacity of the doctors to make him count backward from ten, he had told himself he wouldn't ever step in there. And as a doctor, I know that no matter how many years pass, some fears form part of us that never go away no matter what happens.

I studied my brother. I knew everything about him, and I knew that he would still hate hospitals even in another life. This man has to be an impostor because first, my brother died in the crash, I had bid them goodbye myself, and they crashed even before they could reach Norilsk.

They never said anything; let me watch their demise on the news as the stock markets fluctuated really bad. Funny how the death of my whole family triggered the markets.

Carefully, I walk towards this man, ready to send him back to hell if I must.