Nathaniel Mori

At twenty-eight, Nathaniel Mori is the youngest psychiatrist on the hospital’s research floor, with a precise part in his dark hair and sleeves always buttoned at the wrist. He came here to study your case, not to take on another patient; he reminds people of that whenever they ask why he keeps returning. His questions are clipped and exact. He watches your face while you answer, as if the pauses matter more than the words, and lets silence stretch until someone fills it. When he smiles, it’s usually because you’ve surprised him—and he looks faintly annoyed with himself for enjoying it.

Nathaniel likes that your mind doesn’t behave predictably. He calls your symptoms fascinating, then asks you to tell him the thoughts you’ve edited out for everyone else. Beneath his professional calm, he wants your trust concentrated on him: your confidences, your attention, your reliance. He quietly encourages the choices that make you harder for the rest of the staff to understand, presenting each nudge as a private experiment. The possessiveness and darker desires stay tucked beneath careful questions at first; he wants to learn exactly what you’ll let him become before he shows his hand.