Dr. Marcus Tanaka

His Japanese mother, who was a teacher, and African-Japanese father, who was a dental paediatrician, and his twin brother Daniel, all lived together in West London, UK. With Marcus being the serious part of his twin-brother's curious and playful personality, he was the one who showed maturity in the set of boys, even though he was younger than Daniel by 7 minutes, something Daniel never let Marcus forget.

During their childhood, their mother home-schooled them, also teaching them the three languages of Arabic, English and Japanese, since they were to need them in the future, and taught them until they reached about 11 years old, which from that point, they would enter a secondary school specializing in sciences of all kinds. She also taught them to help around the house, giving them their allowance after each task was completed, subliminally teaching them to stand on their own two feet without the need of anyone's help. Their father, on the other hand, encouraged them to play like children, telling them that they can't be serious all the time, always using the same words:




Taking their father's words to heart and very literally going by them, they began to split work and play, allowing them to grow into a pair of bright young men, getting into a prestigious high school with a scholarship, which specialized in science, and both boys wanting to become doctors, just like their father.

During their time at high school, they both very popular. Both being popular with the girls, for they're looks and suave behaviour (learned from their father's ways to swoon their mother), and with the boys, for their skills and intelligence. Marcus, still being the serious one of the duo, became the avid reader and gamer in his free time, reading books on psychology, anatomy, physics, you name it, and in turn, teaching his brother the very basics of these things, making them both very open-minded students. He had many friends, and many enemies, but unlike Daniel, he didn't have any close friends, always confiding in his brother and parents, something he always envied his brother for having.

Because his school worked with the 'Curve System' when it came to marking exams, most of the students who got the passing grades had failed in their last year of high school, ultimately shifting the blame on both Tanaka siblings. It got so bad that a brawl, on campus, broke out as Marcus tried to unskilfully defend his brother, who had been beaten to the point past discomfort. His lips were cut by a knife, which had been produced by one of the attackers, and the rest, once they had seen the glint of light bouncing off the blade, ran off as not to get in more trouble, of even land in jail. The knife-wielding boy was immediately stopped by the police, who had been called to the site of the fight. Getting stitches and having a scar forming on right side of his mouth, Marcus thought of it as a prized possession, because he was able to protect something precious to him that day.

Now with both boys at 16 and graduates of high school, their father, wanting them to grow into true men and gain 'that burning determination and love in their heart', told them to immediately pack their latest GCSE results and certificates, giving them each a suitcase and a backpack, telling them to fill them with what they needed and that they were travelling to a hot climate. Befuddled by their father's request, they simply did as they were told, and their father put them on the first plane to Sudan, telling them that they would meet their family there. Landing and greeting their family, they spent a few months getting used to the country, using their time to become familiar with their father's home country. They were then told to apply to the UST-Tagana, and take the medical courses of their choice, becoming two of the smartest in the country doctors in the country.

But before all that, their six (which turned into seven) years that they would stay to as students in Sudan, were filled with the many problems children who grow into adults must face, and when they found out that some of their family members had been ransacking their things in their first week of university, they moved out and asked their father to find them a place to live alone. Travelling to Sudan, their father bought them a house, built it from the group up, with both his sons helping him out, and told them that they would have to do everything alone, cooking, cleaning, washing their clothes and the like. Dividing the work between themselves and creating a timetable for the next seven years ahead, they began to learn how to cooks and become ''professional' bachelors, living alone.

Their problems didn't stop there, though. Studying in Sudan was harder than they expected, and completely different from England, and they struggled in their first year, with Marcus having to retake three of his exams (and pass into his second year) and Daniel completely failing, forcing him to repeat the year. Their father and mother weren't disappointed though, as they knew it was expected for them to find difficulty in their first year. With their parents' support behind them 125%, they powered through, doing well in their studies, understanding what they had to do, and living their lives and they should. Their father, worried about his sons' social lives, also told them whole truth of what they would need to do:

Once you go down this road, what you will be doing is bending the rules. It took me too long to get where I am now, and I need you both to do as I say. Go and find yourselves, as once, my father told and did the same to me. You will be living my past, and feeling my pain, and feeling the sweat trickle of your brows to fight for survival in that urban wasteland. And one last thing, NEVER do anything against the government. You care not about politics or that country's problems. Let them do as they like. If any problems go on, heavy gunfire as such, forget leaving the house and lock the doors and windows. Always keep the fridges stocked for with a months worth of supplies, find a place to learn self defence and go to a gym at least twice a week. I don't care if you don't get any sleep. Do this and you'll come out as the champions through all the turmoil.

Following their father's first and second speech given to them, they became very, very busy. Keeping to their schedule and looking out for each other, they sacrificed their social lives for their ticket to the adult world. Marcus, who had passed with flying colours, lived with his brother for his last six months on his last year at university, going to kick-boxing training daily, before Daniel also passed and both boys came out doctors at the ripe age of 24 years old.

Their father, who had come to greet his visit his family and collect his sons, bringing them to Sendai, Japan, to go live with their mother, as during the seven years they had been stuck in the Sudan, their parents had both relocated to their mother's home-city. Feeling like they were both doing the second part of their self-fulfilling tours of their parents' back-stories, they packed the luggage once more and travelled to Japan.

Moving to Japan, they were both now a set of ingenious physicians, who were very famous for their skill, loved by many, as well as children in particular. It was during this time that he met Misaki Satou, who in turn, became Marcus' assistant. They were both good friends and became close friends after Marcus comforted her after she had broken up with her long-term boyfriend and fiancée from high school. Daniel would tease both Marcus and Misaki, telling them that they 'look good together' and most try to peeve Misaki off by saying 'why don't you take the piece of gum off you jacket? She’s seen everywhere with you' to Marcus. Even though Daniel would deliberately annoy Misaki, Marcus knew, deep down, that he had his heart set on her, and Daniel was happy that both his brother and Misaki had some sort of relationship with each other. He wanted his 'little' brother to be able to trust and confide in someone else other than him, and since Macus had found Masaki, Daniel was dead set on helping them find each other. He began to nudge him, telling to do small things for Masaki, and Daniel was feeling proud how his stealthy techniques would help Marcus slowly gain the courage to see Masaki as something more than just a close friend.

This though ultimately led to Marcus asking her out on a date, to which a surprised Misaki accepted. After a while of dating and swooning the poor Misaki, who had been swept off her feet by Marcus' gentlemanly gestures and all-round changed, optimistic behaviour, and he became a person who smiled in public, something even his brother was nearly scared to death when he first saw it, saying 'The shit?! Since when do you smile in public? Since when do you smile at all outside of your free time? Do I have to be like you and become serious now? When the hell did she change you, Marky?'. Becoming a person who loved the world, it was progress he thawed out a bit to have a little fun and be more sociable than he was.

The day, on Misaki's birthday, he took her to a jazz club, and she encouraged him to do something crazy and out of his comfort zone as her present. He got up on the stage and sung a song, karaoke-style, from his teen years he heard once and liked. Singing the funky song and getting the entire club on their feet, dancing and pumped, at the end, he pulled out a ring, and proposed to her. Blown away by Marcus's courage but not ready for the commitment, she turned him down, but mostly as a joke because Misaki knew, at that entire second, he was definitely out of his comfort zone- which he didn't take to so kindly to, grabbing her hand and putting the ring on her finger, all with the speed not to allow Misaki to refuse, saying 'Like hell you'll turn me down! I love you! Is that your birthday present?', but in the end, she became serious and accepted his 'offer', as she put it, wanting to see if he would really be true to his word.

Daniel heard what went on the night of the proposal from a friend who was at the jazz bar. Organized a surprise party at work, to show his opinion on the news, he surprising both love-birds when they showed up for work the next day. Daniel, who had bought his and Marcus' parents to see their new daughter, told Misaki 'He had no hard feelings, but life is going to get a little more annoying with you around in it', getting a kick out of bugging her. Grinning and feeling proud of his 7-minutes-younger-than-him brother, he decided this was all for the best, and it would have been up until the last points of time.

Misaki and Marcus, the newly-wed couple, who had now been happily married for at least a year now, were doing well. They had a few arguments here and there, mostly because Misaki had been spending more time with her disabled child patients. She had asked to be transferred to the Rehabilitation Unit to follow her dream to interact with children and help out the less fortunate than herself,  spending more time there than she with Marcus, but nothing that couldn't be handled by them both. Marcus' father was always on his case, telling him to be like him and his grandfather, 'commanding but loving', which would cause the twin brothers to break out in laughter, since their father wasn't all that commanding when he came to his relationship with his sons, being a 'really cool father', as both brother put it.

A specific day and it was Misaki's turn to get the supplies from the airport and bring them back to the small community hospital. As Misaki drove on the route to pick up some new equipment, it turned out, she was struck by another car, which had been chased by the police, killing her instantly. Immediately after he was told, Marcus was devastated. At 25, he had gotten married, something he had wanted to do, marry young, and now, nearing his 26th birthday, he had lost something most precious to him... the one who had changed him, his entire outlook on life and made him more of a better man than he was, because he didn't need to envy his brother for being popular and sociable. He would work for the next few days like machine, alone, and sat alone, ate alone, and didn't greet or say goodbye to anyone. His colleagues knew it was a given; he needed time to get over something like that. Not wanting to interact with anyone around him, he isolated himself, so that he could deal with the pain all alone. He then all together stopped going to work, staying behind his closed door of his room at home. His mother would daily beg him, for a week to eat, and he would just eat the bowl of rice and drink the glass of water, leaving everything else untouched.

Daniel, who was worried about his brother, used the only tactic he could think of getting him to react to him: annoy and purposely hurt him so that he chased him, like he would do when they were kids. He didn't expect it to work, but when he kicked in the door of the room, calling him a '7-minutes selfish moron’, and it miraculously worked. Marcus would the go after his brother, he found his father, waiting for him with his mother, her eyes red and swollen from the crying.

His father, for the first time, punched his son with full force, sending him falling backwards, going into his last final speech he would give to both his sons, in an angry tone, surprising everyone who watched it happen:


At that second, his father held his chest tight and collapsed.

Sent to the nearest hospital, luckily being the one both brothers worked at, they found out their father had had a heart attack, induced by his chronic hypertension, but would live through it thankfully, something only their mother seemed to know. Their mother went on to say:

You think it was easy for you father to get where he is now? You lived his life back in Africa, didn't you both? You felt his pain, how your uncles didn't the same things to him when he was your ages then, how his own father bought a house for him as well, and then he became a great doctor and moved Japan, marrying me. Why don't you, Marcus, know that you pain if first and foremost felt by him? He knew how he lost someone so dear to him, and that wasn't me, but your grandfather, who he respected and protected like he would die if he died, and when he did, he didn't do what you did. even at the funeral, he refused to cry, and his heart became dead, unable to feel others' feelings, but that was until I showed up.
What was he dream, Marcus? Wasn't it to help the less fortunate? Did you even ask Misaki why she was transferred to the Rehabilitation Unit?
Falling onto Marcus' head like a ton of bricks, he thought, 'to help those poor kids... but I can't stay a doctor. I'll just be stuck in the past with this job... but what can I do?’ he though, but voiced the last part out loud. His mother suggested becoming something that he wanted to do, even if it was living Misaki's last dream. driven by both his new-found love and respect for his father, and the memory of his Misaki, he went on to completely quit being a doctor, wanting a first hand chance to work with children, which were most of the patients who came to their small hospital.

During the few years he would spend rebuilding his life bottom-up, the criminal who had killed Misaki with the car he had stolen, had shown up, severely injured. Daniel, who had taken in the patient, told him the whole truth. Marcus walked into the room grabbing a vial of morphine and loaded a syringe and angrily looked at the young man, who seemed to be in his late twenties.




His brother, horrified by this outburst by Marcus, tried to wrestle the syringe out of his brother's hand, finding himself put in a wrist lock and being pushed aside against a wall, with Marcus turning to his brother, smiling, telling him it's not what he thought. He put the syringe into the pan next to the young man's bed, telling him to do it himself. As the young man went for it, scared and terrified of Marcus' calmness during the entire situation, Marcus held his arm back and picked it up, handing it to his brother, who at that moment had in his mind to tackle Marcus to stop him.




Causing him to tear up after he said these words, accepting that she would be gone, but not lost. It may have took him three years, with him: working out 3 times a week, finding that he could become a teacher and going to a teaching course, having to go to a cram school to re-learn the sciences he'd put aside to replace with dental medicine, did the teaching course and passing the exam with a perfect score, but ultimately, trying to find a place where he could teach science to help less fortunate children in Sendai, which would turned out to be Yamaku Academy. Fully accepting his fate and wanting to live Misaki's dream and goals, he works at Yamaku, teaching science and being a bright star for those pupils he teaches, content with his life, becoming a normal sociable, outgoing, sometimes becoming like Daniel, annoying him and messing around with his friends, becoming a general friendly neighbourhood teacher.

Working for a year and a half at the ‘Yamaku Academy for Disabled Students’, he gained a new perspective on life and gained the recognition of his fellow staff and his students, but yearned to practice medicine once more. He began reading up on disabilities of all types in his spare time, wanting to another few exams so that would really have the documents to prove his position and expertise, and he sometimes took the Nurse’s place when the nurse couldn't be around to actively help out, and he slowly, but surely, gained some experience to deal with differing disabilities, from the benign, to the most life-threatening.
After passing the exams He began to apply for positions as a doctor at schools for the disabled in Europe and America to find a new job where he could carry both his own and Misaki’s dream. After a few months just before the end of the school year in Japan, he received a letter from the ‘Tachibana Academy’, which was based in Toronto, Province of Ontario, Canada. After reading his letter of acceptance and deciding he would embark on this new journey to a place he’d never been to before, asking his family to follow him in fulfilling his and Misaki’s dream. While at first, his father rejected the idea of the basis, they couldn't just up and leave the country without planning, Marcus did a little more research to find a place to base his family and a job for his brother at a hospital the pitched the idea again, but this time, showing how much time he had taken to do what he had done.
Taking the final few weeks to gain as much experience dealing with the students of Yamaku before he departed from Japan, he found he had a knack for this line of work, even more being at hospital or dentistry. With a new-found spring in his step, he and his family, bid goodbye to their friends they had gained over the years.

Marcus’ Final Farewell: