Love Today

[Emma]

A blonde head bobbed as Ruby Maxwell wriggled her jeans on, then stood and danced badly (albeit gracefully) to Take That as she looked for her shirt. Pulling it on, the girl buttoned it quickly, her crimson eyes scanning the room once more, a smile floating upon her pink lips. Today was the first day of the rest of her life, as far as she was concerned. Despite only having had six hours of sleep (that was what unpacking all your things in one go did) the twenty-something felt decidedly chipper as she danced through her new apartment, having wired up her stereo before doing anything else the day before.

“Aha!”

Ruby snatched up her discarded suit jacket, brushed it down and shrugged it on, dancing her way back to the bedroom, snatching up her phone, walkman and wireless headphones before turning on her heel and leaving the house. Locking the door securely behind her, she slipped on her headphones, cranking up the volume as Mika’s Life In Cartoon Motion album began to play. Such was her joy and all-round good mood, she didn’t pay too much attention to where she was going (bad dancing and all), and as such, ended up on her backside on the pavement.

“Oh! Sorry!”

[Loki-chan]

"Eh? Oh... no, sorry, my fault..." A man of mild hight who looked more 16 than he did 20 swiveled around. She'd actually whammed right into the back of him and there was no way he was responsible for her fall, but, he felt oblidged to say it. As some sort of bizzare psycology prodigy, Ketamine Tranxene had stumbled his way into a PhD by age 20, and was in charge of his own clinic. No one else in the profession could even claim to take notes on patients as well as Kenta, and no one reached a diagnoses as fast. What was more, no one cured as fast either.

Of course all of this was true because Kenta had veritably screwed with his own head, and wasn't capable of remembering too many things. He happened to have a rare bloodline trait that gave him hypnotic eyes... which was more unique than Kenta desired to be. In a dark room, he kept his eyes half-lidded so no one would see them shine. When he opened his eyes was when hell broke loose.

He offered her a hand, and apologies, but not much more. When it came to women, Kenta preferred his distance.

[Emma]

Ruby took Kenta's hand and pulled herself to her feet with an apologetic smile, brushing herself off. Twenty-three years old and already in possession of a PhD in Biochemistry from Cambridge University, Ruby was smart, but her common sense was a little off. Closer to non-existant, actually.

She apologised to Kenta once more, looking him over. There was certainly something odd about him, she felt. Quite what it was, she wasn't sure. He seemed to brush her off pretty easily. Maybe he just didn't like women? Or people in general, maybe. She shook her head a little, sighed, apologising yet again with her usual charming smile. She wanted to meet people. She needed to. Bumping into them wasn't a brilliant way of going about it, but it certainly wasn't the worst.

[Loki-chan]

Kenta saw she wasn't just walking away, so he decided to take the first step.
"W-well, I have a clinic to manage, i'm sure my patients wouldn't appreciate my tardyness... ehm... so, i'll just be going." Kenta gave her a short wave and proceeded to turn on his heel. Really he was more than early, as he didn't even have any patients until later in the afternoon. Wednesdays were usually this boring, and he even had the evening free after six. It wasn't like Kenta had a date to spend his free time with, as he couldn't stand women and there seemed to be a severe lack of male-desiring men around nowadays. No one was free anymore... they were all out getting married. Kenta sighed to himself. Was it really so hard to find a date? It didn't matter, seeing as most people couldn't put up with his memory loss anyways. Forgetting the name of your date, five times, tended to not persuade your companion to ask for a follow-up.

[Emma]

"Oh! Of course! Sorry."

She apologised once more, smiling brightly as she continued on her walk, slipping into a small, out of the way coffee shop and watching the world go by as she nursed a mug of lukewarm coffee. This new start wasn't bad, she supposed, staring out of the window of the shop, listening to Aerosmith on her walkman. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing by any standards.

Except that young man she had walked into. There was something spectacularly extraordinary about him, but Ruby couldn't put her finger on it. Mind you, she hadn't really experienced anything like that for too long now - since her teens, maybe. But there was something... Off.

Off, like her attention to everything around her, and so she didn't notice the man with the gun until he fired off two shots - one that barely missed her, shattering the window, and one in her chest.

[Loki-chan]

Kenta jumped, barely twenty feet away from the woman when gunshots were fired. What kind of a district was this...? Kenta could've sworn he was uptown, but he supposed crime didn't discriminate. Kenta turned swiftly on his heel, running back to the woman and gunman, who was approaching the knocked down woman. Kenta couldn't just /leave/ her, to be raped, robbed, killed or worse, after all, he'd taken that damned hippocratic oath. And of course, negligent homicide was a nasty charge to deal with...

"W-what exactly do you think you're doing?" Kenta asked daringly, as he stepped between the man with a gun and the fallen woman. He didn't really have to ask, as the gunman cocked his gun for a second round. Kenta gulped and opened his eyes, and shouted a loud HEY at the gunman.
He was trapped now, and Kenta knew how to deal with people from this point on.
"Go down to the police station and hand in your gun and confess your crime." Kenta uttered a command, with a simple release at the end as his eyes fluttered low again. The gunman walked away, downtown, gun held limply at his side. Kenta sighed, turning to look down at the woman, concious but bleeding.
"I guess I don't have to ask if you're okay... you wouldn't happen to have a cellphone, would you? Sorry, i'm a doctor but not a paramedic. I'll dial 911." Kenta gave her a sympathetic look. He didn't have a phone with him... a bloody wonderful idea was it of his to not get a cell.

[Emma]

Even in her shock, Ruby fumbled in her pocket, withdrawing a cell phone with a shaking hand and handing it to her would-be saviour before clutching at her bleeding chest, graduate-level theories and stupid rationalities running through her mind. There was so much blood. But surely there wouldn't be too much damage? From the angle and range at which she was shot, it was a through and through, which was both a blessing and a curse. She'd lost all feeling in her right arm, too, and was visibly shaking.

"He shot me. Why did... Why would someone do that...?"

[Loki-chan]

"I don't know, he wouldn't tell me. I'm sure we'll hear about his confession in the paper in the morning, though." Kenta said bluntly, before taking the phone (which consequently had some blood on it, causing Kenta to hold it just with two fingers, from the top. He called the paramedics, and sat down, waiting for them to come. He didn't have anything with him, nor was he qualified to heal a bullet wound... But he couldn't let her keep bleeding...

Kenta reluctantly removed his coat, which was a soft puce (white was so cliche) and balled it up, setting it on the wound with some pressure.
"This will hurt, but i'm just trying to prevent you from bleeding any more, okay?" Kenta wanted to say 'to death', but the rule was ALWAYS don't alarm the patient. Lie if need be. Don't induce panic. and that was the /last/ thing Kenta wanted right now. Panic.

[Emma]

Ruby nodded, then groaned. That had been far too painful. Okay, no more nodding. She could still feel everything (save her arm, anyway) which meant (hopefully) no spinal damage. She kept rambling, quietly, wandering aloud why the man would have shot her, what would possess anyone to do that to another person. She had been shot before, sure, but she had been expecting it that time, and it wasn't in her chest. She kept her eyes on Kenta, then stammered to him.

"T-Thankyou."

[Loki-chan]

Kenta looked at her as he got off the phone, flipped it closed and put it down beside her. He shrugged.
"Don't thank me. I'm not really doing this voluntarily." Kenta said, and with a smile no less. He wanted to make sure she knew it wasn't because he fancied her, and it wasn't an act of selfless charity. Sure, he didn't expect anything in return, but he was doing it more to obey an oath and avoid a lawsuit. His emphasis made it sound incredibly mean.
"Really I don't see what you're not understanding. There are a lot of people in the world who are just out there to hurt you. He might've just done it for fun." Kenta was being blunt again. There was no one in the world he currently trusted. He didn't have friends and his parents were dead. When it came to hurt, Kenta knew best.

[Emma]

"Of course."

The girl stammered out, then a wave of dizziness rolled over her and she groaned again, her head rolling back as she squeezed her eyes shut. Everything hurt. She'd forgotten just how much something hurt when you weren't expecting it. God, she hated it when she blanked the world out. Every time she did, something incredibly stupid happened. Nothing quite on par with this, but stupid nonetheless.

Opening her eyes again, she looked to Kenta and studied him, subconcious thoughts piling up underneath all the pain and the shock. It seemed like he was making an effort to let her know that he'd really rather not be doing this, and that he didn't like people in general. She could understand that, of course, having had enough bad experiences and having lost enough people, but she still managed to smile.

[Loki-chan]

Kenta looked at her mildly, he really couldn't stand to see her suffer. And with the speed paramedics got here now adays... He sighed. He blinked a few times and looked at her, with open eyes. Suffering was so intolerable to watch.
"The pain's gone numb... about now, right? Don't worry, i'm sure you'll get your feeling back after the medics have fixed you. Relax for now, and they'll come soon enough." Kenta gave her a smile and shut his eyes. It was so conversational it sounded more like a suggestion than his usual command. This way, she probably wouldn't even register he'd done anything... until of course, she noticed his words were the truth. He was a doctor though, obviously... he could make an educated guess if he wanted to. At least now he wouldn't have to watch her writhe.

[Emma]

Ruby smiled weakly, mumbling yet another thankyou as she returned her gaze to the sky overhead. Whilst her concious mind was dwelling on how nice he was and how pretty his eyes were when he opened them properly like that, her subconcious was screaming at her that something wasn't right. She was paying no attention, however, as she watched the clouds go by and waited for the paramedics to arrive.

[Loki-chan]

Kenta waited as the ambulance showed up and he flagged them down, his puce coat now a dark shade of ruby. They loaded her up into the ambulance and Kenta went to turn, but the paramedics grabbed him.

"Sir, don't you want to orient her when she wakes up?"
Kenta blinked. "Not really, I barely know her."
"Do you know of any of her existing family?"
"I don't."
"Sir, we need you to come with us, to sign her release papers."
"Why? She's an adult, isn't she? And if you don't mind, it's Doctor... not sir."
"Well then, doctor, your presence is even more necessary."

And that was how Kenta got himself dragged along for the ride, trying desperately and futaly to snip the ropes of fate this girl seemed to have lassoed around him.

[Emma]

Ruby grumbled a little as the paramedics shifted her into the ambulance, but soon slipped into a lovely, lovely drug-induced sleep. The last time she'd been shot hadn't been anywhere near this pleasant, even though it had hurt less. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been in an ambulance. Too long, probably, knowing all the injuries she'd sustained.

When she woke, it was to stare at the very white ceiling of her hospital room. It took her a long moment to realise where she was - and why. When she did, everything came rushing back, including the pain. She groaned, resisting the insane urge to itch at the bandages, knowing better.

[Loki-chan]

At that point, it was, that Kenta happened to slouch far enough forward to fall out of his chair and shcok himself awake. After refusing to aid other patients on grounds of 'no pay check', Kenta had been allowed to just sit and wait for the woman to awake. Then he could leave, finally. At this rate he really would be late for his appointment this afternoon.

Kenta whined uncomfortably and got up from the floor, dusting himself off. He looked over to the woman, who was in pain, again.
"You're awake. The doctors said you could be discharged when you woke. Can you move yet? Apparently i'm trapped in here as long as you are."

[Emma]

Shocked at the voice, Ruby's gaze snapped to Kenta and she smiled tiredly. The fact that the paramedics had, apparently, roped him along as well amused her. Sitting up, the twenty-something ran a hand through her blonde locks and nodded a little, although that was quite painful.

"Yeah, I think I'm alright. They did a good job patching me up."

She knew that well enough from the fact that she a) wasn't in screaming agony, b) could feel her right arm and even wiggle her fingers if she felt adventurous and c) had done this before. She swung her legs off the bed and stood, clothed in her own jeans, but what seemed to be a generic shirt they'd gotten hold of, seeing as her own was ruined (along with her suit jacket, which was a damned shame).

[Loki-chan]

Kenta gave her a quick survey (REAL quick), just to look her over before turning around. She was pretty, he guessed. It was true he wasn't really homo by nature, he'd made his own decision in the absolute hate of women. So it wasn't like a nice set of curves couldn't attract his attention. It just never held, really. Kenta wouldn't let it.

"Hmph, well then. We'll get your discharge papers and be on your way. I swear, the way they've dragged me along like your husband, I better not be charged..." Kenta started muttering angrily to himself. He definitly wouldn't put it past these incompetent baboons at this hospital to charge him for her hospital stay, as if it were even his fault she was here. As he reached for the cold handle of the door, however, upon touching it he received a shock. Your basic static shock, but, it was enough to knock Kenta for a loop. The slightest disturbance was, when he had been tetering for hours on the brink of forgetfulness. This was probably the longest he'd held out.

Kenta tripped backwards, landing on his ass and still clutching the hand that had been zapped. He slowly put his hand to his head, looked around the room, saw the bandaged girl and the fact he was on the ground. So he got up.
"...Wait. I don't work at a hospital... w-what am I doing in here, exactly?" Kenta looked plainly at the woman. He wasn't even a physical doctor. He knew he couldn'tve bandaged her up.
"Wasn't I supposed to be at the clinic by now...? Or am I there... why would I have it redone so ugly, though? I hate white..."