The Phantom Strangers

Moments in May

A Certain Monday in May

The Day Dr. Takemi Doesn't See the Sun

TW: Blood

Sunlight was an unfamiliar notion for Tae Takemi.

Relatively speaking that is.

She was a medical professional after all, she knew the importance of Vitamin D enough to catch rays from time to time. She wasn't a shut in or anything like that, God forbid. Still, she was pretty sure that recently she'd been missing the sun more and more as she worked away at her personal project in the windowless confines of her tiny office space. She'd need to see about getting some of those supplements that old people took, the ones that substituted nature's natural gifts for the cold hard ease of efficient vitamin intake. That way she could keep working while avoiding the otherwise moderately annoying obligation of keeping her sunshine intake at healthy levels.

Y'know, maybe she was jaded for only thinking of the sun through a cost-benefit analysis. That was probably the more telling thing, wasn't t?

Not that those kinds of technically minded distillations of nature's greatest gifts really meant anything in the long run. Miwa needed her help more than Takemi needed sunlight. It was as simple as that.

Miwa > Sunlight. That was the math.

Even still, the figures from the last test seemed to dance across her vision as she typed away at her keyboard, struggling to find ways to use the data from her little guinea pig in a formula that wouldn't make him throw his own guts up. Not that that was a real risk. Her medicine was getting better, the odds of an adverse reaction were incredibly low.

... ok, marginally low. Less likely than likely, at the very least.

Yawning, Takemi checked her clock. 5:42. With a start, she realized that she wasn't sure if that meant A.M. or P.M. Either was bad, since she'd promised herself she'd only work for a couple hours, and now she'd spent her workday, give or take about 12 hours depending on the time, slaving away at the issue with no real progress to show for it. All of it seemed to blur together, visions of Miwa, the guinea pig, and the sun all flashing through her mind.

She groaned, rubbing her temples.

She wasn't getting anywhere.

As much as she hated the thought of abandoning her work, there was no point continuing if she wasn't making any progress. You can only slam your head against a brick wall so many times before it becomes an exercise in futility. That number of times was exactly 0, but Takemi was a doctor, not a poet. Metaphors weren't her strong suit.

Sighing, she slung her bag over her shoulder and got to her feet. Without more data from her guinea pig, there wasn't much point crunching the numbers. She might as well check if it was day or night. If it was day, maybe she could get on that whole 'sunlight' thing by taking a walk. If it was night... well, she'd probably need to go to sleep, considering she'd need to be up in a couple hours.

Cracking her neck, Takemi stepped into the reception area. Maybe she could grab something from that convenience store by the station? Day or night, she was starving. Not that anything purchased at a 777 would be particularly healthy, but that was a problem for future Takemi. Right now, present Takemi was daydreaming of crappy hotdogs and empty calories.

Yum.

It was just the moment she decided assuredly to go get a snack when a blonde girl burst through the front door of her clinic with a crash, bridal carrying a mortified-looking girl with auburn hair and a bleeding knee. Both looked like they had just come out of a fight with a thornbush. Probably literally, actually, considering the number of leaves in their hair and the sizable cut on the auburn girl's knee from which the aforementioned blood was flowing.