"Am I? Or am I just going along with what I'm told? Do I even want anything? Did I ever?"
Lynx Fortune used to have goals and aspirations. She did, didn't she? Surely at one point, she had things she wanted to do, right? She isn't sure. Lynx want...
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The tell-tale noise of the treadmill sounded off around the equipment room. Black sneakers stomped restlessly, heavy panting echoing off the dark brown walls. Short white hair dripped heavily in sweat, hung in clumps around the base of a tanned masculine neck, forest green eyes squinting in exhaustion at the nearly three-hour-long cardio session, clearly regretting his life decisions but never once wavering in his stride.
"Hiroto! You've slacked off enough, come help me with the transfusion!"
The male grunted in annoyance at the order, yanking the safety magnet off and slowing to a gradual stop along with the treadmill, reaching for a lavender-scented towel. In all honestly, the thirty-two-year-old would rather lock himself in his gym—his voice is the only one that unlocks the door, she'd never get in—than work with the women calling for him but experience has taught him to obey first and complain only in his head lest he be 'dramatic'.
"You've extracted the plateletpheresis already?" Hiroto unnecessarily called out while wiping the sweat off his body, nodding expectantly when the woman's irate tone came through the intercoms telling him not to patronize her.
Swiftly changing his shirt, the stalky gentleman made his way through the many corridors and down the long dark staircase. Muscle memory led him seamlessly into their basement laboratory, green eyes adjusting quickly to the contrasting dark hallway and fluorescent ceiling lights spotlighting the home workspace. He slipped on a white lab coat and gloves and strode towards the woman scribbling notes on her touchpad who wore identical clothing. She shot him a grey-eyed glare over her shoulder—no doubt in one of her moods, Hiroto concludes—her brown bob cut swishing with the motion.
"Was three hours really necessary?" She rolled her eyes at his dismissive hand wave, "Honestly if you wanted to get in shape then two weeks before the big marathon was not when you should've started training. You're just getting poor Jericho's hopes up for no reason again." She continued to grumble, pale slender fingers tapping vigorously at the holographic keyboard.
Hiroto grinned sarcastically from next to the bird cage in the center of the room, "You know, most wives actually encourage their husbands. But no, I just happened to get hitched to the one woman who would bully me even if I was in a coffin." He smoothly attached the IV to the unconscious sparrow's neck, monitoring the excessive blood flow from its slashed underbelly.
The brunette mocked her husband's monologue, tossing him a bag of brown bodily liquid—the bag of concentrated platelets she prepared—and watched him finish attaching the bag to the other end of the IV. She passed him her tablet of notes as they observed the wound on the bird continue to leak excessively.
Hiroto hummed, "This was the batch collected through apheresis, right? You didn't use Jericho's unfiltered blood again did you, Mary?" He skeptically eyed his wife, frowning in distaste when he glimpsed at her gold cross pendant around her neck.
