Chapter Two:

…

A couple of hours later, Yui pushed open the double doors to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, her pack swung over her shoulder and ready to finally go home. She held her car keys and checked the time. It was almost five in the morning, but she wasn't about to leave without checking in on her patient first.

She headed over tot he nursing station and the woman behind the counter looked up at her. "Hey, Dr. Komori. Come to check on your admit?"

"Yea. You know me. I can't leave them alone. What room did you give him?"

"Number two. I sent a nurse in there a couple minutes ago just to make sure he's comfortable."

"See why I love you guys?" Yui smiled. "Best SICU staff in all of NYC. By the way, has anyone come to see him? Did we find any next of kin?"

"I called the number on his medical record. The guy who answered said he doesn't live at that address and doesn't know anyone by the name Ayato anyway. So the information seems to be falsified. Oh, and did you see the weapon they found on him? A thin sword. Talk about weird."

As the nurse rolled her eyes, the two of them said at the same time, "Definitely drug-related."

Yui shook her head. "I'm not surprised. I knew that was it from the moment I got the call."

"He doesn't look the part though, if you ask me."

Yui just nodded. That was true, at least. She waved and headed down the corridor. Number two was all the way in the back, on the right. She took some time to check on a couple other patients she'd worked on tonight before she reached her destination.

SICU rooms were twenty by twenty square feet of boring. Each one was glass-fronted with a tan curtain to pull for privacy. They weren't the kind of rooms with windows or televisions or posters. If you were well enough to care about what your room looked like or what was on TV, then you didn't belong here.

"Good evening, Dr. Komori," a nurse said, standing over the patient's bed, checking his IV.

"How are you?" Yui asked formally. She didn't recognize this nurse and she wasn't wearing a name tag. Yui set her bag onto the floor and grabbed the medical record in the sleeve on the back of the door.

"I'm fine, thank you. And before you ask, he's perfectly stable, which is a miracle if you ask me."

Yui flipped through the more recent stats. "No kidding." It looked almost as if he was completely normal now, despite the fact that he was still passed out on the bed.

Yui was about to leave when she noticed a strange number on the corner of one of the last pages in the records. She flipped to it and frowned. There was a handwritten hospital record from almost sixty years ago. Obviously it had been reprinted, but that was strange. It was for the same man. She assumed that before computer logging became a thing in the medical field, most people had to hand write the records. And it must have just been a mistake. She flipped the files closed and put them back on the door.

"We need to get better precision from that transcription service," she said offhandedly. "Nobody can tell me how old this guy is." The nurse just shrugged and went back to writing stats on her clipboard for a moment before smiling and walking out, probably in a hurry to go home for the night.

When the nurse was gone, Yui stepped over to the side of the bed and pulled the privacy curtain into place. The patient's respiration was strictly machine-driven right now and his oxygen levels were acceptable. Blood pressure was steady, but low, and his heart rate was sluggish, which she knew was better than too fast, but she couldn't help but think about his heart, and how he had six chambers beating. She hardly knew what was a good average heart rate for that.

She leaned over him and studied his facial features. He looked so young like this, almost as if he was in his early-twenties. He was handsome, too, not that it mattered. She moved in closer to look at his skin. There were no splotches or red marks. He was still flawless and pale. She looked at the tube inserted in his mouth and noticed something odd. With her thumb, she pushed his upper lip back. His canines were very pronounced, and shockingly sharp. Was this what the nurse had hit? They looked sharp enough. But what about the burns and the blacking out? That still didn't make sense.

Assuming they were cosmetic—people did such strange things to their bodies—she moved on. She lifted the thin blanket that covered him and inspected the wound dressing on his chest. It looked fine, so she worked her way down his body, pushing the covers off as she went. The stab wound's dressing was also fine, but she palpated his abdomen just to be safe. She gently pushed, feeling around to make sure his internal organs were still intact, and when she was finished, she paused, focusing slightly on his groin. She wasn't sure why she cared about it—she'd seen hundreds of naked men in this business already. She'd even done surgery on multiple penises, and she knew she'd seen pretty much everything. They were nothing new to her, and she'd grown out of her discomfort with seeing a naked body a long time ago.

She stared at his face as she covered him back up. On impulse she put her had on his forearm and squeezed a little. "You're going to be just fine."

"When I get home and I've had a couple shots, maybe."

Yui whirled around. "Jesus, Misaki, you scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry, just wanted to check in." The manager of the facility went around the other side of the bed, his eyes scanning the patient. "I heard you were pretty amazing tonight."

"I just do my part. I couldn't save anyone without my team," Yui replied.

"Yea, I know. But I doubt he would have lived under anyone else's care."

"Did you see the pictures?"

"Of his heart? Yea. Pretty amazing stuff. I've never seen anything like it, either."

"And his blood wouldn't type."

"No?"

Yui shook her head.

"If we can get his consent, I think we should do a full workup on him, down to the chromosomes. It was amazing, holding his heart in my hands… To be able to see something like that. To work with it, hands-on was just… amazing."

"You like your job a little too much, Yui."

She frowned. Misaki was always a bit of an asshole.

"Okay, well I'm ready to go home—"

"Wait, I wanted to ask you something..."

….

Ayato didn't know what hit him. All he remembered was getting attacked after looking for his uncle in the back parts of the city. It had to have been an ambush. They drained his blood and attacked him with weapons made specifically to kill people like him. He knew he'd woken up somewhere, and there had been a young woman with him, telling him to do something.

His whole body hurt. How he survived after that knife had hit his stomach was beyond him. His flesh and bones felt like they didn't belong on his body anymore. He wanted to rip everything off. He wanted to scratch his skin until it tore. But he couldn't move. He felt like he was on fire. His eyes were shut so tight it felt like he'd been crying cement, and his hearing and sense of smell seemed to be the only things working properly at the moment.

He could tell there was a conversation going on above him, and there were two voices—one was male and the other was female. He recognized the female's voice—she'd been the one helping him. He listened to her talk without hearing any of the words. Her speech was quiet and calm—very submissive, but she knew how to hold authority at the same time.

And then it hit him. She was a human. He was in a human hospital, under human care. Jesus… did they look at his insides? Were they confounded by what they found? Shit, what had happened to him?

Panic ran through him, but his body was a sack of meat. He felt a tube down his throat and assumed a machine was working his lungs. That also meant he was probably heavily sedated.

His panic came to a complete halt as a new surge of instincts fired up within him, taking control. But it wasn't the monster in him coming out—he knew he needed blood but it wasn't the first thing on his mind. They were the possessive male impulses of a bonded vampire, the ones he'd heard about from his uncle and his father. And the trigger for it was a scent in the room—the scent of a male who wanted sex… with the female, with the woman who had told him to stay with her.

He didn't know how or why, but his rage made his eyes crack open. He saw both of them. She was a small, fragile human, with bouncy blonde hair down to her shoulders and a white shirt and blue jeans on. Her scent was intoxicating to him, and he knew it had to be his thirst for blood coming out now.

The other human was much taller, and he stood over the female like he had a point to make. Ayato wanted to growl, but he couldn't make a sound.

"Misaki, this is crazy," the female said, and Ayato looked back to the male. He was in a lab coat with a name tag on the right of the lapel.

"What's crazy about it?" The mans voice was deep and demanding, and his eyes were way to focused on the female… his female. She'd helped him. She'd probably saved his life. She was his human now. "It's just dinner."

"You're my boss," the female said lightly. "I don't date people from work anyway."

"What about that promotion I heard you talking to Nona about the other day. I could talk to the higher ups for you, if you wanted me to."

"I… don't think that would be a good idea."

"I know you want it. Just go on a quick date with me. It can't hurt. We don't even have to go out. You can come to my place."

Ayato was seething. He could feel his female's discomfort and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't help her. He couldn't scare off the sex-driven male. He was a useless sac of meat.

"I really don't think it's a good idea. But thank you—"

"You don't have to decide right now. I'll give you until tomorrow."

"No, I've given you my answer. I really don't want to—"

"Just sleep on it. I'm sure you'll change your mind by tonight."

"I..."

She sounded embarrassed and he hated it. Clearly, she had no physical attraction to this human. The only reaction he got out of her was discomfort, and Ayato wanted to rip his head from his neck. He probably would have, too, if he could move.

"So you'll think about it?"

"It?"

"Us."

Ayato's upper lip pulled up off his fangs involuntarily and if his throat wasn't so dry, the growl that came out would have been much louder.

"I… I don't know."

"That's not a no, is it?" There was a pause. "Is it, Yui?"

Yui… so that was her name. It almost calmed him just to hear it. Almost.

"No… it isn't."

"Good." The human male glanced down and Ayato locked eyes with him dangerously, his fangs still slightly bared. The male was surprised and took a step back. "Looks like someone's awake," he muttered, heading for the door. "Jesus. What's with those teeth? Aesthetics?" And he left without another word.

…..

Yui looked down at her patient, his eyes open just slightly, showing her that brilliant yellow-green.

"Hey," she whispered with a smile. "You didn't hear all that, did you? I'm sorry, we should have left the room." Her smile was sheepish. "You're really amazing, you know that? A bunch of my staff are calling your recovery a miracle. And that heart of yours… I would really like to run some scans when you're feeling a little bit better, but that can wait, of course." Her eyes dropped. She shouldn't be bringing up all this right now. It was just the stuff with her boss, and how astounded she was by this man… She needed to go home and get some rest.

The man's lips twitched, as if he was trying to speak. Yui just kept her smile and shook her head.

"It's all right. You can talk when you're ready. Get some rest and I'll be back later tonight."

At that, the man's eyes really opened and he locked eyes with her, as if in panic. Yui blinked a few times in confusion.

"What the matter?" she asked, jumping and going to check the IV drip. It was still working, but maybe he was in pain. She set it to a heavier dose and turned back to her patient. His eyes were on the IV now, and the same panic was in his eyes. "It will make the pain manageable," she added softly, trying not to rouse him up anymore than he already was. "I'll come visit you when I get back. There are nurses outside all the time, so if you need something, just hit the button. Here," she said, placing the small contraption in his one hand. "Please try and get as much rest as you can." She placed her hand on his forearm and squeezed. The man's eyes drooped again and then shut.

Yui sighed, picked up her bag, and headed for the exit.

…..

It felt like the day dragged on forever, but eventually he heard someone say that the night shift should be coming in in a few minutes. He'd been hooked up to some machines and tubes that let him go to the bathroom in his bed and he felt like an old man. These were human things. If only he could get the drugs to stop flowing, his immortal body would heal itself up in no time. He didn't know what the female had done to help him, but she'd managed to counter the affects of vampire-killing weapons, which was quite the feat for a human. She must have taken the bullet out of him and sealed up whatever wounds it made in his chest. She also must have closed up the knife wound, because his body wouldn't know how to heal itself without some help after getting hit by one of those knives.

But if she stitched everything back together, his body should be able to heal itself, but not while he was on these drugs. At this rate it would take too long. He would be in here as if he was actually a human, and he wasn't that frail. He also wasn't that patient.

He wondered if his brothers were looking for him. Probably not. But his uncle might be. If no one brought him the body, those hunters were probably out searching for him right now. He was worried that they would look in this building for him. It wasn't that he cared about the humans, but if his female was going to be arriving any minute now, he could barely open his mouth, much less defend her from a group of vampire hunters.

He was also starting to feel the blood lust, and he wondered if he would've already fed on the humans around him if he could move. Probably…

The scent of blood was faint in here. He figured it would be stronger with all the injured humans being rushed in, but the place was well-kept and clean.

A sound at his door had his full attention. Was it her?

He felt his anger rise when he recognized the male from before—the male that wanted to mate with his female. He strolled in, a clipboard under one arm and a pen in the opposite hand. He looked up and they locked eyes.

"Awake, are we? How did we sleep today?" the man asked, and Ayato wanted to snarl, but he couldn't get the sound out of his throat. It stayed there are almost choked him. He just narrowed his eyes. "Calm down. I'm just here to take your vitals." He walked over and checked some of the screens of the machines he was hooked up to. "Oh, very good," he said to himself, clicking his tongue. "We'll just give you a little more of this and Doctor Komori should be in to see you when she gets her uniform on."

So his female was here after all? Was that what she was referred to as here? Doctor Komori… Yui… He like the sound of her name in his thoughts. He wanted to hear what they would sound like on his tongue.

"I just wanted to run some scans before she gets here. That's one hell of a heart you have. Did you know that? And I had the nurses run your blood type again and it still comes back as unidentifiable. It's almost like you're not human," the man laughed. Ayato's eyes stayed narrowed. He wanted to feed on this bastard first. He wanted to suck him dry. He wanted to show him that he was far from human.

Then he realized that this male was turning up the amount on the IV. He was drugging him even more, and there was nothing he could do about it. Instinctively, he hit the little button in his hand for the first time. A few moments later, an unfamiliar face poked into the room and asked if everything was okay. The male just nodded and smiled and the other human left without a word.

Well, that was useless…

"What was that about?"

Ayato's senses perked up at the sound of her voice.

"I don't know," the male shrugged.

His female was beside his bed in a few moments and she placed her bag down.

"You hit this?" she asked, taking the button from his palm like she was taking a toy away from a child. Again, he wished he could snarl. But then his female turned to the male with her hands on her hips. "Why are you bothering my patient?" she asked heatedly.

"I was just taking down his vitals," he replied arrogantly, holding up the clipboard for her to see. "Jesus. It's always about the patients with you. And I expect an answer from you before the night is over," he muttered before leaving the room.

His female turned to him. "Why did you hit that? Did something happen?"

Ayato immediately put his eyes on the IV drip and Yui followed his gaze. She took a step towards the machine and looked at it.

"He turned it up?" she asked. "He wasn't giving you anything close to regulation's maximum, though. It's a normal dose. I'm sure he was just trying to help."

Ayato managed to part his lips and let out a small breath. His female smiled at him. "You'll heal up in no time." He kept his eyes on the IV and tried to widen them to make a point, but she wasn't getting the memo. He gritted his teeth and managed to let out a groan. His female jumped a little and reached for the IV again.

"N..." he managed to force out, and then he was out of breath from the effort.

"No?" his female asked, her eyes filled with concern. "Are you in pain?"

"N..." Same as before, it took everything he had just to make one simple noise.

"All right." Her voice came out soothing, and his breathing evened out a bit. "Can I get you anything? Water? Food? Are you feeling nauseous or dizzy or anything like that?"

He managed to shake his head, and then looked back over at the IV. His female frowned at him. "All that does is help with the pain. If you're no in pain, it does nothing."

"O..." Ayato squeezed his eyes shut, irritated with how difficult this was. "Off..."

"No, you don't want it off. It's helping you, believe it or not. I had to go into your chest, pull apart your ribs and stitch you back together. If this was off, you would feel all that. And you don't want that. Trust me."

"Less..."

She frowned even deeper. "I will, but if you start to feel pain, please call a nurse in here to raise it again. It's not bad for you. It's honestly helping."

She wouldn't understand. After all, how could she? The damned thing helped humans—that was for sure. But it was just making him feel drugged up, and it was making his whole body sluggish and unresponsive.

Finally, she turned the dial down. It wasn't as much as Ayato would've liked, but it was enough to get him out of bed in a few hours and get his senses working a little better at the same time. His thirst would also come back like a forest fire once he was up and moving, but he would contain it until the time was right. He was confident enough in that respect.

"I'll come in to check on you periodically throughout the night."

His female gave him a quick, shy smile before heading back to work, giving him plenty of time to heal.

…..

Yui had a lot to get done tonight, paperwork-wise. Everything was either on the computers or on paper, and she had to go over everything, and input the paperwork into the proper databases. She'd also been thinking a lot about her most recent patient's anatomy. That heart really was something else. It was such a rarity that she knew she had to convince him to let her take some more X-rays and the like. She wanted to have samples of his blood and the tissue and hand it over to the labs for inspection. And with the way his body healed, his blood might just be the cure for something big. She had no idea how a person could have such a body, but she felt like this was a blessing. Maybe he could save thousands of lives with just a few simple tests. And if he allowed it, the more in-depth tests could have an even bigger impact on the world. Maybe she would get to be a part of it, too. She was the one who opened him up, after all. She'd held his beautiful heart. She'd felt it beat through all six chambers and she'd seen it with her own eyes. She put him back together again. He was her patient. If any tests were done on him, she wanted to be there when they happened.

It was strange, what she felt for this man. She felt close to all of the people she saved, but she felt closer to this patient than any others. She assumed it was because of the rarities of his body, and how she knew just how extraordinary of a person he was simply from how he was put together.

And she knew when he opened his eyes in the middle of the OR that he was extraordinary. He did things that no one else could do, and his body was… It wasn't human, to say the least.

She was almost four hours into her shift when her eyes started to wander around the room. Nurses were walking around all over for the entire night with clipboards and clacking shoes, as always, but she couldn't focus on the computer screens. She wanted to go visit her patients again, especially Ayato Sagamaki, but she held her ground. She had to finish her work before she could go check on them.

She pursed her lips and tried her best to focus until she completed her task.

A few times while she worked, she saw Misaki out of the corner of her eye, watching her, sipping a coffee or just leaning against the wall. He was starting to freak her out a little bit. She knew he had to watch the place and make sure it was run properly, but there weren't any calls to the Trauma Department so far tonight, which meant that he should really be taking advantage of this rare time to finish some work, like she was doing.

But coffee sounded like a good idea when she thought about it, and she was dying for something to take her away from the bleak computer monitors. The coffee machine was on the closer side of the passage, right before the bays, so she stood and headed over there, trying to ignore Misaki's eyes as they followed her until she was out of his sight.

She picked up a Styrofoam cup and filled it with black coffee. She added two packets of sugar and a drop of cream and swirled it around before placing the lid on top and taking a sip. It was perfect. She held it close for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the drink, and hoped the caffeine would kick in while she worked, because nothing put her to sleep like paperwork did.

Before she came back to the operational hub, she heard a woman scream and nearly dropped her coffee. Misaki was already running towards the sound and Yui set her coffee gently on the counter before running after him. And as she ran down the hall, she realized that they were heading for her patient's room. She barged in, slamming the already-open door against the wall behind it.

"What happened?" she yelped, and then froze. Her patient was standing, and his expression was pissed off. The nurse was in the corner, on the floor, shaking with her knees against her chest. He faced her, the sheets falling off of his skin, exposing his bare body to everyone in the room.

Misaki immediately stepped forward, grabbing the patient's arm and trying to turn him around, but the purple-haired miracle man didn't budge. He turned on his own and let out a loud snarl, causing shivers to go up and down Yui's spine. He was as tall as Misaki, if not taller, and clearly at least a head taller than her.

"Get away from her!" Misaki shouted, throwing out his hand. Yui wasn't sure if he was trying to threaten the man, but she got a gut feeling that threatening him wasn't the smartest thing to do.

"What happened?" Yui asked again, this time looking to the nurse for an answer before something bad happened. She could hear a few nurses looking into the room from behind her.

"I just went to check his IV and he grabbed me and… and… his teeth..." She went back to shaking, and Yui tried to stay calm. The man looked very unpredictable, but she already knew he was pissy about his IV drip. And those sharp canines that had supposedly burned the other nurse… She didn't know what to think about that.

But at the same time, she had the feeling that Ayato Sagamaki wasn't dangerous—Not to her at least. So she stepped forward. Misaki held his arm up and tried to push her back, but Yui saw the man glare at Misaki and in that moment a part of her understood the situation, even if she couldn't put words to it.

"Mr. Sagamaki," Yui said, holding up her hands and walking past her boss. She looked him in the eyes until he met her stare, and she gulped, because she was walking up to a naked man that practically towered over her. She took a moment to look at him at her eye-level and realized that the IV needle was still taped to his arm, and the needle was in him at an awkward angle. Had the nurse done that by accident? She got the feeling that Ayato was acting as any cornered animal would.

"It's okay..." she said softly, reaching for his arm and the needle. He didn't jump at the contact when she touched him, so she went right for the needle. She looked him in the eyes once before peeling back the tape. She felt him jerk back a little when she grazed the needle, but he wasn't fighting her. "It's okay..." she repeated, grabbing the needle and giving it a light wiggle to see if it was stuck in his muscle. He let out another snarl and she took a step back, releasing his arm and putting her hands up again.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help. The needle is stuck in your arm, and I don't want it doing any damage on its way out, okay?" She stepped forward again and reached for his arm, but this time he reached forward to bring himself to her. She cradled his arm under hers and slowly pulled on the needle, making sure there was no internal bleeding as she got it out.

"Yui, be careful," Misaki warned from behind her, but she felt like she was in her own world. Even though there were nurses watching, and the nurse on the floor and her boss, she felt like it was just her and her miracle patient. And she took her time with the needle. She didn't feel rushed or threatened, and she wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be hurt by this little accident.

She slid the tip of the needle out and smiled at her handiwork. She held onto her patient's arm as she set the needle down on the side table and then looked up at him with a smile. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"I need to leave," he suddenly said, and as soon as Yui let go of his arm, he headed for the door. The nurses made room for him as he approached them and backed away as he walked by. Even Misaki had nothing to say, which was a surprise. Yui turned back to the nurse on the floor.

"Are you okay?" she quickly asked, but the woman was just mumbling something about his teeth. Yui frowned and swiftly went out after the man. "Wait!" she called, and he stopped right before the exit in front of the operational hub. He turned and looked at her and she blinked a few times wondering what to say. "Well, first of all, you need to fill out some paperwork to get yourself out of her. Second, I have no idea how you're on your feet right now. And third, you should probably put some clothes on before you walk outside." The man narrowed his eyes at her and for some reason, Yui became defensive. "And as for the paperwork, I haven't been able to find anything about your age for some reason, and the address we have for you on file isn't your real address, so we'll need to address those things. Also, you have an extraordinary physical anatomy and if you would be willing to have some tests run—"

"No. No tests."

"Oh… well, I'm not sure if you know, but it seems as if your blood type is one that's never been seen before in another human. We gave you O during your surgery, and that worked fine like we knew it would, but I wanted to run a few genealogical exams on your blood—"

"I said no. No tests."

Yui paused. "But you do realize that your blood could hold the secrets to cures and—"

"I don't want to hear about that anymore." He sounded so… immature. She wasn't expecting that from him from how she pictured he would be...

She frowned at the man. He wasn't interested in participating in something that could benefit the entire human race? Keeping something like that for himself was an insult to the human race. His blood seemed to have rapid healing capabilities and healed him of pretty much every wound in a matter of twenty-four hours, and he honestly just wanted to keep it to himself? Imagine all the people he could save…

But at the same time, he had his rights and she couldn't force him to do anything if he didn't want to. She just couldn't understand how anyone could say no to an opportunity like that.

"Just tell me what I have to do to get out of here."

"It… it's just some papers that you need to sign and… I'll have one of the nurses grab you some clothes..."

He crossed his arms lightly over his chest and looked at her in a way that made shivers go up and down her spine.

"Fine."