Your Eyes are Golden
They met before the accident, they met after the surgery; they met when she was blind, and they met now that she can see—and the first thing the girl sees, are her golden eyes, as bright as the sun can be.
--
Chapter Three: Accidents Happen
Beep beep beep.
Nina awoke with a groan and pushed the off button on the top of her alarm. She arched her back and cutely rubbed the sleep out of her eyes before swinging her legs over the edge of her queen-sized bed.
The fated day had arrived, although she wouldn't actually call it "fated" since she was only asked yesterday, but today was still the day that she would be going to the café on the… whatever it was she was going to do with Takashi. 'And maybe Erstin too, wait, why am I thinking about her…?'
She shook her head and blamed the thoughts on thinking too hard after just waking up. Nina groggily walked over to her dresser to grab some clothes for the day, and then she went to take a shower. After half an hour of scrubbing her body and washing her hair with her signature scents, Nina dried herself off on a large fluffy towel and got dressed.
When she was finished dressing and brushing her hair, Nina looked into a large mirror that was hanging on her door. Her dark-blue hair was in its usual hairstyle: bangs swooped toward the right side of her face, two spiky ponytails on the back of her head, and two thin braids that came low from the back of her head and rested on different shoulders. For her clothing she wore a black RED shirt that had the word "INSPI(RED)" on it and some faded, dark-blue low-rise jeans.
She smiled at her choice and walked over to her closet and pulled out a pair of white canvas Vans before slipping them on. She grabbed her backpack and a sports bag (that was filled with extra clothes) and made her way to the downstairs for a quick breakfast that she could take to school.
--
Nina's classes were rather uneventful, she hadn't seen Takashi the entire day and on her Advanced Physics 3 test she had gotten an A, but aside from that, nothing good had happened, actually the rest of the things that had happened were worse than good.
After classes at the University, Nina went to track practice, she was barely getting times and she was completely missing her marks. She sighed, today was an off day, and off days at track for
the star runner, were like bad omens. Similarly, if she did excellent in track, she would have a great day, whether it is the day she did well or someday soon.
She walked over to the starting blocks to get ready for her last hurdle set she had to do.
"On your mark." The assistant coach called out. "Get set." She continued, raising her right hand. "Go!"
And at the sound of a whistle Nina pushed off hard on the blocks and sped toward the first hurdle.
'One, two, three, jump!' Nina thought in her head. She had long perfected the three step hurdle technique, so running the hundred meters along with jumping over hurdles was quite easy.
'Step-one, two, three, jump!' The blunette thought once again after clearing the third hurdle.
'One, step, two, three… jump!' This time she had messed up, she wasn't sure if she had jumped too early or too late, all that she knew is that she had hit the fifth hurdle and was going down.
All of a sudden, there was silence. All eyes were on the blunette on the ground, murmurs were heard and gasps were made. "What happened?!" "Nina-san fell?!" "The world is coming to an end!" and other ridiculous comments came from the team.
"Nina, are you okay?" the monotone voice of the team captain asked.
"Uh, I think so Tomoe-senpai." The blunette grabbed the offered hand and brushed the dirt off of her body. "I'm just having an off day."
"Maybe you should stop for the day," Tomoe smiled warmly at the star athlete.
"Thanks…?" Nina was surprised, no one ever got out of practice when Tomoe was around. But she took the offer nonetheless and started the trek towards the locker rooms.
"Yeah, we need you in perfect shape for tomorrows meet." The green-haired captain mumbled aloud after Nina had gotten out of earshot.
Everyone else was still standing around and watching the scene, including a certain redhead. "Heh, you seem to be getting soft Tomoe…"
The green-haired woman just huffed and turned towards the redhead to make a smart comment, that is, until she saw that the whole rest of the team's eyes were on her.
"I don't think I was asking you to rest! What are you girls standing around for? Give me some laps!" she blew her whistle loudly and everyone quickly went back to practice.
"Getting soft, Nao?" Tomoe smirked, sarcastically repeating the question after the crowd had subsided. "Give me three of your sprinting repeats, starting at fifty meters then going to four hundred meters, with an increase of a hundred meters each time."
"What?! You can't be serious! That doesn't even equal four hundred meters!" the redhead retorted.
"I know, that's why you're going to go from three hundred meters to four hundred meters." Tomoe grinned evilly.
"Oh, you bitch." Nao mumbled under her breath.
"I'll make sure I remember that tonight." Tomoe winked and blew her whistle. "C'mon, you aren't going to finish the workout by standing still!"
"Agh!" Nao flicked her captain off and began her sprints.
Tomoe smiled and called out after her girlfriend, "Oh we're gonna have to wait 'til later for that, Nao-chan!"
'I hate you.' With that last thought, Nao continued running.
'Ah, power is such a wonderful thing.' Tomoe kept her eyes on the redhead's body as she sprinted off. 'As is Nao's body…. I do hope she won't be too tired for another workout tonight.'
--
After Nina had showered and changed, she had walked to the small café that was near the University.
'And now we play the waiting game…'
Nina sighed and watched as many customers came and went through the small doors of the shop. She looked at her cell phone; the time was 5:45pm, and about an hour and a half past the predetermined meeting time. She sighed again.
'Why is everyone standing me up? Was there some written book that said, "Ditch Nina at the Windbux Café whenever you ask her out"?'
Nina knew that Takashi was not the type of guy to stand a girl up, much less, let one sit alone—she laughed at that part after remembering the previous day—so she decided to call him to see if something was up. The call went through, but there was no answer. And after she waited for fifteen more minutes, she decided to go home.
On the walk she nearly tripped three times and dropped her bag twice. Today was a bad day.
--
When she arrived home, the television was already on and the channel it was on just happened to be the news.
"There was an accident last night on South Avenue where a drunk driver drove up, onto the sidewalk, and hit two pedestrians." The male newscaster began.
Nina walked into her living room and sat down on a large leather couch to continue watching the story.
"The male, and eldest of the two, took the brunt of the impact as he shielded his blind cousin from the car."
'Oh god, please… no. Please don't let this be happening!' Nina shook her head and debated on whether or not she should be turning off the TV or leaving it on. She reached for the remote.
"With her cousin's heroic acts, the younger woman, Erstin Ho, was able to sustain minor injuries." There was sympathy in the newscaster's voice as he continued with the story. "But the same could not be said for Takashi Ho, he is currently in critical condition at the South Bloom Hospital, fa—"
The rest of the news was ignored as Nina shut off the TV—she had all the information she needed—and grabbed her bag before running out the door.
--
The hospital wasn't too far from where the blunette lived; in fact, she lived closer to the hospital than she did to the University. She was out of breath by the time she reached South Bloom Hospital or "Bloom Hospital as many people called it, which makes more sense since there was no North Bloom Hospital, or any other "Bloom Hospital" for that matter. There were other hospitals in Windbloom, it's just their names had nothing to do with directions or blooms.
Nina looked up at the large hospital with determination, 'If I searched the rooms nonstop it would take me about an hour or two to find which room Takashi is in…'
The girl shook her head and recalled a phrase that Takashi would repeatedly say with a smile, "I don't like your technicalities, why can't you just keep things simple?"
'Right, simple.' Nina quickly made her way to the reception area. "Takashi Ho's room… please." She half panted out.
The receptionist typed away at a computer before replying, "Room 418, that's on the fourth floor."
"Thanks." Nina managed a smile before fast-walking to the elevators.
Nina tapped her foot, "Come on…" the orange number above the metal box was a nine with an arrow pointing down. "Eight… seven… six… five…" she muttered the numbers under her breath as the elevator came down floors. "Four…" she crossed her arms, waiting for the numbers to continue descending. "Three… three… three…" Nina repeated the word a few times in hope to speed the box up, but soon got fed up and turned toward the stairs.
The blunette lunged up the stairs; she sometimes took three or four at a time. It was like these that made Nina happy to run track and be experienced in hurdles, although she was unhappy that she had to be running up stairs in a hospital to visit a close friend, she was glad she did do track because running and jumping up the stairs would be exhausting otherwise.
Finally a large blue four on a door let the blunette know that she was on the fourth floor. She burst through the door and looked around to see if she could find the direction Takashi's room was in. A small sign a short distance away—and next to the elevator—had an arrow that pointed left for the rooms with the numbers 401-420 and an arrow that pointed right for those from 421-440.
Nina took a deep breath and sprinted down the hallway to the left.
--
A/N: Newest chapter update! I hope that whoever reads it likes it. I am also going to try to update all of my stories (if they have multiple chapters) over this summer. If I don't, at least I tried! Anyways you don't have to leave a review, but it's always nice to know if this story sucks as much ass as I think it does. Oh, I didn't really read this over either, so if there are mistakes, would you please tell me? It would be most appreciated!
Oh if you didn't know, I think this story is going to comprise of three parts/arcs, all within the same story. The first and current part is "Before the accident and Blindness." Next would be "After the accident and Surgery." And finally, "After the surgery and Seeing." The arc titles may be subject to change and there maybe added arcs or ars that might not be there. The ideas are a bit incomplete, but I know where I'm going with this, so have a little faith?
Thanks again for reading, and I would like to Thank the reviewers of the past chapters! It is thanks to you that I was able to continue writing this! Seriously though, reviews make writers happy, and a happy writer (at least in my case) means more chapters!!
peace out!
naomi
