Riku was trailing his friends into the bar, it was a Friday night in Radiant Garden. Their usual bar wasn't overly crowded but you were likely to brush a few elbows as you passed by.
It was all by chance, he walked past her booth seemingly only giving her a passing glance. She had been facing the door he had just entered, allowing him to see all of her face.
Seconds felt slower as he looked at her, her blonde hair was tucked over one shoulder and her lips curled softly into a polite smile. He returned the gesture.
The moment ended when he had passed her booth, he turned his head back slightly to see she saw sat across from a man, clearly, she was on a date.
He hoped she wasn't.
Riku sat with his friends and they talked and joked, but Riku's eyes kept drifting to where she sat. He could only see the top of her head, but he couldn't stop himself from looking at her.
"Riku, what about you?" Sora asked him from across the table, making Riku finally bring his focus back to the group.
"No idea," Riku says easily, as he looked at his friends. These were his childhood friends Sora and Kairi, they'd grown up together and moved out to Radiant Garden for college and ever left.
Sora and Riku both worked for the same company, Riku being a finance analyst and Sora being a marketing lead for the royal crown. While Kairi was still finishing up her medical degree.
"He wasn't listening" Kairi laughed as she brought a glass to her lips. Riku looked to the tabletop as he finished his drink and the friends laughed at his apparent absent-mindedness.
"You are always daydreaming," Kairi says with a smile, as they continue talking.
His eyes drifted back to the girl, searching for the top of her head over the booth wall only to find her absent from her seat, he quickly scanned the room and saw her standing at the bar talking to the bartender.
Riku could now see she was wearing a simple dress that seemed almost too big on her, she was slim and quite short. The angle of where he was sitting let him see her talking, the smile that spread across her face as the joke the bartender told her.
Riku went to drink from his glass, realizing it was already empty.
"I'm gonna get another" Riku said hurriedly, he was trying to run into the girl if only to hear her voice. Leaving both Sora and Kairi confused at his sudden movement.
She was leaning against the bar as Riku approached, she turned her head to see who had approached the bar and once again smiled at him, he returned it easily.
"Two Sea-Salts," The bartender says handing the glasses to the blonde, as she went to grab it, her wallet slipped from her fingers.
"Damn," She says softly moving to put a drink back on the bar.
"I got it," Riku said quickly as he leaned down to pick her up the wallet and handed it to her.
"Thank you," She says, her smile no longer polite, a genuine smile on her lips. Riku felt almost dizzy from it.
She grabbed her drinks and was back at her booth, the man smiling at her, and the warm smile that was given to Riku was now given to the man she was with. She sat and her hand brushed the man's hand, their fingers locking lazily.
Definitely on a date.
Riku's smile faded a bit leaving only a ghost of one on his lips, he was disappointed but just seeing her had been something.
Riku returned to his friends and tried not to look at her for the rest of the night, his effort wasn't fruitful as he kept sneaking glances at her.
He saw her leave, her golden hair swept over her shoulder, and watched as her date put an arm around her. The bar was thinning out as the night grew longer and the cold outside grew harsher.
Riku smiled as she left, she was laughing at something her date had said, she was stunning. She was in good spirits, and his heart felt so heavy at the idea she was leaving but also so light from seeing her so happy.
An hour or two passed before the trio called it quits for the night. The night had felt like such a dream, and with her gone Riku was back to reality.
"Sora, you want a lift?" Riku asked as he got his coat onto his shoulders and watched the pair in front of him arguing about something or another about the blitz ball game they had all been watching.
"Yeah, Kai you've got class early tomorrow right?" Sora asked and the redhead nodded as she wrapped a scarf around her neck.
"Yes, we are studying for our practicals next week, so we are gonna be up at dawn" She joked.
The group walked out and parted ways with Kairi at her car, and the two boys started to walk to Riku's car.
"I can't believe Tidus almost lost the match for us tonight, he is usually so much better" Sora commented on the blitz ball game that had been on that night at the bar.
"He was off for a while since his wife had the kid, I imagine he wasn't practicing all that much" Riku said and Sora groaned, in annoyance.
"But I just think that-" Sora started but stopped when a horrible noise came from behind a row of cars.
"Oh kingdoms, what was that?" Sora asked as he stopped walking, looking to where they heard the sound.
The sound was low and gurgling. Like someone trying to take a deep breath with water in their mouth. It was a horrible thing to hear.
"I bet someone hit a dog or something," Riku said as he too went to where the sound came from, behind a row of cars near the back wall, there she was.
Her blonde hair haloed on the ground, no longer over her shoulder. Her lips were pale and chapped, her skin had an unnatural shade of blue settled on it, her dress was covered in blood. She was covered in blood, specks on it on her cheeks and in her hair.
The sound was coming from her, as she tried to breathe, her hands were shaking as she held her midsection, the blood was everywhere pooling underneath her.
"Oh my god," Sora said as he quickly was at her side, and put his hands on her midsection trying to stop the blood from leaving her body any more than it already had.
"She is bleeding too much, we need to get her to a hospital," Sora said as the blood seeped through the gap of his fingers. Sora started to grab her arms to move her.
"Don't move her! We don't know what happened. I'm calling 9-1-1," Riku said quickly pulling out his phone, he felt so numb as he dialed.
Sora had his hands on her stomach, he could feel how cold her skin was and how hot the blood was. His knees were sticky from where it had started to pool under her. Her eyes were opened barely as she looked straight to the sky above her.
Sora could hear Riku talking to the 9-1-1 line, giving them the address and the situation.
Riku moved to kneel by her head, as he checked for a pulse on her neck.
"She is alive, I can feel her pulse," Riku says into the phone, his shaking fingers touching her cold skin.
"Don't worry they will be here soon" Riku said whether to her, Sora, or himself it wasn't clear. Riku's hands stroked her hair as he spoke, and he looked to Sora who had tears on his cheeks.
"What is her name?" The dispatch officer asked and Riku quickly grabbed the purse that laid next to the woman, the same one he had picked up earlier in the night.
He opened it and pulled out her id card, her blonde hair had been shorter when the picture was taken, she had a small smile on her face.
"Her name is Namine Leer, she is twenty-two," Riku said quickly, Sora was looking to him and back to the girl, Namine.
"Riku, I think she passed out," Sora said his tone fearfully, and Riku looked to her face, her blueish hue was worse and her eyes were no longer looking to the sky, they were closed, her face looked as if she was sleeping.
"We think she passed out," Riku said quickly into the phone, his tone jumpy and filled with fear.
"I need you both to apply pressure to stop the bleeding," The phone says as Riku fumbles with it and puts it on speaker, and putting it on the ground next to the three of them.
The ambulance would be there within minutes, but time seemed so slow. Both men were now holding her stomach as no matter what they did she just kept bleeding. The dispatch told them to just hang on and keep applying pressure.
The sound of the ambulance was not a relief, as the medics piled out of the car and Riku yelled for them to help her. The medics cramped into the small space behind the cars and replaced Sora and Riku, when they moved her onto the stretched her eyes flashed open, the pain shot through her features and she made another loud horrible sounding gasp.
Riku was where her eyes landed, and again time slowed as it had in the bar when he first saw her, her soft polite smile replaced with tearful eyes and blood-smeared cheeks.
The medics moved her to the ambulance, Riku hadn't even realized he was following the stretcher until she was being loaded and her eyes fell closed again. The moment was gone, time sped back up. He felt he could breathe a little better.
"Buddy, are you coming with your girlfriend or not?" A medical asked hurriedly, as he closed one of the doors leaving the other open for Riku to get inside. Riku froze unsure what to say.
"Go, she shouldn't be alone," Sora says to him, the brunette was covered in blood, his knees soaked red and his shirt and hands discolored with it. He had his arms wrapped around himself, the shock of the events having set in. The panic and fear in Sora's eyes no doubt reflexed Riku's.
Riku gets into the ambulance without a word.
They are moving fast weaving in and out of traffic, the sound of the siren was deafening from inside of the ambulance, the medics asked him questions and Riku had no answers. He could only stare at the blonde, under the bright lights he saw how truly dead she looked.
Her skin was sickly and with shades of grey and blue, Riku felt sick. His heart was racing and the air around him felt thinner and thinner.
"What happened?" The medic asked and Riku started to hyperventilate.
"I don't... I don't know, she was just on the ground..." Riku said as he started to feel his chest grow tighter the more he looked at the girl that was dying in front of him.
"Sir, you are in shock, I need you to take some deep breaths and try to tell me what happened," The medic said steadily as he did various things for the girl in front of him, Riku looked to the heart monitor and saw that her heart rate was dropping.
The beeping started and the medics went into action calling out various things to the rest of the team, and the medic sat next to Riku started to give assistance rather than asking him questions about the girl he didn't actually know.
"She's not gonna die," Riku said out loud again more for himself than anyone else.
"We will do everything we can for her," One medic said giving Riku a smile laced with pity.
The hospital was chaotic, things were happening quickly as soon as she was out of the ambulance and headed into the hospital.
"What happened?" A doctor asked the paramedic, as they motioned for Riku to follow someone else, but he didn't move, he watched them start to take the girl into what looked like a large room.
"Twenty-two-year-old female presents with at least seven stab wounds" That was all Riku caught before he threw up over the edge of the ambulance, he had his head between his legs the stress of the situation getting to him.
"Who the hell is he?" The doctor asked, looking to Riku in his shell shocked state.
"That's her boyfriend, he saved her life," The medic says, and Riku felt ice water being thrown on him.