Chapter 3: An Interaction?
Another day of work for Nurse Joy in the Pokemon Center of Eterna City. Though, she was not happy about this morning. Coming into the Center in like 5 in the morning, she trudges in her nurse uniform with a grumbling frown. All while her work friend smirks at her from the counter, as she was ready to leave. She hated that about her sister/clone.
Shiela was sitting comfy upon the counter, twirling her bag. "Alas, Amelia. you have decided to grace me with your presence this beautiful. How was your weekend?" Shiela smugly said, wagging her eyebrows to Amelia's annoyance, making Amelia grumble even more.
"grngh… it was fine. Shiela." Amelia grittily said, hissing Shiela's own name at her, only surmising to her sister's/clone's smirking and satisfaction. To which Amelia stifles a groan in her throat.
"Now then, shall we get into uniform, A-mel-ia~?"
That last line bridled our Nurse Joy with a salty taste in her mouth and annoyance, building up to a pouted face so early in the morning. Given her nature, she leashes her inner hound dog and sighs it out. "we shall." She says, placing her bag and jacket together below the counter. With that, she and Amelia come around the spare room behind to change into their uniforms.
As Amelia and Shiela opened their lockers, they decided to make conversation.
"Any luck in your Mobile program?" Amelia breaks the silence, working on removing her clothes from top to bottom.
"Ahh. Sadly, no. They seemed to be busy over at HQ, and all the Officer Jenny's are handling assignments far from here."
"Is that so?" Amelia murmurs as she unbuttons her shirt, letting her shoulders slip out.
"Yeah. And it made my weekend kinda boring, to be honest." Shiela whines as she tied her apron.
Amelia looks at her (dainty) head and finishes braiding her hair, her hands panicking over to her locker for her signature green ribbon. "I got it." Shiela says behind Amelia as she closes in on her hair to tie it.
"Thanks." Amelia says before she falls her hands by her sides, letting Shiela tie up her hair nicely. Shiela's soft breath lands on the nape of Amelia's, making her shiver from its warmth.
"Aaaand there." Amelia can feel her hair tighten as Shiela finished tying the green ribbon on her hair. They both face each other and Shiela places her hands on her hips with maximum confidence plastered on her face. "Let us be off."
Amelia's counterpart's show of confidence made her lips tug to a smile, making her shoulders be weightless. "Yeah~!" Amelia says before Shiela suddenly spins her toward the door.
Shiela, with a grin, cheekily forces Amelia out the door and to the counter, saying, "Great to hear that, Amelia~. I'll be here when you need me." The door closes and Amelia squeaks. A second of confused blinking, she groans and mentally punches herself after having reminded that Shiela was a joker with her.
With that, she pats her cheeks and walks to the counter, ready to face coming-and-going Trainers. The doors slide open to the first batch of Trainers in need, and she puts aside the petty emotions against her colleague and wears a welcoming smile. "Welcome to the Pokemon Center~"
The day went on like any other; Nurse Joy healing their Pokemon, taking in lodgers that come to rest, and, all in all, being a good citizen. She sighs to relieve herself of any tension she's gotten in the day.
"Please come back again~" Amelia says to a batch of customers with an earnest smile as they leave. The doors slide closing, letting Amelia rest her face for a moment. Leaning back on her seat, she fans herself in a huff after taking on many of her costumers.
In earshot, she hears a Chansey chime at her right. She looks down to the Chansey, seeing that it had a bottle of water in her hand.
"Ah, thank you." Amelia says, and she takes the water from its stubby hand and pops it open. A fizzing sound rushes out of the bottle and she gulps it down. She wipes the drops off her lips and covers the lid before she places it down below the counter. She looks back at the Chansey, still smiling up at her. Amelia smiles back and places a hand atop the nursing Pokemon's head and pats her head, feeling fluffy as the Chansey smiles at her hand.
She checks her watch and looks back at the Chansey. It was almost time for a coffee break. Amelia places her hands on her neck and twists it to relieve herself. After a huff, she prepares for the next batch of customers, if ever.
Then, a girl with dark blue hair holding a Piplup in her arms comes up to the counter. "Err, Nurse Joy," Amelia looks to the blunette. "the video phone doesn't seem to want to start at all." "Pip-Pip." Her Piplup nods with her
Her face tenses up as she sends a face of shock at the Trainer. She stands from her seat, seeing the video phone placed in the hallway to their left. Amelia tries to see if the video phone can even operate. But judging from the intense heat and work that the machine was going through she felt from just touching it, she directs the blunette Trainer to the video phone station in one of the rooms, even handing a key for just that.
After that small problem, she went to see if the video phone in the hallway was still generating heat. She stands in front of the screen, seeing that it was barfing code. She sighs before she unplugs the machine from its socket and lets it cool off. Shaking off the sting from her fingers, she walks back to the counter, bearing another chore in the Pokemon Centre.
Crashing down to the chair, she huffs a sigh from the small anxiety that encounter brought. Shiela peeks from the back room, looking at the (defeated) Amelia.
"… You alright, girl?" Shiela asks in concern, and Amelia wordlessly groaned to even speak.
"Technology." She whines in a groan, eliciting a small chuckle from Shiela.
"I'll type in the electrical company. Maybe they'll send in a hot man to help~"
"*groan* Shush."
Checking her wristwatch, it is 1:30 in the afternoon. Over five hours since Shiela phoned Eterna's electrical company and almost time for Amelia's shift to be over. The repairman should be coming through the door anytime now. Amelia lazily sips her coffee and as she and Shiela stare at the sliding doors, ready to welcome the repairman. Shiela breaks the cold silence with a murmur.
"You think that the guy they sent is hot?"
Shiela's mutter makes Amelia's shoulders stagger. "You're straightforward with what you want, aren't you?" Amelia comments on Shiela's lowkey thirst, keeping her arms crossed to herself.
"What? I just like hot guys. Is that so wrong?"
"When it turns to an obsession, yes?" Amelia coldly answers, shooting down Shiela's passion.
"Keh! I don't need your permission." Shiela curses, whipping her face away from Amelia.
Then, their ears perk up at the sound of sliding doors, etching on the floor.
"Welcome to the Pokemon Center~" Amelia and Shiela says in sync to the incoming customer in a bow.
"Erm I'm here to fix the video phone system."
Right on cue. The Nurses Joy both thought. Amelia moved first to tell the situation. "Well it's been acting like that for a while now, and-" Amelia and the repairman freeze at the sight of each other, catching familiarity. A solid body shape, dark brown hair with a high hairline; the green ribbon that matched their eyes.
It was Karsten Kazuo that came. He came in with a small toolcase strapped around his shoulder; wearing a white shirt inside a leather jacket and belted pants; with a small watch on his wrist. As always, he looked good, even in casual housewear.
"M-Mr. Kazuo!" Amelia says just below a shout. Karsten perks up at his last name; he then eyes Amelia for anything familiar. He sees her signature green ribbon to be neatly tying her hair; she was indeed his next door neighbor.
"H-Hi, neighbor." Karsten says with a waving hand and a smile.
"You work at an electric company now?" Amelia asks, rushing out beside the counter to face him. Shiela silently spectates from behind the counter.
"I applied before my move to Eterna. Serving tables was my side-job." Karsten coolly explained with a soft smirk on his face. The Nurse Joy (Amelia) stood before Karsten in awe.
"I had no idea you were an engineer." Amelia said, awestruck.
"You didn't ask before." Karsten stated and the silence started to seep in. Then, they both heard a creeping sound beside them. Amelia looks at the creeper, to find that it was Shiela, eyeing her neighbor with a glint.
"Wow~ You didn't tell me that you knew guys this hot!" Shiela whispers to Amelia, making her stagger and tense.
Shiela's outburst made Amelia's face tense up. How was I grouped with this wierdo? She thought as her ears started heating up in embarrassment for her. Shiela turns her attention to the repair man and smiles up to him.
"Hi~ so, you're here to fix our videophone?" Shiela starts with almost sultry eyes, and Karsten turns his attention to the other Nurse Joy (Shiela).
"I am, ma'am. I'll be looking into other things if your systems are doing fine."
"Oh? Pleasure to be working with you today." Shiela said, bowing respectfully. This made Amelia stagger with a dead-drop expression in a misstep backwards.
"Same to you. So, Amelia, will you lead the way?" Karsten says, bringing Amelia back to reality and into a fizzy thinking capacity.
"E-Umm right. This way." Amelia says as she gestured her hands to the hallway on their left, looking back at Shiela. He nerves are peeved, visibly on her face, when she noticed that Shiela was winking at her with a thumbs-up. Her face staggers at the sight of her own best friend encouraging this.
She shakes it off and turns her attention back to Karsten. "Here is the videophone, Mr. Kazuo." Amelia says, stopping beside the malfunctioning videophone from a line of five videophones. Karsten takes a look at the machine's sides then to Nurse Joy's eyes; his soft brown eyes grabbing her attention.
"So it was bugging out?" Karsten asks, looking into her blue irises. The question made Amelia's eyes flutter.
"Y-Yeah. It started going on the fritz in the middle of a video call. I unplugged it so it wouldn't anymore."
"Hmm." Karsten nods at Amelia before he looks for the electrical outlet. His eyes land onto an unplugged chord from its respective outlet. "Would you object if I were to plug it back in?" Karsten asks, pointing to the chord.
"Oh, not at all." Nurse Joy says, gesturing him to the plug.
Karsten kneels down, grabs the chord's head and plugs it in. The videophone can be heard booting up. Nurse Joy and Karsten look at the monitor. Seeing that it had no picture, something was wrong with the monitor and its functions.
"Alright. Give me, like, half an hour and I'll fix this videophone."
"Oh. Ok." Wow. Fast hands, I guess.
With that, Karsten unscrewed the panel and went to work. Nurse Joy steps over to the wall and leans on it. Her blue eyes drift down to Karsten, digging into the videophone. "So, how long have you been working as an engineer?" Amelia starts conversation, and Karsten glances at her before he closes in on the wiring.
"I've been – working as an engineer for the past year, so I'm not what you'd call an expert," Karsten states, before taking a screwdriver from his belt. He sees a loose wire. Nurse Joy (Amelia) looks down to Karsten's head inside the machine, hearing click-clack's as he works.
"So, how are you there?" Amelia says, satiating her curiosity.
"Right now, I'm just waiting for orders from my superiors. We're going to be taking part in a big project soon. Clean energy, they called it." He says, grunting the last sentence as he unplugged the loose wires. He smirks at how poorly cabled these wires were; some of the wires were poking out.
Meanwhile, Amelia was standing by him in awe. "Sounds exciting~." She says.
"Yeah. We're going to help lots of people, they said. But for now, us small-time engineers help with what we can until there is a plan." He says before his finger is pricked from touching the wires. "D'ow." He hissed under his breath.
Amelia perks at the hiss and she nears Karsten "Oh dear. Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Just a prick." He says bearing with the sharp pain.
"Don't worry. I'll get you some disinfectant." Nurse Joy (Amelia) shuffles in her place before stepping for their backroom.
"Nono, Nurse Joy. It's fine, just a scratch." Karsten said, waving his pricked hand in defense; his head still inside the videophone. "By the way, could you hand me some electrical tape in my toolbox?" Karsten says, unmoving and showing a palm to Nurse Joy.
Amelia becomes panicky before looking down to the toolbox and finding the tape to give to him. "Thanks." Karsten chirps before ripping off a piece to start wrapping the wires together. Silence enveloped between the two again.
Amelia's eyes drift to the counter, and she tenses up at the realization that she hasn't been waiting by the counter. She looks out of the hallway and at the counter, seeing her colleague, Shiela, already waiting. She sighs as she lets her shoulders drop and relax. She'll have to fill in for her later this week.
For Karsten, he can't rack off this feeling that there was something. Earlier, out of the hallway, the Nurses Joy talked. There was nothing out of place about that, right? … wait. Amelia? Karsten thought to himself. He swishes the sweat off his fingers before he continues fixing the small wires. … Surely, that would mean that she would have one too…
"… By the way," Karsten calls, pulling his head out to look at Nurse Joy. Amelia, upon Karsten's call, peers at Karsten and tilts her head with a smile. Karsten's brown eyes drift to Amelia's blues for a moment. ", Amelia?" Karsten invokes, sending a smirk.
The Nurse Joy blinks her eyes innocently at Karsten. "eeeeEEEEEEHHH?!" She exclaims, her face becoming visibly flustered; her face letting out steam. Karsten chuckles and Amelia is sent to a panic again. "Y-You heard?"
"You were practically in front of me. Not much of a surprise."
"Y-a-Ai!" Nurse Joy stammers to word a sentence, placing her hands on her cheeks to cover the redness on her face; her squirming kept her frozen in place, her eyes sinking to the floor. Tch! Shiela! She forgot to drop our nicknames.
Karsten chuckles again before he stands up to meet Amelia's blue eyes. "Amelia," Karsten murmurs, and Nurse Joy's sapphire eyes drift up to Karsten's brown eyes. "I think that's a pretty name, Amelia." Karsten seriously says, complementing her name; Amelia's panic tones down as she stares into his eyes.
She can see that he was serious, finding that her name was indeed pretty. Maybe her brain has been turned to pot, or this was real and there is someone that found her pretty. The red on her face softens to a blush; her hands dropping just by her chest and her eyes shies away from Karsten's eyes.
"Th-Thank you, Mr. Kazuo."
"… You can call me Karsten, Amelia."
"Er!" Amelia strains at Karsten's suddenness, feeling the heat deeper in her cheeks tugging her lips to a smile. Her sapphire irises drift to Karsten's brown eyes; his soft, smiling face made her heart felt it could burst. Her shoulders gradually drop, letting her relax. "O-Ok. Karsten. I'll remember that." Amelia says with a smile.
She invoked his name, and he could feel a pang in his chest, feeling like a load has been relieved off his shoulders and making him light as air. He earnestly smiles at Nurse Joy, and she smiles back. Both diving into one another's eyes, with glee; both feel like they've become good friends. For Amelia, it felt like this moment went on for a good while.
"Well, Amelia, how's about we give this a try? I think I got it working." Karsten says, pointing to the video machine; his eyes staying onto Amelia's. His breaking-of-silence pulls Amelia back to reality as she realizes that they've both been staring at each other. In innocent embarrassment, she scrunches her pink lips. Were we really staring? Amelia thinks to herself, stealing a glance at Karsten. … He has nice eyes.
Karsten fixes the panel back on and boots the computer up. The screen gets picture, and the options for calling can now be seen on the monitor. "Huzzah!" He rejoices. Before Amelia can speak, Karsten started tidying up.
"Now, should any of these video machines be on the fritz again, you can call some people in the city; tell them I sent you." Karsten glints, flashing a business card; Amelia takes it before she tucks it into her apron. "Or I could come back again and assist, if you want."
"O-Oh. It - You would not be a bother, Karsten. But it's just that," Amelia looks behind her, seeing no one heard them earlier. "You and I are sort of not allowed to engage in first names in the Pokemon Center. It's sort of strictly a Nurse Joy, kinda deal." Nurse Joy says above a whisper.
"O-Oh. Hehehe~. Sorry." Karsten apologizes with a meek shoulder, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.
"Oh nonono! It's fine!" Amelia panickily says, swashing away the mistake that she doesn't want him to call her that. "… It's just that…" Nurse Joy turns meekly after her sudden outburst; Karsten perks up and turns his attention to Amelia. After breathing inwardly some composure, she places her hands on her hips; the red not disappearing from her cheeks. She stands proudly as she stares at Karsten once more; Karsten peers into Amelia's eyes before her proud façade falls from his stare. "… N-Never mind. Forget I said anything." She says, swatting away what she was going to say.
Karsten peers to Amelia's movements and actions, picking up that she was going to say something else. "… alright. I'll be off now." Karsten says, opening his palm to Amelia; and she is visibly confused by this, making an 'o' on her face. "That'll be 80 Poke Dollars."
After a good while, Amelia transfers the cash over to Karsten and he is off to the door.
"Where will you go, Karsten?" Amelia calls from behind the counter, concerned for her friend.
"Oh I will be having my lunch before I go back to the station."
"Ahh. Then, please come back again~" Amelia says, waving Karsten off; smiling as they both bid each other adieu. The doors slide open, letting the repairman through and Amelia etches the sight of him into his mind. So I'll be having my neighbor call me by my nickname, then. Amelia thinks as she organizes some papers into their papers.
Unbeknownst to her, Shiela peeks out to slyly snicker behind Amelia. "So, didja get his number~?" Shiela asks, making Amelia fake a spittake.
"Pft-R-Really?!" Amelia exclaims as Shiela waggled her brows at her. "We-We're just neighbors!"
"So you live next door to him? Damn~ you do move fast!" Shiela curbs in awe, making Amelia groan; she crashes down to the seat and her face down to the counter, annoyed to look at her. "C'mon, Amelia! You've got a chance to hit it off with that hottie! And it would not even look weird!" Shiela states in a whining manner.
Amelia's ears perked up to her, and she found herself to be peeking a glance at Shiela from the corner of her eye. She breathes in as she places her arms at the back of her head, leaning on the back of her chair. She looks at Shiela down her nose, letting herself be humored.
"You really think so?" She breathly says out of a chuckle with a tear in her eye from Shiela's teasing.
"Yeah! And I'll definitely support you." Shiela assures with glint in her eyes, placing her hand on Amelia's shoulder. Amelia giggles at how thoughtful that would be.
Then again, Amelia does like it be so wrong for her to – Wait… She realized that she was overstepping her bounds. But was she truly?
After a tiring day of work, checking charts and fixing Eterna City, he walks on the pavement towards his house; He mumbles about how his raise wasn't even that high and that he did most of the work at the plant.
Dammit. He curses to himself. But after passing Nurse Joy's (Amelia's) house, he reminds himself that tomorrow was a new day; his face is plastered with a ghost of a smile. He turns left and trudges up to his doorstep.
After making the flight of steps and walks up to his door, he stuffs his hand. He pulls out his keys and inserts it to the slot. The doorlock unlatches and he swings the door open. Stepping into the house, he releases a sigh of relief after switching on the lights.
"Finally." He mumbles as he lazily places his leather jacket onto the coat rack's hooks and closes the door. But when he least expected it, a doorbell rang. Stifling a groan, he glances to the door and walks to open it. Who could that be?
He opens the door to see a casually dressed Nurse Joy; Her pink hair was tied down to a shoulder as she wore only a white robe. She squeaks before zipping her hands behind her back; her face ladled with a soft blush. Karsten blinks and he finally notices the green ribbon, wrapped on her neck as a choker and tied up with a neat bow.
Nurse Joy fizzes before she breaths in some composure and smiles up to him, her soft blush unfading from her cheeks. Karsten musters a smile on his face and puts his hands together, leaning by the door. She can feel his soft eyes gazing through Amelia, making her drop a bead of sweat.
"Here's a Neighbor Appreciation basket." Amelia chirps, presenting a plastic-wrapped basket to Karsten. His brown eyes land onto the basket and he takes it. He peered through the wrapping and saw that there was bread, pastries, cookies, breakfast foods, all that jazz. Karsten rolls his brown eyes back to Amelia, and she fizzes once more from his gaze; his brown eyes felt like chocolate.
He has such nice eyes! She thinks to herself, before she clears her throat and braves through his gaze. "ahem. Everyone was giving those out and I had two too many. S-So," Amelia started to twiddle her two fingers together. ", I thought that I would give you one of mine." Amelia finishes and looks sideward, and Karsten processed her gesture.
"O-Oh. Thank you, N-Nurse Joy."
Amelia caught his stammer, and her face develops to a pout. "Y-You can call me Amelia out here, Karsten." She pettily says through a pouty frown, her head unturning. Karsten catches her disappointed tone.
"Alright – Amelia." Karsten corrects her name after a pause. This caused Amelia's already hot blush to intensify and spread across her face. If Karsten's brain wasn't turned to mush, he'd notice that her feet were squirming in place.
Amelia grins up at him, and Karsten anticipates to what she'll say. "Alright. Have a good night, Karsten." She says with earnest; awkwardly leaving, waving off to Karsten. Him, still having a dumbstruck smile on his face, leans forward to watch Amelia walk out to the pavement. "And enjoy those goods, Karsten~!" She calls, beaming up to him. The moonlight highlighted her face and figure as she walked.
On her walk back, she only thought about Karsten's soft brown irises and how it put her sapphire ones to shame. Why do they slay me so? She thought to herself through a muffled groan as she went through her door.
As she walks up the steps to her bedroom, she thinks about what happened earlier today. Am I wrong to seek a connection? I can't be, right? I was only being civil with a person in the Pokemon Center. But was I being weird to him? Surely, he would have left if he did. But… Why didn't he?
She thinks to herself as she undoes the bow around her hip and opens up her robe. Until she hears a knock on her bedroom window. She leans to look at it and ties her robe back up. Amelia slicks up her hair behind her ear and peers through the window. On the other side of the glass was Karsten, waving at her.
Amelia perks up and slides the window up; she sits down on the window's edge and looks at Karsten, dumbstruck on why he would knock on her window.
Karsten scratches his neck before he grasps a cookie jar, nervously chuckling. "Care to join me?" Karsten asks with a nervous smile, making Amelia smile and blush lightly.
But this is good. "Sure thing, Karsten."
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k-o-f-i-.-c-o-m /chaotic triad
Remove the dashes and voila.