Shiemi wasn't too sure what happened, exactly.

Because one second, she was sprinting across the street in a last ditch effort to make it to her class on time. She had an exam, one that was meant to make or break her basic biology grade, and there was no way in the world she was going to miss it. She had studied for it, after all; a night long cram session the night before, complete with pizza and little to no sleep for nearly 48 hours.

The next second, everything hurt and the cloudy gray sky was above her. Her limbs felt heavy, her bones ached, and the sharp bits of pavement poked into the bare skin of her back, exposed from where her shirt had ridden up. Her breath was coming in shallow little gasps, lungs like deflated balloons in her chest.

She could move her fingers and her toes. She could feel pain in various parts of her body-everything that she couldn't feel felt fuzzy, almost detached. She couldn't hear much of anything, either, the world around her oddly silent.

Shiemi sat up gingerly, the world around her sliding to a sickening slant. She closed her eyes quickly, a hand finding it's way to her forehead.

Something heavy set itself on her shoulder, and everything seemed to snap back into place at once.

"Oh, shit, are you okay?" She looked over, surprised to find herself looking into the worried face of a boy, his navy blue eyes boring into her. His mouth was partly open, and she was faced with his rather prominent canine teeth.

Where had he come from?

"I-yeah!" she responded brightly and just a little too quickly. "I'm fine!" She wasn't sure what, exactly, had transpired-her mind seemed to have erased that little bit of information. Had she tripped over her own feet? That was certainly plausible.

The man who had come to her rescue babbled, "You came out of nowhere, and I couldn't stop, and-and now you're bleeding, holy crap. I am so sorry."

Shiemi wasn't too sure what he was talking about. The blank stare she leveled on him must have caused him to reach the same conclusion, because he kept talking.

"You don't-oh. I just hit you with my motorcycle," he explained cautiously. Shiemi could feel understanding dawning on her slowly, realizing why she smelled burned rubber and why, exactly, she felt like she had been hit by a train.

She looked off to the side with a soft, "Oh," seeing the vehicle laying on it's side just a few feet away from her, a helmet carelessly tossed down next to it.

And then her eyes snagged a view of her now-broken watch, the hands stuck at the time of impact.

"I'm going to be so late!" She pulled her legs underneath her and willed herself to stand, ignoring the fact that there was now a hole in the knee of her jeans and blood seeping up from a wound that hadn't existed when she had left her apartment earlier.

Staggering to her feet, she felt behind her-her backpack was still on her back, hopefully undamaged. Her head, though fuzzy, seemed to be working as well as it could. Her legs were still holding her up, which meant they would get her to school.

But only if she hurried.

"You need to go to the hospital!" the man-boy? she wasn't sure. He looked about the same age as she was-exclaimed. "You're bleeding, and I could have just killed you!" He said the words like she hadn't already figured that much out.

"No, no, nonononono. I need to go take an exam! The hospital can wait!"

"I just hit you with my bike, and you're worried about a test?" Her back ached, and the ringing in her ears was still going at full roar.

But she remembered that the mitochondria was the powerhouse of the cell, seventy thousand species of plants were used for medicine, and over 100,000 creatures belonged to the Phylum Chordata.

If she could remember that much, she was sure she could remember everything she needed to for the exam, body hurting from head to toe and head pounding or not.

She just had to get to school first.

"Yes!" she blurted, turning in the general direction her school lay and looking into traffic. She wasn't about to get deterred again, let alone get hit again and not be capable of getting up. "Please excuse me!"

She managed to take all of two steps, ankle throbbing, before there was a hand on her wrist. Startled, she looked over her shoulder and up into the blue eyes of her assailant.

And for once, she couldn't think of anything to say.

"If I can't take you to the hospital, at least let me give you a ride to school, yeah?" he said in a rush, words tumbling out of his mouth so fast she almost didn't catch all of them.

She hesitated-he was a stranger, sure, and he had just hit her with his motorcycle. But if she missed the exam, she would automatically fail and have to retake the biology course again. Which meant it would take that much longer to get into the botany program and get her degree.

That made her mind up for her.

"Yeah," she agreed, nodding vigorously; her headache increased to the point where she was nearly dizzy. "That would be great."

Without another word, he gently pulled her to where his bike lay, releasing her wrist and hauling the hunk of chrome and metal upright.

Then he held out the helmet to her. "At least one of us has to be safe, right?" She took it from him gingerly, fleeting smile springing to her face.

She had no idea how to put it on.

"Have you ever been on the back of a motorcycle before?" her assailant asked as she slipped the night-black helmet over her platinum hair. Her nose was tender where she had to pull the bottom of the helmet over her face, and she knew she probably wasn't a pretty sight.

"No." A nervous laugh forced it's way out of her mouth. They had always been too flashy for her taste, a little too dangerous for her nerves. Her heart felt like it was in her throat at the thought of getting on the back of it with a stranger, but she needed to take her exam. "Is the helmet on right?"

"Yeah, let me just-" He reached for her, and she bit the inside of her cheek.

His fingers brushed her chin as he tightened the strap; she was glad for the helmet, because her cheeks felt like they were burning.

"I'm Shiemi," she blurted nervously.

He smiled at her, and it was almost like looking straight at the sun.

"Rin."

fin.