Yuuta groaned, watching as the buildings cast their long shadows everywhere, causing everything to be darker that it should have. Possibly for the best, he should turn around. Shuai wouldn't notice his absence anyways as she often worked night hours, so he didn't have to worry about anyone else worrying about him, a thankful thought seeing as he hated to trouble people. He turned around and began to head back when he noticed a feint blue light only feet away from him. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out the edges that the light hit, trying to see what was going on. Eventually, he realized what it was: a hurt girl -a waterbender- trying to heal herself but not working very well from the looks of it.

He took a few more steps towards the girl only to see that she had only barely managed to close the wound. In fact, it was a pretty bad cut she had there; how did she get it? His instinctive nature kicked in very quickly and before he knew it he was kneeling down next to her figuring out how to pick her up in the most effective way. In the end, he picked her up bridal style -why was it named that of all things?- hoping the cane that still hung on to his arm didn't hurt her back or neck. He couldn't do much more to make the ride any comfortable for her as it was already painful enough for him. His own weight he could manage; going up the stairs were painful, but he could deal with it; but carrying his weight plus another's was too much, even if she was light.

He limped his way back to the store, setting her down as carefully as he could manage, though he heard a thunk of two which he presumed only to be a few knocks on the head and nothing more. Once the door was open, he picked her up one last time to take her to one of the sick beds they offered. Her arm was still bleeding pretty badly and he got up with the help of his cane (his leg throbbing from exertion) and grabbed several bandages, warm salt water, a cloth and a surgical needle and thread.

Yuuta easily cleaned her wound with the salt water and cloth, but the wound was too deep to keep open. To prep, he tied the thread to the eye of the needle and used a clean spot of the cloth and put it in her mouth. The last thing he would need, after being so generous as to help her, was for her to bite her tongue off. Slowly, he began to stitch the wound closed, trying to use the minimum amount of stitches to help keep it closed.

Done, he laid back, resting his head on the frame of the bed opposite to the one he had laid the girl on. Who was she?

Yuuta hated the sick beds. Not only had they seated sick people (it wasn't the people he didn't mind; it was the sicknesses that lingered), but they were only slightly softer than the wooden floorboards. Sleeping wasn't something that was going to come to him easily. Strangely enough, as he thought all of this, it seemed like that the sleeping girl was no longer resting. Instead, she started screaming. Compared to the silence before that, she might have as well been scratching on a chalk board, but the non-bender saw this as something to do compared to laying around and doing nothing- oh, hey, he could finish up his work after dealing with her.

"Hey, calm down," he said, expecting his voice to sound irratated, but seeing as he still viewed her as someone that needed help, his subconscious kept his voice and actions calm and slow. "You're hurt; don't move that arm around too much," he tried to say as she began to bend the bloodied water- the aftermath of cleaning her cut. He held up his hands, his fingers fully extended, as a peaceful movement to show he was not holding any weapons or such.

She dropped the water, her arm apparently unable to take the weight of the water. Hm, then this was a bit worse than he had originally suspected. She must have nicked something important that using the muscle would pain her. "You're in my care," he told her, not really knowing how to say where she was. It wasn't his place to bring in people and it was placed in between districts, so it was hard to really say where it was. "I'm a herbalist, Yuuta. You were hurt when I found you, so I took you in." She seemed a bit rustled and he could only hope that she saw his words and actions as reasonable and didn't try to bend again.

He put one of his open hands on her shoulder, gently applying pressure so she would take a seat on the bed. "You need to rest," he said, hoping to ease her a bit more. "This is a safe place. Is there anything I can get you? Some food?" With all the blood she had lost, she was going to need the calories to produce more so long as his stitches held up and the blood wouldn't continue to flow.

It was understandable that she would be scared, waking up in unfamiliar territory and all. He preferred to think that other than she was just as stubborn as he was. "Sure," he ended up saying, walking with his cane off to the work room, taking the now empty bowl with him. Clean water was easy, but food? He didn't even know why he suggested it seeing as they barely had anything. They had tons and tons of medicines, remedies and concoctions but bread? Soup? Fruit? Unless the old man had left his lunch, Yuuta was going to have some troubles.

As he poured water into the bowl, he heard the door shut. Sighing, he guessed it was alright. Sure it wasn't going to be good for that girl, but it's not like she was in critical need. He doubted he was ever even going to see her again but hoped that he had done something to help her in the long run. Seeing as she was a waterbender (and capable of healing) he assured himself that she was going to be just fine.

He slept as easily as he could on the sick bed until light poked in through the windows. The apprentice was quick to his feet (as he was all rested, he was not in need of his cane) and back to work even before his master came back. Though sleeping over in the shop wasn't something common, the old man understood and left the situation untouched.

"Huh?" the old man said, surprised as he manned the shop front. A girl requesting Yuuta? What a surprise! Actually, it was more of a shock as to anything else. "Yeah, sure, I'll get him for you." The shaky old man walked off, alerting his apprentice of the situation.

"Hello, are you feeling better?" he said as he walked into the store front, trading duties with his master. "That arm," Yuuta began, "It doesn't look too good. Is that why you came back?" he asked, raising a brow at her. Though he wouldn't turn her away, he did want to know why she ran off and if she was expecting free treatment. Last night, he did that because he felt like he could save a life. Right now, it was something different.

Yuuta listened to the girl's words, waiting patiently as he leaned on the front desk. Something rung false about what she said to him, but he decided not to touch the subject. He didn't want to know what he didn't need to on any account unless the subject perked his interest such as the time Shachi tried to pass off the lie of a secret book club.

"I can help you, just follow me,"he said as he beckoned her to follow with a wave of his hand walking in the direction of the sick beds' room. "Take a seat and I'll be back. Still want that food?" pausing only long enough to hear her answer and walk off for supplies. In the back, he saw his master inspecting the remedies he had finished this morning. The old man merely gave him an odd look, as if he couldn't believe what was going on.

"She only wants a quick fix for her arm; I'll pay for it," Yuuta said as he gathered his own materials and returning to the room, pulling up a stool next to the bed he had laid her on last night, placing the tools on the ground next to his feet. "So do I get a name?"he asked cheekily as he inspected the wound and is ruined handwork. The stitches were roughed up and scabbed over, like she hadn't bothered to throughly wash it.

It looked like it was on the borderline of an infection. Hopefully, with one of his premixed remedies, he could prevent that. He snipped away at the stitches, pulling out the string and washing it lightly as not to remove the scab but to clean it instead, afterwards lightly spreading a bit of the herbal remedy on it.

"What happened for such a deep cut?"he asked her, more concern in his voice that inquiry. She was, by his standards, a very pretty lady and a bender at that, too. What had she done to end up in that hay with a scratch? And why did she own a platypus bear named Haku? Oh, so many questions but no nerve to bug her with them.

Emi? That's a cute name, though it wasn't something you would usually find around here in Republic city. Judging by her clothes and attire he could accurately conclude she was from the northern water tribe compared to the south. Though it was hard to pick out, there were always differences in facial traits and attire to suggest where they were from. Earthbenders, though, as they were in larger numbers tending to be from all over.

Yuuta stoked what he was doing from mere shock when she told him why she had received such a cut, though it did make sense. He studied the girl, trying to place whether he was harboring some big time criminal or simply a thief quick enough to get away. Going with the latter, he resumed his work.

"Its fine, I don't care," he reassured her. He dealt with worse, such as the Equalist, Shachi, that bugged him until he almost died from her annoying ways. Besides, if the police couldn't do their work properly, why should he assist them? To him, they didn't exactly prioritize things too well. Thank goodness the avatar has arrived. Maybe something will change.

"Here,"Yuuta said, holding up a clean cloth. "Bite down; this will hurt a bit." He began to stitch her arm up a bit. Thankfully, the wound had stopped bleeding compared to last night, but if it didn't stay stitched, she would end up with a pretty nasty scar there. Done with his work, he looked at her crystal eyes. "Why were they chasing you? Is there any way I can help?" Why was he putting so much into this for her? Well, yeah, he did find her cute and attractive, but what urge in him lead him to want to help her? That's right... his mother was up the at the northern pole for proper treatment, but was that really it?

She handled the stitches better than he thought she would have. Most people squirmed, something understandable, but she barely even flinched. He tried not to look at her face as he did it, mostly because he needed to watch the needle but also because he hated seeing anyone in pain though it was his job. Seeing anyone in pain and needing help knotted his stomach in ways that wouldn't go away until the job was done.

"Understandable," he commented, though his mind was focused on tying the last of stitches off. To finish it all off, he wrapped some gauze around her arm, tying it at the ends tightly so it wouldn't fall off. Reopening of the wound was a big possibility and whatever blood to fall out would hopefully be caught by that until she could get back to him, or anyone in that case for help.

He leaned back from his work and put his knuckles to his mouth as he pondered how to help her even if she didn't want it. "I could convince my master to give you a job here. It might not be much, but it would be something. Also, if you need a place to stay, you are free to use the sick beds as long as we don't need them," Yuuta offered. They always needed someone to clean up the shop and having a waterbender around might be nice as well as a healer, even though they were more of a medicine shop than a personal hospital. Still, they would never turn away someone in need. At the very least, he wouldn't.

Yuuta was glad she decided to accept his empty offer of a job though he knew her first intentions were to get fixed up and leave as to get out of his hair. He offered her an assuring smile as he stood up, taking the bowl of dirty water and other supplies to the back room though the old man was not where he last was. He began to scan the shop only to find him at the front desk counting the money in the register.

"Master, I would like to make a request," he said, proceeding to tell the owner of the shop what I he knew, what was going on and a possible solution as to how to fix it. This discussion managed to last longer than he predicted, talking about salary, conditions and form of work. When it was all done, he stood up and headed toward the sick room.

Leaning on the door frame to the sick room he began to sort his works and how to tell her. "What I can give you is a cleaning job for five yuans an hour. As we are a medicinal shop, we only accept patients into the sick room for chronic treatment or as urgent care. Unless your healing powers are up to that standard, I'm afraid we cannot allow you to provide that sort of service."Yuuta hoped she wouldn't take this as an offense to her healing ability but rather to protect the health of the clients.

When could she start? Well, he a actually didn't consider her wanting to go head first into this with the shape her arm was in, but he guessed if he had no money he would like to start as soon as possible. "You may start any time. Our hours here, I might warn you, are rather odd. I usually spend most of my time here, unless I have to go to work -Im an apprentice here so I had to take up a job to pay the bills. You may come or go when you please, but if there is no more work to be done, you can come to me and I'll give you a task or go home. We're not going to pay you if there's no work to be done."It was a rough thing to say, but it needed to be said. She did seem rather young -maybe her small stature made her seem a bit younger- so he thought it best to lay down the laws of the land.

"If you do want to start now, there's today's and yesterdays mess from me helping you,"he said gesturing to the dried blood on the ground: her blood. He told her he would be off and left the room to head towards the back where he began to label jars as to what it is and what its meant for, sorting the jars in the cupboards neatly. Then Yuuta returned to fixing up remedies and making a list of the herbs they would need to buy at some point so that their stock didn't get too low.

Yuuta had left for his own work, only to see his master was working on it. That only meant that he had to do the... paperwork. Without a work, he left that room for the front of the shop, sitting at the register, passing by Emi as she cleaned the floor with her waterbending. Well, he hadn't thought of that, to tell the truth. As a nonbender, he imagined her grabbing a clean bowl of water and a rag and using some elbow grease to get the job done.

Sitting at the register, he grabbed the pad of paper and a pen to start him off on yesterday's sales. Quick notes were scribbled all over the page while the sales had been made, but that wouldn't keep track of profits. Or deficits. Pulling those papers out of the pad, he went through each one, picking out what they sold and for what. He even made the effort to write down the herbs and ingredients that had been in each sold remedy and solution. And with that remedial task finished, he found that they had not only broken even, but had a fifty yuan profit from yesterday. Good, they were low on supplies.

He headed to the back to look over what they needed only to hear a thunk. Peaking around the corner, he saw a block of ice and Emi laying on the ground. He only nodded when she said the job had been finished. He was half flabbergasted at the sight in front of him and the other half frustrated.

"Did the idea ice is slippery ever occur?" He had gone out on a limb and got her a job and was already flopping all around the place. The spirits hated him. That's it. There was no other explaination. With a sigh, he stepped over the waterbender to get a look at their inventory. Yup, the spirits did hate him: they were low on just about everything.

"Come with me," Yuuta told her as he went to approach the owner of the store. "I'll be out getting supplies; you might want to look after the front." Yeah, it wasn't the most formal or nice way to say it, but he was frustrated and, anyways, his master was used to it.

Grabbing his cane as he went back to the front and pocketing about thirty yuans, he left, not even bothering to check if she was still following him. "We're going shopping for supplies and I need a hand taking the stuff back." Okay, now having her around didn't seem too bad. He didn't trust her with store money yet, seeing as they just hired her, but at least he wouldn't have to make multiple trips for supplies. Too much walking could hurt his leg, but he took the cane just in case, letting it hang off his arms as he looked through his own notes.

"Where are you from?" he asked, even though he already had an idea.