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"Rock on!"

Matsumoto was stunned to hear his roommate yell out of nowhere from his computer at 3am in the morning, so much it made him wake up from his sleep. He got up from his bed and grabbed his glasses from the side table to see where Pen was and what he was doing. He could just guess it as usual though, as Pen would not be doing anything else at a time like that, not in that kind of excitement and noise - obviously heard by him as the computer was quite near to his bed. "Ai, not again..."

Laughing to himself out loud, Pen almost never looked so excited before. He was nailed at his chair, playing Counter Strike on his computer, so attached to it he did not notice Matsumoto was awake.

"Pen, what's that this time?" asked Matsumoto in a blurry, still-sleepy voice. He knew Pen was addicted to games, he played all kinds of them and had told him about them numerous times already, still he could not remember any of it, with him being a guy who disliked computer games.

"Eh?" Pen took a short glance at Matsumoto's bed, surprised he was suddenly awake. Still, he could not bare to lose his focus on the game. "CS, Matto. You know, Counter Strike. Hey, you know Half Life? Now I'm playin' with rifles! Simply lovin' this stuff. It's a Magnum-"

"HAH!" Matsumoto interrupted Pen's long, enthusiastic explanation that could sound quite fascinating but he had no interest in it at all, so he did not understand a thing. "Oyasumi, I'm going back to sleep. Get some sleep some time soon."

Still playing without any plans to stop soon, Pen only grinned at Matsumoto's words. "Sure buddy."

It's only Sunday today. Sleep can wait.

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A gun was directed right to his forehead, held by someone whose face he could not see. He had no idea where he was, it was quite dark around, with nothing else he could see other than the gun which was slowly getting closer to him. It was getting more scary for him, but he did not know where else to run. Feeling trapped, he started to walk backwards to get away from the gun, trembling as he tried doing so.

"You," a female voice was heard. "Why did you do this?"

He could see the trigger being pulled, slowly. Before he could do anything else...

BANG!

"PENNNNNNNNNNsylvania!!! Aaaaaaaaa................!!!"

Pen woke up screaming on the floor, sweating, next to his bed, to see a creepy vision of a man dressed in brown clothing standing next to him. Rather, it was not a vision, but a real person - it was Matsumoto, who became scared of seeing him screaming that way at 8am in the morning.

Trying to hold him to get him up and calm down, Matsumoto told him firmly, "Sleep early next time, stupid!"

He widened his eyes and shook his head. Rubbing his forehead, chest and pretty much his entire body, Pen lay out a big sigh of relief to know he was still alive. "Matto, I thought I was gonna die!" He held Matsumoto's hands hard and kissed it, for real.

"Haa!" Matsumoto pulled his hands away fast, almost disgusted by the kiss. He felt weird with Pen's behaviour, but not an act that he had not seen before. "Come on, Pen. That was so not the first time."

Wearing the biggest frown ever, Pen felt bad. "Sorry, man, I know that."

Matsumoto sat down next to him. "That is okay. Screaming your own name like that again. You got shot again?"

Pen smiled. "Yeah, in the head this time."

"It was other places and other ways that you died before this," Matsumoto said, laughing at him. "Come on, Pen, take care of yourself. Stop those games before they cause you another similar nightmare!"

Raising his eyebrows, Pen gave Matsumoto a light punch on his shoulder. "Even if it weren't for the games, I'd have the dreams anyway." He smiled again. "Don't worry dude. Where are you going, dressed up on Sunday AND you didn't ask me to join you??"

"AH! How am I supposed to ask? You won't wake up when I tried to wake you up an hour ago!"

Owh, haha, yet again. "Okay.." Pen chuckled as he looked down on the floor. "And now I fell off my bed again. That's fine. I wanna go somewhere else today anyway."

Matsumoto nodded. "I know, as always, once in a fortnight. Sussex County?"

Hearing the word hospital made Pen's face expression change to somewhat more solemn. "Yup."

Nodding again, Matsumoto did not say much anymore. He stood up to be getting ready to leave. "I will be meeting some old friends, it may take some time. Get yourself together, eh?"

He bowed to Matsumoto from where he was seated on the floor. "Wa-kataa, Matto!"

The Japanese lad smiled. "You are the only one who calls me that, after you were the one who nicknamed me Matt."

Matsumoto left after that, leaving him alone in that two-bedroom apartment in Brighton, East Sussex of Britain. He and Pen had known each other for the entire time they had been roommates, ever since they knew each other on the first day of class in University of Sussex, which was over a year ago. He had come to accept Pen for his silly ways and doings, but above all that he still had fun being friends with the Canadian guy. Being the silly, funny man as Pen is, he still had his own problems that he kept to himself, things that only few people knew.

Staring at the floor in his last night's clothes, Pen had a deep thought about someone.

"Jennifer. I'm coming over today."

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She's my lovely brunette girl. She's nice to everyone and nice to me. She's sweet and she's always smiling. She accepts me for my every weird behaviour and all my foul words. Looking at her face makes me smile everytime and forget all of my problems. I still behave like a wacko, jerk, you name it I'm all of it, yet she's still there for me.

Seated down on the hospital chair, Pen looked softly at the girl on the bed. She had straight brunette hair, is also a Canadian like him, with a height of 5' 10". Her name is Jennifer McKaustin, a girl who had been in a coma for over 5 months, looking weak and vulnerable in the hospital clothes in her bed.

At least, that's all what she was.

The door of the ward was opened, which made Pen turn to look at who was there. It was a face he came to know not too long before Jennifer had the accident that almost took away her life - Ethan Smith. Jennifer was once happy with Pen, but when she met Ethan, her life seemed to have changed. Much to Pen's dismay, Jennifer began to care about Ethan and fall for him - all not to her own wish for it to happen. Even Ethan was surprised to see Pen there by Jennifer's bedside.

"Ethan," Pen muttered. So many months ago, he felt like killing the man for taking the girl he loved away from her. After she had an accident, they agreed to come to peace for her own sake, all after going through some rough time of anger, hate and distrust.

Ethan walked slowly towards him. "Hi." The tension between them was intense, although not as bad as it was before. "It's been a while."

"Yeah." He turned to look at Jennifer. "...a long, long time it's been."

No more words could be spoken between them.

"Anyway," Pen spoke up after a long silence as he stood up. "I've been here a while." He gave Ethan a cold look. "Later, then." He began walking away, being watched by Ethan right before he left the special ward. They both knew how bad things were between them, and none of them could make things any better for the moment, not until Jennifer would open her eyes. And they really could not tell when that would ever be, if it ever would be.

Damn. Really, I have no mood to see his face, Pen thought to himself as he went into the elevator.

He would tell himself every time, to ignore such things for the time being, and just focus on one thing. He just hoped and prayed that Jennifer would fall out of her unconsciousness... soon.

As the elevator doors slided open, he walked out and headed out of the Royal Sussex County Hospital to get to his car.

Before he could walk out through the main entrance of the hospital, a lady with purple-white head-covering, purple blouse and blue jeans accidentally ran into him. It was the lady who looked quite panicky, going around too fast that she bumped into him.

"Ah, sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm so sorry, I was in a hurry for something and I didn't realise-"

"Whoa, chill, it's okay." Pen said assuringly without trying to look at her much. He was ready to go when she called him.

"McCain?"

He stopped and turned around to face her again. After what seemed like he examined her face, he realised that the lady did look quite familiar.

"Hey. I know you. Rulisa?"