Late

It was with a groan of exhaustion and frustration that Midori Hinode reached over to silence the buzzing alarm on her phone, only to find out it was not the alarm but the chime of her ringtone.

“Hello?” She said, voice groggy and devoid of the usual sardonic charm she would usually adopt for phone conversations. After all who the hell called anyone anymore.

“Where the hell are you!?”  Through the speaker came the shrieking voice belonging to her best friend Sara, and as she heard it all remnants of sleep were torn away as reality came crashing in.

She was late.

Leaping to her feat she uttered a string of curses that would make a sailor blush while slipping into a pair of charcoal green trousers, throwing on a comfortable printed shirt and began washing her face.

In that time Sara had gone from seriously chastising her to playful ribbing, she knew that Midori would be beating herself up more than anyone else could. She was so good a

“It’s fine, Evan always spends at least ten minutes pretending he’s gonna order something else before getting the same thing he has since school.”

“Hey you don’t know that!” The shrill, slightly squeaky voice of Evan, who had been friends with them since middle school, roared through the speaker.

“God, keep it down you human megaphone!” Midori shouted back while finishing up her preparations. Staring in the mirror she did her best to put the thought from her mind that she now barely recognized the face looking back at her.

Growing up trying to fit in to a society that saw her as some exotic attraction she'd spent countless time and money trying to lighten her dark skin, dye her hair and dress like a gyaru, and even asked for plastic surgery as a birthday gift after a particularly nasty batch of bullying when she was young.

Until eventually the pressure of performing a role she hated got too much and she was forced to drop out of university. To the great shame of her family.

The face in the mirror was one she had worked hard to reclaim, but still struggled to appreciate fully. Her braids—which were long, and kept tight to her scalp—were now done with her natural hair, and though she had dyed it in various shades of green it was a colour she had chosen. Her favourite colour in fact.

She laid down a foundation of moisturizer over her skin which was a rich, warm shade of brown that had taken years to accept, and she suspected would take even more to truly love properly.

With the precision developed from years of applying makeup she put on a bit of gold eyeshadow and liner to highlight her striking seafoam green eyes; which were in fact one of the few things about herself she had always liked.

Before she left her hand hovered over the business card for the abortion clinic that had been sitting on her dresser for the past week. After the numerous times she'd picked it up to fiddle with while lost in thought it had developed a permanent curve. She bent it between her fingers before stuffing it deep into her purse which she slung over her shoulder.

“Okay, I’m on my way out right now. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Sorry Sara!”

Slipping into a comfortable pair of floral sandals she'd just recently bought and a very light jacket she locked her tiny apartment before racing her way through the busy streets of Tokyo.

There was a strange feeling of isolation as she walked the streets. She'd been born here, lived her entire life moving through the streets, yet due to the colour of her skin her mere existence became an event for nearly every passerby; treated like a tourist in her home country.

Moving away from the throngs of people and the buzz of the city Midori dipped into a small alleyway that was scattered with yellow and red drink crates stacked to the side of closed doors, small signs the only indication there was a business within. Along the upper level laundry hung outside apartment windows drying slowly in the shade. Halfway down the alley was her destination, a small café with only a small paper sign in the window mentioning a "special lunch menu" as the only indication a restaurant lurked within.

Stepping inside she was greeted with the curt nod of acknowledgement from the owner—something it had taken her almost a year of repeated visits to earn—Midori made her way over to one of only two tables meant for groups of four.

Seated around the table were the three people she was closest to in the world: her oldest friend Sara, Sara’s partner Aki, and her other friend Evan.

“Hey there sleepyhead. Saved you a seat.” Evan patted the spot next to him on the simplistic but strangely comfortable wooden benches at the larger tables. He often played it off as a joke but his crush on Midori was a well known secret, even Aki knew and he’d only known them for three years.

“Thanks,” she said with practiced ease casually placing her purse beside her as a makeshift barrier between herself and Evan before smiling at the charming face of Sara who—despite her packed schedule—looked just effortlessly beautiful; silky raven hair tucked just behind her ears, a bright eyeshadow drawing attention to her stunning brown eyes, and a bright smile on plump, glossy lips.

There was a part of Midori—though she was loathe to admit it—that felt rather jealous of Sara, being able to fit in anywhere without having to prove that she belonged, being able to be defined by more than what was on the outside.

“Hey you,” she said with a smile that seemed almost apologetic. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah I just…”

Briefly she thought about telling Sara the truth. Telling her that she’d stayed up late staring at the hours for a nearby abortion clinic, going back and forth on whether or not she would keep her appointment or just go home and have another existential crisis.

But she was not that brave.

“I spaced and set my alarm for PM instead of AM,” she offered a deflecting and self-deprecatory laugh that all but Sara seemed to buy. After so much time together she had long since learned when things were wrong.

“Tell me later, okay?” She mouthed before launching into a deflective and expository monologue about all the things going on in her life. Growing up the two of them had been so alike but had drifted apart since graduating, but it was of great comfort knowing that she still had someone like Sara in her corner.

They ordered and ate until their bellies were full and their lives had been appropriately caught up on.

“I tell you, it’s really hard dating these days,” Evan said with a volume that made Midori wince. Despite all his time living here he had still not fully adjusted to certain norms. “Girls just want so much.”

“They really don’t dude,” said Aki who was leaning back slightly in their chair, and despite the playful tone there was an edge of annoyance underneath. Aki was a model and had found a successful niche playing with gender norms; they often wore makeup or clothes typically deemed ‘feminine’. And like Midori and Sara had heard this complaint before.

“Yeah Evan, you really gotta stop it with the ‘I need to be the breadwinner’ mindset.” Sara said, doing a mocking impression of Evan that was playful but also biting. She leaned over and gently touched his hand to reassure him. “You just gotta be that kind, dorky dude we met way back when.”

“Oh my god, yeah!” Midori smiled and patted Evan’s shoulder excitedly, “remember when we went bug hunting and you kept us out late because you wanted to see the fireflies, then got so upset because they didn’t show up?”

“They were supposed to be there!” He said with that childish fury that Sara and Midori had enjoyed when they first met him.

“We never ended up seeing those fireflies…” Sara said in a sad voice.

A slightly dour atmosphere fell over the table, and it might have lasted had Midori not immediately blurted out the thought that crashed through her brain.

“Well lets just go see them now!”

“What?” The other three said in near unison.

“Uh…well I just mean…not now now, but we could always go see them this summer. I think it would be nice. Maybe a bit better than catching up every month to just get the cliff notes with everyone.”

The table was silent for only a few seconds but it felt like longer as Midori’s anxiety exploded into overdrive; what if they all thought she was crazy for suggesting it, what if they thought it was stupid for doing something so childish, what if-

“That’s a great idea!” Sara was the first to shout her approval, jumping up and hugging Midori happily.

“Yeah Midori, that’s a great idea. I know I could definitely use a nice little casual hangout.” Aki was always supportive, and would likely take that time to show off their survival knowledge.

“You guys would do that for me?” Evan said, his face flushed while he glanced at them all.

“Of course Evan, you’re our friend.” Midori smiled yet she noticed the faint hurt in his eyes at the statement, which she simply brushed passed.

“We could do it next week maybe?”

All of a sudden there was a strange charge in the air, she suspected it was like the feeling right before lightning struck. Looking back Midori wished that they had simply been improbably struck by lightning, that would have at least been slightly less life threatening.

Instead there was a voice, a slight distortion it made the strange language it was speaking even harder to understand, but even then Midori was fairly sure it would not have been a language she knew.

And then a light shone from underneath them, a brilliant white light that made it nearly impossible to see anything. But before her vision was robbed from her she saw the look of terror in Sara’s eyes. And then the world fell away.

Looking back Midori wished in that moment she had reached for her.

Maybe things would have turned out differently.