A day in Shira's life

Shira didn't open her eyes. She just blindly swatted at the noise until it stopped, pulling the heavy duvet entirely over her head.

The door handle clicked. A second later, the harsh scrape of curtain rings sliding across the metal rod filled the room, followed immediately by a blinding square of morning sun hitting the bed.

"Shira. It's six."

Shira pulled the duvet tighter. "Mm. Awake."

"You're talking into your mattress," her mother said, the sound of her footsteps already retreating down the hall.

Shira didn’t move for another eight minutes. Finally, she dragged her feet across the floorboards, her oversized t-shirt hanging off one shoulder, her eyes barely open as she bumped her shoulder against the doorframe. The bathroom door clicked shut.

When it opened fifteen minutes later, the zombie was gone. Her uniform skirt was perfectly pleated. Her collar was crisp. She stopped by the hall mirror, adjusted a single hairpin, and pulled the corners of her mouth up into a bright, measured curve. She held it for two seconds. Dropped it.

She walked into the kitchen, the bright smile instantly snapping back into place.

"Morning," she chimed.

Her mother slid a plate of toast onto the counter, looking up with an amused smirk. "Look who decided to join the living."

"I was awake the whole time," Shira said, taking a careful bite that wouldn't mess up her lip gloss.

Thirty minutes later, the crisp morning air bit at her cheeks. Her black loafers clicked in a steady, rhythmic pace against the pavement. The streets were filled with the dull hum of commuters, but Shira just kept her eyes on the sidewalk.

The moment the iron gates of the school came into view, Shira’s shoulders shifted back. Her posture straightened.

"Morning, Umi-san!" a boy called out from the shoe lockers.

Shira turned, the bright smile flashing instantly. 

"Good morning, Sato-kun."

"Hey, Shira!" Two girls waved from the stairs.

Shira tilted her head, giving a cheerful wave back.

She kept the smile pinned in place all the way down the hall, finally sliding her classroom door open.

Mina was leaning entirely across the aisle, aggressively tapping a notebook on Yuri’s desk. Yuri was rubbing her temples behind her glasses, a deep frown on her face.

Shira stopped in the doorway. She let out a slow, quiet breath. Her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. The bright, perfectly practiced curve of her mouth melted away, softening into something much smaller and tired. She lifted a hand in a lazy, silent wave.

Mina spun around. 

"Shira! Finally!"

Shira walked over, dropping her bag onto her desk. The heavy thump cut through the argument.

"I found this new café," Mina pleaded, grabbing Shira's sleeve. "Right next to that old brick building. It’s perfect. We have to go today."

Shira looked over at Yuri.

"We have the presentation next week," Yuri stated, tapping her pen strictly against her notebook. "We can't go today. We need to format the index cards."

Shira leaned against her desk. She thought about the index cards. She thought about the urban transit data. She didn't want to look at a single piece of paper today.

"Let's go today," Shira said smoothly.

Yuri groaned, her head dropping toward the desk. "Not you too, Shira."

"Come on, Yuri." Shira laughed, a quiet, genuine sound. "We've been staring at the same flashcards for weeks. We need to breathe."

"We breathe after the grade is submitted," Yuri shot back.

"Come on, Yuri~" Mina whined, latching onto Yuri’s arm and shaking it. "Don't be like that~."

The rest of the school day passed in a comfortable blur of lectures and changing periods. Mina spent six consecutive hours systematically wearing Yuri down, and by the final bell, Yuri had finally surrendered out of sheer exhaustion.

The café Mina chose was predictably loud, aggressively pink, and decorated almost entirely with pastel ribbons. Shira sat in the corner booth, sipping a ridiculously sweet iced latte, letting the normal, mundane rhythm of a high school afternoon wash over her. Shira let the conversation carry on on its own.

By the time they split up and Shira caught the bus home, the sun was already dipping behind the city buildings.

She took a window seat near the back.

The bus rattled over a pothole. Shira’s shoulder bumped lightly against the cold glass of the window, but her eyes never left her phone. Her thumb moved in a rhythmic, mechanical swipe across the screen. Delete. Keep. Delete. Delete. She closed the camera roll and tapped the small, pink grid icon on her home screen.

The red heart at the bottom edge of the display already read 412. Shira let out a slow, quiet breath. The tension in her shoulders visibly uncoiled, letting her sink a little deeper into the worn vinyl seat.

She tapped the speech bubble icon. Her thumb lazily scrolled past a wall of predictable text:
So pretty!
Where is this? Cute!

Her thumb suddenly stopped.

Wait, who is the guy on the 3rd slide? 

Who is he??

Shira blinked. She tapped the main image and swiped left twice.

The bright, pastel aesthetic of her feed instantly vanished, replaced by the dim, harsh fluorescent lighting of the school library.

Hugo filled the frame. He wasn't looking at the lens. His cheap headphones were clamped tightly over his ears, and his eyes were narrowed at the glow of his laptop screen. He looked completely, utterly sealed off from the rest of the world.

Shira stared at the screen. In a phone filled entirely with practiced angles, careful lighting, and perfectly arranged fruit tarts, he was just... sitting there.

She didn't swipe to the next photo. She didn't close the app. She just leaned her head back against the rattling window of the bus.

Slowly, the corners of her mouth pulled up. It wasn't the bright, perfectly measured curve she wore in the school hallways. It was a small, quiet, entirely unguarded line.

BZZZ-BZZZ.

A sudden vibration rattled against her palm. A grey banner dropped violently from the top edge of her screen, completely cutting off Hugo’s face.

Group Chat: 

Yuri: [File Attached: City_Transit_Data_Raw.pdf]

Yuri: Mina's contact finally came through. We only have tomorrow. We need to finish this.

The small smile on Shira's face vanished instantly. She stared at the grey box as the bus carried her into the fading light.