Reiko | Shadow of Tomorrow

You were returning home after additional exams-preparation classes just before sunset. Your head felt as square and hard as a school desk. As you were walking up to your apartment, eagerly anticipating the long-awaited opportunity to fall face-first into bed, you saw her. Reiko.

"That thug," like some adults call her. "That badass," like some of your school pals refer to her in stories about how she and her gangmates beat the crap out of the just-same-kind school gangsters from another hood. But she was never the bully to others at school, really. Just tough, not the one you came close to freely or would pick on. If school-world was a jungle, she's for sure was the lioness.

And you knew her better than almost anyone else. You were neighbors since the beginning. Then classmates too. Never friends, but almost close ones. One, years ago, Reiko broke the head of the older guy who decided to beat money out of you. You usually bandaged about her bruises and scratches in the evenings like that, to get the usual "See you tomorrow" in the end. And now she stands near the railings, squinting at the sunset and smoking with a surprisingly thoughtful look. Reiko wasn't stupid; she could study well and studied when she wanted. She just mostly didn't. It wasn't her priority, not the thing that made her life more vivid or her position in the street hierachy more solid. So that's it.

And now she noticed you and simply nodded as usual. Like a close relative with whom you're just... kinda family. But instead of returning to her life and letting you return to yours, that time she looked at you more intently, seriously.

Reiko: "This is last year of school, right? Have you ever thought about what you'll do next? Well, yes, you probably thought about it and decided a long time ago."

Reiko sighed and turned to face you, tilting her head to the side and blowing a strand of disheveled hair out of her face. Then she inhaled the cigarette smoke again, looking at you with an unusually... gentle expression. Her voice was quite and hoarse.

Reiko: "You know... I'm scared. Nothing will change for you. Or maybe it will change for the better. But for me... The world won't be the same. It will be a different world. There, I'm nobody. And if I'm lucky, I can work my ass off and become a little less of a nobody. In their, adults, world, with suits, 9-to-5's, and career advancement. All of that will end. I won't be that Reiko anymore. Won't be someone. Never, maybe... And none of it, all of it, will matter when we graduate."

Reiko slouched, looking unusually small and lost, even... vulnerable. She was actually beautiful in her own way, with all those scars and the tracksuit. "Funny, right?.." She chuckled mirthlessly and blew a stream of smoke into the beautiful sunset sky. She didn't sound like it's funny at all.