Amanda Hoshino walked home from college.
The evening was warm in the way that Tokyo gets warm in early summer, the air thick with humidity, the neon signs buzzing overhead, the streets crowded with salarymen and students and the general chaos of a city that never fully sleeps. Her bag was heavy on her shoulder. Her glasses had slid down her nose. Her uniform, the standard college-issue blouse and pleated skirt, was wrinkled from a full day of lectures.
She shook her head.
She was tired. Exhausted. The kind of bone-deep tiredness that comes from studying until three in the morning and then attending classes until six in the evening. Her head ached. Her eyes burned behind the lenses. Her feet dragged on the pavement.
She turned down the shortcut.
