It was a rectangle. Three stories tall, the school seal square in the middle. A few other buildings were scattered about and there was a large flat park behind it.

"I thought it would be bigger," Priss said.

Linna noted the disappointment. "It's a small town. Not a lot of families."

"All the girls that came today were your whole year level then?"

"Pretty much."

They walked along the rectangle, the sounds of the festival mutely heard.

"If you didn't get along with somebody there'd be nowhere to hide," Priss observed more to herself.

"Starting to see why I wanted to leave? Seeing only the same people every single day, whether at school or in town. Knowing everyone. Nothing different. No chance for something different. Even to go to the next town over. It'd just be the same after a while."

"You're starting to sound like me," Priss joked.

Linna shrugged and put her head on Priss' shoulder. "I like being here. Then I hate being here. I know it all. Someone does something, I do something, my mother's telling me about it when I get home.

"Tokyo is everything more. Its different all the time. Its so big. I can see new people, places, everyday. I can do something different everyday. I can be friends with a police officer, a rock star, a business woman. I can work in a crappy job and be harassed by lecherous bosses or boomers. I can go out late. I can sleep over with friends and not have to call home every hour."

Linna stopped.

"I can fall in love with who I want."

Priss didn't want to say that Linna hadn't had it so bad. She had it safe. She had a home. She had a family. She had everything she needed to fall back on. That was a comfort Priss had lost a long time ago. Living, existing alone, in conflict with the rest of the world... Priss knew that Linna wouldn't have said that she envied her, or thought that her life was the life the she would have wanted instead of the easy mundane one that she had endured. It hadn't been painful. It hadn't been bad. It was just too small for a girl with big dreams.

"You're twenty now, you can do whatever you want."

"Sylia was saying the same. God, I'm complaining to both of you. I don't want to."

"What do you want to do?"

"So many things."

"Pick one."

There really wasn't as much hesitation or fear as Linna had expected. It was her Tolstoian Will forcing the inevitable in spite of what an ego might want to prevent.

"Priss, I want to-"

"There he.. is!"

A scuffling of shoes.

"Shit!" Priss pulled Linna behind her so suddenly that the image of Priss's face so close to hers had to be blinked away.

Priss didn't bother of asking Linna if she could run. Knowing that she was dressed in a tight kimono was enough.

Priss didn't bother asking what the three men, two bigger and heavier than herself, and one reedy man hanging back, wanted either. It was about this morning. Here were the adults. The chubby boy's father and a pair of goons.

The two goons slowed up when they saw that their prey was waiting for them and looked back to the reedy one, in charge.

"What are you waiting for, teach her a lesson!"

They looked back at Priss and she saw in their eyes that they weren't sure about what they were being ordered to do, but they were going to do it anyway.

"Priss, what's going on?"

"Stay back,"

"I can fight."

"Not in that you can't. Don't worry, they're not after you."

They're after me.