Mai was late. Horribly, horribly late. But it wasn't her fault that she'd run continuously later and later throughout the day.
First she'd gotten held up at school because a teacher had decided that she should fill in for someone and clean the class even though it wasn't her turn. Then at her first job - the one stocking shelves at a corner convenience mart - Mai'd been forced to work over time when some idiot yanki came into the store and knocked over two whole units of shelving to try and create a distraction so he could steal a handful of sweets. He'd gotten a good beating with a broom, but since Mai was on duty then, it was her job to clean up the mess made on her watch. And then that made her late for her second job of the night - delivering food for a restaurant on a scooter.
So, here she was, pushing the speed limit, weaving through traffic, and doing pretty much anything to get her usual number of orders squeezed into a much shorter time period then she usually had.
Finally she arrived. Scrambling off the bike, popping up the kickstand, and grabbing the food. She knocked quickly on the door, tmp, tmp, tmp. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, come on, come on, come on. Finally, she handed off the food, collected her pay, and ran back to her scooter. Only a few more orders left, then she'd have to go home and figure out the absolute minimum to pay on her bills to keep the electricity on and her credit card functioning. Plus, there was homework due, and she couldn't forget to eat again tonight or she'd collapse again tomorrow.
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