Mai slowly climbed out of a sleepy haze.
Where was she?
Oh, that's right. She was at Makoto's apartment, the blaring box TV and lumpy couch should tell her as much.
Mai looked around the dimly lit room and saw Makoto sprawled out on the couch next to her, dead to the world.
Mai stood up and stretched; her limbs were achy and her throat was raw and there was a bad taste in her mouth. Maybe she was coming down with a cold. That would be the last thing she needed.
"Makoto, hey, Makoto," Mai leant down to shake her friend's shoulder.
Makoto woke with a start, "What?"
"Makoto, I'm going home, it's late, like time to wake up late."
Makoto stiffly sat up, "Yeah, sure, what day 's it?"
"Saturday," Mai said, "I'm going to go home and get a shower; I'll meet up with you later."
Makoto nodded, slouching back down onto the couch, "Lock the door behind you."
-x-
Mai stepped out into the hot, humid night air. It was too early for anyone to really be outside and about. It was eerie going through the streets, only occasionally seeing others as they hurried by.
Mai rubbed at her eyes and stopped at a vending machine, she pushed a few coins in and got a canned coffee in return (tasted disgusting, but she could use the caffeine). The machine's clanking was like gunshots in the silence, reverberating through the streets and sending Mai glancing around to make sure no unwanted attention was attracted from the noise. She didn't know if she could politely handle anyone at this hour of the night, er, morning.
The noise also served to completely wake her, making her remember exactly why it was she had skipped classes yesterday.
Mai glanced down one of the cross streets, popping the tab on her coffee. If she just cut through there, turned down another street not too far down, it'd be practically a straight shot to SPR's old offices. Maybe she should walk by, just to make sure she wasn't going insane and seeing Naru in places he wasn't: it had happened all the time right after he left, usually in Tokyo's busy streets, but also in horribly random places like the grocery store or the school grounds. It had gotten to the point where she refused to scan crowds for fear she imagine him again, instead only focusing on the person directly in front of her or, better yet, her feet.
It wasn't like Naru would recognize her even if he was still at the office this late: she now sported pale blonde hair, piercings lining her ears, and at the encouragement of her friends she'd worked on not only lowering her voice to make her seem a little more tough, but she (and quite a few of the others) had also been working on adding a bit of a Kansai accent to their speech during confrontations.
Before she knew what was happening, her feet began to move down the cross street. Just a quick walk by the old office can't hurt, right? She hadn't been there since Naru left for England and locked the office door for the last time. Mai still had a key to it on her key ring, but it would've felt like trespassing to go there without anyone else, even though she couldn't count on two hands the number of times it would've been a useful place to crash or hide for the night.
-x-
Kansai is a dialect that's described as harsh and a bit intimidating in comparison to standard Japanese; I just thought yanki would probably like the idea of sounding tough.
Review~ It really makes posting these more fun, even just something like "I like it, update soon!" is really apprectiated.