Wait, this isn't take your Merc to class day.
It wasn't often her school life and real life intersected. Hiromi knew better then to speak about it, which is why the appearance of a purple haired friend in the nearly deserted halls while she was on the way to class startled her.
"Motoko! What are you doing here?" It had been another dull day of statistics. Calculating net gains for finances 102, and boy did she ever regret excelling in 101. Getting bumped ahead a course looked good on paper, as long as you wanted to be a data pusher. It was however very much a net loss to her reputation in the school.
She became the young prodigy, '-you know the one destined for a cubicle in accounting.' It was hard enough to shake a stigma like that when attached to her name. In the academy the first thing you excelled at often defined where you were heading in the teachers eyes, and from there trickled down to the other students. A few too many 90's in the easiest subject, (her parents would accept no less) and she was on the fast track for a 9 to 9 desk job on the fourth floor.
It had taken a very long time to shake that reputation. Not among the teachers, never among the teachers. Whose course syllabus and your place in it were practically set in stone from the first week on through the rest of your school life at Arasaka academy. Still they where far from the worst predator at the school. That would be the other kids, unlike the teachers who controlled your future with vague disinterest at the best of times. The others would take the streams of faint praise from an instructors lips and damn you with it. She still remembered the constant name calling every time she sat down in the cafeteria. 'Hey fourthie!' being a constant epitaph to her name. The limit of how far she could go constantly shoved into her face.
Some spoke it out of a general malice, while others tried to use it to fold her into their own little school power blocs.
Lately however things had finally turned around. One of the academy's 'guiding principles' and more importantly 'teaching tools' was what they referred to as 'financial transparency.'
Basically every student was free to look at the school spending account of every other kid. The catch was that said spending account was used to pay for your lesson plans on a three month basis. In general this account was filled regularly by ones parents as a sort of tuition, however because of the open nature one could essentially see who your family was from just how full said account was. Easy to see, easy to know. If it was always filled by only the bare minimum for your tuition? Well obviously you didn't have much help on the outside and weren't going places. You where also more likely to 'drop out' as the older kids called it, you became a social pariah off of the notion that you didn't have much to offer in any partnership.
Recently though her rep had really been improving! She had taken her extra 'pocket' money from the various 'gigs' as Motoko called them and set up a new bank account, one which had then been funneled into her academy bank account.
Nobody knew who this 'mysterious backer' was but to the other students she appeared to have someone higher up in her corner. Someone looking after her career with interest, and that had weight. Suddenly everyone; even the older kids wanted to hang out with little old Hiromi.
"-Crystal palace to Hiromi, Hiromi!" Oh right, Motoko was in front of her, at her school, the red eyed girl waving a chrome hand in front of her face.
"S-sorry! I was just thinking about something." Her face was not red! Even as she wondered why Motoko was here of all places it was like seeing a-
-actually she almost seemed to fit right into her surroundings. It was honestly bizarre, she still remembered Motoko -before the accident, green and red neon blaring from her holographic jacket as she dragged Hiromi around the streets of Westbrook and into seedy bars and clubs like a natural. Now however she wore much more muted colors. Usually grey, blue, even occasionally a dark purple that matched her hair or a faded red half jacket on colder days to cover the seams along her shoulders where flesh met chrome.
The new Motoko could have almost been raised a Corpo, almost, still none of this explained why she was here. Her friend keeping a constant eye on the doors.
"Good, listen I'm in a hurry. Does this name look familiar?" Motoko's eyes flashed an even deeper shade of red instead of the customary blue, but she still accepted the obvious file transfer when it came. She looked at the picture of an older man with a salt and pepper beard when it came through, a name listed under it.
"Anouma-sensei? He teaches liquidation 101, what do you need him for?" Motoko merely smiled in response before bringing a gunmetal grey hand up to her lips and making a shushing motion.
"Thanks Hiromi! Sorry I've got to go, have a job to run before the 'saka netrunners notice so I can't stay to chat. I'll talk to you later tonight!" With that she was practically gone, sprinting quietly down the hall and once again leaving Hiromi alone. well before the bell sounding in her head startled her out of her bewilderment, she quickly set off in the opposite direction. 'Tax exemptions and how to find them,' was easily the best course in the school bar none, and she couldn't miss it unless she wanted to get sent home early.
It turns out she needn't have bothered, school got out early that day anyway. as counter intel swept through the classrooms like a black and red tide not long after she was introduced to the idea of 'orbital tax havens.'
Apparently one of their teachers had an 'incident.'
Hiromi knew better then to speak about it.
This is a bit different then my normal style but I wanted to try getting into the mind of what life was and is like for Hiromi at the academy, with a short appearance of Motoko because you can't have Hiromi without Motoko.