Every Little Detail

Three

I look up from my work. The sun is bright outside the windows and there is a low hum of conversation around me and clinging mugs and silverware. The people outside the window walk past, a constant steam of people that keep waling past the windows.

I look up as someone enters. I am a little surprised to see Yua. Her hair falls over her shoulder, a pretty glamping stream of dark reddish brown.

"Hello, Yua, how can I help you?"

She scans the menu the insecure way she stands and looks around as always is all too obvious to me. I wonder why she's like this. I know she gets bullied but is it that hard. It seems like Kiato always steps in before it gets too bad. "Can I have a matcha latte? To go?" She says it as if I might tell her no.

I ring her up and she pays and waits. I busy myself with making her dink. I hand it to her after a few minutes, and she's looking at her phone like it's on fire. She grabs her drink and manages to bow politely with a thank you before she hurriedly rushes out.

I look after her. What was that about? I wonder if it has to do with her bullies. Or her family. I turn back to my work reminding myself it has nothing to do with me.

A few minutes later I look up to see Kaito entering, he too is hurried, but in, not out, but he is like is sister too polite to forget to bow. "Knochinwa, Sakura, was Yua here?" He sound a little worried.

"Hai, she was in here a few minutes ago. She hurried out after I handed the dink to her."

"Ah, Hai, a Matcha latte," Kaito says knowingly. Then he turns and says "Thank you, Sakura," and bows and hurries right out.

I let out a sigh, trying to keep my handwriting neat while taking notes. I am so tired. I want to sleep. So many people in Japan just want to sleep. Students and adults. I heard the Americans work around forty hour weeks. And they go to school for six hours. I want to move to America.

I wake up in the middle of the night and realize I fell asleep without finishing my homework. I need to finish my homework. What will I do if my homework isn't finished? I pick up my books and pencil. I go back to the lonely drag of doing my homework. I fear each moment that I will not have enough time to finish it all before I have to go to school.

This is why it's hard for me to do everything. I need to get my schoolwork done, but I also need to work, so I can earn money to give to my parents. I need the money and I always feel like I need even more. More. What will happen when we someday run out of money. Because slowly things just get worse. Someday there is going to be a point when it stops.

I try to focus on the charters floating on the pages in front of me. I try to read them. To make sense of them. Try to retain the information. But there are so many thoughts swirling around in my head. What was I going to do about Setsuko? What happened today with Yua? How was I going to get money? How was I even going to get a good job without going to university? That didn't happen. Not in Japan at least.

I walk up to the school building some kids on the steps yelling, "Good morning," at the top of their lungs at everyone passing by. There were some kids that did this since forever. At every Japanese school. I could never figure out how genuine their calls were.

I pass a group of girls in the hallway and catch some of their conversation, ". . . yeah, just took it all and ran out . . . arrested . . ." I pass the girls their conversation spiking a bit of interest, but I dismiss it as none of my business.

Mrs. Isaii calls, "Yokota Kaito?" No answer. Kaito isn't here I realize glancing towards his desk. I had just seen him at the coffee house yesterday. Where could he be? He seemed perfectly fine then and there was no reason he should be gone from schools.