The girl in the mirror glared at herself. Her hair was dyed platinum blonde all the way to the roots, and the ends of her curls were orange. The glitter around her eyes sparkled. Each of her ears had a single piercing, and she wore a choker around her neck. Her school uniform, which she wore like a casual outfit, had a red ribbon and a short checkered skirt. To top it all off, a garter belt was strapped around her leg.
Ruka Moriki stared her reflection down in the mirror over the sink and clamped her hot-pink hair iron over her bangs.
“Okay, okay... Atta girl...” she murmured as she ever so carefully slid the iron forward. This very moment would decide her mood for the whole day.
Can’t let my guard down, she thought. This is hairstyling... This is fashion.
“There!” She twisted her wrist with a flick, lifting up the ends of her hair along with the iron, only for her bangs to fall flat against her forehead. “Ugh...”
The plan had been to curl both her bangs and the rest of her hair, but now she looked like a princess from the Warring States period. This was no ordinary screwup. It was a massive one.
“You’re dead, huh,” she told the hair iron. She had bought it secondhand from a flea market app, so it could’ve broken down at any time. Apparently, today was that day.
Thanks for everything. I’ll never forget you.
After a short moment of silence for the departed, Ruka set the hair iron off to one side and looked at the mirror again. “Hmm, the princess thing is kind of a vibe, y’know... Should I, like, lean into it?”
Just as she grabbed her brush and hair dryer to redo her bangs, she heard a voice behind her.
“What’s the matter, Ruka-chan?”
In the mirror, Ruka saw a sleepy-looking woman watching her. She looked like an older version of Ruka with her hair dyed brown, and her name was Ryoko Moriki.
“Right back atcha, Ryoko-san. What’s up?”
“Seemed like something was troubling you, so I got worried. I mean, I’m your mother and all...”
“I just couldn’t get my bangs right. Go back to bed already.”
Ryoko was a nurse at a nearby—and short-staffed—hospital. She took a lot of night shifts, so she was usually sleepy whenever Ruka saw her at home.
“Aw, don’t worry about me. You look as cute as always, Ruka-chan.”
“You loop your comments like crazy, Ryoko-san. Totes not trustworthy.”
“I’m always serious, though! Uwaaah...” Ryoko’s head started wobbling drowsily with a big yawn.
Ruka appreciated the compliment, but she really didn’t want to eat into her mom’s precious sleep time. So she finished setting her bangs in a hurry, picked up her school bag from the floor, and threw it over her shoulder.
“’Kay, gotta go.” With that, she slipped past Ryoko and headed for the entrance. As she slid into her slip-ons and reached for the door, she called out, “Bye!”
“You gotta...at least say...‘I’m heading out’ properly...”
“Byeeee!”
“H-H-H-Hey, that’s still not...” Ryoko drifted off, then yawned again. “Take caaare...”
Ruka stepped outside and felt the damp June air on her neck. Summer’s close. Might be good to swap uniforms soon...
She turned around to look at the old Japanese-style house she had just walked out of. All the other houses around were Western style, so it really stood out. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t cool. It didn’t even look refined. But she still loved her home where she’d been born and raised.
Ruka’s grandparents had built the house to celebrate getting married. Ruka had lived her whole life there, so it was a precious place packed full of memories. With her late grandparents on her mind, she bowed toward the house. After that, her footsteps were light and easy as she headed for school.
Hien Metropolitan High School, or Hie High, was on the edge of the district where Ruka lived and about a fifteen-minute walk from home. It was pretty big, and the students got okay scores on average. The school rules were lax—students had lots of freedom in terms of hair and outfits, and they could keep their phones on them all day.
After passing through the front gate and switching to indoor shoes at the shoe rack, Ruka headed for class 2-2 on the second floor. The room was already packed full of her classmates. The jocks, the serious students, the subculture kids... Each of those groups was starting off the morning in their own way.
As Ruka went to the back of the room, she called out to two girls sitting near her seat. “Heya, Hina, Mei!”