It's early—too early for most people—but the city doesn't wait. Neon fades to pale morning and the machines still glow like small planets. I sit on a bench near the station, a canned coffee warmed between my palms, and rehearse the same lines I've said a thousand times.
"おはようございます… よろしくお願いします…"
My accent still stumbles. I correct myself, again and again, until the words feel steady enough to hold. It's the kind of discipline that becomes muscle-memory: practice until you hardly notice you're practicing.
Three years of preparing for a move to Japan finally boil down to mornings like this. Language school. Forms. Money saved, money spent, paperwork lost and found. Everything slowed down because of things that required patience I didn't always have. Now I wake up before the dorm's thin walls wrinkle with the rest of the world, so I can practice before the day demands my attention.
The train slides into the station with a metallic sigh. Commuters peel off like pages. Among them, she sits at the far end of the bench—book ribboned, cardigan neat, a face people stop to admire even when they don't know why.
Allysa. The name is as tidy as her handwriting must be. Smart. Elegant. Social. Someone who fits this city the way rails fit a map.
And then there's me—Luka—a presence that fits quieter places. I'm older than most freshmen because migration took time. I work nights because the pension my adoptive parents receive isn't enough. I apologize more than I should. I study slowly. I keep my head down.
Today I make a rule: Don't look at her. Don't make anything complicated. Don't let small curiosities grow teeth.
The vending machine hums, patient as a teacher.
⸻
My dorm smells like cheap noodles and bleach. My room is small but honest—bed, desk, shelf with a dented mug, and a taped photograph of the two faces that matter most to me: Mr. and Mrs. Takahashi. They are older than I am, but their smiles in that photo are steady; the kind of smile that has earned the right to be patient.
I touch the photo's edge before I leave. It's a habit that keeps my chest from rushing ahead of me.
Tokyo I.T. looks like tomorrow. Glass and polished metal everywhere. Students walk with plans tattooed into the way they hold their backpacks. I always feel two steps behind, like I'm walking in someone else's pace.
Inside the lecture hall, I take my usual seat at the back. It's quieter here. You can hear the professor's voice in softened echoes and pretend that the attention is for someone else.
Students chatter—club gossip, exam scores, who's dating whom. I only have room in my head for conjugations and tonight's shift at the computer shop where I work. My boss expects me at seven, and inventory isn't something you can put off.
The door opens and Allysa breezes in with her group. They're a small orbit of confidence. Mina, with a pencil always ready; Emi, who seems like an advertisement for composure; Haru, whose laugh takes its time and leaves no one behind.
She sits three rows ahead, and the room changes around her. Not because of some magic, but because people sort themselves into expectations. In a room of raw potential, some people already look like polished results. Allysa is one of those people.
The professor drops a stack of handouts and announces group work. Each student will solve three parts of a problem on the board. My stomach tightens.
Group work in Japanese.
Public speaking in Japanese.
Anything done too slowly might be noticed.
He calls names one by one. I brace for the usual—silence, small notes, survival. Then he names "Group Five: Luka and student number twelve." I look up because the teacher's voice briefly considers me part of the class, not a shadow.
Student number twelve looks up. She meets my eyes. For a suspended second, a slow syllable of something like fate passes through the air.
"Hi," she says. Her Japanese is precise. Then she glances at the paper, shifts, and smiles, "I'm Allysa. Nice to meet you."
I say my practiced line. "はじめまして,ルカです."
She leans over the desk to see my notes, her fingers just brushing the page. The touch is ordinary but it pricks me the way small kindnesses do. She's not mocking. She's curious. She gives me time.
We push the desks together and begin. She explains steps clearly, draws lines on the board, breaks the problem down like a teacher would. When I stumble over a phrase, she doesn't sigh. She only repeats with patient emphasis.
"ここはこうですよ," she says. "Then you balance this." She draws precisely, her pen a compass. It's not that she's trying to show off; she's just used to breaking things down so they fit.
Slowly, the problem unravels under her guidance. I follow, jotting down notes. My handwriting still looks foreign, but she reads it as if that's normal. When I apologize for not knowing a particular kanji, she answers, "It's okay. We'll remember this together."
That small promise—"together"—is heavier than anything she probably knows.
⸻
The group dynamics around us define two worlds. Allysa's friends are bright and practiced. They flit around her like sparrows confident in the safety of their branch. Mina whispers something that makes Allysa laugh; Emi rolls her eyes with affectionate precision; Haru ribs someone and earns a soft elbow in return.
My friends are fewer and less polished. Yuto, my roommate, rounds the corner mid-lecture and gives me a thumbs-up. He's loud in the way of people who survived too many nights with instant ramen and bad movies. Sora, another friend, is already planning to fix the I.T room broken computer machine with code that may or may not be sanctioned by the university. They exist at the edges of things and speak with the raw humor of people who have no time to dress their frustrations in niceties.
When the class ends, Allysa packs her things and says to me, "We should meet again if we're paired."
It feels like she's offering me a pocket of daylight.
The hall empties. I trace the steps with care, clutching my notebook like a small good-luck charm. Outside, the campus hums with after-lecture energy. Groups break into plans, others drift to clubs, some load onto trains and disappear into schedules.
Allysa and her friends pass me by, laughing. They're a picture of the things people expect from students: ease, prospects, connections. Then she slips away from them, behind a low brick wall that shields her from the street.
She pulls something from her pocket, hands working with a private, practiced motion. A cigarette. She lights it quickly, and for the first time I see the line between her daytime and night-time self. She inhales and the tension drains from her shoulders like a tide.
In that brief space of smoke, she looks tired. Not a stage tired, not the kind you put on for sympathy. Real, hollowed-out tired. She closes her eyes as if the small flame is a tiny window that lets her breathe.
Our eyes meet. She freezes, then slips the cigarette away like a secret being hidden in a pocket.
I step back, pretending I saw nothing. Pretending I didn't watch the small rebellion that contradicts the brightness she carries in class.
Yuto bumps my shoulder and grins, "You spaced out again. Daydreaming about becoming a professor or something?"
"No," I say. "Just tired."
He eyes me and smirks, "Don't be an idiot. Ask her to study next week. Or I'll tell my cousin to shamelessly invite you to their literature club."
I laugh, noise spilling out more because Yuto insists on filling awkward pauses than because I want to. My laugh thins into the city's evening.
The walk home is a rhythm: crosswalk lights, the hum of trains, the neon signs flickering like punctuation. The city is impatient; it expects motion, plans, results. I have to be responsible: shifts at the shop, paperwork, bills. Every missed class is a risk. Every failed assignment is a risk that could mean losing the visa that lets me stay.
I remind myself of the reasons I came. The Takahashis' hands have done more for me than anyone's. Their smiles hide aches I don't ask about. I work to pay what I can—groceries, the electricity bill, the small comforts that make their days gentler. There's pride in that. There's also fear: that a single mistake could ripple out and take the safety we built.
Later, at the computer shop, the fluorescent lights buzz and the cases of used laptops hum their tired digital songs. My hands smell faintly of dust and cleaning solution. Customers ask for batteries and software updates; the boss barks numbers and Yuto laughs at a joke that's older than both of us. I inventory with methodical habits—parts checked, serial numbers recorded—because order is the thing I can control.
Work is honest. Work pays. It keeps my head down.
But tonight, as I wipe fingerprints from a cracked screen, I find my mind back at the low brick wall where Allysa hid a flame behind her fingers. The thought annoys me—not because I can't focus, but because it steals time I don't have. It's a small, stubborn theft.
By the time I return to the dorm, the building is quiet. Lights behind curtains look like distant stars. My room is small and smelled of my detergent and the leftover steam of ramen. I change, fold my clothes, and sit on the edge of the bed with the photograph of the Takahashis in my hands.
I whisper a promise that sounds both foolish and true: "I'll do better tomorrow."
And then, because honesty is quieter than pretense, I add, "Don't look at her again."
I mean it for the wrong reasons. I want to be practical; I want to focus. But lying to myself is easier than confessing curiosity.
The ceiling light buzzes. Outside, a train whistles in some distant part of the city. I close my eyes and for a moment imagine a version of myself who doesn't measure every breath against a ledger of obligation. He's reckless, maybe happy, maybe careless. He has afternoons with friends who don't worry about costs. He looks at girls without counting the cost.
But that Luka is not mine today.
I open my eyes, touch the photograph once more, and tuck it under my pillow like a talisman. Sleep comes slowly, and when it finally arrives, it arrives like a promise: small, fragile, and patient.
Tomorrow the vending machines will hum. The trains will groan. Allysa will smile for the class. I will sit in the back and practice my phrases and watch the small world I try to hold steady.
For now, I can pretend not to look. For now, I can pretend not to want. But I know—because humans are not very good at being honest with simple things—that this quiet attention will grow, slowly and undeniable, until I can no longer pretend it is only habit.
And that thought is both frightening and warm.