3.
Naya waved until she was alone, her elbow taking the lead as she just let a half limp hand be whipped back and forth, counting down until sure Drake wasn't coming back.
Then…
She let her shoulders drop, bent low and swayed, her knees half buckled. The cap on the pain, shattered.
Her hands pressed over her face, a hoarse croak pried itself out her mouth. She trembled with the effort of letting her anguish free without rolling on the floor, screaming.
Another croak bubbled out and she retched, a minute later her head rose.
Enough of that.
Her control switches flickered then hummed, backup generators running. Everything was a mess and there was one mop for the whole thing.
Her eyes were red, face wet with tears that wouldn't rub off. Her makeup a disaster, but pain put 'pretty' on the backburner.
She wouldn't have minded an escort, after that man. Hell, there was a good chance he was near. Staring through a window, trying to recognize her. Good luck to him. That cluster of small doors, cramped beds, thin passages and walls weren't home. Hers was a mansion with a butler, lower servants and personal drivers. Everyone assumed she lived in that piece of the prefecture, on one of the 'nice clusters'. In a 'nice flat' with more than one guard. So nice the doors didn't even have a buzzer and a code. She wouldn't correct them. Her parents owned most, the rest they built.
People could never know, it'd mean she was, Naya rolled her eyes, a 'snob'.
Snobs got it bad and her control ensured it would never happen to her.
She limped, taking a break every few minutes, no help from the masses, they'd better things to do.
Pretty Girl 103, a bloody girl was a girl with too much trouble to be worth it, especially in the morning.
The trudge continued to the nearest bus stop. With a heavy groan she sat and lay back, pulling clumps of hair into her hands and covering her face, filling her nostrils with coconut oil an imported gift from a Taiwanese delegation showing off unseen refinery techniques due to blah blah, microchips, blah blah hedge fund, blah blah please invest. Still, a desperate departure from sweat and horse saliva. She threw her ruined bag to the ground and took a quivering breath.
There were kids on the other side of the road. It was way too early for school.
The kids nobody liked.
Naya chortled, they'd never heard of fashionably late or that early birds only had worms as friends. She recognized some by face, but all were a lower grade, they didn't matter.
Until one of them waved.
Naya waved back.
Her ears perked.
What if one of them came asking questions!
It'd be a nightmare if rumours formed around her out of uniform so early in the morning and, of course, there was her waiting for a bus leading away from school.
There were four lanes between them, but it was 'Naya'… someone would say something.
Their bus came, but that wouldn't stop them from conclusions. She had to start formulating a lie A.S.A.P! A list of faces came up, guessing at their grades, who their class reps would be, what committees were with who, what perks would be needed, there was always punishment, but that had its own dangers. She'd never asked Futaro to threaten someone, that was a pleasure he gifted himself if Naya so much as hinted.
The sense of business as usual was almost restorative. They were old switches, scuffed, the polish thin, the labels faded, the checklist file heavy.