Nine Lives in Neon Lights
Chapter 1: The Sound of Failure
The red ink on Akira Yamamoto's test paper looked like blood spatter at a crime scene—which, considering how thoroughly she'd murdered her chances at graduating, wasn't entirely inaccurate.
"Twenty-three percent," Sensei Nakamura announced to the entire class, holding up the paper like evidence of a particularly heinous crime. "On a multiple choice test about classical Japanese literature."
Akira slumped deeper into her seat at Sakura Academy, where the average student's family donated enough to put their name on buildings with their surnames carved in gold. Around her, thirty-two of Tokyo's most privileged teenagers pretended to focus on their own perfect scores while secretly reveling in someone else's spectacular academic implosion. It was a well-honed skill, the subtle art of schadenfreude.
"How does one score twenty-three percent on multiple choice?" Nakamura continued, rubbing his temples. "Random guessing should yield twenty-five percent."
Wow, Akira thought, a dry amusement flickering in her gut. I'm actually worse than random chance. That takes skill, Sensei. Raw, unadulterated talent for failure.
Her best friend Hiroshi Tanaka shot her a sympathetic look from two seats over, his own "94%" marked in neat green ink face-down on his desk. He was a beacon of normalcy and competence, which Akira appreciated, mostly because it made her look even more chaotic by comparison.
"Yamamoto-san," Nakamura's voice cut through her self-pity, sharper this time. "Please see me after class."
The dismissal bell finally shrieked, a sweet, jarring sound that rescued her from Nakamura's lecture on Heian period poetry. Akira waited for the classroom to empty, letting the last trickle of perfectly coiffed hair and designer backpacks disappear before she shuffled to his desk.
"Do you know why you're at Sakura Academy?" Nakamura asked without looking up from his grading, his pen scratching furiously through someone else's (probably mediocre) attempt at a perfect score.
It was a loaded question, heavy with implied privilege and unfulfilled promise. They both knew why. Her mother cleaned offices for the school's corporate sponsors, scrubbing toilets and polishing boardroom tables while Akira sat in classrooms that cost more than their rent. A scholarship program for "underprivileged but promising" students had gotten her through the door, though the "promising" part was looking increasingly questionable.
"Because someone saw potential in me?" Akira offered, her voice a shade too bright. "Or perhaps they needed a statistical outlier to prove the scholarship program wasn't too successful?"
Nakamura finally looked up, his expression a mixture of exhaustion and exasperation. "Akira-san, your wit is wasted on academic dishonesty. Your performance has been catastrophically bad. You graduate in eight months. Your current GPA would make it difficult to get into community college."
The words hit harder than they should have, mostly because they were true. She was intelligent, she knew it. The words, the facts, the concepts, they just… slipped through her fingers like sand. Her brain refused to engage with anything that didn't spark immediate interest, which, unfortunately, did not include classical Japanese literature.
"I'm recommending you for academic intervention," Nakamura said, pulling out an official form. It looked suspiciously like a death warrant for her free time. "Mandatory tutoring, supervised study periods, weekly progress meetings. Your mother will need to sign this."
Academic intervention. The academic equivalent of life support. Akira took the paper with numb fingers, imagining her mother's devastated face. Mom worked so hard. This was just another burden.
"Don't worry," Hiroshi murmured, materializing beside her like a concerned ghost. "I'll help you study. We'll ace this."
Akira gave him a small, wry smile. "Hiroshi, darling, if I could ace anything, I wouldn't be here. I'd be off discovering the cure for existential dread or inventing perpetual motion for lazy people."
He just sighed, patient as always. "Meet me at the usual cafe after your shift?"
"Deal. Try not to spontaneously combust from over-achieving before then."
The walk to her part-time job at FamilyMart took fourteen minutes today—she dawdled, dreading the conversation she'd have to have at home. The academic intervention form felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in her school bag, a literal and metaphorical anchor.
"You're three minutes late," called Sato-san from behind the counter as she entered the convenience store's fluorescent-lit normalcy.
"Sorry. Got held up at school. Apparently, I'm a prodigy at underachieving."
Sato-san, a man whose permanent scowl made him look like he'd just sniffed something foul, grunted. "Rough day?"
"You could say that. Someone actually tried to teach me about feudal-era poetry. The horror." She grabbed her name tag and tied her hair back, ignoring his lack of humor. "How's business?"
"Slow. Had a guy try to pay for cigarettes with Pokemon cards earlier. Told him to try the arcade across the street." Sato-san grabbed his jacket. "You've got the evening shift. Try not to burn the place down. Or let anyone pay with monopoly money."
The next few hours passed in a blur of scanning barcodes and helping customers navigate instant ramen choices. Akira moved through the aisles, restocking shelves. A strange, fleeting sensation prickled at the base of her spine, a pins-and-needles feeling that she quickly dismissed as a phantom itch from her ill-fitting uniform. She'd been feeling it on and off for days, attributing it to stress or perhaps the uncomfortable posture she adopted while slumped in class.
Around 9 PM, the store was mostly quiet. The street outside hummed with the distant drone of Shibuya's never-ending nightlife. Akira found herself inexplicably aware of every little sound: the soft whir of the soda cooler, the rhythmic drip of a leaky faucet in the back room, the almost imperceptible buzz of the neon sign above the entrance. It was like her ears had suddenly gotten an upgrade. She even caught the faint, distinct scent of something earthy, like wet soil and old moss, mingling oddly with the artificial sweetness of the snacks. It was weird, but Tokyo was weird.
As she stacked bottled teas, a sudden, inexplicable shiver ran down her spine. The feeling of being watched was intense, a cold awareness that settled on her like an invisible cloak. She glanced up, peering into the dull reflection of the darkened windows, but saw nothing out of the ordinary, just the distorted reflection of her own tired face.
Too much caffeine, she decided, rubbing her eyes. Or too little sleep.
It was nearly midnight when she finally locked up, the silence of the empty store pressing in on her. The feeling of heightened awareness lingered, almost buzzing beneath her skin. As she walked the deserted streets towards home, she could swear the shadows seemed deeper, the city's hum more alive, and every distant flicker of light felt like a silent, watchful eye.
Her apartment building was wedged between a pachinko parlor and a seaweed shop—home sweet cramped, affordable home. Her mother was asleep on the fold-out futon, an accounting textbook across her chest. The sight of her exhausted face made Akira's chest tighten with guilt. Academic intervention, she thought, looking at the form she still needed to get signed. As if Mom doesn't have enough to worry about.
Akira crawled into her own bed, the dull ache at her lower back now a persistent, low thrum, like a deep-seated hum of power just beneath her skin. She couldn't shake the unsettling feeling that Tokyo wasn't quite as ordinary as she'd always believed, and that she was suddenly, inexplicably, a part of its hidden secrets.
The last thing she thought before sleep was that she had never felt more aware in her entire life.