Every morning, Nara woke up before her alarm rang.
And every morning, without fail, her mother would pass by her door and mutter, "You’ll be late again."
It didn’t matter that she was early. It didn’t matter that Nara hadn’t overslept in weeks. The phrase came like clockwork, as though someone hit play on a recording. The exact intonation. The same tired shuffle of footsteps fading away.
She stopped replying. She just listened. She watched. She noted.
In class, her seatmate Mia would ask, "Did you do the homework?" at precisely 7:52 a.m. Whether it was raining, sunny, or exams week, the question came.
Nara started answering differently. Saying absurd things like, "I baked it into a pie," or "I mailed it to Mars." But Mia never reacted.
Just a beat of silence. Then: "Haha, you’re so weird, Nara."
Every time.
