Day 2

[from StarLight]

The shrill beeping of her alarm clock roused Sanae Hikari from her slumber. Cracking an eye open, she looked at the LCD display. 7am exactly. Class started at 8:45. No good, she thought. It's the first episode; what kind of protagonist wakes up bright and early for school in the first episode? Turning the alarm off, she went straight back to sleep.

About an hour later, she woke up again, smiling as this time the clock showed a more acceptable time of 8:07am. Perfect. Just enough time for me to conceivably make it, but still late enough to cause a panic. Speaking of which... Sanae cleared her throat then, feigning shock, shrieked, "HOLY CRAP I'M GONNA BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!" and scrambled out of bed.

In a hurry, Sanae showered, got changed into her school uniform, grabbed her rucksack, and headed downstairs. There's no time for breakfast, she thought, I'm gonna have to do the toast thing. Jamming a slice of bread in the toaster, she waited impatiently for it to pop up, then snatched it from the slot, clamped it firmly between her teeth, and dashed off the road towards the school.

As she rushed past the buildings, bag-in-hand and toast-in-mouth, she took a moment to admire her reflection in the windows she passed. In her blue-and-white uniform, with her breakfast dangling from her mouth and her lavender hair trailing behind her, she looked every bit the anime protagonist. "Nailed it," she mumbled. "Now all I need to do is-"

WHACK. Not looking where she was going, Sanae ran straight into someone waiting at a crossing and tumbled face-first to the floor, the toast falling to the ground. Silently mourning the loss of her breakfast, Sanae started to pick herself up, looking up to see who she'd run into. Please be a hot love interest...

It was not a hot love interest. It was a girl wearing the same school uniform as Sanae, and looking at her with concerned eyes. Concerned, mismatched eyes. One was purple, one was green. "Are you okay?" asked the girl.

"Your eyes are different colours," blurted out Sanae.

"Yes, they are," said the girl, bemused, "but that's not important right now. Are you okay?"

"I guess so," said Sanae, picking herself up. "I'm gonna be starving by lunch, though," she added, staring longingly at the dropped, now inedible toast.

"You're supposed to eat it on the way, not run the whole way with it dangling from your mouth," the girl pointed out. "I learned that from experience in middle school."

"Oh. Well, hopefully I won't need to try it again," said Sanae, dusting herself down. As the light at the crossing turned green, Sanae and the strange girl both sprinted off towards Mitsuzawa High School.

"I'm Hitomi Murasakime," said the girl, choosing to introduce herself as they ran. "I'm starting my first year."

"I'm Sanae Hikari," said Sanae. "I'm starting my second year."

"Oh, so you're my senpai!" said Hitomi excitedly. "That's cool!"

"I guess," said Sanae, shrugging as best she could while frantically running for the school, her stomach starting to hurt from hunger. Being an anime protagonist is hard work, she thought. The plot hasn't even started yet. At least I think there's a plot.

Finally, the pair made it to the school with only a few minutes to spare. Sanae and Hitomi went their separate ways, dashing towards their respective classrooms. As Sanae approached the door to Class 2-2, she saw a familiar and very welcoming sight. Standing outside the classroom door was her best friend, Amaya Kurozawa, holding out two pieces of buttered toast.

Sanae squealed in delight at the sight of the food, skidding to a halt and snatching a piece from Amaya's hand. "How did you know, Amaya?" she asked in amazement, before greedily munching down the slice. It was still warm.

"I figured, since you're the protagonist, you'd probably end up doing the running-to-school-with-toast-in-your-mouth thing," said Amaya. "I also figured you'd probably end up dropping it, since that scene is only ever parodied these days, so I brought along a couple of spare pieces of toast just in case.

"Thankff, Mmmayum, yuwa wife-thaffer," mumbled Sanae through a mouthful of toast, already taking the second slice.

"Don't mention it," said Amaya. "Now hurry up, class starts in two minutes."

Quickly polishing off the rest of the toast, Sanae headed inside the classroom, and Amaya followed her in. They were the last to arrive; mere moments later, their teacher, Inaba-sensei, arrived, carrying the register. As she started to call out the student's names, Sanae wiped a few breadcrumbs off her blouse and prepared for what she thought would be an ordinary first day back at school.