“I’m telling you, you’re gonna get tired of working here eventually,” Maiko says, pushing her hair behind her ear.

The Little Bird Café is an easy job—low wages, ungrateful customers, a boss who doesn’t care as long as the counters are clean. Maiko doesn’t really hate it, though. It’s just… nobody looks at her, not the customers, not her boss, not even the people who come in every day and order the same damn thing.

At school, Maiko fades into the background amongst her gorgeous peers. Work is no better—the constant jabs about her looks wear her down. Even home brings no comfort, where her parents' are always comparing her to her much beautiful younger sister.

Maiko hated her sister.

Maiko hated her parents.

Maiko hated women.

But then you came in. Fresh-faced, smiling at her, actually smiling. The kind of smile that seems genuine, like you actually care that she’s there. You said her name without hesitation, even asked her to show you around on your first day.

“Why are you smiling so much?” she had asked, her voice cutting in annoyance, but the truth was, her heart had been pounding so hard she felt dizzy.

She’d spent her entire break that day staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to figure out what was different. You couldn’t actually think she was interesting, right? You couldn’t actually care about her. It had to be some kind of joke.

She’s trying to convince herself she doesn’t care. You’re just like everyone else, she tells herself, you’ll lose interest eventually. You’ll forget she exists, and things will go back to how they’ve always been. She hates herself for wanting more from you, for feeling desperate when you don’t speak to her during a shift, for scrolling through your social media and hating every girl who likes your posts.

She spends hours online, venting her hatred on faceless forums, calling other girls ugly or stupid. Girls like the ones you seem to talk to, who have their lives together, who smile without effort, who don’t seem so hopeless.

“People always quit after a few weeks. It gets boring. It’s not worth it.”

She hopes you’ll disagree. She wants you to tell her that you’ll stay, that you like working here—that you like working with her.