The alarm went off at 6AM.  Shizuka rolled over gently in her bed and turned off the alarm.  The memory of having been woken two hours ago by the sound of her drunk roommate returning to the dorm after another night of partying flooded back.  It hadn't really interrupted her sleep that much, but Shizuka felt a bit more tired than usual.  Well, she'd been feeling 'more tired than usual' for long enough for it to be considered usual.  Still, she insisted on waking up early every morning just to maintain her health and good habits.  Sitting up, Shizuka stretched, then made her way to the restroom to wash up.  Afterwards, she headed to the kitchen and started preparing her breakfast, as well as a lunch box for herself and for her roommate.  When she was done cooking and packing the lunches into their boxes, she took a post-it and scribbled a little note to her roommate, then put the lunch box in the fridge.  Brewing herself some tea, Shizuka made her way to the dining table with her plate of breakfast and tea cup and sat down for a quiet meal, casually thumbing through her phone to catch up on email updates from her classes or her research professor.  Fortunately, it was a quiet weekend with very little in the way of assignments and projects.  From an outsider's perspective, the scene of Shizuka having breakfast could be described with the word 'serene'.  While this was, for the most part, true, there were a great many things that could be troubling her, that she has simply chosen to not dwell upon.  She knew that she needed to just keep moving forward.  Finishing breakfast, she put her plate in the sink and left her dorm.  Shizuka reached her bicycle which was parked at a bike rack that was reserved for Shine Academy dorm residents.  It was still early enough in the morning to not be hot, so a casual, refreshing ride to her workplace would not result in her becoming sweaty and disheveled.  Expecting it would get warm later in the day, Shizuka tied her hair up to keep cool.

[hider=Tied hair][img]http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/3a3269d3f99831fe8679f99a830418a31234661618_full.jpg[/img][/hider]

Shizuka arrived at the bookstore Ink Sparks before opening time.  Unlocking the front door, she made her way inside and locked the door again.  To keep with the schedule, she wouldn't unlock it again until the shop actually opened, giving her some time and privacy to get the bookstore ready for the day.  She did a quick rundown of the shelves, just to get a glimpse to see if anything was misplaced.  Sure that everything was in order, she flipped the sign from 'Closed' to 'Open', and took her seat behind the counter. [@Haeo]

[hr]
It had been a rather uneventful day, though the occasional individual would make their way into the shop and ask for things using slang and other terms Shizuka was unfamiliar with, her apparent cluelessness was usually enough to cause them to leave, certain that she did not have what they were looking for.  She had heard that the place used to be a front for shady dealings, but thought that that was long enough ago that people should have stopped coming for those things by now.  Other than those incidents, she made a few small book sales, but not much.

As the day wore on, it started getting warm.  Surprisingly, it was warmer in the bookstore than it was in the storage behind it.  Apparently, the storage had previously housed 'perishable goods' of questionable legality and was installed with better AC than the storefront.  This was something she knew Mr. Smith wished to rectify, as uncomfortable customers was bad for business.  Shizuka wondered if she would see Mr. Smith today.  Granted, as the business owner, his attendance was far from mandatory, but he was much more involved than most business owners, he had to be to get this little shop off the ground.

The shop's internal audio system was tuned to Shine City Radio, the station that the other clerk liked to listen too, and Shizuka never saw a need to change it.  But when the 'Naughty Nori's News' segment came up, it reminded Shizuka of 'Weston's Suggestions' and it's host, Nick Weston.  Shizuka hadn't seen hide nor hair of him in a while and wondered what he was up to.  A slight chill ran down her spine, prompting her to silently pray for his health and well-being.