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[h1]𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙷𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚘[/h1][/center]

Stella Hiroto felt stranded at a dead end in life. The twenty-five year old Japanese-American had woken up this morning and like clockwork had a short breakfast, slipped into her uniform, and made her way to Shogun Sushi where she had been working for two months now. Her fifth job in five years since dropping out of college. Stella appreciated her job of course and her boss was a very likeable and accommodating employer. The pay was decent enough that with a little penny pinching she could afford to live in a decent apartment which conveniently wasn't too far away. After work she would get home just in time to catch the evening news, have dinner, and then read before bed. On the weekends provided she had the energy Stella would swing by the library and make a trip to the gym as well. Her weekly pattern was for the most part near methodic as it had been for some time now, and it was this methodicalness that made her feel so "stuck". 

She went about her job as usual with a meaningful smile on her face and a friendly tone in her voice. One thing Stella enjoyed about Shogun was the usual patronage. Most people who came here were very friendly, easy to accommodate, and tipped well, the ideal customer. The other staff were hard working and easy to get along with which was another bonus. Positivity and momentary social pleasures such as this helped to inject some optimism to Stella, unfortunately these did little for her outlook on the greater scheme of things. At the end of the day Stella knew she was just another cog in the machine, getting by as a mere drone at a food service establishment and living a simplistic and minimalist life with little variety. 

Stella had told herself that she was just feeling restless and this would pass. She had only been working at Shogun for a handful of weeks and the hard bumps over the past few years at times caused her to fell weary and misplaced at times. Not to mention going through a recent breakup had left her with an empty feeling some nights, an unwanted sensation that she knew she would get over. She had done it before after all. In truth she wondered why she was even pining over what had become such a draining and in truth abusive relationship, but at the same time another part of her knew why. Stella had always been the type to latch on to tightly to people when she developed a bond with them. This didn’t happen often as Stella could be a very distant person even as polite as she was, but when it did such a bond was Herculean in strength and as a result hard to shake free when needed. 

Shaking her mind free of her wistful daydreaming Stella focused on her job. Delivering people their orders and ensuring her tables were well tended to. She got off work in several hours and had considering maybe walking through the park after, however the forecast mentioned thunderstorms that afternoon so she she would just be heading home afterwards. Stella had just finished delivering someone an order of sashimi when she heard the door opening signaling a new customer’s arrival followed by one of her coworkers receiving them.