Work Text:
Luka Megurine was the sort of person who valued routine. That was the main reason the twenty-four-year-old had chosen her line of work. Her job as an actuary for a major insurance company offered comfort in its forty predictable hours per week. She liked knowing what each day held.
She kept her personal life equally ordered, so much so that over the past two years, her daily schedule rarely varied by more than five minutes. On this particular Tuesday, October 14th, she had no reason to expect that the day would be different from any other.
As always, Luka’s cell phone’s patterned buzz woke her at 7:00 AM. Not the type to bargain with the snooze button, she rose immediately, shivering in the cool air, to begin what she expected would be another ordinary Tuesday.
Her morning routine progressed as it always did. After showering, she got dressed in the cream-colored silk blouse and khakis she’d prepared the night before, then pulled her long pink hair into its usual ponytail.
At 8:00 AM, Luka drove out of her apartment’s garage and down the street to the interstate on-ramp, exactly on schedule. The commute normally didn’t bother her—she’d grown used to the traffic and factored it in. But this morning, the overcast sky hung like a wool blanket, dampening her mood and leaving the air thick and humid. It hadn’t rained yet, but Luka guessed it wouldn’t be much longer.
Soon, she was at her downtown office building, still on time despite a disabled vehicle near the 124th Avenue exit. After parking in her designated spot in the garage, she crossed the street for her morning coffee.
It was 8:35 AM, right on time.
Luka’s usual stop at Green’s Beans had become her weekday highlight, a warm refuge from the dreary downtown. The scent of roasting beans enveloped her as she entered.
And there she was at the counter, the reason Luka kept coming back: Miku, the barista.
If Luka existed in grayscale, Miku was an explosion of Technicolor. She radiated cheerful energy. Her twin-tails, a startling shade of teal, bounced with every movement as she glided between the coffee machines and the register. As always, she wore a green apron decorated with a collection of enamel pins—cats, music notes, meme phrases, and one, Luka later learned, that resembled a pixelated leek.
Unusual for the barista, a tiny blotch of aqua-blue paint marked her pale cheekbone. Luka thought it looked adorable.
“Good morning!” Miku chirped, her sweet, high-pitched voice evoking wind chimes.
Luka felt the familiar tightening in her chest. She’d been coming here for months, always ordering the same drink at the same time, yet never managed more than a stiff, polite mumble.
Why couldn't she just speak up? She always froze when it mattered. She might as well be invisible to the bubbly barista.
Miku was like a sunbeam, warm and radiant. Luka, drawn to her brightness, felt exposed and vulnerable in her presence, terrified that her own dullness might be obvious to the one person she secretly admired more than anyone.
“The usual?” Miku asked, beaming. Her eyes were large, teal, and devastatingly beautiful.
“Um, sure,” Luka managed to squeak.
“Large black, no room, coming right up!”
Luka watched Miku work, mesmerized by the fluid dexterity of her hands. All too soon, the barista had her coffee ready.
“You have a super Tuesday, okay?”
Taking the cup, careful not to let their fingers brush, Luka muttered her thanks and retreated out the front door.
It was the same thing every morning: Luka nursed her crush, promising to talk more to Miku, yet shyness won. Still, she didn’t mind. There’d be more chances, and at least she could bask in Miku’s warmth briefly.
As bright as her moment with Miku had been, the day quickly unraveled after she left the café, dragging her spirits down with each passing hour.
At 8:45 AM, as she waited for the elevator, a man in a brown suit barreled around the nearby corner, clipping her shoulder. Her coffee lid popped loose, spilling scalding liquid onto her left hand.
“Watch it,” the man muttered, not even bothering to stop.
Luka hissed in pain, clutching her reddening wrist, then rushed to the restroom to rinse her hand under cold water.
It was only a first-degree burn—painful, but not needing special medical treatment—so Luka skipped urgent care. She spent the day building pivot tables with one hand and pressing ice packs against the other, all while her boss muttered about deadlines. The pain didn’t let up—a constant, throbbing reminder of her failure to talk to Miku.
To make matters worse, right before lunchtime, the skies finally opened up. She’d forgotten her umbrella, and no one else had one to spare, so she couldn’t go to her usual take-out place and had to make do with snacks from the vending machine.
By 6:00 PM, Luka was home: sore, hungry, and defeated. The final blow came when she realized she’d forgotten to defrost the fish filet she’d planned to have for dinner, and the remaining salad greens had spoiled. That was the last straw. She wound up eating plain rice in silence, barely holding back tears of frustration.
Normally, she’d spend weekday evenings studying for her next actuarial exam, but after reviewing the same page three times, she gave up. Seeking comfort, she tried calling her mother, but got no answer, so she streamed old Xena: Warrior Princess episodes until her 10:30 bedtime.
As she struggled to fall asleep, fighting against the sting of her burn, Luka desperately wished she could erase the entire day—wipe away the pain and embarrassment and start over. But of course, that would be impossible, wouldn’t it?
The next morning, the alarm buzzed her awake at 7:00 AM, just as it had every previous day.
Luka shot upright in bed, clutching her left hand. Sharp, phantom pain surged, and for a moment, she swore she could smell coffee on her skin. But her hand was pale and untouched, and the pain vanished almost as soon as it had come, leaving only a ghostly tingle.
Puzzling over what seemed to be a miracle healing, she reached for her phone to check the weather, but when she looked at the display, her confusion only deepened.
Tuesday, October 14th.
Luka tapped the screen. It had to be a glitch. She rebooted the phone, watching the logo spin, only to see the same date greet her upon restart.
“Okay, this is getting weird,” she said out loud, a cold prickle of unease dancing down her spine.
She tapped the radio app on her phone to stream the local news station.
“Good morning, city!” the anchor’s voice crackled through the speaker. “It’s a gloomy Tuesday, October 14th. No rain yet, but keep those umbrellas handy!”
Luka froze. There had to be some mistake. Or perhaps she’d just lost track of the days.
When it was time to get dressed, she went to her closet, expecting to find the collared, pinstriped dress shirt and navy-blue trousers she’d laid out the night before. She slid open the closet door but, to her shock, instead found the cream-colored blouse and khakis she’d worn yesterday in their place.
Her mind grasped for a rational foothold. Yesterday had to be a lucid dream, and a vivid one, at that.
Even the commute felt like déjà vu: the weather matched yesterday, with clouds over the city and the same disabled vehicle near 124th Avenue.
At 8:35 AM, she pushed open the door to Green’s Beans.
“Good morning!” Miku chirped with exactly the same inflection she’d used the previous day. She was wearing the same apron with the same pins, and her cheekbone still bore the aqua-blue paint spot.
The customer in front of Luka—a man in a gray suit—ordered a cappuccino with oat milk. She remembered him; he had ordered that yesterday.
“Good morning,” Luka choked out when she finally got to the head of the line. She thought she might faint—not just because of Miku.
“The usual?” Miku asked, beaming.
Luka stared at her.
“Miku?”
“That’s me!” Miku pointed to her nametag with a grin.
“Um… did I come here yesterday?”
Miku tilted her head, her twin-tails swaying.
“I mean, you’re here every day, right? But yeah, you looked really tired for a Monday.”
That meant it was Tuesday again.
“Okay, never mind,” Luka managed to force through her denial. “The usual, please.”
“Large black, no room, coming right up!”
Luka took the cup and left without another word to Miku. She was too busy trying not to panic to be polite.
By 8:45, she was back in her office building, standing at the same bank of elevators. She checked her phone; if this really was Tuesday, then any moment now…
Sure enough, the man in the brown suit charged around the corner. But this time, Luka deliberately stepped back, pressing herself flat against the wall.
The man rushed past her, missing her by inches.
“Watch it,” he muttered to the empty air where Luka had been standing a moment earlier.
She stared after him, clutching her coffee. Her hand was unburned, but the memory of the pain throbbed in her mind, an echo of a past that she had just rewritten with a single step.
“What the hell is happening to me?” she said out loud to the empty corridor.
The rest of the day failed to improve Luka’s spirits; though she avoided the burn, frustrations persisted. She still missed lunch, still forgot to pull the fish filet from the freezer, and still had to throw away the salad greens. Once again, dinner was a plain bowl of rice.
Her mother wasn’t answering her phone, either, but on the positive side, Luka at least didn’t have to stream the same Xena episodes.
That night before bed, determined to prove herself wrong, Luka tried an experiment. She replaced her usual alarm tone with the most obnoxious option available—“Barnyard Rooster”—and set it for 7:00 AM. If tomorrow was truly a new day, the rooster would crow.
Once again, she had a hard time falling asleep—not from pain, but from a gnawing apprehension over what fresh confusion tomorrow might bring.
BZZT-BZZT. BZZT-BZZT.
The standard electronic pulse sliced through the quiet of Luka’s bedroom.
She sat up, heart sinking. The phone’s settings had reverted to the state they were in the previous morning.
Her quick check of the phone’s display confirmed her fear: Tuesday, October 14th.
There was no denying it; she was stuck in a time loop.
Panic, Luka discovered, was a finite resource. For the next two Tuesdays , Loops 3 and 4, she was afraid to do anything different other than remember to take her umbrella to work, defrost the fish, and stop by the store for new salad greens. But by Loop 5, the sheer terror of her circumstances had devolved into grudging acceptance.
There was no denying it; every time she went to sleep, the universe hit a reset button, and she woke up at 7:00 AM on Tuesday, October 14th. The burn on her hand was long gone, though she sometimes still woke up rubbing her knuckles, the sensory echo lingering for a fleeting second.
Every day at work, all the emails she’d received the previous day had disappeared from her inbox, only to reappear at the times they had on the original Tuesday. And her boss would still pressure her over that one deadline he’d been obsessing over.
Everything kept resetting except for Luka.
On the evening of Loop 6, she decided to treat this not as a curse but as a research project.
She wasn’t sure if Miku was the key to escaping Tuesday, but she was the only bright spot in Luka’s gray world, so maybe she had something to do with it. The connection was certainly worth exploring. Besides, if she were condemned to an eternity of Tuesdays, she might as well spend them getting to know Miss Sunbeam better.
The following morning, Loop 7, Luka decided to flip the script. In her normal reality, she would never have dreamed of doing so, but since she knew everything would reset anyway, she suddenly felt free of her shyness. If she crashed and burned, tomorrow would give her a do-over, so why not take the chance?
“Good morning!” Miku chirped.
“Good morning.” Instead of ordering her usual coffee right away, Luka added, “I just realized I don’t actually know your last name. Just ‘Miku.’”
“Hatsune,” Miku replied with her usual sunny smile.
“Hatsune,” Luka repeated, cataloging the data. She pointed toward her own cheek. “Well, Miku Hatsune, you have a little bit of blue paint right about here.”
Miku’s eyes widened, and she scrubbed frantically at her cheekbone.
“Oh, no! How did I miss that? I must have really been out of it this morning.” She laughed, a bright, self-deprecating sound. “I was up late painting. Oils take forever to dry, and I’m a little messy. It’s just a hobby, though. Nothing serious.”
“I see,” Luka said, filing away the information: Artist. Oils. Modest. “I have one more question, Miku Hatsune. What would you recommend for something sweet to go with my coffee? Are the strawberry muffins any good?”
Miku’s face fell like a cloud passing over the sun.
“Oh, shoot. I actually can’t serve those. I mean, we have them, and yeah, they’re supposed to be really good, but I’m deathly allergic to strawberries. Like, throat-closing allergic. I can get someone else to grab one for you, though.”
“No, thanks,” Luka said. Allergic to strawberries, check. “I’ll stick with my usual.”
The loops began to blend together. For the next several Tuesdays, Luka used each morning visit to learn something new about Miku: her age (20), her favorite animal (she wanted a cat but couldn’t have one because of her apartment lease), her favorite food (spring onion soup), her favorite drink (oolong tea), and so on. From this knowledge, a picture of Miku began to emerge that Luka discovered was much more nuanced than she’d expected.
By Loop 14, Luka stopped going to work. Why bother building spreadsheets and writing reports that would vanish by morning? She was always careful to call in, however. If the normal flow of time ever resumed, she didn’t want to be written up for a no-show.
Besides, the more she learned about Miku’s likes and dislikes, the more obscure they became. She found she needed more time for research to keep up her end of their conversations.
Through diligent observation, she discovered that Miku took her break at 10:15 AM. Since the rain usually held off until about noon, Miku would sit on a bench in front of the shop with her battered black sketchbook and draw.
Starting with Loop 18, Luka would sit at the other end of the bench and make conversation.
“Is that a 100 gecs sticker?” Luka asked during Loop 20, pointing to Miku’s water bottle. She’d taken note of the band’s logo during the previous loop when Miku mentioned them in passing.
Miku looked up, startled but pleased.
“Yeah! I love hyperpop. It’s like, I don’t know, putting your brain in a blender? But in a good way. Do you listen?”
“I do,” Luka lied. That night, she stayed up until 3:00 AM listening to playlists titled “Glitchcore” and “Hyperpop Essentials,” memorizing artists and chaotic beat drops until her brain felt sufficiently blended.
In Loop 25, she cracked the sketchbook mystery.
“My art? It’s abstract,” Miku explained, her voice shy. “It’s about sound. I try to translate musical sounds into visuals.”
“That’s really cool,” Luka said, meaning it sincerely. “I’d like to see one of your pieces someday.”
Miku sighed, gazing up at the gray sky.
“My friends tell me I should submit to the Prism Gallery. They’re putting on a showcase for emerging artists. The deadline is actually today at 5:00 PM.”
“Are you going to?”
Miku shook her head, clutching her sketchbook to her chest.
“No. I’m not good enough. Plus, the entry fee is fifty bucks, and I’m broke until Friday.”
Luka added this information to her mental notes: Prism Gallery. 5:00 PM. Insecurity. Financial barrier.
By Loop 30, Luka was falling in love.
She couldn’t help herself, really. As she’d gotten to know Miku over the repeated loops, she discovered that the barista really was as cheerful, energetic, and kind as she seemed. And the more she’d learned, the further her feelings had grown past the initial physical attraction into a deeper and more visceral desire that had set its hooks deep inside.
Yet while Luka had found out so much about Miku, Miku knew nothing about Luka other than her standing coffee order. Each Tuesday morning, she was back to regarding Luka as little more than a stranger.
By Loop 35, Luka couldn’t take it anymore. She was tired of connecting with Miku in fragments. She wanted all of her. Even if it was only for twenty-four hours, she wanted Miku to love her back.
She had planned out the entire day like a military operation, intent on leveraging the information she’d gained over more than a month’s worth of Tuesdays. But before getting started, she needed something to really catch Miku’s attention. Given the younger girl’s unusual taste in music, Luka reasoned that an obscure band t-shirt paired with tight, low-cut jeans would do the trick.
And she knew exactly which shirt she wanted: a neon-green, oversized graphic tee for a hyperpop artist that Miku admired. She’d stumbled over it when scouting out a vintage record store the younger girl had recommended. The place didn’t open until later, so by the time she got to Green’s Beans, it was pushing 10:00.
When she walked through the door, Miku’s jaw dropped.
“No way! Is that the limited-edition drop? I thought those sold out in seconds!”
“I got lucky,” Luka said. “You like it?”
Miku’s eyes swept slowly down the front of the shirt to her hips, then back up to Luka’s face. Her cheeks had turned a bright pink.
“Oh, yeah. It, um, looks great on you.”
Gathering her nerve, Luka leaned over the counter and lowered her voice.
“Hey, listen, I’ve got two passes to the VR arcade downtown, but my friend bailed, and I don’t want to go alone. Do you like rhythm games?”
Miku’s eyes widened.
“I am the queen of rhythm games.”
“Prove it,” Luka challenged. “Skip work. I’ll buy you out.”
Miku hesitated, looking at her manager, then back at Luka—tall, mysterious, wearing the perfect outfit, and offering the perfect escape.
“Okay. Let me just grab my bag.”
Their date day progressed exactly as Luka had planned.
She steered their conversation as though she were playing a video game in God mode. She knew exactly what to say and how to say it. It didn’t take long before she had Miku hanging on her every word.
At the arcade, Luka let Miku win a popular rhythm game enough times to feel competitive, then crushed her on a difficult song, using the skills she had spent Loop 28 practicing.
Far from being disappointed, Miku actually seemed in awe. With a breathless laugh, she wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“You’re full of surprises. The good kind, I mean.”
“Good thing you like surprises,” Luka said with a wink.
They ate lunch at a conveyor-belt sushi place that Miku had raved about in Loop 29. When Miku opened her mouth to order a tea, Luka beat her to it.
“Oolong, half sugar, right?”
Miku stared at her.
“Are you psychic?”
“It was just a lucky guess,” Luka said with a shrug.
They spent the afternoon at a pop-up digital art exhibit. The projection illuminated Miku’s face, giving it an ethereal aura that Luka found heartbreakingly beautiful.
As evening fell, they found a quiet spot in the exhibit, hidden behind a curtain of LED lights.
“This feels like a dream,” Miku whispered, leaning closer to Luka until their shoulders touched. “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
“I feel that too,” Luka said softly.
Miku gazed up at Luka, expectation clear in the curve of her lips.
“I’ve had such a great time today. There’s only one more thing we need to make the night perfect.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“This.” Miku gently tangled her fingers in Luka’s hair and pulled her in for a kiss.
Luka’s universe contracted into that single seismic moment. Miku’s soft lips against hers tasted of everything she’d so desperately wanted for thirty-five loops.
But at the same time, it felt wrong.
As Miku pulled away, flushed and smiling, an icy guilt settled over Luka. Miku wasn’t falling in love with the real her; she was falling for an algorithm carefully curated to exploit her vulnerabilities.
Luka hadn’t earned that kiss. Instead, she’d used thirty-five days of surveillance to hack Miku’s heart.
“Wow, Luka,” Miku breathed. “Best Tuesday ever.”
Luka forced a smile, feeling like a thief. Yet despite the guilt, she couldn’t resist when Miku kissed her again.
In Loop 36, Luka’s alarm woke her with its usual rhythmic buzz.
This time, she woke up with a shudder. Her lips were tingling, the sensation so overpowering that her hand went to them involuntarily. It felt as though Miku had kissed her only moments ago.
But instead of a thrill, the memory landed like a lead weight. It was a stolen echo, a ghost of a moment that was engineered rather than organic. The sadness of it washed over her, heavier than the gray sky outside.
Luka’s resolve hardened.
Not only was she not going to date Miku again today, she wasn’t going to so much as flirt with her. Today, she was going to offer Miku the one thing she had left to give: friendship.
Unlike the previous 22 loops, when she’d shown up at Green’s Beans at varying times wearing casual clothing, she walked into the shop that day at 8:35 AM as usual, dressed in one of her work outfits. What she had in mind required her to present a professional appearance: she needed Miku to trust her.
“Good morning!” Miku chirped.
“Good morning, Miku,” Luka said. She didn’t order coffee. “My name is Luka, and I need to talk to you.”
Miku raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, was there something wrong with your coffee yesterday?”
“No, the coffee was fine,” Luka said. “This is about your art.”
Miku flinched.
“My… what?”
“I heard you’re working on a portfolio for the Prism Gallery,” Luka said, trying to sound casual. “The Young Artist Showcase. The deadline to apply is today at 5:00 PM.”
Miku gaped at her.
“How do you know all this?”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Luka said. “What matters is that you’re scared. You think you’re not good enough. You think you’re just a barista with a hobby.”
The poor girl looked like she was ready to bolt.
“What the heck? You’re scaring me!”
“I don’t mean to be scary," Luka said. "I just want to do the right thing. I’ve seen some of your sketches. And maybe it's not my place to interfere, but I can't ignore the potential I see in you. You have a voice, Miku. If you don’t submit that portfolio today, you might regret missing this chance."
Miku frowned at her.
“It costs fifty dollars that I don’t happen to have.”
Luka pulled out a crisp fifty-dollar bill and slapped it on the counter.
“Now you do.”
Miku stared first at the money, then at Luka.
“Why are you doing this? I don’t even know you!”
“Call me a benefactor,” Luka said, wincing inwardly at Miku treating her like a stranger. “Now, go tell your manager you have a family emergency. I’m driving you to your apartment to pick up your paintings, and then we’re going to the gallery.”
“I can’t just leave!”
Luka crossed her arms and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Miku, do you want to still be here ten years from now, pulling espressos and wondering ‘what if?’”
Miku swallowed hard.
“Okay, fine. Give me five minutes.”
The rest of the morning was a blur. They drove to Miku’s cramped studio apartment, where Luka helped her cover three large canvases in bubble wrap. The paintings were breathtaking—violent swirls of color that looked like sweeping orchestral arrangements captured in oil.
When they arrived at the Prism Gallery, Luka pulled up to the front door to drop Miku off, but the barista didn’t move.
“I can’t do it,” she moaned. “What if they don’t like my pieces? What if they don’t like me?
Luka patted Miku’s shoulder reassuringly.
“You’re an artist. A real one, not a hobbyist. You belong in that exhibition. Besides, I believe in you. Now go!”
Miku gazed at her for a long moment, then, without another word, pulled her paintings from the back seat and carried them inside.
As Luka waited in the car, a deep feeling of peace settled over her. She might not get the girl—or even get a hug out of it—but she was giving Miku at least a taste of how her future could be. And she committed to replaying this exact same day, over and over, until the flow of time resumed, because of all people, someone as truly beautiful as Miku deserved to know she was special.
After a long wait, Miku came running out of the front entrance to the gallery empty-handed. She practically dove into the passenger seat.
“Luka, I did it!” she squealed. “The curator… she actually liked them! She called them ‘powerful!’ Now all I have to do is wait for the jury’s decision. They’re meeting tonight.”
“See, I told you,” Luka said with a smile she hoped didn’t look too forced. “They’re going to love your work, too.”
“God, I hope so.”
Luka hesitated, unsure of what to do next. She didn’t want to say goodbye so soon. But then she remembered that the day was all about Miku and her art, not about romance. Now that she’d been successful in getting Miku to submit her works to the gallery, there really wasn’t anything else to be done.
“Should I take you back to the shop, then?”
“Please,” Miku said. “I told my manager I’d be back before the lunch rush.”
The drive back was quiet but comfortable. When Luka pulled up to the curb outside Green’s Beans, the younger girl turned to her, eyes shining.
“Thank you so much, Luka,” she said. “I barely know you, and I’m not sure why you went to all this trouble, but you changed my life today.”
Luka squeezed the steering wheel, her heart aching, knowing Miku wouldn’t remember any of this tomorrow.
“I’m just glad I could help.”
“I’m not sure if I could ever thank you enough. You want to come inside? I could at least buy you lunch. Today’s special is the kimchi melt.”
As tempting as the offer was, Luka kept her resolve.
“Sorry, I have to go,” she said. “I’ve got some stuff to take care of. Maybe some other time.”
“But—”
“Goodbye, Miku,” Luka said, plastering on a brittle smile, “and good luck with the exhibition.”
Miku reluctantly stepped out onto the sidewalk. Luka watched until she was safely inside.
Her appetite having deserted her, she didn’t bother with either lunch or dinner. She didn’t even study for her exam. Instead, she spent the rest of the day on her phone, thumbing through ebooks and streaming K-dramas, although none of it really registered.
Ultimately, exhausted to her bones and weary of fighting off her swinging emotions, she decided to go to bed early. Before drifting off, she set her alarm , selecting the rooster again, not out of hope, but out of habit.
“I did the right thing,” Luka whispered to the dark room through bittersweet tears. “It was worth it.”
COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!
Luka frantically mashed her fingertips against her phone screen to silence the loud, raucous crowing. After a moment, the fog cleared, and it registered that her ringtone had changed.
She sat bolt upright, gaping at the dazzling sunlight shining through the gaps in the window blinds, then snatched her phone from the nightstand.
Wednesday, October 15th.
“Oh, thank God, finally,” she said, practically weeping with relief.
She tapped the radio app.
“Happy Hump Day, folks! It’s a beautiful, clear Wednesday morning after yesterday’s gloomy skies…”
Luka scrambled out of bed. The loop was broken. Time was moving forward.
Panic seized her. If it really was Wednesday, then nothing that happened on Tuesday had been reset. And that meant Miku would remember it all.
“Oh, my God,” Luka whispered.
She dressed in record time, abandoning her usual ponytail to let her hair hang loose—the way Miku had said she liked it best during their date loop—then drove downtown as fast as she could.
Luka reached Green’s Beans at 8:35 AM, as usual, but before she went inside, she hesitated. What if Miku didn’t remember her, after all? Or even worse, what if Miku only remembered her as that crazy woman who threw fifty dollars at her and dragged her to the art gallery, only to dump her back at the shop afterward?
But then Luka recalled how grateful Miku had been, and how she’d invited Luka to lunch. Why wouldn’t Miku be glad to see her?
The old Luka from Loop 0 would have chickened out, but the new Luka, desperately in love, wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to find out what Miku thought about her. With a deep breath, she pushed the door open.
Miku stood behind the counter, working the espresso machine. When she turned, she froze for a moment, her eyes locked on Luka’s. Then she waved vigorously, smiling so brightly that Luka thought she might melt.
When Luka reached the front of the line, Miku scrambled around the counter to meet her, screeching to a stop inches away.
“Luka,” she said, beaming, “you came back!”
“I, uh, I mean, I get my morning coffee here,” Luka stammered. “Why wouldn’t I come back?”
“But when you said goodbye yesterday, it felt so, I don’t know, final.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Luka said, even though it had felt as though she had at the time.
“Anyway, I’ve been going crazy waiting for you to get here!” Miku fished her phone out of her apron pocket, tapped the screen, then thrust it toward Luka.
“I got an email from the gallery a little bit ago. Check it out!”
Luka studied the message on the younger girl’s phone screen. It was an acceptance letter from the Prism Gallery.
“You got in!”
“We got in,” Miku corrected. “I never would have gone if you hadn’t dragged me there.”
“I didn’t drag you,” Luka said with a grin. “I facilitated you.”
“Eh, same difference,” Miku said, grinning right back. Then, her expression softened. She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Hey, this is going to sound crazy.”
Startled by the sudden shift, Luka wondered where this was going.
“I had the weirdest dream last night,” Miku said, gazing searchingly into Luka’s eyes. “I dreamed that we went to that VR arcade downtown, and the pop-up art exhibit—you know, the digital one? And you beat me at that crazy rhythm game, too.” She paused, blushing slightly. “And I also dreamed that you kissed me.”
Luka’s heart pounded. The echoes hadn’t disappeared completely. As with the phantom burn on her hand, their shared memory of the kiss had bled through the reset, marking them both.
“It felt really real,” Miku murmured. “Like… déjà vu, only way better.”
Happy tears pricked at the corners of Luka’s eyes.
“It was real,” she whispered back. “Except that you kissed me.”
Miku’s smile turned dazzling.
“I did? Go, me!” She leaned even closer, her lips tantalizingly close to Luka’s ear. “I’m already starting to forget how that kiss felt. You’re going to need to refresh my memory.”
While Luka’s head spun, Miku grabbed a marker and an empty paper cup and scribbled on it.
“Call me when you get off work,” she said, handing the cup to Luka. “How about I make you dinner, and then we take it from there?”
Luka read the message Miku had written.
(831) 555-2007
You and me, tonight!
<3 Miku
“Dinner sounds perfect,” Luka said, hoping she didn’t sound too eager.
“Great! Now, before I get fired and the other people in line string me up, do you want your usual black coffee, or what?”
Luka laughed, a sound that felt like waking up.
“The usual, please.”
“You got it! Large black, no room, coming right up!”
Watching Miku dance back around the counter toward the coffeepot, vibrant and real and remembering, Luka thought back over the previous thirty-six Tuesday loops. They felt almost like a lucid fever-dream, as she’d originally guessed.
But at least one part of that long dream had come true: she had won Miku's heart, and in the end, she'd won it honestly. That, in itself, made the thirty-six days of struggle worth the effort.