Fiction | April 22, 2026

Cicada 

It was Shizuka’s narrow bedroom window, plastic blinds obscuring the murky night outside, that led me to say that what I remembered most from our school days ten years ago in Shanghai were the windows. She frowned. “The windows? That’s it?” Yes, and afterwards, other buildings felt oppressively dark, I said, before realizing that could be insulting. Shizuka rented part of a townhouse in north Chicago, and scant light entered her room, where a potted fiddle-leaf fig had dropped withered leaves all over the cherrywood floor. We were drunk though, so Shizuka just plunked down on the bed, shut her eyes against the lamp’s weak glow, and said, “Cath, you’re funny.”   

Our international high school, spanning acres of flat lawns in Puxi, had countless windows stretching from floor to ceiling, transforming every space—classrooms, the swimming pool, the library—into open fields of light. Every hour, when the bell rang, hundreds of uniformed students flooded through the hallways, shoes squeaking against waxed floors, as strong noon rays bounced dizzyingly off the walls and scalded the backs of our necks.   

On Mondays, we raced to buy milk buns in the cafeteria, an atrium with a variety of giant national flags lining the walls, evoking Pudong Airport. The milk buns owed their creamy richness to freshly imported Hokkaido milk, so our baker produced only two dozen per week. Sophomore year, in chemistry class, I often darted out as soon as the bell rang, but one day we were stuck in an exam. Still, I managed to run to the cafeteria and order the last milk bun. As I grabbed napkins, a voice behind me sighed:  

“Oh no, there’s none left?”  

That was Shizuka, frowning at the display, tapping her foot.   

As I watched her scrutinize the few remaining misshapen pastries, an impulse rose in me.  

I tore my milk bun in half.   

I tapped her shoulder. “Here, you can share with me.”   

That was how I won her favor. Most people would have politely declined, but she cheerily plucked it out of my hand. “Really? Thank you! I always get one, but class went over today.” She invited me to eat with her in the courtyard.    

Shizuka had a knack for getting what she wanted. Pinch-faced and short, she wasn’t one of those girls who coerced with beauty. What mattered was the pull of her wide, protruding eyes and plaintive voice. After a while, the realization nagged at me that, actually, Shizuka frequently boasted about her achievements or redirected conversations back upon herself, but she did so with such soft-spoken earnestness, looking downwards or tugging on her fringe, that every gaze pivoted blamelessly toward her, and we’d all offer her validation like candy. That winter, a boy dumped me after a month to chase another girl. Shizuka sent me a few nice texts, soothing my tears. Except three weeks prior, when a similar thing happened to her, I had distracted her with high-speed train tickets to Hangzhou, taking her to paddle a canoe across the West Lake. Now, after only a few sympathy texts exchanged, she changed the subject back to her own failed romance: Ahh! I can’t stop thinking about it. But you couldn’t suggest that Shizuka’s suffering wasn’t paramount. You couldn’t outmaneuver her, especially if you were someone like me, because what would I have been without her?