Fake normalcy is something one can encounter anywhere.

It could be in the little things - friends faking complacency after one found out the other was lying to them about something trivial - or in larger scenarios - passerbys putting up a front after a life-shattering event, be it a death in the family or something else. Anyone could be hiding something behind a false smile and platitudes, and the majority of people would never catch on (or if they did, they wouldn't care to comment on it).

While a false sense of normalcy is usually generated to hide mundane problems, sometimes, ever so rarely, those problems are extraordinary in nature. This is the case for one such person.

Her smile was fake, her voice was no longer quite her own, and her emotions were imitations - her true turmoil stuffed away in a dark corner in her mind. The problem that a seemingly normal waitress at Russia Sushi had was no ordinary problem, and it could not be solved by ordinary means. Hell, she didn't even know if her problem ever could be resolved.

So she just had one choice left - to fake normalcy. To fake it until the false smiles and platitudes she gave the customers consumed her. To fake it until… until she could find her way home.

Usually, her life was quite boring.

Day in and day out, she went through the motions of the same routine: classes, work, sleep, and repeat. The monotony consumed her, eating away at her will and desires until they were only fractions of what they once were. And every damn day she felt so, so tired.

She didn't know how to break free from it. She made flimsy attempts to fix it before - exercise, socializing, ect. - and at this point, she firmly believed it was a lack of a goal, a purpose in life, that left her wanting.

It was frustrating, really, since she knew no matter what she put her mind to, she would never be good enough. Scowling, the woman flicked through various apps on her phone. She'd never figure out what she wanted to do at this rate, and that hollow feeling rooted deep in her very being told her that she was approaching burnout - and a large one at that.

Abruptly, the bus she was on ground to a halt, and she heard the doors creak open. Not even bothering to look up from her device, as she'd glanced outside at the last stop and confirmed it was the one just before her own destination, the woman rose from her seat, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and made her way over to the exit before jumping off.

Suddenly, the woman was overcome with a bout of nausea and squeezed her green eyes shut, leaning against a brick wall to steady herself-

Wait, a wall? There wasn't a wall at this stop - it should be a small roadside garden.

The woman, unnerved yet still feeling sick to her stomach for seemingly no reason (must have been a bad meal at the campus' dining hall), calmed her shaky breathing before carefully wrenching her eyes open. Colors flooded her vision and-

She sure as hell wasn't at her university anymore. And what was with the… background effects? It almost looked like-

The woman steadied herself against the wall before taking an inventory of her surroundings. It was best to have as much information as possible before jumping to conclusions.

She was in an alleyway, that much she knew for sure. She was stuck between two sturdy walls, the sky above her a clear blue. Eyes flicking behind her, she saw a fragment of a bustling street, people walking by either with friends or on their phones, not paying any attention to her. Looking to the skyline, she saw skyscrapers reaching upwards, lined with glass. This was normal for a large city, and it almost reminded her a bit of Chicago, even if the Sears Tower (or the Hancock Building, whatever) was nowhere in sight.

It was perfectly normal, but her university was not in a city this big. Nor could a bus fit in this tight alleyway. Surprisingly, these large inconsistencies didn't quite cause her to panic. It was strange, sure, but the smaller details worried her much more.

Specifically, the fact that everything looked straight out of an anime.

The colors of her surroundings blended together too smoothly to be natural, and the people had definite outlines to them. Her first thought was that someone messed with her glasses, but even if the background quality was significantly worse without them, looking down at her own hands also revealed that accursed outline.

...Maybe this was a dream? No, she shot that thought down quickly - even with her killer headache, she was still more lucid than normal for one of those. Best to treat it as real just in case, and with any luck, she just fell asleep on the bus (even if that meant she'd miss her next class, but anything was better than being stuck in a random-ass anime city).

Speaking of her headache, she was fairly certain a large part of it was from adjusting to… whatever the hell this was. Straining her ears to eavesdrop on some of the fragments of conversation from outside the alleyway, she confirmed that whatever language the people were speaking wasn't English.

That didn't mean she couldn't understand them, but it sure did hurt.

It was like… an overlay, almost. She could hear what they were saying in their own language (presumably Japanese, from what little words she knew of it), but she could also "hear" an English translation of what they were saying above that. And by "hear," she meant that the meaning was seared into her brain, interrupting whatever train of thought she happened to have.

It both hurt her brain and was fucking weird.

She took some deep breaths, but still focused on their conversations. Each time she heard a word, statement, or fragment of one, her head hurt a little less. She counted internally as she let the words wash over her, adjusting to this new language. Eventually, it stopped hurting entirely, even if she didn't know how much time she'd lost leaning on that alley wall.

"Alright, it's time for some sort of plan," the woman murmured to herself. She stood up tall, her legs no longer feeling like jello. "Now-"

She stopped, blinking. That later word seemed to be… not English. She tested both languages on her tongue, flipping between them. She didn't know what the second language was, but if her hunch was right…

Well, it'd certainly make her time here a little bit easier. Hopefully, that time would be short.

That led into her plan. Step 1: find out where she was. Step 2: find a way to contact her parents. Step 3: go home. Simple, right?

If only.

Brushing her right hand through her hair, she let out a short sigh before schooling her face into an amiable mask. It was time to ask where she was.

Walking out of the alleyway with faux confidence, her eyes scanned over the crowd - there, a high-schooler. She didn't remember that uniform from earlier passerbys, so somewhere in her headache/language adjustment process, school must have let out. At least this way, she wouldn't be bothering any businessmen or women.

"Hello! You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you? I'm afraid I took a wrong turn and got a little lost," the woman said, the words rolling off her tongue in that second language. The light blue uniform looked vaguely familiar, but she figured it wasn't too important at the moment. The girl looked up from her flip phone, slightly startled before letting out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, Sunshine City is a block that way," she stated, gesturing to her left. "It's a pretty big landmark in Ikebukuro, so you should be able to find your way from there." The woman's smile tightened just a tad, though the girl had already turned her attention back to her phone.

"Thank you, have a good day," the woman clipped before walking off in said direction, thoughts racing.

She was in Ikebukuro - a part of Tokyo, Japan. Right, she could deal with that. Not great, by any means, but at least she knew where she was now. What she might not be able to work with, though, was…

Glancing around to confirm her thoughts, the woman groaned internally.

Nearly every single person on the street had a flip phone, and only a small minority had extremely outdated iPhones.

She had a sinking feeling she wasn't in the same year anymore.

Slinking into an alleyway and making sure no one was following her, she pulled out her own phone - a relatively new Samsung Galaxy model. Turning on roaming, she sighed when she couldn't get a connection going. Shoving her rising panic into a neat little box at the back of her mind, she cursed under her breath before shutting her phone off. She then shoved it deep into her backpack.

It looked like she had to figure out when she was too, and her only solace was that, due to the presence of phones at all, it was at least in the recent past.

Right, right… a time-traveling university bus was totally normal. No problems here, none at all! Once again, she stifled her rising panic - now was not the time for this shit.

So, new plan: find a library, hope they have public computers, and figure out when she was and if she could somehow contact anyone she knew for help. This was totally fine, definitely.

...She really wished her life was still boring.

Good news: she was able to ask someone where the closest library was, and she found her way there easily. What was even better was that she didn't even need a library card or anything to use a computer.

Bad news: she was in twenty-fucking-ten. Essentially a decade in the past, in a foreign country where her IDs and cards were entirely useless. Her driver's license had been issued after that year, and her birth date on it was listed way too early for her current age to match (there's a large difference between what should be a middle schooler and an adult). Her university ID was useless for a similar reason - the year printed on it hadn't happened yet. And her credit and debit cards? They hadn't been issued yet, and if she'd try to use them, they either wouldn't work at best or she'd be arrested for fraud at worst. What would she say to the officer then? She didn't think "sorry, I accidentally time-traveled and landed in another country on the way to class, and I just need to buy a ticket home, sir" was going to cut it.

She'd probably end up the laughing stock of a foreign police department when they inevitably wouldn't believe her. And if by some chance they did… she could end up as a lab experiment (especially considering - wait, nope, she was still in denial). Either way, definitely not ideal.

Suppressing a sigh, the woman took a deep breath before turning her attention back to the blocky computer. She knew now that if she contacted her parents, they would think that she was some random crazy person and ignore her plight. But… she really didn't have any other ideas. They were on another continent, so she couldn't reasonably ask a stranger if she could borrow their phone to call them. She wouldn't want to force international rates on the poor person. No, her best course of action was to find their Facebook pages and send them a message. Preferably her mom's page, as she checked it more often than her dad did.

The woman stretched out her arms above her head before clicking open a new tab and wandering over to said website. The writing system hurt her brain too, but at least she could understand it in a similar way to the spoken language (the characters swirled together to form an English overlay, and despite the ridiculousness of the situation, the woman counted it as a blessing). She typed her mom's name into the search bar, momentarily shocked when nothing came up.

That… wasn't right.

She was lucky enough that her last name was pretty rare, so not many other people were listed, but her mom's profile sure as hell didn't come up. A feeling of dread curled in her stomach, and the woman quickly typed in her dad's name next just to be certain.

He didn't come up either.

Great, great - this was absolutely wonderful.

The woman's hands began to shake, and she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. Then, she went to Google and began typing things in, desperate to find any connection to her home.

Her town? Still existed. Her house? Still existed, but owned by different people. Her parents and brother? Didn't exist. Other family members? Didn't exist. Hell, in a fit of desperation she even tried to log into her old school account, but it, too, did not exist.

She was beginning to think she'd have to take the L on this one - she had no family, no money, no identity, and no way home.

...Well, she could fix one of those problems.

It was time for a new plan (and hopefully, her last one). First, she needed a job. Since she didn't have any credentials or an identity, it would be… difficult, to say the least. With any luck though, she could spin a decent sob story to any potential employers and get by with some sort of customer service job. If not… she still needed money, and she really hoped she wouldn't have to do anything too unsavory to get some.

Having money would let her buy food and a place to stay, which was a necessity. Not having any identification would be… problematic, to say the least, but she'd just have to try her best to not get arrested while looking and hope that someone would let her rent a place. However… she needed to work on that sob story. Of course, she'd only give it if asked - less complications that way.

Playing the dumb foreigner card was out since she didn't have a passport on her. Her… abilities let her speak the language well enough (people seemed to get the impression that she was fluent, at the very least), so maybe she could simply claim that her parents were immigrants if asked. Other than that, she only had a few fleeting ideas.

Maybe she could simply say she was in a bad situation and didn't want to talk about it? It was true enough and would let people draw their own conclusions - she'd just have to be especially nice so that those conclusions didn't turn too sour.

Right, that was doable.

After she had a somewhat steady income and a place to live, she'd have to start looking for a way back. Maybe look for any weird things happening in the city? If she ended up in a customer service job, then she could easily listen in on gossip, and she could parse through articles and internet forums for more information at the library whenever she didn't have a shift scheduled (even if thinking as such was getting a little ahead of herself).

The woman nodded to herself. It seemed like… a plausible plan, given the situation.

Absently, a few key details flickered to the front of her mind. That blue uniform, Ikebukuro…

Scowling, she pushed them back. Being in an anime, let alone one she knew, was… becoming more plausible, but still incredibly unrealistic on principle. Until proven otherwise, she'd go with the theory that this was an anime-esque alternate dimension where she was unlucky enough to not exist before her spontaneous arrival.

Moving her thoughts to a more productive topic, she needed a name. Her own wasn't Japanese, and it wouldn't fit in with her awkward fictional backstory. That, and it would attract unnecessary attention. She did a quick Google search for the most common Japanese names, and picked out a surname and given name for herself.

Mei Suzuki (or Suzuki Mei, depending on naming conventions). Good enough.

Speaking of naming conventions… she'd have to be especially careful to say her new last name first. And not accidentally drop suffixes. It was the little things that could ruin her story, after all.

Sighing, the woman turned off the computer, picked up her pretty much useless backpack, and made her way to the building's exit.

Right, time to find a job

No matter what her parents said, finding a job was not easy. Especially finding one that would take her without proper identification. Even before this nonsense, the only jobs she got were coincidental and strokes of random, extremely good luck.

She walked about the city, stepping in any store that had posted a flyer outside saying that they needed employees. She was denied outright almost every time, and those that she wasn't… well, they rejected her as soon as they asked her for an ID to complete the hire. In all honesty, she was lucky that none of them called the police on her.

The woman fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. Her appearance probably wasn't doing her any favors either. She supposed that it was a good thing that she hadn't been… transported when wearing a graphic tee from an unreleased series (she wore a lot of those), but what she was wearing didn't exactly scream professional.

Currently, her shoulder-length, wavy blonde hair was somewhat of a mess, and she had no makeup on. Normally, they would be the biggest potential issues, but thankfully, the anime-ness of her and her surroundings made them less noticeable. She was wearing an elbow length black shirt, dark blue jeans, and black Vans, which, while not terrible, weren't what she'd prefer to wear to an interview of any kind. Back home, she had a suit for those.

Alas, she wasn't at home and would have to deal.

Looking up, the woman noticed that the sun was starting to dip low in the sky. She'd try one more place and call it quits for the night. She still had to find a relatively safe place to stay, and she didn't have any cash on her. Or at least any Japanese cash. Or cash that had a date not from the future on it. Or… well, the point stands.

Out of the corner of her eyes, a bright banner caught her attention. The woman slowed to a stop, blinking at it.

A sushi shop - one looking for waiters or waitresses.

The woman didn't know much about sushi, but she figured she might as well give it a shot. She walked over to the door, gently opening it and stepping inside. The soft ringing of a bell attached to it brought the attention of one of the employees.

"Welcome to Russia Sushi, sushi's good! How may I help you?" a tall African-American man asked. He sounded familiar to the woman, and the man looked familiar too, but she simply brushed it off and gave him her best smile.

"I'm Suzuki Mei, and I'm here for a walk-in interview," the woman said, bowing (it seemed to garner her better attention than a handshake in her past interviews in this city). "It's nice to meet you." The man beamed.

"Wonderful! My name is Simon. Come in, come in," he said, gesturing for her to follow. She did, keeping a friendly expression on her face while making sure to get a good look at her surroundings. There was the main sushi bar near the center of the restaurant, booths along the walls, and secluded tables in individual rooms near the back. The man took her near the back of the shop into one of those empty rooms.

The interview itself was pretty standard, and after all the practice she had today, she thought she was doing a pretty good job. Another man came in and talked to her for a bit too (he introduced himself as Denis and had gray hair), switching out with Simon for a bit before leaving her alone in the room, presumably to talk with the other man about how she did. Eventually, Simon came back, smiling broadly as he entered.

"Wonderful, Suzuki-san! You got the job. When would you like to work and how would you like to get paid?" he asked. The woman - Mei, now - smiled back, a tad nervous.

"If it's not any trouble, I'd like to start as soon as possible. And I'll work for however long you'll take me," she began, "but… I would really like to be paid in cash, if at all possible." The man's eyebrows briefly knit together in confusion before going back to his normal, amiable expression. Mei was glad she caught that - the quality of the world made it a little easier for her to pick up on people's expressions.

"Are you in trouble? If so, we could help. You seem like nice person, Suzuki-san," he stated, and Mei shook her head. Internally, she was a bit shocked at his kindness, but didn't want to bother the near-stranger.

"It's… nothing that can be helped, really. I completely understand if you're not willing to hire me now," she stated, voice betraying how tired she felt. Simon shook his head.

"That's not a problem, Suzuki-san. We have no issue with paying you in cash."

Well, that was certainly a different reply than what she was expecting.

She dropped into a low bow, grateful. Maybe luck was on her side after all.

"Thank you so, so much, Simon," she exclaimed, almost forgetting to drop the honorific as he had told her to earlier. "I'll do my best not to disappoint you." The man let out a hearty laugh.

"No, I'm glad you're here, Suzuki-san. We really do need another person at night - it gets very busy," he said. "If you want to start today, you can." The woman beamed.

"I'd love that - and please, call me Mei," she replied.

"Wonderful! I'll show you the ropes then, Mei. Don't be scared to ask any questions."

The sun had set a few hours ago, and by now, the woman thought that she had a decent enough handle on the job. Thankfully, Simon had found a blank name tag and a spare white and blue uniform for her (though the uniform was a little on the big side), and Denis had supplied a notebook that she could use to take orders. It was a little awkward to write at first, having to stick to Katakana via that weird internal translation system, but she got used to it.

Unfortunately, each customer was different, so she had to be constantly engaged and couldn't quite get away with just going through the motions. But on second thought, that was probably a good thing. Otherwise, she might not have noticed-

"Hey, you guys got a table open?" someone called. The woman turned away from the window-side booth she just finished serving and looked towards the front of the restaurant. She froze minutely when her eyes reached them.

Four people were at the door, all of which looked familiar. The one that stood out to her most, though, was-

"Kyouhei! I haven't seen you in a while. How are you?" Simon exclaimed from the counter, grinning at the familiar man with the bandanna.

Didn't she have a key chain of that guy? It was given to her by an old friend who she had fallen out of contact with. Which meant-

She couldn't deny it anymore. She was in an anime - Durarara, of all things.

...A show she hadn't seen since high school.

Fuckity fuck - her luck really was garbage all along.

AN: Do you ever think of an oddly specific type of fic that you want to read but can't find anywhere? And then you decide to write it yourself? This… is that fic for me.

I rewatched Durarara a while back and was like "huh, are there any SIs for that fandom?" The answer was… not really. And looking at the source material and how it's laid out, it's easy to see why. The series doesn't particularly align well with the dimensional travel trope, and though the reincarnation trope is doable, results can be mixed. Then, though, I thought of a decent explanation to the first one and kind of word-vomited three and a half chapters. Uh… oops?

Funnily enough, even though I like the writing and tone of this fic a lot, it's been sitting in my Google Docs for a long time. This is partially because I know, logically, that it will be very difficult for me to finish. On the flip side, I find myself going back and rereading what I do have of this fic every once in a while, and it always serves as a good pick-me-up. As a result, I figured I might as well gradually post what I have of it.

Also, the title of this fic is most definitely a reference to Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine. It's pretty much the SI fic for Naruto, and I'd totally recommend checking it out if it sounds even remotely interesting.

This is getting a bit long now, so I'd better cut it short. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!