Chapter Text
Shoko was burning through her second cigarette of the day when her bass’s auxiliary cable snapped.
Or, it didn’t snap, it rather stretched until it gradually tore in two.
Shoko wasn’t particularly keen on describing the situation with the greatest accuracy, as she was too busy embodying the pure frustration of someone who had been so close to nailing the riff she’d been working on and composing for the past hour and a half.
She cursed under her breath, dropping her bass on her bed and bending down to scoop up the cable for further examination.
“Fuck,” she mumbled through her cigarette, dragging her gaze over the floor to see that it had caught under the corner of her dresser and been pulled too tight to the point of irreversible damage.
She dropped her bass onto her bed and raked a hand through her hair. “Fuck. Seriously?”
This meant another trip to the convenience store a block away from her house to buy a shitty replacement cable that probably wouldn’t sound half as good as the one that just broke. This meant dealing with the owner’s droning, never-ending questions—How’s school? How’s your father? Any colleges standing out to you?
School sucked. Her dad worked too much to even name one of Shoko’s teachers or friends alike. And college wasn’t even an option in Shoko’s current pool of future life choices. The money? The laborious effort of actually hand-picking a topic and going through the motions of studying it with the intention of securing a job within its field?
No. Not in Shoko’s plans or interests. She’d rather find a moderately well-paying job and rent a cheap one-room apartment to hole up in. She could pursue a music career, she could smoke out the window without receiving dirty looks from her neighbors—the dream.
Or, at least, she thought as she glanced at the mirror on her wall to rub at the dark circles below her eyes, it’s my best option.
She stood up, stubbing out her cigarette on the ashtray on her nightstand and yanked the cable from where it had plugged into her amp.
One trip to the store wouldn’t kill her. The owner was probably out on his lunch break anyway.
“Excited to be out of school in a few weeks?” the shop’s owner asked with a good-natured smile, and Shoko considered grabbing her new supplies and bolting out of the store right there.
“I guess,” she answered, thumbing through the bills in her wallet instead of sprinting for her life.
The owner nodded as he rang her up at the register. “My daughter had about the same reaction as you.” He contorted his face into what Shoko assumed was a surly impression of his child. “‘Yes, Dad, jeez. Now leave me alone so I can go read my magazines of heartthrob skater boys who probably write sad poems about girls they meet in holding cells.’”
Shoko chewed the inside of her cheek, hands in pockets as she waited for him to give her the receipt. “Seems like a diva.”
The man chuckled, more to himself than at Shoko’s offhand comment. “That’s one way to describe her, I’ll tell you.”
Please don’t, Shoko inwardly pleaded, grabbing her receipt and paper bag of purchases before he could launch into his woes as a parent.
“Nice to see you!” he called as she nudged open the door with her shoulder. “Come back soon!”
Shoko flashed him a strained smile before the door shut behind her.
She didn’t dislike the guy. She and the owner were buddies—there was no doubt. He didn’t lecture her when she bought cigarettes every other week or so (she was of age anyway, so there was no use trying to talk her out of it). She kept her mouth shut when he overshared about his family life. He pretended not to notice when she showed up at one in the morning stoned out of her mind and craving Klondike bars.
It was a peaceful relationship. But Shoko had her limits when it came to people, and today that limit had been exceeded; her day at school had been ridiculously draining thanks to the presence of a new student and two mandatory end-of-the-year presentations.
She walked back up to her apartment, twirling the keys on one finger and wondering if she should phone her dad to see if he’d be home for dinner.
If he answered with a yes, she might whip up a quick meal that they could enjoy in the twenty minutes he spent awake and eager to converse with his daughter before he passed out on the living room couch.
If he answered with the expected, “I’m sorry, kid, I’ve got to stay overnight,” she’d order takeout and enjoy a crappy sitcom on the television before she retired to her room to stare at the ceiling and wonder if she should try making friends.
The usual. She scoffed when she unlocked the door and thought about inviting Mr. Talks-Too-Much up for a quick bite during his fifteen-minute break. She would never dare do such a thing, being the anti-social person she was, but at least he would actually show up.
That was the downside of having a detective for a father. It meant that precisely that—she didn’t have a father, she had a mid-forties man in her apartment that liked bottles of whiskey at four in the morning to ease his headache regarding a decade-old unsolved murder.
Whatever. Shoko didn’t really mind. She just recycled the bottles and parented her father like he should have parented her—at least, when he was actually home. Yes, she knew that if he didn’t work she might have to pick up a job during the summer to keep them both clothed and fed. But sometimes the silence was suffocating and her thoughts were loud.
Then again, whatever. At least she got to see a dead body every once in a while.
She caught a glimpse of herself in her room’s mirror again when she tossed her jacket on her bed.
Her dark hair was getting long, with once-choppy bangs growing out and framing her face, waiting to be deftly tucked away behind her ears (she really only saw long hair as a hassle—hence the way she’d chopped it to her shoulders in sophomore year). The bags under her eyes were undoubtedly a result of the hours she spent reading or quietly composing music instead of sleeping, the same reasons that could explain the slouch in her posture.
She made a face, then ducked down to pluck a paperback from a bookcase that had surely seen better days; it was crammed to every corner with Shoko’s collection, with fresh stacks piling up on top and old books kicked underneath, out of sight. Shoko made sure only to send works that she’d deemed unworthy into the dusty abyss. For example, Catcher In the Rye was likely suffering, wedged between the bookcase and the wall. She’d much preferred The Awakening or even Frankenstein, two of her favorite classics.
The rest of her room was no better than the pitiful bookcase.
Curtains adorned the deep gray walls on the furthest two sides, forever pushed back to allow in dreary light through grimy window screens. (How else was Shoko going to force herself to get up in the mornings? She certainly would notice harsh sunlight glaring directly in her face.) The walls themselves were plastered with any form of media she saw fit: newspaper articles of her favorite musicians or actors, band posters she’d swiped from the record shop, movie tickets, lyrics scribbled on the backs of receipts, the number of a hot waitress that she’d never called. If she wasn’t taping random shit to her walls, she was either messing around on her bass that leaned against her bed frame or switching on the radio that sat on her rickety dresser and tuning it to a local rock station. On the rare nights that she would actually stretch out on her bed with the intent to do schoolwork, she would browse around different stations until she found a classical one.
She snatched her pack of cigarettes from her dresser, shoving loose t-shirts into drawers as she did so and chucking stray sweaters at her closet to hang up later.
Oh, she was a real catch. All of her peers flocked to her. Her line was constantly busy. Everyone tripped over themselves to talk to her in the hallways. It was hard being so popular.
(“I should introduce you to my daughter!” her most adored friend, the owner of the convenience store, had gushed a week or so ago. “You would hit it off marvelously. I’m telling you.”)
Yeah, okay. Maybe she kept to herself a bit too much.
Before she could begin overthinking her limited life choices, though, a voice carried up into her apartment through its many open windows, freezing Shoko mid-stride.
She flicked open her lighter and lit a cigarette, catching it between her teeth and exhaling a breath of smoke as she walked into the kitchen.
She leaned over the sink, craning her neck to peer out of the window and onto the street below, immediately identifying the person she’d heard exclaiming how beautiful the sunset was.
And then, shortly after that, how good the lighting was. Next, how cute that dog was. And on, and on, and on, because he never shut up.
Shoko pinched the bridge of her nose, cursing out the world for sending the new student at her school down her street as payback for probably everything she’s done in her life, because, hey, she wasn’t perfect. Nobody was. But this was too much. This new kid had a mouth that was permanently opened and blabbing about anything and everything that came to his empty fucking mind.
He was, however, heading toward the convenience store.
Shoko raised her eyebrows at this sight.
This was possible entertainment—perhaps Mr. Chatty would finally meet his match if New Kid decided to strike up a conversation with him.
(Honestly, it was shameful that Shoko didn’t even know her closest comrade’s name. But he somehow knew hers, making a point to greet her each time she walked through the door, and she was far too embarrassed to ask him directly. She’d hoped a connection would inform her of at least him last name one of these days.)
Oh, Shoko wanted to watch their interaction She also needed to step outside to finish her cigarette anyway; her dad may begrudgingly allow her to smoke, but he despised the scent that her habit brought upon their home.
She grabbed her keys off of the counter and quickly descended three flights of stairs, strolling out of the building at ground level, cigarette dangling in the corner of her mouth.
Maybe she could finally learn his name. Maybe she could witness the new kid finally meet someone as unbearably talkative as himself. Maybe she could—
Shoko choked on a mouthful of smoke, stumbling on her trip across the street.
The kid had pushed open the door, allowing her a brief glance at the front counter.
The shop owner wasn’t there.
Shoko slipped into the building a few paces behind the new kid, stealthily placing herself between the store’s window and a rack of stationary that was fifty percent off.
Seated in the owner’s usual spot, tipping sideways on his wooden stool with a magazine in hand, was a girl who could only be his daughter.
Shoko watched her from behind a sparkly father’s day card.
When the new kid danced up to the counter with three Red Bulls stacked in one hand, she barely batted an eyelash.
The new kid seemed to recognize her.
He pushed his round sunglasses up into his bizarrely white hair. “Utahime?”
The girl folded her magazine neatly and smiled. “Hey! Satoru, right?”
Satoru Gojo—otherwise known as the bane of Shoko’s existence—broke into a huge grin, digging in his back pocket for his wallet. “Yo! Haven’t seen you since last period! You work here?”
Utahime, as Shoko had discovered, brushed her dark bangs out of her eyes and sighed. “No, my dad asked me to take his shift tonight. He had some other stuff to do.”
Satoru hummed in understanding, poking at a candy bar on display. “Got it. Covering for your dad. Classic.” He gestured at the candy. “These wouldn’t happen to be free, would they? A token of your gratitude, maybe?”
Utahime smiled at him despite his mediocre jokes. “Sorry, no.” She pushed his energy drinks toward him. “Will this be all for you tonight?”
Satoru leaned forward. “It depends.”
Utahime indulged his little ploy, lacing her hands below her chin and arching an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
Shoko placed the card back where she found it and wandered further down the aisle, sneaking a look over her shoulder at the brown-eyed girl, who was wearing a white button down beneath a periwinkle blue crewneck, with a silky ribbon tied in her hair to match.
Shoko was suddenly extremely interested in a laundry detergent that would supposedly rid all of her clothes of any grass stains.
She hadn’t expected the owner’s diva daughter to be so pretty.
And now here she was, examining a detergent’s ingredients as if her life depended on the amount of borax in the solution.
She picked her way down a second aisle, back towards the counter, and when she moved to pick up a CD of an 80s album she liked, she could’ve sworn that she felt a stare lingering on the shelf she’d touched.