Disclaimer: Again, I don't own The World Ends With You please stop saying that I do.
Title: Live.
Summary: Coco Atarashi is totally gonna be the most amazing Reaper ever. Of course, if the mountain range called Higgy would stop mentioning spicy tuna rolls every three seconds, it would make her life easier. Or unlife. Whatever. Platonic Coco/Higashizawa, pre-game.
Rating: T, but only to be safe. I think Coco lets slip a few c-words? She says God in the offensive term a few times, too.
Author's Notes at the end of the story.
Coco had heard that her instructor had a rather large physique for a twenty-year-old, but this was ridiculous.
He looked like he had been beaten up by a bunch of mountain ranges (and they had won), and some of them had decided to cling to him and drag him down. Or up. Could never be too sure with Mother Nature.
The black-hooded Reaper in front of her coughed awkwardly. He tugged the hood around his neck. Coco found herself doing the same. The man was massive – and was one of his eyes glowing?
"Mister Higashizawa-" More like Mister Impossible-To-Pronounce-Last-Name, Coco thought dryly. "-Um, this is... Ms. Konishi ordered that, um, y'know..." The Reaper's arms flailed about a bit. "...The mentor thing? She's, uh... your pupil? I dunno, I never got one, man, don't ask me..."
His narrow eyes swept over them. Coco shrank further into her hood. Man, he was scary looking! Eek! And he was meant to be her instructor! They were never going to get along!
"Coco Atarashi, correct?"
She leapt up, nodding quickly. "Y-yeah, that's me? Just call me Coco-chan. For short."
The hooded Reaper stared at her. Mountain Range just nodded curtly.
"An intriguing recipe. I am Yodai Higashizawa."
"No," she announced. "You're Higgie."
The black-hooded Reaper vanished from sight in a flash of static. She glanced at the empty space, sighing. "Man, I always scare them off." That was the third one in twenty minutes.
"Perhaps the order is vile?"
"...Are you saying that I smell!?" Okay, so she had been a Player just two days ago, and she didn't really have the chance to change. Still! That was so rude of him!
"...No?"
"Yes you did! You said I smell! Ugh. Look in the mirror recently, Higgie?"
"Higashizawa, spicy tuna roll."
Was that his sly way of insulting her? Fail. "More like shio ramen, Higgie."
He sighed heavily. The motion seemed to shake the ground. Maybe it was for dramatic effect. "Anything but Higgie." He made the last word sound like poison on his tongue.
"Higgy."
"I just-"
"-I changed the spelling!" Came the immediate protest. "I know you can't see it, but other people can!" She gave a quick wink. "Maybe. But 'sides, you're tutoring me, aren't you? You've gotta get used to my totally amazing ways of life."
"We're dead."
Coco still wasn't fully used to that. "Okay, unlife. Shut up and show me your place. It's not like I've got enough yen to buy my own."
"You're also underage."
"I'm also dead."
He chuckled. "Touché."
They stood there for a few more seconds, before Coco sighed and crossed her arms. "Well?"
Higgy looked at her. He had been ready to shut the door. "Well, what?"
"Show me your place."
"This is it."
No way! Her eyes swept over it again. It was like... some kind of dreary flat in the middle of a backstreet of Udagawa. Which was exactly what it was. She had been expecting some kind of epic lair constructed of death and emo wings and depressing music.
Not... something so normal.
"It sucks."
"Atarashi."
"Higgy."
"Stop calling me that," Higgy groaned.
"Only when you stop calling me Atarashi. It's Coco-chan," Coco said smugly.
Higgy – okay, Yodai, whatever – sighed again. "You are my junior. I must call you that name."
"...Do you have much experience with children?"
Hig- Yodai remained silent on the bench, but let out a loud, completely inconspicuous cough.
Ugh.
The atmosphere was so awkward.
Okay, Coco supposed that, most of the time, fully grown men who were probably a lot older than their appearance weren't shoehorned with a dead fourteen year old to look after, but it didn't make it any less annoying.
"...Coco-chan," came out Higgy's strangled voice, followed immediately by: "I refuse to say that ever again."
"Yeah. It sounds awful. Stick with Coco." She turned up her nose and leant back on the shop window so more. If she was alive, then a bunch of Dragon Couture customers would now be getting a charming view of her rear. As it was, they probably all saw the endless crowds of Shibuya, nothing more than speckles of rainbow and a blur of movement. People in Shibuya never slowed down. They were always doing something, anything, as long as they were living.
But it wasn't like death was that bad. Not really. Sure, getting hit by, of all the things, a tram, hadn't been the most graceful (or painless) way to die, but hey. She was dead. As long as the ends justified the means, right?
Her eyes shifted over to Higgy. How had he died? Probably not as embarrassing as hers, but... you never knew. "Higgy?"
He ignored her.
For the love of-
"-Oh Mister Higashizawa," she said in a sickly sweet voice, hoping to draw his attention. It worked.
Higgy glanced at her briefly, looking annoyed. Really annoyed. "Yodai."
"Oh, fine, Yodai; how did you die?"
He looked slightly startled from the sudden question. Several Noise frogs that had been processing towards them croaked and quickly leapt off, red tattooed legs flashing in the sunlight. It was amusing to watch, so Coco giggled.
Yodai glanced back at the crowds again. "Why do you ask? Curious in licking the plates?"
"Would you stop making food puns." That was pretty much the first thing she had noticed about him; every three sentences, he had to make some pun related with food. Apparently, some Reaper called Sho was ten (sorry, zetta) times worse with mathpuns; she didn't even want to see that in action. "But seriously? How? I got run over by a tram."
Yodai snorted.
"Shut up."
"...I was working with children," came the quiet reply. "The cooker was faulty, and... the nursery caught fire. Everyone... all of them died. I was the only one who won the week."
Coco didn't say anything. She couldn't.
She was still thinking about what Yodai said, one night as she snuggled up in his massive bed. The man in question was curled up on the ground as a giant boulder in human form, as he had told her that she could have the bed until he got enough yen to order a new one. The bed was worn, and there was a dip in the middle, but man, it was comfortable.
But still... if he had been working with kids, then did that mean that they all had to play the Game as well? They couldn't have been older than five... and they had no help! They probably weren't able to survive one stinking day, much less the whole week! Couldn't the Composer just have revived them all? They were young! No one that young deserved to die. She'd struggled her way through the week, and okay, her partner was a bit stuck-up and posh, as most famous models tended to be, but she was still helpful! Without her... Coco wouldn't have survived. Simple as that.
People like those children needed help. Someone who could give them a helping hand, point them in the right direction.
And if there was one thing, just one thing, that Coco could do, it was help.
"I wanna help Players," Coco announced to Yodai one day. The two of them were hanging out near Molco; it was Valentine's Day, and so, endless amounts of people were churning in and out of the legendary phone booth of love, every single one of them coming out with a seldom face. She really would have thought that they would have known that it didn't work by now, but the long queues kept on coming.
And coming.
And coming.
"She did it again!"
"Ohhh! I could have sworn that Kiki had his phone on him, but he never does! Grr!"
"DAMN IT I DRESSED UP AS 777 AND EVERYTHING AND SHE STILL DENIED ME."
"B-b-b-b-but s-s-s-she just..." Cue a loud sob.
...Wasn't that BJ?
Oh he didn't-
-Coco wasn't sure if she should laugh at him, or go over and comfort him. In the end, she laughed. Loudly.
She could sense that Yodai was secretly enjoying it, too, even if he did have his arms crossed, looking like an awkward mountain in the RG. With his shoulders hunched, he still took up half of the bench; Coco had swung her legs over his massive thighs and claimed the reminder of it by sprawling out along it, small arms dangling over the edge, her blue fingernails scratching the gravel.
"How, exactly?" he asked, his deep voice booming. Several people jumped and looked in their direction. They continued staring when they realized that the man had a ram on his crotch, and the girl had dyed part of her hair purple. They scuttled off like bugs when Yodai gazed at them.
"I dunno." She kicked her leg up, grinned when Yodai silently glared at her. "Like, maybe set up shop, or something? But I feel so bad for them!"
"A desert along with their main serving? These children don't seem particularly hungry, Atarashi."
She stuck her tongue out childishly. "How many times do I have to tell you; it's Coco!"
"Just like how all ramen flavours are the same?"
"You know what, I don't get you." Flopping her head back, she smiled sweetly at some kid that was staring at her hair. He quickly wiped the candy floss off his oversized shirt and shuffled off, nearly tipping on his Hip Snake bell bottoms. Coco tried not to take off after him with a loud squeal. Kids were sooo cute! "And how are all ramen flavours the same? Like, shio and shoyu? I nearly barfed after I accidentally-" She frowned as Yodai's mouth twitched upwards. "You did not – oh my gosh, I knew you had something to do with it!"
He really wasn't very good at looking innocent. "Cooked up what?"
"You told that guy to make shio!? Higashizawa!" It was a mouthful to say, but hopefully, he would get the idea.
Seeing that he was still grinning (okay, to anyone else, he would have looked disinterested, but Coco was not anyone else, for she was a Reaper and she kicked ass... mostly), she leapt up and got ready to smack his head-
-Only to fall face-first onto the beach.
Sometimes, Coco thought, I really hate the UG.
Coco had managed to get back at Yodai by dragging him into Lapin Angelique for three hours straight. Sure, it was slightly awkward, especially since Princess K kept rushing off to try and find something in his size only to end up with nothing, but still. Fun times.
And he did serve as an excellent clothes hook.
Yodai stood there as Coco threw the fifth lacy dress in as many minutes over his head. He looked like his head had magically morphed into a spider, what with all of the zippers and sleeves falling down.
"Hey, Higgy-"
"-Higashizawa."
"As I was saying. Higgy-" She held up two dresses, sighing. "-I kinda want to hit the gothic scene a bit, you know? Like, ribbons are out of season-" She tugged on her own purple ribbon miserably. Such a pretty decoration! "-And I wanna go for belts."
"You would not look good in belts," came the monotone reply. "You would become a spicy tuna roll."
"What is-" She shook her head. Freaking guy had an obsession with spicy tuna rolls. Sure, they were nice, but... eww. Just hanging around him kind of put her off them. "...Ugh. Speak normal."
He blinked. A few times. Or maybe with just his one eye. That awful fridge made it impossible to tell. "I am?"
"No you're not." She heaved a pile of purple and white ribbons into his arms.
"I thought you disliked ribbons?"
"I'm gonna cosplay next month," she announced. "As myself. Who knows? Someone might recognize me."
At that moment, Princess K exited out of the storeroom empty handed, looking ready to explode into a string of apologies. However, she yelped upon seeing them and fled back into the room, firmly locking the door behind her. Coco glanced to the older man.
Yodai had his wings out.
"Would you stop doing that."
"Stop doing what?"
She pointed to his skeletal wings. "That. That's, like, the second time in a month." She peered closer. "Why do you do that, anyway?"
He shrugged. "It just happens."
"No it really doesn't."
But they managed to get all of the stuff for free, so it wasn't too bad.
There was a rare silence between the two of them. Coco had, somehow, found something more fascinating than Yodai's trillion food puns. She continued staring with ice blue eyes, only breaking contact whenever a bird flew past. She liked birds.
"Something you find interesting?" Yodai stiffly asked.
"Your hair," was Coco's truthful reply. She continued staring. Ugghhhhh! It was so greasy and ugly and awkwardly styled and no one had brown hair nowadays and how did he even see through that flipping mess of brown strands? It did not deserve to be called hair, it was that awful.
Yodai sighed, shifted slightly on the park bench, and allowed Coco to continue staring. She did just that.
It was a couple of months later that Coco finally snapped, and taken to wielding a pair of deadly scissors in her hands in an attempt to cut Yodai's hair.
Well, she used attempt for a reason.
"Hold still!" she shrieked as he darted out of the chair yet again. For someone who was part mountain, he was freaking fast when he wanted to be. "Have you not seen your fringe!? That is a spicy tuna roll!"
"Keep that away from me!"
"...I think that's the first time you've spoken a sentence worthy of an exclamation mark. Well, you more like shrieked it, to be honest-"
"-Atarashi!"
"Wow, second – oh you did not just do that GET BACK HERE!"
Yodai was now attempting to slam himself into the wardrobe door. But, of course, Coco could just elevate to the UG and sneak her way through, so it wasn't really working.
Still, for the horror effect, she stuck the scissors through the wood. It sliced through the material like water to sand. Huh. Lookedlike someone would be redecorating soon.
She yanked the scissors out and bumped up to the UG. It was only a brief flicker of static in front of her before everything looked exactly the same, but at least she could go through the door now!
Coco smacked her head on the door trying to get through.
For God's sake this was ridiculous.
"C'mon!" she wailed, trying to ignore her sore head. "Opeeennnnnn!"
Yodai made no sound to indicate that he was even inside, so she gave the door a firm shove, nearly falling over when it squeaked open without protest. She managed to retain her footing in time to look up.
No one was there.
"AHHH!"
"I'm really sorry about my friend," Coco said to Princess K one day as she browsed through the new line. It was still too dark for her liking, but meh. Clothes were clothes.
The brunette beamed back. "Ah, Princess K sees no problem with your bear friend! In fact-" She held up a massive hunchback cloak, not unlike the one she'd seen in the new Tigre Punks range. "-Princess K has found the perfect beginning to a spooktastic attire!"
Coco was too busy shocked by the fact that something in Yodai's size existed to speak, but after a few minutes, she immediately brought it.
Besides, all of the dangling belts reminded her of his hair.
Yodai's face when she threw it at him was one to remember for a long time.
Coco was drafting out the rough outline of her shop that she planned to open up to Players. Of course, it would only be to people who really really really really needed it (and children who died in freak fires), but it might be fun! And besides, given that she was a Reaper, she could just smack up some Noise if she needed yen. No worries about money.
Yodai came in with his usual hoodie and jeans on, sucking on a fruit smoothie. He stopped once he saw Coco. "What is that?"
"Oh!" She jotted up, surprised, but gave him a huge grin. "Hi!"
He leant over, frowning. "Isn't that-"
"-It's the shop!" she said excitedly. Chewing the edge of the battered pencil furiously, she quickly scribbled out the idea for the curry ramen. Too much effort to make. Or steal. "Oh, but I need foooodddd."
Yodai leant closer. "...Is that a 100000 yen pin?"
"Yep! But I'm gonna make it so that only people with American money can buy. Like, dollars? They're so cool! I went there once, when I was a kid, with Mom, and then we brought lots of stuff for Dad each year, because he couldn't come with us since he was..." It still hurt to say. "...But then-"
"-You're rambling," came the stiff reply. "And isn't that a bit harsh? Thrusting the recipe upon the Players, whom have no idea on what the ingredients are?"
"...True." She scribbled out that idea, too. So much for getting American dollars each year. The exchange rate was really good! "But then what can I dooooo?"
"I see no food."
"Of course you would see that." Quickly writing the idea down in a mess of lines and curls, she sighed, leaning back in the chair and kicking her oversized shoes onto the table. "Man, making a shop is sooo not as easy as the ads make it out to. Like, one step my a-"
"-Atarashi."
"-Stop calling me that!"
She could sense him rolling his eyes (eye?) behind her back. "Coco."
"Yeessss?" She grinned over the back of the chair. Man, seeing the world upside down was weird.
"Do you know what gourmet balls are?"
"No?" His eyes slash eye lit up and oh God she should have said yes she should have said yessss.
"They give a healthy boost of ten to all statistics, as well as offering a hundred to health. Some say that they originate in-"
"-Okay!" Coco sighed. "How 'bout this? Like, you cook them, and I'll sell them. We'll spilt the profits in half."
"You haven't even decided on what form the currency shall be."
"Your long words confuse me," she snapped back. "And they're not even involved in cooking."
"Gourmet balls." And with that, Yodai swept out of the room as gracefully as he could. Which, Coco had to admit, wasn't that graceful, given that he tripped on a stray hair dryer wire on the way out.
"Fine. Gourmet freaking balls." She wrote the idea down and circled it several times.
They were shopping in Wild Boar when a gunshot fired.
Several of the customers in the shop yelped at the sudden bang. Coco, still acting on the reflexes of being alive (despite the fact it was, what, seven months now?), ducked down underneath a stand prompting the new season of hoodies. Yodai just briefly looked up from analysing a giant belt before sighing. The shopkeeper was attempting to calm everyone down ("Hey, dudes, chill out."), but the customers weren't having any of it.
Once Coco had recovered herself, she hauled Yodai outside, ignoring the horrified whispers of the people inside. "C'mon, I wanna see a dead body!"
Yodai groaned, but didn't try and pull himself away. Coco didn't even know how she was pulling along what was essentially a rock. Physics in the UG were pretty shifty. "You'll be spoiled. Whoever the victim is, he'll be in the next Game."
"But that's in another five days!" Coco eyed her mentor critically. "And it could be a she."
"The majority of Shibuya is male."
Coco snorted. Yeah, right.
They arrived at the CAT mural. Coco couldn't make out what half of the stuff was, save for the shades-wearing cat with gloves at the rainbow splashed centre. The whole thing was... crazy. But cool. Like someone who had had one too many drugs had been set free with a rainbow paintbrush and told to knock themselves out.
Strangely enough, there was several bullets lying unused on the ground, with a faint blue aura around them. A small patch of blood was splattered beside it.
But there was no body.
"Have they collected it already?" Coco picked up one of the bullets in her hand. The blue light had faded. "That's pretty fast, huh?"
"Correct." Yodai's brow furrowed in thought. "The body isn't usually collected until after a day of preparation."
"...You made that sound totally creepy." She stood back up, dropping the bullet to the ground with a clank. "Well, no point worrin' about it, right? Not like the dead guy's gonna affect Shibuya's future or anything."
"True."
Coco hummed to himself cheerfully as she took a small bite out of a gourmet ball – she could see why Yodai loved them so much. And besides, today was the first day of her shop in operation! She'd asked the Grim Heaper, since he was a Game Master and all, and he just said a bunch of crap involving 'hectopascals' and a heck lot of 'zettas' and arts and crafts time, so she just assumed that she'd gotten approval. Who knew, really?
Okay, so it wasn't really a shop. It was more like her awkwardly standing on the edge of the scramble crossing, waving at anyone that looked vaguely confused or upset; that tended to be what most Players were like on the first day. So far, no one had waved back, so she just assumed that everyone in the RG was having a crap day.
Then she saw a mountain with a mop on top heave itself towards her, and she waved, grinning.
"Hey! Yodai!"
"Coco!"
He was beaming, actually smiling, as he came up to her, and she couldn't help grinning back. "What's up, big boy?"
"Mr. Kitaniji has made me the Game Master!"
Wait what brain was not communicating OH WOW. "Really!? Wow, that's amazing! I'm so proud of you!" She gave him a quick hug, grinning. She let go after a few seconds, noticing that Yodai was grinning the widest that she had ever seen him. Coco was a bit jealous that she wasn't the source of happiness, but... hey. As long as the ends justified the means.
"I know!"
"Jeez, happy enough?" He was in a fantastic mood! The only downside now was that they would see a lot less of each other, but hey, Yodai was a Game Master! That was practically the highest rank a Reaper could get! Heck, she was content to laze around as a Harrier. Yodai was... heh, he was weird, but he really deserved it. "I'm kidding. Go and make the Conductor proud."
"I will." He nodded, still smiling. He gave her hood a quick ruffle (that was the first time he'd ever done that! Eek!) and began to walk off. "I'll see you at the end of the week. I can't associate with outside business until then; that would be like a fish walking on land."
"Alright!" She called out after his retreating form, almost already lost in the Shibuyan rush. "You're buying me shoyu ramen after, Mr. Game Master. And make me more gourmet balls."
He nodded, giving her a quick wave before vanishing into the crowd. "See you there, Atarashi."
"HIGGY!"
That was the last time she ever saw him.
A/N: Yes I know that Higashizawa is missing his usual variety of food puns but they are hard to write okay.
And he is OOC.
Along with Coco.
And yeah I don't know why I wrote this apologies.
Actually I had a lot of fun writing this so I AM NOT SORRY.
This came from a second attempt to not write Neku and Joshua (first time was Vacation), and hey, this time, neither of them get a mention save for the author's notes!
EDIT: Both of them got an unnamed mention FLIP ME.
I was a bit shocked that there are stories for Hype-chan (who I have honestly forgotten about until recently), yet nothing for Coco, because everyone on tumblr adores Coco to bits, I swear.
ALSO there's only two 'serious' stories starring Higashizawa and there's only, what, threestories on him in the whole archive? I don't even want to count the amount of stories that there is for Sho. Ugh. I do like him, but... he's not that good. Apart from the math puns, he's pretty bland, to be honest. Everyone only seems to love him for his math puns, not for his personality, or goals... which is what you should like characters for. Yes, I love Joshua's hair and giggles (Uwee hee hee will forever remain as a favourite quote of mine), but I adore his personality far more.
BTW, in my headcanon, all of the Reapers that show 'promise' get some powerful guy to mentor them in the Ways of the Dead Creeps (like Uzuki got smacked with Kariya). All Reapers start off as Harriers, and if they do badly, then they drop down to a Wall Reaper, and stick there until they prove themselves. If they do good, then they remain a Harrier, and the really good guys get promoted to an Officer.
Also this is awful and a draft thing again. I definitely plan on returning to it one day and editing it to make it MUCH BETTER.
But until then you're stuck with this thing.
Ahahaha.
Ha.
Ha.
...I'll see myself out.