Title: Zippers
Fandom: Subarashiki Kono Sekai/The World Ends With You
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Shiki, mentions Eri
Genre(s): Angst, Friendship
Rating: PG
Summary: She was on her way to the store to buy zippers.
Disclaimer: SubaSekai/TWEWY belongs to the awesome Square Enix and Jupiter. I own nothing but this plot bunny that's been jumping off the walls of my head.
Note: Inspired by the fact that it's never explained how Shiki died. Un-beta-ed and unedited. Just warning you now.
"You're not meant to be a designer," she said with a soft smile, warm, comforting and kind.
It tore out the girl's heart with its sincerity.
But she kept quiet, just like she always did, and made a small note about the crossing of the zippers on the new design; they would stiffen the material and make it bulk awkwardly. The zippers were for a jacket, an asterisk made out of the teeth-like fasteners adorning the front with other zippers used as the lining for the designs made out of fabric. It was a nice idea, it really was, but mostly on paper and impractical off, even more so than fashion usually was. She didn't voice this to her companion, though she did make note of it. Her solution: get thinner zippers, cut down the number from 21 to 11, do the zippers only for the asterisk design on the front and sleeves, and do the lining for the fabric designs with large silver-threaded stitching. Yes. The same effect would be established that way without sacrificing the original intent of the overall design.
Eri's design.
Always Eri's design.
Never her own, because she wasn't good enough, because Eri was better, because Eri was perfect, and she ...
She wasn't meant to be a designer.
Her vision began to blur, so she pushed her glasses up at the right angle where the sunlight would bounce off the glass and hide her eyes. Hide her eyes from a confused looking Eri, who opened her mouth to say something, but she would have none of that.
She didn't need Eri to remind her of how useless she was.
Thus she made a hasty retreat, bowing her head in a gesture of 'goodbye' and all but sprinting past door leading out of the small 'office' she and Eri had made out of an old guestroom, which had a leak in the corner and a window that didn't open; down the stairs and wincing at the loud creaks the fifth step from the top and the second from the bottom (seven steps in between) gave; out the front door that didn't close unless you slammed it; and through the iron gate, which loved to her shock her fingertips every time she touched the metal. She did this all with practiced ease and hurried down and across the street in direction of the rail station, where she would take the train to Shibuya to buy the zippers and thread she had in mind from that quaint little cloth store, because that was all she was good at, making Eri and her designs better.
Never herself because she wasn't made to be better.
Wasn't meant to be a designer.
The overpass was just a little ways a way, beyond that, the railway station. Glancing at her cellphone, she noticed she didn't have much time until her train left and before the store she planned on going to would close, so she raced up the steps to the overpass. She took the 32 steps one at a time for caution's sake, making a point in trying to avoid the suspicious dark stain on the right of the 21st cement step, but only managing to bump into a young boy with a flowing red headband.
The shoulder bag she sported was knocked out of her grasp and with it went a black cat plushie, worn, old, but carefully sewn. She gasped and reached out for the handmade toy, her fingers curling around a stumpy cloth paw and her feet loosing hold of the step beneath her.
She didn't hit the ground first, but gracelessly fell head-over-feet down the cement stairs, the snapping and splintering of bones shaking her small body and stealing the breath from her lungs.
Then something sickening, something sounding so wrong came forth, something sounding like a crackcrunchthudsplat.
Then she woke up.
Hachiko stared down at her from where she sat on the cold pavement, the metal casting a glare in her eyes, eyes that were not covered by glasses. A person ran right through her, then another and another, every time tingling where they passed.
She brought her plushie close to her chest, the material of its fabric comforting against her bare skin, which was odd since she had not taken off her green jacket. Then it dawned on her that she wasn't wearing a jacket, but a yellow and white vest, a short one at that, the same length as the pink tank-top with black fringe that exposed her midriff, which wasn't her midriff. A squeak made its way past her lips as she hastily got to her feet, only to stumble because of the olive-green miniskirt ridding up her thighs, which also weren't her, and heeled eggplant colored knee-boots. She never wore boots, or heels for the matter, much less both at the same time; she wasn't coordinated that way. Magenta hair, so differently than her own, tickled her shoulders as she moved closer to the reflective surface of the nearby department store's window.
She wasn't herself.
She wasn't the failure.
She was Eri.
She was the success.
She cried.
Perhaps now she could become the designer she was never meant to be.
Then she wouldn't have to worry about using more zippers than necessary.