There were many things Shizuka knew she was good at: Cooking, cleaning, doing math homework without a calculator, falling asleep while watching a movie in the theaters.
Now, however, it was a surprise even for her to see how fast she's become skilled at the art of 'pinning down a skirt without poking herself while her friends argued in costume.'
"I already told you Rin!" Haru said in exasperation, "The script was given the okay ages ago and everyone has already memorized their placements as is. I can't change just suddenly take out one of the key moments that leads up to the climax of the play just because you don't feel as though the character 'would go in a different direction!'"
"But, it makes no sense theatrically for my character to just hand herself off to the enemy so easily!" Rin argued for the hundredth time, "She's not written as someone who is so easily defeated."
"I'm the one who wrote her!"
"And I'm telling you, your writing and directing make no sense!"
Rin stomped her foot then as a very professional way of emphasizing her point, making the large fabric of her skirt bounce dramatically and sending the needle in Shizuka's hand directly into her other finger. She hissed and immediately brought her wound to her lips.
So much for adding another skill to her repertoire.
"The festival is in two days! We can't change something so drastic this late in the season." Haru pinched the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses, "Shizu, come on! Back me up here!"
"Oh no! You're not allowed to drag Shizu-chan to your side just because you know I'm right!"
"I just wanted her opinion on the script, you little lunatic!"
From the corner of her eyes, Shizuka could see the way both her friends turned towards her expectantly.
"Well, Shizu?" Haru asked, "What do you think we should do about the situation?"
She padded the skin of her finger experimentally, wiping over her already healed wound as she hummed thoughtfully.
"I think…I should have read the fine print before agreeing to this friendship with the two of you." Shizuka said, "I didn't realize I was going to end up a child of divorced parents before the end of our second year."
Haru huffed in a small bout of amused frustration while Rin clicked her tongue impatiently.
"Oh come on!" She cried, "Please take this seriously!"
"I am! If I'm about to spend my holidays in two different households, I'd like to know now so that I can start planning ahead."
"Shizu-chan!" Rin whined on an impressive note.
"Rinnosuke!" Shizuka responded in an equally impressive and totally acceptable tone.
"Alright, enough!" Haru's voice carried over the both of them easily, the boom of his voice not only making both Rin and Shizuka freeze, but also startling the few classmates who were still filtering in and out of the room.
Carefully, he clasped his hands together and took one steady breath in and out. Honestly, it was a miracle he had yet to have an aneurysm up until this point.
"This is what we're going to do." Haru began anew, "Rin, I'm not going to change the major points of the play. We've already put in too much time and energy into memorizing the bulk of it the way that it's already written. If you want, however, you and I can talk about what we can do to change either what you say or what you do in certain scenes so that we can work around your concerns for your character without confusing the rest of our cast. Is that going to be okay for you?"
Rin sulked, but shrugged in acquiescence, "I guess…"
"And Shizuka…" Haru turned to her next. Suddenly, the pins sticking out of her tiny tomato cushion on her wrist were super interesting, "I'm gonna need you to shut up from now on."
"Huh?! You're the one who wanted my opinion not even two minutes ago!"
"And I always regret it every time I do."
"Ok wow. First of all, rude. Secondly, you're being horribly evasive towards the care of others. That's not very best friend behavior. You're fired."
"You can't fire me. I'm the one who holds all our coupons for Korean barbeque."
"Oh shoot! You're right. Alright, you're rehired. But, you're on a trial basis."
Haru frowned, "Jeez, HR is such a nightmare these days."
Beside them, Rin snickered in her palm, unable to help herself from their conversation. With a quick peek at the clock in the classroom, however, her amusement almost completely vanished, and a new kind of worry slipped over her features.
"Uh…speaking of coupons." She said as she turned back over to Shizuka, pointing behind her at the time, "Shizu-chan, what time did you say the sale at the grocery store was going to end today?"
With a raise of her brow, Shizuka leaned over to see what her friend was referencing. Immediately, she found herself almost inhaling a lung.
"SHIT!" She screamed in English in between her hacking and choking, trying to breathe from the sudden shock that settled in her bones. The sound made their other classmates jump for the second time that day, but Shizuka could barely care as she hurried to gather all of her sewing materials back in her box.
"Why didn't you guys tell me it was this late?!" Shizuka wanted to cry, "The sale ends in half an hour! There won't be any eggs left!"
"Then just wait for the next one!" Haru tried to reason, "I told you there's going to be a general sale at the store by my place soon."
"I can't! My uncle's been working on his manuscript lately and I got to make sure he remembers to eat and do you know how expensive eggs are nowadays?"
In the blink of an eye, Shizuka had managed to clear her space of pins and needles, and gathered her book back from the corner of the room. Almost instantly, she had to juggle the things beginning to escape and fall from the stitchwork she had done ages ago and just barely managed to save her headphones from falling to their doom.
"Wait! Shizu-chan, what about my dress?" Rin asked worriedly as Shizuka put her headphones on and began to make her way out the door.
"The hem is pinned down, so just drop it off at my house later!" She answered over her shoulder, "I'll finish sewing it tonight and will have it done for dress rehearsals tomorrow!"
And with that, Shizuka began to sprint. The dark blue and white colors of their school's uniform blurred past her vision as she sidestepped and avoided every other student working in the hallway. With their culture festival coming up, it seemed as though every student was busy working on their own piece, staying after school for hours just to get one more job done before the big day.
Even with her headphones on, Shizuka could hear the cacophonic choir of classmates moving and bellowing orders. Nails were being hammered into boards and ladders were being scraped along the floor underneath light fixtures. Several students, as well, came in and out of their rooms lumbering tables and chairs, watching out not to hit any of their fellow students who might have been working around them.
Overall, it was a hazardous path for Shizuka to navigate through. And yet, there was nothing that could deter her from getting her eggs.
She slipped under moving boards and over table tops, slid between signs cleared down to the end of the hallway all without a single mistake. Without breaking her momentum she bounded down the stairs, taking two at a time until she was in a comfortable enough distance to leap over the bannister.
"Look out below!" She called down when a group of boys were beginning to move into her field of vision. Quickly, they moved out of her way, shouting in alarm when Shizuka stuck the landing and continued to hop down the stairs until she was safely on the first floor. All without a single break or moment of hesitation.
She was close then. So so so close to escaping the school grounds and making her way directly to the store. And with the first floor hallways not being nearly as packed as the upstairs area - the students seemed to have more of a desire to work outside when the exits were much closer to them - it would take Shizuka that long until she could feel the outside air on her face. All she needed to do was change her shoes, then she would be free.
But just as she turned the corner towards the shoe lockers, a shadow of a person appeared in front of her. Even Shizuka couldn't escape the inevitable catastrophe that came with it.
The collision itself didn't hurt as much as the fall, with her broken backpack digging into her spine and her old stitchwork tearing itself further, spilling the majority of her contents out onto the floor. Shizuka wheezed as she tried to gather herself up quickly, pushing herself onto her elbows to see the damage for herself. Just in front of her, a small boy - a freshman she had assumed - was also down and defeated, his body unintentionally beaten and his limbs sprawled out around him as though he had just been killed. It made Shizuka jump to her knees anxiously, and for a second she wanted to cry.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" She cried out, hands waving around wildly as she tried to figure out what to fix first, "Are you okay?"
The boy in front of her only groaned in response. Which really wasn't the most ideal answer she was looking for, but it was way better than the idea that she had accidentally killed him with her lack of awareness and quarterback shoulders.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Shizuka didn't know what else to do besides continuously apologize, grabbing her items that had fallen out of her bag and stuffing them into where they belonged. At the foot of one of the many lockers, a small portable playstation lay forgotten and the songs of a great boss fight began to play through its tiny speakers.
Quickly, Shizuka grabbed the console and smashed whatever button she could to stop the song from playing. "Pause! Pause! Pause!"
When a button finally made the battle screen freeze, she sighed in relief. Swiftly, she picked herself up and gathered both the fallen student and the console together, hoisting them up until they were both standing upright once again. Still, her mind was reeling in both anxiety and stress and she gently patted the student's shoulders and arms as though to make sure nothing was out of place or broken.
"Are you good?" She asked frantically, "Nothing hurts does it?"
"Uh…um…" The boy stuttered, large eyes blinking between shock and confusion. Now that he was standing again, Shizuka could see that he wasn't that much taller than her - she'd probably give him an inch of height against her. But, with his lack of good posture and thin frame, it was amazing all she managed to do was knock him off his feet.
"No. I'll be okay." He finally managed to say clearly, clutching his console tightly as though he just realized he had lost it for a moment there. The sight made some of Shizuka's blood cool instantly.
"I'm sorry about your game! I hope I didn't mess anything up for you." She said quickly before reaching down for her bag.
Colorful curses slipped past her lips as the seams of her strap began to tear open again, threatening to spill her books. It was all she could do to pull the entirety of her bag to her chest, hugging it tightly so that nothing else would escape. She really needed to fix her old stitchwork soon.
"I'm so sorry again!" Was all Shizuka apparently knew how to say, "And I'm sorry to just hit and run, but eggs!"
"Eh?"
Before a coherent thought could cross the boy's mind, Shizuka stepped around him, reaching for her shoe locker and stuffing her indoor slippers in the cramped space. As she pulled out her sneakers and stumbled into them, she looked back at the boy over her shoulder and tossed him a single salute.
"Good luck!" She said with the confidence of someone who had no idea what she was doing in life. Without missing a beat, she burst through the entrance of the school, weaving through the final lingering students littering the front gates.
If she had given herself a chance to breathe then and think beyond her upcoming battle against aggressive housewives and desperate college students, then perhaps she would have noticed that the boy was trying to reach out to her as she said goodbye. If she still had her sanity or critical thinking skills, she would have taken the time to listen to what he had to say despite his soft tone and shaken behavior. Unfortunately for her, she lacked both.
Later, it would take her a record number of twenty minutes - as well as an embarrassing confrontation at the grocery store counter - for her to realize that she had lost her wallet.
And she had no name or memory of what the boy's face looked like.