Princess and Ghost

Rating: T, probably for safety. I don't know- it feels suggestive in some bits to me, but it also feels like that's mostly me being prudish.
Warnings: Spoilers for Week 1, angst, dysfunctional friendships, Eri/Shiki, potentially suggestive?, jealousy!Shiki is annoying.
Disclaimer: I don't own The World Ends With You, and am not making a profit off of writing this stuff.
A/N: This came about when I was drawing fanart of Shiki and Eri. I thought it would be fun to write about Shiki and Eri's relationship pre-game and how messed up it could have been, with Eri genuinely caring about Shiki and Shiki mostly being dominated by her own insecurity, but I think I went a little too dark. I was really displeased with this at the time of posting, but it's grown on me. (5/7/09: A/N edited, 6/1/09 typo caught.)

Eri is and always has been the touchy type of friend, the one who won't just compliment somebody on her new hairdo, but has to reach up and feel it, fluffing out the tips or trying to determine if the bleach really made it coarser- the answer's always "It's so soft, where'd you get it done?", or perhaps she'll make a passing comment about how she's jealous of the new prettiest girl in school, but she giggles as she says it and besides, whoever heard of Eri feeling jealousy? She moves on. She'll try to get the name of a salon, or, failing that, "You did it on your own? Really? Oh god, whenever I try that, I look like a total mess."

After a while, the girl with the bangs looks in the mirror and can't quite see what Eri was talking about, or the one with the bleached hair finds herself brushing it back behind her ears and realizing with pink cheeks and that embarrassed feeling in her stomach that her hair feels like the brush everybody in her art class tries to avoid-- and nobody who's ever let Eri make her feel good for a couple hours about a bad haircut has ever even heard of Eri or her hair looking even anything like a mess, nor having any sort of reason to. The strawberry color can't be natural, but as far as anyone knows, she doesn't bleach it and it doesn't get ruined. Eri's had a bad hair day maybe once, and that's it.

They don't really hold it against her, nobody does, but there's a reason Shiki's kept her hair the same way for the past couple of years no matter what ideas Eri drags up from her sketchbook and magazines, no matter how often Eri tells her it might be cuter if she lets it grow a little.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I'm just too scared to try anything drastic," and at one point Eri tried to explain to her the difference between change and drastic change, but Shiki's used to her hair and inertia won out-- she's used to her appearance, and if she doesn't change it, she doesn't make a fool out of herself. She knows how she looks like she knows how if she asks anyone else about Eri's compliments, they'll just tell her that Eri's trying to have sympathy and it wouldn't hurt if more people were more like her, and Shiki knows she'll never be able to tell them that really, that's the point.

Something's different about Shiki, some quality she hasn't figured out that doesn't mean a lot to anyone but Eri. She watches the way Eri touches other people-- it's not so much that she's interested as that she's invisible and it's better thinking about the specifics of Eri and other people than thinking about Eri and other people in general-- and if she's getting it right, if she's not just seeing what she wants to see (or maybe it's not what she wants to see, really, as much as what makes it better even a little), their Eri is different than her own.

Eri helps Ai with the clasp of her necklace when it comes loose and falls off, and she lets that one girl, Ai's friend with the short black hair and the sweatshirt around her waist (the one that Shiki's seen around but never really met) do her eyeshadow when she wants it darker and smokier, the way she says she doesn't know how to do herself even though Shiki can't tell the difference when Eri tries to do it herself. She gives Momoko a hug to cheer her up when she finishes last in PE, and paints Kiri's nails with a different bright color and the same silvery sparkles every time, and makes sure Miyuki, who buys up a lot of their clothes, has every pleat and ruffle perfectly in line. But Eri plays with the bracelets on Shiki's wrist during class, and takes sips of sugary lemon-lime cola through the straw in Shiki's drink, and lets her lean on her shoulder when she's tired from a long day of walking.

Eri holds Shiki's hand when she's pulling her in the direction of something interesting she sees, or when she's found a new fabric and has to test its softness on Shiki's palm, or when they're walking through tight crowds, to keep from splitting up. Sometimes it makes sense, like when yes, there's a celebrity in the store, and yes, everybody wants to catch a glimpse of him, and yes, that means they're being jostled about and it's sometimes hard to stay together (since when was it really necessary to shop right next to each other all of the time anyway?) but no, it didn't make staying together impossible without having to hold onto each other's hands like she was Eri's boyfriend or something. Sometimes there isn't anything special going on, the crowds aren't too bad, and Shiki feels Eri's fingers lace together with her own anyway, Pretty much, Eri holds Shiki's hand whenever she feels like it, and one of these days Shiki is going to say something or ask or even just pull away, except she doesn't mind it that much unless there's clearly no good reason and people are looking. It feels kind of nice when it's happening, in the roller coaster kind of way, or the horror flick kind of way, but holding hands with Eri where people can see... that's not going to make her any better liked.

Eri's pretty good about it, most of the time, even though sometimes she hugs too close and Shiki can't help but get a little embarrassed (even though Eri hugs other people), or fixes her clothes, touching her legs, her stomach, her collarbone in the process (even though Eri doesn't like it when anyone's clothes aren't being worn properly.) Sometimes she links arms with Shiki when they're walking around together at school, and because she's Eri the worst people say is that she's acting like a kid (and then, they're still saying that about Eri, those bitches, how could they?) when for anyone else they'd be whispering a different rumor entirely, something giggled about behind people's backs and passed around to take "those girls" down a notch.

Or maybe that's not how it would go. Maybe they'd talk about Shiki, for once, though it wouldn't be any better than the one with the glasses... have you heard, and with Eri, too! She knows they wouldn't even know her name if she and Eri weren't practically joined at the hip. But she's special to Eri. She can tell by the way Eri touches her, and the way that Eri touches them. And it's a silly thought, she's acting like a kid, but the fact that Eri likes her better than everyone else means almost as much to her as the fact that everybody's starting to know it.

Almost.

Eri crosses her ankle over Shiki's and curls up against her when they're asleep at Eri's house and kisses her on the top of the head, the cheek, the corner of her mouth, once, and Shiki would think Eri was doing it on purpose if that was the kind of thing Eri would do, if thinking about it didn't mean wondering about it didn't mean asking about it didn't mean having it stop once Eri saw how incredibly friendly she was coming across, and then Shiki can't help but lose her. She won't be with Eri or be seen with Eri anymore, and it doesn't matter that at the moment she can't tell what's worse, because either's as bad as it gets.

She has the feeling that both of those things are going to happen someday.

They draw clothes and plan clothes and wear beautiful dresses when they dream, that Eri can get down on paper just fine, while Shiki struggles and erases and struggles and erases. They look in stores for what's already available, and try clothes on in the dressing rooms. Eri pulls zippers down the backs of Shiki's dresses, which Shiki lets her do because it's just clothes, and it's just Eri, and it makes more sense to let somebody else help her than to twist and bend her arm behind her back and unzip it herself, and the metal sliding down her spine makes her shiver, but that's not it, not at all.

Sometimes Eri unbuttons Shiki's sweaters, too, and Shiki can't quite come up with an excuse for that (or a reason, any reason, to ask her not to.)

It's an honest mistake and both of them know it. Eri just wanted to help, but Shiki's the careful one, the one that can be trusted to come through, and make things precise and realistic and even. Eri's hands are shakier, less exacting, and maybe that's fine for a designer but a seamstress has to be better than that. Eri should have just backed off and let the one who actually knew how to sew do the sewing, or maybe Shiki shouldn't have pulled the dress away, but either way the needle finds its way into Shiki's finger, deeper than it should be, and she screams while Eri flails around the room getting the band-aids and bactine, crying that she's sorry and it was an accident and she didn't mean it.

Shiki takes it as proof, obvious proof, that she's better at something at least, and she lets Eri hold her hand and wrap a band-aid around her finger, even when Eri holds her hand too closely and much longer than necessary.

It's a decent excuse to call it a night. In a couple of minutes, the sewing machine's unplugged and the fabrics are folded up and put in the bin, and Shiki's made sure to collect every needle and pin they've used so that the same thing doesn't happen again in the morning. The dress so far is hung carefully on the mannequin. It's bright green (and Shiki thought she liked green), but it's an absolute eyesore, even with the changes Shiki made to the design. She vetoed the lacy pink accents, and convinced Eri to go with spaghetti straps instead of bell sleeves, which was all she could do to make it a little less of a mess without Eri noticing how much she hates it. But it's still lime green, with these godawful frilly little pockets that Eri liked too much to get rid of, and in a way Shiki wishes she would have bled more and stained the dress, so they'd have an excuse to start over. Maybe they could even have used one of Shiki's designs.

It's such a horrible dress, horrible, and Shiki can think of about a billion things wrong with it that she could have fixed if only she'd gotten it away... but people are going to like it. They're going to like it because it's Eri's, not because it's good-- and of course there's nothing good about it, nothing at all, except there is, there has to be, only it must be something that comes from knowing what people like, knowing how to appeal to them, and no matter how hard Shiki tries to read people, she can't ever see anything useful like that. It's always Ai's fear that boys like the sweatshirt girl better, or how Momoko's always trying to impress Daichi, or how Kiri and Miyuki wish they were more like Eri. It's never what they'd like to wear, let alone how to make them like her. It's not fair that Eri can see it, that everybody likes her better. It's not fair that people only like Shiki because she's Eri's Shiki.

Her glasses are somewhere over on Eri's nightstand, or maybe the dresser. Everything's hard to see and duller, except the dress is still over in the corner, an amorphous lime green stain until Eri comes back in and turns off the light and then thankfully it's gone. It's dark, but Shiki can feel Eri lift up the blanket and crawl into bed, wrapping herself around Shiki, her head nestled between Shiki's neck and collarbone, one of her arms clumsily draped over Shiki, and hey, what's she doing with her leg? Shiki can't tell, really, but that would explain the weight pressing down on her hipbones, and she wonders how Eri could ever be comfortable like this. She certainly isn't.

Shiki moves her hand up Eri's back-- to check what she's wearing, of course, because from what she saw with her glasses off, it looked about as violently fashionable as ever. Eri murmurs contentedly at the touch, almost like the way a cat purrs when someone scratches it behind the ears. She's wearing a pink camisole and either short shorts or something a lot like them, and god, why does she have to do that even now? Why does she have to go out of the way to be cuter and sexier than Shiki in her tank top and cartoon froggy pajama bottoms when there's nobody around to impress?

"Sorry about the needle," Eri mumbles into her neck. "You're okay now, right?"

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Shiki tells her, even though Eri's apologized at least fifteen times already and it still kind of stings. "Besides, look at the dress you came up with. It's... it's really nice."

"Thanks," says Eri, sleepily. "Couldn't have done it without you. It looks so much better off the page." Eri's sappy as always when she talks about Shiki, but it's just the way she is, probably. Complimenting Shiki's sewing is no different than telling some girl her botched haircut looks pretty, and it sure doesn't signify real appreciation, but there's something about the way Eri says it that sounds genuine. After a while her leg's slid down, and Shiki's almost comfortable with Eri's breath on her shoulder and the rise and fall of Eri's chest against her own. Shiki can't decide where to put the arm that Eri's mostly lying on, so she tries putting her hand on the back of Eri's shirt again. Eri doesn't seem to mind.

She still won't be able to sleep, that's for sure-- how could she, being so close to somebody else like this?

And the dress, the needle, the things she catches herself thinking when Eri's too perfect-- they don't mean she doesn't care for Eri, she tells herself, because she does. Really. But it's hard to care when someone's taking everything you fight tooth and nail for, everything you work so hard for and try and try and try for, and just... smiles about it, and laughs, and doesn't even realize what she's doing. Shiki shifts, and Eri makes another contented little sound.

It hurts Shiki that Eri is just her consolation prize, and some very tired part in her sees the unfairness of it all, wishes she could change what she wanted, let it all go. She wants to be done with feeling hurt, done with being so upset over the friends and talent Eri has and she doesn't, but the only out she can see is getting just as good at design, getting everyone to love her just as much.

"Hey, Shiki," Eri says, fidgeting, almost in a whisper. "Do you ever... you know, wish it was just us, like this?" There's something hopeful and scared in her voice that Shiki probably would be able to pick up on if it hadn't meant something entirely different to her.

"Huh?" is all she can say, even though she heard it clear. It never was supposed to be Shiki and Eri and everyone who loved them? It was just supposed to be the two of them? Shiki hadn't even known! How could Eri take it all for granted? It's a slap in the face to her for caring about this, for wanting something that didn't even matter to Eri, and Shiki has to count off her breaths, one two three four one two three, has to think of something better and bite her lip not to cry, and Eri probably would be able to hear it if she hadn't been preoccupied with waiting for an answer.

"Because, I mean, for me, sometimes it's..." she continues, before Shiki cuts her off.

"Eri, can this wait until tomorrow? I'm tired, I'm really tired..." It's not completely a lie.

"Okay," Eri says, like nothing just happened, and she falls asleep before Shiki does. But the next day, she doesn't ask, or the day after that, or ever, really.

Shiki scribbles and erases and scribbles and erases and it still isn't right. She can see the shirt in her head. Perfectly, even, but her lines are too straight, and it comes out boring, and then her lines are too curvy and it isn't functional, and then she can't draw anything at all but lines and curves and scratches connecting, and it looks something like something, but that doesn't make it a shirt. She erases, tries it again, and she doesn't notice the paper getting rough, doesn't see that she's about to erase through, and when she finally does erase through, something snaps. She can't do anything right, it seems.

She doesn't cry-- she just props her head down on the desk and balls up her hands into fists, and tries not to break down. After a little while, she glances at the paper... oh, god, she shouldn't have, it's worse than horrible, and before she can crumple it up and put it in the trash, in walks Eri in that wreck of a green dress, except now it isn't. Eri looks amazing in it. Maybe some other time Shiki could see something pretty about it, how those ugly bits and pieces formed their way into something beautiful or how it brings out the red in Eri's hair,but right now, her inspiration is gone. Right now she can't even design a shirt that's not an obvious rip-off of something she's seen at 104, she can't even get the lines right so it looks like it's something a person could wear.

"You okay, Shiki?" she asks, and Shiki can't see a reason not to be honest.

"No," she replies. "I'm... not any good at this! I can't think up anything, I can't draw, and I'm never going to be as good of a designer as you are."

Eri's nice to people when they're feeling down. She tells them what they need to hear- that's what she does. They're unfashionable and ugly, and she tells them they look great, or they're clumsy, and she tells them it isn't so bad, really. And Shiki never wanted Eri to do this for her, to tell her it's better than it is and leave her open for the humiliation later, but right now she can't deal with being ugly and clumsy and untalented all rolled up into one, and needs to just hear it, even if it's a lie. Don't worry, Shiki! You're really good. Everybody has their off days! Your drawing looks kind of cute, actually, and Eri would do that for her, because Eri does it for everybody else.

"But you're the best seamstress I've ever seen!" Eri says. She's Shiki's Eri, not everyone else's Eri, and this isn't the same thing Eri always does. Shiki's heart pounds, and she knows that whatever's about to come, it's not what she needed. She didn't expect this, and she really does not want to hear this, but there's no way for her to back out now, not that now Eri holds her hand like a shackle.

She knows before she hears it that this is going to hurt.

"You're so talented, don't you get it? Nobody's great at everything, I mean, maybe you aren't meant to be a designer--"

First, Eri looks compassionate, and then there's a look on her face like she doesn't understand at all why Shiki isn't taking this well, but Shiki can't listen to this. She needs to get away from it as fast as her shaky legs can take her. She turns, wrenching her hand away from Eri, and she knows she wasn't gentle about it, but she's not going to look at Eri's reactions anymore. Her chair clatters to the ground, and maybe she could turn around and pick it up and save face and save her friendship... but she can't face Eri right now, she just can't. Eri, who thought she wasn't good enough to be a designer. Eri, who couldn't even just tell her what would make her happy...

Eri, who could draw like nobody else Shiki had ever met, who had all the ideas in the world, who could make everybody love her, even Shiki. Eri, who was good at everything Shiki wasn't, and it wasn't fair that she could care about somebody so much who outdid her in every way...

She didn't have any talent and Eri wouldn't even lie.

"Shiki, I'm sorry!" Eri cries. "I didn't mean it like that!" But going back isn't an option anymore. She's sick of being second place all the time. Worse than second place. She can't draw and she's not at all creative and she isn't even nice, and damn it, she's tired, but she's past the point of doing nothing, and she doesn't have a destination in mind, but she has to go somewhere, or she'll stay second place or even worse to Eri forever.

She bolts.

Her head hurts, and something's red out of the corner of her eye, and her scalp feels wet next to the place where she can't feel anything at all.

"Don't try to move her!" somebody else says. It's another voice she doesn't know. There's a light somewhere flashing, she can see that much. An ambulance? She wonders who's hurt. She cranes her neck to try and see, but it won't turn the way she wants it to. She tries to kick out her leg, but it doesn't move.

It floats through her mind that this should probably disturb her. There's a nagging feeling, too, telling her she's done something she probably shouldn't have.

"What are you doing? We're losing her...", and she doesn't understand why it sounds like yelling but it's becoming quieter with every word, and hey, where did Eri go?

"Hey, you're off the clock," he tells her, smiling, almost, and it's just weird to see him smile, since just a couple of days ago, he must have hated her enough to try to... nevermind, she's over it, they've won, they're free for the day (or for whatever's left of the day before they're put to sleep again; this doesn't make sense, none of it makes sense..) She thanks him, gives him a smile of her own, and she's off.

It had started like this: She'd seen Eri in the scramble crossing with the sweatshirt girl, the one who does Eri's makeup although Eri isn't wearing much makeup today (Mina, her name was Mina, and when it came down to it, all she wanted was for her friend Ai to be happy). Mina started talking about clothes, and design, the sort of thing it's best to talk about with Eri especially when the goal is to make her feel better.

"Actually... I'm thinking about giving it up," Eri replied.

Giving it up? There was no good reason for her to do that, she's pretty and talented and even if being talented doesn't take her very far, being pretty's at least going to cover the rest of the distance. She seemed like she was doing okay, at least. She was okay enough to be out shopping, and... and oh god, Eri was shopping, red skull pin already stuck to her bag, and Shiki was dead, and Shiki thought that even after what happened, Eri would at least miss her... It might have been there, but it was small, and she had no reason to come back to life now, none, before Eri mentioned Shiki's name and she couldn't stand to hear whatever comes next. There was this girl, Shiki, who wasn't really good at much? Shiki, who was my friend until she was a total bitch and ran out on me? Who didn't even really seem to like me?

So she ran away, again, and so he told her something that was rude (because he was still Neku, after all) but somehow kind underneath, and she's sure she'll never be used to his way of doing things, cruel-to-be-kind, but he's right. This is Eri. Eri wouldn't be cruel. Then the ad came on, and everyone started to look up and chatter among themselves about how great this pin was and how they wanted one and wasn't CAT amazing, (and yes, the mission was finally over) and she thought for a second she'd never know what Eri was about to say (but why did that matter more than the fact they'd just won?). But now, Mina brings it up again.

"Eri, you shouldn't give up design."

"I told you," Eri replies, and was it Shiki's imagination, or was she paler than usual? Were her eyes redder? "This girl, Shiki-- I'm nothing without her."

Oh.

She's reeling, she didn't know it was like this, thought it had all been just Eri needing to have someone, that it would have been the same way with anyone else by her side... Eri was nothing without her? And maybe she could have justified it as the nice sort of thing that Eri would say about someone, especially someone dead, but no, she knew Eri like nobody else, and this wasn't a public performance. This was Shiki's Eri without a Shiki, trying to smile, but sounding in her voice like... like if nobody liked her anymore, but worse, and Shiki never even knew Eri needed her so much.

She can tell that Eri and Mina are still talking but she can't quite pick up on the exact words, it's all such a surprise. This is what it's been? All along? Really? And it shouldn't have been a surprise. She should have known.

"No one else could ever make my outfits. Shiki gave them life. Made them real," Eri goes on, and Shiki gets it-- she didn't understand it, made it into a rivalry when it wasn't. Was it that important to her to be popular? To be better at something than the one person who really cared? Eri's cheeks are pink, and her eyes are baggy and smudged and wet, and Shiki realizes all of a sudden that the reason oh-so-fashionable Eri isn't wearing much in the way of makeup today is because most of it has already run down her face.

"She was an amazing person," Eri says, and Shiki remembers all the touches between them, when Eri held her hand, cuddled up to her, kissed her, and she can't stand the thought of never having that again. Forgetting, almost, where she is now, what she is now, what happened, she dashes closer to Eri, holds out her arms the way that Eri used to when she went to hug her, because Eri can't see her, and it's up to her to bring them close together again...

... and just like she knew deep down would happen, she passes right through.