Fic: Careful What You Wish For (TWEWY)
Jan. 31st, 2010 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clonechild...I was planning to write TLR fic about Paris and his daddy issues, but in my neverending tries to top my own fail I still only have the first line, and instead wrote TWEWY fic, something I never thought I would write. And I already have ideas for more.
Also, lame title, I know.
Fandom: The World Ends With You
Characters: Shiki-centric, first week. No pairings.
!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GAME. If you're planning on ever playing this, please don't read it. This game is much, much better unspoiled. And there are only a few acceptable reasons for not playing this game, and they are as follows: a) you don't own a DS, b) you don't have the money to buy games, c) you hate JRPGs with a passion or only play turn-based ones.
Also, horrible ESL. But that's because of my writing, not because of the game.
~825 words
- - -
The Scramble Crossing was Shibuya’s busiest spot, no matter the season or time of day. It was spring now, the weather mild and breezy, and the crossing was bustling with people hurrying to and fro, some going deliberately in a direction, others pulled along by the crowd. Close to one side of the crossing a teenage girl stood alone, staring at her reflection in a shop window. By Shibuya standards she was nothing special, though a bit underdressed: a miniskirt and a midriff-baring top, knee-high boots and a cap on her long red hair, a black plush animal in the form of a cat held in one hand, cell phone in the other. The most remarkable thing about her was that people were walking through her, as if she wasn’t there. And, for them, she wasn’t.
Shiki had never been one for looking at her reflection often. But now she couldn’t help it. She looked in every window she came across, moved her head more when talking just to feel her long hair against her shoulders, sometimes curled a lock over her fingers to watch the colours. She’d never been one of those girls who liked to show as much skin as they could get away with, but now she bought clothes she liked without stopping to consider if they were too revealing. She thought she understood the appeal, now. It was not so much doing it for the attention, as it was about doing it because you could, because you felt beautiful and wanted to show it. She felt beautiful, now. She’d had to die for it, but now she had what she’d always wanted.
Neku didn’t get it, thought fashion was something for girls only, never cared what other people thought of him. Thought she was annoying – too bubbly, too talkative, not smart enough. And Shiki couldn’t help but care what he thought. She’d hoped that now she… now she was like this that it wouldn’t matter anymore, other people’s opinions of her. But apparently she did. And he was her partner; they were supposed to work together. They were supposed to care. Shiki did. Neku didn’t.
But it didn’t matter. Things would work out, and even if they wouldn’t, she still had what she wanted now. Going back would mean relinquishing this long-time wish.
- - -
Several hours – or was it days, really? It became so hard to tell, flow of time different and uneven – she wondered how she could ever have been this stupid. Acting cute and chipper was harder than it seemed; took so much attention and wondering if she’d reacted right, or if she should’ve said or done something else, and the act had started to slip. She had stopped the constant looking at her reflection and replaced it with looking at the picture on her phone, of what her reflection currently looked like and how it used to be. She was still wearing the boots and the hat, but the rest had been replaced by jeans and a Mus Rattus shirt, because it felt familiar and the D+B camisoles had just started to remind her too much of before, when she was used to seeing clothes like that but had never been the one wearing them.
And then they met the Game Master, and then it all became too much.
- - -
Standing just in front of the station underpass, Neku rifling through his pins to find his favourites to use (no need to concern themselves with trends now, for this fight), Shiki wondered how they’d known. They had claimed that her entry fee had been what she’d valued most, but when she’d woken up, appearance achingly familiar and yet completely different, she hadn’t stopped to question their assertion beyond thinking that apparently they weren’t actually omnipotent after all. But now she knew. And she wondered, because this game, this deadly, nerve-wracking, terrible game had helped her gain confidence. Had made Neku more social, or at least less likely to flat-out ignore people, although he still wouldn’t win prizes for friendliness. Then she remembered Beat and Rhyme; the little dreamless, ambitionless girl just gone, “Shibuya space-dust”, as Lollipop had put it, and Beat holed up in Hanekoma’s café until he’d disappeared at the beginning of this day. And Neku and she had hurried, taken down the walls as fast as they’d been able to, but… “Seven minutes,” Hanekoma had said. And three had been gone already, and there was no way they had reached this point in the remaining four.
But… it had been a second chance. A second one. Because they’d wasted the first. She wasn’t going to waste this one. Things would be alright. They had to be.
And then Neku looked up, said, “I’m ready.”
Shiki nodded, clenched one hand around Mr. Mew, the other checking to see if Groove Pawn was still attached to her hat, and together they entered the station underpass.
- - -
Also, lame title, I know.
Fandom: The World Ends With You
Characters: Shiki-centric, first week. No pairings.
!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GAME. If you're planning on ever playing this, please don't read it. This game is much, much better unspoiled. And there are only a few acceptable reasons for not playing this game, and they are as follows: a) you don't own a DS, b) you don't have the money to buy games, c) you hate JRPGs with a passion or only play turn-based ones.
Also, horrible ESL. But that's because of my writing, not because of the game.
~825 words
- - -
The Scramble Crossing was Shibuya’s busiest spot, no matter the season or time of day. It was spring now, the weather mild and breezy, and the crossing was bustling with people hurrying to and fro, some going deliberately in a direction, others pulled along by the crowd. Close to one side of the crossing a teenage girl stood alone, staring at her reflection in a shop window. By Shibuya standards she was nothing special, though a bit underdressed: a miniskirt and a midriff-baring top, knee-high boots and a cap on her long red hair, a black plush animal in the form of a cat held in one hand, cell phone in the other. The most remarkable thing about her was that people were walking through her, as if she wasn’t there. And, for them, she wasn’t.
Shiki had never been one for looking at her reflection often. But now she couldn’t help it. She looked in every window she came across, moved her head more when talking just to feel her long hair against her shoulders, sometimes curled a lock over her fingers to watch the colours. She’d never been one of those girls who liked to show as much skin as they could get away with, but now she bought clothes she liked without stopping to consider if they were too revealing. She thought she understood the appeal, now. It was not so much doing it for the attention, as it was about doing it because you could, because you felt beautiful and wanted to show it. She felt beautiful, now. She’d had to die for it, but now she had what she’d always wanted.
Neku didn’t get it, thought fashion was something for girls only, never cared what other people thought of him. Thought she was annoying – too bubbly, too talkative, not smart enough. And Shiki couldn’t help but care what he thought. She’d hoped that now she… now she was like this that it wouldn’t matter anymore, other people’s opinions of her. But apparently she did. And he was her partner; they were supposed to work together. They were supposed to care. Shiki did. Neku didn’t.
But it didn’t matter. Things would work out, and even if they wouldn’t, she still had what she wanted now. Going back would mean relinquishing this long-time wish.
- - -
Several hours – or was it days, really? It became so hard to tell, flow of time different and uneven – she wondered how she could ever have been this stupid. Acting cute and chipper was harder than it seemed; took so much attention and wondering if she’d reacted right, or if she should’ve said or done something else, and the act had started to slip. She had stopped the constant looking at her reflection and replaced it with looking at the picture on her phone, of what her reflection currently looked like and how it used to be. She was still wearing the boots and the hat, but the rest had been replaced by jeans and a Mus Rattus shirt, because it felt familiar and the D+B camisoles had just started to remind her too much of before, when she was used to seeing clothes like that but had never been the one wearing them.
And then they met the Game Master, and then it all became too much.
- - -
Standing just in front of the station underpass, Neku rifling through his pins to find his favourites to use (no need to concern themselves with trends now, for this fight), Shiki wondered how they’d known. They had claimed that her entry fee had been what she’d valued most, but when she’d woken up, appearance achingly familiar and yet completely different, she hadn’t stopped to question their assertion beyond thinking that apparently they weren’t actually omnipotent after all. But now she knew. And she wondered, because this game, this deadly, nerve-wracking, terrible game had helped her gain confidence. Had made Neku more social, or at least less likely to flat-out ignore people, although he still wouldn’t win prizes for friendliness. Then she remembered Beat and Rhyme; the little dreamless, ambitionless girl just gone, “Shibuya space-dust”, as Lollipop had put it, and Beat holed up in Hanekoma’s café until he’d disappeared at the beginning of this day. And Neku and she had hurried, taken down the walls as fast as they’d been able to, but… “Seven minutes,” Hanekoma had said. And three had been gone already, and there was no way they had reached this point in the remaining four.
But… it had been a second chance. A second one. Because they’d wasted the first. She wasn’t going to waste this one. Things would be alright. They had to be.
And then Neku looked up, said, “I’m ready.”
Shiki nodded, clenched one hand around Mr. Mew, the other checking to see if Groove Pawn was still attached to her hat, and together they entered the station underpass.
- - -