Hey, so this is my first story, but I don't necessarily want you to go easy on me; it would actually be nice if you could give me some constructive criticism.

I've been reading quite a few TWEWY fics, and I'm kind of nervous about the lack of reviews for most of them, so I'm hoping that maybe there will be more?

Disclaimer: If I owned TWEWY, I would not be sitting on my butt writing a fanfic. I'd be too busy with the sequel.

Second Chance

From the moment Shiki Misaki awoke to the jumbled, discombobulating babbling of Shibuya's diverse and ever-versatile crowd at the Scramble Crossing, she knew exactly where she was and how she had arrived there. Unlike Neku, her memory was not her entry fee. She had, at the very least, a rudimentary knowledge of the Game and its fundamental guidelines. And also of her own death.

She couldn't help thinking that it was maybe…better this way. She was convinced that she hadn't been doing anyone any favors back in the RG. She even wondered bitterly if anyone at all mourned her absence back there. She had no doubt that Eri could find someone much more charismatic, beautiful, humorous, engaging, and just plain appealing than her to fill the role of best friend. She knew she didn't deserve someone as flawless as Eri from the beginning. Maybe she should consider herself lucky that it had turned out this way.

And when she first glimpsed her new appearance – before even encountering Neku – she did.

The thing she had wished for so desperately, cried herself to sleep over night after night, berated herself for wanting, yet longed for more than anything else in the world…was finally hers. Eri's form, her shape, her skin. That's who she was, now. Eri.

At least, that's what she told herself. She knew, deep down, with every false, fake word she spoke that this wasn't and never would be her. But it was simple enough to ignore, to just brush away without a second thought. But soon, it took more effort. She had to forcibly push it from her mind, and then shove it, until eventually, it wouldn't budge, and it was all she could think about, consuming her thoughts and remarks and advice until she was completely and utterly useless to help anyone until she saved herself.

But until she reached that point, the dead end, she would not admit she wasn't Eri. She had deluded herself into believing what the mirror had told her.

How ironic was it, how hypocritical was it to nag Neku about letting her in when she couldn't even be honest with herself? How could she blame him when she closed herself out?

She hated being jealous; it defined her. It absorbed her. She despised it with all her heart, with every fiber of her being – but she was very well aware of how thoroughly impossible it was to cure this. She knew it made her weak and dependent, and selfish and competitive. She knew it would, in time, weed out and annihilate every single decent quality of hers that remained. She may as well have been stabbing her self-esteem with a fork. Bust most of all, she realized how immature and artificial it made her. She wanted to believe she was better than that. She had once thought that striving for perfection only lead to destruction. But how could she now, when there was living proof right under her nose? If Eri could be so immaculate, why not her?

It was simple: She had the wrong motivations, and it just was not her.

But she tried valiantly to ignore all of this for those first few days, even though that idea began to gradually slip away as the week went by. She pretended to be Eri, imitating her bubbly nature, and praying, demanding that Neku accepted her and liked her for who…Eri was. Because everyone else did, right? But of course, he didn't. She was so preoccupied in her internal battles that she put absolutely no sincerity into any of her words whatsoever. With all that was going on in her mind currently, it simply wasn't in her capacity to keep acting perfect and to actually help another, but that was what she was sure Eri would do.

However, it was half-hearted honesty, and it came across as obnoxious to Neku. And the more he snubbed her attempts at making friends, the more her façade crumbled. And the quicker the revelation came upon her that her appearance would never alter the fact that she could not be as faultless as Eri. In this state, she was Eri, but she would never actually be Eri.

But then, something unforeseen occurred: Neku deliberately began to care for her. The more her uncharacteristic demeanor dissolved, and the more she let her true self shine through, the more he began to genuinely enjoy her company. As shallow as it was, she couldn't help feeling touched and rather smug that Neku hadn't liked "Eri," but he had liked Shiki. Finally, someone had chosen her over her best friend.

In fact, Neku had entirely persuaded her that she was worth it to herself. He was the one who showed her the value in her as a person, who practically told her that giving up on herself and comparing her to another was foolish and ultimately pointless, because she was Shiki and would never be Eri. And he liked her for that.

She wasn't sure what she had done for Neku to bring him out of his shell, what with all of her selfish and superficial worrying, but she hoped she had done enough. To repay him for what he'd done for her. He'd restored her confidence, because she knew it had been there at some point or another before. She wished it had been enough.

One thing was for sure. At the beginning of this week, she did not want the game to end, despite what she may have said. She had wanted to go on "being Eri" forever, lying to herself forever, and to just lock herself in her own fantastical world where everything was flawless and fragile, and one wrong sentence could send reality cascading in and crashing through her illusion. But now, she was ready. She was ready to face Eri again, ready to saunter through the world with her newly-found confidence. She was ready for her second chance.