"I'm really sorry...We were kind of in a bad situation, and I was a little freaked out by everything going on..." Shiki sat across from Eri, eyes cast down towards the floor of a Sunshine Burger. "They did give us the tickets in person, so I might be able to get them to let us back stage, too...I'll get you an autograph if I can, ok?"
Eri just laughed. "Don't worry about it! Just promise me you'll have a good time at the concert, alright?"
"Okay..." Shiki checked her watch, then began sipping on her soda. School had let out only a little while before, but the concert wasn't until eight o'clock. She had plenty of time before she had to start getting ready.
"So...How did you two meet?" Shiki jumped, startled by the question. There was no way she could explain the existence to the game to Eri. Even if she tried, Eri would never believe her.
"Wh-why do you ask?" She sputtered nervously.
"Well it's kind of weird...I mean, you were in the hospital for a while, right? When did you have time to meet him?" Eri leaned in, interested.
"We...met in the hospital. My two other new friends, Beat and Rhyme, they're brother and sister, and they were in a car accident...I was sharing a room with Rhyme and he was sharing one with Beat. So we wound up spending some time together..." As she spun her tale, Shiki made a mental note to attempt to get the others to corroborate her story.
"Oh!" Eri paused, considering this new information. She still couldn't be sure, but knowing they met in the hospital probably meant he did care for Shiki. While she couldn't rule out him being a creep just yet, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. "Well, what exactly is the deal with him? I mean, are you two...y'know..." She grinned suggestively at her best friend.
"N-no, nothing like that..." Shiki replied, sounding a little sad about it. There wasn't much chance, after all. That kind of thing never seemed to happen to awkward, plain Shiki.
"Do you want to be?" Eri asked, smiling. Shiki turned bright red, stirred from her thoughts.
"E-Eri!"
"Because if you do, we should get you into something that'll draw some attention." Shiki blushed and considered this for a moment.
"...I guess I should wear something nice...I mean, if nothing else, I might be spending time with Def Märch in person..." She shifted a little uncomfortably, wishing she had Mr. Mew with her to help her feel safe.
In spite of Shiki's uneasiness, Eri felt a little surprised by the reaction she received. In the past, this was the sort of thing that Shiki would dismiss as teasing, either about a boy, or about her lack of confidence in being able to pull off more fashionable outfits. Her old friend didn't seem quite so much like her old friend anymore. The girl in front of her was more confident than the Shiki she was used to.
"W-well, let's head back to your place, okay? We can go through your closet, maybe make some changes to some things...We don't have long, but we should be able to get you into something a little more stylish before it's time for you to head to the concert." With this, Eri stood up, quickly gulped down the last of her soda, and took her tray to the trash bin. Shiki quickly followed behind her.
Meanwhile, back in Shibuya, Neku sat between the Bito siblings at Ramen Don, having just explained where he'd gotten his ticket to go see Def Märch. "Sorry we didn't ask for tickets for you guys, too...I was a little thrown. I...I think I used a psych."
"It's cool, yo. I don't really like goin' ta concerts, y'know? It's like, I wanna hear the music, not the people who came to the show." Beat replied between heaping mouthfuls of curry flavored ramen.
"Beat, he said he might've used a psych." He looked up, shocked, when his sister had called his attention to the more important detail. "What kind was it? And did you even have a pin on you?"
"Well, I kinda got into tin pin slammer, so I have started wearing my old Game pins...I think I pulled Shiki away from one of the guys that were giving us trouble. And one of the pins I had was a psychokinesis pin, so..."
"Yo, why you guys overthinkin' this? You think you psyched, but there ain't no psychs in the RG, so you didn't use one." Beat finally concluded. Any further attempts to make headway on the subject would surely be stifled by his insistence of this fact. "Anyway, you nervous?" He asked Neku, a ramen noodle stuck to his cheek.
"Nervous about what, exactly?" He asked, confused. He grimaced as Beat's probing tongue found the noodle, which was crudely slurped into his waiting mouth. "Dude, seriously. Learn some table manners."
"Nervous about the big date 777 landed you wit' Shiki! Duh!" Beat replied, wiping his face with a napkin, now feeling self conscious about his eating habits.
"Wh...who said anything about it being a date!?"
"Aw, come on, man, you can't play like you don't like the idea. Yo Rhyme, did I tell you she was his entry fee, second week?"
"That's exactly why it's not a date." Neku told him firmly. "Remember when we met up with her? How she reacted to finding out she was my fee? That right there was her telling me she wasn't interested." The two adolescent boys quieted down for a moment.
Rhyme, finally finding a gap in the conversation, jumped back in. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The only reason not to try to build that kind of relationship is not being interested in it yourself."
"...You're right. But I don't really think it's the right time for that." Neku told her, sounding a little discouraged.
"You might be right, but when you see your opportunity, you should act." She looked down at her bowl. "Hm. I always eat faster when I'm distracted, it seems. If you weren't between us, I'd suspect Beat had been stealing from my bowl."
"...I appreciate all the advice." He told her, smiling. "As for you, Beat, now I am nervous, and for no reason." They continued to chat as they ate, and soon Neku and Beat had caught up to Rhyme and finished their food.
"We should get going. Mom and dad are expecting us." Rhyme told her brother. Beat nodded, smiling.
"Hey, that reminds me, how are things going with your parents?"
"Better than ever, man." He said with a smile.
"You don't know what you've got til it's gone. Or in this case, until it's almost taken away from you." Rhyme said with a cheerful smile. "Knowing that they could've had a dead son instead of a live one became a bigger deal than whether or not he was an academic success."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it worked out. I'll catch you two later." All three of them exited the small restaurant, and Neku split up from the siblings. With time to kill and nowhere to be for the next few hours, he headed home and picked up his headphones. Even if he didn't use them to shut people out anymore, he still loved music, and they were still his prized possession. He took his time, walking around town a little, finally deciding to just head for the station when his feet started to get tired.
In the old days, he would've kept his eyes down and his mouth shut. Now, he watched as people around him went about their lives. He'd been there for about a half hour when he received a text from Shiki saying she was heading to the train, and another twenty minutes passed before that train arrived.
Shiki took a deep breath as she stepped off the train. She'd worn more daring things than this to be sure, but only when she had Eri's body, and when she knew that no one in the RG could see her. Even as conservative as this carefully edited assembly of D+B products was, she still didn't feel very confident in her ability to pull it off. She was so focused on worrying that the outfit didn't suit her that she almost didn't hear Neku calling out to her. Finally finding the source of his voice, she shuffled over to him nervously, clutching the shoulder straps of the large handbag she carried as she went.
"Wow...Shiki, you look GREAT!" He told her, a slight look of awe on his face as he pulled his headphones down off his ears. She stood up a little straighter at this comment.
"You really think this works on me?" She asked bashfully.
"Well...I mean, I do, but then again, I'm not really on top of the fashion world." He answered, sounding a little unsure. "I don't know if it 'works', per se, but you definitely look good in it. Anyway, we got a show to catch." He told her, smiling again. The two of them left the station and headed to A-East, both thinking, in the back of their minds, about the ideas of a relationship that their friends had planted in their minds.