**This is a chapter repost. A new chapter (Ch 29) will be uploaded shortly. FFnet has been glitching and won't populate anything I uploaded yesterday.**

Day 28: "Stronger Than"

Every so often, Kagome would overhear someone call Keiko by her name—and every so often, Keiko would hear that call and flinch.

Kagome knew why she reacted that way, of course. Kagome sometimes flinched when her mother or grandfather called her by the moniker she'd been given in this life. Although it was hers, the name felt wrong in her ears sometimes. You'd hear your name called, and you knew it was yours intellectually, but at the same time… it just didn't sit right. It felt like a glove two sizes too small and meant for your opposite hand, restrictive and painful and just plain wrong whenever someone shoved you into. And as someone stuffed you into the too-small encasement of that wrong name, you felt nostalgia for a name you couldn't even express aloud. You felt a yearning to be honest and shout your true, secret name skyward, demand to be called by what was really yours—

But then that painful obligation to do the opposite set in. That obligation to play a role. That obligation to act a part. The obligation to wear that name because it's what other people expected of you, with no thought to your feelings at all.

So… basically Kagome saw Keiko flinch and thought, "Same, girl." Because damn, that fucking sucked.

Keiko didn't flinch every time someone called her by her name, of course. She'd spent 15 years with that name, so she'd gotten used to it… to a degree, at least. She'd spent 26 years with her old name, after all; 15 years couldn't really compete.

But when Kagome and Keiko went out one day and ran into some of Keiko's school friends, right after she and Keiko had had a long talk about their lives as Not-Quites, she saw Keiko flinch a lot—flinch a lot and flinch hard, smile tight and rigid as her friends talked about homework, asking for her help on a project, mentioning that she'd been class rep back at her old school. Keiko (the responsible one, her friends said) listened to it all in polite silence before bidding them goodbye, making promises get together and catch up soon. But the way she scurried away from them made Kagome think Keiko had no intention of calling them again, and she waited until they'd gotten a few blocks away before tugging on the sleeve of Keiko's sweater.

"Eeyore?" she asked, peering up into Keiko's heart-shaped face. "Are you OK?"

But Keiko just looked straight ahead, still wearing that tight smile that didn't reach her eyes. She brushed hair from her face and shook her head, rolling her lower lip between her teeth until it went from pink to red—an angry color, severe and full of blood.

"Yeah." A beat. Then: "Sort of. Maybe… but maybe not?" A deep breath followed by along sigh. "No."

"Great," said Kagome with deadpan humor. "Because that wasn't confusing at all."

Keiko sighed again. "You know what I mean, though."

"… yeah. I do." Kagome debated if she should say what they were thinking aloud, but Keiko had a habit of hiding from her more subtle problems—and this one wasn't something she could run from. Confronting it would do her good. To that end, Kagome said, "They think you're the class rep with perfect grades, the kind girl who wouldn't hurt a fly—but you're not that."

"Keiko is that," said Keiko with ready enthusiasm. "I'm…" She shook her head, a frustrated growl leaking between her teeth. "I can pretend to be that, thanks to this body, but in my past I was never any of those things. And sometimes I wonder—"

"What?" asked Kagome when Keiko stopped talking.

Here she hesitated—but then, in a rush, Keiko said, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm enough—me, alone, and not me as Keiko."

She didn't look at Kagome when she said it. She just faced forward down the sidewalk. They stood in front of a stationary shop, front windows full of bright pens and cute stickers, planners and notebooks. Kagome stared at them in silence, watching Keiko's reflection in the glass. She wore a look of desperation and hopelessness, easy as hell to spot despite Keiko's best efforts to hide it—but there was no hiding from Kagome. Kagome knew how she felt. Even if Keiko's words came slow and in sharp fragments, Kagome knew what she meant, dammit. She felt the exact same way when her mother asked her to be the responsible elder sister, and when her grandfather told her to be the dutiful daughter of a shrine-keeper.

Kagome knew what Keiko meant.

And so, without thinking, she wrapped her arms around Keiko's waist.

Keiko hugged her back just as quickly. People stared as they passed Kagome on the sidewalk, but she didn't care. She got the sense that Keiko didn't give a damn, either. She just stroked Kagome's hair in silence, chin pillowing on Kagome's dark head.

"Hey, Eeyore?" Kagome mumbled into her side.

"Yeah?" said Keiko into Kagome's hair.

"Do you know why I picked our nicknames?" Kagome hugged her a little harder. "Like, why I named us after characters from the Hundred Acre Wood?"

Keiko sighed (and probably rolled her eyes, if Kagome had to bet). "Because I mope like Eeyore?" she said in a mournful tone of voice. "Being I'm always being a downer?"

"Well, there is that," Kagome admitted. "But the other reason—it's because of something else A. A. Milne wrote in Winnie the Pooh. It's what I tell myself whenever I need a boost, and I think it's something you need to hear."

Keiko's hand stilled against Kagome's hair, like it was holding its breath. "What is it?" Keiko asked.

Kagome took a deep breath. Keiko smelled good—a little bit like ramen, warm and full of rich umami, cut by the sweet scent of strawberries and basil. She had to wonder if this is how Keiko smelled in her past life, or if all of it was new. No way to tell… but it didn't really matter either way.

Kagome had already made up her mind about Keiko, after all.

"You are braver than you believe," Kagome murmured, and around them the chatter of shoppers and passing cars seemed to fade away. "You are stronger than you seem, smarter thank you think, and loved more than you will ever know."

Keiko had gone quite still under Kagome's arms, and she remained still and quiet when Kagome at last pulled away. She pulled away to look up at Keiko's face, Kagome smiling her most brilliant smile as Keiko gazed down in confusion—but Kagome was not perturbed.

"A. A. Milne wrote those words in Winnie the Pooh," Kagome said, "and Eeyore is all of those things I said: loved, strong, smart, brave, and even so much more." She poked Keiko's chest with a fingertip, meaning total business. "Not Keiko. Just Eeyore. Just you. You earned those words. You did." Then she winked, exaggerated and bright. "So try to remember that the next time you're feeling blue, OK?"

The confusion in Keiko's eyes had melted by then, pools of warm gratitude filling her eyes—grey that day, contacts left at home. "Thanks, Tigger," she said, cheeks flushing as she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Really. Thank you."

Kagome beamed. "You're welcome, Eeyore." She took her hand. "Now let's get moving, or Hideki-sensei will beat our butts!"

They ran down the sidewalk hand in hand, Kagome laughing with every step. The next time she needed to get Keiko's attention, she was sure to call her 'Eeyore'—the name of a mopey donkey from a children's book, and not the name of a certain lucky child. She did the same the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, too.

In fact, Kagome resolved to never call Eeyore by the name of 'Keiko' again—as much as she could, at least, and until Eeyore told her otherwise.

"What's in a name?" Shakespeare had once asked.

For people like Not-Quite-Kagome and Not-Quite-Keiko, the answer was undoubtedly everything.

Running a few days behind on these prompts, but still plan on finishing up this collection within the next week so I can transition to NaNoWriMo.

Happy Halloween! Dealing with a migraine today, but it's OK. Going to watch The Exorcist (on VHS, no less) in a skeleton onesie with my pups tonight to celebrate. Stay safe if you go trick-or-treating, OK? Please?

I don't go by my birth name EVER anymore, and being called by my full name feels wrong as hell. Those feelings would only get compounded if NQK's situation. Also I keep saying NQK smells like strawberry basil because of the "body butter" prompt. Funny how that smell somehow became a thing in other shorts, huh?

Huge thanks to these lovely people for their comments on the previous chapter: ladyofchaos, xenocanaan, Kaiya Azure, cestlavie, cezarina, C S Stars, tammywammy9, LadyEllesmere, Domitia Ivory and guests.