Archive of Our Own

Anne is just a few layers deep, standing water that just barely swallows a person's ankles. Still, her cheeks are peppered with Shiho's kisses, all the stars in the night sky trapped in between her eyelashes, the shine of the sun in the curve of her Cupid's bow, other poetic stuff like that. There's something beautiful about being simple, Anne thinks. The way her fingers intertwine with Shiho's is something straightforward, uncomplicated, easy, the dip between her jaw and her shoulder where her almost too-tall neck is just big enough for Shiho's head to fit, like two puzzle pieces clicking together, is a breeze, a cinch, a snap.

Shiho's fingers are just long enough that her thumb and her middle finger can just barely pinch around Anne's wrist, with barely a squeeze against Anne's skin. Anne's arms are just long enough that when she hugs Shiho, her hands drop from around Shiho's neck and shoulders and her fingers brush against the very middle of Shiho's back.

There is something simple in how perfect they are for each other. Anne was made to fit Shiho, and Shiho, Anne, and together they fit just enough space to let the world revolve around them. The universe they live in is utterly unimportant, because the curls and swirls of Anne's body fit so perfectly with Shiho's, in such a clear, comprehensible, understandable way.

Anne always finds herself sighing against Shiho's neck, feeling herself squeezed so tight by Shiho's hug that she can see stars behind her eyelids, breathless not from lack of oxygen from her lungs but an excess of love that she and Shiho generate from each other, the dizzy, prickly feeling of it akin to the greatest high, like she's made of clouds and happy and lipstick kisses and as light as helium balloons.

Anne watches Shiho drop and feels a part of herself jump with her. It's like one of those old videos, the ones that skip every few frames; Shiho is standing, falling, gone, the emptiness she leaves behind her buzzing in a loud-silent kind of way, like the absence of being swallowing the places she used to stand.

Anne doesn't see the impact from the second floor window, doesn't dare run over and press her face against the smudged glass and peer down at the grass and concrete below. She doesn't need to, because she feels it, the collision of stone and Shiho curling somewhere deep inside her stomach the moment it happened, like Shiho's body couldn't hold all the pain and transferred what it couldn't handle up to Anne.

Anne fears that it might be too great for the both of them.

Anne sits in a hospital chair next to a mangled body, more hurt than human, only alive by the manufactured breath forcing air into her lungs by the hundreds, thousands, millions of machines swallowing her on the little hospital bed.

Shiho's hand is too swollen and disgusting to hold, wrapped in casts and stitches like her soul is trying to escape through the places where her fingernails used to be, that fell off when her hands puffed into pink-tan balloons, but the doctors sewed her together over and over and covered peeling skin and open wound with layers and layers of fibreglass to keep all of her together. Anne could not hold it now, so she holds her own, wraps her hands together and dips her head and prays to Gods she doesn't believe exist, to deities whose names she doesn't know. Her world is huge and empty and wanting without Shiho in it, the universe outside of the little dingy hospital room with its too-bright, too-white lights and the thin little blue blanket draped over what has become of Shiho's form akin to an open maw, widened jaw and sharpened teeth with a tongue like a red carpet for Anne to walk through.

The might of Anne's anger scares her.

There is no word in any human language, no colour or sound or simile or metaphor, that can even come close to the rage in Anne's soul. She can't hug Shiho anymore, can't feel the beat of her heart against Anne's chest as their arms wrap and squeeze around their bodies that slide click fit together in the simplest, most beautiful way-- instead, she puts a hand against her heart and feels it thump with the rhythm of a warsong as she watches the spikes and falls of the machine keeping time with Shiho's, the artificial, machine-made beat of it.

Anne becomes Panther.

She cannot feel the crackling love of Shiho beside her when Shiho is asleep, cannot feel the electric shock of Shiho's lips against her cheeks and her eyelids and the top of her head, nor the breeze against the nape of her neck and the baby hairs that she can not bunch in pretty pigtails that Shiho adores as Shiho hugs her from behind, breathing light against her, before taking a huge, overly loud breath in and blowing raspberries against her shoulder blade. She replaces the warmth of them all with fire.

Shiho wakes up after Anne destroys the man who took the world from them is locked away for the rest of Eternity, as if the curse placed on her vanishes.

Her neck is broken, wrapped in a big cast as big as her head is, coloured grey-white-beige like paper-mâché concrete, heavy and huge and unsightly. Anne can see that it weighs on Shiho, just like the rest of the plaster prisons on each of her limbs. There's a burden holding her down, moreso than all the splintered bones in her body making it hard for her to move.

Because Shiho cannot turn her head, encased in the braces keeping every broken limb straight, Anne must sit at the foot of the bed instead of beside her, aeons and lightyears away from Shiho's smile, though even those are rarer and rarer these days-- it hurts for her to move her face too much, speech slurred and the shape of her mouth weird when she forms syllables and words and phrases.

Slowly, she gets better. Each sentence more articulate, each smile a little easier. Eventually her pale skin like rubber bands stretched a little too thin, close to snapping, flush with life, not all of it artificial, cheeks painted pink and kissable and eyes a dark brown that manages to sparkle with light.

When Shiho is right enough to sit up, no longer forced to be reclined, limbs right enough that she can twitch her fingers-- not good enough to hold anything, but enough to be seen again, almost big enough to be normal fingernails on each one, they get to hug for the first time in two months.

It's awkward, stiff-- Shiho has difficulty rising her arms to Anne's back, under her shoulder blades like usual, and she is still sitting when Anne is standing (her legs are beyond repair, the doctor had said. There is a wheelchair folded up and leaning against the wall next to the bedside table), so Anne has to lean down at a weird angle that makes her spine ache just the slightest bit, knees locking up.

Shiho's breath is light like the beat of a butterfly's wings against just under her shoulder, closer to her heart than the shoulder blade itself. It's not playfully breezy like it used to be, now due less to a jolly spirit and more to shallow lungs. Listening to the wheeze of Shiho's breath, the crackle of her throat, something deep in Anne's gut twists and crumples and squeezes.

Shiho's body no longer clicks into place against Anne's-- the way they slot together isn't simple anymore, complicated and messy and confusing, just like everything else in the world apart from them.

The revelation comes like a bolt of soundless lightning to the bottom of Anne's skull.

She tries relaying this a thousand times over, to her friends:

She is sitting on a bench with Akira, sipping on a cherry slushie. Despite her opinions on most things sweet, she has no particular taste for slushies-- they are potent like cough medicine, sweet like honey candy and maraschino cherries and ice made of sugar water, coating her tongue in an unpleasant way. Still, she dutifully sucks up the slush through the straw, teeth chilled and cherry syrup like a glaze over the roof of her mouth.

Akira is giving her a look: lips pursed together, stained with his blue raspberry slushie that he has barely made a dent in, eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed the slightest bit.

He sets down his slushie and signs, I'm not sure I understand.

Anne sighs around her straw.

"Me neither," she says.

Suzui (He doesn't have a sign for her name like he does any of the Phantom Thieves, so he has to sign each character separately, like Su-zu-i to form her name) isn't right anymore? Only makes sense with everything that happened. Everything gets better, in time, he continues.

"No," Anne huffs. "I mean-- yeah, but no? Like, yeah, I know, but no."

Akira's look only complicates further. Anne hates complicated looks, hates complications. She is a simple person, with simple wants and simple thoughts, and she doesn't like complex, intricate, elaborate things.

Akira, though, no matter how complicated his expression, is easy to understand-- someone like an open book, if you read at the right angle (at the beginning, he was an open book if the book was written in Greek, but everything gets better, in time. He reminds her of that every time he thinks she forgets), and it's an angle that Anne knows very well. Her woe is something he doesn't understand, and she is being too confusing by not having the words. He just doesn't want to tell her.

"I don't think it's Shiho that's wrong," Anne tries to clarify. "I don't know if anything is wrong, I mean? It just... doesn't feel the same."

She has casts, is Akira's answer. And those new braces for her hands you were talking about, right?

Anne nods, and sips her slushie. She shivers with its cold, but it's a welcome distraction from the hollow feeling of dread in her gut.

Once she heals, you'll feel better, too, Akira signs. It'll all get better soon.

"I know," she mutters. "Everything gets better, or whatever."

Akira gives her a smile with blue-stained lips. His eyes crinkle at the corners, shoulders relaxing a little.

Seemingly satisfied and looking like he believes Anne is thoroughly reassured of karmic amelioration, he picks up his slushie again and begins to drink it, holding it in both hands because he is oh-so certain he will not have to speak again until he's gotten maybe an inch down in his slushie.

Anne sips her own.

She shivers again, lips curling at the supersaturated cherry syrup.

She is sick, she decides, of its saccharine flavour.

"Wrong how?" Yusuke asks her, looking up from his sketchbook to Anne.

She sighs and closes her eyes-- he has her almost reclined on a pile of blankets and pillows, in a pose he insisted by exactly perfect, moving her knees a centimetre to the right, a millimetre to the left, until it was in the completely right place. Her hands are meant to be in a certain place in a certain shape, the strain of her muscles controlled and precise. Yusuke is a complicated person with complex ideas, elaborate and difficult with seemingly no concerns over whether simple people like Anne can comprehend his aims and objectives. He requires, simply put. There's no convincing him, no way of changing his mind, when he decides on something.

Maybe, she thinks, there's some simplicity in his tenacity.

"Keep your shoulders down," he chides her, and Anne obeys, forgetting that maybe. His persistence is anything but straightforward, even if his insistence on anything he thinks up can seem plain.

Hell, she's just convinced him to stop asking her to model for him in the nude, and that was an ordeal and a half in and of itself ("Though, Anne, if you ever change your mind--" he tries, upon the dozenth rejection she gives him. She cuts him off and tells him that no, she will not, and he gives up, though not without a little pout that she doubts he's aware of).

Yusuke is a good person, well-intentioned, just a little... strange. Not really inept as much as inexperienced, when it comes to people. He's trying, she guesses. Just trying is hard enough, scary enough. But for all his pseudo-simplicity, Yusuke is perhaps the bravest person she knows.

"Anne," he says, silent until she finally gets out of her own head and looks at him, and then he repeats, "Wrong how?"

Even lost in a daydream, Anne could not forget the hollowness in her chest.

"I don't know," Anne says, shaking her head slightly, though she doesn't even realise she's doing it until Yusuke frowns a little to show his displeasure at the movement. "It just... is."

"I see," Yusuke hums.

Silence again as he continues drawing. Even though she's known him for so long, she still finds herself waiting for him to keep the conversation going. But Yusuke, she should've learned by now, is focused on his art first and foremost, and opts not to multitask, instead focusing on his sketch.

Hours pass, or maybe it's just minutes; Anne is facing away from the only clock in the room, and she's trying not to disturb Yusuke's... whatever he's got going on.

Yusuke is still someone that simple Anne can't fully comprehend: she's taught herself Akira's language, or wants to think she has, at least enough to be fluent in it, but Yusuke's communication still requires a bit of translation. She has, since the year has started, made herself a plethora of... interesting friends, to put it as kindly as possible. They're hard for her to understand, the nuance of their movements and their expression and their articulation still a bit of a mystery.

Knowing Shiho was never like that, Anne thinks.

Shiho was someone that, upon first meeting, just clicked with Anne. She's simple, with simple speech patterns and typical body language and smile, and after their first conversation, Anne could feel their brains just click together like puzzle pieces. They were made for each other, in body and mind. She wasn't someone Anne had to work to understand, like any of her new friends are.

Yusuke stands up, and Anne lifts her head up to follow the movement.

"Thank you," he says. "That will be all for today."

"O-Oh." Anne sits up. Despite her initial objections with the whole 'modelling' business, she finds herself enjoying the time she spends with Yusuke (now that she's not wrestling with the whole nude thing, too). It's quiet, and relaxed, and it's a nice reprieve from the hectic life of the world around her, now that her life has taken a separate path from her and Shiho.

Shiho.

"Right," Anne says quietly.

Yusuke looks at her.

"Is this business with Suzui still bothering you?" he asks, and Anne wets her lips, then bites the bottom one. She nods, and Yusuke says, "I don't see the point in worrying about something as trivial as that little feeling of yours."

Anne shakes her head. "It's not trivial," she says quietly. "It's..."

"It's not debilitating, is it? Perhaps you just were having an off day? It's the first time you've hugged in quite a while, so maybe you misremember what it feels like."

He puts his sketchbook on the table and sits down again, folding his hands and leaning forwards to look at Anne.

"No." Anne could never forget or misremember Shiho. "This is... different."

Yusuke stares at her for a count of three Mississippi. "It's different because she is," he says. "Her form has changed, and is asking you to change as well."

Anne tilts her head to the side. "Huh?"

He purses his lips, and offers no explanation.

She breathes out through her nose. "I don't get it," she says.

"You have undergone trauma," Yusuke hums, "Like paper being balled. You've changed, and no amount of smoothing will ever return you to who you used to be. You can go anywhere in the world, Anne. Anywhere but back."

Anne is not a fan of flowery language, and metaphor and fluff sometimes feel like the only things Yusuke is fluent in. Maybe she's too comfortable in her simplicity, because she feels her brow furrow in irritation when she cannot immediately understand him fully.

"Paper?" she repeats.

Yusuke nods, and picks up his sketchbook again, flipping to a blank page and neatly ripping it out.

"It pains me to do this with nice paper such as this, however..." he pushes it together in a ball, crumpling it up tight, until it almost completely fits into his palms, and holds it up for Anne to see.

Pause for dramatic effect.

Anne looks up at Yusuke and raises one eyebrow. He sighs, like he expected her to get it, and tosses it into her lap.

"Make it smooth," he says.

Anne picks it up and unfurls it, trying as best she can to make it straight, then sets it on her lap to try to force out the wrinkles.

A good minute passes as she works on it, and she gets no further by the time Yusuke says, "It will never be the same again."

"Uh, yeah?" Anne says.

Yusuke seems to think that's a proper explanation, gives a firm nod and closes his notebook. They speak no more about the subject.

Anne is explaining it to Futaba, weaving her hair into two braids. She's already done with one side, thrown it over Futaba's left shoulder, held in place by a pink scrunchie.

Futaba hums. Her glasses are off, because apparently the end pieces hurt when Anne is playing with her hair like this, but even with their proximity, with Anne practically sitting on top of her, she seems to be far enough away to Futaba's too near-sighted eyes to warrant a bit of a squint.

"I get it," she says. "Hugs are weird sometimes. They always get better after you take a nap. Or drink water. Or eat Sojiro's curry."

Anne puffs out both her cheeks, because Futaba so does not get it. Futaba is either still dealing with way too blurry vision or cannot pick up on social cues (most likely both), because that expression seems to go unnoticed.

"That's not it," Anne says. Left section over middle. Right section over new middle. Repeat, repeat. Futaba's hair is long and has the potential to be really pretty, but Futaba doesn't often brush it, and even after thorough combing in order to braid, there's still a few messy bits that really don't matter but still annoy Anne.

Futaba needs to redo her roots, too, because the black parts of her hair, crawling out of her scalp and trying to take over her head, have almost made it to her earlobes.

"Are you sure?" Futaba asks, squinting up in the direction of Anne's face. "I can't really tell, but you don't sound sure."

"I'm sure!"

"Ow."

Anne loosens her grip, realising she's tugged on Futaba's hair. "Sorry!"

"'s fine. I'm sorry too."

Anne pauses, and Futaba blinks twice before Anne decides to keep going again.

"Don't be sorry," she says. "I'm just kinda preoccupied."

Silence as Anne works. Left over middle, right over middle, repeat.

"...is it scary?" Futaba asks.

Anne's hands stop again, mid-cross of left and middle.

"...I don't like when things change," Futaba continues quietly. Unsure, almost cautious. "If Suzui's changing... it's more than just new shoes or clean sheets. It's like moving houses."

She twiddles her thumbs.

"Is that what it is?" Anne asks.

Futaba shrugs her shoulders.

"Maybe it's you changing. That's scary too." A pause. "Or maybe you're both changing. Maybe the hug is scary because you're scared you're changing in different directions."

Anne breathes in, out.

She loses herself in Futaba's hair, until she reaches the very last inch she can move, mostly split ends and yellow-white of dead cells that went a long, long eternity ago.

Numb, she pulls her yellow scrunchie off her wrist and ties it over the end of the braid., leaning back as Futaba fumbles for her glasses and puts them on, blinking at her eyes working again.

"I'm the resident expert on being scared of things," she says. When she looks at Anne, she doesn't have to squint anymore, hazel-purple eyes wide and brows furrowed to make a neat little crease on the centre of her head. "And changing, I guess. Er... I guess I had some help when I did it, though."

A little, nervous laugh. She pinches her index finger and thumb around the freshly-finished braid and runs her hand down it, feeling the bumps and crosses.

"I don't think anything's changed enough to be scared of it," Anne says.

Futaba puts her hand down and stares at Anne.

"That'll change too," she says.

Anne sighs.

"Hugs with people are different depending what they're wearing. Like... hugging Sojiro without my glasses on is way different then when I'm wearing them. Or when you're petting Mona, and his collar's off. Or when he's in Funko Pop Form."

"But hugs still feel right with Shiho," Anne says.

"Well, you've never hugged her when she's still being put back together. She's got all those casts and stuff like you said, right? Her fingers can't hold you the same and her elbows can't bend the same and her neck can't move the same, and she can't be at the same level as you. It's not just difference like your hair being up or down. It's... she's a different person."

"She's still Shiho," Anne says, sort of defensively, like Futaba's just insulted Shiho.

"I mean, Futaba before heart change and Futaba after heart change are both Futaba. One's just better. All those broken bones and atrophied muscles and those huge casts you told me about... I don't know how anybody could just be the same with all of those."

Anne is walking with Shiho.

Well. Anne is walking. Shiho is in her wheelchair. She used to be pushing herself, but asked Anne to take over moving her after her arms started to hurt. She has to go easy on her elbows and the bones in her forearms, the heavy-looking braces with a big wheel for articulation and padding around the soft parts of her arm a constant reminder of what she's gone through.

She's walking with Shiho down in Shibuya, going through the crowded streets with people who all give them a wide berth, giving Shiho wide-eyed stares as they take in the grey blanket over her legs-- leg, singular, the right one was amputated just below the knee, it took too much of the fall. The left one is barely any better, the plaster swallowing it up whole a bright (eye-catching) white and twice as big as her leg.

Shiho doesn't seem to notice, or at least ignores them. She points to things and talks to Anne cheerfully, and Anne tries her best to reciprocate.

"Oh, they're really building that new candy store!" Shiho says, pointing to an almost finished construction to their left. "Last time I saw it, they had barely started!"

"Hm? Yeah, they're working hard. Almost winter again, so hopefully they finish before it gets cold."

Shiho nods, and turns back to the streets.

"I'm gonna get stronger," Anne had said.

Akira smiles at her when she says it, just a tiny little twitch up of his lips, no crinkling of the corners of the eyes. It's a sad smile today, one that means he's thinking about how this is the seventh time she's told him that, but he's too nice to tell her.

"I'm serious this time," she says, again, putting her hands on her hips. "I'm gonna get stronger! I'm gonna be a better person, from today forward! I'm gonna change."

Okay, Akira signs. I believe in you.

He doesn't. She can see it in his eyes.

He continues with, I'll always be in your corner, Anne. He signs her name with the sign for leopard, his index finger, middle finger, and thumb out, but curled slightly, imitating claws, both hands in that shape facing his chest, but when he flicks his hands out, his right hand turns into an A handshape, the fingers pulled back down to his palm and his thumb out completely, horizontal.

I'll always be in your corner, Anne, he had signed. I'll always believe in you.

He doesn't sign the, even when you fail, part, but Anne can tell he's thinking it.

"Anne?"

Anne turns back to Shiho. Shiho tilts her head a little (her neck cracks, and Anne winces at the ugly sound, but Shiho barely reacts, eyes coloured brown as deep as the ocean staring at Anne so intent that she's almost convinced Shiho can see her insides, her churning guts and unsure heart).

"Are you okay?" she asks.

Anne swallows, and nods. "Yeah! Just zoning out!" she reassures. Hopefully she sounds less uncertain than she really is.

(Shiho smiles. Despite how apprehensive she feels, when she smiles back, it's wider than she's smiled for weeks, lips straining to show all of her teeth.)

"Do you wanna get crepes?" Shiho asks.

Anne buys them each chocolate crepes. There's fudge and pistachios and Pocky sticks and whipped cream, and she loses herself in a sugar high. Hopefully with enough sweet she'll feel right again.

She's a few bites in when she looks at Shiho.

Shiho's hands are shaking. Even with all the physical therapy she's been doing, the huge crepe is a difficult battle, a weird shape to hold and just enough weight to matter. The worn muscles in her hands are straining, knuckles pale.

She leans her head down, moving her neck in a weird way, and this time Anne can see the brief pain that flashes across her face as she makes contact with the crepe and takes a bite.

"I'm sorry," Anne hears herself say.

Shiho swallows her small bite of crepe and gives Anne a smile. She's sweating with effort, with how difficult is it to eat something. Anne's heart hurts looking at her.

"Sorry for what?" she asks.

Everything.

"Nevermind," Anne says instead. "It's nothing."

She watches Shiho struggle with the rest of her crepe, eating her own with less vigour than she used to.

When they're done, Anne watches Shiho lick her fingers of whipped cream and half-melted chocolate, shaking, but she looks up at Anne and smiles once her fingers are clean.

Anne presses a kiss to the top of Shiho's head and Shiho laughs and kisses her newly-clean fingers, then pats Anne's cheek with them. Her touch is electric and fire against Anne's skin, and Anne's heart melts with the contact. She resists the urge to hug her, squeeze her until they mush together into one person, until all of Shiho can fit underneath her skin. Instead, she moves some hair out of Shiho's face-- her hair is down today. Shiho always cites the fact she can't raise her arms over her head as the reason why, but she pointedly refuses help, from her parents or from Anne or anyone, so it stays down, pooling over her shoulders and dripping down her back.

This, Anne supposes, is more change.

Futaba's right. Fear curls in Anne's gut at the idea of it-- change is terrifying.

"Is something on your mind?" Shiho asks as Anne tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear, tracing her hand down her jaw. She leans into Anne's touch ever so slightly, smiling up at Anne.

There's so much on Anne's mind. She's starting to feel claustrophobic, drowning in her thoughts.

"You know me," she says. Shiho giggles as Anne's hand leaves her face, eyes sliding shut.

Shiho doesn't ride the subway anymore (she'll complain about the lack of accessibility on the trains and in the stations, Anne brings it up sometimes just to see Shiho get heated), so they wait for Shiho's mom to get through traffic and Anne helps Shiho get into the car.

She picks Shiho up and her mom takes the wheelchair and folds it up as Shiho wraps one arm loosely over Anne's neck for balance. One arm under Shiho's knees, the side with the amputated leg against Anne's elbow, the other supporting her back.

It's almost a hug, Shiho pressed up against her with their hair so close that it's curling together, Shiho's breath mixing with Anne's as Anne sets her down in the car seat, pulling her arms away as Shiho holds onto the headrest of the seat next to her for stability as she settles in. The almost hug is almost right, almost wrong. Sweet yet leaves a sour taste in Anne's mouth.

"Thanks," Shiho says as she pulls her seatbelt over her and clicks it in.

"See you next time."

Anne kisses her fingers and pokes Shiho's cheek. Shiho sticks out her tongue, then blows a kiss as Anne takes a step back.

"Thank you very much, Anne-chan," Shiho's mom says. "See you again soon!"

Anne waves goodbye and leaves.

She finds herself back with Yusuke.

He's drawing her again, like always. Anne is sitting in a wooden chair in the Kosei dorms. There's a chill hanging in the air, not quite enough to warrant a shiver, but only barely. Yusuke has a habit of blasting the AC as far as it will go, constantly.

"The white noise is pleasant," Yusuke had told her when she asked about it, the first or second time she had ever modelled for him (after the first time, of course. Yusuke didn't have control over anything in that house).

He's painting today, after an hour or so of sketching Anne's pose on the canvas he's set on the easel.

Yusuke isn't exactly amazing at small talk, even when he's not focusing on his art, and now that he's working, the room is silent except for the blaring AC, the ever-constant whir of it working as hard as it can. Anne can see goosebumps on her arms, hair standing up.

There are paintings set up so they're leaning against the walls and notebooks scattered around the room, some open and showing sketches, and any space not taken up by paper is covered by sticky notes of every colour with thumbnail drawings. A few pages are on top of the air conditioner are close to being blown away, only weighed down by a mug full of pencils and pens.

One notebook that's open by Anne's feet is open to a collection of miniature portraits, all stopping suddenly like Yusuke simply got bored of them. One of them is of Haru, holding a bunch of flowers that's only half-drawn, some detailed petals and leaves and some bunches of crude swirls, not much better than what Anne could come up with. Haru's smiling, the little dimple that shows up when she does shaded in lightly. Her hair frames her face in a more controlled way than it usually does, less fluffy and cloudlike and more simple curls, set on each side of her face and behind her with purpose.

Next to her is a drawing of Makoto-- or, more specifically, the right half of Makoto's face. There's an almond-shaped eye and her straight hair framing her face in bangs, some of her nose and a small smile, but there's a large empty space that covers the upper left half of her face.

The last drawing is Akira, his messy bedhead and glasses and thin eyes with the little crinkle in the corner of them. The little soft flaws in his skin are drawn with care, the little acne scars on his jaw, near his chin, pencilled perfectly onto his face, each eyelash sketched in, baby hairs and stray frizz put in. Akira is laughing that quiet laugh he always does, not much louder than his usual (mute) self, bright and giggly.

Anne can't help but note how much more detailed and shaded Akira's drawing is, ending at his shoulders. She smiles at that-- Yusuke's favouritism is apparent.

"That's enough for today," Yusuke says at some point. The sun has started to crawl below the horizon. There's only one tiny window in Yusuke's dorm room, but it's facing the sky with it's pink red purple streaks cutting through navy and night. It leaves a light dusk in the room, long shadows and dim light.

Anne stands up. Her legs are asleep, and her mind fills with static with the first real movement in hours, stomach full of nothing but a light lunch.

Once she stabilises, she looks over and Yusuke and asks, "Can I see?"

Yusuke nods and she walks over, leaning over his shoulder.

Yusuke always manages to amaze her. His eye for detail is second to none, she thinks, or at least he's very, very impressive. It's her, obviously, sitting on the chair, but it's real enough Anne almost feels like she could reach out and shake her own hand, feel her own pigtails.

There's a chubbiness to her cheeks that Anne would prefer to be shaved down, but she's not wearing makeup today and Yusuke's seen her without so many times he'd probably paint her with a babyface even if she had hidden the parts of her head she didn't like. Her back isn't as straight as she'd like it to be, too. And the angle she's looking at makes the bump on her nose visible, too. Anne sees all of her flaws at once; Yusuke draws her with everything she has and nothing she doesn't.

It's something she's gotten used to, like most things with Yusuke. All the ugly parts of her bite less than they would a month ago. She's a model either way, and Shiho likes pinching the little chub on her cheeks, so she decides not to mind it much.

"Has anyone ever told you you're good at this?" Anne jokes, patting Yusuke's head. He smiles a little.

"I could always stand to hear it more," he says. "Do you believe I've done you justice?"

He always asks that when she sees something he's drawn of her. It's a question she's never really understood.

"It looks nice," she says. He accepts this as an answer.

"How are you doing?" he asks her.

Anne looks at him.

"Are you still having trouble with Suzui?"

For some reason, his phrasing doesn't feel right to Anne.

"We're fine," she says. "It's... y'know."

"I see."

For all his eccentricities when it comes to speech, his need to use 5 words when 2 would do, Yusuke isn't much for words of comfort. There's a pause of silence as neither of them seem willing to continue the conversation.

It's when Anne is picking up her bag and leaving when Yusuke says, "I hope one day you find peace with this change."

Anne stops, bag half over her head. She finishes the motion and sets the strap in her shoulder and turns around to Yusuke.

The room is rather dark at that point-- Yusuke is barely any more than a vague form, milky skin and pale white shirt really the only thing that Anne's eyes can separate from the room's decor. Even then, Anne can tell he's looking directly at her.

"Huh?" she asks.

"This business with Suzui. It is difficult now, but I believe that you're strong enough to accept these changes and grow from them. You helped me when I was forced to change. I... hope that I can do the same for you with this. In my experience, it is hard, yet... it's worth it."

Anne's mouth is dry.

"Uh. Yeah. Sure," she manages.

And leaves.

"I'm gonna get stronger this time," she tells Akira. They're in the middle of lunch-- they buy each other convenience store bento boxes, alternating with each day. Today was Akira's day to buy, since Anne did yesterday. Akira pretends like he didn't buy the best box for Anne and the cheapest, ugliest box for himself. Anne pretends not to notice.

She's watching him shovel unappetising-looking food into his mouth when she says it, and he stops with the chopsticks in his mouth and a clunk of not-entirely-cooked rice drops to his desk.

He swallows as he sets down his chopsticks, and signs to Anne, Sure. Do your best.

He pretends like it's not the 12th time she's said that. She pretends like all those previous attempts actually did something for her.

The topic is pushed to the side when Ryuuji shows up with as much enthusiasm as always. Akira looks away from Anne and his desk to wave hello, and Anne switches their bento boxes while he's distracted.

Ryuuji is covered in chalk dust (he must've had Ushimaru in class today), and he says hello to Anne by shaking the dust off his hair and onto her back and hair. She falls into her usual routine of bickering with him, and Morgana pops his head out of Akira's desk like Ryuuji's presence summoned him, immediately taking Anne's side in the argument.

Anne sees Akira look at their bento boxes, and see that they've switched, the now almost-gourmet meal on his side of the desk between them. They make eye contact.

Akira smiles, and takes a piece of broccoli from his new box, acquiescing to the change.

She considers that a victory and lets herself turn back to arguing with Ryuuji.

He has a habit of pinching her cheeks, just like Shiho does. His smile is louder than hers, more vibrant, but they are rather similar, if Anne looks close enough.

Ryuuji was always closer to Shiho than he was Anne, she thinks. Back before Shuujin, they'd run together. Ryuuji was the one who got Shiho motivated enough to start volleyball, even if he doesn't know it.

"It'll be fun!" Shiho had said, more for herself than for Anne. They were sitting with their desks pushed together after school, and Anne had asked about the form in Shiho's hands. Club Application Slip, for volleyball.

Shiho leaned back in her chair, pushing the front two feet off it and tilting her head back. "Sakamoto-kun's always excited about running, so I thought it must be fun, at least."

"Sakamoto's different than all the rest of the track team, though," Anne countered. She didn't want to spend more hours separate from Shiho than strictly necessary. "He's, like, a superfreak about running."

"Isn't it cool, that someone can get so pumped about something?" Anne doesn't particularly agree. "I want to feel that strongly about something."

Anne already feels that strongly about Shiho, she says in her head, but she doesn't find the words or strength to say it aloud, put that in the air between them.

Shiho sees Anne pouting and laughs, petting Anne's head.

"Don't worry," she says, "I'll quit if I ever stop spending enough time with you, I promise."

Shiho had ended up breaking that promise.

"Damn, that looks good!" Ryuuji says, breaking Anne out of her thoughts as he grabs the nearest chair and sits on it backwards, pointing a calloused finger to Anne's bento box. "Can I snatch some?"

"Sure," Anne says, before she realises the discrepancy. She looks down at her lunch to see Ryuuji take a chunk of meat and broccoli out of it with his bare hands, and then looks at Akira, eating shitty, mostly-uncooked rice.

He had switched their boxes back.

They make eye contact again as Ryuuji goes for seconds, praising the flavour, and Akira smiles his usual smile with the little eye crinkles.

She is not as strong as him, not nearly enough to keep the fight going.

So Anne huffs, and slaps Ryuuji's hand away as he goes in for thirds.

"You can have some, not all!" she chides. He sticks out his tongue at her, and she returns it.

"C'mon, I don't have lunch!"

"If you're so hungry, then take some of Akira's!"

"Why? It's not like you need the extra calori--"

Anne kicks his chair, and Ryuuji is scooted back a good inch or two.

We can share, Akira signs.

"See, Anne? That's what a good friend does," Ryuuji says, and Anne rolls her eyes.

"Isn't your lunch only rice and vegetables?" Morgana chimes in. "I doubt Ryuuji would eat any."

Akira shrugs and picks up a piece of celery with his chopsticks, holding it out to Ryuuji, who reacts to it like he's allergic or it just insulted his mom.

Anne laughs so hard she snorts ugly, and buries her head in her jacket because Ryuuji and Akira start laughing at that, too.

They're sitting at the couch in the living room of Shiho's house. Shiho's wheelchair is folded up and leaning against the arm of the chair to their right. One of Anne's arms is wrapped around Shiho's back, and Shiho's leaning into her, her head perfectly slotted in the dip between Anne's jaw and her shoulder, hair tickling her neck, and Anne is resting her own head on top of Shiho's.

There's a movie that they have long since stopped paying attention to on on the TV. Anne is half-asleep, eyelids heavy, and she can hear Shiho more-than-half-asleep, snoring lightly. It's dark outside, the sun long since set, and the lights in the room are having a hard time casting out the dark completely. It hangs in shadows and the corners of the room.

Anne doesn't know the time, the clock is behind them, and Anne doesn't want to risk disturbing Shiho, so she just listens to their heartbeats beating together, in sync, like they're one. They sit like that until Anne pays enough attention to the movie that she notices the credits are rolling.

She watches them to the end, until it resets to the movie's menu.

After a few seconds of deliberation, she picks the remote up with her feet and moves it to her free hand, careful not to wake Shiho up as she does so, and turns the TV off.

"Shiho," Anne says, squeezing Shiho's back.

"Mng," Shiho replies.

Anne laughs a sigh.

"Let's get you to bed," she says.

Shiho snuggles her head deeper against Anne's shoulder.

Anne manages to pull her off and stand up, and she picks up Shiho, one arm under her knees and one supporting her back. Her amputated leg presses against Anne's uncovered elbow.

Shiho's house is practically a second home to her. She knows its secrets and what lays between its walls, could walk to Shiho's room with her eyes covered. So she focuses on Shiho absentmindedly slinging one arm over Anne's shoulders to help Anne hold her up, leaning her weight against Anne with her breath light and feathery against Anne's collarbone. It tickles, but Anne manages not to squirm as she walks the route she's gone thousands, millions, billions of times to Shiho's room, opening the door with her elbow, laying down Shiho in her bed.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she says, and kisses her fingers, then pats Shiho's cheek. "Love you."

She turns, but can't walk away, because one hand grabs at her wrist and stops her from moving. Her wrist is just thin enough and the hand is just big enough that the middle finger and thumb touch.

She looks back at Shiho.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

Shiho looks up at her. "Stay?" she yawns.

Anne breathes out through her nose. "I have school tomorrow," she says.

Shiho keeps looking up at her.

Anne's heart melts.

She climbs over Shiho and lays down next to her, pulling the covers over both of them. Shiho cheers, still sounding half-asleep, and wraps her arms around Anne's waist and snuggles against her chest.

Anne plants a kiss on top of Shiho's head and puts one arm around her back, just the right size that Anne's fingers brush against the exact middle of Shiho's back, and shifts until her head is comfortable in the mess of pillows.

She'll change, she tells herself, for the 13th time. She'll get stronger. For Shiho.

She's done it before, she knows, heart beating the rhythm of a warsong even now, fire storming in her lungs. She's changed and become Panther, and she'll do it as many times as she needs in order to stay with Shiho forever.

She'll become stronger this time.

Starting with waking up early tomorrow.

Shiho exhales loudly, sounding content, and Anne can't help but kiss her head again, feeling the telltale tug at her eyelids, telling her to sleep.

The universe outside fades out of Anne's head as she stares at Shiho fall asleep, breath evening. Everything seems remarkably amazing now, a feeling in Anne's chest like she's made of cloud and happy and lipstick kisses and as light as helium balloons. Her body feels like it fits exactly against Shiho's, each dip and curve simply space that Shiho was meant to fill, Her hair tickling Anne's nose in not an entirely unpleasant way.

Everything is simple, uncomplicated, easy, comfortable. Anne yawns so wide her jaw clicks as the sleepy becomes too much for her to ignore, so she stops staring at Shiho beside her and closes her eyes.

The world almost feels right in Shiho's arms.