The soft rumble under my feet helped me calm down. I had sprinted to the station, dashed across the tracks before the barriers could stop me, and met Tsubaki spacing out near the entrance to the platform. It took some convincing to urge her towards the train as it crawled to a stop, and after tugging her along we were in the safety of the thought that there wouldn’t be an angry homeroom teacher waiting to chew us out for being late.

Or I was. We were soothed, sure, but Tsubaki was still watching nothing. Breathing heavily. Inching closer to my side, as if trying to melt away into the comfort of my company. On a day of celebration, my best friend seemed so unsure. The corners of the train car looked dangerous. Without saying anything, I let her sneak in front of me, and she hid from the invisible stares. She closed her eyes. Breathed.

She was trying to erase herself.

------

I met Tsubaki when we were in fourth grade.

I rolled into town in the back of a beat-up SUV, crowded by boxes and chairs and blankets- basically anything that could fit from the home we had to abandon. My father hadn’t slept. The front seat was empty. It was reserved for someone that wouldn’t be there anymore.

We arrived at our small apartment, dropped off our exhaustion and grief, and pushed our way into our new existence. I was left in a classroom full of obnoxious ten-year-olds and holding onto a realization that I couldn’t be like that anymore. Too much had happened. Too much heartbreak and confusion. And anger. And angst. Enough angst for a kid to force herself to grow up.

Don’t get me wrong. I tried my hardest to fit in. I did my homework, talked to my classmates, ran around where I wasn’t supposed to. All that jazz, and more. I did my best to ignore any snide comments from the annoying kids around me, because I knew by that point that there were worst things that could be said.

But I need you to understand that this was a cycled process.

I’d arrive at school, faced with the building pressure of expectations forming in my peers. My classmates would pester, and poke, and ask questions that wedged a huge gap between us. They were the normal. I was the other. The new kid. The stranger. Something new to play with. Something different to look at. I adopted the persona of a strange anomaly that I hoped would wear off eventually. I was impatient to merge into the normal. But they refused to look at me like that.

I would come home.

At home, there was a void of what should have been there, but wasn’t. An empty shell waited. I waited. We waited together for mom to change her mind and waltz through the door, announcing her boredom of the new life she had broken ours for. I’d wrestle with the idea that at least I had dad, but was he really there? No. I’d have to pick myself up and take care of things. I got tired of waiting, and I moved on, trying to drag my dad with me. He was very difficult to budge.

I’d go to school.

I’d come home.

I’d go to school.

And then back home.

It was inevitable that I’d snap.

Trying to balance finding who I was and being who I wasn’t was a difficult task that couldn’t last long. It got to the point where I was adopting customs in the classroom that could make or break my place there. I’d make jokes about the teacher when she wasn’t in earshot. I’d find a way to sneak seconds during meals, under the watchful, giddy stares of the others. I was so close to being someone who wasn’t out of place in the slightest. The “new-girl” name was dissolving.

I was introduced to Tsubaki in passing. She was pointed out by a group of girls I found myself trailing behind one afternoon.

“There. You see her? That one. Stay away from that one.”

On the opposite end of that chubby finger sat a small, plump girl doing her best. Her blonde hair was a startling pale back then- a true toe head- and she was dressed in clothes that announced her privileged home life. She stared off into some far-off space, content with being alone.

I hated her immediately. I didn’t have to hear the excuse that what’s-her-name gave me, and I didn’t have to ask. In my head I was already forming a story of my own. She was an ultra-brat, molded by constant primping and upkeep, and refused to find it in herself to mix with the masses of the common folk. If she turned this way, I’d see a glare. A scorn. A peering, narrow look that would remind that, as much as I want to pretend that I’m not, I was missing something from my life that made me functional. I did not have all the essentials necessary for the ordinary. I’d be seen through right away.

“She sees ghosts.”

With those eyes, she could see anything-

“Yeah, but does she really? She just wants attention.”

The blonde girl turned, sensing the group behind her. Anyone would be able to feel those stares. They must have pinched like needles.

“So she’s either a liar or a weirdo. It doesn’t matter, you won’t find me near her.”

Our eyes met.

They were blue. Her eyes, I mean. It was a shade of blue I’ve never seen before. Pale, bright, clear. Clouded with nothing. Innocent. Able to see many. Able to see all. Able to see me.

That was all I really wanted, I think. To be looked at. To be seen, truly seen, by my so-called friends for who I was. To be noticed by my father at home. I needed someone to look at me, and acknowledge that I was there.

That was all it took, apparently. We’ve been friends ever since.

------

“…Where are they?”

The train lurched, and Tsubaki bumped into my chest. She looked startled.

“What? What are we talking about?” she asked, rubbing her nose.

“You. We’re talking about you.”

The train was packed with an assortment of people trying to adjust to the new line schedules, and I did my best to allow her the space she needed. She glanced up at me, as if she was just noticing that I was there. She tugged at one of her blonde braids and smiled nervously. Yet her eyes didn’t waver.

“Oh. Well,” Tsubaki saw something out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head away from it, “It’s really nothing. Don’t worry about it…”

I stared at her. She turned away from me.

“Really, it’s fine…”

…

…

“There’s a lot more recently.”

Ah.

For as long as I’ve known her, Tsubaki has been able to see things. Monsters, ghouls, spirits, and phantoms, to name a few, had a nasty habit of following her around. They forced her into isolation, and crafted her timid, docile personality. She latched onto my free arm like a shield, knowing that if the monsters in the train crept closer I’d be there to protect her. It was only typical of Tsubaki’s dog.

I have personally never seen them, but I’m not sure that I want to. They sound horrific.

“Well, don’t pay attention to them. Pay attention to me. Look up,” I told her. After a hesitant pause, she turned her head.

“Happy Birthday, Tsubaki.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she tried her best not to crack a smile.

“You’ve said that already,” she said, embarrassed.

“And I’ll say it again if you want me to, Ms. Adult.”

Tsubaki smacked my arm playfully, “Oh stop, you’ll make me blush. I’m trying to keep my composure here, madame.”

“Madame?”

“What, you want me to be more creative?”

A small chuckle escaped her lips. It’d take her more to crack her, but it was a good start. Tsubaki was cheerful when she wasn’t alone, and witty when she wasn’t frightened. In moments where all of that was threatened, I felt useful and necessary. I can’t say if that’s the true reason that we’re friends, or if we naturally worked well together. Or if we just enjoyed each other’s company. There were really too many variables and reasons to why we were the duo that we were.

Tsubaki was the soft, sweet, dependent girl who had a tendency to shift to weird circumstances.

I was the rough, protective, pessimistic knight that would keep her away from harm.

Together, we laughed quietly, the train humming along the tracks towards our next destination, all while the invisible monsters tried to catch Tsubaki Kiyo’s eyes.