Shihosaki

"You're already doing plenty, Saki. You're the one who's always there to cheer us up and push us in the right direction..."

- Shiho to Saki in Unnamed Harmony Chapter 5 - For Now, Let's Watch

Shihosaki is the femslash ship between Shiho Hinomori and Saki Tenma from the Project SEKAI fandom.

Canon
Shiho and Saki both attend the same school, and they are both in the same band, Leo/need. They are estranged childhood friends who became friends again. Shiho is more reserved while Saki is bubbly and cheerful. Shiho often worries for Saki, who doesn't have the best health.

Stella After The Rain
The event starts with Saki missing her childhood friends, Ichika, Honami, and Shiho, until she wakes up from her dream of still being stuck in the hospital. In the school corridor after classes end, Saki hugs Honami and then goes to hug Shiho, with Shiho telling her to cut it out while pinching her cheeks. After they go to Sekai, Ichika comments how Saki almost arrived late to school that day, and Shiho says that that's unusual for Saki. Saki then tells her she fell asleep after waking up, with Shiho responding that that checks out for her. Saki then thinks about how she can finally hang out with her friends again and how she has to make up for lost time.

On her way home from work, Saki sees a flyer for an astronomical observery, and wants to go there with her friends. When she brings this up with her friends, though, Shiho tells her that they don't need to go to an observery to see stars, and they should practice more instead. After input from Luka, Shiho finally gives in and agrees to go, on the condition that they don't slack off on band practice, to which Saki agrees and says that she'll practice every day. Honami and Ichika worry due to her having a part-time job, a club, and frail health, but Saki says she'll be fine. However, Luka tells Shiho that Saki seems to be straining herself, and Shiho grows worried. She promises Luka to make sure to look after Saki.

During band practice, Shiho reminds Saki not to go past her limits. Saki complains that Shiho is talking to her like she's a child who can't take care of herself, and says she can play the band songs perfectly now. They then make a bet, if Saki can't play perfectly she has to buy Shiho ramen and if she can Shiho buys her bubble tea.

Later, when Tsukasa goes into Saki's room as she's picking an outfit to go out in, she tells her brother that she's going on a date. Tsukasa grows surprised and then tells her whoever she's going out with, he fully supports her. She tells him she's only hanging out with her bandmates.

Eventually Saki gets sick. However, she is still determined to go to school and feels pressured to go to work. Shiho sees Saki running off and notes to herself that she has to remind Saki to take it easy. Saki thinks about cancelling band practice the next day, but is then reminded of what Shiho said about slacking off, and decides to go. During practice, Honami notices that Saki seems off and her and Shiho test Saki's temperature. Shiho gets angry at Saki for not saying anything about being sick, and Saki says that she kept silent because she wanted to go to the observery with her friends. Shiho says that they could have gone whenever, and that her health is more important, but Saki argues back that she's missed so much of her life already due to being sick. When Leo/need bring Saki back to her house, she apologizes to Shiho for causing her trouble, to which Shiho replies not to say that and to rest up.

Saki goes to SEKAI and talks to Luka about how she feels bad about inconveniencing everyone. Her bandmates find her on the SEKAI's rooftop and approach her. It's raining, so the stargazing event is canceled, and they'll have to go another time. However, they set up their own stargazing event in SEKAI.

Unnamed Harmony
The event starts with Leo/need in the hallways, and Saki is excited for their next practice session after Leo/need did a big performance in an earlier event. Because Saki's being too loud, Shiho tells her to keep it down so she won't interrupt the other classes. Saki tells the others that she wants another concert again, to which Honami tells her not to "push herself too hard." When Saki tells them that she has been practicing on her synthesizer rather than going out, Ichika and Shiho are surprised—Shiho herself says that she expected Saki to beg them for more time away from practicing. Seeing how Saki is very passionate about wanting to go professional, Shiho offers to make practice harder than before. Saki's shocked by Shiho's suggestion despite saying she wanted to improve as soon as possible; Shiho tells Saki to not worry because they'd be working around the level they risen to. Saki takes this as Shiho saying that she has improved. She responds by hugging Shiho, saying that she "loves her so much." Shiho tells Saki to let go of her, but Saki refuses and says that she was really happy to get praised by Shiho.

On the topic of wanting to improve as a band, Shiho decides to discuss about it in an empty classroom. According to her: auditioning, performing in live houses, getting better overtime. growing their fanbase, and posting videos on the internet are a few ways to grow Leo/need. Given their current status, Shiho says that they should prioritize honing their skills onstage. Shiho already got greenlit to perform at the venue she works at, but the problem is that they need at least three songs to perform (including the one they performed for STANDOUT). Saki remembers Shiho saying they would have to compose their own songs at some point, so everyone decided to arrange music for Leo/need and see where that goes.

Later, when Leo/need goes into the School Sekai, they meet Rin, who gives each member a nickname; all but Shiho don’t mind their nicknames. Shiho tells Rin to give her a different nickname because Saki might start copying her; Saki admits that she finds the nickname "Shihoppy" cute. However, Rin goes along with Shiho's request and ends up calling her "Shih."

A few moments later, after practice, everyone asks Shiho for her advice. Shiho starts off with Ichika, then Honami, and finally Saki. With Saki, Shiho advises her to practice her finger rolls since Saki isn’t able to keep up with key changes and tends to go fast. Saki says that she still struggles with finger rolling regardless of how many times she practices; Shiho decides to bring up that Saki has been playing much better than before, telling her to keep that in mind. Shiho tells everyone else that they have gotten better, but deep down, Saki knows she still has a lot of room for improvement since she wasn’t able to play the piano while she was at the hospital, which results in her thinking that she should practice even harder than before.

The following day, Leo/need is practicing again, and Shiho asked if Saki stayed in the Sekai for a while to practice after everyone else left. Saki admits to doing so and asks why Shiho brought it up. Shiho responds by saying that Saki seemed a bit tired, although Saki says that she was being careful and is taking fewer shifts for the sake of practice. Ichika decides to change the topic by asking if anyone made up their phrases and decided to show them off. Saki says that she liked Ichika’s second idea, but Shiho says that she tried to include too many things, which made it seem like Ichika wasn’t sure what she was doing. Honami adds on that she liked Shiho’s first idea—Shiho admits that she was heavily influenced by a certain artist and claimed it wouldn’t fit Leo/need, which leads to a major problem in Unnamed Harmony: What kind of music do they want to play? Saki reassures the band that they can get through this because “everybody goes through this in the beginning.” Shiho asks who said that, and even though Saki ended up forgetting, the former says "it felt like it was the right thing to say".

When the Leo/need members head home for the day, Saki decides to “pull her weight” by writing songs for Leo/need because she thinks she's not as good as everyone else. She's stuck on what to write for the band until she hears a song from STANDOUT in the distance. Inspired and excited, Saki decides to head to the music shop for a STANDOUT CD. Coincidentally, Saki ends up seeing Shiho there, who was buying a single from a band she liked. Seeing how they’re on the topic of albums, Saki asks Shiho for album recommendations. Shiho shows her a “best” that also happens to have songs from when the band debuted, mentioning that three of the songs in the album are among her favorites. Adding to that, those songs also helped Shiho through a time when she wasn’t sure about herself. Because Shiho willingly lets herself say a lot about the band, Saki buys the album and runs to the cafe after realizing that she’s about to miss her shift. After Saki leaves, Shiho comments that she might be overdoing things again.

One day, Saki announces that her fingers started cramping up and Shiho tells her to put ice on her hands so she wouldn’t get tendinitis. Saki also mentions that her hands freeze up when she ices them but Shiho reassures her that rest is just as important as practice. Despite that, Saki still wants to improve and push the band forward so she shows off the samples she made the day before. Saki is confident that the band would like at least one of them since she ended up composing ten melodies in one night. However, even though all of the samples Saki made were good, the other Leo/need members think they don’t fit them. Shiho tells Saki that each phrase was put together really well and saw that she made an effort; Saki starts sobbing anyways because the band can’t decide on what to play. Being the supportive friend she is, Shiho tells Saki to not push herself and to take time to come up with songs and tells everyone to use her songs as bases (in order to come up with a song of their preference).

Quotes
"(Shiho always seems to go a little easy on Saki.)"

- Ichika in an Area Conversation at Miyamasuzaka Girls' Academy

Fanon
Shihosaki is rivaled mainly by Ichisaki, Ichishiho, Honasaki and Shihonami. It tends to get paired up with Ichihona. On AO3, it has over 60 fanfictions. This ship also has a variation with all the Leo/need girls, Polyneed. Overall, Shihosaki is more of a rarepair, most likely because there quite a couple more popular bands that get more attention within the fandom.

The first Shihosaki Week was held on October 9-15, 2022 under the. Prompts for the first day were "Stella or rooftop," "baking or sweets" for the second day, "confession or caretaking" for the third day, "AU" for the fourth day, "date or games" for the fifth day, "past or song" for the sixth day, and seventh and final day was free theme.

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Trivia

 * They are the same height, at 159 cm.
 * Their ship is referred to with the "💚💛" and "🍜🎹" emojis.
 * Their Kizuna Rank titles are: "Soft Spot", "Worrywart", and "Playing Music Together".
 * They have an alternate vocal version duet together for.
 * Much like them, their older siblings, Shizuku Hinomori and Tsukasa Tenma, are also childhood friends.
 * In the second side story of Ichika's "Hoping For Clear Skies " card, Shiho pulls Saki's cheeks with a mischievous smile after the latter blew sakura petals away from Shiho to prevent her from winning their game.