It's Your Fault It's Complicated (Files 04-07)
Title: It’s Your Fault It’s Complicated
Author: anigirl15
Rating: PG-13 for the f-word, will eventually get up to NC-17.
Warnings: Eventual Joshua/Neku. Spoilers for EVERYTHING! (Well, you don't actually have to have read the Secret Reports, but I'll spoil them for you if you haven't.) My theories and ideas about various things in the TWEWY universe. Swearing. Boysex (but not for a while. A long while, in fact).
Summary: Neku knows he shouldn't agree to anything Joshua proposes any more. He knows, yet he willingly starts a chain of events that will eventually shatter the boundaries of his world and shake Shibuya to its core. Stupid Joshua.
Notes: This is the companion fic to Because Life Can Never Be Simple, which is posted at subarashiki_ds. These are the exact same story told in two different parallel worlds: one world where Joshua falls for Neku, and one world where he does not. This also means that both stories are VERY similar, and you should probably just pick one and stick with it, since reading both will involve a LOT of re-reading. In fact, right now the two stories are exactly the same. If you wish to read the other story, you can find the link below, or click the cut to read this one.
It’s Your Fault It’s Complicated (Files 04 - 07)
[first] [back one] [forwards]
[jump to the other side]
[File04]
“Good morning!”
The voice met his ears before Neku even opened his eyelids. His head was pounding, his skin felt tingly all over, and there was some strange sound that he couldn’t quite make out. He finally opened his eyes to see the bright blue sky above him. A few moments later he pulled himself into a sitting position and looked around. He wasn’t on Cat Street any more…
“Where the hell…?”
“On top of 104.”
He turned to the sound of the voice to find… Joshua? He looked… older. “Josh? Is that you?”
Some sort of pressure swelled in his head, and Neku cringed. Next to him, the man smiled. “It’s Me all right. I don’t have to limit My powers quite so much for you to see Me anymore, so I don’t have to look so young.”
“That… ug…” he cringed again. “That wasn’t… what you really look like?”
“I used to look that way. Back when I was actually fifteen years old. That appearance had its upsides, of course; like getting you to trust Me, partner~.”
Yup. Still the same old snide Joshua.
Neku gripped his head and groaned. “My brain feels like it’s gonna explode…”
“You’ll get over it,” Joshua responded nonchalantly.
“And it hurts more whenever you talk.”
“Oh does it? Well, you know what they say, no pain, no gain…”
“Joshua, seriously… please. Just stop talking.”
“Saying please, now? Aren’t we being nice.” But despite the little jab, that was all that Joshua said for the next several minutes. They passed the time in silence. Little by little, the pressure in Neku’s head relented. Finally it got to the point where he was willing to let Joshua speak again.
“Why are we up here?”
“The flood.” Neku cringed with the sound, but at least this time the pain was bearable.
“Flood?”
“The flood of thoughts, feelings, and Souls, down on the Shibuya streets. Do you remember how overwhelming it was the first time you scanned with the Player pin? Imagine that all over again, a hundred times over.”
He winced, but this time it was at the memory. “A hundred? Geeze.”
Joshua nodded. “It should be the worst for the first day, but you have somewhere you need to be before then, so you can’t stay up here that whole time. Tell Me when you can only barely hear the Music below us, and that should be enough for your head to ‘not explode’, as you put it.”
“The Music? What?” But even as he spoke, Neku was aware of the strange noise that he’d been hearing slowly taking shape. Hundreds, even thousands of different pieces of music, all playing at the same time, all in harmony, all in dissonance. They varied in as many different ways as music possibly could, and yet when they all played at the same time, there was some sort of overwhelming masterpiece that it conveyed to only those who could hear it.
“The Melody of Shibuya,” Joshua whispered, and Neku wasn’t sure who it was said for. Regardless, he listened to it. The clearer it got, the less his head hurt. He could separate it out now. Not into individual parts, but he could hear sections, groups: people who thought alike all had a similar pattern, a similar feel to them.
He was tuning some of them out before he realized exactly what he was doing. He could selectively stop a section, and in the aftermath of the constant swell, it seemed like a great hush. He wondered for a moment whether he could block them all out: he tried it. The near silence rung in his ears; and only then did he notice it. There was one melody that was unique from all the rest, an entire piece unto itself. It was so rich and full, and yet the quietest of sounds that he couldn’t imagine having noticed it without blocking the rest. Yet from the little that was trickling in, he could tell: the entirety of the rest of the parts, the whole Melody of Shibuya, was following, in its overwhelming way, the pattern set by this one small voice. Even as he tried, he couldn’t stop this one from entering his mind, his heart, every part of him. Neku turned in wonder to Joshua, finally understanding why he was called the Composer.
Joshua looked at him, and after a moment, gave a slight smirk. “You want to go home now, Neku?”
He wanted to ask a thousand questions. So many mysteries tumbled through his head, each one fighting for his attention, begging him to question his former partner. But all he could do was listen to the glorious Music which had the rest of Shibuya following behind it. Listen and nod, yes, he’d go home now.
“Alright then, I’ll just lower My vibe again…” Suddenly Joshua was fifteen again. Joshua was fifteen, and the great guiding piece was gone. No, it wasn’t gone. It was just even less significant than before. But he could still hear it, probably only because he was standing right next to Joshua, still hear it leading Shibuya from the shadows.
Oh, and the pressure in his head all but vanished. “Wait… that was you! All of it was you!”
“Neku, Neku, Neku. So quick to blame. I only did that to get you used to it.” Joshua smirked. “Once we go down, it will hurt all over again.”
“Great…” Neku rolled his eyes and followed Joshua to the door off the roof.
As they slowly descended the staircase, Joshua gave a quick glance over his shoulder back at Neku and smirked. “Oh, I forgot to mention. As you’re getting used to your powers, they might go haywire from time to time.”
Neku froze. “Haywire? What does that mean?!”
Joshua shrugged. “Mostly it’ll be hard to keep your vibe stable. In terms even you would understand, it means you might find yourself slipping into the UG on accident.”
“Slipping? Like, dying? Or… wait… rrg… Josh, can you start making a little more sense?”
Joshua merely waved over his shoulder at Neku. “I have faith you’ll figure it out, my dear little Neku. But this is the last word of advice, so listen well. If you dare tell anyone that you’re the Producer, your life is forfeit. Permanently. No negotiations.”
Neku stopped short. Something in Joshua’s threat had seemed so full of malice. The usual smugness that seemed to be in every sentence he spoke, even when he wasn’t trying, was suddenly gone. He was serious. Deadly serious.
[File05]
“Ah!” Neku hissed, gripping his head. “Fuuuuuck…”
“I warned you,” Joshua said in a sing-song voice as he stepped out onto the street. Around them, people walked about, hundreds of people making music that they were completely unaware of. And DAMN was it loud!
“Well Neku, it’s been great fun. I’d love to stay longer, but I have a Game to prepare for. I suppose I’ll see you later.”
And Joshua was suddenly older again, but still smirking at Neku as if nothing had changed. Neku’s head screamed with agony.
Joshua raised a hand and waved. “Ta-ta.” He flashed white, and was gone, leaving Neku alone trying not to crumple to the ground in pain.
[File06]
“Well, well, if it ain’t Phones. Guess this means you got out, huh?”
Neku nearly choked on his noodles. He turned to the stool next to him just in time to see a familiar orange-haired figure sit down. His gaze wandered to the shock of pink that he somehow knew would also be there. Uzuki was giving him a look as if she’d just bit into a lemon. “Oh. You’re here. What a coincidence,” she said in a voice devoid of enthusiasm.
“Now don’t be like that, Uzuki. Game’s over for him. We’re not enemies any more.” He gave Neku a sideways grin. “Unless you decide to kick the bucket again.”
“Don’t plan on it,” Neku mumbled and turned back to his food. Kariya gave a soft chuckle before leaving him alone.
“Ramen is on you, Uzuki.”
“I know, I know. Sheesh. Stop reminding me. Two shio ramen,” she said to Ken Doi.
“Actually, make mine a miso,” Kariya said almost smugly, and Neku wondered if he’d only changed the order because it made the meal more expensive. Suddenly Neku found a hand on his shoulder, and it wasn’t at all comforting. “And how about one for our friend for a job well done? A small part of me was worried for you after we zonked out, you know. Even she was bothered by it,” Kariya jabbed a thumb in Uzuki’s direction, and she shot him a glare that threatened to erase him on the spot.
“I was not!! And there’s no way I’m paying for him, too!”
Neku brushed the hand from his shoulder, doing his best to ignore the swell of Music that had come from his contact with the Reaper. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
He deliberately finished eating his ramen, being careful not to look over at the other two customers. The last thing he wanted to accidently let them know was that he could still see their wings.
[File07]
The bell signaling lunch period rang, snapping Neku out of his daze. At the front of the classroom, the teacher sighed and finished writing his sentence on the board. Before he even got the chance to assign homework, the clamor of the students getting up to grab food before the cafeteria ran out had reached such a high level that shy of shouting, he had no way of making himself heard.
“You’re coming back here after you get something, right Neku?!”
“Yeah!” He shouted over his shoulder at Shiki before disappearing into the hallway. He made a mad dash for the cafeteria, knocking aside several students as he went, most of whom gave a shout of protest. He took the stairs down two at a time, all the while doing his best not to actually knock anyone down with him. Despite all his efforts, the lunch crowd was huge by the time he finally got there. Dammit, that’s what he got for being in the third farthest classroom away.
Neku sighed and started elbowing his way through the throng. He didn’t get very far before he must’ve pushed the wrong person; suddenly he was shoved backwards and clear out of the group.
Something felt strange.
By the time he hit the ground, the odd feeling had passed. He propped himself up on his elbows and tried to spot the person who’d pushed up with enough force to knock him clean over, but with the sheer amount of bodies it was practically impossible. “Fine,” he muttered to himself, “I’ll just ask Shiki for some of her food… again…”
He wasn’t looking forward to it. Partially because Shiki wasn’t the best of cooks, partially because a part of him felt guilty asking her for food more often than not, and partially because it seemed to send rumors flying that the two of them were dating. Wasn’t it just enough for a guy and a girl to be friends at this school?!
He slowly picked himself off the ground and trudged back to his classroom, finding himself suddenly more winded than he’d thought he was. It took him nearly four times the amount of time to get back as it had to get there, despite the fact that the number of people in the hallways had decreased dramatically. He sighed again as he walked through the open doorway and spotted Shiki. She was talking to someone in their class excitedly, probably about some new fashion trend or something. It was strange, despite having a different face from when she was a Player, her smile was almost exactly the same.
“Hey, Shiki…” he walked over to her and slumped down in a nearby chair, eyeing the rice balls sitting on the desk in front of her. “Would you mind giving me some food again? It’s hell down there.”
He felt his anger grow a bit as she ignored him, continuing her conversation (yeah, fashion) without even so much as glancing at him. After a few moments and a pause in the conversation, he spoke up again. “Shiki…”
Still she ignored him. He growled slightly under his breath and reached forward to grab her shoulder. “Shiki, why are you-”
His hand went right through her.
Neku froze for a second. Realization began to creep through him. “Oh, fuck!” he cursed, feeling himself starting to panic. He was in the UG, wasn’t he?!
“How the hell do I go back?!” He stood up and spun around. No one in the classroom noticed him. Of course. No one there could see him. And without a Player Pin, he couldn’t even imprint to give them a clue he was there. Not Shiki, nor anyone else.
He had finally gotten hearing the Music mostly under control, and now this. Now he had another power that was doing strange stuff. And the only person he could ask about it was…
Neku stopped short. Slowly he reached for his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. It said he didn’t have any reception; he hadn’t expected it to. He flipped it open, and with feelings of dread, scrolled through his contact list. He knew he’d never entered the name, but for some reason, he was sure it was there.
And it was, way down at the bottom. Yoshiya Kiryu.
Neku took a deep breath, staring at the name. His hand shook a bit. Briefly he contemplated flipping the phone shut and pocketing it without another thought, but then his gaze wandered back to Shiki, still happily chatting away with her friend. She probably thought he was still downstairs, fighting his way to get some food.
He pressed the call button and brought the phone to his ear. For a moment it seemed that he really didn’t have any sort of reception in the UG. He nearly jumped when he heard a dial tone. And then another.
Click. “Good afternoon, this is your wonderful Composer speaking, how may I help you today?” Neku could practically hear Joshua’s smirk through the phone.
“I’m stuck in the UG, Josh. How do I undo it?”
“Oh, my, back in the UG already, Neku? I would have thought you’d be more careful this time.”
“Not funny, Joshua. I’m not dead.”
“Yet. Hee hee.”
Neku cursed under his breath and reminded himself that as much as he didn’t want to deal with this crap, Joshua was the only one who could help him. “How do I get back to the RG?”
“By undoing what you did to get to the UG, of course.”
“I don’t KNOW what I did!” he shouted. He quickly looked around self-consciously after his outburst, before remembering that no one could hear him.
On the other end of the line, Joshua was chuckling. “Impatient, aren’t we, Neku?”
I’m standing in the middle of my classroom, with Shiki right next to me about to eat the rice balls that I would have eaten some of had I made it back from the cafeteria without food, and half of the school day left to sit through, oh and lunch period ends in twelve minutes and I’d rather not actually cut class was what Neku wanted to say, but he knew that it would just amuse Joshua more. Instead, he responded as levelly as he could, “Yes. Just a little impatient here.”
“Alright, then. I’ll head over there. Meet me on the roof. But you’ll owe me, Neku~”
Joshua giggled and hung up. Neku stuffed the phone back in his pocket, thoroughly frustrated. Great, now he owed Joshua something. At least he’d get his food.
He ran up to the roof and quickly looked around. Off on the opposite side were a few couples eating together, but no one was near him or looking in his direction. Suddenly something in the sky caught his eye. At first it was little more than a white speck, but all of a sudden it grew into a massive, winged, glowing white figure that stopped in the air just short of him, accompanied by a huge swell of Music. Neku shouted in surprise and nearly fell over backwards.
“Joshua?! What… what the hell…?!”
Neku tried his best to calm his racing heart, his eyes as wide as they would go. If it were possible, his jaw would have hit the floor. The figure before him seemed to shimmer, and abruptly faded away, leaving a teenage Joshua to drop the couple feet to the roof’s surface. And throw his arm out to the side dramatically, posing.
“A marvelous entrance, I know. Hold your applause, please.”
Clapping was the last thing on Neku’s mind at the moment. In fact, right about then, he was secretly praying that he hadn’t accidently pissed himself.
“Speechless, Neku?” Joshua tossed him a grin that seemed to snap the boy back to his senses. Neku shook his head.
“A-Anyways,” he began shakily, “so can you put me back?”
Joshua gave an exaggerated sigh with an accompanying eye roll. “I suppose so. Kids these days have no appreciation for performances…”
He placed a hand on Neku’s chest and shoved lightly. A strange feeling shot through Neku as he stumbled backwards. He quickly recovered his balance and looked up at Joshua. “Is that it?”
“That’s it. I can make it more dramatic if you like next time, but not everything powerful needs bright lights and feathers.”
Neku’s gaze dropped to the tiles at his feet. “Uh… thanks.”
Joshua chuckled. “I do expect a favor in return, my dear Neku.”
Neku gave a quick wave goodbye as he turned back to the door down off the roof. No sooner had he entered the building then the bell rang to signal the start of classes again. He cringed. Guess he wasn’t getting that rice ball after all.
[CloseFiles]
Comments/critique are much appreciated.
Author: anigirl15
Rating: PG-13 for the f-word, will eventually get up to NC-17.
Warnings: Eventual Joshua/Neku. Spoilers for EVERYTHING! (Well, you don't actually have to have read the Secret Reports, but I'll spoil them for you if you haven't.) My theories and ideas about various things in the TWEWY universe. Swearing. Boysex (but not for a while. A long while, in fact).
Summary: Neku knows he shouldn't agree to anything Joshua proposes any more. He knows, yet he willingly starts a chain of events that will eventually shatter the boundaries of his world and shake Shibuya to its core. Stupid Joshua.
Notes: This is the companion fic to Because Life Can Never Be Simple, which is posted at subarashiki_ds. These are the exact same story told in two different parallel worlds: one world where Joshua falls for Neku, and one world where he does not. This also means that both stories are VERY similar, and you should probably just pick one and stick with it, since reading both will involve a LOT of re-reading. In fact, right now the two stories are exactly the same. If you wish to read the other story, you can find the link below, or click the cut to read this one.
It’s Your Fault It’s Complicated (Files 04 - 07)
[first] [back one] [forwards]
[jump to the other side]
[File04]
“Good morning!”
The voice met his ears before Neku even opened his eyelids. His head was pounding, his skin felt tingly all over, and there was some strange sound that he couldn’t quite make out. He finally opened his eyes to see the bright blue sky above him. A few moments later he pulled himself into a sitting position and looked around. He wasn’t on Cat Street any more…
“Where the hell…?”
“On top of 104.”
He turned to the sound of the voice to find… Joshua? He looked… older. “Josh? Is that you?”
Some sort of pressure swelled in his head, and Neku cringed. Next to him, the man smiled. “It’s Me all right. I don’t have to limit My powers quite so much for you to see Me anymore, so I don’t have to look so young.”
“That… ug…” he cringed again. “That wasn’t… what you really look like?”
“I used to look that way. Back when I was actually fifteen years old. That appearance had its upsides, of course; like getting you to trust Me, partner~.”
Yup. Still the same old snide Joshua.
Neku gripped his head and groaned. “My brain feels like it’s gonna explode…”
“You’ll get over it,” Joshua responded nonchalantly.
“And it hurts more whenever you talk.”
“Oh does it? Well, you know what they say, no pain, no gain…”
“Joshua, seriously… please. Just stop talking.”
“Saying please, now? Aren’t we being nice.” But despite the little jab, that was all that Joshua said for the next several minutes. They passed the time in silence. Little by little, the pressure in Neku’s head relented. Finally it got to the point where he was willing to let Joshua speak again.
“Why are we up here?”
“The flood.” Neku cringed with the sound, but at least this time the pain was bearable.
“Flood?”
“The flood of thoughts, feelings, and Souls, down on the Shibuya streets. Do you remember how overwhelming it was the first time you scanned with the Player pin? Imagine that all over again, a hundred times over.”
He winced, but this time it was at the memory. “A hundred? Geeze.”
Joshua nodded. “It should be the worst for the first day, but you have somewhere you need to be before then, so you can’t stay up here that whole time. Tell Me when you can only barely hear the Music below us, and that should be enough for your head to ‘not explode’, as you put it.”
“The Music? What?” But even as he spoke, Neku was aware of the strange noise that he’d been hearing slowly taking shape. Hundreds, even thousands of different pieces of music, all playing at the same time, all in harmony, all in dissonance. They varied in as many different ways as music possibly could, and yet when they all played at the same time, there was some sort of overwhelming masterpiece that it conveyed to only those who could hear it.
“The Melody of Shibuya,” Joshua whispered, and Neku wasn’t sure who it was said for. Regardless, he listened to it. The clearer it got, the less his head hurt. He could separate it out now. Not into individual parts, but he could hear sections, groups: people who thought alike all had a similar pattern, a similar feel to them.
He was tuning some of them out before he realized exactly what he was doing. He could selectively stop a section, and in the aftermath of the constant swell, it seemed like a great hush. He wondered for a moment whether he could block them all out: he tried it. The near silence rung in his ears; and only then did he notice it. There was one melody that was unique from all the rest, an entire piece unto itself. It was so rich and full, and yet the quietest of sounds that he couldn’t imagine having noticed it without blocking the rest. Yet from the little that was trickling in, he could tell: the entirety of the rest of the parts, the whole Melody of Shibuya, was following, in its overwhelming way, the pattern set by this one small voice. Even as he tried, he couldn’t stop this one from entering his mind, his heart, every part of him. Neku turned in wonder to Joshua, finally understanding why he was called the Composer.
Joshua looked at him, and after a moment, gave a slight smirk. “You want to go home now, Neku?”
He wanted to ask a thousand questions. So many mysteries tumbled through his head, each one fighting for his attention, begging him to question his former partner. But all he could do was listen to the glorious Music which had the rest of Shibuya following behind it. Listen and nod, yes, he’d go home now.
“Alright then, I’ll just lower My vibe again…” Suddenly Joshua was fifteen again. Joshua was fifteen, and the great guiding piece was gone. No, it wasn’t gone. It was just even less significant than before. But he could still hear it, probably only because he was standing right next to Joshua, still hear it leading Shibuya from the shadows.
Oh, and the pressure in his head all but vanished. “Wait… that was you! All of it was you!”
“Neku, Neku, Neku. So quick to blame. I only did that to get you used to it.” Joshua smirked. “Once we go down, it will hurt all over again.”
“Great…” Neku rolled his eyes and followed Joshua to the door off the roof.
As they slowly descended the staircase, Joshua gave a quick glance over his shoulder back at Neku and smirked. “Oh, I forgot to mention. As you’re getting used to your powers, they might go haywire from time to time.”
Neku froze. “Haywire? What does that mean?!”
Joshua shrugged. “Mostly it’ll be hard to keep your vibe stable. In terms even you would understand, it means you might find yourself slipping into the UG on accident.”
“Slipping? Like, dying? Or… wait… rrg… Josh, can you start making a little more sense?”
Joshua merely waved over his shoulder at Neku. “I have faith you’ll figure it out, my dear little Neku. But this is the last word of advice, so listen well. If you dare tell anyone that you’re the Producer, your life is forfeit. Permanently. No negotiations.”
Neku stopped short. Something in Joshua’s threat had seemed so full of malice. The usual smugness that seemed to be in every sentence he spoke, even when he wasn’t trying, was suddenly gone. He was serious. Deadly serious.
[File05]
“Ah!” Neku hissed, gripping his head. “Fuuuuuck…”
“I warned you,” Joshua said in a sing-song voice as he stepped out onto the street. Around them, people walked about, hundreds of people making music that they were completely unaware of. And DAMN was it loud!
“Well Neku, it’s been great fun. I’d love to stay longer, but I have a Game to prepare for. I suppose I’ll see you later.”
And Joshua was suddenly older again, but still smirking at Neku as if nothing had changed. Neku’s head screamed with agony.
Joshua raised a hand and waved. “Ta-ta.” He flashed white, and was gone, leaving Neku alone trying not to crumple to the ground in pain.
[File06]
“Well, well, if it ain’t Phones. Guess this means you got out, huh?”
Neku nearly choked on his noodles. He turned to the stool next to him just in time to see a familiar orange-haired figure sit down. His gaze wandered to the shock of pink that he somehow knew would also be there. Uzuki was giving him a look as if she’d just bit into a lemon. “Oh. You’re here. What a coincidence,” she said in a voice devoid of enthusiasm.
“Now don’t be like that, Uzuki. Game’s over for him. We’re not enemies any more.” He gave Neku a sideways grin. “Unless you decide to kick the bucket again.”
“Don’t plan on it,” Neku mumbled and turned back to his food. Kariya gave a soft chuckle before leaving him alone.
“Ramen is on you, Uzuki.”
“I know, I know. Sheesh. Stop reminding me. Two shio ramen,” she said to Ken Doi.
“Actually, make mine a miso,” Kariya said almost smugly, and Neku wondered if he’d only changed the order because it made the meal more expensive. Suddenly Neku found a hand on his shoulder, and it wasn’t at all comforting. “And how about one for our friend for a job well done? A small part of me was worried for you after we zonked out, you know. Even she was bothered by it,” Kariya jabbed a thumb in Uzuki’s direction, and she shot him a glare that threatened to erase him on the spot.
“I was not!! And there’s no way I’m paying for him, too!”
Neku brushed the hand from his shoulder, doing his best to ignore the swell of Music that had come from his contact with the Reaper. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
He deliberately finished eating his ramen, being careful not to look over at the other two customers. The last thing he wanted to accidently let them know was that he could still see their wings.
[File07]
The bell signaling lunch period rang, snapping Neku out of his daze. At the front of the classroom, the teacher sighed and finished writing his sentence on the board. Before he even got the chance to assign homework, the clamor of the students getting up to grab food before the cafeteria ran out had reached such a high level that shy of shouting, he had no way of making himself heard.
“You’re coming back here after you get something, right Neku?!”
“Yeah!” He shouted over his shoulder at Shiki before disappearing into the hallway. He made a mad dash for the cafeteria, knocking aside several students as he went, most of whom gave a shout of protest. He took the stairs down two at a time, all the while doing his best not to actually knock anyone down with him. Despite all his efforts, the lunch crowd was huge by the time he finally got there. Dammit, that’s what he got for being in the third farthest classroom away.
Neku sighed and started elbowing his way through the throng. He didn’t get very far before he must’ve pushed the wrong person; suddenly he was shoved backwards and clear out of the group.
Something felt strange.
By the time he hit the ground, the odd feeling had passed. He propped himself up on his elbows and tried to spot the person who’d pushed up with enough force to knock him clean over, but with the sheer amount of bodies it was practically impossible. “Fine,” he muttered to himself, “I’ll just ask Shiki for some of her food… again…”
He wasn’t looking forward to it. Partially because Shiki wasn’t the best of cooks, partially because a part of him felt guilty asking her for food more often than not, and partially because it seemed to send rumors flying that the two of them were dating. Wasn’t it just enough for a guy and a girl to be friends at this school?!
He slowly picked himself off the ground and trudged back to his classroom, finding himself suddenly more winded than he’d thought he was. It took him nearly four times the amount of time to get back as it had to get there, despite the fact that the number of people in the hallways had decreased dramatically. He sighed again as he walked through the open doorway and spotted Shiki. She was talking to someone in their class excitedly, probably about some new fashion trend or something. It was strange, despite having a different face from when she was a Player, her smile was almost exactly the same.
“Hey, Shiki…” he walked over to her and slumped down in a nearby chair, eyeing the rice balls sitting on the desk in front of her. “Would you mind giving me some food again? It’s hell down there.”
He felt his anger grow a bit as she ignored him, continuing her conversation (yeah, fashion) without even so much as glancing at him. After a few moments and a pause in the conversation, he spoke up again. “Shiki…”
Still she ignored him. He growled slightly under his breath and reached forward to grab her shoulder. “Shiki, why are you-”
His hand went right through her.
Neku froze for a second. Realization began to creep through him. “Oh, fuck!” he cursed, feeling himself starting to panic. He was in the UG, wasn’t he?!
“How the hell do I go back?!” He stood up and spun around. No one in the classroom noticed him. Of course. No one there could see him. And without a Player Pin, he couldn’t even imprint to give them a clue he was there. Not Shiki, nor anyone else.
He had finally gotten hearing the Music mostly under control, and now this. Now he had another power that was doing strange stuff. And the only person he could ask about it was…
Neku stopped short. Slowly he reached for his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. It said he didn’t have any reception; he hadn’t expected it to. He flipped it open, and with feelings of dread, scrolled through his contact list. He knew he’d never entered the name, but for some reason, he was sure it was there.
And it was, way down at the bottom. Yoshiya Kiryu.
Neku took a deep breath, staring at the name. His hand shook a bit. Briefly he contemplated flipping the phone shut and pocketing it without another thought, but then his gaze wandered back to Shiki, still happily chatting away with her friend. She probably thought he was still downstairs, fighting his way to get some food.
He pressed the call button and brought the phone to his ear. For a moment it seemed that he really didn’t have any sort of reception in the UG. He nearly jumped when he heard a dial tone. And then another.
Click. “Good afternoon, this is your wonderful Composer speaking, how may I help you today?” Neku could practically hear Joshua’s smirk through the phone.
“I’m stuck in the UG, Josh. How do I undo it?”
“Oh, my, back in the UG already, Neku? I would have thought you’d be more careful this time.”
“Not funny, Joshua. I’m not dead.”
“Yet. Hee hee.”
Neku cursed under his breath and reminded himself that as much as he didn’t want to deal with this crap, Joshua was the only one who could help him. “How do I get back to the RG?”
“By undoing what you did to get to the UG, of course.”
“I don’t KNOW what I did!” he shouted. He quickly looked around self-consciously after his outburst, before remembering that no one could hear him.
On the other end of the line, Joshua was chuckling. “Impatient, aren’t we, Neku?”
I’m standing in the middle of my classroom, with Shiki right next to me about to eat the rice balls that I would have eaten some of had I made it back from the cafeteria without food, and half of the school day left to sit through, oh and lunch period ends in twelve minutes and I’d rather not actually cut class was what Neku wanted to say, but he knew that it would just amuse Joshua more. Instead, he responded as levelly as he could, “Yes. Just a little impatient here.”
“Alright, then. I’ll head over there. Meet me on the roof. But you’ll owe me, Neku~”
Joshua giggled and hung up. Neku stuffed the phone back in his pocket, thoroughly frustrated. Great, now he owed Joshua something. At least he’d get his food.
He ran up to the roof and quickly looked around. Off on the opposite side were a few couples eating together, but no one was near him or looking in his direction. Suddenly something in the sky caught his eye. At first it was little more than a white speck, but all of a sudden it grew into a massive, winged, glowing white figure that stopped in the air just short of him, accompanied by a huge swell of Music. Neku shouted in surprise and nearly fell over backwards.
“Joshua?! What… what the hell…?!”
Neku tried his best to calm his racing heart, his eyes as wide as they would go. If it were possible, his jaw would have hit the floor. The figure before him seemed to shimmer, and abruptly faded away, leaving a teenage Joshua to drop the couple feet to the roof’s surface. And throw his arm out to the side dramatically, posing.
“A marvelous entrance, I know. Hold your applause, please.”
Clapping was the last thing on Neku’s mind at the moment. In fact, right about then, he was secretly praying that he hadn’t accidently pissed himself.
“Speechless, Neku?” Joshua tossed him a grin that seemed to snap the boy back to his senses. Neku shook his head.
“A-Anyways,” he began shakily, “so can you put me back?”
Joshua gave an exaggerated sigh with an accompanying eye roll. “I suppose so. Kids these days have no appreciation for performances…”
He placed a hand on Neku’s chest and shoved lightly. A strange feeling shot through Neku as he stumbled backwards. He quickly recovered his balance and looked up at Joshua. “Is that it?”
“That’s it. I can make it more dramatic if you like next time, but not everything powerful needs bright lights and feathers.”
Neku’s gaze dropped to the tiles at his feet. “Uh… thanks.”
Joshua chuckled. “I do expect a favor in return, my dear Neku.”
Neku gave a quick wave goodbye as he turned back to the door down off the roof. No sooner had he entered the building then the bell rang to signal the start of classes again. He cringed. Guess he wasn’t getting that rice ball after all.
[CloseFiles]
Comments/critique are much appreciated.