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“What the hell yourself,” a voice snaps at him, and Neku whirls around, his cheeks flushed, tears gathering embarrassingly at the corners of his eyes. It takes a moment for him to realize that people are shooting him concerned glances even as they sweep past him because there’s a girl standing right beside him, arms crossed and glaring like she’d like to remake his face.
“Wha—” Neku gets out.
“You almost hit me when you jumped up like that, and who the hell just stands there in the Scramble? Hurry up, we’re running out of time.”
She points at the pedestrian crossing lights, where only one of the five bars is lit up in green, indicating that the traffic lights will soon turn.
“I—” Neku’s heart is racing, and then it hits him that he can feel his heartbeat in his ears. He slaps a hand against his chest, his fingers tangling against the straps of his MP3, and there it is, his heart, thumping against his ribcage. “I, what—”
The annoyed look slips off the girl’s face. She glances around them, at the rushing crowd, and then grabs Neku by the elbow. Neku pulls away reflexively but her grip is like steel, and she murmurs, “hey, just trust me, okay?”
It’s the choice of words that makes Neku give in, stumbling along in her wake and jostling the last few stragglers as they go.
The lights switch just as they hit the sidewalk, and cars and buses fill the Scramble Crossing, whizzing by close enough that Neku can feel the buffet of air as they pass by. The girl – a couple of years older than him, college-aged maybe? – pulls him further away before dropping her hold on him, although she keeps close.
“Are you okay?” she asks bluntly, and then her voice softens when she catches a glimpse of Neku’s face. Neku has no idea what expression he’s wearing but he feels absolutely horrible, his heart pounding and caged adrenaline in his veins, and everything – everything – hurts. “It’s dangerous to freeze in the middle of a road like that. You could get hurt, you know.”
Neku thinks about lying, or maybe just turning away and walking off, but he’s not that person anymore. It scares him, talking to this girl scares him, but walling himself off and being alone right now?
That’s a million times worse.
“What’s today’s date?”
The girl tilts her head at him, but answers anyway. “The 19th. Thursday.”
Three weeks. The exact same amount of time; either he spent the last three weeks in an elaborate daydream, or he spent them in an underworld mirror world fighting first for answers, then for his friends, and finally for everyone to live.
“Hey seriously kid, you okay?”
Neku automatically scowls, and no, that really should not be his reaction. He should watch his back and figure this out, this twisted new game or whatever the hell it is, but he can’t help it; some things don’t change all that easily.
“I’m not a kid,” he growls.
It makes the girl laugh, her shoulders relaxing a little bit, and she mimes flicking a finger at Neku’s forehead. “To me you are, kiddo. You’re like, what, fifteen? Definitely a kid.”
And it’s weird that it’s this mix of amused irritation that washes away most of his panic, leaving an achy ball of uncomfortable hyperawareness in his chest, constantly there but manageable.
He takes a deep breath, and then another, because he spent three weeks in a game of death against impossible odds and he handled it, and there’s no reason to fall apart now.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
The girl gives him a look.
“I’ll be okay?” he tries instead, and she reaches out and ruffles his bangs, managing not knocking his headphones off. It’s really annoying and Neku ducks his head away immediately, but it’s also oddly comforting.
People walked through him in the UG.
The girl watches him with a smile. “I get it, you don’t know me, and it’s weird, right? So if you don’t want to be accosted by a stranger, don’t get on the road if you’re not feeling okay, got it?”
“Yeah,” Neku says, because what else can he say? Anything he brings up will sound like crazy talk, and it isn’t fair to drag her into his problems.
She nods, checking the time on her phone. “See you around then.”
Neku is struck by a sudden urge not unlike the flash of inspiration. “Hey!”
She turns, her head tipped to the side questioningly. She’s patient, more patient than Neku deserves, and he lifts his chin, meets her gaze squarely so she knows he means it.
“Thanks.”
The sudden smile flashing across her face is kind. She flicks a silent salute at him, and disappears into the crowd.
---
Falling asleep is both a blessing and a curse. Neku stares at his ceiling (of his bedroom, from his own bed, oh god it’s the little things that break the illusion of calm he’d scraped together), exhaustion clawing at his eyes, and clings viciously to the sensation even as he slips into unconsciousness, because despite three weeks going by he had never experienced falling asleep during the Game.
Just a sudden blackout and waking up to find a day had gone by on his phone.
Sleep itself, however, isn’t quite as pleasant. He isn’t sure if they are nightmares or flashbacks – the few times he jerks awake, barely cresting the surface of consciousness, he only gets shadowy impressions – and when he awakens for good at the ungodly hour of half past four, his hair, his skin and his sheets are drenched with cold sweat.
He lies there in the dark and remembers, with sudden abruptness, that the first trains will start running soon.
Neku takes a cold shower. He leaves a note for his parents about an early appointment. At the station (don’t turn, don’t look around; the Underpass is an ominous presence at his back), he loads five thousand yen on his rail card, and takes the next available train out of Shibuya.
---
Neku doesn’t realize how tightly he’s wound until the train passes into Shinjuku, the announcer’s voice calmly stating the upcoming station like it isn’t a miracle that Neku is standing there, beyond Shibuya’s borders for the first time in three weeks.
His shoulders ache as they finally relax, and Neku stares at the sky through the windows, the faintest inkling of colour tingeing the fading darkness, his mind a blur of white noise – not processing anything, just taking everything in with a quiet relief.
The train goes almost an entire loop before Neku carefully steps off, crosses the platform, and gets on a train heading in the opposite direction. The first rush of students and office workers is starting; the cars fill up, and Neku wedges himself in a corner, his headphones drawn tight over his ears.
The low, rhythmic rumble of the train is the only music Neku listens to today.
He wonders if the school will call his parents if he skips class, because it’s not like anyone noticed that he hadn’t been around the last three weeks. His parents certainly hadn’t; he’d been in bed when they got back from work, and other than some worry about whether he was sick (“I’m okay,” he tells them, because death isn’t exactly a fixable medical condition – not normally, anyway) they hadn’t been concerned at all.
He wonders, for a very brief instant, if it was all just a dream – he doesn’t have any scars, or the pins and threads he’d collected over the weeks, and his message inbox is empty. He dismisses the thought a moment later.
The UG is real. He can’t explain how he knows it’s true.
As the train idles at a stop, Neku wonders, with a slow rising sense of panic, if there are Reapers here. If there’s a red hood charged with permanently maintaining a barrier that walls off the train stations, keeping the Players strictly in-game. If this corner of Tokyo has its own Composer and its own Game and for a moment Neku feels so nauseous he is almost sick.
The sun makes its slow steady way across the sky.
---
The ring of his phone makes Neku flinch.
He’s a loner, no one calls him, but there’s also the memory of a message coming in and the searing pain of the timer burning itself into his palm, and he stares down at the ID – caller unknown – for a long moment before answering.
“Sakuraba Neku?”
The voice sounds familiar – very familiar – although the tone is all wrong, and Neku straightens, glances around the train, wary, even as he tries to figure out who the caller is.
“Yes?”
“My name is Eri,” she says, and Neku freezes. The train swerves to the side and Neku nearly pitches into the door, flailing out with one hand to grab the guardrail.
“Hello?”
“I—I’m here.” The train is fairly empty, the crush of the morning rush hour over now, but Neku ducks into the furthest corner of the compartment, turning to face the windows. The scenery blurs past, buildings and streets and roads, while in the distance the sky stays suspended, unmoving.
“Shiki mentioned your name—” and Neku’s heart leaps, the hope so unexpected it’s painful. ”She couldn’t contact you, only knew that you live in Shibuya, but I know people. Imoto Ami gave me your number.”
His class representative, one of the rare few at school who would have his cell phone number. Neku wants to cut in, holding the phone so tightly to his ear that it hurts, but Eri is a force of nature and her voice sweeps on.
“Shiki is upset,” she says, sharp and painfully in control, the anger underneath her words firmly leashed with steel barb. “And she won’t tell me why. It’s not—” her voice dips, and Neku remembers abruptly that she and Shiki had fought, a misunderstanding that drove the two of them apart just before a terrible accident sent Shiki to the Underground. “She says it’s not me, and I believe her. So I need to know, Sakuraba. Who are you?”
“Please,” and Neku has to swallow around the unfamiliar plea, not because he’s unwilling but because he’s trembling so much he can barely see straight. “Can I talk to her?”
There’s a pause, and then a breathy sigh, relieved. “Yeah. You can, I’m going to pass my phone to her. Look, we’re skipping class by hiding out in the washroom, and it’s only a matter of time before someone catches us and sends us to the nurse’s office instead. I’m counting on you.”
“I—yes,” Neku gets out, but Eri is already gone; he can hear sharp precise knocks against a surface, the soft murmur of conversation, and then a new voice, unfamiliar in both pitch and from the emotion choking it.
The way she says his name, however, is exactly the same.
“Neku?”
“Shiki,” Neku says immediately, and then Shiki is crying and Neku doesn’t know what the hell to do because for the seven days he’d known her Shiki had never cried, not once.
He ends up repeating her name over and over like an idiot, Shiki, Shiki, to make up for his stupidity during the first week where he hadn’t acknowledged her strength and her friendship and Shiki herself enough, and it’s crazy but it actually seems to work, because Shiki’s determinedly sniffling as she wills the tears away and then she’s growling into the phone about how unprepared she is, she has to use toilet paper to dab her eyes and blow her nose and she’s got to hold it together and finally— “Neku, are you okay?” —because that’s Shiki – she always, always checks if he’s okay.
“I am now,” he tells her, and doesn’t bother hiding how husky his own voice is, rough with emotion.
Shiki laughs, soft and only slightly hysterical, and Neku joins her, because what else can he do? He’s alive and she’s alive and Neku doesn’t care if there’s a fall for this later – he’ll take this miracle now.
“I got grounded,” Shiki says. “I got grounded because I was out too late, because I was at the 104, and Eri was there, looking for me, and we—”
She breaks off, taking deep breathes to calm herself, and Neku cuts in gently. “Did you tell her everything you needed to say?”
“I did,” and the smile in Shiki’s words is obvious, although her voice is still wobbly. “We’re better now, and I’m really glad I had her with me—it’s a little fuzzy, the—the Game. Like a dream. It feels real, and I remember it, but I had no idea if—” she cuts herself off, and then says resolutely, “It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s a terrifying dream when I’m alone.”
“Yeah, I get that. Totally.” They both think on that for a while, and Neku clears his throat. “So you got grounded?”
“We’re supposed to meet at Hachiko,” Shiki says. “I don’t want to lie to my parents or go behind their backs, but Neku, we were supposed to meet at Hachiko.”
“Definitely,” Neku says immediately, because there’s the tiniest hint of uncertainty in her voice, not about him, but that this reality, them being alive, will shatter. Neku doesn’t blame her; he’s annoying people by answering the phone on the train, even if he keeps his voice down, and their pointed looks are more reassuring than he thinks is possible. “When do you get ungrounded?”
“In a week.”
“Then we’ll meet at Hachiko in a week. And in the meantime, you have my number.”
“I’ll text you mine,” Shiki says immediately. There’s the rattle of clicked buttons, and then Neku feels his phone buzz in his hand. This time, he feels no wariness at all, just an incandescent relief.
“Got it.”
He didn’t think he could bear silence right now, but although neither of them speak Neku still feels fine. It’s enough to hear Shiki quietly breathing over the line, the way she still sniffles occasionally. Neku holds tightly onto the guardrail, leaning his head against the glass of the train doors, and closes his eyes.
“Neku.”
“Yeah?”
“I saw Rhyme this morning.”
It’s like a kick to the chest. The thought was there, nagging at the back of his mind, and he’d shoved it away to concentrate on Shiki and the reality that they are both alive, but now the worry and fear surges to the front and he needs to get off this train. Right now.
“How,” he says, and then more urgently, “she’s alive?”
“She’s in the middle school division of my school; I saw her from a distance. She was on the phone, and I think it was with Beat. She remembers. She looked up and she saw Eri and she lifted her crown necklace.”
The train pulls in at a station, and Neku steps off without bothering to look at which stop it is. He stops in the center of the platform, lets all the disembarking passengers disperse, and then he slumps against a vending machine.
“That’s why I didn’t know if the Game was a dream or not,” Shiki says softly. “Neku, I don’t remember what happened after we fought the Conductor, but we saw Rhyme disappear. She… wasn’t there at the end of the Game.”
“… a lot happened after you won, Shiki,” Neku says, and he can barely stand to think about that second week now, his thoughts and his emotions a complete mess. “Mr. Hanekoma sealed her Soul into a pin. She wasn’t… completely erased.”
A long silence, and then—“So the Composer brought her back as well.”
Neku drops his head into his free hand, pulling at his hair until his scalp tingles with pain. He has never felt this level of helpless rage before, born mostly out of the need to understand and being denied the opportunity to do so. The Composer vowed to destroy Shibuya, and he didn’t. He shot Neku twice, smiling, and yet here Neku is, standing in the Realground kilometers away from Shibuya. He erased the Conductor with barely a thought or effort, and yet brought Rhyme back to life.
Shiki was the first to open up Neku’s world, but it’s Joshua who made Neku confront his demons, who forced Neku to examine his world and constantly drove him to do more, pursue more, feel more.
Joshua is his partner, and Joshua is Shibuya’s Composer.
Neku slams his head back against the vending machine, to give himself an excuse for the way his head aches. It’s like the “did he murder me, no he did not murder me, oh yes he really did murder me” scenario all over again.
“—Neku. Neku.”
There’s a calm cadence to Shiki’s voice that suggests that she’s been calling his name for a while now.
“I’m—” he swallows the fine, because he really isn’t “—here.”
“Okay.” There’s a little pause, and there Shiki says carefully, “Neku, there was another boy. I think… he spoke to you, after we defeated the Conductor the second time. He… had silver hair?”
Neku’s mouth is so dry that his first reply clicks in his throat. “Yeah.”
“It’s so hard to remember,” she says softly. “All the details are blurred out; it took me forever to even get a memory of silver hair, and I don’t remember anything after he appeared.” And because she’s Shiki, she doesn’t hesitate. “He’s the Composer, isn’t he?”
Neku closes his eyes, their breathing the only sound over the line for a long minute. “Yeah, he is,” he finally says, and then, “I didn’t know,” slips right out, desperate, bewildered, and Neku presses the back of his palm against his forehead.
“What happened?”
Neku likes Shiki’s real voice – it’s softer, mellower, and it suits her, the way she always cares. It’s an invitation to share his troubles because they’ve always worked better as a team, all of them, but Neku can barely understand the situation himself; he’s only going to make a mess of it trying to explain it to her.
“I can’t talk about it right now.” Then Neku thinks about what he said, and then he’s scrambling to explain himself. “I’m not pushing you away again, I swear—”
“Neku,” Shiki cuts in, gentle. “It’s okay. We can talk later, if you’re up for it.”
His throat hurts when he swallows, but the word doesn’t choke in his mouth. “Thanks.”
They sit in silence until Shiki makes a small noise of inquiry, the murmured sound of Eri’s voice coming over the line. They converse for a minute – a fellow student just gave them a tipoff that their teacher is starting wonder where they’ve gone – and Neku listens in on Shiki’s side of the conversation because she doesn’t bother moving the phone away, and when she says his name he already knows she has to go.
“I can stay on the line,” she says, determined, and Neku knows he just needs to say so, and she will.
“No, don’t get in trouble because of me.”
Shiki draws in a deep breath, ready to argue with him, and he adds, “And it’s not really fair to use up Eri’s minutes. It’s been, what, half an hour?”
“Oh,” she says, and it’s clear she’s forgotten about that. “I can call you.”
“Go back to class, Shiki.” Neku pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll text you. After school gets out.”
“Not quite a date,” she says, and the smile is back in her voice. “But I’ll take it.”
He stares out at the Tokyo landscape for a long while after Shiki hangs up; two trains rush up to the station and then sweep back out. Finally, he sends a text to Eri that just says thanks before he shoves the phone back into his pocket, looks up to find his bearings.
The third train sweeps in, en route to Shibuya, and Neku gets on.
---
Neku’s waking hours are punctuated by a flurry of messages and chain emails for the next few days.
Shiki links up with Rhyme after school, and before Neku gets out of detention (the price of missing half a day’s worth of classes in return for not informing his parents, and Neku very, very carefully does not think about the prices he paid to play the Games he hadn’t even wanted to be part of) he gets bombarded with separate texts from Shiki and Beat, Rhyme’s greetings tacked onto Beat’s – the first of many, many messages.
It really is a miracle Neku doesn’t get in trouble for the way his phone vibrates on and off every couple of minutes while he’s in class.
Beat, unsurprisingly, is exactly the same. If gaining a pair of Reaper wings didn’t change him, then being alive wouldn’t do anything to his indomitable spirit. All Beat ever wanted was to get Rhyme back and return her to the world of the living; with both of those wishes in hand, he had dismissed all the oddities of the Game.
It helps that Rhyme has all memories of her brother intact, although her days in the UG are blurry – she remembers enough that she knows Shiki and Neku, but not in sufficient detail that she questions why she had treated her brother like a stranger for the four days they were Players together. It scared Beat for a while when the worst finally comes out – that she remembers the Shark Noise – but Rhyme, as always, is calm and practical.
It scares me at odd times, crossing the road, she writes to them. But I’m taking it a day at a time, and Beat’s here. I’ll be okay.
“She’s strong,” Shiki tells Neku afterward on speaker phone, sewing steadily as she speaks; falling back into their old rhythms helps, and although Mr. Mew isn’t at all harmed by his time in the UG Shiki wanted to patch him up as thanks all the same. “Beat’s working things out with their parents now too, and Rhyme’s always there to talk him through it. Just like during the Game.”
Neku has his phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder, not quite seeing the empty page of his sketchbook; he’s thinking about the series of graffiti tags along the roads heading towards Udagawa, bold and exquisitely detailed for how small they are. He hasn’t brought himself to actually visit the murals, but he’s working his way up to it.
“Shibuya hasn’t changed,” Neku says. “It looks like we came back with everything we left with.”
That’s not quite true, of course. They came back with much more.
There are the phone calls and the text messages and the realization that Neku really does have friends now, although all of them had to die for a little while for it to happen, and then there’s the way a couple of guys call out a greeting to him when he walks into class, and the way the class representative smiles tentatively at him, her smile morphing into a wider, more genuine one a moment later.
Neku realizes it’s because he’s smiling back at her. He ducks his head immediately, and when he looks back up she’s making her way down the aisle.
“Sakuraba, hey,” she says.
“Um. Hey.”
And wow, that was not awkward at all.
“I didn’t manage to catch you earlier, but I wanted to let you know that I gave your phone number to someone who says she knows you.” At Neku’s sudden sharp look, she hurries on. “That’s private information, I know, but she said it was very important, and I trust Eri—”
Neku totally forgot about that. He blows out a breath and tries for reassuring, because he can’t manage nonchalant at the moment. “It’s cool – Eri’s right, it was important.”
“I hope everything is okay. A couple of us were worried when you didn’t come in until the afternoon that day.”
Neku is still caught off guard enough that his words don’t stay inside his head. “‘A couple of us’? Just how many people does Eri know?”
“A lot,” Ami says, grinning. “Plus, the clothes and crafts she and her friend create are really popular. See this?” she turns her head to show off the pretty hair ornament tucked into the bun her hair is pulled into, housing a discreet cluster of tiny flowers made from silk cloth. “Eri designed it, and her friend put it together, stitched and folded each of the flowers. It’s exquisite work.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Neku says. It really is, and he’s already thinking of ways he can sneak his phone out and text Shiki that she’s famous.
“That’s what my boyfriend said, when he commissioned it from them.” Ami says with a laugh. She tilts her head, and then says in a softer, more discreet voice. “You should smile more, Sakuraba. You have a nice smile.”
It’s a really good thing that the morning bell goes off just then, because Neku is very adaptable after three weeks in the Game, but he doesn’t know at all how to react to that.
And then there’s the text message Rhyme sends to him, four days after they came back to life.
Thank you.
Neku has gotten to know Rhyme better these couple of days, so he writes back directly, What for?
He doesn’t get a response for a long while, so he’s caught entirely off guard when the reply finally comes.
You stayed with Beat, and you defeated the game master. You heard me, and you let me help.
His subconscious realizes it first because Neku’s blood freezes in his veins, his hands slipping on the phone, and then he gets it: the game master of the third week, Konishi, and the way she’d ask him how he called Rhyme’s Noise form from her pin, even though Neku wasn’t a Reaper.
Neku rewrites his reply about ten times over the next half a minute, and with each message he deletes the panic quickly crystalizes into a single, steadfast conviction: if the Composer is playing fast and loose with memories again, with Rhyme’s life, Neku will—
Are you safe? I can come find you.
I’m okay. A dream is a wish the heart makes. I wanted to remember, and so I dreamed of it. I had this feeling that I was always with Beat somehow, even though I couldn’t think of how I survived after that… trap. Now I know.
It makes Neku pause, the steadiness in Rhyme’s words, and he rereads the message again. Before he can think of a reply, his phone chimes again.
It isn’t that bad. It’s a different way of being, when you’re Noise. I don’t remember everything, and even if I did, I wouldn’t understand, I think.
The thing is that Neku gets it. He spent a couple of weeks missing chunks of his memories and it’s horrible, knowing that things are disconnected and illogical simply because you can’t see the entire picture, and so he understands why Rhyme would want to remember everything, even her own time as Noise.
He also gets it, he really does. A written message hides things; he can’t read Rhyme’s emotions, whether she’s putting up a strong front or reaching out the only way she’s capable of while being terrified out of her mind. But this is Rhyme, who saved Beat’s life at the cost of her own, who knew her priorities even when she didn’t recognize her brother and who leapt to Neku’s aid the instant Neku fed her pin enough power for her to materialize. He has to trust that Rhyme knows her own limits, and that when she says she’s okay, she really is okay.
Trust is a leap of faith, Rhyme would probably say.
Neku still wants to set something aflame or maybe bash something to bits, though. And speaking of smashing things—
You haven’t told Beat.
Beat’s done enough for me. This is my secret to keep.
She doesn’t ask because they both already know – Neku won’t breathe a single word about this. There are just some things that they can’t talk about to the people who weren’t there, the way Neku still hasn’t told Shiki – told any of them – what happened down in that otherworldly throne room after they defeated the Conductor.
So instead, Neku types, Thanks, Rhyme. We couldn’t have beaten her without you.
You’re welcome. See you at Hachiko on Friday!
Neku stares down at his phone for a long time after that. Communicating at once removed through the phone helps, giving Neku space to think and consider. He grew up being a loner and the habits are ingrained now, even if at heart he needs other people around. Even now, after three weeks of enforced interaction Neku still finds it difficult, especially when he’s trying to figure out all the whys of that final Game.
(Why destroy Shibuya in the first place? Why the sudden change of heart? Why did all four of us get to come back?
Why did you pick me?)
Neku can’t talk to the others about this, and as for the one person who holds all the answers – well, Neku doesn’t even know where to start. It’s not like he has a number to that stupid orange phone; playing Reaper Creeper might serve him better although at that rate he might as well just speak to the air, because it’s not like he can see if anyone in the UG is listening in or not. For all he knows, it might work – Rhyme asked for her memories back, didn’t she? And someone had answered.
So maybe the question is less how he’s going to do it, and whether Neku wants to.
---
Trust your partner… and I do. I can’t forgive you, but I trust you. You took care of things, right? Otherwise, Shibuya would be gone and my world with it. Hey, did I mention? I’ve got friends now! We’re meeting for the first time in a week. See you there?
---
Neku ends up at Cat Street the day after the gathering at the Statue of Hachiko.
He spends a long time just watching the other pedestrians. He didn’t really come here a lot before the three weeks in the Game, mostly stopping at Towa Records for the music and to stare at CAT’s latest billboard work, so he doesn’t know if he’s seen the Wildkat Café before or whether it’s a UG-only thing.
Everyone else’s gaze seems to gloss right over the glass doors, which probably explains why it’s so empty in there all the time. Neku’s surprised that his eyes don’t do the same, but there’s been precedence, hasn’t there? People who saw the UG when they were alive and had gone to the one place that straddles both worlds in a way even those decals can't emulate. The shopkeepers of Shibuya don't know about the roles they play in the Game, but this one barista does.
Neku takes a deep breath before he crosses the road and pushes against the door, listening for the jingle of the bell before stepping in.
It’s weird to see Hanekoma behind the counter, looking up and looking entirely unsurprised.
“Hey there, Phones,” Hanekoma says, and Neku just stares.
The place’s been cleaned up since the last time Neku was here, the broken glass, the wrecked tables and chairs all replaced with brand spanking new counterparts, but the room still seems empty somehow, the way a show house feels without families living in them.
“Coffee?” Hanekoma asks. Neku nods, and it’s quiet except for the hiss and whirl of the coffee machine. The rich, heady scent of coffee is sharper, stronger than Neku remembers. Hanekoma unboxes espresso cups and mugs and saucers and arranges them in odd patterns across the countertop before pouring out a cup of fragrant coffee, and when Neku finally slides onto a high stool before the counter the air feels comfortable on his skin, the café warm and friendly again.
Neku cradles the mug between his hands, lets the heat sink into his bones. “I saw your wall tags.”
“Ah.”
“The new ones around Udagawa,” Neku says, and maybe he’s picked up some of Joshua’s damned speech patterns, the saying of multiple things with one single innocuous sentence.
Hanekoma watches him steadily, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. “You like ‘em?”
“Yeah.” Neku’s fingers sketch random, restless patterns on warm ceramic. “They’re a lot like your bigger artwork.”
The big mural at Udagawa still calls to him, a strong steady wave that feels like the rush of wind on Neku’s skin, not unlike the buzz of the Underground. Neku doesn’t know if that’s always been part of the CAT murals or whether he’s just more sensitive after being tuned to a different world. Enjoy life! they shout, just like always, but with more now – enjoy the moment, and live like it’s your very last.
Hanekoma chuckles. “The message never changes – but people do, and what they hear changes with them. Glad you like my art.”
Neku feels the fine hairs at the back of his neck rise. He knew, Joshua told him, but the wall tags are definitely Underground-related, and Mr. H has just as much as admitted that he’s CAT.
It’s crazy how much more impactful it is hearing that fact from the man himself.
Neku spends a minute flailing internally before he manages to drag his gaze away from his coffee with some semblance of calm. The look on Hanekoma’s face is familiar, however, and it stops Neku’s wandering thoughts dead in their tracks.
Hanekoma is wearing the same smile as the last time Neku saw the man – it’s a Joshua smile, all smoke and mirrors, although it lacks the Composer’s overwhelming smugness. Neku’s not dying from pain and shock this time and Hanekoma’s eyes are serious, even calculative, above the smile, and Neku wonders – did they get along so well because they’re so similiar, Joshua and Mr. H, or did one learn how to smile that way from the other?
Hanekoma’s smile turns rueful, and he shakes his head once. “Drink your coffee. Isn’t every day I let someone have one on the house.”
Neku takes a sip automatically – because it’s CAT telling him so – and the coffee is surprisingly mellow on his tongue, subtly rich and flavourful. “Did you know I was going to come here?”
“You live in Shibuya and my café is in Shibuya. It was only a matter of time.”
Neku stares down into the murky depths of his coffee and says, softly, “So it’s my turn to swing by, to talk about things no one else quite knows about.”
“But I’m not the one you really want to talk to.”
Neku’s eyes jerk up, and he really should be used to everyone – everyone – knowing more than he does, even about his own feelings. Wonderful. “Easier said than done,” he mutters, and wonders what exactly he’s feeling. Frustrated? Annoyed? Tense? Like he’s utterly out of his mind? All of the above?
Neku stifles a sigh and drinks his coffee.
“No, he doesn’t make it easy.” Hanekoma watches Neku, a more genuine smile edging the corners of his mouth. “You’re not going to ask.”
Neku shrugs. “Straight answers seem pretty rare around here. I think I’ve gotten enough miracles this past week. I’m not pushing my luck.”
“Sounds fair,” Hanekoma says. “What if I give you some help getting there, though?”
By some sleight of hand or play of light, Neku isn’t sure which, a simple pin appears in Hanekoma’s hand, which he sets down on the counter with the tips of two fingers, face up.
It’s only Neku’s utmost respect for CAT and the memory of all the times Mr. H had helped him during the Game, with Shiki, with Beat, that Neku doesn’t recoil from counter. He still feels his heartbeat pick up, because – it’s not like Neku has forgotten, how Hanekoma had been standing next to Joshua in that shadowy throne room while Neku lay dying on the floor.
His voice comes out remarkably calm. “What is that.”
“A choice,” Hanekoma says.
The pin sits there, seemingly innocent, black skull on white. Neku doesn’t take his eyes off it. "A choice for what?"
Hanekoma smiles. "For many things. You didn’t have a choice about entering the Game, and you were never a normal Player; the decisions you had to make were far beyond anything a normal Player would encounter in a typical Game. That won't change," and here he gives a small shrug, "but the Game is over, and the rules are different, and you deserve options. This pin will take you anywhere you want to go in Shibuya."
"Why would I—"
"Anywhere, Phones."
It clicks, in the wonderful but horrible way that revelations come together – wonderful because the mystery’s solved and horrible because Neku can’t plead ignorance now. “You want me to go after him?”
“I’m giving you that option.” Hanekoma nods at the pin, and goes back to putting away the new tableware. “That’s all.”
“… I don’t think I’ll be welcomed, anyway.” It’s still too raw, the memory of how he’d been dropped in the Scramble Crossing that final time, scared and hurting and believing that he’s in the Game again, and layered over that is the resounding silence that met the invitation he’d spoken aloud just the day before.
Fortunately, Hanekoma doesn’t seem to hear him – to Neku’s relief – except when he turns toward Neku, it’s quite clear he did.
“You know, Phones, my exclusives are pretty durable, but you might want to keep a better hold of this one,” and with that, he sets Neku’s headphones on the counter.
For a long moment Neku thinks that it can’t be the same pair; he remembers the smooth plastic leaving his fingers, and CAT’s uber rare merchandise are built very well indeed but there’s no way anything could survive getting battered and broken amidst Shibuya’s crowd. But although Neku keeps his gear in pristine condition even the most resilient items pick up marks when they’re as well-worn as Neku’s headphones, and he can see those from here, the slight smudges of wear that would fit the shape of Neku’s fingers perfectly, the way the headphones are pulled two notches down on the right but only one notch on the left.
He pushes the coffee cup away and picks up the headphones, and it’s a familiar, familiar weight in his hands.
“How—”
“I recover most of my merchandise myself, but this one was a special delivery.”
Neku stares at Hanekoma, his heartbeat picking up – he can feel it pounding in his chest, a palpable reminder that he’s alive – and thinks, no way.
“Well, I gotta say… I’m not entirely sure he knew what he was doing, and it’s just like him to take the long route by dropping it off here. But hey! Least you got it back after all, right?”
Neku curls his fingers around the plastic. “I’m going to just say it – I don’t get any of this.” He can hear his voice go just a little hysterical, thin and higher pitched than normal.
Hanekoma’s expression is kind but just as steadfast as all those times he gave Neku advice during the Game. Games. Whatever. “You get it better than you think, Phones.”
It’s really unfair how calm Hanekoma is about this when Neku’s about ready to vibrate out of his skin. His eyes drop back to the pin, unmoved from where Hanekoma had set it down and his hands tighten further on his headphones. Hanekoma’s pin might not be a dangerous red but Neku doesn’t know what will happen when he picks up that pin, an inverse of the Player pin. He fought so hard to get back to the RG; does he really want to become embroiled again in everything that the skull design represents?
Then again, Neku had invited Shibuya’s Composer himself to meet him and his friends in the Realground. There isn’t much more involved than that.
He looks up, meets Hanekoma’s gaze.
“Can you keep hold of this for a while?”
Hanekoma’s eyes flicker down to the headphones. “Sure. Any reason why you’re not taking it with you?”
Neku stares down at it. For the longest time the headphones had been one of his most prized possessions – not for its actual value, but for what it represents. CAT-designed, limited edition, that’s the first of it; Neku’s never subscribed to the trends that rule Shibuya but he knows what it means to make a statement, even if his is all personal, and he knows what the headphones say about him. He’s a disciple of CAT’s philosophy, his world is made from the music of his choice, drowning out the cacophony of the world and holding unwanted chaos at bay, and he does what he wants, no matter what others label him.
He wasn’t giving up any of that when he left the headphones behind – he’s just learning to grow beyond it, to open up his world a little more.
Maybe he doesn’t have to let go of anything to get something new.
“I’ll be back for them. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
“Okay.” Neku sets the headphones back on the counter. “Okay,” he says again, and picks up Hanekoma’s pin before he can talk himself out of it.
It doesn’t warm up in his hands, no wisps of thoughts flicking through his mind, no power or potential lighting up at his fingertips. But then again Neku’s in the Realground, and from what Hanekoma said it’s basically a keypin, neutral and mostly harmless. He closes his fist around it and tucks his hand carefully in one pocket, holding on tight. The breath he blows out is at once tense and relieved.
“Okay,” Neku says a third time, and pushes away from the counter before he makes a bigger fool of himself, remembering to add, “Thanks, Mr. H.”
He’s halfway out the cafe, the bell jiggling above his head, when Hanekoma speaks up again.
“Neku—” and when Neku glances back, startled, Hanekoma just grins. “Good luck!”
The café doors swing shut before Neku can think of a reply.
---
Neku’s gotten used to thinking on the go, turning over clues while running towards the next mission, so by the time he reaches the Underpass he has a couple of scenarios mapped out.
The first one is that Joshua won’t be there at all, or (a more terrifying thought) that Neku wouldn’t be able to sense him even if he was. The Reapers can visit the RG at will, but it doesn’t mean they have to be visible.
The second is that he would have to go all the way to that eerie throne room with the high ceilings and the dark but elaborate markings, nothing like CAT’s murals, and that thought makes Neku’s palms sweat so much that he has to unclench his hand from around the inverted pin, wipe them dry on his pants.
He thinks about the Reapers when he reaches the Shibuya River, feels a buzz over his skin that passes so quickly that Neku must have imagined it, and wonders where all the trash heaps have gone before he reaches the doors, wide and imposing. He paces for a little while and then forces himself go through them before he loses his nerve, trying very hard to be stealthy just in case there’s a new Conductor waiting on the other side.
So Neku is caught entirely off guard when he walks into the water and glass-gilded room to find Joshua seated on the leather couch, preternaturally still, his eyes closed.
If he ever had any doubts that Joshua is Shibuya’s Composer, they are well and truly banished now.
At first glance, Joshua appears exactly the same – messy silver hair curling about his neck, the painfully expensive tailored shirt and slacks and shoes, although his mouth is a neutral line instead of the perpetual smirk that gave Neku’s second week partner a Cheshire cat-like air. But the longer Neku stares, the more the Composer’s inhumanity bleeds through; Joshua’s normally pale skin appears translucent now, a thin barrier pulled over an inner radiance, and when Neku glances around the room he keeps catching afterimages in the periphery of his vision, as though Neku can see a suggestion of what Joshua truly is, but only if he isn’t looking with his Realground eyes.
The stab of pain hitting Neku between the eyes the moment he steps over the threshold and onto glass is very, very familiar indeed.
There’s a part of him that’s screaming at Neku to stay still, to not call attention to himself, but the Games have turned his instincts all around. Standing still feels wrong when he’s too used to dodging and swiping with Psyches, and the first few steps into the room makes the pain in his head throb, heightening the sense of battle, of danger.
Joshua doesn’t move. Neku had been sure he’d been waiting for just the right moment to open his eyes, accompanied by the smirk and maybe soft laughter, mocking, and the lack of anything throws Neku off-kilter.
How like Joshua, to throw him off guard without even trying.
Looking at Joshua makes Neku’s heartbeat spike and his head hurt, but looking around the room isn’t any better. He keeps getting flashes of the first battle with the Conductor – the split second glimpse of the way Shiki’s expression went blank and her eyes fevered before the Conductor’s intense attacks forced Neku’s attention away. There’s the spot where Beat had collapsed at under Shiki’s furious final attack, where Neku had gently laid her after slicing the Red Pin apart.
He’d been numb into calmness at the time, but Neku can feel his breath go short and stuttery. He’s fine when it comes to his own issues – the visit to Udagawa hadn’t gone badly at all, surprisingly – but the thought of his friends in danger makes the reality of the past month crash down on him all over again, and Neku jerks his gaze back to Joshua.
Joshua, who had fired a gun at him with a grin the last time Neku saw him. Neku won’t forget that sight any time soon.
Joshua, who Neku had also seen disappearing in a blaze of pure energy, the pain from the hard shove nothing compared to the way Neku’s heart had jerked up into his throat as he fell away, completely and utterly helpless to do anything as his partner took the blow for him.
It’s one thing for his mind to now understand the overarching picture, and another thing entirely to try to wrestle his emotions into reflecting that new truth. Neku thought he’d compartmentalized it all, but seeing Joshua like this, passive, with nothing to fight against, nothing to distract him, simply tears all those conflicting feelings out into the open all over again.
He doesn’t realize he’s clenching his hands until the hard edges of the pin bites into his palm. The sharp pain is what settles Neku; his head hurts, his heart is raw, vulnerable, but he’s standing here, isn’t he? He already knows what he wants to do.
Trust your partner.
Shiki forgave him. Neku doesn’t like thinking of how he’d almost erased her, a lifetime and four weeks ago, but she forgave him unconditionally. Beat didn’t hesitate at all to throw his wings away to help Neku, and Rhyme – even in Noise form, she’d leapt to his aid.
And then there’s Joshua.
Trusting your partner, Neku is starting to realize, means more than accepting their help. It’s making yourself vulnerable, and trusting that they will only hurt you for the right reasons.
Taking a deep breath, he steps forward, kneading at his temple with his knuckles in a futile attempt to rub the pain away. He sits gingerly next to Joshua but the couch is much softer than he expects, the leather giving under his weight and sending him sliding towards the center of the couch. The pain in his head spikes to a crescendo and then goes out abruptly, and Neku is too busy gasping in sudden relief to realize right away that Joshua has slid against him, head slumped onto his shoulder.
Neku holds very, very still, falling water echoing uncaringly around the room, before he peers carefully into Joshua’s face.
The otherworldly radiance is gone. The Composer appears more alive now, chest rising faintly with his breathing, although his eyes are still under his eyelids – more unconscious than asleep, perhaps.
Neku is very sure now that before becoming the Composer Joshua was human, just like the Reapers were likely Players once themselves. Even during that week masquerading as a Player Joshua always seemed unfathomable, which in hindsight had been the thing to really set off all of Neku’s warning instincts – the voice, the taunting and the teasing Joshua wielded like weapons were physical things Neku could respond to, but deep down he knew there was something different about Joshua – something ethereal, like his partner would always stand just three steps beyond Neku’s comprehension.
It made Neku want to chase down those three steps and wipe the smirk of Joshua’s face, granted. And now—Neku can’t really say he has any sense of preservation, not during the Game, and certainly not now.
“So you’re actually really asleep, huh?” Neku mutters, his voice cracking alarmingly on the third word. His skin itches with restless energy, because it’s an illusion, it has to be, but for all the memories that the sight of Joshua brings up – both the good and terrifying – Joshua still looks terribly defenseless like this.
“I really want to punch you,” Neku says to the fish swarming at their feet. It’s easier like this; other than the mass of silver hair in his periphery vision and the warm weight of a body slumped against him, it’s really no different from the time he spoke to Joshua the day before. “I don’t think it’ll make me feel better, but you deserve it.’
He has to huff out a frustrated breath a moment later, because he’s gotten better at admitting the truth to himself; it’s nice to think of Joshua getting some payback for all he put Neku through, but if given the chance, Neku doubts he can bring himself to do it.
“You’re a freaking walking headache, do you know that? Not just literally.” His head doesn’t hurt anymore, but there’s a strain at the back of his mind that’s half emotional exhaustion and half physical tension, and it’s only going to be a matter of time before the headache – hopefully a more natural one – comes back. “You took care of things, we’re all alive and I think I’m dealing with it, and then I come here and find you like this. I don’t even know what to expect anymore.”
Maybe that’s the reason why Joshua hadn’t responded to his invitation the day before. Or maybe Joshua doesn’t care either way.
Maybe Neku cares a little bit too much about the silence, whether it was deliberate or simply a consequence.
“You picked up my headphones. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything, but—you heard me, right? You’re the Composer, you have to have better things to do, but you picked it up. You should have destroyed Shibuya—I know you wanted to. But you didn’t. It has to mean something, doesn’t it? All of it?”
His voice rings across the glass-gilded room only to be swallowed by the sound of falling water, and Neku has to reign himself back in, his eyes darting to the side to catch any sign that Joshua is stirring. There are a dozen and one questions clamoring in his mind, but with Joshua still slumped unconsciously against his shoulder, it seems pointless to say any of them out loud.
And his arm is going numb from the weight. Great.
“When you wake up, I’m going to say a whole bunch of things to you. Maybe you’ll let me. Maybe I’ll even get a honest answer out of you for once. But until then—” Neku reaches for his sketchbook with his free hand, biting at the end of a pen to uncap it “—I’m going to sit here. You’re too good at dodging questions; I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
The pin is a solid presence in the palm of his hand; with a pen in the other, it’s as grounded as Neku is going to get without his headphones. It’s not at all how he imagined he’ll be spending the evening, but chances are Joshua doesn’t expect to be caught out like this, so that evens the scales a little bit.
It’s a strangely peaceful thought, the idea that it’s possible for the two of them to exist like this, with no pretensions or titles between them, and that Neku can patiently wait for what answers he might get, caught in a sliver of suspended time with the world held momentarily at bay.
And when Joshua wakes up and they finally have the conversation Neku needs them to have, perhaps he’ll even get to keep that feeling of peace, tucked under his heart together with the contentment of seeing his friends.
“I’m trusting you on this,” Neku says quietly to the sleeping enigma at his side, and bends his head to his sketchbook.