Chapter Text
Sometimes the streets of Shibuya are strange to Neku even now, the way that childhood memories are, flattened and darkened and locked into one angle alone. Every step offers a new angle, and every new angle carries the threat of vertigo, like if you placed yourself back in that long-ago world, you could tip all the way in.
Mostly, though, Shibuya is the place he lives, beautiful in its ordinariness, vibrant and full of laughter. He is a part of it, slipping through its crowds like a blood cell through a vein, as alive as any of them.
Between the reaching fingers of Shibuya’s high rises, the sky is a perfect blue and the ocean almost close enough to smell. The air on his skin is a few degrees too hot, not enough to sweat but too much to be entirely comfortable. Shiki and Eri walk arm in arm, Mr. Mew’s head sticking out of Shiki’s unzipped backpack as though telling Neku, Hurry up.
These streets teem with life he cannot see, Reapers in red hoodies guarding intersections he passes through without thinking twice, the dead fighting for another chance at life, Noise squirming and screaming on a frequency he can no longer access. In its own way, it is beautiful, but mostly it is just something he coexists with.
Neku twists to avoid a girl carrying an open cup of coffee. Her shoulder brushes past his, a little fiercely.
“Tell Eri you said you’d be a model,” Shiki is saying, her voice drifting back to Neku.
Jogging to come up beside them on the narrow sidewalk, Neku says, “I didn’t say model. I said you don’t have a dress form for skinny guys like me and I’d let you see what the designs look like on a real person with joints and things.”
As she turns, the light slides along the lenses of Shiki’s glasses, covering her eyes. Then she’s looking at him with her prominent laughter lines and her irises slits of light in her face. She throws back her head and laughs.
“That’s pretty much a model, Neku,” she says.
They have not told Eri how they met. There’s no easy way to say, We were in a death game for the fate of all of Shibuya, and certainly no believable one. But Shiki was lucky. Her accident never happened, so she was able to hear Eri’s apology, to really hear it. All the grief on Eri’s face evaporating into the secret world of memories.
Besides, I ran into him at Hachiko waiting for you and we hit it off was a perfectly functional cover story, and only half a far cry from the truth.
“It doesn’t count as modeling if you don’t take pictures,” teases Eri, leaning against Shiki a little more. “Better add to that portfolio, right?”
“Let me get my phone out,” Shiki laughs.
Neku swats her hand away, cackling. She grabs him around the waist and pulls him against her, solid and steady, a constant in the ever-changing city. Neku slides his arm around her waist, just for a moment, while the sun pours down on them. He raises a hand against it, squinting. The crowd jostles him, each errant foot or waving hand a familiar comfort.
“I was thinking of calling it Gatto Nero,” Shiki says, pausing at a crosswalk. “Eri gave the go-ahead, didn’t you, but I wanted your thoughts, Neku.”
Neku pushes himself into the crowd, parting it so Shiki and Eri can fill the space behind him. At the Crossing, he balances on his toes at the edge of the street, rocking forward and falling back. “Nero, huh?” he says.
“Kind of tacky?” Shiki asks, shyly.
“Only if you tell my literature teacher.”
Shiki chuckles behind him.
Turning, Neku catches her eye. “I think it’s perfect. Okay, Shiki? Ask Rhyme to make you a logo and you’ll be all set to make it big.”
Punching him gently, Shiki says, “She’s a hacker, not a graphic designer.”
The light changes, and the crowd pushes them forward. A hand grasps Neku’s hem, Shiki or Eri, reaching out in some quiet desire not to be swept away. All the bodies around him are shapes and light, all of them thinking a million things, their worlds pressing against each other’s, growing. It is beautiful, though perhaps not as much so as the first time he saw them, the shining weight of a pistol still a shadow on his palm. He thought, for the first time since he was a kid, that he wanted to hear them—their voices, the thoughts they spoke aloud.
On the other side, Shiki says, “You really think we’ll make it big?”
“I know you will, Shiki. C’mon, Eri, back me up.”
Eri beams. “There’s no one in the world I believe in more than you. Probably no one as talented in the world, either.”
Coloring, Shiki slides her backpack off one shoulder and lifts Mr. Mew out of it. Holding it close, she steps toward a shop and out of the crowd, until the press of shoulders nearly blocks her out. Neku exchanges a glance with Eri, and as one they push after her. Once she seemed so small, her shoulders drawn close as though to shield her from the world, but now she is relaxed in her body, a steady presence.
“Shame that brands change so quickly,” Eri says, coming up beside Shiki. “Going in and out of fashion, in and out of people’s minds.”
Neku tugs at his coat, the Jupiter of the Monkey tag on the hem rough beneath his fingers. Shiki meets his eyes with a raised brow, and Neku breathes out a laugh. Eri doesn’t know the half of it. Some dead kid could be changing their preferences now, could be drawing their eyes from one window to the next, and they’d have no way to know. In a way, it’s comforting, to know the inner workings of the world.
Shiki puts her hand on the glass in front of a pastel Natural Puppy display, delicate summer clothes draped on featureless mannequins. The golds and gentle blues create a seascape, the fabric simple, the designs neat and careful. Off-the-shoulder tops pair with artfully bunched capris, while loose jackets with heavy hoods draw attention to the shapes of the pleated short skirts beneath.
He’s learned a thing or two about fashion from Shiki in the past year, enough to recognize shapes and patterns, though it will probably never be a language he can speak.
Shiki leans forward, resting her head against the glass, just for a second.
Eri says, “Always was one of your favorites.”
“It’s the simplicity,” Shiki says, her voice clear though she isn’t looking at either of them. “The clean lines, the silhouettes, the stories they tell. This collection, it’s… I’ve wanted to get a good look at it. It’s stunning.”
Neku touches Mr. Mew’s ear, bending it down for a second when Shiki looks up. “Well, go on. I’m out of pocket change, so I’m gonna stay out here, but you two go try them on.”
Shiki smiles, soft and sweet. “I’d have a look even without your go-ahead, and you know that.”
Laughing, Neku pushes her toward the door. “Go on, get.”
While Shiki and Eri make their way through the racks, Mr. Mew practically waving goodbye, Neku takes out his phone and checks for messages. The sweet air kicks up, pulling dust along the street to pool at Neku’s feet. He leans back against the window to people watch.
Soon he will leave for college, and Shibuya will be just a place he comes home to on breaks. The graffiti-decorated walls of Udagawa, the boisterous restaurants, the secret reservoir of the Shibuya River, will flatten into memories, then memories of memories. Every time he returns, the people of this city will be a little bit different. A little newer, a little stranger. And then he will become a stranger altogether.
But then again, wasn’t this what he fought for? The freedom to change, the ceaseless tempo of time?
His phone buzzes. Fishing it out of his pocket, he taps in his PIN to see a text from a number he doesn’t recognize. For a moment, he feels the old panic of unexpected correspondences—he hasn’t made any new friends in the past week, and he isn’t expecting a message from any unknown numbers.
But if it’s spam, he can delete it.
Neku, the text begins, skipping all formalities. Not Sakuraba—Neku.
“What the?” begins Neku, but a familiar cold slips between his shoulders, and he knows.
It’s been a while. If you happen to be in Shibuya, I was hoping you could meet me by Hachiko.
Behind him, through the opening door, Shiki and Eri talking about fashion. Before him, Shibuya, busy and messy and loud. Through the screen, someone he remembers, inviting him back.
He doesn’t know how he knows, but he whispers it all the same. “Joshua.”
No one looks up. His voice is a breath is a breeze.
Neku stares at his phone for a long time, heavy and shining as a gun. To see Joshua again, his smug smile and his wrecked posture and his unwavering eyes glittering like a fox’s…
He could ignore the text, of course, or give Josh a flat no, but there has to be a reason for this sudden intrusion, for the Composer coming all the way down to the RG. To Neku’s Shibuya. And to be honest, Neku is curious.
Hachiko’s a five-minute walk, and then—what will he say? Hey, partner? Been a long time? What do you want? The message wavers on the screen as though it might flicker away, glitch, vanish into the midday sun. He holds his phone in both hands, thinking, waiting for the cold to wash through and be done with him.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed before the door swings open and Shiki’s voice hits him. “You didn’t miss us too much, did you?” When she meets his eyes, though, her brows knit. “Is everything all right, Neku?” She adjusts her shopping bag and stops close enough that Neku can feel her breath. Behind her, Eri fumbles with her bag.
“I got a message from an old friend, actually,” says Neku, slipping his phone into his pocket, leaving Joshua on read. “He was hoping to see me while I’m in the area, so I might head off early.” He raises one hand and taps his palm with the other. Shiki’s eyes follow the movement, and she nods.
It’s a code they’ve been using since they returned to the RG. It means Game stuff. It means I can’t say all of this aloud.
“You head right on along, then,” she says, grinning. “Best not to keep him waiting.”
Neku grins. “I might let him wait a little bit. Catch you later?”
“We’re staying late anyway. Say hi to your friend for me.”
The crowd around Hachiko pulls Neku like a riptide. He has learned to hold his own against the crowd, to pull it inside him without giving himself up, and he pushes his way through toward the statue. The line at the burger joint goes out the door. The trees whisper in time with his heartbeat.
He wonders if he’ll recognize Joshua, if his memories of dishwater hair and haughty, laughing eyes will serve him still. Chest tight, he scans the crowd the ordinary way, standing on tiptoes to peer over heads. The last time he saw Joshua, though, Neku was taller, and he’s grown a few inches in the year since, so he might miss him beneath other people’s shoulders.
Nothing. He steps away from Hachiko, leaning on the low barrier to watch the crowd.
“You certainly took your time,” says a smug voice beside him. Neku startles and spins, clapping a hand over his mouth.
Joshua leans against the barrier, slouched a little lower than Neku, one arm crossed over his chest and the other scrolling through his phone. He meets Neku’s eyes, nods to himself, and slides his phone into his back pocket. His hair hangs a little longer than Neku remembers, some of it tucked behind his ears and some framing his face, curly and a little greasy. His pale shirt hangs a little too big on him, making him seem smaller, shrunken. Most noticeable are the dark semicircles beneath his eyes, just a shade darker than the eyes themselves, bright against his pallid skin.
“Scare the life out of me, why don’t you,” Neku says. It feels natural, clapping back at Joshua, like the year did nothing to erode their partnership. But it also feels strange, like speaking a second language after ignoring it for months.
Joshua laughs like a windchime, his lips barely parted, his eyes creased in a way that, were he anyone else, would leave permanent laughter lines. They’d look good on him, Neku decides.
“I must say I’m relieved you got my message. I was afraid it wasn’t urgent enough. Though it’s not very nice to leave people on read.”
“Spare me the lecture,” Neku says. “Besides, I knew you’d take it as a yes.”
“And here you are.”
“Yes.”
The crowd parts around them, pulled by some new riptide, or, more likely, pushed away from Joshua by some power Neku doesn’t know of. A gust of wind pulls leaves off the tree, and they tumble between him and Joshua, one landing in Joshua’s hair. Reaching up, Joshua pulls it free and twirls it between his fingers. Neku is tempted to ask him whether he can make it disappear, if his magic can do anything beautiful.
Joshua says, “It’s been too long, wouldn’t you say?”
“I was hoping I’d never have to see you again,” Neku admits, without resentment.
“Yes, I suppose you would have.”
“You look like shit, Joshua. What happened?”
Waving one hand, Josh tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. The leaf in his hand droops, and he pulls at its center. “I suppose I couldn’t pull one over on you even if I tried.”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, then, let me cut to the chase. I have something I need to talk to you about—a proposition, if you will—and I’d rather do it over a meal than standing up in the middle of the city. What say you to Ramen Don’s?”
Joshua’s eyes shine like gunmetal, catching the midday sun and reflecting it out at Neku. He slides a little lower into his slouch.
And just like that, the Game comes back. The teeming Underground, the planes stacked like playing cards, Neku bidding on the nine of trump alone. Neku bites his bottom lip, hard, and Joshua’s eyes follow the movement. The bullet went straight through his chest, hot and sharp. The gun slipped out of his hand, the trigger forgotten. And then the blue sky, half clouded, his feet on the ground, blood drumming out a beat when he pressed his fingers against his wrist.
He had to know he was alive.
It was the last time he had spoken to Joshua. To the Composer, grinning that fox’s grin, pulling the revolvers into shimmering existence. Setting Neku up to fail, his mind already made up.
Until it wasn’t. No explanation, no apology, just the bang, the puncture, the stench of gunpowder and blood. The waking up. No morning in his life had been as beautiful as that one—the air tasted wilder, the chatter of the crowds sounded sweeter, his body felt stronger than anything before.
“I promise it will be worth your while,” Joshua says, and Neku realizes he hasn’t responded.
“I’m not going Dutch on the ramen,” Neku says. He doesn’t let his apprehension show, though anything that brings Joshua to the RG can’t be good. The last time Joshua was here, Neku was nothing but flesh and bones and blood.
Joshua pouts, and it strains his washed-out face.
Unfazed, Neku says, “Your move.”
Joshua heaves a dramatic sign. “I suppose I can procure the funds. So, you coming?”
Neku pushes himself off the barrier. Their little bubble gets smaller, the people of Shibuya push a little bit closer. Joshua steps out from beneath a tree and the sunlight catches on his face, his shoulders, his eyes, leaving the rest of him in shadow.
“Yeah,” says Neku, “I guess I am.”
Ramen Don’s is quiet and uncrowded. Joshua pushes open the door and strides in, so Neku doesn’t have to remove his hands from his pockets. Sunlight falls in patches across the tables, and the overheads barely cast any light. The air indoors smells sweet and salty. Joshua orders his bowl without taking a moment to think and inclines his head toward Neku, beckoning him forward. Neku puts in his order for shoyu and steps away from Josh.
While Joshua pays, Neku finds a small table in the corner where the light doesn’t reach. He kicks his toes against the pillar beneath the table, readying himself to say No, no, I’m not going to be part of your games ever again. Through the window, the street is as flat as a memory, or a photograph, the people moving in slow, jerky steps. The sun falls so dazzlingly upon them that they can’t see Neku at all.
“Don’t do all that thinking on an empty stomach,” says Joshua, setting down the ramen bowls. Steam rises into Neku’s face. He blows out slowly.
“All what thinking?” Neku says.
“I don’t know, whatever thinking your face was so scrunched up about.”
“Just cut to the chase, Josh.”
Joshua giggles, infuriatingly. He pulls out his chair and sinks into it, rolling his shoulders until they crack. He slurps up an extremely large amount of noodles and chews slowly, his eyes closed, grinning as much as he can with his mouth full. “Mmm,” he says. “This place really does have the best ramen in Shibuya.”
“Joshua.”
“What? Can’t a guy have ramen with his favorite partner?”
“You said you have a proposition.”
Joshua swallows and breathes out an obnoxious “Ahh” of satisfaction.
Knowing Joshua, this could go on for rounds upon rounds, the teasing, the doubling back. Neku shuttles some ramen into his mouth and refuses to rise to the bait.
At last, slouching in his chair, Joshua rests his chin on one hand. “Say, did you ever find out about Mr. H?”
It’s so unrelated that for a moment Neku doesn’t know what to say. “You mean that he’s the Producer?”
“Bravo, Neku. You’ve truly outdone yourself. My job here won’t be near as daunting as I’d feared.”
The cadence of Joshua’s voice strikes Neku as almost gentle, almost tender, even though in truth it’s likely one half-note from mockery. It’s always been hard to tell with him—he slips so close to honesty that Neku doesn’t see it coming when the lie cinches in place. Mother and Father call me Joshua, he said, and Neku doesn’t know whether he has a mother or father at all.
And yet it’s familiar, comforting, in a way. And infuriating, in equal measure.
“What does he have to do with anything?” says Neku.
Joshua sighs, and then he slurps up another mouthful of ramen. It’s not like Joshua to be shy, to be devoid of words. Then he looks up, and his eyes are so wicked that Neku knows he’s drawing it out for the laughs alone.
“I don’t have all day,” says Neku. “If you don’t spit it out, then I don’t have to stick around.”
“The thing is,” Joshua drawls, tapping his fingers on the tabletop, “he’s in a spot of hot water at the moment—has been since that whole affair with Minamimoto—and my Game has had a temporary Producer while the higher ups look for his replacement.”
“The higher ups being… Angels?”
“Right on the mark. Genius at work, Neku.”
“You sure know how to lay it on thick,” Neku grumbles.
Behind Joshua, the city changes, second by second. A cloud comes over the street, and suddenly the passersby are just shapes, reimagined by the change in the light. He can’t hear a thing beyond the swinging doors of this little ramen joint, just the chatter of patrons and the clinking of utensils against ceramic. Neku puts his hands on either side of the bowl, letting its heat remind him that he’s alive.
Joshua says, “Are you going to complain the whole time?”
“Can you stop me, if I don’t?”
In mournful tones, Joshua says, “So this is my comeuppance.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Where is Mr. H, anyway?”
“Oh, around.” Joshua’s voice is so light it could be a feather, slipping out of Neku’s grasp. “I haven’t had any communication with him in… a year, I’d say. Since shortly after our little Game, yours and mine. He’s probably still in Shibuya, if the Angels haven’t taken him back. That’s all above me, of course, so I couldn’t give you a guess if I wanted to. Well, I suppose I could guess, but it wouldn’t be very accurate.”
Neku chews his noodles slowly to keep from spitting out a retort about that Game.
“And the thing is,” Joshua says, his voice just as soft but much lower, like it dropped from tenor to silky bass. A shadow would have a voice like that, Neku thinks, as he lays his hands neatly on the table.
Joshua says, “They seem to have come to a conclusion about who the next Producer should be.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Neku asks. Behind him, Ken Doi’s booming laugh washes through the room, the chatter of the other customers pulling Neku back from Joshua, toward real life. “I’m out. You gave me that yourself. Honestly, I don’t care how you run your Game, or how your bosses run it.”
Joshua presses a hand to his chest, a bit dramatically. “Ouch.”
“I don’t have room in my life for UG bullshit. Like I said, I’m out. I’m going to university, Josh. I’m going to have a life that matters.”
Joshua’s hand covers Neku’s before Neku can so much as lean back. His fingers are steady and real, warm in an understated way. Neku closes his hand into a fist, but the old mantra slides through his thoughts. Trust your partner.
He relaxes his hand. Joshua’s fingers slide into the spaces between Neku’s, then come to rest on the back of his hand.
“Will you let me finish?” Joshua says.
Neku meets Joshua’s tired eyes. He looks skull-like, washed-out and pallid as he is. He looks like he’s been very worried for a very long time.
“Yeah,” Neku says, softer. “Go ahead.”
Joshua lifts his bowl and slurps, his whole face hidden from Neku.
“It’s you,” says Neku, because Joshua is so obviously dragging it out. “Isn’t it?”
The bowl hits the table a little too loudly. Suddenly cagey, Joshua stares intently at the cash register, avoiding Neku’s gaze.
“Call it a punishment,” Joshua says at last. He pulls all his hair back from his crown, letting it fall in clumps and flyaways around his face. He drags the hand down his face, pressing hard against his eye. He just looks like a kid, not something unworldly at all—his lips pressed together, his hair a mess, his tenuous veneer of control slipping, slipping.
“You’re not happy about it,” says Neku.
“Would you be?” Joshua’s voice is sharp. “I made this city, Neku. The city… the Composer makes the rules in the UG, and those shape the RG.” He laughs, a weary sound, putting none of his charm into it. “Can you imagine what Minamimoto’s Shibuya would be like? Bito Daisukenojo’s?”
He sighs. His voice has a sharp, bitter edge to it. “This is unorthodox, of course, but the Higher Plane’s left me no choice. You know how the title of Composer changes hands, of course, but I’m a little short on worthwhile challengers.”
“Joshua…”
He keeps talking as if he hadn’t heard Neku, strands of hair catching in the corners of his mouth. “They haven’t made a decision yet. There aren’t too many great choices in the Underground, not anymore, but I’m allowed to choose my own successor. Which brings us to the present.”
“Joshua,” says Neku again, his voice a warning. “I get it.”
Joshua breathes a heavy sigh. The heavy scent of salt, the wooden table beneath Neku’s hands, Joshua’s foot tapping some unknown melody against the side of Neku’s chair. A buzzing in the air all around them, the hum of a higher frequency.
“There’s no one I’d trust with Shibuya more than I trust you, Neku, so I’m asking you to be my Composer. You are, after all, the reason Shibuya is here today.”
Neku’s face warms, more in embarrassment than pleasure. “You’re kidding me.”
Without halting, Joshua says, “Not at all. It should be yours. The best partner I could have had. Also, to be entirely transparent, Producers don’t get to do anything or talk to anyone other than the Composer—”
Neku chuckles, and Joshua cracks a small smile in return. “Don’t get to do anything other than the Composer, eh? Do I sense ulterior motives?”
Joshua, to his credit, doesn’t even turn pink, though that could mean anything at all. He raises a hand to his lips and laughs, big and bold. Around Ramen Don’s, heads turn toward them and then, just a quickly, away, Joshua’s bubble in effect once more. “Anything for you, Neku,” he purrs. “Leave it to you to turn business talk into a pickup line.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said it,” Neku says.
“Anyway, as I was trying to say, I’d rather have someone I can tolerate as my sole contact in the Shibuya.”
“Tolerate, huh?”
“Barely.” But he says it with a smile.
Neku takes a moment to think, staring at his untouched noodles. Of all the people he watched try to change Shibuya—Joshua, Kitaniji, Minamimoto, Hanekoma—Neku knows he doesn’t want to be like any of them. Somewhere on Shibuya’s chameleon streets, Shiki and Eri are walking in step, and somewhere beyond that his family, dinner on the stove and conversation, more familiar than the Underground or Joshua or a Game he’s tried to forget for a year. He knows his answer, because playing with people’s lives has never been something he wanted to do. Mostly what he wanted to do was get out of them.
Recently, he’s been trying to stay.
“I won’t bore you with the specifics,” Joshua is saying. “You look like you’re dozing off.”
“Nah,” says Neku. “I’m trying to decide how to say no before you talk my ear off.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean give your answer now. Take your time, think about it. But know that if someone else takes the title, well, Shibuya as you know it will be a thing of the past. I can’t vouch for anyone else, and my words probably don’t hold much weight anymore.”
“I’d rather not be the one making kids like me go through the Reaper’s Game.” Neku pushes his bowl toward Joshua. “Want the rest of this?”
“I’ll pass. You have terrible taste, you know that?”
“I’ve been told.” The scratch of irritation in the back of Neku’s head gets a little bigger, a little harder to ignore. He doesn’t want to be here, eating cooling noodles, before the boy who wants him to give up his life. He doesn’t want to give up his life.
Joshua says, “How about this? You go home, give it some thought, then get back to me in—”
“No games,” says Neku, very softly.
Joshua chuckles, startled and clever. “All right, you win. No games.”
“Can I reach you at the number you texted from?”
“When I’m in the RG, yes.”
There’s a quiet sort of power to it, being able to silence Joshua with a word, holding the promise of an answer close to his chest. It feels comfortable, natural. He wonders if this is how Joshua feels when he strings Neku along.
Nodding, Joshua rises. He pushes his chair in and rests his hands on the back, letting his head drop until his chin touches his chest. His hair falls in front of his face. “I don’t want it to change any more than you do.”
“Get some sleep, Josh,” Neku says gently. He stacks their bowls on the table. Joshua glances up, his hair in his face, his brows furrowed and his eyes half closed, like there isn’t a thing he wants more in the world than a long, long rest.
When it comes to him, it’s so brilliant Neku laughs aloud. Joshua’s head jerks up, those piercing eyes finding Neku’s.
“How about this: I’ll give you my answer within seven days. I’d say that’s pretty fitting.”
The smile that spreads over Joshua’s face is as little too quick, a little too sly. Neku doesn’t know where he stands before a smile like that, but he doesn’t feel lost. For the first time since he met Josh, the power settles comfortably in his body.
Joshua says, “That’s reasonable.”
“Great.” Neku pulls his phone out of his pocket and rises, pushing his chair in so its legs scrape the floor. “See you later, Composer.”
He leaves Joshua by the table, silver in the light, and nobody looks at him on his way out. When he is outside, he glances back at their corner table, and it is utterly empty.