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"Dammit, where the hell is he?" Beat muttered, sending another text to Neku. Twenty minutes went by since the time they all agreed on to hang out that day, and he hadn't even read his texts. Shiki sat next to Beat, visibly less concerned than Beat. "I'm sure he's fine, Beat. He might just be busy, is all."
"Real busy if he hasn't even read our texts." Rindo commented.
Rhyme shook their head. "Neku said he kept his schedule clear today."
"Maybe he slept in? I can't imagine he's got the greatest sleep schedule." Fret tossed out.
"I think ten calls in a row would've woken him up, worms for brains." Shoka replied. She caught Beat making another call in the corner of her eye and added, "make that eleven in a row."
"I'm goin' to look for 'im. For all I know, priss-kid dragged 'im into another messed up game. An' if he did, I'mma find his priss ass an' give 'im a piece o' my mind."
"You realize that's the composer you're talking about, right, skaterbrain?"
"Composer or not, it ain't stoppin' me from sockin' 'im in the face. He's messed with Phones enough already."
"Beat, just give him a bit longer before you—" Beat's already taken off on his board to MODI before Shiki's finished. "Aaaaand he's gone." Shiki sighed. "Well, you guys can go look for him too, if you want. I'll wait here to see if he shows up."
"Same here. Besides, someone's gotta calm Beat down if he comes back empty handed." Rhyme said.
"I am somewhat concerned by his distinctly unexplained absence. He has rarely been more than a handful of minutes late to our gatherings. While I do not fear the worst, it is still rather unnerving. I think I'll join Lord Beat in his search."
"Yeah, I'm with Boss here. It's real weird." Fret commented. "I'm not, like, Beat levels of worried, but I wanna make sure he's alright, y'know? I'll go check down by Wunafo. Maybe he just got real sucked into a shopping spree and forgot the time."
"I think that's just a you thing, Fret." Rindo said with a laugh.
"Hey, you never know!"
"I'll stay here, too. Who knows, maybe—"
"Hey, Shoka, there's a Chocobo down by the stream." Rindo blurted out, turning his phone to her.
"Really?"
"Wanna race to get it?"
"Sure, if you like losing, loser."
"At least keep an eye out for Neku while you're off on your FanGO date, guys." Fret laughed when both Shoka and Rindo went red in the face.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Well, let's—Rindo, look over there!" Shoka pointed out into the crossing and immediately bolted when Rindo turned to look. "Shoka, I don't—" Rindo turned back around just as Shoka disappeared to the bus terminal. "Wha—hey! Hold on, that's not fair! Shoka!" Rindo yelled as he chased after her, disappearing into the crowd.
The remaining group immediately burst into laughter.
Nagi chuckled softly, unable to quite fight the unease she felt. She quickly excused herself and headed off, choosing to venture down Center Street since no one else had.
It only took Nagi a ten minute walk to find Neku in the Udagawa backstreets, sitting just before where the mural on the wall ends. "Lord Neku? Pardon the disturbance, but thirty-five minutes have passed since we were intended to..." Nagi stopped in front of the legendary Player sitting on the ground. He was staring blankly in her direction, almost as if he was staring right through her to the Udagawa mural. "Lord Neku? Is something amiss?" She waved a hand in his face and he blinked a few times before looking up at her. "Oh, hey, Nagi. What're you doing here?"
"Looking for you. You were twenty-three minutes late for our intended gathering, so we tried contacting you, then split off to search for you when we received no answer."
Neku's eyes widened just a bit and he pulled out his phone. Twelve missed calls, one from each of the Twisters, two from Shiki, two from Rhyme, a whopping four from Beat, followed by a plethora of texts. "Sorry about that."
"No worries. You appeared to be in a trance of sorts when I arrived. I assume you may have been in that state for a while, thus losing track of the current time."
"Yeah. It was 11:30 when I last looked. I must've been out of it for a while."
"May I inquire as to what brought you here so early? We hadn't agreed to meet until one o'clock." Nagi sat down on the ground beside him.
"I just like coming up here. Calms the nerves."
"I see." She noticed him idly flipping through a notebook in his hand, catching glimpses of pencil marks on paper. Neku noticed her stare and looked down at the book. "This is just an old thing. Carried it everywhere to draw things whenever they came to me. Still do now. Did you want to look?"
"I am rather curious... If the legend himself is offering, I shan't squander the opportunity." Neku chuckled as he passed the notebook to her.
A lot of the sketches were fairly old, Nagi noted as she flipped through the first few pages. The sparsity of dates at first made it hard to pinpoint how old they were, but dates started popping up a couple more pages in, starting from nearly five years ago. They got better and better with each page: proportions started getting figured out, color started getting introduced, perspective was toyed around with, even a few graffiti tag ideas were tossed in.
Then she flipped to a page from three years ago and a small hint of dread came with it.
The page was an explosion of emotion, with messy scribbles in the vague shapes of buildings and people and ramblings scrawled out in a rush that she skipped over to preserve some sense of privacy. She flipped to the one after and it was nothing but people. At first it was hard to tell who they were supposed to be, but eventually she began making out features, identifying the faces on the pages as those of Shiki, Eri, Beat, Rhyme, and Josh. Eventually a few others were thrown in like Uzuki and Kariya. Nagi spared a glance to Neku, who had went back to staring at the wall, leaning against the post behind him. "Are you... certain you're comfortable with this rather personal look into your world, milord?"
Neku shrugged. She didn't realize just how tired he looked until just then. "It's a bit too late for me to take it back now, isn't it?"
"That is true, yes..." She took one last look at the page she'd left off on, seeing half of it taken up by a drawing of Neku and his friends smiling together at Hachiko with tear stains still visible on the page, before swiftly shutting it and handing it back. Neku let it simply drop into his lap after taking it back.
Nagi sat silent, counting the minutes since they'd intended to meet. Nearly fourty-five minutes had gone by. She was about to let the others know she'd found Neku before he spoke. "Nagi, you're in college, right?"
"Correct."
"What're you studying for?"
"Currently, I'm persuing a degree in computer science. Why do you ask?"
Neku sighed. "I guess I've just been stuck in Shinjuku for so long, spent so long focusing on surviving and getting home that... now that I'm back, I don't know what to do with myself. I mean, Shiki has a whole business going, Rhyme's got their hacking thing, Beat at least has a job, but I... I've been leeching off my friends since I got back, and I know they don't mind but... it doesn't make me feel any better. It feels more like I'm being a burden on them."
Nagi sat in silence, nodding as she listened. "I see. I believe it's natural for one who has gone through experiences such as yours to feel inadequate compared to those more successful and not have a clear-cut understanding of what direction you wish to carry yourself in life. However, none of us would consider you a burden for these things. Lady Shiki and Lord Beat least of all. We've all seen first-hand how much they cherish you. Lord Rhyme as well."
"I know that. That's not the issue. I just... They all at least have some idea of what they want to do with their lives, but I–!" Neku sucked in a breath, ignoring the lump forming in his throat. He wasn't about to break down over this. At least not with Nagi watching him so intently. "I don't know what I want to do. I never gave it any thought. Between the Game and just trying to get home for the better part of three years," he neglected to mention all those years he'd spent shutting other people out, never taking any of their suggestions, shrugging them all off with a wave of his hand, "I never thought to consider just what I could do with my life."
Nagi nodded silently. Neku idly flipped through the old notebook in his hands, sighing. "It's possible you may not find your calling for weeks, or months, or perhaps even years. In fact, it's possible you may simply never find the answer to such a difficult question. Or, it may have been hidden under your nose this whole time. No matter what the case may be, you needn't search alone. You have all of us here to aid you should the need ever arise."
Neku stared long and hard at one of the sketches from Shinjuku, the one he saw Nagi eyeing just before she handed the notebook back. He'd drawn all the people he remembered while trapped in Shinjuku, even those he knew he'd never see again. Anything to hang on to the life he wanted to return to. He hadn't drawn anything since he came back. Now that he was back, with his old friends and new ones from the second Game, maybe he should pick it up again.
"Nagi, do you have a pencil I could borrow?"
"Indeed I do." She handed the requested pencil to him and he gave her a quick thanks before immediately getting to work. Something about this felt a little off, though. Something was missing. He managed to place what it was after a good couple seconds.
"You wouldn't mind if I played some music, would you?"
"Do as you wish. So long as you don't mind if I share some of my own tastes as well."
Now, sitting in the backstreets with his phone sitting between them, playing his music on shuffle, he felt in his element. Nagi had pulled out a book from her bag, occasionally looking over at his work after it was clear he didn't mind. Neither of them are really sure how much time passed, and the only words exchanged were brief, comments on his work from Nagi or the current song choice from Neku whenever Nagi put a song on he didn't recognize. Nagi was beaming when he expressed interest over one particular artist she played, which then led to her playing an entire album from them. He'd have to check them out fully when he got home.
Eventually, Neku put the last few details on and stretched one last time. Nagi looked over and smiled. Staring back at them on the page were the Wicked Twisters, all enjoying their time together at Hachiko. It had a similar vibe to the last drawing she'd seen from his book, but the emotions it came from were different. It had a much more uplifting feeling to it, the sense that everything was alright now. The sense of belonging the previous group piece lacked. Neku had felt more like an outsider then. The piece was simply wishful thinking. Now he felt at peace. At home. Something he had perfectly captured on paper.
"Mayhaps a future as an artist awaits you, milord."
Neku smiled a bit sheepishly. "You think so?"
Before either of them could continue, the sound of wheels rolling down the concrete grew as they heard a familiar voice. "Yo, Phones! Pinny! Y'all good?" Beat came to a stop on his board and popped it up into his hand as he came over."
"Yeah. Sorry for worrying you guys." Neku closed his notebook and tucked it away in his pocket.
"S'all good, yo! Pinny told us she found ya an' said y'all would join us later. Wanted t' make sure ya were good."
"And I believe I can confirm that all is well. Correct, Lord Neku?"
"Yeah." Neku began handing Nagi's pencil back before she turned it down, and he slid it in with his notebook. "You didn't have too much fun without us, did you?"
"An' what if I said we did?"
The rest of their rag-tag group had been lagging behind Beat, waving when they arrived. The two almost laughed seeing Shoka hidden behind a Mr. Mew plush almost half her size. "Hey, guys." Rindo greeted.
"Hey. What'd you all do without us?"
"We went down to the arcade nearby. Beat sucks at DDR, by the way. It was hilarious." Fret laughed.
"Oh, like you was any better!"
"I see Lady Shoka has acquired a new friend." Nagi commented. Shoka was still hidden behind her giant Mr. Mew plush, and Neku wasn't really sure if it was out of embarrassment, joy, or a combination of the two.
"Yeah. He was one of the prizes at the prize counter." Fret answered.
"She win him herself?"
"Nah. We all took turns trying, but none of us could get him. And then Rhyme came over from the rhythm games and got him in one go. I'm a little jealous, if I'm honest." Rindo replied. Rhyme simply giggled from behind him.
"Dat's my lil sis for ya!"
Fret laughed. "I told Shokie she could probably just ask Shiki for one, but she said—"
"It's better this way." Shoka cut in, muffled behind Mr. Mew's head. The group laughed then as Shoka sunk a little deeper into the plush. "I'm going to go melt now."
"Woah woah woah, we've still got a movie lined up, Shokie!" Fret grabbed her by the back of the hoodie as she started walking away.
Neku laughed again, much louder than before. Nagi was glad his spirits were lifted. And when she caught him scribbling something in his notebook again, she's sure he may have at least found an idea of what to strive for, too.