Title—Dead Boy's Poem

Author—Chronos Mephistopheles

Fandom—The World Ends With You

Challenge—Written for my fiction writing class, names replaced with WEWY characters, written with them in mind

Couplings/Characters—Joshua, Shiki, Neku

Warnings/Rating—K/T, first person pov, alternate universe

Summary—Magic is the purest form of emotions, and no one knows that better than Joshua, a ghost who spends his eternity in a cemetery.

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Dead Boy's Poem

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Magic isn't just spells and witchcraft. Magic isn't something people can disregard. Magic isn't easily ignored or acknowledged. Nonetheless, magic is in words, in speech, in the surrounding world. Magic is in emotions, in thoughts, in dreams. Magic is in pain and memories and enjoyment. Magic is family. Magic is miracles. Magic is in life and death and everything in-between.

I'm currently experiencing the magic of the second.

My life ended on December 31st, a perfect way to end the year for my family. They mourned my passing; they did everything expected of a family: the obituary, the viewing, the funeral. I watched it all with teary eyes when they left what remained of me there in the small cemetery. It took a few years and then my grandparents joined me. Unlike me, they moved on. They went to that space beyond the ground; I don't know if it's a heaven or hell or purgatory or whatever. I just haven't decided to go myself. I haven't felt that calling.

When my father followed my mother in death years later, I came to the decision that it was time to wander about, see where I could go. Unfortunately the space I could roam was limited. There were these invisible walls, invisible barriers that I couldn't go through. It was part of the magic of death. Places I had never visited before I couldn't visit, I couldn't enter. The world I could explore was built of places in my memory.

The place I stayed the most was my cemetery, the place where my decomposing body rested. I saw many funerals, more magic being released into the world. Some stayed and we had conversations about our individual passings, many were much more interesting than my own – "oh, you died inside a refrigerator? While it fell off a balcony…?" – and brought amusement to the boredom I had to deal with in this afterlife. But many disappeared almost immediately.

Except for the little girl.

Her hair was up in adorable pigtails, her shoes the typical dress up shoes girls liked to play in. She followed a large procession of people, watching them all with wide eyes, calling out to them in confusion. She didn't understand she was dead. The casket, a beautiful blue color that matched the dress she was wearing, was placed on the table. Flowers of varying ages, colors and sizes, surrounded the spot her body was to be buried. The girl stood in front of a woman who was sobbing silently, her face blotchy, crying out to her, yelling, "Mama! Mama!" In-between her cries, I could hear the pastor reciting lines from the bible, and the mutterings of people in the gathered crowd.

The girl had died at the age of seven from a shooting in a shopping center. She was one of the few killed, and judging by her screaming she didn't remember the pain. There were few people who didn't recall their death, but they were those older people who died in their sleep, or died instantly in a car accident. When I stepped through the crowd, once again feeling the slight disappointment at the lack of shuddering from the people I passed. Her dress was stained, the beautiful blue I originally noticed coated in the dark red blood of her wound.

Finally her whines got to me and I called out to her, "Hello." She whipped around, eyes mimicking the bright red they would have gotten after tears. She wiped at her cheeks, sniffling. "What's your name?"

"Shiki," her voice was barely a whisper, but I watched her slowly relax in acknowledgment.

"Hello, Shiki." I managed a smile and held out a hand to her. "My name is Joshua. Did Mommy and Daddy ever tell you about what happens after you die?" At her shake of the head, I began to explain the process of what happens, of how the body was prepared and then lowered into the ground, to return to the earth while the spirit was free to go on and be happy. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched these people she admitted she didn't know cry over her, and bring her flowers.

The casket was lowered into the ground, flowers dropped upon the beautiful color, people saying goodbyes, and Shiki's grip on his hand tightened. "I don't wanna leave," she murmured, "I wanna stay with Mama."

I nodded, unable to help playing with her pigtails, trying to adjust them from the slight crookedness they had. "You can stay as long as you like." As I finished fiddling with her hair ties, the group of mourners slowly made their way away from the grave and on with their lives. Shiki followed her mother all the way back to their car, stopping just outside the car door when it closed and drove off. More cars followed, until one car remained in the lot, Shiki standing there at the edge of concrete. I stood from my spot on my headstone, and walked to her side. "No urge to go off?" She shook her head. "Okay then." I thought about it for a while, trying to figure out some way to entertain her.

The last car sat there for an undeterminable amount of time, and I couldn't recall ever seeing anyone get out of it during the ceremony. As if my mere thought of it, the driver's door opened, and out stepped a teenage boy, not much older than myself when I died. His hair was all spiked out, his clothes were loose and baggy, a pair of headphones resting on his neck. I could hear a faint song playing from them, and as he stepped towards the fresh filled grave, the song got louder.

Shiki froze in attempting to draw in the sand. "That song," she looked at the teen in wonder. "I know that song."

"What song is it?" I asked, stepping around the boy and his music. He walked to the grave and sat beside the still fresh pressed dirt. His left arm was bandaged near the shoulder, and he favored it as he moved about.

"I don't know," she stepped closer, practically standing right before him, staring into his eyes. "I know I heard it before. I think…" Shiki leaned forward, as if to touch the teen, or to lift the headphones from his neck. "I think I heard it when I died." It was a curious idea, the fact the song was what she heard as she lay dying. "And he seems familiar. I know him from somewhere."

I let her keep going. Talking about one's death made it easier to understand, easier to get passed if verbalized. When she stopped, when she couldn't come up with more words to explain, the boy began to speak. His voice was melodic, and the sound flowed over the music. "I'm sorry, Shiki. I tried to get you out of there, but—" he paused, glancing away from where her body rested and where she stood, "but I couldn't." His hand brushed against the bandage. "I'm sorry, I tried. This… This shouldn't have happened to you, least of all you." The song closed off with a dying guitar strum, a pause, and then the song restarted. An operatic voice sung over acoustic guitar plucking before an orchestra joined in. He let it play for a little bit, listening to it. "I haven't been able to stop listening to this song. This song was playing when you died. Do you remember it?"

I stepped forward and pulled Shiki away from the mourning boy, "You were right." She nodded, wiping more tears away. "He wanted to help you."

"I know… he's nice to me." Shiki managed a smile. "He always helped me." She held my hand tightly, her form glowing slightly, a sign of her getting ready to move to the great beyond. "It's Neku. He's Neku." Shiki hopped slightly in her spot, her pigtails bouncing with glee. "Neku is nice to me."

I couldn't help but smile. The happiness she had at just remembering this guy named Neku, despite the fact that he was there at her death. "You like Neku? Is he family?"

She shook her head. "No. We were going to get married." I took a few moments to work it over in my head. Neku must be a big brother figure, no different than the whole little boy wanting to marry his mother, or little girl wanting to marry her father. "He always helped me with my dresses and he always had a present for me. I love him."

"I miss you, Shiki," Neku sighed, adjusting his headphones as the song repeated; his breathe was becoming shaky. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I tried." He took another shaky breath and buried his face in his hands. The words that came out from there on were jumbled and barely understandable. A form of magic on its own, it worked its way around Shiki, and she sat beside him, trying to lean against him and offer comfort.

"I miss you, Neku. I miss you," her own tears built up and soon she was crying once again. The two of them were quite the pair. The glowing around Shiki increased. When she leaned up and tried to place a kiss on his cheek, she whispered "I love you" and was gone.

I stood there in my cemetery, watching Neku as he recovered from his tears, recovered from the lost of his little sister. Neku eventually reached up and stopped the music from playing. He wiped his eyes and stood from his spot on the ground. A shaky breath later, Neku's musical voice sounded. "I'll come see you soon."

Neku visited at least twice a week, each time listening to that song on repeat, each time telling her more and more about his day. Sometimes he would cry the whole time, and others he would actually manage a smile. Not even Shiki's mother visited as often as he, and I grew attached to him. Neku always had something for Shiki, once her gravestone had been placed. At first it was just flowers, beautiful flowers of varying colors, one's he said reminded him of her. And then it was teddy bears and stickers and streamers. And photos, tons of photos of what I gathered to be her favorite places.

A year after Shiki's burial, Neku's visits became less frequent. His eyes remained just as teary, but the time spent was shorter, and life was moving on. I would follow Neku back to his car and wave him goodbye, as if he could see me, as if he could acknowledge me. He stopped visiting Shiki's grave after two years. I didn't find out why, he just disappeared one week, never to be seen again. I reluctantly went back to my aimless wandering, no longer drawn back to the graveyard without Neku's presence.

I encountered Neku once again many years later. He was dressed in a graduation gown, his hair no longer spiked and kept short. His headphones were still there on his neck for the entire world to see. In his hand was the mp3 player, the cursor hovering over Shiki's song. I watched him stare at the screen, eyes blurry with tears, happiness or sorrow was indeterminable. His friends called on him, Shiki's mother taking pictures of him with a camera, her own sorrow filled smile on her lips.

With a deep breath, he clicked it, and the song filtered through the air once again. The lyrics were missing, the operatic voice no longer there. Neku let it play through to the end and recited the lines that had become the entirety of his memory of Shiki:

I'm sorry

Time will tell, this bitter farewell

I live no more to shame, nor me, nor you

And you, I wish I didn't feel for you anymore[i]

I watched him walk back to his friends, the song finishing and changing to a more upbeat tune that didn't fit him. His eyes lit up and his smile seemed less forced now. I followed him across the station, towards the group of other graduates, almost bobbing his head to the song. I wanted this. I wanted this magic, this feeling, this ability he had.

It had taken years, and he was able to move on and still smile. I'd been stuck here for longer than he'd been alive, unable to move on, unable to find that reason to go to heaven or hell. His smile, I found, was magic. It lit up the area. With his smile everyone else seemed to be able to continue on, as if his lapse into memories hadn't happened. It made me want to move on. Maybe I could have found a way to move on, if he still visited the cemetery, if he bothered to still talk to Shiki who no longer listened.

I followed him towards the gardens, towards the bright flowers that he used to take to Shiki. He bent to pick a weed from the ground, a weed with a bright yellow flower that seemed to attract all light. His fingers brushed the petals and stem, laughing at something a friend said. I stepped closer. I was stopped. There, at the edge of the garden where Neku was sitting with his friends, drinking and eating, speaking of their future plans, I was stopped. I couldn't step any farther. The invisible boundary kept me away.

And there, on a night of rejoicing and no recalling memories, I was once again left behind to go to back to my cemetery, to forget Neku and his little sister Shiki, and to wait for the next time a spirit decided to stay back and wait a while. I had to forget the memories, I had to forget the love and the sorrow and the happiness. I couldn't, but I had to try. Because a spirit stuck on the earth without a body was a type of magic, a magic left on the earth to help others get to where they needed to go. I was one of those lost and left behind, all for the benefit of others less likely to understand. Like those like Shiki, and possibly Neku when it's his turn. Because magic is needed, magic is necessary. Magic is in emotions, in thoughts, in dreams. Magic is in pain and memories and enjoyment. Magic is family. Magic is miracles. Magic is in life and death and everything in-between.

Especially for those lingering in the second.

[i] Lyrics taken from "Dead Boy's Poem" by Nightwish, sung by Tarja Tarunen