Twenty Questions

by She Who Loves Pineapples

Neku runs into Joshua at a ramen shop. They play a game.

Author's note: I revised this fic like a billion times and I'm still not satisfied with it. At this point I'm kind of sick of it so I'm just gonna post it, no matter how many weird problems. THE ENDING IS ABRUPT AND TERRIBLE I'M SORRY. Criticisms very welcome. It's Joshua + Neku friendship, sort of. Though Joshua is still a complete ass.

A note on some of the headcanon I've drawn from when writing this: first of all, this fic assumes that main-game-Neku has a similar background to Another-Day-Neku, with an old friend who died in a car accident. I also assumed that Neku's camera app (that takes pictures of the past) would work in the RG as well as the UG, because according to the Secret Reports, Joshua asked Mr. H. to make it during Week 1, when he was in the RG. I mean, I know that even in the RG Josh has power that Neku wouldn't, but I like this idea anyway so… whatever. I also took some creative liberties with how the Game works.

EDIT 10/19/14: Just because I've noticed some people have "followed" this story - this story is a one-shot. I guess I somehow forgot to mark it as complete when I first posted it. Sorry!

It was only noon, and Neku was out of shots. He stood in the entry area of Ramen Don, breathing in the scent of pork and boiling noodles while he stared carefully at the image on his phone. The photograph was from summer four years ago; June 1st to be precise, at 1:30PM. And it wasn't what he was looking for. He shifted back and forth between the three photographs he had taken of the same day, but none of the images showed eleven-year-old Neku nor his best friend amongst the people slurping noodles in the front booth.

Neku sighed and flipped his phone shut, shoving it into his pocket and retrieving a miniature planner from the year 2003. The planner was already folded open to June 1st, so he pulled a pen from the spiral binding and marked the three times of which he'd taken pictures: 12:15, 11:45, 1:30 – Ramen Don front booth. Now what?, he asked himself, flipping the planner to the next week – but he'd already tried to take pictures from that Sunday, and hadn't found anything. Am I sure it was a Sunday? he asked himself. I think it was towards the beginning of summer… He wracked his brain, trying to think of some detail that would clue him in on the precise date on which the lunch outing in his memory had occurred. But all he could remember was laughing in the front booth with his best friend, blowing paper wrappers off of plastic straws and drawing graffiti with colored pencils in a composition book while the smell of shoyu ramen drifted in the air.

"Irasshai!" The loud voice, familiar but more cheerful than Neku was used to, startled him out of the memory. Neku turned and faced Doi Ken, who had just emerged from the kitchen, and stepped back awkwardly. He hadn't been planning on getting food, and now he had to think of an excuse not to. Somehow he didn't think "Sorry, but I only came here to look for my dead best friend with my phone that takes pictures of the past" would be taken as a reasonable explanation.

Before he could say anything, though, Mr. Doi had clapped a hand on his shoulder and started guiding Neku towards the back corner of the room. "Your friend is already waiting for you back there," he said as they walked.

"I – what? Who?" Neku asked. But instead of explaining, Mr. Doi smiled knowingly and headed back for the kitchen.

"I believe," said a familiarly grating voice from behind, "that he was referring to me, Neku."

Neku whipped around to see none other than Joshua, sitting in the corner, leaning towards Neku with his elbows on the table and a newspaper stretched out before him. His bored expression twisted into a smile once he saw the startled recognition register on Neku's face.

"Care to take a seat?" he asked. From the cheerful way he patted the spot on the stool beside him, it would be impossible to tell that this boy was anything but a good friend. Neku was aware of this and that, because of this, Neku's reaction to the invitation –a step backwards and a very slight shiver - would look strange to anyone watching. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice but Joshua. Not-so-fortunately, Joshua noticed very much, and responded with an even more twisted grin and a familiar giggle. "Hee hee, you don't have to be so shy, Neku. I don't bite."

"…Yeah," Neku said. "You just, I dunno, shoot people, attempt to destroy entire cities, and erase people from existence. But at least you don't bite. "

"Ssssh, careful there, Neku," Joshua said, raising his finger to his lips like a kindergarten teacher. The condescending smile on his face remained unchanged. "You do realize we're not in the UG right now, don't you? I would highly recommend that you consider the way your words are perceived by the people around you."

"I don't care what they think," Neku muttered, but nonetheless slid down into the seat beside Joshua, where they could speak more easily in the noisy restaurant.

"No?" Joshua giggled. He shoved his newspaper to the side and readjusted himself so that he would be facing Neku, leaning against the wall perpendicular to the wall the booth was attached to. "More to the point, don't you think you're being a little harsh on your old partner? I did decide to spare Shibuya of my own volition – after you failed to step up to the plate and take the necessary measures to save it, mind you. On top of that, I only shot a handful of people; one of those few was Minamimoto, in an act of self-defense - and I only wounded him. Another was you, and I dare say I've put you back together quite nicely. It's not as if I have shooting sprees on a regular basis. And as far as the erasing people thing goes…." He paused to consider, before conceding with a shrug. "All right, you have a point there; I have erased quite a few people over the years. But that's my job, and I'm on lunch break right now. No need to be afraid, Neku."

"I'm not afraid."

"You're not? How brave of you," said Joshua. "Not that I'd expect anything less from my proxy."

Neku wasn't sure how to respond to that. What was Joshua even trying to do? Had he called him over just to make fun of him? He must've somehow known beforehand that Neku would be at Ramen Don – with all the power Joshua apparently had, Neku had figured he would have been capable of watching him, and even scanning him, from the UG. The only question was whether or not he cared enough to do so. Evidently he did – after weeks of refusing to contact Neku, there was no way Joshua would just let Neku coincidentally run into him at a ramen shop. …He must've had some kind of a reason. Probably nothing good.

"Here you go, boys! One shio and one Saturday Special, nice and hot!" Mr. Doi had appeared behind Neku and placed two steaming bowls on the table, one next to Joshua's newspaper and one in front of Neku. Neku briefly shifted his attention away from Joshua to examine the contents of the ramen bowl in front of him, which contained not only ramen but also two long sushi rolls stuffed with an unidentifiable orange pasty substance.

"Thank you, Mister! It smells delicious!" said Joshua, who had straightened his posture and replaced his usual smirk with an innocent smile.

"Well, thank you," said Mr. Doi, "but why don't you save your opinion for after you've had a few bites? I always love hearing from true ramen connoisseurs like you!"

"You flatter me," said Joshua. "But it would be my pleasure." He flashed another nauseatingly charming grin, and dismissed Mr. Doi with a wave.

Once the ramen guy was out of earshot, Neku glared. "All right, let's get to the point. What's going on? What are you doing here?"

"Really, Neku?" Joshua didn't look up from his noodles as he replied. "I've known for a while now that retaining information isn't your greatest strength, but I would have assumed that in this case, context would have been sufficient to jog your memory. I'm on my lunch break, remember? I came here to eat ramen." He illustrated his point with a long, exaggerated slurp.

"Very funny, Josh. You expect me to believe you just happened to come here at the same time as me?"

"Yes, actually," Joshua said, after another slurp. "Believe it or not, Neku, I don't plan my daily schedule around you. I do have a Game to run, and thousands of citizens to look over. I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings too badly, but I'm a bit too busy to be paying as much attention to you as you seem to assume I am."

"Oh, cut the crap," Neku snapped. "You ordered two bowls of ramen. The shopkeeper said you were waiting for me."

Joshua nodded. "Well, I didn't say I wasn't expecting you. You see, my position comes with an array of rather unique benefits, including a slight degree of clairvoyance. I saw that you would be coming to Ramen Don during my lunch break, and decided to treat you. After all, I never did properly thank you for all your hard work last month, did I?"

"This is your idea of thanks?" Neku poked the sushi rolls with his chopsticks.

"Along with resurrecting you and all your little friends, yes," said Joshua. "You're welcome for that too, by the way. You know, I'm a bit surprised that that was what you decided to reply to. Most people would be more interested in the clairvoyance."

"Yeah, well most people haven't been shot to death twice and brought back to life. I doubt anything can surprise me anymore." Neku sighed and poked at his noodles again. "What the hell is this, anyway?"

"Ah, yes. That would be the Spicy Tuna Roll Special. As soon as I saw it on the menu, I knew you just had to try it. It practically had your name on it." Joshua giggled. "Don't you just love Ken's creative ideas?"

"So now you're on a personal-name basis with the ramen guy?"

"Not to his face," said Joshua. "But when you spend enough time watching over your citizens, you begin to feel familiar with certain ones who stick out. Another nice and unusual question, Neku, asking about my relationship with 'the ramen guy.' Most people, in their infinite self-obsession, would have wanted me to explain why the dish in question reminded me of them."

Neku looked down at his soup, which was growing less and less appetizing by the minute. The nori around the tuna rolls had begun to soften, and the rice within had begun to lose its stickiness and disperse itself throughout the rest of the oily broth. He did not want to know why Joshua thought this concoction was in any way reminiscent of him. "Here's another 'interesting question' for you: how is it that even when you're 'complimenting' me, you still manage to sound like a prick?"

"You're so irritable today. Eat your noodles; it should make you feel better."

I doubt that, Neku thought, but he ventured to put his chopsticks into the bowl and pick up one of the sushi rolls anyway. The half of the roll that had been submerged in the broth fell apart immediately as he did so, but the top half was okay. He took a bite. It was… not terrible, surprisingly, though not exactly high quality dining, and he wasn't sure what had possessed Mr. Doi to put it in with noodles. He looked back down at his bowl, which was now sprinkled with the rest of the rice and filling from the half of his tuna roll that had fallen apart at the touch.

Neku put his chopsticks back down. He wasn't hungry.

Joshua noticed this, of course. "Something wrong, Neku?" He didn't sound particularly concerned.

Neku shook his head. "No, not really. I guess I'm just realizing how little I know you. We've been talking this whole time and I still don't know why you're really here – or why you bothered to make me aware of your presence, as if there haven't been a hundred other times you could've come and talked to me, if you wanted to. Oh sure, I could believe you spontaneously decided to be nice and treat me to lunch, except for the fact that if I do know anything about you, it's that you never do anything without a reason. It's unnerving as hell."

Joshua paused guiltily for a moment, before giving a shrug and a sigh. "All right, Neku. You got me. Here I was trying to be polite and not discuss business until after lunch, but if you insist, fine." He leaned in close to Neku, so close Neku could feel his ramen-scented breath on his face. Neku scooted back a foot. Joshua grabbed him by the arm to keep him from scooting any further. "I need a favor."

Neku swallowed. Coming from Joshua, that was a possible death sentence. "…What is it?"

"It's a matter of grave importance. Whether or not you choose to comply, I expect you to handle this situation with the utmost confidentiality. You understand?"

Whether or not you choose to comply. As if he'd be given a real choice. He could picture it now: Shiki and Beat and Rhyme and Neku's cat, Lulu, paralyzed and held at gunpoint, while Joshua grinned and said Are you sure you don't want to do me a little favor, Neku?

"I am truly sorry to put this burden on you," Joshua continued, "but considering my position, there are very few people I can turn to at this point. I won't force you to help me, of course… but will you at least hear me out?"

Resigning himself to whatever Joshua had in mind, Neku slowly nodded. Joshua smiled. "Oh, good, Neku. I knew I could count on you. You see, Neku…" He paused.

"…Yes?" Neku prompted.

"You, see, Neku… I… I'm…" Joshua gazed into Neku's eyes, and for a second, he looked almost vulnerable, almost scared… it was enough to make Neku almost worried about him, before Joshua finished his sentence. "…I'm very, very bored. Will you play 'twenty questions' with me?"

Neku blinked.

"That's it," said Joshua. "That's the favor I wanted to ask."

A pause to process this information. A pause to take in the fact that he wasn't going to go through any more traumatic experiences any time soon. And then, without even thinking about it, Neku sprung out of his seat and tried to slug Joshua in the face. The Composer dodged effortlessly, cackling wildly as he held up his knees to block further attacks.

"Don't scare me like that!" Neku shouted, throwing another punch. He managed to hit Joshua's shoulder, but it only caused him to giggle more.

"Aw, but you make it too much fun. You were so suspicious; I couldn't help myself." Joshua snickered. "You really should have seen the look on your face."

"Oh, shut up."

"But come on, now, I thought you trusted me. What did you think I was going to make you do, play the Game again?" Seeing how Neku had stopped trying to attack him, Joshua put his knees down and stretched his feet out on the booth in front of him. "I don't know why you've convinced yourself that I'm out to get you somehow. I told Ken to bring you to me when you arrived because I wanted company, and for no reason but that. The Game Master this week is too predictable, I'm bored, and it's been days since I've had a real conversation. Amuse me."

"So you're bored with your job of tormenting people, and that's why you decided to come torment me instead," Neku paraphrased.

"Essentially. Don't worry, Neku, it won't happen often. I assure you that you're not, by any means, my go-to person to satisfy my periodic cravings for stimulating conversation, but when your existence depends on you keeping your identity secret, you'll find that you don't always have the choicest selection of company."

For a moment Neku thought about how to respond to the insult to his intellect embedded in that comment, but decided not to bother. "Okay. Fine. I'll play 'twenty questions' with you. I'll start: if you just want to talk to someone that badly, why don't go and bug Mr. H? Don't you two go way back? Or was all that just part of the act, too?"

Joshua paused for a moment before answering that, but then shook his head, his blond curls swishing around him like a wet dog's fur. "Of course I wasn't lying about that. What possible reason could I have for lying about the nature of my relationship with 'Mr. H'?"

"How the hell should I know? What possible reason did you have to do… any of the crap you did?"

Joshua frowned. "You're not supposed to ask more than one question in a row, Neku. But seeing as how your first question was probably intended as a sarcastic expression of your irritation with me rather than a serious inquiry, I'll let it slide this time. Nearly everything I said to you that week, particularly that which was of a deceptive nature, was calculated to advance your progress in my game against Megumi. I pretended I was a living person who had watched the Game for years so that you would see me as a reliable source of information, who knew the Game as well as the Reapers did and yet wasn't on their side. I pretended I was looking for the Shibuya River as an excuse to show you where it was and how the Composer could be usurped. I pretended to be erased because I knew my apparent sacrifice would increase your drive to keep fighting, which otherwise might have depleted into a sense of helplessness after being forced to start over yet again. Understand?"

Neku nodded, mulling the information over in his head. He'd been wondering about Joshua's motives for all of those things, though he hadn't even come close to reaching a plausible explanation for half of it. "I pretended I was a living person who had watched the Game for years" Joshua had said. Did that mean Joshua had once been an ordinary kid like him? That he hadn't been able to see the UG when alive? But no – even Mr. H had said he saw things, and while Mr. H didn't always give the answers Neku wanted, he wasn't a shameless liar like Joshua.

"…How is Mr. H, anyway?" asked Neku.

Joshua sighed. "I'm not answering three questions in a row, Neku, especially not when it's something you can see for yourself. Just pay a visit to his café sometime. I'm sure he'd be positively delighted to see you."

Pay a visit to his café – the key word in that suggestion being pay, Neku thought, though he didn't bother to crack the joke out loud. It wasn't as though he hadn't tried; he'd taken a walk down to CAT St. just a few days ago. The café had been closed as usual but the damage had been repaired, and the familiar aesthetics of the newly-painted window art had been enough to assure him that CAT was alive and well. And that was all he needed to know, really. He would've liked to have another conversation with his idol sometime, if he ever bothered to reopen the café, but he knew CAT was a busy man. What would he even say to him, anyway? He owed the man a big thank-you, but even that, he wouldn't know where to even begin.

Besides, he had a hunch that Mr. Hanekoma would not approve of the way Neku had been using his camera app, Neku thought as he ran his thumb over his phone.

"Neku? Are you ever planning on finishing your food?" asked Joshua. He'd already slurped up the rest of his broth and shoved his bowl away.

Neku looked back down at the ominous ramen bowl and sighed. "I'm really not hungry, Joshua, especially not for something you intentionally ordered because you knew I wouldn't like it."

"When you put it that way, it makes me sound so bad," said Joshua, with a mock pout. "I just thought it would be nice for you to try new things. Eating plain shoyu ramen every day isn't good for the Imagination, you know. But fine, if you insist - "

"Why do you care about my imagi-"

"Gochisousama!" Joshua called to a passing waiter, cutting Neku off. Before the waiter even arrived, Joshua stood abruptly, dropping a few coins onto the table. That was it, Neku thought, Joshua was bored of him and leaving already, and Neku hadn't even gotten a chance to ask him any questions that were really important – and he opened his mouth to ask Joshua to wait– but Joshua was staring at him expectantly. Confused, Neku tilted his head, and Joshua responded by nodding in the direction of the door. "Well, Neku? Are you coming, or would you rather sit there staring at ramen you're not going to eat?"

"You want me to - ?"

"Any day now. Preferably before Mr. Doi asks us to try any of his new experiments."

It was an odd thing for Joshua to be complaining about, seeing as how he'd been praising the guy's "imaginative" recipes seconds before, but Neku got the message, and he followed Joshua towards the door.

Once they left the building, Joshua stopped walking. Neku stopped to see what he wanted, but Joshua just smiled expectantly. Neku frowned. "Uh…"

"You lead the way, Neku."

"Lead where?"

Joshua shook his head, seemingly exasperated. "Your place, of course. I'm offering to walk you home. What kind of gentleman do you take me for?"

Neku resisted the urge to punch him upside the face for that, knowing that it wouldn't do anything and that it was a reaction that he wanted, anyway. "Like hell I want you seeing where I live."

The meaning of the smirk on Joshua's face was clear: translated to words, it would probably be something along the lines of It's cute that you think you could stop me from finding out. But out loud all he said was, "I understand, Neku. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable. Why don't you take a walk with me, then? It would be such a shame not to finish such a riveting game of twenty questions. We're about – four questions in, I believe?"

"Four?" Neku repeated. "I only asked one."

Joshua shook his head. "You asked how Mr. H was doing, I asked you if you were going to finish your dinner, and just now you asked me – "

"Wait – you're counting those questions? That wasn't for the game; we were just talking!"

Joshua shrugged. "Questions are questions. If you didn't want them to be part of the game, you should have said so. Now, let's see- I believe it's my turn. Let's go, Neku."

That was annoying, but it probably wouldn't be any use to argue, Neku thought, as he and Joshua started to walk down the street. He still had eight questions left, anyway.

"So, Neku," said Joshua. "What brought you to Ramen Don in the first place? I'm assuming you didn't come to eat."

The question startled him, but he didn't let the surprise register on his face. Joshua knew, didn't he? He'd said he was clairvoyant; who knew what that entailed? Heck, he could be scanning him that very moment – could've been scanning him the whole time. Neku placed his hand back into his pocket, rubbed his thumb over his phone protectively. Soon he regretted this; Joshua's gaze followed Neku's hand to the pocket, and though he didn't say anything, Joshua's facial expression – a smug smirk that probably would have looked like an innocent smile to anyone who didn't know Joshua better – made it clear that he knew exactly what Neku had been doing.

Which meant, of course, that he was only bringing it up to be a douche.

"None of your business," said Neku, gripping his phone a bit tighter.

"No?" said Joshua, smirking again. "What a shame, to end this game so soon."

Neku raised an eyebrow. "End the game?"

Joshua shook his head. "Don't you know, Neku? In 'twenty questions', if you don't answer a question, that makes you the loser. Which would mean the game is over, as there is no point in continuing after a winner and loser have already been decided."

Neku hadn't known that "twenty questions" was an actual game with actual rules. In fact, he strongly suspected that Joshua was making this up as he went along. Neku frowned.

"And if the game is over," continued Joshua, "I'm going home. You haven't been the most interesting conversation partner today."

"…Right. Thanks for educating me about the real way to play 'twenty questions'," said Neku. The sarcasm was only subtly detectable from his voice, but he knew Josh would pick up on it for the simple reason that Neku would never thank Joshua for being didactic. "I came here to take pictures; happy now?"

"Pictures of what, Neku? Ramen Don looks as nice as any cheap Ramen Shop, I suppose, but it hardly warrants a trip for the sole purpose of taking pictures."

"Pictures of the past," Neku said.

"Ooh, putting your fancy new cell phone app to good use, I see?" Joshua smiled. "Still, that doesn't explain much about the location. What's so interesting about the past of Ramen Don?"

"I'm looking for pictures of my best friend who died two years ago. We went there once to celebrate his birthday. Happy now?"

He could've kept being evasive, but what would be the point? On the off chance that Joshua didn't already know, he would weasel the answer out of him eventually anyway, and it wasn't like he really had anything to hide in the first place. He'd once had a best friend who died in a car accident. So what? Sure, he had a fair deal of guilt and self-blame over what happened, but he was aware that it was irrational, that no one else would say it was Neku's fault. And it wasn't like Neku was the only person to ever lose a loved one – Joshua dealt with death all the time; he probably wouldn't even care.

…That didn't exactly make Neku want to talk about it with him, though.

To Joshua's credit, he at least wasn't smiling anymore. He seemed distracted. They'd reached Scramble Crossing, and Joshua was looking for an opening in the crowd to squeeze into. It was just like old times, Neku thought, except now they had to actually navigate through the crowds instead of just walking through people. At least there was no Taboo Noise chasing them.

…Come to think of it, he'd been following Joshua for the past few minutes without having any clue where he was being led.

"Hey, Joshua?" he asked, trying to squeeze past a clingy couple that Joshua had just shoved out of the way. "Where are we even going?"

Joshua turned around, spotted him, and waved him over, though he turned back around to watch the road as Neku approached. "The Shibuya River, of course. I've got to get back to work. I figured if you don't want me to walk you home, you can be the gentleman this time."

"Oh," said Neku. That was maybe five minutes away. Which meant they wouldn't have much time left to talk. Unless Joshua invited him into his little sewer castle, but he doubted that would happen. Even if Joshua would put his Composer duties aside in favor of continuing to play pointless games with Neku, the place probably wasn't even accessible from the RG. Regardless, he didn't have much time left, and who knew when he'd see Joshua again? If he had anything important to ask, he'd better think of it soon.

"So, Josh-" Neku started, but Joshua wasn't paying attention to him. He was watching the road intently. Neku looked in the same direction, but he couldn't see much – they still weren't at the front of the crowd. "Joshua, what are you - ?"

"This way!" Joshua shouted at Neku, and promptly took off in a sprint.

"Wait- Josh – what the - !?" Neku shouted, but instinctively took off after him. He wasn't letting him get away early. He pressed through the few bystanders in front of him in the crowd, following Joshua into the road, not looking at anything except Joshua's feet in front of him – and that's when he heard a honk.

Shit! A car was rushing towards him, mere yards away. He froze, panicked, arms up in front of his head as if that could do anything to protect him from the same kind of force that had killed Beat and -

Joshua grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the way, just as the car that had been barreling towards him slammed on the breaks and halted about a foot onto the crossing. More honking, more screeching of tires, and angry shouts about stupid kids getting themselves killed rang in Neku's ears as Joshua pulled him towards the other side of the road. When they reached the sidewalk on the other side, Joshua stopped running suddenly, which caused Neku to tumble over onto the concrete, his MP3 player flying out in front of him. Neku barely noticed it; barely noticed the stinging scrapes on his legs and wrists. He was shaking.

"I hate waiting for lights to turn," Joshua said casually. A jogger passed by, staring, and someone in a passing car shouted at them to be more careful. Neku sat up, grabbed his fallen MP3 player, reached into his pocket to make sure his phone was intact. "Anyway," Joshua continued, "what was that you were saying?"

Neku stood, as quickly as he could manage to balance himself on his shaking legs. Whether they were shaking out of fear or anger, he couldn't tell. "Joshua, what the hell was that!?"

"What was what, now?"

"You dragged me through the middle of the street!"

"I only dragged you after you stopped moving," said Joshua. "You followed me of your own volition."

"I could've been killed!"

Joshua shrugged. "There was a slight possibility that you could have, but I could have easily brought you back, or perhaps even stopped the cars before they hit you. Besides, I had been mentally calculating the amount of time it would take for us to run to the other side, and timed my departure so that we would reach the sidewalk seconds before any cars would get close. I didn't realize it would take you so long to come after me; it's not my fault you threw off my timing. Not that I would have said anything, if you hadn't complained."

Neku covered his head with his hands, crushing his hands into fists. "You are insane!" he groaned into his arms. "Why am I even talking to you!?"

Joshua giggled his stupid giggle again. "I don't think I can answer that for you, Neku. You already asked your question."

Neku took a deep breath, unclenched his fists, put his hands back down and looked back at Joshua. "What?"

"Remember?" said Joshua, sensing his confusion. "Either when you asked where we were going, or when you so eloquently inquired 'what the hell was that' – "

"That doesn't count!" Neku protested, but Joshua just shrugged.

"If you didn't want it to count, you should have said so before I answered," he said.

Neku took a deep breath. Reminded himself that it didn't matter; this was supposed to be a friendly game of twenty questions for crying out loud. "Fine," said Neku. "Ask your question."

Joshua started walking again as he asked. "How did it happen?"

"What?"

"Your friend. How did he die? Was he sick, or was it something sudden?"

That question surprised him. He had assumed, for some reason, that Joshua knew – just like he knew he'd been using the camera Mr. H had installed, just like he knew he'd be at Ramen Don that afternoon. He wouldn't put it past Joshua to ask Neku about his friend's death just to get a reaction, but this time he seemed… different somehow. He wasn't smiling like before, and while he probably wasn't concerned with the effect his question would have on Neku's feelings, he didn't seem like he already knew the answer, either.

"It was a car accident," said Neku. "I asked him to come hang out, and he got hit by a car on the way."

"I see. I didn't know," said Joshua. He sounded sincere enough, but… well, not particularly apologetic. After a moment he added, "Gee, Neku, you sure have a lot of friends who died in car accidents. You must be some kind of jinx."

Neku was about to open his mouth again to ask what the hell Joshua was talking about, and then he realized that Joshua would count it as another one of his questions, and settled for shooting Joshua an unamused glare.

"Then again," Joshua continued, "three of the four died in accidents before you met them, so it could be just a coincidence, unless you somehow jinxed them in retrograde – your destiny to befriend them was what caused them to suffer such unpleasant fates. Then again, if they hadn't died in car accidents, they'd likely have never befriended you. What a paradox. What do you think about that, Neku?"

I think you're an asshole, Neku thought. Out loud he said, "That's two questions in a row."

"Good job, Neku. You're finally paying attention. I guess you've earned a question of your own for that." Joshua smiled. "Ask away."

Neku broke eye contact, clenched his fists and unclenched them again. Finally it was time to actually ask something serious… but he wasn't sure what to ask. After all, this was Joshua, and Joshua would probably give the least helpful answer he could think of if Neku didn't word his question very, very carefully. Anything that could be answered with yes or no would probably get him exactly that; his question should probably be open-ended, but not leave Joshua too much freedom to intentionally misinterpret.

And even with that in mind, he wasn't sure what to ask in the first place. Sure; he'd had a lot to reflect on since the Game – there were a million things that didn't make sense, not to mention a million things he didn't understand about Joshua himself. And Neku never would've admitted it out loud, but in spite of all the bizarre happenings in the Game he could've given himself headaches over, he found himself thinking about Joshua and his motives more than the rest of the things that didn't add up. The loss of a friend – if Joshua even counted as one in the first place - was hard to process.

But Joshua wasn't the only friend he'd been left wondering about. Before the Game, he'd come to terms with his best friend's death – he'd heard of heaven and reincarnation and everything else grieving people took comfort in, but he'd never really believed in an afterlife. The Game, of course, changed that. Not that it gave him much hope – obviously, whatever had happened to his friend, he hadn't won the Game and come back to life. He could have become a Reaper, but… he never would have done that, and besides, if he'd been a Reaper, Neku probably would have run into him at some point. But still, even just knowing of the UG's existence had brought up a million unsettling questions about his friend, digging into his mind like parasites and coming out to breed at night when he didn't have anything to distract himself with.

But though it certainly would have been a relief to know for sure whether or not his friend still existed in some form… he couldn't deny the frustrating, exhausting, yet jittery and elevating kind of hope that had sprouted in him when he found out that neither death nor erasure were permanent. He wasn't sure he was ready to kill that hope.

"Say, Neku," said Joshua, interrupting Neku's thoughts, "why don't we stop by Hachiko while you're thinking?" He nodded in the direction of the statue. "We still aren't even halfway done with our game, and I'm sure you'd rather finish it here than at my place."

"…Fine with me," Neku said, pushing his introspections aside and returning his focus to the current conversation. He looked at the Hachiko statue, which was inundated with crowds. "Hachiko seems kind of… busy, though."

"Oh, that doesn't bother me," said Joshua cheerily. "Shibuya's citizens and commuters have been so… harmonious lately; they're unusually tolerable to be around these days, even a bunch of them at once. I'm not naïve enough to expect this strange phenomenon to last, but I intend to relish it while it's happening. Let's go sit down."

Neku wasn't sure what Joshua meant by that –people were pretty much the same as always, he thought; he'd just gotten better at tolerating them – but he didn't want to waste a question on asking. Joshua brushed his fingers against Hachiko's face before walking past it and plopping down in the seating area around the statue.

Neku sat beside him, staring absently at passers-by. Should he ask what had happened to his friend? Would Joshua even know? Neku didn't know how much Joshua actually paid attention to normal Games. …And if Joshua did know, would he even actually explain anything? Because judging by how he'd been acting so far, he was more likely to try to get on Neku's nerves by making whatever his answer was as frustratingly vague and unhelpful as possible. For a minute he tried to think of ways to get around that – maybe writing out the question first so he could remember to include as many details as possible for one sentence - but his stomach kept tying itself in knots, and he couldn't bring himself to focus. But now that he knew Joshua was planning on hanging around until they finished their game, he found it much easier to procrastinate asking. Maybe, it would be better to ask a few other questions first – that way he could gauge what kinds of wording would be most likely to provoke a detailed response.

Joshua was looking quite content, eyes closed, legs stretched out in front of him as he leaned backwards so far that his head brushed against the shrubbery behind him. He inhaled deeply, and his chest rose. How strange it was that the god of the underworld would have a need to breathe. Then again, it was also strange that he would eat ramen or wear Natural Puppy clothes or amuse himself by playing twenty questions with the living. It was easy to forget he was Composer – but at the same time, it was easy to forget that Neku had ever thought he was human. He was incomprehensible. Sometimes, Neku wasn't even convinced he had emotions – and yet he cared enough to spare the city. He'd cared enough to spare Neku.

And so Neku asked the next question that occurred to him."What is it like to be the Composer?"

Joshua plucked a leaf from the brush behind him and rubbed it in his fingers before lazily opening his eyes and looking at Neku. "It's about time you asked. I was about to doze off there – I always get so sleepy after lunch." He yawned and shook his head. "Being a Composer is… fun, I suppose. It has its ups and downs, but it's quite the rewarding job, in the end, whenever it's not too busy."

Neku frowned. From the way Joshua described it, you'd never guess his job required putting people through the closest thing that existed to a literal hell. "I wasn't asking if you enjoy it. I want to know what it's like. What do you do, exactly, as Composer – other than shooting teenage boys and entering your own Game undercover?"

Joshua sighed. "Once again, Neku, shooting teenagers is not a habit of mine – I've only shot three."

Neku raised an eyebrow at that. He had been referring only to himself, but he supposed Pi-Face could be a teenager too, and Neku decided to assume – or more like hope – that the third was someone who had challenged him for his Composer's seat and got beaten, fair and square.

At any rate, Joshua didn't elaborate. "Most of my work kind of… takes care of itself, I suppose," he said. "In the beginning, I had to do a lot of paperwork to set up the way I wanted the Game to work. But now that it's established, I mostly just sit back and watch from the sidelines. Actually running the Game – keeping records of players, collecting entry fees, and so forth – is the Conductor's job. Enforcing rules, as you know, is Sanae's job – though he's done a terrible job of it, as of late. The only thing I get to do is decide what happens to the players who survive the week."

Neku broke eye contact with Joshua and stared at his feet. Had his friend gotten that far? Neku liked to think he had – he was resourceful, and smart, and Neku knew he would have fought to the best of his ability to have the chance to come back to life. …But even if he'd survived, he obviously hadn't done well enough. Neku imagined his friend in the same position he and Shiki had been in just a few weeks ago, excited and relieved and desperate to come back home, only to be told he wasn't good enough. That he'd have to be erased, become a Reaper, or go through that whole hellish Game again. There's no way his friend would have just given up on life; he wasn't that kind of person – he must have played the Game again, and again and again and again if he'd had to; he would've fought with all his heart to get back to Neku – but no matter how hard or how long he'd fought, he hadn't made it. And that had been Joshua's decision.

"How do you decide?" Neku asked.

Joshua smiled a strange, resigned smile that wasn't particularly large but still showed his teeth. "Oh dear, Neku. I'm fairly certain you don't want to know the answer to that."

"I'm fairly certain I do," Neku said steadily, though he felt a bit queasy.

Joshua sighed. "Fine, then. I can see I'm not getting out of this one. I'll answer your question if you insist, but at least allow me to ask one of my own first. Rules are rules."

Of course he couldn't give a straight answer without taking his turn to ask Neku something invasive or provocative first. "Fine," said Neku. "Ask."

"All right. What is your favorite food?"

…That wasn't the kind of question Neku had been expecting. "Chicken nuggets," he said warily. "Why do you ask?"

Immediately after saying that, he mentally slapped himself – he'd just accidentally wasted a question again – but Joshua didn't seem to catch on. He smiled and clapped his hands twice. "Perfect!" he said. "Let's go to Sunshine. My treat."

"But we just – "

"I just ate," Joshua interrupted. "You just made faces at your food. And though I'm rather disappointed that you didn't accept my heartfelt gesture of gratitude, I'm both wealthy and kind enough to offer you a replacement. It's the least I could do." Joshua sprung to his feet and offered Neku a hand, which Neku didn't take. "Come on. Let's get you some nuggets."

This was suspicious. This was very, very suspicious, and Neku found himself trying to remember if there had been any salmonella outbreaks in chicken lately. He also briefly wondered if this was because the answer to Neku's question about how Joshua decided who lived and stayed dead would make Neku angry, and Joshua was trying to butter him up with food before answering – but that seemed pretty unlikely, with how much Joshua seemed to enjoy tempting Neku to hate him.

He probably had an ulterior motive of some kind, but Neku wouldn't know what it was until he agreed – and he had to admit, he was curious. And hungry.

"Sure," Neku said, "but you have to answer my question on the way."

"Don't worry, I'll answer it," said Joshua, as he started to walk towards the fast food place. "Remind me what your question was again?"

…As if he would forget, after making such a big deal out how Neku wouldn't want to know the answer. Whatever. "When you choose what happens to the players who survive the week… how does that whole process go?"

"Ah, yes," said Joshua. "Give me a minute to think of how to answer this one, will you?" As they approached the station-side shopping area, Joshua dug in his pockets for coins and gave a handful of yen to Neku. "Here. Get yourself as whatever you'd like and a soft drink for me, please. I could use some caffeine right now." He yawned to prove his point.

Neku took the money and walked ahead to get in line. It was strange how familiar it felt, the relief that came from escaping Joshua's presence for just a few minutes while Neku ordered the food and Joshua lingered behind to find a table – the same routine they'd always followed back in the Game. Neku had never trusted Joshua enough to let him handle the money. Joshua usually claimed he was too tired to stand in line, but the last time they'd gone to Sunshine together he'd come up in line next to Neku and made unusually pleasant conversation that could have been interpreted in quite a different way than intended by someone who was thinking of a different definition of the word "partner" – something Neku only realized when Joshua gleefully pointed out how flustered the cashier was getting from listening to them. The same cashier was there now, her extra-wide smile and cheerful greeting of "Long time no see! Welcome back!" one of the few bits of evidence Neku had that the Game had ever happened. Neku ordered a meal and a Mountain Dew, vaguely remembering that Joshua didn't like cola.

"It depends on how much they learned from the Game, and how good their Imagination is," said Joshua's voice from behind him, out of nowhere.

Neku turned around to see that the Composer had showed up behind him. Neku looked at him quizzically.

"My job is to judge the worth of souls," Joshua continued. "The Game exists to refine Imagination and weed out the souls that aren't worth judging."

Neku tilted his head. "Imagination…?"

"Yes," said Joshua. "Unlike the RG, which runs solely on physics, the UG runs on Imagination. Most of the Imagination that powers it originates from me, hence why I'm the Composer, but Reapers and Players can have an effect on it, too. That's what Psyches are, and why they work differently for each person. If you learn to use Psyches well enough to survive for a week in the Game, it means your Soul is at least worth looking at."

The cashier called Neku's name and he went to get his food. Joshua took the soda without comment and guided Neku to a small table in a corner, where they sat facing each other.

"What about people who don't survive the week, like Rhyme?" Neku asked. "Was her 'Imagination' not good enough?"

"No. Her Imagination was quite impressive," said Joshua, "and unusually refined, for someone who was erased – what was it – four days into the week? She fell into a trap; her erasure was a fluke. It's not a perfect system." He shrugged. "Aren't you going to eat?"

He was hungry, but it didn't feel right to munch on nuggets while talking about Rhyme being erased. "How can you say something like that? Rhyme was erased when she shouldn't have been, and you shrug it off as a flaw in the system."

"I understand your feelings. It's terribly unfair that perfectly competent Players end up erased due to, say – a partner's failings. In such cases, I give Sanae – who watches the Game more closely than I do – the right to preserve an erased Player's Soul in a pin. That way I can judge them personally later."

"Then what the hell is the point of the Game?" Neku demanded. "Why let them be erased in the first place? Why not just judge everyone at the beginning and spare them all the torment?"

"Several reasons," said Joshua. "Number one, the Game changes people. Now, this is doesn't make a difference for everyone. Your Imagination, Neku, was excellent from the beginning – which is a large part of the reason I chose you. So you would be fine, if I'd had to judge you before putting you through the Game. But if I had judged – let's say, your friend Mr. Bito, for example – immediately after he died, he likely wouldn't have quite made the cut. He wasn't using his Imagination to its fullest potential. But the Game inspired him – gave him something to fight for. His Imagination flourished, and by the time I got the chance to judge him, he had grown enough to be returned to life. Suggesting I not give such a chance to the souls who might need it, just because you find the Game unpleasant, is really quite selfish of you, Neku." He took a large sip of his Mountain Dew.

"The second reason," Joshua continued, "is that the Reapers need to grow as well. I do believe Sanae explained this to you? As Players refine their Imagination by fighting Noise, Reapers refine their Imagination by fighting Players. If they didn't have any way to refine their Imagination, their self-awareness would eventually begin to dissolve to the point that their bodies – which consist, as everything else in the UG, of Imagination – would no longer be able to house their Souls. In other words, they would be erased."

Neku took a sip of cola. "Yeah. Mr. H. told me. If they don't erase us, they get erased." It wasn't pleasant to think about, but he supposed he couldn't blame the Reapers for keeping themselves alive. Especially the ones who had helped him out in spite of that. Like 777. And Kariya. And Beat.

"The third reason is that it's much easier to send Players out on menial tasks and call it a mission, than it is to do my own errands," Joshua said with a smile. "And the fourth reason is that Games are fun."

"You and I have very different opinions on that," said Neku, popping a fry into his mouth.

Joshua giggled again. "Oh, I know. But it's different opinions that make people interesting, don't you agree?"

"Interesting is too polite of a word for you," Neku said. "So the way you choose which Players get chosen to come back to life – is how good their imagination is?"

"Well… not exactly," said Joshua. "Players are only granted reincarnation if they have changed enough in the Game to prove they actually deserve a second chance – if they give me reason to believe they'd do more worthwhile things in the RG than they would if they stayed dead. If their Imaginations are good enough, but they haven't grown in character, they can either play the Game again or become Reapers. …Resurrecting people is physically tiring for me, so I naturally avoid doing so as much as possible."

"Wait," said Neku. "I thought the whole point of the Game was to see who got to come back to life. You're saying there might be a group of people that all win the Game and yet none of them are allowed to come back?"

"Yes," said Joshua.

Neku frowned, once again imagining his best friend surviving the week only to be told he hadn't been chosen. Going through all of that, only to find out it was all for nothing. That wasn't fair. "You know, if you can't bring back everyone, I get it. That's the circle of life, and I accepted it a long time ago – y'know, back before I learned there were exceptions. But why the hell do you have to lie about it? Why get people's hopes up? Why not just tell them upfront that they can only go back if they change?"

"Put simply, the Game's a test," said Joshua. "What would be the point in testing people after telling them all the answers?"

"What's the point of testing people and not telling them what they're being tested on?" Neku demanded.

Joshua slurped the remainder of his soda. "You get more authentic results that way."

Neku clenched his fists, unclenched them, sank back in his seat, shoved a nugget in his mouth, and chewed angrily. "Fine."

"Your table manners are atrocious," said Joshua, sighing. "Is there anything else you needed clarification on?"

"Yes…" Neku swallowed a mouthful of chicken and opened his mouth to ask – and then closed his mouth again. He didn't know what to ask. He did feel like he was missing a good portion of the information he wanted, but he didn't even know where to start asking. Mentally he reviewed what Joshua had told him – the point of the Reapers Game, he had said, was not to send people back to life, but to see who had good Imagination. If a Player had good Imagination, and had changed, they got sent back to the RG. If they didn't change, they played the Game again, or became Reapers – but, Neku remembered, high Imagination was required for those things, too. Joshua's role in the Game was to judge the Imaginations of the surviving Players… but so far every possible outcome Joshua had mentioned was reserved for the ones whose Imagination Joshua deemed worthy.

So, if the Game had a winner with bad Imagination…

Suddenly something Joshua had mentioned before came back to him: "I have erased quite a few people over the years, but that's my job." Neku nearly choked on his food. Neku had thought Joshua was referring to the people who challenged him for the Composer's seat – but…

"Something wrong, Neku?" Joshua asked, as Neku began to cough up bits of chicken nugget onto the table. Neku glared at him with eyes red from coughing. "That's disgusting."

Neku washed the rest of the chicken down with the last of his cola and began to clean the table with a napkin. "You erase them, don't you?"

"It took you a while to make that connection," said Joshua calmly. "Yes, I do."

"What the hell?" asked Neku, throwing the napkin with the chewed-up chicken bits into the trashcan with as much force as he wanted to use on Joshua's face. "They do what you say, they win the Game, and then you erase them?"

"If it's any comfort, it's rare that I have to. Most people with low Imagination don't make it that far in the first place."

"That doesn't make it better!"

"You say that doesn't make it better, and yet you hardly objected to them being erased naturally within the course of the Game. You only made an outburst like that once you figured out I did it with my own hand. Why does that make you so angry? Surely we've established that the UG is a dog-eat-dog world."

"Erasing people in the Game – in a fair fight – is one thing!" Neku said. "But to string them along – to make them do what you say, to give them hope and then take it away, after they've already gone through what they have…."

Joshua made a hush gesture. "Sssh. Need I remind you that we're in public? You're shouting out to the entire population about things that you're not supposed to know in the first place."

"I don't give a – !"

Joshua held out a hand, signaling him to stop talking. "You're objecting to the crushing disappointment a surviving player would feel upon being informed they'd be erased anyway, correct? For goodness sakes, Neku, I don't tell them I'm going to erase them – I'm not that cruel. Megumi congratulates them on winning, and their last thoughts are of how happy their loved ones will be to see them come home. Then it's over. Are you done eating already?"

Neku grabbed the paper bag that contained the remainder of his food and made his way for the door. "Yeah, I'm done," he said angrily. "I'm going home."

Joshua grabbed his arm, preventing him from leaving. "Now, now, Neku. I understand you're angry, but let's not get carried away. I do believe you have a question you haven't asked yet? If you leave now, you might not get another chance. I don't get out all that often, you see."

As much as Neku hated to admit it, he was right. If he ever wanted to find out what had happened to his best friend, he'd have to stay.

"Let go of me," Neku said, and Joshua complied. They left the restaurant together, ignoring the stares that Neku's outburst had provoked.

As they made their way towards the station underpass, an odd silence fell over them. Joshua was watching Neku curiously – not smirking, not saying anything, just observing the emotions manifesting on his face. "It doesn't hurt them, you know," he said after a moment. "When you were erased, you were only in pain because I shot you first. If I had broken you into soul directly, you wouldn't have even known it was happening."

Neku said nothing.

"You don't hate yourself for killing the Reapers who attacked you, do you? You were playing the Game. You were keeping yourself alive. And you don't hate the Reapers who tried to kill you, because they were doing the same thing. So why are you so angry at me? I'm playing my part just like everybody else."

"It's your Game, Joshua!" Neku snapped, stopping in his tracks. "How the hell can you lump yourself in with everyone else who's killing each other to follow your rules?"

"Look, Neku," Joshua said, in a forcibly calm voice. They'd stopped walking outright; Neku was vaguely aware of the passers-by staring at the teenage boys yelling at each other about reapers. "Here's a riddle for you – see if you can spot the pattern and fill in the blanks, here. If you're a Player, and you don't erase lower beings - Noise, you become weak and get erased by higher beings – Reapers. If you're a Reaper and you don't erase lower beings – Players - you get erased naturally. If you're a Composer and you don't compose – if you don't refine your city's Imagination – what do you think happens?"

"I'm not in the mood for riddles!" Neku snapped again. He'd barely listened; he'd gotten caught up on the first sentence. "What's all this crap about higher and lower beings!? What the hell makes a Reaper 'higher' than me?"

"The amount of Imagination they are capable of utilizing."

"Why the hell does that matter?" Neku demanded. Because here he was going on about all that Imagination stuff again, and he had no idea why that was relevant to anything – and suddenly he realized what Joshua had really been saying earlier, about Beat. Not only was he saying Beat wouldn't have been brought back to life in other circumstances; he was saying he would've erased him. But Beat was a good person; he'd been a way better person than Neku had been, before the Game. Neku had been the kind of person to treat everyone around him like crap for no reason; Beat had been the kind of person to throw himself in front of a car to save his sister. And Joshua would've erased him, if he hadn't won the Game. "You think that means they deserve to exist more than us?"

"It's not about who deserves what," Joshua said. "It's about improving the city. Refining Souls to be more imaginative. I know you're taught in the RG that a kind heart and cooperation is more important than talent, but imaginative souls are necessary to building the future. That's why this whole system is in place. You either get erased, or you advance. And once you advance, you play your role. I'm playing mine."

Neku said nothing.

There was silence for a moment, while Neku processed what Joshua said. Found himself wondering yet again how this information might have related to Neku's best friend's time in the UG. At some point, he'd either been erased in the Game, or he'd become a Reaper. It was like a fork in the road with two dead ends.

Someday, hopefully in the very far future, Neku would have to choose one of those dead ends for himself.

"How many questions are left?" Neku said quietly.

"Seven between the two of us," Joshua said. "It's my turn now."

"Fine. Let's go."

"Let's go back to Hachiko," Joshua said cheerfully, as if he hadn't just been justifying his role in forcing people to fight to the death. "It's such a nice day. Why go home so soon?"

Neku felt sick. He felt like he was in the second week of the Game again, being tugged and pushed in whatever way Joshua wanted, not knowing anything he was being dragged to do – but now it was worse. He somehow understood Joshua even less than he had before, and the pure stress of trying to predict Joshua's moves, the difficulty of trying to relate to him on a human level while not even knowing how human he was, was causing his ears to ring and his head to ache. Still, he walked to the Hachiko statue just as Joshua had requested, Joshua ambling along just behind him, letting Neku lead the way but never actually giving him a say in anything.

Joshua placed a hand on the statue, stroking it. "There's a lot of Imagination concentrated here," Joshua explained. "Not just from the sculptors, but from the millions of people who have been inspired by Hachiko's story. So many thoughts feed into this statue. It's almost alive."

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Neku.

Joshua's response to this was yet another giggle – slightly softer this time, his hand placed politely in front of his mouth. Neku raised an eyebrow. "What the hell is funny about that?"

"Oh, nothing," said Joshua. "It's just that you're so… nonchalant about it. If I told anyone else that the statue was alive, they'd think I was crazy."

Neku said nothing to this. Shouldn't it be obvious that someone who had been through what Neku had would be more open than the average person to hearing about weird supernatural stuff?

"I digress, though," Joshua said. "What's really interesting about Hachiko here is that he changes to reflect the mood of the city. I call him Hachiko, and yet – he has nothing to do with the dog whose likeness inspired him. That dog's soul is gone – probably erased, scattered, and recoded into new forms that have long since left Shibuya. But the people of Shibuya continue to shape this statue according to the way they interpret Hachiko's story. Right now, he's very happy."

Instinctively, Neku found himself reaching out to the statue, as if to touch the happiness Joshua was talking about. All he felt was rock. He put his hand down, feeling silly. "Are you ever going to ask me your question?" Neku asked. "Or do you just want to listen to yourself talk?"

"Patience, Neku, I'm leading up to it," said Joshua, holding up a hand in a halt signal. "I answered quite a few of your questions in a row last time. The least you could do is hear me out in return." He shook his head. "Anyway, it's unusual for Hachiko to feel so cheerful. On a good day, he's bittersweet, maybe a little nostalgic. Often he's lonely. Sometimes he's despair, which is really not good because then he starts to depress everyone who comes to the train station. When it gets too bad, he starts attracting Noise, and we have to send Players to clean him up."

Like Neku and Shiki had done. They'd nearly died clearing the Noise out of that stupid dog.

"But today – and actually for quite some time now – Hachiko has been full of joy. People are inspired by the loyalty of this dog… just like you, Neku."

Neku frowned, confused but not wanting to hear the explanation enough to ask for it.

"Don't tell me you don't remember, Neku," said Joshua. "You know, back during the Game, when we visited this statue? I asked you why you thought Hachiko kept coming back, and you told me it was out of loyalty to his master."

"Well… yeah," said Neku. "I mean… that's how the story goes."

"That's how people want it to go," said Joshua, smiling. "Even when presented with an alternative explanation, they refuse to accept it. People are drawn to anecdotes that confirm their ideals. They have chosen the story of Hachiko to restore their faith in everlasting loyalty – to assure them that love really can last forever."

But it couldn't. Love couldn't last forever, because people die and then they get erased, or else they have to erase each other. That's what Joshua was getting at. It was so hopeless, so despicable of a cycle. Neku's stomach churned.

"So, Neku," Joshua continued. "My question for you, is… do you really think loyalty is a good thing?"

He was smirking as usual, and as Neku knew it wasn't really a question. Whatever answer he chose, Joshua would use it to lead into whatever philosophy he wanted to talk about – and it would probably be another speech about the futility of trying to understand people and Neku couldn't be sucked into that mindset again. He couldn't, not when his head was aching and his stomach was weak and he could feel all the hairs on his body rise when Joshua got too close, like he was made of static. Not when his best friend was dead and Neku still had to periodically remind himself why people were even worth it.

But Joshua wasn't letting him out of this; he leaned casually against the statue and watched Neku expectantly, smirking as usual. "I guess so," Neku answered.

"Really?" asked Joshua, still smiling. "What good does it do?"

"That's two questions in a row," Neku said. He didn't care about the rules of this stupid game but he didn't want to let Joshua get away with something he wouldn't have been able to.

"No it's not," said Joshua. "You didn't give me a real answer. 'I guess so' is meaningless. It means what you're saying isn't your own opinion, but what you think you're supposed to say. I want to know what you really think. What would you think about loyalty if you hadn't been conditioned to believe it was a good thing, hmmm?"

"Joshua, why don't you just skip the part where you pretend to give a damn about what I think and move on to your actual point so we can get this over with?" Neku snapped.

"Oh, but I do want to know what you think," said Joshua, smiling. "If anyone can convince me of the usefulness of loyalty it's you, Neku."

"Why me?" It wasn't the first time he'd wanted to ask Joshua that.

"Because you're a very loyal person."

Neku said nothing.

"After all, look at what you're doing with your camera app."

Neku's hand flew to his pocket and he clutched his phone. "What does that have to do with loyalty?"

Joshua's smile widened. "You're so protective of it. Don't worry, Neku, I'm not going to do anything to your little photos. I don't care what you do in your spare time. And however much Sanae might be concerned that 'living in the past is stopping you from enjoying the moment' – he's not going to do anything to it, either. He just hates to be the bad guy, you know."

"…Mr. H. knows?" Neku asked, his face heating up.

"He's been… keeping an eye on you, you could say."

"From the UG!?" Neku's face felt even hotter, and he could feel his heart pounding. Mr. H - CAT - had been watching him? "Wh-why? How long? What has he seen? "

"Now, now, Neku. It's still my turn to ask a question, remember? Besides, you'd get better answers if you asked him that. I don't see why you always seem to expect me to know what goes on in that man's head." For a moment Joshua looked annoyed; his eyes flickered upwards for a moment before he returned his gaze to Neku and giggled again. "He'll be so angry when he finds out I told you."

For a second, Neku's embarrassment about having been watched by Mr. H was replaced by pure sympathy for the man. He'd gotten the impression that Joshua wasn't quite as much of a jerk towards Mr. H as he was towards other people… but it looked like Mr. H had to tolerate a good amount of Joshua's crap as well. The poor guy must have the patience of a saint.

"Anyway. Back to my question, shall we now?" Joshua said. "Why is the story of Hachiko so inspiring? Isn't it pathetic, when you think about it? Assuming he truly was returning to the station every day to wait for his master… the poor puppy wastes his life away waiting for someone who will never come. Wouldn't it have been better if he had simply given up, moved on, and stopped thinking about the past? Wouldn't it be better if he had abandoned his owner, out of anger for being left behind? And perhaps it would be best of all if Hachiko had simply forgotten."

"No," said Neku.

"No? Why not? Why does it please you to think about the grief the poor little canine must have suffered?"

"It's not about that and you know it," Neku grumbled. "I'm saying it's not better to forget. I mean, for one thing – forgetting doesn't help. You can forget everyone you ever knew and still be grieving over them. Even the worst memories are better than nothing… trust me on that."

"Hmm," said Joshua thoughtfully. "Interesting. I would debate that, but I suppose that is the one issue about which you are more qualified to offer an opinion than I am. So then, if forgetting is not preferable to constant grieving – what about moving on? What if, instead of continuing to wait for his master every day, Hachiko, say… grew angry about being abandoned, and decided he never wanted to see his master again? Or if not anger, what if he simply became so happy with his new life that he soon stopped longing for the past? Wouldn't that be a happier ending?"

"No," Neku said automatically. And his head hurt and his hands twitched and he knew they weren't really talking about Hachiko anymore, but he had no idea what they were talking about. Neku was thinking of his dead best friend but it wasn't like Joshua cared about that, and he was the one steering the conversation. "No. That's not better either. Because if it's that easy to stop caring, that means it never meant anything in the first place."

"And? Why is that so bad? What's worse – realizing that something you once thought was important doesn't mean anything after all, or spending the rest of your existence mourning over it?"

Neku paused and looked squarely at Joshua. He was still leaning casually against the statue, but he seemed to have been gradually sinking lower and lower as their conversation went on, his legs stretching out farther in front of him to hold him up. When he noticed Neku watching him, he plopped onto the ground, crossing his legs in front of him and leaning back against the statue.

Neku crouched down next to him; he was getting tired anyway. "Why do you keep acting like it has to be one or the other?"

"Because that's what loyalty is," Joshua said. "To be purely loyal is to not only never betray, but to never allow one's regard for a loved one sink – no matter what that person does, or where they are. Loyalty is blind to futility; no matter how impossible it might be to regain what was lost, a purely loyal person would never give up. Which means that, for a purely loyal person, every day after losing a loved one – or being betrayed by them - would be just as painful as the first."

Neku shifted his weight, slightly moving his body away from Joshua. Joshua was looking straight ahead, brows furrowed; an expression that Neku recognized as his thinking face. Neku remembered Joshua wearing that expression during the Game, but not in times like this. Normally when he had these kinds of discussions with Neku he was smirking, steering the conversation in whatever direction would permit him to show off his wisdom. But now he was looking confused, the way he looked when his tracker was stopped working, and when he was trying to figure out where the Taboo Noise was coming from. Was he… upset about something? Neku almost wanted to ask if something was wrong, but Joshua's posture – rigid, shoulders hunched, legs drawn in and arms clutching his knees – did not invite sympathy. He was still but looked like he would be volatile inside, like an active volcano, or a shaken-up soda bottle. And the longer Neku watched him sit still the longer it seemed like he was shaking, though Neku couldn't see it, or hear it, or –

"Neku?" Joshua said, spinning around, and suddenly Joshua had grabbed his arm and squeezed and in addition to the pressure of Joshua's fingers he felt, he saw, he inhaled, he heard – what was it? It was fire it was ultraviolet it was ice in his lungs it was static, yes that was it static, running through him and it was so loud, pulsing, bright, and Neku couldn't think or see or breathe and his head was in immense pain. Joshua let him go and immediately it dulled to a mild headache.

"What the hell was that?" Neku demanded, massaging his forehead.

"Sorry about that," Joshua said nonchalantly. "Looks like my vibe is starting to irritate you. I tried to keep it as low as possible, but I can't control every wave. I suppose I should be going now, before I start to throw your vibe off balance and accidentally tune you into the Noise Plane, or something. You can still walk me home, if you want to get your last question in."

"What?" Neku asked, still rubbing his head.

Joshua sighed and stood up, brushing the dirt off his pants. "Vibes are not an easy concept to explain to someone who's only been in the UG as a Player. Suffice it to say that everyone emits one, it can be adjusted to tune oneself into a different plane, and as a general rule, the stronger one is the higher their base vibe. My base vibe is so high that the waves it emits begin to interfere with the vibes of lower beings, causing severe discomfort in any such being who experiences prolonged exposure to me."

"…Yeah, I'm sure the 'severe discomfort' that we 'lower beings' feel around you is all because of your 'vibes'," Neku said flatly. "It couldn't possibly be your personality or anything."

"Oh, it's the vibes," Joshua said matter-of-factly. "Conductors can't stand me either, though I do make an effort to be professional with them. Even if I was the nicest person you'd ever met, you'd hate me. I can't control it."

"…Right. If you can't control it, explain why this never happened in the Game," said Neku. As much as he wanted to trust Joshua, this vibe thing sounded like nonsense.

"Your base vibe was higher then, too," said Joshua. "UG vibes are always higher, even for Players. There must've still been some interference, but not severe enough for you to realize the irritation you felt was a result of anything but my behavior. For the most part, anyway. Come on, now. I should be getting back soon. And you should be getting… well, away from me."

Neku stood up, picking up the bag of leftover fast food he had set in his lap, and the pair began to walk towards the bus station, this time side by side. Neku wondered if Joshua was staying close just to intentionally "irritate his vibes" or whatever, but the Composer didn't seem to be paying any attention to Neku. He was staring straight ahead again, eyes unfocused, mouth curled into a frown. It was eerie.

"Josh?" asked Neku. Immediately after saying it he wondered why he had; it wasn't like Neku needed to know what was troubling him. It wasn't like he'd get a straight answer if he asked.

But Joshua's eyes regained focus; he turned his head and met Neku's gaze. "Yes, Neku?"

"Uhhh…" Neku said, awkwardly placing a hand behind his head. He probably shouldn't ask what was wrong; Joshua was probably just being moody as always – "prickly", as M. H. put it – and he'd probably just be a jerk about it if he thought Neku was worried about him. So he asked something else he was worried about. "It's just, you said Conductors can't stand you, but Shades was acting like he worshipped the ground you walk on, so…"

"Oh, that," Joshua looked back ahead, though he didn't seem as spaced-out as before. "It's exactly like you said. He worshipped me, he was intimidated by me, he even knew me well enough to get along with me on some level, but he never particularly enjoyed my company. My vibes irritated him and he found me unnerving. He… never really saw me as my own person, you see; he always seemed to think of me as something of a personification of Shibuya… which is fine, I suppose, because that's essentially what I am."

Joshua wasn't anything like a personification of Shibuya. Not like how Neku would have imagined one, anyway. Neku have personified Shibuya as someone a lot less… prissy, for one thing. And a lot more… tolerable to talk to. Joshua had Shibuya's flamboyance down (he had way too much fun dressing up in gothic lolita), but everything else about him, was, well… just Joshua.

"You don't act like a personification of Shibuya," Neku said.

"No?" Joshua asked, smiling. "I'm not sure you're qualified to make such a statement. I don't believe you've ever met another personification of Shibuya, so who are you to judge whether or not I'm typical of one?"

"You're not a typical anything," said Neku. "At least, if there are other living personifications of Shibuya out there, I sure hope they're not anything like you."

"Well that was uncalled for, Neku. I'm hurt," said Joshua, with a giggle. "Though I suppose I should be flattered that you're saying I'm one-of-a-kind."

"I'm saying the world doesn't need more than one of you."

"It's not so bad, when there's more than one of me in one world. Other mes can be quite enjoyable company, really. There's one me in particular I think you might get along with."

A pause. "...What?"

"Oh, nothing." Grinning, Joshua dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. "Nothing you would understand, anyway. Besides, it's my turn to ask a question, not yours."

"Okay," said Neku. He decided to just ignore the patronization. "Ask."

"…Let me think about it for a minute."

Neku would have facepalmed, but he really didn't think his exponentially-growing headache needed any more fuel. Instead he just shot Joshua a mildly exasperated look, one that was intended to say both We're almost at the Shibuya River and I'd rather not hang around the sewer any longer than I have to and My head is in incredible pain at the same time. Joshua ignored it. But as they neared the end of the bus terminal, he spoke. "What would you have done, if you had erased me and become Composer?"

The shadow of the station underpass fell over them. This was one area of Shibuya that Neku hadn't been to since the Game. It reminded him that, just a few weeks ago, he and Beat had been planning on erasing the Composer. But they hadn't really wanted anything out of it, other than a chance to make things right. "Not sure," said Neku. "You didn't exactly give me a lot of time to think."

Joshua smiled. "If I had, maybe things would have turned out differently, hmm? You were asking earlier what it's like to be Composer. Are you sure you're not plotting to snag my position?"

"Not funny," said Neku. "Not everyone likes to battle to the death as much as you do, Josh. Besides, we're in the RG. I can't use my pins against you anyway."

"I could lend you a gun, if you asked nicely."

"Not. Funny." Neku shook his head. "Besides, I know it wouldn't do any good. I saw you stop those bullets with your powers."

Joshua blinked, taking an extra split second to process Neku's reply, before responding with a shake of his head. "That wasn't what I meant. But it doesn't matter; I was only joking. You never answered my question – what would you do if you were in my shoes, hmm? You were planning on fighting me before you knew it was me, correct? You must have had something in mind."

"I just wanted to bring everybody back," said Neku honestly. "That, and stop all the brainwashing. But mostly, I just wanted all my friends to be safe."

"How noble," said Joshua. Not sincere in the least, of course.

"What kind of answer were you expecting?" Neku asked, irritated with his tone.

Joshua shrugged. "Pretty much exactly what you said, I suppose. But who knows. You could have had some interesting plans for Shibuya in mind. If only you weren't so short-sighted."

"Excuse me?" Neku glared.

Joshua smiled. "Sorry, but your plans were very flawed. Oh, you could try to resurrect every single person you ever met, if you'd wanted to. Other Composers have tried to do the same, or so I've heard. But you wouldn't last 'til New Years that way."

"…Why not?" Neku asked.

Joshua shook his head in exasperation. "Really, Neku, was it that hard to figure out? It's like I tried to tell you - Players refine their Imagination by erasing Noise, Harrier Reapers refine their Imagination by erasing Players, and Composers – personifications, remember?– refine their Imagination by refining their cities. If you'd brought back everyone – a huge drain on your Imagination - refused to let anyone play the Game – stopping everyone's Imagination from growing… if you erased all the Noise in the City and made Shibuya some kind of happy-go-lucky utopian paradise – your ownImagination would wane, your powers would fade, and you'd be a sitting duck when Minamimoto decided to go after you. Bang-bang." Joshua looked positively triumphant for some reason.

"So you… have to erase them? Or you get erased, too?"

"Good job, Neku. I knew you'd be smart enough to figure it out eventually. Did you think I just erased them for fun, or something? Oh, sure, there's a greater good, too – keeping this city lively and bustling – but even if I didn't care about my city's well-being, I don't want to run out of Imagination and end up powerless before some sadistic nutcase who wants my job. …Of course, erasing Players is only a small part of it all."

But that was sick. The whole cycle was just plain sick. Reapers killing people, Composers killing people, Reapers trying to kill Composers, all to keep themselves from getting weak and being killed themselves? What was that going to solve, in the end? The only way to fix things would be to break the cycle. "If I was Composer," Neku said, "I wouldn't care if I was making myself weaker. I'd still bring everyone back."

"Your logic is flawed once again. Even if you could somehow manage to keep living that way without anyone trying to erase you, you wouldn't be able to just rewrite every death in the city. You wouldn't have the power, after a while," said Joshua. "Like I said, it's exhausting. Do you know how long it took me to recover after I brought back you and all your friends?"

Neku said nothing.

"I can't save everyone. Not even if I wanted to. Is it really so wrong that I'm picky about who I do save?"

How could it not be wrong? The whole system was wrong, and while it seemed as though Joshua had a little less control over it than Neku had thought… well, that didn't really make it right. He could understand, on an objective level, why not everyone could come back from the dead – but thinking of all the people he'd met in the Games, ordinary people who'd had their lives cut short way too soon, good people who'd helped each other out even once they knew not everyone could live, people who had friends to make amends with and entry fees to win back – he couldn't justify it anymore. No one 'deserves it' most. Nao, poor Nao who'd taken the time to comfort him about losing Shiki in spite of the fact that they'd just met, had taught him that. He'd thought Joshua believed the same way.

Neku let the question linger in the air, taking a second to observe his surroundings. They were getting deeper and deeper into the River; they had passed the point that they'd needed a key pin to get through when they'd been in the UG. It was strange to think about, how the place he and Beat had spent a whole week trying to break into during the Game was just an unguarded, smelly sewer to the rest of Shibuya. He had trouble reconciling his memories of the place with the mundaneness of the setting; he found his wary eyes drawn towards his own shadow, and without thinking about it, moved towards the concrete wall to protect it.

Joshua broke the silence. "It's all right. You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. I have a better question to ask, anyway."

How many questions were left, anyway? Neku hadn't been counting, but he figured they had to be nearing the end of the game by now. He'd have to make these last few questions really count. "Go ahead," he said, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

"I meant to ask you this earlier, but we got side-tracked. What would you do if you had to baby-sit a chicken?"

…And of course it would be another pointless non-sequitur. "If I had to do what?" Neku echoed. He shook his previous thoughts out of his head, forcing his mind to focus on the question of what Joshua was trying to accomplish this time.

"You know. Chickens. Those cute, stupid little birds. What would you do, if you had to baby-sit one?"

"I… I don't know? Give it food, I guess? What else would I do to baby-sit it?"

"Chickens are social animals, Neku," said Joshua. "They can recognize individuals and form bonds with both humans and other chickens. If there were other chickens around, you could probably leave it alone, but if that's the only one you were baby-sitting you'd probably have to spend a bit of time with it. You wouldn't want the poor chicken to get lonely, would you?"

"Why should I care if the chicken gets lonely?"

Joshua stopped for a second to consider, curling his fingers against his chin. "Because you're also lonely, I suppose. Besides, if you're going to stick with this chicken for a while, you might as well let it keep you company."

"I… guess so," said Neku. He doubted chickens made particularly good company.

"Did I mention it's not a full-grown rooster yet?" Joshua asked. "It's not quite a baby anymore – it's old enough to have lost its cuteness, but it's not quite independent yet. At first, it doesn't really like you that much. But you notice that after a while, it starts to get used to your presence. …And then one day, a hungry lion comes after the both of you."

Joshua paused, and looked at Neku as though he expected some kind of a reaction from that. Neku simply tilted his head, waiting for the point behind this implausible scenario to become clear… then again, knowing Joshua, it would probably never make sense.

Apparently not getting the reaction he wanted, Joshua continued. "You shoot the lion to scare it off, of course. You can't have a lion spoiling your plans for a delicious chicken nugget feast. …And of course you'd rather it not eat you, either. That would be… well, you could say it would be a zetta slow and painful way to die."

And… oh. Oh. …Suddenly Neku thought he knew where Joshua might be going with this.

Joshua looked Neku straight in the eyes as he continued. "So. After you save the little chick from the ferocious beast… well, the poor, naïve little thing starts to trust you. When it's time for you to leave it behind, it makes these sad, pathetic little cheeping noises trying to get you to come back…. And the next time it sees you, it runs right up to you, chirping ecstatically at the sight of its long-lost friend. It has no idea that you came to deliver it to the slaughterhouse."

Neku broke eye contact, staring at the ground as his hand clenched around his fast food bag.

"I don't think I have to ask whether or not you'd still have an appetite for nuggets," Joshua went on. "At least not nuggets made from that chicken, specifically. But would you give up meat entirely? Would you decide that just because you've become attached to one individual of one particular edible species, you no longer wish to eat any meat products whatsoever? …If I were you, I would prioritize my own nutritional needs over the needs of factory-farmed animals. Sure, all of those cows and pigs have feelings, but what makes them important compared to you?"

"What makes you important compared to them?" Neku snapped. He drew a fist to his upper torso as he took a wide step towards Joshua. Maybe it was stupid to be threatening the Composer that way, but at this point he didn't care, because yes Joshua was definitely getting at what Neku thought he was getting at and that was insane, unfair, so ridiculously cruel but it wasn't even the cruelty that was getting to him – it was the calmness, the utter lack of compassion not just for Neku but for others like Nao and Sota, for Neku's dead best friend, for everyone else who had lives and loved ones and dreams that had been sacrificed to power the "Imagination" mill that this stupid, stupid Game was supposed to be.

Joshua merely smiled in response to Neku's aggressive stance; his posture remained unchanged as he replied. "Don't change the subject. We're not talking about me now, are we?"

"We're not just – I'm not a chicken, Joshua!"

"I never said you were," said Joshua. He was meeting Neku's furious gaze with a strange expression of his own; not entirely apathetic, but calm. Unintimidated. Certainly not remorseful. Curious, maybe. It made Neku want to punch him in the face.

"Cut the crap! Do you think I'm too dumb to understand what you were saying!?"

"Of course not. Why would I have bothered to share it with you, if I thought you were too dumb to understand it? …I wasn't trying to imply you were a chicken, Neku. If that's what you got out of that little what-if question, I think you need to reflect on it a bit more." He smiled.

"You…" Neku started, but closed his mouth with a sharp breath as he realized there was nothing he could accuse Joshua of without having it turned back around on him. That was the whole point of the metaphor, right? Everyone had to eat – humans, Reapers, Composers, too. Neku wasn't above it, either.

With a final huff, Neku lowered his fist and took a few steps back, turning away to break eye contact. Still, he could feel Joshua's gaze on him, triumphant or maybe just amused – Neku couldn't tell and he didn't care. As his body shifted his own eyes drew towards the sliver of sky peaking out from beyond the station underpass, before finally landing on the graffiti on the cement wall behind them. CAT's work. Another piece that Neku had lived to see, and his best friend hadn't.

It wasn't fair. A wave of grief hit him – it was so much rawer now that he knew what death meant to the dead, now that he had more old photographs than he had memories to attach them to. So many conversations that had seemed too mundane to bother with remembering, before Neku had any idea what it would feel like to spend years without anyone he could really talk to at all.

"You're shaking, Neku."

He didn't turn to acknowledge Joshua's voice behind him, though he knew he was shaking. Probably closer to crying than he had been since coming back to life, too. He took a deep breath.

"It looks like your vibe has had about all it can take," Joshua continued. "But… I get the feeling you still have something left to ask me."

Joshua knew what he wanted to know, didn't he? He was practically spelling out in flashing lights that this would be his last chance to find out. Thinking back, Joshua had been trying to get Neku to talk about his old friend all day – he'd brought up the camera app right away, and all those questions about loyalty… well, that had to be about something besides just Hachiko.

What was he trying to pull?

Neku took a deep breath and turned back around to face Joshua. The Composer's smile was static, but there was something different about his eyes – they were fixed on Neku, wide and curious, and maybe it was just the way the shadows fell over Joshua's face or the way his pupils dilated in the dark, but something about his expression reminded Neku of the look on his face that day in the Composer's chamber, counting down to ten. No guns were being pointed, but maybe there was something else at stake, some unstated terms of defeat that Neku wouldn't be informed of until after he'd lost.

"Well, Neku? Have you decided on a final question yet?"

Of course he'd decided, of course he'd just been trying to work up the courage to ask that question all day; of course Joshua knew that Neku had been driving himself crazy with questions from the moment he got his first entry fee back. Of course Neku wanted to know what had happened to his friend. Whether an answer would mean a possibility of being able to meet him again someday, or just a confirmation that he was gone – of course Neku wanted to know.

But not like this.

"No more questions," said Neku.

Joshua's expression did not change. "Really now? You really don't have anything you want to ask me?"

"I'm done playing games," Neku said. People weren't game pieces. The memory of Neku's old friend was worth more than whatever Joshua was trying to use it for. He didn't know what the kid was trying to do, but he knew that much.

"…Fine then," said Joshua.

Neku broke eye contact, looking vaguely towards the wall. "You know," he said, "back in the Game, I thought we saw things the same way. You're the only person I've ever met who was even more of an asshole than I used to be – I figured that said a lot about how we both related to people. I guess I used to think - back when I thought you were erased, I mean – I thought Beat and I could defeat the Composer and then bring everyone back. And I thought we could be friends." His eyes flickered towards Joshua, who was staring at Neku with a completely unreadable expression.

This was embarrassing.

"…Look," Neku continued, "I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you wanna talk to me – like, actually talk, not just… playing with my head to make some kind of a weird point about your own superiority, and manipulating me into putting up with it by reminding me that you have information I want – just, use your Composer powers to figure out where I'm going or stalk me from the UG or whatever. Or, you know, just text me or something. But I don't want to be treated like… a chicken."

An awkward pause. Joshua kept staring, blankly, until he finally replaced his thoughtful look with a smile and took his phone out of his pocket. "Well, then," he said, "if you have nothing else to ask, I really should be going now. Your poor vibes are completely off their wavelength, and I was supposed to meet with Sanae forty-five minutes ago. Whoopsie!"

"Hey!" Neku protested. "You can't just ignore me and leave like that."

"Oh, but I have to. Sanae is probably making himself sick with nerves by now; and though I can't say he doesn't deserve it… there's really no reason to keep putting this off any longer, is there? …I guess I was hoping that if I kept procrastinating, eventually an answer would just fall into my lap. But I should have known better than to expect to learn anything meaningful from you."

A pause. "…What is that supposed to mean?"

Joshua ignored the question like he'd ignored everything else Neku had just said, as he turned and took a few steps deeper into the sewers. "I'm going to raise my vibe to tune into the UG now. I suggest you get back."

Neku took a few unsteady steps backwards – Joshua's "vibe" thing must have been affecting him worse than he'd noticed; his legs were shaky, and his arms felt heavy, like his veins were full of uncooked rice. Ahead of him, Joshua stopped walking, then turned to face Neku again. But his gaze was aimed beyond Neku, towards the exit of the underpass, where the CAT mural was.

"Oh, Neku," he said. "You must think I'm being so cruel to you. You just don't understand – I'm doing you a favor. I'm letting you see exactly what you mean to me. I enjoy your company, but you're a lower being. It's as simple as that."

Neku said nothing.

"Do you realize how cruel it would be to let you think you were important to me?" Joshua asked. His grin did not fade, but the slightest hint of bitterness tinted his otherwise-apathetic voice. "Someday, you'd find out that you were never really anything more than a pet. I've put you through a lot, Neku, but I've never been cruel enough to ask you to trust me. I can say that much, at least." And with that, a flash of light bleached the underpass. Neku flinched, and when he opened his eyes again Joshua had vanished. Neku was left gaping after, half-formed questions caught in his throat.