Survival Of The Fittest
A Joshua X Neku story I spent a few months making. It was loads of fun to write!
Enjoy! Sorry for any mistakes, but I'm getting better…
It was the first time in a while that Neku had been on a school trip. He was looking forward to it; a trip into the woods to camp out for a couple of days sounded like a great way to de-stress from his home and school stresses that were dragging him down like weights in water.
The whole gang was there, minus Rhyme, of course, as she was too young to be in the same class as her brother and their friends. Shiki and Beat where strolling either side of Neku as they made their way to the top of the hill they had decided to sleep on.
The whole class was on an activity week called 'survival week' and that meant that they had to split into small groups and survive for as long as possible. it was now twelve and everyone was trying to set up camp before lunch. All the pupils in the forest had been split into groups of four so they could try and 'survive' on their own while they were in the woods.
"How about here, Neku?" Shiki called from one side of the top of the hill. Shiki was waving her one arm around to show the boys her position. She was wearing her short hair clipped back and out of her face. It was longer now at Eri's suggestion so that it could be tied back into a small scruffy knot at the base of her neck. When Neku looked up to check Shiki's position, he saw that she was standing in a more forested area which could offer shelter from the rain and support for anything they wanted to lean on trees.
"Yo! Shiki found an awesome spot!" Beat shouted back to Neku as he ran up the hill at full sprint holding onto the straps of his heavy backpack as it bounced against his legs when he ran. The big metal chains on Beat's cargos were chinking as he ran and Shiki started giggling as she saw him running towards her.
Neku stood for a minute just watching the two as Beat got to the top of the hill and awkwardly rubbed the back of his hat covered head. Shiki giggled bashfully and covered her cheeks. Neku could see they were covered in a rose tint.
Neku smiled a little while he watched his friends bickering on the hill. His little self-sentimental moment was lost when the last member of their team made their way up the hill.
"Nekuuu~ this hill is too steep! Why can't we sleep somewhere closer to the ground with a shower, nice hotel and a spa?"
Neku sighed, turned around and rolled his eyes. At the bottom of the hill stood Joshua who was looking rather out of place is his expensive clothes as opposed to the old jeans and hiking boots the rest of the group had on.
Everyone looked down to Joshua. To him, the top of the hill looked so far away and absolutely pointless to have to get to every day also, he had noticed that they had no phone service for miles and that really would interfere with his plans to have Sanae bail him out every night to take him home to his nice warm silky pink bed and Neku plushie. But if there was no phone signal...
"Hey Neku! We have signal up here!" Shiki called as she got an incoming massage from Eri. In the message Eri was fuming about having to be volunteer for the camping trip. She told Shiki that she wanted to go with Ai and Mina to help on the pamper weekend Shiki had originally wanted to go to.
Sounds exactly like someone else Neku knew...
Joshua had thrown a tantrum when told he couldn't go on the spa trip. He even threatened to sue the school until Sanae came down to the school to calm him down. Even then he still wasn't happy which was shown by his stroppy attitude on the way there.
The silverette in question didn't hear the initial mention of the phone signal, but as soon as the ring tone of a phone was heard his hearing kicked in like a bloodhounds nose and he dashed up the hill as fast as his Pegaso jean covered legs could take him. His phone was out and to his ear in about five seconds. Neku smirked as he made his way up the rest of the hill while Joshua tried to get some signal.
"Come on... Come on..." He murmured as he crossed his fingers and squeezed his eyes shut. After a few more rings, a groan for displeasure left the silver haired boy's lips. Neku was behind him at this point and smirked a little wider before adding his own comment to Joshua's pain.
"I thought your phone was magical," he said amusedly as he watched Joshua slap the back of his phone with the heel of his palm. Neku was trying not to laugh.
"It's not," Joshua hissed through gritted teeth as he hit his palm wrong and bent his wrist back which sent shooting pains up his whole forearm. Neku could tell Joshua would be very out of place here for a week just by the way he had some leaves in his hair and looked too clean to be in this forest.
Neku let out and exaggerated sigh and ambled around to face Joshua. "You would think after all the upgrades Mr H gave it that it could at least catch one bar like the rest of us." Neku pulled out his own phone and typed a text. With every click of the phone's buttons, Joshua's eye , Neku looked up and shrugged his shoulder. Joshua looked ready to kill but neku just smirked and walked over to help Beat and Shiki put up the tent before Joshua could scream at him.
"Hey Neku, how's prissy kid takin' the lack of phone?" Beat said as Neku made his way over. Shiki stood turning a sheet of instructions to try and see which way was the right way to read the sheet. Beat was sticking random tent poles into different holes in the tent with varied results.
"He's about to crack," Neku said as he shoved his hands into his pockets and gestured towards Joshua with his shoulder. He was still slamming his hand against his phone and holding it up in the air as if a dead king from the 'Lion King' was going to bless it (sorry. Something my friends and me decided it looked like when we looked for signal)
"Um, Joshua? You won't get signal out here!" Shiki called. Joshua just huffed and threw his phone into his bag angrily.
"Come and help put up this god damned tent!" Beat yelled. He cupped his hand against his mouth almost comically considering Joshua was just a few meters away. He bent his knees under the effort that the shout took.
Joshua -still looking royally pissed off- stomped the rest of the way up the hill with crossed arms and looked away from the tent snobbishly.
"I am not sleeping in that" Joshua said in annoyance. Next he stomped his foot like a girl and huffed again to show his annoyance.
"You do know you look exactly like a girl when you do that, right?" Neku told him as the others tried to hold back laughs.
"I. Am. Not a girl!" He shouted before he turned on heel and made his way back down the hill. Shiki was about to reply before she realized Joshua was going to keep walking until he was out of the sight of the others he angrily called 'I'm going out to find signal!' back to the others.
At first everyone was shocked, but they eventually realized that Joshua was pissed and needed to cool down and that they should get up the tent because they only had three and a half hours of light left and a whole camp to set up.
"Should we go look for Joshua?" Shiki asked Neku while they were all processing the way they would spend their hours in their heads.
"No," Neku said slowly as he looked in the direction Joshua went. He knew that daylight wasn't going to last long and finding Joshua in the dark would be a lot easier than having Beat attempt to put up a tent in the dark. "We need to get the camp set up. He'll be fine on his own for a little while, he's old enough." With that decided, the three stood together around the instructions to try and get the tent up into a decent shelter.
^.^
Three hours later, a small camp had been set up on the hill. The big 2 bedroom tent (for a large number of people so one bedroom was big enough for four) was up and standing perfectly like the one in the picture while a blanket was laid out in front of it where you took off shoes and basically lounged about. Three big logs had been collected and made into a circle around a small ring of stones obviously made to be a pit for the fire they would need to cook and stay warm. Food and bags were stored in the second room of the tent so they wouldn't get wet or destroyed or blow away.
Their bags hadn't been bought with them initially because they needed to find a spot and set up camp. Because of this all bags for the week had been left in the clearing the teachers had divided them up in so that someone could bring them up at a later time. The five bags had been bought up at around three just as the sky seemed to be dimming and clouds seemed to roll in.
Because it would be hard for the teachers to find each group if they were out in the forest, the teachers had given each of the groups a device that gave off a signal for tracking. There was a button on the device that told the teacher that that group were stationary and that was where camp would be so to bring the bags. The group could tell by the slow response that the other camps must be finished too and quite a way from them.
"Here ya are kids!" The teacher called as he stood at the bottom of the hill. He didn't look like he was going to even attempt to make his way up to them as he dumped a case and two big duffle bags he was carrying on either shoulder. He motioned to another person they could hear coming through the woods and saw that she was wheeling two light blue hard shelled cases with rainbow coloured handles. Neku felt like he wanted to hit his head off a tree when he realised who the luggage belonged to.
"Here Shiki! Two hard-shelled cases, I didn't think you would pack light," the woman giggled. She could be immediately recognised by the boys because of her body that they had once thought of as Shiki's.
Shiki smiled at Eri as she wheeled the cases to the bottom of the hill and dumped them with the others. It had been a while since the two had seen each other because Eri had gone off to a university. She was a bit older than Shiki and the fashion university wasn't close enough for Eri to visit regularly so Shiki had to do with once a month visits to work on designs and clothing.
"They aren't mine Eri!" Shiki called back with a small giggle of her own. Eri looked at her with a puzzled expression before looking around the camp and seeing the four-man tent and the two guys that where there with Shiki. Eri smirked for a second before looking up at Shiki with fake confusion. Eri bet herself in her head that one of the boys was totally gay and trying to show the rest discreetly with his choice in luggage. But then again, that wasn't her call to make.
Eri had been roped into helping with the trip and had been told not to make any rude comments at the students or she wouldn't get her money. It was well known to the students that when they went off to university the school kept their contact details and sometimes called to ask for the ex-students to help on trips and in mastered classes. Although Eri's passion was design she did love the camping and survival trips the school ran and even volunteered this time for the fun of getting to boss around some of the younger pupils.
"But Shiki, you're in a camp full of boys," Eri announced as she looked around at the two boys. Beat and Neku looked at her with raised eyebrows almost as if daring her to say the bags where theirs. Beat and Neku immediately ran down the hill to retrieve their own bags when they noticed Eri raising an eyebrow back at them.
Neku picked up a purple duffle with black straps and a CAT graffiti style drawn on in SHARPIE pen. Beat picked up his yellow and orange duffle and made his way up the hill. Neku decided to drag Shiki's up the hill too so the two light blue bags were left at the bottom for Joshua to carry up.
'Joshua is a god, if he wants his bags up the hill he can do it' Neku thought to himself as he handed the case he was dragging to Shiki. Mr Mew was strapped to the front of the generic green case that Shiki had bought.
"Did we get the luggage mixed up?" Eri asked the other teacher. He looked puzzled for a second before checking the label attached to the handle of one of them. "It says Joshua," Eri said in a puzzled tone. Neku rolled his eyes. Everyone knew the only person in their camp that would have girly luggage was Joshua (He had told Neku he decided that pink was too much but he did enjoy 'living up to his name'… whatever that meant)
"Can you guys haul them up here? We kinda busy" Beat shouted to the teacher and assistant. The two looked at each other for a second as if asking the other if it was okay before both making their way up the hill with a case each. The teacher's phone started buzzing as they got up there to tell him to go and collect more cases for delivery. Eri stayed behind.
Neku was dishing up the food for the night, burned chips, while Beat started to get the bedding inside the tent right and Shiki chatted to Eri for a minute.
Eri was gone by the time Neku served up the burned food. He remembered to put some aside for Joshua as they all hungrily downed the food like it was a gift from heaven. It had only been about three hours since the group ate a filling breakfast at Neku's house, thanks to Neku's brilliant-in-the-kitchen mother.
As they were eating, Neku sat and thought to himself. He still had some doubts about letting Joshua stay out on his own. 'But then again,'Neku thought, 'everything in the camp is so much quieter without Joshua here'. Neku felt a little bad for the comment and vowed that as soon as he had finished he would go look for Joshua and the boy in question could sense from his position far away from the camp that the others didn't really mind that he was leaving them with all the work.
At this point it was just getting dark and Joshua was sitting next to a river on a log he had dragged over. He knew that his butt must be dirty from sitting down and he could see some dirt on his hands and arms from moving through the woods itself. His ankle felt sprained from when he had fallen down a hole on the way to the camp and his hair had a few leaves stuck in it but Joshua didn't care enough to take them out right now. He was sulking.
Joshua was sulking about the fact it had been four hours now and nobody had even started looking for him. Joshua bought his knees up to his chest and hugged them close to him in annoyance. He had definitely thought that at least Neku cared enough about him enough to-
Joshua stopped the thought in its tracks as he heard a twig break behind him. His head shot up and he turned quickly to see only Neku standing there behind him. Hope rose within Joshua that maybe Neku did care and that he had come to get him because it was getting dark and he could get lost or killed! The thought went straight down the tubes when Joshua noticed the bag of food in his hand and canister for water on Neku's shoulder
Joshua resumed his sulking. 'He's not here for me, he's here for the water' he moped in his head. Joshua felt his eyebrows furrow when Neku didn't immediately go for the water to fill up the canister. Instead, Neku sat down next to Joshua on the log to look out over the river where he could see the sun setting in the distance. He shoved the bag of food into Joshua's hands with only a mumbled 'dinner' as a reason. They stayed in silence while Joshua ate, with only the sound of the water for a minute so that Joshua relaxed his posture enough to lean back on the log. He had finished his food quickly and given the back to Neku and looking away in the opposite direction to the orange haired boy.
"Hey, Josh… Are you okay?" Neku asked carefully after a few more minutes of silence. As he turned to the other boy Joshua looked back to Neku with a neutral look on his face.
"I'm fine," Joshua said firmly before turning away to look to the side. Neku got a little annoyed that he had managed to get a straightforward answer out of Joshua; it normally took years to do...
While Neku was deliberating Joshua's actions, he felt a heavy weight on his shoulder. He turned to ask what Joshua was doing but the other looked up at him with pleading eyes which caused Neku to stay quiet.
"Let's just let the world pass us by for a little while," Joshua said as he hooked his arms around the arm of Neku's that was closest to him. At first Neku tried to shake him off, but eventually, he warmed up to the idea of being quiet and looked to the place where the sun was setting.
The two watched the sky for a while. They watched the sun go down and the stars come out and they mapped out constellations and patterns in their heads and would sometimes say what they saw to show the other a new perspective. All the while Joshua held onto Neku and was smiling. It had been an hour and a half of silence before Neku did eventually direct a full sentence at Joshua.
"Joshua," was all he said initially he waited for the other boy to look up before he continued. "Why are you acting like this? Normally you would be flirting and teasing and being an idiot because we were alone," Neku said almost sharply in his own imitation of a bratty voice. As Neku turned around, he realised that his cheeks had suddenly heated up into a rosy hue. He didn't know why he was blushing but he could feel Joshua's eyes on him.
The arms unwrapped from around Neku and almost immediately the blush on Neku's face disappeared.
Then, a hand landed on Neku's knee causing it to flare back up as Neku turned sharply to look at Joshua. He was about to yell but couldn't get any sound to leave his mouth as Joshua leaned into him so he was inches from Neku's face. Joshua looked straight into the other boy's eyes and tilted his head to the side a bit. Neku sat frozen for a second with his eyes on Joshua's lips.
"Would you rather I teased you, Neku?" Joshua asked jokingly. Neku just looked at Josh's lips while Joshua looked straight into Neku's eyes to see the emotions hidden there. What he saw made him smirk.
"Josh..." He mumbled out. It was meant as a warning but came out a bit like a whine.
"Do you want me to kiss you Neku? Do you want me to cuddle up to you again and hug your arm like some cute little girl?"
"Joshua, stop joking around," was all Neku could get out in his most forceful voice.
"Is that really what you want?" He asked. His mouth twisted into the half smirk he was known for while his head tilted in the other direction and his hand moved higher up Neku's leg.
"Get off you perv!" Neku almost shouted. He shoved Joshua sharply startling the other boy at first. Joshua recovered quickly and started to giggle manically.
"Jeez Neku, can't you take a joke?" Joshua said between giggles.
"You never joke you creeper! What did you think you were doing?" Neku's cheeks were bright red now. The blush Neku wore travelled all the way down his neck and up to his ears. He was embarrassed that Joshua would touch him like that so easily.
"I thought I was joking. Why Neku, too close to home for you?" Joshua said sharply. His body language suddenly turned playfully stern as he crossed his arms but still smirked.
"S-shut up," Neku stammered as he blushed a deeper red. He did not like Joshua in that way... there was no way he... No... Just, no! The silver haired boy caught onto Neku's inner conflict quickly and raised an eyebrow at the other boy before moving away from Neku on the log and leaning forwards again so he was leaning towards Neku in a suggestive position as another 'stupid joke.'
"Ohh Nekky" Joshua moaned. His voice sounded like something you would hear in a porn movie, not how you would imagine two boys teasing each other would sound. "Maybe it's time to go back to camp before something... happens," Joshua giggled again while striking a pose which almost imitated that of the reaper Uzuki. He was playing the part of a girl very well and Neku's head was suddenly taking him in weird circles around a world where Joshua was under him while moaning in the same voice as he was teasing him in now.
'Okay Neku, back up! That's disgusting...' Neku told himself in his head.
'You imagined it.' Another voice countered causing Neku to shake his head in confusion at the different voices in his head.
"Stop playing around and let's go back," Neku grumbled as he stood up, ignoring Josh and started walking over to the edge of the clearing where the trees formed a canopy again.
Joshua was in front of Neku again like a bolt of lightning. He was the same height at the silver haired boy, maybe even a little taller so when Joshua played the 'kicked puppy' look, it was at eye level for maximum effect of Neku.
"Nekky, you wound me, do you really think I'm just playing?" Joshua asked. He bought a hand up and placed it on Neku's cheek. The orange haired boy didn't know what to do so he just stood there confused. Joshua saw the confusion in Neku's eyes and sighed. All at once everything about Joshua had changed. He was now a little annoyed with his arms crossed again as he walked in the opposite direction to where Neku was standing while waving an arm around as he walked. Neku remembered looking in Joshua's eyes as he turned. He thought he saw... Sadness? Disappointment? He wasn't sure. All Neku knew was that Joshua wasn't happy about him not responding.
"Well I didn't plan on the fact that the you from this reality would be so dim," Joshua said. He walked as he walked in the direction Neku had been going but he carried on without waiting for the other to catch up - not that Neku would've waited for Joshua but Joshua would always stop to allow time for Neku.
Neku looked on in confusion, but with a shrug of his shoulders he walked after Joshua back to the camp on the hill. He knew that if it was something Joshua was hinting at then he really didn't ever want to know. Josh was walking at a fast pace for someone who hated to sweat, but Neku knew he tired easily and that it about twenty minutes until they would reach camp again and in the darkness of the night the camp would probably be hard to find.
For some reason Neku couldn't help but feel something was going to go wrong in the next few hours…
^.^
About halfway to camp, Joshua fell over. He had slowed down to walk beside Neku almost fifteen minutes ago and they had started up an easy conversation about how the UG was after the mess that they had left it in last year and had suddenly started to walk slower than they had anticipated.
They had been aiming to be back at the camp within ten minutes when the silverette decided to get his foot wrapped around a tree branch that broke the ground by his feet.
Of course, Joshua, being Joshua, was making a mountain out of a molehill.
"Ouch! Neku! My ankle! I've broken my ankle!" He decided dramatically. Neku rolled his eyes as Joshua looked up as if he would never walk again and it was all Neku's fault. Neku raised an eyebrow and sighed before crouching down next to Joshua to examine his ankle.
"It's not broken," Neku said immediately. He didn't even have to look at the ankle to tell Joshua that.
"How do you know? You didn't even look!" Joshua said in his usual stroppy tone.
"You can't break your ankle by falling over a tree branch, if anything it will just be sprain and even then it will only be minor," Neku explained in his irritated voice. Why the hell did he fall over? He can levitate yet he managed to faceplant the floor very effectively.
Neku gently held onto Joshua's ankle and felt around the joints to look for any damage. Joshua jumped and whined in pain but eventually Neku just put the ankle down.
"It's just twisted. You're fine," he announced as he stood up and brushed off his jeans. Next Joshua tried to get up... And failed miserably as his bad ankle gave out from underneath him and he fell on his face again.
"I'm starting to think you love the floor," Neku said sarcastically as he crossed his arms.
"My ankle hurts! Neku, I can't walk!" Joshua whined.
"Fine, come here," Neku growled. He leaned down a little and held out a hand to Joshua.
"I'll carry you back," Neku decided mostly under the influence of his fuzzy head. He needed sleep. Joshua got to his feet again and balanced on his one foot.
With some amount of shuffling and failed attempts, Joshua was balanced on Neku's back. Neku held Joshua under his knees while Joshua held on tightly to Neku's neck.
"Jeez Josh, you're really light," Neku said as he tried to push Joshua up further so his legs were resting more comfortably. Joshua said nothing, just squeezed Neku's Neck a little tighter and pressed his face into Neku's shoulder. Neku could feel as Josh squeezed his eyes shut and sighed in contentment in a comfortable position.
They managed to get back to camp around seven o'clock. It was dark and Neku had gotten lost a fair few times (more than he'd like to admit) in the long trek back from in the woods.
"Hey phones! Why you carryin' prissy kid?" Beat called from inside the tent where he and Shiki sat discussing well... The nature of the relationship between Joshua and Neku. They were just saying how the two musty hate each other from the way they act around each other. Well, and then they walk in like this? Beat was sincerely confused about the situation now. (Not that that took much, but Shiki wasn't looking so sure on what was happening either.)
Neku noticed that Shiki and Beat were both wearing their sleep clothes (Shiki wore a pair of cropped leggings and a tank top while Beat wore a vest and some lose sleep pants.)
"He hurt his ankle so he couldn't walk," Neku explained as he placed Joshua down on the groundsheet. He realised Joshua had fallen asleep by the way he flopped a little when Neku tried to put him down.
In the end, Neku managed to get Joshua down on the groundsheet quickly so that he was still asleep. As soon as his back hit the ground Joshua curled up on himself letting out a little whine at the cold ground as he smiled in his sleep. Neku couldn't help but smile a little as Joshua curled up into a tight ball.
"Neku..." He sighed in his sleep just as Neku went to walk away. Neku turned around, having a sudden change of heart and lifted Joshua up in his arms.
'I'll take him into the tent, then he can stay asleep without being woken up' Neku thought as he carried him towards the tent. Almost as soon as Neku had put his arms around him, Joshua curled up into Neku's chest. He held tightly to his shirt and buried his head in any fabric he found. He breathed in deeply as if he was taking in Neku's scent in his sleep. For a second, Neku just watched as Joshua snuggled up to him with a small smile on his face. Joshua looked younger in the moonlight that bathed him. His hair fell across his face in a messy order but Neku couldn't find it in himself to move it from his face. His eyes were obviously closed but Neku could see movement behind the eyelids showing that Joshua was dreaming.
Neku carried Joshua over to the tent and laid him down on top of his sleeping bag. He knew there was no way he was going to get Joshua into the sleeping bag so he just left him there. As Neku laid Joshua down, he noted how normal the sleeping bag was, a silky lilac colour with a grey cloth inside with what seemed to be a pillow stuffing lining to keep him warm. Neku waited until he was sure Joshua was still asleep before moving forward to talk to Beat and Shiki.
Beat and Shiki were wearing identical red blushes from being caught talking about their other two camp mates.
"Hey," Neku half whispered as he came to sit behind them while leaning on Shiki's back. "Are you guys just sitting here talking now?" he asked as he looked at the clock on his phone. His phone told him it was 9:30 but Neku was so tired he didn't care how early it was, he was tired and could really use going to bed.
"Well, we thought that we might go to sleep, we're pretty tired," Shiki said with a small smile.
"That ain't what you said! You said we could do a campfire!" Beat wailed. Beat was shushed by Neku and Shiki who were trying to keep Joshua asleep.
"Beat! Neku's tired and Joshua's asleep. We had a long day and we need some sleep if we want to do something tomorrow," Shiki explained Neku looked back to see that the sleeping bag next to him had Mr Mew sitting on top of it. The stripy sleeping bag looked like something Eri could've designed because of the way it was cut. Beat's sleeping bag was a camouflage detail but as far as Neku could see, it was plain as anything.
Neku yawned absentmindedly causing Shiki to give him a look that basically told him to go to bed. Neku put his arms up in surrender before crawling back and changing into his sleep clothes in the bedroom they were using as bag storage.
When he was dressed in his shorts and t-shirt, he got into his sleeping bag which had been laid next to Joshua's and fell asleep almost immediately.
^.^
The morning was great. At eight, the light was shining through the thin material of the tent brightly because of the wide cloudless expanse of blue while birds were chirping happily in the distance. The whole forest was quiet and almost every camp of students slept peacefully through the early morning beauty. Of course, that would soon end.
Neku was first to stir from sleep because he felt very warm. When he woke up, he could feel a pair of arms that had managed to find their way and wrap around his waist which was now halfway out of his sleeping bag as he had been wiggling quite a bit in his sleep. Before he even thought about the others in the tent or, in fact, the others in the whole forest, He let out a long, loud yell of horror and anger. Shiki and Beat shot up out of bed but Joshua slept on with his arms locked around Neku's waist like a locked chain.
"Get him off!" Neku shouted as he clawed at Joshua's arms. All the reaction he got was a whine of annoyance from Joshua as the arms around him tightened. Joshua moved his face and started rubbing himself up against Neku in an attempt to get comy. This just freaked Neku out more.
"Neku, shut up!" Shiki said in annoyance. She glared at Neku while Beat decided, after looking over to Shiki for instruction, to copy her. "You were more than happy to carry him all the way back to camp and then lie down next to him! So just shut up and let the rest of us sleep!" She growled. Neku couldn't help but notice that Shiki was quite grouchy in the morning.
"You put my bag here! I didn't choose this spot!" Neku growled. Shiki pulled her pillow over her head and growled showing Neku that their conversation was over until she was either more awake or it was a better hour of the day.
As soon as the whole room became quiet again, Joshua let out an exaggerated yawn and blinked open his eyes.
"Nekky, when did you grow from your plushie size?" Joshua asked drowsily. Neku could feel his anger boiling over as he realised that Joshua had a stuffed toy in his likeness.
"Joshua, get off me," Neku growled in the calmest voice he could. When Joshua didn't move Neku felt his anger boil to its limit.
"GET THE FUCK OFF ME BEFORE I RIP YOU APPART!" Neku shouted in pure rage. Joshua blinked as he woke up more and realised this was the real Neku and he wasn't hugging his badly crafted Neku doll. He sighed and pulled his arms from around Neku so he was sitting cross-legged on top of his sleeping bag.
"Technically you couldn't rip me apart and besides that, I wouldn't let you," Joshua countered in a sleep filled voice that made Neku grit his teeth angrily and clench his fists.
"You wouldn't see it coming. And I'm pretty sure I could just throw your phone into the lake and you would drown going in to get it!" Neku's volume increased as he spoke so that he was screaming at Joshua by the time the he was finished. He also moved closer on each word so by the time he finished he was right in Joshua's face.
Only because he knew it would wind Neku up eve more and get him into trouble, Joshua leaned forward enough to give Neku a short peck on the lips. Almost immediately Neku's face lit up like a light with a deep red colour in both anger and embarrassment while Joshua just smiled as sweetly as he could back at the orange haired boy.
"That. Is. IT!" Neku screeched angrily. He moved back and looked into Joshua's face only to see a smirk that he really could do with punching away. Just as Neku pulled his fist back, however, Shiki growled like an angry animal and barked out a complaint close to an order.
"Neku! Shut the hell up and don't even think about punching the devil bitch!" Shiki hissed as she threw her pillow at the boys with enough force to knock the two unsuspecting teenagers on their backs.
Beat stayed quiet throughout the whole of the conversation and Neku decided, as he plonked back down into his sleeping bag, that Beat had gone straight back to sleep and that sometime in the day Joshua would pay for being a complete and utter ass.
The tent fell into quiet as everyone lay back down to go to sleep until a more decent hour in the morning. About five minutes after silence was achieved, Joshua giggled and spoke.
"Neku, you're so cute when you're caught off-guard," he said with another small giggle. Neku gave another growl before he lunged at Joshua and the two started to fight. Joshua just gave playful jabs while Neku went for the vitals and neck.
At this point Shiki decided enough was enough and sat up in bed only to pull Neku back by his collar so that he was nowhere near Joshua.
"Shi-ki~!" he winced as his air was cut off by the angry girl. Neku noticed Joshua's smirk was gone and had been replaced by a frown. He smirked himself at the cocky boy before he felt Shiki pull him back.
"Now I'm going to make you be quiet," Shiki hissed menacingly before she proceded to turn Neku around and push him down into his half open sleeping bag. She zipped it all the way up angrily so his arms were stuck before pulling the drawstrings on the pillow-holding part of the bag so that Neku couldn't move at all.
"NOW, Sleep!" she hissed as she lay back down. Joshua giggled which caused Shiki to sit up and glare at him. The glare of a sleep deprived Shiki made Joshua shut up. He knew which fights he didn't want to get into on this camping trip.
The next two days stressed everyone out more than anything in their lives ever did. They all seemed to decide at the same time that taking Joshua anywhere that wasn't a seven star hotel was a mistake.
"Ugh there is moss on this log! How can I sit down on moss?"
"I hope you don't expect me to eat that! It hasn't been cooked properly and besides that it's been on the coals!"
"I have to pee WHERE?"
They all made a pact never to take the Composer anywhere near a forest ever again during their lifetimes. Never. Ever. Again.
Joshua was disgusted at everything and even the normal, mundane things like washing up and cooking food seemed to be above him in every way possible.
As we all would've guessed, Neku was the first to crack.
"I have had it!" he shouted after Joshua found a small worm on the closed tent door and decided instead of just moving it to go into the tent to get whatever he wanted, he would just ask Shiki to move it because he didn't want to touch anything dirty. At the time, Shiki had been cooking dinner and when she went to help Joshua, the chicken they had cut up for dinner had been taken away by a giant bird so they had no food.
"I can't believe he's being such a drama queen! How can someone decide that they needed help picking up an animal that wasn't even bothering him! He just gets me so annoyed when he's like this." Neku raged at the girl who was sitting beside him.
"You spent a whole week in the game with him didn't you?" Shiki said as she leafed through a magazine. She had decided to sit on the blanket outside the tent because it was warm and sunny. Joshua had gone to get some water and Beat had gone to get the fire wood. Knowing the luck of the camp so far, Beat will come back with only giant logs or only little kindling sticks and Joshua will decide that the 'stagnant lake water' was too dirty and then that he should not to get any because he could die (even though he was already dead) or he might even decide that the canisters they had told him to take were too heavy and that he didn't want to carry them all the way back from the nearest lake (which just happened to be the one he had been to with Neku on the first day)
"Yes but in the game we were both focused and I was still annoyed with him," Neku said as he plopped down next to Shiki on the blanket.
"It's only for a couple more days, we have to share a tent with him too, you know," Shiki said as she put her magazine down.
"Yeah, but he's still annoying!" Neku grumbled while flopping back with his arms out so they splayed out on either side of him.
"Neku, Just deal," Shiki sighed as she got up. She noticed that Joshua was on his way back with the water. His silver hair bounced on his shoulders as he smiled and walked back with a pair of purple headphones covering his ears. Shiki realised that if Joshua had Neku's Headphones, nothing about the following conversation could go right.
Neku turned visibly red in anger at the fact that Joshua had stolen his headphones out of his bag and then he noticed that Joshua had also only bought one water canister back with him. Shiki seemed to notice at the same time and let out a sigh of annoyance before putting a hand on Neku's shoulder to try and calm him.
"Deep breaths, don't let your anger out, he doesn't deserve it," Shiki whispered in Neku's ear trying to comfort him. Neku seemed to hear but not listen. He balled his fists tightly at his sides and was almost visibly shaking with the effort he was taking to keep him for punching the violet eyed god in the face.
"Joshua…" Neku said between deep breaths. "Where is the rest of the water?"
"Oh well I was trying to fill up that big heavy bottle and I dropped it so it fell into the water and then some currents came and blew it out into the middle of the little lake and I couldn't reach it!" Joshua said as he waved his arms out in an exaggerated way to make his points known. The answer just made Neku feel angrier at the older but smaller boy.
"And you didn't think to use the powers on your phone to help you get it back?" Shiki asked patiently with a small sigh. She held onto Neku's one arm to try and stop him from launching at Joshua. She noticed the silver haired boy's eyes flick to her arm around Neku's in distaste. As soon as she saw the expression on his face it was gone and replaced with a smile as he giggled.
"I have no phone signal, my phone isn't working," he told her with a smile as he looked back to Neku to see the expression of pure rage. "It's too bad really, I'm sure it will float to the edge someday anyway," he giggled. Neku was almost vibrating with anger and need to punch the smug self-named god in the face. Or the stomach, whichever would hurt him more.
"And why do you have my headphones?" he asked through his gritted teeth.
"Well, Dearest, I was bored and I thought that you would have at least some good tracks on it," Joshua shrugged and handed back the white lanyard with the MP3 player and the large purple headphones. "There wasn't much worth listening to, but I found some tracks that sounded like Shibuya's music and I listened to them," Neku turned the MP3 in his hands. His father had given him this before he had left. It was one of his cherished items.
"By the way, I think the battery's dead. I left them on when I went to get the water. Oh and will they work if dipped in water? I leant over a little far…" Joshua smiled a little sheepishly but started to mess with his hair either way. This was the final straw for Neku.
The orange haired boy stormed into the tent and roughly threw his headphones and MP3 into his bag. Neku breathed deeply before turning to look at Joshua's backpack. He unzipped it and opened it carefully and grabbed the single blue feather out of the top of the bag. The blue feater was the only memento Joshua had of his father. He knew from time he had spent with Joshua that he kept 3 feathers with him at all times, his white feather from his wings, his father's blue feather and his mother's pink feather. Neku hid the feather in one of his pockets and stormed back out of the tent and down out of camp.
"Neku…?" he heard Joshua ask after him. As soon as he was down the hill, the orange haired boy broke into a sprint and headed to the lake he knew was quiet enough to hide for hours.
When he got there, Neku sat next to the water's edge. He pulled the feather out of his pocket and admired the shinning colours. The blue was a pastel colour; it looked like it had been infused on a white background and a few silver-white tufts stuck out from the feather among the pastel colours.
Neku gritted his teeth and pushed the feather closer to the water. He planned on dipping it into the cool blue liquid just as Joshua had done with his MP3 player. As the tip of the feather neared the water, Neku chickened out. He exhaled harshly and pulled the feather back to him so it rested in his hands against his chest. Neku sighed before he put the feather back into his pocket. It was like the final battle all over again, no matter what Joshua did to him, he couldn't do the same thing back to the other boy. They were friends, why did he need to retaliate and cause more hate between the two of them?
No. Neku decided. He held his hand over the feather in his pocket with a small smile. He moved away from the water to the log and looked up at the sky; the moon was up in the middle of the day. It was a tiny slither of the moon in white which looked pale compared to the pastel blue that filled the cloudless sky.
For a few hours after that Neku just sat in the quiet of the forest. He could hear the running of water which proved the water near him wasn't stagnant and that it flowed around. The canister that Joshua had left had floated away to the edge of the lake so Neku picked it up and filled it to take back when he was ready to go. It was dark by the time Neku decided he needed to go back to camp, however he decided he wanted a little more time to cool down on his own before he went back.
Out of nowhere a twig snapped. Neku turned quickly to look at what it was but was distracted as Joshua made his way through the clearing soundlessly a little way away from where the noise had come from.
"Neku…" he said quietly as he walked over to where the boy sat on the log.
"I was about to head back, you didn't have to come find me," the orange haired boy grumbled into his collar. He turned away from Joshua and the other boy sighed.
"I was worried about you, I thought that you must've had enough time to cool off and I wanted to say that I was sorry," Joshua placed a hand on Neku's. Neku blinded in shock and looked over to the other boy with wide eyes.
"It's fine," Neku replied as he looked into Joshua's eyes. He saw the relief that his forgiveness brought to the boy and almost smiled. "You know, my father gave me my MP3, it was the only thing I had left of him. I was just so angry at you that I took something that helped you remember your father," Neku admitted shyly. He looked away but knew he saw Joshua's eyes widen in worry.
"My father's feather? You took the feather!" Neku didn't want to get angry at Joshua, but he was yelling first, and Neku couldn't help himself. The orange haired boy stood up quickly and threw his hands around violently as he spoke.
"You dipped the only memento of my father into the water! And I was so angry at you I just... I couldn't help it," Neku stopped yelling for a second and took a deep breath. He pulled the small blue feather out of his pocket and placed it in Joshua's hand. Joshua looked up with a conflicted face. He wanted to be angry at Neku, but the other boy obviously needed some form of comfort if he lost his only memento and his headphones were scuffed up.
Neku looked at Joshua with a small smile. He knew his father had been cheap so there wasn't much hope in his MP3 lasting. His mother had once told him that she had accidently put it through the wash and it had been fine, so there was still at least a little bit of hope. If he had soaked the feather Joshua couldn't get another from his father. At least the MP3 had some hope of working still and even if it didn't survive, an MP3 was replaceable.
"I couldn't do it, I couldn't dip the feather in the water because it wasn't mine and I didn't want to give us something to fight over," Neku said as he smiled at Joshua. Joshua looked up at him with sad eyes before moving closer to Neku.
"It's like the final game again," Joshua sighed mirroring Neku's thoughts from earlier with his comment. Neku smiled a little wider and let out a noise of amusement.
"Come on, I'm too fond of you to kill you, even if you did kill me first," Neku teased. Joshua couldn't help but smile a little at this.
"Hm… I suppose," he said as he got a little closer to Neku. Joshua noticed how the other boy didn't seem to move away as he got closer which made his insides flutter in a weird way. Joshua looked down for a second with furrowed eyebrows but then looked back up with sincerity in his gaze. "Neku, close your eyes," he whispered as he got close. Neku did what he was told and soon felt the petal soft touch of lips on his own. He eyes snapped open immediately as he looked at Joshua with wide eyes as he moved away slowly. Joshua was just happy that Neku had not pulled away from him harshly.
"Why?" He asked as Joshua looked anywhere but at Neku. The blue eyed boy could see the worry and embarrassment written on his friends face as Joshua looked down again with furrowed eyebrows as he watched his hands as he twiddled his fingers and thumbs together oddly.
"Well, I... Don't know. It was just... Since the other day, I just…"Joshua could get his words out but Neku's stare gave him a bit of strength, seeing as the other boy wasn't glaring at him with hate and was instead just confused. Joshua let out a large sigh as his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I guess I felt like I needed to do it to cheer you up and say thanks and..." Joshua was obviously flustered about being caught out but Neku could hear the sincerity in his voice and felt sorry for Joshua. His heart filled with butterflies and Neku suddenly felt bad because he had rejected Joshua many times in the game and just after. That and for the fact that he had always saw whatever Joshua did as a joke even if it wasn't.
Neku caught Joshua's chin so they were eye to eye with noses touching. He felt a blush on his cheeks and saw an identical one on Joshua but Neku still held on so he could look at Joshua as he spoke.
"What I wanted to say, Neku, is that I..." Joshua paused or a second out of nerves. Neku just looked down at him patiently as he waited for Joshua to tell him what he wanted to. Joshua sighed once more and Neku thought he was just going to give up; but Joshua pulled Neku's hand away from his chin and held it in his own. He took one of his own hands and placed it on Neku's Cheek.
"I love you, Neku. I have never met anyone like you before. Nobody has captured my attention like you have; nobody. I always looked at you in the game and I kinda thought that you would be the perfect match for someone like me. You had such fire and I ended up liking you a little more than I planned… that was why I stayed around after the game ended. Mr H told me not to because I needed to let you get on with your life and the same for your friends, but I couldn't let go so I enrolled in your school and tried to get as close as possible while acting like I was joking. I feel like I want to make you happy but I keep screwing up," the silver haired boy sighed as he collapsed onto Neku as If a weight was lifted off his shoulders.
For a second, Neku didn't know what to do and Joshua felt worried that he had just told the other boy something that he didn't want to know and that he would soon push Joshua away and tell him he was gross before running away to tell the others. Relief flooded through Joshua as he felt Neku's arms wrap around his shoulders. Joshua smiled a little and wrapped is own arms around Neku too.
"Josh… I don't know what to say," Neku admitted. Joshua frowned and pulled away to look Neku in the face.
"If I ruined anything then you can forget I said anything," the older boy stammered. Neku looked at him or a second and sighed. He took Joshua's chin between his thumb and forefinger and pulled it up so he could see the other boys face. Small almost non-existent tears had gathered in the composer's eyes at the thought of being rejected and his mouth was slightly open in shock as he tried to look down and away from Neku.
"No, I don't want to forget," Neku said as he leaned in and brushed his lips against the other boy's. Joshua's eyes opened wide and he froze in shock for a second as he realised what Neku meant before he slowly shut his eyes again and kissed back with a small noise of happiness. Neku wound his arms around Joshua in a tight hug while Joshua reached up to wrap his arms around Neku's neck and pull him closer. The kiss only lasted a few more seconds before Neku pulled away. They stood there for a while just looking at each other.
Neku pulled away from Joshua's hold on him and sighed before looking down at the other boy. Joshua looked into Neku's eyes with a smile and a small blush.
"So… does that mean that we can do this more often?" Joshua asked almost shyly. It was as if the composer had been replaced with a different version of himself. Neku made a noise of deliberation.
"Well, I guess that-"
Neku was interrupted when a loud sound came from behind him. He heard the roar of an angry animal. Neku whirled around to look at the monster in question. He stood in front of Joshua with his arms out to shield the composer from whatever was there. He felt Joshua turn and put a hand on his shoulder but didn't have time to look back as a tall raging brown bear with black beady eyes made its way through the trees into the clearing they sat in. the bear reared up on its hind legs to show its authority while Neku stumbled back a little into Joshua until the composer also moved back. This was obviously the wrong move when the bar roared again and started to walk to towards them.
"Neku!" Joshua half whispered as he panicked and pulled his phone out of his pocket to start to type buttons in hopes of sending the bear away. A small Jesus beam shot at the large animal but the bear's eyes just zeroed in on Joshua standing behind Neku and its final battle screech was heard before it charged.
"Josh! Move!" Neku shouted and he stood and braced himself for impact.
"No!" the other shouted back as he pulled Neku out of the way and tried to take the force of the bear's charge but the bear hit both of them and sent them flying in opposite directions. Neku hit a tree to the side of the clearing and his head started to spin and his vision became blurry. Neku put a hand to the back of his head before pulling it back to find blood covering his fingers. He gasped and touched the back of his head again to check it was hi blood before attempting to stand up again.
Across the clearing, Joshua had landed flat on his back. He had been winded and couldn't breathe very well so could only sit gasping for a minute unaware of the bear's stealthy approach to him. The silver haired boy coughed a bit as breath swept through him making odd noises as it caught in his dry throat.
Neku heard the bear snort as well as its heavy footfalls. He tried to locate the bear with his blurry eyes but couldn't see very well. All he could make out was a big brown mass headed slowly in a direction that wasn't his. Neku could only assume that that was the direction that Joshua was lying in. Neku wasn't sure if Joshua was awake or not so he decided he needed to distract the bear with everything he had.
"Joshua! If you can hear me, call Shiki and tell her what's happening so they can get help!" Neku screamed at his friend. Joshua heard him and as soon as his breath was back he sat up fully and tried to find Neku. He noticed that the bear was walking towards the orange haired boy slowly now because he was making noises at it. Joshua took this opportunity to open his phone and place a call to Shiki.
Joshua's phone didn't work, he had suddenly lost all signal.
"Neku! My phone isn't working!" he shouted back desperately which caused Neku's phone to come flying towards him with the bears attention.
Joshua stared at the bear for a second before Neku caught its attention once again and it started to move away from Joshua. The phone was flipped open and Shiki's number was dialled in a matter of seconds.
"Please… please…" he whispered as he held the phone to his face and hoped the girl would pick up in time before the bear got to Neku.
It was all quiet in camp and Shiki was lazily texting Eri while Beat was taking to Rhyme on his phone. They were also chatting casually about Neku and Joshua when Shiki's phone suddenly lit up with a familiar number.
"Who is it?" Beat asked as he covered his phone with his hand to talk to Shiki instead of Rhyme.
"Neku. I guess he's on his way back," Shiki shrugged before answering the phone in a relaxed way.
"Better tell him Joshua went after him," Beat decided before putting his own phone to his ear again.
"Hello?" she asked quietly as she waited for a reply from the other side.
"Shiki! You have to help us!" Joshua's voice said from the other line. The worried tone in his voice scared Shiki, but what was worse was the roar that came straight after that followed by Joshua screaming to Neku.
"Joshua? What is it? What's wrong?" she asked in her own panicked tone as she stood up and went into the tent to find the teacher alerting phone and buttons.
"We were attacked by a bear, by the lake, Neku's hurt already I think, Shiki call for he-" Joshua was cut off by a roar before Shiki heard him shout to Neku and then yell out in pain. Shiki could hear the noise of an animal kicking the phone around before a soft squeak of bending plastic and a 'plunk' as something hit a tree.
"Joshua, if you can hear me, Help is on the way!" Shiki shouted but could only hear a grunt of pain from whichever boy was nearest to the phone at that time before she heard a pop of breaking plastic and the line went dead.
Almost immediately Shiki had pressed the button handed the ringing emergency phone to Beat and speed dialled Eri to see if she could get a faster reaction.
She had done what they had asked and help was on the way.
Blood was all Joshua could see. The red substance bathed the whole of the forest floor in the clearing but there was no way to find distinction between the three different types of blood that lay splattered up trees and shrubs and stained the grass a violent colour. Joshua could see the corpse of the bear lying half against the log that was in the centre of the clearing while a smaller bear cuddled up to it trying to get warmth from its newly dead mother while it cried out for help in long loud cries of pain.
Joshua looked away from the scene sadly. He knew that a baby that small couldn't survive for long without a mother and that they had killed the only family for this small bear cub. The tiny animal called out in mourning again for her dead mother before her beady eyes landed on Joshua. She looked at him for a second with her head tilted to the side while Joshua just looked at her. The tiny brown cub walked over to Joshua and sat down in front of him with almost pleading eyes.
Joshua looked in the small bear's eyes and saw a familiar shimmering soul shining back at him. He sighed as he realised that the bear wanted him to end its suffering because she knew that it wasn't possible for her to live for more than a few days.
"Kari, if you wait I can take you to a place who will take care of you," He sighed to the familiar spirit. This girl had once been one of his reapers. She had lost her game when she was around ten and erased by the taboo noise from Neku's game. Her soul had been floating around before it had been born again as this bear.
The bear snorted and shook her head showing that she really didn't want to be in captivity.
"You would rather die?" he asked in wonder. The bear moved forward and lay down. Joshua noticed how thin the bear was through its layers of fur. Joshua scanned the bears mind and saw her speech floating around.
'Kari rather die, momma gone, no food already, no zoo momma said zoo bad'
Joshua let out another sigh before he looked right into the bear's eyes.
Are you sure? I'm sure a zoo would look after you fine," he told her but the bear shook her big brown head.
'Momma gone, Kari want to be with mama always,' the bear thought Joshua sighed once more before pulling out his phone.
"You were a very good and obedient reaper, I hope you can live among the stars with your mother for eternity," he whispered as he grabbed her ears softly and scratched behind them in a comforting manner.
'Me not scared. Momma waiting' Kari thought as she looked up to the sky. Joshua pressed a button on his phone that he knew would bring a peaceful death to the small cub. He just stopped her heart so she would just die slowly.
'I'm coming mama' the bear though as she fell onto her side and took her last few breaths. Within a minute she was dead.
Joshua sighed at the loss of life while he moved the body of the dead cub to lie beside its mother in the middle of the clearing. It was only then that he noticed blood seeping from a wound on his side and fell to his knees in pain from the large wound that he was sure hadn't existed a moment ago.
Joshua looked over to Neku to see the other boy was in worse condition than he was. He knew that he somehow had to get over the other side of the clearing to help the other boy.
Neku was breathing heavily in exhaustion. He didn't know why he was so tired but he could feel a sticky substance running down his arms that he realised must be blood. He couldn't move much so he just lay still with stinging little pains all over his body. He knew the bear lay dead somewhere close because Joshua had regained use of his phone and killed the thing in one swift shot to the head with a Jesus Beam. He couldn't see Joshua but hoped he was okay.
"Neku…" Joshua whispered from a little way away. He attempted to crawl over to Neku but he was also breathing heavily because he had been bitten by the bear and it was bleeding heavily. All Joshua could think was that he needed to get to Neku. He saw the other boy was lying on his back and not moving at all. For a minute, Joshua panicked and tried to scramble over to his friend as quickly as he possibly could but by the time he got to Neku he had probably lost more time than he saved.
"Joshua…" Neku sighed as he moved to look at the silver haired boy.
"Neku, you look terrible. Stay awake for me," Joshua was worried that Neku may be dying again and it was, in some ways, all his fault.
"I'm cold and sleepy, Josh. Can't I just rest for a little?" realising what he was saying, Neku shook his head and looked up.
"No!" Joshua growled in response.
"Fuck it. When do I take orders from you?" Neku announced as he closed his eyes.
"Neku Sakuraba! Open your eyes or so help me I will…. I will make Mr H stop working as CAT!" Joshua growled. Neku lifted his head to look at him for a second before growling out a low 'you wouldn't'. Joshua moved some of his hair with the hand that had been holding his cut. He didn't realised he had just smudged blood on his cheek and into the tips of his hair. "Well you won't know if I do or don't unless you stay awake will you?" he added in an equally as spiteful voice.
"It's selfish to try and keep me awake," the orange haired boy mumbled as he opened his eyes again to look up a Joshua. Joshua lifted Neku's head so that it was resting on his legs with a smile.
"Well I can be a pretty selfish person when I want to be," Joshua said with a smile causing Neku to chuckle a little.
Shiki and Beat ran to the place they believed their friends wee. When they got there they found a scene of carnage and blood as the whole forest was bathed in in as well as the two humans and two bears that lay in different places in the clearing. Shiki had to hold a hand over her mouth to stop herself from feeling sick as tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes.
"Dude… Neku's not looking good," Beat announced as he pinpointed h orange haired boy who was lying on the ground with the Silver haired god next to him. Shiki noticed that Joshua was talking to Neku and brushing his hair out of his eyes. Shiki ran straight over to the two boys and knelt down on the bloodied grass.
"What happened to him?" she asked while she watched Joshua hum to Neku. She realised it was Shibuya's music, one that had healing powers in the UG but obviously didn't in the RG.
"We were attacked by a bear and Neku tried to distract it while I called you. He was thrown against a tree and that split his head open but the bear clawed at him and bit him before I could call it back to me," Joshua explained without even looking up. "I tried to keep him away but he fell asleep about five minutes ago," he added as he stared only at Neku's face.
"You were bitten too?" Shiki asked as she noticed a growing red patch under Joshua's hand that was extended over his body to hold his side.
"It's not important," Joshua said as he winced as he remembered the wound was there. Shiki looked away from Joshua. She knew help was on the way now so hopefully they would get there before Joshua lost too much blood and died completely while taking Shibuya with him.
Help arrived ten minutes later.
Joshua had just passed out just before they arrived and Shiki had lain him down next to Neku. She helped the paramedics the school had called get the two friends out of the clearing and out of the whole forest so they could make a speedy escape to the nearest hospital.
Beat had followed Shiki brainlessly all the way to the ambulance however he wasn't allowed to go with them in the ambulance so had to stay with the teachers. All of the teachers present were calling up the individual camps of students to tell them to meet where the bags had been left as the trip was going to be cancelled because of an accident. Beat just stood there without a clue as Eri arrived in a panicked blur of red and green and took Beat to the hospital in her car.
The rest of the night was a painful nightmare for everyone involved. Neku's mother had shown up an hour after the teenagers got to the hospital in tears over the condition of her son and it took Shiki, two of the teachers and a doctor to calm her down. The two bear bodies were removed from the clearing to be disposed of by the people who owned the land the school was camping on and for the teens it was stressful because neither Neku nor Joshua would wake up.
It had been a month and a half since then. Joshua had woken up the day after the accident while Neku slept on. He had survived with only one major injury which the doctors had fixed and a few broken bones. His skin was cut and bruised all over but after a few days the bruises had almost faded.
Mr H came to visit Neku when nobody else could and Joshua dropped out of school so he could keep up with his job as composer and keep seeing Neku daily. Within a week, the whole of Neku's hospital room was filled with flowers and cards and balloons all telling him to get well soon because they all wanted him back alive.
Joshua had taken to being here almost 24/7 and when he wasn't here the coffee-loving fallen angel was there instead. Some of the time s that Joshua was visiting, Neku's mom turned up to sit with him and ask questions about what had really happened and why she had never heard about him from Neku before but he seemed to know lots about Neku himself. Shiki and Beat turned up three times a week and Rhyme even came twice a week by herself without Beat. She had made Neku a card herself as well as giving him a photo of the whole gang together. Even Joshua had been in the photo even though he had said on multiple occasions that he didn't like having his picture taken. It was a thoughtful gift.
Mr H was the only one with Neku when he woke up. At first, the boy was confused.
"Mr H? What…? Where am I? Why aren't I still in the forest? Where's Joshua?" the black haired coffee shop owner scratched the back of his neck. He didn't like having questions fired at him.
"Um, well, Phones… you and J were attacked by a bear. Boss got out of it relatively fine but you've been out for over a month; nearly two,"
"What about Shiki and Beat? Are they okay?" Neku asked as he moved to sit up straight. At first Mr H started to protest, he didn't know if it would be okay for Neku to sit up after he had just woken up out of a coma. Eventually he just gave it and plumped the pillows behind the back of the boy's back.
"Yeah, they're fine," Mr H said when he sat back down on the seat next to Neku's bed. "The bear was dead by the time they got there from what J said. They got the ambulance to the right place to pick you up," he finished
"So… Joshua's back in the UG I'd expect, running the game," Neku said as he started to play with the edge of the scratchy blankets he was covered in.
"Yeah," Mr H said after a minute. He sounded exhausted as he said that but scratched his neck after and seemed to gain months of sleep. "He's been running the game a lot more lately, but he comes to see you once a day," Mr H told Neku with a smile. Neku smiled back and looked around the room to the multiple arrangements of flowers, balloons and teddy bears that had obviously been sewed by Shiki.
"Is he okay then?" Neku asked quietly. Before Mr H could reply with more than a short nod, Neku heard footsteps down the hall beside his room. The two occupants of the room grew silent and looked at the door for a minute until the footsteps stopped and the door to Neku's room opened.
"Okay, Sanae, you can go back to the café now, I'll watch him," Joshua said as he walked in. His head was down so he didn't notice that Neku was awake.
"See phones? He's fine," Mr H said with a small chuckle and a smile. Joshua looked up when he heard his producer talking to Neku and a smile crept onto his features as he realised Neku was awake.
"Neku!" he called as he all but ran over to hug the other boy close.
"Ouch, Josh. I'm still achy," Neku said as he winced in pain as Joshua had squeezed him a little too hard.
"Sorry, I'm just glad to see you awake," Joshua said with a small shrug. The two teenagers suddenly both looked to the adult in the room. Joshua's look told Sanae that he should leave the room now before his eyes get clawed out.
"well, I'm going to go back to the café, Joshua will llook after you Phones and if I see your friends I'll tell them you woke up," Mr H said as he stood and slung a jacket over his shoulder. He stated to walk out, but turned around and threw a wink over his shoulder in Neku's direction before sauntering out of the door.
As soon as he had left Joshua pulled Neku into a kiss. At first the injured boy was surprised but then he felt himself melting against the feel of Joshua's lips on his.
Joshua smiled sincerely as he pulled away. It was the first time Neku had seen this brand of innocent smile on the others face.
"I thought you were going to die," Joshua said before Neku could say anything. Neku sighed and shuffled over so Joshua could sit on the bed next to him.
Joshua quickly got onto the bed and snuggled up to Neku with his head on his chest. Neku wrapped his arms around Joshua and they sat there like that for a little while just breathing and relaxing in the knowledge that the two of them were both fine.
"Neku, I really thought you were gone for a little while when we were in that forest," Joshua said. He didn't look up but there were the beginnings of tears in his eyes that he refused to let go.
"Even if I did Josh, I'd just go back to the game, right?" Neku looked down at the other boy and heard Joshua sigh.
"You wouldn't get a chance in the game, we were in a no game zone. It was about a ten mile radius away from the 2 games in the range of the forest. The ten miles is no game zone and all those who die there just go up to… a different place I guess. I'm not sure…" Neku's eyes widened but Joshua still couldn't look at him.
"So you kept me awake-"
"So you didn't die," Joshua finished before Neku could. "I wanted to hear the answer to my question," Joshua shuffled so he was sitting up beside Neku staring into his eyes with his newly dry ones purple ones.
"Question…?" Neku asked as he looked down with furrowed eyebrows Joshua smiled a little before moving forward to try and get Neku to look at him.
"About if we could go out and maybe we could be…" Joshua paused to place his hand over Neku's. He felt the orange haired boy's breathing catch as he looked down at their hands, Joshua took a deep breath before he spoke. "Maybe we could be together…?" Joshua asked as he looked up into Neku's eyes.
The proxy's eyes lit up as he thought about what was being said for a second. At first, Joshua thought that Neku was going to say no from the way he furrowed his eyebrows but eventually the boy looked up and nodded at Joshua with a small blush and a smile on his face.
The composer smirked and hugged Neku in happiness before giving him another peck on the lips.
"I love you, Dear," Joshua said
"I… love you too, Joshua," Neku replied earning him a small blush on Joshua's cheeks and another kiss.
The two broke apart quickly and lay back down so Neku was cuddling Joshua like a teddy bear.
A few hours later Neku's friends all arrived and interrogated the two on their closeness and why they were both in the same bed and why were they attacked in the first place etc.
Shiki was the one asking most of the Questions while Rhyme just asked the two if they were okay and then sat in the chair to the side. Beat just stood there not really knowing what to say after he had been told by his little sister that Hospitals were quiet places and that he wasn't allowed to shout under any circumstances.
Throughout all the questioning Neku and Joshua sat on the bed together in silence with their hands intertwined as they smiled at their friends and thought to what they had planned as soon as Neku was allowed out into the world again.
Yep. My special brand of bad endings.
Here is my second TWEWY fic today and I actually started this one at the start of last month (when I'm a celebrity get me outta here started in the UK) it took me forever, but I finished it. It's different from my original plan but oh well.
I hope it was okay!