Chapter 1.
I actually finished this chapter first and it's been sitting in my computer with 'fin read' as the title. I finally got my ass in gear enough to write the other parts of the story before o go off to university in a couple of weeks.
"The composer has been replaced."
These were the words that Sanae Hanekoma uttered as the group of four teenagers made their way into his cafe. The barista was standing at the counter looking down his nose and over his glasses at a cup he was drying. It had been left by a couple who had been into the cafe for a coffee only a few minutes ago. He was frowning and his eyebrows were furrowed like he was still wondering what had happened to his boss.
"Replaced?" Shiki inquired while looking thoughtful. Everyone seemed to be confused except Neku who wore a frown. Beat scratched his head while Shiki and Rhyme looked between themselves with equally questioning expressions.
"He went and got himself killed?" The ginger asked without hesitation. There was almost a hint of anger in his voice which made the other ex-players ears prick as they turned to look at the boy. He was standing with his fists clenched as he looked at the floor. He was almost visibly shaking. The others all looked between the people there but nobody really knew how they could calm their angry friend down.
It had been a year now since the end of the game but since three months after the first meeting at Hachiko Neku had been secretly meeting with Joshua. He may not have forgiven Joshua, but like he'd said to himself at the end of the game: he trusted Joshua; he just hadn't forgiven him yet. There were times when they met up that Neku really wanted to just up and leave and tell Josh not to come see him again, but Joshua understood him. He knew how he felt about people and the world and he always offered good advice. Plus as much as Neku hated to admit it, he was a bit attracted to the other boy when he wasn't being an asshole. They were due to see each other in a few days but it looked like the composer was going to have to miss that date with his proxy. More recently, like the last two or three months in the times they had seen each other and ended in the two doing something that could be classed as more than barely friends should be doing. At first it was only kissing but eventually the friendship evolved into something half between being friends and lovers.
"Not killed... He wouldn't go without a fight..." For once in his life Sanae Hanekoma looked unsure of the outcome of his boss. "Knowing J he would've exploited some loophole and is probably running around somewhere," everyone realised he was trying to cheer himself up as much as everyone else. Nobody really knew what to say but at least Mr H was trying to make them feel better. He smiled a little although it looked false and let out a small chuckle too.
"I'll bet one of these days that kid'll show up and walk right through that door!" Mr H said with an unsure yet happier chuckle. Everyone lifted one side of their faces in half smiles except Neku, who still looked off into the distance with a sad look on his face.
As if on cue, two people entered the cafe. It was almost painfully obvious that they were siblings from the similarities in their faces, hair and even the way they both walked. The first of the two was a young woman. She looked about twenty and was pretty enough. She had silver-blonde hair that was just a bit lighter that her brother's but with more colour to it. She had the shimmering sides pulled back into a small ponytail that fell down the rest of her hair. She had green eyes but they were vibrant in colour like a dark forest green. She had a soft smile on her freckly face as she walked in slowly. She wore form fitting clothes I'm the shape of a halter neck pink top and a brown pair of shorts.
The boy next to her looked to be around the same age as the others -around 17- maybe even a little younger. His hair was shorter than his sisters. It was silver and only just tickled his shoulders while hers was halfway down her back. His eyes were different, bigger and more innocent looking in a lighter more vibrant shade of green instead of the purple everyone would associate with the rest of his face. His face was so familiar it left everyone in the cafe staring. He even wore similar clothes to the composer in the form of a pair of black jeans and a blue shirt which he wore open over the top of a white long sleeved t-shirt. The only other difference was that he was wearing a long chain with a pair of angel wings on it that chinked against itself as he walked. Neku blinked in shock as did everyone else.
"Yo, Mr H! I thought you said prissy kid was dead!" Beat shouted. Everyone turned to Beat to silence him which confused the boy.
"It's not the same composer," Shiki hissed as she elbowed Beat. The boy recoiled and backed off as he started to grumble about being hit. Shiki turned to the people at the entrance with a smile.
"Prissy kid?" The girl asked she looked at her brother with a confused scrunched up face. The boy who looked like the composer just shrugged and looked at the group around them with a small smile however remained silent.
"Sorry, you just look like someone we used to know... Um... Mr H? Aren't you going to greet them?" The barista suddenly remembered he was the one in charge of the cafe and smiled as he set the cup he had been cleaning on a shelf.
"Yeah, welcome to Wildkat, how can I help you, J?" He asked with a smile as he leant down on the counter encouraging the two to walk closer with the wave of a hand. Neku realised the slip up first. J was what Mr H called Joshua for short sometimes. When Neku looked at Shiki her eyes showed that she knew what he was trying to tell her. Nobody mentioned the use of nickname to the older man but they were pretty sure he had realised when the boy gave him a strange look. The girl walked forward first closely followed by her little brother who looked like Joshua. The boy couldn't keep his eyes off Neku who was still staring at the floor with his face buried into the collar of his shirt.
"Sorry if we're disturbing something. We were looking for someone by the name of 'Sanae Hanekoma,'" the girl said as she walked forward. Everyone looked up for a second in confusion. Mr H scratched his chin in thought as he smiled at the two people who had come looking for him.
"Really. You came looking for me?" He asked with a small chuckle. "Sanae Hanekoma. Call me Mr H," the older man told the two as he held out a hand.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Aya and this is my brother, Yoshiya," for the first time since the two had walked in, 'Yoshiya' seemed to act like the old Joshua. A giggle bubbled from his lips as he made his way to stand next to his sister.
"So you're Yoshiya?" Mr H murmured to the boy while scratching at his stubbly chin. The boy smiled slightly and nodded once.
"Well, my name is Yoshiya," he explained. He turned to look at Neku first with his signature smirk. "I think that considering I had a dream about this place and all of you, you can call me the name that you called the other boy who looked like me: Joshua." He giggled as he looked around at the others. Four sets of eyes widened in shock while Neku's head just snapped up to look at the boy who was speaking.
"You aren't Joshua," he growled in anger. He stood up straighter with balled fists and stood watching the other. Neku didn't realise he was shaking or squeezing his fingers into tight fists until he felt the pain of his nails piercing his skin. He didn't know why he was so angry but he felt like this boy was trying to replace his friend.
"Are you sure about that, dear?" The silver haired boy giggled. He posed exactly like the real Joshua he even pulled at his hair in the same place. Neku's anger boiled in his blood as he marched towards where the pair stood by the door. "I could always become a replacement of sorts, to help you get over the loss of a friend," the boy had all eyes on him as he joked around but he could tell Neku's blood was boiling as he stepped forward even closer to him in a threatening move. Neku was bigger than the teasing boy, but he didn't even flinch back.
"I'd never accept you as him," Neku growled right in the green eyed boy's face. The smaller of the two pulled back with a frown while Neku shoved past him out of the door and into the street. When he got out of the doors he broke into a run leaving Cat Street without even a glance behind him.
Everyone stared after Neku for a second before looking back to the boy who looked so much like their Joshua. The boy was tutting quietly to himself.
"Oh dear now I've upset him," he said with a slight frown. The silver haired boy tapped his chin in thought. "However, he is right about me not being your composer. From what I can gather from the dreams I'm just a copy of Joshua's appearance. I've been living in Paris with my family for the last four years. After my parents heard of a death of a boy who-"
"Who looked exactly like you..." Mr H murmured to himself. It wasn't a question; he was finishing the statement he had heard before.
"Exactly," The boy agreed with a nod. "That boy looked like me, he had the same name as me and died in the backstreets where he killed Neku," he seemed nervous to add the last part. He watched his sister's head whip around to stare at him while Mr H just sighed and shook his head.
"You never told him who you were. But I guess it doesn't matter if you had," Mr H mumbled. He wasn't talking to anyone in the room; he was looking up at the celling. The room became quiet as everyone ran away with their own thoughts. Rhyme remembered that Neku had stormed off first and realised that the angry teen could hurt himself if he was as upset as she thought he might be.
"I'll go talk to Neku," Rhyme said quietly. She left like a breeze and had almost gone unnoticed until that point in time.
Shiki was first to speak up when she was gone.
"So Neku's friend Joshua, the composer Joshua, died in the same place Neku did?" She asked. She was quite confused by the thought.
"Yes," Yoshiya answered as he placed a hand under his chin and held his elbow like the other Joshua used to do "He died in a car crash on his way home from the mural there. He had wanted to view it with his friend but he had been late and his friend had gone home. So he started to go towards his friend's home to apologise but was hit by a drunk driver who mowed into a wall," he explained looking at Mr H who had bowed his head at this thought.
"Friend? Did we know him?" Beat asked. He didn't really grasp that this wasn't the Joshua he had met. The silver haired boy looked down and smiled fondly at the memory of his friend.
"You know them, but I can't tell you who it is," he said as he looked to Mr H. The older man nodded at him, approving the choice.
"They wouldn't know who Josh was because of his entrance fee,"
"Was it memories? Like Neku and Rhyme?" Shiki asked she put a hand to her chin in thought, Mr H nodded.
"But not his memories, they were the memories of the best friend he had just left behind," Joshua looked down at the thought of taking the memories of the person his other self must've found the most important.
"Um... Hold on a second... What's all this about dying?" Spoke up a new voice. Aya was looking around in confusion at all of the people in the room.
"Well let's see..." Joshua started with a smirk as he turned to his sister. "In this room, everyone except you and me has at one point been dead. They all won their lives back in a game ran by a boy who looked like me who was also dead," he giggled, flipping some of his hair back out of his face. His sister looked at him blankly for a second with her lips parted as if she was frozen about to say something.
"Yeah right, dweeb," she said as she flicked his forehead causing the others in the café to snicker as he mewled and swung his arms out towards the girl to try and bat at his sister.
Everyone quieted as Rhyme walked back into the café with a reluctant Neku in tow. He was looking at the floor and still seemed angry and almost sad about the passing of Joshua. He sighed as he looked up at the boy who was not the same as his friend.
"You can't fill his place," Neku grumbled. His voice was devoid of all emotion making it hard for the others to read his expression.
"I wasn't going to dear," the boy assured quickly.
"But will you stay here?" Neku interrupted fiercely. He looked up with eyes burning with some unidentifiable emotion which caused the other's eyes to soften.
"I won't kill myself to take his role, but I can stay here with you people and be like him," the new Joshua smiled slightly at Neku and shrugged almost trying to show that this was the best he could do for him. Neku just scowled at him causing the smile to fall off the silver haired boy's face.
"Don't try and be him, you aren't him," Neku said again. He sounded childlike right now with the way he was speaking. His arms were folded and he was looking away.
"Neku..." Shiki sighed. She almost sounded disapproving as she moved towards him. Neku turned away from the people in the room so Shiki was the only one he could see. She always had a way to make him calmer.
"It's ok Shiki," the boy said. He looked at her for a second with a smile.
The younger boy's large green eyes fixed onto Neku's back and after a while, they softened. "Would it be better for you all to call me 'Yoshi' or I guess 'Yoshiya' that way I won't drag up the memories for you," Neku had turned his back on Yoshiya and was looking back out the door ready to bolt at any moment like a scared rabbit. For a moment, Yoshiya received only silence as his answer.
"Neku?" He asked again only this time a little softer. Yoshi was looking down at the floor so he couldn't see Neku's back. Neku shook his head as he heard the boy call to him. He plastered his signature scowl on his face.
"Yeah... Sounds great...whatever," Neku mumbled to the boy behind him. He was trying to sound tougher than he felt at that moment. Yoshi realised Neku was still a little upset and decided he needed to do something about it. A warm and familiar hand settled on Neku's shoulder. Shiki was now standing next to him with a small reassuring and mothering smile. The smile told Neku that even if he felt horrible, it would get better eventually. Yoshiya saw this and he sighed. He fiddled with the chain around his neck for a second before he stepped forward to speak.
"Neku, will you walk with me?" Yoshi asked out of the blue. Neku looked around in surprise to see conflicted emotions on the boy's face. "I want to talk to you... alone," he added as he walked closer to Neku. The orange haired boy sighed. He pushed the warm, comforting hand of his friend away and walked forward to look at the boy who looked like Joshua. He nodded at the silver haired boy and Yoshiya smiled before motioning for Neku to lead the way.
"I lived in Paris for the last four years remember? I don't know my way around Shibuya," Neku held back a shudder at the reminder that this boy was not his trusted friend, before he walked out of the doors again. He didn't look back at the others but waited outside of the cafe for his partner to join him.