You have some growing up to do, young man.
And don't tell me you'll grow up in your dreams.
I'll tell you something. I'll tell you something that I've never told anyone else.
My hands are cold. My body, cold. My heartbeats, but nothing is matching the mechanical cadence of its thumping.
But that's not what's important. I want to tell you that I've been dead. I saw it, the light that kills and burns. A city, not like our own, of personal damnation that forgot my being ever existed. That forgot OUR being ever existed.
It was Hell. GAWD-fuckin-hell and full of.
Full of ignorant people. People who didn't see what was really there. Or, shall we say, didn't see the.
What am I saying? Am I digressing? I am, aren't I? I can see it in your face. It's written all over your smug face in CAT's handwriting.
And isn't Digression? Such a beautiful word.
You know, I read The Catcher in the Rye just before I died. I'm not sure if It's relevant or not, but I hated the main character.
Why?
He was quiet. He was a hypocrite. He was the phony that he condemned. He was caught up in a world that didn't understand him.
He reminded me of me. And that's what scares me; I don't want to be seen as him. He's hated you know, people look the other way when they see him walking down the street.
You know he's him. No question to it. The way he talks the way he walks. And by everyone. Not just me. Go around and ask them if they like him, and they'll either say 'no' or else 'who?'
He's hated you know. I'm hated you know.
But. Isn't Digression such a beautiful word?
Tell you about it? The way I died?
I was shot. Bullet right through the gut. Shot the bastard who shot me back. Wrestled the gun away from him, ignoring my wounds. Kid didn't put up much of a fight.
I was a hero. Kid just comes out of nowhere and thinks he can just shot at me while I'm looking at CAT's work? No. Absolutely not.
Bang and thinks I could just be killed with one bullet. Idiot. I'm superman. You can't kill superman with no bullet. You can't kill superman with no goddamned bullet.
So he shot me. But that didn't stop me.
Staggering towards him, clutching at the spot on my chest while it squirts out bood, he pointed the gun to the ground as he watched in a stupefied awe at my super-strength. I grab a hold of the fancy folds of a Pegaso shirt when I'm in reach of him, pull him into a vice grip, and start wrestling the gun away from him.
As we fight, I realize that he's terrified. I can smell it on him.
We struggled for a little bit, but like I said, the kid didn't put up much of a fight. I elbowed him once in the nose, hard enough to hear the cartilage break right through, then again to have the floodgates open and a bloody Nile stream out of both nostril cavities. I wanted to bash his pretty boy face in for attacking. With no apparent reason.
Our blood touches the asphalt and blooms. Wilted. Dead. Roses.
It was then that he started to moan in pain as I twisted his arm around in a way that was not meant to be twisted, and yanked out the gun from his soft grip. As I held onto him, both of our chests a-rising and a-falling, we suddenly looked into the whites of each other's eyes.
My blues rivaling his, a shared moment and a fatal mistake on his part.
So next thing I did is, during this moment where he's lost inside an ocean, I pull my leg forward and kick him in the stomach with all my strength. I let go of him and watched as he staggered backwards, howling in pain as he tried to shield his stomach with his arms.
I pointed the gun at him and shot the kid at the same place he shot me.
Bang. Right in the kisser.
Yes. I still died. No, the kid didn't die.
What do you mean what do I mean?
After I shot him, he fell forward towards the floor and started writhing.
The eerie thing was, he was quiet during all this. Not making a sound to indicate he was in pain. I wasn't a sadist. I am not a sadist. But why didn't he howl in pain? Why wasn't he begging for mercy?
Why didn't he die?
Through it all, I chuckled as I pointed the gun to the asphalt, eyesight tricked to believe the world is tumbling all around me as I willed my body to walk forward. Slowly staggering towards the kid while one of my arms covered my wound, oozing blood blooming roses as it touched the ground. God I was so cool.
God I was so cool.
As I eventually reached him, his body had already stopped writhing, a pool of blood forming around him. Field of wilted roses blooming around him. He wasn't no superman. Killed with only one bullet.
I had to laugh at this kid's patheticness.
He ain't no goddamned superman.
There were others, too, you know. They died too. Are they here with us? The Girls. The Boys. They said they were my friends, but they didn't understand me.
They had to die; just like how I had to succumb to my own wounds and fall backwards in that alleyway. I had to die just like them. In a pool of my own blood. In a field of my own roses.
What's that? You want to know them? You want me to tell you of them?
I'll talk. But you won't understand. You'll never understand.
Pull up a chair. Have I got a story to tell.
I'll tell you something. I'll tell you something I've never told anyone else.
Note: Story is a 'what if' scenario wherein Neku is the one that kills Joshua. I am not know for my coherent storytelling, so don't expect anything.
disclaimer
and
concrit greatly appreciated
