Summary: Rhyme struggles to come to terms with a Shibuya without her partner. An introspective AU where Beat was erased in the first week instead of Rhyme.
Fail, and face Erasure
Beat had a dream.
Sometimes, Rhyme looks at him as he plows through life and she thinks, maybe, she can understand that. But she can't.
Rhyme's memories of when she was alive are actually sort of fuzzy, as if there are parts of it that have been rubbed clean. If she thinks hard enough, she might be able to work out what exactly seems so fuzzy, yet nothing stands out to her in particular.
When she thinks about it, that's how her whole life has been. She can recall normal, mundane things like buying a dress from Lapin Angelique with her mother or tying on her shoelaces in the morning. She can remember scoring well on a maths test but not feeling anything in particular about it. Nothing about her stands out. That is how she is.
It's nothing to be so upset about. At least she had the decency to take things in stride.
It all changes when Beat is erased.
All she can think after that is: "I deserved it. Not him."
There was more to her thoughts when it happened. It is like her heart gives forth a weak thump, as if something stifling is pressing up against it. And then - "oh no, oh no, oh no" when she realises what has happened.
There is not even a dead body to hold onto because they are both dead and he is simply more gone than she is.
She knows that it is her fault for letting her guard down at precisely the same time he did. She is frozen to the spot as the Noise makes its move and when she exhales after the sickening, pregnant pause that follows, she can only shiver and think that this could not possibly be real.
She wishes she could have thrown herself against Beat and saved him. She remembers that her death was meaningless and pointless, that she had not perished for anyone's sake.
She wonders what price she paid to enter the games. Whatever it was, it was not worth it.
She only knew Beat for a few days but she knows him as a nice person. She could see it as the days matured: that he was spreading his wings and beginning to fly. He treats her with a kindness that she does not deserve. It is actually sort of funny, how he pretends to be so tough but shuts up pretty quickly even when she is not that mad at him at all, really.
Sometimes, he looks at her when he does not think she notices. It's through his fleeting glances that Rhyme knows that he is just as pleased to meet her as she is to meet him.
He is all she has to hold onto.
"You're going pretty far for a stranger," Neku remarks, when he forges a pact with her. He is the person she meets at the Statue of Hachiko on the first day of the second week.
"We're the same," Rhyme tells him. "Shiki was your price, wasn't she?"
She knows from Neku's morose silence that she is right.
Maybe this was the reason she never had dreams, she thinks. Not dream dreams because people don't have dreams in the UG, but dreams like the one Beat had, to be the best skater in the world.
To be the best, one has to knock aside all the opposition.
Rhyme is not sure she can do that. Her heart breaks, because the Noise that should be on her shoulder is not there because that was her price.
… And only one person can win the Game.
"You've already forged a pact with someone else?" says the boy. "How disappointing."
Rhyme blinks because she hadn't noticed someone watch them until the boy speaks up. He is an effeminate boy with an easy smile. Rhyme is not sure what to make of him.
"Who are you?" asks Neku bluntly. His hands are shoved into his pockets, a clear indication of his current I-hate-the-world mindset.
"The name's Yoshiya Kiryuu. But Mother and Father call me Joshua."
He leaves after that, waving his hands as if to make light of Neku's barrage of questions. From that day on, Rhyme is aware that Joshua is watching them.
There is too much that Rhyme does not understand. Exactly what the Reaper Games are and why it takes place in Shibuya is something beyond her comprehension. When she first arrived, she was able to claim some understanding of the internally consistent rules in the Games, after all, she was the one who explained everything to Beat.
But when the Reaper Games defy their own logic, when a boy without a partner can participate, is when Rhyme's head begins to hurt.
She wishes she can be a little bit more like Beat. Maybe it was because he was there that she never became so confused.
She does not understand, for instance, why she likes Neku less than Beat, even as the days go by and she has come to know Neku for longer than she did Beat. She knows Neku when he shuffles away to some quiet place – to think. She knows Neku when he is determined. She knows Neku when he helps her erase the Noise.
She does not know the Neku who will give her sideways glances and who will really, really make an effort to change. Change comes upon him from inside without him realising or understanding it.
They are similar.
On the third day, they are eating burgers at Sunshine together when she suddenly says, "It's weird, isn't it?"
Neku doesn't have to ask what. He chews his burger meditatively and just nods.
"It's like we switched partners, isn't it?" Rhyme continues as she looks up at the sky.
"More than that," Neku interjects. He sighs. "I don't know how to explain it."
"Do you ever wonder what Shiki would think if she were here?"
"Sometimes, but it's hard. Same for you and Beat?"
Rhyme responds with a slightly strained nod. It's not that she wants Neku to disappear and for Beat to reappear, she simply wonders...
... what might have been.