JOSHUA TRIPS
CHAPTER SEVEN: IN WHICH NEKU AND JOSHUA ATTEMPT TO LITERALLY WRESTLE INFORMATION OUT OF A SMARMY JACKASS
Summary: So Neku and Joshua have begun the information-gathering process. However, there's still a few things they'd like to find out. Will questioning the masses reveal new mysteries? Or will it be completely pointless, since basically everyone is...well, Joshua?
Rating: T for icky icky eww stuff and also badness
OF NOTE IN THIS CHAPTER: Nobody reads this, do they?
Genre: Parody/Adventure
If it matters to anyone, I got Yume Nikki recently! BOOYAKA
Joshua N999-9025 was not really in a hurry. He was scheduled to meet with M200-2008 and M217-2006, the other members of his pack, and discuss their targets. It was something he wasn't really looking forward to. He just knew M200 would be all bossy again, just because HE was the oldest and had the highest score of the three of them. And M217 would be late and they'd have to wait an hour. Plus, N99 was running low and his joints were starting to chafe painfully when he ran. He wondered if this was a by-product of the Ns having all those improvements on the skeletal structure, or if the Ms had the same problem.
Those two Ms were the real reason N99 was walking slowly, though. They always bitched at him because of his squeaky ankles and mocked his slightly watery-lavender eyes, the color brought on by experimental cutting-edge lenses that had turned out to be a flop. They could just eat metal, for all N99 cared; they were the reason his joints were squeaky anyway. The M models had a glitch in their BMI indexers, so they always rushed in before the Neku was ready and then he would ALWAYS escape. N99 hadn't been full ever since he joined their sorry little pack. He wondered how on earth the two of them had gotten such high scores - probably from freeloading off more competent units until they got kicked out. Hee, hee.
N99 shuffled along, watching the clouds. Maybe if he didn't show up, they'd think he'd been erased, and terminate their pact? He probably would stand a better chance on his own than with those two nincompoops. Smirking at a smoggy cirrus lying still in the golden sky, N99 imagined their smug faces going all frantic with panic when they realized the only rational packmate was out of the equation. They'd probably wither away, trying to subsist on Special Shio Ramen until they finally collapsed into twitching heaps of snot. Meanwhile, N99 would be sinking his teeth into one delectable Neku after another – they'd be leaping into his arms, practically! Hee hee hee hee-
-the train of thought was derailed as four hands shot out of the shadows of a nearby alley and pulled him into the darkness.
There was a lot of blurry movement and a scuffle of arms and legs. Before N99 knew what was happening, some twit had him bent rather artistically into a wrestling hold while another was busy tightening the blindfold. "Neeehhh! Unhand me, you nitwits!"
"Not until you answer our questions," grunted the blindfold-tightener, and suddenly the wet cloth tied over his eyes didn't matter - from the delicious smell alone, N99 immediately knew him to be a Neku. But there was something definitely exotic about this Neku's scent...exquisite! As the aroma wafted past, N99 almost started drooling – imagine that. As it was, he started feeling giddy and very, very hungry.
"Oh, come on...nitwits?" came a faintly amused voice from in front of his face – the owner of the arms that had him pinned. That was unmistakably a Joshua, but - how on earth - wrestling? N99 knew there were a few of Supermask's wrestling tapes in the video store, but they were crumbling...and archaic...and so old - and nobody had VHS players anymore, they just weren't trendy...but - wrestling? N99's captor sighed tiredly. "Just our luck – out of a billion Joshes, we bag the village idiot."
Okay, that was just uncalled for. "I am not the village idiot!" N99 fumed. "I'm an N model!"
"Define N model," said the Joshua, as if he didn't know what an N model was. "It sounds quite savvy."
"You bet your boots! N models have full memory updates and patches on all BMI indexers, and even a better skeletal system – massive improvements off the M model! We are built strong to last long!"
There followed a lapse of silence. "What exactly...are you, then?" the Neku said slowly.
"I'm an N model, Ne~kun," N99 sighed dreamily. Suddenly, he yelped as a fist connected with the top of his head. Bonk! "Gya-HUH, what was that?"
"Divine punishment," snapped the Joshua. "Now you listen to me, you little twerp - "
"I don't listen to any Joshuas!" N99 snarled. "What's your model, anyway?"
"YJK, bitch."
"Ahem," the Neku said. "Josh, move your fatness." The Joshua unit slid off of N99's chest and onto his lap, grumbling.
"I am not fat, I am completely healthy."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever sates your fragile ego, my leige..." The Neku's voice migrated around to behind N99 and propped him up. N99 was aware of some kind of weight snaking around his wrists, fingers poking and brushing against his back... About then, he realized he was being tied up. He tried to struggle, but it was too late. "...Ha! You're not goin' anywhere." The Neku's voice had moved again, so that it was in front of him. Very confusing.
N99 suddenly had a thought. Oh, NO. "Please don't kill me," he whimpered, breaking out the puppy-dog eyes. Of course, the majority of the effect was lost on his captors, since he was wearing a blindfold. "Please! My score is so low...I'm barely four months old, please...I'm not worth it! I'm not-"
"We aren't going to KILL you, dingbat!" the Joshua snapped, kicking him in the ribs. N99 cried out at the sudden impact to his global positioning system. So did the Joshua, but it had more to do with the titanium alloy than anything. "Holy sh—what kind of...? ...ouch...OUCH..." There was the irregular sound of crunching dirt and a low snickering coming from the delicious Neku, which seemed to imply that the Joshua was hopping around on one foot, cursing.
"Well...since he's not going to be doing anything useful for a while, I'll question you instead." Mm, even his voice sounded yummy...
"Sure thing, Ne~kun," said N99. And then: "Um...Ne~kun?"
"Whut?"
N99 grinned as sheepishly as he could. "Could you take off the blindfold? I mean, I have no idea where I am...it's really quite pointless..."
From the pause in audio feedback, the Neku seemed to consider this for a moment. "Whatever. But no funny stuff. And no lying, or my partner will fix you up bad." He reached over, and with a rustling of fabric untied the blindfold, which just happened to be the Joshua's slimy shirt. N99 blinked and discovered he was in an alleyway – well, duh, but WHICH alleyway? - and the Neku was sitting on a crate across from him. The Joshua had settled down and was rubbing his toe furiously.
The two of them certainly made an odd pair. N99 tipped his head to the side and studied them for a second. The Neku had his hair down and his headphones off, and there was none of the usual hair gel smell. The Joshua, on the other hand, had hair about an inch longer than standards condoned (Probably defective, N99 thought) tied back in a ponytail. From the way he kept shivering and sniffling, it looked like he had a cold or something. His shirt was slimy enough - he was wringing it out and muttering crossly - but the rest of him was also thinly coated with the same mucous-y stuff. (Definitely defective, N99 thought) His face and torso were absolutely covered with faint bruises. Come to think of it, the Neku had a rather nasty blotch on his cheek, too.
N99 tensed. Ruffians! Vagabonds! Renegades! Ragamuffins! These two were obviously defective. Why else would they form a pact? It looked like they both had received damage – perhaps enough to wipe their memories? Maybe – maybe they were just looking for the lost data, so...they probably weren't in their right minds. Not defective, per se, but...damaged. He was suddenly struck with a deep feeling of pity, (which never happens to any Joshua worth his salt ramen) and suddenly wanted to reach out to these hurt Souls and comfort them. So N99's pitying side decided he would tell them everything they wanted to know, and then his shrewd side hoped they didn't activate randomly and try to erase him.
"So...um...hello there. I'm Joshua N999-9025. But if you want, I suppose you can call me N99, because that's what my friends call me...I'm a submissive unit, and I have a score of 4. Not very high, I've gotta say." He laughed awkwardly. "What are your ID's?"
The Neku and the Joshua glanced at each other, and N99 could practically see the data streaming through their intense glare. "...Er..."
"Do you remember?" N99 asked. "...Were your memories wiped? Because it looks like you've taken some damage to your-"
"EXACTLY!" they both said at once, leaping on the excuse. N99 was a bit frazzled.
"But you can call me Neku, I guess," said the Neku after a minute. He gave his companion a little punch in the arm. "And he's Joshua."
"...Yeah..." said Joshua, rubbing his arm and grumbling something nasty about the imaginary fall from Eden or some such nonsense.
N99 smiled brightly. He had to be careful, stay on their good side; these two were pacted tightly for certain, and were thus on good terms with each other, but they were still displaying signs of aggression. Have to be careful. "Oh, okay. So. What do you need to know?"
"First off," the Neku said before the Joshua could cut in with a whole list. "Tell us why there are so many of us."
"Joshes and Nekus? ...For the Game, sillies!" He tried not to laugh but...("Hee, hee!")...it was just so absurd!
The Joshua narrowed his eyes at the shrill giggle. "The...Game, huh?"
"Yup," said N99.
"Could you explain the rules?" the Joshua asked.
N99 bit back a snide (and pretty flimsy) comment about how the tables had turned and reminded himself to play it safe. "Of course! The Goal of the Game is...well, when you score 99 points, you're free – they take you to the White Building and then...well, that's it, really."
"And how would we get these so-called 'points?'" asked the Joshua.
"Well, you have to...um, have a Neku, if you know what I mean," N99 said uncomfortably, hoping his little wink would convey what he couldn't exactly say. He didn't want to upset the Neku in any way, lest he get bruised. No Nekus will ever fall for a bruised Joshua, he thought with a mix of smugness and fear. "Nekus have to...er, get a Joshua. So..."
The two of N99's captors looked at each other. The air was suddenly charged with tension, and N99 sensed danger. "Ah, but don't worry! There's a whole lot of each, and new ones come in every day, so...yeah! Hee, hee...!"
The Joshua was still staring at the Neku. "But then...why...?"
"Um. Joshua? Neku? You can also form pacts." N99's eyes flicked back and forth from the Neku to the Josh nervously. With damaged units, you never knew if they might lash out at any moment. "Packs are pacts between three or more. And points are divided evenly between you and your partners. It's easier to get points, but harder to go up in rank, right? But most people do packs, because then they can bully the singles out of their Nekus and stuff. That's about all I know about it, but that's all you really need to know, right? Hee, hee..."
The wild Neku snapped out of confusion. "Book...get the book!" He gave his partner a shove. "Hurry! Write that down!"
The Joshua pulled out a tatty pink book and started scribbling. "Yes, sir – gyah-HOWW! Quit shoving me, it's rude!" And he gave the Neku a "little" shove in return.
Before the shoving match could break into full swing, N99 decided to intervene. "Ahem! Anything else? This rope is itchy."
"Oh, uh..." the Neku peeked over his partner's shoulder and mouthed some words. "...oh! Yeah. What's up with this whole night cycle thing?"
N99 looked at him blankly. "Only for Joshuas, silly-head."
"Do we have to ask you in Latin? Sing you our questions? Maybe spell them out in morse code with tap-dance shoes?" the Joshua exploded suddenly. "Does it matter who asks? JUST. ANSWER." He looked like he hadn't been having the best of days.
However. That was no call to be rude, in N99's opinion. "Ugh! But it's so obvious! I mean, if you'd spent one night together, you'd know!"
"We just met up this morning," the Joshua said quickly. A little too quickly.
"Is that so? Oh, I get it now." N99 nodded, pretending to be understanding. "Well, Joshuas fall asleep at nine in the evening and wake up at seven in the morning. That's all, really."
"Any exceptions?" the Joshua asked, looming over him.
"W-well, Nekus don't sleep...or so I heard..."
"What about Joshes?"
N99 sighed. He'd been hoping to avoid this, what with the Neku being right there and all. In private it was fine, but with a Neku in the room? It was just...impolite. But N99 looked at the Joshua and saw that there were to be no negotiations, otherwise...well, he'd rather not know what these two were capable of. "Well, an activated Joshua doesn't need sleep. It will stay awake until it collapses from energy loss."
"What triggers activation?" The Neku asked.
"...When the Neku...is ready...to be, um, had, then the Josh or Joshes that has or have claimed the Neku will activate," N99 said tenderly.
"Write that down!" the Neku hissed, shoving the Joshua. "Write that down!"
"I'm writing, I'm writing! ...And when is a Neku ready?"
"...You'll know," said N99 nervously. "You just know." That's what the BMI indexers were for, after all.
There was a period of silence as the Joshua scribbled down column after column of little Japanese squiggly things with the unrelenting ferocity of a hungry Daedra. He had a very good reason to, and it was sitting right next to him: every time he stopped to breathe, the Neku punched him in the arm until he started writing again. With a pattern like that, in under a minute he was done – or at least it seemed like it, because he stopped writing and asked, "So, what happens if a Joshua doesn't 'have' a Neku?"
N99 immediately thought of his painfully creaky joints. "Well, it really depends on the model, but...you'll start deteriorating, running out of energy until you start to malfunction, and then one day you'll go into the night cycle and not wake up. And if someone finds you like that...comatose...well...you won't have long." N99 sighed, wishing he could massage his ankles.
Scribble, scribble. "You mentioned before that 'new ones come in every day,'" the Joshua remarked.
"Where do they come from?" asked the Neku.
"Huh?" N99 blinked. "Er, well, I just woke up in the scramble crossing one day. I assume it's the same for all. That's all I know." He squinted suspiciously. "...Why? Does it matter?"
The Joshua and the Neku glared at him. N99 shrank back.
"All right," the Neku said after a moment. "So, where's the girls?"
"Excuse me?"
The Neku rolled his eyes. "C'mon, dude. You may not swing that way..." - the Neku missed the way the Joshua ground his teeth, here - "...but there's got to be a chick SOMEWHERE. If only to pump out more demon spawn."
Neither N99 nor the crazy Joshua felt very happy about being called demon spawn, but they didn't show it. N99 was more confused than angry. "What..? A chick? You'll find those in bird's nests, Ne~kun..."
The Neku waved his hand dismissively. "No, no, my boy! I'm talking about WOMEN. As in, the things that make you sandwiches."
N99 blinked. "Defensives make sandwiches."
"That's not nature's way," the Neku replied adamantly, and the Joshua cut him off before he riled the female readers up any further with his unwitting misogyny.
"Defensives. What are those?"
"They...er, try to...well, it's complicated," N99 replied, looking uncomfortable. "It's a battle tactic. I can't really explain it in front of..." He then did a none-too-subtle head gesture in the direction of the Neku, who quickly pulled his finger out of his nose.
"Why not?"
"Well, er...I just can't, okay? It would ruin everything. You can't talk about the secret battle strategy and expect it to remain secret, can you?" N99 shook his head and sighed, with the familiar "I'm surrounded by children" atmosphere that pervaded Joshuas of all types. "There are defensives, offensives, and reversibles. And that's all I can say."
"Fair enough," the Joshua grumbled, and recorded this new knowledge.
The Neku reached over and bonked N99 on the head. "Hey, uh...what happened to Ten-Four, anyway?"
"Ten-four?" N99 blinked, uncomprehending.
The two interrogators sighed. "ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR, you monkey."
"...What?"
"Um, it's one of the more iconic shopping malls of Shibuya?"
"...What shopping mall? ...I don't-"
"Dude!" shouted the Neku in frustration. "The huge tower with the banner on it! And the weeds everywhere!"
N99 stared at the two defectives in disbelief, making faint noises in the back of his throat. "Hrh...hh...?" How dare they - weeds! "They are not weeds!" he finally scraped together. "They're the eyes of the all-seeing plant mother, Pamela! The bringer of bountiful harvest and the goddess of the slaughter of cattle! She is our savior in these dark times, when the Joshes outnumber the Nekus and points are so very hard to get. With her -"
"So you DO know what a girl is! Where are you keeping them?"
"There are none of your so-called 'girls,'" N99 spat. "There have never been any, whatever they are! And we don't need them! We only need Nekus to survive-"
"If you've never seen any girls, then why would you call those weeds 'she's?"
"Because there is only one mother, and that is Pamela-"
Joshua saw fit to bash this thing right in the skull before his dignity burst into flames. "Actually, roses, like all plants, are hermaphroditic. Meaning they are of both genders. So this 'Pamela' of yours is no more female than an earthworm – she's more an 'it' than anything."
N99 started thrashing around in his bonds, forgetting that he was supposed to be being careful around the two damaged units. "Blasphemy! Sacrilege! You'll be sacrificed in the Holy Atrium, and buried alive in the nectar of the gods -"
N99 stopped about then, because only now did he realize that the slime the Joshua was covered in...the slime that coated his shirt in wet globs...the slime that dripped from the tip of his ponytail...
"You've been in there, haven't you?" N99 said slowly. "What - how - the high clergy - they throw the defective ones in the Pit! ...How did you-"Suddenly his voice grew thick with disgust. "You've broken in, haven't you? You've intruded on holy ground, HAVEN'T YOU?"
The Joshua and the Neku exchanged glances. "Er," said the Joshua. "...define 'intruded.'"
I now present the "condensed version." That is, what Joshua wrote in the pink book.
J/NIVERSE LEGENDS AND J/NIVERSE FACTS,
-ACCORDING TO N99-
On the amount of clones: "For the Game, of course. You have to get 99 points, and then you win. Joshuas get points by, er...'having' Nekus, and Nekus get points when they 'get' Joshuas. And when you get 99 points, you go into a white building and then they take you away."
On Joshua activation: "Not Neku-friendly."
On the origin of Joshuas and Nekus: "'Who knows? I just woke up in the scramble one day, with instructions on my phone. Same for everyone. I don't know where we're 'coming from,' and I don't see how it matters.' Conclusive proof that N99 and other Joshua clones are idiots. Of course it matters."
On the subject of "Reversibles" and other such things: "There are three tactical strategies, to our knowledge. You come with either an Offensive, Defensive, or Reversible mindset."
On females: "None. D': [Anekudote: Except for Pamela, but she's a weed.]"
On what ever the HELL happened to ten-four: "104 is apparently the sacred home of the heart of Pamela, the goddess of life, harvest, and the deception and slaughtering of lambs. It's holy ground, and no one but the high clergy is allowed in. Oops."
Enlightening, huh?
"No," snapped our Joshua.
After they had sliced through the Josh's bonds, he decided he was in the totally appropriate position for bargaining. "You two naughty boys went into the heart of Pamela, didn't you? That's holy ground," he repeated, smirking and wheedling his foot on the ground with a faint creaking noise. "I really should tell the high clergy about this...I really should...tsk...what to do, what to do?" He stuck his finger in his cheek and made a dopey face that seemed to imply pondering.
Our Joshua had decided he hated this twat's guts and would have slammed a beam of holy light directly through the abomination's cranium - if he had been on his home plane, that is. For now, he could only gnash his teeth and hope that Neku gave the order to bonk this hideous mockery out of existence. He contented himself by blocking the only means of escape, meaning that if their captive decided to try any funny, he'd have a full array of suplexes standing between him and freedom. Joshua was glad that his borderline-obsessive memorization of every single one of Supermask's wrestling matches was finally paying off. "Quick to play the mom card, hm? Honestly, I expected more class from you...ugh..."
Neku was rubbing his temples. "Great...just guh-friggin-reat..." He straightened up, and if you had been staring into his eyes at the moment, you could see, through a whorl of conflicting blues, the bright azure of his heart and the cold steel of his brain locked in a deadly embrace as they clashed against each other, fighting for dominance. However, Joshua was currently staring intensely at a big-ass bluebottle fly that had landed on his nice (slime-covered, but still nice) shoe and so missed out on all the blue action going on in his partner's irises; and so he had no idea of the gravity of the decision that Neku made in that moment.
Neku's eyes glinted like steel as the logical part of himself beat his emotions into submission beneath its lavender boots. "So..." he said, approaching the Joshua and swallowing hard. "So."
The Joshua looked at him and smiled serenely. "So what?"
"I...you won't tell anyone about this - about anything - understand?"
"And why not?" The Joshua's smile widened unnaturally, splitting his face in half like a gash. "What's in it for me?"
"This," Neku choked out, and then he stepped forward, grabbed the clone around his shoulders so he couldn't jerk away and mess up the trajectory, and bumped his face into the other boy's cheek. Being unable to purse his lips at the sight of the strangely wide mouth, Neku botched the attempt - it was supposed to be a sort of peck on the cheek, but it became more of a facial bonking. Neku felt an uncomfortable twinge in the base of his spine – when his nose had been pressed to the other boy's cheek momentarily, he had discovered that the Joshua smelled faintly of decaying meat. He drew back as quickly as he could. "...That. Yeah."
The Josh sneered, his weirdly stretched mouth twerking upwards in a grimace that could barely be called a smirk, his pupils dilating slightly too much. With nostrils flaring slightly, he shook his head. "Oh, no. That's not gonna cut it, Nekky-dear."
(Our Joshua was still staring at the fly. God DAMN, that thing was huge. He wondered if it was the kind of demonic hellspawn fly that ate little dead boys and their model pickup trucks. Not being an expert on flies, he resolved to stay as still as possible until the horrible thing left.)
And the clone brought his arms up and laced his fingers behind the nape of Neku's neck, and looked into his frightened eyes with his too-wide pupils. His smirk grew slightly more twisted. Neku cringed, slightly. The clone's face was wrong. The way his mouth was too wide, the way his eyes were too big, like owl eyes – his features were not blatantly monstrous; they were tweaked ever so slightly, so that it was almost unnoticeable. They were only minor changes, really. Perhaps it was even more unsettling that way.
And the creepy face was so close, and Neku could see himself reflected in the black holes in the Joshua's eyes...and now? And now...
Neku gulped. He had brought this on himself. But if the thing told, well...who knew what these "clergy" dipshits would do to them? Brainwash 'em, or something. Gaaahh. Neku closed his eyes and pictured Shiki. And then he dipped forward, and pressed his lips to the ghastly Joshua's, weeping quietly inside.
Several wet, drool-slick seconds later, the shuddery feeling in Neku's back – like a colony of sea cucumbers had coiled around his spinal column and were sweating mucous all over his nerve endings – grew too much to bear. It wasn't the "kissing," per se, but the fact that the clone was staring at him with gigantic owl eyes the whole time; and the hot smell of fetid meat didn't do much to help matters. Enough was enough, Neku decided. He tried to shove the Joshua away, but to his horror he discovered that, sometime during the proceedings, the Joshua had trailed its sharp fingers down from Neku's neck, and the Joshua now had an iron grip on his shoulders. The weirdly sharpened nails dug into his flesh whenever he moved, like he was wrapped in a choker of thorns. The point here being that he was currently locked in place, helpless to do anything but continue making fish-like motions with his mouth and inhale the wet smell of hamburger straight from the meat grinder. Neku tried to kind of twist his head away but the Joshua moved sinuously with him and – good grief. Right about then he was struck with the image of what this whole thing must look like to any innocent bystanders.
Such as our Joshua. Who, to his credit, had not taken his eyes off the fly.
Neku groaned in utter despair, but the clone must have taken it the wrong way, because he became less like a golden retriever and more like a lamprey in the whole oral fixation business. Although that was an improvement in some ways, it's a lot harder to pull a bloodsucking monstrosity from the deep off of your lower lip than it is to shove a big friendly puppy-dog off your tummy. You know how, in those jacuzzi bathtubs, there's always that little nub with all the holes on it, and if you touch it you get a mark that looks like you clamped your hand in a waffle iron and forgot about it? Neku felt like he was kissing one of those. Underwater. With the jets on. Joshua, apparently, does not know to keep it dry.
After what was less than a minute but felt like a slimy eternity, the Joshua let go. With the sound of a toilet plunger being removed from the clogged maw of a particularly nasty john – shhhllUGHK – he kind of released Neku from the facial gripping and such. A delicate strand of saliva bridged the gap between the two for a second, hanging there like a shimmering strand of spider-silk, until Neku viciously judo-chopped it into halves with great prejudice. He felt like stomping on flowers and kicking puppies for a while, maybe pissing on a few rainbows and slitting his wrists. The nudibranch colony wrapped around his spine had died, decayed, and now the slushy remains were trickling in cold, slimy rivers down his lower back. It was a rather unpleasant feeling.
The Joshua clone, on the other hand, looked like Christmas had come early and he actually happened to celebrate it, hoo hee ha. His face lit up like the fourth of July, or Bonfire Night, or something involving pyrotechnics displays, and the weirdly elongated mouth slimmed to a normal size as he wiped some excess saliva away. ("Some," a word which here means "a friggin' crapload.") "Wow-ee, Neku," the Josh said, grinning like a fat kid presented with a lollipop. "That was so generous of you! Most Nekus aren't so inclined to help out us Joshuas, but... It's good to know that some people still care, hee hee! Seriously, thanks bunches. You have no idea how much this helps. Really. Thank you!" He waved and giggled even more girlishly than was the standard. "And don't you worry your pretty heads, my dears; I'm not the type to kiss and tell~~~! Bye-bye~!"
The Joshua flounced away, radiating an aura of pink sugar sweetness and cloying floral car fresheners, a decidedly un-creaky spring in his step.
Neku busied himself with wiping his face off.
The bluebottle flew off around this time, and our dear Joshua breathed a sigh of relief. He looked up at Neku and said, "So, what'd I miss?"
Neku paused in the act of defiling his collar with Joshua slime to glare at his partner. He didn't even need to speak, he just sorta looked at him.
Joshua, being a blockhead, decided to blatantly ignore the subtle connotations of that look. "What'dya give him?"
"You weren't watching?"
"Did you want me to?"
Joshua had no idea why he was punched in the face for that.
"Seriously," he mumbled, pulling himself into a sitting position and rubbing the latest addition to his facial decorum. "What did you do to that thing? I heard a lot of wet noises."
"I..." Neku made a face. "...kissed him, I guess."
"Oh," said Joshua. How awkward, he mused, rubbing his poor abused cheeky-weeky. But he was getting a sick, heavy feeling in his stomach – not exactly because of the "kissing," per se - as to Neku's reasoning. "Out of curiosity, why would you do that?" He threw in a bit of a smirk here, just to spite him.
"You said that's what they want," Neku snarled, not wanting to talk about this. "In other words, what YOU want, you sick, sick ringworm-riddled cream puff."
Joshua didn't so much as flinch, but the anger was rising all the same. His feverish state left him quite testy. "Ahh. I suppose you are an authority on what Joshua wants, right? The way you throw yourself at them...tsk, tsk...it's all very telli-"
"I do NOT throw myself at them!" Neku protested, kicking his partner in the ribs. "They come after me!"
"Which totally explains why you decided to swap spit with one," Joshua snapped, nodding in mock understanding. His head hurt, his sides hurt, he wanted to go home...ohhh...and he was still very tired, and sick, and he really didn't care about his image at this point. "Why would you do that? You HATE me!"
"I don't hate you!" Neku shouted.
A few tense seconds passed in silence.
"...Forgive me, I was under the impression that you wanted to paint murals with my organs," Josh finally said after a while. The stinging pain in his face and side had faded away, and seemed trivial compared to his throbbing headache. Joshua touched his cheek gingerly. "...Or at least bonk my face in."
"...Not really," Neku said stiffly. "Not really. I just...dislike you a whole lot. But I don't exactly...hate you. You're my ticket home, after all."
"Oh. Goody," Joshua said. He groaned and got to his feet, rubbing his temples. "That really sates my fragile ego, you know."
There was another moment of silence; a pregnant pause.
"Alright. Whatever. So he'll be quiet, and all that. Good. Fantastic work, proxy." Joshua picked up the pink book, sighing. "I don't care what you did to him. I really don't. He matters not." He flicked through the slime-spotted pages, finally coming to a stop on their list. "So then. I doubt we'll get anything more useful out of any other Joshes." He sighed raggedly. "Want to try Nekus, or something else?"
Neku blinked. "...You sound mad."
"That's because I am, dunderhead."
"Why are you mad?" Neku looked a little worried. For some reason, he started backing up and checking the sky. "I didn't even know you could get mad..."
"I'm a human, too," Joshua said, sounding almost...pained. Almost.
Neku sighed. "...Sorry, dude. Just...you're just, like, the personification of three-c's, ya know?"
Joshua smiled a little at that, but it didn't do much to help his mood overall. He snapped the pink book shut. "You're not the only one suffering, here." You aren't the one locked in the closet with the Thing, you aren't the one getting beaten up constantly, you aren't the one with the head cold, you aren't the one who has to watch yourself do things you'd never want to do, you aren't the one who has to delude yourself into thinking that people who "dislike you a whole lot" are your friends... Joshua sighed. "It's hard on me, too. You may not like me, but...if we work together, we can get this done, and I can get you home. I can get us home."
Neku felt something inside of him writhe like a serpentine water dragon, rearing its crested head and blowing puffs of spray at the back of his throat. The urge - the urge to go off on one of his compulsive motivational speeches - it was overpowering. And if it had been anyone else before him, Neku would have succumbed, cranking up the cheesy until his circuits blew.
But it was not to be, for Neku knew that Joshua was a manipulative bastard. He was, Neku reminded himself, the same guy who walked by dying Reapers as if it were none of his concern; the same guy whose idea of character-building entailed murder and mindscrewery; the same guy who had tried to nuke Shibuya for no reason that Neku could see other than that he was bored of it; the same guy who toyed with human minds as though they were nothing more than playthings supplied for his entertainment. And now he was baring his soul to Neku?
No way. Not buying it. It totally went aganst the image of Josha that Neku had built up in his mind. Neku crossed his arms, figuring that Josh was probably just looking for an ego-stoking. Or maybe trying to bait him into expressing compassion, and then he'd make some little remark and - BAMF! Giggle City.
Neku decided not to blindly putter into the trap like a fool. He DID trust Joshua, but not on a conversational level. You see, Neku really hated being laughed at. And so, Neku "defied" Joshua by deliberately not reacting.
"So...d'you have a plan yet?" Neku asked.
Joshua looked at him, a flicker of something - hurt? - passing over his face, clouding his eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it had come. So quickly, in fact, that had Neku blinked, he would have missed it completely. There was a brief pause as Joshua sucked in a long breath, and then he was off again, prattling away like nothing was wrong. If he was anything, Joshua was a chatterbox.
"No, not yet. We need more information about this place before we start drafting battle strategies," Joshua said, shaking his head. "I'm loathe to admit it, but apparently you were right – I am a smarmy jackass who takes forever to get to the point, if at all." He said that almost bitterly.
"Sorry," Neku said again, feeling a little pang of guilt. Maybe he shouldn't have just ignored Joshua's sappy little speech like that...oh, well. "I just - I feel funny. Like, my back keeps getting all squirmy and stuff."
Joshua looked at him strangely. "Like I said...we'll need to investigate. That putrid copy mentioned a 'white building,' where they take the winners of this world's Game."
"So...you think we should go there next?"
Josh nodded. "Yes. It's the only lead we have, anyway. Perhaps we can find out more about this world's Game, and the rules that which the Joshes and Nekus are bound to. Among other things."
"Cool," said Neku, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Although, he really didn't see how that would help.
After a moment, Joshua just had to ask. "...How was it, anyway?"
"How was what?"
"You know."
"...DUDE."
"H-hey, don't look at me like that! I don't get to practice often, since I kind of live in the sewer. So I'm always looking for feedback – 'concrit,' if you will." Joshua's eyes glittered curiously.
Neku sighed. "Ugh, whatever...well, honestly?" He shrugged. "Average."
"Average?"
"Yeah," said Neku. "Like, not even good. Or bad. Just...average." He made a face. "If you like, y'know, take out all the drowning-me-in-saliva and the creepy face and the fact that oh dear, it's JOSHUA. It was just...meh."
"Meh?"
"Meh," Neku said sadly, shaking his head.
Joshua felt rather put-out.
A/N: Neku, you poor thing. You have to suffer too.
No, no, that wasn't his first kiss. Neku's kissed a bunch of girls, because he's cool. It's not so much of a big deal if your thirty-seventh kiss is with a bizarre clone of your rival, as opposed to your first kiss, right? Still gross, but...eh.
Joshua, on the other hand, has not engaged in much kissery. Because, aside from the fact that the kid doesn't really socialize much, if you get within kissing range, you discover that he smells faintly of sewage. And also cinnamon toast and butterscotch. ...And that's not exactly a good combination. But he practices on cabbage patch kids.
JOSHUA'S TRIVIA TIDBITS: Cabbage Patch Kids were created and distributed so that, in the event of a nuclear winter, we'd already be used to looking at mutated babies.
I am very sorry if you are offended by Neku and his boyish obliviousness. We will now pit him against the Spirit of Feminism. Excuse me while I call the carpet cleaners in advance.
Neku: ...o-o;;
Joshua: I will not be held responsible for this. *casually slides under table*
-PLEASE STAND BY-
