He had woken up to Neku's unwashed face.

Joshua wasn't much of a dreamer but when he was graced with a dream, he tended to lose sight of reality. Until he was woken up that is. But even then, he was still a bit startled by the light that would suddenly cloud his vision. Normally, he'd expect to wake up to a white ceiling, well this morning, he was given quite a shock.

"Neku!" Joshua yelled, his voice still shaky from surprise.

"Did I finally succeed in scaring you?" Neku replied laughing.

Joshua responded by scowling and jumping off of the bed. He went into the bathroom, grabbed a wet towel and threw it right at Neku's face.

"Wah—Hey!" The towel had hit him hard and he stood there for a moment. "Wow you can throw."

"You're surprised?" Joshua asked incredulously.

"No."

Joshua hmphed and glanced at the water dripping down form Neku's face.

"Where to today?"

"Udagawa."

"Oh Okay then."

"You're suddenly very cooperative… who are you and what have you done to Neku?"

"Shut up," Neku growled, "I just don't want you moping around the house. That's all."

"Moping?" Joshua nearly smacked Neku but missed. "Who's moping?" he asked pouting.

Neku, trying to recover, gave Joshua a look. "You're getting violent."

"All thanks to you, Nekky-kun."

xx.

"Tell me about those art classes, Neku." Joshua said as they scrubbed off most of the swear words on the murals. They had jumped from topic to topic; from television shows, to music, school, friends, and art. Personally, Joshua was never into art, until he saw Mr. H's murals. But even then, he never thought that it was good enough to take up.

"They're great," Neku replied, "when we have extra time, they even teach us spray painting and all that graffiti stuff."

Joshua raised an eyebrow. Teachers teaching how to do graffiti… what kind of school does Neku go to?

"Yea," Neku continued, "I know you're probably thinking that my teachers are crazy but they're actually pretty cool."

"I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying your life now," Joshua said smiling.

Neku glanced at him and smiled. "What about you? When did you start playing piano? Did anyone teach you?"

"I'm self taught. Started learning at 5… I think."

"Wow…" Neku said in awe, "So why is your song named 'Watashi no Koi'? I know I said it was a fitting name but still… why?"

Joshua stiffened a bit and gave Neku a sad smile. "Do you know what Koi means, Neku?"

"Carp," Neku replied almost instantly.

"Yes, but Koi also has a few other meanings. Another one is love," Joshua looked down. "Yomi loved carp for some strange unknown reason. Heck, she loved any fish in particular but carp was her favorite. Back then, she wanted me to write a song for her. Watashi no Koi seemed like an appropriate title. I tried to make it feel like those fishes in a pond; swimming and carefree. I didn't notice later that it could also mean love."

"Did you feel that way?"

"I don't know anymore. All I knew was that all I needed in my life to be happy was her. She was the only one who didn't judge me. She never hesitated to protect me. She never listened to the rumors about me. She never left me for others."

"Oh."

And then there was silence. Neither of them knew what to say next so they decided to enjoy the silence. They didn't realize that they were the only ones in Udagawa…well the only humans that is.

Crap

Joshua glanced over at Neku who was crouching down, trying to scrub off a "Fuck you!" from the mural.

"Hey, Neku. Let's talk about something."

"Like?" Neku replied curtly.

"Hrm How about Shiki?"

Neku gave Joshua a hard look followed by a glare. "No." His eyes were starting to glaze over as the amount of Noise grew and grew.

The Noises are already getting to him… damn they're fast.

Joshua did the only thing, he could think of at that moment. He threw the bucket of water over Neku's head.

"Wah—Josh!"

"Welcome back, Sunshine." Joshua said giggling, "You looked like you were falling asleep there."

"How the hell did I look like I was falling asleep?"

Joshua dodged a punch and let out a sigh of relief as the Noise thinned out. He stood there watching the Noise disappear wondering why they would target Neku's thoughts again. Before he knew it, his entire body was soaked in water.

"Pay back," Neku whispered in his ear, "And unlike me, you really did look out of it."

In response, Joshua shoved the sponge he was holding right into Neku's face and "washed" it. "There," he said laughing; "now I won't have to wake up to your unwashed face ever again."

Neku glared at him and punched him in the face.

"Why is it always the face? You're ruining my good looks."

"What good looks?" Neku laughed and gave Joshua's shoulders a squeeze causing him to jump and nearly fall back.

"You know, Neku. Using my weakness to your advantage is really mean."

"Yea and guess who I learned that from," Neku replied.

"Oh? And who may that be?"

"Hmm here's a hint." Neku grabbed Joshua's arm and pulled him into an embrace.

"Hee Hee You've succeeded in confusing me," Joshua said but willingly hugged him back.

"Good." Neku took a look at the mural. It was not fully clean but it looked way better than it did when Joshua first came here. Joshua could do a lot for this world. Well… world as in Shibuya seeing that he can't leave. Or can he?

Stepping back from the hug, Neku placed the materials back into the bucket. "Let's head back now."

xx.

They had expected a safe journey home… they were wrong.

Before they knew it, they were surrounded by Noise. However, these Noises are different.

"I've never seen these kinds of Noise before…" Joshua mused.

"They must be her doing."

Joshua nodded, looked up, and screamed out, "Haruki!"

"Shut up you Hectoplasmals!"

Neku took a step back and Joshua shook his head. "No way," Neku seemed to say and turned to Joshua. "I thought you killed him!"

Joshua shook his head again. "I only slowed him down. Killing him was never my intentions."

"Well now he's going to kill us!" Neku yelled as Sho and Haruki appeared from behind the building.

"Hello, you stupid zeros. What the factor took you so zetta long?"

"So you were the one who sent the Noise after us," Joshua said.

"No," Haruki corrected, "After you. Your partner was just in the way."

Just in the way…

"Neku," Joshua said, "Go back."

"What? Are you—"

"They're only after me. Go back before you get hurt."

"You should listen to him, you hectoplasmal. If you don't then I'll blast you into the square root of infinity! AHAHAHA"

"Neku… just go… I'll be fine."

"No," Neku grabbed Joshua's hand and made Joshua look at him, "Were partners and no offense but… you're nothing without me." At that he smiled and so did Joshua.

"Ugh so zetta disgusting," Sho said, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

"So you've made your choice?" Haruki scoffed and took a fighting stance, "You'll regret it."

"Prepare to be iterated."

They blasted through the first couple sets of Noise pretty easily. True they were harder than the original but they weren't hard enough to cause major damage to the two. In a couple of minutes, they plowed through all the Noise.

"Easy."

"That was a nice distraction."

That is until they got to Sho and Haruki. Both of them have taken on their Noise forms and stood there ready for battle.

"You idiot. I thought I made them harder than that."

"How the factor was I suppose to know, you yoctogram! This is zetta stupid."

"You're stupid!"

"What did you factoring say?"

"For partners you two don't look to chummy," Joshua commented.

That brought them back to reality and before anyone could respond, they attacked.

Despite their earlier arguments, they worked extremely well in battle. Soon, Neku and Joshua found themselves breathing hard and trying to keep up.

"Aw are you tired?"

"So zetta slow!"

Joshua kept trying to do Jesus Beams but kept missing every time. "Neku," he breathed, "do something."

"Fusion!" Neku yelled and took out the pin that now showed a meteor from all that fighting.

A whole new world awaits

And you're going.

There was a loud explosion and Neku had to shield his eyes from the light. Joshua smiled in triumph but only to find that the two Noise were still alive.

"How?" Neku yelled.

"Hrn Hrn," Haruki giggled, "Did you really think that you could defeat us so easily?" She teleported to Neku's side and whispered in his ear. "If my sister hides in the dark, where do you think I hide?"

Suddenly Haruki and Sho disappeared and laughter rang in Joshua's ears. "We'll spare you today but one word of advice, Joshua… get rid of your partner he doesn't deserve this kind of abuse. You can still imprint so erase his memories. It's possible. Don't you want him to live a normal life?"

With that, they went away leaving Joshua and Neku lying there in a daze.

"Josh, I'm sorry," Neku said.

"No, I should be sorry."

xx.

"Neku," Joshua said, "I was thinking—"

"How about this, Joshua," Neku said interrupting him, "you behave and we'll go to the beach tomorrow."

"Beach?" Joshua could faintly remember the last time he's ever been to the beach. Going to the beach won't be too bad however…

"There is no beach in Shibuya," Joshua said flatly.

"Yea but you're not in charge of the games right now."

"Doesn't mean that I'm able to leave."

"But that doesn't mean we can't try."

Joshua took one look at Neku and knew that this was a useless argument. "You better impress me."

"Yes!" Neku smiled and cheered like a little kid. The earlier battle must haven't had as big an effect as it had on Joshua. Yet, even then, Neku didn't seem to have any more worries in this world.

Joshua chuckled, "You've turned into such a happy-go-lucky person."

"Excuse me? Did you say something?" Neku said and did a full launch attack on Joshua's shoulders. "What did you say? I can't seem to hear you, Josh. Louder please?"

Joshua managed to squirm away laughing and yet, his heart was breaking. He knew he shouldn't listen to her but letting one person die was already too much. He's not going to lose Neku also.

He gave Neku a long look and pulled him into an embrace; his hands wiped the tears starting to form on his eyes.

"Joshua?" Neku exclaimed, "Are you okay?"

"Yea," Joshua coughed and slowly, accepted what he had to do.

I have to erase his memories…