The food is getting cold on the table and the reports are scattered nearby and really Neku shouldn't even need them, the details of this stupid, horrible thing he's a part of. Shouldn't need them to know why it's a bad idea to have Joshua pressing him against the kitchen wall now, kissing him like they'd never stopped, as electric as the first time which wasn't really all that long ago.

He shouldn't be doing this. Hadn't planned to do this. Hadn't even planned to stay longer than it took to drop off dinner and let Joshua snipe at him over the business with the Italian Conductor. That was the plan.

Yeah, that would have been a great plan.

When Joshua pulls away Neku should know better than to follow, because he knows it's what Joshua wants, what the Composer expects him to do. Knows Neku will pull him back, tucking one hand around the Composer's back as Joshua reaches out, pins Neku's other hand high over his head and yeah, kissing again. It feels just like breathing, really, like the first deep breath after too long underwater and Joshua is glowing slightly but Neku doesn't bother to point it out.

It's beautiful, it really is, the slight, flickering glimpse of the Composer's real power beneath the falsely frail body that is just a disguise, a shell. It might be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

"You still have to pay me back for dinner." He murmurs, when Joshua gives him room to breathe, and the Composer gives him a look – a hungry look – and Neku takes a half step sideways even as his body protests his retreat in about fifteen different ways.

No, he's not doing this. Bad idea. It's fairly freaking obvious that Joshua's an 'enjoy the chase' kind of person, a cat that probably gets bored as soon as it... pounces. Also yes, he's never even kissed anyone else and really if he is totally awful at the 'more' he'd rather not fail with Josh first, thanks, who will let him know in detail. With diagrams.

So Neku takes another step back, ignores the counter-arguments from the parts of him that preferred being warm and touched and maybe it's more than that, even. He's a part of Shibuya now, and the city loves the Composer blindly, as if the past never happened and there's no reason to be cautious. A part of that is in him now, urging him along into truly unfathomable stupidity but Neku's not the city and he remembers what happened, why forgiveness is an absolute non sequitur in this situation, permanently off the table. Joshua didn't look so different from this, watching Neku, the last time he'd raised his hand and put a bullet in him.

Discretion is by far the better part of valor, and Neku turns his attention back to the food, where it should have been all along, and when Joshua slips an arm around his waist he does not jump, does not acknowledge the little electric-like sparks that go up his spine from the simple contact.

"Katsudon? I thought you were getting ramen."

Oh, thank god. Joshua's sulky pout drops everything back to reality with a near-audible crash, and Neku can focus entirely on stepping away, snapping his chopsticks apart and wolfing down the food as fast as he can go – absolutely starving.

"This was closer. I'll eat yours if you don't want it."

He makes the offer around a mouthful of egg and fried pork, and Joshua grabs his own container quickly, picking at it a bit more delicately. As if they both didn't remember the way he'd packed it away during that second week, though maybe that had something to do with the Composer playing the Game, taking a human form, something like the same reason Neku's so hungry now.

Joshua's fridge is not the horror show Neku half-expected it to be, and he keeps eating as he wanders over, takes out two cans of green tea, handing one off without comment. Joshua is looking at him without looking, but Neku's grown used to that, not surprised when he finally breaks the silence.

"Most Conductors wait at least a week, you know, before they invite all their friends over to play."

"So you had fun watching that?" Neku glares back, hating himself for actually trying to read Joshua's moods, for caring if the Composer is angry or not but this is Joshua and he might be at a third of his usual power but he knows how to use that third a lot better than Neku knows how to use all of his.

Joshua can kill him, without trying very hard at all, and it's really a good idea not to forget that.

"Well, you did manage to piss off the Composer of... Campo something something." Joshua makes a vague gesture with one hand, and Neku can't help looking shocked.

"He called you?"

"Of course. Mostly to hang up on me. I can't say it wasn't fun, but if you get rid of all our Players, Conductor dear, there won't be much of a Game."

Neku makes a face, caught between arguing and shoveling food in his mouth. "It's your own damn fault, you know. If you'd given me the job before I played the Game, I would have gotten rid of anyone you wanted."

He almost flinches at his own words, talking without thinking – it's true. Neku doesn't remember himself as well as he probably should, exactly what he was like, but he remembers what it was to be lonely – and that Neku, the one he had been, would have been a Reaper without hesitation.

Joshua hasn't said anything, and Neku takes the rare opportunity to jump back into the argument before he can. "Three Players is not all the Players - and you did a hell of a good job eliminating enough Players as it is."

"I did?" Joshua says, and Neku does flinch this time. It stings, an unnecessary reminder that he is the Conductor, as responsible for all of this as anyone, and he busies himself with picking out every last grain of rice from the takeout container, rather than thinking about it.

"Kitaniji would have let them hang, wouldn't he? Those musicians - they would have just been erased right away."

No answer, which in Joshua-speak is a resounding yes. The more time Neku spends in the country of Absolute Bastard, the more fluent he is in the language, though he's trying very hard not to learn.

"You're going to have to come up with a better plan, Neku. I can't have my Conductor giving up our unexpected bonuses to other Games."

Neku ignores the obvious goad there, the food putting enough of a buffer between him and the need to snap back about people not being bonuses and also, Joshua won't listen anyway.

"Three music stores on the list, and you don't add a book store."

Joshua makes his usual face. "Who'd buy at a book store?"

"Who needs a music store?" Neku says, rolling his eyes. "Except me, but that's because I'm insane. Example: I am here. Talking to you."

"I'm not giving them all maps, Neku," Joshua says, "or we might as well install speed bumps and handrails in the Crossing."

Neku thinks about rolling his eyes again, but if he does he might never stop.

"You know, I'd believe a lot more in this whole sink-or-swim, let's-all-learn-to-be-better-people thing if there was actually water somewhere between the sharks."

Ok, so he'll need to get one of those pocket translators for himself, at the very least. List out the most frequently asked questions, the things he expects of foreign Players. 'Oh god, oh god, why me' - things like that.

At least he'll probably learn how to swear in a lot of new and exciting ways.

Neku sighs, poking at the bottom of his empty bowl and half-wishing for another, but he's already spent too long here and it doesn't seem like Joshua has any other pressing business to annoy him with and besides, he's got homework to do, before the Game tomorrow.

"You're staying over, of course."

"Yeah, of course." Neku says sarcastically, though it's obvious Joshua isn't joking. "No. I'm going home. It's late, I have homework, I'm tired and there's the little problem of that job I have to do for you in the morning."

Fifty minutes, which means he has to get up even earlier than before. Of course, there's no reason the Players can't complete the mission faster than the time limit. Neku won't let himself consider what will happen, on the day that the clock runs down to zero, when nobody's managed to win.

"You're going back home, to sit in the dark, all alone."

Neku reminds himself that he did, in fact, make the first move all those months ago. Wandering back into Joshua's realm had been his idea, and no matter how brain-damaged an idea it obviously was, he will have to live with it now.

"I didn't pack anything." He's already taken his jacket off to eat dinner. "I can't exactly slum it through school, they kind of frown on looking like you slept in your clothes there."

"You can borrow something for the night. I kept most of your clothes from your time in the Game."

"You kept my clothes?" Neku's not sure whether to laugh or gape in horror. "Why thank you, creepy pedo stalker. How incredibly helpful and disturbing."

Joshua scowls at him, pretending this time that he's just too dignified to respond. Right.

It's not exactly a surprise that the Composer's closet would hold exactly as much as he needs it to hold, the dimensions of the apartment already ludicrously oversized, Joshua no doubt manipulating it beyond that. All his clothes are indeed there, including a few items from D+B that were the result of a few unfortunate Wall challenges and some exceptionally fugly and amazingly overpriced items from Dragon Couture he must have bought for some reason even if he can't imagine what it was.

If he doesn't look at the frilly Lapin Angelique dress, it's like it's not even there.

Neku picks out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt because they're comfortable and also because he knows it will annoy Joshua. The Composer is curled up in an armchair, flipping through a book, pointedly not looking at him. Neku takes the couch, tugging the low table closer with his foot, pretty much in no mood to deal with any of his homework. He expects Joshua to interrupt, but the Composer is surprisingly quiet.

It's silent here, just like it was in the fishpad, that same absence of the city's sound that he only notices when it's gone, the rushing, howling torrent of all the different voices, thoughts, panic and joy and despair – it's not that he doesn't appreciate it, but Neku's glad for the respite.

It takes a minute, shuffling through his papers for a math assignment half-finished, but as Neku concentrates, putting pen to paper, he realizes it isn't entirely quiet. He can hear... something, just above the surface of the silence, like a dragonfly skimming across still water, wind curving over glass. It feels... familiar, somehow, and Neku reaches out for it without thinking, even though this has never, ever been a good idea, and he barely seems to brush against it when Joshua jumps in his chair, looking up at him with wide eyes. Actually startled - because he had touched the Composers music, hadn't he? Familiar, it felt familiar because they had made a pact even if Neku had no idea what it meant at the time.

Joshua's eyes narrow, the slightest quicksilver smirk in the corner of his mouth and Neku is hit with a blinding mental image of him and Joshua that Vegas would easily give six figures for and he nearly falls off the couch, one hand checking to make sure his nose hasn't started gushing blood.

"Tit for tat, Neku dear."

"Sexual harassment, jerk." Neku coughs back, hoping the shivers aren't obvious, clutching at his homework as if it might subdue the Imprint still running rampant behind his eyes.

There is no section in any document on conduct between Composers and Conductors, what is allowed or what is forbidden or whether he actually might – say - belong to the Composer. Neku definitely noticed the lack of detail, practically the only omission in an otherwise obsessively thorough rule book.

"So that's what they're teaching in school these days."

Joshua's dry, soft tone is more than enough to make him jump. Neku was certain the Composer had been across the room but now he's here, staring over his shoulder at his half-finished homework and, more importantly, the doodles covering the margin of his notebook.

A little bunny in a spacesuit, chasing after a floating carrot inexplicably wearing a jetpack. It's cute, shameless, with no other purpose than to be adorable and with any luck, at least a little popular. Neku wants to get Shiki something for her special show, knows the Pegaso drop pendant in their newest line that would work perfectly with the dress Eri's made, but it's well beyond his current allowance – although selling all those clothes of his in Joshua's closet would be a good start.

"The Seikan tunnel opened in 1988," Joshua makes a little clucking sound of dismay, reading over his work, "and it's the second longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world. You should take more specific notes."

"Thank you, trivia machine." Neku says, glancing up and back down just as fast. Joshua's got that look, like he's getting ready to crack the case and void Neku's warranty.

"You can manipulate them, you know. Imprint a few grade suggestions. Teachers are overworked as it is, they won't notice. It's not difficult, and better than spending your time on this."

"I could do a lot of things." Neku tries not to clench up, at the Composer's indulgent chuckle. Oh wasn't he just being childish now, refusing to treat people like things, like tapes he could rewind and erase whenever it was convenient.

"You don't mind what you do to them with your artwork."

"That is so not the same thing." Neku says. "I just show them a possibility, a different viewpoint – they can choose to believe it or not, to pay attention or find something else to look at. Besides, you should be glad I'm learning this. I thought you liked incredibly tedious history."

Joshua makes a fluid gesture with one hand – god, but he sure does love to pontificate. Maybe he does it in a mirror, when no one's around to listen. Kitaniji probably had really discreet earplugs.

"It's the only fair way to accurately see the present, or the future. At least some of the lies fall away, the stupid games people play, to avoid seeing the truth as it happens. You can tell nearly anything about what a person will do, Neku, by what they've already done."

"Like pretending to sacrifice themselves for a friend?"

Joshua smirks. Neku doesn't like sitting here, with the Composer leaning over him, but standing up would mean admitting it.

"Well, you won't be so surprised if it happens again, will you? Think of it as emotional armor, dear. No one will be able to hurt you like that again."

Except you. Neku thinks, but doesn't say it.

"It's getting late."

Neku rolls his eyes, not quite as surprised at Joshua's sheer audacity as he used to be, though the line carries a certain deliberate obviousness that means he's being teased.

"You should have made the couch less comfortable." He looks up, when Joshua lets out a little laugh, and Neku's smiling himself, surprisingly. God, he's insane. Maybe it's a part of the job, a Conductor has to be as crazy as his Composer is. "I'm not putting out on the first date, Josh."

"Technically, the party was our first date, and if memory serves, Neku, you weren't exactly-"

"The couch. Is fine."

It's fun, to watch Joshua not get what he wants, even if Neku's certain he only wants it because he can't have it. Definitely satisfying, as the Composer refuses to admit that he's annoyed, as if it's Neku not being logical that's the problem here, crossing his arms, letting out a little huff.

"I find your arbitrary rules to be deeply flawed."

Neku pushes back the laugh that threatens to burst out, choking it back to a mild chuckle.

"How is it my fault? It's the arbitrary rules that keep me alive."

Joshua doesn't need to sleep, not even in his... lesser form, especially when there are much more interesting things to do. He's kept his distance for a while, thoroughly destroying a Composer from somewhere in the Netherlands in online chess, half his attention still on Neku, his little Conductor with no idea Joshua is listening in. Disappointingly, he doesn't get distracted again, dutifully finishing up his tedious, unnecessary homework without complaint. Joshua is quietly compiling a list of better books, things a Conductor might actually need to know. Musashi. Kierkegaard. Machiavelli.

The Machiavelli is pretty much a given.

By the time he's hit checkmate on the frankly embarrassing rematch game, Neku is asleep. Adorable, really, the way he thinks stubbornly sticking with the couch actually means anything.

It does deserve an extra moment's attention, though, that he's actually sleeping sound, one hand across his chest, sprawled out and utterly vulnerable. Joshua would say he has no idea what he is risking, no idea of the stakes, but he's shot Neku twice now and his Conductor is hardly stupid. The Composer is not so sure, not like he used to be, that he knows just what Neku is. Maybe the outlier to his rule, that past history predicts future action.

He can still feel it, the shivering tremor where Neku brushed against his music, a clumsy, fumbling touch that still left him breathless. No one has ever, ever dared to try something like that before. Kitaniji had been skilled but nowhere near Joshua's level of power – Neku has no skill to speak of, and yet he'd very nearly drawn Joshua – a Composer – into his own Music, an overwhelming brightness and chaos and warmth – and this is the same person who says he doesn't want to influence people.

Neku can do so much more than he thinks he can, than he can even begin to understand.

As much as Joshua liked to think he could calculate the outcome, even a Composer was not immune from retrospect. Looking back, Joshua could see what he hadn't noticed at the time, what had gone wrong. The way his perception had gone two-dimensional and distant, Shibuya turned into a Fotomo world, tilt-shift photographic miniatures. The Players had seemed like mice going through a maze, a blank and pointless scratching down dull corridors, and even when they'd won it didn't matter, didn't mean anything.

So numb, that Joshua hadn't even seen Neku for what he was, nothing more than an amusing chip on the board, part pawn and part wager – even Rhyme's sacrifice hadn't caught his attention as anything more than chance and stupidity and of all the creatures on any plane, Joshua should never have been complacent enough to believe in chance.

It's easy enough, between his powers as Composer and his natural clairvoyance, to seek out other worlds, tune into those other Frequencies. Even now, at a third of his power, they can even show up unannounced, not exactly dreams but close enough.

He has yet to find a Neku in any of them, who actually pulled the trigger.

Joshua leans against the back of the couch, reaching down, brushing Neku's bangs out of his eyes, surprised at himself when it becomes a caress. He hadn't expected this, but that's what Neku is, isn't it? The unexpected. His, as Conductor, the same way the city is his, but not at all, nothing so reliable. Throwing himself in front of Manhattan without hesitation – and that, that had not gone exactly as he had planned, but Neku had done it on instinct, protecting his Composer, protecting him. Yet he has utterly no interest in being subordinate now, nothing like any Conductor Joshua has ever had before. Disrespectful, disinterested in the possibilities and potential of his new position. Hanekoma can fret and worry all he wants that the Composer isn't instructing his new Conductor, is taking unnecessary risks, but Neku has made it very clear that he doesn't want the help.

As if Joshua has ever been so careless, as to break his toys before he's done with them.

He moves around the couch, sits on the floor, leaning back with Neku behind him, and reaches for the piece of homework he'd completed just before he fell asleep. Joshua frowns halfway through the history worksheet, reaches for a pencil and erases one answer – technically accurate, certainly what the teacher wants to hear, but not the truth as he remembered it. Neku will not be pleased, when he gets the grade back, and the thought of that furious glare makes him smile.

Neku burns hot, louder than Kitaniji ever was, nearly making the Composer's ears ring, even now while he sleeps. Joshua closes his eyes, reaches out, adjusting Neku's music in ways his Conductor hasn't learned yet, something a little less tiring for him – and then he feels the slight, chilly tingle of the Noise Neku brought with him, nothing with a life of its own yet but still draining.

Joshua opens his eyes, reaches for Neku's wallet. Pulls out the printout, the girl who slipped through the Game so fast he hardly noticed she was there. But Neku did.

It isn't only that, he's still carrying the guilt of what he did to the other girl, in the hospital, a sorrow Joshua doesn't even pretend to understand. She was suffering, now she's not, free to take her next chance, to improve – and the Players who fall so fast, he can't help but think they must know, must choose such helplessness, choose to fail. Aware that they're not strong enough, that if they can't make it through the Game there's nothing to go back for. It's the common perception, that the UG is worse than the RG, the more difficult to survive, but Joshua takes the longer view.

He erases the Noise, not enough of a negative feeling to be much more than low static, and shifts the dying girl back in Neku's memories. Not an erasure, he'd notice that - just some distance, as if it happened years ago, nothing left to hurt. The other girl, he takes that outright, a memory he has no intention of returning, nothing of her worth remembering, though he keeps her page, to add back to the file later. The Angels have been keeping a close watch anyway, no reason to jab at their more anal-retentive tendencies.

Neku makes a soft sound of protest, not waking but aware on some level, as he hadn't been the last time Joshua took the memories of his death. He's getting stronger, better - learning his own way makes it so, Joshua's been sure of that from the start. He turns where he's sitting, reaches out again for the physical contact – it shouldn't feel so good, to be able to just touch him like this. shouldn't surprise him as much as it does, to reach for a memory to soothe his Conductor, and find himself, the way they had been a few hours ago, all tangled up in each other, even if he knows seduction is simply convincing someone to do what they already want to do.

Joshua loves the idea that the Angels are watching, wants them to see this, everything that they weren't smart enough to win. Hanekoma is a friend, and if anything, Joshua likes him better for his betrayal, for having the courage to follow his convictions. The rest of them are hardly worth the effort of his disdain.

He knows damn well why the Angels have blunted his Composer's powers, why they'd been looking for the excuse. Even with all of his gifts, he can't see every divergence, every alternate world, but he's seen enough to find the one where Neku is a Reaper looking for the chance to overthrow him, the world where Joshua never gave him back all his memories, trying to hold on – the world where Neku is dead and Joshua is very, very much Fallen and not at all regretting the drop.

The Angels have been waiting for years, for the other side to try and recruit him. If they knew he's already spoken to his Fallen self, Joshua imagines he would have been destroyed years ago, even if the other him hadn't really had all that much to say. A startling conceit among the top half, that the Fallen have any plans for revolution or takeover, that they want anything at all as any kind of collective, except that the Fallen Composer had wanted something, had asked if Joshua had seen a certain boy, a different kind of person. It took him all this time, three weeks through a mostly broken Game, to realize who he meant. Why he hadn't recognized his own eyes in that mirror face, so haunted and hungry beneath the disaffected air. At the time, Joshua had just found the other him somewhat annoying, rather certain even if he'd been bored enough to Fall that he would still have the temperament for a war in Heaven.

Joshua hasn't found the Neku that pulls the trigger. He also hasn't found the Neku that stays.

In some worlds, it happens fast. Joshua chooses to ignore the change, to let Neku die and Shibuya wither and call it responsibility. In others, there's time and opportunity and yet somehow he destroys it, always destroys it. Neku leaves him, to save Shibuya and disappear, or he just walks away. Leaves Tokyo, runs from Japan and vanishes into a million places, a hundred cities where Joshua can't follow. Joshua has looked, followed the pathways down until the fractal worlds splinter further and further and it's even past his ability to see clearly, blurry half-images of potential futures and even there, he is alone.

He wants to tell himself it's because he's the Composer, it's the price of the position, half-wishes he was stupid enough to believe it.

"Nnn." A noise behind him, Joshua startling from his thoughts as Neku turns, leaning forward, one arm curling down over his shoulder, as if somehow he knows. As if somehow he knows what Joshua knows, and still isn't afraid of the consequences. The kind of things the Composer is capable of, to lose him here. Really, it makes perfect sense, Joshua aware of his own superiority for ages – who else will make a worthwhile enemy, but himself?

He reaches up, twines his fingers together with his Conductor's, tries to pretend the word means more than just a title. Pretends it is a chain, or a red thread, or any kind of promise. Makes believe, that if he keeps looking into those other worlds, it will start to hurt less. By the time it finally happens to him, he can make it not hurt at all.

Joshua tips his head, resting it against Neku's arm, because they might be watching Shibuya, but this is his domain, this is his and there's no one here to know.