"I'd be careful about whose hearts you toy with, Joshua." Neku cautioned as the two got ready for their next class.
The ash-blond smirked "Oh please, Neku. A person of my station always has ladies hanging off him. It's a vital social image!"
Neku snorted, "I think 15 is a bit too young to act the playboy, Josh"
"Nonsense! It's expected. Especially from a Kiryu."
Neku noticed that Joshua had spat out that past part as if it had been hammered into him. Which, knowing the upper class like he did, the proxy had no doubts that it had. His guess was confirmed as Joshua pointed a finger up and used a quoting voice
"A Kiryu must always appear to have many suitors, or their status goes down eighty notches, and that just won't do! Mother always was one for tradition. She set me up on my first date when I was five. Little Margeret Foster...sweet girl but not much class."
His proxy snorted "Breaking young hearts since you were five years old...I'm suprized none of them came back to murder you."
"Actually...one tried. I believe Daisukenojo refered to her as 'The Iron Maiden'."
Neku's jaw dropped
"Ironface was a spurned lover?!"
Joshua smirked, twirling a finger in his hair as he strutted to his next class. "She was just too controlling."
"Why am I not surprised that you had a problem with that..."
TWEWYTWEWYTWEWY
Rhyme was going to her last class, when she heard a commotion in the music room. She was curious, and quickly peeked inside.
The teacher, Miss Hartfield, had a scandalized look on her face. Joshua, had a smirk on his, as he said glibly "There's nothing wrong with your composition,. However, I do believe it would be better if you performed it in G instead of F."
"Well I never! Perhaps, mister Kiryu, you would be so kind as to enlighten us with one of your own compositions?" The woman was snide, and quite sure that she'd put this rich smartass in his place.
Until Joshua immediately giggled, blushed as if embarrassed, and took several pieces of sheet music out of his notebook.
"Actually...I do have a small project I've been working on. It's no Bach or Beethoven, but it's all I could do in a few hours."
He sat at the piano, the sheet music in front of him. Cracking his knuckles, the spindly fingered youth touched the ivory and black keys of the instrument, and what emitted from that piano was a sound unlike anything anyone had ever heard.
Fingers flying across the keys as if they had minds of their own, each movement had purpose, not one note flat or out of place as the melody washed across the room like a cleansing rain, the teacher watched this student get totally lost in the composition he wrote. Natural talent was rare in Shibuya, and this talent...was masterful!
It was only after the crescendo and the silence that followed that Hartfield only came out of her trance when Yoshiya said humbly
"It's not finished, but that's all. I call it, 'The sound of Shibuya'"
Hartfield stuttered a minute, and then led the class in applause "Yoshiya, you should have told me you were a protegy!"
"Well, I do have many talents. Music is simply something I enjoy. Mother and Father considered it a waste of time, so I didn't really make it known that I still practiced when I could."
"I'm putting you in the Fall Festival of Talent this year, Yoshiya Kiryu. You are going to win for certain!"
Joshua lifted his arms in surrenbder "If I must." He said, standing up as the bell rang.
Rhyme was quick to bolt before he noticed her. Of course, he knew she was there and followed her song immediately.
"Josh...that was amazing!" the girl gushed before covering her mouth in embarrassment, :"I'm sorry...you must have every girl in school drooling over you...and here I am doing the same thing!"
Josh was about to answer when there was a crash behind him. He turned and saw Reggie Palos, a fellow music student, hitting the floor and a few lockers on the way down. A knife slid under one of the units. The Composer raised an eyebrow at the reaper hand that let go of the bigger boy's ankle, the only part of his Conductor that was visible before disappearing into the UG.
"I do not mind it from you, Raimu" he said finally, taking her hand in his own.
Rhyme blushed. She loved how he said her name, his voice caressing the sylibles delicately, as if it was a treasure to be polished. She usually hated it when anyone called her by her full name, but with Joshua...
With Joshua it was the warmest thing she'd ever felt.
