"Neku."
The soft voice of his patient made the orange-haired teen glance at him curiously. "Hmmm?"
"Would you be a dear and open the window? The storm stopped hours ago."
Neku looked at him in slight annoyance "And why, persay, do you want the window open? It's 58 degrees outside, and you're sick! As in a huge fever that for some reason your body isn't shaking. Not to mention what the cold will do to your throat—"
"I have to hear Shibuya sing!"
This startled Neku "You...what?"
"And she has to hear me. What, you don't think you were my only fixation, did you, dear?"
Neku growled low, reminding himself not to punch the prick in the face. He'd had a lot of those moments since Joshua had decided to ignore his rasping throat issues and begin pissing off his proxy again. The teen attributed this to Joshua being a duech who was confined to bedrest and bored.
But maybe there was something else causing the blond to suddenly decide to be difficult.
"The hell do you mean by that, Josh? Shibuya's got music, sure. I've heard plenty of it myself. But it doesn't sing."
"She does to me" his patient whined "Only to me. Her music Neku...I have to hear her sing. Please, open the window...if only a little. For me...your dear, dear partner?"
"Will it get you to shut up?"
"Guarenteed!"
The teen sighed. "Oh, alright, but only for a little while."
As soon as he cracked the window open, Neku immediately saw a change in his annoying patient. In Joshua himself. The teen never saw the blond act so...un-Joshualike.
The chilled breeze whipped in, nearly smacking Neku as he let it inside. As it tousled the pale locks however, it was as if it breathed life into the frail body lying on his couch. Joshua closed his eyes and smiled, not smirked, not sneered...but genuinely smiled, breathing deeply and sinking into the cushions as if he was liquid.
As Neku watched this strange behavior, it became even stranger, forign to the body inacting it. Joshua's entire being seemed to resonate peace, as if he were drifting unhinged from his actual body. He arched once, and gave a shrill, happy squeal, as if he had been given a fantastic gift he'd been waiting his whole life to receive.
At this moment, the Proxy observed, the sun decided to come streaming in the window. The noises from outside leaked in, the smells wafted in as well.
Shibuya was waking up again.
"Ah, Phones! You decided to let in the impatient old lady did you?" Hanekoma's cheery voice snickered as he came down the stairs. The teen looked at him in the most pure form of confusion the man had ever seen, a small glint of fear sparking in the blue orbs as he pointed to the silent body on the couch.
"Mr. H...what the hell is with Joshua?!"
"What do you mean kid?" the wise barista asked calmly, lifting a hand in question "You opened the window and let in Shibuya. What did you think was going to happen when her Composer connected with her tune again?"
"But...But I don't..."
"You really don't understand do you? Ok then, let me make this perfectly clear. Shibuya is rewritten by whoever is her composer, correct? Well, Josh there was connected to her waaay before he became her composer. When he did get the job, he rewrote her symphony, heart, mind, and soul, not to mention imagination. She was broken, you see, and he fixed her. Josh is Shibuya, as he boasts...but it goes two ways. Shibuya is Josh. Now, apparently, this is the only time ever that this kind of symbiotic symphony has ever been written. in Shibuya anyway. It's very rare elsewhere, but Shibuya is picky about who she resonates with, you see."
The man smiled fondly as he looked at the very content body on the couch
"I almost forgot how innocent he looks when he's connected to the Music. To her Music. I bet he doesn't even register his pain any more, he's so in tune with Shibuya's song. If They had taken that from him...well, I don't even want to know what would happen to them both. Josh would have opted for erasure...and Shibuya would have followed him, destroying herself. This city, like all cities, has Soul. And her Soul is kept safely within his own."
Still smiling, Sanae pat Neku, still very much in awe of what he was seeing, on the shoulder, and said "I have some things to do, Phones. Keep an eye on him for me."
"Um..." Neku stammered, looking at Joshua "Um sure thing Mr. H."
As the Barista left, Neku turned his attention once again to his patient. There was only one word to describe the blond ruler at that moment...
Entranced.
Joshua was lost to any world his proxy was aware of, sailing on notes only he could hear, as if captivated by a symphony of sorcery. He was silent, or so it seemed. Neku was sure that there was a full-blown concert playing benieth the lidded eyes, and Joshua was singing in tune to the music he composed with Shibuya itself.
This, my dear Neku, is what being Composer truly means.
It was a thought...an imprint, that the teen heard just then. And for once since the time the two met...
He didn't mind it in the slightest.