Sanae Hanekoma had only seen Yoshiya Kiryu dull-eyed once.
That was during the weeks it took him to die.
Josh had always wanted to go out ironicly. Falling off a building took effort to get to the top of said building. Cutting was too messy. A gun would be quick but much too cliché, and really, why waste a bullet on his demise anyway? Ammo was expensive, after all. Hanging had the same problem as jumping, he was just too lazy to set it up. Pills just made him higher than the kites on the moon no matter how big a dose he took, and poison just came out both ends, sometimes explosively.
So the boy decided to stop eating.
The heir of one of the richest families in Shibuya dying of starvation. There couldn't be a more ironic situation than that puzzlement.
Sanae knew what he was doing of course, and had pleaded with him to not go out at all, let alone like he wanted. But as the weeks went by it became painfully obvious that the 15 year old had made up his mind. His frame began to sink, his bones showed more and more, and his eyes...
His violet eyes grew more dead every day. Soon it became pretty clear that not much time was left for the sole heir of the Kiryu name. He barely talked anymore, and he just...he just stopped after a while. Stopped laughing. Stopped smirking. Stopped dreaming. Stopped living.
And eventually he stopped coming. The barista knew why of course. His body had finally quit on him.
When news finally reached him that the boy had finally passed on, he found himself flabbergasted to find out that Yoshiya's body had been found outside his father's firm, right on the front porch! Josh had dragged himself with the last of his strength to his family's place of power and then keeled over, practically giving the entire firm the middle finger.
The irony was lost to no one. And the violet eyes just stared, even in death they mocked the world.
Sanae had been haunted by those dying purple orbs even after he knew Joshua was playing his first Game.
He swore sometimes that the youth's partner was trying to drench the flames that had been soaring in the cunning gaze of the ashen teen he was partnered with, especially on the sixth day. The two had burst into Wildkat after being chased by Reapers, and to anyone who didn't know Joshua in and out, it would seem that he was cackling merrily with his team mate.
But Sanae knew Joshua. And that cackle was a front. But the other boy...his cackle had a triumphant, hungry note in it that disturbed the barista, especially when he glanced at Josh, and saw for the briefest instant...his eyes were lifeless and empty.
But they soon flared to life with a vibrant resurgence, and a twinkle of resentment.. Hanekoma was relieved, for it seemed whatever the older boy had done to crack his spirit, the cocky youth would repay tenfold with his usual tenacity.
Still, Hanekoma swore he would never let Joshua's eyes look that dead ever again.
He intended to keep that promise.
TWEWYTWEWYTWEWY
Neku sighed in resignation.
The first thing Joshua did after fully waking up was vomit whatever ghastly mush Hanekoma had forced down his throat much earlier that morning before the barista took off on his errands. This meant a whole lot of cleanup on the orange-haired youth's part, and just when he finished making sure the carpet wouldn't stink like rotting oats, his cocky patient demanded to go to the toilet.
After everything was in order, Joshua and him played chess, Neku actually won once. They then watched some TV, and then the Composer decided to take an impromptu nap, pinning his proxy's leg under his head.
That was where Neku found himself right now.
His thoughts drifted to his nightmares...to that night. The night he wished could be taken from him via whatever method Shades had used to strip him of his memory.
The glee he had seen on the bastards face as he contorted Joshua's limbs...no being with half a shred of humanity would ever feel that kind of emotion punishing someone else. Joshua deserved some kind of retribution, sure. Nearly wiping out the city you were in charge of and recruiting your proxy from the RG had to have some kind of consequence. But according toi what he knew now, the glowy bastard wasn't there to punish him for either of those things. Hell, if he was, then what was the point of Joshua going to this high-and-mighty courtroom and getting even more punished?! Surely what he'd gone through on the upper floor of WildKat had been plenty.
Neku wouldn't ever wish that on the Composer...on the one who shot him twice. No one, hell not even the lowest scum on the planet, deserved that kind of...violation.
It was a violation. Pure and simple. The contorting, seizing, flailing...none of it had been Joshua's choice. On top of that, it had been agonizing. The human body wasn't ever meant to contort that way. Neku shuddered, and then set his mind on the source of the rage he felt that night.
Had he really knocked out a higher being?!
The boy snarled as he remembered Apollo's face, or what he could see of it within the glowing veil. He'd been smiling. As Joshua writhed and jittered and was thrown around at the mercy of the psych coursing through his body...that damn higher being was laughing at his agony!
Neku had acted on instinxct to save his friend, but had he actual time to think, he would have gladly used a thunder element pin to blast the sucker into the wall. Several times.
"You're rather good at imitating a wolf Noise, Neku." Joshua's voice croaked "Might I ask what has you looking like you wish to tear someone's throat out with your teeth?"
He's got enough to recover from. I shouldn't bother him with this one. Then again, the best opportunities to get him to give me a straight answer do come when he's drowsy like this...
"Josh...What the hell is Apollo's beef with you?"
The Composer fell eerily silent, making Neku five kinds of nervous. Luckily, it seemed that his patient was just thinking of a way to begin to tell him the answer, for he soon rolled on his back and put both hands behind his head in a relaxed manner.
"Apollo Sarahara...what an interesting piece of work he was in life. I suppose you could say his 'beef' started when we were in third grade."
"Third grade?! You knew each other when you were alive?"
A small giggle "Yes, Neku. He was there almost from the beginning."
"The beginning?"
"Of my...shall we say, coming out. Third grade was when I began openly talking about the fact that I saw the UG. Anyway, before there was Sanae, there was Apollo Sarahara. Apollo began openly mocking me in front of the class. So I returned the favor by openly humiliating him during recess. This exchange continued until one day after school, he cornered me and broke my nose. That;s when he decided that having my blood on his hands was somewhat enjoyable. Also breaking my nose gave him some twisted satisfaction that he wanted to keep feeling, so he tried doing it every day. I didn't let him, of course, and soon my mother got mad at his and he was forced to move schools."
Neku digested this information and felt his ire rise again. "So he was out of your hair?"
"Not quite. The problerm with being in a rich family, my dear proxy, is that there are galas and dinners, and other social outings you must attend. I was part of the richest family in Shibuya. Apollo...was part of the second richest."
"So you saw a lot more of him."
"A lot more than I would have liked. Obviously he couldn't break my nose at these gatherings because one, it would look very poor socially and two, I was a crafty devil and stayed close to Mother and Father, where I would be safe to mock him from the safety of their watchful eyes."
He paused to cough and sigh "Ah but unfortunately, my strategy had a fatal flaw. It was cute when I was eight and nine...but when I reached the golden age of 12, it stopped being a viable option. Unfortunately for me, the years were not kimd to my height, and Apollo became very burly...and bigger than me. He had also graduated from enjoying breaking my nose...to trying to break my spine. I discovered this bit of information when he deliberately tripped me down the stairs of his mansion before a gala. Luckily the only thing that broke was the bottom step. My back did suffer bruises, but the big gorilla swore it was an accidenmt. It would have been more convincing had a secret murderous sneer not been hidden in the corner of his lips."
Joshua yawned. "We interacted like that for three more years, until I ascended into the UG. Then...Then I began my first Game. And THEN, my dear Neku...is when things really got...interesting."
"Don't tell me..."
"You guessed it. Apollo Sarahara...was my Game Partner. He had died a week after me. An accident invol;ving a rampaging pitbull. Very gruesome, but at least Mister H's cats were avenged."
Neku raised an eyebrow. Joshua shook his head "You don't want to know."
"Noted." Now adding animal cruelty and peticide to my list of reasons to loath this asshole.
"So there we were, linked together in the chains of partnership. He was unable to erase me, and I was unable to rid myself of him. We were both in a situation neither of us enjoyed. At least...that's what I thought."
Joshua went silent again, and Neku grew curious. Finally a murmnur reached his ears
"How very wrong I was, Neku."
"He enjoyed it. You didn't." the teen concluded.
"Bingo. He got clingy real fast. Uncomfortably so. I eventually realized that I could escape his awkwardness by running to Hanekoma's, since he was, to my knowledge and what he'd told me before...a rule enforcer of the Game. I was pretty sure throwing your partner straight into a Reaper Wall and nearly breaking their shoulder trying to break through counted as an illegal use of said Partner. So I hotfooted it over to WildKat every day I could, while doing most of the work for the missions so we wouldn't be erased. Even back then, I had a plan to fix Shibuya, and not even Apollo was going to stop me. As the days went by, I noticed something...disturbing. He was already disturbing, don't get me wrong...but this...this was totally out of the blue. Do brace yourself."
Neku grit his teeth. "I'll try."
"It was the sixth day. We were on our way to Dogenzawa for some ramen to give a wall reaper, when all of a sudden, I found myself on the ground with Apollo on top of me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and his legs around my body, pinning me to the ground. Before I could demand he get off before I suffocated...I felt every shred of will I had...just...disapear. It was just...just gone, Neku. Apollo had used one of his pins on me. On his partner! He used a psych on me! When I had the use of my legs again I ran. I ran and he ran with me. Three reapers were in the area and they chased us. I ran to the one place I felt safe. Sanae's café. By that time, I was just laughing at the Reapers trying to catch us...but I knew Apollo was laughing at his victory over me. By the time we crashed into the café, the psych had nearly worn off, but not before I deliberately let Sanae see what it had done to me. I could see in his eyes he was ten kinds of pissed off."
"Bastard!"
"Oh, don't you worry. By my third Game I taught him who's boss. And I did it on one leg too."
"Wait...your third Game?! Why the infinite HELL would you enter the game willingly THREE TIMES?!"
Joshua sighed "Do pay attention dear. I had a plan, and I was enacting it. Besides, I didn't enter three times."
"Oh, so you were forced—"
"I entered eight times."
The conversation had to end there. Because Neku Sakuraba had lost consciousness after those words entered his brain and shut it down.