Songs and Poetry
Gone
"When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough."
Time.
It's unstoppable.
There may be those that fight it, and even if you do not change physically by the movement, it still affects you. Everything around you will change, and time marches on, a cruel mistress, sometimes not going fast enough and sometimes moving too slowly.
But it goes at its own pace, and time used to be a rather annoying factor to Joshua, but now as he's looking back on all of those precious memories that led up to the event of Raimu Bito actually falling in love with him, he wonders where the time went. Because today is the day he has been dreading, and he walks slowly, because he moves at his own pace and no one else's, and today the pace is slow.
He's walking to Rhyme's house for her seventeenth birthday. His violet eyes are closed but the thoughts and memories crossing his mind do not need his mortal sight to see.
The Composer of Shibuya has clairvoyance, the ability to see with a sort of sixth sense if you will. As soon as these strange emotions made themselves present when he met Rhyme, Joshua flicked to his Composer form and checked the Music around them.
The Music presented him with a certain image he always saw, and he's been painfully aware of, since that night they had danced-and been discovered-on Rhyme's rooftop. That dreadful image he never wanted to come true, but he could tell today was the day it was to happen.
He smirked, because he always does, at the memory of Rhyme's sixteenth birthday.
"Joshua!" She gasped, reaching out to touch his slightly longer hair. "You actually got older!"
It wasn't too difficult to do so, since Joshua only appeared young due to his weakened powers. Some altering, some experiments with the depths of his powers, and he actually looked a year older. He giggled at her, eyes glowing through their veil of ashen hair.
"It's not that difficult to get older, dear."
Well, now he was seventeen, a simple thought altering his physical, RG form. Each step in the sewer echoed loudly, bouncing off the walls, and the muted voices of Shibuya reached his ears as he emerged into the city. He had long since forgotten his own birthday…
Step. Step. Step. Still calm and measured, the Composer edited his direction.
He couldn't look now, with his powers, into the Music, due to his weakened state. For this, the Composer was secretly grateful. Because whenever he had been alone, sometimes even when he wasn't, he kept replaying the image and trying to hide the almost…distressed like feeling it caused him
He hid it well, because he was Joshua, simply put.
Step. Step. Step.
His fingers toyed with the cell phone in his pocket, and Joshua cast his gaze to those around him. In the current brooding mood he was in, people carefully dodged him, noticing his expression.
Smart, he mused. Because I can't promise a vending machine won't find its way onto their car if-
"Josh."
Joshua paused, putting on a smile and turning around, flicking a strand of hair from his eyes. "Neku."
Neku approached him, his eyes as skeptical and dark as ever, the deep blue irises fixed on the Composer's own purple.
"I informed you I wasn't doing anything already." Joshua told him in a low whisper.
Without fail, every birthday, Neku would protect Rhyme by coming to find Joshua. He somehow knew wherever he was, and every time all he said was his name. The ashen haired teen noticed Neku didn't relax, he simply crossed his arms.
"You know what she and Beat are doing today."
"Of course I do."
The tension in the air between them quickly cleared the side streets of only the most desperate of shoppers. Joshua narrowed his eyes. "Neku, do you honestly-"
"Why not?" He interrupted, his tone rough. "You killed me. Twice. And that was to 'help' me. I wouldn't put it past you to kill her!"
When eyes cast their way, nervously, afraid, Joshua pulled his phone out and tapped several buttons. "Neku," he chided. "People are watching, and you can't keep your voice low."
"I know how close you get every time she celebrates a birthday." Neku continued, not put off at all.
Joshua knew about Neku. He was worriedly overprotective of his only friends, and in the thrum of his thoughts Joshua detected the deep down fear he would lose them.
"But I don't. I promised you I wouldn't kill her."
"I'm not screwing around here, Josh! I know what you say. You keep saying, 'not this time.' Not. This. Time. This time."
The Composer rolled his eyes, turning around and walking toward Rhyme's house again, saying nothing.
Wordlessly, Neku walked beside him.
It was true; every birthday was a close call for the young Bito…
The farther they walked, the more the tension eased just a little, and it wasn't until Joshua judged Neku wasn't going to explode into a fury, he told him quietly, "Neku, do you trust me?"
A pause, then, "I trust you…"
"But you don't forgive me. You don't have to. I promise I will not harm Rhyme."
Neku looked at him, his eyes faintly creased with worry, and then he sighed. "Okay Josh. Okay."
Joshua may not have his clairvoyance powers at the moment, but his mind continued to play the image, like a video on repeat, a scene that retreated and replayed over and over until his heart ached, even a heart that had long ago stopped beating, and forgotten the motion even.
Can a dead heart break…?
Step. Step. Step.
Sitting on the stairs, chin in hands, was Rhyme. She was talking to Beat, and Joshua recognized her hidden boredom, seen by how her foot tapped lightly on the asphalt. She lifted her head to look at the approaching boys, and she brightened considerably.
Raimu Bito, age seventeen, wasn't much different. Still the shortest of the group, still wearing boy's clothes, still wearing a black hat. However, her hair was longer, around her shoulders, but the young features of her face had barely changed with age. She smiled larger, leaping off the steps to race toward Joshua.
It was all he could do not to run back at her and wrap his arms around her in a hug. But he was Joshua, and since when did he run? Still, his steps were just a little faster.
Step step. Step step.
He decided to screw it over, catching her in a hug anyway and even twirling her for a moment, giggling at Beat's irritated sound.
Their relationship had led to several questions by their friends, but it was the combined efforts of Eri, and to Joshua's surprise, Shiki, whom had made their status as boyfriend and girlfriend not something for Beat to try and hurt Joshua over every single time.
It had become a game to Joshua to continuously do something affectionate with Rhyme in order to cause Beat to growl like a dog almost.
Amusing, to say the least. His way of teasing Beat just like he teased Neku with his soft laughter.
"Joshua, hi!" She said cheerily, returning his brief kiss. She pulled back, her blue eyes flashing all of a sudden with guilt.
"Hello, Rhyme." He put his hand on his chin. "Oh, something the matter? Usually you're smiling the brightest out of all of us."
"Y-you know what today is?"
"Yes, but surely this is a matter for you to celebrate? Your seventeenth birthday?" Joshua heard the words from his vision instead of just seeing the situation now.
"Today…is the day I-"
"Yo, prissy boy! You're makin' Rhyme not smile on her birthday!" Beat stood up, eyes narrowed, stomping down the steps toward him.
Joshua just smiled back, ignoring him, and instead said, "Hello, Shiki, Eri."
Eri and Shiki were dashing toward them, Eri looking like a model as usual and Shiki tugging on a jacket behind her. She paused to give Neku an affectionate, one armed hug, since they rarely did more than that in public, and Eri gave Beat a kiss on the cheek, causing him to nervously kick at the ground.
"Happy birthday! We've got so much planned today," Eri began. "What with the shopping spree, and the park, and-"
"The theater, the party," Shiki continued.
"The food-"
"The drinks-"
"Stop." Neku commanded, groaning. "Dear God, are you two high?"
"High on excitement!" Eri squealed, bouncing in place. Beat mumbled something about calming down, earning a glare from his girlfriend.
"Let's go!" Rhyme said cheerily. She gave Joshua a loving look, the affection clear in her eyes, then said, "I guess we'll have to get in Beat's car."
Beat shrugged. "Yeah cuz it won't fit all of us, yo…"
Neku shrugged. "Good thing I parked my bike around here."
Shiki gaped at him, and Joshua giggled. "You walked over to talk to me?" He asked in a lowered tone.
Neku glared at him, and then continued, "I finally got enough yen to buy the motorcycle."
Shiki jumped up and down. "Can I ride with you, Neku?"
He didn't get a choice, since she dragged him off down the road with him mumbling about how he hadn't driven with two people on it yet.
Beat had found an old car and fixed it up very recently, and now the dark black car was the usual thing they rolled in. It had only been in working order and driven for a day; since a fear of cars had actually kept both Beat and Rhyme from getting in it.
"We died by a car, what do ya expect?" Beat had grumbled.
They waited until the roar of a motorcycle behind them meant Neku and Shiki were present, then Beat flipped on the radio and started driving, pulling away from the curb.
"Go at the speed limit!" Eri panicked, watching the gauge as it flickered between seventy and eighty. Joshua could tell she was wondering why, if he was afraid of cars, he was going so fast.
"No backseat drivers, yo!"
"I'm in the front seat! Are you trying to kill us?"
"Slow down." Rhyme whimpered, watching Beat zoom around cars to a cacophony of horn honking.
Beat finally did so, after realizing he was scaring Rhyme, and Joshua stage whispered, "He's trying to kill us."
Rhyme laughed weakly, and then Eri's phone rang.
"Where have we met before? Just like that. I know-"the ringtone began. Eri answered it quickly. "Shiki?" She screwed her face up as she tried to hear her friend over the roar of the motorcycle. "Neku says," she told Beat, closing the phone. "If you drive like that again he's going to run you off the road."
Beat snorted, but checked the speed gauge again. He flicked on a turning signal and pulled off into the movie theater.
Neku and Shiki parked beside them on a dark blue motorbike. Shiki took off a black helmet and laughed weakly. "It's kind of scary."
Her boyfriend just shrugged. "What movie are we seeing now?"
Joshua and the others argued for a while, but in the end they guiltily turned to Rhyme to see what she wanted to see. She told them anything, and that resulted in another argument before they settled on an action slash romance film.
Everyone blatantly refused to let Rhyme buy anything, and this resulted in another argument between Rhyme and the others.
Joshua didn't show it as he inserted a snide comment here and there, but he was secretly taking these friendly, bickering moments and locking them inside his memory.
As the day progressed, the Composer found himself, more and more, appreciating his friends, especially since today was that dreaded day. He giggled at Beat's poor, slow understanding of wordplay, smiled at Shiki's energy as she dragged Rhyme around looking for clothes, mocked Neku's taste in food, enjoyed Eri's sense in style as she handed him a perfect shirt from the rack, and loved everything that simply made up Rhyme that day.
These people he called his friends, despite what he was, little more than a dead phantom that walked Shibuya, had changed him for the better. These people that knew what he was and accepted it, sometimes even forgot about it, having the gall to tell him when he was wrong and not afraid to tell him. He never realized how much he actually needed people like this until he had met them.
And he was grateful. But he could tell by the position of the sun in the sky as they left their last destination, the Ramen Don, that the moment was very near.
"Joshua?" Rhyme asked him quietly, stepping back with him as the friends walked in front, Beat complaining about why the hell they had decided to get so far from the car.
"Hmm?"
"It's bothering you." She ducked her head down. "Isn't it?"
"Well, Raimu, what do you expect?" His tone carried an icy tint that made her flinch, but she slipped her hand in his and squeezed it gently. He coiled his own fingers around hers, sighing.
"I'm sorry, Joshua. But it's not forever, I'll be back soon."
He didn't dignify that with a reply, just kissed her, and he could tell she was aware of the tension he was feeling, it made his whole body lock up.
"Joshua-"
"Hey, prissy boy! Do ya remember where I parked?"
Joshua sped up his steps and Rhyme was left behind for a moment before she jogged to keep up.
They successfully located the car and the motorcycle, and they headed back to the Bito family home. The music blared as Beat tapped his fingers to the tune, but apparently Eri had tired herself out, because she was leaning back with her eyes closed, but it was impossible to tell if she was napping or not.
Rhyme leaned against Joshua, and he had an arm around her shoulders as he frisked his fingers through her hair, feeling the soft locks between each finger.
Rhyme made a contented sound that reminded him of a cat, and he smiled down at her, because she was tired too.
"Say, Beat, what's tired the girls out so fast?"
Beat looked at him in the rearview mirror. "Eh, I don't know, yo. Maybe the mini golf?"
"The skating?"
"The laser tag?"
They tossed back and forth the things they did today before they reached the home. As they got out and into the Bito residence, Beat turned around and snatched up two bags from the floor, tossing one over his shoulder.
"Well, we're about to bounce then to catch our plane."
Rhyme smiled at everyone. "Thanks so much, this was the best birthday ever!"
Shiki hugged both of them, sniffling. "I'm going to miss you guys, write often, okay?"
"Of course Shiki." Rhyme replied.
Everyone made their good byes, but Joshua waited until they were done before saying his own. They all stepped back, and he walked toward Rhyme.
Step. Step. Step.
He took one hand gently, and then gave the others a look. "Can we be alone, just for a moment?"
Beat looked like he was going to argue, but when Rhyme agreed; Shiki and Eri took their boyfriends out of the room.
Once their footsteps had faded, Joshua looked down at Rhyme, still a little shorter than him, and sighed.
"Today…is the day I-"Rhyme began, but Joshua put his finger on her lips.
"I know, today is when you leave, isn't it, dear? Just like you wanted?"
"I'll be back, I promise. Soon." She murmured.
He hugged her, a surprising gesture from him, and she returned it.
"I'm thanking you, Raimu. Because you've made me a better person."
"You did that yourself. You've changed, and you've made Shibuya better because of it. This will always be my home, and I'll be back in a year tops, you hear me?" She smiled, and tears were going down her face. Joshua gently brushed them away, smiling at her.
"You didn't let me finish. You've made me a better person by simply being who you are. The heart opens to one that opens in return, does it not?"
When footsteps approached them, Joshua kissed her. It was a different kiss, not tense, but passionate and sad, because Joshua knew the vision would soon reach its climax.
"We've gotta go." Beat said just as they pulled apart.
Rhyme nodded, and the friends waved good bye as they prepared to leave. Beat handed Eri the key to his car.
"We can't really take it with us, yo. The program we're in is handlin' that."
"Where are you going?" She asked sadly, turning the silver key of the car they had worked on in her hands.
"Yo, we're heading to Europe! We're gonna learn and study there for a bit and then come back."
"We got accepted!" Rhyme said excitedly.
"I only did cuz Rhyme wouldn't go if I couldn't." Beat mumbled, but Rhyme told him that wasn't true, he had aced the test himself.
As they left the house, Shiki comforting Eri, Neku walked over to Joshua.
"You love her."
Joshua nodded mutely.
"She'll be back. If anything goes wrong Beat will protect her."
"I know, dear."
Neku grimaced but continued. "If you want to see her leave, you better go after her now."
Joshua said nothing, just vanished from their sight.
And ran.
~***~
The intercom was not saying something Joshua wasn't really aware of, nor did he care. He just ran through the crowds, breaking a sweat, scanning the Music and searching through it for Rhyme's song. He located Beat's, and by virtue of that, found Rhyme's.
He halted, standing invisible beside her, as they prepared to leave.
She was crying, tears going down her face, and she smiled at Beat through them. Joshua reached out and touched her face, trailing his fingers through the tears he couldn't touch.
"Yo, you don't have to go…"
"I've always wanted to travel. It's my new dream. I just wished he could come with me."
"Hey, he's happy for you. You know he'd get all ticked on you for not goin' after what you want, aight?"
"That's true…Let's go."
When Beat and Rhyme left for their plane, Joshua felt something on his cheek.
He blinked, stunned, touching it. A single, glimmering white tear that shone like stars hung on his fingertip lightly before falling. When it hit the floor, it vanished in a small explosion of light.
He had cried. The first tear in years, so many years he couldn't recall.
A single, radiant tear.
~***~
There was a calendar in the Dead God's Pad.
There was one on his phone, but its owner preferred to rip it off, feeling the physical evidence that a day, a week, a month, had gone by.
It let him keep excellent track of the time, and now he knew exactly when it happened.
Three months after Rhyme left, Shiki and Eri successfully started their own business, with official endorsement from CAT. Joshua and Neku had been there.
Seven months after Rhyme left, Neku got accepted into an excellent college, (in Shibuya thank God), for computer graphic design.
Eleven months after Rhyme left, Joshua got a message from her earlier than usual, saying she and Beat were almost finished with their program.
Finally, nothing compared to ripping off the last paper on the calendar and crumpling it up, giggling because it was a year after.
~***~
There was a boy at the airport.
The stewardess didn't like him; he had strange eyes that burned into you, just challenging you to ask him what he was doing there. She kept a good distance from him, and he just stared forward at the entrance to a certain airplane terminal.
She noticed that as soon as a young man and the teenage girl emerged, he stood up, his face clearing of the almost desperate impatience he had been feeling, replaced with a smirk.
The stewardess noticed the girl's blue eyes widen in pleased surprise, and then she saw her run, ("No running in the terminal."), she almost said, but changed her mind.
Why? Because she didn't want to stop this scene.
The girl ran into the boy's arms, smiling up at him, and the boy with the violet eyes, wrapped his arms around her. She saw his lips move, and just faintly heard:
"Welcome home, Rhyme."
~***~
I wanted to show how I think having friends would change Joshua through this story.
Rhyme and Beat will leave to travel again, but maybe, just maybe, Joshua will be with her this time.
How? I'll leave you to imagine that. I personally see Neku in the Dead God's Pad; does that paint what I'm imagining for you? I didn't want to write that though, so imagine what you want for now.
Did you like it? This ends "Songs and Poetry", anonymous reviews are on, so everyone, please, leave a review!
Thanks for reading, every single reviewer, especially LT; I got into Joshyme from your stories.