Oh, um, my direction incompetence struck again, and I had everybody running in the wrong directions. So, um... Neku and Shiki went west, not east. *brick'd*
And, honestly, I had no idea I was going to write this. It just sort of... happened. Characterization Marches On, I guess.
*shivers*
I gave Divine Wolfe the chapter off. Sorry if you're upset, sweetie! But you need your rest. And I'm an attention whore and didn't want to wait any longer. *squeeze*
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Chapter Fifteen
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Neku was merciless; Shiki jogged behind him, her delicate and not entirely fit body starting to burn with exhaustion, the pollution in the air tangible on her tongue as she panted, running in her school outfit behind him. Neither of them had taken the time to change, and Neku had stopped only to grab his cellphone and headphones before taking off.
"Can you... slow down?" the seamstress gasped, and her companion's only reply was a glare.
Her glasses were bouncing against her nose, so she pulled them off and watched the world fade into smeared colors, like a painting splashed with turpentine. Only a few feet in front of her stayed in focus, so she picked up her speed to keep Neku in her sights, tucking the glasses safely into her schoolbag.
So, when he skidded to a stop, she less than gracefully cannoned into him, knocking him to the pavement and getting both of them tangled in a mess of scrawny teenage limbs.
Neku growled, and she sat up enough to let him roll over and glare up at her. His lips were pressed in a frim line, holding back what was probably several insults. Of course, his eyes held nothing back.
Stupid, stupid Shiki, she read in the narrowed hazy blues. How can anyone be so stupid? I should have left her back at the apartment; locking her in if I had to. Stupid stupid stupid.
She winced, breaking eye contact. It almost hurt, but that might have been the scrape on her knees, on the leg where the sock had slid down to bunch awkwardly around one ankle. "Sorry," she whispered, and as much as she wanted to slide off of his black-denim-clad knee so she wouldn't be partly straddling him in her very short school skirt, the air had frozen her dead to the spot.
Stupid, stupid Shiki! Her own mind was berating her now, telling her to flee for her life before the boy she was sitting on disowned her forever and broke off their deal, choosing to fail english instead of deign to be seen with her.
Neku sighed, propping himself up on the heels of his hands and lowering the leg she sat on, studying her. His gaze practically burned, and against her will she squirmed slightly against him. He took in a sharp, shallow breath, then something vibrated against her inner thigh.
"Move it," he commanded her, tapping the side of her hip with his hand, and she shifted away enough for him to withdraw his phone from his pocket and flip it open.
"Hey, Rhyme," he greeted her calmly. Relieved, Shiki slid back into place on Neku's leg, earning a faintly amused look from her orange-haired classmate. "Any news?"
Amused? Tilting her head slightly to the side, she studied him as he had done to her moments before. His eyes were flickering back and forth, taking in the scenery as he listened to their mutual friend talk in low, weary tones. Fingers toyed absently with the neck of his shirt, where the top two buttons had been undone and exposed the angular collarbone like the parted petals of a very masculine flower.
"We're at 104," he noted. "... Yeah, all right. Smack Beat for me, and I'll smack Joshua for you. See you around." Flipping the phone shut with a satisfying click, he tapped the mobile device against his chin, having gone back to studying her.
She swallowed despite the sudden dry feeling in her mouth as his serious gaze washed over her, cold and intense as ice water. A shiver ran down her spine; desperately, Shiki attempted a conversation. Anything to get him to stop looking at her like that, like he could see into her soul when no one else even knew she existed.
"S-so, Rhyme found him?"
"Yeah," he murmured, dropping the word onto the pavement carelessly as he shifted his weight back, rolling his shoulders and freeing her from his gaze briefly. "Lost Joshua though."
"Should we look for him?"
Neku shook his head slightly, letting his ginger bangs sweep across his nose and turned his eyes back onto her from behind them, where they glimmered like dark stars. It did not help her confidence any. "He can take care of himself; Beat can too, but he's a different kind of stupid when he's pissed."
Shiki almost winced in sympathy. "That's not a very nice thing to say about your friends, is it?"
"Friendship's not about compliments," he replied coolly. "Why do you care anyway?"
This time she did wince, but covered it quickly by standing. "Oh, nothing," she replied cheerfully, turning abruptly on her heel and heading for the shopping mall. "I'm going to do some shopping while I'm here, ok?"
As fast as she could, she left him still sprawled on the asphalt, blinking back a few bitter tears as she pulled her glasses out of the small bag on her arm.
"Why do you care anyway? It's not like you're my friend."
He might not have said it, but he was right. Bribing someone with lame tutoring so she could get closer to his friend was not the right kind of start. But...
Do I even want to be friends with someone like him? I mean, he seems to spend a lot of his time insulting everybody he knows.
Her mind flashed back to when they had been running, and he'd been scowling into the cold wind as he urged her on like a drill instructor.
Maybe he was worried... Maybe he was trying so hard to find Beat for Rhyme that he was willing to push himself to the limits.
No one had really worried for her before; not even her parents. Granted, she'd never been in especially dangerous situations around them, so she'd never given them cause to worry. But the thought of Neku running after her, trying so hard to find her, warmed her in ways she didn't understand.
His friendship was one worth earning, and there was only one obvious way for her to earn it.
So, she pushed open the doors of 104 with purpose. Her first stop was the fabric store.
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Satisfaction of a good purchase tickled her cheeks into a smile, and Shiki was tempted to skip out of the store, her schoolbag sharing her arm with a plastic bag stuffed with various fabrics and patterns. She'd gotten a little carried away, but she was confident she'd find uses for all of her purchases.
"Well, don't you look pleased?"
Yoshiya sidled up beside her, his tailored suit only adding to the illusion he'd just stepped off of the cover of a magazine. She jumped slightly, never having been around him on her own before.
"Oh, um, well, you know, girls just love shopping," she tittered weakly, clearing her throat and trying to sound sensible. "What are you doing here, Yoshiya?"
He shrugged, smirking catlike at her. "Shopping. A different kind of shopping than you, but... whatever," he finished, sliding his arm around her waist as though he did this sort of thing everyday. "Isn't it high time you called me Joshua?"
"Wh-why do you say that?" To her dismay, he'd robbed her of her senses again, and he chuckled in a voice low as thunder, rich as chocolate.
"Well, you're quite close to my dear little Neku, so I figure you're allowed. Welcome to my little circle, Shiki," he finished, cheerful even as his voice dropped an octave. "I've waived Rhyme's membership fees, so would you be willing to pay them for both of you?"
Shiki was starting to notice that she was being led away from the crowds, and the rather suggestive way his fingertips grazed her hipbones through her skirt. The fact that this was her first time around the strange, silver haired teen without Neku made her feel both free and exposed.
"I... I don't really... um..." she swallowed, struggling for words as the no longer suggestive - but promising - purple eyes drowned her thoughts in their intensity. Something like both dread and anticipation was curling around inside her, running across her skin in heat and chills.
"Don't make me beg, Shiki," he hissed, picking up the pace until they had rounded a corner, heading for the maintenance stairs. "I'm not used to having to ask for things."
Running footsteps sounded, and Yoshiya - Joshua's eyes flashed with something both like relief and anger. "The only person who's going to be begging is you," snapped Neku, wrenching Shiki out of Joshua's grasp with rage lacing his tone.
"Oh, Neku, don't be so selfish," the other boy chided, leaning against the wall with casualty that stunned Shiki farther. "I'll only need her for about an hour."
"How many times do you have to do this, Joshua?" Neku sighed, the edges of his voice ragged, and as the seamstress' senses returned to her, she noticed how hard he was breathing. He must have been running again... after me? Or Joshua?
"How many girls do you have to do this to before you stop? It's cruel, both to them and you."
Joshua's eyes flashed again, and he glared at Shiki with such intensity that she wanted to wither away and die on the ground. "Shut up," he commanded the ginger haired teen who stood protectively between them.
"You shut up! Damn it, Josh, the world does not revolve around you, and girls are not toys to be played with until they broke."
"You never complained before. In fact, if I recall right," and Joshua fixed Shiki in his gaze again, "you had your fun dealing with the leftovers."
Neku's shoulders went rigid, and Shiki felt some of the blood drain from her face. She'd never been the brightest when it came to jokes about that sort of thing, but the boys... they weren't joking. And she didn't feel that safe around either of them anymore.
"You'd also recall that I don't anymore," he replied, his voice shaking slightly and ruining his bravado further. "I've changed, or I'm at least trying to."
I do not want to be here, she concluded suddenly, as Joshua's eyes burned like demonic fires. Before she'd even realized she was running, she was gone, weaving through the crowds, clumsy and desperate. Fingertips brushed her arm, and then for the second time that day, she'd tripped and gotten tangled up with another teenager.
But it was Neku's turn to sit up and apologize, lifting himself up onto his hands so he was leaning over her, still winded.
"Sorry," he muttered, standing up quickly before anyone saw, since it would have looked bad to have him seen caging her like that. She was grateful, and hated herself for it as she avoided his eyes.
While she wasn't entirely sure what Joshua and Neku had done together with girls, but leftovers did not sound good.
An image flashed in her mind; Eri, bruised, bleeding and ravaged, staring tearfully up into Neku's face as his eyes raked over her bare body, dark and compassionless. It was so realistic and horrifying, that when he touched her hand, she couldn't help but gasp and flinch away, scrabbling backwards on the slick, dirty mall floor out of his reach.
She glanced up, inadvertently, still feeling her pulse pounding under her skin from the events of the last fifteen minutes, and met Neku's shocked gaze.
"Are you-"
"I'm fine," she cut him off, rising on shaking legs that only seemed to support her from sheer willpower. Once again, she was reminded of how most of the school avoided this boy, who seemed as approachable as a feral cat. But cats could be rendered harmless. Neku...
She wasn't so sure anymore. Joshua had shaken her to the core.
He reached for her again, his grip firm but gentler than it had been when he was pulling her away from Joshua.
"You're not fine. Look, Shiki-"
"Let's just go home, ok?"
"No!" He snapped; she flinched, and his grip loosened, until his fingertips were just grazing her skin. A heavy sigh escaped his lips, one that sounded like his soul was fleeing his body along with it. "Please, just..."
Then he shook his head, letting go of her entirely, his gaze falling into shadow as he retreated behind his bangs and the barrier of ice he had when she'd first met him. "Fine," Neku muttered emptily. "Let's just go. Don't forget your bag."
They exited 104 in silence; Neku keeping his distance and avoiding looking at her in a painfully obvious way. Shiki's guilt for having restored the barrier between them was beginning to eclipse her fear of him. He said he'd changed, didn't he? So, then... should I trust him? He's never done anything to me, but... The image of him and Eri still haunted her mind like a shadow.
"See what I meant about Beat and Josh being different kinds of stupid?" Neku's voice made her jump again, and as she turned to look at him, he clamped his jaw shut as though he wished he hadn't spoken.
"Sorry," she murmured. "I mean, it's ok, feel free to talk, I was just kinda lost in thought again," the seamstress gabbled, as his head swiveled slightly in her direction in the most unnerving way possible, since his eyes were still hidden. "Not that I have any right to say whether you should talk or not, you know. Um..."
"But do you see?" He finished, keeping her locked in his invisible gaze. "What I mean is, don't worry too much about Joshua. He... gets like that when things get bad. It's how he's been since he started high school. Maybe before."
Memories of conversations past flooded Shiki's mind; Hanekoma avoid Joshua's advances and asking him how things were at home, Neku chiding Joshua on using sex to solve problems...
"Oh. So he..."
"Yeah," Neku clarified, somehow, with another short syllable. "But don't worry too much about it. Just... be careful around him on his bad days. Or better yet, just stick by Hanekoma or m-" he hesitated, then adjusted his headphones. "Got it, Stalker?"
"Yeah," she echoed him softly. "Do you think he'd ever take it out on Rhyme?"
He shook his head. "Nah. He's already had the opportunity to do that kind of thing with her, even on a bad day, so I think she'll be all right."
"Why was I... different?"
Finally, the shadows lifted, and Neku's blue gaze washed over her like water again, although somehow it was more soothing than chilling this time.
"Because I'd been keeping you away from him all this time. He still thinks of you like he does everyone else - a toy."
She shivered again. But he said I could call him Joshua...
Am I in the circle now? Is Neku right? Or does Joshua actually... want me?
The walk to her house passed in a silence that was only slightly less tense than the one before it; this time, it was Shiki's barrier that kept things tense, and when Neku dipped his head and left her on the porch, she didn't watch him go.
Instead, she headed straight for the shower, hoping to wash away the creeping fears that were making her skin crawl.
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Weeeelp, that's it for this chapter. Sorry it's so dark; but this Joshua is one messed up sunuvabitch. ^^ Like I said, I didn't plan for this to happen, but I'm liking how it's going. Kind of.
Reviews are awesome, as always; even if it's short, it lets me know you care enough to read it! Think of reviews as kind of signing the guest book, you know? Say something, for the love of crap, or I'll never know you were here.
By the way, does anyone call that building Ten-Four? I always call it One Oh Four. Meh.