Challenge Wide-Warning: Possibility of boy love, adult concepts, adult language, A/U, A/R, etc.

Disclaimer: I do not own The World Ends With You other than the actual item to play the game.

For this chapter: Canon, Five Years Later

67. Playing the Melody

Neku stared at the wall, the once elaborate and vibrant CAT graffiti was faded and dull with age. Neku was twenty now, was an adult, and yet he still came to this wall every week. His hair had grown out, his eyes were nowhere as bright as before, reality had hurt the dreamer and yet he still managed to dream. His family was gone now, his irritating younger siblings and his ever-doting mother left Shibuya for a better job in another district of Tokyo. Only a small train ride away but the dreamer never visited.

It didn't feel right to leave something he loved.

Neku toyed with his bangs, well used to the feeling of his hair falling around his face on brushing against his neck now. It had been ages since the last time he bothered spiking his hair, or even wore an overly large pair of headphones. He preferred the tiny earbuds, they were much easier to sneak into his classes or at his jobs. He could have left Shibuya, he was offered a job with Tokyo's largest advertising company. They loved the random pieces of art he did, but Neku didn't like working under a clock. He let the ideas come to them as they wished. Besides,

it didn't feel right to leave something he cared for.

Neku rested his forehead against the wall, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. A pair of purple eyes came into the forefront of his mind and Neku smiled. "See you there?" As usual, after five years, there was still no response. Neku allowed what music he could hear, or the music his mind made up for him (the music of Shibuya?) as the earbuds were in his pocket and the mp3 player dead, overload his senses and he let himself get taken into that wave. "If you cared Josh, you wouldn't keep me waiting."

The twenty year old pulled himself away from the wall, immediately feeling an emptiness resonate deep inside. And like every week Neku took a shaky breath before turning away from the wall, walking back through Udagawa and towards 104. Shiki was working today and he figured he might as well stop by, it was on the way home.

He walked through Tipsy Tose Hall, AMX and Center Street Entrance with no problem, but when he reached the Scramble Crossing the music came back, faint, barely an echo of what he would have heard had he stayed at the wall. Neku closed his eyes and focused on the sound, following it subconsciously. It led him through packs of people, safely away from cars, and to the statue of Hachiko. Neku opened his eyes and felt as if all his air was knocked out of him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," and then a giggle. That giggle that Neku heard in his sleep. Neku walked up to him, struggled to find the words to say, the words he always wanted to say…

And punched Joshua in the arm.