~TWEWY is a property of Square Enix~

If there was a single thing that Neku missed about being dead, it was that there no homework in the UG. Thanks to his three week absence due to the Game, he was still behind, and it felt as if the pile of papers on his table was never diminishing. Worst of all, he was the only one with these troubles.

Beat's school was far less intensive than his, and with his new drive to improve his life, he easily plowed through his work, though not always understanding the concepts. Rhyme, on the other hand, was very bright and was at a lower grade level with a lighter workload. Shiki, like him, initially had a some difficulties, but she had Eri who, with her star student tutoring, quickly caught her up to speed.

It was not that Neku was a bad student, far from it, but rather that he was easily distracted. A simple assignment of reading a two page article could easily turn into a full scale, finely detailed frame around the edges of said article without a single word ever being read. And whenever he was not doodling on the edges of his notes, he usually ended up surfing the web, wasting another hour or two that he could have spent trying to reach the bottom of the pile.

Even now, with his computer shut off in a different room and his sketchbook far out of his reach, constant distractions surrounded him.

"I don't get why you even bother with some of this. I mean really, I know very few artists who have even bothered to touchthe basics of quantum mechanics and most of them led fine lives. Not to mention, half of your history book isn't even completely true."

Neku felt the urge to slam his head on the table. "Will you just leave me alone? I'm kind of busy."

Joshua ignored him. "The Senkaku Islands are under the the sovereignty of Japan," he read aloud. "You should change your answer, Neku, or else you might have some unfriendly, foreign diplomats knocking on your door."

The orange head tried to slap the boy leaning over his shoulder, but the other quickly moved away. "It's what the book says, and according to my teacher, it's the right answer. Besides, why would diplomats care what I write?"

Joshua sighed dramatically, throwing up his hands, "My, the education system is teaching the youth of this generation lies! And to think none of you are going to bother questioning why it's like this."

"What are you talking about?" Neku asked, deciding to just roll with it. By this point, all of the words on the papers were just a big, black blur to him, a good indicator that he needed a distraction.

Joshua gave him a mockingly, benign smile, as if he knew what Neku was trying to do. "Here's an example: the idea of heaven and hell."

"What about it?"

"They say that if you do good deeds, you'll go to heaven and if you do bad deeds, you'll go to hell, correct?" He continued after an slightly puzzled and affirmative nod. "Well, Satan is the, as I call him, 'overlord of evil,' so why should he punish you for doing bad deeds? He should be overjoyed at your actions and welcome you, but he doesn't. In that perspective, Satan should be a good guy. Now why is that?"

"Well that's because... Huh, I never thought about it like that. Maybe he's just a sadist?"

Joshua rolled his eyes and carried on."Exactly, Neku. You've never thought about it. You followed society's little rules without even bothering to question them. You became part of the herd without knowing it,"

Neku made a face. "This is why I don't like talking to you when you feel philosophical."

"I'm always philosophical," He dismissed airily.

"That's my point," Neku snorted and turned back to his homework.

He was halfway finished with the worksheet before he noticed that something was off. It took him less than a minute to realize what it was: the answers he had written for multiple questions had disappeared and had been replaced with different answers that were written in smooth, dark ink that definitely was not his handwriting. He immediately swung his chair around, only to catch empty air. The Composer had escaped.

"Dammit, Josh! This had better not be permanent!" He shouted into his empty apartment. He stood there glaring at empty air for another minute before he plopped back down onto the chair with a growl.

Words could not describe the rage that Neku felt when he later realized that no matter how much white he painted over the words, they always resurfaced, clearly legible and impossible to erase.

He was going to kill that kid.

This turned out to be really short and random, but I hope you enjoyed! I might as well call this series, "The Unfortunate Events of Neku," considering what I put the poor guy through all the time. :'D

(Headcanon that Joshua has foreign connections via his Composer position. And he totally gossips with them about ignorant Japanese kids.)

I am still working on the next chapter of Still Alive and it is definitely not dead (haha). Half of the chapter is already written and I already have everything planned out, it's just translating into words... very slowly.