Story: Mind the Gaps (French version available : "Intervalles")
Date: posted the 1st of March 2023
Beta: None
Fandom: The World End With You
Disclaimer: No, I don't own TWEWY and I'm not making any profit from this story.
Summary: Just after the Long Game, Joshua saved and resurrected the rest of the Hashiko gang but was condemned by the Angels for his actions: He is confined to Shibuya and half of his powers have been sealed. Neku dies again but without his powers, Joshua cannot resurrect him. He takes him to safety anyway, which leads to M.H being banished by the Angels. Joshua is left alone to manage Shibuya, well not quite since he's got Shinjuku's scum on his hands. Months pass, Joshua is struggling to manage the UG without Sanae and Kitaniji and Shiki and the other reach out with an offer of friendship. But Shinjuku's Reaper are a lot of troubles until...
Trigger of this chapitre: None I can think of
I had more or less forgot there wasn't a 30th day in february X')
Anyway, guess who finally realize they have friends ? : D
Enjoy your reading!
Hachiko, again.
Joshua wondered if they should change locations from time to time. It was traditional, for sure. This was where they had all more or less met, or at least made their pacts. But the space was always full of people, it was nice to meet up but not so much to hang out.
But, well, it had been a year.
They didn't planned to meet and it was a bit of a surprise that he felt them congregating in front of the station and staying there. He hadn't remembered the date at first, it was a comment from Kariya last week that it had been almost a year since the Long Game that had made him realize the occasion.
Eri wasn't with them for once, just Shiki, Rhyme and Beat, sitting silently on the iron bars behind Hachiko. It was getting cold now but that didn't stop them from freezing there.
Joshua had been reluctant to join them for a long time. It seemed unlikely that they would want his presence as deep as they were in their memories of the Game. Even if he was only really responsible for Neku's participation he had still put Beat and Rhyme through two more weeks of the Game. And anyway, it wouldn't be surprising if in their minds, as Composers and managers of the Game, he was, even subconsciously, the culprit for all their supernatural worry.
So he had not approached. He had sat on a bench a little further away, his chin planted in his hand and wondering why he was staying there. It wasn't even comfortable, his Timbre fluctuating in an awkward frequency. High enough that it wasn't directly visible to Shiki and the others, but low enough that he wouldn't be noticed by the Players and Reapers running around.
Plus, the cold was biting his nose and freezing his fingers. It seemed a bit silly to use his powers to remedy that when he could just go back to the Dead God Pad and do his desperately awaiting paperwork.
But he stayed there.
Until Rhyme turned to the other two to exchange a few words. Joshua didn't have the motivation to make the effort to listen to them, so he was completely surprised when he heard his name tugging at the strings of their Pact.
"Joshua." Three distinct voices whispered in his mind. From where he was, he could see them closing their eyes in concentration, Beat even had his hands clasped and Joshua was pretty sure he was trying to reenact a prayer he'd seen in a movie. Um, Shiki must have told them about what happened to her at the fashion show. Clearly, they had no idea what they were doing and it was just pure luck that their calls worked. Well... not quite, intent was a big part of Vibe's manipulation and they were putting a lot of effort into it, that was for sure. However, the call was even stronger than it should have been, amplified as it was by Shibuya herself. Deciding to carefully ignore the city's clear message again, Joshua stood up and walked towards them, adjusting his Vibe as he did so.
In a few steps he was standing in front of them, his three partners still sitting with squinted eyes. "You called me?" He said, taking great care to articulate the words with annoyance. Beat gasped in surprise but Rhyme's eyes were already open. Joshua waited patiently for them to regain their senses enough to deal with their painful recriminations.
"Aren't you cold like that?" Shiki suddenly murmured as she tugged at his shirt and Joshua blinked.
Those... were not the words he had expected.
Looking down at his torso, Joshua saw indeed that he was wearing only a long sleeve shirt with a small cardigan. Not the most appropriate outfit for a particularly cold late November day but... "Hard to be colder than a dead man." he joked but the others clearly didn't have his incredible sense of humour because they only winced. Without another word, Beat stood up from the bench and took off his scarf before wrapping it around Joshua's neck. The Composer froze, not daring to move for fear of provoking another strange gesture.
"Thank you for coming." Rhyme smiled and Joshua didn't know what to say. Could a year of sporadic visits, barely twenty or so, really change that much? They should hate him, or at any rate, want nothing to do with him. At least today.
...Right. Maybe the one year anniversary of the Long Game was impacting him a bit more than he expected too.
Stammering something about getting warm, Shiki took his hand and led them all to Sunshines. A year... Joshua thought to himself as he pulled on his new scarf (it smelled like laundry, Beat must not wear it since long). A whole year since he'd tried to end it. Of course, he'd noticed the months passing, his days filled with endless problems, especially as he no longer had Kitaniji and Sanae to help him. The Composer knew, of course, that they had a big part in the Game and that their help was essential, but Joshua had never noticed how much they did. Especially Sanae. It was he who had patiently guided Joshua into his roles as Composer, delegating tasks to him little by little over the years until their current system of work. But it turns out that he was always doing a bit more than he should have for a Producer, having kept some of the more laborious tasks that should have fallen to Joshua or at least the Conductor. But worse than his workload being increased by their disappearance, his current Conductor and Producer were giving him more, obliged as he was to check everything they did at the risk of ending up with an Inversion on his hands. And then with the Reapers and Neku and... Ah, maybe that was why... busy as he was, he had plenty of time to avoid thinking about it.
And he didn't really want to think about it now either.
Blinking, Joshua brought himself back into the moment. Shiki was already ordering and Joshua was about to intervene as if he hadn't just spent the last few minutes lost in thought when she listed exactly what he was going to say. Uh. She didn't even turn to him to check if that was what he wanted. Just like Beat's or Rhyme's, she knew exactly what his favorite food was. It was... strange. Had they been to the café together so many times that she'd noticed? Yes, Joshua realised, because when he saw the others' order, he wasn't surprised at all. It was exactly what he would have chosen for them if he had to order. Somehow, they had all gotten to know each other this past year. If Joshua didn't watch Neku's dreams every Sunday, he'd know more about them than he did about his proxy.
And... well, did he like it? Getting to know someone intimately again, knowing their likes and dislikes, their dreams, their fears... and he enjoyed spending time with them, Joshua realized. It was always the moment he looked forward to most during the week. But not just as Neku's friends, or his experience partners as he had tried to convince himself. But as his own friends.
Shiki slipped Joshua his coffee with a smile before sadly pushing a box of nuggets towards the end of the table where a dramatically empty chair sat. Clearly, the other three missed the young man as much as Joshua.
Sanae and Neku would be proud, Joshua mused as he took a sip of overly hot coffee. At this thought, he suddenly had the terrible urge to say something hurtful. A stinging remark about Neku's death, a morbid joke about the Game, a snide comment about their second life... the possibilities were endless. It would be so easy to carve a shocked look on Rhyme's face, to make Shiki cry, or to enrage Beat. Just to prove to Sanae and Neku that they didn't need them, just because he knew it would hurt the two absentees more than himself.
But... even if it meant he'd have to put up with their smug smiles when they came back, well... at least it meant he'd see them again.
And he could handle an "I told you so" for that.
Think about letting a review on your way out and see you the 10th for the continuation!
