Reverberations [The World Ends with You, Joshua/Neku, R]

[harukami]

Title: Reverberations
Author/Artist: harukami
Rating: R
Warnings: Just the sex... sex and fashion.
Prompt: The World Ends With You: Joshua/Neku: Noise (screaming or yelling during sex; whimpering or sobbing; purring, growling; slurping or moaning enthusiastically during blow-jobs) - forgiveness
Word count: 3006
Summary: After a couple of years away, Neku comes home to Shibuya, with all that entails.


Sometimes Neku finds it hard to believe that he really had been dead only five years earlier. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that can even be real -- like it's the sort of thing he and his friends made up, not the sort of thing that could exist. Except it's undeniably real; there's too many signs of it in his current life.

It's more than just his love for other people now, something he'd never had before he died and came back to life. That feeling -- the ability to relate, the ability to care even when he didn't understand, to expand his borders to contain others even if he can't really connect with them -- still sometimes fills him with a strange sense of awe. He's in the same world as everything and everyone around him. That won't change.

It's not just that feeling that assures him he had actually died, but the fact that after he came back and presented himself to his parents, his life changed. They'd been reluctant to let him go out (though that hardly stopped him), and the neighbours had talked. Still, he'd persisted. Shibuya was his world; he didn't intend to leave it. But things were strained. Then, two years ago, his grandparents got sick and they moved out to the countryside to take care of their home.

It was the most miserable two years of his life, really. Being away from Shibuya was like leaving a part of himself behind. He had to come back. So he has.

Shiki meets him at the train station.

"Hey, Neku," she says, pushing her glasses up and grinning. She's looking good -- still hiding her body behind oversized clothes, sure, and with her now-long hair hanging in twin limp ponytails but she looks bright and energetic and her outfit is, he's pretty sure, an original design. "You're looking goooo---ewww! What are you wearing?"

"I told you," he says. "There's no good shopping out in the boonies. Hey, don't I get a hug?"

She flushes. "Like I can hug an uber dweeb with no fashion sense," she says, but does. "Ugh, once we've moved you in, you have to go shopping. There's a new line by Jupiter of the Monkey you have to check out. It'll suit you great."

"Hey, who are you saying doesn't have a fashion sense? You know I moved back to study fashion," he says, because he'll be starting next week at the Banton Design Institute, and she flushes a little, like she's proud or taking the credit or something. "I'll go shopping tomorrow," he says.

He looks around. Crowds are moving through the train station, heading their own ways through this microcosm of a city. He picks out brands, identifies some which must be new, sees with old experience how the residents are dragging the trends with them, recreating the city with each step they take. They're talking, loud, to their friends, family, anyone they're with, and the traffic, too, is loud. He closes his eyes and wishes, momentarily, he could read their minds still.

"Helloooo? Earth to Neku, come in Neku. Ground control to Major Neku--"

He opens his eyes again. "What is it, Houston?"

"You were out of this world, Neku. Totally zoned. I figured you'd cut that out after you stopped wearing those headphones, but--"

"I was just listening to the city," he says. They head to catch a city bus, take it out towards the residential area he'll be calling home now. "Do you think the game's still going on here?"

Shiki hesitates, uncertainly. "It's weird, isn't it? I mean, you saved Shibuya, but wasn't the game only different then because... the Composer got involved? Wasn't the implication kind of--"

"That the game always went on, would always go on, over and over again? Dead people picked to duke it out for oblivion or becoming Reapers or to return to real life?" Neku shakes his head. "I don't understand it."

"Maybe we're not supposed to understand it," Shiki says. "Once you get into the meaning of the afterlife and souls and all that stuff, are we really supposed to understand it? Though it's creepy, isn't it?! There could be Reapers hanging out over our shoulders right now, listening in on us!"

Neku shrugs. "It's not the Reapers I'd worry about," he says.

"Hm?"

"Nothing," he says. "Thinking of a totally different creeper." Because he actually wouldn't mind that, he thinks, and flushes. Joshua is someone who has bothered him for years, but he thinks about... a lot. In a variety of ways.

Most of which he'd rather not mention to Shiki, though.

"Okaaaay," she says, watching him blush. "Neku, you're so weird. Bringing this up as soon as you get here..."

Neku reaches out a hand to the air. "Noise could be right here," he says. "Waiting to kill off players. That's what I meant."

"Eeek! Neku!"

He laughs. "Sorry," he says, and drops his hand, trying to will his blush away.

***

The next day he does, as planned, go out shopping. Shiki's right, he needs clothes. His old duds are fine for anywhere else, but Shibuya is a city that demands you stay on top of the trends. He remembers; your survival could hang on it. But more to the point, Shibuya is made up of things like this, like the importance of trends. Shibuya's like fashion itself; every piece that goes into it formed a complete whole. And maybe it's hard to see sometimes, how it thrives, why it thrives. But it does thrive.

He checks out all the old shops he's familiar with, but mostly he just wanders the city, all the districts he ran over and over again during the hardest three weeks of his life, when he was dead. He stops in Scramble Crossing for a while, just watching people come and go.

Then, as he said he would, he heads up to Cat Street. As he goes through Miyashita Park Underpass, he stops and stares, heart clenching. "Mr. H," he says aloud.

The walls are bedecked with graffiti, the usual stylized symbols and shapes; they make him feel warm, like he belongs again for sure, like coming back was the best idea he had. Knowing what he knows now, about the Game and Impressing and everything else, it's hard not to question the feel, but he doesn't want to, either -- even if it's a suggestion from the beyond, is that really so bad? To feel fired up and like he has a place in this city and things he can do here?

He moves on.

The WildKat Cafe is closed. It doesn't look like it's been sold, but it's dark and nobody's inside and the sign hanging on the door reads "Closed Indefinitely." Neku presses a hand to the glass and wonders when it was last open; what he last missed. It was closed those three years before he left, too. But it still looks clean in there, like someone's kept the dust off. Mr. H? Joshua, maybe? He knocks on the door, but nobody answers and so he heads off again.

He does, in fact, like Jupiter of the Monkey's new line, shops for a while, and on his way out he's carrying heavy bags. He leaves just in time to see Joshua head down towards Miyashita Park.

Neku's heart seems to freeze in his chest. What's Joshua doing in the Realground? It was made perfectly clear that the Composer doesn't live on this plane of existence naturally and that he'd needed to depower himself to do so. The last time he'd done it was when he'd decided to play to destroy Shibuya. When he killed Neku. When Neku spent three weeks learning to love humanity, and, somehow, managed to associate Joshua with humanity even though he knows better. Neku's breath strangles and he chases after him. "Joshua!"

Joshua doesn't appear to notice him; continues heading off. It's like a dream, less in any kind of ideal and more in the panicky way Neku's heart is racing as he thinks it might be impossible to catch up.

"Joshua!"

Finally, in the Underpass, Joshua stops and turns. "Honestly, Neku," he says, as Neku catches up, bags tightly clenched in his hands, "you'd think I was deaf, the way you were yelling. Giving your lungs a workout, were you?"

Joshua still looks the age he did when Neku last saw him, which shouldn't surprise him but does, because he's grown older himself and Joshua now looks younger than him. But thinking to look for it, there's something about Joshua that seems ageless instead.

The feeling of being around Joshua hits him like a wall; itchy and irritable like some invisible resonance is making it hard for him to be in his own skin. Before, he'd put it down to Joshua's frustrating personality, but knowing now that Joshua is essentially a god, makes it hard for him to see it that way any more, even though the irritation, the skin-crawling discomfort is still there. He feels like he's tingling, like it's hard to breathe. Like the closer he gets, the harder it gets. As if touching Joshua might make him explode or something.

"What are you doing here?" Neku asks.

Joshua quirks a brow and lifts a bag. "Shopping, Neku. I'm in Shibuya's shopping district so I can shop. Keep up, okay?"

Neku glances at the bag and doesn't recognize the logo. "They new?"

"Pink Kitty. Just opened a few months ago. Darling designs. I'd love to see you in some."

"No thanks," Neku says, on the premise that if it's called 'Pink Kitty' it really wouldn't be to his taste. "But what are you doing here?"

"Oh dear," Joshua says, shaking his head. "Do we need to go over this again? I'm shopping--"

"In the Realground. You can shop from the UG, right? Or --"

Joshua says, "Fuss fuss fuss, Neku. Didn't you miss me?"

Too many feelings to name curl together in Neku's stomach, in his head, tighten his chest. Pain, anger, loss, heartbreak, all those things that came up when he couldn't shoot Joshua. Memories of the old fear that because of that a world was going to die.

Loss of that friendship that he'd thought they'd developed.

The disbelieving hope and joy that he had found when his Shibuya lived, thrived, when he and his friends grew closer with no more games between them.

That trust he still feels for Joshua.

The attraction he still feels for Joshua, which he has come, in the intervening time, to give up on hating.

"I forgive you," he tells Joshua.

Joshua's face goes blank. "What?"

"I don't understand you," Neku tells him, feelings he thought at the time but had to work up to. "But I trust you. I like you. I forgive you for torturing me. Torturing us."

"Wow," Joshua says. "Getting pretty big for your britches there, Neku, thinking you can just hand out forgiveness to anyone. Me, of all people!"

"I can't hand out forgiveness to anyone," Neku says, stepping closer, closing a hand around Joshua's shoulder. Joshua looks down at it in apparent amusement. "Because forgiveness is just something that happens inside me. My feelings... can join with yours that way. So..."

Joshua blinks, then smirks. "Lame, Neku."

Neku thinks, Yeah, this is Joshua all right.

"You can just admit you like me! Honestly, Neku, you always waltz around the key things, don't you."

Neku thinks, What? That's not the key thing here! How is that the key thing! His heart is too tight, squeezing hard.

"It's been pretty obvious from the start," Joshua says. "Mmmm, Neku, you're so big and manly, keeping your feelings to yourself."

"Uh," Neku says, suddenly horrifically unprepared for a conversation he had previously thought he was more than ready to have. "Wait, what?"

"You want it to happen inside you," Joshua says. "To join with me." He snickers.

Neku goes red. "What?! No!"

"Come on, Neku," Joshua says. "Let's go let your feelings join with mine."

***

This is a side of Shibuya he's never seen before, though he's known perfectly well it exists. Dogenzaka is known for it, after all.

"No, this isn't what I meant," he tells Joshua, as Joshua checks them in.

"I picked the gothic-themed room," Joshua tells him. "I thought it'd go with your good old bleak outlook."

Neku says, "I wasn't planning to -- planning on having -- to have --"

"Me neither, honestly," Joshua says thoughtfully. "Frankly, sex is a little beneath me, but really, Neku, it's been so long, so we might as well catch up."

"So we're not having sex?"

"We're having sex."

"Why are we having sex?!"

Joshua snickers again. "Oh, Neku, you'll break my heart if you talk like that!"

Neku follows him into the room and then can't actually look at the bed. "Joshua, what is with you? You're crazy!"

"Here I am, fulfilling your secret desires, and that's all you can think? Hmm, that's the sort of gratitude I expect from you." Joshua pulls his shirt off. He's skinny, pale, and appears to be breathing a little fast.

Neku looks at him, red-faced and says, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute."

"Ahhh, I can't wait," Joshua says sarcastically, more parody than actual eagerness.

Neku refuses to rise to the bait, licks his lips, and says, "Are you the one who missed me?"

Feelings fall off Joshua's face again.

"Because -- I wasn't playing the game anymore? Because I had to leave Shibuya for a bit?"

"You really think too highly of yourself," Joshua says, and reaches for him.

***

He's been attracted to Joshua this long but has, honestly, never really been able to think too much of what sex with Joshua would be like. For one thing, it has always seemed sort of impossible, which shouldn't interfere with fantasy, but it has been hard to fantasize.

Second, even when he's tried, he ends up getting tangled up with how irritated and emotionally exhausted Joshua always has made him, and at that point it always got hard to even finish jacking off.

So he doesn't feel like he's prepared for how it goes.

He should, perhaps, have realized that Joshua would be noisy. Joshua has always been noisy when he's enjoying something, irritatingly so; slurping his noodles and moaning was something that should embarrass anyone trying to eat in public, and certainly embarrassed Neku for being with Joshua.

Except now he's embarrassed because Joshua is slurping his cock and moaning like, yeah, like he's in paradise, and Neku feels like he's going to vibrate out of his skin or something, is squirming and moaning and covering his face with both hands while Joshua licks up his dick and laughs at him, that irritating little snicker he always has when he's taking pleasure in Neku's embarrassment.

"Don't laugh," Neku manages, panting, and Joshua laughs again, louder, more irritatingly, and then moans as he sucks one of Neku's balls into his mouth, slides a finger up his ass. "Oh hell!"

"Wow," Joshua says. "You're way too into this, Neku," but his breath is ragged and loud, husky, like arousal is tearing its way out of his chest along with words.

Neku covers his face harder and makes a sobbing noise of pleasure and agony as Joshua's finger moves in him and he thinks he might go crazy; he very well might go crazy. It only gets worse -- better -- as Joshua slides a second in, and he tries to say something, anything, but it comes out as hoarse torn-up groans and something like Joshua's name.

"Tee-hee," Joshua says. "How passionate, Neku."

"Shut up," Neku says, and Joshua seems to take that as permission to continue instead, as if Neku's ready when he's nowhere near prepared enough yet, and he moves over him, pushes his legs back with unnatural strength, and presses in.

Neku screams, which isn't even really because it hurts, although it does. He screams because Joshua inside him, moving over him and moaning in low sensual laughs, is agonizing in a way that has nothing to do with pain. Because Joshua isn't just too close to him but is invading every sense he has until his mind aches and struggles to survive and he thinks that his soul is battered under the pressure of Joshua's soul against him. But Joshua is Joshua and he's been that way all along and so Neku can't even find it in him to be angry for this total invasion. Because he thinks that even Joshua like this won't erase his soul and, if anything, he's screaming because he's becoming forced open, forced wider, larger inside to let his soul fill up all the cleared-out spaces and he's never felt so broken and he's never felt so inspired, wrapping around Joshua and hurting and wailing out so many feelings he can't even put words to them.

This isn't like me at all, he thinks, except, No, this has been the real me all along, it's just that I can't even pretend not to care anymore. He thinks he's losing a grip on his own reality as pleasure breaks through the agony and crests and he realizes he's really, really liking this. As everything goes white, as his senses blink out around him because everything's expanding too far for him to handle, he thinks, I'm so glad to be alive right now.

***

When he wakes up he is alone, sore, and sticky.

Or, at least, sore and sticky, he revises mentally. Joshua may not be here where he can see him, but Joshua could be here on another plane, watching him, or might be watching this whole city, in a way.

Raw, he thinks. That's how he feels. Raw. His voice is raw from screaming, his heart is raw from baring it, his soul is raw from the sheer friction of coming so close to Joshua's soul. But it feels good. Sore but good. New and sensitive, as if old calluses have been rubbed away. Inspired, even, yeah -- he can't wait for school to start, and that's a weird thought at a time like this.

He kind of limps to the shower to wash away the physical elements, at least, and under it he shivers exhaustedly, tilts his head back against the wall and lets the water pound over his skin.

I've come home, he thinks, and smiles a little to himself.

Comments

[flyby311.livejournal.com]

alkjsdflkasdf

TEE-HEE. REALLY JOSHUA, REALLY. (what am I talking about, of course)

I just really, really love how in character they are. Neku, yeah, but especially Joshua, who is like. I don't even know. I just love them both a lot. <3

[harukami]

TEE-HEE.

Thank you so much!! I reread all the secret reports before writing this and got a bit stuck on the nature of coming too close to the Composer and it made me happy so. Yes. <3

[rethira.livejournal.com]

This was amazing.

Everyone was just so right.

[harukami]

Thank you so much!