The Game (Neku x Reader)

Chapter 5

Joshua seemed to be planning something on the day of my death which was worrisome but I would have to wait to find out what it was until then. Then again, just about everyone had their own secret agenda they would carry out someway or another.

I opened my eyes, briefly glancing to the side before my body stiffened, not willing to move as I saw a familiar brown haired girl running and holding a blue (maybe purple) phone high above her head, giggling as she ran from Neku, who was desperately trying to get his phone back.

"Shiki! Give me back my phone! I don't take your stuff so don't take mine!" The strain in his voice made me feel like he was hiding something in his phone. I held a hand up to my mouth to hide the slight smile before that quickly vanished, fading into a frown as I saw Shiki's love struck face as she looked at Neku.

"Nope~ Why should I? Are you hiding something on here you don't want anyone to see?" she teased and flipped the phone open. She began looking through it as Neku reached out for his phone, snatching it out of her hands.

"Don't take my phone again," Neku snapped, his tone as cold as ice. Shiki barely flinched but crossed her arms, a frown etched onto her face.

"Who was that girl?"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with me. That one with the (h/c) hair and (e/c) eyes. You had your arm around her. Ring a bell?" I could see the Noise begin to form around Shiki from her jealousy that was stirring. They were small, nothing any Reaper couldn't handle, but Shiki didn't need to be jealous of me, of all people. The small Noise symbols appearing meant that her jealousy was small, but I was sure that it would only grow until she was certain I wasn't a romantic interest in Neku's eyes. Even then, why would Neku still have photos of us from three years ago? He probably just forgot to delete them.

But I still had old photos from then too.

I sighed and pulled my phone out of my pocket, opening the photo gallery before pulling open the picture Shiki was looking at mere moments ago. It was a picture of me and Neku standing in front of the CAT mural at the Udagawa Back Streets right after it had been painted probably the night before by our favorite artist CAT. Neku had his arm linked around my shoulders as I held one hand in a peace sign towards the camera. Both of us had the brightest smiles on our faces.

My eyes began to water thinking about the memory but I blinked them away and focused back on Neku and Shiki's conversation, feeling much like a stalker right now. I didn't want to listen in, but it felt like my feet were glued to the ground.

"She... She was my... friend.... She passed away away though....," Neku said. The hand holding his phone squeezed it and I thought the battery was going to fly out of it from the pressure he seemed to be using on it.

"Neku...," Shiki began. "I'm-"

Neku cut her off and raised his hand to stop her from talking. "Don't even apologize. It happened years ago But don't go around taking my stuff without my permission again."

"... Do you think she played the Reapers' Game?"

"How should I know? Do I look like the Composer to you? And if she did she clearly didn't come back alive."

"Was she the reason you acted the way you did in the Reapers' Game? When you said you wouldn't let your friends 'drag you down' again?" Neku went silent as he considered what Shiki had said, pretty much confirming her statement to be true. My hands balled into fists at my side as I took in what Shiki had. Did all I do was drag Neku down when I was alive? Did I have no real purpose in this life?

Unless you count dragging people down a purpose I suppose.

I decided to take that as my clue to leave and walked away from the statue, and away from Shiki and Neku. Neku seemed clearly over my death which I didn't blame him for. A force laugh left my mouth at the cruel fate this world had in store for just teenagers. I shouldn't be this attached to Neku after so long. Why follow a hopeless dream if it was long gone?

Shoot for the moon, if you miss you'll land among the stars.

Yeah right, all those stars are already dead by the time I set eyes on them.

My feet had a mind of their own as I made my way through the Scramble Crossing and all the way towards the Udagawa Back Streets and looked on at the CAT mural. The vibrant colors and the positive imaginative imprinting that I could feel coming off of the mural did nothing to brighten my mood. I leaned against the mural as I held my phone up to my face and scrolled through different pictures of Neku and I together. Some of them were just us doing stupid or random things. I even had a picture of Neku with ice cream on his face as he was trying to laugh it off.

My vision began to blur as I held my other hand up to my face, wiping away the stray tears that had fallen down my face.

"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid," I scolded myself as I wiped my tears away. "There's no point in crying over something like this." I slid down the wall and brought my knees up to my chest as I sniffled and continued to go through my phone. I never realized how many pictures I had of us together until just now. I never even cared to think about it. My finger hovered over the delete button on the picture Shiki had looked at until I finally made a decision and closed the photo gallery.

"It shouldn't be that hard to do so why can't I do it?" I whispered. I couldn't even press a single button on my phone. I had no problem deleting anything else but as soon as I came to something having to do with Neku, I found myself stuck. Almost like something was holding me back from actually pressing the delete button and moving it to the trash, never to be seen again. I saw the music app I hadn't touched in awhile (mainly because I would use Neku's headphones to listen to music) and was hit many memories of us both creating playlists and even creating our own, silly little beats that we were so proud of.

I finally shut my phone and gripped it in my hand as I hugged my knees and laid my head on top of them, closing my eyes, but not falling asleep.

The text from Joshua had come early in the morning, when I hadn't even woken up yet. I rubbed my eyes as I reread the words on the blinding screen of my phone. I really needed to adjust the brightness on this.

'Meet me at the CAT mural at the Udagawa Back Streets. 20 minutes. You'll get your reward today, but make sure you're tuned into the RG.'

"Why does it have to be there?" I grumbled, pocketing my phone as I began to walk towards the place I was a couple days ago. The day of my death and Joshua chooses the place I died as his meeting place. Since when did he leave Dead God's Pad anyway? I didn't like his choices for this but I knew I had no room or authority to argue with him. I was too tired and drained from the last time I saw Neku either way.

I yawned and covered my mouth with my hand and walked through Shibu-Q Heads, trying to squeeze through crowds of people since I couldn't walk through them in the RG. That only brought up another question I hoped Joshua would answer. What made this meeting so special it had to be in the RG?

When I finally lost the crowd of people and emerged into the Udagawa Back Streets, I noticed now desolate it was, tucked away in the corner. Practically no one was there. I sighed for the millionth time that week and climbed up the steps leading to the CAT mural along the back wall.

"You know Joshua, I would like a warning ahead of time if you're going to wake me up early in the morning and expect me to just succumb to your wishes and appear wherever you want, at whatever time you want," I said and made it to the top of the stairs where I could see the CAT mural entirely. Standing in front of it, however, were two boys. One of which I was trying to avoid. I locked eyes with him and saw Joshua smirk out of the corner of my eye.

"Well, now that my dear Conductor is here, I should leave the two of you to catch up. It's only been... three years... since you've last talked to each other, correct?"