THE MOMENT / THE SOUND

Usually, the dead are cold, or at least cool. But never Shiba. Perhaps it was his own latent ability, he had sometimes joked. A useless one that wouldn't help him ascend the ranks. But it was his.

"Hmmm..." Shiba taps his chin a bit playfully as he watches Neku's eyes dart around and his cheeks beginning to grow pink in response to his flirting. So, Neku was able to at least pick up on what he was putting down. And he can easily detect his embarrassment.

Oh, how it makes his heart burn. How cute, how adorable Shibuya's shining star is. He leans over a little closer, a chuckle resounding through his chest. It makes him want to play with him even more, just to see that beautiful color deepen. He wants to know just how red Neku can get.

"All right, Neku. I'll extinguish the Legendary Player part just for you," he chuckles quietly, his smile only growing.

Shiba leans back away from Neku, giving him the space he assumes the ex-Player probably wants. But, that doesn't mean he's going to shut his mouth and let the silence grow alongside the space. Oh no, there's more that the ex-Conductor of Shibuya wants to say.

"Thanks," he says -- a gruff sound accompanied by a hand subconsciously rubbing against his shoulder.

When Shiba leans away, Neku visibly relaxes just that little bit to suggest that his nerves were high-strung -- a rare sight in its own for his otherwise calm nature. 'Just great,' he can't help but think, 'he probably thinks I hate him or something.'

It's a gullible notion that's squandered in seconds.

enjoy the moment with all your might ★ whether it's gloomy whether it's bright

        oh, darling, you will be good to me, wont you?         because we’re going to have a strange life.                               ★ e. hemingway.

Is it the color of your pain now?

Is it the color of your future?

" ,,,? Don't look out the..."

"How frigid."

To be fair, he's sort of forgotten about things like time. Shinjuku's state makes it a bit hard to keep track.

But now that he's not in Shinjuku... he can actually check his phone and see something aside from arcane, unknowable symbols. So he does, and then...

Shiba's concern, on the other hand, comes to a rise in lieu of Neku's lack thereof. He only blinks once, before he huffs — the same arm once outstretched now accompanying the hand which rubs against the back of his neck.

His touch is feather-light, a sedative in both how it calms and dulls her—reminding her fully that he’s real, he’s here, and just as much, how he could disappear all over again. Unable to resist the very true feeling of his caress, she nuzzles her cheek to his hand, like a puppy waiting for an owner that won’t return. Before she even realized it, phantom tears turn painfully corporeal, rather on account of his word, and the droplets gather in her ducts. Ever her partner, ever her savior, he catches them before they can rain from her cheek to his. 

His oath makes her happy. And it makes her sad.

As he leaned back, her gaze befell his, and he had that look in his eye, a look of determination that not even God himself could best, as previously proven… but Shiki also knew there was a tired, burdened boy hiding behind the guise of a legend (if only on account of the insecure little girl—hidden and frail on the receiving end.) From the bottom of her heart, she knows he’d never lie, but whether he likes it or not, for Neku Sakuraba—the lines between trust and death are paper-thin. He's always, always kept his promises, but that didn't make their conditions any less painful.

For a moment, she held him tighter, ultimately relenting to let him go. 

“I,” she exhaled, her voice not more than a whisper in the gentle air, “I missed you.” The left half of the bench calls for her as she chose now to sit at his side. She wants to lean on him yet, and her fingertips twitch with the urge to reach out and take his hand, comfort him, hold him, be held, be perfect, be together, be with him—but even just the simple notion of their shared touch makes her fear he might disappear into thin air once again. She curls into herself, holding Mr. Mew tight to her chest, her head lowered to avoid his gaze, “I missed you so much,” she huffs, pitiable and pathetic as her tears only fall thicker, “I didn’t know what to do.” 

Neku only ever seemed to hurt her.

But that didn't mean he didn't know how to care for her.

When Shiki's embrace comes in a tight twine, Neku's eyes have already closed to accept it. When she pulls away only to bridge their distance in a cold seat she intends to warm, Neku is already crossing that bridge by scooting closer in the wake of her bleeding vulnerability. All this and more, like it was natural — that caring for Shiki Misaki and understanding her was his sworn duty just as it was his greatest desire.

So when Shiki curls into herself, Neku sweeps down with her.

Her tears sever slice after slice within his heart, because though he understood her pain for what it was, it made it no easier to bear witness to the agony she's withheld from the world until this very moment. How many times has she endured this grief alone, while all her friends were roping into bearing an atlas she simply wasn't allowed to bear? Neku wouldn't make her do it, if he had to do it all again, but the stubborn thing about Shiki was that she would want to anyway. Shibuya is equally as stubborn — its music drumming harsh into him like it needed him to understand that Shiki wouldn't want this pain to be another burden for Neku to carry.

But Neku was born stubborn, and he's died stubborn time, and time again.

"—Don't say that."

And it's his turn, now — to act in the span of a single pulse that pulls her into his arms. Neku doesn't think when he does it, and he certainly doesn't think when he squeezes her so tight, that he knows she can feel the way he trembles underneath the weight of her words and hear the strain of his own. What she doesn't see is his wide eyed stare — doesn't feel the way his jaw clenches.

"Don't say that, Shiki."

And in spite of it, it comes gentle — forgiving, even though the wrong has little to do with her character and more to do with the notion that her existence must be tied to his. He's seen it before, because she's suffered it before — first with Eri, then with him (he'll never forget watching her dissipate before his eyes, only to teeter along the fallable bridge of life and death all because he decided to give a damn). Because of that, Neku can never let her do it again.

"I already told you I'm not going anywhere, right...?"

A nestle now, into her shoulder — his face burying into her neck as he sighs with the very same tremble that wracks his frame conjoined with his breath.

"So don't say that. Don't say you need me to live."