x

"Life's little crossroads are often as simple as the pull of a trigger..."

x

Except when they aren't.

"I'll keep the rules extremely simple. I'm going to count down from ten. On zero, we shoot. See? Easy."

"Ten..."

He's hunched over, his eyes hidden behind his bangs. Tears are streaming down his face, dripping from his chin. He doesn't make a sound as he stands there, bent in half, weeping silently. It's truly a pitiful sight.

"Nine..."

The gun hangs limply in his hand, and his body looks like it's ready to crumple against the ground. He looks broken. It's pathetic. Joshua smirks, and loads his own gun.

"Eight..."

Something electric seems to shoot through the air as his body becomes rigid. His head rises and his eyes lift to meet him, rage and hurt and betrayal burning within them. Joshua is only slightly surprised. Looks like he isn't broken after all.

"Seven..."

Finally, he clutches the gun in both hands, raising it up. His teeth are gritted, his eyes still wet with tears. Anger practically glows around him. Joshua can feel it in the air, vibrating furiously in the atmosphere.

"Six..."

Their eyes meet, and Joshua sees something bitter and feral writhing in his gaze. Hatred. Anger. Murder. His arms are not shaking. His gaze is locked. A fierce determination now burns throughout him, so loud he can almost hear it. Joshua's smirk does not fade. He's dreamed of a stand off like this, someone who finally has the guts to just face him, someone who will not back down. Someone like him.

"Five..."

Suddenly, his eyes begin to shift. Anger becomes frustration. Pain is still pain, and hurt is still hurt, but there's still something different about it. Rage and hatred and murder start to melt away, blurring into something Joshua cannot quite read. When he tries to, he sees Neku's eyes shut. His whole face contorts in pain. His hands begin to quiver.

"Four..."

His arms shake. His whole body is quaking. The gun lowers a few inches, aiming toward Joshua's stomach rather than his heart. Inwardly, Josh frowns. What is he doing?

"Three."

Now it's pointed at his feet. And now the floor. And it just keeps getting lower, until it's hanging limply at Neku's side again. What the Hell is he thinking? He's supposed to try and shoot him. What's the point of the game if only one person is playing?

"Two."

Now the gun is lying on the ground. Neku's eyes open, and again, Joshua cannot even begin to label the many things he can see in his gaze. He's not going to shoot him, he realizes. He isn't even going to try.

"One."

He feels his finger pull on the trigger, feels the gun as the bullet slices the silence, the slight recoil rippling up his arm. There is a quiet oof, a blaze of pain that shows in all of Neku's features- his eyes blow wide, his pupils shrink, his mouth parts but no words come out. Through the smoke, Joshua sees him fall to his knees, collapsing to the ground. He looks up, and everything about him screams with weakness. His eyes- those deep, blue eyes that just won't stop staring at him -are still a mixture of emotions, and Joshua swears he can see just about everything in there. Most of all though, he sees curiosity- a pained, dying curiosity. He sees a 'Why?'

Neku's eyes begin to lid over as he slips away. It happens in an instant- so quickly his life trickles out of him, leaving its shell behind. Almost immediately, he is limp against the floor, a pool of blood spreading out from underneath him. The room is suddenly cold, and the air stale, like all of the light within it left with him.

Neku's gun lies on the floor, the barrel pointing toward the wall. It stares at him accusingly, its trigger untouched, its bullet safely stored.

Joshua's gun now lays at his side. He walks forward, then stops. All he can see now is Neku: his arms lowering, the gun clattering to the floor before Josh had even pulled the trigger. And those eyes. Those eyes full of pain, full of questions, full of Whys.

Why?

Why would you do this? Why me? Why, after everything?

Didn't it mean anything to you? Was anything you said true? Why do you want this?

Why?

Joshua stares at the body, and for the first time in a long time he feels... Numb. The questions seemed to have left Neku, and are now infecting his own mind.

Why did he drop his gun? Why did he lower it? Why didn't he just shoot him- why did he even wait for him to finish counting? Why did he surrender?

Joshua had taken everything from him. He'd murdered him in cold blood, stood over his body and watched him die- smirking all the while. He'd used him as a pawn, led him to believe they were friends, only to come back from the dead and shoot him through the heart, again. Neku could have become the Composer. He could have saved himself, and his friends, and Shibuya. Lowering the gun meant giving in. It meant surrendering everything that now mattered to him. So why had he done it?

Why didn't he kill me?

The silence of the room is overbearing. Joshua feels like its pressing down all around him, trying to crush him. There are no answers to his questions, and he has a feeling there there will probably never be any. His fingers are numb, and his grip on his gun is feeble. He releases it, and it hits the floor with a clatter, filling the room with echoes as it rattles to a halt. Right next to Neku's.

Shibuya can be destroyed now, Joshua realizes. Nothing stands in the way of his plans now. Not Megumi, not Sho, not Mr. H, and not Neku. Especially not Neku. He'd done it. He'd won. For some reason, though, the victory feels hollow. Everything feels hollow.

Joshua stares at his limp, lifeless proxy, and no matter how hard he tries, he cannot make himself smile. He cannot rejoice. Everything he has wanted for so long is now within his reach, yet he can't even bring himself to look at it.

It is with an ache in his chest that he realizes- too late, as usual -that this isn't what he wants. Not really.

"Zero."