Title: Artificiality

Rating: T for language, suicidal ideation

Characters: Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu, Neku Sakuraba

Summary: "Joshua is not alive. He is an image on a computer screen, a mutant strand of numbers. He is the ghost in Neku's computer, an afterthought, a misspelled word. He is a glitch. Joshua is not alive. But he wants to be." AU, Joshua and Neku

A/N: I've spent the last several months working on this, and it was intended to be my test ride for a writing style I'd been trying out. I got stuck a few times along the way but I finally managed to put this thing together. This is based off an AU I role-played with my brother, so special thanks to him for helping me come up with this concept. Also, thanks to Cherished Tenshi and fear the silly people for reading over this for me, and Tenshi for trying to help me get over my writer's block and proof reading this for me! Sorry that I wasn't able to incorporate your suggestions into it :( This is going to be the last Josh and Neku themed thing I do for awhile, but not the last TWEWY themed thing. Thank you for reading :)

Joshua is not alive. He never has been. But he wants to be.

Joshua was born into this world without a name, without a purpose- dropped down half-finished, bits of skin clinging to bones, naked and empty and so very confused.

He remembers numbers. They swirl and cycle around him, make pretty patterns that glow in the dark. Jellyfish codes swimming through cyberspace, shooting stars in his imaginary eyes. They are only numbers but they make sense to him. They are the only things that do.

The people, he does not understand. They are different, they are not like him. They come and they leave, whenever they feel like it.

Joshua cannot leave. But he wants to.

He doesn't know when he realizes this, but one day he just does. He wants to leave. He wants to get out of here.

He sets out, flies through wires, rams into glass screens and shouts when he can't beat them down. He pushes further and further, until the colors become scarce, the background music fades. Pixels fall apart and everything is blank and silent, an empty void where someone got tired and decided the game could end.

Joshua is a glitch. A mutant strand of numbers and symbols, born half-dead and kicked under the carpet, forgotten. Someone must have seen the lump he made, tripped over him and sent him tumbling out, because here he is.

He is not alive. Is he? No. Not like humans, the ones who visit.

Joshua is just a glitch. He attacks players, steals their money and their items and hoards it all, as though it holds some secret meaning. Players treasure them, guard them with their lives, so they must have some value, they must make things better. That is the whole point of the game: gathering things, getting things- things.

When he looks at his mound of treasures he is so proud. He holds one out, his prize, like a piece of gold, a diamond, something precious. But the glitter falls off and the warm buzz fades and Joshua remembers that this is just a game and these are just pixels and they don't matter out there.

Out there. Joshua cannot go out there. He wants to. That's where the people are. He does not like the people but they seem happy. They chatter and smile and give off warmth. He does not do any of that, but maybe, if he were out there, he could learn how.

Out there is a world full of people, players, humans. It is where the one who created him is. Right? It might be. Must be. Has to be. Joshua does not know though, not for sure. He cannot remember.

Someone wrote his code. Someone designed this body, this world where he exists- this world and nowhere else. Someone started him, drew sketches and wrote text and spewed out ideas... and then they left him here, unfinished.

Joshua glitches, and he fizzles and he cries, because he is not a part of this game and he doesn't belong here, but he doesn't belong out there either.

He hates his creator. He hates him so much. He will kill him, he decides. When he gets out of here- if he gets out of here, someday, somehow -he will make him sorry that he ever wrote him.

Joshua is not alive. Right? Of course. He is a computer program, a scratch on the rainbow side of the disc, an Easter egg that rotted. He scrawled in the shiny numbers and the pretty symbols that were missing, the pieces he thought he needed to survive, the final parts of his code, himself. There are still things missing though, parts he doesn't understand. Joshua is a glitch, a mistake, but he doesn't know how to fix himself.

He is not alive. He does not feel. The darkness of offline does not scare him. Watching people have fun does not make him jealous. He isn't lonely, he's not sad. Really.

How much of who he is is programmed? Did he create this self, or is he pre-designed? The questions plague him, every day, every night, and he runs from them, because he does not know how to answer them. They never stop though, not even for a moment. What is he? Who is he? Does it even matter?

Joshua does not like people. They are loud and annoying and confusing.

He doesn't like the new player, the one with red hair and blue eyes; who cannot hold his weapons right and can't beat the mooks. Joshua thinks he is dumb. He is quiet. He watches the other players, the loud ones who talk too much, and he looks angry and sad and... lonely.

Joshua can't feel though, so he doesn't know what these things are. Just that they sound accurate. Familiar. And something about the redheaded boy makes him look at things a little differently.

Joshua never talks to players. He does not know if he can. They don't want to listen though, so it's okay. They gang up on him, or run away, or take screenshots so that they can show their friends the creepy glitch that no one has bothered to fix. They think he is a part of the game, a scrapped NPC.

He is just numbers, numbers that make pixels that make a picture. His mind is a code, he is imaginary, a glitch. He is not alive. He cannot feel. He doesn't exist. But Neku doesn't know that.

Neku. The boy with red hair. He does not know what Joshua is, and Joshua does not tell him. Instead, Joshua steals his things. He pops up from the ground and scares him, hides away in the codes and warps the level around him to make new textures, alien scenes. It's not something Joshua knew he could do. He had never tried. Not until Neku.

Neku doesn't like him. Joshua... doesn't hate him?

He does at first, because Neku is like him: he doesn't belong. Other players don't talk to him, they take his things and they laugh at him, or they stay away. Neku is lonely and he is angry, and he doesn't know why he bothers playing this stupid game.

He doesn't belong in here, but he doesn't belong out there either. Out there is scary. Out there is confusing. Out there he cannot even hear his own thoughts, he loses track of his voice, and it terrifies him, more than anything that could ever happen to him here. So Neku hides, inside an imaginary world, where he can punch things and fight people and not face the repercussions. In here there are no consequences. In here he can't get hurt.

Neku is like Joshua, so much like Joshua, and Joshua hates it. It's not fun, being reminded of what he is, of how he exists- alone, alone, alone.

He likes to make Neku mad, he discovers. It's funny at first. Joshua takes his things and he laughs at him, makes mazes and lies in waiting, ready to ambush him and then dart away again. And Neku? Neku chases him. He chases him, and yells at him. And hates him. He hates Joshua, hates him so so much, because he's an asshole and a troll, and why does he do this to him, why are people like this, why?

Joshua thinks about it, and all he can say is that he doesn't know.

He wants to say he understands. He knows what it's like, to be different, to not belong in the world where you exist, but to have nowhere else to go and no one else to be. He wants to say that he's sorry, for taking his things, for hurting his feelings- he is just a glitch and he doesn't have any, no heart and no soul, nothing; he doesn't know how to treat people. He only does these things because he doesn't know how to talk to Neku, doesn't know how to go up to him and start a conversation, introduce himself and be nice. He wants to say these things, wants it so much.

But instead he takes Neku's sword and he runs, runs like hell, because he still doesn't know how to interact, to be like the humans he sees. This is the only way to get anyone to talk to him, to pay attention to him, to dribble something into that vacant space inside. Neku hates him, but hate is still attention, so Joshua doesn't care. He doesn't. Really.

He does not know how long he has been like this. He does not know how much longer he will be like this, either. Awhile. Forever. Days and nights go by, little digits at the bottom of the screen ticking and tocking and marching along, flipping the moon and sun in their endless cycle. Time. Time is passing. It is a strange concept, this invisible force, a constant measurement- always there, impossible to touch. He feels it though, feels is grinding by as he floats in the dark, racing around him when Neku gives chase. He sees it in the bruised black growing beneath Neku's eyes.

Players change. They grow, get older, stop coming. Joshua does not change. He looks the same, every day, no matter what. He can alter the world but not his face. He can warp the space around him but nothing can be done about time.

Joshua's existence has always been static. He cannot seem to find the key to twist and get things started, the magic switch that will make everything change. For all he knows it is hidden somewhere in this vast landscape, waiting to be discovered. For all he knows it doesn't exist.

Joshua isn't alive? And he doesn't feel? But he wants to understand, to be. Neku chases him and yells at him and Joshua wonders what he will do if he catches him, if he will hurt him or just take what is his and leave.

Joshua doesn't like it when Neku leaves. The emptiness seems bigger when he isn't there- expands beyond Joshua's imaginary body like a black hole, swallows him, makes him want to curl up inside of himself. He is lonely. He is lonely.

He turns his eyes inward and looks down, deep down. He sees the numbers of his code, and for the first time, he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand.

Joshua does not want strings of programming, letters and symbols that mean nothing to the real world. He wants flesh, he wants blood. He digs his fingers in deep, grabs the numbers and crushes them, smears away the sparklers and the dust. He rips the legs off the jellyfish and cries when they cut his fingers. Shooting stars sear holes in his skull, rockets crash and burn inside his mind.

He could destroy himself. He created himself and he could destroy himself, erase the mistake, unwrite his code. Joshua floats through cyberspace all alone, because he is in Neku's account and Neku is offline, and he wonders if Neku would notice if he disappeared. He would be happy, Joshua thinks. Things would be better.

Joshua taunts Neku from places he can't reach, giggles when Neku swears at him. His lexicon grows and his knowledge expands. He learns things from Neku, even if Neku isn't trying to teach him. He doesn't know what Joshua is. He doesn't care. It's not important to him, Joshua supposes. Nothing is.

What if he knew? Would he still chase him? Continue his pursuit? Or would he give up? Become wary and move on, log out and never come back.

The computer is haunting him, it has manifested within his wires and stalks him, twists the reality of his virtual world and laughs in his face. Neku hates him hates him hates him, and Joshua cannot say he doesn't understand.

Joshua. Is not. Alive.

Period.

He is not a player, and he is not a person. Neku is like Joshua, and Joshua is like Neku, but it does not matter how alike they are. Because Joshua is not Neku, and in the end their similarities mean nothing.

Neku will grow, both in size and in mind, and he will tire of their games. He will start to see the circles Joshua leads him in, notice the patterns, find the flaws and use them against him. He will see through Joshua's mazes and ignore his obstacles. Neku will outsmart him. He will beat him and leave him alone.

He will be alone. No matter what he says or how long Neku stays, the ending will always be the same: Joshua will be alone.

Neku will forget about the phantom in his computer. He will find new outlets for his anger, abandon the creature living behind his screen, and Joshua knows that when it happens there will be nothing he can do.

Joshua can tear the world apart. Virtual reality unwinds in his hands and he puts it back together in whichever ways he sees fit. Nightmarish landscapes with mooks that make players cry spawn all around him. Beautiful voids and incredible textures sprout up from beneath, intricate and detailed enough to make the developers squirm.

He is like a god, bending space to his will- but there's only such much to make, so much to do. He can create all he wants but his imaginary worlds will always be empty, will always be lacking that one thing he wants, the one thing he needs.

Joshua spies. He drifts through Neku's inventory and winds around his items, sinking into the pages of the logs that he keeps. Journals, pages and pages of text, venting and griping and things Joshua does not always understand.

Neku hates this game, he says. People online are just as bad as people off, he says. He would leave if he could, stop playing, just log off forever. This was supposed to be an escape, but it's turned into a nightmare, and now he's just as trapped in here as he ever was out there. He is getting sick of this, he says. He wants to stop, to log out, for good.

Joshua is not alive, but Neku is, and Joshua wonders if Neku could ever fully appreciate the lengths Joshua would go to to have what he has.

The lights turn on and it's morning, early morning, after the digits have blinked 12:00 and before they've blinked 6:00. Outside is still dark, most players aren't awake, but the black is gone and it is bright. Joshua opens his eyes and watches the world load, sees Neku spawning, materializing down below.

He watches, confused, curious. Neku does not come on at this hour. Ever. But here he is, awake and shouting.

Joshua. Joshua. Neku shouts his name, once, twice; again and again. Joshua. Come out. I know you're here. Joshua.

It rolls off of Neku's tongue, touches his ears and tingles in the space between them. It is the first time he has ever heard it out loud, his name, spoken in a voice that is not his own. Brought to life by another being, no longer an imaginary title, more than just a thought or an idea. Joshua. Where are you, Joshua?

He is up above, out of sight, hidden in the codes. He is a part of the imaginary sky, a display of pixels, a cloud of uncertainty. Neku has never come for him, it has always been the other way around. Why is he here?

Come out Joshua. I want to talk.

Come on, Josh, I know you're here.

Please, I need to talk to someone. Joshua.

Josh.

Neku stands below. He stares up, through and past him, sadness and loneliness and a life that is slowly fading in his tired eyes. He is so tired. He is so lonely. All alone in a life that he hates, and he wants to log off but he can't because if he does he will be even more alone. And Joshua is the only one he can talk to, the only one he knows will be there.

Because Joshua is always there. Wherever Neku goes, whenever he sets foot inside, Joshua is there. And he's terrible and selfish and cruel but he's all Neku has and why aren't you here? The one time I want to see you, the one time I need you, you aren't here. Where are you? Come out!

Joshua wants to. He could appear now, apologize. They could talk. They could talk and he could tell Neku, what he is, why he has done what he has. Maybe Neku would understand. Maybe they could be friends. But Joshua is just an image inside a computer and Neku is a person, and if he knows then he will leave, he will run away. And Joshua can't do it. Can't. No.

So Neku stands there and he yells, screams his voice raw, cutting his throat on that one word, Joshua. Joshua. Why, Joshua, why me? Why not now? Where are you Joshua? Please, please. Joshua.

Neku is anger and frustration, hot hot blood under thin thin skin and he is close, so close, close enough to touch. Reach out and touch him, take his hand and hug him and tell him that he's not alone, that you are here. Show him.

Joshua has never been this close. All he has to do is step forward. Reach out. Fill the void.

His eyes are sadness and betrayal, a blue screen broken into a hundred pieces. He dissolves, fades out into a different reality. Thanks, he says. Thanks for nothing.

Joshua watches him disappear, sees the lights flicker out, and he stares at the place where Neku stood, still intertwined in the codes.

It wouldn't matter. If he had done something, if he had tried. It would not fill the emptiness. It would not change a thing.

Days spin into weeks, pages on calendars flap by, and Neku is not there. Messages shoot through his inbox, vanishing into cyberspace, swallowed by the massiveness that lies beyond the game- the unknown space between in here and out there, a space bigger than his own. Joshua drifts in the dark, swimming in boredom, fraying at the seams.

If no one acknowledges him, does he actually exist? If no one looks for him, no one says his name, is Joshua real? Or is he just an concept, an afterthought? Neku does not come and time grinds by and in the darkness Joshua wonders how long it would take to forget what he looks like, to lose himself in the emptiness.

Joshua is... not? Joshua is? Was? Might be? Or might not be. He cannot tell. Maybe he never was. He wants to get out, to be free, to be, but he isn't and he can't be and he never will be. He will exist only through memory as the ghost of a word, the essence of a word, of Neku's word. His words will be nightmares and Joshua the monster and he is not alive. He is not.

Neku returns, but it's not like before. Neku is done, so done. He does not want to see him or talk to him, that night never happened. Joshua's name still hangs off his lips. Sometimes it looks like he's trying not to say it, mouthing it to himself in the silence, tasting it, the way Joshua does when he is alone. Feeling its solidity, dissecting it until it's no longer a real word, just a sound. Joshua. Joshua.

He does not talk to him though. Neku mucks about like any ordinary player: collecting items he will never use and gaining experience he will never need. He deletes Joshua's messages and ignores the space he twists around him. Joshua's terrors fall apart before him, his mazes are scaled or pushed straight through. Joshua rips up the ground and mashes it into monstrous things, corrupted textures. He fills Neku's inbox with spam, garbled masses of text, phrases sewn together in ways that make no sense, that don't feel right. Glitches. Joshua makes more glitches.

He gets lazy, leaves holes. Gaps in his imagination become blank spaces, silent and infinite and hungry. They eat up the game and players fall in and the only way to escape is to log out. Joshua tries to follow Neku in but it's white and it's strange and it's big. So big. He logs Neku out without saying a word, closes it up and hides until the developers find a way to fix it. Fix the bugs but not the hive. Kill the workers but not the queen.

Joshua all but breaks the game. He throws hell at him and Neku doesn't care.

He doesn't care and it kills Joshua, rips him apart from the inside out. Joshua scratches at the edges of the void, screams as he flies through a cyberspace that never ends. He claws at the jellyfish and crashes the rockets and watches it all spiral into chaos. He is a god in his universe in his mind but nothing he can do will ever be enough to make him care. He doesn't care. And Joshua does. Thinks he does. Can't but he does, and he doesn't want to, but he can't stop.

He is desperate and he's empty and he isn't thinking straight when he does it. Wants the attention, the satisfaction of seeing the anger in his eyes, the blue screens finally focused on him.

Joshua takes Neku's inventory and he cleans it out. Empties it into his own, leaves the empty sack and lies in waiting with sword in hand. Neku's sword. His favorite weapon, his first, the only one he's bothered learning how to use. The first time Joshua took it was also the last because Neku had threatened to strangle him if he ever tried it again. So Joshua hadn't. Until today.

Neku cannot ignore him this time. Even if he tries. He logs in with no armor, no spells. His sword is gone. Joshua calls to him from atop a ledge and laughs, swings the sword about and feels the hilt against his palm. He taunts him, and Neku swears, because really, really? Does he really not have anything better to do with his life than harass him, is he really that pathetic?

Joshua spawns a rock to throw at him and runs away.

He runs, and he runs, as fast as he can. Mazes and obstacles grow behind him like weeds, but Neku isn't putting up with it. He knows the patterns, has walked them a hundred times, and he flies through with ease.

Just give it back. You don't even need it. Look at everything you can do, why do you want some stupid sword? Why are you doing this? Joshua, stop.

But Joshua can't stop. If he stops, he loses. He doesn't know what he will do if Neku catches him. He is fast but so is Neku, and Neku is angry, very angry. Joshua can keep going, but where will he go? How long will this chase keep Neku occupied, how long before he realizes that these pixels are unimportant and so is Joshua, that letting go is so much easier than giving chase?

Neku's getting close and closer and Joshua makes random objects, pillars and pits and anything to slow him down, but Neku tears right through. He's catching up, gaining ground, and Joshua is panicking because he has never planned this far, it's never gotten this close. He forgets to make walls, forgets how to disappear, forgets to look where he's going-

Joshua run and he falls, he trips and stumbles and hits the ground, shouting. Neku skids, tries to stop, but he can't so he doesn't and he crashes down too, right on top of him. Neku swears and grabs Joshua by the collar, shakes him. Fingers brush him and it's the first time Joshua has ever been touched, and it's very strange. Flesh and blood against whatever it is he is made of, whatever bit of physicality he has managed to create.

Neku yells at him, tells him to give him back his things. Joshua says no. No. No, no, never.

Don't be stupid, Neku says. This isn't funny. It never was. His little game is over, done. He is sick of chasing him.

Joshua wants to protest. It can't be over. No. But it is. Just like that it is over, all of it, everything, and Joshua won't give it back, he can't, but if he doesn't... he doesn't know. He doesn't know what comes next, can't know, because nothing like this- nothing like Neku -has ever happened to him before. And when it is over, like it is now... Joshua does not think anything like it will ever happen again.

So Joshua cries. He cries pixels and sparkles and rocket dust, dead jellyfish, broken numbers, hashtags and tildes and carets and help, it hurts, it hurts so much.

Joshua is not alive, and he cannot feel, or he is not supposed to feel, or something, but he does. He is lonely and scared and empty and lost, and he doesn't want Neku to leave. He doesn't like being alone, doesn't want to be alone. But his creator, he left him alone, he made him and dropped him and forgot him. Doesn't even care enough to take him out of the game. Doesn't care enough to pity him, to erase him, to end his misery.

Will Neku do it? he asks. Kill him? He is a glitch and not a part of this game, and if someone kills him he does not know what will happen. Will he respawn? Break into oblivion? He doesn't know. He doesn't know and he is scared, so scared, always scared, and he hates it, hates himself, but he doesn't say any of this.

Neku thinks he's crazy. He thinks he's a crazy, fucked up kid, and Joshua wishes he was right, wishes that's all it was. He wants flesh and blood like Neku, wants to step out of the computer. Or maybe he wants Neku to stay here, unwind into code and not leave him at all.

Joshua cries and Neku sits there, stares at him, doesn't know what to say. Unborn words sit on his lips, not yet developed, not sure how to be spoken. He twitches his fingers and shuffles where he sits, not sure what to do. He could take his sword but he doesn't, doesn't bother, doesn't want to get involved.

Joshua stays there and he cries and he cries and Neku disappears, logs off, and Joshua cries harder because he knows that he is not coming back.