“ Wha – ” Going up and treading air had been one feeling but it was an entirely different one being transported in an arc back down toward earth. He presses his face into the available cloth of Joshua’s shirt and clinging to him as if he is a scared child. He is not experiencing fear but the effects of a human body being whipped about like a doll in the air. Internally, he damned this strange combination of forces for not giving him the form and resilience he had in the UG.
But damn, if he wasn’t going to miss seeing those wings one last time before they landed and Joshua put them away. Who knew if he was going to get a chance to see them again. Tilting his head up, it was mostly Joshua’s face and the white wings in his vision. Strange, how those things made him feel – it made him feel even more human than he already did, in the worst damn way possible as thoughts begin crashing down on Neku.
What am I supposed to do if I don’t have my powers. I can’t just leave this all on him.
Thankfully, they are on the ground again within a few seconds and those wings that keep drawing his attention (no matter the utterly mixed feelings they gave him) are folded away in a plume of feathers. Surprisingly, Joshua shows signs of ware and Neku hurries forward with his arms out to catch him if need be.
“ Yeah, seriously… ” He bites his bottom lip, knowing that he and Joshua needed to discuss his current uselessness in all of this, “ Listen, Josh… I can’t– ”
A sound rings out from behind him, one which turns his stomach and activates a response in his head to MOVE – DUCK – NOT AGAIN – NOT AGAIN. His breath is a struggling whisper, but he feels nothing in his lower abandonment and chest. Not another bullet through his body – not another death that leaves him turned up on the pavement in a pool of his own warm blood.
Neku turns his head to look over his toward the alley behind them ( right under that Grim Reaper art, how dramatic ) it is himself and Joshua at fifteen, his body pushed back toward to the ground by the force of a gunshot and Joshua standing before him with the smoking gun pointed out where he had once been sitting up.
It plays like a hologram, the two images translucent enough to still see the alley behind them, like someone had filmed the whole incident from behind and chose to sickly play it for the two of them.
“ H-Hey… ” Neku is fully turned the incident, unable to look away when the young Joshua fist bumps the air now that his goal was complete, “ W-What the fuck is this. ”
Neku’s grip on him is a welcome one / for once / Josh’s fingers grabbing at his forearm, head keening into his chest to try and alleviate the pain with the pressure, face buried by soft blond locks. But before he can thank him or say something about it, the crack makes him wince, eliciting a similar response from Joshua, his head snapping up, arms and wings shooting up to protect, brilliant white on both sides extending out and out and out and his head is KILLING him. Spare sigil-riddled feathers fall on either side of them.
And even the pain is forgotten upon seeing this scene play out in front of them. “...What...” Other-Joshua turns and smiles at them or maybe at the mural behind them, the blood underneath Neku pooling crimson and extending until it lapped at the side of the mural -- then, oddly, keeps MOVING, becoming lengthy vines of red beginning to sap away at Hanekoma’s artwork, staining the entire wall red and red and more red. Every warning bell in Joshua’s mind is sounding off and screaming RUN, but this is so unprecedented that even he is rendered agape, unable to do much else than stare, his grip on Neku’s arms tightening. “I...I don’t know. I--,”
Other-Joshua keeps acting out that day. Behind him, Other-Neku’s corpse keeps bleeding out far too much blood than any human should have, his blood seeming to corrupt Shibuya itself. Hanekoma’s mural begins to crumble around the mirage. Joshua stops watching, skull returning to Neku’s sternum. His head is pounding but the guilt is WORSE.
“Do something,” he half-begs, not wanting to see this play out anymore / wasn’t once enough / wasn’t him deciding not to Erase Shibuya apology enough / the vice-grip on his head becomes acidic. “I’m veritably useless right now, so--” He feels oddly human right now, with his head turned away from the macabre nature of it all, still refusing to let go of Neku’s arms. DON’T MAKE ME SAY PLEASE. please.