(no subject)
A Rainy Afternoon
By: lazzchan
Rating: G
Spoilers for the end of the game.
Summary/Notes: Well, I wanted to poke into a supposed past for Joshua… so here's my partial contribution. ^^; Might end up being longer, we'll see.
Yep, writing too much The World Ends With You lately...
It was raining the first day he saw Joshua-people were scurrying by and only a few glanced at the small café before hurrying onto other destinations. The rainy season didn't just trickle rain, it instead let down sheets of rain and wind, soaking everything in sight. People were barely staying dry under their umbrellas.
Sanae almost felt sorry for the Players in this week's Game. They still got wet and cold-they still had to do tasks and try and survive, fighting Noise and dodging Reapers in this mess. He shook his head and moved away from the window. He wasn't expecting anybody to really come in, but that didn't mean that someone wouldn't come in.
It was only a few minutes later that the bell over the door rang, signaling at least one customer - Sanae wasn't expecting the kid, carefully shaking out his umbrella outside, before wrapping it neatly and setting in the rack provided for it. Pale violet eyes looked up at him, and then flicked around the café. He was holding a satchel in one hand-sturdy and heavy by the look of it and looking much too young to be wearing the uniform of the local high school.
"Do you serve tea here?" Each word was precise and neatly spoken, expression hardly changing and Sanae nodded, pointing the kid towards a table and flipping on the light above it. "Here's a menu," Sanae raised an eyebrow, "just wave when you're ready to order."
The other nodded, setting his bag aside and pulling out a notebook, pen moving quickly over the page and as he did so, Sanae would have had to be blind to miss the bright flare of Imagination, of Soul in the child. This was someone that would go far.
He made the dragon green that he'd asked for, talked to him a little, even though the kid obviously was impatient to get back to whatever he was writing. He managed to draw his name out of him-Yoshiya-but not much else.
~
Yoshiya showed up again, explaining with a faint smile that was almost a smirk that the café was quiet with so few patrons coming to it. Sanae never saw him in the company of other children and in fact as he watched him at other times (that Soul was too important, too bright to be left alone) he seemed to hold a certain disdain for others his age.
They didn't seem to care for him, either-he heard the whispers about how strange Yoshiya was, how his appearance was unusual and he was just… weird. Bookworm was a common insult, but Yoshiya didn't seem to hear them or care. He watched everything though, observations most likely going down in his ever-lasting notebooks.
It was around the third or fourth visit that one of the Players came to the café with Yoshiya there. Sanae didn't think about it-the Players looked and acted normal within the bounds of buildings that had the decals on them.
But Yoshiya was staring at them intently, eyes narrowed and pen poised over the paper as they walked quietly to Sanae, bought a cup of coffee and asked questions in hushed tones. Yoshiya couldn't possibly hear them, but his look was intense, even as he watched them leave, eyes following their movements through the plate-glass window.
It wasn't until after Yoshiya had left that he realized that the kid had been able to see the Players outside of the shop-those strange, intense eyes of his followed their movements straight to the UG.
~
He didn't bring it up then; it could have been a fluke of some sort and wasn't something that he really should talk about. Yoshiya didn't mention it, either. It was as if the incident had never happened. Yoshiya still came at infrequent times, never a pattern to his visits. He had warmed up more around Sanae, though and he had a feeling that not even the kid's family had been able to see more of the lonely child Yoshiya really was.
He lived in his books, in the stories that he wrote-his intelligence was obvious. He should have been in junior high at his age, but he was just completing high school. As with other geniuses, he was isolated by the factor of his own intelligence-but the words he wrote, the discoveries he made-would do much to heighten the place around him. Without knowing it, Yoshiya was making his mark on the world around him.
It was around that time that Yoshiya told him that 'well, we're friends enough that you don't have to keep up with that serious formal name of mine. My father and mother call me Joshua, it would be fine for you to do the same.'
That marked how much Yoshiya-Joshua-trusted him and they only talked more over the years. He watched as he grew older and it wasn't until that the serious child turned into a serious teenager that the incident of years before was brought up again.
"Who are they, Sanae?" Yoshiya murmured, propping his cheek up with his hand, eyebrow raised. "You seem to know a great deal about them."
"What are you talking about, kid?" Sanae paused in wiping off the counter, giving Yoshiya what he hoped was a bland look. It only earned him an irritated scowl, a pale hand pushing back equally pale hair.
"Don't play games, I've waited long enough to bring it up, but I wanted to make sure I had all the facts correct first. I've figured it all out except your role in this…this Game that is going on in Shibuya." Joshua's stare was direct and that … smirk was enough for Sanae to want to shake him. He had no idea what he was getting into.
"Kid-" Sanae thought of a number of things, but pushed them aside. Joshua's Soul was as bright as ever, even more than it had been as a child. It was no wonder he could see into the UG. "How long have you known?"
"I've always been able to see ghosts," Joshua shrugged, "and as I grew older, I noticed more people as well-people with wings and creatures that … " his lips curved up, "well, it certainly took someone with imagination to create the monsters that appear here-but…" his look turned sly. "Not quite here, is it?"
Sanae gave up the pretense of wiping down the counter and gave Joshua an irritated look. "You're just too full of yourself, Josh," he muttered.
"I simply have observed, that is all," Joshua waved it off. "Apparently there is a game where… souls?" he shrugged, "they play to win their life back, all at the whim of this composer that makes the rules of a place called the Underground. There are reapers that try and… take them out, but if they survive…"
He gave a petulant frown at that. "Well, I've noticed one of these so-called Players alive again, but other than that, I haven't been able to discern more of the purpose of it. But apparently it is all for some cause-" He tilted his head at Sanae. "And you have something to do with it."
Sanae rubbed his forehead. As it he had thought before, Joshua was too smart for his own good. Joshua's next words, though, sent a chill down his spine.
"I want to meet this Composer-challenge him that I could do a better job with his Game than he ever could." Eyes brightened even as that sly smile appeared again. "It will be so much more interesting than life here, don't you think?"
By: lazzchan
Rating: G
Spoilers for the end of the game.
Summary/Notes: Well, I wanted to poke into a supposed past for Joshua… so here's my partial contribution. ^^; Might end up being longer, we'll see.
Yep, writing too much The World Ends With You lately...
It was raining the first day he saw Joshua-people were scurrying by and only a few glanced at the small café before hurrying onto other destinations. The rainy season didn't just trickle rain, it instead let down sheets of rain and wind, soaking everything in sight. People were barely staying dry under their umbrellas.
Sanae almost felt sorry for the Players in this week's Game. They still got wet and cold-they still had to do tasks and try and survive, fighting Noise and dodging Reapers in this mess. He shook his head and moved away from the window. He wasn't expecting anybody to really come in, but that didn't mean that someone wouldn't come in.
It was only a few minutes later that the bell over the door rang, signaling at least one customer - Sanae wasn't expecting the kid, carefully shaking out his umbrella outside, before wrapping it neatly and setting in the rack provided for it. Pale violet eyes looked up at him, and then flicked around the café. He was holding a satchel in one hand-sturdy and heavy by the look of it and looking much too young to be wearing the uniform of the local high school.
"Do you serve tea here?" Each word was precise and neatly spoken, expression hardly changing and Sanae nodded, pointing the kid towards a table and flipping on the light above it. "Here's a menu," Sanae raised an eyebrow, "just wave when you're ready to order."
The other nodded, setting his bag aside and pulling out a notebook, pen moving quickly over the page and as he did so, Sanae would have had to be blind to miss the bright flare of Imagination, of Soul in the child. This was someone that would go far.
He made the dragon green that he'd asked for, talked to him a little, even though the kid obviously was impatient to get back to whatever he was writing. He managed to draw his name out of him-Yoshiya-but not much else.
~
Yoshiya showed up again, explaining with a faint smile that was almost a smirk that the café was quiet with so few patrons coming to it. Sanae never saw him in the company of other children and in fact as he watched him at other times (that Soul was too important, too bright to be left alone) he seemed to hold a certain disdain for others his age.
They didn't seem to care for him, either-he heard the whispers about how strange Yoshiya was, how his appearance was unusual and he was just… weird. Bookworm was a common insult, but Yoshiya didn't seem to hear them or care. He watched everything though, observations most likely going down in his ever-lasting notebooks.
It was around the third or fourth visit that one of the Players came to the café with Yoshiya there. Sanae didn't think about it-the Players looked and acted normal within the bounds of buildings that had the decals on them.
But Yoshiya was staring at them intently, eyes narrowed and pen poised over the paper as they walked quietly to Sanae, bought a cup of coffee and asked questions in hushed tones. Yoshiya couldn't possibly hear them, but his look was intense, even as he watched them leave, eyes following their movements through the plate-glass window.
It wasn't until after Yoshiya had left that he realized that the kid had been able to see the Players outside of the shop-those strange, intense eyes of his followed their movements straight to the UG.
~
He didn't bring it up then; it could have been a fluke of some sort and wasn't something that he really should talk about. Yoshiya didn't mention it, either. It was as if the incident had never happened. Yoshiya still came at infrequent times, never a pattern to his visits. He had warmed up more around Sanae, though and he had a feeling that not even the kid's family had been able to see more of the lonely child Yoshiya really was.
He lived in his books, in the stories that he wrote-his intelligence was obvious. He should have been in junior high at his age, but he was just completing high school. As with other geniuses, he was isolated by the factor of his own intelligence-but the words he wrote, the discoveries he made-would do much to heighten the place around him. Without knowing it, Yoshiya was making his mark on the world around him.
It was around that time that Yoshiya told him that 'well, we're friends enough that you don't have to keep up with that serious formal name of mine. My father and mother call me Joshua, it would be fine for you to do the same.'
That marked how much Yoshiya-Joshua-trusted him and they only talked more over the years. He watched as he grew older and it wasn't until that the serious child turned into a serious teenager that the incident of years before was brought up again.
"Who are they, Sanae?" Yoshiya murmured, propping his cheek up with his hand, eyebrow raised. "You seem to know a great deal about them."
"What are you talking about, kid?" Sanae paused in wiping off the counter, giving Yoshiya what he hoped was a bland look. It only earned him an irritated scowl, a pale hand pushing back equally pale hair.
"Don't play games, I've waited long enough to bring it up, but I wanted to make sure I had all the facts correct first. I've figured it all out except your role in this…this Game that is going on in Shibuya." Joshua's stare was direct and that … smirk was enough for Sanae to want to shake him. He had no idea what he was getting into.
"Kid-" Sanae thought of a number of things, but pushed them aside. Joshua's Soul was as bright as ever, even more than it had been as a child. It was no wonder he could see into the UG. "How long have you known?"
"I've always been able to see ghosts," Joshua shrugged, "and as I grew older, I noticed more people as well-people with wings and creatures that … " his lips curved up, "well, it certainly took someone with imagination to create the monsters that appear here-but…" his look turned sly. "Not quite here, is it?"
Sanae gave up the pretense of wiping down the counter and gave Joshua an irritated look. "You're just too full of yourself, Josh," he muttered.
"I simply have observed, that is all," Joshua waved it off. "Apparently there is a game where… souls?" he shrugged, "they play to win their life back, all at the whim of this composer that makes the rules of a place called the Underground. There are reapers that try and… take them out, but if they survive…"
He gave a petulant frown at that. "Well, I've noticed one of these so-called Players alive again, but other than that, I haven't been able to discern more of the purpose of it. But apparently it is all for some cause-" He tilted his head at Sanae. "And you have something to do with it."
Sanae rubbed his forehead. As it he had thought before, Joshua was too smart for his own good. Joshua's next words, though, sent a chill down his spine.
"I want to meet this Composer-challenge him that I could do a better job with his Game than he ever could." Eyes brightened even as that sly smile appeared again. "It will be so much more interesting than life here, don't you think?"