Anything that's Ordinary

Joshua, a boy wearing the typical Japanese high school uniform and had (insert a suitable description for him here because really, who doesn't know what he looks like?) was lying down on his front, face resting on the palm of his right hand which was propped up on the elbow and legs swinging up and down alternatively. "I'm bored. Entertain me."

The resident of the house, of which Joshua was lying on the floor of, spun around on his chair away from his desk to face the boy. "No one asked you to be here."

The bored boy pointed upwards with his left hand. "You're mistaken, Neku. It seems that the writer of this story has chosen to place me in a boring setting like this."

"Writer-? Joshua, breaking the fourth wall is not only overused, but it's kind of lame."

"You're doing it right now," he pointed out. Ah, sometimes Neku could be a little hypocritical. He could plainly tell that Neku was bored out of his mind too, which was silly because after starring in the events of The Reaper's Game one would think he would appreciate being a normal protagonist in a normal fanfiction about normal boys doing normal things and living a normal high school life which included eating normal food and having normal fights and using phones for normal purposes and -

"We geddit already! This normal thing is getting stale, yo." Oh right. Beat was sitting next to him and was playing a video game on his PS3D-Box. Joshua had just forgotten to mention this because he thought Beat was unimportant that way. "I can hear your freakin' book-speaking, Priss." ...He did indeed have his narrative switched on to loudspeaker.

Neku looked up out of the fanfiction. "It doesn't even make sense that he has the narrative. I'm the main character. And besides, who wants to read a stupid fanfic that's about totally normal things?"

Something mysteriously fell onto Neku's head, making the silly boy yelp and clutch it in pain. "The hell was that?" He stared at the thing that was really too horrible to mention and felt sick. Beat backed away from the unmentionable, though he didn't lift his eyes from the game screen.

"Disgusting," said Joshua, though he was smirking at Neku's expression. "This is why you shouldn't question the writer."

"Alright, alright, I give," Neku muttered.

"..."

"..."

Completely ignoring what Joshua had last said, Beat asked, "So why are we here, again?"

Joshua twirled a strand of his hair and then looked up to the readers.

"The writer does not own The World Ends With You."

"..."

"You mean this whole thing was a disclaimer?!"

xxxxx

Hey! Hey!

This world has too much to do.

No! No!

We can't do everything but,

Go! Go!

All things fun are okay and

Anything that's ordinary too.

Neku threw the notebook at Joshua's head.

"That's the most generic opening song you could come up with. 'I'm a gifted composer', yeah right!"

xxxxx

Anything that's Sick

Neku Sakuraba had a normal flu on this particularly normal day. And so, as would be normal, he visited a doctor and was allowed to stay at home in bed.

The thing was, he had ordinary parents, meaning that they had to go to their respective ordinary jobs. Unfortunately, they probably forgot to leave him anything for lunch.

He had been sleeping right until now. It was four thirty...he missed his usual lunch time but maybe he could muster enough energy to go to the convenience store. Although, that would require getting out of bed and putting a shirt on and -

Bang! "Yo, Neku. Me an' Josh are here with your food." It was good to have friends.

The two strolled into his room like they did almost every day. Sometimes Neku liked to joke and say 'welcome home', since they practically lived here.

"Joshua...Beat..." His mouth turned upwards in appreciation.

The former scrunched up his nose. "Please remove that extremely happy smile on your face. I'm not used to it and it's irritating me."

"Shut it, Joshua," he said, scowling.

Joshua gave him a smug smile."That's better."

Beat dumped two plastic bags onto his bed and Neku sat up. "Thanks guys. You're the best-"

He stopped short, eyes widening.

"What's up, Neku?" asked Beat. Joshua peered over to look inside the bags.

"Empty," Neku and Joshua said in unison, though Joshua with amusement and Neku with annoyance.

They both looked at Beat, who rubbed the back of his head. "I guess I must've eaten more than I thought I did."

The sick boy wanted to yell at Beat but he was sick, so he told himself to save his energy.

"Luckily for you," said Joshua. "I have amazing culinary skills and will personally cook you a meal."

The laughter was immediate. "You can't cook, Priss. You a rich kid. "

"What Beat s-said," Neku chortled. The very idea of Joshua cooking was just too damn funny.

The platinum-blond haired boy was not affected by them and simply smirked. "Don't quite believe me? Predictable. I suppose I'll just have to prove you wrong."

Neku and Beat were too busy laughing to stop Joshua from leaving the room. That was, until they heard a very distinct crash that seemed to come from the kitchen.

Whatever colour laughing had given Neku's face drained away instantly. "He's not actually using the kitchen, is he?"

He exchanged a look with Beat.

"Imma go stop Josh!" Beat shouted as he ran out of Neku's room.

"Don't let him destroy it!" Neku had a bad feeling about this.

Joshua was known to outwardly brush off insults but then take revenge eventually, when you were least expecting it. If someone insulted his hair, they might find themselves bald; if they insulted his clothes, all of their clothes would be dyed neon yellow; if a boy called him a girl...oh, he simply got kicked in between the legs. What was scary was that Joshua never got blamed for any of his tricks. Ever.

It was starting to worry Neku that Beat hadn't returned with Joshua yet. Joshua was agile, but Beat was definitely stronger than him, and could even easily pick him up. Considering the size of his kitchen, he didn't think Joshua would have been able to escape from Beat.

There was another loud crash.

What the hell was going on in there?

Before Neku could wonder further, his door opened and both Joshua and Beat walked into his room. Joshua was holding a bowl of what looked like rice and curry.

"It's done," declared Joshua, holding out the bowl.

Neku eyed it suspiciously. So it turned out Joshua was cooking, but Neku didn't know why he made so much of a racket. He raised an eyebrow at Beat, asking him for an opinion.

"I never seen his way of cookin' before," he nodded towards Joshua, "but it tastes good."

If Beat said it tasted good, then it must taste good. Deciding to trust his friends, he picked up the chopsticks on the bowl and took a bite.

"..."

"..."

"It's good," he admitted.

"What else did you expect?" Joshua let out his signature giggle. "Of course it's good. I'm just that amazing."

"Yeah, yeah, you're amazing." Despite how much Joshua loved himself, Neku did appreciate the -

"AHHHHGGGHHHH!" Neku let out an agonised scream. His tongue felt like it was on fire. No, it wasn't only his mouth - it was as if his whole face was burning up. There was no question of who caused this. "JOSHUAA!"

To hell with being sick. He tackled Joshua, fully intending to wring his neck. Joshua fell backwards onto Beat who in turn lost his footing, causing all of them to collapse onto the floor on top of each other.

"Get off me!" Beat roared.

"Once - hah - I've killed - hah- this bastard!" Neku panted; by the way his tongue was burning, he wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly breathed out fire.

The door swung open and an unmistakeably female voice spoke. "Neku! I heard you were sick and I've brought some food in case you were hungry -"

The brunette, bespectacled girl blinked when she saw the tangle of three on the floor. "I'll...just leave it here." She placed the bag beside the door, shot them one more puzzled look and left the building.

"...Yo, why did Shiki give us that look?" Beat wondered out loud.

Joshua looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Well, it may have something to do with the position we're in. And the fact Neku's panting and shirtless at the same time."

When Beat finally understood the implications of what Joshua had said, Neku had already managed to strangle Joshua to the point of him passing out.

It would surprise many to think that this kind of incident was considered 'normal' by the three teenagers,

xxxxx

"Hello! My name is Rhyme. I'll be delivering today's 'author's note'." She was standing in front of a pull-down screen that read 'Anything that's Ordinary Episode 1' in graffiti writing. She gave the readers a short bow and proceeded to unfold a scrap of paper.

"The writer would like to say that this fanfiction was written on a whim in the early hours of the morning, specifically at six," She squinted at the messy scrawl of written words, "sorry, at five thirty in the morning. Apparently the writer woke up and didn't feel like going back to sleep."

She drew the note closer to her eyes. "This fanfic is not to be taken too seriously and if there are any mistakes, the writer apologises. Also, she would like to say that she wrote this all in one go, so her usual amount of planning was absent."

Rhyme looked thoughtful. "That's strange; I thought the writer never planned her fanfics."

"How come nothing fell on her head?" A voice sounding like Neku's could faintly be heard from behind the screen.

"Oh! There's a line saying that Rhyme is too cute to throw things at," she said with a wide smile. "I didn't see that one there before.

Ignoring 'The Rules', Neku walked around the screen so he was visible to the readers. "This was totally ripped off from an anime. It's called 'Daily Lives of High school Boys' and it's a thousand times funnier than this."

"Putting aside you just admitting that you watch anime in your spare time," said Joshua, also coming into sight, "it was not completely ripped off, though the walking-in-on-boys-on-top-of-each-other scenario is such an old joke." He looked upwards, giving the writer a pointed look. "You need to do better."

"Yo. Didn't the writer get inspired by that dude's fanfic? Natalie Orbit?" Beat joined the party too.

"It's Natalis Orbis," Joshua corrected. "And it's called, ' Dear Diary, Life Hates Us'." He addressed the readers. "I recommend it." His facial expression gave off the words, "- and of course anything I recommend is definitely worth reading."

Neku nodded. "Yeah it's good. Then again, anything is better than this cra-"

The writer cut off this segment before Neku could tarnish her reputation. (She really does recommend it, though.)

xxxxx

In the next episode of 'Anything that's Ordinary'...

"Beat...I think there's someone stalking you."

"No way in hell is I related to you, Priss."

"Can't you do something about her?"

"This is...the school bank account pin!"

"Neku...we're screwed, aren't we?"

Shiki cleared her throat after doing unbelievably good imitations of her peers.

"I hope that was alright...but erm, these were all fake lines, as the writer hasn't planned any future chapters and mentioned that if she ever actually updated this supposed collection, it would probably be in about two months." She shrunk back. "Or, erm...never?"

It was concluded that the writer was a very unreliable person.