The AfterGame: Chapter 1

Dead, for the second time in my life.

Hey guys!!! So this is my new fic, still pretty P.O.'d about my lack of ability to create a halfway-decent name for my fiction. Sorry but I might not be updating every day. I'll try my best but that daily deadline was ultimately the reason I stopped my previous fic. About halfway through it, I grew a life (Hey, who woulda guessed??) First, a Shout-out to GuyInBlack. Reading your fic is what motivated me to start this new one. Thanks for the support, man! Also, thanks to the 2000+ hits I got for my first fic (W00T!!!!) I hope you guys like my fic!

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Yoshiya 'Joshua' Kiryu stood on top of 104, enjoying his ability as the Composer to go unnoticed. He looked over his city and sighed. All right, Neku, Shiki, I hope you're ready…

Neku's room…

I lay back onto my bed, frustrated after another long day. Life was even more complicated than before. Sure, I had friends now, but they added even more confusion than they took away. Especially a certain girl. Shiki… When I first met her, I wasn't ready for human contact. Other people only caused pain for me, so it was hard for me to 'trust my partner'. Then, Shiki practically used the jackhammer of her joy and happy-peppy peppyness to smash half of my emotional barriers. Then, of course, she just had to reverse the role, finally opening up to me instead of the other way around. Oh, god. If that didn't get me to open my heart, nothing would. So I did, finally letting into the recesses of my consciousness.

That was probably the worst mistake of my life.

Because I was selfish enough to push my blame onto her, she became my entry fee, and I trapped he in Hell for an extra 2 weeks as I battled for both my life and hers.

Then, at the end of the third week, she came back, and found out. Probably the worst possible time, too. We're prepping for the battle that would ultimately decide the fate of Shibuya, BAM!!! Unnecessary complications. And yet… Just knowing that she knew that I held her closest to my heart than anything else in existence sent butterflies free in my stomach. Butterflies attached to miniature sticks of dynamite that would explode after short notice at the worst possible times.

This is poetry, people. POETRY!!!

When I was waiting that fateful day at Hachiko, I was only seeking one thing. My friends. Shibuya? Screw Shibuya. All I wanted, all I needed, was to see my friends in the real world, to be able to look at myself in a mirror and not think what a useless waste of space I was, because I knew in my heart that there were real people that actually cared about me, the real me.

And then I saw Shiki's face.

Honestly, I was blown away by how Kawaii she looked. Her light face, slightly pale due to her many hours spent indoors sewing, had a faint blush, lightly dusting her cheeks in red. Her short brown hair, looking extremely natural, unlike Eri's, hid part of her wide-rimmed glasses, which accented her eyes. Her eyes. That was what got me in the end. I could see Shiki in those eyes. I could see everything about her from those eyes, the shadows of guilt and jealousy, the shine of new hope, and the fear of not being recognized. To be honest, she rocked my world.

And I could feel that she liked me back. Every time she looked at me, her eyes sparkled, and I felt her energy, her aura, emanating from her.

But nothing happened.

Neither of us made a move, and I began to wonder if I was misreading the signs, and she didn't like me after all. We began to grow slightly apart, to my resentment. It got to the point of total awkwardness, where I didn't know how to talk around her, and we stopped talking to each other. It was only because that we were already in a group of people (dubbed by Beat as a 'Gang') that we were together at all. Beat, Rhyme, and Eri were the only ones that kept us together.

Which drove me INSANE. (A/N: Thank you, Kisdota, for inventing this word)

The fact that every moment I think, right now I could be with Shiki, but I'm NOT. made me want to steal the Grim Heaper's Megaphone, climb to the top of his tallest trash heap, and shout expletives for the whole of Shibuya to hear. The sheer frustration of it was picking away at my mind, affecting me way more than I thought possible. The feeling stated out small, but it grew into the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, for the longest time. And for me, that's really saying something.

The others sensed our discomfort, they tried to bridge the gap between us, but only succeeded in creating awkward enough situations to make us even more separate. Even Beat began to wonder what had happened to us, and it must have been pretty obvious for him to figure it out. My parents, who had never really cared what happened to me, essentially just went on as usual, leaving me and my problems to work ourselves out.

Even so, I still retained an ounce of will to live. Because I knew that Shiki and I would probably eventually find ourselves together. We needed a miracle. I wasn't keen on dying at all until I was with Shiki.

Which is why I was pretty pissed when Joshua materialized into my room pointing a gun at my head.

I stared at him, frozen in place. Move , Neku! MOVE!!!!

Joshua slowly cocked his gun, eyeing me with satisfaction. "Goodbye, Neku."

BANG!

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And that's it! I hope you guys found this okay, please give me constructive criticism. I NEED it. I'm already aware that my characters are really OOC, but making a decent romance fic with Neku's personality requires a level of finesse that I have not yet acquired. So anyways, R&R as always!!!