Warnings : Swearing and death themes (duh). There might be shounen-ai of the Josh/Neku variety coming - like, WAY later - because I'm a stupid fangirl, but I kind of want to keep as strictly canon as I can, just because. Also, gonna have outright spoilers for the WHOLE FRIGGIN' GAME.

Notes : This doesn't have much of a point, actually, because, well. But the idea bit me and I'm ridiculously proud of how I'm managing with it so far. My writing style for this just may have gotten terribly rambling instead of the stream-of-consciousness thing I was aiming at, though.

(OPENING)

There's a new feature in Neku's phone.

Now that's hardly the most surprising new thing in his life ever since his death (even when you're just taking his latest death from one week ago into account), but the button has got some bastard's smirking face on it and it's like a punch in his guts every time he flips his phone open, and it's kind of distracting.

His only intent is to change the picture when he selects it, but the menu is cryptic if anything and he has no idea what any of those weird buttons do.

He can hear Beat's voice again, loud and clear : Yo, you show me a button, and I wanna push it. Aight ? And nothing had actually combusted or exploded or turned into a giant wolf Noise, not at that time anyway.

Neku shrugs and presses the first large white rectangle, top left.

After all, what's the worst that can happen ?

o

As it turns out : a lot.

o

His head is pounding.

That's the first thing he notices. The second is that he's sprawled on the concrete in the fucking, middle, of the Scramble Crossing, again.

He is himself amazed that he manages to refrain the urge to slam his head down on the concrete ground. He pushes to his feet, a lump that could very well be his sick heart in his throat, his head spinning, his hands and knees scraped. He tries to dust his shorts and notices his Player Pin is nestled in his palm. He flips it up, automatically, before remembering that it's been a week since he last had it.

The scraps of thoughts that immediately assault his mind are strangely intense, and even though really he should have expected it and he's barely had the time to forget what it felt like to hear voices in his head for three weeks, he still feels the need to throw up. He bends over, his stomach twisting and something in his chest aching, licks his dry lips and waits to ride out the wave of nausea.

He's barely starting to feel better when his phones beeps in his pocket and his whole body freezes. Then he chuckles to himself, nervously, pretending that he finds it ridiculous that even a week out of the Game he still gets a mild panic attack everytime he gets a text message.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and glances at the screen.

If he felt cold when he heard the mail signal, this is a fucking iced bucket dropped down on him. Litres of freezing water poured down on him.

Reach 104.
You have 60 minutes.
Fail, and face erasure.
— The Reapers

He wants to scream. His lips stay shut tight, only letting out a surprised "oww !" when the timer - the timer, three seconds lost already and he just can't bring himself to move - appears on his hand, a sharp, throbbing pain in his palm that's really nothing in the face of all he's been through already, but what it means makes it worse than anything.

He's back in the Game.

He's back in the Game, oh God no anything but this don't you have ANYTHING ELSE to do than make my life hell.

He's not even surprised when the Noise frogs appear, and he doesn't even think to check his pockets for pins because he remembers, quite clearly, taking them all out and locking them away in a drawer because there was no reason whatsoever that he'd ever need them again.

It's raw instinct, raw fear. He turns on his heels and

runs.

(TWISTER)