[A/N] Thank you very much for reading.

It is my first TWEWY fanfiction! I hope it is satisfactory.

Disclaimer: I do not own The World Ends With You or any related aspects, which belong to their respective owners. No money made.

Summary: There was one way. It was murder.

Rating: T

Warnings: Dark themes, mild violence, spoilers, derpy headcanons

[TWEWY] How to Become Composer [Joshua, OC]

Joshua usurped the throne.

You didn't become Composer by inheritance or luck or some passing down of power. You weren't informed one day that you were the "chosen one," and whisked away to the UG to rule on for some time until someone more qualified than you turned up. You didn't commit some suicide ritual with ominous Latin chanting and pentagrams and candles.

That rebel Minamimoto had known this, of course. He had known what it would take to become composer. Minamimoto had attempted what was necessary and failed.

"How are Composers chosen, anyway?" Neku had asked once.

blood tears falling falling sudden impact crunch smash bones snapping screams screams silence

Joshua had smiled. "They're not."

There was one way. It was murder.

The last one had been a woman. She'd been woman-shaped creature of light and glass fragility and diamond might.

And Joshua had been a teenager with a gifted mind, an untouched bottle of attention-deficit disorder medication, and an epiphany.

Things all clicked into place one day. The monsters he saw -when he didn't take his meds- that couldn't touch him but seemed to be perpetually chasing something were real.

His parents were idiots who didn't know how to raise a child who had more perception for the world than any normal person, and also couldn't cope with the eccentric behavior of their only son without the help of little blue pills. Administered to both parties in liberal amounts.

And most importantly, there was something about the white-haired woman who went into WildKat day in and day out when the sign said "CLOSED" and the door was, to anyone else, locked.

Neku had looked at him strangely, which wasn't rare, and asked him, "What do you know, Josh? And just how much do you know?"

Hanekoma was his father.

Not literally, but he might as well have been. When Joshua saw people disappear, or noticed how some shops with the skull marking catered to certain customers who seemed invisible anywhere else, he'd go to Hanekoma.

The first and only time he'd told his parents was the first of many times he'd been taken to a child psychiatrist.

So it was a casual question when Joshua asked, "Who is she?"

And a casual answer when Hanekoma looked at him, nodded, and went back to grinding coffee. "I think I know you better than to ask you to clarify, Josh, but forgive me if I turn out to be wrong.

"First of all, the young miss with the white hair who always comes after hours is not my secret girlfriend. I have no time for any such things of the sort, so get that out of your head."

Joshua smiled and laid his head down on his folded arms, next to a steaming cup of coffee. "Oh, get on with it, Sanae."

"That woman is a very talented musician to whom I owe a lot of my own success, okay? She comes in to talk and share her work with me. I'm technically under her employment right now actually. Not to mention that the café belongs to her."

"You're joking."

"Actually no. She owns quite a lot of land, that woman." Hanekoma smiled softly, chuckling as though he'd said something witty. Joshua raised a thin silver brow at him.

The barista cleared his throat. "Well, she's a good woman. She's got everyone's best interests at heart but her own. Poor thing works all day and all night."

"Except when she's in here," Joshua stated.

"Nope," Hanekoma grabbed a package of french roast coffee beans and tore it open with grace, the beans falling into the coffee grinder like rain. "Even then. I'm part of her work too. She's always working. Married to the job- nah, more like chained to it," he amended.

"What does she play?"

"Hmm?"

"You said she was a musician," Joshua said, in a tone that would have been testy to anyone else but simply curious as directed to Hanekoma. "What instrument does she play?"

Hanekoma smiled again, this time a mischievous sort of grin.

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Rational thinking wasn't exactly the most common trait of a composer, which somewhat qualified Minamimoto for the job, not that Joshua would ever say that to the math fetishist's face.

And it was a lack of rational thinking that for the most part got him where he was today.

"It seems like quite the fulfilling job," he'd replied, and chuckled.

Neku ignored him.

She'd been a woman- a woman-shaped being of subtle beauty and white eyes and hair.

"Do you dye it?"

Hanekoma had scowled. "Manners, Josh."

But the woman hadn't minded. She seemed expectant, a little as though nothing could surprise her anymore. "Bleached."

Joshua motioned to his eyes. "And these?"

"Contacts. I'm trying to start a trend."

"It isn't working~" Joshua said in a playful, amused voice.

"Give it time."

"What instrument do you play?" Joshua asked, genuinely curious.

The white-haired woman smiled wistfully.

"I play them all."

You didn't become Composer by dying- no, a Composer was in a state in between life and death.

That didn't mean a Composer couldn't die. It was possible. Joshua didn't know if a Composer could be brought to life again, but a Composer could certainly die- or be killed- and this he knew as fact.

He'd mentioned this on a whim, once, sitting on his throne in the Room of Reckoning, and in the dim light his Conductor- ah, Megumi, ever loyal, ever faithful, stalwart at his side- had replied solemnly, "I will do everything in my power to prevent your death, sir."

Oh, Megumi. His Conductor was so precious.

She'd never had anyone like him. Joshua wasn't even sure if she'd had a Conductor.

She seemed like the type who would trust no one.

"Unless I wish it." His voice echoed off of the walls and resonated powerfully, almost ethereally.

"Sir?"

"If I someday wish to embrace death, you will not interfere, Megumi."

His Conductor's face went through a millisecond of conflicted emotions before returning to completely blank beneath his black hair and sunglasses. Joshua, omniscient, counted shock, sadness, fear, and- ah, interesting- wistful longing among them.

In a strange, unfamiliar pang of... something, Joshua almost wished he was alive again.

"Yes, sir."

She seemed like the type who would trust no one, but actually, it seemed to Joshua that she had trusted Hanekoma.

The day before her murder at Joshua's hands she burst into WildKat with urgency- it was the first time Joshua had seen her in a state of disarray, and he had seen her several times.

Each time was the same. Since he had first met her, she'd seemed to come at exactly the same times when he was at the cafe. She never ordered, but always paid for his drink, then shared a few words with Hanekoma, then answered Joshua's extensive questions about her life in the most vague- yet laconic- ways possible.

But on this day something changed.

"I need something, Sanae," she said as she swept into the room in front of the counter, as though the door and tables in her way did not even exist. "Hello, Joshua," she continued hastily, without looking at him.

Hanekoma seemed surprised, Joshua noticed. "Anything, miss," he said, his usual carefree tone gone.

She handed him a crisp piece of paper, folded in half. The lettering on the inside half, which Joshua caught only a glimpse of, was handwritten in neat cursive. The ink was a rich shade of blue.

By the time Joshua had finished his brief observations she had already left, somehow.

Hanekoma looked tired, then told Joshua, "I'm closing shop for today. There's something I have to do."

Joshua left without comment.

He really hated getting his hands dirty. In that aspect, perhaps Minamimoto had an edge on him. That man really had no qualms whatsoever about playing dirty.

But then again.

Hadn't he done the dirtiest thing possible to become what he was now?

intake of breath step push don't look close your eyes shaky hands blood tears

The day Joshua murdered her he said to her, "It caught on."

She looked at him wistfully.

"The hair. The contact lenses. Even eyebrow coloring. The girls in my neighborhood are fussing all over the 'pure white' look. I commend you."

"I knew what you were referring to."

Joshua looked at her as though for the first time. They were inside WildKat as always, as though they could only exist together at the same time in that small coffee shop. But she kept glancing towards the door.

"Sanae is out," she observed.

"Restocking something or other," Joshua said mildly.

"There's something I need to show you." She moved like a ghost, her steps barely audible against the tile floor. She opened the door for him, an unreadable look on her face.

He followed her out.

"Trends." She said, as she walked briskly through Miyashita Park. In the underpass, Joshua noticed two college-age girls laughing and rushing past, with matching bleached hair and nails polished white.

"You've succeeded in setting one. I acknowledged that."

She didn't even push past the crowds of people as they passed though Cadoi City and the Scramble Crossing. It seemed as though everyone else made a path for her. Joshua marveled at this.

"Do you understand the nature of trends? They begin in a blaze of energy and passion and inspiration. But they start to lose their color. When their time is up, or sometimes because their time is up, a new trend emerges, and the cycle begins again," she said hastily, cryptically, as she veered past 104 and went to Dogenzaka.

"Sounds like life."

She nodded. "I knew you were the one."

"Beg pardon?"

She stopped in front of Pork City.

"Come."

There were some hooded men in front of the building and at the doorway, but they said nothing as the two of them passed by and entered the giant elevator. Joshua noticed that she hadn't pressed any of the buttons on the elevator's inner panel, yet it began to move as the doors slid shut.

For some reason this thrilled him.

They reached the top floor.

"Are you sure you didn't love her, Sanae~?" he had once asked in a playful, mocking sort of tone.

The Producer had grimaced in response. "The miss with the white hair-"

"My predecessor," Joshua corrected firmly.

"-she was not my girlfriend."

"Not my question, Sanae."

Hanekoma had sighed. "Josh, that woman was all of Shibuya. She loved all of Shibuya. And Shibuya loved her back. And I'm nothing if not part of Shibuya. Do you get it?"

The logical question that followed in Joshua's mind was asked tentatively.

"So do you love me?"

Hanekoma had smiled, touched Joshua's shoulder lightly.

"Or do you hate me, for killing her?"

The smile had faded then, and nothing took its place except a look of contemplation. The grip on Joshua's shoulder shook.

"Things are never as simple as that."

On the rooftop of Pork City, overlooking all of Shibuya, the first thing Joshua saw was Hanekoma.

"What are you doing here?"

"Now that you're here? Leaving." The artist-barista grinned as he went past them and into the elevator. "It's done!" he called out as the doors began to roll shut.

"What's done?" Joshua turned. When he turned back she was at the railing, staring down at the streets below.

"The trend. It's over."

"That's not done," Joshua said, "it's only just begun."

"No, it's a delayed reaction. In reality, these are just remnants. My trend is over." She seemed neutral about the matter, almost resigned.

"That's-" he was going to say different, but she interrupted him.

"It wasn't catching on because I lacked the imagination. But meeting you- it was too much. You don't understand, but you have too much. It can't be contained in such a basic form. I'm a bit jealous. I wasn't like you. I didn't have much at all when I started. I had to earn it."

"Earn what?"

"Imagination."

The white-haired woman pushed herself onto the railing, something that Joshua had never seen an adult do, and sat there tentatively.

"I'm going to turn my back to you now."

She did.

Joshua found himself taking light steps closer to her without understanding why.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I want what is best for this city. I am no longer the best for this city. You can't-" her breath suddenly caught in her throat. "-you can't do what I did. Don't make my mistakes. You can't play all the instruments like me."

She turned her head to the sky, her eyes blank.

"If you insist on playing all the instruments, you'll never have the time to write the music."

Joshua usurped the throne.

You didn't become Composer by standing still and crossing your fingers, and it wasn't the sort of thing that anyone in their right mind would want to take on.

Too much stress, Joshua had concluded when he threw himself in front of Neku and faced the light of Minamimoto's Level i Flare with a smirk and a few choice parting words.

Well, it was all part of the job, wasn't it?

He'd understood a simple fact that day that compelled him to reach out and push the white-haired woman off of the railing and down to the streets below.

The push didn't play out in slow motion as he'd somewhat expected she would. Rather, in the space of time between his hand meeting the small of her back and her thighs losing contact with the metal of the railing, Joshua had already squeezed his eyes shut.

By the time he'd opened them she was gone and he could hear a shattering of glass, then a car alarm resounding distantly. She'd landed on a parked car and rolled to the pavement. A woman below was screaming. Dogs barked. Suddenly Joshua heard everything, a massive cacophony of sounds that flooded his senses. He clutched at his head in pain to try and dull the noises.

A confused mortician would later report to his superiors that her death was caused not by the impact but by something unknown. There was no funeral and the body was somehow lost.

Joshua had understood a simple fact.

He'd rather liked her.

"You can't read my mind, Josh, so you should stop trying."

"Stupid Angels."

"You can just ask, you know. That's usually what I do."

"Will you answer me, even if I do?"

"Depends."

"It's a yes/no question."

"Alright."

"You promise?"

"Sure. Why not."

"Did she tell you to do it?"

"Do what?"

"...The note she gave you before I killed her."

"What about it, Josh?"

"Did she tell you to imprint on me to push?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry you had to do that."

Hanekoma had run his fingers down the armrest of Joshua's throne then, trying to keep his fingertips perfectly parallel the skin of Joshua's arm as he did.

"Just continue to take care of my city, okay?"

When he woke up the next morning he felt as though he weighed nothing.

Every white-haired girl outside his window was her and that unnerved him to no end.

But eventually the trend faded and the "pure white" look was so yesteryear.

Joshua had been a teenage boy with a powerful imagination, an uncomfortable family life, and a perception of the world around him far greater than any normal person's.

Now he was the Composer of Shibuya.

"Attention! Brain-dead binomials! The new Composer of Shibuya... is me!"

Joshua had shook his head from his comfortable seat in a lounge chair in Dead God's Pad. He'd taken a sip from his glass of sparkling water. He'd thrown the glass over his shoulder and ignored the crash-

glass shattering

-grabbed his phone off the coffee table with a grin-

"Minamimoto Sho."

"I'm back for that iteration, radian. Behold! The taboo power compiled into a simple formula- ME!"

-flipped his phone open-

It was only in this part of the UG, suspended between one world and the next, by the Styx of Shibuya, that Joshua's phone display had a background.

The last one had been a woman.

She was a woman of quiet elegance and resolute purity.

Fragile as glass

Joshua had felt the tingle of telekinetic power as he conjured a heavy vending machine among other objects above Minamimoto's approaching figure.

but strong as diamond.

"Tell me, Minamimoto-kun. What do you know about trends?"

glass shattering