#shinekujosh

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Show Appreciation

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33771730

Joshua tries to tell Shiki that she did something that an Angel could have, something hella powerful, but he does it sort of creepily. But even with that, Josh and Shiki find themselves having a pretty pleasant day with each other, as they more and more find their footing with one another.

A story where Shiki/Neku/Joshua are all in a relationship but Shiki/Josh is the focus here. Neku Sakuraba mentioned a lot.

Shiki was shopping at 104—thinking of buying some violet thread, since she could finally sew purple clothes again, without being depressed after Neku’s disappearance; she was even thinking of buying some ashen colored ones—when she ran into Joshua.

Quite literally, actually.

He was drinking an espresso, while he was in the check-out line with magazines he’d bought about the Prince’s latest fashion blunders, Shiki saw. And she’d fallen backwards into him, when she’d been going into a changing room nearby… but one of the workers had decided last minute to put up tape, so that no one could go in there, since the pandemic clearly wasn’t over and they must have decided they didn’t want people trying on clothes, after all. And since Shiki wasn’t expecting that sudden change at all, that was what had caused her to trip and fall into the Composer.

Thankfully, Joshua had the grace of—well—an angel, and didn’t spill any of his drink (actually, he have even made it disappear from existence to keep it safe), as he kept Shiki from a very nasty fall (something she was most thankful to him for), but she could tell he wasn’t exactly happy with her for colliding into him.

And Shiki sighed.

Even though she and Josh were sort of dating now (her and Neku and Josh—all three of them, actually—were a thing), she still understood this one the least. Partially because she less of him, of course.

They actually had hung-out a few times in the three weeks before Neku’s second murder (and Neku had probably been more surprised about this than anyone). And that was probably where the feelings had started.

Neku and Joshua would stay up late at some Tin Pin event—that they would also kindly invite her to, in order to be nice… moreso Neku (and Beat and Rhyme, too)—and then the two of them would end up crashing at Shiki’s place, since it was closer to the Molco than their homes (Beat and Rhyme did go home, however, as the Bitos were still worried about their parents giving Beat a hard time. And didn’t want to start Beat’s revival on the wrong foot. Also, thinking about it now, Shiki wondered if Joshua had kind of been lying about his home being “far away”. For all she knew, he could have magicked a house in the sky with his powers, but she’d only been too happy to help).

But even though all three of them were exhausted by the point they made it to Shiki’s house, they still didn’t sleep a lot. No. Instead, Shiki would work on some fashion designs, of course, and Neku would then be inspired to draw some characters… And the two of them would talk about how if they ever became famous, perhaps Neku could be a character designer, but Shiki could help him with clothes ideas for his drawings, because he still somewhat struggled with that. And then Joshua would say that if they ever made it that far, he would Produce everything—because he was filthy rich, of course—and he perhaps owed them something.

And it was all so fun.

…But then Neku was shot again and Shiki’s world fell apart. And Joshua left it just as soon as he’d entered it, pretty much.

And though Shiki had gone to the Dead God’s Pad with Beat and Rhyme (Rhyme had refused to stay behind when Beat had asked her to), Joshua had only told them that Neku was as fine as he could be in this situation, and the three of them would hopefully see him again someday, but he couldn’t spare them anymore details than that and wouldn’t do so.

He’d ushered them all away sort of rudely after that.

And other times they’d all went back there, it had seemed like Joshua had set up operations elsewhere… or was at least acting like he had.

And, of course, he’d changed his phone number, too.

Shiki hadn’t seen him again until he’d shown up when Neku had—when everyone was trying to fight against Shibuya Syndrome. But he’d only had eyes for Neku then, and hadn’t said a word to her.

Since then, the five of them had miraculously begun hanging out again. Sometimes with the Wicked Twisters, too, and even with Hazuki at rarer times.

And even more crazily… Neku, Shiki, and Joshua had all picked up their relationship together again.

And it was even better than it had been before… It was pretty similar to past times—with them all three working on their dreams together—but now sex was involved too, and that was so nice.

Though Shiki and Neku had both told Joshua that he needed to be a better partner if he wanted this to work, which meant he needed to show up to group outings more… he needed to be more transparent… and he needed to treat Shiki like an equal, as well.

And bless him—and bless Shibuya, Shiki supposed (which was also Josh?), that showed that it could change—Joshua had done all of these things… but he was still Josh, and maybe that was okay.

“Shiki,” Joshua told her now, as he steadied her form, so she was no longer wobbling into him or the worker behind her. “I came here to tell you that you should have died during the last Reapers’ Game.”

Scratch what she’d said about him not being happy with her before. Clearly that wasn’t it. He’d decided to be creepy with her. That was it.

“Joshua,” Shiki started, feeling a migraine coming on, as she pinched the bridge of her nose and decided to buy the slinky black dress, after all, even though she couldn’t try it on… If the way Joshua was eyeing her purchase, as she made her way down the aisle with it, she’d made the right choice. “What did I tell you, first off, about saying that kind of thing at all? But secondly, about speaking like that in public?!”

“Hehehe,” Josh laughed, with a hand held high in a symbol of peace, no doubt. Shiki groaned. “I don’t mean to offend, dear. Really, I don’t. But this is my work. Aren’t I supposed to talk about my work with my spouses… or whatever you and Neku might one day be to me? And it hardly matters if I say this stuff in public or not, no one listens. Or if they do, they think we’re talking about an anime, or perhaps that a hidden camera show’s being shot here—and they’re all on camera right now—… or that I’m crazy. Which I can live with. I don’t care what they think about me, since understanding people is impossible, as I’ve said.”

With her purchase in one hand, Shiki grabbed Joshua’s wrist with her other hand, and headed out of the store, and began making her way towards the Scramble. If Joshua wanted to talk about his work with her, she wondered if he’d want to go to the Shibuya River, which was clearly open for business once more.

And she must have been right, because Joshua began leading her there—running quite fast for someone who usually didn’t like to break a sweat—before she could even blink. And then Mr. Mew was almost falling out of Shiki’s purse with how fast they were now jogging.

“Hey, Josh. Slow down. Slow down! Hey!” Shiki urged him, moving herself to be in front of him once more, as she grabbed ahold of both of his arms and pulled him onto one of the crosswalks. “I’ll have you know, that if I lost Mr. Mew to the traffic, I never would’ve forgiven you!”

But Joshua wasn’t listening to that claim in the slightest. Instead, he was looking at her faux-starry-eyed…. Or was it? “My, my, my. I have to say, I love the way you manhandle me, Shiki. It sure does get the blood racing, you reversing the gender roles this way. Why don’t you push me against a wall next?”

Shiki rolled her eyes, pulling Josh over to a small bench, so they could sit down and talk about all of this civilly, like normal adults…

But, she wasn’t going to lie, Joshua saying that to her sort of got her going, too. If only Neku were here, as well…

“If it’s really important work stuff you want to talk about, I’m sorry for snapping at you before, Josh. Mind filling me in now?” Shiki asked with a wide smile on her face, just as she reached across the table so she could hold Joshua’s hand in her own.

And it was certainly a testament of how far they’d come, that Joshua didn’t flinch away in the slightest, but rather held her hand… Their fingers still weren’t laced yet, their hands just cupped, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, Shiki knew.

“Hmm… I probably misspoke in making you think it was something that mattered now, Shiki. I was just trying to tell you, that in the last Game… you actually did something on an Angel’s power level, when you freed Tsugumi’s Soul from Mr. Mew, which is most impressive.

“Furthermore, Shiba had last Game set up, so only people with more and more impressive psychs could keep joining in. That’s essentially why no one joined after the Wicked Twisters did. But as I said, dear, you did something that an Angel could have… You definitely would have been able to enter back into the UG, even with that stipulation, and would have been a great help to the team, I’m sure.”

While Joshua was complimenting Shiki here—which was something that never came easy for him, so she was definitely happily taking it all in—there was also a lot wrong with this scenario, too.

First of all, Joshua had earlier said she should have died in the last Game. What? Did he think she should have killed herself to help Neku and everyone? To help him? Shiki wanted to believe that he would have found a way to let her into the UG while alive. And that if she had committed suicide, he would have brought her back to life in the end, of course, like he had Neku… but something about this all still stung.

Shiki also now feared, that Joshua would use this as reason to try and make her ascend. He was always trying to convince her and Neku to become Reapers (and they mostly had decided they probably would do that when they both died again, but not before that). But now would he want her to be an Angel instead? Maybe that would be better than having to erase Players, and perhaps that was what he was doing for her here, but…

“Shiki, look. Your Mr. Mew did slightly fall out of your bag and get damaged without our noticing. I’ll fix him, toot sweet.”

And Joshua did just that, before Shiki’s very eyes, with his lovely Composer powers.

So, she was clearly worrying over nothing, huh? Maybe Joshua still had some issues to hammer out, but so did she. So did everyone!

Shiki still wasn’t Miss Congeniality… not that she thought she ever would be, or really wanted to be. Heck, when Shiki was sort of trying to be like that—like Eri—it had been when Neku had hated her!

Leaning into kiss Joshua for a sweet kiss, when a fluffy cloud—that almost looked blue because of the lighting—floated by, right after Joshua’s blue powers faded away, Shiki decided that Joshua was plenty peculiar, alright… but that maybe that was a good thing.

“Shiki, what-” Joshua asked plenty startled—and the Composer usually didn’t do startled; Shiki almost laughed—when she pulled away from him.

“I just want you to know that I like you as much as I do Neku. That’s all.”

“Hmm…” Joshua hummed now, standing up and grabbing Shiki’s hand, so he could begin leading her towards the River once more (was Neku there?) “And I suppose I like tolerating you, as well.”

And with Joshua, that might as well have been a proposal for marriage. Shiki would take it for what it was. She leaned into him merrily, with her hand in one of his own, while her other hand held Mr. Mew.

“Now let’s go find something related to edible art that the three of us can do together,” Joshua smirked.