neverplaysfair | Game 049 [Written/Voice]

Game 049 [Written/Voice]

[ Sometime in the early afternoon, the following question goes out over the journals. The camera is covered, and the handwriting is disguised. ]

Let's have a thought experiment. Say you were dying, and the only possible way to save yourself is to get help from someone very close to you. However, you don't know for sure that this help will indeed save you, and whether or not it does, there's a chance that it will damage the one helping you. Trying to help you might even kill them.

Do you ask for their help anyway? Would you accept their help if they offered it?

[ Later on in the evening, Joshua makes a separate post from the previous, this one voiced and not anonymous. ]

[ Filtered to Neku, 100% ]

Hey Neku, are you busy tomorrow?

[ /Filter ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any particular time?

Ah... Noon or so?

[ If he remembers right, withdrawal always happened in the afternoon... ]

All right. See you then.

I look forward to it.

[ No. No he really, really won't. ]

[Sure enough at around noon Neku is walking through the front door of House 38, not suspecting anything is up at all. He didn't bring his journal with him or let anyone know where he was going, either. I mean it's not like he's figuring he'll be here for too long, so why bother.

So yeah, HERE HE IS. 8( How could you entice him with paint that is so wrong.]

[ IT'S FOR SHIBUYA'S SAKE. But the are actually going to do painting beforehand okay.

And Joshua's expecting Neku, so Neku doesn't even need to come up to get him. When he hears Neku enter, he heads down the stairs. ]

Hee hee, good of you to come. Are you hungry?

Er... not really.

Upstairs, then?

[ And Joshua starts to head back towards the stairs. ]

Sure. What extra supplies did you find anyway?

[Neku will be following him, then.]

More paint than usual, and a very nice set of brushes. [ He giggles. ] I wonder if they belong to a new feather...

[ Also you totally imagined that click behind you, Neku, Joshua didn't just use a psych to lock the front door at all. ]

[DID HE, JOSH? Okay yeah he's totally dismissing the sound, not even paying attention to it. Also, what Joshua said gives Neku hope for a second maybe Hanekoma came back, but he's not counting on it. He promptly disregards that thought.]

You can put them back later if they are.

[ Joshua knows the sets of brushes Hanekoma works with, and these are much nicer.

Not to mention he'd actually picked these up a while before the new feather cycle began, and he's kept them around for this exact purpose. ]

Hee hee. Or I can not.

[ He leads Neku into his room, where another blank canvas has been set up next to his own. There's a second seat, taken from downstairs, and a disorganized collection of paints lays between the two chairs, topped in scraps meant to be used as pallets. ]

You said you hadn't done much canvas work before?

Yeah. Sorta. I started something before I got sent back home but, er... yeah.

[All that work is gone.]

Edited 2012-01-18 11:49 (UTC)

I see.

Well, now you get another chance! [ And Joshua rummages through a box before pulling out a set of expensive-looking brushes bound together with an elastic. He hands them over to Neku, then picks up an old, paint-stained can from the floor. ]

Feel free to start. I'll get the water.

[...all right then. Not that Neku is complaining or anything. He takes the brushes and wanders over to one of the canvases to study it a moment while Joshua goes and gets some water. He hasn't exactly come up with any ideas on what to paint yet, but he can just go with the flow and see what he comes up with.

Hrm... After staring at the canvas for a while, Neku takes some blue and white paint and mixes a little bit of both to get a blue he likes, then gets started.]

[ Meanwhile Joshua comes back and places the water between them as well. He sits in front of the other canvas, and without any hesitation, selects a brush, squeezes out some red and mixes it with a hint of violet, and begins painting without a word. ]

[Neku only pauses every now and then to switch to different colors, otherwise he gets pretty into what he's working on and paints in silence.]

[ Joshua sneaks glances at Neku's work, but aside from that works in silence as well.

It's a distraction, something to keep his mind and hands occupied while he waits for his body to start betraying him. He's not happy about it, but if he starts thinking about it his hands begin to shake, and that's counterproductive. So he ignores it. For now. ]

[It's probably very hard to tell what Neku is even painting at this point, since it's mostly an outline. There just a lot of lines right now and no noticeable shape yet.

...his painting might take a lot of time, actually. Fff, oh well. Neku continues on for now.]

[ Joshua returns to his painting, and though his own is starting to take shape (a city, always a city, this time the sun setting in the distance above what are currently the preliminary sketches of some buildings), he soon pauses.

High up near his shoulders, two familiar burning sensations have returned. ]

Neku, care to take a break?

...hmm? [It takes him a moment to respond, but when he does he stops painting and looks over at Joshua. But hey were just getting started!] Er, okay?

[ Yes, but do not want to fall in paint.

Joshua stands up and walks over to his bed, then sits, a small, wry smile on his face. ]

Hey, Neku. When I told you that by winning the Game against Megumi you had ensured Shibuya's erasure, how did you feel?

[He... Wait, what? What kind of question is that? It's a terrible question that's what, and Neku looks uncomfortable and uneasy as he's suddenly having to remember that day. And having to remember how it made him feel. He stares at his canvas for a long moment before turning to Joshua, looking a little on the angry side now. How could you ask something like that.]

Why the hell are you asking me that?

[ Joshua simply stares back, expression unchanged. ]

It might matter.

To what?

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