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It's late morning when Neku opens his eyes to find himself hugging a warm body very tightly against his chest.
Blinking sluggishly, he remembers that this is his boyfriend, and that said boyfriend is one Kiryu "Joshua" Yoshiya, and that Josh might be the closest thing to a god he knows of. And that Neku is spooning him.
What is life?
Half expecting some teasing to come his way (will Josh’s voice be hoarse in the morning?), Neku withdraws, only to remember that the point of this is to be close and touching. He carefully places his arms around him again, this time certain Josh will wake up.
A sigh escapes his mouth and touches Josh’s bare neck. What a nice neck his boyfriend has. Do people usually have nice necks? Has Neku been neglecting to appreciate such an interesting part of the human anatomy?
He places a kiss on Josh’s nape, then a second. By the third, Neku is convinced Josh has been awake this whole time and is just staying still to see where this goes. Neku kisses his hair too, and then his shoulder over his shirt, stopping when he notices the rhythm of Josh’s breath remains steady.
Neku could get used to this: this soft bed, his soft boyfriend, and soft thoughts.
He dozes off again for probably another half hour before the birds outside wake him. This time, the urge to pee makes itself known, and Neku has to slowly extricate himself from the little cocoon they created.
After washing his face, Neku contemplates waking Josh up or not as he watches that peaceful face surrender to sleep. If Josh wants to sleep in on a Saturday, Neku can make himself busy and let him rest.
It’s surprisingly fun to cook for someone else for a change, even though his cooking skills are pretty basic and mainly restricted to eggs and olive oil. His tamagoyaki is not so bad, Neku decides, as he eats it while watching Netflix cartoons in his tiny living room. He puts Josh’s tamagoyaki away and prepares his own brand of teasing for when the god in his bed wakes up to the sun at its zenith.
He catches up on a few more episodes of mindless fun on his phone until he notices it’s one pm and Josh has not made one noise so far. From the doorway, he wonders about the politics of waking someone up when you don’t have anything planned that day.
Slowly placing a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, Neku decides the point of staying the weekend together is to actually spend it together.
“Josh. Hey, Josh, wake up.”
Not a sigh or twitch. Neku shakes him a little harder, fully expecting a shove for that, but Joshua doesn’t move.
“It’s late already. You slept like, 14 hours.”
With growing agitation, he holds Josh’s body without any resistance, much like a puppet with its strings cut off. He finds a pulse (so Composers have pulses?) and makes sure he’s breathing before shaking him with all he’s got. “Joshua! JOSHUA!”
Neku runs to the bathroom with no idea of what he’s doing until he starts filling a bucket with water. It’s extreme, he knows he will get scolded for this, but right now he needs Joshua to open his eyes even if just to glare at him.
He dumps the water on him. Josh remains still despite the water soaking his hair and the top part of his pajamas.
Neku’s body is faster than his mind, years of honing his reflexes kicking in and taking control of the situation before Neku is even fully aware of what his plan is.
“He’s not waking up,” he blurts out as soon as the call connects. “I tried shaking him and shouting and and and water-”
“Wow! Slow down, Phones,” comes Mr. H’s familiar voice from his phone.
“Sorry! I’m sorry-”
“It’s okay, kiddo. Why don’t you take a deep breath and tell me what happened?”
Neku does just that, reaching the end of his stammering narration to realize Mr. H is humming in agreement on the other side of the call.
“Let’s start from the basics. How long does J usually sleep?”
“I- I don’t know? It’s the first time he spent the night.”
Not that we did anything, we just slept, Neku almost adds, feeling like he should explain himself for some reason. You’re an adult now, he reassures himself, you have the right to sleep with your boyfriend.
“Ah, there it is then,” Mr. H laughs good-heartedly. “J is catching up on some much-deserved sleep.”
“… He’s what now?”
“He’s never spent this long in a physical body since becoming Composer. My guess: this is the first time he’s slept in a very long time.”
Neku stares at his bedroom’s peeled wallpaper, those words strangely incomprehensible to him.
“He doesn’t… sleep?”
“Well, he doesn’t have to.”
Neku’s throat is dry as he says, “Mr. H, he’s just lying unconscious here, unprotected. Shouldn’t he – I don’t know – go back to his true form for a while?”
Mr. H laughs like this entire thing is truly entertaining to him and not the most shocking thing Neku has heard in years. “And leave your side? J is not about to do that, no.”
Even with no one seeing him, Neku feels his cheeks warm up at the implications. That Joshua feels safe with him. That he’s doing this to be with him.
“My advice is: let him sleep it off. He’ll wake up when he’s ready.”
“Is he safe here, though?”
“As safe as can be, I promise you.”
Neku tries to think of something to keep him on the phone, anything that could bring Hanekoma here to do something.
When he thinks of nothing, Mr. H says his goodbyes, and Neku is left looking over a wet Joshua very much still asleep.
Frantic, Neku dries him off more forcefully than necessary in one last attempt to get him to wake up. When that doesn’t happen, he brushes white hair with shaky fingers and places Josh’s limbs as comfortably as possible, hoping he wasn’t hurt with all the manhandling.
Even with Mr. H’s assurance that Josh is fine, Neku can’t make himself stay out of the room for long. This is the most vulnerable Josh has possibly ever been, and he’s decided to do it in Neku’s bedroom of all places.
Neku sighs. A heads-up would have been helpful.
It’s three pm and Neku is sitting against the headboard trying to read a book on the decline of the Roman empire that refuses to be interesting. Much more pressing matters plague his mind, such as, for instance: how can one person be so beautiful while dead (quite literally) to the world? What is Neku supposed to do with the implications here? What if Josh doesn’t wake up this weekend and Neku needs to eventually leave the apartment?
Does Joshua pee? If he drinks liquids, surely he has to pee, right?
Neku walks to the living room and back, trying to disperse some of the thoughts and nervous energy. When he comes back, he throws himself beside Joshua’s unmoving form and goes through a stretching routine.
Four pm comes and goes, and Neku is vacuuming the apartment and hoping his downstairs neighbors don’t hate him too much. It takes him back to a few months ago when Josh ‘ran into him’ (AKA got bored and decided to bother Neku about it) when he was out trying to figure out which vacuum to buy.
“It must be nice to have a life of so little consequence that your biggest concern is ‘upright versus canister’,” Josh had said in the middle of a supermarket aisle.
Neku had burst out laughing without bothering to consider the clear insult. “Thank goodness I have you to make my days worthwhile,” he had replied without much thought and had to double-take when Josh only stared at him with unexpected round eyes and a silent tongue.
And he had meant it too, without even knowing it at the time. That Joshua ‘dropping by’ was the highlight of his listless days, his only connection to a world of excitement where Neku had had a purpose, where he’d been good at something.
“I’m thinking of attending some adult high school classes,” Neku had told him on another occasion.
“Oh, Neku, that is the most boring thing you’ve ever said to me,” Josh had replied, and then sat with him as Neku filled out the necessary paperwork.
After that, Josh started showing up in the morning since Neku had classes at night, lying down on top of the covers as he played on his phone. It was oddly comforting to have him so close as Neku gathered his strength to get up for the day.
“Are you having fun, Neku?”
“Not really.”
“How sad. If you don’t have fun now, at the height of your youth, then when will you have fun?”
It had all been his groggy mind’s fault. His fingers reached out to brush silver hair fanning around Josh on the duvet, the feel of it unexpectedly soft. Leaning on an elbow, Josh once again looked at him with something like fear and wonder on his face.
“Getting a little friendly there, aren’t you?” Josh had said around a smile, making no move to get away.
“Do you use your powers to make your hair like that?”
“My beauty secrets are my own, Neku.”
“That’s an abuse of your powers. I’m gonna tell Mr. H.”
“Oh please, your precious Mr. H works for me.” Josh got up, standing on the bed with each foot framing Neku’s body. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go live my very interesting life where people fight to the death with superpowers.”
Neku could only smile and enjoy the unanticipated view from below. He managed to touch those ankles for a moment before Josh got down to put on his shoes.
Neku watched him, a bit amazed that Josh was considerate enough to take off his shoes even when apparating announced and uninvited.
“Hey, Josh,” his mouth said for him before his brain could catch up and make him lose his nerve. “You wanna go out for lunch sometime?”
Josh stayed seated on the bed for a moment, his hands adjusting his shoes to perfection until he finally got up and turned to him, a soft smile on his face that was completely new to Neku.
“Text me.”
And Neku had texted him, and now here Neku was, months later at five pm, this time with Neku sitting over the covers with Josh under them.
It’s almost mediation at this point, to sync his breathing with Josh’s and just let his mind wander around the apartment.
Why had it bothered him that Josh had only fallen asleep because of him? Because it made Josh seem less human? Because it made him fear for his health?
Because it showed just how deep Josh’s regard for him went?
They had laid down side by side just a few days ago, listening to music and narrating their thoughts to the ceiling. Neku had been his most content self as their hands lazily played with each other, in caresses that felt like kisses. He turned to the side and Josh angled his head to look at him.
“I’m in love with you,” he had told him as a revelation, as one would speak the real name of god to happily destroy the world.
Josh’s eyes were soft as he replied, “I already knew that.”
Neku shrugged. “Sometimes, it’s about the rhythm of the words.”
“Rhythm, huh?”
Josh hummed to himself as Neku tried to understand what he had been expecting to hear and what he felt now that he hadn’t heard it. Josh’s fingers, however, were touching the palm of his hand with purpose, almost like trying to spell something out on his skin.
Neku had closed his eyes at that time, trying to hold back overwhelming emotions from ruining the moment. When he opened them, Josh was looking at him with one of his rare soft smiles. “Did you get that or should I repeat it?”
Josh did it again just to tease him, the bastard. Neku had loved him even more intensely, but he couldn’t help but wonder why Josh wouldn’t just say the words out loud.
It’s dark outside when Neku opens his eyes to realize he’d fallen asleep, once again hugging Josh’s form from behind.
The light on the bedside table had been off before though.
“Clingy,” Josh says, oddly pleased. Neku leans on an elbow to look at him, his mind lethargic and heavy. Josh reads Neku’s book, the boring one from that afternoon, and doesn’t look much affected by his 24-hour long sleep.
This much relief and affection are too much for someone just waking up.
To think that Josh woke up and stayed still so as not to wake him. To think that Neku would keep guard over him, however many times Josh made himself vulnerable like this.
Neku rearranges himself more comfortably behind him. “You love me,” Neku tells him.
That makes Josh turn his head to regard him, a perfect eyebrow raised. “Are you still asleep?”
“Nope.”
Josh hums, going back to the book. One of his hands holds onto Neku’s hand against his chest.
“You sound drowsy.”
“Still right, though.”
“Hmm, yes. Quite right.”