Celestial 1

One more hour – that was all Neku was going to give that smirking jackass before he went after him, fucking stupid angels or no. The ginger aggressively wiped down the cafe’s counter, doing his best to not count the seconds until he felt fine with closing shop and looking for Joshua.

He had to keep WildKat running smoothly – just because Hanekoma was… gone (even now, Neku couldn’t say the d-word, make what he saw more real. The man was just on vacation, a long ass hiatus) didn’t mean things had to go to hell. The cafe still needed to make money – and probably had more stable hours since Neku started manning it, even if it was only open an hour before classes and a handful of them after cram – and CAT’s message had to be spread across the city.

‘Enjoy every moment with all you’ve got.’

Yeah, because you never know when a bastard with a superiority complex is going to mow you down and – nope, not going to think about that. Not at all. Neku quickly clamped down on the thought and instead tried to work on manipulating his Soul as he busied his hands fixing up the quiet cafe. If he could flip frequencieshalf as easily as the blond did, he’d be able to accompany Joshua on his harebrained Angel hunts, watch his back and keep him from flying off the handle and getting killed. 

Fifteen more minutes. Neku walked across the small store front towards the door, flipping the sign to closed and getting ready to lock up when a flare of power flickered across his senses. Something that was sort of like fear, but mingled with anticipation shot through him, even as Neku gripped tight on the gun that hadn’t left his person since he got his ass mixed up with CAT and Angels and fucking stupid games in the Udagawa Back Streets. He needn’t worry when he recognized the Soul just as the familiar Plain Shirt came into view. It was merely Joshua returning from his latest hunt. Thank fucking God.

The first words out of his mouth were going to be “You’re fucking late.” That was the first thing he said every time Joshua returned from his fucking hunts, even when the blond came back before he said he would. But the flat look in those purple eyes caused him to falter, click his mouth shut and open the door wider to let Joshua in. The blond entered without a word and Neku shut and locked the door behind him, feeling the tingle of old Imagination going to work, leaving the cafe outside of the easily accessible Frequencies.

In the few seconds it took Neku to make sure they were safe from unwelcome surprises (and it had happened before, when Neku was first pulled in, when he thought it was just some sort of elaborate marketing ploy), Joshua had already disappeared in the back to shower and change, leaving a trail of blood and… was that whip? Neku gingerly prodded the bloody pile with a shoe, and yeah that certainly looked like one. He didn’t even want to contemplate about where the hell Joshua got that. 

Joshua was in the shower; that gave Neku time to both start brewing some House Blend and scrub the blood – and it better be Angels’ blood or he and Joshua would be having words – off the tiles. Again.

Maybe when he’s out of the shower, he’ll be willing to talk. Or maybe he’ll have to ply the gates open with some Ramen Don.