#his immediate response to neku tearfully lowering his gun is to shoot him again.

[randomszzz]

Joshua’s smile after shooting Neku; bookends; parallels; character development; the more things change the more they stay the same

[yoshiyakiryu-archive]

I thought I finally found a friend I could relate to... But it was YOU! You killed me!

In large part due to Joshua, Neku begins to trust and value other people again. He understands that his self-imposed isolation was doing himself a disservice.

In large part due to Joshua, Neku learns how cruelly and harshly that trust and willful belief can hurt.

Neku spends three weeks in the afterlife fighting for a chance to come back to life, to bring his friends back to life with him, and along the way discovers how vast and full of promise his sliver of the world, and his own potential future really is. He learns to trust and open up to other people amid the inevitability of pain that brings with it, because to enjoy life and be fulfilled means taking risks, and not letting the fear of those risks keep you from reaching out to others and bettering the world around you.

Joshua has betrayed Neku before they ever properly met. Functionally, he is a god, a higher being gambling with the existences of others. Jaded and disillusioned with humanity, much like Neku is himself, Joshua makes a bet with one of his underlings and kills Neku to set his plans into motion, trapping Neku in a form of purgatory with no memory of how he got there in order to use him as a pawn.

As part of the rules in this purgatory, Neku can only survive by tying his existence and life force with that of another person, and in this way is forced to confront his strongly held beliefs that others only cause problems and hurt, and that he's better off alone. One of the other people in this world he's forced to rely on is Joshua himself, disguised as human, who immediately announces he's up to something while hitting on Neku. During their time together, Joshua flirts with, annoys, condescends to, and openly manipulates Neku into furthering his unstated goals, lashing out whenever Neku's newfound resolve to grasp the inherent worth and personhood of others begins to counterbalance Joshua's refusal to give a definitive answer on what he had to do with Neku's death, causing Neku to extend the possibility of patience and compassion towards him.

Despite all this, they have a lot in common. They recognize themselves in each other. And as Neku's growth and change becomes more apparent, he begins to question the values and attitudes he sees Joshua mirroring in himself. They both grow from giving voice to and reasoning out these negative thoughts and values, and from this shared mistrust of everyone else, gain both an understanding of each other and the ability to move beyond them.

And then Joshua fakes his death while shielding Neku from a particularly powerful enemy, cementing in the budding guilt and doubt Neku has been fostering about Joshua's motives, and creating a sense of responsibility and loyalty that continues carrying him forward to completing Joshua's goals… but also proving Joshua's goals pointless in the first place.

When Joshua shows back up unharmed, revealing that not only did he murder Neku, fake his own death, and jerk him around for a week straight, he's also the being in charge of the harsh and murderous game the dead are forced to play in order to determine their fates going forward, and he was using Neku as the catalyst with which to destroy the city Neku calls home.

Holding the continued existence of Neku's friends and home and entire life over his head, Joshua challenges Neku to a duel. If Neku shoots Joshua, he can determine what happens to them.

But Neku has come to value Joshua as a person too much to harm him, and tearfully lowers the gun, accepting the consequences of failing to shoot.

Joshua does.

And Neku wakes up alive on the pavement, having been toyed with back and forth by this god he'd befriended, and tossed back out of the afterlife for having done the impossible and trusting him after multiple betrayals.

Vote joshneku!!

Iconic Homoerotic Betrayal: Round 2

Round 2 Directory

Context:

Ides of March

Summary by Mean Girls (from an Anonymous Contributor)

Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? What’s so great about Caesar? Hm? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar.

People totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar. And when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody, huh? Because that’s not what Rome is about. We should totally just stab Caesar!

Joshua/Neku

Summary by @purplelea

What if I was a jerk who decided to reject everyone because I was scared of getting attached and getting hurt, and what if I ended up in a death game where I had to learn how to put my trust in others in order to survive

What if I started to change, I started to trust others, to value their inner worlds, and then you came along as one of the people I had to learn to trust

What if you understood me better than anyone else, what if I recognised myself in you, and what if I HATED you for that, because you were everything I were, but that weren't not who I wanted to be anymore

What if you made it so hard to trust you because you were so grating and annoying and didn't deny when I accused you of killing me

What if you gave your life for me right after I learned that you weren't my murderer, what if I had spent an entire week blaming you for my death and what if you died for me before I could even apologise for that

What if I grieved you for a week while trying to fight for my life and fighting to keep trusting others despite all the hurt it kept bringing me

What if I fought my way to the end, victory and salvation so close, and what if suddenly I saw you again, giggling and telling me you were the one behind the whole thing since the very beginning

What if you told me that you were the one who killed me. That you were the one who created this death game. That you were the reason all of this ever happened. That I was nothing but a plaything in your grand scheme, that I've been your pawn since the very beginning, and all the fights I fought in order to come back to life were in fact helping you to achieve your goal of destroying my city and everyone I cared about

What if, still smiling, you gave me one last chance to save everything. A duel. A countdown. 10 seconds, one pull of the trigger, and you would be dead, my death would be avenged, my city and my friends saved

What if three weeks before that was exactly what had been asked of me, to kill someone else to save myself, and what if back then someone had to stop me from doing it

What if, pushed by how angry and hurt I was because of your betrayal, of your lies, of how you manipulated me and everyone around you, I found the strength to aim the gun at you, ready to shoot, crying but determined

But what if this time, because of everything I've been through, everything YOU put me through, I couldn't do it. Because you betrayed me, you hurt me, you did everything do I would want to pull that trigger, but everything you did also lead me to change, to start to trust others, and you're included in those others. You made me see that others' lives are worth the fight, are deep and meaningful, are something precious that shouldn't be discarded because I can't understand them

What if as you counted down to zero, I lowered my gun, and when your countdown met its end, you shot me once again, a bullet piercing my heart just like your betrayal did a few moments before.

What if after living all of this, I woke up in the middle of the city where I had been waking up at every start of every week of the death game you put me in, but this time alive and well, and I had to come to terms on how I felt towards you and the whole ordeal

What if I did come to terms, and put words on it. An entire monologue I gave to you, not even knowing if you were listening, but trusting that you would.

What if my name was Neku Sakuraba, and yours was Yoshiya Kiryu, but I could call you Joshua, seeing as I was your dear, dear Partner.

"I can't forgive you, but I trust you."

For other JoshNeku essays, see spreadsheet