Closure (A World Ends with You Fanfic)

Closure

Author's Note: I'm not totally sure what I'm expecting by posting this fanfic here! There don't seem to be many World Ends with You fanfics here, and posting a fanfic of a fairly unknown fandom, with a single 9,000-word chapter, which is not a shipping fic, doesn't seem like it will become the most popular fic in the world. Still, I hope there are some World Ends with You fans out there who will stumble upon this someday! :)

This was originally posted on FanFiction.Net in 2014.

It was coming from his room, but when she saw the light and heard the noise, it hadstill never occurred to her that it couldbe him. Whenever he appeared, the only thing to signal his presence was the sound of the violin or sometimes piano, and besides that, it had been so long since she'd seen him that it was easy to forget he'd ever visited the house at all. Anyone she'd have talked to about it with would have said she'd been seeing things, that in her grief she'd been intentionally deluding herself into believing he was still there with her. When it had been years since the last time she'd opened the door to find him standing on the staircase, only to disappear the minute he caught her eye, it was easy to convince herself that she'd been seeing things, too.

So when she came in from where she'd been sitting on the porch - enjoying the air of the warm Tokyo night for one last time before they moved to Hokkaido - and heard the commotion upstairs, she drew the logical conclusion that it must be her husband in that room going through his things. Maybe he was trying to decide what was worth keeping and what needed to be disposed of before they left, or maybe he just wanted to sit on his bed and leaf through his books and breathe in his scent for a while. Either way, she thought her husband might not want to be alone; and if he did want to be alone, he would at least expect her to check on him, to remind him that she was available to perform the role of a comforting wife. So she went up the stairs and stood behind the door for a second, listening to the sifting of things in boxes, before she knocked lightly and gently said, "Dear?" as she slowly opened the creaking door.

It hadn't occurred to her that it could be her son sitting there on the bed with a pile of clothes strewn around him, looking up slowly to acknowledge her presence, meeting her eye with a displeased expression. "Hello, Mother," he said casually, as if it hadn't been decades since she'd heard his voice. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"Yoshiya," she whispered – she couldn't swallow enough air to speak any louder. And even if she could have, she got the sense that one word too loud, one step too close would startle him away like a wild animal. Send him away to wherever it was that he always disappeared to. She hadn't been so close since he was alive; before this, she only ever had time to watch him for a second or two before he would sense her presence, meet her gaze, and vanish a second later. He'd never spoken to her before.

"Why so impersonal?" he asked, no longer looking at her. He held an old shirt out in front of him and examined it. "You never called me that when I was alive. But then, I suppose it's to be expected. Death changes the nature of all relationships." He dropped the shirt in his lap and sighed, reaching for an old school uniform vest. "Now, doesn't this bring back memories?"

"Yo – Joshua?" What could she say, other than his name?

"Back to Joshua, now? You can call me Yoshiya if you want. It wasn't what I expected, but it has been a long time since we've seen each other. I have changed quite a bit." He smirked. "Of course, you don't seem to have changed much. You're expelling a bit more Imagination than usual, but I expect it'll burn out soon enough."

"Why are you... here?" she asked, finally gaining the courage to take a step towards him. He saw her but didn't react. She took another step.

"Oh, I heard through the grapevine you were moving," said Joshua. "I thought I'd come and see if I'd left anything here worth keeping. Pretty sure I've already stolen back most of the things I really like, but I might've missed something. I never could find the sheet music for that piano duet I wrote a while back – it was probably not nearly as good as I thought it was back then, but it would be nice to see it again. One of the first things I've ever composed."