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She remembers the three weeks of hell like the palm of her hand.
She remembers before that, when she was home making dinner, listening to the senseless music on the radio she'd taken from her son's room - he never used it anymore anyways, not since she'd bought him those headphones he so loved. She'd cut herself while chopping the carrots and had been searching for band-aids when a familiar man had barged into her home, sweat rolling down his face, and she'd gotten ready for a fight, to yell and scream until he left - and then he'd told her that their son had been shot, that he'd been found bleeding out next to that graffiti he adored.
She never got around to bandaging her cut.
She'd sat in the hospital for a week, holding tightly to her dying son's hand and trying not to weep, because he wouldn't want her to. She'd remained at his side without worry for her own health, had told him stories off the top of her head, memories long in the past of better times when they were a whole family. If he'd been awake to hear, he'd have told her he didn't care about his bastard father, would've recoiled from her touch and turned to grab his headphones. And once that would've bothered her, would've sparked an argument, but what she wouldn't have given just to see him do that, to know he was okay and alive.
A week passed before the nurses forced her to start caring for herself. "What good will it be for your son to wake up to a sick mother?"
So she resorted to daily visits instead of never leaving, even if it pained her to part with her little boy. She had taken his headphones from his bedside and began to wear them around her neck, a constant presence on her body to never forget what she could lose, to feel his spirit with her. She stopped crying and started working, overworking, pushing herself to her limit and then further, until her bones ached and her body screamed to match the volume of her mind. She never stopped thinking about him, tried to ignore the thoughts of what to do when he was gone - no, he wouldn't be gone, he'd come back to her.
Once during the week, she remembers getting so desperate for a sign that he would be okay that she played that stupid Reaper Creeper game, hands shaking as she drew the appropriate symbols. A deep breath, a long sigh. "Reaper Creeper, is my son okay? Will he be okay?" And there'd been nothing. The coin stayed in the center, mocking her. Superstitions won't save your boy, it whispered. She'd screamed, so loud she'd startled the few people on the street at the time, and had tossed the stupid thing away from herself.
She doesn't remember how long she'd sat there crying.
And the third week rolled along, and everything in Shibuya had stopped, as if the world could not go on without her son, just as she could not go on without her son. No one had moved, even when she'd screamed for the doctors to help her, to do their jobs, to do anything except stare at her with glossy eyes. She'd stayed with her son for three days, weeping to the beat of the heart monitor. This was it. Something had happened to stop the world, and now everyone was gone except her. Was this her punishment? She'd always tried to be a good mother, to care for her son, but he'd stopped responding to her long ago.
He'd become disillusioned with the world because she couldn't raise him better, now this was her punishment.
The fourth day, she sat cross-legged in the middle of Scramble Crossing, an empty shell among ghosts, hoping that by some miracle a car would start again and run her over, anything to free her from this hell and reunite her with her son. She doesn't remember drawing the symbols for Reaper Creeper on a paper, doesn't remember putting down the coin, but she can never forget the question.
"Reaper Creeper. Is Neku happy?"
The coin sat still again, but she could swear it twitched towards "yes".
She spent the next two days going about her business, as though the world still moved, as though she were not the only person left in Shibuya. She shed no tears because there was no point in doing so, and she listened to the music from her son's downloaded list, trying to see what he saw, trying to understand why he'd been shot and not her. She stopped at the graffiti where it happened, stared at the art for hours and ignoring the blood splattered at the bottom. "Enjoy every moment with all you've got."
What a load of shit.
On the seventh day, she saw someone still alive, still awake. And she saw them, and somehow she knew, she knew it was the bastard who shot her son, and she wanted to make them dead. Because they had always been in her life, for better or worse, and what a coincidence that he was the only one awake. She had grabbed them and slammed them to a wall, held them there with an intent to make them pay - and they'd fucking smiled. "You've gotten more violent since we've last met, dear."
"Give me my son back, you bitch. Give him back!" She pushed them further into the wall, felt the tears roll down her cheeks but did not wear them as weakness. "I don't know what your agenda is, but you leave him out of it and give him back!"
"Even after seeing all of Shibuya stop on its head, you only care for your son? You're both so alike."
She'd pulled her hand back - but stopped herself. Because she saw red, but she also saw a horrible man, breath of alcohol and cigarettes, saw a teenager with more bruise than skin, saw her own young self shouting 'till her voice was raw. She saw the man reach for her, saw them smash a bottle on his head and grab her hand, saw them run until they were safe inside a forgotten café. And she'd let him go, afraid of her own memories, afraid of theirs. She'd breathed heavily, vision blurred by tears and mind clouded with the sound of her son's voice. She knew they'd done that, but for as much as she wanted to scream and fight until they were erased, she couldn't move. Because she saw images of her son smiling, genuinely. Saw him fighting Noise and winning, saw him learning to care for others, to care for the world.
They'd guided her home without a word.
And Shibuya was back the next day, as if nothing had happened. The world kept going like it hadn't stopped spinning, and she'd rushed to the hospital to see her son, to see if he was alright - but he was gone. And she'd wept, clutching onto the bedsheets and listening to the faint sound of music through his headphones, still around her neck, now all she had left of him. She hadn't stopped crying until her body felt ready to collapse, weak from exhaustion, but she didn't dare sleep. Where there had once been thousands of ghosts, there was now only one.
She'd gone home with headphones securely over her ears, tuning out the world like he had, because what good was a world without her son? She didn't want to live in a world where he was gone.
She didn't have to. Because opening the door to her home led to someone knocking her over in a tight embrace, holding onto her like a lifeline as they tried not to cry too loudly. And she looked down, and she yelled in delight, because it was her son, it was Neku, holding her close and rambling on about how much he'd missed her, how much he'd learned in three weeks. His muffled voice told her he loved her, so so much, and all she could do was sob as she hugged him back, squeezing him to her as she said it back, repeating it over and over like a mantra.
He'd told her everything, from Shiki to Joshua to Beat, from losing his memories to fighting for everyone around him - from having no faith in the world to believing in it. And he'd been surprised by how easily she'd believed him, asked how she could take it in stride - and then she'd told him everything. Told him about Koki Kariya and her Joshua, told him about promising never to leave the UG, about how two weeks had changed her forever.
Well, she didn't tell him everything. She withheld her third and fourth weeks, withheld her promotion from Reaper to Angel, withheld so many years of service to a Higher Plane she didn't believe in. She didn't tell him about Falling for the Composer because of another promise, a promise never to leave them, to stay by their side no matter what came. She didn't tell him about being "dead" for long, too long to keep track, how all of this was what kept her awake for so many of his childhood, watching the door, listening for static, fighting back memories of a life that took place so long before his own. She didn't tell him these memories were what ruined her, what almost ruined him, because he didn't need to have all that on his shoulders. It was all in the past now, resolved.
He didn't need to look at her so differently. Not yet.
And now, she's meeting his friends, his Partners, and he's so excited, so much more alive than he used to be.
A small part of her feels grateful to the Composer that took him in the first place.
Seeing him so different, and still changing, even now, makes her smile, makes those three weeks without him almost worth it. So she sends a message to a number she doesn't have in her phone, but one she'll never forget.
"I don't know why you did it. I can't forgive you for what you did, even if I trust you. But thank you for helping him grow."
She doesn't get a response, save the sound of beating wings and a feather that falls to her feet.