A Shattered Moment

He was simply at the wrong place and at wrong time. He didn't deserve it or anything. It was just that fate had a sick and twisted sense of humor and decided to use him for its game.

As Len finished the last note to " Butterfly on Your Right Shoulder ", the audience applauded, the stage darkened, and they left, with Miku coming out on the other side to perform her next song. They arrived at the backstage, which was occupied by Meiko and Luka, both flopped onto the couch and watching TV. Rin poured herself some fizzy orange drink and Len grabbed a banana.

All that's left is the waiting. Waiting for the show to be finished.

After the concert, Miku suggested that they go outside to meet the fans. They all agreed to, despite the warnings from the security.

Rin opened the back door, and breathed in the cool evening air. The sun was almost completely gone below the horizon, and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

"Come on, Len! " she said, excited. "Let's go meet our fans!" Grabbing his arm, she tugged him towards the awaiting crowd.

"Wait!" he protested "We have to wait for everyone else!"

"They'll catch up!" Rin replied, already dragging Len to the screaming crowd.

The fans screamed as they drew closer and closer, shouting 'Rin!' or 'Len!'. Cameras flashed, and soon they were engulfed by the crowd. Rin put up her arm to shield herself to the flashing lights, but it was useless. People shrieked, hugged her, took pictures with her, asked her for her autograph, and showered her flowers and other gifts.

There was a rather interesting pair of twins called Anon and Kanon in the crowd."We're going to be Vocaloids like you and Len one day!" they had said cheerfully.

In the midst of the chaos, she felt her grip on Len loosen, and soon she was holding on to absolutely nothing other than her presents.

"Len!" she yelled, trying to be heard over all the noise. "Hey Len, where are you?" She stood on her tiptoes trying to look over the heads of people and locating a certain blonde head. Rin caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of her eye, and turned towards the direction she had seen it. Sure enough, it was Len. And he was being smothered by fangirls. There were people yelling, tugging and grabbing him, and screeching at each other over who Len liked better. As Rin maneuvered through the crowd to get to her twin, she noticed he had a panicked look in his eyes and that his hair was incredibly messed up. And he was trying to get away from the crowd of screaming girls and a couple of guys. Rin watched as he pushed through the crowd, finally emerging from the other side, onto the road, where he could finally breathe in a breath of fresh air.

And then it happened.

All in slow motion.

As Len gasps for air, Rin saw it coming down the road at an very fast speed, and she was certain that it was over the speed limit for that road. Rin wanted to scream something, anything to get her brother off that road, but she couldn't. Her throat was constricted in shock. Len turned his head, his mouth opened in surprise, and he was about to step back when-

THUD.

The car crashed into him like a bowling ball. Len started to crumple up onto the ground. First his knees, then shoulders, and then his head, landing with a dull crack.

"Len!" Rin finally found the courage to say something. She shoved her way through the stunned crowd of people. "LEN!"

When she reached the spot where Len was lying, she found a small circle of fans and journalists alike, snapping pictures of Len.

"Len!" seeing her brother's broken body, Rin let out a sob, and soon her face was damp with tears.

Turning to the photographers, she simply said to them, "Back off." Nobody budged, and they just kept taking pictures. Letting her anger out, Rin grabbed the camera of a nearby journalist and threw it onto the ground, where it shattered into pieces. "I SAID BACK OFF, YOU INCONSIDERATE ASSHOLES!" she screamed.

"Rin!"

She looked up to see the retreating crowd, and Miku emerging from it.

"Rin, wha-" she stopped when she saw Len on the ground, and clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes tearing up. Rin dropped to the ground and cradled her brother's head in her arms, crying her eyes out. She was faintly aware of what was going on around her. The security arrived and was forcing the crowd of people back into the concert hall. Luka was arguing with the drunk that had hit Len with his car. Meiko and Kaito was calling the ambulance. And Miku was trying to comfort Rin, although she herself was crying.

"Len, hold on, the ambulance is coming. You'll be okay," Rin said tearfully to her brother, who still hasn't responded.

When the ambulance and police arrived, so did one of the company's business cars. Miku and Luka had to pull Rin away from Len. The paramedics swarmed around him, checking his pulse and breathing and doing their standard procedures. They had even tried CPR on Len. Finally, the Vocaloids watched in silence as they pulled out a stretcher from the ambulance. Rin sagged in relief. Her brother would be saved after all.

Then they took out a bag tat resembled a duffle bag.

And Rin realized what was going to happen.

"No!" she cried. "Len's not dead! Please just check again! He's not dead! He can't be dead!"

A young paramedic came up to her. "I'm sorry, Miss Kagamine, but we tried our best. He's gone."

Rin flailed and screamed and struggled and kicked and cried and screamed some more. Anything to stop them from putting Len in that bag. But she could only watch as the paramedics lifted Len's corpse from the pool of his own blood, gently placed him in the bag, and zipped it up. The Vocaloids managed to get the wailing animal that was Rin into the company car, and they drove away from the concert hall. Rin banged to car window with her fists as they drove father and father away from the ambulance, the paramedics, and the bag which contained Len's body.

As the chauffeur pulled up to their house's driveway, Rin had calmed down, but she was still crying. In fact, all of them were. Miku and Kaito were bawling, and Meiko and Luka were wiping away the occasional tear. Nobody had the heart to celebrate after the concert. Nobody even had the heart to eat. They had all silently agreed to go to bed.

Rin shuffled down the hallway, but instead of turning right to her room, she turned left. Into Len's room. She collapsed onto his bed, and yanked his pillow towards her body, hugging it. The pillow smelled like Len, a mixture of soap, the shampoo that he used, and strangely, bananas. Burying her face in the pillow and curling up into a ball, Rin cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, Rin woke up to chattering and the constant ringing of the doorbell. She pushed the curtains out of the way and peeked out the window.

There were journalists. A crowd of them, swarming at the front of their house. And they were ringing the doorbell, trying to get one of the Vocaloids to open up.

Rin let the curtain fall, and walked out into the hallway. Kaito was coming up the stairs, and Rin noticed that his eyes red and his hair was messy.

"Hey, everyone is in the kitchen," he said to her. Rim merely nodded, and went into the bathroom. She wiped her face and brushed her teeth, and looking in the mirror, she could see that her eyes were just as red and her hair just as messy as Kaito's, maybe even more. And seeing herself in the mirror just reminded her of Len again, so she looked away and left the bathroom.

Like Kaito said, everyone was in the kitchen. Meiko was clutching a bottle of sake, and Rin could tell she was already drunk. For once, no one stopped her. Luka was sipping her mug of coffee and reading the newspaper. Miku was sat there staring into space. Everyone had puffy, red eyes. And no one spoke a word.

"Hey guys," Rin said quietly. No one acknowledged her. She went to the fridge and get herself a glass of orange juice.

Once she sat down, Luka nudged the newspaper towards her, "It's all over the news."

Rin glanced down to see the headline on the front page, written in big, bold, letters. "Len Kagamine, Death by Car Crash" A photo that covered half the page accompanied it. It showed Rin clutching her brother, crying. Miku was in the picture too, but her face was cut out, focusing the reader's attention back to Rin. Seeing the picture make her think of Len yet again, and her throat tightened. Before any of her tears dropped, the doorbell rang, and she was snapped back to reality.

Meiko slammed the bottle down on the table with a heavy thunk. "Why don't those sons of bitches stop ringing the doorbell?" She got up to go to the door and yell at them, but was stopped by Miku.

"I'll deal with it," she said, and walked to the door. Rin trailed behind her, curious to see what she could do. Miku opened the door, and instantly, the entranceway was nothing but a eager flashing wall asking questions.

"Miku, what do you feel about Len's death?" "Miss Hatsune, do you forgive the person who struck and killed Len Kagamine?" "How are the Crypton Vocaloids doing after Len died?"

"Everyone, please leave. We're mourning over Len's death and we would like the media to leave us alone. Please, don't bother us. We would like our privacy." Miku tried to tell the journalists in between the shouting of questions, but no one listened. They just pretended that she didn't say anything.

"Please just lea-"

"Get the hell out of here! All of you!" Rin stomped up besides Miku and glared at the crowd. "Leave us alone and do something more productive with your life!"

If anything, the journalists got rowdier, and the camera flashing increased. "Miss Kagamine, can we have a word from you concerning you and the other Vocaloids' reaction to Len's death?" one brave reporter close to Rin asked. Rin could feel her anger bubbling and threatening to spill over, and right now, she didn't care anymore.

"Yeah, you can have a word. In fact, you can have five," Rin spat into the reporter's microphone. "FUCK OFF. ALL OF YOU." Then she and Miku backed up and and slammed the door in their faces. When Rin looked over at Miku, she saw a mixture of surprise and admiration on her face. Rin understood why. It was the first time she had said the f-word to anybody out loud, and to top it all off, it was to a crowd of people.

"Rin, are you okay?" Miku asked her.

She sighed and her eyes began to dampen again."Yeah, but I wish everyone would just stop rubbing the fact that Len's dead in our faces."

Other Vocaloids dropped off at the Crypton household to offer their condolences after the throng of reporters disappeared. Some had even brought food with them. The fridge was soon stuffed with enough food to last the five of them for a week. When the last Vocaloid left, it was late evening. Luka didn't feel like cooking, so dinner consisted of Gakupo's eggplant stir-fry and Gumi's carrot cake. Nobody talked during dinner, and they all wordlessly scattered to their various activities afterwards.

Len's funeral was exactly a week after the accident.

They were woken up early in the morning by Master's call. Putting on a black dress, Rin walked downstairs to meet up with everyone else, who were also dressed in black.

The same company car with the same chauffeur was waiting outside for them. He drove them to the funeral home. Many other Vocaloids and some of the staff at Crypton were invited. Sutras were chanted, incense was burned, and flowers were placed around Len's head. Rin would have collapsed to the ground upon seeing her brother's body if Kaito and Meiko hadn't caught her.

The Crypton Vocaloids headed to the crematorium after the funeral. After seeing the coffin being put into the chamber, they left. Kaito suggested that they go to get ice cream, and so the chauffeur dropped them off at a popular ice cream parlor in downtown Sapporo. People stared at the group walking, all dressed in black, but no one disturbed them. Everyone already knew it was Len Kagamine's funeral today, and if they didn't, they would have already guessed by the clothes that they were wearing.

After returning to the crematorium and picking the bones out of the ashes, they went over to the cemetery. Rin held the urn that contained Len's bones, and they trudged over to where Len's final resting place would be. And at last the crypt was closed, blocking Len from the outside world.

It was late when they arrived home, a meager dinner was eaten, and everyone went to bed. Tonight, Rin cried harder than ever, practically soaking Len's pillow, because she now knew that Len was truly gone.

As time passed, everyone else slowly got back to work. First Meiko, then Luka, Kaito, and finally Miku. Rin was forced to work since Master threatened to fire her if she didn't.

"Rin! Songs aren't going to be sung by themselves! Your fans are waiting for you!" Master had said.

But Rin didn't want to sing if Len wasn't singing with her. She didn't want to dance if Len wasn't dancing alongside her. She didn't want to be happy if Len was never going to be happy ever again. None of the work she did have any heart in it anymore.

One day Luka sat her down in the living room.

"Rin, you used to be so happy doing your job. What happened?" she asked.

"Don't act like you don't know what happened."

Luka sighed. "Just because Len passed away doesn't mean you can live your life and be happy."

Rin looked at her. "We're supposed to be mirror images! I can't sing properly without him just like you can't look into a mirror without seeing you reflection!" her voice slowly became louder and louder. "You wouldn't understand! None of you would!"

Silence.

Luka spoke again. "I know that a lot of people tell you want Len would want you to do right now, but I'm not Len, so I won't tell you what to do. You don't have heart in your music anymore because Len's gone. But Len is your twin. I say 'is', not 'was', because even though he's dead, that doesn't stop the two of you from being twins. It doesn't erase the fact that both of you were conceived from the same egg. And he would still be a part of you. Just because he's not here physically, Len still lives in your memories, and in your heart."

She then left, leaving Rin pondering on what she just said.

There were thunderous cheers when Rin appeared on stage. The music started playing, and Rin started dancing. But the crowd was confused, since the song that was supposed to be playing was "Meltdown". Rin ignored all their confused stares, it had been eons since she sang this song. Singing "Butterfly on Your Right Shoulder" and dancing to what was supposed to be Len's dance moves, if Rin closed her eyes and concentrated hard enough, it almost felt like Len was with her onstage, dancing and singing to the crowd.