Chapter 1: Broken
Falling. Always, falling, through the deep and endless sky. Her twin turquoise pigtails trailed behind her as she watched the earth rushing towards her.
A long time ago, she felt the normal fear of impending death. Of her small child's body being smashed against the unforgiving earth and being helpless to stop it. But now, after so many times just like this, where she knew how her journey through the sky would end, she felt not fear but... anticipation.
For as she plummeted through the air, she saw the familiar form of a blue-haired boy dive through the air, getting ahead of her fall, his long white and purple robes trailing behind him. He reached out and grabbed her with his arms, bringing her descent to a stop. As he drew her close to his body, she began to not fall… but fly.
The ocean spread below her, speeding past as he carried her, gently singing a song to her in a language she could not understand. For these precious few moments, she saw the world as he did, where no distance or height stood beyond the reach of his lovely white wings.
All too soon, it came to an end. They'd alight atop that same hill. The boy's melody would cease as he set her down, her feet once more rooted to solid earth. She would get one quick look at his face – he looked maybe a few years older than her. He'd smile at her, just once. Then his smile would fade. He would lean in next to her ear and whisper the same words every time.
Then he'd turn his back to her, and she'd watch him spread his magnificent white wings and fly away.
She reached forward, desperately trying to grab some memento of their encounter and her eyes lay on a tall white feather drifting through the air …
THUD.
"OW!"
Small tears came to Hatsune Miku's eyes as she pushed herself off the floor, aching all over from her tumble out of the loft bed. "I never hit the ground in the dream!" she whined.
She grabbed a leg on her bed and used it to pull herself back up to her feet. She checked her alarm clock. "Aww… it's only 7?! My next class isn't until 11…" she grumbled, "I could have slept in even longer!"
Rubbing her sore backside, she decided not to waste the unintentional early start. "I could head down to the park and get some song lyrics done before I gotta go up to the university…" she said to herself.
"The dazzling strobe lights and the pounding LED's take my hand and run off, I stumbled and my eyes opened…"
Miku began to softly sing along to the recording of her own voice as she rode the elevator down the six floors of her apartment building. As she looked at the clouds, she tugged her black pullover over her white blouse, smoothing out her pink skirt. She admired her reflection in the metal doors, giving the feather-shaped barrette in her hair a tap.
"Move past the boring, repetitive days, today I'll dream again! Colorful shining sounds!"
The tealette ignored the odd stares of others around her as she kept up her practice, her ear buds blocking out the sounds of the world around her. She had to have this song practiced and ready for Vocaloids rehearsal over the weekend. Rin was going to chew her out if she came unprepared again.
'Rin's lucky… Len's her partner, they just remind each other to practice…'
She slapped her cheek as the bell to the elevator rang and the doors opened wide. 'No no no, positive!'
Miku couldn't complain too much about the Kagamines of course – they had given her access to their in-house recording studio to make this song in the first place.
"Oh my, Miku! What are you doing out so early?"
Miku popped off her earbuds for a moment as she caught sight of the pink-haired fourth member of the group – she only lived a block away. "Luka! Sempai!" she said, trying to force a smile in spite of the dreary sky, "I just fell out of bed… JUMPED out of bed this morning, full of energy!"
Luka was in full-on student mode this morning – Miku remembered she had a 9'o clock class, so not so unusual. Today she wore a light pink turtleneck over a long, flowing white skirt. Miku envied her flawless appearance – she'd thrown her own clothes on at the spur of the moment.
'NO NO NO NO! PO-SI-TIVE!'
Luka cocked her head to one side. "Um… Miku, are you okay? Is there a reason you just slapped your cheek?"
Miku's heard whirled quickly from side to side, sending her pigtails flying. "I uh… I just remembered I was heading down to Tsubasa Park! Getting an early start on my new song!"
Miku pulled up her notebook and showed Luka the page filled with notes and scribbles. Luka glanced through them thoughtfully. "Oh, these are such cute lyrics," she said, "And these are some of your outfit ideas?"
She tapped a perfectly manicured blue fingernail over a scrawled doodle of a ruffled shirt with grey pencil smudges on it. "Yea, I'm thinking it should be covered with little splotches of color everywhere!" Miku said, excitedly.
"I'm thinking it'll be a song about how people can communicate with just the right words… all over the world… "
Luka looked at the shirt with a smile. "It's adorable… oh! You should wear a tie with it too! Like this!"
Luka sketched a little black tie around the collar. "Oh wow… that looks good…" Miku admitted, "But seriously, we can go over this on Saturday!"
Luka laughed politely. "Of course," she said, "I'll have your pansy concept done by then too!"
The two friends laughed and parted. 'Luka… she's so talented,' Miku thought to herself, 'Ah… sempai… if I could only be as smart and cool as you…'
Miku sat perched in the grass overlooking the ocean. For once, she had her little section of Tsubasa Park to herself… likely because it looked like would rain any minute. But at least that meant she had peace and quiet to think about what she needed to write next. She hummed the melody to herself quietly, hoping it might inspire her. "Can't… get … this second verse off right…" she muttered, getting cross.
She grimaced as the sound of a scooter rolling through the park broke her concentration. She tried to blot it out by singing her last verse out loud. "Not to forget the intangible feelings, I deleted the routine layout…"
Her teal eyes settled on the ocean's calm waves. For a moment, she closed her eyes entirely, trying to relive that moment over again. Of soaring over those same waves from hundreds of meters in the air. 'If only I had wings like him…' she thought to herself, 'How wonderful it must be to fly away without a care in the world…'
As Miku's eyes opened she saw large white feathers drifting past her face. She stared at them as the wind carried them further down the hill. She grasped another feather as it blew past her. 'It looks so much like his…' she thought to herself with a smile.
A smile that faded when she noticed blood at the tip. Miku jumped to her feet as the last of the feathers blew away – several more of them far more obviously coated in blood. 'Did a bird hit a bike?! No… these are bigger feathers than any bird except…'
Miku grabbed her notebook and spied the source of the feathers as they blew out from deep in the trees at the edge of the park. 'I have to find out…!' she thought to herself as she tore off in the direction of the gusts of feathers. So many thoughts raced through her head…
As she passed deeper into the woods, Miku noticed a few more trails of blood in the grass. Though she began to have second thoughts about where she was going, she had a deep hunch that somewhere someone was hurt. She bit her lip and forged ahead, actually following the blood stains.
She clutched a hand to her mouth – she'd only smelled this much blood once in her life, and she'd never wished to again. But that was not to be as she finally stumbled upon a man with deep blue hair and strange white and violet robes, lying down on his stomach in a giant red puddle. "Sir! Sir!" she said, "Are you okay? Are you alive!? Please, please be alive!"
She knelt down next to him in one of the few non-bloody spots, trying to see how badly he'd been wounded. His head rested on its side, revealing no injuries there. His face appeared still, like a doll's. The most obvious wounds were two long, strange gashes around his shoulder blades, but from how much he was bleeding, she suspected he was far more hurt than he appeared. Like he'd been shot at. By now, Miku was beginning to sob, believing this poor man was already dead…
…until he began to stir. His eyelids barely opened, and she saw two beautiful but weak blue eyes try to focus on her.
He'd already surrendered himself to the icy grip of death. He had nothing to return to – no home, no station. They'd reject him, throw him back into the same world that already destroyed him.
The blond woman had called him scrap. Like he was less than a person. The lumbering man had been singing as he'd been mutilated, weakly protesting that he was still alive. Either they hadn't heard him… or they hadn't cared.
Now he was aware of someone shouting at him. 'Gakupo?' He thought. No, this was a woman. 'Meiko?' No, she sounded a little younger. His mind barely focused on her words, he wanted to ignore it. He was broken. Val'Sharess. But as she kept trying to reach out to him, something about her voice made him try to listen to her…
"Sir, you're alive!" Miku shouted, "Please! Who did this to you?!"
He began to speak quietly, but his words sounded so bizarre… almost as though he was speaking another language. It wasn't English or Japanese… perhaps he didn't understand her? But as she took another look at his injuries, she realized medical attention was more important than answers.
She immediately pulled out her phone, but the reception appeared dead. 'I'm too far away from the tower!' she thought, 'But I can't abandon him!' Miku had no other choice – in spite of his larger size, she'd have to try and carry him. As she began to lift him, he gave her no resistance – either he had understood, or he was too weak to stop her.
As the girl gripped him, he tried to focus on her. Did she intend to take him back?! He'd already tried to talk to her… had he been so unfocused that he'd started speaking in the old tongues? He tried to say something, anything. He didn't want her to waste her time on "scrap." 'Please let me die…' he tried to say. But his words continued to slur together, making no sense.
Something about the girl's next words to him made him change his mind…
"Please, trust me…" she whispered as she propped his arms around her shoulders and grabbed his legs, trying to keep him steady despite him being almost a foot taller than her, "I promise… no matter what happens, I'll protect you."
Whoever she was… to her, he wasn't scrap. He wasn't broken. To her… his life meant something.
Perhaps she wasn't a person – an ancestor's spirit that hadn't lost faith in him yet. In spite of how dry his throat felt, in spite of how close he felt to crossing the veil… he decided for this girl's sake if nothing else, he would attempt to preserve his own life. He felt the strength of a healing ballad building in his heart…
As Miku ran out of the woods and back to the park, she became aware of a song in the air, just barely audible. 'Is that… him?' she thought to herself. Suddenly a bright light flashed around her, almost causing her to drop her human load from the surprise. In the confusion, she heard the familiar zooming of a small engine approaching her…
"Oh my god oh my GOD LOOK OUT AHHHH!"
Miku barely got out of the way as the enormous orange scooter screeched to a halt, just inches from running her over. Now with the driver right in front of her, she could finally get a good look at her – a girl in a cute orange outfit, red goggles over her eyes and hair glimmering green. "The heck was that light!?" she said, before her eyes fell to Miku and the person she carried. "Holy cow, is that a CORPSE!?"
The girl had already hopped off her bike and started examining the man Miku was carrying. "Please, we need to call an ambulance!" Miku tried to say.
The girl turn to face her and gave Miku a huge, cocky grin. "Why waste time on a slow ambulance?!" she said, "My scooter's wayyyyy faster! Come on, hop on! It's a two seater!"
The scooter ride across town was the most nightmare inducing incident Miku would ever have, trying to stay gripped to the wild driver without dumping their patient as she zipped through cars and traffic signals with reckless abandon. Yet Miku never once heard the song from the park cease even though the man on her back was entirely motionless.
As the scooter screeched up to the hospital, the driver gave Miku a hand pulling their patient inside. In moments, the boy was loaded up onto a gurney and wheeled away. As he passed through the doors into the emergency room, only now did the beautiful song cease.
"Did… did you hear a song?" Miku asked the girl with her.
She shook her head as she flipped her red goggles up over her bangs. "I didn't hear nothin' but the road!"
She looked to Miku, revealing bright green eyes. "By the way, kid…"
'Kid?!' Miku thought, 'There's no way you're older than me!'
"If you don't know that guy…"
Miku shook her head quickly.
"… well, you better say you do if you wanna stick around with him…"
To Miku's chagrin, scooter girl was right – she hadn't seen any sign of a phone or an ID on the man when she'd brought him in. Somehow she suspected he might not have anyone. "Don't worry, just do the 'He's my cousin' line… always works for me."
The green-eyed girl gave Miku a wink. "Buuuuut… I'm going to want to know EVERYTHING about how this all happened…"
"WHAT?!" Miku shouted, a little too loud and drawing attention from the patrons in the lobby. More quietly, she asked "Why does it matter?"
The girl plucked a business card out of her shirt and stuffed it into Miku's hands. "Megpoid Gumi, kiddo," she said with another wink, "CITIZEN blogger. And that guy… he's gotta have a hell of a story to tell."
Suddenly Miku began to worry suspect that this Gumi person's seemingly altruistic act was more selfish after all. "Um… Hatsune, was it?"
Miku turned and saw an emergency room doctor approaching her. Gumi gave Miku a strong pat on the back. "She's all yours, doc!" she said, "My work is never done!"
As the "reporter" darted out of the emergency room, Miku gave the doctor an apologetic look. "She just gave me a ride," she said.
He shook his head. "You're lucky that's all she did," he sighed, "She's turned up here before with some odd patients. All her 'cousins.' So, this man is…?"
Miku gulped. "….my cousin. Hatsune…"
Miku blurted out the first name that came to mind.
"Hatsune Mikuo."
In spite of the riveting lecture on 19th century music theory, Luka was consumed with worry. It was 1:30PM and it wasn't like Miku to just skip classes without a word. Especially not one shared by both the freshman and sophomore Vocaloids members. She glanced out the window, hoping to see her dear friend rushing across campus in a panic having overslept at the park or some other minor crisis.
The pink haired girl looked to the twin blondes staring at her with worry across the classroom. She sadly shook her head. From the way the blondes fidgeted, clearly they were moments from springing out of the classroom. For once, even the studious Luka felt like joining them. Ever since she'd woken up this morning, she'd felt some kind of omen hanging over her. She silently prayed that her omen did not bear ill fortune for Miku…
'I'm alive.'
He prayed with every fiber of his being that when he opened his eyes, he would be home. That every awful experience he'd had simply be the product of an awful nightmare. That Meiko was about to chide him for his weakness and Gakupo would simply thank the spirits he was alive…
As the room he rested in grew into focus, he realized such fortune did not await him. A dull white ceiling over his head, an infernal ringing nearby his head, and a needle jammed into his arm. He finally became aware of odd nodes and sensors taped to his body. Fear began to grip him as he thought he was back in the lab all over again.
He tried to find the strength to sit up, but he still felt so weak – he hadn't finished his ballad before losing consciousness. He heard voices outside his door and a portly woman in a white uniform entered. "Oh my!" she shouted, "Awake already?!"
He looked towards the wall, trying to pretend he couldn't understand her. Perhaps if he played dumb, they'd drop some useful piece of information and he could escape again… "We'll have your cousin and the doctor paged at once!"
'My… cousin?' he thought to himself. He had no living family…
As the door closed, he shook his head. It could be another trick intended to make him drop his guard. After what they'd done to him, he would never make the mistake of trusting a human again.
'I promise… no matter what happens, I'll protect you!'
As those words returned to him, Kaito couldn't recall the face of the person who'd spoken to him. Perhaps the ancestors had finally broken their long silence to keep him from crossing the veil of life and death. Regardless, it had motivated him to save his own life at a moment he felt utterly demotivated.
He cried out as he finally tore out the needle in his arm. As he summoned his "second voice", his ballad closed the wound immediately. He continued his ballad for a few more minutes, trying to build up enough strength to get out of the bed and out of the wretched prison he was in. Before he could work out an escape plan, the door to his room burst open again. A human girl with long, turquoise pigtails entered, clutching a large white bag in her leaned back against his bed, taking on a defensive posture. "Stay back!" he shouted, "I… I'm not afraid to fight for my life!"
Miku blinked. "Um… I'm not here to fight you?" she asked.
Her "patient" looked frightened of her. But more importantly, something was missing on his body... "Hey, what happened to your wounds?!"
He remained silent, staring at her like a trapped animal. Miku began to approach him to see his back, but stopped as he tensed up in fear. 'I thought he was near death!' she thought to herself, 'I saw all that blood, the gashes, the bullet holes… how is he fine now!?'
"Stay away from me!" he shouted to her, "I won't let humans touch me ever again!"
'Why is he acting like this?!' Miku thought to herself, 'Does he think I'm going to hurt him!? Like they did!?'
He stared at her, as if daring her to take another step. Miku's heart ached at the thought of what horrible experience the boy must have suffered to have so little faith in another person. "If you're trying to help me, why would you bring me here?!" he shouted, his eyes burning with rage.
"To a hospital?" Miku asked, confused, "You were going to die! Of COURSE I brought you here!"
His expression began to waver. He ran a finger along his arm. "Even all those needles?" he asked, sounding more curious than angry, "And these patches on my chest?"
'Has he never set foot in a hospital?' Miku thought to herself, 'He sounds like he thinks they were trying to torture him…'
"Those were just monitoring your heart rate…" she said, "So the doctors would know if your heart stopped…"
As the man seemed to grow calmer, Miku took her chance to make him understand her intentions. "I just wanted to help you…" she said, trying to appeal to his heart now that she'd assuaged his fears of the unfamiliar, "I was so scared you were going to die… But... I just want you to know, no matter what happens, you can always trust me… and I'll always protect you…."
The boy's eyes went wide on hearing her say this. "You… it was you!" he exclaimed sounding surprised.
For a moment, Miku was fearful she'd frightened him, but his entire demeanor became softer and more relaxed. He bowed his head in deep apology. "Whoever you are… I owe you an enormous gratitude… and an apology."
"Miku. I'm Hatsune Miku."
"… my name is Kaito."
'Kaito…' she thought to herself, 'That's… awfully normal for someone so strange.'
When Kaito said nothing else, Miku became confused. "Um… just Kaito?"
He looked at her oddly. "There's supposed to be more?" he said, sounding perplexed.
Now Miku began to wonder just where Kaito had really come from to not know of hospitals or surnames. But now that he was calm, she remembered her brief errand outside the hospital and gently placed a shopping bag on the bed. "Here, I picked up a change of clothes for you," she said, "So you're not just stuck in your hospital gown."
Luka tried Miku's phone again. It was now past 7PM and neither she nor the twins had heard from her. She stared at her notepad where she'd been starting to doodle a costume for her as the phone continued to ring…
"Sempai! What are you calling about?"
"Miku!" Luka shouted in surprise, "Where were you all day?! None of us have been able to get ahold of you!"
She heard the girl gasp on the other end of the phone. "Oh my god, I had it on silent all day while I was at the hospital… uh…. Rin sent me a looooot of texts…"
The word 'hospital' only further worried Luka. "What are you doing out there? Did something happen? Are you sick, do you need a ride, or…"
"Nah, I can just take the bus back to my place, I'll be fine. Thanks for the offer though," Miku said, sounding unconcerned about the minor panic she'd generated, "We're almost done over here."
"Who's… 'we'?"
"Oh, I was helping someone out who got hurt in the park… he's fine now though!" Miku's melody sounded positively cheerful, the notes in her voice dancing around with relief.
'She stumbled on someone and dragged him to the hospital?' Luka thought to herself, 'Well… that's a very 'Miku' thing to do…'
"What's that? Oh hey, Kaito, those clothes look good on you! Oh, maybe a little on the baggy side with the pants, but how do they feel?"
Her heart stopped on hearing that name. Luka swallowed, attempting to compose herself. 'Kaito… is a very common name,' she thought.
"Um… they feel fine? I'm… not sure how you expect pants to feel…"
Luka snapped her pencil in two.
'It can't be…' she thought to herself, 'if he were here… that would mean…'
"Hey, let Rin and Len know I'm safe, okay? Don't worry, I'll be in class tomorrow morning!"
As Luka heard the connection drop, she tried to calm her pounding heart.
Kaito twisted his arms around in the sleeves of his new clothes. 'So… this is how humans are supposed to dress…' he thought to himself.
He was now wearing a black tank top, brown baggy pants, and white and blue sneakers. He zipped up the elaborate blue and white jacket Miku had purchased for him. Wrapping a blue muffler around his neck, he felt somewhat more secure knowing he could hide his face if needed…
"I guess I was right… white and blue are good colors on you…" Miku said, tilting her head as she admired her choice in Kaito's attire. "I probably could have gotten you a smaller size of pants though…"
"They feel fine," Kaito said, "How'd you guess the fit?"
Miku laughed. "Oh, I guessed from looking at your old clothes," she said, "Well... what's left of them…"
The conversation fell silent again as the doctor finally returned to the hospital room, carrying large folders in his arms. "Well, after that little scare you gave us, it's good to see you're holding up better now," the older man said with a laugh.
He held up some black film to a strange light attached to the wall. Kaito's eyes widened when he realized that somehow the humans had taken a picture of his bones. His eyes scanned the image for any sign of something he'd missed that could give him away…
"As you can see, Hatsune… uh, Mikuo… your bones are just fine. Frankly, it's a miracle you didn't get so much as a scratch on you. There's no real reason to keep you here overnight given the lack of serious injuries…"
Kaito's eyes remained on the area around his shoulder blades. Fortunately, the doctor seemed more obsessed with how quickly his wounds had healed than asking why Kaito had a few extra bones in his back.
"Glad to see you're okay after all that fuss… we can let you use the phone to call your family to pick you up if you need it…"
"Oh…" Kaito said, biting his lip, "I…"
Miku interrupted. "Don't worry!" she chirped, "I'll let him use my phone!"
As the doctor left the room, Miku thrust an odd rectangular device in front of him. Kaito recognized it as a communication device, though he'd not yet learned how to operate it. "You can call your parents or whoever," she said.
Kaito looked back outside the window, staring at the dimming sky. "I… I can't…" he said.
"Eh?" Miku asked.
He couldn't explain this to a human… "I can't go home," he said, "I… I don't have one anymore."
Just saying it out loud made his heart feel heavier. He remembered why he'd lost the will to live. What life was left for him amongst humans?
"You don't have anyone?" Miku asked.
He shook his head, hoping she'd accept his silence. Why was she being so insistent? What did she want with him?
"Ummmm… my futon folds out into a bed…"
Kaito turned his head to see Miku with her hand on her chin in thought. "I mean, I don't have any pajamas for you, we'll probably need to do more clothes shopping tomorrow…"
"Excuse me," Kaito asked, "are you… offering me a place to stay?"
"Well, if you just need some time to get back on your feet, you know?" she said with a bright smile.
"I can't ask that of you…" Staying and living with a human… he'd never be able to hide effectively if there was always one around. But what else could he do?
Miku looked far more determined now. "Come on!" she protested, "I didn't drag you all the way out of the park like that just to see you turn yourself out into the street!"
At least in this girl's home, he'd be indoors. He could leave as soon as he had a better plan. The strong, steady melody of her notes told him she was sincere. "Okay…" he said, "I accept your hospitality."
Miku giggled at him, as if he'd done something strange. "What?" he asked defensively.
"You just talk so formally… though you look so young!"
Kaito rubbed a hand through his hair. "It's not so strange," he said, trying to play it off, "Besides, I'm 20 years old… I'm not a child…"
Pretending to be human was going to be harder than he thought…
The bus ride back to Miku's apartment was distressingly silent. She kept looking to Kaito, unsuccessfully trying to come up with some conversation to break him out of his malaise. He still seemed protective of himself and his past. 'Makes sense,' she thought to herself, 'After what he's been through, he's probably still scared…'
She still couldn't answer what happened to lead him to the state she found him in. In spite of the doctors claiming he came in with minimal to no wounds, she knew what she'd seen. The wounds that created all the blood that soaked his beautiful clothes…
And yet, she was letting him stay in her home despite him still being a stranger. Plus, there was the matter of how she'd found him… feathers coated in blood… the brilliant light that flashed in the park and the beautiful song in her ears… she yearned to ask him more, if he was that person, but her mind flashed back to his initial hostility in the hospital. That question could wait.
Kaito kept his eyes to the window, his gaze fixed upon the night sky. Deciding to leave him to his thoughts, Miku slipped in an ear bud attached to her smartphone, keeping one off so she could hear when her stop was announced.
"Again in this bright daydream, lively colorful music fills me…"
Miku began to imagine herself dancing around a colorful stage of shifting LED lights, wearing a pretty yellow dress. Luka had been working on the sketch over the last week.
"It surrounds us all with this feeling, of what could be, so come on, raise your hands and reach…"
She wasn't sure it was possible to make an entire set out of LED lights. But hey, she was day-dreaming, so why not? Her heart lifted as she started planning out the choreography. Light hops around the stage, grand motions as though she were throwing her cares away…
"To the end of this rainbow that we seek, the weekend is so near I can't wait 'til it's here…"
"You're a singer?"
Kaito's voice intruding upon her daydream shattered her visage. She blushed, expecting him to start teasing her. "Not… not yet…" she admitted, "I am in a band though. I mean, I don't make a living on it… right now it's just for fun…"
At any moment she expected the usual lecture about how she should be doing something more worthwhile in today's economy and taking her life seriously…
"Humans just sing for fun?"
Well that question wasn't what she expected to hear. "You mean you don't?" Miku asked him.
Kaito had that odd look on his face again – like she'd caught him doing something wrong. "I do…I … didn't think that… other humans… other PEOPLE… did."
He started to look away from her, but Miku didn't want to let this opportunity to keep him talking slip by. "Kaito, are you in a band too?" she asked eagerly.
"I just sing for myself…" he said, sounding guarded as he shook his head.
'Right… he's not going to like it if I pry…' Miku reminded herself.
"Sorry… I'm just keeping an ear out for another male vocalist!"
That seemed to calm his nerves. "How many performers are in your troupe?" he asked.
"Just four of us," Miku explained, "Me, Kagamine Rin and Len, and Megurine Luka. The name of the band is 'Vocaloids!' We're not like established or anything though… so we each have another talent besides vocals too…"
'Hee… finally someone thinks this is cool!'
Miku began counting on her fingers. "I play the keyboard, Len plays the guitar, Rin is on the drums, and Luka covers bass guitar!"
She found herself carried away – most people never asked her about the group at all and now Kaito was fascinated. "Plus I do choreography, Luka's a sewing wiz, and Rin and Len work on all our songs!"
"Oh… you don't write your own songs?" Kaito asked.
"Urk… it's not like that."
She thought back to how hard she'd been working on just trying to pound out song lyrics in the park. "It's… not that I don't write anything…" she said, "It's just… I'm still trying to get better at it."
The pig-tailed girl let out a massive sigh of frustration. As the two reached their stop, Kaito looked apologetic. "I didn't mean to insult you," he said, "I just wondered if you wrote that song you were singing now…"
"I came up with the idea," she admitted, "I wrote some lyrics out, but… it just wasn't working the first few times."
Kaito followed closely behind Miku as she exited the bus, his eyes on the tall buildings surrounding him. 'Wonder if he's ever been to a huge city like this before,' she thought to herself, noticing that the boy seemed to be craning his neck to see the tops of the skyscrapers. He reminded Miku of the distracted tourists to Tsubasa City she saw all the time…
The conversation petered out as the pair approached Miku's apartment building – no skyscraper, but still a good six stories tall. Before Miku entered, she heard a familiar voice calling out to her. "Miku! Wait up!"
The pig-tailed girl spun around happily as she saw Luka running over to her, clutching grocery bags in her hands. "Sempai!" she said, "Did I catch you on the way home?"
Luka briefly caught her breath. "I… yes, I guess so…" she said, breathing deeply.
The older girl seemed to be inspecting Miku carefully. "Ah… Luka… Kaito was in the hospital, not me…."
The older girl made an odd face as she'd been caught. 'It's not like her to be this nervous…' Miku thought to herself.
"Is this a friend of yours?"
Miku hadn't noticed Kaito's approach until he spoke up. "Oh, Kaito! This is Luka! I told you all about her on the bus!"
Kaito bowed his head in greeting. "Miku informed me you're a skilled seamstress."
Miku looked up to Luka and noticed her face appeared paler upon seeing Kaito. While the girl would normally have showered him with polite greetings, she was strangely silent. "Um… sempai… you two don't know each other, do you?"
Luka looked to Kaito before answering. "This… this is our first meeting," she said, stumbling over her words.
Kaito seemed as surprised as Miku was, but added nothing as Luka recovered from her odd behavior. "Kaito, I didn't realize you'd be coming by tonight… are you a friend of Miku's?"
'Crap!' Miku thought to herself. "Oh yea, we go way back!" she said, deciding to cover for Kaito's reluctance to speak, "Like, I mean, from Kyoto, you know? Where I was living before?"
Luka was regarding her oddly, but Kaito seemed to swing into action behind Miku's explanation. "Yes… it was quite fortunate," he said, "We haven't encountered each other since we were children. She found me after my accident and saw me to safety."
"Then I shouldn't get in the way of this little visit, should I?" Luka said, her face having returned to a more natural smile, "It's important to stay close to your friends, after all. If you haven't seen Miku since Kyoto… it must have been a surprise to see her all grown up!"
"Well, um…" Miku said, "He's actually going to be staying with me for a little longer. We got to talking at the hospital and… "
"… Miku graciously allowed me a place in her home until I've gotten my affairs in order," Kaito finished.
Luka nodded her head. "I… I understand…" she said.
She gave a polite wave as she started to depart. "Then I'll be seeing a lot more of you, Kaito! Eenjoy the city!"
The odd look in Luka's eyes as she lingered on Kaito made Miku curious if something was upsetting her sempai. Perhaps Kaito made Luka think of someone from her own childhood…
"This is my home, Kaito! And yours too… for now."
Kaito broke his long train of thought to examine the abode. It appeared quite small – enough room for one person, just barely two. The furniture and technology astounded him - most of it still appeared foreign to his sensibilities. He had only vague understandings of how some of the devices she possessed worked – he hoped he wouldn't make any embarrassing mistakes trying to learn the rest.
His eyes were drawn to a large glass door overlooking a tiny patio near the couch Miku had just rushed over to. "Hey, Kaito, this is where you'll sleep!" she called out.
He nodded politely to Miku. Right now, he just wanted some time to process everything that had happened to him. He still had no idea how he was going to invent another past for himself as a human. Just a brief conversation with Miku's friend gave him trouble – he'd had to play along with what Miku had said, but he didn't even know where this "Kyoto" was.
By now Miku had unfolded his bed and now she was gesturing to the objects in the apartment. He tried to focus on her rapid explanations. "Bathroom's over here, toilet's right next door," she said, "You probably want to clean up after today. Until we get some shopping done, you'll have to use my soap and stuff. Hope you like pomegranates!"
She giggled to herself. He understood she'd made a joke, he just had trouble laughing at jokes right now. She walked towards a small room he gathered was her kitchen. "You can help yourself to anything in the fridge," she said.
He glanced around the kitchen noting many other odd devices – he began to panic when he realized Miku would have expected him to know how to cook his own food. Hopefully humans prepared some meals with simpler tools and not just the strange machines in front of him. But he nodded in acknowledgement anyway, trying to hide his confusion.
Finally the girl fell silent and Kaito realized he needed to say something. He bowed deeply to her out of gratitude. "Thank you, Miku, for you generosity."
When he straightened out again, he realized he'd probably done something wrong again from the odd look on Miku's face. Yet she smiled and bowed back. "I should probably get out of your way… you're probably tired and I need to check my e-mail before bed anyway…"
As Kaito watched Miku crossing the threshold into her room, he finally asked the most important question on his mind since he'd met her. "Why are you doing this?"
The girl stopped, leaning against her open bedroom door, right hand twisting the knob. "You don't know who I am or where I came from… you know I lied about my past, and you know someone tried to kill me. Wouldn't it be safer to leave me alone?"
Miku finally turned to face him, a faraway look in her eyes. "A long time ago, somebody helped me. Someone I never forgot."
Though she smiled again, he detected somber notes in her voice. Something about what she said invoked a powerful memory inside her heart. "You kinda look like him, you know?" she said, "I guess all I could think was… he'd be happy if I did the same thing for someone else that he did for me."
Kaito felt pangs of guilt for having pried such a tender memory loose in Miku's heart. But the intensity of her feelings for that person convinced him that her intentions were pure. The girl waved a hand to him. "Good night, Kaito."
As the door closed, for the first time in hours, Kaito found himself alone. He slipped off his jacket, carefully folding it and placing it on a nearby table. As he entered the room Miku had gestured to looking for blankets, he felt relieved that at least the plumbing wasn't dramatically different from what he'd been forced to make use of in the lab…
Kaito shuddered, trying to push those thoughts far from his mind. As he finally settled himself onto the futon, his first real bed since his ordeal began, he stared up at the waning moon and the stars in the sky. A sky he could never roam again. A home he could never return to because of what he'd become.
Val'Sharess. Wingless. The last Spirit Caller, fallen so far as to never be acknowledged again. He prayed they would never learn what happened to him. Being alone was better than being exiled…
"Meiko… Gakupo… I'm so sorry…"
As Miku began to change into a tank top and light shorts, she tried to suppress the emotions Kaito kept dragging out of her. He was right – she really didn't know a thing about him. But she hadn't lied to him either. Deep in her heart… she couldn't forget the blue-haired boy with wings.
She walked over to her dresser, rooting through the top drawer until she found a pink keepsake box. She set it down at her vanity and grasped for her purse. Rooting around inside, though wrinkled from the day spent bouncing around unprotected, was one of the feathers she'd grabbed from Tsubasa Park.
Miku popped up the lid of the keepsake box and laid eyes on her only proof that the blue-haired boy with wings was real. A long, fluffy white feather she'd grabbed as he sped away into the vast blue sky.
She stared up at her wall, covered in sketches and drawings of feathers, wings, and most importantly… him. Everything she could remember, to keep every detail about him real. She'd almost confessed the truth to Kaito… he was the right age… the injuries on his back… but there was one nagging hole in her theory. He had no idea who she was. If Kaito really was him… surely he'd remember?
Miku studied her treasured memento in one hand and the bloodied feather in the other.
They were identical.
A/N:
So welcome to the next big Kaito and Miku story. This one is a bit more sprawling and complex than my last story, and it's based off of some lore I've used for non-Vocaloid materials in the past. Since it's entirely original, expect to see a lot more of your favorite characters. We are quite a ways off from seeing our entire cast. This won't be a tight romance like The Summer and Winter Garden was, but I hope if you enjoyed that story that you will still enjoy this one.
While I set this story in modern day Japan, I've deliberately chosen to downplay the use of honorifics aside from occasional flavor or if they're significant. I used to do them more, but over time I've gotten to the point where I feel it's far too easy to create an artificial language barrier for a story written in English for people who primarily speak or read in English. Also expect that unless something needs to be written in Japanese, it's not going to be – exceptions for words like sempai, or samurai, which should need no explanation.
One of the fun things about writing a modern fanfic is it is a lot easier to reference costume designs and modules from the games! Can you spot them all? Hint: I stole most of them from Project Diva. Miku's outfit, however, was poached from some fan art of Rolling Girl that uses a different design than the module in Project Diva.
Song Credits: Miku was practicing Weekender Girl (I GOT IT RIGHT THIS TIME), and attempting to write Tell Your World. And I'm sure that will NEVER come up again.