A/N:

I have no idea how this came to be. It just happened while I was working on my IAxMiki fic. I've come to like these two together a lot for some reason. Definitely unbeta-ed (sp?). I really need to go out and look for one. . .


She had to break his boundaries.

Hatsune Miku had always prided herself in all of her accomplishments. She recognized at a tender age that she had talent, charm, and an iron will to overcome any obstacle and solve any puzzles that got in her way. And she was an amazing negotiator, being able to get anything she desired by manipulating others to do her bidding with ease.

Except for one.

Ironically—And such a pity, might she add—that they were the first, yet least known to most. A very sad fact. His other half, the woman, did the best of her abilities in hopes of being recognized. She's pulling through, but she knows that she has a ways to go.

However, she noticed that he hardly even bothered. He was steady, arcane, blasé and—to an extension—an enigma. Well, at least to her. The other men she surrounded herself with felt. . . bland. There was no possible way they could ever meet her expectations. And the fan wars went beyond ludicrous that she gave up and just went along with their expectations of her as a Diva. And of her supposed choice of men. If it were up to her, she'd focus solely on her career. She didn't have time to deal with them.

So, she learned to blame the media. She may have splotched her reputation but hey, she needed out. If saying that that was the main reason why she decided to travel to such a bleak and dreary country with foods that were even blander than the people — with an awful history, to boot — then why not? Just for a little while, at least. She could have traveled to somewhere warmer and much more friendlier, but she, for some reason, decided against it. At least she knew a few people, and she was specifically looking for one to settle an old score.

She found him at Richmond Park, sitting on a bench, idly watching the clouds float by. He still hadn't noticed her even with her incessant tapping and loud coughing.

Finally, her restless nature got the best of her and she snapped. "You're being very rude ignoring me. Look at me this instant, Leon!"

His right hand twitched before he looked up at her. He stayed quiet.

She nods her head in approval and decides to coax a conversation out of him. "You do realize that whatever you say now to excuse yourself will be used against you?"

"That's okay with me," he admits. "It's always been."

She wasn't expecting that. His apathy struck a chord within her and she felt her blood boil in rage. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," she spat. "Do you plead guilty or innocent? You just let everyone walk all over you. Speak up. You're always so quiet. It's called pouting and you're doing it to annoy me."

"Oh, I plead guilty, of course. Guilty of being human, of possessing human needs and desires, even human failings. Isn't that all right?"

Clever. "It depends. You have more failings than most of us. You have no sense of deductive reasoning. You avoid the issues, sulk, and refuse to discuss anything. Your mind wanders. The five times we've met each other, you'd ignored me every time I tried to tell you to do something for me, and even now you continue to do so. You run around listening to everyone's hard-luck stories while yours falls apart. You're a masochist and a procrastinator. You leave all the important things undone, while you're out chasing bubbles and smelling flowers. Does this make you happy?" She had meant to hurt him, to motivate him. If he didn't understand the severity of his apathy, he could be cut off and any newcomers may never get the chance to even have his name float by them.

"Oh yes!" he cheerfully exclaimed. For the first time she's known him, he smiles. "No one has ever been happier. Make sure the jury is told, and the judge, too, how happy I've been."

She'd always believed that in all her life, she would never meet an idiot even bigger than the blue-haired dolt she was forced to work with who had an unnatural ice cream obsession. Well, she is young, and she's been wrong plenty times before. "Don't start talking about a judge and jury. This isn't a trial, and you know it. We're just having a discussion."

"I'm sorry. . . but you sound like a public prosecutor."

An unfamiliar heat rushed from her cheeks to her ears and she looked away. "Oh, be quiet and let's stick to the point. You say you're happy. That's just another one of your lies. Clearly, at this moment, you're sad. Obviously depressed." He doesn't defend himself from her accusations even when she finally turns back around to look at him. "Why aren't you happy now?"

The way he looked at her almost made her want to take back everything she'd said. "Because I'm not making anyone else happy. Not even you."

They sat there in silence. The air surrounding them felt heavy. She was suffocating in it. Finally, she collected her things and left.


xXx


A day had barely passed when he found her again, sitting on a booth, wincing at the hard, bitter taste of coffee. Perhaps he should offer her a suggestion? Best not to. She'd doubtfully find a flaw in his logic and beat him senseless with her blunt words. But he couldn't help but enter the tiny coffee shoppe and found himself sitting next to her. She doesn't bother to look up.

They could have just sat there, the atmosphere was a lot warmer and more cozier than the other day, but for once he grew weary of silence. "I'm sorry to submit you to a cross examination, please forgive me, but. . . Well, I don't trust you. I'm afraid of you." Now she's looking at him, eyes wide. However, she didn't seem surprised nor disturbed by his statement; rather, she looked amused by his honesty. "Don't you see how cruelly your words can cut? Are you completely unaware of how unkind and how super critical you are sometimes?"

She shrugs. "No more so than others. I'm just verbal enough to express my thoughts clearly, to communicate my feelings. I don't keep everything bottled up inside the way you do. I'm not sneaky like you."

He nods in agreement. "Yes, that's true. You are clever. You can use words so much better than me. You're even brilliant at times. Lots of times. But. . . have you ever been happy? I mean, content with yourself, peaceful. Have you ever been? Ever?"

He smiles inwardly. Her flustered expression is priceless. "I, uh. . . Well. . . of course. Naturally. Why do you ask me that?"

He shrugs. "I was only curious. What does happiness mean to you?"

"Happiness? What does it mean to me? It's. . . Well, it's a number of things that you wouldn't understand."

"Like?"

"Like knowing exactly where I'm going, arriving there when I plan to arrive — knowing who I am and what I want."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

She stumbles on her choice of words. For once, he has her cornered. Well, she wasn't going to let him have this one. Instead, she slides off, grabs her coffee, and shoots him a glare. "You're deliberately trying to confuse me. I don't have to answer any more of your questions."

He lets her leave without another word.


xXx


She wasn't going to go home defeated. She came to distract herself and to seek him out and dammit, she is going to clear up the mystery even it if kills her. Or causes her to miss her flight. Whichever comes first.

He wouldn't respond to her calls. He's trying to play me as the fool, she thought and was beginning to believe that past three days were a waste of her time.

"Miku!"

A dry, humorless laugh escaped before she could stop herself. When will everything just stop and stand still and wait for her for just a moment? "What is it, Lola?" she all but snapped.

Slightly out of breath, her clothes sticking out and her hair in odd angles, yet smiling all the same. "Don't tell me you're leaving already." She already knew the answer.

"What's there for me anymore?" Miku sighed. "And I'm tired. Now go home. Please."

She ignores her, despite Miku's ample attempt at being polite. "Back then, you seemed so hell bent on distinguishing saints and sinners. Why?"

Exasperated, she clutches the bags in her hands tighter, feeling her knuckles grow cold and numb, before changing to hot and prickly. "Because he's just floating through his existence, pathetically searching for his stupid identity. And just when he does catch a glimpse of real life images in life's well-polished mirror, he's terrified and then disbelieving. He's delusional. He denies it, hides from it, until he can find that second to slip out and run."

"Then if he doesn't understand himself as much as you claim, then why not be willing to help him clear up the mystery? Isn't that why you came in the first place?"

She has her all figured out, and she let her bags drop to rub the strain and embarrassment from her temples and eyes. As much as she had initially came to figure him out, take him apart, see how he works, and then put him back together again; it didn't seem like it would have ended in her favor, anyway. She was only wasting her time, she realized. In the end, she believed it to be more possible of her to just leave him in pieces, have him flounder helplessly for even more years attempting to recover that thin strand of self-respect he had left. But even that didn't seem as enjoyable as she had first believed.

Lola continues to watch her for a moment or two, studying and smiling, before pivoting and walking the opposite direction. "If a child lives in an enchanted realm of make-believe, then others perhaps would be delighted to visit, too. But that child has a tendency to analyze and label all mystical kingdoms to please her subjects, even if it's just to frolic, and that spoils all the fun for the rest. A dream is a dream. Why come too near, look too closely? They won't stand for personal probing or insistent questioning by the curious Princess. If pressed too often, the people may just get up and glide away to a new realm, all the way from subtle evasion to outright lying. But you can't argue that it wasn't justified by him that he no longer wants you to find him?"

Her ridiculous analogy shouldn't have pierced her as sharply as it had. She shouldn't care what he wanted, didn't want, and so on and so forth. But being pushed aside like this, the reason for his disappearance. . . Now that wasn't settling well with her, though before she could say a word in her defense, Lola was gone.

Her phone goes off somewhere in her pockets and she pulls it out. She now knows where to find him.


xXx


There are some things that she would admit that she doesn't mind sharing with him, in which ways they bear a striking resemblance. One of them was merely standing there, side by side, after she's missed her flight long ago. They are both acutely aware where they're at as they admire the transiting loveliness of Nature, the changing of the seasons, sunrise and sunset, and both are usually inclined to bathe their souls in whatever sort of art, music, and just those things that seem to fit.

It wasn't that difficult to scope him out after she received the call. He was at where she had found him on her first day. She's realized that the best time to mend mistakes is when they're still small.

"A magazine just accepted the article I wrote before leaving. Isn't that great news?" she tries.

"See how reddish the clouds are over here? I remember my grandfather used to say, "Red sky at night, a sailor's delight — red sky in the morning, sailor's warning. . ." He trails off, lost again.

She turns back around to stare up at the sky next to him, believing that perhaps she's found it, and smiles. "Did you hear what I said?"

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I wasn't listening."


A/N:

Yeeaaaah. . . I'm really sorry if this is wordy and stuff. I really don't know how this came to be, my mind's weird like that. If you find any grammatical errors, please, don't hesitate to point those out to me. I don't bite and, frankly, I'd much rather if you could just point them out to me. I need more sleep. . . |D