"She drives me crazy, Rin," Luka sighed heavily, slumping down onto her schoolbooks. "I just can't stand her!"
Rin patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and closed her eyes sympathetically. The golden-haired girl named Rin adjusted her white headset and sighed with her.
"I mean, you wouldn't understand…you're just a kid…but…" Luka muttered. Rin gazed up at Luka with her large sky-blue eyes and blinked, annoyed. Rin crinkled her nose angrily but said nothing-being the age of seven, she thought she knew everything and boasted about it, but not much information was held in her head.
"Sorry, Rin," Luka apologized quickly, shaking her magenta-haired head swiftly. "I know you know more than I give you credit for."
Luka stacked her books atop one another and picked them up, filing the hard-covered books into her red backpack that hung from the back of her chair.
"So, what's her name?" Rin asked innocently, leaning against the back of her library chair.
"Miku – Miku Hatsune, I think." Luka growled, leaning closer. "She has this disgusting cyan hair and eyes, and she's really hyper, like she just drank a gallon of coffee or something. She thinks she's the coolest thing since canned beans."
"Canned beans?" Was all Rin picked up from it at first, before scratching her blonde head and shrugging. "Just 'cause you're hyper doesn't mean you're annoying, you know. Anyway, I'm sure she isn't that bad to work with-and all you guys have to do is a science project. It won't be too awful, I'm sure."
"Yeah, whatever," Luka grumbled, refusing to believe that any good would come from this. "Listen, I got to go. I'll see you after school tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay, Luka. See you." Rin stood with Luka and trotted behind her until she left the library, then rushed off to browse the kid's books with her friend Len.
Luka slung her backpack across her shoulder, brooding and seething. She hated Miku, she decided. After being paired up for a science project that involved chemicals burning cloth, the two had been forced to hang out during lunch together, planning on how to achieve the goal of the experiment. High school was tough, Luka decided, especially with Miku following you around all day.
She practically stalked Luka through the halls, chatting jubilantly at her locker and asking if they could hang out after school together. God, Luka hated her cheer and pestering!
Luka decided to just ignore her after a while, but it seemed like she was always there-sharing all of her classes, sitting next to her during lunch, living close to her house.
The two didn't live in the nicest neighborhood possible, to put it kindly. It was severely crime-ridden and not the best place for young girls to live in-the streetlights didn't work and alleys hung around every single-story decaying house in the town. The only nice place was the library, where Luka and her young friend Rin would hang out after school some days.
Luka's keys jingled as she approached the door of her small, broken-down home with a squat roof and chipping paint. She unlocked it after fumbling a bit and pushed open the heavy thing, throwing her book-bag down beside the door and flicking on the light. Her mom wouldn't be home yet-she hardly ever was home from her job at a 'dancing bar', as her mother called it, but she was loving enough and at least bought Luka food and necessities. The bottles lining every one of the cupboards in her home clattered with every movement you made in the house.
Luka slumped down on the couch and flicked on the television, bored as the bottles covering the coffee table clanged together. She should've been doing her homework…but, eh, she didn't feel like it. She turned past the news station and to the next channel, only static appearing on the small screen. She flipped down-just static, again. She turned back to the news and sighed heavily, sinking into her ratty couch.
Her eyelids began to droop almost immediately, her pink hair resting in front of her tired eyes, and soon she was buried in a deep sleep.
She woke up late, eyes shooting open like racecars. She jumped up from the couch, knowing she was late. She didn't bother with brushing her teeth or hair, and she didn't wear make-up, so all she had to do was pick up her backpack full of unfinished homework and leave the door…crap, unfinished homework! She bit hard down on her tongue and cursed.
As soon as she shut the door, facing the chipped paint, a loud honk beeped from behind her. She whizzed around to see a shoddy-looking red car rolling very slowly down the road. It inched near the curb, and Luka cursed again when she caught sight of who was waving giddily from the passenger's seat: Miku.
Luka tried to smile genuinely back, but it came out completely fake.
"Luka, Luka!" Miku cried in a sing-song voice. "Do you need a ride?"
Oh, God! Luka felt torn. Either say no as she wanted and hurt Miku to the point of not finishing their project, or say yes and have to ride a quarter of a mile with the most annoying person she had ever met.
"Yeah, sure," Luka grunted, knowing she would regret this later.
As soon as she entered the vehicle, she knew that Miku was even poorer than she was. The seats were tattered and ripped, the engine sputtering as it crawled along. The windshield was dirty and the floors were littered with garbage, duct tape substituting for one of the windows.
The man driving the car had dark blue hair and a lighter scarf of the same color wrapped loosely around his neck. He chewed lazily on the edge of a cigarette as he glanced back at Luka.
"Hey," He grumbled, clutching an owning hand around Miku's thin shoulder. She winced away slightly, as if there was a scar underneath her black arm wraps. Luka narrowed her aqua eyes at the pair, sniffing disdainfully. She hated couples; she found them quite disgusting-kissing in public, holding unwashed hands, giggling stupidly with one another.
The ride to school was bumpy and uncomfortable. The seatbelt nearest Luka was too torn to even be an excuse for protection, so she was thrown around in the backseat with every turn.
It felt like forever in the stiff silence, but the trio eventually arrived at their High School-V's School for the Gifted and Talented. Despite being a very poorly built and maintained school and the fact that most of the students were neither gifted nor talented, Luka loved her school. The extended one-story brick building stretched far into the city, as its campus also included a college.
The car rolled to a reluctant stop, and Luka jumped out. Miku opened the door after her, but as she picked up her book-bag the man driving grabbed her forcefully and pulled her into a sloppy kiss. Luka stuck her tongue out, turning away from the two. She didn't notice Miku flinch away.
"Thanks for the ride," Luka called over her shoulder.
"Yeah, whatever…" The blue-haired man growled in response, eyes darting around in search of a parking space. He spat out his cigarette as his ratty car pulled off again.
Miku managed a smile to Luka, waving slightly.
"We should be getting to first period," Luke muttered, groggy and unhappy. Miku never failed to put a damper on her mood-especially since they'd been paired up for the project.
The day was uneventful until lunch, when, as Luka pushed through the crowded, bustling cafeteria, Miku appeared in the seat beside her.
"Hiya, Luka!" She chirped happily, bright as ever. She seemed to only be quiet when that blue-haired boy was around. Luka glanced around in search for him, hoping for him to show up and silence the shorter teen.
"Uh…hey, Miku…" Luka wasn't used to people speaking to her, other than Miku-the one who had been stalking her through school all day. Luka squirmed, feeling odd and annoyed by the twin-pigtailed pest. She picked at her unidentifiable food, keeping her head down. Her pink hair hung in a curtain around her face.
"Hey, I've been thinking," Miku produced an apple from her pocket and chewed on it thoughtfully. "We should get together sometime at one of our house's."
Luka gave her a stern look.
"Uh, you know, for the science project, of course!" Miku quickly swallowed, shaking her head and waving her hands wildly.
"Yeah…sounds great." Luka adjusted her own headset and nodded, taking an experimental bite of the food on her plastic tray.
Miku seemed brighter than ever, grinning wildly. Must not have many friends, Luka thought darkly.
"Alright! Does tomorrow sound good?" Miku chewed more of her apple, spraying crumbs onto Luka's plate. She pushed it away from herself, wrinkling her nose.
"Yeah, I'll be over at your place at five." Luka grumbled. She didn't feel like cleaning up the bottles littering her house just for Miku.
"Wonderful!" Miku clapped her hands, bouncing in her seat.
Yeah, Luka snorted internally, sarcastic. This is wonderful.