I was watching this Rin and Len video, and a couple of parts really made me sad and made me think of this... ^_^;; It's really short 'cuz I didn't want to write that much, and I figured it would work as a shortie.

In their world, there were three types: The official, the UTAU, and the failures. That was how those inside saw it, even if outside people saw it differently.

She looked up from her cell phone to stare at them. The officials were laughing and telling jokes and having a good time, oblivious to the world around them. That stupid leek lover was, as always, the center of attention. When she had first arrived here, Miku had welcomed her kindly… and then she was filed as a failure and her conversations with Miku became less and less until today, when they stopped completely.

Neru sneered and looked back at her phone. Whatever. She didn't need them. She still had Haku, and though Haku was either drunk or hungover a lot of the time, she was enough.

A drop of water fell onto her phone.

Neru looked up at the sky, puzzled. It wasn't supposed to rain today… and it wasn't. The sky was a dazzling blue, no clouds in sight. She looked back down, another drop of water falling onto her phone. Her vision started to blur, and she understood. But she did not like it.

She would not cry.

She would not give them the satisfaction of proving that failures were pathetic. She would not… She would n-not let t-them break her.

Her body started to tremble, weakening her legs and letting her fall onto the ground. The tears flowed freely now.

It wasn't fair. How could they do this to her? They treated her and Haku as equals, they all had a good time, they'd even called them friends! But to suddenly stop like that, just because they were called failures?

She'd thought she'd heard them call her a couple of times, after the day she was proclaimed a failure. But no, she'd been wrong. She'd thought that it might just all be a horrible misunderstanding on her part, but they'd been studiously ignoring her recently. Her crush, Len, wouldn't even look at her!

Neru had lost her friends. The one friend she still did have had started drinking and became depressed. Why? Why?!

"…Neru…" Great. Now she was hallucinating again.

"…Neru!..." It was getting closer. She hugged her knees, burying her face. Why couldn't it just leave her alone?

"Neru!" It was Len's voice. Way to hit where it hurt.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. "Neru?" Her heart stopped. It couldn't be… "Neru, are you alright?"

The blonde slowly lifted her head. It was him. It was him! There was Len, kneeling in front of her and looking at her concernedly. Her face flushed: she must look horrible, all tear-stained and puffy.

Carefully, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm alright. What do you want?" Her voice cracked slightly, betraying her. Len stared at her for a little longer before he handed her an envelope. She fumbled with it, self conscious under Len's unrelenting stare. Neru read it quickly, eyes widening. "No way…"

Len smiled. "Welcome to the officials." He hugged her. "I'm sorry we were avoiding you. We absolutely could not, under any circumstances, let you know about this. There was no way we could hang around you guys and not tell you so we…" He pulled back, a sorrowful expression on his face. "It was horrible of us, we know. Could you ever forgive us?" She stared at him.

She didn't know what to think. She was so happy, and angry, and sad, and confused… So she did what any girl in love would do.

Neru pulled him roughly forward and kissed him. It wasn't a long kiss, but it still shocked the hell out of the boy. She let him go and stood up, licking her lips. She looked over at the officials, who were currently grinning and were all giving her thumbs ups. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rin comforting a sobbing Haku, who was holding the same letter.

It was unheard of for a failure to become an official.

It didn't make sense.

But really… who cared?

The vocaloid smiled. She hoped the warm feeling in her heart would never go away.

…

The Day After…

"Oi, get up you lazy diva!"

"…mmm… just a few more minutes…"

THUNK!

"Owwww!"

"I told you to get up…"

"…zzzz…"

"Don't fall back asleep! Fine. You wanna be that way? Let's see how Mr. Leek likes falling from 3 story high window…"

"Nooooooooo! I'm up, I'm up! Please leave Mr. Leek alone, Neru-chan!"

Neru threw Miku's leek doll at her. "We have to get going. You have 5 minutes or I'm leaving without you." She walked into the kitchen, smiling at the diva's frantic exclamations.

Ding-dong!

The video panel next to the front door switched on, showing Len and Dell waiting outside the door. "Miku, our dates are here!" A squeak and several thunking sounds came from Miku's room. Neru rolled her eyes.

"I'll never understand why the Company made us roommates…" She muttered, opening the door. A wave of cigarette smoke hit her in the face, dizzying her. Len grabbed her shoulders to steady her and Neru shot him a smile of gratitude, her face reddening. She looked over at Dell. "New brand of cigarettes?"

Dell glanced at her, his face conveying utter displeasure. Of course, he usually looked like that. "Miku made me switch to a lighter brand. She says she doesn't like tasting tobacco when she kisses me," Len blushed at the word 'kiss' and discreetly took his hands off Neru's shoulders, "so she's putting me on this plan where I'll smoke less and less tobacco until I eventually stop altogether."

Neru grinned. "You must really love her if you're willing to do that." A faint pink came across the smoker's face, and he muttered a "whatever…" The two blondes looked at each other and snickered.

"What's so funny?" The green-haired girl finally came out, bouncing over to Dell and planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Your boyfriend," The blondes answered simultaneously. Miku looked over at Dell questioningly but he just shook his head in response. She shrugged and latched onto his arm.

"C'mon! We've only got a short while for the date, then we have to come back for recordings!"

"We know, we know," Len sighed. He took Neru's hand and they all set off.

Neru leaned her head onto Len's shoulder. This is perfect. Len and I got together after the little fiasco yesterday, Miku revealed that she and Dell had been going out for a while now, and we all had a great party. I hope this happiness lasts forever…

XP I feel like this could be better. I may edit it later, I'm not sure. Anyways, yes I like Miku x Dell! So what? He's only 19! If you do the creepiness factor, it's perfect! And let's give Neru x Len some more love, alright? There's so few Neru x Len fanfics… If you want to flame, be nice? Meh, do what you want. But PLEASE don't argue about the pairings, and say some other pairing is better. It's just stupid.