was originally going to be a oneshot, but this part was sooo long lmao. will probably have like 15 chapters at most. leave! comments! or reviews! please!

feedback is much appreciated. enjoy.

1st encounter:

the boy with the cotton candy lollipop

december 19, 2017

The first time she saw him, she was 15.

It was a freezing winter night, like every dark December night. The cool, crisp air wasn't able to penetrate Miku's 4 layers of shirts, thankfully. Her armor consisted of a tank top as a first layer, a long sleeved creme colored shirt as a second layer, a rather unattractive wool sweater with badly designed Reindeer and elves as a third layer, and a tan trench coat as the final layer. The sweater was dark green, decorated with wobbly images of smiling Reindeer, one with an almost unreal bright red nose that was almost too big for its head, and a circle of eerily happy elves with pointed Christmas hats wielding what looked like toys. Miku, as much as she loved her late great grandmother, didn't exactly find the images attractive, but it kept her warm and that's what mattered.

As if that wasn't enough to prevent the cold from reaching her, she also wore a chocolate brown scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and a beanie that shielded the top of her head from the bitter cold, and a pair of leggings under her skinny jeans, though her legs weren't unbearably cold, like how her upper body would be if she took off even one layer of clothing. She wore thigh high socks and and knee high boots, just to complete the collection of her 'I'm sensitive to the cold' starter pack.

She stuffed her gloved hands into her pockets as she walked forth, the sound of snow crunching under her boots and the wind blowing past her ears the only thing that she could hear in the silent, silent world. Snow, or as Miku liked to call it, God's dandruff, fell from the sky softly, landing on Miku's clothes and in her long teal hair as she trudged forth.

She let out a small sigh, watching disinterestedly as a small, white cloud came from her mouth. She really hated Winter.

Miku came to a stop at a deserted bridge where, by day, cars drove on and got trapped trapped in traffic. However, since it was 3 in the morning, the roads everywhere in town were nearly empty. Miku looked over the railing, down at the snow covered ground. The bridge was suspended high up in the air, unlike most bridges that cars drove on. Miku was standing on the top of the bridge, where the arch proudly stood tallest.

She gracefully stepped over the railing, one leg at a time. She faced the open side, her hands grasping at the rail behind her loosely. Lean forward, and let go. After that, there should be nothing. No pain, no heartbreak, no empty promises, no anything. Even if she didn't die immediately, the fall was big enough so that her injuries should...

Miku sighed. "Well," She said, glaring up at the dark sky. "Thanks for nothing. And screw you, winter. I've always hated you."

"Is that so?" A voice rang out, cutting through the quiet, like a knife through butter. "I always thought winter was great."
Miku turned to find the source of the voice, shocked that not only that someone other than herself was up that late at night, but they actually spoke to her. She gripped the railing tightly as she studied the person before her.

There was a boy leaning against the railing on the other side, next to where Miku currently stood. He wore all black, the hood of his jacket up and covering the top of his head. His black, ripped jeans made Miku question his sanity, because who would actually want to wear something like that on a late, snowy, winter night? He wore black combat boots, his ankle crossed over the other, knees slightly bent. Although Miku couldn't really see his face from her angle, she could see the stick of a lollipop poking out from the wall of his hood.

Miku watched as the lollipop stick moved up and down, the owner moving the stick with his mouth. She hesitated before speaking, wanting to ask who this stranger was, but nothing came out.

She got a rather...strange feeling from the boy, sort of like a feeling of wonder or curiosity. Miku felt like she was looking at an ancient artifact from a museum, and she didn't know why. It was quite odd, too, but she dismissed the feeling.

"What is there to like about Winter?" Miku finally replied after a couple minutes. There was a pause, then the boy reached up and took the lollipop stick between his pale, slender fingers. The candy part of the sweet, sugary goodness was a light, pale blue color. Miku concluded that it must be a Dum-Dum Cotton Candy flavored lollipop- her favorite one. Miku was never one to have a huge sweet tooth for candies that weren't chocolate, but the cotton candy flavoured lollipops always sent her tastebuds to flavor heaven.

The stranger twirled the stick between his fingers disinterestedly, almost as if he was bored to death and would much rather be doing something other than talking to a random girl in the middle of a frigid winter night.

"It's the season of death." He replied without so much of a glance in the confused girl's direction. "Survival of the fittest. The leaves of the trees fall and abandon its' post and shrivel up and die. The weak who don't prepare die, just like the leaves, while the strong survive and thrive. The cycle of life- it ends here and everything begins once again. And it's all because the world gets just a little bit colder and a few pieces of snow fall from the sky. It's quite...strange, the way life works."

"Is that it?" Miku muttered, looking at the strange boy. The lollipop was back in the boy's mouth and pushed to the side of his cheek, the pristine white stick moving up and down slightly. "Just...death, the cycle of life, all that emo shit?"

He shrugged. "The snow looks nice," He offered before shifting the lollipop to the other side of his mouth, "sometimes, it looks like it sparkles." His voice held a slight hint of sarcasm, like he didn't care too much about how the snow sparkled, but added it in to merely appease Miku.

"So...you like winter because it's the season where the weak die?"

"Yep."

"Ah." Miku cast a look down at the ground below her. "That's quite fitting for this situation, right?"

There was a pause. "Of course." He replied after a minute in a monotone voice void of any emotion.

"...However," He sighed almost regretfully, "you won't go through with it." Miku threw the stranger a small glare, her blue-green eyes squinted. Who did this guy think he was?

"I can and will," She replied sharply. "It just so happens that someone distracted me with edgy reasons of why winter is great." The guy threw his hands up, exasperated, as if he was the frustrated one. Miku began to get irritated with this rather strange stranger.

"Those are pretty decent reasons for liking winter, potato head." He sourly replied, ignoring Miku's offended glare. She couldn't see his face, but Miku knew that the bastard was rolling his eyes.

"At least if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have stupid reasons to dislike it." He mumbled this part, most likely to himself. However, Miku, having the hearing of someone who was determined to win any argument, was able to pick this up quickly.

"At least I'm not acting like some broody teenager who runs an 'aesthetic' tumblr blog filled with poems that are supposed to seem deep and mysterious but instead make literally no sense whatsoever." She snipped. She waited for his response, but the boy didn't reply. A thick, tense air fell between the two. One may call it awkward and uncomfortable, but all Miku felt was victory. Finally, she had rendered the boy speechless. He seemed like the type that could smoothly argue with someone and prove his point, but at last, it seemed that Miku had defeated him, despite only talking with the boy for less than 5 minutes. Miku stared at the back of the boy's hooded head, somewhat expectantly, somewhat triumphant at his silence. That's what I thought, Miku smugly thought.

"You're so fucking weird." And just like that, the moment of silence was broken, similar to if someone threw a delicate glass to the ground with all their strength. Miku's smirk was wiped off her face within a second, irritation replacing pride. Miku opened her mouth to let loose a snarky retort to the blonde's words, but her words were stolen from her very mouth because for the first time, the boy turned to look at Miku. Although he only moved his head slightly, it was enough for Miku to make out his features and such. And, boy, was he gorgeous. Miku flinched without fully knowing why- it was sort of like a twitch she couldn't control when he locked his cold eyes with her own. His blonde hair was messy, as if as if it had a mind of their own and it chose to disobey- rebel, even- the thought of being neat. His skin was smooth looking and as clear as crystal, but his skin was as pale as death, if not paler. His skin was as white as the snow that fell around them softly and covered the ground and surfaces all around. Even his cheeks, which were probably supposed to hold even the lightest hint of pink due to the frigid weather, were pale. The only sources of actual color on his face were his rosy pink lips and the most fascinating thing about him, his eyes. His eyes were a light blue color. Miku, no matter how appropriate the weather was, wouldn't describe it as 'icy' since that was far too cliche for her liking. The use of 'icy' to describe someone's eyes in the written works Miku often read when she was either bored or forced to read for an English assignment was far too common to be used in her head. Instead, she chose to describe it as a light cornflower blue color, the edges near the pupil a slightly lighter color than the rest of the iris. His eyes were intense, piercing, as if he were looking right into Miku's soul. She got a strange, indescribable feeling looking into his eyesMiku wondered if there was anything she could compare it to-probably not.

The boy squinted his eyes slightly, staring Miku straight in the eyes with so much intensity that she had to avert her usually challenging gaze to the ground. Well...

"Oh, fuc-"

She forgot that she was still in the same position as she was earlier, in the front of the rail, holding onto the freezing metal so she didn't find herself crashing down towards the road below her. In her surprise, she had foolishly let go of the rail behind her. It wasn't supposed to be like this, Miku thought desperately. Butterflies- and not the good, cute kind- erupted in her stomach as she felt her body move forward against her wishes.

Then, she wasn't about to fall anymore.

A hand had reached out and grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the edge at the last moment, when Miku's feet were standing right on the edge of the narrow cement. Miku felt her lower back hit the rail, but her many layers of clothing thankfully softened the blow, which probably would've hurt or at least ached slightly.

She stared down at the road below her, slightly numb. She was close to doing what she was about to do five minutes ago, and yet...she was scared. Before, she wasn't afraid. She was ready to jump off that bridge and plummet down, to die. But that moment where she began to tip forward, towards her desired destination, she felt a strange sort of desperation to survive- to live.

But how could she?

She wasn't strong enough to keep doing it. It wasn't like she had some extreme sob story like most would expect, nor did she have any troubles at school. Her grades were decent, mostly A's with a few B's sprinkled throughout her report card. She wasn't well-liked, but she wasn't hated. She was nothing- a nobody. Nobody went out of their way to to cause trouble or stress for the tealette, but nobody exactly went out of their way to have a friendly conversation, or to even speak to her.

And most people would have been fine with that. People usually had it so much worse than her, and yet she was unsatisfied.

She felt insignificant, worthless. She was one in billions. Her living and her dying, her doing something and her doing nothing, made no difference at all. She was a nobody who couldn't make a difference in the world even if she tried her hardest and put her blood, sweat and tears into it.

She couldn't control that- she couldn't control anything. Everything in her life was in the hands of fate, and she knew that. So she decided that it would be best to end everything on her own terms. She felt like, maybe, at least she could control when she died. It was sort of comforting, in a strange way, to know that not only can she control that one thing, but that she had no impact in the world. The very thing that drove her to her solution was her comfort, and if that wasn't out of the ordinary, she didn't know what was.

But when she felt that force pull her back, she felt something- a will to live.

She turned to find the boy staring at her with a crooked, yet oddly charming, smile on his face. God, that smile.

"I like that."

"Huh? What're you going on about?" Miku mumbled, eyeing the boy somewhat supiciously. He let go of her wrist and took a step back from the rail he leaned against. Miku was a little dazed by the event that just occurred, so her thoughts were a little unorganized. She didn't notice that, for the first time since she's seen him and for the first time ever, the boy's eyes held interest and, maybe, a strange sort of fondness.

He moved the lollipop stick up and down, presumably with his tongue. "You're definitely not like anyone I've encountered, and that's saying something, considering the billions of souls that I've escorted and taken." Wait, what?

"First off, I don't even know your name yet, Blondie. Second, what the actual hell do you mean?" Miku mumbled. She stared at him, a sickening sort of confusion sitting in the pit of her stomach. It was a feeling that didn't sit well with her. Miku didn't like feeling confused. It meant that she didn't know what was going on, and she hated ignorance and the unknown more than anything.

The boy dug into his pocket, fishing out a crumpled wrapper of a cotton candy flavored lollipop. He took a glance at it before casting aside the sweet's wrapper, tossing it somewhere to his left side without a second thought. "Hey, don't litter-"

"Death." He said. Miku blinked.

"Huh?"

"My name," He said, looking up at her with a grin, "is Death."

Miku stared. And stared. And continued to stare, until the boy who called himself "Death" waved a hand in front of her face. She finally snapped out of her trance upon noticing the movement right in front of her face. "Oh? Shocked, I see. You should be. Who knew Death could take the form of such a handsome dude?"

"That-" Miku sputtered, so shocked that for a minute she forgot how to form intelligible words. She knew that the boy's claim was preposterous, because she barely knew the guy and saying that you're someone- no, something- such as Death was truly something ridiculous. It wasn't that Death isn't real, because it is, but it wasn't...a person. It was a thing- something part of life. Something that cruelly snatched lives away and rarely gave anything good back. Surely the blonde boy in front of Miku couldn't be something that wasn't even a person. "That's crazy. Who are you, really?"

The boy tilted his head slightly, then sighed. He extended his hand. "Get over here, first. I don't want you fainting and dying despite my hard work, Hatsune." Miku froze upon hearing her last name come from his lips- how could he possibly know her last name?

Maybe he's a classmate or something. Maybe he knows me from somewhere. Miku thought. In fact, she shouldn't have even been so shaken or nervous by him knowing such simple information about her. He could very well be someone who knows her from some place and was pulling some kind of joke on her. But she knew that wasn't the case. She didn't know how, but she did.

She hesitantly took his hand, and he helped her over the metal railing. Once she was safely on his side, he let go of her gloved hand. He took a step back from her, then tilted his head, squinting slightly. "It's alright if you don't believe me. I wouldn't believe it either."

"W-Well, of course-"

"But you know I'm the real deal, Miku." He said. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

"I doubt it." Miku replied, crossing her arms. She slowly began to regain her confidence. Who cares if some guy knows her name, anyways? Anyone could know her name. "Even if you're serious and don't belong with the other nutcases, prove it. Prove that what you're saying is true." He shrugged at her word, then gave a tired sigh.

"You had a brush with death- me- 3 times. The first time, you were only 4 years, 3 months, 22 days old. You were playing outside with your friend, Kaito Shion, who is 3 years and two weeks older than you. He was your new neighbor and you two got along great. Speaking of that, you had a crush on him, didn't you? You made him crowns made of tiny flowers you found in your backyard and liked to hug and kiss him on the cheek. Cute. Anyways, back to your almost death that fortunately never came to be, or else I wouldn't be talking to the lovely 15 year old in front of me. You two were playing hide and seek, when Kaito found you. Being an energetic and rather cute 3 year old, you ran away, into the street, where a silver pick-up truck unexpectedly hit you. Luckily, the driver managed to hit the brakes so he didn't hit you too hard, but it's still enough to send you to the hospital. You pull through after a while and wake up and live, but you have a scar on your left side where something sharp sticking out of the ground stabbed you."

"The second time, you were 10 years, 1 month, and 11 days old. It was summer, and pretty hot. That day, it was somewhere around 105 degrees. So, naturally, it was a great day for swimming. But, unfortunately for a certain teal haired beauty, not knowing how to swim dampened the idea of going swimming. So while everyone else had a blast in the pool, you were stuck sitting on a plastic, white and blue striped lawn chair, roasting in the unrelenting and merciless sun and drowning in your own sweat. Then, someone called you over. It was that oh-so dreamy 13 year old boy, Kaito Shion, who you were still crushing on. He was still your neighbor at that point and even managed to earn a spot in your heart as your best friend. Ah, childhood sweethearts, right? Anyways, he called you over to ask if you wanted to get into the pool and he could float around with you on his back, since he was a pretty good swimmer. Oh, don't look so surprised, Hatsune- the kid fell for you as hard as you fell for him. Anyways, apparently you haven't heard the rule about running around the pool area, because you were so eager to get to Romeo that you slipped and fell right into the pool. Luckily for you, your mother was nearby and noticed that you weren't in your chair and she couldn't find you, until she noticed that you were under the water, drowning, and saved you."

"The third time, you were 13 years, 3 months, and 2 days old. You were going through a really, really cringy phase. God, it was awful. You wore black lipstick and got piercings and wore black ripped jeans, combat boots, and edgy band shirts every day, and I'm talking about those emo bands like My Chemical Romance and stuff, not the school band. You even posted those incredibly cringy poems that, as you said earlier, are supposed to seem deep and mysterious but instead make literally no sense whatsoever. At this point, Kaito moved away, still somewhere in the city, but no longer attending the same school as you. I still don't quite understand your sudden emo phase, but it's irrelevant right now. So one fateful night, I guess you decided, 'I'm going to take aesthetic pictures to go with my dark quotes for my blog' because you went walking around town in the unforgiving rain in the middle of night to take photos of streetlights and the sky and other stuff. Anyways, you obviously got sick after that and caught pneumonia and almost died after that. But you've recovered and eventually got out of that weird phase and blossomed into the stunning girl you are today."

Miku stared at him, blankly. A classmate couldn't have known those things- nobody could have except herself and others that were there to experience what had happened. She couldn't really process much, except maybe her overwhelming shock. "T-Then, if you're death...why are you here? Was I supposed to...die, just now?" The boy- Death- sighed.

"Well, Hatsune, you make my job difficult." He said, raising an eyebrow at her. "You're always almost dying- goodness, it's tiring, trying to make sure you don't die quite yet. A real handful, that's what you are." The blonde pointed his shrunken lollipop menacingly at Miku, as if he were ready to mug her with it or something.

Death by lollipop, Miku thought grimly as she eyed the sweet somewhat suspiciously as he stuck it back in his mouth. He's probably capable of sharpening that thing so he can shank me in the liver or something.

Death signed and rested his elbow on the metal pole, putting his chin on the palm of his open hand and resting it there. Everything was quiet. He exhaled slowly, tiredly. A pale stream of soft-edged smoke exited his mouth and went into the cold air, towards the dark and dark, puffy cloud-filled sky, up towards where the snow fell gently and landed on the Earth with a touch gentler than that of a ballerina's light feet gliding effortlessly, graciously across the floor. Miku watched as it disappeared into the night, somewhat awaken from her shocked state. "To answer your question, Hatsune, no. You weren't supposed to die."

"Everything," Death said, pausing to drag his other arm up and gesture lazily to their surroundings, "has an expiration date. Like...uh...milk."

Miku raised an eyebrow at the boy. "You're comparing death to milk?" He turned his head to face her, raising his eyebrow and changing his facial expression to match hers in an attempt to mock the bewildered look that rested on Miku's face.

"What, is it not obvious?" He replied with a hint of sarcasm. "They're pretty similar."

"How so?"

"Well..." He muttered, his cold eyes somewhat distant. He scratched the back of his neck, which the dark hood covered. "The goal is to use up all the milk, right? Milk expires. When it does, what point is there to keep it? Regardless as to whether there's a ton of stutr left, it's still gross, sour, and chunky. Lives are kinda like that. People want to live life to the fullest, but sometimes their time is just far too early. When it's someone's time to go, they're supposed to go. If they don't, they're causing tons of problems, like stuff that isn't supposed to happen, leading to unpredictable or changed futures, yada yada yada. All that fun stuff."

"And when there's still a decent amount of milk in the carton, you don't want to throw it out, because you can still use it. Sometimes certain people-" he shot Miku a glare that'd be hair raising, bone chilling, goosebump rising to some, but she honestly only felt a little intimidatedNow, this part relates to you. Because you like to make my...nonexistent life so difficult-"

"Hey! I'm not asking to die so often!" Miku protested. The blonde gave her a really? look as he gestured to the railing, raising his eyebrows. Miku opened her mouth to let out a retort, or at least to defend herself, but she was stumped. Wordlessly, she pursed her lips and sighed, deciding it would be fruitless to defend herself.

"As I was saying, because you like to make things harder for me, I always have to drop whatever I'm doing to prevent your untimely death. Sometimes, literally. I dropped my bagel because of you a few years ago. I was starving for the rest of the day. So, be more careful and don't even consider suicide, kiddo. It's not your time."

"I-" Death cut her off quickly with a loud "sh!" as he held his index finger up towards her, pointing at the tealette almost comically. She gave him a quizzical look.

"Promise you won't intentionally kill yourself, Hatsune." She rolled her eyes.

"Fine. I promise." Death smiled at her and stood upright, taking the lollipop stick out of his mouth. The light sugary ball of candy had been devoured, leaving nothing behind but the damp white stick that it previously clung to. He flung it over the railing, which Miku responded to by scolding him for being such a litterbug. He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. Damn it, Death, for littering." He mumbled, putting his hands up in mock surrender. "I should be going, now. I've got some stuff to do."

"Wait!" Miku suddenly sputtered as he turned to walk away. He looked back at her, a questioning look on his face. Miku stumbled over her words, trying to find them. She didn't even know what she wanted to say- she just wanted him to stay longer. She wanted the actual Death, capital D, to stay longer and talk with her. I must be real lonely, she thought somewhat grimly.

"...You gonna stand there, or are you gonna, like...talk?" He asked. Miku clenched and unclenched her hands from within her coat pockets, somewhat nervous.

"Uh- what should I call you?" She blurted out. "If we're gonna be in public, I can't just call you Death. People would think your parents are emo or something." Death stared at her, then his lips turned up into a smirk.

"You want to actually spend time with me?" He cooed, a teasing tone present in his smooth voice. Miku's cheeks flushed, only lightly though. She wouldn't dare to admit any further, because the fact that she wanted to befriend Death was already a strange thought. Getting flustered because of Death- out of context, it sounds like some weird kink that Miku definitely did not have.

"Sh-Shut up."

"Aw~ embarrassed?" He snickered. "Cute."

"J-Just-" She sighed, frustrated. "You know what, nevermi-"

"Len." He said firmly, cutting Miku off effectively. "Len Kagamine. That's my human name." Miku blinked.

"Uh...cool name..." She mumbled, somewhat at a loss of words. What could she say now without seeming weird? She didn't want to come off as some weird blush-y, nervous girl like in some cheesy high-school romance anime.

Since when did I start caring about what this guy thinks? I don't need him as a friend, why did I even-

"You mentioned us being in public didn't you?" Death- Len- said with an amused voice. "How about you buy me a bagel one of these days as payment for making me drop mine when you almost got killed by walking around in the rain with a flimsy jacket?"

"Sure!" Before Miku knew it, she had already replied. She pursed her lips, deciding not to question her thought process anymore at that point. Len's eyes widened slightly.

"Wait- you're serious?" He asked, looking shocked at Miku's speedy reply. She coughed.

"W-Well..." She mumbled. "yeah. Then," She grinned at him. "I could say that I've flirted with death before!" She aimed her finger guns at him comically. Len paused, then scoffed, putting his head down so she couldn't see his face.

"You're unbelievable," He sighed after a minute. He dug into his pocket and tossed her something. Miku barely caught it, yelping as the item flew into the air for a second time as she struggled to catch it once again. Once secure in her tiny hands, she looked down at the item.

A cotton candy flavored Dum-Dum lollipop.

"Your favorite, right?" Len mumbled, turning the other direction. Miku felt the corners of her mouth twitch upwards in a small smile, not caring to question how he knew. If he was Death, he probably knew a lot of things about Miku. "I gotta go. See you 'round, Buttercup. I expect you to buy me that bagel soon."

With those last words, before Miku could blink, the blonde was gone. It seemed as if he had disappeared into thin air, like he was a piece of the small, silent snow floating away due to the wind. She unwrapped the lollipop hesitantly, then stuffed the wrapping in her pocket, deciding to throw away the wrapper when she got home. Unlike Len, she didn't litter.

She stuck the candy in her mouth and smiled a smile almost as sweet as the lollipop itself.

Unknown to her, as he turned to leave, for the first time, Death let a genuine smile onto his face.

It tasted better than usual.