Rated: K plus. Just because I like to. Whatcha gonna do 'bout that now, hm~?
Summary: The dawning realization of failing at every aspect and hitting head on – "Aren't you going to give up yet?" – Rolling Girl; Miku, Mikuo.
Author's Note: Please end this.
Disclaimer: Crypton pwns all.
Sometimes, Miku recites the fact about her – about him, truth and little secrets she is sure of; just to make sure of her being, still existing and breathing. Living.
My name is Miku.
I'm sixteen years old.
I have father, mother and a twin brother.
The list is short.
His eyes are frightening. Azure color depthless and still, fearfully motionless, a pool of calming water never ripple and the undercurrent lapping soundlessly beyond her; glazing over the world in monochromatic view.
It's eerie, and uncomfortable, because she is never sure if her lips will gain a cocky smirk or a curve in the corner of eyes; never knows if her own stare are absent and hollow like him.
He looks at her and sees someone else.
She looks at him and sees herself.
My name is Miku. I'm sixteen years old, and my reflection is a boy.
Miku is nothing but a failure. She has lived with the fact everyday. Making peace with it – going so far as to pushing her limits, testing the shaky water under her feet only to fall back down again – falling – falling – falling.
It has a steady rhythm – an infinite cycle she is not capable of breaking. Trying, falling, hurting, trying again. It's almost like pressing on a bruise, she thinks, just to enjoy the dull pain that coursing in her vein afterward; like cutting on the healing scar tissue and watch delicate skin being torn by a delicate tip of a knife, crimson pearl rolling down marred skin.
Her reflection watchs from the mirror and offers nothing.
It goes like this: An everyday story of a mediocre girl. Normal grades, average look, no talents to show but her effort – and even then there is no fruition, no result for the trying. No streaks of difference, no spark, nothing to identify her from the mass roaring above. Her reflection smiles and cries but never speaks.
Miku never speaks.
He is her. There is no flashy background to him, no sudden appearence, no climactic twists and turns in her sudden life and no dramatic meeting. Mikuo is just... there. Staring at her like they are long-time friends; with a familiarity that she can't just shrug off.
But he is her. She is sure about that.
(Her brother is more confident than that of the reflection, and harsh, harsh outline, defeated figure –
– It has to be her)
She never wavers. Offering a brief smile like candlelight before harsh winds, flickering with tendrils of shadow and darkness.
"You believe me too easily," he whispers. His voice sounds empty, a terrible ache, yearning for something to fill in blank space.
"You don't seem sure of yourself," she chides back.
Sometimes they talk. Sometimes, he just observes her from the mirror. Mikuo is everywhere, every place that Miku has ever left herself, in a picture, a photo, a mirror, everywhere. She never seems annoyed at his staring, instead just focusing on her own work.
"You aren't embarassed of undressing in front of me?" Mikuo crooks his head.
"You are also undressing in front of me too, so I think it's equal now," she points out blandly.
Her scars match his own.
There are lines running down her back – writing and scars and memories of something he doesn't recognize now, and she isn't really afraid of showing them. Doesn't really care of them anymore. Plucking a part of herself and throw it away into oblivion; he thinks, he remembers, he promises. I don't care about them.
It's always there. They are always there. Too much for her to care now.
They are everywhere.
"You cut yourself?" – The question came out, simple and absent-mindedly, his eyes skimming along the uneven cut of hair, picking up pieces and bits of conversation and personalities that she has thrown away.
"Sometimes," her fingers runs on stiff collar, briefly touching the ribbon before untangling it, a process that looks too much like loosing a noose.
"Does it feel good?"
Her eyebrow quirks a slightest curve. The closest to emotion he has seen on her face.
"You tell me."
"Sometimes," he tossed in, "but often it feels like shit. And blood loss."
"No duh, Sherlock."
He flinches. Calloused words and even more calloused facade, such normality that is abnormal more than ever.
"So why did you do that?"
Her smile is every bit vacant and bitter, but she seals her lips tight.
"Nobody commits suicide because they want to die – ..."
Mikuo breeezes past her, waving for her next to the finish line. He runs alongside her, his hand extended for help, for aid. He is after her, pants and questions and "Wait for me-!" that will never be enough.
"I am you, Miku," he flashes a dangerous smile, "I understand that better than anyone."
"To be me is to live a life full of regret, to know what you cause just by existing," she answers, she threatens, she promises.
Maybe he has already known that, deep down. Maybe they both know that, from the moment he appeared in her mirror.
Maybe that's why he never steps into her world.
He does not whisper her name or touch her hair like she used to. He should have. She hates him.
She loathes him with a perfect and ringing clarity so pure that her head rings with it, and the backs of her eyes burn into white. She despises him with an animalistic intensity demanding she tear him from and to her, and she just doesn't know anymore.
It has started with disappointment.
"Why did you only get an C," her mother screamed, the memory reeked of paper scent and broken relationship. It was normal, too normal, a daily conversation that even their neighbors were used to now.
"I tried!"
"Not hard enough, it seems!" and louder, "Did I raise you to be this stupid?! Seriously, all you know is to write those useless stuffs-"
"It has nothing to do with my writing. I tried –" she uttered, her words fell on death end, because mother was right and –
"Did I raise you to be this disobedient, Miku?" disapproving glare pierced through the girl. It felt like standing under an x-ray, with all of her flaws displayed on glass shelves and people stared at them. Whispering about them.
"I tried!"
"So how comes the result is this bad?"
So how comes it is so bad? So how comes you still fail?
"Why can't you just be like your brother?"
Her eyes stung. Pins and needles and expectation unraveled and tightened around her neck like a noose. A fleeting thought crossed by, I will not cry. Forced herself to look up with head high and eyes dry, void of any breakdown.
It has started with disappointment, and didn't end there.
"Sometimes I can hear voices, you know," Miku whispers nonchalantly one day. Mikuo doesn't answer – really, what should he say? – and she never expects one anyway, "They say different things everytime."
He doesn't ask and she doesn't elaborate any further.
"Have you ever thought about...?"
"About...?" – The word echos in his mouth, uncertainly and unwillingly, desperately crying for help.
Her hands extended, she leans forward just a little, touching open sky above them – moon and stars screaming faded words, old words; Miku is a little too brittle, a little too scarred, and too jaded still, he thinks; the rooftop is not structured enough to support her still and she is to fall into fresh night air.
"About dying."
He holds still. Everything. His breath. It's scary, how she has the power over his life in her hannd, and she does, she does.
"Often enough, I'd like to think."
Her fingers spray over dim light, fading away into skin and soul and a set of eyes. Her breath fans over his frosted lips. Saccharine drips down the front of his shirt.
"They usually tell me to just... End this mess. Some encouragement, some threats, all expectation. Putting up a nice show that at least worth their time."
His voice is iced, cold and chilling, one of them.
"Then why haven't you?"
I'm scared of dying.
"I don't fancy the idea of getting hurt in the process," the wording is carefully neutral; catched in the palm of her hand a single firefly. Mikuo watchs curiously as she sighs and lets the little creature escape away.
(Miku kept them safe, really. Put them in a bottle and gave them leaves. They died. They always die.)
He barks a sarcastic laughter; really, he doesn't understand her, and he should have, he should have understood that simple idea.
"Mom said a painless death is only for someone angelic," his body leans out, "and killing one's self is too cowardly to be so." Hand reaching out but never leaves the mirror, his own world, brushs past her arm in the process, drawing ancient spells and hieroglyphs; and Miku is a blunted silhouette under the faint winking of stars.
She breaths an airy sound that reminds him of giggles,
"I tried finding that ending, once,"
"You aren't trying hard enough then."
My name is Miku, and I think I'm hearing voices inside my head.
The sound of her mother talking reverberates in white walls, calm and still, practiced elegant and success scream from her aura. It's empty, too empty, Mikuo winced. Magahony table and white sofa and too-quiet noise exhales silently. Nothing personal. Nothing humanly.
"Miku, what do you have to say for yourself about this," straight back and even straighter neck glances down at the little girl across the room, the test results held by two manicured fingers, like some rotten things. Her voice betrays no expression, only a lilt of light spitting and despising and ignoring spark in gravely words. It's polite, so polite, too polite, like talking to a stranger and not a mother-daughter conversation.
"I will try harder next time, mother,"
"I expected better from you, daughter," spelled out all measured future and no familial warmth, "Without good grades, you won't even have a start to begin with. See your brother? He will get a good job."
She means well, he muses.
"There won't be another time,"
"It's only for your good, Miku,"
If there is one thing sure about Miku, one thing that isn't inconsistent or shift from times to times, he would say it's her inconsistency. A small greeting, a wave of hand, even a friendly and enthusiastic conversation if needed.
He likes watching her applying make-up on her face, and at the same time is equally appalled of the whole process; a sickening fascination that he can't look away, like watching a tragedy unwound before his eyes and knows (amused, wondered, awed) of the bloody outcome.
Miku often practices her expressions in front of the mirror, watching herself in his eyes and judges. Smile is usually the hardest of all. If one side rises more than the other, it's a goofy, crooked grin. If she makes it a little softer, it's a happy smile. Add a little teeth in and the smirk becomes seductive, cajoling.
(She doesn't seem like one person at all. Like silk spun tight around, creating a choking, suffocating nest.)
She isn't disturbed by him. She isn't disturbed by anyone at all. Carelessly tosses all her stories and secrets to anyone who is interested. She is Miku the dreamy, Miku the airhead; the same one talking about committing suicide and abuse and wishing to die at the same time.
"It's what I want to show people, a rehearsed talk that I can have with anyone and everyone," she smiles serenely, taking in his confused expression, "the one thing I can do without even cracking open an eye."
That is why she doesn't talk much. Lest one day the topics run out and leave her to venture out of the scripts, and Miku is disappointing them.
Lest she fails anyone again.
"Don't you ever feel tired," he quips, he begs, he pleads. He lifts his hand to touch her cheek, her face; mapping out the age in the dark circles under eyes, running fingertips across the contour that is her cheekbone. Reveling in their synchronization in the luxury of her lips.
"Of what," her expression is calming, sliding through the cracks of his fingers like water under a bridge. A me that is perfect, the one I want to becomes, a model figure to look up and hone myself. Not flawless, not yet, but soon enough.
"Pretending," she has to have a weakness under that hard armor, the one spot that is her Achilles' heel. She breathes out softly, a puff of air that mists his nostrils and goes straight up to his eyes. Burns. Her eyes lock with his, and for a moment, he sees stars.
"Mikuo, my dear," she obeys, she bows, she heeds, "there is a different between making up things and showing the tip of an iceberg."
Blue eyes rip away.
(so forget the inner me, observe the outer one–)
And all he sees is himself.
(a reflection of somthing else, a horrid emptiness that is eating her up from the inside, wanting to be filled; and while he sleeps Miku dies and the knife is in his hand.)
It's in Miku that he sees himself, and in her he also see a stranger. Her words spoken softly, slowly; about stars and sky and something he has never experiences. It's easy to reach out and touch her, comforting that little girl and at the same times, be confused by what she says.
Streetlight reflects in her eyes, she smiles so hollowly.
"I used to love this, you know," her hands wave around to illustrate the point, the bus that they are – she is – the only customer there, and the driver looks at her like she is crazy, talking to her hand mirror. He doesn't understand. (No one does.) Gathering nightlife and stardust into her eyes and plaster them on her skin like a pretty mask.
"Going out at night alone will be your death one day, you know," he remarks rather pointlessly.
Her expression turns brittle, her smile sharp as jagged glass.
"Isn't that the whole point?"
Bipolar girl, he likes to call her. Wants to live and wants to die.
– because Miku is not worth saving and nobody ever wants her anyway
It's easy, he counts. Wanting to live a life where she doesn't disappoint anymore. Wanting to be useful, to be a success. To be wanted.
(she can either try to change this world or escape to another –)
Because Miku is not her twin brother, not the golden guy – certainly not her family's pride – and nobody ever wants her.
Her brother, despite their obvious difference, still loves her. With blue eyes and hair a shade of clear sky, he radiates a warm aura that makes everyone have no choice but to like him. Respect him.
Chalk one up to him, he has perfect school results and even more perfect personality. Always smiling and always nice to everyone.
In him she sees herself – what she could be, what she wants to be, what she can never be. In her, she see a flawed version of him.
(Miku likes to think that when her mother was pregnant, they were expecting only one of the twins and not both. They were expecting him, and she was just an added trouble.
She should have been a part of her brother – the one part that will be his downfall, that will define him as a normal human being and not the epitome of flawlessness that he is.
She is her brother – sharing the same womb, coming to the world together with him, if only a minute after.
She will be her brother – the one they all want her to be. And she cannot fail.)
Miku looks into the mirror, and breathes his name.
"Mikuo."
Her mother is worried. And her father is never home to know.
They insist that she has problems, that she is seeing things. They don't see him in the mirror. They only see her.
"Miku, there is no–"
But he is there. He is with her. He is living in there. Mikuo is her. She is him – she will be him. She has to.
Don't they see that she /tries/?
My name is Miku, and I'm imagining things.
Mikuo, Mikuo, Mikuo. The word doesn't make it out of her throat, just sticks there and grasps at her vocal chords, pulling the strings tight. Her brother looks back worriedly. Mikuo, I'm still chasing after you. Mikuo, do you miss me? Do you want me? Mikuo, I've been searching for you. I'm still searching for you. I'm still trying to be you.
Mikuo, wait for me.
– because Miku is not woth saving and no one ever wants her anyway
"Aren't you going to give up yet," he drawls.
"One more time," she counts.
It's all too much for her, Mikuo notes dully from the mirror. Her shoulders are slumped, weighed down with her world and everyone's thoughts and her own state. The voices, she says without much of a grimace, are screaming, white noises, endless noises, and every times she tries to catch them they drift into the darkness in the back of her mind. Everything that surrounds her is made of smoke and lead and marble, black and white; monochrome half-moons spinning aimlessly. Every glass work surface has gone foggy with lost thoughts.
She is too light in his eyesight, quiet and waning like a sinking moon; like carbonated bubble inside her veins that will float away and get lost forever in the ceiling; her steps airy – that of a child.
And she is tired. Circles arounds her eyes and ivy wires crawling out from the cracks of her mind like hell flowers, only to bound her tightly. Choking her to death. Trials and errors are her companions for years now.
She is tired.
Mikuo is still far away from her.
(she cannot be him she cannot be him she cannot –)
She listens to the door shut but keep standing, frozen in the room she has grown up it. It's too small. It always is.
When he blinks, Miku can almost count his eyelashes, thick and long fringes falling on pool of expressive fusion. She loves the color of his hair, the dark hollow under his jaw, and every single fiber of him. She loves him more than anything, more than herself – and therein lies problems.
"I never want this!" the words explode between them, destroying the mirror he so adamantly insists on staying in, "I just want to be like you and I never can because I'm not you and I'm just a failure – and it isn't my fault!"
"It's not – everything is not your fault," he rasps, a little surprised, too taken aback, and never really knows what she is talking about – after all, he is always staying away, he is her reflection and he is a brother – as if Mikuo can even comprehend what it feels like.
"Isn't it?"
"It's fine – you are fine!" but he is her brother, the better part of herself; and that must be a lie, a very pretty, transparent lie, just like the boy himself; oh brother, brother dearest.
It's all imaginary, really. "It's not fine!" words bubble out her mouth, crawling out, stringing them together, "It's not fine and I'm not fine either nor will I ever be and just 'fine' is all I ever want to-!"
He goes very still, eyes ablaze; so much life force, so much flaws, but together still so very flawless and unblemished; and she wonders for a brief moment if he is going to step out of his safe haven then.
In the sudden quietness, she can hear the sound of herself struggling, feet shuffling; unspoken words smacking together painfully. He takes her shoulders and presses down, nails drawing hard, bloody crescents into her skin; and she thinks he is so close to crying.
"Miku–"
"I can't," she drops. Crashs and burns.
"But you can't–" Mikuo stops; and she can't realize if he is herself or her brother anymore; just Mikuo, and they are so close she can see the hesitation in his eyes, wondering between what is right and what is true, teasing the idea of inching just a little bit closer and let his lips graze hers. Wondering if they both dropped dead, would she kiss him. "You have to–" he whispers out loud, taking a strand of hair in his hand, tattered and cut, like a wisp of silk in harsh wind, "Please," pretty words, scissory words.
But Miku has past the point of reservations. She has past guilt and fury and sorrow, for there is no rooms for such feelings when she is filled to the brim with so much longing. And she wants to say yes. She wants to lie. She wants to let go.
But she can never let go.
because Miku is not worth saving and nobody ever wants her anyway.
I'm Hatsune Miku. And I just want to end this.
And end it she does.
At nights, she goes to the balcony. Sitting on the balustrade and waits for lightning to struck down, for the world to end, for him to come and tell her everything is alright.
He doesn't. He never does.
because Miku is not worth saving and nobody ever wants her anyway –
"Aren't you going to give up?"
"One more time."
He contemplates. She holds her breath.
"You are going to kill yourself with that much effort, you know."
"Promise?"
She likes to entertain with the aftermath of her death. The way people would weep and regret and cry – that they have misjudged her, that they need her, come back. She likes to imagine the way her mother mourns and wishes and berets herself all over again.
They wouldn't, in real life.
Miku mourns herself.
And when time comes, she pulls herself together. Bends and knots tied just the right amount, Miku lets herself dangles on the rooftop, her legs already in position, just a moment, one more moment –
"You are fine, please–" he breathes, finally. Out of that mirror, out of reflection, him. Flesh and blood, her relative, her brother, her, standing in front of Miku, pleading, crying.
Miku smiles, naive brother, lovely creature. She has never included him in the scene in her mind, simply because she knows how he will react, what he will say. Simple brother.
"I'm not fine. I'm here."
He is a little too desperate, a little too broken, and too young still; she thinks, she smiles.
"Don't–"
(Angry and agonized, and a part of him is tempted to slip his fingers in between the lips of the great diagonal scar across her chest and steal away her heart. It would be easy, almost no challenge at all, he thinks, and that is exactly why he doesn't move to destroy her)
She is not him at all (but despite knowing it, there is a little part of her that cannot help wondering, hoping, wishing, even now—).
"Do you really want to die," he hopes against hope, trying to grasp her, catching a shade of his little cheeky sister, and she is too old for him now.
"No," she smiles serenely, her body ready to blend into velvety air, "I just want to end the pain."
She still looks at him with eyes like compass, and he still grips her, his knuckles almost as white as paper; her eyes patiently waits for him to reach the conclusion. Counting her sin by the sip of air she is gulping in. Slipping down her failures and mistakes, everything that has been done wrong.
Swallow it dry.
The light in her eyes are brilliant, a passionate fire. It wells in her chest and bursts forward in a range of iridescent prism; burning away the coldness for a sheer, wondrous moment before settling back down on her skin.
It's like being cornered, Miku explained, wordlessly. The terror of falling from a great height is still just as great; remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames, a pain beyond falling. The dawning realization of failing at every aspect and hitting head on.
Waiting for the flame to decide for you, since you can't even choose for yourself. Letting it push you off to the unknown, drift away, and maybe people are better off this way. Maybe you are better this way.
Her eyes speak of melt down stars and silver, of promises and escaping, and finally, finally, he has stepped out of his line, stepped out to meet her.
"Are you going to give up now?"
"Yes,"
"Nobody commits suicide because they want to die. They do it to stop the pain."
He lets her go.
Miku is not worth saving, the voices ring a melancholic song.
and nobody ever wants her anyway.