Does It Make You Feel Like a Man?

Cover up with makeup in the mirror
Tell yourself it's never gonna happen again
You cry alone and then he swears he loves you
Do you feel like a man when you push her around?
Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?

-Face Down by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

"Yo, Megumi."

Len tapped on my head. With a vague sense of irritation, I glared up at my best friend while the friends I'd been sitting with to eat lunch gazed up at him with smug grins. Len looked down at me with a neutral expression, seeing nothing wrong with his lack of introduction or impolite way of getting my attention. That was the way he'd always been, though, ever since we were kids. Even Iroha and Lui knew that by now.

"What do you want, Len?" I questioned, exasperated.

"I need a wingman," he replied.

I could feel the veins on my forehead popping. "I'm a girl, Len. I'm not gonna help you pick up girls."

He looked at me curiously before replying, "We could find you a guy, too, if that'll make you feel better."

I stuck my lips out in a pout and turned back to my friends with great dignity. "That's quite fine, thank you."

"Or a girl, if that's the way you're swinging today."

Blood rushed immediately to my cheeks and I ripped myself off the table, whipping around to glare at my childhood friend. Sure, Len could easily get away with saying that and no one would take it seriously, but still. That wasn't something you just said.

"Shut up, you jerk!" I snapped at him. Then, with my nose in the air, I indignantly lied, "Besides, there's a guy I like already."

"And that's her one and only Len."

I whipped around viciously to glare at Iroha, who was giggling and smirking at us as she hid behind her boyfriend, Lui. She stuck out her tongue at us and wrapped her arms tightly around Lui, ordering him to protect her from me.

"I'm not as tsundere as you seem to think," I snorted, horrified by the thought of dating Len. "Seriously, we're just childhood friends. No more."

"Great. Well, if you don't harbor any romantic feelings for me, why not help me out in picking up this chick?" he questioned, looping an arm around my shoulder. He smirked and used a crooked finger to tilt my face toward his. Admittedly, it made me blush, but wasn't that the natural reaction in this situation? I stubbornly continued to glare at him. "Let's go, shall we?"

"Jerk," I retorted, shouldering him off and beginning to walk. "Where is she?"

With a smug smile, Len lead me to his poor victim, a helpless little blonde girl who sat with a couple of her friends, laughing about something. Len gazed at me expectantly. I knew she was the one he wanted. The other two weren't his type. There was a pale-pink-haired girl, her hair having a short section woven into braids on either side of her head, but he didn't like long hair. He said it got in the way. Of what, I'd never dared to ask. Then there was a teal-haired girl, but she was at least a B-cup, and the sicko had a fettish for A-cups. Creep.

So, I slid into the seat beside the blonde, who gazed at me curiously as I smiled at her and said, "Hiya! My name's Gumi, Gumi Hiyama. What's your name?"

"Rin Kagamine," she supplied with a delicate, confused smile. "These are my friends, Miku Hatsune and Aria."

I laughed a little and looked curiously at Aria, whose eyes were glazed over in a dreamy way. "No last name?"

"Right now, a baby is crying and an old man is laughing," she said in a wistful voice.

I blinked a bit before turning back to Rin. "Okay then. Well, Rin, today's your lucky day, because I happen to know that a very hot guy wants to ask you out." Ew, gross. How could I say that?

Rin's face went bright red and she stuttered, "N-no way! You must have the wrong person. No one would ever want to ask me out."

"Sure they would," I laughed. "My best buddy Len totally interrupted my lunch to make me come ask you for him, so will you go out with him?"

I nodded toward him so she could take a glance, and she reddened further when she looked at him. "R-really? He actually wants to go out with me?"

I smirked and patted her on the back. "Trust me, Len's a good guy. We've been friends since we were kids. He'll be good to ya."

. . .

"Gotta love ya, Megumi."

This time, he'd placed crossed arms and then his chin atop my head. I scowled, wondering what in the world was wrong with this boy. Didn't he know that girls were supposed to be treated with delicacy?

"What did I do this time?" I wondered, sighing gently as I did. Lui and Iroha blinked curiously up at Len, ignoring me completely.

"Turns out Rin's a great kisser," he informed me. Childhood friends, sure, but there was only so much I wanted to know about his relationship with his girlfriend. "Honestly, I'm considering not breaking up with her."

"How considerate of you," I said dryly. I knew by now that Len's relationships never made it past the first month. He grew bored too quickly. I was actually pleasantly surprised that he'd stuck with Rin this long considering they were three weeks in and he'd only now gotten a kiss from her. That was probably what had kept him with her, in retrospect. Len wasn't one to give up quickly. The harder they fought, the more interested he became.

"It's safe for you to become friends with her, you know, Megumi," he remarked casually, now taking a seat beside me. "She'll be around for a little while longer."

"I don't need another girl hating me for breaking it off with her after you did," I told him as he loomed over my lunch and snatched a clump of rice between his fingers. I scowled down at the food. There was no way I was eating it now. I doubted Len washed his hands beforehand.

"You can be friends with my exes, y'know," he informed me, feeding himself another chunk of sticky rice. "I won't be mad."

"No, but they will be when I promised you were a stand-up guy," I stated calmly.

"You girls are all too sensitive," he sighed, shaking his head in disappointment. "C'mon, Megumi. I promise to keep dating her for at least a month, and I think you'd like her. She's really hot."

I turned my frown from my food to him and wondered, "What kind of implications are you making?"

Casually, he turned his gaze to Iroha and Lui, who watched us with smirks. Honestly, Len was not someone I'd ever consider dating, so I wish they'd just shut up about it. That kind of stuff only happened in stories. "Well, you're not attracted to me, so you're obviously—"

Seeing where he was headed, I stuffed my melon bread into his mouth and growled, "Finish that sentence and die."

He laughed through the bread, though, so I shoved it further into his mouth. There was a very possible danger of him choking, but that seemed alright to me. Iroha was busy laughing as that danger seemed most prominent, whereas Lui was far more decent than us girls and reached over to try to save him.

"He's going to be a sloth in his next life."

The four of us stopped to stare at the speaker, the eternally dreamy Aria, as she and Miku flanked Rin, carrying their lunch trays. Rin smiled shyly and wondered, "Would it be alright for us to join you?"

I raised my brow suspiciously at Len, who shrugged with guilty eyes and a smirk, before I smiled kindly at Rin. "Be my guest. Your boyfriend keeps eating all my food."

"It's kind of hard not to when you're shoving melon bread down his throat," remarked Miku. Her voice was so nasally it made me flinch, especially in contrast to Aria's mature voice. Rin's voice was actually kind of nasally, too, but something about her made it easy to forgive that flaw. This Miku girl was questioning how I treated Len, however, which was totally uncalled for.

"He needs the nutrients," I said sweetly, shoving it further down Len's throat while smiling innocently at the onlookers.

"Gumi, you're going to make Rin jealous," Iroha warned.

"A little late for that," Rin laughed with a tense smile. I froze and released the melon bread, feeling immediately guilty. It must have looked strange for Rin. Now I felt terrible. I was used to treating Len like that, but Rin was probably too shy to ever do something like that.

"Sorry," I said quickly, shuffling away from Len as quickly as I could. "Well, please sit down."

"Please don't worry about me," requested Rin politely, taking a seat between Len and I. Whether or not it was to keep us apart, I couldn't be sure, but Rin didn't seem like that type to me. "It's fine. Len's told me all about you."

"Well he obviously hasn't done a good job," scoffed Iroha. "She's a vicious little monster, you know. You saw what she was just doing."

I cast a mild glare at Iroha, but Rin only smiled. "No, that about summarizes what he told me."

I turned a vicious death stare to Len. "You idiot! That's how you talk about me to people?"

He smirked at me and wondered, "Fine, tell her it isn't true."

I scowled, knowing that that analysis had been accurate, but it was still a terrible thing to say. I turned my sour gaze to my lunch as Rin giggled. That boy. Just to teach him a lesson, I'd tell Rin every single embarrassing story I knew of his.

. . .

"Megumi, catch."

I stopped myself from continuing on despite Len's request and turned to snatch the thrown item out of the air. I gazed down at his house key and then back up at him, tilting my head to the side rather than asking the question.

"Tell Rin I'll be back later today, okay?" he wondered. "Just hang out with her at my place for a while.

"No way," I replied, tossing it back in disdain. What was I, a babysitter? I'd already told him that I wanted nothing to do with his new girlfriend. Sure, they'd been dating six weeks now, and we were cordial enough at lunch and in passing in the hallways, but I had nothing to say to her if we spent hours together.

I accepted the key once more as he threw it back. "C'mon, Megumi. Help me out."

"Why should I?" I questioned, but I was too lazy to send him the key back.

"Because I'll cry if you don't."

"That's the worse excuse ever. I'd gladly see you cry if it got me out of wasting my time after school with your latest conquest." I tossed the key over the heads of passersby, who watched us as I stood at the gates and he on the steps of the school.

"I'll buy you lunch next week."

Well I was definitely a babysitter, it seemed. Still, I sighed and held a hand out for the key, moving to catch it when it was sent my way. "Fine, whatever, but it'll be a big lunch, and you can't eat any of it."

He grinned. "Deal. Later, Megumi." I sighed as I watched him dart off, realizing that I had no idea where Rin was and there was no way he'd listen to me now. I supposed that meant I had to go find her. Fantastic.

With a hefty sigh, I made my way back into the school, pushing through the crowd of exiting students. I figured that checking her locker first was a good idea, and then maybe the classroom if she wasn't there. So I made my way to the vacant hallway where her locker was, then into the empty classroom. With a sigh and a scowl, I shrugged my bag onto the other shoulder since my arm was beginning to hurt. Maybe the gym, or a clubroom. Or the bathroom.

That seemed like the best bet, so I started searching through the bathrooms. I finally found her in the one on the third floor, all the way back in the corner of the school. It was the least visited bathroom by far, and, as such, was incredibly clean. However, it had a creepy feel about it, especially since no one had changed the lights in months, so the overhead glare flickered unsteadily.

I creaked the door to peek inside, emitting a sigh of relief when I spotted her reapplying her eye-makeup. One side of her face was mismatched, the colours much darker than the other. I raised a brow, amused. I usually did that by accident with cover-up when I had a terrible zit. I refrained from calling her out on it, understanding her situation immediately.

"Hey, Rin," I welcomed, striding into the bathroom toward her. She jumped violently, her make-up brush slipping from her grip and clattering onto the floor. I paused, as did she, before she slowly turned her gaze from the brush to me. I smiled and laughed before crouching to retrieve the brush. I held it out to her and remarked, "A little jumpy, huh?"

"S-sorry," she apologized, her eyes falling nervously as she accepted my offering. I felt the discomfort in the air. She was a skittish girl, I guessed, and we didn't really know each other outside of the group.

"I'm Gumi," I introduced myself, smiling consolingly.

She looked up to me and frowned, looking a little insulted. "I know that."

I giggled at her indignant expression, feeling odd butterflies fluttering in my stomach. "Just making sure."

It was quiet for a little while before Rin wondered, "Why haven't you headed home yet?"

I flashed her Len's key and stated, "He's going to be home late, so he asked me to let you in and keep you company until he arrives."

Her eyes fell once more, a flicker of uncertainty in her gaze as she smiled frailly. "Actually, I think I'd just like to go home tonight. I'm not really up to hanging out. Can you tell him that for me?"

I paused, searching through her blue gaze. There was something wrong. It was obvious enough. "What's wrong? Did you and Len have a fight?"

She jumped, telling me that my guess was right on the mark, and then she looked up at me and put on a smile anyone could have seen through. "It's nothing, really, but I don't really want to see him tonight."

I fell silent, unsure what to say. I was worried now. Had Len tried to force her into doing something she was uncomfortable with? I couldn't put that past Len, and it made me more upset then I'd liked to admit. I knew I was being pushy now, but I couldn't help it. "Well, if you're not going to see him tonight, would you mind keeping me company?"

Quietly, she mused, "I don't know . . . . "

I smiled largely and grabbed her hand, beginning to tug her along without her consent. "C'mon, Rin. It'll be fun."

"My make-up . . . ," she started.

"No one comes here. It'll be here tomorrow. Come on."

She gave up then and accepted that I wouldn't take no for an answer. I smiled as best as I could for her, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay tomorrow. She obviously wasn't angry at him, and he hadn't seemed angry at her, so I was sure they'd make up tomorrow. She had nothing to worry about. Everything would be better. Len was being good to her, unlike he had been with the rest of his girlfriends.

Author's Note: This was originally a oneshot, but it ended up being around 6000 words, so I split it into two parts to make it easier to read.