I'm really not even sure what this fic is. I was inspired by the anime series "Erased", and I haven't written for Vocaloid in forever, so I decided I would mix the two together. I aim to make this KaiLen, because Gewlface has been waiting for me to make a fic for that pairing and, well, I really wanted to anyway, heh. Aside from that, I'm not really sure about pairings. There's implied Negitoro, GakuLily and Gumi/Rin, plus Gumi/VY2 (Roro) but those might end up changing. I'm willing to take pairing suggestions as well! I apologize for my writing as of now, I'm not one for first chapters. It's kind of a scrambled mess lmao. Anyways, hopefully you enjoy this!
"Even so, why do the two of us always stumble at our exchanged words?
Crumbling, breaking, and conversely being born...
Could you please teach me, right now, the meaning behind these reasons?"
It was always on nights like these that Kaito found he couldn't sleep.
Outside, lightning sliced through the pitch black clouds that had gathered in the night sky, and the inner turmoil of his thoughts had grown into a clamor that mimicked the thunder screaming above his apartment. More often than not, Kaito didn't mind thunderstorms; in fact, as a kid, he remembered vividly being the only one to stare out the window in his bedroom or classroom and watch the torrent of the rain rather than duck away like a coward, as if the noise could hurt him.
For the first time in twenty-odd years, he turned away from his window as it blazed white and yanked his cerulean comforter over his head, ignoring the red blur of 2:03 that lingered behind his eyelids.
Maybe it was the recent murder of Hatsune Miku that was bothering him. Maybe it was the paralyzing loneliness of his apartment when Meiko was away for work. Or maybe it was just that in a few more hours he would be twenty-five and it would go unnoticed by the world around him.
Kaito burrowed further under his blankets, hoping that if he sunk deep enough into the mattress he'd find himself in some sort if an alternate universe where he didn't think thunderstorms were so obnoxious, and where all the mistakes of his childhood life just- poof! -disappeared.
Sometimes he'd ask for things like this- an escape from reality or some kind of release. He hadn't asked for much throughout the expanse of his life. As he squeezed his eyes shut, he believed resolutely that he at least deserved this.
He wasn't certain if he'd managed to fall asleep or not, but he supposed he had because the next time he felt that he was aware of his surroundings, it was eleven in the morning. For a moment, he wondered if he'd slept through his alarm or if he had forgotten to set it; after moments of moping, it dawned on him that he had the day off. It was Monday, after all. The studio didn't need him on Mondays.
With a grunt, Kaito rolled himself out of his bed and onto the itchy, carpeted floor of his apartment bedroom. He squinted against the bright light streaming in through his window, hand acting as a visor against his forehead. There were no traces in the glowing sunshine that it had rained the previous night, but then again, that was no different than every other winter storm in this city.
Even now, it was the simplest of things could get washed away in the tides of time.
Kaito sat up slowly, finally managing to kick off the sheets tangled around him after several failed attempts. He cracked his back with a loud pop, then his arms and his neck, and rose to his feet with mild satisfaction.
He shuffled into the kitchen- or, as Meiko liked to call it, the 'tiny living room food space', since it really wasn't anything else in terms of its size -in search of coffee and eggs. Disappointed to find that there were neither of these things, he rummaged through the freezer of his refrigerator for a solid two minutes before he gave up in his endeavors, lips drawn into a tight, frustrated frown. There was no ice cream. There was no anything.
Of course, he blamed it on the fact that he'd been too stressed (and too broke) to go grocery shopping as of late, and the aisles always confused him when Meiko wasn't around, and she hadn't been around at all these past few months, so he had had no real time to go out and buy food, or any necessities for that matter. It wasn't really his fault. It was just the winding road of life, or whatever Ritsu always called it.
Really.
He grumbled angrily to himself through every agonizing moment it took to get dressed, his stomach growling and his head aching from a lack of caffeine.
Just as he pulled on his scarf and started out the door, a sharp series of rings sounded from the countertop. Kaito wheeled back around the second he recognized the ringtone, still grumbling even when he picked the device up and answered the call.
"Ritsu-,"
"Oi, Shion."
Kaito winced at the usage of his last name; he'd figured they'd be on first name basis at this point, but...Well, Ritsu was a strange man. "What's up?" he asked, remembering- thanks to Meiko's nagging voice at the back of his head -to lock his door before he slid out of it. The corridor of the apartment was void of life, other than himself, as it often was during the morning.
"You know that thing about the singer girl that used to go to our high school?"
"You mean Miku?" Kaito murmured slowly. It was a topic he'd been trying to avoid.
Ritsu said something incoherent and muffled at a distance. His voice became clear again just as quickly. "Yeah, her." He hesitated, clicking his tongue, and Kaito, still taking long strides toward the out of order elevator shaft, listened. "Cul thinks she knows what happened."
"Since when does Cul know anything? I doubt she even knew how to count until she was in middle school."
"Ooh, you're grumpy today. Have you not had your morning coffee?" Ritsu teased, a smile noticeable in his voice.
"Unfortunately, I haven't." Kaito passed by the elevator toward the doorway hidden discreetly by the edge of the wall. He jostled the rusty knob once, then a second time, and pushed inward. The door flung open on loose hinges and banged against the bricks of the staircase foyer.
"Want to meet me for coffee? I'm about to go on my lunch break."
"I was actually about to go grocery shopping," Kaito said as he squeezed through the threshold and scrambled down the stairs. "Though, I guess before that works."
"Great!" the other man cooed. "How does Kasane's Cafe sound?"
It was a bit out of the way, but Kaito wasn't one to refuse a coffee. "Sure, that's fine." Shouldering his way into the lobby, he remembered what his friend had told him about Cul's assumptions, and he added, "So, what's the situation with Miku?"
"Right." There was the sound of paper rustling, and a soft click. "Cul thinks a gang had to do with it."
Kaito thought about that for a brief moment. And he snorted. "That's ridiculous."
"Well, yeah, that's what I said at first, too," Ritsu huffed. "But Cul makes it seem a lot more sensical. She says that-...You remember Megurine Luka, right?"
"I think so," Kaito responded. He stepped awkwardly through the revolving doors of the lobby, tripping over his own two feet as he tried to recollect an image of the woman. Truth be told, most of the memories of his childhood had faded away over the years, but he vaguely remembered that she and Meiko had been friends.
And, for some odd reason, he remembered the Kagamine twins. He remembered suddenly that Rin had befriended him on his first day of school, all big eyes and bright smiles, and he remembered that Len had remained her shadow, his eyes downcast and his lips a pout. He remembered that day upon day the twins would come to class with bruises, their cheeks red and their heads lowered; but the reason as to why, he'd never known. He'd never bothered asking.
The man talking to him, on the other hand- he had no idea how they'd met or interacted during their childhood days, but somehow, when they applied for the same job, Ritsu recognized him and from then on, they were, to say the least...companions. Not that Kaito minded; the redhead was pleasant company on lethargic days like this one.
It always bewildered him, the intensity of thoughts, and the way that his memories were like flowers in bloom.
Ritsu continued about the same time Kaito started listening again, "Luka's a detective, or a cop, apparently- and she and Miku were living together. Luka had gotten involved in some gang case. Cul said she thinks the gang retaliated and killed Miku by way of a warning."
"That's surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be," Kaito snorted.
"Don't be an ass, Shion."
The bluenette stifled a laugh. "Sorry, sorry," he mused. "But, hey, let's be real here, it's not like-,"
"Roro Okunuma. He used to be your friend, right?" Ritsu interrupted. His voice had melted away into something more irked than enthusiastic.
Kaito quirked a brow. "Yeah, he was. Pink hair and yellow eyes, right? Really tall?"
"Uh-huh," Ritsu said. "He's part of one of these gangs. He had some kind of a disagreement with Luka in their last year of high school."
"How in hell do you even know all of this?" Kaito asked.
He could almost imagine the redhead's usual modest hair flip as he chimed, "I get around."
"I'm sure you do," Kaito muttered as he flicked his gaze from his shoes to the dense crowd of people manifesting in front of him, maneuvering in between the mass. "Still, I don't think I can really believe that. For all anybody knows, it could have been a suicide. She was getting popular with her musical career, and the fame could have been getting to her. I don't know."
"Shion," Ritsu sighed, exasperated, "how does a woman shoot herself without a gun?"
"Magic?"
Ritsu nearly choked on a laugh. "You're literally an idiot," he snickered.
"That may be so, but at least I don't look like one."
"Rude!" Ritsu retorted. "I'm more attractive than half the women in this world, anyways. You're just jealous."
"I can assure you I'm not. I've got enough charm of my own," the bluenette huffed. Gradually, his mind shifted back on track, and he tilted his head toward the approaching crosswalk. "Why have you and Cul been so interested by this entire...thing, anyway?"
"I liked Miku," was all Ritsu alleged.
"I did too, but it's not like-..."
And then the words were swallowed up by the astounded look on Kaito's face, by the silence of the phone call as his eyes fell on the distant figure that he desperately wanted to believe wasn't who he thought it was. But that person- they were unmistakably him, from the bright yellow hair to the slumped posture, from the shorts in the middle of winter to the pale white complexion.
Kaito grit his teeth and quickened his pace, watching the graceful shift in movement the figure took into a small bakery, and, without thinking, without even so much as a second of hesitation, he followed.
An irritated voice snapped at him from the other line of the call he'd forgotten he'd been a part of. "Shion? Shion! Oi, Kaito!"
"Ritsu," Kaito said, and he found that, somehow, his voice was still calm, still even, "I think we better take a rain check for that coffee."
A pair of aquamarine eyes stared at him from across the table. In all of ten years, they hadn't changed in the slightest. There was still a subtle ring of green around the iris, flecks of a darker blue dashed along the sides of even that. They glowed like the stars, radiant and vivid, and it comforted Kaito to know they hadn't changed. Because Len had. Len really had.
"It's been a while," Kaito said, a soft smile on his face as he took a sip from his coffee. It tasted bitter, but he blamed it on the atmosphere. That's what it always came down to, anyways.
Len leaned his cheek onto his fist and nodded lazily. "Yeah, it has." He paused before adding, "You really don't look any different than you did in eighth grade."
"My high school attractiveness will never fade."
"Yikes, I think it already has. You look like a truck just hit you, backed up, and hit you again."
But Kaito knew that lopsided smirk, the crease under Len's luminous eyes. He knew he was teasing in that childish way of his, and it filled him with a sense of alleviation to know that at least one member of his youthful memories could still smile. He knew damn well that Miku wouldn't anymore, and he really couldn't say for Luka. He hoped she'd find it in her to smile again. He really did.
At least Len could. That felt like it was enough for Kaito.
"You don't look too shabby, you know," Kaito said, but the words felt limp in his mouth. They felt like a lie. They were a lie.
Len had changed.
There were bags underneath his eyelids, dark and staining, and no better were the hollows of his whitened cheeks. His shaggy blonde hair, which had once stopped just short of reaching his shoulders, which had once always been pulled into a sloppy ponytail, now rested a few inches past his shoulders, and it didn't quite fit him, the way it was loose and wavy and free from restraint. He was skinny, too- not lanky or scrawny like he'd been back in high school; that was just his build. No, he was skinny, as if he hadn't eaten enough, hadn't slept enough, hadn't lived enough.
It didn't even look like he was really living anymore. He was almost a corpse. Almost, but not quite. He was still breathing, after all.
Yet, Kaito found him- even after all these years -pretty, as he was sure all the people who didn't pay attention closely enough to him did. Because that's just what Len was; sickly, but pretty. Something of a cherished, wilting plant.
Len hadn't said anything in response to Kaito's comment, the bluenette realized, just as he'd also realized he'd been staring, and Len had averted his gaze down to the steaming cup of tea in front of him.
Kaito took a sharp inhale and gripped his coffee cup tightly. "So, what brings you back here? I could have sworn Cul said you moved pretty far away." Though, he thought, Cul doesn't know all that much.
After a beat of quiet, Len affirmed, "Oh, I did. I moved out after high school, to Shizuoka. I like to visit Sendai every now and again, though. Brings back memories."
"I get that," Kaito said quietly. "That's why I never moved away. I like the nostalgia of living here. Every now and again I'll just think, Oh, hey, this is where in fourth grade Meiko punched me in the arm and for the first time, I didn't cry. Well, maybe not exactly like that, but you get what I mean."
Len pushed his smile into the palm of his hand. "Mhm."
"Oh, hey," Kaito thought aloud, "how's Rin? I lost touch with her after I transferred."
The smile on Len's face died and rotted, and the image of a sunshine-deprived sunflower became very clear at the back of Kaito's head.
He regretted saying anything at all.
"The year you left," Len said, his voice muffled by his hand, "there was a lot of conflict between her and this gang and Gumi, and, I mean, she was trying not to get herself involved- I guess she just really wanted to protect Nakajima -but, she just…" He tapped his free hand anxiously beside his cup of tea. "She pissed them off- or, well, that's what Luka says...That's what she thinks...And then...they killed her. Some part of that stupid gang found Rin and they shot her. But, it's-...that's just what we-,"
"Luka? As in, Megurine Luka?" Kaito found himself blurting. It felt like the horribly wrong thing to bring up, but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't ignore the fact that Len had kept contact with her.
"Yeah." Len slid his hand off his face and draped it over the other. "When I started college I heard that she was a cop, or something. Since I couldn't for the life of me get over not knowing what happened to Rin, I found her and she helped me out. I wish she hadn't though...I really...kind of wish she hadn't."
Kaito had a feeling he knew exactly why. He pressed the rim of his cup to his lips, only just registering the taste of of his beverage. "You heard about Miku, then?"
"That's actually one of the reasons I came here. I wanted to talk to Luka about it," Len mumbled. "That, and it's almost the anniversary of Rin's death."
Suddenly, all the words spoken to Kaito by that annoying trap friend of his didn't seem like bullshit. He found that this very well could be a reality. There could be some kind of a gang out there that was seeking vengeance on people without a sliver of mercy. And Kaito could see a very fine connection between those involved.
"Do you have a place to stay?" Kaito asked quickly, setting his cup back down on the table.
"...What?"
"I said, do you have a place to stay? If not, I'd like if you stayed with me for the next few days. Until you have to go back home."
Scratching weakly at the back of his reddening neck, Len murmured, "I was going to see if I could stay with Luka, but…"
"I think it's best if you don't."
Len peered out the window to his left. "How far away do you live?"
"Just a few blocks. Not even,"
"Is it okay?" Len asked. "I don't want to invade your personal space or anything."
Kaito waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, I don't mind. It's kind of lonely without Meiko around anyway. I could use the company."
"...Okay," Len acceded, and Kaito could only wonder if he imagined the intense flush of his cheeks. The blonde cleared his throat, running the tip of her index finger across the lid of his cup. "So, you and Meiko are still in touch? That's good."
"If by 'in touch' you mean she comes into my house when I'm not home and scavenges through all my food and I put up with it, then, yeah, we're still in touch," Kaito mused. He finished off his coffee with another long swig, and tilted his head at Len as he swallowed. "What about you? Do you still talk to anyone from high school?"
"Not really. Oliver and I tried to stay friends, but about three months ago, we just kind of...stopped, y'know? We haven't talked for awhile. But- you remember Tei?" Len asked, worrying on his lower lip.
Kaito nodded. She'd been Len's secret admirer for years when they were younger. He was sure they'd even dated, but again, memories like that had never held much significance to him. He'd erased them years ago.
"She and I were engaged up until recently."
If Kaito hadn't finished his coffee, he was sure he would have spit it right onto the table in between them. "R-really?"
"Yeah. For about a year and half."
"You broke it off?"
Len sheepishly tucked his face back into the cusp of his hand. "Yeah," he repeated.
With a gentle sigh, Kaito rose from his seat and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. This constant talking was doing something to him. He felt nauseous, sort of like the world beneath him was spinning and the world above him was sinking. "C'mon, let's go. You look like you could use a shower and some good ol' terrible television."
"I think you're right."
As Len pushed himself into a standing position, he blinked rapidly, and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. "Hey, Kaito?"
"Mm?"
"It's February seventeenth, right?"
Kaito hesitated at the doorway of the bakery, his shoulders rigid. "It is," he said, his voice low and uncertain.
"Huh. Happy Birthday, then." Without another word, Len stepped out of the doors of the bakery, hands jammed in the pockets of his hoodie and his head bowed toward the ground.
There was a passing moment where Kaito wasn't sure if he had the ability to move. Eventually, with the faintest hint of a smile on his face, he shuffled out of the shop, thinking over and over again how things like this usually came out of shoujo mangas and lame reality TV shows.
Strangely, though, he didn't seem to mind.
It wasn't until an hour after he stepped inside his apartment that he remembered he hadn't done what he'd gone out to do in the first place.
But that was just a reoccurring pattern in the life of Shion Kaito.
"Damnit," he muttered as he opened the cabinets for the umpteenth time. They were empty, just as they had been when he'd left, and just as he'd hoped they wouldn't be when he returned.
It can't be helped, he thought, quickly shutting the small wooden doors, that I got sidetracked for a good cause.
The good cause poked his head up over the back of the sofa, his messy hair damp and his eyes bleary with fatigue. A book he'd borrowed from Kaito's room was draped over his lap, the pages already creased, the corners dog-eared. "Do you need help with something? You've been flailing around the kitchen since I got out of the shower."
"It's fine," Kaito said. "You need anything? I've got, uh...booze, probably."
"For someone I barely know, you're really pampering me." Len flicked his gaze away, as if contemplating, and returned it with a grin. "I'm not complaining, though; it's nice." He leaned back down on the cushions of the sofa, scooping the novel back up and flipping back to wherever he'd left off.
Kaito stared dumbly at him as he leaned against the countertop, his head cocked to the side and his mouth agape. "So, is that a 'no' to drinks, or...?"
"Actually, if you have any sake, that'd be great."
"I'm pretty sure that's all I have," Kaito muttered. Meiko had a habit of coming over time and time again carrying bottles of sake that could last a person a lifetime. She'd always pass out, drunk and hysteric, halfway through her first go, leaving leftover rice wine in her wake that Kaito never needed nor wanted. He kept it anyways, and even though Meiko would have his head for giving it to someone that wasn't her, he felt glad that he had.
He grabbed a wine glass from the cupboards and a bottle of sake from underneath the sink, pouring a quaint amount into the cup.
Len's head popped up again, his eyes narrowed at a piece of paper in his hand. "You write music?"
Kaito quirked a brow, grabbing the glass from off the table and making his way toward the lounge. He handed it off to Len, his other hand plucking the scrap from the blonde's grasp. Instant recognition flooded his senses. "I work at a studio," he explained, "as a lyric writer. This was part of a project I worked on, like...months ago."
"You must not have liked it for it to turn into a bookmark," Len snorted.
"Er, no, I guess not."
Lifting his shoulders, Len flicked his fingers toward a desk crammed into the corner of the room. "Can I read some of your stuff?"
"Knock yourself out. It's all just a ton of half-hearted garbage."
A grin marred Len's features. "I highly doubt that," he laughed, and meandered off toward the unkempt heap of papers and pencils and wrappers, wine glass dancing in his slender hand.
"Well, while you entertain yourself with my failure as a writer," Kaito muttered, "I'm going to go take a shower."
"I might've used all the hot water."
"I'll live."
As he slipped into the bathroom, Kaito felt something of a bad omen pricking at the back of his neck. But he did what he always did in these kinds of situations. He closed the door, and he ignored it.
There was a sticky note taped onto the refrigerator. Kaito tugged it off with one hand as the other toweled off his hair. He scanned the words hurriedly, his brows furrowing in confusion.
In barely legible penmanship, it read, Kaito, there's nothing to eat here, so I figured I'd go out and buy stuff so I (we) don't starve. The lyrics were really good, by the way. You should have more confidence in your talent. -Len
Kaito pursed his lips to suppress a smile, pocketing the note and ambling over to his desk in the living room.
He rummaged through his stacks of notes and thoughts and ideas, silently critiquing them, and wondering what potential Len could have possibly seen in any of them. Half of the things he'd written didn't even make sense to him, and he'd been the one to write them. Still, it was relieving to know at least someone could look past his heart-ripping block and lack of pretty words to find something meaningful in his inanity.
After a moment of debating, he collapsed into his seat and procured a pen from underneath a tattered five subject notebook. He flipped to an available page, chewing his lower lip as he let the tip of the instrument glissade over the wrinkled parchment.
About an hour in, just as he was starting to think, Hey, where's Len?, there was a knock at his door.
For a dazzling moment, he thought that maybe it was Meiko; but she never knocked, and furthermore, she was in Europe. And she was likely going to be staying there for a few months more. He replaced the concept with Len, and found himself eager regardless of whom it was.
"Coming!" he shouted toward the general direction of the door. He pushed himself out of his chair and roved over to the threshold, yanking back the knob and coming face-to-face with an angry-looking man.
Kaito awkwardly hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. "Can...I help you?"
"Are you Shion Kaito?"
"Uh-huh."
"Does the name 'Kagamine Len' sound familiar to you?"
"...Uh-huh," Kaito repeated, slower this time. The words tasted bitter, like his coffee this morning, like the atmosphere that manifested when approaching a practical stranger, like a first kiss with a person who you held no interest for. Sickeningly bittersweet.
The man's expression softened. He cleared his throat and said four words that sent a splintering shiver down Kaito's spine and made him think, Oh, I shouldn't have ignored it.
"There's been an incident."
He wasn't sure when it started.
It was maybe at some point between the officer telling him that Kagamine Len had been murdered on the streets in front of a crowd of people and that Okunuma Roro had been claimed the culprit of not only his death, but his sister's, and Hatsune Miku's, and Nakajima Megumi's.
It was at some point then that the world started to melt away from Kaito's line of vision.
It was then that he started to realize something wasn't right.
He clenched his fists in the fabric of his sweatpants and tried to focus on the man speaking in front of him to no avail. Red and blue were pricking at the edge of an evincing ideality, plunging him into the depths of his memories, of all the things that had been locked away somewhere inside his head.
After that, he wasn't sure what happened. He closed the door, he knew, despite the officer's protest for him to come down to the station and discuss this.
What kind of a birthday is this? he thought, and it blazed into, What kind of a life is this?
Then, there was a vibrant flash of achromatic light, the kind he would have seen in the thunderstorm that had kicked off this day not twelve hours ago, and yet, he was sure that he was the only one that saw it as it seared behind his eyelids and left nothing but a wake of absolute black. For a moment, Kaito had no doubt that he'd died, that by some coincidence, his heart decided to give out on the same day it had started to beat.
There was sudden warmth against his wrist, and an irritable, familiar voice barking at him as he was tugged forward through the endless expanse of darkness.
Hey, his inner conscious thought, maybe you should open your eyes.
He did.
It was snowing. He was standing outside. And he felt short. Shorter, perhaps. He breathed in a cold gulp of air and shifted his eyes from the cement beneath his feet to the girl in front of him. The girl that...looked just like Meiko, but…
"Bakaito, are you even listening? C'mon, move it or we're gonna be late!"
That harsh, violent voice was nothing like Meiko's, and yet, it was. It was as if they were kids again, the way her chest was flat; the way her auburn hair wasn't chopped into a messy pixie cut but instead fell to her chin in a neat, sleek bob; the way that her eyes weren't glassy with intoxication. They held youth and excitement, and it made Kaito want to vomit.
He knew that this was real. This was indeed a reality, but his mind was trying with all its might to pretend that that was not fact. This was a nightmare. This was a depression, grief-induced hallucination. This was fake.
"You gonna figure out how to move your legs or d'you need me to freakin' carry you? Geez, pick up the pace, asshat!"
It took him a couple seconds, but he figured out how to use his voice, and he nearly screamed at the childish intonation of his words. He was a kid. He was really, actually a kid again.
This was- this was…
"I'm…" Kaito swallowed the lump in his throat and took a shaky step after his companion. "I'm sorry!"
He closed his eyes.
This was a second chance.
There we go, there's the first chapter! In case the end came off as confusing, Kaito did indeed go back in time (back to eighth grade to be specific), and from here on out, the story will take place in that time era. It will likely dabble a little into ninth grade too. Henceforth, chapters will probably have memories from not only Kaito's perspective, but also other characters'- regardless, Kaito will still see the memory as though it were his own. Phew, and with that done and out of the way, I think I'm gonna go!~ :0 Review if it's your thing, and if it's not, see you around!
With love,
Hour.