Waking up to a terrified shriek, although unpleasant, was not an uncommon occurrence in the sheer insanity of the Vocaloid household.
Waking up to the scene in the bathroom, however, was one event that Hatsune Miku cared not to repeat.
"Okay," her hand shook as she carefully closed the door, shutting out the sight of the red-stained room, "I suppose we have two problems here."
"Three." Meiko responded without missing a beat.
"Three?" Zatsune inquired.
"Yeah, three. How the hell am I supposed to use the bathroom?" The brunette complained. "The dead bodies make it hella creepy to take a piss."
"You could, you know, maybe use the bathrooms downstairs." Miku said.
"Oh hell no. The teenage version of me uses that one, and that's worse than the corpses."
"Agrees!" Lily shouted as she threw her hand in the air.
"Okay, okay!" Miku sighed in defeat. "Three problems. Now, we should probably find out who did this. Any ideas, anyone?"
"Ooh! Ooh! Pick me, pickmepickmepickmeeeee—" Lily leapt up and waved her hand.
"… yes, Lily? … and for the love of Pan, lose the trenchcoat and hat."
"Aww." The blonde mumbled, returning her detective garb to hammerspace. "Well anyways it looked like the dead people in the bathroom—"
She paused as Miku abruptly turned and hurled into a potted plant.
"… um, they looked like they had been stabbed three times—"
Hurl.
"And they had bites taken out of them."
Hurl.
"Quite done?" Zatsune asked. Miku nodded.
"Yep. And I think I have an idea who did it, too!" Miku exclaimed. "We just need a bit more evidence." She mulled it over a bit.
Finally, she said "Meiko, where were you last night?"
"Wait—WHAT!? You think I did it!?" Meiko yelled.
"No! I happen to think someone very different did it! But I need to know what you did last night to be sure!"
"… well… I was playing Left 4 Dead. Like usual."
"And was anyone in the room with you?" The tealette pressed.
"No… well, except—" Meiko's eyes widened.
"Calne." Everybody at once.
"… alright, action plan. Zat, you and Lily clean the bathroom. Meiko and I will track down our sister the cannibal. Got it?"
"Calne's 98.9367% robotic, Miku!" Zatsune attempted to defend her elder 'sister'. "And she didn't know any better!"
"Got it?" Miku repeated.
Zatsune hung her head. "Got it."
"Sooooo…" Zatsune let the word drag out. "Quick question?"
"Yes~?" Lily replied, abnormally happy given the circumstances.
"Uh, how did you know what they looked like?" Zat gestured in the general direction of the piled-up corpse by the door.
"Oh, I took a shower in here earlier. I even named them!" Lily pointed to each of the bodies in turn. "Never-Saw-It-Coming Guy, Prophecized-The-End-Of-The-World-Today Man, and Passed-Out-Drunk-In-The-Middle-Of-The-Road-So-He-Doesn't-Really-Give-Two-Shits Dude!"
Zatsune blinked. "Well."
There were a few more moments of silence, then:
"… so what do we do with them?"
"Oh! Well, I have a brilliant plan!" Lily said.
"Do tell."
"We simply dump the bodies in Ms. Harrison's backyard!"
"…"
"Oh, come on! She's a total bitch!" Lily whined. "Plus, she yells at us whenever you, me and Tei play outside!"
"Most of our outdoor activities involve ritual sacrifice of small mammals." Zatsune pointed out drily.
"And she parks her car in front of our driveway."
"Well, whaddya waitin' for, let's go!" Zatsune grinned and began dragging Never-Saw-It-Coming Guy down the hallway.
"Man, Miku, I never knew you were so squeamish." Meiko commented, recalling Miku's earlier… performance.
"Oh, no, it's just the flu. I've seen worse out of Calne." Miku waved it off.
"What?" Meiko looked confused.
"I actually have a fever of 104.4 degrees. I can't see straight, my head is spinning and I'm fighting to keep from collapsing!" Miku informed her cheerfully, a grin on her face.
"How is that even—?"
"I've been practicing since I was six. It's now impossible to tell if I'm feeling abnormal in any way. Hell, I could be having a stroke, hemorrhaging and bleeding to death through a stomach wound and I'd still be as cheery as I am now!" The tealette did a little twirl to emphasize her point.
"… er… useful…" Meiko finally managed.
Miku grinned even wider. "I know, right? It totally pisses Tei off. She violated me with a cucumber once and I just sang 'Nyanyanyanyanya!' all the way through it!"
"Toooo much information kid! Let's go find your sis, eh?" Meiko yelped and pushed Miku out of the room post-haste.
"Oooof!" Lily grunted as she hefted Passed-Out-Drunk-In-The-Middle-Of-The-Road-So-He-Doesn't-Really-Give-Two-Shits Dude over the fence separating the backyards.
"Farewell, good sirs! May your exceptional talents in festering, spreading disease and smelling like hell incarnate be appreciated in your new positions!" She saluted.
"Um, you're getting blood on your forehead, Lil."
"Oh, right." Lily withdrew her dripping red hand from her hand. "Damn, but people have a lot of blood in them."
She lifted her head to see Zatsune abnormally interested in the blood coating her own hands and arms.
"Uhhh… Zat…?" Lily mumbled—her small inquiry overridden by the self-satisfied noise Zatsune made as she licked her fingers clean.
"… You know, when you denied being a vampire, I almost believed you." She sighed, shaking her head.
"Mmmm—what!?" Zatsune snapped to attention. "I am not!"
"Says the girl currently sucking another's blood off of her body."
"He's dead! He doesn't give a flying crap!"
"It's blood."
"I didn't bite his neck!"
"Freaking. Blood."
"I—but—why—" Zatsune grit her teeth and growled. Suddenly, the black-haired girl made a quick decision. She stepped decisively forward, pinning Lily to the side of the house. Planting her (relatively) clean hand firmly against Lily's shoulder, she pushed two of her blood-soaked fingers into the blonde's mouth.
Lily jerked slightly, eyes widening as she realized exactly the implications of what the younger girl was doing—or more accurately, Holy shit Zatsune just—what. She was fairly certain her face had reached levels of redness generally only found in people who were actively bleeding from the forehead; or in other words, about as red as Zatsune's hand.
"Lick." Zatsune ordered, pushing her fingers in farther. Lily shivered and shut her eyes, silently willing her face to cool off because seriously why are you even thinking that you perv—
"Okay, now look me in the eyes and tell me—truthfully—that didn't taste good." Zatsune said, removing her now-very-clean fingers from Lily's mouth and smirking.
Lily released a shaky breath. "Fine. You win. … a bit salty for my tastes, though."
Zatsune nodded. "Good enough."
The two paused for a moment of awkward silence, neither meeting the other's eyes.
"… Miku will be wondering where we are." Zatsune offered, then headed towards the sliding glass doors.
"Y-Yeah. She—" Lily was cut off by the sight of Zatsune sucking on those same two fingers with a not-entirely-unsuggestive look on her face.
Friggin tease…! Lily thought as that familiar blush rose again.
As Zatsune darted back upstairs, she slowed when she saw Meiko carrying Miku up as well.
"Did she pass out?" She asked.
Meiko eyed the black-haired girl. "… Yes. Did you know that she was sick?"
"When did she pass out?"
"11:00. Now, did you know she was sick?" Meiko pressed.
"Aw, man!" Zatsune's face fell. "Tei won the bet again!"
"What? Bet?" Meiko seemed confused.
"We bet on when Miku'll pass out when she's sick, and Tei won for like the eighth time in a row!" Zatsune complained.
… you've gotta be kidding me. Meiko thought, and asked Zatsune "Well, what did she win?"
"After Miku's better, me and Lily gotta hold her down while Tei beats her up."
A blink. "… my god, your little club scares me."
"It's not my fault Tei hates Miku with a passion!" Zatsune protested.
Meiko rolled her eyes. "Mmhm. I'm going to put Miku to bed-slash-put an armed barricade up around her room. Why don't you go start that meeting you and the rest of your club was supposed to have today or something?"
Zatsune brightened. "Oh yeah, that! It might get kinda awkward though 'cause I managed to 100% convince Lily that I am sexually interested in her!" She chirped.
"Well then, go do what you do best, perv-girl." Meiko sighed and resumed trudging up the stairs.
"Yay~!" Zatsune cheered, then raced back down the stairs in search of her club members.
Calne, meanwhile, was having a few problems of her own. Namely 'digestive' ones.
She let out a high-pitched, mechanized whimper as she shifted slightly on the floor of her room (more commonly known as the basement). Another trickle of the closest thing she had to 'vomit' dribbled out of her 'mouth'. Really, it was just motor oil mixed with whatever she had 'eaten' that day, but it still felt awful and tasted awful and was not a fun experience to have in general.
The cyborg girl clicked miserably. Calne doesn't think Calne will try eating people again…
-11:00 pm-
"So." Luka surveyed the house, shaking her head.
Nothing was really unusual here; Meiko, Kaito, Neru and Haku were playing cards around the dining room table; Lily, Zatsune and Tei were chasing down a Roomba that they'd strapped a knife to; Rin, Len, Teto and Miki were playing Wii in the living room; and she could have sworn she'd seen Kiku sneaking up to Miku's room like some psychotic ninja. Meiko's texts had informed her that both Calne and Miku were sick, so she didn't worry much about their absence from the evening action, and Sakura and Snow generally hung out in their room with the Chibis. However, speaking of texts…
"People."
Everyone immediately froze, whether they had actually done anything or not.
Zatsune yelped. "I swear that the Knife-ba wasn't my idea!" she wailed.
"Yeah, that was all Tei." Lily hurriedly pointed at the white-haired Vipper.
"It sounded priceless at the time, but in hindsight it was probably the stupidest idea since the—" Tei began, only to be silenced by Lily's hands clamping around her mouth.
"We never speak of 'that', ever. Ever. Again." The blonde hissed through an 'innocent' smile.
"…" Luka sighed and steadfastly resisted the urge to facepalm. "… no."
The pinkette raised her cellphone.
"I got fifty half-intelligible calls from Ms. Harrison regarding three dead bodies in her backyard, and fifty half-intelligible texts from Miku regarding 'changing Calne's eating habits'. Now, are these two incidents even remotely related, or is this just a happy coincidence?" Luka asked.
Everyone exchanged nervous glances.
After about twenty seconds of silence, Luka sighed again and shook her head.
"It's never a coincidence with you people, is it?" she grumbled, then started towards the basement stairs, stepping elegantly over the rampant ankle-slasher vacuum-bot as it charged past her. "I'm going to go make sure Calne hasn't set anything on fire with that oil and human flesh mixture that's sure to be all over the floor by now. Oh, and Meiko?"
"Y-Yeah?" Meiko responded cautiously.
"No more zombie games in the house." Luka ordered, beginning her descent into the basement.
"And I mean it."
-End-
A/N: Oh god, poor Luka's gotta deal with that. D:
And the knife-ba's totally a good idea
And you know it