The thing about elevator schools is that by the time you hit high school, you've known your classmates more than half your life. And after you factor in all the mornings helping Kiyoteru-sensei grade papers, evenings in club meetings, and overnights having clandestine sleepovers beneath desks, fighting over who gets to sleep under sensei's large, luxurious marking table, you've spent more time with these losers than your actual family.

Class 3-D of Crypton Middle School was so close-knit, you could wear them as a sweater on cold winter nights. There was a common love among them, however reluctant fourteen-year-olds can be to show it.

The most 'reluctant to show love'—more like 'LOVE?! LOVE IS SMASHING PEOPLE WITH DESKS AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT!'—was named Kagamine Rin.

Before the Bell Rings

8:00 AM. Class begins in twenty minutes, which means…

I have time to eat.

With the haste of a starving dog, I dig out a tupperware of rice and a pair of mackerel heads.

...Yes, just the heads. I'd call them leftovers, but that would imply excess, and you can never have too much of a good thing.

With great joy, I stab my fork straight in the dried-up eyeball. (I've never had the finesse or dexterity for chopsticks. For a period of time, though, my mom did pack them for me, and of course I found great pleasure in poking people with them. She stopped packing them when she got a phone call from sensei. I've since found that forks aren't nearly as fun to poke people with. They draw blood much too easily.)

"It's early in the morning!" Meddling Miku comes to have an opinion on my meal. "Please Rin, can you put that away, it smells like fish."

It is fish. Little Miss Living-in-America-for-Three-Years-Makes-Me-Quarter-American can't tolerate the scent of traditional Japanese breakfast. To make a point, I pull out my History of Japan textbook and prop it up to cover her dumb face. The page I'd flipped to had a great big portrait of Oda Nobunaga. Nice change.

"So rude…" I hear her say from over the borders of Nobunaga's moustache. I trace the area over my lip in admiring wonder.

"SO RUDE!" Miku's voice bangs. "When I was in America, no one was ever so rude as to ignore me! Is this what all you Japanese are like?! Do I need to show you myself how to properly treat a—"

"Calm down, Miku." Luka speedwalks to the scene, leading Miku away just as fast, and rubbing her shoulder blades all along the way. Now, not that I'm jealous, but I wish someone could give me shoulder massages whenever I get angry.

If I think about it, though, I suppose it'd get irritating after a while.

Well, whatever. Miku's gone. Finally I can get started on breakfa—

"Look, it's Rin again! Good morning!"

Somewhere on the other side of the world, just for a split-second, a diamond caught the light.

The chair beside mine scrapes across the floor, and suddenly the strong fish smell I'd previously been able to ignore punctures my nose. Strange. I hear the person pull his chair in and in turn I, too, make a scrapey, screechy, grumbly nooooo sort of noise.

I have the back-corner-by-the-window desk. It's bleak and black out again today, not like that's anything new. It's the middle of winter, so the sun doesn't rise until about five in the evening. It sucks.

"Gloomy as usual, aren't we?"

Len sucks.

"Much gloomier now that you're here."

I haven't known him as long as I have some other people in this class. He transferred in not too long ago, but he didn't have any trouble settling in. It's like he was five-hundred pounds and the school was a memory-foam mattress. In my opinion though, he just tries too hard.

There's a thing he does—and has done for as long as I remember—where he leans in whatever direction I'm facing, trying to put himself in my line of sight, as if he doesn't understand the basics of body language: that if someone turns away from you, it means they like you about as much as Miku likes Japan. He chuckles. "Aw, so is that how it is today? Well I hope you feel better."

And there's another thing he does where he gives me this look, like he's watching me from above, like he's so cool and I'm just this thing he saw on a walk to the convenience store. A look like I'm a peasant of his kingdom. Or his lowly piano student. Or, his little sister. Oh god, I can't even imagine being related to this… this mackerel.

I look at him again, and decide that no, that doesn't quite describe it after all. It's more like he thinks I'm his… puppy.

I pitch my rice and mackerel at his face.

Everyone looks over for a second. They smile and shake their head, and offer Len their best jokes as he passes them towards the bathroom. You can tell this sort of thing happens every day.

"Bad girl, bad!" Kaito grins at me from across the room. Some of his idiot friends chuckle, but I'm already ignoring him.

After several long months of being "in development", the photos from our summer field trip have arrived.

They posted them up on the bulletin board by the west stairwell, so that's where everyone is right now, crowded around the wall trying to glimpse those precious summer memories. As for me, I'm watching them wrestle each other for a good view because I have nothing better to do.

"Oh my gosh, you're so cute in this one!"

"Who took that one?! I'm going to sue whoever took that one!"

"Where's me, where's me?"

The crowd shuffles around again and Len gets pushed out to the back. He seems to accept this twist of fate and turns away from the board, surreptitiously shuffling up to me.

"I like watching pro wrestling too," he grins.

"I dunno. It's more like football, in my opinion."

"Where's the ball then?"

I think for a moment, then get up on my tiptoes and yank his head like a lever. "Right here."

He's quick to rip himself from my grip but he laughs loudly, earning some curious glances from our classmates, including Kaito. I end up meeting eyes with the blue-haired freak and I feel all of a sudden a shadow and pulse overhead, realizing just how close Len had snuck up to me. Kaito smirks as if to imply it was me who'd done the sneaking. He has some goddamn nerve.

"Jeez Rin, you almost gave me a heart attack," Len says.

"Too bad for the almost," I spit back, still glaring at Kaito. Len follows my line of vision and shrugs, but I think he understands why I'm angry.

That makes it worse, though.

Kaito pokes his best bud, the third of the Holy Trinity of Idiots, Gumiya. (It goes without saying who the other two are.) "Damn, Rin is vicious," he 'whispers'—his voice was low but he might as well have been yelling.

Gumiya glances up at the bulletin board. "Right? I don't think she's smiling in a single one of these."

"She probably doesn't know how to smile."

"Nah, she probably does smile sometimes. Like, once she's cornered her kill."

They keep glancing back at me like I'm supposed to be listening.

Kaito's smirk deepens. "Her kill, huh?"

Gumiya nods. "Yeah, yeah, her kill." Some sort of wordless understanding sparks between them. They lean in closer to each other but their whispering grows louder.

"The only time she smiles is after she's tied him up—"

"Torn off his clothes—"

"Shaved his legs—"

My stomach drops when I realize who and what they're talking about.

There's a stupid saying that if a little boy pulls on a girl's pigtails at recess, it means he has a crush on her. It's stupid because first of all, Len doesn't wear pigtails, and second of all, he is the Father of the Holy Trinity of Idiots and I'm mean to him because I want him to know that he's an idiot, because once he's at least aware of it, he can start taking steps towards recovery.

What I don't understand is why everyone thinks that just because he doesn't have the courage to be scared of me like everyone else, he likes me. Like I said before, I'm only a puppy to him. Puppies can be great—they're cute and funny and fluffy, but at the end of the day, they're only small entertainment and hollow comfort, right? You can't talk seriously with a simple creature like a puppy. The most you can do is pat them on the head and fake-wrestle.

There are a lot of things I don't understand, but that's one thing I'm sure about.

And also, those guys are pigs.

I cross my arms and loftily lean into Len's ear, 'whispering', "Hey Len, you should leave."

"Huh? Why?" he replies, able to tell that I'm thinking of something.

"They keep looking at you. I'm afraid they might be… Well, you're only into girls, right?"

He seems the right degree of amused. "Sure…"

I raise my voice so the whole crowd looks at me, but I only have eyes for Kaito and Gumiya. "THEY ACTUALLY ADMITTED THEY'RE HOMOS!"

Kaito is horrified. Gumiya is his best friend; they've been attached at the hip since they were babies. They're totally open about admitting how much they love each other, so people have been spreading rumours for a while now.

I don't care whether it's true or not. I just care how freaking red he is.

Take that for all the blood you've shed, Kaito.

The class is in an uproar now, interrogating the two like they're newlyweds. Miku is hilariously and disturbingly outraged ("Two boys?! Is this what it's like in Japan?!"). Kaito is vehemently denying everything, pointing the blame at me, but no one is listening to him. Call it confirmation bias; everyone wants to believe what's been their sneaking suspicion for years now.

Through all the chaos, Gumiya just stares at the ground.

We're sitting in class. Some random teacher had to come over to calm us all down about the homo thing, then after a half-hour lecture about being loud in the halls, we're back to finding the x-intercepts of parabolas.

But my mind is somewhere else.

Because, as the teacher is going on about how we should know how to factor trinomials by now, I see Len beside me, not thinking about parabolas, either. He's smiling to himself from behind the wall of his math book, and I'm seventy percent sure I know what he's smiling about.

I pretend not to notice my stomach churning, and furiously turn all my parabolas into penises.

When I come to the last one though, for some reason, I spare its life. It's a wide parabola, soaring like a rainbow from x equals negative one to x equals ten. I don't know what I'm trying to do but in that wide space, I write, maybe wholeheartedly,

"Before the bell rings at the end of the day, I want to have spoken a little more honestly."

I stare at the words I'd written.

If I really put my all into it…

Len has been sitting beside me all year of his own volition. He's always been closer than I give him credit.

"What is it?" he murmurs, catching me looking.

I scoff and turn that last quadratic into a penis as well.

Well, I guess it doesn't have to happen today.

I like to think I'm a rational person.

Trust is foolishness, friendship is fallacy, and love is but a trick of the heart.

I feel a force on my head, threaded into my hair and pushing me forward.

"Don't just stop in the middle of the road, Rin. Stop being edgy and walk."

"I'm not being edgy, what the heck?!"

"I can just see it on your face. You're thinking about edgy things."

He grinned while saying that. I sneer. "Ugh, idiot, stop the head patting thing. I hate it. And I hate you too."

He just smiles, as if he has the right to assume anything about me.

"She likes him though, she obviously does," Luka is saying.

"She's so obvious about it too," Miku laughs. "Have you noticed, she makes exceptions for him all the time. She'd never let anyone else near her gross fish things, but all he has to do is ask and he has them all. Granted, I have no idea why he'd even want to touch those disgusting little Japanese—"

"Now, now, Miku," Luka chastises, but then glances around furtively and says, "But yes, I have noticed that! It's the strangest thing! And, and, have you noticed how she lets him walk home with her sometimes? If anyone else tried that, they'd be gagged and stuffed and hung on her wall in seconds…"

Of course I'm listening, and they know I'm listening because they want me to listen, and dammit, I…

"Of course, I don't blame her," Miku goes on slyly. "He's cute in a way, right? I mean, just a little."

"Just a little," Luka agrees. They both look at me as if expecting me to say something.

I snap. "Why are you looking at me?! You can go out with him for all I care!"

"Ooh, aren't you defensive?" Miku tilts her head cutely. "Jealousy is ugly, Rin."

"I don't care!" I hate her I hate her I hate her she is going to pay—

I can feel Len watching from across the room. Had he been listening to them too? Did he not feel the need to say anything? The moon turns on its dark side and without having to think about it, I've heaved my desk above my head and the air's turned frigid.

Miku's eyes widen. "Oh no oh no oh no—"

Luka steps back. "No, Rin, not again…"

Kaito whoops. Miku shoots, "Shut the hell up, homo," which shuts him up.

For some reason, Len doesn't move from his spot even as I start chasing Miku with the dangerous heavy weapon. I shake him out of my mind and focus on Miku. Why should I expect anything from him, anyway?

"Hey, Rin."

We're walking home from school. He lives just a bit further than me, so when he tags along, he tags along the whole way. I have to pace quickly to keep up with his stride. He could at least slow down for me, I mean seriously.

"What?"

"Valentine's Day is soon."

I freeze up.

There's a cheeky grin on his face. Sometimes I can't tell what's in his head. I know he hears the rumours, but what does he think of them? Does he think them as ludicrous as I do? Or does he think I don't think they're ludicrous...?

"Yeah, so?" I scoff.

"Are you going to give me anything? I would eat any chocolates you make despite the fact that they were made by you."

My eyes flash, but I don't let him see it. "Did you think I was going to give you something?"

"Well, we're friends, aren't we?"

I've never had any guy friends, so it's not like I've ever had to give obligation chocolates before. Just the word obligation gets my teeth on edge. Shouldn't I give chocolates because I want to, not because I'm expected to?

"No," I say flatly.

He looks surprised. "No you won't give me chocolates, or no we're not friends?"

I stop walking. "Len."

He's paying serious attention now. "Yeah?"

"Why do you follow me everywhere?" I fumble around as I try to put words to what I'm feeling. "Why don't you ever leave me alone sometimes? I swear, whenever you see me, you come right up to me as if you've been waiting all day to talk to me, but it all feels... fake." I didn't mean to use such a blunt word, but no taking it back now. "I mean, why me?"

If this were a TV show, a manga, a novel, you know what Len's response would be? "Because I like you." That's totally what would happen, right? And that's what I, having watched too much TV, had begun to hope for in my most innermost of hearts. But this isn't that kind of world. I'm not that kind of person. Real people lack the honesty to be able to live the fairy tale of tooth-rotting romance-drama. Real feelings are never as simple as "I like you" or "I hate you." No one understands me, but more than that, I don't understand myself.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Just don't worry about it."

I let his hand sit there for a few seconds, then I shrug him off and hurry ahead.

I take the long way home the next day, leaving as soon as the bell rang so he couldn't find me and tag along. My shadow stretches long in the evening, and I walk on with the sunset on my back.

Somehow, I'd gone a whole week without talking to him. The time passed surprisingly quickly. I guess he'd caught wind that I was avoiding him, and respected that, which only made me angrier.

I'm sitting listlessly in a bathroom stall when I hear the bell ring. A good avoidance technique is going to the toilets just as the day is ending, so I can leave without seeing him and giving rise to the awkward question of why he doesn't wait for me anymore.

Once I hear the halls empty out, I exit the stall and head back to the classroom to gather my stuff. Only to find two people hadn't gone home yet. Miku and Luka.

They purse their lips when they see me, as if they were expecting me. Then they smile and say, "Hey," and I know something's wrong.

I follow their train of vision to the blackboard and on it there's a drawing, crude but unmistakable. There's me, a growling puppy, and Len, and an arrow pointing from me to him, surrounded by a giant, ugly heart.

It might've been Miku or Luka who drew it, or it might've been Kaito or Gumiya, or hell, it could've been Len himself—none of that matters. None of it matters.

"It's true, isn't it?" Luka says gently, her voice a mocking breeze.

"You're head over heels for him, aren't you, Rin? Just admit it." Miku twirls a lock of hair around her finger, round and around and around. "I'm guessing it felt amazing, having someone talk to you after nine years of being completely friendless."

Luka's brows furrow. "Miku…"

"But isn't he just being nice? Aren't you in over your head?" Miku says concernedly. "You know what they call this in America, Rin? They call it puppy love. You follow him around and salivate after him like a cute little dog—it's cute, Rin, don't get us wrong. We all think you're adorable, really. But, well, what do you think? Do you think he's the kind of person to pet the dog?"

My voice comes out weak. "I… don't know what you're talking about."

Miku claps her hands together, an idea coming to her. "Let's try something else. Have you ever heard of Pavlov's dog? No? Well it goes like this: you have a dog, and when you put food in front of it, it'll start drooling, right? If you ring a bell in front of it, though, it won't drool. It can't eat a bell, after all." She laughs. "But if you condition it so that when you ring the bell, you also present it food, gradually it'll come to associate the bell with food. And then, eventually, when you ring the bell, it'll start drooling even if there isn't any food. You, Rin, you're a bit like that. Are you sure you like Len himself, and not just the kindness you associate with him?"

Outside, the sun's begun to set again.

"Who said I like him?!" I bark.

Miku jumps a little and Luka clutches her arm.

"You're wrong," I say through the strangle of my throat. "I don't think he's kind at all. I was fine being by myself. He was just annoying pestering me all the time. I don't appreciate him following me around, and I don't want to be friends with him."

Miku just raises a brow. "Is that so."

"It's none of your business how 'so' it is," I snap. "But yes, he was always on my nerves. I'm glad he doesn't talk to me anymore."

Luka speaks up. "Rin, are you sure about that? Because… you seem a bit…"

"I HATE HIM I HATE HIM!" I yell to shut her up. Man, I hate the two of them too.

But I hadn't needed to yell to shut them up. There was already someone at the door who'd rendered them speechless.

The moment when you realize you're falling, but can't do anything to stop yourself.

I couldn't look at his face. I couldn't.

"L-Len!" Miku flitted her hands around like she didn't know where to put them. "Hey, did you forget something? I thought you went home already—"

He'd already left. The doorframe was empty and it was eerily like he was never there, like what we three had seen was nothing but his ghost.

Like he was never there…

With a single hand, Miku pushes my back. I whirl around to teach her a lesson but hold my slap a few inches from her face, which was, in some mysterious way, apologetic.

"Rin, what are you waiting for? Go after him. Hurry!"

I just shook my head silently. Withdrew my hand and bunched up my shirt, willing the sloshing blood in my head to calm down. "...Stupid."

"Rin, we—" Luka began.

"What do you want me to do? Go up to him and say, 'that was all a lie. I was just angry because they were teasing me.' What would he say to that? He wouldn't accept that, and you know why? Because it wasn't all a lie."

I breathe in the dusty air. "He does get on my nerves sometimes. Sometimes he'll be talking to me and I just get so frustrated with him for no reason—I don't know why. He's just being friendly. He's just my friend. And I like him but—"

"Well, that's enough, isn't it?" Miku interrupts.

"What…"

"You like him." She smiles. "You said you like him, so there shouldn't be any buts about it, right? Just go after him."

"I-It's not as simple as that."

"You're overcomplicating it." She examines her nails. "You know what, Rin? We're teenagers. There's no way in the world we'd be able to make sense of what we're feeling. So just go with it. Go."

I don't agree with her. Why would I be so hasty as to trust some annoying guy with feelings I don't understand myself? That's not the kind of person I am. That's what I tell Miku.

"Well, at least you're honest," Miku says, shrugging. "Gosh, you Japanese…"

Miku and Luka left me to myself. After standing alone for a few seconds, I slowly gathered my things. I didn't bother packing my books. I grabbed my bag and all the books scattered on my desk and carried them all out the door.

I'm just going home. I have a lot to think about.

The sky is bleeding orange. The shadows are strong and the schoolyard is empty. But when I turn the corner, I stop in my tracks.

He waited for me.

I just stand there for a while, as if he'll come to me if I wait long enough. But he doesn't see me. He stares out into the sky, and I wonder if we're thinking about the same things.

I'm this close to stepping out and just talking to him, but he turns around and starts walking. Did he just assume I wasn't coming RIGHT BEFORE I WAS ABOUT TO COME?

I pick out a random book from under my arm and throw it with all my might. It hits him square in the back of the head, he swears loudly, and I turn to take the long way home again.

I'm laughing, though.

The sunset is so bright, when I put my hand up against it, I can see the light through my fingertips.

Tomorrow, then.

I get to school extremely early in the morning. I wait in the cold of winter's end, watching all the other students file in, searching for him. When he appears, I step out before he has the chance to walk away again.

All words leave my mind when I meet him in the eye. I want to look away, but I will myself on. His expression is unreadable, and I'm so nervous I could just die on the spot and not go to heaven, but, but…

What do I say? I'm sorry? I forgive you? I like you?

"I-It's cold out, huh?"

His face is similarly cold for a few seconds, and I momentarily fear the worst. But somewhere inside me, I feel the warmth in his mind before he makes it apparent.

He throws his arm around my shoulder and together, we walk towards the school. "Good morning, Rin."

I gaze off into the cold as if it'll dissipate the warmth in my cheeks.

"What're you looking at?" Len asks.

"Something that isn't you," I deadpan. He just laughs.

In the breakneck, thrilling game of love, the one who wags his tail is the loser.

The bell rings to signal the school day's beginning.

I'm sitting in math class again, but no one is paying attention.

Kaito is fruitlessly trying to convince Miku of his complete and total straightness. Gumiya is blushing through it all. Luka seems to have noticed this, but graciously doesn't mention it.

I'm flipping through my notebook, trying to smooth out all the creases from when it hit the back of Len's head. It'd fallen into the snow and gotten all wet. Len had, in a shocking act of chivalry, blow-dried it for me.

I notice a flash of green, which was strange because I never wrote in green. I'm the blue, black and red kind of person. So I go back and take a closer look and it's unmistakably Len's handwriting.

Right under my "Before the end-of-school bell rings, I want to be able to speak a little more honestly." was:

"Go for it!"

I realize at that moment that just wanting to be more honest makes me a more honest person.

...

And then, beside another of the parabolas, he'd written:

"Mine's bigger."

a/n: hey guys! long time no see, huh?

ugh so this fic was supposed to be my Valentine's day thing but I've been so busy and lethargic lately... I dunno. There are suddenly more things I have to worry about and it's tougher to catch a break! That's life, I guess, but I've never fallen out of fanfic, trust :)

I dunno I was just having an annoying day today cause I have this physics test that didn't go so well and I'm never gonna get into the stupid uni program I want so it's like AAAAAHHH school why and I needed a break so BAM 4k words in one day bwahaha. I hope you enjoyed it! It's small but it's something I've been thinking about for a couple years actually, so it's nice to have it out.

My making Miku a megaturd was supposed to be like a play on how rinlen authors tend to make Miku the evil one, but it's like weird and she ended up being more cute than evil hahaha at least in my opinion...? The homo thing was in the original song- I hope I didn't offend anyone by it though OTL

And back when I was first learning quadratics, I had a special way of remembering how to tell if a parabola opened upwards or downwards: if the equation has a positive a-value, it's a "proper" ochinchin and opens upwards. If it has a negative a-value, it's an improper/erect ochinchin and opens downwards. lol it did help me on tests.

The story's actually based off of a Rin song by the producer yui called Doggy Tail. It's an adorable song with an ADORABLE PV and I really, really recommend it! It needs more views! There are subs on the nico version (sm23364950) but I can't find youtube with eng subs, sorry ;; I might sub it myself when I have time lol but for now have french subs LOL it has nice typesetting: /watch?v=aBUDARmmGmY

I know you can't copy paste that so I'll put it in the summary or my profile or something

Anyway! I'd love some feedback~ And uh if you're wondering about SWB, well, I haven't abandoned it;;;

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll be able to write some more soon :)