The cover picture was the inspiration for this story. Well, one scene in the story: the rest of the story was constructed around that scene. I do not own the song "Strobe Nights," and I did not do the translation. I used somebody else's. The parts in parenthesis are the translations for that particular line. I do not own the Vocaloids in general, or Hatsune Miku in particular.
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'Hm… Cup Noodle or Top Ramen? Cup Noodle is more convenient, but I prefer Top Ramen… decisions decisions…'
Johnson is walking down the street, wearing comfortable blue jeans and a flannel jacket; he is a normal guy with normal worries.
That's going to end in three… two… one…
Johnson continues walking down the street, uninterrupted.
*ah-hem!* I SAID, that's going to end in three… two… one…
Still, nothing happens.
Hey, you, that's your cue! Yes, you! Who else would I be talking to? What? Why would I be talking to the unconscious girl? Besides, she's part of the story, I would be breaking the fourth wall! *facepalms* Just… just throw her already…
Now where was I? Oh, right, that's going to end in… HEY! I SAID TO THROW HER ALREADY! WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO!? If you don't throw her in the next ten seconds, not only will you be ruining the story, but I will personally fire you, then hire a hit squad to kill your entire family! Five seconds now!
THANK you…
That'sgoingtoendinthreetwoone-
*WHUD*
Johnson is flattened by a mysterious girl falling out of nowhere
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"Ow… huh?" Johnson tries to sit up, and notices that there's something on top of him. He looks down and sees… a girl? She has teal hair, in a pair of long pigtails. The pigtails are held in place by simple red ribbons… that aren't actually touching the hair? Huh? How…? Never mind, he can ask her later. He gently pulls her off of him, laying her on the ground. She is wearing a simple white blouse with a black bow on the front, a frilly black skirt, and there is a "01" tattoo on her left arm between her bicep and her shoulder. "Where did you come from…?"He looks closer. 'You know, she really is quite-'
The girl suddenly jerks upright, causing Johnson to jump back.
She begins to speak, "Hello, I am-" but pauses, confused. "Um, who am I?"
Johnson sighs, "Great, amnesia. Guess that means you won't be telling me how you got here?"
"Where am I?"
"You're in Thistleton. Lamest name for a town ever, right?"
"What is a 'town'?"
Johnson sighs, standing up. "Alright, my house is right here. Come on inside, and I'll answer what questions I can."
"Ok." The girl handsprings to her feet, then pauses. "What is a 'house'?"
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"Are you hungry?" Johnson asks as they walk inside.
The girl frowns, "Hungry… I know that word…" then her stomach growls. "Ah! That's it! Yes, I am 'hungry'."
"I'm assuming that you don't remember enough about food to know what you like and don't like, so I'm just going to make some ramen. Ok?"
She nods, a thoughtful look on her face, so he sets to work making a few packs of Top Ramen. A few minutes later, the noodles are done cooking, and he sets about straining out some of the excess water before mixing in the flavoring, when the girl suddenly shouts "LEEKS!" causing him to almost drop the pot. She continues, "I remember that I like leeks!"
He smiles at her, "Good! Let me finish making the ramen, and I'll go get you some." He mixes the flavoring, then grabs a pair of bowls and two forks, before setting an ice cube in each bowl. Finally, he takes a ladle and scoops some ramen into each bowl. He walks over to his dining room table and sets a bowl down at each end of it. As he sits down, he goes to call the girl over before realizing that he still doesn't know her name… and remembering that neither does she. "Um… what should I call you until you can remember your name?"
The girl walks into the room, saying "I don't know."
He thinks for a moment. "How about… Sarah? It's kind of generic, but it'll let you know when you're being talked to."
"Ok."
She stands there in silence for a few moments before he remembers, "Oh, right, dinner's ready."
"Dinner?"
"Food… dinner is food…"
"YAY!" She leaps onto his lap, grabs the fork out of his hand, and starts shoveling ramen into her mouth.
He raises an eyebrow at her, "Um. That was my bowl."
She pauses mid-slurp, ramen dangling from her mouth. "he- wher' aye?"
"It would be easier for me to understand you if your mouth wasn't full."
She finishes slurping her current mouthful, then asks "Then where's mine?"
He gestures to the far end of the table, where the other bowl is sitting.
She jumps up and skips over to the other end of the table and plops herself down in her seat, then looks between her bowl and him a couple of times. "Why are we sitting so far away from each other?"
Indeed, the table was big enough to comfortably sit eight people, so there was a bit of distance between the two ends of the thing.
"Because that's how I set the table. Feel free to move your bowl."
"Okay!" She picks up her bowl and fork, walks back over to his end of the table, sets her bowl next to his, sits in his lap, and continues eating.
"Um… why, exactly, are you sitting on my lap?"
"You're much more comfortable than those chairs!"
"People usually only sit on each other's laps when they're in love with each other."
"Okay, and love is…? Wait, lemme try first! Hrm…"
He just sighs and prepares himself to correct a completely wrong guess.
"Love is when two people like each other, right?"
He blinks in surprise. "That's… actually more or less right!"
"Yay! I got it right!"
She continues eating, leaving him confused.
"You aren't moving."
"But I like you! Don't you like me?"
He starts to blush before realizing: 'Right… she doesn't know the difference between like and "like".' He hears sniffling and looks down to see Sarah on the verge of tears. 'Oh no, what happened? Did I hurt her feelings? What did I do? Think think think…'
Suddenly Sarah bawls "I'M STILL HUNGRY!"
That's when he notices that her bowl is empty. As is his own. He still hadn't eaten any of it. He sighs, "Come on, there's more."
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"Remind me why we're up here again?"
"It's so we can look at the stars, silly!"
Johnson looks around. "Couldn't you have picked a safer spot, like, say, the roof of my house?"
"But the view is so much better from up here!"
After eating most of Johnson's ramen (He'd managed to grab a bowl), Sarah had asked if she could go back out and see the lights in the sky again. Johnson had agreed. After all, how much trouble could stargazing be?
Turns out, a lot.
After all, Sarah had decided that she wanted to get as close a look at them as possible. Which meant doing the actual stargazing from the top of the tallest nearby object. So here they were, on top of the towns' radio tower, gazing at the sky. Well, Sarah gazed. Johnson took a nap.
Sometime later, Johnson gently drifts back to reality. As he slowly regains awareness of himself and his surroundings, He notices that he feels… heavier than normal? Must just be groggy. He goes to sit up, but feels the heaviness shift. 'Great,' he thinks as he lets his head thunk back to the roof top. The heaviness wasn't him being groggy, it was Sarah using him as a mattress.
'Did she go straight from full throttle to park, or did I just sleep through it? Well, I guess I should wake her up so that we can go home and sleep in some actual beds.
He gently shakes her shoulder. She raises her head, not even opening her eyes, and puts a finger over his lips. "Shh… I'm still sleeping…" she mumbles before her head drops back to his chest. He shakes her shoulder again, but she doesn't even react this time.
"Come on, we'll get colds if we sleep up here."
"But I'm warm right now…"
"Not cold, colds… it's… a sickness, um… it fills your nose with fluid and is extremely uncomfortable…"
Sarah sits up. "That's really confusing."
"Yes it is, but would you mind getting off of me so that I can get up?"
Sara stands up, closely followed by Johnson. Sarah says, "All right, let's go!"
… And vaults the railing.
Johnson immediately panics, "SARAH!" and runs over to the railing. He looks over and sees her fall through some of the wires connecting the tower to the station itself, breaking her fall. He climbs over the railing and grabs one of the wires, sliding down it like a fireman's pole.
As he reaches the rooftop, he asks "are you OK? That was quite a… fall…" but trails off as he notices the state Sarah is in.
She's sitting on the rooftop, tangled in wires, yet where most would be frustrated or embarrassed, she is not. She's staring up at the sky, her predicament completely forgotten, with a look of pure longing on her face.
"A shooting star…" she mumbles.
"Huh? What was that?"
She ignores him and begins singing.
Kirari to nagare teru (A shooting star drifting across the sky.)
Mitsu kete hoshii kara, kokoniiruno (It makes its way across the night as the whole world passes by.)
Dareka ga te wo noba su aizu de (It sees you reach out to it somewhere down below.)
Sotto mawaru hoshi aoku (To that voiceless star quietly watching over you,)
Hikatte (In the shining blue.)
Hajimete no fuyu gakitayo (One more chilly winter night.)
Faremo inai kouen de (The park is silent as I sit alone.)
Hoshi gabutsukaru oto ni mune ga naru (I can feel my racing heart as the snow falls to my feet.)
Buranko kara miage ta sora (Sitting on these swings, I look up to the sky.)
Namae wa wakaranai keredo (And although I don't know the names for the stars,)
Chikazu kitaiyohouki hoshi ninatte (I will close my eyes and make a wish.)
Kirari to hashiru hoshi wa (A twinkling star, who can only remember when)
Omoidasu no, asonde itaano sora (It made a secret wish and blazed across the sky.)
Hajikete kie teku hikari no kiseki (I'll Leave a trail that shines, but only fades with time.)
Mata au une, kono sora de (But we'll meet again, under this sky.)
Kitto (Definitely.)
Johnson is awestruck. "That – that was-"
Sarah looks at the ground next to her with a look of surprise on her face. "Hey look! A leek!"
"You shouldn't-" Sarah takes a bite out of the leek "eat that…"
Sarah has a rather disgusted look on her face. "Ugh! Why did I ever like leeks?"