Okay, so here I am attempting to write for Vocaloid again. If you, reading this now, are up to date with most of the stories for this category then you probably have no idea who I am. That's fine; you'll get accustomed to my awkwardness in time.

If you're into slice of life, I hope you're ready for more. This story will not be action-heavy, no, it's simply a bunch of everyday antics in a modern location that will not named (because then I'd have to say it's Japan and since I'm not from there I won't subject you to my ignorance).

I should also point out there will be romance in this story – it isn't the main focus, but it's still relevant to the plot. I don't think it's a spoiler to tell you that there won't be romance between the main characters. Miku does have a girlfriend though, her role in the story is more important than I might convey. I could have easily gone the route of saying that Miku and Rin were more than friends, but I didn't because I think it's cliché to have some same sex friends secretly be into each other.

DISCLAIMER TIME – "Insert some crap joke about how one can't own voices here."

( A Vocaloid fanfiction typed entirely by The Chosen Storyteller... )

Before We're A Distant Memory

Chapter 1

All children endured school for the same goal, a light at the end of the tunnel: time off. As early as one's sixth birthday, school would only get more unfair. Not everyone learned the same way, not everyone had massive brains to hold in all the knowledge. Nevertheless, unless all the kids were given their little space in the classroom and some textbooks. No good advice for when longer words to spell and write and math problems were thrown at them.

But that time off from school, summer and winter, regardless of actually caring about the holidays in between it was like breathing for the first time. Without the powerful school walls everywhere in sight, children could feel carefree again. Even play time outdoors wasn't enough to make the thought of learning not utterly terrifying and confusing. Summer promised new opportunities, and winter promised emotions for the adults. They were too old to understand the hype of Christmas morning.

Miku backed away from her calendar, bouncing on her heels as her eyes roamed across the soft pink page with smiling yellow suns representing June. She was just another kid eager for days of playing as long all the way up to dinnertime, never stopping to think about school. The pink on the calendar only mildly disgusted her after Dad flipped the page earlier that morning and told her they were going to celebrate by going out for ice cream later.

At seven years old, Miku wasn't always impressed with the path she was going down in school. Her test scores were always good, but never the best. She went through friends like a revolving door, but the other kids got tired of her never being a leader. Her parents encouraged her to work on singing, learn how to do it the "proper" way as the music teacher who always wore her glasses on the edge of her nose specifically said.

All Miku could hope for was a change of pace. Perhaps this would be her year to slow down, throw out expectations and let life give her something else in return.

Miku couldn't put her finger on why ice cream could only be enjoyed on hotter days, but during the car ride to the local shop she was eager. She'd only vaguely looked at the passing scenery, replied to her parents' attempts at conversation with her. She'd always stayed safe with chocolate or vanilla flavors, but what if she did something crazy? If anything, that could be a slow step to excitement in her life.

It wasn't until the ice cream shop was in sight Miku pulled herself out of her own head. She heard the muffled sounds of people sitting under tables in the shade talking, and some more hyper kids laughing and shouting at each other as they played. Hopefully those kids were playing… The sounds could be mistaken for attempts at harming each other. Oh well.

It would have been a normal visit to the ice cream shop, but Dad suddenly let out a swear and slammed his foot on the break. The screeching of the car halting was almost drowned out by Mom rambling nonsense. Although both Mom and Dad were looking paler by the second as they just froze still shaken up by what just happened.

Miku did get slung forward by the car's sudden stop, her belt keeping her in her seat pressing into her lower stomach painfully. But even with that moment of chaos, her first coherent thought was what happened. One minute she had been calmly looking out her window and listening to the noise around her, the next her parents acted like they'd just killed someone.

Then Miku's thoughts went back to scrambled. Did they really just kill someone? She'd heard of people being hit by cars on the news, and though people were just sent to the hospital for a while there were some cases of death. Her parents would suddenly change the channel when they realized she was listening or watching the TV then, but it was too late. She'd learned about death from her school books talking about historical figures getting crushed to say the least.

Suddenly, the car doors flew open and Mom and Dad both rushed out to check out the scene. Other people were gathering at that point, parents trying to shield their overly-curious children and others just gawking without anything else to do. What about the scene was so shocking that made everyone act that way? It had to be a dead person. Miku's heart sank further at the thought, and her eyes started to burn in a fight to shed some tears. But she wasn't going to cry, no she didn't like to be emotional without a good reason.

Miku kept wiping the back of her hand over her eyes, occasionally trying to stop breathing through her nose so she wouldn't sniffle and let anything unclean slip out there. She was unsure how much time was going by, definitely not even a minute though. The crowd hadn't gone anywhere, though some had their phones out… Oh no, were they calling for dead-gathering people? Whatever they were called, the ones who worked with lifeless bodies so much they had gone neutral to the whole concept of not being alive?

Miku finally undid her belt, and stood up in the car to peek over the seat. There was...nobody there? She was confused, but then had a thought that if they didn't hit a person… There could have been a poor animal simply trying to cross the road, maybe a baby at that. One might have a debate over whether that was the better result, but she still felt sick and pushing the door open to go look for herself.

Mom was the closest person to have to slide by in order to look at the body, so when she noticed her daughter approaching she tried to grab her shoulders and pull her back. But Miku did get a look before Mom went full over-protective and placed a hand over her eyes.

A little girl was sprawled on the ground, the cup of ice cream she had been presumably finishing was overturned and leaking an orange coloring on her hand. Being struck by a car should have left a more painful scene, but aside from one side of her face not hidden appearing bruised and scrapes on her exposed knees' bleeding she looked almost at peace like she'd just fallen asleep.

Miku didn't get to see the people from the hospital pick up the girl and check for life, but she was able to quickly realize from the quick glimpse her identity. The name escaped her, but Miku knew she'd seen that girl in some of her classes and at lunch.

As Miku was hoisted by Mom and strapped back in, she just couldn't bring herself to cry. Her burning eyes insisted some tears would help, but it didn't feel like the appropriate reaction this time. That girl couldn't be dead, she kept thinking. Maybe she was in denial, frightened of the idea that kids her age were able to die and many probably have since time began.

Whether that girl lived or died, Miku just shut her eyes and tried her best to relax into the car seat. Pretending would be a great way to cope. Yeah, she wanted to pretend that when she opened her eyes again they were going to be driving home and she had just slept off the sugar high. If anything, maybe she would start to believe it someday.

There world had more than enough stories on news channels about children dying, and there didn't need to be one more. It wasn't even about how terrible it was for the child anymore; each victim was another number. It would have been easy for that girl to join the rest of the forgotten victims.

The doctors concluded the girl wasn't even struck by the car; the facial bruising concerned them, but her mother's explanation she was energetic and loved playing outside as enough to make them stop the abuse train of thought. The girl had to rest in the hospital for a day, even though she'd regained consciousness before the day of the accident was over and claimed to have passed out from terror. With tests for head injuries, bandaged knees and the watchful eye of the doctors she was able to leave before Miku's parents had the chance to get in contact.

Miku finally breathed without feeling like a boulder was weighing on her heart. That experience was so sudden, and she had at least one nightmare of seeing the girl lying in the road dead for real. She thought she'd never have the chance to speak to her at least one time, hear her take in precious air and life.

Of course, if Miku had never met Rin then she wouldn't know all of that account of the accident. Miku liked to think fate led her on a specific path from being in the car that was thought to have killed her, all the way to being driven down her street in said car one afternoon and seeing a recovered Rin playing catch with her mother.

It was just one conversation that led to Miku and Rin bolting into the latter's backyard to pick up the game of catch while their parents went through typical adult drama. If there was even a sorry we could have killed your child speech. The girls were just happy to be able to go back to a carefree world again. Suddenly, Miku's grey world was blasted with color again to emphasize the best time in her life was about to begin when it seemed like it was a million years away.

TBC

Hey, it's the author again. Please don't be too annoyed by my 2 ANs; I'm only doing this because the story's just begun, and there was a lot of details. From here on, I'll only include an AN when it's absolutely necessary. It's all I can do to not ramble like more of an idiot.

I want to explain that Miku and Rin's childhood together won't be told in chronological order. It's going to be flashbacks by 1 of the characters. So the next chapter onward will take place when the characters are 25 and 24 respectively.

And yes, the characters are a year apart in age. I've heard some people say that in canon Miku is 16 while Rin is 14, but for this story to work the age difference couldn't be beyond 1 year. Mostly due to the school situation. I can't just say Rin would have skipped a grade because people might complain "Rin isn't a genius" in canon… Even though none of the Vocaloids have a confirmed personality.

My final comment is that I'm well aware the way this chapter is written is weird as hell. I can tell you the majority of this story will not be written like this, and its weirdness was deliberate. But of course, there won't be any payoff for that choice until the end. If you can call it a payoff. Since I don't plan on the story being too long, it most likely won't even reach 9 chapters, maybe the fact this chapter was written odd will still make sense by the end. Or not. I don't know you.

Thank you for reading this story, and I'll take my leave now. Chosen Storyteller's out.