I have left some 'notes' at the end of this chapter. For now, enjoy (or don't.)

The air was as crisp as the cold water in the nearby river, with a sky as grey as the bleary concrete sidewalk that was littered with small cracks in between and among the edges of the weak cement. Despite the unsteady platform, Gumi preferred the bleak weather over anything else: The sun couldn't burn her alive, and it was too warm for snowflakes to crystallize. She would have been much more content if she didn't have to go to school this morning; she would have been completely content if she didn't have to walk with Piko. The pregnant silence between Gumi and her brother would have driven a librarian up a wall.

Her brother stayed on her left, marching frigidly as he stepped from the concrete onto the short wooden bridge to cross over the river. The harsh winds didn't faze him at all. The wind tousled and pulled Gumi's hair to the front of her face. Meanwhile, the wind didn't dare to touch Piko, afraid that it would catch a chill from him. Gumi peered down at her shorter sibling and frowned at his stoic hair, moving only to the beat of his march. It seemed that the wind only favored him, or he had put some kind of industrial strength gel into his hair before they left their house. Gumi pulled her thick hair, greener than the grass that was dying from the cold, away from her eyes. The wind may have found comfort in her, but her current mood would have driven it away; she concealed her negativity inside her like a box, locked up with a metal lock. If exposed, everything around her would have turned into a frozen wasteland.

Gumi spoke as soon as they stepped back onto the hard concrete. "Do you have all of your school supplies?" Gumi asked.

She didn't receive a reply. Gumi shivered at the sudden slap from the bitter wind, punishing her for thinking that her brother would even both to respond to her meager question. She wondered if her brother was capable of making it snow with his frosty attitude.

"How about your transfer papers?"

He yawned and pulled his cellphone out from his pocket halfway to view the time. Gumi swore she felt a wrinkle form on her face from scowling so frequently.

"Piko, you can't keep up this charade. You're too old to be acting like this."

The wind whistled in Gumi's ears. She growled with frustration and shook her head. She had to get through to him before they approached the school. It was the first time together they had been alone, and Gumi was sure it would be the last time. He would have avoided her from the start if he knew where the school building was.

"Piko, at least acknowledge that we're here because mom sacrificed everything. She's the lowest man on the totem pole now at her nursing job, and she did it for us so we didn't have to suffer anymore." The continuing silence only encouraged Gumi. "Mom moved here for you. Do you know how often she cries at night because of the things you did? She hoped moving here would encourage you to actually go to school and try to get good grades. Jesus Christ, Piko, if I can smile and bullshit everything, so can you."

Piko was in front of his sister several feet away, his feet thumping against the sidewalk vigorously. Gumi quickened her pace.

"Piko, just try. Just try, so mom's efforts won't be in vain."

Piko's backpack swished back and forth rapidly. Gumi watched her brother's back sprint away from her. She gasped, her feet burning in her black ballerina flats as she attempted to match his pace.

"Piko, listen to me! I know you're mad at me," Gumi hollered in between pants, "but not everything is my fault!"

"Yes, it is!" Piko stopped himself immediately, his heels grinding into the concrete as he twisted himself around to growl at his sister.

Gumi stopped herself a few feet away from him. She panted heavily and leaned down, her hands on her knees as she tried to hold herself up. "God, Piko, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"We had to leave town because of you," Piko screamed accusingly. "Because of dad-"

"Are you kidding me?" Gumi laughed tiredly while she wiped the sweat off of her forehead. "Piko, he's dead. He's buried six feet under now. Get over it."

"You have the nerve to say that about him?" Piko grimaced. "After you glorified him for your whole life, you say that about him?"

Gumi laughed pathetically while she wiped sweat away from her brow. She stared at the ground as she shook her head, avoiding Piko's toxic gaze. "He's dead and gone, Piko, just accept it. You can't even completely blame me for this, Piko. How could you blame me entirely? At least admit your own faults. Mom moved here so she could save you from embarrassment after you fucking shoplifted a convenient store. You're not even close to being innocent."

"At least I wasn't the talk of the town for months."

Piko attempted to turn away but Gumi grasped his wrist tightly, twisting his body around to make him look at her face.

"It's my fault that I didn't want to go outside after our own father died? And at least I wasn't dumb enough to get caught stealing candy. Everything would have been kept a secret if you didn't say a word to anyone."

"You could have held mom more highly. She moved here so she didn't have to be embarrassed of you anymore." Piko jerked his wrist out of Gumi's grasp, glaring at her strongly, clearly demonstrating his dead sympathy. "I had the right to tell everyone about your pathetic grab for attention. We both know that you did more than lay around like a slob for months after you killed dad.

"Stop saying I killed him." Gumi grimaced. "You idolized him as much as I did. At least I can admit that his death was because of his own mistakes."

"No, you made him feel guilty! Worthless!" Piko accused, "And I felt like that too after he died, and you should be feeling guilty! You should be in prison!"

"God forbid we try to have a civilized conversation. Unbelievable." Gumi's hands slapped onto her thighs accordingly to Gumi's disbelief. She knew it was unreasonable to talk sense into an unruly prepubescent boy. "I'm sorry I tried to reach out to you. I'm sorry that everything is my fault." Gumi snapped. She sighed heavily as any hope she had left exited her body. She gazed up at her hateful brother tiredly, with only a few ounces of kindness left inside her for her brother. "Would it actually make you feel better if I just stayed away from you?"

"It would."

Gumi felt her throat tighten and her heart crack. Her eyes became stone cold, not ready to release any emotion. She couldn't cry in front of her younger brother, or else his assumptions about her would be right. She clenched at the straps on her backpack, her fingernails digging into the material harshly. "Piko, at least don't get into any more trouble."

"You're not my fucking mother. You're just an embarrassment, Gumi. You're a loser who can't even accept lousy crap to happen to her. It became clear after you cut your-"

"Don't you even say it."

Piko blew air from out of his nostrils, and shook his head at Gumi with disappointment. "Stay out of my life, Gumi. It'll be better for mom and for the both do us. Good luck trying to suck up to her now that daddy is gone. Go ahead and hide behind mom's apron now that you can't tug on your his pant leg anymore."

He almost turned away, but his hesitation snapped, and he cast his sister one final glare. "You should have died."

Her hands trembled and her vision blurred as she watched her brother fade away, drifting farther away from her with each haughty step he took. As his figure disappeared into the horizon, Gumi lifted her shaky fingers to the top of her head and gripped her neon green hair, unable to cope with the blatant cruelty from her young brother.

"Fuck you!"

The scream carried out into the cold, empty air, sailing through the wind like an unwanted letter. Only the frightened birds acknowledged Gumi's screech, flying out of their nests to search for a safer place. Gumi sniffled and dabbed the wetness off of her red cheeks, feeling tempted to rip the tear ducts out of her eyes.

"Fuck you." She murmured.

She released her hair from her fingers, letting the green strands hover over her hunched shoulders. She rubbed her cold, vibrating hands together, then gently rubbed her right wrist with her left hand, then rubbed her other wrist, going back and forth repeatedly while she walked to her new school. By the time she had reached the building, she had managed throw on her facade. She lifted her head up slightly, offered a simple smile to the students that worthlessly tried to identify her, and hopped onto the staircase with other students hurrying to their homeroom, draining the unpleasant memory of the walk to school with each step.

To Gumi, the miserable part of going to a new junior high school was introducing herself. Repeatedly.

First, it was to the staff of the school as she handed in the last of her transfer papers. Next, it was in homeroom, where she said her name while trying to prevent the hotness of her face from consuming her. Lastly, it was in gym class, with a group of boys loudly asking who the 'cutie' was. It was the last thing Gumi ever wanted to happen to her, never mind the fact that she didn't want eyes on her in the first place. Gumi considered dropping dead right there on the track- but the possibility of her being buried in the school's horrendous gym uniform deterred her. Gumi's head shot up when she heard a smack that was loud enough for all of Japan to hear. A boy suddenly had a red mark on his face, with a tiny, petite girl scolding him. Gumi almost laughed at the scene.

"That hurt, Miku!"

"It would have hurt a lot worse if I shoved my foot up your ass. Are you already straying from me, Kaito? Hmm? How can I marry you fifteen years from now if you're already explicitly demonstrating the signs of a housebreaker?"

"I wasn't even laughing! Leon started it!"

"N-no!" The accused boy stammered.

Gumi watched the petite girl growl; Leon, a suddenly anxious-looking blond, sprinted off, along with the other mischievous boys. Kaito and Miku remained, with Gumi huffing behind them.

"Hey, I'm sorry about Leon's behavior, he's an- are you okay?"

"Wha?" Gumi panted, her cheeks red from extreme exertion. She could barely focus on anything, not with the fire raging through her leg muscles. She focused on the ground instead of Kaito's face. "I-I'm fine!"

Gumi heard Miku groan. "You're free to join your pack again, Kaito. I guess I'll have to apologize for you."

"It wasn't even my fault." Kaito whined. "Jesus, don't get your panties in a bunch."

Kaito sprinted off before Miku could chastise him, leaving Gumi to wonder how he could suddenly break out into a sprint after running a mile. The tiny girl in front of her slowed down and grinned, her marble-white teeth gleaming.

"I'm so sorry about them."

"O-oh, t-that's -gasp- alright." Gumi grunted.

Her bubblegum-pink lips curled downwards. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Y-yeah, I-I just haven't ran like this in about...never."

Miku giggled, her pigtails swaying in rhythm with her bubbly appearance. She took a moment to say hello to a group of girls who jogged by them. Gumi gasped repeatedly and offered the girl a pained frown, yet marveled at the lack of shimmering sweat on Miku's forehead, rather than being mystified over her long teal hair (Then again, her hair was the color of a bush). She found herself soon looking into Miku's owl-like eyes, bluer than any sapphire in existence, with a shimmer in her irises that was brighter than glitter.

Miku directed her attention to the shorter girl again. "You're Gumi."

"R-right." Gumi puffed, still in awe over Miku's eyes. She was pleasantly surprised that a seemingly popular girl like her actually remembered her name.

Miku raised a thin eyebrow, more so as she wondered why the out-of-shape girl was putting herself through torture. "...you don't have to keep running."

Gumi snapped out of her trance, embarrassed. "But I thought we had to run all two miles?"

"No, only the first two laps."

Gumi looked around the track and watched other students walk with ease. She halted and groaned. "My legs..."

Miku slowed her pace and strolled with her. She waited for Gumi to catch her breath before she spoke further.

"I'm Miku."

"C-cool." Gumi slicked her hair back into a ponytail. "I'm Gumi- no, sorry, you already know." She pointed towards the blue haired boy across the track. "And that's your boy-?"

"Friend? Yes, he's my friend, that's all."

"Well, you made it sound like-"

"Just friends." Miku almost frowned at her own statement, seeming upset by the truth of that sentence, but her bright, broad smile remained plastered onto her face. "I guess it's too early to say otherwise, but do you like it here?"

Gumi raised an eyebrow, surprised that Miku was still talking to her. "It's alright. I just didn't expect it to be a zoo." Gumi glared at the group of cat-callers that had begun to aimlessly sprint around the track like cheetahs.

Miku's sudden laugh pierced Gumi's ears. By instinct, she almost covered her ears. Instead, she winced inwardly. Her marvel over Miku's large eyes and porcelain face faded into the air like a wisp of smoke.

"Yeah, our school is filled with animals." Miku rolled her eyes. "No joke. We even have a maggot."

"I'm guessing that's Leon?" Gumi gestures to the blond boy running (literally) amuck as he darted past them and shrieked obnoxiously like a chimpanzee.

"He's more like a mentally handicapped gazelle. No, I meant a different creep."

He was a mix between a chimpanzee and a gazelle? Who knew? "Who is the other creep?"

Miku abruptly shrieked shrilly when Kaito ran over to poke Miku's side. Miku ranted angrily while Kaito ran away laughing, rejoining his pack again.

"I swear to God, Kaito, you're the actual maggot around here!"

"It was just a love-tap, Miku!" Kaito shouted.

"I think you bruised me." Miku whined. She held onto her side and complained. Once Miku's griping hit five minutes, Gumi attempted to walk away, pumping her sore legs against the red platform quickly until Miku caught up to her.

"Sorry, I shouldn't waste my time getting angry over that. He was just playing around. He can be such a nuisance sometimes, after he spends hours hanging around with a bunch of animals."

"It's okay." Gumi shrugged and mimicked a casual mood, but Miku's bipolar attitude and high pitched voices had given her a headache. Miku seemed to be easily upset; Gumi wouldn't have been surprised if Miku started hollering over a loose thread hanging from the end of her shirt. The thought of what Miku was like on her period gave her goose-bumps.

"If it makes you feel better, you'd make a great peacock," Gumi said, hoping to drive her away with a weird comment.

There was a moment of silence before Miku shrieked with laughter again. Gumi didn't hide her nose-scrunching cringe.

"I-I forgot what a peacock looked for a second, and then it clicked! I didn't think about a peacock." Miku twirled one of her teal pigtails and giggled enthusiastically. "Cute!"

"Great." Gumi smiled weakly, while she imagined smashing her green-haired self against a brick wall.

"Hey, Yukari! I look like a peacock, don't I?"

Alarmed at attracting attention, Gumi began to jog away, then full out sprinted to the locker rooms when the gym teacher blew the whistle. For a moment, the whistle sounded like church bells to her.

Her legs were burning and she had just accidentally befriended the girl with the highest vocal chords on Earth, but Gumi's only blessing was that she was only considered a maggot to her brother. For Gumi, everything could have gone much worse. At least when the day was over, she could hide in her room again.

Upon being the first to reach the locker rooms, Gumi looked at the clock. She wouldn't be home for another four hours. She collapsed onto the metal bench and groaned with despair.

"For someone that hates running, you ran like a bat out of hell to get off the track," Said the obnoxiously perky voice.

Gumi cast Miku a glare. "I can't feel my legs."

"You'll feel better in no time!"

Miku, with well meaning, slapped Gumi's thigh playfully; Gumi screamed from the spreading pain and fall off the bench, wringing on the ground.

"...heh heh. I'm going to get changed."

Gumi laid face-down on the floor. "Get away from me before I throw my sneakers at you."

"See you later!" Miku cheerfully yelled from the opposite end of the locker room. "I'll introduce you to my other friends, too!"

Gumi began to hit her head repeatedly against the floor. So much for fading into the background.

"Bye, Gumi!"

Gumi sighed tiredly while she leaned down to pick up a discarded pencil off the floor. She waved farewell to Miku, and tossed the broken pencil in the garbage. She said goodbye to her teacher, and walked out with the rest of the students who had just finished up cleaning the school.

Gumi sweat as she became locked into the crowd of students. Her senses heightened, and she became overly conscious. She probably smelt like garbage, especially after she forgot to put deodorant on after gym class. She heard a laugh. Was it about her? Now worked up, Gumi wormed her way out the crowd and panted with relief when she freed herself from the sea of teenagers. She leaned against the wall, and gazed out the windows surrounding her.

"I have some time to kill." Gumi glanced at her phone to peek at the time. She took a look around the hallway before she continued walking, deciding to explore on her own, knowing that Piko wouldn't wait up for her. Gumi hoped that he hadn't found a new group of delinquents to pal around with.

The school was smaller than Gumi anticipated, but she couldn't be shocked; The town itself was smaller than a robin's egg. This was the kind of town where everyone knew each other, where childhood friends still clung next to each other, arms linked together, bonded together by memories and gossip. Kahiru, Gumi's new town, was too tiny for her. Especially after accidentally befriending Miku, Gumi knew that trying to make herself disappear from the eyes of the school would be impossible. To them, she was only a foreigner. Kahiru was practically cut off from the rest of Japan, located several hours away from any other kind of town, locked in the middle of empty roads and bumpy landscapes. From getting to Kahiru from her old village, it took four hours by car just to reach the outskirts. Gumi didn't need to doubt that there wasn't a reason why her mother cut themselves off from the rest of Japan, locating them to a town that sounded foreign to them.

The school didn't seem so harrowing, though. Gumi held onto the metal bannister as she traveled to the first floor again. At least she didn't have to worry over being late to classes, now that she was in a school less than half the size of her previous school. She still had to worry about exams, though, in order to get into high school. She'd never avoid that, especially being in her last year of junior high. She tried to distract her mind from the fact that she was basically starting over again, at the worst possible time.

Gumi threw her hands behind her back and walked down the hallways. She decided to play hopscotch on the tiles. Her hair bounced as she hopped on her one foot, her feet still in her school shoes. She remembered when she was young, crudely drawing a hopscotch board with chalk for her and Piko to play on. Her brother never had the balance for hopscotch, and she would always win, because she was bigger, as she put it. Then her mother would usually scold her for making Piko feel bad about himself.

Gumi smiled nostalgically, picturing Piko with his chubby cheeks and grubby hands. The smile faded; She couldn't understand how Piko went from innocent to crude in a matter of months after their father's death. Perhaps it was wrong of her to think he'd lie around the house and pity himself, like she did. It was her fault in the first place that she made Piko the delinquent he was now. It was her own fault that her father was dead, too. Even her own mother knew, no matter how many times she denied it to her own daughter.

Gumi felt her chest buckle under the weight of her thoughts. She leaned against a wall and continued to blame herself for her father's death and the events that followed after it. If she had just kept her mouth locked up and tossed away the key, she would still be home in her previous village. It was wrong of her to take Piko away from his friends (even if they were a bad influence.) Worse, she stole the most important figure in his life away from him. Gumi shut her eyes and gulped back the growing knot in her throat. Gumi attempted to ignore her emotions and went to retrieve he regular shoes. She came out of the locker rooms wadding in her white socks, her brown loafers hanging lethargically by the tips of her fingers. She walked down the hallway with her pessimistic emerald eyes glued to the floor.

A distant shout almost made Gumi jump out of her own pale skin, making her fumble and drp her loafers. With wide eyes (she imagined that they were just as wide as Miku's), she raced to the windows. The sprawling windows covered a good view of the blacktop. She saw a group of boys a good few feet away, and at first, she thought they were wrestling with each other to the ground, packed together like sardines.

A boy moved away from the pile of boys to let Gumi see their bloody, bruised victim. Her eyes widened with paralyzed horror. The gang took turns pushing him around as if he were a limp ragdoll, unraveling him whenever he tried to curl up in ball to prevent further harm to his black and blue body. Gumi, distanced far enough from the violence, was close enough to see the hollowness in the boy's eyes as he was dragged by his shirt and slammed into the blacktop, pinned down by the largest boy of the group. She almost screamed for them to stop, but it became clogged in her throat. If she opened her mouth, she'd end up killing the boy, the exact same way she accidentally killed her father. She couldn't let someone else die because of her loose tongue.

One of the boys lifted his head and cast his eyes towards Gumi's direction. Alarmed, she hid against the wall. When she managed to convince herself to look out the window again, the pack was still there, still feasting on the smaller boy. She watched a student pass them, and fiercely hoped that the other student would help the poor boy. Instead, he only walked off, permitting the thugs to continue their assaults. Another group of students passed by; they laughed at the bloody boy's misfortune. Gumi watched with disbelief, her eyes swinging from the injured eyes to the howling students left and right. She felt stupid for thinking that the gentleness of the school portrayed the students. That was far from the truth.

Gumi stalled for a few more moments. She threw her loafers to the ground and debated whether or not she should aid the boy. It didn't seem that the large group of boys would give up on the student anytime soon. Even if her words killed people, her mouth wouldn't help if it was punched in by one of the brutes. She trembled and silently apologized before she ran out of the building.

"And just remember," The thick voice hissed, "don't even try to back out of our after-school 'sessions'. I'm not going to miss wrestling practice because of you, maggot."

The small, gaunt, and barely-conscious student nodded.

"Say it."

"I-I understand, Gakupo." The boy choked.

Gakupo released the boy from his shirt and dropped him. "You better be here tomorrow." Gakupo snapped. "And the day after that, and every single goddamn day after that until I say so."

The boy on the ground and closed his eyes and nodded weakly.

Satisfied, the group left, while agreeing quietly how much of a waste of space he was and how his filth stained their once freshly-pressed uniforms. The boy left to bleed on the ground couldn't disagree; He was filth. He was only a stain on the blacktop, only a speck of mold on a slice of white bread. Physical punishment and verbal harassment was the only attention he deserved, and everyone around him had no trouble reminding him of that, especially Gakupo.

He opened his swollen eyes. The whites were completely bloodshot, his irises dulled from the pain. The pain paralyzed him, making him unable to even twitch his nose without wanting to cry. He knew better than to cry, as the salty tears would only seep into the lacerations on his cheeks and burn his face. He decided to count his blessings while he waited for the pain enveloping his body to alleviate.

'I'm glad I'm not dead' was the only 'blessing' he could think of, and that was an excuse that could only be hissed through clenched teeth.

I'm so sorry that I wrote this why ;Д;

Six months going onto seven. THAT is how long it took me to get to this point. This story has evolved and is STILL evolving. It's ridiculous that I can't make up my mind, but I'm confident that I have the story on a clear path now.

Just some notes:

1) In Japan, there are two high schools: a 'lower' and an 'upper' high school. It is similar to middle school/high school in America…but it's not. In order to go to upper high school, students must apply and be accepted. Not all students go to the same upper high school. In order to be able to even get a job, students need to at least attend upper high school. School in Japan is compulsory up until ninth grade. It sort of annoys me that writers in the Vocaloid fandom base the Japanese school system off of the American system…it does not work like that. At all. Granted, everyone makes mistakes.

2) Japanese students use their desks to hold their books and utensils in. They only have lockers for their shoes. They put their outside sneakers in their locker, and wear slippers/shoes that the school gives them for the whole school day.

3) Japanese schools don't have janitors! Instead, students work together after school to clean up the school. Teamwork is goal in Japan. However, uniformity is an issue in Japan. America is a nation that is more open to individuality than Japanese is.

4) Mental illness is a very strained topic in Japan. Mental illnesses, such as depression, are not acknowledged. People in Japan diagnosed with a mental illness have a very difficult time getting a job, hence why the suicide rate is VERY high in Japan: many Japanese with mental illness suffer in silence. The issue of mental illness will be a theme in Scorned.

Hopefully, you learned a few things. If I made any mistakes, let me know! Any reviews are appreciated. Also, I'm leaving for Spain for college in a few days, sooo it may be awhile before I update as I REALLY need to get my stuff together kldflksa. I have chapter two more than halfway done, so not all is lost. In the meantime, thank you for even bothering to read this! ʘ w ʘ

btw for those of you wondering if this is a Gumi/Len story...I haven't made up my mind bUT I WILL (someday ;^;) But there's no Len/Rin because they're siblings in this story. There is NOOOO incest in this story, only melodramatic sibling conflicts. I'm never going to write incest between Len/Rin either because no.

Have a good day! C: