Authoress' Note: I wrote this to prove I'm not dead or anything and because I had a sudden urge of inspration. I also wrote this to give Kiku a bit of back story and because let's face it, if she wasn't a robot (technically all Vocaloids are robots), she'd be a pretty deep character. Finally, at the end of the story, I went for generic Japanese names to be on the safe side...
Harvest Moon
It was her Mother who gave her the red hair. Her Father's hair was a drab downy brown her Mother's was a deep imposing red. It reached her shoulders and had seen many a hair style through it's days. Kiku used to watch her mother brush the red tendrils hypnotized as she delicately cared for the strands. Expensive shampoos and products went onto her head on a daily basis. If there was one thing her mother loved it was her hair. She would drum into Kiku how important her hair was, how to look after it and never to cut it. She once said (when Kiku was older) that if she were to cut it, she would be disowned. As a five-year-old Kiku watched her mother tenderly caring for her hair a plinky plonky tune ringing from the music box, she couldn't help but feel second to her Mother's hair.
As she got older, Kiku wondered how her only child could come second to hair. In an act of rebellion, Kiku grabbed the scissors and began to cut the ends of her waist length hair off. Her Mother went absolutely berserk, to put it lightly. After an hour of screaming and scratching Kiku, her Mother was restrained by her Father who had only just come home from work. Kiku later found out that her Mother kept the cut off stands in her music box.
Of course she questioned her Mother's obsession with hair and once asked her Father about it.
"Your Mother values image above all else," Was his answer. When she asked further she was told to go to her room.
Once, Kiku tried to break into her Mother's music box, only to be caught and screamed at again. She tried desperately to understand her mother but only drifted further away each time. When she was fourteen however, her Mother gave her the treasured music box.
"Kiku, my Mother gave me this music box and her Mother before her and so on. Now I'm giving you this music box and you will pass it to your daughter who will pass it to hers etcetera. This music box is very expensive and you must treasure and care for it or I'll never forgive you. Each time it is passed on, a lock of hair is left inside." The box was slowly and carefully opened, Greensleeves tinkled away and there was at least ten locks of red hair inside, each tied with a white ribbon.
Kiku always blamed herself for her parents death. She had been playing with her dolls when it happened. Raised voices. It was getting more and more frequent. Forgetting her ball with the dolls, she stealthily made it downstairs. She could've never foreseen how the regular argument was about to turn very irregular. Her Mother was screaming and her Father was roaring. Her Father then went to pour himself a drink only to have it slapped out of his hands by her Mother.
"She's your daughter!" She screeched, the liquor went flying into the open fire. A deafening silence hung in the air like a bad smell and the flames broke out in a rampage. It spread quickly around the room, trapping her parents. She could've helped them, but she could only watch, hypnotized. She had been told how to escape a fire in school but nothing could prepare her for the real thing. There was only one thing she could think of however. The music box.
The grandfather clock sounded eleven down the hall and Kiku flew up the stairs as quickly as she could. She knew you should never try to save anything from a fire, but she had to save the music box.
She said sorry to all her dolls and teddies who were to turn to ashes and grabbed the elegant decorative box. Running back, the flames climbed the stairs, forcing her to turn back around. Then, she had a bright idea. There was a large tree outside the bathroom window, she could try and climb onto it and escape. It was worth a shot. Opening the window, she gingerly climbed out onto the tree, nearly dropping the box several times in the process. Jumping down from the trunk, fifteen-year-old Kiku watched as her family's mansion was consumed by fire.
The authorities had her fostered from family to family but she broke free of the system when she was of age. The music box never left her side. When she first met Miku, the first comment was about her hair.
"I love your hair, that red... Is it natural?" Kiku felt like punching her. There was no way that Miku's green hair was natural. Kiku gripped her thigh length hair protectively,
"Yes."
When she met Neru, the first comment was about Miku. "Don't you just hate her? The way that she walks around like she owns the place with that obviously dyed green hair?" Neru spat, her hands on her hips. Kiku smirked at Neru's childish hate and jealously.
"Yes."
When she met Taito however, the first comment was about her eyes. "Are those contacts?" He asked. At this time he only had hair covering his eye, he had yet to acquire his eye patch, which Kiku was still unsure of the origins for. Kiku hadn't really realised how strange her eyes were. She didn't think about it, sure they were red but who cares?
"No..." Kiku said, fingers gliding through her shock of hair out of habit. Taito grinned then, all teeth and charm.
"Cool."
Now twenty something, Kiku wondered who she would pass the music box onto. She wasn't fit to be a mother, unhinged and unstable, but she had to pass it on.
"Do you want children, Taito?" She asked, breaking from a particularly heated kiss. Taito looked at her for a while, surprised and confused at the suddenness of her question.
"No." She remained blank even thought a little part of her died inside.
"OK," The kiss started again.
She didn't have a name but the nuns called her Aoi. Her curly red hair was tied in white ribbons and bounced as she skipped along the halls of the orphanage.
"And where are you off to in such a hurry, Aoi-chan?" A sister carrying a hamper smiled down at her.
"Just to my room Yuki-san," She smiled.
"On you go then." Aoi never liked the nuns, she found the to be a bit fake.
Once in her room she sat at her French dresser and opened her music box, Greensleeves tinkled away. Delicately undoing her ribbons she counted twelve locks of red hair in the box.
End