A/N: So! This is my first fanfic, which I have actually written over a year ago. This idea has been in my head for a long time, but alas, I was too lazy to upload it. Anyway, my friend persuaded me to upload something, so I did this to make her happy. Anyway. Please point out any mistakes you see here and I will happily correct them.
By the way, there is a chock-load of anime / manga references in here. I wonder if you can spot them all? /bricked
Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this fic!
DISCLAIMER: Now, I don't own Vocaloid or Clamp or Google or anything. Honestly, I'd be wondering why you think I do.
Things in (words) and (" ") are what Luka's thinking / mumbling to herself about, respectively!
Tears were running down her eyes. "No! You can't die! Not like this….." She looked at the gaping wound on his chest; one of the many others on his body.
"Heh. You…You actually believe a little scratch like that can kill me? Don't be silly….. I'm just going to take a little nap, okay? No tears….. There's nothing to cry about…."
He laughed, then winced.
"Shut up!"
A brunette woman slapped the injured man across the face, startling the crying, aqua-haired girl sitting beside him on the cold, stone floor.
"Don't you ever dare say that!"
The injured man scoffed, his blue hair drenched with blood. "And why not?"
"Because….. Because you can't leave us!" She fought back the blush that was appearing on her face. How could she embarrassed at a time like this?!
Luka frowned. The scene wasn't turning out as she had planned. The main character near death, as one of his love interests confessed to him?
"Too cliche." The pinkette crumpled the paper she was working on and threw it into the mountain of trash already pouring from the wastebasket.
There were too many plotholes already, and the confession would just add another.
Maybe they could just fall into a trap or something. She didn't know how to make them escape the dungeon they were in, anyway.
Writing an adventure/fantasy manga was harder than it looked. Clump made it look sooo easy.
Scratching her head, she glanced at the calendar. Her deadline was only a few days away.
Sighing, the mangaka toyed with her pencil, trying to get over her writer's block.
Two hours later, after a good nap, a box of pizza and a slice of tuna("You can never have too much tuna"), she decided to go for a walk, convincing herself that she would find inspiration along the way.
Standing up, she made her way to the door, not bothering at all to fix any of her belongings before leaving.
Not sure where she was heading, Luka went to a shopping district.
As she was walking along the line of of shops, it suddenly started to rain.
("And the forecast said it would rain today. Why don't I ever listen?")
Angry at herself for not bringing an umbrella, she hurried to the nearest store.
Inside, the pinkette noticed it was lined with small tables and the customers were mostly male. Wondering why, it only took a glance at the servers to answer the mangaka's question.
(Of all the stores I could've entered, it HAD to be a maid cafe.)
She glanced at the door, hoping the rain earlier had stopped. Unfortunately, it only poured harder, complete with lightning strikes every few seconds.
Annoyed, she sat down on an empty chair. A maid handed her a menu, which she didn't bother to browse through at all. After all, the rain might let up in a few minutes, right? Right?
She sighed, resting her hands on her chin with elbows on the table.
Wanting to satisfy her boredom, the pinkette looked around at the other customers, noticing a few weirdos here and there. (Although, she isn't one to say. She did, after all, quit college to satisfy her dream of becoming a mangaka. There's also the fact that she dyed her hair an eye-blinding shade of pink by accident, but that was another story that she preferred not to talk about.)
At one table, she spotted three men, a bit younger than herself, talking excitedly to another maid who, in return, scolded them.
(They're allowed to do that to their customers?)
In another table, a group of young men were talking (Shouting? That yellow-haired guy sure is loud.) to another, more feminine guy, seated on the opposite side of the table, about the same age as the rest of them.
Luka's eyes widened slightly in surprise as the blonde suddenly stood up, shouting something about his daughter(Family dispute?) and pointed at the brunette man, as if though accusing him.
(They shouldn't be discussing that sort of thing here…)
A maid came to pick up her order. Asking for a cup of tea (she felt quite sophisticated at the moment), she resumed her "investigation". Not eavesdropping. There is a difference.
Glancing to her right, she noticed a girl dressed in a school uniform, glasses perched up on her head.
(Guess this place is popular with high-school girls? ...Nah. Must be some kind of hipster.)
The girl had a dozen cakes on her table, but for some reason, there was an empty plate in front of her. She didn't even bother with the other cakes. It didn't help that she was stabbing the empty one with her fork.
Slightly disturbed, she slowly scooted away from the girl's direction. Better to leave her alone in her plate-stabbing fantasies.
She heard a clicking sound behind her.
Craning her neck at just the right angle (it wasn't easy), she spotted a guy hiding behind a decorative plant, pointing a camera at her and taking pictures.
When he noticed that he'd been spotted, he grinned and gave a thumbs-up in her direction, as if to say "Thanks for letting me picture you like a total stalker! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to use your picture on the internet to present myself as a cute, young teenage girl and make men's hearts cry!"
She went back to her regular sitting position quickly, scared at her newfound ability to think very, very disturbing thoughts on occasion.
Anxious to get out, she glanced at the twin glass doors to see if the rain was gone yet. To her joy, it was.
Happy to get out, she practically ran towards the door. She could practically taste her sweet, sweet freedom.
That is, until she was stopped by a soda machine casually flying though it, breaking the glass and barely missing her hand by a few centimeters too close for comfort.
Landing with a deafening "bam!", she took a peek outside to see what could possibly be the source of that.
There were two guys duking it out at the centre of the mall's parking lot, throwing cars, lampposts and the occasional soda machine at each other.
Wanting to get a better look, she reached into her bag and grabbed a pair of binoculars that seemed to be there for plot convenience.
One guy was blond and wore a bartender's suit. The other guy was… also blond, sort of muscular and was yelling something about glasses. Weird.
She glanced at the rest of the cafe to see if they took cover or at least called for help. Instead, they seemed to take it as something normally experienced day-to-day. No one batted an eyelash at all. People were laughing and chatting. There was a maid cleaning up the remains of the thrown soda machine.
She had enough. Slamming her hands on the table, she stood up and shouted.
"I GIVE UP!"
Everyone paused and stared at her. The two guys outside stopped throwing things at each other to gawk as well.
"Why is everyone acting so weird today?! I went out to rest and hopefully get some inspiration! NOT to see anime cliches everywhere I turn! Seriously! I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that I was the chosen one for a century-old legend or something!"
In the corner, an old man with a legendary sword sighed.
"Someone, please tell me that there's some meaning to this! That this isn't some wacky dream I got from the expired milk I drank this morning! Anybody!"
Silence. No one answered her or dared to raise a question.
Annoyed, Luka stomped out of the cafe, only to trip a few seconds later on herself, falling flat on her face and promptly blacked out.
"Ugh…"
"She's awake! Call the doctor!"
She struggled to open her eyes.
"Where… am I?"
She was in a white, clean room, laying down in a white, clean bed with white, clean sheets. People were running around in a hurry, shouting things to each other. Her arm was hooked up to an IV stand. There was a man beside her bed, his face uncomfortably close to hers.
Wait, what? (How could I NOT notice that first?!)
Luka looked at the strange man. "Wh-who are you?"
He smiled and held her hand, albeit looking a bit sad. "Honey, it's me."
"Who?"
"Me. Your husband?"
"…"
"Ah, you must be worried. Of course. The baby's fine."
Her eyes widened. "What baby?"
"You were pregnant, hon. Remember? Your bag broke when you were still in a coma, so the doctor had to operate on you as-is."
"Wh-wh…"
"I hope you don't mind, but I named her Sakura. A bit cliche, I know, but she inherited that beautiful pink hair of yours." At this point, he held up a small baby, wrapped in cloth.
"…"
"Hon? You okay?"
"…"
"Luka? Are you alright?"
Understandably, Luka screamed.
"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh hhhhhh!"
Gasping for breath, the pinkette sat up straight. She looked around wildly, trying to spot any crazy husbands or pink-haired babies.
None in sight. She was back at her apartment. She looked down. There were notes and scrapped manga pages everywhere.
Of course! She fell asleep trying to come up with an idea for her manga. Why didn't that occur to her earlier? She laughed, cringing when she felt dried saliva at her lips.
She checked the time. 10 minutes since she fell asleep. Well, she decided, since she probably has a lot of inspiration from the dream, she should start before it goes away!
An hour later and no accomplishment.
Sighing, she threw yet another crumpled paper behind her. Perhaps she needed even more inspiration. And everyone knows that the internet is the best place for it, right?!
5 minutes later, she's on various sites, detailing plots of classic literature, novels, anime, comics, even cliches to look out for.
Reading through another site, she skimmed the story, in hopes for a "bolt" of some kind to strike and inspire her.
Clicking the "Next" button, she waited for the page to load. Unfortunately, the website wasn't that trustworthy and spam popped up on her screen.
It advertised to "Date sexy single ladies near your area now!" The pinkette gave a rather unladylike snort. ("What kind of idiot would fall….")
Her thoughts were cut short because she spotted a rather familiar person in one of the pictures.
By "rather familiar", I mean "herself".
And by "herself", I mean "a picture of herself in that cafe taken by that creepy stalker guy in her dream".
For the second time that day, Luka screamed.
