The sun shone quite brighter on that day than the rest of the month. The blue sky, untainted by streaks of blindingly white clouds, seemed wider than ever, too, especially at the countryside. Running through the thick forest, the summer breeze traversed the hills, humming the tunes of nature that Len has grown accustomed to hearing. As an inhabitant of the mountains, these all are nothing rare, since he experiences these all on the way to school. But then, he felt his backpack, and realizing he left something, he sprinted back the path he took.
"Len! You forgot your lunch box!" Rin ran toward the doorway and reached it just in time for Len, who's panting heavily for having run a good 5-minute walking distance, be back at home.
Len steadied himself from all that running, then took the box. "Thanks, Rin. But you should stay in bed. You shouldn't overexert yourself," Len patted her twin sister, which was older by a few minutes, in the head. He got a hit on his patting palm and an exasperated expression on Rin as a response. "It's not like trivial things like these would actually harm me, you know."
"But that doesn't give you the assurance that it actually won't. Now, go back to bed and wait for Mom, 'kay?" Len took off his school shoes hurriedly as he spun Rin the opposite direction and started pushing her to her bedroom. Rin complained along the way, ranting things about she being able enough to move around the house, spare returning to her private bubble, but she still let herself be spoiled by her twin.
After several warnings, scoldings and familial love assurances all packed in about 13 breathfuls of sermons, Len left the room with a rejected proposal of tying his sister to her bed so that she'll stay tucked under bedsheets and confidence that she'll actually be.
Len ran back to the doorway, taking a single glimpse of the clock just hitting the last minute before 7, then headed to school in record time.
Piko stared at two nonhuman figures, which are stacks of test papers both at sitting position's nose level, and one human figure, pertaining to a certain blond taking on to a challenge of answering the stacks before the day ends. This was an exceptional case for Piko, since normally Len did higher level test papers, but all that was towering in Len's table were of the lower grades'. Nevertheless, Piko wasn't shocked, at the very least.
Leaning his upper torso toward the back support of the chair opposite Len, Piko flipped some papers that were already answered and wasn't a bit surprised to see all correctly answered. "But you should have a better sense of cleanliness when you're doing paperworks, Len. Teto would be enraged to see all your scratch papers fluttering around like butterflies on meadows," Piko remarked, then fixed the bunch of papers. He crumpled all the scratch papers and remarked that summer wind was strong despite the blazing heat, so he closed the window placed right on the left side of Len.
After having a bit of clean space on his desk, Len put his pen down. "Ahh, these are tiring..." He said as he spread his arms in a way comfortable enough for a pillow, and laid down. Piko chuckled, then ruffled the soft locks of blonde hair that he got used to touching ever since childhood days.
"You really still need rest, you know. You have nothing like what we braindead people call as stamina, so you shouldn't overexert yourself. Oh, and also, you don't have this," Piko said then went to his original place in the room to take something from his bag. Len's gaze followed the figure that was moving away and then coming back, now with a pocketbook held in his two soft hands.
Piko stopped arms' length away from Len, then he pushed the book away from him but still in his hands, showing the title page to the laid-down boy. The front cover was showing two persons, boy at right and girl at the left, sitting on a park bench that faced opposite the reader. Both were staring up the sky which was pure white with snow clouds. As if stating the obvious, the title said, 'Blooming Romance at Midwinter,' written in size-emphasized black contrast with the snow, and a subtitle, 'Seasonal Love series,' placed on the upper right corner of the cover, slightly unindented from the title itself.
"Oliver, are you supposed to be insulting me?" Len said, friendly sarcasm lacing his voice. "If you're talking about books, I have more than enough to fill an average library."
Oliver was taken aback, and regained his composure ever so quickly, retorting back to his friend. "No, you idiot! Look closer..."
Len raised his right eyebrow, which wasn't hidden by his laying down on the table. Piko shook the book, and Len did the same to his head, implying that he didn't get the hint.
"Len, it's written in white-and-black contrast, can't you see? This one," Piko repeatedly tapped the cover, his fingertips hovering over the word 'Romance,' sometimes over 'Love.'
Len groaned. He never really had the urge to be in love, even at the peak of puberty. He was one of the 'school crushes,' and he's been questioning himself why people care much about that. He decided long ago that the topic wasn't worth his internal souls debating, so he skipped the entire thing.
He brushed off Piko's book, which was nearing his face, as the holder continuously persuade him with his elbow then finally decided to withdraw from the rest that he barely had.
Suddenly, the door opened wide, and revealed a bespectacled woman in her mid-twenties, holding a brown envelope in her left hand. The envelope had "TRANSFER PAPERS" printed on it, the name Kagamine Len hastily written below it. The logo of the most prestigious university in Tokyo, Tokyo University, served as heading for the entire envelope.
Cursing every male that he had co-worked with in his department, Kaito ran around the office with stacks of papers on hand. The headache he earned by staying up late and drinking the hardest liquor he ever drank still throbbed alive and constantly pissed him off.
His superiors even gave him a paging so early that he can't even begin to think what he did wrong, considering he did so many. Looking at the bright side seemed impossible, thanks to his terrible hangover. "There!" Kaito slumped down at the fax machine as soon as the last document was sent. He looked at the clock, then realized 2 hours had passed since he was paged. He sprinted quick and swift across the crowd eager for lunch break, thinking for any plausible excuse that might save him from getting fired.
"Oh, there you are, Kaito!" Yuuma said as he laid out his table ready for lunch.
The table was laden with lots of lunch food and obviously homemade ones due to the bento-ic quality they had. Office papers and other paraphernalia stuck up cluttered on the sides, leaving space in the middle of the mahogany table for eating.
"Please don't be so overly familiar with me, Sir. Especially in work," Kaito said, raising his left eyebrow as he looked on the table. "Are you eating with someone today, Sir? Then, let's get this ordeal done and over with. I wouldn't like imposing on your lunch date. Sorry for not coming the moment you paged me."
Yuuma chuckled and approached the blue-haired man. "No, you silly idiot. This is for the two of us, as long time best friends! And we're going to take our sweet time together 'cause it's a break. I also paged you to come at lunch; didn't you listen?"
Kaito flustered at his mistake. "I just woke up badly," he said, taking his place at the table.
"Heard you had a terrible hangover? Why didn't you invite mee?~" Yuuma started talking out of formalities.
"Idiiiiiot. It'd be awkward to have my boss drinking with his employees at a random bar." Kaito took a bite of beef that he saw sticking out of a dish that was obviously made by Yuuma.
"You're an average drinker, right? How many glasses did you drink before you got down?"
"Yuuma, you're starting to sound like my mom. Also, I just drank 7 glasses. The sake was just strong."
"And the glass was big. You're still an idiot, as ever."
"I don't really want to hear that from a bigger idiot."
"Hahaha! But I got the virus from you!"
The two continued their playful banter until they both finished their meals. By then, the blazing noon sun was fortunately covered by not-so-threatening storm clouds, so it was not a bother to have the curtains of the glass wall opened, which Yuuma did.
"So, what's your problem?" Kaito suddenly said, picking up a toothpick from its bunch laying beside the plates. He would have used floss as usual, but seeing the circumstances of having a childhood friend who grew accustomed to all the weirdness they both had since long ago and the fact that there was no floss present around despite it being an office of the elite CEO of their company, he had to make the most out of what's there.
Yuuma acted as if he were to take a toothpick too, but he suddenly jerked his hand away from the bunch of sticks then swiftly moved his fingers to the free end of Kaito's pick. With a strong pinching power, he broke the toothpick into two, taking the longer piece, which happens to be the free one, and used it to clean his teeth. "Problem? There's nothing, really," Yuuma said casually, while Kaito was not-so-shocked with the toothpick, but instead pressed on his initial question more.
"Yuuma, we've been friends for who knows how long except our mothers. You're doing me a favor so you can ask me for something in exchange. Come on, spit it out," Kaito said. He took the toothpick he was playing with on his mouth and carefully put it together with the utensils.
Yuuma laughed. That boisterous one with an additional face expression that totally spells 'Oh God, he caught me.'
"Okay, okay. I want to ask you a favor," he said. He rested his right hand on the table and hit the table using his fingers successively, starting with the pinky. He also pushed his body's weight to his chair, tilting it to a few degrees. Kaito raised his eyebrows. Yuuma was wearing a very smug face, and he wasn't liking it, nor the next things Yuuma would say.
"Is it about the company?" Kaito would need hints or else he'd be jumping to the most random of conclusions, just like last time...
Well, that's not a lovely thing to think of in broad daylight.
"Well, in a sense, yes. You can think otherwise, though," Yuuma said, then he suddenly stood up, walking toward a metal cabinet not too far from them. He dragged a handle and the box showed multiple folders. The pink-haired man took one folder, filled with neatly-arranged papers. Closing the cabinet again, he rejoined Kaito at the table. Flipping through the papers made him look like a real chief executive officer of Vocaloid Enterprises.
"You see, there's a scholarship grant that was given to a teenage boy from the mountains," Yuuma said, not glancing at Kaito. The latter liked the current type of CEO his friend was being, a composed, calm and serious type, although that Yuuma being otherwise is more common.
"That scholarship that even Luka can't get?" Kaito remembered his old friend that was probably now somewhere in the tropics. The last time Kaito saw his classmates back at high school, Luka and Gakupo were already lovers, with marriage being planned ahead. The last news he heard about the two of them was honeymoon season.
Yuuma pulled one paper and studied it. "No, not that. Luka took the Elite Scholars' Program, she was being conceited to think she'd pass a scientifically impossible test. This one took the Lite version, which is just a few degrees off the difficulty of Elite," Yuuma said, then gave the paper to Kaito.
"Guess what? That boy ACED it. Yes, he did," Yuuma continued. "Also, I had to do an investigation on him and found out that he's practically perfect. Good on social interactions, excellent in sports, fantastic grades. Also has superb housekeeping and advanced survival skills. Just perfect."
Kaito looked at the paper. It was a biodata from a Kagamine Len. As he listened to Yuuma, he stared longer at the blond boy's picture and imagined the boy doing school council work, jumping hurdles and reading alone on a table in the library. Somehow, staring at cerulean eyes might give off a sad aura, despite appearances. Also, speaking of appearance, the boy...
"And mind you, the boy is good for the eyes," Yuuma finally added. He was looking intently at his best friend who had just finished skimming the paper.
Kaito returned the paper to Yuuma. "So, he's cool and all. But why are you telling me all this?" The former asked.
"Well, for circumstances that should be left unspoken, he's going to be in Tokyo, where he knows no one. So he's going to crash at your place," Yuuma said bluntly.
WHAT?
A/N: Sooo, yey! A story! I deleted my previous story because it was a sequel, and I needed the prequel to make the story progress smoothly.
Anyway, this story is going to be updated slowly, like after weeks or something like that, unless I eat something good, or bad. It depends on my mood, really. It's a Kaito x Len story, but to give a hint, it's not gonna end like a fairy tale. So for people who expects flowers and chocolates at the last chapter, I suggest you either stop here, or sacrifice the chocolates, because I've probably eaten them all. Haha. Thanks for reading!
-Q16x