This is the first time I decided to write a one-shot. I had started this in the summer and then slacked off for a long time. This is my hard work's (Hard work? Don't make me laugh, me.) result at last!
It was pleasant day at the Vocaloid Villa. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and, for once, it was quiet. No twins smashing buildings with a road roller. No pink-haired women trying to kill purple-haired drag queens ("I'M WEARING A KIMONO!" Mr. Drag Queen protests.). No drunkards attempting to strangle people or whatever. No hell-spawned machines smashing windows and breaking down walls. Yes. A pleasant day indeed.
"AAAHHHHHHH!" A scream cut through the beautiful day and sent all hopes of normality crashing down into the ruins of weirdness and excitement. The yelp had originated from a certain blue-haired male.
Kaito burst into the living room, where Len and Rin were playing cards on the carpet, Luka was nestled into the couch with a book, and Meiko was watching TV. They looked up at the blue-scarved individual and noticed one thing. He wasn't wearing a scarf.
Meiko jumped up to her feet while the twins stared, open-mouthed. "Kaito-kun," she exclaimed. "Where the hell's your scarf?"
"I-I… I don't know!" Kaito wailed. "It wasn't where I put it this morning!" He looked close to tears.
Kaito had not been separated from his muffler since the time the dog ran off with it and buried it under the gardenias. It took three and a half days, a malfunctioning muffler detector, and obedience school to solve that problem.
"Family meeting!" Meiko bellowed. "Get yer asses to the kitchen, everyone! NOW!"
(屮゜Д゜)屮
Thirty minutes and six protests for snacks later, everyone assembled into the kitchen and took their seats around the table, both scarflessly and snacklessly.
Meiko slammed her hand down on the counter loudly in order to draw everyone's attention. It was kind of a stupid idea, however, for the countertop was pure granite, and the group's silent and undivided attention was already set on the brunette.
"Ow! Fuck!"
The Kagamine twins bit their lips to avoid bursting into laughter and Luka snickered. Miku's eyes widened in shock at the use of the vile f-word in the presence of children. Um…teenagers. Meiko glared at Luka before clearing her throat and (finally) beginning the meeting.
"So…" she began. "Kaito-kun's scarf has gone missing again. We have to find it before everyone gets nightmares from his scarfless appearance!"
"Wait," said Gakupo. "I thought Kaito-dono's newer version doesn't have a-" (Edit: Wait, what? Why did I type that? Ignore itttt.)
"Shut up; nobody cares about you."
"I do!" The dancing samurai protested.
"Exactly!" Meiko countered. "Nobody."
Gakupo went to go sulk in the corner with his usual grumbles of, "You guys all suck."
Meiko turned back to the rest of the group. "Continuing on," she said, "Let's all look for Kaito-kun's scarf. Whoever finds it first gets… Uh… A prize. We'll split into groups of—hey! Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Ignoring Meiko, the Vocaloids, not in groups of hey, ran for it, eager to get Kaito's scarf and claim the prize. They didn't bother waiting to find out what the winnings were. Prizes were fun stuff. Surprises were like prizes, only with a sur in front and with an 's' instead of a 'z.' So, if the prize was a surprise, it was 2.763 times the fun! (Whut? I guess this thing became crack after all… Eh heh heh... Sorry.)
(屮゜Д゜)屮
"Onii-chan!" The green haired, orange goggled wonder called out to the purple haired, is-this-a-guy-or-a-girl-oh-shiz-I-thought-it-was-a-girl-the-first-time-I-saw-him-seriously-ed-ing-er?-some-sort-of-adjective-or-adverb-like-ending-ly? samurai. Gakupo sighed [at the narrator's stupidity] and turned.
"What is it, Gumi-dono?"
"I have a great idea!" she exclaimed excitedly. "It's an awesome, surefire way to find Kaito-san's scarf!"
"Is it the muffler detector?"
"No! It's—Oh. Yeah. It's the muffler detector."
Gakupo sighed. "You remember last time…"
"Wait! It's been upgraded!" Gumi protested. "I promise it won't break the furniture and walls this time!"
"I'm still not sure we should—."
Ignoring the tall samurai, Gumi quickly ran out of the room and dragged in something covered with a large white cloth.
"Behold! Scarf Searcher 2010™!"
The cloth was removed to reveal… A disappointment. It was a metal cylindrical machine with a mechanical arm sticking out of it. The body contained a screen, some buttons, and a lever of some sort…
Gakupo gasped. "Gumi-dono! Why's my sword sticking out of that? Did you put that there or did I stab that monstrosity in my sleep?"
"Oh…" Gumi rubbed the back of her head. "Well, I couldn't find anything that I was allowed to take that was sturdy enough to be the lever, except your sword, of course."
"What are you talking about?" The samurai fumed. "You're not allowed to touch my sword!"
"Yeah, whatever. That's great."
Gakupo frowned at Gumi's nonchalant attitude towards the evil deed she had performed. Taking his sword was on the top of the list of things that she should not do! Besides cutting his long, lovely and luscious locks (*cough* tranny *cough*) while he was sleeping, that is. That was disastrous. He stepped toward the machine to retrieve his precious weapon.
"Gumi-dono, I'm taking my katana back."
"Well, it's already in the Scarf Searcher 2010™, so pulling at it will just sta—."
As the dancing samurai tried to remove his sword, the makeshift lever moved downwards and the machine whirred to life, it's screen flashing on to a bright green. For a second, all Gakupo could do was blink in surprise as the machine rolled off and picked up the coffee table in its mechanical arm.
"GUMI-DONOTURNITOFF!"
The machine started smashing the coffee table into every window in the room before rolling down the hall to obliterate any other glass panes it could find, throwing furniture or anything not nailed down in all directions. Including Gakupo.
"Wait! Scarf Searcher 2010™! Come baaaackk!"
Gumi ran after the malfunctioning menace of a machine while Gakupo picked himself off the floor.
(屮゜Д゜)屮
Len dragged his protesting sister up the stairs towards the attic, with much difficulty. How could someone so cute be SO HARD to control? He already had multiple bruises on his arms, legs, and torso.
"Rin," he groaned. "If we want to find Kaito-nii's muffler, we have to search the house from top to bottom!"
"I don't care!" Rin whined. "It's dark and dusty, and the air smells bad!"
Len sighed. "Rin… C'mon… If we search the attic, we might also find some cool stuff stored away in the boxes. Maybe we'll find some… uh… treasure!"
Len could almost see Rin's bow perk up as her back straightened and her eyes widened. She was definitely interested now. Who couldn't love treasure?
"What do you think we'll find?"
"Maybe we'll find some old video games."
Rin was up those stairs so fast that she left behind a dust image of herself. Len blinked in surprise as he watched the image of Rin dissipate. He shook his head and headed up the attic stairs after his hyper sister.
True to Rin's complaints, the room was dark, dusty, and room smelled musty and old. It was also warmer than the rest of the house, almost stifling. Rin was already digging through the contents of a cardboard box. Len went to help her.
After two and a half hours of excavation, all that they managed to find were old clothes, some photo albums, broken machinery, medieval samurai armour, and a chest of rotting leeks. The leeks were quickly discarded out the window, where they covered an unsuspecting passerby (who screamed as the rotting vegetation coated his glasses and brown suit. As the poor pedestrian was riding a bike, the blinded teacher careened into a telephone pole. Poor guy.)
"This sucks..." Rin scowled at the pile of junk they had left on the floor and at the dust that floated in the air, bringing out sneezes and watering eyes.
"Yeah," Len agreed. "We didn't find anything fun at all."
"Achoo!"
"Bless you."
"Thanks… Let's go down now..."
"How 'bout we check one more box?"
"Fine! But after this, we're gettin' outta here."
"If you say so, Rin," Len said, advancing on a plastic Tupperware box.
As soon as the box was opened, it was jackpot. A Nintendo 64 was packed neatly in the box, along with all of its controllers and a beautiful assortment of games. A bit dusty, but in great condition.
"…"
"…"
"Len?"
"What is it, Rin?"
"Let's go."
"Okay."
(屮゜Д゜)屮 (Hngraaaaaaaaahhhhh!)
Miku sighed as she shuffled down the hall, avoiding the broken glass and holes in the floor. She had just searched the closet with no luck and wasted an hour running from the havoc of a weird machine gone haywire.
Suddenly, a yellow blur whizzed by her, causing her long teal tails to sway. Len ran after the blur, a Nintendo 64 cradled in his arms.
"Hey, Len-kun. What have you got there?"
"Oh, Miku-nee! It's a Nintendo 64. Rin and I are gonna go play some games."
Miku blinked. "Aren't we looking for Kaito-kun's muffler?"
Len shrugged. Games were more fun than looking for a long blue rag. He ran off after Rin to the living room.
The teal-tailed idol decided that she herself would not drop out of the contest. She wanted that prize from Meiko, plus some favor from the blue haired ice-cream fanatic. Miku entered the kitchen.
Well, no blue muffler in plain sight, that was for sure. She searched a few cupboards, hoping that maybe Kaito had carelessly left his scarf in one of them by accident when reaching for something. No such luck.
Miku's eyes crept towards the fridge. Maybe he left his scarf in the freezer with his mind on ice-cream? She opened the freezer door to find… Frozen food. As she should. No muffler. She opened the fridge. Food. Milk. Ketchup. Sake. Butter. She opened the vegetable crisper. Leeks. Leeks. LEEEEKKKKKSSSSS!
Miku's mouth fell open. Leeks. Delicious, green leeks. There were 5 of them. All for her. She reached in and grabbed two of them, one in each hand. Her mouth watered at the prospect of eating the green vegetables.
In a flash, Miku closed the fridge and ran to the living room with her pungent find. She would probably eat them and play that Nintendo 64 with the Kagamine twins. Screw the scarf.
(屮゜Д゜)屮
Meiko strolled into the kitchen, feeling better after yelling at Gumi for fucking up the house, Gakupo for starting the stupid machine, and Kaito because it was all his fault for losing his scarf in the first place.
Miku, Rin, and Len had dropped out of the race—Meiko saw them playing video games in the living room. Meiko sighed. Three less people to help get rid of scarfless Kaito and bring back the one they all knew and loved.
It was not surprising that she didn't find the scarf in the kitchen. Judging by the way Miku was munching on some leeks from the fridge, the kitchen had already been searched by the twin-tailed, teal-haired teen. Dang. If tailed was spelt with an 'r,' or if haired was spelt with an 'l,' then that would if rhymed.
A second search never hurt anyone. Meiko peeked in cupboards, checked in and behind the counters and cupboards. Nothing. She even checked the oven, even though she seriously doubted that the scarf would be in there. She was right. It wasn't in the microwave or the fridge either. But instead of a muffler, she found six bottles of sake, just begging to be consumed.
Meiko liberated two bottles from their spots in the fridge. She quickly opened one with a bottle opener and pulled out a cup. Before she poured the alcoholic beverage into the cup, she paused. She put the cup back in its spot in the cupboard and downed that sweet, sweet sake straight from the bottle.
Needless to say, Meiko was drunk in no time, five of the six bottles were lying on the floor around her, empty, and the sixth bottle still clenched in her fist.
Kaito entered the kitchen, completely unaware of Meiko's current state. When he did see her, it somehow failed to immediately click in his brain that she was totally drunk.
"Hey, Mei-chan," he greeted. "How's it going?"
"Heeeeey Gaidoo-goon," Meiko slurred in reply. "I, I, I like tooootally didn't find yer shcarf."
"Oh, well that's, wait what?"
"I wuz in da kijun and foun shum naish shake."
Kaito blinked. It took him a couple seconds to understand what she had just said.
"Geez, Mei-chan," he said, "How much did you drink?"
That's when he noticed the six bottles of sake. Six. Bottles.
"Mei-chan!" Kaito yelped. "Are you trying to kill yourself with alcohol poisoning?"
Meiko hiccupped. "My body mushta built up a toleransh."
"Come on," Kaito sighed. "Let's get you out of the kitchen…"
Kaito tried to pry the sixth bottle out of Meiko's grasp. He noticed it wasn't opened. She must've been to drunk to get it open.
"No!" Meiko protested. She resisted Kaito's attempts to remove the bottle.
For once, Kaito was glad he wasn't wearing his scarf. If he was, Meiko would have grabbed both ends and strangled him. Like she did last time. Ouch. Instead, she grabbed at an imaginary scarf and obviously missed. Like, really missed. Her coordination was really getting messed up. So instead, she also slammed into the kitchen floor and passed out.
"Err… Mei-chan?"
There was no response. Kaito sighed and went to go look for his scarf in the living room. What he saw did not make him happy. Actually, it pissed him off.
The Kagamine twins were hammering away at their controllers, their eyes glued to the television screen. Miku was curled up on the couch, eating leeks and petting her little brown dog, Mimi. They had obviously forgotten all about the scarf.
He could go in the room and yell at them, but no one ever took him seriously now-a-days, especially after the time he held funerals for every tub of ice-cream he finished. Even his protests of, "It was just a phase!" didn't help much. Len sometimes still gave a funny look every time the ice-cream was finished as if checking to see if Kaito would mourn over it again. Jerk.
Kaito sulked and shuffled down the hall, after he ascertained that his scarf wasn't anywhere in plain sight in the living room. You'd think a blue scarf would be easier to find. Well, the house was a total mess, though.
When Kaito walked through the (ruined) hallway, he chanced upon the study. Luka was comfortably nestled in a chair, reading a book, NOT looking for a scarf. Gakupo had a first-aid kit out and was attending scrapes and cuts that he had gotten from being thrown into broken glass by the Scarf Searcher 2010™. Kaito sighed and shuffled in. Luka looked up from her voluminous novel.
"Oh, Kaito-kun," she greeted. "Still no scarf?"
Kaito nodded dejectedly.
"Oh, that's too bad."
She turned back to her book. Kaito bit his lip. She wasn't going to help him look for it?
"You're not going to help me look for it?" Kaito asked, stealing a line from the narrator.
"No."
Gakupo had finished taking care of his wounds and returned the first-aid kit back to its original spot on the shelf. Kaito looked at him. He was the only one who hadn't completely ditched the scarf rescue team yet.
"Yeah, yeah," Gakupo sighed. "I'll help."
"C'mon, Lu-chan," Kaito begged, turning back to the uninterested idol. "Help us with the search, please?"
Even the addition of please didn't convince Luka any. She glanced up at him for a second and kept reading, pretty much telling him to fuck off and come back when she wasn't reading.
"Luka-dono won't help," Gakupo said, "because she's a bitch and she always has been."
The pink-haired singer jumped up from her comfortable seat, dropping the book and ultimately losing her page, which really sucks when you're reading a big book because the page becomes virtually impossible to find, and then you have to keep reading passages to make sure you've found your page. Then, sometimes you read a passage you haven't read yet but you think you have, so you start reading before you realize you have no idea what's going on. Then you go to far back and start reading a paragraph you thought you didn't read yet, but in truth you did, and things get all déjà vu until you keep flipping.
"Take that back," she demanded, eyes flashing angrily.
"You can't deny the truth…"
Luka dove toward him, her arms outstretched, reaching for his throat. Gakupo quickly dodged, his reflexes honed from years of training and strangling attempt escapes.
"HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPP!" He hollered as he quickly exited the study and made a break for it down the hall, toward the front door. Luka was hot on his heels.
"I WON'T LET YOU GET AWAAAAAAAY!"
Kaito watched them run out the door and down the sidewalk. They'd probably get in trouble for creating a public disturbance later on.
(屮゜Д゜)屮
Hours of video games aren't good for you. It's been proven. Although kids like me tend to scoff at adults for telling kids to get off their asses because video games are bad for you, playing for hours will sometimes cause headaches, dizziness, etc.
Len stood up and nearly fell over. Rin stood up and actually fell over.
"Ugh, we shouldn't have done that, man…" Rin groaned, her hand on her head.
Len stumbled backwards and sat down heavily on the couch, almost squashing a napping Mimi, who yipped at him indignantly and moved over a bit.
"I feel weak," Len sighed. "Too many video games."
"Len…" Rin slithered over to her twin brother and grabbed his ankle. "I feel bad. Say something to make me feel better…"
Len struggled to think of something with his spinning head. For some reason, pretty, flashing colors in strange patterns kept coming to his head. Whoa. Trippy. A road roller rolled by and flattened the colors, leaving a white background, and a really weird flooring. Len chuckled to himself. Oh, road rollers. They never ceased to entertain him.
"What's so funny?" Rin asked up to him.
"Oh, I was just thinking about road rollers."
Rin's eyes brightened and she pulled herself up next to Len on the couch, her dizziness apparently gone. She suddenly looked a lot happier than she had a few moments before, when she had collapsed on the floor.
She grinned devilishly at Len. "Wanna smashy-smashy?"
"Lolwut?"
"Do you want to make various objects paper thin by running it over with a road roller?"
"I thought Meiko-nee took our keys."
Rin frowned at the apparent problem. Suddenly Miku came into the living room, dragging a very drunk and very unconscious Meiko. Miku had tripped over her passed out form when she had gone to the kitchen to snatch some more leeks.
"Hey," she said. "Wanna help me get her on the couch?"
Len and Rin grabbed Meiko's right and left legs (Rin taking Meiko's right leg, Len taking her left one, of course) and helped Miku hoist the snoozing brunette onto the couch, startling Mimi, who was ultimately evicted from her comfy snoozing spot on the couch. As they did so, a set of keys fell from Meiko's pocket.
They stared at the little ring of keys, uncomprehending for a bit. Suddenly, Rin dove for the keys and quickly shuffled through them, thoroughly examining each key. Holding one of the keys between her thumb and finger, she held up the keys above her head in triumph.
"This is it!" Rin squealed gleefully. "Our ticket to road rolling!"
She accidentally dropped the keys. The bounced once, and on the floor, the keys looked all alike once more.
"Shit!"
She picked it up again and began to quickly search for the road roller key again.
(屮゜Д゜)屮
Kaito felt close to tears. He hadn't found his blue muffler anywhere in the house, and the search squad had ditched them. He slowly wandered outside, hoping that his scarf might be buried under the gardenias, and not be buried six feet under, figuratively, in a freak accident or something.
A rumble from the other side of the house caught his attention, and just as he was about to check what the source of the noise was, fear and memory gripped him and stayed put as he remembered exactly what the noise meant. A yellow monstrosity roared from around the corner.
Kaito watched as the road roller put an end to their tool shed and flattened the neighbors fence and wonderful lawn ornaments. It then rode down the street towards downtown. Kaito knew he should probably have stopped the twins (who else would hi-jack the road roller?), but running after and then from a road roller for hours was NOT his idea of fun.
Shortly after, when our favourite blue-haired teen finally recovered from the fear and shock, he was surprised by yet another monstrosity. This one was considerably smaller in size and had one arm. It was also incapable of flattening anything with it's smaller wheels, but it was just as dangerous, wielding the front door as a weapon.
The Scarf Searcher 2010™ stopped in front of Kaito and raised it's mechanical arm, ready to strike the poor man. It had already demolished every window in the house (even the ones in the upstairs rooms and the attic) and was now obviously finding a new past-time—Vocaloid hunting.
Kaito squeezed his eyes shut, wished he could have tried that new ice-cream flavour that had recently been put on stock at the super market before he died, and braced himself for the hit.
(屮゜Д゜)屮
"Scarf Searcher 2010™!" Gumi continued to chase after her malfunctioning monstrosity in hopes of catching up to it to pull the katana-lever back up. It had successfully destroyed all of the windows in the house and was now rolling outside. She prayed it wouldn't target other houses. She would get a lot of shit from the law if it began to harm the property of others.
Scarf Searcher 2010™ rolled around the house, holding no respect for the flowers and vegetables that were planted along the side of the house. Gumi winced as it trod on her precious carrots.
When she turned the corner, she was surprised to see Scarf Searcher 2010™ had stopped in its tracks, it's arm raised up as if it were holding the front door as a victory medal. Then she noticed Kaito standing in front of it, his arms raised in front of his face, bracing himself for the blow.
She quickly ran over to the two. If Scarf Searcher 2010™ started hurting people, then it was truly a failure!
"Scarf Searcher 2010™! Stop!"
The machine didn't swing, much to the surprise of the poor Vocaloids. Instead, it spun in circles and emitted an extremely annoying and high-pitched squeal, its screen flashing red with a yellow exclamation mark in the center. Then it shut off.
Gumi quickly rushed over to the Scarf Searcher 2010™. "Hey!" she exclaimed. "It's stopped."
"It probably ran out of energy," said Kaito shakily.
"This must be where your scarf is buried!" said Gumi, getting ahead of herself. She produced a shovel out of nowhere and began to dig.
Kaito watched the failure mechanic dig for a bit (he didn't have a shovel of his own). He doubted that his scarf would show up. The machine was a failure machine. All it did was break the windows and furniture, and disturb the neighbours. So of course, when a bit of blue cloth poked out from the dirt, he got the shock of his life.
"WHOA!" He yelped. "How did it-? Why is it-? What did you-?"
Gumi unearthed the blue muffler a bit more before Kaito reached in and pulled it out. He pulled the dirty rag in a tight embrace, glad to be reunited with it and totally ruining his white jacket.
Kaito cheered. He danced. He sang. He laughed. He jumped. His scarf was back! His scarf was back! His scarf was BACK!
He put it on immediately, even though it was covered in mud and felt positively disgusting. He made a face at the squishy feeling on his neck, but since he was finally reunited with his one true love (besides ice-cream), he wasn't going to part with it long enough to wash it just yet.
Gumi wiped some sweat from her brow. "It looks like Scarf Searcher 2010™ wasn't a total failure after all!" she said happily.
Right on cue, Scarf Searcher 2010™ started up again and decided that maybe the walls weren't such a bad target.
"OH NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The end!
Thank you very much!