So... I've been sorta busy ^.^" I'm finding that I have really little time to write much about anything that isn't school related, but that isn't an excuse to keep readers waiting, right? :P So here's the second chapter.. Enjoy, hopefully? :3


Chapter 2.

Rin was expecting Len or maybe Teto to be the one who was with Piko this time, but it was instead a pretty girl. She's cute. Rin thought absently. "Are you Piko's friend? And what is your name?"

"My name is Lenka Kagamin." The girl replied. "Is Piko-tan okay? He looks hurt." Lenka's voice had taken on a worried tone as she referred to Piko's condition.

Kagamin? Rin's left eyebrow raised in question. It was an unusual last name, and it surprised her that is was so similar to her own. Her first name was also similar to her brother's. Oh well… I'll tell Len about this later. Time to get Piko off the ground. "Can you help me with Piko? He sort of collapsed when he saw me."

"Okay." Lenka's voice was still laced with worry as she approached the fallen boy, grabbing one of his arms and Rin took the other. Together, they dragged the poor male out of the store to meet a waiting Miku.

"Eeeeh?" Miku's eyes widened to amazing proportions as she watched her best friend and a stranger drag out an unconscious Piko. The tealette rushed over to inspect the damage. While a complete ditz for the majority of the time, she was certified in basic medical treatment and used this to wake Piko up. The boy coughed loudly, signalling his revival to the realm of the living.

"Are you okay, Piko-tan?" "What happened?" "Is your head okay? "How many fingers am I holding up?" "Jeez, Piko, I didn't know I was that ugly."

The blabber of questions abruptly stopped with Rin's comment, but resumed quickly starting with Lenka. "Are you okay, Piko-tan? What hurts? Did Rin hurt you?"

Piko grabbed his friend's arm and pulled him in close. "Help me, Len." He whispered.

"What can I do?" Len murmured back. He was well aware of the twin stares of Miku and Rin that bored into his head and the danger that it presented, but it would look very bad if Len pushed Piko away at this point.

"I don't know, think of something. You're an artist, aren't you?" And with that final croak, Piko released his friend's arm and feigned disorientation. "Miku-san?"

Len's brain mentally leafed through his arsenal of situations, things that he usually used as inspiration for his songs and stories that he wrote. Not very many applied to real life, especially when much of his thoughts were devoted to fantasies involving parallel dimensions and super powers. Dammit, he realized, I got nothing here. Sorry, Piko... Len poised to reveal his identity, when a clear, high voice rang out to him. "God?" He wondered out loud.


Rin snorted, a curious sound that can only be explained as a cross of a piglet on helium and a cough. "I'm pretty sure you aren't a god, so really, who are you? His girlfriend or something?"

Lenka seemes to be startled for a moment, but quickly recovered. "Yes, I'm Piko-tan's girlfriend," she began, "And I was wondering what happened to him."

Rin relaxed. It's only his girlfriend. Wait, Piko has a girlfriend now? Her eyes widened at this prospect, then swept her glance over Lenka with a critical eye.

Lenka was slim and delicate, her hair falling in a blonde waterfall that cascaded over her shoulders. Clear blue eyes gleamed with a lumescent shine from an unknown light, which suited her incredibly well paired with airy sundress and accents. Rin felt a pang of jealousy as she critiqued Piko's 'girlfriend'. She's too pretty, it should be a crime. "And why is he in a dress?"

Lenka giggled. "He looks pretty, doesn't he? I keep telling him to try one on, but he keeps saying no." Her face slipped into a pout. "So I kind of tricked him into wearing that, and now here we are." Lenka smiled, then frowned. "Wait, he saw you first. Now here we are." Her smile returned.

She's like a less hyper Miku. Rin realized. And she's always smiling. Rin found herself smiling as well. "Do you want to go somewhere? Like get some food? There's a good takoyaki shop somewhere around here."

"Okay~ Let's go Piko-tan~!" Lenka grabbed (the barely conscious) Piko's arm and began dragging him away."

"Mou, Ricchan! Wait for me!" Miku cried as she scrambled after her friend.


"So, how did you two meet?" Len's ears perked up. Okay, here we go.

"We met in school," Len began. "You know, before Piko left... I'm guessing he goes to your school now? Anyway, I kind of missed him after he left, and then I found out where he went after we met again a few months ago, and I couldn't stop thinking about him, and then I sort of asked him out, and he said yes and yeah..." Len trailed off, blush smattering his face. Mentally though, he was smashing his head against the table with the force of over 9000 newtons. "And now Piko-tan has a girlfriend." Len finished off, giving his brightest smile. Meanwhile, mental-Len died a little bit.

Rin nodded. "Okay. So let me get this straight; He left, you found him, you two started going out. Right?"

"That sounds about right."

"Piko, is this true?"

The albino shota coughed once. "Yes, Rin-san. Oh, Lenka-chan, don't you have a meeting today?"

What meeting? Confusion clouded Len's features for a moment before he noticed Piko's fingers under the table, morphing out the code for 'go with it'. "Oh, right. I'm sorry, Piko-tan, Rin-san, Miku-san. I have to go now, gomen." And with that, Len picked up his things and left the table.

"Okay Piko, why did't you tell me about Lenka-san?" Rin demanded after 'Lenka' was out of sight and earshot. She was mad, Piko could tell. The only problem was, Piko was a terrible liar and storyteller. He was too timid and honest about everything, which put Len's identity on the line. While Len put this as 'All part of the fun', Piko know that he was screwed unless god decided to suddenly smite the entire mall and end this conversation.

Luckily for him, his brain came up with something almost as good.

"Oh, Lenka-chan forgot her bag," Piko excused himself. "Maybe I can catch up with her.. Bye Rin-san!" He ran off into one of the adjoining hallways of the food court.


"That was weird." Rin sat across from Miku, who now occupied Lenka's seat. "I mean, why didn't Piko tell me? I thought we were friends..." Rin pouted.

Miku sighed. "Ricchan, you barely have any guy friends remember? You keep scaring them all away with your roadroller collection. This is also why I never take you to parties and stuff, because you scare all the cute guys away." Miku sighed again. "I have to go now, mom's waiting for me to make her vegetable juice. You know how clueless she is." The tealette stood up and gathered her things.

Rin stood as well. "I'll come with you, Len's probably slacking off at home again anyway. And are you sure that vegetable juice helps? Last time you tried some, you were muttering about how leeks should rule the world and going all 'be one with the leek' to me."

The blonde got hit over the head with a leek for saying that. "That was once, Ricchan!" Miku stormed off.

Rin stood stunned in the middle of the mall before running after Miku, wondering how she should punish Len if he wasn't done her chores and where the hell Miku pulled that leek from.


Len removed his extensions carefully before returning them to their box while Piko was curled up into a ball on his bed, radiating a depressed, black aura into the room. Len tutted was he finished the removal and changed back into his shorts and t-shirt before tugging on his friend's ahoge. "Wake up, Piko. The world isn't dead yet."

The Piko-ball bounced a little. "My world is. And now I have a girlfriend, who happens to be my best friend wearing a dress. I hate you."

Len chuckled. "No, you don't. Also, a few things: One, change out of that dress, you're going to wrinkle it and then I'll make you wear it to school of the rest of the year. Two, you make me sound like some sort of pervy old man. Three, I'm gonna leave now, so apologize or you're going to end up hating yourself later."

In about a minute, Piko was wearing pants again and was rubbing his face against his shorts. "Oh, shorts-san, I'll never leave you again..." He was totally lost in his mind. Len deadpanned.

"I'm just.. Gonna leave now. Bye Piko."


"Len, you are so lazy."

Rin got home late, thanks to her leisurely walking pace as Len dashed to the house from Piko's with a desperate energy. He had frantically started the massive amount of housework that Rin had left, which was considerably whittled down by the time the female got home. This didn't stop her from chastising her brother though.

"Why did you go out then?"

"Why did you go out first?"

"It was your turn to do the cleaning!"

"... Shut up. You're still doing it."

"Lazy orange."

Rin's door slammed. Len sighed before returning to cooking dinner, consisting of some rice topped with a medley of vegetables and fish in a sweet sauce. As he sauteed the mushrooms and added them to the sauce, his mind tossed figments of thinking up into his consciousness. Okay, let's straighten things out. He turned down the fire. I just convinced my sister that my alter ego is my best friend's girlfriend. Creamed corn into the pan. Rin thinks Piko is weird in the head and likes dresses. Add leftover steamed fish. Miku is probably going to go off and tell everybody. Add thawed vegetables. And to top it all off, Piko loves his shorts. Cover the pan and simmer. My life is really, really weird. "Rin! Dinner in five minutes!"

"..."

"Rin?"

"Yeah?"

"Dinner."

"Okay."

The boy busied himself with other related tasks in the meantime, setting the table and washing up for the meal. Really, the only reason he wan't complaining that Rin get her lazy bum down here was that he needed some time to think, as cooking dinner was relatively easy for him and wasn't distracting enough. A long sigh fluttered last his lips, carrying on it his frustrations and worries.

This sucks. I have to hide so many things now. So many people are on my case. I have so many lies to keep up with. I really should be more honest with myself. So why aren't you? No clue. What do you mean, no clue. You have the answer to that. How do I have the answer? Because you're talking to yourself in your head, stupid. By the way, it's been about five minutes.

"Oh, shit!"


"Hey Len, what were you screaming about earlier?" Rin asked as her brother cleaned the dishes. She was picking at her mouth with a toothpick, trying to get some piece of corn that had wedged itself somewhere between the third and fourth tooth on the right, and it was bugging her like crazy at this point. She scraped between the canine and the semimolar absently as she waited for her sibling's response.

"Nothing." It took him a while to respond, Rin had noticed. Whatever. She brushed off the notion quickly and took an orange, went to the living room, laid sideways on the sofa and began tossing the orange idly into the air. Light glistened off of its dimpled surface as it spun slowly, and then was caught in her hand again in a neverending cycle of force and gravity. Pretty. Rin mentally smacked herself for sounding like an idiot, entranced by a flying orange. Actually, that would be pretty cool...

"I saw Piko-kun as the mall today," Rin continued to toss the orange up into the air. "Did you know he has a girlfriend now? I never thought that he would get one before you did! She's kinda pretty too, but looked sort of like an airhead. Long blonde hair, like Lily-nee, but short... Sort of like you, Len! She was pretty cute too... I'm happy for Piko."

Len finished washing the dishes, setting the last plate onto the drying rack with a clink and towelling his hands dry. "Rin, we're twins. We're the same height, if not then you're shorter than I am. No, I didn't know Piko had a girlfriend. Congrats for him.. Did you catch her name?"

Rin pondered for a moment, excavating the memory out of the mental mass. "Oh yeah.. Her name was Lenka! See Len? Even more like you! Maybe she's you long lost other sister!"

Len calmly hung the hand towel up to dry and proceeded to whack Rin over the head with his open palm. Not like that hurt, Len had very little muscle to speak of and was regularly teased by Rin for his lacking in that department. "We're twins, Rin. If we had another sibling, I think I would know. Or mom and dad would have told us." The Kagamine parents were generally parents that were typical of a normal family; Both parents worked hard, and generally disapproved of drugs and other such obviously dangerous things.

"Psh, I was joking Len! " The female twin then slapped her male counterpart upside the head, which sent him sprawling across the floor before standing up and peeling her orange.


Len escaped as his twin sank her teeth into the first slice of her ball of heaven, using her closed eyes as the perfect opportunity to scamper up to his room; a little 8x12 hole that housed a futon, desk, computer and a closet crammed with many, many clothes.

Len never felt more like home anywhere else in the house but here.

Booting up the hard drive and loading up the digital textbook, he pulled out his physics homework and tried to lose himself in the algorithms and numbers, but nothing seemed to penetrate the rock-hard shell of the biggest problem he had right now.

"Argh, I don't get it!" Len shouted. He felt like flipping the table that his computer was on. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears as his chest rose and fell before him. It was too much. I'm going to take a shower. With his head still pounding, he picked his pyjamas off the mattress and hiked to the bathroom.

Even after a long, hot shower, his nerves were as frayed as they were before.


To be completely honest, I'm dissatisfied with this chapter. It feels like filler, and its not what I want to give other people to read.. Buut on the other hand I haven't updated since forever :D So maybe I'll catch a break soon, and see chapter 3 appear soon!