"SURPRISE!"
Rin broke the momentary silence in the room with her dramatic yell. Miku responded with an unimpressed frown.
"What?" Rin whined, "This is our guy, right?..."
The turquoise haired girl threw her head back melodramatically.
"It's NOT a surprise party Rin. Those are lame. This is a Miku-endorsed welcome party."
Len snickered and his sister booted him in the shin. He shot her back a look and Rin stuck out her tongue. The young man at the door simply stood there looking terribly confused.
"Yuuma-San, is it?" Gakupo smiled, recalling the actual purpose of the occasion. "Welcome to the studio. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Please come put root beer bottle on this table, and we will turn music on!" SeeU chattered excitedly. Breaking off from their battle of insulting expressions, the twins turned their attention to the sound system. The man who was presumably Yuuma (and hopefully not a badly timed delivery man) brushed back his hair and stared blankly, but then nodded.
"Nice to meet you too. This is a pretty elaborate set up; I wasn't really expecting something like this."
"Miku-San wanted to throw a big party to welcome you. Everyone worked hard so that it would come out well," Kaito said from his seat on the floor. Color seemed to be coming back to his face. The conversation was cut off there as World Is Mine blared through the room at a startling volume.
"Ahh turn it down!"
"I'm trying, geez!"
Len cringed with his hands over his ears as Rin fiddled with the dials on the speaker. Yuuma glanced around the room, but no one had remembered to bring any chairs, so he continued to stand by the door.
Gakupo glanced over at Luka, who returned his gaze tiredly. Moving to the center of the room she assumed a stance of authority.
"Feel free to grab any of the snacks we've laid out. There are paper plates, utensils and cups over there, and if you open the bottles carefully, the soda should probably be fine by now."
Gakupo attempted to create some non-balloon-invaded floor space near his table before clearing out of the way. He narrowly avoided being bowled over by the twins as they rushed for food. Leaning against the wall, he watched his co-workers load their plates, standing clear until the crowd dispersed. Yuuma stood near the outer edge of the fuss, casually eyeing the chips. His relaxed aura was rather impressive for someone in the center of this much chaos. They young man's pink hair was more pastel than neon, but it still seemed to glow in the light coming from the window. Gakupo could tell the tones of his outfit were carefully picked out to match the color precisely, creating a somewhat refined presence despite the fact his style was pretty casual. However, it would have had more of an impact if there didn't seem to be something wrong with his face. Was that….red squiggly lines? They were rather faint, and the bangs hanging down the side of his face all but covered them up, yet… they were definitely there.
Gakupo leaned forwards slightly for a better look, just as Yuuma turned his head. The resulting eye contact was rather awkward. There wasn't any good way to pretend he hadn't been staring, and Gakupo simply froze up like a deer in headlights. Slightly spooked, bright green headlights, which turned to make sure there wasn't an interesting scene going on behind them. Nope. Just some cake. Oh dear…
There were balloons everywhere. E-ver-y-where. Yuuma wasn't sure how he had missed it while he was outside with the root beer, but now that he was in the room there seemed to be more air trapped in plastic than outside of it. Navigation was becoming an issue with so bouncing off of each other on the floor. However, at the moment, he was a little too confused to pick a destination anyways.
Whatever interest had been on him when he first arrived had naturally diverted to junk food after the pink haired women 'cut the ribbon' on the snacks table, but the tall guy with the purple ponytail didn't seem interested in eating. In fact, upon closer inspection, he was a little too busy staring straight at Yuuma's face. The 22 year old stared back in acknowledgement, but somehow that just seemed to be making things worse. Whatever relaxation the man had in his stance beforehand went rigid, and he just looked like a statue. Yuuma was used to hanging around in areas where people stared at him, it wasn't a new thing. But those people averted eye contact quickly, or smiled flirtatiously, or glared at him like a piece of litter. Frankly,they did anything other than this. The guy was good looking, long legs and a pretty face. Normally he'd flash a smile and continue on, but the awkward situation froze him like ice.
What the hell is happening?!
"Hey Yuuma, what's wrong with your face?"
The turquoise-haired girl with the pigtails pointed to her left cheek as her voice pierced through the music.
His face? Was he making a strange expression?- Ah shit, wait a minute…
Dragging his fingers over his own cheek, he could still feel the thin outlines of the mattress pattern. These marks just would not die...
"...Long story, don't worry about it," he answered calmly, though he was pretty sure his face was either reddening or paling.
Well duh, that's why I'm being stared at…
The girl raised an eyebrow, but quickly moved on. Actually, he probably should be getting away from the habit of calling her "the girl"...
"You're Hatsune Miku, right?"
It wasn't hard to recognize her, she was a pretty big name in pop music. Though Yuuma had a bad habit of rarely fitting appearances to vocals, Miku was difficult to miss.
Miku struck a pose and grinned.
"Sure am," she purred. The pink haired woman was significantly less impressed.
"Carefully, if her head gets much bigger it might burst…"
A smirk twitched at the corner of Yuuma's mouth, but he held it back.
"Unfortunately that's the only name I know… Sorry."
The woman nodded understandingly and set down her drink.
"I'm Megurine Luka. It's nice to meet you."
Her face seemed to relax a bit and settled in a warm smile. Though her tone and stance seemed to suggest otherwise, she looked about the same age as the majority of the room.
The blonde girl near the speaker piped up immediately after Luka was finished.
"I'm Rin, and my brother is Len. We're the Kagamine twins ."
Len threw up a peace sign in greeting, and Rin followed suit. They seemed pretty young compared to the rest of the group. Though they were petite, they were clearly athletic.
The smiling girl with long, sand-colored hair spoke next.
"I am SeeU, from Korea nyaong. I am sorry if not speaking perfectly, but I try hard. Also I am a small bit new, so we are similar. Let's try hard to get along!"
She finished her introduction with a smile that looked like it could melt ice, her wavy hair bouncing as she moved her hands around. The blue-haired man still cross-legged on the floor was next.
"I'm Kaito. Everyone here is very lively and kind, so I'm sure you will enjoy yourself."
His face radiated innocence more than anyone else in the room, despite that fact he seemed like he might be the oldest. This just left one person…
"I am Kamui Gakupo, it's lovely to make your acquaintance..."
The man looked as if he was going to continue on, but then concern flashed across his face and he shrunk up against the wall.
"Wow, Gakupo introduced himself without making the whole thing into a giant, weird poem. Progress has been made people."
Miku shoveled a handful of chips into her mouth, not really waiting for a reply to her announcement. Luka looked as if she were considering a reaction, but settled for a small shrug. Yuuma figured he should conclude the introductions.
"I'm sure a lot of you already know, but I'm Yuuma. Sorry I showed up late, moving is a serious pain. Anyways, it's nice to meet you. Should I be checking in with the head office soon?"
The entirely room seemed to blink blankly in sync.
"I don't think we really have one of those…" Rin said thoughtfully.
"Well we do have a boss guy...girl...person. I haven't met 'em though," answered Len.
Luka automatically took on the responsibility of a full explanation.
"This studio has a bit of a different set up. We get song lyrics and music tracks from management through the mail. The drop boxes are in the next room. We also get different producers coming in according to the schedule on the wall there, and you work with them as needed. If you really hate a song you can refuse it, but most of the stuff they assign us is pretty good. For original songs, usually someone comes in to direct. However if you want to cover something, you can just get one of us to man the recording studio and give it a shot. The company mixers will retrieve it, and if it's good they'll fix it up and sent it out."
"It's weird, but really great," chirped Rin. "The more popular you are, the more original songs you'll get coming in. In the meantime, you just play with covers you want to do, and attract attention with those."
Yuuma found himself at a standstill trying to process the new information.
"So... with the exception of producer appointments, you make your own hours and workloads?... Are you serious?"
"Like cereal," Len nodded vigorously.
"Len that was seriously lame…"
"Ahh shut up, Rin! You didn't have anything better."
Well then… Yuuma was looking forward to this.
Hello! Thank you so much for reading *bows gratefully*. :D I'm on a pretty good roll this weekend, it's been ages since I did this much writing. I hope you're having as much fun with this as I am. As well, I would seriously jump for joy if you left a review. So until next time!- Keyami