When you see someone cry, your entire vision of them changes forever.
Their fragility becomes evident. Their will appears stronger.
Those who cry aren't always weak; sometimes they're the bravest people in the world.
I thought someone is calling my name, but I couldn't be sure. The sound was muffled. It was as if someone is trying to talk to me while we were both underwater.
Then I heard her. "Nero? Nero, are you okay?"
"Does this always happen when he travels through a portal?" asked another voice.
"Always," the first answered. "Nero has really bad portal sickness. He's been this way ever since we were kids."
"Good thing you held onto him as you both entered the portal," came a third speaker. "If you weren't there to catch him, his skull would've cracked wide open on the concrete floor."
"That's not funny, Zeito."
"I'm just being real."
"Well how about you shut up and let me see if I can wake Nero up," the first speaker snapped. Then she spoke softly, addressing me. "Nero, can you hear me? Show me that you can hear me." I moaned. She sighed. "Can you open your eyes?"
I moaned as a way to answer no. If I opened my eyes, everything would start spinning. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Very soon I would be sick enough to vomit. All of that could be avoided if I just kept my eyes closed.
However, my caretaker was persistent. "I will leave you here if you don't comply, Nero. Don't think I won't."
Rin always had a way of comforting others. Especially me.
Very, very slowly, I peeled open my eyes. I only opened them halfway, in hopes that the spinning wouldn't be so bad. Narrowed blue eyes met mine. My body was shaken.
"All the way," Rin ordered. "You'll be fine, Nero. Just trust me."
I did not, in fact, trust Rin. However, doing as she says is far better than ignoring her.
When Rin's whole face entered my line of sight, I locked eyes with Rin in attempt to keep the inevitable spinning from taking place and kept my focus planted on her orbs. As much as everything around me tumbled, I would be fine as long as I maintained eye contact. I should be fine as long as I kept my eyes on the girl before me.
"Very good," Rin said, her words soft. "Keep looking at me. It will all be over soon."
"That's what you say to something before you kill it."
"Shut up, Zeito," Rui snapped. I had forgotten about those two. "We're in no rush. Let Rin do whatever she has to do to help Nero feel better."
For minutes that felt like days, I stared into Rin's eyes. She's always had pretty eyes, not that I would ever tell her that. When the roll of nausea faded, I forced myself to sit upright. I tilted and wobbled, but I held myself up fine enough. It was in this position I realized that while I lied down, my head was on Rin's lap.
Never once had Rin done something like that. I supposed she was putting on a show for Zeito and Rui, but thinking about it now, it doesn't make sense. There was no reason for Rin to want to influence what the two thought about her. Rin typically never cares what anyone thinks about her.
"Feel better?" Rin asked. My answer was a nod. "Then let's go."
We got to our feet and followed our new Love Wrecker friends. Now that I felt better, I realized that we were inside a garden. Roses of white, pink, and baby blue trapped us in a cage of branches. The leaves were so thick that it seemed as if the only break from green we got was in the petals themselves. It was as beautiful as it was eerie.
"Where are we?" I asked, my eyes darting from scenery to scenery, desperately trying to find something of difference within this maze.
"Just outside our headquarters," Rui answered without turning around. "I set the portal for the rose garden. Although inside Tonio's office would have been optimal, I really wanted to see the flowers and didn't have it in me to wait."
Her response surprised me. I have never heard a Love Wrecker admit to liking flowers. If anything, they usually scolded the flora. Eventually I started to believe that all Love Wreckers hated flowers, sunsets, and just beautiful things in general. My sister was no exception. Until I saw Rin's paintings the day before, I didn't think Rin was any different.
After ten minutes of walking through the garden, we came to a mahogany door that had no special look to it. What sat before us was a simple wooden door with a plain bronze doorknob and scratches of wear etched into the wood. The frame, on the other hand, was made of iron. Standing around the frame was a concrete wall, white with paint peeling all over. Windows with bars were placed on either side. I couldn't see where the building ended or how high it went. I didn't know if I stood before a cottage or an edifice. The rose bushes were too thick for me to gather that information without taking the opportunity to investigate.
"Zeito," Rui began, patting down her sides, "do you have your key? I think I misplaced mine during that shooting."
"You're kidding, right?" was how Zeito replied. "I lost mine ages ago. I didn't say anything because I'd think you would at least have yours."
Rui swore under her breath. "Well, no harm in knocking, I suppose."
While we waited for an answer, I looked to Rin and whispered, "Are you still okay with this?"
"What other choice do I have? Len's in trouble, and I don't have ways to help him at my disposal." Rin sighed. "I hate this so much. If I could have anything in the world right now, it would be to go back before all of this began. What's happening now is a nightmare I'm afraid I won't be waking up from any time soon."
I wanted to say something to that, but what could I say? It's really irritating when you want to help someone but you don't know what to do or where to begin. So badly I wanted to help Rin with what she was facing, yet there wasn't anything I could do except be there for her. I hoped that in and of itself would be enough.
If either Zeito or Rui heard us, they didn't let on. I'm not stupid enough to think that every exchange Rin and I had was strictly between us, but I was glad for the false sense of privacy. At least that was something we could have.
"Did you lose your keys again?" was the first thing we heard when the door was opened. Rin's jaw fell open with a pop of surprise. When I saw who answered the door, I did the same.
Turquoise hair that was neatly cut close to the head, crystal blue eyes that hid behind a pair of gray glasses, a thin body mixed with a short stature - I had seen these traits before. However, these same traits I saw belonged to a woman, not a man. Yet here he was, the exact genderbend of the girl I met the day before.
"Not possible," Rin blurted. "Why do you look so much like-?" She cut herself off, unable to say the words.
Except the man knew what she was going to ask. He looked at Zeito and Rui as if asking their permission, and when both nodded, he again looked at me and Rin. Giving us a sheepish smile - a smile I had seen before - he introduced himself. "My name is Mikuo, and I'm a Love Maker. Sorry if my appearance is so shocking to you. Unfortunately, I look way too much like my sister."
If we're being completely honest with ourselves, we all have something to hide. Every one of us has a secret we plan to take to our graves. Even the most open have things they keep hidden away in their heart.
Maybe it's a never-ending hurt.
Maybe it's an unrequited love.
Maybe it's a dark, dreadful secret.
Whatever it may be, we all have that secret. This was something I never knew until I realized what it was I kept hidden in a dark corner.
Perhaps if I had known ahead of time that Miku was a Love Wrecker, then learning that she had a brother would not have been so shocking. We're always born in sets of two, so it wasn't until Rin mistakenly informed me that Miku was human that the possibility of Miku having a brother no longer concerned me. I knew nothing about Miku beforehand, and I don't know if that made this new information concerning her easier or harder to learn. Finding out that Miku is actually a Love Wrecker through the existence of her Love Maker brother really put what I thought I knew about Miku to a crashing end. I decided to keep this to myself because Rin spent the next hour occasionally knocking herself on the head and mumbling "of course, of course" over and over.
"What I want to know is," I began, "how are you here? And do you know what you are if Miku doesn't know what she is?"
The five of us were in a small room with blue walls and a dirty white carpet. We sat on a couple of old couches, and a rocky coffee table stood in the middle of our circle. Glasses of lemonade dotted the surface, but nobody reached for a glass. Since the person we were supposed to speak to was away at the moment, we decided to get to know Mikuo while we awaited the other guy's return.
"I didn't know what I was until about six months ago," Mikuo said, staring off into the distance. Does he think he's in a soap opera or something? Or he is just dramatic? I remember thinking. "Then one day, while I was in this old diner, I was approached by this man I've never seen before. I was . . . not in a very good place. He sat with me and began to talk with me, asking questions and trying to figure out where I was going in life. 'Look, man,' I said to him, 'I don't know what drugs you're offering, but I'm not interested.' All the guy did was laugh and say, 'Relax, Mikuo, I'm not offering you any drugs.' 'How do you know my name?' I asked. I knew without a fact that I didn't introduce myself to this stranger. He answered, 'I know more about you than you know about yourself.'"
"Because there's nothing creepy about that at all," Rin mumbled.
Laughing, Mikuo replied, "You got that right, Rin. Long story short, it took him ages to convince me that he was legit. Once I trusted him, and he knew I would believe what he would tell me, he revealed everything he knew about me. Like he said, it was all stuff I didn't even know about myself."
"Who is he, anyway?" I asked. "People who aren't named is a red flag in my mind."
"Good catch," Rui answered. "'He' is the person we're waiting for."
"His name is Tonio," Zeito supplied. "He's the leader of this society."
"And what kind of society is this?" Rin questioned. "I'm not joining any cults."
"If that's all you're worried about, then there's no reason to fear." Mikuo grinned. "All will be explained when he arrives."
Wanting to draw the attention back to our previous subject, I said, "But what about you? What did Tonio know about you that you didn't know about yourself?"
Mikuo leaned back on the couch and took a deep breath. "What I did know was that I'm adopted. What I didn't know is that my parents are – were Love Makers, I have a twin sister, and that I'm not human.
"When I was born, Miku and I were kidnapped, separated, and taken to the human world to be adopted by human parents. We were . . . We were part of an observational experiment, to see what would happen if a Love Maker and a Love Wrecker were raised by humans."
"Nature versus nurture," Rin mumbled.
"Exactly, Mikuo replied, "and that's where you and Len come in."
It is at this point Rin stiffens. Everything she said from here sounded as if she was forcing herself to make noise and pretend that nothing's amiss. She did an excellent job of this act, too. Neither Mikuo, Rui, nor Zeito let on that they realized Rin was pretending to not be concerned with what's about to come. As we shifted the conversation to what had been going on with Rui and Zeito since they left their Love World pocket, Rin still maintained her rigid posture. When I got the chance, I asked her with my eyes if she was all right. Ever so subtly, she shook her head. Had the space not been so small and my action would have gone unnoticed, I would have reached out and touched Rin's hand.
Hours passed by both too fast and painstakingly slow. Still Tonio had not arrived. However, that might have been the plan from the start. You know, give Rin and me a chance to get to know Mikuo, Rui, and Zeito and make us think we have friends here. Maybe those three really wanted to be our friends, but no amount of openness would convince me to let my guard down. I was hyper aware of every little thing – Mikuo's awkwardness at trying to figure out where to put his long limbs in the small space, the way the corner of Zeito's mouth lifted a little whenever he annoyed Rui, how often Rui ran her hands through her hair, and every instance Rin would scan the room as if checking for a threat just waiting for her to get careless and to stop keeping herself prepared to fight or flight.
Finally, Rui stood and said, "It's nearly time for dinner. Boys, why don't you help Nero get cleaned up while Rin and I freshen up ourselves?"
"I can clean myself without help just fine, thank you very much," I said, not sure what to think of Rin and my being separated. Sure, she and I could take care of ourselves just fine, but it's better to know that when things go from bad to worse, you can at least count on someone to watch your back.
Unlike my scaredy-cat self, Rin had no problem voicing her thoughts. "Why do we have to split apart to freshen up? Would you prefer Nero and me to be separated?"
"Well, you did say that you and Nero aren't partners," Zeito said. "Do you really want to share a bathroom with the guy you're not with?"
My face began to burn, but Rin didn't look daunted. "Whatever," she said, "but keep in mind that I'm watching you all. I refuse to go down without a fight."
"Of course, Rin," Rui replied, speaking softly. "The girls and boys respective toliets are twenty yards from each other. You won't be that far away from Nero while you shower and change into something nicer." Rui must have understood what a stressful situation Rin was in; Rin had no reason to trust anyone, and it's hard to earn the trust of someone who is expecting you to turn on them at any moment.
Since there were no other arguments Rin or I could think of, we agreed to wash separately. It couldn't hurt too much to accept the hospitality offered to us, right? Whatever the reason we were here, it would do neither of us any good to resist. Besides, I really needed a shower anyway.
To trust is perhaps the scariest thing we can ever do. When we trust, we are giving someone the weapon to hurt us. When we trust, we give someone everything they will ever need to destroy us.
When it's put it that way, wouldn't you agree that trust is a very precious gift that we can never truly earn?
It's normal to trust friends and family, but even they can hurt us worse than our enemies. So how do were really know who it is we can trust? How often does a person have to prove themselves worthy? Do they need to trust us in return.
Funny enough, I used to never have questions about trust.
"Sorry," Mikuo apologized as he threw down the clothes for me to change into, "but we don't have any Love Maker attire. Hope you always wanted to try being a Love Wrecker."
I stared at the solid black lying on what was supposed to be my bed while Rin and I stayed with the community. My "bedroom" was nothing more than a small, wooden room with no furniture save a bed, desk, and stool. It was more claustrophobic than cozy. Not to mention it was very awkward that Mikuo simply walked right in while I was wearing nothing but a towel around my waist.
"Thanks," I said, clutching my towel as if it would fall to my ankles if I didn't. Mikuo just nodded before he left. While I figured out how I was supposed to wear Love Wrecker clothing, I wondered if Mikuo's coming and going would be the norm, and if Zeito or Rui would also make a habit of walking in unannounced.
To make matters worse, the bedroom door didn't have a lock.
"Whoa," Rin said after I changed into the clothes and met her in the hall. Rui was with her, but neither of the boys were in sight. "You look great in black. Are you sure you're meant to be a Love Maker? Because you look like you were born to wear black."
"In other words," Rui grinned, "Rin thinks you look hot."
Rin glared at the smaller girl. "Nero wouldn't be hot even if he took a trip to Hell."
"I still have feelings that can be hurt," I said, but Rin didn't acknowledge it.
"Nero's never worn black before," Rin continued to say to Rui. "How would you react if you saw Zeito wearing white?"
"I'd kill him because that's not Zeito," Rui didn't hesitate to reply. "He wouldn't be caught dead in white. For real, he told me that if I ever saw him in white, kill him because that's not really him but his evil clone."
"This just turned into a cheesy sci-fi," I mumbled. Louder, "Can we eat now, please?"
"Yes," Rui said, looking at both Rin and me now. "Tonio has returned, and he is eager to meet you both."
"Even me?" I asked.
"Of course," Rui answered, her smile sickly sweet. "He wants to know what kind of idiot would wander into a place like this with a girl he's not even partners with."
If I said that comment didn't somewhat offend me, I would be lying.
Rui lead us down the hall, and as we walked, I tried to keep up with the mental map I was forming in my head. We had taken only one set of stairs, and now we were going down those some stairs as we made our way to the dining room. Frustratingly, the place looked like one giant maze. All the walls were the same peeling yellow wallpaper, and the wooden floors have nothing distinguishable about them from place to place. If not for my mapping everything out from the moment we arrived, I wouldn't have noticed that Rui lead us in a different direction than where we've previously been after we descended the stairs.
"This place is a total dump," Rin commented, not finding it in her best interest to be polite.
"We do have a rotation for chores," Rui replied, not sounding offended at all, "but sometimes cleaning gets thrown on the backburner. To be fair, this place could use a total overhaul. The problem is we don't get enough funding to afford a makeover."
"How much funding do you guys receive?" I asked.
Rui chuckled. "None at all."
My cheeks heated up. She was joking. Shaking her head, Rin mumbled something about my being stupid.
"Tonio requested a small audience tonight," Rui said as we turned yet another corner. When we entered the room, I saw that this small audience consisted of the three of us - Zeito, Mikuo, and a man I hadn't seen before. He had neatly trimmed dark hair and stubble on his face. This guy might have been in his late thirties or early forties, but when we entered, he greeted us with more energy than necessary.
"At last I finally meet you, Rin Kagamine." He jumped to his feet and stuck out his hand. "Might I say, I'm a big fan of yours."
Rin looked at his hand as if he offered her a giant spider. "Should I be worried?"
"Very." Zeito began helping himself to the food on the table. We were eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes. "Much like how he did with Mikuo, Tonio knows a lot about you."
Seeing that Rin was not going to accept the handshake, Tonio placed his hand by his side and said, "That is very much true. You see, Rin, we here in the society have been watching you for a very, very long time. However, before we get into all that, why don't we sit down and eat?"
"How about we get to what you know about me?" Rin cut in, her shoulders square. "My brother is missing. God, I can't imagine what's happening to him right now, and you're suggesting we kick back, relax, and eat meatloaf? What the hell?! Who are you, what do you know, and why am I here?"
"If we could just sit down-"
"Answer me!" Rin snapped, her face instantly turning bright red. Her nails dug into her palms, and her veins began to bulge. "You said that you've been watching me for years. What do you mean by that?"
Tonio opened and closed his mouth a few times. When he realized that there was no point in arguing with Rin – if he really had been watching her for years, he wouldn't need to learn from experience how pointless arguing with Rin is – he sighed. "You think nobody noticed when you took your brother's place, but we did. You never knew this, and neither did your parents, but the day it was evaluated between you and Len who the Love Maker and Love Wrecker were, you were being observe by most of my people."
It was Rin's turn to open and close her mouth. Shaking her head, she finally found the words. "I don't understand. We were being watched?"
"We saw the whole process," Tonio confirmed. "Please, if you would just sit down-"
"Why were you watching us?!"
Slowly, I stood closer to Rin. When she didn't bark at me to back off, I touched her hand ever so gently. She snatched her fingers from my grasp, uninterested in the comfort I was offering.
"Why were you watching us?!" she repeated.
"Almost twenty years ago," Tonio began slowly, "we Streamers argued that although you were born into sets of two, that didn't mean one child was automatically a Love Maker and the other a Love Wrecker. To prove this argument wrong, those in charge of separating the children invited us to see the process itself. Rin, how is it determined which child is the Love Maker and the other a Love Wrecker?"
Without hesitating, Rin replied, "The children are tested. Which of the two breaks the things, which of the two doesn't get along with the other children, and which of the two is angered all the time. Love Wrecker children are short tempered and don't bond with others well at all. The aggressive child is the one labelled as the Love Wrecker, and the other is by default the Love Maker."
"And you see why many argue that the system is flawed?"
"It's not perfect, but we're tested when we're six. By that point in your life, who you are as a person is typically set. The so-called 'nice children' are eager to make friends and help people fall in love while their siblings are more individualistic, competitive, and want nothing to do with helping others."
"And this is just establishing which child is which." Tonio nodded. "The school system from there takes care of the training, but the day you're determined is the day that is the most important in your kind's life."
"It just so happened that the separation you observed was Len's and mine?" Rin questioned.
"It wasn't the only one," Tonio confirmed, "but yours stood out. Did you know that while you and your brother were being observed, we saw Len break the glass heart in the room you two played in? A proper Love Maker, no matter how young, would never do such a thing. According to your psychology, breaking a heart-shaped object – especially on purpose – is something your kind tend to avoid. It's like how most humans, even those so young, know not to fall off high places or touch a fire. With infants, these things can be forgiven, but a child who should already be developing the desire to want to bring people together? To do such a thing would automatically label him as a Love Wrecker.
"Fortunately for you, only me and two of my colleagues were there, behind the window you saw as a mirror, while this happened. Your observers left for a lunch break, so they missed this little detail. At first we were surprised for it was Len who played with other children, not you. Len didn't act grumpy every time he was interacted with, but you did.
"When you both were questioned about it later, you took the blame. You, Rin Kagamine, took the blame for something your brother did, and you've been living with those consequences ever since. We never corrected them. Looking back, we should have, but we never did. We wanted to know how somebody with your biology would do in the opposing world. It's to this day our very surprise that you not only survived, but you excelled. However, the question that has always haunted me is this: Why did you do it? Why would you do this to yourself when it was not want you were meant to have?"
"Because I love my brother," Rin replied. Her breaths were still ragged, but she began to show signs of calming down. "He was always really weak; he would've been crushed if he was raised where he belonged. I, on the other hand, could handle it. So I convinced him to act the way he needed to act while I did the opposite. Everything I did was to protect him." Blinking tears from her eyes, Rin added softly, "But instead I damned him."
"I don't understand," I said, completely lost. "How did you damn Len? What did you do?"
Rin laughed without humor. "You really are an idiot, aren't you? Nero, the facts are staring you in the face, and yet you still can't see them? Len and I switched roles all those years ago and kept up the façade ever since. You see, Len isn't the real Love Maker of the two of us. I am."
There are many sides to one story. There are many sides to a single person. There are many sides to a relationship.
When trust and loyalty run deeper than blood, should that be a reason to fear? Is being so committed to a person something dangerous? Or is it something more?
Unless you see this person at their ugliest and struggling at their worst, you can never know what it means to truly be loyal to them.
I admit, I did feel like an idiot that I couldn't figure that little detail out sooner. The evidence was there, even when Rin and I were children. However, Rin played it so well that you can't fully blame me for not knowing for absolute sure until then.
"There was no way I could let him go through that," Rin told me later that night. She was in the room assigned to me, sitting at the foot of the bed and refusing to make eye contact with me. "I got to go with my cousins to see both schools when I was younger, which is an opportunity not a lot of us get to do before we are determined what we are. Len was sick that day and stayed with our parents, so it was just IA, IO, and me.
"The cruelty of the Love Wrecker school was evident even to my four-year-old eyes. It wasn't that the school was trying to be abusive, but you have to understand that it's a hard upbringing that makes us the vicious kind we are. We're made to feel isolated from our own families – a rather easy feat if you ask me because more often than not a single Love Wrecker lives in a house filled with Love Makers - and we're punished when we chose to act selflessly. If we're too compassionate, we can't do our job right. There has to be a desire to want to hurt others. Love Wreckers need that deep brokenness that makes them want to take it out on others. Their nature calls them to it.
"Yet I didn't understand that. All I understood as a little girl was that my baby brother, who was sick all the time and smaller than he should've been, would have been crushed in that education system. He's always been sensitive for a Love Wrecker: that school would have beaten him mercilessly to get it out of him. The thought . . . scared me.
"So I plotted how to protect him. He and I both couldn't be deemed Love Makers, so I made sure I was the one whom everyone thought was a Love Wrecker. Knowing what my intent was, Len let me help him make friends and act like those fun kids we saw at the park. The idiot almost blew it when he got frustrated at the sight of that glass heart when we were locked in that room for the day, but other than that, I thought nobody would ever know. Except they did the whole freaking time, and now all my worst fears are coming to life."
You have to understand how terrifying it was to see Rin cry. She never cried, or at least not where she could be seen. To see her at such a broken state caused an aching in my chest. All I could think to do was sit beside her on the bed and wrap an arm around her shoulders. To my surprise, she didn't elbow me in the ribs.
"So you really do feel love, after all," I whispered. Looking back, that was perhaps not the wisest thing to say to Rin.
"Just because you now know the truth does not make me someone different," Rin replied, a growl hidden in her words despite her still flowing tears. "I'm still just as much me as I was before dinner, and just like before, I hate love with a burning passion." Without giving me a chance to ask why, Rin said, "It's because of love we're in this place. It's because of love Len's missing. It's because of love I have spent the past twelve years terrified to go to bed because I can't shake the fear that somebody knows. Had I truly been the Love Wrecker, I would never have cared. I would have entered that school with intent to raise Hell. That's what I did, anyway, so imagine what I truly would have been capable of had it not all been pretend."
Although it might not have a good idea to ask, the curiosity weighed on me. I had to ask. "Does this mean you don't mind breaking couples up?"
Shrugging, Rin answered, "Truth be told, I like my job. The only couples I ever target are those in unhealthy relationships, and breaking them up does help to ease the pain inflicted upon me while I grew up. Those break ups benefit both me and the people involved, or so I like to think. Imagining it that way makes me feel less like the monster I am."
"You're not a monster."
"Then why do I hurt everyone I touch? Why am I the reason for destruction of those I love most?" Rin shook me off and rose to her feet. "Good night, Nero."
"Good night, Rin," I returned, but she was already out of ear shot.
Fast forward a few weeks – yes, Rin and I stayed there that long – and things get interesting again. In the span of time we've been there, Rin and I had, to some extent, learned to trust those we stayed with. Many faces came and went, but Mikuo, Zeito, and Rui were constant company. Here, we later learned, we were safe. The people who had taken Len and Miku were looking for Rin, too, our sources said. They wanted to see how Rin would react to the "rehabilitation" inflicted on Miku and Len.
"What the actual hell do you mean by 'rehabilitation'?" Rin demanded the moment she was informed of where Len was and what was happening to him.
"Just that, Rin: Rehabilitation," Tonio replied. He had called Rin to his office and invited me for moral support. I quickly realized by "moral support" Tonio meant somebody to hold Rin back in case she tried to murder him. "They are trying to restore Len and Miku to their true nature. They want . . . they want to see how far the training you receive growing up really goes."
"And why would they want to do that?" Rin curled her fingers into fists. Her knuckles turned a chalk, boney shade of white.
"That is beyond me," Tonio said. "When we first started observing you, all we meant to do was observe you. There was no interest whatsoever in influencing you or your brother in any way. Of course I should point out that it was my people who kidnapped Mikuo and Miku from their parents and hid them in the human world to be raised as such, so we're not completely innocent.
"However, merely observing wasn't enough for some of us. They thought you were weapons that could bring the whole system down. Word got out, rumors circulated, and now the government is involved. The reason we are glad that you have meet with us, Rin, and stayed on your own free will is because they are looking for you. If the Streamers who have broken away are correct in their theory that it's the training which determines who is the Love Maker and who is the Love Wrecker, you, Len, Mikuo, and Miku will be eliminated. Those Streamers think that the system will be brought down, but they and all involved will be destroyed for the sake of keeping up tradition."
"But doesn't biology determine who's who in the sets of children?" I asked. "I was raised and trained to be a Love Maker, but that doesn't mean I fit into a simple classification. Same can be said of my sister – she likes soap operas of all things!"
"Our years of observance do favor nature over nurture," Tonio confirmed, "but that won't matter to them."
"And why is that?"
"Because many want to argue that what you were born is what you're meant to be," Tonio answered. "Even if nature wins tenfold, what is going on now is a challenge to the system. There's no knowing how many will join this cause. It's better to end it then to let it get out of hand."
Rin lurched forward in her chair. "Then why are we sitting her and not helping Len? If they will kill him when they're finished, why are we sitting around and twiddling our thumbs?"
Pulling his collar away from his neck, Tonio said slowly but with uncertainty. "The truth is, Rin, we've known about this for two weeks now. The reason we waited to mention it to you is because until now, there was nothing we can do."
"What changed?"
"Miku escaped, and now Len is sent to find her. This is our chance to save them both. That's why you were called in today. Of all the people we think could bring Len to us, you're our best bet."
There is so much I don't understand.
There is so much I want to know.
Why do we hide what we want to be known?
Why is it those capable of doing us more harm are those we love the most?
The more I learn, the more questions I have.
Just because Rin was the best candidate to hunt down Len, and hopefully Miku as a consequence, doesn't mean that tracking her brother down was easy. If anything, it was far harder than Rin anticipated. Of all the places he could have gone, he wasn't in any of them.
"I even checked the places he would hide because, to almost everyone else, the hiding place would be unpredictable," Rin grumbled after our third day searching, shoulders forced back and head too heavy to hold high. The lack of progress weighed Rin down more than she was letting show. "If he really is out there, why can't I find him? I know Len better than anyone. Or at least I thought I did."
Taking into consideration the little I knew already, I suggested, "Do you think he would be with Miku? She was with him when they were taken, so it's possible that he would stick with her out of guilt."
For a while, Rin didn't say anything. It appeared that she was tossing the words inside her head, evaluating their possibility to be true. She must have been unable to think of anything better, for she replied, "Might as well look into it. At this point, I have no other ideas."
Long story short, we found our way to Miku's ex-boyfriend's house. "So this is where you were when you broke your last couple up?" I asked, studying the apartment complex as I tried to figure out which belonged to this Kaito.
"You should know," Rin answered. "I used you as a tool to finish off the project."
Project. Even though she was truly a Love Maker, Rin treated the break up as if this was no different from rearranging a home or building a piece of furniture – something to put time and effort in but to completely forget about once it was completed. However, she didn't look regretful as she talked about breaking Miku and Kaito up. She actually showed a small smile, as if she still recalled the event with fond memories.
"About that," I said slowly, "was kissing me really necessary?"
"It was a quick fix to a problem I had," Rin replied. "How could it be more? You're so unpracticed in kissing that it was hard to pretend that pressing my lips against yours was enjoyable."
"Do you enjoy making me feel less than?"
"Always."
Half an hour later, we found Len. He was sitting alone on a roof, feet hanging over the edge. Whatever he was going through, it seemed to be crushing him from the inside out. We stood behind the raised door of the building's emergency exit, unseen by the one we spent the longest time wondering about.
Rin held her finger in front of her lip. Slowly, she took out a tranquilizer gun that Tonio gave her to use when we found Len and Miku. We may have been encouraged to try to talk them into coming first, but Rin didn't want to use that option. Better to knock her brother out and explain later what was going on than to take our chances, Rin argued.
With the softness of a cat, Rin snuck from behind the emergency exit and approached Len. Trembling, Rin held out the tranquilizer and aimed it between Len's shoulder blades. "Brother," she gently called out to gain his attention.
To my surprise, Len didn't turn around. I thought he would be eager to see Rin after all this time, but he acted as if she wasn't there to begin with. "For somebody who told me to stay away," he said the words with an underlining sadness, "you sure follow me everywhere I go, Sister."
Rin took a shaky breath. "Everything I did was to protect you. I never said my actions were the right ones."
"Didn't stop me from trusting you blindly."
This shocked Rin to silence. So many emotions, so many thoughts had to be running through her right then. She struggled just to tell Len the words "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too." Len buried his face in his hands. Mumbling through his palms, he said, "I miss you so much. You're my strength, Rin. You're the only rock I've ever known." Len sat up again. "I know I never told you this before, but I look up to you more than any other person on this planet. I now know what you suffered and endured by taking my place. Rin, why didn't you tell me that they beat you, whipped you, and isolated you? Why didn't you tell me that they would send electric shocks to your body every time you had a happy thought? Why didn't you tell me? Why?
"Even back then I knew you were going through Hell just to protect me, but it's only now that I really know. It makes me respect you and look up to you even more. You chose to go through that, just for me." Len gave an eerie laugh. "But you're not really here. We pushed each other away, and no matter how much or how deeply you love someone, even that ocean of love can dry up and become a barren desert. We let that happen, and I don't know if we could ever go back."
Shaken to her core, Rin dropped the gun to her side and turned away. Gasping for breath, Rin ran towards me and whispered, "I can't do this. Nero, I can't do this now. Let's go back, please. Please don't make me do this now."
I wanted to argue that we might not have this chance again. I wanted to take the gun from Rin and shoot it at Len myself. But this wasn't my battle, and Rin wasn't ready to face it yet. As I saw Rin cry for the second time since I've known her, I knew this situation had to wait. If another chance didn't come, we would make one. Right then, Rin needed to grieve for the future that was quickly approaching us.
"You don't have to do this now," I told her. I wrapped my arm around her, and, to my very surprise, she buried her face into my shoulder. As she silently cried, I whispered, "It's okay, Rin. Let's go. It's okay."