Let's continue on. The song referenced in this chapter is "Tell Your World", both the original Miku and Yuyoyuppe Luka versions. Mind you, I'm going to take the beginning slow and reveal things bit by bit, it's how I write. You wouldn't reveal all your cards playing in a game, right?
Chapter Two: Pig-Tails
And here to talk about her new single Just Be Friends is international pop-star Megurine Luka!
Applause.
Thank you, you are too kind.
Oh, no, thank YOU. I can't believe I get to interview the world's most beautiful and successful woman. I need a fan to be sitting so close to you.
Modest laughter. Thank you.
So, you were actually born in Japan, yes? How does it feel to be back in your home country, in Tokyo no less?
It's nice. I haven't been back to Japan since I was on tour in 2013. It's been far too long.
We're happy to have you back. Especially to perform! Word is you'll be doing one of your most spectacular line-ups here in Tokyo. Is that correct?
Yes, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It will be my longest and most spectacular show yet. The wardrobes alone I'm being fitted for are outrageous. I really can't wait…
The sound of the television interview faded out. All was blackness and muffled sound. The girl shifted her arms, straining against the invisible force that was holding them back. She flexed her fingers. She couldn't even remember having fingers. What were they for?
…the song is about a break-up with your longtime boy-toy, Teruo Kurosawa.
No comment. Polite, flirtatious laughter.
Are you afraid he's watching this broadcast?
I know he's watching this broadcast. After all, every man dreams of making me his wife. He probably already regrets his choice.
So he broke up with you?
I don't kill and tell.
Audience laughter.
I certainly feel sorry for him. Maybe you'd like to try me for a rebound?
More polite laughter. Sorry, but I think I'll take a break for a while.
The girl was beginning to feel frantic. Her wrists were turning; she was trying to unscrew her hands. She should be able to unscrew her hands. And why were her feet not working? She needed to get out of here. She needed to move. She needed to go!
"Nurse! Nurse, come quickly!"
The interviewer and the pop star continued to speak pleasantly in the background on the hospital television, a brilliant spectacle of celebrity glory. Three nurses tumbled into the room, shoving a linen cart out of the way, knocking over the janitor in the process. He quickly took off, not wanting to be around when the staff began to care for the crazy individual thrashing around in the hospital bed.
Turquoise eyes wild with rage and fear flashed angrily beneath a mop of messy turquoise green hair. What once was probably held up in two pig-tails was now a straw and stringy pile, tendrils collected into massive knots and strands streaming over her face. Her arms fought in the straightjacket she wore, legs kicking in the bed, somehow having worked their way out of their restraints. The sedative would still be powerful enough to keep her from getting up, however.
"Restrain those legs, I'll get the second dose of sedative." One nurse commanded to another.
There was a silent period in which the nurses bustled around the room, completing their duties with a sense of calm urgency. The girl screamed concise nonsense, which sounded like it might be a language none of the women present could understand. Two of them could only speak Japanese and broken English, one was fluent in English and Spanish. None of those languages was being spoken.
The doctor came in, only when the girl had calmed from her second dose of sedative. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her mouth opening and shutting slowly like a fish out of water. The doctor looked pleased.
Running a hand over her ankle, he lifted it as far as the restraint would allow and frowned.
"Which one of you bruised her?"
The nurses looked to one another accusingly, backing slowly away from the bed and toward the door.
"She was fighting the restraints sir, and was out of them. I think the janitor was going to change her sheets, maybe he undid them?"
He looked back to his patient, and when his back was turned, the nurses made their way out of the room. It'd been three days since the pig-tailed patient had been admitted. None of them liked to have to be present in her room. She gave them the creeps.
… sing some of the lyrics for us now?
You'll have to wait for the show.
"Let's try this again, now that you're more calm."
He reached for a rolling chair and pulled it to the side of the bed, grunting as he took a seat. He arranged his clipboard in his lap and clicked the end of his pen, staring at her deranged face with a gruesome look on his own.
"Tell me how you escaped."
Her eyes turned wildly in her head. If he didn't know better, he might say she was demon possessed.
"What did you do with your phones? Did you remove them mid-synch?"
The patient did not respond, but her eyes drifted to rest on the television, a few seconds longer than she'd looked at anything else.
At least sing something. It'd be a shame to send you on your way without one little performance.
A sweet smile. I can sing this.
The doctor turned his chair to better face the television. It was the first time he'd seen the patient look at anything in particular for any steady period of time. "Luka? She's a famous pop singer. Not as good as you. She's gorgeous though, I've had some interesting dreams."
…send the words once locked within my breast to the sky~
The girl in the hospital bed went completely still; not even a breath came out of her lungs. Her eyes, once far away and crazed, began to clear, and focused, quite distinctly, on the television. The doctor held his breath.
These things I want to tell you
The things I want to reach you
May they join a line
That they may reach you, so far away from me~
The teal-haired girl watched the television, eyes staring fixatedly, her mouth beginning to tremble. The doctor refused to move, or breathe at all, afraid he would ruin whatever was coming next. He turned, as slowly as he possibly could, to peer at the television set. That beautiful minx of a pop singer was swaying delicately on stage, her hands wrapped around a microphone, eyes closed gently and mouth open to pour the very heart and soul out of her internal being. She sang without music. As it was the first time he'd heard the pop singers raw, unedited voice, it struck something in his memory. It sounded suspiciously a lot like-
His thoughts were cut in half by the most wonderful sound he'd heard in five long months of desperation and long nights of research. His patient had begun to hum along with the song. So excited to see this connection, he tore his eyes away from the pop princess on the t.v. and watched eagerly the face of his patient, waiting desperately for the breakthrough he needed. If he lost this patient, he'd also lose his job, and his family along with it.
Slowly, but ever surely the girl's eyes cleared, becoming much more human and less not, forming themselves into rivers of emotion that had not passed over her face since the experiments had started. The doctor feared that he had ruined her. But here she was, coming back, transforming before his very eyes.
The girl sat up slowly, ever so slowly, finding difficulty with the straight jacket. The doctor refused to help. Touching her could cause the patient to reverse.
Tell me, I wanna know about your world!
…Tell Your World~
The song ended and the audience of the talk-show applauded like the sun itself had risen in the period of a hundred year darkness. But the doctor was focused on the girl. She did not stir, did not move, until the show broke to commercial break, something about shrimp flavored chips being awesome.
Slowly, the patient turned her now relatively sane expression to the doctor, her eyes filled with only the deepest and most profound reflection of loathing. The doctor felt gleefully overjoyed, and more so when he heard her musically soprano pitched voice speak for the first time in months.
"That… is my song."