Gakupo watched and waited. Gakupo waited and watched. His heightened samurai senses were on full alert as he carefully dangled string just a few inches from the floor of his bed, in attempts to lure his adversary into a sense of false safety.
Suddenly a tiny paw shot out from beneath his bed and in one fluid motion Gakupo seized the little limb and dragged the kitten Picaro from the black abyss beneath his bed, where he had been hiding and pestering the samurai ever since Gakupo tried to get out of bed that morning.
"Picaro, stay out of my room!" Gakupo cried into the face of the tiny orange kitten. Picaro merely blinked his huge, watery blue eyes innocently, but Gakupo had a hunch that the kitten knew exactly what he meant, and was disobeying him on purpose.
"Seriously cat, I'm going to step on you. Then what?" Picaro had been lying in wait beneath Gakupo's bed and catapulting himself beneath Gakupo's feet whenever he tried to leave the room making him trip. Whenever Gakupo tried to get to his bed the cat would launch itself from beneath his bed and ambush his feet in a hail of kitty-scratches and biting with its sharp baby teeth.
"Then you'll be flat, that's what." Gakupo escorted the kitten to the door and dropped it outside then promptly slammed his door shut before the cat could dart back in.
Picaro had been a stray kitten that had wandered into Gakupo and Luka's tent one night as they enjoyed a romantic evening on a starlit hill. Luka had fallen asleep early, so Gakupo presented Picaro as a gift to her when she woke up.
She was delighted, but she was also busy with a new album on the way so she didn't have any time to humor the playful, rambunctious kitten. Picaro had spent every waking moment exploring every nook and cranny of the Vocaloid family house, becoming instantly infamous for somehow opening closed doors.
And when it wasn't bounding around the house running off an endless store of energy it was either playing with the younger Vocaloids, or sleeping in impossible places. Gakupo had already found him sleeping in his clean clothes, a shoebox, the kitchen counter, the very top of a tall book shelf and Kaito's white sneaker.
The kitten had already grown in the three days they had owned it and would no longer fit in the palm of Gakupo's hand, but it was still smaller than a slice of bread. Even with such a small body, Picaro was a destined Vocalist.
"MeeeeoooooOOOOorrrAAAAAooooo wwwWwww!" The yowling shook Gakupo to his core. He couldn't believe something so small could make a noise that shook his windows. He flung open the door to his bed room and Picaro trotted inside lackadaisically, as if he was supposed to be there.
Gakupo couldn't believe the audacity of the kitten, and as the cat ducked down under his bed Gakupo decided that he needed a break and opted to let Picaro HAVE his room.
As Gakupo closed the door to his room he decided he wanted to rent a movie from the little store down the street that was owned by a burly man who always called him "Samurai guy" and said he was good for business. Gakupo didn't feel like doing much of anything since he was stuck with a massive case of writers block for his new song, but it was too early for bed. And besides, maybe he could find something inspiring in one of the old movies or classic musicals.
On his way to the stairs he ran into both of the Kagamine twins. Gakupo immediately became suspicious when it looked like they weren't doing anything in particular. Both of the blond twins were just standing by the stairs, as if waiting for him. Anyone who knew the Kagamines at all knew that they were ALWAYS doing SOMETHING; so when they were seemingly doing NOTHING it became suspicious.
"Hey Gakupo onii-chan." Rin smiled playing with a lock of her blond hair.
"Hello Rin-chan, hello Len-kun." Gakupo tried to say as pleasantly as possible while nudging around the two twins trying to ignore a nagging feeling that they were up to something and it involved him.
"So, how is Luka lately? Huh, onii-chan?" Len grinned while twirling his tie around his ring-finger.
"…she's fine…why?" Gakupo just wanted the conversation to end, but he couldn't help wondering why the twins were double teaming him on the staircase.
"Well, we heard that you struck out the other night, so we decided to show you some of our techniques." Rin said hugging Len around his neck.
Len grabbed Rin's waist and swung her over romantically in a Spanish swoop. "You need to be DANGEROUS, like this. You can't always be just some goody two shoes samurai."
"Yeah, girls love a man who takes control of a relationship." Rin said staring at him upside-down. "Risk-takers get a larger payoff in a long-term relationship."
Gakupo stared at the twins in disbelief. He knew that their fans loved the idea of the two as a couple, but had the phenomenon gotten so bad that not even the TWINS cared about the boundaries of their relationship?
Gakupo cried in alarm. "Rin, he's your brother!"
"So?" Rin straightened her shirt as Len let her stand up straight,
"Isn't that a little bit… weird?"
"Pshaw!" Rin snickered. "Don't change the subject, it's still about you!"
Gakupo brushed his hair away from his face. "Look, thanks for the help; but it's really none of your business what Luka and I do in our relationship. We're both adults, and we don't need direction from the two of you. We're doing fine."
"Ouch." Rin flinched.
Len smirked looking down on Gakupo as her descended the stairs. "We're technically older than you, y'know?"
"Little brats!" Gakupo fumed as he marched down stairs and out the front door. He carefully shut and locked the door to the Vocaloid family house and he was just about to leave the yard when a soft noise like a cooing caught his attention.
"Gakupo onii-chan?"
"Hi Gumi." Gakupo turned to find his little sister staring at him from behind one of the trees in the house's yard.
Gakupo was actually the original android produced for the Megapoid programming which produced realistic and professional levels of singing that were easy to tune and pitch, as opposed to the Vocaloid2 which produced fascinating unique vocals but could be a bit temperamental with tuning. Gumi was the android that came after him and he thought of her fondly as his little sister, and encouraged her enormous potential for growth.
"You're going out again?" Gumi asked approaching him slowly and cautiously.
"Yeah… I want to rent a movie. Is there anything you need while I'm out?" Gakupo had another sneaking suspicion that Gumi had an ulterior motive for speaking to him and she wouldn't meet his eyes.
"Gakupo, I need to talk to you." Gumi grabbed his hand and yanked him down into a bow. "Now."
"Gee, Gumi. Are you sure it can't wait until I'm back?" Gakupo was planning to have Gumi let go of his arm for just a moment and then run as fast as he could to the store and away from the house.
"I bet you're going to meet HER again, aren't you?" Gumi's face began to turn red and tears gathered in the corners of her emerald-green eyes.
"Who? Luka? No she's still working in her room!" Gakupo floundered trying to keep the tears from flowing over Gumi's cheeks. He couldn't deal with crying!
"Awesome, then you can afford some time with me!" And with that Gumi picked the samurai up and threw him over her shoulder like a sack of flour, even though he was twice her size.
"Ahhh! Gumi! No! Down! Put me down! Now!" Gakupo kicked and squirmed but eventually resigned himself to being carried into the house when he couldn't break free.
The android that the Master had used for Gumi had originally been part of a temporary project that was going to end up being a group of android-superheroes for the government. As soon as Master had heard of another Vocaloid being produced, she switched gears and immediately began converting the super strong android into the sweet playful Gumi. But Gumi still retained the monster strength that was supposed to belong to the undeveloped superhero.
And sadly for Gakupo, she was not shy about using it. She often picked him up or swung him around when she was happy, which to him was un-manly; but what could he do? She wouldn't listen to his complaining when she tossed him around, or the snickers of the other Vocaloids. She'd just say "Lighten up" in her own ditzy way.
She single handedly unlocked and opened the door, and to Gakupo's dismay many Vocaloids had filed into the living room where she carried him.
"This is not happening!" He murmured under his breath as his embarrassment turned into outright horror as the room filled with giggling and snickers.
Oliver filed out as soon as Gumi tossed Gakupo onto the couch, but many other Vocaloids stayed and continued whatever they were doing, which seemed to be a hastily begun chess match between Teto and Ted, Sweet Ann flipping through channels absent mindedly, and Kaai Yuki squeezing Picaro like a stuffed toy.
"Get out." Gumi commanded sternly and Sweet Ann grudgingly picked herself up and trudged up stairs with Teto and Ted in hot pursuit. Gakupo listened to their footsteps and he could tell that all three were only just out of sight and listening at the top of the stairs.
Kaai Yuki dropped Picaro and began to cry, but walked off into the kitchen without a word.
Gumi stood above Gakupo for a second, and he almost stood up to walk past her, when she held his hand and sat down beside him.
"I'm really worried about your fans," she said seriously while flexing his fingers.
"My fans?" Gakupo was irritated and spoke sarcastically to Gumi which made her wince. Gakupo took a few deep calming breaths and tried to clear his mind when "Ura emote Lovers" by Hatsune Miku started blasting from somebody's bedroom.
"The environment in my brain woke up from the dream where I was filled with distress,
and got invaded by this strange thing called love, and since then..."
Miku's voice rang out while harmonizing with the synthesizer in what was at first a very disconcert tune, but was supposed to become more appealing as the song went on.
"It's not right for you to tie yourself down, since you are a popular character." Gumi ignored the song but Gakupo developed a headache from the fast-paced syllables. It was like every word pounded directly into his skull.
"Uh, huh?" He stated rubbing his throbbing temple.
"You have a duty to your fans around the world to be a versatile character, without disillusionment or anything to kill your applicability." Gumi stated above the music.
"Whoa." Gakupo thought. "Is it just my headache getting worse? I didn't catch any of that!"
"One can't just simply put a limiter to control the environment in their heart
that got split completely into two, so that's why..."
Miku's voice seemed to get even louder among the tangled sounds the synthesizer made blaring down the stairs. Gakupo began to wonder if he was in some kind of horrible nightmare, where everything that could go wrong, goes and there's no way out no matter what you do.
"You are completely alienating the fans who are supportive of other pairings, like you and me—you and Miku! You and Miku, or you and ummm… you and Sweet Ann..."
Gakupo was almost beyond listening, he just wanted some aspirin and some fresh air, and to GET OUT OF THAT HOUSE!
"Every day which is filled with "why"-this then that then good bye baby.
Realism and escapism, my heart holds them both, and they lie closely together."
Who the hell was playing that music?
"Or you and Kaito—"
"NEVER!" Gakupo bellowed over top of the song, but both Gumi and the song kept on talking/ singing over him. He felt as if he was being swallowed with indifference. He WAS in a nightmare.
"Well, that's what I'm trying to say; you need to give your fans an option to choose, when you tie yourself down, you isolate the fans who like the Gakupo X Kaito." Gumi pronounced the X, ex and Gakupo finally and decidedly lost his temper.
"I just touched due to instinct, but there's nothing I really want to say,
It hurts, so please touch me, breathing hard, we feel like we could rise up the sky―"
"WOULD YOU TURN OFF THAT DAMN MUSIC!" Gakupo screamed over the noise and both Gumi and the music suddenly went silent.
Gakupo sighed and enjoyed the silence that was so soothing after all the hectic noise. It felt like he was depressurizing. Once he'd gotten control of his temper he turned to Gumi who sat puckered faced and wide eyed waiting to see if he'd blow up again.
Gakupo smoothed his hair back and sighed. "So what your saying is I shouldn't have a relationship at all ever as a Vocaloid?"
Gumi stared at him for a moment petrified, and then shook her head no.
"Then you're saying that if I do have a relationship, it shouldn't be with Luka, but with someone my fans pick."
Gumi stared at him intensely. She was thinking. What HAD she been trying to say? She couldn't think of an answer so Gakupo sighed and cut their conversation.
"Go Google 'Gakupo X…' and you'll find more Gakupo X Luka than any other Vocaloid, Kaito included." Gakupo shuddered a bit when he added the last part. He liked Kaito okay, and he was a good friend, but that was about as far as their relationship went; or needed to go for that matter. Sometimes the man was just plain annoying.
"But I'm not in a relationship with Luka to earn points with fans. I really love her, and if you respect me you'll respect my opinion." Gakupo's voice was dangerous, and although Gumi had a monologue of things to say, all of them shriveled up when he glared at her seriously.
He wasn't angry. Just serious.
"I'm an adult; Gumi. She's an adult. We're both more than capable of making decisions on our own. So thanks for looking out for us, but don't. We can take care of each other."
Gakupo began to leave the house when he had a sudden idea.
"Everyone eavesdropping on our conversation… I know where you're hiding so come on out already."
At first there was no movement, but slowly Rin, Len, Miku, Sweet Ann, Teto, Ted, Haku and even little Yuki filed into the living room from upstairs, the basement and the kitchen. Yuki had re-captured Picaro the kitten and his legs dangled helplessly as she carried him tucked underneath her arm.
"All right. How many of you—honestly, think you have something to say about me and Luka dating." Everyone raised their hand, even Yuki who dropped Picaro to the floor in the process. The little cat raced upstairs as fast as his baby legs would carry him and Yuki toddled after him with her hand still raised.
"Uh, huh. Now; drop your hands if it is something nice to say. Rin dropped her hand and Yuki was out of sight, so everyone had something negative to say.
Gakupo pretended to inspect the results when actually he was horrified. "So THIS is what they think about us being together. Our own family?"
Gakupo nodded officially, while trying to keep his expression hidden. "Okay, now. I want all of you to just swallow whatever you were going to say to me or Luka, and never let it come up again."
There was a general grumbling from all the Vocaloids present, but Gakupo cut off their moaning. "I don't want to hear it. You're all nosey and butting in where you're not wanted. We don't care what you think about us going out; and we're going to do it anyway."
He turned to leave, then almost as an afterthought he turned around and bowed, "Thank you Rin." And with that he left.
"Man, when did dating get so HARD!" Gakupo grumbled as he stormed down the sidewalk and out into the street. He had felt like a tea pot, screaming full of steam in the house, but now that he was out in the open he felt better. Relieved.
Gakupo was going to turn a corner and leave the Vocaloid family house out of sight and out of mind, when he noticed someone on the side of the house.
He did a double take and saw that it was Kaito in a plain white tee-shirt, staring up into the clouds with a dazed expression.
Gakupo had half a mind to just keep walking, but something made him stop and turn around.
He walked up to Kaito and patted him roughly on the shoulder. "Hey, what's up?"
Kaito gasped and looked at Gakupo briefly. He paused for a moment, and scanned the samurai, as if wondering what to say.
The awkward silence set Gakupo on edge, but Kaito only looked back up and mumbled "Nothing…"
Gakupo could have turned away, but he felt that after being told his 'fans' wanted a GakuXKaito relationship, he was entitled to mess with the younger looking Vocaloid. (Who was actually also older than him.)
Gakupo followed Kaito's gaze and found it directed at a second story window. Curious, Gakupo asked "Whose window is that?"
"….Meiko's." Kaito hesitated to answer. He had gotten tired of trying to 'bump into' Meiko around the Vocaloid house and decided to talk to her face to face. After the strange and embarrassing visit to his room a few nights ago, he had been slow to talk to her in hopes she would explain herself to him. But he hadn't seen any part of her in days.
He couldn't get a response from knocking at her door, but he knew that Meiko was inside because when he tried calling her name, loud music would blast from within until he stopped calling.
It happened at least twenty times. He would try to talk to her and get drowned out by some Vocaloid song. So he waited silently by her door, hoping that she would come out for two days.
She never did.
So now here he was. Absolutely no clue of what he was going to do at her window. Just hoping she might give him another chance, or at least a glance his way.
"What are you going to do? Recite Shakespeare or something?" Gakupo teased elbowing Kaito in the ribs. "But soft, what light through yonder window beckons, it is the east and Juliet is th—"
"Stop it man, that's not even funny!" Kaito exclaimed furiously.
Gakupo suddenly realized how serious Kaito was and decided to save teasing for another day. He glanced back up at Meiko's window and remembered that he hadn't seen her in a few days.
"Man, what did you DO?" Gakupo asked.
"I don't know, but I wish I'd never done it, that's for sure!" Kaito looked wistfully at the window. "If I could take it back, I would do it in a heartbeat."
"Has she said anything?"
"Not one word since you and Luka went out." Kaito bit his tongue and chewed on it for a moment. He needed to think of something, anything to get Meiko and him on at least speaking terms.
"Oh, congrats by the way." He added nudging Gakupo with his shoulder.
"Thanks. Hey, what do you think about us going out anyway?" Gakupo asked inquisitively.
"You're both adults, you can date whoever whenever. It really doesn't concern me." Kaito said nonchalantly waving his hand around, as if dismissing the matter.
Gakupo was ecstatic. He clapped Kaito on the shoulder and hooted "Awesome! Man, I'm going to buy you an ice cream!"
Kaito peeled his eyes away from the window. "For real?"
"You bet!"
Thanks man!" Kaito exclaimed as Gakupo peeled out of the yard and into the maze of streets that made up the sleepy city.
Gakupo felt better. He had a wonderful time browsing the rental movies and had decided to get an American thriller called "Halloween" and "The Nutcracker suite" on a whim. He had gotten into a long and interesting conversation with the store clerk about how the older traditions in Japan were being replaced by the technology aged traditions, and he had gotten the last of Kaito's favorite flavor of Ice-cream.
All in all it had been a good trip and he was glad to have gotten out of the house, but it was going to be hard to face all of the other Vocaloid again.
"How can I talk to them and eat with them and work with them, if I know that they don't support me and Luka?" Gakupo mused this thought with some interest. In the end he figured that he would work with them the same way he always had.
Nothing had really changed except his opinion of the other Vocaloid. Regardless of what they thought about him and Luka going out, he was still going to go out with Luka. Regardless of what he thought of them poking around in his business, he would still have to work with them to make good songs and satisfy his growing fan base.
"I bet in a few weeks, they won't even mind Luka and me." He thought "They'll come to accept us as normal before too long and then we'll have some peace!"
Gakupo's stomach growled meekly. It had been eight hours since he'd last eaten, and his thoughts began to drift from his family and relationships to the refrigerator at home.
The sun had begun to drift lazily down in the sky and dyed the clouds indigo while igniting the sky with vermillion streaks on a yellow backdrop.
Gakupo viewed the colors through the tall buildings and thought of an omelet with ketchup. The neon street lights flickered to life and cast everything in a surreal glow.
Gakupo turned onto a street near the Vocaloid house and saw that something was wrong with the blue neons on the buildings. They flickered instead of glowed and the effect was somewhat catatonic. The buildings cut off the sunset, so the whole street would blink to life in a second of light, and then get cast into darkness over, and over again.
Gakupo felt a chill settle over himself as he felt for his sword at his hip. He was in such a rush to leave the house that he had forgotten it; and it now it lay uselessly on top of a pile of junk in his room. He would have to fight with his bare hands, if it came to that.
"You're just letting your imagination get the better of you." He scolded himself. "It was probably all of the scary art in the horror section of the movie rental. That's all." But Gakupo couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.
The flickering lights had a strobe effect and made him dizzy as he tried to walk straight down the sidewalk. He found himself swerving and nearly ran into a black van that was parked near a bunch of trash cans.
Suddenly the neons went out completely and Gakupo only had the dim, faint glow from the fading sun to see by. He couldn't make out anything more than shapes, but at least he had his bearings again.
He straightened himself up, putting his full weight on the van door as a prop, when suddenly the door slide open and Gakupo toppled to the ground.
He cursed his bad luck and saw by the dim light someone step out of the van and look around. He stood up and brushed himself off.
"I'm sorry, I had no idea there was anyone inside. I just lost my balance for a moment and—"
But suddenly the person seized his arm. Gakupo twisted his wrist and snapped it away from the person, jumping back to what he thought was a safe distance and trying to judge the abilities of the aggressive person.
From behind, Gakupo heard four pairs of feet slapping against the pavement. Behind the person from the van three more people turned the corner up ahead. Gakupo could see from the glow of the pink neons from the next street over that the vagabonds were wearing black ski masks.
One more person stepped out from the driver's seat of the van, which made it nine. Nine people who were obviously up to no good.
"No. It was more than that." Gakupo thought seriously as he sized up the people and crouched, ready for a fight. "They were waiting here for me."
It was too dark to tell anything specific about the appearance of the gang, but all that would matter in a fight would be their movement. Gakupo strained his eyes trying to pick up the slightest indication of movement.
All nine stood a good distance away from him and didn't make a move in his direction. They were perfectly still.
Gakupo hoped that they had guessed his strength and were trying to decide whether or not to retreat, but he knew he couldn't be that lucky.
"What were they waiting for?" the suspense was about to kill Gakupo. He just wished that someone would take a step towards him so he could just get the fight over with. Whether or not he got mugged or beaten didn't matter, all that mattered was that he kept moving and somehow made it home.
He suddenly heard the ringing of metal just above him and realized that something was dropping from the roof. He leapt out of the way just in time, as a crowbar clattered to the ground right where he had been standing. It wouldn't have killed him, but it could have seriously hurt him.
He had jumped to close to one of the masked people and they had tackled him with a mighty roar, pinning him to the ground temporarily. He bucked them off quickly, but the roaring worked like a signal, inciting all of the other people to attack.
Gakupo punched and kicked, but he was outnumbered ten to one. A couple of goons grabbed his elbows and tried to drag him into the van, but he slammed one of them hard in the chest with his right elbow and it gave a very feminine cry of pain
"A girl?" Gakupo was surprised, because his moral code states never to attack women.
Gakupo figured he could belay the moral code of samurai ethics in self-defense, and continued thrashing violently and knocking people back.
He fought hard for several minutes, and no people came by to help him; but eventually four or five masked people tossed him into the van and jumped in with him, shutting the door and locking it.
Gakupo felt utterly helpless by now, since his hardest fighting had only delayed them at best and he was now secluded from any other people, unable to see and surrounded by hostile strangers.
Their hands were all over him and it pissed him off. Everywhere he felt the palm of somebodies hand trying to restrain him he threw a punch or a kick blindly. He landed a few hits on the car seat, but eventually he hit somebody hard enough to send them crashing into the car door.
"Godddammit! Get the plug! Somebody? The PLUG!" Another girl cursed and barked commands to her comrades and Gakupo automatically felt sorry for hitting her with his full strength, but he figure he could apologize later when he wasn't in danger of something called the plug.
Six pairs of hands grabbed him in harmony and flipped him over onto his stomach, but only five pairs of hands held him down as he fought his absolute hardest to wriggle out of their grasp.
The sixth pair had icy cold fingers than crept along the back of his neck and made his hair stand on end.
They worked their way down into his shirt where his cord ports were located. He had various plugs and wiring which all connected to one of two ports located on the back of his neck; but these people couldn't possibly know that, could they?
His question was answered when the sixth pair of hands jammed a foreign cord into his fat, wide port that made him go limp from head to toe. He lay with his face pressed into the floorboards of somebodies car, cursing his weakness and burning with pressing questions.
Who were these people? How did they find him? And more importantly, how did they know he was a Vocaloid? And what would they do with him now?
As he slipped into something like a troubled dream he figured that he would soon get some answers when he woke up. IF he woke up.
The black night, faded into a black sleep.
Gakupo woke up startled and uncomfortable. He was wet and itchy and SORE! He looked up with bleary eyes and found himself face-down in his own yard. The dew in the grass had bled through his clothes, making him itchy.
"Gakupo! Man, what the hell happened?" Kaito was screaming right into his ear and shaking his shoulder lightly. Gakupo figured that was what woke him up, though he couldn't be sure anymore. His mind felt heavy.
"These people in a van… what time is it?" Gakupo said the first things that came into his mind, which happened to be two sentences run together.
"You've been gone three hours. What van?" Kaito helped Gakupo up and the samurai patted the grass from his front.
Three hours! Not only had Gakupo made it home, but it was still the same day! What kind of kidnappers were those people?
Gakupo grabbed Kaito's arm for support. "Listen, you were here this whole time, right? Waiting for Meiko? Who dropped me off here? Who was it?"
"I'm sorry Gakupo, I went to the bathroom." Kaito apologized sincerely.
"Bah!" Gakupo bit his thumbnail and wondered: "What did they put in my port? Why drop me back at home?" But he had no answers, or even theories.
"What happened?"
Gakupo walked inside briskly and decided not to leave the house alone for quite some time. He had a feeling, just an instinct, that if they went after him, they might want the rest of the Vocaloids too.
"Kaito, get inside. I have to explain everything to the master anyhow, but I want you inside now. It might not be safe outside anymore." Gakupo knew he seemed cryptic, but when Kaito looked longingly towards Meiko's window he pulled the Vocaloid in by his arm roughly.
"If she won't talk to you in the house, what logic is there in thinking she'll talk to you through the window?"
