Chapter 4*

Len felt his heart pounding in his chest, and (much to his embarrassment) he was pretty sure Kaito-nii could hear it, too. He busied himself by pretending to look out the window, but really he couldn't focus on anything other than the fact that he and Kaito were now totally alone. Taking a deep breath, Len reached into his pocket, unlocking his iPod and pushing play without ever pulling the device out. His headphones were down around his neck, but the music (turned up to what seem people would probably find unbearable) drifted comfortably up and out, reaching Len's ear but just barely evading Kaito's.

"Oh, that reminds me." Kaito suddenly spoke, and Len turned to look at the older boy, blinking curiously. "Your gift is under the seat, if you want it now."

Gift? "Oh, okay." Still feeling a little flustered and a little puzzled, the young teen leaned forward, reaching under the seat and pulling out a medium-sized square box, wrapped in black, blue, and yellow paper, and topped with blue and yellow bow. Kaito flashed him a grin, and Len smiled as he carefully peeled back the paper. At first he was greeted with a plain brown box, but after battling with the layers upon layers of tape, the flaps popped open and Len felt his heart warming. Inside was a new set of headphones, a sleek jet black customized with streaks of blue and yellow, as well as his signature scrawled over the left ear in yellow.

"K-Kaito-nii…" He smiled. "These are awesome, thank-you so much…!"

Kaito chuckled, pulling to a smooth stop at the red light. "I saw you looking around on line the other day." He admitted. "And I can tell from here that the sound quality of those has started going out."

Len let a sheepish grin flit across his lips. "Yeah, I've had them way too long." He immediately paused the song that was playing, taking his iPod out. He switched the sets, pulling the new pair experimentally over his head. He settled them onto his ears first, an instant smile breaking across his face as he realized they fit so perfectly it was already hard to imagine taking them off.

Wanting to thank Kaito again, he pulled them down around his neck, turning to face the older boy as he began to push the gas petal as the light turned green.

He turned his eyes away from the window just in time to miss the diesel truck that came barreling towards them and the rest of the crossing traffic through a light that was obviously red. There was a blare of the huge 18-wheeler's horn, nearly deafening Len as he gasped, turning to face the window again only to let out a strangled yell as the semi plowed into the passenger side of the car, sending them skidding sideways, before rolling to an upside down stop. Len was barely aware of the ringing sound in the back of his head, and Kaito's face was blurry and red as he hung awkwardly upside-down in his seat belt. Slowly, the ringing turned into more of a "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding" and the blaring of a train whistle drowned out Len's unfocused thoughts, until with a sudden jolt, everything flashed white, fading to black only a heart-beat afterwards.


Sirens. Sirens and flashing lights. Kaito groaned, forcing his eyes open. His head hurt. His head hurt really bad. So did his shoulder. Something was dripping down his face—rolling slowly from his jaw bone, to his cheek, then his forehead, and getting caught in his hair. It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't actually running down his face, but actually up his face. He heard the static rush of a walky-talky, and jumbled voices.

Am I He looked up, which he figured faintly must actually be down, and blinked in surprise when he saw not the wheel and dash, but the roof of his car. Then he looked down (up?) and felt shock leaking through his limbs as he realized the entire front of the car was destroyed. Suddenly, he remembered. He remembered the blaring of the semi's horn, and the sudden impact when it plowed into the passenger side of his car.

"Len…!" He rasped suddenly, struggling to turn to the side. Burning pain shot up his shoulder, but he didn't care. To his left, Len hung like a broken doll from his seatbelt, blood dripping steadily from his face, like backwards tears. His hair was matted with the sticky red substance, and with a sudden chill Kaito realized that for that much blood to be in his hair, he had to be bleeding a lot more. "Len.." He coughed again. "Don't worry, Len," the bluenette felt horror settling in his chest, turning his own blood to ice. "I'll get you out… I'll get you out…" He started twisting in his own seatbelt, gritting his teeth against the pain.

"Sir? Sir are you okay?" Suddenly there was a flashlight, and Kaito flinched away from the painful beam of light. It disappeared for a moment as the other person seemed to straighten up again. "Two people—driver and passenger. We need paramedics, quick. And tell those ambulance drivers to hurry it up!" He bent down again. "Don't worry." He said, shining the light in on Kaito again. "We're going to get you guys out of there. Please try not to move until we can open the door—if your neck is-"

"I don't care!" Kaito gasped, shaking his head. "Len, he-he's hurt! Badly!"

The person—Kaito couldn't tell if he was a police officer or a first responder, or maybe neither—frowned, wrinkling his eyebrows as he shined the light past Kaito to Len's small form. The man swallowed hard, before straightening up again, static reaching Kaito's ears. "Light a fire under those ambulances' asses." The man hissed, as if trying to keep his voice down so that Kaito wouldn't hear. "The passenger side was nearly destroyed, the passenger is losing a lot of blood."

There was more sirens, and more voices. Kaito did the best he could, reaching over and grabbing Len's cold fingers. They were as bloody as his face. "I'm here, Len," he whispered. "I'm here…"

A God-awful screeching sound made itself present, and Kaito cringed as they quite literally tore his door off of the car. "Give me your hands, sir." An office leaned in, grabbing Kaito's arms near his elbows while another ducked his head in and cut the seat belt from around his waist and neck. Between Kaito's limited help and the two strong first-responders, they eased the older Vocaloid out of the car. He tried to stand, and stumbled, the same two first responders helping support him as they took the few steps needed to take him to the nearby stretcher.

"L-Len," he objected, trying to stand and go back to the car.

"Please remain seated, sir, they're trying their best to get him out as we speak."

A police officer jogged over to where they stood. "Hello," he greeted him, pulling out a small notepad. "I'm going to need your name, please."

"K-Kaito." The bluenetter struggled to see around the officer, but everything more than a foot away from him was unbelievably blurry and painful to look at. "Kaito Shion."

The officer blinked. "The singer?"

"Yes." He realized that he was shaking. Not from the cold snow whipping around them. He was shaking from fear. A couple yards away, he saw what appeared to be the truck driver taking (and failing, from what Kaito could tell) a drug and DUI test. It hurt to look that far away, so he quickly turned his gaze back to something closer. The officer kept pestering him with questions—his age, his birthday, emergency contact information. "And what's the name of the passenger?"

In the distance, where his car lay just to the side of the train tracks, he heard a holler of, "Stretcher! Now!"

Kaito swallowed hard and tried not to look. "L-Len. Len Kagamine."

"Emergency contact information?" He asked, more softly now, trying to keep the man's attention on him.

"The s-same as mine. We… We live to… Oh God no…" He caught sight of the stretcher over the officer's shoulder, carrying the small broken form of Len. He looked even worse now than he did when Kaito had first woken up, cuts and bruises lacing his body where the semi had destroyed his side of the car. Paramedics were rushing all around him, calling orders and reminders and lifting him into the back of an ambulance. Kaito felt the world tilting away from him, his vision fading in and out.

"Easy…" The officer caught his arm. One of the paramedics was urging him to save the questions for later, and with a sigh, the officer nodded. His partner had flagged down all of the witnesses, anyways. "I'll be back to ask you more later, Mr. Shion." He gave a curt nod and jogged to the first car in the line, leaving Kaito with his own pair of paramedics urging him to lie down as they lifted him into his own ambulance, slamming the door shut and telling the driver to step on it.

"Where's Len?" He groaned, feeling his headache getting worse by the minute. Suddenly he felt so tired… Like he hadn't slept for days.

"He's in the other ambulance," one paramedic responded gently, running a few quick tests as the sped along. Kaito felt his eyelids drooping, and one of the paramedics got an alarmed look, shaking his shoulder. "I need you to stay with us," she sounded firm and gentle all at the same time, but distant, like she was standing at the other end of a long tunnel. A long, dark tunnel… Despite their urging and pinching and prodding, Kaito let his eyes slip shut, coughing slightly as fatigue crashed over him. I'm so sorry, Len He winced as fear and pain lanced through his chest, the image of Len's bleeding face burning in his mind. I'm soHe remembered Len's bright smile as he saw his new headphones, the glow in his bright blue eyes. Would he ever smile like that again? Would he ever smile at all? Sorry


So… What do you think? ^^ I know the wreck might seem kind of unbelievable, in all technicalities they should probably both be dead, but… *shrugs* What can I say? I enjoy exaggerating dramatic things like car wrecks^^ Tell me what you guys think, and as always I'm open for constructive criticism! Lots of love~!