Disclaimer: I am not liable for any frustration or negative emotions this author's note and series of filler material may elicit. So please, refrain from unnecessary flaming or defaming. It will not make the next chapter come any faster.

Blondes Are for the Birds

Intermission

Dear Readers,

When I actively read fanfiction stories, I hated these "author's notes" as much as you do. Honestly, it annoys me immensely that I'm writing one instead of posting the next chapter. I always saw these things as a petty way for a writer to give his/her readers a whole slew of excuses for not updating their story or putting their story on a semi-permanent or permanent hiatus.

However, I'm writing this now because I believe that I owe all of you, especially one reviewer who called herself "Emi," a shout out and an explanation.

This story will be continued and ultimately finished. I'm determined for that to be so, but unfortunately, my life at the moment is more demanding than it has ever been before. I'm busier, happier, and more social than I was in the past, but because of the upbeat tone to my daily life, I'm suffering a horrible case of writer's block in all of my creative projects.

Depressingly enough, I write best when I'm feeling negative emotions like sadness, anger/frustration, insecurity, rejection, or antisocial escapism. And I'm sure none of you want me to force myself into becoming miserable. Or bored. Or to avoid my real-life responsibilities (like I'm kind of doing now).

I honestly tried to write the next chapter. I really tried, but I ended up scrapping most of the material I wrote because it just didn't feel right. So, while I'm entrenched in writer's block, I've been researching Japanese culture, entertainment, language, etc. and the general setting of Tokyo more than ever before. I can't promise you all that I'll be able to finally get into gear and start up again sometime soon. But I can promise you that in my little moments of spare free time, I am going to try my best to crank something out.

Sincerely,

Auntie

P.S. Emi, I'm talking directly to you now (if you're still looking at this story over a month later). You were so sweet to offer to help me write my story! Sincere reviewers like you always inspire me. But I'm afraid Blondes Are for the Birds is something I'm going to have to finish myself. However, if it's all right with you (and if you've gotten a fanfiction account), I may consult you for research purposes or to get a second opinion on things, especially the emotional development of characters, since you felt like you really connected to them. That would be extremely helpful.

Okay. Despite all the delays and the lame author's note, there is one upside to all of this. I'm a nice person, so I'm going to throw you all a few bones. Enjoy some rough-draft spoilers and/or extra fluff material!

For you fluff lovers: A series of Rin/Len scenes that popped randomly into my head whilst writing

For The Granny Next Door

"What's that?"

"Cookies. But they're not for you."

Len snagged one from Rin's plate anyways.

"Hey! I made those for the granny next door!"

Len continued to munch on the cookie. "I'm doing her a favor. Tastes bad."

"Then why are you grabbing another one?"

Sweet Tunes

"You always shut everyone out with those headphones. How can what you're listening to in there be more important than what's out here?"

Len glared at Rin, and then grunted to himself. He pressed his thumb to the "pause" button of his mp3, pulled off his headphones, and held one earpiece to his left ear while pressing the other spongy headphone to Rin's right ear. Then he turned back on the music.

At first, the high-volume sound cut into Rin's eardrums, but as she gradually got used to it…

"Oh." Her eyes widened, and she began to listen intently. "Oh!" Unconsciously, Rin closed her eyes and hummed, "Mmm."

Just when she had started enjoying herself, Len snatched his headphones back.

"Now do you get it?"

"No," she stubbornly insisted, crossing her arms and turning her head away. She secretly wanted to ask him what the name of the artist was, but her pride got in the way.

Rin Gets a Zit

A red bump had popped up on Rin face overnight. Miserably, she stared at herself in the mirror.

"What should I do about this?"

"Hm?" Len picked this shameful moment in her morning to come into the bathroom.

"Nothing."

He followed her line of vision into her reflection and saw the spot on her cheek.

"Zit?"

"No. I got a bug bite."

"Well, if you want to get rid of your 'bug bite,' you squeeze it," he demonstrated by moving his pointer fingers towards each other in the air, "like this."

"Ew." She looked at her stepbrother with distaste. "No. That will only make it worse."

"Then I don't know what to tell you."

"Wow. Thanks for being so helpful."

"Anytime." He smirked to himself as he walked back out into the hallway. "People who actually have acne need all the help that they can get."

"Hey, I don't get them that often, and you've had a zit before! I've seen it!"

Len stopped in his tracks and retraced his steps back into the bathroom. "Where?"

"On the back of your neck."

"…" He gave himself a moment to process that statement. "When exactly were you staring at the back of my neck?"

"I sit behind you in history, dummy."

"Oh yeah, right." He rubbed his neck self-consciously and mumbled, "Well, if you really want to do something for it, try soaking a washcloth in icy water and pressing it to the spot for a minute, and then use cover-up after that."

"…How do you know something like that?"

"Um, T.V. commercial?"

Rin amended her previous statement. "Then how did you remember something girly like that?"

"Remember? I can't forget anything."

"Oh. That sucks."

"Yeah. There are so many school textbooks that I can't get out of my head! It's like I'm a walking cheat sheet on test days."

"Okay," Rin's eyes narrowed, "now I don't feel sorry for you."

Here Comes the Thunder/Don't Treat Me Like a Shoujo Heroine

"Ah, it looks like a lightning storm."

Rin groaned. "That's no good. I've always hated lightning."

As if her words had been a cue, the sky lit up, and searing light bathed Len and Rin in a flash of electric white. Rin instinctively squeaked in surprise, and Len turned at the noise. Before she had time to even think, a pair of arms pulled her into a foreign lap, and her face was buried in the fabric of Len's t-shirt. His body muffled the noise of the preceding thunder.

He was warm, so Rin momentarily forgot that a.) she didn't have astraphobia and b.) whose lap she was sitting on and could only think, 'This is kind of nice. Like having a man-sized electric blanket.' However, the heady sound of Len breathing in her ear shocked her back into her senses.

"Let go of me!" she shrieked.

"I thought you said you were afraid of lightning?"

"No, I just don't like it! It's loud, and it wakes me up at night. That doesn't mean I'm a wuss!"

While Rin scolded him, Len tuned her out and continued to hold her tightly.

She glared at him and cleared her throat, waiting for him to get a clue. When he didn't respond, she yelled, "So, get off!" and pushed him off to the floor beside the couch.

"Ow! What was that for?"

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "When I say get off, I'm not telling you, 'Please, keep invading my personal space.' I'm telling you to get the heck off of me!"

And… For you Spicy!Len lovers: A rough draft of a series of possible future scenes

Game Time (Why did I give it that name? No clue)

Background Information: The setting of this first scene is Rin and Len's new high school, Yonezu High. Luka has been introduced as a character and becomes friends with Teto and Rin. Len is in an "on-again, off-again" relationship with Miki (and perhaps several other girls), after he broke up with his girlfriend from middle school (who probably will be Sonika).

Holding their bento boxes, Teto, Luka, and Rin walked to the school courtyard to eat their lunch out in the breezy fall weather. However, when they had almost gotten outside of the school, Rin came to a sudden halt. Oblivious to the fact that she had left her blonde friend behind, Teto continued to have a one-sided conversation with Luka.

"…sure that you don't want to go shopping with me and Rin? I know you hate the mall, but you are so pretty and tall! It would be so fun to dress you up! Plus, since I have pink hair to, I'll know just the colors that will work with…"

Noticing Rin's absence, Luka turned around and raised one strawberry-blonde eyebrow in her friend's direction.

"Something wrong?" Luka asked bluntly, ignoring whatever Teto had been chattering about.

Rin came out of her daze. "Biology. I forgot my biology notes in English!"

Teto perked up. "Don't we have a quiz later today in bio?" She gave Luka a meaningful look.

Luka thought about it for a moment, and then nodded.

"Oh crap!" Rin squeaked, smacking herself on the side of the hand. "I forgot to study! Gotta get my notes."

To lighten her load, Rin thrust her bento box and books in Teto's general direction.

"Will be back. Bye!"

She zipped back down the hallway, leaving her friends in the dust.

Luka blinked several times and then continued towards the glass doors. Teto resumed her cheerful babbling.

"You know, I never would have thought it was true, with her dyed green hair and all, but Gumi has a pretty good sense of style! I went shopping with Miku and her the other day and…"

Since the English classroom was on the opposite side of the school, Rin was huffing and puffing by the time she had reached her destination. Jiggling the door handle experimentally, she was happily surprised to find it unlocked. Slipping inside, Rin glanced around to see if Hiyama-sensei has propped her book up on the ledge along the class white-board, where he usually placed "lost and found" items.

She couldn't see it there, so she moved towards her desk near the back of the room. Her notebook, with countless stickers and random messages doodled in sharpie by Teto on it, didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. She checked in her desk's cubby and got down on her hands and knees to search the floor.

"Ah ha!" She snatched up her notebook triumphantly. Somehow, her notes had shifted under another student's desk.

Just as she was about to get herself off the ground, the class door creaked open. Rin instinctively hit the dirt. Had Hiyama-sensei returned from his lunch break early? She tried and failed to hide herself completely behind her desk. Technically, students were not supposed to loiter around in empty classrooms during a teacher's off-period. She could get detention! Or worse…

Arms over her head and eyes tightly shut, Rin braced herself for the worst and tried to breathe quietly. It was just a matter of time before she was discovered.

…but that moment never came. After a few drawn-out seconds of agony, Rin cracked open one eye. She could hear faint whispering at the front of the classroom. Wait, why were there two voices?

Unless Hiyama-sensei had developed a split personality, there were now two other people in the room. Rin listened in. One voice sounded distinctly male, the other female. Rin's eyes widened. What was Hiyama-sensei doing here with a woman? A chill ran across the back of Rin's neck as she imagined situations that her otaku volleyball teammates liked to fantasize about. An impressionable student falls in love with a mature teacher; they have a secret affair…

She shook the thought out of her head. Naw, Hiyama-sensei would never do something like that! Rin bit her lip. Right?

Her curiosity got the better of her, and she painstakingly turned to peek around the leg of her desk. It was hard to tell at this angle, but whoever they were, neither of them looked anything like Hiyama-sensei.

The girl with her back towards Rin had long, cranberry red hair, and when she laughed, a shock went up Rin's spine. It was Furukawa Miki, the girl who had snubbed Rin the first day of school.

Rin could feel a headache coming on. She was imprisoned in a room with a girl who hated her guts. Great. Could things get any worse?

"Mmph. Ohhh, Len…"

Apparently, they could. Rin's mouth dropped. From her angle, she hadn't been able to see the person in front of Miki, but as Rin shifted slightly to the left, she could clearly make out a messy blonde pony tail.

"Len…" Miki moaned appreciatively as Len buried his face in her neck, trailing his lips against her skin.

Rin watched as Len lifted his head at the sound of his name. Light strands of hair framed his piercing blue eyes. She knew he couldn't see her from there, but his gaze had a watchful quality to it, like a leopard stalking its prey.

Len's presence gave Rin the strange impression that if he had bothered to look her way, he would have been able to see right through her desk, into her eyes, and beneath her clothes. The thought sent a shiver of goose bumps over Rin's skin.

With a predatory smirk, Len brushed his hand up the side of Miki's leg, hiking up her skirt as he leaned in for another deep kiss.

Rin made a face and quickly looked the other way. Oh gosh. Whatever Len's weird ex-girlfriend from his old school had said was true. Len had become a bona fide playboy, with Miki's porn-star style sighs to prove it.

Whimpering softly, Rin covered her ears, but she couldn't block out the live sex tape playing in the room.

If Rin hadn't hated Len before, she certainly loathed him now. Stupid horn dog. With the two of them grunting and groaning like barnyard animals, Rin was trapped. If she got up, they would see her. If she stayed, she would probably go insane.

Why, why did people have make-out sessions at school in an empty classroom on Hiyama-sensei's desk? Couldn't they have just waited a few more hours until school was out, saving poor bystanders like Rin?

Face heating up with mortification and disgust, Rin could suddenly relate to a rabbit caught in a smelly cage. Her heart beat faster; she could feel herself becoming sweaty, and her mind buzzed. What to do, how to get out, where to go?

Thousands of images flew back and forth in Rin's brain. What could she do? Her head throbbed from the sensory overload. Gotta get out of here!

Her thoughts exploded.

Blank-eyed and feverish, Rin shot up. She stood stiffly, facing the back of the classroom. Everything went silent, but all Rin could think was, 'Where is the exit? Get me out of here!'

Looking around wildly, she caught sight of the classroom's second entrance. Thank God for back doors! Rin made a beeline for the exit without a glance behind her.

Len stared after his stepsister in shock.

Wondering why Len had stopped his ministrations, Miki inquired, "Uh, something wrong?"

He was gazing blankly at the back wall. Flustered and red-faced, Miki stuck out her lower lip. "Um, hellooo?"

Since he wouldn't respond, she followed his line of vision. Her burgundy eyes widened. Wait, who was that blondie running out of the classroom?

"Len, what is going on?"

"Someone saw us."

"Wha…?" Miki's face turned a darker shade of red. "I thought you said that no one comes here!"

He shrugged, pulling himself away from her. "We'll finish this later."

"Later?" Miki's mouth hung open in disbelief. "This isn't something you can put on hold, jerk!"

Completely ignoring her, Len ran out into the hallway. Miki crossed her arms and huffed impatiently. When he didn't return after a few minutes had passed, she began to amuse herself by fixing her skirt, hair, and the buttons on her top. One thing she loved and hated about Len was that he could ignore her, snub her, and leave her, but she'd always come back wanting more.

She sighed in exasperation. If there was a woman in the world who could keep Kagamine Len in line, Miki would have to personally congratulate her. Len listened to no one and respected no one. Miki blew a piece of hair out of her face. Even his so-called girlfriend.

A few nights after the previous scene…

Perfect. Len gasped. Every inch of her was perfect, from her tulip pink mouth to the ends of her curling toes. Against the wrinkled sheets of the bed, her creamy skin shone faintly from the city lights outside his window.

The friction between their bodies was like a drug to him; his skin heated and his mind clouded with ecstasy. He pressed his mouth firmly against her stomach, breasts, and mouth as she wove her delicate fingers through his hair. Giddy with pleasure, he stopped for a second to worship her body and gently traced her collarbone with kisses.

He'd never held a girl like this, he thought as he kissed her trembling lips, afraid that if he embraced her too roughly, she would break, or if he didn't hold her tightly enough, she would disappear.

Sensing fear in the desperate movements of his mouth and hands, she made him pause. Her hand caressed his cheek, and her eyes traced his features. He breathed her in, closing his eyes to capture the moment.

Then she said his name, "Len," as if it was the only word that mattered in the world.

His eyes shot open, and a flash of light from the window illuminated the room.

Short blonde hair fanned out against his pillow. Deep blue irises with yellow bleeding out from the pupils, like sunflowers in her eyes. This face…

"Rin?"

And that was when Kagamine Len woke up. Sticky with sweat, he gasped and choked for air, struggling to escape from his tangled sheets and stumble across the cold floor into the bathroom. Without bothering to take off his clothes, he turned the shower on full blast, hoping the icy water would somehow erase the dream from his mind.

But no matter how long he stood under the chilling torrent, two impressions remained branded in his mind. The bright, blinding blue of her eyes and the sound of her voice calling his name.

Len.

With his water-darkened blonde hair plastered over his eyes, he blindly pressed his forehead against the shower wall and threw his fist against the tiles.

"Damn it!"

What the fuck was Rin doing inside his head?

The morning after…

The last thing Rin would have expected Len to do as she waddled into the kitchen was to fall out of his chair.

As she walked inside the room, stretching and yawning a half hearted, "Good morning," she reached to push her shirt up above her stomach to scratch the side of her itchy ribcage. Len muttered a "Morning" back and returned to his bowl of cereal. Then he did a double take and looked back at her in surprise.

His eyes locked in on the exposed skin of her midriff; he made a sound halfway between a grunt and a snort, lost his balance, and fell back-first onto the floor.

"Uh." Rin didn't know what to make of the situation as Len groaned from his landing spot on the ground. Was Len usually this clumsy? In concern, she came up behind her stepbrother, standing above his sprawled-out figure.

"Um, you have to be careful. These chairs aren't that steady," she said as she squinted down at the dark bags under his eyes, "Did you not sleep well?"

"No, I slept…" He stopped midsentence and muttered something incoherent to himself with his head turned away.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he insisted, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the kitchen ceiling's lights. "Can you step back a little? I can see up your shirt at this angle."

"Eek!" Rin squeaked, pressing her t-shirt to her body, and kicked Len in the head. "Pervert!"

Rin huffily ignored Len for the rest of breakfast, busying herself with preparing her usual morning meal of clementines, a tall glass of milk, and toast spread with butter and jam. When she started digging through the fridge, Len asked if she could hand him the orange juice to refill his empty glass, but she pretended not to hear him and plopped down into a seat along the kitchen island.

Len rubbed his aching head in exasperation and grudgingly began drinking the milk from his cereal bowl.

"Mmmmm! Ahhhhh..."

Len spat milk.

"Oh my God. Soooo. Gooood," Rin moaned.

Len's brain stopped functioning completely. What the fuck? His nightmare had come to life. He resisted the urge to pull out all of his hair. Why the hell was his stepsister making noises that sounded like a recording from a porn video? Shit, and now he could feel a boner coming on.

Suppressing his raging hormones, Len turned to Rin and asked as calmly as possible. "Um, what did you just say?"

Embarrassingly enough, he had been so surprised that a little milk had gone through his nose and was now dribbling down his face.

The white liquid running out of Len's nose made Rin forget why she was not supposed to be talking to him, so before biting into another segment of her favorite citrus fruit, she chirped, "I said, this clementine is so good!"

Rin munched on her tasty treat. Len simply stared.

"And you might want to wash your face. You have milk…" she leaned over towards him and ran her finger from her nose, over her parted lips, and down her neck. "…all over here."

Len watched as her hand moved down her face, and he knew that words were coming out of her mouth, but all he could hear was the sound of her breathing.

The movements of her pink lips, her long legs swinging over the edge of her chair, her stupid food orgies, he couldn't take it anymore. He had to leave. Now.

Ignoring Rin, he picked up his cereal bowl, dumped its contents down the sink, wiped the milk off of his face, and left the kitchen without a backward glace.

"Len?" Rin called after him in concern over his strange behavior.

"Len." Her voice echoed in his head as images from last night's dream flashed before his eyes.

"Shut up!" Len muttered desperately to himself, covering his ears.

Stupid wet dream. Stupid stepsister. Stupid hormones!

A Little Random Rin/Teto Interaction (to lighten things up)

"When you told me he was a jerk, you failed to mention that he was a hot one!"

Rin shrugged. "What difference does it make?"

"The difference between a good romance and a bad one. Who would watch a movie about a girl falling in love with an unattractive jerk that she used to hate? Stick a smoking hot actor in the unattractive guy's place, and suddenly, it's the greatest romance ever!"

"God." Rin rolled her eyes. "Why did I even bother asking?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you are a disloyal, shallow excuse for a friend."

"Hey! Unlike you, I can appreciate aesthetic beauty while cognitively ignoring internal flaws."

"Like I said, shallow."

Last but not least, here's something I wrote just for this "Intermission"

Rin had expected Len to leave her room after her verbal tirade, but he had paused at her door and hadn't moved any further. What was stopping him from leaving?

His head turned back towards her, and Rin froze. In a movement too fast to follow, Len was on her bed again, inching towards her until their faces were aligned a centimeter apart from each other.

"What are you doing?" He was so close that her warm breath rebounded off his skin and brushed against her heated cheeks.

Without a reply, his hands slammed against her headboard, trapping her head between his arms as he straddled her, and his body hovered over her own. She had to stay to hear him out, even if he had to force her to.

"Something I should have tried a long time ago." Hoarse sincerity roughened the words as he whispered,

"I love you."

Rin's mouth dropped. Len…love…what?

Her first instinct was to deny it. In reaction to his words, she gasped and shook her head from side to side, eyes tightly closed.

Even though he had expected nothing more than this, Len's face fell. "You don't believe me?"

"No!" He had been nothing but hateful and nasty to her until just recently, when he had suddenly decided to change. What else was she supposed to think?

With uncharacteristic uncertainty, Len bit his lip, and then he murmured, "Then let me show you."

Rin's eyes shot open in terror. "Wait, Len, this is a mistake. You shouldn't do this; it's…"

"You know what I could do to you right now?" he demanded, interrupting her. Rin shook her head again. "I could kiss you. I could make you scream my name. I could erase your mind of anything but me, and your body would be mine."

Coming from anyone else, Rin would have written off those words as a cocky exaggeration. But from Len, she knew he was telling the truth. She had seen what he had done to Miki, to all of those other girls. If he really wanted to, if he really cared enough, what would stop him from doing the same to her as well?

Rin had never believed herself to be a weak person, but the shock had made her arms and legs feel as useful as limp noodles. She'd have to fight her way out of this, but after her long, hard, emotional day, she wasn't sure if she had the strength to do so. She'd have to somehow convince Len to stop. He would have to listen to reason.

Just when she opened her mouth to try to persuade Len, he began to speak again.

"The thing is…I'm not."

Rin looked up in shock.

He maintained direct eye contact with her as he slowly explained, "I would never force that on you, Rin, because I want you to want me."

Stripped bare, Len's cleared eyes allowed Rin to see straight into him. He was a heart-broken child, a boy desperately in need of the one thing that she didn't think she was able to give him.

"Do you understand?"

A.N. Whew… for 14+ pages of material, out of all the chapters I've posted this took me the least amount of time to put together. How wild is that? Maybe it's because it's easier for me to produce random, irrelevant fluff than substantial material, and because I enjoy torturing Len so much... Haha.

Please be sure and review! Let me know which bonus scenes you enjoyed the most or the least and why you liked or disliked them! It'll help me figure out which ones are worth editing and putting back into the story, and it'll let me know what kind of stuff you guys like the most. :) Thank you!