Chapter 12

Returning to class after the incidents that had taken place yesterday was awkward, to say the least. Once Rin had finished her conversation with her reflection in the bathroom, she had decided to walk home (despite it being a little too far for that) just so she wouldn't have to face anyone. Now, though, there was no avoiding it, and she simply had to brave the fact of going to school. When Rin entered the classroom, it immediately became silent, and everyone avoided her gaze. The silence was painfully suffocating as Rin walked over to her desk and sat down, using her long bangs to hide her face. She had actually left her usual white clips at home today for this very reason. Noticing the uncomfortable atmosphere of the room, Luka began teaching her lesson, drawing everyone's attention away from the blonde-haired girl in the back. For once, Rin was a little grateful to Luka.

Things returned to normal fairly quickly after this, almost as if Rin's little outburst yesterday afternoon had never occurred. By the time lunch arrived, everyone went off as per usual, laughing and chatting amiably amongst themselves. Rin, too, did her usual thing, which was to sit at her desk without a word for the duration of the lunch period. Though, something that wasn't a normal occurrence did happen that day. A girl with purple hair held in low twintails and wearing a bunny hoodie (someone Rin vaguely remembered taking note of on the first day, but couldn't quite recall her name) walked over to Rin's desk.

"Hi, um, you probably don't know me, but is it okay for me to eat lunch with you?" the girl asked, looking a little nervous.

Rin was surprised that anyone would ask something like that, but she of course didn't let that show. Instead, she decided to respond with a question of her own.

"Why?" Rin questioned, looking up at the girl with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, that girl that you usually eat lunch with isn't here today, so I figured you might be lonely..." the purple-haired girl trailed off.

Rin glanced over at the desk where IA sat and found that, sure enough, the pink-haired girl wasn't there. Honestly, until now Rin hadn't noticed.

"I'm not lonely," Rin said firmly, fixing the purple-haired girl with a cool gaze. Then, she shrugged nonchalantly and continued with, "But do whatever you want. It's not like I can stop you."

The purple-haired girl smiled faintly and sat down at the unoccupied desk beside Rin. She set her packed lunch on the surface of the desk before opening the box up to take out its contents. Rin, uninterested in what the girl was doing, started to zone out while staring at nothing in particular.

"Do you want one?" the purple-haired girl's voice broke through Rin's thoughts, making her jump slightly in surprise.

Rin turned to look at the girl and saw that she held a half of a sandwich in each hand. "What?"

"Do you want some of my sandwich? I noticed you didn't have any food, and I don't mind sharing so..." the girl trailed off, looking sheepish.

Rin was about to refuse, when suddenly her stomach gave a rather loud rumble. Instead of looking embarrassed like most people would, Rin just looked irritated. Before, she could've gone all day without eating and wouldn't have any problem at all, but once IA started practically force-feeding her everyday, she supposed her stomach got used to the extra nutrition. Rin decided this was yet another annoyance to add to the ever increasing list of problems she had with the pink-haired girl.

"Fine..." Rin grumbled reluctantly as she took one of the offered halves of the sandwich.

The girl smiled at her as Rin began to eat, before her eyes suddenly widened in realization. Upon seeing this, Rin raised an eyebrow as if to say "What?", while still continuing to eat.

"Oh! I just realized I never introduced myself! Ahh, how embarrassing..." the girl trailed off at the end, looking a little distraught, then shook her head and gave Rin another smile. "My name is Yuzuki Yukari."

"Rin Kagamine," Rin introduced with a mouthful of sandwich. Like manners were any concern to her.

"I kind of knew that already... Most people in our class do, actually," Yukari pointed out awkwardly.

Rin swallowed the bite of sandwich in her mouth and frowned. "Right..." she muttered. Of course they knew her, what with that huge outburst she had had yesterday. Though, if everyone knew who she was because of that, why was this Yukari girl talking to her now when they'd never even exchanged glances before?

"I'm not here to bully you or anything like that, if that's what you're thinking. I don't have any ulterior motives, actually, so please stop looking at me like that," Yukari said quickly, waving her hands around in a nervous sort of way. She didn't seem like the kind of person who even know how to bully someone, though you could never be too sure.

Still, Rin turned her distrusting gaze away and went back to eating with a thoughtful hum. Why did it seem like she always attracted the strangest people? Yukari soon began eating as well, and their conversation became nonexistent for a while. Once the lunch period ended, Yukari packed up her things, gave Rin a quick but friendly goodbye, and headed back to her desk. Rin didn't say anything and went back to what she usually did, thinking to herself, as Luka's lessons started up again, that Yukari was strange yet not exactly unpleasant.


The day only got weirder after that. Rin sat in her living room at home, flipping through the TV channels for something to watch out of boredom, when suddenly there was a knock on the front door. Confused, Rin got up and walked over to the door, wondering who it could possibly be. They never got any visitors except for the occasional salesperson or, even rarer, one of her mother's friends from work. More than a little curious, Rin opened the door and gave her usual greeting.

"Can I help y-"

Though, as soon as she saw who was standing on the doorstep, she stopped talking and stared in stunned silence. There was IA, carrying her school bag and looking at Rin with her typical blank expression that was always so infuriating. Now, though, the sight of the girl was just unexpected and shocking.

"What are you doing here?" Rin asked, narrowing her eyes after getting over her initial shock.

"I'm here to work on our project. We haven't made any progress at school, so I figured I might as well try coming over," IA replied simply, using that "isn't it obvious" tone that was often present in her voice.

"How the hell do you even know where I live?!" Rin questioned incredulously.

"I just asked a friend of yours earlier, and they told me," IA answered.

Friend? As far as Rin knew, she didn't really have any friends. Though, she didn't think much on it at the moment, choosing instead to try and figure out how to get rid of this pink-haired pest.

"Well, I don't care why or how you got here, I just want you to leave," Rin stated curtly.

"Can't. My parents won't be here to pick me up for another two hours," IA responded.

"Then walk home," Rin retorted.

IA shook her head. "I live too far away for that. Plus, it's dangerous for a girl our age to walk by herself, don't you know that?"

"I do it all the time, and I'm fine," Rin pointed out, sounding increasingly annoyed.

IA frowned slightly. "Your parents allow you to do that?"

"Well, not exactly..." Rin muttered.

"Ah," was IA's only response.

They both fell silent, and IA returned to staring at Rin with this almost expectant gaze. Things went on like this for a good minute or two before Rin groaned in exasperation and stepped back.

"Fine, you can come in, but if you touch anything I'll kick you out into the street," Rin snapped in a clearly annoyed tone. This was stupid, why was she doing this, she felt absolutely dumb. It was too late now, though.

"Thanks," IA said simply while walking inside.

Rin scowled in irritation as she closed the door behind IA, who seemed to be looking around the living room curiously.

"What? Never seen a living room before?" Rin asked sarcastically.

"Never seen yours before," IA responded plainly.

It was these kinds of remarks that irked Rin the most. After all, she couldn't think of a single way to comeback to that.

"It's nice," IA continued after a moment. "It looks like something out of an interior design magazine."

"Might as well be," Rin sighed.

"Why?" IA tilted her head slightly as she asked this.

"My mom's really into decorating and stuff. She doesn't do it much, but when she does, she practically remodels the whole house," Rin answered airily as she flopped down onto the couch once more.

IA gave a thoughtful hum and took a seat on one of the chairs in the living room.

"We need to decide what we're going to do for our project. We haven't even chosen a topic yet, and other groups are already working on their posters or research papers," IA stated, laying her school bag on the coffee table and pulling out a notebook and pen.

"Well, I don't have any ideas," Rin said disinterestedly. She couldn't care less about the dumb project, to be honest.

IA sighed softly and began writing something in her notebook as she spoke. "Music it is, then."

"What?" Rin looked over at her just then.

"The theme is 'ways of expression', so music should work fine, right?" IA explained.

"We are not doing music," Rin said firmly.

"Unless you have any better ideas, I'm not changing it," IA stated, not seeming to care or even take notice of the tone of Rin's voice.

"I'm not going to do a project on music! Not in a million years! So change it!" Rin practically shouted.

"Is there any particular reason why this topic bothers you so much?" IA asked, glancing up from her notebook at Rin.

"It doesn't bother me," Rin responded curtly.

"What a lie," IA muttered.

"It's not a lie!" Rin exclaimed in irritation. Then, so softly it was almost inaudible, she said, "Music has never bothered me at all, I love it too much. That's why I can't do it."

She felt so pitifully weak in that moment that she wanted to curl up and die. Sharing even this tiny piece of importance with IA made her feel like she was completely naked before her, a feeling that was both nauseating and heart-wrenching. It was sickening.

"If you love music so much, then wouldn't you want to do more with it?" IA questioned in a gentle voice, the first real change in her tone that Rin had heard besides the occasional mild irritation that Rin sometimes managed to elicit.

Rin shook her head vigorously, thinking that maybe if she shook it hard enough she'd be able to shake away her emotions as well. "No way. I gave up anything that had to do with music over a year ago."

The reason for this had been that as much as Rin loved music, Miku loved it twice as much. Miku was always singing whenever she could before, and even started writing songs in the few years prior to her hospitalization. Her voice was so light and bubbly that anyone who listened to her couldn't help but smile, and Rin was no exception. Some of her best memories were of her and Miku singing together in front of others at parks or alone in their rooms. So, once Miku was forced to give up music, Rin gave it up as well. She figured it was only right, and anything else would have been selfish on her part.

For some reason, IA frowned at this, and she muttered something Rin couldn't quite hear.

"What?" Rin questioned.

"Nothing. Just saying that I'm still not going to change it," IA replied.

"What?! But didn't I just tell you that I refuse to do a project on music?!" Rin exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes, but you still haven't given me any other suggestions, so it stays," IA pointed out.

Rin was practically steaming at this point, so she stood up and began storming out of the room, calling over her shoulder, "Fine, do whatever the hell you want! But I'm not helping!"

With that, she went into her room down the hall and slammed the door behind her. IA, unphased and even slightly amused, continued writing in her notebook with only one final comment on the conversation.

"I'm still not leaving your house, though."


A/N: I feel like these are becoming monthly updates -_- I'm really trying guys, but time is just not on my side. Speaking of time, I'm going to keep this short for once because it's 12:40 at night where I am right now and I have school tomorrow. Oh, joy~ -n-

So, as always, please tell me what you think of this chapter and the story thus far, I love hearing all of your beautiful opinions~

Goodnight!