A/N:

I had time to kill.

I can't say if giving her my full attention at the get-go was a great idea to begin with. Let me start over.

For years afterwards, Miki's and Akaito's status as a couple crumbled after Mikuo had asked Miki, for the umpteenth time, if she and Akaito were still together. She only shrugged, not sure even herself about their status. But she also didn't seem to care. That wasn't new. Even though I came in pretty late, I had to bite back my disdain at the sight of the trio in our homeroom class. Dell was busy smacking on gum since he couldn't breathe in those cancer sticks, Mikuo was making an idiot of himself because Miki was present, and Ron was actually doing a good job staying out of the mess and just blending in with the rest of us. He was reading a book the whole time and he didn't even flinch when Mikuo landed on the ground. That must have happen many more times than I realized.

When Miki finally noticed that I was there, she looked me over and started fussing over my appearance. In the past, her friends would always tease us for acting like some kind of couple because of the way she would act and treat me. Those were the few times were she would act as if though she cared for me, but that's what it probably was; all an act. Although I let her get away with it because I was too tired to complain about her tucking in my shirt and fixing up my tie that morning. Fighting for your breakfast is a lot more difficult than it sounds when you have carnivores for a siblings. When she felt that she did a satisfactory enough job, she'd slap my back, as if though putting on a label on me, and would cry out,"Miki Hiyama approved!"

I winced. "U-uh, th-thank you?"

With a sly smirk plastered on his thin face, Ron leaned over from his seat and gave Mikuo a sharp jab to his ribs. "Maybe you should come to school looking like that one day and have Miki's hands all over-"

Mikuo's face turned a bright shade of red and sputtered,"Sh-shut up!"

I couldn't help but scowl. Even though I wanted nothing else to do with her, she was still a person, a girl, above everything else. It was so tiring hearing them use her self as a reference for something else, and most of the time it was in such a lewd context that it flew over her big hair. Despite her vast knowledge, that sort of stuff was a mystery to her and she would only blink in confusion, trying to dissect the information so that it would make sense to her. I started to tell them - again - that Miki wasn't some kind of "toy", but as always, Dell was always the eager one to cut me off.

After he knew that it was safe to ask, Mikuo turned to Miki again and asked his daily question: "Are you and Akaito still dating."

She looked at him before nibbling on her yellow sweater sleeve, apparently thinking about it. "I. . . guess so. . ." She mused, a little unsure. I wouldn't blame her. The majority of my family don't even know about the relationship's position anymore. It was almost sudden, the day Akaito and Miki just stopped talking. And they went pretty steady for roughly four years. And that was a long time.

However, that didn't deter the teal-haired youth. "Awesome!" He beamed. I'm pretty sure he didn't get what she meant because Ron just shook his head and Dell and I rolled our eyes. He turned red and sputtered an apology. I didn't care for one, no difference to me whether or not he did.

Before either of us could say another word, Dell flipped his cell from his pocket and checked the small screen before nudging Ron and Mikuo. "Time to go guys, or we'll end up like Kaito... Not that Mikuo would mind-"

"Can we just go now?" He interrupted, clearly not over his earlier display.

When they were finally out of the room, I decided to sit in my usual seat, at Miki's left. She was quiet for a while, nibbling on her sleeve again. She was clearly thinking about something. She only chewed on her hair whenever she was nervous or scared, and she would chew on her sleeves if she was busy thinking. I wonder if she even realizes that? Probably not since she didn't even know about her nose flaring at every lie she told. Finally, she spoke up.

"Hey Kaito?"

"Hm?" I hummed, turning to look at her.

Her red eyes were wide with curiosity when she turned to look up at my face. "Know anything about a new transfer student?"

I shook my head. I did just get here after all. "No, why?"

She shrugged and tried to smooth out of her abused sleeve. "The guys were making a big deal of one coming over to the school, she's gotta be something to actually get their attention."

"Miki, they're guys talking about a girl, it can't be much. Besides, they talk about you." I mumbled the last part. I knew she wouldn't be too happy with that.

She tilted her head my side, straining to catch what I had said. "What was that?"

"I said they talk about minchis." I quickly made up. Thankfully, it was enough to distract her.

"What are those?"

"N-nothing."

Before she could open her mouth again to question me, our teacher came through the door and placed her satchel on her desk. "Good morning, class~" she chimed and waited for us to repeat. When we did, she smiled softly at us all and rearranged her glasses. "Class," she began,"We will be having a new transfer student grace our classroom."

Miki visibly sat up straighter and smiled. This was the piece of news that she was waiting for.

Our teacher spoke up again."I would wish for you all to be kind to our new student. Please welcome the prestigious Hatsune Miku!"

The sound of heels clicking on the waxed floors, the click of the doorknob being turned and opened, and a faint scent of lavender and french vanilla entered the room. Miki and the rest of the class looked towards the direction of the door and saw a petite young woman who had strikingly similar teal hair that was held up in high pigtails and had the most clearest pair of aquamarine-colored eyes.

A faint blush was prominent on her pale complexion and she averted her eyes from the class for a moment before shyly smiling at us. "Hello and please take care of me, I look forward to meeting each and every one of you~!" she said in a clear and sweet voice.

The whole class became a mob that couldn't be tame, even by Yukari-sensei's commands. The whole class had run up to her, minus Miki and myself, as they ran up to her and asked for a handshake, an autograph, or at least be able to touch a lock of her hair to prove that she was real. One of Japan's most popular pop star was present in our class. As an enrolled student.

While many didn't bother to hide the excitement, Miki appeared unimpressed as her eyes bore into Hatsune-san's body, almost as if though she was studying her. "I don't like her," she bluntly stated with a slight click of her tongue in contempt. After staring at her for another minute or two, she slowly shook her head. "Can you believe her, Kaito? Demanding all that attention on her, she should at least try to -" She stopped when she looked up at my face. Her eyes were narrowed in suspicion and brought her hand up to lightly brush my cheeks with the ends of her fingers. I nearly jumped out of my seat from her touch and felt my heart race at a faster pace. That look in her eyes scared me a little.

I made a move to ignore her by staring right at the new girl, hoping and praying that the heat on my face would die down, but oh gawd, I just knew how to attract trouble. Suddenly losing interest in her horde of fans, Hatsune-san noticed that I had shifted my attention towards her and her formally shy smile changed to a not-so-shy one.

The girl pushed through the crowd and walked towards us. She made her way through the desks and plopped herself right on top of Miki's desk and crossed her legs while she looked at me with innocent eyes.

"Hello there, I don't think you've properly introduced yourself?" she mused.

I knew that I must have looked flustered in front of everyone. I wasn't used to girls acting like that. Other than Miki, I was friends with Teto, Momo, Iroha, Rin, and Mizki. But neither of them have acted like that, and certainly not Miki. "O-oh! U-um, I'm K-Kaito," I answered.

She giggled. "Well, nice to meet you K-Kaito!" she said with a light lilt.

I let out a nervous laugh, not really appreciating the teasing but that could be because I hadn't experienced that before. In either case, Miki also wasn't too keen on it.

"Excuse me," she piped up with a bored look. She crossed her arms for an added affect.

Hatsune-san returned the same look of indifference. "What do you want?" she coolly asked.

Miki looked ready to rip her face off they way her nails dug into her arms. "Don't treat my best friend like that," she snapped, adding emphasis on the fact that I was hers,"that was rude and-"

"It's okay, Miki! She was just asking for my name." I had to cut her off. I didn't want any trouble on Hatsune-san's first day, and I certainly didn't want to be the cause of it all. For what I had believed was a trick of the eyes, I noticed that Miki's eyes had softened and she actually looked hurt. But it only lasted for a second because she soon averted her eyes when Hatsune-san sat behind me, so I wasn't sure. And it really didn't seem to help when Hatsune-san had to speak up again.

"My, my, K-Kaito, you have a very nosy friend~!"

Though I don't disagree with that statement, Miki was making me feel uncomfortable acting like that. For years, she had been acting somewhat. . . bubbly. Happier, really, ever since she and Akaito had started hanging out. They'd walk home from school arm-in-arm, talk about what they did, complain about the amount of work giving to them. I couldn't recall a time when she wasn't smiling. Whenever she frowned, it was fake and had learned to successfully manipulate my brothers by using "the pout" to her full advantage; the only feminine tactic that she knew. Until that time. For the next four years, Miki would have a reason to revert back to her old, meloncholic self. Unfortunately, I found that out all too late.

The severity of the issue didn't show itself until much later in the year during English. It was a class that I had shared with both girls and it was during this time that I was starting to shy away from Miki and would always seat in the middle. Between the heated glares shot at each other, they were incredibly competitive with each other, vying for the highest score. Miki always trumped her, however. That year also brought forth a new member to our school, a face very similar to a feisty redhead who had silver hair and was of Germanic-Japanese decent.

Piko wasn't a frequent visit during the school year, unless it was summer break. He was the quiet sort, only inputting his two cents when asked for but had a temper and a tongue that rivaled Miki's. They were related by blood by some unusual family members. While it was a mystery how Miki and her late brother had red hair and eyes from a dark haired, dark-eyed father and a rose haired, blue-eyed mother, Piko seemed to be the greatest oddity of them yet. Even though he had a full head of silver that was his natural color and a mix-matched optical pair of green and blue, his mother had mouse brown hair and chestnut eyes. And his father had royal purple hair and deep sky blue eyes. And they claim that he is their biological son.

Maybe I should have studied to be a genealogist, or at least used Ancestry dot com or something to track down their family tree to answer that mystery, but it never seemed to bother them. So I never actually said anything about it out loud and I just left it alone.

Piko and Miki were related to each other on both sides of their families. His mother, Meiko, was actually Kiyoteru's older sister, two years his major. But she wasn't the only sibling that he had. She had a twin, who was married to Luka's younger brother, Luki. And you know what? Meiko's twin is a guy. But everybody seems totally okay with that, especially since they were married in Sweden, and it was legal to do so. Miki always seemed to love the idea of having two uncles. Funny how my dad was always wary of them every time they came to visit the neighborhood from their "cozy" home of Manhattan. Miki's family is one in a million, if you ask me.

Well, I got kind of off topic there, but I kind of also wanted to give you some background information about them. Piko was born in some part of Germany, the idea being his mom's entirely. He seems to hold some kind of hatred against her, but I never knew why until I heard that by the age of eighteen, all citizens that were natives of the country had to enlist into the army. It was a mandatory decree. He ended up just fine, though, thankfully.

Anyways, off topic, again. Because of the distance that was steadily growing between Miki and me, I was with Gakupo, Len, Miku (she later told me to call her that and to stop being so formal around her), and a few other people whereas Miki stayed at the other side with Piko. They quickly became labeled "undesirables" after a dispute that Miku and Miki had, but it was only a small spat between them when it came to who sat where in the class. Miku happened to want to sit in the same seat that Miki did. Of course, she refused to move. Until Miku made a move to want to sit on my lap and Miki slipped out of her seat before we knew it.

Piko and Miku were on bad terms because of a mistake that she had made that, really, anybody would have made. Unlike Miki - whose face was a little bit longer and more oval shape - , Piko's face was rounder and looked softer around his cheeks. His eyes were fairly large, but they were always half-lidded, like he was bored all the time, and he had long thick lashes that most of the girls had to fake it to get that look. Miku made a comment once about him having the kind of skin that took girls forever to find the right creams. She even added that it was a shame that he was a boy, his looks were wasted on a person who could care less. That was the only compliment I've ever heard of her say about him. If I could call it that. She bumped into him, apologized, said that he looked like a pretty girl, and then he went off on her and, well, apparently hating the same enemy could be genetic, I guess.

But she had plenty to complain about Miki. Miki's face was too long, Miki's cheekbones were too high and showy, Miki looked like an anorexic, Miki's freckles on her nose was atrocious (I've always thought those five, light specks on her nose were kind of cute because Kaiko had some, too), Miki's legs were too thin, Miki was too short, her hair was too long, et cetera et cetera. There was always something, but she got better.

Miku's first week was kind of rough, with all of the unwanted help from others and she decided to make her point come across when she one day announced at lunch that I was to be her "escort". It was random, I admit, but I couldn't help the color rushing to my face from feeling all of those eyes boring into my being. I was targeted as the most hated guy because I - somehow - had managed to grab her attention against everyone else. I'm pretty sure that there were others that were a lot more capable of actually having zero problems talking to her (she didn't mind my nervous stutter, thankfully. She said she found it kind of "adorable"). But, regardless, I was her aide and she seemed content with that. She was a lot nicer than what I had expected. You would think that a star like herself would be a bit spoiled (well, I say a bit, mind you), but she was pretty calm and nice to talk to. It felt pretty different being around her, without any fear that if I said anything wrong that she wouldn't penalize and criticize me for it. Somehow, I felt even more comfortable speaking with her than with somebody who's been with me my whole life. She made it easy to smile and to laugh. She actually made me feel as if though she cared for what I thought and those old feelings that I had held for Miki started to dissolve, little by little, so that the next time she and I accidentally brushed against each other, I felt nothing at all.

However, the times where peace was available was short-lived, and it all had to happen in English. It was a little more than five months after Miku's arrival and once our teacher walked in and after the class had finally settled down. He wrote a sentence on the board and turned to Miku. "Hatsune-san, could you read this sentence aloud for me?" he asked.

Miku smiled and gave him a short nod. "Of course~!" She chirped, flipped her hair out of the way, which barely brushed against Len's face, and stood up from her seat to recite the sentence.

The sentence that he wrote out was "The man surprised the dog". An easy one, actually, since Miki's mom used to help us with our pronunciation. Miki was pretty quick at learning Japanese because her mom kept teaching her as she got older, but she would sometimes help her with English, too, since she is still an English girl. However, I didn't think that Miku would stumble a bit on the word "surprise", but I guess it was expected because she wasn't used to the language, maybe.

Our teacher gave her a tense smile because he knew as well as we all did that Miku hates being wrong that she's wrong, even if it was pretty obvious. But she never acted out because of it, just tried to fish her way out of it and still keep her way with it. So he tried to take it slow. "Errr, Miku? You mispronounced 'surprised'."

She gave him a quizzical look. "No I didn't, I said it the way it's suppose to be said," she said defensively. She was so sure of herself and the silence that filled the room proved that nobody was going to go against her word. But we thought wrong.

"No you didn't," a familiar voice shot at her, "it's not pronounced as 'suhpleesed'. You pronounce it as 'sur-prized'." The faint accent showed through and I noticed that the whole class went dead silent. You could probably even hear a pin drop on the carpeted floor. Miki openly denounced Miku. She seemed a little surprised herself at what she had done and looked over to her cousin's direction to see a proud smirk on his face while the rest of the class was in awe.

Miku looked at her long and hard before giving her a tense smile. It was so forced that you could even see her lips twitching. She tried her best to talk in her sweetest voice possible when she addressed her antagonist. "Oh. Well, y-you are right, aren't you? Being from England really did have it's advantages, didn't it?" She said the last bit through her clenched, pearly white teeth.

Miki quirked a brow, possibly surprised that she knew that much about her, and shrugged. "I guess you could say that, but I only lived there for less than five years of my life and currently you see me in Japan. My parents don't even speak it anymore, I guess I just have good retention memory is all," she as blasé as possible.

And then that was when I noticed a change in Miku. She stared down at the smaller girl with malicious eyes, her hands were trembling at her sides. There wasn't a single doubt in my mind that she wanted to inflict some kind of pain to her for the public humiliation. As much as I dislike that sort of attitude, Miki could have kept her mouth shut for once and to stop acting like such a know-it-all and just let Miku have this one. After all, she was new and she would learn, why bother arguing? The class was eerily silent, anticipation Miku's next move. However, we never did get to see and hear anything else between the two because our teacher cleared his throat and announced that we should just carry on with a different task. He even thanked Miki for "helping" Miku.

And that was when I learned that Miki was more of a hellion that what we gave her credit for when I saw her smirk at Miku, forcing her to snap her pencil in half to compose herself. Enough was enough. If Miki could think that trying to get the upper hand on someone who was not only new, but a person who was of a pretty high caliber like Miku, then I would be the one to tell her otherwise.

So I did just that when out teacher dismissed us.

"Why did you do that?" I demanded once I caught up to her brisk pace. I hadn't realized that we had stopped speaking for each other for so long that I mistook her look of surprise as one that tried to hide the shame of what she did.

Instead, she shrugged again and kept her eyes focused on what was going on in front of her. "Why not?" she asked. "I was just helping her is a-"

"Oh don't give me that bullshit." The words slipped out of my mouth before I knew it. I didn't know why I was suddenly so angry with her, but I just was. It was like all of my pent up frustrations with her just decided to come out of hiding and wanted to attack her at full force.

She stopped walking, mouth slightly agape, that I had uttered something like that towards her. But she shook it off as her mouth closed up, her brows tightly knitted together and her lips tugged down to form a scowl. "What the hell are you talking about? I got annoyed that she acted like she said it the way it's suppose to when she obviously didn't and then try to bulldoze it over-"

"Because you don't like her." I interrupted.

"So? I was only trying to be a good peer and-"

"Miki, don't lie to me. I know when you are, I know how you treat people by how you talk to them. You should give Hatsune-sama more-"

"Hatsune-sama? Hatsune-sama? Since when did you start calling her that?" She shouted.

I didn't think I'd give her that much respect either, but I somehow felt pretty defensive over her now. We both didn't seem to notice the crowd of people were attracting when I shook my head in disgust."Will you just stop for a moment and listen to yourself-"

"Listen to myself?" She cut me off. "What about you? If I had a tape recorder right now, I'd love to replay your voice back to you and prove to you just how stupid you sound defending a pompous bitch like-"

"Don't you dare call her that!"

I could see how tightly closed her jaw was out of anger and her usual pale cheeks changed to a dark red.

I never realized just how childish she appeared with those tricks until then. What I had found endearing in her was now just plain annoying and immature since she was already fifteen. I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at her. In all honesty, this was really the very first fight she and I had when we were both fed up with one another and let our words get the best of us.

"What is it now? Are you going to pout because you can't have it your way? It doesn't hurt to be nice to people you know, even if-"

"Well look who's talking! What about Dell? What about him and his friends? They're mine and you hate them! You haven't even tried being nice to them, I don't even-"

"And just why the hell should I? He tried to fight you-"

"We were nine! That was ages ago! He's made plenty attempts at trying to be nice to you, but you just keep pushing him aside as if though-"

"Like I'd ever forgive that bastard-"

"Now don't you call him that!"

"Oh, so you think that you're the only one who can call my friends names like that?"

"What the fuck are you talking about? Miku isn't your friend, there's nowhere in hell you'd ever befriend a girl like that-"

"And what made you think I liked being friends with girls like you?"

Bullseye.

I really didn't mean it the way it sounded. She probably thought I was referring to her condition when I really meant by her usual attitude when she wasn't lost in her head. I could never have been angry enough to hit her so low but it was too late. Her eyes dulled in hatred for me and I saw how they began to glimmer, a sign that I was familiar with whenever she was close to tears, and clenched her small fists. "Hm, that's funny," she started, "you had no one as your friend when we were little. From what Akaito had told me, you were always that sad, lonely little brat who stayed indoors during the day, just because he didn't know how to talk to people."

I sharply inhaled some air to keep myself from talking tensed up. I didn't' understand why I decided to back down at the worst possible moment, but I still did it. Maybe I wanted to hear her out, hear what she really thought of me all those years together, the lies she hid from me because she had the gall to believe that I couldn't take it.

"Oh, and don't let me stop there. Who was the one who helped you when things were bad? Who stood up for you when you needed help? Who showed you the secret pond that you and I used to spend most of our summer days in?"

I remembered that. We were seven then, just a few weeks before our experimental kiss, when the sun was unforgiving and we were all too lazy and hot to go anywhere but hide in the tree house. Even that didn't spare us from the discomfort as it soon began to feel stuffy with our body heat. She fanned her face with a piece of paper with a doodle she made of me, my brother, and herself with her brother's favorite pen.

"It's soooo hot!" she whined. Akaito rolled his eyes at her but I nodded in agreement with her.

Just like all of her little quirks, her ahoge actually perked up and she turned around to face us, her eyes holding an impish gleam to them. We both recognized that look and Akaito was the first to bolt out of there, suddenly discovering a reservoir of energy that he probably hadn't realized that he had. So he left me alone to suffer. And that was when I couldn't say no to her and I let her take me away. She tried being playful by covering my eyes with her hands and telling me clues on how to get there. When I felt something cool and wet touch my feet, I immediately backed up and knocked into her. We almost fell backwards, but she dug her heels into the mud and kept us upright and pushed me forward, surprisingly not too hard so that I wouldn't fall into the pond. When I turned around to look at her, she had this annoyed look on her face and crossed her arms across her chest.

"You almost stepped on my feet. I don't have shoes on," she stated and even showed me her muddy feet. Before I could apologize, she started taking off her t-shirt.

"M-Mii-chan!" I stuttered. "Wh-what're you do-"

"Gonna swim. What else does it look like to ya?" she asked and revealed that she had a black tank top underneath. "Do ya know how?" She asked. Her smile practically broke her face when she saw me shake my head. "Really? Lemme teach ya!" she demanded and started to strip me of my shirt. For someone so small, she managed to easily remove my shirt and hung it on a tree limb along with hers.

True to her word, she really tried to help. It was possibly the scariest thing I'd ever gone through, even though she clung to my waist when we went deeper. She held my hands when she tried to get me to float on my stomach and held my neck when she got me to lay back. It was hard for me to float at first, but I managed to get the hang of it. It was a bit awkward at first, our little chasing games when I was doing the dog paddle while she was moving as graceful as I had ever seen her. I could see why she liked swimming so much besides being a great way to cool off on hot days. At first, my mom became upset, as usual, when she saw how soaked we were and when Miki admitted that she took me out to swim. She cut my mom off to tell her that she taught me how and that she should think about taking my brothers and I to the pool at the park. Those were just one of the few fond memories that I had with her. But they did her no good now.

"Shut up!" I shouted back at her, forcing my mind out of the past and forcing myself to focuse on what was happening right now between us. "You didn't know-"

"Know what? Know that you were socially deprived until I came along? There was plenty of kids out there in the neighborhood to play! Dell wasn't the only one. There's Ron, Nero, Ted, Zansho, Gumo, Li, hell there's a whole bunch! But you stuck to me, like some kind of lost puppy. Without me, you'd still be a sad and lonely boy!"

She probably didn't realize that she was practically yelling at me in the hallway. She was just that livid. As instantly as her tantrum came, the color from her face darkened, but in embarrassment rather than anger. She had sounded so vindictive that I actually felt those words cut through me.

Eyes wide, breathing ragged, I almost couldn't believe that that was happening. Was that what she really thought of me?

Suddenly, our promise to each other came back to me at that moment, the childish pinky promise we made to each other to always be friends when we were alone in her room. If I had known that something like this would have happened between us, I would have never asked him to do such a thing. I wouldn't be feeling like I had just severed the last strain of our bond. All because I felt that she was unjust to one person.

We just stood there for a long while until we both turned towards the direction of tapping heels.

"Oh my gosh! Those were horrible things to say to poor Kai-Kai!"

I knew she meant well, that she was worried for me, but Miku, if only you knew Miki, if only you knew what kind of person she is. Miki acted on actions alone and tackled her. It was almost déjà vu, except Mikuo wasn't around to help and that it was Miku that was underneath Miki, not Dell. It took several people to try and stop her from trying to do more damage to Miku, including myself. I was about to grab hold of Miki's wrists and drag her away, but someone else beat me to it and actually dragged her away by twisting her arm behind her with one hand while keeping a fistful of her hair in his other. I wanted to stop him, to tell him that that was no way to hold her, he's hurting her! But Miku called my name and I knew that I shouldn't let Miki be my priority any more. After all, didn't I mean nothing to her? Just some boy she took pity on. From then on, I made the choice to be with her because she actually made me feel wanted, like I wasn't the third wheel, like she really did value my opinion. I'm sorry Miki, but you had your chance, you just didn't know when and how to take it.

Word Count- 6,011. Total Editing Time- 52 minutes and 04.5 seconds

And in case you're wondering who Piko's dad is, he's the UTAUloid Deon. Just figured that he'd be a good to be paired up with Meiko. XD