Shrimpy: I wanna ramble.

I don't usually have any outlines and I develop plots as I go along, which means virtually everything is a vague idea until the chapter is published, and hopefully that explains why I add in details that seem really awkward or out of place? I'll say this; Miku was intended to know Len in her childhood from the get-go, but I realized I had no way to introduce the concept so I just plopped in the idea of Ren-kun the Puppy.

It didn't occur to me that this was a bad development technique until last year. And it's really weird because when I have an idea that I'm super NOT serious about I write a prompt and the plot, which is hella easier than arguing with myself and a raccoon every chapter. I get refined "Plot Lots" and then I delete them and they're gone and I don't even blink can someone tell me what's wrong with my brain please?

She was twelve years old turning thirteen in summer steam yet to come. She liked to call it an in-between thing and not a definite twelve. But nonetheless she was twelve, still scheduling appointments to trim her bangs and growing out her teal twin tails that flowed past her waist. She liked it long; some days it would be the only thing she liked about herself. That was to be expected of a girl her age.

She wasn't asking for her puppy this year. Papa had long expressed disapproval, and Mama froze up when she mentioned Ren, like something out of guilt. She'd loved the dog very very much too. She still remembered her first and only friend all those years ago, half her life ago. Someone she could count on simply to love her, someone she wanted to protect and be with forever when she was in a place where hardly anyone wanted to love anyone anymore. It was different now - they had three other children and another was in proceedings, soon to join their snug family. She didn't have to worry so much about being lonely at home.

Mama was telling her to come home quickly, because she'd have to leave for work right after an early dinner. The texts gleamed on her phone screen, affectionate language somehow looking cold and distant when it was a ripple of technology. She gazed through the window next to her desk.

The world was grey and silver mist. Rain all morning could be blamed for the desaturation of the previously blooming trees. It would've been a nice if it didn't ruin all the plant life.

She noticed two cliques on the other side of the room. One blond girl was glaring at a raven, a girl with silver hair was napping next to them, and a pinkette that bounced like she could defy gravity was talking to...no one in particular. Loud like a child. On the opposite corner were a bunch of students popular for athletics and good looks. They were laughing at every word that fell out of the mouth of...a boy. A charming one, with warm gold eyes and hair the color of cotton candy. He had an inexplicably cool smile.

Miku forced herself not to stare. She didn't know how much social damage that could do her, and she didn't want to find out. But they looked lively, and that boy made her preteen-heart skip across beats in a melody that she didn't remember from anywhere before. Other girls must've felt the same way, admiration for someone that seemed as confident and casual as an adult. They must be having fun, those two groups. She soon forgot the messages from her mother and tried in vain to listen in on a level of friendship that she didn't possess. She was okay, people knew her, but they didn't quite invite her to lunch or the mall, or movies. She was the girl that you said "good morning" to, not the girl you asked to go anywhere.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he laughed conclusively. His voice had a more final sense than any they'd ever heard. It was his word, not another's, that decided things. They whined, but waved his departure and turned in to their own private conversations. He sauntered up the aisle, passing Miku by mere inches before he dropped an adorable ice cream keychain. She recognized it because Kaito-kun had gotten her one once.

She saw it happen. He was right there. She should be a good classmate. If she was too scared to tell him that his keychain was about to be lost, what was she doing in junior high? Her courage was slipped from her fingers like a fistful of fine sand. The girl had to act before she lost every grain. She bolted up, awkwardly announcing, "Excuse me, you dropped your KawAiisu!"

Everyone froze to look at her, relatively expressionless if you didn't count a couple of condescending smirks. She winced so hard thinking that Kaito's spirit in heaven was wincing too, hearing him say, "oooh, this one's gonna burn." And he was the one that came up with "KawAiisu." She imagined a ghost puppy hiding it's face in second-hand shame. These thoughts, she mused, are probably the reason I don't have normal friends.

The boy blinked at her. She knelt down awkwardly to pick it up, taking the little pastel cone like a precious gem. Then she stood up slowly and extended her arms. "Th...they really are cute. Be careful not to lose yours."

She was pretty sure Ren swallowed hers.

He smiled. "Yeah. Thanks a lot for saving my...KawAiisu." When his fingers brushed her palm she felt shockwaves and nerves that she never knew existed. Her hand snapped away. Her lips quivered like they were about to form a smile, so she lowered her face. This grin was bigger than others before it, splitting her face into two anxious pieces.

"You're welcome," she replied softly. "H-hey, um, what's your name?"

"P-" He shook his head. "Everyone calls me Yuuma! I'm Yuuma. That's my name. Can I know yours?"

"My name is Hatsune Miku." Hide that silly simper! God, if he saw her face!

"That's pretty," he complimented. "Well, seeya." With a wave, he was gone. Such a relaxed person. He was too cool!

And she really, really liked him.

Planning was easily done in a quiet environment. It would be simple to jump into someone's house and shoot them. After that you could gather their valuables and have some random sleaze pawn them. Then leave the gloves and the cops would know not to look into it any further than what they'd been shown - they were paid, why should they bother to do a job that wasn't theirs? They'd see a clear case of breaking and entering, burglary, murder.

He didn't care. He wasn't that invested in the law. He just knew that he had a heavy hand in it, and Shion Corp was quietly deciding who was above it. His biggest concern at the moment was the floor plan, a bright blue with guarded locations in orange. The easiest way in, he decided, was the son's window. Their profile suggested that the boy snuck out from there regularly. And that the man's wife was having an affair with the local Gigolo. And that the man liked peanut butter and banana sandwiches. And that his wife was always throwing the bananas out, which pissed him off enough to fill seven pages of his hidden diary with a passive-aggressive entry about it.

Len was sure he knew this man a lot better than he needed to.

Ruko stirred in her place like an animal. "G'mrn'n'," she mumbled. "M'back's on fire." Her bangs hung low, tangled in her eyes.

"Good morning," Len returned noting that the window was almost pitch black at eleven-fifty-three. So was the far corner of the room. He readjusted the laptop, which was baking from use, on the small of her back. Her stomach was pressed on his thighs. Her weight bothered him just slightly, but she'd been running on manic caffeine for two days. Ruko hardly got out of bed in the morning. He'd prefer if she got some sleep in and didn't crash on duty.

"When did the kids go to sleep?" She yawned. Again, they both shuffled. The muscles in her body pulled taut as she extended to maximum capacity it was a very cat-like tug, which he knew well. Len just ignored it and worked around her. He replied to her question; "Don't know."

"Did Miku-Miku-sama ever come down for food?" She sounded slightly hopeful, dropping her chin into the cushion again.

"Sure." She was too afraid to act even remotely ungrateful, even if Ruko's best dish was in a mug.

"Is she asleep?"

"She's finishing her homework."

"What's she working on?" Ruko purred, resting on her elbows. Her feet, enveloped in shark slippers, swung up and down in the air. They were beat up by then, because she kept forgetting to put on her shoes to go out.

Len retraced the route from son to father's room several times. It was quick. No one was guarding in the halls. The path was highlighted. "Literature."

"Is she good at it?"

He typed a note briefly, then sighed. Her delicately penned purple notes did nothing to help her. "She's complete crap at anything academic."

"Have you been watching her?" Her final question, probing. Her focus glowed beneath her mop of raven hair. He knew she was looking at him from the corner of her eye.

"No," he answered, "she just talks to me sometimes. It's awkward."

She giggled then. "You make it awkward. She's a teenage girl, you know, and she's trying from the bottom of her heart."

A bit more typing, some clicking. "I don't know how to talk to her." Because he did and he didn't. Picking on her came easy, it was all that you learned from other mutants in the compound. He knew her well enough to do so. At the end of the day, the problem was him. He had a foul mouth and practiced very few conversational topics. It was much better if they avoided each other whenever possible, and he thought that she felt the same way.

"You can ask her questions too," Ruko advised, "learn by asking her, not by observing her. It's considered rude. Plus it makes her feel more comfortable when you act like you care about her feelings."

"You're an expert on human teenagers?"

"I still think I am, Len. I think you are too." she responded with a shrug. She turned onto her back, which he allowed by lifting the laptop, and shimmied off of his legs. She sat next to him cross-legged. He point-blank stared at her, which she returned with gentle enthusiasm. Ruko was hard to scare away. It was one of her best and worst qualities.

"Which do you mean?" He asked tentatively.

"Both." They knew the answer even before she said it. Ruko wasn't stupid, she was honest about her feelings in a way that almost made him jealous.

Then again, he thought as she made a face and plucked at the wedgie her thong was giving her.

"It's 'fifty-six," he said, returning to the over-glorified map. "If you want to leave you should do it now."

Ruko bristled, her shoulders tensing until they were just to her ears. "I think..." She sighed heavily, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. Her entire spine seemed to pop in a collective explosion as she stretched one more time. "I'll just put dirt in the coffee."

Len lazily watched her saunter away. When it crossed his mind, he asked, "Do you think I'm human?"

She turned fleetingly to grin, and that was all the answer he received. She wasn't magnificently wise. She wasn't an idiot. Ruko was just Ruko, and he didn't have to over-think her.

Once she was gone, Len slammed down the glowing screen. He growled at the corner of the room which looked the most like eternal darkness.

"Took you a surprisingly long time," Merli sighed, slipping from the shadows. She wore all black that was a snug fit on her curves. Her pouty lips glittered as she smiled wickedly, displaying harsh white teeth. Straight black hair spilled over her shoulder. She had skin that looked and smelled like carmel.

She emerged slowly, as if she had something to show off. And maybe she did, but she wasn't as interesting as she was annoying. He reminded her keenly, "We're not kids anymore. Spying isn't your party trick." He was sure Ruko had heard the heartbeat, too, and woke up because of it.

"Right," she said, "it's my job."

"And when was the last time you got a gig anywhere?" When she said nothing, he sneered, "Tell me what you want."

"That attitude of yours is the reason we never went on a date," she grumbled. "Anyhow, answer two questions. One, who was the woman that hosted you as little-fetus-Len?"

"Why do I need to tell you?" He snapped.

She grinned and settled into a sofa. "Good as I am, I still don't have every single piece of the puzzle. I've been working on this for months. You've got pieces that you alone have. Put all our collections together and BOOM! We have a picture."

Len's anger faded in the slightest. If she wasn't bluffing about her work over the months, she had no idea what she meant when she talked about the "pieces" he had. And it indeed seemed she wasn't; she frowned and said, "I don't like that face. That's your evil planning face."

Maybe it was. "I can answer all your questions if you can tell me what you know."

"I cannot," she said at an annoying, loud pitch. "this time around it's not casual interest. Shion Corp may or may not be in deep with the guy. If I were to tell you about the Big Man, you'd be learning something that I'm not allowed to tell anyone, especially not that he's sent several assassins in the Princess' way."

She was teasing him, reminding him of a time she was wearing a wire and he had been completely clueless. He didn't care for her games and powered through. "Who, where and why?"

"Rift Gang and the rogue kid, Zeito."

His thoughts flashed back to the raven and the trippy yo-yo, which he still held somewhere. It was a tool that seemed to come straight out of a comic book.

"Who designed the weapon?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about..." She paused. In a softer tone, she said, "Len, some things really suck about this world."

Len pressed on, aggravated. "Who designed the weapon?"

"Remember that favor you asked about last year?" She said, her voice still and eerie like a valley without wind. "I found the alias and location?"

"...It was him." Why was he not surprised? He was certainly furious. His jaw ached, prompting him to stop grinding his teeth.

She raised her brows in mock surprise. "It was a prototype under his name in all records. Obviously it was never in Shion Corp, and the thing is impractical as listed, so maybe he made it when he was still young?"

"That doesn't excuse him," he reminded her.

"I just feel that you're searching for reasons to hate him at this point," she said liberally, shrugging it off like a worthless shawl. She hated answering questions first.

But he didn't need her to act like a brat. Not regarding him in the least. "Do you remember who we're talking about?" He said flatly.

She threw up her hands. Her movements seemed less lethal in light, light which was hardly present. "Anyway, I answered your questions, you answer mine. Who was the woman that carried you?"

He thought briefly, considering everything he had been told, anything he had busted into. "She was Blondie."

Merli pouted, "Well, no shit Sherlock."

"No - I mean she was called Blondie. It was the alias they used to identify her in whatever files they have left."

"You mean you don't know her real name?" She sighed, cracking her knuckles. She gazed up at the ceiling as though contemplating the visit. Her fingers pressed together in a steeple. "Please tell me you have an idea of who the main male donor was."

He shrugged. She groaned as if she'd been punched in the gut and threw in head down in cartoony defeat. She cried out, "was it just never important to you?!"

"Why would I need to meet him? It's not like I ever knew him. And he isn't imperative to my survival."

She sauntered across the floor, and then sat so close to him it felt like he'd suffocate in the choke-hold of her scent. He tried to lean back. She made up for the space as she inched closer. "Yeah, no, he isn't, especially not for giving you FOURTY-FIVE PERCENT of your genes."

Len stiffened from extreme discomfort. "Where were you digging for that number?" He said with distaste, glaring with intensifying suspicion.

Merli's frustration was wiped off and replaced with her glowing face again. She smiled. He couldn't tell if she was faking. "I had some information that I figured would change your life forever," she answered, lazily dragging her hand through her black hair. "And it really helps me with my job when you get involved."

"I'm not doing any of your work for you," he warned. A pulse of annoyance screamed in his head. Len wasn't new to stress headaches but, Merli made it feel like a surprise, every time.

"No. I mean you make it fun." Her hand seemed to accidentally drop on his knee as she pressed forward, which he made a point of removing.

"So what do you have? I assume it's about my forty-five percent dad?"

"All the other Patronus have thirty-two percent mom, thirty percent dad. And yet you? They're ninety percent parents which means little to no other donors. If that doesn't confuse you, it means you understand that you're different."

He paused. It was a matter than concerned him, but how did it matter to her? "I understand that someone fucked up."

"You think it was an accident?" Her tone chilled the entire room, making the darkness harsher somehow.

Len watched her for the slightest reveal. A deepening hint in her smirk, a strange spark in her eyes, one nervous tick. Anything would have helped, but she was perfectly calm and poised. She had the advantage, which was nerve-wracking when he considered how terrible and destructive she could be with such a smile on her face. They were both threatened by each other in terms of intelligence, which really pissed him off. She loved flirting with whatever was beyond an established boundary. He tried to avoid things he didn't totally understand.

"I'll give it to you like this - when a couple with great access to technology wants a baby, it makes sense to get one, doesn't it?" She prompted. Her smile seemed to be inches from his face, and he did his part in ignoring it.

He abruptly shut the hypothetical couple down. "It's not that simple."

"No. It isn't. But what if they're really really desperate? What if it's been years since they asked and they qualified perfectly and they weren't given their baby?" She was suddenly fascinated by his blond hair, carding her fingers through wild locks.

"..." Len had a mouthful of answers that had been at the ready for at least three seconds. But he didnt know what to say when she came. "What are you doing here?"

Miku simply stared, her eyes wide and bloodshot. Rather confused, freakishly innocent; whatever was left of that quickly spoiled to death in their sight. Her hair was in a disheveled bun, free wisps and bangs restrained by gold clips. How could all of her hair fit into one bun? He didn't know. Her hands clasped so tightly her fingers trembled. "D...did I come at a bad time?"

Merli darkened with evil. "Not at all. In fact, you're just in time to join us," she said sweetly, revelling in Miku's embarrassment. The girl used genuine effort to form a calm, coherent sentence, thus she could muster a tiny, "I didn't know you had...that kind of friend, Len."

The woman rose. Len's hand shot out to secure her forearm before he could think of doing it. "Don't," he snarled.

"Oh, don't get so grabby, babe," she replied with a hint of annoyance, yanking free. She turned to Miku and shrugged lightly, but her posture was that of an alpha. She looked Miku up and down with cool, harsh eyes. Len found himself irritated by it, even when he could remember doing the exact same. Something about it was wrong when Merli scrutinized her.

The tealette swallowed air. Her squared shoulders were an attempt to mimick bravery. It was pointless, as she hadn't even a veil of it in her eyes. "C-c-c-could you two not do anything on the couch? The kids s-sit there."

Miku, no one is doing anything or anyone," Len clarified quickly. She sputtered and frowned at him. He didn't want to imagine what she was imagining, some graphic scenario that would haunt her for years to come. Neither of them would get it out of their heads.

"Goodnight, Len," she mumbled, swiftly scurrying out. She left of trail of searing awkward.

"She looked so heartbroken," Merli sighed. She fractured the teasing silence when she saw that his eye was following the girl's path.

A cough readjusted his focus. His stare was heavier, moodier. He's feeling protective. "Anyway, you weren't supposed to happen. And I tried to, you know, find people that knew the Patronus formula or some part of it, those are the people that could've made you. And you'd be surprised at how much it matters." She tossed a purple USB in the air. She smiled when he snapped it into the port.

Three seconds in, and he complained. "How much of this isn't corrupted?" He scoffed. Rapid clicking echoed in the room as he sifted through files. Everything was titled like an error.

"All that you need to see is easy to find," she promised. He glanced up at her, his expression whispering bullshit but he still poked around.

Then, he found the one image that mattered; little more than a scanned document. That much could be seen. The screen flashed ghostly white on his face, but his eye still held the same strong glow.

Excitement rippled in her body. Except it wasn't quite the right time. She squirmed down in her seat, waiting for him to react first.

His everything became quiet. "What did you come here for?" He asked in an unnatural whisper.

She couldn't hold onto her grin, but it was a mouthful of sweet silver-and-pearl victory for her. "If you can get me some of your DNA samples from Shion Corp, you can have your photo back. Sound fair?"

"Forget it. He tried to fucking kill me." Len pressed the bridge of his nose between his fingers and closed his eyes.

She hummed. "What if he doesn't know?" She careless plucked the hard drive from its port and let it disappear in a flicker of motion. "After all, you didn't."

"Is there something you can get from this?" He laughed dryly. "What's your end of the deal?"

She didn't waste a second in saying it. "There's war brewing on every front in the country," she said, sounding like a distant prose. "I want the strongest army."

He frowned. "Protection?"

"Vengeance. You're not the only one with serious issues," she corrected.

Len studied her again. Five years ago, when everyone was going through shit, Merli wasn't any princess or special snowflake. She had her bad days and her goody days, and the good days were cut short, and she had been subtly depressed about it for some solid years. She could still get emotional, no matter how casual she looked. She was impatient even if he couldn't detect the breath she held in hope.

Personally, Len was all for a bit of vengeance.

"If I do this, you own me more than just a photograph," he said finally, once again closing the laptop.

Her sculpted brows shot into her hairline. "Sex?"

He narrowed his eye. "How hard are you trying to get into my pants?"

"Touch-and-go," she said eagerly, "but you're really getting it for me?"

"I want to see someone crumble, too." He scoffed. She lost her deceptive charm in favor of girlish excitement for a moment, and all he could see in that was another girl.

"COFFEE!" Ruko screamed.