She's lounged on a white sofa, taking advantage of living in an apartment in the middle of a big city while the son of the household gets agitated about every little thing she does wrong. From the way she walks, to the way she speaks, to the very way she breathes.

Complaints range tirelessly from don't sit like that, to don't talk to me, to snapping that he's busy and isn't the slightest bit interested in anything she has to say, when she hasn't even said a single thing all day.

It appears her mere existence to him is sin, and distaste grows stronger the longer they live beneath the same roof. To think, Rin mused bitterly, there'd actually be somebody so dedicated to arguing about the way she has her cereal in the morning, then seconds later, goes on about how she's indebted to him because he's 'saved her life.'

Lost in thought, the sudden arrival of his voice causes her to jump.

It whispers to her in a low, mocking hiss. "Can you not chew... quietly?"

Every now and then, Rin realises there are certain periods in life where no good comes out of indulging in pessimism. Being stuck under lockdown with Kagamine Len, however, is not one of them, especially when she has no idea how much longer this torture will last. The young lady sets her pen down, no longer focused on the note she was scribbling down (she was listening to the radio, trying to catch up with the news,) to grab hold of her spoon.

Naturally the only option she has is to crunch the cereal even louder, enough to cause his left eye to twitch.

Len angrily threw his chemistry book onto the dinner table, no longer interested in studying, not that he could- with her around.

With a huff, the blond stormed off to his own bedroom to give them both a moment of peace, effectively sending the slam of a door to echo behind him and throughout the hall.

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: 🎇 :

Night of the lockdown.

January 10th, 2014.

Alcohol fresh in her system, the side of her cheek lies comfortably against a lap.

Golden ringlets of her hair are sprawled adoringly across his thighs. He tells her to beg for another sip from his glass, and she obeys with a purr.

For one moment she's absolutely inebriated, as he takes her off his lap and off near the railing of the stairs. Pressed against the corner of Shion, an older boy, eighteen years old, tall, dark, and excruciatingly pleasing to the eyes- Kaito's hallway, there's no need to mention the fact that he's a rather fluent.. user of language, or rather, the foreign tongue, and can make her gush in his warm hands like burning honey in less than a minute.

Then follows the feeling of his calloused fingers fondling the clasp of her bra as she hurriedly works her fist into his scalp.

She sends desperate tugs at his dyed hair, while her other hand gropes in absolute blindness behind her for the bedroom door, their tongues tied together in a waltz, not separating even once for a catch of breath.

But nothing that makes her happy ever lasts long.

The next moment, she has no choice but to watch, helplessly, as her latest flame gets yanked away from her own touch, and Rin could barely register the feeling of another hand gripping tightly onto her wrist to pull her through the crowd, until she's halfway in strides towards the backdoor.

"H-heey..!" She whined- was she whining? No, that's impossible, she's not the type to whine. "Stoop... K-kai.."

Was it Kaito? No, no, it couldn't be, Kaito was the one she was with earlier. Come to think of it, where was she?

The mess of bodies at the party slam together at every angle she's forced to waddle through, the sound of music is much too loud for her to hear the sound of her own breathing. Rin tries to root herself to the ground, but the blurry captor holding her in grasp ignores all her protests. Through the hazy recesses of her mind, the young lady felt herself lick her lips at the wonder of where this new boy was dragging her off to next.

"Stop," His throat hissed when he realised her advance to catch his lips, and Rin fell audibly against his chest. The scent of a forest- or was that cologne- relentlessly invading her nostrils upon the close contact, and she let out a pleased sigh at the familiarity, xespite not being able to put a finger on where she'd recalled it from. "Don't flatter yourself by thinking I'd even want to do that with you."

"Hmm... tosser.."

"Shut up."

The cold hiss brought her to a slow sense of awareness.

Once they finally pull free from the crowd and the noise and everything that's promised to give her a headache in the morning, the puzzles of her mind finally fit two and two together to realise, through her hazed state and the cold Saturday night air, that the snarling face under the lamp post was none other than him. Blonde hair, blue-eyed, sharp-tongued ー him.

He, who had been snogging in the opposite corner of the house, tongue shoved down some brunette's throat, which she doubts was Miku, his current girlfriend, anyway, gladly minding his own business just half an hour before.

He, who snarls at her with all the disgust possible whenever he has to spend even ten seconds in the same room as her.

Rin doesn't understand why he has to put everything on pause simply to ruin her night. But he does. He always manages to. He's always at the same places she goes to, and he's everywhere she looks.

Huffing, her arms crossed and cheeks heavily flushed (genuinely from the draught and the alcohol, rather than being beside a tetchy teenage boy in presence), she wasn't prepared to feel his grip tighten when the sound of sirens began to ring in the air.

Kagamine Len rushed out something about having to leave the party before the police were there to lock it up with both of them inside. But even if his pronunciation was the clearest thing in the world, she was too cold, and frankly, too high on adrenaline to register a single thing he'd said. Her dress was too tight, too short, and she'd left her jacket back on the couch in Shion Kaito's living room.

All she knew was to keep her mouth shut and follow the boy she loathes most in the world and the one person she would never hope to trust, into a dirty, deserted road.

From narrow alleys to lanes, her bare toes skid across her sandals until her condition forces them to wait against a wall of bricks, just a small ways off from his home building where she's left heaving on dry air.

Rin was wheezing.

He dug his legs into the tar beneath them, kneeling on the ground beside her.

Len frantically scrambled through her purse, trying to find a spare inhaler through the panic, begging her to hold on. She clutches onto his shoulders as if its her last line of support, until she realises an odd noise. When she wonders aloud what it is, the blond tells her it's only her imagination, to not look down, and to simply turn away.

He shook the inhaler several times, turning it to her lips while holding her chin in his other hand. "Breathe."

"... please... please... help me..." A croaking voice, she now distinguished, full of age, called out behind them. Rin spun around. "... little girl, help... me..."

Don't look down, he repeats, trying to carry her away, although the young lady remains stays exactly where she stands. She doesn't listen to the order to find a very green-looking man in his forties resist a coughing fit as he reaches out towards her body from his spot on the ground. His face was covered in sickly patches, and Rin could barely figure out what to do, the offer to help him up rising to the tip of her tongue.

Until the next moment came and he latched onto her feet. She made an attempt to yank her ankle away from the tough grip, but it tightened and tightened then tightened even more until the man's fingernails were nearly clawing violet crescents into her skin.

Rin went frozen, in her haze, not being able to breathe and forgetting how to speak. She couldn't remember how to even scream until she recognised the sound of a bone snapping in half.

It was then that she realised there were fat droplets falling from her eyes.

Cold anger shows on Kagamine Len's features, without a hint remorse. His foot was on the man's shoulder, now unmoving, and he kicked the lifeless body aside. Green face now looked nearly detached from his neck.

"Len," She heard a squeak. It suddenly registered that the sound was her own voice. "Did you- did you ki-"

"No. He.. he's fine. Just run."

More sirens are blaring, closer to them, and she barely has enough time to recover before he snatches up her arm, his left hand with the birthmark of a blooming, pale camellia, grasping her own wrist with an identical flower at the very same spot.

She doesn't have time to ponder on it.

Footsteps arrive nearby, sirens and car headlamps on the street across. It hurries them into another sprint.

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What awakens her the next morning is not only the direct sunlight burning through wide, open windows, nor is it her body encased in mussed, sweaty sheets.

Rather, it's the frantic pacing by the foot of her bed, the warm memory of a chest from the night before, and the running television in the background. She recognises it to be streaming an urgent news channel, judging by the hoarse rapidity in speech the reporter was delivering.

... mutation... new strain of the virus... raids on supermarkets across the capital, there- remains, no-cure-to-be-found.

A click.

The television is muted. "Border control isn't letting anyone in or out." Comes a cold drawl, suddenly by the bedside. She shakily straightens her back, resisting the urge to spew out dinner and the drinks she had the night before. "Your Mum asked me to handle you because she can't get into district. Of course, at firs, I didn't understand why you couldn't be left to look after yourself..."

She glares at the person degrading her, and that attention makes his upper lip curl.

Towering over her, she sees the embodiment of disgust waiting for her with a glass of water and a painkiller in his palm.

"But I do, now. You're a mess."

Despite an absolute, growing irritation towards him, the throbbing headache nagging at her temple leaves little room for complaint. The pill is snatched out of his palm within an instant, and she swallows it down without a second thought.

Horror fills her upon the delayed recognition of the room; soft, cream walls, decorated with polaroids of a preteen boy (just years younger than he is now) grinning from where they hang above a study desk. A broken lantern made years in the past collects dust on the shelf, and the school uniform he wore two evenings ago hangs neatly on the door rack.

She was in Kagamine Len's house, in his room, and she spent the night in his bed.

In the love of all things that are holy, she resists the urge to curse.

When Rin wordlessly throws the sheets apart, she displays obvious relief to find her clothes where they had been the night before, ivory bubble dress just slightly crinkled after the hours she spent ironing out the skirt, and a bandage tightened around her ankle. She doesn't notice the wary look he sent, outside the peripheral of her vision.

He visibly wrinkles his nose. "I don't go after Kaito Shion's used goods."

A normally taunting jibe that always comes with a smirk, is now replaced with only a sorrowful look as he stares wistfully towards the nearly-curtained windows.

".. fuck y-." A sudden lurch brings her forwards, and she covers her mouth with a palm in preparation to catch any vomit. Even just being in the same room as him is making her sick. "Oh, hell.. why aren't I home.. I need to go."

Evidently the young man's patience is growing short by the minute, and that shortens to seconds the more she refuses to calm down.

"Don't you ever use your ears, or is it your brain that's not working? You can't go anywhere. The entire city's on fucking lockdown." He pushed her back towards the mattress. "You're immunocompromised, idiot. There were riots going around all day, and if I hadn't taken you with me last night, you'd have been dead by morning."

Would've done them all a favour, she thought grimly, rather than to be saved by hands that seem to regret this supposed 'rescue'.

Those hands, which, when they're held up, allows clear visibility of the soulmate mark he'd received at birth. Those very same hands that once combed through the ends of her hair with the most tenderness she's ever felt in the world.

But they aren't now.

Swallowing hard on her throat, Rin tries to convince herself that the state of their situation isn't as critical as he's making it out to be. So she takes out her phone he left by the beside drawer, taking another sip of water to calm herself down, before bothering to ask, clearly, what's going on.

"What's going on?" He repeated after her. The young man threw his hand to the front of his forehead, slicking back sweaty, blond locks. "What's going on? Are you seriously asking that?"

"The news- it mentioned the virus-"

"Yes," He cut in impatiently. "I'll tell you what's going on, sweetheart."

She hadn't realised she had been holding a breath until she released it. "..."

"... we're absolutely fucked."