AN: Hey, readers! Leilani here with another Rin x IA story, instead of the Luka x Gumi oneshot that I've been talking about since the last two stories! Yaaaayyyyy–

It will come eventually, just give it (me) some time.

So anyway, I want this fic to be multiple chapters long; not sure how many chapters, but I want maybe at least 10 or so by the end.

For now, I'll just post the first chapter and see how it goes.

Also, disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid in any capacity, or any other real-life organizations/services that are mentioned in this fic (did I need to add this in my stories before? Oh welp-).

Also, this hasn't been beta read, so mistakes may be present.

With that being said, please enjoy the first chapter of 'Melancholic Attention'!


Melancholic Attention

As Rin stared out the window, she sighed inwardly. She was currently sitting in her school classroom for homeroom and her teacher was going over matters regarding the class. Nothing that she was saying had particularly interested her, however, so she turned most of her attention to the view outside.

"Alright, class, I have a special announcement!" the teacher said, clapping her hands together. Rin shifted her gaze slightly towards the front of the class to better hear the apparently 'special announcement' that she had. "Recently, the school board decided that each class will be taking on a teaching assistant for 1 month as part of the local university's 'Student Volunteerism Programme'. With that being said, today will be the day we have our new assistant teacher join us!"

This news got Rin's full attention now, as it was more than halfway through the school year, so someone new coming to help teach the class was a bit surprising. Of course, Rin's attention wasn't the only one that got caught, as the once fairly silent room was now buzzing with low chattering.

"Ooooh, an assistant teacher from the university! Who do you think it could be, boy or girl?"

"Oh, I hope it's a boy! I've been wanting to see a cute new face hanging around our class for a while now!"

"Pshh, no thanks! I'm personally hoping it's a smokin' hot chick! I need a GF fast, 'n who better than a girl who doesn't come to this school? None of the girls here wanna go out with me!"

"Gee, I wonder why," Rin thought as she listened to the excited muttering about the room. She personally didn't care whether the new person was male or female. She just hoped they were nice enough to get along with. She turned to behind her, where her good friend Iroha Nekomura sat, and leaned further, whispering, "Hey, Iroha. What do you think the new person will be like?" The girl hummed, "Dunno. I hope they're cool enough to talk to, and not a snob or a lameo." Her eyes lit up as she gasped, "Oh, and I hope they like theatre! I've been wondering what drama clubs are like in university, maybe they could give me some acting tips!" Rin smiled, rolling her eyes, and she sat back straight. "Typical Iroha, thinking of her beloved drama." Honestly, if that girl wasn't spouting about anime or Hello Kitty, she's talking about her drama club.

The teacher tried to calm the class down, "Alright, alright everyone, settle down." Once the noisy classroom went quiet once more, she cleared her throat and looked to the door. "Akasaka-san, you can come in now!"

At her call, the class door opened and the new student walked in. In that moment, the whole room went dead still, and all the students felt their breath taken by the sight before them. Even Rin herself had been taken aback by the new person. It was a girl, but not any ordinary-looking girl you could find on the street. No, this girl was far more unique. For one, she had long, platinum-blonde hair that ended below her calves, with two braids at the sides of her head and the rather lovely accompaniment of the faintest tinge of pink. Her eyes were a piercing yet amiable sapphire blue, she had clear, pale skin like porcelain and wore a plain white sleeveless frill blouse with blue jeans on her nice, slender figure. She stood with a smile on her face and her hands folded behind her back.

The new girl gave a polite wave and spoke with an angelic voice, "Good morning, everyone. My name is Aria Akasaka." She took to the chalkboard behind her and wrote down the kanji and hiragana for her name. When she finished, she turned back to face the class and bowed. "I look forward to working with you all, and I sincerely hope that we can get along."

Rin noticed that the woman gave her a subtle glance of surprise before looking elsewhere, which didn't bother or surprise her too much considering who she was.

Everyone then regained their voices, and gave a resounding "Welcome, Akasaka-san," to the girl at the front, before talking amongst themselves once more.

Rin hummed in slight approval, "Well, she certainly seems nice enough."

"I know, she's so pretty too! No way a girl like that isn't an aspiring thespian!" Iroha replied.

The teacher spoke once again, "Now class, if there's any questions you'd like to ask Akasaka-san, please feel free to do so."

Several of the boys in the room promptly raised their hands.

"And make sure it's respectful and has nothing to do with her love life."

Most of them promptly lowered their hands.

The one boy with his hand still up asked, "Akasaka-san, will you be assisting us in all of our classes?"

"Oh, no," she replied, "Only the subjects that your homeroom teacher has you for, so Homeroom and English."

After that, she answered a few other questions like 'Are you from Sapporo originally?', 'What's your favourite food?', 'Are you an aspiring actress and what tips do you have if you are?' (courtesy of Rin's dear kitty-loving companion). The respective answers were 'No, I'm actually from Tokyo,' 'My favourite food is probably pink champagne cake', and 'Acting isn't really my thing, sorry."

"Okay, we only have about a minute left for Homeroom, so one more question and that's it," the teacher informed as she watched the time on the room's clock.

Rin decided that it wouldn't hurt to ask a question of her own, so she raised her hand. Both the teacher and Aria acknowledged her, the latter with a soft smile. "Ah, yes, Kagamine-san you go ahead then."

"So, if acting isn't your thing, then what do you like to do?" she asked. Innocent enough question.

Aria's smile widened to a grin, as if pleased by the question. "Well, I'm glad you asked, Kagamine-san. I actually rather enjoy simple things like bird-watching and stargazing," the young woman then clasped her hands in front of her in slight excitement, "but the thing I love most of all is music."

"Listening to music, you mean?"

She shook her head, "Not just that, but making music too."

Rin's interest was piqued now. "You like making music? Do you prefer singing or instruments?"

"I'm more of a singing girl to be honest, but I'm fairly good when it comes to the piano and guitar," Aria answered.

Rin suddenly found herself wanting to know more, so she asked another question, "Have you ever written your own song before?"

Aria nodded, "I have."

"Have you ever thought about becoming one professionally?"

"Well, actually-" the young woman started to answer, but the ring of the school bell cut her off.

"Oh, well it seems that's the end of our little session," noted the teacher, "That means it's time for everyone's favourite class, English!"

The class gave a collective groan. They liked their teacher but she could be a bit much at times. Rin was upset that her question didn't get answered, but she supposed it could wait for another day. Now she had to get ready for a whole 50 minutes of subject-verb-agreement 'fun'.


It felt as though before Rin even blinked, the rest of the day went by just like that. English class, though typically a period of boredom and, at times, borderline agony, was a very different session with Aria as their teaching assistant. It was obvious that she was very knowledgeable about the subject when she helped explain the concept of the topic in class, and she even went out of her way to help individual students who were having a particularly rough time understanding. Rin was somewhat impressed, initially thinking that she was only doing this volunteer work as it was deemed mandatory by her school and she wasn't willing to do anything else, but she clearly knew what she was doing. However, she still never got to have her question answered by the long-haired woman, so that peeved for a bit for the day.

Now, however, that was far from her mind as she walked through the large mahogany doors of the entrance of the building that she called home. She figured her parents weren't home, being the busy, office-working people that they were, so she didn't bother to announce her arrival. Her twin brother Len was likely still out hanging with some friends so she guessed that she was home alone. She slipped out of her school shoes and ran straight to her bedroom upstairs. She threw her school satchel onto the chair next to her room door and hopped face first onto her bed.

"Haaah…" she sighed, relishing in the sweet feeling of being home after a long day of school. Without even undressing from her uniform, she pulled out her phone to scroll through her social media feed. She skimmed through the usual stuff she'd find, cute animal videos, baking videos, pics of her friends, etc. She stopped when she noticed a post of a picture saying 'MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT TO MUSIC LOVERS' from the Yamaha Corp page. Yamaha was the father organization that oversaw the operation and performance of all of the music record companies in Japan. This, of course, included Crypton Future Media, the company that a young Rin Kagamine, along with her brother, was signed to.

"I wonder what this is about," the girl thought as the company was not known to post very often unless it had big news to share. She clicked on the post to get more details. In what the post said, she gathered that a new artiste had been recently signed on to a fairly new record company called 1st Place Co. It didn't give much info on who the new singer was, just that it was a girl who went by the alias of 'IA'. She went on to see that the new singer also had a song demo ready for release later that same night online.

"That's interesting," the girl mused. Usually, whenever a fellow record company was planning to do anything major, Rin and her colleagues at Crypton would be the first to know thanks to their representers' keen eye on their competitors, so the fact that Rin's just now hearing about all this from a social media post was rather odd to say the least. "Well, at least I have something to look forward to tonight," she mumbled before heading to her bathroom to freshen up.


It was almost 8pm, nearing the time that the demo from the mysterious new singer 'IA' was set to release. Rin and her sibling Len were sitting in the study room of her home with her laptop up and waiting.

"So, you said there's a new company who's coming out with a new singer?" questioned the boy.

Rin nodded, and he further asked, "How is it that we haven't heard about it, then? Usually, we hear about news like this a month before anything's made public 'cuz of how 'all-knowing' Crypton's higher-ups are."

She shrugged, "That's what I wanna know. I asked Meiko-nee and Miku if they'd heard about it, but they were clueless. I guess I'll have to ask Wat the next time I get the chance."

Just then, the site onscreen started to play its video. The premiere was starting. Rin and Len immediately quieted up in anticipation. It started with some words of gratitude from 1st Place for the viewers' patience and support, then the demo, named 'Headphone Actor', began to play. The fast-pace of the music coupled with the strength and melody in IA's voice was quite enjoyable to listen to. Barely 30 seconds in the sing, the twins found themselves rocking out to the beat. Eventually, as all good things do, the song came to an end and the chat was blowing up with positive comments and praises.

"Wow, that was really good!" commended Len. "This IA girl has some great vocals, doesn't she?"

Rin gave an enthusiastic nod of agreement. "Yeah, she was great! The tune alone was catchy, but her voice really made the song special." For some reason, though, as Rin listened to the song, she couldn't help but feel that the singer's voices sounded somewhat familiar. She quickly brushed off the thought, though. "Anyway, I'm excited to find out who she is. I can't wait to hear her future works."

A bit later, at around 9pm, when Rin was lying in bed about to call it a night, she shot a text to her friend and fellow Crypton member, Miku Hatsune.

oRinjii: hey, u heard the demo?

She got an instant response.

miku_leeku: yh, it was gr8! that IA girl's got amazing chords. we better watch out if we don't want her to outshine us!

Rin snorted. Yes, she was good, but the girl doubted that the mystery singer would rise to fame so great that would rival any of the Crypton singers; at least not before a good decade's time.

oRinjii: i don't think so, she's definitely good but not quite that level.

miku_leeku: don't underestimate newbies, I never expected to be as popular as I was back when I first started, but look at what happened. i'm sure meiko-nee and kaito-nii didn't expect it either.

Huh. Rin actually never thought of that, but her friend was right. She remembered when Miku first debuted with her song 'Fragments of a Star'. It was a decently received song by those who had heard it, though it didn't get many people as interested in the aquanette as Crypton had hoped. A few months later came her next song 'Melt'. It was an overnight hit, and found its way to the No.1 spot on the Weekly Music Rankings in a matter of a mere couple days. Before one could even utter the numbers '39', she was all over the media and you wouldn't find a single person in Japan who hadn't heard the name 'Hatsune Miku'. Since then, she'd only seemed to have hit song after hit song, with 'World is Mine' and The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku' receiving immense praise from overseas nations as well, solidifying her as a worldwide pop diva and 'The No. 1 Princess in The World'. Before that, though, the pop stars of Japan were Meiko and Kaito, who, unlike Miku, had spent a good couple of years working up a solid public image, at least according to them. They never had the experience of being 'instant musical sensations' like their junior in the industry. She was sure that Miku's sudden popularity must've been a blow to their self-esteem.

oRinjii: well ig ur right. we'll see eventually. Welp, gn, meeks. I got skl tmr.

miku_leeku: sleep tight, my little rinny-poo!

Rin rolled her eyes at the nickname as she turned off her phone for the night and turned off her bedside lamp, settling in for bed, thoughts of the mysterious 'IA' and her aqua-haired friend's words still on her mind as she drifted off.


Gee, I wonder who this 'IA' girl could possibly be-

The summary totally doesn't spoil it already-

So, nothing really interesting yet. Next chapter, though. In the meantime, why not review and tell me what you thought? I'd really appreciate it.

Until next time~.