"Wait."
Miku's entire body tensed at the sound of a stranger's voice, eyes still fixated on the street far, far below. The noises of the city weren't quite as loud from up here, drowned out by wind and distance despite how they echoed off of the buildings. It was an average winter night, and she was shivering, having left her coat behind at her apartment. It wasn't necessary. Her tears were nearly frozen to her cheeks, and she couldn't quite feel her hands, though she knew they were still clutching the building's cold steel guardrail.
"I… you're not going to change my mind," she said without turning around, her voice shaking as she tried to sound determined. There was a moment of silence, then a quiet, calm reply reached her ears.
"Okay."
That was surprising. Miku had been through this routine a dozen times. Each time, she had either somehow managed to convince herself to keep going, or someone had cried and begged until she was forced off the ledge out of sheer guilt and pity.
The voice was soft and smooth, probably a woman's. Miku heard her take a step closer, but she didn't turn, choosing instead to keep staring as another quiet sob travelled through her body. Her shoulders shook, hands tightening on the rail even more. Numbness was beginning to reach her shoulders now.
"You won't even feel it, if that's what you're scared of."
This time, she did turn to face the speaker, teal hair whipping in the wind as she did so. Through bleary and tearful eyes, she saw a woman maybe a few years older than herself—25 or so? No older than 28, for sure. She had long, pink hair, though it was presently tucked into a soft-looking knit cap, and what was exposed of her skin was fairly pale, marking her as foreign. She had her hands in the pockets of a long, brown trench coat at present, and though her lips were hidden beneath a white scarf, Miku could see the telltale signs of a calm smile in the woman's blue eyes.
How long had it been since someone had smiled at her?
Miku searched for something to say, incredulity briefly overriding her overwhelming desire for death. For a few seconds, her mouth worked soundlessly, then she managed an, "Are you crazy?"
The woman shrugged, eyebrows turning up a little. "Maybe. But if your mind is so made up, I figured I could at least ease whatever worries you had left."
Miku gawped. Was this woman trying to get her to jump?
"Unless, of course, that's not the only thing holding you back," the pink-haired stranger added, taking another few steps forward until she was leaning on the rail beside Miku.
"I'm Luka," she said, pulling her scarf down to show reddened cheeks and lips that were only slightly less so from the makeup on them, still gently sloping upwards in a smile that looked somehow much less condescending than Miku had thought it would.
"I don't care," Miku muttered.
"Oh, I figured not," Luka said, idly twirling a lock of pink hair around one finger. "But if my face is going to be the last you'll ever see, you'd at least want to be able to put a name to it on the way down, right?"
"That's…" Miku searched again for the right words, and again, she came up empty. "What?"
"I mean, it's not going to be as fast as you're expecting," Luka continued, shrugging again. "You'll have some time to think about things, you know?"
Miku finally found the words she was searching for, anger bubbling in her voice as she pointedly asked, "What's wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?" Luka asked back, seeming genuinely surprised by the question. She took a few seconds to consider it, putting her elbow on the railing and her chin in her palm. "Nothing, really. What about you?"
Miku's eyes narrowed. "Look, if this is some weird strategy to distract me while you get close and then yank me back—"
"I already told you it isn't," Luka said in an even tone. "I just figured you might want someone to talk to, and I'm on break, so…"
"I don't."
Luka raised an eyebrow. "Yet here we are."
Miku sent her a glare. Luke just sighed.
Silence followed as Miku once more stared downwards. Suddenly, it seemed a lot harder to take that step she needed to. The height had gotten a lot more dizzying in just a few heartbeats. Maybe that was her anger and surprise, messing with her resolve.
"Can I join you?"
"What?" She was too taken aback by the question to remember not to talk to the pink-haired woman, and Luka's smile returned.
"On the ledge. Can I join you?"
"Why?"
"Why not?"
Miku shot the woman another glare, frustrated. How was she so quick to reply? How did she have a comeback for everything?
"Do what you want, I guess," she mumbled, and Luka climbed over the rail onto the ledge. The taller woman leaned against it with a sigh, hands clutching it only gently as she looked up at the sky—the exact opposite of where Miku was looking. "What do you want from me? Really."
"Want?" Luka sounded out the word, tilting her head in thought. "Ideally, for you to get off the ledge—on the side that doesn't plummet ten stories."
"Why do you care?"
"Well, it would be a bit of a damper on my break, for starters," Luka replied immediately. Miku bristled.
"You know, you're kind of a massive bitch for someone who says they're trying to get me not to fucking kill myself."
Luka chuckled, closing her eyes. "And? Is it working better than the usual stuff?"
"The usual stuff?" Miku echoed. Luka glanced at her, voice gentle as she replied.
"I've stood here enough times to know that you've been here before, too," she said quietly, her eyes meeting Miku's. "And I know that at a certain point, words don't really mean anything."
Miku went silent. There was understanding in Luka's eyes, a type of connection that let the teal-haired woman know that Luka wasn't just saying what she thought Miku wanted to hear. At the very least, if her pain wasn't the same, it was of similar magnitude… or it had been, once upon a time.
At the thought, without warning, her throat constricted and tears filled her eyes again. A sob fought out of her lips, then another, and another, and before long, she was a sobbing mess, pouring out everything that had gone wrong in her life, from being an unwanted child to failing out of college to losing in love to losing her job. She hated every second of it, but the words tumbled out one after another, carried into the air by the avalanche of emotions she'd been trying to fight down long enough to finally go through with throwing herself off the top of this damned building. She doubted any of it was even actually understandable through all her crying.
She was all alone, really. The few friends she had had in school were gone now, either having disappeared entirely or at least being far enough away that they weren't accessible; she had hardly known her coworkers; she didn't really speak to anyone else.
To her credit, Luka took all of the incomprehensible, hysterical ramblings without so much as flinching, even in the rougher bits where Miku could hardly even talk. That made Miku feel even worse; she'd dragged this woman, a total stranger, into her mess, and dumped her trauma and emotions on her completely unbidden when Luka had just been trying to help. Despite that, however, she couldn't stop herself, either, and before long, she felt worse than she ever had, her voice fading into nothing but a choked whisper.
When at last she was all finished, there was a long silence. Then, Luka spoke up again.
"What's your name?"
Miku raised her tired eyes from the void she'd once again been considering throwing herself into. Her brow knit in confusion as she stared at Luka. After all that, the woman wanted to know her name?
"…Miku," she said at last, and Luka smiled again.
"It's a pretty name," she said softly. Miku sniffed.
"Shame about the failure it's attached to," she replied.
Luka's tone was a little firmer as she replied, "You're not a failure, Miku."
"How would you know?"
"A failure is a mistake that you don't fix… the end of the road, when you stop trying and give up. You haven't given up."
Miku gave a hollow laugh. "What part of this makes you think I haven't given up, Luka? How can you possibly say that?"
"Because you're still here," Luka said immediately, and Miku felt a warmth on her hand, making her start a little and glance at it. It was just Luka's right hand. "Even after everything you've been through, even after failing over and over, even now, when you're about to throw yourself off a ledge, you're still hesitating. You're still searching for a reason to live. You're still trying."
"There isn't anything left to try for!" Miku cried, wrenching her hand free. She displayed her forearm, crisscrossed in scars from the years upon years of cuts she'd given herself. "Do you think these came from nowhere?! Do you think someone with reason left to live would be here?! There's nothing, Luka!"
"But you're still here," the pink-haired woman repeated. "Which means you haven't given up. You know that you still want to live, but you're afraid. You know that it won't be easy, and you don't want to try, but you're also afraid of dying."
Luka slid a little closer, and before Miku could say anything, gently took her hand again. "I know it's not fair, Miku," she whispered. "I know that I'm just some stranger, and you want someone who loves you from the bottom of their heart to be the one saying these things. I know that you're scared, and you're hurt, and you feel like nothing will ever be okay. I know, and I'm sorry. But."
Luka squeezed the hand she was holding. "Roll again."
Miku blinked, sniffling. "R-roll again?"
"Mm," Luka hummed. "When something bad happens, you roll with it. When something good happens, you roll with that, too. When you feel as if you can't take any more… when it gets too hard, you hold your breath, close your eyes, and roll a little more."
Giving a slight laugh, Miku shook her head. "Th-that's stupid."
"Maybe," Luka admitted, tilting her head a little. "But it's gotten me this far. I'd say that's worth something."
Another silence fell, and Miku stood there, staring at her new acquaintance(?), shivering in the cold winter air. After a few minutes had passed, Luka looked back at her and spoke again.
"Miku?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to get off the ledge now. Do you want to come with me?"
There was yet another long pause as Miku considered that. At last, she nodded quietly, and Luka slowly stepped back over the railing, never letting go of Miku's hand while she did so. Shortly thereafter, Miku followed shakily, and she squeaked as Luka's coat was draped around her shoulders, leaving the woman only in a black turtleneck, her scarf, and her hat.
"You must have been freezing," said the taller woman, nodding at the nearby roof access door. "Let's go inside and warm up, okay?"
Miku glanced back at the void beyond the ledge one last time.
"…Yeah."
They shuffled inside, and shortly thereafter, Miku found herself sitting in the lobby of the office where Luka worked, looking exceedingly out of place with her tired eyes, ratty jeans, unkempt hair, and tear-stained cheeks. Nonetheless, she sat there, knees folded into her chest, thinking about what had transpired.
She wasn't dead. She had convinced herself that she should be, and somehow… Luka had convinced her otherwise. She hadn't done it because she wanted something of Miku, nor had she done it because of any particular attachment to her. She had helped a stranger, for no reason other than it being the right thing to do. Miku couldn't remember the last time she had felt kindness like that, and somewhere inside, she swore that she wouldn't let that be in vain.
Luka saw her home, all the way to the train station and up to her apartment. She made small talk and smiled at Miku the entire way, and Miku could only reply in short sentences and do her best not to cry.
Then, she closed her apartment door, and Luka was gone.
Taking a deep breath, Miku looked in her bathroom mirror. There was a razor blade on the counter nearby. She swept it into the trash.
"Okay, Miku," she said to her reflection, voice cracking.
"Roll again."
/ / / /
Luka stared into her glass, regarding the pale brown liquid inside as if it were a personal affront. The bar was quiet this time of night, with no one but herself, the bartender, and a few other late-night patrons that had similarly chosen to drown their sorrows to be seen. Soft jazz music played from somewhere, and though it wasn't really her preferred type of music, it served as a pretty suitable backdrop for her misery at the moment.
She'd chosen the bar at random, simply needing somewhere to forget everything for a bit. Forget the breakup. Forget the ensuing fallout. Forget how many of her so-called "friends" had evaporated into thin air as soon as she had really needed the support. It was nothing more than a hole in the wall, with brick walls and the barebones minimum to call itself a bar. Still, it worked.
She downed the rest of her glass, tapping the bar. The bartender gave her a sympathetic look, but nonetheless poured another.
"Luka?"
She didn't know that voice.
Slowly, she raised her head, her eyes travelling upward to find the doorway and the unfamiliar woman now stood in it. Said woman was a pretty little thing, almost a full head shorter than Luka herself and currently dressed in a very flattering black dress that hugged her curves and came down to her mid-thigh. She had a cute, roundish face that was presently twisted with concern, and her hair was a unique colour—teal, almost aquamarine. Luke had a vague feeling she remembered the colour from somewhere.
"Oh, my god," the woman breathed, face wrinkling even further as she approached and took in Luka's state. Personally, Luka didn't think she looked too bad for being on her… seventh glass…?
"Oh, my god," repeated the teal-haired woman, looking at the bartender. "Excuse me! How long has she been here, exactly?"
As the bartender answered, Luka stared drunkenly up at the newcomer. Who was she? What was she doing here? How did she know her?
Why was she so pretty?
The woman flushed, averting her gaze, and Luka blinked sleepily, realising she had accidentally asked a few of those out loud. "Hey, wha're ya doon?" she slurred out as the woman slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Lemme gooooo…"
"I can't just leave you here like this," the woman objected, hoisting Luka up. She put a wad of money down on the counter, and the bartender nodded at her. "Come on, Luka. Let's get you home."
Luka felt a surge of fear at the mere concept of going back to the large, lonely apartment where the woman she had once loved more than life itself had stayed with her not too long ago. "No!" she wailed, clinging to the stranger and beginning to sob. "Pleash dun take me home… pleash…!"
The woman let her cry for a few moments, too stunned to do otherwise, then nodded, gently but awkwardly patting Luka's head as she half-walked, half-dragged her out of the bar into the city night. "Okay. No going home. You… can stay at my place for the night then. How's that?"
Luka sniffled. "Reallyyyyy?"
"Really."
Most of what happened after that was a blur for Luka. Under any normal circumstances, she would have been a little more alert—a little more wary of the woman currently carting her along long an oversized child (which, to be fair, she more or less was at the moment). However, something inside herself—some vague notion that she should know this woman from somewhere—kept her from really protesting too much. Before too long, she found herself on a couch, a bucket next to her on the floor and about half a dozen water bottles within her reach.
Luka wanted to say something. She wanted to thank the woman for her kindness. She wanted to ask why she bothered with a useless drunk like her. She wanted to do more than just pass out on her couch, which was, unfortunately, exactly what she did.
-§-
Luka awoke feeling like several trucks loaded with cinder blocks had been dropped on her. The first thing she did upon waking up was stare in confusion at her surroundings; the second was empty her stomach into the nearby bucket, deciding that she could do all that thinking later if there was anything left inside her body by the time she was done throwing up.
Several minutes passed, and when she had finally finished, Luka let out a weak moan, reaching for one of the nearby bottles of water and squinting against the morning light to once again try and identify where she was. She didn't recall how she had gotten there in the slightest, but she seemed to be in a small, cozy apartment. There were a few instruments scattered around, such as a guitar, a keyboard, and a flute; sheet music was spread out over a desk pushed against the far wall; pictures of a vaguely familiar teal-haired woman and a pair of blonde-haired people, quite obviously twins, adorned the near wall; a degree of some kind hung on another wall, though from this distance Luka could identify neither the name nor the degree itself; there was a small collection of shoes on a rack by the door; a short hallway led into what looked like a kitchen, and a bedroom on the other side of a dividing wall.
Taking a few sips of water, Luka closed her eyes as the pounding in her head increased. She didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, so the best she could do was try and retrace her steps. She had decided that she would try and forget about her ex for a little while, then that had naturally turned into drinking… and drinking…
Oh.
Luka suddenly felt very lucky that whoever had pulled her out of the bar had seemingly been the benevolent sort. Had things gone differently, she might have ended up dead, or worse.
…Well, it wasn't as if she hadn't thought about dying several times recently, but…
She was lifted out of her thoughts by the sound of humming, and slowly, she turned her head in the direction it was coming from. Now that she was actually listening (and generally processing information), she could hear the sounds of activity from the kitchen, meaning that the apartment's occupant (or occupants) was already awake.
A quick test of her motor functions revealed that most of her body felt like lead, so Luka settled for waiting with her eyes closed as a headache continued to assault her. She was fairly certain she had never imbibed so much alcohol in one go before, and with the way she was feeling, she certainly wasn't going to do so again.
"You're awake?"
Luka cracked open her eyes, to see that the teal-haired woman from the pictures was standing in the hallway, presently dressed only in loose white pyjama pants and a t-shirt with a picture of a duckling on it. She nodded at the woman's question, trying to work up the mental and physical faculties to ask one of the ten questions now swirling in her mind, but before she could, the woman popped back into the kitchen, only to reappear a moment later with a glass of water and two small red caplets that Luka easily recognised as painkillers.
With a grateful grunt, Luka downed the pills, then sighed, keeping her eyes closed for a few moments to once again block out the light. "…Thank you."
"No problem. It's the least I could do. Um…" Luka opened her eyes at the pause, to see the other woman shuffling awkwardly in place. "What were you doing out there in the state you were in? I was really worried about you, Luka."
Luka opened her mouth to answer, then paused. "…how do you know my name?"
The teal-haired stranger gave her an odd look that slowly morphed into a slightly saddened one. "Um… well, three years ago now, you told it to me yourself. You, um… you talked me out of killing myself."
"I talked you out of…" Luka trailed off, then paused thoughtfully. "…Oh."
In a flash, it all came back. She'd been going on break, she had seen a girl by the ledge, and she had managed to talk her down. The incident felt like it had occurred a lifetime ago; Luka had never seen any reason to tell anyone, nor had she seen the other woman since. So much had happened in just three short years that the memory of this woman had all but vanished. "…Miku, right?"
"Uh-huh!" The woman said emphatically, rocking on the balls of her feet as she put her hands in her pockets and looked at Luka. "You really saved my life, you know. In more ways than one."
"I'm glad," Luka whispered, tearing up a little. If only she could find the energy to do so for herself.
Seeming to notice the pink-haired woman's downturn in mood, Miku nodded at her sympathetically, taking the bucket out of sight to dispose of its contents. After the sound of something being flushed and the sound of vigorous spraying water, she returned, sitting on the floor near the couch. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"I…" Luka hesitated. She recalled that Miku had once shared a lot with her, but she wasn't obligated to do the same, was she? Could she even approach the subject without breaking into pieces? Even just thinking about everything that had happened with her ex made her chest tighten unbearably. "…are you sure?"
Miku gave her a gentle, concerned glance. "Only if you want to," she said softly. She reached up to grasp Luka's hand, mimicking Luka's gesture three years prior. Luka noted that the scars on her arms had faded considerably, and the thought brought her just a tiny bit of happiness—the first in a while.
"Well, um…" she searched for the words, but none would come out, so she settled for the path of least resistance. "…My life kind of sucks?"
Miku chuckled quietly, nodding. "I can only imagine. If that's all you want to say, that's fine. Just… I want to help you, Luka."
"Why?" Luka asked, before she could stop it. Miku shrugged.
"I owe you, for one thing," she said, squeezing Luka's hand gently to let her know it was a joke. "For another, you seem like you need it, and if last night is any indication, you're not… really getting it, so… I want to help you."
Luka had to resist the urge to break down sobbing. If only she had run into the other woman a week ago, maybe she wouldn't have been such a total mess. Nonetheless…
"I'm sorry to seem strange," she whispered, the words seeming to resist being spoken as she said them. "But I could really do with being held right now."
Without a word, Miku helped her shift aside, and before she knew it, Luka was being gently cradled from behind by a woman almost a full head shorter than her. Despite this, however, a feeling of contentment unlike any she'd known in some time washed over her, and she closed her eyes once more as the tears forced themselves out. She began to shake, whispering, "I'm sorry" again and again.
"Shh, it's okay," Miku said in a gentle voice, rubbing one of Luka's arms soothingly as she held the older woman while she cried. "I've got you, Luka. I'm here, okay?"
And Luka could only cry harder.
-§-
A week passed. Miku and Luka exchanged phone numbers, addresses, and last names (at last). Luka learned that Miku had spent the better part of the last three years working towards a degree in music theory, which she now had, and had been working as a freelance composer ever since. Somehow, she made enough money between that and a part-time job at a convenience store to support herself. She had made a few good friends, was regularly attending therapy, and she seemed happy, all things which made Luka feel just a little better.
By contrast, Luka had spent the last three years in a relationship with a woman who hadn't really loved her back, who had waffled at any mention of real commitment, and who had now, most recently, had decided to leave Luka entirely, deeming her boring. Somehow, a large part of Luka's social circle had decided that her ex was in the right, and Luka was left with a scant few real friends to help her pick up the pieces.
She couldn't talk to them, though, not in the same way she did with Miku. The two of them talked every night that first week, and then every night for a month, and then every night for a year. It wasn't long before their friends were meeting, they were pushed together at group outings, and finally, Luka asked Miku out on a date while the two of them were watching a movie together, to which her only answer was a blush and a stammered "I thought we already were…?"
And Miku was wonderful. She was creative, considerate, outgoing, kind, impassioned… she was like a sun that Luka's world now revolved around.
One day, while they were relaxing after Luka's return from work, Miku hummed an idle tune while she browsed her phone, and Luka looked up.
"You know," the pink-haired woman said slowly, pressing the knuckles of Miku's free hand to her lips as she paused to think. "I must have heard you hum that song a thousand times now, but I don't actually know what it's called."
"Hmm?" Miku hummed, not processing the statement for a few seconds. When it sank in, she lowered her phone, smiling vaguely. "Oh, that tune? It's something I wrote after we met. I call it 'Rolling Girl'."
"'Rolling Girl?'" Luka echoed, quirking an eyebrow. Miku nodded, yawning.
"You know, after what you told me on the rooftop. 'When something bad happens, you roll with it. When something good happens, you roll with that, too. When you feel as if you can't take any more… when it gets too hard, you hold your breath, close your eyes, and roll a little more.'" Miku smiled broadly when she finished repeating what Luka had told her, placing a kiss on her girlfriend's lips. "Those words saved my life, you know."
Luka closed her eyes. In truth, she hadn't recalled saying as such until the very moment Miku repeated it back to her, but now that she heard them again, it sounded almost too foreign—too wise—to have come from her. "I see. I'm glad."
"Me too," Miku said with a slight giggle. She reached up, taking Luka's face in her hands.
"Roll again," Miku whispered, and she kissed Luka until neither of them could breathe any longer.
Hi.
It's been a long while since I wrote fanfiction, and to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this piece. A collection of old Vocaloid songs popped up in my youtube feed recently—Rolling Girl obviously among them—and this idea just wouldn't leave my head until I'd written it down. While I was writing it, though, I remembered how much I used to love writing fanfiction, though I've deleted most of my previously-published stuff now.
Consider this a re-debut, I guess? You might see me around more. I have a long history of lurking in the Negitoro archive, and though I've never contributed to it personally, I think Miku/Luka is probably second in the running for my favourite ship of all time. Most of my writing work these days is original, but now that I've started writing about these two, I foresee it being somewhat difficult to stop.
Anyway, I've always loved Rolling Girl, but being at a point where the lyrics of the song resonate more with me than they did when I was young, I wanted to write something different when I heard it again. An "alternate ending" or a "different interpretation", I guess. I hope you found my take on it worthwhile to read.
Roll again, my friends. Remember—even when you feel as if you have no reason to go on living, there's one out there you haven't found yet.
Happy early new year. Here's to rolling through a good 2022.
-Liz