CHAPTER 3: The Talk

Walking out of the school building, Len found himself standing on the street on a hazed, foggy and chilly afternoon. A terrible weather for taking pictures. Not that he had to be doing that all the time; it was just that now, the camera in his backpack was an unnecessary weight which was slightly annoying. Besides, he and Rin made other plans anyway.

The faces on the people around him seemed to mostly reflect the moody atmosphere. One thing Len had learned since moving here was that apparently, the Brits were usually stern and turned inwards – as long as they were alone. Within the vicinity of a friend, most people he'd gotten to meet here warmed up and became caring and hospitable.

The twin himself wasn't rushing into new friendships. Unlike his sister, he never felt the urge to surround himself with people; he enjoyed his own company and that of the few people closest to him. Spending some quality time with Gumi and John already fulfilled a large portion of his social needs – and Rin, too, on those rare occasions when they were both free at the same time.

"Jeez, look at that loser!" someone suddenly shouted in his direction, making a few heads turn.

Speak of the devil... Len's other half was standing there, arms crossed, dressed in all black with a hood over her head. She had that signature smirk on her face which screamed that as his sister, Rin had the sole right to mess with him.

"You here to reap my soul?" he answered her before a brief hug.

"Big time. Then I'd at least have one." Rin looked around the street. "What're we going to do?"

"Do you wanna maybe just camp in a coffee shop somewhere? The weather's disasterous."

"I kinda like it though. Can we just grab a coffee to go? I don't feel like closed spaces today."

"If you say so," Len shrugged. "Starbucks is about five minutes that way, or we could go to this small shop around the corner. Support the local economy or whatever."

His sister snorted. "I'm good with that. Let's go."

Not fifteen minutes of obligatory small talk later, the twins each had a plastic cup in their hands. Len thought to himself that both he and Rin seemed a bit standoffish today, though he immediately blamed that on the weather again. That, and the fact they haven't been deliberately out like this together since they left home.

"Have you ever thought that Liverpool might make us drift apart?" he said out loud while they began walking again, roaming aimlessly through the city.

The other twin paused for a second and looked at him with just a hint of shock. "Where did that come from?"

"I've just been thinking..."

"Ugh, that's always been your biggest issue, bro."

"I'm serious. Think about it, this right here is the most we've seen each other in months. I just..." Len struggled to find the right words. "I guess I'm just not used to this."

Rin absent-mindedly gazed in front of her where a small group of pigeons squabbled over some pieces of pastry. "Me neither. But to be fair, we did kinda spend the first nineteen years of our lives joined at the hip."

"And we still are. We will always be twins, unfortunately," he said with sarcasm.

"Unfortunately for you, maybe. I'm glad."

"Yeah, me too, I guess." And they smiled at each other.

"Even so," Rin continued. "This might be the first time in our lives when we're each doing different things. And it's only gonna get more complicated from here."

"I know. I think I just don't like the change."

They had just moved past the birds who were completely unfazed by their presence. Rin air-kicked one of them; the pigeon flapped its wings to get out of her way and gave her a look of utter disbelief.

"And you've always been the smart twin," she told him. "We wanted different things. That doesn't mean we're less relevant to one another, maybe we just have to put extra care to our companionship."

"Companionship?" Len chuckled. "Are you afraid of calling me your friend?"

"You don't think that would be weird? I think brother and sister should be its own category."

"That's stupid. You can be my sister and my closest friend all at the same time, I don't think that's weird."

"Aw. Thanks" She gave him a little nudge.

"For what?"

"For saying that."

"Yeah, anytime. If you ever doubt that, come straight to me and I'll keep reminding you until it's annoying."

"Ok. And, same."

The twins were now crossing a busy street. Rin basically flew to the other side and immediately took off for the nearest emptiest looking alley; her brother had no choice but to follow her. He could have sworn he almost saw her relief once they left all the cars and most of the people behind.

"If we make this a regular thing," he said and raised his coffee a little bit, "we should bring our own cups next time."

"Can we do that?"

"I think so. It wouldn't hurt to ask, at least there'd be less plastic to take care of."

"You're so considerate of everything, Lenny." Rin winked at him. "No wonder Gumi is crushing on you soooo much!"

His heart immediately skipped a beat. "Wait, what? Did you talk to her?"

"Nah. That was just a guess."

"You dick."

"Hee hee. I love you too, broski," she said with a giggle.

Len knew this topic would have to come up eventually and braced himself for what may come next. "But, like... what do you really think? About me and Gumi."

"I can't tell. Short answer is I would love for you to get together, but you'll just have to try and see what happens."

"Well I don't like that very much. Would the long answer be any more reassuring?"

"You tell me, man. You spend much more time with her than I do, you should have more insight."

"It seems I have -4 on insight," he sighed.

Rin blinked rapidly. "The fuck?"

"That's a D&D term. Insight is one of the character stats."

"Hang on, since when do you care about Dungeons & Dragons?"

"Oh, John got me into that. He had me watch some streams and he's trying to get me to play in a campaign he's planning."

"Ok, not that I don't wanna know, but we're absolutely not changing the subject right now," she said and pretended to get upset.

Len laughed. "I'll tell you about it later. Or you can ask John, but beware, that's his one passion right now. He's gonna go on for days if you give him the chance."

"So! Gumi?" And there was that Rin Smirk again, comforting and disturbing at the same time.

"Well... You know how she is. She's loving and lovable, it's just radiating from her. I'd like to think she gives me special attention, but then Gumi just gives special attention to everyody."

"You're not wrong. But you're one of the very few people I know who aren't bothered by her antics. That may or may not mean something."

"Like what?"

"Like you're totally in love with her and tolerate her craziness more than the rest of us?"

"I can't tell if you're being sacrastic or not."

Rin chuckled. "Of course I am, you ass. I love her too. I'm just not in love with her."

The twins had known Meg since they were children, way before she started to sing or even before the Vocaloids existed. In fact, it was the success of the group that made Gumi – who had been a mere Vocaloid fan at that point – realise she wanted to be a musician too. But whoever came in contact with that girl inevitably saw what a force of nature she was. Len could only go through the list of adjectives that were rapidly coming into his mind: loud, clumsy, omnipresent, unregarding of personal space – but she was also loyal, caring, pure-hearted, naïve, easily excitable and passionate. Once she made the decision to focus on music, that was it. She was so bummed out that she had to keep going to work rather than staying at home, writing songs and planning her big live debut.

Well, "big" was a matter of perspective. For the last few days, feeling just about ready to appear in public with her own songs, Gumi had been looking around the tiniest pubs and music clubs suitable for her needs. With the help of a few random people on the forums, she learned it was never quite as easy as to just ask the business owner to let her perform. She had to consider the right timing, the length of her set, the amount of people who'd be willing to come – and as a nobody, if she wanted to go as far as to sell tickets, that would have been her responsibility as well. The best she could hope for as a starting artist was to find some slightly bigger names who would let her perform on the same evening while taking care of the event's organisation.

Neither Len or Rin were able to help her in this regard because they neither had any experience in this field. With Vocaloids, there was a big management team that took care of everything, and even now with Rest In Neglect, once the band would be ready to start performing, Rin had contacts and the project was bound to hire a manager in near future. However, Len did come up with the idea that Meg should give a "preview" concert at their house, just for a selected small circle of friends most of whom would've been sure to give her an honest feedback. Meg wasn't sure about it at first, but the twin would often try to convince her to give it a serious thought, and she seemed more and more fond of that idea as time progressed.

Over time, Len noticed he had assumed a very protective role towards Gumi. It was thanks to him that she met with her first vocal instructer back in the day, and while in England, he tried to help her in any way he could, musically or otherwise. The biggest reward for him was to hear her sing, even through the walls. Sometimes it seemed like she sang all the time – in the shower, in the kitchen while cooking, sometimes she'd just randomly start to hum in the middle of the street. To the twin, that was the most endearing thing to witness.

"Would you believe me that I didn't even have these feelings until we moved here?" he told his sister as they walked onto a plaza of sorts. Surprisingly, there weren't that many people around. Rin spotted a few empty benches and moved straight towards one of them.

"I wouldn't. Mind if we sit here?" she asked, but it was probably just for good measure because she already hopped up and sat on the back of the bench, with her feet on the seat. Len rolled his eyes, knowing he had no choice, and sat down properly.

"I'm being honest. I always liked her, but it's been different for these few months." He breathed out heavily.

"Well? Why has it?"

"I don't know. Maybe just... the fact that we have more in common? Like we're taking care of the house, we can cook together, eat together, whenever we wanna talk we can just knock on the other one's door. And for those first couple of days when we were feeling homesick, we used to talk from dusk till dawn. I feel like we'd gotten to know each other better than ever before." Len scratched the back of his head. "So I guess that might have been it?"

While he was talking, Rin had finished drinking her coffee and was now mindlessly playing with the empty cup. "I used to think you were dating when the group was still together. You know this."

"You don't have to remind me," he replied. About five years ago, Len began to speak to Gumi on a semi-daily basis when she expressed her wish to get into music. He had helped her meet some people and get the basics started, as well as providing as much helpful insight as he himself knew – on vocal techniques, performance anxiety and other important topics. Though Rin was constantly teasing him and never let him hear the end of it, there was nothing romantic about it. Unless...

The twin brother's eyes widened. "Fuck me," he cursed. "Was Gumi into me back then?"

"I never asked," said Rin. "Does it matter?"

"Yeah, that would make things uncomfortably complex. For one, I would've been a big idiot if I never saw it. But it might also mean she could still like me! If she ever did to begin with." Len drank the rest of his own coffee with a big swig. "How's one supposed to remain sane in a situation like this? It could either all make sense, or nothing at all."

"Or anything in between."

"Exactly."

"Bro, why don't you just straight up tell her something?" He felt a soft smack on his shoulder. "You can't expect to get any answers unless you man up and search for them yourself."

"That's easy for you to say. You've had crushes before."

"And?"

"And doesn't that make you more experienced in talking about feelings and stuff?"

Rin slithered down from her higher spot and sat next to him. "Look, eventually you just gotta realise that whatever fucking torture you put yourself through by keeping your feelings to yourself is not worth anything. It's better to be upfront from the start and either you get a date, or they say 'no' and you can move on."

"But did you ever have to have this talk with a close friend?"

"Well, not close, but I did have this conversation with Tom last week."

"As in Tom, your bass player? Wasn't that the other way around?"

"It was! And he came to me first. Even though he decided to leave the band after that, I'm glad we had that talk because what's the alternative? If Tom didn't say anything, he'd either be passive-aggressively trying to make me love him, or wallow in his feelings and be unhappy. Neither would be fair to anybody."

Len looked at his sister; she looked a little embarassed. "You didn't tell me he left! Jeez."

"I mean, it is what it is. We already have a new bassist, this girl named Lily. We just got her yesterday."

"Cool. At least you didn't have to wait too long for a replacement. What's she like?"

Rin looked intently at the tips of her feet. "I don't know. She's a great musician and we have a lot in common, but something's weird about her. I don't know what it is, I haven't stopped thinking about her since yesterday and I got nothing."

"Sounds like you're enamored with her," her brother remarked with an ironic grin.

"Oh shut up, asshole. I just can't figure her out, that's all."

"Well, why would you have her play with you if she's making you feel uncomfortable?"

The twin girl clutched her torso with her arms and looked around nervously. "She's good for the band. And after what went down with Tom, I thought I gotta put my own feelings aside and do what's good for the band. Can we get back on the subject?"

"Are you sure?" Len started to feel concern. It wasn't often that his sister looked that clueless and confused and it startled him a little bit.

"Yeah. Let's just keep walking," she said and stood up.

They threw their cups into the nearest garbage can and took the next few steps in awkward silence, both unsure what to say next. Len wanted to comfort her, but at the same time thought Rin really didn't want to think about this Lily any longer. When he made that joke about his sister having a crush on her, he felt as though her response was overly defensive, but he was probably reading too much into it.

"So..." he spoke up while they dove into another narrow street leaving the plaza; "What would you do if you were me?"

Rin took two seconds to respond. "About Gumi? Or just in general?"

Len internally sighed in relief; his sister didn't lose her wit at least. "I'm talking about my love life specifically."

"I'd say just don't panic. Keep doing what you're doing and keep being yourself. Either she likes that, or not. I know I said confrontation is the best way to go, but there's this other thing called timing. Timing is everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. Do something nice together. Work up to it and see how she reacts. We girls tend to be emotional beings, so play on her emotions. If you just spit it out out of nowhere and she's not in the mood, you might get a no that would have otherwise been a yes."

"That's a more specific advice than I hoped for and it terrifies me," he said with complete honesty.

"Also, don't be scared she'll hate you for it. I'm pretty sure she'll be flattered no matter what."

"Really?"

"Yeah! I mean, you're the nicest guy I know. If you of all people tell a girl you like her, that girl will know you're not just saying that to get something."

"Um... thanks." Len almost blushed.

"You should be glad, really. I miss being in love, and it's not like it can happen at first sight."

He glimpsed over: Rin looked sad. He brought his arm over her shoulder and squeezed her a little.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you're not a completely terrible person either. You deserve to find someone special."

"Gee, thanks. You're my favourite douchebag," Rin replied with her infamous smirk.