CHAPTER 3: Sand Planet

A couple of days later, on an early afternoon, a dispute regarding the previous night's show burst out on the bus.

Their tour bus -one dedicated to the six Vocaloids themselves -consisted of three small "rooms". Right behind the driver's cabin, separated from the rest of the bus by an additional wall so that the singers would have some more privacy, was a lounging and working area with a few tables and sofas and various laptops, books and unfinished snacks usually lying about here and there. Behind this living room was a tiny kitchen through which one could squeeze to the bedroom, consisting of two bunk beds on either side of the bus, making a total of eight beds. Two of them, however, were usually unoccupied, although sometimes they came in handy when some of the band members, for example, stayed up partying with the singers after a show. The management didn't really approve of such casual bed arrangement, but had given up trying to keep everyone in line long ago.

The Vocaloids, too, would sometimes end up in different buses. On this particular day, Meiko stayed behind in the crew bus after what was apparently a long and wild night. Therefore, only five people were on the bus, except for the two drivers in the front. Len and Luka were asleep, Kaito was sitting in the front and was writing something on his computer. Miku and Rin were not only wide awake, but also in the middle of an argument.

"Rin," Miku asked as she was slowly but surely running out of patience; "Can you please take it more seriously?"

"Who fucking cares?" The twin retorted. She was lying on a bottom bunk and trying to balance a glass of lemonade on her belly; the yellow liquid was shaking softly as it copied the bouncing of the bus. "It's just an act."

"I care." Miku crossed her arms. "If it's an act, it has to be believable. People who have any sort of insight into music will laugh at you."

"Screw that, people come to our shows to party, not to look at your fingers when you pretend to play the guitar. Or bass."

"So what, do you think we have those guitars just to look good? Because if that's the case, we can just smash them against the ground at the beginning. Oh, that's right," she added mockingly; "You already did that."

Rin threw her feet off the bed and sat up; it was a miracle that she remembered to keep the glass upright.

"What is your problem? If you want to be a perfectionist dickhead, be my guest. But don't force me to do the same!"

"My problem," Miku unconsciously began to rise her voice, "is that when I'm doing something, I wanna do it correctly. You, on the other hand, don't care about anything except what's convenient for you, and that's pathetic!"

"People don't give a shit!" Rin shouted and waved her arms in the air in a desperate effort to make her friend understand her point. "People dance and yell and sing and fucking enjoy themselves! All they want to see is that your pretty face gives them the fun times that they want!"

"And you call yourself a professional? We have a responsibility, and you can't just ignore it because you think you know better!"

"Ladies," Luka spoke up loudly above their heads. Her angry face emerged from the depths of her bunk. "Cut it out! You're both being stubborn and ridiculous."

"Just tell me that I'm wrong!" Miku replied to her.

"I don't care who's right or wrong, you can solve this later and quietly."

"Whatever. I'll be in the front," said Rin, stood up and walked away.

Miku shook her head. "I don't believe this. You're really defending-"

"Shut the hell up already," Luka groaned. "It's not so important that you have to be so fucking annoying about it. So calm down and let the management decide how to handle Rin's performance."

"Fine," Miku spat out and stormed away all the way to the back of the bus where she collapsed on one of the spare beds. More than anything, she wanted to go outside and take a long walk alone, but there was no escape from the bus until it stopped.

She was breathing heavily, trying to push all her emotions deep down, preferably into a botomless pit from which they'd never find their way back. She wasn't willing to admit it in front of the others, at least not immediately, but she thought that she might actually have been a little bit too harsh on Rin. Miku had been in a particularly bad mood for the last couple of days, and what was driving her even more crazy was that she had no idea why.

Or did she? What the twin told her made Miku think about some things that were bothering her. "All they want to see is that your pretty face gives them the fun times that they want," or however she said it. Unbeknownst to Rin, Miku was actually upset about it: if this theory was correct, then everyone she loved and worked with had been reduced to a tool of entertainment. Like animals in a circus, trained to do the same acts evening after evening regardless of their feelings.

Of course, she sighed, this was their job description; maybe it was stupid to complain about it. But the repetitive nature and routine weren't the problem, at least for herself -Rin, on the other hand, apparently hated to be restricted like that. But what troubled Miku was that noone in the audience, at least that she knew of, cared about what kind of people the Vocaloids were when they left the stage. She felt that the fans were dehumanising them.

That was why it hurt when Rin said that -the thought that nobody really cares about them. About her.

And this was something that she didn't want anyone to know. She feared that if people knew about the doubts she had about herself, they might start taking her even less seriously than they did at the moment, according to her. Miku didn't want to appear weak. It was hard enough to deal with this weakness on her own.

The turqoise girl glimpsed over to her left side. Her iPod was lying there, wrapped in a chubby ball that were her earphones. She vaguely remembered carelessly throwing it on the bed the night before when she was changing into her nightdress. It was stacked with a bunch of demos sent by the fan producers -the management wanted her to go through them and pick a few that she'd like to add to the setlist in the future.

She breathed out again and reached for the iPod. She might as well get it over with now, she thought; maybe it would distract her a bit.

It soon turned out Miku was not at all in the mood for listening to new songs. The first two she could bear to listen from start to finish, but she eventually started to skip the other songs after the beginning. All of them sounded like happy dance crap to her; she might be interested in some of them any other day, but at that moment, she didn't want to pick any tunes that would have had her pretend that everything is fine when it wasn't.

And then, all of a sudden, one particularly fluffy beat has been replaced by moody piano accompanied by an indistinct phrase repeated by a creepy pitch shifted voice which reminded her of an ugly robot thing that she saw in one of the Daft Punk's music videos a few months back.

The change of pace immediately caught Miku's attention and she listened more carefully. This song was completely different from all the others up to that point. It had a more serious sound, the lyrics were much more mature -Miku had almost exclusively been singing about happy girly things so far, all those little things like love, friendship and candy. This song, though... It felt like it has been written by someone who understood the feelings which she has been dealing with at the moment.

Miku looked at the screen of her iPod. The title of the song was Sand Planet. She almost smiled; she had to remember this name.


"Miku?" said Luka and peeked over the edge of her bunk. The turqoise girl was lying on one of the beds in the back with earphones on and didn't react; either she didn't hear her, or at least pretended so. Luka shrugged; she didn't want to talk to her that much anyway. She only wanted to check on Miku if she was still upset, but the star apparently didn't want to be disturbed.

The young woman climbed down and walked to the front in hopes to find herself a strong cup of coffee. She found Kaito and Rin looking into the boy's laptop, watching some video by the looks and sounds of it. Luka smiled at them and leaned forward to see what the two friends were watching.

"Out of all the series in the world," she smirked, "you're watching Pokemon? I thought your standards were a bit higher."

"Well, Rin is watching," Kaito specified and rolled his eyes. "I'm just accompanying her out of solidarity."

"Speaking of standards," said Rin in a colorless tone; "can you please stop shaking your cans in front of my face?"

Luka looked down; her loose T shirt was indeed showing a lot more in this angle than she intended. She narrowed her back and felt blood rush into her face.

Rin laughed, and she couldn't help but join her. Kaito was suddenly very interested in the bus window on the opposite wall and his head wasn't far from the same color as Luka's.

"Coffee," she remembered and turned over to the coffee maker on a nearby counter, partially because she was looking for an excuse to stop looking in her friends' faces. "You guys want some?"

"Nah, I'm good," Rin replied joyfully. "Maybe an icy cold shower for Kaito over heeeee!"

The sudden noises were telling Luka that the blue boy probably proceeded to tickle the twin for her cheekiness.

"Why can't the world be always like this?" she sighed. "You're such lovable dorks."

Rin escaped Kaito's reach, ran towards her and tried to tickle her too.

"Suit yourself, but I'm not ticklish," Luka said and finished tinkering with the coffee maker like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. The liquids inside were slowly beginning to bubble and steam; a tall white cup with a microphone symbol on it stood at the bottom of the contraption, waiting to be filled.

"Like, at all?"

"Mostly," she confirmed with an evil grin.

Rin stomped back to the sofa and sat down with her arms crossed. "You're fucking lame."

"Watch your mouth!" Kaito and Luka rebuked her at the same time.

Everyone looked at each other and the sides of their mouth were twitching. Then, they all burst out laughing again.

"You're like my parents, you know that?" said Rin, and her eyes and her smile both widened impishly. "I think it's about time you two should get married!"

"Oh shush, you silly," Luka disagreed and looked at the blue boy. "We would make an awful couple, don't you think?"

"Ugh, the worst!" he said. "Spending the entire weekend at home watching TV series that are actually interesting," he winked at Rin; "-instead of going out with friends..."

"Yeah, and going to lame mainstream romantic places for vacation, like Paris..."

"...sending everyone we know pictures of ourselves with the Eiffel Tower just so our friends would see how awesome our relationship is..."

"...while in reality we argue about small things that don't really matter, like who's parents should we visit first on Christmas..."

"Hey, hold on, sweetheart," Kaito stood up smiling like the Sun itself; "my parents are older, they deserve to see us first."

"Yeah, honey, but my parents actually like seeing us," Luka acceded to his little game. "Your old grumpy folks hate me, you know that!"

"Hey, don't say things like that about my family!"

"I knew it! You love your parents more than you love me!"

"Um, no offence, but they were here for me ever since I was born -a few months before that, even. I've only known you for like a year."

"And yet we have a 14-year-old daughter!" she lamented and reached out to Rin who was laughing her butt off in the corner. Despite her protests, Luka wrapped her forearms around the girl's neck. "You're a terrible husband and father!"

"Stop it already, you two!" The twin was hardly able to catch her breath. "I'm gonna die of laughter!"

"The point is," Luka said and let her go, "we're not made for each other. At all."

Rin was about to say something smart, but at that moment, the bus driver's cabin opened and Takumi, the "co-pilot", peeked into the room.

"Just to let you guys know," he said with a nod, "we'll be arriving in about 15 minutes. The crew bus jerks left us behind on the highway, so they're there already."

"Thanks," Luka smiled at him. Takumi saluted with a smirk and disappeared back in the cabin.

Rin snorted. "I bet Meiko rushed them so that she can spend some more time with her boyfriend before we're there."

"Boyfriend?" Kaito blinked. Luka remained silent, only turned around and took her coffee which has in the meantime finished preparing. It was a perfect opportunity not to look her friends in their faces.

"Yeah! She's been hanging out with the crew a lot lately, I think she's dating one of them!" The twin's eyes were shining. "Who do you think it is? I'm guessing Sammy."

"I'd rather drop it if I were you," said Luka with a forced neutral expression. "Kaito, would you mind telling the guys in the back that we're about to get off? Len's asleep and... well, Miku might be still pissed at us."

"Oh yeah, Rin told me." The boy stood up. "I'll check on her."

"I'll be right there, I just have to finish this before we stop," she beckoned him with the cup in her hand. Kaito walked away; Luka sat down next to his laptop where that atrocity of a cartoon was just finishing.

Rin scooped closer to her and laid her head on her shoulder.

"What?" she asked.

"Why can't Kaito be in love with you, Luka?" the twin said in response. "I'd like you as my mom more than Miku."

Luka chuckled. "Why? Aren't you best friends?"

"I guess, but... She's been acting a little fu- a little weird lately." Rin looked at her. "She's got it tough, I know. But she's really getting on my nerves."

"Just try and be a little more patient with her, will you?" she advised her. "You can't solve anything when you're both just throwing shit at each other."

The blonde girl sighed. "Patience was never my strength."


Miku has put her iPod aside a few moments ago and rubbed her eyes. She's calmed down almost enough to get up and apologise to Rin, but she was still too lazy to actually do that. And her self-doubting thoughts weren't exactly urging her to interact with other people either. So she was still on her back, staring at the bottom of the bed above her and trying to organise her brain.

"Hey." Kaito approached her and sat down next to her. "Takumi said we're stopping soon, you might wanna get ready."

She smiled at him faintly. "Thank you."

The blue boy hesitated. "Rin told me you guys had a fight."

"Yes, we did."

"How are you doing?"

Miku breathed out. "Better, I guess. I don't know why I'm so short-tempered lately. Maybe it's because..." She blinked. "Ah, forget it."

"What? What's wrong?"

She stayed quiet for a couple of seconds, looking at the wall. Kaito was watching her patiently.

"Maybe," she continued eventually; "maybe it's because I'm realising that noone really cares about me."

"Hey, that's not true!" Miku felt his hand softly caressing her shoulder. She turned her head; Kaito had a sweet smile for her. "I care! And so does everybody else."

"Thank you for saying that, but I'm not so sure about it."

"You don't trust me?"

"I trust you, Kaito. It's everyone else that I'm questioning." She shook his hand off of her as she sat up next to him. "Noone else cares about what I have to say, I feel like I'm only here because I can 'sing' or whatever. I feel all alone."

Kaito gave her a hug; she wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes. This was just the right kind of first aid that she needed at the moment, and he evidently understood that.

"You're not alone," he spoke up quietly. "We all care about you, even when we don't show it sometimes."

"Thank you." Miku squeezed him tightly one more time before letting go. "Okay, I'm gonna start picking up my stuff now."

"Of course." Kaito stood up. "I'll talk to you later then."

When she was winding up her earphones, she heard him shake with Len who has been asleep the entire time.

"Oh, hey," the twin mumbled. "Did I miss anything?"