Author's Note: Wow, would you look at that, a new chapter after uhh... 3 and half years? Sorry to everyone who's been holding their breath and waiting for an update (if indeed there are still any people like that). I read through my previous chapters, and was I ever wordy... I can't say my writing has improved, but I would assume it /has/ changed from that. (In the mean time, I wrote a short multi-chapter story, Cafe Latte, and a longer-than-it-was-supposed-to-be oneshot, bark and bite, to get back in the swing of things, but it's been a while since those, too. Either way, that's basically where I'm at right now style-wise. And while I'm listing things I did while I wasn't writing this story, you guys could go and check out the Suki Kirai light novel translations on tumblr.)
If all goes well, I'll try and get out a chapter a month from now on, because I still really want to finish this (I haven't even gotten to the best parts), at least for the sake of just finally finishing it after so long. This is sort of a loose odds-and-ends chapter, but I hope you all will enjoy what's to come! And thank you to everyone who's actually read this far.
After the huge success of the Midsummer Music Festival, Miku and her widened circle friends barely had any time to rest. They still had to pass their exams coming up in two weeks before they could start enjoying their summer vacation.
Miku and the twins were already used to studying together, so now Luka and Kaito joined them as well. Sometimes the trio visited their house; sometimes the siblings came over to the dorms. It didn't take them long to fall into a comfortable rhythm between the five of them. Even Rin had worked out a nice balance between spending time with her friends and her classmates.
"So, what are you guys planning for summer vacation?" Luka asked between two bites of pizza.
It was their usual way of wrapping up a study session at the Megurine house on a Friday night. They were gathered in the living room: Rin and Len lounged on one of the couches with her feet resting on his lap, Miku and Luka occupied the other one, while Kaito took the arm chair.
"Len-nii and I are going to the first years' summer training camp. It's going to be a blast, I'm really looking forward to it!" Rin replied, the excitement apparent in her tone. Len nodded to affirm his sister's words, though with considerably less eagerness.
"Ahhh, the one Gumi-sensei mentioned the other day, right? Kaito, aren't you gonna go, too?" She turned to her brother.
"Nah. I'm going back home to visit... a friend." His pause before 'friend' was short, but noticeable. He continued before they had a chance to mention it, though. "So you won't need to worry about me while you're off frolicking with your rock star boyfriend on some tropical island."
"Almost, brother dear, almost. The Alps are far from being a tropical island," Luka retorted without missing a beat.
"What about you, Miku-chan? Won't you be lonely here with all of us gone? You're probably going home, right?" Rin asked as she reached for her glass of orange juice, cutting off Luka and Kaito's squabble.
"Hmmm, I'm not sure yet. I'll definitely visit for a few days for Obon, though. But I guess I'll do my summer homework real quick so at least I won't have to take it with me," she answered with a shrug. "Maybe I'll get a head start on the graduation album, too."
It was customary for Kaion Academy's graduating students to compile an album of their songs that they'll leave behind for future generations. There were only a few easy guidelines that they had to follow.
To be honest, there wouldn't be much for me to do at home either... I wish I could just stay here the whole time, she pondered to herself. Maybe I'll ask Luka-chan if she needs a house-sitter, get a little change of pace from the dorms.
"In any case, we should have one last big get-together before we go our separate ways for the summer!" Rin suggested, bursting with enthusiasm.
"How about we stay at the karaoke bar after the opening concert? We'll be there for it anyways, and I'm leaving the next day," Luka added.
There was a karaoke bar opening on Otoshima, the first Friday after the break starts, and Gumi-sensei had picked Rin and Miku to perform the theme song, 'Colorful x Melody', that she wrote for the place at the opening ceremony. (Of course, they wouldn't be the only students performing at the mini concert.) The added bonus was that the students got the option for making their songs available there through Kirakira Kaion.
"We could even persuade Gumi-sensei to reserve a room for us free, since Rin-chan and I are performing and all," Miku chimed in.
"Yeah, sounds good," Kaito said as the others nodded in agreement.
"Alright, with that decided, what are we watching tonight?" Luka posed the next important question. That, too, was an important part of their study session traditions.
"Okochama Sensou marathon! We left off season 2 at such a cliffhanger!" the twins shouted as soon as she had uttered the question.
In a matter of minutes, they cleared away the empty pizza boxes and pushed the furniture to the optimal viewing spots.
They got through their exams with ease and Gumi-sensei accepted their request without a moment's hesitation, saying that 'that's the least I can do for my little birdies!'
Quite a crowd had gathered for Colorful x Melody's opening concert. Miku and Rin got through their performance without a hitch, their friends cheering for them from the audience. They even got new costumes out of the gig.
Gumi had acquired one of the few bigger booths for them. The stage and screen were on the left side beside the door, a table sat in the middle of the room with the song choosing machine on top of it, and the back wall was lined with one long, conjoined sofa that had enough seats for eight people. The walls were painted with a myriad of bright colors, though most of it was covered with posters of popular singers and bands.
"Wow, so this is what an actual karaoke booth looks like," Luka said in awe, leading them inside.
"Ah, is this your first time coming to one?" Miku asked her.
"Yeah, they're not really a big thing where I lived in the States, so I never had the chance," she replied.
"Then we'll have to make up for that by coming here often," Miku said, smiling.
"I wonder if our pictures will be hung up like this one day, too," Rin murmured, her eyes sparkling with ambition as she gazed around the room.
"Ooohh look, it can pick random songs and randomly assign pairs, too. Let's give it a spin!" Luka exclaimed as she was browsing through the machine's settings, having swooped down on it quite fast.
"I like how you think, Luka-senpai," Rin commented, plopping down on her left. She grabbed the menu from the table and began flipping through it to pick out snacks and refreshments.
Len promptly took his place on the other side of his sister. Miku took Luka's right, thus leaving Kaito to sit beside her. Now that she knew that he's Luka's brother, and after the regular study sessions, she had gotten used to being around him. Late in the night, when her thoughts were keeping her awake, a wave of embarrassment would hit her all over again for being so painfully oblivious, but nothing more. What started out as always bumping into each other had slowly turned into a casual friendship. And Miku was content with that.
Luka entered all their names, then let the machine handle the rest. To kick things off, they received a group song, 'Mr. Music'. It was just the right choice to get them into the mood of the place.
As fate would have it, the Kagamines got the first duet, 'Electric Angel'. It was a delight to watch them perform such a cute and energetic song: though things had gotten a little rough between them in the past few months, the twins were always on the same wavelength when they sang and this was no exception. Their smiles shone brighter than the neon lights overhead.
Much to her mortification, Miku was paired up with Kaito next to sing 'Futariboshi', coincidentally one of the songs she wrote the lyrics for and played the piano portion. It's one thing that we're friends now instead of awkward acquaintances, but this is certainly too much!
She wobbled slightly as she stood up, but she made it to the microphone stand without stumbling, despite her nerves. When the familiar melody began to float from the speakers, habit took over and her voice regained its balance after the first few words of her part. At first, she looked straight ahead, not daring to face Kaito. Soon enough, her eyes slipped closed as she got caught up in the flow of the song.
She operated purely on feeling now. But just as it had made her tune out her surroundings for a short while, it also coerced her back into the moment.
"Nemurenu yoru wa itsudatte, dare yori kimi ni aitakute..."
Their voices overlapping, the sweet mood compelled her eyes to open on their own and she faced her partner. Who happened to be looking right down at her.
Once their gazes met, deep blue fixed on aquamarine, neither could avert their eyes for the rest of the song. Miku could feel her cheeks heating up and her voice faltered for a moment. It has been a while since she had looked up at him like this, seen his soft features from up close. Ah, his eyes are sparkling... Why?
Too soon, the song had reached its end. As the last note drowned out, Miku tilted her head to the side and cast her eyes down. What the heck was that?! And in front of everyone, too! After a moment of heavy silence, Kaito cleared his throat, then their friends started clapping.
"That was amazing! You two should sing together more often," Luka remarked with a pleased grin. The twins were quick to agree. Miku brushed the comment aside with a nervous laugh and scurried off-stage, Kaito trailing behind her. She considered sitting beside instead for a second, but took her usual spot in the end.
As the afternoon wore on, they witnessed uncanny pairings and perfect matches. Sometimes they formed trios and there were a couple of solo performances along the way, too. The girls unanimously agreed that Len and Kaito singing 'Bambino' would bring a good handful of love letters to their shoeboxes, and that observation resulted in tinting the boys' cheeks a bright crimson. The boys were left with their mouths hanging open after the girls sang 'Ifuu Doudou'. Though adamant protests preceded it, they would never let Len live down how he totally got into 'PONPONPON'; Rin had her face buried in her hands the whole time.
Singing and laughing the hours away together, it was a perfect way for them to kick off their summer break.
That following Sunday turned into huge cleaning day in Miku and Rin's room. Rin was leaving for the training camp the next day and wouldn't be back for a month, so she needed to pack up the necessities for that. Soon realizing that she would need to sort through her stuff before they were in any shape to be packed up, she roped Miku into helping her out.
"Hey, can you grab that pink folder for me?" Rin asked, sitting on the floor between two piles of clothes.
"You mean the one at the bottom of that large mountain of papers and other folders?" Miku stepped towards the table, assessing the situation with a wary look.
"Yes, exactly! Thanks," Rin replied with a cheeky grin before shifting her attention back to the clothes.
It was a pretty precarious pile; Miku had to be methodical about deconstructing it. We really ought to figure out a better way to keep our stuff organized, she pondered. The problem with turning one big pile into several smaller piles is that you'll end up with piles around yourself; so when she had successfully extracted the requested folder and turned to pass it over to Rin, she also successfully knocked over one of said piles, spilling the contents of a different folder on the floor.
"Ahh sorry, I'll put those right back!" she hastily apologized while taking a few steps to hand over the folder to Rin.
"No that's okay, leave it to me!" Rin hurriedly blurted out as she caught sight of the papers scattered onto the floor. She stood up and headed towards the desk, forgetting about the other folder.
Miku looked down at the sheets lying around her feet. Those were Rin's sketches. That in itself wasn't surprising: she knew that besides music, the girl had a penchant for art, especially drawing. She squatted down and picked one of them up. She wasn't quite expecting to see a copy of Len in his date outfit from about a month ago. Before Rin got there, she had a chance to glance down at the other ones: they also featured Len, in a wide variety of dresses, his poses getting progressively less innocent. There had to be at least three dozen of them, if not more.
"Uhm, Rin-chan? Are these really...?" she began to inquire, unable to voice the full question. By then, Rin was squatting beside her and was gathering up the drawings. She turned to look at Miku, biting her lip in worry.
"I could hardly deny it after you've seen them already, could I?" she retorted, furrowing her brows. "Promise not to tell Len-nii or anyone else?"
"Of course! That goes without saying," Miku reassured her. "But I sure would like to hear some sort of explanation. You basically massacred a forest with drawings of your brother cross-dressing. In a certain sense, that is kind of worrying."
Rin's lips curled into a frown, her eyes clouding over. Good job Miku, you know just what to say, she chided herself.
"Not that it's a bad thing!" she quickly amended. "Just, you know, you probably don't want me pulling speculations off the top of my head. Trust me on that."
Rin took a deep breath. "Well, I guess that's true. And maybe it'll take a load off my mind if I finally talked about it to someone. Miku-chan's the only one I could do that with."
"Exactly. We're friends, and you can always rely on me," she said, placing her hand on Rin's shoulder as a comforting gesture. "Go on, I'll listen."
"Okay, so, you remember how torn I was about getting my own identity with the class placement splitting us up but also missing Len-nii and wanting to fix that somehow? The fact that my brother was willing to take my place changed things," she let out a heavy sigh. "And when I saw Len-nii come home after that date, at first I was surprised by how perfectly 'me' he was. But after that first few seconds of shock, there was something so very Len-nii-like about his figure."
She pointed at the picture still in Miku's hands. "So it was sometime afterwards that I drew that one. I wanted to capture something about that moment, though I wasn't even sure if it was his posture, his expression or something else. It took a day or two to fix up the details, but it wasn't the same impression... So I thought, maybe I should change a few things around. That's where all these other ones came from," she flipped through the ones in her hand as she explained, letting Miku see them but not get a good look at them.
"In the end, I wasn't even trying to get that expression anymore, I think... After all these, which were getting worse on their own, I guess something short-circuited in my brain, because before I knew it, I r-reached this..." she shyly showed the last drawing to Miku, which portrayed a half-naked Len hovering over a girl she presumed to be Rin herself (the hair bow was a dead giveaway).
"I realized that this was it: the expression I was searching for. It was his bare devotion towards me. And that side of him... I–... I don't want to escape that gaze, nor do I want him looking at another girl like that. It has to be me," she stared straight at Miku, the same conviction apparent in her eyes.
"I still chat with Piko in class and stuff, but that feeling of novelty and giddiness disappeared pretty soon after the date I didn't even go on. It took me a while to realize it, but only Len-nii can fill the hole he left behind. And I don't want anyone else to fill it either," she said, her voice gradually turning into a whisper as she cast her eyes down.
"Aww Rin-chan...!" Miku cooed, pulling her friend into a hug. "You are aware of what you're saying, right?"
Really, I would just need to lock them in a closet somewhere at this point and let them figure it out already, she thought to herself.
"Y-yeah... I–," she struggled to get the words out, until she eventually gave up. "I've been terrible to him. Things are getting better between us, now that we're hanging out together more with Luka-senpai and Kaito-kun, but there's still something that's just not quite right..."
Yup, you're both avoiding the elephant in the room that's the two of you crushing on each other, she commented, rolling her eyes mentally. Alright Miku, this is your chance to bring them both out of their misery. You just gotta push Rin-chan in the right direction a little more.
"You'll both be at camp for the next month, right? Of course, you'll have a lot of work to do, but spend some time with Len-kun when you can. Talk to him. Really talk to him. He'll appreciate it. And I think that would help to sort out that 'something' you're fretting over," Miku advised her friend, giving her a squeeze before ending the hug.
"Okay, thanks," Rin nodded, a smile finally appearing on her face.
"Worst comes to worst, just show him that last picture. I'm sure he wouldn't object to giving you a live demonstration."
"Miku-chan!"
Disclaimer: Colorful x Melody's NND code is 1278053154, Mr. Music is sm13774194, the Kagamine version of Electric Angel is sm20040564, there's no Kaito and Miku version of Futariboshi afaik (just imagine that it would sound great) but the original is sm11302054, Kaito and Len's Bambino is sm20559187, Ifuu Doudou is sm19233263, Len's PONPONPON is sm15484827, and Okochama Sensou is sm22349544. I know I'm lacking people for some of the songs but hey, they were at a karaoke bar.