This chapter is really short compared to some of the others I have. I just felt like it was appropriate to stop where I did.

The following morning, Miku, Rin, and Len followed the same routine as normal, as far as they were used to. Meiko greeted them once again. "Hey guys! Rin, Len, I'll show you where you need to go in just a moment. Miku, you actually won't have any classes today and tomorrow. You can go back to your room if you'd like, or you can try to meet more people."

Miku waved good-bye at Rin and Len, and walked back to her room. She entered to find a stack of books sitting on her bed. "Did my room guess that I would be bored?" Miku wondered. She looked through the books and found one that seemed interesting, and spent the rest of the day reading it.

Her two roommates arrived back and she put down her book to greet them. "How was the lesson?" she inquired.

Len answered first. "Heh, not too great. We're not so good at singing in English," he said, though he didn't appear too disappointed.

"We don't exactly have the best pronunciation in our natural language, so I guess it was only to be expected," added Rin. "We're still good singers though, right?" she asked.

"Of course you are!" Miku hugged them, smiling. Rin and Len looked reassured, and went to their beds to have conversations with each other, which was fine with Miku, who had a book to finish. When the sun went down, Miku closed the curtains as an unspoken 'goodnight' and went to sleep.

Miku woke up the next morning to the sound of a door closing, but didn't want to wake up completely. She rolled over onto her stomach and fell back asleep. It felt like five minutes later that she woke up again, still sleepy. Rin was staring at her, and Len was behind Rin.

"Do you want to come with us to meet more people?" Rin asked.

"What time is it?" Miku asked, ignoring the question and rubbing her eyes.

"Ah, it's almost noon. We've already met a lot of people; they're all really nice!" Rin said happily, as Len nodded behind her. Miku, slightly hurt that they would go without her, but acknowledging that they had their own freedom, got out of bed in an unspoken agreement to join them.

As the three went from room to room, holding short conversations and sharing cheerful thoughts, Miku noticed that most Vocaloids and Utauloids liked Rin and Len's personalities together, and Miku realized that she did too. She also realized that she still didn't know how the two were related, though she did know they had the same last name, and she wasn't even sure if they knew how they were related themselves. They just seemed to consider each other best friends, no matter what the official tie between them was.

The day drew to a close and they tried to figure out how many people they had met total. "Ah, it doesn't matter anyway," Miku said, after Rin had tried to count way too many times. "Let's just go to bed, since we have a class again tomorrow, I think."

In the morning, Miku found herself waking up to the sound of a door shutting. Half-asleep, she thought she was having a dream about the previous day, and let her self sink back into sleep. In what seemed like thirty seconds, it seemed like her mind was telling her she needed to wake up quickly. In a sudden jolt she was wide-awake, and she ran to the clock.

"10:21? How do I keep sleeping in so late?" She ran out the door and to the Origin, only to find no one there. "Great," she thought to herself. Then out loud, she said, "How do I know what room I'm supposed to go to? I don't even know who's teaching; I don't even know what the lesson is about!"

Desperate, she suddenly thought of a solution that might just work. She sprinted to Kaito and Gakupo's room and knocked urgently. Gakupo came to the door and started to greet Miku, but she interrupted him.

"Do you know where I'm supposed to be? I'm really late and I was hoping you'd know where I was supposed to be!" Miku said, close to tears, mainly because she was still tired.

"Don't worry, you're not really late. Your class won't start until 11:00, but since this lesson is given to every new Vocaloid and Utauloid from the past week, you're all given an hour to meet and talk with each other. Just go to Kaito's classroom."

Relieved, Miku gave Gakupo a quick thanks and rushed out the door. She sprinted to the door that led to Teto's classroom, knocked quickly, and waited. Teto came to the door smiling and stepped aside so Miku could go to Kaito's room. She burst into Kaito's room and immediately spotted Rin and Len.

"Rin! Len! Why did you leave me asleep! You couldn't even wake me up, or tell me you were leaving!" Miku yelled at them, drawing attention but not caring. "I know I'm not completely in charge of you but you could at least extend the courtesy of telling me to wake up if I'm tired because you two were talking half the night!" She emphasized the last part and Rin's expression looked guilty. Len looked close to tears.

Suddenly, Kaito tapped Miku on the shoulder, looking disappointed. "Are you always late?" he asked, his underlying tone lighthearted.

Miku suddenly felt bad for yelling at Rin and Len, and now that everyone was staring her and Kaito had just made it known that she was late, she felt more embarrassed than ever.

She went over to her roommates and apologized while hugging them. She turned back to Kaito and apologized for being late, trying to explain that she had only been late when he was teaching. "Ah! That makes it sound like I don't care about his classes," she thought. However, she had given up trying to explain herself to Kaito. It never worked.

Kaito smiled and told her to go ahead and grab a seat. She went to go sit down and the other Vocaloids and Utauloids resumed their conversations. Rin and Len glanced at each other and then went to sit by Miku. Kaito scanned the room and then cleared his throat.

"OK, I would like everybody's attention," he said loudly. "You may understand that you are a Vocaloid or a Utauloid, and you may want to know exactly what that means and what your relationship is relative to humans. We are robots, yes, but contrary to human belief, we are not stiff and unfeeling. We function just like people, but we are programmed and we are specially made with beautiful voices." Kaito paused to scan the room again.

"We also don't usually come in contact with people. We live in a special area dedicated to our little program here. You may have noticed your room starting to change. As soon as you start becoming popular, you will find instructions for songs on your bed. Being programmed, you will be able to learn it immediately and go to the recording room. After it is recorded Meiko and I will make sure it gets back to the composer and available for public view. Keep this in mind though; sometimes masters, as composers are called, will not give you good instructions. Just do your best; they'll try to get better."

"Another thing is, masters tend to think you don't have emotion because you're technically robots. This isn't true, they're referring to the fact that they give you the emotion you need to feel when singing the song. Your emotions elsewhere are completely real. Part of being a singer is being an actor. Or actress," he added.

"So basically, the better job you do, and the more people like your appearance, the more songs you'll get asked to do. Don't worry about there being too many, it'll be easy for you to keep up." Kaito finished his speech, and then thought for a moment.

"Oh, and one last thing: sometimes you'll be paired up in songs with other Vocaloids and Utauloids. This shouldn't have any impact on your life outside of singing, so please don't let it go to your head. If you get a duet, please contact your partner and arrange a recording time." Kaito gave a short nod, apparently satisfied with the information given out. "If you have any questions," he said, "please come to me and feel free to ask them. Otherwise, you're free to go."-=

Miku got up and went to Kaito. Rin and Len went to the door and waited, afraid to leave without Miku. "Kaito," she began, "do Vocaloids have an age?"

Kaito thought for a moment. "Well, sometimes they're required to be a certain age for songs, and sometimes their personality leads people to draw a conclusion about their age, but we really don't have one."

"So why are some Vocaloids and Utauloids teachers, and the rest of us aren't?"

"Well there's a big difference between age and maturity, of course," Kaito told Miku. With a small 'ah,' Miku turned and left.

Rin and Len trailed after her out the door, and the three started walking to their room. Miku sighed. "Again, I'm sorry for yelling at you for that. I really shouldn't have. It's just that I didn't want to be late to Kaito's class again. Rin and Len smiled at Miku.

"It's OK, Older Sister," Rin said. "We still love you!"

I'll be posting regularly on Mondays and Fridays (not including tomorrow) from now until Christmas, (that's when my already-written supply of chapters stops, but yay for Christmas break!)