I don't own Vocaloid.
Jabber Nut: Thanks for reviewing! And thanks for liking my persistence :) I'm gonna need a lot of that to actually finish the next coupla chapters...
Oliver awoke sweating, but shivering despite the thick blanket over him. Gosh, of all nights why was it tonight? There were 365 days a year and it was this one.
He looked around to try and get his mind off of the dream - well, more nightmare than anything - he'd had. Sun shone through the window, still at a low angle. He glanced at the digital clock next to the bed. 8:13, not too late. If he hurried he could be out of here by nine. But then, Penelope and her husband would try to stop him from leaving to meet their daughter, whom they were so happy to see home. Oh, well. He'd look for the other Numbers some other day.
He didn't bother putting any extra clothing on and went downstairs in his white shirt and dark shorts. He made sure to bring the hat, though - he must always bring the hat.
As he was leaving the room, he heard a small thud like something soft hitting glass, a small chirping noise, and the scrabbling of claws. Being the nice person he was, Oliver ran to the window and opened it, directing the wind away from the window so he wouldn't make the room cold.
The victim of the crash was a little yellow bird - an American Goldfinch. Its wing was bent at a somewhat odd angle and it was chirping in a pained way every few seconds. Oliver winced and cursed. He continued, "Don't worry, I'll get you fixed up and then you can leave. Just don't run into a window again!"
Oliver cradled the bird in his left hand as he skipped the stairs two at a time. The guest room was on the second floor of the house, which was more of an attic level than anything.
"Oliver! Good morning!" Penelope called cheerfully from the kitchen.
Said Vocaloid took a second before replying, "Good morning," and sitting down.
The traveler's home was weird. Oliver knew he should be weirded out that these people kept a room open for random strangers, but somehow he felt like this place was okay, and in fact, it was a place he closely associated with...
Home...
The smells were the same - the thick aura of candles, and under that some kind of perfume with a strong smell that always woke you up. The lighting was the same - light everywhere, and yellowish, reflecting off of white walls and giving a nice, homey feel. There was a lot of stone, too, which reminded him of the tables and the bottom of his RGS. Those things were really cool...
Oliver shook his head. The Goldfinch gave a little squeak as he clutched it too hard and he immediately lightened his grip. Henry noticed the black and gold bird and whisper-gasped, "Is that an American Goldfinch?"
"Uh, yes?" Oliver ask-confirmed, holding it out to show its broken right wing. "Its wing was broken because it flew into my window, so I thought we should help it..."
"Of course!" Penelope said, abandoning the stove to inspect the tiny winged creature. "Henry, there's some little tiny splints in the cupboard under the stairs - go get some, please. It's nice that Cerisya bought all that animal treatment stuff for us."
Oliver thought he heard the old man grumble something like, "Finally, her hobbies get useful..." before shuffling to the closet. Penelope took the little bird from the boy's hands and busied her large frame with fixing its wing for the splint. Oliver simply watched in fascination.
"He's going to need to stay with us for a little until the wing heals," Penelope said, unconsciously making the 'it' a 'he.' "You can name him, dear, because you found him."
Oliver used the first name that came to mind, which was, "James."
"Why so?" Henry returned with bird medical supplies and Penelope hurried to make a mini-cast.
"First thing that came to mind," Oliver shrugged. "I wanted a dog named James once, but it never happened. Bird's close enough."
"How long ago?" The woman asked conversationally.
"Uh... Like, as soon as I knew what a dog was, so maybe a week after I was created... two months and a week ago?"
"What?" Henry cried, surprised, as Penelope temporarily froze. "How old are you?"
Oliver smiled. "I have three ages. I appear to be twelve or thirteen, though I prefer the latter. Mentally I'm like 60, and the time I have been alive is two months and two weeks. Roughly."
All other living creatures in the room (including the bird, now dubbed James) blinked a few times as they processed. Then Penelope shrugged it off, saying, "Well, that's nice. It's also good to see a Goldfinch out here - they seem to be disappearing lately. There's a rumor around here that if these little guys stop coming, something big will happen, and although you were a surprise, Oliver, I think something larger is at play!" She laughed happily and turned back to the stove, prying the now-burnt food off of the pan. James was passed on to Oliver, who handled him verrrry carefully.
Oliver announced he would be retreating to his room for the rest of the day, which he did without fail, leaving once for lunch and once for James, who had snuck out the open door.
"Lukaaaaaaa! Gotta get up!"
Luka groaned, the sound muffled by her pillow being shoved in her face. Her hair was in tangles and spread all around her like... well, really there's no way to explain it other than a giant brown and pink mess. Luki opened her door even farther and threw one of his bright green pillows at her face, but all it did was bounce off of the back of her head.
"Luka, school starts in like twenty minutes. You should have been up forever ago." The boy said, sighing as he walked into Luka's room to retrieve his pillow. "C'mon, up. Now."
Luka gave a quiet groan of defeat and sat up, rubbing her eyes. She blinked and looked around blearily, noticing the time on her alarm clock, and then nearly screaming when she realized how late it was.
While she ran around the house, Luki just walked casually back to his room, laughing, and threw the pillow on his bed before grabbing his bag and meeting his 'sister' by the door. Even in her rush, she had still taken note of Luki's clothing choice - he was wearing the same gray shirt as yesterday (because screw you, dirty clothes hamper), darkwash jeans, a black-purple jacket, and white scuffed-up Converse. She was in bleached jeans, a pale purple tank top, white flats, and one of those weird girly jacket sweaters colored gray and held with a thin brown belt.
"Someone's acting a little too twinsey for me," Luki sighed, adjusting his bag. He was one of the few people in the school who had a messenger bag/satchel bag instead of the normal backpack, and while it looked cool, the shoulder straps hurt sometimes.
"Meh," Luka sighed, using one of the many silver elastics on her wrist to pull her thick hair into a multicolored high ponytail. "So do you think Rin told Len about the Vocaloid Project yet? I wonder if he suspected me."
Luki pulled out his phone and looked at Rin's most recent message -
Rin: I told him about the VLP last night. he totally didnt suspect Luka c(: his face was nearly priceless
"Nope, he didn't think you were one."
Luka looked slightly hurt and fingered her Barrier necklace. "Aw, is it the plainness of the Barrier? I should have picked out a different one... Mom said her favorite was this one that was purple and it had bright green stripes on it and-"
"Please don't start," Luki sighed, walking down the street. "Sometimes I don't get how we were created from the same soul when we're so different..."
"Well, there were a lot of variables going into the project. Mikuo, Rui, Oliver, Piko and me all almost failed and Oliver was stuck in disabled stasis for like a month because he was the first with his own soul base. I'm surprised he even made it out with all his functions intact. Even so, he's still kind of got the mentality of an eight-year-old."
Luki shrugged. "I've been living with you for what feels like forever, but I still know little to nothing about you guys. And I feel kind of glad to even know about you guys in the first place, and even more awesome to be one of the soul bases. Anyways, there's people around now. Different subject."
"Sweet! So, apparently, there was a late-night party for the popular kids last night, which I don't get - it's a school night, geniuses - and..."
Luki sighed and prepared to listen to seven hours of gossip and girl stuff. Oh, the joys of having a sister.
So, this is probably going to be the last chapter for a while. I actually wrote most of these a couple months ago and posted them when I could but now I have to write them out. Tell me, guys! There's too many POVs now for me to choose which ones to do. So, you guys can help me pick. Who do you want to see more of now? Anyone but Maiku is up for grabs.
If the time frames of this confused you, the morning is the same one. It's the same morning as the one Piko woke up on and the morning after the last night you saw Len (which was also the night Akaito and Rei found Neru and Gakupo). So they should all be basically on the same time frame now. Who do you wanna see next? Tell me!-!-!
See you later!
-Kara