Chapter 2

"Hi Len! How are you doing?" My best friend, Miku Hatsune greets me.

"I'm doing fine. How 'bout you?" I ask her. We're at school in our homeroom. Rin is in a separate class from us.

"I'm great!" Miku says happily. She's always happy, and that always seems to wash my worries away.

"You look cute today, Miku," I say honestly. She always does and I always tell her. And she always replies back with, "You look so handsome!"

"So . . . how's it going . . . with the whole working thing?" Miku asks me as she sits on the edge of my desk. I look up at her and admire her long, turquoise hair.

"I got a raise," I tell her. She claps her hands excitedly.

"Good for you!" she pauses for a minute and then continues, "You know, you can always ask for help. My family is always grateful to help you out."

I sigh. Miku does this from time to time. She's too nice, and I'm grateful for that. But I don't want to be pitied for the situation I'm in.

"It's okay Miku," I tap her back. She always worries about me.

The bell rang and as everyone took their seats, our teacher entered the room.

"Everyone, I'd like for you to meet our teacher's assistant for today," Gakupo-sensei said. He had his arm held out towards the door and in walked in a tall man with short turquoise hair.

"Oh my God," Miku whispered beside me.

"This is Mikuo Hatsune. Please give him your regards, everyone," Gakupo-sensei said. Everyone bowed their heads to him, saying "hajimemashite."

"That's my brother!" Miku whispered frantically, hitting my shoulder. It didn't hurt, I thought it was cute.

As the class grew silent, Mikuo looked up towards the top and end of the classroom at Miku and me. His eyes slanted as he looked at me with eyes saying "touch my sister and I'll kill you." Even though I've known him my whole life, and we're also best friends, if I ever hurt his sister, he would not hesitate to kill me.

Obviously I'd do the same thing if it were Rin's case.

Throughout our classes—I shared all of them with Miku and two of them with Rin—all I was focused on was my schoolwork and the bills that I had to pay once I got out of school. After that, I would pick up Rin after her afterschool dance class and me and her would go a couple of cities away to visit our father who works in a business.

We still keep in touch with our parents but it's more like visits, no family vacations. I usually let Rin stay with our father for a couple of hours because I have other things to do.

After our last class, Miku suddenly holds onto my collar and her grip tightens. "Are . . . you sure you're okay, Len?" she asks me, her voice cracking. I pull her into a hug and tap her back softly.

"I'm okay, Miku. Don't worry about me," I say gently. We stood like that, hugging, for a few minutes until Mikuo appears, clearing his throat.

When I finished paying my bills and picking up Rin, we started to head to the city by train.

While on the ride, I noticed that Rin was acting a little quiet.

"What's wrong?" I asked her. She started to fiddle with her fingers and began to speak in a low voice.

"I don't want to go," she says quietly. I sit next to her on the train since it was already empty.

"Why not?"

"He's mean to me when we visit. He ignores me and yells at me. And he always says, 'I wish you two sores were never born,'" Rin says. I notice a tear fall on her cheek and I pull her close to me and hug her.

"I'm sorry, Rin. I . . . knew that Dad would be like that, but I always told him to give you special treatment. I'm the only one to receive that punishment," I say, comforting her.

"But you're not alone!" Rin raises her voice suddenly. She begins to cry. This always happens to me. I know that I'm being selfish, keeping Rin away from all the hurt that keeps being shot at us.

"Rin . . . I know but, I have to do this."

So, eventually, we ended up taking the train back home. We got back at about 10 o'clock.

"I'm sorry we wasted our trip," Rin says once we're in our apartment.

"Don't worry about it. It didn't cost much."

"We have enough money saved. Len, you've been working for four years straight! What about college?" Rin asks me.

"You'll go to college," I say.

"You work all the time, Len. You do so much and you even have perfect grades. You can get a scholarship."

"Rin—"

"Len, you've done enough work. Can't you share the responsibility? We're both seventeen!"

"Rin!" I yell. She stops her chatter instantly. My eyes were watery. "Enough . . . please."

"I'm sorry," Rin apologizes. I just nod and head off to bed.

This job may be a little hard to handle, but I'm the only one who can do this. I can't have Rin do any of the work I'm doing because she'll be restless. She won't be focused on school or anything. I'm the only one who can actually keep up with all that's going on, and I don't really mind because this helps me be known to the real world earlier than usual.

There's no other way out. I'm not trying to seek help from others. I'm just a man.

[I hoped you liked it! Please review and like/or favorite!—on my profile, you can see that there's a schedule for post updates and stuff!]