"To Crypton and our trusted friends:

We wanna thank you all for raising us from up until to-day.

But now the time has come for us to leave home

We'll start our journeying right away—"

"—With our Road Roller!" Rin sang back with a giggle after previously fumbling over the lyrics. This was our song for Master, a song that we would sing to him once we arrived at his house in the city. In spite of our excitement we laughed together at how quickly this song came to us. "I think the second line still sounds funny," she said, "the way the syllables are separated at the last bit is weird." I gave her a look and tugged the bow on her headband loose. "Well let's see you come up with something better!" She stuck her tongue out at me in response and gave my ponytail a playful tug. We were too happy with ourselves to argue. I laughed again, noticing how much my chest heaved and warmed each time I did so. "Okay. From the second chorus?" She nodded, fixing her bow, and opened her mouth to sing.

The sound of a dozen car horns came out of her mouth.

Confused by the noise, she turned around in the seat beside me and looked out of the rear-view window to find the source. There were quite a line of cars and trucks and buses that honked their horns and blasted music at us. She groaned and turned around in a huff. "Len, can't this thing go any faster?" I shook my head. Though it had the potential of being a very fast construction vehicle, our road roller was not made to go as fast as a sports car. "But Lennn," she whined, "you made it go fast the last time!" I argued, "Road rollers are only meant to flatten gravel, tar, and asphalt." Now she was getting annoying. She gave me this teary-eyed look and put her hands expectantly on my leg. "But—"

Someone beeped loudly again and leaned out his car window. "Hey! You're holding up traffic!" Rin's expression changed; she let out a frustrated growl and leaned out the window, shouting back at him: "Cool it man, okay? We're trying to make it go faster!" The driver narrowed his eyes at us and shook his fist. "Didn't they teach you kids to respect your elders? And how old are you anyway? Do you even have a license for that thing?" I shrank in my seat, mortified. Again with the license lecture. Rin was practically sitting on the window now, ready to climb out. "I'll have you know that Len is a master road-rollerist! And our road roller isn't any ordinary road roller! In fact--" I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her back into the passenger's seat. I turned my head out the window to the driver. "It's all right, sir! I'll pull over here." With that I turned the steering wheel to the left and allowed the flow of traffic to resume.

Rin was livid. "Len!" But I cut her off. "Road rollers are construction machines. They're not meant to go ninety kilometers an hour all the time." Rin frowned and leaned her head out the window to check on something. Then she turned back toward me and said, "But our road roller looks brand new! And you were able to make it go that fast when we took it from the construction site, free of charge!" I held my head in my hand. "You mean we stole it," I corrected her. Rin took my chin in her hand, then lightly grabbed my cheeks and squished them together. "Nah, they gave it to us. It's not our fault they wanted it back at the last minute." This argument was getting silly. We both broke into fits of giggling. After relieving my head I became more resolute. "This road roller can't take going at high speeds, end of discussion." She sat back down and crossed her arms over her chest with a fuss. We drove very slowly on the road shoulder without saying a word for a brief moment. Then she started singing another variation of the first chorus to herself as if to prove she could come up with better lyrics. "Dear Crypton and our trusted friends… for all… your… guidance up until… this point, we wanna say thank you… but now the time has come for us to leave home… we're on our… journey to… make our… debut…? hmm." I could feel her eyes watching me, expecting some kind of response. She sang the line over and over again, correcting herself until she eventually went back to my lyrics. She looked at me again but I was still concentrating on driving. After a while she gave a distressed sigh and slumped in her seat. "How much longer?" she complained, rolling her head from side to side, "Len, sing with me. It'll pass the time it takes to get to Master's house." Reluctantly I pulled the pitch pipe from out of my pants pocket, blew F #, and began singing with her. We always fumbled over lyrics and harmonies, so we ran through both choruses again. It was around the fourth or seventh attempt that it hit me. That's right. That's why we were on this journey and that's why we got the road roller—to get to the city and to get to Master as quickly as possible. There was no doubt in my mind that there was a song waiting for us and the longer the journey, the further out goal of stardom fled.

I slammed on the brakes and the vehicle skidded to a halt. Rin was flung forward, turning to me with a look of incredulousness. I hurled myself in her direction… well, more so to the tablecloth full of snack rations at her feet. She cried out in protest as I dug through and pulled out a small bag of Koala's March snacks. "Why aren't you driving?" she asked, a bit on the edgy side. I popped the bag open and snagged a little cookie for myself. When I bit down into it, there was that familiar flavor again and a flash of the tropics before my eyes. I motioned toward the swaddle of goods with a smile that trembled. "We can't drive a road roller at full speed without a little pick-me-up, right?" At first she gave me this kind of slack-jawed look. It's fun to watch excitement grow on someone's face, especially on that of a vocaloid. It's impressive how far we've come from just happiness, sadness, anger, and calmness. We were so limited to feeling back with Crypton. Is this what it meant to live in the world? Is this the freedom of expression we had heard so much about?

Rin pulled out a pack of Hi-Chew snacks and popped a few of the gummy treats in her mouth. As she reveled in her juicy snacks, I pushed my foot down hard against the pedal and, as we gained speed, I threw the stick up one gear at a time. The pauses in between were enough to propel Rin out of her seat and out of the window, where the climbed up on top of the road roller. I heard her feet clattering above my head and the sound of her delightful scream over the squealing of the wheels and the clamor of the flattening drum. There was an awful grinding noise and everything trembled around us; I heard Rin's feet scuffle backwards as if she were losing her balance against the wind rushing past. As I shifted up to the highest gear possible I turned the wheel back to the right, looking back to make sure no one would hit us. Just as I did that, though, the ear-splitting crunch of metal and the terrified screams of people called out in front of us. I didn't know what had happened until the road roller bumped around violently. Looking back once more, the car in front of us had been flattened out completely, its owner somehow alive and standing beside the wreckage with a disbelieving look on his face.

Rin called out after the people in front of us: "Road-a Roll-a!" And those caught in the path of our road roller fled from their vehicles in the midst of the mid-day traffic. Every single one of those cars, I guarantee you, were flattened right out. It delighted us because it was just too much fun! We felt powerful as we plowed our way through the road congestion. Rin let out a great yell high above the whine of the vehicle itself in our freak moment of rapture and exhilaration. Nothing stood in the way of our conquest on the road to the city.

Then we heard the police sirens closing in. Suddenly the wind in my hair and the sounds of crunching vehicles weren't appealing at all. Now my mind panicked. Rin climbed back in beside me. "Punch it!" she shouted at me. I shouted back at her, "It won't go any further!" I pumped on the accelerator to confirm my point. We were coming into Tokyo hot, but the police were hotter on our trail. I blurted out our only option, turning to Rin with decision. "We've got to leave the road roller." She predictably refused. "But it's our road roller! We can't just leave him for the cops!" So now it had a gender? "Rin, think about it—if we get caught here, we'll never get to live with Master and sing with everyone! We'll be labeled delinquents for real, and chances are he won't want us around." She looked torn between both. She looked back at the oncoming row of wailing sirens and then she looked down out the passenger's window to the door. She patted it with two hard slams and struggled with her decision. We were getting so close to the hub of the city. "Quickly!" And then I heard the loud clunk of the side door swing open and crash against the side. "Hit the brakes and about face!" she shouted out. My knuckles were turning white. "Are you crazy?!" She urged me with the hoarsest voice. "Just do it, you idiot!" I had no other option but to do so. I threw my weight to the left and the road roller tipped and screeched in a U-turn, throwing us violently at an angle before it teetered and settled. We were now facing the barricade of police cars.

It's obvious when Rin gets an idea, in case you hadn't noticed by now. And I didn't like the looks of this one.

The lights glared angrily at us. Officers rose from their cars and stood their ground, warily watching us as one of their own approached with a megaphone. Rin scrambled up onto the roof. We heard a mechanical click and high-pitched feedback before we heard a voice speak. "You are the, uh, 'Wonder Twins Kagamine Rin and Len,' correct? We've gotten complaints from the Hotel construction site in Chiba. You not only robbed them of their lunch, but also you stole their road roller." Rin stomped her foot. "We didn't steal anything!" she objected, "they gave all of it to us out of pity!" The officer shook his head. "That is not included in their official complaint. And is it also true that you are unlicensed?" I seethed and stuck my head out. "We're fourteen years old, you idiot, what do you think? Of course we have no license for this thing! Any moron could see that!" He seemed taken aback. "You're both coming with me!"

Before I could say anything further, Rin started to laugh. It sounded like the laughter of a pretentious aristocrat. I could feel something coming on. She took a breath and started to sing. "WRYYYYY-YYYYY-YYYYN…" My hand eagerly tapped on the stick as I leaned out the window and started singing with her, slowly:

"Be sure to make us sing a neat little song and treat us well,

or else we just might get a little mad at ya!

We're not some juvenile delinquents, you know!

If you say that we'll run you over

With our road roller!"

I revved the engine again. The officer scurried back to the blockade with his megaphone still on and whining in fear. "Y-you DQN brats! Get out of that thing immediately!" Rin laughed again and tapped her foot lightly above me. "Hear that, Len? Did you hear what the mean old policeman called us?" I looked up and smiled the same smile she no doubt had on her face and pressed down harder on the gas, causing the road roller to screech ferociously. "Well, we warned him…" She pointed at the barricade of officers and said, "Prepare yourselves for the flattening of a lifetime!" With that I threw the vehicle into full gear and let out a yell as we leapt toward the cars with a roar. The men were screaming, fleeing for their lives as we chased them down the road, flattening their cars and hats and megaphones. Rin taunted them. "What's wrong? Can't handle little fourteen-year-olds on construction equipment? Well that's what you get for calling us delinquents! Now run along and leave us alone!"

We were manic. Each of those officers were scared back into Chiba and we were able to turn back and head into Tokyo. We cheered the whole way, pretending to be the homecoming heroes of a great war, singing more glorified anthems to our road roller and ourselves. The people in the cramped buildings and on the streets cast weird looks at us the whole way, but we didn't care. The celebrations were cut short when I realized that we may be sought out after that stunt. Before we made it too deep into the city, we had to get rid of our cherished road roller. After hours of negotiation with Rin, she reluctantly agreed to it. We wandered around until we found a secluded area in a park to stow it safely away from sight. It was a tearful goodbye for all of us, but we had to find our new home and sing to Master even if it meant leaving behind an incriminating friend. We didn't even make it past the park exit when I felt my identical companion tugging at my sleeve. "Len," Rin said to me after her hysterics were over, "you wouldn't happen to know where Master lives, would you?" I went through my memory, trying to find the address. It had to be embedded somewhere… Got it! "Some place called Hamamatsu…"

There was a bit of silence between us as I mapped out the coordinates, suddenly being overcome with a feeling of dread as the map came clearly into view. My arm buckled in pain when Rin's fist collided with it. All of the stress from our joyride caught up to us. She began rambling: "Idiot! Didn't I tell you we should have stowed away on the flight to Cyubu? But noooo, you wanted to see the sights in Tokyo! Oh, Tokyo! The big city where traffic abounds and the police are at every corner! But now we're exactly where we shouldn't be because of you!" I argued back, "My fault? My fault? You're the one that provoked those cops, so it's your fault too!" Why was I losing my temper? My face and hands were trembling and hot. "If you hadn't stolen those snacks in the first place, none of this would have happened!" She stomped her foot, getting in my face. "Well I wouldn't have had to take all of those snacks if you hadn't taken the road roller!" And I shot back, "But you told me to take it! You're always making stupid plans and being reckless!"

She stepped back in shock, almost as if my words had shot her. She retaliated, "And you're always a tattle-tale know-it-all! Look, you think you're so smart? You find your way to Master, and I'll take the road roller and find him my own." I am ashamed to admit that I was pretty miffed at this point, so I dismissed her. "Fine." She turned back into the park and yelled back at me, "Fine!" And we kept yelling at each other until I couldn't hear her voice or see her retreating through the bushes. We were going our separate ways now. In the silent aftermath of our argument I breathed a shaky sigh of resignation. My body moved on its own, walking away from the park and into the bustling metropolis alone.

((A/N: Feel free to correct me at anytime about the kilometer thing. For the sake of Americans like myself that are metric system stupid, Wikipedia says 50 km/h = 30 mph and usually people fly by doing 70 mph on the highways up where I live on average. Thank you for pointing out that the second chapter was totally inspired by "Drive! Drive Me Flat!" :D That song and "It's My Road Roller!" are basically my favorites. I love the idea of Rin and Len being scary little delinquents ruining everything… but they're not bad in this story, right? You'll give them snacks, RIGHT?

I think this sequence moved in a little too fast, but I'm just trying to drag out the ending longer, just so this story's not four chapters long. Might try writing from Rin's perspective next…))