I've been in the mood to write recently (though that doesn't quite mean that what I write will be great). So here you go, another chapter! Seems like the chapters are getting longer... Wow. Two thousand words... When I go back to school updates will be a lot slower. Probably.

Again, please correct me if I've made any errors in grammar, spelling, inconsistency, etc. (I'm awfully inconsistent...)

Thanks to everyone who's supporting me - both new and old readers - thank you! Especially Honeycloud of RiverClan and aira2889, for being with me since the first story (arc?). Thank you all for your kind words and support! *sniffles with tears of emotion /hit*

Vocaloid (c) Yamaha etc. I'm not sure if I'll bother with this disclaimer thingummy any more... We all know I don't own Vocaloid. Unfortunately.

Cheating

"Hey Rin… stop sulking will you?"

Rin turned over on the sofa, pulling a cushion over her head, trying to block out her best friend's attempts to cheer her up. When Miku still wouldn't shut up, Rin threw the cushion at her instead. Pathetically, she missed her target.

There was a loud bleep bleep from Miku's phone and Rin sat up straight. "Who was that from? Was it my useless brother? Is he not coming back again?" She sounded awfully annoyed, her tone rather scathing, as if she didn't want Len to come back at all.

Miku checked her messages. Shaking her head, she commented plainly, "Nope, just the phone company."

"Stupid anticlimax," grumbled Rin, falling back onto the sofa to stare blankly at the ceiling in the way her brother often did when he was brother. That useless, lying scaredy-cat. Why couldn't he tell her the truth for once? What was she to him now? What was he scared of? He was betraying their trust by doing that… not telling her everything… that was cheating!

It was almost noon and Rin had been doing nothing for hours. Miku had drifted in and out of the room with cookies and magazines and whatnot. School had broken up for holidays last week and so far, these holidays had been uneventful and deadly boring.

Bleep bleep.

Rin groaned. "Is that my good-for-nothing brother?"

With a sigh, Miku said, "Rin, you talk about him as if he were your husband or something."

Flushing bright red, the blonde yelled back hotly, "He's NOT!"

"I never said he was," Miku replied casually with a shrug of her shoulders.

Apologising for the sudden outburst, Rin went back to staring at the interestingly blank ceiling. She yawned – spending less than four hours sleeping really took its toll. She tried to start a conversation, "So who texted you?"

"Well," began the other girl, somewhat with an air of pride, "I made some new friends yesterday, and it seems they want to meet you. See, I told them about you yesterday. They're really nice and friendly. They just told me that they're in the café Len works at now. You wanna come?"

"As long as Len's not there."

Miku smiled wearily. Rin had been so full of energy when she woke up this morning. Now, she was almost half-dead. Lazily, Rin rolled off the sofa, landing on her feet.

The girls went to put some shoes on and, as they agreed that they both looked presentable already, they left for the café at once. When they arrived, Rin checked through the glass windows to see if that stupid brother of hers was in there. He wasn't. Her heart sank. Why am I feeling disappointed? It's good that he's not here! I don't want him here! But even so, she knew she was lying to herself.

Rin followed Miku into the small, homely café, where the sweet smell of coffee and cake filled the air with a tempting aroma. Glancing around, Rin caught sight of the owner of the café: a young woman with light pink hair which flowed down to her waist. She wore a simple dress under a black apron, tied with a gold ribbon. She was always smiling and laughing, and always had that lock of hair draped over her left shoulder. Miss Luka made eye contact with Rin and waved. Rin waved back, though she wasn't quite in the mood for smiling.

Just then, Miku tapped on Rin's shoulder and dragged her over to a table in the corner of the café, away from most of the chattering and gossiping. Sitting by the table for four were two people.

One was a girl, older than both Rin and Miku, her lime green hair just shorter than shoulder length, with two longer bits which fell down past her shoulders, framing her cheerful and bubbly face. She wore a bright orange skirt and top, which both seemed to be purposely just too small to fit properly. She wore such bright colours; it hurt Rin's eyes just to look at her.

The other person was a man with a gentle, faraway expression. His waist-length, deep-purple hair was tied up in a high ponytail and he wore a katana at his side. Rin frowned at that… were you allowed to bring weapons out into the open like that? The man was in a samurai-like getup, but instead of the stereotypical armour, he donned a flowing white robe, lined with purple and hints of blue. Supposedly, most people just passed him off as a cosplayer.

With a smile to herself, Rin thought, trust Miku to make such strange friends.

Enthusiastic as ever, Miku introduced them all, "Rin, this here is Gumi –" she gestured towards the bright-haired girl who waved back, "– and this here is Gakupo." She gestured at the supposed cosplayer. Rin smiled politely, even though doubt kept nibbling at her thoughts.

"Hi," the blonde introduced herself, "I'm Rin. Nice to meet you."

Gumi giggled childishly. "Nice to meet you too! We've heard a lot about you from Miku."

Gakupo just nodded, making no comment whatsoever. If Rin had thought that it was rude, she didn't complain or show it.

The two girls sat down next to each other, opposite the already sitting pair. They all ordered something to eat – cake for the three girls and a simple fruit yoghurt for the samurai. Gumi asked for another smoothie, but a different flavour this time, whilst the girls had frappes and Gakupo had some herbal tea.

They all (except Gakupo, who stayed quiet for most of it) talked together and shared jokes and gossiped until an hour had trickled by. When they had paid the bill and were about to leave, Gumi grabbed Rin and Miku by the arms and suggested, "How about we go to the park? Or shopping? I don't mind."

Miku thought about it, but shook her head, "Sorry, I have some work to catch up on. Maybe next time?"

The green-haired girl pouted and tugged on Rin. "Hey, hey Rin… You'll come, right? I have nothing to do today and I'm bored." She behaved like a girl a lot younger than her age.

With a shrug, Rin agreed. She would have to go home quickly first to get changed. After all, "I'm a girl and a girl has to look her best going out, right?" The foursome all went over to the three-storey house which the girls and Len lived in.

"That's a big house." The purple-haired man placed his hand on his sword hilt and stared upwards, tilting his head back.

"Stop stating the obvious, Gakupo," mumbled Gumi, nudging her partner. "Honestly. You never say a thing and when you do, it's nothing interesting. Or clever."

Rin fished out the house keys from a pocket and opened the door, inviting the rest of the group in. She skipped up the steps, saying she'd be quick. With a laugh, Gumi launched herself onto the sofa, earning a frown from the stern-faced samurai. Miku kept the guests entertained for the best of ten minutes, when Rin came back downstairs with a new loose top and a messenger-style bag by her side. "Let's go, then."

Waving, Miku bade farewell to the leaving threesome. Closing the door behind her, she sighed. It was her fault, really, for not handing in her project on time. So now she had to work on it in the holidays.

"Argh…" she plodded up the stairs in frustration. After sitting at her desk for around 15 minutes, chewing her pen, with a still-blank piece of paper in front of her, she decided to go make something to eat.

In the kitchen downstairs, she grabbed a few biscuits and poured out a glass of strawberry milkshake. Sitting down on the sofa, she turned on the TV, in an attempt to get some inspiration. How did the teacher expect her to write a ten-paged story? Everyone else had found it easy and got pretty good marks. He'd tried to hide it, but Len even got full marks.

The girl groaned again and began nibbling her chocolate-chip biscuits, aimlessly flicking the channels. She didn't like animal documentaries or historical documentaries; the soap operas and dramas nowadays were pathetic and the cartoons and anime weren't on until an hour or so later.

Time trickled ever so slowly by… even slower than this morning. The next time she glanced wearily at the clock, another half hour had gone by. With a heavy sigh, Miku forced herself onto her feet and tidied away her mess. As her glass was set on the rack to dry, she heard the front door bang open. Someone sounded like they were in a rush.

Turning around and stepping out of the kitchen, she caught sight of Len. He looked awful: exhausted, angry, upset and frustrated all at the same time. Those piercing blue eyes settled on the girl. He demanded, "Where's Rin?"

"She's not here right now. Uh, Len…"

The boy dashed upstairs, faster than the wind, his footsteps ringing hard and loud on the ceiling above Miku's head. She feared that the floorboards and ceiling may actually come crashing down. Standing in stunned silence, she listened to the slamming of doors, shouts of aggravation, the sound of things thrown against walls and the smashing of glass and other fragile objects.

Len stormed back down the stairs, a deep scowl on his face. But behind all that fury was the expression of genuine concern. He glared at Miku as if she'd done something terribly wrong. The girl raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, Len, what's up? What's gotten into you?"

"None of your business," he growled back grouchily.

Miku sighed and gasped as she remembered something. "Oh, your sister asked me to pass on a message to you if I saw you."

That grabbed Len's attention pretty quickly. If he were a dog (which he wouldn't have wanted to be) his ears would have perked up. "What? What did she say?"

The girl cleared her throat and recited, "Len, you big idiot! Don't run off like that all the time! It's seriously annoying and you better not be here when I get back! I don't want to see your stupid, good-for-nothing face, so bug off!"

If the boy was surprised, he didn't show it. There was no change in emotion in his eyes or features. A moment later, Miku could have sworn that his eyes took on an ominously dark hue. She hastily added, "Don't shoot the messenger."

When Len next spoke, his voice was a lot softer, with a sad tone to it, "Is that… what she really wanted to say to me? Is that all?"

Miku nodded and answered softly, "Yeah… Sorry."

As if in a dream, Len walked slowly over to the sofa and sat down. He stared ahead, his eyes blank as the ceiling. He clenched his jaw and turned his head to look out of the window. All his previous rage and frustration had vanished completely. Now, he seemed like a lifeless mannequin.

Suddenly, he sneezed and frowned. "What's that smell?"

"What smell?" asked the girl, taking a step forwards.

Len began lifting up cushions here and there and scrabbling around the sofa, turning around on his hands and knees, taking a sniff every so often, like a dog (again, another comparison he wouldn't have liked).

Triumphantly, he held up a square of lime green paper. It smelt of a strange perfume. Rin definitely wouldn't use something like that, so Len ruled out that possibility. Their house didn't have any paper of that sort of luminous green, so he decided that it was from somebody else. Wait. No. it couldn't have been…

Len's heart started racing again, beating hard and fast. Trying to stay calm, he asked, "Did someone come in here today?"

"Yeah, we had –"

"Where's Rin?"

"She went shopping with –"

"Where?" shouted Len impatiently.

"They mentioned the Andales?"

With that, Len launched off the sofa dramatically and pulled his shoes on hurriedly. He was about to leave, but he ran upstairs again and after a few seconds, he came back down with a long black bag over his shoulder.

"Um, Len…?"

He slammed the front door behind him, leaving Miku confused as always. Another few second later, the door opened again and Len huffed, "Oh. And if you see Rin, tell her not to take my stuff." Then he disappeared outside again, this time for good.

For a couple of minutes, Miku stood in bemused silence.

Sprinting as fast as he could, Len was racing around the streets, staying in the shadows. He knew it. The Andales… it was the closest shopping mall to the Dark Alley. He swore under his breath. They had made their move first… Len wouldn't forgive them for that – he'd make them pay dearly. In these games, he liked to be the one to make first moves. If anyone else took action before him, they were going against the rules of his game.

That meant they were cheating.