Dreams
Chapter 28: Pink
"Let's break up."
"What... wait... Why?"
"When the time comes, we'll meet again."
"What are you sprouting?"
"Haku, our dreams... let's prove together that we can make them come true and hopefully, we can work together... again."
After running a distance along the hallway, Haku made a turn to her left and stopped in her track. The man was gone. Where could he be? Panting heavily, she rubbed her forehead and leaned against the wall. That man looked very familiar from behind and he reminded her of someone who used to be very close to her.
"Impossible... he is... no, impossible. I must have seen the wrong person," she muttered and straighten herself up. "Besides, there's no way I could see him."
-:-:-:-
Meiko gulped down the sake and slammed the glass bottle against the table.
"Where's Rin? I haven't seen her for the longest time in my life." Her voice was slurred from all the sake she had drunk within a short while. "I wonder if she has returned home. She worries me a lot nowadays."
She picked up the bottle again and drank the remaining sake until the bottle was empty. Her head hit against the table and she let out a low moan. No doubt that she was completely drunk again. Gakupo came to her table with a bottle of vodka and sat next to her. Meiko's mood seemed bad lately, probably because of her professor and her school work, and all she did was going to bars after school to drink. Examinations were around the corner and he was forced to tag along with her for a drink or two.
"Give me your vodka..." Meiko mumbled as she reached forward and held the bottle.
"You've enough," Gakupo said sternly and brushed her hand away. "I wish Kaito and Hatsune are with us. You're harder to handle when you're drunk."
"I'm not drunk!" Meiko glared at Gakupo and hiccuped. "Hey, do you know where's Rin?"
Gakupo arched his eyebrows and said, "Kagamine? Oh... you don't know yet? How strange... Anyway, she's doing fine. According to Kaito, she came to school this morning and told him that she had passed the modelling audition."
"What?" Meiko's head suddenly jolted upwards with a surprised look, as if someone had slapped her awake. "Rin... she... a model... now?"
Gakupo laughed at her broken speech and replied with a beam, "Yup! Isn't that great?"
Feeling very relieved, Meiko let out a giggle and rested her chin on her palms. "That's our Rin, dude. I bet she must be living alone in a luxurious house prepared solely for her. I mean, she's a model! A model lives a splendid and rich life, right?"
"Probably." Gakupo nodded and looked at the screensaver of his handphone, which featured Luka in her autumn wear. "She'll be working with my Lulu as well."
"Lu... lu... oh, shut it! That nickname you gave her gives me creeps!"
"That's your problem!"
Meiko clicked her tongue and hiccuped again. She felt really sleepy and light-headed. She guessed she should go for another round of drinking before sleeping. Just when she was about to call for the waiter, a couple sitting opposite of them caught her attention. The unknown man was blushing, not because he was drunk, as he took out a necklace from his chest pocket and helped his girlfriend to put it on. The girl touched the pendant and smiled at him before wrapping her arms around his shoulders and squealing in delight.
"Sakine, what's wrong?" Gakupo questioned worriedly upon seeing her look crestfallen.
"Kaito..."
"Huh?"
"Who should I side with this time?" Meiko turned to look at Gakupo with beads of tears rolling down her cheeks, which shocked him terribly as he had never seen her like this before; she was always strong and crazy, in a good way though.
Feeling lost, he muttered her question out loud, "Side with... who?"
"Miku likes Kaito..."
Gakupo nodded. "Yeah, I know that."
"But... he... he likes Rin."
"What?" Gakupo exclaimed and held Meiko's shoulder. "Since when?"
Meiko sniffed hard and suddenly her head fell backwards, causing her whole body to fall off the high chair and sprawl on the floor. Stunned, Gakupo got up from his seat and squatted down next to her.
"Hey! Sakine! Meiko Sakine!" he shouted and shook her shoulders.
A soft snore came out of her slightly opened mouth and then he sighed tiredly.
"This woman... why must she sleep at this moment? Honestly, is that why she... was so upset recently?"
-:-:-:-
"Kagamine, stretch a bit more. Come on..."
Rin tried to straighten her knee while her right foot was resting on a high bar which was around her shoulder level. If she had known models had to do this kind of things that most dancers did during their training workouts, she would have started doing splits or any other workouts at an early age to improve her flexibility. Her muscles were tense and though she hated to admit it, she had quite flabby arms and thighs.
"I'm sorry. I can't stretch any further... I'm at my... limit!" Rin panted heavily and let out a scream when the male coach stepped forward and pushed her knee downwards forcefully.
"You're doing great! Stretch more! More!"
The coach pushed her knee even harder as he happily repeated the word 'more' like a broken recorder, no, more like in a sing-song voice to be exact.
"I'll sue you when my leg breaks!" Rin screamed as she squirmed at the spot.
Her poor left leg began to tremble and finally gave way to her upper body weight, causing her to fall on her bottom. Instead of soothing her hurting bottom, she lay on her side, curled into a ball and hugged her knees. The coach sighed and squatted next to Rin.
"My dear Kagamine, what's your dream again?" he asked calmly.
Rin pouted and hid her face behind her knees, ignoring his question.
"Lesson is over. Go and get changed before your manager comes to pick you up," the coach said in a soft voice and stood up.
Feeling guilty for purposely ignoring him, Rin slowly uncurled herself and looked at him with beady eyes.
"We shall continue the next lesson," he added with another sigh.
Rin slowly pushed herself up from the ground and knelt in front of her coach apologetically. It was her fault for being weak and inflexible, and he seemed unhappy with her performance too, probably because she was worse than what he had expected her to be.
She lowered her head and said, "I'm sorry. I'll try my best the next lesson."
The coach smiled and nodded. Seeing his fine response, Rin heaved a sigh of relief and tried to stand up but only to find herself falling back down on the floor due to fatigue. Her coach stared at her looking concerned, however, Rin returned him an awkward laugh as she started fanning herself with her hands.
"I think sitting here is cooler, don't you think so?" she made an excuse.
The coach continued to stare blankly at her. Just then, there was a knock on the door and Haku stepped into the room. Rin immediately stopped fanning herself and started waving to Haku.
"Good morning, Sir," Haku greeted the male coach and turned to Rin. "Rin, it's time for your next training."
"Alright..."
Rin slowly stood up and limped across the room to get her bag. For the first time in her life, her leg muscles felt so sore that she could hardly straighten them anymore. Looking at the large wall mirror, it was not surprising to see herself looking like an old woman slouching and walking with bent knees.
"Good work today! And thanks for coaching me today. See you!" she said to the coach before leaving the room with Haku behind her.
"Go and change out of your tracksuit before heading out," Haku ordered sternly and tapped on her wrist. "Be ready in ten minutes."
Rin straightened her back with her knees still bent and responded like a recruit soldier, "Yes, Ma'am!"
Haku cleared her throat and bellowed, "Not Ma'am, it's Miss."
Rin giggled and walked ahead. After finding the restroom, she pushed open the door and walked inside. Everything in the restroom was pink- pink walls, pink basins, pink benches, pink cubicles, and pink floor, not to mention about a person in pink walking out of a cubicle.
That person had pink hair with a few long purple streaks and was wearing a pink sport shirt and a pair of pink sport skirt-shorts. Seeming to know Rin's presence in the restroom, that person turned around and smiled at her. No doubt that person was the famous...
"Luka Megurine..." Rin mused aloud and covered her mouth in surprise. "Oh my goodness... It's really her!"
"Oh, I remember you," Luka proclaimed and walked towards her direction. "You're... Kagamine... ehh..."
Rin squealed in delight. Luka remembered her and half of her name! That was so cool!
"I'm Rin. Rin Kagamine," she said in excitement.
"Ah... Rin Kagamine... I remember now. I'm sorry," Luka said with a gentle laugh. "It's great to see you again. You must have passed the audition, am I right?"
Rin beamed and nodded happily. Luka laughed softly as she placed her hand on the side of Rin's head and slowly slid her fingers down her hair. Teasingly, she flipped the ends of her hair upwards and then curled them with her fingers. Though Rin felt uncomfortable by Luka's touch, all she could do was to stand rooted on the spot with a weak crooked smile plastered on her face.
"Well then, I wish you all the best," Luka spoke in a soft voice and grinned. "And I can't wait to work alongside with you, Ka-ga-mi-ne."
After saying that, Luka removed her hand from Rin's hair and waved her goodbye before walking out of the restroom. Remaining tongue-tied, Rin touched her hair and blushed. Luka, the super famous model, had just wished her good luck and even wanted to work with her! Never in her life had she ever dreamt of working alongside with Luka Megurine! This must be a dream within a dream, Rin mentally squealed.
"Man... Kamui will be so jealous!"
Hi! I updated this chapter late by a week due to my examinations. I had my last paper this morning and I'm so glad it is over! Haha! Can't wait for my two-week term break to start. I would like to thank those who had waited very patiently for this chapter and those who reviewed Chapter 27. Thanks for all those encouragements. Hope to hear more from you again! :D
Here are the reviewers:
- PiscesAquamarine12
- mirrors02
- Kagamine-RinCVO2
- SHUTUPANDDON'TCALLMESHORT
Lastly, I would also like to thank those who had story alerted and favourited this story.
Preview of the next chapter:
Chapter 29: Sour yet Sweet
'Hey you, how are you? You haven't forgotten me, have you (because as far as I could remember, you're an old man with dementia)? How's your mother? Hope she's fine. By the way, thanks to you, I'm mugging for my examinations and I'm going to have my first debut in two weeks time. It's not like I want you to support me, but if you wish to, please feel free to do so. I don't really care though. -Rin Kagamine'
Rin snickered at her message and was about to press the 'send' button but her thumb froze above the button for no reason. She withdrew her hand and clenched her fist tightly.
"Again."
Her index finger rested on the button and held there for a long time without pressing it down.
"Rin, what are you doing?" she murmered to herself. "Press it... Why aren't you pressing it? You do miss him, don't you? You do mis... Argh!"
Without thinking, she cleared the text and threw her handphone aside. She had no idea why she felt so scared and hesitant all of a sudden. It could be due to awkwardness, she tried to convince herself mentally. She picked up her handphone again and stared hard at the dark screen.
"Forget it."
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