A/N: Hello. It's been a while. Currently life is being annoying, and it's only going to get more annoying, but you know, sometimes fanfic is more important than life! So I took three(?) (uh four after editing) hours out of my life to write this. It's not meant to be much, but I hope you enjoy it anyway? So you enjoy, while I return to the mess that is my life... D:

cover art by Yamorisiki, pixiv id 4903258

It's just another day for him, if not rather drowsy. There's an oppressive cloud cover on this summer day, and it isn't even decently humid—it's simply cold and dry and dreary, so much so that it may as well be fall.

So, dressed in long jeans and a red sweater in the middle of June, Len Kagamine shuffles through the line in the school cafeteria, not quite awake and only a little hungry. Without too much pondering, he buys a carton of fries and a chocolate-chip muffin and totes them over to some random table far-removed from the other knots of loud, perky students. He doesn't always eat lunch alone—sometimes he eats with the group of guys from his English class—but, yes, often he does munch his apple while aimlessly wandering the halls, or snack on a bag of chips out in the yard. Today he happens to crave the intimate loneliness of the corner of the cafeteria.

So he's sitting there, finishing his fries and unwrapping his muffin when someone collapses—literally collapses—on the bench opposite his own. A wave of surprise washes over him and his little bubble of intimate loneliness bursts, leaving him feeling a bit warm in his red sweater.

This person, a girl from his one class with really nice eyes, looks at him straight-on for a good ten seconds before sliding into a more comfortable and appropriate position. She smiles as if to apologize for abruptly interrupting his muffin unwrapping, then motions for him to continue.

"Leeeeen. Kill me."

Len was never the type to bite his muffins directly. Instead he—"daintily," as Rin often calls him—picks a piece off with his fingers, then pops it in his mouth. He doesn't do it because he thinks it's good manners or good hygiene or whatever. It's just how he eats muffins.

"What's up?" He talks with his mouth full of muffin.

Rin shakes her head and buries her face in her hands. "My teacherrrrrr. She's so annoooooying. I don't understand how she marks. You know, we got our essays back today, and, well I…"

"You got 100 on it, right? And?" Len picks another piece off the muffin. Rin glares at the muffin.

"No, you heathen." She is still glaring at the muffin. "I got an eighty-nine! Eighty-freaking-nine! I couldn't believe it! Can you believe it?!"

Len stares at his muffin and raises his brows as if he just realized the chocolate chips were arranged in the shape of a smiley face. "Nope, that's unbelievable."

"I KNOW." Rin sighs heavily—Len would say overdramatically, but he knows Rin is genuinely distressed at the moment. "She wouldn't even tell me why she docked a whole eleven percent. Like, I went to ask her after class, and she said, she said she just didn't feel—DIDN'T FEEL—like I deserved a hundred."

"Wow, what the hell?"

"Exactly!" Rin seethes. "I mean, what is her deal? Does she know how hard I worked on this one? 'Cause yeah, I admit on that last one I didn't work nearly as hard, so I deserved a ninety-five. I guess. But this one… It's just not fair!" She makes some frantic hand actions. "Not fair! And STOP SMILING LEN, YOU HEATHEN! I swear to god you always smile when I'm angry, it's almost like you enjoy—"

He holds his hand up, trying not to meet her in the eye. "Gosh, okay, stop." The laughter is already faintly evident at the edges of his voice.

Good thing he doesn't look into her eyes, because they're burning with tangible rage. "You're a piece of shi—"

He can't hear her swear because he's deaf in laughter—he drops his muffin on the napkin and covers his face, partly to (ineffectually) hide his mirth, and partly so she can't slap him on the cheek.

She stomps her feet under the table. "I don't even know why I bother talking to you when all you do is laugh when I'm trying to discuss serious matters." She pauses. He's still laughing. She continues. "You know, you're the only one who doesn't roll their eyes when I start to talk about things like this, but even you can't seem to react in a mature manner." She stands up, peering down at him to judge his reaction; he's still laughing. "I'm leaving." She hesitates. "...Dick."

His laughter fades as she stomps away, but his smile remains. He watches her retreating back, glances at his muffin, then looks back at her. "Rin."

She doesn't ignore him. "What?" she grumbles without turning around.

"Sorry." He doesn't mean to say it cheekily but he supposes the word just mixes up with his inherent cheekiness on its way up his throat. Or something like that.

Since they both know she isn't really mad, she comes back with feigned reluctance and swivels back into her seat across from him.

They're both silent for a few seconds before Rin's glare turns into a grin. "You're an idiot."

He couldn't explain the particulars about her mood swings if you asked him, but he supposes there's just some part of him that was born knowing, instinctively, how to manage her weird temperament. Or maybe it's her, he likes to think, that lets herself be swayed by him.

They turn to inconsequential conversation for a while. He finds himself extensively describing his own weekend plans when he realizes Rin isn't exactly paying attention to his words. Rather, she is staring rather intensely at his… hand?

When he suddenly stops talking, Rin blinks but doesn't say anything. She just glances meaningfully between his face and his hand, and that's when it dawns on him that she's not eyeing his hand, she's eying his freaking chocolate-chip muffin.

"Do you… do you want it?"

She nods slowly. "Yeah, I mean, uh, yes. Please."

The muffin is pretty much whole—he's only gotten three or four bites out of it, tops. He looks between her starry eyes and the muffin again, considering. But then he decides that no, he doesn't work at 7-11 on weekends to earn money to buy muffins for Rin. No, he spent that dollar-fifty to buy a muffin for himself. Also, the chocolate chips are arranged in a sort of smiley face. It's sort of funny so the edges of his lips turn up as he breaks off another piece…

"Hey!" Rin protests.

Mouth full, he explains, "I don't work at 7-11 on weekends to earn money to buy muffins for you. No, I spent that dollar-fifty to buy a muffin for myself. And I'll eat it," he swallows, "all by myself."

She wrinkles her nose. "You're so unnecessary."

"Well, I think you're pretty necessary." He graces her with his most charming(?) grin.

She might have blushed, but she was probably just angry. "Do you think you're smooth or something?"

He furrows his brows. "No, not really." (When in reality, he did think it was pretty smooth, and he feels a bit dejected that the line he thought was genius didn't work on her.)

"Well, good, 'cause you're not." A sarcastic glare. "You're really just a bumbling fool."

"A bumbling fool with a muffin." He brandishes the muffin to prove his point. She scowls. He rolls his eyes. "Why don't you just go buy yourself a muffin?" It isn't the first time she's hankered after his food. She does it all the time, but today he feels he shouldn't give in to her malicious stomach. Or rather, he should put up more of a fight than he usually does.

"I'm broke, duh," she says sourly. "Come on, Len, you can spare a muffin—more like half a muffin," she corrects herself when she sees him break off another sizeable piece.

He shrugs. "You can have the crumbs."

"...Wow, that's gross."

"I was only half-joking… There are a lot of crumbs, you know."

She stares at him for a good long while before shaking her head and turning away. "Yeah, no, whatever. Eat your stupid muffin."

...There's only so long he can go with a grouchy Rin before it starts to get to him. It's honestly a bit suffocating, because he just likes when she's happy, you know?

"Fine." He puts the (half) muffin down on the napkin and pushes it towards her.

She looks at it like it's a worm in an apple. "Um, what?"

"You can have it." He smiles genuinely.

She's surprised. She really hadn't expected him to give in—granted, he usually does, in these situations—but she returns the smile because darn, she's happy. She really likes chocolate-chip muffins. Especially free ones.

"Thanks. Len."

"You're welcome, Rin," he says, and he feels a sort of swelling in his chest because it's just that satisfying to be a generous individual.

She pulls the muffin towards her and bites into it without bothering with that breaking-a-piece-off crap. She doesn't eat nearly as daintily as he does, and now that she's bitten it, he can't take it back anymore, he realizes, unless he—but no, it's too early for that.

"...What?" She sounds annoyed.

"What?"

"I get that you, uh, miss your muffin, but you're not getting it back, so uh, quit watching me eat it. It's creepy," she adds more quietly.

He tries not to smile because he didn't even realize he was staring at her. "Roger that." And he turns in another direction. A beat passes.

"Okay, don't do that either."

"What?"

"You looking away like that is worse than staring! Your head is turned like ninety degrees, it's so obvious that you're trying not to look that it's… Ugh, why can't you just act natural?"

"What is natural?" He frowns. "I was acting natural before you pointed me out."

She raises a brow. "Uh, wait, so you're saying staring at me eating a muffin is natural for you?"

He tries to play it off without thinking about his warming face. "I wasn't staring at you, I was staring at the muffin."

She's skeptical. "Uh-huh."

"It's like this," he says seriously. "A father is giving his daughter away at her wedding. He loves his daughter and would rather not give her away to that degenerate husband but he knows his daughter loves that guy, so he reluctantly hands her over while watching her from afar…"

"...Wow. That's great. I totally understand your intentions now, Len Kagamine."

"Good. Good."

Their conversation has settled, but now Len is unsure where to put his eyes. He can't look at Rin and he can't look at the muffin and he also can't look up or down or to his sides or behind him, so where then, can he look? His eyes dart around as he searches for a place to look.

"Are you okay?"

"I." His eyes settle on her. "Am fine."

"...Because if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were, what?" She concentrates for a moment to find the right word. "Nervous?"

"Nervous?" He laughs. "Why would I be nervous?"

Rin shrugs. "I don't know. But really, you're so awkward all of a sudden. It's kind of funny, actually." He's silent. She laughs and continues. "Actually, now that I think about it, you do get like this sometimes. I dunno. Sometimes you're all super-smooth—no, I don't think you're smooth, you're the only one who thinks that—but then sometimes you get all jumpy like this. And it's, well…" She glances to either side furtively, then leans in marginally. "It's kinda cute. I-In a little brother kind of way," she amends quickly.

He doesn't even realize what she's said right away—rather, the meaning comes trickling in, one tiny droplet at a time, until the whole picture comes together and his stomach lurches. Crap. It was one word, but she didn't realize that to him, that one word meant the whole world.

He doesn't know what to say, so he does something instead. He doesn't even think about it. Without looking at her at all, he does something he thinks is pretty courageous in retrospect: he snatches the muffin from her hand, takes a big, selfish bite, then places it back in her frozen hand in one swift motion. Afterwards, he realizes he's this close to turning completely red, so he decides he has to make a quick escape before they both fully realize what he's just done. He stands up and takes a few steps away.

"Um," he says with his back turned to her. "Don't even think about throwing that away. I spent a dollar-fifty on it, you know." And then he hightails it out of the cafeteria, knowing that she probably would throw the thing out, but it's okay, because this rush of adrenaline and rapid heartbeats is actually a strangely great feeling.

He laughs loudly, and some random passing people look at him like he's an idiot. Because he is. One big damn idiot.

Thanks for reading! R-Review? ; w ;