Hello! Wow… I'm a really slow writer, aren't I? Ah well, the chapters are finished eventually. As always, thank you for all the wonderful reviews, follows and favorites! They're much appreciated! Anyway, on to the story!
Gumi and Miku never stopped their excited chatter, even as the group continued up to the building. Usually, such a constant stream of banter would do nothing but bother Urushihara, but for some reason, when it was with them, it had an almost opposite effect. The never-ending background noise seemed to both soothe him and provide him time to think on other subjects. It was… interesting, to say the least, and Urushihara would have to investigate it more later. However, it would have to wait, for the trio had arrived at the entrance way.
"You ready?" Miku asked, and following Urushihara's anticipative nod, she grandly swung open the doors, announcing in a sing-song voice, "I'm baaaaaaack~!"
"Hey Miku! Gumi!" The girl who had called out had electric yellow hair, held back by a large bow on top of her head and several clips, along with brilliant blue eyes and pale skin. She wore a white sailor top with a yellow bow, black short-shorts with a yellow belt, and strange boots and gloves that almost looked like speakers. The gloves went from her elbow to just below her fingertips, while the boots climbed up to just below her knee. She also had a red tattoo of '02' on her left shoulder and white headphones. She was running past with a basket similar to Gumi's, differing only in that it was stuffed full of oranges and bananas instead of carrots. Following Urushihara's confused glance, Miku took pity on him enough to explain.
"That's Rin. The oranges are for her, because they're her character items. If I had to guess, those bananas are for Len, Rin's twin brother."
"Shoot! That's right! The playoff! In all the excitement of meeting Urushihara, I totally forgot about it! Is that where you're heading, Rin?" Gumi's facial expressions were definitely interesting to watch. They changed so quickly, even just over the course of two sentences.
"Yep! I'm going to go cheer on Len! Are you guys coming?"
"Of course! Those are always very entertaining~ Plus, it'll be a great way for Urushihara to meet some more people here!"
"Hm?" Rin turned her head, her gazing moving past the other two girls for the first time. There, she noticed Urushihara, standing shyly a couple feet behind Miku. He waved. "Oh! That was so rude of me! Hi! I'm Rin! Who are you?"
Urushihara took a step forward, so it seemed he was more involved in the conversation. "Hello… I'm Urushihara, and I'm going to be living and working here now."
"Ooh! That's great to hear! A new member, huh~," For a second, Rin's smile appeared to grow slightly more mischievous. Miku seemed to see it too.
"Rin…" she spoke in a warning tone.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it already, no pranks… No guarantees though!"
Miku just sighed, then turned to look back at Urushihara apologetically. "Sorry… From her, that's the best we're gonna get." After Urushihara nodded acceptingly, having already expected that kind of outcome, Miku turned around again, towards the other two girls. She clapped her hands. "Right then! Seems like we'd better get going. Wouldn't want to miss that battle!"
Rin, having seemingly been reminded of her earlier quest by Miku, grabbed her overflowing basket once again and ran out the door, calling a quick, "See ya!" over her shoulder.
"Hey, wait up!" Gumi yelled after her, before sprinting after Rin. Miku turned once more to Urushihara. After sharing a deciding look and grinning, the two linked hands and ran after the girls.
The house, if it could even be called such, was huge. Urushihara let himself be led by Miku through the seemingly never-ending maze of lavishly decorated hallways and corridors. He had no doubt that if he were to head off on his own, he would be swallowed up by the endless amount of rooms.
Eventually, the pair caught up to the other two girls. They had ended up in a spacious, airy, room, with multiple leather couches and armchairs scattered across it, a giant, flat-screen, TV that took up an entire wall, and sliding glass doors that opened up onto a slate patio. Not including Rin, Gumi, Miku, and himself, Urushihara spotted three other people, each with their own crazy hair color.
The first was a blonde boy, about his own height, with the same stunning azure eyes as Rin. He dressed quite similarly to Rin too, with a white t-shirt with black sleeves and collar, a yellow tie, black shorts that ended just above his knees, and the same black arm and leg accessories as Rin. (Urushihara really had to ask what those were.) He was also wearing white headphones, and his messy, yellow hair was held back in a short ponytail. If he had to guess, Urushihara would say that this boy was Len, the twin brother Rin had mentioned earlier.
The second person in the room was a tall, dark-blue-haired guy with similarly-colored blue eyes. He was wearing a long, white coat with blue accents that reached almost to his ankles. He also had on tan pants, white sneakers, a long, blue scarf, and headphones. Both he and Len were sitting on the floor in front of the TV, holding video game consoles and playing against each other in a popular PVP game. Urushihara kind of wanted to join them.
The last person in the room was so quiet that Urushihara almost missed them in his first glance around the room. They had white hair with an ahoge that was shaped almost in a letter 'P', and slightly heterochromatic eyes. The left was a green color, while the right was slightly more teal. However, the rest confused him. Urushihara couldn't quite tell if the person was a boy or a girl because, while being slightly taller than Len, they were wearing a white, high-collared, dress, (Urushihara wasn't quite sure what it was, but it certainly looked like a dress to him), along with black leggings and gloves, and white boots. Their whole outfit had a technological aspect to it, and was accented by glowing blue highlights. But, when he took a slightly more careful look he noticed what looked like… a USB cord tail?!
Taking in his highly-confused expression, Miku decided to explain things to him once again. "That's Piko. He is a guy, and he is wearing a dress. Don't ask me why, he just does. And yes, that thing that looks like a USB cord tail, is a USB cord tail." When this only succeeded in making Urushihara look even more confused, she sighed. "No, I don't understand it either. But Piko is a guy, who wears a dress, and has a tail that just happens to be a USB cord. It's just a fact of life around here."
Urushihara sighed too. "Life around here is confusing." Miku laughed.
At this point, the occupants of the room still hadn't noticed the new person, so Miku took the liberty of attracting their attention to it.
"Hey, everybody! Meet Urushihara!"
The momentary lapse in the blue-haired male's focus caused by Miku's announcement had given the blonde twin an opportunity, and he took it. He stabbed his game avatar's sword through the other's character, killing him, and effectively finishing the game. The blonde let out a yell of excitement, while, with a sigh of defeat, the man turned towards Miku and Urushihara. Piko just quietly turned his head towards them, and after finishing his victory dance, the blonde boy did too.
"Hm? Who's this, Miku?" the tallest male asked, seemingly having gotten over his recent defeat.
Miku let out a small sigh of disappointment. "Weren't you listening? I said, this is Urushihara. I met him earlier today, and I thought he'd be a perfect new addition to this place! So, I brought him here, and he's going to be staying with us for a while. Urushihara, the guy over there with the blue hair is Kaito, and the blonde is the twin I mentioned earlier, Len. And yeah, I already talked about Piko."
Len smiled and waved cheerily, and Kaito waved as well. Piko gave a nod and a small smile towards him. Urushihara smiled and waved back to them. It was at this point that Len surprised almost everyone in the room, by jumping up and running over to Urushihara. He stood face-to-face with him, and brought his hand out to measure their heights, compared to one another. Whatever he saw definitely seemed to please him, as his face broke out in a huge grin.
"YESSSSS! HE'S SMALLER THAN ME! I'M NOT THE SHORTEST GUY IN THE HOUSE ANYMORE!"
When Urushihara checked for himself, and saw that Len was right he scowled. "Gahhhhhhhh… Why am I so short?!" By this point, everyone in the room was laughing. Urushihara blushed. "Why are you all laughing?! This is so not funny!" It appeared everyone else disagreed with him though, as no one made any move to stop. Strangely enough, Urushihara found himself joining in. This was not normal. Extremely not normal. But when he stopped to consider it, he had to guess it was the atmosphere, or the people. For some reason, they relaxed him, made it feel like it was okay to join in, that he wasn't strange because everyone was strange. It was a nice feeling, and one he hadn't had in a long time.
When everyone had recovered, faces still red and gasping for breath from laughing so hard, Miku grabbed Urushihara by the wrist and began saying her goodbyes.
"Hah? You're leaving? Why so soon, Miku?" Once again, Kaito was the one to pose the question everyone else had been thinking.
"Sorry, but we still have a ton of house to cover, and way more people to meet! I want to try and introduce Urushihara to everyone before dinner, but if we don't get going, we'll never get close!"
So with that, everyone said their goodbyes, before Miku dragged Urushihara out the door again down another endless corridor, towards even more rooms and people. However, Urushihara couldn't find it in himself to complain.
Ok, so, how was it? By the way, for the heights thing, I'm going off of information from their respective fandom wikis (Vocaloid wikia and hataraku wikia), which tell me Len is 156 cm and Urushihara is only 155 cm. XD Idk, but that's how I head-canon their meeting would go. As always, I'm open to plot suggestions, so please send them in if you have any! (To butterfly-chan, that's a great idea, thank you! I'm definitely going to try and work that in XD. However, it will likely have to wait until after I introduce all of the characters.) I think that's it. Have a wonderful day (or night) everyone!