AN: It's not twincest, they're not related, I will kill your mother if you tell me they are, enjoy the story.

Maybe she just spent too much time with boys, or perhaps it was just in her personality, but Rin seemed to lack the female instinct that Miku had when it came to clothes. Often mismatching styles and colors, the older Vocaloid with twin ponytails was always forced to swoop in to the rescue and fix the fashion messes that Rin made. And when Miku wasn't around, it was up to Len to dress Rin. He really wasn't that bad at it (but it was a sworn secret between himself and Rin. He knew the other guys would tease him about it.) Not as good as Miku, but not bad.

But right now, in his mind, he was yelling long strings of curses at himself. Why?! Why didn't I notice that the fabric wasn't suited for this weather...?!

As an explanation, rewind back to that morning...

"Ahh, Rin... I told you I'd be up to help you in a minute..."

With half-eaten toast in one hand, Len looked critically at Rin, his eyes moving up and down like a scanner. Since Miku was away for a concert, it was his sacred duty to pick an outfit for Rin. The two of them were planning on meeting up with the rest of the Vocaloids to go grocery shopping.

Other than her usual ribbon and hair clips, she was wearing a lacy white top and a plaid miniskirt. The outfit was completed with matching white socks and those cute little sandals Meiko had picked up for Rin's birthday.

Hmm, this was surprising. It actually matched pretty well. He viciously fought away all romantic thoughts (She looks really cute... ah, wait, no, what am I saying?!) and replaced them with more maternal ones. "Hmm, that looks good! You're wearing shorts underneath, right?"

Rin's smile quickly jerked into a pout. "Aww, but I hate wearing shorts underneath my skirt..."

"If you're going to wear a skirt that short, you really need to wear shorts underneath...! What would I do if you tripped, and Kaito and Gakupo saw your...?! ... ... ... N-never mind... j-just go put some shorts on..."

Len cleared his throat and shyly watched Rin return to her bedroom. Ahh, sometimes being her brother-figure was very difficult.

"...Note to self. Work on sounding less like a mom." He groaned as he realized that, more so than Rin, he was the one being affected by the opposite gender. "I sound more and more like a woman everyday... gross."

Rin came back a few minutes later, and they headed off for a pleasant day of shopping with their friends.

...At least, that's how things were supposed to be.

Len was NOT expecting it to start raining on the way there.

"Friggin' rain! I forgot to check the weather this morning!" Len screamed, partly towards Rin, but mostly just up towards the heavens. Her hand was in his, as they both relied on each other to keep themselves from slipping on the wet cement.

They practically skated into the entrance of the grocery store, wet to the bone and quite out of breath. Gathered around a couple of shopping carts was Meiko, Kaito, Gakupo, and Luka. In drastic contrast to Rin and Len, they were all well bundled, perfectly dry, and wielding umbrellas (almost in a taunting way, Len felt).

Kaito was the first to laugh. "Hahaha!! You guys look like dish rags! What happened?!"

Meiko's motherly side overrode any amusement she found in the situation, as she ran over with her extra sweater and used it as a towel to rub down the blonde children. "For goodness' sakes, you two! Didn't you watch the weather this morning?!"

"It was sunny when we left..." Len complained, feeling that his ego had been stabbed. Rin seemed to pick up on his depression, as she cast a violent glare at Kaito, which shut him up right away.

Luka also came over to help mop up the two as best she could. They were still pretty wet when Luka and Meiko were done, but at least they weren't forming puddles all over the floor.

"You poor things. Would you like me to push you two around in a cart?" Luka offered sympathetically. Like Miku, Luka also served a big sister role in the Vocaloid 'family.' However, she was more reserved and serious, which made something like this offer a little more special.

Rin immediately nodded, far preferring to be carried around over looking for things on the shopping list. Len felt a little embarrassed at the idea of being toted around like a child, but running through the rain like a mad man DID make him tired, so resting for a while didn't sound so bad.

"I can push them!" Kaito quickly offered, probably to redeem himself from laughing at their misfortune. He lifted Rin into his cart (at which Len flinched a bit, but he forgot all about his jealousy when, to his surprised, Kaito lifted him up as well.)

Both being adolescents and all, being squeezed into a shopping cart was a pretty tight fit. Len was used to being this close to Rin, but he still had trouble keeping that pinkness away from his cheeks sometimes. Today, he was more preoccupied with how cold he was (and therefore Rin was just serving as extra body heat at the moment).

"Heehee, no one's done this for us in a long time!" Rin commented with a silly grin plastered on her face.

"Hehe." Kaito smiled back and concentrated on the list that Meiko handed him.

"I'm going with Meiko and Gakupo to pick out produce. You take these two and get all the canned goods in aisle 4." Luka commanded Kaito without pause, seemingly very focused on the task at hand. Len knew that Luka usually paired herself off with Meiko because, despite both of them being the "women of the household", Meiko had a tendency to get distracted and fill her cart with booze and cookie dough... Luka was more to the point, and she took it upon herself to make sure that the job got done.

Kaito also had some very Meiko-like tendencies, so Luka was purposefully sending him to the middle aisles... to keep him far, far away from the freezers. She did not want to relive that day he had somehow sneaked all 31 flavors home. Ah, that was not a happy week for their budget...

Len chuckled at the recollection.

"What's so funny?" Rin looked at him with her huge, aquamarine eyes.

"Awh, nothing, really." He shrugged.

Rin latched onto his arm like a koala. "Teeeeeeell meeeeee!"

Completely unintentionally, Len's eyes happened to wander downwards. Rin's sticking to him had pressed her still-wet chest up against his arm. Wet fabric did not feel good on his bare sk—

...

Oh crap.

It took all of his self-control to keep himself from showing any physical signs of alert, but Len's whole head heated up as little warning lights flashed in his mind.

He could see certain undergarments through Rin's shirt.

Ahhhhh, crap crap crap crap crap!! Friggin' rain!! I knew I should have picked Rin's clothes this morning! If only I had watched the friggin' news report...!

Still trying to play it cool, but unable to contain the overwhelming feeling of doom that had overcome his senses, he made an effort to look up at Kaito casually. Kaito was preoccupied with putting cans of soup, tomato paste, etc. into his basket, but every now and then, he'd glance down at the people in his cart and smile.

Len was panicking. Wh-wh-wh-wh-what if Kaito sees? The very thought made the overprotective boy want to die. Why, oh why did they get paired off with Kaito?! At least if they were with Meiko and the others, there would have been two women there to help him out! Well, Gakupo would have been there too, but Len kind of had suspicions of the more flamboyant Vocaloid...

Anyway, the point was, there was no way he'd let Kaito look at Rin! But with his terrible luck, the blue-haired man turned towards his cart right at that moment, opening his mouth to say something. "Hey, which of these do you guys think—"

Len's mind was running through thoughts faster than a bullet train, so he panicked and acted upon the first thing that popped into his head. "Ah—!" Breaking free of Rin's grip on his arm, he wrapped himself around her like a blanket.

"L-Len?! What are you doing?" Rin asked, both surprised and amused. He could hear nervous laughter in her voice.

"I'm... I'm so freaking coooold, Riiiin..." Ah, improvising was hard. But Len gave it his best effort. "K-Kaito, are you taking us towards the freezers? It just suddenly got cold. You know we're not supposed to buy any ice cream."

"Ehhh?! Darn, you noticed..." Despite Kaito being much older, it amazed Len how immature the ice cream lover could look. His expression was like a child being caught with his hand in the cookie jar... or in this case, the freezer.

The blonde boy let out a small sigh of relief. He had gotten away with it so far. But it wasn't like he could cling to her like this the whole trip...

And Rin seemed to detect his worry. "Len..." she whispered, (the sudden sensation of her breath in his ear made him jump, and gave him the goose bumps) "what's going on? You're acting funny."

Biting his bottom lip, he hoped to the high heavens that she'd take this well. "Um... th-the thing is..." He lowered his voice to as quiet as possible. "I can see your..."

...

"O-ohh!!! Ahh!!" Rin turned bright red and distanced her body from Len's just enough to check herself... and yes indeed, what he was saying was true. "Wahhh—!! I totally didn't notice! S-so that's why you're blocking me... ohh, what s-should I do...?"

"We can't just go and find Meiko and Luka... I can't cover your back and front at the same time and it'd look awkward anyway..." Len thought desperately for a solution. But finally, some luck came into Len's rotten day, and he caught sight of a familiar pink-headed woman disappearing down an aisle. "Oh, L-Luka!!"

The woman reeled backwards, and Meiko and Gakupo followed suit. Sure enough, there was the other half of their gang. "Len! What's wrong?"

Len waved her over frantically. With a puzzled expression, she approached the small boy and bent down to his level. "What's going on?" He strained to whisper into her ear without leaving Rin. Kaito was stopped now, totally confused. He had started asking what was going on, but one of Rin's glares immediately silenced him.

"Ohh..." Luka chuckled and shed her jacket. "Here you go, Rin. I'll see you all at the check out, then."

Rin and Len thanked Luka profusely, and Rin was saved. Kaito looked sad and pathetic, being left out of the loop, but Len grabbed a tub of ice cream, put it in the cart, and said, "I'll buy this if you'll stop making that stupid face." Which, of course, immediately mended Kaito's hurt feelings.

After the check out, everyone walked home together, each person with multiple bags in each hand. Len, who had offered to hold some of Rin's burden, lagged behind the rest of the group by a few feet.

Rin slowed down and walked next to him. "Um, hey, Len... I just wanted to say... thank you... I mean, I'm still kind of embarrassed that you saw, but at the same time, I really appreciate you looking out for me like that..."

"Ahaha... you're welcome. But it was all my fault anyway, so you don't really need to thank me..." Len turned away ever so slightly, praying that Rin wouldn't notice his pink face.

"Don't be silly, I should have grabbed a jacket or something..."

"No, if I had checked the weather..."

"I don't have any common sense, so..."

"And it was my job to pick your clothes..."

"It's really my responsibility..."

"Or at least if I had noticed sooner, then we could have asked Meiko and Luka to..."

"..."

"..."

After a small pause, both laughed. Rin commented with a smirk, "Well, as weird as it might sound, I'm kind of glad it happened... you never hug me like that on your own, so it was a little bit exciting...! Heehee..."

"Ah..." Len blushed harder. It was true... he had trouble showing his affection with physical gestures. Maybe it was just a part of being his age, but it was difficult for him to get over his embarrassment. He hoped he would outgrow it.

Regardless, he felt that the situation had brought him and Rin closer, for which he was grateful.

Ahh. The things a guy had to do to protect the girl he likes. For crying out loud... Len thought to himself, but he did so with a warmth in his chest, and a small smile on his face. If it's for Rin, then it's worth doing such stupid and embarrassing things.

Because Len really liked Rin.