My first impression is that Rin's mother is a lot younger than I'd have expected. She looks to be in her mid-thirties at most, most probably younger. Taller, brown-haired and brown-eyed, she also doesn't really look like Rin—at all—but I figure Rin could be adopted or something. It's really not my business but I'm just a rudely curious little fucker like that so…

She easily picks up her daughter like she's not ridiculously heavy and also literally smoking from the head area, and hurries her into what I presume is the bathroom. I hear the shower running. She dashes back and forth, grabbing various boxes and otherwise immediately unidentifiable objects from the drawers before disappearing back into the bathroom.

"Oh, shit," she says upon returning for the third time and seeing the three of us standing awkwardly in the doorway, battered, confused, and lightly bleeding. "I'm sorry. Would you like to come in? I'll be with you in a sec."

Before we can answer, she slips back into the bathroom and I hear a strange beeping sound come from behind the closed door. It's shortly followed by what seems to be a gentle explosion.

"Should we—should we make a run for it?" Gakupo asks, only about half in jest.

Luka makes an annoyed little sound and pulls him into the house with her. I follow, peering about in an attempt to understanding all of this.

It's a wholly unremarkable house, if a little messy and disorganized. A short hallway leads from the door to the living room on one side, the bathroom on the other. Luka and Gakupo squeeze down the hallway into the living room, bantering a little as they do so.

It's the sort of living room that's connected to the kitchen and doubles as a dining room—there's a counter, on top of which precarious piles of papers and plates are set, a little television set mounted on the wall opposite. There's no couch or sofa or coffee table or anything of the sort, but a single solitary plastic fold-up chair sits in the corner with a fat stack of newspapers on top of it.

The kitchen is small, cluttered with unwashed cutlery, yellowing apple peels falling into the sink. Somehow I'm not surprised—the house has a tiny and cute, if slightly unfortunate sort of feeling to it. It's almost as if the people in the house are unaccustomed to having one.

The three of us crowd awkwardly into the area. After a few minutes Rin's mother hurries to the counter and grabs her cell phone, hardly acknowledging us in her rush. My eyes snap to the open laptop on the counter and I speak up quickly before she leaves the kitchen.

"Ms. Kagamine?"

The woman glances back at me absentmindedly. Her body is practically falling towards the half-open door behind which Rin is lying unconscious. "Call me Meiko, please. Gumiya, was it?"

I nod. "Would you mind if I use your computer? I need to send a quick email to my cousin."

Meiko looks a little surprised, but she nods her consent in a harried sort of way. I do doubt that she can think straight at this point, though. "Yes, of course. It's still on, you won't need the password—"

And with that, she leaves us. Shortly after we see her carry Rin out of the bathroom, looking very small and very pale, and down the hallway to what is probably a bedroom or something along the lines.

"I don't understand," says Gakupo. "Your phone is right there. It's not like Gumi would ever ignore your phone call."

I give him a pointed stare. "I have to look something up, okay?"

I settle myself in front of the laptop, noting with some surprise that it's the latest model, very fancy and very expensive. I wouldn't have expected it, especially when considering the modestly furnished interior and size of Rin's house.

The desktop background is of a younger Meiko, standing with her arms around a blue-haired man around the same age as her. Friends or lovers? I linger for a moment before remembering that it's rude to look at other peoples' private lives. Not that Gumiya Nakajima really cares about what anyone else thinks about him.

My first search, nekomura, brings up nothing that seems related. Village of cats? Thoroughly confused, I type the other phrase running through my head.

"What are you searching?" asks Gakupo, leaning over my shoulder to have a better look. Luka is beside him, studying my results with some curiosity. "Sparks of fire? Smoke pours?"

"Jesus, cut your hair," I grumble as long strands of purple hair swing in front of my eyes. "While I was carrying Rin, she kept on saying these weird phrases. I was wondering if I'd get any information on them."

"Job 41:19?" He glances down at me, face completely serious. "I'm not cutting my hair."

"Whatever."

Luka reads aloud hesitantly. "Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth. Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it… It just goes on an on. What's this about?"

I scroll to the start of Job, chapter 41. "Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? It's about Leviathan."

"The movie?" Gakupo asks.

"Hobbes?" is Luka's thoughtful comment.

I shrug. "That's where Hobbes got it. A sea monster from the Bible."

Luka reaches for the keyboards and quickly Googles 'Leviathan'. She once again reads aloud, although I wonder for a moment if that's really necessary. I guess for the sake of working together—

"Leviathan ('twisted, coiled') is a sea monster referenced in the Tanakh, or the Old Testament. The word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature. In literature (for example, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick) it refers to great whales, and in Modern Hebrew, it simply means 'whale'. It is described extensively in Job 41 and mentioned in Psalm 104:26 and Isaiah 27:1."

"So Rin was muttering phrases from the Bible," says Gakupo. "Maybe she was brought up to be very religious? If you think of Carrie, then it fits in. Religious fanaticism, trauma, possible abuse."

The saddest thing here is that Gakupo's actually completely serious. "Yeah, no. It's a storyline that rightfully belongs in a movie that performed commercially as Carrie did, and besides, it doesn't explain the smoke or the static or your burns."

"You are wrong in a fantastic number of ways, and since you haven't watched the original one from 1976 you do not deserve to speak about the movie at all." Gakupo stares at his red palms. "Speaking of my burns, where did Ms. Kagamine say the bathroom was? I need some cold water for these."

"Oh!" Luka starts fussing over Gakupo all over again. "I forgot about—are they okay? How do you feel, Gackt? Gumiya, is that a first-aid kit next to you?"

I open the box and find only band-aids. "Band-aids. Best ask Rin's mom for bandages and something for the burns. Somehow, I think she'll have plenty."

"Okay. Come on, Gakupo, I'll help you." Luka puts a hand on her boyfriend's back, reassuring, comfortingly.

Gakupo laughs a little. "Luka, I'm just washing them off and cooling them down a little. You don't have to come to the bathroom with me—"

"Well, seeing as you can't remember where it was, anyway - "

Their bickering continues until the bathroom door clicks shut, and then I'm alone, the house suddenly very silent. I stare at the screen, wondering what this all means. Leviathan—is it supposed to symbolize something, or was it just a random Bible phrase that Rin blurted? If she was brought up to be extremely religious though, wouldn't she more likely remember the parts about redemption and perseverance, or even the consequences should one fail to do so?

Then I remember than no one's watching me.

Dare I? Why not? Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back, didn't it? Or at least in some versions. And it's not like I place any faith in proverbs, anyway.

I start with the table. All of this week's newspapers, tax bills, a telephone book. Vocaloid Academy's advertisement pamphlet, open to show a shot of IA looking very pretty and very mysterious in the grand theater("The drama department—one of the best in the country!"). A pile of receipts, bills, bills, bills, more bills, even more bills, a map, official documents for Rin's admission to VA.

Wait, a map? Why -

It's map of the world, and frayed very slightly where the paper must have been folded often. There are marks all over the paper, stars and arrows, symbols that I can't make sense of. Our city is circled in black, and two others not too far way two are marked, but not as intensely. Also some cities in Europe and the U.S.—San Diego, Chicago, Portland.

What was Meiko looking for? It doesn't look like she was planning a trip or anything, and maybe she was just figuring out where to move to, but then what are all these extra notations for?

I hear a door squeaking open. Quickly, I slide the map back to it original place and bring up my email, intending to look as if I were writing to someone. The website is logged in to Meiko's account, and I barely manage to log out and log in to my username before Meiko walks into the kitchen, looking even more drained than before.

"How's Rin?" I ask, trying to look polite and innocent. Luka does this so easily, she makes it seem like it is.

I turn over the email addresses in my mind. Snooping's bad, I know, but who's to punish me for this?

The brown-haired woman fumbles with the coffee maker as she tries to pour what's left of its contents into a cup. "Clean, bandaged up, and asleep."

I finish sending my email to Gumi ("Gumi—might take a while to get home, so go ahead and eat dinner with Ryuto. Tell aunt that we're studying at a friend's house, so shhhh about the Rin thing. She's fine now. Don't forget to work on the choreography project tonight. We'll try putting it together first thing tomorrow, 'kay?") and shut the laptop. "Ms. Kagamine, do you have any bandages, maybe some medicine to put on burns? Gakupo's hands don't look too pretty right now."

"Oh," Meiko says, as if only now remembering how beat-up the three of us were. "Of course, of course—would you like some ice? For Gakupo. Oh, and you. Your nose looks like it could use some ice too…"

"That would be great," I say, gingerly touching my nose. At least it doesn't seem to be broken. I'd know; my pain threshold is admittedly pathetic.

Gakupo and Luka come back into the kitchen just as Meiko hands me a packet of ice, which I gratefully place on my face.

"I'm so sorry," she says as she hands Gakupo a pack of ice and pulls a huge—seriously, it's the size of a small refrigerator—first-aid kit from under the kitchen counter. "And thank you, for bringing Rin home. I—I don't know how to explain this. Hands?"

Gakupo winces slightly as Meiko spreads a semitransparent cream over the red blisters on his palms, which at this point are red and puffy and look extremely painful. Meh, he's a tough guy. Kendo and all that. "Perhaps," he says through gritted teeth, "You could explain about why Rin smokes?"

I snort despite myself. "Not the kind of smoking that's associated with villains and lung cancer, Ms. Kagamine. Although I think this kind might be more dangerous."

The woman sighs deeply and takes a moment to reply. "You would be right."

She doesn't say anything more, and the three of us are left staring expectantly at her. After a few moments, I clear my throat. I see disapproval flashing in Luka's eyes, but hey, I'm dying over here. Will be dead, until I'm satisfied.

"Please," I say, and out of the corner of my eye I see Gakupo gasping a little bit. "Tell us. We could help."

Meiko sighs heavily.

"You must realize that it would be much better for you not to know," she says at last. "What I want to do right now is to thank you three and send you out of the house right now, because none of this concerns you."

I nod a little bit. I gather my thoughts before speaking.

"Okay, then. Maybe I'll go to the nurse's office tomorrow and casually mention that she got seriously hurt today and her mother didn't take her to the hospital or anything. They'll get worried, they'll get suspicious, they'll take Rin to the hospital and all that, and then they'll find out about the secret. Right?"

Gakupo winces.

Meiko's face goes dark, the look in her eyes almost frightening enough to make me stop. I force myself to continue. Something is telling me that I need to get to the bottom of this. Maybe it's curiosity. Maybe it's something much more.

"Also, Ms. Kagamine, Rin said 'they' were coming. Do you think 'they' won't find out if this thing gets public? This could all be avoided if you could just tell us what we were punched and burned for. We really genuinely want to help. Rin seems like a good person, and you do too. Tell us what's going on—"

"Okay, stop," Gakupo stops me, even putting his hand over my mouth. "What are you— I'm sorry, Ms. Kagamine. He's not usually—he's not usually this rude."

I shake him off, never breaking eye contact with Meiko.

"What are you going to do, then? Just go home and forget all about this? We're involved in something here. We can't pretend we're not."

I can feel Luka's eyes on me, hard and disapproving. I start bracing myself for the lecture—which will be very intelligent and very full of moral ethics—that I know is inevitably coming, sooner or later.

"I'm sorry," she says, voice gentle but also utterly terrifying. "We would never do any of the things Gumiya just threatened you with."

Meiko gives her a tight smile.

"If you don't have anything else to say, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

I feel myself start to tense up, ready to fight and argue. I'm unexpectedly saved by Gakupo being helpful while starting to pick up his stuff.

"Cat village," says Gakupo suddenly. "I remember Rin saying 'cat village' while I carried her. I don't know what that means, but it's pretty strange and I'm guessing you probably want to know?"

Meiko goes pale. "Cat village, as in nekomura?"

He nods. "Does that mean anything to you?"

Her eyes slide from Gakupo to Luka and finally lock with mine.

"I'm going to need a drink," she says at long last. "This is not an easy story."