Chapter Text
Honestly, the day started normally. I feel like this is how I start every chapter of this fic, but I swear to God, if it weren’t for the company that we keep, maybe it would’ve ended normally as well.
For once in their lives, instruments were out and about in their little music club. It genuinely felt like a Christmas miracle. I have no idea what month it is, but it’s probably not Christmas time. And by Christmas time I mean the October-January stretch.
Miku’s keyboard (I shit you not, I had to scroll up to remember what instrument I gave her when I came up with the fic concept) was in her lap, as she fucked around with the functions. Meiko, Rin and Kaito watched as she discovered different buttons that made the keyboard make different sounds (or well, Kaito and Rin watched, Meiko was on her phone). Miku gasped as she pressed a button that made the keyboard notes sound a whole lot like the opening of ‘Only’ by Nicki Minaj and a fuckton of less important people (in my opinion).
“Wait, wait, wait!” She shushed Kaito and Rin, who weren’t talking, before clearing her throat and playing the notes. Her ‘Yo’ caused Kaito to visibly wince in cringe overload and he covered his ears.
“Never fucked Wayne, never fucked Drake-”
This was when Len chose to walk into the classroom.
“On my life, man, fuck’s sake-”
“Why are the lights off?”
“If I did, I'd ménage with 'em-”
“I’m not sure, turn them on.”
“And let em eat my ass like a-”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Len’s scream resounded around the classroom as the light that he turned on at Rin’s instruction exploded into a million shards of glass and scattered about the room. Everyone ducked under tables, or just used their arms to shield themselves from the blast. The silence that followed was so severe that they were able to hear Master Tonio make a Hamilton reference a corridor over.
After a second, they stopped and collected themselves. Or, well, everyone minus Rin, who was deeply engaged in what looked to be a prayer of some description.
“What do we do now?” Miku asked, still clutching her keyboard.
“Well, we could notify council and get them to fix it up?” Kaito proposed.
“Hell nah.” Meiko spoke for the first time that afternoon. To be frank, she looked exhausted. “You know how long it takes for council to do things.” She looked out the window to make sure Luka wasn’t on her way, even though she knew that Luka always shows up 20 minutes after Student Council ends anyway. She never gave a reason, but the others weren’t stupid.
“Fair, but who should change the lightbulb?” Len piped up.
“SHOT NOT!” Everyone put their finger on their nose and yelled at the same time, except for Meiko, who looked way too sluggish to connect the dots and participate. Even Rin snapped out of the Hail Mary.
“Fuck.” Meiko slouched back in her chair. “I am NOT doing it. That is a man’s job.”
I would like to preface here, dear reader, that Meiko is NOT being misogynistic. She is very scared of heights and doesn’t want to hop on a table to change a light bulb.
Everyone stared at her blankly, before doing a round of ‘21 is in’. (Is that universal? I hope so.) It landed on Miku.
She picked up her keyboard (not trusting the others not to fuck with the Nicki Minaj setting), went off to grab a dustpan, swept up all the glass, and left the room with it in record time. That left the other 4.
“Well, we can just sit in the dark until she comes back.” Len said, pulling out a deck of cards, before realising that he couldn’t see them. Everyone kind of sat there and waited for Miku to return.
5 minutes became 10, and then 10 became 20, and before long, Miku had been gone for half an hour.
“This is getting ridiculous. Kaito, you are our only hope.” Len broke the silence.
“Why me?”
Wordlessly, Rin and Len both got up, and stood on one of the tables, not even almost reaching the ceiling.
“Alright then.” Kaito walked to the storage room, pulled out one of the spare lightbulbs and got on a table. “This should be quick.”
Spoiler alert: This was not the case.
Another half hour later, Luka marched into the clubroom and stopped when she saw the sight in front of her.
“Can someone inform me as to why the gayest man on God’s green earth is standing on a table trying to fix a light bulb?”
“Well, where are we going to find a straight man to fix the lightbulb? Do you know any?” Meiko asked. Luka didn’t.
“Well fuck, Meiko. Maybe we don’t need a man to fix the lightbulb.”
“She said that lightbulbs were a man’s job.” Kaito called from the ceiling.
Luka narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
“I feel like a gay woman would also be fine. We have plenty of those.”
“Rin’s too short, Miku is god knows where, you are still injured, and I ain’t doing it.” Meiko responded.
“...For fucks sake.”
“Ok, can you guys please have some faith in me? I am doing great.” Kaito said, only 2 seconds before the lightbulb fizzled, and went back out again.
“We do have faith in you, sweetie. Only Luka’s doubting you.”
Luka rolled her eyes and sat next to Rin and Len’s game of Speed, being played beside a lamp that Rin found in the storage closet. Rin was kicking Len’s ass. That’s all you need to know.
“It’s because I can’t see.” Len muttered after seeing the look on Luka’s face after she saw his pile.
“Sure thing.”
“FUCK.” Kaito shook his hand after electrocuting it again.
“You are doing great!” Meiko called from her very safe distance.
“This is getting boring.” Len whacked his cards on the table after losing for the 4th time. It was honestly getting a little embarrassing for him.
“Let’s play Tycoon.” Luka stole the cards, waved Meiko over and the four began to play.
I will say, while they played Tycoon often, none of them really knew the rules. Luka knew them loosely after watching her family play at gatherings but she didn’t know them well enough to explain them, although she did know them well enough to lie and make up rules as she went along for her benefit. For this reason, she won every time.
“Bitch, don’t you dare join hands.” Rin muttered as Len placed a blue 9 on her already blue 6. He just glared at her.
“8 FLASH.” Meiko jumped for joy, because she literally had been flopping this whole game so it was good to finally get a win.
“You can’t 8 flash. Len put down a 9. Also, that card is red.” Luka muttered.
Meiko’s grumble of protest was interrupted by loud ‘BZZZZT’ sound echoing around the room as Kaito electrocuted himself again.
“Are you, like, ok?” Rin put down her cards. Kaito nodded.
“I’m nearly there. Just gotta…” He finally screwed the lightbulb into the lightbulb place (can you tell I don’t do construction?) before putting his hands on his hips in triumph. Everyone clapped.
Kaito jumped off the table and proceeded to sit around at the table, helping Meiko out with Tycoon. The light was completely disregarded, and the fact that it wasn’t on was apparently no longer a problem. In fact, it wasn’t until after Luka ‘won’ (I put ‘won’ in airquotes because she ended the game by putting a King on top of a 2, but no one noticed) she went over to turn on the light, and immediately, a problem was found.
“Are lightbulbs supposed to have water coming out of them when they are first changed?”
Everyone turned to look. Luka received (metaphorical) points for identification, because there sure as fuck was water coming out of the lightbulb socket thing.
“I’m sure it’s fine.” Kaito waved his hand in reassurance as he turned back to the game at hand. The water stream thickened. At this point, it was about as thick as a regular tap when you turn it all the way up, which might seem like a lot, but because it was on the other side of the room, no one really gave a singular shit. In fact, it wasn’t for another half an hour, that anyone recalled that there was a fucking waterfall stemming from their ceiling, and it was only when Rin stood up.
“Uh.” She splish sposhed (I literally don’t know how better to phrase it) her feet in the water, which she finally noticed was gradually filling up the classroom. It wasn’t all that high, it only just covered her feet, but it was high enough to cause some actual stress.
“Y’all, the floor.” She kicked water across the room. Everyone looked down.
“Yoooo…” Len stuck a hand into it. “That’s probably not good.”
“No shit Sherlock.” Rin rolled her eyes.
“Fuck off, Watson.”
At that point, remember how I said that the water was like tap water coming out of a faucet? Yeah, uhhhh, it increased in velocity. That is almost certainly not the word.
Point is, a fuckton more water proceeded to come out of the lightbulb at a time. Within 5 minutes, the water was right under Rin’s knees.
Luka waded through the water, trying to open the door, only to find that it was locked. She turned to face the others.
“Fuck, dude.”
“Why are you so upset? It’s not THAT big of a deal.” Meiko had barely moved.
“Well, at the rate that we are going, the entire room will fill up, and we will drown.” Luka deadpanned.
A moment of silence followed, before everyone jumped on a table. That includes Meiko, height aversion apparently forgotten. They all started yelling and wailing for someone to open the door and save them, which didn’t work, because the particular classroom they were in was soundproof. Ah. Plot armour.
I will also add that not one of them even for a second considered opening a window. I don’t know man. You are following a story about 6 of the biggest idiots out there, written by one of the biggest idiots out there. Don’t expect a story without plot holes.
A loud crash was heard outside the room, and the door opened, revealing Miku (who looked as though she had been dragged through a forest by her pigtails) and her keyboard (which didn’t look much better).
“Hi y’all! What’s with the water?”
“DON’T CLOSE THE DOOR.” Everyone yelled at her from atop their tables as Miku closed the door.
“Shit.” Miku tried opening the door again to find it relocked itself. “SHIT.”
“What the fuck happened to you?” Meiko asked.
“Is that our biggest priority right now?” Luka scoffed from the far corner of the room.
“We are gonna die.” Rin filled Miku in as she pulled herself onto another table.
While Miku’s brief door opening did in fact allow for a fuckton of water to escape, it wasn’t nearly enough, and the stream of water was beginning to give buckets being poured from the roof. Within another 5 minutes, the water was at Rin’s feet, as she was standing on the table.
“Oh hell no. This is not how I am going to die.” Meiko stamped on the table. “Someone tell a funny story.”
“Uh.” Luka seemed to take a moment to think about whether speaking was a good idea, and then apparently decided she was in too deep to turn back around. “Gumi was telling me about her senior project? She’s making a robot.”
“Senior project?” Len asked, confused.
“Basically, third years, at the end of the year need to hand in a creative major project that they worked on, for whatever creative subject they do.” Meiko explained. “I’m making a cake.”
“A cake?” Luka looked unimpressed.
“Easy to make, not to mention my forte. Also, I don’t need to start work on it until right at the end of the year, so I’m fine.”
“What is Gumi’s robot going to do?” Rin asked.
“Everything, apparently. She wants it to be able to hold proper conversation and be able to do tasks and things like that. She said that after council today, she was going to try and load AI into him or something like that.”
“Does it have a name?” Kaito questioned.
“Jonathan. Don’t ask.”
“Why is she so close to finishing already? Didn’t the year just start?” Miku tried not to shake the table she was standing on.
“Yeah, I don’t even have a concept yet.” Kaito said.
“Apparently robots are a lot of work. I know absolutely nothing about it, but she says she isn’t even close to done. Apparently, Johnathan still has a few issues.”
“Like what?” Len asked.
“I was talking to him with her to see how conversation flows, but she had to turn him off after 2 minutes because he started talking about yiffing.”
“Jesus, ok. Sorry I asked.”
“Am I supposed to know what that is?” Miku asked in a low tone.
Everyone turned to look at her and gave her a look that I’m not quite sure how to explain but that’s alright.
“As much as I love to listen to tales of Gumi,” Meiko shot Luka a look. “Has anyone else got anything interesting to share with us? Maybe some last minute confessions?”
At that last part she turned to look daggers at Rin, who felt she was being put on the spot.
“Uh. No?”
“You sure?”
“Very sure.”
Meiko fixed her gaze on Miku.
“What about you then? Anything you would like to share with the class? Since we’re all about to die anyway.”
“I suppose I could tell the story of where I was when I was disposing of the lightbulb?”
Meiko looked like she honestly couldn’t care less if she wanted to, but she gave Miku the floor to tell her story anyway.
After leaving the classroom, glass in hand, keyboard on her back, Miku beelined for the closest bin. Unfortunately for her, their high school (which is still nameless, but whatever) had apparently no respect for the environment, so the nearest bin was a good while away. Nevertheless, she located one, but before she could scrape the lightbulb glass into the bin, she heard a voice behind her.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Teto, Miku’s arch nemesis, drawled. “Don’t you have your little club to attend?”
Miku was not about to entertain this bullshit, so she wordlessly turned back around to face the bin in order to throw the bulb out. Before she could however, Teto grabbed the keyboard off of her back and took off.
“What the actual fuck is WRONG with you?!” Miku yelled after her, before giving chase.
Now you might be extremely curious as to what the deal was with Miku and Teto’s relationship as while it may seem complicated on the surface, in actuality, it was quite simple. They just hated each other. Period. The end. There is no history there, no inciting event, they just came into contact on the first day of first year and the rest was history.
Teto flew down the halls of the school, Miku not too far behind. This chase continued for the next 15 minutes. Normally, Miku would’ve been hella tired, but at this point she was being fueled by pure rage (which is more energising than you would think, spite is an excellent motivator).
Miku chased Teto all the way to outside the school gates, down the road, across the highway, and into a random forest. I’m realising now that the chase scene you are imagining is probably a silent one, and I would like to rectify that. For the last 15 minutes, they had been yelling profanities at each other in a way that was turning everyone’s head in their direction and leaving Miku’s throat extremely sore.
Miku stopped at the bottom of a tree and stared up. Above her was Teto, keyboard on her back, scaling the tree like she was some kind of monkey thing.
Now I will say, Miku might be dumb, but she isn’t stupid. That is to say, she knows at this moment that Teto has literally cornered herself with nowhere else to go.
And so she stands at the foot of the tree for the next 10 minutes, while Teto jeers down at her and begins to play a tune on the keyboard and fuck up all the settings.
Eventually though, even Satan himself gets bored, so after taunting Miku with a shitty rendition of Vanessa Carlson’s ‘1000 Miles’, she hung the keyboard on one of the branches and made her way back down, walking a pace away from the tree and stopping in front of Miku, who was seeing red in a way few ever have.
“Fetch!” Teto taunted, pointing up at where the keyboard precariously hung at least 20 meters up.
“Fetch this.” Miku replied without missing a beat, before hurling the entire contents of the dustpan (which she was still carrying) at Teto’s face.
“OW! WHAT THE FUCK!” Teto yelled, covering her eyes (which probably had glass in them). Miku didn’t give a fuck, and dropped the dustpan on the forest floor, turned to the tree, and began to climb.
“This isn’t over!” Teto called up at her, before stalking off. Miku couldn’t care less as she had bigger fish to fry, namely, the fact she’d never climbed a tree before, and was learning as she was going.
To be fair, it isn’t exactly difficult to climb a tree, but climbing wasn’t the problem Miku was going to have. In fact, she scaled the tree to where the keyboard hung in a manner of minutes, before she realised where the real challenge of this rescue mission lay. Getting down.
You see, as Miku had never climbed up a tree before, it stands to reason that she also had never climbed DOWN a tree before either. And one of those tasks is significantly more difficult to pull off than the other.
Luckily for Miku, she didn’t have to worry about any of that because her aversion to heights kicked in and she passed out of the tree, keyboard in tow, landing on the forest floor with a thump.
She proceeded to lay unconscious for the next half hour. She’s fine though, remember? She has all that plot armour.
So when she awakens, with a slight headache, but that's it, she picks herself up and heads back to the clubroom where she comes back into contact with the rest of the gang.
Now, in all of this yip yap about robots and cake and Miku’s potential crimes(?), all of them forgot about the water (as I’m sure you did too, dear reader), which had now reached Rin’s knees as she stood on the table.
It was beginning to look dire. Extremely dire.
But don’t worry y’all. It’s too early to kill off my protagonists (It’s only chapter 7!), and so, help was on the way in the form of a girl Rin had never seen before, who opened the clubroom door.
“What the-” She had an extremely confused look on her well-made-up face as the water gushed loudly out and into the hallway, seeping down the stairs and into other classrooms. When the noise finally subsided, the girl spoke again, this time angry.
“Luka, what is the meaning of this?” She was glaring daggers at the student council president, and started to wave her hands angrily. Rin couldn’t help but notice how her bright green nails matched her eyeshadow. “I thought you said you were too busy for training?”
“Training for what?” Len asked.
“Oh! First years!” She looked at the twins like she hadn’t noticed they were there before. Rin supposed she hadn’t, she seemed very focused on berating Luka prior to this moment. “Lemme introduce myself.” She walked over, using her perfectly manicured hand to clasp Rin’s… less manicured hand.
“I’m Ruby. Can’t believe there are still first years I haven’t met yet.”
“Nice to meet you.” Rin replied, shaking it.
“Ruby’s the sports captain.” Luka added. Rin supposed that explained the insane physique.
“Yup. That’s me.” Ruby pulled back, swishing her salmon hair over her tan shoulder. “And Luka here is a fucking SLACKER.”
Luka closed her eyes as if to brace herself.
“You PROMISED you would come to at least ONE practice this year.” Luka hung her head. “Need I remind you the sports carnival is NEXT WEEK. If I don’t see FULL participation from our class, I’ll email ALL the places you’ll apply for college.”
“All of them?!” Luka’s cry of anguish was real, which made the situation that much more unbelievable. None of them had ever seen ANYONE dare to scold Luka of all people like this.
“All of them. CLEARLY you lack dedication, and can’t keep your word.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Watch me.”
“I’ll cut the sports club’s funding.”
“I’ll cut you.”
“Alright. Time out.” Meiko finally got up to intervene. “What can Luka do to make this up to you?”
“Maybe turn up to practice?” Ruby muttered. “We are trying to WIN, remember?”
“Look, I am an extremely busy person…” Luka started, but was promptly shut up by an elbow to the stomach from Meiko.
“What was that, Megurine?” Ruby raised a brow.
“...I’ll be there.” Luka mumbled.
“You better be, or so help you God.” Rin made a mental note to never cross Ruby if she valued her life. “Next week. Tuesday. 5:30.”
“A.M.?!”
“Sharp.”
“She’ll be there.” Kaito responded on Luka’s behalf, as she was too busy hanging her head in shame to do it for herself.
“Good.” Ruby stepped closer to Luka, and put up a finger to her chest. “You have been warned.” She took a second to glare into Luka’s eyes as if to make a point, before she stalked back down the hallway. Or more… sploshed down the hallway, because it was a whole river up in there.
“Ugh, she spent so much time being pissy with you, we didn’t even get the chance to thank her for saving our lives.” Len grumbled.
“I honestly would’ve rather died in there then be forced to go to training with Ruby.” Luka whined. “She already knows I’ll be a hindrance to the team, I don’t understand why she’s so insistent I come to training.”
“Uhh, guys?” Miku interjected. Everyone turned to look at her, and were immediately reminded by the state of her hair that she’d had a very long day, and thus shouldn’t be disagreed with. “As much as I love watching Luka get dragged by someone other than me, don’t we have more important things to think about? Namely…” She kicked at the water they were all still standing in.
“Oh hell nah.” Len grabbed his stuff and started making moves to leave. “This is NOT my problem.”
“Yeah… We’ve got places to be.” Meiko did the same. Everyone was silent for a second, as if silently judging whether they were game to speak their mind before piping up at the same time.
“Yeah, can’t this be tomorrow’s problem?”
“It’s not like it was us who fucked the lightbulb up in the first place. I mean, it came like that!”
“Can someone just call maintenance or something? I wanna go home.”
They all looked around, coming to a new understanding of one another and realising that maybe they were actually all even lazier than they thought. It’s nice to be on the same wavelength.
Although now that I think about it, maybe leaving the Nile in the hallway isn’t lazy, but the optimal choice. I mean, we’ve already come to the conclusion they lack both problem solving and construction capabilities.
Yeah. Best to leave it to someone else.