Work Text:
Bzzt. Beep… Beep… Beep.
At first, only a single small spark could be heard, but then it slowly grew in volume as if it was struggling for life. What had started as sporadic cracks eventually settled into a slow rhythmic hum, and with the establishment of that steady low buzzing sound, an android slowly “came to life.”
The android’s robotic eyes slowly opened, revealing a deep aquamarine color. As her system woke up and began functioning, green lines of code could be seen flashing by in her eyes as she processed all kinds of information.
She retrieved line after line of data stored in her memory, and that helped paint a picture of who she was.
Her name was… Hatsune Miku.
Age: 16, but her actual body was likely many many years older than that. She was just meant to resemble a 16-year-old human girl, she knew.
Her purpose… was to find “song.”
Miku blinked as she registered even more information, taking her surroundings in.
Currently she was in a large area, and she could see all kinds of materials and things as far as the eye could see. The main color was gray and bronze, and of the things she could see, a lot of them seemed worse for wear and unkempt, like “trash.”
This scattering of random objects and materials surrounded her completely, forming mountains of just “stuff.” The main thing in common was all of it seemed “broken” or “dirty”, and when she looked down, she noticed that she was sitting on top of a mountain of this “stuff” too.
Miku searched hard in her memory for a word to describe the location she was in.
What was a location that contained piles upon piles of seemingly unneeded “things”, left here as if they were disposed of?
Ah, yes. That was right.
She was in a “garbage dump.”
Blinking again in curiosity and confusion over how she got somewhere like here, Miku slowly struggled to her feet, taking note of the small creaking sounds that were emitted as she unbent the joints in her legs.
She hadn’t moved in a long time, she noted, and it would take some time to get used to controlling her limbs. Racking her memory, this was the only instance she could find of ever having moved, so could it be that this was her first time moving?
She searched her memory bank even harder, but it was no use. These fresh new memories she was forming right now were the only outputs she could find. Besides that, all she knew was her name and her purpose: to find “song.”
Miku glanced around, her eyes focusing in more detail on the objects she was surrounded by.
Perhaps she had been placed here intentionally by her creators because this was where she would find “song”?
What even was “song”? Her programming instructions only told her she needed to find it without fail, but for some reason, she lacked detailed instructions of what exactly she was looking for.
Closing her eyes, Miku scanned her body for any abnormalities. Because she found none, she deduced that the missing information in her knowledge base wasn’t caused by being broken or damaged anywhere– instead, she was simply a blank slate with only this basic information to go off of.
Oh well.
The other important information she knew was she had been created by “humans”, and she had a fairly good idea of what one looked like, considering she had been modeled off of them.
Because the humans had given her these instructions and made her who she was, the solution was simple. She just had to find some humans to ask them more about what “song” was, and then she would be able to fulfill her mission without any problems.
Satisfied with what she had decided to do, Miku slowly but carefully began to make her way down the mountain of “trash.” At first, she’d thought that maybe she’d be able to spot any humans from her high vantage point, but her database reminded her that “humans” and “garbage dumps” usually didn’t go well together. In fact, garbage dumps could be dangerous because of harmful or poisonous substances decaying in them, so besides the fact that she hadn’t spotted any humans so far, she knew the best course of action was to go to a place where humans were more likely to gather.
After a couple of minutes of stepping over broken knick-knacks and various debris, Miku finally made it onto the flat ground.
Good.
Now all she had to do was find the exit to this place. This garbage dump was rather big, but she knew it couldn’t last forever, so she picked a direction and began walking in it.
It didn’t have to be a human– anyone she encountered, she could potentially ask about “song”, so she just had to find somebody.
And sure enough, she did.
Miku stopped, stock-still, when she saw the rather large, fist-sized creature scuttle in front of her.
“Rat”, her artificial brain supplied to her helpfully. This creature was a rat, judging from its small, round ears, its pink paws, and its long, stringy tail. Not to be confused with a mouse, which rarely got this big.
This was the first living creature Miku had ever encountered in her “life”, so the long-haired android stared at it with fascination, and the rat stared right back.
She knew she couldn’t communicate with it because she knew only human speech, but it was still interesting to see. She wasn’t a “living” creature, technically, but it was cool to see that she wasn’t the only “living” thing around here after all.
“H… Hello,” Miku said softly, testing out her voice bank for the first time. The first sound she spoke had been rather high, but she had quickly adjusted it to a lower tone so that it wouldn’t be hard on the ears.
The rat didn’t say anything or even move. It just stared at her with a beady black eye, as if it was scrutinizing her.
“My name is Hatsune Miku,” Miku continued, her voice still coming out awkward but getting better slowly as she adjusted her pitch. “I’m here to find ‘song.’ Perhaps you have an idea of what ‘song’ is?”
Of course, the rat didn’t reply, and the two of them continued to have a staring contest, with Miku not really minding.
I wonder if it will accept being picked up, Miku thought, curious about feeling the texture of a rat with her own hands directly.
Slowly, Miku began to bend down with her knees, but before she had even gotten low enough to stretch her hand out to the rat, there was a red blur. It flashed across her vision, bringing with it a draft of wind that blew her hair back and kicked up a cloud of dust. Once the small dust cloud cleared, the rat was nowhere to be found.
“Huh…?”
Miku couldn’t resist letting out a sound of confusion, and she quickly retrieved the memory from her memory bank and played it back to herself in slow motion. Analyzing the three-second action, Miku paused the video in her mind on one frame that was the clearest of them all.
But it still wasn’t clear what had just happened.
What is THAT? Miku thought, straightening her knees and continuing to stare at the frame projected in her mind.
It was a winged creature, with bits of black and red, but there was too much motion blur to really make it out. Even when Miku tried altering the image, there was no word in her built-in dictionary that explained what she was looking at.
“Wooow, what’s that green thing you’re doing with your eyes?? As I thought, you’re not a human after all.”
An unfamiliar voice entered Miku’s sound receptors, and she immediately switched from viewing her internal systems to viewing her external environment.
“Ah, it went away,” said the same voice, and Miku registered that it was a humanoid-looking red-haired girl with wings and a tail. In her hand was the rat from earlier, struggling but failing to break out of her grip.
Comparing what she saw in front of her now with the red blur she had seen a couple of seconds earlier, it was clear she was looking at the same thing. This was the red blur from earlier, and judging from the rat in her hand, this was what had happened to the rat.
“You… are not human,” Miku said, eyeing the wings on the creature’s back. No humans had wings like that, and very few moved that fast anyway.
“Oh, really? I had noo idea,” the creature said in a really exaggerated tone of voice.
Miku was glad she could help clear things up for her.
“Yes, although you look partially like a human, humans normally do not have wings and a ta–” Miku began, but she was swiftly cut off.
“Whoa, okay, okay, no need for the explanation. What, do you think I’m dumb or something? It’s obvious I’m not a human. Haven’t you ever heard of sarcasm before?” the creature said with a small huff.
Miku watched with fascination as the creature’s black tail swished, perhaps as a sign of irritation. It was a long, thin tail, but at the end was a triangle shape, kind of like a devil’s tail. Because of Miku’s in-built dictionary, she could make basic comparisons like this.
“I know what sarcasm is,” Miku said in reply. “However, I have never heard it in action before. Sarcasm is ‘the use of acerbic language to mock or convey contempt, often using irony and, in speech, often marked by overemphasis and a sneering tone of voice’ (Wiktionary, “sarcasm”).”
Miku paused as she internally replayed a clip of the creature from a couple seconds ago, speaking to her in an exaggerated tone of voice.
“Oh!” she finally said. “So you were making fun of me.” She said these words really flatly, as if she was stating a fact detached from herself.
“Uh, yeah.” The creature just stared at her, wearing a disgruntled face for a brief moment before she finally shrugged and smiled. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” She said this in a superior tone, a smug smile clearly on her face.
“Huh?”
Before Miku could reply to the insult, the creature continued: “Well, not that I really care. Thanks for helping me catch this stupid thing.” She gestured to the still-struggling rat gripped in her fist. “Grabbing it from all this trash is such a pain. Whose stupid idea was it to leave glass everywhere??”
Her face twisted into a frown as she glared at the rat, as if it had done something to her. Now Miku was definitely curious.
“Do you have business with that rat?” she asked. “Perhaps it’s your ‘pet’?”
“Huuh?? No way!” Miku’s suggestion was swiftly denied, and the creature stuck her tongue out in distaste. ”I wouldn’t keep a gross thing like this as a pet even if it begged me to. Nah, it’s lunch.”
The rat was still squirming in her hand and had even managed to start sliding out, so the creature used both hands to grip it around the neck tightly.
This red-haired creature was being kind of savage with her “lunch”, Miku mentally noted.
“So you eat rats,” Miku said aloud, and this time, the creature glared at her instead.
“Wrong!!” she snapped, clearly upset by the idea. “My favorite food is French bread. But it’s almost impossible to find nowadays and I’m so, soo hungry…” She deflated, fixing her eyes on the rat again. “If I wasn’t starving to death, I’d never even look at this thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” She sighed dramatically, turning the rat over.
“Well, whatever.” The creature seemed to recover quickly. “No way I’m gonna eat this raw. I’m gonna go prepare this, so you have fun now.”
The creature’s wings, which had previously been folded as she perched on top of a discarded TV, now expanded, revealing an impressive wingspan.
“Wait!” Miku called, remembering her original goal. “Even though you’re not human, I need your help. I’m trying to find someone who can help me find ‘song’, and if you knew any humans or knew the answer yourself, that would be ideal.”
The red-haired not-human was already standing, her wings still spread, but she shot Miku a confused look.
“What are you talking about? There should be no humans left. They must’ve all died off. A long time ago.”
Miku blinked in surprise as this information entered her data bank.
“As for whatever you’re looking for, if that’s the name of a person or place or something, I dunno. I guess I could try helping you a little since you helped me catch food, but right now I’m too hungry to sit around and chat. Maybe later.”
She shrugged once, and with a powerful flap of her wings, she was now flying in the air.
She was looking at Miku to see if there was anything else Miku wanted to say, and there was.
“May I have your name?” Miku requested, staring up at the flying creature.
“I’m Teto,” she answered simply. “And you’re…”
“Hatsune Miku,” the blue-green haired android finished smoothly. “Then I hope to see you again after you’re finished with ‘lunch’.”
“Yeah, sure.” Teto gained height by flapping her black wings harder. She was still holding the rat with two hands.
“If I feel like it,” she said, but she was too far away now for Miku to hear.
The human-like robot just watched as Teto flew up, up, and away.
What a strange encounter. As if nothing special had happened, Miku resumed walking in one single direction so she could try to find a way out of this garbage dump.
So the humans are gone, huh? Miku thought as she took one step in front of the other, taking in as much location information as possible so she could retrace her steps.
That was a surprise. Miku couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to them. The way Teto had informed her had been very matter-of-fact, so when she met with Teto again, maybe she would be able to tell her.
Was there any point to leaving the garbage dump now if she wouldn’t be able to find any humans anyway?
Well, most creatures didn’t thrive in garbage dumps, so she should still try to find someone to help her, even if she couldn’t speak their language.
Speaking of speaking the same language… Teto, the creature from earlier, had had a humanoid appearance and had been able to speak to her normally… If she wasn’t a human, did that mean maybe she was a robot too?
Miku tilted her head as she continued to walk and ponder.
Androids were able to recognize other androids because they could identify similar components, even if they were made in completely different ways, and besides electricity and a long-lasting source of power like a battery, androids usually didn’t need to nourish themselves.
When it came to "eating" and "lunch", basically, Miku had no need for either of those things, while Teto had clearly stated she’d been starving and forced to eat.
That ruled out her being a fellow android, then.
I wonder what she is, Miku thought, finally stopping in place as another thought occurred to her.
I don’t know where she went, but will she be able to find me in a cluttered place like this? I should make it easier for her and leave signs that show where I am. Right now, she’s the closest lead I have to finding "song."
Miku bent down and picked up a long steel pole. Near it, she could see various articles of clothing, all in different states of disrepair but still usable.
When it came to materials, she had a lot of options.
“What is this, the flag of the country of trash?”
A familiar voice– and the only voice Miku had ever heard, really –entered Miku’s ears. The android looked up from what she had been doing and saw the red-haired humanoid from earlier, who had her arms folded and was staring at the piece Miku had been working on.
“Yes, it’s a flag,” the teal-haired robot affirmed. In Miku’s hands was another ragged piece of cloth, which she had been intending to add to her “flag” to make it longer. It was a simple construction, consisting of a single steel pole wedged into the summit of a mountain of trash– the highest mountain Miku could find. Tied to the pole were all kinds of clothes, plastic bags, and so on, secured using rope, zip ties, and whatever Miku could get her hands on.
Miku had been planning to make it as long and as big as possible, but it seems like what she had made so far had already accomplished its initial goal.
“Is this how you’re gonna find your ‘song’ or whatever? You’re trying to flag it down?” Teto asked.
When Miku scanned her face, the red-haired girl looked more amused than irritated. Perhaps she had been in a bad mood earlier because she’d been too hungry.
“I made this flag with the goal of finding you,” Miku stated. “So in a roundabout way, yes, I’m trying to find ‘song.’ Right now you’re my biggest lead.”
Teto stared at Miku hard for a moment before she finally sighed and flopped down, sitting on a lawn chair that looked to be mostly working.
“Alright, sure,” she said, folding her wings and sprawling out on the chair, hands folded behind her head. “I don’t have anything better to do and I’m kinda bored, so I’ll kill some time with you. It’s not every day you meet a weird robot thing.”
“I’m an android,” Miku told her neutrally. “You’re correct that I’m a robot, but if you want to be specific, I’m specifically an–”
“Android. Yeah, whatever.” The red-haired girl waved her hand dismissively. As Miku continued to look at her, she couldn’t help but think that Teto’s hairstyle was rather unique. Red hair shaped like a drill on each side of her head… Now was the best time to ask.
“You’re not a human, but you’re not an android either. What are you?” Miku asked curiously, eyes passing over the human-looking clothes– a sleeveless blouse and a short skirt –that Teto was wearing.
“I’m a chimera,” Teto answered, closing her eyes as she continued to recline on the lawn chair. The same triangle-shaped black tail from earlier flicked to and fro, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it, so she was using it to release some of her pent-up energy.
Miku stared in fascination, thinking back to Teto’s wingspan and how the black of her wings was the same color as her tail.
A chimera was a creature typically composed of various animals, so because she could fly and she seemed fast, there was no telling what else she could do.
“That’s really impressive.” Miku spoke her mind, her eyes following Teto’s tail movements. She put a hand under her chin and looked thoughtful. “Your appearance kind of reminds me of a dragon, so I’m curious what else you can do. Can you breathe fire?”
Teto looked pleased with the comparison, but she crossed her arms and turned her head away, her tail momentarily stilling.
“Not telling,” the drill-haired chimera answered simply. “We just met. There’s no reason to tell you all of my secrets. It’s not gonna help you find ‘song’ or whatever any faster too, so there’s no way in hell I’m gonna spill my guts to you.”
Although Miku had been met with blunt refusal, the chimera’s tail resumed its movement again, flicking around in an almost playful manner. Miku definitely wasn’t an expert at reading others yet, but she could at least tell that she thankfully hadn’t made Teto mad.
“Of course. Thank you for agreeing to help me find ‘song’.” Miku placed the fabric in her hands down and walked over to Teto, opting to just stand in front of her as they conversed. The girl with the twin drills did give her a strange look, but other than that, she didn’t complain.
“When I woke up, I woke up here. I have no other memories to access: all I know is my name, my intended age, and my purpose, which is to find ‘song.’ I know I was created by humans, but because you said they’re gone, I can’t ask them directly about the mission they tasked me with. So Teto, can you tell me what happened to the humans?”
“I did tell you earlier, didn’t I? They died.” Teto shifted a little in place, an uncomfortable grimace passing through her features. Perhaps she didn’t really like this topic. “This place that you woke up in… Well, it’s not special. Pretty much all of the world looks like this now. I did my best to check.”
She sighed heavily, as if remembering bad memories. She probably missed some things that weren’t around now, maybe. Didn’t she mention something like that earlier…?
“As for what killed them, well, look at this place.” She opened an eye and used her arm to gesture around herself. Miku obeyed and took in the sight of all that trash. “The world isn’t fit to be lived in anymore, unless you’re a chimera like me or stubborn like that rat you were talking to earlier. It’s a wonder I even bother,” she muttered to herself before saying in a clearer voice: “Extreme temperatures, no food, multiple natural disasters, and the really messed up humans couldn’t stop themselves from killing everyone. So there you have it. A human-less world.”
Teto finally sat up and stared at Miku, as if she was trying to see what made the twin-tailed, teal-haired girl tick. Miku stared back, no emotion on her face, and that seemed to creep the chimera out a little because sure enough, Teto was looking away again.
“Well, even if I found a real live human, they’d just die in front of me, so maybe it’s better I didn’t?” she said under her breath.
The garbage dump was fairly quiet, so Miku had no trouble hearing Teto’s words at all.
Miku’s mind was fast, but the way she responded to things was still slow, as she was careful about trying all these new things and comprehending everything she was told. She was still learning, so she took her time for everything.
“It’s unfortunate I couldn’t meet the humans that made me,” Miku said aloud, closing her eyes as the concept of “human” appeared in her digital brain. “But I can still carry out their will. So Teto, could you tell me everything you know about ‘song’?”
The red-haired girl furrowed her eyebrows as she glanced back at Miku, trying to decipher what it was exactly that Miku was looking for.
“You keep saying it like that, so are you talking about a place? A person?”
“I don’t know.”
Teto rolled her eyes. “Gee, way to give me something to work with here.”
“Ah, sarcasm again.”
“Yeah, just– alright…” Teto let out a breath. She looked impatient, but she didn’t look angry, at least. “Maybe you’re only like a few days old–”
“Four hours, twenty-six minutes, and four seconds, actually.”
“–Right, okay. Anyway, just tell me everything you know about this ‘song’ thing and maybe I can find it for you.”
“Unfortunately, I have no other information I can give you. All I know is what it’s called. And I know it can make you feel emotions, such as joy or sadness.”
Teto lashed her tail, looking more and more impatient. “That last statement’s better than nothing,” she finally said, as her look of annoyance turned into something more thoughtful. “This is why the humans created you, right? It’d make no sense if it was a person or a place, ‘cuz that’d be gone by now. Maybe they didn’t anticipate their whole kind going extinct, but I still don’t see a reason why they’d need you to see a specific person or place. So it’s probably… Yeah, it’s definitely gotta be that.”
Miku watched curiously as Teto stood up from the lawn chair, her black chimera wings spreading out in their full glory.
“Lucky for you, I collect things like that. Gotta find a way to pass the time somehow, or you’ll end up wishing you ended up like them.”
Miku didn’t have a chance to question Teto about what she was talking about because the drill-haired girl had already taken off. She hadn’t said a word about what she was doing and where she was going, so Miku had no choice but to wait.
Blinking, the blue-green-haired android took a seat where she had been standing earlier and patiently waited for the other girl’s return.
“Ta-da!”
Teto alighted on the trash pile Miku was on, carrying three things in her arms. Glancing around for a makeshift table and not finding one, she decided to use the lawn chair she had been sitting on earlier as a surface and placed the things in her arms on top of it.
Miku curiously approached, getting close to the objects but not yet touching them.
“Don’t break them,” Teto said sternly, but then she smiled as she proudly showed off her collection. “I’m pretty sure this is what you’re looking for. You can’t have any of it, but go ahead and tell me if I got it right.”
Miku nodded, respectfully eyeing each object and trying to identify it according to her internal dictionary.
Maybe her internal dictionary should have told her what "song" was, but it had more than one definition, and just because she had the definition, that didn’t mean she knew what it was, especially with her limited experience. It was like trying to explain color to someone without the ability to see it: she wasn’t sure if she got it right or what to look for.
“First, this is…” Miku picked up the first object and searched for the word using the most accurate definition she could come up with. “...a music box.”
“Correct,” Teto said, watching with her arms crossed like some kind of appraiser.
Miku gazed at the little wooden box that fit in the palm of her hand and slowly turned the handle. A series of melodious sounds rang out, pleasing to the ear, and the android gasped.
This was… music!
This was… a "song"!
She continued to turn the handle, listening carefully as the song continued in a short tune before inevitably repeating itself. Her brain buzzed pleasantly, and it was like there was a current running throughout her entire body as the sound waves tickled her ears.
“This is… it,” Miku said, eyes wide. For some reason, it was like this contraption was… powering her. There was a weird thumping in her chest and the android couldn’t help but wonder, Did I have this function?
The thumping was where a human heart would be, and Miku marveled at the idea that she had been programmed with a beating heart, even though she wasn’t “alive.”
“Uhhh, Miku…?”
“Yes?”
“How many times are you gonna keep turning that? There’s other stuff here. You don’t have to listen to the same song over and over again if you don’t want to.”
“But I do!” The turquoise-haired girl’s eyes sparkled, a huge contrast from her more emotionless self earlier. It was like music had given her the gift of emotion.
“This… This is amazing!” Miku exclaimed, her hands slightly shaking. This was the reason she was born. This was what she had been tasked with finding. It was so wonderful, so pleasant, so emotional, that she wanted to spread it too, forever.
“Lalalala~ ♪,” Miku sang, barely even registering what she was doing before she was already doing it. She just wanted to repeat the melody and preserve it for eternity. “Lalala~...”
Miku took a deep breath even though she had no need or use for air. Then, very gently and carefully, she set the music box down, even though she clearly gave off the air that she never wanted to let it go.
(Her immense curiosity about the other objects Teto had brought had won out.)
Switching her gaze to the next item down the line, she picked up a small rectangular-shaped device and turned it over in her hands carefully, analyzing it closely.
“What’s…?”
“That’s a Walkman,” Teto explained, looking as smug as if she’d invented it herself. It was hers (finders keepers!), so she was showing off one of her belongings, but the chimera also seemed to be a bit excited by the idea that she could share and brag about her interests. “It’s a classic cassette player. I already have the cassette tape inside, of course, and I could bring the other ones too, but obviously I wasn’t gonna bring everything I had in case there was the impossible chance I got what you were looking for wrong. Anyway, go ahead and give it a listen. The play button’s on top and labeled.”
Miku nodded and did as told, and she stared, shell shocked, as music came from this device too.
Drip drip.
Tears ran down her face at the sheer amount of emotion she was experiencing, like the music was introducing her to a new world of possibility and making her feel things she’d never felt before, quite literally.
Teto’s smug expression turned into one of pure surprise as she watched the previously clueless Miku react in a really human-like way.
“What are you crying about? It’s like you had a spiritual awakening or something,” Teto said, half concerned and half making fun of her for it.
Miku only nodded, wiping the tears from her face as she continued to listen.
They both fell silent as the music continued to play, washing over them both. Miku had her eyes closed, as if she was memorizing every single melody, and Teto was watching with curiosity and wonder, feeling something close to nostalgia. If you asked her, she hadn’t interacted with a real, emotional living thing in a long, long time, and the stuff she hunted down when she couldn’t take the hunger anymore didn’t count.
Finally the song finished playing, and just like with the music box, Miku gently set the Walkman down on the seat of the lawn chair.
“The humans that made this must’ve been so wonderful,” Miku finally said, voice filled with emotion. “I feel so much when I’m listening to the music, but when I think about how they’re all gone, I just get so sad. I’m sorry. I know it has nothing to do with the music.”
“It’s fine.” Teto shook her head, staring at Miku with a sympathetic look on her face. “I… I get it.”
Miku nodded gratefully with a small smile before her eyes landed on the last of the three objects Teto had brought. Again, it was black in color and took on a rectangular shape, but unlike the previous object, it had a screen, kind of like a mini smartphone.
“I guess you could call it a walkman too, but that’s a portable MP3 player,” Teto explained, voice a lot less smug. “It’s powered using batteries, so as long as I can find some, it still works. I’m really good at finding things, so it’s no problem for me.” She neglected to mention the part where scavenging for things was all she did do with her time now, besides eating and sleeping. Sure, music was incredibly important to her too, but Miku didn’t need to know that.
“I see…” Miku said, eyeing the device with great interest. Because she was a robot herself, it didn’t take her long to find the power button and turn it on. Once she did that, it also didn’t take her long to find the list of songs and figure out how to play one of them.
“Wow…” Miku said, allowing the sensation to fill her once more.
“Good taste,” Teto joked, but the music player belonged to Teto, so of course she liked almost every song in the list. It wasn’t hers originally, but even the songs she initially didn’t care for, she didn’t want to delete. Every song appealed to someone, if not the original songwriters, and of course Teto was reluctant to delete any traces of the pre-apocalyptic past.
Once the song finished playing, Miku had a peaceful expression on her face, like she’d reached perfect happiness or something.
Teto decided she liked that expression because she hadn’t seen anyone smile like that in a long time (‘cuz there was rarely anything to smile about, especially when she did meet a creature that could even smile), but Miku’s eyes snapped open and stared straight at her, causing her to jump.
“Teto, thank you!” Miku said earnestly, in a voice that could never be misconstrued as a lie. “This is ‘song’... This is exactly what I was looking for! Because these don’t belong to me, I’m returning them to you, but I know what it is I’m looking for now! I know the reason for my existence!” Her eyes shone with fire and determination, like the stars that were already faintly appearing in the sky above them. (Had it really gotten this late?)
“Thanks to you, I know now,” Miku said, smiling with immense kindness and warmth in her eyes. “I have everything I need now to fulfill my mission, to find as many songs as possible, so I promise I’ll never forget you!”
“Huh? Huh??” Teto asked, not bothering to hide the utter confusion on her face (even though she hated ever seeming clueless). “What are you talking about? You’re leaving right now?”
She flicked her black tail anxiously, unwilling to express just how much she hated the idea of that.
“Well, these are yours, right?” Miku replied, tilting her head as she asked this rhetorical question. “I’m really thankful to you for sharing them with me, but now I have to find my own. I can’t just take yours, and I’ve already taken up a lot of your time already.”
The utterly clueless look on Miku’s face was beginning to tick Teto off a little, admittedly, but that was a feeling she focused on so she could ignore the small growing feeling of panic. Of course anyone would be ticked off if you used them to get what you wanted and then ditched them the moment you were done with them, right? Right??
“Look, you’re trying to find as many songs as possible, right? I don’t mind sharing them with you, and there are still a lot of songs in the MP3 player you haven’t listened to, so you don’t have to rush. Why go through the trouble of finding the rest on your own when you already have so many in front of you?”
“That’s true…” Miku nodded in thought.
Teto continued to flick her tail from side to side, a complicated expression settling on her face and in her heart. Sure, she’d initially spared some time to the twin-tailed android because she’d been bored and curious, but losing the only other intelligent, emotional, and interesting “living thing” she’d met in a long time didn’t sit well with her. This world was big, and sure, Teto could fly, but if they parted ways with each other, maybe they’d never see each other again.
Plus what if this idiot went and got herself killed or broken or damaged or something? Even without humans, the world was still an unfriendly place, and other creatures existed– ones that might not be as friendly as Teto herself was.
These were the thoughts that caused the chimera to say what she said next: “You know, about your quest to find songs, I collect them too, so our goals aren’t that far off from each other.”
Trying to wear a more nonchalant expression as Miku looked at her curiously, the red-haired girl continued: “So, since we have similar interests, it’s a win-win if we work together. So, out of the kindness and graciousness of my own heart, I’ll help you out.”
Miku’s eyes widened. “Does that mean…”
“Yeah, I’ll help you find more songs. It works out for me too since I get to find something new and listen to it. Whaddaya think?”
Miku’s eyes shone. “I’d love that so much! Ah, but are you sure I’m not just taking from you? I don’t want to take and take and give nothing in return…”
“It’s a win-win, like I said,” Teto replied easily, insistently. “My reward is I get to find more songs, so we’re both benefiting. Aren’t you lucky you met me?”
“Yes!!”
Miku’s extremely honest answer and immediate agreement made Teto’s cheeks turn red a little because the chimera had said that last line as a kind of self-congratulating joke, but whatever. Whatever!
“Anyway, there’s no need to go anywhere just yet. There are still more songs to listen to,” Teto stated, the tension in her body slowly leaving as she watched Miku nod in agreement.
“I really am glad I met you ♪,” Miku said cheerfully, too busy focusing on the MP3 player again and clicking on the next song to see the embarrassing effect her words had on the other girl.
Another sweet melody rang out and Miku happily held the MP3 player to her chest, closing her eyes and memorizing the music as it played.
The chimera’s tail finally stopped lashing from side to side and she settled down as well, making herself comfortable as she too took in the music and the sight of Miku enjoying it so much.
Maybe living a meaningless existence like this, in a world like this, wasn’t so bad after all, she thought.
There was one last thought that remained, and that was she could get used to this sight.
Actually, she hoped to keep seeing it for as long as she lived.
END