First Sound Future

chapter 6

She straightened the black, pencil-waist dress and pursed her lips. She was glad Gumi decided to go with a blue dress instead of the black one- it would’ve taken away from Miku’s secret/surprise look.

She still hadn’t been able to get the failures off of her mind. She managed easily enough through the concert, but there was no way she could just forget about them. Did anyone else know about them? Had they seen them? Who else had a failure?

She was still on strained speaking terms with Kaito, and now it was the fact that the boy resembled him so closely that she couldn’t dare talk to him. Kaito . . . it moved her that the boy’s look had frightened her so. She couldn’t and wouldn’t deny her worry for him. Her true feelings . . . .

She shook her head. She had to get the images out of her head. Last Fever Dance Series had to be perfect. She had to be perfect. She had two main parts with Kaito, and she knew that if she didn’t get a proper poker face together, he’d be all over her until she told him. And how could she possibly tell him what was wrong? There were no words to describe those atrocities! Those poor humans . . . .

Miku had pitied humans before . . . but not to this extreme. She had no idea . . . and neither did the other Vocaloids. They’d be devastated if they knew, if Kaito knew.

No, that was it. She decided she wouldn’t tell him, even if she wanted to or even could. It would horrify him . . . dishearten him . . . .

She couldn’t stay mad at him. It was Kaito, the closest one her to literative heart.

For a brief moment, she was thankful Sune was healthy and alive. Miku couldn’t bear imagining seeing herself in that horrid position . . . so thin, hungry and . . . rejected, unloved.

“There . . . you are!” Sune’s sweet voice sung out to Miku. “They’re ready . . . for you, now.”

She smiled, and Miku ran up to her as fast as her tight dress would allow.

She embraced Sune, startling the poor girl slightly. Sune smiled, nevertheless, and returned her embrace, quite enthusiastically.

“Thank goodness you’re alive.” Miku whispered.

“Thank you? What . . . has . . . you worried?” sang Sune.

“I have to tell you. I have to tell somebody.” Miku figured her secret- no, the Corporation’s secret was safe with a successful Humvoid- Sune especially. “I discovered . . .” she glanced around- no one else was near. “Failures.” She whispered.

Sune’s eyes widened. Her sing-song voice lowered. “You’re not . . . supposed to know . . . Lily . . . was the only . . . one . . . that I know that . . . knows. I . . . sing . . . to them every day . . . to bring . . . a little comfort as . . . they die.”

Miku shook her head, biting her lip. “It’s horrible! How can they allow such a thing to happen?”

“They . . . don’t want . . . the . . . public . . . to know . . . they fail. Master . . . tells . . . me that they . . . are trying . . . harder not to fail . . . . It seems . . . they are . . . corrupted.”

“I’ll say so.”

“Do . . . not be angry, do . . . not be saddened.” Sune laid a comforting hand on Miku’s shoulder. “You . . . are the . . . powerful . . . Hatsune Miku!”

It brought little comfort. Sune resembled Miku in her actions as well. That would be exactly what Miku would do if those were her friends . . . poor Sune must suffer to watch other humans cast away to die as she befriends them. Perhaps that is also why she reached out to the Vocaloids so much . . . . They were infallible, permanent. And the other Humvoids were too young yet to be released without Corporation care.