Everlasting Gift

Chapter 3
Hallucinations?

Len sighed, watching his "sister" Neru Kagamine charge through the store. They were shopping for school supplies since a new school term was going to start in a few days. He and Neru are second-years in high school.

"Neru, slow down. I can't keep up with you," he complained.

It had been six years since Len's house had burned down on that fateful day. The firefighters said that there was no body of a nine year old girl found in the rubble of the house. Neru's parents had died: her dad from breathing in too much smoke, and her mother from severe burns. Len's parents had been kind enough to adopt her, making her and Len half-siblings.

It had been kind of fun having a good friend live under the same roof. After a month however, it got toward the point of annoying. Len had had to share his video games, and Neru sometimes "accidentally" deleted his saved file. He also didn't have a bathroom to himself; he had to share one with Neru. That wasn't too bad since she was clean and all, but she left underwear on the counter a few times, which was gross.

"Len! Hurry up! We still need more notebooks and pencils," Neru called out to him.

"Didn't we get enough when we came the day before?" asked Len, catching up to her.

"Yeah, but with our HUGE handwriting, we're going to need two times more than other people," joked Neru. "Besides, everything is on sale now. It's better to buy everything now."

"Whatever. I'll go look for the textbooks we need, alright? Meet me in the books section when you're done here."

Neru just nodded her head, taking notebooks and writing utensils from the shelves and sticking it into her shopping basket.

Len weaved through the many aisles of the store, getting to the books quickly. There, he found a few of the textbooks he needed and grabbed two of each, one for him and one for Neru. After ten minutes of browsing through the shelves, the shopping basket on his arm grew considerably heavier.

"Len? Where are you?" a voice suddenly called out.

"Over here, in the manga section," Len answered. He had been browsing the shelves for a volume of Fairy Tail which came out two weeks ago.

"Oh, right! I completely forgot about the new volume of Vampire Knight that came out this week!" exclaimed Neru. She scanned the shelves, trying to find her desired manga volume.

"I don't think they have it yet, or it's completely sold out," said Len, trying to help. "After all, it only came out a few days before."

"Aww…I wanted to see what happened to Yuki and Kaname. Did you know that Zero…" Neru went on and on. Len successfully tuned her out, looking for more manga.

"Hey, are you done yet?" asked Neru.

"Yeah, I was just waiting for you to finish," replied Len smoothly. "How much stuff did you buy?" he asked, gaping at the basket full of pens, pencils, erasers, and notebooks of every color.

"Not as much as yesterday…I think."

They went over to the check out counter. All the books and school supplies had cost about fifteen thousand yen. The two half-siblings paid up and left the store, with Len carrying most of the stuff and Neru carrying the pens, pencils, and erasers.

Right outside the mall was a bus stop. The two dropped down everything they carried and sat down on the bench near the stop, waiting.

"I remember this mall," Neru started slowly, looking back at the building they had just left. "Rin and I bought all our stuff here."

"Is this where you got that oversized banana plushie you told me about?" asked Len.

"Yep. Too bad it got lost in the fire," replied Neru.

A few feet away from the two, a mother and her teenage daughter were loading the car trunk with shopping bags.

"Mom! You didn't need to buy that much stuff for me!" exclaimed the daughter. She had short blonde hair, her bangs pinned in place by a few hair clips. On her head was a white ribbon and she had clear azure eyes…

"Nonsense!" the mother said and went on talking. Len didn't hear the rest of what the mother said, only focusing on the girl that looked exactly like an older version of Rin.

'Speak of the devil...it can't be her though. There's no possible way. She definitely died in that fire,' thought Len. Another part of his mind contradicted him. 'But there was no body found, right? Couldn't she have survived or something?'

Neru didn't notice anything strange since she was too busy texting on her new Nokia cell phone. The girl and her mother loaded their stuff into the trunk got into their car and drove away.

As their car drove away, the bus pulled up in front of Neru and Len. They picked up their stuff and got on, paying the fare.

On the bus, Len took out his newly bought manga volume and started to read. The characters swam around the page, his mind wandering elsewhere.

'Who is that girl?' he kept repeating in his mind over and over again.

When they got home, Len immediately dropped everything he was carrying. Neru, however, dropped the writing utensils down on the table before plopping herself on the sofa.

Mr. Kagamine called from the dining room, "Welcome back! Did you know that there's a festival at the shrine nearby? Do you guys want to go?"

Mrs. Kagamine continued. "I remember you guys still have you yukatas from a few months ago. I hope they still fit. If not, you guys can go in normal clothing too. I think the obi for your yukata is broken, Neru."

"Yeah, it is," replied Neru. "Maybe I can borrow yours? I really want to wear a yukata to the festival."

"Do I have to go?" asked Len in a childish voice. "Can't I just stay home and enjoy the air conditioning or something? I still have summer homework to do too."

"But Len…you haven't done anything BUT homework and hang out with your friends and the like," his mother protested. "You have to go somewhere else at least once."

"Fine…whatever," he muttered, heading upstairs to dig out his yukata. Len found it, sitting at the back of his closet. He tried looking for his obi and found it on a shelf at the top of his closet. Len grabbed a chair from his desk and dragged to the closet. He stepped on it, grabbing the obi.

"Mom! I need your help tying this stupid sash!" he called out.

"After I'm done with Neru's, alright?" Mrs. Kagamine called back.

Len waited, flipping through one of the books on his desk. After a few minutes, his mother walked into the room.

"So, where's your obi?" she asked him.

"Over there," Len replied, pointing to the bed.

Mrs. Kagamine picked it up from the bed and secured it around Len's waist. Len thanked her, and the both of them went downstairs, waiting for Neru to finish with her hair.

Neru came downstairs a few minutes later. She had piled her hair up into a bun near the top of her head and kept it there with two hair chopsticks.

"Neru! You look nice!" Mrs. Kagamine exclaimed. Neru was dressed in a gold yukata and her sash was yellow. The shades of gold, yellow, and brown of it brought out the amber color and the gold flecks of her eyes.

"Thanks, mom! Len, you look great as well!" Neru complimented him. Len was dressed in a dark blue yukata. It was fastened by a sash that was a few shades darker.

"Let's just go. Dad is waiting outside in the car," said Len, growing impatient.

Len and Neru walked ahead of Mrs. Kagamine, who was busy locking the front door. The two immediately felt relief once they stepped into the car. The air conditioning was turned on high. Mrs. Kagamine was done locking the doors and stepped into the car, sitting in the passenger seat.

A short drive later, the family arrived at the shrine. It was already crowded. Many were dressed in traditional clothing and even tourists were here to enjoy the food and dancing.

"I'll meet you by the car at 8 P.M. It's now 5. You guys should have enough time to explore and have fun," their mom said.

"Sure," Len and Neru said at the same time. They turned and walked toward the entrance. Their parents were talking with their friends outside of the shrine. Many of Len's friends were here, including Kaito, Gakupo, and Akaito. Neru was already heading to a group of her friends. She started chatting with Gumi, Meiko, and Luka.

Len headed into the shrine, occasionally stopping to buy food. Neru tried getting her fortune told. The fortune she drew told her that she would be unlucky in love this year.

'Yeah, right!' she thought, stealing a glance at Len. 'The person I love is living under the same roof as me. How can I be unlucky?'

Len also drew a fortune for the heck of it. He unraveled the piece of paper. It said, "Miracles are going to happen with you and your love."

Reading this, Len turned slightly pink and looked up. He saw a flash of blonde hair with a white ribbon heading toward the shrine at the edge of the festival. Len quickly followed, telling his friends, "I think I left something over there. I'm going to go look. Wait here."

Len waded through the crowd, pushing past bodies, and almost tripping over little kids running around. He saw the same girl again, inside the shrine, praying. Len tripped over a rock and fell, cursing. While he was getting up, the girl turned around. Len had a good look at her face. She was the same one at the parking lot of the mall, with azure eyes. Her face was skinnier than Rin's though – probably because the chubby cheeks from childhood had disappeared. The girl walked down the steps of the shrine and disappeared into the crowd.

Len tried searching for the mysterious girl, but he couldn't see her through the thick crowd of people. He gave up after a few minutes, limping back to his friends.

"Find it yet?" asked Gakupo.

"Nope," replied Len. "It wasn't there."

"You're limping," noted Akaito.

"Yeah, I tripped on a rock coming back here. Nothing to worry about."

The group of friends spent the rest of their time having fun dancing and just moving to the beat of the music. Gumi had tried scooping goldfish, but failed. Gakupo had almost fallen off the edge of the bridge when they were walking to the shrine. Pretty soon it was 8 o'clock.

"We have to go now," announced Neru. "See you in school in a few days," she said, waving good-bye.

Len waved to his friends as well, heading toward their parents' car with Neru.

"Did you guys have fun?" asked Mrs. Kagamine.

"Yep. There was so much music and dancing…" Neru babbled on to her parents.

Len sighed and stared out the window. He was thinking about the girl who looked like Rin again.

Neru got home and went upstairs to shower and change. Len changed back into normal clothes.

"Mom, Dad? I'm going to take a walk. I need to think," he told his parents.

"Come back soon and take your phone with you just in case something happens," his mother replied.

"Alright." Len grabbed his phone from the table and walked toward the door.

Len left the house. He walked toward the next block before breaking into a slow jog. After a couple of minutes of jogging, he ended up near the pond that was behind his neighborhood.

Len continued toward the pond, sitting down on a patch of green grass. The grass here was long and unkempt, even after a few years of little water. The pond was a tranquil pool of water, with ducks swimming across the surface. It was also littered with patches of algae and water lilies. Len lay there, on the grass, for a few more minutes.

A girl biked past him at a rapid pace. Len only caught a glimpse of her but swore that she had blonde hair and a ribbon on top of her head…

"Hey!" Len tried calling out. But it was too late. The girl was already out of earshot, frantically biking away.

'This is just a hallucination. It's only because I miss Rin that I keep seeing her everywhere,' Len kept telling himself while jogging home. In his heart, however, he didn't believe it. He had always known Rin was somewhere, just not here. All he needed was a miracle to bring her back.