Everlasting Gift

Chapter 9
Confessions of A PhotoShop Pro

Miku waited at the corner of Len and Neru's home, an envelope in her hand. She sighed, already impatient.

Rin had left for the airport this morning after hastily calling the airport to see if they had any seats left for the plane heading to America.

"Give this to Len," she had said before hopping into the car waiting on the street. Rin had stuffed the envelope into Miku's hands. Before Miku could protest, Rin was already in the car, waving good-bye.

Now, Miku waited at the corner for Len to come by. She really didn't want to see him after he had hurt her sister. She sighed again, still waiting.

After a few more minutes, Len came storming up the sidewalk and past Miku.

"Good – " Miku tried to say. Len breezed past her, not listening. Well, he's in a good mood, thought Miku.

Another minute passed and Neru walked slowly to the corner, her phone out in her hand.

"Good morning, Neru," Miku said. "What happened to Len?"

"Oh. He's just really angry about something," Neru replied nonchalantly. She was staring at her phone, fingers moving quickly over the keypad.

"And what exactly is that 'something'?" Miku asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I don't exactly know. It was something about Rin and the break-up," Neru replied. She put her phone back into her skirt pocket. "Come on, let's go."

Miku narrowed her eyes but began walking. "Hey, are you good with PhotoShop?" Miku asked suddenly, ducking into the alley with Neru.

"Eh? I'm not too good with it. I can edit but I'm horrible with rendering and the really advanced things. Do you want me to help you with something?"

"No, no. I just saw the program on your computer and I was wondering if you would teach me some of the basics," Miku lied. She honestly didn't care about the computer program. If she needed to edit something, she'll just hand-draw it.

"Sure, of course! Next time you come to my house, alright?" Neru looked back and grinned at her.

"Good morning, Len," Akaito greeted him. "Where's Rin today?"

"Don't know," Len mumbled. "I dumped her."

"What?" asked Luka, looking up from the new book she had purchased yesterday. Normally, it was kind of hard to get Luka to pay attention to you after she had bought a new book, especially an interesting book. This time was different though.

Len sighed and repeated himself. "I dumped her. We're over. We broke up. How many other ways should I say it?"

"No, no, that's good enough," Luka said quickly. She arched an eyebrow. "You seem to be in a bad mood today. Why's that?"

"Nothing," he replied curtly.

Truthfully, though, it wasn't 'nothing.' Neru had been acting a bit too "giddy" than normal yesterday…

"Hey, Len. Welcome back!" she had greeted him with a smile when he came back from the café.

Len, of course, had ignored her. Neru didn't normally greet him when he came home late and she never really SMILED at him. Her smile reminded him of the Cheshire cat, innocent but with some intention behind it.

"What happened? Your face is all red," she commented.

"I broke up with Rin," he replied, taking off his shoes and going up the stairs.

Neru followed him like a puppy upstairs. "How? And why? I thought you loved her."

"'Loved' being the key word in the sentence. As for how and why, I'll tell you later if I feel like it," Len said, trudging up the stairs and going to his room.

He dropped his bag at the foot of his bed and flopped onto the bed, his back on the soft mattress. He picked up the graphic novel that he had been reading on his bedside table and began to flip through it, the characters swimming off the pages.

A knock was heard on the door. "Len?" It was Neru. Len sighed; she had been pestering him more than usual.

"Come in," he responded, knowing that Neru would've came in no matter what he said.

"So tell me how you broke up with her," Neru had begged, a bit more eager than normal. She was jumping up and down on his bed, causing him to be bounced up and down as well.

"Do you really want to know?" he asked her, voice shaking from the vibrations of Neru jumping up and down the bed.

"Yes, I do. In fact, give me every little detail you can remember."

"Ugh…Alright, fine," agreed Len, knowing that Neru wouldn't stop bothering him unless he spilled the beans. When she was determined to get something out of you, she would continuously bother the person or spam him or her with a load of text messages. Len didn't want either of those happening to him anytime soon…

"I asked her to come by to that small café a block away from the school and…" Len went on and on, telling Neru what had happened in the café with Rin, how she got angry and just ran out. "…and Miku was spying on us. I saw her walk out and after that I just came back home."

Neru listened carefully, interrupting him from time to time to ask questions like, "Was I mentioned during the conversation?" and "Did you find out who was the real person in the photo?"

To those questions, Len had answered truthfully. "No," he had said, shaking his head.

Inwardly, he had wondered to himself, "Why did she ask those strange questions? And why did she even want to know what happened? It's not like Rin was my first girlfriend…"

"Len!" yelled a voice, snapping him out of his dream-like state.

"Hmm…?" He turned to the door and saw Miku standing there.

Miku walked over to him and handed the envelope over to him. "Here, it's from Rin." She thrust it into his hands and sat down in a nearby chair. "I want to see you open it and read it."

Len laughed silently to himself. Of course, Miku knew that he would've tossed it out the first chance he got if she didn't personally see him read it. Len sighed and slid his finger into the fold of the seal and opened it. Taking out the note inside, he read to himself.

To Len,

If you're reading this, then that means that I've probably left for the airport or I'm on the plane. I understand if you're mad at me but I just wanted to let you know that I never betrayed you and never thought of betraying you.

I understand if you don't trust me too. I know that trust is something that takes a while to build up but takes a second to break. I just want to ask you to forgive me, even if it won't be too easy.

And remember that conversation we had about previous lives during our one month anniversary? I promise, the next time I come back, that I will know about that previous life and remember.

Love, Rin

Len finished reading it and remembered that conversation he had had with Rin. Len had asked her if she remembered anything from childhood.

"No, but I feel as if I knew you from somewhere, like before I was born. That kind of feeling, like knowing someone from a previous life and then dying just to be reborn in the future," she had answered.

Len had then told her about his childhood with a girl he also knew named Rin and how she disappeared.

"She literally went poof! The firefighters didn't find a child's body in the rubble and they dug for quite a while," Len had told her.

Len still didn't know if Rin had believed him or not. She only nodded and changed the subject.

He skimmed the note that Rin had written again. This time, his eyes focused on the word "left."

"She's leaving?" he asked Miku incredulously. "Back to America?"

Miku nodded solemnly. "They expelled her from the school because of that photo. She didn't have many options," she told him softly.

Neru came up beside Miku and gave her a small hug. "But she'll be back right? She can't stay in America forever." She looked truly concerned.

"I hope so," whispered Miku to herself.

Turning away from Miku and everyone else, Neru smirked. However, Luka, who was up in the front talking to a few classmates, noticed.

Right before going to lunch, Luka grabbed Len's arm. "I need to talk to you alone," she said softly so that only he could hear.

Len was surprised. "Alright," he replied.

Neru came up behind him. "Let's go downstairs for food," she said smiling sweetly at him.

"You can go ahead. I'll catch up. I have an errand to run," he lied to her. It wasn't exactly a lie since he did have to give something to his math teacher.

He watched as Neru disappeared down the stairs and turned back to the classroom, looking for Luka. Approaching her, he asked, "What did you want?"

"Was Neru acting weird yesterday?" Luka asked softly so that everyone around them wouldn't accidentally overhear.

"A bit. She told me to give her every detail of how I broke up with Rin and asked me stuff about it too," he said shrugging. "I wonder why she asked me if I knew who the real person in the photo was."

"Who the real person was?" Luka narrowed her eyes. "Then the person in the photo wasn't really Mr. Hiyama."

"I don't know…"

"You do know how to use that photo editing thing that you have on your computer, right?" asked Luka after thinking for a minute. "Does Neru know how to use it?"

"Yeah, I was the one who taught her. She doesn't really use it much though."

"When you go home, look through her files on the computer. Maybe there's something she recently edited."

"Hey, Neru. I need to use the computer. Is that alright with you?" asked Len when they got to their house.

"Eh? You're actually doing that extra credit project?"

"Uh…yeah," Len said, not knowing what the heck she was talking about. It seemed like a good excuse though.

"Alright then. I'll just ask Dad for his laptop if I need to do anything," Neru agreed.

Len headed upstairs for his room. He booted up the computer, fingers tapping impatiently on the table. He quickly typed in the password and waited for it to start up.

He opened Neru's file and quickly looked through it for any PSD files. He found one that was very recent and double clicked it.

The picture opened, showing the photo of Rin with the person that was not Len. Quickly, he used the history brush and undid everything that Neru had done to the picture.

As he finished clearing away the colors and renders that Neru did to the photo, he gasped.

It was just a picture of him and Rin. Neru had only darkened his hair and eyes and cut away parts of the hair and clothing to make it look like Mr. Hiyama. The background was also rendered and re-colored to make it look as if it was somewhere dark. Neru even had enough skill to put in a pair of glasses at the right angle to make it look real.

This is almost expert PhotoShop-ping if it wasn't for the fact that she forgot the history brush and the layers, thought Len, impressed with Neru's work.

Even though he was impressed, he was very angry that Neru had sent this around. Going through more of her files, he found her diary that was stored on the computer. Opening the file, he skimmed through it.

Is she serious? Len wondered as he scrolled down. Opening the browser, he sent the file to Miku with a message.

A few minutes later, he got a reply via text message.

Don't rush ahead when we walk to school tomorrow morning.

The next morning, Miku waited anxiously for the Kagamine siblings to arrive. She shifted from foot to foot, wondering on how to confront Neru. Len would be on her side though.

She had read the journal entries that Len had sent her over and over again, making sure that she wasn't imagining the words that were on her screen.

And to think, she was Rin's biological sister, thought Miku furiously.

"Good morning…Miku…" Neru trailed off. "Is there something wrong?" Miku didn't look as bright as normal. Neru wasn't even greeted with her normally chipper "Good morning!"

"Of course there is," answered Len bluntly, knowing full well what was going on.

"Neru…answer me truthfully," demanded Miku. "What did you do to Rin?"

"Eh? To Rin? Nothing. Why would I want to do something to her? I don't have anything against her," Neru answered, a confused look spreading on her face. Do they already know? But how?

"You were jealous of her," Len answered. Taking out his phone he showed the two photos to Neru. "Tell me how this photo changed to this one."

"Wow. That's really good editing. Are you sure it's the same picture?" asked Neru, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"Neru, you forgot about the history brush, did you? And the layers panel…"

Neru's face reddened in realization and in embarrassment.

"And there's this too," Miku said, taking out her phone and showing Neru the e-mail with the attached files to her. Neru immediately recognized the file that was being shown.

"Len, you looked through my diary?" Neru was appalled, face turning redder if that was even possible. The only reason she had kept her diary on the computer was because she was positive that Len wouldn't look through it. He wasn't the type to just go through other people's property.

"Of course. I needed to know and you pour everything into that thing."

"Well, now you know about how I feel about you. Well?" Neru arched an eyebrow, waiting for an answer. She felt the heat in her cheeks grow even warmer but you couldn't tell if she was blushing deeper. Her cheeks had reached their limit.

Len snorted. "You actually think that after I found out about all those things you did that I would trust you?"

"Of course not. I don't trust you either. You actually looked through my documents!" She turned toward Miku. "Miku? Next time you contact Rin, tell her I'm sorry. I really am."

"Umm…the thing is I can't. She went to some boarding school somewhere and I can't seem to get in touch with her. Believe me, I tried," Miku told them. She started chewing on a lock of her teal hair - a habit that had formed whenever she was anxious.

"Looks like she pulled another disappearance act on us." Len sighed. "How are we going to get her back now?"

"We can only wait," Neru said softly. She was still hurting from Len rejecting her but what hurt her more was the realization of how much pain she had caused Rin. Neru was the one who had driven her back to America. And I'm supposed to be her elder sister too!

How long are we supposed to wait? Len looked up at the sky, searching for some sort of sign.

There was none.