Good Intentions

Maybe she should have gone for making pie instead.

Standing there in Luka's kitchen, Miku was beginning to realize how horribly things had gone wrong. The worst thing about it all was that she didn't even know how - it was as though everything around her was conspiring to make her fail at the simple task of baking a cake. Miku glared at the rather charred-looking cookbook and tried to dust some of the flour off her arms.

It was Luka's birthday, and Miku had decided on making a cake, because cakes were what people normally got for other people during birthdays, and Miku was Luka's girlfriend, so she felt as though she should make it special and bake one for her herself. Even though she had never so much as even touched baking before, she figured it shouldn't be too difficult. After all, kids made cakes all the time, right? That in mind, she set out to ask her friend Miki for a good cookbook.

Miki had stared at her in shock then, eyes wide. "You want to bake a cake?" she asked, her voice filled with trepidation.

"Yeah!" said Miku. "It's Luka's birthday soon."

"Why not buy her one?" said Miki.

"No! It has to be one I made myself," said Miku. "It won't be special if I just get it from the bakery."

It was only after much cajoling when Miki reluctantly parted with her cookbook.

Said cookbook now had half its pages burned when Miku accidentally set the oven-hot, burning pan of cake on it. The cake itself was a squashed and completely unappealing looking grayish object. It also did not seem to conform to Euclidean geometry, and smelled strangely of burnt olives and tomatoes.

It made no sense. Miku was sure that she had followed the recipe exactly. Even though the cake was a burned mess, if the ingredients are right, it should be fine, right? That in mind, Miku tried an experimental bite.

A few hours later, after she recovered, Miku decided that it was best to pretend that this cake never existed and promptly dumped the eldritch abomination into the trash.

So, that was that. However, she still needed a cake. It was Luka's birthday, after all, and while they would go out to celebrate that with their friends on the weekend, Miku couldn't just let it pass by with no comment on the day itself. She needed to do something special, and that something special was cake. Nervously she looked up at the clock. She still had three hours left before Luka came back...plenty of enough time to have another go at the cake, right?

That done, Miku did her best to remember what the recipe was, the original having been lost forever in the miniature fire. Okay. Flour and sugar. Obviously. Miku stared helplessly at the measuring cup - she had completely forgotten how many cups she needed. Well, three sounded like a nice number, and then, one cup of sugar, right? That sounded logical. After that was...baking soda.

Miku checked in the cabinets. They were completely out. Okay. Think on her feet...Miku decided to use soda instead. She dumped a can of coca-cola into the mixture. That should help the flour rise. And...chocolate. She needed chocolate. But wait, coca cola was already sweet, right? Did she really need chocolate? Miku stared at the mixing bowl, paralyzed. How did people manage to make these things? Bakers must be magicians. Still, Miku had to at least try to make something for Luka. She gulped and started throwing in as many chocolate substitutes as she could think of.

By the time she was done mixing and by the time the cake was nearing completion in the oven, it was late and the kitchen was covered with all sorts of strange food combinations. Miku surveyed the scene, hands on hips. This was going to take a lot of cleaning up...and the cake probably won't taste that great either. Miku had put some weird things in there in her mad haste. Still...Luka should be able to appreciate it, right? Well, maybe not if she eats it...maybe it could just be a 'look but don't touch' kind of thing. Right. A symbolic gesture of love and appreciation. Emphasis on 'symbolic'.

Then, the doorbell rang. Miku stiffened and stared at the door before darting her head over to stare at the clock. Only one person would ring the doorbell at this time. But shit, why was Luka here? She was an hour early! Still, far be it from Miku to refuse a visit from her girlfriend. She swallowed hard and made a cursory attempt to straighten up the kitchen (i.e. dust some flour off the countertop and onto the floor) before walking over to the door and slowly opening it. Sure enough, Luka was there.

"H-hey," Miku squeaked. "Um, come in."

Luka sniffed the air. "Smells...interesting."

Miku stared down at her feet. "I was trying to make a cake...since it's your birthday..."

Luka's eyes widened. "You made a cake? For me?"

"Yeah...but it didn't turn out very good. I mean, I kinda...burned the cookbook...and I ran out of a lot of ingredients..."

Luka took all of this in with a solemn nod. "I see...well," she turned towards Miku with a gentle smile, "thank you. I'm glad you went through all this trouble for me."

At that, a slow, doofy smile made its way across Miku's face. She could do nothing but giggle dumbly as Luka went into the kitchen and took out the cake. It was only when the smell wafted over to Miku's nostrils when Miku snapped out of it. There was no doubt about it - this cake is completely inedible. Not only that, but Miku was quite certain that it was toxic. The smell was simply so bad that it reminded one of certain toxic flora and fauna which uses its stink to warn of danger.

But if Luka thought any of this, she gave no indication of it on her face. Instead, a strange look of ecstasy overcame her. Miku stared in a sort of horrified fascination as Luka reverently cut herself a slice of the cake.

"Uh, Luka, you really gonna eat that?" Miku squeaked. "I mean, it smells kinda dangerous..."

Luka breathed out a sweet-scented sigh, her eyes fixed on the cake. "Oh, Miku...you don't understand. You remember how I'm a total foodie?"

Miku nodded dumbly. Luka was an elite food reviewer in her spare time and would often take Miku out to try out random out of the way restaurants, so it wasn't like it was a secret or anything. Still, why would a foodie want to eat this?

Before Miku could voice her question, Luka spoke again. "Well, it seems that you made this completely on accident...but this is a cake that is highly sought after by all elite gourmands. Indeed, it is so difficult to create that some call it the Philosopher's Stone of Cakes. It is a veritable chimera, with a unique slimy-crispy-oily-squishy-squelchy-crunchy texture."

"W-wow...uh...what's it called?"

"Such a legend has no name, but some call it the Dzee-Dzee-BonBon Cake, after the mythological monster of the Abenakis that is so hideous, it is afraid even of looking at itself. Such a name is fitting for this monstrous, yet beautiful cake. For isn't there beauty to be found in abominations? One need only think of Le Fantôme de l'Opéra."

Miku nodded. Truly Luka was a genius. "Why'd you use the French name?"

"French is the language of amour."

"Oh, right."

"Now, I will eat this cake," said Luka, "and pass into culinary legend." She reverently picked up a fork and knife, cutting into the cake. Miku winced as she saw green slime seep between the layers, as a freshly unpleasant smell infiltrated the room.

"Ah," sighed Luka, "the scent of the underside of a used horse saddle." She put the piece of cake in her mouth.

There was a silence.

Ten minutes later Miku drove her to the hospital.

Fluctuation

It was clear that the author was never going to update.

Miku sat, staring at her computer screen, eyes running down lines of links to stories that fell into one of six categories (read, read-but-not-updated, read-but-dropped, recommended-but-not-yet-read, unread-but-with-the-intention-of-someday-being-read, and unread-with-no-interest-of-reading), and came to this conclusion a few months down the line and the story in question had not been updated. The author's profile page was an abyss of vague statements about their personality, with no favorite authors, and no favorite stories, and no indication of how their progress was when it came to stories in general.

Miku sighed. It shouldn't be too surprising. After all, many authors don't update their stories. In fact, a good portion of stories fell in the shady and noxious realm of ''abandoned', i.e. killed without any chance of resurrection. A few of these, misleadingly, had the words ON HIATUS printed in their summaries, a sort of advance warning to the unwary reader, but ON HIATUS was often a euphemism, albeit untended, for "I will never update this story again, and in fact, I have dropped writing entirely, and am now living a happy and fulfilling life without writing, or, for that matter, giving any sort of thought to what I have written in ages past." It kind of sucked.

Miku checked her email on her phone, for lack of anything else to do, and saw that she had one unread message. It was a story alert for the story that she had dismissed a few scant minutes earlier as abandoned. Her eyes widened and almost immediately she put the phone down on the table and clicked over to the story, heart pounding in excitement. She opened the story, mouse mis-clicking a few times, forcing her to backtrack back from the author's page to the story proper. She skipped the boring author's note at the beginning, eager to get to the next part of the story.

She remembered clearly what happened in the previous chapter. The story's heroine was a bored rich kid who secretly loved nerdy pursuits such as video games and reading. She had ran into a girl who was both stunningly pretty and seemingly intelligent, and this girl had recommended the heroine some video games to play. Of course, Miku was confident that the two would eventually bond over the stories and fall in love. It didn't seem like a deep story, but it was good for a quick fix. At any rate, Miku delved into the first sentence.

The bass was low, the club was dark, and I was bored.

Pause. This sentence sounded familiar. Miku flipped back to the previous chapter.

The bass was low, the club was dark, and I was bored.

Okay. Perhaps this was a sort of callback to the previous chapter. Authors did that. This was not uncommon. It was just the author being weird again. Miku went back to the second chapter and read the next sentence, but sure enough, it was the exact same sentence as the second sentence in the previous chapter. In fact, the second chapter of the story was exactly the same as the first chapter - right down to the cheery author's note on top that hoped that the readers would enjoy the story.

This was odd. No, not just odd - it was downright strange. Miku wasn't the type of person who usually messaged authors - she was more the sort of reader who read and moved on, who lurked around the site but didn't leave reviews, but this, this was weird. Miku checked the reviews. The new chapter had just came out, so there were none, same for a somewhat timid one written by a Guest.

this is the same as chapter 1... o.o

Miku chewed her lip and sent a PM to the author, who said that he or she welcomed PMs in his or her profile anyways, so it shouldn't matter, about the mistake. In a few minutes, she got a response back and opened it. In it, the author apologized for the mistake, and proceeded to go on about how, in fact, he or she intended to upload a new chapter for a new story, and that actually, the old story was supposed to be a one-shot anyways, but you know readers, and so on, and so forth, until the author ended the long and rambling message with a convoluted apology and a promise of rectifying the situation.

Miku chewed her lip and messaged her friend, a girl named Luka who also read fanfiction. The fact that she did was totally secret, of course, because Luka was really shy about that kind of thing - she said something about it making her seem 'nerdy' or whatever. Miku logged on to VocaBook and sent Luka a message:

DID YOU READ THE LATEST CHAPTER OF FLUCTUATION!?

Luka's reply was equally fast:

yeah, it's the same chapter. probs some fuck-up.

Miku frowned at Luka's level-headed reply. Doesn't she get how big of a deal this is? What if this eventually leads them on a wild goose chase for the next chapter of the fanfic?

no u dont understand! what if...the next chapter is uploaded in some OTHER story!? BY AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WRITER!?

A pause. Then:

miku, you read too many fanfics...that's crazy.

Miku frowned and stared at the screen, willing Luka to see her logic. Another pause, and Luka sent another message.

okay, fine, i can feel you staring at me through the computer. if you want, i can ask my friend YYLunarRabbit about it. She reads more fanfics than we do.

Miku would have to be satisfied with that. As she waited for Luka to get back to her with more information, she read some more fanfics. There was some vampire parody one that she needed to catch up on, not to mention the one about a ninja escorting a spoiled princess. She should really be doing homework or writing music or practicing singing, but fanfics were just too addicting for her to give up.

But as more time passed, there was no update from Luka. Miku sighed and looked back at Fluctuation. The author did say that he or she would fix the situation...maybe it was worth checking the second chapter again and seeing if it's the continuation of the first chapter. Miku nodded once to herself and clicked on Fluctuation again, navigating to the second chapter.

To her relief, it was no longer a repeated version of the first chapter.

Instead, it was a completely different story.

Untitled

Miku clapped her hands together. "Well then, this is the start of a new fanfiction! Starring us, of course!"

Luka didn't bother to lift her head up from the table. "What's it called?"

"Silly Luka, that's what this meeting is all about!" Miku struck a dramatic pose. "We need a title that catches people's attention. A title that makes them stop, stare, and think, 'oh damn, I need to read this story right away!'"

"Easier said than done..."

"The title should have something to do with the story too," said Miku, rubbing her chin.

"Well, okay, but what's the story?" asked Luka. "We haven't really been...told yet."

"Well, that's the problem, see," said Miku. "We don't know what the story is about."

"What?" Luka sat up. "How could we possibly title a story if we don't even know the story?"

Miku sighed and turned towards the whiteboard. "Well, it can't be helped. We can just name our story, um...oh!" She snapped her fingers. "I know!" She started writing out the title. "Um, how's it go again...oh yeah, 'On...and...O-"

Before Miku could finish writing, Luka took the marker out of her hands. "No, we can't use that."

"B-but why not? It's definitely an attention-grabbing title!"

"You idiot, it's like using 'H**r My S*ng' or '*f C*mm*n Bl**d' as the title..."

"What?" Miku furrowed her eyebrows. "Why are you placing asterisks between letters? And besides," she grinned and raised a finger, "we're allowed to have fics with the same title! It's not against the rules, right? It's totally eye-catching, too! What if we get some more readers by making them think it's the next chapter of the other story?"

"Well, sure, but that's just not ethical."

"Luka, Luka, Luka...haven't you ever heard of the saying, 'Good artists copy, great artists steal'?"

Luka stared blankly at Miku. "We aren't great artists."

Miku gasped at that, throwing a hand over her heart. "W-what? But we touch tons of people's lives! Well, I don't know about you, but I'll have you know that I toured with Lady Gaga."

"Um, yeah, I know. You haven't shut up about it since it was announced. Anyways," Luka turned back towards the whiteboard, "let's think of something more original." Luka raised the marker as she thought. "Ah. Well, how about something like 'a feeble fire is lit (at the edge of my heart)'? That kind of title is getting popular these days."

"Oh come on," Miku said. "We have more duets than Magnet, you know. And what's with the parentheses?"

Luka heaved a sigh. "Do people even care about titles that much?"

"Well, we can't just leave it as 'untitled', or 'My First Fanfiction', or 'Luka/Miku Story'. Anyways, the title totally affects people's image of the story! What if 'Libretto' was titled 'Finer Things In Life'?"

Luka considered this. "Honestly? I don't think it makes that much of a difference."

"N-no, it totally makes a difference...Libretto makes you think of the opera or the theater, right? It's totally appropriate for a Phantom of the Opera-inspired story!"

Luka rolled her eyes. "Uh, whatever. Look, let's just name this story already."

There was a brief silence as the two girls considered, then Miku snapped her fingers. "I got it! Let's name it...Next On!"

"Next On? Why?"

"Why? Because it's better than nothing, and we don't know what the story is even about. It's vague enough to work, right?"

Luka placed a hand to her forehead. "I...guess? I mean, what does that title even mean? Next on...what? It's a total fragment."

"Titles can be fragments! It's art!"

"Um, Miku, I'm not so sure about that."

"Come on, it'll totally work. Trust me. Now let's go and get something to eat."