This is my first attempt at a chaptered story in... forever. XD "The Hangover and Other Misadventures" doesn't count, since it's a series of one shots. XP I've got a pretty good idea on how I wanna go with this, and I'm not expecting this to run for very long, maybe just a handful of chapters. I think embarking on an epic 40 chapter fic for my first attempt would be just a tad ambitious. XD

Originally, this was going to be a one shot to go into my other fic, but it eventually evolved to be to a point that it could've been a series of one shots on its own. It... kinda will turn out that way, I think, assuming it sticks to the way I've got it in my head. Well, either way, hope you guys enjoy! :D

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing save for this humble piece of fanfiction.

Chapter 1

Of all the shining stars at Yamaha High School, there was one that was constantly a popular topic of discussion. Ever since she had been a first year, Megurine Luka had been popular throughout the school. What was not to like, after all? Not only was she stunningly beautiful, but she was also one of the top students in the school, consistently displaying excellent grades and test scores, and was also easily the best player of the school's girls' tennis club, in addition to an all-around formidable athlete. About her only flaw as far as anyone could see was that she had an extremely cold personality, and even this only served to make her seem all the more attractive to her admirers. Her coldness, it was said, added an aura of mystery to her, making her seem even more untouchable than she already was. She herself was practically a legend at the school: Megurine Luka, the Ice Princess of Yamaha High School.

It was her friend Lily who had come up with that terrible nickname, and there was not a day that passed that Luka didn't feel like slamming a racket onto her head for ever introducing the world to that hideous title of hers.

Admirers and members of Luka's fan club were legion, and as a result, she regularly received attempts at confessions from both boys and girls. And every last one of them would be coldly rejected. People stopped keeping track of the attempts after the fiftieth one was shot down during her first year. Nevertheless, those who dared muster up the courage to confess their feelings to the Ice Princess and get shot down were admired by the school for their boldness, and served as inspiration to those who would make their own attempts in the future.

Needless to say, Luka always found herself extremely annoyed by this.

She was now a second-year at Yamaha High, and there was simply no end in sight to her mind-boggling popularity. But frankly, she could care less whether she was hated or worshipped (which she practically was... there had been rumors of animal sacrifices offered in her name, but she suspected that was more of Lily's over-sensationalism). Luka was simply content to live as she pleased, and to hang out with her small group of friends, all of whom she had known at least since junior high. Aside from ridiculous amounts of popularity, she thought of herself as a normal girl just having a normal high school life, minus truckloads of confessions.

In fact, she was walking to the latest attempt right now.

Luka had opened her shoe locker that morning to see a small, otherwise nondescript envelope resting on top of her indoor shoes. Sighing, she had reached in and plucked it out to look at the contents of the letter encased within.

"Megurine Luka-san, please meet me in class 1-D after school. I will be waiting for you."

Simple. To the point. And painfully ordinary.

While other students would perhaps have been excited about receiving one of these, Luka simply thought of these as chores that she would rather not deal with. By this point in time, she had been summoned to just about every possible location in the school for these confessions, whether it was a classroom, the chemistry labs, the rooftop, behind the gym storage shed, inside the gym storage shed... Some of the locations had made Luka wonder if her admirers were acting out some kind of fantasy from a rape manga or something. Perhaps it had occurred to some of her admirers to do such a thing, since by looks alone, she was ranked AA+ (more tidbits of gossip that Lily kept track of and shared with her, whether it was wanted or not), but no one had attempted anything ever since the incident with those three third years that had tried to assault her last year.

According to Lily, none of them had ever been able to walk straight again after the trouncing Luka had delivered, and nearly being lynched by Luka's rampaging fan club for such a grievous and audacious attack on their Ice Princess hadn't helped either.

The remaining first years in the hallways scurried aside to make room for her, already knowing her by sight and some practically slavering over her. It was easy to imagine them staring after her with worshipful expressions and sparkles dancing around them as they sighed dreamily, "Hime-sama~!"

How irritating...

Luka stood outside the door to classroom 1-D. Idly, she wondered if she should start conducting bets to see how long it would take her to reject her admirers. Her family wasn't exactly struggling financially, but it never hurt to have extra spending money. She put that idea in the back of her head for later and decided that she should just go ahead and get this over with. To that end, Luka opened the door and stepped inside.

Her admirer for the day did not bother making herself hard to find. She sat alone in the empty classroom, perched atop the teacher's desk and absently kicking her feet as she leaned back on her hands. Her teal hair, tied into twintails, flowed down over the desk. The hue of her hair perfectly matched her nail polish as well as her wide eyes. The girl was clad in the same uniform as hers: a navy-blue and white sailor uniform. Luka recognized her as a first year named Hatsune Miku, a neighbor of hers that she mostly knew for her fascinating hair color... and that was about all she knew of her. At the sound of her entrance, Miku looked up and smiled brightly.

"Heya, Megurine-senpai! I'm glad you came!" she chirped.

Luka answered her warm, cheerful greeting with a soft grunt of acknowledgement. She walked in, not deigning to close the door behind her. No point, since she would be leaving in a few seconds anyway. She placed a hand on her hip and cocked an eyebrow at the girl in a manner that conveyed a very impatient "Well?" Unfazed, the tealette hopped off the desk and lightly onto her feet. Turning to her, she offered a sunny smile as she clasped her hands behind her back.

"I'll get right to the point, senpai! The truth is that I have fallen in love with you! Please go out with me!"

If Luka were to be paid one American dollar for every time she had heard that phrase, she would have been able to retire at the ripe old age of seventeen years old. Okay, probably not, but it would've still been a handsome chunk of change, and it would probably make her more receptive to hearing it. As it stood, she was not getting paid anything to hear that tired old phrase, and so, all that was left was just pure annoyance. And so, she replied with an instant and final, "No."

The cold politeness in Luka's tone could have frozen a swimming pool solid in the middle of a heat wave. With nothing further than a curt nod of farewell, she flipped her hair over her shoulder as she turned and walked out.

Unseen to her, the tealette that Luka had left behind so coldly tipped her head to the side, a finger resting on her chin as she frowned cutely. "Hm... That wasn't the response I was hoping for," she murmured to herself.

The frown quickly gave way to a sunny smile, though there was a distinct twinkle of mischief in her eyes. "But... that was exactly what I expected from you, senpai~"

There was very little about the first year named Hatsune Miku that Luka knew. But if she had bothered to get to know her even a little bit, she would have known what simply saying the word "No" had unleashed upon her. Unfortunately, Luka had not bothered to get to know her, and thus was oblivious to this.

Oh well, Miku thought, her smile widening. Her loss~

She'd been quiet all day, and Luka had hoped against hope that maybe, just maybe, she'd be spared just this once. Seeing how Lily sat beside her in class, it was not unreasonable to think that if she'd heard anything juicy, then Luka would be interrogated immediately, and seeing how she'd been quiet, that could possibly have meant she hadn't heard anything. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Almost as soon as they had sat down at a table in the cafeteria, Lily had grinned at the pinkette, which was a signal that she was most certainly not going to be spared.

"So," Lily began slyly, "Word on the street is you got another confession yesterday."

Luka looked up to turn an icy glare on her. "Word on the street" was Lily-speak for "I am extremely nosy and unashamed of it and here's the latest bit of gossip I've picked up because I am so nosy! Did I mention I'm extremely nosy?" Perhaps it came with being part of the school's journalism club, but Masuda Lily was an incredible gossipmonger, and she loved writing her articles on the latest of the Ice Princess's adventures (all of it sensationalized, of course, because telling the truth without embellishing it a bit made for poor sales... or at least, that was her defense). She was an invaluable member of the school's newspaper staff, because as a friend of Luka's, she was not only spoon-fed a steady stream of gossip and rumors surrounding one of their school's biggest stars, she was also afforded far more lenience than someone who did not know her at all. All told, the school newspaper had never been so successful in its entire history. Luka decided that she would ignore her and turned to unpacking her pink bento.

"Aha, you're ignoring me!" Lily observed. Cradling her chin in the crook between her index finger and her thumb, she said sagely, "This means that my sources were correct! Un, un!" A nod accompanied each self-satisfied noise.

The pinkette eyed her friend balefully. It was at this moment that Luka was introduced to her arch-nemesis: the seemingly innocuous notebook Lily had just whipped out. But no arch-villain is complete without an equally vile sidekick, and Luka distastefully eyed this notebook's partner: a pen that Lily withdrew from the chest pocket of her blouse. She clicked it with her thumb as the notebook (which in her eyes might as well have been a tome of ultimate evil) opened up to a blank page.

"So! Do tell!" Lily said eagerly. "Guy or girl this time?"

Luka was among those people who were cursed with the ability to recognize defeat when she saw it. Sighing in resignation, she replied, "Girl."

"Kyaa~ It must be nice to be so popular with both genders, Luka-hime-sama~!" Lily swooned in an overly exaggerated fashion as she scribbled in her latest entry.

The pinkette glowered at her. "Please do not call me that, Lily."

"Sure thing, boss," the blonde replied in an airy, insincere manner. "So pray tell, what year?"

"First year." Luka got out her chopsticks.

"Even the new bloods know about our magnificent Ice Princess~! How amazing you are, your majesty!"

Luka shook her head, already feeling a headache coming on as she imagined what the latest news article would say about her... Probably something along the lines of her being a legendary heartbreaker who shunted aside yet another admirer, leaving the poor young girl weeping with heartache, yet still unable to overcome her devotion to Yamaha High's princess...

Ugh.

She had a pretty good idea on what would be written because Lily had a habit of triumphantly reading them out loud to her, complete with dramatic narration. And while their other friends found it amusing, Luka only felt the urge to roll up the newspaper and give Lily's head a good whack (which she sometimes did).

Presently, the annoying blonde journalist began giggling to herself. "Now I just need some time to write this up and I'll have a good article to submit by tomorrow! It's so awesome how many confessions you get, Luka-hime-sama. I never run out of things to write about! This is what, number six for this month alone?" As she asked the question, she reached out and plucked a meatball from Luka's lunch, happily ignoring the withering glare said robbed individual aimed at her, and not minding that Luka had decided against answering her question.

It never failed to amaze Luka how Lily's articles all started to sound the same after a while, and it was still the most-read article of the school newspaper...

The notebook snapped shut and the pen disappeared into Lily's chest pocket. But when she looked up, there was actually a more serious expression on her face. "But, off the record now, Luka... has it ever occurred to- ow!" Lily withdrew her hand, waving it around with her fingers still smarting a little from where Luka had foiled her attempt to steal another meatball with a swift smack from her chopsticks. Picking up from where she left off, she continued, "Has it ever occurred to you to maybe give one of them a chance?"

Despite her shamelessly taking advantage of her friend's popularity for her own entertainment and that of the school, Lily actually did care about Luka's well-being (which was one of the reasons why Luka had not made mincemeat out of her already). They had been friends since junior high school, and this was always how it had been. She knew for a fact that if none of their other friends were around, Luka would be alone. In fact, at this very moment, while they waited for the others to come to their table, Lily knew that if she too had needed to buy her lunch as well, then Luka would be sitting at this table and eating alone, a mental image that she thought to be very sad. And their friends didn't always eat with them for varying reasons. Haku and Dell would eat by themselves on occasion, as would Kaito and Meiko (One of these days, Lily promised herself, she was going to get an awesome photo of one of those couples... preferably Kaito and Meiko. She could outrun both Kaito and Meiko, but Dell was the devil's own wrath if someone flustered Haku, which a sudden snapshot most certainly would), and Gakupo would sometimes hang out with the other members of the kendo club.

It wasn't that Lily felt Luka needed to get herself a boyfriend or girlfriend. But she felt her pink-haired friend was in dire need of expanding her borders, broadening her horizons and making a few new friends, for God's sake! And of course, no matter how many times she charged against these defenses, Lily knew exactly how this would end before she had even gotten three words in.

"No," Luka said with a dismissive air. "Not really."

And that, Lily knew, was that. The princess had pronounced her royal decree, and thus it would be (Hey, she realized, that rhymed!). With the topic now closed for discussion, she ripped open the bag that separated her from the curry bread she had bought this morning, though she aimed a final longing look at Luka's very appetizing lunch.

"Theatrics notwithstanding, you are not having anymore of my lunch," the princess declared firmly without even deigning to look up at her.

"Boo..." the blonde pouted. She went ahead and took a bite of her bread. A change of topic was in order, but first she had to finish chewing.

At least, that had been the plan. She was still in the middle of chewing when a clatter of trays caught her attention. Both girls looked up to see two blonds setting their trays down on Lily's left, smiling apologetically at the both of them. On Luka's right, a tray was set down energetically by a teal-haired girl who sang happily, "Hi-hi, Luka-senpai!"

The pinkette stared in alarm. "Hatsune-san?"

The girl's already broad smile widened even more. "Yay, you remembered my name!"

Lily glanced between the two. She then looked over at the blond twins (they had to be twins; they looked far too alike not to be, she reasoned), who only shrugged helplessly in return. Obviously not getting any answers from them, she looked over at a flabbergasted Luka and blinked. "Friend of yours?"

The tealette looked over at Lily, her radiant smile not dimming in the least. "Oh, sorry to interrupt so rudely, senpai. I'm Hatsune Miku!" She then gestured toward each of the twins, her hand indicating each one as she said their respective names, "And these are Kagamine Rin-chan and Len-kun!"

The Kagamine twins offered tiny, embarrassed smiles that said, "Please don't kill me" and equally tiny, embarrassed waves that said, "What the hell am I doing here?" Smiling in a friendly manner, Lily decided she should continue the little train of introductions and said, "I'm Masuda Lily. And," she indicated Luka with a jerk of her head, "I see that you already know Megurine Luka-hime."

"Yup!" Miku chirped. "I confessed to her yesterday! She shot me down though."

Neither of the two older girls knew which was more surprising: the fact that she had admitted it so easily, or the fact that Miku had said it without the slightest loss of enthusiasm. While Lily's brain was still trying to compute this, Luka asked, "Which begs the question... why are you here?"

Miku blinked, temporarily pausing in the middle of unpacking her bento. "Why? Why wouldn't I be?" Grinning again, she said, "I like you, so I want to be with you! It's only natural, isn't it?"

"But not when you've been rejected!" Luka exclaimed. What the hell was wrong with this girl?

Miku's smile faded into a cutely confused expression. "Really?" She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, her index finger on her chin in a thoughtful appearance. "Hm... I'm a bit new to this whole 'like' thing, so I didn't know that..."

It could be inferred from the way the Kagamine twins sweatdropped simultaneously that Miku was just playing dumb. And Lily was most certainly not on her side, seeing how she was grinning cheerfully and clearly taking it all in stride. Again, Luka felt that there really was no fighting this, so she sighed in defeat.

"Oh, do what you want."

Smiling again, Miku cheered, "I sure will!" She sat down to eat her lunch. Beside her, Luka shook her head in dismay. This was certainly a first out of any of her admirers... All of the ones that confessed to her and got subsequently shot down always acted hurt at first, then acted like she was some sort of goddess... worshipping the ground she walked on and then acting like being rejected by her was some sort of holy experience. Never had any of them come back for another try... and it didn't seem like that was exactly what this girl was doing either.

Whatever. There was no problem with indulging her just this once, and shooing her away was just too much trouble, seeing what a blockhead she was. Luka returned her attention to her lunch, but stole a curious glance over to her right to see what she was eating. Luka blinked. It seemed to be some sort of pasta dish, with tuna and leeks.

"That... looks pretty good," Luka admitted quietly.

Miku beamed. "Thanks! I made it myself! Leeks are my favorite food, and it's kinda funny, cuz before, I never thought too much about tuna and leeks together, but they make a pretty good combo!" As if to demonstrate, she hungrily took a big mouthful of her tasty confection.

Luka had to admit, it did sound pretty good. Tuna was her favorite food, so that alone made it score some big brownie points with her. And... leeks weren't... so bad. They actually did go pretty well with tuna and-

She froze as a chill shot up her spine. She turned her ice-blue eyes ahead of herself. Lo and behold, before her was the proof that her bad feeling was correct, with Lily's gigantic, cheesy grin threatening to rip her face in two.

"Tuna and leeks, huh?" she said unnecessarily loudly. "Gee, that really does sound good! And they complement each other so well... They make a perfect pa- OW!"

Luka had long since turned back to her lunch, eating with her usual frosty aura emanating from her and acting like nothing unusual had happened. Like, for example, a noisy blonde girl getting kicked in the shin beneath their table.

Over the course of the meal, the rest of their friends had come by to eat with them and found themselves surprised to be introduced to Luka's latest admirer and the twins, who initially seemed a bit intimidated about being introduced to upperclassmen. Luckily, Luka's friends were a nicer sort than she was (even Honne Dell, who was a perpetual grouch that only seemed to lighten up somewhat around Haku), and they quickly accepted the newcomers, even seeming glad to have new sources of conversation at the table.

The only one who seemed annoyed was the princess herself.

Lunch passed much more peacefully than she had anticipated, however. As soon as Hatsune Miku had made herself comfortable sitting beside her, Luka had mentally prepared herself for being harassed constantly throughout her meal with pathetic attempts at conversation that would go absolutely nowhere, or even attempts to "accidentally" make physical contact with her. To her surprise, Miku did nothing of the sort, and in fact spent more time talking with her friends or the other upperclassmen than with her. Anytime Luka cast a suspicious gaze over to her, the tealette would merely offer a kind, easygoing smile to her. Truthfully, she seemed content to just sit beside her and eat.

At the end of the lunch period, they all separated to go to their respective classes. Miku waved energetically over her shoulder at Luka while calling happily across the lunchroom, "Bye, senpai! See you later!"

Instead of Luka returning the wave, it was Lily who did so, smiling as she did. Instead, Luka was sighing in exasperation.

"Does that girl have absolutely no concept of shame or modesty?" she ground out irritably.

"Aww, don't be like that, hime-sama! Miku-chan seems like a cute kid, and a really nice girl to boot!" Lily said lightly, once more displaying her penchant for becoming very familiar with people in a hurry. Teasingly, she added, "I'm almost jealous that you get to have attentions from someone like her!"

Luka huffed and flipped her hair dismissively over her shoulder. "If I see her again, it will be far too soon. I probably won't even be seeing her again."

"I dunno," her blonde friend said thoughtfully. "I think we'll be seeing a lotta her. Ooh, this should be a new entry in my notebook!"

Another sigh fell from Luka's lips, earnestly hoping that she was right, because otherwise, she would be getting a lot of headaches...

As it turned out, Luka's prediction that she would never see Hatsune Miku again turned out to be wildly inaccurate. In fact, she did see her again. Right after school, to be exact.

To be even more exact, right after she had finished changing her shoes from her school-issued ones to the sneakers she usually wore.

The tealette had practically teleported in front of her in the brief time it had taken to switch shoes, so the sight of her gigantic grin was more than a little shocking, which Luka expressed through a deadpan expression that did not exactly accurately convey her surprise.

"Um..."

"Ne, senpai, you don't have tennis practice today, so you just head straight home anyway, right? So I was hoping we could go home together!"

It was true what her annoyingly persistent admirer had to say. Luka saw no point to hanging around the school when she had no reason to, so she would just head straight home, maybe do a little window shopping on the way. However, she was less than impressed with Miku's knowledge of her habits, and sure as hell saw no reason to entertain her. So, with little more than a firm and final, "No," Luka began to walk home.

To her irritation, the word "No" either translated into "Yes" in Miku-speak, or simply did not exist in her vocabulary, because Luka found herself saddled with an unwanted companion for her walk back. It was almost like some kind of irritating NPC in an RPG that would just invite themselves into your party whether you wanted them or not... and somehow, she was imagining the text "Hatsune Miku has joined your party!" appearing over her head. While ordinarily, such a thing might have been amusing (and she blamed Kaito and Gakupo for her secret love of video games), today, it just made her eye twitch. But whatever. The little pest could do as she pleased; she wasn't going to let it bother her one bit!

The tealette continued to walk beside her in silence, her mouth set into a happy smile as she trotted alongside her senpai. Luka's eye twitched again. The brat was making absolutely no effort to even pretend to be intending to go to a different destination... They, or rather, Luka was attracting nervous stares from some of the other pedestrians on the sidewalk, all of them feeling the irritation that rolled off of her in waves. As they crossed at a light, Luka subtly increased her pace, which Miku matched without missing a beat.

When they had entered the neighborhood Luka lived in, she could take no more. Whirling on the younger girl with her hands on her hips, she snarled, "What part of 'No' do you not understand?"

Miku looked up at her with wide-eyed innocence. "Nothing, senpai. I understood you perfectly well when you said that you didn't want to walk home with me."

"Then why are you following me?" Luka demanded, her voice more than a tad shriller than she'd intended.

"I'm not," the pest replied. Her broad smile carried a hint of mischief in it that sent a chill up the pinkette's spine. "I'm just trying to get home myself. It just so happens that the route I need to take is the same that you take. After all, I do live across the street from you."

Luka opened her mouth to shout at her but then closed it as she mulled this over. Come to think of it... when she stepped outside the gate of her family's house, she could get a pretty good glimpse of the houses across the street, and... there was a house directly across the street that had a teal-haired daughter... and the nameplate, she realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach, said "Hatsune". So... this brat... lived across the street from her.

Across the street.

Across the street.

Across the freaking, stupid, god damn, piece of...

She sucked in a deep breath to calm herself down, but still had to fight every last nerve in her body to keep from facepalming. Glowering darkly at Miku, she ground out, "You."

"Me?" Miku asked sweetly.

"Do you intend to do this everyday from now on?"

"Of course," Miku replied. Her tone suggested this was the most obvious thing in the world. "How else am I to get home?"

This time, Luka did facepalm.

Because she always carried herself like a prim and proper young lady outside of her home, it would have come as an incredible shock to anyone who ever found out that, contrary to her image, Megurine Luka was an incredibly lazy and useless sloth in the mornings. It often took her mother, Megurine Yukari, at least three attempts to wake her daughter up in the mornings, and when Luka managed to drag herself down the stairs, she would often wait for breakfast with her head pressed against the table, having slammed there as soon as she sat down. To her credit, at least she didn't regularly have to sprint to school, fleeing out the door half-dressed and screaming, "I'm late!"

This wasn't to say she hadn't done it a few times though.

But in her defense, she couldn't help it. No one liked waking up in the morning for school or work (she only needed to look as far as her father, who was about as useless as his daughter in the mornings), and the sheets would always feel so warm and comfortable and she'd just want to snuggle into her bed and pretend the world didn't exist for five more minutes (which was one of the deadliest traps in the mornings, because it's never five more minutes).

Today though, sleep was unable to revisit her. A flash of white light rudely interrupted her slumber and Luka groaned in protest as she tried to bury her face into her pillow. Another flash. Luka blindly swiped at the direction of the flash and rolled over, pulling the covers over her head as she griped, "Go 'way!" and grumbled.

"Aww, I guess camera time is over."

"Yes, it is," Luka snapped sleepily. She settled once more into the covers, feeling so comfortable in her cocoon of warm sheets and-

Her eyes snapped open. Luka flung the covers off her body and shot into a position sitting up in bed so quickly that she almost headbutted the figure currently covered in her sheets.

"Ehe~ You're surprisingly cute in the mornings, senpai!" The unmistakable voice of Hatsune Miku preceded the figure pulling off the sheets to reveal the unmistakable grin of Hatsune Miku, her free hand holding a camera.

Paling, Luka pointed a trembling figure at her. "Y-You!"

"Me, indeed!" Miku said with a smile, tipping her head to the side cutely.

"Wh-What are you doing here? !" Luka screeched. "How did you get in here? Are you some kind of burglar or something?"

"Burglar? Me? Oh, hell no!" the tealette laughed, waving a hand in front of herself. "I'm way too clumsy for something like that! Your mom let me in, actually."

"What!" Why would her mom have done that? Had she no idea that she had let a demon from hell into their home?

"Yup! It seemed like you have trouble in the mornings, so I thought I'd lend you a hand! And I also get to see you earlier in the day!" Miku chirped happily. "Two birds with one stone!"

Luka's eye twitched, a pained expression on her face that clearly asked "In thy infinite mercy, God, why me?"

"And actually," Miku said slowly as she placed a finger on her cheek in thought. "Your mom really seemed to like the idea of me doing that, so maybe it's three birds with one stone? A good rapport with the parents is always healthy for a relationship..."

"Why...?" Luka groaned.

"Why? Well, apparently it reduces strain between the partner and the parents, so it reduces the amount of fighting that happens between-"

"That's not what I mean!" Luka shrieked. "I mean 'Why?' as in why are you doing this?"

Miku blinked at her before giggling girlishly. "Well, that's obvious, isn't it? It's because I like you, senpai! And because I like you, it also means that I care about your well-being, and I thought I should come by in the mornings to help you to that end!"

Panic had woken Luka's brain to the point that it was functioning at roughly eighty percent of its normal level of thought (far above normal for this hour), but the gears in her head ground to a screeching halt at the sound of one word. Her eye twitched.

"Mornings..." Annoyed, with a twinge of dread.

"Yes!" Cheerful.

"You... intend to come by... every morning." Dread, with a twinge of annoyance.

"Yes!" Cheerful.

"..." Despairing.

"By the way, senpai?" Slow, admiring, and dusted with the faintest hint of embarrassment.

"What?" Still despairing.

"I must say... I really like the view." Leering, with a grin far too akin to a perverted old man's.

Luka blinked. She lowered her gaze down at herself and gasped with horror. She would later blame panic and then far too much WTF for her brain to handle for why she didn't realize it earlier, but she had completely forgotten that, due to the hot weather lately, she had taken to going to bed in nothing more than a thin tank top and panties... And with the sheets pooled at the floor... Luka's face slowly went through every single shade of red that was humanly possible.

"Wow..." Miku breathed in awe, her gaze fixed a few inches below Luka's face. "Those really are natural, aren't they?"

Luka's expression of horror had not gone away, and she trembled as her hands clenched into fists on the bed, soft, incoherent noises forcing their way out of her mouth.

Three...

Two...

One...

Downstairs, Luka's mother set out a cup of juice for their guest, placing it across from where her daughter usually sat at breakfast. It was always nice for any of Luka's friends to come over, and it had been a pleasant surprise for one to come over so early in the morning, especially if she was going to help Luka wake up. She needed to head to work now though, so she went to the base of stairs to call up to Luka and her friend. She opened her mouth to call up the stairs and-

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAA! ! ! ! !"

Yukari fell back against the railing of the stairs from the ear-splitting shriek, which had all but blown the roof off of the house. In shock, she looked up again at the top of the stairs, where she could make out various projectiles flying out of her daughter's room.

"GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT, YOU PERVERT, GET OUT! SICKO! PERVERT! BED INTRUDER! SEX OFFENDER! RAPIST! LOLICON! LEEK-EATER! PARAMECIUM!"

"Y'know, senpai, it's a shame you keep that covered up! Your figure is so- OW!"

Yukari winced at what sounded like a washpan slamming at high speed into someone's head.

"SHUT UP! GET OUT! SEX OFFENDER! DOUCHE! GO DIE! I REALLY WISH YOU'D GO DIE!"

Within seconds, the barrage of projectiles halted as a giggling teal-haired girl bounded down the stairs, though her head was sporting a large stinging red bump.

"Oh my, is everything alright?" Yukari asked curiously.

"Yup!" Miku chirped, unfazed by her injury. "It looks like senpai isn't very good with mornings at all!"

"No, she isn't," Yukari admitted. She smiled as she continued, "But I'm glad Luka-chan has such wonderful friends she can count on! I've never seen her so energetic in the mornings! Please take care of my daughter, okay, Miku-chan?"

Miku saluted energetically. "Roger that!"

All eyes were on the school's Ice Princess as she trudged into class, her expression dark and promising agonizing torment should anyone even so much as jostle her.

Meanwhile, a cheerful teal-haired girl waved happily from the doorway and called, "Bye, senpai! See you at lunch!" A dust cloud followed in her wake as she zoomed off, and everyone in the halls cleared the way for the one-girl stampede.

Luka seated herself at her desk, located in the back row and next to the window and right next to Lily's. Lily whistled, her eyes focused at the door that her friend had entered through.

"Damn... This is most certainly the first time I've seen you come in this early, hime-sama."

"Shut up," Luka growled in a low voice.

Even a rabid animal would have cowered at the sound of that baleful tone, but Lily either didn't notice or had decided to push her luck. "No, really. We'd all gotten used to your last minute royal entrances, so it's definitely a surprise. Not that it's a bad thing, y'know?"

"I said... shut up."

A rampaging horde of zombies would have decided to go find somewhere else to hang out if they'd heard that voice. But Lily just kept on trucking. She whipped out her notebook and her pen, already scribbling.

"Definitely a first. But will it be the last, I wonder? Perhaps... Perhaps not... Ooh, but I saw Miku-chan with you when you came in! Did she have anything to do with th-"

A very loud thunk sounded through the room, and all chatter stopped as if turned off by a switch. All eyes turned to the two seats in the back nearest the window.

Megurine Luka was looking out the window, her chin propped up on one fist as she aimed her icy blue eyes out the window with a soft, dismissive "Hmph."

On the other hand, Lily was facedown on her desk, her hands twitching and choking out small noises of pain. A stinging red bump protruded from her head, which most certainly could not have been caused by anything unusual. Like, say, a very miffed pink-haired Ice Princess karate-chopping her.

"Sh... Shutting... Up..." she croaked.

"So then Kaito told me there was no such thing as sake-flavored ice cream. It pissed me off, but then he said he'd make it just for me if I really wanted it!"

Haku and Rin giggled at Meiko's story while Lily, now sporting a white cross-shaped bandage on her head from the earlier incident, grinned broadly.

"It's just like Kaito to say something like that!" she remarked.

"Yeah... He's a really sweet guy," Meiko admitted, trying to hide her light blush with a jaunty grin and hoping she didn't sound as dreamy as she thought. Beside her, Luka smiled as well.

"Kyaa~ Senpai's smiling face~~~" Snapshot.

"You guys have been together almost two years now, right?" Haku asked.

"Ehe... yeah..." Meiko admitted. "I'm just glad we got to stay together through high school... We're both such idiots though, so I guess we prolly could've gotten into the same schools anyway!"

The image on the camera's screen moved from Luka's face down over to her chest. "Ehehe..." Snapshot.

"Ne, ne, speaking of couples," Lily exclaimed, a feral grin gracing her features. "Haku-chan! Your anniversary's coming up too, ne?"

"Eh?" The shorthaired blonde girl sitting beside Haku asked excitedly, "You have a boyfriend too, Yowane-senpai?"

Haku flushed and began to fidget. "U-Um, w-w-well..."

Lily answered for her. "Yup! You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but Dell's a really sweet guy once you get to know him and change your name to Yowane Haku!"

"L-Lily...!" Haku protested weakly, flushed about as red as a tomato that had been dunked in red paint.

"Ahh, don't be so shy now, Haku-chan!" the blonde said, slapping her on the back with such enthusiasm that it nearly made the silver-haired girl fall off the bench, wincing in pain. "There's no shame in being with the one you like, ne?"

The camera lowered from Luka's chest down to her lap. The image adjusted until there was just the faintest image of pink cotton on the screen, directly up the pinkette's skirt. "Ehehe... Damn, that's hot..."

"I-It's just... It's s-still embarrassing..." Haku squeaked, chewing her lower lip.

"Ahh, you're so cute right now that I can't stand it! C'mere, you!" Lily proceeded to glomp Haku, who cried out in alarm.

"L-Lily!"

The image was still centered between the slender, shapely thighs and the navy-blue pleated skirt over them. Snapshot. Snapshot. Snapshot. Snapshot.

"Hatsune-san," a stern voice cut in.

The image moved up to focus on an irritated Luka staring directly at the camera. A vein had begun throbbing at her left temple as she put a great deal of effort into not throttling the owner of the camera on the spot. Miku looked up from her camera at the pinkette, grinning widely. The other girls eating in the courtyard looked at Miku with varying expressions. Haku looked worried, Meiko looked amused, Lily looked like she'd just scored a brand new scoop for her article, and Rin looked exasperated.

"Hatsune-san..." Luka ground out, smiling a very unfriendly and angry smile as she worked to keep herself under control. "Were you looking up my skirt while taking those pictures...?"

Miku blinked. "No, of course not," she said with a straight face. "I was um... admiring your skirt. Yeah."

"I see..."

Any idiot could have been able to tell that Miku was lying. Besides, her nose was bleeding.

Pursing her lips, Luka took her handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and gave it to Miku. "Wipe yourself off. Your nose is bleeding all over the place," she sighed. In all honesty, it wasn't the first time anyone had tried to catch a glimpse of her panties, but it was the first time anyone had done it so blatantly. Subtlety, it seemed, was not in Hatsune Miku's dictionary either.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she realized that Miku had held the pink handkerchief to her nose, and wasn't using it. Instead she... Luka's eye twitched as Miku took another deep inhale.

"Kyaa~~~ Senpai's scent~~~" she sighed dreamily. Looking up excitedly, eyes practically sparkling, she asked, "Ne, ne, senpai! Can I keep this? It would totally not be for any dishonorable purposes whatsoev-"

"Die."

Luka sighed as she sat down on the bench, taking a moment to cool off. She'd really worked up a sweat in tennis practice today, a fact that many of the other members of the girls' tennis club had noticed with trepidation. The boys' tennis club, which had been practicing nearby, had noticed too, and most everyone had decided it was best to tiptoe around the school's princess. She'd clearly had some steam to blow off today.

For her part, Luka ignored their scrutiny as always, and nodded in response to some of the other members as they passed by, offering cautious smiles and equally cautious greetings of "Good work today!" She closed her eyes and relaxed, occasionally wiping away some of the insistent trickles of sweat that rolled down her forehead.

"Here you go!" a familiar, unwelcome voice chirped.

Luka opened her eyes, greeted by the sight of a fluffy white towel that had been shoved in her face. Facefaulting, she firmly pushed aside the towel to see the familiar, unwelcome million-watt smile of the familiar, unwelcome tealette offering it to her.

"Hatsune-san."

"Yup, that's me!" She began to dab the towel over Luka's forehead. "My, my, you sure worked up a sweat out there today, senpai! By the way, you ever thought about wearing some shorts underneath your tennis skirt? I mean, I don't mind the view, but..."

Miku trailed off, grinning suggestively. Luka scowled darkly up at her, muttering, "Pervert."

She smiled embarrassedly, scratching her cheek and blushing. "Aww, if you put it that way, senpai..."

"It's not a compliment!" Luka snapped irritably. No sooner had she done so than she deflated back onto the bench, sighing heavily. Oh, what was the use...? She raised her eyes up to meet the blue-green ones of her perverted stalker.

"I thought I'd come see you!" Miku explained, as though Luka had asked (which she hadn't and hadn't been planning on doing anyway). "Len-kun recently joined the tennis club, and Rin-chan likes to drop by cuz of that. So I figured that I would come on by too, since-"

"Since you like me," Luka droned drearily. "Yeah, I got that."

The size of Miku's subsequent grin could have torn a normal person's face apart, she thought unpleasantly. "Now you're getting it!" Miku chirped cheerily.

"And I suppose you'll want to go home together," Luka sighed sourly.

Miku's eyes had all but closed during her gigantic smile, but at this, they opened again, her smile fading into a cutely confused expression that only succeeded in making Luka's eye twitch.

"What ever do you mean, senpai?" Miku inquired innocently. "I distinctly remember you not wanting to go home with me, so-"

"Oh, shut up!" Luka spat scathingly. "It's quite obvious what you want, so you may as well wait here until I'm done changing!"

Miku's million-watt smile returned a few million watts brighter than before. "Oh, I knew you'd come around eventually, Luka-senpai! I'm just happy that it was so soon!"

Luka turned away with a grouchy, "Tch." Stomping off toward the girls' locker rooms, she growled without looking over her shoulder, "Peek and it'll be the last thing you see."

Miku enthusiastically saluted her senpai's back, chirping, "Roger that!"

I just don't get what's wrong with that girl... the pinkette thought with a sigh. And it didn't seem there was going to be an end in sight to their association.

Joy.

End Chapter 1

I don't know why it is so fun writing an aggressive, perverted Miku, it just is! XD Hope you guys enjoy, and I expect chapter 2 will be ready next week-ish. If you made it this far, please leave a review and let me know what you think! 'Til next time! ^_^