Vocaloid 4
Title: Vocaloid 4
Rating: G
Pairing: one-sided Juri/Yasui
Word count: 1486
A/N: My friends and I once talked about how Yasui’s voice isn’t that angelic. On the same day I came across a youtube video of Hatsune Miku’s concert.
- - -
It feels weird and creepy to look at the eerily shining blue-haired girl at the stage; Juri can’t really explain the feeling in any other way. He glances at his side to see Jesse who waves his penlight along the music and looks like he’s completely enchanted by the high-pitched voice and the big-eyed hologram avatar, and sighs. Everyone else is jumping and singing along, and Juri feels like he’s the only one in the whole concert hall who isn’t under some weird spell.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Jesse yells at him over the loud music and Juri nods slowly. On one hand he’s amazed by the new technology that has made such things possible but on the other hand it just feels so wrong. When staring at the singer girl on the stage he can only think about all the science fiction books and animation series where the human world slowly becomes unreal as the people create intelligent computers and eventually become blind to the fact that it’s the computers that end up controlling people instead.
They might be far from such scenarios yet but if people can already devote their feelings and energy like this, to voice synthesizers instead of real living people singing, Juri can only think that’s where they’re going.
He doesn’t understand the audience’s love towards the singer; hell, she’s not even real. He finds it creepy that sometimes he can see through her legs when she moves, and he finds her dancing boring and lifeless, with how she keeps repeating the same moves. She waves and tilts her head, winks and smiles, and never manages to reach anything close to what Juri would consider interacting with the audience. She’s just an empty shell of an artist.
Suddenly the girl vanishes and two almost-identical yellow-haired singers appear on the stage instead. Jesse has prepped Juri before the concert and he knows the girl and the boy singing at the moment are not siblings no matter how much they look like twins.
Siblings?
They’re not even human beings, Juri reminds himself, feeling frustrated.
The twins who are not twins start singing and after half a dozen of songs the blue-haired one joins them. By then Juri feels like he’s seen enough and he wonders if he could just leave. He could tell Jesse he needs to go to the toilet and then wait outside until the concert ends. It’s not like Jesse is going to miss him anyway, as long as the pixel princesses are on the stage.
Yeah, that’s what he’s going to do. He turns around and slowly tries to shuffle his way through the mass of people towards the door.
“Everyone! Thanks for coming today,” the blue-haired girl yells behind him and the audience screams and waves their penlights.
“We’re happy to see all of you,” the other girl voice continues, “Especially now that we want to introduce our newest friend to all of you.”
“Today is his first show ever!” the boy voice announces, “Please be nice to him! Welcome, Yasui-kun!”
The audience explodes and out of sheer curiosity Juri turns to glance at the stage. In the middle of three hologram avatars there is a new one. He’s a brown haired boy, an inch shorter than the other boy character and, Juri mentally adds before he manages to stop himself, ten times prettier than either one of the girl singers.
All four vocaloids start a new song together, the brown haired boy standing in the middle and singing most of the solo parts. He looks and sounds slightly more realistic than the others and the people around Juri start to buzz about the ‘new series 4 model’.
The first song is quickly over and after that the three others leave Yasui alone on the stage. Juri can’t say he likes the boy’s voice; despite being a more updated version it's still a recognizably high-pitched vocaloid voice, far from what a real human would produce, but there’s something in his character that makes Juri unable to turn away. After two more songs he still stands in the same spot as if his feet were glued on the floor and he has completely forgotten he was supposed to be fed up with everything that has anything to do with computer-made people.
Juri has never believed into falling in love with the first gaze and really, it’s not like he’s in love with the boy on the stage now either. But he can’t help the way his heart aches when he looks at the boy. The current song is slow and beautiful, and suddenly Juri doesn’t even notice the awkward voice or the avatar’s annoying unrealistic moves.
He looks at the boy, Yasui, and bites his lower lip when the boy smiles at the audience. It’s like he’s finally been lured under the same spell as the other people in the concert hall.
No matter how many times his reasonable mind tells him Yasui is a computer program, a synthesized voice box combined with an inanimate bunch of pixels, the other half of his mind is strangely attached to the boy. He wants to meet him and talk to him; he wants to get to know him. At the same time he’s well aware of the impossibility of such a thought and it hurts.
It’s at once the best and definitely the most painful thing Juri has ever felt.
After all he ends up watching the concert to the end, and when the show ends he too raises his other hand and waves back at the singers who wave at the audience until they vanish.
He finds Jesse at the main doors and they walk to the train station together. The cool night air makes Juri’s head feel clearer again, as if he had woken up from a trance and Jesse seems to notice that as he lets out a small laugh.
“I guess you liked it after all,” he asks and Juri just shrugs when he realizes he doesn’t have the right words to describe his thoughts.
“I don’t know if I liked it,” he finally starts slowly, “but it’s not like I didn’t like it either. It felt… different.”
“I know,” Jesse says softly and pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. “It’s almost scary, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Juri admits and hesitates for a moment before he dares to ask the question he’s been bearing in his mind. “Does it hurt you, too?”
“Every time,” Jesse says without hesitation and Juri frowns.
“Then why do people go to the concerts when it feels so bad afterwards?”
“Did you feel bad when watching them?” Jesse answers with a new question and Juri realizes Jesse already knows what he’s going to say.
“Yes. And no.”
“Would you go again?”
“I… don’t know, to be honest,” Juri says, thinking about Yasui’s bright smile and he closes his eyes for a second. “I want to. I really do. But somehow it feels like I shouldn’t.”
Jesse simply nods. There’s a hint of sadness in his eyes, and Juri suddenly feels more anxious than even once during the concert.
“I don’t think I will go there anymore. Maybe… Maybe you shouldn’t, either,” he says and shivers when Jesse shakes his head.
“I’m sorry. I know what you mean but I can’t stop it. I need to go again. I can’t help it.”
-
They never talk about it anymore and Juri never goes to another vocaloid concert again. He willfully forces himself to forget about Yasui and a month passes without him thinking about the whole matter at all. Then, one day, he freezes in the middle of the aisle of a grocery store when he recognizes a familiar voice in the store’s background music.
The moment passes as quickly as it came and Juri continues shopping as usual, fighting to keep his hands even. But he can’t stop his heart from beating faster, and even when the song ends the dull aching somewhere in his chest won’t leave him alone for days.
People make new inventions all the time. Some inventions are practical and useful while some, like vocaloids, are made purely for people’s entertainment. The main idea of many inventions is to make life easier to their developers and everyone knows an easier life means a happier life. Juri has always thought so too.
On that day in the grocery store, he realizes for the first time in his life that there is always another side behind such invented happiness.
- - -
Rating: G
Pairing: one-sided Juri/Yasui
Word count: 1486
A/N: My friends and I once talked about how Yasui’s voice isn’t that angelic. On the same day I came across a youtube video of Hatsune Miku’s concert.
- - -
It feels weird and creepy to look at the eerily shining blue-haired girl at the stage; Juri can’t really explain the feeling in any other way. He glances at his side to see Jesse who waves his penlight along the music and looks like he’s completely enchanted by the high-pitched voice and the big-eyed hologram avatar, and sighs. Everyone else is jumping and singing along, and Juri feels like he’s the only one in the whole concert hall who isn’t under some weird spell.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Jesse yells at him over the loud music and Juri nods slowly. On one hand he’s amazed by the new technology that has made such things possible but on the other hand it just feels so wrong. When staring at the singer girl on the stage he can only think about all the science fiction books and animation series where the human world slowly becomes unreal as the people create intelligent computers and eventually become blind to the fact that it’s the computers that end up controlling people instead.
They might be far from such scenarios yet but if people can already devote their feelings and energy like this, to voice synthesizers instead of real living people singing, Juri can only think that’s where they’re going.
He doesn’t understand the audience’s love towards the singer; hell, she’s not even real. He finds it creepy that sometimes he can see through her legs when she moves, and he finds her dancing boring and lifeless, with how she keeps repeating the same moves. She waves and tilts her head, winks and smiles, and never manages to reach anything close to what Juri would consider interacting with the audience. She’s just an empty shell of an artist.
Suddenly the girl vanishes and two almost-identical yellow-haired singers appear on the stage instead. Jesse has prepped Juri before the concert and he knows the girl and the boy singing at the moment are not siblings no matter how much they look like twins.
Siblings?
They’re not even human beings, Juri reminds himself, feeling frustrated.
The twins who are not twins start singing and after half a dozen of songs the blue-haired one joins them. By then Juri feels like he’s seen enough and he wonders if he could just leave. He could tell Jesse he needs to go to the toilet and then wait outside until the concert ends. It’s not like Jesse is going to miss him anyway, as long as the pixel princesses are on the stage.
Yeah, that’s what he’s going to do. He turns around and slowly tries to shuffle his way through the mass of people towards the door.
“Everyone! Thanks for coming today,” the blue-haired girl yells behind him and the audience screams and waves their penlights.
“We’re happy to see all of you,” the other girl voice continues, “Especially now that we want to introduce our newest friend to all of you.”
“Today is his first show ever!” the boy voice announces, “Please be nice to him! Welcome, Yasui-kun!”
The audience explodes and out of sheer curiosity Juri turns to glance at the stage. In the middle of three hologram avatars there is a new one. He’s a brown haired boy, an inch shorter than the other boy character and, Juri mentally adds before he manages to stop himself, ten times prettier than either one of the girl singers.
All four vocaloids start a new song together, the brown haired boy standing in the middle and singing most of the solo parts. He looks and sounds slightly more realistic than the others and the people around Juri start to buzz about the ‘new series 4 model’.
The first song is quickly over and after that the three others leave Yasui alone on the stage. Juri can’t say he likes the boy’s voice; despite being a more updated version it's still a recognizably high-pitched vocaloid voice, far from what a real human would produce, but there’s something in his character that makes Juri unable to turn away. After two more songs he still stands in the same spot as if his feet were glued on the floor and he has completely forgotten he was supposed to be fed up with everything that has anything to do with computer-made people.
Juri has never believed into falling in love with the first gaze and really, it’s not like he’s in love with the boy on the stage now either. But he can’t help the way his heart aches when he looks at the boy. The current song is slow and beautiful, and suddenly Juri doesn’t even notice the awkward voice or the avatar’s annoying unrealistic moves.
He looks at the boy, Yasui, and bites his lower lip when the boy smiles at the audience. It’s like he’s finally been lured under the same spell as the other people in the concert hall.
No matter how many times his reasonable mind tells him Yasui is a computer program, a synthesized voice box combined with an inanimate bunch of pixels, the other half of his mind is strangely attached to the boy. He wants to meet him and talk to him; he wants to get to know him. At the same time he’s well aware of the impossibility of such a thought and it hurts.
It’s at once the best and definitely the most painful thing Juri has ever felt.
After all he ends up watching the concert to the end, and when the show ends he too raises his other hand and waves back at the singers who wave at the audience until they vanish.
He finds Jesse at the main doors and they walk to the train station together. The cool night air makes Juri’s head feel clearer again, as if he had woken up from a trance and Jesse seems to notice that as he lets out a small laugh.
“I guess you liked it after all,” he asks and Juri just shrugs when he realizes he doesn’t have the right words to describe his thoughts.
“I don’t know if I liked it,” he finally starts slowly, “but it’s not like I didn’t like it either. It felt… different.”
“I know,” Jesse says softly and pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. “It’s almost scary, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Juri admits and hesitates for a moment before he dares to ask the question he’s been bearing in his mind. “Does it hurt you, too?”
“Every time,” Jesse says without hesitation and Juri frowns.
“Then why do people go to the concerts when it feels so bad afterwards?”
“Did you feel bad when watching them?” Jesse answers with a new question and Juri realizes Jesse already knows what he’s going to say.
“Yes. And no.”
“Would you go again?”
“I… don’t know, to be honest,” Juri says, thinking about Yasui’s bright smile and he closes his eyes for a second. “I want to. I really do. But somehow it feels like I shouldn’t.”
Jesse simply nods. There’s a hint of sadness in his eyes, and Juri suddenly feels more anxious than even once during the concert.
“I don’t think I will go there anymore. Maybe… Maybe you shouldn’t, either,” he says and shivers when Jesse shakes his head.
“I’m sorry. I know what you mean but I can’t stop it. I need to go again. I can’t help it.”
-
They never talk about it anymore and Juri never goes to another vocaloid concert again. He willfully forces himself to forget about Yasui and a month passes without him thinking about the whole matter at all. Then, one day, he freezes in the middle of the aisle of a grocery store when he recognizes a familiar voice in the store’s background music.
The moment passes as quickly as it came and Juri continues shopping as usual, fighting to keep his hands even. But he can’t stop his heart from beating faster, and even when the song ends the dull aching somewhere in his chest won’t leave him alone for days.
People make new inventions all the time. Some inventions are practical and useful while some, like vocaloids, are made purely for people’s entertainment. The main idea of many inventions is to make life easier to their developers and everyone knows an easier life means a happier life. Juri has always thought so too.
On that day in the grocery store, he realizes for the first time in his life that there is always another side behind such invented happiness.
- - -