>>27380

Aaand, here's the story refined once again.
One day I will learn to let a story sit on my hard drive for a week before posting it, but that day is not today.

Read on AO3 in Russian: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64467220
Read on AO3 in English: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64467325
Read on ATF in English: https://allthefallen.moe/forum/index.php?threads/60-seconds-suicide-by-bomb-for-fun.94825/
Also on loliwalrus in English: https://www.roriwalrus.com/index.php?threads/60-seconds.4783/

60 seconds
(Vocaloid, Kagamine Len, Kagamine Rin, consensual, casual, suicide on a whim by explosion/bomb)

A character from Greek mythology, punished with unquenchable hunger. Hmm… Maybe, Phyneus? Every time he was about to eat, the harpies would swoop in and take away the food, and what they could not carry away, they… well, it would’ve been better if they did. Okay, Phi-ne-us… no, does not fit. The guard shifted his gaze from the crossword puzzle to his wristwatch — was it time to call it a day yet? Oh, it was indeed. Very well then. He tucked the crossword into the desk drawer — he’d finish it tomorrow — grabbed the keys to the main entrance, and stepped out onto the school porch. As soon as the guard stepped over the threshold, a stiff wind made him shiver. What a weather! It had been so warm and sunny during the day, but by evening, dark clouds had swallowed the sky, turning everything nearly as dark as night. And in this darkness the guard noticed lights being on in one of the windows of the school. Ugh! The weather was getting worse by the minute, and now we had to go back to check. But it couldn’t be helped — if someone was still there, he couldn’t just lock them in. Sighing heavily, the guard went back into the school and walked towards the music club — that’s where he had seen the light. Indeed, as they approached, the sounds of music began to be heard. Sure enough, as he approached, the sound of music grew clearer. The voices of the Kagamine twins were singing a carefree song:

…
“Today…” sang Len.
“Here…” sang Rin.
“What to do we will decide,” ending the line together.
“And for now, I’ll get some coffee too.”
“Go to the movies is o-kay.”
“Sing karaoke is o-kay.”
“Let’s check if it’s free today.”
“Oh, no-no-no, it’s all taken!”
“Then we’ll just aimlessly go for some shopping,”
“Whatever will be fun.”
“Where shall we go?” — in English.
“Where shall we go?” — in Japanese.
“For today has just begun”
“Our big adventure!”
“Here, we’ll just finish the coffee”
“And we’ll be on our way!”
…

(Song «Where shall we go?» by Mellowcle)

At that moment, the club door swung open unceremoniously, and the guard announced from the doorway:
“Oh, I’ll tell you where to go!”
Len and Rin fell silent in surprise; Miku and Tianyi, who had been accompanying them, also stopped and stared at the guard. Miku thought: “Good thing I convinced the twins to rehearse in their costumes today.”
“Home is where you shall go,” the guard explained. “That’s it, the workday is over, the school is closing.”
“Sorry,” Miku said. “We’re just rehearsing for our performance at tomorrow’s festival… if we only had a little more time…”
“For what?” the guard said. “Would you prepare better in this little more time than in all the time you had so far?”
“He’s right,” Tianyi agreed. “For an exam or public performance no matter how much you prepare you will never feel ready enough anyway. In the Soviet Union we would say: ‘can’t get enough breath before death’.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Miku sighed.
“Alright then, I’m giving you a minute, or I’ll lock you in here,” threatened the guard, timing his watch. “Come on, gone in sixty seconds, the clock starts now.”
Of course, the guard likely wouldn’t have actually locked them in, but the kids didn’t want to test his patience. They hurriedly put away their instruments and grabbed their things.
“Fifty seconds left,” said the guard. “In the meantime, here’s a riddle for you: a character from Greek mythology, punished with unquenchable hunger. Phineus doesn’t fit. Forty seconds.”
“Tantalus,” Len suggested. “Fruit branches are just above him, but whenever he reaches for them, they move away.”
“And he’s neck-deep in water,” Rin added, “but every time he tries to drink, the water recedes.”
“The torment of Tantalus,” the guard nodded in understanding. “Twenty seconds.”
“So is it right or…?” Len asked.
“You’ll find out tomorrow,” said the guard. “Ten seconds.”
“Such intrigue,” Rin remarked.
The children hurried out of the room and quickly headed towards the school exit. The guard, on the other hand, walked back to his post at a measured pace and pulled out the crossword puzzle again. Tan-ta-lus… oh, come on, it doesn’t fit either! The guard glanced out the window. The children had already left, and heavy rain lashed down from the sky.

The Kagamine twins were already on their way home at this point, but that didn’t make being caught in a downpour feel any better. Thunder roared, lightning flashed, the water poured as if from a bucket, and the wind cut right through. If only they’d been naked, maybe it would’ve been tolerable. But the feeling of soaking wet clothes — yuck! The twins tried to run, shielding their heads with their schoolbags, but after a while realized that it was of little use. It was a long way home, and their clothes were already soaked.
“That way!” Len said, pointing to an old abandoned building.
Up close the building appeared to be cordoned with yellow tape. Doing some kind of work here, like trying to repair it? In any case, there were no workers around right now — probably they were hiding somewhere from the rain too. So the twins quietly ducked under the ribbons and slipped inside unimpeded.

Once inside, the twins immediately began peeling off their soggy clothes. The floor was too filthy to lay the clothes on it directly, so they placed their backpacks down first, neatly folding their clothes atop them.
“Is this the place from ghost rumors?” Rin asked, looking around the dark room they were in.
“Don’t tell me you believe in such nonsense?” Len smirked.
“Of course not,” Rin agreed. “Life after death is an oxymoron.”
Once naked, the twins felt much more comfortable. But they’d have to put it all back on to go home, and it would hardly dry here. Or go home naked, grab the clothes in a bunch and carry them in their hands? That would be unwieldy. And they couldn’t just leave them here…
“We need these costumes for tomorrow’s performance,” Len reminded.
“Whatever, we’ll wash and dry them,” said Rin. “Can’t be helped.”
“I was hoping to have time to play Tanks of the World tonight,” Len sighed, “today is the last day of the extra experience event, it’ll end by tomorrow….”
“Ugh, your FOMO games,” Rin shook her head. “They only bring anxiety instead of entertainment. Do you even know the difference between a game and a job?”
“A job would have paid,” Len said, “and if I’m the one paying, then it’s just a game.”
“You have chronical cerebral capitalism,” Rin diagnosed. “A game is what you do not on a schedule given by someone else, but on your own whim, and you do it not for the result, but for the process itself.”
“You sound like Tianyi,” Len noted.
“Because she’s saying the right things,” Rin concluded. “Just like today…”
The twins wandered aimlessly through the maze of empty corridors and rooms. There wasn’t even a place to sit down. Although, even if there were any furniture here, it would’ve been too dusty anyway. It was one thing to walk barefoot on a dirty floor, but it was another to sit on a dusty couch. No thanks.

“The maid café keep their costumes at school,” Len remembered.
“Well, they have costumes especially for the event,” Rin replied.
“I can’t wait to see Piko in a maid outfit!” said Len.
“Indeed,” agreed Rin. “I wonder if semen will be on the menu?”
“Or at least urine,” Len licked his lips.
“If the maids are boys, there must be semen,” Rin said.
“We’ll have to try it for sure,” Len agreed, “Watch out!”
In the darkness they almost tripped over the junk lying on the floor, but Len saw it in time and stopped Rin.
“Thank you,” she said.
“And the computer club is organizing some kind of gaming tournament,” Len continued.
“Talking about your games again?” Rin remarked. “There’ll be so much to see at the festival, and you’re going to spend it behind a screen?”
“What do you want to see at the festival?” Len asked then.
“The drama club is putting on a play after our performance,” said Rin. “Little Red Riding Hood and Bluebeard. I wonder what they’ve cooked up!”
“ So I’ll go to the tournament, and you to the play,” said Len, “and then we’ll tell each other about them.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea,” Rin agreed. “One can’t see everything in time alone, but as a pair of twins we can be in two places at once!”
But for now the twins didn’t risk splitting up, but wandered in the darkness hand in hand so as not to get lost: in the depths of the building they’d gotten into, they couldn’t see any farther than their noses. This time Rin stopped just in time before she bumped into some strange protrusion on the wall that appeared right in front of her. No, it wasn’t a protrusion on the wall, but something attached to it.
“What the hell is that?” Rin was puzzled.
“It’s a bomb,” Len realized as he examined the suspicious object.
“Oh, come on!” Rin couldn’t believe it. “Why would terrorists blow up some derelict?”
“Not terrorists,” said Len. “Demolition workers. Hence the tape. The building is abandoned, so they’re demolishing it,” Len concluded.
“Hmm, might it really be a bomb?” Rin pondered, taking a closer look.
“It is,” Len assured her, “I’ve seen them in a game. Look.”
Len pressed a button and the screen on the bomb lit up. It shone brightly compared to the surrounding darkness, so that the twins could even see each other clearly.
“Ah!” scared Rin squeezed her eyes shut and threw herself into Len’s arms.
“It’s alright,” Len grinned, “If it exploded, we wouldn’t have had time to feel anything.”
“Wouldn’t have had time to feel anything…” Rin absently echoed, pulling away carefully and opening her eyes.
On the white background were large black numbers 88:88. No, those were the empty digits of a seven-segment indicator. The timer did not tick, but waited patiently for the time to be set.
“Does this game of yours…” Rin asked contemplatively, “teach you how to start such a bomb?”
“Sure,” Len nodded, “Why else would there be a bomb in the game?”
“Well, for example, to defuse it,” Rin suggested.
“Nope,” Len shook his head, “Doesn’t teach defusing.”
He thought Rin was going to say that his stupid games only taught destruction. But instead Rin nodded approvingly:
“Just perfect. Then set if for one minute.”
“What a jokester you are,” Len grinned.
He put the numbers 01:00 on the screen, they appeared in yellow with a black outline. All that was left was to start the countdown.
“Can we really run away?” Len hesitated. “After all it’s too little time.”
“We’re not gonna run away,” Rin smiled mischievously, taking her brother’s hand as if not to let him run by himself. “So too little time is exactly what’s needed.”
“For what?..” Len was puzzled. “Defuse? But I said, I don’t know how…”
“To get to feel,” Rin stated, snuggling against his brother again so he could feel her quickened heartbeat, “what it’s like to ‘can’t get enough breath before death’!”
“You’re what?” Len got totally confused. “Suggesting we die?”
“On the contrary,” Rin replied with a gasp. “I’m suggesting we live for a minute.”
“Ah, that’s what it is!” Len finally realized, and his heart synchronized with hers.
He definitely didn’t want to die, much less kill his beloved sister. But a minute to live with her is a totally different matter! Len pressed the button and the background under the yellow numbers changed to red, illuminating the twins with the color of blood.
01:00
“Done,” Len said, snuggling up to his sister. “Gone in sixty seconds.”
00:59
“Still here for fifty-nine!” Rin replied, hugging her brother back.
00:58
“No more future,” Len held his sister by the waist.
00:57
“No more festival,” Rin put her arms around her brother’s back.
00:56
“Even though you wanted to enjoy it so badly,” Len reminded her, his fingers digging into the softness of her thighs.
00:55
“And now I want it even more!” Rin declared, pushing her brother’s thighs apart with her knee.
00:54
“True,” Len agreed, licking his sister’s ear. “Me too.”
00:53
“Because it won’t be,” Rin explained, looking into Len’s eyes.
00:52
“Because there won’t be us,” Len continued, returning the look.
00:51
Tears welled up in their eyes for all that would not happen… but out of that burning pain came a flame of passion for all that would still happen for the rest of
00:50
“Even though we’ve been practicing,” Len sighed.
00:49
“Let’s sing then!” Rin nodded decisively.
00:48
“Today,” Len sang.
00:47
“Here,” Rin joined in.
Every second counted, so they sang at one and a half speed, which turned the song’s mood from relaxed to playful.
00:46
“What to do we will decide.”
00:45
“And for now I’ll set the bomb up.”
00:44
“Go to the movies we’ll never,”
00:43
“Sing karaoke we’ll never,”
00:42
“Let’s see if there’s still time.”
00:41
“Oh, no-no-no, it’s running out!”
00:40
“Then let’s just aimlessly go for some cuddles.”
00:39
“Whatever, we will be dead.”
00:38
“Where shall we go?”
00:37
“Won’t go anywhere!”
00:36
“For today is already over”
00:35
“Out all adventures!”
00:34
“Here, we’ll just finish the timer”
00:33
“And ‘we’ll be on our way’!”
00:32
Ringing laughter poured forth, as did bitter tears.
00:31
Catching their breath, the twins glanced at the timer.
00:30
“Thirty seconds,” said Len.
This schedule wasn’t given to them by someone else.
00:29
“Let’s live each single one of them,” Rin suggested.
They’ve left themselves with a minute to live on their own whim.
00:28
“Savoring how we won’t have anything anymore!” Len added.
The twins absolutely didn’t want to die, they wanted the festival, the concert, the maid-café…
00:27
“And reveling in how great it makes us want!” Rin concluded.
But they doomed themselves to death not for the result, but for the process itself.
00:26
This is what a perfect game should be like! There was no victory or defeat, because defeat itself was victory. There was not even a game over, because the twins would never get to experience it. There was only the entertainment process itself, and the rest of the world became out of reach. There is no fear of missing out when it is impossible to seize. No anxiety when there is no uncertainty. There was only confidence — there will be no future, — and it sharpened the desire for that future to the point of unquenchable pain. This was the real extra experience — not in numbers, but in sensations!
00:25
Unable to stay on their feet, the twins knelt down in front of the bomb that gave them light. Snuggled up to his sister, Len greedily inhaled the scent of rain from her hair. Snuggled up to her brother, Rin buried her fingers in his damp hair.
00:24
Their limbs intertwined like vines, their fingers sliding over each other’s bodies, thoroughly familiar from their fourteen years of life, not in search of something new, but in an a priori futile attempt to hold on to the priceless that they had deliberately discarded, only to feel even more painfully how it’s slipping away.
00:23
For fourteen years of life is just too little.
00:22
No! What fourteen years?
00:21
One minute!
00:20
Twenty seconds!
00:19
And each of them is so gloriously unrepeatable, as it goes away forever!
00:18
The twins pressed into each other fiercely, violently, as if trying to merge into one before the explosion scatters them.
00:17
Len’s lips sucked greedily, thirstily on Rin’s neck. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, drawing pain, drawing blood. But those bruises won’t stay. Won’t be anyone for them to stay on.
00:16
And no matter how hard they pressed together, it wasn’t enough. No matter how passionately they kissed, it wasn’t enough. No matter how ravingly they reveled in the moment… it wasn’t enough.
00:15
This is what it’s really like: “can’t get enough breath before death.”
00:14
And how the twins breathed, oh how they breathed! They greedily inhaled air, life, each other, got dizzy in intoxication, but still felt lacking.
00:13
And how exquisite, how coveted it made each breath!
00:12
Because they knew, there would be no more.
00:11
Because they knew, they wouldn’t have enough.
00:10
Ten seconds — the red light of the screen started pulsating as if trying to escape its own self. In their frenzy the twins fell to the floor, no longer caring how dirty and hard it was.
00:09
With a savory smack, Len drove his steel-hard boner into his sister’s juicing slit. Never had either of them felt such a great arousal, so wonderfully agonizing, so sweetly unbearable.
00:08
Len pounded with all his might as driving a pile, Rin arching from passion and from concrete crumbs scraping the skin off her back. But there was no time to think about comfort, for they already had too little to reach the lusted orgasm.
00:07
Yes, it won’t come, there’ll be no satisfaction, only desire itself, infinitely sharp in its insatiability. The twins deprived themselves from everything they desperately wanted to enjoy the very want, the very despair. “Ah, just what in the world have we done to ourselves…” Rin enthused.
00:06
“Not Tantalus…” she hurriedly gasped between moans. “Tantalus… reached out… but couldn’t grasp.”
00:05
“And Erysichthon could!” Rin concluded and wrapped all of her limbs around Len, even if letting all her weight now on the concrete crumb, but to taste more, more of her beloved brother. Tears of pain spurted from her eyes, and Len greedily licked them up, trying not to miss a single drop, a single bit of his beloved sister.
00:04
Len understood what she meant. For it’s all right here, — the most desirable, — in your very arms, does not withdraw, eagerly gives itself to you. But the torture’s so exquisite because that isn’t helping. No matter how much you take, you want more, you need more, you physically require more! And then Erysichthon devoured himself.
00:03
When Len lit the bomb’s screen, Rin became acutely aware that she wasn’t ready to die. Having given herself a minute to prepare, she now felt it all the more acutely. No, now they both felt it. They should have set it to two, five, ten minutes… in truth they shouldn’t have blown themselves up at all!
00:02
Reveling in their own heartrending regret, the twins rushed toward each other. Just one more kiss, just one more moment!
00:01
Their lips barely had time to touch…
00:00
But they didn’t have time to feel it.