Kokoro had many hobbies she enjoyed partaking in to kill some time whenever she was bored. Martial arts, drawing, sewing, reading manga, there were many things she loved to busy herself with. However, there was one hobby she possessed that she absolutely adored. Music really was a universal music and was over all loved by every person on the planet and everyone had their favorite genres. Kokoro had so many it was ridiculous. She'd listen to Marlyn Manson if she liked the beat and instrumental to it, even if the guy himself completely freaked her out.

The sun had just set and it would be time for dinner within an hour or two. Until then, it was time to make some music. On Kokoro's counter sat a nice bright pink karaoke machine that she had purchased a few weeks ago with some money she had been saving up from the allowance given to her by Shin. Tonight it would be put to good use and she stood poised standing on her pink Hello Kitty carpet. Yes, nearly almost everything in her room was pink, except for her collections of stuffed animals and plush toys taking occupation on the bookshelf that should be filled with textbooks from her classes. Text books were evil and dark and so in the dark they stayed in the back of her closet gathering dust because rest assured, they would never be touched until she decided to tell them.

She held a firm grip on the microphone as she reached over pressing the play button on the machine and swayed as the instrumental flowed from the speakers. Raising the mic to her lips, she started sing and she didn't even bother closing her door. Not like it mattered, Kokoro had a beautiful singing voice. At least she'd be providing some entertainment for whoever passed by her room.

"Turnaround bright eyes..."

"Every now and
then I fall apart."

"Turnaround bright eyes..."

"Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and
then I fall apart!

And I need you now tonight!
And I need you more than ever!
And if you'll only hold me tight!
We'll be holding on forever!
And we'll only be making it right!
Cause we'll never be wrong together!
We can take it to the end of the line!
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time!
I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark!
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks!

I REALLY NEED YOU TONIGHT!
FOREVER'S GONNA START TONIGHT!
FOREVER'S GONNA START TONIGHT!

Once upon a time I was falling in love....
But now I'm only falling apart...
There's nothing I can do,
A total eclipse of the heart..."

Because even a girl born and raised in the 90's knew the awesomeness of 80's songs. Get it, Koko. Get it.

Ted was walking through the hallways of the bedrooms. It seemed to be something that he enjoyed doing, mainly because you never knew who was going to be coming out of their rooms and heading in the same direction as you. You just never knew who you were going to meet. People always seemed friendlier when they were not in a hurry to do something. As Teddy walked along he heard the sound of music. And someone singing. He continued walking until he saw who it was that was singing. It was obviously a girl's voice. It was so much better for him to join in something like singing with a girl than it was if it was a guy singing.

Teddy wasn't too familiar with the song that was playing in the girls room but he figured that he could always learn. The young mutant finally came up to the girls room. Her door was open and he could see that she had a very pink room. Although he had to admit... He wasn't a big fan of pink he was a big fan of all the stuffed animals that he could see were in her room. The temptation to take a closer look at the stuffed animals was almost too much for him to resist. Ted just watched the girl sing for a while, not wanting to disturb the roll she was on. Every once in a while he would glance back over to the stuffed animals that she had on her shelves and wished he could just run in there and scoop them all up and cuddle them all. Is that a weird thing to want? Maybe but he didn't care.

Kokoro continued her vocals putting all her effort into her little amateur performance. It wasn't until a minute later that the asian teen found someone actually standing at her door. A kid about her age who seemed to have his eyes on her collection of stuffed animals and plushies. She reached over pressing the stop button on the karaoke machine and beamed at the new face. Well, not really new...she'd seen the kid around the mansion before and in some of her classes when she actually decided to attend. She couldn't put a name to his face though.

"Hiya!" she waved to the boy as she tossed her microphone to the fluffy pink carpeting and ran towards him with a warm and inviting smile. "How do you do this evening um...." she mind went blank as she struggled to retrieve the kid's name from the back of her mind. "Well...I don't think we've properly introduced ourselves before. But now's a great time!. I'm Kokoro. Or you can call me Koko. It doesn't matter."

Ted wasn't really paying attention to the music. That is he wasn't until it was turned off. Oops. She's seen me. Teddy got suddenly nervous. What was he supposed to do? Ted's face turned red as the girl about his age came up to him. "Uhh. Hi. Umm, Koko." The young boy said. He'd seen her around before but he'd only just passed her by or ignored her in his classes. Now that she was actually talking to him and she'd caught him staring in her room at her stuffed animals he was feeling really weird.

"I'm fine." Ted said trying to get rid of the embarrassment that he was still feeling. He wasn't used to getting caught staring at things like stufefd animals. He was usually more careful than that; however, since he didn't know her and she'd seen him then Teddy found this very awakward. Ted's eyes were still pulled to the stuffed animals that were in her room and he fought the urge to stare at them while she was talking to him. "I'm Ted. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your singing." Teddy glanced at the ground and lightly kicked at the ground in front of him.

"Pffft, it's fine. I was just doing that because I was bored." Kokoro chuckled and waved a dismissive hand. Ted! That was his name. She knew it started with a T but she was thinking Tim for some reason. He was an adorable kid...acting all timid and shy. Best if she kept her rowdiness down a bit then to keep from freaking him out and scaring him off. "What are you up to this fine evening? I could use another person to sing a duet." she said nodding her head with a grin. She was almost pleading him to say yes. The only other person who'd sing with her was Shin and he was probably doing whatever boring crap instructors did.

"What do you say?"

Ted smiled mainly because he was glad that she was not upset with him interrupting her. "Not much. I was just wandering around when I heard you singing." Ted said to her. She offered him a duet. Should he take it? He wasn't sure. Koko seemed to get animated enough for the both of them if he decided to join her. Koko put on what Ted assumed was a sad face to get him to comply with what she was asking for. The young boy didn't put up too much of a fight. After all it was either join her and probably have some fun or wander around and be undoubtedly board. Finally Ted agreed, "Sure, I'll join you."

"AWESOME! You're the man!" She smiled giving him a thumbs up. She retreated back into her room gesturing for him to come on in. She never really had company drop by, so she was really excited about this. She opened the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out a Hello Kitty shaped tin box and handed it to the boy. "As appreciation for joining me this evening, you may rummage through my treat stash." she grinned tapping the tin box filled with various candies, cookies and snack cakes, Don't tell Shin though. I'm not supposed to have this much sugar.[/color]" she whispered. She was already a bouncy person. Kokoro on a sugar high was just a hurricane waiting to happen. That only happened once every week or so. She got better.

"So...anything in particular you want to sing? Got a favorite genre?"

Teddy gave her a small smile. Her reaction seemed a little over the top for his reply but why shouldn’t she be excited about it. He was a good kid and maybe she just didn’t get that many visitors that often. But with a reaction like that who could blame people from staying away. Ted gingerly walked into the girl’s room, mainly because he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be in there and secondly because it was very pink. The young boy wasn’t a fan of pink and he definitely couldn’t wear anything with pink on it. He wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, or what to expect, when she went into her dresser. Teddy took the box that she offered him, “Thanks.” Was all he said while he opened it and picked out something that looked really good.

The teen decided on a small TWIX bar and started eating it. He needed a moment to think anyways and the commercials always said that chewing a TWIX bought you a second to think. And if the commercials said it then logically… it must true or at least half right. So why not give it a shot. After eating the chocolate Ted set the box down on her bed and said, “I don’t really care. I’ll go with whatever you were singing.” He may not know a lot of the songs that she would pick but he was pretty sure that he could read. After all, if he couldn’t read then how could he do very well in his classes? Teddy looked around real quickly to see if he saw another mic, and didn’t. He wondered how they were going to sing a duet with only one mic. “Don’t we need another mic?” Ted asked revealing to her his inexperience with karaoke.

"Tsch, of course I do." Kokoro turned back around and opened her drawer again as she started to rummage through her things. All sorts of items spilled over onto the floor. Crayons, markers, stickers, beads, rhinestones, packs of candy, ribbons, pens, even a tiny case of glitter. At 15 years old, she was still very much a kid at heart. She was surprised all the pink in her room hadn't scared poor Teddy away. All the more reason he was awesome! Back to the task at hand, she continued looking for that other microphone. Where in the heck had she put it? Maybe she should get her belongings more organized.

"Hold on just a second..." she abandoned the drawer and ran over to her closet. Kokoro had always being scolded at by her parents to clean up her room. It was a shame that her idea of cleaning had always been either shoving everything under the bed or in her closet. It was at this moment that Kokoro should reconsider ever doing such again. As soon as she opened the doors, the 15 year old found herself in an avalanche of costumes, stuffed animal plushies and various comicbooks and mangas. Her head popped out from the mountain of items as she looked back at Teddy blinking. "Found it!" she beamed poking her arm out which now held the second mic.

. Teddy watched Koko run around her room and tare her room apart. It was actually a little amusing to him. He continued to watch her go from spot to spot and things fly from where they'd originally stored to everywhere else in room. Her idea of cleaning wasn't that different from his. He’d always thrown things where they didn’t belong just so that he could get them out of his way. Her room was very girly and oddly enough the things that she had ‘put away’ were more like things that a kid much younger than both of them would keep in their rooms. Who knows, maybe she was just someone that liked to color things.

When Koko went into her closet it seemed that she had even more stuffed animals fell out. Ted almost rushed over there when Koko was covered in the things from her closet. Not to see if she was ok but to touch all the stuffed animals. Was it selfish, maybe but it was something that he definitely liked to do. When Koko’s head and arm popped out from under the pile, holding the extra mic in her hand Teddy started laughing. The young boy clapped a few times once he’d stopped laughing. “Do you need help getting out of there?” Ted asked her as he walked over to her amidst the pile of stuffed animals and other belongings of hers.

"Nah, I think I got it." Kokoro grunted as she started to wiggle her way out of the pile. Just as she was about to be freed, a old Sailor Moon CD player as it fell off the shelf in her closet and clunked her on the head sending her face first into the carpet. "Uguuu~" she whined and rubbed the soar spot of her head frowning. Sure, she was prone to clutz attacks, but sheesh. This was getting ridiculous! She hopped back onto her feet and extended her arm towards Ted for him to take the other mic.

"You know the lyrics to 'A Whole New World' right?" That's one of the only duets I can think of at the moment we could sing. It's soooo cute! I love it!"

Koko didn’t need his help to get out but it sure seemed like she her closet was trying to kill her. first it tried to bury her alive and now it was trying to bash her head in with a CD player. He tried his hardest not to laugh because he felt bad about her getting hit on the head, but it was kind of funny at the same time. Once she was finally out of the rubble that was her closet he took the mic out of her hand before she tripped over something and broke it. “Only if I get to sing Aladin’s part. Cause well let’s face it… I don’t exactly look like Jasmine.” Teddy said smiling at her. Luckily Teddy was familiar with the song and he could sing something from it.

Although, he did have to admit that he was a little more concerned about how crazy she might get when she started singing than he was about getting the words right. But whether he was a good singer or not was still to be determined. He couldn’t remember anyone complaining about his singing, but then again he also couldn’t remember anyone fawning over it either.

"Well of course you can have Aladdin's part. I'd look at you funny if you said you didn't." Kokoro giggled as winked. "Now..." she walked over to the dresser to grab her CD containing a variety of classic and memorable songs from the various animated movies. She had each and everyone memorized perfectly, so even if Ted did want to sing Jasmine's part, she would have Aladdin's part covered.

"Get ready." She smiled as she inserted the CD and pressed play on the machine. The instrumental started to play and she was definitely interested in seeing if Teddy had some good vocal cords.

Yay! Teddy didn’t have to sing the girls part. This was always a good thing. Teddy waited patiently as Koko looked for the CD in her messy room. Ted’s room wasn't clean by any standards but he could at least find things and wouldn’t have had his closet attack him if he opened it. After Koko inserted the CD into her karaoke machine the music started to play. He knew the song but Teddy was far perfect with the words. And aside from missing his entrance Ted started to sing along as it highlighted his part.

“I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You last let your heart decide?

I can open your eyes
Take you wonder by wonder
Over, sideways and under
On a magic carpet ride

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming.”

As the music played Teddy looked at Koko to see if he was singing well enough. He’d never thought he was a particularly bad singer; but he’d never been told he was the next Broadway star either. Carrying a pitch wasn’t all that important in karaoke but Ted did his best to sing as best he could so that she wouldn’t regret asking him to sing along with her. Once his turn had ended the young boy looked at Koko to see her start singing.

"Not bad" Kokoro nodded in approval hearing Teddy's singing voice. He wasn't bad at all! Better than most of those people who had somehow gotten famous when they had no real talent, they just relied on technology to fix their voice and sex appeal to get famous. As his part drew to a close, Kokoro rose the mic to her mouth and took a breath and started to pick up the song.

"
A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world with you
Now I'm in a whole new world with you

Unbelievable sights
Indescribable feeling
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
Through an endless diamond sky
"

Now this was when the song got a bit tricky when it actually became a duet, the lyrics of their parts switched back and forth. They'd had been in good sync so far, she believed they'd manage.

"A whole new world~"