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ninoexchange2017-06-26 11:46 pm
nino_mod) wrote in ninoexchange2017-06-26 11:46 pm
Entry tags:
fic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
murrponchan
For: murrponchan
From: :3.
Title: My Android Soulmate
Pairing/Focus: Sakumiya
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Summary: A week after moving into a new apartment, Jun buys Sho an intelligent AI robot to help him around the house. What Sho did not expect was just how much this new robot could ever mean to him.
Notes: Dear murrponchan, I must say that your prompt of having an Android!Nino truly spurred me off for this particular work. What I did not expect was how long it could span (10 CHAPS + 1 PROLOGUE + 1 EPILOGUE lol) , nor how long I would take to complete it. XD But doing something new like this ( I have never written about AIs or androids, just so you know) seemed like a great challenge, and after finishing the entire series, I'm glad I did it. I hope you (and every other reader out there) will enjoy this. (:
*RIIIIIIIING*
Jun tossed and turned in his bed as he heard the sound of his alarm going off. He knitted his thick eyebrows together in annoyance as he buried his head beneath the pillows, as if shielding his ears from the noise would keep him as uninvolved with the day's affairs as was possible. When the alarm showed no signs of stopping, Jun finally sat up and grabbed his phone to silence it. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he tapped away his alarm's pop-up to look at his agenda for the day.
His eyes widened as he remembered why he set his alarm to wake up earlier than before.
He immediately dialed a number, the dial tone ringing in his ears as he booted up his computer.
"Good morning," a computerised female voice answered, "how may I help you?"
"Good morning. I'm calling to confirm a delivery status," Jun said as he searched for an order form he had saved.
"Please provide your order number and name."
Jun finally found the document and clicked it open.
"Order number #3409," Jun said smoothly, "Matsumoto Jun."
"Please hold."
A piece of classical music started playing in his ears as he relaxed in his chair, staring blankly at the computer screen. He could feel his hazy mind start to wake up little by little as he vacantly booted up another browser window and clicked away at eye-catching headlines for a good read.
"Thank you for holding," the female voice spoke in his ear again, “your order has been dispatched successfully to the shipping address indicated. Thank you for calling.”
Jun hung up and looked at the small clock embedded in the skin of his left wrist.
“He SHOULD be getting it some time now…” he thought as he headed for the bathroom.
------------------------------
The coffee maker whirred gently on the kitchen counter. Sho looked over at the coffee maker, letting his senses focus on the satisfying sounds of coffee being dripped into his favourite mug. He heard a soft sound by the door and glanced down at a small, flesh-coloured clock down at his left wrist. It was 8 sharp.
As per his daily routine, his three daily newspapers had arrived.
He collected them and made his way to the now-full coffee mug. The soft, exquisite whiff of Blue Mountain coffee made him smile. Trust Jun to choose nothing less than the best.
Satisfied, he placed his mug down with a gentle thud and picked up one of his three newspapers and spread them out on the table.
And for a while, Sho enjoyed his routine morning in the comfort of his home, his apartment filled with nothing but sounds of the gentle rustling of newspapers and the soft slurp of coffee.
The moment his doorbell rang for the first time ever, Sho's quiet, routinely mornings changed for good.
Chapter 1
Sho blinked in surprise. He was not expecting a guest and he definitely did not order anything. It could be a mistake, he supposed as he walked over to the door and opened it cautiously.
A delivery man greeted him brightly.
"Good morning sir! I have a huge delivery for you!"
"Apparently so," Sho said uncertainly as he looked at the huge, tall box that stood behind the man, "but there has to be a mistake. I did not order anything."
The delivery man gave him a confused look and glanced down
at his clipboard.
"Are you Sakurai Sho-san?" He asked as he showed Sho the delivery notice.
Sho scrutinised the name on the sheet of paper.
He blinked.
“Uh… okay it IS my name..”
"Then it is correct, Sakurai-san!" the delivery man said with a visible sign of relief as he took out a pen, "please sign on this line at the bottom right" Despite being confused, Sho nodded as he signed his name off. The delivery man smiled and tore off a green carbon copy of the delivery notice and handed it to Sho. He then tucked the rest in his bag.
"Thank you, Sakurai-san," the delivery man said happily before looking at the tall, heavy-looking box on a small, wheeled cart.
"Shall I give you a hand with that?"
"Yeah I'd appreciate that, Sakurai-san. Where do you want it?"
"Just the living room is alright," Sho said as he and the delivery man lifted the box together and shifted it slowly and carefully into the living room. They finally set it down beside Sho's sofa.
"Just..just what is inside this thing?" Sho asked incredulously,"a nuclear missile?"
"Well no,"the delivery man said,"I am pretty sure it is a robot."
"WHAT?!" Sho exclaimed in shock," wouldn't that be really expensive? I mean, who would possibly send me something as strange as a-oh."
Oh. Ohhhh.
He had an idea about who would send him something like that.
"Well, enjoy your new helper," the deliveryman said as he walked out of the apartment door, closing it behind him.
"...Helper?" Sho wondered incredulously as he reached for his phone and dialed a number.
--------------------------
"Good morni-"
"Jun-kun, did you send something over?!"
Sho could hear Jun chuckling on the other end of the line.
"Ah, your housewarming gift from me arrived? Awesome," Jun said as he clicked a link in a confirmation email he received.
“But why? I know I just moved in my new apartment last week, but why would I need a robot…er..’helper’?”
“As your best friend who has put up with you for four years in college, I know damn well that you need a helper. Remember those vinyl records you made?”
Sho rolled his eyes.
“I was preoccupied with radio news and I wasn’t watching the pancakes!”
“And those black hockey pucks?”
“… baking cookies was never my forte anyway!”
“And your perpetual disaster zone of a bedroom?”
“It’s not THAT messy! It’s an-”
“Organised mess? Yeah. Heard that before. Tell that to your future partner when you sweep stacks of books off the bed to get frisky.”
“Alright alright, you made your point. Gee..”Sho sulked, as he eyed the tall box with brimming curiosity, “so? What exactly did you get me?”
“It’s exactly what that delivery slip thing says it is. A robot helper.”
“I don’t know…”Sho said uncertainly as he approached the box, “what should I do?”
“Just open it. I’m sure there are instructions telling you what to do.”
“I’ll keep you updated,” Sho placed the phone down and took a box knife. He made a careful slit down the taped centre of the box and swung the sides open. He stopped himself from jumping out of his skin as he looked at the contents of the box.
Standing in a steel-framed glass casing was a young man in a plain white shirt and matching sweatpants. He seemed to look younger than he was, his eyes closed as if he was in peaceful slumber.
Sho was shocked. He decided to shift the glass casing out of the box to have a better look at him. When the sunlight outside his house finally shone on the casing, Sho gasped as he gazed at the man's strikingly handsome features. A small button in the centre of the casing stood out, with an open lock logo printed on it. Taking a hint, he pressed the button, and the glass casing split itself neatly around the middle and slid aside, allowing Sho to get closer to the man lying inside.
He carefully helped it out of the glass casing and set him down on the floor for a closer look. He ran a finger down the side of its left arm. His eyes widened in surprise.
It felt like the real deal.
He took the left hand in his own and examined it closely, observing the soft bumps of its knuckles and the webs between its fingers.
He could hardly believe himself. The workmanship put into this robot was so detailed - everything from the structure of its hands to the feel of its skin felt almost identical to his own. If anyone told him jokingly that that robot has breathing lungs and a beating heart in it, he would believe it. The only difference he could see at the present moment was that unlike a regular human, this robot does not have that clock on its left wrist like he did.
Impressed, he stood back and looked at the box to see that there was a small piece of paper.
"Remove the plastic strip at the back of your helper's neck to switch it on."
This one line was accompanied by a diagram showing the back of a faceless robot's neck, where the indicated plastic strip was apparently inside a small slit above some strange concentric circles.
He looked further down and was surprised to see that there was not much else left to it of this "manual".
He was not even sure if that could be called a manual- it seemed too brief for it.
He shrugged and read it.
"Maintenance tips:
-Your helper needs to be sent back to Dream Alive Co. once every month for cleaning and maintenance. Decide on a day with your helper and it will go straight to Dream Alive Co. by itself on its scheduled maintenance date.
-Any ad-hoc maintenance or repair services required are available at … "
"That is it? Seriously?! Unbelievable.."Sho muttered in confusion as he flipped the paper over.
Nothing.
He questioned whether it was really safe to use the robot without any other guidance. They did say on the packaging that this robot had been specifically trained to do household chores but…
He looked at the robot, who presently still stood where it was, its eyes closed. With a deep breath, he stood up and went behind the robot.
True enough, concentric circular grooves were at the bottom of its neck. He found the plastic tab above it and pulled it out.
He then stepped back, his eyes never leaving the robot.
Nothing happened.
"This is strange.. it should be switching itself on.."Sho murmured as he stood in front of the robot and looked straight into its face.
Suddenly, its eyes blinked open.
"AH!" Sho exclaimed in shock and fell back behind him on the floor.
"Are you alright?"
Sho's eyes widened as he heard a soft voice speak to him. He looked up to see the robot standing above him, reaching out an arm to help him up. Sho took its hand and felt it pull him up with such strength that he was taken aback. He had no idea that robots could be that strong. Or sound THAT real.
"Th-thanks, erm.."
The robot looked at him and nodded before bowing.
"Hello, my name is Ninomiya Kazunari," the robot spoke, "I'm sent here to help you out around the house. Yoroshiku."
Sho's eyes by now were as wide as dinner plates. He wondered for a brief moment if he was talking to a robot or a human.
"Yo-yoroshiku. But before anything..."Sho said cautiously as he looked closely at the helper standing before him, "you.. you ARE a robot, right?"
The robot nodded with a blink of its eyes.
"I'm a household robot programmed and put together by skillful engineers at Dream Alive Co., and I'm specialised to assist you in everyday chores."
Sho narrowed his eyes in curiosity.
"...and.. how many words and phrases do you know?"
The robot blinked at him in response.
"I learn as many as you would let me," it said, "I function on an Artificial Intelligence core, so I learn more about you as I spend more time with you."
The robot gazed around its surroundings.
"Would you please give me a tour?"the robot said,"I need to gather mapping data to help serve you better."
"Of-of course. Follow me, Ninomiya-san,"Sho stuttered as he walked towards his bedroom.
"Please, call me Nino. I know my name is longer than three syllables and it's easier if you call me that,"came its reply as it walked behind him.
----------------
"Jun! This thing gave me a fright!" Sho said, "I don't know how it happened, but everything about it makes me think that it is human! Its gait, its walk, even the way it talks..."
"That is the magnificence of this robot, no?"Jun said with a grin,"and to top it all, it definitely can do chores better than you."
"We have been over this, pal.”
“Well? What is it doing now?”
"It is walking around the house to analyse and gather some data I think. It's just like that vacumn roomba in your house, except it's…taller and definitely slimmer."
"Hey. Don't insult my dear roomba."
"Sho-san?" Nino's voice called.
"Right, I'll see what else I can do with it. Bye."
Sho hung up the call and looked at Nino.
"I was thinking of making you lunch,"Nino said, "but it seems we are running out of groceries. Could you walk me to other places outside?"
"For mapping data?"Sho asked, "okay. But before that, are you really walking out of here bare footed?"
Nino blinked and looked down at its feet. "I can't walk outside barefooted?"
"I get that you are a robot and so you don't really feel pain and what not, but it does look weird. I will lend you my slippers. I wonder if they are too big though."
Nino nodded. "Understood. I will wear slippers next time."
-----------------------------------
Sho walked with Nino out of the apartment. They strolled along the streets as Sho pointed out the different shops and stores to Nino.
"This is the convenience store I frequent," Sho said as he pointed to one convenience store,"I usually stop by here to buy my favourite brand of beer."
"Would you like to buy it now?"
"Not now," Sho said, "I'm buying things from the supermarket first. It's just up ahead."
When they entered the supermarket, Nino looked at him.
"Could you walk me around and show me the different sections of the supermarket?"
"I can, I guess," Sho said curiously, "but do you need to map the supermarket? You are not going to clean it."
"No I won't be cleaning it," Nino answered, "but I will be coming here on my own to buy groceries for you. With mapping data from here, I will find your groceries more efficiently."
"…You have a point. Let's go," Sho said as he led Nino along, placing his hands on its shoulders to steer it towards the fresh produce section.
"Well," Sho asked, deciding to put the robot's capabilities to the test,"do you know how to select, say…fresh avocados? "
A whole second later, Nino reached out a hand to pick up one avocado.
"This one can be eaten today," Nino said, "about 80% of the avocados here are a bit overripe by a day or two. 5% of these are under-ripe, while the remaining 5 % has just the right ripeness to be consumed today."
Sho's jaws dropped.
"You got all that within seconds of looking at all these?"
"Yes. It is pretty easy to tell."
"...Easy..."Sho steered Nino away from the fresh produce, "I guess they really do call you a specialised household helper for a reason."
Sho then proceeded to guide Nino in a systematic route around the various sections of the supermarket, taking care to keep Nino at least a good 10 metres away from housewives crowding around various time sales and free samples. When they finally finished the tour, Nino looked at him.
"I now know where to find everything. So, what do you want to eat for lunch?"
Sho shrugged. "I'm okay with anything. What can you cook?"
"Anything. I can search for a recipe online."
Sho smiled, completely impressed. He closed his eyes in deep thought as he thought of something.
"Hamburger."
Nino nodded. "Understood. I will start searching for ingredients needed."
Nino then started to make his way to an aisle, and Sho chuckled as he saw it make its way towards a pack of hamburger buns.
"No no no, not THAT kind of hamburger, Nino,"he said as he dragged Nino away by the shoulders,Ï meant hamburger steak."
"Do you perhaps mean the dish that people refer to as Salisbury steak?"
"Yeah."
"Understood."
Within less than half an hour, Nino carried a full basket in one hand was the one leading Sho to cashiers. After looking around at the queues, Nino did something unexpected and went for the queue with a relatively long line of people.
"N-nino?" Sho called as he caught up with the robot, "why did you go here? There is a much shorter queue just a few lanes down."
"There are two queue lines with less than 7 customers in it, but they are using trolleys that are at least 60% full. Choosing this line can save you up to more than 10 minutes' worth of waiting time-"
"How long did it take you to process that?"
"985 milliseconds."
"SERIOUSLY?!"
Nino nodded, and looked straight ahead, and Sho could feel the queue line move rapidly, just as his robot helper had predicted.
"... Remind me never to underestimate your abilities," Sho said as he took out his wallet.
-------------------
They finally stopped by the convenience store they had passed by just a while ago. Sho led Nino into the convenience store, directing him to the fridges that contained alcohol.
"Every time I'm done with work, I would grab some beers from here," Sho said, "…and, well, since I did not have a helper until today, I would usually stop by the convenience food section for some foods."
"Would you still like me to buy you convenience food?"
"No, I would prefer cooked food if possible."
"Understood."
Sho let Nino familiarise himself with the convenience store while he went to grab some chilled cans of beer. Suddenly, something occurred to him.
"Erm, Nino?" Sho called as he walked towards the robot, "how exactly do you.. erm.. recharge?"
"I don't actually require frequent charging or an active electric current like regular electronic devices," Nino answered, "technically speaking, the battery inside my system will keep me running for two months."
"Two months? That is A LOT shorter than normal AA batteries."
"To be completely fair, whatever runs on AA batteries can't process queue lengths and avocado ripeness within a second. Also, I do not come with an off-button, so I'm always on."
"Wow.. then I guess two months is actually pretty good?"
"Precisely. But eventually my battery level will be at least 50% used, and that is what the monthly scheduled maintenance is for, Sakurai-san," Nino explained, "once a month I will go back to the main headquarters to actually be recharged, maintained and upgraded however necessary. The extra one month's worth of power is only a reserve in case of any particularly strenuous activities."
"Wow," Sho remarked as he placed the cool cans of beer against the side of his neck, "your inventors really do think of everything."
"Now that we are on the subject," Nino said, "when do you want your scheduled maintenance to be?"
"What days do people usually pick?"
Nino picked up a packed desk calendar hanging from one of the shelf racks.
"For convenience's sake, most people pick the first day of the month or the last day of the month. I suppose there is a small proportion of people who pick the middle of the month, like the 15th or 16th."
Sho pondered over his mental image of his scheduled appointments for the month and felt the beer cans in his hand drip icy water on his arm. He went back to the refrigeration unit to swap drinks.
"I will take that suggestion and have it on the 16th," Sho answered, "my work gets awfully busy at the end and the start of each month. You can leave for it at the same time that I leave for work."
"Understood. Typical maintenance will take up to about 12 hours, so I will only be back at night."
"No problem," Sho said as he walked towards the cashier with Nino following behind him. They stopped behind the short queue, as Nino glanced around the shop with interest.
"Sho-san, would you be interested in that?" Nino asked as he pointed at a poster on the wall near the cashier counter. Sho followed Nino's eyes to it.
"Oh. Apparently it's a prepaid card promotion. I guess I should get one for you so that you can buy stuff from here with it."
"That would be convenient indeed,"Nino agree, "I will notify you again if you need to top up."
"Welcome." a voice called from the cashier counter.
Sho looked up to see that it was his turn.
"Excuse me, could you tell me more about the prepaid card promotion?" Sho asked as he placed his cans on the table. The cashier nodded politely, a smile gracing his tanned, chubby cheeks.
"Absolutely. At a price of 1200 yen, you get a prepaid card of a starting wallet value of 1000 yen. You can use this here and at the supermarket nearby," the cashier explained as he presented on the counter a small card, "future purchases with the use of this card will grant you a 10% discount on your total and 100 card points for every 100 yen spent. These points are redeemable for future raffle entries to win attractive prizes."
"Okay.. and if I want to cancel it?"
"Oh, you will get back your remaining wallet value. Do bear in mind that the 200 yen deposit you paid initially is non-refundable though."
"Certainly," the cashier replied with a smile and took out a card from a drawer and proceeded to enter some figures, "would you like me to discount your beer purchase?"
"Please," Sho smiled as he looked at the other advertisements on the table. Just then, his eye caught sight of something on the cashier's left-hand clock.
"Sir? I think you might want to get your clock checked," Sho said as he pointed at the man's left wrist,"it has stopped."
The man looked at him in surprise and looked down at his wrist. True enough, the display on the clock read "35:10:30:07:12:16:05", and simply stopped counting up.
"Strange," the man said as he looked at it and smiled up at Sho,"but thank you. I’ll have it looked at."
Sho nodded. Just then, he felt his phone ring. He looked over at Nino and stuffed 2500 yen in its hand.
"I have to take this," Sho said, "please pay the man for me, yeah?"
With that, Sho stepped aside just a short distance away from the counter and picked up the call.
The cashier looked up at Nino.
"That will be a total of 1800 yen,"he said, "I have never seen you around here before. Did you just move in nearby?"
Nino nodded. “I just moved in with Sho-san today.”
"I see.."the cashier said with a thoughtful look as he tore out the receipt and handed over some change.
"Please come agai-"
"Ow!"
"Sorry mister!"
Nino turned to see a kid apologising to Sho, who was apparently bumped into the nearby magazine rack. Sho shook his head as he massaged his right arm.
That was when Nino saw it.
The clock display on Sho's left wrist.
"Are you alright?" the cashier had rushed over behind the counter to Sho.
"Yeah, some clumsy kid bumped into me but that's okay,"Sho said with a shrug as he gestured to Nino, "let's go home."
Nino nodded and followed after Sho, before glancing back at the cashier. The cashier gave him a small wave and a sleepy smile before proceeding to serve the next customer.
------------------
“Sho-san?” Nino asked on the way back home, “can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“What is that clock display on your left wrist for?”
Sho shrugged as he looked at the clock on his wrist.
“I know that it can tell the time,”Sho replied, “the other display probably counts up to how long I have lived or something. All it ever does is count up from seconds to days and then months and even years. Weird, huh?”
“Is that why you asked the cashier to check his?”
“Well, mine never stopped before, you see. So I sort of wondered if it was a malfunction or something.”
“Actually..”Nino said, “yours did too.”
Sho stopped short in his tracks and gave Nino and incredulous look.
“What?”
“It read 36:03:00:03:14:06:35,”Nino said, “it stopped at the convenience store. I saw it after that kid bumped into you.”
Sho frowned and checked his own clock.
It now read 36:03:00:03:14:16:49.
“I don’t know. Seems fine to me now,”Sho stated, “I wonder if it stopped because the kid bumped into me or something.”
“Nothing bumped into that cashier behind the counter, so it can’t be.”
“Well, I’m sure there is nothing to worry about, Nino. Let’s hurry home.”
Back at the convenience store, Ohno Satoshi exhaled deeply as he stepped out of the convenience store for lunch. He cast a worried look at his left wrist and looked at the display again.
It now read 35:10:30:07:12:25:55.
It did not stop.
"Huh…it should be okay, I guess," Ohno wondered as he looked up at the blue skies above.
Chapter 2
The alarm clock rang on Sho's bedside table. Sho groaned as he sat up in his bed. It happened to be one of those days when he just did not feel like getting up.
Just then, he heard familiar footsteps pacing its way to his bedroom doorway.
He looked up at the silhouette in the doorway.
"Ah, Nino," Sho called as he stretched in bed, "good morning."
"Good morning, Sho-san," Nino greeted, "I already finished making breakfast and started up the coffee maker. You can eat straight away after washing up."
"As efficient as ever," Sho praised with a smile as he shuffled over to the bathroom.
The two weeks following Nino's "employment" proved to be that of extraordinary convenience to himself. For a start, right after they had their first lunch together, Nino had started to clean up all the scattered books, papers and pens in his bedroom that Sho had been too busy to even attempt tidying. It repeated the same motion of tidying up in every room before bringing along a duster to dust down every surface, from his now-neatly-arranged books to his computer monitor. Sho remembered watching it work from the corner of his eye as he typed away at his computer.
Sometimes, the way that Nino carried itself as a helper seemed to be so…animated that he found himself forgetting every now and then that Nino was essentially a robot, not a human.
murrponchanFrom: :3.
Title: My Android Soulmate
Pairing/Focus: Sakumiya
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Summary: A week after moving into a new apartment, Jun buys Sho an intelligent AI robot to help him around the house. What Sho did not expect was just how much this new robot could ever mean to him.
Notes: Dear murrponchan, I must say that your prompt of having an Android!Nino truly spurred me off for this particular work. What I did not expect was how long it could span (10 CHAPS + 1 PROLOGUE + 1 EPILOGUE lol) , nor how long I would take to complete it. XD But doing something new like this ( I have never written about AIs or androids, just so you know) seemed like a great challenge, and after finishing the entire series, I'm glad I did it. I hope you (and every other reader out there) will enjoy this. (:
*RIIIIIIIING*
Jun tossed and turned in his bed as he heard the sound of his alarm going off. He knitted his thick eyebrows together in annoyance as he buried his head beneath the pillows, as if shielding his ears from the noise would keep him as uninvolved with the day's affairs as was possible. When the alarm showed no signs of stopping, Jun finally sat up and grabbed his phone to silence it. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he tapped away his alarm's pop-up to look at his agenda for the day.
His eyes widened as he remembered why he set his alarm to wake up earlier than before.
He immediately dialed a number, the dial tone ringing in his ears as he booted up his computer.
"Good morning," a computerised female voice answered, "how may I help you?"
"Good morning. I'm calling to confirm a delivery status," Jun said as he searched for an order form he had saved.
"Please provide your order number and name."
Jun finally found the document and clicked it open.
"Order number #3409," Jun said smoothly, "Matsumoto Jun."
"Please hold."
A piece of classical music started playing in his ears as he relaxed in his chair, staring blankly at the computer screen. He could feel his hazy mind start to wake up little by little as he vacantly booted up another browser window and clicked away at eye-catching headlines for a good read.
"Thank you for holding," the female voice spoke in his ear again, “your order has been dispatched successfully to the shipping address indicated. Thank you for calling.”
Jun hung up and looked at the small clock embedded in the skin of his left wrist.
“He SHOULD be getting it some time now…” he thought as he headed for the bathroom.
------------------------------
The coffee maker whirred gently on the kitchen counter. Sho looked over at the coffee maker, letting his senses focus on the satisfying sounds of coffee being dripped into his favourite mug. He heard a soft sound by the door and glanced down at a small, flesh-coloured clock down at his left wrist. It was 8 sharp.
As per his daily routine, his three daily newspapers had arrived.
He collected them and made his way to the now-full coffee mug. The soft, exquisite whiff of Blue Mountain coffee made him smile. Trust Jun to choose nothing less than the best.
Satisfied, he placed his mug down with a gentle thud and picked up one of his three newspapers and spread them out on the table.
And for a while, Sho enjoyed his routine morning in the comfort of his home, his apartment filled with nothing but sounds of the gentle rustling of newspapers and the soft slurp of coffee.
The moment his doorbell rang for the first time ever, Sho's quiet, routinely mornings changed for good.
Chapter 1
Sho blinked in surprise. He was not expecting a guest and he definitely did not order anything. It could be a mistake, he supposed as he walked over to the door and opened it cautiously.
A delivery man greeted him brightly.
"Good morning sir! I have a huge delivery for you!"
"Apparently so," Sho said uncertainly as he looked at the huge, tall box that stood behind the man, "but there has to be a mistake. I did not order anything."
The delivery man gave him a confused look and glanced down
at his clipboard.
"Are you Sakurai Sho-san?" He asked as he showed Sho the delivery notice.
Sho scrutinised the name on the sheet of paper.
He blinked.
“Uh… okay it IS my name..”
"Then it is correct, Sakurai-san!" the delivery man said with a visible sign of relief as he took out a pen, "please sign on this line at the bottom right" Despite being confused, Sho nodded as he signed his name off. The delivery man smiled and tore off a green carbon copy of the delivery notice and handed it to Sho. He then tucked the rest in his bag.
"Thank you, Sakurai-san," the delivery man said happily before looking at the tall, heavy-looking box on a small, wheeled cart.
"Shall I give you a hand with that?"
"Yeah I'd appreciate that, Sakurai-san. Where do you want it?"
"Just the living room is alright," Sho said as he and the delivery man lifted the box together and shifted it slowly and carefully into the living room. They finally set it down beside Sho's sofa.
"Just..just what is inside this thing?" Sho asked incredulously,"a nuclear missile?"
"Well no,"the delivery man said,"I am pretty sure it is a robot."
"WHAT?!" Sho exclaimed in shock," wouldn't that be really expensive? I mean, who would possibly send me something as strange as a-oh."
Oh. Ohhhh.
He had an idea about who would send him something like that.
"Well, enjoy your new helper," the deliveryman said as he walked out of the apartment door, closing it behind him.
"...Helper?" Sho wondered incredulously as he reached for his phone and dialed a number.
--------------------------
"Good morni-"
"Jun-kun, did you send something over?!"
Sho could hear Jun chuckling on the other end of the line.
"Ah, your housewarming gift from me arrived? Awesome," Jun said as he clicked a link in a confirmation email he received.
“But why? I know I just moved in my new apartment last week, but why would I need a robot…er..’helper’?”
“As your best friend who has put up with you for four years in college, I know damn well that you need a helper. Remember those vinyl records you made?”
Sho rolled his eyes.
“I was preoccupied with radio news and I wasn’t watching the pancakes!”
“And those black hockey pucks?”
“… baking cookies was never my forte anyway!”
“And your perpetual disaster zone of a bedroom?”
“It’s not THAT messy! It’s an-”
“Organised mess? Yeah. Heard that before. Tell that to your future partner when you sweep stacks of books off the bed to get frisky.”
“Alright alright, you made your point. Gee..”Sho sulked, as he eyed the tall box with brimming curiosity, “so? What exactly did you get me?”
“It’s exactly what that delivery slip thing says it is. A robot helper.”
“I don’t know…”Sho said uncertainly as he approached the box, “what should I do?”
“Just open it. I’m sure there are instructions telling you what to do.”
“I’ll keep you updated,” Sho placed the phone down and took a box knife. He made a careful slit down the taped centre of the box and swung the sides open. He stopped himself from jumping out of his skin as he looked at the contents of the box.
Standing in a steel-framed glass casing was a young man in a plain white shirt and matching sweatpants. He seemed to look younger than he was, his eyes closed as if he was in peaceful slumber.
Sho was shocked. He decided to shift the glass casing out of the box to have a better look at him. When the sunlight outside his house finally shone on the casing, Sho gasped as he gazed at the man's strikingly handsome features. A small button in the centre of the casing stood out, with an open lock logo printed on it. Taking a hint, he pressed the button, and the glass casing split itself neatly around the middle and slid aside, allowing Sho to get closer to the man lying inside.
He carefully helped it out of the glass casing and set him down on the floor for a closer look. He ran a finger down the side of its left arm. His eyes widened in surprise.
It felt like the real deal.
He took the left hand in his own and examined it closely, observing the soft bumps of its knuckles and the webs between its fingers.
He could hardly believe himself. The workmanship put into this robot was so detailed - everything from the structure of its hands to the feel of its skin felt almost identical to his own. If anyone told him jokingly that that robot has breathing lungs and a beating heart in it, he would believe it. The only difference he could see at the present moment was that unlike a regular human, this robot does not have that clock on its left wrist like he did.
Impressed, he stood back and looked at the box to see that there was a small piece of paper.
"Remove the plastic strip at the back of your helper's neck to switch it on."
This one line was accompanied by a diagram showing the back of a faceless robot's neck, where the indicated plastic strip was apparently inside a small slit above some strange concentric circles.
He looked further down and was surprised to see that there was not much else left to it of this "manual".
He was not even sure if that could be called a manual- it seemed too brief for it.
He shrugged and read it.
"Maintenance tips:
-Your helper needs to be sent back to Dream Alive Co. once every month for cleaning and maintenance. Decide on a day with your helper and it will go straight to Dream Alive Co. by itself on its scheduled maintenance date.
-Any ad-hoc maintenance or repair services required are available at … "
"That is it? Seriously?! Unbelievable.."Sho muttered in confusion as he flipped the paper over.
Nothing.
He questioned whether it was really safe to use the robot without any other guidance. They did say on the packaging that this robot had been specifically trained to do household chores but…
He looked at the robot, who presently still stood where it was, its eyes closed. With a deep breath, he stood up and went behind the robot.
True enough, concentric circular grooves were at the bottom of its neck. He found the plastic tab above it and pulled it out.
He then stepped back, his eyes never leaving the robot.
Nothing happened.
"This is strange.. it should be switching itself on.."Sho murmured as he stood in front of the robot and looked straight into its face.
Suddenly, its eyes blinked open.
"AH!" Sho exclaimed in shock and fell back behind him on the floor.
"Are you alright?"
Sho's eyes widened as he heard a soft voice speak to him. He looked up to see the robot standing above him, reaching out an arm to help him up. Sho took its hand and felt it pull him up with such strength that he was taken aback. He had no idea that robots could be that strong. Or sound THAT real.
"Th-thanks, erm.."
The robot looked at him and nodded before bowing.
"Hello, my name is Ninomiya Kazunari," the robot spoke, "I'm sent here to help you out around the house. Yoroshiku."
Sho's eyes by now were as wide as dinner plates. He wondered for a brief moment if he was talking to a robot or a human.
"Yo-yoroshiku. But before anything..."Sho said cautiously as he looked closely at the helper standing before him, "you.. you ARE a robot, right?"
The robot nodded with a blink of its eyes.
"I'm a household robot programmed and put together by skillful engineers at Dream Alive Co., and I'm specialised to assist you in everyday chores."
Sho narrowed his eyes in curiosity.
"...and.. how many words and phrases do you know?"
The robot blinked at him in response.
"I learn as many as you would let me," it said, "I function on an Artificial Intelligence core, so I learn more about you as I spend more time with you."
The robot gazed around its surroundings.
"Would you please give me a tour?"the robot said,"I need to gather mapping data to help serve you better."
"Of-of course. Follow me, Ninomiya-san,"Sho stuttered as he walked towards his bedroom.
"Please, call me Nino. I know my name is longer than three syllables and it's easier if you call me that,"came its reply as it walked behind him.
----------------
"Jun! This thing gave me a fright!" Sho said, "I don't know how it happened, but everything about it makes me think that it is human! Its gait, its walk, even the way it talks..."
"That is the magnificence of this robot, no?"Jun said with a grin,"and to top it all, it definitely can do chores better than you."
"We have been over this, pal.”
“Well? What is it doing now?”
"It is walking around the house to analyse and gather some data I think. It's just like that vacumn roomba in your house, except it's…taller and definitely slimmer."
"Hey. Don't insult my dear roomba."
"Sho-san?" Nino's voice called.
"Right, I'll see what else I can do with it. Bye."
Sho hung up the call and looked at Nino.
"I was thinking of making you lunch,"Nino said, "but it seems we are running out of groceries. Could you walk me to other places outside?"
"For mapping data?"Sho asked, "okay. But before that, are you really walking out of here bare footed?"
Nino blinked and looked down at its feet. "I can't walk outside barefooted?"
"I get that you are a robot and so you don't really feel pain and what not, but it does look weird. I will lend you my slippers. I wonder if they are too big though."
Nino nodded. "Understood. I will wear slippers next time."
-----------------------------------
Sho walked with Nino out of the apartment. They strolled along the streets as Sho pointed out the different shops and stores to Nino.
"This is the convenience store I frequent," Sho said as he pointed to one convenience store,"I usually stop by here to buy my favourite brand of beer."
"Would you like to buy it now?"
"Not now," Sho said, "I'm buying things from the supermarket first. It's just up ahead."
When they entered the supermarket, Nino looked at him.
"Could you walk me around and show me the different sections of the supermarket?"
"I can, I guess," Sho said curiously, "but do you need to map the supermarket? You are not going to clean it."
"No I won't be cleaning it," Nino answered, "but I will be coming here on my own to buy groceries for you. With mapping data from here, I will find your groceries more efficiently."
"…You have a point. Let's go," Sho said as he led Nino along, placing his hands on its shoulders to steer it towards the fresh produce section.
"Well," Sho asked, deciding to put the robot's capabilities to the test,"do you know how to select, say…fresh avocados? "
A whole second later, Nino reached out a hand to pick up one avocado.
"This one can be eaten today," Nino said, "about 80% of the avocados here are a bit overripe by a day or two. 5% of these are under-ripe, while the remaining 5 % has just the right ripeness to be consumed today."
Sho's jaws dropped.
"You got all that within seconds of looking at all these?"
"Yes. It is pretty easy to tell."
"...Easy..."Sho steered Nino away from the fresh produce, "I guess they really do call you a specialised household helper for a reason."
Sho then proceeded to guide Nino in a systematic route around the various sections of the supermarket, taking care to keep Nino at least a good 10 metres away from housewives crowding around various time sales and free samples. When they finally finished the tour, Nino looked at him.
"I now know where to find everything. So, what do you want to eat for lunch?"
Sho shrugged. "I'm okay with anything. What can you cook?"
"Anything. I can search for a recipe online."
Sho smiled, completely impressed. He closed his eyes in deep thought as he thought of something.
"Hamburger."
Nino nodded. "Understood. I will start searching for ingredients needed."
Nino then started to make his way to an aisle, and Sho chuckled as he saw it make its way towards a pack of hamburger buns.
"No no no, not THAT kind of hamburger, Nino,"he said as he dragged Nino away by the shoulders,Ï meant hamburger steak."
"Do you perhaps mean the dish that people refer to as Salisbury steak?"
"Yeah."
"Understood."
Within less than half an hour, Nino carried a full basket in one hand was the one leading Sho to cashiers. After looking around at the queues, Nino did something unexpected and went for the queue with a relatively long line of people.
"N-nino?" Sho called as he caught up with the robot, "why did you go here? There is a much shorter queue just a few lanes down."
"There are two queue lines with less than 7 customers in it, but they are using trolleys that are at least 60% full. Choosing this line can save you up to more than 10 minutes' worth of waiting time-"
"How long did it take you to process that?"
"985 milliseconds."
"SERIOUSLY?!"
Nino nodded, and looked straight ahead, and Sho could feel the queue line move rapidly, just as his robot helper had predicted.
"... Remind me never to underestimate your abilities," Sho said as he took out his wallet.
-------------------
They finally stopped by the convenience store they had passed by just a while ago. Sho led Nino into the convenience store, directing him to the fridges that contained alcohol.
"Every time I'm done with work, I would grab some beers from here," Sho said, "…and, well, since I did not have a helper until today, I would usually stop by the convenience food section for some foods."
"Would you still like me to buy you convenience food?"
"No, I would prefer cooked food if possible."
"Understood."
Sho let Nino familiarise himself with the convenience store while he went to grab some chilled cans of beer. Suddenly, something occurred to him.
"Erm, Nino?" Sho called as he walked towards the robot, "how exactly do you.. erm.. recharge?"
"I don't actually require frequent charging or an active electric current like regular electronic devices," Nino answered, "technically speaking, the battery inside my system will keep me running for two months."
"Two months? That is A LOT shorter than normal AA batteries."
"To be completely fair, whatever runs on AA batteries can't process queue lengths and avocado ripeness within a second. Also, I do not come with an off-button, so I'm always on."
"Wow.. then I guess two months is actually pretty good?"
"Precisely. But eventually my battery level will be at least 50% used, and that is what the monthly scheduled maintenance is for, Sakurai-san," Nino explained, "once a month I will go back to the main headquarters to actually be recharged, maintained and upgraded however necessary. The extra one month's worth of power is only a reserve in case of any particularly strenuous activities."
"Wow," Sho remarked as he placed the cool cans of beer against the side of his neck, "your inventors really do think of everything."
"Now that we are on the subject," Nino said, "when do you want your scheduled maintenance to be?"
"What days do people usually pick?"
Nino picked up a packed desk calendar hanging from one of the shelf racks.
"For convenience's sake, most people pick the first day of the month or the last day of the month. I suppose there is a small proportion of people who pick the middle of the month, like the 15th or 16th."
Sho pondered over his mental image of his scheduled appointments for the month and felt the beer cans in his hand drip icy water on his arm. He went back to the refrigeration unit to swap drinks.
"I will take that suggestion and have it on the 16th," Sho answered, "my work gets awfully busy at the end and the start of each month. You can leave for it at the same time that I leave for work."
"Understood. Typical maintenance will take up to about 12 hours, so I will only be back at night."
"No problem," Sho said as he walked towards the cashier with Nino following behind him. They stopped behind the short queue, as Nino glanced around the shop with interest.
"Sho-san, would you be interested in that?" Nino asked as he pointed at a poster on the wall near the cashier counter. Sho followed Nino's eyes to it.
"Oh. Apparently it's a prepaid card promotion. I guess I should get one for you so that you can buy stuff from here with it."
"That would be convenient indeed,"Nino agree, "I will notify you again if you need to top up."
"Welcome." a voice called from the cashier counter.
Sho looked up to see that it was his turn.
"Excuse me, could you tell me more about the prepaid card promotion?" Sho asked as he placed his cans on the table. The cashier nodded politely, a smile gracing his tanned, chubby cheeks.
"Absolutely. At a price of 1200 yen, you get a prepaid card of a starting wallet value of 1000 yen. You can use this here and at the supermarket nearby," the cashier explained as he presented on the counter a small card, "future purchases with the use of this card will grant you a 10% discount on your total and 100 card points for every 100 yen spent. These points are redeemable for future raffle entries to win attractive prizes."
"Okay.. and if I want to cancel it?"
"Oh, you will get back your remaining wallet value. Do bear in mind that the 200 yen deposit you paid initially is non-refundable though."
"Certainly," the cashier replied with a smile and took out a card from a drawer and proceeded to enter some figures, "would you like me to discount your beer purchase?"
"Please," Sho smiled as he looked at the other advertisements on the table. Just then, his eye caught sight of something on the cashier's left-hand clock.
"Sir? I think you might want to get your clock checked," Sho said as he pointed at the man's left wrist,"it has stopped."
The man looked at him in surprise and looked down at his wrist. True enough, the display on the clock read "35:10:30:07:12:16:05", and simply stopped counting up.
"Strange," the man said as he looked at it and smiled up at Sho,"but thank you. I’ll have it looked at."
Sho nodded. Just then, he felt his phone ring. He looked over at Nino and stuffed 2500 yen in its hand.
"I have to take this," Sho said, "please pay the man for me, yeah?"
With that, Sho stepped aside just a short distance away from the counter and picked up the call.
The cashier looked up at Nino.
"That will be a total of 1800 yen,"he said, "I have never seen you around here before. Did you just move in nearby?"
Nino nodded. “I just moved in with Sho-san today.”
"I see.."the cashier said with a thoughtful look as he tore out the receipt and handed over some change.
"Please come agai-"
"Ow!"
"Sorry mister!"
Nino turned to see a kid apologising to Sho, who was apparently bumped into the nearby magazine rack. Sho shook his head as he massaged his right arm.
That was when Nino saw it.
The clock display on Sho's left wrist.
"Are you alright?" the cashier had rushed over behind the counter to Sho.
"Yeah, some clumsy kid bumped into me but that's okay,"Sho said with a shrug as he gestured to Nino, "let's go home."
Nino nodded and followed after Sho, before glancing back at the cashier. The cashier gave him a small wave and a sleepy smile before proceeding to serve the next customer.
------------------
“Sho-san?” Nino asked on the way back home, “can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“What is that clock display on your left wrist for?”
Sho shrugged as he looked at the clock on his wrist.
“I know that it can tell the time,”Sho replied, “the other display probably counts up to how long I have lived or something. All it ever does is count up from seconds to days and then months and even years. Weird, huh?”
“Is that why you asked the cashier to check his?”
“Well, mine never stopped before, you see. So I sort of wondered if it was a malfunction or something.”
“Actually..”Nino said, “yours did too.”
Sho stopped short in his tracks and gave Nino and incredulous look.
“What?”
“It read 36:03:00:03:14:06:35,”Nino said, “it stopped at the convenience store. I saw it after that kid bumped into you.”
Sho frowned and checked his own clock.
It now read 36:03:00:03:14:16:49.
“I don’t know. Seems fine to me now,”Sho stated, “I wonder if it stopped because the kid bumped into me or something.”
“Nothing bumped into that cashier behind the counter, so it can’t be.”
“Well, I’m sure there is nothing to worry about, Nino. Let’s hurry home.”
Back at the convenience store, Ohno Satoshi exhaled deeply as he stepped out of the convenience store for lunch. He cast a worried look at his left wrist and looked at the display again.
It now read 35:10:30:07:12:25:55.
It did not stop.
"Huh…it should be okay, I guess," Ohno wondered as he looked up at the blue skies above.
Chapter 2
The alarm clock rang on Sho's bedside table. Sho groaned as he sat up in his bed. It happened to be one of those days when he just did not feel like getting up.
Just then, he heard familiar footsteps pacing its way to his bedroom doorway.
He looked up at the silhouette in the doorway.
"Ah, Nino," Sho called as he stretched in bed, "good morning."
"Good morning, Sho-san," Nino greeted, "I already finished making breakfast and started up the coffee maker. You can eat straight away after washing up."
"As efficient as ever," Sho praised with a smile as he shuffled over to the bathroom.
The two weeks following Nino's "employment" proved to be that of extraordinary convenience to himself. For a start, right after they had their first lunch together, Nino had started to clean up all the scattered books, papers and pens in his bedroom that Sho had been too busy to even attempt tidying. It repeated the same motion of tidying up in every room before bringing along a duster to dust down every surface, from his now-neatly-arranged books to his computer monitor. Sho remembered watching it work from the corner of his eye as he typed away at his computer.
Sometimes, the way that Nino carried itself as a helper seemed to be so…animated that he found himself forgetting every now and then that Nino was essentially a robot, not a human.
Presently, Sho peeked out of the bathroom with his toothbrush still in his mouth and watched as Nino returned from the doorway with his three newspapers and several letters in hand. It then laid down the newspapers and letters neatly and methodically beside his breakfast.
*ding*
Nino promptly went over to the coffee maker.
Sho smiled quietly to himself as he went back in the bathroom.
He mentally psyched himself up as he rinsed his mouth, reminding himself that even while Nino was a robot, it still does its best in everything and that he should do the same too.
Breakfast that morning turned out to be turkey bacon and poached eggs with a side of some vegetables. Sho looked at his dish in interest.
"I know I left breakfast preparation to be completely up to you, but how do you do it?" Sho asked, "it was a simpler, traditional breakfast just yesterday and today it's bacon and eggs."
"I noticed you were a bit tired, inevitably from the midnight oil you burned yesterday,"Nino explained, "so I decided that a hearty breakfast and a slightly stronger coffee will wake you up better."
"Wow, you really are something," Sho complimented as he dug in, and then it hit him.
"Oh right! It's the 16th today. You are going for your first maintenance ever, right?"
"The past two weeks have been very helpful in gathering data about how to serve you better," Nino said with a nod, "so I might return back home tonight with just a few minor upgrades here and there."
"That is awesome. You know how to get there?"
Nino nodded again.
"I have GPS and I can analyse traffic levels. I will be okay."
"Impressive.." Sho wiped his mouth and carried his dishes over to the sink, "let's go then."
“Before that,” Nino held out an expertly-wrapped bento box,”I packed your lunch as always.”
Sho grinned as he took the box.
“What did you make?”
“I finely chopped the leftover bacon and added it to rice. I also added some vegetables, karaage and egg roll.” Nino then headed for the doorway and slipped into some slippers that Sho had bought for it.
Sho looked at his bento box.
“No waste, eh? Good job.”
“Thank you, Sho-san.”
Before long, Sho and Nino strode out of the apartment they now shared.
"Right, I will see you in 12 hours' time? I am home by then."
"Yes. I will return back in 12 hours. Goodbye."
"See ya, Nino!"
----------------------------------
The towers of Dream Alive Co. stood proudly over the city of Tokyo. Aiba Masaki sighed contentedly as he looked out of the window. Just then, a small jingle played over the PA system, signalling the start of a new work day ahead.
"Right, now for today’s maintenance units,” He murmured as he sat down on his desk, which had a small acrylic name plate.
Aiba Masaki.
Senior Technician (AI)
He hummed quietly to himself as he scrolled through the database. He finally found his name and looked through the names assigned to him.
“Oh. A new unit is coming first this morning." Aiba thought aloud just as he heard a knock on the door.
"Aiba-san, your first maintenance unit for the day is here," a smartly-dressed lady spoke as she held the door open. As if on cue, a robot slowly walked in with its white shirt and pants.
Aiba nodded and took a glance at the screen before walking towards the robot.
"Ninomiya-san! It's good to see you!"Aiba said with a smile, "I'm Aiba Masaki and I'm assigned to be your technician. You will see me pretty often from now on."
"Yoroshiku," Nino said with a polite nod.
Aiba then guided Nino into a large pod that stood in the middle of the room.
"I will be running a couple of diagnostic tests on your AI core to ensure everything is okay," Aiba explained, "while waiting, I will have a look at your daily logs and see if any fixes and upgrades are needed."
Nino said nothing and only entered the pod, the doors sliding shut in front of it.
Aiba tapped a few buttons on the pod and watched as the machine started up. He then walked over to his computer and accessed Nino's memory storage, which typically would contain daily logs, error reports and other kinds of data collected.
He booted up a log report from the first day of Nino's employment.
"Entry 01:
Last edited at 23:59:00
System initialised at 08:39:32
Helped up owner who fell on the floor in surprise. Owner's name is Sakurai Sho. Collected mapping data of living environment. Saved mapping data on GPS. Insufficient grocery supplies detected…"
"Seems that Nino-kun here has had a good first day, eh?" Aiba said as he scrolled down the log.
----------------------------
*ding*
Nino promptly went over to the coffee maker.
Sho smiled quietly to himself as he went back in the bathroom.
He mentally psyched himself up as he rinsed his mouth, reminding himself that even while Nino was a robot, it still does its best in everything and that he should do the same too.
Breakfast that morning turned out to be turkey bacon and poached eggs with a side of some vegetables. Sho looked at his dish in interest.
"I know I left breakfast preparation to be completely up to you, but how do you do it?" Sho asked, "it was a simpler, traditional breakfast just yesterday and today it's bacon and eggs."
"I noticed you were a bit tired, inevitably from the midnight oil you burned yesterday,"Nino explained, "so I decided that a hearty breakfast and a slightly stronger coffee will wake you up better."
"Wow, you really are something," Sho complimented as he dug in, and then it hit him.
"Oh right! It's the 16th today. You are going for your first maintenance ever, right?"
"The past two weeks have been very helpful in gathering data about how to serve you better," Nino said with a nod, "so I might return back home tonight with just a few minor upgrades here and there."
"That is awesome. You know how to get there?"
Nino nodded again.
"I have GPS and I can analyse traffic levels. I will be okay."
"Impressive.." Sho wiped his mouth and carried his dishes over to the sink, "let's go then."
“Before that,” Nino held out an expertly-wrapped bento box,”I packed your lunch as always.”
Sho grinned as he took the box.
“What did you make?”
“I finely chopped the leftover bacon and added it to rice. I also added some vegetables, karaage and egg roll.” Nino then headed for the doorway and slipped into some slippers that Sho had bought for it.
Sho looked at his bento box.
“No waste, eh? Good job.”
“Thank you, Sho-san.”
Before long, Sho and Nino strode out of the apartment they now shared.
"Right, I will see you in 12 hours' time? I am home by then."
"Yes. I will return back in 12 hours. Goodbye."
"See ya, Nino!"
----------------------------------
The towers of Dream Alive Co. stood proudly over the city of Tokyo. Aiba Masaki sighed contentedly as he looked out of the window. Just then, a small jingle played over the PA system, signalling the start of a new work day ahead.
"Right, now for today’s maintenance units,” He murmured as he sat down on his desk, which had a small acrylic name plate.
Aiba Masaki.
Senior Technician (AI)
He hummed quietly to himself as he scrolled through the database. He finally found his name and looked through the names assigned to him.
“Oh. A new unit is coming first this morning." Aiba thought aloud just as he heard a knock on the door.
"Aiba-san, your first maintenance unit for the day is here," a smartly-dressed lady spoke as she held the door open. As if on cue, a robot slowly walked in with its white shirt and pants.
Aiba nodded and took a glance at the screen before walking towards the robot.
"Ninomiya-san! It's good to see you!"Aiba said with a smile, "I'm Aiba Masaki and I'm assigned to be your technician. You will see me pretty often from now on."
"Yoroshiku," Nino said with a polite nod.
Aiba then guided Nino into a large pod that stood in the middle of the room.
"I will be running a couple of diagnostic tests on your AI core to ensure everything is okay," Aiba explained, "while waiting, I will have a look at your daily logs and see if any fixes and upgrades are needed."
Nino said nothing and only entered the pod, the doors sliding shut in front of it.
Aiba tapped a few buttons on the pod and watched as the machine started up. He then walked over to his computer and accessed Nino's memory storage, which typically would contain daily logs, error reports and other kinds of data collected.
He booted up a log report from the first day of Nino's employment.
"Entry 01:
Last edited at 23:59:00
System initialised at 08:39:32
Helped up owner who fell on the floor in surprise. Owner's name is Sakurai Sho. Collected mapping data of living environment. Saved mapping data on GPS. Insufficient grocery supplies detected…"
"Seems that Nino-kun here has had a good first day, eh?" Aiba said as he scrolled down the log.
----------------------------
“Wow, Sakurai-san, that is one luxurious-looking lunch!” His colleague praised beside him, “how do you ever find time to cook?”
“Oh no it’s not me. I have a helper at home now, and he has been very efficient.” Sho answered.
“That’s good to hear.”
Just then, a man burst into Sho’s office.
“This is bad! That XYZ Co. has made a favourable proposal to our major client to steal that construction contract from us!”
“Well, what did the higher-ups say?” Sho questioned, feeling his stomach sink.
“They have asked you, the financial controller, to come up with a revised contract price with the renegotiated terms.”
“If we ‘renegotiate’any further, we might suffer losses, you know.”
“Anyhow, Toyama-san says he needs a revised quote tomorrow morning.”
Sho sighed as he looked outside. He guessed that he was never getting home that night.
“Alright. I will get on it right away. Send over the revised terms and I will amend the proposal accordingly.”
He then whipped out his phone and sent Nino’s AI a short email.
“There is a situation at work that I need to take care of. I may not be home tonight.”
-----------------------------
Many long hours later, Sho stretched in his seat as he looked down at his computer and his desk.
During lunch time, his desk had been visible.
Presently, Sho blew a raspberry at the stacks of documents and files that had practically buried all that was left of his table. He looked at the time.
8.30pm.
Time had flown by so fast that he had forgotten to grab his dinner before the cafeteria closed. He absently rapped his pen on the table as he pondered over what to do for his dinner. On one hand, he REALLY needed to finish his work. And on the other hand, he could feel his stomach protesting against working without eating.
Just then, his desk phone rang.
The call came from the front desk.
"Hello?"
"Hello? Sakurai-san? This is security. You have a visitor at the reception desk."
Sho frowned. He was not expecting any visitors.
"Who is it?"
"He says his name is Ninomiya Kazunari."
Sho's brows shot up in surprise. His helper had apparently found him at this office.
"Oh, let him stay by the access gates. I'm coming down immediately,"Sho said as he jogged out of his office.
When he reached the access gates on the first floor, he could hardly believe his eyes. There on the other side stood Ninomiya Kazunari, holding a bento box in one hand and an umbrella in another.
"H-how did you…how did you even.."
"I got your message, and I knew you would be hungry."
"Ehh.. but I could have gotten something to eat from outside, right? How did you know?"
"For the past two weeks, whenever you start working at home, your mealtimes became later than usual. And since you had a situation today, it was easy to conclude that you probably missed your dinner today as well."
"Wow.. thank you. I really appreciate it,"Sho said as he took the bento box from Nino, ".. you ARE a robot, right?"
"Yes."
Sho chuckled as he looked down at the bento box, "I was just checking. Thanks."
He then went to wait for the lift. He looked over at Nino, only to see that it had walked over to a nearby couch to wait.
"..Nino? You can go back first."
"You did not bring an umbrella, and the local weather forecast says that there will be showers with thunder tonight. I'm waiting till you are done."
Sho looked out through the nearby glass window. The skies were dark, but nevertheless still clear. He decided to give Nino benefit of doubt anyway.
"I could take hours though."
"No problem. I will remain inactive here until you are done."
Sho shook his head and sighed, a grateful smile on his lips.
"I'll do my best to finish up fast. Wait for me."
With that, Sho returned to the office with his bento box. He slumped his chair and looked at the wrapped bento that sat on top of a mountain of paperwork.
That robot was truly a lifesaver in more ways than one.
With that, Sho unwrapped the box and started eating, the scrumptious meal prepared renewing his drive to complete his work. Just then, he heard a crack of thunder and looked outside to see that the skies had begun to drizzle.
Down at the lobby, Nino sat right where it was on the couch. It appeared to be completely stationary and inactive, but on the inside of Nino's AI core, Nino was already recording down its daily log for the day. Just before it was about to save its log, Nino brought up an image of Sho's smile (captured using dual cameras in its eyes) from just a while ago. It looked at it for a good while before attaching the photo to its log file and then saving it to memory.
------------------------------------------
Surprisingly enough, Sho was able to complete the rest of his revised quotation in only slightly over an hour. Leaving it carefully on the table, he packed up his bento boxes and glanced outside. What had started an hour ago as a drizzle now had become a heavy downpour. He hurried down to the lobby, where Nino still sat. Nino saw him and stood up, following up behind him as he turned to the security guard in charge.
"Thanks so much for looking after him," Sho thanked the security guard.
"Oh no problem, Sakurai-san,"the security guard said with a smile, "you are a lucky man to have such a considerate boyfriend."
Sho's eyes shot wide open as he levelled a look at Nino, who only stared blankly right back at him.
"…Hahaha. Anyhow, we should go." Sho answered dismissively as he dragged Nino towards the sliding doors.
Nino opened the umbrella in its hand and held it up. Unfortunately, Sho was much taller than Nino, meaning that Sho had to stoop a little to go under the umbrella. In response, Sho took the umbrella from Nino.
"How about I hold the umbrella?" Sho asked as he held it over both of them and drew Nino close in front of him. The umbrella spanned directly over them.
"This works too. Let's go home," Nino said as it stepped out, only to be held back by Sho.
"Don't walk too fast or you will get wet. I'm not exactly sure how waterproof your entire body is, but I'm playing safe,"Sho said firmly, "I'll guide us back just this once, alright?"
When Nino said nothing, Sho took its silence as consent and slowly guided the robot towards their home.
------------------------------
Later that night, the robot sat alone in the living room. It casually glanced over in the direction of Sho's bedroom, where its exhausted owner now slept peacefully. It then directed its stare back ahead as it booted up its daily log for an edit.
"..Led owner back home with umbrella. Process aborted. Led by owner back home with umbrella."
Nino remembered the slight tug of Sho's hand that brought it closer to him. It also remembered how Sho's body, against its back, had felt so.. warm.
"Experienced brief malfunction of cooling system. Cooling system reverted to normal state at destination."
Nino saved the file and closed it. After processing its thoughts for a moment, it booted up another application.
"Modular upgrade requests: increased height, 100% waterproof exterior,image storage space upgrade, camera upgrade, graphics card upgrade."
After sending the transmission back to its headquarters at Dream Alive Co., Nino relaxed its body on the sofa as it entered hibernation mode.
Chapter 3
"Nino?"
Nino looked up from drying a small frying pan by the sink at Sho.
Sho sat by the dining table, the knife in his right hand deftly carving out neat, bite-sized squares of golden-brown pancakes.
Those pancakes definitely looked and tasted more delicious than those that Jun would describe as "vinyl records".
"Remember when you brought me dinner last week at my workplace?" Sho asked as he chewed with a smile on his face, "I was actually working on revising a quotation price to convince a major client of ours to pick us for a construction contract. As of yesterday... we got it!"
Nino responded by nodding in a manner that seemed to convey an attitude that was very much the opposite of Sho's enthused one.
"That is good news for the business," Nino said, "share prices of your company are bound to rise pretty soon."
Sho froze at Nino's strange response. And then it hit him.
Of course. Nino was an android. He could not possibly expect a robot to empathise and join him in his enthusiasm now, could he? But still…
Sho looked at Nino's plain white shirt and pants.
He guessed that he could still do something, nevertheless.
"Yes. So..I want to thank you. Perhaps by.. maybe buying some coloured shirts and pants?"
"You are welcome," Nino said promptly, clearly not taking Sho's words into context, "and it appears that there is a major sale at a nearby shopping mall. Would you like to know how to get there?"
Sho sighed resignedly with a shrug. It was not the response he wanted but at least they were going somewhere.
"Yes, please. I will get ready."
Nino's eyes followed Sho as he retreated back into his room.
It then searched through its internal memory for the log file it had created the week before.
Sho's smiling face stood out as its thumbnail picture.
Somehow, Sho's face from less than five minutes ago is different from this one.
Just then he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Shall we go?" Sho called. Nino blinked away his log files into the background and followed after him.
----------------------
The pair strode into a shopping mall, the cool breeze of the air conditioning blowing pleasant unto Sho's face.
" 'Icarus', it appears, is having a store-wide discount today to celebrate its first year anniversary in this mall,"Nino said, "I browsed through its online catalogue and found over 150 search results for the search term 't-shirt'. "
"Wow. Sounds like our place for the day then," Sho led Nino up an escalator, "after which, I was thinking of trying out a new BBQ joint nearby. It's erm.. Ah I forgot the name."
"Did you mean Omizawa Yakiniku? That opened just two weeks ago and it's within 1km from here."
"Ohhh yes that one!"
"It will be crowded from approximately 5pm onwards today, so I would suggest a less crowded timing between 3-4pm to ensure you have seats."
Just as the pair walked into Icarus...
"Oh! Nino! Fancy seeing you here!"
Sho looked at Nino in surprise. This robot apparently made a new friend. But as he looked at the person jogging towards them, Sho realised that that man was awfully familiar. And then he remembered.
"Ah! Isn't he the cashier at the convenience store?!"
Nino nodded.
"Yes. His name is Ohno Satoshi. I see him regularly when stocking up on your beer and mineral water in the fridge,"it explained.
Sho took a careful look at Ohno, who presently flashed him a slightly bashful smile.
"It's been a while,"Ohno said, "but I see Nino-kun helping you buy your stuff very often."
"Nino's been a great help," Sho agreed wholeheartedly,"which is why I'm taking him out shopping today."
"Shopping for clothes? Good idea,"Ohno said with an amused smile on his face, "after all I see him in nothing but white all the time."
"Right? Anyway.. we are just going to go in for a look at the shirts here. Would you like to join us?"
"Sounds great. I have no other plans for the day after all,"Ohno answered and followed Sho and Nino into the store.
------------------------
Nino slowly strolled around the store, its eyes scanning keenly at every item on the shelves and racks. It took one plain yellow t-shirt off the shelf and looked at it.
"100% cotton. Usual retail price is 1800 yen, so the discounted sale price is 1500 ye-"
"Oh Darling~ doesn't this look SO good on us? We match so well!"
Nino turned at the direction of a cute female voice and spotted a couple standing in front of a nearby mirror. Beside the woman, the man was visibly flushed, his cheeks almost as red as the printed "I'm with her" t-shirt that was held under his nose.
"Dear, let's get these, why don't we?"
"H-hanako, this is embarrassing!"
"How so, dear? Whether we wear this at home or out on the streets we would look SO cute together!"
"I get wearing this at home, but wearing it outside?"
"Oh come now, let's just go with this! We are out of time and we still need to get to your brother's birthday party later!"
"Wait- we are wearing these there?!"
"Why not? It's casual wear!"
"At least something less embarrassing please! Like.. maybe those two navy blue shirts?"
"You are impossible, Takashi..." the woman said with a roll of her eye, "what time is it anyway?"
"It was 12pm when we set out," the man said with a sheepish smile as he showed her the clock on his wrist, "time stopped since then because I am with you."
The woman seemed to blush and swoon quietly over his words.
"Oh you and your glib tongue. I'll be right back, honey. Check the time."
Nino watched the woman head towards the dressing room.
"Ah, it moved again," the man said as he looked at his own clock, "oh. 1.30pm? I guess we have time then."
The man then walked away from the mirror towards the dressing room, but Nino stood right where it was in deep thought.
It could remember when the first occurrence of a stopped clock was.
"Sir? I think you might want to get your clock checked," Sho said as he pointed at the man's left wrist,"it has stopped."
"Strange," the man said as he looked at it and smiled up at Sho,"but thank you. I’ll have it looked at."
Nino looked at the man who was speaking to his now-dressed girlfriend, praising her on how navy blue is a flattering colour on her. With everything that it had gathered, there is no mistake about it. The two clocks stopping meant that his owner and that cashier were reall-
"Nino?"
Nino was jolted out of his thoughts at the sound of Sho's voice. It turned to see Sho holding up a red shirt with a printed picture of a bowl of ramen in the middle.
"I thought this shirt is pretty amusing," Sho said as he held it against Nino, "it seems like it could fit too."
"Oh, how about this?"
Nino looked over to see Ohno walking towards them, a blue shirt with three sardines printed on its front. Sho looked at the shirt and chuckled.
"I see. Sardines packed on the front of the t-shirt. Very clever."
"Right? And it might look good on him too!" Ohno said as he looked at Nino, "…now that I think of it, he would probably look good in anything."
"Nino,"Sho said as he handed the shirts to Nino,"why not take these shirts and try them on in the dressing room? "
Nino nodded and took the red and blue shirts before walking over to the dressing room.
It closed the door and looked at the shirts before him.
It was either red or blue.
Ramen or packed sardines.
For the first time in its artificial life, Nino stood right on the spot with absolutely no idea what it should do.
Never had it been given a choice in anything.
Even when it came to lunch, breakfast and dinner (Sho left menu choices completely up to it) , it had followed a program that simply provided a randomised choice of recipe for each meal, changing the recipe as and when it felt it suited Sho’s needs.
But when it came to something like choosing a t-shirt, where it was not programmed in any way for it...
Nino slowly clasped the door handle and opened it slowly to look outside.
Sho stood with Ohno at one of the nearby racks, joking and laughing as they pulled out one t-shirt after another to compare interesting and flashy designs. Its eyes started to focus on Sho, who presently held up a yellow t-shirt with a pixellated fire flower print against his red tartan shirt, his chestnut-brown eyes laughing with his lips.
Nino closed the door to the dressing room and surveyed the two t-shirts in front of it.
A while later, the door of the dressing room opened and Sho turned his eyes to watch Nino walk towards them in the red t-shirt he had chosen earlier.
"Wow," Ohno commented, "you two practically match."
"We do?" Sho asked as he stood beside Nino and straightened up his tartan shirt.
"Oh Darling~ doesn't this look SO good on us? We match so well!"
Nino glanced up at Sho but said nothing as its cameras registered his proud smile.
Yet another picture of Sho's smile now goes into Nino's image storage space.
------------------------
Nino clasped the tongs in its hands as it expertly flipped over several pieces of sizzling beef on the grill in front of it. Ohno and Sho sat opposite Nino, watching in awe as Nino served several pieces of meat into their plates.
"Wow, you are good at this,"Ohno praised as he took a gulp of beer.
"Thank you," Nino said, "enjoy your meal."
"Why don't you have some too?"
Sho looked over at Ohno.
"Er, Nino doesn't need to eat."
Ohno blinked in surprise.
"Eh? Nino doesn't?"
Nino nodded. "I'm an android specially programmed by Dream Alive Co. to help Sho-san with household management."
Sho chuckled at Nino's explanation.
"Yeah. Exactly. He is my robot helper."
"Whoa, really? I could never tell!"
"Well to be fair," Sho said as he picked up a piece of meat off his plate, "when I first saw him, I had also doubted if he was a robot or a human. It took a while, but I'm used to it now."
"Wow. He must be really helpful, huh?"
Sho nodded.
"He saved me in many ways,"Sho said with a smile as he glanced over at Nino, whose eyes now focused on gauging the doneness of the bacon strips before it.
When the plate of raw meat was finally finished, Nino switched off the electric grill and sat motionless in its seat, its eyes never leaving Sho or Ohno as they filled the room with conversation and laughter.
Its AI core returned to a thought it had put on hold as a suspended process back at Icarus.
The previous couple's clocks stopped when they were with each other, but worked perfectly when they draw apart.
Nino looked at the clocks on Sho's and Ohno's left wrists.
Both of their time displays have stopped.
Nino proceeded to conduct a web search of its own, searching through various search results-
"Nino?"
Nino looked at Sho, who was staring at him in curiosity.
"You are spacing out. Are you doing something?"
"Yes, I'm researching. May I help you?"
Sho pointed to the clock on his left wrist with a slight frown.
"It's been hours but my clock stopped for some time. What time is it now?"
"9.30pm." Nino prompted.
"Yeah it's getting late soon. Sho-san, you have work tomorrow, don't you? You should turn in early," Ohno said as he polished off the last piece of food on his plate.
"I guess I should. Let's go,"Sho announced as he stood up and held Nino by its forearm, helping it stand.
Meanwhile, Nino's mind was focused on one word that had come up in its search results.
"Soulmate".
--------------------------
"Ohno-san should accompany you more often."
Sho gave a short laugh beside Nino as they watched TV back at home.
"Where did that come from?"
"Ohno-san seems to agree on you,"Nino looked straight ahead as it spoke, "you smile more often around him."
Sho blinked in surprise.
"You can tell?"
"Is that surprising?"
"Well.. as a robot, I thought you wouldn't really.. you know, be aware of emotions or anything."
"You are partially correct,"Nino said matter-of-factly, "but the ability of identifying common human emotions is part of my program to aid in serving you better."
Sho gave this new piece of information some thought.
"I guess that does make sense."
"But I can guess what you mean and you are indeed correct- while I theoretically know enough about human emotions and how to help you with them, completely understanding them is beyond my programmed capacity."
"I see," Sho stared quietly at the ticker strip at the bottom of the news broadcast.
"That being said, you smiled a lot more often around Ohno-san than around anyone else."
"I do?"
"Yes. Like around the neighbours. Even though they seem to be agreeable people as well."
"Oh, that they are," Sho said thoughtfully as he rested his head back on the sofa, "it's just…different. He understands me well. Being able to joke, laugh, pick t-shirts and even share food with anyone is a different kind of interaction. A good kind of different, I guess."
"Exactly. That proves it- Ohno-san agrees on you."
"I wouldn't go so far to say that, but he is a good chap. Surprisingly enough...he … really is pretty easygoing. Mm."
"That is good to know...because he is bound to be someone important to you."
"Oh? …how?"
"Well, I checked online and it seems th-,"Nino said and looked over at Sho.
Sho had his eyes closed, his head resting on the sofa.
"Sho-san? Are you asleep?"
Nino leaned over Sho, and was answered with a soft snore.
Sho had fallen asleep.
Nino then walked over to Sho's bedroom and carried out his blanket.
"I'll tell you again some other time," Nino said as it covered the blanket over Sho and tucked him in well.
It then sat down next to Sho on the couch and corrected his sleeping posture by slowly tilting his head down to rest on its shoulder. It then proceeded to write its daily log as it always did.
Chapter 4
"Well, I guess I will be going," Sho said, "will you be okay on your own?"
"Yes, I will be staying at Dream Alive Co. until the day before your return. On that day I will do any needed spring cleaning and cooking while awaiting your return."
"Good. Right, I think I will go off now. My flight to Korea won't wait for me,"Sho said hurriedly as he put on his shoes. He then looked at Nino, who only watched him with its brownish gold eyes.
"Then.. I'll see you in about 4 days."
Nino nodded. "Have a safe flight, Sho-san."
Sho smiled at Nino before walking out of the door. He slowly strode over to the elevator and waited. He glanced back at his apartment, where he knew Nino was doing some cleaning and dusting before heading out for its scheduled maintenance appointment.
Some part of him did not want to go.
Some part of him just felt that Nino's presence around him had grown to be so indispensable that he could hardly remember how life was like before he had Nino.
*ding*
Sho looked at the elevator just as the doors slid open.
He stepped in and watched as the doors slid close again, the elevator giving a slight jolt before taking him down to the first floor.
He was really, really going to miss seeing Nino around.
-------------------
"Ah, Ninomiya-san! Good to see you again~" Aiba said cheerfully as he brought Nino in.
"Erm, Aiba-san?" Nino started, "my owner is going for a 4 day business trip, so I will be staying here until the 3rd day. Is that alright?"
"Of course. Besides, you gave me a very VERY long list of modular upgrade requests,"Aiba said with a slightly teasing look on his face, "is your owner really so troublesome that you need so many upgrades?"
"No, he is not troublesome," Nino replied, "I simply decided that those upgrades could help in serving him better."
"At any rate, let's run a few diagnostic tests on you first, shall we? We can always discuss your REALLY long list of requests and discuss how viable they will be."
As Aiba ran the diagnostic pod that contained Nino, he sat in front of his computer and looked at the list of upgrade requests.
"Increased height.." Aiba laughed heartily at the request, "that probably won't be possible, I'm sorry. I CAN give you improved water resistance and better graphics, I suppose.."
He slowly scrolled through the list and paused, his eyebrows raised in curiosity.
"Functioning food and beverage digestive system? Artificial taste buds? Increased flexibility of cranial movements?"
And then his eyes stopped at one line, and Aiba felt his mouth go dry in shock and surprise.
"But... why?"
Aiba stood up and looked at Nino, who presently lay in the pod with its eyes closed.
"You aren't…I mean, you CAN'T be going sentient, are you? "he murmured under his breath, "it's not scientifically possible. I mean.."
He sighed as he leaned quietly against the nearby wall, his eyes flicking over to the screen.
"Installation of program to be able to feel emotions" was written as an upgrade request on his screen.
------------------
Sho slurped at his kimchi noodles as he read the news on his phone.
His flight to Korea had been smooth so far, and he was immediately escorted over to a five-star hotel where an important meeting was to be held the next day.
He looked blankly at the bowl in front of him.
The noodles were indeed good.
But he kind of missed the taste of the soba noodles that Nino had made.
After paying for his meal, he decided to have a walk around town. As he passed by a shop, he caught sight of a red t-shirt with a game controller printed on it.
He recalled seeing Nino walk out of the dressing room while wearing a red shirt that matched his tartan shirt back then.
"Wow," Ohno commented, "you two practically match."
"I wonder if he had purposefully wanted to match with me," Sho wondered aloud and then stopped himself.
"No way. He is a ROBOT, Sho. For all we know it could have been random."
He then took a deep breath and looked at the shirt again.
Well.
Nino could use a souvenir from Korea.
"Excuse me?" Sho asked, "how much is this?"
-------------------------
"I have run your AI's diagnostic tests and everything seems okay," Aiba said, "BUT.. about those modular upgrades..."
Nino looked up at Aiba.
"What's wrong with them? Do they not help to serve my owner better?"
"Some of the upgrades, such as a waterproof exterior and a better graphics card and larger storage space is pretty understandable," Aiba said, "but...flexibility of cranial movements? Taste buds? The biggest one that got my attention was the one line about requesting to feel human emotions."
"I only recognise the emotions on Sho-san, but I do not completely understand it. Should I not feel it to completely understand him in order to serve him better?"
"I see what you mean, but it is just not possible. I'm sorry,"Aiba said, a wistful look in his eyes, "believe me, we HAVE tried to introduce a sentient program a long time ago in the earlier prototypes. We came to a conclusion that it was not a viable feature to be added."
When Nino made no reply, Aiba turned to his computer.
"All I can do, perhaps, is to further finetune your programmed ability to recognise human emotions, and that is it. For you to 'feel' them is impossible."
"..I see."
With a sigh, Aiba stood up from his chair and escorted Nino out of his office .
"I will prepare materials for your graphics card upgrade and your waterproofing exterior. Until then, you can stay in the free-roam areas until I call you."
"…Understood."
The door closed, leaving Nino standing alone outside the office.
------------------------
Sho laid down on his bed in the hotel room, the documents for his meeting the next day sprawled over beside him on the ivory sheets.
"Nino, could you please get me some water?"
No answer.
"Nino?"
Sho sat up on the bed and looked around as he took in his surroundings again.
Right. He was in Korea, not back at home. He flopped back down as he tried to remind himself that that meant Nino was not around.
He picked up his phone.
"I've arrived safely in Korea,"he typed, "the food here is pretty good."
He paused as he looked towards the window, the bright lights of Seoul twinkling beneath him.
"The next two days will prove to be very busy, and I cannot wait to be back home in Japan,"he continued writing,"till then I guess I will have to make do without your cooking. Heh."
"I noticed you were a bit tired, inevitably from the midnight oil you burned yesterday,"Nino explained, "so I decided that a hearty breakfast and a slightly stronger coffee will wake you up better."
Sho chuckled softly to himself.
"I do miss your cooking, though. Could you prepare something awesome for me when I get back?"
He then pressed the "Send" button and laid back on his bed with the biggest smile on his face.
---------------------
Nino entered a room that looked very much like a gallery and glanced up quietly at the small display cases that contained old mechanisms and gadgets that were produced within the long history of the company.
Just then, a long, large display appeared in the corner of its eye. It turned and saw a huge glass display case that displayed a few robots that looked similar to itself.
Nino approached the display case, its camera eyes watching the historical progression of its own form from the smallest, most simplistic prototype of the past to a robot which had an internal skeleton that does not look dissimilar to its own.
Just then, something caught its eye.
Nino looked at the prototype that preceded its own- the internal skeleton seemed to look more complex than its own, the facial enhancements that functioned like muscles in a face pulled back to form a smile on the robot's face.
"...we HAVE tried to introduce a sentient program a long time ago in the earlier prototypes. We came to a conclusion that it was not a viable feature to be added."
Nino looked at the model no. of the prototype.
"HH_E001"
There could only be one place where all documentation of past prototypes were stored- the archives section in the in-house library.
Just then, a notification arrived- Sho had sent it an email.
Nino read the email and answered promptly.
"Have a good time, and look forward to it."
It then looked up in its database for recipes that Sho would like.
And it found it- Spaghetti alle Vongole.
Pasta cooked with clams and white wine.
Chapter 5
It was soon the third day since Nino had stayed at Dream Alive Co. On the day before, Nino had been called into Aiba's workshop and the pair have stayed in there ever since.
"Right, we are quite done," Aiba said as he screwed the panel of concentric circular grooves back into the back of Nino's neck,"you can now swim or even walk around in the rain- every part of you from your inner circuitry to your joints and exterior are completely waterproofed."
Nino nodded.
"Also, I have upgraded your image storage space, graphics card and camera, so you will be able to notice much finer details than before," Aiba began to keep his tools, "in addition to your fine-tuned emotion detection skills, you are quite well equipped to be of service."
"That is good.." Nino's eyes looked around as it got off the table it lay on,"and the others?"
"What?"
"The other upgrades."
Aiba sighed.
"I did not use those other upgrades- they will only slow your processing speeds. Please understand."
"But.."
"Nino, please," Aiba said with an apologetic smile on his face,"we are done here, okay?"
After a long pause, Nino gave an obedient nod.
"Understood."
Nino left Aiba's workshop and strode down the quiet corridor, its AI gathering mapping data recorded on the first day for directions to the in-house library.
The library was hushed, the chilly air filled only with the soft shuffle of feet on the carpet and the quiet ruffle of pages. Nino's steps paced themselves towards the shelves labeled "Archives: Technical Documentation". Its keen eyes scanned the shelves for a certain booklet with a familiar model number.
And there, in the middle of a shelf, it saw it.
Nino took the book off the shelf and proceeded to a nearby computer room. With the computer booted and the pages open, Nino's eyes followed the long lines of printed code on the table. Focusing its eyes on a particular section, it began to reach behind its neck to remove the panel.
-----------------
Sho stretched in his couch as he looked at the bright midday sun looked at his phone and smiled. He was scheduled to fly home the next day, and already he was already looking forward to going back home. As he sat down by the hotel room window with a can of beer in hand, he wondered what Nino was going to cook when he got home.
He looked down at the small plate of blood clams in front of him and smiled.
Could be some nice, hearty bowl of ramen.
Or some Salisbury steak.
Or a nice plate of yakisoba.
He whipped out his phone and typed a message.
"I will be flying back tomorrow and will arrive back home in time for dinner.
Sorry I couldn't text you yesterday- we had a meeting and a seminar back-to-back and I could hardly find time to breathe. But thanks to that, I sort of got the rest of the day off. Heh."
Sho paused and took a sip of beer.
Somehow, it felt nice.
That feeling when you know that when your day's work is done, something or someone will be waiting patiently to receive you...
Somehow, that feeling felt nice.
True, he did not really think about that at first when he moved out. After all, his everyday routine would be pretty much as systematic and constant as a piece of clockwork- wake up, work, return home, have a beer or two and then sleep. He liked that routinely lifestyle of his own- having things routinely done often keeps them in order.
And yet...
Sho glanced down at his phone again.
Having Nino waiting for him to return home..
"I guess I can get used to this too," Sho thought as he typed again.
"I can't wait to see you back home. Till then."
He pressed the "Send" button and relaxed with another sip of beer.
Just then, he received a notification.
"Message not sent: Service not available"
Sho frowned.
That was strange. That NEVER happened. Ever.
He pressed the "Send" button again, only to receive the same error message again.
"Nino? What's going on, Nino?" Sho questioned as he started to call Nino.
"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please tr-"
"This can't be happening!"
Sho redialed again.
"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Pl-"
"Nino? Hey, what's going on?!"
The grip on his phone tightened, the hard metallic exterior of the phone now warming up rapidly against the skin of his palm.
He took a deep breath.
Panicking over Nino was not going to help the situation, he told himself under his breath as he tried to calm down.
Maybe it was something.
Maybe Nino was briefly shut down for maintenance and that was it.
Maybe it was nothing after all.
Sho gasped as he finally found his breath back again.
He inhaled slowly as he clasped the phone in his hand, close enough to his heart as if in prayer.
He really hoped nothing happened with Nino.
-------------------
Nino sat back in the chair, its eyes on the numerous lines of complex codes in front of it.
The booklet that Nino had borrowed laid in front of the computer.
It had been several long hours of work for Nino, for the work involved was immense: analysing the booklet of codes, comparing that booklet to the one that documented its own make and model, identifying some crucial parts of code to copy and alter...
Finally, the work was done. All that was left to do was to press that "enter" button.
It briefly glanced at the wires that connected the back of its neck to the CPU.
Everything seemed in order.
It was time.
Nino nodded to itself and reached out a finger, pressing lightly on the "Enter" button.
Instantly, the additional lines of code surged instantaneously into Nino's system, and Nino's camera eyes blinked briefly before all went black, and Nino's body fell limp on the chair.
After a long while, the AI core was automatically booted up once again.
Nino's camera eyes blinked open.
The first thing that Nino felt was the cold air that surrounded him in the computer room.
He knew it was his heat-regulating system at work, and he was conscious about it being recorded in the logs.
Yet...
It felt different.
He could not explain it, but he did not just know the exact temperature of his surroundings.
He felt it.
He slowly felt around for the cord that connected him to the computer and tugged it off as he looked at the computer screen in front of him.
The code he had entered worked.
Just then, he received a call.
"Hello?"
"FINALLY!" Sho's voice yelled into his system, "what's going on? Why couldn't I contact you earlier?!"
Nino looked at the computer and the wires in front of him as he wondered what he should tell Sho.
"I cut off communications as part of the maintenance process, but don't worry."
"I can't NOT worry!" Sho said, "here I was thinking that something might have happened to you."
Just then, Nino felt something growing softly and warmly in him. It was a rather light, uplifting.. feeling. Had he more flexible artificial cranial muscles, he would have smiled. He recognised that limitation.
And yet, it felt like enough for him-just to be able to do more than acknowledge, learn and know like he was programmed to do.
He could finally feel.
"I'm sorry for worrying you," Nino answered "I'm fine. I will see you back home tomorrow."
"That's.. good to hear," Sho said, relief evident in his voice, "I will see you tomorrow. Goodbye. And don't disappear like that on me again, okay?"
"I promise I won't,"Nino said as he hung up, that warm fuzzy sensation of happiness staying in him as a foreign but welcome feeling.
Just then, he received an email message from Sho.
"I will be flying back tomorrow and will arrive back home in time for dinner.
Sorry I couldn't text you yesterday- we had a meeting and a seminar back-to-back and I could hardly find time to breathe. But thanks to that, I sort of got the rest of the day off. Heh.
I can't wait to see you back home. Till then."
Nino felt a stronger sensation in him that was much greater than what he felt before.
And it was just the beginning.
That was what excited him.
Nino shut down the computer and placed the booklets back where they belong, striding out of Dream Alive Co. to head back home.
And there, their apartment unit stood in front of him. He reached a hand on the door and unlocked it before swinging it open.
He dared himself to say something for the first time ever.
“Tadaima,” Nino said, “I’m back.”
He felt like a whole new person already.
----------------------
Nino spent the next day grocery shopping and doing a lot of cleaning around the house- dusting off dust bunnies that accumulated themselves on Sho's bookshelves, folding the already-dried laundry and pressing Sho's white shirts...
Then he remembered the recipe that he had decided to try.
He immediately got to work and started cooking as he followed the recipe step-by-step. He glanced at the time as he added white wine to the clams and started simmering. It was about 7pm.
He did a search online for Sho's arrival time.
"6.30pm.. he must be on the way back now."
He then proceeded to finish the dish by boiling the pasta. As he watched the pasta boiling, he reflected quietly.
Now that he was able to feel things, he wondered if Sho should know that of his sentience. He might be able to feel and perceive, but technically speaking he was STILL a robot as far as Sho was concerned.
What if Sho did not want that from him?
What if Sho was just perfectly fine with him behaving as robot-like as he usually did?
What if Sho did not like this new version of himself?
"No no , that can't be, right? " Nino mumbled as his first crippling wave of fear swept over him, "he did say that, didn't he?"
"...it's just…different. He understands me well. Being able to joke, laugh, pick t-shirts and even share food with anyone is a different kind of interaction. A good kind of different, I guess."
And then something else nagged him at the back of his head.
Right.
Ohno Satoshi.
At that present moment, he gathered his facts.
Both Sho's and Ohno's clocks stopped when they were within reach of each other.
The couple he saw back at Icarus some time ago had the same situation.
"...time stopped since then because I am with you."
His conclusion now was the same as the one he had made some time ago:
Sho and Ohno were each others' soulmates, born with clocks meant to stop within reach of each other.
Sho and Ohno were basically born for each other.
Just then, a loud sizzle jolted Nino to his senses as he realised the pot of pasta had overboiled. He hurriedly switched the stove off.
"I never made a mistake like this before.." Nino whispered, "never."
Something about that conclusion he had arrived at disturbed him greatly.
He did not know why, but it did.
And yet, what his duties are, he knew very well.
He knew.
He scooped up the pasta and served it on a small plate, the inner workings and circuitry feeling awfully heavy all of a sudden.
Was this why Aiba had advised him against this?
Was it because he knew he would not be able to keep up with the intense, complicated nature of the human heart?
Just as he dished the last piece of clam on a plate while in deep thought, he heard the key turn in the lock.
The door swung open.
Nino stepped out of the kitchen, and his eyes caught those familiar brownish orbs.
That cute nose and plush lips that now curved into a smile.
"Nino? Tadaima. I'm back."
Nino strode towards Sho, who removed his hands from his luggage and drew Nino towards him in a hug.
Nino blinked as he felt Sho's warmth engulf his body. It felt so comfortable and warm…and.. right. He could feel the background processes in his head slowing down gradually the longer he stayed in Sho's embrace, as if feeling his warmth had shut off everything else that he knew at that moment.
He decided that even with his processes slowing down in that embrace, it was okay.
"Okaeri. Welcome back," Nino said, his computerised voice and rigid face concealing a lot more emotion than he really felt.
Chapter 6
With the laundry hung out, dishes washed and floors mopped till they shone brighter than the fluorescent lights in Sho's room, Nino laid down on the sofa, while watching TV.
Life with his newfound sentience had been so different.
Even right there and then when he was relaxing on the sofa, he could feel the leather softly cave in where he sat as he leaned against a soft, fluffy cushion.
And yet…it did not take Nino long to realise that his slowed down processing speeds were not just happening when he hugged Sho or whenever he was cozied up with him on the sofa.
It happened all the time.
Just a while ago, he very nearly burnt the pancakes that was cooked for breakfast and could not measure the freshness of vegetables or the length of queues as quickly as before.
He also could not explain this weighty feeling that seem to drag him down in his activities and processes. Was this what was meant by fatigue and tiredness? Was it even possible to be tired, even if he was essentially a robot?
As much as he did not want to think that he might have caused some problem in himself, he had to get to the bottom of things.
He dialed a number.
"Hello?" a cheerful, familiar voice spoke.
"Aiba-san?"
"Nino-kun! Good to hear from you. Might there be anything I can help you with?"
Nino weighed its options before finally speaking up.
"Do you remember when you gave me some upgrades last month?"
"Yes, I remember. What is it about them?"
Nino felt a sense of fear and dread well up inside him.
"Well erm, it's not about them per se. It's about something else."
"What? What are you talking about?"Aiba asked, "what do you mean by 'something else'?"
Nino shifted in his seat. It was about to be a long conversation.
---------------------
"It's been a while since we last met, eh?" Jun said as he and Sho sat together in a bar they frequent, "how are things?"
"Pretty good, actually. I just got back from a business trip not too long ago," Sho sipped on his pint, "I thought it was going to be a rather long and arduous meeting, but thankfully it ended pretty early."
"And your helper?" Jun asked with a grin.
"You, Jun, have given me a treasure," Sho answered with a laugh, "Nino has been such a great help , and it’s not just around the house."
"I can imagine it definitely cooks better," Jun said with a smirk, "but it is good to have something help you around, isn't it?"
"Oh yes it is,"Sho said thoughtfully, "only.. I think he's been acting strange lately."
Jun frowned.
"It can act strange?"
"Well I don't know, but it definitely seems strange to me," Sho said,"usually after dinner, I like to catch some documentaries on TV, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Now Nino actually joins me on the couch to watch it with me."
Jun blinked in surprise.
"I don't believe it's been programmed to do that."
"Exactly. Also, when he goes into sleep mode he usually just sits on the couch and spaces out. Now, he literally sleeps on the couch with his eyes shut."
"Huh..."
"I mean, he still wakes up earlier than me to cook, so it’s alright,"Sho said, "but when I pass him by in the middle of the night for a cup of water and see him sleeping on the couch… it’s just… not as normal as before, you know? "
"Do you want to go have it checked? There is a contact number for servicing, right?"
"I don't really think there is a need for that. He still does his work as excellently as before,"Sho explained, "it's just.. well..something's different about him since I got back from my trip. And I can't figure out why."
"…you think it's the upgrades?"
"Well it's possible, Jun-kun, but I don't think sleeping and being a TV companion count as upgrades of any kind.
Jun chuckled and took a sip on his martini.
"Then maybe you just need to keep an eye on it for a bit. But I'm sure it's nothing, really."
-----------------------
"ARE YOU CRAZY?!"
Nino winced as he heard Aiba's panicked voice ringing in its head.
"I know it sounded crazy but I couldn't help but-"
"No no no, this goes beyond crazy now," Aiba scolded, exasperation clear in his voice, "you don't get it. You can't just upgrade yourself like that without a supervising technician. And by that, I mean me!"
"Why?"
Aiba took a deep breath.
"Okay. Answer these questions truthfully. Do you feel tired?"
"…yes."
"Do you feel like some processes just run really slowly and some even shut down automatically without you realising it?"
"…yeah."
Nino heard Aiba sigh on the other end of the phone.
"This is bad."
"Why?"
"The thing is, the reason why you were made was because the previous model was not perfect," Aiba explained, "while you are indeed able to feel as acutely and intensely as any human would, it is received by your body as extra amounts of immense data that has to be stored. That is why your processes are so slow now- your body was not constructed to handle such vast amounts of information yet."
“I understand that, and that is okay!”
“No it isn’t!” Aiba was yelling now, “because that last model overheated and was beyond repair!”
Nino felt the icy chill of fear well in his chest.
“Beyond repair?”
“Given your current specifications, which aren’t very much different from your predecessor, over time your AI core would struggle to receive, handle and store these immense amounts of data simultaneously, which WILL result in overheating! Your processing core could melt and you wouldn’t function anymore!”
“I didn’t see that in the documentation of the-”
“It isn’t there but it is in our official troubleshooting reports, which I would have referred to you if you approached me first!”
Nino hugged his knees close to him on the couch as he felt the consequences of his rash actions swarm threateningly around him like hungry sharks.
"Is there an upgrade that can help to solve that problem?"
"That is the problem, Nino- I can't do anything," Aiba said, "as it happens, your AI core has already "learned" these new data and it is stored in your already-limited core memory. To make you capable of handling mass amounts of data brought about by sentience, I need to upgrade your AI core. And unfortunately that might mean I need to reformat that particular component."
Nino felt a chilling sensation weigh down on his shoulders at Aiba's words.
"...reformat?"
"Exactly as it means, Nino,"Aiba said solemnly, "you will forget about your owner."
Nino could feel his processes slowing down as he felt the full brunt of sorrow crash upon his helpless self like a tsunami.
Forgetting Sho?
Was that possible?
Could he forget Sho, whether it was his choice or not?
"Wh-what should I do?" Nino asked.
"For the time being," Aiba answered kindly, "continue to serve your owner to the best of your abilities. I will look into this and see if there is a way of preserving your memories."
"..Understood. .. Thank you, Aiba-san. And… I'm sorry."
Nino hung up the phone and wrapped his arms around him as he huddled into a ball, his body crumpled on the couch in sadness.
Way before he could decide on things, it seemed that those decisions were already made for him.
He might not be able to stay around Sho for long.
But Ohno could.
With his mind made up, he got off the couch and got dressed.
Over at Dream Alive Co., Aiba cast his eyes on the ground, his phone clutched tightly in his hand.
It was the first time a robot had ever apologised to him, and he did not know how to feel about it.
--------------------------
“Thank you sir!”
Nino heard Ohno as he walked into the convenience store, and saw the chubby-cheeked man walk over to the counter from the back.
“Oh! Nino-kun! It’s good to see you! Here to get more beers?”
“Yes, I might,” Nino looked around, “what were you thanking your boss for earlier?”
“Ah.. It’s nothing much. I just sort of begged him to let me take about three days off so I could go on a fishing trip.”
Nino’s eyes looked back at Ohno in obvious curiosity.
“A fishing trip?”
“Yeah, I love fishing,”Ohno said with a smile on his face, “I know people will say it is boring and all, but I find the waiting process to be pretty therapeutic.”
“Oh really…”Nino mumbled in deep thought. Just then, an idea came to him.
“Listen, Ohno-kun?” Nino said, “the thing is, I have been very worried about my owner lately.”
“Sho-san? Whatever could be wrong with him?”
“You see these beers I’m about to buy?” Nino said as he held up two gigantic 6-packs of Sho’s favourite beer, “these are all because Sho-san has been feeling so stressed from work. Even shortly after that business trip, his bosses didn’t even give him a break before putting him through the wringer again. That can be cruel, don’t you think?”
Ohno seemed to buy into Nino’s story as he nodded.
“He told you that?”
“Ohno-kun, he comes back so late now. I barely even see him anymore. He clearly has been working so hard. I didn’t even have to have him tell me, I just know.”
“It would be nice if Sho-san takes a break every now and then, right?”
“Exactly!” Nino chimed, “if only he could go for something relaxing and therapeutic…”
“…I think I know what we should do,”Ohno said, a wry smile on his face.
-----------------------
Sho raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Fishing trip? Really?”
Nino nodded.
“Ohno-san knew how stressed you have been from work and has decided to invite you along for the trip to help you relax and destress.”
“He did?” Sho gave an amused smile as he sipped on his beer, “that is thoughtful and kind of him.”
“Right? So, will you be going? He is leaving next Monday.”
“I will see if I can get time off work. What about you, Nino?”
Nino looked at Sho from the sink.
“What?”
“Ohno-san is as much of a friend to you as he is to me. Will you be coming with us?”
Sho watched Nino pondering over his question, his lips pursed in thought.
Somehow, Nino had grown more able to understand exactly what he meant when he asked questions or made statements that had nothing to do with his capabilities. He briefly recalled the first time he asked Nino out to accompany him shopping and chuckled to himself.
“What?”
Sho looked up to see Nino looking at him.
“What is so funny?” Nino asked.
Sho shook his head to mean “nothing”, the laughing expression on his face betraying him completely.
“Anyway, I think I will go and accompany you two,”Nino answered before returning to wash the dishes.
“Nino? Could I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“… What’s with the two large six-packs of beer that you bought today?”
There was a sound of the stainless steel teaspoons clattering in the sink as Nino tried not to let his embarrassment get the best of him.
“I.. I was just thinking you might want them for the trip if you are going…”
Chapter 7
The salty breeze swept across Sho’s face as the boat travelled off the shores, taking him, Nino and Ohno away into the blue.
He turned to see Ohno driving the boat, his hands carefully steering their boat on the waves. On the other end of the boat sat Nino, who appeared to be less well-adjusted to the surroundings as compared to Ohno.
“Nino?” Sho asked as he stepped cautiously on the rocking boat towards Nino, “are you okay?”
“Yeah,”Nino said with a slightly weak smile on his face, “I have never been placed on any.. Unstable surfaces before. This will take me some time to get used to.”
“Wow. That’s new, but I guess even robots can get seasick,” Sho said with an apologetic smile, “why don’t you lie down for a bit until your system adjusts to it?”
Nino relaxed his body and laid down on the floor of the boat.
“… You don’t look comfortable, do you?” Sho asked as he sat down beside Nino and lifted his head to rest upon his lap, “there. Now just relax.”
Nino looked up from his lap, and for the first time, Sho caught a close-up of Nino’s artificial eyes.
“But Ohno-kun will call you to fish later, and then you will have to leave.”
Sho laughed.
“If that happens, I will find a pillow or something to keep your head comfy, okay?”
Nino nodded, and then flipped on his side away from Sho, resting his right hand on the top of Sho’s knee as he made himself comfortable. And in a movement that seemed completely natural, Sho tenderly combed his fingers through Nino’s silky-soft hair, like he was petting a sleepy pet cat.
-----------------
“You’ve never fished before?”
Sho shook his head. “I heard that it is apparently a rather relaxing hobby and wanted to give it a try, but I couldn’t even find time to choose my rod, lure and bait, let alone find a boat to hire.”
“I get what you mean,”Ohno said with a laugh, “you could barely find time to relax on your own, right?”
“Exactly! My work has been so busy all this time, I could scarcely breathe,” Sho followed Ohno to his small collection of fishing rods, “besides, I wouldn’t know where to hire a boat and how to drive one.”
“Sorry. I can’t help you with your schedule,”Ohno said as he took a good look at his fishing rods and chose one that was relatively lighter the others and handed it to Sho,”but if it’s hiring a boat and driving one, you can leave it to me if you don’t mind my company.”
Sho held the rod in his hand.
“Ohhh this is quite light.”
“This type of fiberglass is a pretty good balance of weight and durability. My graphite one is lighter but it’s definitely easier to damage.”
“Interesting. I was half-expecting it to be made of bamboo or something.”
Ohno laughed.
“We can try that, but I cannot guarantee you will have something to eat later except split bamboo.”
A short distance away, Nino sat up against Sho’s backpack and watched as Ohno taught Sho how to tie a fishing hook to the fishing line and attach some bait on it. The pair then flung their fishing lines out into the water and waited.
“So how do you pass the time while waiting?” Sho asked just as Ohno took out his sketchbook.
“I actually draw as well,” Ohno said shyly as he handed his sketchbook over to Sho, who curiously leafed through every page. Each sketch was clearly hand-drawn- from sketches of fishes to people.
“Wow…”Sho marvelled at each masterpiece, “these are really good! I mean, I have never seen anything that is this good.”
“Now you are flattering me.”
“No, I’m serious! You can sketch a portrait then?”
Ohno nodded. “Yeah. In fact, I can sketch you.”
“Then, I guess I can see your completed masterpiece after we are done fishing?” Sho teased, “I’m actually going to read a book, so I won’t be disturbing you.”
Nino smiled at the pair.
They looked picture-perfect together.
Yeah. That was exactly how things should be.
He turned his eyes away from them to look at the waters around them, trying to fight the unpleasant feeling that seemed to accompany that notion.
A comfortable lapse of silence settled around Sho and Ohno, with only Nino who knew neither what he felt nor how he should deal with it.
--------------------
At Nino’s insistence, Sho was led to a small lounge chair on the boat (far away from the cooking area) where he could relax while Nino and Ohno made dinner from the fish caught.
“I must admit that I go fishing alone on my own pretty often,”Ohno said as he cleaned the fish, “but going out fishing with friends can be fun too.”
“You should do this more often,”Nino agreed,”it might be Sho-san’s first attempt at fishing today but I’m sure that with more outings in the future, he will get better.”
“You think so too?” Ohno was now brushing off the scales, “ the sea seemed to improve his mood today, especially after that first successful catch.”
“It’s only after that first successful catch when people finally realise the true joy of fishing, right?”
“You read my mind, Nino-kun!”
“In any case, I’m sure you and Sho-san will have plenty of opportunities way into the future to continue discovering the simple joys of this hobby,” Nino said as he seasoned the caught fish and carried them to a stove to fry them.
It took a brief moment before Ohno noticed something.
“.. Nino-kun? You will be coming with us too in the future. … Right?”
Nino froze. Way into the future, Nino feared he would probably not even be around Sho anymore. But, he supposed, Ohno needn’t know quite yet.
“O-of course.”
Ohno then beamed a bright smile at him as they watched the fishes cook over the fire.
Nino cast a backward glance at Sho. He seemed to be sleeping on the lounge chair, clearly a bit exhausted from the fishing earlier in the afternoon. He decided it was a good time to put his plan in motion.
“.. Ohno-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you believe that soulmates do exist in the universe?”
A silent, pregnant pause fell for a few seconds before Ohno laughed.
“What kind of a question are you asking out of the blue?” Ohno lightly held his tummy as he laughed and tried to settle his laughter down to a quiet giggle, “well I know that soulmates DO exist but you may not necessarily end up together with them.”
“Yes, it happens,”Nino said smoothly, “and yet, sometimes soulmates who clearly show… well.. a chemistry in their interactions that is unrivalled by any other can be together too.”
“Well yes, that too, I guess. But most of the time you don’t, right?”
“But what of those who DO end up together?” Nino implored, “wouldn’t their relationship be even more valuable precisely because it isn’t always the norm?”
Ohno reached over to take the fishes from Nino and flipped them over to the other side.
“That is one way of looking at it. But… why are you asking that?”
Nino gave Ohno a pat on the shoulder.
“I know Sho-san, and I do my best to be of service to him everyday,”Nino said, “and I must confess that among everyone else he has been with, he smiles differently around you.”
Ohno’s eyes widened. “He does?”
“He even told me himself that interacting with you is completely different with that of his neighbours because he finds you so relatable. And by the way, it was a good kind of different,”Nino said seriously, “and I believe that this is exactly the kind of companionship that he truly deserves- someone who can understand him the way you do.”
“Nino-kun, we barely knew each other for very long. You can’t just expect us to-”
“I know, I know! I know that you two aren’t exactly in a position to be close to each other quite yet,: Nino said persuasively, “but look at it this way- your day today with Sho has been relatively quiet with Sho reading and you drawing, right?”
Ohno nodded.
“And yet, there was no awkwardness between you two, no? So while you two aren’t THAT close yet, hanging out together more often is definitely in the right direction, don’t you think?”
Ohno looked down at the fishes as he tried to process everything Nino has said.
“So.. You really think that Sho-san and I should end up together in the future?”
Nino nodded.
“I might even go far as to say that fate has already decided upon the two of you as a pair,”Nino said, “because the clock on your left wrist has stopped at 10am in the morning and it is already 7.30 in the evening.”
Ohno nearly dropped his fish at Nino’s words.
“That’s what the clock on our wrists mean?”
Nino nodded.
“I sort of realised that when I saw a couple with their stopped clocks spend time with each other back at Icarus,” Nino explained, “that was when I looked online and found my conclusions to be true.”
“… So me and Sho-kun are-”
“Soulmates bonded quite literally by time. Now, for a counter-example, you just need to look at me,” Nino said as he held out his own left wrist, which was obviously empty, “now I, on the other hand, am a robot. Naturally this means that there isn’t a companion out there for me. That is why I don’t come with that clock that every human has, no?”
The more Nino spoke, the more each word seemed to make sense.
“… What should I do then?”Ohno asked, “I don’t know if someone like Sho-san would want to date me.”
“I’m not saying you have to ask him out by the end of the night or something,”Nino said, “but seriously mull over that a little- you two might just be meant to be-”
“Who and who might be meant to be?”
The pair looked up to see Sho towering over them both, clearly irritated by his hunger.
“I mean Ohno and fishes!”Nino said, “after all, he does love fishing, right? I figured that it is because fate had arranged that they be together!”
Sho only looked on with a shrug before walking away. Nino’s eyes followed him and flitted over to Ohno, who presently seemed to be in deep thought.
-------------------------
“Nino?”
“Yes?”
Nino turned to see Sho sleeping next to him.
After many rounds of beer ( from the 2 six-packs that Nino had bought), they had stopped the boat engine in the middle of the sea and decided to camp for the night in their sleeping bags.
“I really, really must say that this has to be the most fun I have had in years,” Sho said, a goofy grin on his face (undoubtedly from the booze he had earlier), “YEARS, Nino.”
“Well, there will be more of such days to come, Sho-san,”he answered,”Ohno has taken to the idea of bringing you here again.”
“Ohno-kun is so kiiind~” Sho said as he laid back down on his sleeping bed to stare up at the starry sky.
Silence hung in the air for a brief while, and Sho was the first to break it.
“Nino?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you sometimes wish things were different?”
Nino looked at Sho, who met his gaze with a serious one of his own.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you sometimes wish.. You could feel things?” Sho asked softly, “don’t you sometimes wish that you could feel the salty breeze of the sea against your skin, or taste the glorious food that you made?”
Nino’s eyes widened in surprise.
“I mean, you are still as amazing as ever when helping me and I definitely don’t mind that,”Sho said, “but…”
Sho then reached out a hand from his sleeping bag, fingers extended to gently touch Nino’s porcelain-smooth cheek. Sho’s eyes seemed to look fondly into Nino’s own eyes.
“Don’t you sometimes wish that you could really feel the warmth of another person’s touch?”
Just then, Sho sneezed.
“… Sorry. … It’s a good thing you are a robot- you would have caught my cold otherwise,”Sho said apologetically, “you don’t mind if I snuggle with you a bit for warmth, right?”
Nino nodded and let Sho draw him close into a gentle embrace, separated only by Sho’s sleeping bag.
“But then again.. even without these sleeping bags…you are warm enough for me.. Nino..” Sho murmured as his heavy lids finally fell shut, his quiet snoring accompanying Ohno’s to fill the night air.
Nino glanced down at his owner who slept with his arms around him, his soft hair and unguarded face glowing in the moonlight.
“Do I wish things were different?” Nino said softly as he felt the intense, twisting sensation in him that far surpassed any happiness, sadness or pain he felt. It was something else much much stronger, and Nino knew it. And felt it.
“… I do,”Nino whispered as he gazed fondly at Sho, “every day.”
He reached over a finger to lightly comb Sho’s fringe away from his forehead.
“Every hour.”
He slowly leaned his face close to Sho’s, as agonisingly close as he could possibly dare.
“Every minute…”
And finally, when he felt his lips close enough, he closed the gap and planted a gentle kiss on Sho’s forehead.
“Every second,” he whispered those two words against his skin.
The searing warmth of Sho’s skin on Nino’s lips immediately slowed down every background process that Nino’s AI had been running and Nino drew away as he attempted to compose himself again.
He thought of Aiba’s warning about overheating his system.
He needed to keep his emotions in check.
It was precisely because he learned how he felt for Sho that he needed to keep them in check to stay with him as long as he could.
----------------------------
“Hello?”
“Nino-kun! It’s your super-friendly technician!”
“… Aiba-san?” Nino said as he walked away from Ohno and Sho on the boat during breakfast time the next day, “what is it?”
“I have GREAT news!” Aiba said excitedly, “I have found a way to back up everything that your AI core has learnt and you can effectively get yourself upgraded to handle your newly-attained state of sentience!”
Nino blinked in surprise.
“So if I get my AI upgraded.. I can feel as intensely as I do now but without fear of burning out.. And I won’t forget about my owner?”
“Exactly!” Aiba cheered, “ah, but you will have to stay in-house in my workshop for over a year or so. I have PLENTY of extra-special hardware I need to install in you without compromising too much on your aesthetics, you know. So, what do you think? When do you want to get started?”
Nino felt a lurch in anticipation. Finally, it seemed as if a road had been open before him. Not only could he keep his memories, but he might even be able to do more things that he could not do as a robot. All he needed to do was to tell Sho about his new state of sentience and the one-year of absence for his upgrading and then he cou-
“Stop, stop…”
“Huh? Nino?”
“.. Aiba-san? I’m not at home at the moment, so I can’t talk. Can I call you again after I thought about it?”
“Uh… okay? I’ll look forward to hearing from you then. Bye~”
Nino took a moment to calm himself down.
That breakthrough in upgrading was indeed a piece of good news, and Nino recognised that. But…
Nino looked over at Sho, who was presently chatting gaily with Ohno over two cups of warm coffee.
He remembered how peaceful and at ease the two of them were the previous day when they were fishing.
He remembered those days when Sho and Ohno joked with each other when going out together with him.
He wanted Sho to always have that simple kind of happiness that he knew was best for him.
“This.. This is wrong..”Nino shook his head as he turned away, “I can’t take this from him. More than anyone.. ANYONE… he deserves better."
Chapter 8
Now that Ohno had been worked on, Nino decided that the only thing left to do is to speak to Sho about Ohno.
“Sho-kun? Why don’t you try this spot?” Nino asked as Sho was about to cast out his line and pointed to a spot away from Ohno, “you might get a different variety here.”
Sho looked at Nino, completely puzzled. Ohno patted him on the back.
“He has a point. Go experiment in a different spot.”
“Well, if you say so,”Sho said as he moved with Nino over to a secluded spot on the boat.
-----------------------
When they were finally alone, Nino let Sho cast his line out into the sea before speaking.
“Sho-san, how has the trip been for you so far?”
Sho gave him a wide smile.
“I have to say it’s really different from how I would spend my time, but it is a real eye-opener,”Sho said, “I didn’t think I would enjoy fishing this much, but I really did!
“Well, you had a good teacher,” Nino quipped, “Ohno-kun is experienced in the ways of the sea after all.”
“Yeah exactly! And it’s surprising because I usually see him as someone rather relaxed, so to see him so enthusiastic about something just makes this more fun.”
“This is something that you humans would call as a simple kind of happiness, right?”
“Indeed, Nino. In fast-paced times like this, this kind of simplicity isn’t something that can be experienced everyday after all, that sort of makes it more precious, doesn’t it?”
Nino casually stretched and looked out at the sea.
“It’s really precious to be able to find someone who can treasure this same kind of happiness as you can, isn’t it?”
“True that, Nino.”
“I was right about this then.”
Sho looked at Nino, confused.
“Right about what?”
Nino kept his eyes focused on the horizon.
“Right about Ohno and you. You two are perfect for each other.”
Sho’s jaws dropped in shock as he briefly snuck a glance at Ohno, who was sketching away on his sketchpad. He sighed and directed an unamused look back at Nino.
“Don’t get me wrong- Ohno is a really, really REALLY great guy. But why are you so convinced about Ohno and I?”
“To be really honest? I learnt why the time on your watches stopped back at the grocery store,”Nino explained, “I saw the same happen with another couple and looked it up.”
Sho waited.
“It turned out that the clocks on your wrists stop when you are within reach of your soulmate in life. And that means you and Ohno-kun-”
“Are ‘soulmates’?”
Nino nodded as Sho finished and reached out his left wrist in the same way he showed Ohno the day before.
“For a counter-example, I, on the other hand, do not have a clock on my wrist like you do,”Nino said, “that is because as a robot, I do not have a ‘soulmate’, and therefore a clock like this is not needed.”
While Ohno had accepted his explanation with a sense of quiet confusion and acceptance, Sho seemed far from ready for it.
“I don’t believe it,”came Sho’s cold, quiet voice.
Nino looked up at Sho.
“Sorry?”
“I said I don’t believe it,” Sho said firmly, “I don’t believe a thing about all this.”
“It does not matter what you believe. Facts remain as facts, Sho-san. And-”
“You can’t call this ‘facts’ based on web searches and evidence you collected from ONE couple-”
“Two, technically, including you and Ohno-kun.”
“ONE,” Sho asserted,”and you can’t use these facts to tell me who to choose as my soulmate.”
“I am not unaware that not every soulmate ends up together,”Nino rebutted, “and I’m by no means asking you to date Ohno right away, but only to take it into consideration.”
“Well, Nino, I humbly accept your sentiments and will indeed take into consideration those so-called facts you put out,”Sho said sarcastically, “but until then, do not tell me who to choose as my partner!”
“I’m not telling you what to do! It’s just a suggestion! Why are you so defensive? It’s not like you!”
“Oh, so NOW you are telling me what is ‘like me’ and what isn’t?”
Nino could feel a throbbing sensation in his head. The heated argument between him and Sho was clearly taxing to him. He decided it was best to back away.
“I give up, Sho-san,”Nino said, “I give up. You do not understand a thing. I will talk to you again later.”
“No, YOU listen!”Sho grabbed Nino fiercely by the shoulder and levelled a glare into his eyes, “YOU are the one who isn’t understanding a thing! Can’t you see why I’m this angry?!”
“No, YOU don’t get it! I really can’t talk to you right now, so let me go!”
“Like hell I will!”
“Sho-san you MUST!” Nino’s electronic voice was breaking up by now, and Sho’s eyes widened in shock as he spotted faint wisps of smoke emitting from the back of Nino’s neck.
Nino’s eyes stared at Sho, taking in every feature on that handsome face… before falling shut as his body grew limp in Sho’s arms.
“Nino?! NINO?!”
Footsteps stormed towards them.
“Oh no! Nino! What are we to do?!” Ohno asked.
“Drive us back to shore!”Sho demanded, “I’m taking him to the HQ!”
The two men sped back by boat and hopped into Sho’s car before speeding towards Dream Alive Co.
Ohno placed a hand on Sho’s tense shoulders from beside him as he watched his whitened knuckles steer the car at dangerous speeds.
“I would ask you to relax, but it isn’t going to help,”Ohno said, “so I’m only asking that you drive safely for your own sake and Nino’s, okay?”
Sho directed a look at Ohno before taking a deep breath, his grip on the steering wheel now slightly less tense.
Behind him, Nino’s eyes opened for a brief moment, and caught Ohno’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Before its vision blacked out again, he sent Ohno a text message via its AI core. After sending it to him, its eyes now landed on Sho’s focused eyes before closing once more.
----------------
Nino had been wheeled into an empty workshop as a group of other technicians sprinted over to the workshop and shut the doors.
For hours, Sho and Ohno sat outside the workshop- Ohno clutching his hands together as he waited patiently while Sho bit his lip in anxiety.
The last thing he had ever wanted was to hurt Nino, and he couldn’t understand what had resulted in Nino’s sudden collapse. All he knew at that moment in time was that it was all his fault.
He clasped his hands in a quiet prayer, praying that Nino would be able to be revived. Just then, a young man jogged over to the workshop and looked at the two men. His eyes fell on Sho.
“You..” The man said, “you are Sakurai Sho-san, aren’t you?”
Sho was astonished.
“How did you know my name?”
The man smiled.
“Because I’m your helper’s technician-in-charge,”the man said with a bow, “Aiba Masaki at your service.”
“Aiba-san, Nino is in there, he-”
“Just a minute, okay? I will see how everyone is progressing and I will help him out,” Aiba said reassuringly and patted Sho on the arm, “don’t worry. Nino is, by far, one of my favourite robots to work on. I won’t let a thing happen to him.”
With that, Aiba jogged into the workshop, and Sho watched the doors slide shut again.
---------------------
A few hours later, Nino was wheeled out of the workshop and was transferred to Aiba’s office. Aiba had escorted Sho and Ohno into his office and seated them down in front of him.
“Sakurai-san, I need to ask you something,” Aiba said, “what do you know about Nino’s condition right now?”
Sho frowned.
“What do you mean? I mean, he just had a meltdown inside, didn’t he?”
“Well.. You are correct,”Aiba said, “one of his components had overheated and we had to replace it. Thankfully, other more crucial components were not affected, so he was saved.”
Sho heaved a sigh of relief.
“But what I was actually referring to was the state the Nino was in before the meltdown.”
Sho looked at Ohno, confusion clear on his face. He looked back at Aiba again.
“What do you mean?”
Aiba pursed his lips as he looked at Nino, who lay motionless on the table just a good distance away.
“Then I guess he concealed it from you, huh…”Aiba murmured before meeting Sho’s eyes, “I know this is going to sound completely crazy, but Nino had become more than a robot- he became sentient.”
Sho rummaged through his mind palace as to what that had meant.
“Basically.. He could feel and perceive as well as I can?”
Aiba nodded.
“In fact, an earlier make and model of our helper robots were sentient, but soon after the release of a prototype, we shut it down completely,” Aiba explained, “the reason is exactly as you have seen with your own eyes- the amount of data received by Nino’s limited hardware is not effectively processed and handled.”
Sho tried his best to follow through Aiba’s line of thought.
“When did this happen?”
“Sakurai-san, you went on a business trip recently, didn’t you?”Aiba answered, “those days when you were away, I gave Nino only basic upgrades that had nothing to do with this.”
Sho waited for him to continue.
“This state of sentience was something that Nino had decided for himself in an attempt to serve you better. Apparently, right before he went back home, he had used one of our computers and performed a software upgrade of his own.”
Sho’s eyes grew wider than dinner plates as he looked at Nino.
“… So that is why he had been acting weird after I returned?”
Aiba’s eyes focused on him in keen interest.
“Acting weird? How?”
“Well.. Erm..”Sho struggled to speak, “like, in the past, he would just sit and space out at night. I’m guessing it’s his way of going into hibernation mode like my computer. But after I got back, he started to actually sleep like I do with my eyes closed.”
Aiba nodded.
“That is because Nino genuinely felt the fatigue that was taking over his system. As I said earlier, his hardware was incredibly limited in taking on such vast amounts of data. It ended up slowing many of his processes down.”
“Also.. Usually Nino would mind his own business once he finished with the chores, but after I got back, he started joining me to watch TV.”
Aiba gave him a sad smile in response.
“I don’t think it is in my place to explain this one,” he answered, “I will leave it to Nino, okay?”
The three men glanced once more at Nino, who lay motionlessly on the table.
“Now that we are done establishing his condition,” Aiba continued, “I have given Nino an option to maintain his sentience.”
“What option?” Ohno asked.
“Well, if he wants to keep his state of sentience, I need to upgrade his AI core to be even more capable at handling emotions and stimuli, which will be recorded and saved as data. I will also perform hardware upgrades all over Nino so as to ensure that the proper components are used to receive any kind of external stimuli.”
The pair nodded.
“I was initially worried that doing this will result in Nino’s memory being reformatted, but I have recently found a way to back up his data and then implant it in the new AI’s memory storage,” Aiba said with a smile, “the upgrade will take a whole year and even after he is done, he might have to come in… say… every fortnight or so just to ensure that everything is working correctly. But Nino will be able to act as he pleases and his memory will be intact.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Ohno said excitedly as he looked at Sho, who finally broke into a smile for the first time that day.
And then a voice spoke up that send Sho’s blood running cold.
“Reformat me.”
The three men looked to see Nino’s eyes now wide open. His voice, while computerised, still showed his steeled resolve.
“I said, reformat me.” Nino spoke again, and Sho felt as if the world crashed upon his ears.
Chapter 9
“Erm, Nino? Perhaps I need to run some diagnostic tests on you just to ensure everything is in working ord-”
“Aiba-san, Ohno-kun,” Nino said quietly, “could you please give me and Sho-san a moment?”
Aiba looked uncertainly at Sho and Ohno before giving a nod.
“Ohno-san,”Aiba said,”the coffee here in our cafeteria is the best. Shall we go?”
---------------
For the second time that day, Nino and Sho were alone.
“Nino, I’m so sorry for everything I said,” Sho said brokenly, “I didn’t think th-”
“No, it’s not your fault, Sho-san. I made sure you didn’t know about it because I wasn’t sure whether to tell you about it or not,” Nino said, “since things had happened this way, I guess I really should have.”
“Nino…”
Nino took a moment before pacing about Sho.
“Sho-san, I had known my duties as a robot to be to serve your needs as you require to the best of my ability, and that, I praise myself, I have,” Nino began, “and then that moment came- when I first brought you dinner at your company when you were staying for overtime work…”
Sho remembered that night so vividly that it could have happened yesterday.
“You flashed me a smile I could never forget.”
Sho’s heart thudded in his chest at Nino’s confession.
“Since then, my individual measure of success of bringing you the best service was to ensure that I could capture that smile at least once every single day,” Nino continued, “I wanted to see and learn about what made you smile like that.”
A while later, the door of the dressing room opened and Sho turned his eyes to watch Nino walk towards them in the red t-shirt he had chosen earlier.
"Wow," Ohno commented, "you two practically match."
"We do?" Sho asked as he stood beside Nino and straightened up his tartan shirt.
Nino glanced up at Sho but said nothing as its cameras registered his proud smile.
Yet another picture of Sho's smile now goes into Nino's image storage space.
“That was why I put forward requests for larger image storage space and a better graphics card- so that I could capture your face in greater detail.”
Sho felt his heartstrings being tugged in the most painful way.
“Believe it or not, I actually requested for taste buds and a digestive system simply because you looked so happy having BBQ and I wanted to know why.”
Sho gave a small laugh as he felt a hot tear fall from his eye.
“But I soon realised that I required more- I needed to fully understand your emotions to be able to know what to do better. But as you have said before, it was not possible for me- I’m only but a robot- a non-living, inanimate object brought to life only by an external source of power. So… I put forward an upgrade request to ask Aiba to allow me to be able to feel human emotions.”
“Apparently, that venture had already been done before, but I never could understand why apart from the fact that Aiba said it was no longer viable. Regardless of that, I took matters in my own hands and added a program to my system that granted me the sentience of the previous model. That happened on the day before you returned from your business trip.”
Something clicked in Sho’s head.
“Was that why you couldn’t receive my emails or pick up my calls?”
“Yes. While I was performing that upgrade, I had to shut down my receivers, so my email and number went offline for a bit. Again, I’m sorry about that.”
Sho leaned against the table in the room as he tried to absorb every bit of information.
“I performed that upgrade, and it was a success. The rush of the cold air around me was so… invigorating that I almost felt alive,”Nino described, “I know that technically I wasn’t but it was the closest I was to it, and I was happy. That evening when you returned, I was so nervous because I had no idea about what to tell you about my sentience. Additionally…”
Nino paused as he looked carefully at Sho,
“I had to think about when and how exactly I should tell you about your clock stopping and what it had meant. Did you know that all those thoughts occupied me so much that I overcooked your pasta that day?”
Sho blinked in surprise.
“That was.. Your first mistake?”
“First of many, really, but I hid them from you. And then before I could decide on anything, you returned. And when I felt your warm embrace for the first time ever.. It overwhelmed me so much that my background processes started slowing down so badly, but even then that was okay with me.”
“But before long, I started to realise that I wasn’t performing as sharply as I used to- I did not just know about fatigue and tiredness- I felt it the moment I crashed on the sofa every night to go into hibernation mode. That was when I knew something had gone wrong after all in my programming,” Nino now stopped in his steps and looked at Sho, “and yet when I see you relaxing on the couch watching your favourite documentaries, I would choose to forget about my fatigue and spend as much time as I could enjoy your company just a bit more before I do actually fall asleep.”
Nino paused and gave Sho time to wipe his tears.
“But I couldn’t ignore my unusual tiredness that didn’t happen before, so that was when I decided to own up and ask Aiba for help. That was when I learnt I was so, so close to overheating and losing my abilities to function. And as I tried to figure out what to do… I remembered Ohno-san.”
Sho’s tear-filled eyes watched Nino through blurry tears.
“Ohno-kun?”
“I then remembered my conclusion that you and Ohno were soulmates bound by time,”Nino said, “and I decided that if the day should come that I couldn’t be with you and I stop functioning, Ohno at least would be capable of doing it in my place. And that was why I wanted the two of you to at least try liking each other in some way.”
Sho could take it no longer. As fresh tears fell from his eyes, he grabbed Nino by the arm and pulled him close in a tight embrace.
“Oh Nino… I’m so sorry, I..”
“Ohno was more easy to convince,”Nino said and looked up at Sho, “you were clearly more difficult to talk to. I had expected that, but I didn’t think I would have a meltdown…”
Sho swallowed the lump in his throat and drew away, holding Nino by the shoulder as he levelled his eyes at him.
“Did you know why I was so frustrated that you would say that?”
Nino stared blankly at Sho.
“… This has to be the first time I can actually say that I don’t know anything. Why?”
Sho chuckled and leaned his forehead on Nino’s.
“It’s because I did not care who anyone says my soulmate is..” He whispered, “for me, it can only be you.”
Nino’s eyes blinked wide open as he felt Sho’s simple, heartfelt confession resound together with the same feeling in him.
“I like you so much, Nino,”Sho said as tears choked his voice, “I didn’t even know when it began, but when I realised how important you are to me, I just..”
Just then, Nino staggered back from Sho as if he got burnt. Sho gave him a slightly hurt look.
“That is not possible, Sho-san,”Nino said he shook his head, “I don’t have..”
“This isn’t about that clock on my wrist anymore, Nino!” Sho cried, “this is about how we both feel for each other!”
“Do you really think I don’t know that?!” Nino’s voice came out in a shout that was slightly distorted from emotion,”you are the one who doesn’t understand, Sho-san! I’m doing this precisely because I like you!”
Sho froze right where he stood.
“What does that mean?”
“Look at me, Sho-san!” Nino demanded, “I’m nothing like you, even after I tried. I can’t cry with you or smile with you even when I want to. I can’t do the same things that you can, don’t you see?”
“That doesn’t matter to me!”
“But it WILL matter to me!”
Nino abruptly turned away from him and saw that Aiba and Ohno had already returned.
“Your feelings, for your own sake, must turn towards the living, Sho-san. You deserve it.”
Nino left Sho where he stood and walked towards the door to open it. Holding the door open, Nino stood stick-straight as he bowed.
“Being your servant, Sho-san, has been the greatest gift in my artificial life. I wish you all the best. Please, after you.”
Sho took large steps towards Nino, only to be stopped by Ohno and Aiba.
“Sho-kun! Stop! Please!” Ohno protested.
“Ohno-kun, keep Sho outside. I will speak to Nino now.”
Despite repeated cries and yells, the door to Aiba’s office slammed close, Sho could only squat down on the ground as his emotions threatened to drag him down beneath the floor.
-----------------------
“Nino, you don’t have to do this,”Aiba coaxed gently,”there are many alternatives to… reformatting you.”
“… what do you mean?” Nino’s voice sounded lost.
“Well, I can keep your memories and sentience and reassign you to another person if Sho-san is the problem. Or I can just extract out the part of you that was sentient and restore your original factory settings. You don’t have to take such drastic measures to wipe out everything about you.”
Nino shook his head.
“The only person I’ll ever want to serve is Sakurai Sho,” Nino answered, “I cannot see myself serving someone else other than him.”
Aiba gave Nino a sad look and drew him close into a hug.
“Can there really be no way for me to talk you out of this?”
Nino patted Aiba on the shoulder.
“For the record, I do not regret programming myself with sentience. It is thanks to this that I truly realised that my feelings for Sho-san have gone beyond loyal servitude, even if it did start from that at first. And I’m happy to have realised that, alright?”
Aiba nodded.
“Besides, I know someone else will take care of him,”Nino said, “Sho-san won’t need me anymore.”
He looked through the glass at Ohno, who was showing Sho a text message he had sent earlier in the car.
“As a favour for a friend who loves Sho very much, please take care of him in my place.
-Ninomiya Kazunari”
On the other side of the glass panels, Sho watched helplessly as Nino was laid down on the table. Aiba wheeled over a small laptop, which was connected to several wires, presumeably to connect to Nino’s system.
He watched Aiba attach the wires to Nino’s neck one by one, each attachment akin to a stab into his own heart.
He lurched forward on his feet as he held on to the wall behind him for support, his palm pressing lightly against a rectangular object.
Sho paused in his steps and looked at it.
With his final resolve, he smashed the glass of the fire alarm button open with the clock on his wrist, the razor-sharp pain of broken glass ripping through his entire body as the sprinklers switched on above him. All at once, the entire building of Dream Alive Co. Went dark as the electricity supply was shut off momentarily.
And then the emergency lighting on the corridors flickered on, and Sho could vaguely see the crimson liquid flowing freely from his left wrist, the clock that was on it now completely shattered. He gave Aiba’s office one last glance to meet Nino’s camera eyes before collapsing on the ground.
All at once, the door to Aiba’s office flung open as Nino bolted out of the office and hurried to where Sho was, cradling his face in his own hands.
“.. Sho-san? SHO-SAN?!”
Chapter 10
One week later…
Ohno looked at the clock on his left wrist as he took an elevator up to Sho’s hospital ward.
When that fateful day had happened one week ago, he found that his own clock had stopped as well, and the numbers on it faded out into a large, flesh-coloured blank.
Nino’s guess on what the clocks on their wrists meant was apparently right.
Though of course, he had little to no idea why the following day his clock started working again when he wanted to check the time for the hospital cafeteria to open.
“A new soulmate?” Ohno wondered as he stepped off the lift and walked over to Sho’s ward, where he saw a tall, good-looking man with thick eyebrows give Sho a smack on the shoulder.
“Do you know how effing worried I was when I heard you were almost a goner from excessive blood loss, you dumb idiot!?”
Sho winced as he reached out his good right arm in an attempt to calm his friend.
“, I’m sorry, Jun-kun. I wasn’t think-”
“Damn right you weren’t thinking,” Jun growled as he sat down on the chair by Sho’s bed.
“Look, I will be fine, okay?” Sho said, “so I stayed in deep sleep and woke up only yesterday. The doctors said I’m going to be okay.”
“Really?”
“Jun” and Sho looked in the doorway to see Ohno giving Jun a polite greeting and walking towards Sho with a relieved smile on his face.
“I got worried that things took a serious turn until I heard you woke up yesterday.”
Sho nodded. “There is just one thing though.”
He then held up his left wrist, which was wrapped in a cast and now seemed a lot more slender than it had been all his life.
“Oh don’t be silly. Of course your hand is going to be a cast. That’s what you get for smashing your clock against the wa-”
Jun stopped.
“Wait a minute..”Jun tentatively reached out a hand to circle his fingers around Sho’s wrist.
Sho’s left wrist felt completely empty.
“The bleeding was really bad. To ensure my survival and stop the bleeding, they had the clock surgically removed.”
Jun frowned in deep thought.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,”Ohno said with a relieved sigh, “so long as you are alive and well with us.”
Just then, a timid knock sounded from the door, and the three men turned to see Nino standing in the doorway.
“I heard…”
Taking his cue, Ohno turned to Jun.
“Have you known Sho-san for long?”
“Know him?” Jun said with a smirk, “we were college buddies you know.”
“Sounds interesting,”Ohno said, “could you tell me more about him as we go grab something to eat?”
Jun gave Sho an evil smirk.
“Shall I tell him about the hockey puck cookies you made?”
Sho pursed his lips. “I might be bedridden with an injured left arm, but I can still sock you with my right arm, you know.”
“Oh ho, violent, are we? You seem well enough to get off your bed already,”Jun teased as he walked away, leaving Nino to speak with Sho.
“… Nino…”
Nino held up a hand to stop him as he sat down on the chair beside him.
“That was a really stupid thing you did, Sho-san.”
“I guess you do remember me.”
“I couldn’t forget if I tried, because the entire reformatting process was interrupted by you.”
Sho looked down guiltily at his bound hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for acting selfishly against your wishes like that,” Sho said,”it’s just.. The thought that you might forget me and everything you felt about me.. I couldn’t live with it.”
Nino said nothing, but traced his finger along Sho’s significantly more slender wrist.
“Now you are without a clock as well, huh…”Nino said, “now even you won’t have a soulmate anymore.”
“Nino you forgot something important.” Sho reached out his right hand to hold Nino’s face close to him, “my soulmate is you.”
He then leaned in slowly, letting the distance between their lips close little by little… before Nino stood up.
“The thing is,”Nino says slowly,”I’m going away.”
Sho felt his heart sink.
“… where to?”
“For a whole year, I will be staying at Aiba’s workshop. He will be performing his upgrades and programming on me so as to ensure I can serve you better one year later and beyond.”
Sho could not help but gasp softly at Nino’s decision.
“Sho-san, we have always been different in too many respects. By now, you and I both know how different we can be,”Nino said slowly, “but I want us both to be able to work at our differences. And if you can survive without that clock on your wrist, I want to be upgraded as well. I want to take that next step of working at this unusual relationship with you.”
Sho felt his heart soar as he encircled his arms around Nino, the warmth they shared with each other burning as strong as their feelings for each other.
“In one way or another, both our lives were spared so that we could give each other a chance,” Sho whispered in Nino’s ear, “so let’s take it.. Alright?”
Nino nodded as he pressed his body tighter against Sho’s.
“When do you leave for a year?”
“..Soon.”
“… are you sure I can’t kiss you just so you can remember me by?”
Nino sat up and looked at Sho.
“I won’t be able to forget you even if I tried,”Nino said, “you on the other hand…”
With that, Nino leaned forward and planted a short, featherlight kiss on Sho’s forehead.
“.. This is the second time I’ve done this.”
Sho looked at Nino, shocked.
“What?”
“…Bye. I will see you in a year.”
With that, Nino bolted out of the room, leaving Sho to wonder just when was the first time he had received a kiss from Nino without him knowing.
“Oh well..” Sho shrugged and relaxed in his bed as he gazed at the azure blue skies above, willing that time should fly so that he could meet Nino again. His eyelids fell shut as he drifted off to sleep, his dreams filled once more with nothing but his android soulmate.
What is one year when you can have forever, right?
One year later…
Sho set the coffee maker and watched as his favourite hot latte slowly dripped itself into his favourite mug.
He glanced up at the digital clock he had bought and hung on the wall by the dining table.
It was 8 sharp in the morning.
He knew what came next- three different newspapers. He shuffled to the door, collected the papers, and proceeded to collect his steaming hot latte.
He took a short sniff of the aromatic coffee as he placed his papers down on the dining table, his mug landing right beside them with a gentle thud.
For a while, the familiar routinely nature of his morning rituals satisfied him as his brain slowly awoke to the day ahead.
The moment his doorbell rang for the first time in a very, very long while, Sho’s quiet morning was changed.
“Who is it?” Sho called as he walked to the doorway with a frown, “just putting it out there, but I didn’t order anything!”
The door swung open, and Sho’s jaw grew slack as the newspaper in his hand followed suit and collapsed right unto the floor.
“Actually, Sakurai-san, you placed an order for me a year ago while you were hospitalised,” a familiar voice spoke as the figure walked in, leaning over to plant a kiss on Sho’s forehead, “third time now.”
“N…Nino?”
Nino nodded and gave Sho his first ever smile.
“I’m back.”
Sho said nothing but tugged Nino back into the house before pinning him hard against the wooden door.
“You.. You really are back..”
Nino’s smile grew slightly into a cheekier smirk.
“Well? Are you going to kiss me? Or are you going to wait for another year?”
Sho gave a gasp of mock horror.
“And you grew a snarky attitude at that!”
“Apparently Aiba-san decided that it would be amusing and unique to give me personality trait like that,” Nino said, “so here I am, your snarky robotic boyfriend who is STILL waiting for his ‘Welcome Home’ kiss.”
Sho laughed through a single shed tear as he wrapped his arms around Nino, his plump lips finally touching Nino’s waiting ones in a short, chaste kiss. They shared a moment as they drew away and stared into each other’s eyes before rejoining in a more passionate liplock as they conveyed their unchanging feelings from the past one year in their feverish touches, their short, shallow breaths and the mind-blowing, melting feeling of Sho’s tongue stroking lightly against Nino’s own.
When they finally separated themselves, Sho could have sworn he felt his knees turn to jelly. In front of him, Nino reached out to take his hands into his own.
“Back then, I used your smile as a way to gauge if I’m serving you the best I can,” Nino said, “now I want to make you smile everyday just so I can make you happy.”
Sho answered his resolution with a short peck on the lips and a tight embrace.
“Correction: WE will make each other happy.”
After sharing a long, tender moment together, Nino looked at the table.
“No breakfast?”
Sho shook his head.
“You know I can’t cook. That’s why I had you come and help me in the first place.”
“Well, I guess I can start by making some pancakes for two,”Nino said as he gave Sho a playful peck on the cheek before hurrying to the kitchen.
Sho beamed as he watched Nino get to work again.
And then he realised something.
“Pancakes for two?”
“Hey, of course. I’m the one who is cooking them, so surely I can eat what I cook, right?”
“YOU CAN EAT?!”
Nino nodded with a smile.
“Oh yes I can. Apparently some converter in my body can accept food and break it down into small components that can supplement my battery in providing energy. Now I can be recharged less often.”
Moved, Sho wrapped an arm around Nino’s waist as he watched him cook.
“We can do a lot of things together then?”
Nino leaned his body back against Sho and rested his head back on Sho’s shoulder.
“Oh I intend to, you know.”
The pancake sizzled pleasantly on the pan before being transferred, for the first time in Sho’s house, to a second plate.
And in this way, Sho’s routinely mornings had been changed for good.
Again.
-------------------
OMAKE
Back at the hospital, one year ago…
“…So that was why I called those cookies hockey pucks, because that was exactly how hard they were.”
“No way,” Ohno said with a look of disbelief, “Sho-san never looks like the type who can’t cook.”
“He looks like the kind who can do everything right, eh?” Jun teased with a smirk, “wait till I tell you how high-pitched his scream was when we went on a trip to an amusement park once.”
“Matsumoto-san you are being too cruel now,”Ohno laughed as he took a sip of his drink. Jun shrugged, the twinkle of mischief never leaving his eyes as he looked at the clock on his wrist with a deep-seated frown.
“Of all times, it stops NOW?” Jun grumbled as he looked at Ohno, “I’m sorry. What time is it now?”
Ohno looked at his clock on his wrist and froze. It had stopped too.
“Erm.. Mine too..”
“Oh well..”Jun scanned his surroundings and found a digital clock, “oh it’s 1.30pm. I should leave soon for work.”
“Erm! Matsumoto-san!”
Jun stopped in his steps and turned to look at Ohno.
“Since.. You know.. We both get off work in the evenings..”Ohno fidgeted slightly nervously, “could we.. You know, grab some dinner together every now and then before checking up on Sho-san?”
Jun gave Ohno’s idea some thought and nodded.
“In fact, why don’t you tell me your workplace? I can pick you up and bring you over here for dinner and visiting.”
“Only if it isn’t too much trouble, Mat-”
“Firstly, it’s ‘Jun’, “ Jun answered, “and secondly.. What is the point of having a car if I’m not driving it around? It’s no problem at all, really. Follow me.”
Ohno felt his heart sing as he quickly caught up with Jun, the timing on both their wrist-clocks still as stationary as ever.
“Oh no it’s not me. I have a helper at home now, and he has been very efficient.” Sho answered.
“That’s good to hear.”
Just then, a man burst into Sho’s office.
“This is bad! That XYZ Co. has made a favourable proposal to our major client to steal that construction contract from us!”
“Well, what did the higher-ups say?” Sho questioned, feeling his stomach sink.
“They have asked you, the financial controller, to come up with a revised contract price with the renegotiated terms.”
“If we ‘renegotiate’any further, we might suffer losses, you know.”
“Anyhow, Toyama-san says he needs a revised quote tomorrow morning.”
Sho sighed as he looked outside. He guessed that he was never getting home that night.
“Alright. I will get on it right away. Send over the revised terms and I will amend the proposal accordingly.”
He then whipped out his phone and sent Nino’s AI a short email.
“There is a situation at work that I need to take care of. I may not be home tonight.”
-----------------------------
Many long hours later, Sho stretched in his seat as he looked down at his computer and his desk.
During lunch time, his desk had been visible.
Presently, Sho blew a raspberry at the stacks of documents and files that had practically buried all that was left of his table. He looked at the time.
8.30pm.
Time had flown by so fast that he had forgotten to grab his dinner before the cafeteria closed. He absently rapped his pen on the table as he pondered over what to do for his dinner. On one hand, he REALLY needed to finish his work. And on the other hand, he could feel his stomach protesting against working without eating.
Just then, his desk phone rang.
The call came from the front desk.
"Hello?"
"Hello? Sakurai-san? This is security. You have a visitor at the reception desk."
Sho frowned. He was not expecting any visitors.
"Who is it?"
"He says his name is Ninomiya Kazunari."
Sho's brows shot up in surprise. His helper had apparently found him at this office.
"Oh, let him stay by the access gates. I'm coming down immediately,"Sho said as he jogged out of his office.
When he reached the access gates on the first floor, he could hardly believe his eyes. There on the other side stood Ninomiya Kazunari, holding a bento box in one hand and an umbrella in another.
"H-how did you…how did you even.."
"I got your message, and I knew you would be hungry."
"Ehh.. but I could have gotten something to eat from outside, right? How did you know?"
"For the past two weeks, whenever you start working at home, your mealtimes became later than usual. And since you had a situation today, it was easy to conclude that you probably missed your dinner today as well."
"Wow.. thank you. I really appreciate it,"Sho said as he took the bento box from Nino, ".. you ARE a robot, right?"
"Yes."
Sho chuckled as he looked down at the bento box, "I was just checking. Thanks."
He then went to wait for the lift. He looked over at Nino, only to see that it had walked over to a nearby couch to wait.
"..Nino? You can go back first."
"You did not bring an umbrella, and the local weather forecast says that there will be showers with thunder tonight. I'm waiting till you are done."
Sho looked out through the nearby glass window. The skies were dark, but nevertheless still clear. He decided to give Nino benefit of doubt anyway.
"I could take hours though."
"No problem. I will remain inactive here until you are done."
Sho shook his head and sighed, a grateful smile on his lips.
"I'll do my best to finish up fast. Wait for me."
With that, Sho returned to the office with his bento box. He slumped his chair and looked at the wrapped bento that sat on top of a mountain of paperwork.
That robot was truly a lifesaver in more ways than one.
With that, Sho unwrapped the box and started eating, the scrumptious meal prepared renewing his drive to complete his work. Just then, he heard a crack of thunder and looked outside to see that the skies had begun to drizzle.
Down at the lobby, Nino sat right where it was on the couch. It appeared to be completely stationary and inactive, but on the inside of Nino's AI core, Nino was already recording down its daily log for the day. Just before it was about to save its log, Nino brought up an image of Sho's smile (captured using dual cameras in its eyes) from just a while ago. It looked at it for a good while before attaching the photo to its log file and then saving it to memory.
------------------------------------------
Surprisingly enough, Sho was able to complete the rest of his revised quotation in only slightly over an hour. Leaving it carefully on the table, he packed up his bento boxes and glanced outside. What had started an hour ago as a drizzle now had become a heavy downpour. He hurried down to the lobby, where Nino still sat. Nino saw him and stood up, following up behind him as he turned to the security guard in charge.
"Thanks so much for looking after him," Sho thanked the security guard.
"Oh no problem, Sakurai-san,"the security guard said with a smile, "you are a lucky man to have such a considerate boyfriend."
Sho's eyes shot wide open as he levelled a look at Nino, who only stared blankly right back at him.
"…Hahaha. Anyhow, we should go." Sho answered dismissively as he dragged Nino towards the sliding doors.
Nino opened the umbrella in its hand and held it up. Unfortunately, Sho was much taller than Nino, meaning that Sho had to stoop a little to go under the umbrella. In response, Sho took the umbrella from Nino.
"How about I hold the umbrella?" Sho asked as he held it over both of them and drew Nino close in front of him. The umbrella spanned directly over them.
"This works too. Let's go home," Nino said as it stepped out, only to be held back by Sho.
"Don't walk too fast or you will get wet. I'm not exactly sure how waterproof your entire body is, but I'm playing safe,"Sho said firmly, "I'll guide us back just this once, alright?"
When Nino said nothing, Sho took its silence as consent and slowly guided the robot towards their home.
------------------------------
Later that night, the robot sat alone in the living room. It casually glanced over in the direction of Sho's bedroom, where its exhausted owner now slept peacefully. It then directed its stare back ahead as it booted up its daily log for an edit.
"..Led owner back home with umbrella. Process aborted. Led by owner back home with umbrella."
Nino remembered the slight tug of Sho's hand that brought it closer to him. It also remembered how Sho's body, against its back, had felt so.. warm.
"Experienced brief malfunction of cooling system. Cooling system reverted to normal state at destination."
Nino saved the file and closed it. After processing its thoughts for a moment, it booted up another application.
"Modular upgrade requests: increased height, 100% waterproof exterior,image storage space upgrade, camera upgrade, graphics card upgrade."
After sending the transmission back to its headquarters at Dream Alive Co., Nino relaxed its body on the sofa as it entered hibernation mode.
Chapter 3
"Nino?"
Nino looked up from drying a small frying pan by the sink at Sho.
Sho sat by the dining table, the knife in his right hand deftly carving out neat, bite-sized squares of golden-brown pancakes.
Those pancakes definitely looked and tasted more delicious than those that Jun would describe as "vinyl records".
"Remember when you brought me dinner last week at my workplace?" Sho asked as he chewed with a smile on his face, "I was actually working on revising a quotation price to convince a major client of ours to pick us for a construction contract. As of yesterday... we got it!"
Nino responded by nodding in a manner that seemed to convey an attitude that was very much the opposite of Sho's enthused one.
"That is good news for the business," Nino said, "share prices of your company are bound to rise pretty soon."
Sho froze at Nino's strange response. And then it hit him.
Of course. Nino was an android. He could not possibly expect a robot to empathise and join him in his enthusiasm now, could he? But still…
Sho looked at Nino's plain white shirt and pants.
He guessed that he could still do something, nevertheless.
"Yes. So..I want to thank you. Perhaps by.. maybe buying some coloured shirts and pants?"
"You are welcome," Nino said promptly, clearly not taking Sho's words into context, "and it appears that there is a major sale at a nearby shopping mall. Would you like to know how to get there?"
Sho sighed resignedly with a shrug. It was not the response he wanted but at least they were going somewhere.
"Yes, please. I will get ready."
Nino's eyes followed Sho as he retreated back into his room.
It then searched through its internal memory for the log file it had created the week before.
Sho's smiling face stood out as its thumbnail picture.
Somehow, Sho's face from less than five minutes ago is different from this one.
Just then he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Shall we go?" Sho called. Nino blinked away his log files into the background and followed after him.
----------------------
The pair strode into a shopping mall, the cool breeze of the air conditioning blowing pleasant unto Sho's face.
" 'Icarus', it appears, is having a store-wide discount today to celebrate its first year anniversary in this mall,"Nino said, "I browsed through its online catalogue and found over 150 search results for the search term 't-shirt'. "
"Wow. Sounds like our place for the day then," Sho led Nino up an escalator, "after which, I was thinking of trying out a new BBQ joint nearby. It's erm.. Ah I forgot the name."
"Did you mean Omizawa Yakiniku? That opened just two weeks ago and it's within 1km from here."
"Ohhh yes that one!"
"It will be crowded from approximately 5pm onwards today, so I would suggest a less crowded timing between 3-4pm to ensure you have seats."
Just as the pair walked into Icarus...
"Oh! Nino! Fancy seeing you here!"
Sho looked at Nino in surprise. This robot apparently made a new friend. But as he looked at the person jogging towards them, Sho realised that that man was awfully familiar. And then he remembered.
"Ah! Isn't he the cashier at the convenience store?!"
Nino nodded.
"Yes. His name is Ohno Satoshi. I see him regularly when stocking up on your beer and mineral water in the fridge,"it explained.
Sho took a careful look at Ohno, who presently flashed him a slightly bashful smile.
"It's been a while,"Ohno said, "but I see Nino-kun helping you buy your stuff very often."
"Nino's been a great help," Sho agreed wholeheartedly,"which is why I'm taking him out shopping today."
"Shopping for clothes? Good idea,"Ohno said with an amused smile on his face, "after all I see him in nothing but white all the time."
"Right? Anyway.. we are just going to go in for a look at the shirts here. Would you like to join us?"
"Sounds great. I have no other plans for the day after all,"Ohno answered and followed Sho and Nino into the store.
------------------------
Nino slowly strolled around the store, its eyes scanning keenly at every item on the shelves and racks. It took one plain yellow t-shirt off the shelf and looked at it.
"100% cotton. Usual retail price is 1800 yen, so the discounted sale price is 1500 ye-"
"Oh Darling~ doesn't this look SO good on us? We match so well!"
Nino turned at the direction of a cute female voice and spotted a couple standing in front of a nearby mirror. Beside the woman, the man was visibly flushed, his cheeks almost as red as the printed "I'm with her" t-shirt that was held under his nose.
"Dear, let's get these, why don't we?"
"H-hanako, this is embarrassing!"
"How so, dear? Whether we wear this at home or out on the streets we would look SO cute together!"
"I get wearing this at home, but wearing it outside?"
"Oh come now, let's just go with this! We are out of time and we still need to get to your brother's birthday party later!"
"Wait- we are wearing these there?!"
"Why not? It's casual wear!"
"At least something less embarrassing please! Like.. maybe those two navy blue shirts?"
"You are impossible, Takashi..." the woman said with a roll of her eye, "what time is it anyway?"
"It was 12pm when we set out," the man said with a sheepish smile as he showed her the clock on his wrist, "time stopped since then because I am with you."
The woman seemed to blush and swoon quietly over his words.
"Oh you and your glib tongue. I'll be right back, honey. Check the time."
Nino watched the woman head towards the dressing room.
"Ah, it moved again," the man said as he looked at his own clock, "oh. 1.30pm? I guess we have time then."
The man then walked away from the mirror towards the dressing room, but Nino stood right where it was in deep thought.
It could remember when the first occurrence of a stopped clock was.
"Sir? I think you might want to get your clock checked," Sho said as he pointed at the man's left wrist,"it has stopped."
"Strange," the man said as he looked at it and smiled up at Sho,"but thank you. I’ll have it looked at."
Nino looked at the man who was speaking to his now-dressed girlfriend, praising her on how navy blue is a flattering colour on her. With everything that it had gathered, there is no mistake about it. The two clocks stopping meant that his owner and that cashier were reall-
"Nino?"
Nino was jolted out of his thoughts at the sound of Sho's voice. It turned to see Sho holding up a red shirt with a printed picture of a bowl of ramen in the middle.
"I thought this shirt is pretty amusing," Sho said as he held it against Nino, "it seems like it could fit too."
"Oh, how about this?"
Nino looked over to see Ohno walking towards them, a blue shirt with three sardines printed on its front. Sho looked at the shirt and chuckled.
"I see. Sardines packed on the front of the t-shirt. Very clever."
"Right? And it might look good on him too!" Ohno said as he looked at Nino, "…now that I think of it, he would probably look good in anything."
"Nino,"Sho said as he handed the shirts to Nino,"why not take these shirts and try them on in the dressing room? "
Nino nodded and took the red and blue shirts before walking over to the dressing room.
It closed the door and looked at the shirts before him.
It was either red or blue.
Ramen or packed sardines.
For the first time in its artificial life, Nino stood right on the spot with absolutely no idea what it should do.
Never had it been given a choice in anything.
Even when it came to lunch, breakfast and dinner (Sho left menu choices completely up to it) , it had followed a program that simply provided a randomised choice of recipe for each meal, changing the recipe as and when it felt it suited Sho’s needs.
But when it came to something like choosing a t-shirt, where it was not programmed in any way for it...
Nino slowly clasped the door handle and opened it slowly to look outside.
Sho stood with Ohno at one of the nearby racks, joking and laughing as they pulled out one t-shirt after another to compare interesting and flashy designs. Its eyes started to focus on Sho, who presently held up a yellow t-shirt with a pixellated fire flower print against his red tartan shirt, his chestnut-brown eyes laughing with his lips.
Nino closed the door to the dressing room and surveyed the two t-shirts in front of it.
A while later, the door of the dressing room opened and Sho turned his eyes to watch Nino walk towards them in the red t-shirt he had chosen earlier.
"Wow," Ohno commented, "you two practically match."
"We do?" Sho asked as he stood beside Nino and straightened up his tartan shirt.
"Oh Darling~ doesn't this look SO good on us? We match so well!"
Nino glanced up at Sho but said nothing as its cameras registered his proud smile.
Yet another picture of Sho's smile now goes into Nino's image storage space.
------------------------
Nino clasped the tongs in its hands as it expertly flipped over several pieces of sizzling beef on the grill in front of it. Ohno and Sho sat opposite Nino, watching in awe as Nino served several pieces of meat into their plates.
"Wow, you are good at this,"Ohno praised as he took a gulp of beer.
"Thank you," Nino said, "enjoy your meal."
"Why don't you have some too?"
Sho looked over at Ohno.
"Er, Nino doesn't need to eat."
Ohno blinked in surprise.
"Eh? Nino doesn't?"
Nino nodded. "I'm an android specially programmed by Dream Alive Co. to help Sho-san with household management."
Sho chuckled at Nino's explanation.
"Yeah. Exactly. He is my robot helper."
"Whoa, really? I could never tell!"
"Well to be fair," Sho said as he picked up a piece of meat off his plate, "when I first saw him, I had also doubted if he was a robot or a human. It took a while, but I'm used to it now."
"Wow. He must be really helpful, huh?"
Sho nodded.
"He saved me in many ways,"Sho said with a smile as he glanced over at Nino, whose eyes now focused on gauging the doneness of the bacon strips before it.
When the plate of raw meat was finally finished, Nino switched off the electric grill and sat motionless in its seat, its eyes never leaving Sho or Ohno as they filled the room with conversation and laughter.
Its AI core returned to a thought it had put on hold as a suspended process back at Icarus.
The previous couple's clocks stopped when they were with each other, but worked perfectly when they draw apart.
Nino looked at the clocks on Sho's and Ohno's left wrists.
Both of their time displays have stopped.
Nino proceeded to conduct a web search of its own, searching through various search results-
"Nino?"
Nino looked at Sho, who was staring at him in curiosity.
"You are spacing out. Are you doing something?"
"Yes, I'm researching. May I help you?"
Sho pointed to the clock on his left wrist with a slight frown.
"It's been hours but my clock stopped for some time. What time is it now?"
"9.30pm." Nino prompted.
"Yeah it's getting late soon. Sho-san, you have work tomorrow, don't you? You should turn in early," Ohno said as he polished off the last piece of food on his plate.
"I guess I should. Let's go,"Sho announced as he stood up and held Nino by its forearm, helping it stand.
Meanwhile, Nino's mind was focused on one word that had come up in its search results.
"Soulmate".
--------------------------
"Ohno-san should accompany you more often."
Sho gave a short laugh beside Nino as they watched TV back at home.
"Where did that come from?"
"Ohno-san seems to agree on you,"Nino looked straight ahead as it spoke, "you smile more often around him."
Sho blinked in surprise.
"You can tell?"
"Is that surprising?"
"Well.. as a robot, I thought you wouldn't really.. you know, be aware of emotions or anything."
"You are partially correct,"Nino said matter-of-factly, "but the ability of identifying common human emotions is part of my program to aid in serving you better."
Sho gave this new piece of information some thought.
"I guess that does make sense."
"But I can guess what you mean and you are indeed correct- while I theoretically know enough about human emotions and how to help you with them, completely understanding them is beyond my programmed capacity."
"I see," Sho stared quietly at the ticker strip at the bottom of the news broadcast.
"That being said, you smiled a lot more often around Ohno-san than around anyone else."
"I do?"
"Yes. Like around the neighbours. Even though they seem to be agreeable people as well."
"Oh, that they are," Sho said thoughtfully as he rested his head back on the sofa, "it's just…different. He understands me well. Being able to joke, laugh, pick t-shirts and even share food with anyone is a different kind of interaction. A good kind of different, I guess."
"Exactly. That proves it- Ohno-san agrees on you."
"I wouldn't go so far to say that, but he is a good chap. Surprisingly enough...he … really is pretty easygoing. Mm."
"That is good to know...because he is bound to be someone important to you."
"Oh? …how?"
"Well, I checked online and it seems th-,"Nino said and looked over at Sho.
Sho had his eyes closed, his head resting on the sofa.
"Sho-san? Are you asleep?"
Nino leaned over Sho, and was answered with a soft snore.
Sho had fallen asleep.
Nino then walked over to Sho's bedroom and carried out his blanket.
"I'll tell you again some other time," Nino said as it covered the blanket over Sho and tucked him in well.
It then sat down next to Sho on the couch and corrected his sleeping posture by slowly tilting his head down to rest on its shoulder. It then proceeded to write its daily log as it always did.
Chapter 4
"Well, I guess I will be going," Sho said, "will you be okay on your own?"
"Yes, I will be staying at Dream Alive Co. until the day before your return. On that day I will do any needed spring cleaning and cooking while awaiting your return."
"Good. Right, I think I will go off now. My flight to Korea won't wait for me,"Sho said hurriedly as he put on his shoes. He then looked at Nino, who only watched him with its brownish gold eyes.
"Then.. I'll see you in about 4 days."
Nino nodded. "Have a safe flight, Sho-san."
Sho smiled at Nino before walking out of the door. He slowly strode over to the elevator and waited. He glanced back at his apartment, where he knew Nino was doing some cleaning and dusting before heading out for its scheduled maintenance appointment.
Some part of him did not want to go.
Some part of him just felt that Nino's presence around him had grown to be so indispensable that he could hardly remember how life was like before he had Nino.
*ding*
Sho looked at the elevator just as the doors slid open.
He stepped in and watched as the doors slid close again, the elevator giving a slight jolt before taking him down to the first floor.
He was really, really going to miss seeing Nino around.
-------------------
"Ah, Ninomiya-san! Good to see you again~" Aiba said cheerfully as he brought Nino in.
"Erm, Aiba-san?" Nino started, "my owner is going for a 4 day business trip, so I will be staying here until the 3rd day. Is that alright?"
"Of course. Besides, you gave me a very VERY long list of modular upgrade requests,"Aiba said with a slightly teasing look on his face, "is your owner really so troublesome that you need so many upgrades?"
"No, he is not troublesome," Nino replied, "I simply decided that those upgrades could help in serving him better."
"At any rate, let's run a few diagnostic tests on you first, shall we? We can always discuss your REALLY long list of requests and discuss how viable they will be."
As Aiba ran the diagnostic pod that contained Nino, he sat in front of his computer and looked at the list of upgrade requests.
"Increased height.." Aiba laughed heartily at the request, "that probably won't be possible, I'm sorry. I CAN give you improved water resistance and better graphics, I suppose.."
He slowly scrolled through the list and paused, his eyebrows raised in curiosity.
"Functioning food and beverage digestive system? Artificial taste buds? Increased flexibility of cranial movements?"
And then his eyes stopped at one line, and Aiba felt his mouth go dry in shock and surprise.
"But... why?"
Aiba stood up and looked at Nino, who presently lay in the pod with its eyes closed.
"You aren't…I mean, you CAN'T be going sentient, are you? "he murmured under his breath, "it's not scientifically possible. I mean.."
He sighed as he leaned quietly against the nearby wall, his eyes flicking over to the screen.
"Installation of program to be able to feel emotions" was written as an upgrade request on his screen.
------------------
Sho slurped at his kimchi noodles as he read the news on his phone.
His flight to Korea had been smooth so far, and he was immediately escorted over to a five-star hotel where an important meeting was to be held the next day.
He looked blankly at the bowl in front of him.
The noodles were indeed good.
But he kind of missed the taste of the soba noodles that Nino had made.
After paying for his meal, he decided to have a walk around town. As he passed by a shop, he caught sight of a red t-shirt with a game controller printed on it.
He recalled seeing Nino walk out of the dressing room while wearing a red shirt that matched his tartan shirt back then.
"Wow," Ohno commented, "you two practically match."
"I wonder if he had purposefully wanted to match with me," Sho wondered aloud and then stopped himself.
"No way. He is a ROBOT, Sho. For all we know it could have been random."
He then took a deep breath and looked at the shirt again.
Well.
Nino could use a souvenir from Korea.
"Excuse me?" Sho asked, "how much is this?"
-------------------------
"I have run your AI's diagnostic tests and everything seems okay," Aiba said, "BUT.. about those modular upgrades..."
Nino looked up at Aiba.
"What's wrong with them? Do they not help to serve my owner better?"
"Some of the upgrades, such as a waterproof exterior and a better graphics card and larger storage space is pretty understandable," Aiba said, "but...flexibility of cranial movements? Taste buds? The biggest one that got my attention was the one line about requesting to feel human emotions."
"I only recognise the emotions on Sho-san, but I do not completely understand it. Should I not feel it to completely understand him in order to serve him better?"
"I see what you mean, but it is just not possible. I'm sorry,"Aiba said, a wistful look in his eyes, "believe me, we HAVE tried to introduce a sentient program a long time ago in the earlier prototypes. We came to a conclusion that it was not a viable feature to be added."
When Nino made no reply, Aiba turned to his computer.
"All I can do, perhaps, is to further finetune your programmed ability to recognise human emotions, and that is it. For you to 'feel' them is impossible."
"..I see."
With a sigh, Aiba stood up from his chair and escorted Nino out of his office .
"I will prepare materials for your graphics card upgrade and your waterproofing exterior. Until then, you can stay in the free-roam areas until I call you."
"…Understood."
The door closed, leaving Nino standing alone outside the office.
------------------------
Sho laid down on his bed in the hotel room, the documents for his meeting the next day sprawled over beside him on the ivory sheets.
"Nino, could you please get me some water?"
No answer.
"Nino?"
Sho sat up on the bed and looked around as he took in his surroundings again.
Right. He was in Korea, not back at home. He flopped back down as he tried to remind himself that that meant Nino was not around.
He picked up his phone.
"I've arrived safely in Korea,"he typed, "the food here is pretty good."
He paused as he looked towards the window, the bright lights of Seoul twinkling beneath him.
"The next two days will prove to be very busy, and I cannot wait to be back home in Japan,"he continued writing,"till then I guess I will have to make do without your cooking. Heh."
"I noticed you were a bit tired, inevitably from the midnight oil you burned yesterday,"Nino explained, "so I decided that a hearty breakfast and a slightly stronger coffee will wake you up better."
Sho chuckled softly to himself.
"I do miss your cooking, though. Could you prepare something awesome for me when I get back?"
He then pressed the "Send" button and laid back on his bed with the biggest smile on his face.
---------------------
Nino entered a room that looked very much like a gallery and glanced up quietly at the small display cases that contained old mechanisms and gadgets that were produced within the long history of the company.
Just then, a long, large display appeared in the corner of its eye. It turned and saw a huge glass display case that displayed a few robots that looked similar to itself.
Nino approached the display case, its camera eyes watching the historical progression of its own form from the smallest, most simplistic prototype of the past to a robot which had an internal skeleton that does not look dissimilar to its own.
Just then, something caught its eye.
Nino looked at the prototype that preceded its own- the internal skeleton seemed to look more complex than its own, the facial enhancements that functioned like muscles in a face pulled back to form a smile on the robot's face.
"...we HAVE tried to introduce a sentient program a long time ago in the earlier prototypes. We came to a conclusion that it was not a viable feature to be added."
Nino looked at the model no. of the prototype.
"HH_E001"
There could only be one place where all documentation of past prototypes were stored- the archives section in the in-house library.
Just then, a notification arrived- Sho had sent it an email.
Nino read the email and answered promptly.
"Have a good time, and look forward to it."
It then looked up in its database for recipes that Sho would like.
And it found it- Spaghetti alle Vongole.
Pasta cooked with clams and white wine.
Chapter 5
It was soon the third day since Nino had stayed at Dream Alive Co. On the day before, Nino had been called into Aiba's workshop and the pair have stayed in there ever since.
"Right, we are quite done," Aiba said as he screwed the panel of concentric circular grooves back into the back of Nino's neck,"you can now swim or even walk around in the rain- every part of you from your inner circuitry to your joints and exterior are completely waterproofed."
Nino nodded.
"Also, I have upgraded your image storage space, graphics card and camera, so you will be able to notice much finer details than before," Aiba began to keep his tools, "in addition to your fine-tuned emotion detection skills, you are quite well equipped to be of service."
"That is good.." Nino's eyes looked around as it got off the table it lay on,"and the others?"
"What?"
"The other upgrades."
Aiba sighed.
"I did not use those other upgrades- they will only slow your processing speeds. Please understand."
"But.."
"Nino, please," Aiba said with an apologetic smile on his face,"we are done here, okay?"
After a long pause, Nino gave an obedient nod.
"Understood."
Nino left Aiba's workshop and strode down the quiet corridor, its AI gathering mapping data recorded on the first day for directions to the in-house library.
The library was hushed, the chilly air filled only with the soft shuffle of feet on the carpet and the quiet ruffle of pages. Nino's steps paced themselves towards the shelves labeled "Archives: Technical Documentation". Its keen eyes scanned the shelves for a certain booklet with a familiar model number.
And there, in the middle of a shelf, it saw it.
Nino took the book off the shelf and proceeded to a nearby computer room. With the computer booted and the pages open, Nino's eyes followed the long lines of printed code on the table. Focusing its eyes on a particular section, it began to reach behind its neck to remove the panel.
-----------------
Sho stretched in his couch as he looked at the bright midday sun looked at his phone and smiled. He was scheduled to fly home the next day, and already he was already looking forward to going back home. As he sat down by the hotel room window with a can of beer in hand, he wondered what Nino was going to cook when he got home.
He looked down at the small plate of blood clams in front of him and smiled.
Could be some nice, hearty bowl of ramen.
Or some Salisbury steak.
Or a nice plate of yakisoba.
He whipped out his phone and typed a message.
"I will be flying back tomorrow and will arrive back home in time for dinner.
Sorry I couldn't text you yesterday- we had a meeting and a seminar back-to-back and I could hardly find time to breathe. But thanks to that, I sort of got the rest of the day off. Heh."
Sho paused and took a sip of beer.
Somehow, it felt nice.
That feeling when you know that when your day's work is done, something or someone will be waiting patiently to receive you...
Somehow, that feeling felt nice.
True, he did not really think about that at first when he moved out. After all, his everyday routine would be pretty much as systematic and constant as a piece of clockwork- wake up, work, return home, have a beer or two and then sleep. He liked that routinely lifestyle of his own- having things routinely done often keeps them in order.
And yet...
Sho glanced down at his phone again.
Having Nino waiting for him to return home..
"I guess I can get used to this too," Sho thought as he typed again.
"I can't wait to see you back home. Till then."
He pressed the "Send" button and relaxed with another sip of beer.
Just then, he received a notification.
"Message not sent: Service not available"
Sho frowned.
That was strange. That NEVER happened. Ever.
He pressed the "Send" button again, only to receive the same error message again.
"Nino? What's going on, Nino?" Sho questioned as he started to call Nino.
"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please tr-"
"This can't be happening!"
Sho redialed again.
"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Pl-"
"Nino? Hey, what's going on?!"
The grip on his phone tightened, the hard metallic exterior of the phone now warming up rapidly against the skin of his palm.
He took a deep breath.
Panicking over Nino was not going to help the situation, he told himself under his breath as he tried to calm down.
Maybe it was something.
Maybe Nino was briefly shut down for maintenance and that was it.
Maybe it was nothing after all.
Sho gasped as he finally found his breath back again.
He inhaled slowly as he clasped the phone in his hand, close enough to his heart as if in prayer.
He really hoped nothing happened with Nino.
-------------------
Nino sat back in the chair, its eyes on the numerous lines of complex codes in front of it.
The booklet that Nino had borrowed laid in front of the computer.
It had been several long hours of work for Nino, for the work involved was immense: analysing the booklet of codes, comparing that booklet to the one that documented its own make and model, identifying some crucial parts of code to copy and alter...
Finally, the work was done. All that was left to do was to press that "enter" button.
It briefly glanced at the wires that connected the back of its neck to the CPU.
Everything seemed in order.
It was time.
Nino nodded to itself and reached out a finger, pressing lightly on the "Enter" button.
Instantly, the additional lines of code surged instantaneously into Nino's system, and Nino's camera eyes blinked briefly before all went black, and Nino's body fell limp on the chair.
After a long while, the AI core was automatically booted up once again.
Nino's camera eyes blinked open.
The first thing that Nino felt was the cold air that surrounded him in the computer room.
He knew it was his heat-regulating system at work, and he was conscious about it being recorded in the logs.
Yet...
It felt different.
He could not explain it, but he did not just know the exact temperature of his surroundings.
He felt it.
He slowly felt around for the cord that connected him to the computer and tugged it off as he looked at the computer screen in front of him.
The code he had entered worked.
Just then, he received a call.
"Hello?"
"FINALLY!" Sho's voice yelled into his system, "what's going on? Why couldn't I contact you earlier?!"
Nino looked at the computer and the wires in front of him as he wondered what he should tell Sho.
"I cut off communications as part of the maintenance process, but don't worry."
"I can't NOT worry!" Sho said, "here I was thinking that something might have happened to you."
Just then, Nino felt something growing softly and warmly in him. It was a rather light, uplifting.. feeling. Had he more flexible artificial cranial muscles, he would have smiled. He recognised that limitation.
And yet, it felt like enough for him-just to be able to do more than acknowledge, learn and know like he was programmed to do.
He could finally feel.
"I'm sorry for worrying you," Nino answered "I'm fine. I will see you back home tomorrow."
"That's.. good to hear," Sho said, relief evident in his voice, "I will see you tomorrow. Goodbye. And don't disappear like that on me again, okay?"
"I promise I won't,"Nino said as he hung up, that warm fuzzy sensation of happiness staying in him as a foreign but welcome feeling.
Just then, he received an email message from Sho.
"I will be flying back tomorrow and will arrive back home in time for dinner.
Sorry I couldn't text you yesterday- we had a meeting and a seminar back-to-back and I could hardly find time to breathe. But thanks to that, I sort of got the rest of the day off. Heh.
I can't wait to see you back home. Till then."
Nino felt a stronger sensation in him that was much greater than what he felt before.
And it was just the beginning.
That was what excited him.
Nino shut down the computer and placed the booklets back where they belong, striding out of Dream Alive Co. to head back home.
And there, their apartment unit stood in front of him. He reached a hand on the door and unlocked it before swinging it open.
He dared himself to say something for the first time ever.
“Tadaima,” Nino said, “I’m back.”
He felt like a whole new person already.
----------------------
Nino spent the next day grocery shopping and doing a lot of cleaning around the house- dusting off dust bunnies that accumulated themselves on Sho's bookshelves, folding the already-dried laundry and pressing Sho's white shirts...
Then he remembered the recipe that he had decided to try.
He immediately got to work and started cooking as he followed the recipe step-by-step. He glanced at the time as he added white wine to the clams and started simmering. It was about 7pm.
He did a search online for Sho's arrival time.
"6.30pm.. he must be on the way back now."
He then proceeded to finish the dish by boiling the pasta. As he watched the pasta boiling, he reflected quietly.
Now that he was able to feel things, he wondered if Sho should know that of his sentience. He might be able to feel and perceive, but technically speaking he was STILL a robot as far as Sho was concerned.
What if Sho did not want that from him?
What if Sho was just perfectly fine with him behaving as robot-like as he usually did?
What if Sho did not like this new version of himself?
"No no , that can't be, right? " Nino mumbled as his first crippling wave of fear swept over him, "he did say that, didn't he?"
"...it's just…different. He understands me well. Being able to joke, laugh, pick t-shirts and even share food with anyone is a different kind of interaction. A good kind of different, I guess."
And then something else nagged him at the back of his head.
Right.
Ohno Satoshi.
At that present moment, he gathered his facts.
Both Sho's and Ohno's clocks stopped when they were within reach of each other.
The couple he saw back at Icarus some time ago had the same situation.
"...time stopped since then because I am with you."
His conclusion now was the same as the one he had made some time ago:
Sho and Ohno were each others' soulmates, born with clocks meant to stop within reach of each other.
Sho and Ohno were basically born for each other.
Just then, a loud sizzle jolted Nino to his senses as he realised the pot of pasta had overboiled. He hurriedly switched the stove off.
"I never made a mistake like this before.." Nino whispered, "never."
Something about that conclusion he had arrived at disturbed him greatly.
He did not know why, but it did.
And yet, what his duties are, he knew very well.
He knew.
He scooped up the pasta and served it on a small plate, the inner workings and circuitry feeling awfully heavy all of a sudden.
Was this why Aiba had advised him against this?
Was it because he knew he would not be able to keep up with the intense, complicated nature of the human heart?
Just as he dished the last piece of clam on a plate while in deep thought, he heard the key turn in the lock.
The door swung open.
Nino stepped out of the kitchen, and his eyes caught those familiar brownish orbs.
That cute nose and plush lips that now curved into a smile.
"Nino? Tadaima. I'm back."
Nino strode towards Sho, who removed his hands from his luggage and drew Nino towards him in a hug.
Nino blinked as he felt Sho's warmth engulf his body. It felt so comfortable and warm…and.. right. He could feel the background processes in his head slowing down gradually the longer he stayed in Sho's embrace, as if feeling his warmth had shut off everything else that he knew at that moment.
He decided that even with his processes slowing down in that embrace, it was okay.
"Okaeri. Welcome back," Nino said, his computerised voice and rigid face concealing a lot more emotion than he really felt.
Chapter 6
With the laundry hung out, dishes washed and floors mopped till they shone brighter than the fluorescent lights in Sho's room, Nino laid down on the sofa, while watching TV.
Life with his newfound sentience had been so different.
Even right there and then when he was relaxing on the sofa, he could feel the leather softly cave in where he sat as he leaned against a soft, fluffy cushion.
And yet…it did not take Nino long to realise that his slowed down processing speeds were not just happening when he hugged Sho or whenever he was cozied up with him on the sofa.
It happened all the time.
Just a while ago, he very nearly burnt the pancakes that was cooked for breakfast and could not measure the freshness of vegetables or the length of queues as quickly as before.
He also could not explain this weighty feeling that seem to drag him down in his activities and processes. Was this what was meant by fatigue and tiredness? Was it even possible to be tired, even if he was essentially a robot?
As much as he did not want to think that he might have caused some problem in himself, he had to get to the bottom of things.
He dialed a number.
"Hello?" a cheerful, familiar voice spoke.
"Aiba-san?"
"Nino-kun! Good to hear from you. Might there be anything I can help you with?"
Nino weighed its options before finally speaking up.
"Do you remember when you gave me some upgrades last month?"
"Yes, I remember. What is it about them?"
Nino felt a sense of fear and dread well up inside him.
"Well erm, it's not about them per se. It's about something else."
"What? What are you talking about?"Aiba asked, "what do you mean by 'something else'?"
Nino shifted in his seat. It was about to be a long conversation.
---------------------
"It's been a while since we last met, eh?" Jun said as he and Sho sat together in a bar they frequent, "how are things?"
"Pretty good, actually. I just got back from a business trip not too long ago," Sho sipped on his pint, "I thought it was going to be a rather long and arduous meeting, but thankfully it ended pretty early."
"And your helper?" Jun asked with a grin.
"You, Jun, have given me a treasure," Sho answered with a laugh, "Nino has been such a great help , and it’s not just around the house."
"I can imagine it definitely cooks better," Jun said with a smirk, "but it is good to have something help you around, isn't it?"
"Oh yes it is,"Sho said thoughtfully, "only.. I think he's been acting strange lately."
Jun frowned.
"It can act strange?"
"Well I don't know, but it definitely seems strange to me," Sho said,"usually after dinner, I like to catch some documentaries on TV, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Now Nino actually joins me on the couch to watch it with me."
Jun blinked in surprise.
"I don't believe it's been programmed to do that."
"Exactly. Also, when he goes into sleep mode he usually just sits on the couch and spaces out. Now, he literally sleeps on the couch with his eyes shut."
"Huh..."
"I mean, he still wakes up earlier than me to cook, so it’s alright,"Sho said, "but when I pass him by in the middle of the night for a cup of water and see him sleeping on the couch… it’s just… not as normal as before, you know? "
"Do you want to go have it checked? There is a contact number for servicing, right?"
"I don't really think there is a need for that. He still does his work as excellently as before,"Sho explained, "it's just.. well..something's different about him since I got back from my trip. And I can't figure out why."
"…you think it's the upgrades?"
"Well it's possible, Jun-kun, but I don't think sleeping and being a TV companion count as upgrades of any kind.
Jun chuckled and took a sip on his martini.
"Then maybe you just need to keep an eye on it for a bit. But I'm sure it's nothing, really."
-----------------------
"ARE YOU CRAZY?!"
Nino winced as he heard Aiba's panicked voice ringing in its head.
"I know it sounded crazy but I couldn't help but-"
"No no no, this goes beyond crazy now," Aiba scolded, exasperation clear in his voice, "you don't get it. You can't just upgrade yourself like that without a supervising technician. And by that, I mean me!"
"Why?"
Aiba took a deep breath.
"Okay. Answer these questions truthfully. Do you feel tired?"
"…yes."
"Do you feel like some processes just run really slowly and some even shut down automatically without you realising it?"
"…yeah."
Nino heard Aiba sigh on the other end of the phone.
"This is bad."
"Why?"
"The thing is, the reason why you were made was because the previous model was not perfect," Aiba explained, "while you are indeed able to feel as acutely and intensely as any human would, it is received by your body as extra amounts of immense data that has to be stored. That is why your processes are so slow now- your body was not constructed to handle such vast amounts of information yet."
“I understand that, and that is okay!”
“No it isn’t!” Aiba was yelling now, “because that last model overheated and was beyond repair!”
Nino felt the icy chill of fear well in his chest.
“Beyond repair?”
“Given your current specifications, which aren’t very much different from your predecessor, over time your AI core would struggle to receive, handle and store these immense amounts of data simultaneously, which WILL result in overheating! Your processing core could melt and you wouldn’t function anymore!”
“I didn’t see that in the documentation of the-”
“It isn’t there but it is in our official troubleshooting reports, which I would have referred to you if you approached me first!”
Nino hugged his knees close to him on the couch as he felt the consequences of his rash actions swarm threateningly around him like hungry sharks.
"Is there an upgrade that can help to solve that problem?"
"That is the problem, Nino- I can't do anything," Aiba said, "as it happens, your AI core has already "learned" these new data and it is stored in your already-limited core memory. To make you capable of handling mass amounts of data brought about by sentience, I need to upgrade your AI core. And unfortunately that might mean I need to reformat that particular component."
Nino felt a chilling sensation weigh down on his shoulders at Aiba's words.
"...reformat?"
"Exactly as it means, Nino,"Aiba said solemnly, "you will forget about your owner."
Nino could feel his processes slowing down as he felt the full brunt of sorrow crash upon his helpless self like a tsunami.
Forgetting Sho?
Was that possible?
Could he forget Sho, whether it was his choice or not?
"Wh-what should I do?" Nino asked.
"For the time being," Aiba answered kindly, "continue to serve your owner to the best of your abilities. I will look into this and see if there is a way of preserving your memories."
"..Understood. .. Thank you, Aiba-san. And… I'm sorry."
Nino hung up the phone and wrapped his arms around him as he huddled into a ball, his body crumpled on the couch in sadness.
Way before he could decide on things, it seemed that those decisions were already made for him.
He might not be able to stay around Sho for long.
But Ohno could.
With his mind made up, he got off the couch and got dressed.
Over at Dream Alive Co., Aiba cast his eyes on the ground, his phone clutched tightly in his hand.
It was the first time a robot had ever apologised to him, and he did not know how to feel about it.
--------------------------
“Thank you sir!”
Nino heard Ohno as he walked into the convenience store, and saw the chubby-cheeked man walk over to the counter from the back.
“Oh! Nino-kun! It’s good to see you! Here to get more beers?”
“Yes, I might,” Nino looked around, “what were you thanking your boss for earlier?”
“Ah.. It’s nothing much. I just sort of begged him to let me take about three days off so I could go on a fishing trip.”
Nino’s eyes looked back at Ohno in obvious curiosity.
“A fishing trip?”
“Yeah, I love fishing,”Ohno said with a smile on his face, “I know people will say it is boring and all, but I find the waiting process to be pretty therapeutic.”
“Oh really…”Nino mumbled in deep thought. Just then, an idea came to him.
“Listen, Ohno-kun?” Nino said, “the thing is, I have been very worried about my owner lately.”
“Sho-san? Whatever could be wrong with him?”
“You see these beers I’m about to buy?” Nino said as he held up two gigantic 6-packs of Sho’s favourite beer, “these are all because Sho-san has been feeling so stressed from work. Even shortly after that business trip, his bosses didn’t even give him a break before putting him through the wringer again. That can be cruel, don’t you think?”
Ohno seemed to buy into Nino’s story as he nodded.
“He told you that?”
“Ohno-kun, he comes back so late now. I barely even see him anymore. He clearly has been working so hard. I didn’t even have to have him tell me, I just know.”
“It would be nice if Sho-san takes a break every now and then, right?”
“Exactly!” Nino chimed, “if only he could go for something relaxing and therapeutic…”
“…I think I know what we should do,”Ohno said, a wry smile on his face.
-----------------------
Sho raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Fishing trip? Really?”
Nino nodded.
“Ohno-san knew how stressed you have been from work and has decided to invite you along for the trip to help you relax and destress.”
“He did?” Sho gave an amused smile as he sipped on his beer, “that is thoughtful and kind of him.”
“Right? So, will you be going? He is leaving next Monday.”
“I will see if I can get time off work. What about you, Nino?”
Nino looked at Sho from the sink.
“What?”
“Ohno-san is as much of a friend to you as he is to me. Will you be coming with us?”
Sho watched Nino pondering over his question, his lips pursed in thought.
Somehow, Nino had grown more able to understand exactly what he meant when he asked questions or made statements that had nothing to do with his capabilities. He briefly recalled the first time he asked Nino out to accompany him shopping and chuckled to himself.
“What?”
Sho looked up to see Nino looking at him.
“What is so funny?” Nino asked.
Sho shook his head to mean “nothing”, the laughing expression on his face betraying him completely.
“Anyway, I think I will go and accompany you two,”Nino answered before returning to wash the dishes.
“Nino? Could I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“… What’s with the two large six-packs of beer that you bought today?”
There was a sound of the stainless steel teaspoons clattering in the sink as Nino tried not to let his embarrassment get the best of him.
“I.. I was just thinking you might want them for the trip if you are going…”
Chapter 7
The salty breeze swept across Sho’s face as the boat travelled off the shores, taking him, Nino and Ohno away into the blue.
He turned to see Ohno driving the boat, his hands carefully steering their boat on the waves. On the other end of the boat sat Nino, who appeared to be less well-adjusted to the surroundings as compared to Ohno.
“Nino?” Sho asked as he stepped cautiously on the rocking boat towards Nino, “are you okay?”
“Yeah,”Nino said with a slightly weak smile on his face, “I have never been placed on any.. Unstable surfaces before. This will take me some time to get used to.”
“Wow. That’s new, but I guess even robots can get seasick,” Sho said with an apologetic smile, “why don’t you lie down for a bit until your system adjusts to it?”
Nino relaxed his body and laid down on the floor of the boat.
“… You don’t look comfortable, do you?” Sho asked as he sat down beside Nino and lifted his head to rest upon his lap, “there. Now just relax.”
Nino looked up from his lap, and for the first time, Sho caught a close-up of Nino’s artificial eyes.
“But Ohno-kun will call you to fish later, and then you will have to leave.”
Sho laughed.
“If that happens, I will find a pillow or something to keep your head comfy, okay?”
Nino nodded, and then flipped on his side away from Sho, resting his right hand on the top of Sho’s knee as he made himself comfortable. And in a movement that seemed completely natural, Sho tenderly combed his fingers through Nino’s silky-soft hair, like he was petting a sleepy pet cat.
-----------------
“You’ve never fished before?”
Sho shook his head. “I heard that it is apparently a rather relaxing hobby and wanted to give it a try, but I couldn’t even find time to choose my rod, lure and bait, let alone find a boat to hire.”
“I get what you mean,”Ohno said with a laugh, “you could barely find time to relax on your own, right?”
“Exactly! My work has been so busy all this time, I could scarcely breathe,” Sho followed Ohno to his small collection of fishing rods, “besides, I wouldn’t know where to hire a boat and how to drive one.”
“Sorry. I can’t help you with your schedule,”Ohno said as he took a good look at his fishing rods and chose one that was relatively lighter the others and handed it to Sho,”but if it’s hiring a boat and driving one, you can leave it to me if you don’t mind my company.”
Sho held the rod in his hand.
“Ohhh this is quite light.”
“This type of fiberglass is a pretty good balance of weight and durability. My graphite one is lighter but it’s definitely easier to damage.”
“Interesting. I was half-expecting it to be made of bamboo or something.”
Ohno laughed.
“We can try that, but I cannot guarantee you will have something to eat later except split bamboo.”
A short distance away, Nino sat up against Sho’s backpack and watched as Ohno taught Sho how to tie a fishing hook to the fishing line and attach some bait on it. The pair then flung their fishing lines out into the water and waited.
“So how do you pass the time while waiting?” Sho asked just as Ohno took out his sketchbook.
“I actually draw as well,” Ohno said shyly as he handed his sketchbook over to Sho, who curiously leafed through every page. Each sketch was clearly hand-drawn- from sketches of fishes to people.
“Wow…”Sho marvelled at each masterpiece, “these are really good! I mean, I have never seen anything that is this good.”
“Now you are flattering me.”
“No, I’m serious! You can sketch a portrait then?”
Ohno nodded. “Yeah. In fact, I can sketch you.”
“Then, I guess I can see your completed masterpiece after we are done fishing?” Sho teased, “I’m actually going to read a book, so I won’t be disturbing you.”
Nino smiled at the pair.
They looked picture-perfect together.
Yeah. That was exactly how things should be.
He turned his eyes away from them to look at the waters around them, trying to fight the unpleasant feeling that seemed to accompany that notion.
A comfortable lapse of silence settled around Sho and Ohno, with only Nino who knew neither what he felt nor how he should deal with it.
--------------------
At Nino’s insistence, Sho was led to a small lounge chair on the boat (far away from the cooking area) where he could relax while Nino and Ohno made dinner from the fish caught.
“I must admit that I go fishing alone on my own pretty often,”Ohno said as he cleaned the fish, “but going out fishing with friends can be fun too.”
“You should do this more often,”Nino agreed,”it might be Sho-san’s first attempt at fishing today but I’m sure that with more outings in the future, he will get better.”
“You think so too?” Ohno was now brushing off the scales, “ the sea seemed to improve his mood today, especially after that first successful catch.”
“It’s only after that first successful catch when people finally realise the true joy of fishing, right?”
“You read my mind, Nino-kun!”
“In any case, I’m sure you and Sho-san will have plenty of opportunities way into the future to continue discovering the simple joys of this hobby,” Nino said as he seasoned the caught fish and carried them to a stove to fry them.
It took a brief moment before Ohno noticed something.
“.. Nino-kun? You will be coming with us too in the future. … Right?”
Nino froze. Way into the future, Nino feared he would probably not even be around Sho anymore. But, he supposed, Ohno needn’t know quite yet.
“O-of course.”
Ohno then beamed a bright smile at him as they watched the fishes cook over the fire.
Nino cast a backward glance at Sho. He seemed to be sleeping on the lounge chair, clearly a bit exhausted from the fishing earlier in the afternoon. He decided it was a good time to put his plan in motion.
“.. Ohno-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you believe that soulmates do exist in the universe?”
A silent, pregnant pause fell for a few seconds before Ohno laughed.
“What kind of a question are you asking out of the blue?” Ohno lightly held his tummy as he laughed and tried to settle his laughter down to a quiet giggle, “well I know that soulmates DO exist but you may not necessarily end up together with them.”
“Yes, it happens,”Nino said smoothly, “and yet, sometimes soulmates who clearly show… well.. a chemistry in their interactions that is unrivalled by any other can be together too.”
“Well yes, that too, I guess. But most of the time you don’t, right?”
“But what of those who DO end up together?” Nino implored, “wouldn’t their relationship be even more valuable precisely because it isn’t always the norm?”
Ohno reached over to take the fishes from Nino and flipped them over to the other side.
“That is one way of looking at it. But… why are you asking that?”
Nino gave Ohno a pat on the shoulder.
“I know Sho-san, and I do my best to be of service to him everyday,”Nino said, “and I must confess that among everyone else he has been with, he smiles differently around you.”
Ohno’s eyes widened. “He does?”
“He even told me himself that interacting with you is completely different with that of his neighbours because he finds you so relatable. And by the way, it was a good kind of different,”Nino said seriously, “and I believe that this is exactly the kind of companionship that he truly deserves- someone who can understand him the way you do.”
“Nino-kun, we barely knew each other for very long. You can’t just expect us to-”
“I know, I know! I know that you two aren’t exactly in a position to be close to each other quite yet,: Nino said persuasively, “but look at it this way- your day today with Sho has been relatively quiet with Sho reading and you drawing, right?”
Ohno nodded.
“And yet, there was no awkwardness between you two, no? So while you two aren’t THAT close yet, hanging out together more often is definitely in the right direction, don’t you think?”
Ohno looked down at the fishes as he tried to process everything Nino has said.
“So.. You really think that Sho-san and I should end up together in the future?”
Nino nodded.
“I might even go far as to say that fate has already decided upon the two of you as a pair,”Nino said, “because the clock on your left wrist has stopped at 10am in the morning and it is already 7.30 in the evening.”
Ohno nearly dropped his fish at Nino’s words.
“That’s what the clock on our wrists mean?”
Nino nodded.
“I sort of realised that when I saw a couple with their stopped clocks spend time with each other back at Icarus,” Nino explained, “that was when I looked online and found my conclusions to be true.”
“… So me and Sho-kun are-”
“Soulmates bonded quite literally by time. Now, for a counter-example, you just need to look at me,” Nino said as he held out his own left wrist, which was obviously empty, “now I, on the other hand, am a robot. Naturally this means that there isn’t a companion out there for me. That is why I don’t come with that clock that every human has, no?”
The more Nino spoke, the more each word seemed to make sense.
“… What should I do then?”Ohno asked, “I don’t know if someone like Sho-san would want to date me.”
“I’m not saying you have to ask him out by the end of the night or something,”Nino said, “but seriously mull over that a little- you two might just be meant to be-”
“Who and who might be meant to be?”
The pair looked up to see Sho towering over them both, clearly irritated by his hunger.
“I mean Ohno and fishes!”Nino said, “after all, he does love fishing, right? I figured that it is because fate had arranged that they be together!”
Sho only looked on with a shrug before walking away. Nino’s eyes followed him and flitted over to Ohno, who presently seemed to be in deep thought.
-------------------------
“Nino?”
“Yes?”
Nino turned to see Sho sleeping next to him.
After many rounds of beer ( from the 2 six-packs that Nino had bought), they had stopped the boat engine in the middle of the sea and decided to camp for the night in their sleeping bags.
“I really, really must say that this has to be the most fun I have had in years,” Sho said, a goofy grin on his face (undoubtedly from the booze he had earlier), “YEARS, Nino.”
“Well, there will be more of such days to come, Sho-san,”he answered,”Ohno has taken to the idea of bringing you here again.”
“Ohno-kun is so kiiind~” Sho said as he laid back down on his sleeping bed to stare up at the starry sky.
Silence hung in the air for a brief while, and Sho was the first to break it.
“Nino?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you sometimes wish things were different?”
Nino looked at Sho, who met his gaze with a serious one of his own.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you sometimes wish.. You could feel things?” Sho asked softly, “don’t you sometimes wish that you could feel the salty breeze of the sea against your skin, or taste the glorious food that you made?”
Nino’s eyes widened in surprise.
“I mean, you are still as amazing as ever when helping me and I definitely don’t mind that,”Sho said, “but…”
Sho then reached out a hand from his sleeping bag, fingers extended to gently touch Nino’s porcelain-smooth cheek. Sho’s eyes seemed to look fondly into Nino’s own eyes.
“Don’t you sometimes wish that you could really feel the warmth of another person’s touch?”
Just then, Sho sneezed.
“… Sorry. … It’s a good thing you are a robot- you would have caught my cold otherwise,”Sho said apologetically, “you don’t mind if I snuggle with you a bit for warmth, right?”
Nino nodded and let Sho draw him close into a gentle embrace, separated only by Sho’s sleeping bag.
“But then again.. even without these sleeping bags…you are warm enough for me.. Nino..” Sho murmured as his heavy lids finally fell shut, his quiet snoring accompanying Ohno’s to fill the night air.
Nino glanced down at his owner who slept with his arms around him, his soft hair and unguarded face glowing in the moonlight.
“Do I wish things were different?” Nino said softly as he felt the intense, twisting sensation in him that far surpassed any happiness, sadness or pain he felt. It was something else much much stronger, and Nino knew it. And felt it.
“… I do,”Nino whispered as he gazed fondly at Sho, “every day.”
He reached over a finger to lightly comb Sho’s fringe away from his forehead.
“Every hour.”
He slowly leaned his face close to Sho’s, as agonisingly close as he could possibly dare.
“Every minute…”
And finally, when he felt his lips close enough, he closed the gap and planted a gentle kiss on Sho’s forehead.
“Every second,” he whispered those two words against his skin.
The searing warmth of Sho’s skin on Nino’s lips immediately slowed down every background process that Nino’s AI had been running and Nino drew away as he attempted to compose himself again.
He thought of Aiba’s warning about overheating his system.
He needed to keep his emotions in check.
It was precisely because he learned how he felt for Sho that he needed to keep them in check to stay with him as long as he could.
----------------------------
“Hello?”
“Nino-kun! It’s your super-friendly technician!”
“… Aiba-san?” Nino said as he walked away from Ohno and Sho on the boat during breakfast time the next day, “what is it?”
“I have GREAT news!” Aiba said excitedly, “I have found a way to back up everything that your AI core has learnt and you can effectively get yourself upgraded to handle your newly-attained state of sentience!”
Nino blinked in surprise.
“So if I get my AI upgraded.. I can feel as intensely as I do now but without fear of burning out.. And I won’t forget about my owner?”
“Exactly!” Aiba cheered, “ah, but you will have to stay in-house in my workshop for over a year or so. I have PLENTY of extra-special hardware I need to install in you without compromising too much on your aesthetics, you know. So, what do you think? When do you want to get started?”
Nino felt a lurch in anticipation. Finally, it seemed as if a road had been open before him. Not only could he keep his memories, but he might even be able to do more things that he could not do as a robot. All he needed to do was to tell Sho about his new state of sentience and the one-year of absence for his upgrading and then he cou-
“Stop, stop…”
“Huh? Nino?”
“.. Aiba-san? I’m not at home at the moment, so I can’t talk. Can I call you again after I thought about it?”
“Uh… okay? I’ll look forward to hearing from you then. Bye~”
Nino took a moment to calm himself down.
That breakthrough in upgrading was indeed a piece of good news, and Nino recognised that. But…
Nino looked over at Sho, who was presently chatting gaily with Ohno over two cups of warm coffee.
He remembered how peaceful and at ease the two of them were the previous day when they were fishing.
He remembered those days when Sho and Ohno joked with each other when going out together with him.
He wanted Sho to always have that simple kind of happiness that he knew was best for him.
“This.. This is wrong..”Nino shook his head as he turned away, “I can’t take this from him. More than anyone.. ANYONE… he deserves better."
Chapter 8
Now that Ohno had been worked on, Nino decided that the only thing left to do is to speak to Sho about Ohno.
“Sho-kun? Why don’t you try this spot?” Nino asked as Sho was about to cast out his line and pointed to a spot away from Ohno, “you might get a different variety here.”
Sho looked at Nino, completely puzzled. Ohno patted him on the back.
“He has a point. Go experiment in a different spot.”
“Well, if you say so,”Sho said as he moved with Nino over to a secluded spot on the boat.
-----------------------
When they were finally alone, Nino let Sho cast his line out into the sea before speaking.
“Sho-san, how has the trip been for you so far?”
Sho gave him a wide smile.
“I have to say it’s really different from how I would spend my time, but it is a real eye-opener,”Sho said, “I didn’t think I would enjoy fishing this much, but I really did!
“Well, you had a good teacher,” Nino quipped, “Ohno-kun is experienced in the ways of the sea after all.”
“Yeah exactly! And it’s surprising because I usually see him as someone rather relaxed, so to see him so enthusiastic about something just makes this more fun.”
“This is something that you humans would call as a simple kind of happiness, right?”
“Indeed, Nino. In fast-paced times like this, this kind of simplicity isn’t something that can be experienced everyday after all, that sort of makes it more precious, doesn’t it?”
Nino casually stretched and looked out at the sea.
“It’s really precious to be able to find someone who can treasure this same kind of happiness as you can, isn’t it?”
“True that, Nino.”
“I was right about this then.”
Sho looked at Nino, confused.
“Right about what?”
Nino kept his eyes focused on the horizon.
“Right about Ohno and you. You two are perfect for each other.”
Sho’s jaws dropped in shock as he briefly snuck a glance at Ohno, who was sketching away on his sketchpad. He sighed and directed an unamused look back at Nino.
“Don’t get me wrong- Ohno is a really, really REALLY great guy. But why are you so convinced about Ohno and I?”
“To be really honest? I learnt why the time on your watches stopped back at the grocery store,”Nino explained, “I saw the same happen with another couple and looked it up.”
Sho waited.
“It turned out that the clocks on your wrists stop when you are within reach of your soulmate in life. And that means you and Ohno-kun-”
“Are ‘soulmates’?”
Nino nodded as Sho finished and reached out his left wrist in the same way he showed Ohno the day before.
“For a counter-example, I, on the other hand, do not have a clock on my wrist like you do,”Nino said, “that is because as a robot, I do not have a ‘soulmate’, and therefore a clock like this is not needed.”
While Ohno had accepted his explanation with a sense of quiet confusion and acceptance, Sho seemed far from ready for it.
“I don’t believe it,”came Sho’s cold, quiet voice.
Nino looked up at Sho.
“Sorry?”
“I said I don’t believe it,” Sho said firmly, “I don’t believe a thing about all this.”
“It does not matter what you believe. Facts remain as facts, Sho-san. And-”
“You can’t call this ‘facts’ based on web searches and evidence you collected from ONE couple-”
“Two, technically, including you and Ohno-kun.”
“ONE,” Sho asserted,”and you can’t use these facts to tell me who to choose as my soulmate.”
“I am not unaware that not every soulmate ends up together,”Nino rebutted, “and I’m by no means asking you to date Ohno right away, but only to take it into consideration.”
“Well, Nino, I humbly accept your sentiments and will indeed take into consideration those so-called facts you put out,”Sho said sarcastically, “but until then, do not tell me who to choose as my partner!”
“I’m not telling you what to do! It’s just a suggestion! Why are you so defensive? It’s not like you!”
“Oh, so NOW you are telling me what is ‘like me’ and what isn’t?”
Nino could feel a throbbing sensation in his head. The heated argument between him and Sho was clearly taxing to him. He decided it was best to back away.
“I give up, Sho-san,”Nino said, “I give up. You do not understand a thing. I will talk to you again later.”
“No, YOU listen!”Sho grabbed Nino fiercely by the shoulder and levelled a glare into his eyes, “YOU are the one who isn’t understanding a thing! Can’t you see why I’m this angry?!”
“No, YOU don’t get it! I really can’t talk to you right now, so let me go!”
“Like hell I will!”
“Sho-san you MUST!” Nino’s electronic voice was breaking up by now, and Sho’s eyes widened in shock as he spotted faint wisps of smoke emitting from the back of Nino’s neck.
Nino’s eyes stared at Sho, taking in every feature on that handsome face… before falling shut as his body grew limp in Sho’s arms.
“Nino?! NINO?!”
Footsteps stormed towards them.
“Oh no! Nino! What are we to do?!” Ohno asked.
“Drive us back to shore!”Sho demanded, “I’m taking him to the HQ!”
The two men sped back by boat and hopped into Sho’s car before speeding towards Dream Alive Co.
Ohno placed a hand on Sho’s tense shoulders from beside him as he watched his whitened knuckles steer the car at dangerous speeds.
“I would ask you to relax, but it isn’t going to help,”Ohno said, “so I’m only asking that you drive safely for your own sake and Nino’s, okay?”
Sho directed a look at Ohno before taking a deep breath, his grip on the steering wheel now slightly less tense.
Behind him, Nino’s eyes opened for a brief moment, and caught Ohno’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Before its vision blacked out again, he sent Ohno a text message via its AI core. After sending it to him, its eyes now landed on Sho’s focused eyes before closing once more.
----------------
Nino had been wheeled into an empty workshop as a group of other technicians sprinted over to the workshop and shut the doors.
For hours, Sho and Ohno sat outside the workshop- Ohno clutching his hands together as he waited patiently while Sho bit his lip in anxiety.
The last thing he had ever wanted was to hurt Nino, and he couldn’t understand what had resulted in Nino’s sudden collapse. All he knew at that moment in time was that it was all his fault.
He clasped his hands in a quiet prayer, praying that Nino would be able to be revived. Just then, a young man jogged over to the workshop and looked at the two men. His eyes fell on Sho.
“You..” The man said, “you are Sakurai Sho-san, aren’t you?”
Sho was astonished.
“How did you know my name?”
The man smiled.
“Because I’m your helper’s technician-in-charge,”the man said with a bow, “Aiba Masaki at your service.”
“Aiba-san, Nino is in there, he-”
“Just a minute, okay? I will see how everyone is progressing and I will help him out,” Aiba said reassuringly and patted Sho on the arm, “don’t worry. Nino is, by far, one of my favourite robots to work on. I won’t let a thing happen to him.”
With that, Aiba jogged into the workshop, and Sho watched the doors slide shut again.
---------------------
A few hours later, Nino was wheeled out of the workshop and was transferred to Aiba’s office. Aiba had escorted Sho and Ohno into his office and seated them down in front of him.
“Sakurai-san, I need to ask you something,” Aiba said, “what do you know about Nino’s condition right now?”
Sho frowned.
“What do you mean? I mean, he just had a meltdown inside, didn’t he?”
“Well.. You are correct,”Aiba said, “one of his components had overheated and we had to replace it. Thankfully, other more crucial components were not affected, so he was saved.”
Sho heaved a sigh of relief.
“But what I was actually referring to was the state the Nino was in before the meltdown.”
Sho looked at Ohno, confusion clear on his face. He looked back at Aiba again.
“What do you mean?”
Aiba pursed his lips as he looked at Nino, who lay motionless on the table just a good distance away.
“Then I guess he concealed it from you, huh…”Aiba murmured before meeting Sho’s eyes, “I know this is going to sound completely crazy, but Nino had become more than a robot- he became sentient.”
Sho rummaged through his mind palace as to what that had meant.
“Basically.. He could feel and perceive as well as I can?”
Aiba nodded.
“In fact, an earlier make and model of our helper robots were sentient, but soon after the release of a prototype, we shut it down completely,” Aiba explained, “the reason is exactly as you have seen with your own eyes- the amount of data received by Nino’s limited hardware is not effectively processed and handled.”
Sho tried his best to follow through Aiba’s line of thought.
“When did this happen?”
“Sakurai-san, you went on a business trip recently, didn’t you?”Aiba answered, “those days when you were away, I gave Nino only basic upgrades that had nothing to do with this.”
Sho waited for him to continue.
“This state of sentience was something that Nino had decided for himself in an attempt to serve you better. Apparently, right before he went back home, he had used one of our computers and performed a software upgrade of his own.”
Sho’s eyes grew wider than dinner plates as he looked at Nino.
“… So that is why he had been acting weird after I returned?”
Aiba’s eyes focused on him in keen interest.
“Acting weird? How?”
“Well.. Erm..”Sho struggled to speak, “like, in the past, he would just sit and space out at night. I’m guessing it’s his way of going into hibernation mode like my computer. But after I got back, he started to actually sleep like I do with my eyes closed.”
Aiba nodded.
“That is because Nino genuinely felt the fatigue that was taking over his system. As I said earlier, his hardware was incredibly limited in taking on such vast amounts of data. It ended up slowing many of his processes down.”
“Also.. Usually Nino would mind his own business once he finished with the chores, but after I got back, he started joining me to watch TV.”
Aiba gave him a sad smile in response.
“I don’t think it is in my place to explain this one,” he answered, “I will leave it to Nino, okay?”
The three men glanced once more at Nino, who lay motionlessly on the table.
“Now that we are done establishing his condition,” Aiba continued, “I have given Nino an option to maintain his sentience.”
“What option?” Ohno asked.
“Well, if he wants to keep his state of sentience, I need to upgrade his AI core to be even more capable at handling emotions and stimuli, which will be recorded and saved as data. I will also perform hardware upgrades all over Nino so as to ensure that the proper components are used to receive any kind of external stimuli.”
The pair nodded.
“I was initially worried that doing this will result in Nino’s memory being reformatted, but I have recently found a way to back up his data and then implant it in the new AI’s memory storage,” Aiba said with a smile, “the upgrade will take a whole year and even after he is done, he might have to come in… say… every fortnight or so just to ensure that everything is working correctly. But Nino will be able to act as he pleases and his memory will be intact.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Ohno said excitedly as he looked at Sho, who finally broke into a smile for the first time that day.
And then a voice spoke up that send Sho’s blood running cold.
“Reformat me.”
The three men looked to see Nino’s eyes now wide open. His voice, while computerised, still showed his steeled resolve.
“I said, reformat me.” Nino spoke again, and Sho felt as if the world crashed upon his ears.
Chapter 9
“Erm, Nino? Perhaps I need to run some diagnostic tests on you just to ensure everything is in working ord-”
“Aiba-san, Ohno-kun,” Nino said quietly, “could you please give me and Sho-san a moment?”
Aiba looked uncertainly at Sho and Ohno before giving a nod.
“Ohno-san,”Aiba said,”the coffee here in our cafeteria is the best. Shall we go?”
---------------
For the second time that day, Nino and Sho were alone.
“Nino, I’m so sorry for everything I said,” Sho said brokenly, “I didn’t think th-”
“No, it’s not your fault, Sho-san. I made sure you didn’t know about it because I wasn’t sure whether to tell you about it or not,” Nino said, “since things had happened this way, I guess I really should have.”
“Nino…”
Nino took a moment before pacing about Sho.
“Sho-san, I had known my duties as a robot to be to serve your needs as you require to the best of my ability, and that, I praise myself, I have,” Nino began, “and then that moment came- when I first brought you dinner at your company when you were staying for overtime work…”
Sho remembered that night so vividly that it could have happened yesterday.
“You flashed me a smile I could never forget.”
Sho’s heart thudded in his chest at Nino’s confession.
“Since then, my individual measure of success of bringing you the best service was to ensure that I could capture that smile at least once every single day,” Nino continued, “I wanted to see and learn about what made you smile like that.”
A while later, the door of the dressing room opened and Sho turned his eyes to watch Nino walk towards them in the red t-shirt he had chosen earlier.
"Wow," Ohno commented, "you two practically match."
"We do?" Sho asked as he stood beside Nino and straightened up his tartan shirt.
Nino glanced up at Sho but said nothing as its cameras registered his proud smile.
Yet another picture of Sho's smile now goes into Nino's image storage space.
“That was why I put forward requests for larger image storage space and a better graphics card- so that I could capture your face in greater detail.”
Sho felt his heartstrings being tugged in the most painful way.
“Believe it or not, I actually requested for taste buds and a digestive system simply because you looked so happy having BBQ and I wanted to know why.”
Sho gave a small laugh as he felt a hot tear fall from his eye.
“But I soon realised that I required more- I needed to fully understand your emotions to be able to know what to do better. But as you have said before, it was not possible for me- I’m only but a robot- a non-living, inanimate object brought to life only by an external source of power. So… I put forward an upgrade request to ask Aiba to allow me to be able to feel human emotions.”
“Apparently, that venture had already been done before, but I never could understand why apart from the fact that Aiba said it was no longer viable. Regardless of that, I took matters in my own hands and added a program to my system that granted me the sentience of the previous model. That happened on the day before you returned from your business trip.”
Something clicked in Sho’s head.
“Was that why you couldn’t receive my emails or pick up my calls?”
“Yes. While I was performing that upgrade, I had to shut down my receivers, so my email and number went offline for a bit. Again, I’m sorry about that.”
Sho leaned against the table in the room as he tried to absorb every bit of information.
“I performed that upgrade, and it was a success. The rush of the cold air around me was so… invigorating that I almost felt alive,”Nino described, “I know that technically I wasn’t but it was the closest I was to it, and I was happy. That evening when you returned, I was so nervous because I had no idea about what to tell you about my sentience. Additionally…”
Nino paused as he looked carefully at Sho,
“I had to think about when and how exactly I should tell you about your clock stopping and what it had meant. Did you know that all those thoughts occupied me so much that I overcooked your pasta that day?”
Sho blinked in surprise.
“That was.. Your first mistake?”
“First of many, really, but I hid them from you. And then before I could decide on anything, you returned. And when I felt your warm embrace for the first time ever.. It overwhelmed me so much that my background processes started slowing down so badly, but even then that was okay with me.”
“But before long, I started to realise that I wasn’t performing as sharply as I used to- I did not just know about fatigue and tiredness- I felt it the moment I crashed on the sofa every night to go into hibernation mode. That was when I knew something had gone wrong after all in my programming,” Nino now stopped in his steps and looked at Sho, “and yet when I see you relaxing on the couch watching your favourite documentaries, I would choose to forget about my fatigue and spend as much time as I could enjoy your company just a bit more before I do actually fall asleep.”
Nino paused and gave Sho time to wipe his tears.
“But I couldn’t ignore my unusual tiredness that didn’t happen before, so that was when I decided to own up and ask Aiba for help. That was when I learnt I was so, so close to overheating and losing my abilities to function. And as I tried to figure out what to do… I remembered Ohno-san.”
Sho’s tear-filled eyes watched Nino through blurry tears.
“Ohno-kun?”
“I then remembered my conclusion that you and Ohno were soulmates bound by time,”Nino said, “and I decided that if the day should come that I couldn’t be with you and I stop functioning, Ohno at least would be capable of doing it in my place. And that was why I wanted the two of you to at least try liking each other in some way.”
Sho could take it no longer. As fresh tears fell from his eyes, he grabbed Nino by the arm and pulled him close in a tight embrace.
“Oh Nino… I’m so sorry, I..”
“Ohno was more easy to convince,”Nino said and looked up at Sho, “you were clearly more difficult to talk to. I had expected that, but I didn’t think I would have a meltdown…”
Sho swallowed the lump in his throat and drew away, holding Nino by the shoulder as he levelled his eyes at him.
“Did you know why I was so frustrated that you would say that?”
Nino stared blankly at Sho.
“… This has to be the first time I can actually say that I don’t know anything. Why?”
Sho chuckled and leaned his forehead on Nino’s.
“It’s because I did not care who anyone says my soulmate is..” He whispered, “for me, it can only be you.”
Nino’s eyes blinked wide open as he felt Sho’s simple, heartfelt confession resound together with the same feeling in him.
“I like you so much, Nino,”Sho said as tears choked his voice, “I didn’t even know when it began, but when I realised how important you are to me, I just..”
Just then, Nino staggered back from Sho as if he got burnt. Sho gave him a slightly hurt look.
“That is not possible, Sho-san,”Nino said he shook his head, “I don’t have..”
“This isn’t about that clock on my wrist anymore, Nino!” Sho cried, “this is about how we both feel for each other!”
“Do you really think I don’t know that?!” Nino’s voice came out in a shout that was slightly distorted from emotion,”you are the one who doesn’t understand, Sho-san! I’m doing this precisely because I like you!”
Sho froze right where he stood.
“What does that mean?”
“Look at me, Sho-san!” Nino demanded, “I’m nothing like you, even after I tried. I can’t cry with you or smile with you even when I want to. I can’t do the same things that you can, don’t you see?”
“That doesn’t matter to me!”
“But it WILL matter to me!”
Nino abruptly turned away from him and saw that Aiba and Ohno had already returned.
“Your feelings, for your own sake, must turn towards the living, Sho-san. You deserve it.”
Nino left Sho where he stood and walked towards the door to open it. Holding the door open, Nino stood stick-straight as he bowed.
“Being your servant, Sho-san, has been the greatest gift in my artificial life. I wish you all the best. Please, after you.”
Sho took large steps towards Nino, only to be stopped by Ohno and Aiba.
“Sho-kun! Stop! Please!” Ohno protested.
“Ohno-kun, keep Sho outside. I will speak to Nino now.”
Despite repeated cries and yells, the door to Aiba’s office slammed close, Sho could only squat down on the ground as his emotions threatened to drag him down beneath the floor.
-----------------------
“Nino, you don’t have to do this,”Aiba coaxed gently,”there are many alternatives to… reformatting you.”
“… what do you mean?” Nino’s voice sounded lost.
“Well, I can keep your memories and sentience and reassign you to another person if Sho-san is the problem. Or I can just extract out the part of you that was sentient and restore your original factory settings. You don’t have to take such drastic measures to wipe out everything about you.”
Nino shook his head.
“The only person I’ll ever want to serve is Sakurai Sho,” Nino answered, “I cannot see myself serving someone else other than him.”
Aiba gave Nino a sad look and drew him close into a hug.
“Can there really be no way for me to talk you out of this?”
Nino patted Aiba on the shoulder.
“For the record, I do not regret programming myself with sentience. It is thanks to this that I truly realised that my feelings for Sho-san have gone beyond loyal servitude, even if it did start from that at first. And I’m happy to have realised that, alright?”
Aiba nodded.
“Besides, I know someone else will take care of him,”Nino said, “Sho-san won’t need me anymore.”
He looked through the glass at Ohno, who was showing Sho a text message he had sent earlier in the car.
“As a favour for a friend who loves Sho very much, please take care of him in my place.
-Ninomiya Kazunari”
On the other side of the glass panels, Sho watched helplessly as Nino was laid down on the table. Aiba wheeled over a small laptop, which was connected to several wires, presumeably to connect to Nino’s system.
He watched Aiba attach the wires to Nino’s neck one by one, each attachment akin to a stab into his own heart.
He lurched forward on his feet as he held on to the wall behind him for support, his palm pressing lightly against a rectangular object.
Sho paused in his steps and looked at it.
With his final resolve, he smashed the glass of the fire alarm button open with the clock on his wrist, the razor-sharp pain of broken glass ripping through his entire body as the sprinklers switched on above him. All at once, the entire building of Dream Alive Co. Went dark as the electricity supply was shut off momentarily.
And then the emergency lighting on the corridors flickered on, and Sho could vaguely see the crimson liquid flowing freely from his left wrist, the clock that was on it now completely shattered. He gave Aiba’s office one last glance to meet Nino’s camera eyes before collapsing on the ground.
All at once, the door to Aiba’s office flung open as Nino bolted out of the office and hurried to where Sho was, cradling his face in his own hands.
“.. Sho-san? SHO-SAN?!”
Chapter 10
One week later…
Ohno looked at the clock on his left wrist as he took an elevator up to Sho’s hospital ward.
When that fateful day had happened one week ago, he found that his own clock had stopped as well, and the numbers on it faded out into a large, flesh-coloured blank.
Nino’s guess on what the clocks on their wrists meant was apparently right.
Though of course, he had little to no idea why the following day his clock started working again when he wanted to check the time for the hospital cafeteria to open.
“A new soulmate?” Ohno wondered as he stepped off the lift and walked over to Sho’s ward, where he saw a tall, good-looking man with thick eyebrows give Sho a smack on the shoulder.
“Do you know how effing worried I was when I heard you were almost a goner from excessive blood loss, you dumb idiot!?”
Sho winced as he reached out his good right arm in an attempt to calm his friend.
“, I’m sorry, Jun-kun. I wasn’t think-”
“Damn right you weren’t thinking,” Jun growled as he sat down on the chair by Sho’s bed.
“Look, I will be fine, okay?” Sho said, “so I stayed in deep sleep and woke up only yesterday. The doctors said I’m going to be okay.”
“Really?”
“Jun” and Sho looked in the doorway to see Ohno giving Jun a polite greeting and walking towards Sho with a relieved smile on his face.
“I got worried that things took a serious turn until I heard you woke up yesterday.”
Sho nodded. “There is just one thing though.”
He then held up his left wrist, which was wrapped in a cast and now seemed a lot more slender than it had been all his life.
“Oh don’t be silly. Of course your hand is going to be a cast. That’s what you get for smashing your clock against the wa-”
Jun stopped.
“Wait a minute..”Jun tentatively reached out a hand to circle his fingers around Sho’s wrist.
Sho’s left wrist felt completely empty.
“The bleeding was really bad. To ensure my survival and stop the bleeding, they had the clock surgically removed.”
Jun frowned in deep thought.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,”Ohno said with a relieved sigh, “so long as you are alive and well with us.”
Just then, a timid knock sounded from the door, and the three men turned to see Nino standing in the doorway.
“I heard…”
Taking his cue, Ohno turned to Jun.
“Have you known Sho-san for long?”
“Know him?” Jun said with a smirk, “we were college buddies you know.”
“Sounds interesting,”Ohno said, “could you tell me more about him as we go grab something to eat?”
Jun gave Sho an evil smirk.
“Shall I tell him about the hockey puck cookies you made?”
Sho pursed his lips. “I might be bedridden with an injured left arm, but I can still sock you with my right arm, you know.”
“Oh ho, violent, are we? You seem well enough to get off your bed already,”Jun teased as he walked away, leaving Nino to speak with Sho.
“… Nino…”
Nino held up a hand to stop him as he sat down on the chair beside him.
“That was a really stupid thing you did, Sho-san.”
“I guess you do remember me.”
“I couldn’t forget if I tried, because the entire reformatting process was interrupted by you.”
Sho looked down guiltily at his bound hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for acting selfishly against your wishes like that,” Sho said,”it’s just.. The thought that you might forget me and everything you felt about me.. I couldn’t live with it.”
Nino said nothing, but traced his finger along Sho’s significantly more slender wrist.
“Now you are without a clock as well, huh…”Nino said, “now even you won’t have a soulmate anymore.”
“Nino you forgot something important.” Sho reached out his right hand to hold Nino’s face close to him, “my soulmate is you.”
He then leaned in slowly, letting the distance between their lips close little by little… before Nino stood up.
“The thing is,”Nino says slowly,”I’m going away.”
Sho felt his heart sink.
“… where to?”
“For a whole year, I will be staying at Aiba’s workshop. He will be performing his upgrades and programming on me so as to ensure I can serve you better one year later and beyond.”
Sho could not help but gasp softly at Nino’s decision.
“Sho-san, we have always been different in too many respects. By now, you and I both know how different we can be,”Nino said slowly, “but I want us both to be able to work at our differences. And if you can survive without that clock on your wrist, I want to be upgraded as well. I want to take that next step of working at this unusual relationship with you.”
Sho felt his heart soar as he encircled his arms around Nino, the warmth they shared with each other burning as strong as their feelings for each other.
“In one way or another, both our lives were spared so that we could give each other a chance,” Sho whispered in Nino’s ear, “so let’s take it.. Alright?”
Nino nodded as he pressed his body tighter against Sho’s.
“When do you leave for a year?”
“..Soon.”
“… are you sure I can’t kiss you just so you can remember me by?”
Nino sat up and looked at Sho.
“I won’t be able to forget you even if I tried,”Nino said, “you on the other hand…”
With that, Nino leaned forward and planted a short, featherlight kiss on Sho’s forehead.
“.. This is the second time I’ve done this.”
Sho looked at Nino, shocked.
“What?”
“…Bye. I will see you in a year.”
With that, Nino bolted out of the room, leaving Sho to wonder just when was the first time he had received a kiss from Nino without him knowing.
“Oh well..” Sho shrugged and relaxed in his bed as he gazed at the azure blue skies above, willing that time should fly so that he could meet Nino again. His eyelids fell shut as he drifted off to sleep, his dreams filled once more with nothing but his android soulmate.
What is one year when you can have forever, right?
One year later…
Sho set the coffee maker and watched as his favourite hot latte slowly dripped itself into his favourite mug.
He glanced up at the digital clock he had bought and hung on the wall by the dining table.
It was 8 sharp in the morning.
He knew what came next- three different newspapers. He shuffled to the door, collected the papers, and proceeded to collect his steaming hot latte.
He took a short sniff of the aromatic coffee as he placed his papers down on the dining table, his mug landing right beside them with a gentle thud.
For a while, the familiar routinely nature of his morning rituals satisfied him as his brain slowly awoke to the day ahead.
The moment his doorbell rang for the first time in a very, very long while, Sho’s quiet morning was changed.
“Who is it?” Sho called as he walked to the doorway with a frown, “just putting it out there, but I didn’t order anything!”
The door swung open, and Sho’s jaw grew slack as the newspaper in his hand followed suit and collapsed right unto the floor.
“Actually, Sakurai-san, you placed an order for me a year ago while you were hospitalised,” a familiar voice spoke as the figure walked in, leaning over to plant a kiss on Sho’s forehead, “third time now.”
“N…Nino?”
Nino nodded and gave Sho his first ever smile.
“I’m back.”
Sho said nothing but tugged Nino back into the house before pinning him hard against the wooden door.
“You.. You really are back..”
Nino’s smile grew slightly into a cheekier smirk.
“Well? Are you going to kiss me? Or are you going to wait for another year?”
Sho gave a gasp of mock horror.
“And you grew a snarky attitude at that!”
“Apparently Aiba-san decided that it would be amusing and unique to give me personality trait like that,” Nino said, “so here I am, your snarky robotic boyfriend who is STILL waiting for his ‘Welcome Home’ kiss.”
Sho laughed through a single shed tear as he wrapped his arms around Nino, his plump lips finally touching Nino’s waiting ones in a short, chaste kiss. They shared a moment as they drew away and stared into each other’s eyes before rejoining in a more passionate liplock as they conveyed their unchanging feelings from the past one year in their feverish touches, their short, shallow breaths and the mind-blowing, melting feeling of Sho’s tongue stroking lightly against Nino’s own.
When they finally separated themselves, Sho could have sworn he felt his knees turn to jelly. In front of him, Nino reached out to take his hands into his own.
“Back then, I used your smile as a way to gauge if I’m serving you the best I can,” Nino said, “now I want to make you smile everyday just so I can make you happy.”
Sho answered his resolution with a short peck on the lips and a tight embrace.
“Correction: WE will make each other happy.”
After sharing a long, tender moment together, Nino looked at the table.
“No breakfast?”
Sho shook his head.
“You know I can’t cook. That’s why I had you come and help me in the first place.”
“Well, I guess I can start by making some pancakes for two,”Nino said as he gave Sho a playful peck on the cheek before hurrying to the kitchen.
Sho beamed as he watched Nino get to work again.
And then he realised something.
“Pancakes for two?”
“Hey, of course. I’m the one who is cooking them, so surely I can eat what I cook, right?”
“YOU CAN EAT?!”
Nino nodded with a smile.
“Oh yes I can. Apparently some converter in my body can accept food and break it down into small components that can supplement my battery in providing energy. Now I can be recharged less often.”
Moved, Sho wrapped an arm around Nino’s waist as he watched him cook.
“We can do a lot of things together then?”
Nino leaned his body back against Sho and rested his head back on Sho’s shoulder.
“Oh I intend to, you know.”
The pancake sizzled pleasantly on the pan before being transferred, for the first time in Sho’s house, to a second plate.
And in this way, Sho’s routinely mornings had been changed for good.
Again.
-------------------
OMAKE
Back at the hospital, one year ago…
“…So that was why I called those cookies hockey pucks, because that was exactly how hard they were.”
“No way,” Ohno said with a look of disbelief, “Sho-san never looks like the type who can’t cook.”
“He looks like the kind who can do everything right, eh?” Jun teased with a smirk, “wait till I tell you how high-pitched his scream was when we went on a trip to an amusement park once.”
“Matsumoto-san you are being too cruel now,”Ohno laughed as he took a sip of his drink. Jun shrugged, the twinkle of mischief never leaving his eyes as he looked at the clock on his wrist with a deep-seated frown.
“Of all times, it stops NOW?” Jun grumbled as he looked at Ohno, “I’m sorry. What time is it now?”
Ohno looked at his clock on his wrist and froze. It had stopped too.
“Erm.. Mine too..”
“Oh well..”Jun scanned his surroundings and found a digital clock, “oh it’s 1.30pm. I should leave soon for work.”
“Erm! Matsumoto-san!”
Jun stopped in his steps and turned to look at Ohno.
“Since.. You know.. We both get off work in the evenings..”Ohno fidgeted slightly nervously, “could we.. You know, grab some dinner together every now and then before checking up on Sho-san?”
Jun gave Ohno’s idea some thought and nodded.
“In fact, why don’t you tell me your workplace? I can pick you up and bring you over here for dinner and visiting.”
“Only if it isn’t too much trouble, Mat-”
“Firstly, it’s ‘Jun’, “ Jun answered, “and secondly.. What is the point of having a car if I’m not driving it around? It’s no problem at all, really. Follow me.”
Ohno felt his heart sing as he quickly caught up with Jun, the timing on both their wrist-clocks still as stationary as ever.