Chapter Text
The post-it was still on the fridge.
Oikawa had moved in and out several times now, bought and broke fridges and abused his warranty rights probably more times than was morally correct; and yet, the note was still stuck on his white cold door, no matter what kind of catastrophe happened to the flat or house he was currently occupying, no matter if hellfire started raining on his roof or if the Pacific Ocean suddenly decided to relocate in his messy kitchen.
The messages had long been lost, along his phone and his computer, in a blurry night during which he just remembered he had kicked a lot of things and cried as much. The housekeeper had rung the next day to ask him if the mess on the pavement was his doing. Oikawa had just stared blankly at his laptop crashed in pieces on the concrete, little bits rolling on the road and flying right and left with every passing car, crushed mercilessly and discarded to an uninterested wind.
All their pictures were in there, half of them neatly sorted by date and place and the other half freely swimming around a bunch of folders branded with not quite explicit names. Oikawa had always said that he would sort them out later, and it had always owed him an annoyed and sharp poke in the ribs as his best friend plugged in his hard drive to share his maniacally classified high quality pictures.
They had printed out a few of them, not many, just the best. Always the best. Oikawa had pointed out that only one could be best by definition, and Iwa-chan had wacked him on the head with the album.
And then there had been a fire, and the album had disappeared in ashes.
It was sad, but they didn’t think too much of it at that time; they still had the numerical files anyway, and time to make other memories and take even better pictures. Mostly, they had just been so glad that no one had been hurt.
Now, they were gone. Completely gone.
And the post-it was still there.
*
DON’T BE LATE YOU ASS
*
Once again, Hajime’s inner circuits beeped in confusion as his arm jerked forward and his fist collided with his master’s forehead, sending him backwards. The tall young man stumbled towards the wall before tripping on the carpet and landing heavily on the side of the couch, barely making a sound. He didn’t even lift an arm to check the place where he had been hit. He just kept his head down, staring fiercely at something on the floor, and even though his hair was hiding most of his face, Hajime could still see from the tightness of his jaw that his master was madly clenching his teeth.
The young man had made him hit him, and yet he was unhappy.
And the android didn’t understand why.
He did know that ice was good for humans in these cases though, so he swiftly went to the kitchen to fetch some. Like everytime someone passed in front of it, the old rumpled post-it in faded yellow fluttered when he opened and closed the freezer’s door, and Hajime blinked at it. The ink was mostly gone now, barely a greyish mark stubbornly surviving the sunlight and accidental journeys in the sink.
He always felt strange when he saw that note, as if a pair of eyes was watching him and frowning at his confusion. As if his original was scowling at his inability to fulfill what he had been created for – to be a second chance, to be the vessel of the happiness that was so unfairly reaped away from his master.
And yet, he was obviously doing something wrong, and it distressed him not to know what.
He had been programmed for love, and he dispensed it unconditionally. He loved his master, and cared for him, and yet with every day that passed the young man seemed to sink a little more in the depths of unhappiness, a gloomy expression settling longer and longer on his features everytime.
Hajime had been told by some of his master’s acquaintances that his original had a special way to show his affections, and it was why the young man had programmed a specific kind of tone to trigger a punch from him. Hajime’s database told him that it happened when his master sounded “overly cocky”.
It was a very strange thing for the android, because violence had never been integrated in his programs. He was a domestic model, part of an avant-garde series allowing humans to choose their Persocom’s physical features, but also and more importantly, their personalities. As to ensure that they wouldn’t be used in any ways that could cause harm to people, violence had been contained in a safelock in their programs. His master seemed to have overridden it somehow, but everytime Hajime had to hit him, his movements were sloppy and weak and eventually put the human in an appalling mood.
Once, the young man had yelled at him and made him punch him so many times in a row that Hajime’s circuits had gotten dizzy and he had ended landing his fist in his own face.
His master had stared at him in shock, and then started laughing. That laugh had sounded like way too much like sobbings to Hajime’s automated ears.
And that stupid post-it was still staring down at him.
“Any advice?” he frowned at the piece of paper, and the note offered a contemptuous lack of reply.
Figure it out yourself, you idiot.
Hajime’s frown turned into a storm cloud on his face, and he was tempted to rip the post-it off and throw it in the trash where it should have gone years ago.
But he couldn’t. He knew that he couldn’t.
It held too much emotional value for his master, and he had been connected to his master’s needs. That note was supposed to be protected.
So even when it was the human himself who ripped off and threw it on the floor, Hajime would pick it up, smooth it the best he could, and stick it back on the white door of a fridge that couldn’t care less about all that drama.
Hajime was almost envious of the fridge. Which was horrendously stupid.
He sighed heavily and scampered to the living-room with a pack of ice in one hand and the heavy weight of helplessness on his mechanical heart.
*
“Awww come on, can I not get a discount for awesome customer service at least?” Oikawa whined, then tried to give the florist his cutest pout and puppy eyes. The shopkeeper just returned a large grin that actually accomplished the feat of being both burning as the flames of hell and freezing as a cold star. It didn’t discourage the lousy customer that the Persocom seller was though, and Hajime just sighed and left his master’s side to go wandering in the rows of flowers.
“Oh, hello!”
Hajime turned back and was greeted with a smile that triggered strange images of sunshine and flower fields in his head. In front of him, the Persocom his master had sold to the florist was beaming at him, a pot of tulips in his hand.
“Hello,” he grinned back. The gray-haired android beeped happily, then stepped away to carefully put the tulips down on a shelf. As he turned, his shirt slipped down a little, revealing the metal screws on the nape of his neck. They shone briefly in the sunlight coming from the large glass windows.
“My name is Suga now.”
Hajime started a little, then swiftly diverted his eyes from the metallic pieces to focus back on the other android’s face. The apparent screws had disappeared with the third generation of Persocoms, and “Suga” was actually the last second generation android they had in store. Old models weren’t produced anymore, and barely anyone outside of collectors bought the remaining ones anyway, especially not for business assistance.
But it wasn’t Hajime’s place to judge, and he nodded in acknowledgement.
“Congratulations,” he said heartfeltly. “I hope everything is going well here.”
Suga grinned warmly.
“Oh, yes!” he glanced back at the cash desk area where the two humans were engaged in some sort of cold confrontation based on polite and stinging digs thrown in each other’s directions. The fair-skinned android’s features relaxed into a soft smile, and his eyes shone with something that made Hajime’s mechanical guts feel all fuzzy and warm.
A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed with difficulty.
“Iwa-chan!” his master suddenly called, startling him. The tall man was waving in his direction, a bouquet of chrysanthemum in one hand and a wide smile on his face.
His smile felt cold and cruel.
“I’ll be leaving now,” Hajime excused himself. “Goodbye.”
Suga smiled and nodded back.
“Let me walk you to the door.”
Before he completely exited the shop, Hajime glanced back a last time. Suga had slid to his human’s side, and Hajime could see the man’s left arm slipped around the android’s waist.
But more than the discreet and yet obvious sign of affection, what caught Hajime’s attention was the brief look the shopkeeper threw at them before swiftly diverting his eyes. Actually, it happened so quickly that if Hajime didn’t have a top-of-the-art vision device, he could have thought that he was mistaken.
But he knew what he had seen.
The florist’s eyes were filled with a pained darkness, and they were staring directly at him.
*
“Did they look happy to you?”
Suga tilted his head curiously and blinked a couple of times. Daichi’s jaw was tight, and the android could feel that his whole body was somewhat tense.
He hummed thoughtfully.
“They didn’t look particularly unhappy, but it’s hard to judge from here. Why?”
Daichi didn’t reply, just tightening his hold on the android’s waist with an absent look.
*
“OUT!”
Hajime barely dodged the plate thrown in his direction.
“I don’t want to see your face anymore – GET OUT!”
His master’s voice was shaking badly, but the force of the order still hit him in the guts like a truck. Without waiting for the young man to find something else to throw at him, Hajime swiftly made for the door, his artificial heart pounding madly in his chest.
He didn’t stop running until he had reached the end of the street and turned the corner. There, his feet decided to come to an abrupt stop, making him trip from the momentum and reaching out to the wall to keep his balance. He felt as cold as if someone had locked him in a freezer, and he wasn’t sure his heart was going to be able to bear the mad signals it was receiving from everywhere.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture the calm and steady ticking of a clock.
After a moment, his systems’ regulation programs took over again and his heartbeat slowed down to a normal pace. The weird feeling of cold drew back, but didn’t completely leave him. Somewhere above, the sun of spring lazily reached out its rays and brushed his skin with their warmth.
It was a beautiful day.
It was a beautiful day, and it had been five years since Hajime Iwaizumi had died.
*
Hajime felt slightly stupid, wandering through the colourful aisles of the supermarket and grabbing about anything he knew his master liked eating. But he really had no other idea of what to do, and in these cases, his basic database just took over and flooded him with hopefully useful information. It was like entering a confused question in a search engine and hoping that the first result was relevant and would be fruitful.
In this particular case, the digits in his brain had answered to his panic by pushing a very special sentence in the front of his mind: babies cry when they are hungry.
Hajime frowned again, highly doubting the suitability of this knowledge with his problems, but it was better than sitting on the side of the road staring at nothing. An old lady had even given him a few notes with a compassionate and sad look, thinking that he was homeless.
It had confused him at first, and then it had embarrassed him.
And now it scared him.
What if his master meant every word he had said?
I don’t want to see your face anymore – GET OUT!
It wasn’t the first time that the young man lost his temper and said hurtful things, but it usually passed fairly quickly. Their furniture suffered a bit too, but overall not too much damage was ever done.
But today felt different.
Maybe it was because it was the anniversary of his original’s death. His master hadn’t let him go with him past the gates of the cemetery. When he had come back, he had refused to look at him in the eyes.
Maybe it was one of those complex human emotions that Hajime couldn’t completely get the grasp of, although he had a fairly complete and exhaustive encoding.
Or maybe his master was just hungry.
Hajime grabbed a pack of milk and placed it in his basket.
*
“Hello again!”
Hajime blinked in surprise when he heard the cheerful greeting. Taking quick notice of his surroundings, he realized he had somehow wandered back to the flower shop. The shopkeeper and his assistant were in the middle of closing, and Suga was smiling warmly at him, the voluptuous petal of a red rose tickling his nose. The florist briefly paused when he saw the newly arrived android, something strange flashing in his eyes, then he nodded in his direction before stepping inside again with a couple of flower pots in his hands.
Part of Hajime wanted to ask the human why he was looking at him so weirdly, but the urge died almost as soon as it had come up. He felt tired. And he wasn’t supposed to feel tired. The shopping bag in his hand felt like heavy bricks of lead.
The smile on Suga’s face wavered a bit, leaving place to a concerned look. Hajime forced the corners of his mouth to lift just a bit in what he hoped was a reassuring expression. The other android shot him a dubious look, but didn’t insist. Hajime was grateful for it.
“Can I buy something?” he suddenly asked. Suga’s mouth made a perfect “o” of surprise, but his lips quickly stretched into a bright smile.
“Of course! What would you want?”
*
Hajime stood still for a very long time in front of the house’s door, the shopping bag silent and uninterested at his left, the small bouquet of purple pansies in his right hand.
After what felt like a ridiculous long time and after receiving a fair number of curious looks from by-passers, Hajime eventually took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. He heard the clear ringing resonate in the hall on the other side of the door and waited for footsteps.
They didn’t come.
Hesitant, he rang a second time. Maybe his master didn’t hear it the first time?
Or maybe he just didn’t want him to –
Hajime frowned and shook his head. He wasn’t going down that road.
But when seconds stretched into minutes and still no one came, Hajime started feeling his heart pace rise again, and a cold shiver went down his spine.
Maybe he’s out, he told himself. He had no idea where his master could have gone at that hour though, and the streets weren’t safe at night, what if he –
Carefully placing the flowers behind his back, Hajime pressed his face to the glass on the door and squinted. In the semi-obscurity, the moonlight and street lamps still let him discern a few things. After a short moment of adjustment, the android caught the shape he was looking for on the small table by the door and sighed in relief. His master’s keys were there. He was home.
He was safe.
Why wasn’t he answering the door, then?
As the minutes passed in silence, Hajime glanced more and more at the doorbell. Maybe he should ring again? Would it really change something?
He suddenly noticed that his left hand was unconsciously fiddling with his jacket’s buttons and he jerked it away with a groan. This wasn’t going anywhere.
He knew that his master didn’t like being bothered when he wanted to be alone. And if there was one thing Hajime had caught of the human’s mood earlier, it was that he definitely wanted to be left alone for the moment.
After a few more minutes of restless staring at the doorbell, Hajime eventually sighed and passed a tired hand on his face. He would have to wait.
He didn’t have anywhere to go anyway.
He lightly pushed the shopping bag to one side of the threshold and sat on the couple of stairs leading to the door. The night was getting cold, and his jacket wasn’t protecting him from the bite of the wind. He glanced at the bread and milk poking out from the bag and at the flowers, and figured that probably no one would want to steal them anyway.
Hajime folded his legs and pulled his knees against his chest, firmly encircling them with his arms. Then he closed his eyes and reached for a button behind his neck. As he slowly faded into sleep mode, a voice quietly rose from the depths of his blurry mind, soft and familiar.
Good night, Iwa-chan.