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The goal of the Neo-World Therapy Program is for the former Remnants of Despair to rediscover their hope through bonding with one another. They’re meant to find beauty and joy in life and connection, and develop deep, permanent relationships. As such, it only makes sense that they should be encouraged to do so with each other, and not an artificial intelligence.
That being said, it’s not like they know the goal—or that Chiaki is an artificial intelligence. It’s something even she doesn’t know very much about. Chiaki knows, intuitively, that everyone here is real. When she takes their hands, when she looks into their eyes, warmth and life pulses through them. Chiaki’s own hands are warm, but that’s nothing more than 0s and 1s, the right inputs placed in the right order to bring her to life within the confines of the simulation. If someone chooses to give all their hope fragments to Chiaki, they’ll wake up to a world that is cold, dark, and painful without someone they’re close to to brave it with. So she does what’s expected of her and urges everyone to seek out each other, rather than her; to form close relationships with their real friends, not what is little more than a mirage of the friend they once had.
She can’t say it outright, though, and it’s not in Chiaki’s nature—either as an entity or as an AI—to turn them down, and for reasons she can’t understand, they keep seeking her out. Hajime ducks away from an overbearing Nagito to invite her for a walk around the island. Sonia invites her swimming down on the beach. Ibuki braids her hair and Mahiru snaps pictures and Fuyuhiko nudges her in the side with his elbow and remarks, with a smirk, that she ain’t so bad, compared to the rest of the people here.
The attention is nice enough. She loves them, after all, as she’s been programmed to do—but it’s not sustainable. Chiaki doesn’t want to make promises she can’t keep. Out of a lack of better options, Chiaki chooses to hide, slipping away to the third island and walking the cool, creepy halls of the hospital until she finds an empty room and sneaking inside. The door closes silently behind her. By now, everyone has had the lay of Jabberwock Island. She shouldn’t be found by anyone who’s exploring aimlessly. Additionally, she knows that the vast majority of her classmates find the hospital to be unsettling and thus wouldn’t come here to hang out. Chiaki is good to go. Or at least, as good to go as she can be, huddled on a cot alone and fiddling with a blanket while she waits for the sun to go down.
Before long, Chiaki dozes off. Without anyone else around, she has no reason to be up and running, and besides, she likes napping. She really doesn’t have a better way to pass the time. This shouldn’t be a permanent arrangement, anyway; eventually, everyone will find someone else to hang out with, and Chiaki will be able to return as a third party, a comforting presence, exactly the way that the Future Foundation intended her to be. For now, she naps, lying on her side with her hood pulled up, and dreams of farm animals.
The sound of the door opening is what wakes her, some indeterminate amount of time later. From the way the sun is positioned through the window, Chiaki thinks it’s past noon, but she doesn’t have enough experience with the sky to tell much beyond that. Besides, she has more important things to pay attention to. Rubbing one eye and yawning, Chiaki peers over at the open door, her head tilting to the side.
“A-A-Ah! I’m sorry!” Mikan stammers, trembling in place with one bandaged hand resting on the doorknob. “I-I didn’t mean to—to interrupt your nap, I’m s-so sorry, you were sleeping and I—”
“Tsumiki-san,” Chiaki interrupts. “It’s fine. I think.”
Mikan fidgets with her apron. “Y-You… you think?”
“I know,” Chiaki corrects. She scoots to the edge of her cot and sticks her legs over. “Did you come looking for me, or did you find me on accident?” Noting the anxiety in Mikan’s posture, she adds, “Is everything okay?” even though that could very well just be Mikan being anxious and not anything else. Still, it’s worth an ask.
One of Mikan’s hands finds its way to her choppy brown hair, fingers winding around one of the locks. She clears her throat and shakes her head. “No. I-I mean, yes, I’m okay, I-I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me, N-Nanami-san, I’m sorry—”
“Tsumiki-san.”
“I’m sorry!” Mikan repeats, flinching. Chiaki frowns.
“You don’t have to be sorry, I’m not mad.” Chiaki smoothes out her skirt and rises to her feet. She doesn’t approach Mikan, though, wary of spooking her. “I’m just curious.”
“Curious…” Mikan trails off. She must not be used to that reaction. The hand in her hair is white-knuckled, the strands pulled taut. Chiaki wants to walk over and pry her fingers away, but she remains put, trying to keep her gaze light and soft. Eventually, Mikan relaxes somewhat, her head ducking. “R-Right. Um. Nothing happened. I-I mean, sort of. Just. Yesterday, Souda-san hurt himself while working on a computer i-in the junkyard, and I took care of it, but I didn’t have a lot of materials, so… so I thought I would come here and look for medical supplies. B-But I didn’t realise you would be in here sleeping! I’m s—”
Chiaki interjects, “Hiding, actually. The nap was just… because I was sitting still. I think.” Talking about napping is making Chiaki sleepy. She stifles a yawn. “It’s okay, anyway. I hear napping in the middle of the day isn’t good for you.”
“A-Ah, no,” Mikan shakes her head, “it’s okay. Afternoon naps are actually really good for you as long as you don’t sleep for too long! And you seem like the type to sleep a lot, so I doubt it’ll affect your sleep… though if it does start getting harder for you to sleep a night, I could help you find the right medication for it… I can’t promise anything, but I—” Mikan blinks and seems to realise she’s been rambling. Her face flushes, and she bows deep. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I d-didn’t mean to go off on you like that, I just—”
“It’s okay.” Chiaki doesn’t soften the statement this time. “I liked it. You’re pretty smart, Tsumiki-san.”
Mikan straightens up, rubbing the side of her neck with one hand. That flush creeps to her ears. “Nnn… not really. I just know how to take care of people since I always…” She trails off, fidgeting with her hair. “N-Nevermind, I don’t want to trouble Nanami-san with stuff like that.” She takes a breath. “Um, can I ask…? What did you mean you were hiding?”
Oh. Chiaki had said that, didn’t she? She pouts and looks away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and wondering how to explain. Before she can, though, Mikan speaks again.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” The words come out in a bit of a rush, but Mikan’s expression is earnest. “I-I was just… wondering. Because sometimes the people get a bit too much for m-me, too, and so I… go to the library, or somewhere quiet, to be alone. If it’s like that, I understand. U-Unless that’s presumptuous of me! I wouldn’t want to overstep.”
“You worry too much about that,” Chiaki says. “Don’t apologise.”
Mikan closes her mouth.
“It’s… something like that,” Chiaki continues, touching her chin. “Not quite… that everyone is too much. They’re just enough, I think. But sometimes I feel like they spend too much time with me and not enough with each other.” That’s a bit too candid. Chiaki frowns down at her shoes. “It’s not a bad thing for them to spend time with me, but…”
“I understand,” Mikan utters. She clears her throat, and Chiaki looks up at her, watches her speak with more confidence. “I-I mean, it’s maybe not the same as you, because y-you always… take such good care of everyone else, ehehe, but… every time Hinata-san or Mioda-san ask me to hang out, I always, umm… feel like they’re wasting their time on me, y-you know? Like… they’re all so good, they should enjoy each other, and not… spend time with me because they feel bad for me.”
That’s not why Chiaki is here, or even close to the reason why she needs everyone to love each other, and not her, but… that doesn’t mean she can’t understand it, anyway. Chiaki is an AI—she isn’t human. She can’t function freely the same way the rest of them can. She loves them because that’s her purpose, and when they leave, Chiaki will stagnate here until the next group of people comes, and then she’ll love them too. Don’t they deserve to care for someone real? Someone whole? Someone who can care for them in the same way they care of her?
“But, Nanami-san,” Mikan speaks again, “you… you shouldn’t feel that way. Because you’re so… nice, and patient, and honest. M-Maybe it feels like you’re taking space that isn’t yours, but, I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think that, any time spent with Nanami-san… I don’t think that it can be a waste.”
Oh. Chiaki blinks, stares, feels her artificial heart speed up in her artificial chest. Warmth is flooding her face, her neck, and it buzzes through her abdomen, welling in her throat. How is she supposed to respond to that? How is she supposed to tell Mikan that she’s wrong when she wears that earnest expression?
Chiaki pulls up her hood and yanks on the drawstrings so Mikan won’t catch her blush. From the giggle Mikan lets out, though, it’s obvious she’s already seen it.
“Sorry,” Mikan says again, but it’s light and fluffy through laughter. She probably doesn’t mean it. “I-I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You didn’t,” Chiaki lies. It comes out sounding like a complaint. Mikan giggles again. “Um. Tsumiki-san.” You’re wrong. “Did you mean that?”
“Of course! Of course I meant it, I would never, n-never lie about something like that.” In an undertone, “Not to Nanami-san.”
Chiaki hadn’t really been doubting Mikan’s sincerity, but hearing that still darkens her blush. She almost feels like she’s going to overheat.
Instead, she pulls down her hood and crosses the room to Mikan, puffing out her cheeks. Letting someone give her all their hope fragments is still doing wrong by them—Chiaki isn’t a real person. She can’t leave this place with them, can’t help them work towards a hopeful future. But she’s selfish, strangely, inexplicably, and she wants more than anything to gather all her own hope fragments in one hand and toss them in Mikan’s direction.
“You’re looking for stuff, right?” Chiaki asks. “Do you want help? I have good eyes from spot the difference games.”
Mikan looks surprised. “O-Oh! Right! I forgot that I was—” Her face flushes, and now they’re both red. “U-Um, you, you really want to help me, Nanami-san?”
“Yeah.” Chiaki nods. “I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
A wry smile crosses Mikan’s face. She smiles often enough, but this one is different, more sarcastic. Chiaki wants to see it more often.
“Okay,” Mikan says. “We can start in here, then. I-If you’re sure.”
Chiaki moves back to let Mikan enter the room and watches as the other girl makes her way towards a cabinet, beginning to look through the materials with an expertise only a nurse could have. Chiaki suppresses the urge to pull her hood back on, chewing on her lower lip.
She’s never been surer of anything.