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Shinoa decides the game first.
Yoichi, Mitsuba, even Kimizuki applaud the idea of playing with the special playmate Yū brought. Yū grins at another opportunity to humiliate it. Then bristles to see shifting red Chucks right across from him in his circle of friends minus one. (The gesture too... human. So natural it’s unnatural.)
“Hide and seek?”
“Hide.” Yū sucks his teeth, watching the others scatter after he volunteers as seeker. “Keep hiding till I find you. Hide and seek. Easy. Even a mech can do it.”
Mika brightens. Rubber flesh stretches to reveal deception: white metal sculpted like teeth. “Okay. This is fun.”
Mechanical whirs cheapen its buoyant spin, scan, and skip to a swing in the pulsing playground. Yū hisses, drags it off by the wrist.
“No.”
Rapid blinks in response give hope to an approaching malfunction, before he remembers Guren and Shinya's collective praise of the hardware updates in the new series. Just short of drinking and eating now, but the apple juice stain on Mika’s sleeve gives a disgustingly false impression.
“Hide. Go away. Farther. Far-ther!”
Yū glares as that stain retreats farther outside the playground. Disappears.
He ducks into his hands and counts.
.
Half a day. Still no sign of Mika as Guren, Shinya, the whole town searches through the storm. Fussing over replaceable merchandise.
Of course Guren didn’t notice Yū slip away. Guren doesn’t notice anything about Yū anymore. Shinya’s fault for making the stupid suggestion, placing the order. Shinya ruins everything. Everything was fine before Mika. It took away his friends’ attentions, and now it’s taken away Guren’s.
Four years out of the orphanage, and he’s forgotten in favor of a shinier toy. Replaced by replaceable merchandise.
Yuu slips in a puddle at the base of a small slope in the street, landing on his elbow with a crack that cripples. Inflamed swears against Guren, against Shinya, against Mika pathetically fizzle in the downpour to cries and wet whines. Half an hour later he resigns and presses his cheek to the flooded ground, but spies it out of the corner of his eye: His salvation and curse tucked in an alleyway.
It sits grinning at its abandonment. Artificial twigs for legs splayed out. Skin smooth, unlike Yū’s deplorably skinned limbs. Synthetic gold hair drenched and stringy. Shirt wet and clinging, a second skin. There’s an apple juice stain somewhere, and Yū gets up to kick at where it should be with a soaked sneaker. Mika shines metal deception in his direction as it rebounds.
“Hi, Yū!"
"Hi, stupid.”
The insult is unrecognized. Mika’s programmed with an IQ of 140.
Yū doesn’t care. He’s twelve. Twelve year olds can still be childish. “What’re you doing?"
His own voice answers through Mika’s slack lips. "Hide and seek. Easy. Even a mech can do it.” The blank stare drains away as the recording stops and Mika regains animation. “I hideー”
“And I seek, yeah, yeah. Tag. Found you, okay? Now justーshut up. Stand up. You’re all wet.”
Mika stands to Yū’s raincoat wrapped around his shoulders and the owner’s skeptical chuckle at the mech’s distant, cheerful stare. Eyes focus like the lens of a camera shaded deep blue. The color code picked by Guren, who's still stubbornly against the idea of romance and commitment to admit it’s his favorite shade.
“Is the game over? Are we going home?”
“Yeah. Game’s over.” The downpour swallows the silence. “We’re going home. C’mon.”
“Okay! Yū?”
“What.”
Mika says a funny thing next. It almost brings Yū to tears:
“I’m cold!”