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“More wine, Mr. Clear?”
“Yes, thank you. Is it supposed to be doing something, Mr. Blade?”
“Darling drinks it with the other clan members. Their faces turn red after a while, especially that Lord Jackass, though I’ve never noticed an effect on e-droids.”
“It must be our silicone,” said Clear.
They were sitting together on the side of the fountain in Aster’s garden. Clear moved his wine glass in a circle. The pale gold wine inside of it formed a cyclone at its center and hugged the sides. With machine-like focus, he studied it.
“What is wine made from here?”
“All kinds of berries!” said Blade. “I’ve read a book about wine making, if you’d like to borrow it.”
Clear’s pale pink eyes widened a little. “I've never read a book like that.”
“Little Aster—that's the vampire who owns this mansion—has a whole library of books! I’m sure he won’t mind if you want to read them while you’re here. What is wine made from where you live?”
“Grapes—ahh, they’re also a kind of berry. I collected empty wine bottles in my room at my grandfather’s house, but even though I tend bar sometimes, I’ve never tried drinking it before today. Aoba doesn’t drink it often.”
“Is Mr. Aoba your darling?”
Clear’s cheeks had also been designed to blush, and he smiled. “Yes. I imagine we are the only two e-droids with darlings, Mr. Blade.”
“Ehh? Is it not common?” Blade used his core to search his memory data. “Now that you mention it, I’ve never read a book about that.”
“What drew you to Mr. Eiden?”
“Darling’s scent,” Blade said without hesitation. “I’d been waiting for his return for so long, but I could never forget it, no matter how high the pile of rocks became!”
“Rocks?”
“Mm! I gathered them to keep track of time. I waited twenty years for him to return. Darling insists that he isn’t Huey, so I call him darling, but his scent is so similar, I don’t understand how they could be separate people. I go along with Darling’s game, though, since it makes him happy.”
“I was drawn to Aoba’s voice. I could hear it across the island and went to find him.”
“Eh? Across a whole island? Is Mr. Aoba also an e-droid?”
Clear beamed. “Aoba is human, but I didn’t realize what I was at the time. I thought I was another human like him. My grandfather had stopped breathing and I was left all alone, so I went to sleep.” He paused and lowered his eyes. “Then one day while I was dreaming, I heard Aoba speak, and I knew I belonged to him. So I woke up.”
Blade had never heard anything so thrilling and caught on a detail. “You didn’t realize you were an e-droid?”
“No. I remember now, of course, but I think my grandfather did something to help me forget. My makers had declared me faulty. I was supposed to be destroyed, but my grandfather stole and fixed me. He removed my serial number and told me I was human. Until very recently, I always hid my face.”
“But it’s such a beautiful face!” Blade cried.
“It is identical to my brothers’ faces, so I had to hide it. It’s fortunate, though. A while ago, I became severely damaged and had to shut down. Aoba tried to repair me himself, but in the end his grandmother took over. She had been a researcher like my grandfather. Because there are spare parts from other alpha units, she was able to restore me.”
“Can’t you self repair?”
“Yes, but I had destroyed my key lock.” Clear touched the skin near his right eye that was, now that Blade looked more closely, a different color where it had been repaired.
How horrible! Blade covered his mouth.
“It’s alright!” Clear said with a musical laugh. “I damaged it myself and I don’t regret it. I’m just grateful that I’m still me.” He set down his wine glass and folded his gloved hands together. “May I share a secret with you?”
When Blade nodded, he continued.
“Although my makers believe I malfunctioned, and that’s why I was decommissioned, I’ve come to believe that I evolved.”
Blade’s eyes went wide. Evolved? “Is that possible?”
Rather than answer, Clear relaxed his posture and sighed. Behind them, the fountain babbled. “Were you always like this?” he asked. “Could you always love?”
Blade thought about it for a while. “No. Does that mean I’ve evolved too?”
It was a minute or two before Clear spoke again, in a thoughtful voice as he gazed across the garden. “I think I truly began to live when I heard Aoba speak.”
Alive, thought Blade. He had an idea of what it meant, but had he ever felt it himself? Did he feel it now? Before Huey, what he recalled was protocol. Order. Programming. But the day Eiden had come, the sound of his voice—Blade’s chest had felt strangely warm, warmer than it ever had. Was that what Clear meant by being alive?
He felt sorry for the automatons left behind on the Saia Continent where they had all been created. They were probably still following the orders in their programming, and would never sit like this with a friend to share a glass of wine beside a fountain.
How lucky that Clear had wandered through Huey’s portal in the garden wall!
“Do you sing, Mr. Clear?” asked Blade.
The lights behind Clear’s eyes glowed a little brighter. “I love to sing. I’ve even written a song.”
Blade gasped in delight. “Won’t you sing it now?”
Clear did, a wondrous song about jellyfish—translucent creatures that lived in the ocean where he came from! They weren’t in any of Little Aster’s books.
“Ahh, I’d like to see a jellyfish,” Blade said, still swaying to the tune.
“I’ll take you to see them, if you come to visit Midorijima.”
Quite satisfied, Blade happily agreed and poured more wine the way he had seen Aster’s servants do. The breeze had picked up and carried the scent of the nearby flower gardens to them.
“If you had only visited sooner, Mr. Clear, you could have been part of our idol group!”
“How exciting, although I think I would be nervous to perform in front of so many people.”
“If we perform again, I’ll ask Darling if you can join us.”
“Could we sing my song? I would like more people to hear it.”
“Yes, I think we should,” said Blade.
They tapped their glasses together. Clear tilted his head.
“May I ask about the gemstone in your chest?” he asked.
Blade proudly touched the large rock crystal. “Huey made this from my core. Before this, I didn’t have any of my own thoughts. I only focused on my mission. But ever since Darling has come back, I’ve experienced so many new things!”
“Oh!” Clear gestured for Blade to lean closer and whispered, “Do you have much experience with intimacy?”
“Mm! Darling enjoys it, so we do it often.”
“How can you be sure he’s enjoying it at the time?”
“Are you worried that Mr. Aoba isn’t satisfied?”
Clear blushed. “He says he is, however…”
“I like to watch Darling’s face. Humans make so many expressions!”
“Aoba turns very pink,” Clear confided. “All over his body.”
“Anything else?”
“He moans quite a lot.”
“I’m sure you’re doing it properly,” Blade assured him. “But we can go and look for a book together once we finish our wine.”
“Are there books about this too?”
Blade nodded. “Yes. There are books on almost everything!”
With a relieved sigh, Clear swung his feet against the side of the fountain. “I think it’s going to rain,” he said, looking up at the sky.
When he lifted his chin, Blade observed that gray storm clouds had rolled in. He made a sound of disappointment and his shoulders drooped as the first rain drops struck the ground. They would probably go inside with the others now, and while he looked forward to seeing Eiden, he was not ready for this conversation to end.
“It had been such a nice day,” Blade said sadly.
Clear reached into his white coat and took out a long object. When he opened it, it formed a thin, bell-shaped dome over his head. An umbrella! Blade had seen one of Mr. Quincy’s. Clear positioned it so that Blade’s head was safely underneath it too. The rain made a happy pattering sound against the transparent material and, safely dry underneath, Blade swung his feet as well.
“Will you sing the song again?” he asked.
“I’ll teach it to you,” Clear said. “Then you can sing it when I’m gone.”
“Don’t be gone for too long! Not twenty years.”
“No, not twenty years. I’ll bring some grape wine next time.”
“And a jellyfish.”
“I’m not sure they would travel well, but I’m sure Aoba can help me find a book about them.”
His own book! Blade was immensely pleased. Without question, the best day of his life was the day that Eiden had found him, but this one would come next, were he to choose a second. He could only hope that the portal between their worlds would remain stable. He wanted to visit Clear on Midorijima; he wanted to explore the world Eiden had left behind. Eiden hadn’t yet decided whether he would return to his original life, but either way, Blade would be with him.
The e-droids opened their mouths to sing.