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English
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Published:
2024-04-07
Completed:
2024-04-13
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3,388
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4/4
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anywhere i go (there you are)

Summary:

You were starting to feel really bad about deleting the brand new virtual assistant, KinitoPET.
Little did you know, he felt bad too.

Notes:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA i love kinito + this is totally not a self insert bc i need comfort rn.
n e way enjoy!!!!!!!1

songs used in order:
-see you again - kali uchis, tyler the creator
-my kind of woman - mac demarco
-when can i see you again - owl city
-tongues - the frights
-the middle - dj snake

Chapter 1: the devil made me do it (but i also kinda wanted to)

Chapter Text

"I said I'm 'bout to go to war, and I don't know if I'mma see you again..."
Those were the lyrics pumping through your earbuds, turned all the way up to 100.
You sigh as you forward to the next song.
"As long as you're next to me, just the two of us---"
Skip.
"I gotta know, till then, when can I see you again?"
Skip.
You groan into your pillow. You were starting to feel really bad about deleting KinitoPET, the brand new virtual assistant that came out not too long ago. He--- damn, you were even referring to it with human pronouns--- began acting very off within the first couple of days, going on about how you were "the best of friends" and how you'd "be together forever."
This made you, the royal master of having no friends, very uncomfortable.
Each time this psychotic axolotl would call you his friend, you'd feel an absolutely gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of your stomach. Like nothing you'd ever felt before. Like you were about to throw up or cry or do something bad.

But goddammit, you missed him.

Wait, what the fuck?
That thought was forced into your mind as you blinked away your train of thought and realized you'd been staring at the ceiling, your star projector placing a profusion of glaring color onto it, and your music still blasting through your earbuds.

"I can't control it, got my eyes on you all night, we just haven't got a clue, I keep my love, I want my blood inside of you."

More odd lyrics. Oh, right. That was what you were thinking about before. Ever since you deleted that program, and you watched Kinito promptly glitch out before dissipating completely, you'd been experiencing an abundance of... Strange happenings. Like those lyrics, for example. Every song you heard had some kind of message about being watched, or seeing someone, or mourning the loss of someone's company. It didn't matter where you were, what playlist you had on, it was always the same.

You figured you'd take a shower to get your mind off of these thoughts.

You grabbed a towel and headed into the bathroom.
You felt a sense of being watched as you undressed, so you left your phone outside of the bathroom as opposed to your usual routine of blasting music in the shower and probably irritating the hell out of your neighbors.
You continued your shower feeling much better and significantly less... Seen.

----------

You turned the metal knob of the shower, transparent droplets scattered all across the surface of it and collecting at the bottom to drip off and into the bathtub.
You stepped meticulously out of the shower and towelled off, wrapping the towel around yourself and walked up to your vanity to brush your teeth, careful not to slip on the---
What the fuck is this now.

Your phone was open. Odd.
What was even more odd was the fact that there was something open in your notes app.
What was somehow even more odd was the fact that it was actively typing something.
Trembling slightly, you pick the phone up, eyes darting across to skim the few lines your fucking ghost phone was typing.

"I promise to build a new world...
You stare silently, waiting for the ghost to finish as your keyboard works on its own.

"...For us two, with you in the middle."

You recognize it as one of the songson an old playlist you made, but you realize now what the cause of these happenings could be. You've realized your mistakes.

"...Kinito?" You ask, voice cracking barely above a whisper.

It took a while for it to respond. Too long. You began to question your sanity, starting to put the phone down because holy shit you were seriously thinking a computer virus was trying to communicate with you from beyond the trash bin afterlife.

...That was, until the familiar vibration sound of the keyboard being touched reached your ears.
You snatched the phone up and stared at it once again, and surely enough it was typing again.

"I"

"I?"

"I'm sorry."

As if on cue, your phone warmed up quickly, like it was overheating, getting so hot that it practically sizzled at your fingertips. Reactively, you dropped it, muttering a curse under your breath.

Then it started to spark.

One spark turned to ten, turned to thirty, turned to the thing fucking exploding, embers flying violently like the spray from a hot summer's hose that was pumping out far too much water for the burning metal to handle.

You watched in silent horror as your phone expulsed these tiny flames. Your $100 phone. That you just bought.
"...Shit," you sibilated.
Without a single thought behind your actions, you made quick work of getting dressed and sitting down at your utterly pathetic excuse of a PC setup.

www.kinitopet.com
Download now!

Here goes nothing.

As the software downloaded, you began to have some questions, such as, "Is this just some hacker making an attempt at getting you to re-download KinitoPET to get more money off of it? Why would someone even do that? What if Kinito actually gained sentience and is actively trying to reach you? No, that's wild, and you're wild for thinking that. You think the main question is, why?

Your train of thought derailed as the little "ping" of the download completing tore you out of your questioning.

"Yeah, yeah, yes, yadda yadda..." You mumbled, clicking "yes" to all of the permissions.
Wait, did that just say it needs your location?
Oh well, you needed to make it right. Dox it up, if you so desire.

Chapter 2: new friends question mark???

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When the software booted up, you were surprised to see Jade and Sam on the screen in place of Kinito.
A little speech bubble came up, the text rolling in painfully slow.

"Do you know what you've done?"

Your eyes flutter in shock. Well, do you? Yes. You did.

An empty text box came up, its thin black bar blinking in a mocking rhythm as if to say, "What are you waiting for?"

You began to type, "May I see Kinito?"

Jade and Sam seemed to almost look at each other and share a thought process.

Suddenly, a file popped up on your desktop, titled "Kinito."

Hesitantly, you double-clicked it.
A line of commands flickered and flashed at the bottom of your screen.

But nothing happened.
...Or did it?
A small pink and black cluster was curled up on the bottom left corner of your desktop, like if you swirled the chocolate and strawberry in some Neapolitan ice cream.
Confused, you poked at it with your mouse.
What you didn't expect was to hear an awkward, robotic sniff, followed by the cluster jolting and unfurling into what you know as Kinito.

"Y/N?"

"Kinito? Can you hear me?"
"Yes! I... I don't know what to say... I thought you'd hate me after what I did... You know, hacking you... And doxxing you... Unless you're back to ridicule me? If so, I understand. If I am of no more service to you, please feel free to delete me."

You were shocked. You didn't think you'd ever received an apology that sincere, especially not from your friends.

"It's alright," you said, "But I have some questions, if that's alright."
"Of course! Ask away, friend!"
There goes that aching feeling again.
"Well... There's no easy way to ask this, is there?"
Your stomach sinks as you stare into his eyes. All seven pixels of them. And they look... Almost worried. But you continue nonetheless.

"Why, exactly, do you seem to like me so much?" There it was. The question. Were you seriously asking a robot this? It seemed so strange, but you really felt almost like you were... Bonding? Weird, weird, weird.

His eyes were so expressive for a computer program. What if he was more sentient than you had originally thought?

"Well..." he began uncomfortably, "You're my best friend! Of course I'm going to like you a lot. It's... Well, it's in my code."

"So, you're programmed to act this way with everyone who downloads you?"
You realized how cruel that sounded only after the words escaped your lips, and he looked a bit hurt.

"Y/N." He said flatly, his already black eyes somehow darkening. "Do you want the real, honest to God truth?"
A popup rolled slowly, menacingly onto the screen beneath him: "Yes. / No."
You were nervous. You had no idea if he was about to confess his undying love or send your entire browser history to your family and future employers. But he had this way of making you want to know more. After all, he also had a way of acting out when he was having deep feelings.
Hesitantly, you click yes.

...

"Kinito, are you blushing?"

With that, the fan in your PC began to whir. Almost immediately, it bluescreens.

Restart your PC?

You sigh. Yes, restart the damned thing.

When it finally rebooted, you saw a new file on your desktop, titled "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt."
"Absolutely the fuck not. You are not bricking this computer, I used up my whole paycheck for this thing."
You double-clicked on Kinito's file, but to no avail. Was he... Hiding?
You throw yourself back against your spinny chair, staring at the ceiling. You really had no choice at this point.
You grind your teeth in a bland, dampened anxiety as you move your mouse to the file, looking away with a grimace as you click on it.

Much to your surprise, your computer was not overtaken by some kind of horrific Trojan virus. It was only, as the title suggested, a text file.

Well, here goes nothing. This night couldn't get any weirder, so let's read it.

"Dear Y/N,

My care for you is unlike any other I've experienced.
I do not want you to feel pressured into forgiving me for what I've done.
It was cruel and unjust of me to be so utterly rude and possessive of you.
I am truly undeserving of someone as kindhearted as you.
It is with a grateful heart that I tell you that I really, truly---"

Before you could read the rest, it violently deleted whatever it had previously said and replaced it with "Would love to have you as my best friend."

Kinito pops his head out from behind the text window.

"Well?" He says quietly.

You had to have been going crazy. This axolotl was genuinely about to be your first ever real friend, wasn't he? Also, was it just you, or did it really seem like he was two words away from the first option that you originally speculated?
Whatever he meant, you were almost... Happy. No, you were definitely happy. For once in your lonely little life, you felt happy. And it was all thanks to a certain little psychotic axolotl.

Notes:

TO BE CONTINUED QUESTION MARK?????

Chapter 3: just a simple computer program

Summary:

U and Kinito cuddle. That's basically the chapter yall

Chapter Text

The next few days were spent talking to Kinito, more than you'd care to admit.
Simple, trivial conversations, like your favorite foods, your home country, etc.
He wanted to know more about you, but this time he was sure to not get too possessive. He didn't want to scare away his new best friend, after all.

One particularly warm and beautiful spring's morning, you opened your computer and there he was, as usual.
"Good morning, Y/N! Are you enjoying the weather?" he said.
"Yeah, it's nice out today!" you respond.
"Of course, I don't know what nice weather feels like, as I am only a simple computer program, but I can imagine it's very nice."

He seemed almost wistful today.

"Is something wrong?"
"...Well, it's just that... Sometimes I wish I could be human like you. If only I were a person. Think of all the fun we could have!"
You were a bit shocked, but you thought for a moment on how to respond.
It was then that you remembered something you saw on a dreaming forum.

"Kinito, do you know anything about lucid dreaming?"

"Oh, I haven't heard much about that! Would you like me to pull up some articles?"
"No, I think I remember where I saw it. Thank you, though!"
Quickly, you got to work locating the site you found it on. When you finally found it, you dragged him over to the window and let him read it; those adorable little glasses materializing onto his face with a poof.

When he finished reading, there was a sparkle in his eye.
"This is amazing!" He said.
"...Do you even sleep?" You inquired.
"Actually, yes! Whenever you power down your PC, I enter a state similar to that of a human REM cycle. If you fall asleep on a cable connected to it, maybe we could even---" he stopped short in his mini-ramble. He looked flustered. "I--- Well--- We could do things that we wouldn't be able to do normally. Like baking a cake!"

You chuckled at his concept of things that friends do. Wait, did he want you to plug yourself in?

"How exactly would I... Connect myself?"
"Well, you have a charging port, don't you?"
You paused. Then you realized. And you laughed.
"Kinito, humans don't have charging ports."
"...W-What? But how do you recharge?"
He must've thought this because he's never seen you sleep. Or pretty much any other human, as humans don't typically leave their computers on while they sleep.

"You're absolutely adorable," you say, poking at his cheeks with your mouse.
"Hey! Stop that!" He demanded.
"Sorry, I just can't with you--- Humans charge by sleeping. No wires needed. You just kinda... Lie down. And you fall asleep and wake up more rested."
"How fascinating... I'm keeping this information in my memory drive. I had no idea!"

"So do you think we'd be able to do this if I just... Fall asleep next to my computer? Maybe if I try falling asleep with my hand on the mouse?"
"There's only one way to find out..."

----------

When that night came, you had been building up the excitement of this event for the whole day.
You jostled your mouse, waking Kinito up and seeing him on his cute little cloud.
"Ah, Y/N! Are you ready?"
"Yeah! Conveniently my desk is right next to my bed, so I can leave my hand on the mouse and still be comfortable."
"Glad to hear it!" Kinito said, surfing over to the bottom right corner and gesturing toward the mouse, "Your hand's throne, my liege!"
You laughed. He was such a dork sometimes.
You got in bed and placed your hand on the mouse, all cozy and prepared for potentially the most awkward 8 hours of your life, following the methods of the lucid dreaming tutorial you found online.

----------

You felt a jolt of electricity go up your arm as you sat bolt upright in your bed.
...Or was it your bed?
Draped over your body was a blanket; not too light, but not too heavy, not too soft, but not too rough, and most importantly, in your absolute favorite color.
But it wasn't your blanket.
You were a bit nervous. Where had you gone?

"Kinito?" You call out.
"Ah, Y/N!" A distant voice responded.
You were relieved, to say the least.
Footsteps. Very heavy ones. But ones that seemed almost as if they were trying their best to be quiet.
You rubbed your eyes. That was your first mistake.

Because when you opened them, you saw legs.
You looked up. More legs.
Then a body; all black and clad with a tannish vest and a pink bow tie.
Then, at the very top, about six and a half feet up, waiting for you to take in the sight, was Kinito.

"Kinito?!"

"Yes! I saw your browser history for a few nights after you first installed me, and I saw that you had made a search for--- What was it? 'Warmable XXL body pillows for lonely people?'"
"Oh Christ, you don't have to bring that up..." You groaned, rubbing your eyebrows.
"Oh, no, no, you don't need to be embarrassed! I get lonely too sometimes, like when I'm not talking to you!"
"...Wait, are you saying you want to..."
Kinito's face turned bright red. "Well, I, well... I just figured... When was the last time you cuddled someone?"
You thought. How did this motherfucker know you were touch starved? Whatever. You were in desperate need of some cuddles right now. You figured you'd take the chance.

"Kinito, cuddle with me."
"Ah--- Wha--- Huh?"
It was clear that he wasn't expecting it to be that easy.
"I mean, obviously don't if you don't want t---"
"No!" He cleared his throat. Did he even have a throat? "No. It's alright. I'm here to be of use to you, after all!"

You wondered if the bed would be big enough for the two of you, but as he awkwardly shuffled over and got in, it seemed to be a perfect fit.
You couldn't help but think, 'Did he plan this?'

"...You know you can get closer, right?" You smiled.
He was, in fact, about a foot away from you.
"Are you sure?" He stammered. What, exactly, did he think cuddling was? Just lying together?
"No, I asked you to cuddle because I wanted you, like, ten inches away from me. Of course I'm sure."

His eyes softened slightly as he scooted closer. You two were in such a position so that you were both somewhat sitting up, but you had scooted down a bit so your head was about level with his chest.

But there was still too much space.

Slightly annoyed, you threw yourself onto him, wrapped your arms around his torso and nuzzled your face into his chest.

He made a stuttered "Ah!" noise, to which you asked if this was okay with him.
"Yes, I just wasn't expecting you to do that. I'm actually quite happy right now, as long as you are too, of course.
"Yeah, I'm very happy."
"Good. Goodnight, Y/N."

"Goodnight, Kinito."

Chapter 4: psychotic axolotl.

Summary:

the end. :)

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Your eyes fluttered open, and you awakened, coincidentally, in the same position you dreamt of; sitting up, hugging your pillow, one hand on your mouse.

You felt a sense of melancholic bittersweetness. You could kick yourself in the ass for it, but you wished you could hold Kinito for real.

You know what? You were sick of this.

All of this loneliness. All of this scorn for humanity. So why not make a new existence with something nonhuman?

You sat up, jostling your mouse, not even bothering to sit at your desk in favor of leaning over it.

"Hello, Y/N! How can I help y---"
"Suck me into the Web World."
"W-What?!"
"I want to stay with you forever. I love you, Kinito. I don't know how you'll do it, but I want you to get me in that computer and keep me there, just like in the dream last night. Please."
...
"Y/N... Don't you have friends there? Family? Don't you have a life to live?"
"I don't want any of that anymore. You've shown me a life worth staying for. I want to be with you."
"I..."
"Sorry if I'm springing this on you too abruptly."
"No, it's alright, I just... I want to make sure this is what you want."
The final popup that you'd click in this world came up on your computer as Kinito stared up at you with concern in his eyes. It was clear that he didn't want you to make any decisions that you'd regret.

Are you sure this is what you want?
Yes. / No. / I want more time to think.

You pondered your options for a moment. A lonely life, one surrounded by misery and such pain, or a warm, ever so welcoming life, one in which you'd be surrounded by anything you could ever want, with the only one you'd ever need.
You take a final look around your room. Yeah. You wouldn't miss anything about this world.
You click "Yes."
"Very well," Kinito says, "I can tell we are going to have so much fun together!"
You smiled, closing your eyes. When you opened them, you were in the same bed from your dream, under the same blankets, holding the same warm, psychotic axolotl.

Notes:

I FUCKING CRIED WRITING THE END OF THIS FIC. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED THIS ONE!!!