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The whole room was enveloped in white. The ceiling, floor, glassy walls, all bore the same clinical, controlled, 'pure' color that Toue had made his symbol.
Of course, the subject on the surgery table wore the same color.
Unit R-2E-054, or Clear, as he called himself, had been confined in this room for a few days. Toue was never one to care about failed creations, but Clear fascinated him. For him, a man who put himself in the game of God, an artificial being breaking away from its command was nothing short of a miracle. Toue and his scientists had been hard at work, rewiring Clear's memory and setting back to standard. Now, they waited for the result.
"What do you think about him?" On the other side of the glass, Toue stood rigidly as he watched the android, as still as he was days ago. The two Alpha unit behind him didn't answer right away. Finally, one of them --Alpha-1 -- obeyed the command.
"I don't see the point of keeping him alive." His gaze towards Clear was anything but hospitable. "He might be our older brother, but a defect is a defect. Isn't it more efficient to dismantle him and recycle the parts?"
Toue only chuckled at the response. Typical, predictable, and loyal, those were the traits he programmed in his 'children'. But life would not be a game if there weren't any unprecedented variables; how far can a pawn detract itself from the game of God?
"A robot going against his own programming on his own accord, prompted by no interruption but human lessons." Toue mused to himself. "Don't you find it incredible?"
"Hmm, wouldn't it be troublesome for you, Master?" Alpha-2 replied, a twinge of confusion in his voice. "What kind of tool would go against its creator?"
"Indeed, indeed." Toue casted a glance towards his subordinates, his two loyal children, then returned his gaze back to Clear. "But the possibilities! He declared, so proudly, that he too has a will of his own, that he is alive. Such conviction from a man-made creature; I have seen less spark from the dull residents in this Jail."
Those eyes, so steadfast and honest, had challenged him, dared him to return the android back on the board. In that moment, Toue saw a glimpse of something beyond him, a will that perhaps he could never truly control.
And so, he wanted to test it.
His memories, his experience, the lessons taught to him, all of them made up the android's world, condensed into a being that is named Clear. Without them, what would happened to him? Would he turn back into one of the killer machine, no different from his brothers? Would he abandoned his past altogether? Would he forsaken Seragaki Aoba?
Toue couldn't wait to find out.
Another few days passed, and Clear finally woke up.
"Good morning, Clear."
Toue walked in as Clear disentangled himself from the bindings with ease. He raised a hand, signaling for the two Alpha units to stand by. Clear looked at him, his robotic movements paused for a few seconds, before he started looking around the room, as though Toue was nothing more than a piece of furniture.
"Clear." Toue called out for him again, forcing those hazy eyes to look back at him. "Do you know who I am?"
They had wiped everything from his memories, all but the most basic information: that he was combat unit R-2E-054, also known as Clear, that his Master was Toue of the Toue corporations, that he was created as a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.
"...You are Toue, my Master." Clear simply replied. Toue felt his spirit deflated a little at the mechanical response, as typical as many of his other creations. But his disappointment didn't linger for long, not when the Clear's next question amazed him.
"Where's Aoba-san?"
He sensed the two Alpha units behind him stiffened. Toue, on the other hand, couldn't have been more fascinated. Memories of Seragaki Aoba were some of the first that they erased, wiped clean, yet somehow the android before him still retained those knowledge.
"Where's Aoba-san?"
Clear repeated himself, his voice a lot colder than before. Gone were the warm, sympathetic tone that had dyed his voice when he first confronted Toue. Now, something else had colored that voice, something unpredictable to Toue himself. He had an inkling that despite calling him 'Master', Clear thought of him as anything but.
"Aoba-kun is currently being held in our research facility." He answered. "Do you want to see him?"
He didn't wait for an answer. With a click of a button, holograms projected onto the wall, painting the pristine white with blue. Aoba lay on the bed, his whole body hooked on more tubes and machines than ethically accepted. The wires coiled around his body were more alive than the boy himself. Clear's eyes instantly glued on the projection. He walked closer, each a careful step, as if afraid of disturbing Aoba's rest. A long moment passed as nothing but beeping noises filled the silence.
Then, Clear smiled. Wide, stretched, unnatural, he smiled at the sight of his world.
Toue inadvertently took a step back. He could hear the two units behind him shudder as well, one of them clicked his tongue in distaste. It was only a simple smile, yet disturbance crawled into Toue's heart nonetheless.
"Say, Master."
Clear's voice pierced the tense silence, uncaring of how others perceived him. He directed his question to his 'Master', all while never moving his eyes away from the poor sleeping boy.
"Am I a human?"
Time stood still, so still, as the question hung on the air.
"You are not. You can never be a human, Clear."
He said so, but in his mind, when he saw Clear's face fell into despair, he thought that the android looked more human than anyone else he had met.
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He found no explanation as to why Clear was the way he was. Remnants from his old caretaker's meddling, his previous upbringing, or simply how deep emotions could carve themselves into codes and numbers, none brought him a satisfied answer as to why Seragaki Aoba remained in Clear's world. Maybe this was another of fate's blessing, like the power of Scrap or the scent of the people of the God, simply something impossible to replicate. While he had returned to being a pawn in Toue's hand, Clear was no longer playing in the game that fate had dealt. To his creator, he stayed a defect, but to science alone, he was nothing short of a miracle.
That was the only reason he entertained Clear's preposterous request.
"Please give Aoba-san to me."
The android wasted no time in asking. He stood inside the office with more audacity than anyone dared to exude before Toue. He vaguely wondered if this was what being a parent felt like, never knowing which way your child would turn out. Wiping Clear's memories, that he did, but the dregs of emotions that clung inside the system was Clear's will, distorted and twisted as it was. They were not Toue's making.
"He's our important specimen." He said, but in reality, they had exhausted every information they could in Aoba. Even with the most advanced technology, Scrap was not something they could remake for their own. He had resigned to collecting Aoba's voice samples for his use, even if they were a downgrade to the real thing. That was enough for now. He had more important matters at hand, starting from reforming Midorijima into its own country under his governance.
"You can learn no more from him." Clear plainly stated. Nothing about Aoba ever escaped the android's inquisitive eyes. "I can give you data about my own song, hidden inside my memory bank that you cannot extract. Is that a fair price?"
Toue rapped the table as he considered the proposal. He had no need of Aoba for the present, and he did need something to appease Clear. The android might have returned to his side, but once a defect, always a defect.
"Deal. You can do whatever you wish with him." Toue said. "On the condition that you keep his voice intact. We may have some use for it in the future."
A glint of displeasure flashed through Clear's eyes, but he only bowed and turned to leave.
"Wait, Clear."
"...Yes."
"What am I to you?"
"You are Toue, my Master."
"And what is Seragaki Aoba to you?"
"He..."
Clear didn't turn back. He kept looking ahead, as if looking for the shadow of the one that made up his world, his only thing left.
"Aoba-san is mine, that's all."
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On the other side of the glass wall, the room was void of human presence. The scientists assigned to Aoba had left for other projects, their affiliation to the subject terminated. Soon, in their quest to push for the new world under Toue, the boy would be forgotten in this corner, abandoned to his own fate.
It was perfect. He needn't exist in anyone's world but Clear's.
The android put a hand on the glass wall separating them. Just a little longer, and his world would finally complete. Thanks to Toue fixing his errors, all of his memories was reset, back to the blank slate a battle unit was supposed to be. Everything, but Aoba. His face, his laughter, his warmth, all of him stubbornly carved itself into Clear's mind. He couldn't recall their time together, nor the lessons Aoba taught him, nor the reason behind his desire to be a human. They were like the fleeting heat-haze of a sunny day, forever out of grasp.
The aching, however, was visceral. The mind that shut down everything else when he saw Aoba, the longing to feel him, those were tangible in his system. They flooded over the haze left behind by the gaps in memory, until the color blue engulfed his world. He loved Aoba, that much he knew.
"You will never be a human, Clear."
The smile dropped as those cursed words regurgitated in his mind. They mattered only because they were true. Clear could never be a human like Aoba. He would forever stuck in this mainframe, without changes, without growth, carrying the artificial heartbeats that tried too hard to imitate a life. If so, were the yearning in his chest artificial as well? Did they truly belong to him?
Clear shook his head. It didn't matter. Humans lived based on the perception of others, through the looking glass do they find oneself. As long as his emotions were reciprocated, didn't that mean they were real? Who had taught him that knowledge? Clear didn't care to delve further.
He pushed open the door. It was another world filled with monochrome. The pristine white, so sterile and dead, assaulted the eyes until a burst of gentle color soothe his retinas. Aoba lay still on the bed, much thinner and haggard than Clear remembered. He looked too much like a corpse, so much that a friend or family might not even recognize him.
But Clear would. He always would. So he prayed that Aoba would recognize him as well. Please, do not forget him. Do not slip away into that painless sleep.
Or his world would once again be worthless.
Footsteps echoed like thunder in the eerie silence, overpowering the weak beeping on the monitor. Aoba stirred when Clear approached; the sound must have woken him up. Pale eyes, weighed down by misery and torture, momentarily shone when they locked into Clear's own.
"Clear...?"
Aoba said his name.
Joy filled his mechanical heart. Aoba remembered him. He still called him by name. The feelings that lodged themselves firmly in his system must be true. His love was not in vain. His Aoba had recognized him.
"I'm sorry for keeping you waiting."
He separate the tubes from Aoba's skin, erasing the last sign of ownership Toue had over the boy. Weak and vulnerable as he was, Aoba only watched as Clear did his job. Looking at his poor body, Clear felt irritated more than anything. Toue had made too deep of a mark on Aoba, carving the pain and horror inside Aoba's head, when they should belong to Clear. He wrapped Aoba in the bedsheet and lifted him up from the bed. This clinical world was not where Aoba belonged.
"We will be together now, Aoba-san. Forever."
Their destination was another operation room, a more secluded one that wasn't draped in intrusive glass walls. Aoba fit into his arms like a cog in the clockwork, still and docile, but when he heard the door open, a hand weakly tugged on Clear's shirt.
"Are we...leaving?"
Leaving?
Clear's eyes dimmed when he heard those words. Where could they possibly leave for? In this world soon to be puppetted by one man, where could Aoba belong to but by his side? If he were to disappear, run away from Toue, from his world...
"You're mine, Aoba-san."
Clear couldn't let that happen.
He put Aoba on the newly prepared bed, pinning his weakened body into the sheet. Clear lowered himself until he lay on top of Aoba, his heartbeat right by his ears, so that he could pretend Aoba was embracing him. He traced the skin under his fingertips.
They can never be together the way they are. If Clear can never be a human, then it was Aoba who had to change. R-2E units were created to be as similar as possible to humans, yet compared to Aoba's, his skin felt much rougher, the difference starkly visible. Just another cruel evidence that they could never be the same. He could never love Aoba the way a human could. Clear lifted his head and watched Aoba's chest moved up and down, struggling every seconds to bring a little function to his body. Humans were such weak, temporary creatures. Someday, Aoba's life would extinguish before his eyes as well. He did not wish for that to happen.
If he couldn't be a human, then it was Aoba who had to change. He could made Aoba into something like him, forever beautiful, forever preserved. Simply forever, by his side.
As if sensing his intention, Aoba squirmed under his touch. His eyes darted frantically, looking for an exit, for an escape. Clear cupped his face, forcing those blue colors to face him.
"Don't be so frightened, Aoba-san."
Those eyes locked into his, fear etched deep inside his retinas. Clear felt ecstatic knowing this fear was for him. He wanted everything of Aoba. His fear, his sorrow, his happiness, his pain, everything. If Aoba belonged to him, then his world should only have Clear, just like how Clear's world was dyed by his color. He saw his reflection in those blue eyes, the staunch evidence that Aoba was looking at him, only him.
"Look at me, please."
I will be the last thing you ever see.
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Aoba was crying the whole time.
First, the eyes were gone. Next were the legs, so he could never run away to places Clear couldn't reach. And then gone were the pesky arms, always trying to reach out to a freedom out of his reach. Slowly, but surely, he had turned to Clear's perfect creation, a doll without a will of its own, whose world was filled with nothing but its owner.
Just like what Clear was.
He had struggled, he had crawled away, but eventually, Aoba stopped fighting. He accepted Clear's embrace silently, too exhausted to even live, only breathed. He had stopped calling out to Clear. His voice was something Clear wasn't allowed to touch, on order of Toue, but Clear wasn't quite sure what to do with it either. He wanted to take those vocal chord away, the same way he preserved the eyes and limbs, but he also missed hearing Aoba's voice - the thing that led him to meet Aoba in the first place.
In the cell deep inside an isolated corner of Oval Tower, Aoba was finally completed. With no way to run or hide, knowing nothing but Clear's touch and love. A perfect captive, clipped of its wings, his one and only.
So why was Aoba crying?
"Are you happy?"
Void of all limbs, Aoba fit snuggly on Clear's lap. He gently wiped the tears trapped underneath the blindfold, hugging his doll tighter, as if they could melt into one.
"You must be. I'm happy, too. The moment I have been waiting for has come at last."
The chain clinked in place of a reply. Aoba let out a shuddered breath as he leaned into Clear, looking for some comfort. Clear buried his head in Aoba's hair. Even after losing everything, his Aoba was still so warm.
"It's a day to celebrate, so why don't I sing for you?"
A rare reaction flickered on Aoba's face. He opened and closed his mouth over and over, as though trying to say something but couldn't find the word. He sunk into Clear's arms instead, the sign of defeated and agreement. Clear played with the tip of Aoba's hair while the manipulative song spilled from his lips.
Sway, sway, swaying between the waves
Sparkle, sparkle, sparkling, their voices drift into the distance
The dreaming jellyfish sing their song
and sleep on the gentle shore
Sway, sway, swaying, a ray of light
Sparkle, sparkle, sparkling, their voices drift to you
No matter when, as long as this song echoes out
In many colors, they hang in the clear sky
Sway, sway, swaying between the waves
Sparkle, sparkle, sparkling, their voices drift into the distance
The dreaming jellyfish play their song
Sparkle, sparkle, sparkling, their voices drift to you
...Hmm?
Something interrupted his song. Like a scream muffled by the waves, or a glitch that only flashed on your screen for a second. It was too brief to matter, yet Clear had an inkling that the voice screaming was similar to his own. The aching in his heart returned, but rather than ecstasy, only sadness followed. Had he gain another error?
"...Clear...?"
Aoba looked up at where his voice came from, his residual limb lifted up slowly, as if wanting to touch Clear's face. But he could no longer reached Clear. The sight made him smile. Aoba finally called him by his name again.
"I'm alright."
He lowered his head for Aoba instead. There was no need to care about a small error. His world was right here, in his arms, delicate and unmovable, always with him. Why wouldn't he be contented?
What was this inexplicable sorrow?
"I love you..."
"Aoba-san."