Chapter Text
Rin had always hated her name. Really, she’d always hated everything about herself. Nothing about her was right. She wasn’t the girl her mom wanted her to be. She didn’t even like “girly” things. They made her chest feel tight in a way that always made her want to hide.
She also, as it turned out, hated mirrors. Despised them, even. Because she could only ever see everything wrong with her reflection. Her wrong, wrong hair. Too long and too pretty. Her wrong, wrong clothing, like the frilly dresses and skirts her mom loved dressing her up in. Her wrong, wrong body, though she wouldn’t realize that until late elementary school, going into early middle school. To put the cherry on top, she hated her wrong, wrong voice, too. Too high and soft. It made her want to vomit.
School was hell for Rin. She heard the other kids and the teachers say her wrong, wrong name. Everyday. Rin was her name, but not. Yes, it was her name, but more so, Rin had always felt fundamentally wrong. Like she should be calling herself something else. She hated it when her mom or other adults would call her pretty. She hated it when anyone dared to call her cute. Rin was not cute. She wasn’t sure what she was, but cute was certainly not it.
You’re such a freak, she’d think to herself every day. Sometimes she’d even say that to her reflection when she could actually look at it. Verbally. Everyone else can hear the names they were born with just fine. Everyone else can look into the mirror and not want to die.
Rin hated how much her mom and dad tried to push her into activities they called “girly,” like dance (particularly ballet, which didn’t bode well for her parents when they tried to force her into lessons). Rin hated how much her mom would nag her about femininity. She hated being told to “be more lady-like.”
How the blonde woman, from whom she got the shape of her eyes, would say, “Rin, honey, you need to be a lady.”
She hated all of those words. Words like “girl” and “lady”. Not entirely. The words themselves were fine. It was that everyone insisted on using them to describe her. She hated using the pronoun “she” to even describe herself. But, alas, so far as she could tell, she was stuck this way. There had been several times in elementary school where she couldn’t even write her own name on her assignments, and when she did, she felt nauseous. In her exhausting existence. Everything had felt wrong when she was much younger, but it started to really irk her in only second grade.
Her one saving grace was a little cartoon she’d discovered through unrestricted internet access: “InStatic”. The cartoon is obscure, and not just in that retro show way. It was so obscure that she and two other users from a Discord server had to create a Subreddit for the fandom. She’d always thought that Hatsune Miku was a fun character, silly as she always was. But she was also well-meaning. Her personal favorite character, hands down, was Jello, though. The little toon (which looked suspiciously like the Warners did, in hindsight) with a red nose and cheeks, red bows tied to her eighth note-esuqe ears, wearing a pale yellow suit jacket with a red bow and a multicolored skirt. She, unlike Miku, was mute. Which Rin found fascinating, because how did someone who couldn’t have a voice literally still say things? She’d even learned ASL because of the character so that she could follow along. Miku usually translated what the little ink blot animal toon was saying, but Rin thought it to be more fun to try to make out Jello’s communication herself (it felt oddly like herself, in some ways, seeing as the toon knew what she wanted but couldn’t communicate it conventionally).
Everyone at school thought she was cringe for liking the show, of course. Or they just relentlessly bullied her for even existing, despite how many times she’d tell the teachers. They were useless as they always were, even on the day Rin was beaten up in the school bathroom by the girls she had called friends. Now she was partway into fifth grade with no friends in sight at all. Rin wondered if anyone would even miss her if she were gone.
They only like the version of myself I play as a character, she always thought bitterly. No one cared about who she might truly be. Just the idea of what they thought she was. At the beginning of the new school year, the only thing besides her favorite cartoon that would have gotten her through the day was that her teacher, Ms. Gumi, was really nice.
And then everything changed, the day she met her best friend. It was a warm September day, the sun just slightly obscured by clouds, set to be as painfully miserable as they always were. She’d brought her InStatic lunchbox, which was unofficial merch she’d designed herself out of boredom over the summer. She had also learned how to use her mother’s Cricket machine so she could make a few InStatic shirts for herself. Her favorite was the one with Miku and Jello’s angel outfits. As much as she didn’t like wearing girly things herself, the shirt was the exception to the rule. She thought it was nice, and it was a T-shirt, so it wasn’t even as girly as it would have been otherwise. Though all of that was beside the point.
The day that Rin met her best friend had started as a storm that was brewing. She had nearly missed the bus and then had gotten pushed down the stairs at school by Hayden. That boy was notorious for his mean streak. She thought she would cry before the time even ticked to silent reading hour.
“Are you alright?” a feminine, monotonous voice asked as a strangely gloved white hand reached down to her to help her stand back up.
No, Rin did not tell the person, since she hadn’t wanted to worry a stranger.
Instead, she shakily smiled and took the offered hand. “Yeah. People are just so mean around here.”
Then she caught a look at the other kid’s face. It was obvious that her savior wasn’t human, with the star-shaped pupils, faint cracks under their eyes, and the white jacket with a red fluffy hood. They had pink hair that Rin thought made them look prettier, too.
Pretty is also a good word to describe this person, she’d thought.
“Are you sure?” the person asked again. “That looked like it hurt.”
Rin nodded. “It did hurt, but I’m okay.”
The robot kid finally relented, offering their version of a smile. “Alright. That is… good.”
“Uhm,” she herself said, rather eloquently. “I’m Rin.”
The girl smiled. “I am Miki.”
“That sounds really close to Miku,” the blonde said, bouncing a little from eagerness. “Have you seen InStatic?”
“I particularly enjoy that show, yes.”
Sweet! A new friend and she likes the show I like! Rin was over the moon upon realization.
“I love that show!” she gushed. “I love all the characters, but my favorite is Jello!”
“My favorite is Defako,” Miki responded, her voice still monotone. “I like that she is a robot. It makes me feel as though I am not alone. Or, I suppose it would theoretically. I am unsure.”
“That’s so awesome! I love all of the little adventures they go on together and how everything was built up to be one big storyline without anyone being able to tell.”
Miki nodded. “It is a shame that the show ended so abruptly. The finale did not have a finale feeling.”
“No!” Rin groaned, agreeing with her new friend. “They left a cliff hanger. Miku like… fizzled out of existence, and there was no conclusion! It’s so annoying.”
The two had started walking to Ms. Gumi’s classroom as they were having the conversation that had made Rin feel seen for the first time since she’d started school (possibly longer, but she didn’t want to think about that). And then she paused, blue eyes wide.
“Who do you have?” Rin asked, realizing that she should have asked earlier. “I have Ms. Gumi.”
“I also have Ms. Gumi,” Miki replied. “That is rather curious.”
Rin grinned, already more excited. “Well, let’s go then! We can get our seats first, too.”
“Alright.”
“You talk a little funny,” Rin commented, before slapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh! I’m so sorry that was really mean of me.”
“That is alright.” Miki seemed perplexed. “It is natural that you would have questions.”
Rin was uncertain how to approach this one. She didn’t want to scare this girl off, lest she be alone for yet another year, alone with her thoughts.
“Well, and tell me if it’s not okay for me to ask, but why do you talk like that? And uhh look like that, I guess…?”
“I am a robot,” Miki answered, matter-of-factly. “My creator intended for me to become human.”
“That’s so cool, Miki!” the blonde gushed. Inspiration struck her then and there. “What if I help you do that? I mean, it won’t be perfect, obviously, but humans aren’t perfect, anyway!”
“You would… do that for me?”
“Well, yeah,” Rin said, the duh strongly within her tone. “You’re my friend now. Friends do that kinda thing, right?” Rin’s new life goal was to become an engineer. She had to help her best friend become as human as she possibly could, after all.
“I suppose so, based on the common interpretation of the definition of the word.”
“I’ve been looking for a new hobby, anyway.” She wanted to do something with her hands, so she didn’t have to think about the wrongness of her body anymore. Might as well pick up a new hobby, especially since engineering is an intense thing.
“Wait. We are friends?”
“If you wanna be.” Rin sheepishly smiled, a little embarrassed that she had jumped the gun.
“I would like that,” Miki answered as the two wandered into their fifth-grade classroom.
“I’ve never had a friend before,” the blonde admitted, laughing a little. “My mom says if I stopped acting boyish and let people talk, I’d have friends.”
Miki stared, expression unchanging. Still, Rin couldn’t find it weird at all even if everyone else did.
“Boy is not a personality trait,” Miki remarked. “So you cannot ‘act’ like a boy. Being a boy is not a fun experience, anyway.”
“But you’re a girl…?” Rin was really confused by the robot’s wording. “How would you know what that’s like?”
“Technically, I am actually neither.”
The blonde girl’s jaw dropped. “How…?”
“I am a robot, Rin. Gender is also a human social construct,” Miki replied. “Therefore, I am technically neither.”
“How are you a girl, then?” She tilted her head to the side, wondering if she’d missed something vital.
“I tried being a boy once. It was what I was intended to be upon creation,” Miki’s monotone voice somehow darkened if only for a few seconds. “I did not enjoy that, so I am a girl now.”
“Oh!” Rin nodded, satisfied with the answer she was given. “That makes sense.”
By this point, after having greeted Ms. Gumi, of course, the two had already taken seats at the table by the window, where potted spider plants sat.
“Are you sure you don’t mind how much I talk?” Rin questioned, her insecurity surfacing from the back of her mind. “Everyone else gets annoyed at me for it.”
“I like hearing humans talk,” Miki stated. “It’s always interesting.”
“Well, in that case…. I have another question.”
“Go ahead,” the robot girl prompted.
“Is your name Miki because of Miku? Is that why you like the show?” She fired her questions off, much like she always had.
“No, that is not why I like InStatic,” Miki answered. “I like it for its predictable nature, unlike real humans. And I do not believe my creator knew about the show’s existence when I was named.”
“I still really like your name,” Rin said enthusiastically. “I don’t like mine very much.”
“Why not?” Miki seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say.
“I don’t know,” the blond sighed. “It just… doesn’t feel right. It’s like there’s a piece of a jigsaw puzzle missing, but I also don’t know what the big picture is gonna look like.”
“Is there a way I could help?”
“I don’t know, honestly.” Rin lay her head on the table, groaning a little. “I’ll let you know if I think of something.”
As the days went on, the blonde had found that Miki was getting better and better at emoting her facial expressions. The pink-haired robot girl had mentioned how seeing Rin’s expressions helped her with that. Which was both strange and unbelievably cool. Especially since Rin hated her own face.
She had also started metalworking a lot, since her goal was to become an engineer. She also loved working with computers and seeing how they work inside and out. It was also a huge help in creating gadgets for Miki that would upgrade her systems and inner workings. Like how Rin was working on getting Miki to a point where she won’t have to run on oil anymore. Her mother, of course, hated that.
“Rin!” her mother would scold. “Get that cleaned up, and be a lady.”
She still hated being called a lady. Or being told to be one. But, hey. Things were starting to look up for the first time since Rin had entered the double doors of the brick prison that was school, even if she still hated her name, voice, and body.