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It happened so suddenly.
During practice, the adorably talented Nene-Robo was singing, until something akin to the sound of explosion was heard deep inside of her. Then, she wouldn't sing. Any attempt to sing was some garbled and screeching mess. The rest of her functions were failing as well.
"Hmmm… Is that so?" Rui asked, kneeling down to inspect the poor robot. "Just out of nowhere?"
Nene nodded, tugging at the sleeves of her school jacket. "Yeah… It was so sudden. I didn't know what could be the cause."
Rui frowned, grabbing a screwdriver from his desk. "Me too. If it was something internal that exploded, that would be concerning. But, nothing I've added to her should've caused that," he said, pressed the tip of the screwdriver into to screws. With a push of a button, the screws began to come loose. Carefully, he placed each of them into a small container, separating them for ease. "She already had an update recently too so it couldn't be from that…"
Nene watched from behind him, biting her lip as he slowly took the panels apart, revealing the complex interior underneath the beloved robot. The guilt and worry was practically eating her alive. Was she careless to ignore a simple routine check up? Did Nene-Robo find another handful of screws to eat? Or did she push her too far? The thoughts were endless.
"Are you worried for her?" Rui asked, his eyes glued to the motherboard he carefully crafted for her. "It's ok, you didn't do anything to cause her to break down like this."
She frowned, brows furrowed like she was annoyed more than anything now. "We don't know that," she replied. "I was gone for a week with her after that routine check-up. Maybe I pushed her too hard for the next show."
"She's handled much worse than a week of practice," Rui laughed, shifting his position as he inspected deeper into the inner cavity of the robot. "Nene-Robo was made to keep up with you, after all. You could last a whole week performing and singing over and over again. I made sure she can do the same."
Her lips pursed, clearly not satisfied with that response. Upon seeing this, Rui smiled lazily. Picking himself up from the floor, he approached his beloved neighbor before lazily throwing his weight over her head. Feeling her stumble from the sudden heaviness, she began to fight back by lightly hitting his chest.
"Rui?! What's all this for?" she asked, repeatedly trying to smack him off. "You're so heavy…!"
"How rude~" he purred, smirking as he feigned heartbreak by batting his eyes. "Am I really that heavy, Nene~?"
She grimaced, eye twitching with annoyance before she forced off by leaning his weight off of her. She leaned towards the nearby couch, hearing him thud before quickly climbing on top of him, pinning him down with her hands.
"You..!" She grumbled through gritted teeth, watching him play coy and naive as he glanced away. "You know exactly what you're doing!"
In one swift motion, her hands released his wrists, darting down toward his stomach. With a flurry of tickles, she sent Rui into a burst of chaotic laughter. Enough so that tears trickled down his eyes as he begged Nene to stop. In an act of defiance, he tried to raise his hands to her waist, attempting the same attacking but failing miserably thanks to his uncontrollable laughter.
Eventually, she joined in on his laugh, unable to hide her victorious smile plastered on her face. Then, a strange clap was heard.
The pair froze, turning to see the robot happily clapping her two metallic hands together. "Nene and Rui, smiling! Mission success!" she cheered.
"What…?!" Quickly stumbling off Rui, she staggered towards Nene-Robo and inspected her head to toe. "You're alright?! After all that, you're alright?!"
"Yes, no internal damage," Nene-Robo happily replied, swaying back and forth.
"All of that was just so you could see Rui?!"
"Actually, I think she wanted to see the both of us together," Rui cheekily commented, getting up from the chair and approaching Nene's side. "She missed seeing her mama and papa together!"
Hearing those words, her face flushed a bright red as she quickly swung against Rui's chest. "Don't say absurd things like that!!!"
Despite choking from the sudden hit, Rui couldn't help but laugh as he brought Nene into his embrace. Looking down at the robot, he gave her a cheeky wink, acknowledging and praising her successful attempt.