Summary: Emotions are from the soul. They aren't created with wires and batteries, and no man-made machine should be able to understand pain and loss and death. Then why is it that the static coming from that monster sounds so much like fear? "I just don't want to die!" /Kids Who Lost Their Way, Pt. 1/

GA: I've been writing for Kurobot for the past couple of months like nobody's business. This is just one of the very, very small fics I'm writing. Hopefully my largest project will come out sometime this year. Probably not, though. This is part one of a two-part series, because I didn't feel comfortable considering them close enough to be "chapters".

Warning: this is a very...interesting fic. I don't know how to classify it. You've been warned.

Enjoy!

JUST SLEEP.

"Kuroba...Kaito. Do you...remember me?"

The voice that emanates from behind Kaito, just as he's closing his front door, and Kaito feels his blood freeze, skin dropping several degrees upon recognizing the voice. It's his own, but not with the same inflections used by that detective, Kudo Shinichi. Instead, there's an edge of static, as though listening to the hum of a computer, or something equally synthetic.

"I'm...you."

The voice breaks, but Kaito's sure that he's hallucinating the hesitance in the robot's - android's - voice. Robots don't hesitate. They don't feel anything. Especially not this one. "I killed you." Three words, spoken without hesitation, deceptively calm even as Kaito grips the doorknob a bit tighter. "Why are you here?"

There's another pause, and Kaito almost turns around, but the robot is speaking again, and so he doesn't. "I want your help. Please."

"You can't want." Kaito spits out, still staring at the brass between his fingers. The robot seems to breathe in - he can't, he's not real, robots don't need to breathe - before replying.

"I...I need your help."

"Go away." Broken trust is one thing to Kaito, but he had never trusted the robot in the first place, which makes his voice come out that much harsher. "You can take care of yourself. Stay away from me."

"I-"

"Leave."

"Kuroba Kai-"

"I said leave-!" Kaito spins around, ready to pull out his cardgun if the robot dared stare at him for another moment, but quickly steadies his hand.

The robot is nowhere to be found.

Aoko rounds on him shortly after he arrives at school, and Kaito's unsure why, but there's danger ringing in his skull every step of the way. "What the heck was that, Bakaito? You don't just say something like that and run off!"

Kaito is less confused than he should be- the fact that he knows who had approached her terrifies him more than being yelled at. "Geez, calm down," he tries to act casual about it, as if it is nothing more than a prank set up by a very convincing magician. "It's not like it was a big deal or anything."

"No big deal!" The fury in Aoko's eyes is almost impressive. "You told me you were going to die, Kaito! That you were in some- some trouble and that people were coming to take you away! How am I supposed to think that that is no big deal?!"

There's a beat of silence in which Aoko fumes and Kaito assesses the situation. That damned...thing, trying to worm his way into Aoko's life. He clenches his fists slightly before relaxing, hoping that nobody more perceptive than Aoko - Akako, Hakuba, even Keiko - had seen his irritation. "I pull pranks like that all the time. Anyways, I don't know why you're so worried about me. It's not like anybody could actually kill me if they tried!"

Aoko freezes for a moment before turning around and sitting firmly at her desk, obviously ignoring Kaito for god knows what reason. He doesn't understand her anger, but at the same time has no time to think about it. The only thoughts in his mind are of the robot- the thing that he doesn't want to admit exists but has not choice but to confront.

The only thing he can firmly believe is that there will be no third time.

"You actually came." KID is standing where he stood before, the first time that the robot had died, atop a crumbling infrastructure that still hadn't been removed, even after months. He's not facing the monster that shared his name, but there's no need to at the moment. He can feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and he knows that it's there, watching. Waiting.

It finally speaks. "Of course I did. You requested my presence." KID grimaces; he had, in the latest heist notice. It was poorly timed, barely sending it in a day before the announced time, but he hadn't felt comfortable letting the robot walk around with his face any longer.

"Then I hope you know what this means." He finally turns to face it, and in his hands is a gun. No silver, no cards, just smooth black metal and very real bullets in the chamber. With the way the thing's eyes widen - analyzing, not shocked, it can't feel shock, Kaito knows this - KID knows that it knows just as well as he does.

And apparently, it doesn't like the idea. "I don't understand- I- there must be a misunderstanding. I simply asked for help-"

"I know what you did," KID spits out, brandishing the gun at the robot again. He doesn't know why he's having this conversation, not when he knows this thing can't understand. It's all scripted sentences, a self-defense mechanism in the form of scared pleas for mercy. It's not real, none of it is- and the finger on the trigger tightens imperceptibly. "You tried to kill me, is what you did. I'm not an idiot, no matter what's programmed into that stupid head of yours."

"That was-" He falters - searching his system for a fallback, he has to be - before starting over. "That was my- my fault, but I changed. My processors- I've become unable to harm humans. Please, you have to believe me-"

KID snorts loudly. It's not amusing, no- it pisses him off. "Why should I? You'd never change. You're just a- a monster from a damn laboratory! I almost died once, and I'm not going to take any second chances!"

"Well I don't want to die either!" It's a loud shout, filled with- with emotions, and no matter how false and electronically generated they are, KID has to admit as much. The robot is able to emulate fear, and it's almost convincing. But KID knows better- of course, the robot is modeled after him. It would know more than anyone else what fear sounds like.

What it looks like.

It's less than a split second later that KID makes up his mind, tired and angry and scared of actually being won over by a monstrosity that can't even think for itself.

He pulls the trigger, and the thing doesn't even react. Metal spins through the air, tearing through frames and wiring and whatever godawful electronic devices power the monster. There's a neat, tidy hole in the middle of its forehead, and KID wonders for a split second if it was going to come after him-

-before it tips backward and falls.

It's surreal, watching his own body - not his body, the body of a monster - fall over the railing, into inky darkness for a brief second before his body is illuminated by the lights of a thousand cars on a Japanese highway. There's a loud shriek, followed by the simultaneous screeching of a thousand brakes- KID looks over the edge, sees a terrified woman looking between the false corpse and his own figure illuminated by the full moon, and turns away, resisting the urge to look back.

It wasn't alive anyways -

- it never was -

-and so he feels nothing.