They found him in the remnants of a lab.
That was what they told the people.
What they didn't tell them was what else occupied the lab. Human corpses, organs and dismembered limbs. And in the middle, one seemingly unharmed human, who appeared to be sleeping. They rushed to him and felt breath exit his nostrils, stirring the dust. Ecstatic, they reached out for him....
He was cold, cold as ice. Colder than any human cold be and be among the living. And his skin was baby smooth. Nevertheless, he jumped awake at their touch, blue eyes wide a frightened, like child.
"Please, I'll be good." He told them, tears gathering in the corners of those wide, blue eyes. "Please, I'll be good. Don't use me for parts, I'll be good!"
"Shh, shh." They said, because this boy was no teenager, he was a child, a frightened child, despite appearances.
"Who are they?" they couldn't help but ask, gesturing to the massacre. Because they needed to know, needed to record the names among those of the fallen. Needed to go to mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, lovers and children, and deliver the news. No one was coming home.
The boy's blue eyes widened against his pale, cold skin. "My brothers and sisters. But they weren't good. I'll be good, please, I'll be so very good. You won't even know I'm here. I've been here a long time, don't take me apart!"
He was no threat, they could tell that much. And true to his word, he was silent unless spoken to and walked with such grace that his footsteps couldn't be heard against tile floors. On their way out, the ones in front kept looking back, unable to hear him behind them. He was always there, his pale, bloodless skin standing out like a ghost in the dim of the corridors and his eyes frightened, blue spotlights that fixed themselves on his 'rescuers' unblinkingly.
Out in the van, they loaded him up, wrapped him in blankets, gave him hot coffee to drink, and raced to the hospital. It was there that things went from strange to shocking.
He was not alive; the hospital staff informed them shakily. He was very close, he had flesh and organs. But they functioned only superficially and his bones were made of metal. His eyes could see far better than an average human, indeed, all his senses were highly advanced. And his skin was freshly grown, a newborn babe's skin stretched across a teenaged body.
One nurse, at least, was able to keep her cool. It was only later revealed she was no nurse, merely a volunteer from the local college.
"Here, I got you some clothes. Do you have a name or should I just call you 'kid'?" she said, handing him a pair of boxers, a fleecy pair of pajama pants and a dark blue sweatshirt.
He looked at her with those eyes. "What's a name?"
She sighed. "What do people call you, when they want your attention?"
He looked at her blankly for a moment. "Patient 1412. Sometimes they just called me 1412."
"That won't do, you need an identity and a number isn't an identity. You need a name. You want me to pick it or do you?" she shook her head and stood beside him after he pulled on the boxers and the pants. He struggled with the shirt for a moment and she sighed and took it from him, moving slowly as if he were a frightened animal. He tracked her every move. She pulled the sweatshirt over his head and guided his arms through. He was limp, like a doll or a puppet, non-resisting. It unnerved her a bit.
"I don't know what a name is." He said to her.
"I'll pick then." She paused and regarded him carefully. "They said you're quiet, didn't they? And have senses above the normal....How about Kaito?"
"Okay." He said.
"Nice to meet you then, Kaito. My name's Aoko and if you need anything, you can ask me, okay? I don't want you to fell like you're alone so you just call me, I don't care what for, understand?"
"Yes." He said, remaining perfectly still. She frowned at him.
"Do you know what body language is, Kaito?" she asked, purposely using his new name.
"No." he said, looking at her with a quick, fleeting glance.
"Here, I'll teach you....."
Weeks passed and Aoko was a regular visitor to the strange, lifeless boy. And while all others were repeatedly denied entrance to him, she was always let in, where she greeted him cheerfully. After the first week, his eyes ceased to widen in fear at the site of her. All of the others were potential enemies, but this girl, it seemed, could be trusted.
"Kaito?" she said one day and he looked up, just like she had told him he should, in acknowledgment. "Kaito, do you want to leave the hospital with me? I've got an extra room in my apartment. You could come stay there and they wouldn't bother you as much. It's up to you. But I'll let you choose. You need to make choices on your own, okay?"
A few days later, he informed her he had chosen to go with her. And so he left the hospital and the little room with the white sheets.
The streets were busy and crowded, but Aoko pulled a hood over her companion's head to hide his pale face and took his cold hand in hers and led him on. Slowly, his fingers warmed in the steady grip.
From then on, he lived in the room in Aoko's apartment. The room that was always warm and had blue sheets that smelled of lavender. Across the ceiling, Aoko stuck glow-in the-dark stars and when sleep alluded him (it often did, the doctors had told him it was because he didn't need to sleep, he slept by choice) he stared at them for hours on end. Aoko had them arranged as close as she could manage to the constellations in the night sky, worried her companion would become disoriented if they were dissimilar. She was right.
And finally, the media calmed down and the two of them lived their lives in a moderate amount of peace. Aoko went to school during the day and at night, she taught Kaito how to be human, one baby step at a time. Eventually, she sent him out by himself to get groceries while she was at school, giving him precise directions and informing him which people he should speak to if he needed help. The kindly shopkeepers who had long befriended Aoko took to the strange boy as well. And as Kaito completed the shopping each week without incident, Aoko felt a strange amount of pride swell up in her.
"Aoko?" he said quietly one night, sipping the hot chocolate Aoko had made for him. She said it warmed him up a little bit, made him less cool to the touch, so he drank it, because he knew his skin made her uncomfortable.
"Yes, Kaito?" she said from her position against his side. They were watching TV, a chick-flick that Aoko enjoyed.
"Why is her bring him lunch such an important thing?" he asked quietly.
"She prepared his lunch for him, it's a way for her to show that she cares for him enough to worry about what he's eating. Here, its being used to symbolize her feelings for him in a way that the viewers of the show can understand without it being stated outright." She explained patiently.
Kaito scrutinized the TV silently but did not say anything else, so Aoko dropped the subject. Kaito would talk when he was ready, when he chose to. She had always emphasized the need for him to make all his choices, from the words he used to the actions he performed, very carefully.
"Could I bring you lunch one day, at your college?" he asked a few minutes later.
Aoko frowned worriedly but hid the expression against his side. It would be okay, she reasoned. And he obviously wanted to, otherwise, he wouldn't have spoken. "Of course you can, Kaito. Do you want me to give you some directions later? I'll send you straight to the cafeteria and you can meet me there."
He nodded, a gesture he had learned to emanate well, and Aoko smiled at him. Then she settled back down to finish watching the movie and Kaito remained silent beside her.
The next day, he dedicatedly prepared some of the dishes Aoko had taught him how to make during his time with her. Then he packed them into a bento and set off, locking the door carefully behind him and putting the key in his right pocket. From the left pocket, he pulled out the painfully detailed, but still easily understood directions to Aoko's college cafeteria. He followed them to the letter, even the notes beside them, making suggestions like 'if anyone you know waves at you, wave back' and 'call out a greeting to the shopkeeper on the corner or she'll assume you don't like her anymore' and 'if anyone says they have a good deal for you, tell them you'll come by and take a look later, don't be rude and tell them what you're doing'.
Finally, he reached what he assumed to be the college campus. It was there that the trouble started.
"Hey! Hey, there's that guy, the one who is like a robot or something! Hey! Hey, um, Kaito, yeah, Kaito! Slow down!" yelled out a voice and he turned, because someone calling your name meant they wished to be acknowledged. A group of people who looked about the age Aoko did approached him.
Their fingers reached out and touched him and they shivered and laughed. Kaito looked on, confused. Aoko said you didn't touch people that you didn't know and they didn't know him, did they? And they had used his name so informally, Aoko said that that was rude. Hadn't Aoko told them that?
"So, what's its like, not being alive? You can't feel anything right?" they questions came and he still looked at them in confusion. Aoko said that you didn't ask people questions about themselves unless you knew them. She said not to. Didn't they listen when Aoko talked to them? "You can't feel this, right, because you're not alive? Are you a zombie? Or a vampire?" They pinched him and touched him and he winced away. Didn't they know not to pinch people? Didn't Aoko tell them that it wasn't good to touch people?
Why hadn't they listened to Aoko?
"Hey! Hey, leave the poor guy alone!" came a voice and they students faces turned slightly fearful. Kaito didn't know why, the voice sounded nice. Almost sounded like....like Aoko.
"Crap! It's Mouri! Run!" one of them said and they scattered.
A girl who looked like Aoko, but tamer, somehow, walked up to him, glaring furiously at the retreating backs of the group. Then she turned to him with a smile. "Kaito-kun, right? Did you need some help?"
Kaito looked at her, but she seemed nice. And she wasn't touching him and she used –kun on the end of his name and Aoko said that's what you were supposed to use if you met someone who was younger than you. And he was technically younger than nearly everyone. "Yes. Aoko, I was bringing her lunch, like the girl from the movie. Aoko said it was okay. But they were touching me. Didn't Aoko tell them that touching people was rude?"
Ran smiled at him sympathetically. "That's very sweet of you, Kaito-kun. My name's Ran. You're friend, Aoko-san, is probably waiting for you in the cafeteria, isn't she? Do you want me to take you so no one else will come by and start touching you again? You look like a friend of mine, if you were with me, they'd probably think you were him and wouldn't bother us."
Kaito nodded at her and she smiled. "I'm going to hold your hand, okay?"
"Okay."
Ran escorted him to the cafeteria. "Can you find your friend from here?"
Kaito looked across the cafeteria and saw Aoko, who saw him. She gave the girl with him a suspicious look and stood up, beginning to make her way over to them.
"Yes, that's her right there." He said and Ran smiled again.
"That's good. You take care, Kaito-kun." She said and gave his hand a final maternal pat. Then she turned and walked away.
"Kaito? Who was that?" Aoko said and Kaito looked at her, offering her the bento.
"Her name was Ran, she made the people who were touching me go away. Didn't you tell them that touching people was rude?" Kaito asked as Aoko took his hand and led him to a empty table.
"What?" she said and Kaito rehashed the story for her. "Oh, Kaito, I don't tell everyone in the world how to act. I tell you, because you need someone to tell you, but I can't tell everyone. They have to learn on their own. I'm sorry that those people made you uncomfortable."
"Why are you sorry? It wasn't your fault." Kaito asked and she sighed.
"It's an expression. Don't worry about it." She said and took a bite of the food he'd prepared for her. "This good, Kaito, you did a very good job. Thank you."
Kaito lit up under the praise. "I'm glad."
Later that night, after another movie, he replayed the events from that afternoon over in his head as he memorized the constellations on his ceiling for the thousandth time. Finally, he got up and crept to Aoko's room, silent as his namesake.
"Aoko?" he said, placing a cool hand against her cheek. She roused and looked at him blearily.
"Kaito? Did you need something?"
He looked at her, something fearful having returned to his blue gaze. "Please," he pleaded, "what does it mean, to be alive?"
So, yeah. I kind of was looking through these old documents on my computer and found this one named Bunnies. So I opened it and it was this list on one-lined prompts. Kaito's last sentence was one of them and I couldn't resist. Tell me what you think, all! (and this one is not being continue, darn it! I'm serious!)