This has been written for the AO3 collection "Asexy Valentines"; I'm planning on posting it there on Valentine's Day. Guys, AO3 needs love! Sweet, sweet asexual love! Join the cause! (I suggest you read the collection FAQ, though, if you want to enter something.)
Obviously, this is wildly AU, in that Kyubey has a humanoid form, and 'revolution' has swept through his society. However, I do think that if Kyubey had a humanoid form, he would be asexual; I also 'read' Mami as asexual. So there we are. I own nothing.
"No, no, it's like this."
She slips her warm, pulsing flesh-and-blood hand out of his cool, not-pulsing hand, and prances lightly away a few paces from him. Her arms are outstretched and sway gently as she re-enacts the dance. The day is overcast but it just so happens that she's stepped into a patch of sunlight, peeking down on the world through a hole in the clouds.
The sun might have stopped just to look at her, he muses. When the Overseers decided to switch to humanoid models, they in their infinite wisdom felt that perhaps an appreciation for aesthetics would assist their scouts in 'fitting in' (And they, of course, had no inkling of what would eventually arise from that). Her cheeks are flushed pink; just the result of blood rushing to her face due to exertion, he knows, but her skin just seems to glow. Her amber eyes dance with little pinpoints of light, like sunshine shown on mica. The sun itself seems to have become entangled in her golden curls—hair, human hair, that is (there is a humanoid species on Niana VI whose hair has phosphorescent properties, but as far as he knows), should never shine so brightly, as though possessed by its own light.
But, Kyubey supposes, it's nothing he should be complaining about. He drinks in such sights eagerly, fascinated by beauty in all its myriad forms. Especially when it's her.
"Hmm," he muses, after the moment when she's stopped dancing and started looking at him expectantly. "I believe your memory may contain a closer approximation after all."
Mami smiles brightly. Hopping back into step with Kyubey, she knots her fingers back in with his, and they continue on down the sidewalk.
The source of their 'dispute', if you want to call it that, arose from yet another late night/early morning spent watching nature documentaries at Homura's apartment. Homura usually makes a point of disagreeing with Kyubey on principle, but they are of one mind as to the necessity of 'bonding exercises', namely that they are unnecessary and at times rather bothersome. However, Mami insisted, and all give way to Mami's pleading—that's how it's always been, Kyubey can't help but notice.
But the 'bonding exercises' must be done on Homura's terms or not at all, so nature documentaries it is. This one was about some endangered species of tropical bird in the South Pacific, and what Mami just re-enacted for Kyubey's benefit (not to mention the settling of their 'dispute') was the courtship dance of the male of the species. As they walk on (the mall today; Mami wants to look for new shoes, and insisted that Kyubey come along), Mami murmurs about the dreary sky, wondering if it will rain, and Kyubey frowns.
He has been on this tiny, precariously-balanced planet and lived among its people for several years now, and if there is one thing he still fails to understand, it's the human fascination with and fixation on sex and sexuality. Why is such a fuss made about mating and the preamble to mating? They might have moulded his form in the shape of a human male, but his Overseers did not in their infinite wisdom see fit to give him any desire for intercourse, or any insight into that subject beyond the bare facts. Perhaps they did not—
"Mami?" Kyubey asks suddenly. Perhaps Mami will understand. Though she is not omniscient, and does not know the names of all the stars, and has not been among the peoples of the universe, Kyubey has from others' interactions with her seen her show herself to be insightful. Peers come to Mami for advice on just about everything. "Why do human beings place so much value on sexual intercourse?"
"Kyubey?" Her tone quavers just a bit—confused and perhaps just a touch affronted (And there's yet another thing Kyubey understands, that humans can be both fascinated by sex and offended by the very mention of it). The grip of Mami's hand slackens; one of her fingernails slides against his knuckle, not sharp enough to hurt or even irritate, but noticeable. Maybe chastisement.
Or maybe not. He's not entirely sure. But the subject has been broached, so Kyubey sees no reason not to go forward.
"I don't… I have never understood the human preoccupation with sex and their sexuality—or everyone else's sexuality, as it happens. Why is so much—" he pauses for a moment, searching for the sort of word that won't derail this conversation entirely "—attention paid to these things?"
She takes a long time to answer, sighing heavily and staring off into space. His people have only the barest concept of age, but Kyubey sees years flood in to Mami's face whenever she wears such an expression. The weight of the life of a Puella Magi, or perhaps just the weight of Mami's life, and every stroke of ill fortune that's ever fallen on her. "I… I couldn't tell you," she admits finally. "I've really never…" That train of thought goes right off the tracks, or seems to, only for another train to pick up in its place. "At first I thought it was because I was a Puella Magi. After all, I could be killed at any time, so it was just as well that I wasn't thinking at all about sex."
Kyubey nods. That line of thought makes perfect sense to him; trivial things shouldn't be allowed to cloud the awareness of the big picture.
"But then," Mami goes on, her eyebrows arching up into her fringe, "time wore on. I became stronger, more competent, and less likely to die in battle. However, I never really wanted to have sex, you see. I still don't. Everyone else wants to, it feels like—well, everyone but you," she amends with a fond smile, "and I just don't. So I'm afraid that if you want someone to explain all of humanity's preoccupation with sex, I'm not the person you should ask!" She laughs, her slender fingers fastening back in with his.
Mami's right. That wasn't illuminating at all. He's no closer to an understanding now than he was before. But as they walk ever closer towards the Mitakihara Town Mall, Kyubey's thoughts drift elsewhere, this time towards examination of his own past behavior and realizations.
The first time he saw Mami—No, Kyubey concedes with a frown, perhaps that is not correct. The first time he saw Mami, she was a young girl curled in the twisted wreckage of a car. She had been covered in blood and dying; Kyubey had noticed nothing about her beyond the fact that she was a potential contract.
"Help me."
"Do you wish to live?"
"Y-yes. Please…"
"Then if that is your wish, I shall grant it."
At that time, she was nothing more than another prospective soldier in the cause to prevent the heat death of the universe. And a skilled soldier Mami became, learning and adapting with admirable speed. She was also a fine recruiter, drawing others into the cause when they would not listen to Kyubey or even speak to him.
Then, came the day.
The Overseers see no more need for 'bonding exercises' than Kyubey or Homura do; they do encourage their scouts to keep in close contact with the local Puellae Magi. However, eventually came the day when Kyubey realized that he spent more time with Mami than with any of his other recruits. That if he had a choice, he went with her. It was like being drawn into the gravity of a bright white star.
Curiously, he especially remembers what she had been wearing that day. It was a sweltering summer's day and the humans, more sensitive to changes in temperature than Kyubey is, were dressed in their lightest, most comfortable summer clothing.
Mami had worn a sleeveless white muslin dress, slightly past her knees. The hem of her skirt and the collar of her dress were both eyeleted; the muslin whispered whenever she moved. As though reeling from a physical blow, he'd been struck that day, at the sight of her, curls loose and tousled, eyes bright, of how beautiful she was. It was a painful realization, like a wrenching deep in the core of his being, but there had been… had been…
Kyubey's not sure what to name that other thing he felt that day. Revolution and reform swept through his society as does the wildest of storms, but emotions are still new and foreign to his people and sometimes, Kyubey wonders if he isn't going insane after all, despite the fact that emotion is no longer coded as insane among his people. He'd certainly suspected himself of insanity that day.
The thought has since passed. Kyubey no relishes the smallest physical contact—a brush of skin on skin, Mami's brief kisses (cheek or forehead, warm and moist, flutters like an insect's wing), or fingers laced with fingers. He relishes time spent together, even on the most trivial of pursuits. Kyubey could not tell anyone, let alone himself, what causes him to gravitate to her side. He's not sure what this is, what it's supposed to be, or what, if anything, will come of it.
But when she walks through patches of sunlight, she gleams gold as though she was the sun itself, as though the sunlight raced down to Earth and the sun has found an embodiment of her. When Kyubey sees such a sight, all he wants to see is more.
Nothing else seems to matter quite so much, as her.