Chapter 2:

Good Morning

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The next morning, Mayumi woke up to the buzzing of her alarm clock. With a groan, she rolled over on the sofa-bed and slapped the Snooze button, buying herself another five minutes.

Oog, she thought. Why can't they make alarm clocks less annoying? What I wouldn't give to wake up to--

"Good morning, Miss Mayumi!" Ran said pleasantly, sitting upright as he came out of standby mode.

Mayumi closed her eyes and smiled. Ask and ye shall receive ... "Hey, Ran. Do you think that you could do that again in about five minutes?"

"Do what? Say 'Good morning'?"

"Yeah, that. You know, you'd make a pretty good alarm clock."

With her eyes closed, she missed Ran's expression of pure, innocent joy. "Thank you very much, Miss Mayumi! I do try to be as useful as possible."

Mayumi sighed sleepily. "Thanks, Ran," she murmured, pulling the covers up over her head.

"Say, while you're at it, could you fix me some breakfast?"

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Eight minutes later, Mayumi stepped out of the bathroom, dressed and ready for school. When she walked into the kitchen, she caught a whiff of something delicious, and found Ran leaning over a pot of soup. "Wow, what is that? It smells great!"

Ran smiled and handed her a bowl of the stuff. "Actually, this is a mixture of everything I could find in your refrigerator. I combined ramen broth and noodles with a microwave meal containing shrimp and wild rice. I'm afraid it isn't exactly gourmet food, but it was the best I could cobble together with the foodstuffs available."

Mayumi tasted a spoonful, and discovered that, whether or not it was gourmet food, it was still the best thing that had ever come out of her own kitchen. "Ran, this is incredible stuff! You should be, like, a chef persocom or something!"

Ran gave a shrug. "Thank you for saying so, Miss. Still, I think it might have turned out better if I had access to some seasonings and fresh vegetables."

As Mayumi began spooning Ran's "house special" into her mouth at top speed, she saw the tall blonde persocom pick up a spoon, scoop out some of the soup, and start bringing it toward his own mouth.

"STOP!" she yelled. Ran's arm jerked to a halt before he could take a sip, spilling a few drops on his black sleeveless shirt.

"I'm sorry, Miss Mayumi," he said. "I was attempting to follow your example. Did I do something wrong?"

"I ... well ... persocoms don't need to eat, right?"

"Eat?"

"Yeah. I saw you trying to eat the soup. Won't that mess you up or something?"

Ran thought for a moment. "I do not know. I am programmed to close my mouth in the event of being submerged in water, to prevent damage to my voice box. Could eating food have the same effect?"

"Uh, yeah. Plus, I don't think you have a stomach, so even if it didn't mess up your voice box, it wouldn't do anything for you. You can't, like, taste food, can you?"

Ran searched his system specifications, looking for anything related to a sense of taste, then shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Miss Mayumi. It appears that I simply was not designed to eat."

Mayumi nodded. "I thought not. From here on, try not to stick things in your mouth, okay? I don't want you to get gravy on your gears or anything."

Ran blinked, then gave a shrug. "I'm sorry, Miss," he said. "I really wish that I was able to eat food the way you can. I suppose that there are some functions that I simply can't perform."

Something in his voice made Mayumi feel sorry for the poor persocom. "Hey, don't get so worked up about it. I mean, of course you can't eat - you're a persocom! You've already got a fuel cell or whatever, so why should you need food anyway?"

Ran seemed to cheer up at that. "Thank you for saying so, Miss Mayumi. I suppose that, since I am programmed to be as useful to you as possible, in as many ways as possible, the thought of being unable to do certain things is a bit ... discouraging."

Mayumi walked over beside Ran and put an armaround his broad shoulders. "No need to feel bad about it," she told him. "As long as you do your best, that's more than good enough for me. All right?"

Ran smiled. "All right. Thank you very much, Miss Mayumi."

"Hey, don't sweat it," she replied, giving Ran a pat on the back before heading over to pick up her knapsack. "So far, you've been great. Thanks for breakfast, big guy."

"My pleasure," he replied. "Have a good day at college, Miss."

"Yeah, take care of yourself. Feel free to catch some TV or use the internet if you want."

"Thank you, Miss Mayumi. Would you mind picking up some ingredients for your dinner tonight?"

"Sure, no problem." Then Mayumi smacked her forehead. "Oh! I almost forgot! I'm bringing my boyfriend over tonight to do some studying. Could you be dressed in your good outfit by six o'clock?"

"Of course, Miss."

Mayumi gave her persocom another smile, then headed for the door. She was just about to leave when she heard Ran call out, "Excuse me, Miss Mayumi. What exactly is a 'boyfriend'?"

Mayumi felt herself blush. "I ... uh ... well, it's kind of complicated. I guess you're not programmed to know much about romance, right?"

"Hmmm ... I have a few bits of data on the subject, but I could look it up online today for a more in-depth understanding."

Mayumi let out a sigh of relief. Whew! As if I could explain love to a computer! "Yeah, you do that," she said. "Take care, Plastic Man!"

As his owner shut the door, Ran raised an eyebrow. Plastic Man? Then he pinched his forearm and smiled. Ah. Humor. I'm going to have to develop a sense for that sort of thing.

Ran shrugged, gave a short chuckle, then headed over to the phone jack.

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