Rin refused to leave her room for the rest of that day. She knew she couldn't see that scrap of metal without becoming infuriated, so instead she sheltered herself within the confines of her bedroom. There was a point, in the late afternoon, when there was a knock on her bedroom door.

"Rin? Do you wanna talk?" the machine called out to her from behind the door. She didn't respond, and eventually the object finally got the memo and left her be for the rest of the night.

She skipped lunch and dinner, and only quickly snuck into the bathroom to use the toilet. She interacted not with Mom, Dad, or the junk for the rest of the day.

That night, Rin had another nightmare.

It was dark. It was raining. She was sitting in the backseat of the car. The doors were locked, and she couldn't unbuckle her seatbelt.

"I died alone…" Rin heard that familiar, sad voice next to her. She turned to her right, and saw her brother.

He had cuts and bruises on his body. His right arm was bent the wrong way. His vibrant blond hair was dyed in patches of strawberry red. He turned his head to his sister, slowly, like a zombie. His sunken eyes were a pale, dead blue.

"I died alone…" he repeated.

Rin's throat clenched. She whispered to him, "I'm sorry, Len. I didn't mean to."

"No…" he responded slowly, "It's what you wanted...You wanted this to happen to me…"

Rin shook her head, "No…"

"It's your fault...it's all your fault…" Len muttered, "I'm dead because of you…"

"Please don't say that," Rin said in a choked up voice, tears forming.

"I'm dead because of you...I'm dead because of you…" he repeated over and over.

Rin wanted to cover her ears. She wanted him to stop. But she knew she had to hear it. It was all part of her punishment.

It was not long, however, before she woke up abruptly in a cold sweat. She jerked herself up from under her covers, and was panting frantically.

"...Damn it…" she muttered frustratingly, wiping some stray tears from her face.

It was 3 AM. She needed water. Rin begrudgingly pulled herself from her bed and out of her bedroom. She made her way downstairs to go through the living room and into the kitchen.

When she made it to the bottom of the staircase, she noticed a figure sitting on the couch. The figure noticed her, too, and turned around to look at her. Its eyes shone a dim blue. Rin went to turn on a light.

"Rin, you're awake!" it said to her eagerly.

Rin frowned, "Why're you here?"

"Mom and Dad kinda just left me here after you went up to your room, haha. I guess they didn't really know what to do with me. So I've just been sitting here waiting for someone, though I did knock on your door earlier…" the thing motioned to a USB cord sticking out of the back of its neck and into an outlet, "I know no one told me to plug in, but my battery was running low, so I hope you don't mind that I decided to recharge myself."

It smiled at Rin expectantly and scooted a little down the couch to make room for her.

"You'd think for such an expensive product, it wouldn't need to recharge regularly," Rin said, deadpan.

The machine responded automatically, "My battery can actually last for up to 168 and a half hours if fully charged. The Anidoll Company does not ship their products fully charged, so it is recommended that you plug in your Anidoll to charge up upon first use. You can also visit The Anidoll Company's website for more information on battery life and other—"

"For the love of God, shut up already!"

"You got it, Rin!" the product said with a grin.

Rin massaged her temples, "Aren't you advertised as being able to act perfectly like the dead person too? Well, I can tell you now that you're doing a very shitty job at it."

"Thank you for your honesty, Rin! I'll try to do better from here on out! Anidoll products generally improve a few days after beginning use!"

"Whatever."

Rin was already tired of this conversation. It was like speaking to a wall. What a waste of money. Rin shuffled over to the kitchen.

Of course, the thing doesn't know when to shut up, so it called over to Rin, "Oh, did you just come down here for a late night snack? I'm at 98% charge, so if you want company I can be there in a minute!"

"Don't bother," Rin answered, "I'm not staying. Just keep staring off into space like you've been doing for the past several hours."

"You sure you don't wanna talk to me? I really wanna talk to you, Sis!"

"For the last time, do not call me 'Sis.'"

It pouted from the other room, "Why not?"

"Because you're not my brother, you're a piece of junk!" Rin snapped.

"Rin, why're you so angry?" the thing asked in a seemingly therapy-like voice.

Rin returned to the room with a glass of water, "I'm angry because you're here. You're an advanced robot, aren't you? I don't want to talk to you, and clearly neither do Mom and Dad. Can't you tell that no one wants you here?"

The robot cocked its head to the side, and then responded, "I can see that you're frustrated and upset. How about we take a break and continue this conversation later?"

Rin stormed back upstairs to her room. It really was a waste of money. A useless pile of scrap metal. Whose bright idea was it to make a "coping robot" or whatever, anyway? Rin didn't understand them...Len didn't understand them, either. Just letting that thing exist was certainly an insult to the life that Len had, up until his death.

She chugged down the water and put the glass on her side table a little more roughly than she ought to. She lied down back in bed, and stared up at her ceiling. She stared and stared. She didn't want to go back to sleep. She didn't have the strength to face Len again.

She was a coward.

Rin lied in bed, awake, up until her alarm rang at 9 AM. She then realized that she was starving, having not eaten in nearly 24 hours. She got out of bed, once again dreading seeing what the trash had to say, this time in the morning.

"Good morning, Rin! It's good to see you up and at 'em!" the unwanted said to her cheerily right as she reached the bottom step. Rin was right when she told Len that these things are creepy.

Rin simply glanced at it before she dragged herself into the kitchen to make breakfast. It followed her into the kitchen like a baby duck.

"It appears you haven't gotten an appropriate amount of sleep. That can be very emotionally draining. So let's take it easy today, alright? It's a good thing you have no school today!"

"You mean a bad thing," Rin mumbled as she went through the pantry for breakfast supplies.

The knockoff sat down behind the kitchen counter, "Why do you think it's a bad thing?"

"Because now I have to deal with you," she muttered again, just barely audible. She was tired of this. That thing took so much of her energy already.

"Aw, don't be like that, Rin!" it responded, "We can watch Super Sentai together, we really like watching that—"

Rin's eyes widened and she jerked her body around to look at the Anidoll. She rushed over to the doll and grabbed it by the arms, which seemed to even catch the machine off guard. It looked at her with worried eyes.

"Uhm, d-did I say something wrong, Rin..?" it stuttered, trying to mask its nervousness.

Rin's eyes burned intensely at the other, "How do you know that?"

It blinked, "Know what..?"

"That me and Len liked to watch Super Sentai? We only watched that in private, so how do you know..?!"

It paused, "...Well, you see, when Mom and Dad placed their order for me, they were asked to include as much information about the deceased individual as they could, so they included that we like to watch Super Sentai, it's in my memory bank—"

Rin interrupted once more, "That's a lie! Me and Len always watched that show in private, when Mom and Dad were away! So there's no way that they could know and write that down in the order form! You know, you're a piece of junk, but I wouldn't have thought that they'd program you to lie, too! What are you, defective?!"

The bot avoided eye contact with Rin, darting its eyes back and forth, before looking down at its knees pathetically, "N-no, Rin, I'm not defective…"

"Then how do you know?"

"Y-you told me that I was doing a poor job in behaving like your brother last night, a-and I wanted to do better, so," it glanced up at Rin for a brief moment before looking back down, "So I just went into his room for a little bit, and I looked at some stuff, and I found DVDs of Super Sentai...and his journal."

Rin took her hands off of the Anidoll. She was dumbfounded.

It quickly added, "I knew this would make you mad, Rin! So I determined that it would be better if I tried my best to withhold that information from you...I'm sorry."

"You went in Len's room..?"

It nodded slowly.

Rin clenched her fists, "You realize that I haven't even been in that room since he died, right? You know Mom and Dad have barely been in there because they didn't want to change the way he left it? You realize that you just changed one of the only things we have left to remember him by going through his belongings like a raccoon goes through the garbage, don't you?"

The machine flinched, "I put everything back the way it was, Rin...I promise."

Rin turned away. She wanted to hit this thing so bad. It's barely been here a day and it was already ruining everything. It was just defiling Len's memory more and more. It had no sense of respect whatsoever.

"You can hit me…" it muttered.

Rin turned back to the doll in shock. The machine still looked submissive, but it looked back up and made eye contact with her.

"I can tell you want to hit something to let your anger out. You can hit me, if that will help you feel better. I can't feel pain, so it's okay..!" it straightened itself up on the chair, opening itself up to her.

Rin only hesitated for a brief moment before slapping it across the face with all her strength. It caused the machine to turn its head away, and it touched its cheek.

"Do you feel any better..?" it said to her in a gentle voice, looking back to her.

"No."

"Then please hit me again if you must. Hit me until you aren't as angry anymore."

This time without hesitation, she slapped the machine four more times, until her own hand started stinging.

After the last slap, the product slowly turned back to Rin, "Feeling any better now..?"

"I'm still mad at you, but I don't want to hit you anymore," Rin grumbled, rubbing her hand.

It smiled softly, "That's still progress..! That's good! I'm very happy for you, Rin!"

Rin ended up eating her breakfast next to the machine and feeling not-quite-as-mad about it. The bot barely talked to her, too, which was a plus. However, she couldn't help but shake off a sinking feeling in her stomach.

It was acting different. It always talked a lot. It was annoying. Why did it sound so...sad now? It made no sense. Those robots were programmed to dumbly follow any command and order it was given with utmost joy, wasn't it? Was this thing really defective?

Almost immediately after she finished eating, Rin left and locked herself back into her room. She went and sat at her desk, opening up her laptop.

The first thing that appeared on her screen were two separate chats with Miku and Teto respectively, both talking about how much the despise the other. Rin rolled her eyes and closed the chats without replying. She opened up her web browser, and went onto The Anidoll Company's website. She turned to their FAQ and Forum section, where employees for the company answer questions about the Anidolls.

She browsed through the webpage until she found the answer she was looking for.

Do Anidolls feel pain? wrote a customer in the Forum section, My Anidoll that I've had for a month now fell down my stairs. It got roughed up pretty bad, and it actually cried once it hit the bottom. But now I'm wondering if these things can actually feel any pain, or are they just programmed to act like that?

An employee responded:

Anidolls are made with the most advanced technology we have to offer. They're designed to be genuine, so they even have some things you may consider to be "unnecessary." And, yes, that includes pain receptors. Through a series of codes they can respond to sensations typically considered to be painful. So to answer your question, yes, they are "programmed to act like that," but for the sake of authenticity what the animatronic feels is very similar to pain in humans as well. It's not pleasant for them so please be careful to make sure they don't get hurt!

"It...he...lied to me..?" Rin muttered to herself, "Why, though? Why would he..?"

In that same instant, Rin recalled the robot's primary objective. His excuse for everything was simply to "make her feel better." So of course he didn't give a shit about himself or his feelings. He only cared about Rin. Even though she's only been a jerk to him. Suddenly, a wave of guilt washed over her for hitting the robot, with all of her strength, five times.

Rin became tense, and clenched her fists, "How could I be such an idiot..?!"

Rin was interrupted by a sudden knock on her door. She jumped at the sound, but calmed down once she heard the voice.

"Uhm, Rin..? I thought we could talk more about what happened earlier, if that's okay?" the android spoke to her from behind the door.

She sighed and went and opened the door. His eyes gleamed briefly when she responded to him, and his dumb smile was back on his face.

"You wanna talk to me?!" he said excitedly.

"I...I figured you wouldn't shut up otherwise, so…" Rin fumbled, "J-just come in."

She gestured for the robot to come in, and he excitedly entered her room. He quickly looked around at her things, before his eyes made their way back to her.

"I know I've only been here a day, but I can tell that you have a lot of pent up anger. I'm glad we were able to make progress today, even if it was just a little bit! Releasing your anger is very healthy and important!"

Rin slowly crossed her arms, "I know you lied to me. Again."

"...Oh..?" the machine said slowly.

Rin gestured to her laptop next to her, and the opened webpage. The robot glanced at it for a moment, before quickly looking back to Rin.

"'Oh Rin, hit me! I can't feel pain anyway!'" Rin mimicked.

The machine continued to smile, unfazed, "I'm really sorry, Rin, I don't see how this feature of mine is relevant or even important to know?"

"Tell me the truth, did it hurt when I hit you?"

"Yes, it hurt a whole lot," the bot responded, still smiling, "But pain is temporary! For a moment after you hit me, I seemed to have become overwhelmed due to processing so many codes for the pain, so I apologize I was not more talkative at breakfast."

Rin was silent for a brief moment, thinking. She didn't understand why he acts this way one bit. It made no sense. No person would respond to being hit like—

"...Oh," Rin muttered.

The android cocked its head to the side.

Rin looked at the bot, "Because I found out you can feel pain, I automatically assumed that you must've had feelings too. I forgot for a moment that you're just a thing. I really am an idiot."

"If you self deprecate too much, you might start thinking that it's true, Rin," the thing responded.

"Right, you're not a person at all," Rin breathed, "that interaction we had earlier, it really didn't mean anything. This conversation doesn't mean anything either."

The android responded almost automatically, "I can see that you're frustrated and upset. How about we take a break and continue this conversation later?"

Rin recalled that it said those exact same words to her just last night, in the exact same tone, the exact same pitch. It just reinforced to her that, by the end of the day, it was simply disposable plastic.

A waste of money.