A/N: Wow! Thanks your all of yalls' reviews! I'm surprise at how many I've gotten so far. I GIVE YOU ALL FREE COOKIES! Well… just pretend I am. Nice, warm, gooey, chocolate chip morsels from Heaven… sigh. We have those at school. They're great. Anyway! Enough about food, and more about fic! Here's chapter 3!
CHAPTER 3: ALWAYS Read the Manual
Tatsuha Uesugi was walking along his way down the pavement for a nice visit with his dear brother (we say 'walking' because the guy totalled his car a few days ago and Mika swore to never let him drive again). This morning was a very good morning for the teenage monk and his spirits were 100 up, so what could be better than taking this opportunity to spend it with one's only older male sibling? Well… Yuki probably couldn't say the same, but he'd have to deal with it anyway! Tatsuha was NOT going to come all the way down here to get a door unwelcomingly slammed in his face for being so considerate and loving! Besides… Yuki didn't have many friends (in case anyone didn't know) and it was unhealthy for him not to receive visits every once in a while.
And so, the dark-haired boy skipped up to his brother's front door, a smile adorning his good-natured face, and rung the doorbell.
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Inside, Yuki had just finished wiping the drool off his laptop from falling asleep on it last night… again. It was becoming a frequent habit of his, and a very nasty one at that.
The author glanced back at the living room and scowled at the STILL sleeping figure on his couch.
'Why the hell hasn't he woken up yet!' Yuki asked grumpily while drying off the last drops of drool on his computer. Once it was cleaned, he set it down on the counter, and went back into the den to try once more to wake the boy up. After much shaking and yelling, the kid was still sound asleep.
"Man, what did these guys send me? A human with no soul? A doll?… a robot!" While Yuki was imagining how the lifeless boy would look as a statue in his backyard, a high pitched ringing sound echoed throughout the apartment. He REALLY needed to get a new doorbell.
"Great. Company." The novelist slowly dragged his feet to the main hall, and glanced through the peep hole. "Even better… unwanted company." Yuki rolled his eyes as his younger brother put his now large-looking eye up to the hole on the outside. 'Idiot. You're not supposed to look through it.'
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Tatsuha blinked as cutely as he could once the door opened. The older Uesugi sibling just stared at him in utter disgust.
"Good morning aniki- saaaaan!" The monk chimed nasally. Without another word, Yuki shut the door roughly in the teen's face.
As the tired writer was going back to the living room, he heard a large crack from behind him and noticed that his door was being brutally chopped down into pieces with… an axe?
"Ha ha ha!" Tatsuha had made a good sized hole in the wooden frame already and had the axe firmly within his grip. "Not today brother! I'm in too good of a mood to put up with whatever you give me. So here I come!" He grinned cynically while cutting down the rest of what was left of the door. This image of Tatsuha was slightly perturbing the novelist, but all he could do was look on in silent awe as his entrance was being mercilessly hacked to death. It kind of reminded him of The Shining…
"Once again, I bid you good morning aniki! How are you doing this fine day?" Tatsuha smiled sweetly and rested all his weight on the axe.
"Well, it has now been officially destroyed… along with my door." Yuki noted.
"Ah, well that's too bad! Maybe I can stay here and keep you company?" The monk pleaded innocently.
"Yeah. That's the last thing I need right now." The novelist walked over to his brother, and kicked the axe out from underneath his elbow, causing the teenager to fall flat on the floor, letting out a yelp.
"Aw, c'mon aniki! We hardly ever get to see each other, right? What better time than to do it when I'm off from monk duty?" He stood back up and brushed off his clothes.
"So that's why you're here? Why are you wanting to spend your day off with me?" The blonde lit up a cigarette and plopped down on the sofa.
"Well, I figured you'd be lonely and all, since you usually don't get out much or even make an effort have friends, so I decided to-"
"-Mooch off me until you can pay off for the total annihilation of your car? Don't think so."
"Oh! So you knew about that little incident?" Tatsuha rubbed that back of his head sheepishly.
"Yup. Mika called and told me the whole story a few days ago. What, surprised? It's not like that's something she wouldn't do." He looked away thinking about how his older sister was such a worry wart and always updated everyone in the family about every possible thing happening.
"But that isn't the reason I'm here!"
"Yeah, isn't the reason my ass." Yuki mumbled cold-heartedly. Tatsuha sighed in defeat and decided to just drop the subject.
"Really Yuki, you're so-… cute…"
"Yes, yes, I kno- what!" The author looked at his brother in confusion and… well, disgust. He was expecting something like "oh, you're so mean" or "that's so cruel", but nothing like… cute…
"Uh, have you been to your doctor Tatsuha? Not the family doctor… you know, the special one?"
"Huh?…" He blinked, then cringed. "I wasn't talking about you aniki! I was talking about the babe on your couch!" He pointed hysterically.
"Hm?" The older Uesugi sibling glanced over at the still unconscious boy on his furniture and corrected the monk, "Oh… he's an unwanted guest." A ring of smoke puffed from the cigarette between his lips.
"Aw man, she's beautiful Yuki. How'd you manage to get a girl like her in be-… wait a minute… 'he'?" Tatsuha raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. He." Yuki clarified again.
After an intense and awkward moment of silence, Eiri then realized what his brother was thinking.
"NO you idiot! It's not like that!"
"Uh huh, sure it isn't. I knew you had a taste for the other team, though I never wanted to believe it."
"Tatsuha…" Yuki growled threateningly.
"Oh, woe is me! My only older brother is dating men! What's our family coming to? It seems the taste for tacos weren't enough to satisfy your needs, and now you have switched to hotdogs. How dreadful. How utterly dreadful!" The teen said in his theatric mode.
"You shouldn't talk Tatsuha. You're bi."
"So? There's a big difference between being attracted to both sexes, and being attracted to only one. Besides, the only man that I'll ever have true feelings for is my honey, Ryuichi!" Little hearts began fluttering around his head in a bird-like fashion.
"Yeah yeah, I know, okay? You've told me this like a hundred times." Yuki rolled his eyes at his brother's stupidity.
"Hmph! That still doesn't explain why you have a boy at your house, Yuki. And half naked at that! What, did you take him in his sleep? I can't believe my own brother…"
"Will you stop with the drama already? It's getting on my nerves, and if you don't calm down soon I'm going to throw you out, got it?" The novelist warned in a menacing voice.
"Sheesh, okay okay! I wash just kidding with ya, bro. Don't go getting all upset on me!" He waved his hands defencelessly in the air.
"Tch." Yuki snorted.
"Anyway…" The teen continued on to a different subject. "… where did ya get the kid?" He asked in a serious tone.
"…" The blonde wasn't sure whether to mention anything about the whole salesman thing and how the boy got here, but it made no sense in not telling him now since he'd seen him. It would be confusing to anyone if they saw some random person lying on the solemn sofa of Eiri Yuki (especially to someone like a family member).
"Okay… I'll tell you. But that doesn't mean you have to go around spreading it to everyone, got it? Especially not Mika or Tohma."
"Got it! Now just tell me!" Tatsuha was getting excited about this, because the way his brother sounded made it seem like this was going to be a good story. And indeed it was. The teenage boy was at rapt attention the whole time, not interrupting Yuki once while he was explaining the situation to him.
"So, that's it. And now he won't even wake up." Yuk finished with a discard of his cigarette.
The monk rubbed his chin and smirked mischievously. "Wow… so that's what this is, huh?" He nodded all-knowingly.
"… What? What's what?" The novelist asked without showing any curiosity in his voice.
"Well… I've heard and seen these things before, but I've never owned one of course. Father would have a cow and say I'm defying the law of "monkism" or whatever." He shrugged.
"Own what? Humans?" Yuki scooted away from the teen a bit.
"No! I'm not that sick you know! I'm talking about persocons!"
"Perso-what?" Yuki shook his head, puzzled.
"You don't know what persocons are? Geez man! How deprived are you from society!"
"Shut-up and tell me about them! If you have any information on this kid at all then I'd like to know so that I can dump him on wherever place he belongs!" 'Maybe that's what that salesman called him. I had totally forgot. A persocon, huh?'
After striding thoughtfully around the room, Tatsuha became like an announcer from an infomercial.
"Well, a persocon is like actually a humanoid machine created for other people's company and entertainment. They are built in a very high-tech way that they seem almost life-like and have human qualities. Each persocon is different in their own way, and have different personalities depending on how you, the buyer, want them to be. You can't find these things in any local store, there's an official website and department that sells them and lets you personalize your choice. Appearance, personality, habits, talents, all yours for the picking. The only downsides to them is that they can short out from an electrical surge (though I can't explain how), they're weight isn't exactly that of a normal person's, and in order to work properly, they must have those ear-thingies sticking out of their heads. Funny, I didn't notice the one's on that kid until just now. I though they were earmuffs or something."
Yuki was quiet for a minute to take in all that his younger brother had just said. So… the little brat was an… android, of some sorts? But he seemed so… life-like. Of course, that's what Tatsuha had just told him, right? That they seem almost human? Though it was still hard to believe…
"So that girl on the street I saw was a…" He said quietly to himself.
"What bro?"
"… Nothing…… How do you know that this kid isn't pretending to be a persona or whatever (that's the Spanish word for 'person' by the way).
"It's persocon. And no, I don't think he's pretending. I mean, look how flawless his skin is? No boy that age could have skin that smooth and silky looking. Usually they're breaking out with pimples and stuff!"
"Yeah? Well, what about you?"
"Oh me? I'm just naturally beautiful." He stuck out his chest and smiled proudly.
"Yeah, and naturally egotistical."
"Hey!"
"Shut-up and help me figure this out here." Yuki poked the head of the pink-haired boy lying down, trying to find out a way to make him work.
"What? You're going to turn him on?"
"Yeah, how else am I gonna get him out of here? I sure as hell ain't gonna carry hi-" A sudden thought struck the novelist. 'Wait… turn on?'
DING!
There was the key word.
"I got it…" Yuki went towards the middle of the room, grabbed the booklet, and opened it to the first page that said in big bold letters, "PERSOCON CARE MANUAL".
"Hey! You got a manual! Good thing that salesman remembered to equip the little guy with one of those. Otherwise we might be a little lost!"
The blonde wasn't listening as he flipped through the pages to find some sort of information on how to "turn on" this kid, er, persocon.
"Damn, where is it?" He cursed while turning the pages harder.
"Hmmm…" Tatsuha stared at his brother, then at the persocon, then at the manual, then seemed to come to a sort of conclusion.
Yuki noticed this strange behavior and looked up to find his younger sibling groping the poor, defensless boy on the couch.
"Tatsuha! What the hell do you think you're doing!" Yuki asked, a bit disturbed by his brothers odd antics.
The monk answered while still feeling under the kid's shirt, holding him upright on the furniture. "I heard once that you have to turn on a persocon by touching a certain spot on their body and pushing on it. Maybe it's somewhere around here…" He pinched the boy's nipple as well as the other one, testing to see if it would wake him up.
"You're just trying to feel him up you pervert. Now let him go, for Christ's sake." Yuki slapped a hand to his head in shame.
"Hey, you keep reading, I'll keep feeling, kay? I'm not lying here!" Tatsuha told him with a stern face and reached down lower to stick a finger in the boy's navel.
"Sigh… you're a sick man Tatsuha." Yuki shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised to find you in the sexoffenders category on the news one day."
"Shut-up! You've brought home underaged women to your bed more than I have!" He fumed.
"Because you're a stingy old monk, and I'm a free and aloof romance novelist. Can't help it if you got the shorter end of the stick."
Tatsuha was about to shoot back another smart comment, when Yuki tensed slightly. "Found it."
"Huh? How to turn the kid on?"
"No, how to knit him a scarf. YES, how to turn him on you idiot." The novelist glared at him, annoyed at the density of his brother's skull.
"Fine, be all smart-allick, you stupid, old…" He was death glared before he could finish his malevolent statement.
Yuki skimmed through the introduction and finally found the part where it told him specifically where to find the on switch. "It says that the on button is located is a discreet area so that no one can accidentally turn him off. I guess that's a good thing…."
"Well then? Where is it located?" Tatsuha urged his brother on.
"It says here that it's in the…"
Pause…………
"Yeah? In the…? In the mouth, in the nose, c'mon Yuki spit it out."
"…………" The author couldn't say anything. Instead, his face changed it's color into a nice rosy red, nearly lighting up the manual's pages.
"Uh, aniki?" Tatsuha looked at him sceptically while holding onto the limp form of the persocon.
Still no answer. Just light murmuring that the monk couldn't make out.
"Oh, give me that! Did you go brain dead or something?" He snatched the pamplet from out of Yuki's hands and read till he got to the part about the on switch. He kept reading, and then… froze…
Now he too could match the face of his brother's.
The atmosphere in the room got really heavy all of a sudden, until Tatsuha broke the silence.
"Wow…" He said at first. Yuki nodded slowly, agreeing with that exclaimation. "When they said 'turning him on' they really weren't kidding, were they?"
That statement awarded Tatsuha with a punch on the head and a lasting bump to prove it.
"Ow! Well it's true!" He yelled at his sibling while rubbing the sore spot on his scalp.
"Sigh…" The two pondered in brief silence.
"So how're we gonna do this?" Tatsuha asked.
"… I honestly don't know. It's a completely idiotic place to put the on switch, but I don't think there's any other way."
"Nope. It doesn't say anything in here about a second one. Looks like one of us will have to do the job."
…………………
"Oh fine! Just stop looking at me like that…" Yuki grumbled and gave a nasty glare at Tatsuha.
"Hey, you're the owner, which means you're responsible for it!"
"Yeah, and I won't be once I kick the thing out!" The blonde shot back and hesitantly took the male persocon from his brother's arms.
He sat there for a moment, perplexed at why the on switch had to be in such a… private area.
'Whoever thought this clever idea up had to been some kind of pervert…'
"Are you going to do it, or not?" The monk asked impatiently. He was earger to see what would occur after this.
"Hold your horses! This isn't easy for me, okay?" Yuki furrowed his brow in frustratoin. 'Why me?'
And in one swift move, Yuki tightened the grip on the boy's forearm, stuck his hand inbetween the silky smooth thighs, reached underneath his, um.. ahem.. manhood, and pushed a finger upward into the only hole available.
Tatsuha stared in disbelief. 'Wow, he really did it…'
Yuki's face was twisted in a weird way and extremely pink to boot! 'This is so wrong…'
It took a few seconds, put after a while the two heard a soft beeping sound, followed by a humming machine-like noise.
"What the hell has the kid got in there?" The younger sibling asked.
"Why're you asking me?" The other raised an eyebrow.
That's when they noticed the soft glow of light radiating off the persocon's skin and filling the whole room with brightness. Yuki let go of the boy and shielded his eyes along with his brother, who had backed up into a corner frightfully.
The persocon was hovering a few inches above the ground, his hair flowing lightly as if gravity had lifted him up. Suspended in mid-air, no strings attached… completely levitating! How in the world could a 2 ton object like that possibly be floating without any contact force? This only confused the two brothers more on how a persocon worked. Did all of them do this once first turned on?
A few seconds later, the boy bagan to go back to his original skin color, and land safely on the floor, his hair settling down. There didn't seem to be anything different about him, so Tatsuha decided to take the initiative and see what had happened.
"… What was that? I don't remember seeing that in the manual." He blinked and attempted to poke the boy but was too scared to do it.
"I don't know, but that… thing is getting straight out of my house once he's conscious." Yuki, slightly shaky, crawled back over to the center of the room to check on him as well.
"I wonder what's supposed to happen next? Check the manual again." Tatsuha prodded at the kid some more.
"No, you check it. I don't want you messing with him anymore like that. He might have an overload."
"Hey!" The younger Uesugi pouted and unwillingly obeyed the order of his aniki.
While the monk was flipping through the pages of anything about a bright blinding light or strange gravitational forces, Yuki examined the persocon more thouroughly. He felt the pink-haired boy's skin, but the texture didn't seem different. He looked all over the dimentions of his body, but nothing out of the ordinary (besides the same old ears sticking out of his head). Then why wasn't he waking up?
"Tatsuha, I think this thing is broken or something-"
The novelist's statement was cut off when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He watched the persocon for any signs of it again, and saw the kid's eyes twitch.
Yuki blinked.
All of a sudden, the younger male's lids snapped open in full attention. At first they were glossy and wide, with a faint flickering crossing over them like a machine would do, but soon after they became dull and soft, like a cloud had swallowed them.
The author was fascinated by this. It was actually alive! Finally, after all this time, it was waking up!
The persocon blinked.
Yuki blinked.
The persocon blinked again.
Yuki blinked again and twitched in annoyance.
The persocon stopped blinking and simply stared.
This creeped the writer out even more (sweat drop).
……………………(stunned silence)…………...
"SHU!" The boy leaped up and latched onto Yuki's neck, barrelling down to the ground in a loud thud!
This took the novelist by surprise and caused him to let out a sudden yelp.
"Hey bro! I found the page where it explains the- oh… never mind!" He smiled as he saw how lively the persocon was. "Looks like he's fully conscious now! Man, glad I wasn't in the line of fire. I heard those things are pretty heavy."
"Urg…" Yuki struggled to push the kid off him. "They… are. Now get the thing… OFF ME!" He yelled at the monk who was oblivious to his current pain.
"Oh! Sorry!" He grinned and helped pull the boy off of his brother.
The two human men looked over the humanoid creature as the persocon did the same. He then tilted his head cutely, his small lips slightly parted, and uttered quietly, "Shu?"
"GYAAAHHHH! HE'S SO CUUUUTE!" Tatsuha wrapped his arms around the boy and squeezed him in a bone-crushing hug (though this didn't affect the pink-haired wonder).
Yuki just rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that day. "You're such a weirdo Tatsuha."
"Oh come on! You gotta admit, he is kind of a cutey." He smirked while still holding onto the boy, who was still a bit confused by everything and said again, "Shu?"
"Oh please… and get off him. You're going to suffocate him." The blonde replied stingily.
"Ho ho, looks like someone's being possesive." Tatsuha teased. Unfortunetly, that got him a kick in the head and booted to the other side of the room, seeing mini angry Yuki's twirling around his brain.
"Shu?" The boy said for the third time and gazed strangely at Yuki.
"What do you want, brat?" He muttered and gave his signature glare a try at the kid. It didn't even phase him.
"Shu."
"Why do you keep saying that? 'Shu'? Do you know how to talk?"
"It doesn't say anything about not being able to talk properly in the manual…" Tatsuha had recently gotten back up and searched through the booklet for this odd behavior. "Maybe he's a defect."
"That could explain the weird light coming from it earlier." Yuki nodded.
"But he seems to being working at optimum sufficiency."
"Do you even know what that means?"
"Shut-up. And yes, I know what it means."
"Shu?"
"What the hell is he saying then?" Yuki growled.
"How should I know!" The monk defended himself. Both sighed in exasperation at the persocon, not knowing what to do with it next, as the boy gave his first smile of the day and yet again tilted his head, chirped out…
"Shu!"
A/N: Woo hoo! Chapter 3 was a long one. Hope yall will like it as much as I did. Isn't that funny? Chi in Chobits says her name in the beginning "Chi!" and Shuichi says "Shu!". Ironic, don't you think? LOL! Well, I think it's funny at least… anyway, thank you again for all the reviews! You've all made me very happy.
BY THE WAY!
Is it persocon? Or persocom? If it's persocon, then I've been saying it right. If it's a persocom, then I'll fix it in the next chapter. Sorry for all the questions on Chobit stuff, but I haven't read the manga in a while and I don't own it either! But someone please tell me this before I start on another chapter. I count on all of my knowledgable reviewers to help me with more information in the future if need be! Thank you!