I gulped. The atmosphere was dead. Miku was pacing back and forth, cheeks flushed and tear-stained. I felt that there was nothing I could do. My own problems paled in comparison to the crisis she was having.

Sure, I had my issues with my mechanical arm and my recently deceased father, but Miku was experiencing the largest existential crisis I'd ever seen. It was like something out of a fictional drama. I almost laughed at how hollow my observation was, then I was disgusted at myself as I realised how terribly, honestly, brutally astute it was. But then, of course, my mouth spoke before I could think. "This is like something out of a soap opera,"

The glare that Miku gave me was one of pure vitriol. What little of me didn't quake at that look wondered how I hadn't been eviscerated on the spot by the sheer malignity. An even smaller portion of that realised how much I'd screwed up with that one sentence.

Miku stomped over, pointing at me accusingly. "Are you saying that this is entertainment?!" Her voice was shrill with anger, and I didn't blame her. What I'd said was uncalled for. "You're sick!"

"That's not what I mean!" I replied, stepping back with my hands up. "It's just that… you don't see this kind of thing every day!" I felt like I wasn't making my situation any better.

From the look on Miku's face, I most certainly wasn't. "I… You…" Lost for words, she screamed her exasperation. She turned on the spot so swiftly I was almost whipped by her ponytails. I sighed. I wasn't good at this sort of thing, I never had been.

Not wanting to have any of my limbs ripped off by an outraged android, I went in to the kitchen. It was probably best to leave her for a while. As I entered, I realised I was extraordinarily hungry - in the rush, breakfast had completely slipped my mind. Well then, I thought, I suppose I'll make myself a sandwich.

Now, where was the bread? I got thinking. I asked myself the same question from earlier - if Miku was an android designed for making music, what else was there? What life - I meant life figuratively, of course - did she have outside of melodies and notes? Indeed, she hadn't even written any songs yet. The logical conclusion was that she'd had no life whatsoever. No memories, no family, no anything.

Ah, there we go. I located the loaf of bread I'd bought a few days ago. The packaging was still intact, so the bread would be fine. If Miku had nothing, then... My train of thought came to a grinding halt. There was so little about her that I was unable to finish the statement.

Now, what to have on the sandwich? Instead of asking what for, I started to ask why. I was asking why she was made instead of what for. I ran through the reasons as I opened the fridge. I found my first option as I found my sandwich filler - some slices of beef. "Maybe she's an experiment in human-like AI and human analogues?" I suggested to myself. The idea seemed plausible right up until the point where she lacked memories. As I took out a few slices, I considered that if not for her amnesia and unnatural enthusiasm for the mundane I would have thought her perfectly normal, discounting her remarkable appearance.

I put the cold beef on one of the slices of bread and sprinkled a little salt on it. Another reason could've been that this was the start of a sentient machine uprising that would change everything. I suppressed a laugh at how ridiculously stupid the premise of that was. "This is real, this is happening," I told myself with a bitter smile. Besides, they had very little reason to revolt in the first place.

I closed up my sandwich and took a bite, eyeing the lustrous knuckles of my right hand. I just couldn't get my head around it. I shrugged, swallowing. I was sure there was something else, some other reason, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I took another bite.

I was simply unable to work out why Miku was even here. It was a little heartbreaking, I thought, to see such a girl laid low by her missing past. I frowned and shifted in my seat uneasily. I had never really realised that I kept calling Miku a 'she', when as an android she was surely genderless. "Maybe she isn't genderless after all," I told myself. "Maybe under her clothes she's -" I halted abruptly mid sentence. "No, that would be illogical". I tried to shake the mental image from my head. I finished my sandwich, and returned to the living room, curious to know whether or not she would still be angry with me. She probably would.

Strangely enough, when I entered the room there was an absence of Miku. I glanced around, making sure that she wasn't in here. Nothing beside the front door had been moved, so she at least was still in the apartment. Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I realised that she was probably back in my bedroom.

I opened the door slightly and peeked inside. Sure enough, Miku was back in the bed, curled up and facing away from the door. "Are you asleep?" I asked just loud enough to be audible, but not so loud as to wake her if she was asleep.

Miku shifted uncomfortably, but did not look at me. "No. I can't."

"Oh." I stared at the back of her head. "Any way I can help?"

She rolled over, staring at me blankly. "No. Not like that. I literally cannot sleep. Ever."

Eye contact was like staring into an abyss. "Have you tried seeing a doctor?"

Her expression remained blank. "Idiot." She rolled back over.

I felt the confusion manifest on my face before remembering she was mechanical. I came in to the room a little more. "Oh, have you tried seeing a mechanic?"

Miku rolled over again, a look of disbelief ghosting across her features. "You are a mechanic."

I glanced away, thinking, then glanced back. I could feel the thin smile form before I could stop it. "Yes. Yes I am." The implications started to worm their way in to my head. For what seemed like the umpteenth time, I shifted uneasily. "So, do you want me to... you know..."

Miku looked slightly disturbed. "Don't even touch me." Again, she rolled away.

I wasn't offended, her reaction was perfectly reasonable. As I started to move back out, my foot brushed against something. I looked down, and it was Miku's bag. I glanced back up, making sure she wasn't watching, before picking it up as quietly as I could and exiting. I gently closed the door behind me.

Of course, I was going to put the bag back when I'd finished looking at its contents. I wasn't doing anything bad; I was just being naturally inquisitive. Eager to get this over with, I unzipped one compartment. As I had suspected, it had her other set of clothes in it. They hadn't been folded, just sort of stuffed in there. Perhaps she wasn't as neat as I first thought?

I reached for the zipper of the second compartment, but paused a hair's breadth away. This wasn't right. No matter how much I assured myself that this was fine, it wasn't helping. Should I? Shouldn't I?

I started to open it, but then stopped. "No." I told myself. I leaned back, staring at the bag. It was nothing special, just a light brown messenger bag with a darker strap made of what appeared to be synthetic leather.

That wasn't right. How did she have that bag? Where did she get it from? She had no money! It wasn't possible. I frowned and scratched my head with the wrong hand. It stung as some hair got caught in my steel fibre muscles, but I ignored it. There was all the stuff inside, too, how did she get a hold of that? My first thought was theft, but she didn't really seem to be that kind of person.

I shrugged, massaging my scalp where I had caught my hair. I looked back at her bag. I might as well put her dirty clothes in the wash, if only to excuse what I'd done. Gingerly, I took out her clothes, resting them on my arm. Ignoring the fact that I was handling somebody else's underwear, I took the clothes into the kitchen. I didn't have what one would consider a 'laundry room', so my washing machine was instead in the kitchen.

A minute or so later, the washing machine started to gently hum as it began its first cycle. Now that was complete, it dawned on me that I had nothing to do. I scratched my head, with my left hand this time. I sat back down in the living room. Well, if and when Miku stopped vegetating in my bedroom, I'd need an excuse so that -

The bedroom door swung open, and a rather sullen Miku emerged. She stopped as she was just about to pass me. Evidently, she had noticed the fact that her bag was not where she had left it. Miku looked from me to the bag, paying close attention to the fact that it was open.

"Why is my bag open?" She asked, her voice betraying nothing of her thoughts. "Moreover, why is it in here?"

"Uh, well, I, uh," I didn't know what to say. "I knew you had dirty clothes, and I knew they were in the bag, so I took the bag then I took the clothes out of the bag then -"

She interrupted me with a dismissive gesture. "Whatever. Just tell me where my clothes are."

I silently breathed out. She'd brushed over the issue with very little trouble, which was surprising to say the least. "They're in the wash."

Miku nodded. "Oh. Okay." She sat down beside me, or more accurately collapsed onto the couch. I considered her with a side glance, and upon realising she had her eyes closed I looked more intently at her.

"How're you feeling?" I asked, surprised at how worried I was for her. She was a near complete stranger, and yet she could still get this reaction out of me. Strange.

"I… I just…" She opened her eyes and nailed me with a leaden gaze. "I don't care. I honestly, truly, have just given up with caring about my past, whatever it may have been. I look only to the future now."

I felt a grim smile split my lips in half. It was incredible. She'd just moved on, just like that. I could hardly believe it.

"It's in my name, you know."

Okay, that I did not understand. "What is?"

Miku hadn't moved, hadn't even blinked, just stared at me with those sombre eyes. "Future. Miku, my forename, is derived of the nanori spelling for Future, that being Mirai. Hatsune, a combination of Hatsu and Ne, means First Sound."

I nodded. Somehow, it kind of made sense to me. Miku seemed to be far more advanced than any of the other androids I'd ever come across, that's for sure. "First Sound… Future…"

Miku nodded, looking away. She started to fiddle with the hem of her skirt, though whether it was from embarrassment or boredom or some other third thing; I couldn't tell.

"Are you sure that you're -"

"I'm fine!" Miku shouted, not even bothering to look at me. The innocent curiosity she had initially possessed seemed to have become nought but a distant memory. I noticed that I had been inching away from her, and by now there was a substantial gap between us. Sighing, I stood, uncertain of what I was going to do to fill the time.

I could almost feel Miku's eyes boring into the back of my skull like two slivers of molten iron. "Moody?" Miku asked abruptly. The concerned note in her voice had made another appearance.

I didn't turn around. "What?"

"You're bleeding." What?! Panicking a little, I looked down, before seeing the patch of blood on the right shoulder of my shirt. I practically tore the blood-marked item of clothing off. Blood, dull carmine, was seeping out of the seam where the meat of my shoulder met the metal of my arm. A small amount of whitish ichor was leaking out too. I stared at it with a kind of morbid curiosity, as did Miku.

I watched as a bead of red trickled down my side. "I feel like I've forgotten something."