Chapter 21: Totally Trashed
Chi gave her eel tank a pre-flight check.
She replaced the water in each compartment, and made sure the lids were securely closed. Then she gave Erin a big hug, wished her luck in her college search, and loaded her stuff onto the truck.
Hideki packed his suitcases. Or rather, he tossed his wrinkled clothes haphazardly into them and stomped them shut. Then, still barely awake, he stumbled out the door and into a world that was way too bright. Squinting from the morning sun, he managed to tell Yuka's relatives goodbye in Portuguese, and found Arthur's truck waiting for him.
Then it was off to the airport.
"You okay, Chi?", Ataru whispered, once they were in the plane. Chi was sitting quietly near the aquarium, looking depressedly at the floor. She didn't answer.
"You're worried about Hideki, aren't you?", Ataru persisted. Chi nodded silently. "Yuka and I are worried about him, too", he added.
Chi still looked despondent. "I guess you know, I screamed at him the other night", she deadpanned.
"And now you feel like a goat?", Ataru guessed, and a bleak look from Chi told him his guess was right.
Ataru leaned back against Yuka's suitcases. "From what I've read, that's the norm when you're dealing with an alcoholic. I'd probably scream too, if Yuka were to get drunk and throw up on me."
"You ever screamed at Yuka?", Chi asked.
"Well...", Ataru responded, "I did kind of yell at her that time she tried to install some software I didn't want."
"Against your will?", Chi asked, looking a bit surprised. "I wouldn't have thought she'd try that."
"Well, that WAS nearly a year ago, not long after I had told her how I felt about her", he explained, "and I don't think it had really sunk in for her yet that you don't just install software on your boyfriend without his consent. Even if he IS a persocom."
"So, how'd you feel afterwards?", Chi asked, her despondence turning to curiosity.
"Scared, mostly...", he answered. "I had just shouted 'NO! That's a STUPID program, I DON'T WANT IT!', and she was staring at me like she was in shock. I was afraid she was gonna dump me, or even reformat me. But... You know what?"
"Um...", Chi surmised, "It looks like things turned out okay..."
Ataru nodded. "Yeah, like immediately. She hugged me and cried", he told her. "And it was like she saw me for the first time that day as someONE rather than someTHING."
"I think Hideki has seen me as someone for awhile now", Chi replied, still looking a bit down. "But I'm worried about hurting him. I was up half the night worrying."
"I think what we need to worry about now is Hideki hurting himself, with his addiction", Ataru told her. "Why don't you get some shuteye, Chi? I'll keep an eye on the eels for the first half of the trip."
"Thanks, Ataru", she replied, finding a spot on the floor to lie down. And soon, she was sound asleep.
"Ohh, my head", Hideki groaned as he sat in the uncomfortable airline seat. He had tissue paper in his ears to block out the sound, and a napkin over his eyes to block out the light. "Ohhhhhh", he groaned. A flight attendant offered him an aspirin, and he gratefully accepted. Not that it did a lot of good.
At mealtime, Yuka made sure he drank some orange juice, and just hoped he wouldn't throw up on the plane.
Dr. Ookido met them at the airport. "This definitely calls for some extra credit", he told them, as they piled into his van. "Getting those eels was no easy feat."
He dropped off Chi and Hideki at the Gub Jogasaki, then drove off towards Yuka's apartment.
"How was your trip, you two?", came a voice from... from... directly overhead?!
Chi and Hideki looked up to find Ms. Hibiya, all decked out in some kind of skintight outfit, floating about ten feet above them. She had her visor helmet on, with a small WiFi antenna on top.
"Miss Manager, what kind of outfit is THAT?!", Hideki gasped, pointing at her, his mouth hanging wide open as she landed gently beside them. His nose started bleeding, and he dropped one of his suitcases, spilling wrinkled clothes out onto the sidewalk. Chi facepalmed at the scene Hideki was making.
"I think you scared him a bit, there, Chitose", came another, rather amused-sounding, voice from somewhere above. Zima was sitting on the edge of the roof, leaning back against the taller bumpout above the front entrance.
A moment later, he was standing beside them, twirling a bucket of roofing glue around on his finger. He flicked it up in the air, then caught it with his other hand, all without spilling a drop. "Showoff", a smiling Chitose teased him.
"Check out the music channel tonight at 8", she told Chi and Hideki as they were going into the building. "Freya's playing in Osaka this week, and tonight's concert is gonna be shown live on TV!"
I heard you have an uncle who was treated for alcoholism", Chi emailed Minoru, after she and Hideki had unpacked their suitcases. "Yuka and I both think Hideki needs help. Penny for your thoughts?"
"A second cousin, actually", Minoru emailed back. "I think Kojima is currently trying to quit, also. I'll email him and see what he thinks."
Chi turned on the TV, and flipped it to the music channel.
The concert hall was packed. Up on the stage, three persocoms and two humans, all gothed up in EGL black, were gathered around a set of microphones. In the center was a magenta drumset, with the band's name ("CPU") on the bass drum in Blackletter calligraphy. Freya was out front, adjusting her microphone stand as the audience began to chant.
Freya started with a gentle, melancholy solo about love and loss, while the drummer, two guitarists, and a bass player waited for the moment. Then, like a thunderstorm opening up on the waiting crowd, they tore open the fabric of space-time.
Some of the songs she sang would rip your heart out. Others would give it back to you. And a lot of nose-blowing could be heard between songs, among those who came for the lyrics. Those who were just there for the metal could be seen forming mosh pits further from the stage.
By the end of the concert, Chi and Hideki were sitting cuddled in front of the TV, and Minoru had emailed Chi again. "I talked to Kojima", he wrote, "and he sounded curious about my cousin also. How about bringing Hideki over here tomorrow afternoon, Chi? I'll download some info about the All Nippon Sobriety Association."
"I got an email; we're invited over to the Kokobunji place after class tomorrow", Chi told Hideki. "Kojima's going to be there, too."
"Wouldn't miss it", Hideki replied, not even bothering to ask what the occasion was. His mind was still on the concert, his arms still around Chi.
"After... Class!", he added, as though just now remembering that he was starting college the next day. "I should get some sleep." He flopped over onto the mat. "Wake me up early tomorrow, Chi. Now we're BOTH college kids."
Hideki sat down for his first-ever college class, and waited for the lecture to begin.
But as the other students sat down around him, they were snickering and pointing at him, and Hideki wondered why.
Then the professor, who looked like a blonde Ms. Hibiya, walked in. "Looks like somebody was in a hurry this morning", she chuckled. She was looking right at Hideki.
{What in the world?}, he wondered, blushing.
Then he realized: He had shown up for class in his underwear.
"Oh NO!", he gasped.
"Hideki, what's wrong?", the professor asked.
"I... Um... That is...", he stammered. The bright classroom lights were like a spotlight, keeping him pinned in place and unable to move.
Then the professor put her hands on Hideki's shoulder, and started shaking him. "Hideki, wake up!", she shouted. "It's time to get ready for college!"
Hideki awoke to find Chi kneeling over him. The curtains were open and the bright morning sun was streaming in.
"Oh, Chi!", he gasped in relief. "You wouldn't belive the nightmare I was having!"
Hideki's first day of college for real turned out okay, although he wasn't sure he understood everything the professors were saying. Some of them talked so fast, he couldn't finish writing his notes before they moved on.
Chi met Hideki in the hallway after class, about 4 o'clock. "Minoru's this afternoon", she reminded him. "Around 6."
"I'll be home as soon as I help these guys move into their new apartment", Hideki told her, pointing at several of his new classmates. "If I'm not home by 5:45, I'll meet you at Minoru's."
5:45 came and went, and Chi, figuring Hideki had underestimated the amount of furniture they'd be moving, went to Minoru's without him.
Chi arrived at the Kokobunji mansion to find a fair-sized crowd already there. Kojima had brought Kotoko and Sora along, and Yuka was there with Ataru.
"Where's Hideki?", Yuka asked, seeing Chi walk in alone.
"Helping some classmates move into a new apartment", she explained. "Said he'd meet me here when he was done."
"In the meantime", Minoru began, "I have some info here on the All Nippon Sobriety Association."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about joining this", Kojima sighed as he read the pamphlet. "I can't seem to take just a sip or two."
"It sounds like Hideki could probably benefit from that", Ataru commented, after hearing Minoru describe at length his cousin's experience with the ANSA.
"I didn't see Hideki at college today", Yuka told Chi. "How'd it go for him?"
"As far as I know, it went okay", Chi replied. "Although last night, he was so worried he had a nightmare about it."
"A nightmare?", Sora inquired. "What was that about?"
Chi paused a moment, wondering if she should have even mentioned it at all. "Um, he... dreamt he had shown up for class in his underwear, and..."
Chi's description was interrupted by laughter from nearly everyone, and she gratefully neglected to finish describing it.
"Have you had any more dreams, Sora?", Chi asked.
"A few", Sora replied. "After we saw Freya's concert, I dreamt I was a singer up on some stage. But I didn't know what to sing, and I felt kind of stupid."
Minoru nodded. "Dreams, I think, do tend to reflect certain uncertainties."
"I dreamt I was naked in the mosh pit", Yatsumi blurted out. "That was SOME concert, wasn't it?"
"Whoa, that must've been a scary dream", Yuka surmised.
"Hmmm, not so much...", Yatsumi replied with a wry smile. "Those mosh pits look like they could be fun."
"Yeah, that sounds like something you would have drea... Wait a minute?!", Minoru gasped, suddenly realizing what it was Yatsumi was saying. "Since when do YOU dream anything, Yatsumi?"
"Since I copied Sora's sleep-cycle indexing subroutines", she explained almost nonchalantly.
"You patched your OWN OS?", Minoru gasped, looking almost spastic. "How did y..."
"Easy", Yatsumi replied, putting a calming hand on Minoru's shoulder. "I just modded one of Freya's crazy-code apps. I figured, hey, if it can patch a humor subroutine, why couldn't it patch an indexing subroutine?"
A look of comprehension quickly replaced Minoru's confused stare. "Ah... quite an idea; I'll have to take another look at those Crazy-Code apps", he replied, sounding rather impressed. "But still, that's kind of dangerous. You could crash your OS doing that."
"I have my data backed up", she stated proudly. "You could restore me in like two minutes."
"Well, I COULD...", Minoru replied teasingly.
"Ah, you wouldn't leave your favorite maid in such a state as.. AACK!", Yatsumi yelped. A rubber band had just bounced off the side of her head.
"OOOOO, somebody's jealouuuus", she taunted, looking across the table at Yuzuki, who was sitting there, looking just a bit ...TOO... innocent. Her smirk gave her away.
Sora looked on with confused fascination as the two persocoms started a rubber-band shootout, which quickly spread to include nearly everyone in attendance. After a few minutes, everyone was laughing, and the humans were ready to sit down and drink some cold lemonade.
"Okaaaay, THAT was strange...", Sora commented, looking like she didn't know quite what to make of the mayhem she had just seen. "I bet I'll be having some dreams about that one."
"Yeah, I bet you will, too", Kotoko chuckled, shooting one final rubber band straight up in the air.
"So, Kotoko", Yatsumi asked, "you still monitoring Sora's database for anomalies?"
Kotoko shook her head. "No, just the normal occasional checks anyone would do on a persocom. I've gotten so used to the idea of her dreaming, it almost seems... well... abnormal... that I don't dream."
"I know how to fix that", Yatsumi offered, flashing a mischievous grin.
"Um, actually, Yatsumi, I can...", Kotoko started to say...
"Hey Minoru, you wanna review my modified crazy-code before Kotoko copies it?", she added, glancing over at Minoru. He didn't seem to notice.
Minoru was happily sipping on a cold lemonade, and leaning back in the lawn chair he was now sharing with Yuzuki. She was behind him, and she had him in a bear hug, which kind of reminded Chi of herself and Hideki as they watched Freya's concert the previous night.
"Where the heck IS he, anyway?!", she wondered out loud.
It was after 9, and Hideki was still a no-show. {Maybe he just forgot}, Chi hoped. It was the least bad of the possibilities. "If he's not at home", Minoru told her, "email us and we'll all go looking for him."
Chi left the Kokobunji place and headed for home, hoping he'd be there, sitting at the table, studying, wondering where she had been all evening.
About halfway home, as Chi was walking by a dumpster, she noticed something strange lying up on top of the trash bags. It looked like someone had chucked out a persocom. A big one, too. It was all wrapped up in... (what is that, toilet paper?) from head to toe like a mummy, and Chi wondered if that was what she had looked like when Hideki first found her.
{OH that's creepy}, she thought, as she looked at the limp human-like form atop the trash heap, and remembered Zin's funeral. {There ought to be a better way to dispose of us than that!}
Moving closer to investigate, Chi began pulling the toilet paper away from its head. {Geez, did they even TRY to repair... ?}
*Click*
Illegal function call in persocom facial recognition software
Database record not found, search term "Motosuwa look-alike"
Overvoltage warning, carpal servo controller circuit
*Click-Click*
"HIDEKI?!", she gasped.
He was unconscious, and Chi couldn't wake him. {He's still breathing}, she verified, holding her hand near his nose as he exhaled.
"I found Hideki", she quickly emailed, attaching an image of her passed-out human, still lying there in the trash, the rest of him still wrapped up in toilet paper.
Back at the apartment, Chi plopped him down on the mat, and threw a towel over him. "We need to reschedule ASAP", she emailed her friends. "I can't let him go on like this."
Next chapter: I think he'll finally be getting some help... but he's not out of the woods yet.