She'd gotten used to the noise, so when it came, it didn't shock her out of sleep mode as it had in the beginning.
It was still disturbing, though, and for a second Kotoko considered wrapping the cord of that damned whistle around Sumomo's neck,seeing whether strangulation also worked the same for persocoms as it did for humans. It would make things a lot quieter, at any rate.
She was jostled out of her murderous thinking as Chi stepped on her in her shuffle to keep up with Sumomo's spastic exercise moves.
"Chi is sorry!" The amber-eyed persocom cried cheerfully, almost inaudible against the maddening din of Sumomo and that damned whistle.
Kotoko leveled a glare at the entire scene, gracefully gathering her robes and lumbering off into a corner to watch the unfolding scene of madness as Sumomo's antics with that damned whistle caused Chi's nightgown to slip down to pool around her waist, sending Hideki into a flurry of 'embarrassed body reactions'. Kotoko didn't really feel like analyzing the improbability of them all. " The powers that be have obviously got it in for me today," she muttered, turning to stare out the window at the ever thickening crowd of persocoms and people moving along the street, most holding hands in an expression of some emotion that she herself possessed an inability to understand.
They all looked so happy, she noted, even the persocoms themselves, despite the logical impossibility of a machine (which they were, which she herself was) experiencing any type of emotion. Those twists and turns of the brain were reserved for humans only, and Kotoko had accepted both that as well as the fact that she herself was a persocom. There wasn't really a great deal for analyzation there. It was just that, flesh and metal, with no fantasized mesh between the two. Their happiness, their sadness, was all a block of coding within their programming.
A tiny finger tapped her on the shoulder, breaking her train of thought, and Kotoko didn't bother to turn around, already aware of who it was. " What do you want?"
Sumomo grabbed the other laptop's shoulders, bodily spinning her around and greeting her with a smile that sometimes outshone even Chi's. " Sumomo wants Kotoko to join in, too!"
"And Kotoko wants Sumomo to let go of her, turn around, and go get smashed by a car. Preferably beyond the point of repair. Along with that damned whistle that Sumomo uses to summon the forces of evil. Then Kotoko can go back to blissfully hating life."
Sumomo either didn't follow Kotoko's response, or she didn't care. "Aww," she whined, making an almost realistic expresssion of the sad puppy dog variety. " Kotoko needs to exercise to stay fit and healthy!"
Kotoko raised an eyebrow. " Where'd you get that little tidbit of essentially useless information? The back of the milk carton?"
Sumomo looked vaguely offended. " No, Sumomo didn't!! She got it off the back of the soba box!"
...
"Yeah," Kotoko muttered. " But Kotoko's hoping for an extremely short life, so the elevation of her health is not exactly a priority."
"ANNYWAAY, Kotoko MUST exercise to prevent fat thighs!" Sumomo chirped, fluttering around in her Middle Eastern-style genie garments. " A lack of proper exercise only leads to weight gain and heart disease!"
"I can't gain weight, you dimwit!! I'm a persocom! And so are YOU for that matter! How can you possibly be crazy when you don't even have a mind to LOSE?"
At this point Hideki stumbled upon Chi rooting through his collection of porn magazines and screamed.
Kotoko sighed. " I guess the existence of one of the demons of stupidity in such close proximity explains everything."
Sumomo cocked her head in an intrested manner. " Is Kotoko sad?"
Kotoko blinked. " You can form normal sentences?"
"Of course Sumomo can form normal sentences! Sumomo is NOT stupid."
"Could've fooled me."
Sumomo stuck her tongue out and blew her a raspberry. Kotoko ignored her. " No, Kotoko is not sad."
"But Kotoko looks sad. Kotoko always looks sad. Kotoko should be happy, like Sumomo!"
"When did you gain the ability to analyze my non-existent emotions?"
"Sumomo knows that when Chi-san smiles, Chi-san is happy, and when Chi-san looks upset, Chi-san is sad. So Sumomo wants Kotoko to smile, so she can be happy!"
Kotoko paused, staring at the pink laptop in confusion. Generally, Sumomo was the personification of hyper, dancing and flitting from one random topic or activity to another in completely random order. They'd interacted, in their strange way, but Kotoko could never imagine having even the most rudimentary normal conversation with her peer, not in the manner of some of the persocoms she'd encountered.
And here she was, all traces of insanity gone, staring at Kotoko with a troubled expression. As if she cared. As if she were capable of caring.
recording -- 0:00
"Why do you care if I'm happy or not?"
Sumomo smiled her brilliant smile and hugged Kotoko tightly. " Because Sumomo loves Kotoko-chan!" Her eyes suddenly glassed over, characteristic of some mechanical process taking place. "Ring, ring!!" She shouted in her cheerful voice, running off to alert Hideki of the incoming phone call, and leaving Kotoko standing stunned.
recording stopped -- 3:41. replay.
"Why do you care if I'm happy or not?"
"Because Sumomo loves Kotoko-chan!"
replay. 2:55 - 3:26
"Because Sumomo loves Kotoko-chan!"
stopped. saving video file in personal folder.
"Because Sumomo...loves Kotoko...chan...." Kotoko murmured, staring at the pink laptop dancing around Hideki in an attempt to get his attention. " Because someone....loves...me? But..."
She realized what she was doing, realized the futility of the situation and snapped out of it, turning away again. However, somehow the scene below the window was dimmed, as if a cloud had passed over the sun, somewhat darkening the world around her. She had memories, of a time when the scene she'd just witnessed had occured in a slightly different manner, memories that were too painful to replay. Or remember.
" Sumomo...chan..." she whispered to herself, withdrawing into her digital mind.