~Chapter 30: 18~
"When you're following an angel,
Does that mean you have to
Throw your body off a building?"
- They Might Be Giants, "She's an Angel"
~~~
part I
There she was, standing in my doorway. I wish I could say that I handled it well and was a perfect gentleman, rather than standing there in total shock, staring at her. She had to repeat her question before I shook myself out of it.
I let her in. I made a couple of worthless comments about the weather or something, which she did not acknowledge. She never made eye contact with me; instead, she scanned the house, evaluating it.
"I have to sleep tonight," she said. "Is that okay?"
If the wording struck me as a little odd, I didn't realize it immediately. I told her that of course that was fine. I showed her to my room, grateful now for the large bed that I'd always felt a little lost in. Don't worry about me, I said, I'll sleep in the living room. She seemed to be fine with this. "This will do," she said.
I turned the bed down for her, making a couple more unnoticed statements and providing information about the location of the bathroom. I was extremely nervous. I wondered if I was doing anything wrong. I thought that if she didn't respond to something I said soon, I'd go insane.
"So, um, what happened to 17?" I said.
Now, she looked at me. "My brother," she said venomously, "Is a childish idiot."
I recoiled a bit. Okay, I thought. Obviously a delicate subject.
All of these events passed very quickly, and I soon found myself on the floor of the living room under a blanket, living up to my promise to sleep there. But I didn't sleep for quite a while - alone with my thoughts, I was too excited. What was going to happen next? I just didn't know. It was the first time in a while I could remember my life (my day-to-day life, that is) actually being exciting. I felt optimistic, almost giddy.
Despite the small amount of sleep I got, I was up fairly early the next morning, fixing pancakes with a raspberry syrup and orange juice (Why in the world do I remember this?) for breakfast. Roshi-sama was the second inhabitant to wake up that morning, and it was when I saw him that something painfully obvious dawned on me.
I realized with a sudden shock that permission to stay at the Kame House wasn't exactly mine to give. It was Roshi's house, after all. When he approached, I cowered like a guilty man.
It took me a little while to work up the nerve to bring up the subject of 18 with Roshi-sama. When I finally asked him - blurted it out, really - he took a moment to consider it. I was very anxious, but I needn't have worried.
"Well, you really should have asked me, but I don't think it'll be a problem. No, don't think of it," he said as I thanked him. He leaned in close to me. "Hey, is she a hottie?"
I sighed and nodded placatingly.
"No problem at all, my boy," he concluded, smiling broadly.
Oolong was less keen on the idea - wasn't she one of the androids I had been training to fight all of that time? - but he didn't have much time to voice his objections before I was setting the table and all of us, 18 included, sat down to eat. I probably inquired as to how she slept, to some mildly positive response.
Breakfast began to proceed as normal, but 18 did not start eating with the rest of us. Instead, she just looked anxiously down at her plate. The stillness at her part of the table soon disrupted the rhythm of the breakfast so that no one at all was eating.
Amid the nervous silence, a thought occurred to me that seemed ridiculous yet worthy of consideration. I had to say something, so I brought it up.
"I'm sorry, 18..." I said. "Do you... ah... eat?" I winced preemptively at the potential offensiveness of the question.
She recoiled in horror. "What do you take me for? Of course I eat!" To prove her point, she snatched a fork off of the table and began furiously eating. I sank in my chair and fought the urge to let my face fall all the way into the raspberry-soaked cake on my plate. Things were starting off just great.
As I recall, the next time I got the nerve to speak to her, it was about clothes. Surely, she needed some. She agreed, and we went out to town to go shopping. I was surprised to learn how much 18 enjoyed doing this. We were at it for a few hours, and I saw her smiling for the first time... well, ever. Of course, we didn't have a lot of money, so she wasn't able to get a lot of what she wanted; she sighed at this, but didn't really complain. I'll admit I was a bit worried about being among all those people, but the trip was pretty incident-free, aside from a very casually made comment to the cashier that she didn't have to pay if she didn't want to.
I tried to talk to her a few times, but she responded to everything I said either very literally or not at all. Finally, she said, "You keep talking to me, but you don't really have anything important to say. Why do humans feel the need to constantly run their mouths at one another?"
I don't know, I told her. Maybe they were just trying to establish some kind of emotional connection.
"Well, don't. You're just making yourself look stupid."
I told her I was sorry. I was mostly quiet after that.
Back at home, she changed into some of her new clothes. I told her that she looked great; she supposed it was okay. The next thing I remember she was looking at my bookshelf, reading the titles off of the spines.
"You read a lot?" she asked.
As a matter of fact, I did. Sometimes there wasn't much to do around the Kame House, so I'd read no less than a couple hundred books to pass the time; many of these still found a place on my shelf. 18's attention was caught by one of the titles.
"Wait," she said, "I could swear that I've seen this before..."
It was a leather-bound copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. I gave her my brief summary of it and said that it was a classic. "All right," she said, "I'll read it, then."
And damned if she didn't sit down and do just that. It was the weirdest thing - I've heard of people reading books in one sitting, but The Count of Monte Cristo is over 1200 pages. She took tea when I offered it, but she didn't come to dinner. She didn't speak for the rest of the day. I tried to do other things and just leave her to her book, but I couldn't get into anything. The presence of her just felt so powerful in me that I was hard pressed to ignore it. I could feel her there, just one or two rooms away, sitting in my house - Number 18, actually in my house! The mere fact of it was putting me off. It seems funny now, when I turn around and usually expect to see her.
She was still reading when I told her I was going to bed. She looked up from her book.
"Really? To sleep?"
"Um... yeah."
She frowned quizzically. "Didn't you just do that yesterday?"
"Well... I sleep pretty much every day, really." For some reason, I felt at that moment that maybe sleeping every night really was an odd thing to do, that I was crazy. She asked me if I was lazy or something. Eventually I regained my senses and told her that just about everyone I knew slept every night, so far as I knew.
"Hm," she said, seeming to file this away. "Well, you can have the bed if you want. I won't have to sleep again for a few more days."
I went to bed. That was odd, I thought, but then again, she is a cyborg. When I thought about it, it might actually be nice to not be required to sleep so often. Think of how much of our lives we're missing. I lay in bed thinking that I could hear her turn the pages, which was ridiculous because she did it so soundlessly, hooking her index finger under the top of the page and gently pushing it to the side. Still, this imagined rhythm worked me into a trance from which sleep was easily achieved.
Of course, she was still reading when I got up. It wasn't until midway through that day that she put the book down with a thud.
I looked at her amusedly. "You're done? Seriously?"
"Yes. I didn't really understand it. If Dantés wanted revenge so badly, why didn't he just kill his enemies, instead of structuring his life around some elaborate scheme?"
I told her that I didn't know, badly stifling a laugh.
"What?" she said in perfect seriousness. "As it was, the damn thing was so long I feel like I've been in prison for fourteen years as well."
I told her that most people didn't read it all at once. She waved her hand at me dismissively, giving up on the subject.
Not much happened for the next few days. 18 brooded, often spending long periods of time staring out the window. Oolong told me that it made him nervous. I shrugged helplessly, but I had to admit that the tension was getting kind of thick. After about the dozenth offer I made to 18 to get her something or take her somewhere, she spoke to me.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" she said.
I blathered for a bit about her being my guest and how I didn't think I was being that great of a host, now that she mentioned it, before I realized that she was being serious. There was something troubled in her eyes, something that told me that she didn't understand, that she needed to understand. This realization stemmed the easy flow of mindless talk from me. Very quietly, I managed to say something to the effect of that I guessed I just wanted her to be happy.
"Hmp," she said, not buying it. Then, after a pause, she added, "Wait a minute... I get it."
"Huh?"
"That's right, I can't believe I forgot. It's that romance stuff again, isn't it? You want me to be your 'girlfriend'." The word trickled out in an ooze of contempt. "That's the reason you care about me. That's what you have to gain."
I became very flustered and defensive. I denied the charge.
She took no notice, confident in her assessment. She looked almost vindicated, as if a weight that had been bothering her was suddenly removed. "Well, you can quit wasting your time. I'm a cyborg, remember? Get it through your head. We don't need things like that. We're above them."
There it was again: the self-denial. I felt a powerful need to reach out to her, to peel away this protective skin and show her and everyone else what she truly was, but I felt like I was looking at her from behind a glass barrier, incapable of doing anything. "Maybe... maybe you do need someone, 18," I said. "Maybe you've convinced yourself that you don't."
Now she was beyond concern. "If you believe that, little human, then you're even more foolish than I thought."
I felt like someone had stabbed me. "Of course," I mumbled, "I apologize," and I promptly went outside.
I laid on the roof and stared at the sky, letting all of my pain soak in. I wondered if maybe this hadn't been such a great idea. Then, I wondered if 18's accusation had been true on some level, despite my vigorous denial. If so, I thought, maybe this isn't the best thing for her. But these thoughts just aimlessly flew around my head until I calmed down.
I think it was pretty soon after that - the day after the next, if not the next day - that 18 suggested we spar. Roshi and Oolong were out on some outing to the city - to see a movie, I think.
It wasn't something she'd been considering, it obviously had just occurred to her. She'd been feeling bored, she said, and when she was with 17 they would occasionally fight. Maybe that was what she needed to calm her down, she said. I told her that I wasn't in her league. "I know that," she said, "But you're the closest thing I'm going to find around here." She promised not to fight at full strength. I still wasn't sure that it was a good idea, but I eventually relented.
We found a relatively empty plain on the mainland not too far away. It was still.
She asked me if I needed to power up or something. Oh, yeah, I said, and did. It took me a few seconds. I was pleased to note that I was a bit stronger than I'd been during the whole Cell affair. I scoffed at myself for this pleasure. My power was nothing.
Of course, one-sided is a laughable understatement as a description of what followed. I tried my best, but for her it was as if I were moving in slow motion. The first time she hit me, even though she wasn't using her full strength, I nearly fell apart. My vision blinked out and there was a sharp ringing in my head. After the second time, I barely got back up. A couple more blows and, well, I was just out.
"Ow," I said with spectacular honesty.
She said that I was pathetic. As easy as it had been to fight the others (Piccolo, Trunks, and Vegeta, I assume) before, at least it had been harder than this. "Sorry," I said.
18 looked very frustrated, as if she weren't sure why she'd done this, nor was she sure of what she would do next. "You know," she said after a while, "Our data told us that you were the strongest human on this planet."
I perked up a bit. "Really?"
"That wasn't intended as a compliment."
She talked for a little while about humans: how they were so unbelievably weak and not even especially intelligent. She didn't even see how we were all allowed to live, she said, let alone rule the planet. Why did I think humans had managed to achieve such dominance?
I don't know, I said. I guess we have to have something going for us, I said.
18 dismissed the entire human species. Weak and worthless were the words I believe she used. I took it in stride. I was more interested in my own pain right about then.
"Hey, 18," I said, "Help me up."
"You're kidding. You need my help to get up, after just that?"
Well, yeah, afraid so. She looked at me for a little while, she seemed to be really thinking about it. At last, she concluded, "Those wounds aren't serious. You can get up by yourself."
I suddenly became filled with fear and panic. Up to that point, I hadn't been upset. Mind you, I don't enjoy getting beat up, but I can take it. I'm used to it, and it was an assumed risk. But this, this wasn't something you messed around with. You always helped somebody up. It may have been true that the wounds weren't serious, and with some time and effort I may have been able to get up on my own despite them, but it was so much less of a struggle with someone else to help you. They don't have to support your whole weight, just enough so that you know you're not alone, that you have something to fall back on. You always helped someone up. To do otherwise was betrayal.
She started to leave. "18," I said, "You aren't just going to leave me here!"
She paused, then turned around.
"If you need my help," she said disdainfully, "You may as well already be dead."
I stayed there for almost a quarter of an hour, reflecting on that. I felt so terrible and sad and angry. She hadn't cared at all, I thought, for how I felt. She treated me as she pleased. I might have sat there for the better part of an hour moping about this, but a volatile mix of anger and determination struck a spark in my mind. I don't think that at any point in my life before that I'd have had that courage to do anything about it, but as I've said, I have more courage when I think about her. I was not going to let things stay this way.
Therefore, I got up. It was easy, despite the pain I was in. I had a powerful headache and one of my eyes was swollen shut, but 18 had been right about the wounds not being serious. I flew home. I was weak so it took longer than usual.
18 was right there when I opened the door. This was good, because I wasn't sure whether I would be able to keep my determination up if I had to walk through the house. Roshi and Oolong were back.
I'm not sure that the following is what I said. The hell with it, I'm sure it's not what I said, but the mood is what's important. The main points. It's what I would have said, if things had gone perfectly.
"18, I think it would be best if you would leave."
Everything was frozen in shock. She walked towards me, staring at me incredulously. Ki or no ki, I could feel her power, and I knew that she would have no trouble snapping me like a twig if she wanted to. Still, I did my best to stand firm.
"Excuse me?" she said. "You invited me here. What do you think gives you the right to throw me out now?"
"It isn't going to work like this. You can't treat me this way. I gave you a chance, 18. Even though a lot of people didn't want me to, I did."
"Oh, stop trying to play yourself up as the big saint! All you wanted was--"
"Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't," I snapped, surprising even myself, really. "But that isn't the point. You came here freely, and we took you in. You can't take advantage of that and do this. You say that you don't need anybody, and maybe you don't, but no one will accept you if you treat them like this. I won't stand for it."
I felt exhausted, my courage spent. Number 18 stared at me, and I bowed my head. I was sure that she would either leave or kill me, and I wished she would hurry and do either (though both terrified me), because that moment was excruciating. I didn't expect to see what I saw then.
First there was surprise in her eyes, then briefly a kind of sadness. Finally she cast a steady gaze slightly downward and said, "You're right."
"Huh?"
"You're right, and I'm sorry. I realize... I've been acting so childishly since I got here. Just like my brother. I'll leave now." She walked to the door.
Halfway out, she turned around and looked back. "I... I don't know..." she said with a profound kind of sadness I hadn't seen in her before, "Where I'm going to go..."
She flew away. I could say no words. All of the sound seemed to have vacated the universe.
For a few minutes, I sat with Oolong and Roshi-sama. I looked at them - their expressions seemed frozen in time - and at the floor. Then, I flew away too.
Don't ask me how I found her. I just did.
She stopped in the air when she saw me, and was completely confused.
"Why are you following me?"
"Please come back," I said. "I don't want you to leave."
---
part II
Though hesitant, Number 18 agreed to come back to the Kame House with me.
I did my best to make reparations with the others. It's all right. Things'll be better now. She said she was sorry. Yeah, I know I'm bleeding. It's just a couple of flesh wounds and a black eye. Nothing to worry about...
I could have gone to Dende's lookout and had him heal me - I'm sure he would have been happy to - but I figured he probably had enough to do as Earth's new Kami. Besides, I didn't mind the pain so much. After I got some rest I felt a lot better.
I smiled groggily at 18 in the morning. Hi, I said. She responded with another "hi". She asked me how my eye was. Getting better, thanks, I told her. There was no further discussion of the night before.
I saw this as a new beginning for us - a kind of clean slate, I guess. "So," I said to her, "Maybe we should get to know each other a little better."
"All right, but there isn't much to know about me."
"Really?"
"All I know is that I am Artificial Human Number 18, creation of the great Sir Doctor Gero of the Red Ribbon Army, which has fallen but is destined to rise again," she said, and sighed. "That statement was fabricated. You have no idea how annoying it is having this tripe in your memory."
I agreed with her. "But... who were you before you were Number 18?"
"...A human woman."
I gaped. "That's all you know?"
"I'm guessing even that." Her face darkened. "He took it all, you know. Our memories, our feelings, everything. Wiped us clean. I know nothing but the data I was given and what I've learned since we woke up."
I didn't know what to say. "That's terrible."
"..."
I was shocked - I'd had no idea that what Gero had done to them had been so thorough. Can you imagine having your entire past wiped away, waking up and not even knowing who or what you were? Not only that, but turned into something else, your very nature violated from the inside out.
"Stop looking at me like that! Don't pity me."
"Oh... I'm sorry."
We were silent for a little while, and then I smiled. Don't worry, I told her, you'll start a new life. You'll make new memories.
She considered this.
"Maybe," she said.
I might also have told her something about myself. If so, you aren't missing anything - just an extremely abridged version of what you've already read.
There was a bit of trouble that night at dinner. Oolong, who had been looking nervous all day, stood up in the middle of the meal. "That's it," he said, "I can't hold it in anymore." What was he talking about? "You know!" he said, pointing at 18. "Her! She can't just stay here!"
He kept cringing as he spoke, as if expecting some attack to come from 18, but she just stared sternly at her plate the whole time. "She's... I mean... she's dangerous! Even the fact that she's on the planet freaks me out, let alone here!"
"Oolong, please--" I started.
"Kuririn, I don't know why you decided to bring her back. Did you see what she did to you? She-"
Roshi-sama interrupted him. "That will be enough, Oolong."
"But-"
"But nothing! Is this my house or isn't it?" He smiled pridefully. "I happen to think that Kuririn is a pretty darn good judge of character. If he says the young lady may stay, she may. End of discussion."
Oolong mumbled an apology and went back to his meal. I looked at Roshi in shock. He winked at me.
Things were somewhat smoother after that. I could tell that 18 was really making an effort now. She started accepting invitations to go out and do things. We went to the mall, to lunch and dinner, and to the bar I used to frequent - anywhere where she could be around people and have some experience dealing with them.
I had a lot of fun. 18 never hesitated to offer her criticisms of society and its many unspoken rules and trappings. Actually, she pointed out some idiosyncrasies that I'd never really noticed.
"So why is it, exactly," she'd say, "That everyone feels it necessary to ask 'how are you?' when they obviously have little interest and know they'll only receive a preconditioned response?"
"You know, I've really got no idea," I'd say.
She would typically roll her eyes and mutter, "Humans," though I could tell that this reaction was becoming increasingly good-natured.
I think I remember the first time I made her laugh. We were having lunch at the mall. She has this funny way of moving her lips slightly to the right when she's chewing meat.
"So what did you call this?" she said.
"Bourbon Chicken."
"It's good."
I shrugged. "It's not bad for food court food. So, what do you think of the human race so far?"
"They're arrogant," she said, "and selfish and ignorant and stupid... but like you said, not that bad, really. I just don't think I'm fitting in very well."
"Nah," I said, "You're doing fine. Though I have to say, that guy who hit on you last night must have been pretty surprised when you literally put him in his place."
"Hm!" She smiled. "He had it coming. I told him once to go away."
"Yeah," I said, "but I can just imagine him trying to explain it to his buddies." Here I slipped into my impersonation of the unfortunate guy. "No, dude, you don't understand! I mean, this chick, she was STRONG! Hey, come on! It ain't funny!"
18 let out a funny snort of a laugh and brought her hand up to her mouth to stop it.
"Aha," I teased, "Have I managed to elicit a giggle from the big bad unfeeling cyborg? I'm shocked."
"Shut up," she said, and hit me just hard enough for it to hurt.
"Owwww, come on, 18," I whined, but I was smiling. She was smiling too, and that made me feel terrific. Any doubts I had about Trunks' warning had vanished. Maybe his timeline's 18 was a cold-blooded killer, but this one was a much more complex and interesting creature. I've known a lot of cold-blooded killers, but I can't say that I've met many people like 18.
Things settled down pretty quickly back at the Kame House. There wasn't any formal reconciliation or anything, everyone just pretty much got used to each other. There may have been a few incidents, but nothing major. I was surprised by how quickly 18 became just as much a member of the home as the rest of us. As she settled into my former room, I set up a slightly more permanent residence in the attic.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention this. One morning, I noticed 18 looking at me kind of strangely.
"What's wrong?" I said. She indicated my head.
"Oh, ha ha." I ran a hand along my head, which had enough hair to resemble a very short buzz cut. "I guess I've been neglecting to shave my head lately."
She nodded slightly and I thought that was the end of it, even going so far as to make a mental note to do that.
Then, she surprised me. "Don't," she said.
"What?"
"Don't," she repeated, and lowered her eyelashes slightly, giving me a look that I might almost describe as sexy, if I didn't know any better. "You'd look, um... cute with hair."
She immediately moved her attention to something else. I was reeling.
Needless to say, of course, I never shaved my head again.
I didn't know where exactly to place that little anecdote, but I think it makes for a good example of the fact that although things somewhat returned to normal, it was different than before. I think that life at home had changed in a good way. In the least, it's always good to have more company. No matter how much we go out, living in a house on an isolated island adds up to spending an awful lot of time actually living in that house on an isolated island, and it is boring. Conversations with the same two people get repetitive after a while.
18 wasn't very keen on talking at first. She told me that she only spoke when she felt there was something it was necessary for her to say. Before long, however, she was joining in for a point or two, and she was soon frequently talking to us and with us. Hers was the conversation pattern of the person who sits and observes and then comes in with an "Well, the way I see it...", except without the "Well, the way I see it". Her assessments were sometimes harsh, but usually pretty accurate. She didn't have a lot of experience to draw from, but she picked things up quickly. She's always been like that - insanely good at learning things.
You're probably going to think that this is weird or funny or something, but the first thing that attracted me to 18 - the first thing I really came to appreciate about her - was the fact that she took me seriously. Even among my friends (and believe me, I don't mean to say that my friends have treated me badly, because they haven't), I've always felt like I'm taken a little less seriously than most. Maybe it's my own fault. Come to think of it, I probably began to tailor myself to that, to make my input a little oddball or off-kilter, or maybe I just really was that way.
Whatever it was, it was different with 18. I knew by the way she met my eyes when I spoke that she was paying attention. There was something there, some kind of respect. It felt very strange to me, but I gradually started getting more confident. Not just in speech, but in a lot of things. Others had tried to encourage me before, but it had never been quite so strangely effective as was 18's subtle approach.
I guess that brings me to something I've been sort of hiding from you. I admit this as a fault; it isn't fair to you or me. I'm supposed to be laying things out bare. I've alluded to it a couple of times, but never directly brought it out.
It was not an uncommon sight at the Kame House to see me get depressed. And I don't mean just having-a-bad-day, kinda-in-a-bad-mood - I mean really depressed. I usually managed, or thought I managed, to keep people from noticing. I would smile and act my usual self, as if nothing was wrong. What was the point of bothering other people with my stupid crap? Sometimes, when my disguise wasn't holding up very well, I would go so far as to say that nothing was wrong. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't.
It would usually start when I was doing something, or trying to do something, or planning to do something. In the case I'm about to refer to, I was trying to write. I wasn't making an awful lot of progress, and it wasn't turning out very well. Eventually I just read back over what I was working on and let the mental axe drop - this was crap. Unredeemable.
I proceeded from there to realize that I was a terrible writer. This seemed perfectly logical; in fact, it seemed something I had been only half-fooling myself into disbelieving. This dark lump of discontent and self-loathing infected, as it usually did, every part of myself. I was worthless. I was weak and stupid and the gamut of other such descriptors. I had failed at everything important. If I had done certain things differently, Goku would have still been alive; I'd failed Goku. If I were stronger, I could have helped fight Cell; it was my fault I wasn't stronger. And a new feature - I wasn't doing the right thing for 18. She should be somewhere else. She was spending too much time with me, was I actually entertaining some ludicrous hope that she might like me? Please - she was way too good for me. I was a joke.
So I shut down my computer and took a few moments to swallow the rage. I took a few deep breaths to still the shaking. I sat in a chair and attempted to read a book. I was on the same two pages for nearly 15 minutes, so I gave up.
18 spoke to me. "What's the matter with you? You're usually busying yourself with some task or another right now."
I'm just not in the mood, I told her. Gently, pleasantly. Raise the walls.
She asked me again and I sighed. I was starting to develop a major headache.
"I'm just not feeling great about myself right now, okay? That's it. Otherwise I'm fine." Thinking, please go away.
She frowned at me. "I don't understand it," she said.
I mumbled something to the effect that not a lot of people do.
18 seemed to get a little angry. She stepped toward the chair. "Get up."
"What?" This I didn't need. She was bossing me around. "Why?"
Seeing that I wouldn't get up, she picked me up instead, much to my alarm and protest, and placed me on my feet. What was the big idea? I said. What did she think she was--
"Shut up. I'm only going to say this once."
I let my voice trail off.
"And," she said with authority, "You're going to owe me for it, do you understand?"
I gave a confused look. She sighed sharply and tried to put it more clearly.
"Do you think this is easy for me? It isn't. Every word of this hurts me. Do you understand?"
I nodded helplessly.
"Good," she said, allowing a little pause. Then: "You're too good for this."
"Huh?"
"Shut up! Let me finish!"
I fell obediently silent.
"It's obvious you don't think much of yourself. Do you think I don't notice that you put yourself down in little ways, every chance you get? Sometimes you think you're joking, but it drives me insane. Do you know why?"
I shook my head.
"Because you're saying the opposite of the truth. You're the only human I've met that would be this good. That would treat me this well, despite what I've put you through. You... you're a good person, Kuririn. I know you are."
My heart pounded. I'd never expected to receive such a compliment from 18. I looked up into her eyes - for a moment, she looked confused, almost tender, but she soon resumed her authoritarian stance and her emotionless gaze. "So," she said, "There won't be any more of this. Got it?"
I wanted to say something meaningful, to make some use of the powerful feelings inside me then. "Yes," I said.
"Good," she said, and promptly turned and left me there.
I lolled back in my chair, numb from the shock of it. For once, I knew there was no question of the truth in her words. I stood up and found that I actually felt quite better. I took an objective look at myself. I may not be the cleverest or strongest person, I thought, but I realized that I had become important to someone.
"18," I thought. I felt for her a deep respect and... something else. She had said this for me, and I knew it could not have been easy. In the couple of months she'd been with us, she had become a lot better at conversation, but whenever the topic had turned to feelings, she became strangely quiet. She could find few words, and she fidgeted with her foot and looked very anxious until the subject was changed. For me, she had broken that silence for the first time.
She was right: I did owe her. Sitting there in the partially lit attic late in the evening, I just wished I knew how I'd ever manage to repay this debt.
---
part III
I'll admit I was a bit nervous as we walked up to the entrance of Yamucha's palatial home. He was a good guy and usually quite reasonable, but I was nervous nonetheless.
I'd been avoiding my friends for far too long. I'd talked to some of them on the phone, neatly skirting around the issue that I didn't have the nerve to bring up. Roshi-sama had told me that I wouldn't be able to keep this up for long. 18 had been a bit more direct.
"What is it?" she'd said. "Are you ashamed of me?"
"No!" I'd said; I was telling the truth. Not ashamed, just fearful. I just kept seeing the disgust and disbelief in everyone's eyes back at the lookout. But she was right - I was just being stupid. There was no good reason for my attempting to keep her a secret.
So, both of us were standing there waiting for Yamucha to answer the door. That's the funny thing about Yamucha's place - he's never hired any help as most people with those kind of homes do. He's just never felt comfortable with that, he says, and he and Pu'ar get by fine. The effect of that is that you'll sometimes stand there for a good two minutes waiting for him to open the door.
"Hey," he said, "Kuririn! It's been... oh." He looked at 18. He looked nervous momentarily, but I saw him suppress it. "18, right?"
She looked at him a little strangely at first too, but shook it off. "Yes," she said. "Hi."
"Hi..." he said a bit distantly. Then, with more fervor, "Well, come on in!"
"Hey, Pu'ar-chan," he shouted as we walked in, "We've got guests!"
In a corner of the room, I saw a broom turn into a cat and nod. She floated over to us. "Hello, Kuririn. Who's this?"
18 sweatdropped. "Wasn't that cat a broom a minute ago?"
Fortunately, that was a short explanation, having been preceded by one explaining Oolong's much more infrequent transformations.
We sat in a sofa in the... shoot, is it the lobby? Yamucha would know better than I would; I never could get straight which room of his house was called what. Anyway, we sat there and drank a bit of wine. Yamucha brought me up to date on a bunch of current affairs with the Son family and Bulma. Apparently Vegeta was living in Bulma's estate at Capsule Corp HQ full time now. Yamucha was of the opinion that the two of them had fallen in love, though every time you saw them they were arguing.
I couldn't help but be amused. "You know, they are perfect for each other," I said.
He touched on a few more issues - for example, "Hey, are you growing your hair out?", but he wasn't really neglecting 18, even though he was speaking to me. He even offered her little explanations of things she might not have known a lot about, which I have do admit she didn't, as I hadn't talked a whole lot to her about my friends. Actually, aside from that initial moment of nervousness, Yamucha was amazingly cool about 18; I was relieved. There was only one moment that was really uncomfortable.
"So," he said, "I guess you two hooked up after all."
I nodded. "18's been living with me for a couple of months now."
"Oh," said Yamucha, "Are you guys...?" He moved his index finger from 18 to I and back, denoting a specific kind of connection.
We were very embarrassed. 18 and I involuntarily moved about a foot apart. I rubbed the back of my neck gingerly.
"Ah, no," I said. "It's not like that."
"Oh," he said, "I'm sorry. It was rude of me to ask like that."
There was a bit of an uncomfortable pause.
"I've never been in a place like this before," said 18. "I'd like to see the rest of it."
Yamucha was, as they say, more than happy to comply. "Sure. I'll give you the tour."
He guided us through his home. His comments were pretty brief, really. On a sort of ballroom - "I've had some pretty major parties here. There's a lot of food, a lot of drinks, and some dancing. I've had more than a couple hundred guests. There are names I could drop, but you probably don't care that much about that."
18 shrugged. "Yeah," he said, "Neither do I, really. I don't know. Parties like that can be really fun, but I don't like to have them too often. You tend to feel kind of burned out and alone after them. Well, I do." He smiled. "It's better to have a couple of friends over. Like this."
18 was taking in the views - the place is well decorated, not too extravagant but enough to be impressive and pretty. "This is quite a place," 18 said. "How do you have a house like this?"
"I know," said Yamucha. "Believe me, it never stops amazing me how much money they'll pay me to hit a ball with a stick. I keep wondering if it's some kind of trick, like they're going to come over any day now and say that the trick is over, Yamucha, you can go back to being a desert rat now. They never do, though. It's unbelievable."
We were almost through when our attention lit upon a wooden rack holding a large sheathed blade.
"What's this?" said 18. "Some kind of weapon?"
"My old sword," said Yamucha, admiring it. "I've had it for a very long time. I used to be pretty good. Haven't used it in years, though."
"Were you using it," she asked, "When you got..."
"Oh, the scars," said Yamucha, touching one of them with his fingertips. "Yeah. I haven't used it since then."
"You never told me how that happened," I said.
He nodded. "I'm sorry, Kuririn. It's private. I never tell anyone that story."
"I know how it happened," said Pu'ar, floating into the room.
"That's true," he said, "But you aren't telling anyone either." She nodded primly.
18 looked very concerned. "It must be terrible to have those scars out where everyone can see them. I'm sorry."
"Oh, I've had them for so long now that I'm used to it. So are most of my friends," he said, nodding at me. "The worst is when I meet new people and they stare at them. It feels like an invasion to have their eyes on my wounds. I wonder what they're thinking about me."
"Yes," said 18. "I know what you mean."
Yamucha shrugged. "It's not that bad, really. It's something that sets me apart. I mean, I'd get rid of it if I could, but I've learned to live with it. Anyway, anybody who stays focused on it very long is shallow and not worth dealing with, right?"
I was surprised. Yamucha didn't usually open up like that to people he'd just met. Neither did 18.
Yamucha took the sword off the rack and out of its sheath. He reminisced a little about his days in the desert. "So, 18," he said, having gotten comfortable, "Why don't you tell me something about your past?"
She faltered. "My past?"
"Oh," I said, "Yamucha, you have to understand... their memories were wiped out by Dr. Gero. She doesn't remember her life up to that point."
Yamucha looked a little sick. "That's... awful..."
"I can't imagine it," said Pu'ar. "Having your past taken away..." She came over to 18 and placed a paw upon her shoulder.
"No," said 18. She lifted her head back up. "I have a past. I stayed with my brother in the forest for a month or so, and then I came to live with Kuririn. Since then, he's been showing me a lot of things. I'm not quite used to it all, but I think I'm starting to get my bearings."
"That's a good attitude, 18," said Pu'ar. "You're making a new past."
Yamucha nodded. "Yeah, it's admirable." He looked at his sword. "Maybe sometimes we're a little too dependent on memories." He put it back on the wall. "After all, where would we be without the present?"
We stayed for a while. We had a good time, and the conversation was lighter after that. Yamucha and 18 seemed to have hit it off, which was good. Even better, Yamucha promised us that he'd take care of the others. Yeah, he said, some of them wouldn't be too happy to hear about 18, but he was sure they'd get over it. "Look at Vegeta, for Kami's sake," he said. "If we can tolerate him, I'm not too worried about you, 18."
"I like him," 18 said of Yamucha on the way home. "You have a good friend."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Yamucha's a great guy. We go way back."
We were silent for a while.
"Uh, so," I said. "It was pretty awkward when he asked that... about us."
"Yes," she agreed. "It was."
We were silent for the rest of the way.
I was angry with myself. After all of the good things that had happened in our visit, why did I keep returning to that? Yet, my thoughts kept going back to it again and again, no matter how many times I tried to turn them away.
In a later phone call, Yamucha told me that 18 seemed like a very nice girl, but I should still remember what he said. "All I mean is, don't do anything unless you're sure." I told him not to worry.
I was sitting at a table in a little restaurant and cafe with 18 some time later. We were only having drinks and some bread that we'd already eaten.
I sipped slowly and deliberately, trying to think of something to say. Our conversations had been less lively as of late. The wisecracks, the studied observation from 18, the happy chatter from me - all of them were pretty much gone. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy our outings anymore. I did. I'd never had so much fun.
"Come on," I urged myself. "Just say something to her." Stealing a few glances at her eyes between meditative stares into my glass, I planned to make some comment about Muten Roshi and Oolong's proposed trip to the Papaya Islands to see a bikini contest. I looked up at her and got ready to speak, but- My God, she was beautiful.
She was wearing a floral summer dress with these little straps that showed off her shoulders very nicely - she had been very pale, but she was acquiring more of a tan now. She was twisting her straw absentmindedly. I don't want to spoil my description with ludicrous romanticising or comparisons to angels, but she really was looking amazing to me that day. So amazing that it made me uncomfortable. Had I been a different person just a few weeks ago when I'd talked to her so easily? Had she?
"I've been thinking," she said, "About what I might want to do with my life."
"Oh? Are you interested in something in particular?" I found myself wishing that something would come up that amused or pleased her just so that I could see her smile again. 'Cute', I had thought of that smile. What was I thinking - it was golden. When I saw her smile, it felt like some kind of warm, gratifying feeling poured into my heart...
Focus. Reality. Focus.
"Well," she said, and sighed. "No. I don't know. Nothing's really caught my interest yet. I feel like I should get a job. You know, maybe I could earn some money."
"Sure," I said, "If you want to."
She held eye contact with me. Her straw cracked from having been bent one time too many.
"Maybe if you saved enough you could get a place for yourself," I suggested. "Not have to share a house on some remote island with us weird hermits."
"Maybe... But then, all of the good jobs seem to need a college degree."
"That's sort of true," I said. "You know, if you wanted to, I'm sure you could go to college."
She rested her cheek in her hand, considering this and causing her body to shift slightly over the table. "...I don't know," she said.
Our eyes wouldn't meet for a little while. Somewhere inside of me, I felt a dull reverberation: thud, thud, thud. Then, I looked at her and smiled wistfully.
"I'll get the check," I said.
That's a pretty accurate portrait of that period. 18 and I had been getting closer and closer before, and there seemed to be no limit. Then, suddenly, rudely, there was. It had started with a few scattered incidents: The misunderstanding at Yamucha's, and this one occasion where we were sitting together and I'd, purely by accident, touched her leg. I'd apologized sincerely, and she said not to worry about it, but I was worrying about it. I was drunk from the contact, the forbiddenness of it. I scolded myself harshly and forced myself not to sit next to her for quite a while.
Now we seemed hopelessly far apart, but I felt more than ever a yearning to be close to her. I missed happier times, when we'd felt like conspirators or compatriots, and I would prod the occasional laugh or smile out of her. Or sometimes she would just roll her eyes at my foolishness and affectionately call me an idiot. I had been having so much fun then. Yet, deep down I knew that not even that would be enough anymore. I wanted something else.
I tried to work it out of me. I stared piercingly at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I am not in love, I told it. I didn't want to be in love. It just wouldn't work at all.
Well, asked my reflection with its big, innocent eyes, why not?
Why not? Was I insane? It wasn't fair, for starters. She had much less experience with the world than I. More importantly, she didn't feel the same way about me, I felt sure. If I said or tried anything, all I would end up doing was messing everything up and making her so uncomfortable that she'd leave, and be on her own again, now with a doubtless soured opinion of humanity - so I'd been using her after all. So, it was out of the question. I had to get rid of this feeling somehow. Yet it resisted all of my attempts without budging an inch. If anything, it grew stronger. What was wrong with me? Why did I have to be like this? I demanded this of my reflection, which looked back at me with similar accusation.
It was easier during the day. I could manage to walk the beam, to be nice to her without being too nice. However, she seemed to be having some problems of her own. She acted distant to me.
A few days later she wouldn't come to dinner. I knocked on the door to her room later. She told me that I could come in.
"Hey, 18," I said. "What are you doing?"
She was sitting on the bed and staring at the wall. "Thinking," she said. "And looking over my dat-" She turned to face me. "Damn. I shouldn't have said that."
"What? Your data, were you going to say?"
She nodded hesitantly. "I have the capacity... I mean, I can record things. Store them. I still do, sometimes."
Saying this seemed to make her very upset. She massaged her temples with her hand.
"Hey," I said, "There's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people probably wish they could take down their thoughts like that. You don't have to forget anything."
"It isn't like that," she said. "It's stripped down to the important things. Or... of the important things, depending on how you look at it."
She was crying. I wanted to comfort her, but I held back for a moment. Then I thought, "Damn the consequences, the woman is upset," and I sat down next to her and put my hand on her shoulder. I hoped it was comforting.
"Do you know," she said, "What the worst part of being a cyborg is?"
"Oh, 18..."
"When I look at you, I'm actually viewing through a display. It provides various vital information, like heart rate, identity, and..." She cut herself off.
"You can tell me," I said. "It's okay."
"...and sometimes, when I forget to turn it off... targeting. It even... it makes suggestions as to the best place to attack."
She huddled forward, shaking. In that moment, I hated Dr. Gero and loved Number 18.
I put my arm around her back and held her. I told her that it would be all right, that we'd work it out, that that stupid display didn't mean anything.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Why? You don't have anything to be sorry about. Come on..."
"I can't," she said, and stood up. "I'm sorry, but I can't."
She walked straight out of the room, and then she was running and I was running after her. "Wait!" I cried. "18!" She lit out the door and took off flying immediately. I did the same.
I put as much power as I could manage into my flight, but she was too fast for me and soon left me behind. I lost her in the dark and the rain, for it was storming. I flew for a bit in the direction I thought she'd gone and called her name a few times, but it was no good. I returned dejectedly to the Kame House.
Oolong greeted me there. "Hey, hey," he said, "You're soaked. Where's 18?"
"I don't know," I said. "She just left."
"Ooh. That's harsh."
I nodded mournfully. "I'm worried about her."
The pig regarded me for a few moments.
"Hey," he said, "You're pretty sweet on her, aren't you?"
I pondered being defensive, but gave it up and just nodded.
"I thought so... Why don't you tell her?"
"I can't," I told him. "It wouldn't work out."
Oolong shrugged. "Well, I guess I don't know everything about it, and I'm hardly an expert. But kid, trust me... she's crazy about you."
"What?!"
"Come on, man... don't you see the way she looks at you? It's so obvious."
Now that he mentioned it, I recalled her glancing at me many times with an uncertain expression... it was almost admiring, now that I thought of it. I turned away.
"Well, like I said, I don't know a lot about women or relationships... but it seems to me like all you both need to be happy is to just admit that to each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but I kinda doubt it. And maybe you don't have to do anything right away, but, ahhh, how do I say this... ya never know when you're goin' to run out of time."
I looked at him. Here was a place I'd never expected to get my encouraging push from.
"Well," he said, "Whatever you're gonna do, good luck. I'm goin' to bed. I've done my bit."
Oolong was right, I realized. I looked out the window and wondered if it wasn't too late already. She'd left now... what if she kept going? What if I never saw her again?
After the rain cleared up, I went outside and sat on the beach, watching the night sky.
About an hour later, there was a thunk halfway down the island. A shape resolved itself.
"Hey," I said.
"I'm sorry," said 18. "That was cowardly."
"Nah, don't worry about it. Come on, sit with me."
She kept talking as she sat down. "I don't even know where I thought I was going. I can be so unreasonable sometimes..."
"Shh," I said, "Forget it. Look at the stars."
She did. So did I. You can see them so well from here.
I was thinking of how I would bring it up to 18. Then didn't seem like a great time because she might still be upset, but at the same time I was afraid if I didn't do it soon, I would lose the courage. Despite what Oolong had said, I still wasn't sure. The fear of rejection was still there - I couldn't manage the nerve to believe that she felt that way about me.
18 was fidgeting with her foot again. More than usual.
"Kuririn," she said, "I have to tell you something."
"Sure. Go ahead."
"And if you want me to leave after I've said it, I'll understand. I won't say anything, I'll turn around and go back the way I just came. All right?"
"Uh... sure."
She grabbed my hand then and held it tightly. So tightly, she might have injured a normal person.
"Kuririn... I... I love you."
I looked at her in disbelief.
"I mean," she said, "I think that's what this has to be. I don't know, but it can't be normal to want to be with someone this much."
I just kept looking at her, into her eyes. I was too deliriously happy to speak.
"...Damn, I've screwed it up, haven't I?"
"No." I gripped her hand back. "I love you too, 18."
She looked shocked. "You do?"
"Yes," I said, and "Yes" again. I didn't know what else to say.
I think we simultaneously let out a sigh of relief. It felt like I'd been holding in that breath for a long time.
"So... we're in love, then."
"Yeah." The world seemed to be spinning around me too quickly to justify.
"What happens now?"
"I don't know."
Her palm was cold, but there was warmth coming into it. I traced it with my thumb. She did the same to mine, and we were soon conducting a kind of exploration of each other's hand. It was so silly, but it felt like the best thing I'd ever done.
"Hey, 18," I said. "Would you mind..." I felt dizzy. "...if I moved a little closer to you?"
She didn't say anything. After a moment, she moved closer to me.
Now, we were touching. It felt incredible. Physically, it wasn't that great - she was soaked, after all - but, man, we'd just admitted we loved each other, and now we were touching. Maybe I'm immature, but that felt amazing to me.
For a moment I was nervous, wondering if I should say something, and how to say it, and whether I should make some kind of move or whether that would be inappropriate. But then that nervousness just evaporated and I felt totally relaxed. Life was good.
18 smiled at me - a confused, tentative little smile that I loved - and looked away, blushing a bit.
For once, I wasn't worried about anything, not even the possible troubles in our coming relationship. I just knew myself and my love, and life from here on looked pretty good.
--END OF CHAPTER THIRTY--
"When you're following an angel,
Does that mean you have to
Throw your body off a building?"
- They Might Be Giants, "She's an Angel"
~~~
part I
There she was, standing in my doorway. I wish I could say that I handled it well and was a perfect gentleman, rather than standing there in total shock, staring at her. She had to repeat her question before I shook myself out of it.
I let her in. I made a couple of worthless comments about the weather or something, which she did not acknowledge. She never made eye contact with me; instead, she scanned the house, evaluating it.
"I have to sleep tonight," she said. "Is that okay?"
If the wording struck me as a little odd, I didn't realize it immediately. I told her that of course that was fine. I showed her to my room, grateful now for the large bed that I'd always felt a little lost in. Don't worry about me, I said, I'll sleep in the living room. She seemed to be fine with this. "This will do," she said.
I turned the bed down for her, making a couple more unnoticed statements and providing information about the location of the bathroom. I was extremely nervous. I wondered if I was doing anything wrong. I thought that if she didn't respond to something I said soon, I'd go insane.
"So, um, what happened to 17?" I said.
Now, she looked at me. "My brother," she said venomously, "Is a childish idiot."
I recoiled a bit. Okay, I thought. Obviously a delicate subject.
All of these events passed very quickly, and I soon found myself on the floor of the living room under a blanket, living up to my promise to sleep there. But I didn't sleep for quite a while - alone with my thoughts, I was too excited. What was going to happen next? I just didn't know. It was the first time in a while I could remember my life (my day-to-day life, that is) actually being exciting. I felt optimistic, almost giddy.
Despite the small amount of sleep I got, I was up fairly early the next morning, fixing pancakes with a raspberry syrup and orange juice (Why in the world do I remember this?) for breakfast. Roshi-sama was the second inhabitant to wake up that morning, and it was when I saw him that something painfully obvious dawned on me.
I realized with a sudden shock that permission to stay at the Kame House wasn't exactly mine to give. It was Roshi's house, after all. When he approached, I cowered like a guilty man.
It took me a little while to work up the nerve to bring up the subject of 18 with Roshi-sama. When I finally asked him - blurted it out, really - he took a moment to consider it. I was very anxious, but I needn't have worried.
"Well, you really should have asked me, but I don't think it'll be a problem. No, don't think of it," he said as I thanked him. He leaned in close to me. "Hey, is she a hottie?"
I sighed and nodded placatingly.
"No problem at all, my boy," he concluded, smiling broadly.
Oolong was less keen on the idea - wasn't she one of the androids I had been training to fight all of that time? - but he didn't have much time to voice his objections before I was setting the table and all of us, 18 included, sat down to eat. I probably inquired as to how she slept, to some mildly positive response.
Breakfast began to proceed as normal, but 18 did not start eating with the rest of us. Instead, she just looked anxiously down at her plate. The stillness at her part of the table soon disrupted the rhythm of the breakfast so that no one at all was eating.
Amid the nervous silence, a thought occurred to me that seemed ridiculous yet worthy of consideration. I had to say something, so I brought it up.
"I'm sorry, 18..." I said. "Do you... ah... eat?" I winced preemptively at the potential offensiveness of the question.
She recoiled in horror. "What do you take me for? Of course I eat!" To prove her point, she snatched a fork off of the table and began furiously eating. I sank in my chair and fought the urge to let my face fall all the way into the raspberry-soaked cake on my plate. Things were starting off just great.
As I recall, the next time I got the nerve to speak to her, it was about clothes. Surely, she needed some. She agreed, and we went out to town to go shopping. I was surprised to learn how much 18 enjoyed doing this. We were at it for a few hours, and I saw her smiling for the first time... well, ever. Of course, we didn't have a lot of money, so she wasn't able to get a lot of what she wanted; she sighed at this, but didn't really complain. I'll admit I was a bit worried about being among all those people, but the trip was pretty incident-free, aside from a very casually made comment to the cashier that she didn't have to pay if she didn't want to.
I tried to talk to her a few times, but she responded to everything I said either very literally or not at all. Finally, she said, "You keep talking to me, but you don't really have anything important to say. Why do humans feel the need to constantly run their mouths at one another?"
I don't know, I told her. Maybe they were just trying to establish some kind of emotional connection.
"Well, don't. You're just making yourself look stupid."
I told her I was sorry. I was mostly quiet after that.
Back at home, she changed into some of her new clothes. I told her that she looked great; she supposed it was okay. The next thing I remember she was looking at my bookshelf, reading the titles off of the spines.
"You read a lot?" she asked.
As a matter of fact, I did. Sometimes there wasn't much to do around the Kame House, so I'd read no less than a couple hundred books to pass the time; many of these still found a place on my shelf. 18's attention was caught by one of the titles.
"Wait," she said, "I could swear that I've seen this before..."
It was a leather-bound copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. I gave her my brief summary of it and said that it was a classic. "All right," she said, "I'll read it, then."
And damned if she didn't sit down and do just that. It was the weirdest thing - I've heard of people reading books in one sitting, but The Count of Monte Cristo is over 1200 pages. She took tea when I offered it, but she didn't come to dinner. She didn't speak for the rest of the day. I tried to do other things and just leave her to her book, but I couldn't get into anything. The presence of her just felt so powerful in me that I was hard pressed to ignore it. I could feel her there, just one or two rooms away, sitting in my house - Number 18, actually in my house! The mere fact of it was putting me off. It seems funny now, when I turn around and usually expect to see her.
She was still reading when I told her I was going to bed. She looked up from her book.
"Really? To sleep?"
"Um... yeah."
She frowned quizzically. "Didn't you just do that yesterday?"
"Well... I sleep pretty much every day, really." For some reason, I felt at that moment that maybe sleeping every night really was an odd thing to do, that I was crazy. She asked me if I was lazy or something. Eventually I regained my senses and told her that just about everyone I knew slept every night, so far as I knew.
"Hm," she said, seeming to file this away. "Well, you can have the bed if you want. I won't have to sleep again for a few more days."
I went to bed. That was odd, I thought, but then again, she is a cyborg. When I thought about it, it might actually be nice to not be required to sleep so often. Think of how much of our lives we're missing. I lay in bed thinking that I could hear her turn the pages, which was ridiculous because she did it so soundlessly, hooking her index finger under the top of the page and gently pushing it to the side. Still, this imagined rhythm worked me into a trance from which sleep was easily achieved.
Of course, she was still reading when I got up. It wasn't until midway through that day that she put the book down with a thud.
I looked at her amusedly. "You're done? Seriously?"
"Yes. I didn't really understand it. If Dantés wanted revenge so badly, why didn't he just kill his enemies, instead of structuring his life around some elaborate scheme?"
I told her that I didn't know, badly stifling a laugh.
"What?" she said in perfect seriousness. "As it was, the damn thing was so long I feel like I've been in prison for fourteen years as well."
I told her that most people didn't read it all at once. She waved her hand at me dismissively, giving up on the subject.
Not much happened for the next few days. 18 brooded, often spending long periods of time staring out the window. Oolong told me that it made him nervous. I shrugged helplessly, but I had to admit that the tension was getting kind of thick. After about the dozenth offer I made to 18 to get her something or take her somewhere, she spoke to me.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" she said.
I blathered for a bit about her being my guest and how I didn't think I was being that great of a host, now that she mentioned it, before I realized that she was being serious. There was something troubled in her eyes, something that told me that she didn't understand, that she needed to understand. This realization stemmed the easy flow of mindless talk from me. Very quietly, I managed to say something to the effect of that I guessed I just wanted her to be happy.
"Hmp," she said, not buying it. Then, after a pause, she added, "Wait a minute... I get it."
"Huh?"
"That's right, I can't believe I forgot. It's that romance stuff again, isn't it? You want me to be your 'girlfriend'." The word trickled out in an ooze of contempt. "That's the reason you care about me. That's what you have to gain."
I became very flustered and defensive. I denied the charge.
She took no notice, confident in her assessment. She looked almost vindicated, as if a weight that had been bothering her was suddenly removed. "Well, you can quit wasting your time. I'm a cyborg, remember? Get it through your head. We don't need things like that. We're above them."
There it was again: the self-denial. I felt a powerful need to reach out to her, to peel away this protective skin and show her and everyone else what she truly was, but I felt like I was looking at her from behind a glass barrier, incapable of doing anything. "Maybe... maybe you do need someone, 18," I said. "Maybe you've convinced yourself that you don't."
Now she was beyond concern. "If you believe that, little human, then you're even more foolish than I thought."
I felt like someone had stabbed me. "Of course," I mumbled, "I apologize," and I promptly went outside.
I laid on the roof and stared at the sky, letting all of my pain soak in. I wondered if maybe this hadn't been such a great idea. Then, I wondered if 18's accusation had been true on some level, despite my vigorous denial. If so, I thought, maybe this isn't the best thing for her. But these thoughts just aimlessly flew around my head until I calmed down.
I think it was pretty soon after that - the day after the next, if not the next day - that 18 suggested we spar. Roshi and Oolong were out on some outing to the city - to see a movie, I think.
It wasn't something she'd been considering, it obviously had just occurred to her. She'd been feeling bored, she said, and when she was with 17 they would occasionally fight. Maybe that was what she needed to calm her down, she said. I told her that I wasn't in her league. "I know that," she said, "But you're the closest thing I'm going to find around here." She promised not to fight at full strength. I still wasn't sure that it was a good idea, but I eventually relented.
We found a relatively empty plain on the mainland not too far away. It was still.
She asked me if I needed to power up or something. Oh, yeah, I said, and did. It took me a few seconds. I was pleased to note that I was a bit stronger than I'd been during the whole Cell affair. I scoffed at myself for this pleasure. My power was nothing.
Of course, one-sided is a laughable understatement as a description of what followed. I tried my best, but for her it was as if I were moving in slow motion. The first time she hit me, even though she wasn't using her full strength, I nearly fell apart. My vision blinked out and there was a sharp ringing in my head. After the second time, I barely got back up. A couple more blows and, well, I was just out.
"Ow," I said with spectacular honesty.
She said that I was pathetic. As easy as it had been to fight the others (Piccolo, Trunks, and Vegeta, I assume) before, at least it had been harder than this. "Sorry," I said.
18 looked very frustrated, as if she weren't sure why she'd done this, nor was she sure of what she would do next. "You know," she said after a while, "Our data told us that you were the strongest human on this planet."
I perked up a bit. "Really?"
"That wasn't intended as a compliment."
She talked for a little while about humans: how they were so unbelievably weak and not even especially intelligent. She didn't even see how we were all allowed to live, she said, let alone rule the planet. Why did I think humans had managed to achieve such dominance?
I don't know, I said. I guess we have to have something going for us, I said.
18 dismissed the entire human species. Weak and worthless were the words I believe she used. I took it in stride. I was more interested in my own pain right about then.
"Hey, 18," I said, "Help me up."
"You're kidding. You need my help to get up, after just that?"
Well, yeah, afraid so. She looked at me for a little while, she seemed to be really thinking about it. At last, she concluded, "Those wounds aren't serious. You can get up by yourself."
I suddenly became filled with fear and panic. Up to that point, I hadn't been upset. Mind you, I don't enjoy getting beat up, but I can take it. I'm used to it, and it was an assumed risk. But this, this wasn't something you messed around with. You always helped somebody up. It may have been true that the wounds weren't serious, and with some time and effort I may have been able to get up on my own despite them, but it was so much less of a struggle with someone else to help you. They don't have to support your whole weight, just enough so that you know you're not alone, that you have something to fall back on. You always helped someone up. To do otherwise was betrayal.
She started to leave. "18," I said, "You aren't just going to leave me here!"
She paused, then turned around.
"If you need my help," she said disdainfully, "You may as well already be dead."
I stayed there for almost a quarter of an hour, reflecting on that. I felt so terrible and sad and angry. She hadn't cared at all, I thought, for how I felt. She treated me as she pleased. I might have sat there for the better part of an hour moping about this, but a volatile mix of anger and determination struck a spark in my mind. I don't think that at any point in my life before that I'd have had that courage to do anything about it, but as I've said, I have more courage when I think about her. I was not going to let things stay this way.
Therefore, I got up. It was easy, despite the pain I was in. I had a powerful headache and one of my eyes was swollen shut, but 18 had been right about the wounds not being serious. I flew home. I was weak so it took longer than usual.
18 was right there when I opened the door. This was good, because I wasn't sure whether I would be able to keep my determination up if I had to walk through the house. Roshi and Oolong were back.
I'm not sure that the following is what I said. The hell with it, I'm sure it's not what I said, but the mood is what's important. The main points. It's what I would have said, if things had gone perfectly.
"18, I think it would be best if you would leave."
Everything was frozen in shock. She walked towards me, staring at me incredulously. Ki or no ki, I could feel her power, and I knew that she would have no trouble snapping me like a twig if she wanted to. Still, I did my best to stand firm.
"Excuse me?" she said. "You invited me here. What do you think gives you the right to throw me out now?"
"It isn't going to work like this. You can't treat me this way. I gave you a chance, 18. Even though a lot of people didn't want me to, I did."
"Oh, stop trying to play yourself up as the big saint! All you wanted was--"
"Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't," I snapped, surprising even myself, really. "But that isn't the point. You came here freely, and we took you in. You can't take advantage of that and do this. You say that you don't need anybody, and maybe you don't, but no one will accept you if you treat them like this. I won't stand for it."
I felt exhausted, my courage spent. Number 18 stared at me, and I bowed my head. I was sure that she would either leave or kill me, and I wished she would hurry and do either (though both terrified me), because that moment was excruciating. I didn't expect to see what I saw then.
First there was surprise in her eyes, then briefly a kind of sadness. Finally she cast a steady gaze slightly downward and said, "You're right."
"Huh?"
"You're right, and I'm sorry. I realize... I've been acting so childishly since I got here. Just like my brother. I'll leave now." She walked to the door.
Halfway out, she turned around and looked back. "I... I don't know..." she said with a profound kind of sadness I hadn't seen in her before, "Where I'm going to go..."
She flew away. I could say no words. All of the sound seemed to have vacated the universe.
For a few minutes, I sat with Oolong and Roshi-sama. I looked at them - their expressions seemed frozen in time - and at the floor. Then, I flew away too.
Don't ask me how I found her. I just did.
She stopped in the air when she saw me, and was completely confused.
"Why are you following me?"
"Please come back," I said. "I don't want you to leave."
---
part II
Though hesitant, Number 18 agreed to come back to the Kame House with me.
I did my best to make reparations with the others. It's all right. Things'll be better now. She said she was sorry. Yeah, I know I'm bleeding. It's just a couple of flesh wounds and a black eye. Nothing to worry about...
I could have gone to Dende's lookout and had him heal me - I'm sure he would have been happy to - but I figured he probably had enough to do as Earth's new Kami. Besides, I didn't mind the pain so much. After I got some rest I felt a lot better.
I smiled groggily at 18 in the morning. Hi, I said. She responded with another "hi". She asked me how my eye was. Getting better, thanks, I told her. There was no further discussion of the night before.
I saw this as a new beginning for us - a kind of clean slate, I guess. "So," I said to her, "Maybe we should get to know each other a little better."
"All right, but there isn't much to know about me."
"Really?"
"All I know is that I am Artificial Human Number 18, creation of the great Sir Doctor Gero of the Red Ribbon Army, which has fallen but is destined to rise again," she said, and sighed. "That statement was fabricated. You have no idea how annoying it is having this tripe in your memory."
I agreed with her. "But... who were you before you were Number 18?"
"...A human woman."
I gaped. "That's all you know?"
"I'm guessing even that." Her face darkened. "He took it all, you know. Our memories, our feelings, everything. Wiped us clean. I know nothing but the data I was given and what I've learned since we woke up."
I didn't know what to say. "That's terrible."
"..."
I was shocked - I'd had no idea that what Gero had done to them had been so thorough. Can you imagine having your entire past wiped away, waking up and not even knowing who or what you were? Not only that, but turned into something else, your very nature violated from the inside out.
"Stop looking at me like that! Don't pity me."
"Oh... I'm sorry."
We were silent for a little while, and then I smiled. Don't worry, I told her, you'll start a new life. You'll make new memories.
She considered this.
"Maybe," she said.
I might also have told her something about myself. If so, you aren't missing anything - just an extremely abridged version of what you've already read.
There was a bit of trouble that night at dinner. Oolong, who had been looking nervous all day, stood up in the middle of the meal. "That's it," he said, "I can't hold it in anymore." What was he talking about? "You know!" he said, pointing at 18. "Her! She can't just stay here!"
He kept cringing as he spoke, as if expecting some attack to come from 18, but she just stared sternly at her plate the whole time. "She's... I mean... she's dangerous! Even the fact that she's on the planet freaks me out, let alone here!"
"Oolong, please--" I started.
"Kuririn, I don't know why you decided to bring her back. Did you see what she did to you? She-"
Roshi-sama interrupted him. "That will be enough, Oolong."
"But-"
"But nothing! Is this my house or isn't it?" He smiled pridefully. "I happen to think that Kuririn is a pretty darn good judge of character. If he says the young lady may stay, she may. End of discussion."
Oolong mumbled an apology and went back to his meal. I looked at Roshi in shock. He winked at me.
Things were somewhat smoother after that. I could tell that 18 was really making an effort now. She started accepting invitations to go out and do things. We went to the mall, to lunch and dinner, and to the bar I used to frequent - anywhere where she could be around people and have some experience dealing with them.
I had a lot of fun. 18 never hesitated to offer her criticisms of society and its many unspoken rules and trappings. Actually, she pointed out some idiosyncrasies that I'd never really noticed.
"So why is it, exactly," she'd say, "That everyone feels it necessary to ask 'how are you?' when they obviously have little interest and know they'll only receive a preconditioned response?"
"You know, I've really got no idea," I'd say.
She would typically roll her eyes and mutter, "Humans," though I could tell that this reaction was becoming increasingly good-natured.
I think I remember the first time I made her laugh. We were having lunch at the mall. She has this funny way of moving her lips slightly to the right when she's chewing meat.
"So what did you call this?" she said.
"Bourbon Chicken."
"It's good."
I shrugged. "It's not bad for food court food. So, what do you think of the human race so far?"
"They're arrogant," she said, "and selfish and ignorant and stupid... but like you said, not that bad, really. I just don't think I'm fitting in very well."
"Nah," I said, "You're doing fine. Though I have to say, that guy who hit on you last night must have been pretty surprised when you literally put him in his place."
"Hm!" She smiled. "He had it coming. I told him once to go away."
"Yeah," I said, "but I can just imagine him trying to explain it to his buddies." Here I slipped into my impersonation of the unfortunate guy. "No, dude, you don't understand! I mean, this chick, she was STRONG! Hey, come on! It ain't funny!"
18 let out a funny snort of a laugh and brought her hand up to her mouth to stop it.
"Aha," I teased, "Have I managed to elicit a giggle from the big bad unfeeling cyborg? I'm shocked."
"Shut up," she said, and hit me just hard enough for it to hurt.
"Owwww, come on, 18," I whined, but I was smiling. She was smiling too, and that made me feel terrific. Any doubts I had about Trunks' warning had vanished. Maybe his timeline's 18 was a cold-blooded killer, but this one was a much more complex and interesting creature. I've known a lot of cold-blooded killers, but I can't say that I've met many people like 18.
Things settled down pretty quickly back at the Kame House. There wasn't any formal reconciliation or anything, everyone just pretty much got used to each other. There may have been a few incidents, but nothing major. I was surprised by how quickly 18 became just as much a member of the home as the rest of us. As she settled into my former room, I set up a slightly more permanent residence in the attic.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention this. One morning, I noticed 18 looking at me kind of strangely.
"What's wrong?" I said. She indicated my head.
"Oh, ha ha." I ran a hand along my head, which had enough hair to resemble a very short buzz cut. "I guess I've been neglecting to shave my head lately."
She nodded slightly and I thought that was the end of it, even going so far as to make a mental note to do that.
Then, she surprised me. "Don't," she said.
"What?"
"Don't," she repeated, and lowered her eyelashes slightly, giving me a look that I might almost describe as sexy, if I didn't know any better. "You'd look, um... cute with hair."
She immediately moved her attention to something else. I was reeling.
Needless to say, of course, I never shaved my head again.
I didn't know where exactly to place that little anecdote, but I think it makes for a good example of the fact that although things somewhat returned to normal, it was different than before. I think that life at home had changed in a good way. In the least, it's always good to have more company. No matter how much we go out, living in a house on an isolated island adds up to spending an awful lot of time actually living in that house on an isolated island, and it is boring. Conversations with the same two people get repetitive after a while.
18 wasn't very keen on talking at first. She told me that she only spoke when she felt there was something it was necessary for her to say. Before long, however, she was joining in for a point or two, and she was soon frequently talking to us and with us. Hers was the conversation pattern of the person who sits and observes and then comes in with an "Well, the way I see it...", except without the "Well, the way I see it". Her assessments were sometimes harsh, but usually pretty accurate. She didn't have a lot of experience to draw from, but she picked things up quickly. She's always been like that - insanely good at learning things.
You're probably going to think that this is weird or funny or something, but the first thing that attracted me to 18 - the first thing I really came to appreciate about her - was the fact that she took me seriously. Even among my friends (and believe me, I don't mean to say that my friends have treated me badly, because they haven't), I've always felt like I'm taken a little less seriously than most. Maybe it's my own fault. Come to think of it, I probably began to tailor myself to that, to make my input a little oddball or off-kilter, or maybe I just really was that way.
Whatever it was, it was different with 18. I knew by the way she met my eyes when I spoke that she was paying attention. There was something there, some kind of respect. It felt very strange to me, but I gradually started getting more confident. Not just in speech, but in a lot of things. Others had tried to encourage me before, but it had never been quite so strangely effective as was 18's subtle approach.
I guess that brings me to something I've been sort of hiding from you. I admit this as a fault; it isn't fair to you or me. I'm supposed to be laying things out bare. I've alluded to it a couple of times, but never directly brought it out.
It was not an uncommon sight at the Kame House to see me get depressed. And I don't mean just having-a-bad-day, kinda-in-a-bad-mood - I mean really depressed. I usually managed, or thought I managed, to keep people from noticing. I would smile and act my usual self, as if nothing was wrong. What was the point of bothering other people with my stupid crap? Sometimes, when my disguise wasn't holding up very well, I would go so far as to say that nothing was wrong. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't.
It would usually start when I was doing something, or trying to do something, or planning to do something. In the case I'm about to refer to, I was trying to write. I wasn't making an awful lot of progress, and it wasn't turning out very well. Eventually I just read back over what I was working on and let the mental axe drop - this was crap. Unredeemable.
I proceeded from there to realize that I was a terrible writer. This seemed perfectly logical; in fact, it seemed something I had been only half-fooling myself into disbelieving. This dark lump of discontent and self-loathing infected, as it usually did, every part of myself. I was worthless. I was weak and stupid and the gamut of other such descriptors. I had failed at everything important. If I had done certain things differently, Goku would have still been alive; I'd failed Goku. If I were stronger, I could have helped fight Cell; it was my fault I wasn't stronger. And a new feature - I wasn't doing the right thing for 18. She should be somewhere else. She was spending too much time with me, was I actually entertaining some ludicrous hope that she might like me? Please - she was way too good for me. I was a joke.
So I shut down my computer and took a few moments to swallow the rage. I took a few deep breaths to still the shaking. I sat in a chair and attempted to read a book. I was on the same two pages for nearly 15 minutes, so I gave up.
18 spoke to me. "What's the matter with you? You're usually busying yourself with some task or another right now."
I'm just not in the mood, I told her. Gently, pleasantly. Raise the walls.
She asked me again and I sighed. I was starting to develop a major headache.
"I'm just not feeling great about myself right now, okay? That's it. Otherwise I'm fine." Thinking, please go away.
She frowned at me. "I don't understand it," she said.
I mumbled something to the effect that not a lot of people do.
18 seemed to get a little angry. She stepped toward the chair. "Get up."
"What?" This I didn't need. She was bossing me around. "Why?"
Seeing that I wouldn't get up, she picked me up instead, much to my alarm and protest, and placed me on my feet. What was the big idea? I said. What did she think she was--
"Shut up. I'm only going to say this once."
I let my voice trail off.
"And," she said with authority, "You're going to owe me for it, do you understand?"
I gave a confused look. She sighed sharply and tried to put it more clearly.
"Do you think this is easy for me? It isn't. Every word of this hurts me. Do you understand?"
I nodded helplessly.
"Good," she said, allowing a little pause. Then: "You're too good for this."
"Huh?"
"Shut up! Let me finish!"
I fell obediently silent.
"It's obvious you don't think much of yourself. Do you think I don't notice that you put yourself down in little ways, every chance you get? Sometimes you think you're joking, but it drives me insane. Do you know why?"
I shook my head.
"Because you're saying the opposite of the truth. You're the only human I've met that would be this good. That would treat me this well, despite what I've put you through. You... you're a good person, Kuririn. I know you are."
My heart pounded. I'd never expected to receive such a compliment from 18. I looked up into her eyes - for a moment, she looked confused, almost tender, but she soon resumed her authoritarian stance and her emotionless gaze. "So," she said, "There won't be any more of this. Got it?"
I wanted to say something meaningful, to make some use of the powerful feelings inside me then. "Yes," I said.
"Good," she said, and promptly turned and left me there.
I lolled back in my chair, numb from the shock of it. For once, I knew there was no question of the truth in her words. I stood up and found that I actually felt quite better. I took an objective look at myself. I may not be the cleverest or strongest person, I thought, but I realized that I had become important to someone.
"18," I thought. I felt for her a deep respect and... something else. She had said this for me, and I knew it could not have been easy. In the couple of months she'd been with us, she had become a lot better at conversation, but whenever the topic had turned to feelings, she became strangely quiet. She could find few words, and she fidgeted with her foot and looked very anxious until the subject was changed. For me, she had broken that silence for the first time.
She was right: I did owe her. Sitting there in the partially lit attic late in the evening, I just wished I knew how I'd ever manage to repay this debt.
---
part III
I'll admit I was a bit nervous as we walked up to the entrance of Yamucha's palatial home. He was a good guy and usually quite reasonable, but I was nervous nonetheless.
I'd been avoiding my friends for far too long. I'd talked to some of them on the phone, neatly skirting around the issue that I didn't have the nerve to bring up. Roshi-sama had told me that I wouldn't be able to keep this up for long. 18 had been a bit more direct.
"What is it?" she'd said. "Are you ashamed of me?"
"No!" I'd said; I was telling the truth. Not ashamed, just fearful. I just kept seeing the disgust and disbelief in everyone's eyes back at the lookout. But she was right - I was just being stupid. There was no good reason for my attempting to keep her a secret.
So, both of us were standing there waiting for Yamucha to answer the door. That's the funny thing about Yamucha's place - he's never hired any help as most people with those kind of homes do. He's just never felt comfortable with that, he says, and he and Pu'ar get by fine. The effect of that is that you'll sometimes stand there for a good two minutes waiting for him to open the door.
"Hey," he said, "Kuririn! It's been... oh." He looked at 18. He looked nervous momentarily, but I saw him suppress it. "18, right?"
She looked at him a little strangely at first too, but shook it off. "Yes," she said. "Hi."
"Hi..." he said a bit distantly. Then, with more fervor, "Well, come on in!"
"Hey, Pu'ar-chan," he shouted as we walked in, "We've got guests!"
In a corner of the room, I saw a broom turn into a cat and nod. She floated over to us. "Hello, Kuririn. Who's this?"
18 sweatdropped. "Wasn't that cat a broom a minute ago?"
Fortunately, that was a short explanation, having been preceded by one explaining Oolong's much more infrequent transformations.
We sat in a sofa in the... shoot, is it the lobby? Yamucha would know better than I would; I never could get straight which room of his house was called what. Anyway, we sat there and drank a bit of wine. Yamucha brought me up to date on a bunch of current affairs with the Son family and Bulma. Apparently Vegeta was living in Bulma's estate at Capsule Corp HQ full time now. Yamucha was of the opinion that the two of them had fallen in love, though every time you saw them they were arguing.
I couldn't help but be amused. "You know, they are perfect for each other," I said.
He touched on a few more issues - for example, "Hey, are you growing your hair out?", but he wasn't really neglecting 18, even though he was speaking to me. He even offered her little explanations of things she might not have known a lot about, which I have do admit she didn't, as I hadn't talked a whole lot to her about my friends. Actually, aside from that initial moment of nervousness, Yamucha was amazingly cool about 18; I was relieved. There was only one moment that was really uncomfortable.
"So," he said, "I guess you two hooked up after all."
I nodded. "18's been living with me for a couple of months now."
"Oh," said Yamucha, "Are you guys...?" He moved his index finger from 18 to I and back, denoting a specific kind of connection.
We were very embarrassed. 18 and I involuntarily moved about a foot apart. I rubbed the back of my neck gingerly.
"Ah, no," I said. "It's not like that."
"Oh," he said, "I'm sorry. It was rude of me to ask like that."
There was a bit of an uncomfortable pause.
"I've never been in a place like this before," said 18. "I'd like to see the rest of it."
Yamucha was, as they say, more than happy to comply. "Sure. I'll give you the tour."
He guided us through his home. His comments were pretty brief, really. On a sort of ballroom - "I've had some pretty major parties here. There's a lot of food, a lot of drinks, and some dancing. I've had more than a couple hundred guests. There are names I could drop, but you probably don't care that much about that."
18 shrugged. "Yeah," he said, "Neither do I, really. I don't know. Parties like that can be really fun, but I don't like to have them too often. You tend to feel kind of burned out and alone after them. Well, I do." He smiled. "It's better to have a couple of friends over. Like this."
18 was taking in the views - the place is well decorated, not too extravagant but enough to be impressive and pretty. "This is quite a place," 18 said. "How do you have a house like this?"
"I know," said Yamucha. "Believe me, it never stops amazing me how much money they'll pay me to hit a ball with a stick. I keep wondering if it's some kind of trick, like they're going to come over any day now and say that the trick is over, Yamucha, you can go back to being a desert rat now. They never do, though. It's unbelievable."
We were almost through when our attention lit upon a wooden rack holding a large sheathed blade.
"What's this?" said 18. "Some kind of weapon?"
"My old sword," said Yamucha, admiring it. "I've had it for a very long time. I used to be pretty good. Haven't used it in years, though."
"Were you using it," she asked, "When you got..."
"Oh, the scars," said Yamucha, touching one of them with his fingertips. "Yeah. I haven't used it since then."
"You never told me how that happened," I said.
He nodded. "I'm sorry, Kuririn. It's private. I never tell anyone that story."
"I know how it happened," said Pu'ar, floating into the room.
"That's true," he said, "But you aren't telling anyone either." She nodded primly.
18 looked very concerned. "It must be terrible to have those scars out where everyone can see them. I'm sorry."
"Oh, I've had them for so long now that I'm used to it. So are most of my friends," he said, nodding at me. "The worst is when I meet new people and they stare at them. It feels like an invasion to have their eyes on my wounds. I wonder what they're thinking about me."
"Yes," said 18. "I know what you mean."
Yamucha shrugged. "It's not that bad, really. It's something that sets me apart. I mean, I'd get rid of it if I could, but I've learned to live with it. Anyway, anybody who stays focused on it very long is shallow and not worth dealing with, right?"
I was surprised. Yamucha didn't usually open up like that to people he'd just met. Neither did 18.
Yamucha took the sword off the rack and out of its sheath. He reminisced a little about his days in the desert. "So, 18," he said, having gotten comfortable, "Why don't you tell me something about your past?"
She faltered. "My past?"
"Oh," I said, "Yamucha, you have to understand... their memories were wiped out by Dr. Gero. She doesn't remember her life up to that point."
Yamucha looked a little sick. "That's... awful..."
"I can't imagine it," said Pu'ar. "Having your past taken away..." She came over to 18 and placed a paw upon her shoulder.
"No," said 18. She lifted her head back up. "I have a past. I stayed with my brother in the forest for a month or so, and then I came to live with Kuririn. Since then, he's been showing me a lot of things. I'm not quite used to it all, but I think I'm starting to get my bearings."
"That's a good attitude, 18," said Pu'ar. "You're making a new past."
Yamucha nodded. "Yeah, it's admirable." He looked at his sword. "Maybe sometimes we're a little too dependent on memories." He put it back on the wall. "After all, where would we be without the present?"
We stayed for a while. We had a good time, and the conversation was lighter after that. Yamucha and 18 seemed to have hit it off, which was good. Even better, Yamucha promised us that he'd take care of the others. Yeah, he said, some of them wouldn't be too happy to hear about 18, but he was sure they'd get over it. "Look at Vegeta, for Kami's sake," he said. "If we can tolerate him, I'm not too worried about you, 18."
"I like him," 18 said of Yamucha on the way home. "You have a good friend."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Yamucha's a great guy. We go way back."
We were silent for a while.
"Uh, so," I said. "It was pretty awkward when he asked that... about us."
"Yes," she agreed. "It was."
We were silent for the rest of the way.
I was angry with myself. After all of the good things that had happened in our visit, why did I keep returning to that? Yet, my thoughts kept going back to it again and again, no matter how many times I tried to turn them away.
In a later phone call, Yamucha told me that 18 seemed like a very nice girl, but I should still remember what he said. "All I mean is, don't do anything unless you're sure." I told him not to worry.
I was sitting at a table in a little restaurant and cafe with 18 some time later. We were only having drinks and some bread that we'd already eaten.
I sipped slowly and deliberately, trying to think of something to say. Our conversations had been less lively as of late. The wisecracks, the studied observation from 18, the happy chatter from me - all of them were pretty much gone. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy our outings anymore. I did. I'd never had so much fun.
"Come on," I urged myself. "Just say something to her." Stealing a few glances at her eyes between meditative stares into my glass, I planned to make some comment about Muten Roshi and Oolong's proposed trip to the Papaya Islands to see a bikini contest. I looked up at her and got ready to speak, but- My God, she was beautiful.
She was wearing a floral summer dress with these little straps that showed off her shoulders very nicely - she had been very pale, but she was acquiring more of a tan now. She was twisting her straw absentmindedly. I don't want to spoil my description with ludicrous romanticising or comparisons to angels, but she really was looking amazing to me that day. So amazing that it made me uncomfortable. Had I been a different person just a few weeks ago when I'd talked to her so easily? Had she?
"I've been thinking," she said, "About what I might want to do with my life."
"Oh? Are you interested in something in particular?" I found myself wishing that something would come up that amused or pleased her just so that I could see her smile again. 'Cute', I had thought of that smile. What was I thinking - it was golden. When I saw her smile, it felt like some kind of warm, gratifying feeling poured into my heart...
Focus. Reality. Focus.
"Well," she said, and sighed. "No. I don't know. Nothing's really caught my interest yet. I feel like I should get a job. You know, maybe I could earn some money."
"Sure," I said, "If you want to."
She held eye contact with me. Her straw cracked from having been bent one time too many.
"Maybe if you saved enough you could get a place for yourself," I suggested. "Not have to share a house on some remote island with us weird hermits."
"Maybe... But then, all of the good jobs seem to need a college degree."
"That's sort of true," I said. "You know, if you wanted to, I'm sure you could go to college."
She rested her cheek in her hand, considering this and causing her body to shift slightly over the table. "...I don't know," she said.
Our eyes wouldn't meet for a little while. Somewhere inside of me, I felt a dull reverberation: thud, thud, thud. Then, I looked at her and smiled wistfully.
"I'll get the check," I said.
That's a pretty accurate portrait of that period. 18 and I had been getting closer and closer before, and there seemed to be no limit. Then, suddenly, rudely, there was. It had started with a few scattered incidents: The misunderstanding at Yamucha's, and this one occasion where we were sitting together and I'd, purely by accident, touched her leg. I'd apologized sincerely, and she said not to worry about it, but I was worrying about it. I was drunk from the contact, the forbiddenness of it. I scolded myself harshly and forced myself not to sit next to her for quite a while.
Now we seemed hopelessly far apart, but I felt more than ever a yearning to be close to her. I missed happier times, when we'd felt like conspirators or compatriots, and I would prod the occasional laugh or smile out of her. Or sometimes she would just roll her eyes at my foolishness and affectionately call me an idiot. I had been having so much fun then. Yet, deep down I knew that not even that would be enough anymore. I wanted something else.
I tried to work it out of me. I stared piercingly at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I am not in love, I told it. I didn't want to be in love. It just wouldn't work at all.
Well, asked my reflection with its big, innocent eyes, why not?
Why not? Was I insane? It wasn't fair, for starters. She had much less experience with the world than I. More importantly, she didn't feel the same way about me, I felt sure. If I said or tried anything, all I would end up doing was messing everything up and making her so uncomfortable that she'd leave, and be on her own again, now with a doubtless soured opinion of humanity - so I'd been using her after all. So, it was out of the question. I had to get rid of this feeling somehow. Yet it resisted all of my attempts without budging an inch. If anything, it grew stronger. What was wrong with me? Why did I have to be like this? I demanded this of my reflection, which looked back at me with similar accusation.
It was easier during the day. I could manage to walk the beam, to be nice to her without being too nice. However, she seemed to be having some problems of her own. She acted distant to me.
A few days later she wouldn't come to dinner. I knocked on the door to her room later. She told me that I could come in.
"Hey, 18," I said. "What are you doing?"
She was sitting on the bed and staring at the wall. "Thinking," she said. "And looking over my dat-" She turned to face me. "Damn. I shouldn't have said that."
"What? Your data, were you going to say?"
She nodded hesitantly. "I have the capacity... I mean, I can record things. Store them. I still do, sometimes."
Saying this seemed to make her very upset. She massaged her temples with her hand.
"Hey," I said, "There's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people probably wish they could take down their thoughts like that. You don't have to forget anything."
"It isn't like that," she said. "It's stripped down to the important things. Or... of the important things, depending on how you look at it."
She was crying. I wanted to comfort her, but I held back for a moment. Then I thought, "Damn the consequences, the woman is upset," and I sat down next to her and put my hand on her shoulder. I hoped it was comforting.
"Do you know," she said, "What the worst part of being a cyborg is?"
"Oh, 18..."
"When I look at you, I'm actually viewing through a display. It provides various vital information, like heart rate, identity, and..." She cut herself off.
"You can tell me," I said. "It's okay."
"...and sometimes, when I forget to turn it off... targeting. It even... it makes suggestions as to the best place to attack."
She huddled forward, shaking. In that moment, I hated Dr. Gero and loved Number 18.
I put my arm around her back and held her. I told her that it would be all right, that we'd work it out, that that stupid display didn't mean anything.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Why? You don't have anything to be sorry about. Come on..."
"I can't," she said, and stood up. "I'm sorry, but I can't."
She walked straight out of the room, and then she was running and I was running after her. "Wait!" I cried. "18!" She lit out the door and took off flying immediately. I did the same.
I put as much power as I could manage into my flight, but she was too fast for me and soon left me behind. I lost her in the dark and the rain, for it was storming. I flew for a bit in the direction I thought she'd gone and called her name a few times, but it was no good. I returned dejectedly to the Kame House.
Oolong greeted me there. "Hey, hey," he said, "You're soaked. Where's 18?"
"I don't know," I said. "She just left."
"Ooh. That's harsh."
I nodded mournfully. "I'm worried about her."
The pig regarded me for a few moments.
"Hey," he said, "You're pretty sweet on her, aren't you?"
I pondered being defensive, but gave it up and just nodded.
"I thought so... Why don't you tell her?"
"I can't," I told him. "It wouldn't work out."
Oolong shrugged. "Well, I guess I don't know everything about it, and I'm hardly an expert. But kid, trust me... she's crazy about you."
"What?!"
"Come on, man... don't you see the way she looks at you? It's so obvious."
Now that he mentioned it, I recalled her glancing at me many times with an uncertain expression... it was almost admiring, now that I thought of it. I turned away.
"Well, like I said, I don't know a lot about women or relationships... but it seems to me like all you both need to be happy is to just admit that to each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but I kinda doubt it. And maybe you don't have to do anything right away, but, ahhh, how do I say this... ya never know when you're goin' to run out of time."
I looked at him. Here was a place I'd never expected to get my encouraging push from.
"Well," he said, "Whatever you're gonna do, good luck. I'm goin' to bed. I've done my bit."
Oolong was right, I realized. I looked out the window and wondered if it wasn't too late already. She'd left now... what if she kept going? What if I never saw her again?
After the rain cleared up, I went outside and sat on the beach, watching the night sky.
About an hour later, there was a thunk halfway down the island. A shape resolved itself.
"Hey," I said.
"I'm sorry," said 18. "That was cowardly."
"Nah, don't worry about it. Come on, sit with me."
She kept talking as she sat down. "I don't even know where I thought I was going. I can be so unreasonable sometimes..."
"Shh," I said, "Forget it. Look at the stars."
She did. So did I. You can see them so well from here.
I was thinking of how I would bring it up to 18. Then didn't seem like a great time because she might still be upset, but at the same time I was afraid if I didn't do it soon, I would lose the courage. Despite what Oolong had said, I still wasn't sure. The fear of rejection was still there - I couldn't manage the nerve to believe that she felt that way about me.
18 was fidgeting with her foot again. More than usual.
"Kuririn," she said, "I have to tell you something."
"Sure. Go ahead."
"And if you want me to leave after I've said it, I'll understand. I won't say anything, I'll turn around and go back the way I just came. All right?"
"Uh... sure."
She grabbed my hand then and held it tightly. So tightly, she might have injured a normal person.
"Kuririn... I... I love you."
I looked at her in disbelief.
"I mean," she said, "I think that's what this has to be. I don't know, but it can't be normal to want to be with someone this much."
I just kept looking at her, into her eyes. I was too deliriously happy to speak.
"...Damn, I've screwed it up, haven't I?"
"No." I gripped her hand back. "I love you too, 18."
She looked shocked. "You do?"
"Yes," I said, and "Yes" again. I didn't know what else to say.
I think we simultaneously let out a sigh of relief. It felt like I'd been holding in that breath for a long time.
"So... we're in love, then."
"Yeah." The world seemed to be spinning around me too quickly to justify.
"What happens now?"
"I don't know."
Her palm was cold, but there was warmth coming into it. I traced it with my thumb. She did the same to mine, and we were soon conducting a kind of exploration of each other's hand. It was so silly, but it felt like the best thing I'd ever done.
"Hey, 18," I said. "Would you mind..." I felt dizzy. "...if I moved a little closer to you?"
She didn't say anything. After a moment, she moved closer to me.
Now, we were touching. It felt incredible. Physically, it wasn't that great - she was soaked, after all - but, man, we'd just admitted we loved each other, and now we were touching. Maybe I'm immature, but that felt amazing to me.
For a moment I was nervous, wondering if I should say something, and how to say it, and whether I should make some kind of move or whether that would be inappropriate. But then that nervousness just evaporated and I felt totally relaxed. Life was good.
18 smiled at me - a confused, tentative little smile that I loved - and looked away, blushing a bit.
For once, I wasn't worried about anything, not even the possible troubles in our coming relationship. I just knew myself and my love, and life from here on looked pretty good.
--END OF CHAPTER THIRTY--