Chapter 7
Author's Note: Sorry for not updating. I went to Florida with my dad. I had lots of fun and I wrote part of the chapter in the hotel! This fic will wind down in the next few chapters. I don't know how many it will take, but I'm glad I've gotten this much feedback already. Thanks everyone for the support! On to the chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own Chobits, but if I did... goes off into dreamland
The next morning, Yuzuki made breakfast, readied herself, and prepared the whole house for another exhausting day. Breakfast was made, dishes were cleaned, and good-byes were said. Minoru set off to school and its educational adventures. Kaede and Yuzuki manned the house as the fervent cleaning chore had begun. Actually, the other persocoms took care of the chores. The two girls stood back and watched. Both were bored and made the pathetic wish of being one of the mindless maid persocoms. Yuzuki desperately wanted to escape her emotions and Kaede just flat out wanted something to do.
The two stepped out onto the porch. They discussed Kaede's disease and all its horrors with it. They conversed about the three years Kaede had slept; the three years that distanced and separated her from the world. Both had developed a hatred for Kaede's father. Both felt the reunion with Minoru was the best part of Kaede's life. Every sentence, every word, and every letter out of Kaede's mouth was instantly Yuzuki's sentence, word, and letter. Every minute she recorded. Every second she became more like Kaede. After all, that was her programming. Yuzuki couldn't go against it even if she wanted to.
"So when you went to sleep for three years, did everyone miss you?" Yuzuki questioned.
"I would think so. If someone I loved suddenly wasn't there, I would be heart-broken." Kaede answered. She caught the blankness in Yuzuki's eyes. "Yuzuki, are you recording me?"
"Well, yes. I can not go against my programming." She answered.
"Remember that discussion we had the other day? About being ourselves? Yuzuki, like I said before, it would be pointless to have two of the same person in this world. Everyone is different." Kaede sighed impatiently. Yuzuki still didn't understand. "You stepped away from your programming yesterday when you didn't put on a jacket." She said giving an example.
"That is because you told you not to. I follow the words of Mr. Minoru and you." Yuzuki replied.
"I'm telling you not to follow your programming then. Be whoever you want to be." Kaede ordered. "I mean it Yuzuki." She said slightly peeved, stepping off the porch. "I'm leaving. I'll be back for dinner."
"Have a nice day." Yuzuki said cheerfully. She waved and then turned to go inside.
(I'm sorry Miss Kaede. Mr. Minoru's special programming is important. It is the only thing that he gave me. Without it, I could not function. If I went against it, I would be mindless.) Yuzuki thought to herself. She shut the door softly beside her and took to roaming the house. Besides the persocoms that were cleaning, she was all by herself. She didn't know what to do, but walk around. Each room held a special memory. In the kitchen, she remembered baking cookies with Minoru on rainy days. In the study, she helped him with his homework. And in the library she would read stories out loud to Minoru even though he was perfectly capable of reading them himself.
Yuzuki stepped into the book-cluttered room. Each book held a story that was already told or was bursting to be opened. Most of the stories that she had read with Minoru were about knights and fighting. She had been fine with it at the time, but now her lust for romance was left unfulfilled. She abandoned the shelf full of brave knights and searched the remaining, foreign shelves. Most of them were filled with non-fiction books on math, science, computers, and anything that was educational. Her hope dwindling, Yuzuki searched for anything remotely interesting. In the corner was a small section, the last section she checked. The book's spines were covered with a good layer of dust. The bright colors of pinks and purples were dimmed to soft baby-skin pink and light lilac by age. These books were different from all the other in the library. Yuzuki pulled out one and brushed away the dust leaving the title, printed in a resilient gold, to shine again.
"Sleeping Beauty." Yuzuki read. On the cover was a picture of a beautiful girl with golden locks of hair, ivory skin, and deep red cheeks and lips lying on a silky bed. She flipped the cover to reveal a name written on the hard cover's back. It read Saitou Kaede. Yuzuki chose another book from the dusty shelf and wiped it off. "Snow White." Book after book revealed names of classic fairy tales. This was exactly what she was looking for. Yuzuki brought the small stack of books over to a plush armchair and jumped into the mystical worlds.
After finishing most of them, she noticed a pattern. Most of the girl's had been cursed of some sort and only a kiss could cure them. The books had opened up a whole new thought process for Yuzuki.
(Maybe if I went to sleep, Mr. Minoru would finally notice me. And if I did, I would be following my program also. Miss Kaede went to sleep, so should I.) Yuzuki processed. She returned the books and then went to her room. Her bed was a canopy bed. She released the fabric tied to the bedposts letting them conceal the bed. Yuzuki entered the concealed bed and lay down and placed her hands to where her heart would have been if she were human. She felt no comforting beat to reassure her she was alive.
(I'm sorry Mr. Minoru. It's either this or deletion. I don't want to leave you yet. I love everything about you. All I want to do is be with you. I wouldn't care if you ignored me or treated me like an appliance. Just don't destroy me. I know I ought to be. I haven't completed my task as being your sister. Miss Kaede doesn't want me to be her. I am at a loss of what to do. I guess now that I look at the whole situation, that this is just a way to escape.) She thought. It seemed like this thought was almost a letter or a request to Minoru that would never be sent. Her self-learning program had run wild and she was paying for it now. She had learned about human emotions and now they burdened her. Yuzuki had tried to delete it herself, but it would not let her. She desperately wanted to go to Minoru to have him delete it, but she feared he would be disappointed with her carelessness. This seemed like the only reasonable solution.
With her last thoughts processed, Yuzuki shut down her energy supply. She cut away from Minoru's program and dropped her self-educational software. The sound of beeps and whizzes faded. The humming of her energy supply dwindled until it too died.
"I'm...sorry..." Yuzuki said. Her voice twisted with the lack of energy to support her normal voice. It deepened until it was no longer heard.
The last thing to turn off was her sight. Yuzuki peered up at the fabric draping over the wooden poles. It blurred until emptiness' black paved over it. Her dark blue eyes faded into a deadened icy blue. Her eyes appeared blind to the world and that was exactly what they were.
The world did not stop for her. Time went on around her. The sun rose in the sky, shining in through her window. It tried to wake her, but even the warmth of its rays did not penetrate the wall she had built around herself.
"I'm home!" Minoru called from the front door hours later. He paused for a minute and looked around. The maids had gathered and greeted him, but where were Kaede and Yuzuki? He figured they had taken another walk and shrugged off their absence. He advanced to the fridge to find a note. It read:
Went to Piffle Princess. Be back around dinner.
-Kaede
"Huh..." Minoru said to himself. There was no mention of Yuzuki being with her. "Yuzuki?" He called again. Forgetting his quest for the refrigerator, he went back into the main hall and climbed the stairs. "Yuzuki, are you in your room?" He asked when he reached the top. He walked to the door and knocked on it. "Hello?" There was no answer from the other side. He opened the door and noticed the drapes down. There was a shaded figure behind it. "Yuzuki?" Minoru stepped forward and drew back the curtain.
"Yuzuki!" He gasped and lunged at her. He grabbed her shoulders and propped her up. "Hey! What's wrong?! Yuzuki? Answer me!" He said shaking her slightly. He received no reply. Minoru noticed her deadened eyes. A chill went up his spine. It reminded him of Kaede when he thought she had died. "Dammit! Yuzuki What have you done?!" The swear word was foreign on his young mouth. He felt anger build up inside. This anger was not toward her. He was angry with himself. Minoru connected two and two together to realize that Yuzuki had done exactly what she was programmed to do, to be his sister even if it meant reliving the horrifying event.
"Don't worry Yuzuki. I'll fix you up in no time." He said assuring himself more than her. He left her side and rustled his bangs. He had no clue what to do. He had never heard of a persocom shutting itself down. The programs and software he had installed were too complex. They intermingled and caused a crash. That was the only thing he could think of. The restore Yuzuki, he would have to erase all her data and install everything again, with modifications of course. He left the room only briefly, only to retrieve his computer. He sat down next to her on the bed and plugged her into his computer. The sound of typing was all that could be heard. Minoru found the self-educational program and right-clicked it to delete it. A toolbar popped up and offered him options; one of them was deletion. He selected it and waited for the task to process. Instead of the program simply disappearing, windows popped up with illegible writing. They rapidly multiplied until the desktop was covered. A second later, the screen went blank.
"What?" He asked himself puzzled. He tried to turn it on, but it would not comply. He looked from the blank screen to the blank expression of Yuzuki. His heart beat heavily. "Yuzuki..."
Author's Note: A slightly shorter chapter. I think one or two more chapters will finish this story. I'm not sure yet, but I know exactly how it will end. I'm sorry for the delay and hope you all had a pleasant time reading this chapter.
