Title: Wherefore Art Thou?
Author: Burden of the Butterflies
Genre: Anime -- Chobits
Subgenre: Romance/Tragedy
Summary: Hideki Motosuwa is a nineteen-year-old virgin of humble origin, trying to survive alongside his friends at the prestigious Mihara Academy. But when he finds the dean's daughter tied up in the garbage, things get very interesting in his second-rate life, and he finds out that people can be a lot deeper than they let on.
Rated: R for language, sexual content and violence
Note: Alternate universe. Thankyous for all of Chō's wonderful reviewers are listed in her profile, so as to not to disrupt the flow of the fiction.
Disclaimer: Copyright Burden of the Butterflies, 2005. All rights reserved.
Wherefore Art Thou?
By Burden of the Butterflies
.C h a p t e r 02.
The Tokyo Church Bell Slaughter: In mid-October about fifty of the humanoid robots labeled 'persocoms' were spurred by a virus into attacking their owners and one another during the reception of a wedding. This attack caused the death of approximately 190 humans, and over the shut down of over forty persocom units due to internal software damages. The entire country of Japan suffered enormously from the effect of the virus. All persocoms were shut down, including the country's national data bank, and just under six-hundred people were killed.
However, the Tokyo Church Bell Slaughter received the most attention from the media when it was revealed that the one to conclusively shut down all persocoms in the area was a female persocom, whose romantic partner was apparently fatally wounded by a glass shard embedded in his spinal column. Said persocom is rumored to have been one of the urban legends 'Chobits' series of humanoid robots, said to potentially act as sentient beings. Whether or not the "Church Bell Savior" was one of these legendary robots is yet to be confirmed.
After the Japan Massacre, the shut down of persocoms was a swift trend. A month and a half afterwards, persocoms were declared contraband, and "Power Cuts" – the mass shutting down of persocoms, labeled such by disapproving citizens – began on an international level. The last known persocom in existence was shut down thirty years ago, in Connecticut.
Hideki Motosuwa looked over his history text book. Beside the installment was a picture of a white haired girl holding a man to her chest, labeled "The Church Bell Savior". He snuffed it. Since then, computer production had nearly reversed itself. Persocoms had been labeled corrupt and unstable inventions by governments all over the world, and their production had stopped almost immediately. In turn, almost everything had been recalled. All the newest models of anything digital. Televisions and old, junk-like computers were all you ever saw anymore, other than electronic medical equipment.
Hideki sighed, hearing his roommate Yoshiyuki Kojima snoring from the old couch in their dormitory room. People were always saying that the world had bettered itself since then. Always saying that the world was better now. That people were better. That technology was no longer really needed to make one an individual, or happy. Hideki guessed that they were probably right. They said that it was all thanks to persocoms that the world had once been as bad as it had been.
But he'd heard others talk, too. The Radicals and the 'Com Sympathizers. They were always being so confusing, saying that the world had been better, more convenient, thanks to those cybernetic companions created in labs to make life easier. Persocoms. Beautiful, obedient…fully functional. They had been perfection. Maybe perfection hadn't been what society had been looking for. Had been ready for. But they had been wonderful. All in all, it made Hideki's brain tumble.
He glanced over his shoulder, past Yoshiyuki and over at the digital clock. It blinked at him, blue letters shining that it was 8:25 in the evening. He had about forty-five minutes before work started. But…he was tired of studying. And he felt as if he needed a bit of fresh air anyway. He swept a few strands of his dark brown hair away from his face and grouched to himself, shutting his textbook and the door behind him as he left.
He set the garbage can down with a bang, the late night wind cold on his face. A stray tabby that had been staring at him a good while fled at the noise, and he shrugged it off with almost-relief. The feline's golden-eyed stare had made him nervous.
Hideki Motosuwa was a nineteen-year-old student at the prestigious Mihara Academy. On all levels he was a simpleton, and he enjoyed being such. It kept weird, too-smart people from talking to him. Unfortunately, some of those people included girls who thought the fact that he talked to himself as loudly and as often as he did was creepy. He had never made it in to any of the higher level classes. He had always planned to, but he had never been able to pass the damn entrance exams to move up into an accelerated program.
He had been this way since as long as he could remember. His parents had sent him to the Academy, to the rich kid school, to teach him in a grandiose environment what the standard educational system couldn't. But, so much as Hideki doubted them having any sense of the world at all, they had pulled his allowance after about eight months of no visible improvement, and forced him to get a job. So here he was, working the night shift seven days a week at a bar called Club Pleasure.
Hideki grumbled, massaging his shoulder with one hand and talking to himself. "Yeah…how the hell am I supposed to bring my grades up now, Mom!" It's not like you could work like him and still expect to get even a decent education. And, as Shimbo would put it, Hideki had a hard hat on when it came to school. Not like that made it any easier.
He trotted in the back way and glanced up at the clock on the wall. 3:50 AM. He could see his manager in the back room and made for him. "Hey, Mr. Nekoi! I dumped the trash. Is it cool if I take off?"
"10 cases of beer, 12 cases of sour mix…"
"Don't forget the 16 bottles of Fukuoka sake, sir."
"Ah, yeah! Almost missed 'em."
Hideki gave her a glance over. She was a small girl with soft, brandy colored hair and deft fingers that pressed in the keys of the calculator with flawless precision. She wore a soft smile that matched her dark eyes, and a beanie hat that covered both of her ears.
Mr. Nekoi glanced up at him and smiled around his cigarette.
"You like her? She's got a great body, eh?"
Hideki blushed fiercely and rubbed the back of his head with a weak grin. "Yeah, she's great Mr. Nekoi. What's her name?"
"Ayu-chan. Sharp as a tack. Never met anyone who had such a great memory. She'll be working here from now on." Mr. Nekoi chuckled and patted his stomach. "Does great both here and away, too, if you know what I mean. Doesn't charge much more than around a hundred an hour, too."
Hideki blushed even more profusely, and began scrubbing the back of his head with vigor, grin wobbly. "Er…yeah…"
His manager guffawed and clapped him hard on the back. "Forget dogs, my boy. A girl's the best friend a man can have!"
"Y…Yeah."
"Later Hideki!"
"See ya."
Hideki heaved his back pack over his shoulder, glancing back at his two coworkers. "See you guys tomorrow." He set off down the lighted street, bombarded by the incessant glowing of neon signs and the noises of the early morning city. It was a few moments of walking before he glanced back at the bar with an even glint in his eye.
"A hundred an hour…hmph!"
A small tick appeared in his forehead and he gritted his teeth, tightening his hand into a fist.
"DEAD-END JOB, CRAP SCHOOL, CHEAP ASS PARENTS…THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL I'LL EVER GET THAT KIND OF MONEY!"
"Of course I want it…" he said, muttering to himself before starting back up with his hollers of agony, jabbing his fist into the air. "I want to eat! I don't want to have to room with Kojima! I want to buy the latest issue of Playboy!" A startled cat jumped away into the darkness, yowling, and shoe clunked down into the street beside him, followed by curse-ridden orders for him to be a bit quieter, and a few pleasant reminders that some people were asleep at this hour.
His shoulders sagged. "Oops. Did I say that out loud?" He wilted, crouching down onto the pavement and holding his head in his hands. Maybe the girls were right to avoid him, since he tended to do that a lot now that he thought about it.
But it just sucked. At work, and school, everyone had money. Except him. With the wages he was making, he would be dead before he could afford to pay to live anywhere decent, or wear anything decent, or eat anything decent like the rest of his peers. He had to make more money, but he'd need a better job, and he'd have to get good grades in college…and with his current grade point average, he would be dead before that would happen, either!
Not to mention the underlying fact that he wanted a girlfriend. He was still a virgin. And all of his friends looked down on him for it. He didn't really want anything special. "She wouldn't have to be high class. Just as long as she was pretty with some nice curves…perfect for a wife, or taking out to the movies!" Not that he could afford to do that either. He'd probably just be forced to live with porn for the rest of his pitiful, meaningless exhistance.
"Yeah, who am I kidding?" he sighed, drooping once more as he made his way along the sidewalk. "It's not as if you find girlfriends just lying around…"
The light from a street lamp suddenly shed a large beam of luminescence on a pile of rubbish he had nearly stumbled straight into. He grunted, skirting it, before noticing something he had glanced over without thinking, before. He let out a loud yell.
"DAMN! THERE'S A GIRL TIED UP IN THE GARBAGE!"
She was short and pale, with long, platinum blonde hair that parted around her hips to taper around her calves. There were two bunches tied in front of her ears, and they flowed gracefully down over her shoulders. Her eyes had dark lashes and had fallen to give her a sleeping appearance, her petal-lips parted ever so slightly. Her entire motionless form was entangled in thick, white ribbon.
"ACK! IS SHE DEAD! WAS SHE MURDERED!" Hideki flailed about, panicked beyond all reasoning. What should he do…! What could he do…! What did you do when you found a girl in the garbage at four in the morning!
A slight shift below him and he started, freezing immediately. The girl turned her lightly to the side.
He let out a deep sigh of relief. "Thank goodness…she's alive…" He looked her over a few minutes, a soft smile coming to his face before he blinked it off. Wait a minute…then was she sleeping here? What kind of person sleeps in the garbage, all tied up like that!
He found himself becoming worried again. Maybe he should try waking her up…? "Hey…" he began stooping down to her level. "Hey…Miss…" He reached forward to gently touch her cheek in an effort to wake her.
The instant his hands met her skin, a feeling of nostalgia rammed into his head like a subway. The world turned to crystal and time stopped. The light from the streetlamp dulled and the girl was all there was. He was long ago and far away, tugging her to him with a bright smile and enveloping her in a hug. She was smiling up at him and hugging him back and it was happening over and over, and a strange, innocent voice swirled in his ears as the world spun…
Her skin's so soft…
And then, he was back again. The memory rushed out of his mind and everything went blank. He had a strange feeling of déjà vu settling into his stomach, but he could not remember why. In fact, could not even remember what he had been doing in that time that had probably only been a few seconds long. He slowly recalled that he had just found a girl in the garbage. He blnked whatever it had been off, and returned to the task at hand.
"Miss—"
He blinked again however, and his hand on the girl's cheek froze as her mouth twitched ever so slightly. Her shoulders moved a little. She seemed to become much, much warmer to the touch, and he was reminded once more of memories we could not really recall, enveloped in a familiar feeling.
And he stayed stock still as the girl blinked. Soft amber eyes opened slowly and the light from the street lamp seared suddenly. Hideki squinted trying to see as the girl looked up into it as it made her body glow white. Hideki jumped backwards and she seemed to float for a minute, enveloped in the white light, bringing her hands to her chest as her hair billowed back, and the ribbons encircling her fell away.
The light finally dimmed back to its normal glow, and the girl seemed to blink off a sort of trance and looked over at him. It slowly came to Hideki that he had fallen backwards. He stared back at her for a few more moments of silence, eyes readjusting to the now dim lighting.
"Chi.." she said finally, crouched in front of him.
His voice wavered as he stared back at her, slow to comprehend that she had said anything. "Huh? What?" he stuttered, faltering, staring back into those endless pools of molasses. "Chi?"
"Chi…" the girl said slowly, crawling over the ground to put her hands on his knees unsteadily, staring up into his face. Her own was round and smooth, full of curiosity.
"Chi?" Hideki looked back into that face, puzzled and trying to understand. "Is that your name?" They looked at one another for a moment, taking one another in. Hideki blinked. The girl blinked and balanced on his knees.
She leapt on him.
"Hey! Wait a second! You were—! What are you—"
They were on the ground, her arms wrapped around his neck. Hideki blushed wildly, finally noticing that his new 'friend' was completely nude. She looked down into his face, smiling gently and he swam once more in her deep eyes, almost getting a nose bleed from the feeling of her entire form pressed up against him.
"Chi."
His face flamed.
"Um…maybe we ought to get you to a hospital…j-just to make sure you're alright…"
The visit to the hospital had resulted in several things Hideki had found positive. For one thing, he hadn't been questioned at the entrance when he'd said that he'd found her on the street. The doctors had checked her immediately for sign of internal bleeding and the like, and found none. So the first good thing was that he now had their trust, primarily a "good person" who was kind enough to help naked girls he found tied up in piles of garbage. The second very good thing that had come of it was that the now sleeping girl had some clothing on, namely a hospital gown of light turquoise. Hideki was being briefed on the one major wound the doctor's had been able to find.
"Anesthesia?"
The doctor, a tall man who called himself Asou nodded complacently, overlooking Hideki's utterance as something to be ignored and disregarded. In his experience, any available guardian of a patient was best left to decipher from the information he gave them whatever they liked. It made his job a good deal easier. "There is no head trauma, healed or otherwise inflicted to be found, but when conscious she only seemed able to say a single word of gibberish that has now obvious or generally comprehensible meaning."
The boy Asou was looking down at blinked uncomprehendingly.
"It means that we can't see that she was injured, but she seems to only remember the word 'chi'," the doctor sighed heavily, translating his words into idiot tongue, so that the simpleton he was addressing might hope to keep up with him. The boy nodded, seeming to understand. Asou restrained his deadening sense of patience with the world and its resident fools.
"So, if nothing hit her, then how did she just forget everything?" Hideki remembered someone telling him in middle school that you could only forget something if something hit you very hard in the head. Out of need for experimentation, Hideki had rammed his father's barbell into his forehead. It had rendered him unconscious and in need of three stitches in his left temple, as well as a memory of stainless steel and a loud scolding from his mother that still hurt his ears.
Asou shrugged, nonchalantly. "Most likely, it's the effect of some sort of over-turbulent, stressful trauma of sorts. By all accounts, she must have suppressed it. The death of a close relative or friend perhaps, or something even worse. We don't know. All that we do know is that it seems very permanent. Not to mention the fact that she can't tell us who she is."
Luckily, even though Asou had gone back to speaking in proper 'doctor language', Hideki seemed to have grasped the gist of what he was saying. "So we don't know who she is?"
"We do. She doesn't."
"Wuh--?"
Asou offered Hideki his clip board with a slate-like face. Hideki looked it over, his eyes bulging as he absorbed the information it provided him. "We took some fingerprints and compared them to our suspected candidate, and we got a match. Her name is Elda Mihara, and she's the daughter of the dean of Mihara Academy, which you said you attend. Aged seventeen-and-a-half years. Hair: ivory. Eye color: brown. Height: One-hundred-fifty-two inches. Known relatives: her mother, Chitose Mihara, now Hibiya, the dean of your school; Ichiro Mihara, deceased two months ago in a car crash; a twin sister, Freya Mihara, deceased a year ago of suicide after she threw herself off the top of a building and into the river just a few miles away from here. She currently lives with her mother on campus."
Hideki blinked down at the clipboard in utter astonishment. There was no way. Of all the people…of all the people for him to find bound in the trash under a streetlight at all hours of the morning…
"I picked up the dean's daughter…!" His eyes were so wide Asou thought that they might explode from being held that way for so long, or atleast drop onto the floor. Were eye muscles even supposed to stretch that far and be able to stay? Hmph. What a freak. He disregarded the boy's question, just seeing as they both knew the answer.
Hideki glanced over at the girl, who now had a registered name. Elda Mihara. What a name. It was odd…even though the dean stayed holed up in her office for the most part, Hideki knew her by sight. After all, she was the administrator of a high-class private boarding school. And yet, her own daughter looked nothing like her. True, their eyes held the same, soft warmth, but really, that was the only similarity Hideki could really find.
However, a living comparison whipped around the corner and through the door of the room in the next moment, eyes concerned and wide. Asou stiffened slightly, regaining a foreboding and professional air to address the panting, long-haired woman who had just entered the room.
"Ms. Mihara."
"Is she-where-" The woman was in hysterics, but immediately scrambled around Asou to gasp at the occupied bed at Hideki's side. "Oh! Oh Elda…Oh Elda…!" There were twin streams of tears trailing down her face as she covered her mouth. "Elda…" A tremor rolled up her back from her stomach. She was crying very hard, gasping softly with each breath. Guilt surged through Hideki's body as Asou walked forward to begin telling her what was going on.
Ms. Mihara was a small woman, only about a head taller then her motionless daughter who breathed softly on the bed, looking content. Her hair was waved and dark, reaching her waist. She wore very modest clothing and had small hands that she folded in front of her chest, clutching her chest, trying to smother her cries so that she might pay more attention to the doctor. Her eyes were a deep, entrancing brown.
Hideki flinched slightly as he felt both of their eyes fall upon him, and blushed lightly as he finally queued in to what was being said.
"Yes, Mr. Motosuwa found her unconscious a ways from here, in a pile of rubbish," Asou said in a bored tone, gazing upon said savior with a sort of disinterest. His small eyes were hard, but more like wood than brick, and no matter how it made him skittish, he knew that it probably held more sting when dealing with other, less favorable people.
Ms. Mihara's look was more distracting. She was crying again, and her bottom lip was trembling slightly. The tears that had glossed over everything made her eyes look like melted chocolate, hot and warm, intense and insanely sweet. Hideki felt himself blush slightly.
"Thankyou, oh thankyou so much," she trembled, looking as though she might collapse from the sincerity of her gratification. "I can't thank you, I can't thank you enough…I'm so grateful…"
"I-it was nothing, really…" Hideki hung his head, meekly. He really wasn't comfortable to being praised this much for his actions, very less by one so high in position as the very dean of his school. It was very awkward. Especially when the dean of his school was a classic heart throb, as far as middle-aged widows went. To put it bluntly, she was absolutely gorgeous.
"Really, thankyou…" The dean looked back at her daughter, who lay motionless on the bad, completely estranged. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Mr. Motosuwa…" Hideki blushed.
The two of them said nothing more the rest of the evening. Hideki realized it was getting late and excused himself, receiving a sad smile from Ms. Mihara, who had been busying herself around her daughter's bedside. He cast one last guilty glance back at her before the glass doors swung shut behind him.
Elda's lips moved, gently curving around the sound, her eyes still comatose in their actions.
"Mr. Motosuwa…"
.C h a p t e r 02.
End