He had an hour before he had to head off to his first job. He sat lazily on the couch watching mindless television. His body and mind were finally recovering from last week. Thus far, his prayer had held out. Kimiko had not re-entered his life. But he still wondered, once in a while, what he had done wrong. He could've sworn he felt passion that night, or was it only lust? He never came to a conclusion. He figured that if he never saw Kimiko again, there was no reason to even think about it. Getting to his feet, he heard someone knock at the door. Jack limped over to the door and looked out the spy window. It was Kimiko. His heart froze.
"No," he whispered as he turned away.
"Jack?" he heard her call, "You in there?"
What was she doing here? Had she already forgotten about what he had done to her? He chose to ignore it until she began beating on the door. Reluctantly, he opened it.
"Hey," she chirped, "Is everything alright? You haven't called me or anything. I figured we'd be up to date two or three by now. What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Any color that was in his face was gone. What was going on here? What was happening?
"You gonna invite me in?" she laughed.
"I…" Jack opened the door a bit wider to let her in.
"Where's your roommate?" She asked as she hopped onto the couch.
"Working," he choked.
"You okay? Why are you limping like that?"
"Oh, I, uh…" What was he supposed to say? It didn't even seem like she remembered anything of what had happened. "It was part of my punishment…" That sounded stupid.
"For what?"
Jack wanted to remind her before it happened again.
"Raping you," he wheezed.
Kimiko winced at him, "What?" She laughed, "What are you talking about? Jack, I know you wouldn't do anything like that. We haven't even slept together yet! By the way, you dance pretty good. Maybe you should dance with me next time."
Jack's mind was losing it.
"But, anyway," she said as she reached into her purse, "I brought you a gift."
She handed him a little box wrapped in red wrapping paper. Jack looked stupidly at the box in her hand and then at her face. He did that several times before taking the gift. He unwrapped it slowly. Kimiko looked on intently Once the paper was off, Jack opened the box. Inside of it was a little robot about the size of his hand. He dumped it out gently onto his lap.
"I figured you should have one. It's a minibot. My dad makes them. Just hold him in your hands and he'll turn into you."
Jack wasn't sure that the world needed two of him, but he did as he was told. The little robot shifted into an exact replica of himself, just smaller. As its eyes opened up it looked up at him.
"Why do you want to cry so badly?" it asked him.
Jack ignored it and turned to Kimiko.
"Thanks," he sighed.
"You're welcome," she chimed.
"Well, look, I was just off to work…"
"No problem," she stood up, "I'll let you go then."
"Thanks," he smiled.
She blew him a kiss and closed the door behind herself.
Jack stood dumbfounded with the toy in his hand. She didn't remember. She didn't remember any of what he had done to her. Maybe there was still hope then. He would try again and this time he'd do everything right. Or would that be taking advantage of her memory loss? It was too confusing.
"You love her too much," the tiny bot at his side said, "You should probably just le her go."
"Hey," Jack said, bringing the toy to eye level, "She made the first move, besides," he wanted to cry, "I want this to work."
"Yes, you want it to work, but can it?"
Jack looked at the tiny thing.
"Who died and made you my shrink?"
"You did," it said softly.
Jack dropped the thing on the ground, got ready for work, and left.
The little robot wandered into Jack's room and climbed up onto his bed.
"I'm scared," it wept, "So very scared…"