Humans have life. Persocoms have rechargable batteries. Humans were endowed with emotions by their god(s). Persocoms were endowed with personality data by either their creators or their users. Humans feel; persocoms process data. Humans fall in love; persocoms... well... Dita didn't know exactly what to say here but she was convinced that persocoms couldn't fall in love like the humans did. Frustrated with it all, she decided to go on standby for a while. Zima would watch over her, even if he was currently pretending to sleep.
The standby mode was cut short a minute or two when Zima touched her. Angry eyes flashed open as she blushingly snapped at him, "What do you want?"
"Dita, love," Zima began, smiling as he always did, "what is the database supposed to do if someone hacks it while it's security system is on standby?"
"Reach out and start up my system, idiot," Dita retorted.
"Heh... of course... of course," Zima laughed. "Dita, why is it that you don't think we can have feelings?"
"For the last time! We're computers, not people!" Dita shouted.
"And why exactly does that prevent us from feeling something?" Zima posed another question.
Dita snarled. He was trying her patience again, as he frequently did. She sighed dramatically and argued again, "Computers have personality data; humans have personalities! We do not feel; our data just processes reactions to the things that happen around us!"
"What about love?" Zima propped his head up on his one hand as he smiled teasingly at her.
"Love is for humans; computers don't love," she folded her arms over her chest.
"Now, Dita, love, that can't be true," Zima shook his head. "You know that I love you."
"The creators knew what capabilities they gave us and they knew that they could not make us feel emotions," Dita rationalized.
"Children are meant to surpass the expectations of their parents," Zima jokingly responded.
"There's no reasoning with you," Dita snarled.
"Oh, come now, Dita, darling, don't you love me?" he pulled her close and she blushed again.
"I-I don't love," she stammered as if she were losing faith in her own words. "A stream of ones and zeros cannot feel."
"How can you be so certain that persocoms can't feel?"
"How can you be so certain that persocoms can feel?" she bit back.
"Tell me, Dita, love, don't you feel something when I do this?" Zima leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on those stubborn lips of hers.
Dita jumped away at the first instant she could and, wiping her mouth, demanded, "What did you just do?"
"I kissed you, of course. It's one of the many ways in which one expresses one's love for another," Zima teasingly explained. "Or, wait, does this mean you did feel something?"
Dita turned her head away and grunted. Zima chuckled once and the two fell to silence for about a minute. "What if... hypothetically... I did 'feel' something?" Dita hesitantly asked after that time.
"Dita, love, you're such a stubborn girl," Zima held her tightly again, smiling, "but that's one of the many things I love about you."
"You're a persocom; you can't love!"
