A/N: Hi, if you're revisiting this chapter, I rewrote it a while ago for a contest with more consideration to the pacing and subtlety. So please do reread it if you're up for it :3 (date of update: July 11th 2020)

Cure Narrative 37: Replacement

Season: Hugtto

Character: Ruru A. Dr Traum

Summary: No, she was but a failure.

I once knew that which people call happiness.

That was when the love between me and the one I cherished beyond my own life bore fruit.

"Say hello to your daddy, little one."

No amount of words can ever describe how I felt then, how her warmth reached into my heart, how her soft breaths brought joyful tears to my eyes, how her very existence graced my features with the widest of smiles.

My beloved had never been a woman of good health, therefore we never anticipated such miracle.

Gazing into her little eyes, holding onto her tiny hands, it was no different than embracing a pure white angel sent from up above.

"You have a bright future ahead of you," I whispered to the newborn, so full of hope and love.

My precious, beautiful daughter.

Taking care of people had never been my forte. But between me and my beloved, we somehow managed.

In the following years, our sweet angel grew up little by little every day. I remember the first time she stood up as we anxiously let go of her hands. I remember how I beamed with pride with every step she took. I remember how her laughs were as mellifluous as the chirps of a songbird.

"Papa!"

She extended her arms.

I scooped her up in my arms. Such a fragile, porcelain doll she was, yet such warmth she exuded, I remarked every time I enfolded her small frame in a loving hug.

Alas.

There came a time when my precious angel was summoned back to heaven, alongside her mother.

I was left behind. Crying, questioning, suffering, enduring everything the Earth had to offer, a broken piece of a once complete life, a once perfect fantasy.

But they all said it was inevitable, they all told me to move on.

YoU morOns...

From that day forth, I felt like something in between.

She wAs buT a chiLd...

Something in between remembrance and regrets.

She shOulD've groWn up inTo a spLeNdid ladY...

Something in between holding on and letting go.

ShE hAd a BRiGht FuTUre...

Something in between bereavement and rage.

Be GOnE!

Something in between reaching for rationality and sinking into insanity.

WHo NeEds a TOmoRrOW wHEn thE fUTuRE oF ThIS LiFe thAt hAS BarELy bEgUN WaS sTOLen fROm HEr AnD no ONe bOThErs tO bAT aN EYe?!

Or perhaps...

At that moment, he showed up.

With his hand on my shoulder, he claimed to understand my pain, for he, too, had lost someone he held dear.

Soon after, I was invited to partake in his 'crusade' to vanquish such emotions called sorrow once and for all.

To put it in simple words, he sought to stop time.

StOp tiME?

If tiMe sTops, WilL thiS hEarTbreaKing AgoNy... be gone as well...?

Or perhaps I was complete in insanity.

There was a lot we needed to attend to afterwards, a lot of recruiting and planning and funding, but we eventually started on our preparation with other colleagues.

Now he was President Cri, while I was Dr Traum.

Some time later, I was allowed some funding to research and develop some equipment we could use.

That and... well, I was allowed full autonomy over the funds I was provided with.

With such resources, a lot could be made possible. No, I would give anything to make it possible.

So I desperately delved into the depths of my memories from the time I still knew what happiness meant, in order to give life to the perfect recreation of my precious angel.

I could comprehend the fact that she... they would never return to me, but that didn't mean I couldn't create her all over again.

An artificial life that would grow up and learn by herself. An artificial life that possesses a heart. An artificial life that could live in my daughter's stead—

.

She was beautiful, just as I remembered. Although I designed this android's exterior to look about 13 to 14 years old (because that was how old she would've been by now), and adorned her with lavender coloured hair (her favourite colour), everything else was supposed to be the same as my daughter.

Awakened from her pod, she slowly opened her eyes. Such beautiful sapphires; such a cold void.

Those were not my daughter's eyes.

"Welcome to this world," I began nevertheless, a fabricated hope was better than the years I spent with none at all, "I know you'll learn a lot of things and grow up into an excellent android that will be of use to me and many more, Ruru."

"Ruru is...?" she inquired.

"You are R.U.R-9500. Therefore, Ruru."

The corner of her lips curled up, in a manner that was equivalent to a smile.

"First, you should learn this," I continued, enfolding her into my arms for the first time, taking pride in the same porcelain skin I gifted her with, "This, is called a hug."

"'Hug'. Adding to database," she reported with the same mellifluous voice. It was made from a synthesizing programme with a recording of my daughter's voice in the past as a sample.

This was it. She was it. She could live out the rest of the future my little angel was robbed of. She, my daughter; and I, her—

"Master," she said.

...

I thought I could not have been more broken.

This was spectacularly disappointing.

I might've gotten my hopes too high. The only result was making the fall even more brutal.

It was a mistake to programme Ruru with a mind that would grow up. She could never fill the big shoes left behind for her. She was but an android, a stabilising factor for my sanity.

But perhaps she eradicated what was left of it.

Something shattered, something screamed, something died inside of me each time Ruru gave me a 'hug'.

Maybe a 'hug' would be an overstatement for describing a string of actions ran by a programme.

Mechanical and emotionless.

Cold.

I lost hope in Ruru eventually.

This was not a future. Not a restart. Not a second chance.

R.U.R-9500 was but a failure.

My finger lingered above the button which would set off the command to clear all of R.U.R-9500's data.

She could never have been my daughter.

She could never have healed that void in my heart.

She could only be a reminder of how much I sucked as a father.

A father who dared to try and replace his own daughter.

"Goodbye, Ruru."

End of Chapter 37