ii. like a machine, like an automaton
When Kaminaga first saw him, two possibilities were concluded; either he would utterly hate Miyoshi, or genuinely like him. It turned out to be the latter, but not without much squabble.
He wasn't sure whether his first impression of Miyoshi was good or the opposite. The man wasn't a sore to look at—at least Kaminaga could admit that much, and yes, he's someone who's attracted to anyone with a pretty face, no matter which gender they were. But if only Miyoshi's smile would be less condescending like, say, Tazaki's or Amari's, Kaminaga might be able to actually like him without thinking that his personality was insufferable at first.
But still he couldn't lie—not to himself, not to anyone—that Miyoshi wasn't alluring. There was just something, unexplainably brilliant from those two eyes, drawing him closer, drawing him in. Miyoshi to him was perhaps like the ocean to Robinson Crusoe who's crazy for adventure, prying in his thirst of finding things that even yet known to him.
Only later that Kaminaga found out the two of them were far more compatible than he thought they would be, how easy it was for them to reach an agreement, or how often they didn't need words to exchange the ideas inside their heads. It's as if our brains are set to receive the same radio wave, Miyoshi had once said, with one of those rare genuine smiles that sparked people's adoration, and Kaminaga couldn't agree more.
Around the days when the training had finished and small missions were given to them—particularly those in which the two set out together—that it finally came to him of what Miyoshi meant by talking about the automatons. To Kaminaga's credit, he actually didn't think much of it until he got reminded once more, and this time, he also came to the answer. Hard outside and inside, as if having no hearts; alive and moving, yet not feeling—for they had already thrown away all emotions, just like the past they had buried; brain working and well, but they only had one purpose, to prove themselves, to complete the mission. Like a machine, like an automaton; Miyoshi was talking about them, wasn't he?
Then the man couldn't be wrong, since out of them all, the one who was closest to being an automaton was Miyoshi himself. As impeccable as he was flawless, with a smile that was always plastered on his thin lips, not even since the first time they met Miyoshi ever showed any real emotions except when he wanted to.
Kaminaga knew, he always knew, that there was just something cold and inhuman in the other man, yet he couldn't tell what exactly it was, or whether he liked that part of him too or not. Because perhaps, at that time, he too was an automaton.