A/N: I can't really think of anything that needs to be said for this one so I'll just start by defining the word "kludge" for everyone as it is given in the Oxford Pocket American Dictionary of Current English. Kludge /klooj/ n. sl. 1 an ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts. 2 computing a machine, system or program that has been badly put together.

Right, story time!


Kludge

Kurogane stared suspiciously at the box that sat in the middle of the living room of his small apartment. It must have been delivered sometime that day because it certainly hadn't been there when Kurogane had left for class that morning. The card that had been taped to the top had been simple and would have seemed completely innocent, even heartwarming, if it hadn't borne the signature of his insane landlady, Yuuko. Kurogane, I saw him and immediately thought of you. Take good care of him and have a merry Christmas! Your landlady, Yuuko. That immediately put the boy on his guard; Yuuko never gave anything away for free. Not unless it would maim, gore, harass or repulse the recipient, a thought which seemed to bring her great amusement. She and Kurogane had never been on the best of terms either, so her sending him a gift was extra unusual, even if it was almost Christmas.

The other thing about it which made him hesitant to open it was the fact that Yuuko had referred to the item as a "he" in her card. Kurogane supposed that its having a gender didn't necessarily mean that it was alive. After all, it could be some kind of My Size Ken doll or something stupid like that (he shuddered at the thought, though an oversized doll didn't seem like a threatening enough possibility. Perhaps it was one that could shoot laser beams from its eyeballs). Her referring to the mystery object as a "he", however, made Kurogane highly suspicious that there was some living thing inside; maybe a bear that would maul him and chew his face off. But the box was perfectly still, so there was a possibility that whatever it was had frozen to death while waiting for him to return from school. That thought wasn't especially appealing either.

Then there was the sheer size and weight of the thing. The box came up to his waist and he'd just barely been able to fit his arms around it to drag it inside. Getting it into the living room had not been an easy task, even though Kurogane worked out at the gym at school regularly. It had to be a good 250 pounds. Maybe it's a bomb, he thought sardonically. Then he decided that it probably wasn't a bomb because if it went off when he opened it, it would blow up at least a good portion of the apartment building and thereby destroy Yuuko's means of livelihood.

Eventually, he decided that he might as well just open it. It wasn't like he really cared or anything but he had to admit that maybe he was just the tiniest bit curious to see what was inside. Anyone would be in his situation, right? Besides, him ignoring it didn't ensure that he would be safe from its possible wrath. And if the thing had died in there then it was going to thaw and rot in his living room. That would just be gross. Yuuko would probably have him evicted for the smell, the heartless bitch. Kurogane took a deep steadying breath and cautiously approached the suspicious box, using his pocket knife to cut open the tape and flat plastic straps that held it closed. He pulled open the cardboard lid and found… another Styrofoam box inside.

The boy growled and set to work tearing the cardboard box apart so that he could better access the Styrofoam box. He noticed as he ripped away at the cardboard that there were no air holes in either box. That alleviated some of his anxiety; most likely, then, it wasn't (and never had been) alive. But then, this was Yuuko he was dealing with; underestimating her could be the last mistake a person ever made. Kurogane carefully tipped the Styrofoam box on its side so that he could pull the lid off. It took a bit of persuasion but finally, with an irritating squeak, the lid popped off.

He looked at the item inside and blinked, hardly daring to believe that what he was seeing was real. It couldn't be. There was no way Yuuko would spend that kind of money on someone she didn't even like. Yet there it was, curled up and naked inside the careful packaging: his very own persocom. When some of his shock had gone, Kurogane snarled again. It was his very own male persocom. If that psychotic bitch was going to spend this amount of money on him, the least she could do was get him a female one. Not that he especially cared one way or the other, but most guys who owned persocoms had ones that were shaped like women. If people saw him walking around with this pretty-boy computer, they were going to think…

Kurogane heaved a sigh and ran a hand backward through his hair. He didn't own a computer right now and was too poor to buy anything better than this. Plus, this persocom was kind of good-looking, he supposed. He had longish blond hair that framed a pale face with a realistic hint of pink in the cheeks. His frame was impossibly thin and fairly tall, yet there wasn't anything awkward-looking about it. Long, slender legs were pulled up to a smooth, perfect chest, arms wrapped delicately around them and head resting lightly on the knees. If Kurogane hadn't known better, he would have guessed that it was a real person that was just sleeping…naked, in a Styrofoam box…in the middle of his living room floor. But there were the tell-tale persocom ears to prove that it was, in fact, only a machine.

Kurogane reached out and touched the computer's shoulder experimentally, surprised to find how soft and supple the skin was. But why the hell did it have to be naked? People brought these things home to their families, right? Would parents really allow their children to gather around excitedly and watch Mom or Dad boot up the new family computer when it was shaped like a human and 100 percent butt-naked? Maybe it had been wearing clothes and Yuuko had taken them off before giving it to him, just to fuck with him. That would be so like her. She might even be watching his reaction right now through some hidden camera that she had put on the persocom somewhere. Kurogane snorted and folded his arms, doing his best to look completely unimpressed in case she was watching. Even if his curiosity had gotten the better of him and made him open the box, he was not going to give her the pleasure of a big reaction.

Once he was satisfied with the amount of disdain he had shown towards the strangely extravagant gift, Kurogane began to wonder how one went about turning on a persocom. He looked around in the box for some kind of instructions but there weren't any. That, if nothing else, was definitely suspicious; all electronics, no matter how simple and straightforward they seemed, came with instructions just in case they fell into the ownership of the type of person who got confused by simply trying to change the channel on a TV set. As far as Kurogane was concerned, this qualified as definite proof that Yuuko had tampered with the computer in some way before so generously bestowing it upon him. The boy sighed resignedly. Since there were no instructions, he would just have to search the thing inch by inch until he found something that looked like it could be a power button.


An hour and a half later, Kurogane was nearly ready to scream in frustration. He had searched the stupid thing meticulously and still he had no idea how to turn it on. Kurogane looked down at his hands in disgust and decided that he'd better wash them; during his search, he had even tried pushing the nipples in case one of them was the power button and eventually had given a quick once over to a place a little farther south (though he saved that area as an absolute last resort, of course). Even though the thing was only a computer and therefore left nothing on his hands after the search, he still felt the need to sanitize himself on principle.

Although he was glad he had gotten that particular place out of the way, he was now left thoroughly perplexed. Kurogane was sure that he had searched absolutely everywhere… He sighed, sitting back on his heels. Maybe it wasn't a computer, after all. Maybe Yuuko had just made an elaborate fake and sent it to him so that she could have a good laugh at him as he drove himself crazy looking for the stupid on-switch. He glanced dispiritedly at the useless thing on the floor before him. Its mouth had come open slightly, presumably when he had been shifting its body around in his search for the power button. Kurogane reached out absentmindedly to push its mouth closed when something inside it caught his eye and he instead squeezed the cheeks slightly so that he could open the mouth wider to get a better look.

He couldn't believe it; there the damn thing was, sitting right there in the center of the computer's tongue. Kurogane smacked a hand to his forehead in frustration. That meant that he had done the creepy anal-probe thing for no reason. He began to extend a finger so that he could push the button but then he paused again uncertainly. Even though he was relieved about finding the power button in only the fourth most disgusting place that he could think of it to be (the top three places will be left up to the reader's imagination), he still felt a little iffy about putting his finger in its mouth. What if it bit him when he turned it on? Kurogane then decided that he was really too sick of playing these paranoid mind games with himself to care and just stuck his finger in and pushed the button.

To his profound relief, the computer did not bite him, but as it powered up the inside of the mouth became disturbingly realistically wet and he swore he felt it sucking on his finger for a second before he jerked it away in disgust. The computer's eyelids parted slowly, revealing stunning sapphire eyes which glimmered as lights flashed on and off behind them. Kurogane could only watch in stunned silence as the machine picked itself up gracefully off the floor and stood before him, its lifelike golden hair fluttering in the nonexistent breeze. After a few seconds, the computer had apparently finished its startup process because it looked down at him suddenly and gave him friendly smile.

"Good evening. Please state your desired username. This is what your computer will call you, and this name will be visible to other users on your network so be sure to choose accordingly," the computer said in a highly synthesized voice.

"Huh?" Kurogane asked, frowning.

"One moment please… User 'Huh?' is now registered," his computer informed him serenely.

"Hey! Hold on, you idiot computer!" Kurogane snapped. "I didn't say I wanted that as my username!"

"Hmm? Do you wish to change your username?" it asked angelically, the synthesized voice now being replaced with something more realistic.

"No shit, I do!"

"What would you like to change your username to?"

"My name is Kurogane."

"One moment please…Username change request denied."

"Hah?! WHY?!"

"I don't like it…It's not cute enough," the computer said slowly, apparently searching its imagination for a better alternative.

"I DON'T GIVE A SHIT IF IT'S CUTE OR NOT!!" Kurogane roared. "THAT'S MY NAME SO JUST CHANGE IT, DAMMIT!!"

The computer snapped its fingers suddenly. "Suitable replacement username found. One moment please… User 'Kurosama' is now registered."

"HEY!! I DIDN'T AGREE TO THAT!!" the boy raged. "CHANGE IT BACK TO KUROGANE!!"

"Request denied," the computer chirped happily. "A user may only change their username once within the span of two weeks. My name is Fai, by the way. Nice to meet you, Kurosama!"

"YOU JUST MADE THAT RULE UP, YOU ASSHOLE!! CHANGE IT RIGHT NOW BEFORE I DECIDE TO RIP YOU APART AND SEND YOU BACK TO THE FACTORY!!"

The computer was about to reply when there was a knock on the door. Kurogane glared at Fai threateningly before stomping over to answer it. It was his neighbor, Watanuki.

"Um…I'm sorry to bother you so late, Kurogane san…" Watanuki said nervously as Kurogane's waves of anger crashed over him, "…but I was wondering if maybe you could just keep it down a little. My roommate and I are trying to sleep, so… Oh!"

Watanuki abruptly stopped speaking when Fai, who was still parading around in the nude, appeared at Kurogane's shoulder. Kurogane's neighbor's face turned scarlet.

"Hello! Are you Kurosama's neighbor?" Fai asked cheerfully. "I'm Fai! Nice to meet you!"

Watanuki dazedly shook the hand that the blond was offering, but refused to meet his eyes, instead looking pointedly at the top of Fai's head. "N…nice to meet you t-too, Fai san…I…I didn't mean to interrupt you two…. Just…wondering if you could tone it down a bit… That…That's all. Goodbye."

Kurogane's face was beet-red now too. "Hold it…! This is…! He-he's not my…! He's my computer! I just got him out of the box, so I haven't had time to… We weren't doing anything, dammit, so quit looking at me like that!"

"So…so this brand of persocom doesn't come with clothes when you buy it?" Watanuki asked, and Kurogane could hear the skepticism in his voice all too well. "Th…That's unusual…I've never heard of that before…"

"Look, it's true, alright!" Kurogane growled, clenching his hands into fists at his side. "This was how he came!"

"Yes, well… goodnight, then," Watanuki said, slipping quickly back into his own apartment before Kurogane could say another word.

Once Watanuki had gone, Kurogane slammed the door shut and whipped around to face Fai.

"Why the hell did you come over here, you bastard?!" he hissed dangerously, struggling to keep his voice down so that Watanuki wouldn't have to come back. Kurogane honestly didn't think he'd ever be able to face his neighbor again after this fiasco. "Did you see the way he…?! Dammit! I'll never be able to talk to that guy again now!"

"I was just trying to be friendly, Kurosama," Fai said matter-of-factly. "It's what persocoms are programmed to do. I can't help it if you decided to take all my clothes off before introducing me to him."

"I didn't…!" Kurogane sputtered indignantly. "Don't you dare try to pin the blame on me, you worthless pile of machinery!"

"Hmm? Well they put clothes on us at the factory and I've never been owned by anyone else," Fai told him, a sly grin spreading across his face. "So if you didn't undress me, then who did?"

"How the hell should I know?!" Kurogane snapped. "You heard me tell that guy, you were like this when I got you…It must have been my landlady, that bitch!"

Fai blinked at him. "Why would your landlady have done it?"

"I told you, because she's a bitch!" the boy snarled. "Anyway, I guess I'll have to give you some of my clothes… I'm sick of looking at that skinny white ass of yours."

"Eh?" Fai was smiling again as he tried to peek over his owner's shoulder at his face. "Was that a blush I saw just now, Kurosama?"

"No! Don't be a dumb ass! And get out of my face!" Kurogane growled, swatting him away, his blush deepening in spite of himself.

He went to his closet and dug out the smallest clothes he could find and tossed them at Fai roughly. Kurogane determinedly kept himself busy until he was sure Fai was done dressing and then turned around. Fai had done his best to put the clothes on, but even though they were the smallest pair of clothes that Kurogane owned, they were still quite a bit too big for Fai. The shirt was halfway down to his knees and the pants wouldn't even stay up. Kurogane sighed and threw Fai a belt. He watched absentmindedly as his new computer threaded it through the belt loops of the oversized pants, then shook his head.

"I'm going to bed," he grumbled, pulling his futon out of the closet and spreading it out on the floor. Fai looked on as Kurogane dug out five or six blankets, tossed them on top of his futon and turned off the light.

"That's a lot of blankets," he commented as Kurogane buried himself under them.

"This apartment building is old," the boy explained. "The heating system starts having problems at night so this is all I can do."

Fai watched for a moment more before saying "Shall I go into sleep mode, then?"

"Will it make you shut up?" Kurogane asked sleepily.

The persocom shrugged. "For a little while, at least."

"Then yeah."

"Ok, good night, Kurosama."

"…Whatever."


Kurogane awoke the next morning feeling pleasantly warm, something that very rarely happened during the winter. Maybe that cheap bitch of a landlady had finally decided to get the heating system fixed so that her tenants didn't have to suffer anymore. Kurogane snorted and rolled over, wanting to go back to sleep. Somehow the idea that Yuuko had gotten the heating system fixed in order to spare other people suffering seemed extremely unlikely. It was then that Kurogane noticed that his head was no longer on his pillow but something slightly harder and uneven.

Thinking maybe he had just rolled off of his futon, Kurogane slowly opened his eyes. That was his first big mistake of the day. Beautiful, flawless, snowy-white skin was what greeted him. Kurogane frowned. As far as he remembered, he lived alone but that wasn't his own skin that he was looking at. When he sat up, delicate slender arms slid off of his shoulders where they had been resting. Kurogane's eyes widened in horror. There was a weird, skinny blond guy in his apartment and Kurogane had apparently been sleeping with his head on the intruder's stomach. That wasn't even the worst of it; the guy was also butt-naked.

Kurogane made his second big mistake of the day when he shouted and scrambled away from blond. The intruder's eyes opened calmly and lights flashed from behind them, making their deep blue color stand out even more. He smiled cheerfully at the boy who was panicking against the far wall. When the blond sat up, Kurogane noticed the persocom ears and his memory of the previous night began to drift back to him. This person was not an intruder after all; it was only Fai, his (weird) new computer. Kurogane clutched at his chest, feeling his heart rate starting to return to normal. Still, his memory of last night distinctly included a scene of him giving Fai a pair of clothes to wear and himself crawling into his own bed to sleep. So why the hell had he awoken lying on top of a nude Fai? He looked hesitantly down at himself and breathed a sigh of relief when he found that at least he was still wearing clothes.

"Good morning, Kurosama," Fai purred.

"Don't you 'good morning, Kurosama' me, you weird bastard!" Kurogane choked. "Why did I wake up next to you and where the fuck are your clothes?!"

Fai looked down at his own naked body in mild surprise. "I might ask you the same things, Kurosama. This is where I went into sleep mode last night, with my clothes still on, and I haven't moved until just now."

"Are you trying to say that I…?!" The words died out in Kurogane's throat and he found himself unable to continue in the face of Fai's audacity.

"Well, you did say that you always get cold at night and computers naturally give off heat as long as they are turned on," Fai pointed out, his smile widening.

Kurogane was still speechless.

"Don't worry, Kurosama," he giggled. "I'm not angry."

"Wh-why the hell would you be?! I'm the one who woke up and found my computer trying to rape me while I was asleep!" Kurogane managed finally.

Fai shook his head, still smiling. "I am not programmed with a sex drive, but I am programmed with complete honesty. It is literally impossible for me to lie to you, Kurosama."

"Bullshit!" Kurogane spat. "I sure as hell would never pull any of this type of crap! And if you don't remember doing it yourself, then you must be broken!"

Fai watched in amusement as Kurogane, scarlet-faced, stomped off to the kitchen to begin making breakfast for himself. His new owner really was cute when he was angry.


A/N: …What was that? I mean, obviously it was heavily influenced by Chobits, but… Where did that come from? I'm really not sure if I like it, although I will say that I'm much more satisfied with this than I am with my last one.

Anyway, I've decided "to hell with order; I'm gonna do these in whatever order I feel like. So there." I like to stick it to the man. But don't be expecting anything else until finals are done ; n ;