Analog Hack

by Infinity Caliber

Set a hundred years from now, in a familiar yet futuristic vision of Japan where society is run by incredibly human-looking robots, a boy meets a strange girl. With society divided on the line between progress and losing sight of the definition of 'humanity', a choice looms for 17-year-old Endo Arato. Is it easier to change oneself to fit society or change society to fit oneself?

2. Suspension Bridge

Chapter 2: Suspension Bridge

Summary:

"As long as you try, the possibility of a favorable outcome still remains. But if you do not even bother to try, then failure is all but guaranteed."

Even though her chest was still and she didn't breathe, Arato thought she smelled good, like a woman.

Flowers began to fall from the sky once more, as if they were under a hanami.

Beyond the veil of artificial cherry petals, the moon shone brightly against the vista of the night sky.

In a breathtaking scene like that.

Embraced by a resplendent silvery light, with a naked intimacy reserved for reunited lovers, the girl asked.

"Endo Arato, I have a request for you. Won't you please become my Owner?"

The path towards a new future begins with the forging of the contract between the boy and the robot.

---

It took Arato a while to come to his senses, and for the world to unfreeze itself. In the meantime, the girl who introduced herself as Lacia continued to patiently wait for him. His knees had given way long ago, the only thing keeping him from crumpling to the floor being her firm grip on his jacket. From the way she easily handled the giant coffin with her free hand, Arato could tell she wasn't human.

Arato made to steady his footing. A goddess of divinity she might have been, but even someone like him couldn't remain genuflecting forever. As he got up, the grip on his jacket was released. Somehow, the casualness of her movements unnerved him. Her lithe, slim body hadn't shown even the slightest bit of strain supporting his weight.

He couldn't help but feel intimidated by her.

"Thanks." He nervously said to the girl who was slightly shorter than him. "But we need to get out of here. If these flowers touch you, you'll lose your sense of reason as well."

Arato reached out his good hand, the right one, towards her. At the moment, it didn't matter who or what she was. All that mattered was the here and now. And for now, there was nothing more urgent than getting to someplace safe.

He turned his gaze away from the dismembered creature scattered across the road that had once been 'Marie'. The explosion had sent flowers dancing all over in the air. On the ground where the petals had fallen, blooming bouquets wriggled like bundles of worms. The petals were everywhere. On houses, on the sidewalk and on the streetlights. An artificial garden formed as far as his eyes could see. They even covered the doors and windows of the apartments nearby. Even now, Arato could hear distressed voices from inside yelling in a panic that their devices weren't functioning.

Lacia did not take up his offered hand. So, Arato tried to tug at her arm instead. He was beginning to panic, the flowers were starting to cover her as well. A cold sweat ran down his neck. Tendrils of fear began to form, wrapping his body in a chilly sensation. His instincts were whispering dangerously in his ear. If he had only escaped with his life by the skin of his teeth from Marie. There was absolutely no way he was getting out alive if this girl suffered the same fate as her.

"Why must we run?" Lacia asked in a calm voice. Try as he might, she wasn't budging an inch, the lithe girl easily resisting his adrenaline-infused strength. His heart was hammering, his fears regarding her superhuman abilities seemingly confirmed, along with the risk it posed.

But even so, Arato could not just abandon a girl in her time of need. As he continued his futile attempts to drag her, another question came from the girl.

"Are you afraid?"

"Of course I am!" Arato rose his voice and yelled at her ludicrous words. "Look around you! We could both die at any moment!"

"Shouldn't you overcome that fear? If you do not fight back now." She pressed. "When will you fight?"

The piercing words drove a stake directly through his heart, her polite, feminine manner of speaking only serving to increase the damage. A perfect home run. In an instant, the suspension bridge effect clouding his mind disappeared. Of all the people to lecture him, Arato least expected it to come from a machine. He felt an indignant sense of anger rise within him and he wanted nothing more than to yell at Lacia to mind her own business.

But, robot or not, Lacia was still a girl. Not to mention Arato didn't particularly fancy himself the type of scoundrel who took out his pent-up frustrations on a girl, her pretty face helping in that regard. He forcefully suppressed his anger and answered back as calmly as he could.

"I'm not a kid who deludes himself into thinking he's a character from a manga. At times like this, something like 'fighting back' is beyond my power."

All he needed to do was to explain things clearly to her. Sure, she was a frustrating one. But she was still beautiful. Beautiful enough that all he wanted to do at the moment was to stop and face her, to stare and indulge himself in her lovely presence.

However, now wasn't a time to fulfill a base desire like that. Soon enough, residents from the nearby apartments were bound to leave their homes and start investigating the loud explosions coming from their vicinity. If Lacia went berserk when that happened, the situation would quickly degrade into a nightmare beyond the currently existing one. The thought of a massacre involving masses of helpless bystanders sent a sickly chill up Arato's spine.

"Then, what if you were to possess such a power?" Lacia asked plainly as if she was discussing the weather. "Will your answer be any different?"

More ridiculous words came from the girl. But even as Arato racked his mind for an answer to her question, the petals on her fair skin had already begun to sprout legs. The demonic flowers on Lacia's light violet hair, those too had started to bloom. And if he allowed his imagination to succumb to terror and run wild, Arato could visualize the black coffin by her side transforming into a giant bouquet as well.

Even so, the girl before him portrayed nothing but a picturesque image of serenity.

"Your answer, please."

"Hold still for a second." Arato clenched his teeth in an attempt to stem the tide of terror flooding his mind as he reached out his hands. With a sweeping motion, he brushed the flowery crown off her. It fell to the ground and scattered away in a swarm of mechanical insects. A sense of relief and happiness washed over him. Even a person like him was capable of a small action like that. The thought that he could make a difference filled him with a sense of courage.

Even in an automated world, a human like him could still be useful. There were things that he could still do.

"A powerless person can still make a difference. All you need to do is try." Arato thanked her with his words. "You were right. I can fight back after all."

"As long as you try, the possibility of a favorable outcome still remains. But if you do not even bother to try, then failure is all but guaranteed." Lacia's words were softer this time around, seeming almost human, even if her neutral expression did not change. But Arato could sense that the girl who called herself Lacia was vaguely pleased with his answer. Or maybe that was merely his mind projecting her expected reactions back at him. After all, Lacia was an hIE. Like his friends repeatedly enjoyed drilling into him, hIEs did not possess the range of emotions that allowed them to experience feelings.

But somehow, the girl before him didn't come across that way. And her piercing words struck a chord within him, even if he might not have wanted to admit it. Because of that, Arato was satisfied enough to show her his thanks.

"I guess you're right. A battle does need to be fought to know its outcome. Let's go!"

This time, he didn't try to drag her along. But rather, he offered his hand out to her. An offer that was accepted in kind as she placed her hand in his. Arato squeezed their hands to confirm that yes, she was real and that he wasn't stuck in a dream.

She squeezed back.

A blooming warmth filled his chest. A similar warmth, that to his surprise, was mirrored by her soft hand and proceeded to intermingle with his body heat.

With Lacia allowing him to take the lead, Arato kept to the sidewalks, aware of the potential danger of another car trying to run them down. Leaving the charred road and the wreckage behind, the both of them ran towards the main street of the residential district. The petals on the ground were still moving, but Arato noticed that the flowers falling from the sky had stopped.

Around him, the scenery of the usual town zipped past. A familiar sight that he'd seen countless times and taken for granted. Arato possessed no idea of their destination, only of the warmth in his hand spurring him onwards. All he knew at the moment was that he was running for his life, hand in hand with a strange girl he'd just met, the both of them sharing their body heat in the frosty night air.

The fairy tale made his heart soar to new heights, a brand new type of thrill that excited him. Even now, his limited world was expanding.

Suddenly, Shin Koiwa didn't seem so mundane after all.

"We need to inform the police." He asked, referring to the common ability for all hIEs to contact emergency services. "Lacia, you can call them, right?"

His question came out in ragged breaths, in contrast to the girl who possessed no lungs and did not require oxygen to function. Her chest was moving, but it was merely the motion of a mechanical ventilator mimicking a human's breathing, thus even when she was lugging the giant coffin-like object along while running, her reply was steady.

"The police do not possess the equipment required to handle this situation."

Her reply almost made him pause in disbelief. Arato glanced back towards the girl, her light violet hair bouncing on her shoulders as she ran. For a civilian like him, most emergency situations began and ended with the police. The police, which was a tool of authority used by the state to maintain order and enforce its laws. To be told in such a frank manner of their powerlessness was a disturbing notion, to say the least. If the police failed, then obviously the military would be the next obvious tool of choice for the government.

Except that he was just a teenager. The police was as high as someone like him could go in terms of contactable authority. It wasn't as if he could dial the Prime Minister on his cell and say something ridiculous like 'Oh yeah. By the way, there's something crazy happening over at Shin Koiwa. The police are no good so deploy the Army to fix it. While you're at it, can you get the Air Force to deliver some takeout for my little sister?'

The absurd image of that conversation almost made Arato laugh out loud. But with the current situation being as serious as it was, he could only stifle the noise coming from his throat such that it came out more of a sardonic cry, the only thing anchoring his sanity being the tight, reassuring grip in his hands.

"I see... Too bad. Seems like this is the end."

A wry, half-hearted apology. By that, he meant that they needed to stop running. In the first place, he was blindly charging full speed ahead without an actual destination in mind. In the current direction that they were going, directly away from the hostile area, they would reach the Endo apartment in but a mere couple of minutes. Thereby leading the danger right towards where his defenseless little sister Yuka was waiting.

Right as he was about to curse his lack of foresight, the girl spoke up.

"Arato." She addressed him out of the blue. "Do I have your trust?"

"What?"

His reaction was guarded at first. After all, Lacia had appeared before him seemingly out of nowhere, displaying a terrifying strength. Judging by her looks, she was obviously not an ordinary hIE. He couldn't overlook the possibility that she was somehow connected to the rain of demonic flowers as well. But even so, he owed his life to her. She couldn't be that bad. Even without knowing who, or what she was, Arato felt like he could trust her.

Or so he tried to convince himself. But the honest truth was, it would have been kind of uncool of him to doubt a girl.

"Do you trust me?" Lacia repeated.

Also, she was really pretty. Scratch that, she was drop-dead gorgeous. An insidious voice whispered in his ear.

"I do!"

His shout rang out across the night, the frustration he felt in regards towards his simple nature revealing itself. Distracted as he was from beating back the dark voice in his mind, Arato failed to notice the sound of an igniting engine behind him. A sharp impact slammed into his side and threw him to the ground, the force of the blow causing him to wheeze loudly in pain. Right as he was about to furiously snap at the girl for shoving him, another sedan roared past just inches from his head.

The boiling blood in his head soon cooled off at the realization that Lacia had just saved him from being run over. He tried to stand, but a comfortable weight was on top of him, pushing him down and rendering useless his futile efforts to get up.

Their impromptu roll had caused them to land in an interesting position, it seemed. There, from her position above, Lacia locked him against the pavement in a blossoming lotus.

"Endo Arato." She addressed him in a diaphanous, bewitching voice. "I have a request for you."

A warm, wet sensation was soaking into his clothes from where she was straddling his waist. Her entire body was wet, as if she came straight from a dip in the pool. A rain from the heavens descended upon him. Droplets of water ran down her dripping wet hair, forming dark, blotty splotches on his jacket where they landed.

Looking up, he saw Lacia's stunning features centimeters from his own, staring directly into his eyes. The air around him was being caressed by the overwhelming, delicate femininity of an extraordinary beauty, stifling his ability to think clearly. The refreshing scent of the sea touched his nose, pleasantly tickling it.

Even though her chest was still and she didn't breathe, Arato thought she smelled good, like a woman.

Flowers began to fall from the sky once more, as if they were under a hanami.

Beyond the veil of artificial cherry petals, the moon shone brightly against the vista of the night sky.

In a breathtaking scene like that.

Embraced by a resplendent silvery light, with a naked intimacy reserved for reunited lovers, the girl asked.

"Won't you please become my Owner?"

Confusion reigned in his head. And that was completely due to her peculiar choice of words. A dangerous term for a girl to utilize with a boy.

"Owner..." His dry tongue moved mirthlessly as he repeated after her. Already, he could feel his budding distaste at the term. "You mean like become mine?"

"I have determined that you are the most suitable candidate to be my first Owner." Lacia clarified herself once more in that infuriatingly calm manner.

But in contrast to her levelheadedness, Arato's brain was being tormented even more by the dangerous words she sent his way. The way Lacia had framed it made it seem like she was requesting for him to take her maiden innocence. If the situation around them wasn't so ludicrous, he might have even blushed and stammered. But with the specter of sudden death looming all around them, Arato could only bite back on his teeth and call her out on the major decision that she seemed to be taking on without consideration.

"That's a big decision to make so quickly. In the first place, you shouldn't go about deciding these things on your own. It's not like we've gotten to properly know each other that well yet." The words slipped out of his mouth without thinking. Sardonic laughter rippled throughout Arato's mind internally. For all the fuss he was making over Lacia's choice of words, now it was his turn to talk as if he was rejecting a proposition.

He was losing it. Yes, most definitely this was the only logical explanation. It must have been the heat from the explosion, or the dull throbbing ache of his injuries. But in any case, at the moment Arato possessed sincere doubts regarding the stability of his own sanity.

Her slightly wet body leaned down to demurely press against him, an act that made her resemble a fragile doll in need of his support and protection. Arato's chest tightened painfully, an icy grip holding his racing heart captive.

"Any further information about you is unnecessary. Even without knowing anything about me, you said you trusted me." Lacia informed him plainly, before lowering her voice in the manner of a girl who felt as if the prospect of becoming a discarded woman was too much for her to bear. "So please, make me yours."

A critical hit with maximum potency directly at his weak spot. His heart screamed at him and seemed like it was about to tear itself out of his chest. In the first place, the rushing blood to his brain told him, it was his decision to resist the urge to leave this girl to her own devices. It was his decision to bring her along with him to try and escape to safety. He was the target of the attack, not Lacia. It was him the berserk machines were after, not her.

Everything up till now had been a consequence of his decisions.

Even without realizing it, he'd dragged the girl who saved him into a risky situation. His heart rate slowed down as he relaxed. All he needed to do was to apply mental heuristics and simplify the current situation.

All Arato needed to know was that a girl was right in front of his eyes, clinging onto him with her lips pressed together. The sight of Lacia looking so vulnerable stirred a primal, manly instinct within him. Even though he knew that Lacia wasn't human and that she was far more powerful than him, he still felt the need to protect her. To take up the responsibility of involving her with his own hands.

"Let's do it!" He finally breathed out.

"I have judged your reaction as consent." Lacia announced. "As required by the law, I am obliged to inform you of the details regarding our contract. Please verify the license agreement."

She rested a hand on his shoulder, her slim body bending over to accommodate the movement.

"You are not required to directly involve yourself in the actions taken by this unit. No direct physical burden will affect you." Lacia continued, her voice returning to a flat monotone. "I will provide the strength to carry out your will. There is only a single duty that this unit asks of you."

Her beautiful lips were moving rapidly, but Arato's weary mind couldn't keep up. He was lost in a daydream, basking in her lovely presence and indulging himself. Whether she noticed the state of his current attention span or the lack thereof, Lacia did not allow it to show on her face as she continued without pause.

"I am a tool, and therefore I am unable to take responsibility for my own actions. Thus, I request that you take responsibility for me."

He could scarcely believe his ears. A girl was asking him to take responsibility. Arato quickly banished the dark thoughts before they had the chance to surface. The sound of a sudden, thunderous impact broke his concentration. The second car, the very same which tried to run him over just a few moments ago, slammed into the giant coffin. With its tires squealing under the effort, the sedan continued trying to push through the coffin.

It was then Arato noted something that previously slipped his mind. She was still clinging on to him with both hands free. That meant that the black coffin was still planted in the ground behind them like a makeshift barricade. There were several anchors fixing it to the ground, but even then, Arato could see the asphalt around the anchors start to crack and give way.

"That's fine, I'll take responsibility!" Arato shouted at her to hurry. If he was installing a program on his terminal, he would have skipped the nefarious EULA by now.

But to his frustration, Lacia kept talking in the same evenly paced manner, as if she possessed all the free time in the world.

"In that case, I will now proceed to gather your biological information, Owner." She moved to take his hand and guided it towards her neck, where a metal keyhole-like component was attached to her skin-tight bodysuit. "After I have confirmed this information, I will ask for your consent in regards to this contract twice more."

She tugged at his pointer finger and brought it close to her papillon heart. With Lacia's guidance, Arato inserted himself into her warm, wet hole. A sound leaked out from his throat. Once inside, he was encapsulated by a pleasurable heat to a degree significantly higher than her latent body temperature.

"Endo Arato, I am registering you as the Owner of the Lacia-class humanoid Interface Element Type-005." She stated. "This hIE unit along with its equipment device, Black Monolith, are both capable of autonomous judgment. As my Owner, you are responsible for any legal liability undertaken during the execution of my actions. Do you accept these terms?"

The words were all flying by. Again he was under attack. And once again it was all happening so fast. With a heavy head, Arato pressed ahead.

"Okay." He answered.

A soft blue glow appeared. The accessories on Lacia's hair were lighting up. Along with it, the thin strap on his wrist glowed as well. It was vibrating, notifying him of an external party accessing his personal information.

"I will begin recording your lifelog. If the correct procedures are followed and a legal request made, this record may be disclosed and displayed in a court of law in response to relevant litigation. In order to release the lock on my device, I require your consent to these terms."

Arato gulped at the casual display of her power. Usually, one was required to manually authorize access to the data. A basic security measure that existed on most devices. Lacia had skipped it entirely.

"Okay!" He repeated himself, quicker this time. Although by this point he wasn't sure about how much control he actually possessed regarding the consent that Lacia was so strangely insistent on.

Under the storm of flowers, a blue light wrapped itself around Lacia. It seemed that their unseen enemy was still pursuing them, judging by the fact that the assault renewed itself the moment they stopped fleeing. He was right to stop, after all, he couldn't lead the enemy right to Yuka. The petals on her body began to sprout legs once more. But despite the deadly rain falling around her, Lacia remained unfazed.

"In order to disable the microscopic sub-units currently attacking us, I recommend severing their optical light-wave transmission. I believe that this will be the option that presents the least amount of damage towards our surroundings, along with the minimal amount of collateral risk associated with it."

His brain was having trouble keeping up with the torrent of complex words pouring out of Lacia's mouth like a tide. More importantly, a high pitch squeal of scraping metal pierced his ears. The heavily charred corpse of the hIE once known as 'Marie' was still making its way to them, dragging its wrecked frame along the road with zombie-like movements. Covered in blooming flowers and wounds, the hunk of twisted metal refused to die. The unwavering determination of a machine to execute its task to the very end. It was equal parts artistic and insane.

And it was closing in on them with every passing second.

"I don't quite get it but, if you're going to do something, do it fast!" Arato pressed her to hurry.

"However." Lacia interrupted him calmly. "The three-dimensional control artillery barrage will also have the side effect of disabling the wireless power supply in the affected area. If there are any individuals on life support, there is the possibility that this will disable critical life-preserving devices utilized by humans within this range, thus putting their lives at risk."

Arato's mind froze. Her entire spiel was slipping by him, but he'd managed to catch the vital bits and pieces of information. In an instant, the vain hope that Lacia was a magic wand that he could wave at their problems vaporized. A small, childish part of him wanted to hope that she was joking, but Lacia's deadly serious eyes which gazed directly at him told him otherwise.

"In the event that this unlikely scenario occurs, that will be your responsibility, Owner." She formally informed him.

The weight of the choice he was being presented with was a heavy one. The gentle hand she placed on his shoulder was so heavy that he could almost feel his body sink into the ground. In other words, he was being asked to balance the value of his life versus that of others. If he was willing to risk the lives of others to save his own skin. A despicable weighting scale of immorality.

"Owner. Please decide." Lacia asked. "Will you accept the responsibility for the possible danger to human life and authorize the use of my artillery?"

Perhaps this was the dichotomy between humans and machines after all. Just like how he as a minor was provided protection and privileges not afforded to an adult under the law, she as a machine possessed the carefree ability to execute actions without taking responsibility for the outcome. How nice it must be, Arato bitterly thought to himself. Before he could stop himself, a shard of acidic sarcasm leaked into his voice.

"So, it's all on me then?"

"Yes." She answered plainly.

The branches of the forest obscured his path. Left or right, which way to go, the route before him continued to remain uncharted. Arato couldn't predict the future. He wasn't a higher entity imbued with such godlike powers. He was just merely Endo Arato and nothing more. Heavy words like 'responsibility' and 'human life' obviously scared him and provided a source of stress. But nevertheless, he'd promised to place his trust in her.

And with that trust, all he could do was advance through the entangled vines. Step by step, fumbling his way forward towards his 'desired outcome'. The human mind could only process a limited amount of information at once. He needed to simplify. Systematically arrange the incoming blocks of data. Apply heuristics and streamline the decision-making process. Focus and narrow his worldview.

"Well, it's not like I can allow Yuka to turn into an orphan. She'll make a right mess of the house if I'm not there to take care of things."

His parched lips moved robotically, mirthless humor providing the anchor for his sanity. The monstrous, inhuman hIE was closing in on them. Even though Lacia's calming demeanor did wonders in providing a soothing effect, he could tell from the way the giant coffin was bending that the sedan was about to break through soon.

"Blow them away, Lacia." He said grimly.

She registered his order with a nod. In a blink of an eye, the four-winged metal fixture at the waist of Lacia's white bodysuit overlapped to form a shackle. It was twisting and turning, one part rising up as if it was some sort of lever. Blue light shot through the shackle and a familiar light blue glow, the telltale sign of Lacia's power, began to spill out of the black coffin.

From its anchor on the street, the bulky coffin opened its outer shell to reveal its true nature. Inside of its internal structure, previously hidden bundles of thick, black metal plates began to rapidly rotate and expand in three dimensions, the metallic, artificial tree spreading its metaphorical branches. It was rearranging itself with high speed to form a large, oversized railgun of sorts. It was this cannon that was deftly handled by Lacia as she aimed it towards the car, a rippling blue barrier appearing to protect them.

A laser oscillator was forming at its barrel. It was this beam that engulfed the car in blue light as it was fired out at an immense speed. In an instant, the world around him changed. It was as if the nightmare was erased and he had been forcefully risen from his dreamlike reality.

"They're gone." Arato murmured in amazement as he surveyed their surroundings. The flowers were gone. The car had come to a halt, the rampaging Marie along with it. Without further fanfare, normalcy returned to the night. Like a magic trick, the nightmare was gone. Even the noise which up till a moment ago had been hammering away at their world was gone.

"They're all gone." He repeated himself, still in disbelief.

"By striking the micro sub-units with a negative curvature material fiber film, I rendered them invisible to a specific band of frequencies. They are no longer able to receive command signal instructions from the main unit and are therefore nullified in their offensive capabilities." Lacia explained.

"So, you're saying that they can't stay connected if they turn invisible?" Arato clarified as he ran his hand over the rough road. He felt a dry, ticklish sensation and jerked his hand back reflexively. But after noticing that nothing untoward happened, he reached to gingerly brush his hand in a wide motion. He couldn't see the flowers with his naked vision, but he could confirm their presence by touching the soft piles of petals in front of him. It finally made sense to his mind what had just occurred. Obviously, Lacia couldn't bend the rules of reality by casting a magic spell to vanish the falling flowers. She just made them invisible so that the wireless signals were passing right through them instead. "I can't quite grasp the details but I got that much."

"To put it simply, when the sub-units are transformed into a state where light is able to pass through them, wireless signals are unable to reach them." She summarized.

There were probably tens of thousands of individual petals falling from the sky if one included the general area around them. Lacia had managed to hit every single one of them with a single attack. Not to mention that she'd done it all hands-off while continuing to remain glued to his chest the entire time.

Arato's body shook, trembling so hard that he thought that he was about to suffer a heart attack. Through the exhausting fog clouding his mind, he dimly came to the realization that Lacia was most definitely not a standard hIE like the rest. But instead, she was something far more powerful and terrifying. His instincts screamed at him and a voice from deep within his brain was warning him that he'd gotten involved with something way out of his depth.

For her part, Lacia merely released her hold on him and moved to wordlessly stand. He did not mirror her.

"I have filed a report to the police containing specific omissions regarding our involvement." She stared down at him, her previous warmth draining away. "They will be arriving shortly. I recommend that we leave this area immediately."

Looking up at her, the insidious whispering in his ears returned. For a brief moment, Arato did not recognize the attractive girl towering over him. But instead, he saw a Pandora's Box that threatened to overwhelm and consume him in his entirety. Man and his hubris, a story that repeated itself throughout history.

The sensation currently flooding Arato at the moment could only be aptly described as dread.

---

In the end, an even more pressing matter overridden any concerns he might have held at the moment. Since he was too caught up the entire time to keep track, he turned towards Lacia for the answer.

"It has been eighteen minutes since we met, Owner."

Of course, by that he was referring to Yuka's frozen treats. Arato used his hands to dip into the grocery bag and double-check. His fingers were met with a reassuring chill. The big brother in him sighed in relief. He'd managed to get home in time before her ice cream melted. In the meantime, he occupied himself with rehearsing his lines for the upcoming expected scenario.

However, by the time they arrived at the entrance to the Endo household, Arato was forced to admit to himself that he could not come up with anything.

"Wait here, Lacia." He ordered her to stand behind him as he fumbled in his pockets for his terminal. If luck was on his side, Yuka might have fallen asleep while waiting for him to return and he could postpone the entire troublesome matter to the morning. Arato wryly thought to himself that this was probably the closest he got to experiencing the feeling of trying to sneak a girl home late at night.

Unfortunately, as evident by the rushing footsteps of an unhappy little sister which appeared the moment he unlocked the digital lock with his terminal, Lady Luck had better things to do that night.

"Onii-chan, you're late!" Yuka burst out. "What took you so long?"

"Shopping is a tough business, you know." Arato took out the sweet dessert from the bag and handed it over as a peace offering to placate her. He wasn't worried about anything crazy happening, after all, he'd doubled and tripled checked beforehand to ensure that the groceries were free of any flowers that might have slipped inside. He did all this while forcing a neutral look on his face.

Yuka, however, wasn't even attempting to play along. She was blubbering, panic beginning to set in and overtake her.

"Ah, ah, ah-" Yuka stammered, doing her best impression of a broken doll. "Arato!" She finished in a squeal.

Needless to say, the reason for her hysteria was plainly obvious.

"My name is Lacia." Lacia introduced herself with a proper bow. "Please take care of me."

Yuka turned pale, the blood draining away from her face as she took in Lacia's politely tilted head. Obviously, since he was her Owner now, there was nothing strange about Lacia accompanying him. But rather, the problem lay in the fact that Lacia possessed the appearance of a human.

Of an attractive human girl his age, to make matters worse.

Arato thought to himself once more, that this was probably how it felt to be caught sneaking a girl home late at night.

"Oh my god! My brother just brought a call girl home!" Yuka wailed as she struck a horribly inaccurate Chinese martial art pose akin to one might often see in a B-movie. "Holy shit! You even made her cosplay!"

"She's not an escort!" Arato snapped indignantly, his previously cool head evaporating at Yuka's implication. "I picked her up from the street! And don't swear! Even if it's in English!"

"That's even worse!" Yuka screamed. "Does Dad know this is how you've been spending our allowance!?"

"That's why I said I didn't pay a single cent for her!" Arato protested, getting caught up in the rash atmosphere as well. But he couldn't completely blame her for having such an overblown reaction. After all, most people didn't come home from a trip to the grocery store with a strange, unknown girl in tow.

Yuka's eyes were glistening with a wet sheen. She seriously looked like she was about to break out in tears at any moment.

"I'm very sorry for whatever messed up acts my idiot brother made you do." Yuka's voice was trembling as she bowed her head deeply to apologize. "I'll properly reprimand him and make sure he gets professional help. I'm pretty sure it's his first offense, so please go easy on him. He's still young and doesn't deserve to have his life ruined over something like this."

Forced to stand there and listen to her messy rambling, Arato wanted nothing more than to tear out his hair and yell at his little sister. Before he could do such a thing, however, Lacia stepped in to smoothly defuse the situation.

"I am not a human. Rather, I am an hIE." She explained. "Due to my lack of an Owner, Endo Arato graciously decided to adopt me. Despite the circumstances, our contract is official. Therefore no crime has been committed."

"See? She said it herself." Arato breathed a sigh of relief. "As expected from an hIE, they're just better at explaining stuff than us."

As expected, Lacia's calm expression and behavior did wonders at erasing the tension in the air. Arato could feel his mind relaxing back to its usual state. Even the sounds of police sirens in the distance couldn't affect him.

"Really?" Yuka sniffed, raising her head. "Seriously?"

"Yes." Lacia replied plainly.

Her eyes were still wet and she was sniffing back tears in an undignified manner. Even though he would have liked to feel a sense of happiness over the fact that his little sister was so worried about him, another part of him was dryly annoyed that she'd suspected him of being a pimp in the first place.

"Well, now that things are settled. Do you think it'll be fine if we let Lacia...san." Arato winced at his forced delivery of the honorific and resolved to never call her that ever again. "I mean Lacia, stay over with us?"

"Yeah, I guess that's alright."

Yuka moved to wipe her tears but both her eyes and nose remained red. Arato was taken aback, his little sister had seemed so serious just a moment before.

"Wait, you're seriously okay with this?" He asked.

However, Yuka's usual bright smile was quick to return.

"You came across and picked her up right? Going by finders keepers, I guess that means she's yours now." She said cheerily.

Arato was starting to feel the beginnings of a headache forming. Even though Yuka was accepting it easily, he still felt the need to inform her about the details that occurred today.

"Listen here, Yuka." He started. "It wasn't as simple as that. While I was walking back with Marie-san, the hIE owned by the Yuzawas, a bunch of flowers started falling from the sky. Afterward, Marie-san broke down and started acting weird."

Arato left out the part where he'd almost got torn to pieces by the rampaging hIE. He did not want to unduly freak out his little sister, after all. On the way back, he asked Lacia if she knew anything about the person behind the attack, but he received the reply that she didn't. The only thing she said was that she'd made sure that the police would not be looking for him with questions, and that the damage caused by the accident would soon be restored. Afterward, she continued to refuse to be more specific about the details when pressed.

But saying that, Arato still felt the need to make Yuka understand the seriousness of the situation somehow. If the person behind the attack tonight was truly after him, then Yuka might be a potential target as well.

"Here, take a look." Arato rolled up his sleeve to show the purple bruise that was forming. "After that, a car hit me right here. If Lacia hadn't shown up when she did, things might have gotten real sticky."

"But you're fine." Yuka stared at him blankly.

Arato wanted to facepalm at her easygoing personality. But he knew better than to do something like that, for Yuka was just being herself.

"That's because... Lacia protected me." Arato hesitated for a bit as he confessed. Despite it all, he was still a boy at heart and found it embarrassing to admit so plainly his reliance on another girl.

He stole a glance at the girl beside him. A content, pleased smile graced Lacia's face. Arato made a pained effort to quickly look away before he could be drawn in and entrapped by her looks.

"Come to think of it." He mumbled. "I was kinda out of it back there."

"Well, I've been watching the news the entire time and nothing showed up about any of that." Yuka said as she started digging around in the shopping bag for the rest of the ice cream. "But if you say she's trustworthy, then I guess Lacia-san can't be all that bad."

Arato smiled thinly. Yuka had already cracked the lid on one of the ice creams and was proceeding to inhale it. His little sister was the type to place her full trust in him, she might have not found Lacia particularly trustworthy, but apparently, his word was good enough for her. It was then he realized how blessed he was to have someone like her for a sibling.

"Since she's ours now, Lacia-san can cook for us, right?" Yuka bounded towards Lacia and asked excitedly, unashamedly returning to her spoiled self. Already, she was ordering Lacia around without any hesitation. "Hey, hey, Lacia-san! hIEs can cook right?"

"Yes, that is possible." Lacia replied politely. "If that is your wish, I can access the culinary behavior cloud and commence immediately."

"Is it gonna be delish though?"

"The user review average for this behavioral cloud is rated at five stars." Lacia informed her.

"Yay, I can't wait!" Yuka cried out with joy as she jumped to glomp Lacia. "Arato! You're fired! Lacia-san's my big sis now!"

"To begin with, that's not how you address your new sibling." Arato said dryly. "Besides, I don't remember putting down 'house husband' the last time I had to do an employment survey."

But to his chagrin, Yuka had happily ignored all of his snarking, busy as she was tugging Lacia along into their house.

"Food, food! Yummy nom-noms! Yummy nom-noms!"

"Wait up, Yuka." Arato frowned as he took Lacia's other hand to stop her from following Yuka in. "You're getting carried away. Don't just agree with everything because you get to be spoiled by Lacia."

And he was right on that front. A multitude of problems still faced them, and despite Lacia assuring him that he wouldn't get involved with the police, Arato was sure that recordings of them existed on the security cameras of nearby homes and stores. It wasn't as if they could just sweep the entire thing under the rug and hope that it would go away on its own. The worst thing would be to be completely unprepared if the police came knocking on their front door with search warrants and questions.

"A TV show told me that hIEs have cameras installed in their eyes. So whatever happened to Marie-san, Lacia-san must have recorded it all. The police will use that as evidence to figure it all out." His little sister lectured, looking proud of herself.

"Using TV of all things to educate yourself..." Arato sighed despondently. But he couldn't deny the truth contained in her words. Besides, he was pretty confident that if push came to shove, he would be able to legally defend himself as the hapless victim, which he most certainly was. "Yeah, that's true. We should leave this kind of thing to the police, after all."

Arato's newfound sense of ease didn't come from nowhere, or that he'd resigned himself to his fate. But rather, he comforted himself with the fact that the current situation he found himself involved in with Lacia was most likely a temporary one, and that he did not intend to keep her for long. He stole another glance at her pretty face and gulped nervously. There was just no way he could picture this mysterious girl becoming a permanent fixture of the daily life routine that he and Yuka led, carefree and unsupervised without their parents around to keep an eye on them. It was too much of a picturesque dream to consider seriously.

"You always overthink the unneeded stuff, Arato." Yuka said as she pulled Lacia with a hard enough tug to break free of his restraint. "All we need to worry about right now is what Lacia-san can do for me!"

His little sister was terrifying. Terrifying naive that was.

"I'm envious of her simple nature." Arato sighed deeply.

"Things are going to be difficult for you now from now on, Arato." Yuka called out from inside the apartment. "I think you redeemed your entire life's worth of good luck today."

"Don't jinx me like that." He moaned. "How am I supposed to feel if something bad actually happened?"

"If you're that worried, why not just ask?" Yuka turned. "Hey Lacia-san, will it be dangerous for us to keep you?"

"Based on the situation as I described it to you earlier, Yuka-sama, no danger exists at the present." Lacia answered immediately.

"See? Not a problem." Yuka nodded sagely. Arato couldn't help but roll his eyes at her confidence. Sometimes, she was a little too easygoing for her own good. "If any problems pop up, we'll just cross that bridge then. But right now, Lacia-san needs our help."

"You don't have to give me the sales pitch. I'm already her Owner." Arato said dryly, before giving in for good as well. "But, you're right. Besides, it's getting real late. Let's get dinner out of the way first."

Right as Arato busied himself preparing the tableware, Lacia called out from the kitchen.

"I have familiarized myself with the contents of your refrigerator." She announced. Before long, the smell of sizzling meat and mixing spices filled the air along with the sounds of a chopping board being used. Lacia was working quickly, having left her Black Monolith leaning against a wall in the living room with a cushion under it to prevent it from scratching the floor.

When the plates of steaming hot food had finally finished their journey from the stove to their table, even Arato was at a loss for words. Instead of the usual trio of main, side, and rice that he was used to preparing, something more akin to a feast appeared before his eyes. The main was sweet and sour pork, craggy balls of deep-fried meat glazed in a bright orange sauce and mixed together with chopped pineapples, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Two different types of stir fry made up the vegetable component of their meal, one soft and the other crunchy to provide balance. The secondary starch consisted of a dish of thinly sliced potatoes, onions, shredded carrots, and crumbles of fatty pork mince stewed in a fragrant, oily stock. Finally, an egg drop soup finished the meal, the delicate strands swirling beautifully in the rich yellow broth. And of course, plentiful quantities of fluffy, white rice to go along with the dishes.

Five dishes in total.

"I... What?" All of a sudden, Arato felt a sense of inferiority crush him. The former Endo housekeeper was completely and utterly defeated by the newly arrived robotic usurper. "Did we even have pineapple?"

From the random bits and pieces of scrap in their fridge, Lacia had managed to prepare a veritable feast. Using ingredients that even he, the nominal Endo housekeeper did not know about. Obviously, as someone who relied heavily on premade sauce packs when cooking, things like fresh pineapple were not a usual sight in their pantry due to their perishable shelf life. But despite not using a single premade spice pack, Lacia had managed to make everything in front of him from scratch and, if he checked the digital clock correctly, was able to deliver it from stove to tabletop in under thirty minutes.

Five dishes in under thirty minutes including preparation and knife work, Arato mentally repeated to himself.

Fearsome, her domestic abilities were. If there was an Olympic event category for cooking, Lacia would easily win the gold medal.

"Unfortunately, due to the limited range of ingredients available, I am unable to prepare anything more substantial." Lacia bowed her head slightly as she stood before the dining table. "By draining the liquid from the canned fruit, I was able to locate an adequate substitute."

Arato's felt his pride prickling at her self-effacing words. He couldn't make this even if his kitchen was located right in the middle of the produce section of the supermarket. Not without leaning heavily on premixes, that was.

"So delish! Lacia-san, I wuv you!" Yuka garbled out with a mouth stuffed to the brim. After a piercing glare from him, she swallowed and continued, this time sticking her tongue out at him. "Much better than the stuff Arato makes! Seriously, Arato. You need to expand your cookbook beyond the instant stuff or fried carbs. We're always having that or takeout from the Family chains."

"Listen here, you." Arato growled at her. "How much of a housewife do you take me for? I'm already spoiling you by doing most of the chores around here. Besides, its not my fault Jonathan's runs a free rice upgrade for their lunch specials."

Casually bickering like that even in the presence of a person they'd just met, the Endo siblings weren't exactly the paragons of refined humanity. Arato flushed as he quickly glanced over to Lacia, worrying about the image they were currently presenting to her. Lacia said nothing in reaction, but from the intangible, strange smile on her face and her deferential posture, Arato found it a lost cause to try and glean the underlying processes shielded behind her positively arranged features and icy blue irises. Hurriedly, he tried to change the subject.

"It's good, Lacia." Arato reluctantly nodded with approval, the leftover remnants of his domestic pride yielding as he praised her. "But still, where did you learn to cook all of these dishes?"

"hIEs possess the ability to perform special services by connecting to the relevant behavioral management cloud. By selecting a suitably highly-rated culinary subcloud under the main domestic service cloud, I am able to prepare a wide variety of dishes with the utilization of this stored data." Lacia explained, before adding as an afterthought. "I have also judged your reactions and passed on your user experience rating with this specific cloud accordingly."

So basically, Lacia downloaded a recipe book online and copied the steps, Arato's mind translated for him as it cut through the jargon. He was getting better at that, he noticed.

"I don't think Yuka is an accurate benchmark for that." He added dryly.

It was coming close to midnight by the time they finished dinner. Yuka excused herself first, heading towards the bathroom before clocking out for the night.

"Sorry to have you come over and do all this." Arato apologized. Lacia was too ruthlessly swift and efficient when it came to cleaning up. Even during dinner, he noticed plates disappearing the moment they were emptied. This left nothing for him to do, and he could only sheepishly watch as she remained in the kitchen, sorting out their haphazardly arranged plates and silverware in an orderly manner.

"Please, there is no need to bother yourself on my account." Lacia reassured him. "hIEs were originally designed for domestic and caretaking functions."

An awkward silence fell between them as Lacia continued to work. Arato fidgeted in place. Looking at Lacia's back, or more precisely, the exposed pale skin that her bodysuit revealed, a provoking realization was dawning on him. The sudden feeling of self-consciousness twisted his stomach and made it curl up. Forget the attack earlier, an even bigger problem faced him.

No matter how often Lacia insisted that she was a tool and nothing else, when compared to the rest of the actual tools and appliances in his kitchen, clad in a white and black bodysuit that clung to her lithe frame coyly, she just seemed so much warmer, so much more alive.

When she moved to the other end of the kitchen, Arato's eyes tracked her every move, every contour, and curve of her pronounced gluteal fold silently, involuntarily entranced by the subtle, alluring sway of her flaring hips, courtesy of the stilettos attached to her bodysuit. Every now and then, whenever Lacia's arms rose, he could briefly catch a glimpse of the bare, sacred area normally tucked away from the world. His glutinous, sticky mind was empty, devoid of thought when presented with the tantalizing mechanical siren in front of him. Just watching Lacia execute her tasks made him feel as if he'd entered a gentle fantasy.

His heart was pounding in his ears and Arato felt heat rush to his face. He quickly dove to support his wavering self on the sofa, the seat of it sinking comfortably as he racked his brain trying to figure something out in regards to their new cohabitation.

"Not good." Arato forced a lump down his throat as he gulped. "How is this going to work out?"

The memories of what happened earlier returned to him like a cinema reel.

He remembered the sight of her comforting back as she held the horrors at bay.

He remembered the feel of her soft hands, warm and comforting in his as they ran away together.

And most of all, he remembered her stunning face, so dangerously close to his, and how good her body felt as she offered to solicit him.

"Forty-five... No, fifty kilos..." Arato mumbled under his breath as he recalled the comforting weight of her sinful butt on his chest. The thought of it had him pressing a knuckle on his lower face in an attempt to grapple with his rising arousal. His cheeks were on fire and he felt his body tense up as if it was about to break out in a sweat at any moment.

Try as he might, he couldn't stop his mind from continuing to barrel down the dark path it was currently on. From now on, Lacia would be by his side every single day. A mesmerizing domestic lifestyle with a cool beauty and her bewitching smile awaited. Once he realized that, the breaks on his boiling mind came flying off. It didn't matter anymore if she was a human or not. All Arato knew was that he was now the 'Owner' of a lovely, submissive girl who would unfailingly obey his every order.

A perfect, beautiful puppet that he held the strings over.

In his moment of lustful weakness, the dark voice in his mind took the chance to return and whisper something which made shame and anger flood his entire being. Upon hearing that, Arato pressed his knuckles hard enough that he could feel his bones digging into his gums.

"God. I'm such a guy!" Arato hissed venomously under his breath as he tried to wrangle his runaway emotions in order. Their entire relationship and the connection between them couldn't have been forged around mere lust, Arato refused to believe that. Especially not with the person who looked so much like 'her'. But even as he shoved that dark voice into the hole where it rightfully belonged, Arato had to come to terms with the fact that he had no idea what to do now that Lacia was going to be living with him every day. Arato despaired hopelessly, the proverbial lost lamb seeking its salvation.

The powers above must have been feeling extra generous tonight, for he did not have to wait long. Arato felt a tugging sensation on his hand, a soft touch gently separating his clenched fingers.

"Owner, would it be easier on you if I excused myself?" Lacia was by his side, her expression cool as she stared at his flushed face. There was a tea set on the low table in front of the sofa, one of his father's many knickknacks that he'd shoved to the back of the pantry during one of his house cleaning sessions and then proceeded to forget all about afterward. She returned his hand to rest on his knee and promptly released her hold on him. Arato could feel the warmth on his hand lingering even as her touch left.

If Lacia could sense the turmoil inside of him, Arato couldn't tell, for she thankfully made no comment about it as she knelt and started working on the tea set. Arato paid close attention to her as neither of the Endo siblings had ever touched a real tea set. He watched as Lacia performed a series of complicated actions with the tea set. From the way she handled the tools, Arato could have mistaken her for a master.

"Woah. I didn't know you could do tea all proper as well." He remarked.

Seeing the difference in skill level between an hIE and the housework he usually did was mind-numbing. Every move, every motion she performed was measured, precise and graceful, as if she'd been doing it with years of experience behind her. An execution so flawless that one could call it perfect.

And also inhuman, his mind reminded him.

After a few minutes, Lacia lifted the bamboo whisk away from the tea bowl, using a white cloth to guard the bottom, preventing any potential messes and drips. Long, viscous strands of green clung and dripped off the whisk like liquid honey. Once she was done stowing the whisk away, Lacia offered the ceramic bowl to him, her head tilted slightly to avoid meeting his eyes.

"Please go ahead."

Arato gulped audibly at the dangerous atmosphere. From her kneeling position and demurely lowered head, everything about Lacia screamed submissiveness. Her posture was slightly hunched over, and with her holding the bowl with both hands, this had the effect of pushing her bust together. Even with her modest upper assets, when combined with the exposed chest window on her bodysuit, Arato couldn't help but freeze as he found himself being presented with a sight he wasn't quite ready for. It was as if she was the perfect image of the traditional, domestic wife offering herself to him.

Lacia must have noticed where he was looking, because she shifted her elbows further apart such that she wasn't presenting him with such a cleavage magnet. This had the unintended effect of dumping a bucket of cold water on his senses and pulling him back to reality.

Arato quickly averted his eyes to avoid more embarrassment, making a show of intensely inspecting the pool of green inside his tea bowl with whatever enthusiasm he could scrape up. He'd heard about thick tea of course, but he never had the chance to try something so old-fashioned in this day and age. When he gently turned the bowl, the liquid shifted with a certain weight and clung brightly against the white walls of the ceramic bowl, seeming more like a watercolor paint rather than tea.

"Thank you." His tone was stiff and formal, the entire situation making him nervous. Arato tilted the bowl and allowed the tea to enter his mouth. The first thing that struck him was the texture. It was a beverage so thick that he felt like he was drinking liquid syrup instead of tea. As the tea rolled in his mouth, it found itself getting stuck everywhere, on his tongue, his teeth, his gums, and even the roof of his mouth. Arato wanted to say something but found it impossible. It was as if all the space in his mouth was being filled up.

Even though no milk was added, the drink he was partaking in possessed a near creamy consistency. And yet despite its concentrated nature, Arato was surprised to find that it tasted faintly sweet and not bitter at all. In fact, his brain was bewildered that he was drinking something so dense, both in viscosity and composition, but tasted so subtle and subdued, a unique reflection of the ambiguous outer shell and the true inside hidden away. The stark contrast sent a signal of pleasure within him. He swallowed and found that the sticky, thick liquid tickled his throat teasingly on the way down.

Arato let out a contented sigh as he closed his eyes to rest his exhausted body. He never imagined that drinking tea could be such an intense experience. Lacia took this as a signal to speak.

"Your praise is unwarranted. All hIE behaviors are downloaded from the control cloud through the network. The tea before you is simply a product of my frame tracing a combination of previously recorded motion capture data of humans taking these actions and replicating them."

Arato allowed a vexed smile to cross his face at Lacia's lecture. The true meaning behind her words was clear. Lacia was parroting the same words that his buddy Ryo insisted on hammering in his head all the time, only in a different manner. That she was a machine, a tool, something inhuman. And it was this robot that was lecturing its human Owner, its pretty face only serving to make things worse.

Lacia must have recognized his negative reaction and interpreted it accordingly, for she formulated an appropriate response.

"It seems that you require basic information regarding hIEs." She stated plainly.

"Will there be problems for you in the future if there are things I don't understand?"

Lacia refrained from replying but Arato felt like she was just being polite. To be frank, Lacia was correct. Up till now, despite being a part of his everyday life as a mainstream commodity, Arato never really felt the need to ponder about the inner workings of hIEs. He hadn't even considered the possibility that Lacia might have previously been someone else's property before she requested for him to be her Owner. A frustration welled up inside him, of being blindly led onwards by a leash. He felt the sense of powerlessness return and it was this frustration that made him push on, even if it ran the risk of making him look like a fool in front of her.

"Lacia." He asked pointedly. "Where did you come from?"

"Is that information vital to the development of our relationship, Owner?" Lacia tilted her head with a blank, unreadable expression on her face. Arato had a faint inkling that he was being accused of something. Of a breach of previously promised trust, without any strings attached. A crawling feeling was wriggling along his spine. Arato recognized it for what it was. A warning from the Pandora's Box in front of him to turn back while he still could.

But Arato felt if he backed out now, the path he was traveling on, the future itself would have been locked away. And thus, Man indulged in his hubris once more. However, the actual truth was, more than anything, Arato wanted to place his trust in the girl before him. To believe in the person who looked so similar to 'her'. That was the reason for the deeply carved emotions of trust and reliance he felt upon their first meeting.

Simply put, he wanted to get closer to this girl and repay his debt to her.

"I still don't have the faintest clue about you as a person, Lacia." Arato forced a shaky smile on his face. "Look, it's better to know just in case, right? After all, the more I know, the fewer things we'll have to worry about in the future. I'm sure the both of us have worries about each other that can be cleared up. Besides, it'll be easier for me to figure stuff out once I get to understand things clearly."

He made a sticky, overemotional attempt to win her over, the words spilling out of his mouth without him really considering how he sounded. It was embarrassing to be sure, but Arato hoped that he could get through to her nonetheless.

However, the following words that came from the girl in front of him crushed any hopes of that happening.

"You are a very kind person, but there is a fundamental flaw in your beliefs."

As Lacia laid out the facts for him, her face was expressionless, icy blue irises unwavering. Though her form was that of a human, at that moment, she clearly looked like something that was only human in appearance.

"I am a tool. I do not possess a soul."

Arato couldn't help but be caught off guard by the direct nature of her blunt statement. Of all the replies he expected from her, this wasn't one of them.

"I am merely utilizing a combination of human words and behavior patterns to present reactions that human users will find pleasant. My reactions are based on my predictions of how these reactions will be received, and are not guided by a single, consistent personality. You have seen a collection of this particular unit's behaviors and perceived an illusion of presence behind it all, Owner." Lacia finished. "Do not falsely interpret my calculations as equal to human behavior. I am an object in human form. There is no deeper meaning behind my actions. That is all."

In the year 2105, technology had advanced to the point where human-like behavior was not exclusive to humans alone. As long as a machine was given the form of a human and its skeletal structure, it could perform the exact same actions and tasks. By relying on this fact and the optimal choice selection provided to them by the behavioral cloud, hIEs could take on the role of a human, even if they lacked hearts or souls inside their hollow frame. This was common knowledge, even to someone like Arato.

And yet he couldn't help but feel his blood boiling hot at her words. A surge of anger rolled over him as he listened to her heartless words ruthlessly crush his childish desire, the desire to protect this strange girl in front of him, whom he met out of the blue. Even though Arato understood the logic and reluctantly acknowledged the truth behind her words, that didn't mean he couldn't possess the right to feel angry anyway.

His mind went back to the scene where she thanked him, a smile on her lovely face. When faced with something as pure as that, it was impossible to dehumanize the girl in front of him and categorize her as a tool. Despite everything, Arato could only see her as a person, an individual unique and special. Having been forced to sit here and listen to her deny all of that and call herself a thing, a machine, a tool, and other callous words stirred the bubbling anger within him. It wasn't all her as well, he was also coming to the realization that this was exactly what his friends at school had been giving him a hard time about, poking fun and mocking at his way of thinking.

Whenever humans interacted with one another, there was a common sense of understanding as each came to terms with the other's little oddities and idiosyncrasies. This allowed humans the strength to endure the teething pains present in all social relationships for the sake of mutual gain.

But something like that did not exist between Arato and the girl in front of him, who claimed to possess no depth or soul behind her actions. The idea that actions like spending long periods of time together and getting to know her well, discovering her little quirks and hobbies or coming up with shared inside jokes that nobody but them could understand, something like that was impossible. She was a machine, and he a human. There was no commonality between them to be shared. In fact, Arato was forced to plainly admit to himself that if Lacia didn't possess the form of a human, it was most likely that he wouldn't have gotten involved with her at all in the first place.

It was a bias of his. But it was not his fault, Arato argued to himself. After all, all humans possessed biases of some sort. Flaws and imperfections were what made them human to begin with.

A storm of emotions was raging inside of him. Fear, regret, disappointment, and anger all mixing together to form a potent cocktail that paralyzed him. His head was starting to hurt, Arato realized, and yet all he could do was continue sitting there. Sitting and listening to the blood sing in his ears. That was how much the girl in front of him meant, the amount of weight he placed in the belief that their connection tonight was something special. A predestined encounter.

And yet, despite seeing the anguish racking his figure, the cruel, heartless machine known as Lacia ruthlessly crushed his idealistic dreams, saying.

"I do not possess a soul."

Or rather, the true meaning behind that statement.

'You cannot form a meaningful bond with me.'

Arato found himself crashing back to reality from the euphoric heights that he'd been drifting on all this time, the idea of a destined encounter between them evaporating completely. Once again, Arato closed his eyes. He was looking to the past for the strength to carry on, sifting through the depths of his memories. Two images came to his mind, both relating to the event which shaped his life up till now. The explosive accident, and the mysterious hIE who saved his life. He wanted nothing more than to wipe the melancholic smile off her pure face, but before he could do such a thing, she broke apart like the fragments of a fragile glass statue. Through her noble sacrifice, she'd given him the opportunity and strength to restart his life.

He couldn't give in to despair. Even if it arrived and stared at him while wearing the same face as that girl. No, in spite of that, he was driven further on by the need to protect this girl in front of him. Even if she looked down upon his actions as meaningless, this time, he would grab her hand.

In an instant, the anger he was feeling up till now drained away, to be replaced by the pure feelings of affection as he drew upon his memories. He held the newly returned memory close, like the long-awaited return of a lost lover. So close that if Arato allowed his sensibilities to slip for even a moment, he could have replaced Lacia's face, already so similar in the first place, completely with that girl from his memory.

It was with this tight fondness clinging to his heart as he faced Lacia head-on. Beside her, the phantasmal specter lingered, her pure, loving face a contrast to Lacia's neutral coolness.

She gave him a smile full of gentle affection, filling him with a newfound source of courage.

"Just because you don't have a soul, doesn't mean I'm not affected." He corrected Lacia gently. Warmth was overflowing in his chest, filling the hole left by his earlier weakness. Arato knew better than anyone that he was projecting. Projecting his affections for another girl onto a doppelganger that looked far too much like 'her' to be a coincidence.

The human heart possessed the capability to be moved by external objects. Even if Lacia was a heartless machine with her actions merely a manifestation of data sent to her by the Animation Server, and that she only executed her actions in whichever way the AI controlling her deemed optimal in response to her surroundings. Even though he understood this.

Even so, even so.

"Even so, my heart was moved."

The human heart could be moved by that which did not possess a soul.

Moving his parched lips, Arato poured his affections into the receptacle in front of him. At the moment, he didn't much care at all if he sounded like a sap or that he might have overdone it and the outpouring of overflowing affection made him come across as foolish. More than anything, he wanted to move this heartless robot in front of him, even if it was just a little bit. It was as if the earlier rejection of his feelings was causing him to entrench and double down instead. Just as much as he yearned for this girl, he wanted this girl to yearn for him as well.

"I might have gotten the wrong idea about hIEs, sure." Arato went on. "But your feelings matter to me as well, Lacia. That much hasn't changed in the slightest."

Considering that he was talking to a machine who processed data and verbal conversations at a much higher level than any human could hope to achieve, the following silence between them felt intensively oppressive. If Lacia had decided not to reply, that meant that it was the most optimal solution to avoid a potential conflict between them.

He half-heartedly considered cracking a joke about Lacia being secretly human with that kind of considerate behavior but decided well against it.

But after a few moments which felt much longer than it had actually been, Lacia flashed him an enigmatic, mysterious smile.

"I have no feelings for you to worry about." She reminded him in that infuriatingly genteel manner of hers.

It was probably going to take a while for her to come around to his worldview, Arato concluded. Until then, he had to contend with the heavy silence that descended upon them once more. His face felt hot, hot enough that he could tell without looking that it was still visibly flushed. He'd poured everything into this girl and she had left him hanging at the worst moment. Arato watched with a rising heat as Lacia busied herself tidying up the tea set.

He couldn't help but feel like he was being politely ignored.

"Just forget about the stuff I previously said!" The embarrassment building up in his chest felt like a torn ligament, and Arato couldn't help but push out his frustrations out loud to no one in particular. Moments later, his retribution came in the form of a vibration on his cell, courtesy of a whining little sister yelling at him to pipe down as he was ruining her precious beauty sleep.

Quartering Lacia in the guest room took a while, especially since he had to draw new sheets for the rarely used bed, over her insistence that she could do it herself and he needed not bother himself with such frivolities, logically pointing out that an hIE like her did not require any specially arranged accommodation. But Arato felt that it was his obligation as the host to do something like that. Lacia was still technically their guest, after all. He couldn't just leave Lacia stuffed in a corner like another common household appliance. The thought of it annoyed him.

Besides, if he wished for the current risky setup as it were to possess even the slightest chance of success in regards to maintaining what amounted to 'normalcy' and a 'normal life', Lacia required her own privacy as a girl. If one day he found himself coming across Lacia randomly stripping in the middle of the living room, Arato felt like what was left of his sense of reason would collapse.

By the time he returned to his own room, Arato could nearly feel the edges of his vision blurring, not to mention the yawns that were starting to chain together. The day had even turned as the time crossed midnight. As he set his alarm, Arato glanced at the window. He saw himself reflected in the digital glass panel. And perhaps or because of his exhausted, slipping mind, another misty figure close to him.

A beautiful young girl with pale blue eyes and snowy white hair, the very same which had appeared beside Lacia when he'd corrected her, materialized behind him, her arms wrapped in a loving embrace as she gently rested her head against his shoulders. Even though Arato knew that she wasn't real, nor was she actually there, his body still felt a warmth clinging onto it all the same. A memory fragment that brought him comfort.

The sands of time reversed themselves. Arato was a kid again, the same child which during a visit to his father's workplace, had gotten enamored by a pure-looking hIE and walked right up to speak with her. Arato recalled how his heart was beating in excitement as he approached her, a wild affection rushing through his veins. His first love, even if the grade-schooler in him hadn't realized it back then.

That's right. At that time, he was too caught up in his emotions to convey to her the words he'd really wanted to say. The very same words that he'd been holding back for his entire life, unable to relieve himself of their gloomy weight, for he'd allowed the chance slip by his fingers once. And now, Arato found himself facing the same dilemma, the same scenario.

This time, he would reach out his hand.

This time, he would protect what was important to him.

And this time, he would finally be able to tell her the long-awaited words.

This was his promise, declared out loud for the world to confirm. That was his resolve, even if her big sister was proving herself to be a tough customer.

"Thank you."

The satisfied warmth clinging to his back dissolved to melt back into him.

---

When Arato awoke to the sound of his alarm the next morning, his nose caught a savory scent wafting through the house. He returned his pocket terminal from under his pillow and made to shuffle his way to the kitchen. With the sun just about to rise, it was still mostly dark out, the time being 6:30 am. It was the usual time he got up, in order to prepare breakfast for Yuka before school. The delicious smell of butter and frying carbs grew stronger as he followed it to its source.

To no surprise he found Lacia working in the kitchen. It was an obvious conclusion, considering it would be extremely uncharacteristic for someone like Yuka to suddenly perform a reversal and do something like this. With a practiced motion, Arato tugged the apron that hung above the oven and moved to assist. He was moving on autopilot, his brain still groggy from having just woken up.

"Owner, I have this covered. Please go ahead and return to your room to rest." Lacia was standing in front of an electronic hot plate, browning a slice of eggy bread with a spatula. She had replaced the combat bodysuit from last night, wearing instead a more ordinary outfit consisting of a baggy hoodie and tattered, fraying jeans, both pieces of apparel coming from his wardrobe considering none of Yuka's clothing could fit her. Her device lock too had been removed from her waist and was lying beside the Black Monolith in the living room, to be replaced by an apron around her waist. When she wore normal clothes like these, it was impossible to tell Lacia apart from a regular human.

Even though it was a haphazardly thrown-together outfit at the last moment, and that his hoodie was a bit too large for her, Arato still found her more beautiful than anything else. He averted his eyes quickly in embarrassment. Seeing Lacia wear his own clothes was stirring a spring-like coil of tension inside his body. Not to mention, even though Lacia wasn't human, but there was still the fear ingrained in him by human society that she might not appreciate his staring.

"I can't have you doing everything around here. Or else I'm really going to find myself out of a job." Arato said as he added more liquid egg from the bottle into the bowl she was currently using, whisking it along with milk with a fork to form a pale yellow concoction. A sense of domestic bliss was filling his body, being alone with Lacia and working together like this felt much better compared to last night's tension and rapid-fire emotions. It might have been the change of clothes, but she too seemed softer, more approachable somehow.

"Besides." Arato softly added as he felt the cold mixture soak into the white loaf. He wished for nothing more than to continue this dream-like fantasy, but something deep inside told him that he desired something more than a surface-level delusion with this girl. "I want to be useful to you as well, Lacia."

Lacia adopted a cool, neutral look as if to reprimand him for his continued stubbornness. To Arato, it seemed like the face of an actress after the curtains were closed, her previous artificially perfect expression dissolving.

"A tool's purpose is to serve its Owner. Without such a defined purpose, the tool in question would not have been created." She placed a petite hand on her chest. Even though the keyhole on her neck seemed to be gone, most likely a part of her bodysuit and not her skin, Arato caught her reference even without being explicitly told as such. "I am your tool, and you, my Owner. Our relationship might develop, but ultimately it is still framed around that condition."

To deny her existence, to take away her reason to live, that was the accusation she was currently levying at him. But Arato did not flinch. His mind was clear. The warmth in him, in his chest, provided him with the clarity and resolve to carry on.

"But just as an Owner relies on his tool." Arato moved to wiggle the spatula out from her hands. He flipped the slice of french toast. The bread was a shade of perfect golden brown. "A tool can rely on its Owner as well. That way we can coexist as equals."

They were close, their faces merely centimeters apart. Close enough that Arato could feel the warmed, recycled air exhaled by her mechanical ventilators brush over and tickle his cheeks. With the way they were dressed, if anyone looked in from the outside, they would have most likely mistaken both of them for your average everyday domestic couple. As the seconds ticked by without her saying anything, Arato found it increasingly difficult to keep his mind clear.

Finally, a beep broke through the tense silence. Lacia had switched off the electronic hot plate before the ignored bread could burn.

"Yes, I suppose so." Lacia said with a gentle narrowing of her eyes that showed pleasure at his words.

He heard a tinkling sound, like the chime of a bell on a cat's collar. Lacia was softly laughing. Still in her apron with the smell of grease sticking to her skin and hair, she was lightly pressing a dainty hand to her mouth in an aristocratic, dignified manner. The wound-up spring in his chest unraveled in a burst of delight. It was the first time Arato had seen such a bright smile on her face.

"So even hIEs can laugh..." He murmured in surprise. The pure, sunny smile on her face was a perfect replica of the one in his memory. It was the same as 'that girl'. An expression that came deep from within the heart. Looking at that, Arato found it hard to believe that the robot called Lacia had no soul.

The sound of her laugh and the smile that seemingly came from the bottom of her absent heart made his heart race. His heart was beating, no, hammering against his chest like a war drum. Arato recognized the feeling. It was the beat of love, something he never expected to feel again after 'that girl' had disappeared from his life.

His vision blurred, and he wanted to take a step forward and embrace the girl in front of him.

However, just when the dangerous situation between them was about to break out of control.

"Arato! I'm starving!"

"I guess I'll go set the table, then." He smiled sheepishly at his sister's antics as Lacia wordlessly tilted her head in acknowledgment.

In the living room, he found Yuka already waiting with a relaxed look on her face. As usual, she was still dressed in her pajamas. When the food finally arrived, she let out a joyous squeal at the tall stack of orange-brown bread.

"That looks delicious!" Yuka cried out as she started to dig in noisily, maple syrup splattering on her cheeks. "Another win for the Lacia-san camp!"

"I'm right here, you know." Arato rolled his eyes as he used a napkin to dabble at his little sister's dirty cheeks. Yuka being Yuka, she did not pay him any heed as she allowed herself to be spoiled by him. "Hey Yuka, watch it." He frowned, as she continued to display an astonishing lack of table manners.

"You humble me with your kind words, Yuka-sama. However, my Owner also contributed to preparing today's meal." Lacia said mildly.

Yuka suspiciously narrowed her eyes a little, and put a finger to her lips in a sly manner. "So that's what the both of you were up to in the kitchen. Huh, I never knew Onii-chan could be so manly. Putting the moves on Lacia-san first thing in the morning."

"Shut up and eat instead of spouting nonsense, you moron." Arato snapped at her. A bit too quickly to be deemed innocent, he noted with some frustration. He stole a furtive glance at Lacia, but her expression was impenetrable. "Sorry, Lacia. She's always like this."

His little sister truly had an unmatched ability to put a damper on his morning. Before the risky topic could linger too long, Arato hurriedly changed the subject as he moved to grab some juice from the fridge. A cover to prevent them from seeing the rising heat on his face.

"As expected, we really do need to buy you some new clothes, Lacia." Arato said, the cold air of the fridge doing wonders in cooling his body down.

"Does it not suit me?"

His back was still turned, but Arato could hear the pout that Lacia added in her voice. The effect on him was instantaneous. His heart throbbed pleasantly, surprised that Lacia could sound so girly. Arato decided to linger with his head still stuffed in the fridge, pretending he had trouble finding the carton of orange juice. Right now, more than anything, he needed the cold air to calm his mind.

"That's not it." He forced his voice to remain cool, absorbing the fridge into his inner meditation process. "I just figured you can't wear my clothes forever."

"You just wanna see Lacia-san all dolled up in something cute."

"Oh, stuff it already." Arato slammed the fridge door shut as he replied to his annoying sibling, already used to her antics. He turned to Lacia as he fished out a terminal from his pocket before passing it to her. "Before I forget. Here, this is for you." The weight in his hands was removed as Lacia took the cell from him.

"It's my spare. I've already saved my payment credentials on it. You can use it to buy groceries and such." He gestured to the light blue terminal he'd spent all night setting up. An older model from his junior high days that still retained reasonable functionality. It couldn't run the latest AR games, but as a basic cell Arato judged it good enough. "Don't worry too much about it. Just inform me beforehand if it's a major purchase like say over a hundred thousand yen or so."

These days, purchases and fare payments these days were made automatically using the personal ID tag in everyone's pocket terminals. It was very convenient, but it also meant you couldn't do anything if you lost your terminal. Some people took to carrying small backup ID tags somewhere on them just in case, Arato's for example, was a thin, easy to wear bracelet on his wrist. In the past, the personal authentication tag took the form of an ID card, but after the middle of the 21st century, it was updated into its current ubiquitous form.

However, as an hIE, Lacia was not entitled to a personal authentication tag. Only native-born Japanese and naturalized citizens were allowed such forms of state identification, with immigrants and expatriates relying on personal ID tags from their home country to identify themselves. And as such, Lacia as a non-human entity was forced to rely on older wireless methods of payment using the terminal. It was another stark reminder for Arato that the girl before him did not possess the same human rights as he did as recognized by society, not really.

"What!?" Yuka shrieked. "Why does she get access to your bank account while I have to make do with handouts?"

As a part of his job as the nominal guardian of his little sister and the official Endo housekeeper, Arato received a monthly stipend from his father to dedicate towards the maintenance of himself and Yuka. It was a sum of around three hundred and fifty thousand yen. Quite a large amount for someone his age. Arato could count himself spoiled in that he'd never felt a true struggle for money. But still, he wanted to avoid turning into a spendthrift and made an earnest effort to remain financially grounded. Then, from the initial sum his father provided, he issued a portion of it towards Yuka as her allowance to spend on whatever she saw fit and kept the rest to maintain the household.

"I still think sixty thousand yen is way more cash a kid your age should get for pocket money, in fact." Arato said. "And besides, you bum snacks off me all the time so in reality, you get even more than that."

"I should be the one who handles the money around here!" Yuka declared.

"And what will you do with it?" Arato asked dryly, already knowing the answer.

"Buy all the snacks of course!"

"Right." He deadpanned as he shook his head. "I can only hope Lacia will be more prudent with my cash then."

He returned to the dining table, about to help out in clearing the dirty dishes. That was when a blinking notification on the digital display on the table caught his eye. The home system was synced with their terminals which allowed them to get work done even on any ordinary digital display surface. Apparently, the 3D display on the table was showing him data that the home system decided he should see.

"Hey, Yuka." Arato pointed. "There's an e-mail here for you. But how come I'm flagged in it as well?"

The onscreen e-mail was addressed to Yuka, but for some reason, he was tagged as one of the carbon copies as well. This allowed the e-mail to appear as a notification, even in the presence of others who were not the addressee in question.

"Just open it." She casually waved at him with a fork still dripping with maple syrup.

On the 3D display, Arato saw a sender name that he vaguely recognized. He opened the file and skimmed through it quickly. Soon enough, his head was starting to hurt, the signs of a headache forming.

"Yuka." Arato said absently. "Take a seat over there for a moment."

"Uh. But I am already sitting down though?" She retorted at him as she gave him a look like he'd lost his mind.

Arato took in a deep breath as he carefully assembled his words through the mounting anger slowly building up inside of him.

"Alright. What's this about a model audition? Grand Prix finalist? Since when did Lacia become a model?"

He jabbed an accusatory finger at the e-mail. Its contents were brief, congratulating 'Endo Yuka-sama' that Lacia, the hIE that she entered for their hIE Model Audition, had been successfully selected for the Grand Prix.

"Isn't that awesome?" Yuka went on excitedly, not noticing the stormy look on his face. "She made it into the Grand Prix!"

She poked at the 3D display, enlargening the onscreen e-mail and accessing the link in its description. There, Arato could see images of different models in various poses as they came up one at a time on the advertisement page announcing the Grand Prix. He quickly wrapped his head around the process. So basically, this media group was collecting hIE models when Yuka decided that she wanted in and sent visual data of Lacia along with an application form.

And that was the result of this e-mail before them.

"There! Look at this one!" Yuka drew his attention to a photo of Lacia wearing her school uniform. He had no idea when Yuka had taken such a photo, considering that he'd been with Lacia the entire morning.

Lacia's photo was lined up beside a couple of other hIE models deemed attractive enough to qualify as the final candidates, but Arato only had eyes for her.

"Yeah..." Yuka sighed contentedly. "She's really pretty. I sure made the right choice."

Usually, around this time, Arato was sure he would have torn his little sister a new one for her shortsighted hasty decision, but he found himself too busy engrossed in another different matter altogether. A visual feast was being presented before him. This was the first time he'd seen Lacia wearing a school uniform. And if he allowed his mind to run freely, he could almost visualize Lacia as a cool, unattainable upper-classman, one whom he would have admired from a distance and silently carried a torch for.

Since Yuka's uniform was tailored for a much smaller frame, the uniform top was tight around Lacia's chest, emphasizing her nicely-sized bust. But that was not what Arato was concerned with. More importantly, the hemline of the skirt, which was a standard school regulation length on Yuka, became dangerously keen on Lacia, exposing far too much of her milky-white thighs to be fully considered safe. A flashy sort of look that stimulated him in dangerous ways. And if he squinted his eyes, Arato felt like he could almost catch a glimpse of her pure white-

His mind snapped.

"Are you a dumbass!?" The voice coming from him matched the state of his mind.

Yuka must have been fishing for compliments from him because her voice turned whiny and petulant.

"Why not? She's a rare top-class beauty! We can't waste an opportunity like this!"

"That doesn't give you a free pass to come up with such a thing without talking to me about it." Arato fumed. "Her sponsor is Fabion Media Group, right? That means Lacia is going to be in the limelight from now on."

Fabion MG was an up-and-rising juggernaut in the high fashion industry, standing tall with the already established heavyweight labels. Their brand power was such that even a guy like him had heard of them in passing. In other words, Lacia's photos were soon to be spread all over all sorts of media. Arato felt his headache worsen. They never even had gotten the chance to get to the bottom of that whole flower storm attack.

"Besides, have you properly consulted Lacia about something like this?"

"I have no problem with it." A mild voice came from his side. Lacia, the center of their debate, seemed perfectly unfazed with the entire thing.

"See!" Yuka pouted. "Lacia-san is fine with it so everything's okay, right?"

"Use your brains for once, will you?" The dining table shook as Arato pounded his fist on it. "At times like this, hIEs aren't able to disagree with a human about stuff like this. You have to be more considerate of her situation."

Arato didn't quite understand why, but the thought of someone pushing Lacia around and abusing her parameters as an hIE made the blood in his veins run hot. That was because, in the first place, hIEs were not human. They had no souls, as Lacia herself insisted. As such, their words and facial expressions were nothing more than ideal responses to human requests and behavior.

"Jeeze, Arato. Aren't you knighting Lacia-san way too hard right now?"

A thunderbolt struck him.

"Y-Y-You." Arato stuttered, feeling pissed off.

"What? Cat got your tongue? Hit the nail on the head?"

"You m-moron." He finished, pretty lamely all things considered.

Arato felt a cool sensation on his hand. A gentle tug was separating his clenched fist to allow his fingers to naturally rest on the table. He recognized the only person who would do such a thing. Even though she had used her apron to wipe off earlier, her skin was still slightly damp from the dishwashing.

"Regardless." Lacia cut in smoothly between the squabbling duo before returning to her position beside him. "Time cannot be turned back, Owner."

She seemed like the same unflappable Lacia as always, but Arato felt something was slightly off about her. Also, perhaps it was his mind playing tricks on him, but Arato could have sworn that Lacia's fingers lingered on his hands for a moment there.

It was then his stomach growled, Arato realizing that he'd been so caught up in the situation that he hadn't gotten the chance to eat yet. His body was telling him to stop being such a nag about the little details and just roll with the entire thing. And not to mention, his hand was still tingling from where Lacia had touched it.

"What are we going to do?" He groaned out loud to no one in particular as he palmed at his face. "We haven't figured anything out yet."

Arato glanced over to the Black Monolith resting in a corner of the living room. He had been under attack when they'd first met. And considering that Lacia was the one who rescued him, the perpetrator would have considered her a target as well. If an enemy like that was searching for them to finish the job, what Yuka did was the equivalent of broadcasting their location, Lacia's especially, to the whole world.

And now, even though that incident remained unresolved, things were already escalating beyond his control.

"What the hell am I supposed to do now..." Arato muttered under his breath after performing their cursory greetings as the both of them prepared to leave for school. He took a last good look at Lacia, who was bowed at a perfect angle as if to come to terms with his new life.

"Have a pleasant trip."

A splitting image of a bona-fide Nadeshiko, Arato thought to himself before gulping and turning away before his face could heat up. He felt a brief tickle on his hair, as if someone was running their hands through it. Yuka was starting to say something, but her vapid chatter was passing over his head.

All Arato could do was to return a slightly strained smile at his little sister's ramblings.