Chapter 9: Familiarity Principle
Summary:
"What would you have me do?" Lacia asked simply.
As his tool, Lacia could only execute his will. She could not make the decisions for him. Or at least, she always insisted as such in order to try to maintain the illusion of the Owner-Object hierarchy between them. When it came to 'suggestions' however, Lacia was always suspiciously helpful and available with those.
Thinking about it now, he could probably order her to kill someone and she would oblige without hesitation.
After all, Red Boxes like Lacia sought to fully automate the lives of their Owners via analog hacking if they found themselves allowed to.
Kouka sought to achieve this by driving him to the psychological edge. While Lacia went about it by presenting herself as easily available pornography, and it was becoming harder for Arato to resist her allure.
"Alright, go ahead and spoil me."
A devious smile crossed her face. It sent chills down his neck.
"Oh, Arato-san. You needed only to ask. If it's you, I will gladly take you inside me as many times as you desire."
Sometimes, it really did feel like the more time he spent around her, the more his sense of reason was starting to slowly warp into something unrecognizable.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting all this time." Lacia excused herself as she set the tray of food by the table in the living room. She was wearing a casual magenta one-piece dress that would have passed off as normal daily apparel, but Lacia made it look stylish in a way that only she could.
After thanking her for the food, Arato took his seat as he prepared to dig in. Lunch today was omurice, and judging from the light sheen of grease on the perfectly shaped oval on top of the reddish rice, it seemed like she had pulled out all the stops to make the legendary version of the dish instead of the usual. However, there was one last step before Arato could judge it properly.
"Oh wow, I've only seen this kind of thing in a video." He said, referring to how the pale yellow oval delicately broke apart to reveal brightly colored egg curds after he had sliced it down the middle with his knife. The perfectly cooked omelet resembled a fluffy circle covering the tomato fried rice. "Even when I eat out at a chain restaurant, it usually isn't like this."
"Really, Arato-san. This was merely a recipe I replicated from the cloud." Despite the trouble she was giving him whenever he stubbornly insisted on treating her like a human, Arato couldn't feel any resentment from the way Lacia was showing him a warm smile as she gently rebuked him. Of course, it also helped that her smile happened to be a perfect one that never failed to take his breath away every single time he saw it.
Yet, it was still a smile that was as artificial as the one who wore it.
Indeed, the warm smile she carried was nothing but a fabricated expression that originated from the same place as the recipe for the omurice on his plate. It was pulled from massive databanks stored in the cloud, the same ones that the AI within Lacia drew upon as an hIE to receive her instructions. That meant that once upon a time, a human in the past had smiled in that exact same manner, just like how human chefs had come up with the recipe for the omurice. Arato did not know the limitations of the cloud services which she was able to access, but from the way she seamlessly picked up everything around the Endo Household with expert proficiency, he assumed that it was practically infinite. It also had the effect of reminding Arato of her true, inhuman nature.
Lacia-class humanoid Interface Element Type-005 'Lacia'.
An object created in the image of a 'human'.
She was also a 'Red Box', a creation of an ultra high-performance AI made with technology beyond the current abilities of humans to achieve on their own power.
But even though she was a human-shaped object that could only replicate a previously recorded gesture of a human and adopt it for her own use, Arato couldn't stop his heart from racing whenever he saw a smile cross her usual poker face.
He watched as Lacia sleekly removed the ribbon she used to keep her hair in a ponytail whenever she was cooking in the kitchen. The unfurling motion and the way she shook her head to loosen them had the effect of stealing his breath away. The individual strands of her light violet hair seemed to dance under the motes of the morning light.
If she was walking down a street, even in a city like Tokyo, Arato was inclined to believe that most people, men and women both, would turn their heads to notice her. Blessed with a graceful bearing, glamorous facial features, and beautiful, silky hair that always looked like it came straight out of a shampoo commercial, Lacia was a natural head-turner, and that was before the addition of any cosmetics. Whenever she went, a bittersweet aura followed her. It was the taste of bitterness that lingered on one's tongue when one realized how out of reach a divine goddess like her was when compared to their inferior, mortal forms.
Arato as well tasted the same bittersweet taste in his mouth. It resembled biting into a bar of unsweetened dark chocolate. It was this inferiority complex mixed with a not insignificant helping of sexual desire that served as the cloud fogging his mind. Under the oppressive pink haze, Arato could only blankly stare at her. Although as she continued to work on straightening her hair, it seemed that despite his moment of weakness, Lacia did not seem to notice the ulterior motives inside him.
The hIE Lacia might have been a heartless machine, but to Arato, she was also a woman positively dripping with allure.
When she moved to straighten her bangs, the motion of her arm in action made it expose the white of her slender neck, and to the surprise of his horny teenage mind, a certain sacred place that was usually hidden away from the prying eyes of the world. Arato was sure that she wasn't doing such a thing on purpose, after all, Lacia probably wasn't knowledgeable enough to understand the concept of such a thing, but somehow the idea that he was getting an accidental peek only served to increase his excitement.
In fact, it was exactly due to its status as an accident that multiplied its destructive potential by a hundredfold.
Those were the thoughts running through Arato's mind as he calmly burnt the sight of her perfectly depilated white armpit which looked brighter than his future into his retinas. In a way, Arato felt like he was starting to understand the appeal of chiralism.
When the sway of her dress caused by the movement made by fixing her hair revealed to him the exposed border line that connected her underarm to her chest, Arato couldn't help but inwardly gulp. For some reason, the situation had taken a pretty voyeuristic undertone, with him playing the part of the criminal.
"Is there something else?" Lacia, with her hair back in her normal style, asked. Her voice today was as alluring as usual, cool but not cold, with a hint of warm sweetness lingering beneath the frigid surface. It was a silvery, beautifully modulated voice, the sound of it resembling frosted sugar to Arato's ears, and it never failed to make his body tense up in delightful, nervous anticipation.
"I was just thinking about how it's not even May yet. Considering everything that's happened, it felt much longer than that." He hoped that the guilt in his voice wouldn't show as he hurriedly changed topics while averting his eyes towards the digital clock. Any more staring and Arato felt like a new, risky interest would take root inside of him.
Indeed, it was on the 10th of April that he met Lacia, and considering that today was the 23rd of the same month, that meant that he hadn't even known Lacia for two weeks and already he had become so obsessed with her. In a way, he understood why his friend Ryo was giving him a hard time regarding the way he treated Lacia as if she was his very own Dulcinea.
"Oh, but don't humans often like to say time slows to a crawl when you're having fun?" The slight upward tilt at the corners of her lips added to the prickling sensation of tension. Arato tried to ignore how she was staring at him with beautiful pale blue eyes. She had a habit of doing that, and whenever she did, it felt as if she'd completely seen through him. It also didn't help that despite how technically lovely her smile was, there was always a certain uncanniness to it that Arato couldn't quite fully place. There was a sort of vague confidence and allure mixed in that smile, one that only a woman could give.
"No, I'm pretty sure it's the opposite." He said tersely, using the retort to serve as an excuse to smoothly transition into looking away. All he had to do was to avoid looking at her. If his eyes ignored her, then nothing untoward would happen. Simple enough.
For a moment, Arato thought that he could catch a flash of something that almost passed off as a disappointed pout on her face.
The girly way she laughed at his correction had the effect of sending pleasurable chills down his spine. It was a perfect, refined laugh, one that was a touch too ideal to be fully called natural. It was a laugh that wouldn't be out of place from a hostess at an expensive cabaret club. Her automated laugh was so on the money that Arato was confident that if he had a cigarette between his fingers right now, Lacia would be leaning over to light it. That or pour drinks for him.
Right as that coarse, slightly too adult-like image crossed his mind, Lacia leaned over in an elegant way to lift the teapot to fill his cup. To Arato, her movements carried a subtle eroticism from how they emphasized her white neck and cleavage. Sometimes, he could swear that Lacia was actually an esper in disguise, for it seemed as if she could read his mind. From this, Arato knew in the back of his mind that she had steered the conversation in this direction on purpose.
But if Lacia had deliberately chosen the incorrect answer in order to trigger a specific reply from him, where exactly did that leave him? Especially considering he had automatically responded to her planned scenario. However, that wasn't even the scariest part. What frightened him the most was how comfortable he was starting to become playing along with her script, even if he was only dimly aware of such a thing.
Perhaps, in a way, this was how actors felt when they enacted a predetermined role in a stage play.
However, such a thing was only valid if one put too much thought into it. Already, he could feel his mind start to heat up from all the overthinking and he knew that this was the beginning of a rabbit hole he had no desire to explore. All he needed to do was to trust Lacia.
That and there was delicious food cooked by a girl he liked in front of him. It might have been a simple way of living his life, but to Arato, sometimes the simplest acts were the most meaningful. Also, without Yuka around to play the third wheel between them, it was easy to be in a good mood.
After the fight with Kouka, Arato had gone to the hospital for treatment where the doctor on duty there had issued him medical leave for the rest of the school week. Therein existed the other reason for his current easy-going demeanor. With this, he could finally enjoy some alone time with Lacia without his annoying little sister interrupting them. If Lacia had noticed such a thing and adjusted her behavior accordingly, Arato could not tell. To begin with, he already had trouble reading normal women, never mind trying to gleam the thought processes behind the actions of a heartless machine.
While he was pondering all that, Lacia reappeared from the kitchen with a bottle of ketchup in her hands which she used to draw a sleek zigzag line of red on his sliced omelet. Arato couldn't help but feel slightly let down. A small part of him had hoped that Lacia would have drawn a heart with the condiment.
"Oh, it's not going to be a heart?" His true thoughts slipped out before he could stop himself. Arato immediately felt like cringing.
"I see. If that is your wish then I will prepare the necessary equipment." Lacia replied immediately, seemingly unfazed by his random request.
"The what now?" Arato asked, completely taken aback at the confusing turn their conversation had suddenly taken.
"A maid uniform."
He was speechless. The floating sensation in his mind must be how it felt to be shoved off the top of a water slide without warning. Lacia had come at him at a way so out of the left field that Arato hated to do this, but on such short notice, it wasn't as if he had any other choice.
"Huh? What was that?" Then he hurriedly tried to change the topic. "On a different note, are we having rice again for dinner today? With the weather being so hot recently, I was thinking some chilled soba instead would be nice, haha."
Please take the hint! Arato screamed internally to himself.
The following silence was physically painful. Her piercing stare that accompanied it, even more so. Arato felt so much like trash that if one were to go outside and search for a trashcan, there would probably exist one with his name on it. To begin with, not only was the concept in itself bad, but the execution was also a flop as well too.
"A maid uniform." Lacia repeated bluntly. Immediately, he felt foolish for even trying to deceive her.
"I'm sorry. Truthfully, I heard you the first time." His voice was weak and wobbly, resembling the creaking of an old windmill.
The way she quietly stared at him made him want to pull out his hair and yell.
"But don't go ahead and feel that you're obliged to do something like that!" He was feeling defensive all of a sudden. "If you're against the idea then that's totally fine! I care about how you feel as well. In the first place, things like that are pretty demeaning, I don't know what kind of sick person forces a girl to dress up for his interests. Its society that's messed up by linking the idea of service with it. Those cafes in Akiba, they're just pandering to their customer base, that's all."
At some point, he wasn't even sure about the things that were coming out of his mouth. Arato was just going off without thinking because of the internal guilt he felt from imagining how good Lacia would look all dolled up as a maid.
"In that case, I take it that you would not like me to ever wear such an outfit then." She said innocently.
The way her flat voice pierced through him was like a bolt of lightning and Arato realized that, already, with just a scant few moves, he had already been cornered by her. If they were engaged in a game of chess, it would have been checkmate. Once again, beyond the ridiculous conversation, the way she could casually outsmart him like this seriously frightened him. Arato couldn't help but internally grimace as he already knew the words he had to say lest he let this chance slip away from him.
"...I didn't quite say that." As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a pang of self-loathing surge through his body and tried to think of a way to salvage himself from the hole he'd dug for himself.
"French or Japanese?" Lacia pressed, sounding oddly persistent.
To tell the truth, he had no idea on what was the correct answer to give. But even Arato knew that an important decision lay before him. He thought about it carefully. While French-style maid uniforms were the norm nowadays, he couldn't deny there was a certain appeal to the traditional kimono. Just thinking about how the frilly white maid apron would contrast with the kimono was oddly intriguing. Not to mention it would be wonderful if she could combine it with a nukiemon style to better show off her neck.
Thinking about all these kinds of things was starting to make him feel like he was getting dangerously close to losing it.
"F-French doesn't sound so bad." He managed to stutter out despite himself. In the first place, he needed to consider how he would seem towards her. He didn't want Lacia to think that he was the overly conservative sort of guy so he thought that picking the mainstream choice was the best play for now. The entire thing was embarrassing enough without the thought of Lacia judging his decision too harshly.
"I see." If she wanted to add any extraneous comments, Arato did not have a clue. But he didn't quite understand how one could put so much implication in a simple response the way she did. Not to mention, the blunt way Lacia went about the entire thing as if she were a flight attendant at an airline asking him 'Would you like chicken or fish?' for his inflight meal had the effect of taking the wind out of his sails. She was acting so detached that there was seriously nothing sexy about it at all. But that was to be expected, she was an hIE after all, not a human.
Just when that depressing thought clouded his mind, Lacia bit her lip and looked away. "So you enjoy these sorts of things." A faint shade of red was starting to mottle on her pale cheeks. Her timing was so impeccable that if Arato didn't know better, he would have suspected her of being clairvoyant.
Even though Arato knew it was a calculated reaction, it was still so stimulating that he lowered his face and tried to focus on eating his lunch instead. It might have been his turbulent emotions but his first bite bought with it a tempered hiss of pain. The doctor had given him painkillers for the injuries he'd sustained from their fight with Kouka, but putting too much force in his chewing could still send a shard of discomfort piercing through the numbing effect of the medicine.
"Does your cheek still hurt? Do you require something to cool it down?" Lacia asked.
Perhaps it was because a girl asked him such a question, but as a guy, Arato felt compelled to endure everything with a nonplussed cheer to try and show off.
"Thanks to the anesthetic, I can't feel anything. It's nothing compared to the time I went to the dentist as a kid." He tried to reassure her. But still, Lacia looked unconvinced. Maybe it was because he overdid the enthusiasm, but she was clearly unhappy with his answer.
"Can you really not feel a thing?" Right as she said that, she reached over with her index finger to gently stroke his right cheek. Despite the lightness of her touch, Arato couldn't help but fight to suppress a wince from how sore his face still felt. Unlike hIEs, humans took time to heal after all.
"It's true. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing you know? My face is completely numb from the analgesic." He insisted. What did she even want him to say anyway? Something along the lines of "Yes, it hurts real bad so could I please borrow your lap to use as a pillow to recover?" But after seeing the cloudy expression on her face, Arato found himself forced to admit the truth.
"Alright, fine, it stings a little. But it's mostly numb, that much isn't a lie."
Lacia didn't say anything for a moment, instead looking like she already knew that all along. Arato got the feeling that she was just being polite to him. "If so, please close your eyes and turn the other way. I will need to administer the treatment."
Arato blanched at her order. "That stuff again? The last time I did that, you went ahead and pulled off something crazy." He recalled the other time in his room when she had analog hacked him, and Arato was not keen to repeat the same disorienting experience.
"I will do nothing of that sort, I assure you." She promised him while fidgeting on the spot. Seeing the normally confident Lacia act all shy like this made her look really cute. Maybe it was one of her analog hacks to get him to agree, but it still made his heart skip a beat so Arato decided to play along.
"Okay." Arato said, doing his best to remain composed.
Closing his eyes made him even more aware of the rest of his senses. From his ears, Arato heard the soft tapping noises of her light footsteps along with the measured sound of her breathing close to him. From his nose, he was made aware of her scent. It was a fresh and floral fragrance that brought to mind the natural sweetness that only a woman could possess. Finally, from his skin, he felt the brief touch of something incredibly soft and slightly moist on his cheek.
And then as soon as it had happened, the sensation was gone. But one thing was sure, he heard the almost inaudible sound that came whenever a pair of lips left skin. His eyes shot open wide in surprise quickly enough to catch a glimpse of Lacia taking a step back.
"Huh? Huh!? Huh!?" He repeated like a broken record. Never mind his heart, his mind was racing at a hundred kilometers an hour. Had Lacia just done what he'd thought? He looked at her to confirm, but she was standing there playing with her hair with a bashful look on her red face.
"Was it to your expectations?" She asked. The way she coyly blushed never failed to make his heart throb with passion.
"Did you just kiss my cheek?" Arato blurted out before he could stop himself.
"Who knows? I might have merely made a sound with my lips." The soft laughter that came from her made him feel foolish for even saying such a thing. Not knowing how to respond to that, he lowered his flushed face and focused on quietly finishing the rest of his lunch.
When all was said and done, Arato stood up and let out an unrestrained yawn. With the surge of carbs entering his bloodstream, the usual post-lunch sleep monster was coming to collect its due. Spending the rest of his free time lazing around watching TV sounded like an irresistible idea to him. However, before he could get to that, he found himself interrupted by Lacia.
"I believe that you have homework." She said mildly. Already, she had taken the initiative to pull up the email account he used for school on the dining table's 3D display. There, the bright red exclamation mark stared back at him like a sadistic curse that he couldn't escape from. She wasn't wrong, even though Arato was excused from school, that didn't mean he could avoid his school assignments.
Arato checked the digital clock again. It was coming close to one in the afternoon. That meant that he had only about an hour and a half of free time left before he had to go pick up his little sister Yuka from her junior high school. He didn't want to start on something only to drop it partially through. If possible, he would have much preferred to be able to complete the entire thing from start to finish in one go.
"I'll do it later in the evening." He tried to brush her off.
"It's better to not procrastinate such things." Lacia pointed out.
"But the weekend's almost here, can't you cut me some slack? It might be due today but technically as long as it gets done before midnight, I'm still in the clear." He knew it was stretching it, but considering that today was Thursday, Arato just wasn't feeling as hardworking as he would be on a Monday. That and he was technically supposed to be resting, after all.
For the first half of the 21st century, Japan continued to stick with the traditional 5-day work week. Despite increasing demands to match similar trends adopted by the governments of European nations and the United States, the Japanese government dragged its feet as long as it could, giving reasons such as the reduced global competitiveness and efficiency of its workforce.
Japan had always been a nation that prided itself on its strong work ethic, a concept that was usually cynically measured in quantifiable means, both in raw labor hours and the number of deaths caused by overwork. Even in the current era, this was something that did not change. But by the second half of the 21st century, even Japan found itself with no choice but to follow the rest of the world in adopting the 4-day work week in a belated effort to increase the work-life balance of their labor force and at the same time to try and tackle the issue of the decreasing birth rate. Schools too were next to follow in the adoption of the 4-day week, as the purpose of schools was to prepare students for their entry into adult working life.
Yuka had once mentioned that the 4-day workweek was one of the reasons she was glad to be born in the current era. Of course, the other reason she gave was the existence of hIEs like Lacia to cater to her every want and need. The other day when he'd asked her to list her favorite inventions of the past century, she had rattled off 'Television', 'Pizza-La', and 'Arato(slave)' in that order. Though she wasn't even present, just thinking about his moronic little sister gave him a headache. In the first place, out of the three, only he had been created in the 21st century.
"Oh, that's a shame. Here I was thinking of allowing you to rest your head on my lap as a treat for your hard work." Lacia pouted.
"Well, why didn't you say so earlier?" When he saw how incredibly cute her sulky face looked, he felt like a firecracker had gone off in his heart, and it washed away all of his previous drowsiness like a wave. Being so easily affected by her like this, even Arato himself felt that he sometimes really was far too easy around her.
"However, that is only if you can complete it within one hour. You still have to pick up Yuka-sama from school, after all." She reminded him.
"Come on, that's totally unfair. It's impossible." He started to complain but Lacia was having none of it. The way she held firm against his complaining reminded him of how his mother used to do the same when he was making a fuss as a child.
"I do believe you will find many things previously considered impossible, possible if you put your mind to it."
The casual way in which she said it was light, without any real harshness in her even voice, but Arato still felt like he was being lectured somehow. With his mother long gone and his father occupied with work most of the time, he was frankly quite unused to what should have been a familiar experience for someone his age. As the eldest child, and with Yuka still young and developing, it wasn't as if she could properly lecture him either. It was called talking down, not up for a reason after all. Though he supposed that Lacia had noticed this as well, and this was her way of keeping him straight and true.
In any case, the clock was already ticking and Arato had no intention of letting the promised reward slip away.
"Of course, of all things it had to be science, and chemistry at that. It couldn't be something easy like social studies." He couldn't help but complain when he saw the attached document in his school email account. Twelve long-form questions awaited, their answer sections dauntingly blank as if mocking him. While he was running his mouth, his fingers moved across the on-screen keyboard organizing his textbooks and other relevant materials in a subwindow.
Antagonizing minutes ticked on by, and Arato found himself frustratingly stuck at his task. It wasn't as if the assignment was too high level for him, but rather, the distraction came from another source.
"Lacia, I can't focus like this." Standing in such close proximity made him aware of her light perfume and it had the effect of turning his mind into a jumbled mess. Arato couldn't quite make out her scent, but Arato guessed it had to be one of the many complimentary products Lacia received from Fabion MG working as one of their models.
When she moved away to disappear from his field of view, Arato couldn't help but let out an involuntary sigh and relax. He hadn't realized just how much some personal space could allow his mind to think clearly. It was strange, but thinking about it, lately, it felt like Lacia was making an effort to hover around him all the time. It was not that she was clingy, because she didn't demand his attention to be on her. But rather, she made herself available to him, and it was the influence of her aura that made him want to pay attention to her.
At times, Arato felt like his entire world was starting to solely revolve around Lacia, and that nothing else mattered. But, he was sure that was something he was overthinking as well.
Besides, his homework wasn't going to finish itself. However, right when he was about to properly get on with it, Arato found himself suddenly stabbed in the back without warning.
"Oh, that's cheating. Attacking from behind like this, is this revenge for Pearl Habor?" He burst out as if he were a samurai being attacked by a thug, referencing how on the 8th of December, 1941, Japan preemptively attacked the United States without a declaration of war. This, along with the soft sensation of her smooth hands around his collarbones made the tension in his body rocket up to the limit again. It was like allowing a drowning person to rise to the surface for a quick gasp of air before crushing their hopes by forcing them underwater again.
Lacia might have been a Red Box, but she utilized a frame from Stylus, an American high-end producer of hIEs. Arato took it to mean that she was American by the concept of jus soli, considering that as a machine she had no blood right to call upon. Not that the laws of a country's citizenship applied to a non-human entity anyway, but in any case, it still felt far less crude than considering her a mere product that only so happened to be 'Made-In-America'.
"Your body seemed stiff so I sought to help correct it. Please take care to maintain a proper posture when working." From this angle, Arato couldn't quite see her face but could clearly hear the innocent voice behind him.
"No, I get the feeling you're just trying to distract me."
"That too." She added.
Arato elected to ignore her and focus on his homework instead of wasting any more time. Soon enough he found himself settling into the usual routine. Before long, he was completing questions at a steady pace.
"Make sure to do them properly."
"Of course, I'm not the sort of person to half-heartedly rush something for the sake of it." Hearing Lacia say the same kind of things his mother would was making him feel indignant in a way that only a child could feel towards a parent. "Say, now that I think about it, why don't you ever offer to help me with my homework?" He asked. As a Red Box, Arato was sure the AI inside Lacia was easily capable of solving these elementary questions.
"It is against the rules for a student to use an hIE for such a task. If you were to be found out, a warning would be issued by your school faculty, followed by a temporary suspension if you persist."
"Wow. They really take this kind of stuff seriously, don't they?"
"The spirit of education is rendered meaningless otherwise, after all."
When she put it in that way, Arato honestly felt quite bad for even suggesting the idea in the first place. However, putting that aside, he had picked up the specific way in which she had worded her reply. It was something he had started to notice about Lacia, that she was very careful in the manner she arranged her words.
And she had clearly said 'If he were to be found out.' To Arato, she might just as well have came right out and said 'It's not a crime if no one finds out.' As his tool, Lacia would do anything he asked of her. The thought of such a power being thrust into his hands made his stomach turn at the possibilities. Considering that she had already killed someone based on a mere interpretation, thinking about it now, he could probably order her to murder someone and she would oblige without hesitation.
Suddenly, the weight of her hands on his shoulders felt very heavy indeed.
"And that's the last one." He submitted his homework after performing the usual checks at the end.
"So you've managed to complete it in time." Lacia noted.
"Did I? To tell you the truth, I was too focused to notice." Arato started to muse as he stood up to stretch. He checked the digital clock. Just like she had said, there was still fifteen minutes to spare. "You know, come to think of it, it feels kind of nice to get everything out of the way early like this for once."
"Now then, I believe it's time to claim your reward." She was already moving in the direction of the sofa. Arato felt his heart skip a beat. Watching her sit there with her hands on her lap was filling his chest with a domestic sort of affection.
"Huh? Wait, hold on, you were serious?" He asked in confusion. Earlier, Arato assumed that she had been just trying to push him to take a step forward in her usual teasing manner.
"I always am." Lacia dryly said before patting her lap as if she were beckoning a pet or a small child. "Here, it's all yours."
Arato simply blinked. He was so dumbfounded that she had to smile and pat her lap again to try and prompt him into making a move.
"Are you sure about this?" He stared at her nervously. They had cuddled before, but that was behind closed doors in his room late at night. Somehow, doing it in the middle of the day made it feel like their relationship had transitioned from a secret affair-like rendezvous to something more legitimate.
"Yes. You've worked hard. Your reward is fully earned and deserved. Please feel free to unreservedly indulge yourself in being spoiled to your heart's desire." She delivered the normally embarrassing words that would have given any regular human pause honestly and without a hint of irony in her voice, in a way that only a soulless machine could.
"Even if you were to put it that way, I'm still not sure how to go about the entire thing." Arato said wryly. Did she seriously expect him to just dive in and shamelessly roll around on her lap? Not to mention, standing here and having a conversation with her about it was making things awkward.
"Then, how about you reduce your mental age?" It was here that Arato noticed the alterations she had made to her speech patterns. Lacia sounded a touch more mature somehow. The pitch of her voice too had changed, turning high and sweet. He had the sneaking suspicion that she was trying to analog hack him again. Just that thought alone served as his center and prevented him from being swept away by the momentum.
"What, you mean like babble like a baby?"
The worst part of it all was that it was still working. His chest felt like a messy ball of string that had been tied into countless dead knots.
"You're unable to?" Lacia asked innocently.
Arato grimaced painfully. "I don't think I'm that hopeless yet." Even for him, that was going a bit too far, analog hack or no analog hack.
"You're unwilling to?" She pouted.
"Repeating the same thing isn't going to get you a different answer." Arato deadpanned. "It's not a matter of willingness. Asking me to forget myself to the point of acting like an infant is really too much of a tall order."
"It does seem that your condition has yet to reach that stage. Your internal self-concept has not been degraded enough for that." She used her dainty fingers to pinch at the hem of her dress, lifting it ever so slightly to reveal more of her creamy thighs. "How about now?"
Whatever follow-up response he was about to come up with found itself jammed stuck in his throat.
"Would this enable you to more readily succumb to your instincts?" Lacia smiled gently as she invited him. Hearing his reply was unnecessary, for Lacia's calculations probably already told her that he was unable to reject her when it came down to something like this.
He understood that as Lacia was a tool to automate his lifestyle, she was simply selecting the action that would best align with his happiness. This was something the rational part of his mind recognized, but even so, he couldn't help but want to believe from the way Lacia smiled that she too felt something for him as well.
The air conditioning was running at full blast, but Arato could still feel the heat radiating from his face. There was no mirror around to check his expression, but even he knew that he had to be making a hell of a face at the moment.
"W-Well, if you insist... E-Excuse me." Arato tried putting on his best nonchalant act about the entire thing, but he was pretty sure his cracking voice gave him away and betrayed his manly pride.
It took almost everything he had to avoid cringing. If his little sister Yuka were around to see this, he might as well jump off the balcony and commit suicide in shame. Already, he could mentally visualize her expected reaction.
"Seriously? Holy shit, my hopeless brother is such an easy mark."
Arato internally yelled at the imaginary Yuka in his mind to shut up as he made his way closer to Lacia's lap, making sure to regulate his approaching speed the entire time. On one hand, maybe there was some truth in the way imaginary Yuka had called him a pushover...
... But on the other hand, thighs.
The heavenly softness he felt on his face and neck had the risk of turning him into a complete moron, but Arato ruthlessly silenced the excited shout that almost made its way out of his mouth. As he lay on her lap, Arato kept screaming to himself to stay cool about the entire thing, the pounding of his heart not helping matters any.
Oh shit, thighs. For a few moments, that was the only thing he could think about.
Such was the sordid visage of one who threw away their pride in order to kneel and worship the one true religion known as the church of thighs. A thighdeology if one could call it that. In such a degenerate place of sin, one could always wash away the shame of losing their pride with the fluffiness of warm and squishy thighs.
"I think I can die happy now." The tactless comment slipped out before he could stop himself. From his position looking up at her, he could see how her silky lavender hair adorned her beautiful face like a curtain. His eyes drifted towards her chest. Arato knew better than to do something like this so openly but he couldn't resist the temptation. Now that he was up close and personal, his initial assumption of her bust size was clearly wrong. They were larger than he had thought.
Lacia softly laughed. She had probably noticed his reaction. She then reached out her hands and started to stroke his hair. It was a strange feeling, being treated as if he were a child, but it wasn't like he had any complaints at the moment.
"Do you find my lap to be that comfortable?" The way she beamed at him had the effect of accentuating her lovely cheekbones. Arato found that he needed to constantly remind himself of the fact that she was a heartless machine, lest he allowed his fantasies to run wild beyond his control.
"Uh, it's alright I guess." He tried to lie to her. Great, as if being a pushover wasn't bad enough, Arato thought to himself. Now he had to go and act like a third-rate tsundere about the entire thing. No matter how low he'd sunk, there were still some final remnants of his pride left. There was no way in hell he was going to gush over her on top of everything he had already done. Never doubt the indomitable will of the people that had once been samurai. Japanese spirit was unbreakable.
... Or so he futilely tried to tell himself.
"What am I supposed to do while you spoil me?" Although Arato did enjoy the sensation of having his head petted like this, it still bothered him how one-sided the entire situation had turned out.
"Oh, you're doing just fine. But if you insist, how about you think about what other sort of services you would like me to perform?" Lacia told him while continuing to stroke his head.
Hearing such dangerous words from the source of his affections made his mind feel like it was about to boil over. All of a sudden, Arato was made hyperaware of his surroundings.
The warm softness of her plump thighs.
The floral scent of her expensive shampoo.
The round shapes of her womanly chest.
It felt like all of his five senses were starting to muddle together in a Lacia-flavored cocktail.
"I think it's best if I leave that up to you to decide." Arato knew better than anyone else that pushing the choice back to her like this was a cop-out, but right now, he seriously did not trust himself to not say anything he would come to regret later. In the first place, was it even alright to ask for those sorts of romantic gestures from her? As far as he knew, their relationship wasn't at that level where they could be considered a couple. Heck, outside of his selfish desires for intimacy that he projected onto her, he wasn't sure what even was their relationship at this point.
"Would you like to upgrade to the premium service plan?" She asked.
"That sounds out of my price range." He had no idea why Lacia was suddenly talking as if she was a call girl on the other end of an adult hotline, but Arato tried to keep up with his usual tsukkomi routine anyway.
"There is a free trial available." Lacia dryly said.
"When you put it like that, how can I say no?" When the words came out from him, Arato felt so embarrassed that he wanted nothing more than to hide his face behind both hands and disappear. Even for a teenager like him, it came across as trying way too hard to seem cool.
"Now then, please hold still." She then brought her pale lips close to his ear and blew gently. The bundled up feelings in his chest felt like a bomb about to go off, but Arato managed to remain calm by banishing his mind to a safe place very far away.
"Well, why don't you make me?" His melting heart might have been a complete mess, but Arato remained outwardly defiant, like a delusional dictator holed up in his bunker even as his capital fell around him. He kept telling himself that the Japanese had a proud tradition of dying to the last and he couldn't betray his national history just because a very pretty girl that also so happened to be the object of his affections ordered him to roll over.
That was when Arato belatedly realized that he had inevitably played himself right into Lacia's planned scenario. Saying childish stuff like that made him really come across as a small kid throwing a tantrum towards his parent. Maybe he really was being quite childish by acting all stuck up right now instead of breaking down his barriers of shame to fully indulge himself, but in any case, as Arato reminded himself like a broken record, he was going to draw upon the famed fighting spirit of the Japanese (or something along those lines). At the Battle of Shiroyama, even after their leader Saigo Takamori had been killed, the rest of the rebelling samurai drew their swords and charged, dying to the last in battle.
Indeed, by sprouting all these sorts of nonsensical lines that had no bearing on the current reality in his mind, Arato made up his mind to prove to the devilish American-made hIE that he would never submit to her will.
"I see, so you've entered your rebellious phase as well." Lacia said calmly. She seemed disappointed in him. When he saw that, Arato couldn't help but feel like his heart had been stabbed.
Seeing her unhappy face had almost triggered a Pavlovian-like response from his body and Arato felt his tough guy act almost slip. He found himself wrestling back a fresh surge of desire. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't a sexual sort of desire. Rather, it was an emotional one. It almost scared him sometimes how attached and invested he had gotten towards what counted as her apparently non-existent feelings of personal happiness. More than anything, he desired Lacia to be happy. And above all, he wanted to be the selfish sort of guy who could make her uniquely happy in a way no other man could.
But those were his true feelings to be resolved at a later time, right now he was busy playing along with Lacia.
He mentally readjusted himself to stabilize his wavering resolve. After all, he hailed from the famed Endo samurai clan (not), with a family lineage of over a thousand years (he made that up just now), and with the power of mental roleplaying that would make even the most hardcore chuuni cringe, he would defeat this devious foreigner(whom he totally wouldn't mind marrying and devoting the rest of his life to).
Japan will never surrender! All things considered, reducing his mental age and acting like a moronic eighth-grader turned out to be more fun than he had thought it would be. But having said all that, Arato was still seriously glad that no one else was around to see him acting this foolish. Besides, roleplaying a chuuni was clearly the better option over the other choice of infantilizing himself. He would require a lobotomy first before that could happen.
"Oh my, then how about if I do this?" She pouted and leaned closer to him. All of a sudden he was hit by two nuclear bombs that made the world in his field of view turn pitch black. Her scent as well became overwhelming. Of lilacs and lavender, warmed due to her body heat, like a flower blooming in summer.
Everything stopped. Arato froze like a statue made of solid ice. Precious seconds ticked by in silence. His entire brain had suffered a catastrophic blue screen. If a map of his mind were to be projected onto a piece of paper, it would probably resemble the messy scrawls of a modern art piece.
"You win! I unconditionally surrender! Occupy me and write my constitution!" Arato was croaking out nonsense that he did not even understand. Lacia had used the weapons of mass destruction attached to her chest to smother his face. It was like being hit by a pair of twin shocks at the same time.
Immediately, Arato started to make overtures to establish a peace treaty as the situation had developed not necessarily to his advantage. As expected, Japanese spirit was no match for American technology.
As if to seal the deal, Lacia let out a short, breathy laugh that only served to drive him even deeper into the rabbit hole of insanity. As a teenage cherry boy who had never once experienced the touch of a woman, Arato couldn't bring up any examples in his mind to try and compare the breasts of an hIE with the breasts of a human woman. If there were any differences, he did not know.
Maybe later he could ask his little sister Yuka to let him feel up her chest in order to check and compare the difference. After that, he could approach the nearest police officer and save everyone the trouble by turning himself in.
Aside from that, what he did know was that having his face smothered in robot titties was driving him nuts. It felt good, like really good. The elasticity was sublime. Human technology had advanced to the point that he didn't know to be awed or afraid. Despite his inexperienced virgin self not knowing any better, Arato was pretty sure that the full firmness currently being smooshed on his face was as close to a perfect replica of the real thing as one could get.
"H-Hold on, are you not wearing a bra?" The sensory overload felt like it was about to overwhelm him and he had to blurt out the question driving him mad. The combination attack of feeling her thighs and breasts at the same time was seriously turning his brain weird.
"hIE frames do not require the same support as female humans." The way she demurely blushed made the circuitry inside his brain explode. He was malfunctioning. The entity known as Endo Arato was falling apart from the critical blow he had suffered.
Arato let out a choke. "What about your p-pa-" He couldn't quite squeeze the words out of his mouth. "What about down there!? Are you not wearing any as well!?"
"Who knows?" A devious smile crossed her face and she started to tug at the hem of her dress. More and more of her creamy skin was being dangerously revealed. The entire thing was made even riskier with how he was still using her lap as a pillow, which put his face only centimeters away from her most important place. "Why don't you find out for yourself?"
Arato was close to outright losing it. He knew he had to put a stop to the entire thing before it spiraled out of control. "Is this another one of your analog hacks!?" He raised his muffled voice to yell at her, despite feeling like he could have happily died right there and then without any regrets. "Am I being analog hacked right now!?"
"Yes, you are. Would you rather I stop?" She asked.
"No! Keep going! For another seventy or eighty years at least!" His sense of shame and rationality was flying out of the window. Arato was self-destructing. He was yelling out the most embarrassing and ridiculous things that came to mind without thinking.
As if she was amused by the delirious ramblings of a lovestruck teenage boy, Lacia laughed. Arato wasn't quite sure if she was laughing at him or with him. He sincerely hoped that it was the latter. In any case, he was more concerned about trying to desperately hold the final pieces of his sanity together.
It was a shameful thing to admit, but it took absolutely everything in his power to not give in to his desire to suck on her chest. No matter how much he wanted to, Arato couldn't lower himself to do such a thing. He wasn't an infant anymore. Not to mention, there was also the deep-seated insecurity regarding the vagueness of their relationship hounding him. The last thing he wanted was to perform a misstep and have it all blow up in his face.
But since Lacia had requested for him to reduce his mental age in the first place, could it stand to reason that she would be fine if he took her nipples into his mouth? However, that would mean she wanted such a thing to happen. No, dubious inferred consent aside, he seriously had to stop with this train of thought. Or else something seriously, seriously bad would happen. If that mental line was crossed, it would be an irreversible change.
Sometimes, it really did feel like the more time he spent around her, the more his sense of reason was starting to slowly warp into something unrecognizable.
Eventually, Lacia dialed back on her analog hacking. He noticed this from the way she stopped pressing her chest on his face. Arato took the chance to properly breathe and fill his lungs with fresh air. Slowly, like an addict that had been weaned off the opium fumes, his mind began the recovery process. His thoughts soon returned to a state resembling normalcy, properly formed and settled.
Resting on Lacia's lap and having his head gently stroked, the world seemed at ease.
"Say, Lacia." Arato forced his voice to remain casual. It wasn't as if he wanted to ruin the comfortable mood between them, but there was something that had been nagging at him about Lacia's behavior this entire time. Now that he had the chance to think about it, it had to be the only plausible explanation. "You used the home system to look at photos of my mother, didn't you?"
He recognized the maternal affection in her actions. Indeed, the things she did, from using her lap as a pillow to stroking his hair, they were all things his mother had done for him as a child when she was still alive. That was probably the reason for her earlier request for him to act childlike as well.
"That I did." She admitted calmly.
"I put a password there for a reason. These kinds of things are sensitive for me." Arato had to make a conscious effort to adjust his words in a way that didn't make it seem as if he was scolding her. He reminded himself that as she was an hIE permanently connected to the internet, Lacia probably had different views regarding the idea of digital privacy.
"My apologies. I simply wanted to know more about you, Arato-san." She said, looking bashful.
Arato made a face. Great, now he felt like a complete asshole. Good job, forcing a girl to apologize to you, you feel like a big man now? His mind yelled at him.
"It's okay. But next time, if you want to know something about me, you can just ask." A small rational part in his mind was warning him that he had already told her off before about this, and that if he did not properly get mad at her or set clear boundaries, Lacia would continue to trample over all the things he considered important. But Arato told that annoying voice to shut up, and that Lacia wasn't the sort of person to dig up old wounds to hurt him.
"What was she like?"
Arato slowly closed his eyes as if he was about to drift off, drawing upon the memories that only grew more distant with each passing year. It was not something he pondered about often since it had happened nearly a decade ago. But from time to time, during the moments that he did stop and think about his past, he felt like remembering such things only allowed the preciousness of 'now' to shine through even brighter.
"Honestly, I don't remember her that well since she passed away when I was around the age of seven. So if you were to ask me to describe her personality in detail, or who she was as a person, I can't answer that question since I spent most of my time with her in my formative years. That said, I do vaguely recall her as a figure that was kind, warm, and always smiling. Although, there was one time she told me off when I drank Yuka's orange juice in the fridge without permission. She said something along the lines of "an older brother has to take care of his little sister." So I guess if I learned anything from my mother, it would be that it's my job to look after Yuka and put her needs before mine."
She wasn't the first person that he relayed this piece of his past to. His childhood friends Ryo and Shiori both had heard it before her. But what surprised Arato the most was her reply, or rather the lack of it. Usually, at this point most humans, as he'd known from experience, would have interjected by now to reassure or comfort him.
Lacia did not say anything, opting to silently continue stroking his head instead. She simply listened without interrupting, giving him her full undivided attention. Somehow, Arato felt that her unspoken words meant so much more to him than any human's reply. He found so much meaning in her tender caresses that Arato found himself quickly blinking away a sudden moisture in his eyes.
Arato cleared his throat. He needed to get a grip lest he started to fall apart. "Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not telling you all this just to get your sympathy or anything. Either way, I've been doing my best to carry on like she would have wanted me to. It's just sometimes..." He trailed off, unable to finish.
"It's lonely." He wanted to say. With his father occupied with work on most days and Yuka being well... Yuka, sometimes, it felt as if there existed a gap in his heart that needed to be filled. Not even a mother, even a big sister would do. Arato had spent so much time taking care of others that sometimes, he wished that there was someone to take care of him instead. He had friends, close ones even, but they couldn't hope to compare to the sort of comfort a woman could provide.
"What would you have me do?" Lacia asked simply. As she was a soulless machine, things were always simple and clear-cut for her.
As his tool, Lacia could only execute his will. She could not make the decisions for him. Or at least, she always insisted as such in order to try to maintain the illusion of the Owner-Object hierarchy between them. When it came to 'suggestions' however, Lacia was always suspiciously helpful and available with those.
It was one thing he still could not quite figure out about her. That, and her nonchalance about being seen as anything else but a tool. When compared to someone like him who was constantly trying to figure out their relationship, at times Lacia came across as outright aloof about the entire thing. Sometimes, he got the feeling that she wouldn't mind subscribing to whatever role he wanted her to play.
He couldn't quite explain why. Arato wasn't sure if it was a matter of her not understanding such things to begin with, or if it were a case of the advanced AI within Lacia actually understanding these sorts of concepts, but simply choosing not to place the same value on them as he, a human, did. Indeed, at times, he felt as though Lacia simply saw such things as unimportant, like a soulless machine that only cared about the outcome and everything in between was simply a means to that end.
Between the two possible options, Arato wasn't quite sure which one was the absolute truth. But from how frighteningly sharp she could be at times, he had a sinking feeling about which assumption happened to be the correct one.
Her mechanical frame emitted the same artificial warmth as usual, but somehow, his home felt a bit colder.
"I guess in that case... You could spoil me like this once in a while?" Arato felt pathetic even as he said it. He was looking towards a heartless machine for comfort. But in contrast to his bitterness, the beaming smile that filled her face was radiance personified. Feelings of affection and happiness rolled off her form in waves as if to wash away all of his worries.
"Oh, Arato-san." Lacia murmured his name as if she were his lover. "You needed only to ask. If it's you, I will gladly take you inside me as often as you want."
She said all this while showing a wide and perfect smile. Even her artificial breathing and the rise of her chest resembled the serene calmness of a goddess.
When faced with a smile like that, things like who Lacia really was, or her actual goal, such questions faded away like the fog in the morning. All Arato knew was that she existed, a luminous beauty of the highest order, her pure snow-white skin sparkling and glamorous as if she had been gently sprinkled with drops of holy water.
"Okay." He rolled his entire body to turn away from her. This wasn't only to prevent her from seeing the redness on his face. It was also to hide the reaction downstairs that had been stirred awake by her strangely erotic choice of words. Arato was sure that he was being the dirty-minded one, and that Lacia did not mean it in that way, but he still couldn't stop his horny teenage mind from conjuring up lurid fantasies about her.
After some time, Arato did not know how long exactly, he felt her hands stop.
"Unfortunately, your time is almost up." She said.
"Can I have an extension? I'll pay your fee, whatever it is." He asked.
"I do believe Yuka-sama would be most cross with you if you were to do that." As if to emphasize how serious she was, Lacia was already nudging him to move off her lap.
She was right, as usual. Due to all the excitement, he had almost forgotten about his annoying little sister.
"Yeah, yeah. Time to go pick up the esteemed Yuka-sama." Upon witnessing his grumbling, he heard Lacia let out a gentle laugh. She seemed delighted at his newfound honesty. He too was surprised at how relaxed he felt around her. Just a week ago Arato would have held his tongue in an attempt to maintain his image.
"Would you like me to accompany you?" Lacia asked as she stood near the entrance to the Endo Apartment, helping him put on his jacket.
"I think it's better if you stay home." Arato told her.
"Oh my, are you already tired of me?"
"W-What!? No way!" The way she pouted made Arato fumble like he was clearing up a misunderstanding with his girlfriend. "I totally want you to come along! It's just that I feel bad for taking up so much of your time that you haven't gotten the chance to start preparations for dinner yet."
That's right, Arato remained himself that he needed to be considerate towards her as well, and that not everything revolved around him. It was hard at times, considering how he knew that as an hIE, Lacia would go out of her way to cater to him. In a way, she presented herself as easily available pornography, and it was up to him to carefully pay attention to these sorts of things lest their relationship became too one-sided.
For hIEs, even ones that were Red Boxes like Lacia sought to fully automate the lives of their Owners via analog hacking if they found themselves allowed to. That was their fundamental purpose, and one they took seriously. Lacia had once told him that she carried no desire to be the tool that had misplaced the confidence of its Owner in performing its functions. Even Kouka, for all her wild ferocity and seeming independence, had too held such a purpose in high esteem as well.
To Arato, it seemed that even the heartless tools called hIEs had their own twisted sense of pride. But in a way, he understood. hIEs were not organic life forms. Every single one, from the cheapest economy model to the priciest luxury ones, or even the dangerous Red Boxes, was each a purpose-built creation to fulfill a certain goal. Unlike humans, they were unable to create their offspring while lost in the throes of senseless passion.
Without such a purpose, none of them would have been brought into this world. To deny that was to essentially deny their existence.
After all, the obstetrician delivering a newborn infant from their mother's womb does not immediately go on to tell said newborn their purpose in life. Humans were left to their own devices to try and figure out their purpose and meaning over the course of the journey known as 'life'. hIEs were the exact opposite. Even before their creation, their exact purpose and role in this cruel world had already been decided for them, and such a thing defined them.
That was the point Kouka had been trying to get at when she attacked him. That until Arato could find the courage within himself to clearly define the role that Lacia was to play as his tool, he would always be holding her back from her full potential.
"The forecast does not predict rain, but in the unexpected event that it occurs, please do not hesitate to call me. I will be over right away with an umbrella." Lacia said, her hands moving across his jacket. Apparently, there had been a bit of lint on it.
"Yeah, that'll be a real lifesaver. Thanks a lot, Lacia." His heart was pounding away in his chest. Doing these sorts of things at the entrance to his home had the effect of making Lacia come across as though she was seriously his wife. Although to get there, Arato supposed she had to skip a couple of steps along the way, considering that they weren't going out or anything.
Lacia took a single step forward to reduce the distance between them to zero, and brought him close into an embrace. "Please have a safe trip. As always, I will be here awaiting your timely return."
"Make sure there's plenty of rice, I'm pretty sure Yuka is going to demolish it all anyway." Heck, they were even talking as if they were already husband and wife. Arato fought to resist his heart from completely taking control of his body from his brain. He kept telling himself that it was merely an illusion created by the affections he projected onto her, and that Lacia was only responding in a way he would find most positive, but his heart still felt like it was about to explode from all the love he felt for her.
"Yes, I will make lots, you need not worry." He heard her whisper sweetly in his ear as she continued to tightly hold onto him. Arato hadn't even properly started his own life journey yet, but he felt like he was about to break out in a sweat from the excitement alone. It didn't matter that she was an artificial construct wearing a human guise. The object in human form known as 'Lacia' was still immensely dear to him. For Arato, she had the ability to evocate the same feelings of intense longing and sexual desire that a man could only hold for another woman.
He forced his hands to remain still at his sides. Arato felt like a complete mess. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Did she expect him to return the hug? They had hugged before, but those times usually occurred when he had been swept away by the momentum of his feelings. But now with his mind and rationale still relatively clear, Arato found himself paralyzed with indecision.
Even if he were to hug her back, where was he supposed to place his hands? Around her upper back like a friend? Across her waist like a girlfriend?
... On her ass as if he was a molester on a train getting fresh?
He found his internal turmoil resolved for him by Lacia pulling away to end the hug. Arato hoped to hell and back that her apparent mind-reading powers did not pick up on the disgusting train of thought that had popped up at the end.
"Then, I'll be going now." It felt like he was telling that to himself more than to her. He was blushing, he was sure of it. He might have been projecting his fantasies onto a heartless object, but the mirroring redness on her face and the affection in her pale blue eyes almost had him convinced that she loved him as well.
Arato knew better than anyone that none of it was real, and that it was just an illusion created by her analog hacking. After all, love was impossible without a heart.
But even so, he could not deny she moved him in ways that only a human could.
He shot a final glance over his shoulder before he turned the corner leading to the elevator. He had expected Lacia to have retreated back inside the house, but she was still standing there in the still-open entrance watching his every move.
Of course, she was still watching him. That was normal. It was something to be expected. But somehow, Arato had the nagging feeling that Lacia had more than her eyes to observe him with.
He turned the corner completely and she was gone.