A/N- You can see all my thoughts for this whole thing on the other end of the chapter here.


Recursion Error

Episode 91- DATE


The delivery job turned out to be pretty great.

Sure, Sorun'd had reservations about it at first, even if he hadn't made them all that vocal. Delivering stuff with Yamato meant traveling outside the city. The safe city he was supposed to stay in because it was safe, preferably forever. But, in reality, Eggman didn't have a stranglehold on the world anymore since he and all his forces were all concentrated in a single, burnt-out city of rubble on the other side of the continent, continually locked down by the Freedom Fighters. So for all intents and purposes things were safe everywhere else. And hell, with portals Sorun didn't even need to worry about traveling. It was just in instant walk-in to any destination.

The traveling was nice, even if the visits were brief just to drop off Honey's deliveries or bring stuff back. He got to see things. Station Square was a nice enough sight when it wasn't embroiled in guerilla warfare. The people were nice enough and if he squinted enough it almost reminded him of Detroit, except shinier. He probably would have chosen to live there after all if his home and friends weren't already here.

It was a nice job overall.

He emerged from the portal in the middle of Honey's shop. His right hand held a sword that at this point in his life was little more than a fast travel item, and by now Sorun was completely okay with that. He held a book in his left hand, something he'd taken a detour to get from a book shop he'd seen outside the window to the post office. They had a great selection there, nothing like the library in New Mobotropolis.

Sorun stared down at the book in contemplation. He'd like to start reading it tonight, but, well, he'd already made plans...

"There'll be another time," he mumbled to himself as he closed the portal behind him. Yamato dissolved and reformed into the blue Emerald, and he looked up after depositing his GREAT DELIVERER hat on his personal employee-only hat hook hanging on the wall.

At him.

The guy standing across from him.

The one holding the box.

The other guy that worked at Honey's.

The lynx guy.

... Sorun couldn't remember his name.

"Hey, Lance," Sorun greeted with a wave. The lynx's face fell a bit in annoyance.

"It's- it's Larry, Sorun," he corrected. "Larry. This is the third time."

"... Third?" Sorun repeated, surprised. He'd forgotten his name three times? Couldn't be. His memory wasn't that terrible, was it? Nah, no way. "You must be miscounting," he told him, completely sure of himself and in a voice that was a hundred percent confident.

"I really haven't."

"Honestly, it's insulting, Larson," he continued, ignoring the lynx entirely. "Truly. That you would ever assume I'm as contemptable as to forget the name of my fellow man, coworker, and neighbor. It'd be downright shameful," Sorun told him, though for some reason it was making Larry's mouth drop open in disbelief. "Persons such as that are truly debased."

The lynx Mobian's eyes narrowed at Sorun in part suspicion and part incredulity. "Are... you're messing with me, aren't you?"

"That's really up for you to decide." Sorun's eyes flashed with mischief. The other male coworker didn't look approving of it.

"You know what, whatever," the lynx huffed, hefting the box he was carrying. "I got enough to deal with-"

"LARRY!" a voice screeched from the other end of the shop, causing both males to flinch. "WHERE ARE THOSE MATERIALS I ASKED FOR!? I'M RUNNING BEHIND SCHEDULE HERE!"

"C-coming, ma'm!" Larry shouted out, before slumping and making a pitiful sound. "That woman's a speed demon, I swear. She makes clothes faster than I can bring cloth to make them and I still have to pack away everything she makes after this. She's a slave driver."

"Yeah. I've been there. Just do what I used to do and write with two hands at once on all the shipping labels," Sorun suggested.

Larry blinked in surprise. "I-I can only write with the right hand."

"... Really? You ought to fix that." Idly, Sorun began tossing the Emerald up and down while looking at Larry with a bland expression. "In other news, Station Square is really great this time of year."

Larry's expression became extremely twisted in consternation at the human's friendly but uncaring tone, though he tried to remain friendly-looking while doing a poor job of it. "Is that right?"

"Yeah, they even have this nice little café there. You believe they take Mobian currency, too? The guys over there are really progressive." Up and down the Emerald went in Sorun's hand. "This job is really great, man, I'm basically being paid to travel and all I gotta do is carry some boxes back and forth."

The strain on the Mobian's face became more pronounced. "I really bet. Must be nice, having such a convenient power. Whereas mine is anything but."

"Ah, well, maybe it'll evolve into something cool and marketable if you just die a couple times like I did and come back," Sorun suggested in a lighthearted tone, making Larry's body jolt a bit. "Or you could join the Freedom Fighters and they'd just drop you behind enemy lines for your power to just passively disrupt everything."

"I think I'm good. And, uh, believe it or not but Sonic kinda did something like that. Once, like, years back when we were kids. There was this incident and it was this whole thing and- ah, you wouldn't care," he said. The Mobian's eyes trained themselves onto Sorun, silently looking for any sign that his words provoked something in the human, even the barest amount of interest.

To his disappointment the only thing in Sorun's eyes was complete disinterest. "You're not wrong," he agreed.

"... Okay, well, good talk, Sorun, but I really gotta get this stuff to Honey." Larry turned around, making a miserable sound as he began trudging towards the other end of the shop. "I swear, my bad luck let me have this job just because of the people I'd be working with..." he mumbled under his breath as he walked out of sight.

"What a downer," Sorun thought as he watched Larry trail off. He felt the smallest compulsion to pursue the matter, but quickly realized he didn't care at all, so much so that the memory of the encounter was already fading due to how little Sorun regarded it. He blinked a few times and looked down, realizing he was holding a book.

Ah, right, he'd bought a book. He would have liked to get into it, but he had that date...


The bookshelf was a quaint little thing, a thing Sorun had to buy because he'd been an idiot and convinced Nicole that there should be a cap on how much free furniture he should get, but it'd been another point towards supporting the community so he didn't let it bother him too much. The collection was sparse. Mostly because it only had a single book in it right now, the one he'd just bought, and he hadn't even read it yet. But one day. When he had some free time and nobody to spend it with for whatever reason.

'Til then he had important matters to attend to. Which was, Sorun and Nicole had finally settled on a date for the date. Which happened to be today. In fact, it was in... Sorun glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. Which he'd also bought.

Oh. Gee willikers. Ten minutes from now.

Sorun found himself biting his bottom lip. He thought he'd be excited for this, but in truth, he was just plain nervous. Anxious to the point of passing out, actually. He had zero experience with this kind of thing, and he didn't know what they were supposed to do beyond just having fun. He did know it didn't entail video games, because that was something they always did and dates were suppose to be special. And since this was the first date it had to be extra special. So no video games.

That was a bad thing since that was practically all Sorun was good at.

"I shoulda made plans," Sorun lamented. He should have the moment they'd agreed on the date, and it didn't help Nicole hadn't discussed it further with him before disappearing off to go do whatever she did all day. The whole managing the city thing. But he'd been too lazy, or too nervous to think properly, he didn't know and quite possibly it was a combination of these two things. Work had been a nice distraction but that was done and this was now and right now was-

Sorun's head snapped back at the clock. He'd been pacing back and forth stressing about this and suddenly he only had a minute left.

In a scream of panic, Sorun ran to the front door and opened it. At the same time, the exact same moment the clock hands moved to five o'clock, she appeared in front of him, same as always, not looking the least bit as panicked as Sorun was, who tried maintaining a neutral appearance but on the inside was screaming because all he'd done to prepare for this date was take a shower and that was it.

That and that they were seriously doing this. That this was happening. And Sorun had no idea what happened from here.

Instead of greeting him, Nicole's first reaction was to look down a bit at Sorun's body. She regarded his torso for all of a second and then looked back up at him. "You're wearing that to our date?" she asked. Sorun flinched at the question, but relaxed when she didn't sound upset. Just perplexed.

In response, he looked down at the blue coat he was wearing. "Yeah?" he voiced, sounding a bit confused as he looked back up at her. "I always wear this. You made it."

She looked a bit surprised at hearing that. And then actually looked away, appearing almost bashful from the reasoning. "That's very flattering," she mumbled, "but you truly don't have to wear it for every occasion."

And now Sorun looked confused. "But you wear the same thing every day," Sorun pointed out. "In fact all of our friends wear the same thing every day. Actually, does... does anyone ever actually change clothes here?"

Sorun's brows furrowed in thought. It just occurred to him, but had he ever seen anyone he knew here wear something different? Now that he thought about it Honey wore that exact same black and red dress every time he saw her. Sally always had that same vest. Antoine always had that same jacket. He remembered Amy buying dresses that were completely identical to the one she always wore despite her argument to the contrary. No, now that he thought about it nobody ever changed clothing.

And then Sorun looked down at his own blue coat he wore every day and realized he was guilty of the exact same thing.

"Dear god. I'm turning native."

"You've a fair point." Nicole's voice broke Sorun out of his horror and made him refocus in on her. "But for your information I've been working towards developing an alternate set of clothes for my own avatar body. Maybe you're satisfied wearing the same coat every day, but I'd like a change."

"Oh, really? You don't like the...?" Sorun trailed off when he looked at what Nicole wore. If he was honest with himself he didn't even know what to call what it was she was wearing. A dress made of purple wrappings? Was there a word for something like that? Was "dress" even a satisfying word for what she wore? "Outfit?" he tried saying, lacking a better descriptor.

Nicole shook her head. "No, I do. I'd just like something different for every once in a while."

"Oh." Fair enough, he supposed. "What is it, then?"

"That would be telling." She sent Sorun a teasing smile, causing him to roll his eyes. "And I'm still trying to get it just right," she then admitted. "But I incorporated a heavy amount of purple into it."

"You like purple, huh?"

"It's one of my more favored colors."

"Ah, okay." Sorun gave her a questioning look. "If you like purple so much how come you didn't give yourself purple fur?"

For some reason she laughed at that. "I'm afraid that would have looked too out of place. After all, there has never once been a recorded instance of a purple lynx Mobian."

Sorun blinked twice in confusion. "I've literally seen a giant purple cat man."

"Cats are not synonymous with lynxes, Sorun. There's a fundamental difference between the two species."

"... Alright, so! This date, huh?" Sorun quickly asked, loudly clapping his hands together. He stepped forwards next to Nicole while pointing his body in the direction that lead away from the house. "What, uh, what do we got planned, what are we doing, what's going on?"

"Well... we've some options." Nicole turned around and stepped next to him as they began to walk away. "There's a game to be played at the sports arena later on that I know a number of people are attending to see. Alternatively I know of a performance at the theater that's also being planned. I'm not too partial to either, so you can decide."

Before Sorun could respond he felt movement near his hand. He glanced down and saw, with some embarrassment, that Nicole had interlocked their fingers together, without even acknowledging it. He didn't fight against it, feeling the contact to be surprisingly welcome, but it'd been sudden and unexpected enough that he'd still been startled by it. And along with that was the acknowledgement they'd be seen in town like this.

He found himself looking away from Nicole in further embarrassment. It was a thought he could barely stand, people seeing him like this, but he'd put up with it for her sake since this is what she apparently wanted. He still found himself brushing his dark hair over his face to try and hide as much of his blush as possible. He counted it fortunate his hair finally grew long enough to stretch past his face that such a thing was possible now. Provided it wasn't a windy day.

As if the world itself was out to spite Sorun, a nearby gust of wind lightly rustled his coat and blew some of his hair back.

Ignoring the world's indolence, Sorun thought on Nicole's proposal. Sports or theater. Tactically speaking it was more viable options than he could have ever dared dreamed of, but he didn't need long to consider. He was never much of a sports guy, but a theater? Well, that was a whole other thing entirely. He didn't even know they had a theater here but now he was feeling eager to go just to see it.

"Well, since it's on the table I never have partook in Mobian theater," Sorun said, grinning a bit. "I'll expect great things. A thought-provoking narrative that'll have me reeling for whole weeks."

Nicole lightly shook her head in amusement. "I'm sure they won't disappoint you," she assured him, smiling all the while. "Come along. The theater's this way."

She pulled him forwards, leading the way while still holding his hand.


For Nicole's sake he put up with it.

For Nicole's sake Sorun resisted the unbearable urge to groan out loudly and proclaim how boring this was.

For Nicole's sake he kept his thoughts of wanting to do literally anything else but this to himself as he slumped back in his seat.

When she had told him it was a show at a "theater", Sorun had assumed movies. He hadn't seen movies in near a year now, and the thought of a Mobian movie intrigued him to no end. So he'd jumped at the prospect.

But apparently here the term "theater" was a bit more traditional than Sorun had been suspecting. Because it was apparently theater in the literal sense. As in a theatrical performance. A play. Not a movie.

People here liked plays apparently.

Unfortunately for Sorun he didn't like them.

He could respect the art form, if nothing else, but that was all he could say about plays. And he could try to to appreciate this play in particular if it weren't for the fact it was a romantic story about some woman embroiled in the middle of a love triangle, and with how much of this Sorun had seen in shows back on Earth he saw every plot twist and turn coming a mile away. Predictable story elements. Story stings that offered no surprise. Not a single interesting thing to be seen because Sorun had seen it all before.

Didn't help that a lot of the Mobians playing the characters weren't all that good. The main actress was actually pretty alright, but with the exception of a couple more besides her it was ech.

With a slow motion, Sorun swiveled his head to look at the seat on his left. Unlike himself, who was dying on the inside at seeing this, Nicole was absolutely engrossed in the play, practically leaning forwards in her seat and focusing on the performance with every fiber of her virtual being. Which, at any other time would have been adorable and endearing to see. But Sorun's soul was shriveling up by the second here.

He was tempted to ask how much longer this play would go on for, but he didn't want to risk incurring Nicole's wrath at interrupting the play. Or even worse, imply in any way that he wasn't enjoying the play and accidentally sour the date. So he suffered in silence, if only for her sake.

Didn't stop him from watching the play with the most braindead expression humanly possible.


"You didn't enjoy the play."

"Whaaa...? Nah, no way, wha-what ever gave you such an assumption?" It was when they were exiting the theater - pfft, theater, right - when that observation, and it was an observation due to the lack of an inflection making it sound like a question, was thrown at Sorun.

He hadn't even seen it coming. There they'd been, locked in hand because Nicole was starting to make it a habit, with the AI herself practically beaming. She'd enjoyed the play, at least, which Sorun supposed was all that really mattered. And he would have liked to have left it at that before she threw that curveball at him.

Evidently his attempt at deflecting the accusation didn't work, because now Nicole was affixing him with a knowing look. "You looked like you were trying to fall asleep through most of the performance," she pointed out to him. She didn't look to be beaming anymore.

"Big emphasis at try. Sleepin' through that woulda been a mercy," Sorun mumbled out, giving up on trying to deny the accusation. But all that did was make Nicole frown and cause Sorun to panic slightly at the sight. "What? The plot wasn't good."

"I thought it was sufficiently entertaining."

"It was just 'Romeo and Juliet' but... like, worse. Which in itself is a pretty big achievement because 'Romeo and Juliet' was already pretty bad," Sorun said. "'Least I thought so, anyway, but it was all the rage back in my old home. 'Oh, but it's a classic about fleeting, forbidden love and totally not a couple idiot kids doing stupid stuff for the sake of a fleeting crush.' And this version didn't even have a cool sword fight. And nobody died at the end."

Nicole gave him a quizzical glare. "I would think nobody dying in the end would be a highlight of the story."

"But then where's the stakes? The suspense? The drama? It's completely boring if everything works out for the protagonists and they get to ride out into the sunset arms in hand to live happily ever after. No thought-provoking narrative, no sense of realism that could immerse me in the plot, every single twist was being telegraphed from a mile away with nothin' creative going for it, it just- I didn't feel all that immersed in the narrative, Nicole, and frankly it wasn't that exciting."

"... Sorun, it was a children's play," Nicole reminded him, sounding dumbfounded at his take on the play.

"Yeah, and those kids couldn't act to save their lives." His standards hadn't been that high when he saw that it was a bunch of kids performing the play, but they hadn't been nearly that low. He swore half of them could barely remember their lines, stuttering out the words like their brains were overheating just trying to assemble the letters together in their minds.

Nicole shook her head. Whether it was in amusement or disbelief he couldn't tell. "So this play of yours was a popular one in your own home, then? Who died at the end?"

"Oh, both the protagonists. Nobody got a happy ending."

"What lesson is there to be taken in a romance story where the main love interests die?"

"I dunno, stupid kids do stupid things?" Sorun shrugged. "Why, why was this the play we went to, anyways? Why a kids' play?"

"Because the New Mobotropolis School of Performing Arts has a very diverse number of acting groups and they were the ones scheduled to be performing today," she answered, and then asked, "You really didn't like it?"

"It was..." Sorun rose his hand that wasn't being grasped in front of him, made a sighing sound and let it flop back to his side. "I mean, you seen as much media as I have from back on Earth and suddenly ya got all this experience and less and less stuff stops exciting you. I'm holding out that literature can still surprise me, I bought this book from Station Square, but that play. Ech." He shook his head.

"I see..." It took a second for Nicole to speak again. "Sorun, I wanted this to be something we could both enjoy. For the sake of the date."

Stumbling a bit at her words, Sorun quickly responded with, "I-I mean it wasn't like it was completely unenjoy-" He stopped dead when Nicole gave him a flat look. "By that I mean you were there and it made it bearable," he quickly corrected. "I didn't have an awful time. So. Yeah."

"... Well, at the very least it was something to talk about," she said. "And the date isn't over yet."

"Hey, if you just wanted to find somewhere quiet to talk we could just do that," Sorun suggested.

"We talk frequently. I was under the impression a date was supposed to offer a change to our normal routine and interactions."

"Yeah, but, like, you know. Talking about date stuff instead of regular stuff."

She gave him an inquisitive look. "And what does 'date stuff' entail?" she questioned.

At that, Sorun released a breath and looked away, shyly rubbing at the back of his head. "You know, uh... feelings. And stuff," he mumbled out. It felt like a struggle just to get those words out it was so embarrassing, and as the seconds passed Sorun began to slowly regret ever brining this up. He wasn't sure how he'd get through a talk about feelings at this rate if it was this hard saying just this much.

"Okay, then." And once again Sorun ends up shooting himself in the foot, because Nicole looked agreeing to the idea. "We'll find somewhere private to talk."

One of these days he'd learn to keep his mouth shut. It wasn't this day.


"..."

In the awkward silence Sorun found himself clicking clicking his tongue while quietly tapping on his legs. When Nicole had said somewhere "private" he assumed something like his house. Or a soundproof room somewhere. The park. The server room in the science center. Something like that.

He was somewhat right with the last assumption, except Nicole picked the roof of the place. Just teleported the both of them there and made a pair of chairs for them to sit down in. Wasn't exactly conventional, but at the same time it was far enough from being weird that Sorun didn't think much on it and just went with it, with him sitting in one chair and Nicole sitting in the one next to him.

Wasn't a bad view, at least. It was a nice view of the city, and the sky was bathed in hues of blues, reds, and oranges with the sun approaching sunset. At any other time he'd go as far as to call it a surreal sight, but the situation of him being in the middle of his first every date was fraying his nerves too much to appreciate the scenery.

Encapsulating his feelings to other people just wasn't something he did. It wasn't something almost anyone did where he came from. With her, it was... easier, somewhat, Sorun would readily admit it, but that didn't detract from the difficulty in not only finding the words to say, but to just try and figure out what he was feeling in the first place. It was ultimately feelings of nervousness over this whole thing and the joy that somehow, in defiance of all belief, he'd pulled off making it this far with her that were so well-blended together that Sorun was coming up with blanks on what to do, and was really holding out hope that Nicole would start talking soon so he could just piggyback off that.

Path of least resistance and all that.

"This is nice," Nicole announced from besides Sorun, looking out to the sunset-bathed city in front of them.

Sorun internally winced. That conversation starter didn't give him much to work with. After a few moments of breakneck thought, the best response he could give her was a solid "Yeah."

"'Yeah,' he says." She at least sounded a bit amused, which Sorun took as a good sign. "I went through all this trouble to set us up with this venue and the best response you can muster is 'yeah', is it?"

Okay, he could work with this. "Well, uh... yeah." When he glanced over at Nicole he caught her covering a smile with the back of her hand. "I don't know, I would have tried booking us a reservation at that one really fancy restaurant, but, er, you don't eat. And I figured it woulda been really weird to have a date where I'm eating and you're kind of just watching so I figured dinner dates were just, like, not a thing we would do."

The hand dropped away from Nicole's mouth. The smile faded. "I could just make virtual food and pretend to eat alongside you," she offered.

Sorun made a nervous laugh. "No, that's, that's fine. Really." He didn't even know whether to call that endearing or not. "There's more to dates than eating. I'm pretty sure."

"Yes, like speaking. As you've proposed," Nicole pointed out. "Though the talking, I feel, hasn't differed from how we normally talk."

"I mean, I was under the impression this was the part where we, uh, just said stuff to get to know each other better." He waited for Nicole to respond, but all she was doing was waiting for Sorun to continue, making him anxious as he glanced away a bit. "Not that I'm asking you to bare your soul to me or anything, but, um..."

Slightly, Sorun went a bit limp in his seat. Even he could see this was going nowhere, and the embarrassment from letting this continue was outweighing the nervousness preventing him from asking the question he really wanted to ask. So he went and asked it.

"So why me?" Sorun asked, looking back at Nicole. "I'm glad we're doing this, I really am, it's just that... well I imagine you probably process time a bit differently than other people, being an AI an' all, but even so compared to everyone else I knew you for the shortest amount of time. Barely two-thirds of a year. So why?"

The question seemed to catch Nicole a bit off guard, as she gave him a somewhat surprised look. Nevertheless, she did take a small bit of time to process the question before answering him. "You are the only one who's ever expressed a romantic interest with me," she said.

"Sure," Sorun hesitantly agree, "but so did you. So why me and no one else?"

This caused Nicole to pause significantly longer than she had the first time, even going as far as to look down a bit as she thought over the answer. Eventually she looked back up and began speaking again. "I never did tell you how I came to be here, did I?"

"Something about a pod? I dunno, Rotor told me a bit way back."

"That's accurate, yes. I'd arrived in that same handheld that used to house me." She looked ahead towards the city. It was one of those rare moments where Sorun saw such an introspective look on Nicole's face as she spoke, speaking quietly with a somewhat subdued expression. "I don't know where I came from. I was supposed to; there are old memory files that indicated signs pointing towards me having been sent with a specific purpose in mind, but they're blank, as if whoever designed me wiped them at the last minute before sending me for whatever reason. Whether they changed their mind or something went wrong for whoever and wherever is a complete mystery I doubt will ever be solved."

"Oh. Er..." Sorun was already growing a bit uncomfortable, and sad at the same time for her sake. "Y-you really don't have to do this if you don't want-"

She immediately waved off his concerns with a small smile. "It's alright, Sorun. It's completely irrelevant at this point and doesn't matter all that much." The smile slowly began to drop off as she continued. "But it was the others that found me in that pod, yes. They were children at the time, not even teenagers. It was early on in Robotnik's campaign, and, naturally, they regarded my sudden and unexplainable arrival with suspicion and my word of assisting them with a heavy amount of skepticism. With good reason," she added. "Autonomous machines were not regarded kindly. I recall Sonic didn't have an ounce of trust in me and wanted to destroy me immediately."

"Slap Sonic later, got it," Sorun thought to himself as he nodded along to Nicole's words.

The lynx gave him a knowing look. "I know that look, Sorun. Please don't hold Sonic in regard for the past. It was a long time ago and we've been friends for years since then."

"Look? What look?" Sorun coyly replied, though Nicole didn't look convinced in the slightest. "I wasn't planning anything malicious whatsoever, buuut I suppose if you can be the bigger person and find it in your heart to forgive him then I can let it slide, too..."

"Yes, Sorun, I in fact can. Even if he did sometimes shake the handheld a bit too roughly during some missions."

"..."

"Sorun."

"He'd never guess it was me that egged the window to his bedroom you made look like his head for some reason."

"He would assume you immediately, but that is besides the point. You're not allowed to be a vandal." A beat passed. "And it was an artistic choice."

"Fiiiine," he sighed out, and then rolled his hand at her. "So you were saying?"

"Right, my initial meeting with the Freedom Fighters," she continued. "Sally, for reasons that were her own, decided to take a chance on me and ingratiated me into the group, and I became the companion she traveled with. And as it happened having an AI with functions higher than anything Robotnik could ever produce turned out to be a boon," she said with no small hint of pride to her voice or face. Sorun didn't comment on it but still grinned a bit in amusement. "Though, as you've probably surmised, those were my early days of existence, during which I wasn't as... expressive as I am now."

"I was more wondering why you decided to tell this story when I asked a question. Not that I'm not appreciative of it," Sorun quickly added, "but it's a bit weird."

"It pertains to the answer, I promise. Just let me get there."

Sorun nodded. "Alright. But didn't you tell me once that you didn't even used to have emotions?"

"You did remember," Nicole commented, a bit quietly. "But yes, you're right," she continued. "Though my abilities as an AI were unprecedented and I was far from a mindless drone, I was... for a lack of a better descriptor, my personality was in its infancy."

She paused, remaining quiet for a bit while Sorun silently watched on. She lifted her legs and pressed her knees against her chest while resting her arms up on top while gazing out at the city.

"Even with my intelligence I wasn't much better than a machine back then," Nicole quietly admitted. "My entire world was nothing but interpreting streams of data, hacking technology, manipulating functions in other machines, sorting through and memorizing data files. Colorless. Shapeless. Nothing but information. The only glimpse of the real world I ever received was when somebody talked to me. But as limiting as that was, even then it was something. Time passed, and I started to grow more and more expressive as my personality developed, but it was never enough, and the longer it went on and the more I grew the more I knew I was missing something, but I never knew what. I was yearning for something that, at the time, was completely incomprehensible to me and could never figure out what it was no matter how much consideration I put into the issue."

"And... then the body swap thing with Sally happened, and you got to walk around in the shoes of a living person for a bit," Sorun guessed.

"Yes," she confirmed. "It was admittedly overwhelming at the time, being bombarded with so many sights and senses I'd never experienced before in such a short time, but in the end I believe it's what I needed." She looked away from the city and at Sorun. "So many things changed after that. When I attained that perspective. Even in the digital world I began interpreting data as having shapes and colors. More than that, I'd... learned to truly feel, through her, in that one moment. And it's been progressing from there since." Her legs lowered back to the roof as she continued to Sorun, "Emotions have undoubtably been the most challenging aspect of life I've encountered. Never remaining static, always changing, new emotions sprouting up at new experiences. I would never trade them for anything else even if they prove frustrating at times, but I'll confess to wishing to be able to understand my own and others' emotions more than I usually do."

Sorun blew a lock of hair out of his face and sat back in his chair. "Well, we organics barely even understand emotions even though we invented 'em, so I don't know what you hope to do about it."

Nicole actually laughed at what Sorun thought was a bad joke. "Perhaps that is for the best. I think the mystery adds some charm to it." She paused for a bit. "But in short, that's how I became who I am. That and, of course, creating a body so I can interact with the real world proper. I was admittedly hesitant of letting others seeing it at first for fear of what they'd think or if I'd made a mistake with it somewhere, but Sonic was actually the first one to see it when he was visiting the digital world during a small emergency. I was extremely relieved when he accepted the form immediately." She closed her eyes and smiled at the memory. "He had a great very many compliments for it, in fact. It was almost unusual how receptive he was towards me after seeing the body I'd crafted."

For a single frame of time, barely even a single millisecond, Sorun's irises flashed green, and a few, barely perceptible blue sparks flickered around his face before his eyes returned to a solid blue. It was an event that went unnoticed by the both of them as Nicole reopened her eyes to continue addressing Sorun.

"Even so... nobody ever referred to me as a person back then when we'd first met, and people were slow to trust. Even in recent years new acquaintances never saw me as a person but just as another machine. It was a sentiment shared by many of the citizens here, actually, though I suspect using the nanites to craft them a new city relieved them of these notions," she added with a small smile. She focused completely on Sorun, and the smile began to drop as she gave him a curious look. "But... you never did," she said, almost sounding confused.

Sorun tilted his head a bit. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"You were... somewhat volatile back then," Nicole carefully said. Sorun winced a bit and flipped his palms up in a sign of reluctantly agreeing with her. "I realize now you had much more on your mind than what we all thought, the threat of perishing under the power of the Chaos Emeralds, stranded on an alien world and pressured to fight in a war that wasn't yours. You were very brash and dismissive of others, and I was there in the handheld when you first arrived and shouted at Tails for what he did-" Sorun made a heavy wince in regret as Nicole spoke, "-and I tried my best to be considerate of your circumstances, but you were giving off a rather poor impression regardless."

"... To be fair I was having a really rough week," Sorun said in an attempt to bring some levity to the conversation.

"I'm aware," she assured him. "Sally wanted to introduce me all because she was worried for your mental health and thought playing those games with me of all things would help you some." Her face grew a bit sly. "Evidently she was more right than she knew."

Sorun mirrored her expression and leaned his head up at the sky, covering his face with a hand in amusement. "Little bit, yeah," he agreed.

"But to my original point," Nicole continued as Sorun sat back normally, "you only ever called me an AI in describing what I was, not who I was." She looked down a bit. "And you'd said all those things, during that botched mission inside that head we decided to undergo. It was a shock to hear such words from someone that barely knew me and yet put so much stock into me being my own person and not a machine, and... well, I suppose that's where my feelings with you started to develop, though I hadn't known at the time."

Startled, Sorun jumped back in his seat. "Geez, it was that early?" Sorun muttered, more to himself than Nicole. The lynx still heard him and her ears perked up as a response.

"Thereabouts, yes," she confirmed. "When was it for you?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, Sorun nervously answered, "Uhm... I couldn't tell ya an exact point, it just sorta... happened. Like, not instantly, over time, but I don't know when it solidified into a genuine crush, uh... when we got to this city, maybe? Bit before that?" He shyly looked down to avoid her inquisitive eyes. "To be honest I wanted to say something back then, but I thought I was gonna die soon so I didn't wanna risk more damage. And I legitimately thought I had no shot with you, still amazed we're actually doing this."

"Well, despite numerous difficulties it's seemed to have worked out for the best," Nicole laughed out. And then she asked with a serious tone, "But why did you regard me so highly despite knowing so little? Why put so much faith in an AI?"

That was a loaded question and a half. One that made Sorun lean back in thought, arms crossed as he pondered the question, Nicole silently watching on. It felt like it took him a whole minute to come up with something before he chose to answer her.

"... I'm pretty biased," Sorun decided on. "My planet wasn't besieged by killer robots, so a lot more people were open to the idea. Granted, before everything ended over there we never managed to develop AI near anything this zone has got," he explained. "Ironically the closest we ever got was video game AIs and chatbots with predictable speech patterns. Nothing truly sapient, not like you. Even all those dimestore Badnik AIs Robotnik churned out were more impressive." He leaned forwards in his seat, hands clasped together as he gave Nicole a serious look. "But humanity was fascinated with the idea of creating artificial life, for lots of reasons that were up for debate. To see if we could, or to maybe just alleviate the loneliness humanity felt since, well, Earth wasn't like Mobius. There were humans and that was it. Not even aliens."

Nicole nodded along, listening intently and leaning forwards to be right in front of Sorun.

"The fascination was enough that there were tons of pieces of media made all about AI and the question, with all their various plots and stories revolving around AI and how free they were, AI rights, other various plots."

"A majority of them were video games, weren't they?" Nicole asked in a dry voice.

"Hey, 'NieR: Automata' was a good game, okay?" Sorun said, though he didn't rebuke the claim. "... Alright, yeah, lots of 'em were games, and they always made a really flattering picture for AI. Some of the coolest and most supportive characters in all of gaming fiction were all AIs. Like 9S, or Bladewolf, or Cortana, or EDI, or ED-E, or BT, or GLaDOS- that's not a good example, forget that last one," he choked out, making Nicole tilt her head at him. "But there were a tons of books and movies, too, some shows, you get the picture. I was always into AI." Sorun glanced up a bit. "Wasn't a universal interest, though, 'cause there were a lot of people that thought AI would be evil and wanna wipe out all humanity. But you're cool so I guess they were wrong. Oh, except all the AI Eggman programs are pretty evil, I guess. Hm." He looked back down at Nicole. "You're not planning on wiping out all life on the planet, are you?"

"Not presently, no."

It took a few seconds for Sorun to register those words, but after they did he did a double-take at Nicole while staring with wide eyes. She managed to keep up a completely serious expression for all of ten seconds before a small grin broke out on her face.

"Just kidding."

"Ah, good, 'cause-"

"The plans have been in motion for some time now."

"Gah-!" With that, Sorun had fallen backwards out of his seat entirely and fell onto the roof. Nicole laughed at his expense, though instead of being mad Sorun just rolled his eyes and sat back in the chair while folding his arms in mock anger. "Alright, fine, very funny. Was about to start callin' you SHODAN there. Sheesh."

"Well, you make it easy." It was hard for Sorun to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at Nicole when she said that. "You never talk that much about Earth culture like this."

For very good reason. "It's... well, I don't, no." Sorun glanced away from Nicole and at the city. "You know, I keep thinking about that time you said I lie by omission a lot just by not telling you stuff sometimes."

"Do you not?" Nicole asked. "Despite how much you've told me of your past and the life you used to live in your own home I know shockingly little of what life was like there. You never say much."

"... I don't ever really want to," Sorun admitted, causing some surprise to bloom on Nicole's face. "It's the past. It's irrelevant, like yours. Dunno why I need to bring it up."

"But it was your past. Your culture. I would think you'd want to remember it."

"I remember the good parts and try my best to forget the bad parts. It's the bad parts I don't talk about," Sorun said. "Look, Nicole, things were just different over there. And it doesn't do anybody any good bringing up stuff that happened on Earth here; people got enough to deal with considering all the Robotnik stuff. It's unnecessary baggage." By that Sorun really meant he didn't want to inadvertently traumatize someone by bringing up the worser points points of human nature and history. It was a lie, maybe, but honestly Sorun was completely fine with that. He doubted others really cared anyway how much he kept to himself. People here had their own lives and histories to deal with, after all. "There just isn't a good reason to bring it up, Nicole. Ever. It's not out of disrespect for you or anyone else. It's really just stuff I'd rather leave buried."

"It... truly was that bad?"

It hurt a bit hearing Nicole's voice be so down. "Some stuff was better off being erased along with everything else over there. I don't want to speak of it further." He looked up and did his best at offering Nicole a reassuring smile. "But hey, this is supposed to be a date. Rather not spend it reminiscing about a bunch of pointless stuff."

Nicole instantly straightened up, looking a bit sheepish as she nodded in agreement. "Yes, I suppose that's true. I'll trust your judgement on the matter." She fidgeted around a bit. "I... I was wondering, since we were on the subject. Why me, of all people?"

"Huh?" Sorun flinched back a bit in surprise. "Uh, you wanna know that?"

"Of course I do. I told you my reason, didn't I?" she shyly responded. "I'm curious myself, I'll have you know."

"Ah, yeah, I guess..." It was fair enough, even if Sorun didn't want to acknowledge it. He doubted his words would be as pretty as Nicole's on the matter, but he'd give it his best shot anyway. "Well, the AI part was never really a factor for me, just that you were you, and, uh... I guess it started with... well, video games."

There was a moment where Sorun was sure Nicole would say something sarcastic at that, even closing his eyes and waiting for it, but nothing ever came. When he opened his eyes he saw her waiting for him to continue, even if she did look a bit mystified at the explanation. He took it as a sign to keep going.

"The truth of the matter is there wasn't a whole lot I could do in my old home. 'Cause of physical limitations and general disinterest and all that," Sorun truthfully admitted. "Video games were my thing. And I was good at them. I was internationally ranked in a lot of competitive circles, actually, but that's a whole 'nother story entirely," he admitted, causing Nicole's eyes to go wide. "Even won some tournaments. Maybe coulda gone pro when I turned eighteen in a couple years, but that's a bygone dream now." He shook his head. "But discounting all of that I legitimately loved video games. They were my thing. It was what I latched onto here during my stint with the Freedom Fighters so I didn't go insane." Sorun looked up at the sky and smiled at the memory. "And oh, man, Nicole when I played with everyone and compared our levels of skill I realized all too quick..." His smile instantly dropped into a frown. "That everyone was terrible at video games and I remained at the peak apex of skill among all other gamers."

Nicole went completely motionless, smile frozen and eyes still wide. And then she blinked a bit, the smile somewhat becoming withered and forced. "That's... somewhat harsh, don't you think?"

"No, it's true, none of them were good," Sorun said, in a tone that was a bit too bright for Nicole to bear, so her ears lowered as she listened even as she maintained that detached smile. "There was no challenge, no skill, no sense of accomplishment, I'd argue it was a waste of time if it wasn't served asserting my dominance in the digital landscape. But you!" Sorun used both hands to point at Nicole in an exaggerated manner, making Nicole jump at the sudden movement. "With you I'm pushed to do my absolute best! And I even lose half the time! You know how great that is?"

"It's extremely impressive," Nicole hesitantly admitted, "but perhaps you're putting too much stock into the significance of games of all things in our relationship, Sorun?"

"Well, I didn't mean to imply that- I mean that wasn't-" A slightly troubled expression crossed Sorun's face, after which he grimaced and shook his head. "Actually, yeah, you're right I'm probably going too deep with this." He cleared his throat before attempting to try again. "What I mean to say is... video games are important to me, and back there I had people that could actually challenge me. Here it's just you, and when we're playing it's... kinda like I'm back there, you know? Everything feels normal for a bit. It's always like that with you."

Nicole's expression softened at the same time her ears lowered down. It was at the way Sorun's voice had gone quieter, and the way his eyes were continually flicking at her own eyes and the ground, like he was uncomfortable or struggling to say something. But on the other hand it was rare she that she heard him speak this directly and with things so personally. She would find it touching if it didn't feel so out of place for him.

For Sorun it truly was a struggle, doing this. A thing he was never supposed to do with anyone, that he never wanted to do. Looking so vulnerable like this, in front of someone. Anyone else he would have flied into a rage in a desperate attempt at shaking that impression off, but with Nicole it felt... fine? Maybe that's how it was supposed to work in a relationship like this. He didn't find himself minding it too much; it was nice sharing, for some reason. So he kept going for it.

"I wouldn't go as far as to say I outright hated everyone back then in the early days, but... I hadn't really been fond of anyone, either," Sorun admitted. "I latched onto you because you were the only person I could connect to. You were really just that: my one friend. The person I could hang out with and pretend things were alright for a little bit. But you were always nice, and really supportive, and for some reason you actually laughed at some of the stuff I said sometimes, and to be completely honest I would've fallen apart if you weren't there for me, and..." He rose a hand in the air and let it fall limply into his lap. "I can't point out when it happened, it just did. That eventually I started to feel like I didn't want us to be just friends, but a combination of fear of rejection and impending doom kept me from saying anything, and after that whole mess, I... really, really wasn't in a good place.

"But you were there. All the time. I don't even know if I'd be here if it weren't for you," Sorun mumbled out. By now Nicole had transitioned out of her own chair just to sit next to Sorun while gazing at him with a sympathetic look. "I just... really like you, 'cause of all the things you did for me." He shuffled a bit more, fighting to get the words out. "I'm not used to this kind of thing. You're the only one who gets to see me like this, okay? Nobody else," he said in a meek voice.

She didn't look like she knew how to respond to him when he said that. Puzzled, but somehow understanding at the same time, so she'd put a reassuring hand over his while doing her best to respond.

"I... very much appreciate how trusting and open you are with me," she carefully said, "but you don't have to make it so that you're only so open exclusively to me-"

"Yes I do."

She seemed taken back by how quickly Sorun rebuked her. "I think the others would be assured by-"

"Others aren't you." Sorun moved his hand around to intertwine his fingers with her; more of an unconscious reflex to reassure himself more than anything else, and something that barely rose to Sorun's mind. "Does it really matter so much?"

It wasn't something he was willing to budge on. Nicole was a special exception; a special everything, really. Friends were friends and he'd always be more open and friendly with them than anyone else, and Sorun figured that was normal. But it was one thing being open and friendly and another appearing this vulnerable in front of someone when it was just the two of them alone. Not that he didn't trust the others, but because it was a level of trust he only wanted Nicole to have. Because it helped represent what they had between themselves.

Sorun tried explaining as much, in not so much a concise matter and with a bit of nervous stuttering on his part. Nicole had listened intently through the whole thing, even during the parts where he'd had to pause and work up the nerve to continue, because this thing on a whole felt embarrassing to admit, borderline mortifying, it felt, but it was something Sorun wanted said even if it was at the cost of great difficulty. And throughout the whole time that confused, but understanding look Nicole held never wavered, though she did look less and less confused as it became clear what Sorun meant.

Maybe it was just confusion because of where he was. Maybe people here were just more open with feelings naturally and he appeared strange never wanting to project so much of himself. Consequence of differing cultures, maybe, or probably it was just because of who he was. An answer didn't really matter since in the end it was still what Sorun wanted. Just for her and only her to see him like this, if only because he felt she deserved it and the relationship probably wouldn't survive otherwise.

"You make it sound like you're scared of opening up like this in front of anyone else," Nicole had pointed out in a gentle voice.

"I'm not," he quickly denied. "I've just never done this before. It's normal from where I'm from."

All at once some new form of comprehension alit in Nicole's eyes, like she'd finally found the answer to some intricate puzzle she'd been stuck on. She made a small laugh, like she was amused by something silly, and then stood up while pulling Sorun along with her. "Fine, Sorun, that's fair enough," she decided, "but you're always open to changing your mind."

"Doubt I will. Doubt it. Heavily," Sorun said, rolling his eyes away from Nicole. He looked towards the horizon and saw the sun was nearly setting. "So anyways, with all that awkward stuff out of the way, umm, can-can we, I dunno, take a walk? Somewhere? It's getting dark and the roof-"

"Is an immediate safety hazard, yes, I agree," Nicole immediately said.

"I wasn't gonna say a safety hazard of all-" And then there was a flash of light, and suddenly the two of them had went from standing on the roof to standing on the sidewalk in front of the science center, "-things... you know, it's rude teleporting people without warning them," he pointed out, looking back at Nicole.

She guiltily smiled at him. "It's the most expedient method," she offered, though she amended herself when Sorun kept staring. "I'll warn in advance of future teleports. So, the park, then?"


Things got progressively easier when they started to stray away from the talks of feelings, what Sorun considered to be the most difficult subject to encroach humanly possible and always took active steps to avoid unless with Nicole. Maybe down the line it'd get easier - a miracle Sorun wasn't holding out for. Or maybe such heavy feelings talks would never occur again - Sorun held a large amount of hope out for that miracle.

Fortunately for now it was a subject successfully broached and concluded, so to his immense relief they'd managed to talk about other things as they... strolled through a park, holding hands. Sorun was thankful it was freshly nighttime and there weren't many people out at this time to see. The shame of it would-

...

Why would there be a shame in it?

It was a question that just now popped into Sorun's mind, as the two of them were walking along while Nicole spoke of something. "Is there anything to... I mean it's a consensual relationship we're both pretty committed to, I don't see why... no, there shouldn't be, but this is embarrassing. Why is it embarrassing?" Sorun asked himself. "I guess it doesn't really look like 'me' acting so... this with Nicole, with the handholding and all, when I already built up this image that doesn't even fit with... does anyone even care about that image? Do I? Why do I have to worry about preserving some static thing if it gets in the way of this? Why should doing anything beyond what I want matter?"

Maybe Nicole was right and he was being a bit silly with how he was handling the "openness" side of things on his part, something he felt she really only went along with because it was easier on his part. And he had a sneaking suspicion she figured he didn't have the mental constitution to keep up a mental shell forever now that the relationship was picking away at it.

She was probably right. The longer this went on the more Sorun realized how exhausting it was. But saying so much in front of her felt like admitting she was right. So maybe over time he'd... relax, somewhat, around the others. A bit more and more over time. Never as much as around Nicole; she deserved a special place. But in a place where his worries were near-nonexistent now with such accepting people Sorun found less and less reasons to bother.

But again, this was a revelation that could never be said to Nicole. Because it would prove her right and she'd be the automatic winner. If he had it his way he'd follow her suggestion without ever openly acknowledging it.

Unless... she just noticed one day he was slowly doing just that, and he knew, knew, she would never verbally acknowledge it, but even worse give him that knowing "I told you so" smirk. And Sorun dreaded this was, quite possibly, an inevitable course.

"... Maybe she wins after all," Sorun decided with a mental shrug as they continued walking along. He looked upwards at the park, the trees the small pond nearby. Things that looked so authentic he never would have suspected they were completely artificial and completely comprised of however many trillions of quadrillions of nanites or whatever ridiculous number it surely was. Something that probably required scientific notation. But that was for Nicole and her completely alien ability to comprehend math to figure out.

They passed by a patch of flowers next to the path they were walking. Nicole had stopped to look at them, so Sorun was forced to stop alongside her. He glanced at the lynx, staring down at the flowers with the same look of pride and joy a parent would give their kid for winning a spelling competition, which forced Sorun to look down at those very same flowers.

A patch of pink something-or-others, Sorun deduced. Certainly authentic-looking. And... certainly flowers. Yes indeedy.

"Isn't it kind of a waste of space, making a big park like this?" Sorun wondered, looking up from the fake flowers and at Nicole. "The city only has so much space and you can't really expand outwards."

She waved his concern off. "It's not all that much," Nicole assured him. "But more importantly is that all Mobians have a deep affinity to nature. I didn't want anyone to feel alienated living here without something such as this. It's the same reason I put so many trees everywhere."

"I mean, sure, but the city's in the middle of a forest. I can walk out the front door and see nothing but nature. We aren't exactly disconnected from nature here."

"It looks nice and the people like it, so I feel vindicated in my choice."

"Alright, alright..." His gaze traveled back down to the pink flowers. "The flowers look kinda weird. In the way the petals are all angular and everything."

"Those 'angular flowers' are a popular breed I read about in a botany book that I copied."

Sorun winced. Both at the slightly incensed tone Nicole took and upon realizing he may have inadvertently just insulted her. Fears that were confirmed when he looked back up at Nicole and caught her giving him a narrow-eyed glare. His mind raced to think up a solution to reconcile this and sprang at the first thought that came to mind. "You... you're very pretty?"

Nicole looked more startled by that claim than Sorun had ever seen her before. And by some miracle it seemed to work, because she'd made a small, abashed smile while turning away, earlier glare all but evaporated.

"Oh, well... I suppose flowers aren't for everybody, and... well, that's very nice of you to say," she mumbled out, so flustered Sorun couldn't believe it.

"Oh man. I can get away with anything now." Dumbstruck, Sorun looked down at his own hands, like his own palms held the answer to infinite power somewhere in their creases. Like the universe itself no longer held any mysteries because Sorun himself had just figured out the ultimate solution to getting out of trouble: just compliment Nicole on something. The possibilities were endless.

Unfortunately it didn't seem like it was to be, because when Nicole caught Sorun staring at his hands with an awestruck expression she frowned upon immediately realizing what he just did. And then Sorun noticed her staring, immediately realizing ultimate power had slipped through his fingers and he'd been caught in the act. As a result he was shoved - playfully, with so little force that a gentle breeze would've carried more force behind it.

With the utmost maturity afforded to him, Sorun grinned and leaned backwards. The path they were on was on the edge of a small hill, one that he was leaning towards while waving his arms in an exaggerated manner. Nicole looked concerned at Sorun's sake for the movements, and then realization and panic when one of his arms shot out and grabbed one of her wrists with the intent to drag her with him.

"Oh, Nicole, how could you, I can't believe you'd do such a thing...!" Sorun cried out with a false, nearly smug-sounding voice as his body leaned further and further back.

"No, Sorun, no no no don't SorRUN-!"

Despite her protests, there hadn't been resistance to Sorun's pulling. There may have even been the slightest hint of amusement to her voice if he focused in hard enough, past all the panic. Whatever the case was, they'd both ended up falling, rolling down the hill while tumbling over themselves. This continued all the way to the bottom of the hill, stopping with Sorun on his back and Nicole on top of him, both laughing with mirthful looks on their faces.

It was a happy moment, something that'd Sorun had lacked for so long it nearly felt foreign, but still good. To just laugh at something stupid. But the laughter started to quickly die out for the both of them when they realized the position they were in, after which the two shared a blank expression. And then after a quick scramble they ended up sitting on the ground shoulder-to-shoulder, embarrassed looks on both of their faces as they stared off into the nearby pond reflecting the moon and stars in the sky.

"Um, uh, yeah, so-" Sorun began.

"Yes, tha- I didn't- that-" Nicole replied.

"It's... yeah."

"Agreed."

"For sure." Sorun didn't know what just happened and he suspected Nicole didn't, either. "I haven't messed up on this date yet, have I?"

From the corner of his eyes he saw Nicole make a small smile as she stared out at the pond. "No, Sorun, I've been enjoying our time together," she said, making Sorun so relieved he felt half his weight just disappear. "I'll freely confess to always being somewhat envious of watching people enjoy their lives, so being out here with you, doing this and... living, I suppose, has been... it's..." She grew quiet for a bit, and her hand slid over the ground to rest atop Sorun's. "It's really all I wanted was the opportunity to do this."

"That and the whole 'liberate the planet from the crazy guy so our friends can stop fighting' thing, right?"

"Yes, but I felt it too obvious to mention." She turned her head a bit to look at Sorun. "I just wanted to thank you. For doing this with me. Being with me, I mean. Which is to say... no, that isn't right..." Suddenly looking flustered, Nicole looked down and away. "What I mean to say is you're always doing these things with me to help me experience what I've been missing for so long. So thank you."

"... Should be me thanking you," Sorun mumbled out. "Sooo... does this mean I'm allowed to call you my girlfriend, or...?"

Nicole's head whipped towards him with a surprised look. "You were allowed the moment we agreed on going on this date, were you not?"

Sorun blinked. "Is that how it works?"

"I assume?" She didn't sound so sure herself, eyes squinting a bit in concentration briefly. And then she shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We're in a mutually established relationship now. The girlfriend and boyfriend labels are warranted."

"Okay." So that was it. About as official as Sorun could see it being made official. As in he was officially in a relationship now, and...well, he didn't know how to feel about that. It was so shocking in fact he didn't feel much of anything. Bewildered to a point beyond bewilderment to simple acceptance. "Um, so we can kiss and stuff?" It was a second later Sorun realized what he just said. If he still had the Bringer Claws one of them probably would have punched him in the face.

Worryingly, Nicole's face displayed a hefty amount of apprehension at the prospect. "Ah. That."

Well, now Sorun was feeling something. A heavy amount of disappointment and panic was what he felt. "You don't want to?" It was translation for, "Was I too forward and asked too early and/or what did I do to screw it up this quickly?"

The answer wasn't either of those, but it was still something Sorun didn't know how to process. "It just seems so unsanitary."

"D... bu..." It was levels of confusion Sorun didn't even know was possible that were generated by that response, and he was sure it showed on his face from the way Nicole was looking at him. "But you don't even have an organic body, what do you have to worry about!?" he whined out.

Pouting, Nicole crossed her arms and turned her torso away. "I don't see how a couple locking mouths together is supposed to prove their feelings towards one another, despite how much it's been lauded. Mouths were not even designed for this function. I fail to see the point."

The half of Sorun that wanted to argue was beaten into the ground by the feral side of Sorun that desperately didn't want to come off as pushy and told him to just respect her position on the matter. Even if he really didn't want to because he'd admittedly been looking forwards to it. It was beat harder by Sorun's other side. "Yeah, okay, that's fine," he said, clear dejection in his voice as he slumped a bit where he sat.

One of Nicole's ears flicked at Sorun's voice, and she turned back around to look at him. She seemed a bit taken back at the disappointed look he held, and after a few seconds of personal deliberation she said, "Oh, fine. Come here."

"Huh?" Sorun's brain shorted out a bit, following him hearing that and feeling Nicole grab the collar of his coat. It stopped working altogether when she leaned forwards and pulled him towards her at the same time to press their mouths together. Truthfully he was so out of it due to sheer shock he didn't even remember what was going on during the kiss. Just the feeling of his heart thumping at about a trillion beats an attosecond and the mental picture of a mental version of himself jumping up and down, arms flung up while screeching in victory.

His face felt like it was on fire, too. From all the blushing. But the good kind of fire.

The jumping, screaming Sorun in his head collapsed and started crying when Nicole broke away from the kiss. He couldn't imagine what his own face like. Stunned and stupid, probably. To the point fancier, more sophisticated words couldn't be used in place of stupid, like dumbfounded or gobsmacked. Just stupid.

By contrast, Nicole looked... almost perplexed. The same kind of perplexed look a scientist would get when they just discovered something never before seen under a microscope, along with the air of seeming to like something. Maybe from looking at his face. She was paying a lot of attention to it for some reason.

She liked something, apparently, because she grabbed him again and went in for another kiss.

The mental image of Sorun in Sorun's head jumped back up like the little caveman he was and started screeching again. Yelling and laughing, pointing up at the metaphorical sky with both hands while screaming at the world itself, "Fuck off, I win. There's nothing you can ever do to take this from me because I did it." Because this was quite possibly the highest achievement Sorun had ever accomplished for himself.

With this in mind suddenly Sorun remembered his muscles were capable of locomotive function and he moved his head a bit to try and do something to make the process better for the both of them. To his immense disappointment she'd already began pulling away again by that time, apparently satisfied with the second kiss. The disappointment was world-shattering when her tongue left his mouth, which was the point he realized she actually went for that kind of kiss and he hadn't even realized until it was over twice over. He took a bit of solace in the fact there'd be another time to enjoy it.

Also she thankfully hadn't made her tongue have spikes on it like normal cats. He was worried about that.

"... I take it back. The kissing is necessary," Nicole decided in a matter-of-fact tone after they broke away. "Thank you for... that."

Sorun didn't know if a proper response to that even existed but he decided to go for it anyways. "Y-yeah, sure." He noticed something odd in his mouth. The volume of liquids in there was higher than he was accustomed to, and he recoiled a small bit when he realized why. "What is... why is there spit in my mouth?" Sorun asked, holding a hand up to his mouth. "Why do you have spit?"

The look Nicole sent him couldn't have possibly looked more confused at the question.

"Wait, it's gone." And like that the added volume of saliva in Sorun's mouth just vanished, like it hadn't even been there to begin with. It'd left behind a faint cooling sensation that... well, if Sorun was being perfectly honest was almost pleasant, but he was too bewildered to think on it. "What just happened?"

"What... what is the answer you're looking for here, Sorun?" Nicole tried, seemingly lost at what was being asked of her.

"I mean, I just didn't... I... I'm asking how that's possible," Sorun stammered. "Like, I don't understand how you have liquid in your mouth."

Some of the confusion on Nicole's face was alleviated in understanding. "Ah, that. This body is a hardlight projection, Sorun. With an emphasis on the word 'hard'. As in this is a physical construct able to completely and fully interact with the world," she explained. "And as such I wanted it to be as accurate to a real-life body as physically possible. So there were many functions added in that, while they may be ultimately superfluous in function, act to simulate this as a living body as perfectly as possible. So yes, I added in a separate function for my body to produce fluids. It disappears a short while after being separate from the main body." She started twiddling her fingers together and glanced away. "I hadn't thought you'd be so surprised. Since you've seen me cry."

... Right, he had, Sorun had realized with a small feeling of awkwardness accompanying the thought. He remembered being intrigued at the sight of her producing tears at the time, but there'd been so much going on then that he'd brushed it off and forgotten the matter, it seemed. But admittedly even with Nicole's explanation the answer went a bit over Sorun's head. Really the whole science behind the nanites and how Nicole got this hardlight stuff to work to be so realistic went over his head, and he was always happy to shrug it off and tell himself that him understanding didn't really matter as long as Nicole did and could make it work. So if she could make hyper-realistic stuff like this work for her, then hey, more power to her.

Of course by this point Sorun realized his reaction to his first ever kiss with someone was asking why she had spit. The resulting cringe would have knocked out lesser men - Sorun was proud to report he only almost succumbed to it completely.

"I am... so sorry I asked that. Like, after... uh... man, I'm stupid," Sorun mumbled, covering his face in embarrassment. He saw the pond past his fingers and briefly considered drowning himself to escape.

By some miracle Nicole giggled besides him. "Oh, it's fine, Sorun, I wasn't offended in any way. Just off-put slightly from how you worded that." Her next words came out a bit pensive and hesitant, almost nervous. "And... I trust it was, erm, enjoyable for you as it was for me?"

It was actually so enjoyable Sorun's mind couldn't even comprehend it. Literally. The only comprehensible parts had been the white noise of bliss and the longing sensation that told Sorun he needed more of it. But all that was secondary to the fact she apparently enjoyed it, and for all Sorun cared that one thing alone trumped everything else. That she liked it. Liked him.

"... It was the best," Sorun shyly admitted. It was a statement so embarrassing to say he couldn't find it in himself to face Nicole after saying it, but he could practically feel her beaming besides him.

"I'm glad." She shuffled closer besides him, though they were already sitting so close together that the most she managed was to brush the sides of their bodies together, and she'd looped an arm around one of his own. "Admittedly, Sorun, I was surprised. Verily so." Her voice grew a bit softer. "Back then, when I'd accidentally swapped bodies with Sally, there'd been a moment when I'd laid eyes on Sonic, and her body had relayed a certain feeling. It was a peculiar emotion I'd never been able to replicate until I felt something similar when we kissed."

Sorun looked over when he felt a weight settle on his shoulder, and saw Nicole resting her head on him. "Only similar?" he questioned.

"Mhm. It doesn't hurt. Their relationship had always been somewhat tumultuous," she mumbled out in answer. "I don't know what the emotion means nor particularly care. I liked it for some reason. I demand we repeat the act as frequently as desired. Daily if possible."

Again with the blushing. Sorun was thankful Nicole wasn't in a position to see it. "Sure. We can do that," he shyly mumbled out. "I'm glad you liked it."

"Yes, well, you made a rather humorous face, too. That alone warrants enough reason."

All at once the blush evaporated and Sorun frowned. Joking or not, that was a sentence that demanded retribution. He immediately began searching for a medium to channel his revenge and found it right there. At the bottom of Nicole's legs.

Feet. Completely uncovered, perfectly vulnerable toes patterned in black and brown fur. With toes noticeably larger and more bulbous than a human's toes, but that was besides the point. For some reason Nicole chose this form to walk around barefoot. She was about to regret that decision.

"Tell me again how you managed to make your hologram body able to feel things," Sorun requested, in a gentle and curious voice that was completely opposite of the mischievous grin he held as he subtlety reached forwards with the arm Nicole hadn't taken hostage of with her body.

Her head perked up off his shoulder at hearing the question, and when she responded she sounded almost eager to speak of it. "I'm glad you asked! It's actually a nano-lattice of pressure sensory strips integrated into the surface of my body, minus the clothes. It was admittedly largely based on data extrapolated from my time in an organic body, plus study of biological nervous systems, but after a painstaking amount of time I managed to calibrate the sensors to send the proper sensations based on the type of stimulation given, and I'm proud to say it's a system that confers roughly a ninety-nine-point-nine-six percent accuracy to a normal Mobian's sensory input-"

When his arm reached far enough Sorun poked one of Nicole's toes.

The reaction was almost comical. Her body had gone completely straight, ears somehow even straighter than that, as Nicole detached herself from Sorun's body with a wide, surprised smile and even wider eyes. And her whole leg had flinched so hardly it'd nearly risen a whole ninety degrees in the air before flopping back down on the ground. Sorun himself would have laughed if the sight hadn't been so unexpected, so all he could do was blink in surprise and look at Nicole.

"Sorun... that's a very sensitive area," Nicole said, and began to look apprehensive when the mischievous grin Sorun had on began to grow. "I-I request that you do not-"

"Oh, we are far, far beyond that point," Sorun rebuked. He'd already leaned to the side and shifted his body so he was in a better position, with two hands raised.

Nicole looked nearly panicked and scooched back a bit. "No, wait, Sorun please think about-!"

His fingers began assaulting her feet with reckless abandon. Rubbing the soles - or pads, whatever those incredibly soft things under her feet and toes were - of her feet, slipping and rubbing between the toes, intermingling with bouts of him lightly feathering his fingers over whatever he felt was soft and vulnerable on her feet. For Nicole's part Sorun had never, ever heard her laugh as hard as he was hearing her now. It was a sound that was as musical as it was comical to his ears, which just spurned him to go further. Even just seeing her laughing, having fallen on her back while wriggling around and feeling her legs flinch and kick in his hands, and just how adorable the sight was just renewed his tickling fervor.

But never let it be said Sorun wasn't merciful, because he did eventually stop. After what might have been a minute. Or two. He'd had so much fun with it he didn't even know, but after a bit he'd begun to take pity on Nicole and stopped. Being what she was Nicole didn't outright breath except to keep up appearances, and it was a rare occurrence that she did something like sigh since for her it was a conscious effort that needed to be made to project her current mood. So to some her laughter dying out so quickly without her breathing in so heavily may have been eerie, but to Sorun it wasn't even a factor when he flopped down on his back so he was lying right besides her. There was still a large smile on Nicole's face as she swiveled her head to look at him, after which her hand softly slapped itself on top of his chest, where it chose to rest.

"You're incorrigible," was the only response she gave him. "I'm adding shoes to the new outfit."

Sorun just smiled wide and interlaced his fingers behind his head. "If you really wanted it to stop, you could have just teleported away. Admit it."

"No. Never." Her hand left his chest and reached behind his head to take one of his hands. He let her steal half of his makeshift bio-pillow and embrace it before letting the two hands rest on the ground between them. The smiles both held turned more easy and relaxed as they stared up into the night sky. A corona of deep blues, blacks, and purples hovering over the two amidst an expanse of infinite lights dotting the surface of the sky.

He'd said it once, and he'd say it again. The night sky here was stunning compared to Detroit standards where one would be lucky to catch a few stars in the sky.

"The stars are beautiful tonight," Nicole idly commented.

Though he agreed, the need for conflict to produce more words from her than if he just simply agreed compelled Sorun. "Eh. 'S just a bunch of burning plasma a billion miles away. I can see that just by staring at the sun."

"Please do not disrespect the plasma, Sorun. It is impolite," Nicole playfully chided. "Also do not stare at the sun. I will be upset." That one didn't sound playful.

The laugh he made was way more nervous than Sorun would have liked. "I-I won't," he semi-promised. He made a mental note to never tell her about the time he and his friends on Earth dared each other to see which one could stare at the sun the longest. "So, the date-?"

"The date was wonderful, Sorun." Something about hearing that, from how honest and happy, genuinely happy, Nicole sounded saying that, it did something to Sorun. Like his heart itself felt lighter; hearing that felt freeing, and Sorun couldn't explain why. Maybe that he'd managed to do this without screwing something up, that it was an accomplishment that he hadn't screwed up, but he wasn't even sure he cared about that aspect of it. He was pretty sure he was still stuck on the part where he was amazed someone actually decided to be his girlfriend.

That was still a weird word for Sorun to toss around his head and be able to associate it seriously with someone. Didn't feel real, almost, but here she was. Lying besides him on the grass and holding his hand. That someone cared enough about him to do this.

Just... happy. That's all he could really feel about this. Truly, genuinely happy. There'd been a time in his life he'd seriously believed he'd never feel that way again. Now that he did it was almost overwhelming. Happy he'd made it this far and happy that she was happy. He was almost conflicted over what aspect he was happiest over, which Sorun supposed was a good problem to have. A happy sort of problem.

"I was really scared I'd mess up at some point here. I'm happy something didn't go wrong for once," Sorun confessed to her. He made a small yawn. "I'm... happy in general. With this. And you."

"Hm?" Nicole propped herself up on her elbows and turned to look down at Sorun. "You seem tired," she noted.

Was he? Upon further examination Sorun realized, yes, he was. In fact it was only now he realized how far his eyelids had been drooping. He'd been so relaxed around Nicole Sorun hadn't even noticed it. "Oh, well, you know, it was a long day and the date was so much fun I guess it kinda, eh... took it out of me." Sorun moved his hand to rub against one of his eyes and realized with mild surprise it was taking serious effort just to lift his arm. He really was tired.

Nicole shook her head. "There's no need to apologize. It is rather late out, and the evening has been, well... eventful." She glanced away with a shy smile. "Rolling down that hill probably didn't help matters."

"Hey, the hill was fun," Sorun lightheartedly argued. He sat upwards and attempted to stand up to his feet. He accomplished this - but then stumbled a bit when a wave of exhaustion hit him; he really must have been tired if it was hitting him this badly. Nicole look startled at the motion and quickly moved behind him to brace his body with her arms. Not that he thought he would have actually fallen, but... he appreciated it, regardless. Since it got her arms on him.

"You don't seem awake enough to walk back home unassisted." Her voice and the look in Nicole's eyes didn't seem overly concerned with Sorun's current state. More analytical than anything else, though there was a touch of tenderness behind her demeanor that Sorun wouldn't mind getting used to. Though she'd hesitated with saying the next thing. "I could... carry you. If you wanted."

Yes, he deeply desired that. No, they couldn't do that because someone might see. "Someone might see," he tiredly protested.

She gave him a flat, but patient, look. "I can instantly transport us to your home."

"Silver might see."

"He's likely in bed at this hour."

"Virgil might see."

"I don't think your pet will overly care that much, Sorun," she stated in exasperation. "Are you truly that concerned about your pet with a single word in his vocabulary seeing me carry you?"

Not really, now that he thought about it. Mostly because she was right in that he couldn't talk and spread the secret. Part of Sorun still felt like protesting the matter, but, if he was being honest with himself, he really didn't feel like walking all the way back home this tired. And he actually did want her to carry him. And if the risk of seeing someone was mitigated to being a non-issue, well... at the end of the day she was smarter and knew better, so who was he to argue with Nicole's advice?

Screw it. He wanted to be carried.

"If you so insist." He went completely limp in Nicole's grasp - Sorun was mildly surprised that a sudden lack of tension in his body hadn't made Nicole herself budge in the slightest. "Just straight to my room."

"Yes. I've been running too long, myself, come to think of it. I may need to retire for the night shortly after you." Once again Sorun was mildly surprised when Nicole lifted his whole body up with both arms without looking the slightest bit inhibited. He'd have to remember to ask her one day what kind of strength rating a hardlight body actually had. "But otherwise, yes, I'll take you straight home. Because I know you get embarrassed showing affection around others."

He crossed his arms and pouted as his legs dangled off of one of Nicole's arms. "Do not," he denied.

"It's alright, Sorun. I know." It was hard to tell if she was being kind or teasing with that comment. Sorun was both too tired and liked her too much to care, so he settled with just shuffling into a more comfortable position as he was carried off by her.

He'd nodded off and drifted into sleep before she'd even managed to place him in his own bed. It was the first night he could remember actually falling asleep while being happy.


A/N- Alright, this is it. This right here is the mushiest, most sappiest chapter this entire story will ever have, so take it in while you all can 'cause I'm not doing this again. Thing was a nightmare to get out.

Anyways, onto a little behind the scenes commentary on this whole thing.

So full-stop I didn't plan a romance while making this story. In fact I went into planning this story without wanting to do any kind of romance at all for various reasons. It wasn't a main focus, people kind of get turned away by that if it's advertised out the gate, I plain just didn't want to. Lots of reasons. I was ready to go through this whole story without even so much as a mention of romance and almost did.

Of course, obviously, I changed my mind. And it was the most last minute change in the world, too, because I'd already posted chapters of the story while still under the impression I wasn't going for a romance side-plot here. It was halfway through writing chapter 19 that I'd paused and started considering the two. "Well, Sorun's this weirdo guy in a terrible situation that'd latch onto pretty much anything for stability, he likes games, she likes games, Sorun's a huge gamer nerd that'd probably be super interested in AIs, she'd probably appreciate hanging around a guy with unique views on AIs, there's a bit of chemistry there, I dunno, let's run with it and see what happens." That was pretty much my thought process during the whole thing. I didn't set anything in stone at the time but I kind of pushed things around here and there to test it out and see if it'd work out in future chapters and, uh... yeah, then this happened.

100% it was the latest possible change I could have ever done, and I admit it was a huge risk that even still I'm not completely confident was the right move to make. But it looks to be going great in my eyes and the reviews have had a positive reception towards it, so I guess it's going good? Which if that's the case then I dunno, maybe I cracked how you make a good romance side-plot in stories. You go into the story without planning for a romance and just let it develop if one does. Probably worked here.

And at the end of the day, even if it doesn't work out, the late entry of a romantic interest doesn't really change anything. The story beats are gonna be the exact same, the ending hasn't changed, nothing's really been knocked off course or have had to be re-planned because of this new addition, and honestly it might have even helped in a lot of areas previously in the story. Plus I get to do a couple of fun things later on in regards to this, some of which the people who read the comic probably see coming, and if ya know ya know. But otherwise, yeah. It's a thing now.