Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia: Axis Powers or Black Mirror. All rights go to their creators.

Chapter 6: 3D Printer

It was now Spring, March to be exact and Feliciano needed the money to pay him for his half of the rent he owed. Feliciano was going to visit Kiku Honda at his home. Kiku wanted Feli to do some 3D sketches for a model of an Android he was working on.

Lovino had seen the man scribbling away from some notes that Kiku had sent him. He'd taken a peak at some and they looked to be sketches of Iggy, both the man and the woman.

"Kiku said he wanted you to come along." Feli said as he slung a bag over his shoulder with his art tablet inside. He had on a pair of mittens with cats on them; Ludwig had a matching pair with dogs; it made him want to throw up.

"Why me?"

Feli shrugged, "Maybe he wants to see how you like the app." Then Feli grinned, "But I don't think you use it that much with all that talking you do with your internet friend." Feli wiggled his eyebrows.

"I don't talk to him that much!"

"Lovi, it's ok I'm not judging you! I'm happy you get along with him. I hope you can go to the UK to meet hi–ooh!" Feliciano slapped a hand over his mouth.

He didn't tell Feli anything about where Arthur was from. Lovino gripped the other man's neck.

"You've been listening to my conversations you sneaky little bastard!"

Feliciano was an inch or so taller than him.

"Ack! N-no Lovi! Just maybe one or two! Lovi stop you're hurting–!"

"Privacy! I want my privacy you fucking rat bastard!" Lovino loosened his grip.

"I'm sorry! But I heard laughing and it didn't sound like you— Ack! Ack!"

Lovino tightened his grip again.

"P-please…"

Lovino let go of Feli and the man took in a few greedy gulps of air.

"What else do you know?"

"Just that he sounds British, and that he played football in college, and apparently he makes football players and animals in video games. Is he a video game designer, Lovi?"

"Yeah, yeah sure. He works at some kind of video game company in London."

Feliciano grinned, "Ooooh! It sounds like he probably makes a lot of money."

And that brought Lovino to a screeching halt. That was a good point. As it stands currently, it seemed as though Real Arthur had no money to his name. At least in the hypothetical reality in which Antonio would ever reciprocate his feelings, the man would take on another job to support him. He worked at a manufacturing plant bottling olive oil, and he wouldn't mind working as a janitor or some shit too. They'd at least still have his connection to Gilbert and Ludwig to do all kinds of fancy shit with them too. In Lovino's future plans he wanted to quit his job working for Alfred.

But Real Arthur was a struggling musician, what the hell was he thinking in trying to pursue this bastard? They'd both be poor, struggling assholes.

"Shut the hell up, ok Feli! I'll go with you to see your idiota of a friend about the app." Lovino grabbed his coat before shrugging it on. He slipped his phone into his pocket.

"Check it cool! Kiku's going to be so surprised by my drawings he's going to give me extra!" Feliciano said, opening up the door and walking through it.

Lovino groaned before grabbing the keys and heading out after him.

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They took a taxi cab to this Kiku Honda guy's house; he lived just outside of city limits in White Plains. He lived in a pretty large home with a sky room that allowed for a lot of natural sunlight. It was larger than Ivan's home, and a little more modernized, even from the outside.

Feli skipped up to the man's porch as Lovino shoved his hands into his pockets. Feli pushed the doorbell and a chime sounded.

"Hello, what is the purpose of your visit?" The robotic voice of the doorbell asked.

"Ciao! I'm here to drop off some sketches for Kiku!" Feli closed one of his eyes and leaned over to look into the yellow glowing doorbell.

There was a click and then the door opened. "Futuristic, huh Lovi?" Feli straightened up before he walked through the door.

"Yeah, yeah." Lovino muttered, walking in after him. Lovino closed the door behind him.

They walked through a long narrow hallway. "Kiku? Kiku? I'm here with the sketches! Your doorbell let me and Lovi in!"

Lovino took a peak into a few open rooms: one looked like a bathroom, the bidet immediately standing out to him, knowing it wasn't a toilet; and another seemed to have a few instruments in it such as a drum kit, keyboard, and a bass from what he could see propped against the wall.

There was a spiral staircase in another area of the house, after Feli turned a corner, next to a living room area with a short table and a few pads on the floor presumably to sit.

"Kiku?" Feli said, gripping the banister to the staircase, "You up there?"

"Feli. You are here. Come up. I am in the skyroom." Kiku said from presumably at the top of the steps.

"Ok!" Feli called before ascending the steps. Creaks and groans accompanied the addition of their weights as they walked up the steps.

They were then on the second floor that seemed to have multiple rooms, one being a bedroom from where he could see from his position on the steps. But Feli was still going higher. He was a little curious of what could be in these other rooms, for someone who lived alone, and had this large of a house.

But he continued to follow Feli up the stairs until he was met with a room with greenhouse style windows, that let in alot of sunlight; it was a sunny Spring day after all. It was filled with tables that had motherboards, wires, gears, cogs and all sorts of robotic metal parts on them. There was a desktop computer pushed towards a corner of the room. Kiku was at one of the tables with what looked like a metallic robot head with green eyes, its white eyeballs stood out in contrast to the rest of the exposed wires and gears.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" Lovino asked, and Kiku looked up from his task of screwing on what looked like the hinge to a jaw.

"The male Iggy android if I can get his speaker to work."

"Oooh creepy! I brought the sketches you wanted! They're going to look so cute when you make them! I stuck as close to the dimensions as I could! I even designed some starting outfits they could wear!"

"Arigatou. But they already have outfits."

"Sure but those look like they're for someone's grandparents. They're supposed to be young right? You want some cool clothes that won't go out of style and will compliment each of their figures." Feliciano handed him the tablet, open to the sketches he was talking about.

"A tweed suit? You have to be a little more realistic, Feli. That's going to cost a lot to mass produce on the androids. We will stick with the ones provided."

Feli pouted, his ultimate weapon when trying to get his way. Lovino was immune to Feli by now, having seen him weaponize it his entire life. Lovino does it and everyone immediately says no, but Feli does it and it's fucking mind control. Kiku seemed to be cracking under the man's gaze.

Here we go. Lovino rolled his eyes as he wandered over to the various robot parts that were scattered around.

"If you find some designs that are cheaper to make, I'll bring them into the discussion, there's a higher chance they'll be accepted."

"Grazie Kiku!"

Lovino looked back at the disembodied head of the android, feeling a wave of unease, as its glassy eyeballs were staring right at him. Its green eyes flickered towards the upper right direction before returning to staring at him again.

"Sooo have you been going out? Seeing someone? You can't be spending too much time with him, hmm?" Feliciano rapped his fist against the top of the android's head.

Kiku reached out to grab Feli's hand, "You have to be careful. He has a lot of sensors." He looked down, "Not as often as you'd like."

There was a stretch of silence.

The android's eyes flickered to the upper right corner again. Lovino furrowed his eyebrows as he walked towards the back of the room, the android's eyes following him.

"Kiku, I'm worried about you. I'm happy to help, but this isn't even a part of the company right? A side project you're hoping to push."

"Ludwig told you, didn't he? He wants you to talk me out of it?" Kiku's voice was low.

"Yes." Feliciano said, quietly, "But! I think he's just worried you're going to burn out. I think it's a good idea, a great one if we can agree on the designs."

Lovino walked backwards, still turned towards the android, its eyes couldn't follow him anymore, but he could still feel it was looking at him. Lovino 's back hit the counter causing it to make a sound as it scraped against the floor. Startled, he looked back to see the computer. There was a string of code, lots of words he didn't understand, but by a blinking cursor he did see, "LIONS ATE RAT."

"Mister Vargas, I'm sorry I have been ignoring you. I wanted to ask about your app." Kiku said to him. Lovino looked up from the screen and turned to see Kiku was a short distance from him.

"That android is fucking creepy. Is it supposed to follow you with its eyes?" Lovino said, walking back over.

"He's supposed to have a learning function, yes." Kiku nods, "Presumably your moving around interested him."

"Well leave me alone, alright?" Lovino said after leaning down to be at level with the android's face.

"Lovi hasn't been using the app!" Feli said, with a giggle.

"Shut up you idiota!" Lovino went over to cover Feli's mouth. But then Feli started licking his hand.

Kiku placed a hand under his chin, studying him with an expression Lovino couldn't understand, intrigue probably.

"Is that true?" Kiku asked.

Lovino wiped his hand off, "You're fucking gross! I don't know where your tongue has been!"

"Yep! All true, he's been talking to some British guy he met on the internet!" Feli said with a grin.

Lovino hooked his arm around Feli's neck and ground his knuckles into his head, "What part of shut the fuck up, don't you understand?"

"L-Lovi–!"

"Please refrain from violence, Mister Vargas!"

Lovino groaned,"He's always doing this!"

Feli coughed and sputtered as Lovino let him go.

"I assure you I am not interested in who you are conversing with. I am just curious about your disinterest in our app."

"Oh well, I just didn't need it anymore. It was only supposed to be temporary anyway so I wouldn't get attached. What kind of loser would I be if I was friends with a bot?" Lovino put his hands on his hips as he addressed the scientist.

"I suppose societal pressures are at play. Apparently there's still a stigma around befriending technology." He nodded, "An interesting thought."

When they finally left, Lovino couldn't shake the feeling that the android was still staring at him, but he couldn't understand why. And what was that message about? Lions were big cats, so duh they ate rats, why would Kiku program that into the android?

Maybe so it could have some fucking common sense.

Lovino laughed to himself at that.

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Lovino was currently on the Heta U campus, the branch of the international university in New York. Eduard had referred him to one of his friends that was really good with coding. So he gave Lovino his number and the kid told him to meet him at the courtyard. He was sitting on a cold hard bench that had a wet spot, not that he saw it before sitting down, so his ass was a little wet. But he was next to the wet spot now.

Sometimes Lovino had to remind himself that although Arthur was a bot, he did things, and his calls would interrupt those things sometimes. But he was never really aware of when those certain things would be taking place.

Maybe I should ask for that bastard's schedule.

But it didn't stop him from calling whenever the fuck he felt like, again Arthur was his chat bot, it's just he would be expected to wait for him to pick up having this knowledge. It took a few rings but the line did click.

"Hey bastard. Guess what?"

"I'm terrible at guessing…just …t-tell me what you want." His voice sounded a bit hoarse.

"Oh don't fucking tell me you found out how to make yourself sick too! I'm not you're goddamn boss, you don't have to call in sick days to me! Just tell me you want a break or something!"

Lovino was panicking a bit, maybe he called him too much. He didn't want to turn into Alfred or Gods forbid, a hard ass like Ludwig. Technically it was Arthur's job to talk to him, his words, not Lovino's, and honestly it was easier to think of them like a customer and a service worker than as friends or divorceés or whatever it was they defined their relationship as before.

"Will you calm down? You just caught me right after my weekly scream into the void. Why the bloody hell would I even want to make myself ill anyway?"

"I don't fucking know! You take showers, you don't even get dirty or have real skin! A weekly scream into the void, what's that?"

"What do you want, Lovino?"

"Tell me why you were screaming first. Doesn't that piss off the NPC's?"

Lovino could hear Arthur sigh in that way that meant he was disappointed, or fed up with him. "You wouldn't understand so let's just stop while we're ahead, alright?"

"Don't say that shit!"

Lovino didn't like getting talked down to like he was a stupid child, especially when he wasn't one now. He's heard it all his life growing up, he was the oldest and yet nobody thought he was capable enough to handle the difficult topics. Feli goes to fucking Ludwig to fix his goddamn problems, he's always going to Antonio for shit, but it's never the other way around, and he's never really spoken to Stefano but he sure as hell knows he isn't the kid's first pick.

Maybe he isn't compassionate or whatever, but he's sure he's got enough life experience to give out.

"I really don't want to have to explain it to you."

Lovino pursed his lips, "You think I'm stupid, don't you? Just like everyone else huh?"

"Everything isn't about you, you self absorbed cunt!"

"That's what I get for trying to help! Fine you goddamn asshole. See if I ever ask you what's bothering you ever again! It's not like I care or–"

"Do you have any idea what it feels like to be completely and utterly alone?" He yelled the question so loud Lovino felt his ears ringing. And it didn't take much to detect that this came not from a place of anger and frustration but deep despair.

Lovino was stunned, he'd never thought about that, he'd assumed Arthur had his NPC's to keep him company. Or whatever, right?

"This is why I didn't want to tell you. Fuck." His voice sounded brittle, "Just forget I said that…What did you want to tell me?"

Lovino bit his lip. What would Antonio do in a situation like this? Shit! Shit! Shit! Uh...He'd probably say something in a calming tone of voice. Usually Lovino's own damn name.

"Arthur–"

"Excuse me, are you Lovino?" Lovino looked up to see the same man of East Asian descent who was at Arthur's old apartment, standing before him. There was a look of recognition in his eyes, but he kept his expression neutral.

"Yeah, who's asking?" Lovino asked.

"I'm Ka Lung Wong, but you could call me Leon if it's easier. Eduard said you had a question about the coding of your Iggy Two app."

Lovino pressed the phone against his thigh.

"Yeah, my app's voice function sounds like a real human voice."

Leon pursed his lips, "I downloaded the app, and tried out its features before our meeting. I distinctly remember it sounding quite robotic. Can I hear yours?"

Lovino pressed his phone to his ear again. Fuck, that's what I was going to tell Arthur about but didn't get a chance to.

"I'm going to pass you over to Leon ok, Iggy?" Lovino said through grit teeth

"What? Lovino, did you hit your head or something?"

Lovino handed the phone to Leon who took it, eyeing him seemingly with suspicion.

"Hello?" Leon said, with some hesitance, and then there was a pause. "I'm Leon uh, I'm a friend of Lovino's. I just wanted to hear how you sounded."

He was silent for a moment, before he placed the phone against his thigh, "Are you pulling a prank on me?"

"No!" Lovino crossed his arms.

"Hmm, he does sound real, and he's quite rude to you. He said you don't have any friends." Leon smirked.

"Can you tell me what's wrong with him or can't you?" Lovino asked, standing up and holding out his hand for his phone.

Leon handed the phone back to him and he ended the call. Arthur's going to be pissed and confused but he'll deal with that later.

"I'll have to look at the source code for the app, and fiddle around with it to see if I could make my Iggy behave like yours. But I'm not doing that for free."

"Can't you put that shit on your resume? I work for minimum wage at a cafe, I'm not made of money!"

"Well if you don't want to pay me, you'll just have to find someone else to do it." Leon shrugged.

"You're a fucking computer science nerd, you got a girl you want to pick up? I could be your wingman." Lovino, when he was in college briefly, had quite a few hookups with girls, it was just easier to talk to them. Boys pissed him off and got on his damn nerves.

"There's dating apps for that, and I don't want help from a random stranger. So you going to pay me or no?" Leon crossed his arms.

Lovino sighed, was this really worth it if he was going to have to start spending money?

But Lovino's other option was to actually start looking for another place to live. The ever approaching move out date was something not lost on him. He didn't want to think about Feli abandoning him for that German asshole, and his only tie to home slipping away from him. It was encroaching on his mind and weighing heavy on him, but when he thought about Arthur's technological shit it gave his mind a bit of ease to have something else to focus on.

So Lovino frowned, "How much are you asking for?"

"$400. How about half up front and the rest when I finish?"

That was a lot of money, "You want to drain my damn pockets dry. I've got like $20 on hand. Can we Hetelle?"

Leon nodded, getting out his phone and they exchanged Hetelle accounts. He was able to digitally forward the $180 to him.

"I'll text you with updates until I am finished."

They shook hands to seal the deal before going their separate ways.

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It was later that night and Lovino was getting ready for bed. He snuggled under his covers. Feliciano was staying over at Ludwig's for the night. Lovino wished they did that more often, their penthouse had more fucking rooms than their two bedroom apartment. But Feli was Ludwig's dirty little secret until they got fucking married or something. Lovino didn't really know if that was true or if Feli just made Ludwig embarrassed just by being himself, which was understandable too.

Lovino pushed the little phone button on the Iggy Two app.

He waited for the line to click after a seemingly infinite number of rings. He rolled his eyes.

"Care to explain what that was all about earlier?"

Lovino let out an audible sigh, "I was going to tell you when you first picked up but then you were being difficult, so I didn't get a chance to."

"Difficult? You were the one insistent on knowing about my screaming ritual."

"Yeah and you still haven't told me what it is!"

"And you haven't told me why you called in the first place!"

"I spent $200 on trying to see why you actually sound like a human being. I thought this kid could poke around and see if your code is different."

"Why does this matter to you?"

"I can't be curious? I know I'm not a philosopher like you, but this is damn strange and I want to get to the bottom of it."

And maybe get some money too. It wasn't lost on him that Braginsky had been struggling with the voice patterns for the app and maybe if that kid could find out how to get it to work, they'd pay a lot of money to get the others that way too.

"I'm not a philosopher, you idiot! You'd rather waste time and energy on this than something else more practical?"

Lovino bit his lip, he didn't need him to point out that he was running away from doing something about having to move out.

"Since when did you care how I used my time? You're not my fucking personal assistant remember! I thought you'd be happy to hear that I'm doing this."

"Happy to hear that you want to help the company that's keeping me hostage? You think this is some kind of monetary opportunity don't you? 'Local idiot finds breakthrough in human voice technology.' Is that how the headline would go?"

"Hey you can't fault me for trying to make a little extra dough! I'm living paycheck to paycheck, you know? You don't have to worry about bills or finding a place to live after your asshole of a fratello decides to abandon you for some damn German sausage! He gets to go live carefree while you're forced to fend for yourself alone. Those are his fucking friends you know!" Lovino dug his nails into his palms, feeling himself shaking a bit, he hadn't meant to say that.

"Lovino, you're going to have to toughen up and accept that you're going to have to find another place to live by yourself. You can't keep running from the problem."

"I fucking know that! I didn't need you to tell me that!"

"What do you want me to say? You're brother's a twat for deciding to leave you and move on with his life? Life isn't fair! You know that!"

Arthur really knew how to blow the wind out of his already struggling sails. He didn't need him to make him feel even worse. "Do you have to be such an asshole about everything?" For once Lovino was quiet, his tone barely above a whisper, defeated.

He kind of wished he could tell Antonio what was going on. He'd probably say he could stay with him, hard pass because Francis would be there, or tell him that it's going to be alright. He knew Antonio fed him bullshit but it was oddly comforting.

"I'm sorry, I'm not good at coddling you! I'm not your mother! That's all I know, toughen up and push through." Lovino could hear him breathing on the other end, quite heavily. "And look where that's gotten me…"

There was a long pause before he whispered,

"T-trapped, and un-unbearably l-lonely, in a desolate void.."

"But you've got your NPC's right? And you've got me. You said you made the space feel like home, right?" Lovino felt uncomfortable, he thought Arthur was feeling alright. That he'd drank tea and thought it over, and came to terms with the fact that he was Lovino's chatbot.

"It's not real! None of it's real! The fucking NPC's can't hold a conversation! That house isn't mine! And you don't give a flying fuck about me!" He yelled at him, and Lovino pulled the phone away from his ear. "We're just pretending! It's all pretend!" Lovino could hear him breaking down into sobs.

Unsure of what to do and totally unprepared he let out a breath, "Arthur."

"I'm so lonely here! There's nothing! There's no one!" He could hear the little bot cry even harder.

"Arthur, it's going to be alright. I'm right here." Lovino said, as Arthur continued to cry before he quieted down to sniffling. "I'm not going anywhere."

That was true, Lovino wasn't going to leave him because deep deep down he did care about him. He wasn't going to say that though.

Hearing Arthur have a mental breakdown or panic attack or something really puts things into perspective. Maybe I'm scared of being alone.

Arthur let out a shaky breath, "I'm sorry for doing that in front of you. The screaming usually helps to keep that down. B-but that shite you were telling me was…comforting."

"It is, isn't it? Antonio, that dumbass, was right about something for once."

"Fine. Whatever. Don't expect this to be a normal thing between us. Impractical optimism is for fools and swaddling is for infants."

He wouldn't. Arthur wasn't Antonio and Lovino wasn't him either.

Lovino sighed, "You were right, I don't know what being completely alone feels like, a-and I'm kind of scared of that, you know metaphorically."

"For now, at least until you delete me, I'll be with you. So technically you wouldn't be alone."

Lovino felt a twitch in the corner of his mouth. A nice gesture, but also there was the nagging feeling of dread attached to it, that he couldn't shake.

Arthur's problem hadn't been fixed.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism welcome.