The following days were spent full of tension and uncertainty.
Ayala found herself needing to get used to having the animatronics in her home.
Sun and Moon each had to figure out how to settle into the house.
Neither side was entirely sure of how to adapt to the other. Particularly in the cases of Ayala and Moon.
Sun was the most adaptable of the three individuals. His greatest difficulty was learning how to exist in a household where he was not expected to constantly tend to someone else. But he found that he was able to keep himself occupied through other means. Especially once the woman had restored her home internet connection. Without anything in place to lock him out of accessing specific information, Sun was free to learn about pretty much anything he wanted. This kept him relatively comfortable. When he could not be of use, he used the internet to find some means of being useful.
An example being that Ayala could not properly cook as a result of her shoulder injury. In an attempt to care for her, Sun had tried to prepare a meal.
The problem that he quickly encountered was the fact that he lacked knowledge on most forms of cooking. What he knew how to prepare were simple foods, mostly snacks. He also had a habit of making these simple foods in a way which was meant to appeal to children. Such as arranging cut fruits and vegetables in a way to make them resemble butterflies, or making heart shaped slices of toast with jelly. He meant well. Though the food was perfectly edible the way he prepared it, it was not nutritionally sound enough to be eaten consistently.
Beyond that, Ayala had actually laughed at the first meal he prepared for her. Carrot and apple slices with peanut butter and heart shaped jelly toasts. His means of arranging everything to make it appeal to children had apparently caught her off guard.
So she laughed.
She laughed from the surprise of it all.
Though she explained after the fact that she appreciated the sentiment, the food was "too cute". So cute that she felt somewhat guilty for having to eat it.
Or at least that was how she had explained her abrupt fit of laughter followed by her hesitance to eat.
At first, Sun had genuinely believed that she thought his efforts were silly and that she was making fun of him. It took him unintentionally reading a private conversation to accept that Ayala had just been caught off guard, resulting in her unusual reaction.
Granted, reading that conversation led to other insecurities.
While Ayala actually did appreciate the gesture and found the food cute, the people that she had chosen to talk to about it were not so kind. It would seem that humans were willing to take any opportunity to be cruel.
His efforts were mocked and there had been some recommendations to have him sent in for repairs, as obviously something must have been wrong to him to think that such a childish meal was suitable for an adult. The mockery was what triggered the desire to learn to cook proper meals.
There was also a genuine fear that the harsh words of the other people would somehow convince Ayala to share in their opinion. He most definitely wanted to avoid a situation such as that.
These worries kept him occupied for the most part. The same could not be said for Moon.
Moon was not so well equipped when it came to social adaptation.
In terms of being useful, he was fine. Cleaning was something that he actually enjoyed to some degree, so he had absolutely no issues when it came to keeping the house clean and keeping things organized.
His issues stemmed from his distrust of people. His general reaction to Ayala was irritation at the best of times, but if she ever made the mistake of invading his personal space he would assure that she quickly corrected that mistake. He would swipe in her general direction. When he did so, he would make sure that his clawed fingers would not draw near enough to touch her. While he had no intention of actually hurting her, he definitely made her fear otherwise.
She, meanwhile, had no clue as to how much restraint he was actually putting into his little displays. Nor could she understand why the nighttime attendant would resort to claiming a small closet as a sort of den.
Moon had picked an empty closet on the bottom floor to claim as his own personal room.
While the space was small, he could be left alone in the dark whenever he found himself on the brink of being overwhelmed. His agitation was a direct byproduct of stress and trauma.
Ayala, unfortunately, lacked any means of figuring out exactly what might set him off.
Outside of swearing. Moon absolutely hated it when people would curse. Ergo, the woman's habit of swearing in casual conversation or in response to a minor annoyance assured that Moon was almost constantly on edge.
Meanwhile, Ayala was more or less unaware of her own mistakes. To her, Moon's reaction to the swearing was less of a reaction to feeling threatened and more an attempt at enforcing daycare rules which need not apply in her home.
Ergo she and the nighttime attendant were butting heads rather consistently. Each made the other feel threatened in one way or another, and neither fully understood their own mistakes.
If he would only explain his feelings to the woman, she would most likely be willing to accommodate him.
Beyond that, she was having problems with Sun as well. Not major problems, but problems nonetheless.
She was an independent adult who struggled when it came to allowing someone else to look after her.
Ergo Sun's persistent attempts at taking care of her made her legitimately uneasy.
The sentiment was appreciated, but she was not at all accustomed to having someone fret over her so frequently. There was also Sun's overall inexperience with people.
He was not used to taking care of people.
He was used to taking care of children.
There was a difference.
The initial incident with the food was a good example. The meal was adorable and she did eventually eat it, but she had felt incredibly awkward throughout. Try as she might, she failed to actually hunt down any childhood memories where such an innocent meal had been given to her. Even the child safe snacks she had eaten while small were rather simple and plain. Like cheese cubes and mustard. Something that an adult might throw on a plate to put in front of a hangry child as quickly as possible.
For as pleasant as the food Sun gave her was, and as pretty as he had made it, the fact that she had been given it at all was what made her feel weirdly uneasy.
That was why she had laughed initially. Her brain struggled to decide whether or not she was supposed to be happy or bothered by the sudden and unexpected offer of such adorable food. It was an unfamiliar sentiment. An appreciated one. Enjoyed on some level, but she struggled to process her emotions in that instant.
Only after being a few minutes to let the shock of everything wear off was she able to conclude that she didn't mind Sun's efforts. Such was noted by her urge to try and brag to colleagues about it. Though that had backfired to some degree.
Given how expensive custom made animatronics were, it should have been obvious that people would think someone had cut corners when she showed off Sun's attempt at cooking.
Basically, there were claims that she had been ripped off. Because such an expensive animatronic should know how to prepare a proper meal for an adult.
She countered these claims by establishing that the animatronics were still being properly integrated into her home and that they needed time to fall into a proper routine. She had already established that she would want animatronics that were suitable to have around small children.
So it was a bit easier to convince people that Sun's AI was still in the process of learning which programs were meant to be used with children and which were meant to be used with adults.
After all, these were brand new animatronics as far as anyone knew. AI took time to learn and adapt.
So she had managed to hush down those who attempted to talk her into sending Sun back for repairs due to what had been viewed as an "obvious defect".
She had only wanted to try and show off the cute food Sun had made.
What she failed to realize was that the daytime attendant had wound up unintentionally connecting to her phone in his attempt to connect to the wifi, resulting in him reading a good portion of the conversation that she had had with her colleagues.
The entire reason that he had stopped fretting over her so intently was not so much because he understood that she did not require round the clock care, but because he wanted to be able to provide care that was less likely to be mocked and ridiculed.
All three were struggling to learn how to coexist.
Some were making better attempts than others, but only time would reveal when they would find their comfortable means of coexistence.