silence the voice in my head

Title: Spring
Series: Angelic Layer/Chobits
Rating: Teen?
Summary: Post-Angelic Layer. 'Ice Machine' Sai Jounouchi sees an impossibly familiar face in the crowd. Learning the truth forces her to confront her past. Warning for all the spoilers for both these series.

---

They say that things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow
Or so I have been told

The first time Sai saw the girl, she dismissed it. Well, by the time she’d gathered her wits, the figure had disappeared into the crowd again, and it was easy to believe her eyes were playing tricks. The girl, whoever she was, hadn’t really looked like Kaede. Not really. Rather, some strange combination of light and angle had conspired to show her something she must have wanted to see, some improbable likeness: water in the desert. Something, she supposed, she must still wish for, even after all this time. But not anything real. For that was impossible, utterly, and there was no changing that.

She’d sat back on the park bench, swirling the last of her coffee, her hand less steady than it ought to have been. She’d kept scanning, vaguely, the swirl of the lunchtime professionals around her. Ridiculous, if she’d let herself think about it, for there was no point in it: the girl was gone, and what would it have mattered, anyway, even if she hadn’t been? But it had been something to pass the time, and Sai always had plenty of that; and as her break had drawn to a close and she’d walked back to work, she’d felt less shocked by the thing. The tremor faded from her hand, the quickness dulled in her chest. By the time she’d dropped into bed that night and pulled the covers up, she was able to see the truth of it: too many long days and not enough breaks. She was jumping at ghosts. That was all. That was all.

Being alone was no excuse for being stupid, Sai reminded herself. She’d had been alone for a long time now, and that day was no different than any other.

The next morning proved her right, of course. For the sun rose, life went on, and Kaede just wasn’t there any more. It wasn’t a new thing. It was the way things were, and there was no point wishing for anything else. Wishes had no place in Sai’s world anymore.

And yet…

Despite her resolve to forget the whole thing, she couldn’t help a small knot forming in her stomach the next day. It was a queer thing; it jolted her, keyed her up, pulled at her like one of the tiny models hanging in her office. It stayed with her through the morning’s design testing and the report she subsequently drafted about it. It made her heart quicken, made her remember things forgotten, things laid long ago to rest. And when her assistant turned off her monitor and told her, quite sternly, that it was time for her break, it took Sai back to that same park bench. To drink the same cup of coffee and scan the same crowd.

She peered through the crowd, looking (hoping).

But the coffee cooled in the cup and nothing happened. No ghosts appeared, no ridiculous half-likenesses that could explain everything away. No-one who could have been the girl from the day before at all, and Sai ignored the voice that whispered, goblinlike, at back of her head that perhaps if she could just find the girl, she would find Kaede after all. Someone like Kaede. Someone who would look at Sai and see all the things Kaede did, all the things that Sai never could, someone who would understand…

No-one came. The minutes ticked past on her wristwatch, and Sai dropped her coffee cup in the closest rubbish bin. She started back towards work; she kept her head down, made long strides through the crowds and ignored the sideways glances as she went. She was too tall, she stood out: there were always looks. She tried to tug free the knot in her stomach as she went; she didn’t need something like that after all this time, she didn’t want it. For she was being idiotic, being preposterous, and she knew better than that.

But the knot didn’t go away. It didn’t fade, as she’d hoped, with the passing of hours, the blurring of days one into another. Instead, the knot prompted her to repeat the same ritual every lunch break for nearly eight weeks in a row: the same coffee on the same bench at the same time of day. And even on her day off, she found herself catching the train and spending those thirty minutes sitting in the park. Waiting, watching. Wishing for the impossible.

Well, it wasn’t as if she had someone waiting for her at home.

On the Thursday of the seventh week, she sat drinking her coffee as ever. By now, of course, the knot didn’t pull quite so sharply as it had, and Sai wondered, perhaps, if it was fading away. Or perhaps she had simply become accustomed to it: she couldn’t tell which. But it still pulled enough to bring her to this place day after day, and that both annoyed and comforted her: annoyed her, because she really ought to be past all this – and comforted her for the same reason. She had been cold and untouched for so long now that she honestly didn’t expect to feel anything again; some small part of her felt glad that she should still wish to.

But another thing that Sai honestly didn’t expect was to see the girl again – partly because millions of people lived in Tokyo, but, mostly, because, even with her daily ritual to hunt her phantom down, she hadn’t ever really thought it something rooted in reality. She’d rationalised her illusion a hundred different ways, most to do with too much work and too little sleep, and sometimes, late at night, when she felt the sharpness of Kaede’s loss anew, she admitted it might have something to do with loneliness. It hadn’t crossed her mind that she might actually have been right.

It shocked her, then, to see Kaede, smiling her sublime smile and following the path around the park. Her hair the wrong colour, missing her glasses, and dressed in an outfit Kaede never would wear – but her. Unmistakably, unquestionably her.

Sai stared. It struck her that she had never really been frozen before, because this was how it felt to be frozen. The girl kept walking; she even looked at Sai and smiled, and Sai’s brain and consciousness reconnected then. She realised the girl was not a girl at all, but a persocom, only a persocom, albeit a very good one. The disappointment formed so thickly on her tongue that she wanted to spit to get rid of it; only a lifetime of good habits prevented her doing so.

But the figure was disappearing into the crowd again. Sai abandoned her coffee and found her feet. The persocom wasn’t walking particularly fast, but she’d already had a couple of minutes head start courtesy of Sai’s total what-the-fuck disbelief, and Sai didn’t mean to lose her a second time. The blue head bobbed through the crowd. Sai missed it for a minute: panic flared, and she pushed between people wildly, craning her head, looking, looking, until she caught sight of it again. The persocom was stopped outside a café at the edge of the park. Sai breathed out heavily. She felt relief wash over her then, that she wouldn’t need to follow the persocom out into the suburbs or something; because she knew she would have, if it had come down to it, if she’d had to, to find out.

For it couldn’t be an accident. No, it wasn’t. And Sai knew the database of commercial persocom faces inside out and backwards: Kaede’s wasn’t among them. It had to be a custom model, then, and a café meant she was probably waiting for her owner; and so if Sai waited too, she could see who had dared, who had fucking dared steal an Angelic Layer champion’s face, stuck it on their mechanical girl to play dress-ups.

After all, that’s what had happened, hadn’t it?

For all the years that had passed since she and Kaede rose to the giddy heights of Angelic Layer fame, it still wasn’t unusual to feel curious eyes on her at the train station, or hear a stammered request to shake her hand. Usually they were young women close to her own age, original fans who remembered her as ‘Ice Machine’ Sai Jounouchi, rather than the teenagers following the latest Angelic Layer darlings. It was just one of those things, and if it happened less frequently with each passing year, it still happened. Even her assistant at Piffle Princess had recognised her on her first day with the company; had gone quite pink when she turned to find Sai towering over her. Mercifully, Mariko hadn’t shrieked or grabbed or anything like that, just said how much she had enjoyed watching Shirahime in battle and gone to fetch the latest briefing notes.

And Sai had been alright with that. She could accept that, because after all, she’d enjoyed watching Shirahime in battle too.

But this… this had nothing to do with that. This wasn’t about admiration or enjoying the play of angels in the battle arena. This persocom, Kaede, not Kaede, was dressed in a maid’s outfit, for fuck’s sake! She’d obviously been built to serve, to play out some twisted fantasy for her owner, and Sai was furious, she was furious suddenly: filled with a hot, choking rage she hadn’t felt for a long time. She wanted to go over there and grab the persocom, to smash her to pieces so she wouldn’t have a face that wasn’t hers anymore. Or perhaps lead her away from here, because it wasn’t the persocom’s fault. Sai could take her back to Piffle Princess, decommission her, or maybe just let her sit quietly on the couch in Sai’s office…

Sai was very aware, abruptly, of her nails digging into her palm.

Then she saw it. Another familiar figure weaving through the lunchtime crowds, a figure she hadn’t seen for many years; a figure that had sparked anger, all those years ago, because he’d kept her to himself in the end, and then self-reproach, because hadn’t Sai kept Rin to herself as well? It didn’t matter if she had wanted to hold Kaede’s hand and sit by her bedside. She hadn’t had the right, and Minoru had. He was her brother, after all that.

Sai joined the dots quickly. She could play out the scene in her head even before he quite reached the café. It was no coincidence that Minoru and a persocom with Kaede’s face were in the same place at the same time – and sure enough, a moment later, the persocom was taking his arm and smiling gently down at him, and they disappeared into the café together.

How dare he? How fucking dare he?

Sai stood there, shaking with anger, with the upset of it. She ought to walk away now, she knew. She ought to go back to work and put it out of her mind; at least bury herself in testing, in anything, until it was time to go home. She wouldn’t need to come back to the park tomorrow. There was plenty at the office to keep her busy. It wasn’t even as though the persocom were real… Sai could feel these very rational thoughts scrolling across her brain, and yet all she could do was stand there, staring. Minoru and his persocom had taken a seat by the window: Sai could just make them out against the reflections on the glass.

She ought to walk away. It was none of her business what he did. He was a kid and he was grieving. She ought to walk away.

Instead she crossed the road, swiftly, and walked into the café.

It was a nice place, once she got inside. Tablecloths and silverware and fresh-faced waitresses. Not that she’d have expected anything different from Minoru: she could still remember his tailored jackets, at the hospital, with the latest smart phone sticking out of his pocket; the fresh cut flowers, out of season and expensive, he’d had delivered every day Kaede was there. Kaede had protested the extravagance. ‘I’ll be home in a few days, you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble,’ she’d said, more than once.

But the flowers had kept coming anyway, and Kaede wasn’t home in a few days.

A waitress appeared to show Sai to a table. She started towards the other side of the café – there was another window there, and it was less crowded besides – but Sai didn’t want that. She said, rather belligerently, ‘Isn’t this table free?’ and pointed to a place in the corner with a perfect view of Minoru’s table. The waitress stopped, taken aback; but she nodded politely, and Sai slid into the seat. She picked up the menu and began to study it in silence – and she was aware she was being rude, but she couldn’t help that right now.

The waitress drifted off. Over the top of the menu, Sai could see the pair by the window. Minoru was sipping tea, the persocom sitting serenely opposite, and there was a plate of small, delicate cakes on the table between them. For show mainly, it seemed, for Minoru hadn’t touched them and the persocom couldn’t, but it was the sort of thing, Sai knew, and this was sort of place, that Kaede would have loved. The thought occurred to Sai that Minoru had probably come here with Kaede when she was alive: had drunk tea and disdained cake while Kaede ate hers neatly with a fork, smiling over sugared violets and candied peel and slivers of blanched almonds.

Sai didn’t know what to do. What she was doing here. There was no way to say anything without causing a scene; but she found that thought didn’t bother her as much as it ought. She found she wanted to cause a scene. She wanted to cry out, ‘Look here, look at what he’s done! He’s made a persocom to be his sister, he’s dressed it up like a maid! He’s got no respect, no bloody idea! He doesn’t have the right…’

She carried on thinking about that for a bit. She tried to plan what she would say, what words would best convey her horror at seeing Kaede’s face on a mechanical doll, at hearing Kaede’s words – for she had caught snatches of their conversation: the AI was remarkable – in a voice that wasn’t truly hers. She wanted to make everyone see, make everyone understand so they would be furious too. But the words started to get mixed up in her head. She began to sweat. She could feel her hands trembling where she was gripping the menu, and she couldn’t get the words right in her head...

Then, ‘Can I help you?’

Sai jumped. She had been so busy watching Minoru and his persocom that she hadn’t realised she’d been staring, and now both of them were turned towards her. Sai looked at the girl, at the persocom, and couldn’t speak for a moment. For her face, its face, her face, was arranged in an expression of concern that so perfectly mirrored Kaede’s, Sai was overcome. She didn’t know what to do. Her throat felt thick and tight, her heart swollen in her chest. For one terrible moment, she thought she might cry.

But then the feeling turned back into something else. She was angry again, and she liked that better because at least she felt in control. She got up and went over to their table. ‘What’s all this?’ she said, savagely. She flung a hand towards the persocom, gesturing, and Minoru’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. Sai didn’t care. Let him be annoyed. Let him think what he liked! She wasn’t the one running around with her sister’s face on some cybernetic girl.

‘Minoru, shall I call for assistance?’ the persocom said.

The boy shook his head. ‘Not yet, Yuzuki.’ So that was her name. Sai snorted. At least he’d had the decency to change that, if nothing else. ‘I think I’d like to know why our guest is interrupting our tea.’

Sai didn’t look at the persocom. She kept her eyes on Minoru and she said, ‘You made her a machine. She’s a machine, she’s not real, she’s just a machine…’ She couldn’t get the words out. All the things she’d thought of, only moments ago, deserted her; she was left trying to draw them together, trying to explain that she knew what he’d done, she knew, and all the while she was still so angry she was almost stammering with it.

Minoru frowned up at her, uncomprehending. She stopped, too angry, too furious, in the end, to keep trying to speak, and after a moment he said, very courteously, ‘She’s a persocom, miss. She’s real – she’s a machine, that’s what she’s meant to be. Like the cashier over there,’ and he pointed, then, to the persocom manning the till.

He doesn’t know me.

The realisation hit Sai hard. He had no idea. She recognised him, she had memorised the very back of his head as he sat in that hospital room. She had tried to sympathise with him then, because she’d been in his shoes before. She had tried to understand, tried to convince herself it was right that he took the sole seat at Kaede’s bedside; she hadn’t been successful. But now he was looking at her and he didn’t know who she was. He hadn’t been aware of any of the people in that room save for his sister, and Sai couldn’t blame him for that.

She pulled herself together then. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. There was still something rough about it, but she couldn’t help that. ‘I thought she was someone else.’

And she bowed to the boy, and went off.

---

She ended up at the gates to a grand house – funny, how she’d been along this street a hundred times and never noticed it before. But that wasn’t so unusual: Sai didn’t notice a lot of things, and this house was one among the thousands. Still, she felt something odd about it as she stood there: as if she’d arrived at her destination, though she’d been walking quite without purpose; and then, before she knew what she was doing, she was passing through the gate and stepping into the garden.

‘Welcome! Come in!’ cried a voice, and Sai turned her head towards it. Or them, rather, for it was two voices, in fact, spoken as one. A pair of girls – twin persocoms, she noted – had started towards her from the house. ‘Step this way! The lady of the house is waiting inside for you.’

‘No…’ Sai tried to collect herself. Christ, this was awkward. She hadn’t meant to come in here, she didn’t know what she was doing, and now she was intruding on… well, something that didn’t involve her, whatever it was. But the girls had drawn closer, and Sai realised, with a sickening sort of lurch, that they were human after all. She didn’t like that mistake: it was one that usually went in reverse, and on the heels of seeing Minoru and his persocom, made her edgy, wound her up.

But, ‘Come in,’ the girls chimed again. They reached out to take one of her hands each, and she drew back then, and shook her head.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said. She sounded firmer this time. She squared her shoulders, and the girls blinked up at her with pale, identical eyes. ‘I’m not meant to be here, I just…’

‘But you are here,’ came another voice: this one was older and richer than the two chiming girls. Sai squinted towards the house, and saw a woman there, dressed in a kimono with a pattern like snowfall. Her long black hair fell luxuriously about her shoulders. Just like Shirahime, Sai thought, unnerved, and then she really had to get out of there.

She made a deep bow. ‘I’m sorry for intruding,’ she said shortly. ‘I came to the wrong house.’

The woman said, ‘Which house were you looking for?’

‘I…’ Sai stopped, at a loss for what to say then. She hadn’t expected the woman to ask; hadn’t expected her to do anything except nod and smile, but she hadn’t done either of those things. She was gazing at Sai with heavy dark eyes, her expression smooth and utterly unsurprised. Sai tried again. ‘I was going home and lost track of where I was,’ she said, and then again, ‘I’m sorry. Excuse me.’

‘You don’t have a wish?’ the woman asked.

Sai frowned. ‘Sorry, a wish?’

‘Or should I say, is there something you were looking for,’ and here the woman tilted her head, looked right into Sai with that dark, unflinching gaze, ‘something you wished for, when you found me instead?’

Sai opened her mouth to protest and didn’t. Kaede, she thought at once, fiercely; the force of her feeling, locked away and forgotten for so long, was almost shocking, but now, with no-one to hear her and spurred on by this woman, Sai let herself be washed away by it. I miss you, she thought, and closed her eyes tight. I wish you were here.

But almost at once Sai shook her head. There was no point wishing, and she wasn’t Minoru, who had replaced his sister with a pretend one. She had learnt to live without Kaede, she had learnt to live without Rin, and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fucking fair, but she had done it. She would keep on doing it because that’s what people did. The longing slipped away from her again; now where it had been there was only terrible, aching loss, and she could feel the tension from the café creeping back into her shoulders. There was a tight band around her skull, making it impossible to think clearly, and all she could find to say was, ‘I don’t wish for impossible things!’

The woman looked at her, and waited.

Sai licked her lips. She didn’t know what she was saying, but, ‘There’s no point in wishing for something I can’t have, is there?’ she said; and then, when the woman didn’t reply, she said, ‘I mean, there isn’t, is there?’

The woman studied her a moment longer. Then she said, very carefully, ‘Your wish is your affair. I can’t decide for you.’

Someone like Kaede.

The thought slipped out, unbidden, from where she’d been trying hard to keep it back. The goblinlike voice whispered to her, again, that Kaede was gone, but perhaps there was someone like her: not a machine, not cold programming, a pale imitation of a girl, but someone like Kaede. Someone who would look at Sai and see all the things Kaede did, because Sai had been alone for so long now…

‘No,’ she said, low. She looked at the woman, and tried to gather what she wanted to say. ‘I made a wish once to be stronger than anything, and now I am.’ The woman didn’t speak, but Sai thought she could see a faint quirk at the edge of her mouth. ‘And I did it by myself. Well, not by myself, but…’ She swallowed. She could hear her own breath, too loud in her ears, and she had to get out, she had to stop this. She said, ‘I don’t want something that isn’t real.’

Then she turned back towards the street, and fled

---

That night Sai dreamt of another world; a magical place, rather like the Reading Room in the British Museum that Kaede had once shown her pictures of. ‘Let’s go together, Sai,’ she’d said, eyes shining despite how weak she was. Sai could still remember the anticipation in her voice. She’d been in hospital then.

Sai dreamt of Kaede, alive, and herself, working side by side, like they’d always planned to do – but not with persocoms, not with Angels or any other machines, but amongst books, endless books, the scent of leather and paper rich in the air.

She dreamt of beautiful dresses, elaborate and quite unlike anything Sai ever would wear, with silk at the throat and cuffs and bindings down the back, and she dreamt of thieves coming to steal their most precious book. She dreamt of running through walls of books with Kaede at her side, of magic at her fingertips and guardians springing forth at her command, and she was an Angel, she was Shirahime, agile and swift; she was protecting their book, protecting her and Kaede’s sacred place, she was winning…

Then the light-haired thief took off his hat. It was Wizard, and he broke through her defences like glass, like they were nothing. She fell from the layer and the crowd roared their approval, and waking up was the worst part because Kaede was still gone.

---

The next morning didn’t prove anything to Sai. Not now. For the sun rose, life went on, and Kaede still wasn’t there, Rin wasn’t there; Sai felt exhausted before the day had even begun. But she dragged herself into work anyway, shut the door to her office. She stared at persocom faces on her screen and saw Kaede, Yuzuki, staring back at her.

She abandoned that job, then, and threw herself into analysing the latest round of shock absorber tests instead. Numbers and graphs that couldn’t smile Kaede’s smile.

Midday came and went. Sai ignored her assistant’s suggestion that she take a break and go outside. And she ignored, too, the little crease that appeared in Mariko’s brow when she returned an hour later, found Sai’s coffee sitting cold and undrunk on the desk.

‘I’ll bring you some more, Jounouchi-san,’ she said, in a voice that was too bright.

But Sai shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and then, when Mariko frowned more, she said, ‘I’ve been drinking too much coffee lately. Don’t worry about it.’

Mariko brought tea instead.

Sai chased up the results for the latest laptop model joint mobility tests. She waded through the data and wrote it up in a report, and submitted her recommendations to the chairman for his consideration. She went down to the design lab and brought the new swatch books back to her office, and it all felt so meaningless, so utterly flat.

What had she done before she’d seen Kaede, Yuzuki, that day? Sai couldn’t remember. Had this really been her life, day in and day out? With nothing to look forward to, no spark of interest, no warmth from another human being? Mariko came and took the untouched tea away, and the crease between her brows had drawn down into a frown. Sai couldn’t speak to her either. She didn’t know what to do.

She couldn’t get over it. That was the thing. She thought she would, the night before – before that dream, with Kaede so close she could touch her – and then she thought she would, once she got to work and she fell into her routine – but it hadn’t happened. She sat in her office and went through the motions: it was like a mime, like playing pretend. She’d lost the art of being alone: she realised it with a horrible sort of clarity. She’d forgotten the trick to it, all the little ways you filled up the day to make it seem less awful. She didn’t know how to learn them again. She was like a train fallen from its track: immobile and ugly and useless on the siding. She couldn’t figure out how to get back on the rail, how to get moving again. It seemed impossible, an insurmountable task.

She stared at the swatch book, unseeing, as the sky darkened into evening, and then to inky black. Along the hallway, the lights in the offices went off one by one. Sai turned on the desk lamp, more from habit than anything else; sitting alone in the dark wouldn’t help, anyway.

But long after Sai had decided she must be the only one left in the building, there was a tap at the door. She looked up, expecting to see a security guard, perhaps, or someone like that. Mariko came in instead. She didn’t have tea in her hands this time.

‘I didn’t want to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but this came for you, earlier, a personal delivery.’ She was carrying a box, about the size of a shoebox, though silver and insulated and embossed with the Piffle Princess logo. Sai recognised it at once, felt her heart give a strange sort of fillip in her chest. ‘The young man didn’t want to stay, but he said to make sure you got it. Is it important? I can put it in one of the secure labs, if you prefer.’

‘No,’ said Sai. She looked at the box, hardly daring to believe her eyes – because Minoru had taken this too, of course. He had taken all of Kaede’s things, because who else would want them? But Sai knew this box, and she knew she wasn’t mistaken: she recognised the faint scuffing at one corner, where Kaede had accidentally dropped it once, and when she turned it round, she found Kaede’s name engraved into the side. Sai ran her fingers over the etching, cold and smooth beneath her fingers. She thought of the Angel that must be inside it right now: Blanche, who had been locked away for as long as Sai herself.

She moved to the fastenings, aware that Mariko was still in the room, but not wanting, somehow, to do this by herself. And Mariko had liked Shirahime: she would understand, if not Sai’s feelings precisely, something about it, at least.

That Blanche was important. That her creator had been important too.

The box opened with a hiss of miniaturised hydraulics. Sai eased open the lid, and she heard Mariko gasp as Blanche came into view.

‘Oh!’ Mariko cried. She came closer, but didn’t reach out to try and touch Blanche. Somehow Sai wasn’t surprised. She didn’t know why, but the thought was reassuring. ‘Oh, isn’t she lovely? She looks exactly the same!’

Sai nodded, but didn’t speak. She couldn’t, for a moment, but Mariko didn’t seem to mind that. She exclaimed softly over Blanche’s tiny hands, the perfect stitching on her cap. And then, ‘There’s something there, Jounouchi-san,’ she said. She was looking beyond Blanche at the shock support foam in the lid.

Sai looked and saw a small white envelope, very carefully placed so it wouldn’t touch Blanche. She reached out and pulled it free. She knew it must be from Minoru: the paper was too new, too crisp to be anything else, but even so, she found herself desperately wishing for something else; something left behind by Kaede instead.

Minoru’s note read, This belongs with you. She would have wanted you to have her. And it was signed with his seal.

Sai tucked the note back into the envelope. She said, ‘Did the person who delivered it say anything else?’ For Minoru’s note didn’t invite a response, but Blanche was too great a gesture to go unacknowledged. Sai wasn’t sure how to go about that, though. She didn’t even know where he lived, for a start.

But, ‘No,’ Mariko shook her head. She was still admiring Blanche, her open, friendly face lit up with delight. ‘He just said it was important that this reached you by any means, but he didn’t want to come in.’

Sai bowed her head. ‘I see.’

Then Mariko frowned. She looked away from Blanche, slightly, as if trying to recall something, and then, ‘He had a persocom with him, a custom model, I think.’

Sai didn’t want to think about Yuzuki just then. She didn’t want the memory of her, of yesterday, creeping back and ruining the warmth she felt in that moment. She checked Blanche was secure in the foam, and began to lower the lid. ‘Yes, he designed her,’ she said, ‘Her AI seems very advanced.’

Mariko was still frowning.

‘That persocom,’ she said, and there she hesitated, considering her words. ‘She looked a lot like…’ Sai didn’t want to hear it. She snapped the fastenings on Blanche’s box closed and made no attempt to fill the silence. Mariko looked awkward. ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business,’ she finished instead.

But Sai didn’t want Mariko to be sorry either. She made a sort of shrug. ‘It’s not mine either,’ she said, and then, ‘Why are you still here? It’s…’ She checked her watch. She didn’t know what time Mariko usually left, but she was sure nobody was meant to be there at that hour. Sai wasn’t meant to be there at that hour. ‘Late,’ she settled on, and looked at Mariko expectantly.

Mariko shifted about. ‘It’s late for both of us,’ she pointed out. And then Mariko did a funny thing. She took a deep breath, and she said, ‘Are you hungry, Jounouchi-san? I could go get us something to eat, if you like.’ Sai just looked at her, and Mariko’s expression became firm, almost strict. ‘It’s not good to work all hours on an empty stomach, you know.’

How long had it been since someone noticed whether Sai ate? Since someone noticed anything she did at all? Sai didn’t know. It felt strange almost, like something surreal. Something from television that had climbed out through the screen.

Nice, though.

Sai said, flatly, ‘You’re going home,’ and when Mariko opened her mouth to argue, ‘And so am I. It’s late. You’re right.’

‘What about dinner?’ Mariko said. She still had that strict sort of face on, though there was something else mixed up in it too, Sai thought. She couldn’t tell what.

Sai flicked off the monitors on her desk and stood up. ‘I’ll pick something up on my way home,’ she said. She began to pull on her coat, buttoning it up, and fastening the belt, and then, ‘I was going to pick something up too,’ Mariko said abruptly. Sai glanced at her and saw she still had that strange mixed up expression, half-determined and half-something else, and Sai pushed away the part of her that said she’s worried about you, because it was easier to think that Mariko just wanted to go home.

Then, ‘We could have dinner together, if you like,’ Mariko said breathlessly. Sai stopped and looked at her. ‘If that’s not any trouble for you, I mean. There’s a nice barbecue place near the station. I just thought…’

Hope, Sai realised. Hope mixed in with the worry and all the other things on Mariko’s face. And on any other day, Sai might have said no. But, ‘Yes, alright,’ she said instead. ‘Are you ready to leave now?’

---

They found the barbecue place just where Mariko said it was. Bustling, given the hour, with office workers, rather than families. But they were shown to a table before Sai had time to change her mind. The second time in two days she’d been into somewhere like this. Fancy that.

She said as much to Mariko, hoping to ease the conversation along a little, because, having left the familiarity of the office, the other woman had grown quieter, almost shy.

But hearing Sai mention the café near the park, she perked up again. ‘Oh, I’ve been past there! It looks lovely. Was the tea good?’

Sai said she hadn’t tried it.

‘Oh,’ Mariko said, deflated a bit, and then, ‘How about your companion? What did they think?’ Sai blinked at her, taken aback slightly, and Mariko flushed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I just assumed…’

‘I went alone,’ Sai said bluntly. She began to wish she hadn't come.

They sat in silence for a while after that. Their food came, the waitress bringing skewers and side dishes and drinks, turning on the grill in a flurry of noise and movement. When she left, the silence seemed more oppressive than ever. Sai watched the flames beneath the grill pan and wondered if it was too late to excuse herself, to leave her share of the bill and go, when she realised Mariko was watching her, thoughtful and quiet.

Mariko said, ‘You always seem to be alone, Jounouchi-san. Aren’t you lonely?’

And Sai stared at Mariko for a minute.

Yes.

But she couldn’t say that. She would sound absurd. So instead she tried to make light of it. She said, ‘Perhaps I’m meant to be alone. It suits me.’

Mariko shook her head. ‘I don’t think it does. You never look happy about it.’

If Sai could blush, she would have then. So Mariko had been watching her, not just now, but before today. Sai reached to turn one of the skewers slightly on the grill then; it didn’t really need it, but she wanted something to do with her hands.

She swallowed and said, ‘Well, that’s something separate, happiness.’

The other woman nodded, and perhaps in Sai’s place, blushed enough for both of them.

‘Happiness is hard to come by sometimes,’ Mariko said, and then, in a very small voice, ‘I feel happy around you, Jounouchi-san.’

How did other people manage to say things like that? Sai didn’t know. Words like that couldn’t come out of her mouth any more than a lecture in Ancient Greek. But it didn’t matter, not really. It was time to put a stop to all this now.

‘You shouldn’t,’ she said flatly.

Mariko, whose courage had already been just about consumed by her last statement, stared back. Her chin began to crumple. Sai flicked her eyes back to the grill and kept them there, determined. Because if she couldn’t see Mariko crying, that meant it wasn’t happening.

‘Why?’ It came in an even smaller voice than before.

‘Because bad things always happen to the people I care about,’ Sai said. Her voice was sharper than she intended, but she was having trouble controlling it at all; she couldn’t worry about that. ‘They always die.’

And across the table, Mariko stiffened: Sai saw it at the edge of her vision. The only sound between them now the hiss and spit of the grill plate. In the booth behind, a man was going on and on about how much he resented his younger brother for getting married first. Sai wished he would get over it and shut up.

‘What do you mean?’ Mariko said. Her voice was curiously light, strained.

Sai looked back at her. The woman had shifted from upset to nervous, and she was rigid as a board. Well, of course she was. Sai kicked herself very hard. Why on earth had she said something so stupid – so horrifyingly intimate? Tomorrow she would arrive at work to find wary faces and cold shoulders. Weird rumours of a serial killer lesbian – something awful like that.

Lesbian? Is that what I am?

Well, aren’t you on a date with another woman?

Sai saw Mariko’s open, friendly face that was pale and closed-up now, and resisted the urge to leave without another word. Because it was too much. It was too much. She’d made a mistake, and she needed to stop this now. Explain herself, pay the bill, say goodnight, and go home. In that order. Right now.

Sai said, ‘My sister died when I was in middle school – she was ill for a long time. Then a few years later, the same thing happened to my…’ and there she hesitated slightly over word choice before, ‘..friend, though more suddenly.’

Mariko blinked. ‘They both got ill?’

‘Yes. Both of them.’

More silence then. Mariko studied her face. Sai didn’t want to look away because that wasn’t her style, but even so, after a minute, she couldn’t take the other woman’s scrutiny anymore. But the movement of her head seemed to spur Mariko into action too: she quickly pulled the skewers off the heat, just as the onions were beginning to burn, and dropped one onto Sai’s empty plate.

‘I’m sorry that happened, Jounouchi-san. It must be very hard for you.’

Sai grasped the end of the skewer. She burnt her fingertips holding the thing as she slid the meat off with her chopsticks, but she didn’t care. It was a welcome distraction.

‘I didn’t mean to be insensitive,’ Mariko said quietly.

Sai looked up, and met her gaze for a moment. Mariko wasn’t smiling, but her face was soft, and Sai used to be capable of smiles sometimes, didn’t she? Of kindness, just a little bit. Didn’t she? She could remember smiling at Kaede, a long time ago – and things were different then, but she hoped she managed to convey something like that, at least.

‘You weren’t. It’s just a difficult subject,’ she said.

They both said itadakimasu rather soberly, and began to eat. Sai didn’t want the food, but the familiar ritual was something of a relief, at least.

After a few minutes of silent eating, she felt Mariko’s eyes on her again, briefly, and then, ‘Your friend, was she…’

Sai waited to hear the end of the sentence and it didn’t come. She wasn’t naive, she knew what Mariko meant, of course, but she had no intention of volunteering that sort of information. Not here, not now. Well, not ever, in fact.

The woman blushed again, and looked back at her rice bowl. ‘Sorry. I asked something weird.’

She really was nice, Sai thought sadly. Nice and cheerful and unaffected. Throughout the meal, the knot in her stomach had pulled tighter and tighter, but it didn’t feel the same as when she staked out the phantom Kaede. Then it was taut with anxiety, and now regret held the string.

Because she missed being around someone nice. The feeling of it was sharp and raw in her chest.

Sai pushed another piece of something into her mouth, chewed and swallowed it, because she shouldn’t be thinking about that. If she wasn’t careful, the thin layer of control that she had worked so hard to build would crack and shatter before her. She would be washed away again by that intense longing to be held, smiled at, taken care of – to be understood – and that would be dreadful. She couldn’t expect that of Mariko, even if she was nice.

‘It’s alright,’ she said at last. That was all she could say. The idea of saying anything about how she felt was frightful; and she wasn’t going to talk about Kaede, nor the horrible whirl of emotions she provoked even before everything started to go wrong all over again.

Mariko nodded, and Sai was thankful the woman didn’t persist. Perhaps another time she would tell her about Kaede.

When?

Isn’t this the last time you’re going out with her?

Sai stuffed the goblinlike voice back down.

She said, ‘Do you like working at the company?’

Mariko looked up at her, eyes wide, and then a smile broke across her still pink face. ‘Yes, I do, very much!’

‘I’m not a manager, or anything. You can say what you really think.’

That sounded better, Sai thought. Thank god. Maybe she hadn’t turned into a persocom after all. She used to be able to talk to people. She didn’t always put them at ease, like Kaede or Misaki, but she talked, at least. She used to have conversations that didn’t revolve around the specs of the latest prototype, or what she would like in her okonomiyaki. It seemed a lifetime ago now. What happened to that?

‘No, I really do like it,’ Mariko was saying. The question seemed to have relaxed her. She fiddled with the grill for a minute, adding the last skewers and turning down the flame. ‘I like the atmosphere, and I like my co-workers. And I like what we produce – the persocoms, I mean.’

That took her by surprise. ‘Really?’ Sai asked. ‘Do you have one?’

Mariko made a face. ‘Just a little laptop model – nothing like the ones Piffle Princess makes. I like those better. They’re fun, and they make people happy.’

The image flew back to her of the robotic Kaede standing next to Minoru. They had both looked happy. At the time she had wanted to break both of them, human and machine, into a thousand tiny pieces.

Sai said, ‘Do you think they can make you happier than real people do?’

Mariko stopped and the smile faded. Somehow things had turned serious again. Sai scolded herself a second time. Why couldn’t she just chatter meaninglessly, like everybody else did?

‘I don’t know,’ said Mariko carefully. ‘Maybe for some people, that’s true. I don’t think it is for me. I think I need a real person to be happy.’

The obvious question silently tailed her words.

And you?

To Sai’s relief, she didn’t look as though she might cry again, but her cheek was clenched tight. Sai could see the little bunched muscle at the edge of her face, keeping back whatever emotion lay behind it.

But, ‘Me too,’ Sai said.

Just two simple words, but the effect was magic. Gladness splashed over Mariko’s face, and Sai felt a warm rush of pleasure in herself, then: pride that she had managed to cause that gladness. But no, not just that – that she had managed the impossible. Two simple words. It wasn’t even as if she had declared any feelings for the woman, but the tiny indication that she could seemed a good place to begin.

Mariko pulled the last skewer from the grill and deposited it neatly on Sai’s plate: there was nothing calculated about the gesture, no glance to see if her generosity had been noted. That was something Kaede would have done too, but there Sai stopped herself. Mariko wasn’t Kaede – she wasn’t really like her at all. She had the same kindness in her eyes and the same strength lurking beneath the surface, but that was where it began and ended.

And that was fine. Sai had loved Kaede, and lost her. She couldn’t do anything about that. She couldn’t replace her. She did not want a replica, human or machine.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.

Mariko shook her head, the barest movement, and busied herself dividing up the remainder of the side dishes. A smile was pulling at her delicate mouth, her cheeks stained with red, and Sai realised she was staring.

The thin layer was beginning to thaw: Sai could feel it, and yet it hadn’t released the horrifying flood she feared. It felt more like the soft trickle of spring. She liked this woman, with her honest face and cheerful manner. She wanted to do other things to make her glad, find other ways to draw that smile towards her. Mariko glanced across once more, quick and warm, and the sweetness of it pulled the knot in Sai’s stomach so tight, it seemed to dissolve inside her.

And just for a moment, she let it.

But that other issue had lingered too long to simply be swept out with the tide. Rationally, she knew it was ridiculous to think she had anything to do with Rin and Kaede’s illness, but two for two didn’t make a good statistic and she couldn’t feel rational about it. The fear gnawed at her even as she felt her heart quickening with Mariko’s smile. It was an old fear, nursed too long to be set aside. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t stop herself.

When Rin died, she had managed, if not to recover, then at least to keep her head above the swell of despair by clinging to Shirahime – and Kaede. And then when the future seemed so incredibly bright, history repeated and Kaede was gone too.

Sai was 19.

Instead of daydreaming about a time when Kaede, who understood her so completely, might also understand her feelings, she had stared into nothingness in her one-room apartment. No more meeting for coffee after lectures. No more late-night Angelic Layer sessions that ended with the two of them snuggled in Sai’s futon. No more patient, healing smile to make everything better when it went wrong. Everything had gone wrong and there was nothing left to cling to. She couldn’t reach any of the hands desperately trying to pull her back above the surface, and eventually manners required even Misaki to stop leaving messages to call her back.

She didn’t yet know Mariko well enough to say that her loss would be devastating, but it would, in a way. For if that happened again, her world would end simply because it had happened again. That, and the horror of knowing she had contributed to a nice woman’s demise simply by liking her.

‘Jounouchi-san?’

Sai snapped back to attention. The skewer had gone cold on the plate. Mariko was looking at her with a concern that made the knot inside ache terribly.

Sai swallowed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No. I didn’t mean to force you.’

She meant the skewer, of course. Sai shook her head. ‘You didn’t at all.’

To prove it, she picked the thing up and ate straight from the stick. Not something she’d normally do, but it would satisfy the point. Mariko watched her and the smile slipped back onto her lips. Sai could still feel that gentle thaw in her chest, and knew she faced a choice.

They split the bill, and walked to the station together. It transpired they took the same train. Sai had six stops to decide whether to freeze over again, or let the thaw usher in a new season. On the platform, the minutes slipped by like water. Neither spoke. Mariko seemed comfortable with the silence, but Sai wasn’t, not really. She was tired of it. She was tired of who she had become. She wanted to talk like she used to – not brightly or cheerfully, but easily, at least.

‘Was dinner alright?’ she said in the end, not able to think of anything else.

Mariko turned towards her, hands up against her mouth as she blew to warm them. Sai could almost see her choke on the surprise, and then she nodded, eyes shining.

‘Yes, I really enjoyed it. How about you?’

Did you enjoy it?

‘I did too.’

Mariko beamed. The trickle from the thaw turned into a stream, and Sai gasped for air. It was like being reborn.

‘Are your hands cold?’ she managed between breaths.

The other woman laughed sheepishly. ‘Mmm. I forgot my gloves this morning.’

What are you going to do?

‘Here.’

Sai took the small, fragile hands and enfolded them between her own. Mariko blushed furiously, but she was smiling too, staring down at the hands piled between them.

‘You’re so warm,’ she murmured.

What?

Sai hesitated, and then, with great effort to keep her tone casual, ‘I think you’re the first person ever to say that to me.’

Mariko laughed, and Sai forced a terrible smile on her own face as well. Mariko felt so warm and soft and alive, and she still didn’t know what to do; and all the while, each alternative seemed more and more frightening.

Freeze or thaw. Lose her or lose her. Were those really the only choices?

‘Jounouchi-san, I wondered whether you were free on Sunday.’ The words rushed out of Mariko in a single breath, and it took Sai a moment to understand her, and then to realise what she meant.

Free for a date.

How did she know the words? Where did she come by the courage to say them, the confidence that it was alright to pursue her own happiness? Sai wanted to find out so badly. Her hands tightened around the smaller ones in her grasp. Mariko looked up at her with a red, hopeful face, and Sai realised she didn’t want the thaw inside to stop. It was time. She wanted to wrap herself in Mariko’s warmth, to see whether the parts of her that had hibernated so long would come to life. Perhaps they would. She didn’t know, but she wanted to find out.

‘Yes, I’m free. Would you like to go somewhere?’

END.

---

Opening quote from Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson.