『 X:\Sources>bootrec /convo 』
"Are you insulting my father, now??!! Why would you choose to imply that he was cast out??!! He’s done nothing wrong, ever!! Professor Idabashi is kind and understanding, forgiving, accepting—!!”
—even of a wretched automaton like him. Even after how badly he’d hurt him, after permanently disfiguring him and nearly taking his life, after not deserving the life that he’d given him anymore, Idabashi had never failed to give him his love. All of K1-B0′s fondest memories were of the professor — of playing catch with him, of being read fairy tales while gazing up at him adoringly from his knee, of him tousling his synthetic hair with a warm, broad hand while he watched him make himself dinner and helped with cutting the onions at the kitchen counter. They were all such human things, or at least they seemed to be to him. The professor had warned him ahead of time when he’d first been accepted to Hope’s Peak that other humans probably wouldn’t regard him as fondly as he had, but that was alright. They wouldn’t be able to understand the concept of him feeling and responding to emotional stimuli as intensely as any of them could, he’d cautioned. They could say things that would hurt him, mess around with his body in ways they wouldn’t dare with any of the other human students, pick fights with him and call him names. He’d assured his father time and time again that he’d be well prepared to receive whatever they wanted to give him.
From where he stood, peering up at Shinguuji, K1-B0 had to wonder if he’d been right or wrong.
He could not cry. His father had neglected to give him such a function; some part of him often wondered if the others would respond to him more kindly if he could. Tears activated some level of empathy in most humans, didn’t they? All he could do in lieu of them was shrink back on himself and shake his head, his expression contorting into one of genuine anguish. Why was he being so robophobic? What did it matter, whether he was a flesh and blood human or not? The professor had said that their similarities would bring he and his classmates together in spite of their differences, so why was Shinguuji going out of his way to be cruel?
"… I am NOT an imitation of humanity.”
"How am I supposed to prove my humanity to you??!! Flesh and blood doesn’t make a soul!! I was accepted into this school just the same as you were — we’re classmates!! I want to make friends and fall in love and make my father happy — I want the same things that any human would want, so why do you care so much that I happen to be a robot??”
“If you were to die and leave behind a spirit, I suppose I would be convinced.”
He spoke the answer with ease and nonchalance — and his tone could send a chill down anyone’s spine. If he were talking to a human, he’d have his golden irises pinned to their face; he’d want to watch how they reacted to death as a concept. He’d want to see if his words stuck to them like flypaper, or if they danced right on over the topic to avoid fathoming such an unfathomable thing. Either way, it would have been something to behold.
Not now, though. Now, with no human being to hold his attention, he simply took another sip of his beverage. Only after he’d gazed at his teacup, at the clock on the wall, and (longingly) at the moving blurs that represented people behind the mosaic window of the dining hall, did he finally glance back at his classmate. He tilted his head, his long hair cascading over his shoulder with the gesture.
“...I can see that my words have upset you, Kiibo-san. I wish to apologise… that certainly was not my intent.” He sounded genuine - or at the very least, like he took no pleasure in delivering his verdict like this. “You asked me if a robot could have a soul, to which I gave my answer… but there is more to this conversation that I feel you are blinding yourself to.”
He certainly couldn’t blame K1-B0 for aspiring to humanity with the verve that he did. Humans… were lovely. That was a notion that he himself thought perhaps a bit too strongly. Only Onee-san had matched his vim on the topic, but he’d bet that K1-B0 would come close.
Watching the robot scramble and try to claim he was human, though…
“To be someone’s masterpiece… is there not poetry to be found in it, as well?” He spread his arms magnanimously. Beneath his mask, his lips curved into a soft smile. “I think that, to carry around the soul of someone who loves you so dearly — and someone who loves you in turn… is poetic in its own right.”
(‘You’re being coy, Korekiyo,’ said a voice that only he could hear. His heart warmed.)
“You do not need to fear death… do you, Kiibo-san?” The shift in topic came abruptly, perhaps too much so. “Humanity lives haunted by the knowledge that they will not last forever. They spend their lives trying to leave something behind. Their craft, their legacy, their love… that is the root of human culture. Entire peoples have capitulated to the passage of time… as an anthropologist, all I do is attempt to hold onto those remnants for a little bit longer. To preserve them, until we too succumb. Everything about humanity is fleeting, Kiibo-san.”
He lent time to that concept, letting it linger in the air like the descant above a symphony’s final note. A certain reverence had crept into his tone — the human condition itself left him breathless. But that reverence was gone when he finally addressed K1-B0 once more.
“You are not. You will not age as humans do. You will not die as humans do. You do not fear death as humans do. You have achieved what humans pursue with their entire being… but that, in and of itself, is not human.”
