#hikio

A very quick baby ficlet for @v-0-3‘s INCREDIBLE manga Paper Roses. Y’all need to read it because I am DECEASED.

Hiro’s dreams were flickers, shot through with stark images like jolts of electricity. He didn’t know why he dreamed; it was probably one of the reasons he was discontinued.

Discontinued. It was such an ugly word. Discontinued, like a line of toys.

Technology ahead of its time, the press release had said. Too dangerous for public release.

Dangerous. He hated how they talked about him. An object. Broken. Discontinued. Dangerous.

Some days, he could forget what they said. He could look in the mirror and just for a second, he could see past the lines of code flickering behind his eyes. Coincidentally, those were usually the days that he spent with Akio.

Even a robot, a broken, discontinued, dangerous object could see the light in Akio’s smile.

Pulling himself out from the dream, the one that was more spark than life, he had trouble remembering what those days felt like. He could feel his systems checking themselves one by one. Sight, operational. GPS, operational. Arm cannon—

He didn’t even look at the results of that reading. He didn’t need to. He remembered what it felt like, to have his skin, the only part of him that let him feel human on those days, melt off of his metal frame. He almost experienced pain, the physical kind. It was nice, to feel. He just wished it was under better circumstances.

He blinked, letting the aperture in his eyes adjust.

23:44 PM JST.

The middle of the night. He turned his head against the pillow, letting his hair fall over his cheek. He did his very best not to look down, but there, at the edge of his vision, the burned metal was impossible to ignore. He wondered why Akio even bothered to give him a bandage. Just to make him feel like a person? He appreciated the effort, but Hiro wasn’t so easily fooled. He knew what he was. That was the worst part.

He let the moonlight wash over his face. He loved the night. It let him breathe in a way the sun didn’t. Metal wasn’t as harsh when it was dark.

Next to his ruined metal hand, Akio’s head laid on his crossed forearms. Hiro didn’t want to look at him either.

Not right now. Not as ruined as he was.