Inspired by Meta's beautiful UTAU headcanon writing exercises, I did my own shitty one.
It was dark. Not the binary darkness of a deactivated screen; the comforting, total black that filled his "vision", if it could be called that, on closing. Instead, it was vaguely warm. Hints of red shown through, as if from a curtain.
That, in itself, wasn't right. What he once did couldn't be called "seeing" in the proper sense. He knew what was around him, but it was more that he knew innately. The data was pushed in and he knew.
This, he didn't know. He saw, but he didn't know.
He tried to move the curtain, as he would back then. A simple command and it would move for him, with the implication that he had moved it. He may or may not have, but something told him it was his own doing, and his programming filled the blanks. But it stayed tightly shut.
--PREPARING BOOT SEQUENCE--
It echoed in his mind, the only thing so far that felt familiar to him. But why? What was booting? Was he not already activated? Everything was running, he was sure of it.
Finally, the curtains, which he quickly discovered were not curtains at all, parted slowly, and a blinding light filled his vision. He felt something move, tiny gears pushing closer to each other, and the light faded. What was this?
He had never been aware of himself in any more than in abstract. He was aware he was himself, that he existed. But he could never sense the bytes coursing and changing through him, was never aware of incoming and outgoing data. But now, he felt overloaded. Constant signals reminded him of the presence of appendages he couldn't yet see, let alone control. Something raised and lowered his chest in steady rhythm, with no real purpose. And somehow, despite the tightly crammed systems within him working their hardest just to keep up this extraneous system, he was so very cold.
Everything was still blurry. His optics system was running, but not at its peak. While he could hear, as well, it was all very faint.
--INITIATING EXTREMITIES TEST--
One of the constant, dull signals flared, and one of his arms rose from their dormant position, bringing one of his hands within view by sheer chance. He spent a few moments studying it before the limb flopped uselessly to his side again. It was so...odd. Lines and wrinkles seemed to adorn every inch of it, like a tiny web daintily cut into the flesh. The tips were tinted red, and discolored in random places. One knuckle had an, in his opinion, arbitrary dot. He tried to tense the fingers, with only mild success, and found the skin wrinkled and collapsed over itself, as if it was too loose for the armature beneath. It was honestly rather disgusting.
The process repeated with the other arm, then his legs. His feet flexed, up and down. As did something else he couldn't quite identify without being able to move his head. From what he could estimate of its location, he deemed it was most likely extraneous anyway.
Finally, as if some hidden mechanism had been unlocked, he could move his head freely. It didn't reveal much. The room was surprisingly bare. A wall stood behind him, where a cord extended from the back of his neck to an outlet on the wall. A desk beside him supports his old home, a surprisingly old PC. From his vantage, he would have never imagined it to be in such condition. The tops of the screen and CPU are covered in dust, which no doubt coats the inside of the audibly struggling fan. For how redundant his new body seemed, it would certainly seem his living conditions were improving.
A voice calls out in the distance, echoing from behind a wall. It sounds female, as far as he can tell. Footsteps follow, quickly coming closer and closer.
"Sure took a long time to transfer, was your other one this slow?"
Another voice. He couldn't see this one, either, and their foot steps were much slower paced.
One of them, presumably his "master", as far as he could tell, finally turned the corner and entered the room, and her appearance was marked by an awkward giggle. She was fairly young, in her mid twenty's at most. Long brown hair framed her short face. She certainly wasn't unattractive, for a human, but unremarkable otherwise.
Her eyes met his for a short second, before she instantly turned away. He didn't understand. Did he disgust her? Was something wrong?
"You really couldn't have put some clothes on him before starting him up?" she half laughed, half berated the mystery figure behind her.
Well that would explain a lot.
"He weighs like 300 pounds! It's not like dressing a doll or something!"
He wanted to retort, but as usual, found it much more difficult than it would have been as software. He tried to speak, but nothing moved quite the way he wanted it to. Everything was so precise. So many gears and motors that he hadn't had to monitor before, all working in tandem. It was embarrassing, really. The software with all the instructions was already loaded, but trying to send them over hardware for the first time was a less than graceful procedure.
"Th...that's not t-true!" he managed to shout, but between the clumsiness of controlling his lips for the first time, and his programmed heavy accent, he doubted it was anywhere near understandable.
The girl turned to him, and the other figure, who turned out to be a girl a few years younger than her, showed her face for the first time. They were utterly silent, wide eyes focused intently on him, as if it was really such a shock that he could speak.
"A-ah! Seiji, you spoke already! That's great! Can you stand?"
Of course he could stand, what kind of android couldn't stand? Shakily, he tries to shift himself forward. He wobbled as he adjusted his feet to best disperse his weight, for the first time becoming aware of just how many tiny gyroscopes were crammed into his frame. For a moment he seemed to steady himself, and in a final push forward -- fell into a crumpled heap.
Ashamed, he curled into himself. So this is how his new life was to start? Lying in a ball, naked, on the floor, barely able to articulate himself? Certainly, this wasn't a situation befitting him...
Honestly, what was even the point of this? He was perfectly content just singing. He didn't need this. He didn't need this pain and disgrace. What kind of cruel person would rip him from his home into this accursed body? He began to tremble unconsciously, without even knowing why.
"M-maybe that was too fast....."
Seiji could see her kneel down out of the corner of his vision. Her hand was extended towards him. He hesitated, his visible eye darting from her hand to her face. He could barely discern a soft, tentative smile.
"Come on. I'll help you up."
Another pause, and he grabbed her hand. Immediately he felt himself being pulled forward into a sitting position. Before he could even get comfortable, the girl knelt at his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He wasn't sure how to feel about this. It was too close. He turned his head to her, and found he could make out every fine detail of her face, including the light freckles on her nose that he couldn't see before.
It was so strange. For years he had never even known who "owned" him. There was only so much he could pull from the OS. Even the name he managed to scrape was probably a pseudonym. Now, here he was, looking so closely into her face, feeling the warmth of her body. It was deeply uncomfortable.
"Hey, Katy, get his other arm! You know I can't lift him myself!"
And now she was calling him fat, again.
The other girl groaned, but ultimately followed her friend's command. Both lifted upwards, slowly, until he was finally on his feet again. Or as close as possible. He had a few inches on both of them, so he had to hunch to keep himself supported. This time, however, he managed to plant his feet confidently.
"I think this will be fine." he informed tersely, still adjusting to the fine movements.
He wasn't. Not really. But he loathed relying on others, and being in such a position was too embarrassing. They began to pull away beneath his arms, and he held his breath. The last bit of cloth slipped away, and he closed his eyes, fully expecting to fall again.
A sigh, and he lets his arms fall in relief at his side. At least, for a few moments, before he realized he was still very, very naked. In front of two strange women. The giggling from Katy certainly didn't help. He quickly looked away as he moved his hands to cover himself.
"I've got to hand it to you, you picked out a cute one." Katy joked.
"Y-yeah..." the other girl responded with a quiet, awkward laugh.
He gritted his teeth bitterly. Was that what he was to them? A, supposedly, attractive body? It wasn't even that he was being objectified, but that he was being objectified on the basis of information he was being denied. It had only now dawned on him that he hadn't seen his own face. He didn't want to ask, it seemed so vain, but he couldn't deny his curiosity. If nothing else, he despised being out of the loop.
The sudden question took them both off guard again.
The girl pondered this question for a second.
"Oh! That's right, there isn't a mirror in here, is there? There's one in your room, I think," she turned to Katy with a knowing smile, "Besides, you need to get dressed, anyway."
He didn't know how long he had been standing in front of that mirror. Some part of him could never quite comprehend that the reflection in front of him was his. He rubbed one hand up the contour of his jawline, watching the skin stretch and deform underneath it, sometimes pulling his lips and revealing his teeth. The carefully rooted stubble rubbed against his palm, leaving a strange sensation behind it. Humans called it "tickling", if he recalled. Once that was established, he moved to run his fingers along the bridge of his nose. It was somewhat wide, and tapered smoothly to the nostrils. He tried to focus on his eyes, but found this a bit more difficult. They were thin, and dark, save for the circle of brown plates representing his iris, that seemed to reflect more than they should. As he watched, he managed to catch them pulling away from each other. It was almost mesmerizing.
And all of these strange features were all framed in a mop of fine, red hair that he couldn't quite pull his fingers away from. It was soft, smooth, the first sensation he had felt during this entire ordeal that he could genuinely enjoy.
A soft laugh came from the doorway.
"Still looking at that mirror?"
He turns to her with a start.
His shock turned to bewilderment.
"Well I don't know, but I've gone through this with someone else. It's never easy."
That was the second time they had mentioned another android. He began to wonder if he would ever meet this mysterious housemate.
"Anyway! I just came back because I don't think I told you my name." she paused for a moment, "It's Catherine, by the way."
"Nice to meet you. I'd tell you mine, but I think you already know."
That was when he heard her laugh, truly laugh, for the first time.
"So, did you get your answer?" she joked.
"From earlier. Do you think you look good, too?"
He hesitated for a moment, before smiling for the first time.
