Work Text:
“So, how’d it go?” you stand up from the rickety, paint-stained and cigarette-burned stool in front of the operating table; a large slab of metal that serves as the surface for fixing up the dolls and other appliances for the floors. Safalin, ever hard at work, stands nearby, not talking but surely listening.
Hiyori tugs at his scarf to loosen it while approaching the two of you, “Good,” His eyes glow in the dim light, reflecting unnatural greens and blues. “My inner ear is ticking.” He looks at you, dead on, and you raise a brow.
“Ticking? Did you hit something?” Hiyori approaches and sits on the operating table. You put yourself between his legs, grabbing an otoscope and cradling the back of his head. “Mmm, nothing seems amiss.” You mutter to yourself. You check the other ear but come back with the same prognosis.
You click the otoscope on and off absentmindedly while thinking. Hiyori pipes up as he leans back onto his hands, “Check my neck.”
“Why?” You ask even though you’ve already started to pull his collar back. Were he fully human, veins would be in the place of wires and the panel that holds his mainframe in his back wouldn’t be there. There’s nothing of note in his neck, so why check? You’ve learned to ask questions later; act now. So that’s what you do.
His hand curls around your neck and it’s only now that you realize Safalin has scurried off long ago. You yelp and, dropping the instrument, put your hands on his shoulders. “Hiyori, quit it,” You grit.
“I just want to talk to you,”
“There’s no problem with your internals?”
“Nope,”
“So you lied.”
“Don’t say it like that, you know I do all the time. It’s my nature.”
He does. You think you just wanted to quip back with something. “Speak then, and let go of me.” You break free and smooth out the fistful of hair he managed to grasp.
“Doctor…” He coos, batting his lashes. “Listen to me.”
“I am listening!” You huff, swiping the otoscope off the floor and putting it back in its rightful place. “What could you possibly need to tell me, Hiyori?”
“We haven’t kissed in a while.”
You both pause for a moment or two, he’s waiting for you to speak as you just look at him, hands in the pockets of your white-coat. “No, we haven’t.” You affirm. “And?”
“And I want to,” He taps his lips, “Please?”
A while ago, long before the contestants even passed the first trial, the floormasters and assistants held a routine meeting. Being the resident doctor⸺technician if we take into account how there’s no natural life here, besides less than fifty-percent of Hiyori⸺you attended.
Here you met Hiyori. You shook hands, got familiar with each other, and understood the hierarchy in place. That’s it. You’re colleagues, perhaps even acquaintances; you’re certainly not lovers.
It’s not until you learned just how odd he was that you got more involved with him.
Not only had he come to you, a technician, over a real doctor⸺which was because he felt more aligned with a robotic identity than a mortal one⸺but he also became a loyal patient following the first appointment.
You can’t say for sure how it started. Eventually, after a few meetings both in and outside the work environment, he started to show his true nature. Though touchy and oddly affectionate, he was also apathetic to traditional standards. When he intertwined your fingers for a couple’s deal at a restaurant and then pressed a chaste kiss to your lips you realized that you too had little care for emotion that should’ve been paired with the action.
So, with no baggage attached, you became a sort of friends-slash-coworkers with benefits. Odd, right?
“I think I’m more surprised you’re even asking. Usually you just grab me and do it anyway.”
“Darn.” He mutters under his breath as if realizing he should’ve done that from the start. You fix his collar and tie before wrapping his scarf around his neck, the fabric hanging off his shoulders.
He coils a green tress around his finger before letting it bounce back into place while you step back.
“How are the contestants?” You ask, while shrugging off your coat, you were getting warm.
“Four down,”
“Going as predicted?”
“More or less,” He slides off the bench and approaches you. “Please?” He cups your face. The softness in his voice is odd, almost off putting.
“Why are you asking?” You look up to him, lightly touching his forearm. He shrugs and presses a quick kiss to your lips before pulling away. He blinks, you blink, and he kisses you again but stays against me long enough that you know to reciprocate.
And that was that. He pulled away, you fixed his shirt and wiped the light mark of tinted chapstick off his lips before he smiled and left.
You lick your lips. You think he bought the same chapstick you have, or maybe just used yours. You watch his green hair disappear and wait for him to return.
It was quiet for a long while on the floors. No tufts of green poking out from under tables or around corners, no light giggling or flashes of red fabric. Hiyori had been killed in the coffin game.
And so, we now stood around the fully robotic figure, ready to welcome the second coming of Sou Hiyori. Although, I suppose he’s now one-hundred-percent Midori.
You press a panel back into his neck and reach under his shirt to find the subtle button between his shoulder blades.
“Alright,” you sigh, fixing his clothes and taking a step back to stand with the other floormasters.
“And on the sixth day grant life.” Sue Miley says with a sneer next to you. With a hum and a click, the eyes before us opened.
Sleeves rolled back, you crossed your arms and watched. The new body is slow to react, but because all of the prior memories had been uploaded live to our cloud his expression quickly fell.
“I lost.” He says plainly. You nod your head, confirming his fear. For Midori, or Hiyori, death was his only aversion. He laughed as others fell victim, but once the shoe was on the other foot his skin prickled with fear; the last sensation before the drill took care of the rest.
“Welcome back.” Safalin whimpers.
“Welcome,” We all parrot. You glance at his still unmoving body only to find a pair of eyes already looking back. The contact holds. You wish you could say that the two of you were communicating with just your eyes but you’ve never been that close. No, he’s never been that close with anyone.
“Good to be back.” He addresses the group, rolling back his shoulders as if to get out the kinks. “Back to work then, andiamo!” He smiles and claps his hands once. The group disperses but because his place of rebirth is technically your office, the operating room, you remain rooted in place.
After a beat or two, you pipe up, cracking the delicate silence. “Any creaking or ticks you want me to fix?”
He shakes his head.
“Alright then, you know where to find me.” You flop onto a simple desk chair and push yourself to a desk so you can note down how Midori’s resurrection went. The noise of his dress shoes on the linoleum prompted you to spin in place.
You look up at him, elbows on the armrests as you eagerly await his words.
“I missed you,” He leans towards you and parts his lips as if to go for a kiss. You raise a brow and twist your head to the side, avoiding it.
“Oh dear, your code is scrambled.” You mumble as you put a hand over his mouth. “Let’s call Safalin.”
He grabs your wrist before you can move an inch and tears your hand from his mouth, but only after giving your palm a lick. “Don’t call her. We have to talk.”
“...alright, what is it?” Despite not wanting to hear him out, you know that he is still your boss, and you quite like being one-hundred-percent human, so, for now, you’ll listen.
“They had me running around like a dog.” He says petulantly. “I missed you, so I’m back.”
“Right… you lost against the contestants, Midori, you’re out of their game.”
“So be it. Are they going to deploy you next?” He changes the topic quickly. Deployment is the term the floormasters use for when they are assigned floors.
“No, I’m just a stagehand. I won’t be interacting with them.” Stagehand is a term you coined that basically just means technician-slash-errand dog.
“So you’ll be here?” Were there a tail attached to the man, it’d certainly be wagging. With a nod, he squeezes your wrist a little harder. “I have to take care of things but I’ll be here a lot.”
“Alright… I’ll be expecting you then.” You nod softly and brush his bangs aside. He captures your lips in a kiss before cupping your face in his hands. He often forgets that as a human you have to breathe, so the kiss goes on for a little too long. You clutch his chest and push.
“Ack!” You gasp. “Midori be careful⸺”
“Shh,” He shushes you, thumb to your lips. “I’m still Hiyori.”
You blink, lashes fluttering.
“Say it,” he leans a little closer.
“Hiyori.”
“Matter of fact, just call me Sou.” You purse your lips, nod and then glance sidelong. He hums with a soft smile before kissing your cheek. He’s awfully tender today. “See you around, doctor.”
“Yeah… bye Hiyori.”
He tightens his grip on your jaw, barely enough to notice. “Hmm?”
“Sorry, I mean Sou.” He presses your lips together in a brief, intense kiss that catches you off kilter before hurring off before you can respond. You’re left disheveled and staring at the space he was once in.