The fabric stretched over his shoulders, and I admired his figure before quickly looking away. Something had shifted between us since that night at Stellar Slices. I couldn't quite put it into words, but I felt a closeness to him, even when he wasn't physically near.
Maybe that was how it felt to share a secret with someone.
I couldn't help but wonder if he was feeling the same about me.
Probably not. He was the one who had offered his secret, while I was still holding mine from him.
We walked down the wooden path, moving further away from the direction we had come from. The vegetation around us thinned, and eventually, we stepped out into the open, outside of the glass bubble of the Agora. I realized we were in one of those suspended gardens I'd seen in the ads earlier, the type that bound the buildings of the City together.
I descended a few steps, looking up at the pitch-black sky. The city lights were too bright to see any stars, and I wish we had the Stellar Slices' night-view glasses with us.
"I forgot to say," V's voice came from behind me.
I heard his steps slowly stepping down on each stair as I was still craning my neck, trying to catch a shooting star.
"You... Hum. You look very elegant tonight. That outfit... It's really well put together."
At first, my heart skipped a beat.
I turned around to face him, watching as he descended the last step, hands in his pockets, wanting, and failing, to appear nonchalant.
Then, I realized.
My head tilted to the side as I observed him, my arms crossing over my chest. His eyes averted mine, looking once again as if he had not expected this reaction and had no idea what to make of it.
The next second, I took two long strides to close the distance between us.
Instinctively, he stepped back, even retreating up the last stair he had just descended, his hands coming up to his chest as if scared of me.
"Are you following a list again?"
My eyes narrowed on his guilty expression, tilting my head to the other side as I tried to catch the screen's reflection on his glasses.
He blinked the screen away, making an almost imperceptible flash of light cross the lenses.
"Aha!" I immediately pointed an accusing finger at it, unable to hide the proud smile breaking on my face.
I knew it.
V was hard to read most of the time, but this one was easy. Complimenting someone's outfit would most definitely never be the first thing that came to his mind.
His lips puckered into a pout, his eyes flickering to the side, looking flustered that I had caught him. He did seem to relax, though, pressing his palms against his chest, smoothing out invisible wrinkles on his shirt, as if trying to shake off the guilt.
When he took a step closer and descended the last stair again, I felt brave enough to get my hands close to his face.
He froze immediately, his pupils shuddering on me. His lips parted, taking a sharp breath in.
"We don't need that," I said, my fingers gently closing around the temples of his glasses and removing them.
He blinked, still in shock, but didn't resist. I placed the glasses in his hand, and his expression softened into something almost like approval as he slipped them into his pocket with a nod.
"Could we walk more?" I asked, turning around, too aware again of the small distance left between us. "I have never seen the gardens from so close."
As an answer, V picked a path and I followed behind.
I felt emboldened by the new responsibility he had confided in me. Having a purpose, something to work for... That was all I needed to feel at ease with this mission!
We wandered deeper into the gardens, thick trees intertwining above our heads. V pushed aside every large, hanging leaf in our path, clearing the way for both of us. As we walked in silence, I thought of the last week and of the way he cared for me, making sure I ate all my meals, had clothes, and anything else I might need. I also remembered his panic when he thought I was choking at the restaurant.
I wasn't bold enough to call these small actions proof of love, but I struggled to believe that someone incapable of love, in his own words, would be so familiar with this type of attention.
No, familiar wasn't the right word.
After consideration, it did seem like he was a beginner at it. As if, just like me, he was experiencing a whole set of new emotions for the first time.
And yet, he was doing better than most guys I met at the clinic.
"This place is so beautiful," I said, as we kept on following the dimly lit wooden path through the jungle gardens. "Why is there no one here?"
All the other guests at the restaurant-cinema seemed to have taken a path opposite to ours, back to the Agora.
"People are probably scared of the mosquitoes at that time," V commented after thinking for a second. "But don't worry. I'm sure they won't like your bionic skin."
I sucked in a breath.
What if I got bitten and it was visible? Love Machina Inc. never mentioned anything about their humanoid robots being able to attract mosquitoes.
"What about you?" I tried to divert the subject from my not-so-bionic skin.
"I never had any issue," he chuckled. "I guess they also don't like me..."
He said this in a strange tone that made me wish I could see his face. Instead, he pushed one last heavy leaf out of our way, and we arrived in an open clearing.
A vast, round field of grass stretched out before us, warm lights all along the path circling it. I breathed in deeply, letting the fresh scent of the open space fill my lungs.
It was my first time experiencing such a large green landscape, and it felt even more magical to experience it at night.
I wanted to roll around and run through it. Instead, I crouched down and let my fingers sink into the soft, cushioned grass. It felt fresh and soothing at the same time.
"What did you do today?"
I glanced up at V, standing still on the wooden path behind me, his hands in his pockets in an exercise of nonchalance he really wasn't very good at.
"It's not from the list," he already defended himself as he must have noticed the skeptical look in my eyes.
I got back up and brushed my palms together.
"I washed up. I had breakfast and lunch..." I replied, wanting to clear up any concern he might have about his Love Machina's good maintenance. "I looked for some information too."
"Information?" his eyebrows rose on his forehead. "What information?"
"Just some things I was curious about."
"What exactly-Wait!"
I had begun to walk further into the gigantic circle of grass, thinking he would follow me.
"I can't-Hum-we shouldn't-"
He showed the fancy office shoes he wore, the brown material even shining in the nighttime. I looked down at my own pretty shoes and realized it probably wasn't a good idea, indeed.
"Let's take our shoes off!" I said, already slipping my feet out.
The cool grass met my bare feet like a fresh, soft, dewy cushion. I closed my eyes, curving my head back and sighing in contentment as I held one flat shoe in each hand.
"Join me!" I urged him when I found him frozen in place, his expression caught between dismay and outright horror.
I could almost see the internal conflict raging in his head. Against all odds, he crouched down and began untying his shoes.
"Isn't it nice?" I grinned, wiggling my toes in the grass as he finally stepped beside me.
"Mmhm," he hummed, lips pressed into a thin line on his stone-cold face as he kept looking down at his feet, each step hesitant. He had even rolled up his pants to make sure they wouldn't touch the grass.
"Didn't you ever do this as a kid?" I asked without thinking, and for a second, I feared that I was too careless with my words. Would a ten-day-old machina even think to ask that? "I saw kids having fun in the gardens last week," I added to cover up.
"Having fun? At boarding school?" V scoffed beside me, his fists clutching his shoes by his sides. "Those two don't go together," he added with a dry chuckle.
"What's boarding school?"
"It's a school where students also live," he explained. "I was there from six to sixteen. Most go home during holidays... Well, except for me."
"Except you?" I frowned.
"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "You could stay if your parents paid extra. I stayed all year, except during winter holidays, when the school shut down completely."
I knew about the winter holidays. The clinics were quieter at that time, when most employees were not working. Without the testing work to rhythm our days, those days felt like the longest ever. It wasn't as easy to notice other holidays throughout the year, but I knew about them too, as I would overhear the clinic staff chat about their plans.
I looked into the distance, trying to picture a younger version of V in dormitories like the ones we had at the clinic. It was the only reference I had. But in my mind, I tried to add teachers, classes, a huge library, lots of games, music, movies... A building as nice as V's home. After all, this was New Yuan City. It had to be better than anything in the United Nation Belt.
"Were there other kids with you during the holidays?" I asked, curious about his life.
He pursed his lips and glanced away, as if searching old memories.
"When I was thirteen or fourteen, yeah. Some students chose to stay. I guess that's when adolescence really started kicking in," he said with a small laugh, fidgeting his toes in a patch of grass. "But when I was younger, I was always the only one. Most little kids wanted to be with their families."
"So you stayed all alone?" I asked before I could stop myself. My voice came out more shaken than I intended.
I pictured a six-year-old child, then seven, eight, nine, growing up to become a teenager, and spending long periods alone in a massive building.
Even at the clinic, we were never alone.
"No, no," he said quickly, sensing my reaction. "There was a housekeeper bot who came by twice a week. A few teachers stayed on campus, too. But I didn't see them much. Just passing in the halls."
That didn't sound reassuring at all.
"But most spaces were still open for me," he continued, "The library, the game center, the movie room... Fun times," he added with a light chuckle, still looking at the ground.
I blinked rapidly and was glad he wasn't looking at me.
It was hard for me to imagine a dormitory without chatter, without laughter, without someone to whisper to after the lights were out.
I thought the winter holidays were such boring times, but at least at the clinic, we had each other to entertain ourselves. The older ones like me would even organize activities to occupy the younger ones, trying to give them the same experiences we were once offered in the past.
I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to spend so much time alone.
"But that was only until I was sixteen... Then I was selected to go to the Science Academy. It got easier then. No one wanted to be with their families anymore," he said, and I sensed he tried to lighten the mood. "But whether it was boarding school or the academy... We barely had time to breathe between classes. Running barefoot in the grass wasn't part of the schedule," he chuckled again.
I joined his chuckle, thinking that at least we had that in common.
We also never got to run in fields of grass because the soil where I came from was nothing but hard, grey dirt, too barren for anything to grow. Even with our shoes on, playing outside meant returning covered in a fine layer of dust and needing a good wash.
"So, what information did you look for?" V asked again, and I was glad he remembered where we had left off.
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