“Ah, s-so that’s why. Well...” came the answer from Fred (Sanae). They couldn’t quite tell if she was relieved or disappointed. Fred was moving regardless of the content of the conversation, scratching at its head with a hind leg, making more creaking noises. “Huh, what’s that noise?” asked Sanae.
“Well, I got a dog today,” Pamil answered.
You forgot to tell her it’s a robot one, Kyouhei quipped mentally, but Pamil continued regardless.
“I’ve started looking after him, but I don’t know exactly what to do with a lot of things.”
“Ah... that makes sense...”
“I seem to remember you saying you have a dog, though.”
“I do,” Sanae answered.
“I need your knowledge and experience.”
“You want to know how to look after a dog?”
“Indeed.”
At some point, Pamil had switched from speaking to the phone to speaking to Fred where it sat on the floor. It did have a microphone as well as a speaker, so it would work in its place...
“Um... first you need to know about walking him. Small dogs can get away with just playing inside, but it’s better to walk them outside anyway...” Sanae started.
Pamil then hummed to herself as she started taking notes in a notebook she’d retrieved from somewhere. Meanwhile, Fred spoke fluently in Sanae’s voice as she taught Pamil about how to care for dogs.
It was as odd as you might expect, but it was also rather charming.
The whole conversation was all about how to look after a real dog, but it wouldn’t do any harm, so Kyouhei just smiled reluctantly and returned to cooking.
● ● ●
And thus, dawn broke on another day.
Unlike the previous day, the sky today was thick with clouds over the city. While the temperature had dropped a little thanks to that, it was still warm and just as humid, so there wasn’t a huge difference comfort-wise.
However, regardless of all of that, a certain girl was excessively energetic.
“Let’s go, Fred!” exclaimed Pamil triumphantly as they left the house, or more accurately, the warehouse.
There was a red cord clasped in her hand. And, on the end of it, was a collar around Fred, who was at her side. It was clearly a leash for walking.
“Sanae said dogs should be walked every morning and evening. Let’s go for a walk so you stay healthy!”
There was no way it would have understood her, but Fred’s tail seemed to be wagging happily behind it as it walked with its joints creaking.
“While you shouldn’t be barking at nothing, it’s not nice walking in silence,” Pamil said to Fred, “so you can bark a bit if you want to.”
Clatter clatter clatter clatter.
“We’re both robots, even if we’re built to different standards and look different, so you don’t need to be polite.”
Clatter clatter clatter clatter.
“What’s wrong? Are you worried about it raining? Don’t worry, I’ve got a plastic bag for if it rains, I’ll put you in it right away.”
Clatter clatter—(etc.).
Pamil looked askance at Fred. No matter what she said, all that it did was wag its tail or flash its eyes. “Hmm, you’re a tight-lipped one.”
Kyouhei wondered whether he should interject or just watch them leave and let them be.
I mean, even real dogs and cats wouldn’t talk, and they weren’t constantly making noises either.
“I know!” cried Pamil as she punched her hand. “You probably just want to get on with the walk. Oh, you’re a cute little guy.”
The exchange certainly wasn’t a conversation, but Pamil still nodded happily and set off again. With a clatter, Fred followed slowly along with her.
“...Wait... they’re seriously going on a walk...?” muttered Kyouhei in shock as he watched them leave. “Why’s she that happy with it? Wait, maybe...”
He suddenly realized Kyouhei’s father had retrieved Pamil from a garbage site in that coffin-shaped case. She had been disposed of because, despite being made as a body double for the princess, the royal family had vanished after the coup.
A robot that had been discarded.
Maybe she was seeing the similarity in her situation and Fred’s, discarded once its popularity had passed.
“A robot... huh?” Kyouhei muttered, turning back into the house.
To be able to live in the warehouse, they had saved a corner of the space from the mass of goods. There was a handmade dog bed composed of cloth and cardboard in the area that Pamil had created yesterday once they’d gotten home.
Pamil was a cute girl. There were a lot of oddities and general weirdness about her, but she was a fundamentally earnest and kind girl; you could tell from watching her fuss over Fred.
So... living under the same roof as a girl like that would naturally be likely to awaken a boy to love. However, Kyouhei didn’t see Pamil like that. Or rather, he told himself not to.
And that was because...
An android, huh?
Indeed. At the time, he’d simply thought of her claim as a delusional girl’s fantasy. Modern science couldn’t create a robot indistinguishable from a human. Fred and its ilk were the limit of robotics.
But on the other hand, Pamil could launch lightning and fire, or strange beams of light, something impossible for humans. Therefore, Kyouhei couldn’t quite laugh off her claims of being an android.
An android.
A mechanical humanoid simulacrum.
A humanoid false human.
Despite being human-like, none of them were human.
Even if they looked like they were happy or sad, it was nothing more than a program running on their systems. A complex system might make them seem like a human, but they weren’t fundamentally all that different from a doll that played a recording of “Mama, I’m hungry” if you pulled a string on its back.
Wouldn’t feeling love towards such a thing be like yearning for a wall or a void...?
Those worries were always somewhere in his heart.
Kyouhei let out a short sigh and switched the TV on. The current channel was just finishing the news, and the newscaster was reading out the weather forecast.
“...Some regions will see some rain. Everyone, make sure you remember your umbrellas.”
“The rainy season should have finished ages ago, but it’s still raining a fair bit,” Kyouhei grumbled with a frown.
Then, he remembered something. Actually... did she take an umbrella? he thought to himself.
He’d heard her talk about using a plastic bag as a raincoat for Fred, but he wasn’t sure what she’d be doing for herself.
He looked at the umbrella stand by the entrance and saw the umbrellas were all still inside it. All three were cheap plastic umbrellas bought from a convenience store.
“That idiot,” he grumbled, rubbing his forehead. It wouldn’t necessarily rain during her walk, but... “Well, no choice then...” Kyouhei told himself, picking up two umbrellas.
● ● ●
It was easy to find Pamil and Fred. Before even five minutes had passed, Kyouhei saw the familiar blonde on the other side of a crossing.
“I knew it,” he said to himself.
Unlike a normal dog, the robot dog didn’t walk very fast, and couldn’t run either, so Kyouhei had figured they couldn’t have gotten far and looked around the neighborhood. He hadn’t thought he’d find them so soon, though.
The house was in the warehouse district. Or more accurately, it itself was one warehouse among many, but it was used as their house.
It had long been a rule that Pamil could only go out alone on Sundays, and only around the neighborhood, to avoid showing Pamil’s aberrant ‘android-ness’ to passersby.
While students on holiday wouldn’t pay much attention to the days of the week, today was indeed a Sunday. It was a day off from the usual loading and unloading of goods in the warehouse district, so it was fairly quiet. There was the occasional truck that went past on its way to a distant destination, but that was the only work going on in the area.
Consequently, a blonde girl walking a tottering robot dog stood out among that gray scenery.
Kyouhei lifted his free hand to wave to her.
“Pami—” he started.
At the very moment he yelled, it happened.
An explosion of noise assaulted his head. It was the sound of a tire bursting.
Instinctively, Kyouhei looked towards the source of the noise and saw a long-distance truck skidding sideways along the road. It wasn’t going very fast, but would have a significant amount of inertia behind it if it was fully loaded. A corner of the bumper hit the ground, scraping along with a piercing screech, sparking as it bore down on Pamil...!
“Pamil!” Kyouhei yelled.
There wasn’t time to avoid it. The sparks colored the early morning mist an eerie red, and the ominous roar of the truck spread through the ground beneath them.
The truck skidded again, and then... the huge metal construction slammed straight into a wall.
All too suddenly, silence fell.
Pamil was...
“...Pamil.”
The truck had plowed right into where she was standing. So where was she? Was she in some space between the truck and the wall? Or had the truck...
“Pamil!” he yelled, racing over.
She’ll be okay, she’ll be fine, he told himself as he ran. She’d stopped a truck with a single hand before. If she felt like it, she could have blasted the whole truck away as well. So she’d be alright, she’d be okay.
But... he thought uneasily. It had been so sudden; had she been able to react? Her dainty body wouldn’t be able to stand up to the immense weight of the truck, so...
“Pamil!” he called again.
Eventually, he saw her totter out from behind the truck at his call.
His chest was suddenly filled with relief as he ran over to her with a smile.
...But that smile then froze instantly.
He’d seen Fred clutched within her arms.
No...
“Kyouhei... I... covered him immediately... but the pressure...” Pamil said haltingly, looking up at Kyouhei in a daze.
What Kyouhei had seen was what used to be Fred.
The robot dog’s body had been smashed, exposing the mechanisms inside. The lights that were his eyes, the things that blinked to show he was listening, had gone out, and he had fallen silent.
Even Kyouhei could tell it was beyond saving, and he wasn’t familiar with machines.
“Kyouhei... he’s not moving,” she continued, her voice more questioning than sad. She probably didn’t know how to take it. “Is he... dead?”
Kyouhei wanted to correct her and tell her that it was broken, but the words stopped in his throat and he swallowed them. There wasn’t a clear reason as to why he did so, he just didn’t feel like he could say those words.
“...Yeah, he is...”
Indeed, Fred, a robot that Pamil had taken up, was dead. Even if he got another of the same type of robot from somewhere, it wouldn’t be Pamil’s beloved Fred.
Silence fell, accompanied by rain.
The rain intensified, mercilessly beating against Pamil and Kyouhei, and against Fred’s motionless body. Kyouhei didn’t think to open the umbrella in his hand; he just softly stroked Pamil’s hair.