Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“KAITO,” Miku popped up suddenly, flicking the strand of hair on her head, “do you know why Rui is so sad lately? I wanna learn how to cheer him up!!”

KAITO only sighed, pausing his task, “I'm not quite sure.. though I would love to help him, I want to give him as much space as possible. What brought this up so suddenly?”

“I can see it in his eyes,” Miku said sadly, “Nene says, too, that sometimes Rui doesn't smile right. The light doesn't reach his eyes! I've noticed recently too!!”

KAITO smiled lightly. She really cared for those kids, “Well, what do you want to do to help him?”

“I dunnoooooooo,” she sobbed, falling to the floor dramatically, “that's why I came to ask you!”

“Hmm… maybe we should try to understand what is making him feel upset.”

“I already tried,” she huffed, “he didn't tell me anything!!”

"Well,” KAITO huffed a short, half-lived laugh, “there's your answer, then.”

Miku cried out, “Awwwwww!! If only there were a way to know how he felt without getting it from him personally..”

There was a pause.

A long pause.

A pause that means Miku is thinking of something that she probably should not be considering.

“KAITO!” Miku called out, expression gleaming, “You know that one place where we go to look back on personal memories?!”

KAITO sighed, “Miku, we can't do this without Rui's permission. It'd be like betraying him personally.”

“But you said you wanted to help him,” Miku pouted unfairly.

And he hated how he was even slightly considering it.

“We can't do this behind his back,” KAITO said, “we should ask him first.”

“But he'd say no!!!”

“Then it means no.”

“Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaasseeeee,” Miku pleaded, “I wanna help Rui, but he refuses to open up!! The others have this look when they look at him, like something super sad happened!!! I wanna understand like them!”

“Miku…”

“Please,” she had that look in her eyes. She was practically begging, “you can help Rui too.”

He saw the kids like his own children, even though he was a robot. He'd be there whenever they needed him, whenever they needed advice…

Too many times had he been asked for comfort or advice from Rui, and the boy barely spouted anything other than ‘hypothetical’ questions. Too few times had his sleeve slid up, and KAITO saw the cuts. He had no idea if they were self-inflicted or gained by some enemy. But he wanted to know how to help him.

He hated that he genuinely thought about it…

“Okay,” he said quietly, “we can go.”

Miku exploded with joy, practically dragging him towards the back of the stage, a lit yellow circle where they'd walked in and seen some highschoolers life in two hours by sheer accident. They have yet to meet them, if at all.

Miku had thrown some purple petal inside, and surprisingly, the color had changed.

“Ready?!” Miku shouted, “We go in on three!!”

“Wait, Miku–”

“THREE!!”

“That's not–!”

Miku had thrown him and herself inside the circle, outside suddenly disappearing as the room changed.

.. They were in a hospital room.

“Wahh, baby Ruii!!!” Miku called out to a woman holding a child with purple and teal hair. She had purple hair, light yellow streaks through her held up bun, and the supposed father had teal hair, hanging straight down like he'd gotten wet. Gold penetrating his eyes, the woman's being grey, slit eyelids in a feminine way, just like Rui's.

“Wait, Miku–”

She hopped forward, aiming to grab the boy, yet her grip slipped as her hands faded through the woman, the bed, Rui.

“Wooooaaahhhh,” Miku gasped, eyes sparkling, “it went straight through them!!!!!!”

“Yeah,” KAITO sighed, smile tugging at his lips, “we found that out last time, though it was long enough to forget about.”

They'd really came across it a few days after they'd come into existence, a few days after Tsukasa had found his passion to make others smile. When he was little.

When Emu, Nene, and Rui we're little.

“We weren't here then, were we?” Miku questioned.

“No. Tsukasa gained his passion when he was five.”

“Oh, that's right!”

“Dairi,” the woman breathed, her husband blending into her side, “it's my boy.”

“It's our boy,” he said, excitement in his voice.

“What should we name him?”

“Why not let our queen decide?”

“He's beautiful…”

“Just like you.”

“Don't flatter me.”

“Why not?”

She cradled the boy in her arms a moment longer, “A name…”

“Kamishiro… Rui… Rui Kamishiro?”

“Ooh ooh ooooh, that's Rui's name!!!!”

“Yes, I know Miku..”

Suddenly the room blurred together, walls forming into something different. A home.

“Woah,” Miku gasped, looking around, “why did it change?”

“Hard to remember that… maybe there was nothing of much importance there.” KAITO supplied.

Upon glancing around the room, Miku had found that behind them was the woman, watching the boy, who traveled slowly towards the coffee table.

“Wah, he's walking KAITO!!!!!!”

“Heh, yes. He is.”

She looked, in better words, exhausted, sitting on the couch as the boy grabbed for the remote. He looked no younger than one, maybe even two. He plopped down once he'd grabbed it, staring awhile.

“What's he doing?” Miku knelt beside him, watching with pure curiosity.

Rui grabbed it awkwardly, back sliding with ease, showing half of the container with the batteries.

“Woah, is he gonna do something super cool?!”

“He's about one. Not much he can do with imprecise hands.”

“Oh! Rui, baby, not the remote. Why don't we play with this instead?”

She'd easily diverted his attention to some toy set, to Miku's disappointment, “Awww, I thought he was gonna do something super wonderhoi!!”

KAITO merely sighed, watching as his mother showed him how to play with car toys.

His gaze never really left the remote.

Chapter Text

Miku was purely appalled by how adorable baby Rui could be.

“Rui was like this when he was younger?” She asked, “He's so so cute!! I wish I could've seen him!!”

It was true. He was pretty cute, with chubby cheeks and his hatrid for vegetables, not to mention the Platypi he loves so very much, he even had a Platypus shirt.

The boy was older now, probably around five. He was tinkering with the back of a flashlight, opening it far past just the battery part.

“The blue and green wires… why are they twisted like that?”

He was clever for his age, expecting of the boy. He already had a large vocabulary, and Miku found it amazing.

“KAITO! What does that mean??”

“Well, it's hard to explain…”

Rui's mother Hayase had called him down for breakfast. It was a surprise he was up so early anyways. He ran down the stairs, Miku following in excitement. Though the boy stopped in his tracks when he noticed the small side of roasted broccoli.

“Mom!! Can't I be forced to eat vegetables, like… next week?”

“Why's that dear?” Hayase hummed happily, ruffling the boys hair as he pouted. It was quite adorable.

“I'm starting school today! I'm excited, and I don't want those gross vegetables to ruin it!”

“Ooh, he's going to school!” Miku pointed out obviously.

Hayase sighed lightly, “… Alright, darling. But you'll need to eat them tomorrow!”

“Mom!!”

It hadn't been too much later that him and his mother were skipping along the side walk. Miku liked to pretend she was holding hands with him as she skipped alongside them.

“Why are you so excited today?” His mother asked specifically, chuckling at the boys pure joy.

“I get to meet lots of friends!! I wanna make as many friends as possible, and we can perform shows together!”

“So cute!!!!!”

KAITO hated invading his private life like this, but Miku seemed genuinely happy. Rui too. He hoped nothing particularly bad happened.

Once dropped off, Rui enthusiastically waved his mother goodbye, Miku (for some reason) joined in. This close up and sudden, KAITO noticed that Rui, though he looked very excited, he looked slightly… lost?

KAITO didn't like that look on his face. Even though this Rui looked younger and different than their Rui, he didn't like it.

“This place is so tiny!” Miku yelled in disbelief, “How can anyone do any cartwheels in there?!”

“Teachers nor kids don't usually do any cartwheels in there.”

“Huhhh? Why not?”

“Well..”

“Oh, you must be Kamishiro Rui! Come on in, the other kids will be happy to have a new friend!”

A woman–probably the teacher–had led Rui inside, Miku and KAITO following. He'll be honest, KAITO had never really seen Rui with such a genuine smile, full of pure excitement.

How had that all changed?

The inside was small as well, yet spacious enough for the kids to do their own thing. Rui looked around for a second, smile never wavering, yet he looked quite a bit nervous at the new atmosphere.

“Aww, he looks so sad!” Miku whined, “Why can't I hug him?”

“These are his memories,” KAITO stated, “we weren't there then. Nothing we can do now will leave an impact.”

A few kids further away were playing and running around. KAITO almost wished he could urge the boy to play with them, until a girl ran up to him.

“Hey! What's your name?”

Rui looked a bit surprised, “Oh… I'm Rui!”

“Do you wanna play with us Rui?”

Joy split back onto his face, “Sure!!”

The two ran forward as Miku gawked at how cute the little kids were.

They showed Rui the game, how he grabbed one of their toy airplanes and had started tinkering with it a bit. The kids watched him with an odd look.

He showed them how he'd maneuvered it so that it could fly on it's own, half of the kids were in awe, while the others were upset at him for ‘ruining their toy’. Especially the teacher. That had pissed KAITO off.

When they'd play outside, Rui got all of these kids to participate in a show he was trying to create. Miku watched in excitement at whatever baby Rui would come up with.

“Then we jump from the slide, right onto the trampoline!”

“.. That's kinda dangerous, Rui…”

“It'll be okay! We can bring a matress the teacher has, so that we won't get hurt if we miss.”

“My mom will get mad if I get hurt…”

“But, I promise you won't! It'll be fun!!”

“.. Why don't we go play over there?”

“Oh..”

Miku watched, confused to why they were walking away, “What? Wait, why are they leaving?”

“I.. don't know.” KAITO sighed, “It seems they've misplaced Rui's trust.”

“But why? Tsukasa and Emu and Nene trust him a ton!!”

“I know.”

Rui followed them awkwardly, either trying to occasionally convince them to do even safer stunts, or he'd fiddle with a toy like he does with his robots.

Before they knew it, the time had blended into the end of school. He stood at the front waiting for his mom.

The girl from earlier came up to him, standing awkwardly, “Hey, Rui…”

“Oh, hey Hana!”

“I, uh…”

“Is something wrong?”

“I… don't wanna play with you anymore.”

Rui seemed shocked, “.. Huh?”

“Your robots are scary, and you're kinda weird. Mama says not to hang out with people that are weird.”

Rui stared, “But…”

“Your shows are dangerous, and I don't wanna be around someone dangerous.”

That was a dagger straight through KAITO's heart.

The girl ran away, almost relieved. Miku's face resembled that of Rui's pure shock. “.. What?”

“KAITO, why would she say that?” He saw the tears forming in her eyes as she glanced at the boy, who stood there, motionless.

‘None of you have abandoned me. Not yet…’

“Why doesn't she wanna be his friend?” She seemed heartbroken, “What did he do wrong? Rui makes wonderhoi robots, why…?!”

Rui glanced at his own hands, fumbling with his shirt, fingers trembling. It hurt to watch.

“Rui, come here, your mother is here!”

He walked slowly as Miku stared at the other child in confusion. KAITO slowly followed after guiding Miku behind.

Hayase was confused and worried to why her son was so quiet, but didn't comment it until they got home.

“Rui, honey, what's wrong?”

“… I don't wanna go to school anymore.”

“Wait,” Miku was frantic, glancing around for any explanation, “why did she say that? Why did she call him weird?! It's not bad to be weird, I like weird!! What happened?!”

“Miku,” KAITO grabbed her arm gently, watching as Hayase pulled her son in a tight embrace, “It's okay.”

“But… b-but..!”

“He's okay. We know that right now. All we can do is help him grow.”

Rui's sobs were unbearable to witness.