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Keebo awoke to the sound of a soft thump on the door. Well, maybe ‘awoke’ wouldn’t be the right word. ’Aroused’, possibly. Yes, he was aroused from his headspace by a soft thump on the door.
“Hm?” he hummed and tilted his head, wondering whether it was just a trick of the mind. But then it happened again.
Thump.
This time it was accompanied by a soft moan, one of slight discomfort. Having confirmed that the noise wasn’t a figment of his imagination, Keebo got up from the fetal position he was lying in (charging himself requires some… awkward positioning) and walked up to the door, resting his hand on the handle as he deliberated whether he should open it.
“No…”
The voice startled him. Was it..? Yes, it couldn’t be anybody else: it was none other than Miu Iruma. The moment he figured that out, he opened the door with speed previously unbeknownst to him.
And there she was, standing with her head casted downwards, wearing a strange black headset which covered her eyes completely. Drool dribbled from her loosely open mouth, and her arms dangled limply.
“Greetings, Miu!” Keebo beamed, “What brings you to…”
It looks like she’s sleeping, he thought, trailing off. Pressing one of the buttons adorned down the middle of his body armor, he performed a scan of her vitals, and—yes, everything indicated that she was sleeping. She must be sleepwalking, he concluded.
Miu blindly groped the air until her hands found Keebo’s cheeks. He braced himself for some incredibly vulgar remark—her inhibitions would definitely be erased while unconscious—but instead…
“Mmmh, K… Kheebsh… yer sho… cute…” she mumbled as her mouth began to vaguely resemble a smile.
“Wh-What?” he wasn’t quite sure that he heard her.
She ignored him, rather opting to collapse onto him, draping her arms over his shoulders. He almost buckled from the weight, the only thing preventing a fall being his own weight.
“Hmhmhm… it’sh like you’re a… cute lil’ bunny. Heh…” her left hand raised in the air and the finger whizzed past his ear, barely missing the ‘poor’ robot.
“Boop.”
Despite missing his nose by a mile, Keebo blushes as if she hit her target with the precision of a medieval archer.
“Miu—!” he managed to get out. Not that she was capable of listening.
“Hnngh… I jush wanna gobble you up, like…” she buried her face into his shoulder and made some snarfing noise.
“O-Oh… that is… not like you.” he said, still blushing and still very, very confused. He began to hold her by the waist, attempting to reposition her so that she’d be at his side. It wasn’t successful in the slightest.
“Listen, Miu. I have to, grnk, bring you back to your room.”
Miu whined, “Nnnh… I jush… wanna shrink yuh… puya in muh pocket…” and then holds out her right hand, cupping some imaginary object in it. “There you are… you’re sho small… small and…”
Babbling incoherently, she took this imaginary Keebo and pushed it down the side of her skirt (because the people who design women’s clothing are idiots). The actual Keebo felt like his circuits were melting.
“Miu, I need you to cooperate with me here!” he plead as he tugged at her again with no fruition.
“Mmmmh…” was her sole reply. Somehow, it felt like she weighed heavier than before, and he could not even take a step forward.
Sighing in defeat, Keebo began to calculate anywhere else he could safely put her. Then, he saw it: the bed. At first, he was apprehensive about putting her there, since that meant she’d stay the night with him and he wasn’t sure if she’d be comfortable with that. What he was sure of was that she’d be very uncomfortable with cracking her head open on the floor. So he immediately pushed her onto his bed, watching as she instinctively curled up on it.
“Would you like for me to do anything else for you?” he asked, knowing that it wouldn’t elicit a response. Miu grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest, her murmuring dying down slowly.
It was strange, seeing her look so… vulnerable was the best word to describe it. Not to say that he didn’t like it—as a matter of fact, it was hard for him not to admire the sight—but it was just such a departure from how she normally acted that it was partially hard to believe she was the same person.
He liked it when she was vulnerable.
“Okay, Miu. I’m going to remove that machine from your face, now,” he told her, feeling uncomfortable if he didn’t clearly telegraph his movements despite her lack of consciousness.
Calmly, carefully, he put his two hands on either side of the headset and gently pulled it off. The welcome returned by this warm gesture is Miu sitting up and shouting.
“AAH! H-Holy fuck!”
“Miu, language!” Keebo put up a finger to chastise her.
“Th-The fuck are you d-doing?!” her eyes darted erratically around the room, “The fuck am I?”
“My room, Miu. You—”
“You took me to your room?!” she shouts, pointing a shaky finger at him.
“I-I didn’t!” he threw up his hands in a defensive manner, “You came to my room, I think you were sleepwalking.”
Miu paused, casting her gaze to the side and seeing the indent that the headset she wore made in his bed. With a groan, she let out a “fuck!” and fell backwards onto the bed.
Keebo felt a tinge of concern creep up his facsimile of a spine, and asked, a bead of ‘sweat’ dripping down his face, “Miu? Wh-What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’, it’s just…” she waved to the headset, “Fuckin’ thing was a useless heap of shit! I’ve shat better turds than that!”
Ignoring the comment, he asked, “What is it, if you would not mind explaining to me?”
“That piece of scrap metal’s supposed to be my Magnum Opus! The ultimate Do-Things-While-You-Sleep machine! Wearing it while asleep casts an image of what its cameras see into your mind, and also allows you to have full motor control at the same time! Basically, you should be able to awake while asleep!
“But I guess it isn’t fuckin’ working! ‘Cause I’m s’posed to be awake, but I don’t even remember anything that happened!”
“I presume you will have to improve on your design, then.” Keebo suggested. Miu appreciated how useful this suggestion was.
“Of course I fuckin’ know that, dumbass! You fuckin’ fuckin’ fuck fuck fuckin’—whatever!”
He smiles, “I’m glad to hear that, Miu. If you need any assistance on any invention you are having trouble with, I would always be happy to help.”
“I-I know that too, d-dipshit!” Miu snapped again, this time with a notable blush tinging her cheeks pink, “B-But… thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, feeling affection swell in his core for this enigmatic inventor in front of him. He saw her more, though, as a cherished friend, someone he could always rely on, despite what her behavior would imply; he saw her as a person, a real person.
“Hey, did I, uh, do anything weird in my sleep? To you? Not that I would, ’cause I’m not weird at all, unlike everyone else. There isn’t a—”
“Of course you didn’t, Miu,” he lies. There was a strange heaviness in his chest, an emotion he could not quite quantify, and the lie flowed out of him effortlessly, without him even realizing it.
“Heh, okay. Th-That’s good…” she looked away shyly, before asking, “If I had, w-would—”
“I would never hold anything against you, Miu.”
‘I care about you more than anything,’ is what he wanted to say, but he managed to bite down on his instincts, to give himself some time to process these unknown and intense feelings.
“O-Oh…” she muttered.
The two sat in silence for a moment, until she stood up, announcing to him, “I-I’m gonna go now. Uh… seeya.”
Keebo gave a slight nod, “I hope to see you soon too.”
And with that she made her departure. The robot made his way back to his charging port, and plugged himself in with the cord which had fallen out earlier. Someday, hopefully in the near future, he would be able to express how she made him feel. But for now, he had to figure out what it even was that he felt.
He closed his eyes. By the morning, he had a name he could put to this strange emotion.
Love.