Memories of You
Name: Memories of You
Author: Rin
Beta: Invisible & diamondsjack
Fandom: Kis-My-Ft2
Genre: romance, bunnyfic-AU
Pairing: Iida/Yokoo
Rating: G
A/N: This fic, well. At the same time it was and wasn't easy to write. It was easy because I knew what I wanted to write, yet it was difficult since I wasn't writing of the "normal" Kisumai. Instead, I wrote a fic using the universe of diamondsjack's (awesome) High Tech, Low Intel, in other words: the bunnyfic. I had many questions (both important and stupid ones) that came along writing but she answered them all, and also helped me a lot so...thank you diamondsjack! (^_^)/ And now that I have started this, I can as well thank Invisible for betaing my text once again and whining about my mistakes with prepositions (and everything else, too). I promise I'll learn to use prepositions properly one day. 8'D
...I'm starting to sound someone who has written a book and wants to thank like everyone and their dog about all the help she's been given. So maybe I should cut this like...now? :D
Oh, there's still one thing I want to say.
Unless you've read the fic I linked earlier, you probably won't understand this fic at all. Or maybe you will, I don't know. But I really doubt it. :'D So I highly recommend reading bunnyfic first since when writing this, I wrote presuming that the reader already knows the universe (and also because bunnyfic's like the one of the best fics i've ever read).
Hmm I guess I've been babbling too much already. ^^; I'm happy if you read my fic and comments are always wonderful thing. ♥
- - -
“You want me to do what?” Tamamori gasped, staring at the emptiness.
“I’m just asking for a bit of help,” Iida said, and Tamamori chuckled.
“A bit? Do you realize that you just asked me to hack the whole system of Takizawa’s place?”
“Not the whole system. My files only.”
“Which is practically the same thing,” the hacker muttered.
“Besides, you hack the Government all the time so what’s the problem?”
“It’s completely different, ” Tamamori said, “I won’t get caught. But Yokoo will notice immediately if I’ve been meddling with Watchtower stuff.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Let me take care of that. I’ll delete any failed code you leave behind,” Iida promised.
Tamamori raised his eyebrows in an indignant way. “I never leave any failed code behind,” he snorted.
“Well, prove it then. You must admit that you’ve been curious about how Watchtower runs since you found out about us, haven’t you? You can now. It’s okay, I trust you - you’re my charge after all.”
“Fine,” Tamamori sighed, “what do I need to do?” He sat down in the air as Iida brought a long string of code up to float in front of him. “Are you sure he won’t suddenly just show up here?” Still nervous, Tamamori glanced around like a child about to do something forbidden.
Iida laughed. “Completely sure. Yokoo’s busy enough saving Senga and Nikaido. Even with Kitayama and Fujigaya helping, it will take time.”
“Saving? Are they okay?” Tamamori asked, frowning.
“Yeah, they are… or at least they will be. They were just training online until Senga locked the scenario and they couldn’t get out.”
“Does Senga even know how to lock a scenario?”
“He doesn’t, and that’s the problem. We have no idea how on earth he managed to do it. Nikaido tried to release them but he couldn’t, so Yokoo's gone to see if he can do anything to help them out.”
“Why don’t you just FD the both of them?” Tamamori muttered, shaking his head. Even though he had lived in Takizawa’s place for long enough to be used to the other residents of the house, Senga and Nikaido still surprised him every now and then with their endless stupidity.
“Yokoo said he will if he has to, but that would mean they’ll have to carry Senga and Nikaido back here unconscious… which they don’t really want. Don’t worry about them; focus on the reason I asked you to come here in the first place.”
Without a word Tamamori nodded, crossed his legs under him and started scrolling through the code. Despite a lack of particular expression, he enjoyed every second of it. It wasn’t especially like he was curious about Iida’s secrets or anything - inwardly, he was just pleased with the opportunity to browse such advanced code. Though the phoenix model remained out of his reach, Tamamori figured he could still learn from what Watchtower had.
He had been online far longer than most errants his age, and knew way more about the Government's network than even the average legal citizen ever learned. Yet most of the code running through Takizawa’s firewall was foreign to him - strangely organic, and thus difficult to read. He still tried his best.
“Is there anything strange?” Iida asked after a while.
“I don’t know,” Tamamori frowned. “Is it even possible for me to find something you don’t already know?”
“It is,” Iida said and materialized a huge directory full of strangely named folders in front of Tamamori's space.
“If he wants, Yokoo can encrypt files in a way that I can't read. I know they exist, but that’s all. I want you to browse through them - they’re all here.” At the same time one of the folders opened and Tamamori blinked.
“And…?”
“And I want you to make them readable for me,” Iida answered calmly.
“Are you crazy?” Tamamori asked. “As if I could beat Yokoo’s codes! “
“You can,” Iida said and Tamamori felt like there was a hint of smile in his voice. “Probably. I trained you myself, after all. Trust yourself.”
Tamamori took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll try.”
- - -
It took more than two hours, Tamamori trying everything he knew about decryption and opening locked files. Eventually, he managed to worm through a corner of their protection…
“Iida, what is this?” he asked, a little stunned as the code he was working on respooled into something more readable - but no less cryptic. Though Tamamori already had a slight idea of what he was looking at, he couldn't quite believe it.
Iida gave the files a cursory scan also, now that he could, and for a moment they both were silent.
“This code… these lines, they're…”
“Emotion overrides.”
“Yeah, but I've never seen them used like this before.” Tamamori scrolled and frowned as he read. “It's as if… you're in love with Yokoo.” It seemed unfeasible. Tamamori stopped and looked up into the blank whiteness. “Are you?”
Iida took a while to answer. “I was.”
“Before you…”
“Before I died,” Iida said simply, but then continued hesitantly, “and… well. Honestly, I don’t know. It shouldn’t be possible, right? Not anymore.”
For a while Tamamori felt strange. They both knew it - Iida was only the sum of his scripts and processes now, and computers were not supposed to feel anything. Yet his last words and the tone of his voice… they had definitely sounded very human.
“I don’t know,” Tamamori said, shrugging, “but I think-”
“Oh, damn!” Iida suddenly cursed and started to close the opened files as fast as he could.
“Hey, what’re you-” Tamamori started to ask, but froze as he heard a door opening behind him.
“You. Out. Now,” Yokoo growled at Tamamori and pointed at the door still lingering behind him. He was angry enough that Tamamori stood at once, not wanting to annoy Yokoo more.
“Yokoo-san, don't be too hard on him,” Iida said quietly in Tamamori's defense. “I asked him to decrypt the files you were hiding among my archives.”
“I think I’ll go anyway,” Tamamori muttered, heading for the door. “See ya.”
The door vanished from view as soon as the hacker had shut it again, and Yokoo stood there for a long moment, just staring at the emptiness around him.
“Wataru…” Iida then started softly, “Would you like to explain this to me?”
Yokoo looked more than a bit reluctant, so Iida opened the files in front of him again.
“I found these a while ago. There’s no doubt you have something to do with them. Nobody else hardwrites anything to my drive.”
Yokoo kept silent for minute before sighing. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm but thin: “I found them, too. That time. Collecting the pieces - your pieces - after you died. I scanned through them and… I was surprised. And sad. I was sad because I missed you. And because you had never told me about your feelings. It hurt, you know - to get to know about them only a couple of days after you left.”
“I’m sorry,” Iida said quietly. He knew what had happened - after the death of his consciousness, the fragments of his human mind had been collected and digitized. Encoded. Saved. Restored as wholly as Yokoo could manage. At least, Iida had always thought that to be the case.
“Why didn’t you just… tell me about it?” he asked.
Yokoo closed his eyes, forced to think about that time again. “I was scared.”
“Of what?”’
“Kyon, you were dead. Nothing was left but a modified artificial intelligence - just a baby AI with infant behaviors built from your memories. You know what you were like then, Kyon. You depended on me so much, on my memories to fill in the gaps in yours, so you knew how to act. I hardly went offline since you… You were you only when I was here.”
“And then there was this." Bitter, maybe frustrated, Yokoo gestured to the decrypted folder still before him. "This piece of you… your feelings that I wasn't supposed to know. It felt like the last piece of the real you, you know? And so I cherished it, thinking that at least you really had liked me. It wasn't anything your AI would have been able to handle…" And here Yokoo laughed, strangely strained. "Human feelings, you know. Emotion overrides are supposed to work with the chemicals in the human brain, but I couldn't think up another way to spin the code at the time. If you'd tossed back an error message at me, you know, I don't know what I…"
"Wataru…" Iida said softly.
Yokoo shook his head. "So I kept them separate, your thoughts of affection. For me. Having them locked away on that external drive kept them more real. Less like code - more like a piece of your mind...”
Trailing off, Yokoo slowly sank down as if on a chair and hid his face behind his hands.
“I missed you. I couldn’t accept that you were dead…”
It wasn’t the first time Iida hoped he was still alive. He hadn’t seen Yokoo looking so weak in a long, long time and Iida felt like he’d do anything to soothe the other’s pain.
“But you restored those files, after all?” he asked after a while and Yokoo nodded shortly.
“It was actually Taipi who gave me the idea, though he didn’t know it himself. He just said that you’ve started to grow more and more human. Your sense of humor and ability to read our behavior is better than ever before. And Kitamitsu said talking with you feels the same as it used to, even when I’m offline. I thought about that a lot and decided I’d at least have to try. It was a couple of weeks ago. I added the files with the routine update batch.”
Iida swiftly calculated the days that had gone by after his last large update and in seconds he was sure he knew which day and update Yokoo was talking about.
“Then I just waited. I wanted to see if those memories - the extra data - would have any effect on your behavioral algorithms. I guess they didn't." He gave a wry smile. "And you even took them out and quarantined them like a virus. Sorry I tried to infect you.”
Despite the smile, Yokoo’s tone of voice was depressed enough that Iida couldn’t stay quiet - especially now that the other had already told him everything.
“I wouldn't be so sure, Wataru. I only quarantined the files because I couldn't read them. Tamamori helped me with that, but he only did it because I asked him to, and I asked him because I’ve noticed… well, a few strange things happening lately.”
“Things like what?”
“Remember when you were ambushed out on the field with Taipi and Kitamitsu the other day?”
“Of course,” Yokoo frowned. There was nothing wrong in his memory, after all. Though he wouldn't admit it, the Chasers that day had shaken him badly enough for a couple of nightmares. “What about it?”
“While I was following the situation from here… when Taipi got hurt and almost caught he should have been my primary concern, but I first had to make sure you were not in danger before helping him. Even after that I was monitoring you the closest, via infrared, GPS and satellite imagery. And throughout this whole week my screensaver has only showed pictures of you no matter what I do.”
Yokoo’s expression turned astonished as he listened to Iida’s words.
“And then I felt like I liked you, though I couldn’t understand why. But it makes sense now, knowing what's been moved back into my memory.”
“You… like me?” Yokoo asked slowly, unable to believe what he heard.
“The same way I did earlier, of course," Iida affirmed. "The memory has not been altered.”
For a moment they were quiet again, each thinking about the other’s words.
“I’ve liked you for years already, Kyon,” Yokoo said then, quietly.
The whole whiteroom changed its color to soft baby pink, and after a short moment of surprise Yokoo burst into laughter.
“Iida Kyohei, are you blushing?”
Iida refused to speak as the color got even brighter before slowly fading back to the normal white. “I’m not.”
“You so were.”
“I hate you.”
“Oh no you don’t. And I love you too.”
- - -
An old, mid-European town. A small café in the afternoon. Big, white parasols protecting the customers from the burning sun outside of the café. Yes, Yokoo thought, he was probably in the right place. At least everything looked like the place Iida had told him to look for.
Even though Yokoo had expected it - they were in a public scenario after all - he still felt a shiver run down his spine upon spotting Iida at one of the tables. It wasn’t real of course - just a slave avatar operated by Iida himself - but the human mind was easily fooled and for a moment Yokoo let himself imagine everything was like before.
“Hi there,” he said, taking a chair to himself.
Iida looked up, smiling warmly. “Hi. I was waiting for you.”
“I know.”
It was nice and comfortable to just sit there and talk about everything and nothing in particular, Yokoo thought, and smiled a bit. Mentioning it to Iida got him a smile in return. “I think so too.”
Yokoo let his gaze wander around the small terrace, watching the people seated at the other tables or walking past along the old road.
“It’s somehow relaxing to see people I don’t know,” Iida said dreamingly and Yokoo nodded.
It sure had to be interesting to see something other than the usual faces of the Takizawa house residents every once in a while. Iida had always liked watching other people, after all. Except that he wasn’t actually looking at them, Yokoo noticed when glancing at his friend. Iida was still talking about the people he saw, but at the same time his avatar stared at Yokoo unblinking, smile as warm and peaceful as it had been some seconds ago. It was a weird sight and Yokoo chuckled softly.
“You know, Taipi’s right. It is pretty creepy when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Forget to move your avatar.”
“Oh! Sorry,” Iida sighed and suddenly his visible form seemed to wake up from its frozen state. “I'm helping Tamamori take out some nasty errants on the side.”
“Kyon, why do you even bother?” Yokoo asked gently. “Both of us know your using this slave avatar doesn’t quite work. Didn’t we already agree an eternity ago that you don’t need it? Every time you get distracted you forget to blink or breathe, or move your mouth when you’re talking. And it makes you look more than weird.”
There was a long silence, during which Iida’s avatar kept staring into space until it woke up again. “I just thought you’d like it,” he admitted quietly. “People like to not only hear but also see each other. I thought it’d make you happy if you could see me.”
“Kyohei,” Yokoo whispered hoarsely. Though what he saw was just a coded construct of Iida's image, his words were definitely much more real. Yokoo was sure it was the real Iida talking to him. He felt it.
It was almost funny how badly Iida was surprised when Yokoo rose from his chair and stepped closer to hug him tight. However, after a short while Iida seemed to remember how to react to the sudden physical attention. At least Yokoo supposed so since Iida wrapped his arms around him as well.
Yokoo felt warmer than he had in a long, long time. He missed the real, living Iida but was happy he could at least have his memories with him like this.
“Thank you. For everything,” Yokoo murmured, and Iida smiled silently into his shoulder.
There was nothing else to say.
- - - -