BATTER 57

The teeth revealed beneath his upturned lips gleamed palely. Quick-witted Harrison let out an awkward, dry cough and exited the examination room with Lawrence. Thanks to that, only the two of them remained in the shadow-drenched corners of the room. Once the door clicked shut, Bijou’s lips parted slightly.

“I am sorry for making your sacrifice go to waste again. I understand that this is a situation where you could feel quite a bit of helplessness and anger.”

“What? Sacrifice? Which one?”

“Your eye. And the scar left on your forehead…”

A mournful gaze fell upon the scar where the flesh hadn’t fully knitted back together. At this, Baron covered his forehead and let out a troubled laugh. The muscles around his brow contorted, carving deep lines into his forehead.

“No, Darling. No. Didn’t you hear? If it doesn’t directly affect functionality, it’s not a problem.”

“That is a story limited to machines like us.”

“And me?”

The bridge of the laughing Baron’s nose twitched intermittently. To understand a sentence where everything but the subject had been omitted, more information needed to be gathered. Bijou waited a moment to grasp the context.

“Why do you think I’d be any different?”

Since his left eyeball was composed of plastic synthetic resin, only the capillaries in his right eye stood out thinly. Furthermore, because the pupil of the budget BR101 model only reflected brightness, only his right pupil dilated darkly. The muscles surrounding the eye socket trembled ever so slightly before quickly settling. He grinned, wrinkling his thick eyebrows like a mischievous boy.

“How are you and I all that different? An eye can just be swapped out—you think that’s some grand, unfair loss for me? Honestly, Darling, I feel great. If you’re a villain, it doesn’t matter where you get shot or what gets broken. Now I’ve got a chance to hunt someone down and tear them apart—you think I’d feel cheated? Not at all. I’m just frustrated from looking at idiots. Seeing idiots makes me feel physiologically like shit.”

“What part of us feels idiotic to you?”

“The fact that you’re all clearly not in your right minds, yet you think of nothing but being exploited.”

“Unlike you?”

A certain stain became distinct over his downcast brass-colored eyes. The name of that muddy stain was displeasure. But even that withered away quickly. Baron’s expressions were different from the typical ones Bijou had archived, so he had to carefully deconstruct the minute movements of the muscles.

Bijou stared for a long time at that face, which always seemed to be either laughing or mocking, before leaning his cheek softly against the flat chest. Against a chest that neither pushed him away nor embraced him—merely breathing—he whispered. The sturdy frame heaved heavily with every breath.

“I exist to help and save humans.”

“I know, you tin can.”

“Please think of it as something I do to be happy.”

“That’s exactly the idiotic thought I’m talking about.”

Baron turned his head to the side. He muttered while pressing his temple halfway against the wall.

“You could break even more. You could become an even bigger defect, and yet…”

From the fleeting, hollow smile, Bijou caught a glimpse of what error and malfunction meant to him. However, he could not understand it fully or perfectly. Rather than mimicking a clumsy psychologist, Bijou decided to be more faithful to his own mission. Give joy to the grieving, give love to the lonely. To anyone who grieves, to anyone who is lonely…

Then you can’t forgive anyone.

During his calculation process, the voice Baron had used to mock him in the past suddenly replayed. Bijou knew that those words implied an inability to love anyone. Nevertheless, it now acted as a denial of his primary mechanism, plunging Bijou into an unfamiliar sensation. Something that wasn’t sadness and was distinct from suffering.

Bijou turned the cheek that had been facing away back toward himself and kissed him. Baron’s body was much simpler than his psychology. He obediently lowered his head to accept the kiss and mingled their tongues without hesitation.

As the kiss deepened, Baron leaned down, causing Bijou’s upper body to bend further back. Bijou hooked his hands around the nape of Baron’s neck to keep from falling. He felt thick palms wrap around the lower part of his arched spine.

Fingers slightly hotter than average body temperature burrowed beneath his clothes. The vine-like grip traced the sunken line along his vertebrae before sliding back out. It was around then that their pressed lips parted.

Baron spoke as he wiped the transferred moisture from Bijou’s lips with his thumb.

“Who taught you to cut people off with a kiss when things get difficult?”

“I am not sure.”

“You only get smart when it suits you.”

He clicked his tongue even as he laughed. The touch that had been secretly tickling Bijou’s spine a moment ago lightly brushed his shoulder.

“If you want more, let’s pick it up next time we meet. After I pull a certain pathetic tin can out of the hands of evil.”

He grinned, intentionally choosing childish words. Thanks to the classic vocabulary, Bijou was reminded of several scenes from old blockbuster movies. Protagonists kissing passionately against a backdrop of bright, massive explosions. Bijou asked back briefly.

“Like a movie?”

“Mmm, sure. Like a movie. I like that.”

Baron nodded without thinking too deeply. Then, before Harrison’s worry could deepen further, he led Bijou out of the examination room. The moment they crossed the cleanly wiped but shabby threshold, they split up to attend to their respective tasks.

Bijou went around the floors to comfort people as he always did, while Baron checked for any weapons that might be left in the village and took a short nap to prepare for the events that would unfold after midnight. Since their fear did not lie at the tip of a gun, they actually became more peaceful as midnight approached.

Bijou decided to head to Edge Street riding Mori. As long as Mori didn’t use his voice, the other side would take him for a typical old autonomous vehicle. Faithful Mori was scheduled to bring the Teacher back to the underground city afterward.

Baron didn’t expect the Teacher to be alive and well, but he didn’t bother saying that out loud. Meanwhile, he found three handguns of varying manufacturing years, two daggers, and a toolbox. If one intended to slit a throat, nothing was truly useless, but in terms of efficiency, those were the best picks.

Harrison, with a skill unbefitting a doctor, modified an injector pen and gifted him a nerve toxin injector. By that point, it was easy to guess who had attached a surgical scalpel to the hands of a childcare humanoid. Baron figured this man had definitely not lived his life as an ordinary doctor. He liked that about him, so he simply said thanks. It wasn’t polite to dig into the past of someone like that.

After making a few plans while pretending not to notice Trixie’s clumsy tailing, the time came for Bijou to leave the underground. Not wanting to see a bunch of people gathered and whining, Baron stood behind the residents who went out to see him off.

Bijou climbed onto Mori’s back without a hint of lingering regret. Since Mori’s headlights had been dimmed to a minimum, he was quickly swallowed by the darkness. Even so, Baron suddenly felt as if the man had looked back—as if their eyes had met one last time.

The only people truly interested in whether the “plan” would work were Baron, the children, and Harrison. Some of the children went to their assigned empty rooms to sleep, but the rest sat huddled in front of the clinic monitor, staring at the moment the tracker began to move.

The red dot on the map moved without obstruction. Trixie hung onto Baron’s wrist, glaring at the moving dot without missing a single second. As midnight finally approached, she was nodding off from sheer exhaustion, yet she forced her eyes open. When Baron tried to slide his arm away, Trixie noticed like a hawk and snapped her neck upright.