Robot Protection Zone Chapter 89

“Y-You must have been dreaming…”

I tried to act nonchalant and turned my head to deny it, but what came out of my mouth was a trembling voice. It was obvious to anyone that I was shaken by his words.

My eyes, fixed on the floor, were shaking minutely. I had assumed that, just like the time he had kissed me while drunk and completely forgotten about it, this time too he would naturally not remember after waking up. But he remembered. I didn’t know how much he remembered, and my heart fluttered with anxiety.

Last night, I had kissed him first and even whispered that I loved him. If he actually remembered all of that… I looked at him with my lips sealed in anxiety.

“Didi, what’s wrong all of a sudden? Are you shy?”

He asked in a voice tinged with laughter, as if he thought I was joking around because I was embarrassed. Seeing him like that, I squeezed my eyes shut. The moment I met his gently broken smile, I realized.

He remembers everything.

“…Master, what happened yesterday was a mistake. Please forget everything I did.”

I managed to say, bowing my head deeply. As long as he remembered, it was useless to insist it was a dream. As I muttered the request, he furrowed his eyebrows and asked back.

“A mistake?”

“I thought you were drunk… That’s why I did it. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

I stammered an apology and pushed him away.

“You didn’t remember before when you were drunk. So this time too…”

“Before? Was there a time I lost my memory from drinking?”

See. He still doesn’t even remember kissing me when he was drunk.

I had kissed him thinking it was the last time, assuming he would forget yesterday’s events too. If I had known it would turn out like this, I would have never acted that way. Regretting that I had been swept up in the impulse and kissed him, I bit my lip hard.

As I tried to escape to my room, he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

“Didi, you were being sincere yesterday. You said you loved me.”

“…Still, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a robot…”

I hung my head low. I didn’t have the strength to hide my emotions anymore.

My master, as if he couldn’t understand my change in attitude overnight, ran his hand roughly through his hair with a frustrated expression. Then, he noticed my tears dripping onto the floor and stopped moving.

“Didi.”

He called my name and continued.

“So what if you’re a robot? You’re no different from a person.”

“Hic…”

“Whether you’re a robot or a human, that’s not important. All I need is you.”

My master whispered softly in front of me as I cried with held breath. He carefully comforted me and continued with gentle words, but my thoughts were different.

“Didi…”

I rejected and pushed away his hand as he reached out to wipe the tears flowing down my cheek.

I was a robot. No matter how much I loved him, I knew I would eventually hit that wall again. I wasn’t brave enough to open my heart again, knowing I would be abandoned someday.

William sat at his desk, lost in thought.

Since that day, Didi had holed himself up in his room and rarely came out. He wouldn’t even make proper eye contact, as if the shock of having his feelings revealed was that great. His avoidance and distancing had become even more severe than right after he was first powered on.

“Hah…”

William let out a long sigh. He had no idea how to change Didi’s mind.

The feeling of being so happy he could fly, thinking Didi had finally opened his heart, was dashed to the ground in an instant. To think that Didi had said he loved him, believing he would be too drunk to remember.

A hollow laugh escaped him in disbelief. What was even more absurd was that he seemed to have a memory he had forgotten due to being drunk before, but he still didn’t know what it was.

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the whiskey bottle that had become the source of all the problems.

He could sleep without any problems when Didi was by his side, but since Didi started sleeping separately, he couldn’t get any sleep at all. He would toss and turn in bed, eventually borrowing the power of alcohol to get a mere three or four hours of sleep. Even that was impossible without alcohol.

That night, too, he had just drunk until he was drunk as usual, but Didi had mistaken him for being drunk and kissed him. He couldn’t figure out where things had gone wrong.

The biggest problem was that since that day, Didi had started to avoid William even more. Even though they were living in the same house, it was difficult to even see his face once. When he went out after hearing a sound, he would only see the back of a hastily fleeing Didi, whom he had barely managed to encounter.

And until now, he hadn’t even heard Didi’s voice. He had to create an opportunity to talk somehow before they grew completely distant. As he wracked his brain, he was suddenly reminded of the human-bot that had told him of Didi’s whereabouts.

Come to think of it, did he ask to meet Didi once he returned?

A somewhat suspicious human-bot, a homeowner who never showed his face, and a strangely quiet mansion.

No matter how he thought about it, there were many unsettling aspects, but it was true that he was able to find Didi thanks to them. He didn’t like it, but he had to keep his promise.

It didn’t seem like a bad idea to try talking to Didi while bringing up that story.

“Didi.”

He knocked on the door carefully so as not to startle Didi. After standing in front of the door and waiting for a long time, the door slowly opened.

“Master…?”

Even in the moment they finally met, Didi still wouldn’t meet his gaze. Still, William considered it a relief just to be able to see Didi’s face like this. His eyes, which couldn’t find a place to rest and darted around, his small, mumbling lips.

Suppressing the urge to kiss him, he took in Didi’s appearance for a long time before asking.

“Do you remember the house you stayed at for a while after you lost your charger?”

“Yes…”

Didi’s eyes widened as he nodded. He glanced at William as if to ask how he knew that.

“They helped me find you. They refused the reward money and asked to meet you just once instead.”

William recalled the human-bot that had made another request instead of remuneration that day and continued calmly.

Of course, if Didi said he didn’t want to go, he had no intention of taking him. He could just show a certain degree of sincerity through a reward. From William’s perspective, that was much more comfortable for him.

But Didi’s reaction was unexpected.

“Enoch and Amy?”

“…Yes.”

Enoch and Amy? William frowned for a moment as he looked at Didi, who called their names familiarly without hesitation. His face maintained an unchanging expression, but his insides were not.

Soon, Didi lifted his head with a bright face and answered.

“I’ll go!”

His affirmation was so firm that the words to think about it again didn’t even come out.

“When are we going?”

Didi’s face, as he asked back with an expectant voice, looked the happiest it had since he returned home. William was silent for a moment before opening his mouth.

“…I’ll contact them and schedule it.”

Damn it, this wasn’t the plan.

But seeing Didi smiling so brightly, he couldn’t bring himself to say no now. At the same time, a part of his heart twisted strangely. How on earth did he live in that house to be so welcoming of them?

Didi had only known William. Although he was avoiding him now, it was clear he still liked him. But to see him smiling a smile he hadn’t shown in front of William recently while thinking of someone else. A sudden sense of crisis washed over him.

“Master.”

Didi called out to William, who was about to return to his room. When he turned around, he saw Didi opening his mouth hesitantly.

“Um… can’t I be the one to contact them?”

Didi cautiously asked for permission. William wanted to cancel his offer to let him meet them right away. He had to take this lovely Didi to guys whose intentions he didn’t even know? When he didn’t even know what kind of feelings they held for Didi?

But Didi was looking at him with eyes full of expectation. When he came to his senses, William was already giving Didi the number of the informant human-bot.

William, who had given him the number without realizing it, belatedly came to his senses and added a condition.

“But you have to make the call in front of me.”

“Huh? In front of you, Master?”

“Is there a reason you can’t?”

Didi blinked in confusion at the bold demand.

Using this as an excuse, he intended to get his fill of looking at Didi, whom it had recently been difficult to even encounter. Above all, he was curious. For what reason was Didi so happy to see them?