Archive of Our Own

It was unseasonably hot in Autumn Village, and Subaru and Cuilang were taking refuge in the latter’s basement.

Cuilang sat in the chair in front of his master’s computer station, slouched backward with his neck bent in a way that would certainly be uncomfortable if he felt such things. He’d shed his usual layers in favor of a simple brown yukata. Subaru, wearing only his pants, was perched in Cuilang’s lap and the cause of his poor posture. His legs were crossed as he leaned forward to move the computer mouse. A mechanical fan hummed behind them, turning back and forth to keep them cool.

Right now, Subaru was moving the mouse in figure eights, watching in fascination as the cursor moved in the same pattern on the lit glass before him. He found if he pressed in one side of the mouse, he could draw white boxes with the cursor.

“That’s cool,” Subaru whispered, drawing a large white box then watching it disappear against the brown background when he lifted his finger.

Cuilang laughed at him.

Subaru spun around, eyes narrowed as he bit back a smile. “What are you laughing at?” he said.

“Your fascination with such a basic function is amusing. It’s like watching a cat with string.”

Subaru punched him gently in the shoulder, knowing he wouldn’t feel it. Cuilang laughed again, just as stilted and genuine as the first time.

Subaru held out the computer mouse toward him. “Well, I don’t know how any of this works, so you’ll have to show me what you think is cool,” he said.

“You keep the mouse,” Cuilang said, peering at the monitor. The cursor darted across the screen, clicking through a series of boxes of text that appeared and disappeared too quickly for Subaru to read.

“You’re right, that’s really cool,” Subaru said. The activity on the screen paused while Cuilang leveled Subaru with a glare that was tragically undercut by the grin he was trying to suppress.

Cuilang made a few more selections on the computer and turned back to Subaru. “This is a game called Worm. You control the Worm, the series of 0s there, with the arrow keys. Your objective as the Worm is to consume the numbers that appear so you may grow longer. However, you must not consume yourself or the borders, as you will die. Please try it now.”

Subaru examined the keyboard until he found the arrows, arranged in an upside-down T. He put his pointer fingers on the left and right arrows. “Ok,” Subaru said. “I’m ready.”

Cuilang nodded, and the Worm began to move. Subaru pressed some of the keys, watching the Worm spin in a circle. A number 1 appeared below him. Subaru pressed the down arrow, directing the Worm into the number. It disappeared and the Worm became one 0 longer. Subaru made the Worm eat 2, 3, and 4, gaining even more segments.

“Well done,” Cuilang said.

Subaru grinned. The number 5 appeared near the upper left corner. Subaru sent the Worm toward it.

“Do not attempt to consume the border,” Cuilang reminded.

Subaru nodded and watched the Worm closely. As soon as it consumed the 5, Subaru hit the right arrow key, narrowly avoiding the Worm’s demise.

Cuilang clapped. “Very well-maneuvered,” he said.

The Worm ate 6 through 9, then 1 through 7 again. It had become quite long. 8 appeared on the screen in one of the Worm’s coils.

“Do not—ah,” Cuilang said, as Subaru pressed the down key. “How unfortunate.”

Subaru’s brows furrowed until he realized that having sent the head of the Worm into its own coil, it had no way out without eating itself.

GAME OVER appeared on the screen.

“As you can see, you must remain cautious. The game increases in difficulty as the Worm grows,” Cuilang said. “17 is a good total for your first attempt.”

“I want to see you play,” Subaru said.

Cuilang shook his head. “There is no point.”

“Obviously,” Subaru said. “But that’s part of what makes it fun.”

“You misunderstand me,” Cuilang said. “I am not opposed to engaging in pastimes. I am opposed to engaging in this one.”

“Why?” Subaru asked.

“This machine is built with the same technology that I am. I do not need the mouse to interface with it because I can speak to it directly. As such, I am aware of every move that will be made long in advance,” Cuilang said. “If I play there is no element of skill or chance. It is a pointless exercise.”

Subaru frowned. “Hold on, I wanted to see what you think is cool. You’re totally uninterested in this,” he said. “You just wanted to see me play!”

“As we have long-established, ‘cool’ is subjective. I think your reactions are much more cool than anything this computer is capable of,” he said. “Therefore, I selected Worm.”

“Select again,” Subaru said. “There must be something that you think is cool on here.”

Cuilang hummed. “I did not touch this machine for nearly fifty years because I have no use for it. Everything it is capable of, I am also capable of. I imagine it’s as uninteresting to me as you would find watching yourself breathe in the mirror.”

“I don’t buy that,” Subaru said, flipping over to drape himself over Cuilang’s refreshingly cold chest. “You’ve said yourself that you’re an artificer as much as an artifice. There’s something on here that impresses you, I’m certain of it.”

“I believe what might interest me would hold little interest for you,” he said.

“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t ask about me then, isn’t it? I want to see what interests you,” Subaru said. Whining and sinking dramatically, he added, “sometimes I get tired of repeating myself.”

Cuilang frowned. “My apologies, my love,” he said. “I will try not to—”

Subaru pressed his finger over his lips. “No, don’t be. I‘m only teasing you,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to think I was serious. I’m sorry.”

“Ah, I see. Regardless, it is true that I have made you repeat your request. Let me try again,” he said.

Subaru flipped back over to watch the active monitor. Cuilang wrapped his arms around his waist to keep him from slipping. The screen flashed while he pulled up whatever it was he’d decided to show Subaru.

“Master invested much more processing power in me than in this machine. As such, it’s far less capable than I am, and its functionality interests me little. Although… hm,” Cuilang stopped.

“What is it?” Subaru asked.

“It did not occur to me until just now, but I suppose I could use it to bolster my capabilities if I need to think about something particularly challenging. This would have been useful while I was processing your declaration of love for me.”

Subaru giggled. “I hope that isn’t still a challenge for you to think about. I happen to think it’s pretty simple—I love you. Easy as that.”

Cuilang pressed a kiss into Subaru’s nape. “Yes. I terribly overcomplicated that task. It’s much easier to compute human emotion now that I’ve realized how illogical you all are,” he said, smiling against Subaru’s skin. “You especially.”

“Are you teasing me? You are, aren’t you?” Subaru said. “I thought you didn’t understand teasing!”

Cuilang rested his chin against Subaru’s shoulder. “I don’t. It does not make sense for a small show of mockery to equate to an expression of fondness, but I don’t have to understand to apply the principle.” He lifted his head and nodded toward the screen, which had settled on a black background lined top to bottom with writing Subaru couldn’t decipher. “Returning to your request, I have more interest in the displays than in the computer itself. It would make me happy if you understood better how I function, and these monitors are a very useful tool for that purpose. That is why I wanted to show this to you today.”

Subaru had already been intrigued, but he perked up even further after hearing this. Cuilang rarely discussed wants and feelings that were wholly his own, as he had an extremely difficult time identifying and separating them from things that would make him happy simply because it would make someone else happy.

“What’s the monitor do?” Subaru asked. “Other than make boxes and worms, of course."

“The primary purpose of a monitor is to display a user interface. The user interface allows the one using the computer to see what the computer is doing and direct its activities,” Cuilang said. “Right now, I have set this monitor to display my source code.”

“…and what’s source code?”

“It is everything that makes me… me,” he said. The text flickered as new text took its place on the monitor. A large chunk of it was surrounded by green. “Every line is an instruction written by my master telling me how to behave. For example, this section I’ve highlighted is an instruction that I should blink variably every three to four seconds. I can disable it like so.” The text on the screen changed to be bounded by brackets and characters. Cuilang turned to Subaru, unblinking. “Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I think so. I guess something in my brain must tell me when to blink, too, right?” Subaru grabbed his chin. “I haven’t really thought about it before. It’s not something I have to think about.”

“I do,” Cuilang said.

“You do?”

“Yes. The ‘me’ you know is a combination of memories and programs that determine what I say and what I do, and also what I feel. This is the human part of me. But I am also a machine like this one,” he said, motioning to the computer cabinets before them. “I follow instructions in my processors. No one program is inherently more important or more of a focus than another. They all must be processed the same. I have to think about all of them.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” Subaru said. He frequently had a hard time focusing on just one thought, let alone whatever amount Cuilang had to consider.

The artifice laughed. “Indeed. Perhaps it is fortunate that I don’t experience fatigue.”

Subaru smiled. He turned to kiss Cuilang on the cheek, then grabbed the mouse and started scrolling down to look at more of the code. He recognized most of the words used, but he didn’t understand what they meant together or the punctuation with them. He could guess at many of them, though—for example, some lines mentioned his shoulders and breathing. Cuilang didn’t breathe, but he moved his shoulders slightly to imitate the action. Subaru assumed this was the instruction for that.

“Is this part saying how to look like you’re breathing?” he asked.

Cuilang smiled widely. Subaru must have had it right, then. He’s so happy for this little understanding, he thought. With excitement and a bit of dread for the enormity of the task, he resolved to learn this language.

He stopped scrolling when he came across a block of text, bracketed like Cuilang had done before for his instructions for blinking, but not written in Azumese like everything else had been so far.

“What’s this?” Subaru asked, pointing. “It’s disabled, right?”

“Ah. Yes. This was never meant to be enabled, however. This is simply a note Master left,” Cuilang said. “Hence why it is written in his native language.”

“From your master?” Subaru looked back to Cuilang, not bothering to tamp down his excitement. He was fascinated by the elder artificer and the stories his son had of him, perhaps because he had so few memories of his own parents. “What does it say?”

“This particular comment says he should return to tidy this section of code later. Then it is updated to say he absolutely should not do that under any circumstances, and below there’s an added line of instruction that I must not alter this section.”

“Huh. Why’d he change his mind?” Subaru asked.

“This section is referenced frequently in much of my other code, so changing it would have unexpected and sometimes catastrophic side effects,” Cuilang said.

“Like what?”

“If you were to change the wording here, I would crash within twenty minutes of booting. More humorously, Master notes that altering this,” Cuilang pointed, “caused me to hum ceaselessly at an ever-increasing pitch. I imagine it was very obnoxious, though I must have crashed as I cannot recall the incident myself.”

Subaru laughed at the image his mind produced of Cuilang’s master trying to cover his ears and use the keyboard while Cuilang hissed like a kettle.

“I see. Better not to touch it so you don’t break it accidentally,” Subaru said.

Cuilang nodded. “Correct. Although… this sort of code interests me greatly,” he said.

Subaru turned to face him. Cuilang had tipped his head and closed his eyes, thinking deeply. “Is it because there’s a note from your master?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “I am interested in my master’s notes, but I have many, many notes left from him, both in my code and in his notebooks. This section is not special in that regard. Rather, the instruction that I not alter this section of code frequently grabs my attention because I know how to fix it, but this renders me incapable of doing so.”

Subaru considered this. There were things about himself that he wanted to fix but was unable to—his broken memory, mostly. He couldn’t imagine knowing the solution was right there and being unable to act on it. “Do you want to fix it? What if I disabled the part telling you not to change it?” he asked.

“Then it would be disabled,” Cuilang said.

“…so you could fix it then, right?”

“It would be possible.”

“Do you want me to do that?”

Uncharacteristically, Cuilang shrugged.

Perhaps Subaru shouldn’t continue to push, but he wanted to better understand Cuilang’s view of this problem. “That would work, wouldn’t it? If I disabled it, then there’s nothing stopping you from fixing it.”

“Correct.”

“So do you want me to…?”

Cuilang shrugged again. “I cannot offer an opinion on this matter,” he said. “You are free to do as you wish.”

“Huh. So you can think about fixing it, but you can’t say what you think?” Subaru said.

Cuilang shook his hand in a so-so gesture. “I cannot engage in behavior that would directly result in the altering of this code. Having an opinion on it is subsequently difficult for me, but not impossible. It is fact, however, that this line of code very rarely affects my functioning in any noticeable way. Truly, it only affects me if I am addressing it directly like I am now. I would not think of it at all if it was not such a concise example of my limitations.”

Subaru frowned. Even if it wasn’t a problem for him, he didn’t like the idea of the choice being out of Cuilang’s hands. He grabbed the keyboard and added the brackets and characters he’d seen earlier.

Cuilang turned to him and laughed lightly. “Please do not let this bother you,” he said. “I am different from the computer here because I have code to instruct me in how to think for myself. However, we are both the sum of our instructions. Do you understand still?” He broke eye contact, his nerves getting the better of him. “These rules form the boundaries that hold everything that I am. I can alter most of them, but I cannot exist without them. I need prohibitions as much as I need permissions.”

Subaru leaned against the desk, drawing circles on the wood with his finger while he struggled to wrap his head around Cuilang’s words. “I don’t remember much from when I was a kid,” he started, “but I know there were rules I had to follow. I could break them, but there were consequences if I did, so I never wanted to.” Subaru tamped down the impression in his memory of his worst scoldings. They weren’t talking about him right now, and besides, each had been an important lesson. He twisted to catch Cuilang’s gaze again—he could always rely on getting lost in his eyes. “It’s not the same, but it’s close, isn’t it? We all have to be taught the rules of how to behave somehow.” Subaru patted his cheek. “Now, are you going to tidy that code? Or did you want to leave it as is?”

Cuilang tipped his chin down, considering. “I suppose I should. It has not caused me any real problems before, but it’s not impossible that it could in the future. Do you mind if I apply an update now?”

Subaru shook his head. “Not at all,” he said.

Cuilang tightened his grip around Subaru’s waist. He looked back to the active monitor. “This should not take long. I’ve brought up Worm for you if you’d like to try again in the meantime,” Cuilang said.

“Sure,” Subaru said, grinning and leaning forward to reach the keyboard. Cuilang leaned with him. “Wait, what was my last score?”

“Your final score was 17,” Cuilang said. He rested his chin on Subaru’s shoulder. “Beginning system update.” His hands went limp around the dancer’s waist. Subaru adjusted them so they wouldn’t fall out of his lap, then grabbed the keyboard again to kill time until Cuilang returned.

Subaru had died a few more times and reached a score of 36 when Cuilang announced his update was complete.

Cuilang tightened his arms around Subaru again and leaned some of his weight off of him. “You are doing well,” he noted.

“Shh,” Subaru said.

He reached 43 before he accidentally angled the Worm into a wall while trying to avoid the end of itself.

“Damn,” he said. “I was hoping to get to 50.”

“You will certainly improve if you continue to practice.”

Subaru laughed at the idea of wasting time training to be better at Worm. With the crisis caused by the Celestial Collapse resolved, he had a lot more time than he knew what to do with, but he still couldn’t imagine dedicating any real portion of it to something so frivolous.

A different thought occurred to him then. “Hey, speaking of improvement… you just cleaned up that code, right?” Subaru asked.

Something in his tone or his expression must have given his game away, because Cuilang immediately narrowed his eyes slightly. “Yes,” he said, hesitant.

Subaru decided to go all in and batted his eyelashes. “The code that your master was afraid to touch?”

“…yes.”

“Don’t you think that after fifty years of maintaining and improving on your master’s greatest work, you should consider yourself a master too?” Subaru said, giving Cuilang his most blindingly bright smile.

The artifice looked down, pointedly trying to hide his face from the dancer, but he could see a small curl to his lips anyway.

“Is this mockery? Your expressions and tone suggest you are teasing me,” he said.

“Nope! Teasing isn’t always mocking. Right now, I’m teasing you but also being completely genuine.”

“You will b-b-beeee the end of—of me,” Cuilang declared, looking slightly crosseyed while he tackled the error.

Subaru gave him a sympathetic pat and laughed at his expense.

“Would you like to play more?” Cuilang asked.

“No,” Subaru said. “What else did you want to show me on here?”

Cuilang tapped his fingers against Subaru’s belly, a nervous habit that the dancer knew meant he was struggling with his emotions. Subaru ran his palms over the backs of Cuilang’s hands until the artifice stopped.

It was awhile before he spoke again. “Have I told you that I have perfect recall?” he asked.

“Not directly, but I’ve thought you might,” Subaru said.

“I have many memories of my master. In the years since he passed, I’ve consulted them frequently, but… doing so causes me errors,” he said. “Much of the data—my memories—has become corrupted because of those crashes. That’s why I can’t remember certain things that relate to him. Additionally, there are some files I locked away in order to protect them from damage. But I could duplicate and view them on this machine. Then if I crash, the data won’t be damaged.”

Subaru bit his lip, trying to follow but unsure how memories could be duplicated. “…like a journal?” he asked.

“No. Perhaps it would be easier to show you,” Cuilang said.

The monitor flickered in a flurry of activity until it settled on an image of Subaru in his wedding attire, standing in the middle of the Dragon Shrine and shifting his feet.

“What—that’s—but that’s me?” Subaru sputtered, tapping the glass. “It’s like a photo, but it’s—I’m moving! And there’s so much color!”

“Yes. This was you on our wedding day. I revisit this memory often. These clothes flatter you, and I’ve rarely seen you so nervous,” Cuilang said, eyes fond. “This is a video recording. It is a series of photos in sequence. The camera I’ve shown you before is a very basic mechanical model that prints light to specially treated paper, while my eyes are much more advanced cameras that utilize electronic components to record light as data. This video shows you exactly as I saw you that day.”

Subaru gaped. “Are you telling me you memorize everything you see?”

“Indeed, though I only keep recordings that are noteworthy in some way. Otherwise, I choose to store my memories in logs not unlike a journal to save on space,” Cuilang said.

Just as he finished speaking, Cuilang’s voice spoke from the monitor: “I’d heard you would wear a special garment, but this is simply stunning. It suits you perfectly.”

“There’s sound!?” Subaru yelled, leaning in to look even closer.

Cuilang was laughing at him again—he’d done a lot of that today. Subaru was glad he was comfortable enough with him for that now.

“Subaru, I am a computer. My function is to process data. That data has to take a processable form—”

Subaru squeezed Cuilang’s hands. “Darling, you can tell me later, but right now I want to see you in your wedding clothes! Please? Did you look at yourself? You must have checked if you put everything on correctly!”

Cuilang put his chin on Subaru’s shoulder and tilted his head to rest against the dancer’s. The screen changed to a short, repeating clip of Cuilang’s reflection in one of the ponds near his home.

Subaru kicked his feet in excitement and bit back a squeal. “I never thought I’d get to see this again so clearly! You’re so pretty in those clothes, but I was so nervous and my memory’s so bad, I’d already forgotten so many details…” he trailed off. “Hey, wait, we were talking about you forgetting things about your master! Quit distracting me.”

Cuilang gave another stiff chuckle. Endearing as it was, it was perhaps too indicative of his nature if he became more comfortable laughing around their friends. If the heatwave continued Subaru decided he would spend a day showing him how to laugh properly.

“I will not take ownership of your distractibility. Doing so would be a full-time job,” Cuilang said.

“Harsh,” Subaru sighed. “But probably true.”

“My apologies,” Cuilang said, lips tilting into a frown. “I enjoy this aspect of you. I was attempting to tease.”

“I know. I guess it’s just a sensitive subject. I used to get into so much trouble during archery lessons…” He let the statement peter out. He was unsure of the details, anyway. He clapped to regain his own attention. “But right now I am staying on target! Please tell me what you wanted to about your master.”

Cuilang’s lips straightened and he started tapping again.

“I am aware of the contents of my locked memories,” he said. “I have logs to refer to. But I have not viewed them in decades. Technically I could have used this machine to do so before, however I assessed that the risk of causing a catastrophic error was too high. Now though, after all that you and Woolby have done for me, the risk level has been reduced to an acceptable range…” His index finger stuttered over Subaru’s side. “Would you like to view some of these memories with me?”

Subaru’s mouth fell open. “That’s possible?” he said.

“Yes?” Cuilang tilted his head. “You are aware you just viewed two of my memories.”

“I know, but I was there for those. I guess I haven’t completely wrapped my head around it,” Subaru said. He sat up, whipping his head around to Cuilang before he could get the wrong idea. “Not that that’s going to stop me! If you want to show me, then I want to see.”

Cuilang nodded. “I would like to show you my initial activation to introduce you to my master as I met him. Do you…” He cleared his throat—a wholly unnecessary action for him, Subaru knew, so it was another expression of discomfort with his words. “Do you recall finding my manual?”

“Yeah?” Subaru said, racking his brain for why he was asking. Was there something about his activation process that he needed to know? Or something about how his memory worked? He hadn’t actually read the manual! Should he have? But Cuilang had swiftly put it away… “Oh. Ooh. Yes. Sorry I’m so dense,” Subaru said, grimacing at his own thoughtlessness. Cuilang’s manual wasn’t labeled as his—it was labeled for Cuimei, the name his master gave him when he was originally built to appear female. “I remember.”

Cuilang smiled at him. “You are not dense. It is evident that when you said it didn’t matter to you, you meant it.”

“It really doesn’t matter to me,” Subaru said. “But is it hard for you?”

Cuilang shook his head. “No. It was a very long time ago. I did not experience a childhood and coming of age as you did, but all the same, I had not yet become the person I am today. It does not bother me when I know that it does not change how you think of me now.”

Subaru decided this was a good time to remind Cuilang how completely taken with him he was, so he kissed him. When he determined the artifice was blushing deep enough, he pulled back and caught his breath.

“Do I get to see your master now? It would be nice to put a face to the name,” Subaru said.

Cuilang nodded stiffly, still flustered.

The video began apropos of nothing. The screen was simply black, then color blinked into being as the Cuilang of the past evidently opened his eyes. It showed the ceiling of the workshop upstairs and played back the sound of a fire crackling in the irori.

“Hello,” a man said. His voice was rough with age and he spoke Azumese with a heavy accent. “Are you awake?”

The view shifted as Cuilang turned his head, focusing his sideways gaze on the elderly man that had spoken to him. The elder wore the same style of clothes that Cuilang did in the present—the four-flapped hat with chains and a finial, the heavy suede coat, the fur-lined belt… The colors were different though, tan and silver where Cuilang’s were maroon and autumn red. He had a long silver beard and an equally lengthy mustache that had been stroked into points. Subaru didn’t need to be told that this was Master Cuilang, his Cuilang’s maker and father.

“Hello,” Cuilang finally responded, his voice the same even tone as always but pitched slightly higher. “I am not awake.”

“But you are speaking,” Master said, smiling softly. “What are you if not awake?”

Cuilang was silent for a few moments, blinking at his master. Subaru wondered if he would answer. He had just decided he wouldn’t when he finally did: “I am powered on and functioning optimally.”

“That’s good. Can you help me with something?” Master asked.

This caught Cuilang’s attention. He sat up on the workbench. From what little of himself he caught in his gaze, Subaru saw he was wearing a red yukata patterned with orange and gold maple leaves, and his hair was much longer. “Response formulation failed due to insufficient data. Query: is this Azuma?”

“Yes. We’re currently in my house in Autumn Village in the land of Azuma.”

“Reformulating response… Yes. It is my purpose to aid the people of Azuma after the Celestial Collapse. How can I help you?”

Master nodded. “Can you please stand up for me?” he asked.

Cuilang looked down. He set his bare feet carefully onto the floor, then thrust upwards off of the workbench. It was too much force; he wobbled forward, but his left foot slid out to catch him. He straightened his feet and stood to his full height, which was a head shorter than his master.

“Yay! Very good. Now walk here,” he said.

Cuilang’s gaze returned to the floor. His first step was slow and hesitant, and his legs seemed to twist and bend in all the wrong ways. The second and third were much the same. A few times, he nearly fell, and only just barely caught himself.

“That’s adorable. You look just like a new fawn,” Subaru said. “All legs and no idea what to do with them.”

Cuilang’s cheeks tinged pink. “I did not have enough data. I had a basic understanding of walking pre-programmed, but I had to acquire this skill just as you did,” he said.

“And I’m sure I was just as wobbly and adorable while I was learning to walk!” Subaru said. “Don’t be embarrassed. If you had memories of me as a kid, you’d be saying the same.”

“Oh. Is this embarrassment…?” Cuilang hummed to himself.

In the video, Cuilang gained more confidence and precision with each step he took. He stopped an arm’s length away from his master, who was grinning and clapping. “Woo! You’re a natural,” he said.

“Correction: I am not natural. I am a manmade machine with artificial intelligence,” Cuilang said.

Master laughed. “It’s just an expression. It means you learned walking very fast,” he said. “Oh, but I never introduced myself, did I? I’m Master Cuilang. I created you. Do you know who you are?”

“Yes. My designation is Collapse Utility Intelligence Mei. My directive is to aid the people of Azuma after the Celestial Collapse.”

Master wiped tears from his eyes. “You’re more perfect than I ever dreamed. I am so proud of you already. You are going to do great things,” he said.

The screen flicked off suddenly.

“Subaru? You are… is this some type of error? I don’t understand. Please don’t cry,” Cuilang said, cupping his cheek and turning Subaru to face him.

That didn’t sound right, they were having such a nice time. Subaru blinked and touched under his eye. His finger came back wet. He was crying. Why was he crying?

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe?”

Something wriggled in the back of his brain, in the foggy, treacherous no man’s land where most of his memories were buried. It ached. He didn’t know what ‘it’ was. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Should we discuss it, my love?” Cuilang asked, voice as gentle and smooth as the surface of snow.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Subaru said, meaning it.

Cuilang considered this. “Your heart rate increased when Master said I was a natural,” he offered.

Subaru tried to grasp the hurt in his mind but found nothing more than water between his fingers. He shook his head.

“You began crying when Master said I would do great things.”

“How will you save them if you can’t even save yourself? You must take this seriously!”

The sword shook in his hands. “I’m trying!”

“Are you? I haven’t seen it. Show me!”

Subaru’s racing heart skipped a beat. He choked on a sob and kept choking. He dipped his head to lean against Cuilang’s chest, twisting his waist and pulling up his legs to better curl in his lap. Cuilang took a defensive position over him. He wrapped his arms around his back and rested his cheek on the top of his head, then brought up his knees to shield him further.

“Dead again. What if I were one of the oni come to raid the village stores? At this rate you won’t make it to your eighth winter!”

“You’re scaring me!”

“Aren’t you listening, lad? You should be scared!”

Subaru listened to the soft whirring that resonated in Cuilang’s chest while he rubbed his hands up and down the dancer’s back. He felt the occasional runic shockwave from lightning crashing in the crystal that powered him, an ever-changing rhythm that Subaru had nonetheless learned. The sturdy build of his arms was a grounding weight.

It was some time before Subaru felt like he could catch a breath. He tried to speak, but Cuilang hushed him, hugging him a little tighter. “Not yet,” he said.

Subaru obeyed. He always did.

He didn’t have the words he wanted yet, anyway.

When his heart calmed and breathing came easier, Cuilang loosened his grip to stroke his hair.

“Talk to me,” he instructed, the same as Subaru had to him many times before.

“It’s like there’s a splinter in my brain,” Subaru said. “I know it’s there and it hurts but I don’t know what it is or how I got it or how to get it out—”

“You need to breathe,” Cuilang reminded.

Subaru laughed emptily. “I need to remember,” he spat. Still, he dutifully pressed his nose into the fabric of Cuilang’s yukata and inhaled the scent of machine oil that clung to him and everything in his house.

“Tell me what you do know,” Cuilang said. “What do you feel right now?”

“Frustrated and angry. Sad,” Subaru said. “And back then… I was terrified. I think it was cold. I wanted…” He winced as the thought slipped away, a fish into dark waters.

Cuilang pressed his fingers into the divots of Subaru’s spine and massaged his neck in a silent request for the dancer to release some of his tension. “There is no need for haste. Take your time,” he said. “At present, I calculate your safety level to be 9.6 out of 10. That is unlikely to change in the immediate future, but if it does, know that I will protect you.”

Subaru took another deep breath. He was safe. He knew that already in the logical part of his mind, but it was easier to convince himself emotionally when it was Cuilang saying it. He was always right when it came to assessing threats; he never made mistakes regarding the defense of others.

Subaru wasn’t a child anymore, he reminded himself. He was a master swordsman and an equally skilled marksman. He’d set out to save Azuma and he’d succeeded. He’d done everything they’d asked of him. Hadn’t he?

“You remember so much of your life with so much clarity,” Subaru said. “I wish I could say the same. Or at least if I can’t remember, why can’t I just forget? I never know what’s going to remind me of something. I—I feel like there are traps in my own head.”

Cuilang adjusted so he could lean their foreheads together, his hands still on the back of Subaru’s neck. “I understand the sentiment. I can’t always foresee or determine the cause of an error,” he said. “Would you tell me what you remembered?”

Subaru nodded. “I think it was my father. He was teaching me how to use a sword, but I was… distracted, probably. He asked me how I was going to save everyone if I couldn’t save myself. He told me I wouldn’t make it to my eighth winter, and that I should be afraid.” Subaru bit his lip. “He was right. If I’d been in a position where I had to defend myself, I would have been killed. Things were just getting worse in the village, and I wasn’t good enough, so I had to be better—”

“No,” Cuilang interrupted. “Children are meant to be protected. You were not deficient.”

“But I—”

“No,” Cuilang said again, firmer this time. “Subaru. Please imagine saying the same to Kotaro or Suzu.”

“Things were different then,” Subaru argued. “It was especially bad in the North.”

“You are correct,” Cuilang conceded. “But certain things remain constant. It is fact that young humans are not fit to care for themselves the way many other juvenile animals are. I know you know this. You would not repeat these things to the village children.”

Cuilang was right that he wouldn’t. It would be—wrong. Subaru thought he should feel relief at this, that he wasn’t inherently lacking in some way, or maybe anger that he was ever allowed to believe that he was. Instead, he felt nothing, just an aching hollow where he thought some strong emotion ought to be. He clutched Cuilang’s yukata tighter, and the artifice pulled his body closer. Subaru put his chin on Cuilang’s shoulder.

“I’m so confused all the time,” Subaru said, watching the mechanical fan whirling behind them. “I think I must have loved my parents. One of my clearer memories is my dad spinning me in circles while I laughed. I was so happy, and I remember the look on his face—it was pure joy. But then I remember something like this, and I think I might have hated them. But I don’t remember anything in between, so I don’t know what to think, so I just… try not to.”

Cuilang sighed. “…while I cannot condone some of the ways you were treated as a child, I also cannot imagine the pressure your parents felt to prepare you for the dangers of the world after the Celestial Collapse. It is well beyond my processing capabilities, and I think, perhaps, it was beyond theirs as well. From what you have told me, I believe that your parents loved you so much… it terrified them,” he said, “and people do not behave rationally when they’ve been backed into a corner.”

“I wish I could just ask them what they were thinking back then,” Subaru said, “but I don’t even know what happened to them. They might have left the village, or maybe winter came and there wasn’t enough food. Maybe there was another raid. There’s no one left in the village to ask.” He felt tears gathering again. “It’s not fair,” he said, knowing how juvenile it was.

Cuilang nuzzled the crown of his head. “It isn’t,” he agreed.

“It would be easier if I didn’t remember at all,” Subaru said, swiping at his eyes. “I forget so much else. Why do I have to remember this?”

“I think it’s because it’s one of the things that shapes you. This memory instructs how you live your life, for better or for worse,” Cuilang said. He grabbed Subaru’s cheeks again, turning him so he could gaze into his eyes. He used his thumbs, cold and smooth and so, so soothing in their familiarity, to wipe away the tears collecting on his cheeks. “I wish you had not experienced it, but you did. Your circumstances were… extreme, at or past the limit of tolerability. It would not be unexpected if this had made you an angry or difficult person, but it didn’t. I truly believe your strength is not with a sword or with magic. It is that you protect us all so fiercely so that we do not feel the way you did.”

Subaru felt like the floor had fallen out from under him. Cuilang pressed his thumbs to his cheekbones and kissed him, lips parting, and Subaru scrabbled for purchase in his mouth and against his tongue until he stopped falling. He keened for a feeling he still couldn’t name and Cuilang pressed them closer together.

When Cuilang withdrew, he smiled, brows drawn up. “I love you,” he said. “I love you more than any… thing. I will tell you how m-much I love you again and again and again and aga—” Cuilang sneered at the error while he also tried to continue smiling at Subaru.

Subaru, too emotionally exhausted to politely fight it, snorted.

“Are you laughing at me?” Cuilang asked, face still screwed up as he squinted, continuing the battle against his error. His tone lacked emotion, but the dancer knew him well enough to sense his fondness.

“Yeah. Fair’s fair. You’ve been laughing at me all afternoon,” Subaru said, though he’d also been teasing. “And you should see your face right now.”

Cuilang scooted forward and turned one of the inactive monitors to face him. He laughed too, which finally reset his expression. “That is humorous,” he said. “I’m glad to have made you laugh.”

“I love you too,” Subaru said. He wiped the last of his tears from his cheeks, then turned himself around to face the monitors again. “I’m sorry. We were supposed to be looking at your memories, not mine.”

“Please don’t be sorry. There will be plenty of time for that later,” Cuilang said. He looked back at Subaru, the gears in his eyes ticking forward as he thought about something. “Subaru. May I ask you something else? It… may be distressing.”

“I trust you,” he said in answer.

Cuilang nodded to himself, gaze briefly wandering before it settled back on his spouse. “You made mention of having a bad memory and forgetting details of my wedding clothes, and just now you said you ‘forget so much else.’ Additionally, since we began living together, I’ve witnessed several instances where you struggle to recall information, taking a long time to do so or being unable to entirely. Are you struggling with your more recent memories as well?”

Subaru tried and failed not to make a face—sadness? Frustration? Hate? Maybe his expression was a mix of all of those things. He shut his eyes so he wouldn’t catch sight of it in his reflection on the monitors.

“My apologies. This was not a good time to broach the subject,” Cuilang said.

Subaru shook his head. “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you anyway, I just never thought it was a good time, either.”

“So you have noticed some difficulty.”

“Yeah. I don’t think the pact just took my memories. I think it broke the whole damn thing.”

“Please clarify,” Cuilang asked.

“I obviously can’t recall much from before the pact. After it, things are a lot clearer, but…” He blew air out his lips, half frustrated groan and half resigned sigh. “I forget things. More than I should, I think. Sometimes it’s just little things, like what you made for dinner last night. I honestly have no idea. But I should, shouldn’t I? Then I know we talked about work and you were telling me about…” Subaru scrubbed his face, waiting for the thought to return. It didn’t. “But sometimes it’s bigger things. Our wedding day was one of the best days of my life—maybe the best, I can’t decide between that and some of our stargazing dates. I wanted to memorize everything. I tried. But I can’t remember Kai’s blessing, just that it was probably the nicest thing he’s ever said to me. And I’m not sure anymore what we talked about when we got home.” Subaru looked over his shoulder at Cuilang. “Please don’t tell Woolby. It’s not his fault, but he blames himself. I think he knows, anyway.”

Cuilang looked stunned. “Oh,” he said. “That is… more severe than I had anticipated.”

Subaru felt tears prickling in his eyes again. “I didn’t mean to hide it from you. It’s… hard, trying to see the absence of something. It’s taken me this long to figure out what’s going on. I’m sorry. I would have told you before asking you if you wanted to marry me.”

Cuilang stared at Subaru for a long, quiet minute. “Please remain at my side,” he said.

Subaru gave an awkward chuckle. “I know you love me, even if I’ve got a brain like a sieve. I meant I would’ve told you on principle.”

“Oh, that’s not—but yes, I would like to remain married to you. Obviously,” Cuilang said. Subaru gave him a watery smile. “Rather, I was being literal. When it is possible, please remain at my side.”

It was Subaru’s turn to stare at Cuilang. “Don’t we anyway?” he asked. “I mean—sure?”

“Yes, I suppose we do. Continuing on,” Cuilang pointed to the computer monitor. A picture appeared on the screen of a bowl of food in front of the irori table in the Dragon Shrine. “Last night I made you katsudon for dinner.”

Now Subaru was really lost. “Oh. Um. Ok?” he said.

The screen changed to show Kai and the other gods in front of Fateweaver Shrine. “What kinda blessing was…? Whatever, I’m up. The Valiant Herald of Rebellion blesses this union. May your days ring with enough laughter to shake the very heavens!” Kai said.

“If your memory is unreliable, please rely on me instead. When you are with me, I will record your memories for you where I can. Everything you tell me that you experience, I will keep in a log like I keep mine. Then if you realize you are missing something, you need only ask, and I can fill the gap for you,” Cuilang said.

Subaru’s mouth had fallen open. He closed it, then opened it again in an attempt to say something that only ended in incoherent sputtering. He felt equally like laughing or crying again.

He stood up from his seat, seeing Cuilang’s faintly confused expression in one of the monitors before the dancer spun on his heel and leaned his hands onto the artifice’s shoulders. He bent at the waist, putting them nose to nose, then tipped his head and joined their lips together. Cuilang made a small noise of surprise but leaned into the kiss. He reached his arms under Subaru’s, running his hands up his bare back until his fingertips found the top of his shoulder blades.

Eventually Subaru pulled back, gasping. Cuilang’s face had gone red as far as his forehead. It brought out the green in his eyes, and Subaru couldn’t help but stare. “I love everything about you,” he finally said. He kissed Cuilang again. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“I don’t know that I’m worth such high praise—” Artificial ‘intelligence’ my ass, Subaru thought, kissing him again to shut him up, “—ah—but I believe after saving the gods, the land we live in, and all the people that reside here that you deserve every happiness.”

Subaru smiled. “The only happiness I need is you,” he said.

He continued to kiss him.