Chapter Text
It was torture for Aigis.
She thought it would be pleasant, sitting next to Kotone in class. But all it did was make her want to get closer. Despite their proximity, they could never touch. If she could, she would have made it look like an accident. A brush of hands, or a bump of shoulders. But she couldn't. Every motion she made was determined by an advanced kinetic algorithm, perfectly designed to prevent these serendipitous connections. There may as well have been a glass wall between them.
The hug back on Yakushima had awakened something terrible within Aigis. It was the first time she had wanted to touch someone, the first time she had initiated any sort of contact.
That hug was the highlight of her existence. The first and only moment where she had given into desire, or even had a desire at all, outside of her vague objective to eliminate shadows. The first time she had a warm, fuzzy feeling, compelling her to get as close as possible to a specific person. To feel a warm, breathing body against her metal exterior. To be with Kotone.
But it was only a taste. A taste that left a deep hunger.
Being close to Kotone reduced the wanting, but did nothing to satiate. Aigis needed to touch her again. But she couldn't. She had never known a desire like this. It was all so new and confusing, and it hurt. The way Kotone and the others had reacted at her first hug - it was bad. She would have to do better if she tried again, but she didn’t know how.
It wasn’t that Aigis had never been touched before. Whenever she required repairs or diagnostics, she would be taken to a Kirijo Group lab, where a group of faceless engineers would take her apart and put her back together. But that did nothing for her. There was no love in their work. They didn’t talk to her, or ask her how she felt about their changes. Their touch meant nothing, and Kotone’s meant everything.
If only Kotone could be the one to disassemble her. Aigis meditated about this, the next time she went in. She visualized those small, dexterous fingers poking around in her chassis, checking to see if all the appropriate tabs were fastened and all wires were connected properly. She would ask Aigis if the current arrangement of electronics were comfortable for her, if she was getting enough airflow, or if she needed fresh water in her hydrothermal systems. She thought of Kotone carefully undoing those triangle screws on her shoulder blades, and taking off her front porcelain shell. Reaching into her chest, and untangling the mess of wires and circuits hidden underneath, humming a tune while she worked. That is what Aigis wanted, more than anything, and she decided if she wanted that, she would have to learn more about how physical contact worked.
Aigis began to observe her peers at school. Boys would jostle, ruffling hair and engaging in horseplay. Girls would hug, and kiss each other on the cheeks. One day, after school, Aigis even saw a girl brushing another's hair, and that terrible yearning increased tenfold.
Oh, if only she could do that with Kotone! The perfect excuse - something that had utility, and something that would place them perfectly close to each other. Alas, Aigis knew her limits, and being a hair brusher was not one of her programmed subroutines. She was more likely to scalp Kotone than successfully straighten her hair.
Thoughts like these continued to gnaw at her, like a moth through punchcards. Aigis’s observations extended to her fellow SEES members, and although the general student population of Gekkukan High hadn’t noticed her observations, a member of SEES did. And unfortunately, this member took it upon herself to find a solution for this problem.