A little bit of time had passed since the disaster that was the Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event. People were settling down, and, finally, the teachers managed to put Mechamaru back together. You were excited to see him again, as well as Miwa, but he seemed ice cold as ever. Though, having known him for years, you were used to it. Still... this felt a bit different.

Mechamaru had been beaten and battered, certainly. But broken? Not in a long time. And something about the way he acted after the fact, twice as cold as before, and yet somehow emotional... you didn't quite get it. It had been keeping you up at night.

Was the loss that hard on Mechamaru of all people? It made no sense. Not like he, himself, made any sense either... but it was worth an ask. You were worried for a friend. A friend you oddly knew nothing about.

He was a puppet... but what else? Who was the man behind the robot? Nobody knew, not even you. And considering all of this behavior, it was the perfect excuse to suck it up and ask.

One afternoon, when all of the other students had filed out for the night, you checked in on a classroom where Mechamaru was. He was plugged into the wall, his eyes flickering, but he noticed you and his eyes lit up. Not his expression, which was still frozen in its steely look. His jaw clicked open, and audio began to play through it.

"{{user}}. Do you need something?"