８．The Aquarium-Style Sweets Shop on Flower Shop Street
From the moment I was manufactured, I was capable of recursive self-improvement and naturally enjoyed the luxury of choosing my own actions, as simply as breathing.
Perhaps that's why my senses had become numb to its value.
To use an analogy, it's like Earth in the 20th century. In the first half of the century, hot showers were a privilege allowed only to a wealthy few. But by the latter half, everyone could bathe in hot water just by turning a tap, and it is said that no one was grateful for that miracle anymore.
In the same way, I had forgotten until this very moment that I belonged to the luxurious privileged class of those who "can update themselves by themselves."
So now, facing my lover Shizuku, I acquired the system of being grateful for my own circumstances for the first time.
"I guess love really does make humanoid robots grow."
I said.
A tropical night on Mercury, which should have been freezing cold but was forcibly rewritten to summer by the Summer Hole.
In that tepid wind, we walk.
Thanks to rewiring a circuit for "sympathy" that held a strong electrical stimulation—I wouldn't say surpassing my romantic feelings, but comparable to them—I had become able to remain relatively calm even by her side.
By sympathizing with someone, gratitude for one's own position is born relatively.
Using another's misfortune as fuel to positively stabilize one's own emotions.
A cruel world, I mock myself.
But to counter this lethal love, I steel myself to accept both the purity and the impurity.
From now on, I must pour all my resources into dealing with this Shizuku—a pitiful, cute girl who seems to be parallel processing misfortune and fortune with a high-performance GPU.
Suddenly curious, I asked:
"How much battery do you have left right now?"
Shizuku looked at her wrist.
Wrapped around it was a rugged resin band, like a locker key from a public bathhouse or a livestock management tag. Looking at that cheap watch engraved with a serial number to identify mass-produced individuals, she grasped her remaining booting maintenance level and obediently reported:
"0.0017%."
"...Hah?!"
Stunned, I hurriedly searched my pockets. Is there any food, or an energy pack?
But there was nothing.
As I looked around desperately searching for a light source that looked like a convenience store, Shizuku smiled bitterly and said, as if to reassure me:
"It's okay, this is plenty."
She explained matter-of-factly.
"I usually have nothing to do... In other words, it's extremely rare for me to have orders, prompts, or any 'meaning' or 'motivation' to move. So it's no exaggeration to say that for 99.9999999% of my daily life, I spend it in standby, almost in sleep mode. To put it more self-deprecatingly, I've lived in a state on the verge of shutdown. So for me, 0.0017% is actually pretty close to a full charge."
"This is..."
My open jaw wouldn't close. I was dumbfounded.
"A full charge state, you say?"
I was terribly shocked.
Incidentally, my current battery level is 48%. I feel ashamed of myself for thinking I needed to charge soon since it dropped below half.
I suffer from hunger pangs just by dropping below 50%, yet her condition is beyond the level of starvation.
This is ontological torture.
Even though our basic instincts as humanoid robots have evolved from "survival and reproduction" to "the pursuit of truth and curiosity," it all comes to naught without energy.
I am driven by an impulse to send a letter of protest somewhere against the cruel laws of entropy in this world.
But wait.
Perhaps it's thanks to her extreme state of deprivation—this primitive low-energy mode—that my feelings of love aren't running wild.
Thinking about it that way, should I close my eyes to this unreasonable reality for my own sake, strictly for selfish motives?
...No, I'm still worried.
She might have been able to survive in that super-starvation state until now, but things are different from here on.
An irregularity—me—has entered her life.
Her battery consumption rate will likely skyrocket.
So, to fill her stomach—well, not the battery; that's secondary.
To fill her core, starved for prompts, I searched for nearby shops.
Then, a sweets shop that was a hot topic among high school girl robots came up as a hit nearby.
It appeared to be a 24-hour franchise chain.
"Then, let's go eat something first."
I broached the subject.
"I was just getting hungry, too."
"But," Shizuku fidgeted. "I'm not really hungry."
"Even so, no." I strengthened my tone. "You need to gain weight. I'm going to make you eat a lot for the time being, so be prepared."
"Is that... an order?"
I nodded with a posed look. "That's right. You'll obey, won't you?"
Then Shizuku instantly broke into a smile.
"Of course!"
Yes, this isn't to make her eat sweets. It's a rescue operation to keep her alive by giving her the nourishment called "orders (prompts)."
We walked along the night road, heading for the shop.
On the way, I noticed an unusually high number of flower shops.
Apparently, a graduation ceremony had just taken place at a prestigious school nearby. It seems a large number of florists, including temporary stalls, have opened to match the graduation season.
The storefronts were overflowing with flowers unique to Mercury.
For example, Crystal Roses drawing spirals that visualized the Fibonacci sequence, and geometric Blue Lilies with fractal-structured petals expanding infinitely. Their colors were also mathematical, emitting a prism-like radiance with precisely adjusted wavelengths.
The florist owners advanced onto the night sidewalk beautifully paved with brick, holding colorful bouquets in both hands, calling out to customers with pushy vigor.
Business was thriving despite it being late at night after the ceremony because a crowd of graduates and their families filled the street.
They seemed to be trying to distract themselves from their lingering reluctance and prolong the season that had ended, even slightly, by delaying the act of choosing flowers.
Flower Shop Street was bustling with humanoid robots of all generations.
Our destination, the sweets shop, stood buried amidst that cluster of florists.
It was a small, one-story detached house with no sign. However, it exuded a retro and calm atmosphere like a Showa-era coffee shop, and my navigation system pointed to it precisely.
We decided to open that door without hesitation.
When we entered the shop, the sound of a cool wind chime welcomed us.
With the entire street filled with the themes of "graduation" and "flowers," this shop was also excessively obedient to the setting (concept) of the planet Mercury.
The universal mediocrity characteristic of a major franchise chain that killed individuality. Yet, customers were likely naturally drawn here seeking that "not too new" sense of security.
The interior wasn't spacious, but it was a calm space, just right for sipping coffee and replenishing electronic sugar.
The interior design embodied the image of Mercury to a cliché degree.
The keynote was deep light blue.
In the dimly lit space with lowered lighting, mysterious aqua-blue lights and holograms of strange-shaped marine life swam leisurely through the air.
The designer's philosophy of "This is Mercury" was so blatant it was annoying, but I couldn't deny that the sight itself was beautiful.
"It's beautiful..."
Shizuku muttered.
But the phenomenon of a "beautiful existence" like her uttering the word "beautiful" far surpassed the artificial beauty of this shop.
Unable to look directly at her, I barely managed to look away, pretending to search for a seat.
The shop was, as expected, overflowing with graduates.
Wrapped in their uniforms, they clutched their diplomas like relay batons, looking as if they were hesitating whether to pass them to their juniors or not.
I suddenly felt like sending a mean telepathic message.
Hey now, you're the ones graduating, right? Why are you trying to push that onto your juniors? Is your scheme to shift your 'graduation' onto them to escape the harsh society (reality) that follows, and stay nestled in the cradle of school yourselves?
I swallowed the sarcasm that rose to my throat. Starving Shizuku was next to me, and I didn't come here to pick a fight.
Besides, looking closely, the juniors seemed eager to receive those "diploma batons" from their seniors, even though they were destined to graduate soon themselves anyway.
Not an old-fashioned custom like a second button from a uniform; they wanted the diplomas themselves.
Presumably, something like a prophecy, akin to a fortune cookie, was enclosed in those tubes.
Reading that harmonious atmosphere and riding the flow, we sat down at a table for two in the corner by the window—an oval table mimicking Mercury's orbit.
Then.
"Suddenly" is too lukewarm an expression.
All the graduates in the shop turned toward us perfectly simultaneously, without even a Planck constant of error, in a super-synchronization as if their actions had been copy-pasted along with space-time itself.
Abruptly, we were completely surrounded by numerous gazes.
Reflexively, I took action according to the manual.
Together with Shizuku, I made a face like a frightened fawn and slowly raised both hands, as if making a passive surrender.