A Reason to Live

Dinner and Night Vision!?

"Hurry, Tom!"

A vein bulged on my temple,

"It's not ready yet. So shut up and wait." I scolded.

"And don't call me Tom!"

Tabane tapped the table with both her hands with the fork and spoon in her hands,

"But I'm hungry!"

We were currently in the kitchen, preparing for dinner; well, I was the one preparing it. I was making a plain chicken stir-fry with rice; I didn't really take the luxury of learning other dishes, and so, this was all I could make. But she seemed to always enjoy it.

I wiped a bit of sweat off my brow and brought the bowls to the dinning table,

"Alright, it's hot so be ca-"

The instant I let my hand go, the contents of the bowl disappeared instantly.

"Delicious! Seconds! Tom's stir fry is always so good!"

Her smile was that of an innocent little girl, and I couldn't help but slide my portion of the stir-fry towards her.

Tabane looked at me curiously,

"But what about Tom? You don't need to worry about Taba-chan."

"I'm not hungry. It would be a waste to let it get cold too. So don't get ahead yourself."

She stared at me in silence for a painfully long minute.

"Tom, are you, by any chance, a tsundere?"

...

I grimaced,

"How about a one-way ticket to the end of the galaxy?"

Tabane raised her arms and cheered childishly,

"Yay! Tom's stir fry special!"

She then wolfed it down in less than 20 seconds. Wow, what an appetite, I thought.

"Kahh! That was good! Thanks for the meal!"

I pointed towards the door almost commandingly,

"Alright, now that you've eaten, brush your teeth and go to sleep. It's pretty late."

The older girl pouted,

"Hai~"

She left the kitchen, her mechanical bunny ears twitching excitedly.

I let out a tired sigh. At times like this, I couldn't help think that she was cute in her own way. She was like a baby bird, chirping loudly for food at her parent birds. I felt like the parent bird, always feeding the noisy little chick.

'Maybe this is what having a baby sister feels like…'

I went to my room with that thought without having anything to eat. I lost my appetite when something caught my mind.

-Flashback-

"I forgot to tell you this, Tom. But during the core implantation, I discovered something strange about your eyes."

"Hmm? What's wrong with them?"

They were blue right?

"Unlike the normal human eyes, they respond to light and dark very unusually."

"How so?"

As if she was answering my question, she produced a button from her pocket and pressed it. The whole light system went down, and everything was pitch black.

"Woah, what the hell are you doing, Tabaco!? I can't see anything!"

I couldn't see anything; everything was pitch black. That was what I thought, but I heard some machine sounds coming from the back of my head. When I blinked, everything was green and black and it was followed by a high pitch buzz sound. I could see the terrain far away from here with great detail. I also saw Shinonono standing still in front of me. I could see the outline of her body in green.

"Oi, turn the green lighting off, it's uncomfortable to my eyes."

"But, Tom, all the lights are off. It's pitch black."

Huh? Wait. That was impossible. Because…

"You can see perfectly fine, right?" Shinonono asked.

"Yeah… It's just that everything's green and black…"

"That's night vision."

"Come again?"

"It means it's a special vision that lets you see in the dark. Mou! It's common sense, Tom!"

"Stop calling me Tom!" I retorted, but she didn't listen.

But it was hard to believe her. How can I have night vision? My eyes looked perfectly normal from what I saw in the projection of myself.

As to answer that question, Shinonono raised her tablet in front of me and projected a mirror image of myself again.

Everything was normal, the metal limbs, the hair, the face. But one thing caught my attention, and that was my eye colors.

The sclera was pitch black when it should be white. My pupils were not the azure blue I saw earlier, but were bright yellow with a black center.

"What the…"

Then the light flashed back on, and I was blinded for a second. But my vision recovered at an abnormal speed, and soon enough, I could see properly.

But the projection still showed me with the unusual eye colors.

"How do I turn this thing off?!" I was a little flustered. Maybe because I felt that I lost a large part of my humanity. And maybe it was because I looked like some kind of a demon.

"If you will it to return to the normal eye color, it should change."

Just like she said, when I thought of wanting to return to my other eye color, I heard the same machine sound from the back of my head, and saw that my eye had turned to its usual after I blinked.

We just both stood there, silently. I was unable to find the words because I was in a momentary shock.

Then, Shinonono broke the silence, to my relief,

"I found this abnormality when we were going over your conditions before the implantation…"

I understood what that meant. When I thought cutting me up was enough, those bastards had to go ahead and mess up my eyes as well. I was glad I killed all of them. I didn't regret it.

"Tom…"

"It's okay. I don't care anymore. It is what it is. Nothing I can do about it."

-End of Flashback-

My room was dark, and so, I turned on my so-called "Nightvision" bitterly. There was that disturbing machine sound coming from the back of my head, followed by the same high pitch buzz sound, and then, everything was dyed black and green. I could see the door I entered from, and the designs on the wall with no effort.

I quickly turned my night vision off in disgust and put myself to sleep. Or at least I tried.