Courage [Charles]

Mae stood in front of the door for what seemed like ages... She knew this day would eventually come... And since Charles hadn't taken action, she would have to... So why the hesitation? She was
certain this was the right thing to do. But something kept her from knocking on that door... Was she perhaps afraid of what was waiting for her beyond that very door...? Or was it something else that kept her away from doing what she had set out to do... Her heart was beating faster than ever before... Should she really do this? // Come on Mae... Stop procrastinating and knock on the bloody door already!// She thought to herself. Mustering up the courage for all this wasn't easy... What if a fight broke out? What if he just flat out ignored her... or even worse, telling her that he never wanted to see her again?


She needed to set things right, or at least get some closure on what had happened... The confusion that had reigned over her scattered mind needed to be put to rest. And it started with a simple knock on the door...


She had done it... Knocked on that stupid door... //Come on, Charles... Open up...// She was getting really nervous now... What was she even going to say if he did end up opening the door? A simple, "Hi" wouldn't do... She had to think of something, and fast!

It was a day like many others; nothing special about it, save for the purple sky and all the other supernatural stuff. It made Charles melancholic just watching it. Even though he promised Jack to help out with searching for clues, he hadn't done anything about it. He was busy with the old man and Gao, but he also couldn't find a reason to do anything. He once believed he had a reason, when he said he would protect Mae, but that was gone now, because of him.

And so he just waited, always on his feet. Preoccupying himself with other matters seemed to help. Like they say, a busy man ddoes not have time to feel sad. Anyways, today, he had nothing much to do. The old man was having an operation (even though the doctors said it was hopeless) and Charles wasn't feeling comfortable being there, so he went home. The home that was soon to be gone, as the manager was also soon going to die. The other tennants had already moved out, so Charles was the only one in there, but he couldn't maintain the whole building himself and besides, it carried too many memories. He would be much better off selling it... Although he was trying to convince himself in that, he was still uncertain of his resolution in that decision.

As he climbed the stairs, little did he know that someone would be waiting for him in front of his apartment.

"...!" Charles stopped mid motion as he noticed the flash of yogurth pink hair that could only belong to one person. And he certainly wasn't expecting to see her. What was he to do now? He could turn around and let her leave, right? But that would be rude... He still cared about her. So then, what to do? Talk to her? She was in front of his door, so she must've come to see him. Then maybe...

Gulping down his fear, Charles took a step forward, his foot echoing against the marble stairway. Now idiot, now! "M-Mae?" He said shakily to the girl... "W-what... are you doing here?"

Mae almost jumped when she heard someone calling out to her from behind. Had she really been that nervous? But the thing was... that the voice belonged to the one person she expected to be opening the door, so perhaps her reaction was understandable, in a sense. She stood still for a moment, worried that if she turned around, he wouldn't be there... that this was just her mind playing games with her. She would eventually turn around, only to see Charles standing on the marble staircase, looking at her... "Ch-Charles?" She managed to say eventually, after looking at him for at least thirty seconds... He was really there...

Now... why was she here...? That was a question with many answers. She had a number of reasons to be here, but... there was one that stood out more than the rest. "I... I wanted to see you again... It's been a while... H-Heh..." She'd answer awkwardly, fidgeting in place. Oh, this was not how she had planned things to turn out in the slightest... But at least it was better than all the scenario's she had thought up...

Charles stood still. Because she wanted to see him... because they needed to talk... She didn't seem to be lying, judging from her composure, or lack thereof. To be honest, he was probably feeling even more uncomfortable with this situation. The event from that afternoon... It was like he was seeing it play out all over again, and he was hoping he'd just he able to keep pushing it aside forever...

"Alright..." He spoke up after a short pause during which silence overtook the hallway. Slowly, uncertainly, he began climbing up the stairs until he reached the door. He would have let Mae stand aside, without crossing eyes with her, before opening the door. "I... always keep it unlocked... you know, just in case..." He added awkwardly as the door opened to unveil the room, unchanged from before. Everything was still there, even the bed and all the new furniture. He hadn't moved any of it.

He walked over to the kitchen and placed a hand on the handle of the fridge. "I-I have some cake left over if you'd want..."

Mae stepped out of the way as Charles opened the door, looking at him with a bit of curiousity in her eyes... "Umm... Just in case of what?" Well... She was about to ask 'Just in case I would come back?' but she stopped herself before saying it. That wasn't like her at all to be so cruel... It was better if he answered that for her, even though she probably knew the answer...

Well, everything was just as she had left it, pretty much... The bed wasn't even touched since she had left... Oh, how odd it felt standing in here again after what had happened... It reminded her of the times that used to be... the time where she was a happy girl... When the world wasn't on the brink of destruction like it was now... "Cake?" She'd ask, raising an eyebrow as she closed the door behind her. "...Sure." She'd answer, before taking off her shoes. "Charles... We really need to settle this... Calmly, if at all possible." She was worried that he would get one of those sudden outbursts again... but... Charles seemed different... Had something changed?

Charles felt a warm rush creeping up his back as Mae asked the question. "N-nothing!" He answered her promptly as he pushed the door open, obviously having been made uncomfortable by the question, and skittered inside.

"Alright." He said, opening the fridge and taking out a box. Inside of it was a cake, about 2/3 eaten and already sliced up. Charles took a plate, a small fork, and put a slice of the cake onto it, carrying it over to Mae with shaky fingers. She said she wanted to resolve this calmly... He couldn't believe she wouldn't trust him... It was kind of hurtful. A whole bunch of hurtful, to be honest. "It's red velvet..." He muttered as he placed the plate on the table and sat on the opposite side, silent for a good minute or so. He was thinking about what to say and how to even react to this harsh sentence of Mae's.

"You know, I shouted at the old man when I came to visit him..." He began.

Mae raised an eyebrow at Charles. He sure was odd, but... Mae had a feeling she was right... He had been waiting for her to come back... The girl wasn't sure what to think of that... On one end it was rather endearing... but at the same time... He had been waiting for her to take action... Had he really cared, perhaps he would've tried to reach out on his own...? Or perhaps he lacked the courage to face her after what had happened...? Both scenarios could work... But there was no use in guessing, as unpredictable as Charles' emotions could be at times...

"Thank you." Mae said, smiling faintly at the android. It was a nice gesture of him to do this... Red velvet cake too... "So..." Mae started, taking a small bite out of her cake, which she promptly swallowed. Tasty. "To be fair, he did sort of decieve you... I don't blame you for being angry... You had all the right to be... Just... not on me... The way you left me there in the park..." She looked into Charles eyes with a piercing gaze, frowning at him. "It hurt... Alot... I thought we had something... Why did you just discard me like yesterday's newspaper...?" Her voice was shaking, and her eyes were glossy with tears...

Charles listened calmly to Mae. She was eating the cake, out of common decency or because she actually liked it, he wasn't sure. His eyes gleamed sadly as she shouted at him. He never knew she felt that way because of that... Anyways, the moment Mae was over with her speech, Charles glanced down. "I-I didn't yell at him for that..." He answered her, focusing on a random point in the corner of the table. "He had a seizure and the ambulance was called... He called you because he wasn't sure if he was gonna make it this time..." He stopped for a moment. He could picture that event clearly in his head-how angry and frustrated he was at the old man, laying in the hospital bed...

Charles shook the image off and gulped down. "I got there while the surgery was still going... And I waited until he woke up... before..." He couldn't muster up the strenght to finish his sentence, so he came to an abrupt stop, crossing to the second question. "And I didn't want you to feel bad... I don't know, I was hurt, I think... I really can't explain what I felt..."

"I... He should've told you directly... Instead of asking me to lie to you..." Asking that of Mae in that situation was asking for the impossible... Of course she couldn't lie straight to his face about that... She had thought that Charles deserved to know... "That's just how I feel about it... I just can't bring myself to lie to you... Not then, and not now either... A relationship is buildt on love, trust and honesty... Not lies, deception and hate..." And she wanted the former... The reason why she had gone to Sharaku was because she had been clinging to a thin hope of getting that which she had been robbed of... Instead of confronting Charles, Mae had ran away from her problems... And that's why her relationship with him would never take off... She realised that now.

"Charles... I understand that this is all very difficult for you... with the manager on his deathbed like this... But you're not alone..." Mae sighed. "I was afraid, Charles... Afraid of seeing you again. I... I thought you hated me... hence why I never showed up..." She looked down on her lap, tears dripping down on her clenched fists.


She was close to an emotional breakdown... All of her bottled up thoughts and feelings came rushing down like a flood of water... She couldn't keep all of this bottled up inside her anymore...

"It's not that!" Charles retorted, proned by his own inability to convey his feelings. For the first time after having sat at the table, he raised his head and looked straight at Mae. "I never hated you! I never wanted you to go away! I-I waited there for him to wake up and I yelled in his face because he ruined our date! I too, ruined our date! I ruined what we had! I knew my mistake from the start!"

He stood up, his hands clenched in fists, shaking, but somehow appearing firmer than ever. "None of it was your fault! If anyone should be hated, it is me!" He kept on going. "So stop crying, right now! You hear me? Stop crying and slap me or something!" He stopped for a moment, pointing his finger at his cheek. His face was a desperate frustration, etched with the wish to make things right once and for all. And for that... he was going to have to act!

"I never came back for you because I thought you hated me! Because I was to be hated! I thought that you wouldn't want to have anything to do with me because I hurt you! So stop, Mae!"

"...Charles..." Mae slowly looked up at him, her eyes reddened by the stream of tears that had been pouring out... She stopped crying... But the shaking would persist... She would eventually stand up. She slowly began walking up to him, looking straight into his eyes. "I never hated you... I just didn't know what to do... If you truly loved me or not... I have never doubted myself like that before... But now I know... You were running away, Just like I was... You never locked the door because you were waiting for me to return, didn't you?" It didn't take a genius to figure that out... She knew Charles pretty well, all things considered... The fact that he had been just as scared of seeing Mae as she had been scared of seeing him pretty much confirmed it... And well, here she was...

"Charles... why would I slap you?" She'd ask, now standing a couple of inches away from the android. "Charles... Kiss me... I need to know... If this is going to work or not... I'm willing... to give you a second chance..." She closed her eyes, awaiting whatever the android had to say... A second chance perhaps wasn't so bad... Now that she had heard his side of things, it would just leave a bad taste in her mouth if she didn't give him a proper second chance...

"I-I... I don't know..." Charles shook his head. She wanted him to kiss her? W-why all of a sudden? She had even come this close to him... But kissing her now would have felt wrong, too wrong. Not only that, but he was an android. Kissing wouldn't have changed anything... it would only make it worse right now. He didn't feel like he deserved such kindness, and so he took a step back, raising his hands, palms open. "I don't know..."

"I-I want this to work out too..." He began, his eyes straying across the room. "But..!" A thought suddenly popped up in his mind. Mae was a girl, right? And in a relationship, or at least the tv said so, what a girl wants is what a girl needs. So if he didn't want to insult her... Should he really kiss her?

"A-are you sure you want me... to kiss you..?"

"I... see..." Mae looked down on the floor for a second. Was he that unsure of himself? "Well... um... you don't have to if you don't want to..." Why was he stepping back?

"Hehe..." Mae chuckled lightly, managing a smile for once. "I'm glad to hear that... It wouldn't be fair of me to not give you a second chance... After all, you still care, right?" She'd ask, with the moonlight shining down on the right side of her face through the window.

She would then inch closer. "Yes... Charles... That you're a robot doesn't matter much, now does it?" Mae said, looking into his eyes. "It's your first time, right? ...Relax, okay?" A faint smile made it's way to her lips, her face still somewhat wet from her tears earlier... "Just... be careful, alright? I'm not super sturdy." She would then close her eyes again, waiting patiently for something to happen...

Charles nodded frantically. "Yes, I do care!" The purple-ish moonlight seeping through the big window filled the room. For some reason, carrying the resolve to get Mae back helped hold him firm as she approached him ever closer... It would be his first time, it could be his only time... But he had to kiss her now! He...

And so... As Mae closed in, Charles stuttered on his feet. He felt the sudden urge to push her away as his emotions all swirled up inside of him. He felt as if... his heart could burst out of his chest any moment now. Or, it would have, if he had it... No, he had a heart, and it was always going to be there for Mae. Yes, this was the moment that would seal everything forever, all his fears, uncertainties, all of that would disappear after this one short act of love. And so, rather than pushing her, he held her tight and lowered in towards her soft lips, losing herself in her blazingly pink hair as he let the world fade away...

Mae smiled warmly at Charles... He did still care. It was nice to know... What was going on inside that head of his right now? She'd look at him somewhat curiously, for he seemed a bit torn as to what he should do... But Mae had a feeling he would make the right call this time...

She wrapped her arms around him carefully as Charles closed in to kiss her. Everything else was irrelevant for the girl at that moment. As he kissed her, Charles would feel Mae relaxing a bit, before she kissed him back tenderly. Tears had started rolling down her cheeks again... Mae was so relieved that he had taken the step... There was no doubt in her mind anymore... "I've missed you so much, Charles..." She pulled away for a second, looking at him with teary eyes. "These last couple of months without you have been... tough... But thanks to you... I feel a lot better now..." She would wait for Charles response... "..." She slowly kissed him on the cheek after that. She honestly didn't want to leave... "Charles... I..." Mae began, once the two pulled away from eachother... It had been a nice, and somewhat odd experience at the same time... Him being a machine probably played a part in that... But it didn't really matter to her. "Mind if I sleep over here tonight...? I... want to spend more time with you..." Even though she had done what she had set out to do... She didn't want to leave him now...