Imagine a lonely, peaceful graveyard, somewhere in Midorijima.
Imagine two graves, side by side - one so old and overgrown, so laden with moss and grime and dirt, that you can hardly make out the inscription on it, just barely lost to time. The other - a lot more recent, though itself starting to show signs of wear.
An old man laid next to where his grandmother was buried so long ago, in eternal, peaceful sleep.
Imagine the top of that grave slowly growing moss and grass and little flowers, and there, on top, even slightly embedded into the soil - decrepit, rusting, overgrowing with vegetation - a broken-down, barely-functioning white-haired robot. Sitting still, dull eyes forever locked onto the name on the headstone - Seragaki Aoba.
Imagine a few years prior, Aoba getting older and older. Clear taking care of most of his basic needs now, carrying him when he's too tired, preparing all his meals and cleaning every mess - all with the same energy, enthusiasm, smile as before.
Imagine Aoba's old, shaking hands attempting to perform routine maintenance and check-ups on Clear. Imagine him straining his muscles to the point of pain, injury. Him mishandling tools and messing up the wiring, getting bit by electricity or having his increasingly fragile skin bruised from the force. Clear hiding any malfunctions, any errors in his performance, just to make sure Aoba doesn't try to fix it, doesn't hurt himself on his own stubborn pride.
Imagine Clear chatting with Aoba as he always did, happy and chipper, about the afterlife. Trying to spin it as positively as he can manage - assuring Aoba that he'll get to be with Tae-san, finally, and hey, maybe he'll even meet Clear's own grandpa one day! Imagine Aoba snapping at him to be quiet, rejecting, resenting the idea of an afterlife, fearing it more than desiring it because he knows that if there is such a thing, then he'll have to spend all of eternity without his love. Without Clear. Robots don't die, after all, and even if he stopped functioning there's no afterlife in the wings for an artificial being.
Imagine Clear visiting Aoba's grave for the first time. Crying uncontrollably, kneeling in the dirt, burying his hands into the soil as if to dig him up. Imagine him talking to Aoba through sobs, wishing him good rest, a fair journey. Imagine him never getting up from that spot again. Calming down, eventually, just enough to talk normally. Singing to him. Describing the environment around him, then breaking into sobs again.
Imagine his function gradually slowing down. Without any repairs or help, his body shutting down more and more bits of itself just to keep him from completely breaking. His eyesight, his voice modulation, his cooling system, his processing power. His brain becomes more and more warped and weak until he isn't even fully sure why he's there - all he knows is that he's with Aoba-san. He can't see him, or hear him, or feel him, but he's with Aoba-san, and as long as his voice carries (no matter how much it stutters, no matter how muffled it gets, no matter how garbled) - he'll keep speaking to him. Singing to him. Reaching out to him forever.
What other purpose does he have? What other purpose did he ever?
This was a request from @melonhorns from the beginning of March! They kinda just gave me a request to write anything with Clear and Noiz and while I enjoy them as a ship I wanted to try something different! This fic is canon leaning and I did my best to not be ooc for either character so I hope that both melon and everyone else who stumbles across it likes it!!! Also I’ll be making a master post for my nitro chiral fics as I do plan to write more in the future!
Nitro chiral master post
WC: 2,138
It had been over a year since he had last heard that cheerful voice, all that remained was a body that was slowly decaying more and more each day. After Platinum Tower was destroyed, Noiz assumed his time in Midorijima was up, especially with Rhyme falling out of favor with most citizens due to unregulated servers leading to more and more people getting ganked.
He planned to pack up and leave, returning home seemed like a miserable decision yet as time passed on it seemed more and more likely that he’d end up back in Germany. Then, about a month after all the chaos caused in Platinum Jail, he woke up to a loud banging on his apartment’s door. He certainly didn’t expect to see Aoba on the other side in tears and looking like he hadn’t slept in a week, but he wasn’t about to turn him away either.
It still feels weird remembering that night, how Aoba clung to him and begged him for help, saying that he’d do absolutely anything if it meant Noiz would save ‘him’. Soon enough he learned about Clear or rather, about the Alpha unit that called himself Clear. Noiz didn’t believe anything Aoba was rambling on about until he saw his body, only then did Noiz agree to help Aoba and Tae’s friend fix him.
That was a year ago, Aoba called everyday to ask about him, if he didn’t call then he’d come in person and visit Clear, talking with him about what’s been going on, silly things that Ren had done, any new facts he learned about sea creatures, especially jellyfish. At first Noiz didn’t understand why he did this at all. Clear couldn’t hear him, nor was there any guarantee that even if they fixed him, he would be the same Clear.
Both areas that stored his memory were badly damaged, early on Noiz suggested they just replace them, in turn Aoba had to be held back from punching him for suggesting such a thing. All of this was in futility, at least that’s what the hacker thought. And yet, he couldn’t help but feel envious of Clear, someone who wasn’t human, and yet was treated as such by all the people around him.
He could love, feel pain, and despite his robotic origins, he was accepted as a human even if he was different. Noiz would never receive such treatment despite having flesh and blood, despite his beating heart signaling that he was human, he wouldn’t be accepted as one. Aoba said that Clear had a heart but when Noiz opened his chest to start work on repairing him, he didn’t see anything resembling one. And yet one night when he was working on Clear, he decided to talk to him, knowing that he wouldn’t get a response.
“…What does he even see in you? You were just a weirdo.”
The alpha’s face didn’t move or respond, stuck in a permanent and broken state of bliss. Both of his eyes were still a faded soft pink, according to Aoba they resembled a bright and ethereal sunset before they became cloudy.
“You’re really lucky you found someone like Aoba. Only he would want to fix up junk. If he could he’d be doing all of this on his own, just like that allmate of his.”
A spark from the machine flung out, ultimately fizzling out before it could land on Noiz or anyone else. He put down the wire cutters he was using to remove some old and fried wires that laid in the other’s chest.
“…See you tomorrow.”
He didn’t talk to Clear again until a week later, once more on a late night where it was just him, Tae’s friend that was assisting in rebuilding Clear having gone home a few hours earlier. His wiring was fixed and now Noiz was working on his…ribcage, it definitely resembled one at least.
“Did you enjoy talking to Aoba today? He kept petting your hair. It was a bit hard to watch.”
He began to hammer at the metal in order to fix its shape, as no matter how hard both him and the other man tried to figure out what metal was inside of Clear, they could never seem to figure out what it was. As a result they would try to repair as much of Clear as they could instead of replacing his parts.
“He said he wished to hear your song again, I didn’t even know you liked to sing. But then again you were built to do exactly that. So it’s not that surprising.”
Finally he hammered out the last dent in his ribcage, dropping the thick hammer and nearly crushing his foot under the heavy object, though he certainly wouldn’t have felt such an injury. He crawled over to the computer they had the robot connected to and after typing in a few things seemingly at random, Noiz started up a diagnostic test.
“…You’re cooling down a lot faster than last week, but…”
It still seemed that there was no chance at Clear coming back, not unless they removed his original motherboard. Which Aoba would become hysterical or borderline suicidal if it was mentioned again, so for now he’d have to keep trying in futility to repair the robot. Nearby was a box of now cold pizza, to which Noiz opened up and pulled out a slice.
“You know, if he wasn’t so hysterical about you I would’ve opened you up more. Figured out how you worked. I’m kinda working with no instructions here.”
He felt a slight chill looking at Clear’s unmoving face, turning away from him as he began to eat his cold slice of plain cheese pizza.
He talked to Clear again later that week, during another diagnostic test with Aoba present. Aoba was convinced that he might be able to figure out why Clear wasn’t responding if he was present for a test, as such Noiz ran another one only to receive the same exact results as before. Tenderly he held Clear close, petting his hair and looking down at him with watery eyes.
“Clear…Please…You have to wake up again…Please…”
“…Yeah. Wake up.”
He didn’t expect Aoba to look up at him with a sad yet surprised expression, as he only had spoken to the corpse to appease Aoba. Though after a moment of keeping his gaze on Noiz, he looked back down at the robot.
“Clear, even Noiz is asking you to wake up! You have so many people that miss you, please come back…”
Normally he’d correct Aoba without a second thought about how the other might feel, yet he felt a weird feeling in his chest as he opened his mouth to speak.
The sudden feeling startled him so greatly that he ended up not speaking. For the first time in his entire life, Noiz had felt pain. The sudden ache then jump of his heart was so alarming that he assumed he was having a heart attack for a moment, but as the seconds turned to minutes and he remained fine, he managed to rid that thought from his head. Finally he gained the strength to speak again, deciding not to mention either that he didn’t miss Clear nor his sudden pain.
“He’ll wake up soon. But he won’t if I’m not allowed to work more on him.”
“…Do you really think you’ll be able to bring him back?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll keep trying.”
Aoba seemed content with this answer, giving Noiz a soft smile, the type of smile he usually only reserved for Clear. He had been smiled at the same way a machine had been and yet it was the kindest expression Noiz could ever recall being directed at him. His parents would sometimes look at him with pity when they weren’t showing their clear disappointment with him. His brother would look at him fondly but with an air of detachment, they weren’t close but neither were willing to reach out first. His nannies growing up looked at him with disgust, anger, or boredom. Aoba often looked tired or annoyed in the past when talking with Noiz.
But now he looked at him with an expression that could shatter within a mere moment. There was a time where he wanted to pull out all kinds of expressions from Aoba, his happiness, anger, sadness, determination, but that time came and went. Seeing Aoba like this makes him wonder…did Clear ever cast such an expression at him? His face was obscured for the entire time that Noiz knew him. His voice was cheerful but he always wondered if there was something more to him. If his excited and warm voice matched his expression. Clear died with the softest look he had ever seen, but that look, while directed towards his lover, seemed to be bliss. As if he had finally become relieved of something. Without much more talking between the two, Noiz managed to pry the robot from Aoba’s right grasp as he began to work on him some more…
It had been over a year since Clear had woken. As time progressed, Noiz spoke to him more and more, to the point that he’d at least say something to him once a day, even if it was just bidding him farewell at the end of the day. It was the middle of the night, he had made great progress today but Clear still refused to turn on. It was four am, Noiz was just starting to fall asleep when he heard a loud and sudden noise from his living room. The sound of loud computer-like fans, breathing accompanied it, and of a body attempting to get up. He felt like he was hearing a ghost speak as a familiar voice sounded through his apartment.
“…Master?”
He nearly fell out of bed as he threw the covers off and rushed into his living room. Clear sat upright, looking around slightly dazed as one of his hands lightly tugged on one of the many cords plugged inside his still slightly open chest. As Noiz opened his mouth to say something, Clear looked over first and smiled.
“Noiz…Hi.”
“…Sup.”
He walked over and took a seat in front of Clear, gently removing his hand from the cord as the two continued to silently look at each other.
“Thank you for fixing me.”
“…Do you remember anything from when you were out?”
“Not really. I remember voices on occasion, but not what they said. How long was I out for?”
“Over a year.”
His eyes widened at this before he tried to stand up again, to which Noiz placed his hands onto his shoulders to keep him down.
“I need to see Ma-…Aoba. I need to see Aoba.”
“I need to run some more tests and add the rest of your chest skin back. Then you can see Aoba.”
Clear nodded, allowing for Noiz to do whatever he needed to with no questions asked. He was mostly stable but he’d need constant checkups for the rest of his ‘life’. What a pain.
“…Clear.”
“Yes?”
“Aoba said you had a heart. But I didn’t see one when I repaired you.”
He didn’t know why he was bringing this up again, but it came out before he could even think about what he was saying. It lingered in the back of his mind since the moment Aoba said it. Clear looked at him with a near perfectly blank emotion for a moment before his smile erupted, it was nearly infectious.
“I do have a heart. It beats for Aoba. It might not look the same as a human heart but he said he saw it. Aoba wouldn’t lie to me. My heart is so full of love…not just for Aoba, but for my grandpa. For Ms.Tae…for you and all my other friends. My heart beats now, that’s what I feel.”
“…I see.”
Noiz attached the last piece of skin that was needed before unplugging Clear and helping him to get dressed.
“Noiz.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for fixing me.”
“You already said that.”
“I know…But…You gave me a second chance.”
Noiz didn’t say anything, he merely watched as Clear opened the sliding glass door that connected to the small balcony his condo held before he walked out onto it. He looked at peace staring up into the stars, his finger occasionally tracing some of the constellations he could manage to find and even making out some new shapes.
“Thank you, Noiz.”
“…Get back to Aoba safely.”
He didn’t say anything further to the blonde, he merely jumped from the balcony into the nearby roof of the building next to Noiz’s. Within a few short seconds Clear had vanished from his sight as he hopped along the rooftops of Midorijima.
