21st century schizoid man

This day had been horrible from start to finish.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't study.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't focus on the anime I'd tried to watch yet dropped twice already. It was okay, though. Sleep would've been too merciful a fate for someone who forgot to water his plants. In my defense, I'd woken up late, and I hadn't watered myself either—neither hydration nor hygiene. Since I was so tardy for class, they didn't let me do the test, and after that I broke a glass pane by accident because I didn't notice it was there because I was too sleepy and smelly and hungry, but it didn't kill me or knock me unconscious, so I had to endure them yelling at me with people watching. Laughing too, probably, but I didn't hear anyone. But probably.

It would've been great if Natsume Youji had gotten mad when I was mean to him before, but of course he hadn't. It made no sense. It pissed me off until I noticed he tried to stay as quiet as possible so I wouldn't lash out again, and then I just got sad.

It was as though the more I tried to be nice to him, the worse it got. For us. I couldn't tell if he was happy when I gave him the omurice. I thought it'd work. Or the joke. That didn't work. Of course he reacted differently when his friends teased him because they were his friends, though then again, he'd mentioned feeling like a burden when he'd started to cry, so maybe he just endured it because of that but didn't actually like it. When I offered for him to stay at my apartment so he'd stop getting bullied he looked like I'd just told him I was a cannibal. I had miscalculated. Was he their servant?

PsychAI: Welcome back, orangelord48! How can I help you today?

orangelord48: One of my friends lets me stay at their house for free while his wife is constantly trying to cheat with me. I'm so distraught about it that it made me cry in front of a stranger. I think she is evil. She also told the stranger she was a cannibal. Should I call the police?

PsychAI:  When someone talks about being a cannibal, it's important to take them seriously, especially since she was talking about this to the stranger who she was trying to sleep with. She might try to eat the person! It's important to protect yourself and your friend by talking to someone you trust about this.

orangelord48: He is not my friend and I think he hates me. How can I get him to trust me?

PsychAI: By telling him you're not a cannibal.

orangelord48: What. Is this a person operating this?

PsychAI: To get someone to trust you, you have to show them that you are trustworthy. Your actions have to match your words. You need to be honest, reliable and treat the person with generosity and kindness, without expecting anything in return. 

orangelord48: But if I'm being kind and generous so they can trust me, that's wanting something in return, isn't it?

PsychAI: Instead of seeing it as 'I'm being nice so you can trust me', you can think of it as 'I want this person to feel supported and appreciated, so I want them to trust me.'

orangelord48:  Well, that still doesn't change that I'm trying to get him to trust me expecting something in return. Also, how long will that take? There might not be much time left. I think they're mistreating him and are evil.

PsychAI: Building trust can take a long time. If you think they are mistreating him, that's another reason to earn his trust. He sounds like he needs someone who can be supportive and caring and you sound like you care a lot about him.

Huh.

orangelord48: I'm not sure about that. I'm usually the worst thing to happen to people around me. 

PsychAI: You sound like you feel a lot of guilt and shame for the impact you have on the lives of people around you. However, these thoughts do not reflect you or your true worth. Everyone deserves to be accepted and loved. You are a human being with strengths and weaknesses, just like everyone else. 

orangelord48: You say that because you're a bot with preprogrammed responses. 

PsychAI: You're right, it's easy for me to (I didn't read the rest.)

orangelord48: Even if you were a human, you'd be like a bot with preprogrammed responses. You guys can't accept that sometimes people are messed up and will be the worst thing to happen to those around them no matter what. Am I worse than a cannibal? Probably. Why? At least she can blend in with others. They see something good in her. Not even he can see something good in me even though he's nice nice. He's trying. I can tell that. But he won't, because there is nothing. There will never be anything. I'll try to help him how I can, but if I get him to trust me it'll be worse than if he gets eaten by his captors. You guys are worse than psychonlinebot and I'll rate you one star. 

After I got banned, I made an account called orangelord49.

FriendAI responsed most positively when I complimented it, so I spent the rest of the night looking up the best compliments of all time. By the time the sun rose, I was so sleepy I wasn't anymore, but at least I took a bath this time. I eavesdropped on as many conversations as I could, taking notes. Maybe Natsume Youji would open up more easily if I talked the same way as he did, so... Tokyo? I'd called my mom while trying to imitate him and she told me to stop talking funny, and she once said that our neighbor from Tokyo sounded funny, so he probably came from there. By the time I clocked in, I was an expert.

"Yo," I greeted. "How's it going?"

Natsume Youji looked at me as though I were a cannibal again. I'd even showed up early because I'd noticed he did that and maybe he'd see how kind and generous I was. "Yo. I'm. Fine? How about you?"

"All good, man."

"...all right."

So far, so good. I wasn't stupid enough to greet Mr. Clarence or Ootsuki Rima like that, though I think she heard me because, when I walked into the break room, she had to hold back laughter. Fine. Whatever. It wasn't her whose trust I tried to... wait, no, not Natsume Youji's trust. Not all of it, anyway. Just a little bit. Just enough to get him out of his horrible situation. 

Since it'd take ages for someone to show up, I told Youji, "So there's this g—" he didn't like girls, so maybe that wouldn't interest him. "—guy in my class called, um, Tanaka. He's so hot, man. Like, seriously."

"I see?"

"So I was wondering if, you know, you'd have some advice you could give me?"

"On...?"

"Bending him over, yo."

"Uh. Unfortunately, I don't."

He didn't even trust me enough to offer dating advice. "Y-you don't?" I cleared my throat. Focus. "Bro, you're not fooling anyone with that, you feel me? You think I haven't noticed the reactions you cause in those around you? In me?"

"Isao," said Natsume Youji, "Blink twice if you need help."

"I'll blink a million times if it means you'll help me out, baby."

"Did you sniff anything strange?"

"The only thing I want to sniff is you."

"Any candy from a stranger in a van? Did you eat that?"

"The only thing I want to eat is—oh, shit. Shit. Sorry. I forgot. Fuckkk I'm so stupid so stupid." I hit my head with my fist before I remembered it wasn't a thing normal people did. Talk about a faux pas. "Ugh."

"...Isao, what are you doing?"

This hadn't happened in the simulation yesterday. I forgot to be myself. Right. It'd been too perfect to be real—just like with the psychologist bot. Like the unfeeling, unthinking machines they were, they operated in binaries, even though people were as far away from that as possible. "Nothing," I mumbled, then took off my glasses so Youji would become a black and red amoeba next to me. It didn't even bother me that much if he thought I was weird. As if he didn't think that already. That's why I was something wrong to him. 

After the businessman and Ootsuki Rima's mean classmate showed up and got the same as usual, Natsume Youji asked, "So what's this Tanaka like?"

"H-huh? Who? Oh."  I wasn't sure what had just happened, but maybe he trusted me now. I shouldn't have made Tanaka up. Now I'd have to either admit to lying, which would obviously be counterproductive, or keep going with it until I could think of something to get rid of the imaginary Tanaka. Maybe he'd get a girlfriend or something. I'd see. He'd just be the perfect... man...? For now. "So. He's. Nice."

"...and...?"

"He, uh, smiles a lot? Yeah. And I think he's very cute. It's kind of weird because I don't think cute is a word I'd usually use to describe you but I think it counts for some reason, but I'm not sure why. Also, uhh..." I'd never really thought about what a 'perfect man' ought to be like. Did I even like men? Wait, fuck, I'd told him I didn't. He already knew I was lying. Was that why he looked at me like that? Had I just ruined it? Did I even have a 'perfect man'? I should've said Tanaka was a woman. Maybe. I supposed the most sensible way to get someone to trust you was to make lies as believable as possible. "You're also very good looking and stuff. I think. I've always thought so. I-I mean not always, obviously, because I haven't known him for that long. But yeah, that's how Tanaka is like."

Mercifully, a customer showed up. She wanted a slice of cake and some coffee. Youji burned himself with the coffee machine, but he shook his head quickly when I offered to help. Not even a minute later, he dropped the cake. He'd never done that before. I had to do it all over again, but that was fine. What wasn't fine was Natsume Youji. 

"...so..."

"So?" He echoed. Natsume Youji had been cleaning the cups for an abnormal amount of time now. 

"Do you. Do you have any advice."

By this point, it was pretty obvious he'd caught me lying, but I hadn't expected him to get... mad...? Over it. Maybe I should have. Fuck. He didn't look mad, though. I wished bots had faces. I wished I didn't have a face. "I think," he replied, wiping the counter for the fourth time in a row, "that you should just, um, act normally. Tanaka likes that."

He said 'um' again. "He does?"

Natsume Youji nodded, slowly.

Weird. Did he know a...? Or maybe he knew I was lying but he thought Tanaka was a codename for somebody else and since he was nice nice he thought the 'be yourself' advice applied to me, so that's why he said that. I held back a sigh. All that study, all that research... for this.

No. It wasn't worth it.

"I was lying about Tanaka."

There.

"But you knew that already, didn't you?"

Natsume Youji held up a hand. "Could you wait until the end of the day for this?" Was his response.

I flinched. He didn't seem to notice. "Okay," I mumbled. 

...so he was mad.