Danganronpa One Shots

Robot - Saiibo

Robots can't feel real emotions, silly!

Aww, don't blame him. Robots aren't supposed to feel empathy.

Why do you want to be human so much? You know that's impossible, right? You'll never be like us.

Those words echoed through Keebo's mind as he raced down the hall toward the men's bathroom. Kokichi's words.

"Hey, where are you going, Kee-boy?" Kokichi called after him. "Bathroom break? Gonna piss out some tin cans? Take some lewd pictures with your eyes?"

"Shut up..." Keebo muttered under his breath, his feet pounding against the ground. "Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up..."

He rounded the corner, sped into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him. He slid back against it and desperately wished that he could cry.

Kokichi was wrong. Keebo could feel real emotions. He just didn't always feel them at the right times or understand them well enough. And he couldn't express them in a human way, like crying.

He wasn't sure why humans cried. He guessed it was to let out internal pain. That was something Keebo had in spades. The insecurity about all the things he couldn't do... the knowledge that he would never be like his classmates... the doubt that he would ever be anything more than just a stupid hunk of metal. Everything hurt, and he was sick of it.

Keebo squeezed his eyes shut. He knew it was impossible for him to cry. He knew that, so why was he wiping his eyes anyway? Why was he trying to think of more sad things, trying to coax water out of tear ducts that didn't exist? Why was he still trying so hard to be human?

The bathroom door rattled behind him, and Keebo jumped forward, landing on his knees. The door swung open, and Keebo closed his eyes, prepared for more verbal abuse from Kokichi. But it wasn't Kokichi.

"Keebo? Are you all right?"

Keebo turned around slowly. Shuichi Saihara, the boy detective in his homeroom who always wore that emo hat. "Yeah," he said, wiping his eyes furiously even though nothing was coming out. "Sorry. I know there's no reason for me to be here –"

Then something happened that had never happened before. He got choked up.

He knew it was something humans did, but he hadn't thought he was physically capable of it. Apparently it was, because his sadness was leaking out into his voice, and he was pretty sure the distress was showing in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he repeated, scooting back against the wall.

"Hey..." Shuichi seriously needed to pee, but this was clearly more important. He sat down next to Keebo and put a hand on his arm. "You want to talk about it?"

Keebo shook his head. "I'm fine... just..." He hadn't planned on it, but at that moment all his pent-up feelings came bursting forward to the surface. "Just I had to do this group project today with Kokichi in Health and we were talking about the reproductive system and he kept asking me if robots had dicks and when I finally told him I did to make him leave me alone he laughed and asked what the point was if I couldn't have kids and I said the professor wanted me to be as anatomically correct as possible and he said why anyone would want that because the only reason you would need to look human would be to get a girlfriend and he said nobody would ever love a robot, and..." He stopped for a moment and caught a breath that he didn't actually need. "And I'm just scared that nobody will ever love me."