Irreplaceable

By Atreyu452

Note: This story is a “What-If” that happens after AXESS 47. It contains spoilers for all episodes previous to episode 47, and contains spoilers especially for episode 47. Even the summary would have been a spoiler, so I apologize for the vagueness. Enzan et al are all property of CAPCOM. Rockman AXESS is the ‘sequel’ as it were to RockmanEXE, and I don’t own that either.

Enzan peered at his screen, his brow furrowed in concentration. Nebula, the latest netmafia, was running out of places to hide. Soon they would be forced to make a final stand against the Net Saviors. Soon, Blues... No, he couldn’t think about that now. It was only a miniscule factor in the events to come, and its outcome even more uncertain.

Enzan sighed and rubbed his eyes. Out of everything he missed, it was the friendly tone in Blues’ vice when he called out his operator’s name. Kisama, Enzan! That wasn’t Blues. It was his voice, but the twisted tone, laced with hatred, was something his Blues would never use.

With a start, the boy slammed his fist against the desk. I’m not going to think about that, he futilely told his treacherous mind.

“Enzan!” A pink-covered head peered through the doorway.

“A—Anetta!” Enzan blinked, taken aback and slightly alarmed at her sudden appearance. Had she seen his lapse?

The dark-skinned girl grinned. “I bought you a bento,” she called out cheerfully. “You shouldn’t work so hard on an empty stomach.”

Enzan smiled back sheepishly. It was a good thing he had gotten used to Anetta’s food by now—the urge to cringe in horror at the mention of eating Anetta’s carefully prepared meals was slowly fading. She did try hard at them, and she was getting better, however slight the improvement was.

“Thank you, Anetta,” he said gravely, but a smile lessened the grim tone. “Would you like to join me for awhile? It could be nice to have some company.”

-- -- --

“Stupid, no-good, lousy—”

“Yaito-sama?”

“Two-timing, hypocritical—”

“Yaito-sama?”

“Shut up, Glyde!”

The tall, polite navi winced at the expression on his operator’s face. However, he was used to such verbal attacks, and doggedly continued. “Yaito-sama, you’re wasting paper.”

Yaito looked down at the torn bits which covered the floor. “So?” she snapped.

“The maids will complain,” Glyde reminded her.

“I’ll pay them more money,” Yaito snarled.

“Meiru-chan called,” Glyde said. “She’s worried about you. You haven’t spent any money for days!”

“Tell her to take a number.” Yaito slowly ripped another picture in half, grinning in satisfaction as the tear traveled through a smiling face.

“Yaito-sama!” His operator’s rudeness had finally shocked the well-mannered navi.

“What?” Yaito replied, throwing her latest home-made confetti on the floor. She sighed at the look on Glyde’s face. “I know, I know. I didn’t mean it like that. Meiru-chan’s my friend; I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Why don’t you tell him what’s wrong?” The navi’s words were barely above a whisper, but they turned Yaito’s face a beet-red anyway.

“What?”

“Yaito-sama, listen to me for just a moment!” Glyde continued hurriedly. “It may not be what you think!”

Yaito grabbed one of the pictures and waved it in her navi’s face. The smiling pair in the picture seemed blissfully unaware they had been caught on film. “Is this what you call ‘not what I think?’” she demanded at the loud of her lungs. “What else could it be?”

“If you ask him, you may just find out,” Glyde replied softly.

“I can’t just walk up and ask him!” Yaito replied, mortified at the thought. “He’d laugh at me! He’d insult me, and my big forehead, and my father’s company, and...” Yaito cut herself off with a sniff, struggling to hold back tears. “He didn’t even say anything to me, Glyde! I was gone all this time, and he didn’t even care!”

“He is a Net Savior,” Glyde reminded her. “He has been rather busy lately.”

“He could have e-mailed!” Yaito wailed. “Just once, to see how I was doing! Instead, he went out and got himself a g-gi—oh, I can’t even say it!” She threw herself face-first onto her bed and covered her head with a large, pink pillow. “Just tell the servants to leave me alone until I die. Maybe he’d care then.”

If Glyde were a less polite navi, he would have rolled his eyes at the trumped-up drama. As it was, he could not help but to sigh in exasperation. “Please, Yaito-sama,” he begged. “Just go talk to him. No matter what the truth is, you’ll feel better once you know it.”

“I won’t give him the satisfaction,” Yaito mumbled. “I’m gonna wait here until I starve to death, and then I’m gonna have a beautiful funeral with lotsa flowers and mourners and he’s gonna regret being mean to me!”

Glyde rubbed his temple. It was not a sign of pain—net navis were not subjected to things like headaches unless caused by an exterior cause, like a virus or a loss of hitpoints. Glyde was sometimes in doubt of that truth, for Yaito’s tantrums often came close to giving him a headache out of pure frustration, but this was not one of those times. Instead, it was a gesture that indicated he was deep in thought.

“Well,” he said brightly. “Won’t that be a shame, then?”

There was a moment of significant silence.

“Won’t what be a shame?” Yaito asked suspiciously.

“Why, if you die, Enzan won’t know what you really think about him,” Glyde explained. “He might even live on believing you had some kind of crush on him.”

“What?” Yaito sat up straight. “I hate the guy!” she exclaimed. “I hate him to the very core! He’s mean, ugly, smelly, rude—” She paused. “Well, maybe not ugly,” she conceded.

“But he’ll never know unless you go up to him and tell him that,” Glyde replied. “Why don’t you track him down and tell him exactly what you think of him.”

“I think I will,” Yaito said smugly. “Good idea, Glyde.”

The net navi couldn’t help but smile at the success of his plan.

“Oh, and Glyde?”

“Yes, Yaito-sama?”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you were planning.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean by that, Yaito-sama.”

“I’m just going to tell him what I think of him.”

“Yes, Yaito-sama.”

“And I think he’s a jerk, and a bully, and a lousy friend.”

“Of course, Yaito-sama.”

“Glyde?”

“Yes, Yaito-sama?”

“Stop smirking at me!”

-- -- --

Enzan blinked at his computer screen. Reflected in it, he could see a forehead that gleamed in the sunlight peering through the window and blonde strands of hair pulled back tightly into braids. At the moment, if the reflection was an accurate portrayal, the forehead was turning a bright red.

“I hate you, Ijuuin Enzan!”

Accurate to the nearest degree. With a sigh, Enzan swiveled around in his chair, wondering what he had done recently to earn the ever-changing hatred of Ayanokouji Yaito. “Do you?” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “I thought this point had been established already.”

Yaito turned even redder. “You jerk!” she snapped, stamping her foot.

“That point has been established too. Have you come here to tell me anything new?”

“I hate you!” Yaito screamed. “I hate the way you belittle me with your stupid superiority complex and your snotty attitude! I hate the way you pretend to be someone’s friend and yet never e-mail them when they leave the country for a whole stinking year!”

Enzan looked surprised. He had known that Yaito had studied abroad for the school year; she had done it before, so he had assumed it would not have been a new experience for her. He hadn’t expected her to miss his company, especially since she spent so much time proclaiming her immense dislike of him.

“So what if you’re a Net Savior?” Yaito continued before Enzan could open his mouth to respond. “That doesn’t mean you have to be a stupid jerk! And—”

“I’m sorry.”

Yaito froze in mid-rant, her mouth agape. “You—you—what?”

“I’m sorry,” Enzan replied, shrugging. “I didn’t realize you would still want to hear from me after you had gone away. I was under the impression you would rather not hear from me.”

Yaito bit his lip. “You’re a jerk,” she muttered, suppressing tears. “How could you think that?”

Enzan winced. He had just made the situation worse in his attempt to make it better. Feeling vaguely panicked, he wondered what to do. If he showed acknowledgement of Yaito’s tears, she would just get more upset. If he ignored them, she would still get upset. I hate no-win situations.

Yaito sniffed. “Just because I went away didn’t mean you had to get more friends to replace me,” she said, her voice quivering. “I bet—I bet she doesn’t call you a jerk, or make fun of your hair in private, or—or—”

“Anetta?” Enzan asked, genuinely confused. “This is about Anetta?”

“Of course it is!” Yaito wailed, tears of anger running down her face. “You’re always hanging out with her, and smiling at her, and laughing with her, and you like her more than you like me!”

She whirled to run away, wondering what had ever possessed her to say the last part. A hand wrapped around her arm, stopping her in her tracks. Her legs became stiff and refused to let her jerk away. She stood quivering, trying to withhold her sobs unsuccessfully and hiding her shame at the same time.

“Wait,” Enzan said gently. “Don’t go yet.”

“You hate me,” Yaito sobbed. “You like her more than you like me.”

“No, I don’t,” Enzan replied. He touched her other shoulder and slowly turned her stiff form around.

Yaito stared at his shoes, unable to look him in the face. A hand holding a handkerchief appeared in her line a vision, and she realized Enzan was offering it to her. She took it and blew into it noisily, throwing manners to the wind.

“Anetta and I... have something in common,” Enzan continued, keeping his hands on her shoulders to keep the Gabcom heir from fleeing again. “We’ve both lose our net navis to this latest war. It’s nice to have someone to turn to who knows how you feel.”

“I heard about Blues,” Yaito replied softly, playing with the soiled handkerchief. “I’m really sorry.”

“Thank you for that,” Enzan replied. “Anetta is my friend too, Yaito, but she’s not the only one.”

“You hate me,” Yaito sniffed. “I always insult you.”

“I do not hate you,” Enzan said forcefully. “It’s always nice to have someone to bring you down to earth. I do have a tendency to think more highly of myself than I should.”

“So... you don’t like Anetta more than me?” Yaito asked, risking a look into his blue eyes.

Enzan smiled at her. “Yaito-san, you’re irreplaceable.”

Yaito stared at him wide-eyed. Then she turned red. “You’ve never called me by my real name before,” she barely whispered.

Enzan laughed. “Would you prefer it if I called you ‘big forehead’ again?” he teased.

“No!” Yaito said loudly.

“You’ve gotten taller,” Enzan observed. “I didn’t know you insulted my hair color behind my back.”

Yaito latched onto his waist suddenly, burying her head in his loose shirt. Enzan stared, shocked, but Yaito had released him before he could react. She ran out of his office and down the hall, her bright-red face never looking back.

In his office, Enzan sat down hard in his chair and stared out the window. He wondered why she had hugged him. He wondered why he denied knowing the answer to that question.

His computer beeped, drawing his attention to the screen. A new e-mail popped up, blinking with urgency. Enzan clicked on it, and read the following message with amusement.

Don’t forget to keep in touch, or I’ll have to come yell at you again.

Your irreplaceable.

“My irreplaceable,” Enzan whispered. “The irreplaceable Ayanokouji Yaito.” He chuckled to himself for a moment. Then he got back to work.

Author’s notes: It is bad manners in Japan to blow your nose in front of someone. Obviously, Yaito is too upset to care about manners at that point in the story (the usage of gonna, lotsa, etc is also an indication that she is too upset to use polite form). I think Enzan x Yaito is an utterly adorable pairing, made more so by Yaito’s obvious crush on the older boy. Of course, the age difference (and Japan’s unique tradition of romantic relationships) limits their interaction now, but I think they’d make a great pair when they get older.