Chobits is the property of CLAMP. 

Jealousy

Renn Ireigh

"Sounds to me like you're jealous," he smirks, and I don't know why he says it because of course he knows it's true.  Of course I'm jealous.  Someone else shared the space in his androidal mind.  Someone else was in my place.

"There's no jealousy between persocoms."

Hah!  Of course there's not.  Just the mental warring over whose Someone Just For Me one unsuspecting person is.  For most persocoms, it's an easy answer: their owner.  But some own more than one 'com.  Internal issues, little complications: the Someone Just For Me must be Just For Me.  And yet the masters never understand why each 'com is quietly trying to kill the others, even when each loves the other.

The search for the Someone Just For Me is a subconscious desire for all persocoms, even those of us who seem emotionless.  It is my search for my Someone Just For Me that causes this upsurging of jealousy.

He knows I'm jealous.  He probably enjoys it, too.  Zima has never had any problems with his ego; it's always been very large, very healthy.  No, I take that back; the first time he broke under the strain of a data surge, he hit rock-bottom in a depression that lasted months.  He had failed.  That was all he cared about: he had failed.  He tried to crash himself after that.

I wonder how I could ever forget this. 

We were tied together, he and I.  I was built as his protector.  Out of necessity, we have to be physically close at all times.  Out of necessity, we have to link our minds sometimes. 

Out of the sheer desire to do so, we are together at all times.  Out of the sheer desire to do so, our minds are as one much, much more often than they need to be.

It angers me when someone else is inside his mind.

I can tell it hurts him, too, when someone has hacked into him and is currently wandering through his mental data library.  His eyes change color, paling to a not-all-the-way-there gray; his voice goes flatter.  He thinks I miss the fact that his teeth dig into his lip to keep his mouth from whimpering in pain.  Someone's pushing through his mind, with no disregard for what's in it.

It does not hurt him when I am inside his mind.

Perhaps that is what angers me – that these invaders hurt him – and I'm sure that that is a large part of it.  But what adds fuel to the fire is that someone else is in his mind.  Someone who is not me.

There is no reason for them to be inside of him.  He is not their Someone Just For Me; he cares nothing for them aside from the necessity of getting them out of his mind so he can breathe evenly again without having to hide his eyes so that I don't see the pain in them.  I see it anyway.

He is not their Someone Just For Me.

He is mine.

And in truth, that is what hurts.

Sounds to Zima like I'm jealous.

I smile at him suddenly.  I'm not jealous.  I'm just very, very possessive… and I love him.  That's enough to trigger my instinct to protect him.  We're each other's Someone Just For Me.  We can't let each other be hurt.

I'm not jealous.  I just love.