Title:Technical Difficulties

Rating:PG-13

Pairings:Bruno/Yusei (main), Jack/Yusei (sub-pairing)

Author's Notes:So, I wanted to write a Toolshipping AU, since there is only so much to work with in the anime, but I also wanted to mirror canon as much as I possibly could. Thus, Bruno still needed to be a robot. Anyway, the solution I came up with is a Zettai Kareshi/Absolute Boyfriend parody. I watched the drama, but never saw the anime/manga, but as I only want to borrow the premise, this is probably fortunate. Basically, I want to use the idea of a robot lover, but not make it a total rip off.

For as long as anyone had known him, Fudo Yusei had been enamored with technology. Growing up in the slums of Satellite, the 'bad part of town', he'd never had the luxury of access to brand new state-of-the-art gadgets like the people in the high class areas of Neo Domino, like Tops.

Back then, as a child, he'd had to make do with rifling through the junk from the city, salvaging half-dead batteries, battered radios and picking apart old, beat-up televisions. But nonetheless, he had loved to fiddle with the meager pickings available to him, and he'd been that way ever since he'd learned to stand on two feet.

"It's not surprising," his foster mother, Martha, often told him. "You get it from your father... Dr. Fudo used to love technology too. You're just like he was."

Yusei had always been a bright child. After his parents' untimely deaths, Martha had taken him in and he'd quickly learned to read and write thanks to her patient, attentive instruction. His natural aptitude with mechanics helped him through life, into an engineering scholarship at one of Neo-Domino's leading universities and out the other end as the top student of all his classes. Though he never had – and probably never would – thought of himself that way, he was a born entrepreneur and, upon graduating, quickly founded a successful repair business. And the rest was history.

"You know where else you could apply those problem solving skills of yours, don't you."

Yusei crouched in front of Jack's blown out TV, trying to ignore him while Jack lounged on the couch behind him and made unhelpful comments. He carefully plucked a burnt-out wire from the machine, concentrating on the task at hand and not uttering a word in reply. Once everything was joined up the way it was supposed to be, he finally responded.

"My problem solving skills? Well, the bike engine I'm working on sounds a little rough. I should probably apply them to that, or it will start to grate on my nerves."

Jack's beautifully manicured eyebrows knitted together in frustration. "Damnit, Yusei. You're supposed to be the smart one here, so stop playing dumb. You know what I'm talking about."

Jack was rewarded with a barely audible sigh, and a click as the pieces of his television's frame were slotted back into place.

"I promise I'll go and visit Martha soon and let her know I'm not dying of loneliness. I've had a lot to do recently, but I'll try and make some next week."

Jack sighed, slouching back into the embrace of his couch cushions, watching Yusei plug the TV back into the wall. He hit the power button and the machine fizzed to life, picture and sound crystal clear. It was hard to believe it was the same television that, only an hour ago, had been a distorted mess. As per usual, Yusei Fudo has managed to perform a successful and seemingly-effortless repair.

"You know I couldn't care less how you live your life… well, not unless you were doing something particularly stupid." Jack paused, thoughtfully scratching his chin. "Then you'd deserve to have me punch some sense into you. But really, every time I see Martha, it's always, 'How is Yusei, has he got anyone special yet?' or 'Is Yusei still doing okay on his own?' and I just…"

Jack blew out a frustrated sigh, ruffling his own bangs. "I just don't need to hear her worrying about the fact that you're almost 26 and perpetually single every damn visit. I get enough motherly worry on my part. Why do I need to be saddled with yours too?"

"I'm sorry." Yusei always looked so sincere when he apologized that it almost made you feel guilty for starting anything. Fortunately, he and Jack had known each other almost their entire lives, grown up together, leaving Jack largely immune. "I'll let her know I'm fine so she'll ease up a bit."

"Which will probably last about a month before she starts to worry again. Seriously, Yusei. How hard is it to find a girlfriend? Or boyfriend? Apply your problem solving skills to that and make everyone happy."

Yusei stood, rolling his neck until the joints clicked, then brushed the dust from his pants. "I'm not sure why she's so worried about me. I'm fine. It's you who was just broken up with recently."

Jack's face immediately darkened, and his expression turned indignant. "Excuse me, but I am the one who broke up with Carly, if you don't remember. She was far too clingy for someone like me."

"It's a pity." Yusei pushed the television, good as new, back into its original position. "We liked her. She was nice. And she accepted you for you."

It was pretty much unheard of for Yusei to directly insult somebody, but the underlying meaning of his words rung loud and clear to Jack – 'She accepted your ego, your strange quirks and your completely self-absorbed approach to life.'

Jack chose to ignore the implied barb completely.

"She was clingy," he insisted. "I need my space, you know. Carly didn't know when to back-down or leave me be. I need someone more serious than her, someone more level-headed who isn't always in my face."

His cheeks colored as he spoke, and he punctuated the end of the sentence with an embarrassed cough into his hand. Yusei couldn't help the edge of his mouth quirking into the beginnings of an almost-smile.

"You'll find that person eventually," he assured Jack, who still couldn't seem to meet his eyes. He never had been good at discussing emotions. "And who knows, maybe I'll find someone soon too. I'm not worried, it'll happen when it happens."

"What, are you expecting for them to be mail-ordered to your house or something?" The sarcasm was evident in Jack's voice. "You'll never find anyone if you're not proactive. People don't just drop into your lap."

"You never know," Yusei replied, but there was a touch of humor to his voice that let Jack know he was joking; Yusei didn't expect love to come to him. He just wasn't ready to go looking for it yet. "I could wake up one morning to find that someone special waiting on my doorstep."

Jack rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "Love isn't that easy. I should know."

As it would eventually turn out, both of them were right.

One couldn't say that Yusei was famous – not the way Jack was; Neo-Domino's #1 in the Pro-Auto Bike Racing League – but he was known in his field. As the best and brightest in his year at one of the best and brightest universities in the country, companies had practically been clamoring for him to work for them.

But Yusei had his own dreams, and had rejected all offers in his usual polite-but-stoic manner, and the 5D's Repair Garage had been born.

Still, Yusei's aptitude with all things mechanical was well-known to anyone in the engineering industry. And so as it was, from time to time Yusei was requested by several companies to test their new products and offer his opinion on their strengths and faults.

His natural talent and his reputation as a young genius made him an invaluable beta-tester; he was almost as likely to understand any malfunctions or issues with the product as the members of the team who had developed them. It made his feedback far more useful than that of the average consumer.

Thus, it wasn't unusual for Yusei to receive a request from Clear Mind Industries to help them beta-test the first model of a new product they were developing.

The request came during mid-winter in an envelope in the mail. Yusei braved the bitter cold, as he did every morning, on the brief trek to his letterbox, stomping through a blanket of powdery snow that had fallen overnight.

It was unusually cold this year. Usually in Neo-Domino, any snow in late December quickly melted into a clear, icy slush that soaked right through your shoes if you were foolish enough not to wear gumboots. This year, however, the powder snow was sticking. The wool of Yusei's scarf tickled his ears as he wrapped it tighter around his neck, blocking the chill from reaching his skin.

The letter sat there innocuously amongst the usual bills and junk mail, its CMi logo the only thing setting the envelope apart from the rest. Once he was back inside and able to feel his fingers again, Yusei carefully tore the paper open, and pulled out the stiff, official documents inside.

"Another beta test, huh?" He muttered to himself. It was the usual brief letter of explanation, an agreement form and then the 13 odd pages of contract and fine print that no one, even Yusei, ever read.

He wouldn't lie, of course; he always perked up when he got these offers. New technology excited him and he loved to see what sort of things these companies could come up with, what methods they used to improve on earlier products.

This set of papers, however, came with what looked like a set of questionnaire sheets, which was something Yusei had never seen before. He put them aside for the moment, and flipped straight to the explanation letter to get a better idea of what he was going to be testing. As he read through the paper, his face morphed from interest into a confused frown. It wasn't long before he was on the phone with the director of the production team.

"So just to get it straight, this thing you're asking me to test, it's…" he struggled to find the right words, but none came and he was forced to make do with the next best thing. "It's some sort of… love… robot?"

"Well, yes. And no. At its very core, the idea of the Axel Android is to provide a loving companion for someone who may not otherwise be able to find one. So in essence, one might see it as a love robot, I suppose. But it's much more than that," the director explained, already trying to sell his vision. "We've improved, and hopefully with your help will continue to improve, on the design of the basic Service Robots that our company introduced to the market during the worker shortage several years ago."

"So, what makes it different from the Service Robots?" Yusei asked, curious to know more.

"Well, as I'm sure you're aware, while our Service Robots are designed to be indistinguishable from a human in appearance, the Axel Android is designed to be indistinguishable from a human in both appearance and behavior. When first activated, they have been programmed to behave according to a base pattern, plus any customizations the client specified in their order form. But over time, they will learn and respond to the likes and dislikes of the client, essentially making it into the perfect companion."

"Okay…" There had been a rumor that Clear Mind industries had been working on a project like this, so while Yusei wasn't completely surprised, it was still a little overwhelming. An almost completely human-like robot… this kind of technology just blew his mind. "And this base programming you mentioned…? Could you still me a little more about that?"

"We studied and attempted the closest possible replication of the brainwaves and thought processes of two volunteers; just one boy and one girl, so far. We're hoping that we'll be able to provide 3 different models of each sex in time for the official release, but we're not getting ahead of ourselves. Once we see how the first test trials turn out, we'll go into developing further programs. As it is for now, the Antinomy and Sherry models are the only two available."

"Hmm…" Yusei absentmindedly fingered the sheets of paper he'd left lying on the table.

Despite joking in his conversation with Jack earlier that week about maybe finding someone to settle down with, the truth was that he had little to no interest in love – certainly not with an android, no matter how closely it mimicked human behaviors and patterns of thought. But on the other hand, this was obviously an amazing piece of technology, and he'd be a fool not to test it. He wondered if the 'droid would let him take it apart or perform maintenance on it, take a quick look at what made it tick…

Not to mention, he'd always wondered exactly how the service androids were built, how the team had designed them so that they moved in such a smooth, human-like fashion. It wasn't unusual to come across them manning the register in convenience stores or supermarkets, and there had been times when Yusei had bumped hands with them while accepting his change, and their skin felt real, warm… this was his chance to explore and find the answers to all these questions at leisure, and for no charge at that. He'd be a fool to turn this down.

"I understand," he finally replied. "I'm very grateful for this opportunity. Thank you. I'll have the contract and other documents returned to you as soon as possible."

He heard the director let out a relieved sigh over the phone. "Glad to have you on board."