The room they gave Tobirama was a simple resting room with a bed and a bathroom. The door was locked with a guard outside.

"This is the most private home I've ever had", Tobirama said with a sad smile, sitting down on the bed.

I was unsmiling, standing just inside the door, looking at him with disbelief in my eyes, unable to comprehend what was happening.

Tobirama noticed.

"Izuna..." he said.

"I hate him", I said through gritted teeth, surprised at how steady my voice was despite the tears that threatened to drench me. "I hate him."

"I know", Tobirama said. "But he's not relevant at this point. I would have been deemed dangerous at one point or other. It was inevitable. This was inevitable."

"Why can't I have anything?!" I suddenly screamed, not at the man in front of me but at the world, at the universe. "I keep losing everything and it's not even my decision! Losing Hashi wasn't! And losing you isn't! I want one thing and that's some fucking autonomy!"

Tobirama was quiet, not protesting what I said. Instead, he patted the place next to him on the bed, wanting me to come sit with him.

I went over, sat, hid my face in my hands as he pulled me towards his chest.

And finally, it dawned on me.

It dawned on me what was happening, that they were going to destroy Tobirama and thus the man that was him and that he would disappear, forever.

I cried and I cried and I cried, leaning against Tobirama's chest as he held me close, murmuring words of comfort, kissing my head.

He made his heart beat for me.

The ethics board had set it up so that they would be on the phone with Tobirama the human body in the room, while destroying Tobirama the computer program in Hashirama's lab.

This way, we would be ready. Or, at least know when it would happen; I don't think we could ever be ready. 

We were alone, him and I, him on his back on the bed, me laying on his chest, listening to his beating heart. Neither of us felt like fucking; there were cameras and mics in the room, we'd been informed. Also, we needed the connection of our souls that, in this moment, could be provided better this way than through sex.

He caressed my head, quietly, while I just breathed, also quietly. My mind was a whirlpool, and I was desperate to draw him into it, but I didn't want to pester his last moments in life.

"Izuna", he said. "Speak your mind."

He was a mind reader like that. I thought of the many times we'd sat on top of that hill, just talking, how impressed I'd been at his intuition, how I hadn't cared whether it was mechanical or not because it was him, and whatever it was it would still be him.

"None of this would have happened if I hadn't been so weak. If I hadn't been so obsessed with him." I couldn't even bring myself to say his filthy name. 

Tobirama lifted my face up so he could look me into the eyes. The empty hole created within me when I could no longer hear his heart was soon filled with the beauty of his face.

He spoke.

"I need you to listen to me very, very closely", he said. I had never seen his face so serious. "You aren't weak, Izuna. He didn't even give me a chance to protest. "You aren't weak. You fell in love with the man, and once he treated you badly, you were desperate to see some good within him. People like you are rare. You want to see the good in everyone. Just look at me!" He was grabbing my face at this point, looking at me so intensely, it felt as though he tried to burn the words his mouth spoke into the back of my eyes. Tears were streaming down my face as I grabbed his wrists for support. "I'm a fucking computer program! And you make me feel more alive than any human has ever felt because that's the effect you have on me, Izuna!"

"Stop..." I whispered; it was far too painful to hear.

"No!" Tobirama said. "No! I don't care that you chose the professor over me because I'm still happy with my life and what I got to experience. I don't regret anything!"

I looked down.

"You knew, didn't you?" I asked. "You knew the ethics board would decide to destroy your program when we told them the truth. That was why you acted all weird."

There was a pause.

"Yes", Tobirama finally said.

"You should have let yourself kill me", I said. "You should have let me die so your chip was implanted within me so we could hang out forever."

Tobirama shook his head.

"That's not how it works. I'm not hanging out with Hermes now, am I?"

I was quiet. I knew he was right. It had been a choice between Tobirama's life and mine, a choice I hadn't seen, meaning the choice had been entirely up to him.

"Are you angry with me?" he asked, looking to the side. "For not telling you? For not letting you partake in the decision making?"

I thought for a while.

"I'm glad you spared us the fight it would have caused", I answered, avoiding the question. "And at least, Hashirama won't get away with his crimes."

Tobirama smiled at this.

"That man should have been stopped long ago."

I looked at him sincerely.

"I'm glad he wasn't."

Tobirama hugged me close to him then, kissed the top of my head.

"Me too", he said. "Me too."

We must have dozed off because we woke by Tobirama's phone ringing.

I woke up with a jerk, and realising what the ringing meant, I immediately started crying, a heart-wrenching sound that froze my blood to ice, turned my skin inside out.

"Shh", Tobirama said, awake as well now, kissing the top of my head. "Hush, my darling, hush."

But through his soft words, I could hear he was crying, too. Soon after, I could also feel his crying as a tear from his eye landed on my cheek.

"Hello?" he croaked into the phone.

"It's time."

I could hear the kind woman from the ethics board, and her words meant they were in the lab now, and had granted access to the computer where Tobirama's program was installed.

I heard Tobirama take a deep breath.

"Okay."

I hugged him close, muffling my crying into his white T-shirt.

"Do you want to be on the phone? Or hang up?"

"Hang up", Tobirama said without thinking.

"Okay. It will be two minutes or so." There was a pause on the phone. "I'm so sorry." And the woman truly sounded as if she was.

"I'm sorry, too", Tobirama said. "For the trouble. I should never have been created." They hung up. "That was a lie", he whispered to me, trying to smile through his tears. "I should have been created and I'm not sorry."

I cried and cried and cried. Tobirama cried, too, but I could sense he was trying to do so calmly for my sake. He stroke my head, murmured words of comfort which I absorbed into my soul. I felt him put his hand in the back pocket of my black trousers.

"I love you", he finally said.

His last words to me.

I kissed him on the lips over and over as I told him the same, until I, with one final look at his living face, I leaned my head to his chest, listening to his heart.

Until with one final, strong beat, it stopped. 

I was aware of the cameras and mics at all points.

I hated them. Couldn't they at least have some respect for our privacy and let us have these final moments together alone? I would have liked to hold him against my chest while I was inside of him. 

I did my best to ignore them, to behave as if they weren't there but I couldn't, and there were so many things I wanted to tell him that I didn't have the chance to do. How he'd made me feel safe and competent in bed. How he was an amazing chef, cooking things for me that was far more delicious than anything I ever had out. That he wasn't just smart but also funny and with good values. How much I liked visiting his brother and his flower shop. How I wanted to plan a date for us just like he had done for me.

None of that. There was no time.

Instead, I held him, tried to make him absorb my love through my body.

The moment itself was exactly like when Hashirama turned me off each day. One moment I was there. The next, I just wasn't. It was, however, much scarier as it was a minute wait knowing it could happen at any time.

That minute felt like a lifetime.

I kept my heart beating, though. I kept my heart beating for him because I knew he liked it. He'd never told me, but I had noticed. As soon as my heart beat, he instinctively searched for it, listening. It was as if is something as simple as a beating heart provided him endless comfort. 

And I felt so lucky to be a person who could provide him that comfort. 

I wished I could make my heart slow down, beating less and less until it faded out. But I couldn't. It was an on-off button, just like I was.

A machine. On or off.

Well, all of us could only do our best with the cards we had been given.

Most of us never did.

The last thing I felt before I was destroyed was his face against my chest.

And my hand in his pocket.