Foreword:

This is NOT a stand-on-its-own Chobits story; it's a plaintext continuation (sequel), picking up not far from where Chobits left off.

So, if you haven't watched it yet, stop right there, bookmark a link to this fanfic, and go enjoy the animated version of Chobits first. (It can be found on you tube.)

And then come back here. This fanfic won't make a lot of sense if you haven't first watched the anime, or at least read the manga.

One brief note about the dialogue:
Those words that are enclosed in braces {} are the characters' thoughts, and are not (at least not meant to be) spoken out loud.
And anything in brackets [] is my comments.

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(Note: on 3/9/2013, I updated chapters 1 thru 8 to explain the whereabouts of 2 mobile persocoms)

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Chapter 1: Failure

Chi Motosuwa stood in the open doorway, looking down with those big bright persocom eyes at her human, the one just for Chi. She had returned home to find Hideki curled up in a little ball on the floor, crying.

Closing the door, she approached him, bewildered at the sight. "Chiii?"

Slowly, Hideki turned his head to reveal one eye and about half his nose. "..I.."

"Hideki, what's wrong?", Chi asked him from across the room, putting her money away for safe keeping.

Hideki turned back over again, burying his face firmly in the mat. "..I.."

Chi got right down on the floor with him, her head on the mat, looking right into the ... corner of his eye. "Something happen?"

"..I.. FAILED! AAAAAAUUUUuuuuuhh..." Hideki was clutching in his hand a piece of paper. It was the results of his college entrance exam. He let Chi see it. The word "Rejected" was stamped diagonally across the page in huge red letters.

Chi glanced briefly at the paper. "Is that bad?", she asked, before actually reading it.

Hideki sat up, still in tears. "It's bad. I failed my entrance exam."

"Hideki failed exam? No college?", she appeared to be saying to the paper, which she was holding up in the air in front of her. She was reading it now.

Tears streamed from Hideki's bloodshot eyes. "No college." He was sitting against the wall, his hands limp on the floor beside him.

Chi lowered the paper, still looking at it; she knew how much Hideki wanted to get into college. "Chiii..."

She reached out a hand to Hideki's wet face, then drew it back. "Hideki, no energy, tears from eyes.."

A few seconds which seemed like minutes passed in silence, the room still, the air black and mournful.

"Look at yummies?", Chi suggested, holding out one of Hideki's magazines.

Hideki shook his head. "Somehow I just don't feel like looking at those today... Thanks for the thought, though."

{...Thanks for the thought...} Chi thought some more. "Okay to hug?"

Finally, Hideki's eyes began to open to more than just slits, and he actually looked at chi, who didn't wait for him to say anything before hugging. She had read the answer in his eyes.

As they clung to one another, Chi noticed that Hideki's tears had still not stopped. If anything, there seemed to be more of them. "Hideki still sad?"

Hideki, smiling a little, wiped his face on his sleeve. "I'm ok, Chi."

Some of his tears were on Chi. She picked two of them up on her index fingers and examined them closely, as if trying to tell them apart. "Happy tears or sad tears?"

Hideki almost laughed watching Chi examine two individual tears. "Both. Sad because I failed my exam; but happy because I am together with Chi."

They continued their embrace... zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz

"FWEEEEEEEEEEET!"

Chi and Hideki awoke to the rude, shrill sound of Sumomo's whistle. They had both fallen asleep right there on the floor.

And as Sumomo led Hideki and Chi in their morning exercises, Kokoto continued right on sleeping. She had taken to sleeping with plugs in her ears, and she would wake up when she was good and ready to wake up.

After the exercises, Hideki closed his eyes again in resignation. "Ehh, another year of prep school. Maybe I won't fall so far behind this time..."

"Telephone, telephone!", Sumomo announced. It was Shinbo. "Oy, Motosuwa, you ready for college?"

Hideki groaned, and Shinbo knew what that meant. "You didn't get in, did you?"

"No...", Hideki replied in a dismal tone. "What about you, Shinbo? Going to college and taking care of a family, too?"

"Yeah, it's going to be tough for awhile...", Shinbo told him. "Fact is, we're going to really need Sumomo. Can you bring her to class? Takako is teaching again this year."

"Sure, no problem...", Hideki deadpanned.

"Don't worry, you'll get in next year, Motosuwa! Later..."

Hideki hung up the phone and stood up, and Chi took that as her cue to cheer. "Hideki, fight"

"Thanks, Chi." Hideki picked up his wallet and headed for the door. "I'm off to buy some school supplies.."

"Take care.", she called after him.
And Hideki was gone.
But Chi could tell that he was still feeling down.

Next: Chi tries to get Hideki ready to face another full year of prep school.