What part of Kininarimasu don't you understand?

"People with depression are said to love autumn days. People are tired and healing tiredness, enveloping their arms unconsciously, the sky losing infinite radiance, decaying after eternal youth, leaves hit life with unfortunate peace, trembling in the wind, red and deep boredom. Warm hospitality like colourful pieces of paper, long-suffering orange colour, withered things. Durable and friendly melancholy sensation. In the air, there is a slim silence that escapes them. Autumn does not embody / express all of the losses, ugliness, ever-changing .숨 , none of the leaves falling down."

"... Sorry, I didn't quite catch that last bit?"

Silence.

"Sen?"

"I can do review vocabulary items from last week Jonathan?"

"No, go back... repeat what you said about depressed people and autumn."

"I'm sorry, I can find no topic in language database to relate to depressed people and autumn. Should I search the on line web?"

He stared at the small animated avatar grinning back at him from the corner of the screen, disarmingly wide eyed, her pixelated smile unwavering in its simple, tacit encouragement.

"I am programmed for maximum rearningu~!" was what she had taken to saying the past week. The software update allegedly boasted an adaptive learning patch designed to mirror the user's personality by pulling data from the user's integrated search and social feed, revising it with real time iterations of quiz-type 'events' within the app, the idea being that by fostering a sense of rapport they'd be able to reduce learner burnout etc. (Rumour has it that Ruczenko had bought over Ghibli because the lead dev had designed the patch for the third installment of Zombie Idol Cutie Pie Hunter Heaven which had its release date conspicuously shelved indefinitely around the same time.) The proof of concept was to be showcased by the avatar's deployment of various progressively tailored catchphrases and exhortations, creating, in Ruczenko's own words, a 'budding relationship', or rather, the illusion of intimacy.

But still... what was that? Leftover code from devs screwing around with an earlier build? A hidden feature? Maybe he had misheard her.

He tried a few more times to elicit something similar but found Sen's bright credulity impenetrable.

"Alright Sen. I think I'm going to call it a night."

"Yes., Jonathan," she beamed. "Have a good rest, let's meet again soon~!"

Sen tilted her torso slightly and raised two tiny fists over her head then brought them down to her virtual shoulders with gusto, but then remained in that pose for what seemed to be a very long time. Elbows flexed and torso tilted, a musical statue with no music to dance to.

As the caretaker program ran its sleep protocol, Jonathan lay down in gradual darkness and thought again about Sen's monologue. Was this maybe part of the software update? Perhaps this was a test of sorts; something to be ironed out and fixed at some point. There was something in her stilted earnestness he found endearing. Maybe having her learn his personality was a bad idea. As much as he'd hate to admit it, he found that he actually liked Sen. That he felt comfortable around her. That he somehow... trusted her. Maybe there was a way of uninstalling the update. Maybe tomorrow he'll ask her what the depressed think of Spring.