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Sneaking away with a robot on hand had been easier than Dongmin assumed it would be. He thought people would make trouble for him. He thought perhaps the metal detectors would pick up Minhyuk’s robotic parts or that the officials at the airport would recognize a fake identification card when they saw one.
Instead, things went smoothly. Much smoother than Dongmin had expected.
Minhyuk sat beside him in the airport lobby. He stared at all of the other passengers, those who were waiting and those who were rushing around in order to catch their flight. Though he was but a robot, fascination dripped from his gaze, and Dongmin marvelled at how amazingly real his creation had become.
“This is your first time seeing so many people, isn’t it?” Dongmin asked.
Minhyuk turned to him and nodded. His lips moved upwards in a small smile, and he replied, “I know the world contains many humans, but seeing them in person is...incredible. None of them are scientists, like you?”
Dongmin returned the smile and shrugged his shoulders. “There might be some scientists in there. None that have developed such an adorable person like yourself, however. I’m one of a kind in that regard.”
Minhyuk stared at him for a few seconds longer before he commented, “A joke.”
Dongmin nodded his head. “Yes. Did you appreciate it? Did you find it funny?”
“I did not.” The answer was quick and delivered in such a tone of exasperation. Dongmin wanted, at first, to jot that down as a new behavior he had seen R-03Y perform, but he remembered he was no longer working at the lab. He was no longer focused on how well his robot could interact. All he was focused on now was keeping Minhyuk safe.
“Do you not find me funny?” Dongmin teased, nudging him. “Come on, admit it, you laugh at me sometimes.”
Minhyuk paused in thought, then said, “The last time I laughed at you was eighteen days ago, at fifteen hundred and forty-six hours, when you showed me an old portrait of yourself.”
Minhyuk was exact. It wasn’t his most human-like quality, but it was still part of Minhyuk. It was still a personality trait.
Dongmin loved all of Minhyuk, even his bland explanations of his past actions.
“It wasn’t even a funny picture,” Dongmin mumbled, defending himself.
Minhyuk puffed his cheeks out suddenly, then pointed to them. “This,” he said, voice muffled, “is how you looked.”
Dongmin raised his eyebrows. “I did not.”
Minhyuk nodded his head, cheeks still puffy and round. “Just like this.”
With a snort, Dongmin poked one of his cheeks and fussed, “I was younger. Younger humans still have baby fat they must grow out of.” As Minhyuk released the air from his cheeks, Dongmin asked, “Don’t I look far more handsome now?”
He had asked that question many times before. He had desired to know and understand how Minhyuk saw him.
Most of all, he wanted Minhyuk to examine him.
Minhyuk’s eyes were intrusive. His gaze was piercing, a design Dongmin had always been proud of. And now, as Minhyuk looked him over, Dongmin was the object of his gaze, of his stare, and he felt vulnerable. A jolt of excitement traveled up his spine, and goosebumps covered his arms.
“You’re adequate,” Minhyuk said, his observation finished.
“ Adequate? ” Dongmin released the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “Not even handsome? Just adequate? ”
“Adequate,” Minhyuk confirmed.
Dongmin huffed and sat back in his seat. As if sensing he had upset Dongmin, Minhyuk reached a hand out to pat Dongmin’s leg, and he said, “However, I do love you most of all the humans in the world.”
Love was something Dongmin had never figured out how to add to an android. Love was something that wasn’t easily described in coding. It relied far more on faith and trust and some sort of inward, bubbling emotion than it did on logic and reason.
Yet Minhyuk had figured out love all on his own. Minhyuk, not even knowing the word yet for love, had one day told Dongmin, “I feel more emotions in my system when I’m with you.”
“Bad emotions?” Dongmin had asked. “Or good?”
Minhyuk paused, deciding which of the two choices worked, then said, “Good.”
He added later, with his nose screwed up in concentration, “And I do not like it when you are not around. Bad emotions come when you part from me.”
The other scientists had been amazed with such a revelation. An android who could learn emotions. An android who discriminated against those he did not like. An android with real emotions, real feelings.
It was an invention never seen before. It was new and exciting.
And they had wanted to rid Minhyuk of those emotions in order to sell him off to the government.
Dongmin had often wondered if he was doing the right thing by cutting off all contact with friends and family, by enlisting help from inside the government to create fake identification cards, by stealing an android that no longer belonged to him.
But in moments like this, it was all worth it. When Minhyuk looked at him and declared his love, Dongmin knew he was doing the right thing.
He grinned and placed a hand over Minhyuk’s. His skin felt warm to the touch. They enveloped fingers together, digits intertwining as their fate already had.
“I love you,” he murmured. “Very much.”
“More than any other android in the world?”
Dongmin couldn’t help but chuckle. He brought Minhyuk’s hand up to his lips and placed a small kiss across the knuckles. “More than any other human ,” he declared.
Minhyuk raised his eyebrows. Shock, Dongmin recognized, though perhaps it needed a bit of an upgrade. Even shocked Minhyuk still seemed a little disinterested.
Then again, Minhyuk’s personality was sweet, yet serious and detached. He had his moments of love, of laughter, of unadulterated joy. It was rare, but he would sometimes giggle, sometimes grin, sometimes latch onto Dongmin like a child.
This disinterest was the norm.
“You love me more?” Minhyuk prodded.
“Of course.”
“There are many humans on the planet. How can you love an object more than a human?”
Minhyuk had been called an object within the lab. He had been treated as nothing more than a machine. Dongmin was the only one who recognized the human-like qualities Minhyuk had possessed. Dongmin was the only one who saw him as a person.
“Because,” Dongmin said, leaning into Minhyuk’s side, “you make me happier than anyone ever has.”
Minhyuk understood that such immense happiness was equal to love. So he nodded and gave a small, “Oh.”
Then he asked, “And when we leave, you will stay with me forever? As you have promised?”
“I never once broke my promise to you, have I?”
Minhyuk thought, digging into the recesses of his mind in order to make his assessment. Once completed, he shook his head. “No. I can find no instances of you breaking a promise.”
“So then I promise I will stay with you and love you forever.”
Minhyuk stared, once more examining, and then he smiled brightly. “I shall be happy then,” he said. “Ah. No. I shall love it then. I shall love you , then.”
Dongmin swallowed past the lump in his throat, past the swelling in his chest. “I’d like that very much,” he murmured.
They only had to cross over to China, and then they would live in happiness forevermore.