Archive of Our Own

The year 3030. His father called it “The year of change” and Yeosang believed it because, well, things were changing for real. After a decade trying it, robots are finally able to coexist with humans, having a human shape themselves. It’s really a change, because until now robots were nothing but metal and shiny blue eyes. They couldn’t speak more than a few pre recorded phrases, only moving according their basic chores—cleaning, cooking, protecting the house.

Yeosang’s family had a robot. Its name was 4567-T and for as long as Yeosang lived there, it never really seemed more than a machine. His brother always called it a big toaster, and it wasn't far from reality as it could toast bread for real.

After a long time trying, the new robots look totally like humans. Skin, hair, eyes, lips, everything. They can speak, smile, run and even feel —Yeosang had to bear his father talk about it for hours during dinner. Whatever you configure them to do, he said. Yet Yeosang doesn’t let the news and the words of his own dad fool him; robots are still robots. Nothing will change that. 

For that, when he moves into his own college residence at the start of September and his mother gives him the manual of his own Better life assistant , he can’t help but frown and bite the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t need a robot, much less an assistant. 

“My mom also bought me one,” Wooyoung says, filling his mouth with chips. “Well, more than buying it, I think the government is giving them for free to the college students. You know, to give them good feedback as the product is new. Or because they think we are not capable of taking care of ourselves, which is pretty shitty, you know."

Wooyoung shrugs a little, eyes not moving from the movie playing on the ceiling, not caring at all. Next to him, with both his hands tightly pressed to his chest, Yeosang only purses his lips in discomfort. If it was only his mother’s worry, he wouldn’t feel as annoyed. But knowing they are nothing more but guinea pigs for this new robot era, well, he wants to throw up everything he ate in the past twenty-four hours.

“When are you meeting them?” Wooyoung munches loudly.

Yeosang shrugs. “Tomorrow, I guess. This is my last night here.”

“Will you miss it? Living here," Wooyoung  rolls a little, cheek pressed into his shoulder, sparkly eyes meeting him. 

Yeosang’s eyes move along with the characters of the movie, trying to get distracted from everything that’s coming down. College, living alone, having to deal with a totally non-asked machine that will controlate him every day of every week, sleeping on a mattress that's not his. He closes his eyes, fingers pinching his nose bridge.

“Maybe,” he whispers. “What about you?”

Wooyoung laughs a little, head resting over Yeosang’s shoulder as he stares into the screen again. “I wanted to start college to get away from my mom but I guess she already configured my robot to remind me to eat veggies," he jokes, body shaking next to him.

Yeosang is free to configure his robot they way he prefers—apparently, there’s more than ten hundred added functions, all on the manual he hadn’t touched yet—, but even when he hasn’t met them yet, he is sure he won’t be doing a lot. He doesn’t want a robot at all.

∘ ༉ ‧

His name is 252214815-J and his gender, male. He is there when Yeosang arrives to his apartment early in the morning after a very heated goodbye where his mother kissed him a dozen times, power off and eyes closed. There’s a platinum box embedded on the wall, green light shining on top of the robot’s head. Yeosang reads it on the manual: Thanks for purchasing a Better life assistant! This is your assistant, 252214816-J, a twenty years old college boy perfectly adapted to cover all your needs. Your assistant includes the power box (already installed on your apartment), where you should recharge him every night, one hundred features, ten different languages and more than fifty personalities where you can choose the more fitting for your commodity. You can access to everything pressing on your assistant’s hand. Thanks for trusting Better Life Corporation.

Yeosang looks up from his position on the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of the robot. He is tall, bright blue hair framing his face in a dainty way, dressed in all white. There’s a total of ten boxes he hasn’t opened yet: clothes and extra parts, like hands or feet and that makes Yeosang shiver a little because the boy standing in front of him looks more human than himself. It’s impressive, he has to admit that. They did a really good job creating these new robots, skin so soft sinking under his finger when he gets curious and starts pressing one of his cheeks. Arms moving smoothly, hair smelling slightly to raspberries.

If someone hadn't said him robots are a thing, Yeosang wouldn't have believed the boy standing in front of him wasn't any other college boy coming to welcome him. 

It’s almost incredible the boy is a machine.  Without a heart, or lungs or even the need of eating because, internally, he is just metal and wires and a big set of complicated mechanisms. Not alive. Not able to think by his own. Yeosang is not even sure if once he turns him on, he would be able to recognize him as a human being or just the master he needs to serve.

Yeosang stands up in front of the robot for one hour before finally walking up and turning it on with a loud sigh. His eyes light up in a beautiful shade of cyan before going brown, human, immediately searching for him. Yeosang gets a little startled at the way he doesn't even blink at first, taking a small footstep back.

“Good morning, Master,” the robot puts a feet outside the box, soft voice floating around him. Yeosang feels goosebumps biting his skin. “My name is 252214815-J but you can change my name on the configuration section. My functions are basic. I will wake you up, prepare your meals, clean the house, remember your schedule and more. You have the full list on the configuration section. If you want to change anything, please go to configuration. How do you want me to refer to you?”

The voice is not as monotone as he expected, but it’s a little plain, speech pre-recorded on his memory. When he finishes talking, a little blue screen pops from his right hand. “Insert name” Yeosang reads there, observing the flickering movement on the screen, waiting for him. He bites his lower lip, shaky fingers pressing the enter key without changing the default name. 

“Name registered. Nice to meet you, Master, ” the robot says, eyes shining for a brief second. “Do you want to change my name?”

Yeosang presses ‘No’.

“Is there anything I can help you with, Master ?”

Their gazes meet briefly, Yeosang being the first one looking down—he is sure the robot can't feel embarrassed, neither uncomfortable of the awkward silence that floats around them. 

This is way different from the robot they had back them, this is like sharing a room with a weird individual, and he doesn’t like the way he feels so observed right now.

He shakes his head, slowly moving. “You can rest. I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Okay, Master . You can share your music playlist with me and I’ll choose the best songs for showering time.”

Yeosang blinks, air getting stuck on his lungs.

“It’s okay. Please, rest.”

∘ ༉ ‧

First night out of home is weird. 

Not only because of the hard mattress and weird heavy blankets that sank his chest down, the smell of new kissing every single wall, filling up his nostrils in a very annoying way or how the bed is placed behind the window and not next to it like he is used to. The fact that a stranger tucked him to bed is also a big reason for his insomnia. 

He rolls on bed until four in the morning, chest feeling heavy and itchy, pressing him down, immobilizing him against his will. Air being unable to fill his lungs, burning.

This is like being on another reality, far from home.

When he finally falls asleep, he feels peace hugging his limbs for only one second, a pair of eyes piercing him from above the next one. The robot is there when he wakes up, feeling like he never went to sleep at all. A bad dream still sticking to his skin.

“Good morning, Master. It’s six in the morning. You  forgot to introduce your schedule and put your alarms yesterday, so I did a research and found out that college students wake up from six in the morning to one in the afternoon. I don’t know if you like to go running, but to avoid getting late I woke you up the earliest. What would you want for breakfast? I found three hundred different menus that could please you."

Yeosang blinks repeatedly, body still pressed to one of the pillows. His chest screams once again, telling him to run away from this weird and dangerous place. At the other side of the big window, the sun is slowly rising up.

“Hmmm,” he lets out a groan, gulping. “My classes start at ten in the morning. Waking up at nine will be fine. And I don't need breakfast, I'll take something on the campus."

The robot nods.

“Understood. Alarm set up for nine in the morning,” he then moves, feet not making any sound at all. 

Yeosang sighs, air burning his larynx in the way. He falls down on the mattress again, bedroom getting darker in just a second. As he spies through his lashes, he sees how the blinds cover the windows, blocking the sunlight. He for sure didn’t touch anything.

∘ ༉ ‧

“Mine is blonde, with a mullet,” Wooyoung rolls his eyes, feet swinging under their shared table on the cafeteria. “My mom asked for a modern boy with a bubbly personality to help me get more friends. But like, I don’t need that.”

The smaller boy sighs, shaking his head, fork fighting with a piece of tomato that doesn’t seem to want to be eaten. Yeosang always thought the world evolved incredibly fast around them but forgot about food. Everything is synthetic, but oily tomatoes are a pain on the ass.

“Tell me about yours,” Wooyoung points at him with the fork. 

Yeosang looks down at his milkshake, teeth playing with the straw. “He is tall, with blue hair. And weird, he woke me up at six in the morning.”

“Have you configured him?”

“Not yet. It’s a pain in the ass,” he raises a brow, a little curiosity biting down his skin. It's not a lie though, Yeosang always thought configuring things were a huge bother. “Did you?”

“Spent the whole night changing things," Wooyoung winks at him. "You know, I don’t want a butler, if we have to live together I prefer him to be my friend or roommate,” he says, dimple kissing his cheek every time he munches. “I named him San, and asked him to call me Woo. That way we can be woosan. Isn’t it cute? Feels more closer, less robotic.”

Yeosang nods and finishes his milkshake in silence, saving for himself the fact he decided to keep the default name for both the robot and himself. He won’t judge Wooyoung, because his friend was always a social butterfly. Yeosang doesn’t need another friend—he doesn’t need an assistant at all.

They say their goodbyes when lunch is over, Yeosang taking the fast line to his apartment, music at full volume numbing his brain through his airpods. First day of college went well, just presentations, both from the teachers and his new classmates, and getting to know everyone—and the course. There was this boy with soft black hair and an even softer smile that asked him for his contact information and Yeosang gave it to him without doubting, name revolving around his agenda when he arrives home. 

And with agenda, he refers to the robot.

“Welcome home, Master,” Yeosang cringes a little, smirk taking over his face. He walks in tiny steps, feeling smaller than ever standing next to the ridiculously tall robot. “I saw you added Park Seonghwa to your agenda. Do you want me to learn more about them?"

Yeosang's left eyebrow twitches a little, little hands moving to make a home on his chest. He holds his fingers tight, eyes glued to the robot's face. Human, but eyes dead.

"Are you part of the mafia?" Yeosang half jokes, sighing when he doesn't receive a great response. He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, no reaction. I'm gonna nap."

"Do you want me to set an alarm, Master?"

"Hmm," Yeosang stops, twirling around his own heels. "At five, please?"

"Alarm set for five in the morning."

"No!" Yeosang comes back over his steps, eyes wide open. "Five in the afternoon."

The robot blinks, then nods. Yeosang nods back, sheepishly turning around a few times to confirm the boy is still there. Standing, both hands at his back. And then, he smiles at him.

Is fleeting, almost like he is trying to make Yeosang feel more comfortable. It only makes Yeosang's heart swell. 

The robot is actually pretty cute. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Days start passing by smoothly. Yeosang gets too busy with college and the multiple projects he has to get done by the end of the semester to even care about configuring the robot, so he just lets him be without adding new features (Wooyoung told him one day when they were eating together that there’s a feature where they can teach the robots any movement they want, obviously for protection purposes, but Wooyoung uses it to teach his San how to dance. “Now I don’t have to dance alone, and it’s giving me the motivation I need because he is so damn good and I feel this urge of being better,” he says, stealing one of Yeosang’s french fries. He doesn’t have time for that).

The robot remains quiet, waking him up every morning with breakfast ready (first day, he prepared a whole banquet because Yeosang didn’t introduced his likes on his memory, second day only a bowl of cereal awaited for him after a five minute talk about how normal people doesn’t eat chicken for breakfast, even though chicken is delicious), bath ready for him everyday at the same time, just when he arrives from class, and that, that’s something Yeosang can’t fight against because, god, he loves how the water is the perfect heat and the slightly lavender smell that fills the room. 

When Wooyoung asks for details, Yeosang just tells him it’s not important. When his mother calls him to see how things are going, Yeosang lies to her and with a fake smile tells her how happy he is to have the robot with him. And when she asks what name did he give him, Yeosang excuses himself saying he has to study because, well, he doesn’t have one like San or Jongho (Seonghwa’s robot, the kid he met on his class and that became one of his only friends among the whole class).

It doesn’t really bugs Yeosang at all.

He grew up with a robot that only knew one hundred sentences, all of them related to the care of the house. The voice was robotic and it didn’t had any eyes that could spark in his direction. Living with this robot is not like that, is more like he got a very nosy (and kind) roommate he didn’t ask for. It has nothing to do with him and his everyday life, so he just shrugs and keeps on writing his paper about medical genetic until four in the morning hits the clock and his head, falling asleep over the desk. When he wakes up, he is wrapped around a blanket, in bed. 

The robot doesn’t sleep at all, aside from the charging routine he needs to follow every night, always finding him on the living room. Standing. Their morning greets are always awkward because Yeosang is not a morning person and hates being awaken—even if it’s with a soft touch on his shoulder and a sweet voice caressing his ear—, but their afternoon greets are even more awkward as the robot stands like he doesn’t belong here. And it makes Yeosang feel bad at himself for not wanting a machine around.

On the other hand, everyone around him feels comfortable with their robots. Accepting them like nothing. Making Yeosang wonder if he is the only one not making any sense.

Wooyoung shares pictures of San with him everyday. San dancing, San cooking, San smiling brightly to the camera, dimples digging on his cheeks. It doesn’t seem like a robot at all, face being able of show more emotions that Yeosang himself shows. Wooyoung says it’s because they are friends , Yeosang rolls his eyes and thinks it’s because he configured him to be like that, just as bubbly and bright as him. Or that’s until Wooyoung introduces Mingi to him two months after school started; dude as tall as his robot, red hair faded into a beautiful terracotta color, eyes so small it makes him kind of cute. Contrary to Wooyoung, Mingi takes his robot with him everywhere (“This is all because my mom doesn’t think I’m capable of living on my own,” he explains right after introducing his very tiny, very bossy robot. “She configured Hongjoong with her own personality so now I have him following me around all day reminding me I’m a failure”). Mingi’s robot has strong features and takes care of him, Yeosang can even say the robot has more personality that himself. And that not ends there, meeting Seonghwa’s robot by the start of December. He also looks like any other person, taking a sit next to Seonghwa everytime they are together to show him some videos he found on the net and acting like a friend would. Seonghwa's face lights up while talking about how much Jongho loves wrestling. 

All of them call their masters by their names (San calls Wooyoung “Woo” in such a sweet tone not only Wooyoung melts, Yeosang does it too; Hongjoong follows Mingi around calling him “Sweetheart” because that’s how his mother refers to him, kicking him right after because he is spending too many time playing games instead of studying—and Mingi says his mother never kicked him, that Hongjoong himself developed that personality by his own on their first month together —; Jongho calls Seonghwa “Hyung” and for the way his friend smiles, he seems to adore the robot).

It makes Yeosang think. Suddenly, he feels the only one with a robot while his friends walk hand by hand with humans.

Not a friend, just a 6 feet tall walking alarm clock.

After a very sweet hang out with Seonghwa and Jongho, Yeosang starts to finally care about the other individual he is sharing his apartment with.

There’s only three weeks until Christmas break and Yeosang is taking another bath. He has a lot of work to do but he doesn’t feel like doing it. The past two months have been awkward, like living with a stranger, but he thought he could ignore it. He can’t anymore.

He sinks in the water, letting it cover half his face. It annoys him how much he likes to take baths since he started living with the robot. And it also annoys him thinking of him as the robot when his friends talk about theirs by names. Seonghwa even calls Jongho his Apple pie. It annoys him that everyone accepted the robots with such open arms. Do they really need them? Or they’re just happy to have someone that would do anything for them? Someone they can hold during the night?

As he groans, bubbles pop on the surface of the water.

After one hour, he decides it’s time to get out and start with the pile of papers he has on his desk, standing up to face the robot. Right in front of him, handing him his towel. The thing is, Yeosang is naked. Very naked.

First thing he does is scream, tiny hands flying to cover his chest, feeling hot everywhere as he wasn't expecting him to be right there, observing him.

Second thing, is fall.

His right foot moves wrongly, slipping and landing over his right hand and nose. He loses consciousness way before feeling the pain biting his skin. He does hear the robot express something for the first time, but his words die with the light of the bathroom. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Wooyoung’s laugh is irritating.

Not because it’s high pitched and ear hurting loud but because Yeosang broke both his nose and right arm and now he has a headache. Also, because he has been crying since the robot took him to the hospital, where they put everything back in place and gave him some regenerating medicine. He called Wooyoung because he needed a hug, but he’s not being a good friend rightnow.

They’re back at his apartment, two in the morning and two robots calmly chatting on his living room as Wooyoung goes for his third glass of water to cure the hippus the laugh brought. Yeosang observes how San moves vividly, gesturing while he talks, smiling from time to time. His one is just sitting with both hands placed on his thighs, gaze lost on San’s face, not saying much. Yet, they seem to like each others company. Must be a robot thing.

“I can’t believe he broke both my nose and my arm,” Yeosang whines, fingers brushing the skin of his arm, still feeling the medicine reconstructing his bone underneath his skin. It’s painless but weird. It makes him sick on the stomach.

Wooyoung chuckles, drinking the water in one go. “I can’t believe you fell because he saw you naked.”

“He saw me naked!” Yeosang retorts, blush painting his cheeks again, matching the fevershly red of his nose. “Like very naked! Totally naked.”

“He lives with you, Sang,” Wooyoung rolls his eyes, one hand on his shoulder. Yeosang frowns, shrinking under his touch. “I was walking naked around the apartment like one day after San arrived, and now even he does it.”

“That’s weird.”

“No, it’s not. You know what’s weird?” Yeosang widens his eyes, firmly believing there’s nothing weirder than walking around naked with your robot, that’s also naked. “You’ve been living with him for almost three months and he doesn’t even have a name yet. Look at him!” Wooyoung points at the two robots, still on the couch, where San now had jumped in to explain something about superheros Wooyoung taught him last week. “He is totally like a default machine.”

Yeosang bites his lip. “That’s because he is one.”

“No. These robots are totally different to the others, they are much more complex, they can do more than you can imagine,” with that, Wooyoung pats his shoulder and then his cheek. “I was like you at first, but think of this: you can configure him to please whatever you want. Make him call you hyung or tell him to do your homework but please, don’t make him live like this. Give a little emotion to his life,” Wooyoung wiggles his body before kissing his forehead and holding San’s hand, exiting the apartment.

The robot moves enough to glance at him. “Do you need something, Master ? Are you hurting?”

Yeosang stands up and shakes his head. He has a lot to think about now.

“I’m going to sleep,” he mumbles, one hand already on the wall that takes to his room. “Please, put the alarm for eight in the morning, and make lots of coffee. I’m drowning in assignments.”

“Of course.”

How soft.

The robot opens a green screen in front of him where Yeosang can read in big white letters ‘Master’s schedule: wake up at 8:00 A.M, drink lots of coffee, drown in assignments (be around in case you need to save him)’. For some reason, his heart screams inside his chest, warm hands touching his skin.

“One more thing,” he says in a whisper, attracting his attention. The robot has big sparkly eyes, round cheeks, heart shaped lips. Looking like any other classmate (unless for the electric blue hair, but that’s secondary). “Do you have any name you’d want me to call you?”

The robot thinks for a second. “I’m okay with whatever you want to call me, Master .”

Yeosang presses his lips together in a thin, pale line.

“I’m bad with names,” he confesses. “So, if you have something, I’d appreciate it. I don’t know how to call you.” 

He observes the boy, how he is still sitting in the couch, a weird expression crossing his face now. Eyebrows moving down, pouting his lips a little. Yeosang closes his hand in a fist at his back.

“Yunho,” he ends up saying, tilting his head, smile making a way through his lips.

“Yunho?” Yeosang furrows his brows. “Why Yunho?”

“I’m not good with names because I don’t have a database with names yet, so I just searched for an abecedary and put my number name into letters. Yunho.”

Yeosang forms a perfect ‘o’ with his lips. His name is 252214816-J, Yunho. 

“Okay,” he nods, biting down his lower lip. “Cool. Goodnight, Yunho.”

Maybe he is just tired from today’s events but he swears the robot— that Yunho smiles brighter at his name being called. 

“Goodnight, Master. ”

Yeosang turns on his heels again, pointing a finger at him. “Also, hmm, call me Yeosang. Not Master.”

“You want me to call you Yeosang from now on?”

Yeosang sighs, pinching his nose bridge. It burns a little, medicine bubbling right under his fingers and skin, weird again. “Yes.”

“Goodnight, Yeosang.”

For some reason, it makes him feel different.

∘ ༉ ‧

Yeosang decides to stay on the apartment during Christmas break. His family is going on a trip and he is totally drained after all the assignments to even move from bed for the first three days, making Yunho bring him food to the bed and put his favorite show on replay on the TV. He always was an independant kid so his mother doesn’t question him, saying that he is already a grown up man after all, adding a soft “and you have company, so you won’t be alone”, glancing at Yunho at the other side of the phone screen. Yeosang clicks his tongue at how nicely he smiles back.

Things are going smoothly. Yunho seems to like his new name—or just, like, his name—and Yeosang can’t help but melt every time his own name drips from Yunho’s honey coated lips. Too sweet for a robot. Too soon for his heart to be jumping inside his chest like that.

“Let’s have dinner together,” Wooyoung calls him on Friday morning. Yeosang is still wrapped around his white sheets, bed hair on display and a full plate of fresh fruit Yunho left for him early in the morning decorating his nightstand. Wooyoung’s face is all over the big screen, San’s voice sounding somewhere in the apartment. “The four of us. To celebrate Christmas.”

Yeosang frowns. “Is San signing?”

His friend looks over his shoulder, smile already blooming on his lips. When he turns back to Yeosang, his cheeks are painted in a soft shade of pink, eyes totally black. Yeosang grimaces, chewing on apple.

“I’ve been obsessed with this song, and as he has access to my music library, he decided to download the full album and recite it for me all day long,” he explains, but he doesn’t sound tired of hearing the boy singing at all. It’s most like the other way around, like he is enjoying it way too much. “He told me that music made me happy, so he is trying to make me happy. Isn’t he the cutest?”

Yeosang grunts. Is, without a doubt, cute.

“So, the dinner?” Wooyoung insists.

“I don’t know, I think I’m busy tomorrow,” he lies. The truth is he doesn’t want to leave bed yet, he is so cozy and warm there, with no worries neither homework. Just Yeosang and the pillows.

“Yeosang, you seem to be free tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that,” Yunho says from the bathroom, where he have been organizing things because Yeosang told him (just so he was busy enough to not remember it was lunch time and force him to eat on the table).

Wooyoung smirks on the screen, putting both hands on the corners of his mouth. “Thank you, Yunho!”

Yeosang clicks his tongue, sinking deeper on the blankets. Soon, only his hair is visible, which makes Wooyoung giggle. “Then, tomorrow night. Your apartment. I’ll bring a snack, and also something to eat.”

“Why here?” Yeosang wines.

“Because you just lied to me. I’ll see you tomorrow, dress nicely!” He waves at the screen, moving back to call San. “Can you turn this off?”

His voice is so soft even Yeosang gets surprised, just to be attacked by San’s smiley face one second after. “Hi, Yeosang,” he says, giggles, and then waves. “Bye, Yeosang.”

The screen is already fading when Yeosang manages to get a hand out of the blankets to wave him goodbye, eyes quickly flying to where Yunho is standing, two identical bottles of shampoo on each hand. Yeosang frowns.

“That wasn’t nice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to have dinner with them, I want to stay in bed all day,” he says, grumpty, covering his face with the blankets. Inside them, it’s warm. “You need to learn how to lie, Yunho.”

“Teach me to lie,” Yunho says in a plain tone, making Yeosang forget why he is mad in just a second, hand covering his eyes. He doesn’t replies back, feeling how a hand pulls the blanket back to reveal his face. Yunho is looking at him from above, blue hair shining like the bright blue sky. “I observe you, and you’ve been in bed for a quite long lately. I searched on the net, and you might be developing a depression. Hanging out with friends might help you.”

Yeosang frowns again, gathering all the energy he has left reminded in his body to sit down and pout at him, hands frantically falling on his lap. “I’m not depressed. I just want to be lazy after three months of working non-stop. Why can’t you see it? You’re supposed to be smarter than me.”

Yunho blinks.

“Are you mad at me?” 

Yunho’s expression doesn’t change at all, yet Yeosang can’t help but feel a little guilty, glancing down and gulping, even when he is looking as clueless as when Yeosang told him he was allergic to peanuts. 

“Hmm, no. No, Yunho, I’m not mad,” he rolls in bed, face buried on the mattress for a second before he is reaching his arm out, waiting for the robot to pick him up. And he does, placing him on his feet with delicacy, fixing his hair in the way. “Can you prepare the bath for me?”

“Yes, Yeosang.”

∘ ༉ ‧

Contrary to what Wooyoung asked, Yeosang dress comfortably instead of nicely—even when he is still rocking it. Pink hoodie and black tracksuit pants, no shoes and pink eyeshadow because he is cool enough to wear bunny socks and rock a sparkly makeup. He also does his hair—wavy, parted on the middle—just because Yunho wouldn’t stop trying to fix his bed hair every time he walked past him. 

When Yunho opens the door, Wooyoung and San appear fully dressed in suits. Hair pulled back, makeup on point and a bottle of champagne in hand. Oh, and also, hand in hand. Wooyoung’s thumb slowly circling over San’s hand. Yeosang straightens on the couch, gaze falling hard on that gesture. At first, not quite understanding it.

“Kang Yeosang!” Wooyoung screams, pointing their hands at him, not even letting go. “I told you to dress nicely!”

But Yeosang doesn’t answer, eyes still going from their hands to San’s face, then to Wooyoung’s. How they have matching eye makeup, a mark the same color of their lipstick hiding under San’s ear. His entire body shakes.

“Yeosang?” Yunho turns to face him, stepping towards him. “Your heart rate and adrenaline levels are increasing. Do you feel in danger?”

Yeosang moves then, squinting at him, lips pursed in discomfort. “Don’t scan me!” He grunts, jumping out of the couch—tripping with his own feet, bunny jumping with one foot until he is crashing into Yunho’s chest. As Yunho holds him by the shoulders, Yeosang doesn’t have time to notice the soft grip of his hands over his body neither to realize how humanly his fingers feel against his skin, pushing him away to face Wooyoung. “Can you come with me to the kitchen, Wooyoung, love ?”

Wooyoung sucks a breath, chuckling right after. He gives San a peck on the cheek like they are already used to it—which makes Yeosang scream internally—before throwing an arm over Yeosang’s shoulder, walking them to the kitchen. Yeosang looks back to see how San and Yunho bow at each other.

He closes the door behind his back.

“Yunho, we are having a private conversation here!” He calls, voice hoarse. “Don’t listen!” Yunho’s response comes back one second later. Yeosang then points at Wooyoung with his chin, who’s already serving himself a glass of the wine Yeosang had bought, leaving the champagne forgotten on the counter. “Tell him to turn off his hearing.”

First, Wooyoung look at him with wide eyes, rolling them then, wine soaking his tongue. “Sani, don’t listen, please.”

“Why?” The way San replies back makes Yeosang’s entire being uncomfortable. “I don’t wanna.”

Wooyoung laughs. “He’s a rebel.”

“Please,” Yeosang begs, jaw tightened.

“Sani,” Wooyoung sighs, “you listened. Yeosang is asking it nicely.”

There’s a second of silence, followed by a loud sigh and a final “okay” coming from the boy. The robot. Or maybe not so after three months. Yeosang shakes his head, finally staring at Wooyoung. The boy gets rid of his jacket, rolling up the sleeves of his vest shirt. “I can’t believe you are wearing tracksuit pants,” he slowly shakes his head, disappointed. “You called me love, that means you are mad at me. So, I’m all ears.”

How to start it.

Yeosang ponders the idea for a couple seconds, lasting at least eight years inside his brain. He saw it, a part of his brain saw it coming from miles away, but Yeosang just doesn’t want to believe it’s actually true. It can’t be true. San might look like any other passerby but he’s still a robot. No heart, no brain, no feelings. Just a machine.

“What’s with you and San?” He blurts, making Wooyoung choke on wine, a few droplets falling into his shirt and making him purse his lips in discomfort as the pink puddles appear there.

“Excuse me?”

Yeosang bites the inside of his cheek. “You know… The hand, and the kiss. Are you…?”

He remembers all the pics Wooyoung has been sending him for the past three months, how his voice fills with sugar and honey everytime he talks about San, how he show him how to dance and allowed him to share the bed—and reschedule the whole recharging time just to sleep together. How he looks at him like San is the sun, how they don't share a owner-robot relationship at all.

Wooyoung waits for him to speak, despite totally knowing what has Yeosang all uneasy in front of him. 

“Are you dating your robot?” The words sound unsure on his tongue, almost burning, throat closing. 

“Okay,” Wooyoung puts the glass of wine down, crossing his arms. “First of all, don’t call him a robot. He is San . And second, we’re not dating, we’re just sharing our life together.”

“But he is,” Yeosang speaks between his pressed lips, heart beating so fast it’s starting to hurt him. His fingers move to his chest, nails scratching over the fabric of the hoodie. “He is a robot, Wooyoung! He’s not human he—"

“He is San,” Wooyoung repeats. “And I think I told you already, they are more than robots. They can learn, San is literally developing his own personality with every passing day, and you saw Hongjoong! At first he was just like me, because I configured him to be like that. But then, when I stopped treating him like a machine and opened my heart, he changed. He became him. What if I like him? He makes me happy.”

Yeosang takes a deep breath, starting to feel a sticky feeling on his throat. 

“But he won’t age, he can’t go against you, everything he does it's because he doesn't know more than you. It’s all fake.”

“Yeosang,” Wooyoung doesn’t look mad, he looks quite sad. No. That’s not it. He's looking at Yeosang with pity. “The world is changing, and maybe in twenty years the government goes crazy and creates even more intelligent robots that kill us all. I don’t care if my partner is a robot, and you shouldn’t care either. You should care whether he makes me happy, and he does. I didn’t ask him to love me, he did it because he wanted,” Wooyoung makes a pause to hold his face, pinching him like he used to do when they were kids. “They are designed to make our life better, they can learn. Moreover, they need us to tell them what would make us happy. They’re like kids, if you teach them, they will learn. They will develop feelings.”

Feelings.

"Life is shorter than you think, Sangie. We don't have forever, and I don't want to regret it," Wooyoung sighs, showing him a smile that doesn't feel happy at all. But it's not Wooyoung, is almost le he pulled out a mirror for Yeosang to look at himself. "If I'm able to choose happiness, I will. It's not fake at all." Wooyoung caresses his cheek before patting his shoulder. “Let’s have dinner, okay? And don’t worry too much. They're gonna live much longer than us anyway." 

Yeosang can hear how Wooyoung tells San he can listen now—and how San complains about him taking so long. Yeosang remains alone in the kitchen for a few seconds. He is mad, but the reason is so stupid he doesn’t have the guts to speak it out: he is mad that Wooyoung bonded with his robot like that, that he accepted it to the point of falling for him meanwhile he is still awkwardly walking around Yunho. Like they're just strangers living in the same house.

Once again, he feels alone in a world where everyone knows how to make machines develop feelings. And he doesn’t. He really never learn how to show others his feelings, he was better off alone.

∘ ༉ ‧

Yunho and San are different. 

Even when Yunho is slowly opening up to the rest of the world, talking more, looking a little bit more alive on his eyes, he still looks like a machine next to San, and that’s totally Yeosang’s fault.

Dinner goes by without incidents, but Yeosang isn’t able of taking a bite, stomach sinking on his own body, ripping a hole from the inside that has him biting his tongue to silence the screams. He doesn’t feel disgusted, he isn’t mad at Wooyoung. He is just having a conflict within himself, because three months ago both of them were lying on his bedroom floor and talking about how a pain in the ass having a robot living with them would be, and now the four of them are having dinner together like a group of friends would. And Wooyoung is lying his head on San’s shoulder from time to time while the only time Yeosang let Yunho touch him was when he broke his arm and he had to take him to the hospital, which he doesn’t remember at all. 

It’s like their paths diverged, Yeosang stood in front of his statement that he didn’t need a robot at all, that he was cool by his own, and Wooyoung decided to hold the robot’s hand and cuddle him to sleep. And maybe he is mad Wooyoung is happy and he isn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles when they say depart, cheek pressed against Wooyoung’s shoulder as they hug. His friend hugs him tightly.

“You are a big idiot, but I love you,” Wooyoung rubs his back. “Try to be nice to Yunho, I’m sure he is a good kid.”

Yeosang nods, being pulled into another hug, falling into San’s arms this time. Yeosang freezes, but at the same time, he feels how the goosebumps crawl all over his skin. He feels exactly the same as Wooyoung: soft, warm, human. A bit of strawberries finding his nostrils. Yeosang breaks the hug with a weird smile crossing his face, unable to hide the surprise on his eyes. San just smiles, showing his dimples. “Merry Christmas!”

They wave goodbye and soon, Yeosang is left alone with Yunho again. He looks at him over his shoulder, gulping. “He was soft at the touch,” he whispers astonished, making Yunho blink twice, no words escaping his heart shaped lips. “Like, he didn’t feel hard. It was like hugging another human. Let me touch.”

Yeosang moves fast, hands holding one of Yunho’s hands without even thinking first. Despite having touched him that first time they meet, Yeosang still feels the desire of feeling it again. And he does it, under his fingertips. Soft skin, warm, hard knuckles moving under it. There’s no difference at all with his own hands. “Do you have bones?” He asks, lips pouting.

“My skeleton is made of carbon fiber,” Yeosang hums, lighter than the other robots. 

“Do you have muscles? Your skin is, like, real skin?”

“It’s synthetic," Yunho replies without problems. 

Yeosang finds himself caressing the skin of his arm, fingertips crawling from his wrist to the joint of his elbow. Fair skin, a little sparkling, with no veins on sight. But still warm. Yunho is staring at him when he looks up, jumping backwards as he realizes he’s been touching him for way too long. His cheeks dust in red, hand covering half his face.

“I’m going to sleep,” he mumbles, fast walking to his room.

“Yeosang,” Yunho still calls for him, making him pop his head again, brows down. The tip of his ears are red now due the embarrassment. “I have a Christmas gift for you.”

These words make Yeosang’s heart stop for a second, sending painful signals all over his body. He looks as Yunho moves to the room, entering the bathroom and coming back with a big package. The envelope is red, filled with white hearts, a cute ribbon on top. Yeosang wonders how it went unnoticed inside his small bathroom. 

“What?” Yeosang open his lips to stutter, hands shaking as he takes it from Yunho's hands. It’s lighter than he thought. “What’s this? You didn’t have to buy me a thing. Wait. Did you use my money?”

Yunho shakes his head. “I contacted your mother and asked for money. Because it’s a gift, I couldn’t use your money. I was happy you gave me a name, and I looked through your internet historial to see what you’re up these days.”

Yeosang hands take a grip of the package. He felt happy?

“Don’t look through my historial,” he says instead, a little nervous. Then, he proceeds to rip the paper, finding a white air skateboard lying there. The same one he has been thirsting over for two months since Seonghwa appeared driving one. His eyes widen, jaw dropping. He really wanted to buy one, but didn’t have the money to do it. “I can’t believe you!” He screams, jumping around like a little kid, easily forgetting everything taking his heart hostage. “How did you convince my mom to buy this? I’ve been asking her for this for months.”

Yunho shoots him a soft smile.

“I told her I wanted to make you happy.”

Yeosang’s heart swells at the same time the air bubbles in his lungs, feeling like crying out of innocent bliss.

“I’m happy,” he admits, hugging the box close to his chest. “Thank you so much, Yunho. For real.”

Yunho doesn’t say a thing, he nods and walks out of the room. Yeosang stands there for a couple minutes, unable to hold his smile for any longer, face planting the mattress right after. His heart won’t stop screaming, blood dancing on his veins.

He decides to try the skateboard then, crashing into the ceiling within seconds. Yunho has to take it away from him and put a bandaid on his forehead.

∘ ༉ ‧

The new year brings new assignments and soon Yeosang is drowning on them again because he spent half break on bed and the other half skating everywhere. As he sits in front of his desk, he also feels how his body gets weak, arms falling like dead limbs, head hurting just as the thought of having to focus for more than two seconds. Outside the window it’s snowing, but it’s not like he wants to go outside, he just wants to get in bed and wrap himself in a blanket. Do nothing. Hibernate, maybe.

“I made you coffee,” Yunho speaks softly, putting his favorite cup on the desk. Smelling nice.

Yeosang still gets startled, not getting used to the silent steps of the robot, jumping a little every time he speaks as he tends to forget he is actually moving around the flat. Yunho is still calm, not like San. “Thanks,” he says back, one hand against his chest.

He takes a sip, ready to start his first essay. Yet, he only lasts ten minutes and just two paragraphs, sighing loudly and pressing his cheek against the cold surface of the table. Why are assignments still a thing? Why can’t he just ask his computer to write it instead?

Wait. Or can he?

“I heard you sighing,” Yunho appears again, squatting next to him so their eyes are at the same level. “Is something bothering you?”

Yeosang bites his lips, thinking it before dropping it. It wouldn't hurt anyone, right? Yunho is made to help him after all, right? He even remembers Wooyoung saying him he could ask him anything.

“Yunho, can you do this assignment for me?” He whispers, shy.

Yet, it takes two second for Yunho to pick him up from the chair and carefully place him on the bed, taking his spot on the chair. “No problem, Yeosang.”

That was easy.

“Wait, no, no, no,” Yeosang changes his mind in a second, shaking his head. “I can’t do this, I’ll feel guilty and when I’m guilty I can’t sleep,” jumping out of bed, he presses both his hands on Yunho’s shoulder, trying to move him with no success. He doesn’t move not even a centimeter. “C’mon, move!”

It’s not use, Yeosang ending up slipping and face planting the floor instead. He lets a loud groan escape his throat, not having the enough strength to get up. So he just stays there, closing his eyes, a little bit defeated.

“Are you okay?” Yunho kneels next to him, one hand on the small of his back.

“Now you move,” he cries out, rolling on the floor so he is facing the ceiling now. “I want to die, I hate college. Can I drop? Why do I have to study? My dream is being a full time chicken taster, anyway.”

“I’ll ask your mother if she agrees with that. Calling Mss. Kang—"

“NO!” Yeosang jumps over him, both hands on his cheeks in a way of stopping the call. Yunho glances at him, big eyes going from blue to brown again. “I was just ranting, don’t need to call my mom, okay?”

Yunho nods.

“What’s ranting?”

Yeosang can’t help the whine that leaves his throat. “I… I don’t have an answer for that, honestly. It’s just me talking about my shitty college life, but like I don’t want to drop for real. It’s just a way of… Letting my stress out?” Yunho blinks, and Yeosang knows he is just making things more complicated for him, even he is confused by his own words. “Just don’t call my mom. I’m only telling you to feel better with myself."

“Oh,” Yunho finally nods. “I understand,” Yeosang gives him a thumbs up, ready to leave his lap, when the boy pulls him into a hug. Big and warm arms wrapping him, pulling him close. Yeosang wants to scream.

“What are you doing?” His voices cracks, useless arms wiggling in the air at Yunho's back, not knowing if hugging him is a good idea or not. 

“While you talked, I did some research on the net. It says here that college students hold so much stress, and that hugs are a good way of releasing it,” Yunho says in a plain voice, one hand softly rubbing his back. “It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay," then he is saying in a sweet voice, almost like he wants to comfort him. 

Yeosang doesn’t want to admit it, but this is actually nice. He feels his eyes a little teary, forehead falling onto Yunho’s shoulder. He doesn’t have an smell, which bothers him, but he feels nice. Warm, soft at the touch. He lets the robot hug him, and he hugs back, staying like this until Yeosang is able to sit on his desk and actually work through his assignments.

Later that same night, he surprises himself opening his arms for the robot asking for another hug that sends him into one of the best sleeps he had ever had. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Ironically, Yeosang is the one learning the most between the two of them.

Six months after Yunho arrived into his life, he finally fully opens himself to him. Taking baby steps, of course, but it’s a progress. 

First thing he does, is getting rid of the “robot” thing. He stands in front of Yunho one day, asking for a configuration change, settling the friend status. “Let’s be friends, okay?” He asks, not being able to look at him on the eye because, well, he is a little shy. “That doesn’t mean you will stop waking me up every morning or preparing the bath for me,” he adds, pointing at him with a finger. “But we are friends from now on. And friends, hmm, treat each other informally. Okay?”

Yunho smiles, maybe the first real smile he sees dancing on his face.

“Okay.”

And it has Yeosang's heart doing weird things when he looks back over his shoulder to see if he is still there. 

They split the house chores, and during Wednesdays and Fridays Yeosang cooks for himself—because Yunho can’t actually eat, but they learn he can sleep. Yeosang finds a new napping buddy, allowing him to lay next to him on his bed, arms and legs wrapped around his body when he wakes up. Yunho is warm.

They also go out, Yeosang shows Yunho the city, mesmerized by how the boy’s face lights up little by little. Learning about the world after spending six months inside the walls of the apartment. Yunho finds himself showing his very first reaction when they encounter a puppy on the street, stopping on their way to buy groceries because Yeosang I’ve never felt this way! I’ll die for this creature. And Yeosang finds himself smiling, having to hold his hand to pull him away from the actual but equally excited puppy.

Yeosang discovers he has a strange obsession with Yunho’s hands. He likes to hold them, caress them, play with his fingers. It makes his heart content—and Yunho doesn't have qualms on letting him do it. He also likes to sleep on top of Yunho’s back, cheek pressed to his back muscles, amazed that the persons that created him took their time to make every single detail beautiful to the extend pf adding a black and tiny mole on his nape.

It's weird that he is the only one breathing, but he repeats himself that he needs to let go of that thought. 

He kind of understands Wooyoung’s words when Yunho develops his first personality trait, giving him a forehead kiss out of nowhere while they’re watching a movie together (holding hands as well). Yeosang is so shocked he can’t move his lips to word out his thoughts and feelings, so he remains silent. And Yunho starts giving him forehead kisses for the most random things, like cleaning the bathroom or finishing another assignment. Yeosang cheeks are now permanently painting in a pale shade of pink just because he couldn't said a thing and Yunho took it as a good response—it's an amazing thing, actually, but Yeosang won't ever admit it.

“Why the forehead kisses?” He says one day they are organizing the groceries after shopping.

Yunho pops his head from inside the fridge, arching his brows, getting more expressive with each passing day. “Hmm?” Another thing he changed in the last month is the way he acts confused instead of answering right away, voice having his own color by now. 

“The forehead kisses,” Yeosang groans, pressing a finger to his forehead. “You’ve been kissing me a lot, Wooyoung has been mocking me for weeks.”

Yunho shows him a crooked smile. “Do you want me to punch Wooyoung?”

“No! Just tell me why.”

The tall boy thinks for a second, putting the tomatoes on its place before closing the fridge door and turn his heels towards Yeosang’s direction. “I noticed my height is perfect to kiss your forehead. I talked with San and he said you would love it.”

Yeosang goes red.

“You are texting San now?”

“I thought he could teach me how to be more…” He gestures, frowning a little, not finding the right words to express whatever he wants to say. “Bubbly?"

“Bubbly,” Yeosang sucks a breath.

“Yeah. Like San is.”

“I don’t want you to be like San, I’m not Wooyoung,” Yeosang shakes his head, turning back to the cereal he was organizing. “I like you the way you already are, no need to be bubbly. Just be… Yunho.”

There’s a moment of silence where he can feel the eyes of the boy on him, making his legs a little weak.

“Then, no more forehead kisses?”

Yeosang quickly turns on his heels, dropping the box he had on his hands. His lips tremble when he talks, blood rushing to his neck and ears. “That’s not what I meant!”

Yunho answers with a soft giggle, standing in front of him in just one step, hands already cupping his face, lips softly brushing his skin. It’s true. Their heights are perfect for that. He doesn’t have to bend, neither Yeosang has to go on his tiptoes. It’s just perfect.

“I’ll prepare the bath for you,” Yunho says nonchalantly.

Yeosang has to hug his knees when he is alone, feelings so loud he can’t even think straight. His whole body shakes with a warmth wave, making him feel weirder than ever.

∘ ༉ ‧

Yeosang is glad teleportation is a real thing when Wooyoung calls him early in the morning telling him they are going to the beach because he wants San to meet the sand. February is almost ending, but there’s still snow all over the place, so he doesn’t complain at all when they arrive to the beach in just seconds. No snow, no gelid breeze waving his hair, just the warm sun above his head and the sand, also warm, tickling his naked toes.

Wooyoung also invites Mingi and Yeosang has to bring Seonghwa with him, which ends up with four robots amazed by the new landscape they haven’t seen yet. Yunho doesn’t move from behind Yeosang's back at first, eyes going big as San jumps directly into the white sand, eyes sparkling in a way as if he is dying to do the same thing. Yeosang coughs a little, fixing his sunglasses with a finger. “Go ahead,” he says.

Yunho moves his head fast, asking with his eyes one last time. Yeosang nods, tall boy sprinting where the other robots—just San and Jongho as Hongjoong is putting sun cream all over Mingi’s face—are playing. It makes Yeosang kind of warm at the heart to see that image. Slowly, Yunho is starting to look more human.

And he is not the only one noticing it.

“He looks nice,” Wooyoung says, one arm over his shoulders. “Fresh like lemonade.”

“Hmm, yeah. What about San and you?” He asks sheepishly, pulling his arm off with a movement of his shoulders.

Wooyoung covers his mouth with both his hands, speaking in a tiny voice. “We’re getting married,” Yeosang drops everything at once, big eyes pointing at him, still not used at all. Wooyoung only laughs, bending over his body. “It’s a joke, moron. We are fine, like always,” he shrugs, smirking as he adds, “kissing a lot.”

Yeosang rolls his eyes.

He stays on the towel the majority of the time, letting the sun kiss his skin while the others take a bath. It was so peaceful at first he could’ve fallen asleep there, but Yunho started running from side to side at one point, showing him a shell he found first, burying his whole legs in beautiful shells then. Third time he heard him running on the sand, he took of his glasses in advance, ready for another sparkly shell.

“Let’s play volleyball,” he asks instead, blue hair still wet, falling all over his forehead in a beautiful way. The way the white shirt presses to his chest it’s making Yeosang a little nervous. Stupid fit robot.

“What?” Yeosang arches a brow.

“We’re playing volleyball but we need another person,” he explains, reaching out a hand for him. “Play volleyball with me.”

Yeosang thinks about it for a minute, feeling a tickle on the palms of his hands. The sun makes Yunho glow from that position, eyes shining in caramel brown right now. He looks beautifully happy.

“I don’t know how to play volleyball.”

“Me neither!” Yunho smiles brightly, and that’s enough for Yeosang to smile back and hold his hand without complaints, even when he hates sports.

In the end, only San knows how to play volleyball as he spent a night watching videos while Wooyoung was sleeping, so the first match was a total win for his team (including Wooyoung, of course, Mingi and Hongjoong). Second match was more interesting as the robots learnt quick how to play just by watching San, and maybe they got a really bit enthusiastic at that. Yeosang’s team wins it. Third match is stopped midway as Jongho crashes the ball directly on Mingi’s face.

But they had fun.

Yunho can’t stop talking about it when they say their goodbyes and go back to their apartment, hands tightly pressed to his chest.

“I like the beach,” he says.

“I’m glad.”

“Can we live on the beach forever?”

Yeosang chuckles, letting his body fall over the couch. “I like the city.”

“Then, I’ll move alone to the beach,” Yunho decides, making Yeosang roll over his own body to squint at him. The boy raises a hand, showing his teeth in a smug smile. “It was a joke.”

Yeosang rolls his eyes, burying his face on one of the cushions. As if he cares . 

“Don’t spend more time with San,” he grunts.

“Okay,” Yunho giggles, one hand suddenly on his head, fingers threading on his hair. “Want to take a bath?”

Yeosang is nodding in seconds.

He sits on the toilet as Yunho prepares everything, measuring the water temperature with a finger until it’s the exact temperature Yeosang likes, adding bath sales then, lavender scent filling the room within seconds. Yeosang feels like floating on a cloud, body becoming gelatin. It’s relaxing.

“Ready,” Yunho says, voice echoing on his brain, sounding like he is underwater. Oh, he is sleepy. “Yeosang?”

“Hmm, just give me a second,” he mumbles, closing his eyes and letting the soft air thread on his hair. He really loves feeling so light. When he opens his eyes again, Yunho is kneeling in front of him, wide eyes analyzing every movement—and maybe even scanning him without his consent, but he doesn't care this time. Yeosang smiles, one hand slowly moving until he is touching Yunho’s cheek. Soft, warm. “I’m really glad you were happy today. Really.”

Yunho moves a hand, fingers pressing Yeosang’s own harder into his skin , slightly resting his head there. Yeosang feels so powerful right now, holding him like this.

“I think, if you are there, I’ll be happy,” he mumbles, not breaking eye contact. Yeosang wants to know what’s past them, how does his brain works, how can he put words like that on his tongue just by looking at him. Not only robots, Yunho too has become a total mystery for him. “You make me happy.”

Yeosang presses his lips into a smile that could be considered a little sad.

“How so?”

Yeosang wants to know everything. How a simple robot can be so sure of his feelings when Yeosang isn't sure of his own. How can he put a name to it when Yeosang has been a mess for his whole life when it comes to people and feelings. 

“I can’t explain it. But when I look at you I feel different. Since the very start. It's a good feeling, it makes me feel safe."

Yunho’s voice becomes as velvety as the veil on a theater, revealing a expression he hadn’t seen before until now. The way his words crawl deep down Yeosang’s heart make him shiver, thumb moving without his permission. And Yunho also crawls on the floor, scooching closer to him, one hand resting on his thigh. Yeosang doesn’t complain, because Wooyoung’s words has been repeating at the back of his brain for hours now.

Kissing, huh?

They stay like that, looking at each other in utterly silence, letting the steam float around them, making them float together.

Yeosang is the one that moves first—because, if he waits for Yunho, they’d have to spend the rest of their life like this, just looking at each other without blinking—, pressing his free hand on Yunho’s left cheek, finally bringing him close. He wants to try it, Yunho’s lips. 

And he finds soft lips, full, parting a little when they meet Yeosang’s. It feels so human it’s funny. Yeosang closes his eyes and lets his whole soul fall over Yunho, letting the boy grab him by the hip. Their lips move a little—thanks to Yeosang—, legs trembling as he stands up. If it wasn’t for Yunho’s hands, he’d have met the bathroom floor again. But he holds him close, pressing their chests together, knees resting over Yunho’s thighs, fire on his lungs.

Twisting. Setting everything he knew on fire and leaving him with nothing.

“Yeosang,” the way Yunho calls his name makes him weak, moving aside. “Don’t cry.”

He is crying, but he is just realizing it now. Burning tears falling down his cheeks, meeting the lips that still have Yunho’s honey on them, salt pushing the sweetness aside. He also realizes how his chest is screaming, new pain rooting deep down his heart, expanding fast. Reaching the emptiness. 

“It’s okay,” Yeosang sniffles, wiping his own tears away, standing up and giving Yunho his back. “I need to be alone. Please.”

“Sure,” Yunho stays on the doorframe for a second, though, hesitant to leave him alone. He ends up doing it, closing the door, and Yeosang finally lets out the scream he has been containing.

He doesn’t care if he can hear him—because he can—, he just doesn’t want him to see him like this. A mess. Crying, red cheeks, crazy heartbeats. 

It’s stupid.

He spent months wondering why all his friends opened so easily to their robots, what was so incredibly about being friends with a machine. And now, now he gets it. It’s everything. Is warmer than he ever felt in his life, is like going to sleep feeling safe and sound, knowing you are not alone. 

Is him stupidly falling for Yunho’s smile, for Yunho’s happiness.

And he doesn’t know what to do now.

∘ ༉ ‧

With the start of spring, Yeosang wonders how many more days will he be able to pretend he is not in love with his Better Life Assistant without going crazy. 

He spends sleepless nights thinking about it. Yunho is dare to, literally, make his life better. But falling in love? Is that really the reason his mother bought it for him? He even nagged at Wooyoung months ago when he found out about his own relationship with San, it’s making him look a little bit like an hypocrite now as he curls in bed and remembers the glowing image of Yunho at the beach, or the way they kissed. Matching perfectly. He always wakes up with his ideas more tangled, head hurting and his chest on fire because he wants to scream, but he can’t. He just can’t.

And Yunho, Yunho keeps on developing a beautiful personality by his own. Not asking him about what happened on the bathroom one month ago, still looking at Yeosang with stars on his eyes and getting worried when he realizes he hasn’t been sleeping well. It makes everything worse, makes Yeosang’s heart scream for air, if that’s even possible. 

“Where did all the snow go?” Yunho asks as he stands in front of the window of Yeosang’s room. He refuses to get out of bed, body weak, almost like all the things he is carrying on his brain are weighing him down.

“It melted. Winter is gone.”

“Hmm,” Yunho moves his shoulders a little. “I liked the winter.”

“Thought you liked the beach,” Yeosang almost laughs, but he is too tired to even do that.

“I also like the beach. I like a lot of things,” he turns on his heels to stare at him. Yeosang has his eyes closed but he can feel it on his skin, burning. “I like you too, Yeosang.”

His heart cries out for help inside his chest, body bending under the covers to press his knees right against the spot his heart lies, trying to calm that annoying pain. The mattress sinks next to him when Yunho takes a seat, making him even more nervous.

“You’ve been acting weird.”

“I’m not.”

“I feel high levels of transmitters on your brain. Oxytocin, adrenaline, serotonin. And there’s an activation of the ventral tegmental area of your brain, as well with activation of your nucleus accumbens. This means you are in love.”

Yeosang jumps so fast he can’t dodge Yunho, hitting his forehead with the boy’s chin. The pain hits him like whiplash, crying a little while Yunho remains unshake, like it was nothing. For a moment, reminding him they're not the same. Not at all. “I don’t know what are you talking about because I didn’t understand a thing you said,” Yeosang hisses, eyes a little watery. “But I’m not in love.”

“Your heart rate just increased, and you have your pupils dilated,” Yunho points out, which only makes Yeosang want to die right here, right now. “Is this the reason why you’ve been avoiding me?”

Yeosang gasps, hands shyly covering his face.

“I’m not avoiding you. And please, stop scanning me, that’s rude.”

“I just want the best for you,” Yunho moves closer, enough so their gazes meet again. “Yeosang?”

Not even Yeosang knows what’s the best for him right now, mind dizzy, arms moving automatically in the air to reach out for him. He pulls him close, arms wrapped around his back, cheek pressed tight against his shoulder. But he can’t lie to himself, he’s just doing this so Yunho stops looking at him, so he stops asking him questions.

Yunho replies to the hug almost immediately, one reassuring hand rubbing his back while the other presses softly into his nape. Yeosang’s body shakes.

“I like you, Yeosang,” he repeats.

“Hmm.”

“It’s okay to like me back,” he says, so suddenly it takes Yeosang by surprise, hand stopping its movement at the small of his back. “I’ll be with you for as long as you want me to be.”

Yeosang’s hand moves alone, fingers taking a grip of Yunho’s shirt, bringing him even closer if it’s possible. He doesn’t say a thing, but he asks Yunho to lay with him after a while, letting his arms wrap him for the first time in forever, bringing warmth to his body again. Snuggling close to his chest, Yeosang realizes it’s quiet, so quiet it breaks his own heart. 

Yunho’s not even breathing.

He doesn’t have a heart.

And still, he manages to make Yeosang breathless and stop his heart.

∘ ༉ ‧

Things shouldn’t be so difficult, Yeosang wakes up thinking one day. Yunho is lying next to him, eyes closed and lips pursed together in a beautiful pout, sunlight breaking through the window and dancing on his exposed collarbones, making a golden puddle right there. Tempting.

He looks so soft it’s like he is just sleeping, having a dream, maybe about him. But he knows that’s not possible, and that the only reason he is sleeping is because Yeosang asked for it some time ago just like Wooyoung did with San. Sleeping with Yunho makes him feel less anxious, body answering to his touch the same way it does to the warm lavender water. Yunho allows him to drift.

Things should be easy, he thinks while hanging from the ceiling, feet firmly pressed to the skateboard, trying to find another point of view. Yunho is made for him, not literally, he was just made for humans, and Yeosang is one. But, at the same time, he kind of was born for Yeosang and Yeosang only. He got to know him more than anyone in just seven months, he cares about him. And what at first Yeosang thought it was a pain in the ass is what he craves the most: having someone that cares about him. Someone to love, and someone that loves him.

It should be easy.

“What are you doing?”

And, after one month and a half struggling to figure what to do with those feelings blooming on the center of his heart, filling the emptiness the fire left behind with wildflowers, he decides to make things easy.

Yunho stands in the middle of the living room, looking up at him. Yeosang goes down slowly, stopping when their eyes are at the same height and stares right into his soul before pressing their lips together for a second time. Not thinking at all after almost two months.

“No, wait,” but this time, Yunho’s personality is even stronger than the fingers that wrap around his wrists to pull him off, Yeosang going through mild panic in less than five seconds. “Don’t kiss me if you’re not gonna take responsibility.”

Panic soon transforms in concern, Yeosang letting out a laugh so dry he ends up coughing. “What?”

Yunho frees one of his hands to firmly press it to his chest, eyebrows narrowed in a very deep serious expression that’s totally new for Yeosang. “My heart.”

Now Yeosang is going through real hard panic, but laughing anyway, and well his lips burn because he just kissed him but got kind of rejected? Maybe? He laughs awkwardly because he is scared.

“I don’t understand,” he blurts, moving his left hand to try to get off Yunho’s tight hold (he can’t).

Yunho’s features soften a little. “I’ve been watching teenage romcoms to understand you better.”

“Why would you do that?” Yeosang lets his body fall, weak again, Yunho catching him. The skateboard lands on the floor with a thud he doesn’t like at all, but he doesn't have the time to care now. Yunho’s first. “First, I’m not a teenager anymore. Second, romcoms are dumb. I kissed you because I like you.”

Yunho frowns.

“You kissed me the day we went to the beach, and then started acting weird. Avoiding me.”

“I did it because I like you,” Yeosang screams, then covers his face with both his hands, feeling the urge of jumping out and running back to his bedroom, looking totally ridiculous while Yunho holds him princess style. But he just don’t wanna loss the warmth.

“Oh.”

Yunho finally puts him down, hands already moving to fix his hair. Yeosang hits one of his hands, rose cheeks and pouty lips. Soon he is listening to Yunho’s giggles, finding his lips on his forehead without a warning. And he melts. How much he missed that.

“Then it’s okay,” he pinches one of Yeosang’s cheeks, bending over to look at him in the eye. “It’s okay.”

Make things easier.

When Yeosang kisses him—a third time already—Yunho welcomes him with a smile, and for a moment, he forgets about everything. About robots, and about love, only thinking about Yunho. How his lips mold together like two tiny pieces of a puzzle, how he seems to be a better kisser, how he easily picks him in the air and kisses him deeply.

Yeosang presses both his hands on his cheeks and brings him closer. For a moment, he allows himself to live a better life.

∘ ༉ ‧

Kissing Yunho shouldn’t bring him so much happiness, but it ends up doing it. Yeosang was never the clingy type—not to mention he never kissed someone, neither had a relationship before—so it’s devastating to know Yunho is able to change that, craving having him around almost every hour of the day. And Yeosang is kinda grossed at himself, punching the air every time he is left alone because Yunho needs to recharge his batteries—that, almost as if he is becoming more and more human, are lasting more than before.

But, once again, he doesn’t care. He goes with the flow and kisses Yunho as much as he wants because one day,  he doesn’t know exactly when, they will stop doing it. 

Yunho finds a video one day called ‘25 types of kisses’ and he is thrilled to show Yeosang, jumping on the bed one morning and waking him up because they need to try. Yunho really gets interest in the things Yeosang teaches him, so can he really say no? 

They sit together in bed, legs crossed, video playing on the screen. Yunho is so excited Yeosang swears he’s able to see a tail swinging at his back, body bouncing a little. He wasn’t like that months ago, so alive. It makes Yeosang feel a little relieved, that at least he was able to make him look so brimming with life.

Looking at him is enough to make him feel better.

The first kiss is easy: a peck on the cheek. Yunho gives it to Yeosang, one hand holding him by the neck, making the kiss a lot more exciting than it should have been, one single heart hammering so hard it's making the house tremble. Second one, is a kiss on the nose. Yunho burst in giggles when Yeosang softly presses his lips on the tip of his nose, embarrassed from head to toe. Third one, a forehead kiss. Yunho screams, excited to press his lips atop Yeosang’s forehead, putting way too many emotion—and strength—into it they both fall into the mattress. Yunho sinks one elbow into his stomach and Yeosang swears he sees the stars. He is totally a big puppy.

Things get heated—more—with the fourth one. French kiss.

“Fourth one is french kiss?” Yeosang sounds altered, cheeks red. “We have twenty one to go but french kiss is fourth?”

Yunho tilts his head.

“What’s a french kiss?” He asks, innocently.

“Nothing, we can move on to the next one, this one is absurd,” Yeosang tries to start the video again but Yunho is the owner of his computer now—and his whole house, to be honest. For the past two weeks, they’ve been kissing lazily, no tongue at all because Yeosang is shy. And maybe he is not fully ready for that.

“No problem, I just searched for it,” Yunho says, smirk taking over his expression. Yeosang gulps, feeling his whole body burn. I’m gonna turn the wifi off, I swear. “Let’s try.”

“Yunho, we don’t really have to—"

Yeosang just accepted because he was once again laying in bed and scrolling through his Instagram feed, melting at Seonghwa's holiday pics—he bought Jongho a lot of clothes he proudly showed off through hundred of pictures. Not because he wanted to make out. Not now. 

“Let’s try,” Yunho insists, one hand already cupping his cheek. Yeosang can’t hide the fear sparkling on his eyes because what if I suck at this and he abandons me? Bold of him to assume Yunho wouldn’t smile into the kiss first thing. With one hand moving to his nape, bringing him closer, the kiss starts like the three hundred they have shared for the past two weeks. Softly, calming Yeosang frenetic heart. It’s Yunho the first one to pull his tongue into the kiss, pressing it into his lips, not shy at all, which makes Yeosang’s entire being set on fire once again. He parts his lips a little, making room for their tongues to meet. It’s weird at first, hot and wet, moving like they don’t really know what they are doing. “It is okay?” Yunho pulls out to ask, the blue spark on his eyes meaning he is still going through whatever he found on the net. 

Yeosang doesn’t open his eyes, too embarrassed to even speak, nodding and pressing a hand on the back of his head to bring him closer again. Their tongues meet again, and this time Yeosang can feel how his legs shake, how his lungs scream for air, but for more at the same time. Yunho breaks the kiss just when he was feeling in heaven, pressing his lips into his nose before speaking. “Well, that was nice.”

Yeosang spends the next ten minutes hiding his face into one of the pillows, screams muffled by it when Yunho tells him that it was okay. 

Fifth kiss is a hand kiss. Sixth one is a eskimo kiss—which makes Yunho giggle again. Seventh one, and just when Yeosang was starting to chill again, is a neck kiss.

He loses it when Yunho spins him over, back pressed onto the mattress, body on top of him, knees keeping his legs together. He uses one hand to pull his chin up, exposing his neck and pressing his lips against his Adam's apple. Yeosang totally sees the stars now.

∘ ༉ ‧

The way Yunho sits with his legs crossed in the middle of the bed will be forever at the back of Yeosang’s eyelids when he goes to sleep. First time he sees him, is at the start of April, arriving home after his last day of class before break. He is dead tired, but a little sad at the same time as he only has two more months before his first year of college is vanishing in front of him like tiny dust floating around in the air. A lot of things happened to him in the span on just eight months, it’s almost crazy how much he grew up in less than a year, and how fast emotions took over his body.

He is craving a hug, maybe a couple kisses, when he finds Yunho sitting in the middle of the bed, wearing a blue hoodie that matches his hair, open window letting in not only the spring breeze but its warmth too, sunlight drawing patterns on Yunho’s cheeks. Yeosang waits at the doorframe to be noticed, but for some strange reason he goes unnoticed. And he wonders if Yunho is also growing so much he is losing his robot faculties.

After a minute observing him glow, Yeosang decides to drag his feet towards the bed and lay there, feeling sadder than ever for the same strange reason. When Yunho looks at him, not only his cheeks are sparkling with color, his eyes also look more human than ever.

∘ ༉ ‧

Cuddling Yunho has become one of Yeosang’s favorite things to do—right after kissing, of course—by the end of April. He likes the way he somehow fits perfectly between his arms, or how their legs always end up tangled while he is deep asleep. 

Yeosang dreams of Yunho. The boy having chestnut hair and chapped lips from kissing so much, chest moving along his breathing when they lay together in bed, air tickling Yeosang’s lips when he giggles into the kiss. But most importantly, a heart beating inside his chest. He can hear it when he presses his ear against his chest, going fast, screaming he is alive.

He knows Yunho isn’t capable of dreaming, but he wonders if he thinks about him while he has his eyes closed during their nap time.

It’s not until the start of May when he decides to approach Wooyoung on campus, asking him to meet him at one of the cafeterias. He has been thinking more than ever since Yunho started blushing, getting embarrassed at Yeosang caresing his hand or pressing the tip of his nose into the warm skin of his neck. Stomach twirling, feeling warm.

Yeosang takes a sit in front of Wooyoung, dropping his bag on one of the free chairs. He waits a couple seconds, closely looking as his friend texts, shy smile dazzling on his face as he finishes the message. He has to admit it, his friend looks better than ever. 

"Wooyoung," he calls, making him snap his eyes in his direction. "Can we talk?"

"Oh, yeah," the boy nods, hitting a couple more of keys before putting his phone down. "I was texting San to prepare me a bath for when I arrive home," he explains, eyes sparkling as he talks about the boy. Always sparkling. "I have an exam I haven't studied for in like one hour, so I'm gonna be sad when I fail. Anyway, I'm all ears. Why did you call me? Problems in paradise?" 

Yeosang chews on his lower lip, both hating the fact that Wooyoung knows exactly why he called him and not knowing how to start this conversation without looking pathetic. He'd been thinking about it all night, rolling in bed in search of a comfy posture that could send him into dreamland without success. It's piercing his brain, making his skin itchy. 

In front of him, Wooyoung raises both eyebrows, silently waiting for the words to flow. How to start it , Yeosang wonders, hand flying to the back of his head.

"Sang," Wooyoung scowls then, tilting his head a little, starting to wonder if it’s something bigger than he expected. "What happens?" 

"Well," Yeosang takes a deep breath, feeling the warmth on his cheeks way before they start getting color. He avoids Wooyoung's eyes as he speaks, "you are in a relationship with San, right?" 

Wooyoung parts his lips in surprise, smiling after a second. 

"Hmm, yeah?" He chuckles. "I thought we were over the are you dating your robot thing. It’s been like five months," it scares him how fast time passed.

Yeosang crashes his eyes on him, though, not missing the way Wooyoung smirks. The boy presses his body over the surface of the table, hand motioning Wooyoung to follow him into a more private conversation—and he does with an eye roll. "Did you, hmmm, you know," Yeosang sucks in a breath, waiting for Wooyoung to just nod or shake his head before the words actually leave his lips. "The thing." 

Wooyoung laughs again, resting his chin over one of his hands. "The thing," he repeats in a mocking voice. "Are you asking me if we had sex?" 

For a moment, Yeosang doesn't move. They keep the eye contact until Yeosang is nodding, fast, eyes falling on the table surface. Wooyoung covers his face with both hands, proceeding to hit him on the shoulder. "You pervert!"

"I'm not!" Yeosang quickly stutters, pressing his back into the chair again. He takes both hands to his cheeks, trying to cool down his skin. Wooyoung is looking at him with a funny expression, smug smile breaking through his lips. He is messing with him. Not even a smidgen of embarrassment crossing his calm expression. "Just curious," Yeosang mumbles. "Because he's a robot, and all that."

"He is capable of doing it," Wooyoung adds to that, stretching his arms in the air, "they created them to be totally like humans. Haven't you seen Yunho naked?" 

Yeosang goes red again as a few people move their heads towards their table, hands flying to cover Wooyoung's mouth. "Don't say weird things out loud!"

"You are the one asking me if I fucked San," Wooyoung retorts into the skin of his hand, pulling him aside right after. At least, when he speaks again, he does it in a low tone. "Have you?" Yeosang shakes his head in a negative. He did see his collarbones, and his cute tummy one day they were rolling in bed just because Yunho found it funny. But nothing more and, honestly, asking Yunho to undress in front of him right now would make the boy violently blush and run away—both of them would, if he has to be sincere.

"You should," Wooyoung shrugs, shamesly, proceeding to look over nis nails in a selfless way.

Yeosang shakes his no right away, feeling his stomach twirl in fear. Wooyoung smiles at him, both hands resting on his stomach, sunlight dancing on his face. He looks really happy and at peace, not a smidgen of worry on his expression. Yeosang would love to be like that.

"Am I weird?" He throws pass pressed lips.

Wooyoung raises a brow. "For wanting to have sex?"

"With Yunho ," he grunts as he adds.

Wooyoung laughs out loud, musically.

"You were nagging at me five months ago for holding San’s hand, and look at you now. This is what I call character development.”

“Cut the bullshit, would you?”

“Listen, first things first. Stop looking at him like a robot, think of Yunho as your equal. Second, if you really feel ready to be that intimate with him, what’s stopping you? I bet Yunho’s head is full of you and would do anything to make you happy,” Wooyoung softly kicks him under the table. “I know it because he is friends with San, and he tells me. You are the only thing he talks about.”

Yeosang takes a deep breath. Wow.

“Now, ask me more important questions, virgin, ” Yeosang’s cheeks explode in color, legs trembling as he stands up, ending the conversation like that. He got what he wanted to hear. “Postures? What to do with your mouth? I can go buy lube with you! They might be robots but it feels the same as fucking with a human, you will break in half if you go crazy, Sang!”

“Shut the fuck up!” He hisses, already walking out, feeling gazes all over his body. Stupid Wooyoung.

∘ ༉ ‧

Yeosang ends up buying a very tiny bottle of lube, feeling like dying as he sits at the edge of his bed and looks down at it. Regretting every single decision he had taken in his nineteen years of existence. He told Yunho he needed to be alone to study, but he just needs a little time to prepare mentally. It’s not like he wants to have sex right now, it’s more like he wants to be sure it’ll be okay to go further than kisses if they cuddle and their legs get tangled in a dangerous way again. He just wants to be sure, that’s all.

For half an hour, he recites—mentally—how to start the conversation, going through the At first I hated the fact you existed because I need no babysitter, the Actually, you are nicer than I thought and I've learnt to tolerate you, the oh-so-big I was a mess because everyone was cool with their robots and I was hella awkward, sprinting right to the I think I fell for you because you are so nice with me and you know the exact temperature I like the water, and finishing with the bomb I like kissing you a lot and I know you robots don’t do this kinda things but lately I’ve been undressing you on my mind instead of paying attention to my lectures and I can’t afford failing a class so can we solve this?

He takes both hands to his head, silently screaming. His lungs are burning with the desire of screaming with actual sound, but he can’t afford that either. The second option is fall into the bed and kick his legs in the air, feeling a weird mix of embarrassment, guilt and excitement because Yunho won’t say no to me, right? And also You are a fucking idiot, Kang Yeosang, why couldn’t you fall for Seonghwa like all the girls of campus?

There’s a soft knock on the door that pulls him back of his trance, Yunho’s hair appearing first, puppy eyes following. Yeosang doesn’t even bother on pretending, rolling to sit down on the edge again, bottle safely hidden around his fingers. Yunho surely listened to him moving around from the other side. He just hopes the boy doesn't have access to his brain like he has to the apartment, because then he is totally fucked.

“Do you want to talk?” The boy asks in a small voice, making Yeosang furrow his eyebrows in mild panic. 

He does have access to my mind! 

“Hmm?” Yeosang decides to play dumb.

“You know I have access to all your accounts, right?” Yunho starts slow, palms of his hands softly pressing the surface of the door to close it at his back. Yeosang’s heart starts racing without a reason, because he doesn’t know what he is talking about yet but he feels like he just got caught. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” His voice cracks. He’s nervous.

Yunho smiles a little, tips of his ears a little red. It still amazes Yeosang that robots are able to blush, or maybe it’s just the way Yunho’s skin acquires a little color what makes his entire being to shake.

“I have access to your bank account. You used your card one hour ago, not to buy apple juice,” he finally says, and it hits Yeosang.

Fucking shit. Is not my brain, is my bank account. 

Yunho is still his Better Life Assistant, he still has access to his contact agenda, his music playlist, his internet history and, of course, his bank account. Yeosang is doomed. 

“I can explain!” He stutters a little, standing up to trip with his own shaky feet and crash into Yunho’s chest. The boy holds him by the shoulders. “It’s for Wooyoung. He asked me to buy it for him because he was embarrassed.”

Yunho tilts his head, totally giving him this look that screams I know you are lying.

“Okay, that’s a lie,” Yeosang surrenders just five seconds later, one hand over Yunho’s face, “but please, stop looking at me like that.”

He can feel how Yunho laughs, vibrations moving along his body before he is pulling him close into a tight hug, one hand softly caressing his hair. Yeosang’s fingernails dig into the palms of his hands and around the bottled, fists pressed at Yunho’s back, teeth biting so hard the inside of his cheek he is soon tasting the blood on his tongue.

“Do you have a partner?” Yunho whispers, and Yeosang swears he can taste the worry in the air.

Yeosang moves a little, looking at him from behind. “You?”

The word slip through his lips like honey dripping from a hive, so sweet he doesn’t even think of what he just said. Does it matter now? After all the kisses they shared.

“Oh,” there is again, Yunho blushing like he is a preteen, one hand moving to cover his mouth. It’s cute. He has always been this cute, since the day they met, but Yeosang is just noticing it now. Yunho was created to be cute. “Then, what you bought—”

Yeosang presses his hand again into his face, Yunho’s giggles filling the room a second after. “Let’s not talk about that now!”

But they talk. They talk for hours because Yunho developed something totally contrary to Yeosang's personality, and he doesn't like letting unspoken things for the future. Sitting in the middle of the bed with their legs crossed, and the way Yunho seems to be ten times more flustered than he is, somehow, makes thing easier for Yeosang. It feels like talking to any other human.

∘ ༉ ‧

In the end, Yunho is totally up to do whatever Yeosang asks him to do, which it makes him feel divided. On one hand, the line between doing it because Yeosang is his owner or because he is in love with him as Wooyoung claims is very blurry right now. 

On the other, Yeosang finds himself buzzing with excitement as, well, Yunho is totally up.

He sleeps well that night—nothing to do with the arms wrapped around his waist.

∘ ༉ ‧

Classes are officially over now and Yeosang only has his finals left, nostalgia taking over his poor heart. His first year is officially done by now. Just as Wooyoung told him once, they don't have forever, and time passes incredibly fast sometimes. Yeosang feels it on his hands, and in his body. In the way he feels more mature than he was at the beginning of the school year.

How he grew so much in less than a year, and how that year seemed to last an eternity.

“Man, it’s already hot,” Wooyoung yawns as they meet on the cafeteria one last time, sunlight that kept them warm during the spring becoming a little annoying with the end of May, Yeosang crying as he has to say goodbye to his hoodies again, arm shining pale under the bright blue sky. “How have things been going for you lately?” His friend asks, grin already bubbling on his lips. Yeosang rolls his eyes, finishing his apple juice. “Is the sex good?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just curious about your life,” Wooyoung scoffs. “Mingi only texts me to tell me Hongjoong won’t let him take snack breaks and he is about to throw him out of the window. That’s not interesting, I need juice."

Yeosang raises a brow, giving him his almost finished brick of juice.

“Juicy things, Sang,” Wooyoung groans, pushing his hand away. “Tell me how did it go.”

Bringing the straw back into his lips, Yeosang bites hard, remaining silent for what it seems a century. He narrows his eyes a little when he turns to Wooyoung again, sun blinding him for a solid second. “We haven’t done a thing yet.”

Wooyoung’s jaw drops in disbelief, proceeding to shake his head in what he believes it’s disappointment. “You got scared, right?”

“No,” Yeosang deadpans.

“Then?”

He yawns, shrugging, “It’s not like I want to have sex right now. I wanted to know if it was okay, in the future. I’m good right now.”

Wooyoung presses his back against the chair again, clicking his tongue. “Boring.”

They say goodbye with a short hug before Yeosang is meeting Seonghwa at the library to start getting his shit done—and with his shit he refers to all the chapters he has piled down, long forgotten in one corner because he spent the last two months thinking about Yunho and only Yunho. Now he has to do a lot of extra work if he doesn’t want to retake five classes next year—which, well, he can’t afford.

Sitting on the chair, room summed in silence, he manages to go through five chapters without getting distracted. He feels happy with himself, buying chicken on his way home to celebrate his little accomplishment, Yunho clapping loudly for him. 

That only lasts the first two days, getting real anxious on the third one when he has to go through all the practices they did at the start of the semester, and wanting to bang his head on the table when Seonghwa tells him next exam is on Wednesday and not Friday like he thought.

Arriving home on Monday, just having another day to get things done, he really meets his bed one second away from giving up and spending the rest of his life crying nonstop. He just wants summer to come already even if that means saying goodbye to college for the three months, lay all day in bed, doing nothing and not feeling the creeping guilt attacking his ankles.

He feels Yunho’s hands on his shoulders not long after, softly massaging his worries away without saying a thing. His fingers are warm, pressing exactly the right spots to make his whole body melt into his touch.

“This feels so nice,” Yeosang purrs, cheek pressed against the mattress, eyes catching how the city lights change at the other side of the window. Beautiful. “Thank you for being here, Yunho.”

“Hmm.”

“You always know what to do to kick the stress out of my body,” Yeosang keeps on going, fingers trailing a way along his back, pressing down his spine, making him shiver. “I’m so happy to have you here. So happy.”

Yunho laughs a little, so soft it’d have gotten lost in the air if it wasn’t of the silence filling the room. Lips finding a soft spot behind Yeosang’s ear, kissing tenderly until the boy is curling his body beneath him. Pulse racing, fire going down his lower stomach.

“I’m happy, too,” Yunho whispers right into his ear, lips brushing his skin. No air tickling him. A little sad, but Yeosang doesn't have time to worry about that as the next words dripping from Yunho's lips and crashing into his skin are leaving him breathless, too. “I love you, Yeosang.”

His heart jumps inside his chest, body moving a little so his back is pressed into the mattress now, eyes searching for Yunho. One hand moving in the air, fingers caressing the skin of his cheek. Yunho kisses his hand as well, placing a kiss on every single finger, on his palm, and then on every knuckle. “I love you, too.”

Yunho keeps on kissing him, lips trailing a way of kisses on his wrist, forearm, elbow. He kisses every centimetre of skin and Yeosang is glad the weather was so good today he didn’t wear a jacket. Just a light white shirt, arms and collarbones on sight, allowing the boy to fill him with kisses. When he finally reaches his lips, Yeosang doesn’t doubt on holding him close, thumbs circling on the skin of his full cheeks.

He means it. 

∘ ༉ ‧

It’s the first time in nine months Yeosang gets to see this side of Yunho. Not only because he is looking at him from beneath his body, but because he never thought the boy could make this kind of expression. A little bit nervous, a lot bit happy. Cheeks flushing in a beautiful shade of pink only illuminated by the lights coming from the open window, hair falling all around his face, like a beaming halo. Eyes sparkling like he holds the stars there, looking at Yeosang. He looks at him the whole time, smiling a little with every smirk curving Yeosang’s lips and brows, fingers intertwined.

He looks beautiful.

It makes Yeosang mad, because he is sure he looks like a mess. Hair sweaty, glued to his scalp, falling down his forehead no matter how hard he tries to pull it down with his free—and very shaky—hand. Cheeks red and lips parted, letting out the air with every thrust. He promised to be quiet, but his chest is on fire and he is already holding in the urge of screaming his name in a way of turning off the fire. But he wants this moment to be as beautiful as Yunho.

Even when it feels more human and raw than ever. 

Yunho, who always treated him lovingly even when Yeosang ignored him for three months straight. Yunho, who spend a lot of time without feeling a thing, caged inside his own body and Yeosang’s desires. Yunho, who still kissed him tenderly and deeply, holding his entire being in one hand without questioning it. Getting rid of all the stress, all the worry biting Yeosang’s skin. Just to make him happy.

And Yeosang melts into his touch.

Hurting at first, nervousness taking his body hostage as his shirt fell on the ground next to the bed and he was left exposed in front of Yunho’s eyes. Scanning him, yet not in the way Yeosang grew accustomed. Embarrassment holding tight onto his legs as Yunho pulls his pants down, fingers carefully caressing the skin of his thighs. Yeosang never really liked his body, trying to cover his eyes to protect himself. Yunho tells him he how beautiful he is with a tender whisper. 

It is a weird feeling, head going dizzy with the way Yunho’s fingers move, knowing perfectly where to touch, how to do it, where to press. Sending him to heaven and back to earth, just to feel the pain breaking him down with the pressure one finger inside him makes him feel. Yunho kisses his cheek, slowly telling him there are other ways, but Yeosang refuses without actual words leaving his throat. He wants it, he needs it.

Leaving him breathless then, when he finally relaxes. It takes him a few minutes to adjust to everything he is feeling, both inside his chest and body. Feeling like breaking in half but wanting it to last forever at the same time. The fire licking every inch of his skin, exploding on his abdomen, legs shaking as Yunho starts moving. Leaving him, once again, breathless.

“I’m okay,” Yeosang finds himself saying after a while, getting rid of all nervousness and embarrassment, giving Yunho a reassuring grip. “It’s okay.”

Yunho giggles, body shaking above him, and for a reason, everything makes sense. Finally.

He rocks his hips sheepishly, giving him the chance to move, and Yunho is happy to obey. The boy puts the hand he has been holding over his head, tightly pressing the other on one side of his hip, holding him as he increases the speed of his thrusts. Yeosang is the only one making sound, unable of containing it anymore, but he doesn’t care. He lets the pleasure take all over his body, muscles screaming with every movement, pulling his head back and closing his eyes. Yunho finds it easy to press his lips at the base of his jaw, tightening the grip of his hip and biting down his skin.

That’s enough for Yeosang to reach his limit, coming on his own chest, heart about to dig a hole on his skin and abandon him.

This is the most human he had felt in his entire existence.

∘ ༉ ‧

“You don’t have a heart,” Yeosang mumbles under his breath, ear pressed against Yunho’s chest as they lay in bed. Yunho’s fingers has been drawing patterns on the skin of his back, sending electrical signals to his spinal cord, bringing him back alive after dying several times in the same night. The boy only hums, filling the ceiling with stars. Yeosang feels like floating on space. “You felt something?” He asks shyly.

“That’s worrying you?” Yeosang shrugs, trying to not put any importance in how Yunho felt while he was, well, right inside him. But of course he worries about that, because he felt like he ascended heaven. “It was spectacular, Yeosang. Do you know we are designed to feel pleasure and pain?”

Yeosang moves his fingers around his navel. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. So don’t worry,” he moves his hand from the small of his back to his hair, fingers threading there and meeting his scalp. “I loved it.”

Yeosang stops for a while, standing on his elbow then. Still wondering how does everything works inside of his brain. He looks for him, for his eyes. “Have you ever thought how your life would have been if you weren’t a robot?”

The words float around them, Yunho blinking twice before actually moving his lips to answer. He stands, too, sitting. His fair skin shines with the moonlight, a star appearing from time to time to dance on his chest.

“I never thought of it,” he admits, breaking Yeosang’s heart a little. “But I guess it’d have been nice.”

Yeosang gets curious again, frowning.

Yunho smiles, one hand moving to the back of his head. Nails playing with his hair, such a natural movement he totally took from Yeosang.  Looking like any other boy, like he has a heart, a soul. “Meeting you as an human, I think that would have been nice. Everything I’m able to feel, is because of you, and I’m so glad you gave me the chance of being who I am right now. But I’d love to experience loving you by my own,” he reaches out a hand to caress one of Yeosang’s cheeks. “Seeing you for the first time and having a heart racing inside my chest, finding you cute and spending days looking at you from afar, waiting for you to notice me.”

Yeosang sucks a breath. “Are you saying you’re not in love with me?”

“I’m saying that it doesn’t matter what I am, or who I am. I will always find a way of falling in love with you,” Yunho says with a smile, a little sad. “I just wished I was able to feel every single one of them.”

Yeosang is crawling in his direction then, wrapping his arms around his neck and hugging him close, tight, forever.

“I don’t care if you’re a robot,” he mumbles, feeling human under his fingertips, Yunho just hums, one cheek pressed against Yeosang’s bare shoulder. “You make me happy, you make me feel safe. That’s enough.”

There's still a lot rumbling inside Yeosang's head, but it's not the moment to be talking about it. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Finishing an exam never brought him as much pleasure as finishing his last exam of the year does. Yeosang can feel how his chest lets out all the air he had been containing for three weeks and allows himself to rest. He welcomes the summer with a warm and relaxing bath, sinking until nothing but his eyes are on sight.

“Yeosang,” Yunho calls from the other side of the house. “Wooyoung is calling you, should I pick up?”

Past Yunho would have sent Wooyoung right where Yeosang was, not caring about asking if he felt like talking or not. Present Yunho learnt so well. It has Yeosang bubbling with happiness. 

“I’m taking a bath,” he says the obvious, “tell him to call me later.”

Yunho obeys, putting on some relaxing music. He also has to beg him to get out of the water when two hours go by but he is too cozy and warm to move, so Yeosang raises his arms in the air and says that he will only get out if he takes him out. Once again, is totally easy for Yunho.

He wraps him in a warm towel, sitting behind him to dry his hair—and place a few kisses on his neck.

"Your birthday is soon," Yunho says as Yeosang puts on his pajamas.

"How do you know that?" Yeosang wonders, then just shakes his head, having totally forgotten Yunho's nature by now. "Okay. Hmm. Yeah, is next week. What about that?" 

Yunho stands still in one corner of the room, taking his right hand to his mouth, slightly biting his nails. Yeosang can't help but raise a brow, funny expression painting his face. 

"What are you scheming?" He asks.

"Hmm?"

"That," Yeosang points at him, smiling cheekily, "I bite my nails when I'm worried about something I have planned going well. You took that from me!" 

Yunho can't control—ironically—how his whole face flushes red, hand covering his mouth. 

"I'm not plotting."

"Of course you are."

"Of course I am not. "

Yeosang floats around the room until he is right in front of him, one hand on his wrist trying to move it—spoiler: he can't. 

"Did you buy me something? I don't want more gifts so you better return it." 

Yunho shakes his head. "It's not that." 

"Then?"

The boy can’t make up a good excuse, Yeosang finding it really funny. That’s very human of him. Next thing he is doing is leaning in, hand already moving to the back of Yeosang’s head to bring him closer into a kiss. Yeosang is smarter this time, bunny jumping backwards, closing his hands in fists in a defensive posture.

“Don’t try to kiss me to avoid the problem,” he half laughs. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

With that, he exits the room, Yeosang following him close. He jumps over his back, fingers tightly holding onto the muscles of his back. Yunho doesn’t try to get rid of him, but he is fast in letting his body fall into the couch, crushing Yeosang under his weight. The boy fakes a cry that alerts the taller—all fake, because actually, Yunho isn’t heavy at all.

“Oh, fuck. Yeosang, are you okay?” Yunho’s expression quickly covers with a veil of worry, hands wiggling in the air in front of him. Yeosang laughs out loud, both hands over his tummy, enjoying it with every cell of his body. His giggles fill the house, being the only thing audible for a while. “What? What’s funny?”

“You,” Yeosang cleans a tear kissing one of his cheeks, air passing through his parted lips, “you just cursed.”

Yunho’s cheeks go red for a second, feet already moving in the other direction. Yeosang follows him again, jumping around him like a little kid until they’re again on the room. “Don’t be mad,” he says, pocking one of his sides, making Yunho squeal a little. “It’s cute that you are able to express all this. It puts me in a good mood. But now, tell me what are you plotting or I will tickle you.”

Yunho glances at him, defiant. “I will just turn down my sensitivity to zero.”

“That’s playing dirty!”

“You started it! I don’t want you to ruin the surprise,” he admits under his breath, Yeosang’s smile growing bigger on his lips. Yunho looks away, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“So you have a surprise for me?” He sings, moving around him. “It wasn’t necessary, you know.”

“What it’s done, it’s done,” he sentences. “Now, call Wooyoung.”

Yeosang sighs, rolling his eyes. He observes Yunho for a while before sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed and calling his friend. While he waits, he sticks his tongue like a five years old, making Yunho look away in a second. Yeosang feels his chest bubble with excitement. 

First thing Wooyoung does is scream at him something about going out to celebrate their freedom. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Yeosang decides to stay the weekend before his birthday at the apartment. Classes are over and he has all the time in the world to be doing a lot of things, like going to the beach as Seonghwa asked or coming back home to hug his mom, as she begged. But he doesn’t want none of that, he wants to splat all his body on the couch and snuggle closer to Yunho’s chest—and maybe he is sitting more on Yunho’s lap that in the actual couch, but nobody cares. The boy is cold and the summer kissing Yeosang's skin is really thankful of that.

They watch a lot of movies, in silence, Yeosang filling his mouth with gummy bears as Yunho plays with his hair. Softly.

On Saturday Yeosang asks for a massage because his back is hurting, and he really means it as only a massage because Yunho’s fingers are God’s and he is dying, but maybe Yunho has been texting San way too much—or paying way more attention to the movies they’ve been watching—because his fingers find a quick way to the gem of his underwear, passing by until he is touching his skin. And well, Yeosang curses under his breath as he should have wore pants instead of walking around only on his underwear, but he is soon closing his eyes and letting the pleasure take all over his body.

He finds Yunho pleasing, a cozy place to snuggle when he is naked on the floor. And he wishes he could be like that forever.

But Monday arrives anyway even when he wants to stay tangled up with both Yunho’s legs and the sheets for an eternity, and he gathers all the strength remaining on his body—little, so little—to stand up and pack his things for the month. He is giving his mom that awaited hug, because after all, he is a nice kid. And it’s his birthday.

Yunho wakes him up with a languid kiss, body falling all over him when Yeosang decides to pull him down and kiss him for another five minutes. They both smile into the kiss.

As Yeosang showers he can’t help but wonder, “so I’m already nineteen. Where’s my surprise, big boy?”

Yunho presses his lips together in a thin line, packing more of Yeosang’s clothes instead of giving him a proper answer. Yeosang frowns, brushing his hair intensively. 

∘ ༉ ‧

The ride back home takes them just five minutes, standing in front of his house’s door for the first time in a long time. Yeosang takes a deep breath, fingers lacing with Yunho’s in a way of calming himself before facing his family. He wonders how would his family take their relationship and suddenly he is not only coming back home to spend the summer break, he is coming home with his boyfriend to introduce to his family. His boyfriend that is also his Better Life Assistant. He chokes on air.

“Relax,” Yunho mumbles against his hair, placing a soft kiss there before the door is opening.

It’s not his mother but a young girl, black hair falling down her waist, big smile dancing on her pink lips.

“You must be Yeosang and Yunho,” she says, enthusiastically, “we were waiting for you! My name is Mia, nice to meet you,” she gives Yeosang both her hands to hold, but bows to Yunho the same way San, Hongjoong and Jongho do. He does the same. Yeosang still finds it weirdly that robots always bow at each other, but it also helps him to learn that’s his family’s assistant. “Come in!”

His family is already waiting for him.

Soon he is being pulled away from Yunho’s hold, his mother kissing his cheeks a thousand times before she starts nagging at him for not visiting them. His father hugs him, asking how did school go—and Yeosang only smiles and lies because he got really average grades but it’s not the time to be telling that. His brother punches him, then hugs hims, then punches again. And finally, he is pulled back into his mother’s arms for another hug.

They don’t hug nor kiss Yunho, but they do receive him with the same enthusiasm. And when they sit down on the table to eat, no one seems to get concerned of the way Yunho leans in to clean something he got on the corner of his mouth. Or how Yeosang stares at his lips for more than five minutes straight before remembering he is sitting right in front of his mom.

∘ ༉ ‧

Yunho’s surprise, ironically, is a surprise party for him. On his own house. With his own friends. Wooyoung pulls him into a bear hug way before he can take off the blindfold Yunho covered his eyes with after dinner, San joining them just a few seconds after. And he is happy.

He tells Yunho that night when they go to sleep at almost five in the morning, sharing the small bed he slept in until last year— Wooyoung and San bundled up in the spare room with Seonghwa, Jongho, Mingi and Hongjoong. Yeosang told Wooyoung to just sleep with them in his room, but all of them wanted to give them space.

It makes Yeosang roll his eyes because if someone needs space, that’s Wooyoung and his whipped ass.

“Thank you for this,” Yeosang mumbles, snuggling closer to Yunho’s chest.

If he has to be honest, the whole day felt like a dream, and even when he wants to believe he is amazing at lucid dreaming since he was able to fly around the world in just one night once, this is not a dream at all. The touch under his fingertips is softer than ever, real, a little bit electric. And the wave of feelings that covered him in an ocean of happy tears is just as warm as Yunho’s skin pressed against his own, too warm to be an actual dream. Yeosang closes his eyes and lets his mind divague for a while, finding himself falling back into the arms of the boy, kissing his lips goodnight.

Yeosang isn’t actually sure what is he thanking him for as he is fighting with the blizzards of memories attempting to cover him up his neck. Memories from almost one year, good ones and not so good one. Yet, he is thankful and he feels like saying it out loud. He thanks Yunho for existing.

And Yunho doesn’t say a thing, almost as if he fell asleep before him, as if that is actually possible. But Yeosang feels like he knows, and that makes him feel safe. No matter what happens next, if he is next to him, he has this fervent feeling that things are going to be alright. 

That their lives will be, as his name says, better.

∘ ༉ ‧

Birds chirping and sunlight dancing on his face wakes him up at what it feels like just two hours since he wrapped his legs around Yunho’s waist, finding out just a little later than it’s in reality four in the afternoon and that they all let him slept because Yunho refused to let Wooyoung enter the room to jump over him and crash his head on his sternon like they did when they were younger—last year. 

He wakes up alone, arms moving around the mattress, finding nothing more but cold sheets. Still, he is able to hear voices on the other side of the door and, as if he has a Yeosang sensor—he does—, Yunho is entering the room just a couple seconds after. He changed his pajamas into nothing more but a basic white shirt and short sweatpants that Yeosang totally believes are his brother’s. 

The boy has that smile on his face that augures something good.

“Good morning,” Yeosang grunts, voice hoarse and throat raspy. He stretches his arms in the air, feet reaching the end of the bed.

“Good afternoon,” Yunho corrects, walking his direction to kneel next to his face. Yeosang rolls enough to touch his nose with his index finger, giggles escaping through his lips as he sits down, stretching again. The shirt rolls down his shoulder, exposing his skin for the sun to kiss tenderly. His shorts are painfully digging on his thighs so he has to stick a leg in the air. Yunho grabs him by the ankle, staring at him. “Did you sleep well?”

Yeosang feels his entire body shivers with the gaze he is throwing at him, still half asleep for the boy to be attacking him like this. “Hmm, yeah?” He shrugs, finger stupidly pulling the fabric of his pants down, as if Yunho hadn't seen him naked already. “Why did you let me sleep until this late?”

Yunho presses his lips on the skin of his ankle, “you looked so cute,” another kiss, this time a little higher, “Wooyoung wanted to jump on the bed,” and another one, reaching his hamstring, “that’s not cool.”

When his lips brushes the sensitive skin of his thigh, Yeosang has to ask him to stop, trying to move his leg back. Yunho looks at him with a confused expression floating around his frown. “Hmm, Yunho,” he starts, eyes fluttering between his face and the closed door. He can still hear everyone walking and talking, Seonghwa sofly agreeing with his mom that Yeosang’s the purest boy alive. Well, sorry to disappoint you, mom. He looks down again, gasping on air as the finger kept trailing a way to his hip. It’s too soon for this. “You should stop. My mom is outside,” and there’s like four robots with an incredible hearing sense outside, too, and I don’t feel strong enough to keep my lips shut. 

“I haven't given you your birthday present yet,” Yunho pouts at him, hands moving to his thighs, caressing his skin as they make eye contact.

Yeosang shakes his head. “I don’t need a gift.”

“But I really want to—”

“We can’t right now,” he hisses, heart racing inside his chest. “They will hear me and—” 

He can’t go on, as much as he wants to take his fingers from inside his pants, because the look on the other's boy face is enough to make his heart tremble. Yeosang bites his lower lip, hands taking a grip of the fabric of the sheets. 

"Yunho," Yeosang inhales. "I'm your master."

His voice doesn't sound as confident as he wants it to be, eyes going all the way up to the ceiling because Yunho is still there, kneeling in front of him. 

"No, you're not," as Yunho speaks, Yeosang can feel how his whole body shakes. Fingers crawling up his legs till his waist, pulling down his pants slowly. "You're my friend."

Well, fuck. 

Yunho is right. Maybe a little wrong, just because as he closes his eyes and feels the muscles of his stomach tense, warm lips around his length, he is sure they're much more than friends. And of course, Yeosang doesn't want to be just a friend. He wants more.

It's still unknown for him, how Yunho can be this warm, where did he learn all that, how is possible for him to feel so alive just with a single touch. For a second, he decides it doesn't matter.

Head dizzy, legs trembling a little. He makes the most to keep his lips pressed together, jaw starting to hurt under all the pressure. The air escapes his nose in a rough way, burning him, bending his body over the boy. One of his hands fly to his head, fingers threading on Yunho's blue hair. 

He comes like this, incredibly crazy, nose sinking in the blue ocean of Yunho's hair. 

"Fuck."

They stay like that until Yeosang's body stops shaking. He is sure everyone outside is able to hear the way his heart is hammering inside his chest. Yunho moves his hand to his cheek, thumb circling over his skin. 

"That was nice," he mumbles, a soft whisper before he is moving and picking Yeosang's face in both his hands, painted in a soft shade of pink, eyes closed. "No, that was spectacular. I like the way your body reacts."

Yeosang's cheeks go even redder, hands covering Yunho's face. "Shut up."

"Don't be embarrassed," Yunho sings.

Not that easy. 

Yunho stands up, lips brushing his forehead. "You're so cute. You've been always so cute. If I had a heart, I bet it would be always beating for you."

Yeosang opens one eye, peeking through his lashes. In front of him, Yunho looks like a dazzling light. It's like after years searching for an utopia, he finally found the place where he can be himself. Where the light is so bright it blinds him, warming his heart at the same time. He feels so safe. 

"Happy birthday."

Yeosang sighs right onto his lips, kissing him softly.

∘ ༉ ‧

Getting out of the room, trying to clean the mess he did on his shirt, he finds face to face with Wooyoung and San, unable of hide the blush remaining on his cheeks. Both boys are looking at him with equal smug grins, almost as if they're fully concious of what just happened inside the room.

Yeosang frowns, covering his shirt with the towel. Wooyoung almost chokes with his own laugh.

"Good afternoon," he mumbles, feet walking fast to the bathroom. 

Wooyoung scoffs. "Good afternoon. Did you enjoy your birthday gift?"

The boy turns on his heels, ears going red. Next to Wooyoung, San is already covering his face with his hand, trying to muffle his laugh. Of course they know.

"What?"

"We told Yunho," Wooyoung admits with half a laugh, Yeosang's stomach dropping to his feet. "I hope he learned well, we showed him a video of—"

"You put him porn?" Yeosang hisses, proceeding to hit Wooyoung next. 

His friend laughs out loud without giving a proper answer, so he decides to run away and hide in the bathroom. Back pressed against the door, he feels how his pulse gets faster and faster, piercing his chest from the inside. He covers his face with both hands, still listening to Wooyoung at the other side.

"Don't be shy, he was excited to make you feel good!" He purrs.

Yeosang bites the inside of his cheek. "Shut up!" 

∘ ༉ ‧

July hits them with a heat wave that makes Yeosang stick to Yunho even more than before, thanking his boyfriend can regulate his body temperature at his own preferences, warm during the winter and fresh cold right now, skin like ice chilling Yeosang’s body. 

They lay on the floor because the couch is way too hot, Yeosang on top of Yunho, both of them shirtless. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they are quiet, and sometimes Yeosang frowns after talking about the future.

After spending all June with his family, Yeosang decided to come back to his apartment because he needed to be alone with Yunho. He needed their routine back, and their little talks in the middle of the queen sized bed. No one looking at them, just the golden sunlight hitting their skins and drowning them in the ocean of another day that ends. That made Yeosang start questioning things.

He grew older, he is nineteen years old now. There’s a lot of things that had changed in the past year, things he never thought he could feel are now blooming at an excessive fast speed, making a home in his heart and rooting in his lungs, breathing with difficulty as he wakes up one day and Yunho is curled right next to him, hair slowly falling over his face, lips parted but nothing coming up from them. He bends over, one hand under his nose; nothing. One ear pressed against his chest; nothing. 

Yunho looks more human that ever—all robots do—but in the end, he is not alive. He is not breathing, he is not pumping blood to his cheeks everytime he blush, he doesn’t have a brain that tells him what to do. It’s all mechanical.

Yes, Yunho learned. But as Wooyoung told him who knows how many months ago, they were programed to learn. And Yunho told him, that he loves him thanks to him loving him first.

Yunho is still a robot.

“What will happen to us?” Yeosang asks one of those days, listening to the murmur of the music sounding from the speakers Yunho has control over. His face buried in the place his neck and shoulder meet, not wanting to listen to the void inside his chest for the first time in days.

“Hmm?” Yunho doesn’t stop caressing his hair.

“You won’t age, right?” He asks, scared of whatever comes up next. 

The world is still moving, days pass faster than he imagined, his body is growing older every day. In just one year, he got older, he changed, he even found white hairs welcoming him from the top of his head one day.  Yet Yunho is still the same as he was when he first met him, Yunho can’t age.

“No.”

“What will happen to us?” Yeosang repeats, frowning a little.

“I don’t understand you, Yeosang.”

He curls even closer to his body, not being able to look up at him in the eye now. He feels ready to cry his heart out because… Because they can’t be together forever. And it’s all because of him. He knows Wooyoung wants to marry San in the future, that he doesn’t care about San looking the same as he did when he was eighteen when he is ninety and on his deathbed. But Yeosang cares, Yeosang is scared he will be holding onto Yunho all his life and that when he dies, he forgets about him. An entire life together just for someone to turn him down, Yeosang’s beautiful memory vanishing like dust in the air.

He doesn't want that. For a memory of a whole life to be that meaningless. 

“Will you spend all your life with me?”

“Of course.”

“And will you still remember me when I’m gone?”

“Where are you going?” Yunho's voice fills with concern. 

Yeosang sighs, shaking his head and falling in dead silence. Yunho doesn’t push him, spending another hour in the living room floor, in utterly silence until Yeosang is dragging his feet to the bathroom and crying in silence. He doesn’t understand why, but he is so scared of the future.

Like Yunho will disappear at any moment and he won’t be able to do a thing.

Like he will disappear, too.

Because they don't have forever, and despite being the happiest he has ever been, Yeosang can't help but worry about the future. A future where his entire existence vanishes like dust in the air.

A future where Yunho will stop looking like a human. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Yeosang wakes up startled, Yunho’s hands all over his body. He thinks he is dreaming at first, heart sinking with the sight of his expression as he adjust his eyes to the dark: broken. He quickly stands up, sitting in the bed, hands automatically moving to his shoulders, silently searching for the worst.

“What happens?” Yeosang mumbles, Yunho gulps. "Are you okay?"

“Wooyoung called,” Yunho starts in a whisper, eyes avoiding him for the first time in this year. “It’s late and I didn’t want to wake you up so I let it ring, but he insisted so I picked up.”

Yeosang arches his brow, heart throbbing.

“He was crying,” Yeosang’s heart sinks, one foot already on the floor, tripping with the carpet. Is Yunho the one that picks him up, fingers tightly wrapped around his arm. He can feel how his throat goes dry, piercing feeling breaking his heart in half. “Something happened with San, he wants us to go—"

Yeosang doesn’t wait to listen for more.

Things go slow but incredibly fast at the same time. Yeosang doesn’t listen to Yunho as he puts on some clothes, neither he does on the way from their apartment to Wooyoung’s. His head is numb, his worst fear coming alive when Wooyoung opens the door for them at five in the morning and his eyes are red, watery, hopeless.

Yeosang quickly shoves him into a hug, hearts pounding together. 

“What happens?” He stutters, seeing it before Wooyoung can even part his lips to tell him.

He freezes.

San is on the floor, splattered, not moving at all.

“I–I don’t know what’s happening,” Wooyoung is sobbing, shoulders aggressively shaking, one hand holding Yeosang’s tightly. “I was sleeping and then he called me… But he was just like this and I–I tried to stand him but he’s suddenly so heavy and he’s just saying that he loves me, not to call to the technical service I don’t– I don’t know what to do, Sangie, I'm scared he—”

Yeosang moves closer, Yunho already kneeling next to San’s body. The boy looks the same but differently at the same time, one of his eyes shining in a bright blue light, flickering, while the other is totally black. Dead. For the way he is just laying there, he guesses he can’t move and for the way he glances at Yeosang, every single expression he learned in the past year converted in nothing but sparkly dust covering his sad eyes, he knows that even now, San is scared.

“We need to call the technical service,” Yeosang says in a mumble, trying so hard to no cry. Unknown feelings bottling inside his chest.

San’s body doesn’t move but he does move his eye, looking at Wooyoung first, flying to where Yunho is kneeling next to him. Even Yeosang can see how much he dislikes that idea with such a simple movement. Almost like the boy is able to think by himself. About the consequences. 

“No,” Yunho says firmly, a little harshly.

“But something is happening, we can’t just leave him he—” Yeosang tries. 

“No.”

This time, is San the one speaking. Voice robotized, still filled with a lot of feelings, making Yeosang’s heart shake and Wooyoung to fall into his knees next to him. Their hands search for each other, holding tight. Yeosang moves back when Wooyoung leans in to kiss his cheek.

“Why not,” he, still, whispering at the boy in such a sweet voice. Sobbing, trembling. “What’s happening, San?”

One of Yunho’s hands find Yeosang, intertwining their fingers, and when their eyes meet for the first time since they arrived, Yeosang finds sad eyes. No tears, because robots can’t cry, but he feels the sadness on Yunho’s expression like it was his own. A reflection. No. 

Going further than that. Yunho's own sadness. 

“The system is crashing,” is Yunho the one speaking with a  mumble, Wooyoung quickly looking back. “If they take him, he will lose every single memory of you. He doesn’t want that.”

Wooyoung is the first one reacting, ironically. His whole body shakes, falling defeated next to San’s body. For a moment, his expression changes into something peaceful, but it’s nothing more but the so known calm before the storm. Then, he starts breaking. Not only crying, Yeosang can see from a tiny window how his friend shatters in front of him before holding San’s hand. Yeosang is the only one that remains frozen on the spot, eyes glued to San’s body.

He is hurting, but he knows he can’t actually hurt. Yet his expression is filled with sadness as Wooyoung screams that he is saying bullshit, that they need to help him.

“You can’t die on me, San.”

Yeosang starts feeling breathless all of sudden, finally coming back into the real world. The tears appear before he can’t even say a single word, and now it’s too late for that. His throat is dry and closed, chest shaking with sobs. Heart breaking in between all the flowers that grew there for the past months.

“Don’t do this to me,” Wooyoung’s voice sounds distant, vibrant colors fading in front of him, leaving him with nothing more but a gray sky and Yunho. Yeosang can’t see through his tears. “San, everything's gonna be okay, you hear me? We’re gonna be okay.”

Like a bad dream he can’t wake up from, Yeosang looks at Yunho through a thick glass. The boy is alone, surrounded by darkness. He presses a hand over the glass, trying to get to him, but Yunho is already giving him a weird smile. Fading like San is, like Wooyoung is.

Like his memory is. 

Yeosang's worst nightmare.

Not even the robots seem to be timeless, and the countdown started sooner than he expected.

∘ ༉ ‧

It’s all over the news before he can’t even realize it. 

Year 3030. They called it the year of change, and it really changed Yeosang’s life, but it was too soon for such a big change. Too big for their small bodies to take it without consequences.

Better Life Assistants all over the world are starting to crash, systems failing, bodies being took away by the technical service and never coming back. They took San hours after they found him, eyes totally black and a body that used to be warm, totally ice cold.

Yeosang has been waiting for the worst, watching the news every morning, not talking, not even eating more than necessary. Until the awaited new it’s finally out two weeks after that incident.

They’re taking the robots for a while. The Better Life Assistant project failed.

Yeosang just wishes it’s all part of a bad dream.

∘ ༉ ‧

“You need to go,” Yeosang says the day after, observing how Yunho prepares another dish he will left untouched next to his bed. Calm reflecting on his face. Like the world isn’t burning behind their backs. Like San didn't crash like he did. 

Like everything he knows isn't sinking. 

It’s been two long weeks on bed, without barely talking to each other, but Yeosang finally made up his mind. It seems like with Yunho, he is always having a hard time coming to a fast conclusion. Roaming around, hurting inside until the words are dripping from his lips. The government will take Yunho away, make him forget about all the things they lived for the past year, maybe even shatter him to pieces to make another robot. Like they did with San. Not thinking about his feelings, not even knowing how alive the boy can be. Being afraid of what they created. Some could said, being afraid of love.

And Yeosang can’t let that happen. Not now. 

“You finally decided to get off bed,” Yunho’s voice is sweet, pretending he didn’t hear him. He turns around, showing him the plate full of fruit, smile curving the edges of his mouth  up. “I prepared a fruit salad, I figured you’d like something sweet and light.”

Yeosang shakes his head, jaw tightening by seconds. 

“Yunho,” his name slips through his lips with difficulty, almost like he doesn’t want to let go. “I want you to go. Now.”

Yunho frowns back, placing the plate atop the countertop. He steps forward, one hand flying in the air towards Yeosang’s direction. Yet, they don’t reach for each other like they used to do. Yeosang can’t, feet making their way backwards.

“What are you saying?” Yunho whispers.

“Go. They’re going to come for you, it’s all over the news,” Yeosang promised to not cry again, but it’s becoming difficult to even breathe. “Your system is not prepared for all the blooming feelings you’re experimenting. You were created to help, not to fall in love. You will eventually crash.”

Or they will crash you.

“I’m okay, Yeosang. I’ve never been better in my life, so you don’t have to worry, if they come, I’ll just tell them I’m okay and—”

“You’re a robot,” Yeosang cuts him, jaw clenched hard. They stand in silence for a second, then Yeosang is adding in a soft voice, “you’re a robot, okay? Your only mission was to make my life better, and you did. Yunho, you did. You… You were so annoying at first, always following me around and waking me up at six in the morning, entering the bathroom without knocking and observing me. It was so annoying but, but you’re also so cute. Taking notes of all the things I like, like hot chocolate with exactly three marshmallows or the temperature of the water or hugging me when I was having a really stressing day because that’s the only thing that calms me. I realized late that making my life better wasn’t related to doing my chores, but allowing me to feel happy with myself. And you did,” Yeosang’s eyes fill with tears, voice trembling as he hugs his own body. It hurts, it feels like shattering inside, skin keeping him complete but something missing. “I’m satisfied. You’ve made my life better, so go. You’re free.”

He covers his mouth with one hand, trying to keep his crying to himself. Because it's there. What he fears the most. Oblivion. Everything they lived brought down to ashes. It might sound selfish, but Yeosang doesn't want to end it like that. Not after the life Yunho gave him. 

Sometimes, letting go is better than forgetting everything. 

Yunho moves fast, pulling him against his chest. One hand on the small of his back, the other on his nape. And that’s enough to make Yeosang break down to pieces. As always, there’s no sound coming back when he presses his ear against the place his heart should be. 

“Please, go,” he begs, fingers tightly wrapped around the fabric of Yunoh's shirt. “I want you to keep on living.”

“Yeosang,” his voice is always soft, “what’s the point of living if it’s not without you?”

“Staying will kill you.”

“I don’t care,” Yunho cuts. “I rather forget everything than living alone. Letting you alone.”

Yeosang is soon pressing both hands flat against his chest, and for a moment, he feels the desire of bringing him close again. Kiss him, pretend everything’s fine. Go to sleep and wake up in a world that’s not as messed up as theirs. He ends up pushing him aside.

“It’s an order, Yunho. Go.”

“We’re friends,” Yunho whispers, eyes shining differently for a moment.

Yeosang moves a hand towards him, totally asking for Yunho’s, who doesn’t doubt on holding it. Always doing what he asks. Because he was programed to that. Not for the kisses, and the intimate moments, and the smiles. Yunho trusts Yeosang, and that is an error. Yeosang immediately opening the configuration menu when their hands meet. Tears blurring his vision as he deletes the friends status.

He wants Yunho to live as happy as he has been living. 

“We’re not,” he sentences, going back. Yunho’s eyes going from blue to gray before turning their usual brown. Expression turning a little bit dead. “Yunho, I want you to go. Hide from the police. Now.”

This time, Yunho just looks down at him with a plain expression, nodding just a second after. “Okay, Master.”

Yeosang is running back to his room before the robot can make any movement, but when minutes later he hears how the door opens, he can’t help but break to tears. Meaning to feel relieved, because he just gave him a chance to keep on living, to keep everything they had together alive, he just feels like a part of himself detached from his chest.

When the government comes to ask for his robot, Yeosang just shrugs and says he never accepted having one. Hiding everything that could make it obvious, like the charging box that's embedded on his wall.

And maybe that was what he should’ve done since the start.

∘ ༉ ‧

Birds chirping and the warm breeze of the end of September have Yeosang wondering again if the past months happened for real or if it was just some kind of lucid dream. Everything seems so calm, so peaceful, no one could actually believe robots were walking among them less than three months ago.

Looking at the sky, Yeosang wonders if it was always that bright blue.

“Do you miss him?” Wooyoung’s voice fills the small place, both of them laying over the grass of Yeosang’s grandparents house, enjoying their last days of summer break until the new semester starts. Like nothing happened.

“Who?” Yeosang presses his lips in a tight line.

“Yunho," Wooyoung grits his teeth as he speaks. "Don’t be like that, Sang. Not with me.”

Wooyoung’s sad. Yeosang totally knows that. The happiness San brought upon his life was taken away the same day the boy crashed, and Wooyoung did it with him. It wasn’t just a relationship, they were much more. Wooyoung found in San a partner to share his craziest adventures with, a friend. A lifetime long friend that was taken away sooner than he expected. Wooyoung believed robots would last more than they will. He was wrong, and San lasted less than they all expected. 

He disappeared, without being able to say goodbye.

And Yeosang hates the fact he feels the exact same, but maybe even worse. Because Yunho’s still out there, because he was the one pushing him out of his life. Because they had the chance to say goodbye, but they didn’t.

“Sometimes,” Yeosang starts, eyes fixed on the sky. The bright blue sky that could never beat the brightness of Yunho’s blue hair. The same sky he liked to watch over the window so much, sitting in the middle of his bed. The same sky under they kind of fell in love. Without realizing it, because that’s the thing with love, it happens way before you could even realize, sometimes time goes so fast you already let go when you realize. The same sky where Yeosang felt like home. He wants to go back. “Sometimes I wonder how my life would have been if Yunho wasn’t a robot. If he was another college boy from my class. If we met because we were paired up in some project together and not because he was vinculated to my apartment. How would have been to fall in love with someone that has a heart.”

Wooyoung moves a little, fingers intertwining in seconds. Giving him a squeeze. 

“It lasts just a second because the past year taught me that you don’t need a heart to being able to feel. And that my life with Yunho was perfect as it was. And I miss him so much I wish I was the one without a heart so all the pain would go away, just to realize once again the pain won’t go away. Even without a heart, it will never go away.”

The tears are blurring his vision again, but the sky keeps shining in blue.

Sometimes Yeosang wonders if Yunho still thinks about him. If he got to save that for him.

If he is still happy. 

∘ ༉ ‧

Coming into his apartment after he left by the end of August to an utterly silence has Yeosang’s stomach dropping to his feet. Classes starting again brings back all the memories, and in every single one of them, there’s Yunho. Since the first time they saw each other, till the last one. Standing in front of the kitchen, fruit plate forgotten on the counter. He remembers not being able to even touch it when he left, yet it’s not there anymore. Everything is so clean, charging box welcoming him. 

Almost as if the world is telling him it happened for real. 

Soon every memory vanishes with the soft breeze of a new start and Yeosang is falling onto his bed. Sheets smelling like soap, eyes closing. Mind running wild around the fact he will have to put on the alarm, make breakfast, come to an empty house—the third one seems the most difficult one.

Falling asleep without even realizing it, he is suddenly waking up to the sound of the curtains moving. Startled, he immediately looks up to the windows, finding a tall figure there. If there wasn’t for the light coming through the glass, illuminating the bright blue hair of that person, Yeosang would have screamed in fear. He remains silent, voice stuck on his throat as well with air tangled on his ribs.

Yunho standing in front of him with one eye shining and the other totally dark, unable to move. Resembling San, but strong enough to walk up to the window and cover the light that was dancing on Yeosang's face.

Looking at him in the eye after two months makes Yeosang realize he is nineteen but knows nothing about the world he is living in. He grew up believing robots were nothing but machines designed to help them, just like big toasters unable to talk or feel, accepting every order without complains. Yet, it’s all fake. Robots are intelligent, caring, funny, cute. Robots are able to be clumsy, and cheesy, and untalented. And they don’t always follow an order.

Yeosang realizes as he sits up in bed and the early night flows in silence, lights sparkling at the other side of the window making his eyes hurt. Yunho ends what he started, closing the curtains and slowly walking towards the bed. Tears kiss Yeosang’s cheeks somehow between Yunho kneeling in front of him and Yeosang’s body moving alone to fall on top of him. Chest burning with the air that he has been containing inside, arms feeling like jelly as he wraps them around the boy.

“What are you doing here?” Yeosang stutters, feeling how his voice turns shaky as well with his whole body, Yunho’s arms wrapping tightly around his waist, resting the weight of his body on top of him. Yeosang can assure he just let out the biggest sigh of relief. 

“I’m sorry,” Yunho says first, forehead resting over Yeosang’s shoulder. “I didn’t know where to go, I was running out of energy. I know what you told me, but this is the only place I know.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Yeosang is soon breaking their hold to press both hands at each side of his face, looking at him from up-close. Every thought, every tear he shed during the long summer coming back to him, hitting him. “I was wrong. I’m the one that’s sorry. What happened to your eye?”

Yunho shows a deceivingly smile as Yeosang’s fingers run over his face with such care he is not sure if he can’t feel the touch at all. Going over his eye, that once shone so brightly, now looking dead and black. Dark fractures clacking the fair skin, moving up to his forehead and down his cheek. Soon his hand is totally cuping his cheek, pain twisting inside his heart, taking all the regret to the core of his being as Yunho rests his soul there.

He was wrong. 

“Maybe you weren’t as wrong as I wanted you to be,” he whispers, both eyes closing as he says: “I’ll crash. Because it’s true, we weren’t prepared for real life, life that’s filled with strong feelings. And my whole existence starts with you, Yeosang. If it has to end, I wanted it to end it with you.”

In the quietness of the dark, Yeosang can’t help but crash as well.

“I can’t forget you,” Yunho mumbles. “Even if I try. Even if you try. I’m not longer a machine. I don’t know what am I. Whatever it is, you shaped it. And it’s beautiful. I'm sorry I faked that time, I did what you wanted me to do.”

One of the things Yeosang feared the most was oblivion. Growing up older for Yunho to still look the same as always. For him to die and the person he loved to forget about him without even shedding a tear. That fear was totally covered by a bigger one when robots decided to die before humans.

Somehow, getting a forever it’s not as easy as it seems to be. As fireworks, they rush to arrive to the sky, not knowing everything will end with their arrival. Life is ephemeral, and humans spend all their way dreaming with reaching the sky.

But it’s okay.

Now, it’s okay.

“We’ll be okay,” Yeosang mutters, thumbs running over his cheeks, bringing his face close to press his lips on his forehead like Yunho used to do. “We’re together. It’ll be okay.”

Because Yunho proved all of them wrong, Yunho will remember him. And not even in a hundred years Yeosang will forget the year of change, the year his life took a 180-degree spin and he was able to see how clear the sky was.

How blue.

How they became better. Together.