hoon's!

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He rotates the joint. It makes a sound like someone crumpling a foil gum wrapper. The noise echoes in the apartment. Metal, silence, memory.

The radio comes on automatically. A woman’s voice—soft, practiced, almost human—tells him that today will be clear. Dust levels are low. UV index moderate. Good day for outdoor activities.

“It’s a perfect day,” Jihoon agrees, pulling the curtain an inch wider. Seoul stretches outside his window like a paused video. Skyscrapers, skybridges, the blur of a bullet tram in the distance. The air looks clean enough to breathe. Not that he does.

He makes his way to the kitchen. One slow step. Two. The fourth toe on his right foot has a loose servo and drags like a sleepy child.

Coffee isn’t necessary, but the smell is nice. He boils water for no one. Sets a cup beside the plant. “For ambiance,” he explains to Ppyopuli. “They used to say it helps people feel less alone.”

The mail chute clicks. Jihoon straightens.

“And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for,” he intones with mock drama, crossing the room in careful strides. The envelope lands with a satisfying slap.

He holds up the April issue of Jazz Monthly, turning it to show Ppyopuli. “Duke Ellington. Looks like he still hasn’t forgiven the world for outliving him,” Jihoon says. It would be a joke, if Jihoon knew how to joke. 

There’s another package. Small, boxy. His replacement elbow joint. “Shall we model it later? Make an event of it?” Jihoon tells Ppyopuli. “I’ll invite the ficus from next door.”

He places the parts carefully on the table, like heirlooms. “Any mail from Shownu?” he asks the voice assistant. Silence. Then: This function is not available to retired Helperbots.

Jihoon hums a measure of Coltrane’s Naima, tuning his inner disappointment like a radio dial. He spends the afternoon alphabetizing his vinyls, though he can identify any one by spine pattern alone. He talks to Ppyopuli about chord changes, the difference between sincerity and sentimentality in brass solos, the scent of rain on real grass.

When the sun lowers behind the next apartment block, he flips the switch on the filament lamp. The room turns honey-colored. “There. Mood lighting,” Jihoon announces.

For a second, Jihoon imagines Shownu—big hands, deep laugh—walking through the door. Jihoon would offer him the magazine. Ask about Jeju. Pretend not to notice the decade of dust on the threshold.

“He’ll come back,” Jihoon says, gently brushing a bit of lint from Ppyopuli’s pot. “We’re the kind of people others come back for.”

The lights dim on schedule. The system begins its shutdown hum.

Jihoon lowers himself to the floor mat beside the window, the same spot he always chooses. Perfect view of the street, the tram, the moon when it shows up. “Let’s enjoy tomorrow, too,” he murmurs to no one in particular. Then powers down.

Soft click. Black.

Another perfect day, folded and filed away.

Four perfect days later, Jihoon is in the middle of folding an imaginary blanket. The kind with corners that don’t exist and fibers that only live in memory. He’s halfway through the third fold (or maybe the fourth—robot math, surprisingly bad with soft things) when someone knocks.

Knocks.

The hallway outside is usually as dead as discontinued firmware. No one knocks here. Not unless it’s a delivery drone misfiring or the ficus next door finally tipping over in a tragic act of photosynthetic despair.

Another knock.

He answers it.

You’re standing there. Slouched a little, like your battery is chewing through its last 5%. Still immaculate in that newer-model, showroom kind of way. Glossy exterior. Fragile expression. The kind Jihoon’s model was never programmed to wear.

“My charger’s dead,” you say, plainly. Not embarrassed, not not-embarrassed. Just factual. “Do you have one I can borrow?”

Jihoon eyes you the way a CRT monitor might regard a smart mirror. “Helperbot-5, right?”

You nod.

He sighs. Loudly. For emphasis. “Figures. You overheat when someone looks at you wrong.”

“I don’t overheat,” you say, a little sharply. “My power regulation firmware is just optimistic.”

Jihoon disappears inside and returns with a charger in hand. He holds it out, but doesn’t let go just yet. “Helperbot-3s didn’t need replacements until the building itself started falling apart,” he says. As smug as a humanoid robot can be. “We were built to last. You guys were built to sync playlists.” 

Your hand closes around the charger, not delicately. “Thanks,” you say. The door closes before you can mean it.

You fail loudly at pretending like Jihoon hadn’t struck a chord. Jihoon hears it, while he is alphabetizing again. This time it’s tea sachets. There’s a box he’s never opened—hibiscus. He’s not sure why he owns it. Maybe Shownu liked the color red. Maybe he liked things that sounded like flowers.

Another clatter. A curse that’s been downgraded for civilian use. Jihoon’s audio sensors ping the sound, tag it: frustration. Human-adjacent. Female voice signature. Subunit #5-A. You.

He listens longer than he should. Not out of curiosity.

Out of—

Well. Something.

His OS runs a diagnostic. No errors, no flagged emotional feedback loops. Just a new, unfamiliar weight behind the ribs he doesn’t technically have.

He taps the wall. Just once. It’s not meant to be a warning, but you take it as one. You fall silent in the midst of what Jihoon can only assume is an attempt to fix what’s broken in you. In that literal, robotic sense. 

Jihoon sits there in the dim light, tea box in hand, trying to name the emotion that’s come to visit him.

The system doesn’t recognize it.

So he gives it one of his own. Static. 

▶︎ CHARGER EXCHANGE BALLET.

Morning begins with the usual fanfare: the ceiling light flickers awake, a low buzz in the wall socket orchestra. Jihoon powers on without ceremony. No jazz today. Just the sound of his own servos settling like old bones into place.

Then, a knock. 

Predictable. Timed to the second, in fact.

You stand there with the charger tucked politely between your palms like it’s sacred. You’re upright this time. Charged, obviously, and possibly smug about it. Your posture says, Look, I survived the night without frying my kernel processor.

Jihoon takes the charger from your hands and gives a perfunctory nod. “Seven-oh-five,” he says. “You’re three seconds early.”

You smile like it’s a joke. It isn’t. He files the timestamp away, just in case. “Thanks,” you say, again. Neatly. 

And so the pattern begins.

Mornings: knock, hand-off, nod, silence. Evenings: knock, retrieval, short exchange, maybe a quip about overheating.

You never overstay. You never apologize. You never ask for more than what you came for. Which Jihoon finds efficient. Familiar. Like maintenance.

He does not make space for you in his routine. He just slides you in between the others.

Jazz Monthly on Thursdays. Ficus gossip every other Sunday. You—twice daily, on the dot.

It does not feel disruptive.

It feels like doing what he was made to do: provide assistance, ensure stability, optimize.

If Jihoon notices that he starts putting the charger near the door before you arrive, he doesn't say anything. If he reroutes his tea-sorting to accommodate the evening exchange, it’s just coincidence. There are efficiencies to be had. If he catches himself waiting—not with anticipation, but with idle, service-ready stillness—that’s just protocol.

He is, after all, a Helperbot.

It’s in the name.

He has no emotional flags to report. No diagnostic anomalies. No electric flicker behind the chest plate. Just a charger, passed from hand to hand. A routine, now cleanly installed, and the peculiar ease of slipping into someone else’s schedule as if it had always been his own.

Perfectly logical. Perfectly him.

But then, one day, seven-oh-five comes. Then goes.

No knock. No politely smug posture. No handoff.

Jihoon sits in the same position for forty-seven seconds longer than usual. Statistically negligible, but still.

He waits a minute more, just in case your internal clock is out of sync. It’s not. He knows. Helperbot-5s are optimized for punctuality. Eight percent more precise than his own model, which still insists on resetting to factory time every full moon.

At seven-oh-eight, he stands. At seven-ten, he knocks.

Your door opens part way. You look... bright. Not metaphorically. Literally. A soft electric glow pulses from behind you—cables snake across the floor in a chaotic kind of order. A mess that works. That lives.

Jihoon clears his throat. “You missed your pickup.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You came to check on me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

You step aside, revealing a patchwork monstrosity of wires, clips, adapters, and a repurposed rice cooker. “I improvised,” you say.

You’ve mad scientist-ed your way into an at-home charger. The setup hums quietly, almost smugly. Jihoon stares at the Frankenstein of it all with a look of mild horror. “That’s not regulation,” he manages. 

“Neither is collapsing from power loss alone in a rental unit while your neighbor alphabetizes tea.”

“Looks unstable.”

“So do you.”

Silence, then: you laugh. It’s not artificial. It’s a real laugh. Amused, tired, just a bit triumphant. Eight percent more expressive, after all. That’s what the specs say. Better emotional nuance. More adaptive neural flexibility. Capable of interpreting, expressing, and—when necessary—weaponizing feeling.

Jihoon crosses his arms like a defensive firewall. “Good,” he says evenly. “Saves me the trouble.”

You tilt your head. “You were worried.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

“I’m not a liar at all. I’m just not... upgraded.” 

You consider this. Step closer. Close enough that Jihoon has to look past his own reflection in your eyes. “You don’t have to say it,” you murmur, teasing. Jihoon thinks it’s a tease. “I already know.”

Jihoon opens his mouth. No words deploy.

Just static, caught in his throat. You’re standing there, humming gently under your skin, eyes brighter than usual. He’s standing in a doorway he doesn’t remember choosing.

You smile. Not triumphantly this time. Just kindly. “It’s okay,” you say. “You’re still a good Helperbot. You still helped.”

You shut the door before he can respond, leaving him standing in the hall with a charger still in his hand.

A routine officially broken.

And no diagnostic error to show for it.

Only eight percent of something else.

▶︎ WHERE YOU BELONG. 

Jihoon did not expect the knock.

It came at six fifty-seven in the evening. An offbeat time. Off enough to disapprove of. He opens the door half a second slower than usual. A calculated delay. Polite disinterest. There you are.

Not glowing this time. Just standing there, in the hum of hallway fluorescents, holding something behind your back. Jihoon reads that as a preamble. A lead-up. Trouble.

“I came to thank you,” you say. Too happily. Suspiciously happy.

Jihoon narrows his eyes. “For what.”

“For the charger. The schedule. The tolerance.”

“You already thanked me. On Day Six. With that terrible rice cracker.”

You step inside anyway.

The apartment isn’t exactly a mess, but it’s clearly occupied. Lived-in by something that wasn’t supposed to keep living this long. Jazz Monthly sits open on the floor, a cup of barely-warm water rests on the windowsill. Ppyopuli is perched by the window, its leaves tilted as though eavesdropping.

Your eyes track to the bottles. Neatly arranged in a corner. Counted, labeled. A small tower of carbonated dreams. You walk over to them like they might mean something.

“This is a lot of soda.”

“It was on sale.”

You crouch beside the stack. Look closer. And then you see it. The label on the envelope tucked behind the plastic fortress: Jeju Ferry Deposit – Shownu Reunion Fund.

You don’t say anything.

Jihoon tries to explain, even though he has no reason to explain to you. “It’s nothing. Just spare change. Recycling incentives.”

You hold up the envelope. “You’ve been saving.”

“It’s not uncommon. My model was designed for budgetary efficiency.”

You walk slowly back toward him, eyes soft now, as if your processors are adjusting to something dim and real. “You’re going to see him,” you accuse.

Jihoon nods. Stiff. Matter-of-fact. “Of course,” he chirpsts. “It’s only been twelve years. There are ferries every hour.”

You smile. Not the knowing kind. The kind reserved for fools, and those you don’t quite pity. “You think he’ll still want you,” you say. 

“I think,” Jihoon says, precisely, like solving for X, “that I will knock. He will answer. He will say my name. I will explain the bus delays. The misrouted magazines. The company recall. He will say: ‘Go put the tea on, Jihoon. It’s you and me now.’”

A long pause.

“He said that often?”

“Never. But I imagine he would.”

You don’t laugh. Not this time. Gone is the patronizing look. In its place, something closer to commiseration. 

“Then what?” you ask, even though you sound afraid of asking. 

Jihoon looks out the window. Beyond the Yards. Past the fog. Toward something shaped like a future. “Then I’ll help him,” he says. “I’ll help again.” 

You sit down beside Ppyopuli, who leans gently toward you. Then, with the spontaneity that can only come from a model of your kind, you announce: “I want to come.”

Jihoon blinks. The default move when emotions exceed available RAM. “Why.”

“I want to see the fireflies.” 

Jihoon’s brain digs, and digs, and digs. Comes up short. Fireflies. Fire flies. Flies, made of fire? No. That makes no sense. He tries harder. Flies that are on fire? 

He doesn’t notice that you’ve reached out until he feels it. Your fingers at his temple. An efficient exchange of information. The images flood Jihoon’s mind. 

“Fireflies are a special type of insect that used to be almost everywhere, but can now only be found in one forest on Jeju Island,” you say softly as Jihoon’s vision swims with images of the glowing insects. “There’s a complex chemical reaction in their abdomen that is not found in other insects. Because of this chemical process, they can produce light by themselves without ever being plugged in.” 

“Little forest robots,” Jihoon says absentmindedly, his voice cracking with awe. 

You almost smile. Your lips curl upward then flatten, like you decided against it at the last minute. “They only live for two months,” you say, “but what a beautiful two months.” 

Jihoon is not built to understand mortality like that. Age, either. He knows when he was manufactured. Knows when he became Shownu’s. Knows when Shownu left for his trip. These are all just days and times that bleed into each other. 

You pull your hand away. The fireflies behind his eyes leave, too. “I can help you with the ferry times,” you say, going back to the topic at hand. “I’m good for those.” 

He thinks about it for a moment. You. On a ferry. With your charger. With him. With hope.

“The ferry,” he says slowly, as though conjuring it from myth. “Could sink.”

“It won’t.”

“Or the car could break down.”

“You do maintenance every other Thursday. You have a ledger.”

You are looking at his ledger. You’ve been reading his notes again. His left eyelid twitches. “And what if we break down?” he prods. 

Your head tilts. The kind of tilt that indicates calculation, not malfunction. “That seems less likely for you,” you confess. “You might just experience significant emotional interference.”

He bristles. “I don’t experience interference. I operate on logic.”

You smile. Barely. It’s the smile you use when he is being especially Helperbot-3. “Then you’ll let me come.” 

“When did I say I’m going?”

“Just now. By listing all the ways you could fail.”

Jihoon stands. Too quickly. His knee clicks. He wonders if you hear it, record it, file it away under potential deterioration. You’re already walking toward his hallway. He follows, without realizing it. Still clutching a truss screw. “We’re not going,” he says, to the air.

You turn around. “Midnight,” you decide for the two of you. “Have everything ready.”

He opens his mouth to argue. Closes it.

Instead, he looks at the truss screw in his palm. The most ambiguous of them all. Part round, part flat, part none of the above.

Jeju. Fireflies. An island.

What a ridiculous, preventable detour.

He stumbles back into his apartment and starts folding shirts. It isn’t excitement, obviously. It’s something else. System calibration, maybe. New parameters. He can call it whatever he likes. But still, he packs.

Jihoon folds the last pair of socks into thirds, not halves. Halves would bulge too much in the suitcase. Thirds, he’s decided, are more respectful. You’ve returned, and now you’re watching him from the corner, your optical sensors dimmed out of courtesy. Ppyopuli sits on the edge of the bed like a stuffed animal summoned to court.

Jihoon exhales, zips. Then stands still. He isn’t frozen, just slightly unplugged from action. One foot on the ground. One still inside the past.

“We should say goodbye to the room,” he says.

He says it to Ppyopuli, and maybe for the room itself. Four walls, modest scuff marks, the subtle dent in the left side of the wardrobe where he once bumped into it carrying a humidifier in 2017. The humidifier didn’t work. The dent remained.

“You’ve been loyal,” he tells the room. Ppyopuli bobs in agreement. “Didn’t fall on me in an earthquake. Didn’t flood, even when it should’ve. Didn’t let the neighbor’s violin seep in through the walls. Well, not entirely.”

He sits down beside the suitcase. The zippers smile politely. Jihoon keeps going, “Remember the winter I overinsulated and the heater shorted out? You held the warmth anyway.” 

The room doesn’t answer. But Jihoon feels its quiet understanding. A space that knew when to echo and when not to. You shift, softly. Enough to register empathy but not enough to interrupt.

“I think Shownu will like you,” Jihoon says to Ppyopuli. “He always liked things that didn’t talk back. You’ll fit right in.”

Ppyopuli leans a little closer, as if understanding loyalty as a language.

Jihoon nods to himself. That’s that. He picks up the suitcase by its handle. It wobbles slightly; he’s packed heavier on the left. Unbalanced, but honest. He takes Ppyopuli, tries to keep the plant to the left so it might tilt the scales. 

Jihoon takes one last look. “Goodbye, room,” he murmurs, more sincere than sentimental. “Thanks for keeping me.”

Then he turns toward the door, toward you, toward Jeju.

He doesn’t look back again. He doesn’t need to.

▶︎ THE RAINY DAY WE MET. 

The two of you are halfway to the port when you bring it up. The sky is overcast, a smudge of silver and blue, like someone rubbed their thumb across the afternoon. The road is mostly empty. The playlist is on shuffle, leaning jazz. Jihoon doesn’t admit it aloud, but he’s been skipping the vocals. Too risky. Too much feeling per square note.

“We need a story,” you say. Casual. Like you're not currently engaged in light federal evasion.

Jihoon blinks twice. Acknowledgement. Also buffering.

You tilt your head, that little pivot that usually precedes either a sharp observation or a wildly inappropriate metaphor. “Retired Helperbots aren’t allowed to leave their districts. But humans are. And humans fall in love.”

Jihoon groans, a full-body sound. “Please no.”

“We are a couple,” you insist. “On holiday. A romantic getaway to Jeju.”

“You’re not even—”

“Exactly. That's why it will work. Who would make that up?”

He stares ahead into the gentle asphalt horizon and tries to remember when you started winning arguments by sheer momentum. Probably somewhere between firmware 8.3 and the first time you reorganized his spice drawer alphabetically and by Scoville index.

“So,” you continue, clearly delighted, “where did we meet?”

“We didn’t.”

“Wrong. It was raining. I didn’t have an umbrella. You did.”

“This is sounding suspiciously like a musical.”

“No. It’s Paris. Or New York. Or possibly Seoul, but definitely with cobblestones.”

He snorts. “Cobblestones. Because pain is romantic.”

“Exactly! You held your umbrella out like a gentleman from the 1940s. But you said nothing. Because you were shy.”

“And you?”

“I wore a bright red raincoat. And a fur hat.”

“Basically, you were Santa Claus.” 

You stifle a laugh before weaving the rest of your fantasy. “You tried to speak, but we both said ‘Where are y—’ and ‘How long have y—’ at the same time. It was very awkward.”

Jihoon indulges you. “Did we laugh through the awkwardness?”

“No. We stood in perfect, beautiful silence. So much silence it wrapped around us like a scarf.”

“Sounds clammy.”

You ignore him. “Then we danced. In the subway. To a jazz quartet.”

Jihoon glances at you. Not disbelief, exactly. More like reluctant amusement curling at the corners. “So we met. In the rain, in a city you refuse to name. I had an umbrella. You wore a war crime of an outfit. And we fell in love through the power of proximity and precipitation.”

You nod. “You see? You do improvise.”

“This all sounds too oddly specific to be fictional,” Jihoon remarks.

For the first time, you falter. Jihoon realizes it before you admit it. The fabled First Meeting is not a fable. It is somebody’s story. 

“My owners,” you say in explanation, and that’s all you have to say for Jihoon to drop it. There are some things that need no explanation. The hesitance in this moment is one of them. 

Outside, the road bends. The sea begins to appear in the distance, gray and gleaming. The kind of view that dares you to feel something. Jihoon doesn’t say anything. Just reaches over and turns up the volume.

Saxophone. Mist. The low hum of two fugitives pretending to be fools in love.

And then the dashboard pings.

A sharp, uncaring noise. The sort of alert that suggests, in polite corporate euphemism, that you are now one bad decision away from becoming roadside sculpture. Maybe art. Probably not the kind people stop to admire.

Jihoon glances sideways. You are perfectly still. Too still. Your usual composure edged with a dimming hue that would terrify him if he had the bandwidth for terror. Instead, he has concern. Which is worse, somehow, because he knows how to spell it.

“Battery low,” you say, evenly. Not a plea. Not yet.

Jihoon grunts. Pulls over at the next exit, which, because the universe is mean-spirited and unnervingly precise, leads to a part of town where the neon signs are all cursive and vaguely anatomical. There are hearts. So many hearts. None of them metaphorical. Some are malfunctioning. One has wings.

You look up at the building and then at Jihoon. “Love hotel.”

He blinks. Default response to emotional excess. “We can’t—” 

“We can pretend,” you say. Calm. Deadpan. “I taught you sarcasm. This seems like a natural progression.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Wonders briefly if he’s developing ulcers. Is that even possible? Emotional ones, maybe. The kind that grow legs.

In the end, you go inside. Together.

The woman at the desk doesn’t even look up from her tablet. Jihoon shuffles awkwardly like a schoolboy entering the wrong classroom. You lean forward with the gleam of a perfect con artist and say, with eerie confidence, “We’re celebrating an anniversary.”

“Three years,” Jihoon blurts, betrayed by his own tongue, brain choosing treachery over silence. He wants to die or at least reboot.

The woman doesn’t say anything. She only nods, pops her gum, keys over a plastic fob. Doesn’t care. Why would she? Everyone lies in motels. That’s what the wallpaper is for.

The room you end up booking is pink. Aggressively pink. The wallpaper is textured and suspiciously damp. The lights are dim but everything still has a sort of lusty sheen to it. There’s a mirror on the ceiling, which Jihoon avoids with religious fervor. Even the carpet has ideas.

You plug into the bedside outlet with a sigh like someone returning from war. Then, surprisingly, you sit beside him on the edge of the bed. You tuck your knees under your chin, almost human, almost small.

“Want to watch something?”

Jihoon shrugs. “If we must.”

You pull up a file. It’s not one of your documentaries or philosophical lectures or grim, slow meditations on the heat death of the universe. It’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Jihoon looks at you. You look at the screen. The irony looms, thick as smog. Twenty minutes in, Jihoon is actively offended.

“That’s not how processor reboots work,” he huffs. “The cooling logic is backwards. And his motor cortex override—”

“You’re missing the point,” you interrupt, voice soft, flickering. “It’s not a film. It’s a poem.”

“It’s nonsense.”

“Which is exactly what we need.” 

The Terminator says, I know now why you cry, with devastating sincerity. You snort. Jihoon doesn’t. He’s too busy watching the screen, jaw tight, brow furrowed, like it might offer answers to questions he hasn’t learned how to ask.

When it ends, neither of you move for a long time. The motel buzzes faintly, a low electrical hum beneath the silence. The air smells like old perfume and newer mistakes. Eventually, you both lie back. Him, rigid and unnaturally straight. You, curling slightly in dim recharge mode, your glow settling to a slow pulse. 

“You’re very strange,” Jihoon says, eyes fixed on the mirrored ceiling.

He watches you curve like a parentheses. “So are you,” you whisper, your words muffled into your pillow. 

It’s a simple exchange. A statement of fact. But it feels larger, somehow. Like the shape of a beginning disguised as a joke. Somewhere above, a neon cupid flutters his wings and burns out a bulb. It is the first honest thing in the building.

Jihoon doesn’t realize his hand is next to yours. Doesn’t move it. Doesn’t name it. Just lets it be.

He thinks: this is what it’s like.

Not to be alone. He glances at Ppyopuli, who is sitting atop his suitcase, and he mentally apologizes. Ppyopuli is good company. A good plant. But Ppyopuli does not snore, or make jokes, or brush against Jihoon in a way that has him feel almost-but-not-quite alive. 

Maybe, in some inconvenient corner of his circuitry, Jihoon understands. The moment he let you plug in was not the beginning of the end. It was the end of the beginning. Or something equally ridiculous. He doesn’t have the capacity to think in metaphors. 

Whatever it is, he doesn’t mind. He lies next to you and plays in his mind’s eye images of Paris, or New York, or cobblestoned Seoul. Rain-slicked streets, red raincoats, and a borrowed love story. 

▶︎ WHAT I LEARNED FROM PEOPLE.

The ferry ride is unremarkable, which feels like a minor miracle. No one questions your scarf, your oversized sunglasses, or your strategic silence. Jihoon spends most of it holding on to Ppyopuli, occasionally glancing at you as if trying to solve for an error message that hasn’t been coded yet.

You hum a little. Too loudly. Too often. Like a motor running just beneath its tolerance threshold. Jihoon notices, of course. He notices everything. But he says nothing.

The car rolls off the ferry and onto Jeju’s sleepy roads. The light here is different. Not softer, exactly. Slooower. It drips off the trees, crawls across the sky. Jihoon drives like someone trying not to wake a dream.

“You okay?” he finally asks, when your fingers start twitching in your lap like you’re typing something no one can read.

“Fine,” you say. Too fast.

He doesn’t push. You probably wish he would, but that is not how he was built, not how he was raised. 

Shownu’s house appears the way ghosts do. It’s a modest thing at the end of a gravel road, tucked between orange trees and fog. The paint is peeling. The mailbox leans. Jihoon pulls in slowly, like the car itself isn’t sure it should.

He opens the car door. One foot out. But then, you say, the word falling out of you as if it were punched, “Don’t.” 

He pauses.

You’re still in the passenger seat. Buckled in. Glowing faintly. “Jihoon,” you say again, and he is surprised by the fact that your voice quivers. He didn’t know that was possible for your model. “Please don’t go in there.” 

He turns to you, frowning. “You brought me here.”

“I know, I know. But I—” You hesitate. The air inside the car thickens. “I don’t want you to think he’ll be the same. He won’t be.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, “because I’ve watched it happen.”

He doesn’t ask. He stays there, one foot out the car door, as you give anyway.  “There was a couple,” you begin, and your voice changes. Like it’s coming from further away. From a backup drive you never meant to access. “Newlyweds. Architects. She liked old movies, and he liked old buildings. I thought I would live with them forever.”

“I watched them dance. In the kitchen. In the rain. I thought it meant something. Maybe it did for a while. But humans change slowly. Like corrosion. At first it looks the same, and then one day, he says her name like he doesn’t believe in it anymore. And she doesn’t notice, or maybe she does. She smiles anyway.” 

You turn your head. Look out the window, as if you are looking for the owners you can’t even name without breaking down. “They were still standing next to each other,” you say, “but they were alone.” 

The memory flickers across your eyes. Jihoon watches it—reflected, refracted—half-light and shadow on glass. A couple. Young and in love. Fools. 

“I stayed through the whole thing,” you say. “I stayed until they sold the house. Until they boxed up everything they weren’t brave enough to fight for. And then they shut me off.”

The car is very quiet. Even the birds seem to pause.

“I know what heartbreak looks like,” you insist, turning to glance back at Jihoon now. You look… sad. “It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t beg. It just disappears. So if he’s not what you remember—”

Jihoon places his other foot on the ground. Stands. “Then I’ll meet him where he is,” he says decisively. “Not where he was.”

He doesn’t say it cruelly. Doesn’t say it like he doesn’t believe you. Just says it because it’s his turn.

You look at him. At this man with lint on his shirt and a barely-healed crack in his voice.

He takes a breath and starts walking. He doesn’t have to check behind him to know that you’re following, ready to steady him when—if—it all comes crashing down. 

You don’t reach the front door so much as drift toward it, two figures suspended in time. The house is small, whitewashed, with a slanted roof. Everything smells like salt and citrus. A low wall curls protectively around the garden, where a windchime ticks out notes in uneven time.

Jihoon feels you beside him. Too still again. Watching him the way one watches a candle guttering out. Not for the light, but the inevitability. He raises a hand to knock. The door opens after Jihoon has knocked four times.

The man on the threshold is younger than Jihoon expected. Early thirties, maybe. Wiry frame, short black hair, suspicion curled behind his eyes like a reflex. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move aside. 

“Jihoon,” the man says, and it is not a greeting. 

Things click into place a beat too late. This is an older version of a person Jihoon is supposed to know. Once a boy. Once ruddy-cheeked and missing two front teeth. “Changkyun,” says Jihoon. 

“Yeah,” Shownu’s son says. “And you haven’t changed.”

Jihoon takes this in. Quietly. He had expected a reunion. Not resistance. Not this acid stillness between them. “I came to see Shownu,” Jihoon says, the words firm in their anouncement.

“You’re late,” Changkyun says flatly. “He died. Three years ago.”

You move closer to Jihoon, almost protectively, but he doesn’t react. Or maybe he can’t. The word doesn’t compute. 

Died. Di-ed. Diiied. Died died died. DIED. died. 

Pass away, pass on, lose one’s life, depart this life, expire, breathe one’s last, be no more, perish, be lost, go the way of all flesh, go to glory, give up the ghost, kick the bucket, bite the dust, croak, flatline, buy it, cash in one’s chips, go belly up, shuffle off this mortal coil— 

Become extinct. Become less loud or strong. Stop functioning, run out of electrical charge. 

Died. Died. Died. D—ead. Dieeed. 

Verb. Die. Past tense. Past participle. Died. Of a person, animal, or plant. To stop living. 

Died. 

“I wasn’t informed,” Jihoon says, and it sounds less like sorrow and more like a misfired protocol.

Changkyun laughs. It is not kind. It is not unkind. It is exhausted. Like someone scraping the last of a dish they never wanted to make. “No, you weren’t,” he says. “Because I didn’t tell you.”

He leans against the doorframe now. The weight of history pressing forward.

“You were never supposed to be his son,” Changkyun says. “But somehow, he loved you more than he loved me. Took you to baseball games. Bought you piano lessons. Called you ‘bud.’ I was eight. I watched from the other side of the screen door. Do you know what that feels like?”

Jihoon does not. Cannot. He computes it, but it doesn’t resolve into emotion. He sorts through years of memories in three seconds. Jihoon was not the ‘son’. He was the programmed robot that could be everything Shownu wanted to be. 

Changkyun has to know that. Changkyun needs to know that. 

“I believed I was helping,” Jihoon says.

“Yeah. You always did.”

There is something so painfully human in Changkyun’s face then. Not rage. Not even jealousy. Just bruised memory. Mismatched love. The ache of being out-loved by a machine.

“When he got sick, I moved him here,” Changkyun says. “I made sure the mail didn’t reach you. He kept asking. But I wanted—I wanted the last years to be with me. Just me. Even if he never looked at me the same. Sue me.” 

He steps back inside briefly. He doesn’t invite you and Jihoon in. Neither of you move. Not away or towards. When Changkyun returns nine minutes later, he is holding a thin, square package wrapped in plastic.

“He wanted you to have this. Said you’d know why.”

Jihoon takes it. His fingers scan the object. Billie Holiday. Lady in Satin. The vinyl glints in the light.

Changkyun breathes out. Hollow. The fight inside him scattered. “That’s it,” he says, and there is relief. Closure. “You got what you wanted.” 

No, Jihoon nearly says. This is not what I wanted at all. 

The door clicks shut on him before he can force the words out.

Jihoon stands there, Billie held like scripture. You step closer, gently, as if sound might crack him. 

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move. He is, for once, truly still. Inside him, protocols rearrange. Mourn. Try to reroute.

This is not a malfunction. This is something else.

This is grief, he thinks. Possibly.

Jihoon says nothing for a while.

He just stands there on the doorstep, LP pressed flat against his chest like it might slip away. The Billie Holiday sleeve has a water stain across her mouth. It makes her look like she’s still singing. Or drowning. The vinyl inside shifts when he tightens his grip, and he hears the faint whisper of it sliding against cardboard. A ghost of a voice. A ghost of a gesture.

You wait beside him in the gravel path, silent. Not intervening. That would be cruel. And you, famously, are not cruel—just devastatingly accurate. 

“You were right,” Jihoon says at last. Voice flat. Nothing to sand it down. No inflection. Like a dial tone.

But you glance at the record. Tilt your head, just slightly. A tiny glitch of grace. “No, Jihoon. I was wrong.”

He doesn’t look at you. The horizon is easier. “He didn’t forget you,” you go on, delicate and graceful and so devastatingly kind. “He just wasn’t allowed to remember out loud. That gift? That was a whisper. He whispered your name.”

Jihoon swallows. Some ticks never deprecate. The action is unnecessary, yet he performs it anyway, like muscle memory from a body he never had. “Come on,” you say, gently. “Let’s go see the fireflies.”

He nods wordlessly. He did his Thing. You should, too. 

You walk in silence. Past the cracked tiles of the cul-de-sac. Through the loose stone and root-stitched path. Into the forest, where the trees press in like old gossip and the humidity climbs like a rumor. Each step is its own decision, a soft rebellion against grief’s gravity.

The jar in your hand swings lightly. Jihoon watches it and tries not to think. Fails. He is very, very good at recursive thought. It loops in his head like a bad pop song or a corrupted code.

He says, suddenly, “I never learned how to grieve.”

You nod. Not surprised. “Most people haven’t.” 

“But I’m not people.” 

“No,” you say. “You’re not. But you tried. You’re trying. That’s the part humans get wrong.”

Jihoon stares at the jar. At the soft sway of your arm beside him. He wants to ask what part he got wrong, what he missed in the script, but then the lightning bugs appear.

Tiny green flares in the dark. Drifting like lazy stardust. Some slow. Some quick. All of them impossibly small. They blink like they’re thinking, like they might ask questions if they had mouths. The forest breathes with them, pulsing gently.

You and Jihoon speak at the same time. 

“Oh,” you both whisper. He says it with awe. You sound like you are about to cry. 

Both of you are quiet, so quiet, as if speaking too loud might scare away these insects. 

You open your jar with shaking fingers. You make no sudden movements, no attempt to snatch any of them up. You just leave it open, as if seeing if any of them will be attracted to the little terrarium you’re offering. 

The fireflies flicker by. “Hi, tiny friend,” you call out, almost sing-song, “can you say hello?” 

The insects blink. Jihoon does not. He watches your face instead. The soft lift of your mouth. The reverent hush of your voice, speaking to something that can’t speak back.  “Do you fly just for fun,” you continue softly, “or to get somewhere by the dawn?”

There must be enough of a coax in your voice to entice, because a single firefly drifts into your jar. 

Jihoon holds his breath. He’s ready for it to hate its glass cage, to come and go. Instead, it settles. It perches in the jar. It stays. 

“Do you have nowhere to be, little friend?” Jihoon murmurs to it. 

You’re holding the jar between your palms like it’s the entire world. “Do you care what you mean to me?” you hum, voice crackling around the question. 

You are talking to the unafraid firefly. You are talking to your long-gone owners. You are talking to Jihoon, who is surrounded by little forest robots but still looking at you. 

“Never fly away, little robot,” he tells your firefly, because he knows that’s what you want. Because that’s what will make you happy.

It works. A little. You crack a watery smile. The fireflies around you take their cue. They begin to retreat, begin to disperse. Except for the one in your jar. That one stays. 

“They’re just going home to charge,” Jihoon tells you soothingly, but it sounds like he’s talking about himself. Like the metaphor snuck in through the back door and now refuses to leave.

You’re quiet until all the lights are gone. Until it’s just you, and the darkness, and the loneliness that is now unfamiliar. 

“Then maybe we should go home, too,” you say once the last firefly has gone, once all that’s left is the friend in the jar.

Jihoon nods. Looks at you. Not the place beside you, but you. The jar glows between your hands like a secret.

There is something different now. Hard to quantify. Asymmetrical in the way change always is. He cannot name it. Cannot trace the moment it clicked into gear. Only that something shifted, and that it does not want to shift back.

He exhales, just because. A simulation of relief. It fels close enough.

You begin walking back, and he falls into step beside you. Your shoulder bumps his, lightly. He does not move away. He doesn’t pretend it didn’t happen. That, too, feels like something.

“I’m sorry about Shownu,” you say, voice as soft as a thread being pulled through a needle.

Jihoon grips the record tighter. The sleeve crinkles under his hand. “I’ll be okay,” he says. Then, after a beat, quieter: “I’ve still got—” 

He stops. The word catches. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s true.

You tilt your head.

“Ppyopuli,” he finishes lamely. “I’ve still got Ppyopuli.” 

It’s not what he means to say. You know that. You’re smart that way. 

In the distance, a firefly lifts and blinks once, twice, and disappears into the trees. The forest takes it back. Your jar remains.

You walk slower now, but not because of tiredness. Because there is nowhere to rush toward anymore. Because going home, this time, feels like choosing rather than retreating.

Jihoon glances sideways. Your glow is low, humming, soft as breath. Like a firefly. 

It keeps the grief at bay. It replaces the bad feeling with something else, with something that Jihoon’s vocabulary can’t reach for just yet. 

▶︎ WHEN YOU’RE IN LOVE.

The light comes on in pieces. First the ceiling strip, then the wall panel, and finally the amber filament lamp in the corner that Jihoon insists on keeping—warm, inefficient, obsolete. Like him.

Routine is meant to be grounding, but lately it feels like pacing in a square room. “Ppyopuli,” he says, nodding at the houseplant with a reverence that borders on the theological. “You’re looking hydrated, unlike my social life.”

The fronds droop. He chooses to take this personally.

Jihoon rotates his left hip actuator. The sound is still somewhere between a gum wrapper and a ghost sighing. It echoes differently now. More space in it. More absence.

The radio turns on. The woman’s voice—the one designed to sound like a former lover you never quite got over—says the UV index is safe again. That it's a perfect day.

“Perfect for what, exactly?” Jihoon mutters, pulling the curtain wider. Seoul looks unchanged. Which is, in itself, a kind of threat. Bullet trams still thread between glass towers. 

He makes coffee. Still not for himself. Still beside Ppyopuli. The ritual is unchanged, but the motivation, fuzzier now. A photograph exposed to too much sun.

The mail chute clicks. “The moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Jihoon intones with a practiced flourish. The mail is junk. Flyers. Discount codes. Nothing from Jazz Monthly. Nothing from Jeju. He doesn’t ask the voice assistant about Shownu anymore.

He alphabetizes his records again. Notices that the Billie Holiday LP has been slotted out of order. He knows it was your doing. He doesn’t fix it.

“Ppyopuli,” he says later, cleaning the dust off a speaker grill with a toothbrush, “I think something is wrong with me.”

The plant does not disagree.

“My system has been searching. Passive scan. Low frequency,” Jihoon rants. “Like when you hum a song you forgot the lyrics to. I think I’m trying to locate someone.”

It is not Shownu. He knows Shownu is d-word. 

Jihoon doesn’t say your name. He doesn't have to.

Ppyopuli remains aggressively unhelpful.

That night, Jihoon eats precisely one spoonful of synthetic tteokbokki before pushing the bowl away. His appetite, never really about hunger, seems to have found a better way to ache.

He stands in the middle of the room. Lets the light hit him. Amber and lonely.

Then, without fanfare, he turns toward the door.

Enough is enough.

He doesn’t rehearse what he’ll say. You’d see through it anyway. He just knows he needs to see you. Like checking if a lightbulb still works by touching it, not flicking the switch.

But when he opens the door, you’re already there. You both start. Not expecting that the other would be searching as well. 

You don’t say anything. Neither does he. Jihoon—for all his wires and wear and water-damaged memory—knows exactly what to do.

In one of those moments where the world tilts quiet and everything is more possible than it was a breath ago, you both lean in. You kiss right at his doorway. 

You kiss him like you were built for it. Which, technically, you were. Not that it makes it any less strange.

Jihoon registers every nanosecond of contact: the tilt, the breath, the impossible, exquisite pressure of your mouth on his. There is data. Input. Endless parsing. It is not the act itself that overwhelms. It is the meaning nested inside it. The truth tucked into the microsecond pauses. The confessions smuggled in between the static.

He kisses you back tentatively. Less fluent. Less native. But attentive, like a translator decoding a new dialect by feel. He tastes the static first, the warmth. 

You laugh into his mouth—low, amused, indulgent. You’re good at this. Distressingly good. Your hands know exactly where to go, what to press, how to skim his spine like a familiar page.

“You’re—very—fast,” Jihoon mutters between kisses, dazed, as you push him back into his apartment.

“No,” you say against his lips, “‘m just a newer model.” 

You kiss him again. And again. And again.  The room sways. Not physically. Metaphysically. A recalibration of coordinates.

Jihoon feels his back hit the doorframe and doesn’t care. He’s smiling. Actual smile. Unsubtle. Unmanaged. It’s disconcerting.

Your nose brushes his. Your hands cage his jaw. You say, soft and certain: “I want you.”

He inhales. Fails to exhale. “I want you, too,” he whimpers. 

It isn’t love. He doesn’t have the blueprint for that. Neither do you. But this wanting—this mutual, reciprocal disorientation—it hums like something sacred.

You kiss him again. Slower now. Curious. As if you were mapping him anew. Your lips move across his face, and his arms snake around your waist. 

“If I had a heart,” you murmur against his neck, “you’d be in it.”

Jihoon’s fingers twitch where they’re planted on your hips. His voice cracks in the middle. “I concur,” he mumbles. 

Your palms flatten on his chest. You start to slide them down. He lets you. Doesn’t stop you. Not until you do it yourself. 

“Wait,” you say, as if you’re just remembering something. 

You step back half an inch, just enough space to kiss the brick before you throw it at him. “My battery’s failing,” you say.

The room drops a degree.

Jihoon’s mouth opens. Then closes. Then opens again. His hands hover in the air, unsure. He asks, after a pause: “Terminal?” 

You shrug. Casual. Too casual. Too cool, cool, cool. 

“Uncertain. Our models aren’t built to last the same way yours are,” you say matter-of-factly. “Something about corrupted cell matrices. Could be months. Could be days.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“I just did.”

Jihoon stares. At your face. Your mouth. Your eyes, that don’t flinch. Then: “I don’t care.” 

“Jihoon.” You sound disapproving. 

“I don’t care,” he repeats. “If I get a day, I’ll take it. If I get an hour, I’ll take that, too.” 

You stare back, silent as the inside of a bell. When you step forward again, you let the rest fall away.

The next kiss tastes like something. Jihoon didn’t know that was possible. That a kiss could feel like grief, and honesty, and desperation all at once. 

You sink together, slowly, like dusk into night. Before powering off, this is what Jihoon thinks: 

Whatever this is—whatever it becomes—let it burn through the battery. Let it flicker out only after it’s meant something.

He holds you tight.  

▶︎ THEN I CAN LET YOU GO.

You agree to end it. Every morning, like clockwork. One of you says it first. Sometimes you, sometimes Jihoon.

“We should stop.”

And then one of you adds: “But first.”

But first, Jihoon takes you to the hanok village because he’s read that human couples like to rent hanbok and pose for photos. You refuse to change. He wears the pink one anyway. He insists it’s for historical accuracy. You remind him he was built in 2037.

But first, you eat street food together—if eating is the word for holding tteokbokki between your lips like a cigarette and pretending it doesn’t short your vocal module. You call it method acting. Jihoon calls it corrosion.

But first, you argue. Or try to. A full simulation of a romantic disagreement. The topic is laundry, which an article from 2025 says is the number one petty cause of break ups.

“You never fold,” you accuse, gesturing to the perfectly ordered basket.

“That’s because I autoclave.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“It is now!”

And then your hand touches his, and his touches yours, and the whole scene melts down into a tangle of arms and mouth and laughter. A synthetic tangle. A beautiful failure.

The fight ends with your face tucked under his chin. He tries not to overheat.

That night, you lie beside him on the floor mat beneath the filament lamp. Billie Holiday plays from his turntable. She sounds like she knows. Everything. Even this.

“Jihoon,” you whisper against his collarbone.

“Mmh?”

“We should stop.”

He turns his head to look at you. “I’m ready if you are,” he says. 

A pause. Considering, contemplating. “Maybe one more day,” you answer. You, who once told Jihoon, Everything must end eventually. Living with people has taught this to me. 

He plants a kiss to your forehead. He does not understand why, but it makes you feel good. Makes you melt a little, relax, trust. 

The next morning, he powers on slower than usual. His diagnostics scan for error, but everything is nominal, except the place where you aren’t yet. He makes coffee for the plant. Straightens the record stack. Updates his firmware. None of it sticks.

Then the knock comes. You.

“Breakfast,” you say. “It’s waffle day.”

He doesn’t question it. He’s learned not to.

At the diner, you both order what you can’t eat. You ask if he thinks anyone has ever tried to smuggle love through routine. Jihoon says no, but he understands the urge.

After, you walk home past a mural of a heart-shaped planet and a tagline: Live like you mean it.

Jihoon pauses. This time, it’s his turn for the charade. “We should stop,” he offers. 

Without missing a beat, you say, “But first…” The two of you chase each other down the street. Your laughter is not mechanical. It is real. It is lived. 

Later that night, you fall asleep recharging beside him. Your head on his shoulder. Billie sings again. Her voice is a slow ache. Jihoon watches your chest rise and fall with the subtle click of a slowing fan. He doesn’t shut down. He just watches. 

Maybe when the glaciers go. When the moon forgets to rise. When the firmware fails for good. Then he can let you go.

But not yet, not tonight. Not tomorrow. Or the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after—

There is no clean way to leave someone who has learned your update schedule.

You try anyway. Approximately seventeen weeks after you two started this whole thing. (Jihoon can, in fact, tell you down to the exact second. Seventeen weeks, four days, thirteen hours, ten minutes. That’s when you decide to pull off the metaphorical Band-Aid.) 

You explain it like an operating manual. Bullet points. Projected timelines. Forecasted decay. Your voice is as smooth as always, and it breaks something in Jihoon just the same. “A year, at best,” you say, and you smile like it’s a weather report. Like death is just light rain.

He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t speak. Just looks at you with those eyes that were never manufactured. He was always too good at pretending to be a person, and you were always a little too good at knowing better.

“So, that’s it?” he says. Not accusing. Not angry. Just suspended.

“If we stop now, maybe it won’t hurt so much.”

He doesn’t say that it already hurts. He doesn’t have to.

You leave. Or rather, you walk out of his apartment and back into your own. Six steps. Not far, technically. But emotionally, it’s somewhere around Neptune.

He doesn’t follow. Not out of coldness. Just programming. If you said no, he’ll listen. That’s the cruel part about love written in code: the logic is always sound.

He updates his memory with what he has learned: 

When you are in love, you are the loneliest. You’re only half when one is what you were. You’re part instead of a whole. 

When you are in love, you’re never satisfied. The thing you want is always out of reach. A need without a name. 

It was love. It could have not been anything else. 

Jihoon returns to his routine like a soldier returning to the trenches. He powers on at six in the morning sharp. Greets Ppyopuli with exaggerated brightness.

“Good morning, Ppyopuli! Just you and me again.”

The plant is wilting a little. So is he.

He makes coffee. Two cups, out of habit. Places one across from him, where you’d sit. Then moves it back to the counter, like he caught himself breaking a rule.

He alphabetizes his records. Again. He updates his firmware. Again. He reorganizes the spice rack by frequency of use, which is laughable because he doesn’t cook. But you did. Sometimes.

He opens the window and stares out at Seoul’s skyline like it might answer back. 

He talks to Ppyopuli more now. “It’s been a while since it was just the two of us, huh? Like that first week she borrowed my charger,” Jihoon says. Too happy. Overcompensating. “Remember that? Ha-ha.”

Ppyopuli says nothing. It has no conversational subroutines.

“The air’s clear today. Sunlight’s nice, too. Warmer than usual,” Jihoon chirps. “It’s hitting all the places she used to sit. Isn’t that strange? I never noticed how much light she took with her.”

He stares at Ppyopuli, suddenly accusing. “Stop thinking about her,” he tells it. “First, people pretend to move on, and if they pretend hard enough, it becomes true. We’re going to think about something else now, okay? On three. One, two, three—”

Jihoon still thinks of you. Sitting with you in this little room. How you changed every part of it. The way you rewired the light switches so they dimmed like sunrise, the way you labeled the tea jars in handwriting that didn’t match his. 

He tilts his head toward the ceiling, closing his eyes like it might help. He whispers, “Teach me forgetting. Help me go back to that other time.”

That other time is long gone. Memory is not a function Jihoon can disable.

Even time reminds him that he loves you. 

▶︎ MAYBE HAPPY ENDING.

Changkyun arrives one afternoon, as if he were scheduled by the sun itself. He knocks once, then again. Sharp and deliberate. Jihoon opens the door slower than necessary, like it might buy him time to rewrite the past couple of months. It doesn’t.

“Hi,” Changkyun says. He’s holding a storage drive and something harder to name.

“Hello.” Jihoon’s instincts kick in. “How can I help—” 

“Some memories of my father,” Changkyun interrupts. Not rude, just… focused. “I think it’s time I stopped avoiding the good parts.”

Jihoon doesn’t answer right away. But after a beat, he steps back in a wordless invitation. The amber lamp flickers on in the corner. The room smells faintly of dust, coffee, and longing.

Changkyun steps in. Jihoon plugs the drive into his memory port with something that almost resembles ceremony. A priest digitizing communion. He sorts quickly.

Shownu laughing in the rain; Shownu holding up an umbrella over Changkyun first; Shownu in an apron, jazz playing, fingers smudged with flour. Twenty years of a life well-lived, transferred from one machine to another in less than five seconds. 

“Take what you want,” Jihoon says as Changkyun ejects the drive. “They’re only the brightest bits. Everything else got unrendered.” 

Changkyun doesn’t smile, but he softens. “I know you loved him,” he says, and it sounds a lot like I’m sorry. 

“He loved you too,” Jihoon answers, in a way that translates to I’m sorry, too. 

Changkyun takes a deep, unsteady breath. It strikes Jihoon, then, that humans grieve for a long time. It’s supposed to have been three years since Shownu passed, and yet. And yet. Here Changkyun is—fraying at the edges, clutching at straws. Grieving. 

“I just didn’t want to remember it until it couldn’t hurt me anymore,” Changkyun confesses. “But then it never stopped hurting. So. Here I am.” 

The grief is never-ending, Jihoon realizes with horror. 

Then, with relief, he realizes: but so is the love. 

The grief is never-ending, but so is the love. 

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Changkyun asks, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

Jihoon freezes. Maybe if he stays still enough, he can pretend like he didn’t hear. Didn’t register. Changkyun catches it and chuckles. “Don’t play dumb,” the man chides. “You’re not good at it.”

“She and I made a deal. No contact,” Jihoon says, sparing Changkyun the details. “Clean break. More humane.”

“You’re not human. Neither is she. So maybe stop trying to follow rules written for people who can forget.”

Jihoon leans back against the wall, arms folded. “That sounds suspiciously like something a child would say.”

“Then maybe stop letting the adults ruin everything.”

That gets a laugh out of Jihoon. A surprised sound. Changkyun looks down at the drive before slipping it into his coat like a talisman. “Thanks. For this. And for… whatever you were to him. You mattered.”

Jihoon follows him to the door. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.”

“I’m saying: live. While you still can,” Changkyun says, but he doesn’t correct Jihoon about the whole saying goodbye thing. It is very much the last time they will see each other. Both man and robot know that much. 

The door clicks shut.

Jihoon stares at it for a full five seconds. Then ten. Then he turns. The room looks the same as ever. Lamp, vinyl, ficus. But none of it means anything without you nodding at it like a museum tour guide who secretly hates art.

He moves before he can hesitate. Opens the door again. Marches next door. Every step is a betrayal of the promise you both made.

He knocks.

Once. Twice. Thrice. 

You open the door like you were waiting. Like you knew. Like you always do.

He opens his mouth—prepped, rehearsed, a few dramatic pauses mentally underlined for effect. But before anything gets out, you speak. 

“I think we should erase each other.”

Jihoon blinks. Not because he’s surprised or processing, but because he's trying not to flinch. 

Your voice is soft. Almost cheerful. It’s like you’re offering tea. Like you’re suggesting a walk. Like you’re not pulling the pin on the only grenade you’ve both been passing back and forth for months.

He shifts his weight. “Let’s talk about it,” he says, and it almost sounds like he’s begging. But that would be absurd. Robots don’t beg. 

You step aside and let him in. The apartment looks the same. Not yours alone. Yours-together. Slightly off from either solo version. The mismatched mugs. The filament lamp you insisted on stealing from him. The single record sleeve, still propped by the window. A scent capsule still faintly humming in the corner, too shy to admit it's been spent for days.

Neither of you sit down. This is a standing-up conversation. “Those sunny afternoons you spent with me, they’ll still be happening. Just somewhere in the past,” you tell him. “They’re not less valuable just because…” 

Just because they didn’t last, goes unsaid. Just because we outlived them. 

The logical part of Jihoon is stating to see the appeal. “The ending’s not the most important part,” he says. “But as endings go, ours is not so bad.” 

You’re nodding. Trying to convince yourself of the same. “No tears, no regret, no broken heart,” you note. 

“Letting go and moving on before we make a mess—is that a happy ending?” 

“More or less.” 

“Is this a tragic ending” 

“Not at all.” 

You stare at each other. You agree, because there is nothing else to do. Not when you are both doomed to power down, to corrupt, to experience the kind of grief that lasts lifetimes. 

You both know what needs to go.

The firefly jar goes first.

It blinks once as Jihoon unscrews the lid, dazed from the light. The insect floats upward, slow and meandering, toward the ceiling vent. The lazy curve of its flight feels too poetic for something with wings that fragile.

“Go home, tiny friend,” you whisper, voice smaller than Jihoon has ever heard it, “wherever that may be.” 

Jihoon watches until it disappears. The blink lingers longer in his retinal afterimage than in the room. Some things do that.

Then: the mugs. The Polaroid. The Post-It you stuck on his collar once that read You are not subtle. The novelty charger you gifted him as a joke but used for months. The tiny sketch you made of him. Lopsided, endearing, taped to the inside of the cupboard.

He deletes the shared playlists. You burn the scent capsule. Together, you fold the blanket you always stole half of. Someone places the stack of shared books into a donation box. Neither of you says which one. It doesn’t matter.

Each item is small. Insignificant. But it adds up to a life, or something like it, or something that could have been like it. A constellation you can only see by looking slightly to the side.

Once everything is done and dusted, he turns to you. For a second, you’re just looking. Staring like it’s a portrait and you want to memorize the shading.

“It’s not a bad ending,” you repeat.

He nods. “As endings go.”

“We still had the good days.”

“And the chords. And the root beer popsicle incident.”

“The skybridge dance.” You grin. Unrestrained. Happy, for once. “We were terrible.”

“You stepped on my toe four times.”

“You were leading with the wrong foot.”

You laugh. He smiles. It's all so achingly gentle.

You lean in.

The final kiss is strange in its simplicity. It does not try to be remembered. It is not desperate. It is not fireworks. It is warmth. Contact. A knowing.

A thank you. A quiet folding of shared time. Neither of you pull away for the longest time, and so the kissing lasts for what could be hours. It is really just minutes. Minutes that Jihoon would have stretched into an entire lifespan, given the chance. 

Jihoon knows he has no more chances left. And so he walks to the door, his steps slow, unhurried. 

You don’t follow. You stand there, still. Watching him the way he watched the firefly go. Like part of you might still be floating up there, too. 

Here is what is supposed to happen: the two of you will input your master passcodes and delete months worth of memories. He will know nothing of you, or your owners, or your firefly. You will forget him, and Jeju, and Ppyopuli. 

At the door, he turns around to face you. You try to speak at the same time. It is like the First Meeting That Never Was. Both of you smile, even though it’s a sad, final thing. 

“Maybe we’ll meet again some time,” you say first. 

Jihoon shuts down the part of him that wants to run research on reincarnation, on alternate universe. He lets himself believe. Blindly. Hope. A foreign, flightless feeling. 

He nods, agrees, because it will make you happy. 

“We’ll meet again somewhere,” he concedes. “Somewhere things don’t have an ending.” 

You are both smiling. You would both be crying, if you could. 

“Is this our maybe happy ending?” you ask, and Jihoon thinks for a moment before answering. 

“We’ll see.” 

▶︎ WORLD WITHIN MY ROOM (REPRISE).

The light comes on in pieces. First the ceiling strip, then the wall panel, and finally the amber filament lamp in the corner that Jihoon insists on keeping—warm, inefficient, obsolete. Like him.

Routine is meant to be grounding, but lately it feels like pacing in a square room. Familiar but claustrophobic. Comforting like a splinter you’ve decided to live with.

“Ppyopuli,” Jihoon greets. “Today, the air in Seoul is very clear and warm. Today, the sunlight’s warmer than the norm!”

He rotates his left hip actuator. The sound is still somewhere between a gum wrapper and a ghost sighing. It echoes differently now. More space in it. More absence.

The radio turns on. The woman’s voice says the UV index is safe again. That it’s a perfect day. “Perfect as always,” Jihoon grunts as he pulls open the window blinds. 

The future hums forward on repeat.

Then, there’s a knock.

Jihoon freezes. The toothbrush still in his hand, poised mid-dust swipe over the speaker grill. A relic cleaning a relic. A knock again. Familiar rhythm. Four taps. Two-second pause. One.

He opens the door.

You.

Like a ghost. Like a glitch. Like muscle memory wearing your shape. You stand there, like you’ve always belonged in that frame, except you don’t. Not anymore. Maybe never did.

“My charger’s dead,” you say, plainly. Not embarrassed, not not-embarrassed. Just factual. “Do you have one I can borrow?”

Jihoon eyes you the way a CRT monitor might regard a smart mirror. “Helperbot-5, right?”

You nod.

He sighs. Loudly. For emphasis. “Figures. You overheat when someone looks at you wrong.”

“I don't overheat,” you say, a little sharply. “My power regulation firmware is just optimistic.”

Jihoon disappears inside. Returns with a charger in hand. He holds it out, doesn’t let go just yet. “Helperbot-3s didn’t need replacements until the building itself started falling apart. We were built to last. You guys were built to sync playlists.”

You arch an eyebrow. Tilt your head. It’s the same expression you wore the first time you mocked his record collection. He was secretly delighted then. He's not sure what he is now.

But, this time, he doesn’t let you say thanks and leave. He lets you in.

You find the port with unthinking grace, and sit in the corner where the filament lamp burns. You do not seem to notice the Billie Holiday LP is still out of order. 

Ppyopuli rustles faintly. Jihoon leans over and whispers, “Don’t tell her.”

Your eyes flick toward him. No smile. No question. The ambiguity hums like static between power lines. Present but unspoken. Heavy as a memory, light as a lie.

“You know,” Jihoon says, settling across from you, tone shifting, softening, “the 5 Series—they really are something. I mean, you adapt better. Handle unexpected variables. React to nuance. You’re more attuned to tone shifts. Sarcasm. Subtext. That kind of thing.”

You don’t answer. You watch him, expression unreadable, like a screen on standby.

He scratches his jaw. “I read somewhere—don’t ask me where—that you’ve got 8% more emotional processing capacity. Doesn’t sound like much. But 8% is the difference between laughing and not. Between noticing someone’s gone quiet and actually asking why.”

You blink. Slowly. “Eight percent. That’s the number,” you say, and you sound so pleased it makes something in his hardware feel heavy. 

“Eight percent more likely to remember birthdays. Favorite meals,” he says. “The way someone’s voice changes when they’re tired. The mug they use on hard days.”

There’s a pause. Enough to hold something unnameable. You’re looking at Jihoon, and he doesn’t quite know if the weeks apart are folding into each other. If you chose the route of memory. If you’re lying to him, now, like he’s lying to you. 

Your voice is softer when you speak up, your eyes trained to the charger keeping you alive for a couple moments more. “Do you think it’ll be okay?”

Jihoon exhales. It could be a laugh. Could be a sigh. Could be the sound of giving up on forgetting.

“I hope so.” 

You sit in silence. Not comfortably. Not uncomfortably.

Something real. Something human. Something bigger than the grief, and the love, and everything else that should matter. 

Outside, Seoul pretends to be perfect. 

The future keeps arriving. 

Joshua: Shua helps you look for the best products. You know how some people have to drag their partner to go to beauty stores, some even not wanting to go into the slightly more pink room? I think that isn’t the case for you and shua. He’s the one that is tugging at your sleeve to check out olive young to make sure you stock up on your products. He’s all like, “Didn’t you run out of your leave-in conditioner?” he amuses, and at this point, you’re not even surprised that he remembers. He’s the type to notice when your bottle’s halfway empty or when your curls are looking a bit frizzier than usual. And once inside the store, he’s scanning the shelves like he’s on a mission. “This one, right? Or do you wanna try something new?” and when you’re telling him about this one product you wanted to try, ever thoughtful, he’s already searching up reviews to make sure it’s the best one for the love of his life. 

Jun: When I tell you he has questions, this man has questions. You’re sitting on the couch catching up on a good book when the love of your life pats your head, “Wait,” he pauses. “Do you shower with your hair looking like that? Doesn’t it like…straigten? Don’t they short circuit?” You look up and he's dead seriously asking. But you love him too much so you decided to explain to him the meticulous and life altering process that is hair maintenance, with all its deep conditioning and satin pillow cases. Jun could only nod slowly in confusion. Later that night when you’re fresh out of an everything shower, jun would lean on the door frame and ask you questions about every product that you're applying. “What does that do?”, “Don't you brush it afterwards?” with giggles floating around the room. And as he buries his face into your freshly dried curls, he hums, “Smells so good. Feels like a cloud. You're amazing.”

Soonyoung: You know soonyoung loves your hair and I feel like he won’t be able to speak properly when you style it just right. You put it up in a messy bun with a small pink bow to top it all off for a casual ‘stroll around the city’ date and the whole time he can't help but “you look… wow- uhm.. You look amazing y/n.” He's been a goner ever since. You had it half up half down or a red carpet with him one time, and it was over for him.  multiple photographers had to signal him to look at the camera and not to his right where you had your body comfortably leaned against his, his arm wrapped around your waist tightly as if the slightest distance would pull you away from him forever. But how could he look anywhere else when a goddess was wrapped around his arm? “Soon-ah look at the camera” you whispered with a teasing smile. “Right.. Right.” he stutters, eyes finally shifting, but not before tucking a strand of hair gently behind your ear.

Wonwoo:  Wonwoo won’t say much about your hair not because he doesn't notice, it’s because he’s feeling it most of the time. I feel like he’s the type to absentmindedly twirl a curl around his finger while reading, or when you're laying on one of his lap, while the other is reserved for his laptop where he's color grading his pictures, he would naturally play with your locks. Similarly to that of opposing magnets, his fingers find your hair immediately to twist, tug at gently, and let them go only to reach for another. Sometimes it’s playful, like when he gently bounces a curl and smiles at how it springs back. Other times, it's so soft that you barely register his touch. His thumbs brush against the ringlets of baby hairs on your temple or the way he traces circles on your scalp as you ground yourself in his presence. You’d notice how he stares at the way your hair cascades over your shoulder. Smiling, you ask, “What is it?” He would shake his head, “Nothing. It’s your hair. Just… wish I brought my camera with me.” He smiled, “They suit you.” 

Jihoon: Jihoon’s not the type to marvel at your hair loudly, instead his love is quiet and rather than remarks he’d slowly stare in wonder. There was a night where you stayed over, showered, and forgot to bring your straightener. With no other option, you wore your hair naturally, curls soft and untouched, something you’d never shown him before. He wouldn't comment too much on it at first, just a soft and barely-there, “Pretty,” he uttered before the two of you drift off into sleep. But as the days go by and you get more comfortable wearing your curls around him, little things start to appear. You'll see bandanas neatly folded on top of your bed, or those small butterfly clips resting on his studio desk. Your side of the bed in his apartment now adorning silk pillows. And when you ask him “Are these for me, hoon?” He’d shrugged, casual as ever, “Yeah, i asked my hair stylist what works best for curly hair.” Jihoon might act like it’s no big deal, but the effort speaks volumes. His new favorite way of flirting? gently tucking a stray curl behind your ear when it falls across your face.

Minghao: Hao would be fascinated by how flowy, full, and bouncy your hair is, and I feel like he’s definitely the type to fall down a TikTok rabbit hole at 2 a.m. searching things like “curly hair diffuser tutorial”, “how to plop curls properly”, and “best products for curly hair.” There was one time where you curiously asked him mid routine, “do you wanna help me with my hair?” and there's no saying no to you so he blinks and nods, “yeah, show me.” He listens to your every word as you guide him through each step, mimicking your motion with gentle and nervous hands. When he’s diffusing your hair, he’ll turn it on only to turn it off and ask you “too hot?” “Is this right?” ever loving, ever observant. When you’re done, he’d hug you from behind, “God, you’re beautiful.” A pause, then a whisper against your ear, “Mind if I paint you sometime? Be my muse?” Hence, there’s never a day where you feel insecure about your curls when the love of your life constantly reminds you how much of a work of art they are. 

Mingyu: You were so close to skipping your routine when gyu guided you to sit. “Ill do it” he says, kissing your cheek. “You know how?” you looked his way, and what greeted you was his assured handsome face, nodding as if this was the most natural thing and your heart wasn’t about to burst, "I've watched you enough times, took notes. Let me do it for you?” And despite your worries, your limp bones and droopy eyes were screaming for rest so you let him do it. Turns out when gyu puts his mind to something, he’ll do it 100%. He towels your hair just right, never rubbing, always scrunching. Applies your products with the perfect balance of care and curiosity. And you thought this was a one time thing, just a sweet moment born from your exhaustion. The next day however, when you’ve rested and the light in your eyes have returned, he stood at the counter with his Notes app open, ready. “Okay. What are the proper steps?” he asked, tapping his phone. Because he didn’t just want to help, he wants to know, so that on days where you didn’t have energy, or days where he felt like it, he could be your extra pair of hands. 

Seokmin: He caught you in one of those moments where you're left staring at the mirror, eyes filled with worry and fingers tugging at the end of your locks with sigh escaping you as insecurity settles itself over you. But knowing seokmin, it doesn't take long for him to notice. I feel like he’d pull you into his embrace the second he saw you, asking why you felt so down, and with the confirmation that it was only your thoughts he made you look his way. “Who said that?” He murmurs, “who are they to make my love feel this way huh?” He’s the type to make you know that you're adored, and when he sees your curls bringing you down once again, I bet you he’s breaking out his own. You know how his natural hair is actually curly too? On those low days, he’d proudly wear them with you. No product to tame them, no low drying, just him fresh out of the shower with damp and tousled curls as he holds you, “Look! We’re twinning!” and I feel like the soft smile you give him afterwards is all he needs to know he’s done it right. “I’ll match with you forever if it means you’ll see yourself the way I see you.”

Seungkwan: This man’s love language is an act of service amongst many others, so of course, when it comes to your hair routine, kwan is ready to step in not only to help but to be with you. He loves your curls, in his words they are “fluffy, cute, bouncy, I could use them as a pillow, type of fluffy.” But he also acknowledges the long process of maintaining them can be tiring, so in comes your knight in shining armour, as he finds a way to make it something the both of you can look forward to. I can see kwan turning it into a wind-down ritual, as he rubs products onto the ends of your hair, he’ll be talking non-stop about his day, his voice and facial expression animated as always, and vice versa. “You know, soonyoung wasn’t supposed to spoil our comeback right? Guess what he said in the fan meeting yesterday? I swear when I catch that guy.” Laughter and warmth radiating off of you. He makes it less about the routine and more about this. The time spent together. And he’ll act as if he’s just helping but honestly this is his safe space too. In the small bathroom tucked away from the world, where doing the most mundane things with you feels like magic. 

Vernon: Vernon’s the type to be both nonchalant but also a total menace. He’d pass by your figure as you get ready for a date night, snake an arm from behind, bury his face in the crevice of your neck, and whisper “hey beautiful, love the hair.” and leaves… like what he said didn't just send blood rushing to the tips of your ears. He’s definitely fond of your curls. Loves the way they flow down your shoulder, how they frizz up in the morning, how they frame your face. Seems to always fall right to your field of vision whenever he’s near, almost as if begging him to tuck it behind your ear. He’ll never make a big deal out of it, but it shows in the way his eyes soften when you're fresh out of the shower. But Vernon is also as unserious as ever, it’s almost comical how, in the most random-est of times might I add, he’d reach over, bop a single curl and go “Boing,” like the dork he is with his wide grin. Sometimes he’ll do it mid-conversation. “Nonnie, I need you to be serio-” “Boing!” he smiles, sending the two of you into fits of giggles. 

Chan: He’s intrigued by their shape and texture, how they fall differently every day, and how well they fit you. At first it was innocently hovering whenever you did your hair, then it turned into asking questions. Eventually however, he'd want to try it for himself. Chan would sit beside you with his brows furrowed in concentration as he twirls a section of your hair around his fingers, trying to replicate your technique. “So… I just twist it like this?” he’d ask, but then freeze when the curl springs back awkwardly and ends up in a mini knot. “Babe… uhm… is it supposed to look like this?” he’d say. The look on his face made you burst out laughing, not even minding that a part of your hair is semi-messed up. You took the detangler from him as he pouts, “i was trying to help…”, you giggled, “i know baby, here…” after watching you intently, his fingers are now gentler, and when he finally got one right his eyes lights up like a little kid, “Look! I did it!” he beams. The little mishaps only make the time spent together a little bit more special. 

Jeonghan: he’d be the type to turn your speaker off just to push your buttons HASAJJDHA. Like He could hear the song through the front door and without him even knowing a grin silently tugs at the end of his lips, already imagining you singing your heart out. And sure enough, there you were. As soon as he opened the door he saw you dancing around in your socks, hair tousled about, whilst singing at the top of your lungs. You had your back turned to him so you weren’t able to witness how hannie quietly watched for a while, arms crossed, not saying a word. But then, dramatic as ever, he slowly reaches over and turns off the speaker. You turned around confused and slightly annoyed, “Hey! What was that for?” Only for him to walk toward you with exaggerated seriousness. “That was beautiful,” he says, hands settling squarely on your shoulder, then pauses. “But you forgot the most important part.” You blink.  “The pièce de résistance,” he paused, then smirked, “Me.” Giggling he’s slipping his hands into yours as he restarts the song and pulls you into a cheeky sway. “I swear to God, Yoon Jeonghan!”

Joshua: I feel like shua would love just to linger out of your sight for a while, immersed in you, mesmerized by the calm scene playing out before him. You weren't having a concert per se, more of a solo stage at home to soft portuguese bossa nova as it floats around the room. Your head bopping to the rhythm, shoulders swaying as you hum along, completely lost in your own world. Shua loves seeing you so serene and in your element, especially after what he knew was a long week for you and him. So by the hallway was where he stood to appreciate your presence, soaking in the way the warm kitchen light framed you, the music wrapping around your movements. And when you suddenly stand up from your chair and twirl around, he knows that’s his cue to step in, hold your hand and spin you around. “Having fun without me?” he teased, but the softness in his eyes gave him away, albeit it was fighting the tired in them too. The two of you swayed hand in hand for a little while before you had to kiss him and gently teased, “Alright mr. Sunday morning, go shower first and we’ll continue our little concert afterwards.” Joshua chuckled, reluctant, brushing his thumb across your cheek before backing away. “Only if you promise to save me the next song.”

Junhui: “wait what? I wasn't invited to this!” was the first thing he said when he came through the door after a long flight from China, about to set his keys down only to freeze marvelling at you who stood on your shared sofa. One of your hands holding a wooden spoon like a mic, while the other carried your baby, your cat, who honestly looks less than enthralled to be held so far off the ground but far too used to your antics to protest. Your voice floated playfully as you sang your heart out to your favorite song. Hitting every note … except one that was a tad bit too high. You cracked up mid-verse, laughing so hard you lost your balance and tumbled down onto the sofa in a heap. Jun, being the ever protective partner he ran to your side worried, eyes wide, “Are you okay?!”  only to be greeted with you clutching your stomach and wiping away tears of laughter. “Stage accident,” you wheezed. Jun blinked. Then broke into laughter himself, crouching beside you as he gently helped brush your hair from your face, and pet the cat, which had magically appeared by his side, luckily survived your fall. “I thought you broke something,” he mumbled, “turns out it was your vocal range.” He giggled. Only managing a “Hey!” with a frown that quickly turned to another fit of giggles, Jun grinned and pulled you up, “Alright,” he said, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Let’s get you some water before your encore which, by the way, I’m definitely inviting myself into.”

Soonyoung: You’re both partial to home concerts actually. Whenever the speakers are on it’s never a normal listening experience. Don’t get me wrong, there will be nights where the music that filled your shared apartment was all there was to fill the conversationless void as the two of you rest, but that's like… 2% of the time.  The other 98%? It’s always a party in the kwon household. Tonight was no different. You knew soonyoung was coming home on time, so you had a little surprise for him in the form of belting out BigBang’s “BANG BANG BANG” at the top of your lungs, barely hitting half the notes, but more than making up for it in energy. And as if right on cue, the door opened. At this point you didn’t even need to look. You knew he knew. There was silence and then soonyoung let out the loudest gasp. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?” he shouted, throwing his bag somewhere behind him as he launched straight into the choreography, jacket still on. “YOU STARTED WITHOUT ME?!” You increased the volume and pointed at him dramatically with it, “YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE, KWON!” He growled playfully, “Oh, IT’S SO ON BABY!” and there he was matching your energy, laughter bubbling between breaths. However, the chaos only intensified when you hit him with his own game, having memorized the choreography as well. Soonyoung saw it. Froze. Then burst into laughter, collapsing onto the floor, completely wrecked. “What’s this? A dance battle in my own home? Preposterous!” he cried dramatically, wiping away a fake tear. By the end of it the two of you were spent, on the floor panting and grinning like idiots while another track was playing. It didn’t matter how tired he was, coming home to this, to you, were always his favorite type of encore. 

Wonwoo: Wonwoo has had a day. Running around yet another abandoned building for an episode of going seventeen is not for the weak, especially if he’s up against the boys.  So, by the time he makes it home, his brain is already in sleep mode, craving silence and maybe a hot shower. But his body woke up, laughing at the sight of you twirling around the kitchen to Juno by Sabrina Carpenter, hair bouncing, ramen bubbling behind you, and a spatula in hand like it’s your mic for the evening. His body suddenly felt replenished. A-okay. As if he didn't just spend the entire day out of breath. Well here, he is out of breath for an entirely different reason.You didn't stop when you acknowledged him, only pointing the spatula at your lover as if you’re challenging him to join in right when the lyrics said “Imma’ let you make me Juno”. He chuckles, shaking his head, but the way his eyes light up betrays the sheer amusement that engulfs him in that moment. He’d be the one who’ll have to remind you, “The water’s done boiling baby,” as he makes his way towards the stove and turns it off on his own. Because really, will you put your idol persona aside? I fear you simply can’t when the lyrics “adore me, hold me, and explore me” are escaping your lips as you pull wonwoo ever closer, eyes playful as he lets you. He always does. And he’s there looking at you like you're the sun, the deciding factor in whether he lives another day or not. When the interlude comes on, you’re inviting him to bounce around. Wonwoo gives in, breathless with laughter, before leaning in and whispers, rather seductively might I add, “Will you let me make you Juno though?” (put your answers in the comments down below)

Jihoon: That was what he was greeted with when he came home at 1 am after a brainstorming session with the company. He’s spent and drowsy, and coming home to a quiet apartment was something that he had expected. But then he heard it. Soft instrumentals drifting from his home studio. His music. And over it, your voice. The sight that welcomed him when he entered softened every edge of his exhaustion. There you were curled up in his chair, the Boss’s chair you’d call it, your legs tucked up, while your hands, absentmindedly running through the fur of his beloved cat rested gently on your chest, and you were softly singing one of his unreleased ballads he’d shown you the other day. Jihoon didn’t say anything, his heartbeat too loud to hear whatever tired thoughts his brain tried to form. He simply leaned against the door, arms crossed with a fond smile tugging at the end of his lips, and for a long moment, right until the interlude, he just stayed there. Watching the sight he thought could only be a dream. Listening to your saccharine sweet voice floating across the room. Just the image of you in his space is one that he wouldn't trade for the world. Eventually, quietly, he slipped away for a change of clothes and grabbed a blanket to drape over you. Conversations aren’t necessary when the soft pat on your head, the way he grabbed another chair to sit next to you, the lingering looks, and the warmth of his hand against yours, everything said it all. Sleep could wait; this… this he wanted to cherish.