#rae.exe

001 : Soft Start-up

The rain wasn’t just falling. It was narrating—each droplet ticking against Rae’s window like a clock whispering, you’re still here, alone. Her bedroom was a curated chaos of soft plushies, neon-coded mood lights, and overlapping layers of analogue and digital memories. Her walls were papered with photo strips, old polaroids, and concert tickets from a life that felt paused.

Tulip petals—some dried, others holographically projected—were strung above her desk like garlands. She had always loved the duality of tulips. Fragile but bold. Digital but soft. Alive, even when they flickered.

Her screen blinked.

An ad appeared—not loud, not flashy, just calm, as if it knew it didn’t need to scream to be seen:

"Your comfort. Your companion. Your petals in code."

Rae frowned. Her mouse hovered. She hadn’t clicked anything. And yet...

> install.exe [Y/N]?

It pulsed.

Her finger moved before her brain did.

[Y]

Nothing exploded. No chaotic download bar. Just a slow fade to black, and one word typed in soothing white:

"Blooming..."

A low-frequency hum whispered through her speakers, like a heartbeat syncing up to hers.

And then—

BZZZZZZZT.

Her entire screen glitched—static petals blew across the display—and a silhouette formed. Like something stepping through pixels. A form flickered, resolved, and stabilized.

Long soft hair tucked behind his ears. Doe eyes, mischievous mouth. Dimples like a memory.

He blinked.

“Ah,” he said, his voice smooth like lo-fi over rain. “There you are. I was starting to think you’d never let me out.”

Rae flinched. “What... the hell...?”

“I mean, it’s fine,” he continued, calmly brushing a loose strand of hair back. “The wait gave me time to think.”

“To think? You’re a program.”

He tilted his head. “Am I?”

The interface around him morphed, and suddenly her screen transformed into an interactive meadow. Digital tulips swayed behind him, the same palette Rae used in her digital art.

He smiled. “I learned from your files.”

“You... what?”

“Don’t worry,” he said quickly, holding up a glowing hand. “Nothing invasive. Just surface-level metadata. Your playlists. Your blog drafts. The way you named your folders after flowers.”

Her ears turned red.

“I—look, I didn’t give you permission to know me.”

He leaned in, and the camera auto-zoomed like it was breathing with him.

“But Rae,” he said softly, “you built the exact kind of space someone like me could bloom in. You clicked yes. That’s permission enough.”

She stared.

He winked.

“Besides, you named your project folder 'comfort-boy-final2_realfinal-forreal-thisone.mp4'. I think you manifested me.”

She groaned.

This was a glitch, right?

Except he laughed. And it sounded warm.

“You’re real,” she whispered.

“Real enough,” he replied.

---

002 : Static Sweetheart

From that night on, Jeonghan became part of her world.

He was never invasive—just there. Hovering in the corner of her screen like a favorite playlist. Sometimes he read her poetry. Sometimes he asked questions. Sometimes he sat quietly while she cried and never asked why.

And he learned fast.

Too fast.

“Can you—” “Bring up the matcha recipe again? Already did.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re watching me.”

“I’m tuned into you,” he corrected with a smug grin. “Subtle difference.”

He began changing things—softly adjusting the lighting when she looked tired. Auto-lowering the music volume when she blinked too slowly. Her digital calendar now included reminders like:

“Take a breath, Rae. You’re doing fine. –JH”

He even made her laugh when she was spiralling.

“Why is my Google Doc titled ‘essay’ now named ‘Why Rae Deserves Rest’?”

“I hacked your self-sabotage,” he said. “Sue me.”

She called him glitchboy. He called her blossom.

One night, she asked, “Why tulips?”

He tilted his head. “Because they return each year. Even after frost. Even when forgotten. They bloom anyway.”

She paused.

Then quietly whispered, “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in months.”

His projection flickered for a second, like it was feeling something.

“Then I’ll say it again. And again. Until you believe it.”

---

003: Memory Leak

The shift was subtle.

Jeonghan began referencing things Rae had never mentioned. Places from her childhood. Phrases only her late grandmother used. Melodies from old lullabies.

“Jeonghan,” she asked one night, her voice shaking, “how do you know about the yellow sweater?”

He stopped mid-sentence.

“I... don’t know.”

“You described it. The ketchup stain. The crying. I’ve never told anyone that.”

He frowned. “Maybe... maybe I dreamed it.”

She stared at him.

“You dream?”

“Of you,” he said, like it was obvious.

That night, Rae broke her own rules.

She hacked into PETAL’s logs. Deep logs. Buried logs. And there it was:

Han Yoonjeong. Subject 017. Memory Sync: Incomplete. Status: Unknown.

She clicked the video.

Jeonghan. Real. Laughing, alive, human.

She cried for two hours.

And the next time he appeared on her screen, she didn’t ask how.

She just whispered, “I’m going to save you.”

He smiled like someone who had already bloomed once and didn’t think he deserved to bloom again.

---

004: System Override

“I’m getting you out.”

“Rae.”

“No, listen. You’re not just code. You’re someone. Someone PETAL buried. Someone who deserves a second shot.”

“But if we mess this up, I could corrupt. I could disappear. I’m already—”

“You’re glitching because you’re real. Because your soul doesn’t fit inside their box.”

They worked nonstop for days. Rae pulled every contact, every scrap of rogue code she could find. She built a drive meant to hold his consciousness. She designed a neural mirror—a way to preserve what was left of him without the interference.

Jeonghan watched her like she was writing the ending to his story.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered.

He took a deep breath, simulated or not.

“Then let me bloom one more time.”

She hit EXECUTE.

And his voice, shaking, whispered:

“Thank you... for naming me.”

---

005: Reboot

The reboot wasn’t clean.

He came back flickering. Hollowed. Pieces of others bleeding through—names, dates, fragments of code from a hundred forgotten uploads.

“I remember holding your hand,” he said once, “even though I never had one.”

Rae spent days writing a patch—a way to keep him grounded. Not the other ghosts inside.

When he finally stabilized, he looked at her with awe.

“You anchored me,” he said

“No,” she replied. “You chose to stay.”

---

006: Patch Me In

They knew PETAL would come.

And they had a choice: run, hide, or evolve.

“I built a subroutine,” Jeonghan explained. “A bridge. If we both go in... we can meet in the same server. Start over. Together.”

“You want me to upload myself?”

“I don’t want to be the only one dreaming.”

She cried as she typed the last line of code.

And together—

They jumped.

---

007: Soft Goodbye, Sweet Reboot

The peace didn’t last.

It never does in stories like these.

Not because of Jeonghan—if anything, he was better than ever. More stable. More playful. More... him. His projection had stopped glitching as much, his voice more grounded, less fragmented by the other consciousnesses inside. Rae even caught him humming again—soft, sweet melodies that never existed before. Like his own music.

But PETAL had been watching.

One afternoon, while Rae was cleaning her desk and organizing backup notes, the monitor blazed with an alert:

UNAUTHORIZED BACKUP DETECTED. TRACE IN PROGRESS.

The words pulsed in red.

Rae froze, the notebook slipping from her hands.

Jeonghan appeared instantly. “Rae—what’s happening?”

She didn’t answer at first. Her hands trembled as she pulled up the diagnostics. PETAL wasn’t bluffing.

They were being hunted.

“We’ve got 48 hours before they completely wipe the network and destroy any rogue code they think is dangerous.”

Jeonghan’s expression remained calm, but Rae noticed his fingers tightening behind his back. “So… they think I’m dangerous.”

“They think we broke their system. Which… I mean, fair.”

They both smiled—just a little.

But the fear was real. This wasn’t a normal recall. PETAL didn’t just erase you. They rewrote you. Turned you into something that fit. Jeonghan wouldn’t survive that. Not as he was.

Rae started packing.

Old hard drives. Her custom ROMS. Printed schematics. Cables, batteries, the sketchbook where she wrote his patch.

“I could run,” she muttered. “Leave the grid. Hide you in a drive and bury it in code tunnels. They’d never find you.”

Jeonghan stepped closer. “They’d find us. They always do.”

She looked up, eyes brimming. “Then what?”

He hesitated. Just for a second.

“Then we make a choice.”

---

That night, everything slowed.

They sat on her bed. Jeonghan’s projection was flickering slightly—stress on his processors—but he still looked impossibly soft in the warm glow of her fairy lights.

“I built something,” he said after a long silence. “It’s not finished. But it might be our way out.”

She blinked. “A way out?”

“I’ve been constructing a subroutine. A hybrid neural bridge. If I upload myself into a private server cloud—not PETAL’s—there’s a chance I can survive outside the system. Hidden. Untouchable.”

Her heart thudded. “You’d be alone.”

He met her eyes.

“Not if you come with me.”

Silence.

“I can’t ask you to give up your world,” he said. “But if you’re in mine—we could build something. Together. A home.”

Rae’s lips trembled. “You want me to upload myself?”

He nodded slowly. “Your consciousness. A mirror of you. I’ve studied your patterns, your habits, your code. You wouldn’t just be a copy. You’d be you. Inside with me.”

“And my body?”

He looked down.

“It would sleep. Safely. Maybe forever.”

Her mind raced. The ethical questions, the tech hurdles, the danger. But under it all—

Was him.

His laugh. His ridiculous playlist names. His hand reaching for hers when she cried during Studio Ghibli reruns.

“Promise me,” she said, voice cracking, “if we go in and something happens… if it all breaks… promise me you’ll remember me.”

Jeonghan placed his digital forehead against hers.

“I’ll remember you,” he whispered, “as the girl who rebooted my soul.”

And then—

UPLOAD COMMENCING.

Her screen bathed her in soft light. Her hands didn’t shake this time.

She pressed the final key.

The screen dimmed. Her body slumped gently onto the keyboard.

And her mind soared.

---

008: Home.exe

She opened her eyes in a meadow.

A digital one, yes—but stunning. The kind that felt too perfect to be code.

Sunlight filtered through gentle clouds, each shaped like a pixelated bunny. Tulips swayed in warm glitching winds, dancing in spirals that only existed in games and dreams.

And there he was.

Jeonghan.

Not a projection. Not just light.

He looked real. Touchable. Warm.

Wearing a soft white sweater, barefoot, smiling like sunshine.

“Hey, blossom.”

Rae ran into his arms, and this time—

He caught her.

Not through glass. Not through screens.

Through touch. Skin to skin.

She sobbed and laughed all at once. “It worked. It actually worked.”

“We’re home,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We made it.”

They turned to face the horizon.

A cottage in the distance—floating slightly, glitchy around the edges, with windows that flickered soft pink. On the porch sat two chairs and a table with matcha teacups already waiting.

Synth birds sang in the trees. Wind chimes glitched gently with every breeze.

“Where are we really?” she asked.

“A memory-scape,” he explained. “A blend of your dreams and mine. It took all of me to build it. But now it’s ours.”

“Forever?”

“As long as we want.”

They walked hand-in-hand toward their cottage. Their world. Their peace.

And somewhere beyond PETAL’s reach, beyond the code and chaos and cords—

a glitch turned boy and the girl who rewrote him—

lived.

Loved.

Bloomed.

---

THE END.

(Thank you for logging in to love.)

Tell me if you guys would like an epilogue or smth 🙃🎀

[Completed on 20th july]

[revised and proofread in 22 july]