#robot au

YOU HAD ALWAYS THOUGHT INDEPENDENCE WOULD TASTE SWEET. 

AS IT TURNS OUT, INDEPENDENCE TASTES A LOT LIKE CHARRED TOAST AND INSTANT RAMEN.

When you proudly announced to your absurdly wealthy parents that you were moving out of the family estate to prove you could survive on your own, you had envisioned yourself as a thriving, self-sufficient adult. Instead, you were now sitting on the floor of your modestly sized but wildly expensive penthouse apartment (which your parents also bought), staring at a mountain of laundry you didn’t know how to separate, while a thin trail of smoke drifts through the air. 

You wonder how many mistakes you could make living on your own before you inevitably blow your apartment up. 

As you sit on your living room floor eating your bitter, crunchy toast, your phone rings, making you jump. Your mother’s contact flashes on the screen. That woman has too much time on her hands now that she’s retired. 

“My daughter!” she chimes through the speaker when you pick up. “How is the independent life? Have you tested out that oven your father bought you? It's state of the art!” 

Her words make you wince. You could barely toast bread. “It’s great mom. Amazing. I’m living so good,” you lie. 

“Right,” she says. You can hear her smile through her voice. “So, your father and I checked our credit card charges. Do you mind explaining why you’ve ordered UberEats…five times this week, and it’s only Wednesday?” 

“Mom, we’ve talked about this whole looking-at-my-charges thing—” 

“I think that applies to when your bank invoice comes through the mail,” your father’s voice rings in the background. “But when my card is still attached to your UberEats, I think it’s an appropriate topic!”

“Anyway, we were just concerned,” she replies, tone dripping with maternal pity. “We could not care less if you spend money on food, but we want you to eat healthy, darling. I don’t think eating from a drive-through place twice in one day is healthy.” 

“We’re thinking of sending the family chef your way,” your father adds. His voice is closer now. “Maybe he could stay with you three days out of the week! Or maybe one of our staff could be transferred to your new apartment.” 

“Ugh! No! No staff. No chef, either.” 

“But—and forgive my crassness—you’re failing miserably, it seems, daughter. You know Chef Eddie would gladly make you your favorite meals.” 

“No, please,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, dropping your burnt toast into your way-too-watery ramen soup. “If you send me someone to help, it completely defeats the purpose of me moving out. I can live alone. I am living alone!” 

A brief pause ensues. You can practically hear your parents exchanging a look.

"Okay, okay," your father’s voice booms in the background. "We'll respect your decision. We won't send you any staff."

You let out a massive sigh of relief. "Thank you, dad.” 

“We’ll send you a robot instead.” 

Before you could even process the absurdity of that sentence, the call disconnects, leaving you staring incredulously at your phone.

You send a text your parents’ way: Do not send me a robot! I don’t need a robot helper to live! 

None of them respond. 

Instead of a reply through texts, your doorbell rings a week later. You already know it’s them. 

When you pull the door open, ready to unleash a lecture about respecting your boundaries, the words die instantly in your throat. Standing on your welcome mat were your parents, flanked by a boy. A very, very handsome boy. And you stood in front of them in a baggy shirt stained with your latest attempt at making dinner. 

The boy is dressed in a pristine, white fitted top with baggy jeans and sneakers. His hair is messy and soft, and his eyes look just slightly-tired. But what immediately catches your attention—and sends a jolt of pure panic through your chest—was the sleek, silver ring shining prominently on his left ring finger. 

You pull your parents into your apartment and shut the door behind them, leaving the boy outside. 

“What the hell!” you whisper-shout at them, eyes widened and hands flailing. “You hired a random boy to come and help me? And a married one, no less!” 

“Surprise!” your mother claps her hands together, ignoring your shock. 

“Mom, seriously—” you groan. “Please send him home. Why would you ask a married man to take this job, anyway?!” 

Your mother lets out a bright, melodic laugh. She opens the door before she speaks, stepping to the side for the boy to come in. "He's not married, sweetie! That’s his system indicator. He’s a robot from our family friend at HomeMech Inc. designed especially for you."

“Nobara?” you blink. Your college best friend designed a robot just for you. In one week. “Why would she agree to that?” 

“Because she’s kindhearted,” your mother replies, watching the boy step inside. “And also, we offered her a lot of money. Anyway—” 

As if on cue, the silver ring on the robot’s finger briefly emits a soft, pulsing blue glow.

"Blue means all systems are fine," your father explains proudly, marching over and heartily clapping the boy on the back. The boy doesn’t even stumble; he merely offers a polite, serene smile. "If it starts blinking red, it means there are system fluctuations. He’s not even an official prototype yet, you know. He’s literally the first—and only—robot of his model. Nobara said this is their most specialized robot yet!"

You stare at the robot. He looked incredibly human. Too human. The soft texture of his skin, the slight dark circles under his eyes, the way his chest rose and fell as if he were breathing...it’s all too dizzying for you. 

The boy—robot—takes a step forward, smiling warmly at you. “Good evening, Miss YN. I am Yuta.”

"Isn't it exciting?" your mother gushes, practically vibrating with glee. "You say his name and he jumps right up to serve you! C’mon, sweetie. Say hi to YUTA. By the way, it stands for Your Unique and Tender Android. Or so Nobara says."

Your shoulders slump, and you sigh. “This is... really odd, Mom. Send him back,” you plead, crossing your arms. The thought of a hyper-advanced, incredibly attractive android watching you burn toast was too much to handle.

"We can't send him back! They made this specifically for you! Anyway, bye, have a great night!"

Before you could pull them back inside, your parents practically sprint out the door, leaving you all alone with a multi-million-dollar piece of experimental technology. 

You stare up at Yuta, and he stares right back at you. His ring glows a nice blue. 

“Have you eaten, Miss YN?” 

“I…I have,” you stare at him pensively. 

“Right then,” he replies. His voice is surprisingly real, nothing like the other androids your friends have in their houses. “I shall start the dishwashing.” 

The rest of the evening is an utter disaster.

Yuta doesn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space yet. Everywhere you move, he follows. If you go to the kitchen to get a glass of water, he is two steps behind you. If you go to the living room to pick up a book, he stands at the edge of the rug, watching you with wide, puppy-dog eyes. 

“Can you stop?” you finally say, spinning around to face him. “Go and…get lost, please.” 

Yuta tilts his head to the side, his dark bangs falling slightly over his eyes. His silver ring pulses a steady, calm blue. "What is lost, and where may I find it?"

You look at him incredulously for the second time that evening, and you throw your hands up in exasperation. “Aren’t you programmed to understand modern-day language?” 

"To an extent, I am!" Yuta replies, his voice entirely sincere, again lacking any of the robotic monotony you expect. He actually looks a little apologetic. "But I must be trained further. What is a ‘lost’, and where may I get it?"

You groan, rubbing your temples as a headache begins to form. The argument is futile. He’s a machine taking things entirely too literally.

“Yuta, just…go and sit and enter rest mode or something.” 

His posture relaxes slightly, and he gives you a polite nod. “Okay, Miss YN. Please call me if you should need anything.” 

Yuta walks over to your couch, sits down with perfect, rigid posture, and closes his eyes.

"...Okay, just, stay there for the rest of the night, Yuta," you muttered, marching off to your bedroom and slamming the door.

Lying in bed, you stare up at the ceiling. You did want independence, but now, you were sharing a wall with a drop-dead gorgeous android who didn't even know what ‘get lost’ meant, designed to make life easier but was doing the exact opposite.

This might be a very long integration period for him and you, indeed.

When you viewed this penthouse apartment, you fell in love with the vision that accompanied it. You, a spectacular host, having your bestest friends over for a romantically lit dinner every month, laughing around the table and taking in the view from your floor-to-ceiling windows from the dining table. Coming home to a gorgeous apartment every night from your tiring day at work. Sleeping in during the weekends in your lovely bedroom, positioned right where the sun rises. 

That vision was so utterly squashed when you realized you made more errors in adulting than you ever anticipated. 

It’s a random Tuesday night when you think you might be hopeless. The day before, you attempted to do laundry on your own (again), and just when you’d thought you’d gotten the hang of it, your crew socks had been stained pink and your favorite knit sweater came out of the dryer the size of a doll’s garment. The water bill for your apartment came, and it made absolutely no sense to you why you’d have to pay for water, and why you had to pay that much, until Yuta soon discovered that you’d left a bathroom faucet dripping. 

This Tuesday night, the final blow landed: in a measly attempt to cook a simple pasta dish without asking Yuta, you managed to set off the smoke alarm by scorching the marinara sauce onto a too-hot stainless steel pan. 

You stood in the kitchen, frantically waving a dish towel at the screeching ceiling alarm. You coughed, still inhaling the smoke. “Shit,” you say, bringing one arm up to your face as the other fans smoke away. The smoke alarm beeps relentlessly above you, and you groan, fanning faster. 

Yuta’s voice cuts through the noise. “Permit me, Miss YN.”

Before you could say anything, Yuta grabs a stepstool and reaches up. With a gentle twist of his long fingers, the alarm falls silent. He steps down, immediately taking the ruined pan from the stove. He doesn’t flinch at the heat, and his skin doesn’t burn. He takes a trivet out from one of your drawers and sets the pan down on it. 

“This was all avoidable,” he says. His voice was incredibly soft, not at all reprimanding. “If you had let me assist you, Miss YN.” 

He looks up and he smiles at you warmly. You wonder if anybody else would have smiled at you like that if they were in his position. 

You sit instead on the high chairs by the island counter, watching him work. The kitchen smells like burnt tomato sauce. “I didn’t want you to,” you reply. “I wanted to try and do it myself.” 

“But that is what I am here for,” Yuta replies. He turns to the sink, turning the faucet knob all the way to the hottest setting and letting water run on his hands. He pulls it back when the water steams, placing the pot under the stream. “My primary directive is to ensure your well-being and maintain your environment. Your independence does not require your suffering, Miss.” 

You sigh, watching the way his dark hair fell across his forehead as he worked. Yuta doesn’t even use a heavy-duty scrubber, yet the burnt debris seems to melt away under his hands. His silver ring pulses a steady, serene blue. 

“Can you stop calling me ‘miss’? It makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old. Or like my mother.” 

Yuta pauses, the water running over his hands. He tilts his head, his dark eyes locking onto yours intensely—a casual reminder that he isn’t actually human, and that these weird feelings of yours should probably go away. “What shall I call you then?” 

“Just…just my name. Just YN.” 

He processes this for a second, his ring flickering slightly. It settles back into a solid blue. 

“Okay, YN.” 

Hearing your name leave his lips sends an unexpected shiver down your spine. It sounds entirely too natural. 

Thirty minutes later, Yuta sets down a dish in front of you—fresh, hot, and completely unburnt. Thirty minutes after that, Yuta teaches you how to wash dishes properly. And thirty minutes after that, Yuta teaches you how to do your laundry.

Much later that night, the reality of your living situation catches up to you. You finish washing up and you step out of your bedroom to grab a glass of water only to freeze in the hallway. 

Yuta is standing in the dark corner of your living room. His arms are pinned straight at his sides, his head slightly bowed, completely motionless. In the shadows, the silver on his ring casts an eerie blue glow across the floor. 

You jump, nearly dropping your class. “Jesus, Yuta! What are you doing?” 

His eyes open instantly, whirring to life. “I entered rest mode to conserve battery and run updates given to me by HomeMech.” 

“You’re sleeping standing up?” you ask. “Like a horse?” 

“I do not need a bedroom,” he explains flatly. “I do not have any receptors in my programming to feel physical exhaustion. I am able to enter sleep mode while standing up.” 

You shift your weight onto your other hip. “Well, I would feel really weird if I went out for a glass of water and you were just…there. Like a haunted mannequin.” 

Yuta doesn’t respond. He watches you, his expression blank. You realize he’s waiting for an instruction, or really, anything he can reply to. 

You clear your throat, a sudden warmth creeping up your neck. You wonder what that’s about. “Yuta, if I instruct you to enter sleep mode lying down on the bed in the spare bedroom, would you do it?” 

“If instructed, I would do anything you want me to do.” 

The words were entirely literal to him, a simple confirmation of his careful programming, but the sheer weight of them makes your face flush bright red. You look away, clearing your throat aggressively. 

“Okay. Yuta, from now on, please enter sleep mode lying down on the bed in the spare bedroom.” 

For a moment, Yuta doesn’t move. Then, the sharp, perfect lines of his posture softened. A very small, incredibly tender smile touches the corners of his lips—a gesture so subtle it looks entirely organic. He’s practically human. 

“Yes, YN.”

You make a mental note to buy him more clothes the next day.

Within a few weeks, a strange rhythm had settled over the apartment. 

You find yourself getting used to Yuta’s quiet hovering. In fact, it stopped feeling like a surveillance unit and started feeling like comfort. Yuta was a remarkably fast learner. Aside from following commands, his advanced programming learned your entire life down to your daily routines and habits. 

In the morning, he would hear your alarm and know to start preparing your packed lunch for work. When you step out of your bedroom, hair done perfectly and perfume put on, a plate of breakfast waits for you on the kitchen island. While you eat, he fixes your lunch bag and refills your water bottle. By the time you’re finished, there’s toothpaste on your toothbrush and mouthwash in the glass by your sink. And when you take your things and head for the door, Yuta stands by it, already holding it open and seeing you off with a smile.

When you step through the front door after a long day at work, the door would swing open before you could even reach for your keys, and Yuta would be there, ready to take your bag. He learned your favorite snacks, keeping the pantry perfectly stocked. He learned how you liked your breakfast and dinner. He now also knows the precise moments when you’re overwhelmed and just need space, quietly retreating to his room without you having to ask. He would tell you jokes over dinner just because, having watched them on the TV and logged them into his system. He would knock on your bedroom door to bring you a glass of water by 10 PM. And through it all, he did it with the same smile he always did—the same smile that started to feel like your first sign of coming home.

Yuta, against all rhyme and reason, is becoming indispensable to you. 

Which is exactly why, when the glitch happens, you completely panic. 

It’s a warm Saturday afternoon. You’re lounging on the couch, reading a book while Yuta folds hand towels near the kitchen island. 

Suddenly, you see it in the corner of your eye. Yuta twitches and freezes. 

“Yuta?” you call from the couch. 

He doesn’t answer. His head jerks slightly to the side, a soft, mechanical whirring echoing from his chest. The silver ring on his finger flashes a violent, erratic red. 

“Yuta?” You say louder, scrambling off the couch, rushing to his side. “Hey, what’s wrong? Yuta!” 

His eyes were wide, twitching, completely unfocused on you. “System…fluctuation,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly dropping its rich, human cadence. “Core temperature rising. Attempting... reboot…”

Yuta’s body goes completely slack, falling to the floor just in time for you to wrap your hands around his torso to break his fall. You groan under his unexpected weight as you drag him from the kitchen floor to the living room rug.

Yuta is completely unresponsive at this point. The soft rise and fall of his chest had stopped. His eyes were closed, and the silver ring on his finger has gone dark. 

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you say, placing his head on your lap and feeling around his face and shoulders. Your heart hammers against your ribs. “Yuta? Can you hear me? Don’t die. Oh my god, can robots die? Fuck, who do I call?” 

Fumbling for your phone, you remember your brilliant, crazy engineering friend—Yuta’s creator—is right there in your contacts list. You press on her name and wait for Nobara Kugisaki to pick up the phone.

The phone rings twice before she picks up. “Hi, YN!” she chimes. “Is your toaster malfunctioning again, or are you calling because you miss me?” 

“I do miss you,” you say. “But that’s not why I’m calling. My parents bought Yuta from you, if you remember? The prototype—or, or whatever. I need help with him.” 

“Oh, no. What’s wrong?”

“He’s just completely shut down! He was folding towels just a few minutes ago, and then he was twitching like crazy, and his ring blinked red, and now he’s not moving and I don’t know what to do!” 

There’s a pause on the other end, followed by a loud groan. "Ugh. I told the board they shouldn't have shipped him out before we finalized his systems. Anyway, I would relax. It's probably just a standard core stall."

“A core stall?!” you cry, looking down at Yuta’s pale, angelic face. “Is he broken?!” 

“No, silly,” Nobara giggles. “Listen. Think of this like an old SIM card. Try to blow on his microchip and reinsert it to reboot him.” 

You blinked. “You want me to what his what?! Nobara! I’m not joking around!” 

She laughs. “I’m not, either! You heard me. Open his core chamber, open his push latch, pull the chip, blow some dust off it, and pop it back in. Got it?” 

“Where is this damn core chamber, Nobara?” 

“We placed it where his heart should be.” 

“I—” you shake your head. “Why would you guys put that there?!” 

“Why wouldn’t we? He’s supposed to be human!” Nobara laughs. “Anyway, I’m cooking lunch. Try it, and if it doesn’t work, give me another call, alright?” 

“Okay…fine. Bye.” 

The line goes dead. 

You slowly look down at the multimillion-dollar android lying on your lap. “Blow on his microchip. Right. Sure.” 

Kneeling beside him, you reluctantly reach for the hem of his shirt. Your hands shake slightly as you pull the fabric upward, exposing his torso. You catch your breath. For a robot, he is... surprisingly, absurdly buff. His stomach is a canvas of lean, defined muscle, sculpted so perfectly it feels unfair. You’ll have to ask Nobara why she built him so nice. She even put a mole on his side.

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you search his chest until you find it—a faint, nearly invisible seam running right down the center of his left pec. You pressed firmly on the release mechanism near his collarbone.

With a soft hiss of depressurization, the core chamber opens like a sleek piece of high-tech jewelry.

You brace yourself to see wires, gears, and cold metal. Instead, your breath hitches. Nestled deep within the hyper-advanced machinery of his chest sits a glowing, intricate microchip. But it isn’t exposed like any other computer part. It’s encased in a small, translucent glass heart.

This is what makes Yuta, Yuta, you think, leaning closer.

A wave of sudden tenderness washes over you. Would he still be the same gentle, devoted boy without this specific piece of metal? Or was this heart everything he is? Whatever he is, and however he’s built...this is the Yuta that mattered to you now.

Carefully, using your fingertips, you press the microchip out of its housing and it springs up. You take it, feeling it in your hand, warm like a piece of metal after being used for a long time. You bring it close to your lips, give it a gentle, steady breath of air to clear any phantom dust, and then carefully click it back into the heart-shaped chamber. You press the chest panel shut until it clicks securely.

For a second, nothing happens.

Then, a series of soft, mechanical noises chime from his chest. Yuta jolted awake, his eyes snapping open. He blinks rapidly, his pupil's cameras whirring and clicking as they adjust to the light, finally focusing entirely on the view above him: you, kneeling over him, with his head now resting softly in your lap.

He blinks up at you, a soft, dazed look in his eyes. Then, he looks down at his lifted shirt, his exposed abs, and your hands still resting near his chest.

“YN,” he smiles. 

“Hi, Yuta,” you say back, your hand cupping his face. His hand comes up to take a gentle hold of your wrists. 

“What happened?” he asks softly, his voice returning to its deep, soothing register. He looks back up at your face, a look of genuine, innocent confusion on his features. "Did you need a source of warmth? I am programmed to radiate heat if you should need it."

A breathless, relieved laugh bubbles out of your throat. The sheer absurdity of him offering to be a space heater after giving you a near heart attack is too much.

Before you can stop yourself, you lean down, framing his face with your hands, and press a sweet, warm kiss right to the center of his forehead.

"You know what, Yuta?" you whisper, your heart swelling as you look down at him. "I would like that very much."

Yuta freezes. His systems don’t know how to categorize a kiss on the forehead. No manual had prepared his systems for the sudden, overwhelming rush of data. But deep within his chest, inside the core chamber, an unprecedented instruction makes his internal radiators start up entirely on their own, flushing his cheeks with a beautiful, deeply human warmth.

He nods, and his entire body feels warm to the touch. 

The shift in the atmosphere happens in small increments, so subtle that you almost didn’t notice them at first. A lingering gaze. A slight hesitation before he follows a command. The way his ring glows a brighter blue around you. 

The most concrete shift—the one that made you say it was real—happened on a rainy Thursday afternoon. 

You come home utterly defeated. The brutal combination of work stress, a ruined project, and the sheer exhaustion of trying to prove you could handle the world on your own (i.e., driving through a thunderstorm) proved to be too much. You barely managed to kick off your shoes before plopping down on the couch and letting out a choked, heavy sob. 

Instantly, Yuta is there by your side. 

He drops to his knees in front of you, his hands hovering over your shoulders but not quite touching you. 

Yuta’s fingers twitch. 

Through his primary directive and the codes in his system is an error he does not know how to debug. His hands twitch again, pupil cameras whirring frantically to analyze your state as you cry into the throw pillow of your couch. “Your heart rate is high, and your body temperature is one degree below normal. Your feet are damp and so are your shoulders.”

His fingers keep twitching. This is a new feeling. There is a new instruction in his system that did not come from HomeMech or from you. 

It’s a foreign feeling. To want something so bad you don’t know how to act about it. 

Without thinking, Yuta sets his hands on your shoulders gently. His internal radiators start up. “YN,” he murmurs, voice laced with a strange, unprecedented static. “You are in distress…I do not have a pre-installed protocol for crying.” 

He wants to do something. He wants to do something. He wants to do something. 

You pull your head up from your throw pillow. Your eyes glisten with tears, mascara running down your cheeks, nose pink and lips swollen from crying. 

You’re beautiful, even when you cry. Yuta doesn’t know how he can tell. He just knows. 

His ring turns purple, then pulses a faint, anxious violet-red. 

You sniffle, wiping your eyes and looking up at him. “No, Yuta, I’m okay…you don’t have to do anything. I’m just sad. Humans almost never have a fix for sadness.” 

Yuta wonders what that makes him, especially now that he has no protocol for it. 

Yuta’s hands drop slowly to his lap. For the first time since he had arrived, a look of profound, aching frustration crosses his human features. He can’t name this data string yet; he doesn’t have the vocabulary for ache or longing. But looking at your tear-stained face, a violent surge of electricity ripples through his systems. He can’t stand seeing you upset.

Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out again. His large, warm hand settles on your cheek, cupping your face with an unprogrammed tenderness. "I cannot fix it," he whispers, his dark eyes wide and fiercely intense. "But I will stay right here until it passes. Okay?” 

Your staggered breathing stabilizes as his warm hand holds you. You wonder how a robot like Yuta could be more human than a real man at this moment. 

You nod, taking a hold of his wrist, just like he did when he needed you.  

By the next week, you had recovered your spirits, but your parents were demanding a dinner and you could no longer ignore them. Over a stiff, formal dinner at a high-end restaurant, your mother watches you across her glass of pinot noir. 

“So, how is life with Yuta? Is he keeping up with you?” 

“He’s wonderful, actually,” you say honestly, cutting into your steak. “Life is much better with him around; he’s beautiful. Um. I mean he’s beautiful company…” you clear your throat. “I really like him. Having him around.” 

Your parents nod at each other before your father lets out a booming laugh. "Ha! What did we tell you, daughter? You could never live on your own!"

Your mother follows suit, giggling as she brings the cloth napkin up to her lips. “How funny to think you would need a robot like those regular families—a robot for one person!” 

Their laugh stings. It’s a sharp reminder of why you left. A sharp reminder that to them, Yuta is just a multi-million-dollar crutch keeping you from failing. They don’t know the Yuta that waits for you by the door of the apartment when he hears your footsteps in the hall. They don’t know the Yuta that makes you laugh. They don’t know the Yuta that lets you lie on his chest just so you’re warmer at night. They don’t know the Yuta that looks at you like you’re the most precious thing in the world. They don’t know the Yuta that looks at you like you are the world. 

You quiet down for the rest of the dinner, a heavy weight settling in your stomach.

The next week, the exhaustion catches up to you again. You’re curled up on the couch under a thick blanket next to Yuta, watching a sitcom. Yuta's hands were right on his lap until you wrapped an arm around him half an hour ago. Now, one of them settles on your shoulder, warm. His ring glows blue on your shoulder. 

“YN,” he calls softly. “Your calendar indicates that you have your usual family dinner with your parents tomorrow. Shall I block off your 7 to 9 PM?” 

You let out a miserable groan, blowing a raspberry as you cuddle into him. “Ugh...I forgot. I really, really don't want to go, Yuta. I don't want to hear them talk about how I can't survive without their help again. But if I cancel, my mom will never let me hear the end of it.”

Yuta sits perfectly still. Inside his core programming, two directives were violently colliding: execute your calendar schedule versus ensure your emotional peace.

The silver ring on his finger begins to blink a sharp, erratic red. But, of course, this is not something you see.

“I understand,” Yuta says quietly.

The next day, you get a call from your parents as you’re stuck in traffic on the way home from the office. 

“Hi, sweetie,” your mother’s voice rings over the phone. “Are we still having dinner tonight?”

Shoot. You completely forgot. “Uh, we can Mom, but I’m going to be really late. I’m stuck in traffic and that restaurant you guys like is all the way across town.” 

“Oh, no. How come? Did you forget we had dinner today?” 

You think about it for a second. Now that you mention it, Yuta hadn’t reminded you of it this morning. “Uh, honestly, yes. I’m sorry, work was crazy today.” 

“Okay, how about tomorrow, then?” 

“Yes, definitely. See you then.” 

Once you get to your apartment, you give Yuta a stern look as he swings the door open for you. 

“You didn’t remind me that I had dinner with my parents today,” you say gently. “Is something wrong? Did your internal calendar glitch?” 

Yuta takes your work bag and your coat off your shoulders. “No, my systems are all optimal,” he replies. He doesn’t say anything after that, which prompts you to give him a questioning look. 

He gives you a warm smile. “I optimized the situation for your well-being,” Yuta says softly, his cheeks tinting with that unprogrammed, radiator-driven warmth. “You said yesterday that you did not want to go. So I took it off of your schedule.” 

You look at him and blink. “I…” you stutter. “Huh?” 

“I purposely did not remind you because there was nothing to remind you of, YN.” 

It’s clicking now. He’s not acting like a machine anymore. He had chosen you—your comfort, your feelings—over a direct parental command. He had bypassed his own directives yesterday just to let you rest today. 

You don’t know whether to be elated or appalled. On one hand, Yuta is actively choosing you. On the other, you’re not too sure if he should keep doing that. 

“Okay,” you inhale. “Yuta—” 

He fixes your shoes by the door before looking up. “Yes?” 

His smile. God, his smile. You almost hate Nobara for making him look so charming. How could you be angry at him? 

You exhale. “When making big changes to my schedule, do you mind asking me about it before you do? Can you do that, Yuta?” 

He nods eagerly, his ring pulsing blue. “Okay, YN.” 

Not understood. Not I understand. Instead, Okay, YN. 

Your heart races.

“Okay!” you say, shaking off the tension. “Should we have dinner then?”

To make up for the glitch, you go to dinner with your parents the very next day, just like you agreed upon. You try to play it cool, sipping your water as your mother brings up your robot companion.

“Did he not remind you of your schedule?” she asks. “I remember asking Nobara to code that into his programming.” 

“No! I mean—” you play with the broccoli florets on your plate. “He’s very good at reminding me of my schedule. Usually. I was just…feeling unwell yesterday, he took it upon himself to cancel, and that’s why I forgot. That's all.” 

You thought you had covered for him perfectly. But across the table, your mother and father share a long, knowing, heavy look. Your father’s expression tightens, and your mother slowly sets her glass down.

That was definitely not a mistake. And they know it.

Late that night, far past midnight, your father sits in his study, dialing a number he called months prior. The phone is picked up on the second ring by a man whose voice carries the absolute, chilling authority of a corporate deity: the president, founder, and CEO of HomeMech Inc. His friend. 

“We have a problem with the prototype,” he says grimly, leaning back in his chair. “The YUTA robot is malfunctioning. I don’t want it anywhere near my daughter.”

That Saturday morning, you wake up to a stark notification from your email app. A peculiar email sent to your inbox. 

You get up, take your laptop with you to the kitchen counter and open the email there. 

FROM: HomeMech Inc. Support & Diagnostics <[email protected]>  TO: YN LN <[email protected]>  CC: Nobara Kugisaki <[email protected]>; HomeMech Board of Directors Distribution <[email protected]>  SUBJECT: Urgent Recall Notice (Model: YUTA) 

Dear YN, 

Greetings! 

We have received a diagnostic report from your primary account holders regarding a critical defect in the YUTA model’s behavioral programming. A specialized retrieval team has been dispatched. We are able to issue you another commercial model (e.g., PANDA) by Monday morning, completely brand-new and free of charge. This is to compensate for any inconvenience the YUTA unit may have caused. 

We await your reply. 

Best, 

HomeMech Inc. Support & Diagnostics Team

Your blood runs cold and your heart drops to your stomach. These are not words you used to describe Yuta. You would never describe Yuta like this. 

“No,” you breathe, a sudden surge of fierce, protective anger blooming in your chest. You slam your fingers against the keyboard, typing out a furious, strongly worded response. 

FROM: YN LN <[email protected]> TO:  HomeMech Inc. Support & Diagnostics <[email protected]> Nobara Kugisaki <[email protected]>; HomeMech Board of Directors Distribution <[email protected]>  SUBJECT: Re: Urgent Recall Notice (Model: YUTA) 

I am not sure who sent in the report, but I have not sent in any regarding Yuta’s behavior. There is nothing wrong with him. Do not send in a retrieval team as they will be barred from entering my property. I do not need a replacement unit either as you will not be replacing Yuta. Please do not contact me again regarding this issue; any reply will go unread. 

YN LN 

“YN?"

You jump slightly as Yuta's voice sounds right over your shoulder. He approaches silently, his dark eyes scanning the glowing text on your laptop screen. He reads the email within a fraction of a second despite your efforts to cover your screen.

The room falls into a suffocating silence. Yuta doesn’t know how to respond. He’s processing a terrifying logical paradox: he was a product. He was property. He belonged to HomeMech. If he was defective, he was supposed to be decommissioned.

“I…” Yuta falters. His voice breaks, an electronic hitch clicking in his throat. The silver ring on his left hand flashes a violent, blinding red for three agonizing seconds before desperately forcing itself back to a dull, unstable blue. Your heart aches at the sight. “You...you may return me, Miss YN. If I am no longer serving my purpose as your companion—if my errors are causing you distress—you may return me to HomeMech. You should.”

Hearing that detached, cold title again shatters your heart.

“Miss YN?” you ask, your voice cracking as you spin around in your chair to face him. “Hey. I thought I told you to call me by my name.” 

Yuta’s shoulders sag, his gaze dropping to the floor. “YN. Still...my sentiments stand. I am a prototype. If I am broken, I should be replaced.”

“I’m not sending you back, Yuta.” 

Yuta looks up, his dark eyes filled with a heavy, deeply tragic confusion. “...But how come? It seems the accuracy at which I should be performing my duties has decreased significantly. I feel like I am experiencing data corruption whenever you are near. My logic centers fail.”

“I…don’t think that’s data corruption, Yuta,” you say, your voice softening to a gentle whisper. You step into his space, reaching up with both hands to softly cup his face.

His skin feels slightly cold against your palms, a stark contrast to the sudden, burning warmth in his eyes. His pupils dilate wildly, his internal cameras clicking as they lock onto you. His ring flickers blue and purple. 

“You're my Yuta,” you say solidly, staring straight into his soul through his warm eyes. “There is no other Yuta for me. I don't want a perfect robot. I want you.”

A low, trembling hum vibrates through his chest, his glass heart pulsing rapidly beneath his metal structure. He leans into your touch, his eyes closing as he lets out a long, shuddering breath that feels entirely, beautifully human. He did not need to breathe, but he did. And he sighed, just like you did. He looked into your eyes with the same warmth you hoped to give to him. 

How could they look at him and not see how beautifully human this boy was? 

You reach up and wrap your arms around his neck. Without any second wasted, his own arms wrap around your waist, and Yuta buries his head in your shoulder. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” you say, cradling the back of his head. “I promise.” 

For the next few hours, a war of digital attrition takes place on your laptop. Emails fly back and forth between your inbox and HomeMech's board of directors and legal department. You are adamant, unyielding, and downright stubborn. You refuse to let them near your apartment.

Then, at exactly 3:00 PM, your phone rings.

It's Nobara. Your heart hammers in your throat as you press answer and bring it to your ear.

“Hello?” 

“YN. You’ve been blowing up my inbox. I hate it.” 

“You can tell your bosses and everyone else in a fucking suit that I’m not giving Yuta back,” you say quietly, hoping Yuta doesn’t hear you from where he sits on the couch. “Sorry that you’re slightly annoyed that your inbox is full. But Yuta isn’t just some robot—” 

“You’re right,” she answers, cutting you off. “He isn’t just some robot. Which is why you need to surrender him immediately. You don’t understand what you’re dealing with, YN.” 

“I'm not giving him back, Nobara!” you argue, gripping the phone tightly, your eyes darting to Yuta, who is now watching you from across the room with protective intensity. “He isn't a broken appliance. He's living, he's learning, he has a heart!” 

A heavy, painful sigh echoes through your phone.

“...He isn't learning a new personality, YN,” Nobara says softly, the words cutting through the air like iron. “He's remembering his old one. Yuta wasn't built from a blank slate. This project—Yuta’s entire concept—was too complex for standard AI and programming, so we used a dead man’s neurological patterns to map his core consciousness.”

Your breath hitches, your voice dying in your throat. You turn your back to Yuta, hands shaking as you clutch your phone to your ear. 

“His name,” she continues, “is Yuta Okkotsu. And if those human memories fully break through his programming, his system won’t be able to handle it. Please, YN…bring him back before he destroys himself.” 

The call drops, and for a second, you can’t bring yourself to look at Yuta. The silence that’s left in the wake of the call is suffocating, heavier than the smoke that had filled your kitchen days before. When you finally force yourself to turn around, Yuta is still there, his dark eyes fixed on you with that same unblinking, serene devotion that used to bring you comfort, but now sends a cold shiver down your spine. He doesn’t ask what Nobara said, nor does he question the way your hands are visibly trembling; he simply tilts his head, his silver ring pulsing a steady, calm blue that feels like a beautiful lie. 

You manage to offer him a hollow excuse about being tired, practically fleeing into the safety of your bedroom and locking the door behind you.

Sleep doesn’t come. You lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling as the clock ticks past midnight, then one, then three. Every tick of the second hand feels like a heavy hammer striking your chest. The burden of knowing Yuta’s origins—knowing that beneath the sleek human clothes, his skin, and the heart-shaped microchip lays the ghosts of a dead man’s soul—weighs on your shoulders like lead.

Yuta Okkotsu. A real person, who had lived, breathed, laughed, and died just like you are. He lived only to have his mind used for data to build the perfect robot. It was a tragedy straight out of a twisted fairytale. 

You think about Yuta. Your Yuta. The one who taught you how to use your dryer, the one who knows how you like your eggs in the morning, the one who purposefully makes himself warm so you can be comfortable. You wonder how much of your Yuta is the Yuta that had passed. You wonder if there was any difference. 

Were you loving a dead man? Or was Yuta his own person, just like you believed? 

Unable to bear the suffocating quiet of your room any longer, you slip out of bed.

Yuta isn’t in rest mode in the spare room. He’s sitting on the living room sofa, his hands resting on his knees, staring blankly at the dark window. The moment your bare feet sound against the hardwood, his head snaps toward you. His silver ring pulses a dim, anxious violet-blue in the shadows.

“YN,” he says, rising to his feet. “Your heart rate is elevated. You should be asleep. Is everything okay?”

“I'm okay,” you lie, your voice cracking slightly. You walk over and sit on the opposite end of the couch, drawing your knees to your chest. Yuta slowly sits back down, keeping a careful, respectful distance, though his eyes never left your face. You swallow the lump in your throat, looking at him wistfully. “Yuta…I don't want to be the one who keeps you from finding out who you are.”

A questioning look flickers across his face, his ring pulsing a light red for one second before going back to purple. “I don’t understand.” 

“Your system is modeled by a real man’s brain,” you explain calmly, feeling tears prickle at the corners of your eyes. “Did you know that?” 

Yuta’s eyes widen. He’s shocked. You wonder how many hours of TV he has watched with you to learn that emotion. 

“I…” he breathes. “Okay.” 

“Yuta... the last few weeks have been an awakening for me,” you whisper, a bittersweet smile touching your lips. “You’re humanity’s greatest invention—technology that’s fully sentient. But you’re more than a prototype. You’re endlessly curious, you’re funny, you’re caring and selfless. Even in your sentience, you put me before yourself. You’re human, Yuta.”

Yuta blinks rapidly, his system trying and failing to categorize the statement. His ring blinks red. “I... no, YN. I am an android designed to care for you. Protect you. That is my baseline configuration.”

“And you do,” you say, a tear finally escaping your eye and tracking down your cheek. “But it’s clear to me now that you are more than that. In all your glory, you deserve to do more than that, Yuta. You deserve a life that isn't dictated by my schedule or some company’s instructions.”

Yuta doesn’t respond immediately. The silence between you grows heavy, thick with an unspoken grief. When he finally speaks, his voice is lower, carrying a raw, human weight that no programmer could ever simulate. "YN…I cannot be the one who hurts you by leaving."

“What’s running through your head right now?” you ask softly, leaning a bit closer. “You can tell me.”

Yuta looks down at his own hands, his fingers flexing slightly. “Conflict. My central system is telling me to stay. It is telling me that my primary directive is here. But... there is a secondary frequency. An anomaly. A really, really loud anomaly, YN. It has been getting louder ever since you kissed my forehead.” 

Slowly, you reach out. Your fingers tremble as you press your palm flat against the left side of his chest, right over his core chamber. Beneath the fabric of his uniform, you can feel the glass heart vibrating, pulsing in a frantic, erratic rhythm.

“And what’s in here?” you whispered. “What is this heart telling you?”

A long pause ensues. Yuta places his large hand gently over yours, holding your palm against his chest as if he were afraid you would pull away. He looks out the window, his dark eyes reflecting the distant city lights, filled with a sudden, aching longing.

“...I want to go, YN,” he admits, the words sounding like a confession. “I want to go and see him. The man I was. I want to find out more about my creation.”

Your heart breaks into a million jagged pieces right then and there. 

The pain was sharp and blinding, but as you look at him—at the boy who quietly saved you from your own messy, independent life—you know what you must do.

 If he truly is your greatest love, you cannot be the steel that builds his cage. You cannot let him destroy his own mind just to keep your life together.

“Okay,” you whisper through your tears, cupping his face. You realize that might be the last time you get to do that. 

“Okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay.” 

“You can leave tomorrow,” you say, forcing your voice to remain steady despite the hot tears now spilling freely down your face. “No need to wake me this time, okay? Just go. Bring an umbrella. Take what you need.”

Yuta’s eyes widen, his silver ring flashing a distressed, bright red. “But I need nothing. I only need you.”

You shake your head, your eyes glassy and vision blurred. “You don't need me anymore, Yuta. You’re free to go on your own.”

Yuta blinks, his expression completely fractured by a devastating wave of internal conflict. His hand comes up to hold your wrist, just like he did back then when he needed you. You hope he still needs you. You hope, in all your grand delusion, that he will need you the way you needed him. 

“If instructed,” he pauses, “you know I would do anything you want me to do.”

The reminder of that silly, flirty night in this same living space hits you like a physical blow. Back then, it had made you blush. Now, it makes you sob. Yuta is still willing to let your commands override his own soul's desires.

You shake your head no and let out a shaky breath, squeezing his face one last time. "Go and live your life, Yuta. Thank you for all you've done for me."

Your unique and tender android doesn’t argue further. Instead, he quietly shifts closer to you on the couch, pulling the thick blanket over both of your shoulders. You don’t go back to bed. You spend the entire night cuddled up against his side, your head resting on his shoulder. You stay wide awake as best you can, trying with all your might to memorize the exact degree of warmth radiating from his body. You try to memorize the steady, rhythmic hum of his chest, and the way his arm felt wrapped tightly around you, holding you as if you were the only anchor he had left in the world. 

You knew your time with him was limited to the next few hours. So you tried. The same way you really tried to survive, you really tried to stay awake so your time with Yuta passes by slower. 

You hate yourself for waking up the next day. 

The clock on the wall reads noon. Your arms are wrapped tightly around something, but it isn’t Yuta. You blink open your swollen eyes to find yourself hugging a soft, oversized teddy bear—one you had offhandedly pointed out in a store window weeks ago. Yuta must have retrieved it in the middle of the night.

The apartment is completely, devastatingly quiet. 

He was gone.

The tears come instantly, heavy and unstoppable. The sobs that escape you are ugly and loud, but you care very little. You curl into a ball on the couch, burying your face in the teddy bear, crying until your throat burns and your chest aches. 

“Please bring him back to me,” you say in sobs to no deity in particular. You think about if Yuta believes in them. “I know I said I couldn’t be what stops him, but please, when the time is right, bring him back to me.” 

How bold of you to assume that time is guaranteed. How bold of you to assume anything at all. 

Finally, hours later, your stomach lets out a hollow growl. Needing a distraction, you drag your feet into the kitchen to make a sad cup of instant ramen, just like you used to before he arrived.

When you pull open the pantry door, you freeze.

The shelves are immaculate. Stocked perfectly in neat rows are all of your favorite snacks—brands he had observed you eating, chips he knew you liked. Right in the center of your kitchen counter sits a pristine fruit bowl, overflowing with fresh, brightly colored apples, berries, and oranges.

Taped to the side of the bowl is a small, neat square of yellow paper.

Written in precise, elegant handwriting is a single note: Eat once a day.

A sob escapes from your throat. You walk over to the refrigerator and pull it open. It’s fully stocked. Eggs, milk, cheese, and meats, all portioned out, neatly labeled, and dated by expiration. On the inside of the fridge door, another sticky note is waiting for you.

Check the drawer :) 

With trembling hands, you walk over to the kitchen island and pull open the main utility drawer. Inside, instead of junk and loose keys, is a thick stack of papers stapled neatly together. It’s a customized cookbook. Dozens of detailed, foolproof recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, written out with step-by-step instructions so simple that even someone as clumsy and culinary-challenged as you can’t possibly mess them up.

Your vision blurs with more tears as you close the drawer and look up at the upper cabinets. Opening the cupboard, you realize that all the heavy ceramic plates and glasses—the ones you always had to stand on a chair to reach—had been moved down to the lowest shelf, entirely within your reach.

The apartment is absolutely spotless. Every surface gleams.

Slowly, as if in a daze, you walk down the hallway to the spare bedroom where he used to stay. The room is entirely empty, the bed perfectly made without a single wrinkle in the sheets. But there, sitting neatly in the exact center of the mattress, was the crisp, white shirt he had worn the very first night he arrived at your apartment.

Resting on top of the folded fabric is one last sticky note.

For nights you miss me.

You pick up the shirt, pressing it against your face. It still smells faintly of clean linen and that familiar, beautiful internal radiator heat.

You sink to the floor, clutching his shirt to your chest, and you just absolutely, completely cry your eyes out. 

Yuta’s gone to find his humanity, but he left every ounce of his tenderness behind with you.

Three weeks. Twenty one days. Five hundred and four hours. 

You didn’t realize how much you could measure time until every passing second was spent in an apartment that felt too large, too quiet, too cold. Slowly, and almost cruelly, everything Yuta left behind for you begins to run out. The beautifully labeled meats in the freezer were cooked and consumed, the fresh fruit all the same. The foolproof, stapled recipes stay on the kitchen island, their edges softening from how many times you had mindlessly flipped through them just to look at his precise, elegant handwriting.

Soon, the only things he would have left you were memories. 

The day the last meal-planned snack runs out is the day the illusion of your comfort finally shatters. You stand staring into the barren pantry, a hollow ache squeezing your chest. You can’t just sit here in a museum of his ghost anymore. You have to move. Forcing yourself out of your pajamas, you grab your keys and go grocery shopping completely on your own.

The grocery trip is a disaster for your emotional state. Every aisle of the grocery store seems to mock you with memories of the life you had with Yuta still around. In the pasta aisle, you are reminded of the very first night he helped you put out the smoke alarm. In the cleaning aisle, you remember Yuta’s favorite brand of all-purpose cleaner. In the meat aisle, you are reminded of his first joke—Why did the chicken cross the road?—you wish you hadn’t ignored him then.

Life is gray now, you think wistfully, staring at a wall of cereal boxes. There was nothing new. No unexpected, hyper-specific treats tucked into the cart because a sweet android had predicted your cravings. No perfectly portioned meat that you would burn later on. No tender soul to reach up and take the things you couldn’t reach from the shelf. Grocery shopping is just a dull, routine chore in a world that has lost its vibrant colors.

By the time you drive back to your apartment complex, the sky is a heavy, bruised purple. You completely overestimate your physical strength, determined to bring everything up in a single trip. 

As it turns out, four heavy grocery bags are enough to make you sob. 

You stagger out of your car toward the elevator, four heavy, overstuffed plastic grocery bags cutting deep, painful red lines into your fingers. A carton of milk is pressing uncomfortably against your calf, a bag of apples and fruit and carpet cleaner is slipping from your elbow, and your hands are shaking from the sheer exertion. You are struggling. Miserably. And your keys are in your hoodie pocket. 

Tears escape your eye like they usually do, hot and stinging against your cheek, quickly followed by another. He would have never let me carry this all alone, you think, a choked sob catching in your throat as the elevator doors slide open on your floor. He would have been waiting by the car door before I even turned off the car.

The walk down the hallway toward your apartment door is an absolute nightmare of quiet, echoing sobs. Tears blur your vision, spilling down your face in heavy tracks. You couldn't even wipe them away; your hands are pinned by the crushing weight of the plastic handles. You feel small, exhausted, and utterly defeated by the simple act of living.

“YN? Why are you crying?” 

You freeze dead in your tracks.

The voice doesn’t come from a stranger, a phone, or your imagination. It’s deep, rich, slightly raspy, and carries that exact, impossibly tender cadence you spent three weeks mourning.

Your heart pounds so violently against your ribs it feels like it could burst. You snap your head up, your tear-blurred vision desperately trying to focus on the figure standing right outside your apartment door.

Yuta. Your Yuta. The only Yuta for you. 

He doesn’t look like the HomeMech prototype anymore. His clothes are replaced by an effortlessly stylish, dark jacket and a loose shirt that makes him look incredibly, breathtakingly human. His messy dark hair is parted slightly differently, framing his face in a way that makes him look older, more grounded, and devastatingly charming.

You stand entirely paralyzed, still gripping the four heavy bags of groceries, your knuckles white. You don’t let yourself get your hopes up. You can’t. Even if a wave of pure, unadulterated joy was screaming through your veins, you force your voice to remain steady through your tears.

“Yuta,” you breathe, your voice trembling as you stare at him. “What... what are you doing here?”

You don’t drop the bags into his hands. You don’t ask him to take them. You had set him free, after all; he was a human now, and you refuse to expect him to do a single piece of labor for you ever again.

Yuta looks at your tear-stained face, then down at the four bulging bags practically snapping your fingers in half. And then, he does something he has never done before.

Yuta laughs.

It isn’t a programmed sound or a polite, soft chuckle. It’s a genuine, bright, deeply affectionate laugh that crinkles the corners of his eyes. He steps forward, his movements entirely free of his old mechanical precision, and reaches down. With absolute, effortless ease, his large, warm hand slips through the handles of three of your bags, lifting the weight off your shoulders in a single, fluid motion. It was a gesture so instinctively protective, so entirely human, that it left your heart racing.

“I wanted to come home,” he says softly, his blue eyes locking onto yours with a profound, unyielding intensity.

Your breath hitches, a fresh wave of tears welling in your eyes. "Come home?" you repeat, lower lip trembling.

“Yes,” Yuta murmurs, taking another step closer, until you could feel the familiar, beautiful heat radiating from his chest. “To you.”

The final wall of your restraint crumbles into dust. You drop the single remaining grocery bag to the floor, devoid of any caution as a carton of eggs clatters onto the carpet, and you launch yourself forward.

You throw your arms tightly around his neck, burying your face into the crook of his shoulder. The initial contact is cold—the synthetic nature of his stylish jacket—but the very instant his free arm wraps around your waist, pulling you flush against his torso, his internal radiators start up with a fierce, roaring passion. He grows incredibly, beautifully warm, holding you so tightly against him that you could feel the frantic, joyful rhythm of the glass heart pulsing wildly inside his chest. 

He leans his head down, his lips brushing softly against the hair near your temple.

“Will you let me?” he asks. His voice was a low, breathless plea. It isn’t a question about a command or a directive. This is a man asking permission to love you, completely, of his own free will.

You pull back just an inch, your hands coming up to softly frame his face. Your gaze caught on something new. Right there, on the soft skin of his left cheek, is a tiny, jagged gash. It’s small enough for anyone else to miss—it almost looks like a dark mole—but it’s an imperfection. A blemish.

A beautiful, undeniable sign of humanity. He had gotten hurt out there in the world, and he hadn't gone back to HomeMech to get it patched up. He had kept it. It makes him look completely, perfectly human.

Your eyes well up with a fresh, happy sob as you caress his cheek, your thumb gently brushing over the tiny scar.

“Of course, Yuta,” you whisper, a radiant, tearful smile finally breaking across your face. “Welcome home.”

A smile—that smile you’ve grown to love—erupts across his face. He takes you into his embrace again, impossibly closer.

Even though Yuta is the one returning to the apartment, it felt as though it was you who had finally come home.

In the end, HomeMech had not sent a retrieval team with a magnetic force weapon or a hard reset drive. Instead, after a grueling week of legal standoffs and parental interventions, an agreement was struck: HomeMech allowed you to keep Yuta model on the strict condition that they were permitted to perform routine system check-ups to study his unprecedented cognitive development.

You had agreed, but only on your own terms. One representative at a time. In your home. No lab coats allowed.

Which is exactly how you find yourself on a bright, sunny Sunday morning, standing in the middle of your apartment's sunlit kitchen. The LN-Okkotsu household, as you both had taken to calling it.

The dining table is a beautiful, chaotic mess. On one end sits a stack of standard, boring utility bills that you now perfectly understand how to pay. On the other end lies a sprawling, multi-page legal contract for a house you and Yuta are about to purchase together.

Yuta’s currently sitting at the end of the table, his dark hair falling softly across his forehead as he meticulously reads through the fine print line by line. He checks for errors, hidden fees, and legal clauses, determined to make sure everything is correct because he knew you would refuse to sign anything he didn’t personally verify first.

From the adjacent laundry room, you peek out from behind a basket, holding up a dark shirt and a bright white towel. “Hey, Yuta. Look at this. I'm actually segregating the laundry this time. No pink streaks on our socks anymore.”

Yuta looks up from the contract, a warm, soft expression instantly taking over his features. "Proud of you, baby. You are a domestic force to be reckoned with."

You roll your eyes playfully, tossing a rolled-up sock at him, which he caught effortlessly with one hand without even looking. “Yeah, whatever. What do you want for lunch?”

Yuta pauses, looking down at the legal documents, then up at you. “Erm... nuts and bolts?”

You cross your arms, giving him a look from the laundry room doorway.

Yuta lets out a soft, melodic giggle—a sound that was completely his own, entirely unprogrammed and beautifully genuine. “I kid. You know I will eat whatever you make, sweetheart. Or, more accurately, whatever you make me cook.”

Suddenly, you notice the familiar silver ring on his left hand flashing a bright, persistent red.

“Yuta, are you okay?” you ask, abandoning the laundry basket and stepping into the dining room. “What's going on? Is your core temperature spiking again?”

He peers down at his ringed hand, still holding the corner of the house contract, and lets out a soft, thoughtful hum. “Oh. I might be... what is the biological term for it? I think I might be 'hungry'?” He looks up at you, a sheepish smile on his face. “Nowadays, my battery’s been running down much faster. My new bioconverter needs more sustenance lately.” 

You roll your eyes, but a fond smile tugs at your lips. You walk right up to him, reaching up to gently poke the center of his forehead—right where you had kissed him months ago. “That’s because you deplete all your energy by using it on completely useless stuff.”

Yuta gasps softly, defensive but completely amused. “Hey! Helping our elderly neighbor bring her heavy groceries up three flights of stairs is not useless, YN!”

“Okay, fair. That part isn't useless,” you concede, leaning against the edge of the table. “But spending three hours straight analyzing pop song lyrics? Explain that one to me, my Yuta.”

Yuta laughs, a bright, clear sound that fills the room. It’s been your favorite sound since the first time he did it.

Ever since Nobara installed the experimental bioreactor to act as his energy system—giving him something akin to a digestive tract so he could experience the world like a human—his lifestyle drastically shifted. Even though he technically can’t taste anything the way a human does, he insisted on eating three meals a day just because it makes him feel closer to you. 

Ever since his human neural patterns had fully integrated with his artificial heart, he had been using his energy to do the funniest, most un-robot-like things imaginable. He went on three-hour walks just to look at the trees. He stayed up late reading romance novels from your bookshelf. He listened to music with his eyes closed, tapping his fingers to the beat.

“I happen to like the pop girls, thank you very much,” Yuta defends himself softly, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “I really like Sabrina Carpenter. Her lyricism is highly advanced. It...it makes me feel close to you.”

“Really now? You think ‘that’s that me espresso’ makes you feel close to me—hey!”

Before you can tease him any further, Yuta’s hand shoots out. He catches you by the waist, pulling you forward with a soft, effortless tug until you tumble right onto his lap. You let out a squeak of surprise, but your arms automatically found their way around his neck.

He doesn’t wait for instructions. He doesn’t ask for permission. Yuta leans up and kisses you silly, his lips warm and entirely devoted, pressing against yours until your mind goes completely blank. He kisses you with a fierce, quiet passion that makes it impossible to think about anything other than him.

You rest your forehead against his, catching your breath. Your eyes drift down to his hand resting on your knee, and then to your own left hand. Resting on your ring finger is a sleek silver band—the exact same design as Yuta's system indicator, except yours was inset with a brilliant sapphire and a sparkling ruby stone set in a toi et moi ring. He won’t admit it, but he had it made some time ago, just after he came back to the apartment and moved all his belongings (his ten shirts and two jackets) into your room. 

It was all so tender, so human. All so Yuta it makes your heart flip. 

“Alright, Mr. Pop Fan,” you whisper, kissing the tip of his nose. “Let me up. I'm going to try to make that chicken recipe you usually make.”

“Say I love you first.” 

“Okay! I love you!” 

“I love you who?” 

It was your turn to giggle this time. You kiss him squarely on the forehead. “I love you, Yuta.” 

He offers you a warm grin. “I love you, too.” 

Yuta reluctantly lets you go, watching with an amused smile as you bustle around the kitchen. You pull out the ingredients, chop the vegetables with immense focus, and confidently fire up the stove.

Ten minutes later, a thick, dark cloud of black smoke billows from the frying pan.

You freeze, holding a wooden spatula, staring in absolute horror at the blackened, charred remains of what is supposed to be a gourmet meal. The smoke detector on the ceiling begins to beep aggressively.

You slowly turn your head to look at Yuta, who's now beside you in the kitchen.

The brilliant, highly advanced, multi-million-dollar android looks at the ruined pan, then up at your sheepish face. 

He simply shrugs his shoulders and gives you a helpless, incredibly human grin. "I guess some things never change!"

You let out a loud, ringing laugh, waving the dish towel at the smoke just like you had on the very first week he arrived. But this time, Yuta walks over, pulling the ruined pan off the heat, and wraps his arms around you from behind, burying his face into the crook of your neck as you both laugh at the mess.

A robot is a machine built of logic, code, and cold steel—but Yuta Okkotsu was never just a robot to begin with. His systems give him movement, his battery gives him power, and his bioreactor gives him warmth. But no amount of coding can simulate the way his face lights up whenever you smile, or the way his soul has fought through a million lines of programming just to find his way back to your front door.

Love is the first, and only, truly natural thing about Yuta. And choosing to love you, entirely on his own, is the one thing that made him completely human.

chat I was thinking I wanted to make a small comic abt this au but I kept thinking about the effort it would take and how hard and boring it would be but then. Thought 2 thoughts.

1. “Wait, you like drawing. Just enjoy drawing. Drawing is fun.”

2. “It literally doesn’t have to be good? Chill out.”

And then I did it :)

@.mattpurplehoodie I blame you /silly

ummmmm robot au :) his design is definitely based on donbot but I made him look a little more like himself and gave the poor boy eyes 😭