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It arrives in a nondescript box.
It. He? Definitely it, from a factual standpoint. But Chan has a feeling once he opens said box, he’ll have trouble viewing it as just an it.
Based on reviews, that is. Online ones—and Jisung’s personal raving, but he’s biased. It’s been decades since the first sophisticated android hit the public market, and Chan’s interacted with enough of them at grocery market checkouts and spaceport customer service desks to know just how easily they can… pass.
It’d been an impulse buy. Chan lives comfortably between his day job and his crypto mining, could’ve purchased a companion long ago had he felt it necessary—and he never had. As a workaholic he doesn’t struggle with loneliness, perhaps because he’s too busy to truly dwell on it. Loneliness. He’s knee-deep in routine; eat, sleep, song-write for one of the few entertainment companies left that still depends on the human creative process for music for their avatar idol groups, exercise when he feels up to it. Rinse and repeat. There’s barely room for the few close friends he keeps, much less for something like a pet. A dependent.
But androids… they’re autonomous. And maybe, with a similar sort of curiosity new parents have for the results of their baby’s gene pattern—whose nose it gets, whose eye color—Chan wanted to see how his MINHO would turn out.
MINHO. That’s the android.
The box is, again, nondescript. Not on his doorstep, either, because he’d authorized the deliveryperson’s fingerprint so they could drop it off inside before Chan’s neighbors could get too nosy in his absence.
It reads MINHO in blockish, embossed print on the box, only noticeable if Chan looks for it at a certain angle. It’s not like any cardboard same-hour delivery box Chan’s ever received, nor like the hyperfoam they package food deliveries in.
There’s a line of little holes near the top, as if MINHO needs to breathe. He doesn’t, but maybe it’s all part of the gimmick.
Anyhow, BUDDY claims no MINHO is the same. They’re built to their buyers’ desires—practically, aesthetically. Sexually.
When Chan got home from work, he'd showered, eaten, steered clear of the box for a whole forty-two minutes, and now he’s back in its orbit. The surface is gray with a dull shine to it, and he’d come upon the receipt on his kitchen counter with no further instructions, only a slap-in-the-face reminder of just how much cash he’d dropped on a humanoid robot.
He should return it. He doesn’t need it. Realistically, he’s fine. He’s so fine. He’s not really one to spend so much on himself anyhow, ever—he’ll buy clothes and shoes that last, he’ll drop a pretty penny now and then to take Changbin to watch his favorite rapper from the VIP section, close enough to feel the spray of spit.
But nothing like this.
Chan approaches the box. He hesitates, then places his hand on its front. It feels cool, like glass, and his hand comes away having left a dark print behind—heat-detecting?—and then the box gives a soft hiss, as if releasing a pressure valve, at which Chan stumbles backward.
The front side of the box lowers, creates a long, shallow ramp for it—him—to step out.
Chan swallows. His MINHO is… pretty.
Plush, petal-pink lips, a strong nose with a delicate point, orangey-caramel-colored hair. He’s in a loosely-fitted smock and slacks that match the gunmental gray of the box, so Chan can’t make out much of his build. Oh, and he’s barefoot. Chan watches wordlessly as the android wiggles its toes on the tiled floor, seeming to adjust to the air of Chan’s apartment. Then MINHO smiles right at him, lips curving like the waxing crescent of the red moon, even when Chan must look like he’s just done something far worse than unbox a beautiful android—something like plow over an old lady in a floater cruiser when disregarding laws of traffic to get home faster.
“Hi, Chan.” The android’s voice is soft, and he takes in his surroundings with a casual calm, though Chan knows there’s a computer in MINHO’s head taking a million snapshots a second through some hidden cameras Chan hopes are only in his eyes, logging the position of every obstacle and danger and taking stock of any evidence of Chan’s existence, the latter of which there are few beyond the shoes by the door and the abandoned food carton on the kitchen counter.
MINHO strides straight to the carton and disposes of it in Chan’s trash chute. Chan looks on, bewildered, though it should be as expected. He’d specified that his MINHO be capable of performing domestic duties—cooking, cleaning. Chan would say it’s instinct, but really it’s in his code.
“Hi,” breathes Chan belatedly. He’s sweating, might need a second shower at this rate.
MINHO smiles mildly at him from beside the trash. “I know this must be weird for you,” he murmurs. “Being a first-time android owner, and all.”
That’d been part of the buyer questionnaire, yes. Chan nods emptily, wipes his clammy palms on his terry shorts. There’s a startlingly lifelike sparkle to MINHO’s dark, feline eyes.
“Just act as if I’d always been here,” says MINHO. His voice is sweet, makes Chan feel like he could cough up a glob of sugar syrup. “I’m only here to fit into your life as best I can.”
“Right.”
“We’ll get to know each other,” MINHO assures him. And when MINHO finally blinks, almost lazy, languid, Chan can tell it’s not because he needs to, but because he ought to. MINHO half-smiles. “Eventually… naturally. There’s no rush—unless, of course, you’re in need of something. Then you should always ask me.”
“Okay,” Chan stammers. MINHO watches him. “I—um, I made up a room for you.”
There’s a humorous edge now to MINHO’s smile, one that reaches the corners of his eyes. “There’s no need, I’m—”
“It’d make me more comfortable,” Chan interrupts, “uh, knowing you have your own… own space.” Knowing that MINHO’s not in sleep mode at night on the living room couch, waiting to scare Chan with his foreign silhouette when he gets up for water, or hanging upside-down like a bat in the linen closet. Or something.
MINHO stares at him, near-blank. Then he smiles again, faint. “Thank you.”
“It’s the second door on the right.”
“Thank you.”
MINHO approaches him slowly, like Chan’s a frightened animal. He wonders what MINHO’s processing from his microexpressions, what dots he’s connecting, what algorithmic conclusions he’s making about his skittish owner. He stills near Chan, smiles placidly, and nods. “Good night, Chan.”
“Night,” breathes Chan.
MINHO disappears into the guest room. Chan glances at the empty box and curls his fingernails into his palms, unsure of just what he’s gotten himself into.
As far as Chan can tell, the only notable change since MINHO’s arrival is that Chan’s eating a hell of a lot less delivery.
MINHO is a good cook—methodical, healthy, seemingly knowledgeable about flavor profiles though he can’t actually enjoy the food he makes himself. He’d asked once for Chan’s bank account details, as if he needed to know them rather than simply requiring the permission to use them, then went about independently making grocery orders on a weekly basis. He never spends egregiously, either, buys just enough for whatever meal plan he spins up in his head, with a couple treats to boot. He’d discovered old, freezer-burnt ice cream sandwiches lodged in the back of Chan’s freezer when he’d cleaned it out, replaced it with a fresh box the next week.
It’s nice, coming home to a warm meal and a tidy apartment, leaving in the mornings with hot coffee ready and something fresh packed for him to grab on the way out. Nice, as in… refreshing. Not drastic.
They don’t speak much, despite MINHO’s initial assurance they’d get to know each other. Chan’s not quite sure what he’d meant, hasn’t really tested the boundaries of their… relationship, as it’s easy enough to avoid MINHO on workdays and Chan spends much of the weekend behind closed doors, catching up on sleep and working on passion projects.
And MINHO is docile. He doesn’t pester Chan but to inform him when meals are ready, and sometimes a second time when Chan still hasn’t come to the table in a timely manner. When Chan’s sitting up in bed at night, reading some weepy romance novel he hopes will improve his songwriting vocabulary, he can hear MINHO putter around with Chan’s laundry, dusting, clearing the kitchen. Chan is only one man, but MINHO makes work for himself, it seems; cooks elaborate dishes that dirty several pans, vacuums crevices of the apartment Chan doesn’t think he’s so much as glanced at since moving in.
Then Chan has a business trip to go on; JYP’s brought on a new artist he has to meet face-to-face.
Holocalls just don’t quite cut it for a vibe check—at least, that’s what Chan had claimed to his boss’ face once upon a time, and now he has three different frequent-interplanetary-traveler loyalty cards.
“Going somewhere?” MINHO asks in the midst of hand-drying a frying pan (Chan does own a dishwasher) when Chan exits his bedroom with a small suitcase in hand.
Chan halts by the kitchen island, blinks. Ah, shit. “Yes?” The trip had come on so fast he hadn’t even given a thought to what to do about MINHO.
“Hm.” MINHO turns back to the sink. “You should’ve told me, Chan. I would’ve packed for you.”
“Wasn’t a big deal,” murmurs Chan. He’s still idling at the island when MINHO slides a steaming plate of breakfast in front of him, delicately places chopsticks above it.
“How long?” says MINHO. His back is to Chan, so Chan lets himself regard the tablet resting at the charge port on the far end of the island—the tablet that controls MINHO’s most fine-grained settings. Renders him able to sweat, to cry. Puts him into sleep mode, powers him down. Things like that.
But MINHO turns and catches him looking. “Two weeks,” Chan utters, hurriedly taking his seat. He has premier access at the spaceport, he reasons, can afford to be a bit late if it means not letting MINHO’s food go to waste.
“Oh.” Chan feels MINHO regard him as he eats. “On… a different planet?” MINHO’s voice is tentative, in a way.
Chan nods, chokes down a mouthful he hadn’t even properly chewed. “Three clicks away.”
MINHO is silent a while, long enough for Chan to scarf down most of his meal. Then, “Please don’t turn me off while you’re gone, Channie.”
Chan stills. Prods at a crumb on his plate. Channie. He hasn’t had any guests over since acquiring MINHO, but maybe he’d picked it up overhearing Chan on a holocall, or maybe Chan had unintentionally granted MINHO access to crawl through his messages in the cloud… “I won’t,” he assures quietly.
“Really?” When he peeks, MINHO’s eyes seem to shine with hope.
“I mean.” Chan pushes his plate away, and MINHO snaps into action, sweeping it off to the sink. “I’d be concerned about you getting lonely, or… bored, but you already know I don’t make the best company, so… what’s the difference, really.” He chuckles weakly.
“Don’t say that,” MINHO murmurs to the sink. The water runs as Chan observes the slopes of his shoulders, still shrouded in that same, slate-gray linen. “I like it best when you’re here with me.”
Chan’s brows draw together. The time on the wall clock tells him he’s late.
Chan makes it one-and-a-half steps through the door before MINHO gets at the suitcase in his hands, the jacket on the crook of his elbow.
“How was your trip?” MINHO asks breezily before Chan even realizes he’s empty-handed and loitering in his own foyer, a bit sleep-dazed.
“Hm?” Chan yawns, and then MINHO’s back, shutting the door behind him. Moving to stand before Chan. “What?”
“I asked how your trip was, Channie.” MINHO’s a bit taller, but not so much that Chan has to tilt his head. He looks the same as Chan had left him; radiant skin, simultaneously flat but mercurial eyes, the sweet bow of his lips. That should be expected, though—MINHO doesn’t age or tire. Chan’s still processing the sight of him when MINHO leans down, bridging the space between them, and gives Chan a gentle kiss on the mouth.
Chan blinks, nonreactive. Stumped, really. When MINHO straightens, Chan sees his Adam’s apple bob. “Wh…what,” he utters again, this time without the questioning lilt.
“Did I do it wrong?” A small fold appears between MINHO’s brows, and then he sets off toward the living room, where he takes a not-so comfortable seat on the very edge of the couch, fingers tangling in his lap. “It’s just… I’ve been reading your books. In your absence.”
Chan’s android just kissed him. Hello? “My—my books?” Chan looks at his feet, thinks it might be prudent to remove his shoes. But he forgets the moment he looks at MINHO again, mystified.
“Yes.” MINHO’s posture is rigid, but it relaxes a bit when he sighs. “Yes, yes, I know, I could have very easily downloaded their transcripts from the web and in seconds had every plot detail filed away and retrievable, but.” MINHO shrugs, glances at a stack of hardcover novels on the coffee table. They’re Chan’s pride and joy—remnants of bygone times, once printed on paper that was meant to last. “There’s something very… humbling about reading them myself. Turning the pages.”
Chan takes a step toward the couch. “How—how many did you read?”
MINHO blinks slowly. The corners of his mouth twitch at a frown. “All of them?”
“All of them?” Chan utters. Chan himself hasn’t even touched all the books on his shelves.
“Mhm.” MINHO regards the stack of books. “You have a lot of romance novels, Channie.”
Chan wades through his stupor to sit in an armchair a safe distance from MINHO, the coffee table an ocean between them. “I… have to write a lot of love songs. For work.”
“Does it help?” MINHO picks up the topmost book from the stack, turns it over in his soft little hands. It’s thick and tattered, spine threatening to split clean between its two volumes. Anna Karenina. It’d taken Chan a solid two months to read, dragging his feet and all. Perhaps MINHO managed in hours. Minutes. “Reading these?”
Chan’s brows draw together. “I… I don’t know.”
“I think they’re nice.” MINHO chuckles quietly. “Your songs, I mean. The books are fine. But your songs are nice.”
Chan’s eyes flit to MINHO’s face. He breathes out slowly. Why did you kiss me?
MINHO misreads the underlying question in his gaze—perhaps on purpose. He sets the book down with a sense of finality. “I did some digging—Interplanetary Music Copyright Association records. You’ve written a lot.”
Again, Chan says nothing.
MINHO rises from the couch and shuffles past. “I’ll go unpack.”
Chan is perhaps drunker than he’d let on to Changbin and Jisung when he’d left the bar.
The thing is, when he gets this drunk, he gets quiet, he gets sleepy. Docile. So no one’s as concerned about him as they are about Hyunjin vandalizing the venue or throwing up his guts right into his glass or throwing himself at the bartender to wheedle out of them a fourth free glow-in-the-dark shot.
But Chan thinks he must be a little too far gone if he can’t get his thumbprint to register on the entryway panel. He can’t even stand still enough for the camera to get a decent scan of his face.
Then the world falls out from beneath him.
Or… the door does.
Chan hits the floor with a thump, luckily catches himself against the heels of his hands before he cracks his skull open—seems suddenly less cool of him to have concrete floors. And… right before his nose is a pair of bare feet. Pink, wriggling toes.
Chan relaxes against the floor, forehead to its cold surface, and sighs out all the air in his lungs. His legs are still sprawled in the hallway, waist straddling the threshold.
Softly, from above: “Channie.”
“Why didn’t you catch me,” Chan mumbles into the floor, wagging a finger up where he can’t see. “You’ve got… ears like a bat. Probably x-ray vision, too. Why didn’t your… algorithmic-y little brain predict this. And catch me.”
“I don’t have x-ray vision, Channie.” MINHO steps around him, feet padding softly on the concrete, and then Chan’s being hoisted up by his underarms. “You made it this far, so your legs must be functional,” MINHO assesses, and that’s Chan’s cue to not hang from MINHO’s strong arms like a wet rag. He puts some weight on his feet, yawns obnoxiously. Behind him, MINHO’s closing the door, and he seems worlds away until he’s not when his arm winds around Chan’s waist. Chan marvels thoughtlessly at the strength that must be packed into MINHO’s body, something likely only measurable in labs and mindbogglingly inhuman, as if MINHO would ever find a need to squat lift, like… a hovercraft. Or something.
Chan grunts when MINHO nudges him into motion, tells him evenly, “Let’s get you in the shower.”
Chan whines something pathetic, squints against the glow of the bathroom that suffuses to full brightness as they step in.
MINHO only tuts. “You smell like a distillery.”
Chan crinkles up his nose. Rubs at it. “That’s mean.”
“I’m sure your feelings are very hurt, Channie.”
Chan’s head whips to stare MINHO down with wide eyes, though MINHO himself is all too focused on guiding Chan to take a seat on the edge of the bath. “Was that sarcasm?”
MINHO’s lips—his very, very sweet lips—quirk. “That, my algorithmic-y little brain can manage,” he murmurs. He tugs Chan’s boots off for him. “If need, you can disable it in my app.”
“Sarcasm?” Chan blinks. “I can disable your sense of sarcasm?”
MINHO gives him a blank look. “Of course.”
“I don’t want to,” Chan says too quickly for someone under no pressure whatsoever.
MINHO rolls his eyes, huffs out a quiet laugh on his way out. “I’m going to get you some water, Chan. You should undress.”
Undress? Chan chokes on air. But then he remembers… ah. Right. Shower. MINHO had mentioned the shower. MINHO hadn’t mentioned a sequel to his little welcome-home kiss.
Chan had meant to tell Jisung about that, the kiss—about MINHO in the first place. He’d at least hoped the alcohol would loosen his lips enough to confess. But then Hyunjin had gotten plastered a half hour into the evening, and Chan had been morbidly enthralled by his antics until he suddenly hadn’t, until he’d been falling asleep against Changbin’s shoulder.
MINHO appears in the doorway with a glass of water and a dubious countenance. “I don’t know very many humans, Channie, but from my elementary understanding, showering without clothes on is the typical way to go about it.” He steps up to Chan, hands off the glass. “Drink.”
Chan’s eyes rove lazily up to MINHO’s face as he gulps down the water. Under MINHO’s snark lies a foundation of truth. Chan’s the only human his MINHO has met, as far as he knows. He’s MINHO’s human… singular.
Chan smiles, and his voice reverberates inside the glass, sounding dull and underwater as he says, “I’m your human.”
MINHO snorts. “Okay.” He’s fiddling with the adjustments on the shower controls. Chan gives him a bodily scan; he really ought to get MINHO a wardrobe of his own. The shapeless gray linen isn’t really doing it for Chan.
The water starts up behind the glass panels, instantly steaming, and MINHO returns to pry the drinking glass from Chan’s clammy fingers. And then he’s kneeling between Chan’s legs, starting in on the buttons of Chan’s shirt.
“Whoa,” Chan breathes, jerking backward with a defensive arm crooked across his chest.
MINHO stares flatly, the faintest furrow in his brow. “Would you like to bathe in your clothes, Channie? Or sleep on your clean sheets in… these?” MINHO’s nose twitches in a way Chan finds vaguely amusing. “I’m not sure which is worse.”
Chan blinks slowly. He thinks he’s already forgotten the first of MINHO’s questions, lowering his arm. “No?”
“Then will you let me undress you?”
MINHO’s intent is clinical. Hell, even his tone sounds clinical, like the only reason he’d be pulling Chan’s pants down would be to give him a prostate exam—which, actually, Chan doesn’t doubt is within his capabilities. Still, Chan has to clear his throat before he breathes, “Yes,” and the word rolls off thick and hot from his tongue.
MINHO holds his gaze. A beat… and then he chuckles quietly. “Okay.”
MINHO has him stand to drag his pants and underwear down. Then he takes Chan by the hand. “Come on, Channie.”
The water feels nice—a bit on the too-hot side, the way Chan likes it. It’s when he opens his eyes and wipes away the rivulets running from his eyelashes that he realizes MINHO’s in the shower with him, slate gray linen plastering to his skin, blackened by the spray of the shower.
“You,” Chan utters, and then MINHO’s soaping up Chan’s chest, countenance stoic, though the ends of his fringe are starting to curl from the humidity. “You—you just said humans don’t shower with clothes on.”
MINHO’s lips quirk. Chan gets the feeling this is all very amusing to him—this all being Chan’s own blundering state. “Have you forgotten?” asks MINHO, and he turns Chan by the shoulders so the water sprays into his face. Chan coughs, squeezes his eyes shut. MINHO’s palms are soft but thorough as they soap his back. Chan feels him lean in close to say, “I’m not human, Channie.”
“But—”
“I can dry them after.”
Chan sighs out his nose. “I should get you more clothes,” he mutters to the wall, feels the water dribble down his pouted bottom lip. “S’no fun wearing the same thing every day.”
“I’m… thus far unperturbed, really,” chuckles MINHO. “But you can dress me however you’d like.”
Chan blinks his eyes open. Oh?
He presses his hand to the wall for balance when he realizes MINHO’s kneeling, lathering his legs. And… oh, great, he’s hard. Chan’s hard.
“Minho,” he says tentatively.
“Mm?”
Chan swallows. MINHO sets Chan’s hand on his shoulder so he can balance properly when MINHO pries his foot from the floor to literally scrub between his toes. “Nothing.”
“Alright.”
MINHO shampoos him, too. Conditions. Rinses him down head to toe with the handheld shower head. Chan hasn’t felt so babied in… maybe forever.
When they step out, MINHO’s clothes are soaked, dripping all over the floor. Chan has to wonder, as MINHO bundles him in a towel, if others’ androids insist on staying clothed in the shower.
He wrinkles his nose. Thinks of every unwarranted tale with which Jisung’s regaled him since he first started working at BUDDY.
Must be a MINHO thing—a Chan’s MINHO thing.
Feeling steadier on his feet, Chan grabs the bathrobe off the hook on the wall, presses it to MINHO’s chest. “At least change into this.”
MINHO is outwardly exasperated, big eyes rolling under hooded lids. “Chan—”
“You’ll get the hallway all wet.” Chan lifts a brow, feels himself smile as he taps at MINHO’s temple with his fingertip. “What’s with your logic-y chip tonight?”
MINHO hesitates. Looks… almost sheepish. It’s extremely un-MINHO of him. “Not functioning at full efficiency, I can tell you that much,” MINHO admits, and Chan doesn’t have time to question if his android is telling him he’s already overdue for maintenance—are androids like hovercrafts in that way? Fuck if Chan knows, he doesn’t drive—when MINHO tugs his tunic over his head.
Chan swallows. Feels like a stupid little kid blanketed by his towel as his eyes scope out MINHO’s chest. He’s soft but defined, broad. Thick-armed. Nothing that’s usually discernible from under his loose garments. MINHO secures the robe around his waist, and only then does he drop his damp trousers.
He hangs his clothes to dry, evades Chan’s eyes as he nods at the sink. “You can clean your own teeth, can’t you, Channie?”
In his bedroom, the sheets are blessedly cool against Chan’s skin. MINHO somehow knows Chan sleeps naked, doesn’t do anything but take the towel from him at the bedside.
Chan gives MINHO a drowsy smile from the mattress. “Are you really tucking me in?”
MINHO is… yes, tucking him in. “That’s right,” confirms MINHO, eyes focused even in the dimness of the room as he shoves the blankets between Chan’s side and the mattress. Chan realizes he can barely wriggle his arms when MINHO rises, towel slung over his shoulder, with a cat-that-got-the-cream smile. “Try getting out of that until the morning, hm?”
Chan scoffs out a laugh. He doesn’t complain, feels like he could knock out even if MINHO’s fashioned him a straitjacket out of sheets. “You gonna kiss me good night, too?” he ribs.
MINHO is still. Then Chan’s heart rate spikes abruptly as MINHO gets on his knees on the bed, whips the towel away when it falls from his shoulder, and leans over Chan, hands on the mattress bracketing his head.
In the soft glow of the recessed lights under Chan’s bed, MINHO’s smile is faint. Chan is trapped, literally, so when MINHO bows down close, nudges the chilly tip of his perfect nose to Chan’s, trails his lips over to Chan’s mouth to give him a soft peck, Chan’s nails bite into his palms. Their lips smack apart, thunderous to Chan’s ears, and then MINHO climbs from the bed briskly, retrieves the towel, nudges Chan’s closet door fully shut when he notices it's ajar.
The moment the door closes and the lights fade to black, Chan tears out of his sheets, rakes his fingers through his damp hair, and releases his held breath.
It’s early—far too early—when the soft, melodic tritone of the doorbell echoes through Chan’s apartment.
His tongue feels like it’s grown fur and his brain seems to pulse with even the slightest jostle, but it’s seldom that anyone shows up on Chan’s doorstep unannounced. Seldom, as in never.
He’s barely in a pair of boxers when he stumbles out of his bedroom, squinting against smog-dampened daylight. MINHO is already at the door.
Chan croaks, “Wait,” but it comes out as a wisp from his sandpapery throat.
“Hi Jisung,” greets MINHO, upon opening the door.
“Hey—what?” Jisung stands just beyond the threshold, Chan’s red jacket slung over his arm, goggling at MINHO. And then at Chan, over MINHO’s shoulder. Chan’s insides wither seeing Jisung’s face light up so. “Hello,” Jisung says, pointed this time, giving MINHO a once-over, a twice-over, then shoving Chan’s jacket into MINHO’s arms and marching inside. At Chan, he scoffs, “Hyung!”
“Jisung,” Chan tries, weak.
“You never—I can’t believe—I could’ve gotten you an employee discount!” Jisung’s voice reverberates at a frequency Chan can’t quite tolerate yet, hand flailing to gesture to MINHO.
He sighs, rubs at his eyes. There are a number of reasons Chan wasn’t quite ready to tell the poster child for android consumerism that he’d caved to it himself. He makes for the kitchen island, can smell the coffee MINHO’s already prepared. “Why are you here?”
Jisung grins at him, shrugs. “You left your jacket at the bar.”
MINHO appears as if on cue, said jacket folded neatly between his hands. He pours coffee for both Chan and Jisung, and Chan scowls internally. Jisung will take it as an invitation to stay.
Predictably, Jisung takes a seat behind the counter. His eyes are starry as he regards MINHO—so starry Chan pictures an invisible squirrel’s tail fluffed up excitedly at his rear.
Chan’s halfway into his seat beside him when he utters, “Wait.” His eyes flit to MINHO. “How did you recognize Jisung?” In the few short months he’s had MINHO, Chan hasn’t had guests over, hasn’t taken him outside the house. Hasn’t introduced him to anyone.
MINHO appears baffled by the question, fingers clenching around Chan’s jacket. His eyes scan the air, as if calculating. “I…”
Jisung only laughs, leans back in his stool as far as it will allow. “Ah, bro,” he sighs, swatting at the air. “The company wanted me for my facial recognition software, and my software defaults happen to come with the one, the only Han Jisung hard-coded.” He rolls his eyes over toward Chan. “It’s not bad practice until it causes a problem.”
Chan sits, finally. “So…”
“So every MINHO knows me!” Jisung beams at MINHO. Chan’s MINHO.
Chan eyes them both. “Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
MINHO lifts a brow. Holds up the jacket. “I’ll go put this away.”
MINHO is barely out of earshot and Chan barely has his mug to his lips when Jisung hisses, “Dude, you so didn’t tell me ‘cos your robot is so hot.”
Chan chokes on his gulp of coffee.
“Like.” Jisung licks his lips, eyes fixated past Chan. “In a pretty way, too.”
“Can you shut up?” Chan grimaces into his mug.
“You fuck him yet?”
“What?” Chan wheezes. When he checks, Jisung looks dead serious, if still gazing dreamily in MINHO’s vague direction. “No!”
“But you want to,” Jisung reasons. Drums his tented fingers together like the evil engineer he is.
“Jisung, no,” Chan says firmly. Reasonably… firmly. Authoritatively, like the responsible hyung he is—
“Come on. Just try it, hyung.” Jisung knocks his elbow into Chan’s side. “It’s pretty hot, regardless of if your android’s a babe, but yours is. There’s a setting you can turn on, too, for the self-lubricating assho—”
Chan regurgitates yet another gulp of coffee, is lucky it doesn’t come dribbling out of his nose. He slaps the back of his hand into Jisung’s solid chest. “Don’t say that here!” he interrupts in a fierce whisper. “I’m, like, seven thousand percent sure he has sonic hearing!”
“Oh, he does,” Jisung mutters, wraps his fingers around his mug. When his eyes lock with Chan’s and discover the deadpan there, he frowns. “What?”
Chan takes a breath. Shuts his eyes and shakes his head. “I don’t even know why I’m bothering to have this conversation with you,” he murmurs. “You always think with your dick.”
“Well, you think with your heart, which is arguably worse,” counters Jisung, who breaks into an easy smile the moment MINHO’s soft footsteps return to their vicinity.
A glass of water appears by Chan’s coffee mug. Gentle fingers brush his arm. “You want breakfast, Channie?”
And whilst MINHO’s back is turned, already set about preparing Chan a meal, Jisung gives him a crinkly-nosed grin and mouths Channie?!, bites his knuckle to stifle a laugh when Chan sighs and wilts against the counter.
Hours later, Jisung has long overstayed his welcome. He’d successfully argued that it was a weekend and Chan shouldn’t be working anyway, that there was a movie he was desperate to see and Chan’s screen was bigger than his own, then proceeded to make himself comfortable in the armchair in the living room, urging Chan (and eventually MINHO, once he’d finished with his post-breakfast ministrations) to take the couch.
Chan’s had a chance to relax, still sleepy and vaguely hungover, and even forget that Jisung might have something up his stupid dirty sleeve. His eyes are slipping shut just as Jisung pauses the movie, clears his throat, and says, point-blank, “Minho, you’d have sex with Chan if he asked you to, yeah?”
Chan pulls a muscle sitting up so fast, eyes so accusingly fixed on Jisung that he almost forgets MINHO is sat quietly at the other end of the couch, hands folded in his lap.
“Um,” utters MINHO. Chan can’t look, but he sounds flustered. “Wh—what?”
Jisung laughs, glee lifting his brows. “Damn.” He shakes his pointer finger in MINHO’s direction, gives Chan a matter-of-fact nod. “Did you see that? That was almost a natural hesitation. Top-of-the-line, dude. The competitors are crying right now.”
A flush creeps up Chan’s neck. No amount of Jisung nerding out could make him forget the question he’d popped not ten seconds earlier. “Jisung…”
“Shh, Channie.” Jisung flicks a dismissive hand at Chan. “Let Minho answer the question, hm?” And then he turns his big, curious eyes on MINHO.
Chan dares to look. Locks eyes briefly with MINHO, but it’s MINHO who breaks the thread of eye contact. He’s sinking his fingertips into his knees.
Chan says, “Minho, you don’t have to—”
“My libido setting is disabled,” MINHO informs Jisung placidly. He sighs, sits a little straighter, flexes his fingers to stop their messing with his trousers. “I’m sure… I’m sure should Chan wish to enable it, he—”
“Are you really sure, though.” Jisung grins wryly, jabs a thumb in Chan’s direction. “This guy’ll read antediluvian hardcovers but I’ll be damned if he’s ever even touched the owner’s manual in your app.”
MINHO glances at Chan, considers his posture. His eyes, then his lips.
Chan’s jaw clicks shut when he realizes he’s sitting there gaping.
MINHO, on the other hand, is perfectly expressionless now. He’s wiped himself clean of the fluster amid which Jisung had tossed him. He folds his hands in his lap, stares ahead.
Chan sighs, teeth clenched, and rises decidedly from the couch. He drags Jisung out of the armchair with an aggressive tweak to his ear, ignoring his dramatic yelps of protest as he stumbles along.
“Hey!” squeaks Jisung as Chan steers him into the kitchen. “What was that for?”
Chan unhands him when he’s got Jisung cornered by the fridge. “I could ask you the same,” he grumbles, voice low out of courtesy though MINHO can doubtless hear. “Are you trying to—I don’t get it, Jisung. He’s programmed to say yes, isn’t he? He’s my goddamn android. He’s programmed to… to…” Chan exhales, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you trying to rub it in my face, or something?” He feels his face scrunch up, pained. It’s one thing Chan’s not let himself think about since MINHO came into his ownership—how acquiring an android is an act of pure self-indulgence. A humanoid robot to cater to one’s every whim and desire. They simply don’t say no, aren’t built to. And it hurts Chan’s head—and heart—how MINHO can have those enigmatic, impossibly human eyes, yet all his emotions are hardwired.
“Rub it in…?” Jisung frowns. He takes a careful step toward Chan. “Rub what in?”
“I don’t know.” Chan lets his hand flop away from his face, slap defeatedly against his leg. “Whatever it is you and Changbin whisper about me when my back’s turned. How I haven’t dated in years, not for lack of trying—in the start, at least—and now even my android, literally programmed to like me, can’t look me in the eye when you bring up sex? Like.” He grimaces. “That’s…”
“Dude.” Jisung steps into his space, grips him by the arms. “Chan. We don’t—”
Chan lifts his eyes, lips pressed into a fine line.
Jisung smiles sheepishly. “Okay, we do. But… it’s just ‘cos we’re worried about you! And we know how you like to close yourself off and—anyway. That is not the point. Hyung. There are things androids will always do, because they’re programmed to, and things they’ll never do, because they’re programmed not to.” Jisung’s fingers dig insistently into his muscle. “But other than that, they’re blank slates. They’re designed to soak up every little drop of humanity you expose them to. Every little quirk and pattern that will help them act and feel… less machine, they’re hungry for it. It's their north star.”
Chan stares flatly at Jisung from beneath his brows. “What’s your point.”
Jisung scoffs. “Well, I could spend hours waxing poetic about the complexity of the machine learning algorithms wrapped up in your pretty MINHO's head—”
“God.” Chan grimaces. “Please don’t.”
“—but I’d probably get fired for breaking confidentiality. Double fired when they find out I baked my face into the memory of every android they’ve got on the market.” Jisung frowns past Chan’s shoulder, then seems to return to himself. “But, hyung, the thing is, Minho is programmed to want you.”
Chan rolls his eyes. Typical. Jisung’s never been awesome at consolation. “And he doesn’t. We’ve been through this.”
“No, he does.” Jisung grins, eyes glimmering and impish. “But he’s resisting. You know why?”
Chan says nothing, brow set in a furrow.
Jisung emits an odd sort of squeak, frees Chan’s arms to squeeze at his cheek. “Because he likes you!”
Chan urgently hushes Jisung before he can even register the words tumbling out of his mouth. “What?” he scoffs, spares a glance over his shoulder to make sure MINHO’s where they’d left him—perched stiffly on the edge of the couch. It should be concerning, the sort of fluttering flame that licks at Chan’s chest and downward to the pit of his stomach at Jisung (untrustworthy) suggesting Chan’s robot has feelings for him (oxymoronic).
“He likes you,” Jisung whisper-shouts. “I’m convinced. He’s perceptive, hyung. He notices all these walls you’ve got built up around you, doesn’t wanna make you uncomfortable with his feelings. That’s why he’s so reticent.” Jisung gazes fondly in the direction of the living room, of MINHO. “It’s not unprecedented. Then again, most people get to railing their droids before their personalities can even start to gain any color.”
Chan hisses another shh, but he’s got only so much vigor left in him. He rubs at his eyelids—doesn’t feel tired, just antsy. He’s silent for a while, actively not thinking about the seeds Jisung’s trying to plant in his hopeless-romantic head, then mutters, “Did you want to finish the movie?”
At his side, Jisung chuckles, swats a hand at the air. “Nah. Already saw it. Just needed an excuse to see your bot in action.”
Chan frowns. “Am I just a science experiment to you?”
Jisung claps him on the shoulder, brushes past. “You’re many things to me, man. A science experiment is only one of them.” Then Jisung flaps his hand at MINHO. “Thanks for the coffee, Minho!”
“You’re welcome,” MINHO says softly, and the click of the door seems to cleave the apartment in half between MINHO and Chan.
Chan, who’s still idling by the kitchen island, fingers drumming the stone countertop.
MINHO regards him across the open space between them. It feels like miles. Chan wonders if he’s only imagining the austerity in his gaze.
“You should wear my clothes,” blurts Chan.
MINHO’s bleak eyes flutter. Even so far away, they’re big and brown as he bats them at Chan. “What?”
Jisung had left in the nick of time, Chan thinks. He’d just narrowly dodged a merciless teasing. Chan clears his throat. “You should start wearing my clothes. I think they’d fit you, for the most part.” He shrugs, nods at MINHO’s tunic, the color of a smoggy day. “Getting tired of that,” he tacks on as a weak excuse.
MINHO’s fingers sink into the couch cushions. “Is that what you want?”
Chan nods without thinking. Then he does think. Nods again. “Yes.”
MINHO’s upper teeth catch his lower lip. Then he nods, too. “Okay.”
Chan’s swallow seems to echo in the ensuing silence. His fingers rub absently at the cold ridge of the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry if Jisung made you uncomfortable.”
Something tugs at MINHO’s lips, but he looks down to his lap before Chan can take stock of its meaning. “He didn’t.”
Chan nods. MINHO doesn’t see—or maybe he does, maybe there are secret little cameras embedded in the crown of his head.
“He was joking about the owner’s manual,” MINHO says then. His eyes flicker up to Chan. “Jisung was. He was joking. Nobody reads that. It’s terribly dry.” There’s something like a smile on MINHO’s lips as he stands, fluffs up the throw pillow Jisung had crushed whilst curled up in the armchair. “If you don’t understand my settings, Channie, all you have to do is ask.” Chan pays extra attention to the way MINHO’s fingertips delicately skim the fabric of the armchair as he circles it. “Alright?”
Chan keeps watch on those fingers, but he can feel MINHO’s gaze searing through him. “Okay.”
MINHO hums. “Good.” He disappears into the hallway, leaves Chan alone with the maddening thumping of his heart.
Chan doesn’t expect to wake up to MINHO fixing him breakfast, bright and early as usual, knotted into an apron with only Chan’s boxers on underneath.
It’s a workday. Chan’s usually like a slug dragging himself along a hot patch of concrete at this time of morning. Now, though, with his autopilot dysfunctional, he goes for the coffee pot and pours half of it over the counter trying to get a few drops in a mug.
MINHO tsks, nudges Chan out of the way. “Patience, Channie. I would’ve poured it for you.” He always does, Chan knows that, but he can’t seem to keep his hands unoccupied. MINHO frowns, grabs him by the wrist. “Did you burn yourself?”
“I’m fine.” Chan gulps. His eyes skip over the planes of MINHO’s chest visible beneath the apron straps.
MINHO squints at him skeptically, even after he gives Chan’s hand a thorough scan. Then his lips twitch imperceptibly. “Go sit.”
Chan obeys.
MINHO serves him breakfast. Does all his MINHO things. Just… a lot less clothed. Chan’s chopsticks stab at empty bits of the plate more often than not.
“Will you be back late tonight?” asks MINHO as he’s clearing the table.
Chan shrugs into his jacket, manages a humored little chuckle. “Don’t you have my work calendar in your head?”
MINHO says nothing, lips pouted. Then, dubiously, “Yes.” It makes Chan crack a smile. “But I thought I’d do you the courtesy of asking.”
Chan rolls his eyes, amused, and turns toward the door. He stops when he’s got one foot through it, turns in the threshold. “You know when I said you should wear my clothes, I meant it? My clothes? Not just… underclothes?”
MINHO blinks owlishly. “You’re telling me this isn’t how humans wear aprons, Channie?”
Chan chokes mid-laugh. It’s more a breath than anything, though the warm dizziness fizzing up into Chan’s head tells him he’s getting less oxygen than he ought to be.
“I must’ve been misled in my research,” continues MINHO, nonchalant and seemingly guileless. He circles the counter to push in the stool Chan had occupied. Chan’s eyes drop to his pert ass in Chan’s tight boxers. Then MINHO shrugs. “Oops.”
Rain beats steadily against the skylights of Chan’s living room. It’s past dusk, and he’s curled up on the couch with a book cracked open in his lap, though he’s not read a word for at least ten minutes.
He casts a sideways glance to where MINHO sits in the armchair, upright in posture with his hands neatly folded in his lap. He’s in a pair of Chan’s sweats, an old, soft t-shirt, and his eyes, fixed on the windows, seem to track the wayward paths of rain droplets down the panes.
“Minho,” mumbles Chan, before he can even realize he’s speaking.
MINHO shuts his eyes. When he opens them, they’re focused on Chan. “Yes?”
Chan blinks. Clamps his book closed. “Have you ever thought about going outside? Wanted to?”
MINHO gazes at him serenely. “Not really.”
“Never?”
MINHO shrugs. His fingers thread together into a little bundle. “When you went on your trip I did wonder what it looked like where you were, what you were seeing. So far away.” He looks down to his lap, smiles faintly. “Then I had a look at some satellite imagery of the planet. Curiosity sated.”
Chan can’t explain the nagging tug at his heartstrings. “And that’s enough for you?”
MINHO chuckles. “My local memory began the moment you opened my box, Channie. But I have an intrinsic global memory, too. I know more about the galaxy than you’d expect, existing just within the walls of your home. I am built to know how to function out there should I need to.” He meets Chan’s eyes. “So I suppose it feels like I’ve been many places when I really haven’t.”
Chan nibbles on the inside of his bottom lip. Then he swings his legs off the couch, tosses his book onto the coffee table. “Wanna go out?”
A small line forms between MINHO’s eyebrows. “Out?”
“Yeah. We can just go on a walk, nothing crazy.” Chan’s already on his feet, in search of socks. Socks—he needs socks, shoes, perhaps a jacket. And his MINHO.
“It’s raining,” says MINHO, sounding a bit dumbfounded.
And his shield generator. “I have a shield generator.”
Once Chan’s dressed, he comes to stand expectantly by MINHO, who’s still seated, watching Chan with big, glinting eyes. Chan offers his hand. “Coming?”
MINHO assesses the outstretched hand. “Would you like me to?”
Chan exhales a soft laugh. “Yeah, clearly. Would you like to?”
MINHO’s sweet lips tense. His eyes are pensive, but he lays his hand in Chan’s. “Yes.”
A soft but brisk wind penetrates the barrier of the shield as Chan walks MINHO down the damp, dark streets painted with streaks of neon-lit reflection from the LED display boards and headlights of hovercrafts above. The lights fade the further they walk, and the people brushing past them thin out, too, though there aren’t many out on foot in this weather at this time of night.
When they approach a fence—rickety chain-link, telling of its age—MINHO comes to a stop. Chan does, too, as their hands are still linked.
MINHO squints through the water glissading down the outer edge of their shield, regards a sign on the fence: Space Traffic Control, Authorized Personnel Only. Then he turns his eyes to Chan, suspicious.
Chan offers a hesitant half-smile. “Has your little computer head already patched a call to the authorities?”
MINHO huffs. “No, of course not.” He adjusts his grip on Chan’s hand; his palm is small and soft, a bit clammy from the humidity in the air. “But if BUDDY does ever contract with the planetary government, you should probably consider breaking the law less, Channie. Then I mightn’t be able to stop myself.”
Chan snorts, drags MINHO toward the opening in the chain-link. “This hasn't been a hobby of mine for many years, trust me.”
“What hasn't, exactly?”
They walk a while longer, hand-in-hand, in silence. Then Chan halts so abruptly MINHO runs right into him, before his head has the time to process and walk himself backward a half-step.
“Here we are,” says Chan.
MINHO stares at the ground. Lifts his foot, as if he might find a big red X marked underneath. And Chan watches him, endeared, allows himself to pretend to forget that MINHO has built-in geolocation, that MINHO knows everything there is to know, that his mind could harness the power of predictive analytics and be ten steps ahead of Chan’s meager attempts at surprise.
But MINHO merely rubs his thumb over the side of Chan’s finger, face unreadable, eyes downcast. At rest. It’s the soft, echoing whoosh of a commuter spacecraft taking off toward the atmosphere that draws their attention to the open night sky.
Darkness had fallen shortly after they set foot outside Chan’s building, but it’s merely a backdrop to the mural of the dazzling spaceport cosmodrome, buzzing with crafts lifting off and landing. There’s a magical quality to the efficiency of it, how the crafts’ paths seem to intersect but the crafts themselves never do, streaking the sky with the brilliant, fiery evidence of their propulsion, lights blinking like angry stars vying for the spotlight.
“Oh,” breathes Minho. He watches with his chin tipped up, his lips softly parted. The rain’s calmed to a soft mist, so Chan taps his belt to disable their shield, observes as Minho startles visibly at the pinpricks of moisture gathering on his unsunned skin, catching on his eyelashes. Then he grins, and it rips Chan’s heart in half.
Minho squeezes his eyes shut tight, wrinkles his nose. “Feels…” Minho laughs, faint. The wind picks up the damp ends of his hair, makes them dance. “Feels cold, Channie.”
Chan reaches for his belt again. “Too cold?”
“No.” Minho steps nearer to him so they’re shoulder to shoulder toward the light show of the spaceport. “I like it.”
Something lurches in Chan’s chest. When Minho catches his eye, he can only manage a smile.
Minho examines him. Licks the gathered mist from his lower lip. “How did you know to come here?”
Chan shrugs, eyes flashing to the dark ground. “You know that I write for performers, but I used to want to be a performer, too, when I was real young. Now it's all luxury spaceport lounges, but I basically lived on budget space travel when I was still trying to make a name for myself, auditioning at companies on other planets, in other star systems. Sometimes I’d land back here only to get a ping about a new audition on the planet I’d just come from.” He snorts. “No point in even leaving the spaceport, except maybe to come out here.” Chan lifts his chin. If he squints out at the cosmodrome, the lights all bleed together through his eyelashes. “It’s kind of amazing, and, y’know, completely bizarre to think about how many people are constantly coming and going. And what each and every one of them came for… or left for.”
Minho is silent a while. The hum of the space traffic fills in all the gaps between them. “Would you ever leave again?” he asks. “And not come back?”
Chan frowns in thought. “I’ve lived here all my life, so. Maybe.” He looks to Minho. “Might be nice to end my days somewhere with less air pollution. More… naturally-occurring vegetation.” His lips quirk.
Minho hums. The lights of the cosmodrome gather in bright beads in his deep irises. He parts his lips, and Chan’s expecting some dry remark about the planetary flora, maybe the struggling, off-planet Begonia maculata lining the window boxes of Chan’s apartment, but he says nothing. Blinks a few times, swallows down unspoken words.
Chan bites his lip. Lets it go. “I would take you with me, of course.”
Minho is poker-faced. His eyes flicker toward Chan, but never quite look at him. “Did I suggest that you wouldn’t?”
“Your face did.”
Minho blinks at him, lips in a small ‘o’. Then he purses them to tamp down on a smile, glances back at the cosmofield. Lifts his hand to point out a large shuttle, its chrome shell reflecting the night. “I want to go on that one,” Minho says decidedly.
Chan laughs. “That one, huh?”
Minho nods. “It’s…” He looks thoughtful. “A Gamma-class Athena IV. The fourth generation of the first commercial spacecraft that could travel to deep space through wormholes.” When Minho glances his way, Chan’s eyebrows are raised. Minho huffs out a laugh. “I’m not that picky, though, never… never having been on a spaceship. Obviously.”
Chan encloses their linked hands with his free hand, like he’s trying to force his body heat into Minho’s tepid skin. “You’ll go on a spaceship.” He smiles. “We’ll go on a spaceship.”
Minho tilts his head a few degrees, something Chan thinks he wouldn’t notice if it were possible for him to see anything but Minho. “Thank you,” Minho says, “Channie.”
“Thank me when we finally get on the… Gamma-whatever.”
Minho doesn’t correct him, only giggles, eyes like eclipsed crescent moons.
It’d begun to pour again on the way back, and Chan had bungled his attempts to reactivate the shield long enough for them to get positively drenched.
It’s pleasantly warm in his apartment, though, and the moment the door’s shut, Minho says, “You’ll fall ill if you don’t get into some dry clothes, Channie.”
“Must be nice to not have an immune system,” Chan mutters, plucking at the wet, clingy material of his shirt where it sticks uncomfortably to his chest.
Minho hums, squats to straighten Chan’s soaked shoes by the door. “Instead I’m overly and stressfully aware of every mortal disease your little ineffectual human body can fall prey to.”
Chan’s already gawping at Minho when the latter springs to his feet. “Little? Ineffectual?” Chan bats his eyelids, gestures to his frame. “That’s what you think of me?” A pause. “Little?”
Minho smirks, wry. “Shut up.”
Chan’s eyes only widen further. “That’s disresp—where did you learn to speak like that?”
“You’ll catch a cold, Channie,” sing-songs Minho mirthfully, padding into his space.
Chan struggles not to smile. “I don’t suppose there’s a setting to disable your attitude.”
“Mm, you wouldn’t know, would you?” Minho’s clinical hands pull at the edge of Chan’s shirt, so Chan instinctively lifts his arms. “Seeing as you haven’t touched my app. I’m still on factory settings.” Minho drapes the wet shirt over the crook of his elbow, though his fingertips don’t leave Chan’s chest, walking gingerly up his sternum. There’s moisture gathered on Minho’s upper lip, caught in his eyebrows, Chan can see from this close. His eyelashes stick together, too, tacky and damp with his every big-eyed blink.
“Although,” mumbles Minho, quieter now. One side of his mouth seems to smile, and his eyes track his own fingers right over Chan’s rabbiting heart. Even softer: “You like me the way I am, don’t you?”
Chan takes a breath. It summons Minho’s eyes to his mouth. He feels a jolt of power, calling those pretty eyes to him, him only. “I do.” And carefully, so tentatively, Chan fits his hands to Minho’s waist, where his shirt sticks to his skin.
Minho’s eyelids flutter. Chan holds him tighter. “Channie,” says Minho, soft and private into the air between them. His finger feels uncharacteristically warm where it trails over Chan’s collarbone.
“Yeah, darling?”
Minho seems to hesitate. Maybe it’s Chan’s word choice. He’s about to apologetically backpedal when Minho breathes, “But do you like me?”
Chan swallows, draws Minho a hair closer though it only feels more like he’ll overheat. Their foreheads are close, not quite touching. “Yes—yes, of course I do, darling.”
“Oh.” There’s a soft thump as Minho’s arms go slack and Chan’s shirt hits the floor in a heap. Minho sways into him, even on his ever-steady feet, hands smoothing over Chan’s biceps. “Because… because I read your novels,” whispers Minho, “to understand how I could… show you. And then I kissed you… to show you how much I like you.” With his frontmost teeth, Minho gnaws at his bottom lip. “And I thought you didn’t want it. Me.” Minho brushes his nose alongside Chan’s, and it takes everything in Chan to be the stable one, to keep them upright when he could simply melt. If he did, Minho would catch him, Chan knows he would, but he doesn’t want that. “I would’ve understood, too, Channie. Since I’m not… mm.” Minho’s hands come to rest on Chan’s chest, and he dips his chin, an opaque smile on his mouth. “Real.”
Chan aches to think that in his own confusion, he’d neglected to think of Minho’s feelings at all. Had doubted their existence, even. Still doubts their existence. If he thinks about it too hard, about Minho, about MINHO, he’ll only end up chasing his own tail, running in circles.
“Minho,” he whispers. Waits for Minho’s eyes to find him. “What you’re saying sounds real.” He watches Minho’s throat bob. “And you look real.” Not really, though, thinks Chan. There’s an infallibility to Minho’s beauty that isn’t quite ordinary, of this planet, of this star system. His fingers dig into the softness of Minho’s waist. “And you feel real.”
Minho makes a soft, petulant noise. “But you know I’m not—”
“I know,” Chan exhales. His hand snakes to the small of Minho’s back. “God, just come here, darling, please—”
Minho’s hands find Chan’s jaw, his lips Chan’s lips. He feels warm like Chan’s never felt him before, and he presses his weight into Chan like Chan’s never felt him do—ever-poised Minho with an immovable center of balance, and here he is, putting his trust not in his mechanics, but in Chan. Chan’s fingers scrunch up the damp shirt at Minho’s waist, and the bruising kiss softens when Minho opens his mouth, keening something soft and beautiful. What Chan thinks, as his hands smooth up and down Minho’s back, as he curls his tongue into Minho’s mouth, is that Minho must know all about what it means to kiss, what it is, but all the same, he’s never been kissed.
“Up, baby,” breathes Chan, and Minho catches on after a few, dazed blinks, twining his arms around Chan’s neck and hopping to hook his legs around Chan’s waist. He’s heavy, warm and solid against Chan, and Chan wants him in his bed.
Minho bounces sweetly on the edge of the mattress when Chan deposits him there, leans up to kiss Chan before he can even straighten fully. In the low light of Chan’s room, with lips rubbed so pink Chan’s convinced he could bite them and they’d bleed red, Minho looks beautiful, rumpled from the wind and rain, smiling faintly at Chan as he settles with his hands behind him on the mattress, thighs spread in an inviting V-shape.
Chan’s just looking at him, really. It’s all he can manage.
“Channie,” mumbles Minho, head cocked.
Chan blinks. “Hm?”
“Are you still with me?” Minho aims a gentle kick at his shin.
Chan chuckles, soft and disbelieving. “I… couldn’t possibly be anywhere else.”
Minho’s nose crinkles. “Maybe you should read something other than romance for once.”
Chan can feel the lines that crease the corners of his eyes as he smiles, walks forth between Minho’s legs dangling off the low bed. Takes his jaw tenderly in his hands, traces the perimeter of Minho’s mouth with his thumb. “You don’t want me to be romantic?”
Minho’s breath is soft as he sighs. It fans out over Chan’s hand. “It’s… bearable.” Minho holds his gaze as his pliant lips part and he accepts Chan’s thumb into his mouth, grazes his lower teeth against it, wets it and sucks. His lips suction off Chan’s skin as he pulls back, tips his chin up with a careful tension building in his brow. “Channie.”
“I won’t be romantic if you don’t want me to,” Chan chuckles, warm.
“That’s not it.” Minho shifts nearer to the edge of the mattress, so his little feet touch the floor. He settles his hands on Chan’s hips. “Channie, if you want…” Minho’s hands run up the length of Chan’s torso, roaming back downward, and he keeps his eyes on Chan’s as he presses a kiss near his navel. “If you want me, if you want us to…” Minho can’t quite finish the sentence, and it frustrates him, if the way he buries his face against Chan’s bare lower stomach is anything to go by. “You need to let me want you as much as I want to.”
Chan strokes at Minho’s hair, is silent a moment.
Ah.
Chan swallows. “Should I…?”
Minho nods against him. Pushes at Chan’s hips to propel him away. A dusting of pink paints the tips of his ears.
Chest in knots, Chan meanders out of the bedroom to locate his tablet. He feels… foolish, and yet it makes sense. If he’d sooner been sure about wanting Minho, allowing himself to want Minho, perhaps he would’ve done this sooner, too.
The android’s settings are a maze, but Minho is a complex machine. Chan finds himself gazing at some of the finer-grained adjustments with red-cheeked curiosity, but. But he’s got all the time in the world to discover those.
Chan locks the tablet once he thinks he’s, well. Done it. He clears his throat. “Minho?” he calls, glances toward the orange glow of his bedroom door.
Inside, Minho’s still on the edge of the bed, now with his elbows on his knees, forehead in his hands.
“Darling?” says Chan softly from the doorway, and Minho’s head whips up. They’d already swollen up in the dim light, but his pupils are so massive and deep Chan’s chest clenches.
“Chan.” Minho shifts on his bottom, sniffs. “I didn’t mean to.”
“What is it, baby?” Chan approaches, caresses his cheek with his knuckles.
Minho looks past him, gnaws at his lip. Then he shifts to the side on the mattress. Chan’s gray sheets are damp in his wake, darkened with a wet patch. Chan goes lightheaded.
Minho swallows. “I didn’t mean to, it just… happened.”
Chan struggles to form words. Whispers, as his fingers card through Minho’s hair, “It’s okay. Let’s take off your clothes, baby.”
Chan’s suspicions are confirmed once Minho strips himself of his—Chan’s—joggers. Minho's underwear is soaked through, at the front from the precum leaking from his cock, at the back where he’s wet and eager. Minho stands and holds fast to Chan’s shoulders as Chan drags his underwear down his thighs, makes a sort of hiccupy sound that Chan doesn’t understand until he sees the wetness drip down Minho’s balls, between his legs.
“Fuck,” exhales Chan, strained. He straightens, holds himself as upright as he can to rid himself of his pants but as not to jostle Minho’s balance, then takes Minho’s face in his hands to try and kiss the doubt from between his brows, from his pursed lips. “You okay?”
Minho hums, trails his fingers up the back of Chan’s hand, prises it from his cheek to guide it down, down until Chan’s fingers are grazing his tailbone. “Feel me,” urges Minho, and Chan’s heart stutters as his fingers slip easily into the cleft of Minho’s ass. For all the shyness about his workings Minho seemed to feel a few minutes ago, he holds brazen eye contact as Chan wets his fingers rubbing them over Minho’s hole.
When Minho kisses him next, it’s deep and telling. He locks his arms around Chan’s neck, licks into Chan’s mouth like he can taste him, like he wants to. Chan’s hands curve over the swell of Minho’s ass, dizzy in a heady sort of way he doesn’t think he can remember ever feeling, and he’s in so deep it catches him off guard when Minho turns them around, shoves Chan backward onto the mattress.
Chan laughs in shock, heart knocking his ribcage with a rush of adrenaline, and Minho only smiles, a devious eyebrow arched as he climbs onto the bed, kneels between Chan’s legs, and leans over with his back arched dramatically to nose down Chan’s lower tummy, drag his hot tongue from the base of Chan’s cock to the tip, and swallow him down like he doesn’t need to breathe.
And he doesn’t, Chan has to remind himself, gasping at the sudden stimulation. He gropes for a hold on the sheets but they slip between his tacky fingers like silk, so he lifts himself onto his elbows, watches Minho’s head bob over him, watches the pointed tip of his nose brush his groin. Minho swallows around him, and Chan hisses out, heels scraping against the sheets.
“Baby,” Chan breathes, a bit shrill, and it’s lewd, the way Minho peers at him beneath his eyelashes, drags his lips up Chan’s cock until a string of spit splits between his red mouth and Chan’s leaking tip.
“Too intense, Channie?” questions Minho, yet his voice is smooth as hot caramel, unaffected. He pumps his hand over Chan’s cock, cocks his head to the side. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Chan goes pink. “How’d you know?”
Minho licks his lips. Then they quirk faintly. “Intuition.” He suckles on the head of Chan’s cock, humming. “That… and all your search history goes straight to my head, didn’t you know?”
Chan hates that the surge of embarrassment only has his cock twitching in Minho’s grasp. “You’re gonna kill me,” he mutters, gruff and half-smiling.
“I would never.” Minho fists his cock, leaves a wet kiss on his shaft, the tip, then shifts to crawl up Chan’s body until their noses brush and his arms cage Chan in. “I told you.” Minho nips at his chin. “I like it best when you’re here with me.”
Chan is only so strong a man, tips his chin up to kiss him, but is halted halfway by Minho’s hand ramming him square in the chest so his back hits the mattress again. And though Minho looks awfully pleased with himself for it, he still leans close, peppers Chan’s lips with soft kisses of consolation.
Chan allows his hands to wander over Minho’s warm body, lets his fingers dance over where he’s still leaking. “Not so shy suddenly,” he murmurs into Minho’s lips, eliciting a laugh.
With mirthful eyes, Minho hums in amusement, sits up with his weight cradled in Chan’s lap. “It was new,” he says. “Feeling my body react to you.” React to me flipping a switch, the voice at the back of Chan’s head supplies. Toggling a setting. “But what’s far more interesting is the way yours reacts to me.”
Chan huffs, trails ghosting fingertips down Minho’s thighs. “Yeah?”
Minho nods faintly. Presses his palms onto Chan’s chest as he rolls his ass over Chan’s cock. “Yeah,” he answers lightly, pinches Chan’s nipple just as Chan feels like his eyes will loll shut and he’ll melt right into the mattress, making him jolt. “You want to be inside me, Channie, hm?” With one hand still plastered to Chan’s chest, Minho reaches behind himself, runs exploratory fingers between Chan’s legs, cups a hand over his balls. Guides Chan’s cock so it just catches against his rim as he arches his back in a drastic C-shape.
Chan makes a garbled noise, sinks nails into Minho’s thighs. He wonders if they’ll leave indents—if Minho can bruise by some artificial phenomenon.
Minho smirks. “That’s our little lyricist.”
“Shut up,” chokes Chan, laughing breathlessly though he’ll be in tears if he doesn’t get to fuck Minho soon. He strokes a hand over Minho’s hip, fingers dipping over his rim, where they slip wetly, meeting no resistance. “Do you need—”
“Channie.” Minho rolls his eyes like a menace. “Would it kill you to read the owner’s manual?” He rises to his knees.
“You said I could just ask you,” Chan says meekly.
“That I did.” Minho bites his lip, and Chan nearly blacks out, watching, feeling him grip Chan’s shaft, sink down on his cock, wet and so tight. “The answer is no.”
“Minho,” exhales Chan at an octave that makes his neck and ears flare hot. “Honey—”
“Shh, Channie,” Minho coos, sparkly-eyed and dripping with a sickly-sweet condescension, groping again at Chan’s chest as he settles on Chan, around him. “I’ll make this good for you.”
When Chan goes to sit up, Minho weighs him down again. He has no choice—and, really, he’s not sure he wants it any other way—but to cling to Minho’s legs, lay back and watch hazily as Minho rides him. He’s already laid bare, but there’s something intense about Minho’s gaze, the way he analyzes Chan’s responses, that makes him completely transparent. Minho squeezes tight around him, cranes back to run his fingers over the slick coating Chan’s cock, looms over Chan to shove them past Chan’s lips. And Minho tastes sweet, unplaceable; Chan has to ponder, as he moans around Minho’s fingers, if the undertone of humanness is just his own.
Chan’s sweating but Minho simply doesn’t, so when Minho leans over to kiss him, reduced to grinding back onto Chan’s cock, their mouths meet messily because Chan is messy with the drool on his cheeks, the perspiration on his upper lip. Even when Minho is his, he’s still—in a way—untouchable.
When Chan comes, it’s with Minho’s lips against his cheek, his wrists pinned to the mattress, and Minho shows him that he feels it, groans beautifully as he milks it out of Chan. And Minho hasn’t touched himself, not once, though Chan supposes that sort of self-control is innate, and Chan barely tastes his release when Minho fucks his cock deep down Chan’s throat while he’s still supine on the mattress.
Minho cleans him up like a lover—not unlike the way he cleans up after every little bit of Chan’s daily life, when Chan truly thinks about it. Minho doesn’t leave him alone like any of Chan’s lovers, though, must read from some unwitting cues in Chan’s body language that what he needs is for Minho to dim the lights, slip under the covers, and let Chan hold him.
And Chan’s never truly seen Minho at night. In the daytime, he’s passed by the open door of the bedroom he’d designated for Minho, and every time, it appears unlived-in. But now, with his back to Chan’s chest, ribs rising and falling rhythmically, it’s surprisingly easy for Chan to disillusion himself, to drift off when the room is still silent but for his own breathing.
Logically, Chan knows it’s not out of the ordinary to buy one’s android a seat on a spacecraft. In fact, it’s rarer these days that one packs up one’s android to be sent into the cargo hold with all the luggage. And as much as he’s tempted to sneak Minho onto the craft not as his android, but as his companion, dependent, anything—Minho, who’s clad in Chan’s worn clothes, smells like Chan’s home, smiles at Chan like he isn’t asinine for thinking like this—at the end of the day, Chan is a law-abiding citizen, knows Minho has to undergo a separate security check that won’t set the spaceport metal detectors aflame, knows he must be documented as an android so the spacelines can make considerations for weight capacity.
Chan’s still not quite accustomed to it, holding Minho’s hand in public and knowing some people will see Minho and know; something about his idiosyncrasies, the way the light catches the surfaces of his eyes differently, the way he moves with such grace for someone so strong.
He forgets to care, though, when he watches Minho settle into the window seat, the hood of Chan’s sweatshirt pulled over his hair. Eyes still out the window toward the bustling spaceport beyond, Minho’s fingers find Chan’s like he doesn’t need to see where they are.
“I’ve done this hundreds of times,” mutters Chan, cheek to Minho’s shoulder, “but without fail, every liftoff I still feel this… this swoop in the pit of my stomach.”
Minho hums. Chan feels its vibration when Minho’s cheek brushes his hair.
“Like someone’s just pulled the floor out from under me.”
When the spacecraft rumbles beneath them, Minho grips Chan’s hand not quite with the white-knuckled hold he has on the armrest, lest he crush him to a pulp. Chan’s lifted off from his home planet too many a time to need to watch in awe as the metropolis shrinks beneath them, as they pass through the cloudy homosphere and breach the atmosphere, as they’re swallowed up by the twinkling darkness of the cosmos.
Once they’re careening through space, Minho seems to mellow out. The attendant comes to their row, inquires about Chan’s beverage preference. Doesn’t acknowledge Minho whatsoever—she knows there’s an android occupying seat 5A.
Chan meets Minho’s eyes. “Did you feel the swoop?” he ribs, strokes his thumb over Minho’s knuckles.
Minho huffs a chuckle. The cabin lights catch in his pupils, not unlike the fading silhouette of their planet blanketed in the black beyond. “Of course not, Channie.”